

Collected Third Millennia Piffle

Craig Cavanagh

##

Piffle

Item Title

1. Blood Alignment Negativity Theory Z

2. Engineering Success

3. Appman - Radio Edit

4. Jambaluntaya

5. Incident 326B

6. Board of Film Censors' Certificate 326B

7. BASE 326B – Northern Moon Section 3192 AD

8. Face Crime

9. Invention 326B

10. Thief a catch to

11. That's Amore

12. Life After Ward 326B

13. Soccersperience ©

14. Choosing My Religion

15. Girls on Film

16. Macca's Financing

17. Lot 326B

18. Mouia L'Italia

19. Polar Research Station 326B

20. Security Door 326B

21. Lawastern / Girado

22. Appman - Extended Version

23. The Spugal Nut

24. Single Story Trilogy

25. Small Business Plan 326B

26. Player Registration 326B

27. Love in Another Elevator

Acknowledgements

Collected Third Millennia Piffle – Soundtrack

Track to be listened to in order with the stories.

Opening Credits

"O Mio Babbino Caro"

1. **Blood Alignment Negativity Theory Z**

"Killing Joke – A Love Like Blood"

2. **Engineering Success**

"Motorcrash – The Sugarcubes"

3. **Appman (Radio Edit)**

"This Time Tomorrow – The Kinks"

4. **Jamaluntaya**

"Tempter – Stereolab"

5. **Incident 326B**

"Chestnut Mare – The Byrds"

6. **Board of Film Censors' Certificate 326B**

"A Strange Day – The Cure"

7. **Northern Moon Section 3192 AD**

"Bat Macumba – Os Mutantes"

8. **Face Crime**

"Falling From Grace – The Gentle Waves"

9. **Invention 326B**

"All the Umbrellas In London – The Magnetic Fields"

"Tired of Sex – Weezer"

10. **Thief A Catch To**

"The District Sleeps Alone Tonight – The Postal Service"

11. **That's Amore**

"Been There All the Time – Dinosaur Jr"

12. **Life After Ward 326 B**

"One for My Baby (and one more for the road) – Frank Sinatra

"No Promise Have I Made – Hüsker Dú"

13. **Soccersperience** 

"I'm Set Free – The Velvet Underground"

14. **Choosing My Religion**

"Dear God – XTC"

15. **Girls on Film**

"I'm Not Always So Stupid – The Wedding Present"

"Dress Up In You – Belle and Sebastian"

16. **Macca's Financing**

"Money – Pink Floyd"

17. **Lot 326B**

"Up the Down Escalator – The Chameleons"

"Young Pilgrims – The Shins"

18. **Mouia L'Italia**

"Sleep Well Tonight – The Inspiral Carpets"

19. **Polar Research Station 326B**

"Another Night In – Strangelove"

20. **Security Door 326 B**

"Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards – Billy Bragg"

21. **Lawastern / Girado**

"Stanley Kubrick – Mogwai"

"Waiting For Kirsten – Jens Lekman"

22. **Appman (Extended Version)**

"The Mistakes of My Youth – Eels"

23. **The Spugal Nut**

"Work It Out – The Twerps"

24. **Single Story Trilogy**

ENGLISH: "This World Needs A Father – Suede"

SPANISH: "Pesadilla en el Parque de Atracciones – Los Planetas"

FRENCH: "La Chanson de Jackie – Jacques Brel"

25. **Small Business Plan 326B**

"Hallogallo – NEU!"

26. **Player Registration 326B (Fame)**

"Be Young, Be Foolish, Be Happy – Booker T and the MGs"

27. **Love in Another Elevator**

"Ocean Rain – Echo and the Bunnymen"

Closing Credits

"Samskeyti (Untitled #3) – Sigur Ros

# Copyright

First published in 2017

All rights reserved

© Craig Cavanagh, 2017

# About the Author

Craig Cavanagh is a Seville based translator and on-off roving football reporter who dabbles occasionally with the pen. Other works include a novel entitled Costa del Trolls, the story of a group of good-hearted yet ultimately flawed thieves who up sticks and join an international crime organisation in Marbella. 11 Noches, a novel written in Spanish, with the assistance of his wife who acted as editor, the story of an everyday yet uninspiring town that receives no sunlight for 11 nights and the townspeople's endeavours to restore the light. All presently available at good on-line retailers.

# 1. Blood Alignment Negativity Theory Z

Research into Blood Alignment Negativity Theory became popular in the late 1980s though remained a secretive and lucrative side line of the major scientific companies. It was one of a series of research lines that gained in prominence as politicians turned to science to come up with a solution to, or at least an explanation for, the reasons for the failure of Western economies and the unacceptable levels of persons deemed below the quality threshold desired for the proper upkeep of society.

Science as a diagnostic tool was considered vastly superior to the extolment of extremist views against one section of society to demonstrate their culpability for the planet's woes. Those entrusted with the role of reaching this conclusion were not likely to take into account variables such as the fabled 1% of the population in whose hands most of the planet's wealth was held or other factors that would lead to a significant change in the former's set-up, which was thought to be perfectly effective yet ruined by a combination of over-population and ill-constructed DNA profiles.

The suggestion was made in a 1992 conference in The Hague that there was indeed a surplus, of around 10% of the world's population, but also that said surplus had a negative effect of holding back the two main groups identified for success; potential performers and intentional conformers. This meant a human imbalance of around one quarter. Thus the elimination of this group would lead to a more than proportional increase in terms of yield and profit for the planet as a whole.

Research into a means of profiling these individuals to devise a plan for their control continued throughout the nineties and into this century. Elimination was not a watchword that those in command positions allowed to be uttered but it was clear that any surplus would require a cull, however abhorrent this may appear on the surface. Once the culprits were identified, public opinion would be moved in such a way to defend what was seen as rightfully owned by the other 75 to 85%, allowing for a modicum of fervour and underlying hatred to set the wheels of change in motion.

In the meantime, the media tried its hardest to decry other groups as the perpetrators of the world's ills. None were convincingly proven as being anywhere scientifically liable for anything on a grand scale, but there was growing evidence that the surplus population was not only having a negative effect on business and economic growth, but also causing a latent decline in the output of otherwise hardworking people, who, under the auspices of the decent and productive top 75%, would be able to pull themselves from the mire.

The government had special interest in isolating any sort of gene or mutation that would allow for a programme involving the sterilisation, and / or, extermination of this dangerous group, yet they knew that they could not act without scientific proof. With the millennium drawing to a close, pressure was exerted on all those involved in the secret research to give the Prime Minister the boost he needed to enter the twenty-first century with renewed optimism.

The first breakthrough was to isolate a DNA trait that was directly linked to laziness. At first, through the studies into this scientific field, progress was slow as scientists were determined that the problem could be solved through the analysis of our genetic make-up, overlooking one major aspect that was common to nearly ten percent of the world's population. The idea that it was something gene-based rather than race-based was both a revelation and a relief. The idea of taking on an ethnic group would pose endless issues, especially with the burgeoning emergence of social media in the second part of the first decade.

DNA strand 326B was found to be present and could be linked to low performance in persons from all walks of life, yet its detection was slow and cumbersome. Plus, it was not conclusive as there were also carriers of the strand who had outperformed other non-strand carriers in a range of indicators. Further to this was the fact that variations of the strand could be confused as pure strand and lead to the exclusion of nearly 30% of the population. Thus, it was deemed, that one could be lazy and productive, or one's laziness might not necessarily hinder their ability to be productive at another time. No, the isolation process needed to determine exactly which person carried the strain of 326B that caused all of society's problems.

Visionaries often appear at the most unlikely times and it was a team of researchers in a lab off the West Coast of Scotland who began to abandon the idea of the DNA route and work on the isolation of blood itself. The idea that a certain race had a greater propensity to failure held no truck with any viable government plan to create a level of stability for the planet as a whole. Governments worked together, all colours and creeds accepting the idea that a surplus in this issue was a bad thing, and, as the scientists were beginning to prove, every nation had its own group of culpable surplus, this meant that there could be no calls for victimisation of any group. If it was just a clean cull of between 10 and 15% from all walks of life and colours, then the common good would triumph. Dissenting voices would be quashed or simply silenced as the excess could be enjoyed, a song and a dance and a bit of a fuss might occur at the beginning, but after that, people's natural greed and maleficence would restore things to a more natural order.

And so, the lab began to work in different areas, namely the new field of Blood Alignment Negativity Theory, which worked simply along the lines of rather than focusing on the DNA strand, they aimed to prove that entire sets of people with a certain blood group embodied the entirety of the problems faced by the world. Some of these blood group carriers had managed to pull the wool over the rest of the planet's eyes by accessing positions of responsibility and renown, but this was not the norm and their performance ratings were still vastly below that of people from other blood groups.

As 2020 drew closer, the US government demanded a conclusive answer as the fabled recovery after the most recent depression failed to be the boom period that had been forecast. Thus, in a ground-breaking paper published in May 2019, scientists from the lab proved beyond any doubt that the defective blood group was indeed B Negative and that all the carriers of this blood type were an unnecessary burden on society.

How this was proven was conveniently kept secret from the rest of society, and, for the good fortune of the writer, from all sources on the Internet. Suffice to say that all relevant boffins and political experts considered the theory to be sound and accurate. Whilst the details of the theory were kept away from eyes that may pry and prod and pick holes in its veracity, its idea was slowly allowed to filter outwards. A tried and trusted method.

A clumsily leaked email made its way to a sensationalist tabloid which, seizing the chance to stir up public agitation and claim the scalp of the previously designated politician and scientist scapegoat, hastily published a story claiming that a subversive group aimed to prove that all carriers of the blood group B Negative, immediately stylised to "bNegs", were the source of all the world's woes. Inevitably, the theory was decried as nonsense, the scapegoats roundly chastised on social media and TV, enjoying a week as the world's most hated people and then swiftly forgotten upon the breaking of the next story.

But the seed was planted, people began to ask whether there could be anything in it. People began to seek out bNegs and analyse their performance at work, their effect on others. If anything, the initial furore around them led to an increase in their working yield, as if they felt under the spotlight at all times to outwork any of their non bNeg colleagues. The phenomena began to take hold, slowly at first, then gathering momentum, to the governments' delight, as the inevitable hashtag of #shameabNeg took hold of Twitter. bNegs were exposed on social media, often with side-by-side videos of them "pretending" to be hard at it juxtaposed with another showing their true colours.

No movement is complete without the willing force of the uneducated hatred of the mindless masses. Non bNegs who were unemployed began to feel aggrieved that their post had been taken by workshy bNegs. Employers sensed a certain amount of exertion on them not to hire or promote bNegs, or even to remove them from their workforces. All of this gathered pace without any of the concerned governments having to spend a single centime, cent or penny on further research, the hatred bubble was mushrooming of its own volition, the more people seen as reasonable and learned tried to denounce the plausibility, simple social media opportunities presented themselves to further the idea that there really was something to it.

Libertarians and voices of reason were the easiest targets to remove. Why would people who had chosen to believe that life's lottery was preventing their advancement due to the continued support of a worthless group listen to reason suddenly? The proof was there, there was a paper, no-one had seen it but it was known, it contained the facts. The easiest tap ins were when the experts actually carried B Negative blood, so much so that often any voice considered of any worth beforehand refused to opine on matters concerning BANTZ, as this was now stylised, bearing in mind that the supporters of the movement would be less likely to follow something that used up most of their Twitter character allocation on spelling the name. The Z had no place in the theory, but the marketing company believed that it would appeal to the younger non bNegs.

With sufficient support from the "grassroots" sections of society, the moment arose to begin taking steps to remove bNegs from prominent positions. A bill was proposed whereby any organisation with bNeg senior executives would have to justify their choice of employment against a criteria checklist (practically impossible for the bNegs to come out on top) and should said bNegs fail to meet these criteria, they were to be immediately replaced by non bNegs.

A similar situation was devised for bNegs running SMEs. To be able to continue with their business, they would have to pay a standard PAYE rate of 50% and increase takings with profit sharing for non bNegs. The thinking here was to price them out of the market and thus force them to abandon their professional endeavours. There was another option on the table, the bNegs' companies could be transferred to non bNegs so that the latter could run them and keep on the original bNegs as employees, though a law passed the week after limiting bNegs earnings to 600 GBP per month (taxable at 49% too).

bNegs from all spheres were forced onto the streets. Plans were made to counter any rise in crime as a result of these undesirables by imposing harsher sentences on bNegs for any type of misdemeanour. To finance this increase in potential prison population, bNegs had their assets stripped and could have no more in savings that 1000 GBP or the equivalent amount in the local currency of the applicable nation. It turned out that bNegs had more disposable income than was expected for such a lazy group and this windfall allowed for further expansions of the plan.

Whilst certain sectors of society felt bemusement and even bewilderment at the measures arbitrarily taken against people simply for their blood group, governments chose to ignore these, as public opinion shifted in their favour like never before. Whenever questions were raised they were roundly discarded by the findings of a throw-away boffin who came up with fancy looking PowerPoint presentations that were the scientific equivalent of photoshopping a supermodel's body onto a wallflower's head and expecting people to fall for it. Of course, they did, they lapped up everything that was thrown at them, the more ludicrous the better, the more obvious the lies, the more they learned them word for word and repeated them with glee among their friends colleagues and on social media.

Increases in GDP due to heavy taxation and appropriation of bNegs' goods meant that the UK government could afford a 3% income tax decrease and pay all non bNeg workers a Robin Hood windfall bonus of 1000 GBP, with unemployed bNegs forced to fill their posts for free, should the non bNegs decide to take a holiday with the money.

The next thing to plan for was the bNegs' uprising. They would surely not take this lying down forever, and any excuse to tighten security against them would provoke little opposition and would indeed prove doubters wrong. Sporadic groups of non bNegs had already begun to form vigilante squads to ensure order in the bNeg ghettos that were appearing on the outskirts of major cities. bNegs were no longer allowed to live in an area within five miles of the city centre, and then only in government approved zones with a limited yardage and value.

Pockets of bNegs resistance tried to demonstrate, but they knew their hands were tied, if they tried anything, reprisals on groups of bNegs could be disastrous, if they tried nothing, their remaining (few) civil liberties would be completely removed. This logical outlook could not be sustained for a group comprising nearly a tenth of the population. And so, inevitably, a group of bNegs entered a government research centre and set fire to the place, killing three non bNegs. Revenge was imminent.

The night after the fire, hundreds of bNegs were attacked randomly as comeuppance for the actions of the twisted firestarters. Many of their residencies were looted and burned, with the government passing an emergency measure that no bNeg could be on the street without registered accommodation, anyone failing to comply with this measure could be immediately imprisoned until they had earned enough to make a deposit on a new property, depending on the waiting list, which was now much longer due to the events of the night known as "the Night of the Long Platelets".

The incident left more than a thousand bNegs dead and many more wounded. As bNegs they were not eligible to use the National Health System and so would have to pay for medical treatment (which they obviously couldn't do) or take their chances at the bNegs Health Centres (woefully underfunded and staffed by unqualified psychopaths). Within a week of the event, statistics claimed seven thousand bNegs had been removed as a burden on society. With disease and poverty rife amongst them, the stage was set to up operations.

Killing four thousand over a couple of weeks would not be a feasible means of removing such a large section of society. We have obviously moved on from the dark ages of transporting them to camps and putting them in ovens. The future was soon assured by passing a law which meant that all bNegs males had to be sterilised. Nobody checked whether bNegs would always have bNeg offspring, but the measure was deemed appropriate and subsequently adapted for bNeg females.

In theory then, no more bNegs would be born, but there were still around 600 million on the planet. Waiting for them to starve to death would take an eternity, so the onus was left on the country with most bNegs in the world, Australia, to find a solution. The solution was simple, a kind of home share plan. All the world's bNegs would occupy Australia until they died. The non bNeg residents of Australia would be given accommodation in the country of their choice until the problem had been resolved, though the thought of an island with 600 million cadavers on it made return less appealing. All Australian citizens accepting the plan were given half a million dollars. Those rejecting it, would be left in Australia. All bNegs' possessions and worldly goods were to be divided between the relocated non bNegs to compensate them for the upheaval that this would involve.

And so, on the 19th of July, 2031, container ships carried thousands of bNegs to their final destination in Australia. All residents of the former British colony were removed by plane or ship to leave the island free of any type of transport, thus preventing escape. Boats carrying the bNegs administered a muscle relaxant in the water to prevent any uprisings, turning their cargo into docile harmless cattle traveling to their fate. As the boats were paid for the number of trips made, unscrupulous captains hit upon the idea of emptying their cargo in the middle of the ocean and returning for more, though this practice was soon decried as the number of bNeg corpses washing up on the shore caused issues for local non bNeg residents.

Towards the end of the 2020s, special container ships were built with separate engine and cargo compartments, the biggest the world had ever seen. In conditions of almost zero comfort, up to 35,000 passengers could be transported in an almost harmless sleep to their last port of call. Each participant country, by that I mean every country, undertook to build a number of these proportionate to their bNeg population. The UK had seven of these vessels, France five, Germany eight and the USA twenty-four, even landlocked countries were obliged to have an amount of them and store them at their nearest port, except Switzerland which once again never got involved and still maintained a high level of bNegs and saw no drop in GDP. bNegs tried to emigrate to places like Switzerland (first choice) or Albania (with reservations) or Kyrghizstan (a step up from death) but these nations soon closed their borders as they were swamped.

So, at any one time, there could be more than 1 million bNegs under transportation to Australia. This meant that the entire process by this method would take less than three years. Even so, that was considered a lengthy and burdensome process. From places like China, Japan and New Zealand, bNegs were simply ushered onto military transport planes and air dropped to Australia, with roughly enough parachutes for 60% of the plane's load to ensure a reduction in numbers early on. The problem with Oz was always going to be distance, the reason it was chosen, it being so far away, was also a major hindrance of the logistics. It was also a complicated business getting someone from Utah, for example, to a port where they could board a ship to Australia. As the celebrations for the 10 millionth recorded death of bNegs came to a close, certain voices began to suggest that it might be time to relent on such severity.

These voices of dissent were immediately quashed, the destruction of the bNegs and their errant blood group had gone beyond a mere crusade to improve standards of living. Too many people had vested interests and were even looking beyond the bNegs, should the promised Utopia be spoilt by the unsightly presence of the working class.

Even people generally seen as wishy-washy lefties began to change their outlook as momentum gathered for what was billed as "definitely not a final solution". Research was done also to see whether bNegs could be sent into space to colonise the moon but that was eventually discarded when real scientists were consulted once more. The decision was made to use Alaska as a temporary Australia Annex where bNegs could be taken and frozen to death. Nothing was hidden any more, there was no tiptoeing around the subject, news chains and independent groups proudly reported on successful eliminations. FOX NEWS came up with the slogan that "600 million is a lot, but if we all kill one or two, it's a lot less". With the reduction in the amount of electricity needed to heat and water this massive group of people, older power stations could be converted into huge furnaces, as many renowned voices concurred, not everything the Nazis did was that bad.

They did create a lot of dust though. Luckily, a formula was discovered soon after, or always known and considered inappropriate, of how to combine mineral water with human ash to create fully functional bricks ideal for housing. In no time, the cost of building a house was reduced by more than ten percent. With non bNegs with more disposable income now, this meant reduced mortgages and fewer foreclosures. GDP took a huge swing upwards as the construction industry soared again.

In some places, bNegs fought tooth and nail for their right to live but even in Russia, where the strongest bNegs were found, the non bNegs simply closed their doors in November and opened them in March. "A winter indoors wins wars" Pravda proudly stated.

By 2040, there was an estimated world bNeg population of just 11 million people, easily identifiable and avoided with the B-stamp on the top of their hands, the drugs they had been given caused all their hair to fall out and any means of covering the marking was punishable by transportation. Many of these had aided and abetted the destruction process. Australia had been declared uninhabitable although daring farmers found that the arid soils of the desert lands, once fertilised with the rotting corpses of more than 400 million people, turned it into one of the most fertile wheat and cereals production areas in the world. This meant that bread and rice were basically free now to anyone in the world. The top 1% was now the top 7% and everyone, unless they were too lazy not to be, was better off by at least ten percent. The figure of ten percent became the benchmark against which everything was measured, with the idea being that, if it yielded ten percent more, it was worthwhile.

Peace was declared on the remaining six million bNegs on the anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 2045. One hundred years to the day since the Nazis were quashed, there were no liberators for those still clinging to life. The only rights that they were afforded were those in place just after the initial resolutions preventing them from ownership and positions of responsibility. Most were old and frail, infirm and unable to work anyway, before taking into account the rather ungentlemanly disservice of allowing themselves to be slaves once more. Most just wandered the streets begging, waiting for whatever force had brought them to the planet to take the ailing frames away from it so they could be with their long-departed souls.

One day, before the daily visits of the shrine that is now the old lab in Scotland, receiving thousands of visitors a week to give thanks for the sterling work done to cull the Earth's population, one of the intern scientists stumbles upon a box that looks like it has not seen the light of day in more than thirty years. Inside he found the original formulae and calculations that led to the great discovery that isolated blood group B Negative from the remainder of society and cast them out like dogs into the night. The intern took the papers and returned to his desk. Despite having the most advanced calculation technology on-hand, he, like the scientists involved in the project, preferred to do his calculations by hand.

Most of it was fairly standard up to the point of the DNA strand, then it is when theories began to diverge and the calculations seemed to be askew. He went through them twice and gave out an exclamation that was not exactly befitting of the discovery: "Gosh, it was never B Negative". He repeated the calculations and looked at the demographic figures, at no time in history had there been 9% of the population with B Negative blood, rarely had it exceeded three. It seemed that the group had been chosen at random to begin the elimination process of all carriers of that type. He found the names on the header and checked them against the records. The findings were signed and approved by the deputy head of the unit, without the approval of the Chief Researcher, a man, it turned out, who spent his whole time trying to belittle the deputy. The Chief was relieved of his duties soon after, his medical examination stating his blood group as being B Negative. On the back page, a message was written in biro that said, "you'll be fools to believe all this" PLM 2019, and a second message "that's why it's so believable" RKC 2038.

#  2. Engineering Success

Amanda bemoaned her punctuality. After a while she realised it was his she should be cursing as she tried to sneak a glimpse of her watch just to confirm how late he was. It had been referred to as the dinner of reconciliation, a second chance, a phrase that amused her given the fact that more than a dozen had previously been squandered. Not just by him, she had also failed to make the relationship work, yet after days of soul-searching, she arrived at the decision, not that he was the one, but simply that perhaps that it doesn't get much better than this, and certainly a lot of people did not share their good fortune.

She swilled the remains of the soft-drink she had ordered in order to keep a level head, to keep the conversation civilised, and not to cloud her judgement. She was now also fully aware of the fact that the rest of the people in the restaurant were of the opinion she had been stood up. She ordered a large red wine and continued to wait.

"Probably stuck in traffic" said the waiter with an attention to detail that warranted the jaunt's Michelin rating. "Give him a call". He added.

And she would have done, but she had been so absorbed in recent times that she failed to notice a hand enter her bag on the underground and remove her purse and mobile. The apparatus itself was of little importance in comparison to her failure to copy the SIM to her laptop. This meant she did not have anyone's number, least of all her boyfriend's. Inspired by this she decided to make things a little more interesting. Of course, she could get his number from a variety of sources but thought it would be more fun simply turn up at his flat and leave him a note. She commandeered the aid of his flatmate, a rather useless creature with notable allergies to work and cleanliness. Amanda told him that the information on the paper was of the utmost importance, and that he must give it to her boyfriend as soon as he returned. Pleased, she left. Ten minutes later the paper was used a coaster for a can of cheap cider whilst the flatmate smoked himself into oblivion.

Amanda got to the restaurant ten minutes early. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she was looking good, the tingle of nerves inside her felt strangely appealing. She was ready, but alone. She began to realise that the idea of the note was not the work of a genius. She had no means of contacting anybody and, despite the wine, felt a little foolish. She did not consider the fact that the note had never reached his eyes, it was clear he had no wish to salvage anything, as she ordered a second glass she began to compose a list of possible candidates for the post of adulteress.

Amanda and her betrothed always celebrated special occasions at the same restaurant. The boyfriend arrived home and found a scribbled note on the table, the information barely legible said something about dinner with Amanda. He jumped into the shower and raced down to their favourite place. He sat alone at the bar waiting for. Amanda had chosen a new place for the encounter, somewhere which symbolised the fresh start, but somewhere only she knew.

Inevitably, Amanda, in her cocktail dress, began to attract attention. Her lips, reddened by the wine, shone seductively in the mirror. She brushed off a couple, but soon decided that nobody did that to her, and when the next suitor seemed to offer something more, she accepted the invitation to join their party. They were a quartet one short of their number, a couple and another male. He too had been stood up. She was quick to tell him that she had not been stood up, but rather there had been a vastly unfortunate misunderstanding. He simply nodded and led the way to the table.

As she walked to the table she thought to herself "This is not me", deep down she felt that she should get out there and then, before anyone would really care. She saw the chance to make it for the exit, but her anger meant her feet refused to obey her brain's commands. Seconds later they were sat at the table and champagne was being ordered.

Three bottles of champagne were consumed during the meal. The dessert came with a liqueur. Rather a lot of alcohol. Amanda's fill-in at short notice had been nothing less than charming throughout the event, even exchanging private jokes at the expense of the other two. One of them was a footballer she had never heard of, who talked like he could win the World Cup on his own, when he went to the toilet she was told he was second choice goalkeeper for Brentford, and his girlfriend, the inevitable model scared of the lettuce, yet prepared to imbibe the calories eschewed by the teeth.

Amanda was beginning to forget about her betrothed, this new guy was to her liking and she was more than a little tipsy. She managed to take control enough to refuse the offer to continue at a night-club. The rest of the group insisted, but she remained firm. The footballer would not take no for an answer until her new friend had a quiet word with him. A taxi was called but it would take half an hour.

This meant one more for the road. Amanda made sure this was her pleasure so that she could make sure it was a Diet Coke disguised as a Cuba Libre. As they talked she accepted his number, but knew she would not call him. It had been a wonderful evening but she was now well aware where her heart lay. During this conversation, a taxi appeared at the doorway, the taxi driver looked at a couple and said "Amanda?", not thinking twice she said yes and they drove off into the night.

After forty minutes of waiting the taxi company was phoned again. They informed her that the client had been collected and nothing could be done for the next two hours. Once again Amanda was in the footballer's car, she knew he was in no condition to drive. She made up a story that a friend of hers had been in an accident and she had vowed never to travel with a drunk driver. The restaurant was in a hotel, she would stay the night. They needn't worry. She checked into the hotel and fell onto the bed, drunk but happy.

Five minutes later the fire alarm sounded and the hotel was evacuated. For extra piquant, the heavens opened. She saw the group in the car-park, and when permission was given to leave the premises, she went with them.

The footballer unsurprisingly drove a sports car. This meant that there was very little space in the back. They tried to accommodate themselves as best they could, but Amanda, at nearly five foot ten, was uncomfortable behind the model. They changed the seating arrangements so that she was now behind the goalkeeper, still suffering but at least she could get one leg into position. She looked at the goalkeeper and told him to take it slowly.

He failed to take this advice into account and sped out of the car-park. They travelled for less than a minute along the country road before the slippery surface caused him to lose control on a dangerous bend. For that moment on, the alcohol left his body and he applied the brakes. The car spun violently out of control and collided with a tree. It seemed that despite the accident everyone had been fortunate and was unscathed. The footballer asked if everyone was alright and they told him they seemed so. Then Amanda noticed something in her neck. As the car had collided with the tree, a branch had come through the window and lodged in her neck, around the level of the jugular. She was bleeding profusely and looked at her companion with terror in her eyes. The other three managed to exit the vehicle and call an ambulance. The operator told them that there had been a fire in a local hotel and it could take a while. Her companion returned to the car and held her hand, telling her that help would arrive soon. He spoke to her constantly to prevent her from falling into a mortal sleep, gently slapping her face as her as her eyes waned. The strength in her body began to leave her. her hand slid into her pocket and found a crumpled-up piece of paper that had been through the wash at least twice. The paper contained a faded yet legible mobile number, her boyfriend's. She laughed and the blood began to spill out at an even greater rate. In the rear-view mirror, her companion finally saw the blue flashing lights of the ambulance coming towards them, but looking back down at Amanda he saw that it was now too late and that she had gone.

He picked up the paper and, not knowing why, dialled the number.

# 3. Appman - Radio Edit

"This time tomorrow, Rodney." Barney looked at his watch. He had not even managed to get the quote right. It was this time next year, but shuffle had thrown up "Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneyground Part 1" by the Kinks and that skewed his train of thought's path.

Of course, this time tomorrow he would not be a millionaire, nor this time next year, nor any time in the foreseeable future because he had failed. His intended work was a steaming turd of little or no worth. All good intentions, all good intentions that now meant little, little compared to the legible something that they had once represented.

It was 4am, the Jameson was twelve years old, the age he was when he started dabbling with computers seriously. When programming replaced minge, booze and larks that were all around him, to devise the electronic means to enjoy minge, booze and larks. His eyelids hurt. He knew that feeling, the late-night sensation of eyes trying to suggest openly that they should spend some hours closed, heavy eyelids willing themselves downward in the hope that the brain will be fooled into an energy saving mode. Normally, he would concede to sleep's tantalising advances, but he had work to do.

When he began this project, he would nonchalantly hoover up the purely medicinal elements of chemically impure quality with fifty and one hundred bills, as time dragged on, he was forced to use flimsy looking, dog-eared fivers and rolled up train tickets he had previously admired with a sage nod, proudly claiming "decent roach material, that." He took a dose of the necessary and returned to his lathe.

Revived and replenished, he returned to work. His first action was to scrap everything he had done until that point. That was the easy bit. In the reflection of the mirror he could see his girlfriend, asleep and unaware of his latest nonfeasance. He was amazed they were still together, then he rectified. They weren't really together, she just hadn't got around to leaving yet, if she had had anywhere to go, there she would have gone. He had made little or no effort to rekindle or even maintain a semblance of the average misery levels he put her through usually. Barney was prone to allowing outside influences to have a bearing on his life decisions, and he had deemed that the current situation between North Korea and the USA meant that it was not really a worthwhile investment of his time to treat her in any other way than someone who occasionally contributes to the rent, and is in possession of a fully functioning vagina. Maybe if the tension between the two fat heads dropped, he would give her a more serious position in his life. In the meantime, there didn't seem much point. He would be so, so, terribly apoplectic with himself and the hours wasted listening to her drivel, only to be rewarded with a four-minute warning and an unfulfilled life. No, unless she was replaced by someone with a more suitable status on the time investment – return benefit coefficient (he had an excel spreadsheet on this), something unlikely to happen as it would involve regular showering, she would be treated to low level attention.

