APRIL 2014

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CHILLS!

THRILLS!

MURDER!

DIGEST MONTHLY APRIL 2014

exclusive all new stories from special guest editor

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DOCTOR WEIRD DIGEST MONTHLYThe Journal of Strange Suspense Fiction

Vol.LXIX, No.832, Arpil 1st 2014

CONTENTS

Editorial .......................................................................... 5

Deadline .......................................................................... 6

OMFG ............................................................................ 10

Cutting Edge .................................................................. 16

The Human Component ............................................... 22

Reunion ......................................................................... 24

The Virtual Life of David Kaminski ............................. 32

Worlds of Tomorrow and Tomorrow ......................... 40

The Old Boys’ Network ................................................. 48

Two to Make a Bargain................................................ 60

Good evening.

Come in, won’t you?

Why, what’s the matter?

You seem a bit nervous.

Perhaps the cemetery

outside this house

has upset you.

But there are things

far worse than cemeteries.

For instance...First published 1945. Please note that Doctor Weird Digest Monthly, the Journal of Strange Suspense Fiction is in no way connected to or endorsed by The Strange Doctor Weird radio show, its sponsors Adam Hats, or its producers the Mutual Broadcasting System.

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WEIRD TALESFrom the editor’s desk

Editing and layout by Noel Campbell of Natof Design Freelance graphic design www.natof.biz

Published monthly by Natof Press, 420 Paper Street, Wilmington, DE. All stories © 2013 Noel Campbell.

other natof press periodicalsavailable at your local newstand

This month’s issue is a little more unusual than usual. It was guest edited by a young writer who chose to present only his own stories, in what is sure to be a once in a lifetime experience — especially if the publishers ever get hold of him.

These are some of the strangest tales ever told. They deal with the two great mysteries of creation — life and death. I think they will thrill you. They may shock you. They might even — horrify you. So if any of you feel that you do not care to subject your nerves to such a strain, now's your chance to — uh, well, we warned you.

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something better soon if he didn’t screw up. He was just drunk enough to make him careless, but just sober enough to be lucid. The cocktails and conversation flowed, I steered it around to ‘How the hell do you get these ideas?’ and he was about to say something, but he stopped short like he’d almost incriminated himself. He looked mortified for a moment, then he regained control and was his old self again.

‘That’s classified. I could tell you, but you’d have to kill yourself.’

I think it was a line from a film; he was obviously

delighted with it, beaming his private grin.

The last time I saw him, his leaving do at the bar. He was in high spirits since he was moving on to a better agency, of course: always onward and upward. He glad handed everyone and had some small talk but for me too grabbed me by the back of the neck and leaned in close to whisper; too close, all hot, whiskey

get him just drunk enough I’d find out what it was.

Pete was a good drunk, a great guy to be around at the bar, especially those times when we’d just landed an account or won an award. Yet even in the midst of the celebration, all surface glitter like the bar’s cheap chrome and paper umbrellas, he had a dark edge to him. You got the feeling that he was laughing at you rather than with you. When he got really drunk, he peered out from his deep set eyes as if he was in on some private joke at our expense. He could just as easily suddenly turn maudlin, though, and you never knew what would set him off. He changed as abruptly as a nightclub when the lights came up at the end of the evening, glamour giving way to stark reality.

I came at him a dozen different ways to get his formula, and I came close once. He had just landed a big contract; it was obvious he’d be moving on to

He had an ageing baby face but his deep set eyes looked out from bags so dark that they could have been taken for black eyes. He was good company, though, his face lively and animated until it would finally fall into a blank mask, and he looked a little like he was haunting himself.

He’d won more D&AD Pencil awards than anyone else I knew of. I couldn’t understand how; he certainly never came up with anything brilliant in brainstorming. He’d turn up in the mornings with these great ideas fully formed, but looking like death warmed up. He’d obviously sweated blood over it, this was ninety nine per cent perspiration and one per cent inspiration alright.

‘I don’t know how you do it, Pete. I bet you have a creative genius tied up across town somewhere, eh?’, I joked. He laughed at that, a little too hard, but he didn’t give anything away. Still, he had these genius ideas – for advertising, I mean, we’re not talking a cure for cancer – and he was no more a genius than I was. He had some sort of system that was paying off for him, and I knew that if I could

I wasn’t expecting the letter from Peter, because he’d died over a month ago. But then Peter was

always doing what you least expected, that’s what made him the best ad man I’ve ever known. He didn’t look like an ad man, whatever they’re supposed to look like. He was short but managed to carry himself with bearing and authority, dominating any room he entered. He was stylish too, well dressed, albeit in the dated style of his younger days. He must have been very handsome, once. As far as women went, he played the ageing playboy for laughs, but not in any determined way. He would prowl the lean geometric open plan design studio, stalking young women fresh out of art school under harsh fluorescent lights.

When I heard of his death, for some reason all I could think was if they would bury him wearing a cravat. I can picture him wearing these goddamned cravats: not always, but often enough to notice, which is too often. I took it to be a tiresome attempt to define himself as some sort of character, one step above wearing a bow tie. He had no other affectations.

DEADLINEThe devil’s in the detail in this tale of terror and typography.

▲

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The signature a hurried scrawl at the end, as if desperate to get off. I guess he never got that fourth crayon. I felt sorry for Pete, a desperate man hiding himself away and choking the life out of himself to win prizes that don’t mean anything. You’d have to be a sick man to even think about it.

Only lately I’ve been worried sick. My last three campaigns bombed. I’ve got a deadline coming up. But I don’t think my job’s on the line, not yet. I keep telling myself it’s not life or death. ▪

Take a length of rope. Form a loop in the end of the rope. Tuck a bight of the standing end through the loop. Make the bight larger and pass it around the object. Pull on the standing end to tighten. Tie it to something sturdy so you can lean into it. Test it first, if the noose slips you’ll fall hard, face first and odds are you won’t get your arms out to break your fall. Set up a timer with an alarm of some kind. I like to have music, something loud and stirring: I use ‘Ride of The Valkyries’. Choose well because it might just be the last thing you hear. You can use an orange or something to bite down on to bring you out of it, and have poppers handy.

Keep a heavyweight note pad and crayolas close. I use a black and two yellows for my Pencil awards for luck, but whatever, you’ll have to start somewhere. You’ll be shaky as hell and crayons are easiest to write with. You’ll be shattered and want to wait to recover but force yourself to write down your ideas. You’ll see everything clearly, the project will seem child’s play and you’ll have more important things to think about besides, but write it down or you will forget and you will have risked your life for nothing.’

‘Dear Jason,

Hope this finds you in good health. I’m afraid that I cannot say the same, rumours of my death have not been exaggerated. For reasons which will become apparent, I could hardly leave you this in my will but I have made arrangements for this letter to be sent to you. As a man of my word here is the method in my madness. I am trusting you as my spiritual heir to keep my secret.

I learnt the method from Adam Griffin – before your time, but you may remember some of his work. He was a bit sheepish about it but I surmised he found out accidentally. There’s really only one way he could have done that, but a guy’s private life is his own. I suspect a few people have stumbled on it, but you won’t exactly read about it in ‘Creative Review’.

It’s quite simple really. You need a room where you will be undisturbed for the evening. It doesn’t take long but there is prep work and clean up, and you really don’t want to be disturbed. Lay out mood boards and flip charts with the material relating to the project you’re working on. Display them all around the room, with sketchbooks and notes on the floor, so you can take it all in one scan. You won’t be able to move your head much.

breath and cigarettes:‘I won’t forget you. I’ll bequeath it

to you in my will. I’ve made you my heir.’ I laughed; glad to share a private joke with the departing big shot. Pete was a charming bastard. But he left and my guess was he would take the secret to the grave.

I didn’t go to his funeral but I heard it was well attended. Not surprising, Pete was a popular guy: everybody was Pete’s friend, but still nobody really knew him. In a way, this superficiality served him well in the industry. Few of his colleagues would pass up an opportunity to network, either.

It was some weeks after that the letter arrived. I tore it open absentmindedly. It was on excellent stock, rich and creamy, but I just assumed it was another CV from some kid desperate to impress me. As I unfolded it I realised it was desperation of a different kind.

I recognised Peter’s logo immediately, a quirky little device. It looked obvious, but I knew how many screwed up balls of paper would have landed in the bin before it became obvious. The text was set in ten point Caslon, or long primer as they used to say. Nothing fancy, but then Peter was a copywriter not a typographer.

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‘For Christ’s sake’, and then louder, ‘Can’t you put things back?’

The image rises shakily as he carries it into another room. You feel nauseous as it lurches between ceiling and floor with each step.

The camera comes to rest placed on a shelf in some sort of kitchen. A large man, as broad as he is tall, stands searching through cupboards. His shaved bullet head scans slowly and methodically from left to right and back again.

‘Looking for some soup?’ the man with the camera asks sarcastically.

‘Yes’, the other man says, his high voice and well spoken tone surprising you.

‘And what is it this time?’‘Veg, Heinz Vegetable,’ this with

quiet satisfaction as he grabs a tin in his great paw. With some difficulty he opens it with the ring pull and slops the contents into a saucepan. He scoops the dregs from the can and spoons them into his mouth thoughtlessly.

‘Don’t waste any, will you?’He lights the hob and begins

stirring restlessly with a small spoon, with which he tastes the soup repeatedly.

‘Why not just eat at the oven, and save the washing up?’

paces around the room. He turns his head this way and that, his brown curly mane shaking, before stalking out again. You make out a tall cylindrical black bin full of rubbish but with a hand-lettered label ‘FREE BONES PLEASE HELP YOURSELF’. Bored, you consider getting back to work. You hear a voice in the distance, ‘It’s not bloody in there’, and then another voice, muffled. With practised keystrokes you turn the volume up. Bright coloured leaflets are stacked neatly like paper rainbows in the cold meat counters and on top of freezers. Some are pasted on the walls haphazardly, over long gone offers for Christmas hampers, pork pies and joints of meat. A plastic pig’s head is the crowning glory, nailed triumphantly to the wall like a trophy. Scrawled under it in shaky red paint: ‘Cannibal’.

You wonder if there is much more of this, when the man returns and walks directly to the camera, calling out angrily:

‘Yes, I’ve got it, Dragon. Why did you leave it in here?’

His voice is booming, too loud, and you scramble to turn the volume down, missing the end of an answer from someone. The man says to himself,

With the shutters down it sits in a gloomy half-light, broken by a few dim orange lamps. Shattered fluorescents hang from the ceiling. Your eyes adjust to the washed-out picture, and you can make out white wall tiles splattered with crimson, like a bloody Jackson Pollock. Tins of paint lie on the floor, the paint having oozed out leaving a crusty red clot around the rim. Posters for ‘Best British mince’ and ‘New Zealand lamb’ are scrawled over with ‘Meat is Murder’.

A short lean figure comes in and

You have mail. Email, of course: no one sends real mail any more. A welcome distraction

from your evening’s work. You wonder, not for the first time, exactly when your workplace invaded your home. No matter. It’s from someone in marketing. You know him, but only slightly. He sends a lot of emails; he’ll have copied this to half the office. The usual: bursting with enthusiasm, misspellings, emoticons and a link ‘Check this out OMFG.’ He is, of course, an idiot. But the kind of idiot you have to keep on the right side of, and when did there get to be so many of them? He’ll ask you about it the next time you can’t dodge him, forcing you to make awkward small talk. You may be able to fake it … but you feel that you deserve a break, so you click on it. It takes you to a brash site with a distressed stencil lettering logo ‘2REAL’, where a video clip begins buffering.

