 
# LOGIC BOMB

### By Dave Briggs

Published by Dave Briggs

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Dave Briggs

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person ,please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

1. One Dimension

2. The Experiment

3. The Beginning

4. House Hunting

5. A New Life

6. Logic Bomb

7. Unholy Trinity

8. Pandora's Box

9. The Dark Side

10. Medium Rare

11. Breakthrough

12. Contact

13. Full Circle

1 ONE DIMENSION

I make no claim that the story that you are about to read is an original idea but neither is it stolen from an original idea. All of the ideas that are being put forward have come directly from my imagination and experiences but for reasons that will become clear I did not research any of the material for this book, instead I spent a lot of time thinking logically about the whole story and how it could be proven. If you choose to believe what you are about to read it could have a profound effect on your view of life and perhaps even change your perception of what is the most important point of life.

I suppose it all started when I asked myself the age old questions 'Why are we here, what is the purpose of life and what happens when we die?' What followed next became a lifelong quest for the ultimate answer which I believe that I may have now found and, to help you understand this story and how it works, I would like to ask you to imagine something for me, I would like you to find a quiet room and spend five minutes sitting in the dark before closing your eyes and further imagining that you are in a coma type state and that you have no senses but you are still self aware. You can't interact with your surroundings but you know that they are there but, without your everyday senses what are you left with? All that you have are the memories of those senses and by expanding on this idea I began to understand how this could work as a theory to explain all of my questions.

In a three dimensional world EVERYTHING is three dimensional. Everything has Length, Depth and height and although some things may appear to be two dimensional this is just an illusion. A simple drawing of a line, for instance, would seem to be two dimensional but this is only because our eyes are simply not able to see the depth of the line because it is so small, even a full stop on this page is three dimensional.

Everything in the entire universe is made from atoms and particles which are three dimensional so therefore all of the matter in the universe is three dimensional and even though science fiction writers have often tried to imagine a fourth or even a fifth dimensional world (and have written stories involving these ideas), the truth of the matter is that even if there were a fourth dimension we would simply not be able to perceive it because we can only 'see' three dimensions.

A two dimensional world is a different matter entirely, a world that has length and height but no depth. A cartoon like The Flintstones would be a good example of a two dimensional world and if the characters were 'real' they would only ever see anything in their world as two dimensional in the same way that we see three dimensions, if a three dimensional object were to appear in their world they would still only see two dimensions of that object because, to them, the third dimension does not physically exist.

How about a one dimensional world? What would that world be like and what would the one dimension be?

Imagine a life-form that has no physical dimensions, it has no senses (Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Hearing) It is, however, self-aware.

Now imagine a second life-form that has three physical dimensions, It has five senses but is not self-aware. It relies totally on instinct to survive. Separately these beings can live an existence but it is debatable whether either of the beings can call their experience a life and it seems to me that the ideal solution to advance both life forms would be to combine them. If the self aware being could 'interface' with the physical being they could both benefit and develop as a single entity.

Perhaps we should take a closer look at the advantages and implications of this idea and see how it could work and what it would mean to both entities. Time, for instance, would not affect a being that has no physical attributes because, when you think about it, time is just a concept that is based on human observations of the movements of the (three dimensional) universe and of our position in that universe. To a one dimensional entity time does not exist!

For entirely different reasons the physical being will not acknowledge the passing of time because he is only reacting on instinct to live his 'life'. If the two entities were to combine however, the physical being would become self aware and begin to make sense of the world around him, while the self aware being would be able to experience life with five senses. The perfect solution for both entities! The problem with this idea is that the self aware being would believe that he was a physical being until the point that the physical being dies, then, and only then would he realise the truth.

As time does not affect our self aware being, theoretically, the moment that it 'interfaced' with the physical being it could experience all of the physical beings sensory experiences immediately. Everything that it will experience in its lifetime! If we can further assume that the self aware being is connected to every other self aware being then this would mean that the entire history (Past and Future) of the physical being would be known to the self aware being the moment that they 'interfaced'. To demonstrate how this could work you should .close your eyes and think about a place that you have visited in your lifetime. You should be able to visualise it quite clearly and recall details about it including the way that it smelt or sounded. You should, In fact, be able to experience any detail that your five senses noticed at the time. If this works with memories then perhaps it would work the same with 'memories' of events that you have not yet physically experienced but will be experienced later in your future life.

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# 2.THE EXPERIMENT

I thought for a long while about how to proceed with the experiments that would either prove or disprove this theory and I realised that the only way to make this theory work was to have 'faith' in it. So let us assume that this book is already written in the future and that all I need to do is to visualise it and 'read' the book, then write what I've read. Bit of a paradox, I know, but it should work.

So now that I am hooked into a book that is already written we come to experiment two. I know that experiment one doesn't actually prove anything and can only inevitably lead to experiment two and my next task was, how to make it work most effectively? I realised that the simplest way of testing the theory would be by predicting the winning numbers in the national lottery and that the first thing that I needed to do was familiarise myself with the national lottery TV programme so that I could visualise the draw and recall the numbers in my mind. Once this is done and I can recall them easily I can then move to stage two. Visualising future lottery draws!

On the face of it stage one would seem to be quite an easy task but needed some thought about how best to proceed to ensure success and it occurred to me that by stimulating two senses I would double my chances. I needed to see and also hear the draws so that I could train my mind to recall the information more accurately. The obvious way to proceed would be to watch the TV programme each week and memorise it but this method could take weeks to achieve a competent level of ability, the other way would be to find the information on the internet and study archived lottery draws. The latter option seemed to be the most sensible way forward and also the most convenient as I could, theoretically, access the information at any time.

So with the plan in place I turned my attention to the possible outcomes. If this plan works then I could become very rich, but surprisingly, this was not part of the plan! If I were to predict the lottery numbers and actually won the jackpot it would draw attention from the media before I was ready for them. I also wondered how long it would take the lottery company to stop me from playing if I was a consistent jackpot winner and I calculated that it would probably only take about three wins before they accused me of cheating or found some rule that prevents multiple wins, so, if the plan was going to work at all then I had to be a bit more inventive, I needed to work out a way of moving the experiment forward and completing it without anyone working out what I am doing. There was always a chance that the experiment would not work and in that case it wouldn't matter whether I kept things secret, but, what if it works first time?

I have a friend who delivers things all around the country so I enlisted his help and got him to buy the lottery tickets at random places, the idea being that if I were to have multiple wins it wouldn't draw attention by them all being bought in the same area. Now the only thing left to do was to find the information that I needed online and the plan was in business!

I initially thought that it would be an easy task to find previous lottery draws online but after hours of searching I had found nothing. The only information that I could find was on the National Lottery official site but it was no good to me as it was just a list of numbers that had been drawn over the last six months. The only way forward was to record the live draw programme and study it for at least a few weeks before trying to predict the future draws, not the best solution but the only option left open to me.

I needed to make a mental note of the kind of information that I needed to ensure the success of the experiment, I would need to listen to every inflection in the 'voice of the balls' to recall the information accurately enough and I would also need to know the pace, accent and word phrasing as well as the visual information. The easiest of these proved to be remembering the six numbers in the correct order and then seeing the numbers in my mind when I closed my eyes. The 'hearing' part of the experiment seemed to be a lot more difficult.

I decided that I would keep a diary of the experiment which I would like to share with you now. The passages that are written in italics have been retrospectively written, sometimes weeks or months after the original diary entry.

DAY ONE

Looked at the first recording of the draw. Tried to remember all six numbers. Failed miserably. Tried a few more times. Success! Great, now I can remember six numbers from last week's lottery. Progress? Had enough today. Will try again tomorrow.

The first day was a complete disaster. The evening that I had recorded the programme was a Saturday and as usual on a Saturday I had consumed a fair amount of alcohol (not really a good idea to start the experiment at this time) the numbers on the balls were Jumping all around the TV screen even though they weren't even in the machine any more, so, by the time I had closed one eye to stabilise the image on the screen and managed to focus on it the recording had finished I decided to freeze the image in order to see the numbers more clearly but it sill took another hour for me to realise that it was probably easier if I froze the image of the numbers at the END of the recording (when the numbers were in ascending order) and not when they had just fallen from the machine in random order. I eventually fell asleep while trying to listen to the 'voice of the balls'. All things considered it was not the best start to the experiment.

DAY TWO

Tried again. Found it easier this time. Was able to recall all six numbers easily. 'Seeing' the numbers not so easy. 'Hearing' the numbers very difficult. Progress?

Day two was actually a few months after day one because, as usual, life and work got in the way. It was, however, quite a productive one as I was now able to remember the six numbers without too much effort and also imagine seeing the numbers in my mind. I had a bit of trouble hearing the numbers because 'the voice of the balls' kept randomly changing accents in the middle of a sentence. It would start off quite normal and suddenly change to a Welsh or a Birmingham accent, which was amusing the first couple of times but soon became very irritating. On reflection I suppose that this was the turning point for the entire experiment because, for the first time, I realised that it could actually work.

DAY THREE

Found things a lot easier today. Able to focus more easily. Recalled numerous series of lottery numbers. Progress!

Day three was, again, at least a month later. This time I was able to remember the numbers without any problems but now I had a problem seeing them. I needed to find a way of improving my ability to visualise things if I was going to make this experiment work at all. It occurred to me that probably the best way to achieve this was to freeze the image of the balls on the screen and then stare at the screen for a while in the hope that the image would be 'burnt' into my memory. This technique should work with the current experiment but would it work with the next stage of the experiment?

The next few entries of the diary carried on in much the same vein so I will not bore you any further by relaying what was written but instead skip to the next, more interesting, entry.

DAY ELEVEN

All systems go! Ready to try stage two. Need a quiet room, right frame of mind and a lot of concentration. Six future numbers here I come!

The day had finally arrived where I would try to predict six numbers from a lottery draw that had not actually happened yet! I had spent months studying recordings and was able to recall all of the details from any of them. The one thing that I had overlooked was the fact that I was not able to say which particular set of numbers belonged to which particular weeks draw. Possibly a fatal flaw in the plan?

DAY TWELVE

Finally have six numbers. Will try them out on Saturday. Fingers crossed this is it!

Looking back at this entry I am surprised that I still didn't realise that the numbers that I had picked could potentially belong to any draw at any point in time. Doh! The chances of me actually winning with these numbers were no better than they would be if I had randomly picked them. .

DAY THIRTEEN

Not one number. Back to the drawing board. Not a happy bunny!

At the time I was very disappointed with the result of the first experiment, but, as it turned out it became another turning point in the overall scheme of things. I had decided to introduce a control set of numbers that were chosen at random by a computer in order for me to compare my results with the random results. I also ran a check on the numbers from day twelve and looked at the previous draw results from the last six months. This gave me a huge boost in confidence because I found that all six numbers had been drawn as the main balls in a previous draw four months before the experiment had started! I know that this could still have been a random event but I felt encouraged by it just the same.

At this time I really began believing that the experiment could work and I started to think about all the possible outcomes of it. As a little side experiment I decided to ask people what they would offer me in return for a genuine Jackpot winning lottery ticket and the results ranged wildly from the usual "I'd give you half" to the more unusual "I'd offer you sex" (From a guy!) It took me a while to persuade those people that I wouldn't need the money as I had won the jackpot the previous week but the next thing out of most people's mouths was "How do I know that it's a winner?" WTF! Here I am offering people a chance to solve their money problems for life and all they do is question my sincerity!

When you think about the question that I asked them you will realise that it is a very difficult one to answer because we have all become so used to living in a world that relies on money and material things that we have forgotten about what is truly important. I still have not found what I would call the perfect answer but have had some very interesting suggestions. What would I ask for in return for a winning ticket? Ideally I suppose it would have to be things like honesty, loyalty and integrity. Qualities that you Just can't buy with money.

I also find it quite a good way of spotting fake people as they are usually the first ones to offer me money or something that I could quite easily buy with money but once that choice is withdrawn they seem to run out of ideas and generally say something like "Well, if you have all that money what else do you need?" Wankers!

The experiment didn't progress any further for a few months and I decided that I needed to re-examine my methods and see what could be done to improve the results and, although I need all of time to be simultaneous for my theory to be correct, I find it ironic that the problems that I was having were caused by my inability to predict which set of numbers belonged with which days lottery draw!

Around this time I began having a strange recurring dream and in the dream I was walking down a long road. I was looking down at my feet as I walked along but was otherwise unaware of my immediate surroundings and my strides became progressively longer as if I were bouncing, leaping forward further and further with each step until I was no longer in touch with the pavement below my feet and began flying. While I was having the dream I was not aware that it was a dream but I always remembered it vividly in the morning. Maybe this could be a new way of making my experiment more productive. How? If I were able to realise that I was 'inside' a dream, hopefully, I should be able to take control of it and travel to anywhere that I want to go. (I have heard about this practice before and it is called 'astral projection' or 'remote viewing' but is usually performed while the person is conscious).

That evening I had decided to try the new technique and, hopefully, control and direct the dream, so, in order to encourage some dreaming I ate a large amount of cheese and pickles washed down with a few beers and I went to bed in the early hours of the morning. After about an hour of tossing and turning I had still not fallen asleep so decided to get up and go for a walk around the block. I threw some clothes on, grabbed my coat and headed out the door. The night air was cold and I pulled my coat tighter around my body in order to keep warm then walked off into the night. As I strode along the road I noticed that my stride was getting longer and I began bouncing down the road. This was it, the dream was on and I had suddenly become aware of it, perfect!

I turned myself around and headed back to the house, walked through the door and switched on the television then sat and waited to see the lottery results. As I watched and waited I became aware that I was not actually sitting in my own front room but was sat in someone else's house, but, as this was a dream I didn't think that it would matter too much and decided to raid the fridge.

After stuffing my face with some juicy chicken legs that had been marinated in the most amazing sauce that I have ever eaten I settled back down in front of the television with a few cans of beer and waited for the lottery programme to begin, but, for some reason, when it was finally on the programme only gave the results for the euro lottery and not, as I had expected, the national lottery results. I supposed that any results would do and so made a mental note of them anyway. All that remained to be done was to check the date so I looked over to the desk in the corner of the room and found a desk calendar that was showing 8th June 2012, just a week from now. Game on!

The next morning I woke up and immediately reached for the nearest pen and piece of paper to quickly jot down the numbers before I forgot them, oh yes this could be it, this could be the big one, I thought to myself, as I hurriedly threw my clothes on and rushed out into the street, not even stopping for my usual cup of tea.

I arrived at the shop and went straight to the lottery counter to fill out the slip with the numbers that I had dreamt of, my hand shaking with excitement as I drew the pen across the relevant numbers, double checked them and then neatly folded the slip and placed it in my wallet.

That evening I gave the ticket to my friend with the usual instruction to hand it in to a shop while he was on a delivery and he told me that he would do it the next day while he was working out near Stevenage in Herts. Was this it? Was this the start of something new? Something different? I had to wait a further week before I would know and, I've got to say, that was one of the longest weeks of my life!

I spent most of the week thinking about what could happen if I really did win and fantasising about the future. What would happen if I kept winning the lottery jackpot week after week? What would I do with all the money? Would I even bother claiming the money? These were the sort of questions that were going through my head all week and I had come to a decision. I had decided that if I were to win 'the big one' I would take a photograph of the ticket and then destroy the ticket! Sounds insane, I know, but if I do it that way I will not be able to cash it in and can focus on repeating the experiment in the future.

On the morning of the draw I woke early and went straight to the table in the corner of the room where I kept the ticket, took a photo of it and reached for my lighter. I couldn't believe that I was about to set fire to a possible winning lottery ticket! It took about ten minutes before I managed to find the courage to put the lighter to the ticket but I had convinced myself that I had to destroy it before the draw took place otherwise the temptation to keep it and claim the prize money may prove too much.

I spent the rest of the day trying to keep myself busy doing things that didn't involve studying numbers or anything related with the experiment but didn't really achieve much because all I could see were numbers everywhere, On the front of the bus that went past me as I walked to the pub, _inside_ the pub because they were having a bingo matinee in the lounge bar, in the Chinese restaurant on the menu board and even on my fridge door! I was seeing numbers wherever I looked and I was beginning to doubt my own sanity. The only way out of this was to put on some loud rock music, whack on the headphones and get hammered!

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# 3.THE BEGINNING

When I finally came round it was the early hours of the next morning, I had a monster headache and was feeling like shit but still felt excited as I hurried to switch on my laptop. My heart was pounding almost as much as my head as I logged on and launched my internet browser come on, come on, bloody internet,I was getting impatient as I waited (partly because I was busting for a pee), finally the screen burst into life and opened straight to the lottery result website. I stared for a moment at the screen, my eyes straining to focus on the numbers 5,11,22,34,40 and bonus balls 9 and 11. "Bugger me! I've done it!" I staggered back from the table that held the laptop and my legs suddenly gave way as I flopped into my armchair.

The reality of the situation slowly filtered through my headache ravaged brain, which was now buzzing with a sudden massive increase in adrenalin. I had predicted the winning Euro lottery numbers and destroyed the ticket! What kind of lunatic Muppet does something that bloody idiotic? I walked back to the table and looked at the screen of the laptop again, this time secretly hoping that I would see a different set of numbers, but there they were staring back at me. "Oh bugger!" I didn't want to know how much money I'd lost but the masochist inside me took over and I looked anyway. For the second time in as many minutes I flopped back into my armchair "Bollocks, Bollocks, and double Bollocks!" I swore to myself for the next five minutes in the same way that you do when your brain drip feeds information to you the morning after a particularly heavy night on the booze and you remember how embarrassing you were.

Once I had managed to calm down I thought that I had better reassess the situation before I became suicidal. "Okay" I said to no-one in particular "Let's have a look at the situation; on the one hand, I've possibly taken the experiment to a whole new level. On the other hand, this could have been my one and only chance to win a shed load of wedge. Sixty odd million quid! Bollocks! I hoped that this wasn't a fluke random win and that I hadn't just blown my one and only chance of changing my life so the next few days were spent re-evaluating my plans. What would happen if I could re-create the results of this experiment? What else would I be able to manipulate? The stock markets? Horse racing? The possibilities were endless and the opportunities staggering.

I thought that it would be a good idea to have some fun before I got down to the serious side of the experiment especially as the next five weeks proved to be massively successful and I managed to predict every lottery draw. I didn't cash in any of the winning tickets but I didn't destroy them either because I had other plans for them. I intended to use the same idea that they used in the film 'The million pound note' so, firstly, I would need to publicise my lucky streak by hitting the tabloids, then the television and then exploit the ensuing confusion; from there I would have a handy springboard for the serious side of the plan.

I waited for a quiet day in the news before 'phoning the news desk of a national tabloid and told them that I had won five lottery jackpots out of the last five weekend draws. It took me a while to persuade the girl on the other end of the 'phone that this wasn't some kind of wind up but eventually she became very excited and was asking if I would be willing to tell my story "It would be great if we had some kind of human interest 'sob story' to accompany the piece" She added.

It was arranged that a photographer and a 'Top' story teller would be round to visit that afternoon and I spent the rest of the morning tidying my flat and hiding any evidence of the things that I had been researching. There was a knock at my door at about three in the afternoon, I walked slowly to the door (I didn't want to appear too eager) and pulled it open to reveal two smart looking young guys 'bloody Jehovah's witnesses' I thought to myself and had to stop myself from laughing when they introduced themselves as the two journalists that I had been expecting. I invited them in and offered them a cup of tea before sitting them down on my sofa; they were more like journalists by now as one of them had magically made an ipad appear in his hands as he asked, "You don't mind if I take a few notes do you?" He was looking around the flat as he spoke and seemed to be disapproving of something that he had seen because he definitely looked down his nose as he continued, "All done electronically now though, all I need to do is type stuff down, Bounce it up to a passing satellite, Fire it back down to the office and it's in the late edition. Bosh, Bosh" he exclaimed, whilst manically waving his arms around like a demented octopus.