She was hard work too, and he did not relish hard work even for his own gain, so for hers, it was even less supposable that it would happen. He joked with his only friend, Stephe that "she is harder to impress than the gay friend of a perennial forty-something spinster". Maybe she wasn't that hard to please, more like he wasn't trying that hard to please her.

Anyway, that's enough stalling in a desperate attempt to reach the word limit. Barney had four hours to submit his project. An App. He was sure he had devised a potentially life-saving piece of equipment that would allow hypertension suffers to be able to know their BP levels via their smartphone and send their location and data to their doctors. This would reduce drastically the amount of time needed to find a patient during a potential emergency or suggest measures aimed at controlling levels. As he was preparing his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, he realised the hunk of steaming shite was practically useless. It didn't work. Not only that, it was vastly unreliable into the bargain, suggesting that perfectly healthy people were seconds away from myocardial infarction, whereas people on their last legs were told to have a cream bun and an Embassy Number One.

That would have guaranteed him a first-class degree. Now, he had to come up with something to save a two-two. "Des-fucking-mond." He joked to himself. If he failed to get anything in then he would not graduate. How do you design an App in four hours? He took another healthy line and leaned back into his seat to think. That was the moment, call it what you want but that was the moment that saved his graduation. Anything would do, the bare minimum, was what he had been told, and here he had it. He fell of the chair and banged his head. Immediately, his brain sent a reaction memorandum to his voice which emitted the word "FUCK!" at a loud volume.

His thoughts were: How ignominious that in this day and age and with the technology we boast that we should still have to do our own swearing. The number of man (and woman for they have potty mouths too) lost due to cursing must be putting a strain on the economy. Imagine an App that takes care of all your profanities and execrations without the need for you to open your lips; imagine the time that would save; imagine the moral aspects, YOU no longer bandied obscenities about. Either he was high as a kite, or he had had a brilliant idea.

The logistics of the App were remarkably simple, upon detection of the severity of the blow's impact, the App would emit a swear word to concur with the discomfort suffered. For example, a minor misfooting on the street leading to a loss of balance and an ungamely recovery would send out "SHIT!" An actual fall with noticeable contact and potential injury would be met with "FUCK!" And anything in excess of the impact of human skin on an opening airbag would be greeted with "CUNT!"

He tried it out a few times to get some "SHIT!", then fell onto the floor to receive a "FUCK!" There was no way he was going to ruin his own phone with this at the experiment stage, so installed the App on her phone then dropped it out of their third-floor window with the volume at maximum. Below he heard a faint "CUNT!" and sent the project to his course director. She would hate it, especially the "C" word, but she would not be able to fail him. He lay down next to her, feeling drained and ready for a doze as he typed the last words. Now, in the comfort of the bed designed for sleep, the drug that for most of the night had been noticeable in its absence, now decided to invite itself for lunch and bring its annoying family with it, once again coursing around his system to prevent any slumber. He caused her to stir and fumble for her device rather than reaching out for a hug.

"Seen my phone?" She asked.

"Not since last night." Barney responded.

14 Billion Downloads Later

That tuxedo would need a replacement soon. It had seen some nights, and with more around the corner. The left cuff was looking a bit battered. Despite a net worth of now in excess of one hundred million GBP, he amused himself frequently by going to cash machines and checking his balance, stepping to one side when there was a queue so that he could create what he termed a "seethe wave". On more than one occasion he heard his famous App utter expletives in the background. How he despised those hideous utterances. The utterances that had made him rich beyond his wildest dreams before his 25th birthday. The utterances, they said, had changed the world.

Barney thought it was a joke. He never considered his App would even leave the course director's office, but someone saw its potential in a world devoid of potential. At first, it became a favourite with the youth and other groups for whom there were never enough fads. Then the plaudits came.

App of the Year. Barney thought it was a pisstake. He was sure that he would arrive at the TV studio and be treated to the vocal version of this emoticon but it was real. All too real. The announcer rambled on about how the App had been a source of liberation for people without the ability to express themselves. Asperger's, Autism and Tourette's groups claimed that the App was a marvellous step forward in treating these hideous conditions. An adapted version of the App was used as the basis for a documentary that followed three children with severe Tourette's Syndrome and showed them beginning to enjoy the semblance of a normal life.

But Barney used his fortune to devise the App that he had in mind before the swear-fest. He managed to tweak and twiddle with the once discarded App's specs to create something that worked and would help society. Once the furore of the "other" App died down, he would pardon himself in the world's eyes by launching the BP controller. In the meantime, he was forced to continue with the charade.

The App gave rise to a novel, entitled "Knocks for a Pound" in which the hero was a clumsy detective who solved crimes after accidently stumbling upon evidence and activating the App. The novel was penned by the upcoming voice of the youth Gaylord Shabootiquiqui, who suggested that Barney should be up for the Nobel Prize, not for science, but for literature, as reward for freeing civilisation from the "shackles of its language".

Just when he thought that no greater, or dafter, acclaim could be awarded to him, some ridiculous government, NGO or charity would splash him on the front page of their latest news bulletin for services to the community. That brought him to here, to this point. "Time" magazine. "Man of the Year". There was no great woman behind this great man. She had lasted only days into the initial furore of the App. Angrily leaving to a chorus of "CUNT!" as she dragged her suitcase down the stairs, after buying a new phone, of course. He acted like a rock star and helped himself to App groupies who would leave the next day without a sound (unless they tripped) though this action became less erotic as time wore when certain girls liked to leave the app running as he pounded into them and caused the headboard to collide with the wall. There was an ongoing challenge between the groupies to see who could go from "SHIT!" to "CUNT!" the quickest.

He was being interviewed as if his contribution to the world truly were something to behold, as if his life's work had made the world a better place. The number one song on the download chart was a remix of Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop with smartphones thrown against Guantanamo Bay inmates to provide the lyrics. The App was constantly being updated, now out of his hands as he sold the rights and would never need to work again if he lived to be 200. Before the interview there was a delightful video montage of all the good work achieved thanks to the App in our new swearing free society.

The musical turn before he spoke was a rapper asking for forgiveness from women for his misogynistic tomfoolery in the past, inevitably, the chorus was them hitting him with sticks with retro iPhone 3s attached. Then Barney spoke.

"This is such bullshit. Do you not realise that I'm spinning you all along? I've made billions, billions, can you fucking believe that? Billions from a stupid and useless piece of shit. How the fuck has this made your lives better? Why the fuck am I on the cover of Time? You've gone mad, you're a mad bunch of c...." The interviewer stopped him before he could say THAT word. People had not heard actual swearwords for a couple of years now, and the only people who used them were low grade data accumulators (the term used for people who had not embraced Apps for expression).

A needle shot up through the seat and sent Barney off to sleep. That was the end of the swearing, the presenter thought as he set his anger rating to very high and sat back whilst his smartphone expressed his current emotions.

Barney awoke in a white room surrounded by nothing that he felt any attachment too. His head throbbed and his mouth felt ghastly. All that was on the bedside table was a smartphone, not his, but with a major update of the app that he had invented. This gave him the opportunity to express a myriad of thoughts without needing to open his mouth. "How long have I been out?" He thought to himself, doing that thing when you notice something inside your buccal region is not quite right, but cannot locate or identify it, and tried to swirl his tongue around his mouth. His brain sent the signal to scream "FUCK!" but there was no tongue to carry out the command. Instead the App, now capable of Moodsense™ did the swearing for him. He looked in the mirror and saw where his tongue once was. Anger welled up within him to such an extent that he had to put the phone on silent.

He looked in the wardrobe and found a laptop. For reasons best known to himself, he fired it up and saw a presentation. His ex and his project leader from Uni celebrating the launch of the BP App. He'd not only turned her away, he'd also turned her the other way. The next video was of angry mobs' reactions to his outburst on the TV. Lastly, he checked his bank balance, under 100 million now but things could be worse. He moved an amount to a Swiss account and planned to make his way abroad. Somewhere they didn't hate him. In the laptop bag, there was a car key. He looked out of the window and saw a flash BMW outside. He jumped in it and drove off.

After about five minutes, he stopped and wondered where he was going. Searching frantically in the glove compartment, he found his passport and a ticket to Bermuda, on a flight leaving in two hours. He knew it was probably a set-up but forced the car into gear once more and drove along the country lane. He made sure not to go too fast yet as he came to a corner, the steering failed to respond and the wheels locked. Despite him trying to move the vehicle into a different position, the same continued in a straight line and dropped off the side of the ravine. His injuries were severe, the on-board assistant automatically called his phone but with no tongue, he was unable to request help. As the call ended, the App activated itself as life drained out of his body, responding to the collision by repeating "CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT! CUNT!

# 4. Jambaluntaya

She wanted to buy into the project. That was all she knew. That was her driving force, her will to live. She felt that she deserved it, not because of any special achievement but simply because she did not see why others deserved it more. It cost one-hundred grand to buy into the project, she was only ninety-nine and a bit short, she gazed longingly out of the window and concocted a plan.

She was a good hairdresser. No, scratch that, she was a contender, she could have been one of the best. That was before the incident, when she, as a trainee, managed to set fire to a client's head under the dryer in London's most exclusive salon. Her name was mud and mud that stuck to the walls of every decent place in the capital. She was forced to take on the menial tasks of taking coats, making tea and occasionally, washing hair, though they always made sure the water wasn't too hot.

If she scrimped and saved she might take a thousand years to get the money she needed. There was never anything left over, she tried to be frugal but London did not allow for that. Yet she had to be thankful, she had a job, she had a flat, a hovel, but her hovel, well not hers as such, but she was in it. Yet how she longed for the project.

As she rubbed the shampoo into Mavis' hair she hit upon an idea. A rather brilliant one. Her need to join the project had been recently exacerbated by her finding herself expecting a child. This bundle of joy would not, she was adamant, come into the world that she was currently inhabiting. Part of her duties were to take the coats of the wealthy ladies who ambled away their days changing hairstyles. All of these women came to the salon, located in an upmarket retail park, by car, and all of them parked in the car park. In her lunch-break, she surveyed the basement and found that no-one had a car older than 2 years and none would cost less than thirty grand new.

She checked up on car prices and made contact with a local villain, an ex of hers who didn't owe her a favour but could not refuse a deal. She calculated that she could take the keys to six or seven vehicles without any difficulty and take them across the way to where the villain had a lock-up. Each trip would take 4 minutes. She got herself a foldaway bike so that she could make the journey back to the car-park even quicker. She could get all seven vehicles out within an hour.

She practiced with her brother's car and was certain it would be a doddle. Before choosing the day, she made sure the villain had the cash on-hand, he did, and made an appointment with the project. Once she had the money, she would have to be out of there sharpish. Once she was in the project, her worries would be over, they always looked after their own.

With the salon full, she went into the walk-in closet where the coats and bags were kept, and helped herself. She chose seven keys from the bags, all BMWs, Lexi and Mercs. They had to be top-end, she told herself.

She rushed down to the basement and started pressing the key controller hurriedly, was she in a bad movie? Her first car was a success. Lexus 1 was the Inventory model, around sixty grand according to her excel spreadsheet. The second Lexus wasn't as good, there were two 40k plus Mercs but the three BMWs were a bit of a let-down. That said, her haul had a market value of two-hundred and sixty-thousand pounds. Obviously, their depreciation value had to be taken into account, but she wanted one fifty. Discussions were opened.

"Normally, I wouldn't pay you or anyone who tried on something like this. I probably wouldn't have you killed but you wouldn't walk out of here with a penny. Still, you always had something and I like what you have done, there is initiative here. I need to get a couple of girls with your spirit in the salons. So, the cars are worth one hundred and fifty thousand. Plus, I'm gonna throw in another twenty-five if you allow me exclusive rights to the business model. Deal?"

"Deal." What other response could she give?

She was gone. Her appointment with the project was at nine A.M. the next day. She had to hide. She took the foldaway bike and cycled to her brother's. There she had a light case with a few things and checked into a scruffy hotel with a false name. She didn't close her eyes all night and held the case close to her belly, as if to ask for protection from her unborn child.

The night was uneventful. The news told of the audacious theft of vehicles and the disappearance of a young salon worker, presumably kidnapped by the gang who took the vehicles. "Fucking yes." she said to herself and popped a croissant into her mouth.

She arrived at the project five minutes early.

"Do you have the money?" She was asked.

"I do." She responded.

The project involved the removal of two pints of your own blood to be replaced with two pints of the blood of the Ecuadorian Jambaluntya snake whose properties had been revered by the indigenous populations for millennia. If performed properly, the project went beyond the mere rejuvenating properties enjoyed in Ecuador, it actually meant death was, whilst not impossible, certainly a tough ask. The blood meant that any damage to organs, skin or tissue would be almost immediately repaired. Diseases cured themselves, organs regenerated and the skin ceased to age. Eternal life, it said on the tin. This was why it was important for her to do this now, for the sake of the child that rested inside her. For the two of them, a new start.

They began to tell her of the dangers but her forearm was thrust forward. The vein begging to be pierced by the needle and for the process to begin. She actually began to feel different as her old, useless blood was replaced by that of the magic snake.

She awoke in a large hotel room with pristine white sheets on the bed. She was not in London, somehow, she knew that. Breakfast sat next to her bed on a tray. Two nurses came in, then a doctor.

"You have had a successful transfusion" The doctor said.

"Great. What happens next?" She responded.

"You live your life. Enjoy it, it will take a while. I need you to see just how functional your new body is." She looked at him puzzled as two handcuffs came from within the mattress to pin her to the bed. She screamed but no-one would come to her aid. The doctor took out a large knife and drove it into her heart. Initially, there was a stream of blood as she lay there in pain, intense pain. She lost consciousness for a minute and the nurse removed her nightgown. Nobody could survive an attack of this nature, yet as the nurse cleaned away the blood, the wound got progressively smaller, eventually closing as she came to.

"You see?" The doctor said.

"I see." She responded

She got cleaned up and found something suitable to wear in the wardrobe. She put her hand on her tummy and felt the baby kick. Everything was alright. Everything was better than alright. She felt like she was powered by electricity, she had never known such energy. In the drawer, she found her new ID, bank cards and a statement showing her balance of seventy-five thousand pounds converted into Swedish Krona. The leftover cash from the car heist meant that the one-hundred grand to join the project did not leave her penniless. She gazed at her bump in the mirror. Then she felt the greatest fear she had ever experienced. Would she be pregnant forever? Would her child never surpass this stage of gestation? Had she made a mistake? So many questions and no-one to ask.

She wandered down the Vasagaten, and wondered what she was going to do with her life. She needed to find a place to live. She needed to get registered with the doctor's. She needed to do so much. She needed to live.

She looked up to marvel at the sky on that delightful spring morning. Her mind wanted to continue forwards, her body had other ideas. Suddenly she was walking at a fast pace towards a crowd of people. She tried to stop but her body continued. She was travelling very quickly now, but her breathing did not alter, she felt no exertion as she made into a sprint and realised she had the knife from before in her hand. She plunged the knife into the chest of an elderly gentleman with a statesmanlike appearance. The people in the crowd fled as she stopped and felt a hand on her shoulder. The hand dragged her into a bar.

"The first job is always the hardest." he said to her as she vomited. "Welcome to the project. Drink this, it will make you feel better." Without thinking what she was doing, she drank the liquid and that was the last she saw of Stockholm.

She woke up in another hotel. He was sat in a chair opposite her bed but she was sure there had been no intrusions. She asked him if he could help clarify a number of issues she had, and he did. She would remain the same forever, but her child would grow to a maximum of the age when the mother took the snake's blood. After that point, the child would no longer age. This time there was no need for the knife in the heart charade. The new ID was by the bed and now the bank balance had doubled.

Another kill. Another hand on the shoulder. This time she rebuffed the drink. "What have I got myself into?" she asked.

"You think eternal life can just be bought?" he responded. "Unfortunately, the snake's blood means your body can be controlled remotely. If they need you to do something, you will be their means. In the meantime, enjoy the money and try not to get caught."

"I can't die?"

"Well, if you were beheaded there would be no way back, but even if your heart stopped for a reasonable period of time, your body would be able to recover."

"I didn't sign up for this." She queried.

"Well, it's what you've got. It gets easier."

"Does it?" She asked pleadingly.

"No." He didn't even bother smiling as he departed.

She gave birth to a similarly invincible girl and lived in the lap of luxury. Every now and again, a business trip would come up and someone would end up dead. Neither of them aged, they just had each other, it was as if people instinctively knew to stay away from them. It was no life, and it was a long one.

Occasionally, they came across other people from the project, during kills or bombings or the other atrocities her powerless frame was forced to enact. Regimes came and went, the money never stopped, obviously as she moved into the twenty-second and twenty-third centuries the need for physical currency was less, the need for everything was less. She looked the same as she did the day the needle hit her arm. Her daughter grew until she reached exactly the same age her mother had when she joined the project. Then she stopped ageing, just like she had been foretold. People took them for twins.

* * * * * *

It was her birthday. She was 323. Her daughter had just hit 300.

"I've got you the best present ever." She told her mother.

The two of them walk into a large garden with two stone slabs in the middle. Two men stood to the side of the slabs brandishing axes.

"Oh, my dear! I've wanted this for so long. It's the best birthday ever!" She gave her daughter a kiss.

"I can't do this!" One of the men said, keep the acquisition transfers. He threw the axe down and tried to leave.

"I beseech you. You must go through with this. You know our story. Just don't go anywhere near our blood. The document has the iris mark embedded in it. You will be absolved from all blame."

They placed their necks on the blocks and held hands smiling at each other as the axes crashed down in unison and finally the snake's blood was liberated from their dying bodies.

# 5. Incident 326B

Once again, the company fun run had been a resounding success. Top and bottom floors mingled together for the best part of an hour in the name of worthy charitable causes before returning to the usual distance keep between members of different social classes. Everyone wore the same outfit for the run, part of the company policy of togetherness, an unconvincing attempt to create a bond between people who really had no business bonding.

Most people dispersed to their chosen place of refreshment in line with the codes society had long since drawn up for them, but four employees still had one last task to perform before they could begin their leisure time. The four entered the lift, dressed identically yet obeying social conventions in terms of entry order. From our disadvantageous position all we can see is four sweaty men dressed in garish t-shirts with the company logo and, occasionally, ill-fitting shorts. We cannot ascertain the role held by each one within the company at a simple glance, it is only when they begin to move we obtain an idea of the cast in this fleeting drama.

First to enter the lift was a dapper gent of more than fifty summers. None of the others attempted to block his surge forwards into the lift, nor were words exchanged. With lift inhabitants two and three there was somewhat more deliberation. Both felt they should enter the lift before the other and ended up almost getting trapped in the entrance in their flurry to take the second spot. What was clear to all was last in would be a chap we shall call Keith. None of the others had ever seen Keith before, or if they had, they did not deem the experience worthy of storage in valuable brain space. Inside the lift their positions meant little or nothing in reality. Each one took a corner, each one sweated, each one tried to blow upwards with the lower lip extended to prevent beads of sweat dropping onto the floor or, even worse, other people. All shared a common goal, to exit the lift and move closer to that shower that would signify the start of the weekend.

Keith fondled the light-bulb in his pocket. That was his key to the top floors, people too busy even to change a light-bulb. The others all worked in various parts of the upper echelons of the building. Keith did not even bother to press the number of the floor he wanted, he would just let the rest of them reach their destinations and go to his.

Upwards they travelled for a long eleven seconds when the lift came to a stop and the lights went out. In the dark they were even more similar than with the lights on. Fear does not respond to social status, and fear itself became the fifth member of the lift as the structure began to swing, slowly at first but soon far too violently for anyone's liking. Keith was the first to act, that light-bulb went straight into a reserve lighting component and rescued them from darkness. He knew those lifts inside out, and he knew from how it was moving that the chances of going through the top and escaping were scant, the cables had lost their grip on the lift and the occupants dangled precariously in the semi-dark.

No thanks were offered to Keith for creating light. The first person into the lift made for the intercom, the emergency services would soon come to his rescue. The others would possibly be rescued with him too, but that was of little import to him. He made contact with the emergency services and they told them they were shorthanded but would send someone over. Keith assumed that the lift was reasonably close to a door, maybe on the 4th floor. 4th of 3rd, the drop would be enough to see them all off. As time wore on the other three became unsurprisingly tense and irritated, slamming against the lift wall in frustration as aid failed to arrive. Keith warned them of their situation and the need to keep as still as possible but no-one heard him.

After a four-minute wait, the intercom sounded: "We are sending someone now. We hope to be there in three minutes. You are trapped between the 5th and 6th floors but we should be able to open the doors and get you out one by one". There was no decision made. The order of who would be out first was taken. First in first out. The doors began to open and he started an eloquent speech about his value to the company and society as a whole. They could all see the face of the person who had come to save their lives and he nodded at them, as if to say he was in agreement with the assumed order. The other two seemed to speak at the same time whilst arguing their point. What was clear was that Keith would be left until last. The other three continued to extol the imperative nature of saving them as soon as possible to the detriment of Keith as the door was finally opened with enough space to lift them out one-by-one.

The intercom sounded again. "Sorry, we are so short-staffed. Your rescuer unfortunately is deaf and has not heard a word of your utterances. It is of the utmost importance that you do not move from your position now as the slightest jolt could cause the lift to drop six floors. When called by your rescuer, move to the doorway allow him to lift you up. The rest of you must wait in position for the next rescue. If you scramble, the lift will go down. Understood?" They looked aghast for a moment but stated their comprehension.

The rescuer had never seen any of the people in the lift before and had no reason to choose one over any of the others. Without the ability to explain verbally to the rescuer who was worthiest of rescue, the other three simply tried to look as important as ever. Keith did not make any special effort to look windswept, or, he then got angry with himself at the thought of spending his last seconds on the planet thinking of the opposite of windswept. The rescuer was to lower in a rope on a pole with which he would hoist the occupants of the lift up. The plan seemed at best folly until they caught a full glimpse of the rescuer and wondered if he could not manage two at a time.

The intercom sounded again. "We are ready to take the first person. Follow the instructions of your rescuer. Stay in your corner. When you are called move slowly towards the rope and tie it round your waist. When secured, give your rescuer the signal and he will lift you out. The rest of you must not move."

In their corners they stood, awaiting the sign. The boss was sure the rescuer would know the difference between him and the others, of course he would be first. The other two knew that they would be second, or, at the worst, once two people were out, the load would be lighter and they would have more time. Whatever happened to Keith was only the concern of Keith. The rescuer moved slightly into lift through the space. The rope was dangled inside and automatically the boss made a move towards it. The intercom sounded "DO NOT MOVE UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD". The rescuer looked at the four men and wondered who was who. Deciding not to waste any more time he gestured to Keith who tied the rope around his waist and was hoisted up to safety. Bemused, the other three began to shout vociferously at the deaf rescuer to save them next. From inside the lift they saw Keith outside and felt the lift move again, this time more violently. The intercom sounded again. "We need a stronger pole and rope; we have to get you all out at the same time. We will be back as soon as possible". Their eyes could hardly believe it as they saw Keith walk off with the rescuer as the lift shook again, and again, and a third time. There was no fourth shake. Seconds later the intercom sounded again "When we give you the signal move towards the rope and tie it around all three of you. We now have four people to lift you out, sorry five with Keith's help. Let us know when you are ready. Hello? Can you hear me?"

# 6. Board of Film Censors' Certificate 326B

Malcolm looked out of the window of his hotel room. Except it was not his hotel room. Once again there had been a mix up and he had been forced to downgrade as his colleagues refused to accept the ineptness of the hotel staff. It was always him who was overlooked. When would people realise the potential lurking within him? When would he be the one to make people stop and sit up.

It was clearly not going to be that evening. The television in his room did not work and all that he could find was a DVD that looked like the sort of film you would never willingly watch. He took out his tablet, no WiFi, he took out his mobile, no battery, no charger. He rang room service but there was no answer. When would someone notice him? Oh, to turn heads. How he hated his invisibility. One day he would be seen. Meanwhile, showtime.

Close-up: we see a man aged 40, Malcolm, walking aimlessly whilst the soundtrack plays. Hands in pockets, showing his status on Earth; a man without destiny overlooked by destiny. The camera shifts and we see him looking on enviously as "important" people pass by in their fast cars, a singer exits a limo with a stunning blonde for company, a stockbroker closes a major deal shouting loudly on the mobile, fans scream as an actor is spotted jogging. The police try to control the crowd yet Malcolm walks straight through them unnoticed and enters a gymnasium.

CUT

FIRST SCENE – GYM CHANGING ROOM

Inside the changing room he stands before the mirror, staring at his image. He touches his faces with his fingers and begins to pull at the flaccid skin to see if he can get a reaction. He takes a step backwards and bumps into another user. He turns to apologise

MAN

Sorry! I didn't see you

MALCOLM

Standard

MAN

Did you say something?

MALCOLM

Probably

Malcolm looks at himself in the mirror once more and screams:

I WANT TO BE SEEN, I WANT TO BE SOMEONE

He laughs, knowing these dreams never come true and opens his locker. Inside something is different. The clothes he came in are not in the locker. The size is right but the clothes are expensive and of a quality never associated with him.

He checks to see if the coast is clear. There is only one other user in the gym, and that is a woman. He takes a chance and decides to try on the clothes.

He foregoes the shower should the clothes' owner appear, though not knowing how he would resolve any confrontation yet begins to dress. The clothes feel smooth. Malcolm admits he feels good. A three-piece suit in charcoal grey with a celeste shirt that seems made-to-measure. His body also notes the change and his posture improves, he seems taller than when we first saw him.

Time is moving fast; he knows he cannot stay there in another's attire. He realises he should take it off and find his own, but it feels so good. He returns to the mirror and plays the tough guy, feeling for the first time that there is something in the pocket. It is a small key for a hidden compartment in the locker, he opens it and inside there are three passports, a wallet and a revolver. A look of fear possesses him. He hears someone approach and realising he should not be there, grabs the articles and hides in the rear part of the changing room. Wondering what to do, a door opens to the outside. He runs through it and seems an impressive looking brunette waiting in a Porsche.

SECOND SCENE – IN THE CAR

WOMAN

I guess you left your watch behind again. You're late.

MALCOLM

My watch?

WOMAN

Come on, get in.

Malcolm looks towards the door and sees someone trying to force it open. He has no idea what he is doing, yet decides to get in.

WOMAN

You look good. You can tell you are in the hands of a woman who knows how to dress you. Not like that idiot who you married. But, I suppose that the department's orders to avoid suspicion take priority, right? Have you missed me?

MALCOLM

Of course. Seems like I haven't seen you in a lifetime (Malcolm decided to carry on the best he could. He had no wife, idiot or otherwise, so going along with it could be fun. Know what? I banged my head in the gym and it hurts, not only that but I can't remember much. Maybe you could help out? Fuck, I don't even recall your name. I hope nothing serious has happened.

WOMAN

You haven't forgotten my name as you never knew it. You called me Emily, if you wish to carry on with that one then great. If you prefer another, fine by me. To be honest with what you knew a little amnesia may not be a bad thing. One less snitch.

MALCOLM

You've helped a lot, Emily.

EMILY

I try. Well, you only have to finish this mission and it will all be over. You have the gun right? Don't tell me you have also forgotten how to shoot.

MALCOLM

I got it, I never leave home without it.

EMILY

Great, you remember the target?

MALCOLM

You could give me a hint there.

EMILY

For the love of God, Malcolm! Shall I kill him myself?

MALCOLM

Always been a fan of equal opportunities.

EMILY

How modern! Sadly, you made this mess and you will clean it up. Here is your gun. The CEO. Floor 39. They await you. Put this on.

She gives him a parachute

MALCOLM

What is it?

EMILY

A scale model of St. Paul's

MALCOLM

Really, looks like a parachute.

EMILY

When you kill him, there is a false door in the windows, the third from the right. Open it and jump. I'll wait for you below and we'll go to the airport. Clear?

MALCOLM

Sounds almost too easy.

EMILY

That's the spirit. Good luck.

Malcolm gets out the car and enters the building. He looks for a means of escape when out of view. Soon they would realise their mistake and later laugh about it. He turns to the receptionist. Soon this will be over, he thinks.

THIRD SCENE – INSIDE THE BUILDING

RECEPTIONIST

Here to see the CEO?

MALCOLM

Me? Far from it, I'm here to see, eh... Kenny.

A man appears

RECEPTIONIST

Yes, there is no need for spy talk. He is waiting for you on the 39th floor. Take the lift. (she indicates it with her finger). "Kenny" will accompany you.

MALCOLM

(to himself) That worked a treat.

He enters the lift, hits floor 39 and starts to go up.

KENNY

All good Malcolm? Emily gave you everything, right? We are counting on you. Steady aim and head for the third door and pull the cord after two seconds. Good luck.

Malcolm stood before the door. Kenny behind. Security guards in front. TO THE CAMERA: Who the fuck came up with this plan?

FOURTH SCENE – IN THE CEO'S OFFICE

Malcolm enters and wonders if he should have tried the gun before. He put his sweaty hand in his pocket and felt the cold steel. Before he didn't want to be Malcolm, now even less. Could he reason with them? He saw the CEO and moved as close as possible to the third window.

CEO

I have been expecting you, Malcolm.

MALCOLM

Like in the movies

CEO

Got something for me?

MALCOLM

Guess so.

Malcolm takes out the revolver and shoots the fish-tank behind the CEO. The water floods the room and they all fall comically. Malcolm rushes towards the third door and flies out into the air. He counts to two and pulls on the cord. Effortlessly he lands next to Emily's car.

FIFTH SCENE – In EMILY'S CAR AGAIN

EMILY

All good?

MALCOLM

Textbook. To the airport!

Alarms sound, Emily steps on the gas and they exit screen. Other cars give chase amidst the haze.

EMILY

Tell me this is all over.

MALCOLM

Of course

EMILY

Who knows, maybe in another world, you and me

You know?