A dull grey picture appears. A time stamp in the corner of the screen reads 13:45 NOV 7 2011.You make out some sort of room; no, there’s a till: an abandoned shop of some sort.

▲

OMFGHorror goes viral.

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answer his phone with the other, as he hurries out of shot. There’s excitement in his voice as he asks for Joy, before the steel door slams shut behind him.

The man called Dragon stands silently for a moment looking at his prisoner. He comes towards the camera, looming massive in the frame. His hand reaches down like a giant, engulfing the lens and blotting out everything else. The picture freezes.

You wonder if this is more buffering and wonder again about grabbing that drink, when there is a burst of static and a jump cut. Colin is back in the room, talking. He seems determined.

‘– with a group in Balsall Heath.’‘Oh yes. The usual, I suppose.

Raising awareness. Lightweight.’ He sounds out of breath.

‘Yeah, basically like we used to do in this group’, Colin gestures to encompass an imaginary crowd, ‘You know, before it became just you and me. Before you drove everybody off with all this, and nobody’s committed enough for you. I’ll tell you what , you’re going to end up committed but you’re not taking me with you.’

‘I think you’re pretty much committed already’, he says slyly.

from fresh bright purples to fading yellows. Cuts, scratches, rashes and infections add further dashes of colour to his ghostly skin, slick with sweat. His eyes stare dead ahead, focused not on the room or the men, but some far off place inside his mind.

The camera is placed on a large tripod, set up to frame the man’s cage perfectly. The picture freezes on the caged man and a message appears BUFFERING. You look with irritation about your desk for your cigarettes. You light one and inhale deeply, noticing how dry your mouth is. You think about grabbing something to drink, when the clip resumes streaming. You hear a ring tone from an Indie band and Colin wanders into frame wearing a pig mask. He blurts out, muffled but excited,

‘It’s from Joy!’‘No Joy,’ Dragon says with

satisfaction, ‘No phone calls while we’re working. You know the rules.’ he says, jerking his head towards their prisoner.

‘I’m taking it, Dragon. You carry on. You don’t need me.’ He looks hopefully down at the phone before adding, ‘I’m just the cameraman, after all.’

He’s fumbling as he tries to pull up the mask with one hand and

‘One time, Dragon, one time I forgot.’

‘One time too many.’It has the sound of a well worn

argument.‘It’s running. It was already

running. See? Someone left it running.’A violent lurch, the image whip

pans round, then back again.‘OK, let’s go’, “Dragon” says with

authority, pulling on a cheap plastic mask of a cartoon pig. It’s too small for his fat face, string cutting into his plump cheeks.

The camera is on the move, but braced and tracking the larger man. He lumbers off to the back of the shop where he pauses to unlock a padlocked steel door. Holding the can in one hand while jangling the keys with the other, he goes into what must be the cold store. A sound in the dark as something stirs. The lights buzz into life, flickering once, twice, then steady. Large steel cages line the far wall, one on top of another. You see a pale carcass in one of the cages but realise after an awful double take that it must be a man. He is naked and squats painfully in the tiny cage, knees almost above his head, blinking in the sudden harsh fluorescent lights. Hair matted, face caked with dried blood, food and spittle. Bruises cover his body, ranging

He brings it to the boil and simmers it until it must be scalding hot, then pours it carefully into a bowl. He grabs two pieces of bread and sits down heavily at a wooden table cross-hatched with scratches.

‘Christ, can’t you eat anything else? It’s a wonder you’re so fat living on nothing but soup.’

The big man begins tearing the crust, dipping it in and devouring it with a steady rhythm. In between mouthfuls he says sweetly, ‘You should eat something yourself, Colin. Keep your strength up.’

‘I can’t eat beforehand, you know that.’

There’s a catch in Colin’s voice off camera. He falters before adding flatly,

‘Makes me sick ...’He pushes away the bowl,

apparently satisfied, and looks over at Colin with sly little dark eyes before saying around a broad grin,

‘Yeah, well, anyway, it’s time.’He pushes himself from the table

and drops the bowl into the sink, before grabbing a tin of Chum from the cupboard. You notice uneasily that all you can see are can after can of soup and dog food.

‘Grab the camera’, he says before adding reproachfully, ‘and check it!’

▲

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frozen forever.The website offers the chance

to VIEW AGAIN or see three other similar clips. Hastily you close the browser. The screen loses it’s grip on you, and you find yourself free of the little world of horror, suddenly back in the comfort of your room. You glance round, to make sure that everything is as it should be. Reassured now, you tell yourself that it wasn’t real. You decide to clear your history and delete the email, just as if you never saw it. Of course it’s not real, it’s so much easier and safer to use actors. You light another cigarette, then notice the last one still burning in the ashtray. Probably not even animal rights activists, just some film students showing off. You remind yourself that they can fake anything now, Photoshop it. After Effects, whatever. A nagging voice insists that they didn’t need to Photoshop anything, because you didn’t see anything. You remind yourself that it was made months ago, so there was nothing you could have done to help. Thinking that way, feeling guilty over something you had no control over, is just silly. It certainly made no difference whether you watched it or not.

Still, you chose to watch. ▪

early. Only we would know.’‘But it isn’t finished! We agreed

four months is the minimum time he should spend– ‘ he launches into an argument already won many times over.

‘Oh bollocks, Soup Dragon. Four months is the amount of time you want him to spend in that cage. First it was a few days, then a week, then a month and after four months you’ll find another reason to keep him in there. It’s too late now, anyway, you could never let him out or it’d be life for both of us. You’ve screwed us both,’ he pauses before adding, ‘or him.’

The two figures in pig masks look at the caged man.

‘Yes, well...turn the camera off first.’

‘Yeah.’‘Then delete everything.’‘Of course.’‘Make sure, now – everything.’‘Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first

time! Christ, I’ll be glad to see the back of you.’

The man in the cage watches the exchange without emotion, as if he has been expecting or even hoping for this for a long time. The clip ends and the screen is replaced by a still, the blank face of the man in the cage

men in cages, and no one to stop it.All at once you notice the caged

man. He’s looking straight at Colin, eyes wide silently imploring him to do it. You’re stunned for a moment: you hadn’t thought of him capable of a response. Perhaps it had been easier not to. You feel a strange revulsion, as if you’d turned over a stone only to find one of the wriggling creatures looking up at you. Then you see Dragon’s back stiffen, and realise he’s caught the odd expression too. He turns slowly and looks at the smaller man holding the bat above his head. He doesn’t say anything, just stands there still holding the dish and staring at Colin. The younger man relaxes his grip on the bat and says,

‘I’m leaving. I mean it this time.’‘What do you mean, you’re

leaving?’He rests the bat clumsily against

the wall and says,‘I’m leaving. The squat, the group,

you, everything. Rejoining the bloody human race.’

A pause. The big man is silent for a moment but then says silkily,

‘What, even if you have to spend the rest of your life in a cage?’

Colin sighs and looks at the cage.‘Yeah, well, not necessarily. If we

were to, you know, finish the project

‘From a legal point of view, I mean. Too late to back out and run off with Joy and the others now.’

‘Jesus Christ, she’s right about you. I mean, you don’t even like animals. What sort of animal rights activist has never had a pet, for Christ’s sake? There’s something well wrong there, and I should’ve seen it. You really are just a big creep who gets off on hurting people, aren’t you?’

‘Pet ownership is animal slavery–’ begins Dragon, in the tone of a well rehearsed argument, but trails off. He looks at the camera. ‘Shall we discuss this later?’

‘Yeah, we will!’ Colin says furiously.

The larger man busies himself with a dish, swilling it out and filling it with fresh water. Colin carefully makes his way over to the wall and gingerly picks up a baseball bat from amongst a rake and some poles propped up there. Hesitantly, he positions himself to bring it down on Dragon. He tenses once, twice but does not strike. The big man stands, oblivious but towering menacingly. You watch hypnotised, willing the bat to be brought down on that blunt bald head. You see how it could go the other way, too, and then what? Two

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weren’t worth eatin’?’ The boy looked at me sullenly. I suspected that he blamed me because I hadn’t prayed. I cradled my battered cup before taking

a sip of bitter black coffee.‘I wished I’d seen it hit the wire. I

ain’t never seen nothin’ hit this close up. They says the head comes clean off, and it keeps right on runnin’, not knowin’ it’s dead and has to stop. That so? They keeps on runnin’?’

‘That’s chickens you’re thinking of. They have a simple nervous system and the autonomic response mechanism can animate the body independently of the head. A rabbit has possibly one last stride before momentum takes over and it tumbles. The rest is simple suggestion.’

children.’ Which was also true.‘How come?’ the boy asked, his

eyes narrowing suspiciously. He drew back slightly, hugging his knees.

‘The time was never right and then...’ I gestured around.

‘And then what?’And then the world ended. My

world. I suppose we were in his world now. This hole that isn’t worth living in, never mind bringing a child into.

‘Wife git too old?’ he asked with the callousness of youth.

‘Yes. Yes, that’s it.’A movement, out there by the

wire. My hand slipped down to my spear, then relaxed. A rabbit broke the moonlight, racing across the field. The wire was out there. We couldn’t see it, but then neither could the rabbit, which was the point. Mono-molecular wire sharp enough to cut steel, strung out in great looped snare traps. We’d eat tonight if only that rabbit hit the wire.

‘C’mon Mr Jack Rabbit. Jus’ a little further...oh please God...’, the boy said softly. The rabbit ran right up to the wire. We held our breath but it ran on.

‘Right through! Goddam it to hell! They set that wire too loose!’

‘Yes, but it has to be loose so we can catch something worth eating–’

‘Goddamit, you sayin’ that rabbit

a child’s game and was still painfully slow. I watched him concentrate, tongue poking out the corner of his ugly, buck toothed mouth.

‘Don’t you know any other games?’ I asked in frustration.

‘I ain’t so good at my figurin’. I can count, I jus’ ain’t too good at readin’ my numbers. They’s two different things,’ he explained defensively.

‘I know, I used to be a teacher.’‘You teach figurin’? Reckon you

could teach me?’‘No, history, but I ...’I caught his disgust at the word

history.‘But what?’‘Never mind.’I left the cards lying a while before

calling snap. He looked bewildered, so I let him see that they matched before wearily scooping them up.

‘My Ruthie’s close to her time now. I was wonderin’ what it’ll be like...’, he said nervously.

It didn’t bear thinking about. No hospital, doctor, anaesthesia or sterilisation: painful and dangerous for both mother and baby, I’d imagine.

Instead I said, ‘I never had any

CUTTING EDGEHistory lessons, and a division of spoils.

The boy and I drew uneasily closer to each other and the fire’s final warmth. Smoke

stung my eyes. Soon I’d have to send him for more wood. The rest of the camp was dead asleep, a ghostly outline in the flickering firelight. I was tired deep in my bones after another day scratching life from the dying earth. An extra half ration and some coffee would get us through the night.

My eyes felt gritty, and were already drooping. Just my luck to draw the boy his first time on watch. Thirteen and supposedly a man already. Tall, raw and lean, he was keyed up and ready for action. His swelling pride and excitement only made me feel more hollow. Anyone else on watch, I’d get some sleep. Everyone knew we spotted each other on watch, but the boy would never see it that way.