"Fer fuck sake will you stop bouncing around? I'm spilling me tea on me camera!" his friend cried out, "lets just get on with this"

"Sorry" he replied, looked sheepish and instantly switched into 'professional twat' mode. "So, Mr Briggs, I understand that you are a multiple lottery winner and you would like to tell us your story? How many wins are we looking at? Two? Three?.... Do you have any biscuits, choccy ones?"

Cheeky bastard, I thought, as I smiled and shook my head at him. "Actually it's five wins... all jackpots and all consecutive wins" 'Camera boy' choked on his tea at this revelation and an exclamation of "Fuck me!" came from the other end of the sofa. "So just how much have you won?" Don't you just want to slap some people sometimes?

"Don't you want to know how I did it?" I asked, "And how long have I been winning?"

"You mean there's more?" Camera boy had recovered from his sudden coughing fit and now stared at me wide-eyed as he asked the question, "no" I lied, quickly as I remembered that I didn't want them to know about the BIG win just yet, (that little bombshell could wait until the next stage of things). Amazingly the mere mention of millions of pounds changed the atmosphere in the room instantly and the two journos became a lot more respectful towards me so that the remainder of the interview was conducted on a much more professional level.

By the time they left my flat the two journos had taken photographs of all of the tickets together, verified their authenticity, checked where they were bought, asked why they were bought in different locations and how I did it. I told them that they were bought in different places because I did a lot of travelling around and tended to buy them when I had the chance. As for the choice of numbers, I just told them that I dream the numbers (not exactly a lie, but I needed a trump card for later down the line). I also told them that I would be putting the tickets in a safety deposit box until I had decided what to do with the money. They seemed very happy with the interview and promised to be in touch.

The next few weeks were totally manic once the news had broken and I received numerous 'phone calls from people wanting money, people wanting interviews, people wanting to marry me, people wanting to wish me luck and people who wanted to kill me because they thought that I had made a pact with the devil! Time to move things on a bit, time to live like a king and wreak havoc on the world!

I arrived at the Aston Martin dealers shortly after they opened one Wednesday and was immediately approached by a smart looking salesman who asked the inevitable question "Can I help you sir?"

"Certainly you can", I began, "I would like a DB9 please"

"I'm sorry sir but you can't just walk in off the street and buy one, there's a waiting list" he sneered, looking me up and down as he sniffed loudly, then choked as his eyes finally looked at my face "I'm sorry sir, erm, I'm afraid that I didn't recognise you immediately sir" He stammered, then continued, "But I'm afraid that the answer is still no"

"Who owns the one on the forecourt?" I asked innocently, "That one would do just fine"

"Er, well, er I'm afraid that one is mine sir, I took delivery of it yesterday". I already knew this fact as I had been doing a bit of research, (It's amazing the information that you gain by looking on the internet), I had found out the names of all the people awaiting delivery on this particular model.

Incoming! "But would you like to exchange it for one of my winning tickets?"

"Which one?" He asked, almost dribbling at the thought. Gotcha!

I explained to the salesman that I had put all of my winning tickets 'On ice' for a month or two but would love to buy his car from him right there and then, within minutes I was driving down the road with a brand new Aston Martin DB9. Blinding! That was so easy, greedy bastard, he gave himself away as soon as he recognised me and became a heavyweight arselicker, sir this and sir that, I mimicked to myself in the driving mirror, wanker! All I needed to do was to tell him that he must accompany me to the bank on the day I cashed in the tickets and that I would pay him double what he paid for the car, Simple.

"But how do I know that I can trust you to do that......Shouldn't we draw up a contract or something?" he asked, "Take a look at any banknote that you have in your pocket and read it," I replied, "It says 'I promise to pay the bearer on demand blah, blah, blah', and continued with "You don't know this geezer from Adam but you still believe that statement makes this piece of paper worth something, right......?" I hesitated long enough to catch the salesman nodding, and then followed it with "So, here's the deal, I am a man of my word and if I say that I will give you double bubble for your car then that is what you will get, now do we have a deal or not?" He seemed to be caught off guard by my last statement and began mumbling and tutting to himself before greed lit up his eyes again and he said "But .., Mr Briggs..., just now I thought the offer was originally for a full winning ticket value?"

"That was the case but not now I'm afraid, you hesitated and the price dropped. Look at it this way, If you go along with this deal, in a few weeks you can have the Aston and enough money to buy another one."

His hand shot out and grabbed mine "Okay, done, but you must promise me to return when you are going to collect your winnings and you will pay me double, yes?" He began shaking my hand wildly before he snatched it back, turned smartly to his office and disappeared inside. Moments later he reappeared clutching some paperwork and a set of keys, "All yours" he said, as he tossed me the keys "Been a pleasure doing business with you Mr Briggs," he called out as I disappeared into the street, I threw him a wave and shouted back "See you in a few weeks." He shoots, he scores, boom! As I drove off down the street I couldn't help but wonder what the salesman was going to tell his wife when he arrives home without the Aston and I smiled to myself as Jack and the beanstalk came to mind. Priceless!

Next on the 'to do' list was to find somewhere new to live. Things had become a bit crazy since the news of my wins had become public and I had people constantly harassing me for a variety of reasons, on the 'phone, in person, by email and by snailmail. Some were after a handout, some were trying to give me 'advice' on how I should invest or spend the money, some were threatening to kill me as I was 'clearly' in league with the Devil, some were asking for the secret of my dreams and some were merely offering congratulations for my success but ALL were becoming a nuisance. On the plus side though, I had been getting all sorts of freebies since the news broke, which I found quite ironic because for the first time in my life I could actually afford anything that I wanted to buy, (although this didn't stop me from accepting the things that I was being offered).

I had decided that it would probably be a good idea to move to a better location, somewhere a little more private, and began looking in some of the more upmarket estate agents for something suitable when, after a month of searching, I spotted the perfect place. It was quite secluded, surrounded by a few acres of grounds, had good security arrangements and was, above all, quiet.

The estate agent was an oily twat of a bloke who looked down his nose at me from the moment he saw me, (I don't know about you but those kind of people really creep me out, always wringing their sweaty little hands like some kind of hammy scrooge, bowing and scraping because they think that money must be shown that level of respect and they always stink of some poxy designer after shave mixed in with bloody garlicky breath!), I knew that this was going to be a bit of a challenge. Well here goes nothing, I thought to myself as I began giving him my pitch "Right, I would like to make you an offer on one of your properties and move in tonight if that is at all possible and I'm prepared to pay whatever it costs" He looked me up and down and sniffed loudly before saying, "I'm sorry sir but I'm afraid that's just not possible no mater how much money you have." I got right up in his face and said, "Listen to me very carefully because this offer is a one time deal and could make you quite a rich man but there are conditions," Before he could interrupt I carried on, "I would like to offer you one of my winning lottery tickets in exchange for this property." I shoved the paperwork related to the house under his nose and continued, "I will not be paying for the property straight away but considering that I will be paying a minimum of 1.3 million for a place that is only worth a million on a good day, I think that you have a good deal, don't you?" The Estate Agent backed away and replied "But Mr Briggs, You don't understand, there is paperwork to be done and..."

"Fuck the paperwork" I interrupted, "I've done some research on the property and it seems that the owner has just inherited the property and is living abroad so, number one he won't be expecting any money from the sale of the property just yet and number two, if you cash the winning ticket you can send him just enough money to cover the cost of the sale and everyone's a winner." The Estate Agent looked at me with increasing irritation and continued down his legal road, "But that would be illegal Mr Briggs because by giving YOU the property in exchange for a winning ticket and then passing on a PART of that money to the seller I would be committing fraud..."

Fucking jobs worth! Time for a different tactic "Okay then, what do you think would happen if I approached the seller and offered the same deal?" I looked him directly in the eye, hoping he would see sense and go for it and he began spluttering,

"But Mr Briggs it's ILLEGAL and...." He began to go redder and redder in the face and at one point I thought that he might explode like they do in the cartoons, I smiled to myself at the image that I had created in my mind and struggled not to laugh out loud as I jumped in with, "Right then, how about if I cut the ticket out of the equation and cash it in myself then GIVE the money to you?"

Talk to me like a dummy and I'll talk back to you JUST the same way, wanker!,

"All YOU need to do is let me stay in the property until I cash up the ticket, I don't see a problem with that, do you?"

"Well..." He began, "I suppose that provided the paperwork is in order once the sale goes through.......maybe..." I could see that he was beginning to weaken and thought Carpe Jugulum!

"And you would have about a quarter mill in the bank plus commission." His eyes grew wider and he visibly deflated. Kaboom!

Ten minutes later I was walking down the road swinging a loaded up key fob around my middle finger, the keys to my new home. Job done!

#

#

# 4 HOUSE HUNTING

While I was looking for a place to live I came across an old newspaper report regarding a property that I had been interested in buying. Apparently the owner was a bit eccentric and, at some point in the seventies, had become paranoid about everything from 'The Russian threat', to rapists and burglars and so he had plans drawn up for an underground 'Panic room', although, after looking at the plans it seemed to me to be more like a 'Panic Complex'. The underground part of the property seemed to take up most of the grounds of the property and was divided into sections that were labelled with things like 'Living area' or 'Ablutions' etc. Ablutions! FFS! Who EVER calls it 'Ablutions', very eccentric. Pillock!

The locals had objected to his plans (Although I can't understand why. I mean, it's not as if it would spoil anyone's view or have any of the drawbacks related to more orthodox extensions to a house), and the plans were seemingly dropped but I had found further evidence that he may have gone ahead with the building anyway.

Some months after the original plans had been submitted to, and been turned down by the local authorities, an application had been received regarding the boundary wall around the property. The owner wanted to raise the height of the wall from two metres to three metres and at the same time re-landscape the ground around the property. Planning permission had been granted and the work had been done during the mid seventies, there were no more official records regarding the property after this time.

I had also discovered that the owner had recently died and had left his entire estate to a distant relative who lived abroad and who probably would not know anything about 'secret rooms' (if they existed). Because of its location, size and relative seclusion the property was listed as being worth about a million quid (reasonable for that kind of property but what I would call 'a right result' if there is actually an underground complex!) The only thing left to do was to check out the property and see for myself whether the underground part actually existed.

Stealth mode was required for this job so I decided to ditch the Aston and walk the last mile to the house and as I approached my heart began to beat faster, my mind racing with the possibilities that I may be about to uncover, what might be down there? had the owner been preparing for war? Would it have a stash of weapons? Would it have generators or a proper electricity supply? I was about to find out.

It was only when I turned the final corner that I realised that I hade been walking past the property for a couple of minutes and as I looked back down the road the full size of the three metre wall suddenly hit me. Bollocks, no ladder! I carried on walking towards what I hoped was the entrance and my heart sank as I saw the huge double gates firmly padlocked and barring my way. It was still daylight, thankfully, and I stared through the gaps in the gate looking for any signs of an underground building. The one thing that did strike me as odd was the total lack of trees and bushes and the grounds seemed to consist of just neatly mown grass, gravel paths and a lot of small hillocks with odd looking sculptures on top of them. I suppose the lack of trees and bushes could be interpreted as signs of underground structures because you wouldn't want any strong roots bursting through your roof!

I was about to give up when I caught sight of something glinting in the sunlight and strained my eyes to see, Bollocks, no binoculars!

As I climbed up the ladder and reached the top of the wall the mission impossible theme tune began playing in my head.

Dum, Dum, Dada, As I stood on top of the wall.

Dum, Dum, Durda, As I slid myself down the other side

Dum, Dum, Dada, As I stood up and tried to look cool

Dum, Dum, Durda, As I decided to throw myself into a roll across the lawn, Spy stylee!

Doggy do, Doggy do, As I rolled straight through a pile of Fox crap! Bollocks!

After cleaning myself off as best I could I walked straight over to the place that I had seen the glinting and spotted a small domed piece of glass that was about six inches in diameter and had a dimpled texture. It was just a path light, Bugger! Now that I was standing beside the light I could see that there were two rows of lights, one on either side of the gravel path that ran up to the house. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

There was something familiar looking about the sculptures though, something that became obvious when I got close enough to see them properly. The one that I was now stood in front of was a series of twisted tubing that seemed to be growing organically out of the ground, its 'roots' disappearing into the grassy hillock. I leaned in closer and put my ear to one of the pipes as I rapped my knuckles against it, ( the pipe, not my ear), and heard a distant echo that came from deep below the hillock, The pipes were not sculptures but some kid of vent, Bingo! Okay then, job done, time to get out of here I walked back over to the wall and then realised, Bollocks, no ladder! Oops. I looked around desperately for something that I could use to scale the wall but found nothing.

`I could see the headlines now, 'eccentric lottery winner found dead in deserted gardens' Or 'loony lottery winner eats his own leg in house of horrors!' (on the front page of the tabloids), I needed to find a way out, fast!

Around the back of the house the only thing that I managed to find was a large wooden water-butt that was about three feet high and full of water. Luckily it had a small brass tap fitted to the front of it but would probably still take about half an hour to empty it down to a manageable level before I could move it. I leaned down and opened the tap and as the water began almost dribbling out of the barrel I decided to take the opportunity to walk around the house and inspect the grounds to look for more signs of an underground complex. I had noticed that, in addition to the path lights leading to the house, there were also a number of other rows of lights scattered around the rest of the grounds, some converging with others at right angles while others led to the hillocks or seemed to just end abruptly. As soon as I took a closer look at the path lights I realised that they were not lighting a path at all but were in fact 'Sun pipes' (pipes that have a highly reflective inside surface that magnifies any light passing through them and might possibly be used to light a corridor!) Suddenly I knew that I just had to buy this property, if only to find out what was hiding in the corridors beneath it.

I ran back to the water butt, It must be empty by now, time to go.

The next half hour was spent trying to empty the barrel by hand before rolling it over to the wall, a task made a lot more difficult as the area around the barrel was now a large mud patch! The first attempt went badly tits-up because as soon as I pushed against the barrel in an effort to get it over on its side my shoes just didn't get any grip and decided to go sliding out behind me, Faceplant!

By the time I actually managed to get the barrel into position at the base of the wall I was covered from head to toe with mud and feeling knackered but I was also buzzing with the excitement of my latest discovery, wicked, my own war bunker. I clambered up on the barrel and reached up to the top of the wall with the spiderman theme tune playing in my head,

Spiderman, Spiderman.....Shit I'm out of shape! As I desperately heaved myself up onto the wall with my elbows.

Does whatever a............ spider can.......Fuckin' hate spiders. As I slid back down the wall and almost missed the top of the barrel.

spins a web..... any size. bugger me I'm getting to old for all this bollocks.

I finally managed to heave myself up on to the top of the wall and laid there for a while until I got my breath back, Spiderman? I felt more like Slugman and smelt like a skunk, but I was very happy!

I had originally spotted the ladder after returning to my car and driving around the area for a while and the guy that had lent it to me looked both surprised and disappointed when I knocked at his door to return it,

"Blimey what happened to you?" He asked, looking me up and down, "I was hoping you might take a bit longer so I could nip round me bruvvers in yer motor." (I had left him the keys to the Aston in exchange for the loan of the ladder that I had spotted propped up at the front of his house)

"You can use it until I get back with them," I had told him as I carried off the ladder,

"I'll be at least a couple of hours."

As it turned out it had been nearer four hours but the man wasn't complaining, He'd been driving the Aston around for most of that time and had used a serious amount of my petrol but it was worth it because at least it was a safer than leaving it on the street or in a car park. "Oh...it's a long story...." I began, but was cut short as he jumped in with,

"And what the fuck is that smell?"

"It was a failed attempt at 'Ethan Hawke' involving some fox crap", I replied nonchalantly.

He looked at me in a very puzzled way and seemed to decide that it was probably not a good idea to pursue that particular line of questioning and ended up saying "Oh.....right ...er....I'll just.... go and get your keys then", and he disappeared back into the house, reappearing almost instantly, waving my keys in his hand,

"Here you go, thanks for that...driving that motor about was one of the best things I've EVER done in my whole life and if you ever want to borrow me ladders again.......well....er .....give me a bell................... or something," he finished, lamely.

"Oh,.....right, thank YOU for the loan of the ladders", I replied.

If that's the best thing you've ever done in your life, man you are one sad git.

#

#

# 5 A NEW LIFE

It felt good as I pushed back the gates of my newest purchase and drove the Aston slowly up the gravel path, (not a bad haul when you consider that I hadn't actually cashed in ANY of my lottery tickets), but I was becoming a bit disillusioned by the reality of owning a car like the Aston. Yeah, okay, it turns heads as it purrs down the high street but it also makes people jealous, never gets out of second gear around town, DRINKS petrol and would probably have a much better life with somebody else. This car needs to be driven, properly, out on the open road and flat out! Time to call the salesman again.

"Yeah...hi...it's Mr Briggs here", I began, "Listen, about the Aston....I've changed my mind, you can have it back......the deals off"

"But, Mr Briggs, I've already ordered its replacement and my wife has spent the remainder of the money.........you can't...." He spluttered and I interrupted,

"Well, look, if you've managed to do that without my money then I guess you didn't need it in the first place"

"But...but....but" He stammered.

Now you're starting to sound like a cheap Japanese motorbike!

I could imagine his face going redder and redder and heard his breathing becoming more rapid, panicky, and thought that I had better put him out of his misery before he had a major heart attack.

"It's okay, I will of course reimburse you generously for the use of the car and wear and tear" I reassured him.

"Oh thank you Mr Briggs thank......." he stopped abruptly, "what do you mean wear and tear? You haven't had the car for very long"

"Ah.....yes.....well, never mind that, when can you come and pick it up?" I inquired.

After arranging for the car to be picked up that afternoon I opened the front door to the house and stepped inside, Wow! This is not what I had expected.

The house looked far bigger on the inside than it did on the outside, mainly because most of the interior walls at the front side of the building had been removed and a lot of the downstairs floor was open plan with a spiral staircase that seemed to magically spring out of the floor and snake its way up to a first floor landing that was designed to look like a gallery. I wanted to explore the house but thought that it was more important to find the hidden panic room. C'mon Dave, where to start looking?

There was nothing obvious that pointed to an underground entrance, although I suppose that was the reason it hadn't been found by the surveyors.

What did you expect, a fucking great red neon sign saying 'this way to the secret bunker' with a big flashing arrow? c'mon man. think.

The floor of the entire living area was covered with oak parquet flooring that had been laid out in a herring-bone pattern, while the kitchen area was covered with large black quarry tiles. It didn't take very long to see that there were no seams, hinges, buttons or levers that might indicate an entrance so I quickly gave up in favour of having a good old-fashioned poke around the house. It was only when I got onto the gallery and looked back down into the ground floor that I noticed that there was a very clear pattern on the floor below, something that you can only fully appreciate by viewing it from above.

As I screwed my eyes up to try and see the pattern more clearly I realised that there was a dark V shape running the entire length of the floor that was pointing to the front door and seemed to be indicating towards the direction of the porch, the one place that I hadn't yet checked. No, it couldn't be that simple. surely?

I raced down the spiral stairs and ran to the front door, nearly killing myself in the process, threw open the front door and looked at the floor. It was just like any other porch area, concrete covered with two large pieces of slate with no sign of a handle or door outline. Along one end of the porch there was a large ornately carved wooden seat that almost covered one of the slates and seemed to be organically growing out of the ground in the same way that the sculptures in the garden had. Interesting, this needs further investigation. and I walked over to get a closer look.

I nearly jumped through the roof when the door bell suddenly sounded and I looked round to see the car salesman grinning at me from the doorway. Bollocks, I forgot about him. Bit late to hide now Dave, better just smile and deal with the twat!