MALCOLM

Well, there are many factors. Firstly (Emily interrupts him shooting at a car chasing them)

EMILY

You were saying?

MALCOLM

Sure, I feel safe with you.

Emily drove quickly and managed to lose them. They park in true action film style and head inside.

SIXTH SCENE – AIRPORT

They go to check-in with false passports. Malcolm has no wish to board and looks to lose Emily. But first.

MALCOLM

Hey, you know I have never done it in an airport loo?

EMILY (slapping him)

That ain't gonna change, unless you meet someone before we board.

MALCOLM

Worth a try, I'm off to the toilet. Wait here for me.

Malcolm enters and sees a bag left by a child. Inside is a poor Groucho disguise. He takes the bag and looks around. He sees two cops having tea. To get around the airport they use Segway. Malcolm had never ridden one before, though he had never jumped out of a building before. He put on the disguise and stole one unnoticed.

SEVENTH SCENE – OUTSIDE THE AIRPORT

Malcolm drives the Segway towards the city, wishing to get his old life back. He looks behind him and sees the other cop. The speedometer says the maximum speed is 20km/h, but Malcolm knows he is flying. He loses the other cop and seems to have escaped when a police car approaches. The car is on his heels. Malcolm feels hot dressed in a suit and takes off the tie. As he does, the police car gets a puncture and crashes into a lamppost.

He smiles and continues. He stops to drink water and sees Emily again. He starts up the vehicle and throws his jacket to the ground. Black smokes comes from her bonnet. The Segway overtakes luxury cars yet Emily is still close. He takes off the belt and throws it to the floor. Emily's windscreen breaks. As the pants fall down, Emily drives off the bridge into the river.

Then he says a burly man wearing only a gym towel. Malcolm's gym. He gets off the Segway and runs. The other guy reaches out but as Malcom removes his shirt, the other guy gets a twinge and can't run. Soon he recovers and the chase is on again. He removes the socks and throws them at his assailant. Each sock is like a blow to the face yet still he gives chase. Left with no option, Malcolm removes his underwear and is totally naked. The other guy stops. Turning round aimlessly, acting like Malcolm has disappeared into thin air. He can't see Malcolm any more, yet we see him to the side of the crowd that has come to see all the commotion, making his way to the gym stark naked where he finds his locker open.

EIGHTH SCENE – IN THE CHANGING ROOM AGAIN

Despite being totally nude, nobody saw him enter. He showered and dressed in his normal clothes. He looked in the mirror and smiled, pleased to be Malcolm. His adversary enters but cannot see anyone. As Malcolm left he said:

MALCOLM

Today is gonna be a good day.

GYM INSTRUCTOR

Did you say something?

MALCOLM

(laughing) Me? Nothing.

# 7. BASE 326B – Northern Moon Section 3192 AD

"It looks so beautiful at night, doesn't it?" James whispered to Emily as they looked at the Earth in the distance. The colours had returned to the oceans, and from their vantage point, the swirling blue mixed with the browns and greens of the landmass as the now useless ball rotated pointlessly for the pleasure of the moon.

"Would you go there?" He asked.

"Why would I?" She retorted.

"I dunno, maybe there could be something of interest over there. We're always told that it's uninhabitable, that nothing and no-one could survive in that violated land, but it has a mystique. You can't say that you're not somehow drawn to it." James continued. "You know they say we came from there, that our ancestors were citizens of the Earth but failed to look after it. There's a book, it's called "the Great Selection", secretly all the governments of the world were given the right to choose 2.3% of their population for relocation to the Moon, I mean, to home".

"You spend too much time with the visualiser" she laughed. "All of those stories have been rebuffed time and time again. We can pinpoint year zero to the age of our glorious planet, four-hundred and ninety-nine years ago, and that is why we are going to be late. It's time for the ceremony. Happy five-hundredth birthday, Mr Moon."

I'll get my jacket" James wanted to believe there was something to the Earth. He opened the door to the wardrobe and reached inside. Once inside, he touched something that was not his jacket. It felt like a tree, or the branch of a tree at the least. As he tried to get a better grip, it seemed to take hold of him rather than the other way around, and before he knew it, he had been pulled into a kind of wormhole through the moon.

He looked up and tried to find the position of the Earth to locate himself. The Earth was not there, but had been replaced by a much smaller globe, perfectly white and shining brightly in the night sky. He wondered what this orb could be. It could not be the moon as he had done that whole Mars touristy thing where you can see the glow of the data mountains from London on the banks of the Artificial Meridian Sea. "Could it be Venus?" he thought to himself. He reached into his pocket to activate his spatialiser but could not get a signal.

From out of the night an animal passed him. He knew of these beasts from history books as being the ancestors of the now perfect horse. When life began, now five-hundred years ago, many of the creatures who now proudly roam the moon were ineffective beasts that needed the help of science to become more efficient in their living environs. The old plans for these beasts were then wiped from the system as animals could, from then on, automatically update themselves whenever a new version was rolled out. This horse was different though, its smell, its noise, its everything. Behind it followed a group of people. James could see them, but it appeared that they could not see James.

"It looks so beautiful at night, doesn't it?" one of them said as they opened a bottle. James had never seen attire of this nature, nor had he ever seen anyone with such disregard for their personal wellbeing. Surely these people would be risking the removal of data storage privileges by failing to adhere to basic rules.

"Would you go there?" Another one asked.

"Why would I?" Came the retort.

"I dunno, maybe there could be something of interest over there. It just looks like a ball in the sky, but we don't know enough about our ball in the sky, let alone the others. Less than a hundred years ago people thought the Earth was flat, and here we are sailing round it, why can't we go to the Moon?". James could not believe what he was hearing. Who were these people? Why did they not realise that they were on the Moon already? What made them believe that they were on Earth? Humans could not survive there. It had been proven.

"You're a dreamer. I'll give you that. Maybe one day we will be able to travel to the Moon, but there will be nothing there. That I can guarantee you".

James wanted to burst into the conversation and tell them how wrong they were, how beautiful the Moon was and how life on Earth was totally impossible. He watched as they revelled in their own stupidity, desperate to get back to the Moon and normality.

He searched for the tree that had brought him here but found no way to take him to his home. Desperately, he looked up and saw how the sunrise befell the land. A surrealistic image was displayed before him as lights and colours, the likes of which he had never seen in his life, played out a picturesque scene before him, dotted with plants and animals whose imperfect beauty left James speechless.

"Is this Earth?" he said but the group could not hear him. He could not hear himself. He fell back aghast onto the trunk and swiftly had the light taken from him. That light he had seen was not the light he was forced to enjoy now. He looked around. Everything glowed. Everything was controlled. He was back on the Moon.

"Hurry up, you'll miss the celebrations." Emily told him.

"You go on, I just want to finish something here." He responded.

"Alright, but you will never forgive yourself if you miss it. The King of Mars will be there with the Princess of Venus. I'm so glad I applied for another fifty-year life extension to get to this day. How do I look?" She asked.

"Still 23. Like you had programmed." James told her.

"I might go for 35 next upgrade. Don't you fancy a glamorous older lady?" She joked.

He didn't want to spoil her feelings by telling her that he left his visualiser on when they made love these days, and just smiled and said that sounded great.

As she left for the celebrations, he reached inside his jacket and found an old book inside. He knew it was a book instinctively, although he had never seen one in this format. "The Great Selection" was its title, and James cast up a hologram of himself to attend the party with Emily while he began to leaf through the pages. His redesigned cat sat on his lap as he looked down on the Earth.

"It looks so beautiful at night, doesn't it?" hH said to himself.

# 8. Face Crime

"Happy birthday mum!" James looked down at the screen and saw only his face. He heard his mother in the background, asking his father how to get the bloody video to work, he felt he could even hear her clumsily trying to fumble her way around the touch screen. Every time they spoke by Face Time it was the same. He particularly liked the way she would call him on the landline to tell him she was going to Face Time him, and then fail to get the video to work. "You need to press the little video icon" (he wondered how many times he had said this phrase). Seconds later his father repeated it, making it sound like his own wisdom. His mother appeared.

"It's not very clear." She complained.

"The Wi-Fi is down, I'm on 4G. Hang on, I'll head to the window." He then sang happy birthday to her and tried to steer the conversation towards farewell. He would have thought no more of the incident except for the fact that he was holding his phone in front of him and in the direct line of his neighbour's bathroom. The blind was down and she was bathing her six-year old daughter. Added to this was the fact that his cleaner had used a brand of washing powder that contained a product that brought him out in an itchy rash, as he stood to the side he scratched his hip relentlessly for soothing relief. Realising the potential awkwardness of the situation, he did what everyone would do in the same: he pretended that it hadn't happened. The neighbour looked up and caught his gaze. Not accusingly, yet neither particularly delighted, she drew the blind across to provide more intimacy to bath time.

James laughed to himself and opened a bottle of beer. Thinking no more of it he relaxed on the sofa and put the finishing touches to his speech.

He had come a long way in a short time. MP for Basildon following the death of the former incumbent in a hard-fought by-election, then making the seat his own at the subsequent general elections. Earmarked for greatness from within the party from the very outset, he rose through the ranks and found himself in the right place at the right time when a call for change to the leadership was all that was left of the embers of a disastrous general election. His party had lost ninety seats and looked almost like becoming the third voice rather than opposition. James was brought in to change that, and change it he did. Now he was in the running, at the front of the race, looking at the largest post-war majority any government had enjoyed. A man of the people, he appealed to everyone and offered hope where before darkness had reigned.

He was awoken at 0200 by his press agent.

"I hope it's a nuclear war or something important. Do you know what time it is?" He half-joked as he brought himself to life.

"Have you seen Twitter?" He asked.

"I understand this is your field, but do you consider it truly normal to tweet whilst sleeping?" He was quite pleased with himself with this quip. Little did he know it would be his last.

"I have sent you a link. Open the laptop, sit down first."

"What's going on?" He knew the question was pointless. The answer to his question was the command he had just been given.

He opened the link to a Twitter feed that had three-thousand retweets in an hour. The caption simply said, "Your new PM in his free time" and showed a link to a video, filmed outside James' house in which he could be seen filming the house in front and seemingly gratifying himself whilst recording. Then the image changes to what James can see and we see a mother and her pixelated daughter in the bathroom.

"You know this is bullshit?" Said James.

"You know that hardly matters?" Replied the PR guy.

"I was talking to my mother. No-one will believe otherwise". James' naivety was borne of desperation. He knew that this was not an ideal scenario by any stretch of the imagination. Just the week before, he had been told to take no chances. Any chance they would get to make you look like a nonce they would take. His PR guy's exact words were "People will believe anything. Actually, they won't. They will believe anything they are fed through social media but will automatically rebuff the opinions of experts and renowned doyens in their field. People are generally stupid, but you need these stupid people for your success. Don't overestimate their intelligence."

Those words resounded in his head as he watched the like and retweet count soar. It was on BBC rolling news by now. Sky were at the door. It had, to use that most unpleasant of current argots, gone viral.

To get a call off the Chief Whip at 0300 is not a sign that you are to receive a knighthood. Good news can wait. "James, you have left us in a very invidious position" was how he started. "Why do bollockings always hurt more when dressed up in posh?" He pondered.

"Of course, I am sure there is a perfectly innocent explanation for all this, there always is. The problem we have is that if we defend you, with the election so close, this will be a stain all over the news until polling day and we are bound to lose votes. However, if we take swift action with you now, we can replace you, look like we have done the right thing and still win, which, after all, is by far the most important thing, I am sure you will agree."

"Actually, no."

"Well, that is a pity. Nonetheless, it does not change anything and you can either resign tomorrow at 0900 or be sacked at 0901. Malcolm will be replacing you, he is basically a standard modern politician robot 2.0 just like yourself. He will make a big fuss about cracking down on child abusers and keep our projected majority. I realise this a somewhat disappointing outcome but you have been careless. See you at 0900 at the party offices. Sweet dreams. You're no longer running."

With that the phone line went dead. Twitter was awash with his video; the comments were both graphically upsetting and grammatically challenged. With his career over he went into the garden to smoke a cigarette. He took a large whiskey with him and sat on the stone slabs of the patio. As he looked over the garden he saw that the fence had been broken and there was a dim flashing light on the floor. Was that a Blackberry? Who in the name of God still used them in this day and age? He thought as he inspected the device. It had no lock code and with just two clicks gave away the identity of the owner. Malcolm's PA. The message said, "cannot delete video".

The phone contained what Malcolm would have no doubt preferred to remain confidential e-mails that instructed his assistant to get the dirt on James however she could. He even found a previous video in which she told him she was in the garden and had been round the bins but had found nothing. That must have been just before James gave her artistic prowess an awakening. He forwarded the contents on to himself and prepared his enjoyable destruction of Malcom's career for the next day.

He knew that there was nothing to be done for his aspirations, but busily favourited the more acerbic and hurtful comments of people he thought he could trust for their inevitable embarrassment when the truth came out. There was no need to be overly negative, he thought, these things happen for a reason. He poured a second glass and cleared up the mess in the garden.

After that, he finished his drink and went inside to call the Chief Whip, smiling to himself and saying "Well, it won't be you either, dear Malky".

# 9. Invention 326B

Beryl glanced up from her dresser and saw Derryck in distress, losing a battle with a dickie bow generally looking like he had dressed himself, which, of course, he had. She sidled over to him and put things in place. At times she hated being perceived in that role, the little woman behind the genius, the man capable of changing humanity as a whole, whilst having the fire service on-standby should he decide to make toast.

She let the feelings subside, this was his night, finally, his deserved reward. A Nobel peace prize was not something normally seen adorning the mantelpieces of Basingstoke, but Derryck was not your average Basingstoke resident.

His work had begun at the end of 2016 when he graduated from Oxford with a First Class Degree in Computer Science. He was unsure of what direction his career would take when a convenient windfall meant that it could take any that pleased him. As a man who enjoyed a challenge, he set himself of the goal of universal happiness.

He took to his task in the discomfort of his garage, converted into a makeshift laboratory where he would concoct potions. At first he had no idea of how he was to achieve this contentment, but after a conversation with his neighbour Gerald, he started to move towards an inkling of the way forwards. Gerard bemoaned his loveless marriage, "it's just like we've had one too many mornings" he would muse, "despite God on our side, we just feel like pawns in their game". He took a swig from Derryck's twelve-year old malt and pondered a restless farewell.

"What would you like to rekindle?" He asked him.

"Why bother rekindling? I mean I imagine if you could just imagine". Gerard said.

"You mean". Derryck responded.

"I don't want to leave her, start again, find somebody new, go through disappointment after disappointment before regretting everything and going back to her. What if my brain could believe I was with someone else, yet stay with her?".

"You mean like a continuous virtual reality?". Now Gerard had his attention.

"I mean like looking at her but seeing some hot bird off the telly".

"You mean virtual infidelity".

"I mean fun".

Gerard poured himself another whisky and Derryck poured himself a few thoughts. Why couldn't he invent something that altered people's perceptions of the people they were with. Divorce rates were high, people were unhappy, marriages failed, children disappointed, everyone wanted more, what if he could invent the means to make people think that they had more, without actually having it. Derryck rescued what was left in the bottle and promised Gerard his utmost attention.

Derryck began experimenting with special glasses that allowed for a series of basic images to be transposed onto the bodies of living and breathing people. It was very rudimentary at first and certainly not convincing, especially as his guinea pigs, a couple in their sixties to whom time had been cruel who were under the impression Brad and Angelina were at it in their front room, had a nasty surprise when the glasses fell off they were left to examine their ancient and naked failings.

The windfall was beginning to dwindle yet Derryck's work was attracting attention in academic and scientific circles, which meant that he was offered a research grant at the Ashford and Simpson Institute for Solidity, a specialist organisation aimed at using new technology to better human life. Here he worked with renowned scientist Jasper Zanahoria, though the credit was never equally shared.

As the twenties progressed, Derryck's technology progressed rapidly, to the extent where the glasses themselves as physical portholes into happiness were dispensed with, in favour of the insertion of a chip into the subject's head. The person could then use their own eyelids to activate a drop-down menu that would allow for their version of reality to overtake the humdrum and mind-numbing existence that passed for life beforehand.

Soon the prototype was in place. There was no shortage of willing members of the public to try out this new device. The results were astounding from the outset. Everybody felt that their chipped life vastly exceeded their previous life. The A&SIfS decided to launch the product. By 2030 people already had chips regularly inserted into their heads as the encumbrance of physically trudging round with phones and tablets had been well and truly left in the past. People used their eyelids as trackpads with the same naturalness as loom would be spun in the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Applications existed that could alter sensory perception to an environment, for example, the sensation of a determined temperature or climatic condition had greatly helped the UK's tourism industry as Middlesbrough now rivalled San Tropez for summer sun, so Derryck's use of the same technology was seen as a little fun, rather than morally wrong.

Despite objection from some sections of society, Derryck's Intraperception Visualizer was put on the market in May 2033. Sales outstripped even their wildest projections and within months, the IV had become the must-have gadget. Once installed the user was free to live happy in the environment of their choosing. If you were not happy with your frumpy, middle-aged wife, you could change her for a twenty-three-year-old Russian model, when your hands caressed the soft blubber of her aged fat, the IV would have you believe they ran along smooth honed skin that begged for your touch. Of course, your frumpy wife also had a chip and lived out her own fantasy.

The moral question was appeased by the simple fact that divorce rates plummeted, domestic violence almost disappeared, industrial productivity doubled and people were nice to each other again. That idiot neighbour who borrowed your lawn-mower and never returned it now appeared as a footballer or racing driver who you imagined in B&Q buying you a much better one. Your battered old domestic products that you longed to change before were now top of the range. Your shameful hovel with its broken windows and mould creeping up the walls now boasted palatial wonder as your beautiful wife sauntered past you on the chaise long whilst your perfect infants wrote charming operettas in the conservatory. Happiness was yours, it was just a case of programming the right features.

IV was adapted and enhanced over the decade of the thirties and became a way of life more than a gadget. People became so used to this new form of reality that the economy flourished, after all, why pay for a big house with a pool when you could stay in a miniscule apartment for a pittance and imagine the rest. There seemed to be no flaw to the device. People resisted for a long time but ended up giving in, the imagery was so lifelike that even the most sceptical of users had to admit its functionality as they dressed and left that busty young waif exhausted.

There were also add-ons for IV users. Obviously, you could only use the human transformation function if you had a partner. Singles were taken care of with separate single use "pay-as-you-go" transformations that meant you could go out and pick up a munter and believe you were shagging Miss World, whilst, of course, the munter was convinced you were not a hopeless loser. For those who lacked social skills but suffered from urges, one of IVs most controversial add-ons was the "rape tree". A device consisting of a realistic electronic vagina fitted into trees in city centres that the horny user could fit himself into whilst watching the world go by, naked, undoubtedly.

This meant that everyone, literarily everyone was happy. Derryck had saved society. He had had to overcome issues but technology had always been on his side to aid him. Issues arose with paedophiles taking advantage of the technology to feed their lurid thoughts. However, following update 23.4 every user's fantasy was automatically uploaded to the shag cloud, allowing thus for the identification of persons inclined in this way and their eventual arrest. By 2041, the world over, that happy place, decided that Derryck was a deserved recipient of the Nobel Prize.

Derryck thanked Beryl, they had both discarded their IV with the third generation in the mid-thirties. They didn't need IV, he still saw her as beautiful as the day they met, he was lucky, the rest of the world wasn't. His wealth meant he did not have to imagine what someone living in squalor would concoct to propel themselves out of their misery. He had everything. They prepared to exit their hotel in Stockholm when the phone rang.

Actually, not everyone was happy. But as the vast majority were, not many cared about disgruntled activists who aimed to show Derryck for the fraud he and his IV were. One of these was Jasper.

Jasper now dedicated his life into finding a way to make people see, for once and for all, that IV was a sham, and a fraud, and a sham. Many times he had hacked into the IV mainframe but there was little that he could do. Everyone bought IV knowing it was a lie, but everyone loved the lie. Jasper had the idea of altering the parameters, creating a horrid version of the virtual utopia, when he simply realised that if people were suddenly faced with the plain and simple reality of their dreadful lives, they would revolt.

And so with the simplest of touches, IV security was notably lax because there was basically no need to alter the way of things, Jasper reset everyone's IV mainframe to pre-purchase status. After this, the setting of never upgrade or alter was applied meaning that the chip had effectively become worthless. Modern life was back again, and it was rubbish.

Jasper expected to be hailed as the saviour of the moral world but soon found himself on the end of campaign of hate that would see him to try to flee the country to save himself. As he aimed to reach Hull and take a boat to Holland, where ANTI IV was strongest, he was seen at Doncaster railway station and beaten to death on the platform.

Jasper envisaged a revolution but what happened was the UK would turn savage. As people coped to struggle with the reality of their realities, violence roamed every street and it turned out that the government had squandered everything and was bankrupt. The decades of lies had pervaded the halls of power, no-one could handle the truth and as kind of bloody farewell and apology, the Prime Minister broadcast from 10 Downing Street by putting a revolver to his head and firing.

Back in 1945 when the war ended, the victorious Americans were keen to see that certain elements did not interfere with their regeneration plans. The French and Germans were also willing to see the idea of an Alliance in Europe in the post-Nazi period. The three decided, in secret, that Britain was a rogue nation and that a policy of "British Containment" should be adopted to curtail it in the future, should it threaten to derail European harmony. The three powers expected to implement said policy in the fifties but Britain towed the line, there was peace and while it was kept at an arm's length, Britain was allowed to go about its merry business as it wished. The policy was practically shelved as the Americans were too busy with Vietnam and the Cold War to worry about a bunch of inebriated octogenarians trying to manhandle the staff.

The policy was adapted to deal with areas of Yugoslavia and the Middle East, but the rogue nation was never called upon until this moment, even when it had the audacity to depart from the Union in 2016 only to be recalled after Brussels threatened to relocate to Inverness.

The American president telephoned his French and German counterparts to implement the policy. The latter two were apprehensive about how this would work, though were determined to plunder economically the nation that had been a constant thorn in their sides. In its essence, the plan boiled down to Britain being divided into two sections, the German zone would contain the south of England up to, but not including, at their insistence, Birmingham. The area from Birmingham to the Scottish Border was to be controlled by France. They were offered Scotland as well but rejected it. The areas referred to as Land Annex I (Wales) and Aquatic Annex I (Northern Ireland) along with Aquatic Annex II (The Isle of Man) where placed in NATO control for the time being.

The southern zone was well controlled and policed by the vastly efficient German army. This created an extra burden on the German economy so the Chancellor was keen to have former British troops trained up to German standards. Law breaking elements were easily dealt with as the more upright members of society also offered to do their bit on neighbourhood watch schemes. People who participated in these programmes were rewarded with extra German lessons, or the possibility of a real German teacher coming to their house to practice conversation, or occasionally, a fully-paid two week trip to Hanover to practice the language. The Germans saw that it was essential for the new state to be run in German. Obviously this had an effect on British culture, as the English language exited the streets of Slough and Reading. All institutions run from London were affected by the linguistic impositions of the new rulers, none more so than the BBC, who dropped their ever-popular modern tragedy East-Enders in favour of a revamped programme about the lives of ordinary folk in the capital with their amusing mock Schlewsig Holstein accents. The news was broadcast in German with English subtitles but these were only available by SMS purchase, the Germans desperate to finance this venture in any way possible. Families that renounced their subtitle service were rewarded with free television. Radio also suffered a similar fate with groups rapidly learning German language versions of English classics. The charts did not count the sales of English language records and so the Top 40 was all in German. With these changes being made without the merest opposition from the workers in the south, the authorities decided that all literature in the zone could only be sold in German and all courses taught in English or about the English language were to be suspended.

Despite this clear removal of civil liberties people were prepared to get on with things in the south as the Germans were very clever with their reward system. The German language was divided into five levels, with every level offering something in return for its students. Level one meant that you could work in the lowest part of the service sector, usually in jobs were English was prevalent which meant that pay was low. The hours were long and the work was arduous, but without the level one accreditation it was impossible for a person to work in the new state. When they passed level two, they were given the status of semi-citizen, which allowed them to work in administrative positions and possess a fortnightly passport to visit Germany once a year in summer. Level three, brought with it the rights to drive a German made car and drive it on the left. The expense of changing the road system was reduced by having level one workers move the signs across the road by hand. When four million people reached level three in the Southern zone, a large concert was organised at Wembley, with the highlight being an aged One Direction doing a word perfect version of "Hey Jude" in German.

Level four meant that you were a citizen of the new German state. The following names were bestowed on the region, the south was now to be known as Groβ-Süd-Englandern, while the French controlled zones was known as Nord-Franglais. The areas of Scotland and the Isle of Man still remained unoccupied and people continued here as before. The Germans expanded into the lands of Southern Wales, occupying the coast as far as Cardigan Bay, which they began to turn into a luxury holiday resort for the German upper-classes. Those who aspired to level five, fully fluent in written and spoken German as well showing their skills in administration, business and other areas, received full citizenship as a New Britain. This allowed them to travel to other English speaking areas as well as being able to possess music and literature in their own language, though many didn't bother after their full assimilation into Teutonic culture.

In the French North, things did not go as smoothly, in the "Cinq Villes" of Manchester, the capital of the new Northern lands, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle, the French tried to replicate the German model with limited success. They asked the Germans for help but this was swiftly dismissed. Wages fell and prices rose, people were resentful of their neighbours in the south and tried to defect. The led to the citizens of Nord-Franglais being obliged to wear "Le Coq Sportif" on their left lapel at all times so they could be identified if they managed to cross the border. However, this was so well policed by English citizens of the German Panacea that very few made it.

With minor uprisings in the Cinq Villes, there was little left in the pot to police the smaller areas of the north. At first the resistance groups were badly organised, ill-equipped and unarmed. They had strength in numbers but lacked leadership until the aging social agitator Noel Gallagher used his fortune to start a well-led and disciplined militia in Rochdale. At first the French thought little of this street-hooliganism, using easily malleable thugs to cause disturbances whilst training an elite guard with which he planned to attack the Midland Hotel in Manchester.

Rather cleverly, Gallagher allowed for the French to be made aware of the impending attack on Manchester and diverted his attention to the seizing of Blackburn, Wigan and Preston. Once the towns were liberated people joined the militia with the gusto of Catalonian peasants waving Republican flags. On Christmas Day, 2043, Gallagher broadcast in English that the entire Ribble Valley had been liberated.

These advances helped the Resistance's cause but tightened French resolve. They claimed any resistance member found would be shot, hoping that would deter them. It had the opposite effect, and as celebrations were underway for New Year in the "Hôtel de Ville" in Liverpool (St George's Hall) and Manchester "Albert Square", bombs went off killing forty French civil servants.

The French did not wait to consult NATO and attacked Resistance strongholds in Manchester and Liverpool, the resulting Battle of Fazakerly lasted for six days and claimed four thousand lives. The ill-equipped French army saw town after town fall, notably the Sunderland uprising of 2044. In the space of twenty-four hours, Bradford, Birkenhead, Blackpool and Huddersfield eschewed French rule. They begged assistance from the Germans but they were too busy protecting their own citizens from the chaos in the North. Once Carlisle was reclaimed the Northern Union proclaimed a political marriage with the Caledonian Territories and the French began to flee in droves.

NATO intervened on the 4th of July 2044 with the French territories abandoned, and Noel Gallagher crowned as the King of the Northern Territories in York Minster. The Northern cities were informed that they had seven days to relinquish control and return this back to the French or small-scale nuclear devices would be used.

On the last day of the ultimatum, Gallagher appeared on television with two hostages, Beryl and Derryck, stating that these would be executed if NATO attacked. Nuclear weapons had improved greatly in the first half of the twenty-first century and now came with radioactive mosquitos that were released upon explosion that would consume the radioactivity in a period of ten years leaving the area relatively radiation free. This proved an excellent means of swift response.

As the deadline came and went. Gallagher passed the revolver to his lead cohort Sid Owen who shot Beryl and Derryck in the head. Devices were launched on Manchester and Liverpool on day one, with more missiles sent to Newcastle, Leeds and Sheffield the day after. To the side of the wall blocking entry to the German zone, screens of radiation eating mosquitos were placed to keep the area safe.

The Northern Lands were never repopulated, the French decided to cut their losses and invested in the German super-state in the South. Years later it was discovered that Gallagher had fled to Brazil with Wayne Rooney to see out his days in the sunshine, despite being given an (invented) state funeral with full military honours. Wikipedia estimates more than 12 million people lost their lives in the conflict, now the population numbers little more than twenty-thousand, most people who live there share a lawless existence, scavenging in the rubble for the wealth that once made the area the industrial heartland of the world.

# 10. Thief a catch to

Pain. Agony. Was this what death felt like?

I looked up from the wound as the bullet left my body and the pain subsided.

The guy before me shifted his glance from the revolver as the smoke disappeared, and with steely determination, he put the weapon back in its holster.

"Well you can shove your money in the same place you left your deal" I shouted at him and jumped backwards.

He tossed the envelope full of banknotes out of the window and below people were heard whooping as they clamoured to collect them.

"Those days are over and you know it". I replied. "I'm a proper detective now and you've been caught".

"I am the one who is different. It's me who has changed. You just got unlucky. Twenty-five years' worth of unlucky, I'd say".

"Come on, Joe". He said. "Only you and I know about this. What do you say we overlook this minor misdemeanour? It wouldn't be the first time your principles had been left by the wayside".

He looked away from a photo of her on his desk.

"She wudda been happy with me". He looked pleadingly at the detective and wondered whether there could be any way out of this. "Why do you have to play this one by the book? Everyone in town knows about your past, Tony Milkowski always bragged about how he simply gave you a cut of his racket and never got close to a police station. What's so different about me, Joe?"

"When you couldn't have her, you decided nobody could. That's about the size of it, right? It was the easiest thing in the world to lay the blame on that feller of hers. He was a drunk, a real live wire. Why he'd already been up before the judge that time he smacked her so hard she couldn't finish that movie".

He moved towards the table and put his hand on a full glass of whiskey that he cautiously returned to the decanter. He unlit a burning cigar and tidily put it back into his breast pocket. "I guess you won't be needing those luxuries where you're headed" I said laughing and putting my own gun away safely.

"How did you find out?" He asked whilst getting out of the chair and taking a pile of cash out of an envelope.