I had to get on his good side. I pulled out my deck of cards. They were grubby and dog eared, jamming together when shuffled. Played out and worn out like everything else. How many losing hands had I drawn from this deck, I wondered? He chose

▲

‘They says the head comes clean off, and

it keeps right on runnin’, not knowin’ it’s dead and has to

stop.’

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twisting in fury: ‘They ain’t the same! One’s side by side an’ the other’s up ‘n’ down. Four an’ two ain’t like six. They ain’t even the same colour! You quit your cheatin’, that’s how come you been winnin’ all night anyways.’

We stopped. A dog had appeared in the clearing. It still had a collar but looked feral. I grabbed my spear.

‘So that’s how come Mr Jack Rabbit wuz runnin’, the boy whispered. He turned to me and grinned. ‘Maybe we do get to eat, after all!’

‘Here boy! Here!’ he cried, and whistled.

The dog paused and cocked his head. He must have turned wild only recently. I felt some awful betrayal at luring the dog like this. After weighing up the situation he bounded towards us. I couldn’t deter him once he started running, my frantic waving only encouraging him. The dog hit the wire. Like a magic trick gone horribly wrong, it split neatly in two. The body went skidding on while the head bounced along, spraying gouts of blood in dark red inky arcs.

We walked over to the wire. I fought back the taste of bile, but the boy was jubilant.

‘Mind the edges! Look to the posts, they’re marked in blue and follow the

‘Could’ja?’ he seemed hopeful and cautious in equal measure.

‘Just the basics. It’s easy when you know how. Look, you know how to count, right? But it takes too long to do it that way. You just need to learn a few shortcuts.’

‘You mean cheat?’

I smiled, ‘Yes, everyone cheats. Here, I’ll show you how.’ I picked up the six of diamonds and held the two of spades over it, covering a couple of diamonds.

‘So, that is six take away two? Do you see?’

‘I dunno...’‘Four, see? There’s four diamonds

still showing.’He thought hard, his mouth finally

to ignore the pain in my hip. Rain coming. Finally he asked about what he was really interested in.

‘I heard you had magic slates, like we learn our letterin’ an’ figurin’ on. Only you wrote with your finger? That really so?’

‘Yes, that’s so.’ It was hard for me to believe, now.

‘How come’s I never see’d one left over like the wire?’

‘They need power, the wire doesn’t.’

‘Reckon we’ll ever have power again? Get ‘em goin’ again?’.

I saw that to him power was a magic spell to bring the old toys to life. It might as well be. The global economy had fallen, and would never get up again. Even if we could claw our way back to another industrial revolution, the coal was buried too deep now, all the easy surface deposits long since mined. We’d stranded ourselves in a new Dark Ages, eternal midnight. He looked at me hopefully.

‘Maybe,’ I answered.We played snap a while until I grew

sad watching him break a sweat trying to match the cards. He was quick on the picture cards, so he wasn’t stupid. He might be saved.

‘Listen, would you like me to teach you some arith – some figuring?’

The boy seemed to mull this over. ‘You sure do talk funny. Auto-nomic. Reckon you could teach me some of them words? Just for foolin’?’

‘No.’We sat staring out towards the

wire, willing something else to come along. Finally the boy spoke.

‘Reckon you could teach me some history? Rememberin’, though, not like out of books...’, he spat out the last sour tasting word.

‘I suppose so.’‘So, what was it like – before?’‘Too much of everything, but not

enough to share. Then it all ran out faster and faster, because we wouldn’t give any of it up.’

‘Too much of nothin’, huh? Always plenty of nothin’ to go around here.’ The boy looked mournfully at the scattered tents in the dim light, before adding, ‘I heard it was somethin’ to do with the bees. But we still got lots of wasps, I seen ‘em. Was it the honey run out...?’

‘No, nothing to do with honey. Wasps can’t pollinate –’

‘Can’t what?’‘Oh, Christ, look: maybe the

bees just died out at the same time everything else went to hell, okay? Does it really matter any more?’

The fire crackled and I sat trying

▲

‘So that’s how come Mr Jack Rabbit wuz

runnin’, the boy whispered. ‘Maybe

we do get to eat, after all!’

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‘Shut that cheatin’ mouth of yours! I say he run when he’s dead, now are you callin’ me a liar or what? Which is it?’

‘He run...’ I mumbled.‘That’s right. Now remember that.

Look here, we’s gonna split that dog just the way he fell. I’m callin’ tails. Fair’s fair.’ The boy’s logic was in his white fists, clenching and unclenching.

‘I need that meat for my wife and baby, and you and your’n already had enough of everythin’ – including eatin’ all the bees’ honey, you goddam greedy sonnofabicth. That okay with you?’

‘Okay...’‘Damn right. Now, all your

rememberin’, you ain’t remembered the wood for the fire. Go on, git!’ ▪

line through...’ I explained clumsily. I knew what I meant, and I was sure the boy knew what I meant.

‘Yeah, I don’t want to end up like ol’ Jim Thumb!’, the boy said gleefully. ‘I never would have believed it if I hadn’t see’d it with my own two eyes! That dead dog jus’ kept right on runnin’!’

‘Yes, I’m finding it kind of hard to believe myself.’

I felt the blow rattle my jaw without even seeing him move. He’d turned and struck my mouth all in one motion, without any threats or bluster. I wasn’t knocked over, but my legs folded under me, and I sat down stupidly. I looked up at the boy and for the first time saw the strength in that wiry body.

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of those rare synchronised silences so my voice sounded loud in my ears but I asked the question anyway.

‘What? Yeah, protesters against the war, like. You’ll be remote piloting a Predator drone over Afghanistan or some other ‘Stan, performing missions like I said. They brought in a law to ban use of robotics or AI in military hardware, at least the lethal sort, so they need what they call a “human component in the decision making loop”. That’s where I come in. The human component.’ ▪

I’ll show you some of my kills, they record them - they have to it’s the law or something - and they let you have access to them as well. You have to sign some EULA or whatever but you can play them back whenever you want.’

‘You should come round, I’ll show you some of my best ones. There was this time, swear to God, guy was running - terrorist I mean - dashing between cover, houses like, and I couldn’t get a clear shot. So I flew right past, dropped flares everywhere, the stupid sod comes running out shit scared, shouting his head off – I think he was on fire! – 20 mil auto-cannon ripped him in two!’, he laughed.

‘Same again, love. I’ve got a spare controller and you can set up a trial account easy. Seriously, we’re talking five hundred quid easy for just playing games. The console does cost money, yeah. It’s a custom machine with lightning fast processor and hard link for the remote, otherwise what’s the point? Still, you don’t pay anything like the full cost it’s more of a deposit so that you don’t slam the drone into the ground. They still do it sometimes, protesters and that.’

I was feeling queasy. Ominously, the noise in the bar dropped into one

well.’ he grinned, a dreadful nicotine stained rictus.

‘Of course, you have to be pretty good before they let you take one on so there’s a lot of practice with the old milk runs. I put my time in and now I get my pick of the missions. I can give you some tips if you like’, he said, the lager mellowing him.

‘It takes a while to get good, to prove yourself, like, before you can earn any real money, but it’s worth it.

I saw him prowling the bar, a taut lean figure with his face twisted in a constant demanding scowl, but

couldn’t escape. I avoided eye contact but he pushed himself into my face and began talking at me, rapid fire sentences broken only by gulps of strong lager.

‘I’ll stand you a drink. Two Stella, please love. No seriously, I’m doing alright these days. I just earned two hundred quid off of WarBird. I play eight hours a day and that gives me enough for the week, easy. I’d play for free, to be honest, but they pay me so I take it’, he grinned.

I made a mistake. I asked a question instead of nodding, making my excuses and leaving for another bar.

‘WarBird? It’s new this year, I forgot you been travelling. You fly over Afghanistan, performing recce or hunt and seek missions. It’s the seek and destroy that they pay the most for. They’re the most fun as

THE HUMAN COMPONENTFlash forward flash fire

Baker’s Choice wholemeal loaf

You’ve never had it so good

Some people claim

they can’t taste the difference.

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personality and was now a Simulated Intelligence with full citizenship. I noticed jealously that he was on Dykey’s phone as well, and half a dozen others for all I knew.

‘How are you two? What have you been up to?’ he asked.

Dykey leapt on the chance to hold forth. He worked for a mega-corporation which was in the middle of a hostile takeover of Germany.

‘The krauts won’t know what hit them!’ he gloated, ‘We’re using stock options in Hans im Gluck and Ravensburger to lever them out.’

Charles’ face went blank for a

as she passed. We entered the hall, which seemed all the more strange for having once been so familiar.

‘You do look well, though,’ Dykey said grudgingly as we went in. ‘I wish I could have chosen rejuvenation, now, but there were all those protests at the time...?’ He eyed me gleefully. ‘Aborted foetuses were hard to come by – legally, I mean. Of course, you could order a foetus on the black market, but you had to let them know a few months in advance, obviously.’ He laughed and gave me a knowing look. ‘Even then, there were some youths willing -–’

‘Sorry, excuse me – I’ll be right back,’ his nurse said and disappeared towards the toilets. If she was squeamish she had chosen the wrong employer.

I spotted a hologram of Charles floating eerily above the crowd. He was grinning his familiar grin, his avatar’s face an optimisation of his old one. Strangely, I thought he had looked better in real life. My phone rang, I answered and his face appeared on the screen.

I was grateful for the interruption. I didn’t want to be stuck with Dykey all night, that would be too much like old times. Charles would be interesting, at least. He’d uploaded his

approach to longevity long ago, rejuvenation had come too late for him. As a result, he resented rejuves like myself. The consequences became clearer each year, as more organs failed and were replaced. He looked like a post-modernist sculpture, his head embedded in a mass of gleaming chromium, twisting wires and snaking tubes.

‘’Dykey! Good to see you! You’re looking well,’ I lied.

‘Oh yes, she keeps me fit,’ his synthesiser grated as he jerked his head spastically to indicate the stunning brunette standing behind him looking bored. She surely must be his carer, but apparently he wanted me to believe otherwise. It seemed comically, possibly dangerously implausible, but what the young won’t do for money these days.

There were youths here and there: serving drinks, holding doors and parking cars. Unless they’re related, it’s second nature to ignore them. A clean-cut young man ushered us into our old school hall, barely masking his resentment. I saw him exchange a sad, knowing look with Dykey’s nurse

The red dot matrix LED screen was blinking ‘CLASS OF 2012 CENTENARY REUNION’ as I

entered the school foyer. I wondered again if it wasn’t a waste of time coming, if they could even be the same people. After all, a century is long enough to live several times over. I was hoping those lives were like Russian dolls, true to the inner self.

Which is why I was appalled to see ‘Dykey’, Paul Dyke in person; or rather, what was left of his person. The whine of the servo-motors powering his wheelchair announced him like a tinny herald. He trundled up dangerously close to me, and I found myself trapped in the foyer with him and a young woman I took to be his nurse. He bobbed his head and gurgled somewhat, and his synthesiser said:

‘Hello, John, you fat git!’He had always prided himself on

speaking his mind, or being rude as those less proud would have it. I am overweight, but he was hardly in a position to make personal remarks.