I threw him a smile as I pulled the outside front door towards me and gestured for him to enter, then I noticed it. There was a gap between the slate and the doorstep that was only noticeable with the door open, a gap probably large enough to get my fingers down. I quickly looked back to the salesman's face and launched straight into defence mode,

"Oh hi, come in.......I suppose that you will be wanting your keys, I can't offer you a cuppa or anything at the mo 'cos none of my stuff has arrived yet," I looked down at my watch ( Or rather, where my watch would have been if I actually wore one) " They should have been here by now."

"Mr Briggs," He interrupted, "I've had a look at the car and noticed a lot of scratches down the side of it, What happened?"

"Ah yes, the scratches.," I began, "They were the result of a lot of jealous people with some keys. That sort of thing happens when you park your car anywhere other than in your own garage I'm afraid. Still, most of it will buff out ok" He immediately went into 'cheap motorbike' mode,

"But...but ...but....but, bloody hell, It's a class motor! You can't just 'buff it out' Mr Briggs!"

Fuck off you twat! It's only a poxy motor, no-one died, no-one was hurt, Pillock!

I smiled at him again and decided that it was probably favourite to 'sweeten the pot' a bit. "Tell you what, how about I give you the next jackpot winning numbers as reimbursement for everything and you drive away with the motor right now?"

His jaw almost hit the floor as the question hit him right between the eyes and he staggered a bit before replying, "Thi....thi....this weeks lottery winning jackpot numbers? His eyes were as big as saucers as he looked up at me from his crumpled position Bingo!

"One condition though, I tell you the numbers and you don't write them down. You remember as many numbers as you can and you win what you win. Maybe, if you have a good memory, you get to win the jackpot, sound okay?"

He nodded vigorously and almost dribbled as he said, "Oh yes, Mr Briggs, that would be most agreeable."

"I will say the numbers just once so listen very carefully..........ready?"

He nodded again as he screwed up his face in concentration, ( I think that was what he was doing, either that or he had a sudden attack of wind). I closed my eyes and pulled an image into my mind of the six winning numbers, (I had improved my 'talent' considerably since my early attempts and by now only needed to close my eyes, slowly pulling a row of six balls with numbers on them into focus, while at the same time 'hearing' the number of each ball)

"Ok, eyes down for a full house, here we go, in ascending order, Three, Eleven, Twenty three, Twenty eight, Thirty and Forty eight" I rattled them off as quickly as they came into my head,

"What, slow down, what number came after Twenty three? I'll never remember them all," he whined.

"Just remember Threes, eights, twenties and eleven, easy,.. see?"

"Thanks Mr Briggs, I must dash, got to get to a newsagent quickly before I forget them all." He turned to go and almost fell out of the porch, tripping on his own feet as he went

"I think you might get there quicker if you take these" I said, as I tossed him the keys to the car. He caught them in one hand, opened the door, jumped in and fired the engine up. The window immediately opened and I heard him shout, "What the fuck is that smell?" as he sped off down the drive, kicking up most of the gravel on the way. Twat!

A few weeks later I discovered that the Jackpot had not been won for that week. I just hope that he managed to remember five numbers but I suppose that he must have been happy with his winnings because I didn't see him again.

As soon as the Aston disappeared out of sight I turned my attention to the gap that I had spotted earlier and had just bent down to take a closer look when the familiar sound of crunching gravel filled the air. For fuck sake, what now?

I looked up in the direction of the gates and saw a large removal lorry trundling up the drive towards the house, Bollocks!

''ello mate, nice gaff.......You wan' it straight through the front?" The driver seemed a friendly enough bloke, built like a brick outhouse and with a face that would frighten small children. He jumped down from the cab as soon as the vehicle came to a halt and shouted, "C'mon Joe, get that back down so's we can get this lot off an' get to the boozer," He was calling out to his mate that had magically appeared at the back of the van, a large set man that looked like he might be related to the missing link, an image that was only made worse when he just grunted his reply to the driver and wrenched open the back end of the lorry. crash! Down came the door and out rolled half of my belongings all over the path, "Oi, careful Joe, you don't wanna break anyfing," the driver shouted as he turned to me, rubbed his hands together and said,

"Righto then, you get the kettle on while we get this lot unloaded. Sorry about Joe, He's a bit slow but he does a good job and he is family after all. Gotta look after family."

I reminded him that I had no means of making tea until they had unloaded it and that seemed to spur them on because it only took them an hour to unload the entire contents of the lorry after that.

Once everything had been put in its place, the removal men had been fed and watered and all the breakages had been disposed of Joe suddenly jumped up out of his chair and said "C'mon then Bert, best get movin' 'fore the boozer shuts" and he headed for the door. Bert got up after him and extended his hand towards me, palm up.

"Cheers fer the cuppa Mr Briggs, it is usual to offer a tip to the driver on these occasions."

"You should think yourself lucky that I'm not charging you for the breakages, cheeky bastard. You want a tip? Don't wipe your arse with a broken bottle," I replied, as I ushered him towards the door and Joe disintegrated into a fit of giggles

"Don't wipe your arse with a broken bottle" he repeated, "That's a good one that is"

Bert didn't look quite so amused and just snorted at me, "Tight git!, hit the road Joe" as he barrelled through the door.

It was beginning to get dark by the time I had got rid of the removal men but, hopefully, it was still light enough to see what I needed to see. I pushed my fingers into the gap in the slate and felt around for some kind of catch or release mechanism,

'Hope this bloody thing doesn't open inwards or I'm in the crapper!'

I could definitely feel a draught coming from below but felt nothing else,

What would Indiana Jones do? Probably blow it up with dynamite or hit it with a sledgehammer! Think Dave, think.

After about half an hour of fruitless activity I walked over to the bench and sat down and spent a further fifteen minutes racking my brains for the answer. The bench, as I explained earlier, was intricately carved, too intricately. Could this be what I was looking for? The back of the bench was a large piece of oak that had a meadow scene carved into it, a large tree at one side of it and a vine on the other. The vine wound itself around the arms of the bench and down the leg. Its leaves were interspersed with small carved flowers and the whole thing seemed to be morphing into the floor. No clues here. As I sat thinking I began tapping my hand on the arm of the bench and was about to give up for the night when I heard something click and I looked down to see that I had tapped on a flower that had been carved into the arm, the centre of which was a small button. Immediately I heard a noise from below that sounded like a motor whirring and the slab in front of the door dropped by about two inches and began retracting under the house to reveal a shaft with a metal ladder bolted to one of its walls. Eureka!

As I climbed slowly down the ladder into the shaft with my heart beating its way out of my chest I realised that instead of becoming darker it seemed to be getting lighter as I descended until I finally reached the bottom of the shaft.( I know what you're thinking but, no, I didn't have the Indiana Jones theme tune going through my head as I went down the ladder :P ) The ladder was bolted to the wall immediately below the inner front door and went down for about fifteen feet before disappearing into the concrete floor below. Once I reached the bottom of the shaft I turned one hundred and eighty degrees and found myself looking down a long corridor that ran the full length of the garden path above and at once realised where the light was coming from. The sun pipes! Of course.......wait a minute though.....it's dark outside......how does......?

As I stared up at the concrete roof of the corridor I noticed that, in addition to the Sun pipes that I had discovered all over the grounds, there was another two rows of similar sized lights, LEDs!. I later discovered that the sun pipes lit the corridors during the daylight hours but also contained solar panels that charged the LED lighting and the whole thing was hooked up to a detector that switched between the two dependant on the light level outside. Genius! All of the walls were covered with a slightly reflective white paint in order to maximise the effect of any available light, although, I think that if you spent any amount of time in there you would probably develop quite a headache. A bit too clinical for my liking but very functional all the same. Time for a bit if exploring.

Halfway down the corridor on the left hand side I found a large oak door which led into a library/study area, (It looked just like one of those libraries that you see in stately homes, wood panelled walls with a leather topped table and bookcases like skyscrapers) The bookcases were packed with, not only books, but also DVDs, Videos and newspaper clippings and were divided under different headings like, 'Factual', 'Myths and Legends', cover-ups and fiction. I was amused to find that a copy of the bible had been filed under the heading 'Fiction' but the section that interested me more was the cover-up section. Every conspiracy theory case that I had ever heard about was represented on those shelves, Everything from JFK, The Moon landings, 911 and Area 51 to Yetis and The loch Ness monster! Man, this guy had some pretty serious paranoia issues.

I could have spent hours in the library but was desperate to explore the rest of my new found 'property' so, after about forty minutes I looked around for the exit and was surprised to find that the only door in the room was the one that I had entered by. There had to be another door somewhere, maybe in the bookcase? I began tapping on the walls with my knuckles to see if I could find any hollow sounding areas that might indicate another corridor beyond the walls of the library and had been tapping for about ten minutes before I found it, again on the left hand wall. Aha, here we go. Bollocks, no door handle!

It took about another ten minutes before I found the door release mechanism, (Another 'flower button' carved into a shelf support at the side of the hollow area), and I stepped through the door into another brightly lit corridor that led to an equally brightly lit and very large room. I guessed that by now I must be directly under the main house. Fuck me, it's Mission control!

I had walked into a room that looked like it belonged to NASA. A long bench-type table ran the full length of one wall and the wall itself was covered with flat screen monitors of various size that all seemed to feed back to a massive computer that stood in the far corner of the room, there was some serious surveillance equipment in this room! Once I had managed to switch everything on I discovered that there was a camera in every room in the main house as well as a dozen in the garden and one in every room in the complex, (like I said, serious surveillance), each one was fitted with motion detection and each one was pivoted to follow any movement. ALL were backing up to the computer. This could come in handy if things work out to plan, Dave.

It was getting late by now so I switched everything off and headed back to the main house to get some sleep. It had been a very long day and I was feeling completely knackered, the rest of the exploring could wait until the morning.

For the next few weeks I spent the majority of my time exploring the complex, familiarising myself with its systems and reading various books from the extensive library. The entire complex was completely self sufficient and totally off-grid, with air conditioning, water collectors and purifiers, advanced heating systems and the computer systems all running from a few generators scattered around the complex. The generators were different to any that I had seen before and seemed to be using some kind of plasma exchange device that was completely self contained and apparently needing no other fuel to power them, brilliant, the worlds power shortage solved in one go! Why hadn't I come across this before? Why hadn't it been made public? I made a mental note to examine the system more closely when I had the time but, for now it could wait.

Apart from the library and the comms room that had been discovered previously there was also a large living area, Kitchen, a bedroom with a huge double bed and a shower/bath/toilet area. Most of this ran under the garden and only a portion of it actually ran under the house but I suppose that would explain the lack of interior walls in the front of the main house, (less weight bearing down on the bunker).

I had spent so much time in the bunker that the last human contact I had was the removal men Bert and Joe almost a month before, although with hindsight I don't know if Joe counted as human contact! I had become totally lost in my new surroundings and was comfortable with my own company in there, everything I needed was here.

I had been slowly working my way through the vast quantity of DVDs for a few days, DVDs with titles like 'JFK, Assassinated or silenced?' and '911 national emergency', most were interesting and ALL were conspiracy theories but one caught my eye because it seemed to be about a subject that I had never heard of before, it was titled 'Logic Bomb' and was, unlike the others, a self made DVD. This one looks interesting, Okay dave, that's tonight's entertainment sorted then.

# 

#

#

# 6 LOGIC BOMB

That evening I settled down into the leather armchair in the living area of the bunker and pushed the start button of the DVD player. A large screen on the wall sprung into life slowly revealing an image of a smart looking man in his early fifties who was sitting in a large Chesterfield armchair, the armchair that I was now occupying. For some reason the image was very faint but compared to some of the dodgy videos that I had seen in the Eighties it was watch-able and the sound was clear enough. The man was looking directly into the screen and, when he finally spoke, it was with a strong voice with no sign of a regional accent.

"Firstly, I would like to welcome you to my bunker and must assume that I am probably dead and that you have discovered my secret hideaway, Congratulations."

He paused at this point and I felt somewhat unnerved by the fact that he seemed to be talking directly to me, a fact that was made worse by his next sentence,

"I know that this may be making you a bit uncomfortable but I would urge you to pay close attention to what I am telling you and don't skip through ANY of this DVD"

(I half expected a white cat to jump up onto his lap as he said something like "Meester Bond, We meet at last" or something like that but, thankfully, he didn't).

"Okay", He continued, "let's get the introductions out of the way, I am, or was, the founder of a very large and VERY successful security company and was responsible for the security of some very high profile public figures AND properties for the last Fifty years". I suppose that explains the paranoia and the need for a bunker,

"Obviously I don't know who you are but I hope that you are the kind of person that I can rely on to listen to the things that I am going to tell you and take the appropriate action" If you want someone assassinated or 'kneecapped', forget it, I don't do violence!

Then, for the second time in as many minutes, I was completely freaked out when the guy on the screen laughed and said, "Don't worry, I shall not be asking you to kill anyone or do anything illegal. I merely ask that you take the evidence that I will provide for you and present it to as wide an audience as you can." He paused for a moment as if waiting for a reply and went on, "What is a logic bomb?" again a pause, then, "A logic bomb is not a conventional bomb because it is not a physical thing but it is still a weapon that cannot be defended against and is completely devastating because it has the ability to change your entire perception of the world that we live in."

He looked directly at me through the screen as he spoke the last words and his face hardened as he continued, "There is no need for you to worry, the logic bomb is OUR weapon and, in the right hands, can bring about some much needed changes to the way that people live their lives in the future. Firstly we need a bit of a History lesson and an understanding of the superior manipulation techniques that have been developed over the years but you must also remember that the most important rule is KNOWING something is entirely different to BELIEVING something" ok, got that, knowing NOT believing.

"Over the years we have developed as a society and advanced civilisation through a mixture of belief and knowledge, some have been the right beliefs and knowledge, some have been the wrong ones. I think that it is now time to separate the two because, in my opinion, one of them is only serving to retard further development of civilisation and MUST be eradicated.........."

Ay, ay, it's all gone a bit James Bond again..... DO pay attention Double O seven! I giggled to myself and turned my attention back to the figure on the screen,

".....during my time as a security advisor I gained access to some VERY sensitive information, particularly when I worked on the Vatican.....," oooh the Vatican. I'm impressed!

"..... I would like you to listen to two different versions of the same story. One version based on facts and the other based on superstition, second hand accounts, magical occurrences and manipulation of the facts. This is quite a long and detailed story, so I suggest that you take a break now and pour yourself a stiff drink."

He then leaned back in the chair, steepling his fingers and placing the index fingers to his mouth, I took this as my signal and pressed paused. Interesting, this could be very useful at a later date. Time to make a sarnie and a large cuppa.

I took the opportunity of the break to stretch my legs, take a walk around the grounds and to get some fresh air in my lungs and was surprised to find that it was dark outside, only then did I realise that I seemed to be seeing less and less daylight as the weeks sped by. Note to self, get outside more often during daylight hours!

After about half an hour of aimlessly wandering I returned to the kitchen in the bunker, made myself a couple of ham sandwiches and a cup of tea and then returned to the chair in the living room. Okay then, here we go for part two.

I pushed 'play' on the remote control and the frozen image on the screen once again became animated,

"Welcome back, I trust that you heeded my advice and took the opportunity to relax properly because I need you to be focussed and to pay close attention," He paused, looked intensely at the screen and seemed to be waiting for a reply so I said, "job done, get on with it" and then laughed at myself. This is all getting very surreal!

"As I mentioned earlier I need to begin my story with a history lesson, this history lesson is not a lesson involving famous people or wars but is instead a lesson on Human nature" He paused again and continued, "Throughout our long years of inhabiting this planet and since the very beginning of time the human being has been the only one of its thousands of inhabitants, with the exception of the Beaver, that has had such a catastrophic effect on its environment, why is this?"

He stared at me again through the screen and I felt his steely eyes bore into me,

"It is partly because we are not really social animals and are only truly comfortable when we are surrounded by people that agree with the majority of our views, ideas and principles. This condition would work very well if everyone was thinking in the same way but, for a variety of reasons, they don't and this leads to conflict and destruction. If we now go back to the beginning of 'civilisation' and apply this principle we can see how different tribes would develop and grow. They would all be living by the same basic rules and would all be trying to expand the tribe until you get to a point where the whole land is occupied by one tribe that all obey the same rules.

This works fine in a small Island situation with a relatively small population but becomes more difficult when you are dealing with larger land masses with bigger populations and so it becomes necessary to establish territorial borders, each area developing its own laws, languages, beliefs and ARMIES! Yes armies, because armies are important for, not only defending the borders but for expanding those same borders.

The next seismic expansion in the 'territory war'.." He paused to waggle his fingers in an imaginary quotation mark,

"..was the development of the organised army. Think about it, Your territory has twenty thousand soldiers that move and fight in an organised way and you are planning to expand your border into your neighbours land, maybe they have access to a better water supply or something. The neighbour doesn't have an army as such, just untrained people defending their homes with whatever weapons that they have at hand and as a result they are soon overrun and the aggressors empire is expanded!

The people that have been overrun have a few choices, they could run away to another (more friendly) territory, stay and adapt to the invaders way of life, stay and try to live the same way that they did before or stay and become a slave. The most successful empires in history, The Egyptians, The Greeks and the Romans have all had that one same thing in common, they ALL had large, well organised, well trained armies.

Okay, so how do you keep control of your new territories. Your army MAY grow along with your territories but with the growth of the country comes an expansion of borders and an increase in enemies both inside and out. In order to control the new land you have two options..' He suddenly leaned towards the screen and held up his index finger,

"One, you use force and make a slave of the population and enforce your laws on them, reasonably effective but, nonetheless a losing strategy because sooner or later there are just too many people to control. Or Two..." Again he made me jump as he suddenly thrust two fingers towards the screen,

".....You study your enemy and learn his ways, laws and, more importantly, his Religion.

Once you understand an enemies religious beliefs it becomes easier to infiltrate and manipulate large populations with minimum violence involved making it an extremely potent and effective weapon. It also helps matters if you can persuade people that your Gods are a more attractive proposition than theirs " Another long pause in order to let me digest the last statement, then, "What is religion? Who started it and how does it work for our purposes?

In the beginning people worshipped things like the sun, moon, wind and all other things that they didn't understand in nature. Each great Empire had their own names for these Gods but they were all essentially the same, the only difference being the names that were assigned to the individual Gods by each different Empire. This condition came about, not only from a basic ignorance of nature and how it works, but also an almost total lack of scientific knowledge. From these early days the leaders of the 'Religions'....." Again a pause for the imaginary quotation marks, "....tended to be people that claimed to have a connection with the 'Gods'..." Will you pack it in with the imaginary quotations for fuck sake?

"....either by claiming that they are hearing and speaking to them or, as with the Egyptians, they would claim to be the living embodiment of the Gods.

This made these people very powerful and important within their community and in many lands would actually be worshipped as a God, with all the advantages and perks that the position brings. One obvious flaw to this is that the religious leader could pass any law that he wanted and say that the Gods have decreed it and must be obeyed or there would be grave consequences involving some disaster or other relating to the particular God that had been offended, et Voila... Instant obedience!"

The figure on the screen sat back in the chair and looked very pleased with himself, lit a cigar and carried on, "Every civilisation developed their own system of Gods and Goddesses and blamed any problems within their society on one particular God or other and most, but not all, had multiple Gods. The problem with this system is that there was often conflict between the supporters of one particular God or other and it was more difficult to establish fixed laws without the possibility of offending another group.