"You couldn't kill him so you made it look like he'd killed her. You put the gun in his hand after the deed had been done. You just had to wait for a night when he was so loaded that he wouldn't know what he had done. But you still longed for a kiss, just one, and that was when her lipstick stained your shirt. That is when you stepped on her seeping blood and stained your shoes. You paid one of Milkowski's goons to make sure the report on her complaint against you for harassment disappeared, but it was sent straight over to me the minute you handed over the cash". I was on a roll now.

"So you just waited in their house, a man with your talents cudda been in an' out in no time. Darting into the shadows on a dark night. Even if you were seen who could identify you? A perfect plan, except you made one mistake. They always make one mistake".

It's too late for deals. They know I know. You've got nowhere to run to.

"How about a deal, Joe?"

He climbed in from off of the ledge, carefully holding onto the window frame as not to fall and shifted away from the table towards me.

I closed the door and switched off the light.

Darkness. Black night.

# 11. That's Amore

Pierluigi looked over at Sofia from behind the walking frame. His grip on the same strengthened by his resolve to do this for her. He could take the step, he had it in him, he knew it and he knew that if she saw him take it, part of the past would be wiped.

There was no doubt that this second year of slow and painful rehab was his fault. He would lie in that hospital bed and ponder the pain and damage he had caused her, and how, despite this, there she was, day after day with smiles of encouragement, warm words and offering whatever strength she had left in her so that he could walk again.

Two years since the crash. Two years since on night in February they were forced to vacate the luxurious property with views over the Amalfi coast and hurtle into the winter night to flee the police investigation. The embezzlement, the affair, the botched business dealings, putting his own, hers and that of their children's lives in danger, the disgrace and fall from grace with the subsequent shift in standard of living. And yet she stood by him, held his hand, mopped his brow, planned for a future and comforted him after failure.

And so, he tried to take that first step alone. He knew in his heart he had to make it, not so that he could walk again and one day rob and plunder as he had done before, but for her. She deserved that step, she needed to see those feet move once more, that step would be part of the amortisation of the incalculable debt he held with her.

He looked up again and forced his fingers around the bar of the frame that supported his weight. He glanced down at the withered frame that barely supported the same, seemingly pointlessly attached to his feet. The very thought of them taking the stand away from him caused the sweats to start. Every ounce of strength in his body was summoned to create a sort of joint venture between his brain and left leg, forcing himself forward, withstanding a pain so great it made him want to cry out, yet when he considered the pain she felt inside, he realised it was nothing. There was sensation, "for you, Sofia" he muttered, not wanting to expend any more energy than necessary. The sensation grew, his leg moved forward. He felt his balance go but steadied himself. He saw her again. The back leg followed. Two steps! The doctors cheered as he tried to take a third.

He fell to the ground and in a flash Sofia was over to help him up. "I walked." He said to her. "We walked." She responded.

# 12. Life after ward 326B

"I walked." Pierluigi said. "We walked-" Sofia responded.

Since that moment of minor glory, there had been the trial, the conviction and the waiting. Sofia stuck by him, as she had done as he clung to the walking frame, and visited every week, dutifully taking him darned socks and whatever items her meagre pittance could afford.

She was now forced to scour the stores for the best offers, buy food close to its sell-by date and accept the benevolence of those in the parish whose clothes no longer served their needs. She worked cleaning an office block that required three separate modes of transport to reach.

She had never worked before. She had never needed to. Her husband's income afforded her a life of luxury most could only fantasise about. That was until he got caught. That was when it stopped, but still she stood by him. She sighed as the rubber gloves went on when she was told there was a blockage to clean on the fifth floor. They knew her back story, they wanted to see how far she would go for those 8€ an hour. She just smiled and got on with it. This shift would pay the 74€ electricity bill and leave 26€ for their Christmas dinner. An all-nighter to get the office gleaming for when the holidays were over. She dragged the hoover down the hallway as the last of the occupants struggled out, the victims of party tomfoolery. They wished her happy Christmas as they passed. Many would think this was quite the opposite, many knew that she had spent Christmas before in the Maldives, Cape Verde and the Azores, walking barefoot on the beach as the sun tickled her bare back, ordering lobster with caviar just for the hell of it, drinking bottles of wine that now would be the equivalent of two months' salary. Nothing mattered, they used to think, "you couldn't spend all this money in three lifetimes", her husband joked. When the police came, it wasn't spent. It was taken. And now she thrust her hand down the u-bend and felt slurry of excrement rise over the glove and onto her forearm. The forearm that once only saw Cartier jewellery was now covered in middle-management shit.

She got rid of most of it, knowing that she would still have the memory of that particular scent on the bus home, but did not cry. She had no urge to cry. Why should she cry? It was Christmas. She was going to spend it at home with her husband. That was all she wanted, that was why she had stood by him all this time. Now she realised that the trappings of her former life no longer held any interest to her, she honestly thought that if she could go back, she wouldn't. Obviously, she would prefer some kind of middle ground between grappling with rogue turds and wearing a tiara in the shower, but she was content with her lot.

She bade farewell to her colleagues. They wanted to hate her but she made it hard for them. She put up with so much and never complained. She was not a criminal, yet she had revelled in the spoils of her husband's ill-gotten gains, that was a crime, but she wasn't sentenced, she was given the chance to live a simple life, and that to her was a victory.

Her husband, Pierluigi, cannot work. He cannot do physical work due to his condition following the road accident that left him hospitalised. He can walk short distances but the pain would be too much to be on his feet all day. He could do freelance work as an accountant, but the Italian Accountancy Guild has revoked his licence and any dabbling in financial affairs would result in a return to prison. Therefore, it falls on Sofia to keep the family afloat. No car, no telephone, a small one-bedroomed flat in a none too salubrious part of town yet surprisingly in view of the mansions that formed another life on another planet.

The temperature outside was three degrees below zero. From the bus stop to the flat there was a ten-minute walk on treacherous icy roads. Gangs of youths loitered on the street corner as she gripped her fist around the two fifty euro notes that would make their Christmas. With her other hand, she forced the key to the flat between two fingers so that if they came for her she would be ready. She thought to herself that the night before Christmas no-one would be of the inclination to steal, but to everyone in that neighbourhood, an extra hundred euros was not something to be sniffed at. In her concentration to avoid the gaze of the youths, she lost her footing and ended up on the pavement, her hand falling out of the pocket and causing the notes to hurtle into the snow. Only she saw the money as two boys came over to help her. Perhaps their intentions were honest when they came over, but her eyes gave away her true concern, and one of the boys put his boot over the notes to obscure them from view. He then whispered something to his mate and Sofia was helped to her feet. She screamed something about being robbed but stopped herself. She heard them laughing as she walked away, cold, sore and tired, and now skint as well.

She hadn't eaten since before the shift and knew there would be next to nothing in the flat. The 26€ set aside for Christmas lunch had to last until the 1st of January, when she would get paid the rest of her salary for December, a salary which would be missing a week due to the holidays.

When she opened the door, she saw Pierluigi. He had gone to the town and sold a book that was dear to him. He only got 15€ for it when he knew it was worth much more. It was one of the few things he had salvaged as he fled. On the table there proudly sat a plate of pasta with tomato sauce and a bottle of the cheapest Lambrusco the supermarket could offer. They only had one glass and she got that. He was content with the cup with the broken handle that he had been allocated. A lone candle adorned the middle of the table, propping up a Christmas card.

The message inside simply read "With love always, Pierluigi". There was no need to add any "sorries" now. Everything had been said. She smiled and gave him a kiss. He took her coat off and helped her to her seat. Despite the fact that the pasta and sauce combined cost less than one euro, to Sofia it outstripped any lobster. The wine hit her like a frying pan on the back of the head, 2020 was clearly not a great year for Lambrusco. He knew it, she knew it, but in their minds, it tasted just as good as that vintage they had been treated too in that vineyard in Tuscany, when the owner thought Pierluigi was going to become a partner, and was prepared to sacrifice the wine he had set aside for his daughter's eighteenth birthday to get the new stakeholder to sign. She took another sip and reappraised the situation. Maybe not just as good. She laughed and saw her husband's face over the candle's flame. These moments made it worthwhile.

The next day was the 25th. The plan had always been to buy something cheap from the shop that never closed and buy lunch. Now all they had was the change from the 15€ book sale and a few coins that lurked in her handbag. At some point after the 27ththe electricity would be cut off. There was no way that bill could be paid, and as this situation had arisen before, the company would be unwilling to hear their sob story. Two chicken fillets and packet noodles would be their Christmas lunch. The spent a lavish two euros and tacky decorations and sang carols as they got the flat ready for the main event. They charged the faulty old laptop that had been handed down to them by the only child of theirs who still spoke to them and took it down to the square where there was a Wi-Fi hotspot. They huddled together as they connected the Skype to speak to their daughter in Rome. It went through the ringing sequence three times before she picked up. They could see the inside of her cosy Roman home and the children joyously fretting about with their new presents.

"You should have come to us." Their daughter told them.

"It's too hard for your father on the bus all that way. We're fine here. Honestly, we'll visit when it's warmer. Plus, I need to work". Sofia replied.

"There must be some way I can get money to you." She had a tear in her eye.

"They monitor everything, you'll only get in trouble. We're fine, honestly". Sofia said. With that the snow began to fall and the wind got up. As the temperature plummeted they made their goodbyes. Snow entering through the keyboard's missing letters and threatening to finish off the machine for good.

As they returned home to share their meagre Christmas, they were hit with a realisation that for the first time in their adult lives, the season had meaning, the music sounded different, the cheap meat tasted wonderful in their mouths. From the back window, they saw a group of children singing outside the old church and held hands, the bones in Pierluigi's legs aching from the cold, Sofia's hip aching from the fall, but there they were, the only people perhaps in the world enjoying a traditional Christmas, and to the strains of "Silent Night", Pierluigi kissed her and whispered, "we will walk".

#  13. Soccersperience ©

The final of the 2239 Soccersperience© EuroEarthRegion™ final achieved the aim of its creators in the form of an impeccably perfect ZERO ZERO NAC (Net Approachment Configuration). The sport had come a long way since those early muddy dalliances with sewn pigs' bladders to the now unrecognisable epitome of perfect fitness, control and skill that the 23rd centuries players show day-in day-out, injury free, well only for the time it takes remould a ligament or repair a femur, but injuries of that nature are almost like a glitch in the matrix now, as the perfectly rated attacker will move forward with the ball to be intercepted with a perfectly timed challenge by his counterpart, meaning that actual physical contact between the two players is technically impossible).

It is from there the desire to reach the perfect no-score draw arose. What was seen in those heathen early days as the antithesis of entertainment is what now everyone involved in the game strides towards. The perfect match of abilities to cancel out attack and defence into a choreographed blend of sporting achievement.

Historians of the sport would find very few similarities between the modern game and its former guise. Transfers no longer exist: a player can be honed to perfection through the use of technology, thus making it possible for them to have a rating of 99 in all of the so-called "7 disciplines" that define the "score value" of a player. The winners of the last three editions of the trophy "Euro Latin South Ethnicity III United" had enjoyed a 99 rating throughout its squad for a number of years, thereby making it impossible for any opponent to tie with them (obviously, they could not be beaten as nothing is better than 99), but the appearance of the recently upgraded "Euro North Teutonic Unmarked Ethnicity" meant that finally the long-dreamt of stalemate could be achieved.

Life in the 23rd century followed this pattern in all of its most important aspects. You may think, with good reason, that if players could be genetically engineered then eventually all teams will be 99 rated and all matches perfect draws. Unfortunately, it is somewhat more difficult than that in reality. A player must have one attribute of over 80 to begin with so that the process can be initiated. By means of an example, if you take Historical Reference Dominator # 37, a certain Mr C. Ronaldo, who was extremely popular in the game's Phase Period Standard Development III era, his Aerobic Thrust rating at the peak of his career would only have been 77, not to mention his frighteningly poor Pivot Swivel Circumferiser, which would be in the mid 40s. Ronaldo would not have got as far as the training pitch, nobody with those stats would. Of course, nobody with those stats would go anywhere near it, one of the most delightful things about life in the 23rd century is that people know their place.

With the impossibility of using goals scored as a means of deciding who wins the coveted trophy, the only tool that the boffins had failed to find a way to control came into use: each player's capacity to generate advertising revenue during the match gave the teams a total score that could be used a calculation based on which the winner would be decided. The generation of this income was the fulcrum of all that was deemed good and decent in the future. As knowledge was no longer a commodity that needed to be attained, everyone could technically know everything thanks to improvements in brain storage capacity and the S928 model chips automatically inserted into embryos during gestation. This meant that every human being could instantly translate any of the languages admitted by the world's governing body, the Council of Human Expansion, every child could perform any mathematical operation, speak, care for itself, cook, and, most importantly, generate advertising revenue from day one.

Of course, as you will be unaccustomed to the workings of everyday society in the future, maybe some background will help you to understand the plight of the 23rd century mother. Pregnancy as you know it was done away with, such a barbaric practice, towards the middle of the 22nd century, when finally, the entire gestation process could be completed without the need to inhabit an itinerant frame. From this moment on, the process became pain-free, and, soon after, sex-free. Infertility disappeared, as did every ailment that could end lives in the fragile period of the early 21st. Medicine advanced at an alarming rate, diseases were eradicated, though the real progress came in 2109 when the use of 4D printers allowed for the creation of temporary organs to be introduced into a human with an ailment, allowing for their affected region to be regenerated, later reprogrammed, even later upgraded. All of the foregoing on the proviso that your advertising revenue allowed for the treatment.

And therein lies the rub. Oh, yes, it sounds idyllic, almost too good to be true. And for the 61 million people proudly holding Earth Pertainment Status, life was none too shabby. Of course, those at the bottom of that list were always looking over the shoulders, should someone sneak up on them at the end of the Revenue Fiscal Actualization Period. There were a lot of sleepless nights for those between 59 and 61 million. As you moved up the revenue scale, your ID card's number would be automatically updated to show your status as an Earth Citizens. The elite had a zero before their first number, after that, ten down to sixty-one. As early as 2257, at the Grand Consortium of Future Enlightenment, the actual benefits of having more than this number of inhabitants on the planet was discussed. Of course, wisely, the decision to have a selection of suitably neutered adult humans with no capacity to raise advertising money was deemed mandatory, at least until robotics became sufficiently adept to provide what was proudly unveiled as the "Non-Threatening Replicate Human Labour Enhancer" at the Paris Trade Fair of 2189. With the introduction of these devices, rogue human workers could then be dispatched to the Mars moons and Zone 3 lunar defence stations to aid with work on the shield that will protect the planet from future invasions.

The first invasion was repelled by chance on New Years' Eve 2199, as space powder resulting from workers' mining excavation on the Mars Moons prevented the alien craft from entering the recently enhanced Stratosphere 2.0. The Earth's inhabitants knew that there were forces out there, but were convinced that the dust shield was their best form of protection. This was the reason that Mars Moons were cloned with more and more mines so that the remainder of the human population, if you can call them that, worthless individuals who can barely raise a minor trending phenomenon between them, are sent to ensure that those remaining on the blue planet, have a delightful existence.

War and conflict were also things of the past, the population of the Earth had everything it wanted, and what it did not have, it could create. There was no need for currency, trade, industry, finance etc, everything was done for you by your trusty 4D printer. You could change your living space completely in the time it took to download the new house. All living areas on the planet, condensed into the region you would know as Europe before Brexit, were suitably habituated in order to create any living experience desired. People simply engaged in their projects, their means to increasing their trendography profiles and status rank of the famed and feared PopuIndex®. The only purpose in life was to be as utterly marvellous as you could muster, and if that wasn't enough, you could upgrade your lacking parts or have new ones installed.

To get to this situation, a decision had to be made on who could stay, and who had to go. Obviously, in a world in which everyone is a potential genius and in any case robots can perform operations and engineering tasks much more efficiently than humans, Academia was destined to disappear. The last university on Earth, out of respect, Bologna, was successfully turned into an indoor water complex with every species of bird known to humanity. A person had to have a rating of over 80 in two of the seven essential life factors (survivors were then broken down into further sub-categories for their "professions" which would contain a further seven "specialisation factors"). These seven factors were (all weighted the same)

1. Attractiveness (secretly given extra weighting for ties)

2. Sex appeal

3. Vivacity

4. Inalterability scale rating

5. Determination

6. Lack of mindfulness

7. Apathy repulsion dichotomiser.

Nobody actually had any idea what the seventh one meant but it was often used as a wild card should something be required urgently. Anybody who scored over 80 on two of these aspects could remain as a resident of Earth and begin work on their Personal Upgrade Programme so that they could first obtain an average of 80 for all seven aspects, and then move towards the magic 99.

If we take as an example the world of entertainment, these factors combine to make the perfect music, objet d'art or cinema (theatre and literature were deemed pointless in the early 22nd century as everyone knew everything anyway), obviously, if a song had a 99 rating in its seven essential categories, that perfect piece would be listed as Aural Humanity Heritage, and be played on loop for eternity. Perfect movies were deemed to be those that caused no alterations to the seven essential life factors and their perfection was displayed by bearing the certification Visual Humanity Heritage. Again, for the purposes of comparison, "A Whiter Shade of Pale" would score 32 on the AHH scale, and Citizen Kane would not even be eligible for rating due to its flagrant breach of 7EC©. I think that goes some way to showing just how far we have progressed as a society from the dark ages of Ed Sheeran.

Leisure played a big part in everyday life. Urbanconglommerations were created to house up to one hundred thousand people maximum, though the space was divided in line with the wishes of the resident, some wanted secluded farm houses, other city palaces, others even craved urban sprawl. The major historical hubs of the ancient past were recreated to their former glory: the European ones like Rome and Athens actually in-situ, though others, such as the Stockholm Taj Mahal, the Turin Pyramids or Everest in Bradford were purpose built for the experience. These touristic playgrounds were staffed by conveniently sterilised drone workers and robots, dressed in period costume to create a lifelike vision of history, the French Revolution Brunch was certainly a treat not to be missed.

What a time to be alive, providing you were, as they say, alive. And as a wise man once said, "you're only alive if you have a life".

On the Mars Moons, the story was quite different. That said, on the Mars Moons it was notably better than on Mars itself, and that was a world away, every pun intended, to the poor souls forced to GalaxyTranzit due to a zero-productivity coefficient. There was little contact between the Mars Moon inhabitants and those on Earth, the inhabitants of the latter only cared about the creation of the space dust that would form the shield. the Moon dwellers had all been treated with a lung destabiliser that meant that if they ever came into contact with the Earth's atmosphere, they would choke to death. They were also sterilised. The management teams of the Mars Moons were formed by those who had fallen below the 61 million mark, the incentive was there for them to believe they could return, there was talk that some had, but you've seen the Running Man, haven't you? They ruled with an iron fist, living in fear of not reaching their space dust targets and being forced to work in the mines themselves.

There was also a secret counsel that operated from Earth to ensure that everything went swimmingly, and to implement the hopeful idea that this would be the last group of pure humans to work on the moons, as moon 7.23 and 8.15 were now being completely handled by robots. The remaining human residents on these were treated to a fatal dose of Oxygen and Nitrogen and suffocated on the spot. Their corpses were then passed on to the GalaxyTranzitters who traded them for parts or simply disposed of them in remote outer colonies.

Back on Earth, the desire to no longer unnecessarily perpetuate the human race was becoming less of an issue as life expectancy stood at PER (Practically Eternal Rating), death had not been eliminated, though in many cases, it was not always as so overwhelming(ly) fatal as it had been in the past. Of course, if you drove your vehicle off a cliff, that was that there was nothing that could be done, but if you had a fall and banged your head, whilst you were in the coma all necessary items would be replaced by robots (again providing your scores could handle the transaction) and in the meantime, you enjoyed lifelike virtual reality trips to the Pre-Health Excellence History Period (from the Neolithic up to 2038) hand-picked by your BondGroup.

BondGroups were what came to replace families. With the disappearance of the need to procreate physically and the feeling that children were little more than a hindrance occupying one of the vital numbers (when a person died, they had to be replaced with elements of their own DNA, yet this was a lengthy process, and despite the fact that the children had all the necessary "hardware" to continue the life of the deceased, they often failed to utilise any of the chances given to them.), thus being able to bypass the entire childhood and adolescence period was a great step forward. The ultimate idea would be for the unfortunately dead person to be replaced by a clone who was exactly the same in every way, thus truly perpetuating life, although this technology was still a long way away. BondGroups were much more efficient than families as you could programme your reaction to the members within your group to your needs at that time, if you needed sympathy, that's how they came across, if you needed space, they suddenly disappeared, they laughed at your jokes and gave you constant high ratings to boost your advertising score, there were no fights as you controlled their responses, and they controlled yours. You might feel you were telling someone to jump off a bridge, but if they had you set to charming, they would probably hear something like "you really have style".

\+ \+ \+ \+ +

Mars Moon 2.87 Mining Date 314 Development Phase 3

"The problem with this continued use of humans is their need to rest. This has a serious effect on production. Automated Mars Moons are leaving us in their tracks" the Head of Mining addressed the Board.

"If we do away with people totally, they will see on Earth that robots can be used for everything. We are still human, remember?" His Deputy replied.

"Come on, we are in the 62 to 74 million bracket. Middle Management, are practically untouchable. Why would they replace us with robots to do the same job?" The look on his face showed that he had answered his own question. Nobody was indispensable.

"Well just imagine that one day the top 40 decide that there really isn't enough space for 61 million people plus drones and robots on the Earth, remember they are using the maps of the 14th Century basically due to the need for concrete encasement of the North America, Russian and Asian areas following World War III (March 7th 2019 12:47 GMT to March 7th 2019 19:02 GMT). Those areas are uninhabitable, and, although the best parts of have been recreated, remember the Norwegian Serengeti? All it takes is for the elite to want rid, and then where will we be? Imagine being a 68 million then, you'd go from 7 million away from freedom, to 27 million. It would be a death sentence. We have to make them see the moral worth of humans." He concluded.

"How do we do that? And what exactly is their moral worth?"

"Our moral worth, you mean?"

"That, too".

"Fucking good question".

* * * *

Mars Moon 2.87 Sector 326B Rest Phase II

Jake loved wandering around the antique stores during Rest Phase. Bits of information trickled to the moon dwellers of incredible progress made in the sphere of medical science that might one day improve their conditions, or even better, mean a return to Earth. On the journey to the moons from Earth, the new workers were fitted with a chip that gave them all the information they needed on their former planet and how radiation meant it was still too dangerous to return. Once the shield was completed, it would absorb the radiation from the Earth and regenerate the planet. Workers eagerly paid into pension funds to set aside their farmsteads in Africa and Asia once repopulation could commence, this money never went into any fund and was simply used to pay management's wages and transport costs. As a wise manager once said, "a human without a dream is an unproductive one". Jake turned the corner and found himself faced with early 21st century artefacts, he'd never seen anything like this, this was a real find. He took it to the counter and asked the owner, Hugo.

"What's this, man? It looks so primitive! Buttons! This is so retro" Jake laughed.

"Välkommen till min butik, kommer jag kontrollera att information för dig" Hugo replied.

"Ah sorry, I forgot, you are still set to Swedish from your last customer. Hang on". Jake entered his thumb print on the desk control and Hugo then recognised his client in the latter's native language.

"Welcome to my store, I will check that information for you." Hugo accessed the inventory window and located the item number. He began to read "It's called an iPad, very popular from 2010 onwards until they were discontinued in favour of visual ocular projection technology in the 2030's. From what I can gather, it is a kind of primitive leisure hub, this one has a capacity of 16 gigabytes".

"What's a gigabyte?" Jake enquired.

"It is a primitive form of storage space. In those days, you had an amount of space on your device that could be used for music, photos, videos etc. Once that space was used up you had to delete things".

"Why couldn't they transfer data to a bone hub like we do? Bones are much better for storing data than any other support."

"That wasn't discovered until much later, you could buy more expensive models with extra space but even these were limited. Anyway, I'm not a history teacher, do you want it or not?" Another customer had entered who looked more likely to buy something decent.

"How much?" Jake asked.

"100 credits. Oh and you'll need this." He gave him a white cable with two pins at one end and a sort of, well, he couldn't even describe it, at the other end.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"You'll need it to charge the battery. Find an old landing dock and look for a hole in the wall. They were still in use up until the end of the last century in Sector IV. You might get lucky. Now do one, I have a business to run". Hugo smiled at the new customer as he placed his digit on the counter.

"Добро пожаловать в мой магазин, я проверю эту информацию для вас?» Hugo asked the customer.

Jake left the store and made his way to Sector IV. He didn't know what he was looking for so decided to ask. "Know what I can do with this?" he asked a burly worker.

"Apart from shove it up your arse, I imagine you'd be looking for a power socket. What are you? One of these retro-Pokemon weirdos? It's 50 credits for an hour. Charge it for an hour you should get about 12 hours use out of it. Follow me".

Jake activated the payment with the bank chip in this right thumbnail and followed the guy. He had no idea why he was trying to access this archaic machine, but something told him to do it. The guy left him and in about six minutes it had enough battery to switch on. It asked him for a four-digit unlock key, child's play, the thought as he connected his PortoAlgorythmer. Once inside he remembered the history classes from school, especially IT History where he saw the faces of idiots standing proudly next to a machine the size of a house. He began opening the Apps, very basic forms of modern communication. Message from Boss. Doctor's appointment. Son's birthday. The iPad was last accessed on the 21st of February 2017, a video recording of some sort of a Socceresperience © match, but it was a match like he had never seen before. This was not the new incarnation of the sport, moreover peak period "Football" even before the "Soccer" rebrand of 2102. The names of the teams meant nothing to him, he found them listed in his HistoryInsert that they corresponded to villages in the United Kingdom, now deemed unnecessary for continuance as part of the EuroclassificaztionProgrammer of worthwhile residences. Only 7 dwelling areas were maintained in the United Kingdom, the home of Jake's forefathers, all chosen for their ability to provide IdealLivingEnvironment Grades 4 to 7. London and York were used as Tourist Centres but the rest was used for drone and robot maintenance and residence, except for the aforementioned specialist LeisureRecreationElements, such as Everest and the Ribble Valley Atlas Mountains.

He watched the video in awe. Rochdale against Port Vale. There was no information on player ratings, nor on the amount of advertising revenue that they could generate. His Insert told him the population of the Earth at the time was over 6 billion. "That must have been one cramped planet" he said aloud. The first ten seconds of the video were enthralling, from a free-kick near the corner flag, the ball was floated into the box, the keeper came for it, flapped, knocked the ball onto one of his own players for it to be then scrambled in by an attacker. No rating cancellation, no perfect attainment, just a series of mistakes and profit.

The second goal defied all belief. Jake had to know the ratings of these players, how could they have been allowed to perform in public like that? The attacker was one-on-one with the keeper and yet still managed to hit the post before bundling it in off the bottom of a diving defender. Were these people truly professional footballers? It was laughable, yet adorable. How the crowd enjoyed the game, he had never seen anything like it. Port Vale went 1-2 up then Rochdale pulled it back to 3-2. The goalkeepers seemed to have holes in their bodies. At the death, Vale salvaged a draw with some more awful defending. It was an epiphany. He watched video after video until the hour was up and then took it away to watch more. He knew what his calling was. To resurrect "Football".

He got together a group of sporty and eager humans and showed them the videos (he had now upstructured the entire content of the App he had found "YouTube" for his training purposes). Aside from the football, there was also retro music that, whilst not banned, had simply been deemed unnecessary with regard to Attained Perfection, and therefore overlooked. As they watched more videos, taking inspiration from Tranmere Rovers in the 1990s, they formed their own team, taking the name Everton Mars Moon 2.87 FC, but this was simply left as Everton as the rest was considered a mouthful. They completed their first training session with Ned's Atomic Dustbin at full-blast, effortlessly recreating the imperfections of true humans.

In the space of three years, Jake's project had expanded to the entire moon, which, quite surprisingly, had the exact same surface area and shape as England. With the aid of computer assistance, the map was recreated to produce twenty teams that represented the teams playing in the Premier League in the year the iPad was last used. Playing "Football" became a means of identity for moon residents, whose lives had been slowly eaten away, and had nothing to call their own. The spirit of resistance and defiance was frowned upon by the authorities, but these did not overly show much concern as the plan to reduce the moon's breathable atmosphere was underway, soon humans would no longer be needed for moon work and would all suffocate in space (except for those who had been fitted with the RespiraUpgrade 4.2, who would continue to breathe normally).

Despite the reduction of air quality, the league continued to make progress and matches were attended by nearly two-thousand people at makeshift stadia throughout the moon. A full calendar was drawn up with 38 league games played on a home and away basis. Jake was the captain of Everton and used his friends and colleagues to put a fairly decent team together. That said, they faced fierce competition from the Southern Moon Zone, particularly Chelsea, and, to start with, Arsenal, but the latter soon took the Rochdale vs Port Vale videos too literally and fell away. Everton's traditional rival too put on a strong show when a former German ballet dancer was appointed their manager.

Rivalries soon came to the fore as the little more than forty miles separating the teams in Fictitious Merseyside and Invented Greater Manchester. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion, this light-hearted banter spilled over into actual fisticuffs, especially when the eight faithful upholders of Manchester City's colours were attacked by Sunderland radicals.

Illness and misery were rife like never before on the moon, but the league managed to detract people's attention away from this, the bars were full of talk, matches were analysed and the striving for imperfection took on an almost supernatural calling. "Football" in this form meant something to the people, it signified them using their bodies to achieve something, or to fail in the process. As the season drew to a close, four teams could still win the league on the last day, and two of the last relegation places were still undecided. Unfortunately, Sunderland had been relegated at Christmas after a run of 22 losses and points deductions for ruining the RetroConcertMuzak scheme, notably causing an Echo and the Bunnymen tribute act to cancel.

Nobody wanted to miss the final day, the standings were thus:

Everton 82 points

Manchester United 81 points

Liverpool 80 points

Chelsea 80 points

Air quality had caused two of the last set of games to be reduced to eighty minutes, but the organisers were determined to get to the end of the season. Everton knew that if they won, they would be champions, Man United could afford to draw if Everton lost, as they had a better goal difference, if Liverpool or Chelsea won, then there would be complications. Everton could draw if Man United didn't win and Chelsea won, but if they drew and Liverpool won, their city rivals would be champions on goal difference.