He had opted for the prosthetic

REUNIONBest friends, forever.

Continues third page following

▲

CENTRE SPREAD

LESS IS MORE

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‘”Paul,”’ supplied Dykey, helpfully. He had always disliked his nickname. Good old Dykey. I blurted out,

‘You look fantastic.’I felt immediately embarrassed,

realising she might take the compliment the wrong way. Or the right way.

‘Um, well, yes, a whole new me, you might say,’ she replied as if sharing a confidence.

‘Cloned, I might say,’ said Dykey. He never could pass up a chance to put someone in discomfort.

‘Obviously…’ said Karen, fishing around in her purse.

‘Well, what are you doing?’ Without waiting for answer he began, ‘I’m involved in a hostile –’

He stopped short when he saw that Karen had retrieved a pack of cigarettes from her purse and lit one.

‘Smoking now as well? Bit old for teenage rebellion, aren’t we?’

Karen exhaled a plume of blue twisting smoke.

‘That’s not why the young smoke. Not the real reason, anyway.’

The forbidden, rich aroma of tobacco lent an almost conspiratorial feeling to our little group. She looked agitated, somehow brittle. ‘The young don’t care about cancer and getting older or losing out on immortality

had just walked into the hall. She moved with quick, confidant steps that shifted her figure wonderfully. Her lively, inquisitive face had lost none of its old cheer, and her eyes still held the promise of warm sympathy. Except for the spray on dress she was wearing it could have been the old Karen, or rather the young Karen.

She was truly young again, not preserved in amber like me and the other rejuves. Rejuvenation is something of a misnomer: basal metabolism may be kept in homeostasis, but appearance is maintained with plastic surgery – shored up against the ravages of gravity. Karen must have had her body cloned; expensive and illegal outside Mexico or Thailand. Just like back in school: always ahead of the trend and the centre of attention.

A queasy feeling twisted at my stomach, and I felt like a hundred and eighteen year old schoolboy. She was a crush come back to haunt me. Perhaps we really do never change. I hadn’t been in her circle of friends, nor Dykey, so there was no reason for her to be glad-handing her way through the crowd straight for us. But she was.

‘God, hi! John…and um…’ she trailed.

‘I mean, take this reunion. This is the best the real world has to offer, nostalgia wise. In the virtual world you can just go and live in the past. A play world built from your own memories. Invite your friends, if you want. Or hire some youths to fill out the roles. They’re always available...’

We chatted and worked the room. Charles became bored quickly. He left early, I suspect before we had even finished talking to him. Always hard to tell with the virtual and their proxies. Dykey stuck by me, probably because his nurse never returned. I heard his life story several times over.

As expected, most of our old classmates had rejuvenated. Many of the others were in suspended animation and so couldn’t attend the reunion, or the rest of their lives. Peter Jones had died but attended as a ROM construct, which made for some very tedious conversation. There was a stupid rumour that Gary Hall was a sentient virus. He hadn’t even been sentient. Anushka was now a hive mind cohabiting her body with her relatives, all of whom I had to be introduced to. Paul Cooper was a brain in a tank. Somebody must have told him it was fancy dress.

I was trying to get a word in past Dykey but gave up, because the past

moment, then he interrupted. The virtual were always impatient.

‘Yeah, I see. There was a good article about it last week. It looks like it will go through, unless...’, he trailed off.

‘Unless what?’ Dykey demanded.‘The model’s too complex to

explain. You know, you two should upload.’

I braced myself for a pitch on the benefits of virtual life. They were always too impatient to listen, preferring to skim everything off the net, but never too busy to lecture.

▲

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be, the future for the young and not the old outstaying their welcome and hogging it all. I decided to get some air, but as I made my way to the doors I knew really that I was leaving. As I escaped into the cool summer evening, my heart lurched on seeing Karen leaning against the wall of the teacher’s old common room, smoking. She looked up and smiled a warm, teasing invitation.

‘Smoke?’I took one nervously and she lit

it for me. It felt like the first time, a dizzying head rush. So many things I had forgotten...

‘So, am I going to have to wait another hundred years for you to ask me out?’

I blushed. It’s great to be young and in love. ▪

He pointed Nazmul out to me.He sat slumped in a wheelchair,

his body collapsed in on itself like a deflated balloon. He was bald, except for a few wisps of grey hair straggling about his pendulous ears. His hands, which grasped a wooden cane, were twisted with arthritis; the knuckles were huge and thick blue veins bulged through his withered flesh. He wore dark glasses, and I realised that he must be blind.

He was old, impossibly old. One hundred and eighteen years without rejuvenation. Then I recalled that he was a Muslim, and although he had never taken it or anything else seriously, something must have changed his mind. He was allowing himself to grow old and to die whole according to custom. I held his hand, it felt dry and papery. I leant in and spoke loudly in his ear, but couldn’t be sure that he heard me. His decrepitude made me feel like a cheat that had been found out. I said goodbye to Nazmul, thanked his great-grandson and lost myself in the crowds. I didn’t want to meet anyone else.

Sleepwalking through the crowd of faces I saw Dykey’s nurse deep in conversation with the doorman. Good for them, I thought. The way it should

They die, they just die,’ Karen said sadly.

‘Yes, tragic – but what do you suppose they do with unwanted clone brains? Pigswill, perhaps,’ Dykey said with relish. Karen flicked him an evil glance and dropped her cigarette to the wooden floor, grinding it out with her ersatz leather ankle boot. I stared stupidly. I remembered her smoking, the whole ritual of it, and how glamorous it had seemed. I looked up to find Karen smiling curiously at me.

‘Well, anyway, its been nice seeing you all again, but I must dash. Glad to see you both looking so well,’ this directed archly at Dykey. She looked at me and added, ‘We must meet up again.’ Then I watched her walk away, thinking of all the things I should have said.

I couldn’t focus, kept running over the brief conversation in my head. I slipped quietly away while Dykey held forth on successes past and future, real and imagined. I drifted off into the crowd of unfamiliar faces seeking someone else. The one person I wanted to see before I left was Nazmul. It turned out that I had already seen him a couple of times but failed to recognise him. When I thought I spotted him, it turned out to be his middle aged great-grandson.

because they know there’s no place for them. Some of them don’t want to live at all.’

‘Nonsense. They’re ignorant. They have no education, and no ambition or drive either. And they breed like rabbits.’

‘And whose fault is that? That they have no education, I mean.’

‘Who’s been telling you this? Anyone who wants an education can get a twelve year scholarship with McDisney or whoever.’

‘Twelve years! If only you could hear yourself. Twelve years may not be much to you, but to a young man – I’ve head it from the young themselves.’

I realised that Karen could pass herself off as young if she chose to. I thought I saw a gleam in Dykey’s eye. It was hard to tell, though, because his eyelids were paralysed and his eyes were always gleaming slightly.

‘Enlighten us.’‘Have you heard of the suicide

clubs? No, you wouldn’t have. Young people throw a kind of party, and they all take random cocktails of drugs, one of which is an overdose.’

‘You mean – they upload first?’ I asked nervously.

‘How could they possibly afford one hundred exabytes of web space?

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on calling them Angels. Entering triggered a simulacrum of the prophet Steve to launch into his familiar soft pitch.

‘It all just works,’ he drawled, ‘Life but like it was meant to be. Just imagine...’ He had been the first to ascend to Heaven, when it was in secret alpha test. Before we’d found out the end needn’t be the end if you were rich enough. I was only visiting, I knew. I’d wind up in some cheap open source afterlife, or even in the ground, decaying...while Godmother lived forever. The thought seemed intolerable. I ignored him and found an Angel with an acne crusted face, and rented some data jacks. Your own data jacks weren’t good enough. They let you know a hundred ways you weren’t good enough.

Godmother kept me waiting so I jacked in. I have to grab any chance for a little acting exercise. It’s not like I’m some jack-junkie.

Dave ‘Kat’ KaminsKi leaned back in his chair, smoking idly and wondering what Miss Angel would be like, apart from late. I guess dames are all alike, he thought, when there was a knock at his office door. He could make out a dark, elegant shape through the frosted glass. How he could tell

but looked quite out of place, alien even: as if a pristine white mothership had landed. Not for them the coarse huckstering of goods, they were offering an afterlife-style. For a price, plus the Eternal Care Protection Plan, millennial grade hosting and cloud clustering. It was an afterlife-style, all right, just one most people couldn’t afford.

I was booked in to see my Godmother. She’d been the second wife of one of my great-uncles, so technically she was my great-aunt, but preferred Godmother. She never called me Godson, though. I needed her to loan me some money for acting classes, which she would make me sit up and beg for. The whole family fawned on her, all except Dad who kept his pride right until he died last year. He couldn’t afford Heaven, but we’d assumed that Godmother would pick up the tab. She didn’t. Instead she had given him a final lecture about how people should pay their own way in this world and the next. She’d inherited all her money from her first husband, back when rich people still died.

I walked off the drab street into the cool white space of the Portal. Young assistants in delicate pastels waited serenely. They insisted

levels over and over again: a time and motion study of recreation. People ‘level up’ with my progress. A clever system, ensuring no one derives any pleasure from the whole dreary business. The perks are playing my own games on company time.

I waited for my boss to make up his mind about the company connection. I looked at his stupid bushy beard and bald upper lip. I had his face imported into a first person shooter and was guilty of multiple augmented murder. I tried to ignore him by staring hard at his cheap plastic name tag: Junior Assistant Manager, with his name underneath in erasable felt-tip.

‘I’m afraid company policy states...employees can’t use prop – company property for personal use.’ He faltered over the words but clearly enjoyed quoting regulations, as if it made him something more than a man.

Because my boss was something less than a man, I had to get a taxi across town. I couldn’t afford it, but was assuming I could borrow some more from Godmother. The Portal to Heaven was right in the town centre,

The ship dropped out of hyperspace and Captain David ‘Crash’ Kaminski plotted a

course for Fomalhaut IV. It would take days to reach using reaction drive, and with no Tanj fighters to worry about it might be a little dull. Still, he had his beautiful, raven haired Orion navigator to keep him company. He set the thrust to only one quarter gee. No sense rushing things, he smiled, before turning to her and –

---BOSS ALERT---

I jacKed out of the game just in time. My boss was snooping around the system like Elmer Fudd again. I didn’t want any trouble today, because I needed to get into Heaven. If my boss wouldn’t let me use the company gear to jack in, I’d have to go across town to use the official Portal.

So I needed to keep on his good side and made myself look busy. Busy playing games – if you can call it playing. I complete the same

THE VIRTUAL LIFE OF DAVID KAMINSKIYour big chance to get away from it all.

▲

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taunted me. I mourned the glorious day going to waste. It seemed like the whole world would be outside enjoying themselves. To me that meant fewer people online, less lag, near instant response: gaming heaven. Instead I had to put up with the lousy Tesla connection on my game-phone. I took it out and jacked in.

KaminsKi the outlander stood spent but firm, his aching muscles stained crimson. His deadly weapon was slick with heathen blood. Waves of berserker corpses lay broken at his feet. With his mighty arms he swung his father’s Great Sword thrice about his head before planting it firmly in the virgin soil.

‘Your lands free now...’ he grunted to the ebony-tressed barbarian princess kneeling at his oaken thighs. As she looked up, her bosom heaved in its leather bodice and she answered in quivering tones –

Stop poKing me! Will you stop poking me with that thing!’ A fat, angry, red-faced woman stood over me, her belly pressing into me as the tram wobbled her mass around each corner. She was jammed into the aisle by the other passengers, trapping me.

of us. I know they don’t pay you much in that store.’