The most notable exception to the multi-God society was Judaism because this religion believed that there was only one God and that they were 'The chosen ones'. This is a fact that is pivotal to my history lesson and, as we will discover later, was to become a very powerful weapon to future civilisations." The figure on the screen once again leaned closer towards the screen, "And now we come to the second part of my story, the part that is more difficult to actually believe. We are told by the history books that the Hebrew people, after being invaded by the Romans, were promised by their prophets that a leader would come from the line of David to lead them back in to their lands in Jerusalem. A man called Jesus was taken to be that leader and we are told that his mother was a virgin when he was born and that his father was God, not A God but THE God, a point worth noting for later use.

Jesus is known merely as a prophet by various religions while others believe him to be the son of God. As we know, the life of Jesus is well documented and we are told that, in addition to having a virgin for a mother, he performed miracles multiple times during his lifetime, turning water into wine, walking on water, healing the blind and even bringing a dead friend back to life!"

The man on the screen had become increasingly animated and now seemed to be getting more angry as he continued his tale. "To top it all, three days after he was crucified he came back to life and was seen by various people, I mean, come on, does it seem like any of that story is actually true? Utter Bollocks! If I were to present that information to a newspaper today they would laugh in my face and label me a nutter! In addition to this I find it very difficult to believe that in the two thousand years since Jesus time there has not been any contact from this God and the question that you need to ask yourself is, would I believe this story if it were not for the fact that I was taught the story from a very early age by people whose word, apparently, should be trusted?"

By now the man in the chair was beginning to look like he might have a heart attack at any moment as he continued ranting on, "So the next question that you need to ask yourself is how did this become accepted as a true account of the events that surrounded this character?

As I have already stated, his life seems to be remarkably well documented but none of those accounts are contemporary accounts. The earliest surviving complete copies of the four gospels date to the fourth century, a date worth noting for later. This was almost four hundred years after the actual events that they relate to, hardly a reliable source of information.

Earlier we established that in order to expand a successful Empire you would need to employ various different methods to ensure the success of the expansion. The most powerful way to control things would seem to be through religion, a point that didn't seem to go unnoticed by the Romans.

The Romans began expanding their territories and 'annexing' provinces in the third century BC and was a Republic until Augustus became the first Emperor at some time in the first century AD. As you would expect, all was not easy with a large territory to govern and the Republic was constantly being destabilised by civil wars and territorial disputes, hence the need for a change to a new system.

The first two centuries of the Empire were a time of relative peace and prosperity and it reached its greatest expanse some time during the second century AD and began to decline from about the third century AD. Now, and this is where things get really interesting, to coincide with the collapse of the Roman empire we see that there was a rise in Christianity across their lands, enter Emperor Constantine, stage left.

Constantine was the first of the Emperors to convert to Christianity and the Empire was briefly stabilised again with Constantinople established as the Eastern Capital and with Rome as the Western Capital. A later Emperor, Theodosius 1, was the last Emperor to rule over both East and West and established Christianity as the state religion with its base in Rome, he died in 395AD. These two Emperors are recognised as the two most important figures in the history of Rome regarding Christianity and on the surface it would appear that there is nothing untoward going on, until you look at things from a slightly different angle.

Constantine's' reign as Western ruler was not without its problems and he often fought with his own people in addition to any other territorial disputes that he was involved in and it was during this time that Constantine converted to Christianity.

During one battle against Maxentius his army appeared with unfamiliar markings on their standards and shields, allegedly as a result of a dream that he had in which he was told to mark them with 'the heavenly sign of God', and although his army was outnumbered nearly two to one he drove Maxentius army into the river Tiber, One Nil to the Christians it would appear.

In his early life he also was witness to, but not involved in, the persecution of the Christians, the most severe persecution of the Christians in Roman history. This persecution occurred during the first ten years of the fourth Century AD and religious tolerance was only resumed in April 311 and, interestingly enough, it was the following year that Constantine converted to Christianity. Now, you can call me cynical but, it seems highly suspicious to me that Constantine should choose that particular path at this time, seems to me that this situation may have come about as a result of political motivation rather than a religious one. Think about it, just because the Christians were being persecuted did not mean that they were wiped out but were instead driven underground, possible support for Constantine after his conversion? I think that this gives us a huge insight into the future workings of the Roman Empire.

After the reign of Constantine as first Christian Emperor every future Emperor, with the exception of Julian, were Christian Emperors and by the end of the fourth Century Theodosius had declared it to be the state religion, thereby giving a different power to the state, religious power! It is no wonder that the Empire seemed to collapse after this point, it had been replaced by a much more effective system. With the fastest growing religion in the West being controlled from Rome it becomes a lot easier to govern, and the rest, as they say, is history." The image on the screen seemed to fade and I was just about to switch it off when it suddenly became animated again and the image returned.

"Don't switch me off yet......I have one more thing to tell you." I wish you wouldn't keep doing that........scared the life out of me.....freaky twat!

I sat back in the chair and waited for the next revelation. "As I told you before I had worked on some very high profile properties during my time as a security advisor and one of those properties was the Vatican. You would not believe how much information is stored in the vaults of the Vatican, most of it relatively mundane information but some of it could cause a lot of trouble. The information that I am about to give you falls into the latter category.

In the year 313AD Constantine met with Licinius in Milan to discuss, among other things, religious tolerance, in particular the Persecution of the Christians. This meeting has been documented and again, on the surface of it, would seem to be nothing to worry about until you realise that Licinius was a pagan and, like Constantine, had many enemies within his own ranks. There was a letter, (that has never been made public), from Constantine to Licinius outlining his new strategy for uniting the Empire and in it he told the tale of his 'conversion' to Christianity and..." The figure on the screen suddenly reached down to the side of the armchair and produced a piece of paper which he began reading from,

".... here I happen to have a translation of that letter. It's only a rough one but it was written in Latin, so it wasn't too difficult to find someone that could translate it for me.,...for a price....., but I suppose it was worth it....Anyway, back to the letter...ahem...

'Licinius, I have news of a new method of Governing the Empire and bringing peace to our lands whilst still expanding and maintaining the borders of the Empire. During my travels through our lands over many years I have seen Christians being persecuted by my countrymen and I have seen that the Christians have shown enormous strength, a strength that comes from a faith in their God. I calculate that if we professed to be converts to their faith we would gather support against our enemies, we shall promote Christianity openly and, finally, we shall take control of the Christian movement. With control of the church we have control of the minds of the people and the Empire can be expanded peacefully.

In order for this plan to be successful we must make Jesus appear to be more than just a prophet. He must be as a Demi-God. I have prepared some papers outlining how this task is to be achieved and will share the information when we meet in Milan. Control the spirit and the body will follow......" The figure stopped reading and looked back to the screen,

"It goes on a bit more about mundane matters of concern regarding the Empire but nothing interesting. Now I know what you are thinking, you're thinking, How did you get hold of the letter?......" He paused again as if he were waiting for an answer before continuing, "Well.......the fact is I had been paid a lot of money by a collector in order to get photographs of some of the more secret files stored in the vaults. It wasn't difficult to get access to the files, I was in a position of trust and in control of the entire security system, easy. I always had the documents translated for me before handing them over to the buyer and most of it wasn't really valuable to anyone other than a collector but, this particular bombshell I decided to keep to myself.......this and the papers mentioned in here. These papers PROVE that it was all just a PR exercise in order to repackage the Empire. These papers PROVE that Jesus was just a pawn to the Empire and how, by clever marketing, his life and importance were massively exaggerated. He was given Super Human status by the Romans in order to promote a religion that they took control of! I have other papers that outline a plan to get one of their Bishops into every City in Europe. The Bishops would be in charge of ALL the churches in the City and every Church would have a confessor. Every visitor to the church would confess their sins in return for absolution and every confessor would report back any news of interest to the Bishops, until eventually, everything gets back to Rome. Christ what a mindfuck!"

The man had been getting more and more frantic as he ranted on and now he sat back in the chair and, breathing heavily, glared angrily at the screen.

"You're right about one thing", I replied, "That is a proper mindfuck, the most successful PR job of all time AND they still have control of it all now. The Roman Empire didn't collapse, it just went underground!" The image on the screen slowly faded from view as I stood up and walked towards the door, "Oh well, That's enough mindfucking for one night I'm ready to hit the sack........bloody hell Dave you've gotta stop talking to yourself" Yeah that's it keep it all inside your head instead.......much better idea.

I couldn't be bothered to go up to the main house so I headed straight for the bedroom at the back of the complex, I couldn't remember the last time I slept in the house.

#

#

# 7 UNHOLY TRINITY

The next day I woke with a renewed determination to bring an end to the whole miserable system, it was time for a seismic shift in thinking. I couldn't believe what I had learned from the film the previous evening and the more I thought about it the more I realised just how big the lie had become. In addition to the information I had received I also began to understand how the Catholic church had attempted to wipe out any possible opposition throughout history. The Spanish inquisition, the notorious witch hunts, the execution of the Templar Knights and everything in between were attacks against the last of the Pagans. Catholics are not allowed to use contraception. Why? By not using contraception they have more chance of out-breeding other religious groups.

Bloody hell!...... an entire faith system based on a lie!..... Billions of people being fooled for centuries.......time the whole thing came crashing down!

My primary targets had originally been the monetary and political system but now I had a secondary target, Religion. I called them 'The Unholy trinity of control'.

Initially I had planned to post the future winning lottery numbers on the internet but soon realised that there was a much better way because the problem with posting the winning numbers was that the Jackpot is a finite size. The jackpot amount is determined on a 'pool' basis so the amount awarded to each winner will decrease in relation to the amount of winners. Twenty thousand winners will still only have six million or so split between them, not good enough. I realised that by splitting the six numbers into groups of three you could win a GUARANTEED ten pounds for each combination. Twenty combinations guarantees two hundred pounds! Not a huge amount of money I know but, that was irrelevant. I calculated that I had about two hundred friends on my social networking sites and if you assume that each of those friends will have about the same amount of people on their lists you can see how quickly it would snowball.

Now that's what I call pyramid selling! Two hundred people all with two hundred quid in winnings that's forty thousand......each one has two hundred friends winning forty thousand........ Then there's the option of certain people doing more than one set of twenty combinations......plus the ones that do four, five and six numbers.........result?.......the company that runs the lottery takes a massive (terminal?) hit! job fucking done!

I'll have to make sure and send the numbers by private messages.......don't want to advertise what I'm doing to the wrong people.......if the 'trinity' find out.........don't want to suddenly 'lose' my connection to the internet.

Within the next hour I had contacted every last person that I could find on my social sites and gave them the combinations of numbers that they would need for the next draw. I also gave instructions to everyone that they should do the same with their friends. There were usually between two and five hundred thousand winners of ten pounds in each lottery draw. I was about to massively increase that number, shouldn't take long to bankrupt them, the war was on.

Now for the religious attack and a whole different type of nut to crack, I mean, how do you convince people that you are telling the truth when they believe that their leader walked on water and rose from the dead? All I could do was publish my findings on as many websites as possible and hope that some of it 'takes seed', someone should take notice of it even if it's only to deny it! I also wrote to the Pope informing him of my discovery and asking if he could investigate it for, not only me, but all of the Christians in the world, they deserved to know the truth. I never received a reply to my letter but a short time later the Pope resigned his post and a new Pope was elected. You can draw whatever conclusions you want from this but I believe that he uncovered the truth and just couldn't live with the lie any more.

As it turned out the lottery attack had a bit of an unexpected twist that I hadn't foreseen. Because of the unusually high numbers of winners that weekend it had been decided that the lottery draws were to be suspended in order to investigate but, that wasn't the surprise. Various religious groups claimed that it was a miracle because nobody actually lost their money that weekend. This little gem pissed me off a bit, I thought that gambling was generally discouraged by most religions but, there you go, just another example of their hypocrisy!

Okay........time to switch targets then.....they've stopped the national lottery draws so we just do the euro lottery instead.

The following week I used the same technique as the previous one and by the end of the week it had been announced that the euro lottery had also been suspended. It seemed that the lottery company were also facing bankruptcy due to the massive losses it had sustained in the last two weeks. Round one to me!

It wasn't long before the riots started and, as a bonus, there was a lot of arguing between various religious groups with some arguing that it was 'the devils work', while others were claiming another miracle. It seems to me that this is a major flaw in religious thinking because, according to them, nothing happens by chance and God is always involved somewhere down the line. Gonna burst their bubble a bit when I tell them I did it, God had bugger all to do with it!

The one thing that I had forgotten about was the Estate Agent who gave me the keys to the property, a mistake that was about to come back and bite me. He arrived one Friday afternoon and, luckily, it coincided with one of my rare visits up to the house.

As soon as I opened the door to him and invited him in he started protesting,

"Mr Briggs....... I must talk with you about our previous arrangement regarding this property. I'm afraid that I must ask you to return the keys to me and vacate the premises....immediately!" I opened my mouth to protest but he just carried on, this was a man on a mission.

"I know that the original plan was to wait until you cashed your winning tickets but, what with all the fuss about the lottery and the investigations, I don't think that your tickets are worth a great deal anymore and so I would like you to leave in order that I sell the house to someone that actually has cash."

"Cash?.....cash?.....is that all you're concerned about?" I was beginning to get angry,

"How much do you want?.......a million?.......two?......How useful will money be when the whole fucking world goes bankrupt?......If it's really money you want I will give it to you right now......"

I was on full rant mode by now and the Estate Agent bravely tried to interrupt,

"You have cash.......?" he began, but was chopped down by my next barrage,

"Of course I have the cash, what do you think I've been doing for the past few months?....Money is the only thing that you kind of people care about, can't you see?...The monetary system is basically flawed and needs to be destroyed!"

He looked shocked as the full realisation of my rant hit home and he suddenly changed his approach, "You mean that this whole mess is your fault? but why? you had all the money you needed. Why would you possibly want to do this?" He stared at me and began to look confused.

"Come on, look around you, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, the politicians only look after themselves and the church is in total disarray. What was I supposed to do? Somebody needed to do something. I'm sick of hearing people complaining and not doing anything about the situation. I realised that I had the power to do something and I did it. Where's the problem?"

"The problem is Mr Briggs, You are living in a house that you don't own and you seem hell bent on making it worthless. I'm sorry but in light of what you have just told me I must insist that you leave immediately or I will have no option but to call the Police and have you arrested." I could see that he wasn't going to listen to me anymore and desperately tried to think of a way to stay in the house. The only way that I could be sure of his continued cooperation was to pay him in full, with money that I didn't have....yet.

"I'm sorry, we seem to have got off on the wrong foot. Why don't you sit down for a minute. Can I offer you a drink while we discuss this in a more calm manner?" He nodded his agreement as he sat down on the armchair and drew a cigarette case from inside his jacket pocket and, before placing the cigarette to his lips, asked, "Don't mind if I smoke do you,"

I don't care if you burst into flames! "No, no, carry on. Scotch okay?" I was already pouring a large one as he nodded again and I passed him the glass, "The thing is I lied. I'm afraid that I don't actually have any money. Everything is tied up with the lottery tickets and, as you know they are fast becoming worthless. I could, however, give you every long priced winner of every horse race tomorrow and by the end of the day you would have a fortune. Enough money to pay for two houses this size, what do you say to that?" He shifted uncomfortably in his chair,

"That would be great......... If it were possible. If you don't mind me asking, How do you do it? Is it a dream? do you hear things? Can anyone acquire this talent?" He was becoming more and more excited with each question and finished with a high pitched squeak to his voice. I looked him directly in the eye and replied,

"Before I tell you anything you must decide what you want from life. Do you want enough money to choke a herd of horses or do you want to make a real difference to, not only yourself, but everyone else as well? I can give you the money, if that is what you want. It's one or the other, take it or leave it." I turned away from him to get another drink and he began protesting, "But Mr Briggs, why can't I have the money and the knowledge that you possess? With that kind of power I could have anything I wanted, sports cars, A massive house with a pool, women.........anything." His eyes glazed over and he seemed to be lost in fantasy. I brought him back into the room by saying, "I'm sorry but I'm afraid that you can have either one or the other but not both. That is the deal.............And before you say it, I have no money but I do have the knowledge but I am not sure that I could teach you the things that I know. I don't think that your mind is open enough......."

"I'm open minded enough," he interrupted. "I have a cousin that's Gay, loads of my mates are 'ethnic' and I've been visiting fetish clubs for ages..." fucking imaginary quotation marks! This guy just doesn't get it at all!

"I'm sorry but I've decided.......I'm going to write out the names of all the horses for you and you are going to just piss off back to where you came from."

I retrieved a pad from the sideboard and scribbled the names of the winning horses in ten races the following day, ripped it from the pad and handed it to the Estate Agent who eagerly snatched it from my hand as he began burbling again,

"Oh Mr Briggs I can't thank you enough, stay in the house for as long as you like and I will drop the paperwork in to you tomorrow........It's all yours." And it still hasn't cost me a penny!

The next day he returned with all the required paperwork and informed me that he was now the proud owner of a betting slip with a ten horse accumulator written on it.

"Half of the horses have already won and I'm looking at about five million by the end of the day........It's been a pleasure doing business with you Mr Briggs," and with a backward wave he disappeared down the path towards the gate.

I thought that it would be the last time that I saw him until, a month or so later, he once again appeared on my doorstep, breathless, looking rough and soaking wet from the thunderstorm that was raging outside. I welcomed him in and hung his coat on a radiator before he assumed his position on my armchair. He seemed a bit flustered and panicky so I offered him a large scotch, which he accepted and threw down his neck rapidly before babbling,

"I'm very sorry Mr Briggs but I didn't know what else to do.........you're the only person who can help me.....please Mr Br......"

"Whoa, Whoa, what's going on?...Calm down, what's happened?.......And why would you want my help?"

"It's the bet that I did. I took the bet out with a less than reputable bookie.........one with friends that look as if they would head butt an Old Lady for fun. I tried to cash the slip and he told me that the bet was off. When I threatened to go to the Police he let the thugs loose on me. I've been in the hospital ever since, I only got out today and came straight here." He looked frightened and kept looking towards the door as I asked him, "What makes you think that I can help you.........erm....I'm sorry but, would you believe it, I don't think you ever told me your name."

"..Pete....it's Pete.....I had a long time to think while I was laid up in Hospital. They beat me so badly that I was close to death and I had time to reflect on what is really important in life and I realised that you were right, money does really bad things to people and the whole system needs to go," Liar alert! Come on Dave, people like this greedy git don't suddenly turn their backs on what they crave most. Money and power is all his kind understand.... probably just looking for revenge but maybe he could be useful.

"Okay then Pete, these guys are obviously not the kind of people that are living by the same rules as us so we can't use the accumulator bet again without getting the same result. We need to work out how to damage them another way......Any ideas?"

"Well," he began, "That was the other thing that I had time to think about. Before I began my current career as an Estate Agent I was a croupier in one of the Bookies Casinos. I worked there for about two years and got to know some very dodgy characters, one of the most violent and unsavoury characters was a guy called Tony 'The Teeth' Maloney. If we could find a way to use Maloney to hit his casinos, give him a bit of help with his roulette numbers or something and break the bastards bank. What do you think? Can you do it?"

I thought about it for a moment and a plan slowly began to develop in my mind,

"Okay Pete, for this plan to work I am going to need to understand the layout of the main room, descriptions of croupiers, type of wheel used and any other information, anything that we can use to build a mental picture," We spent the rest of the day building up as complete a picture as we could and by the end of the evening I found that I could close my eyes and 'see' the casinos interior very clearly. One last detail needed to be sorted out and we were in business.

"Righto then Pete, so you are stood in front of the roulette wheel and you look up at the wall. What kind of clock is on the wall. I need to know every detail about it."

Pete looked a bit puzzled for a moment and then replied, "I'm afraid there are no clocks in the casino. They don't really want the punters to know what the time is. I usually use my own watch. Is it really important to know the time? Why? I don't see that it will make much difference.'' I quickly explained to him that it was vital to know the time as we needed to match the winning numbers to the precise time that they were due to appear.