The matches began as old people could barely stand, wheezing as the atmosphere took a turn for the worse. Both United and Liverpool took the lead early, but Everton, playing Middlesbrough who needed to win, were 0-3 down at half time. In the second half, the first of the casualties in the crowds were confirmed, as were deaths in the dwelling areas. That said, on the bright side, Everton got two back and Liverpool had a penalty against them. at 2-3 Everton still needed two goals to ensure the title when a stroke of fortune meant Jake's shot was deflected off the hapless defender. 3-3 was not enough as Liverpool scored again. United went 2-1 up to put them in pole position, once again Liverpool failed at the last as their goalkeeper scored an own-goal following a routine thrown-in. Then in the last minute of the season, and with all of the crowd beginning to wane, even two Everton players lay dying on the side lines, Jake took the ball around three defenders and placed it in the top corner to crown Everton as champions as the last of the air was pointlessly inhaled. Jake collapsed in the goalmouth, fighting to get some oxygen inside him, and saw the cheers of the jubilant remaining fans interspersed with handshakes and appreciation on the part of opposing fans. As the life slipped out of him, everyone else and most of the moon, he knew it had been worth it.

# 14. Choosing My Religion

After being born, growing up and living (I am prone to exaggeration) in a new town for more than thirty years, me and my husband Anthony (he doesn't talk much) have decided to take the plunge and move to a picturesque village in the Cotswolds after a rather fortuitous windfall. It'll make a lovely change, I've seen the web site of the local council. We can't wait, a much better place to bring up a child (Anthony will have to put his silence to good use and get me in the club as soon as we arrive, surely it was the new town that hindered his passion).

Our village is a delight. There is so much to do in such a small space. I'm looking forward to forming part of the community and helping them move out of the dark ages with some of my more than modern "überideas", as I like to call them. The folk music society won't know what's hit them when they hear one of MY mixtapes. I'll get them dancing. I certainly know that all those cookery shows I've watched will give the cake baking association a new lease of life.

So, we're here now. Oh, it's so beautiful. Mum's coming over next week and I've already got her a few new pals lined up for one of her Zumba classes. I could end up being mayoress in a couple of years. I have met people and I know we've made quite a hit, not so much Anthony, obviously, as he doesn't say much, but you get the impression a few of the locals certainly think he has a way about him. They'll have to keep their dirty village paws to themselves!

Anyway, the strangest thing happened. We were having a little walk around the village and came across the most delightful building. I'd never seen anything like it. I'm not great with descriptions but it was like a huge old house with a triangle on top and a decent clock. We just had to go in.

It turned out it was a church, a church of all things! Of course, I had seen the rather uninspiring buildings used by Scientologists and Latter-Day Saints, even a Catholic version that looked more like a modern art exhibition, but this was a real throwback. I remember Gran talking about them when I was younger, but I never had the time nor the cause to go into one. If I had wasted my formative years wandering round churches and museums or going to exhibitions, there is literally no way I would have found the time to be the fine, upstanding member of society you have before you today. Still, I thought to myself: I am not a bigot and will welcome anyone, practically, just as long as they own no Primark or IKEA products. I had a nose inside.

Inside it was so charming I did not know where to look. I really sensed a feeling of calmness coming over me. A pasty looking chap in a frock appeared (I was NOT expecting that) and we started to talk.

"What is this place?" I asked inquisitively.

"This is the house of God." He said.

"Oh, I'm sorry, the door was open. We'll leave straight away". My manners are second to none.

"Please, you're all welcome in God's house. Enter, feel free to ask any questions you may have." He told us his name was Peter and he was the Vicar, or something.

"So, anyone can live here? We've never seen a place like this in the area we WAS brought up". I continued. I'm harder to convince than the gay friend of a perennial forty-year old spinster at times, but I was going to let him have a try.

"Were, you mean?" Peter said.

"Near Milton Keynes. Anyway, this is lovely. How does it all work? Do you take turns to stop here?" I enquired.

"I fear you have misunderstood, my child." He began.

"My child? Ah, there is always a catch, I knew it was too good to be true" I tried to move away.

"No, no, not at all. That's the other lot! Here you are always welcome but you do not have to live here. In the same sense, part of here lives with you wherever you are". He continued. I had no idea what he was on about.

"Here you form part of God's kingdom, you worship him and receive eternal life" was his next offering. "God rewards you for your devotion with eternal bliss and life, in Paradise, next to God. How does that sound?" He said.

"Well, I won't lie, that sounds just what we're looking for. We've already found this delightful village so eternal bliss and life in Paradise would be quite a bonus. Sign us up! How does it work? We have a small amount of disposable income that we were looking to invest. I imagine that this is like some sort of time share option. Do you have any brochures or anything so we can have a look at what Paradise is like, mum wants us to get something in Corfu or Alicante but this could be an equally good investment. Still, I have heard horror stories on Jeremy Kyle and other shows, I know you look trustworthy but I believe it's best to be cautious. I'll send you a WhatsApp and you can link me to Paradise's web, or do they have an App?" I had so many questions.

"I feel you are missing the point again. No, I don't have any brochures or other promotional literature. It doesn't quite work like that." He wasn't really explaining anything so I carried on.

"Well maybe I could help out with that, you need to drag yourselves into the twenty-first century. I have done a bit of work with web site design, send me some decent photos, I imagine the weather and the accommodation in Paradise must be really five-star, airport transfers included, spas, seafood buffets, I could get you lots more clients with a decent web set-up. For a commission, of course, we're all in this business together aren't we?" if I looked confused before, now it was his turn.

"Our work is done here on Earth but thinking about the life that we will live once we have left this place. This land is merely a vehicle for our bodies to move to the next life. We are not a business, we are not interested in clients, rather, believers. Your belief will take you to the next life, not money, contacts or webs." He responded.

"So, you mean all this can be ours for free? There has to be a catch. Maybe if you could hook me up with an association or forum or something, you know, people on the other side, people who believed and are there now. I don't want to invest my energies in something that may not be my cup of tea. Who do you know who is there?" I asked.

"I do not know anyone personally, and yet, in a funny way, I know so many good souls who are there." Was his response.

I got my phone out my bag to jot down some of these names, maybe form a WhatsApp group. "Fire away" I said.

"We just know that they are. Our faith and belief tells you that they are in Paradise because they lived a good life here on Earth. They followed the path of our Lord and that only leads to one place". Were his words.

"You mean, I just believe and follow your rules for the rest of my life and will be rewarded with eternal life in Paradise despite the fact that there is no proof whatsoever that any of your previous believers have actually made it there. Do you own a car?" I asked him.

"Yes, I own a car, but what does that have to do with anything?" He answered.

"Well, I assume you did not just walk into the showroom and say my belief will lead to a vehicle that performs reasonably for my needs and budget. Test drive?" I asked him.

"Well, yes, I couldn't decide between the Audi and the Saab" He responded.

"Your faith did not help you make the choice?" I was enjoying myself now.

"Well, it's not like that" He was struggling.

"How is it, then?" He was mine now. We're so out of this place.

"It's just that" he paused and then started again "I don't really know. Maybe looking at it like that it's hard to justify. I need to think." he began to skulk off.

"Come on Anthony, there's nothing for us here" I told my beloved.

"I think we should give it a go." Said the fool.

"Oh, you never know when to keep your mouth shut" I said taking him by the wrist and leading him outside. And there, next to the scruffy old building that we had somehow managed to overlook was a Wetherspoon's and it was curry night. Now that I can believe in.

# 15. Girls on Film

"Just think of the fee". Gerry consoled himself with this thought and rubbed his hands together once more, going through the pointless motions of creating friction and breathing onto the frosted woollen gloves in the hope of transferring some semblance of life into his ailing fingers. Soon she would be out.

He had to get this photo. He had missed other opportunities because he had never put the hours in. He got bored easily, he got scared even easier. This time she had let her guard down. A false name in a non-descript hotel. She was his. The minute she walked out the back door with that man, that man who is not her husband, that man who is not the Secretary of State for Defence, that man who will make Gerry into a rich scumbag, rather than a poor scumbag. "just think of the fee". He repeated.

Gerry had always been interested in photography. He studied course after course but his photos never captured the essence of the scene. People always looked out of place in them, even buildings appeared to take on an odd shape merely for the duration of the shot. He tried everything, but could not make a living even doing passport photos or pets. It was as if the camera hated him, as if the camera would forever betray him. That was until he discovered a way of making money taking bad photos of people who would pay not to be in them. For a while, he would grammatically incorrectly state "I am a paparazzi" and operated in the same way. First, he would get his snap, then he would try to sell it to the people in it. He did not care for the word blackmail and referred to the deal as a convenient trade of goods. If that did not work, he would sell it to the highest bidder for publication in the rags that litter the news-stands. If it was a particularly good shot or a video, he would move up to the telly. Soon after, he graduated to taking money from the subjects to also selling a copy to the press. He was always one snap away from getting out of the horrible business and disappearing. Disappearing before he disappeared.

He had studied his subject for quite a while now, he knew her movements, her foibles and her desires. His voyeuristic window into her life allowed for the formation of a fully-rounded opinion of her, and aided him in his belief that she deserved what was coming to her due to her unrepentant betrayal. His original subject had been her husband. Often the root of much discussion that nobody could be that diligent and hard-working without having some dark secret lurking in that well-guarded past. But there was nothing, less than nothing, even when a kindly police officer rescinded on a speeding fine, he tracked him down and insisted the fine be made. Soon Gerry realised that his worth as a victim of a terrible misdemeanour was much more valuable than his powers as a potential rogue.

She was unpopular within the party and in the eyes of the general public. The party did not see her as being "from adequate stock" for the wife of a minister. She was younger than him, yet still approaching fifty, and her voluptuous frame made her the focus of attention for reasons that were deemed unbecoming of minister's wife. Not that she made any effort to toe the line, quite the opposite, she enjoyed the leery glances of his colleagues and opponents, undressing her with their eyes whilst trying not to spill their brandies and divert some attention to their own spouses' piffling remarks about some such or other that they had completely misheard. Of course, this admiration was limited to the confines of their seedy and lascivious minds. The generally voiced view was that the lady was indeed for turning, turning away. With fervent British diplomatic tact, she was described by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as a "shameless harlot" adding "she was a woman whose charms were ill at ease with the demands of winter attire". Despite this skittish attack on her person, the public still failed to take her into their hearts, they resented her rise, duly explaining her position as being the result of her husband's repressed urges causing him to eschew what they would see as a more suitable wife and representative of the government.

Yet he loved her. Gerry knew that. He did not manage to understand it but he had ascertained this information through his surveillance. She had been loving too, maybe she still was, but she had been overlooked, left to go stale, and she still considered herself of the very freshest kind. She had her back story: an ill-mother in a nursing home. She had her target: a young nurse who recently arrived in the country. At first, they were careful not to take their unseemly activities outside of one of the recently vacated rooms in the care facility. But, as always, once they saw they were getting away with it, they got sloppy, they needed an extra injection of risk to keep it real.

And here they were, before him, for the first time seen together in public, frolicking like a pair of love-struck teenagers. Gerry's finger caressed the shutter. This was going to be so front page.

As Gerry was about to shoot, a figure stood in his way.

"Think before you take it" He said

"Let me do my job". Gerry replied.

"I'm going to give you a chance to reflect on things. As you will notice, everything around you has stopped. Whilst you undergo this period of reflection time will stand still, if, after everything I show you, you still decide to take the photo then that is your decision". the man said.

Gerry looked around him to see cars that seconds ago were flying by paused as if everything he saw was in itself a photo. Only he and the other figure were in motion. The couple he was hoping to photograph remained locked in a motionless embrace. Gerry wanted to say something clever but words failed him, even swear words abandoned him, he simply let out a grunt that was meant to express his urgent need for further clarification.

"Let's sit." The figure suggested.

"Can you tell me your name, at least? I don't want to have to tell this story later on and keep calling you the figure." Gerry asked.

"Erm, how about Marcus". The figure said.

"Right, you can be Marcus the figure. Now can we move on to the more pressing matter of what is actually happening here?". Gerry continued.

"Well, I have here a charming little device that will show you several videos of what will happen in the future if you take that photo and use it in the press. Think of this as your "get out of jail card". As I said, the decision is entirely yours, I hope to convince you with what you see, but at the end of the day, you have to be the one who makes it." Marcus said.

"I've grown pretty thick-skinned in this job, I know what I do will not get me on the list at the Vatican as Saint Gerry, but I don't care. You've got the wrong man. I genuinely do not have any principles." Gerry retorted.

"That's how I like you". Marcus said. "Take a look at this. You have your photo, even a video. It's all over the news and quite a stir has been caused. You have made around two hundred grand from the affair. Sounds like a pretty good return for your time, doesn't it?" Marcus asked.

"Yeah, you sure have a way of convincing people". Gerry laughed and looked at his watch. The second hand did not move.

"Quite. I'll let the video do the talking." Marcus pressed play and they watched together.

Firstly, we see the lover (Zuti) being dismissed from his employment for breaking pretty much every rule in the book. He faces deportation back to his homeland ravaged by war and is suitably displeased. Then, we see her (Emily) sheepishly return to her family home to explain herself to her husband. Remarkably, he wants to stand by her but the party will not have it. He is told to choose between her or his position, and that if he fails to choose wisely, his career will be over.

"So far, pretty textbook, right? What did you expect to happen, for him to be promoted to PM? Hang on, it gets better". "He chose her over the party. The press crucified him and the party, unaccustomed to being overlooked in favour of a wife, decided that they would make the rest of their lives as miserable as possible. Within days of his resignation, false papers were planted in his former office that showed he was syphoning off public funds for his own benefit. Drugs were planted and a series of disparaging emails drafted in which he insulted the Queen and Andy Murray, thus making him the dastardliest ghastly person to ever walk the Earth, or at the least the British part of it.

All of this meant that their lifestyle changed overnight. The luxury was a thing of the past, all of his assets were frozen and wherever he tried to get work, before any papers could be signed, his new prospective employers were paid a visit and suddenly gainful employment was not an option. When his brother lent him five thousand pounds to rent a flat and get back on his feet, the latter's Range Rover took a plunge into the River Severn. The remainder of the five grand, in cash as they could no longer hold bank accounts, was lost in a burglary the next day. They were not allowed to attend the funeral as they were bound by law to stay within the confines of the town of Swindon, perhaps the worst of all their punishments.

He stood by her, but she was loathe to lose Zuti, despite the fact that he had been hounded by the press and living in fear of walking the streets. Penniless and destitute, Zuti was forced into a life of larceny to feed himself. Thieving is not made easier by the fact that he was an unwitting celebrity. When he was caught on CCTV stealing a loaf from a Co-Op, the public had no sympathy for him and he was taken to the cells. There, an accident became of him and there was no more Zuti.

This affected her more than the other thing. She tried to eke out a living by selling stories of tittle-tattle to the press for cash on other members of the cabinet, on lewd suggestions that she had been the recipient of during her husband's time in high office. For a short while, this provided a meagre income, yet the effects of this meddling were a much harder to bear long-term consequence. Other Ministers fell, the government was thrown into disarray, a motion of no-confidence was brought against the Prime Minister, and she, with no more stories to tell, embellish or invent, was duly denounced as the source of all this misery. If she felt that she had been the subject of hatred beforehand, what awaited her would bestow upon her the title of most detested woman in British history.

She tried to flee, the former Minister following behind her like some disorientated puppy. She told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted no more of him, that he had been the real cause of all this. She made it to Hull with the intention of boarding a ferry to Holland. She got as far as the deck before a guard asked to see her papers and she took flight, a winter's day, a slippery deck, you can guess the rest. She dove into the icy waters unwillingly as the motion of the tied vessel crushed her body between the side of the boat and dock wall.

The landlord of the place where they way staying decided that he had had enough of the former Minister too and sent him on his away, though after selling the press a series of fabrications that she continued to receive male company in the dingy hovel. That night in January the temperature plummeted. He had nowhere to go and tried to snuggle into a sleeping bag purchased for a camping trip to the Dordogne behind the shed of his former abode. He was discovered frozen solid the next morning clutching onto a photo of her.

And as for the country, well the culture of one-upmanship and self-importance extolled by the consumers of the paparazzi culture continued to seek out new victims. Sanitised by the events they had seen, their desire for split blood became ever more over-powering and rebarbative. Simply ousting people from public life was no longer enough, their demise had to be grizzlier than the last. People lived in distrust of one another, legal firms prayed on people's fears and desires to right former wrongs. The country was basically at civil war without knowing who was fighting whom.

Marcus stopped the video and looked at Gerry. His face was white and tears streamed down his face. His finger still lingered on the shutter but the camera itself was unwittingly being removed from his eye. He silently began to put the various items away in their case and make for his departure. Marcus smiled at him as he worked.

When everything was in its place and it was clear that there would be no photo, Marcus stepped aside. Before Marcus could stop him, Gerry went over to the couple and told her "He loves you, don't do this. Don't make this mistake. You will regret it for the rest of your life if you don't stop this now". She looked at him like he was insane, but then paused and unclasped her hand from the grip of her lover. She moved away from him and ran in the other direction.

Gerry returned to Marcus and simply said "just think of the free"

#  16. Macca's Financing

So, the divvy bells me at nearly 4 in the morning. I only heard the mobile by chance, normally sleep like la log straight through but he got me. So, I picked up. I didn't look at the screen but as soon as I heard that unmistakable and unbearable drawl, I knew it was one of our cousins from across the Atlantic.

"MacDonald, need your help, asap" he began.

"It's Macca, or Mr MacDonald, and it's nearly 4 am here" I responded.

"Geez, well I'll be darned. It's not even ten pm here, we've just had dinner and I thought it was time to get you involved".

Typical yank, no concept of the idea that the rest of the world operates on different time zones despite having about six different ones in their own country. Of course, he needs my help, they always do, but it's gonna cost him.

"I don't know, kinda tied up at the mo, gorra lot on, so to speak"

"I'm glad you are available." Replied the voice.

Like talking to a brick wall. What did I just say, cloth ears? Right now, I really can't be arsed with this.

"Theresa will call you tomorrow after she has had breakfast but the basis of the matter will be decided between you and me now".

He then goes on with himself for about 20 minutes and cruxes and fulcrums like some daft cunt from the past when I know what he wants from the off. No-one bells Macca's Financing at that time of night unless they have something very tough to solve.

So, Donald cannot finance his war against North Korea. He has roped in the UK and managed to get some Russian financing despite the Ruskies pretending to be openly hostile to the thought of war, they really dig the fact that someone is laying the boot into that fat-headed weirdo.

I can't get me bonce round it at times. At school, the cock, Davva Thommo, just battered anyone who got in his way, and yet this lot, with the most sophisticated equipment and highly trained soldiers still manage to cock things up. England wouldn't lose to Malta in the World Cup, so why don't they just bomb in and murder the little cunts first off?

Anyway, I'm up now and won't be getting any more kip as Macca's brain is fully on. They expect miracles, but that's why they phone me. To help me to relax in these situations I throw on the video of the 1966 FA Cup Final. Fucking love it, black and white, simplicity, real gents on and off the field. It's all changed now.

As we go two down I'm drawing a real blank here. I can't seem to get a grasp of the tasks in hand until Everton start bossing the game against the Owls.

There I am, sat watching the game with a bottle of Michelob, when it comes to me. The answer, eleven minutes later, fuck me I am good. Those plain blue shirts with nothing but the EFC logo on them. I flipped over to CNN and saw an interview with a Yankee soldier: camouflage gear and nowt else. We can do better than that.

Why should Don finance the war? Hasn't America given us the best and greatest companies in the world? Well, it's time they did their share. Let's begin with a little overhaul of the uniforms. I'll need a pencil here lads.

Advertising works, we know that. So, what better statement of an American company's loyalty and patriotism than having their logo emblazoned on their soldiers' uniforms. They'd be fighting each other over that; bidding wars between Coca Cola and McDonalds (no relation) to get on the back of the shirt; Apple on the side of the helmet; Ford and General Motors fighting it out to be on the tanks; United Healthcare in the military hospital. Oh yes, they would be killing each other to get their names on the screens, just like in the Super Bowl. Anyone says no? The backlash would be immense, it would make the McCarthy business look like a government field trip.

As Everton drew level, my grey matter was getting ready to charge double rate. How to get the everyday American on the street involved was my next challenge. Of course, by purchasing the products of the companies who would now sponsor the uniforms and military hardware they were already contributing. But why leave them on the outside? In this X Factor driven society we are encouraged to become a pivotal part of the same by constantly sharing our drivel and opinions with the rest of the world. I need another jar, Everton are battering them now.

Firstly, Americans will have to show their support by knocking on the head products from other countries. "Win the war, eating more" I like that. No more gnocchi or chow mein for you my dear Americans, our plates and feet will bear the face of the eagle leading us to victory. Companies wishing to sell on the US market would have to produce locally and pay extra taxation. This is global effort for the USA victory.

Still, the lads in the towns and cities of America who are too fat or thick to take a gun to the North Koreans can still participate in this war, as I have had the king of all ideas. Every week, George Clooney will host a show (daft prick doesn't want to do it? Let's see where his career goes when he's basically outed as a Commie) where a series of North Korean targets are offered for the next military attack. Via SMS or Twitter viewers choose their preferred target and the delightful military hardware chosen to destroy it.

An elite command will be set up with popular lads rushing into the little yellow twats' hideouts and taking out as many of them as the donations allowed for. Like a telethon, let's say for every ten thousand dollars, the soldier gets to kill 3 soldiers or 1 civilian (either way they're all going down the same route at the end of the day). Elite subscribers can even choose future victims from the North Korean government, army or society.

At the end of the show, they could have a type of lottery where whoever in the studio audience has the correct number of kills on their betting card gets to press the button to launch an attack on a military compound. They're gonna love it. They'll be too scared to watch anything else cos they will be hounded as unpatriotic.

Any North Koreans (or ones that look like them) would now have to work for free and provide double service to the American state to prove their allegiance. In the meantime, anyone on the watch list would have to have a chip inserted or face deportation. For every incident in the future caused by those bad lads, one thousand undesirables would be automatically deported. I need more paper.

So, there we have it, a few new sources of financing, with a deal like that they won't want the war to be over, still there is always another nation round the corner looking for a pasting. I'm just dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s as Derek Temple takes on the Wednesday keeper and slots it home to win the cup. I down the last of the ale and call back shit for brains.

"Trampy, my man. Payment in advance as usual. I have sent the amount to your team. When I receive confirmation of the transfer you will have my report". I enjoy telling him.

"That's not the way I like to do business." He retorted.

"Well take advantage of the million options you've got nob'ed"

"Nob what?" As he asked the question the transfer receipt came through.

"Leave it pal, fax is going through now. Congratulations, you're a real winner".

Brian Labone lifts the cup up and I can get back to my kip.

# 17. Lot 326B

June 1st, 1941 – Crete

Sophia looked over to Constantine. The sound of German guns in the distance becoming ever closer. "Your move" she said. The chess-set had been handed down to her through generations of the Greek Royal family. "I get the feeling if we don't finish this game it will be a disaster for Greece". Sophia pleaded with him to move, she had his bishop in a tricky twist. She always attacked like that. It was part of her beauty and he loved her for it.

"Field Marshall", a voice called. "The enemy are at the gates of the city. You must come now".

"Sophia, we will finish this game but Greece needs me".

May 28th, 1986 – Sotheby's London

"Jenny, I can't believe it. They only thing I got from the will is a sodding chess set and a letter. Great Aunt Sophia with all those millions and Jonny gets the company and the mansion". Jenny screwed up the letter and put the chess set where it belonged at the back of the garage.

She knew Sophia collected chess sets, she knew there was a gold and silver set worth vastly more than the rubbish she had inherited. She was too irate to read the letter.

Over the years Jonny's wealth made her angrier and angrier until one day she had to understand. She opened the letter.

"If you have been bequeathed this chess-set, do not underestimate it. I did, I tried to convince Prince Constantine not to, but the game was never finished. Enclosed herein is a drawing of the pieces as they were when the Germans took Crete. Finish the game to save the world".

Jenny laughed. Sophia was an old bat and no mistake.

During the Gulf War, she felt troubled and found herself arranging the pieces in line with the design. Simply having the pieces in place led to a cessation in hostilities.

Jenny spent the rest of her life waiting for an opponent to finish the game. The opponent never came. The occasion never arose. Her next challenge was to find someone to bequeath the set to who could use it.

Aleppo, December 19th, 2027.

The maildrone managed to make its delivery. That may not sound particularly fraught to you and me but in what is left of Syria any kind of everyday event meant placing your life in the hands of the Gods.

Sara looked at the box. She hadn't had coffee in as long as she could remember, things like deodorant or chocolates were a distant memory. She didn't even play chess. How could she have time to play anything living where she did? The time for games had passed. The Russians and the Americans had managed to turn this conflict into their finale. The Chinese had already launched nuclear attacks on Iran and North Korea. A game of chess was the last thing she felt like.

From her house on the top of the hill the black smoke poured into her garden. The last bastion of her freedom. She knew she had been lucky and enjoyed her Syria longer than others. She suddenly felt compelled to arrange the pieces on the board and re-read the letter. What did she have to lose? What did civilisation have to lose?

She moved the knight to attack the black queen, though instantly realising as she removed her fingers that the bishop could take it. As the exchange was made, the noise of the guns stopped. Her frunnock, that most helpful of devices in war-torn nations, a small drone with a satellite tracker that transmitted news data to her headpiece 24/7, informed her the Chinese had made peace with Iran. She took the bishop with the white queen and the Chinese retracted their offer. However, she had not let go of the piece and the move was considered unfinished. She moved it behind the king into a position of meaningless boredom and the Chinese signed.

She needed a partner. She knew. She didn't have to just finish the game. There had to be a stalemate. The only way that there could be winners was when there were no winners.

Nico accepted the challenge. The Americans were ready to launch a full scale nuclear attack on Moscow. Nico attacked queen's pawn. Sara read him the letter. For nearly one hundred years this game had been waiting to fizzle out, and as each insignificant, dull and tiresome move dragged the game towards equity, differences were settled and armies withdrew. Enemies forgot their grievances and borders ceased to exist. The rain stopped as the queens were exchanged, leaving just two pawns on the table who headed decidedly towards the centre for their inevitable exchange. With only the kings left on the table Sara and Nico shook hands and thanked Great Aunt Sophia.

#  18. MOUIA L'ITALIA (WORK EXPERIENCE PLACEMENT 326B)

It was me and the boss at breakfast, well me and the potential new boss, I was still on the list of candidates. I had seen them in action last night before partying on the streets of Palermo. It seemed glamorous yesterday, how they could just walk into an adversary's office and open fire, but in the cold light of day, those faces haunted me.

"If you're in, you're in." He told me. "You have to prove yourself. Being a member of this organisation involves a level of commitment beyond anything you will have seen elsewhere. I need to know I can trust you, and I need your hands to be as bloodied as ours. There are hundreds of witnesses I can call on to testify to say you were in Palermo with us. Go anywhere you like and kill somebody. Then we will know."

"I could just tell you I had done it and fake it." I retorted over a bagel, why was my brain acting in this devil-may-care manner?

"We will know if you do it, believe me". He responded and bade me farewell.

I didn't want to indiscriminately kill someone, though nor did I want to get this far just to fall at the last hurdle. I looked at the train map, Castellamare del Golfo seemed like a good a place as any. Close to Palermo to make a quick return and secluded enough to be seen by few, or hopefully, none.

I began to wonder if I had failed to excel the night before and should make more strident efforts. I didn't want to kill, but I was tired of eking a living whilst having to endure "i mascalzone" bombing round in fancy cars and me on a dodgy old scooter. I could do this, it would not make me murderer, just someone who had murdered someone, was my reasoning. They wouldn't need me to kill anyone else, I was too valuable to them as a brain. One hit, and that would be it. I made my way to the train station.

My bag contained the tools of my brief endeavour. Two sets of false ID, a pistol with six bullets (I hoped to need one), chewing gum and a couple of grams of coke. I hadn't slept the night before as the demons came to me, so I assumed that on this short journey, sleep would not be becoming. The train moved slowly along with coast, and with me looking suspiciously like someone desperately trying to avoid suspicion, I alighted at my chosen station alone and made my way out of town.

I put my hand inside the bag and checked the gun, it seemed primed. I would walk along a country road and then, the first person I saw, indiscriminate of age or sex, I would kill. Then I would know. Then that would be an end to it. I know it was unfortunate for the victim but I saw it as a small price to pay in the long run. If I knew that I wasn't a killer I would be able to get on with things, leading as normal a life as possible within the confines of the organisation. I walked for about twenty minutes and was clearly out of town. This part of town was so sleepy that it looked like no-one would cross my path, I was even thinking about choosing a different path when in the distance a figure appeared. It was about three hundred metres in front of me when I first saw it, so I could not distinguish the sex of the person. I steadied myself and felt my heart beat increase. End this life, and all my pain would be over. As I marched on, it became clear that my victim was a woman, now she was about one hundred and fifty metres in front of me, she looked young, even from this distance quite pretty. As the distance became less than one hundred metres I remember thinking I was glad it hadn't been a kid. Now I could distinguish her features, she was young, I would say about twenty-three, very pretty, she was wearing a short skirt that showed lovely long legs. Her looks were typical of the Latin female, long brown hair flowed down her back, a broad smile covered her face. She seemed a happy person, enjoying life, perhaps she had a special reason for the smile on her face, maybe she had just finished University or something, or her beloved had just proposed to her and she was off to tell her parents the good news. Maybe she was just a happy person who saw nothing but beauty in life and was enjoying this summer evening, simple plans, a dinner with friends, living a decent, honest life. She was now less than ten metres away from me as these thoughts ran through my head, I told myself not to look back after the deed was done, her beautiful face flashed me a smile as our paths crossed and, in one swift motion, I extracted the gun and shot her in the face.

The close range of the impact meant that there was no question that she was dead. Bits of skull and brain were splayed along the path taking great care not to stain my clothes. The silencer meant that no-one could have heard a thing. I walked on another hundred metres and turned left. It seemed that this road was back into town, I had to hope that no-one found the body for at least an hour or so, that would give me time to hire a car and get out of the place. I fought the temptation to look back as I turned, and within ten minutes I was on the outskirts of town again. As often occurs in the country, a fire burned pointlessly, and I tossed the gun into it. My mouth was dry but I still treated myself to a dab of coke. Now I had a spring in my step.