Actually, it was more like two months wages, I calculated dismally.

‘And how is the acting going? It’s nice to have a creative outlet, a hobby, but it’s good that you have a proper job at the store.’

A hollow feeling came over me. I sensed that she had lost interest in my career, and was going to start working on Pete.

‘Well, I certainly hope things work out for you. Acting is a tough profession to break into, I told you that all along...’

I knew then that she wasn’t going to loan me the money. Apart from anything else, she was about to buy my son a sixteen thousand pound toy. I didn’t listen to the rest of her lecture, trying to figure out what to do. I suddenly realised that I didn’t have to sit up and beg any more.

‘Sorry, auntie, have to be off. Mustn’t be late at the store,’ I interrupted. She looked as stunned as if she’d been slapped. I guess dames are all alike, I caught myself thinking.

I pushed through indifferent crowds, heading numbly to my other job. Even though it wasn’t rush hour, I was lucky to find a seat on the tram. The hot sun glaring on the windows

than me. I thought of the last time I had seen her alive in the hospital, full of tubes and eyes wide with fear. By now her body must have rotted, I reminded myself cheerfully.

‘David, you’re looking marvellous!’ she said, eyes flashing mischievously.

I had a speech rehearsed but she cut me off.

‘I wanted to talk to you about Peter. I know it’s his birthday coming up and I’m wondering if you’ve any idea what he would like. After all, I am his Godmother, hmm? He’s interested in art, isn’t that it?’

Pete lived with his mother, but I knew he wanted a smart-pen that cost over a month’s wages. I imagined his excitement at getting it, compared to what he would get from me.

She must have read my expression, offering conspiratorially, ‘Oh, but of course we can say that it’s from both

she was trouble from her silhouette he couldn’t say, it was just a feeling. Like that feeling you get just before you fall that it’s going to be a bad one. He invited her in and the silhouette filled out into a beautiful brunette, who made a mourning dress look like an evening gown. She was holding herself together, but the wrong word might shatter her. He wanted to be around to pick up the pieces. He thought he’d already been giving her his fullest attention, before her quick pink tongue moistened her full red lips, and she said breathlessly:

Your great-aunt will see you now,’ an Angel announced, confusing me. I couldn’t think where I really was, yet again. I retraced my jacks like a breadcrumb trail, and anchored myself securely here and now, at Portal, before jacking into Heaven.

Godmother sat in eternal sunshine by a glittering pool, flicking through a thick glossy fashion magazine. I could tell that she relished the feel of the slick pages between her moistened fingers as much as reading it.

She looked up. I was caught in her dark eyes with their spidery lashes. She was stunning, but then she could choose to be. I noticed glumly that her avatar now appeared younger

▲

‘Godmother sat in eternal sunshine by

a glittering pool’

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His greying hair was a widower’s peak teased forward into points to cover a bald spot, and he wore round wire-frame prince-nez.

‘I wonder if you could possibly appraise an item for me?’ he said in a well spoken lisp, presenting a slab wrapped in black cloth before laying it on the counter.

‘It once belonged to my great-nephew, but I’m afraid that he passed on – quite suddenly,’ he said with the practised sadness of an undertaker. He unfurled, slowly and carefully, a

stealing stock. I stuffed them angrily into the bin.

I shuffled the Blu-Rays around for an hour, before taking my turn on the counter to cover the boss’s break. It gave me time to think. My problems seemed to be at once beneath me and insurmountable. I stared at the simulator trapped beneath the counter’s glass top. I kept going over my finances trying to afford it, but each time it came out to only eight hundred. If only...everything were completely different, I finished lamely. If I could really be somewhere else, someone else, even for a while. I tried to convince myself that this world was no more real than a game, but I knew that wasn’t true. Why would anyone choose to escape into a world as depressing as this? I thought I knew the answer but it kept slipping away from me. I felt the weight of my game-phone in my pocket. My boss would be gone a while...

David d. KaminsKi was startled as a bony hand grasped his arm firmly. He realised that he’d been lost in his thoughts again. Before him stood an old man, in a dark suit that looked even older, almost like a best man’s.

afternoon putting thousands of old Blu-Rays into alphabetical order. It was busy-work: no one usually wanted them, even at ten for a pound. People were abandoning physical formats; even for their bodies, I realised. I began wearily, but a man was looking over my shoulder so I stood aside. He thanked me in a gentle, soothing voice. I enjoyed watching him search carefully and methodically, handling the cases with care. He seemed so at ease. He looked up and smiled, flipping the cases in his hand so I could see the titles on the spines.

‘Do you want any of these?’ he offered. ‘I only collect the covers – no room.’

He demonstrated by deftly slipping the cover out from the plastic sheath.

‘I scan them in, but I can dig them out anytime I want.’

I watched with growing horror as the man cheerfully stripped the other covers before handing me a pound coin.

‘Thanks – you can keep the disks!’ he said smiling.

He left the naked blue cases discarded in a heap on the hard floor. I thought of taking them home, of saving them, but I could be accused of

I grunted an apology while carefully collapsing the Tesla coil. My blushing face was in danger of being buried in her armpit, so I spent rest of the journey breathing her stale sweat and craning my neck. Finally we reached my stop and with a mighty heave, I broke through waves of commuters and was free.

It was a relief to arrive at the Cash Regenerator. Not that I enjoy my work, although I am good at it. My age helps me price and even recognise some of the older goods. Half my youth was in that store, objects of desire thrown on the scrapheap. I’d longed for a MIT iie simulator like the one under the counter, but had to make do with an cheaper model. That lost year before college I’d spent playing L’Outrance had been one of the happiest of my life. It saddened me to see the machine abandoned, but it cost two grand.

At least Liz isn’t too bad to work for. She was a bubbly woman with frizzy hair and oversized red glasses, like some children’s presenter. Because she was only a few years short of retirement she didn’t take the job that seriously, thank God; not like the deputy managers.

Liz was off sick, so one of the deputy managers had me spend the

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behind. He couldn’t wait to unwrap the machine. He powered it up, and it hummed into life. Perfect. It even had an old-fashioned temple jack, state of the art back then. There was a little conduction gel left, but he’d need to order a lot more. He rubbed his trembling finger across his temple, smearing it evenly. He touched the jack to his temple, and felt a flash of pain.

A slap from my Orion navigator brought me out of suspended animation. Her beautiful dark almond eyes were wide with fear.

‘Oh, Captain, thank God you’re back! Tanj fighters are warping in!’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t leave you again. Not ever.’ With a single bound, I leapt free of the zero-g harness and propelled myself hand over hand towards the cockpit. I gunned the ship full thrust, handling the controls with steely determination.

‘Brace for hyperspace! I’m forcing a mis-jump so they won’t be able to plot our destination...as a matter of fact, I won’t even know our destination,’ I added with a laconic smile. The engines protested with a low ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa as the ship escaped far beyond reach into the cold lonely night. ▪

MIT iie simulator in mint condition.Looking over his spectacles he said

knowingly, ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t begin to know its value.’

Kaminski looked down at the simulator on the glass counter, then at the identical simulator clearly visible beneath it, equally clearly priced at two thousand pounds. He met the stranger’s gaze reflected in the glass; it seemed to distort his expression cruelly. Kaminski looked up at the old man’s real face for reassurance, who suddenly leant in, rather too close.

He paused before confiding in an insinuating stage whisper, ‘Alas, I’m sure the store takes an ungodly commission – but perhaps we two poor souls could agree to a deal between us? Shall we say eight hundred pounds? Or would that be more than your life’s worth?’

‘Job’s worth. More than my job’s worth,’ Kaminski corrected.

‘Just as you say, but all the same...?’ He offered his hand, and held Kaminski in his cold tight grasp.

Kaminski left the deputy manager locking up and rattling his keys self importantly. The tram home wasn’t so bad, now. Everything seemed better, different somehow, with the simulator under his arm. He unlocked the door to his flat, and closed it firmly

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and my body acquiesced in sleep. I’d wake in alarm with a dry metallic taste in my mouth, as I escaped another nightmare. Then these false reprieves would be cruelly taken away as I remembered what lay ahead. I thought how unfair it all was. We should have someone trained in dealing with them. Only it would have to be one of them, and they couldn’t handle ship routine. So you’d have to keep them suspended, and then they’d have to be woken up, so you’d be no better off. Except at least you’d be waking the same one! This should all have been considered, I thought angrily, I shouldn’t be in this position. I looked up at the clock projected on the ceiling. There was no escape. Fowler would have to be woken, sure as the dawn.

* * *

I woKe from a nightmare that I had been drowning for years, only to discover that it was true.

Panicking, I went into a desperate fit trying to clear my lungs. The fluid was oxygenated so I could breathe, but it still felt like drowning. Liquid sprayed from my mouth and nose, landing in great sticky gobs on the smooth grey floor tiles beneath my pod. My coughing subsided and the pure joy of my relief faded, leaving

‘Protocol,’ she said, as if that were any more an answer than the tired parent’s ‘because’.

Protocol is all we have, I thought.Walsh finished her shift in smug

silence now that the correct procedure was being followed. Apparently she was unable or unwilling to think ahead. I could do nothing but. Later, I couldn’t sleep worrying for about meeting the surveyor. I’d read Fowler’s personnel file, so my fear had a name. Still there was no telling what he would really be like. Each surveyor was different. More different from us than from each other, though. They liked to talk: not just about work, but about nothing, pointless things. And personal things. They looked right at you, right into you it seemed. Most frightening was that sometimes they would just reach out and touch you for no reason. So you learnt to keep your distance. It wasn’t hard to remember: they always tried to stand too damn close.

That night I lay alone in the darkness considering everything that should happen, what could go differently, how it might all go wrong: possible outcomes branching and re-branching. My mind went over and over them like a rat trapped in a cage, until I took yet another pill

uniform. Why she wasn’t more like a woman.

‘1.06% possibility of terraform,’ she droned, but my eyebrows shot up at that point oh six. ‘It’s a viable candidate, Chief,’ she concluded flatly.

‘Only just. I mean, it’s only just over, Walsh.’

‘1.06 is more than 1,’ she said, turning her pad around to show me, as if I were a particularly slow student.

‘Yeah, well, we had 3% once, look where that got us. All that trouble, always for nothing,’ I said comforting myself with the prospect of failure.

‘It’s not for nothing, it’s our mission. And even if the results are negative, we still learn something new every time,’ she said briskly.

‘Do we?’ That only made it worse. ‘And we’ll have to wake a surveyor.’

I began scratching anxiously at my beard, before taking off my cap to scratch at my hair, then at my beard again before forcing myself to stop.

‘Why can’t we use the same one every time?’ I wondered aloud. That at least would be something.

The planet woKe slowly to bask in the golden dawn. Its brightening face all garlanded

with wisps of white clouds, beneath them oceans of swirling cerulean blue and aquamarine. The continents a vibrant patchwork: rich brown earth, pale yellow deserts, and emerald green forests. Spiralling through its circumscribed space, over and again to a steady clockwork pace. Its path only now flatly intersected, accosted by the blunt, grey scout ship Daedalus.