After analysing Pete's watch closely I closed my eyes and imagined that I was standing in front of the roulette wheel in the casino, I looked down at the watch on my wrist and noticed that I had tattoos across my knuckles. The right Knuckle said 'Hate' while the left one said 'More hate'. These were not my knuckles and they definitely were not Pete's either!

"Well, that's odd. This has never happened before. Does Tony 'The Teeth' have tattoos on his knuckles by any chance?" I looked across to Pete, now sitting on the armchair with his mouth open and his eyes wide with amazement and he stammered his answer, "y, yes...., but how did you know that? I thought you had never met him,"

I was quite surprised myself and, if I'm honest, a bit freaked out by what I had just experienced. I seemed to be looking out through somebody else's eyes. Impossible! I closed my eyes again and focussed on recalling the image again and immediately found myself looking, once again, down onto 'my' knuckles. The tattoos were there once more.

okay Dave. This is freaky. Get a grip and look around. Wow! I'm looking at the world through eyes that are not mine.

I took a good look around at my surroundings. They were exactly as Pete had described them so I concentrated hard on memorising the next two dozen or so winning numbers and kept a close eye on the time. I repeated the experiment a number of times in order to verify the correct order of the numbers and the precise time associated with each number. If I got this wrong then Pete would probably be facing another few months of hospital food and I didn't really want that on my conscience. I found that although I could see through the eyes of Tony 'The Teeth' and, in addition, could experience any of his other senses I had no control over any other part of him, I was just a passenger in his body. Wow! total mindfuck! This will be a massive weapon for the future.

We worked hard into the night and I decided to call it a day at about two in the morning, by this time we had listed fifteen consecutive winning numbers, more than enough to break the bank. Pete crashed out on the sofa and I went up to the bedroom, it had been a long day and I needed to get some sleep. I also needed to digest all the days events and work out what was happening to me.

The following morning, after a good old-fashioned fry up, I gave the list of numbers to Pete and told him to pass them on to Tony 'The Teeth' with the instruction that he must be stood in front of the roulette wheel at precisely ten that evening before he starts betting. He seemed to be in much better spirits as he set off towards the gate and I didn't expect to see him again but, two days later he was once again knocking on my door. This time he was grinning from ear to ear and seemed to be very excited as I threw open the door and welcomed him in,

"Great news Dave. The plan worked better than we could have ever hoped. Tony took a few of his boys into the casino with him and spent the evening hammering the roulette wheel. The bookie could only look on as Tony completely took them to the cleaners and then he got taken out 'for a little ride' when he said he couldn't pay up. Result? Tony now owns the casino, the bookie is propping up a motorway and we are fifty grand up! Job done!"

Tony had been so pleased with the information that Pete had provided him with that he rewarded him with fifty thousand pounds. He was convinced that the table was rigged, (How else could you know the numbers in advance?), and he wasn't a happy bunny. Over the years he had lost a small fortune in these casinos and he really didn't like being cheated. This situation could only be resolved one way. A concrete overcoat!

"Well Pete, I can't say that I am too happy about the bookie but, if he was as bad as you say..." Pete nodded his head a few times but said nothing, "The good thing is you at least have some money now. Money that I could help you increase to a worthwhile amount .....if that is still what you want?"

He looked at me for a moment and, after a short pause, replied, "If...er, if it's all the same to you Dave, I would love to hang around and help you....and.....er.....maybe learn that trick you do," It's not a fucking trick! pillock!

This was not the reaction that I had expected. Had I seriously underestimated Pete? Could I trust him? Was this 'talent' something I could teach somebody to do? Did I really want to teach him? These were all the questions going through my head as I told him,

"Actually Pete, if you're serious about helping?......" Pete jumped forward and grabbed my hand, shaking it vigorously, "Dave, I would love to help you in any way I can. Thank you, thank you...... Partners."

I wrestled my hand from Pete's and tried to calm him down as I tried to make sense of what had just happened. Partners! how did that happen? Bloody hell, its like having a puppy dog with two tails. Help!

#

#

# 8 PANDORAS BOX

It took me a further five minutes to calm Pete down and, after a much needed cup of tea, told him about the next stage of my plan.

"I think that the first thing that I would like you to help me with is a sensory test" Pete looked a bit puzzled and was about to open his mouth to speak when I continued,

"It's okay Pete, this experiment doesn't need you to get in touch with your feminine side or anything odd....ish." I could see that he was beginning to look uncomfortable so decided to explain properly.

"I would like to try and recreate something that happened the other night and all I need you to do is use your senses. I will be in another room and will write down information regarding the particular sense that you are stimulating. Sound okay?" Pete nodded again but still looked puzzled as he asked, "If you're not in the same room as me then how will you know what I'm doing in the other room? Neat trick if you can do it."

How many more times? IT'S NOT A FUCKING TRICK!

The first thing to test was vision. I had sat Pete on a chair facing a blank wall and then went upstairs to the bedroom. The plan was that Pete would take various items out of his pockets and, at five minute increments, would hold each of them in front of his eyes and look at them while I closed my eyes and focussed.

I sat on the bed, closed my eyes and waited and after about an hour I had a list of items written down on my pad but at this point I had no idea whether I had been accurate or not. Soon after I had closed my eyes I could 'see' the blank wall that was now in front of Pete and slowly saw his hand come into view. In his hand was a packet of cigarettes which he now opened and lit one up. I could see the smoke billowing out as he blew the first puff from his mouth, this was amazing. He drew a number of other things from his pockets and I saw them all perfectly clearly. Success....I hoped. As I walked down The spiral staircase I looked over to where Pete was sitting and noticed that he had laid out a number of things in front of his feet, he was still facing the wall and only looked round when I began speaking, "Well that seemed to work alright Pete, By my reckoning you looked at twelve different things, two from your left trouser pocket, four from your right pocket, five from inside your jacket pocket and a pen from your lapel pocket."

Pete looked genuinely surprised by my announcement but protested, "I must say Dave, I am hugely impressed but I only looked at ten items and nothing came from my left trouser pocket I'm afraid." I cast my eyes across the items on the floor as I checked them off my list. 'Wait a minute, where are the cigarettes and the lighter?" I asked. "What fags and li......"His sentence stopped abruptly as a sudden thought hit him square in the face, "Fuck me, I had a fag during the experiment. The fags and lighter came from my left pocket...how do you do that? Is it a camera trick? That's it isn't it? You've got cameras watching me." For the last fucking time! It is NOT a fucking trick!!!

Once I had explained to Pete that it most certainly was NOT a trick and that it just required an altered state of mind, he seemed a lot more relaxed about the whole experiment and we spent the rest of the day testing his other senses in the same manner.

"Next up is sense of smell Pete, Have a look in the fridge and find some stuff that smells strong. Shouldn't be too difficult, I haven't cleaned it out for a while." I grinned at him and headed back upstairs.

I heard him rummaging about in the fridge as I sat on the bed and got myself ready. Suddenly I was overwhelmed by the smell of rotting fish and I gagged, What the fuck was that?.... Oh yes, I'd forgotten about those Prawns!

The rest of the experiment continued in much the same way and, by the end, I was feeling very sick as I staggered back downstairs and saw Pete grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Bloody hell Pete, some of those were a bit savage and you really didn't need to sniff your socks.......Oh and I suppose the fart was an added extra, cheers for that."

Pete was now laughing uncontrollably but at the same time seemed impressed by my abilities as I rattled off the list of smells that I had experienced. All of them were correct.

Once he had calmed down we moved on to something more difficult. Combining two senses. "So, experiment three will be hearing and sight. For this I would like you to put on some headphones, stand in front of a full length mirror and play a few random tracks. You can rock out, play air guitar, headbang, conduct an orchestra or just listen. You must keep your eyes open though, unless you are playing air guitar." (As every self-respecting air guitarist knows, you can't perform properly without closing your eyes.) Pete grabbed the headphones from the top of the music system and pulled them quickly on to his head, gave me the thumbs up and began gently rocking. I headed back to the bedroom and waited with my eyes firmly shut.

The first track was 'We will rock you' by Queen and I could see Pete rocking out in front of the mirror doing his best Freddie Mercury impression involving an impressive bit of headbanging towards the end of the song. By the time I had returned downstairs after a dozen more songs Pete was crashed on the sofa and looked knackered. In Pete's mind he had just performed a sell-out stadium concert and had blown the audience away! We spent the remainder of the day relaxing and trying to work out a way of using the 'talent' that we had discovered. Pete was a very willing assistant and for the next few weeks we worked together on a number of different schemes and had amassed a large war chest of winnings from a variety of discreet bets that had been placed online, in casinos and in betting shops. Pete had persuaded me that this was a much better option than an all out attack on the system. Hit them for a chunk here and a chunk there rather than bankrupting them in one go. We called it 'The parasite offensive' and amassed twenty million pounds in cash in less than a month! We had also paid in cash for the house.

The partnership seemed to be going well, I had started to trust Pete more as time went on and I had got used to his company but I still hadn't told him about the bunker.

It turned out that I had been totally wrong about my first impression of Pete. One evening when we were having a break from the experiments he told me that his father had died while Pete was still in his early teens and that he'd dropped out of school in order to support his mother (She hit the bottle when his father died) The estate agent job had been his latest job, the latest in a long line of jobs.

"I've done so many different things but the job I would really love to do is Acting," he explained, "With every different job I spend time researching what kind of person would do that job and then become that person when I am at work, it makes the job more interesting and allows me to polish up my acting skills. What did you think of my oily estate agent character? I've been doing it for a couple of years now and had plenty of practice at playing him but, to be honest, I didn't really like him very much, he even made my skin crawl. I'll tell you what though Dave, this job is one of the most interesting and rewarding that I have ever done, and I don't mean in a monetary way. It seems that I, along with you of course, have my destiny in my own hands for the first time in my life and, for that opportunity, I thank you." (Yes we had been drinking during this break and Pete was completely pissed)

The rest of the evening carried on in much the same vein until we eventually turned our attention to our future plans, worldwide domination or the complete destruction of the corrupt system? Pete favoured the domination option and I spent most of the evening trying to persuade him that the only effective way forward was a non-violent revolution.

"So how are we going to achieve that then Mr Ghandi?" Pete asked sarcastically, "Every time anyone goes up against the Authorities and protests it always ends in violence. Even non-violent protests turn nasty because 'they' always infiltrate the ranks and make sure that the protest ends in violence," He leaned back in the sofa, folded his arms and looked very pleased with himself.

"Okay then Pete, what if I can prove to people that their whole perception of life is basically flawed? Think about it for a minute, how do most people gauge the success of their life?" I looked over to Pete and his brow creased as he began thinking and he quickly replied, "Well I suppose that most people that I come across that think that they have 'done something with their life' usually follow up by telling you how much land they own, how much money they have accumulated or something else along those lines, but then, what else is there?"

Although we had been working together for some time now I had never explained the theory that I had about the origin of my talents and I didn't think that it was a good idea to try now that we were both pissed so I decided on a different approach,

"When was the last time that you were at a funeral and heard somebody say , Oh yes, Bert was a great guy, really did something with his life, he owned a house, had a car and loads of money in the bank?' You think Bert will be remembered fifty or a hundred years down the line? No. The people that are remembered are the one's that make a difference to other peoples lives." I looked over at Pete and his eyebrows were now arched in surprise,

"You know Dave, I've never looked at it that way before but, when you put it all into perspective like that, I think that I would rather be a person remembered as a historical figure rather than just a statistic. How are we going to do it though?"

I had been formulating another plan since I had discovered the full extent of my new abilities and thought that now was as good a time as any to share my ideas with Pete, "Tomorrow we will take things to a whole new level. I want to know if I can do my 'thing' at a distance and for a sustained time. I want you to go out tomorrow, take a stash of money with you and spend the day doing anything you want. I will stay here and try to experience any and all of your sensory input for the day and record the results. I know that probably sounds a bit creepy but it will be in the name of science and for the good of mankind. Oh, don't worry I will give you some privacy when you need it." I looked over at Pete and he was now open-mouthed and staring at me as if I were insane and it took me a further twenty minutes to persuade him that this was a vital mission and was an essential next step towards our goal.

The following morning I sent Pete off with about a grand in cash and gave him the instruction that he could spend the day doing anything that he wanted to do, some sightseeing, go to a rock concert, see a film or anything else that would stimulate his senses. He set off in a cab at about ten in the morning as I prepared myself by making a cup of tea and got myself comfortable on the sofa. After about twenty minutes I closed my eyes and focussed, suddenly I found myself transported to the cab that Pete was travelling in and could see that he was speeding up the motorway. Nothing much happening at the moment, maybe it's time to focus on the other senses.

I concentrated hard on picking up Pete's sense of smell and immediately regretted the decision as an absolutely foul stench hit my nostrils, Pete had farted and the smell filled the cab. Even the cabbie complained and swiftly wound down his window,

"Sorry mate but if you do that again I'll be stopping the cab and you'll be walking! What the fuck have you been eating?"

Pete apologised and blamed some long standing medical condition but continued to look out of the window. This was amazing, I was able to hear, see and also smell what was happening in the cab and I was looking forward to experiencing the rest of Pete's day but, for now, I decided to leave him to it until he was doing something more interesting and I went into the kitchen to make myself another cup of tea.

After about an hour I decided to try once more and, once again I immediately regretted the decision. Pete had gone to an adventure park and was riding on one of their more frightening rides. My stomach lurched as I saw every twist and turn made by the roller coaster and heard the other riders screaming as it hurtled towards the ground upside down, Someone in the car behind Pete threw up and the stench burnt itself into my nostrils, I could have done without that, thanks Pete, still, could have been worse I suppose, they could have been sitting in front of Pete! He spent the next couple of hours riding on the most scary rides in the park and by the end of it I was feeling very ill and decided that it was probably a good idea to take another break.

While I sat on the sofa drinking my umpteenth cup of tea of the day I began to think about how these new abilities were going to fit in the big scheme of things. useful for spying I suppose, handy for catching criminals..........must be more than that......come on Dave, there has to be more uses than that! Unknown to me at the time Pete was about to present me with a totally different option.

# 9 THE DARK SIDE

The next time that I tuned in to Pete it was in the evening and he was standing in a bar with a large Scotch in his hand, a rock band were playing in the background and Pete was chatting with a beautiful 'rock chick'. They seemed to be getting on very well and I wondered whether they had just met or had known each other before today. The band were very good and were currently belting out a medley of Fleetwood Mac songs so I poured myself a drink and began rocking out to the tunes, this was definitely the strangest experience that I had ever had. It felt as if I were in the bar with Pete, I could hear everything that was going on, I could smell a mixture of stale beer and sweat but I couldn't be sure if I could taste the Scotch that Pete was drinking, (It could have been my own Scotch as I was now enjoying myself and getting more pissed by the minute.)

At one point in the evening Pete went into the Gents, walked straight up to the mirror and began speaking, "Hi Dave, hope you're getting all this. I've had a blinding day and I'm looking forward to comparing notes with you.....man this is nuts!"

"You're telling me fella.." The voice came from behind Pete, he almost jumped out of his skin and he suddenly turned on the tap, pretending to wash his hands,

"Oh hi... didn't see you there.....just practising my lines.....I'm an actor see, gotta rehearse wherever I can ....You know how it is." Pete looked around in the direction of the voice and found himself facing a fierce looking biker. He stood to one side to let the biker get to the sink but made no move towards the door, the biker grunted and quickly washed his hands before turning back to Pete, "If I were you I wouldn't stay in here too long, People tend to get a bit fist happy with guys that hang about in toilets, Acting or no Acting."

Pete nodded his agreement and turned back to the mirror, the biker shook his head, pulled open the door and left.

Once he was alone Pete looked at himself in the mirror and began talking to me again, "Right Dave, I'm going to need a bit of privacy later....If you know what I mean?" He waggled his eyebrows up and down and then thrust his tongue into his cheek making it bulge, I laughed as I opened my eyes and reached over to grab another Scotch, time to leave him to it.

When I woke the next day Pete had still not returned so I began preparing my patented hangover cure, (a huge fry-up) and then made a cup of strong black coffee in order to wake myself properly. Must have had a bit of a late night with that girl....probably still out of it...boy that breakfast smells good!

Pete still hadn't returned by the time I was making myself some lunch so I decided to try to tune in to him in the hope that I could locate him. I closed my eyes and..........nothing, Pete was either still asleep, unconscious or in a coma! All I could do was wait and hope that Pete would recover and come back to the house, he must have had a very heavy night.

By the time that it had become dark outside there was still no Pete so I tried one more time to tune in to him. This time I was hoping to try to connect with the images from the previous night and try to follow him until he goes 'offline'. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the images that I already had and saw Pete looking in the mirror of the Pub toilet, he turned towards the door and walked through into the bar. The biker girl was still standing at the bar and called out to Pete, "Hey Pete, you up for another one, they're just about to call last orders?" Pete shot a nervous glance into the corner of the Pub and the group of bikers that were sat there glared back, "No, you're okay Beth, I'm gonna down this one and head off for a Ruby, You coming?" By now Pete had reached the bar, drained his Scotch in one and was turning towards the door, Beth began complaining that she hadn't finished her drink but hurried after Pete and caught up with him just as he opened the door.

They walked slowly down the road, laughing as they went and had just turned into a side street when a sudden screech of tyres behind them made them both turn toward the sound. A black Range Rover had slammed into the kerb behind them and before it had even come to a halt two men jumped out, Beth screamed and everything went black.

What the fuck was that? Who the hell were those guys? My first thought was to 'phone the Police but soon realised that was a non-starter. I could imagine how that conversation would go, Hello. I think that my friend may have been kidnapped and his life could be in danger. How do I know? I saw it. No I wasn't there, but I saw it. Well yes, I did imagine it but I can assure you that it actually happened, No, No, I'm not a medium, more of a prophet really. I would be wearing a straight jacket and living in a room with padded wallpaper before breakfast time! The only thing that I could do was sit and wait in the hope that he became conscious again. I tried again at about ten o' clock and was suddenly blinded by a strong light that was being shone into Pete's face. At least he's still alive. What the Hell is going on and who the fuck are these people?

Once I had adjusted to the light I tried to use my other senses in order to get some idea of where Pete might be but was interrupted by a voice that came from behind the light, "Righto then Pete, I'll only ask you this once and if I don't like the answer I'll feed yer bits to me Labrador, okay?" Fuck me! Pete's been kidnapped by a blind geezer!

Pete nodded his head and the voice seemed to soften a bit, "Now then, a little bird told me that you helped Tony 'The Teeth' in his latest, how shall I put it? ....aggressive expansion into the leisure industry. Now, I know that there were no bent wheels in that roulette den but, and here's where it gets interesting, I hear that you were able to give him fifteen consecutive winning numbers starting from a specific time. Now, call me cynical, but I don't believe that is possible without an 'edge' and I would like you to explain to me, in minute detail, how you managed to do that. Is that clear?"

Bloody hell, they know about the Casino. Please don't tell them anything Pete.

Pete looked down and I could tell that he was nervous, his legs were shaking and I could hear it in his voice as he answered, ''Okay, okay, I'll tell you anything you want to know, just don't kill me" The voice behind the lamp suddenly erupted into laughter, "Don't be a Muppet. Why the fuck would I want to kill you? I'm not a bleedin' animal, all I want is some information. Now are you gonna tell me or do I have to use these?" Pete jumped as a pair of bolt croppers were slammed onto the desk in front of him. 'Not gonna kill you?' what the fuck are you going to do with those things? Cut his fucking toenails?

"Look. All I did was pass those numbers on to Tony. I have no idea how the numbers were worked out...... It was this other guy that I've been working with........he does this thing where he closes his eyes and....I dunno.....He just sees things. Oh and he really gets inside your head....... somehow." Boy, you're a proper little chatterbox when you loosen up aren't you Pete?