I found a car hire place, and selected my ID for the day, a French gentleman called Alain Bernard, a handy nobody. I entered, chatty and charming, trying to speak Italian but failing miserably in a quite theatrical French accent. In minutes I was in possession of the keys. I bade the charming young thing a good day and to my intense delight, was soon on the road.

Forcing the issue I visualise her face, as I remember it before blowing her brains out. I imagine that she was on her way home, armed with good news, not only had she just finished her university course, but she had been accepted on a prestigious master's course in the capital. All the family awaited her at home, her mother looking at the clock and shaking her head as she laughed "Where has that daughter of mine got to? Away with the fairies as usual!" At the table her little sister smiled, it didn't matter if her sister was late, she was just waiting for her to come back so she could give her a big kiss and tell her how much she loved her. Her mother took a cake from the fridge and got the table ready, she told her husband that it was time to put the coffee on, but her father responded that this moment deserved something more special than coffee and went to fetch a bottle of Chianti that he had been saving for such an occasion. Whilst fiddling with the bottle her father commented on what a dizzy, scatty thing she could be, her little sister laughing as she told her Papa not to be bad, the three of them laughing and remembering the amount of times the eldest forgot things and generally had her head away with the fairies. She was always late, and, this time, it would seem that she had forgotten her keys. Her mother shook her head as she went to open the door, her little sister hiding behind the door so that she could jump out and scare her sister, and then give her the biggest kiss ever. Her mother was still smiling as she opened the door, expecting to see her daughter and receive two kisses, though as the door opened, she saw something that would instantly remove the smile, indeed it would be a long time before she would smile again, maybe she would never again smile like she used to. Her father instinctively knew something was wrong, the bottle slipped from his hands and left a macabre pictorial metaphor on the floor as glass and the dark liquid intermingled in the same way that bits of cranium and brain covered the path where his daughter's corpse lay. Her little sister would never get that kiss, nor would she ever understand what had taken her sister away from her.

As I enter Palermo, I still feel nothing, good news, I know it's hard to justify this and many people will see my reasoning as far from plausible, but I see it as if I feel nothing I will never need to kill again, and, that seems like an adequate sacrifice to me.

#  19. Polar Research Station 326B

Dr. Martin Latchford sealed the main doorway and followed the remainder of the regulatory procedures to the letter before returning to the relative comfort of the main living area. In the distance he could hear the sound of the helicopters taking away the rest of the team for their well-deserved Christmas break, leaving just a skeleton staff (a term they tried to avoid) in place in the station until the first clear day after the second of January that would allow for the return of the station to its full operational strength.

Winter was technically only a day old in the Arctic, yet still caused the doctor to giggle to himself a little. When he had been stationed in Greece he truly could tell the difference between the seasons, but here, at best there were four winters, one slightly less horrid than the other three, though nothing to write home a letter that would be ignored about. The six people who would man the station (another term that caused further mirth as two women were amongst the crew) had voluntarily chosen to stay for the Christmas period so that those wishing to return to their loved ones could spend Yuletide in the bosom of warmth and humanity. The remaining six had their motives for choosing to stay, double salary, two weeks extra that they could take in February, the toughest month and the one with the harshest workload, an easy week with little or no work and a chance to brush up on reading, drinking or affairs, or those whose Christmas spirit had been sapped to such an extent that being closer to the fictitious home of a seasonal character seemed preferable to facing another slice of turkey, or pull another cracker or face another family visit.

Martin had no desire to spend Christmas anywhere else. He had recently discovered that his wife was having an affair with his former colleague (and supposed friend) Rod. The size of their respective families meant he would have to uphold the pretence of not knowing and preferred the situation whereby she was given enough time to find the end to their marriage in the way that appeared most suitable to her. He had told her that he could not get out of it and she made only a half-hearted attempt to seem disappointed, like when somebody offers you a lift and you say no I couldn't possibly just out of social convention when mentally you are already planning on how to get front seat.

Martin sat before the control panel and began to plan out some sort of routine for the six of them to keep busy over the next fortnight. Nothing was expected to happen and little more was expected of them. He knew nothing of the relationships between the others, nor did he care what they got up to, as long as they did not kill each other or destroy the base. Inside the temperature was kept at a pleasant 25ºc in the living areas, though this was lower in some places, notably the gym. Martin checked everything that needed to be checked and sat back. He would be bored, that sounded wonderful.

As the helicopters flew past with his colleagues, Martin heard a sound that he could not place, yet as the sound failed to cause the flickering lights to change, he ignored it. He had to organise a meeting. He had to find the other five.

Outside a metal pole had fallen from one of the helicopters and landed on one of main pipes that controlled the station's thermostat. Under normal circumstances this would cause little or no damage but was accompanied by heavy snow which entered the hole in the duct and turned to liquid upon contact. Again the system overrides would normally prevent anything untoward happening, but the night before, the system operator had had one too many at the farewell do and slumbered onto the controls, inadvertently switching them to summer mode. Ostensibly, the station thought the outside temperature was 12ºc, when in reality it was below -45ºc.

None of those inside the station had any idea of what was happening, they knew from the weather reports that the snow had got worse and were stranded, but that is what they had signed up for. Martin finally got them together and began his briefing. They sat in a circle and made small-talk whilst Martin prepared his discourse. Before he could begin, First Officer Derek Mountfield piped up to say "it is never 25º in here".

Immediately they all agreed, Sergeant Sally Pejic confirming that the temperature was a little above 20º. "I'll have a look at the system in a moment" retorted Martin, "in the meantime I believe you all have jumpers and scarves". Only Marine Biologist Alison Lineker let this comment go, Martin had confided in her the reason he wanted to stay and Alison was not averse to providing a shoulder for him to cry on. Either way, Martin did not want to start on the wrong foot and apologised, asking Engineers Reid and Radcliffe to give the system a once-over.

With the other two away Martin did not want to continue and have to say things twice so he allowed some meaningless chatter to take their minds off the fact that the temperature was still well below 25ºc. Sally mentioned that it was now 16 and Barry Reid returned with haunting news. He began with the word "inexplicably", and then tried to find an explanation. Martin decided it was time for action. He ordered the others to wrap up and attempted to make radio contact with the main station. The radio was silent. The visibility monitors gave a reading of zero metres, not that there was anywhere to go, but now there was even less chance of getting there. The temperature inside the station was now just 2ºc. It was time to carry out some essential maintenance.

On one of the helicopters Mike Dalglish and Bobby Paisley were discussing the previous evenings festivities when the latter reached into his pocket looking for his wallet a key dropped to the floor. "Fuck, that is the key to the maintenance supplies" he said. "I was supposed to leave it with Martin". Alan Shankley piped up and told him not to worry "they will never need it, as long as the bar and kitchen are open they will be fine". They laughed and the helicopter continued.

"Martin, we can't open the maintenance centre and there is no communication with the outside world. Oh, and there is no good news," was Reid's way of debriefing. The temperature was now minus ten inside the station, in less than an hour it would be practically the same as the atmospheric temperature. How long they could survive at minus forty-seven was debatable even if a rescue mission was underway, however, as far as anyone outside the base was concerned, they were snug and bored.

Their minds were active until the temperature dropped below minus fifteen, scurrying around trying to find a solution, putting their years of study and training to the benefit of the common good yet knowing they were wasting energy.

Mountfield opened a bottle of whisky. "We are going to die here chaps" was all he said.

As the temperature dropped below thirty, Pejic and Reid began to fornicate. The others seemed to move sadly over to one side to allow them to perpetrate the act. The temperature gauge now marked 41º below zero. The fornication stopped, the drinking stopped, the screaming stopped, the pain stopped.

The realisation that all they could do now was await the inevitable brought them back into the circle, sharing stories and observing each other as death slowly took control of the room. The lowest Martin could remember seeing the temperature was minus forty-three, yet he did not feel cold at that time, nor did he feel pain. His speech was slurred but he thanked his colleagues for the times they had had together and sat back in his chair. As he surveyed the room he noted that Mountfield and Lineker had succumbed. Pejic began to explain how they could reverse the computer system's thinking and put it into winter mode despite the malfunction, berating herself for not discovering this simple solution beforehand, yet in the middle of her inspiration her body gave way and she was the third to leave the group. The other two seemed asleep, Martin was not sure if death had taken but felt almost pleasure at being there till the end. He held a photo of his child close to his heart and began to sing 'One For My Baby' by Frank Sinatra, but he couldn't get the words right. He never even liked that song anyway. Frank always reminded him of Christmas.

# 20. Security Door 326B

Jerry looked at himself in the mirror and asked himself what the actual toss he was doing. Did he really have to follow this skirt all the way to Italy? Thus, spending the dullest morning of his life in the Uffizi Gallery, gawping at vases and trying to hold back the immanent reappearance of the dish she made him eat the night before, Athan Al-Shayeb, something she had seen on Masterchef and which translates as "ears of old gray-haired men" and he was sure that actual ears might have been an improvement. He shook his head in disgust and promised himself his next minge would be zero-maintenance, zone four max. He liked her though. He always liked them at this stage. Then he gets to know them and gets bored and the cycle continues. It's always the same with him, the start of every relationship is a carbon copy of the last as he revels in the chase, the sight at goal and the longing for victory. Then apathy replaces passion as a dinner guest and she will eventually say, "we need to talk". Every time he thought that it would not happen again, yet every time, no new script was needed.

Either way, he could do no longer ignore the grumblings pushing down last night's ears and made his excuses to the lavatory. Without doubt for him the highlight of the museum. The farewell between dinner and body was life-questioning experience. His tardiness and attempts to stave off the inevitable led to markings in his best pants. Now, if he managed to get them off with her in view, he would have to remove them surreptitiously as he knew that the brown kills the passion.

Composing himself and ensuring the chamber was truly empty, he double cleaned the remainder and buckled his belt. His phone vibrated as she was informing him that there were some very special examples of local handicraft on the third floor and she would see him there. "Bone on", he said to himself and turned the door handle. Nothing. He turned the handle again. The door was stuck fast. In true British tourist fashion in a jam he accompanied his turning of the door with a rather feint "help" that would barely be discernable from anyone even inside the bathroom with him. Then he heard a noise. What does a bomb sound like? When you hear one you tend to think it is not a bomb. The lights went out and there were screams. Something was happening and he was locked in the bog.

He moved closer to the door and tried to listen. Amongst the screams he could hear Arabic voices shouting. They kept repeating the same phrase and then there was gunfire. He managed to capture the audio of the sentence and play it through that handy translation app he thought he would never use. "In the name of Allah, we come to kill". He assumed the translation was accurate as the gunfire and screaming continued, it was unlikely to be "in the name of Allan, we've come for Bill".

Jerry tried to compose himself. He wasn't keen on dying at all. He imagined the horror on his mother's face as she had to identify him and the people in the morgue sniggered remembering his rotten skid marks. He had no desire to become an internet meme in death after being ignored in life. He made himself a promise, he would not die with dirty pants on. Of course, he could always say it was a reaction to fear, but he knew that he had kacked himself beforehand.

Survivors were running around the museum desperately looking for a way out. Soon enough they found their way to the toilet Jerry was locked in and tried the door. Shut it remained but they had attracted the attention of one of the assailants who began to fire indiscriminately at the group. Jerry stood away from the door and hoped the wall would offer him protection. His initial thought was that the quality of the tiling was really quite superb. The attacker began to shout again so he took out his translator. "Prepare to die". After that there was shooting. Jerry was not sure if they had had adequate time for preparation, but as the blood trickled in under the door, he was certain they had complied with the order. The door was tried again. A voice called out. The translator provided the English term "IS ANYONE IN THERE?". His stupid pointless brain almost sent a message to say "NO!" before override stepped in. Then there was a second voice. TRANSLATION: "30 seconds to exit. Police on route". The terrorist continued to force the door until the second voice spoked again. Holding the phone close to the door, it translated "Leave it. Time to go." No more was the handled tried. The screams died down and an eerie silence was left.

A few minutes later, sirens replaced the silence and a voice shouted in English (much to his consternation as he was enjoying using the app) if the room was occupied. Jerry assumed it was safe to respond and spoke into the phone saying he was in the bathroom but that the door wouldn't open. He then stood closer to the door and played the message back in Arabic. He was told to stand back and did so. When the door opened, two of the bodies slumped against it fell into the bathroom as Jerry was led out by the policemen. As he made his way outwards he had to step carefully over bodies strewn in the entrance and awaiting transportation to the morgue. One of the bodies was hers and he almost tripped over it, had it not been helped by a seriously attractive Italian policewoman who looked divine in that uniform. Would it be poor form to try and get her number or play the distressed victim card? She asked him if he was visiting the museum alone and he replied that he was, he always was, and that it was such a pity he had no one to show him around this beautiful, country and that he didn't suppose that... after all, for her he would eat two plates of Athan Al-Shayeb.

# 21. Lawastern / Girado

"Well, we've come this far, let's go in". Derek had wanted to assume the role of leader from the outset. The other three just followed him. Two of them, Mike and Alan, were already thinking about getting back to the village and tasting that first well-earned ale. Only Jenny, smitten with Derek to an extent that she would gladly follow him into folly, crept behind him as they entered the dark, dank cavern.

A light shone from above to illuminate the sole item inside, a rock formation that over time had taken on the appearance of a chair. Not the sort of chair that would invite you to try its wares after a gruelling six miles up and down hills, but nonetheless, a chair, better than the floor, just.

Derek began to read, he skilfully focused his flashlight onto the pamphlet, allowing the others to bask in the knowledge he furnished. Mike wondered how he had managed to end up on this miserably, gloomy hike with someone who the Ancient Greeks would have referred to as an utter cunt.

"The Chair of Lawastern" he began ("He's reading Lord of the Fucking Rings again" Alan whispered to Mike in an aside that made a mockery of whispering) "is a mythical rock endowed with powers that have made it both adored and feared. It is said that whoever sits on it, will know the exact moment of their death. Who would dare to have such information? If you knew exactly how much time you had left, would that inspire you to live every moment to the full?" He looked up. "There it is, the Chair of Lawastern, who's game?"

"No way" said Jenny, before rectifying and finding out whether Derek thought it was a good idea prior to committing. "I mean, would you? Imagine it said next Tuesday? You'd want it to say 48 years from now, and then you'd say, gosh, I'd be 88. I'd take that" she added.

"What if it says you live for another 50 years? You could break your back getting out of here and spend it in a hospital. You could get run over and spend half a century connected to a machine. I'd prefer next Tuesday". Mike added. "Let's get out of here and get a pint".

Alan simply said, "if you don't start moving towards the surface soon, I'll tell you your exact moment of death, you won't need the chair of Lalashite".

"Lawastern. I want to know. I'm going to sit on it." Jenny implored him not to. Derek was not in good shape, he'd had issues regarding his health, he barely made it on the hike, having to stop on several occasions and take his Ventolin. Jenny hoped it was all mere fantasy, but if it were true, the chair would not give long.

He ignored her and moved towards the chair. "Start filming:" he ordered. "According to this all you have to do is ask "Oh furnish me deft, with the date of my death". He looked up. "I feel something!" He exclaimed as his heart stopped.

Stopped at the traffic lights again behind that van. Ken had told everyone who was coming to his dinner, 8 guests, that his table boasted the exact same number of "Girado" chairs manufactured by Wharfside. He followed it up with a little quip of his own contrivance which went "How we love it when one is be spoke of my bespoke objets". The fact that this was a misuse of the term bespoke did not bother him, as he soon learned to only use it to people less bright than him, surprisingly plentiful in number, or people who were too fearful to bring the remark to the chair, so to spoke.

Yet he needed another two. He could not say to his guests: "you know what, I only have six. Does anyone really care? No? Good, well, you two can manage on chairs that cost less than four grand". But he couldn't. For him having eight chairs now became essential. His life's work. His mission. Next week it would be replaced by something equally frivolous, but for now, he needed two more chairs.

He had located them at a Wharfside manufacturer out-of-town. He was close, the chairs were waiting for him. He would be back in London in time to let the caterers in and out and pretend he had done the cooking. But he was behind the lorry. The GPS told him he was three miles from his destination, yet that this road would not become any wider at any point. He would then be forced to trundle along behind the lorry.

His phone rang. It was the factory. "Slight problem with your chairs, Sir. We are a little short of raw materials and have had to request more wood. It's a very special wood, as I'm sure you'll be aware."

Ken stopped him there. "You told me you had two in stock. I could have you murdered. How can you run a business on lies?"

Ken could not have him murdered, well he could pay a lunatic to do it theoretically, like you and I could, if we had the money, but there was no contact.

"Well, if you killed me because I failed to have two chairs, we would have your contact details, this would be my last phone call and you would do twenty-five years. The van is bringing the alder now, only seven places in California comply to our standards."

"I know about your wood, you fool. I need my chairs now. How long will it take?" Ken realised he had scared nobody.

"A couple of hours, the pieces are ready, they just need glueing and setting. Providing nothing goes wrong. The van is about two miles from the factory".

The van stopping his progress was the van containing the wood that would save his dinner party. He relaxed a little, knowing that overtaking it would hasten nothing. He listened to the description of the Californian Alder for tranquillity.

Just then the van went over a bump in the road that caused the back door to jolt open and send a plank of Californian cedar through Ken's windshield and cracking his skull in eight equal Girado shaped pieces.

# 23. Appman - Extended Version

"This time tomorrow, Rodney." Barney looked at his watch. He had not even managed to get the quote right. It was this time next year, but shuffle had thrown up that old track by the Kinks, he loved that album and always thought that the stuff they released towards the end of the sixties. There was no time for this mindless thought and yet his mind thought less when work was required, as the song continued and blended into another, that skewed his train of thought's path.

Of course, this time tomorrow he would not be a millionaire, nor this time next year, nor any time in the foreseeable future because he had failed. His intended work was a steaming turd of little or no worth. All good intentions, all good intentions that now meant little, little compared to the legible something that they had once represented.

It was 4am, the Jameson was twelve years old, the age he was when he started dabbling with computers seriously. When programming replaced minge, booze and larks that were all around him, to devise the electronic means to enjoy minge, booze and larks. His eyelids hurt. He knew that feeling, the late-night sensation of eyes trying to suggest openly that they should spend some hours closed, heavy eyelids willing themselves downward in the hope that the brain will be fooled into an energy saving mode. Normally, he would concede to sleep's tantalising advances, but he had work to do.

When he began this project, he would nonchalantly hoover up the purely medicinal elements of chemically impure quality with fifty and one hundred bills, as time dragged on, he was forced to use flimsy looking, dog-eared fivers and rolled up train tickets he had previously admired with a sage nod, proudly claiming "decent roach material, that." He took a dose of the necessary and returned to his lathe.

Revived and replenished, he returned to work. His first action was to scrap everything he had done until that point. That was the easy bit. In the reflection of the mirror he could see his girlfriend, asleep and unaware of his latest nonfeasance. He was amazed they were still together, then he rectified. They weren't really together, she just hadn't got around to leaving yet, if she had had anywhere to go, there she would have gone. He had made little or no effort to rekindle or even maintain a semblance of the average misery levels he put her through usually. Barney was prone to allowing outside influences to have a bearing on his life decisions, and he had deemed that the current situation between North Korea and the USA meant that it was not really a worthwhile investment of his time to treat her in any other way than someone who occasionally contributes to the rent, and is in possession of a fully functioning vagina. Maybe if the tension between the two fat heads dropped, he would give her a more serious position in his life. In the meantime, there didn't seem much point. He would be so, so, terribly apoplectic with himself and the hours wasted listening to her drivel, only to be rewarded with a four-minute warning and an unfulfilled life. No, unless she was replaced by someone with a more suitable status on the time investment – return benefit coefficient (he had an excel spreadsheet on this), something unlikely to happen as it would involve regular showering, she would be treated to low level attention.

She was hard work too, and he did not relish hard work even for his own gain, so for hers, it was even less supposable that it would happen. He joked with his only friend, Stephe that "she is harder to impress than the gay friend of a perennial forty-something spinster". Maybe she wasn't that hard to please, more like he wasn't trying that hard to please her.

Anyway, that's enough stalling in a desperate attempt to reach the word limit. Barney had four hours to submit his project. An App. He was sure he had devised a potentially life-saving piece of equipment that would allow hypertension suffers to be able to know their BP levels via their smartphone and send their location and data to their doctors. This would reduce drastically the amount of time needed to find a patient during a potential emergency or suggest measures aimed at controlling levels. As he was preparing his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize, he realised the hunk of steaming shite was practically useless. It didn't work. Not only that, it was vastly unreliable into the bargain, suggesting that perfectly healthy people were seconds away from myocardial infarction, whereas people on their last legs were told to have a cream bun and an Embassy Number One.

That would have guaranteed him a first-class degree. Now, he had to come up with something to save a two-two. "Des-fucking-mond." He joked to himself. If he failed to get anything in then he would not graduate. How do you design an App in four hours? He took another healthy line and leaned back into his seat to think. That was the moment, call it what you want but that was the moment that saved his graduation. Anything would do, the bare minimum, was what he had been told, and here he had it. He fell of the chair and banged his head. Immediately, his brain sent a reaction memorandum to his voice which emitted the word "FUCK!" at a loud volume.

His thoughts were: How ignominious that in this day and age and with the technology we boast that we should still have to do our own swearing. The number of man (and woman for they have potty mouths too) lost due to cursing must be putting a strain on the economy. Imagine an App that takes care of all your profanities and execrations without the need for you to open your lips; imagine the time that would save; imagine the moral aspects, YOU no longer bandied obscenities about. Either he was high as a kite, or he had had a brilliant idea.

The logistics of the App were remarkably simple, upon detection of the severity of the blow's impact, the App would emit a swear word to concur with the discomfort suffered. For example, a minor misfooting on the street leading to a loss of balance and an ungamely recovery would send out "SHIT!" An actual fall with noticeable contact and potential injury would be met with "FUCK!" And anything in excess of the impact of human skin on an opening airbag would be greeted with "CUNT!"

He tried it out a few times to get some "SHIT!", then fell onto the floor to receive a "FUCK!" There was no way he was going to ruin his own phone with this at the experiment stage, so installed the App on her phone then dropped it out of their third-floor window with the volume at maximum. Below he heard a faint "CUNT!" and sent the project to his course director. She would hate it, especially the "C" word, but she would not be able to fail him. He lay down next to her, feeling drained and ready for a doze as he typed the last words. Now, in the comfort of the bed designed for sleep, the drug that for most of the night had been noticeable in its absence, now decided to invite itself for lunch and bring its annoying family with it, once again coursing around his system to prevent any slumber. He caused her to stir and fumble for her device rather than reaching out for a hug.

"Seen my phone?" She asked.

"Not since last night." Barney responded.

14 Billion Downloads Later

That tuxedo would need a replacement soon. It had seen some nights, and with more around the corner. The left cuff was looking a bit battered. Despite a net worth of now in excess of one hundred million GBP, he amused himself frequently by going to cash machines and checking his balance, stepping to one side when there was a queue so that he could create what he termed a "seethe wave". On more than one occasion he heard his famous App utter expletives in the background. How he despised those hideous utterances. The utterances that had made him rich beyond his wildest dreams before his 25th birthday. The utterances, they said, had changed the world.

Barney thought it was a joke. He never considered his App would even leave the course director's office, but someone saw its potential in a world devoid of potential. At first, it became a favourite with the youth and other groups for whom there were never enough fads. Then the plaudits came.

App of the Year. Barney thought it was a pisstake. He was sure that he would arrive at the TV studio and be treated to the vocal version of this emoticon but it was real. All too real. The announcer rambled on about how the App had been a source of liberation for people without the ability to express themselves. Asperger's, Autism and Tourette's groups claimed that the App was a marvellous step forward in treating these hideous conditions. An adapted version of the App was used as the basis for a documentary that followed three children with severe Tourette's Syndrome and showed them beginning to enjoy the semblance of a normal life.

But Barney used his fortune to devise the App that he had in mind before the swear-fest. He managed to tweak and twiddle with the once discarded App's specs to create something that worked and would help society. Once the furore of the "other" App died down, he would pardon himself in the world's eyes by launching the BP controller. In the meantime, he was forced to continue with the charade.

The App gave rise to a novel, entitled "Knocks for a Pound" in which the hero was a clumsy detective who solved crimes after accidently stumbling upon evidence and activating the App. The novel was penned by the upcoming voice of the youth Gaylord Shabootiquiqui, who suggested that Barney should be up for the Nobel Prize, not for science, but for literature, as reward for freeing civilisation from the "shackles of its language".

Just when he thought that no greater, or dafter, acclaim could be awarded to him, some ridiculous government, NGO or charity would splash him on the front page of their latest news bulletin for services to the community. That brought him to here, to this point. "Time" magazine. "Man of the Year". There was no great woman behind this great man. She had lasted only days into the initial furore of the App. Angrily leaving to a chorus of "CUNT!" as she dragged her suitcase down the stairs, after buying a new phone, of course. He acted like a rock star and helped himself to App groupies who would leave the next day without a sound (unless they tripped) though this action became less erotic as time wore when certain girls liked to leave the app running as he pounded into them and caused the headboard to collide with the wall. There was an ongoing challenge between the groupies to see who could go from "SHIT!" to "CUNT!" the quickest.

He was being interviewed as if his contribution to the world truly were something to behold, as if his life's work had made the world a better place. The number one song on the download chart was a remix of Axel F from Beverly Hills Cop with smartphones thrown against Guantanamo Bay inmates to provide the lyrics. The App was constantly being updated, now out of his hands as he sold the rights and would never need to work again if he lived to be 200. Before the interview there was a delightful video montage of all the good work achieved thanks to the App in our new swearing free society.

The musical turn before he spoke was a rapper asking for forgiveness from women for his misogynistic tomfoolery in the past, inevitably, the chorus was them hitting him with sticks with retro iPhone 3s attached. Then Barney spoke.

"This is such bullshit. Do you not realise that I'm spinning you all along? I've made billions, billions, can you fucking believe that? Billions from a stupid and useless piece of shit. How the fuck has this made your lives better? Why the fuck am I on the cover of Time? You've gone mad, you're a mad bunch of c...." The interviewer stopped him before he could say THAT word. People had not heard actual swearwords for a couple of years now, and the only people who used them were low grade data accumulators (the term used for people who had not embraced Apps for expression).

A needle shot up through the seat and sent Barney off to sleep. That was the end of the swearing, the presenter thought as he set his anger rating to very high and sat back whilst his smartphone expressed his current emotions.

Barney awoke in a white room surrounded by nothing that he felt any attachment too. The first thing that he noted was that he was that he was not in his own home. He had spent too much time painstakingly contracting designers to fashion out a place so unquestionably him, to think for one minute that this squalor represented Barney. He wondered how long he had been out cold. He certainly did not feel too bad, there was no painful hangover from the concoction of drugs that had sent him to sleep. Indeed, he felt quite sprightly on first glance. He moved his head slowly and to his delight observed that he was not strapped to the bed and appeared to be in possession of the standard allocation of limbs.

He stirred to get out of the bed and ascertain exactly where he was. There were no mirrors in the room and a single clock just said 12:00 on the 1st of January 1999. He was pretty sure that he hadn't travelled in time so assumed that the clock was not at operational readiness. He poked around the room yet found no trace of Barney or his opulent former lifestyle.

In his haste to discover the truth about his current surroundings, he failed to notice two significant things about his own body. It's strange how we overlook the important business whilst engaged in the folly of attending to our needs. For the first time, he noticed a dryness in this throat and attempted to swallow in the hope of creating a modicum of saliva that would alleviate his symptoms whilst he sought out liquids. There was a hole in his mouth where once his tongue had proudly resided. Foolishly, he refused to take his brain's word for it and repeated the process. There was no tongue. There was a sort of stub where it had been cut out, but that was it. He screamed. He didn't scream. That made no sense, the lack of a tongue would mean his ability to articulate sounds would be impeded, but the tongue did not make them, why was the rest of his voice silent? He poked a finger inside and bemoaned the item he was not bereft of, imprecating the fact that he had chosen this precise moment in his life to use the word correctly for the first time.

The second thing of note was the hands. How in the name of the sweet baby Jesus had he not noticed this before? The pain. Every simple movement was pure agony. The only time that the smarting abated was when his entire hand was in a limp resting position. Both hands hurt to the same extent. He decided to try a visit to the toilet and with great discomfort, he managed to extract his member. At least that had not gone the same way as the tongue, he consoled himself.

These discoveries did not tell him any more information as to where he was. There was a door, but it had no interest in opening. There was a screen, but it showed scant intention to furnish him with information. Despite the pain, he continued to root around the room for clues. It was small, he guessed four metres by three, though he used to guess his importance and worth to society and misgauged that. Inside the wardrobe he found a series of items with his name on them. Seven pairs of black briefs. Seven pairs of black socks. Four pairs of black jogging pants. Four white polos. Two black jumpers and two grey pyjamas. That was his wardrobe. Everything was neatly stored and folded, but there was nothing else. No personal items. No signs of his past.

In the bathroom area, separated with just a curtain, he found a toothbrush and paste, a bar of soap and deodorant. None of the products had any manufacturer's name or any other tell-tale clues that would provide any extra information on his location.

He decided to accept that he was being punished. For what? For saying naughty words on the telly? He considered that to be a chastisement somewhat in excess of his crime. "FUCK!" he thought to himself. At least he could still think swearwords. He sat down on the bed and waited. Just as he was getting the hang of the waiting game, the screen illuminated and the word "WORK" appeared. With that, the door opened and a red light flashed above the door frame. He moved toward the door, expecting that whatever was on the other side of it would be more informative than the contents of his sparse room.

As he made his way out of the door, a sort of drone robot thing ushered him in the right direction. He did not expect much from his place of gainful employment but when confronted with a space measuring half the size of his bedroom with just a ball and a blue line on the far, though maybe the better description would be near, wall. He could see other, what were they? Inmates? Prisoners? Residents? Patients? They were involved in the same activity, much more heartily than Barney, whose fingers could barely grip the ball before reminding him of the pain in his hands. He threw it just eight times at the wall before giving up. He tried in vain to make contact with the others, but they never raised their heads, thoroughly engrossed in their ball chasing. This was his work? What kind of work was it? Whatever it was, he was no good at it and that would clearly be an issue later.