Walsh stood before the majestic view on the giant screen, looking down at her pad. ‘Kepler 22b: possible habitable exoplanet. G2 main sequence star, 0.96 AU: right in the “Goldilocks zone”. Free standing water confirmed, oxygenating plants inferred. Two moons: tidal activity.’

I listened, watching her mouth move. I wondered why she didn’t wear lipstick, why she wore her blonde hair in that ponytail that pulled her face into a tight mask, why she wore her baggy, shapeless clothes like a

WORLDS OF TOMORROW AND TOMORROWThe biggest danger to the mission is success.

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past my head, his brow furrowed. ‘We’ll need to really take a look now: deep scan, probes, the lot.’

‘Are you sure? They don’t usually–’‘It’s an unusual planet. Special.

Out of the ordinary. So things will become extraordinary from here on in.’ I looked to his darting eyes to see if he shared my excitement, but he buried his face in his pad.

‘Right, just checking procedure. So you’re upgrading to a probable, is that it?’

‘Yes, it may be a habitable planet.’ I wondered if that would penetrate.

‘Probable protocol, then.’‘Yes! This is it! Finally a usable

planet! We’ll have to go down and check it out, but –’

‘Go down?’‘Yes, instruments can only tell us

so much.’‘Leave the ship?’‘Don’t worry, we brought

xenobiologists along who’ll jump at the chance. No one’s asking you to go down.’

‘When? When does this have to happen?’ he asked mournfully.

‘Soon as we can get them awake, and they can get the ship switched over to survey mode,’ I said, looking at his furtive eyes. ‘So, we’ll wake the others – starting tomorrow, I guess.

Chief Engineer. I’m in charge here,’ he said adding shyly, ‘Technically I’m also the Captain, but call me Chief.’

I nodded. He was giving a rehearsed speech, badly. His eyes darted around the room, resting on mine for the briefest moment before seeking refuge elsewhere. At least I’d gotten their names. He wound up his little speech with obvious relief by handing me a pad. He explained that it held the data on the planet, but that I was in charge of the survey. They left me to finish my breakfast, all under the dull watching eyes of the nurse. He then put my tired body through it’s rubbery paces in the gym.

Afterwards I was able to get down to some work with the pad. It did take my mind off breaking my body in. I went over the data, double checked it, then checked it again. I wished another surveyor could confirm it, but the planet was as near to Earth as could be hoped for, giving off all the right signs and then some. Scientific method be damned, if I were a betting man … and I am. That afternoon I headed for the bridge to tell the Chief the good news.

‘I don’t want to say too much too soon, but this one’s more than a possible. A definite maybe,’ I grinned. The Chief stared at a point slightly

at scattered tables, eating in silence as muzak washed over them. The warm melange of smells from greasy food cooking made me feel hungry and nauseous. I wondered if I would be able keep it down. I took one of the stacked red plastic trays and filled it from the gleaming steel self service counter. I found an empty table seat and then sat spooning oatmeal curiously into my mouth.

A fat, scruffy man wearing a baseball cap bearing the ship’s logo passed, stood indecisively at the next table, smiled weakly and sat down. I thought he was going to start a conversation but he thought better of it. Then that same stern woman came and stood stiffly before me, recognising her I felt embarrassed. She started talking at me.

‘Raymond C. Fowler, acting First Technician? You’ve been awakened ahead of schedule to investigate an exoplanet. It won’t take long for your body to recover and despite how you may feel, rest won’t help. So you may as well take your mind off it by getting some work done.’

I was surprised to find that she was not in charge when she deferred to the man busy scratching himself.

‘Over to you, Chief.’‘Thanks, Walsh. I’m Vernon, the

only embarrassment at the raw indignity of my struggle. I tried to stand, straining my stringy muscles against the pod, but I was decanted from the pod in a rush of fluids that spread darkly across the cold grey floor. A stern blonde woman looked down disgustedly at the waters that had nurtured me, lapping at her feet. Becoming aware of the people in the room I suddenly felt my nakedness, crouching to hide my shame. I croaked painfully then cleared my throat several times before rasping feebly:

‘S-so am I late for work?’ My words sounded strange and gargled, I wasn’t sure I had really spoken.

A burly nurse, his head shaved closer than his stubble, gave me a quick once over. His bedside manner left everything to be desired. He barely spoke except for parroted instructions, and never touched me, relying on the scanner. Once he was satisfied, I was allowed to shower. My hands moved over my unfamiliar body. Clothes had been laid out for me but I dressed with difficulty, as if in a mirror.

The nurse showed me the canteen, telling me it was important that I eat, and then stood at the door watching anxiously. People sat alone

▲

‘Dusk was at six o’clock. Always at six o’clock. For all the twenty years the ship had been

travelling.’

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logged out. I tried to log in again with exaggerated care, knowing it wouldn’t work.

I spun around in the chair and was about to get up to leave, but the Chief was blocking the doorway. He was flanked by Walsh and the nurse, with a couple of other beefy looking crew members backing them up.

‘Hi there. For some reason I can’t log in. Can’t think why.’

‘We have to make some medical tests,’ the nurse said. ‘Routine, nothing to worry about.’ Now I was worried.

‘Can’t it wait?’‘It has to be done befo–’‘Before I wake the crew?’ I

laughed. ‘Get out of the way. There’s nothing wrong with me, and you know it. I’ll wake them manually. Look, this planet will most likely be your new home. Can’t you try getting used to it?’

‘Can’t let you do that. It’s our responsibility who gets resuscitated – and for how long. Can’t have you making decisions like that. Risk the entire mission,’ Walsh grated, looking pointedly at the Chief.

‘Stand down, Fowler,’ he said reluctantly.

I barged through the doorway, forcing him easily out of the way, but as I passed Walsh I tripped and

* * *

I felt sorry for the Chief and the others, but also angry that I’d been put in that position. They’d

had twenty years to prepare for this moment, for Christ’s sake. I went to my cabin to rest. My padded styrofoam cot was uncomfortable and rutted, having moulded over and over to some one else’s body. I lay thinking and idly watching the clock projected on the dim ceiling. Ship time faded gradually into evening. Dusk was at six o’clock. Always at six o’clock. For all the twenty years the ship had been travelling. I thought of seven thousand dusks stretching back, seven thousand days each one the same as the last. And the next. I sat up suddenly. I decided that it couldn’t wait, I had to wake some of the crew tonight.

I headed straight for the bridge, and slipped quietly into an empty chair at a work station. A lean crewman at a nearby station stopped and began staring silently at my screen. Screw him, let him watch, I thought and logged in to begin the resuscitation the crew. Security section first, I decided. I felt him leave as much as much as saw him disappear from my peripheral vision. I carried on but after a few minutes was

compromised, this is the mission. Right here, right now. It’s happening: tomorrow everything changes.’

‘What about us? Will they let us move on, once they’ve settled the planet?’ he pleaded with hollow resignation.

‘No, we’ll need the ship and it’s resources for our base. We’ll take what we can and leave the rest in orbit

tethered to a beanstalk, and send it down as and when we need it. It’ll all come in useful someday...’ I looked at him doubtfully. His skin was a sickly yellow and he looked confused. All at once I felt ashamed, as if I’d struck a child for no reason. His mouth twisted angrily but he got up without a word, and left nursing his wound.

I’m beat.’ Talking to the Chief had made me realise how tired I really was.

‘Wait the others – wait for the others? What?’ he asked, looking cornered.

‘Wake them. Bring them out of suspended animation. Like with me, this morning?’ I saw that he was having trouble and put a reassuring arm on his shoulder. Big mistake. He flinched as if he’d been stung. I took my hand away quickly and held both palms up.

‘Look, your job is done. You’ve done well, bringing us here to a habitable planet. But now we take over and things are going to change.’ Again, a flinch. ‘Bottom line is, don’t worry. We’’ll take it from here. Starting tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow is Friday. We have breach drill – we have to be prepared. If the ship were struck by a micro-meteor the hull would be breached, the ship could be damaged, and the mission compromised.’ His hunted expression was replaced by one of triumph. ‘So we can’t do it tomorrow!’

‘Breach drill doesn’t stop the ship being struck by micro-meteors. And after twenty years of drill, I should think you’re as ready as you’ll ever be. As for the mission being

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only get worse,’ she said with quiet satisfaction.

She was right. The nerves in my shoulder were strung in agony if I so much as thought about turning my arm away from that needle. I watched with widening horror as it broke my skin and slid stealthily into me. I felt no different, but of course I knew it was over. They’d won. The mark was swabbed down and taped over with cotton wool, pure white betrayed by a tiny red dot. I watched it blossom slowly, until it seemed to blot out the darkening room. It grew darker until I could only hear voices, growing fainter.

‘You need to get some rest, is all.’‘A nice, long sleep.’No. That was wrong. Only I

couldn’t speak, and anyway I couldn’t seem to remember why it was wrong. Maybe after I got some rest, I could explain it to them. Maybe tomorrow.

The planet turned slowly, to hide its darkening face. The scout ship Daedalus dragged itself slowly out of the planet’s gravity well before engaging engines and becoming a bright spark. Bound for its next rendezvous, slowly fading to become one star among many, the crew mostly sleeping but all dreaming of tomorrow and tomorrow. ▪

somehow span as I fell. She quickly straddled me as I sprawled on the floor, and forced my arm into a restraining lock. I struggled but my weakened muscles were no match for her tightening grip. Her hair fell loose in her face, flushed with strain. She spoke around gasps for air.

‘Right...that was refusal to obey a direct order...followed by an assault on the Captain...I charge you with mutiny...Seconds?’

‘Aye.’‘Aye.’‘A–’‘Only need two...I’m detaining you

under section twelve.’‘Get off me, or Jesus Christ, I’ll...

get off!” I struggled against her body pressed against me.

‘Get they hypo,’ Walsh said, licking at blood that stained her cut bottom lip.

‘Turn your arm. Please?’ the nurse asked stupidly.

He tugged at my arm, but I strained hard to hold it away from the needle.

The nurse turned to Walsh, ‘Can you make him turn his arm?’

I let out a howl as my arm was dislocated and twisted around.

‘Sorry. Calm down...it’s for your own good...and keep still...or it’ll

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timetable I can’t really know who to expect in the corridor. It’s only three minutes to the bell now, so I’d better set off. I’m nervous but must keep to the planned route.

The corridors are cold and hard to navigate in this place, but I arrive safely at her room with only a couple of minor jostles. Taped to the plywood door is a sheet of A4, printed with a fancy treble clef and her name, ‘Miss Fessey’. I hear music faintly from inside. I wonder if I should knock. I hate to break the pattern of the melody...and it could disturb her and make her angry. But if I wait, she won’t know I’m here. Eventually she’ll open the door and be angry that I am late. I knock, quietly.

The music stops, and the door is opened by a young woman, twenty years my junior but fully grown. She has thick black curly hair, and is dressed in a calico scoop necked jumper flowing over a dark skirt. I look up into her large brown eyes but they seem to bat mine away. I pause, trying to remember what I’d planned to say. She looks down on me with a warm smile. Her eyes have narrowed into deep crinkles but I can still see them glimmering. I stammer, then stop, and feel a rush of relief and gratitude as she speaks.

sites and forums, but she seems normal. In other words, she is a mystery to me.