The voice began to get angry and slammed the bolt croppers on the table again,

"Do I look like I came down in the last shower? Nobody just shuts their eyes and sees winning roulette numbers....." He was interrupted by a second voice that came from behind Pete, "There was that bloke though Harry, you know, he won the lottery loads of times. Came to him in a dream or something." Pete began nodding furiously, "That's him, he won the lottery five times, gave me ten winning horses, gave Tony fifteen winning numbers and he's got about twenty million in cash stashed at his house. I could take you there if you want", Way to go motormouth! I don't know how much time I've got but need to sort out some defences, quickly.

I had two plans. Number one. Hide in the bunker until they go away and two, I could use psychology, front it out and make myself seem more scary than they were.

Over the years I have met some fairly scary people and they all had one thing in common, I had never seen any of them actually use violence against anyone, the threat of violence was usually enough to serve their purposes. Another thing that I learnt was that if somebody is holding a potential weapon in their hand and it looks like it is all going to kick off, you must threaten them with their own weapon and tell them exactly where you will be inserting it if they don't Fuck off right now. The thought of losing the weapon and having it used against them is usually enough of a threat to diffuse most intimidating situations.

The only problem with this plan was that if it does kick off I needed to back it up with extreme violence and I knew that I probably couldn't actually do it but, I also have a motto, 'Bite off as much as you can and chew like hell' Game on! I decided to see what weapons might be stashed in the bunker, surely someone paranoid enough to build a bunker must have a few weapons hidden somewhere?

I had been banging on walls to find a hollow point for nearly twenty minutes before I found it, a secret panel in the Comms room! It took me a further ten minutes to open the panel to reveal a specially fitted-out cupboard similar to the ones that you see in spy films. Inside I discovered two hand guns, an assault rifle , a taser-type gun, various canisters that looked like smoke bombs, infra-red glasses and even some hand grenades! Time to 'Rambo' myself up!

I set myself up in the gallery, (perfect vantage point for the front door) I had cut the power to the lights, left the main gates open and also left the front door unlocked, now I was ready.

The front door opened slowly and three figures crept into the house, I pulled the goggles over my eyes and looked down at them and suddenly everything became visible. A voice pierced the silence, "Get them lights on.....Now!" I heard the clicking of the light switch and then,.... still darkness. Before they could react I fired the taser at one of the figures, he lit up like a Christmas tree and fell to the ground twitching violently. oops! maybe that was a tad over the top.

Only Harry and Pete were left standing, Pete wasn't a threat but I needed to back Harry off, quickly,

"One more step Harry and I'll blow your arm off. Second step and you can say goodbye to your kneecaps. Shall I go on?" Bollocks, I forgot to check if the guns were loaded!

"I also have a canister in my hand that says on it that it's an acid grenade. I don't know whether it will burn the flesh from your body or fry your brain. Either way it will hurt, a lot. Now, what was it that you wanted?"

Harry immediately froze and raised his hands above his head, it's amazing how quickly people crumple when they realise that they are out-gunned and outflanked. "Whoa, whoa, steady on Mr Briggs, there's no need for that. I just came round for a chat, Pete here's been telling me about your talent and I thought you might be interested in a business proposition, what d'ya say?" He sounded really nervous and I called out to Pete,

"Pete. You okay mate? If you've hurt him I'll tear your bollocks off and feed them to my budgie" Feed them to your budgie? that was a really lame threat. Feed them to your fish might have been better.....marginally.

Pete moved himself away from Harry and shouted up to me, "I'm okay Dave, do you want me to 'phone the Police?" Before I could answer, Harry began pleading, "There's no need to get the old Bill involved, I just want to have a little chat with you. No-one's been hurt now, have they?" Pete was still waiting for an answer and I hadn't thought about what to do next so I just told Pete to go and restore the power while I sat and chatted with Harry.

"Now then Harry, First thing I want you to do when the lights come on is tie your friend up with the cable ties that you will find on the floor in front of you. After that you will sit in the armchair with your hands on your head and we will have a discussion. Is that clear?" By now Harry was looking a bit green and would have done anything that I told him to do, so, by the time Pete had returned, he was sat in the armchair with his face turned up towards me, his hands were firmly clasped together over his head and his unconscious mate was hogtied on the floor in front of him. Job done!

"I think that now would be a good time to establish a few ground rules so that there will be no misunderstandings later, Okay Harry?" I glared down at Harry and he just nodded and made a kind of whimpering sound. This intimidation lark seems to work quite well. Time to turn up to overkill!

"The thing is Harry, I knew that you were coming here today and I also know what you had for breakfast, what time you had breakfast, who you spoke to on your phone, what colour underwear you have on, Oh and by the way, Pink silk boxers are not a good look...You a bit light on your loafers Harry, a friend of Dorothy or just one of those sexual deviants that I'm always hearing about?" I paused for a moment, watched the colour slowly drain from Harry's face and then went in for the kill.

Carpe Jugulum!

"I know more about you than you know about yourself, every sleazy little secret, I know where the bodies are buried and, more importantly, I know which cupboard has the skeletons in, if I let you walk out of here today I will know if you decide to take action against me at some future date and will take lethal steps to ensure that it doesn't happen. I am inside your head right now and know your every move before you've even thought of it. I prefer to look on my 'talent' as more of a 'power' or a limitless ability. There is no way out, nowhere to hide and nowhere to run to so what could you possibly offer me with this proposition of yours?"

After this onslaught Harry was looking very scared and mumbled something that I didn't hear so I decided to play with his head a little bit more,

"Speak up Harry, I didn't hear that.......speak up..........Don't make me come in there to get it," I smiled at him in what I hoped was a menacing way and he suddenly shouted back at me, "Okay, okay. You've made your point. I realise that I have made a very serious mistake and I can only apologise for any inconvenience that I may have caused you....." Bloody Hell, this guy is seriously crapping it!

"........I realise that my original proposition is a non-starter but I would still like to offer my assistance as....I don't know.....security advisor or something that requires a less than delicate approach. If you let me walk out of here now I give you my word that there will be no repercussions regarding today's events and, once again Mr Briggs, all I can do is apologise for my intrusion into your life and hope that you can forgive me."

I was beginning to feel a bit sorry for Harry because I knew that he would imagine that I was inside his head all the time and that it would play on his mind until it drove him insane. He might be a useful ally in the future though so I assured him that I would keep out of his business on the condition that he keeps out of mine but also warned him that I may be requiring his assistance in the future. By the time I had finished with him Harry was a broken man and left the house with his tail firmly between his legs and his 'bodyguard' dragging his knuckles behind him, another one bites the dust!

After they had left I let out a huge sigh of relief and called down to Pete,

"You okay Pete? Boy, that was fucking intense." Pete was looking very scared and was backing away from me as I came down the stairs towards him, "Yeah, I'm okay thanks Dave but.....Well...The thing is...I'm not really comfortable with this experiment anymore....I mean, Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that you had my back when I was in trouble but I really don't like the idea of you jumping in and out of my body whenever you feel like it..." Do you realise just how gay that sounds?

I had never really thought about the experiment from Pete's perspective before but I suppose that he did have a very good point,

"Sorry Pete. I've never really thought about it like that before......How about we just forget it all for a while and get completely ratted?" Pete still didn't seem too keen so I walked over to the drinks cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Scotch and poured two large ones, handing one over to Pete and immediately necking one myself,

"I don't know about you but, after the night we've had I think we deserve a very large drink," and I poured myself another one. It took Pete until the third large Scotch before he began to relax but by that time I was well on my way to becoming pissed as I had been drinking twice as many as he had. "I've had a great idea Pete," I slurred at him, "Why don't I teach you how to do the things that I do and then we could work together to bring down the system? We could call ourselves The Polemic twins. I could tell straight away by looking at Pete's face that he didn't like this idea and apologised quickly, "Sorry mate, I know that I said that we weren't gong to talk shop tonight but I thought that you might feel a bit better about things if I showed you how to do it.......Imagine what we could do, the places we could go....." Pete still didn't look too happy and suddenly broke his silence, "The thing is Dave in the past couple of days I've had a lot of time to reflect on my position and, although I have enjoyed myself immensely while helping you with your project, I just think that things have become more dangerous than I thought they would and will definitely get more dangerous as the project expands. I will continue to support you in your future ventures but would rather not be actively involved anymore. I hope that you can understand where I'm coming from and will respect my wishes and, please believe me when I say, thank you for everything that you've helped me with but it's time for me to move on." The look on his face was one of fear and I knew that he was right, things had become more dangerous and could only get worse as time went on. If I decided to carry on it would have to be alone, I couldn't risk putting anyone else's life in danger. "It's okay Pete, I understand where you're coming from with that. Truth is, I'm not sure I really want to carry on with this anymore but let's just forget it for now, get more pissed and talk some more tomorrow." We carried on drinking and chatting until we both passed out and when I finally came round Pete had gone and I had a blinding hangover, not the best start to the day.

I had converted one of the bedrooms into a kind of bank, not because the bedroom was more secure than any other room but because it was the room that we had stored all the money that we had accumulated over the past few months. We had no idea exactly how much we had saved up but it was a lot, there were piles of money stacked all over the room which made it difficult to even get through the door and I had told Pete that he could spend any or all of the money whenever he needed to so I was not surprised to find that when he left Pete took a large suitcase of money with him. Good luck to him, I could easily win more money if I needed to.

The next few days felt a bit strange because I had become used to having Pete around and now that he had gone I suddenly felt lonely. so I decided to fill my time by testing out my latest powers and spent hours sitting in my armchair focussing on people that I knew in the hope that I could 'connect' with them in the same way that I did with Pete and Harry. There were some successes but mostly I failed to connect, maybe they were asleep, or, worse still, dead. It was amazing when I did manage to connect with someone though, looking at life through someone else's eyes is a very strange feeling, (Imagine looking at things through a camera lens where somebody else is deciding which way it is pointing and what information you are receiving). From my armchair I could travel anywhere in the world and experience anything that my 'host' was experiencing, I was slowly becoming addicted.

It was while I was on one of these body hopping exercises that I discovered the darker side of life. I had jumped into an old friend from schools body, I hadn't seen him for about twenty years because his family had moved to Scotland while we were still in school but we were good friends at that time and I genuinely wanted to see how his life had turned out, big mistake!

When I caught up with him he was driving a car and chatting to someone that was sat in the passenger seat. It was a miserable night with rain lashing down and the occasional flash of lightning illuminating everything momentarily before the darkness returned, he seemed to be driving down a country road, the headlights lighting up the road ahead and occasionally startling the odd animal at the edges of its beam. The passenger must have been hitch-hiking because she was thanking my friend for picking her up, he didn't look at her as he replied,

"It's no problem, not a great night to be out walking, what are you doing out here all on your own anyway?" he looked across at her after he had spoken and I could see that she was quite a young girl, mid to late teens with long blonde hair that had become stuck to her face in the rain. She brushed her hair away with her hand and scanned his face with her eyes as she spoke, "I was just out walking to clear my head a bit. I've not had a great evening and I thought that it might help but it didn't really, I'm wet, cold and lost now as well as being miserable. My name's Katherine by the way, what's yours?"

"Richard or Rick to my friends, sometimes Ricky or Rich but never Dick. That's something my father always drummed into me when I was a boy. He used to say, son, you can be whatever you want in this life but don't ever be a Dick." They both laughed at this and Rick continued, "Good job my last name isn't Head 'cos that would be a little bit too easy to take the piss out of. Nice to meet you Kate..." Katherine interrupted him with a sudden barrage of abuse, "My name's not fucking Kate you fucking piece of fucking shit, I told you once...It's fucking Katherine... now drive this heap of fucking shit and take me home." Ricks mouth dropped open in surprise and he immediately stamped on the brakes, "What the fuck?" Rick reached across and threw open the passenger door as the car came to a halt, "OUT......NOW!"

Katherine suddenly went ballistic and threw herself at Rick, screeching and scratching at his face, biting at his arm as he tried to defend himself and finally, slashing at his throat with a knife which had suddenly appeared in her left hand, my eyes snapped open and I was not surprised to find that I was shaking, as I tried to stand up my legs gave way underneath me. Fuck! Get a grip Dave. What the hell was that fucking nutter all about? What the hell do I do now? I was feeling really sick and rushed into the kitchen to throw up in the sink. Bollocks! Should have taken the washing-up out of the sink first.

It took me a while to fully comprehend the horror that I had just witnessed, my friend had been attacked and probably murdered, literally in front of my eyes and there was nothing that I could do about it, or was there? Maybe if I went back I could jump into Katherine's body and find out more about her, find out where she lives, anything that enables me to make sure that she pays for the murder of my old school-friend. I closed my eyes again and tried to focus on the last image of her that I had in my mind, a demented snarling animal-like face. Once I had that image fixed I was able to switch my perspective so that I was staring into the frightened eyes of my friend Rick. Katherine had just cut his throat and he slumped forward clutching frantically at the gaping wound, gurgling, gasping for air and dying. She just sat and watched as the life slowly drained from Ricks body and he stopped breathing, suddenly she began pulling at her own hair and punching herself in the face, shouting loudly, "GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HEAD, BASTARD. I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE....GET FUCKING OUUUUUT!" what? How the fuck does she know that I'm in here? Shit! Time to go. Once I was back sitting in my armchair I began to relax again, Now what the hell do I do? Maybe now that I have made a connection with Katherine I can connect with her at an earlier time and find out what the fuck's going on.

I closed my eyes once more, reaching out with my mind, trying to find Katherine again until I found myself looking through her eyes and my mind became flooded with her memories, every happy feeling and every dark secret.

Katherine's mother had died when she was very young and she had been brought up by her step-father. Things had been difficult but there were no real problems until he began drinking when Katherine was about ten years old and then the nightmare began. At first he would sneak into her bedroom at night and just lay beside her but after a few months that was not enough and his hands would begin exploring her body underneath her nightdress and night after night the abuse would steadily become worse. Katherine always pretended to remain asleep while her step-father had his way with her, desperately trying not to be sick as he clawed at her body and breathed the stench of stale beer into her face while calling out her name, "Kate, oh yes, Kate," he would slur as he went about his foul business. From the age of about fourteen she began to get her own back on him. She waited until he passed out on top of her and would climb out from underneath him and find something like a high-heeled shoe or the baseball bat that he kept near the front door and battered his head with it. He never woke up during these acts of retaliation and in the morning she would tell him that he had arrived home from the pub in that state, he always accepted her explanation and thought that he must be falling over on his way home from the pub or having a fight with someone.

On the night that Rick had died Katherine had endured a particularly sickening evening of abuse at the hands of her step-father and had, as usual, waited until he slept before punching him full in the face but this time he woke up and threw her across the room in a drunken rage, she ran into the kitchen, picked up a large carving knife and as he caught up with her she suddenly lunged towards his body plunging the knife directly into his heart, he looked into her eyes with surprise and slumped to the floor, dead. Katherine kicked the lifeless body a few times in a furious rage, then calmly got dressed and walked out of the house.

Well, that certainly explains why she reacted so violently when Rick called her Kate but it still doesn't explain how she knew that I was in her head, and Rick is still dead.

I was back in my living room, pacing up and down and swigging on my third Scotch of the night when the idea came to me in a flash of inspired thinking. If Katherine really could feel my presence maybe I could persuade her, somehow, not to murder my friend. Is it even possible to change an event that has already occurred? There was only one way to find out, I had to go back to the point when Katherine had left the house and try to contact her.

Katherine had just pulled the front door calmly shut behind her and began walking up the garden path towards the road, so far so good. She had been walking aimlessly down the country road for about twenty minutes and hadn't given any sign that she had detected me when I decided to announce my arrival,

Katherine.....hello Katherine. Can you hear me?.....Please don't be afraid, I'm here to help you, Katherine showed no sign that she had heard me and continued walking, in the distance I could hear a car approaching and hoped that it wasn't Rick,

Come on Dave, you're running out of time. Think......Come on, there must be another way to stop this from happening. Katherine put her thumb out for a lift as she saw the headlights of the car suddenly come into view but the car didn't slow down and carried on past Katherine, disappearing swiftly into the distance behind her. Luckily it wasn't Rick, this time. I had no idea how long I had before Rick would pick up Katherine so I had to think fast, How else could I stop her? If I can distract her when the next car comes in to view maybe she won't be picked up. Make her throw up at the side of the road at just the right time and Rick definitely won't be stopping, nobody in their right mind stops to give a lift to someone who's throwing up! Those prawns that I've got in the fridge should do the job, just hope I don't throw up myself when I sniff them!

After a quick visit to the fridge to get the prawns I sat back down on the sofa, closed my eyes and connected with Katherine once more. She was still wandering slowly down the road getting drenched in the downpour of rain that seemed to suddenly appear from nowhere, she looked up as a cars headlights came into view some way down the road. I brought the prawns up to my nose, took a huge sniff and immediately regretted the decision, my stomach churned as I fought against my body's natural reaction to eject my last Scotch in a technicolour yawn and I struggled to focus on the job in hand. Katherine suddenly turned and ran to the hedgerow at the side of the road, retching as she went and the car sped by, Disaster averted.

I stayed with Katherine for a few more minutes and was just about to leave her when another car came around the corner and slowed down as it reached the spot where Katherine was standing, the passenger door opened and I found myself looking up at the smiling face of Rick! Bugger! Time for plan B,

If this was going to work I needed to go back again and wait for the second car to go past before using the 'prawn bomb', hopefully, preventing the murder of my friend Rick. I just hoped that my stomach was strong enough to endure a second dose of rotting fish.

I managed to connect with Katherine just as the first car was passing her by, now I just had to wait and hope that my timing would be right this time. As the headlights of the second car came into sight Katherine suddenly ran to the side of the path and began retching, What the fuck? That's not right........I haven't smelt the pawns yet!......You can't......

Back on my sofa I tried to figure out what I had just witnessed and, more importantly, why the experiment went wrong. But she threw up the first time when I took a big sniff of the prawns......maybe it was just coincidence and she was going to throw up anyway......she didn't seem to hear me, maybe I can't contact her at all........what the fuck is the point of this talent I've developed if I can't use it to change things? I spent the next hour pacing up and down trying to work it all out. When she reacted to me being inside her head the first time was she really reacting to something, or someone, else? She was probably hitting out at her stepfather while she was smacking herself around and the sickness was probably just a natural reaction to the horrors that she had endured over the previous few hours. I decided to try to contact Katherine again in the hope of stopping her before she killed Rick but, again I had the same outcome. After four more unsuccessful attempts I switched targets and tried to connect with Rick but eventually I resigned myself to the fact that there was nothing that I could do to save my friend and tried to console myself with another large Scotch, this whole episode cast an entirely different light on things and I would need to reassess the entire experiment, time to retreat to the bunker!

I hadn't visited the bunker for quite a while but felt a lot more relaxed and calm the minute I walked into the comms room, it was peaceful here and I felt safe.

I have no idea how long I had been wandering around the corridors and rooms, exploring every inch of the bunker, but I eventually felt tired enough to be able to sleep and headed for the bedroom where I threw myself onto the bed, exhausted.

#

#

# 10 MEDIUM RARE

When I woke the next day I kept thinking about the events that had unfolded the previous night and I felt sick to my stomach, not because of the violence and gruesome nature of the murders but because I had witnessed them and been unable to do anything to stop them. I fell into a depression that lasted for a few days, all the while thinking of how to, if not change things, at least find a way to use my talents to help more people.