There was another noise and the others stopped. A slat appeared in the wall and a printout came from it. The information on the paper was a sort of summary of his performance. With his eight throws of the ball he was now entitled to 4 food credits though no leisure or entertainment credits. He was also informed that he had so far this month accrued zero luxury item tokens. At the bottom, there was just a sad face. Another sign came to life stating "NOURISHMENT".

The robot thing appeared again and he was marched into another area of the same space as the working area but this time with a touch screen that acted like a vending machine to provide him with his food. This was the first real indication that the calendar on his wall was wrong. Unfortunately, the only product he could obtain with his four credits were crisps. Soup was 6 tokens and liquids came included with any purchase over 6 tokens but could not be bought alone. He tried to swallow one the crisps but it just got stuck between the stub and his throat. He convinced himself that he wasn't really hungry anyway. He could now see into the other cubicles and the "colleagues" from his work area enjoying their sustenance. He then realised the purpose off the ball game. He promised to bear that in mind for the next time.

With no tokens to spend on leisure or entertainment, Barney returned to his room. The door closed behind him and he sat on the bed. The clock had moved onto 12:02, was this progress? There was nothing to read, watch or do in the room. There wasn't even a window to look out of. He thought about getting angry but decided to leave something for later. Then the screen came on again.

Barney could see three people on it, dressed in white in long gowns and looking overly serious. He wasn't sure why he would expect them to be anything less than serious but their demeanour still managed to surprise him. Hopefully, some information would be forthcoming.

"Good afternoon, resident 326B. Today has not been a particularly gratifying nor successful day for you, and we feel the need to reiterate the need to stress the overbearing need for your commitment here to be of the highest standard." A male voice said. For some reason, Barney was reminded of that committee in Superman 2 who sent General Zod and that lass, Ursula? (Why was he wasting time thinking about this?) into space in a sheet of glazing. Whether he was expected to respond was also an issue, when he tried, they took it as motive to continue their explanation. Lady head two continued.

"You cannot respond because your tongue has been removed. This was a preliminary measure undertaken before your arrival here. I am also reliably informed that as a secondary measure, your vocal chords have also been extracted, meaning that the utterance of any kind of sound is a physical impossibility for you. Please nod if you have understood." She said. He nodded. She continued. "Your hands have also been afflicted with arthritis, though this can be cured depending on your willingness to put said hands to good use."

"You have been here for six years. Your sentence is for a maximum of fifteen years, though given your lackadaisical efforts in the work arena, it is highly probable that this period will be extended due to lack of proof that you are ready to return to society. As your memory appears scant, I will take the liberty of refreshing it. You are here because the famous App that you invented was not your work. You stole if off your former partner and became a success on the back of her work. It was only following your disastrous appearance on the television that information squads began to investigate your past and discover the truth. Once the true creator of the App was ascertained, all of your assets, unlawfully accrued, were passed on to her. She now enjoys the adulation you took for granted, and has her place in history assured. You have been reduced to little more than a footnote.

Our watchword here is atonement. We want you to be genuinely sorry for your actions, as that is the first step on the road to recovery. The first step is essential for you to one day return to society in some form. You have the chance to prove your worth here and make it clear that you are fully repentant of your actions. You have a unique chance to make amends but seem intent on disregarding this. Should we continue to feel that you do not deserve this chance, you will be removed from the luxury you currently enjoy, and be forced to do what is vulgarly known as "proper time". I assume this message will reach you with the good intentions it has been sent. Barney, repent, do something that will prove your worth. Or be thrown to the dogs. Thank you for your time."

The screen went dark again and the clock moved to 12:03. The door opened and the drone brought in a bowl of soup and a vitamin drink. He devoured the meal as if it were the first time he had eaten in six years, to him it was. On the tray, there was a small screwdriver. Not big enough to do any particular damage with, but clearly there for a reason. He took it quickly and sat on it while the drone removed the tray.

The door closed behind the drone and Barney began to look around the room to find something to unscrew. Every screw he found was too big for the tiny implement he held painfully between his aching fingers. He looked at the screen, where they watching him? It was probably a safe bet that they were. Surely if his actions were underhand, he would be stopped in an instant. He continued. He found it.

Under the table there was a small ventilation grille. The screws were exactly the same size as the quasi-drive (how he adored that word, it reminded him of his dad). It hurt but he got them off. It seemed like the more intent he was on finishing the task, the more his pain subsided. Removing the grille, he found inside a notepad, a ballpoint pen and a rather old iPhone, maybe a 3.

He opened the notebook and read. The first page said "Hide these items with the screwdriver. If they find them, they will be confiscated". Pages had been torn out but he could make out vaguely through the imprint of the ball pen on the pages, equations that he had done previously on a sort of App. He switched on the phone. It worked, and there was no passcode. He was taken straight to the main menu. As the phone began to work, he received a notification: "You have been granted 20 food tokens. Would you like to consume them now, or later?" There was a box with the two options. He chose later.

The phone had only one icon on the screen. "Developer". He pressed it and saw the structure of how to design a rudimentary App, quite similar to the one he had used. He stopped and thought. He had used it, hadn't he? That was his work, wasn't it? He was sure he could remember everything. She wasn't even good at coding. She didn't design anything. He was inspired now.

He began to make calculations. The sums that had eluded him the night he had to hand in his project now came to him with crystal clarity. He tried to say "App", but couldn't. He knew he could not get his tongue and vocal chords back, but maybe if he managed to build the App he was destined to build, the three faces would see he was repentant and allow him to return to society.

As he worked, the pain in his hands disappeared almost, only returning when he looked up or took a break. Notifications came through informing him of his newly earned leisure tokens, entertainment vouchers, luxury items and even trips outside. He clicked for these to be accumulated in his cloud piggy bank and continued with his work.

The shell of the phone may have seemed like some mid noughties smartphone prototype but the technology seemed to change as Barney advanced with his work. Its capacity expanding in line with the power of the creator's brain. He was not aware of the actual passage of time but noticed how the clock on the wall begin to move quicker and quicker through the past, as if it were speeding towards the date of his incarceration. Despite rejecting the notification for liquid replenishment, the drone brought in another vitamin drink and this time a little something on the side. Was it? A 12-year old Jameson? God, that tasted good, he thought. The phone asked him: Another? He rejected the offer. He had to be strong. He had to finish this task.

Once all his calculations were in place, he tested the App. It worked. His BP was fine so he decided to accept the refreshment request, purely for medical purposes. The drone returned with four glasses of the golden liquid, and a line of something white on the side. He drank two, took the line then had the other two. He connected the App again and saw his BP at 17.3 over 9.4. This activated the medical team alarm and he was informed that help was on its way. In the meantime, the App informed him, he could try any of the recommended guidelines that flashed up on the screen. He sat back and smiled. There were now two icons on the screen; the original "Developer" and now; "BP Monitor".

The whiskey and narcotics raced through his body as the screen came to life once again. This time, instead of the three dour faces, he saw a type of entertainment console offering films and music and much more. To his delight, he saw the playlist he used to love in his car. A third icon appeared on the phone "Remote Control" and he moved through the menus. With the music blaring out he felt good for the first time. He wanted more drink but decided to wait. The room changed too. It got bigger, as did the bed, how did they do that? Other items appeared in the room and a fourth icon came onto his phone "Luxury". He browsed through the options and saw his balance was more than enough to allow for certain luxuries.

The first thing he bought was a voice box. The drone brought it into the room and helped him attach it. It worked by the user thinking the words they wished to articulate and the machine doing the rest. What was important was not how it worked but the fact that it did. For some bizarre reason, with all of the words in the English language at his disposal, the first noise that came from his new voice was Paul McCartney's 'Frog Chorus'.

A news icon appeared on the phone and he saw how already his new App had saved lives. The headline in the Independent simply read "Redemption" and there was an interview with the three talking heads extolling the virtues of their institution. The clock on the wall was now moving at normal speed, but the date was the date before his television appearance. Had he done it? It certainly looked like it. A new notification told him of his release date and bank balance. Not a patch on what he had before but certainly not a shoddy amount. He smiled to himself and ordered more whiskey.

This time tomorrow, he would be out. He would not make the same mistakes again, he would live a decent and fruitful life. He had learned his lesson. The future was smiling on him. This time when the whiskey came, it was not the drone who entered but a nurse.

"You have had quite a day, Barney. I congratulate you. However, you need your rest. Tomorrow is a big day. The time is now 23:59 and you get grumpy if you go to bed after twelve. Remember? She asked. He didn't remember but was prepared to take her word for it.

"So then, are you ready for your nocturnal reset?" She smiled at him.

"Nocturnal what?" In his haste, he had altered the voice box and was using a South African female's voice.

"Every night we have the same thing!" She joked. "Your sentence is a nocturnal reset. Every night before you go to sleep, the system wipes your memory so that you have to start again the next day. I guess the fact that it works can be seen in the way you ask me every day. Anyway, I'll count you down." She was like a smiling executioner as she applied the reset.

"30. 29. 28." She started.

"Wait, I've cracked it. I have the App, it's working. I'm out tomorrow. Don't reset me." He begged.

"12.11.10." She continued.

"Stop the process. I'll give you half." He was crying now.

"3.2.1. Night Barney." She finished.

Barney awoke in a white room surrounded by nothing that he felt any attachment too.

# 24. The Spugal Nut

Daniel wanted to control science more than anything else in this life. He wanted to dominate science, to be above it. Not for the good of scientific progress or the benefit of humanity, but rather to be able to say he was above science. An odd ambition, yet one he was continually approaching with his Spugal Nut Rats.

With the financial backing of the Ashford and Simpson Institute for Solidity, he had achieved his initial aim of inventing a nut, the Spugal, that could be consumed by rats who would then defecate onto crops causing exacerbated growth, ultimately making Daniel the most powerful person in the world. If it was successful with rats, then other animals could consume the Spugal nut so that their delicious rear door offerings could be converted into fertiliser. World hunger could be a thing of the past. A Nobel prize he smelt, amongst the other odours. "But this would disrupt the world economy" the dear readers seemed to say aghast. Not at all, the excess food would simply be given to those most in need, those who could pay would still pay, and gladly, knowing that they too were making a contribution. Daniel didn't give a fuck about that. But it sounded very popular.

A year later the test confirmed that the rat droppings increased food production by up to 40%. The experiment was then passed on to horses and cows with even better results. After some dung unfortunately came into contact with a scientist's wedding ring, the gold expanded to double its value. Daniel was lauded in the annals of government, his invention meant that almost limitless food could be produced. Although the crops for the Spugal nut were notoriously difficult and required an expert hand, supply was never short due to the fact that when fertilised with the Spugal nut itself, its yield notably increased.

The government decided that it wanted to keep its new discovery secret and not share its good fortune with other nations. In this way, the UK would be guaranteed steady growth and be able to finally leave behind the blight of recession. In no time the economy picked up and more foreign investment came into the country. Foreign farmers were sold the rights to produce in Britain but at a vastly inflated cost, often leading to food shortages in France and Germany that were palliated by the excess home Spugalyield©. Britain demanded special rights in the European Union or it would take its production away from the union and leave Europe to its own fate.

With animals unable to produce sufficient Spugaldump©, the government turned to the unemployed, who were forced to eat Spugal nuts and drop their innards in fields in order to receive their benefits. It was in one of these dump plantations that a terminally ill cancer patient was mistakenly sent to work. Despite his frail appearance, he was sent to work in the field and fitted with his Spugaldungeree© with a removable flap so that all of the lovely pooh could enter the soil without losing any. At the end of the day, they bent over in a line and allowed the Spugalhose© to act as a jet to remove and channel any leftovers, before replacing the flap. The cancer patient should not have been in the field, yet within a couple of hours' work, his pains began to subside. The aching bones crushed and compounded by the chemotherapy began to move smoothly for the first time in years. By the end of the day, he felt as good as he had ever done.

It just so happened that he was due his three-monthly check-up the next day, and, with leave in hand, was absent the next day to see his doctor. He commented that he had never felt so good as he entered the machine for his umpteenth scan. The radiologist tapped the machine, pulled him out, pushed him in again, turned the machine, turned it on again and told him to get dressed. Minutes later they were joined by the Head of Oncology who personally drove him to another hospital to perform another scan. It was clear. From Stage IV to cancer free.

More patients were treated with Spugal nuts and the results were the same, the nut acted like a paracetamol tablet getting rid of a headache. The Spugal nut was deemed the greatest discovery of all time.

Daniel, in the meantime, was still in evil-villain-determined-to-rule-the-world mode. He held the patent for the Spugal nut, but the government was now well aware, that while there was just one nut in existence, they could use the dung to increase supplies. At any rate, they currently possessed nine years' supply of Spugalfuture©. Mi5 put in place a smear campaign against Daniel and foreign cancer patients were invited to undertake treatments at a SpugalNHSHilton© registered centre at 1 million pounds a go. Those foreign nationals who could not afford the treatment had to take their chances with more traditional forms of medicine.

With the increased wealth of the British subjects it was decided that more space would be needed, and to solve this issue the Spugalspace© project was devised. France, almost bankrupt and with people starving on the streets of Paris, sold Britain its northern territories along with Brittany and Normandy, the latter two served by long-tunnels linking the UK mainland, constructed at the expense of the grateful French peasants in return for Spugalsubpersonnourisher© and other crops.

Britain was a paradise while the rest of Europe fell into deeper and deeper disarray. Daniel was under house arrest and had been largely written out of history. In his laboratory, he devoted all of his time to one single aim, the destruction of the Spugal Nut. The key component of the nut was the mixture between potassium and Weetabix, Daniel's experiments showed that by replacing the Weetabix with Shredded Wheat, the genetic structure of the nut changed and just one of the new nuts was capable of rendering the "good" Spugal nuts ineffective.

He was being kept in the same compound as the storage area for the nuts, the government still paranoid its supply could wane and Daniel might be needed. With his guards busy making gold beds out of old earrings, he slipped into the storage area and introduced a single bad nut into the supply. The bad nut caused a chain reaction which destroyed the beneficial powers of the Spugal Nut in no time. Unbeknown to the government and Spugaldeployers©, the useless nuts were continued to be put into service causing the entire Spugalchain© to be reversed.

Within weeks, crops withered and diseases returned. Daniel destroyed the plans for nut and had his nursing staff administer blows that would guarantee amnesia. Whilst Daniel was recovering from the blow, information was leaked on just how the British government had been operating and how it made its wealth. A US coalition force, backed by German and French troops, invaded the UK to reclaim wealth gained at others' expense and rescind its membership of the European Union.

Daniel sat in his chair, staring at sun in the distance, trying to remember who and what he was. The nurse came back with his test results confirming the amnesia and stage IV colon cancer.

# 24 ONE: AND FOR ONE BRIEF MOMENT THE ANIMAL KINGDOM WAS AT PEACE AND THE PLANETS ALIGNED IN HARMONY OFFERING HOPE TO HUMANITY UNTIL..........................BLEEDING STEVEN SEGAL

The dog bit the cat.

The cat assumed its customary position to return the favour, preparing his right claws for a vicious attack on the canine's already battle-weary left eye when he was struck by a rather revolutionary idea.

"Why?" Enquired the cat

"Why what?" Responded the dog, his training had not prepared him to question decisions which were felt to be ruled by instinct.

"Why do I have to scratch you now, you bit me so now I have to scratch you? Why did you bite me because the two-legged one got angry and kicked you? Before that I had done nothing to disrupt your day. In fact you were the recipient of a courteous nod this morning after breakfast" The cat's eyes looked pleadingly at the dog.

"Which was reciprocated. I don't know why these things happen it's just the way of things. I don't see you complaining when it's your turn to take a lump out of the mouse. It's a sort of chain I believe, it all starts with the human, who suffers from intolerable mood-swings, normally round about quarter to six on a Saturday evening, blasphemes and kicks me. Then I get angered and get my teeth into my feline companion. Let it be known that I have nothing but respect for the cat and his enviable independence, I go two doors down the road and I get the jitters, but the cat, my what an adventurer! However, it is the way of things and then you, my dear cat take your revenge on the mouse. Indeed, cat, if anyone has cause to complain it would be our poor mouse, who coming last in the size scale of our abode takes the brunt of it. For consider this, my feline chum, the human's kick does hurt my backside, my bit does cause bleeding in your tail, perhaps some unfortunate sanguine infection my result in your untimely departure from this Earth, but the mouse? he must be nimble and have eyes where my studies inform me that mice do not have eyes. Any decent contact from your sharp teeth would be the end of the poor little fellow, and him with his wife's shoulder how it is, and the little ones to consider." The cat pondered the dog's eloquent utterance. The talk had also caught the attention of the mouse, who on seeing the danger levels where as low as they could be also popped his head out and offered his thoughts on the discourse.

"Indeed, I suffer the most, I have seen loss, my brother, my cousin Phillip, and other brave soldiers lost in this ongoing futile war between us. So I re-iterate, Why?" He looked at the dog

"I don't know why you seem to assume that I should be in possession of the answers. I am after all a dog, and we are not famed for being the brightest of creatures in the animal kingdom. Ask the bloody cat!" The dog looked at the cat who moving towards the basket with a quizzical look on his face began to prepare his retort.

"But what if, like, we just said no to all this, what if we decided that enough was enough and that from now on we would live in harmony together? Why do we have to follow the human's rules and continue the chain of violence, we could be pioneers for animals all over the world and fight peacefully for our respect. Who knows, maybe the humans will see the error of their ways and learn from us how our peaceful co-habitation could be a model for them to end all wars and suffering." The cat was very excited about this possibility and he was joined by the mouse, also believing a new world order was possible.

"Doesn't it always take one bold soul to make the first move and risk their own lives for the common cause. Our suffering shall be remembered by animals and humans all over the world, perhaps we shall die as martyrs but our names will be repeated for ever." He enthusiastically finished.

"Unfortunately, you are forgetting one thing" the dog interjected "I would be more than willing to sign a non-aggression treaty with you both, the problem is the human, as there is no way of communicating with him, God knows we've tried, but it's just impossible. And that means one thing, no violence for you but continued violence for me, which is something I'm small for. He wouldn't dare touch the cat ever since he read that book about the ancient Egyptians and the mouse? Ha! well he tries to insult the mouse's intelligence by putting mouldy cheese on that old rusty trap. Little does he know the mouse has a back route into the pantry where the cheese is often left overnight when he comes back from the place he calls the pub and walks in a strange way. Nice little supply of Double Gloucester and Brie you've built up there, young mouse!" the dog winked at the mouse, surprised at the discovery of his secret stash.

"How do you know about that? I thought my covert missions were kept well out of the public eye. I even use some tiny nail scissors" He turns to the cat, "Yes, the ones I lent you to trim your nails, to cut the cheese without any tell-tale little bite marks, but obviously I did wash them afterwards, hygiene is important you know, I'm not a bloody rat, you know!" They all laughed at that and remember what a bad time they went through during the rat period and how they had pulled together and formed a solid union. Unfortunately, the bond became weaker as time went on and the rats were exterminated by the men in red. Soon they fell back into their old ways and it was around this time that the mouse lost his brother.

The dog continued "Maybe you're right though, maybe we are becoming too much like them, too materialistic, too comfortable with our possessions, our Pedigree Chum extra roughage dog biscuits, our Whiskas select menu, Salmon and Prawn for the love of God, not even in the good old days in Cairo did you eat so well! Comfy baskets, travel accessories, bows, he even bought me a Burberry dog warmer thing for Christmas! They are turning us into little quadruped versions of themselves. I am decided!!! I will take the cause in the name of all dogs dressed in stupid Tartan accessories I will take my beatings and think only of my good animal friends, my suffering shall be your liberation." The cat and the mouse cheered wildly, this caused the human to look round from the couch and surprised to see the conference between the three animals, threw an empty can at the dog. Bravely, he stood still as the can rebounded of his head, the cat and mouse urgently awaited a reaction but the dog stood stoically.

"Well done" encouraged the cat, glad to see his tail remain intact. The mouse almost with a tear in his eye brought him a small piece of steak from his store to place on the dog's wounded eye.

"It's not going to be easy." Said the mouse.

"My spirit is strong" replied the dog "and when the battle is won and they call my name aloud I shall have my reward." The dog stood like a brave soldier going into war. The cat thought that the dog was going a bit far and he could do without hearing all this sentimental slosh but said nothing.

"We must celebrate, the human is asleep, let's watch TV!" proclaimed the mouse and the three climbed on to the couch and took the remote control from the human as he snored. Changing the channel, the three watched longingly a commercial for Coca-Cola and were soon thinking of their favourite treats, maybe they wouldn't have to be given up to achieve their goals. As the adverts finished a Steven Segal film begin, the dog's favourite, the cat hated that false depiction of policing and tried to get the remote off the dog to see what was on Channel 4, the mouse suggested Changing Rooms but was none too politely told to forget it. The struggle for the remote caused something of a commotion, which woke the human, who half dozing instinctively struck the dog on the back of the head.

Without thinking the dog bit the cat's back right leg and the cat launched itself towards the mouse who flying off the couch and into his hole miraculously saved himself.

DOS: Y DURANTE UN MOMENTO EL REINO ANIMAL ESTUVO EN PAZ Y LOS PLANETAS SE ALINEARON PARA OFRECER ESPERANZA A LA HUMANIDAD HASTA QUE .......................... STEVEN MALDITO SEGAL

El perro mordió al gato.

El gato adoptó su posición habitual para devolverle el favor, preparando sus garras para un ataque feroz con la intención de infligir aún más daño al ojo izquierdo del canino, ya bien marcado con cicatrices de luchas anteriores, cuando se paró al tener una idea revolucionaria.

-¿Por qué? - preguntó el gato.

-¿Por qué qué? \- respondió el perro. No había sido adiestrado para contestar cuestiones existenciales.

-¿Por qué te tengo que arañar? - Tú me mordiste entonces ¿debo seguir el juego? \- O sea, me muerdes porque el bípedo se enfada y te da una patada. Antes de eso no había hecho nada para perturbar tu día; de hecho recibiste mi más cordial saludo después del desayuno - el gato le miró de forma suplicante al perro.

\- Lo cual fue correspondido. No sé porqué las cosas pasan así pero es la naturaleza. No te veo quejándote cuando te toca meter tus dientes en el ratón. Creo que es una especie de cadena. Empieza con el humano, que padece cambios de humor, normalmente a las siete de la tarde los domingos. Entonces, apaga la radio, blasfema y me patea. Me enfado y te busco. Que quede bien claro que no tengo nada en contra del gato y su envidiable independencia; me voy dos calles para atrás y me entran escalofríos. Después tú buscas venganza con el ratón. En realidad, si alguien tiene razones para quejarse es él, al ser el más pequeño de nuestro hogar, se lleva la peor parte. Ten en cuenta esto, mi querido colega felino, la patada del humano es molesta, mi mordisco te causa dolor, pero tendrías que tener muy mala suerte para que aquello te llevara de estos lares a destiempo. Pero, ¿el ratón? Debe ser diestro y ágil, tener ojos donde según mis estudios los ratones no los tienen. Cualquier contacto en serio con tus dientes afilados acabaría con él. Ya sabes lo que tiene que aguantar el pobre, y la mujer con su hombro así, sin mencionar los pequeños -. El gato ponderó la aseveración elocuente del perro, mientras el ratón, oliendo la tregua, se asomó a contribuir.

.

\- Claro, sufro más que nadie. He visto pérdidas. Mi hermano, el primo Felipe. Y tantos otros soldados valientes caídos en esta batalla fútil. Entonces, yo digo también, ¿Por qué? - y miró al perro.

\- No sé porqué pensáis que debería saber la respuesta. Después de todo eso, solo soy un perro, no es que tengamos fama de ser los más brillantes de la clase. ¿Pregúntaselo al maldito gato!

El gato aceptó el reto y preparó su discurso. ¿Qué tal si, decimos ¡BASTA YA! Podríamos vivir en armonía juntos. No tenemos que seguir su ejemplo. Podríamos ser pioneros para animales en todo el mundo, luchando pacíficamente para que nos respeten. ¿Quién sabe? Quizás aprendan de nosotros y podrían formar una sociedad nueva mirando el futuro -. El ratón estaba de acuerdo en que estaban a punto de cambiar la historia.

\- Solo hace falta un alma valiente dispuesto a arriesgar su vida en nombre de la causa. Nuestro sufrimiento será recordado por generaciones de animales y humanos. Quizás muramos en el intento, pero no dejarán de gritar nuestros nombres -. terminó.

\- Desafortunadamente, olvidáis una cosa. - interpuso el perro. – Estaría encantado de firmar un pacto de no agresión con vosotros, pero el problema es el humano. Es imposible comunicarse con él. Entonces significaría una cosa, más violencia para mí, y el fin de la violencia para vosotros. No tocaría al gato después de leer ese libro sobre Egipto, ¿y el ratón? El humano intenta insultar su inteligencia con ese pedazo de queso podrido en la trampa oxidada, sin saber que el ratón tiene un atajo a la cocina para hacerse una buena cesta de navidad -. El perro guiñó un ojo al ratón.

¿Cómo lo habéis sabido? Intento ser discreto y uso las pequeñas tijeras que me presta el gato para no dejar marcas de dientes en el queso. Claro que las lavo antes de devolvérselas. No soy una rata ¡por el amor de Dios! -.

En ese momento recordaron la época de la rata y como lucharon juntos para formar una unión sólida. Lamentablemente, con el paso del tiempo y los hombres en los monos rojos, volvieron a los antiguos hábitos.

El perro siguió – Quizás tengáis razón. Nos convertimos en ellos, materialistas, obsesionados con objetos, la marca pija de la comida, gambas para el gato, cestas cómodas, incluso chalecos de Lacoste para el invierno. Somos versiones cuadrúpedas de ellos. Me ofrezco para la causa. Me pegarán pero no me encogeré. Llevaré a la basura los accesorios de estampa escocesa. ¡Seré vuestra liberación! – El gato y el ratón gritaron animadamente. Esto atrajo la atención del humano, quien tiró una lata al perro. Estoicamente, se quedó inmóvil mientras la lata rebotó en su cabeza.

\- Impresionante – le animó el gato. El ratón casi tenía lagrimas en los ojos y puso un trozo pequeño de bistec para curarle el ojo.

\- No será fácil – dijo el ratón.

\- Mi espíritu es fuerte -. respondió el perro – y cuando la batalla sea ganada, corearán mi nombre. Entonces tendré mi recompensa. Al gato todo esto le parecía exagerado pero se calló.

\- Debemos celebrarlo. El humano duerme, ¡veamos la tele! proclamó el ratón. Los tres subimos al sofá para quitarle al humano el mando mientras roncaba. Vieron un anuncio de Coca-Cola y recordaron las cosas que tendría que sacrificar durante la lucha. Quizás no sea para mucho tiempo, pensaron. Después de los anuncios empezó una peli de Steven Segal, el favorito del perro. El gato odiaba ese retrato falso de la policía e intentó quitarle el mando al perro. El gato dijo que echaban La Voz en otro canal pero tanto el perro como el ratón dijeron de ninguna manera. Empezaron a luchar para tener control del mando, lo cual despertó al humano quien tiró otra lata a la cabeza del perro.

Sin pensar, el perro mordió la pierna del gato quien de forma refleja se lanzó sobre el ratón. Con una pelín de suerte el ratón pudo llegar al suelo y entrar en su agujero para salvarse.

TROIS: LA HISTOIRE DU MONDE EN MOINS DE MILLE MOTS

Le chien a mordu le chat.

Le chat a adopté son habitude de retourner la position de faveur, préparant ses griffes à une attaque féroce avec l'intention d'encore plus de dégâts à l'œil gauche de la canine, dèjá bien marqué par les cicatrices des batailles précédentes, quand il a cessé d'avoir une idée révolutionnaire.

« Pourquoi ? » le chat a demandé.

« Pourquoi quoi ? » le chien a répondu. Il n'avait pas reçu une formation pour répondre à des questions existentielles.

« Pourquoi je dois te gratter ? Tu m'as mordu, alors, je dois suivre avec le jeu ? Je veux dire. Tu me mords parce que le bipède se met en colère et te donne une coupe de pied. Avant ça, je n'avais rien fait pour perturber ta journée, en fait tu as reçu chaleureusement un bonjour après le petit déjeuner » Le chat regarde au chien agréablement.

« Et je te souhaitais aussi bonjour. Je ne sais pas pourquoi les choses vont comme ça, mais c'est la nature. Tu ne te plaids pas quand tu mets tes dents dans le souris. Je pense qu'il est une sorte de chaîne. Tout commence quand l'être humain, souffrant de sautes d'humeur, généralement à sept heures le dimanche ; ensuite, il éteigne la radio, il blasphème et me donne le coup. Je suis en colère et je cherche la vengeance. Je te respecte, avec ton indépendance et savoir-faire. Je vais deux rues plus loin que chez nous et ça me fait frissonner. Plus tard, tu cherches ou souris et si quelqu'un a des raisons pour se plaindre, c'est lui. Le coup de pied m'est ennuyeux, tes morsures peuvent me couper la peau, mais, lui ? Le plus petit, il peut mourir, il doit avoir des yeux ou, selon mes études limitées, les souris n'ont pas des yeux. Pense à lui, sa femme a des problèmes avec les hanches, et avec deux enfants, que va être d'eux sans lui ?

Le souris, en voyant la trêve, laisse la tête à l'extérieur pour parler avec eux.

« Je répète, POURQUOI ? On doit continuer comme ça simplement parce que l'homme n'est pas capable de vivre en harmonie. Est-ce que on ne peut pas faire quelque chose ? a dit la souris.

Le chat commence son discours « et si on dit, ÇA SUFFIT, on peut vraiment vivre en harmonie. On ne doit pas suivre leur exemple. On peut être pionniers de manière à ce que on puisse créer un nouveau mode de vie. Qui est avec moi ?

La souris a crié son accord. Le chat l'a remercié. Il suit « seulement on a besoin d'une âme brave, un déposé à souffrir pour faire avancer le monde ».

« Vous oubliez une chose. Je serais heureux de signer un pacte de non-agression avec vous, mais le problème c'est l'humain. Il est impossible communiquer avec lui, et cela signifie une chose, je vais suivre avec la violence, alors que vous vivez dans le paradis. On vit tôt bien maintenant, vous vous souvenez des vacances de l'an dernier, deux semaines sans lui, en contact seulement avec la voisine qui venait avec la nourriture ?