Her class is recreational. She has no background in pure mathematics, xeno-linguistics, or anything useful. She just teaches music. I don’t know why she is at the Academy at all, really. I’m only taking her class to get out of P.E. I hacked into the

timetables. I try every year and occasionally it pays off. I’ve rehearsed the journey to her room, and it is six hundred and seventy six paces. That is the smallest palindromic square whose square root is not palindromic, which I take as a good sign. Of course footfall will be different during the day, and even after analysing the

will never, ever leave the Academy.None of us will, I think as I

look down out the window at my tormentors swaggering across the quad. Not Barnes, for all his talk; nor Stanley, who claims to text a girl; nor even Harbidge, tallest at almost four foot six. How small they look down there, but how terrifying up close. All of us still just little boys, too clever for our own good. Kept busy by the tutors with all the best and latest toys, but never allowed to stop playing. We will live out our stunted lives in the shade of the Academy walls, no matter how much we understand for them.

I mustn’t dwell on it again. I try to relax by absorbing the latest combinatorial theories on primes, but can’t concentrate on even light reading. I have an eidetic memory and can take in a page at a glance, but keep re-reading the same passage. I’m worried about meeting my new tutor. All I know is that her name is Patricia Fessey, she’s thirty-three years old, and she retrained as a teacher after being a musician. I’ve data mined all the social networking

I’ve counted the route between cryptography class to the Common Room hundreds of times. It’s four

hundred and ninety six paces, which is the third perfect number. I have my bag packed and ready three minutes before end of class and sit alone at my desk, counting down. I time it so I’m halfway out the door as Higgins says over the bell, ‘That is a signal for me, not for you.’ I carry on, more afraid of the bullies than any tutor, least of all him. Despite taking the longer route, I still get to the Common Room first. Good, they’ve got hold of someone else. I take the seat by the door, furthest from the others, and am safe for twenty-four minutes. I can read quietly, even look out the window. I catch sight of my reflection: that nine-year-old, middle-aged schoolboy with the hollow eyes. That hand-me-down little body of mine, dressed in a brand new uniform each year. It reminds me that I will never grow up, only older. Never grow out of that choirboy face, that becomes a little more lined, a little more tired with each year that passes me by. I am forty-nine years old and know that I

THE OLD BOYS’ NETWORKAn unstable chemical reaction with a half life of nine months.

▲

‘I am forty-nine years old and know

that I will never, ever leave the

Academy.’

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outside her cosy room. ‘Wait! I have perfect pitch. Listen,’ nervously I whistle a pure fourth E above middle C, ‘That note, that’s exactly twenty-six hundred hertz. I can whistle all the old control dial tones, used to be able to make phone calls...’ She looks confused. I’ve screwed it up already, after weeks of planning.

‘That’s very good, Andy. But I mean, you know, who are your favourite bands?’

I tell her names of bands I’ve heard of and watch as she struggles to list them. The pen presses on the notebook, which buckles over her thigh. She pulls at the notebook to keep it taut. I feel a familiar squirming confusion and look away,

‘Hello! I’m Patricia, but they call me Trish. And you must be Andrew. But what do they call you – Andrew or Andy?’

‘Who? What do who call me?’ Overwhelmed by her warmth, I’m surprised to find myself taking the hand she offers. It could swallow mine whole, but instead she holds it lightly.

‘Your friends...?’‘Oh. Right. You can call me Andy.’

I pull my hand away and hide them both safely behind my back.

She shows me into her room, the old computer storeroom. It’s crammed with her instruments, boxes and folders now. She clears a small students’ seat for me and pulls it close to hers. Somehow from out of the clutter she reaches straight for a big blue marbled notebook and sets it on her lap. She flips the cover underneath and I see that it is brand new, with clean, smooth, white pages.

‘Now, before we start I’d like to find out a bit about you, what you already know and what you’d like to learn. So, what music do you like?’

‘Nothing. I’m not really interested in music,’ I say with immediate regret. I had forgotten the hard tackles, hurried showers and jostling changing rooms waiting for me

concentrate instead on mentally cataloguing her books. We talk a little more she says she will have a think, but I was to have a play with a synthesiser program and just enjoy myself. I think it is a test.

Back at the dorm I find three of the others on the beta Playstation 4, scrambling all over each other like children. That only makes it easier for the tutors to forget we’re still men inside, and the twisted joke that’s been played on us. I notice they’re a player short and watch awhile, but of course they don’t invite me to join. I go to my little bedroom cubicle early and draw the curtains, so as not to be distracted. I work hard with the synthesiser, and it makes time pass: evenings, free periods, lunch. I even start to enjoy it. I learn swiftly, voraciously – but then, that is what we’ve been bred for.

When we meet again in her room, I sit on my hands and wait while we listen to my music. I steal nervous glances and find her nodding and smiling, but look down when she impales

me with her dark brown eyes. Is she laughing at me?

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‘I can whistle all the old control dial

tones, used to be able to make phone

calls...’ She looks confused.’

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spot her leaving the tutor’s Common Room on my way to quantum computing. Impulsively, I deviate from my timed route and wait while she speaks to Higgins. They aren’t talking about her music or his cryptography, in fact they aren’t talking about much at all. Very low signal to noise ratio. I call but my voice is lost in their laughter. I don’t dare reach up and tap her, in case she moves and I accidentally touch her somewhere. Finally Higgins, who sees me well enough, gives a smirking nod to let Trish know someone’s waiting. She turns and I step back to avoid being bounced into.

‘Oh, I’m sorry Andy, I didn’t see you down there,’ she laughs. I’m not laughing. I wonder if she really didn’t hear me, and if she’s laughing at my reddening face.

By the next day I’ve forgiven her. I sit in cryptography thinking about my latest composition, lost in happy anticipation of Trish’s kind words. The bell cuts jangling through my daydreams.

‘Bit slow off the mark, today, Andy?’ Higgins smirks.

I glare impotently at the bowl haired, whey faced cretin as I scramble to stuff books into my bag. They have a head start on me now,

‘No, not really...I suppose...a guitar?’ I feel my cheeks burning but I’ve said it now.

‘Yes! It might be a bit – but we’ll see how it goes.’

Next time we meet in her room, she brings out a guitar hidden in the clutter and straps it over me carefully. We have naming of parts, then she stands behind to guide me. She shows me each chord and her long, deft fingers touch mine briefly. As she leans over her perfume engulfs me. The delicate necklace that normally falls down into her blouse dangles free; I watch it swinging helplessly. I struggle but can’t stretch my small fingers to make the chords.

‘Never mind! We’ll make a neck out of cardboard, but you must promise to practice your chords,’ she demands with mock severity.

We spent the rest of the lesson with glue and bits of cardboard and string, while Trish talks about her mother. I say it sounds nice, to have a mother. She agrees but sounds rather sad. I remember from my research that her mother is dead, so that must be it. I sacrifice my online gaming hours after classes to practice my chords for her, alone in my bedroom cubicle.

I think of her more and more. I

hall. These messages had grown into a sort of conversation, such as I suppose friends have. They are a life line between lessons, because as soon as each one is over I look forward to the next. The rest of my days, my work, collections, even my simulation of a Napoleonic telegraph system, all seem pointless somehow.

I sit alone at a table and wait, and wave to get her attention across the empty dining room. She beams back, threading her way through the tables towards me. I’ve known eight seven tutors over forty nine years, some of them even smart, but she’s different. I wish that Stanley could see us now, together. She draws close, pulls up a squeaking chair, and sits down next to me with a little bump, pulling at her skirt and smiling.

‘Hello, Andy. What have you got for me today?’

I bring her something new each lesson, and delight at how easily impressed she is. Learning is the trick all menchildren are born performing, and never grow out of. But then we never grow out of anything. I fumble for my memory stick. After she listens and I bask in her warm appreciation, she asks,

‘Now, Andy, have you ever wanted to learn an instrument?’

‘Andy, you are a dark horse: “not musical.” That was wonderful!’

I can’t restrain my swelling pride.‘So can I see you aga- will I be

allowed to carry on?’‘Why, yes, of course. I want to

hear more!’She rummages about in the depths

of her dark leather bag and brings out a pair of bright red memory sticks, with our names written over painted Tippex stripes.

‘So we can share without me getting you muddled with any of my other ch- er, students,’ she explains. I don’t tell her about remote syncing, but take the memory stick and hold it tight. I pledge to fill them both with songs for her.

After that, we can only meet in her room when old Al Sefar isn’t in his study next door. The cleverest tutor, he’s bright enough to understand not just our results but some of our work. So he gets what he wants, which is peace and quiet. Trish meets me all over the Academy and I have to walk a lot of new routes, so I make an app for that on my phone. I’ve lived here all my life but always stuck to my own block, and of course never left the grounds. She emails me to arrange to meet in a free classroom, the library, or in this case the dining

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behind with everything. No secret why: they never even took the higher tier IQ tests, and are barely smarter than the tutors. It doesn’t take a genius to work it out – so even they have a chance. The corridors are a lot safer now, but counting the routes makes them feel safer still.

We still meet all over the Academy, but increasingly in Higgins’ room. He must be underemployed here, not that I’m surprised: I skimmed his thesis once. As he hands over the room Trish talks to him; out of politeness, I suppose. She can be too friendly with people. These rambling conversations last longer each time. As he steals my precious time with Trish, I imagine myself tall and strong enough to mash in his stupid great white pudding of a face.

At our next meeting Trish is happy and excited, and I feel a tingling anticipation even before she tells me that she has a surprise. She disappears and I sit on the black bench in the empty media room waiting patiently, trying not to give in to cruel hope. Trish comes back smiling, holding aloft a small rosewood acoustic guitar.

‘Is it for me? A proper one?’‘Yes, it’s a real guitar but hal-

more your size. You’re right-handed,

bag, or else one of them has stolen it, sensing its value somehow. My throat is tight and choked, I don’t trust myself to speak.

Trish says gently, ‘Not in there? Have you checked everywhere? What about your pockets?’

I search there and find it, like a small miracle. I hold it up to show her proudly but instead crack and break into great wailing baby bawls. She hugs me, and I wear myself out crying until I feel warm and safe in her arms. She sits me up, holding my shoulders. Then she gently holds my head straight and looks right into me with her warm brown eyes.

‘Oh, Andy. What’s wrong?’So much has been wrong for so

long. I begin to form an answer but notice that I’ve left a dark stain on her pale cream blouse. I can’t tell her and I can’t stand imagining her noticing later, and how she’ll have to rinse me out of her. Ashamed, I tell her I feel sick and we cancel our lesson.

I’m sure to never make that mistake with the bell again, but it doesn’t matter so much. Because the tutors, starting with Higgins, began to assign extra decryption homework at the end of classes. This was given mainly to bullies, who were always

run off yelping. I uncurl myself to gingerly inspect my body for damage. I’m shaking and my face is hot and sticky with tears. I walk against the tide of curious faces to wash up in the toilets before facing Trish.

‘Hello, Andy. I was wondering where you’d got to, you’re never late. Here – your tie is all crooked.’

I mumble and sit down. My face isn’t swollen but it hurts to talk.

‘Are you alright?’ I nod and she teases, ‘Well, have you brought me anything?’