I was sitting in the living area idly lounging around in the leather chesterfield when I decided to take another look at 'logic bomb'. I pushed the start button on the DVD player and waited for the image to appear on the screen......nothing, I waited in case it was having trouble loading and.....nothing. After five minutes of nothing I leaned forward to take a closer look at the screen and an image suddenly appeared, I sat back into the chair and waited for the man on the screen to begin speaking......nothing. I sat forward and looked hard into the screen at the image then suddenly shot back into the chair with the realisation that the image that had just appeared was my own reflection! I quickly ejected the disc and took a closer look at it, there were no tell-tale small grooves on the disc......a blank disc? I turned it over in my hands and almost dropped it when I read the writing on the other side.....'Logic Bomb' was written on the other side of the disc in black marker pen but it was in my handwriting!

"What the fuck!......what's going on?" I was beginning to get paranoid, "where's the original one and why is this done in my writing? Who the fuck has been here?"

Calm down Dave!

The voice startled me and I began panicking, desperately looking around trying to see where the voice had come from, "Who the fuck is that?.......I'm losing it!.....Fuck, fuck, fuck...get a grip Dave....no, wait,"

I turned the disc over and over in my hands, secretly hoping that something would change. I thrust it back in the machine and hit 'play' again......nothing.

I'm sorry Dave but the genie is out of the bottle now, there is nothing you can do to change that. You need to calm down.

"Calm down.... calm fucking down! What the fuck is happening to me? Who are you? This is not good.........I'm talking to myself now! Fuck, Fuck, Fuck! I need to get a grip and get out of here."

Blind panic had taken over by now and I ran out of the living area, out of the bunker, not stopping until I had reached the bottom rung of the ladder leading to the exit and began climbing as fast as I could, Fresh air, yes that's what I need, fresh air and a large Scotch.

Once I was back in the main house and out into the garden I began to calm down a bit but was confused and was seriously starting to question my own sanity, what the hell had happened down there? The sun was beginning to climb high in the sky and felt good on my face as I wandered around the garden trying to piece the facts together, talking out loud to myself,(I don't know about you but if I have a particularly difficult problem to work out I find that it helps to talk out loud to yourself. No? It's just me then. Okay.)

"I know there was something on that DVD, I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears..... But it's not there now....could someone else have found it and swapped it for a blank disc?...no...no...I've hardly been away from the house for nearly a year!....could I have imagined it....yes that's it.....no.....how did logic bomb get written on the DVD if I imagined it?...Bollocks!.....Maybe I was hallucinating when I thought I saw it.....Oh shit!"

I spent about another ten minutes trying to convince myself that it was a perfectly normal state of affairs to have hallucinations while watching a blank DVD and that it was also acceptable to have written on the cover of the DVD without any recollection of doing it.

"I suppose it's possible that I somehow became self-hypnotised and wrote on a blank DVD, after all, I had been watching conspiracy theory DVDs for days without a great deal of sleep, very little daylight and not much to eat or drink. perfect conditions for some kind of psychotic break Dave..........Fuck me I've gotta stop talking to myself..............But what about the voice?.;....Where did the voice come from?........it wasn't my voice.......or maybe it was........you're losing it Dave, okay, okay let's just stop, take a breather, then start again." For the next five minutes I walked around the garden with my face turned towards the sun, eyes tight shut and it felt good. A sudden peace fell over me and I felt much better, more able to approach things from a logical point of view. Time for another one-sided conversation, "Okay then Dave, time to evaluate. What was the original purpose of the experiments?"

I was back in the house by now and was currently pacing the floor talking things through with myself, "The original purpose was to try to prove that my consciousness was able to be completely separated from my physical body, check. It was also to prove that this consciousness was able to interact with other bodies, check. Job done so far. What else have you learnt? That I can only observe and record information but can't actually interact with anybo.......hang on a minute though, yes of course......why didn't I think of it before?" I realised that there was a possibility that I may be able to contact one particular type of person, a Spiritualist!

While I was growing up my Mother seemed to spend a lot of time trying to find a religious group that she felt that she belonged with and as a result I grew up with an 'interesting' view on the whole subject. My first memory of this was the conventional, church on a Sunday type of Religion and the only bit that I actually enjoyed was the singing, although, I'm not so sure the rest of the congregation appreciated it very much because the people in front of me always used to turn around and glower in my direction while I sang 'All things bright and beautiful' at the top of my voice! (I was supposed to be singing 'Jerusalem' but I didn't like that hymn so I always sang my favourite one)

My next foray into Religion was The United Free Church and my Mother sent me along for a few months until I told her that I was bored with it. I was about seven or eight years old at the time and from what I remember of it the United Free church was a lot less formal than a regular Church, more 'happy clappy' style. We spent our time hearing stories from the bible and colouring in pictures of Jesus and his mates and it always struck me as odd that all of the characters seemed to be white and had western style names like Matthew, Mark , Luke, John and Peter! (I had a friend, Ishmael, he had told me that he was born in the same Country as Jesus and I knew that he was a different colour to me with different facial features and an unusual name, important details to a Seven year old!). I got into trouble one day because I had decided to make my drawing look more like my friend but the problem was that I couldn't find the right colour crayon and Jesus ended up a tad browner than he should have been, typical bloody religious hypocrisy. And that was the end of my association with The United Free Church!

Next up was the dreaded Jehovah witness and my Mother had this little old lady coming round to visit the house every Wednesday to talk to her about religion. (I didn't take a lot of notice because I was distracted by Scooby Doo and Spiderman on the television, important stuff to a Ten year old!) Finally, my Mother discovered spiritualism, (see, there is a point to this trip down memory lane), she promptly fell out with the old lady from Jehovah's witness because she thought that it was the devils work to speak to the dead and I often wondered how they could say things like that but still believe that it was okay when that sort of thing is mentioned in the bible, typical bloody religious double standards! So, for the next few years I went along with my Mother to séances, healing sessions, Spiritualist churches and anything else connected with contacting the dead, although I'm not quite sure why my Mother went through all this because, as far as I can remember, I don't think that she actually knew anyone that had died! I just sat quietly through all these meetings, studying everyone and learning each 'Mediums' supposed abilities, some were like the people portrayed on TV with the rolling eye thing and the sudden voice change and I often tried to suppress, (mostly failing), my amusement at the whole spectacle. Some meetings involved a Ouija board and a lot of hand holding in someone's darkened front room. Other people were more business-like about it, turning it into a very sombre and serious affair with messages for loved ones. They never seemed to be genuine to me though because they always seemed to be using fairly ambiguous methods. "Is there somebody here that is associated with the letter E? Maybe someone's initial? Could be someone on the other side, perhaps?" All this being asked to a room full of about a hundred people all desperate to hear from their dear departed, chances of getting a bite from the questions? One hundred per cent!

All of the Mediums that I met during this time seemed to truly believe that they had some kind of gift, some could 'hear' messages, some could 'see' ghosts, some did 'Automatic writing', a method that involves the writer allowing the deceased to take control of the writers hand and writing a message for someone in the audience. (Some of the more clever ones wrote messages that could only be read by using a mirror!) Most of the Mediums that I met during this time were blatant frauds but a few actually seemed to have some kind of ability to receive messages from the dead, these were the ones that I needed to try to contact.

For the next few days I was very busy attending every séance and spiritualist meeting that I could in order to find someone that might have some real talent and one evening I hit the jackpot!

During these visits I would sit in the audience and close my eyes in order to focus on the person that was up on the stage in front of me and, once I was focussed, I would think of a question to ask and project it to the Medium. Mostly there was no response but, one evening at a small-scale séance, I was given the surprise of my life. The séance had been going on for about twenty minutes when I closed my eyes and asked the question, "Hi, my name is Dave and I would like to know if you can hear me?" The Medium suddenly jumped and said out loud, "Of course I can hear you Dave, you are coming through just as clearly as the last time" My eyes snapped open and I caught my breath, giving out a loud gasp, my heart pumping like a train. She had heard me but what the hell did she mean about a last time? I have never seen or spoken to this woman in the whole of my life, how could I have contacted her before? Before I could recover, the Medium turned to the audience and said, "I'm afraid that I will need to talk with this spirit alone and will return to continue our audience in a few minutes." She turned towards the back of the room and disappeared behind a curtain at the back of the stage, I took this as my sign and closed my eyes once more. "My name is Dave and I would like to know when I have contacted you in the past. I have no recollection of this meeting and am a bit confused" The answer came back in an instant, "Hello Dave, I'm sorry that you don't remember our last discussion, you asked me if I could get in touch with a friend of yours that lives in Scotland and stop him from travelling on Friday of last week, is everything okay?" Her answer took me aback and I struggled to understand the information that I had just received, my eyes were open again,

But, but how could this have happened? surely I would have some mem....', and then it dawned on me, 'Of course, that's it! Now that I have made contact with the Medium I can access her memories and change them!' I focussed hard and searched around in her memory to plant a thought from last Friday, I knew that she held a regular meeting on Friday afternoons at her house and I projected myself into her mind just as everyone was leaving, "Hello, can you hear me, my name is Dave and I would like your help,"

The Medium replied that I was coming through clearly and she wanted to know how she could help, This was amazing, I was actually having a conversation with someone in the past! "I have a friend that will die tonight unless you can stop him from taking a journey. I have known this person for a long time, he is a good man and, if he lives, will one day become an important local figure," I lied, "Can you help me?" The Medium had finished clearing out the last of the stragglers by this time and was heading straight for the drinks cabinet, talking out loudly as she went, "I'm sorry Dave, but you will have to wait for a moment while I sort myself out a large Sherry, I find those meetings very draining and just need to relax a second. I assure you that you will have my full attention once I'm relaxed." I waited until she had poured herself a drink and was comfortably sat down in her favourite chair before continuing the conversation, "Right, my friend lives in Scotland and I need to get a message to him by this evening or he will...." I was interrupted by the Medium, "Yes, yes, You have already given me that information. What I need now are details, where is this friend, what is his name and what is the nature of this threat to his life? I can only help if I know all of the details, a 'phone number or an address would be useful, I need information Dave." I realised that I had very little information to give to the woman, I needed to think fast and act even faster.

The only information that I have is his name, I know that he lives in Scotland but Scotland is a big place. I don't even know which road he was travelling on, what a mess! The only way to make this work is to connect with Rick again, but he's already dead. Bollocks! I had forgotten that I was still connected to the Medium and that she could hear my thoughts and was surprised when she suddenly interrupted me, "I'm sorry Dave but I cannot pass a message to someone that is already dead in order to save their life, it just doesn't work like that I'm afraid."

I realised that I had to disconnect myself from the Medium entirely and try to find another way to get the information that I would need in order to save Rick, I opened my eyes and was back in the room with the séance, the Medium had begun calling my name, "Dave, Dave are you still there? Hello, Dave?" she reappeared from behind the curtain, apologised for the interruption and carried on with the meeting.

#

#

# 11 BREAKTHROUGH

Later that evening I settled myself into my favourite sofa and tried to figure out the puzzle over a large glass of Scotch, "Righto then Dave, lets just try and talk this one through then shall we? I can try to send a message to Rick, via the Medium, to stop him from travelling last Friday but in order to do that I need to know lots more stuff before I can contact the Medium again...... but, if he's dead, I can't get that information now anyway......Bollocks! this is fucking useless, how the fuck can I contact him if he's de......" The words suddenly stuck in my throat as the answer came crashing into my head, "Of course, if I could save him then I would be able to connect with him now because he would still be alive. Could that work? Would that work? Sounds like one of those paradoxes that you hear about but I suppose there's no harm in trying." I snapped my eyes shut and reached out to contact Rick, searching desperately for some kind of sign when, suddenly, I found myself looking at life through the bottom of a beer glass.

Rick had just drained his glass and was reaching for another when his friend tugged him by the arm, "Hey, Rick, did you hear about the goings on up at the old farmhouse? Cops everywhere and it looks like there's been a murrdar!" he said, in his best 'Taggart' accent. Rick turned to face his friend and asked, "Wasn't that the night of the storm? I had a really odd 'phone call that afternoon. A woman with some kind of 'powers' told me that an old friend of mine had contacted her and warned me that I mustn't take my car out on that road that night." By now all of Ricks friends had gathered around to listen to his tale and some were shouting 'encouragement' "Hey, Rick did she sound sexy? Did she want to try oot her powers on yer wand? Did she charge by the minute?"

"No, shut up fellas, this is serious, she spooked me right out. She told me that this guy, Dave, who I haven't seen since school, had contacted her and said that I would be murdered if I drove my car that night. At first I thought that it might be a wind-up but she knew that I had a blue Range Rover, she knew the road that I had planned to travel down, She knew where I lived and she knew my 'phone number, everything."

This led to another barrage of banter from his friends, "Every fucking lass in Scotland has your number Rick, Och you're such a Jessie" and, my personal favourite, "Tell 'em the truth Rick. Ye did nae go oot 'cos o' the beasties that roam the moors on the night time when the wind is a howlin' and the divil drives the rain into yer soul" This insult drew an immediate response from Rick

"Bollocks to you lot. Do you want to hear the rest of it or not?" His friends agreed that they did and Rick continued, "So, anyway, I had been asked to travel down to England for the weekend and was trying to decide if I should go down on Friday night or early on Saturday morning. The 'phone call and the storm made my mind up for me and I stayed at home, left in the morning."

Blinding! that takes care of some of the info but I will need to search around in your memory for the rest of it Rick.

Once I had found everything that I needed I tried to connect with the Medium once more, I closed my eyes and concentrated. The Medium was a creature of habit and was, as usual, sat in her favourite armchair and I found no problems in connecting but, this time she didn't know that I was there. I didn't want her to know until I had found Fridays memories and then I would begin the conversation, on Friday she had been sat in her armchair drinking a large Sherry, "Hello, My name is Dave and I would like your assistance in contacting a friend that is in grave danger, can you help?" The Medium shifted in her seat, took a sip of her Sherry and replied 'You are coming through clearly Dave and I will give you any assistance that I can. What is the problem and how can I help?" I gave her the details about Rick that she would need to contact him but also gave her the background on Katherine and how the evening would end if we couldn't stop it from happening, she was shocked and it showed in her voice as she asked, "Oh dear, the poor girl, is there nothing that we can do to help her as well as Rick?" I told her that my main priority was to save Ricks life and that we would figure out a way to help Katherine later, she seemed happy with that and wrote everything down as I relayed it to her again, stopping only to take an occasional sip of her Sherry.

Once she had been given the full details the Medium reached over to her 'phone and dialled Ricks number then began talking loudly into the mouthpiece. (Have you ever noticed that, when people are talking over the 'phone to somebody that is a long way away, they seem to talk much louder?)

"Hi, is that Rick...you don't know me but I have a message for you from your old school friend Dave and..." Rick must have been questioning the information that he'd just heard because the Medium suddenly stopped speaking and began spluttering like a rusty old car, "But, but, but he definitely knew you and gave me a lot of details that I wouldn't know unless he had given them to me..........Your 'phone number for a start, that and the fact that you drive a blue Range Rover and you are planning a trip to England but can't decide if you want to travel tonight or in the morning. Is that enough or do you want more?............No, no, this isn't a wind-up. I promise you that everything that I'm telling you is the truth." It took some time to convince Rick that she was deadly serious and that this was not a crank call but eventually the Medium put the 'phone down with a happy smile, satisfied that she had just saved someone's life, then, surprisingly she lifted the handset and dialled another number, "Police please.........Yes it's an emergency.......Thank you........" She was on the 'phone to the Police for the next twenty minutes, trying desperately to convince them that she was not a hoax caller and that they should take her very seriously. She must have sounded trustworthy or something because, when she finally replaced the receiver, she said aloud,

"Well I guess that sorts that out then. I don't know if you can still hear me Dave? It's good news all round. I told the police that I thought that a young girls life was in danger, gave them as much detail as I could and they will be sending a squad car around to check things out. We've managed to save Katherine as well as Rick! Thank you for the information Dave, if you'll excuse me I will be relaxing with a large Sherry and reflecting on the most wonderful day! I look forward to hearing from you soon."

Once I was back in my chair at home I reflected on how the day had panned out and tried hard to understand the sheer awesomeness of what I had achieved, It seemed that I had somehow crossed into an alternative reality and changed history! "Fucking hell, I've just saved someone's life, no...wait a minute, I just brought someone back to life! Fuck me, that deserves a large drink!"

Feeling very pleased with myself, I poured myself another Scotch and thought about what else I could achieve with my new found talent, this was an unbelievable power that I had discovered and it seemed to be just another indication that my original theory may be correct.

Contacting the Medium had opened up a whole new ability to explore, the ability to change events that had already happened! My first thought was to contact other Mediums in order to build up a network but gave up on that idea quite quickly because it would require a great deal of concentration, planning and hard work! I had a much better idea, I realised that the Medium would naturally assume that I was able to communicate with her because I was dead, the reality of the situation would probably blow her mind, time for a bit of fun

From my chair in the house I was able to reach out to the Medium at any time that I needed to, but could I actually reach out from her to contact the people that she claimed to speak with? If they really are communicating, who are they? Are the voices that the Medium hears coming from the same place as my new talents? I had so many questions that needed answering and was looking forward to, hopefully, finding the answers with the help of the Medium.

"Hello...Dave.....yes I can hear you alright" The Medium was sitting in her kitchen, one of those large open-plan jobs with loads of workspaces and every gadget built-in, she was drinking coffee from a large mug and smoking a roll-up as she called out to me. I had to be very careful about everything that I was thinking because she heard it too, Hello....yes...is there anything that you would like to ask me?

The Medium thought for a moment before replying, "Well .....yes, is there anyone in the living world that you would like to contact?....."

The question took me by surprise a bit because I had forgotten that the Medium thinks that I am dead, (Understandable I suppose, considering that the only people that she usually talks to are dead ones!) Er, no it's okay, I have already made contact with the only person that I need to..............You!

She seemed taken aback by this information and went quiet for a moment while she thought about it, "Oh.....er... do you have a message for me? Is that what you mean?"

I realised at this point that I really hadn't thought this whole conversation through very well and didn't actually know how to answer her question. Bugger! If I tell her that I'm dead I would be lying and sooner or later a lie like that will bite your arse when you least expect it. If I tell her that I'm still alive? How would she take it? how would I convince her? Bollocks! Er, well, not really a message as such, more like a chat really.....I suppose." I began lamely, I was about to attempt a bail-out from the situation when the medium suddenly spoke again, "Oh.....I'm sorry Dave, can we have a chat later? I have somebody else waiting to speak to me, will that be ok?"

Was she having a laugh? This was possibly the most surreal moment of my life, here I was inside someone's head and they were asking me to wait while they spoke with somebody else, inside their head! Caller, I'm afraid you'll have to hold, I have another call coming in on the other line. This is insane!

I decided that I would listen in on the 'conversation' and the Medium continued, "Hello, who is it that wishes to speak with me? Do you have a message for me?' I couldn't hear an answer to her question but she began nodding her head and carried on as if somebody were talking to her, "Oh, yes, I see......mmm, well yes I can understand how it would be an important message to get through, yes..." As she carried on rambling I strained to try and pick up something, anything, but heard nothing. Where was she getting her information from if there really was nobody there and who does she think she is talking to? I listened to her one sided conversation for about another five minutes and then decided that a strategic withdrawal was probably a good idea, this experiment had raised more questions than it had answered.

#

#

# 12 CONTACT

For the next few days I took some time out and just relaxed around the house, all the while pondering on the puzzle that I had stumbled into. I needed to think clearly about my next visit with the Medium, the questions that I had to ask, the answers that she may be able to give me and, more importantly, I had to find out the source of her information because, if it is coming from the same place as my information, why can't I hear it too?

The only way forward from here was to find the source and connect with it but, did I really want to, was I ready for what I might learn and, ultimately, could I actually use what I learn? I began to get excited about the prospect of how this whole experiment might end, the Nobel Peace prize? the Nobel prize in Physics? Who knows where it could go?