I fish around in my bag for the special memory stick she gave me but can’t find it. Either I’ve forgotten to pick it up after they ransacked my

but it’s my own fault. They’ve been waiting for this. I count thirty nine hurried paces, just enough to begin to hope. Then they trip me at the corner. I hit the polished floor and stupidly try to get up, only to be knocked right back down. I curl up and retreat to a cold, safe place inside myself. Thirty nine is the first uninteresting number. They empty my bag and use it as a football. Some would argue this is interesting in itself. They shout and set upon me. But it can only be interesting if it is uninteresting. I cling to this paradox, turning it round and around, until a boot lands in my gut forcing me to scream. I can’t help myself. Satisfied and alarmed, they

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that we can both be made to feel the same...as the strings lift me I can visualise the notes as iterative equations forming and reforming, and have the sudden conviction that the music is programming us, coding our emotions. I think of computer punch cards, and imagine great rolls of perforated paper from piano players unspooling inside me, feeding me feelings. The music fades out into rain pattering on the panes, droplets streaking the windows in silver branching patterns. It’s deserted outside and I can almost believe we are all alone in the world. I hear a soft crunch. Trish looks at me with mock guilt, chewing.

Trish was often late, but I was used to her by now and could forgive her. Today it gave me time to practice my new piece for her. Only when she finally arrives Higgins is with her and they’re laughing together. I’ve known him for twelve years, and the only thing about him that’s ever made me laugh is his mental arithmetic. They stop and she touches his arm lightly. They look as if they’re about to kiss. I wonder if they do kiss when I’m not around, and that’s what they’re laughing about. She touches his arm again as they part, for longer this time. Then she hurries over

in her hand.‘I try to make them last forever,

really savour them, but I always forget and bite into them,’ she says, rolling the words around the sweet.

‘I will take one. For later. Please,’ I lie. I take it, hold it safe.

‘To spare my voice we’ll listen to some music for a change. Not just listen, you know, but really listen. Do you know how give an appraisal of a piece of music? Don’t worry, I’ll show you how.’

She finds an old vinyl album from a stack hidden in the corner. Protectively, she takes the record in its delicate white paper sleeve from the cover. I can make out ‘Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini’. I suppose that means classical.

‘This is my favourite piece of music. Although I have lots of favourites, I suppose!’

She positions it carefully as the little C.D stereo turntable is barely able to hold full size records, then sits opposite me. I watch her as I listen, for some clue as to how to react. I feel the great swells rise within, surprised to see the same in her. Trish looks at me with cordial pride and my eyes are deflected, wandering to the window. How strange and wonderful

most of the way through. The top is fringed with coloured paper strip bookmarks. She’s held the last two months of my life in her hands. I see flashes of her bright paisley blouse as she darts in and out of the corner of my eye. Finally she plumps down next to me on the bench, which gives a protesting hiss as it lifts me up.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Andy, I must be careful or I’ll knock you for six!’ she says, pressing her hand above her chest. I look up into her laughing eyes, face reddening. Feeling the size and closeness of her, I inch away. Nothing can spoil my new guitar, though, and the lesson is like a birthday. Trish tells me I can borrow the guitar, and it will always be there for me, on a special hook, in her room.

One wet, miserable morning I sit snug and warm in her room, smug not to be out on the playing fields.

‘I’m sorry, I have a sore throat. You’ll have to do all the talking today!’ Trish explains, her voice deep and husky. She takes a yellow pack of throat lozenges from deep in her bag and offers one to me. She carefully peels the wrapper from the sticky sweet before popping it into her pink glossed mouth. She absent mindedly crushes the wrapper into a tiny ball

aren’t you?’‘Left ambi but this is fine, it’s

fine,’ I take the guitar and admire it proudly.

‘Really? I thought....’‘We all are. Well, a few right ambi,

but no right-handed.’ I place the strap around me carefully and just hold it. I give it an experimental strum and feel the sound pass into me and become part of me. She’s tuned it for me. I thank her twice, to make sure I say it right, as she bustles around me gathering music sheets and the blue marbled notebook she keeps for me. The pages have bulged and spread

Less is moreishLess water. Less air.

More taste.

Baker’s Choice wholemeal loaf

You’ve never had it so good

▲

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as long as you’re quiet. And you can listen to Andy’s latest masterpiece. I’m sure he won’t mind, will you? Andy?’

I don’t answer but get the guitar down from it’s hook on the wall. As I play Trish speaks softly to him. I glare across and thrash at the strings. Trish covers her mouth to stifle a giggle but I can see the laughter in her face and eyes. Laughing at me. A string breaks, and Trish finally looks over.

‘Never mind! Just change the string and carry on. Oh, and that was wonderful, really wonderful.’

I can hear the lie in her voice now. I’m finally in on the joke. I hop down off my chair, unstrap the guitar, and fumble trying to get it back on its hook before flinging it to the floor.

‘Andy! Careful...’‘But I don’t care any more, I’ve

had enough.’‘Even if you have, another of my

children might like to use it.’I can see from her face that she

has no idea what she just said. I’d like to reach up and pummel that face with my tiny bunched fists. Instead I dig them into my pocket, yelling,

‘Give them this from me, then, as well. I won’t be needing it.’

I hurl it, realising too late it’s the

in a stupid pantomime run barely faster than walking, holding her my notebook over her chest to flatten it.

‘I’m so sorry I’m late, I just got talking to Si, and you know... Well, never mind, what have you got for me today?’

Just like that she tells me. She calls him ‘Si’ now. Not Higgins. Not Simon. Si.

‘Nothing. They do give me real work here at the Academy as well, you know.’

Her startled look is satisfying. I regret it when we spend the lesson in practice. Afterwards, I re-read Higgins’ doctoral thesis, hoping to find some fatal flaw with which to humiliate him, but it’s dull and pedestrian. I try to find a way to work his epistemological timidity into general conversation, so Trish and I can laugh at him. But it’s their laughter echoing in my mind that keeps me awake.

The next time I meet Trish we’re in her room, but he’s there. Their chat took up practically quarter of an hour. When they finally tire of talking about nothing, Higgins hints casually that since he and Trish are going to lunch after, he might as well stay and wait.

‘Oh, I’m sure that will be alright,

little bastard?’ he says, and slams the door in my face.

I stand in the corridor, wondering if should I wait. They might be angry to come out and find me still here. If I leave...but they’re already angry. It makes no difference. I can’t face any more classes and head back to the dorm. The corridors are empty between lessons just as I prefer, and my paces sound hollow. I count them further and further away from her. I begin to feel lost, after walking the corridors for all these years. As if I will never reach the end. Feeling dizzy, I stop for a moment to catch my breath. I lean against the wall, panting, and reach for my phone with the app to help me. Instead my hand brushes against something and I think of the memories she gave me, still safe. Holding the stick tight, I know I can carry on. ▪

sweet she gave me, not the memory stick I’d reached for. She flinches, but it bounces off the wall behind her to land at her feet. I look at it lying there unnoticed and so easily crushed. She hasn’t seen it, mustn’t see it, I have to distract her somehow, be spared her pity. My mind races back through my research on her, searching for something to use as a weapon. I recall online support groups she belonged to in a flash of anger and triumph.

‘”Another of your children”... and which children are these? I didn’t think you had any, could have any. So I’m certainly not one of them!’

The words twist out of my mouth with furious release. Her face drains and she looks horribly confused for a moment. When she recovers, her face is a mask. I feel myself pinned under her dissecting gaze, sprawling helplessly.

‘No, you’re not one of my children. So get out, then. Just get out.’

I don’t move. Horrified, I wait hoping for her to somehow make it alright. Higgins, face blood red, comes and grabs my arm roughly and drags me out of the room. I am afraid because he is so much bigger than me, and what I have said is so wrong.

‘Proud of yourself, you

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I looked over at the woman at the counter, who stood idly flicking through a magazine. I realised she wasn’t old but closer to my age, just prematurely grey. She glanced up with a small smile. I looked down automatically, and pretended to carry on examining the comics. At last I finished and went over, avoiding her gaze. She wore light grey court shoes, beige slacks that stretched tight over a well rounded figure, and a colourful jumper with a loose neck that swallowed a plain necklace. I placed the comic squarely on the counter and recited,

‘Can you give me a price on that, please?’

‘Oh, the man who does these isn’t here, I shouldn’t really...’

‘Pound?’, I wheedled.‘Hmm, go on then, but let’s just

keep it between us.’A broad smile broke easily across

her face, spreading wrinkles that framed her eyes. She wrapped the comic snugly in a little brown paper bag, telling me that her brother read comics. I mumbled that I owned a comic shop on the high street, and

I pushed my way impatiently to the back of the charity shop, where I knew the books were. I hurried past

an old woman looking up from the till, and brushed past tangled hangers of discarded clothes, boxes of broken toys, jumbles of jigsaws and games. Ornaments sat on shelves waiting to be rescued, like dogs in a pound.

I reached the bookshelves and scanned them methodically: some books stood out in their new gloss, others were broken backed and spilling pages through re-reading. Pine air freshener cut through the musty odour. I knelt to examine the bottom shelves and spotted a battered box of comics. Excited, I leafed through them eagerly but thoroughly. Each one I remembered was like a friend from childhood. Bright covers now brittle and browning, tattered and torn like grazed knees. One gaudy title leapt out at me; it almost seemed to leap into my hand: an old E.C horror, ‘Doctor Weird’. I’d only ever seen reprints! A collector’s item, but...unpriced. I felt a rush of disappointment: if their buyer took a good look at it I’d never get a bargain.

TWO TO MAKE A BARGAINNear mint, preloved.

▲

I was excited on my way home, peeking at the comic through the thin paper. I’d sell it, but first I wanted to read it all to myself. Alone at last, I turned the pages gently, newsprint rough to the touch, gaudy ben-day

dots smudging beautiful line work. The usual E.C fare: brutally telegraphed twists, ending in cruel poetic justice.

Next morning I went to my shop, ‘Sidekicks’. I read the comic one last time before reluctantly appraising it for sale. Fair condition at best, due to fading. A little furniture polish gently rubbed into the glossy cover restored its sheen – fades, of course, but long after it’s been sold. I eased it into its own slippery mylar bag and

she said she well might pop in and buy something for him. Her eyes seemed to be laughing. I left feeling relieved, cradling the comic against my chest safely.

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couldn’t. I looked at her hopefully, but she was looking beyond me. She looked puzzled and then glared back at me with disgust before turning sharply and leaving. I turned and felt a lurch of horror on remembering the comic lurking there behind me. Doctor Weird seemed to be laughing at me from the cover. He had claimed his last victim. ▪

carefully inserted a backing board to protect it. I marked it up ‘£175 NEAR MINT’ and proudly displayed it on the board behind me.

The door chirped to indicate a customer, and I heard heels clicking across the hard floor. I looked up and saw her. I was confused but then she smiled warmly and I placed her. She made her way towards me past rows of neatly labelled comics and carefully arranged displays of tiny heroes sealed in plastic. I spread my arms expansively across my counter.

‘So you decided to visit me in my Little Shop of Horrors?’

‘Yes, it’s like an Aladdin’s cave! All these wonderful toys and comics, your children must love it!’

‘I don’t have any kids, so I get to keep it all to myself.’

‘Oh, you’re like a big kid. Your poor wife...?’

She let it hang, smiling encouragingly. I dimly perceived that she might have some purpose other than buying comics for her brother. I realised with alarm how pretty she was, suddenly feeling nervous and trapped behind my counter. I tried to think of something clever to say; something normal to say; something to say... The silence grew until surely one of us must break it, but I

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