I had made my mind up that I was going to contact the Medium on an evening when she held her meetings, usually Friday, (occasionally other evenings and afternoons), but Friday was probably the best time because her senses should be heightened by the fact that she has just finished her big séance of the week.

The evening meeting was drawing to a close when I connected with the Medium, the congregation were beginning to talk amongst themselves and the Medium was looking around the room with an air of satisfaction, smiling occasionally at a passing believer.

It didn't matter how many times I connected with somebody, it still felt very strange to be looking out at the world through someone else's eyes and experiencing life with someone else's senses. After the last of her congregation had left, she tidied the room, switched out the lights and retired to her comfy chair. I waited until she had finished pouring herself a Sherry before announcing my presence and she jumped , spilling her Sherry before it had reached her mouth and then swore to herself for her clumsiness, "Oh, sorry Dave, but you startled me, I'm afraid I've finished for this evening so if you wanted me to relay a message for you then you will need to come back at a later date,"

As she carried on slurping on her Sherry I took the opportunity to explain the intrusion and almost gagged when I suddenly tasted the Sherry, "I was wondering if you could help me to make a connection to someone, anyone in order for me to advance my experiments?" The Medium thought about the question for a second before replying, "Experiment you say? What kind of experiment? That sounds very odd to me Dave, what use do the dead have for experiments?" Was this the chance that I had been waiting for? Could the Medium really understand if I were to explain things to her or would she just completely freak out? Only one way to find out, Carpe Jugulum!"

"Before I answer your questions I think that it is only fair that I explain one or two things to you. Although I can connect with you I am unable to connect with others in the way that you can and would like your assistance in achieving this."

I breathed an inward sigh of relief and hoped that this would satisfy her curiosity enough without too much more of an explanation when, suddenly, she spoke again, "I suppose It wouldn't hurt to try Dave but I still don't understand why you need me. I will try to contact one of my guides and maybe they will be able to assist you." She closed her eyes and I could hear her begin chanting, then, "Are you with us Chief Snarling Wolf? give me a sign that you are here." A door slammed shut behind the Medium and she jumped again as she continued her conversation, "I have someone here that would like to speak with you Snarling Wolf, he has some questions that he would like answers to and feels that I would be an appropriate conduit, is that okay?"

Once more the Medium conducted one of her one-sided conversations and once more, despite straining every fibre of my being, I failed to hear anything, I seemed to have reached a dead end. I was about to give up for the night when the Medium interrupted my train of thought, "Okay Dave, Snarling Wolf has agreed to speak with you and would like to know what questions he might be able to help with. Now, what is your question?" I thought for a moment before replying, "I would like to know simply this, Am I correct in my theories and experiments and, if so, why am I unable to contact you directly?" The Medium began nodding and umming again and then replied, "My son, you have always been in contact with me, and I with you... since the first experiment..........and the lottery win," this information freaked me out and I broke off contact, immediately returning to the comfort and familiarity of my own home. I couldn't stop shaking as I reached for the Scotch bottle, pouring myself a large one and throwing it down my throat before topping my glass with another one. Wow! that caught me a little off guard, if you truly have been in contact with me since the beginning why didn't you let me know? I have so many questions, who are you, where do you come from? I waited and listened hard for any sign that I had been heard, silence.

I thought that maybe I should talk out loud and repeated my speech as I swirled my Scotch around inside the glass and walked around, staring down at the Herring-bone pattern on the floor, still nothing. "For fuck sake, give me a break, if you really are there give me something!" I was shouting at the room now with my head tilted up towards the gallery and my arms flung wide. My armchair suddenly moved across the floor on its own and came to a rest in front of me, At fucking last! I took this as my cue to sit and took up my position in the chair, my heart was pounding and I felt a renewed burst of adrenalin. Get it together Dave, this could be it, the final answer! I calmed myself down and waited for the next sign, any sign. Then, one word, 'WELCOME'. The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, inside my head and outside in the room and it completely freaked me out. After the first unexpected word my head began to spin as I became bombarded with voices, smells and huge amounts of information via my other senses, I felt as though my head was going to explode and I struggled to focus, my mind going into overload. "Slow down, I can't cope with it.....too much information......STOP!"

I had covered my ears by this time in order to shut out some of the noise and the room fell silent. I waited for a moment before I uncovered my ears and regained my composure, "Wow, that was a rush! I'm sorry but there was just too much coming in for me to cope with, is there any way that you can slow things down a bit and we can talk without me losing my mind in the process? My first questions are who are you and where do you come from?'

'I am whoever you want me to be, anyone and everyone, anything and everything' The voice was, once again, everywhere. 'The question that you need answered is not the question that you have asked. There is no we because we are one.' I had heard enough, enough to know that this conversation was going to be hard work,

"Give me a fucking break, do you have to spout random sentences like that? Could we just talk normally?.....I mean, not that this is a normal situation, I don't usually talk to myself out loud.....well, actually, yes....yes I do talk to myself out loud.......quite often, but...well you know what I mean. Alright then, if you can be anyone, this would be a lot easier for me if we were to pretend that we were just two old mates having a chat.....erm, it's just that I'm finding this a bit difficult " The room fell silent for a second and then the voice returned, 'Okay Dave, that would be alright if it makes things more comfortable for you that is what we will do. I must warn you though, there are some things that I will be unable to tell you because certain events in humankinds history should not and cannot be changed. I have been observing you for a long time and yes, your assumptions are mostly correct. You would be amazed at the variety of different life-forms that there are in the universe, some humanoid, some multi-dimensional and some, myself included, do not have any physical attributes or dimensions but are, nonetheless, a life-form. I have existed for all of time and have experienced every memory of every life-form that I have connected with in the whole Universe, I have experienced every emotion that it is possible to feel and I understand everything that there is to understand. Now, what was your question?' This was definitely the strangest situation that I had ever found myself in and I was struggling to get my head around it all. I knew that I could have this whole conversation in my head if I wanted to but it just felt more natural to pretend that I was actually talking to somebody in the room. There were so many questions that I wanted to ask but I just didn't know where to start, where did the Entity come from? Is every animal on Earth connected to the Entity? Are there other planets like ours? Can I connect with them? The list was endless, where to begin? I eventually decided to try and rationalise the whole thing by talking out loud, "Where do I start? Well, I think that the best way to do this is if I just talk everything through and you listen, or whatever it is you do, and only interrupt me if I've got something wrong." Silence, "Okay, that must mean you're listening."

"If my theories are correct it means that the self-aware portion of me is actually a part of you and, without it, this body would be operating purely on instinctive reactions......... Okay........So, simply put, you are a super computer that holds all the knowledge of the universe and humans are like terminals that have a one way connection....until now." My words hung in the air for a moment and the full enormity of what I had discovered suddenly hit me and my hysteria kicked in, I collapsed in a heap on the floor, my head pounding and my heart racing. Having a theory about something is one thing but when that theory suddenly becomes a reality, Boom!

"The entire Human Race are aliens and they don't even know it.......How funny is that?........Fucking hilarious!" I was laughing uncontrollably by now as the hysteria fully kicked in and spent the next few minutes trying to calm down and get myself together.

I began pacing the floor as if I were the chief prosecutor in a big court case and then announced to the room "You are probably the nearest thing to a God that I have ever encountered but you are not at all what I expected. Most peoples idea of God is some guy with a long flowing beard and wearing clothes that went out of fashion when Archimedes was alive but I suppose that you actually fit the bill better than that. Checklist......You know everything, check. You feel everything, check. All the other Godly-type things, check."

I was beginning to get into my role as Chief prosecutor and spun myself round dramatically to face the front door before adopting my most patronising manner and pausing for effect occasionally, "Now, although you may appear to be God-like you are a fairly impotent God because you can't interact.....with anyone!.........I suppose the fact that you can't physically interact explains why God never actually helps or intervenes directly with anyone, unless you count all the people that say that they have contacted God or got a message from him, although, maybe they did.......Maybe they weren't all nutters.

The reality of the situation, is however, somewhat different.....you may be God-like but you are also a parasite expanding your life experience by using other species senses and emotions. What would have happened to the Human Race if you had not made them self-aware?.......Actually, forget that question because without the advantage of being self-aware the Human Race would be no better off than monkeys...fuck.......wow, this is some serious head-fucking stuff,"

I paused for a moment while I thought more closely about this scenario before revising it with my next statement, ".....So, without you, we are looking at a planet full of animals that are all living on instinct to survive and, as any schoolboy knows, only the strongest and fittest survive.....which means that without you we're pretty much fucked! Whole new can of worms."

After that particular revelation I felt that I deserved a stiff drink, I poured myself a large Scotch and got comfortable in my chair again before I started speaking to the room once more, "I feel that now would be a good time for me to ask you a few questions and I think that I would begin by asking you where you are and why can't we detect you?" I waited for a reply and the voice suddenly filled the air, 'I am everywhere and nowhere and the reason that you can't detect me is that you haven't actually looked in the right place.' I couldn't understand this statement and was beginning to tire of the riddles, "What do you mean we haven't looked? We've been looking for life inside and outside of our own planet for centuries and have never found a thing. If you are everywhere there must be a way that we can detect you." The silence that followed seemed to go on forever and I was startled by the sudden sound of the reply,

You are forgetting that I have no mass, I am not matter. I create matter

All through history man has been studying matter, breaking it into smaller and smaller pieces and trying to understand how it works. You have spent so much time looking at matter that you have overlooked the space between the matter......... that is where you will find me. It will be some time before you will be able to detect me using scientific methods but I think that you have learnt enough over the past few months to be able to realise that you don't have to rely on that. Of all the species throughout the Universe that I have contacted and observed I have found that your kind have been the most challenging and would like to explain a few things to you in order that you understand and don't look on me as a mere parasite. The Human part of you has never, and will never, develop into a self-conscious being without my intervention and, just to introduce a touch of irony to the problem, the part of you that is feeling outraged and violated by me is in fact, me! I know that this is a bit of a difficult concept for you but the sooner you realise that you are me the sooner we can move on to more important issues. At that moment something seemed to click in my head as the full implications of this statement hit home."Fuck me, I am God!" At that moment a brilliant white light appeared in the corner of the room and rapidly expanded until it occupied my whole field of vision then flicked from one eye to the other and back again.

#

#

# 13 FULL CIRCLE

"Mr Briggs.......can you hear me?.....Mr Briggs?" The light had disappeared as quickly as it had arrived and I found myself looking at a huge dark ball, as I focussed my eyes a face slowly came into view and the voice enquired once more, "Mr Briggs, can you hear me? you don't need to speak but if you could blink your eyes for me just to let me know that you can hear me?" The face withdrew from mine and I began to take in my surroundings. The walls were painted white and the smell that pervaded the air was sterile, I was laying on a bed. I guess this means we're not in Kansas anymore Toto!

I looked back towards the face and could see now that a young man was stood at my bedside, he had a stethoscope hanging around his neck and was wearing a doctors gown, Okay, now I'm worried. What am I doing in hospital? How did I get here? I tried to sit up but didn't have any strength so I looked into the Doctors eyes and blinked,

"Welcome back Mr Briggs, you had us worried there for a while. I just need to run a few more tests and then I can explain to you what has been happening, will that be okay?" I tried to speak but nothing came out so I blinked once more at the Doctor.

The tests took about another half an hour and while they were going on I disconnected myself from my surroundings, desperately trying to work out where I was and what the hell was going on. The last memory that I had was of me having a drink at my house and having a chat with God, nothing out of the ordinary there then. I had no memory of passing out, my journey to the Hospital, nothing. The Doctors words interrupted my thoughts before I could analyse the situation much closer,

"Right Mr Briggs. Now that you are a little more comfortable I can explain things to you, my name is Doctor Peterson and you have been with us here for about a year now........" A year!....a fucking year! What happened? Where the fuck am I? The questions were racing around in my head as the Doctor continued his conversation, ".....You have been in a coma, a coma unlike any other that I have ever witnessed and I would like to ask you a few questions, will that be okay? Blink once for yes and twice for no." If it meant getting to the bottom of what was happening It was worth doing so I blinked, once. The doctor sat beside the bed and pulled an electronic tablet from his pocket and switched it on.

"If you don't mind I would like to take a few notes........Now then, do you have any memories from the past year?' I was about to blink once but stopped myself because that was not such an easy question to answer. Well, let's see, up to about an hour ago pal, I was enjoying my own company in my house, next thing I'm sat here having a chat with you. Maybe you should tell me where I've fucking well been for a year!

I decided that it was probably simpler to just blink once and hope that the Doctor would fill in any blanks that I had.

"Perhaps I should have begun by informing you of today's date so that you have a reference point to work from. I realise that, being in a coma for a year, you may think that anything that you can remember will be a recent memory, when in fact, it is a memory from a year ago. Would it surprise you to find that it is April 2012?"

What!........surprised? I'd be totally fucking stunned if it was April 2012!

What the hell was happening? I began my experiments in 2012! What the fuck? It should at least be 2013 by now! The doctors voice jolted me back into the room and I tried desperately to focus on what he was saying but my mind was still reeling from the last thing that he had told me,

"I can see from your eyes that you are shocked to find that you have lost a year of your life and for that we can only apologise. We have been monitoring your brain activity and bodily functions while you have been with us and, I must say, you have surprised us all with your body's reaction to the trauma that it has been exposed to...."

I had no idea what the Doctor was talking about and searched my memory for any trace of anything that made sense of this situation, nothing. The only thing that I could do was lay there as the Doctor droned on.

"....You should really be dead now by all accounts but, somehow you have survived and I have no idea how! You brain has been showing activity levels comparable to an active person of your age and fitness level, your heart also showed the same signs, in fact, your entire body was reacting as if you were fit and healthy. Impossible while you are in a coma."

The Doctor was leaning over me by now and was staring straight into my eyes as if he could find an answer to his questions in there. No good looking in there pal, I have no idea where I've been either! Hang on a minute....what do you mean 'for that we can only apologise'? I thought about what the Doctor had said and tried to make sense of it, it sounded as though he knew more about my coma than he was telling me otherwise why would he be apologising for it? I tried to connect with the Doctor by closing my eyes as usual but nothing happened. What the hell was going on? Had it all been a dream? No way, it all felt too real, and besides, if I've been in a coma since 2011 everything that happened after that time would have had to be a dream, not just the experiment but the year before that, I can clearly remember 2011, it didn't make any sense. The Doctor began speaking again and I had no choice but to listen,

"It might make things easier if I asked you if you remember coming into the Hospital Clinic?" I blinked twice. Clinic? What fucking Clinic? I've got no recollection of any Clinic!

"You signed up for some Clinical trials here at the Clinic. We were testing out a new drug that we hope to use to help people that have had a stroke or head trauma and you had a bit of an adverse reaction to the drug..." Bit of a fucking adverse reaction! No shit Sherlock! I've been vegged out for a year and you call it 'a bit of an adverse reaction!'

With this information I managed to find the strength, (through anger), to speak to the Doctor, "What happened Doc?" The Doctor looked surprised that I had spoken and sat back in his chair, "Mr Briggs, you must take it easy, your body has been through a huge ordeal and you need to take your time for a while. I want you to just lie back in your bed and I will explain exactly what happened, you only need to blink your eyes for the moment, okay?" I stared over at him, blinked once in acknowledgement and he continued, "The idea of the drug was to target certain neurons in your brain and control them with a special light source, sort of training them to switch on and off at certain times until they react to the kind of stimuli that they are supposed to react to and, at first, it was all going as it should until your brain lit up like a Christmas tree and all hell broke loose!

All the Neurons in your brain began firing off randomly and you completely shut down for a while, presumably so that your body could 'reboot'..."

Reboot!......Reboot! Do I look like R2 fucking D2? I glared at the Doctor but he seemed not to notice and continued his explanation,

"Once you began breathing again everything seemed to double, your breathing, your heartbeat, everything, and at first we were concerned....you, you should have died really, but once we worked out that you had stabilised into a normal pattern, albeit a double speed pattern, we relaxed and began monitoring your brain functions. We are still unclear as to what happened because, at first, only the subconscious part of your brain was firing off at double time but then the rest of your brain began reacting, nobody knew what to do so we gathered information and kept you comfortable. After a few days we realised that your body didn't seem to need to be connected to any machinery other than the one that we had hooked up to your brain. You didn't need to be hooked up to that one either but we wanted to try and see what was going on in your brain, if none of this makes any sense to you then imagine how confused we were!

We adjusted the machinery so that it could display the information that it was receiving at half speed, sort of buffering it.......we were amazed at what we discovered. Every reading that we were observing was completely normal! It was as though you were still living your life, the same kind of brain patterns that you might have if you were actually conscious!......but living your life at double speed! Do you have any memories at all?'

I thought about it for a while before blinking my answer. Do I tell the Doctor where I've been? Would he believe me? Do I believe me? This was going to take a while to figure out so I decided that the best course of action was to blink twice......for now.

"Oh well, something might come back to you once you are properly rested and recuperated. I'll leave you alone for a while now, you need rest, but if there is anything that you need just push the red button at your bedside," he indicated towards a large red button that was positioned close enough for my hand to reach easily, turned and left the room. Was he having a laugh? Need some rest? How much rest do you need after being in a coma for a year? Fucking comedian!

I lay on the bed staring at the ceiling for what seemed like hours trying to figure out what had happened to me. I had been laying in this bed for the past year, unable to move but, somehow, seemed to have lived somewhere else for two years! None of this made any sense and all I could think was that my mind had created some kind of alternate universe for me to exist in, for some reason speeding everything up so that I can experience twice as much, maybe the future? Or maybe it was all just a dream. I finally fell asleep and dreamt of nothing at all for the first time in over a year, or was it two?

I began to get stronger as each day went on and I was soon able to walk about and live a (sort of) normal life again. The Doctor ran endless tests and spent most of the daytime hours with me and we discussed what had been going on in the world during the time that I had been unconscious.

While the Doctor had been telling me about the events that I had missed, William and Catherine's wedding, Liz Taylor and Amy Winehouse dying and all the unrest among the Arab nation I felt as though I already knew some of the things that I was being told. It was as if I had actually lived through them and could remember the events with great clarity. I didn't tell the Doctor about this because I wanted to get out of the Clinic as soon as possible and besides, if I really did live two years in the space of one I had the advantage of knowing the future! A whole years worth of future! I hadn't told the Doctor about any of the memories that I had and simply told him that the last thing that I could actually remember was visiting the Clinic at the start of the testing, this seemed to satisfy him and he didn't pursue things, besides, he was far too excited about the results of his tests.

"We have gathered enough information to last us a Millennium! It will keep a whole team of Doctors and Scientists busy for a Millennium! I can't tell you how much this all means to me Mr Briggs, books will be written, secrets will be discovered, we can map the entire brain down to every last connection, neuron and synapse, everything, all thanks to you!"

It was the beginning of June 2012 by the time I had returned to live back in my flat, half a million pounds better off as a result of a payment made by the Clinic with more to come once all of the information had been collected and analysed.

The first thing that I tried when I got home was to connect with someone in the way that I had before but only managed to give myself a blinding headache and gave up soon afterwards. I really don't know what to make of what happened to me and have now decided that it is probably better not to over-analyse it, that way madness lies!

Today is June the Eighth and I have got a Euromillions lottery ticket that I am hoping will be a winner. I have used the same numbers that I used in my 'dream' because, by coincidence, the jackpot is estimated to be over a hundred million pounds, the same amount that was won on my first visit to June 2012! Too much of a coincidence to let it pass by, wish me luck.

THE BEGINNING.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that has encouraged me to keep on with this project, especially my wife Nikki. She has always stood beside me and supported me whenever I have embarked on a new path no matter how insane the idea may seem. Thank you for your love and encouragement. I would also like to thank Ken Lewis, Ali Burgess, Marc Carey and anyone else that I have persuaded to proof-read my ideas. I love you all. Dave.