On est devenue comme eux ! On apprécie des choses matériaux plus que les luttes qu'ont dû gagner nos aïeux. Je vais faire le sacrifice. Je vais être martyr pour tous mes cousins animaux.

« C'est vrai » a dit le chat. « J'ai un pull de Lacoste pour l'hiver, je mange du saumon, inclus de chocolat, il m'achet de tout. Je vais faire ma contribution. Tout le monde a crié avec la joie, et lequel a fait que l'homme se réveiller et lancer une canette de bière au chien qui s'est resté là, stoïquement. Le sang s'écoule de sa tête. Le chat est allé à la cuisine pour chercher la trousse de premiers soins.

«Impressionnant » dit la souris.

«La lutte va être dure » dit le chat.

« Je ne vais pas capituler » dit le chien.

« On doit le célébrer » ont dit tous à la fois.

Ils sont assis dans la chaise et ils cherchent quelque chose pour voir dans la TV, Le chien veut voir un film de Steven Segal, mais le chat déteste ça représentation fausse du monde masculin. La souris propose un show de décoration et les autres commencent à rire. Elle les dit qu'ils sont incultes et c'est pour cela qu'ils ne veulent jamais améliorer leurs vies. Le chat dit qu'une souris n'a pas le droit de le parler comme ça et elle doit l'abjurer. La souris dit qu'elle ne va jamais s'excuser au chat assassin.

Avec ça. Le chat se lance à attaquer la souris et avec ses griffes ouvre la coupe dans la tête du chien, qui à la fois essaie mordre le chat. Avec une vitesse incroyable, la souris peut échapper à son ouverture avant d'une morte sure. L'agitation se réveille autre fois a l'humain qui donne un coup de pied au chat et au chien à la fois.

# 25. Small Business Plan 326B

Tonbridge School, Kent, 1994

"Bring them before us. Bring the ghastly peasants before us. Let us feast off of them. The poor. The scholarships. Bringing this wondrous institution into disrepute with their track suits and Monster Munch. The dirty. The hideous. Bring them before us. Their only worth is to be used by their betters. This world of ours has no place for them. Let them get their grubby little GSCEs in their provincial schools. Let them not dilly nor dally with our kind. Let us burgle their innocence".

The words of the Chief Mole sent terror into the hearts and minds of the four scholarship boys the second they were uttered. Treated as inferior from the outset, despite their academic brilliance, due to the fact that their stock was not, well, what was desired. The Mole indicated to the minor moles that they begin their endeavour, lowering the boys' trousers, boys who were mostly bigger than their buggerers yet with fear bearing down on them from above, they meekly allowed themselves to be jostled into position. Thirty moles lined up excitedly, with their keenness an obvious protuberance, as the four products of the grammar school system felt the violation of their working-class buttocks time and time again.

Pain and disgust fought to be the prominent emotion as their dignity ebbed away like the blood from the fissures trickling down their legs. Alex wanted to close his eyes. Alex wanted to close his mind. Alex wanted his arse to somehow close itself. But with every thrust, his sphincter seemed to conspire further against him and allow more and more of his torturers' girth inside him. When the assailants were finished with their undertaking, they forced to four to wash themselves clean with flannels with the school logo emblazoned on them. Alex promised to avenge this day before he died.

London, England 2016

The Pre-Section

His office looked like a detective's hovel from a case impossible to solve. Photos covered the walls joined by a retarded spider's web of with pins and strings that allowed Alex to make the necessary connections to bring together that unfortunate team, that inamorous quartet, that sullied collection of beings. After that night there were others, they hurt less, in terms of pain, but they hurt more, in terms of hurt. Alex's motivating motif over these years had been revenge. Inevitably, it shaped him and twisted him more than the thrusts of his hideous assailants. He had followed their lives with the same interest as he had done with his fellow gudgeons. Of course, the perpetrators were easier to find than three sad figures who skulked away from Tonbridge with no better "A" level results than they would have obtained from their local comprehensive. Thus, proving that the granting of such scholarships was folly as boys of that ilk could not enjoy the fineries of life, they were not equals, they were simply playing at trying to fit in to a world that didn't need them or want them.

The focus of his revenge was where his work would hinge. He could not simply knock off thirty exalted and imposing figures who would, in the public's eyes, at least, be sorely missed. He discovered that there was no way to repay them the pain they had caused, not them individually, their crimes would go unpunished and they would live their lives under the belief that their doings were free of wrong, little more than a lesson for the oiks, school stuff, Good lord, it was twenty years ago, even more, water under the bridge now laddie. If they still have a chip on their shoulder about the event then it just goes to prove they were all bad eggs.

Therein lied the rub. To somehow cause pain to people who felt nothing. He had tried and failed to enter and disrupt their lives. He tracked down one of his attackers and made amorous approaches to his wife, with the full intention of making him feel as useless and unwanted as Alex had felt on that and those nights. It didn't work, when the moment came to consummate the deal that would give rise to the blackmail, he froze, as he always froze in the sphere of sexual love. That dead part of his soul unable to return from its early grave.

This is the reason why it took him more than two decades to concoct a plan that would repay some of the pain that he had endured. More so lately, he lay awake wondering whether it would really be worth it. Would his actions change anything? Did his suffering really matter? Lots of awful stuff happens every day, why was he special? But every time he saw how the lot who tortured him paraded around the streets of London, his belief that something had to be done was reaffirmed.

Section A) In Search of Reunion

Alex assumed the other three would want in on this. It was their right too, after all. They had suffered just as much as him and deserved the right to bask in the glory once the wonderful plan had been deemed a success. At this juncture, merely a simple pair of issues thwarted the foregoing; he didn't have a plan and he didn't know the whereabouts of the others.

The internet would help him in this quest, and before he even had a chance to sip his freshly made coffee, he discovered that one of the four was already no more. Barry was found in a bedsit in 2002 with a needle hanging out of his arm, what the press entitled an accidental overdose due to the stress of the court-case he was involved in. Court-case? Barry, were you trying to make amends? Indeed he was, he had coaxed three of the vile rapists to confess / boast about their doings after they took him into their confidence after promising them a never-ending stream of lovely boys (some characters marry and live respectable lives, yet their most sordid dealings will always find a way back onto their agendas). Barry was convinced he had enough to take down at least two of them for a long time when at the earliest stage of the proceedings the Judge, a personal friend of one of the families, dismissed the case on the grounds of entrapment. A few days later Barry was found dead. A clean-living boy who apparently hid a heroin addiction over years. The coroner's report stated that it was a single, high dose that killed him and that his metabolism was not consistent with a long-term user, but the Judge decided not to bear this in mind. It's all there, in white and white on the Internet, the truth, anyone can see how this was a fit-up, yet nobody cares, nobody does anything. The judge said this, we think this.

The other two took longer to find. Mark had changed his name and was living in Canada in a commune. They had renounced all forms of modern communication and could only receive notice from the outside world via the medium of dance. I resolved to inform him once the revolution had been a success in the appropriate manner. Alan was still living in London but was reticent to meet. I managed to persuade him and we set a date for the next day.

The last time I had seen Alan, his fear-stained glance penetrated my gaze almost as much as my rear assailant's thrust. For years I saw that face, filled with dread, every night as I fought the demons towards sleep. His face becoming mine as I closed my eyes until the fear forced them open again. I didn't recognise him at first, I somehow expected him to look the same as before, like the fucker would appear in the school uniform almost.

After the two of us sitting at the end of the bar for fifteen minutes in an empty pub, I sidled over and said "Alan?" There was a kind of laugh, not an Oh how incredibly funny this is just the beginning of a wonderful night kind of laugh, but a laugh, nonetheless. I apologised and said I hadn't recognised him. He told me he knew I was Alex, but was in no hurry to start this. We sought out a table.

"I guess there is no real need for a how the hell have you been interlude," I began, "I want to do something to them, hurt them like they hurt us. Make them stop. Are you in?" I pleaded.

"How?" Was his simple response.

"I don't know yet." Was my pointless one.

"You can only hurt something that feels pain. You know that? Oh, you could turn up with four mates and pummel one of them, maybe even kill them. But you would never get away with it. And, indeed, isn't the only way to make them feel the hurt we felt to do the same to them? What do you suggest? Rape their children?" Alan said.

"No! I mean of course not. I just want" I tried to explain.

"You don't know what you want. Until you do, you will never be free of this. Those nights made me what I am, for bad or for worse. I knew I could never escape from this destiny. That's what I told Barry when he came for aid. I have become just as soiled as our posh chums. For a while after school I was a type of Mister Mistress for a couple of them, others vying over my attentions, with a hefty allowance for the price of my silence. But time passes for us flowers, and stems wither, and petals fall. Their tastes never age. My role then became the provider of the provided. Seeking out my replacements. The hefty fee remained and I have enough dirt on them to cause a scandal, maybe even a ruckus, but they won't do time. You must know that. You are asking the system that they control to judge them and sentence them, they could be filmed getting a blow job off a boy on one of the lions in Trafalgar Square and they would not set foot in a prison. I'll live a wealthy death whilst I am alive on this planet. I do hope there is no-one to answer to when I leave it, which will be soon, as I am dispensable and they have the means to dispose of me. Leave it, Alex." I did not expect that.

"I'll admit that is not how I envisaged that this would go. I need to think".

"If you insist on doing something, it has to be massive. You will die as a result of your actions, for us though that is not a concern as we have not been alive for years. I assume you are equally dead on the inside? Shall we go through the rigmarole of the meaningless questionnaire? Married? Children? Lover? Close friends? Any meaningful contact with the human race? Of course not. If you had, you would not be here, and as you haven't, you can only be here." Alan continued.

"What do you mean massive?" I was coming across as a brainless fool.

"Storm the Winter Palace, in time for the hundredth anniversary. Make enough of them hurt to appease your pain. Thousands might do something. But it will be a hollow victory, if you win, don't expect any revelation. I read your book by the way, absolute drivel, totally transparent and obvious. You're clearly hiding all of your life experience and writing some made up toss you don't feel. Top up?" Alan smiled.

That was definitely a change of tack. He was right, about my plan, or lack of it, about not going to change anything, about my book, and about the drink. "My shout, same again?" I asked.

We talked for another hour. He told me of happy memories from Tonbridge, he told me of happy afternoons spent in the arms of men who had once been thieves of his affections who now laughed like lovers. He told me that insofar as was possible, he had not let those nights ruin his life, despite the fact that they were present on a daily basis. He was a heterosexual virgin and a homosexual whore. His parting advice was to make them feel like they controlled everything and were getting something far, far beyond the reach of the mundane. We promised to keep in touch and raised a glass to Barry.

"We forgot Mark." I said as 'Let's Dance' filled the bar with music. And we did. Then we parted.

Section B) In Search of a Plan

Massive? I jotted down Alan's advice and cursed the swine as a cryptic riddle fruit as the words on the page stared back at me tauntingly. I kept hearing the word massive in my head. In no time, it took on a meaningless and imbecilic form, its sounds mocking my brain as it pulled me desperately towards some sort of idea.

I made myself a coffee and returned to the matter of paying the bills. I had a couple of invites in my inbox. The book Alan mentioned had been a great success. It is piffle, undoubtedly, but the kind of piffle that sells, the kind of piffle that gets made into a film with the blonde off Friends and whichever chisel jawed Hollywood muppet is en vogue at the time. Just as my arse was public domain at school, my art also is for the world to enjoy. I tell myself that I am capable of surpassing 'Heart of Darkness' or 'Catcher' one day, but in the meantime, this seven-figure income helps abate the pain.

For some reason, I have been invited to give a short reading at Glastonbury between sets. I have not heard of either of the artists who have requested me, though if they consider my writing to be of any worth, then their music must be far from enjoyable. They really are a licence to print money these festivals. It always looks so much better on the telly; the reality is misery in mud surrounded by dreadful human beings who are less interesting high than sober. Then. The word massive returned. The word massive was ready to show me what it could do.

Imagine a festival only for rich kids, I mean super rich kids, not someone who would work all summer and scrimp to pay for tickets. Kids who have so much wealth that it would not matter if you charged them a ton or a million for a festival. Indeed, the more it cost, the more likely they would be to want in. Exclusive. No riff-raff. I believe that this could be the proem to an idea. Why did I never use words like that in my books? Quite simple, this is the story I want to be read.

Section C) A Plan Comes into Being

This is how it happened with my last novel. Sitting around for a bit doing nothing. Idea. Outpour. Product. Profit. It's that easy to sell 8 million copies of piffle. More people have read my pitiful works than they have those of most of the people who inspired me to put pen to paper in the first place. My biggest break was the general stupidity and lack of need for artistic fulfilment on the part of my readership.

Anyway, since the moment of inspiration I have managed to use my considerable and undeserved fortune to good use. The more I think about it, the more I see the similitudes in what happened to me in that delightful seventeenth century vaulted room was simply a less literary version of what I do to my readers. To save space here, I will outline the basics of my plan.

I have organised a festival that will take place on the luxurious island of Voavah, a popular spot with the wealthy. This will not be your typical mud and tents type festival. Everything will be super luxury, oh god I can't even write it. Of course, it won't be. I will fool them into thinking they are getting the experience of their lifetime, whilst giving them the experience of their lifetime. Stay with me, it'll be worth the ride. They think they will be spending time with models and rock stars, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The rules are simple, the festival is only open to successfully profiled rich kids, between 18 and 25,, kids who have never worked a day in their life, nor are likely to. Kids who have never wanted for anything but who will soon offer their fortunes for a sip of water and an air ticket home. It might bankrupt me, it might kill me, but it will be fun.

The first thing to do was drum up interest. I got a good friend of mine, Tony to do some marvellous work with the computer to put together a fake yet convincing package offering five-star accommodation, fine-dining and a line-up that the cool kids would kill for, i.e. no-one you've ever heard of as we created their coolness, they are all the next hottest thing. You've never heard of them? Where have you been living? None of them would ever admit that they had no idea who they were going to see, let alone that they might be wrong about their magnificence. If you're not cool enough to be one step ahead of the game, you're not welcome here. Anyone can see an artist who has sold ten million records (do artists still sell records, oh I'm cool too), the art is in seeing them before everybody else. The emperor's new, diamond encrusted iPod, so to speak.

So, with the line-up in place, artists paid a 20-grand appearance fee for not turning up and fake brochures showing the lap of luxury; it was time to advertise. Here we got real models to upload Instagram photos of themselves checking out the festival site on a pre-festival reconnaissance mission. Of course, we just sent them to some wonderful location and had them posing in bikinis in the sort of place your average rich kid would love to spend a weekend in like-minded company.

We had to make certain that the people in attendance would only be people worthy of such treatment. We did not want someone scrimping and saving to get a ticket, selling their wares to get a spot on the coveted plane. Quickly, we devised a "Vacuousness Certificate" which had to be compulsorily completed by applicants to be granted a ticket. This certificate covered various aspects of the brats' upbringing, namely to; expulsion from a major private (public) educational establishment; verified parental assets in excess of 10 million GBP; never having worked a single day; disciplinary proceedings resulting from abuse of power / bullying; narcissistically active on social media; proven distaste for the lower classes and the tie-breaker, why THEY should be allowed to attend the festival.

As you can imagine, the responses became rather competitive as we announced that we had been flooded with applications (of course, we hadn't, people were still not taking us seriously, though a minor snowball was in evidence) and that we would have to be highly selective on who was allowed to attend. We offered early applicants the chance to re-do their certificates to have a better chance of getting in.

Before we move on to the description of the actual festival (well the description they were given, the actual festival will be somewhat different), I'd like to share with you one of my favourite application forms:

NAME: UXURIOUS WIGBERT SMYTHE DE HAVILLAND RICHMOND BRIGHTON

EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND: Failed every subject at Eton despite knowing the answers. Made Daddy make an extra contribution of 4 million pounds to have them pass me and leave the place and did a huge turd in the font in the chapel.

PARENTAL INCOME: Father's personal fortune in excess of ONE BILLION GBP

DISCIPLINARY ISSUES: Regularly abuse staff at home from hideous places such as, like I can remember the names of these hovels and other hell-holes. I enjoy the systematic abuse of working class prostitutes, particularly pretending that I will take them away from the horrible life they are suffering, only to leave them pregnant and on crack. Currently I have notched up 27 victims of this sort. As far as I know, I have been involved in two drink driving incidents that resulted in deaths. Both times they were lower end scum or foreign with no chance of legal counsel equivalent to my own.

EMPLOYMENT HISTORY: None. No intention to work.

SOCIAL MEDIA SCALPS: Average of 38.2 retweets per Tweet, more than 1 million likes on Instagram. Had Cristiano Ronaldo like a photo of me in my swimming trunks.

WHY SHOULD I BE ALLOWED TO ATTEND: Because I am more essential to the success of your event than anyone else on this planet. Without me this event is nothing. Any social gathering without my presence is a mere expression of peasant vulgarity. Really you should pay me to go, but money has no meaning, so I would gladly pay double. I genuinely can't wait to get out there and show those darkies what for! (We said in the publicity leaflet that all of the staff had a curious disorder that meant they actually enjoyed being abused rather than treated well). In fact, I will make you an offer of 20 million GBP now for 10 of my friends to attend. What does it matter? Daddy can make that while I am away.

There were worse ones too. You'd be surprised how imaginative people can get when pushed. Once we had applications of this nature, to be fair to Uxurious, his backing did pull in some big-name fools (plus his 20 million more than paid for the event, he transferred the money without the standard by, nor leave) and interest was starting to increase. The plan was for the last weekend in May, it was now February and freezing, so some nice promotional sunshine videos were needed.

I now had enough money to employ a full-time team to create the effect of the festival, and another to plan the actual events that would take place on the island. This is what they were signing up for:

EXUBERANT ELITE FESTIVAL

The time has come to enjoy more than just a festival. The time has come to enjoy an expression of who you really are and how your entourage wishes to make the most of surroundings beyond the grasp of so many. No more queues, no more endless lines to eat tasteless vegetarian burgers, no more smelly tents; the time has come to forget wristbands, if you are on the island you are part of the festival, if you are part of the festival, the festival is you. Mingle with the bands, mingle with a crowd that makes you proud, share your moments, join our elite team on our private island in the Maldives (location hidden until you are accepted). Travel from London on one of our specially chartered luxury Emirates jets, first class falls short of the description of how you will be treated from start to finish, forget about everything you have enjoyed beforehand, it's time for Elite Class. Revel in the marvellous accommodation as you sip lovingly poured cocktails whilst the freshest acts of tomorrow reaffirm your elite status as a mover and guru. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be fashion itself, to define the paths that lesser mortals will follow in coming years. Do you really want to miss out on this unique chance? If you have received this mail then you have already been hand-picked in the initial phase. You are invited to complete your certificate and request admission.

Price for the weekend: 350,000 GBP (Does not include transfer to Gatwick Airport)

We sent this out to over 300 people and got back 180 positive responses once the video channel was up and running on YouTube and we roped in shameless rap star Jazz Pecker along with his selection of charming female friends from his latest video. JP signed an NDA, but as a chap from the Ghetto he was more than keen on the plan's ethos (whilst eating 40 dollar hamburgers in a limo with platinum interiors).

Things moved so fast from the end of February onwards. To maintain the pretence, we hacked into the system of one of the finest hotels in the region and periodically sent our victims emails and updates on their luxury accommodation. Further artists were added to the line-up (people who did not exist, people who had managed four downloads on iTunes yet were promised as the next big thing, and the odd one we threw in for a laugh). We got to making things a little spicier for the attendees by having the Instagram models to individually contact some of the needier looking lads to set up meetings once they were on the island. No-one questioned anything, we were meticulous with our preparations and even managed to forge licences to hold the festival and mock-ups of the stage layouts.

With the rest of the money, we put together the real package that awaited them on the North Atlantic island of Papey, just off the coast of Iceland. Delightfully uninhabited and remarkably inhospitable (even in May) the island will prove a test of their courage and guile as they try to survive in flip-flops. For the sum of five million GPB, we have the island from the end of October until two days after the festival to clean up. Our team is installed there are we speak to create an unforgettable experience.

Section D) To the Airport!

It was important that they did not suspect anything untoward. We were dealing with thick people, but you should never make the assumption that thick people are quite as thick as you believe. Giving them extra reasons to believe they were vastly superior to the other proles crawling pathetically around the airport was paramount to the spectacle. We also held briefing meetings at the Ritz with lavish cocktails and overpriced pointless canapés. These were calculated expenses that still fell within the budget as we had 230 confirmed guests (not including Uxurious' 20 at a million a throw). That meant that if we could stay within the budget of Big U's 20 million, we could still make 50 million from the event. The money would be divided in an equal manner, with all participants receiving a handsome amount for their endeavours, with the remainder being used for social causes close to my heart. Ideally, many of the revellers would undergo a change of heart that would cause them to renounce their fortunes to the benefit of society as a whole, however that may be a trifle optimistic.

We added the bit about airport transfers not being included just to annoy them. Most had no issue getting to Gatwick as they were largely based in the south of England. Maybe in the future, we will have time to expand to reap vengeance on our European elite, but for the meantime, we were happy with our little band of pasty-faced, floppy-haired, home-grown twats. Despite my impetus for this venture being based on my own rape as a schoolboy, we were clear from the outset that there would be no repayment in the form of buggery, a front buggery for the ladies (let us not overlook the fact that the act of being a twat is necessarily always the domain of the male), there is still a great deal on offer even with that hideous act discarded.

We set aside a VIP suite at Gatwick whilst the plane was prepared. Once we were in the air and about an hour from Iceland we could drop the masquerade. For now, it was party face time and any whim they had, we would be delighted to fulfil.

And so, it began. We had Moet in the VIP lounge, some of them acted like that was the equivalent of slurping seal semen from the boot of a Turkish athlete. A chef with two, as in one twice, Michelin stars, was entrusted with the role of keeping their sensitive little tums from rumbling, but alas, this was not enough, they accused him of producing "Lidl snacks", and our chef, as sensitive as all artists, took this affront rather badly and stormed off, leaving his deconstructions without direction or a bilini to soak up the sarce. Ironically, they were forced to soak up the bubbly with packets of crisps from the machine as no-one in attendance knew how to turn the ingredients into morsels of joy.

At least they only had an hour in the VIP lounge before making their way to the plane. This was another expensive outlay that pulled violently on the budget, but it was worth it. The Emirates A380 is rumoured to be a fine example of aviation technology, I will not know for the time being as I am monitoring things from the London HO with my team of hate, sorry I meant eight, assessors. I had a spy on the A380 who would record the events and relay them on to me so that I could verify for myself the worthwhile nature of the expense.

They will land at Akureyri Airport in the north of Iceland. Obviously an A380 landing at airport of those dimensions would cause rumblings in the pants of local spotters and so we have had to pay extra to close the airport, despite the fact that during our slot there are no commercial flights scheduled, transfer from the plane to the island will be one of the key points of the adventure. They must believe at the beginning that they have merely been the victims of misfortune, they are not being kidnapped, not yet. Things have just got off to a rather disappointing start. Another nice touch has been to install a kind of digital anti-communicator (my IT guy came up with the term) that will simply bounce their social media quibbles off the island and store them indefinitely whilst giving them the impression that they had been posted, yet none of their followers had reacted, liked or shared their post. A truly painful thing to inflict on such vanity.

Section E) On forming the team.

I had to have people I could trust. I had to have people who had been through the same or similar and understood my motivation. I needed hatred. After my failed attempts to bring on board my fellows from that night of initiation, I made contact easily enough through forums where people were happy to share their grief on-line. Obviously, an NDA was required but I was careful in my selection process and was pretty sure I had pressed the right buttons from day one. Salaries were outrageous for the amount of actual work that needed to be done in organising the festival itself, the hardest tasks required the skills of ex-army staff that would create a living hell and lessons to be learned.

I appointed as my number 2 Jennifer, she had been a music company runner at the start of her career and felt the rough sword of abuse from inside the industry. The attacks on her were never of a sexual nature, most of the people who took advantage of her nature failed to notice even her gender. She was just seen as an it whose purpose was to serve them, to suffer humiliation and to grind down, taking a piece of her heart and soul every day.

When she tried to complain about these incidents, even those close to her circle made her feel like she was exaggerating, as if she were simply over-sensitive, and that she should knuckle down and get on with things if she wished to make a career out of the trade into which she thrust herself against the will of her parents.

Every day was a slog and she knew that everyone laughed at her, wanting her out, continually taking advantage of every opportunity to recreate a type of initiation ceremony to see how far she would go, to see just when she would crack. But crack she didn't, she withstood swathe after swathe of attacks, gradually building up from minor insults to the downright abuse. Yet, it was a game stumbled upon by some of her supposed superiors that spelt her final days in the industry. For an entire twelve-hour shift, the six-strong management team she been assigned to pamper pretended to want tea. That was it, every time that she brought them the requested beverage, they acted like they had never made any such request. This was then posted on social media with the hashtag #dontemployjenny. This happened fourteen times on her last day. The last time, she had the kettle in her hand with scalding water ready to be launched onto their smarmy faces. But she stopped herself. She was not going to do time for them, despite the obvious joy at being able to disfigure them. She unplugged the kettle, folded her apron and left. Her contract was so meaningless that she did not even need to serve notice. It took about a week for anyone to realise she was no longer turning up. She returned to her parents, where she stayed until I stumbled upon her.

The other part of the management triumvirate was Sebastian, ex-army officer who expected his privileged background to assist him in his quest up the military ladder. This plan was scuppered as he fell fowl of the General under whose auspice he was attached. This was no game of unrequited love, simply that Seb was extremely disliked by the man, when the latter was questioned as to why, he could give no convincing reason as to why, just that there was something about him. What the general really wanted was a coloured person to abuse. Sadly, for him, he never got one so had to make do with Sebastian. This involved him forming a torture squad and making Seb do all manner of horrible things in the name of allegiance to the crown. Despite his victim being wholly willing, the General still wanted more and forced Seb to black up whilst accepting his abuse. Again, there was no violent snap, Seb figured his career in the military had come to an end and allowed for a spate of negligent accidents finally bringing about his discharge. His bully soon turned his attentions to another victim and Seb was soon stacking shelves in the local Aldi, but free.

The fact that neither of them had gone on a Hungerford style rampage was important to Alex, it meant that they had shown restraint, and that they would be willing to see this task through. The idea was not to hurt the rich kids, well maybe a little, but to make some of them suffer, and make others think. An idealistic crusade, if you like.

Jenny and Seb were entrusted with finding people in similar position of having survived abuse and keen on revenge. Part of the filtering process was to weed out potential lunatics who might have too much fun during the festival. The idea was that this would be more like tantric sex than a quick rummage in the closet. There was money in place to pay attention to detail. There was time, there was remoteness. There was a victory in the offing.

Section F) This is your Captain speaking.

Akureyri Airport had no commercial flights scheduled for the day our aircraft arrived. The runway was not used to vehicles of such girth so landing was something of a bumpy affair, a bumpy affair made deliberately worse by the skills of the pilot. With a nice pervading odour of vomit and the odd scream, those inside were forced to wait on the tarmac for an hour due to an unforeseen issue with the doors.

When they were finally allowed out, their attire, in tune with the island on the Maldives they thought they would be partying on, was in no way fitting for midnight in Northern Iceland in October. None had anything in their cases that would have helped them in such a predicament, even if the luggage was with them. During check-in, they were treated to a VIP service that offered to load their cases for them free of charge so that the festival goers could tuck into the treats on offer. These cases were sent to a homeless shelter were all of the useless items, that is, almost all of them, were placed on EBay to raise funds for the shelter.

The wind ravaged the steps of the plane as they fought their way down in flip flops and sandals. There was no lighting on the runway, an expensive bonus paid for by us, and they struggled to make it to the terminal building. Amongst the revellers were incognito festival staff who acted as impromptu guides and self-appointed leaders to help those feeling somewhat shell-shocked. These were equipped with bodycams so that HO was able to watch (and broadcast, though not yet live) events unfold.

It was important not to let panic turn into mayhem too soon. Of course, Alex and the team wanted the experience to be as ghastly as possible, but things had been planned, and it would be a shame to miss out on all these aspects of psychological torture. Meanwhile, on a delightful island in the sun, a group of bronzed twenty-somethings posted photos next to models and live footage of Rapper Zippy Tutz seminal performance. The general consensus was that the festival lacked organisation, but was generally a success, certainly there was nothing to make people show any concern for a group of rich kids who had to suffer Moet instead of Bollinger. The world soon forgot about the festival as the next news item came around.

The head of the group made it to the terminal building and the relative shelter of inside. The space had been rented until 5 am the next day (the first flight out was at 1100) so the entertainment could begin undisturbed. They found the building abandoned. There were no reps from the festival and no means of transport. All they found was a message saying that there had been technical issues and that buses would come to take them to the festival site at the earliest juncture.

Tempers began to flare and here the work of the infiltrated revellers came to a fore; calming down people in danger of going too far, whilst making it clear that this was not acceptable. The IT team had managed to intercept and bug all of the attendees' social media accounts, so when they posted the reality of their hell in the airport, their posts were visible to the outside world as harmless twaddle on what a great time they were having in the sun.

That first night for many was the worst night of their lives. Order could only be maintained in pockets, there was one infiltrated guard for every thirty party-goers. Alex and the team were surprised to see how quickly the human spirit wains and the weak are consumed. Official guests numbered 250. That was the final number that boarded the plane and set off for the sun, unfortunately for them, it was the midnight sun. It actually four hours for the first of them to actually check their GPS and discover their true location. Once word spread that they were in Iceland they tried to make it to the doors and back onto the plane. The doors were locked fast and could only be opened via the main computer. As they stared into the darkness, they saw how the runway lights were switched on and the plane began to taxi out of its parked position, The banging on the doors was as incessant as it was pointless, even when the plane was in the air, they continued to scream for it to take them back, only stopping when its lights could no longer be seen in the night sky. The plane made hastily for Reykjavik for a thorough clean and a well-deserved night's rest for the crew.

Despite the guards' best intentions, seven did not make it through the first night. There was mention of a rape, and mention of retribution. Two more tried to climb their way out and fell to their deaths. The corpses lay on the ground next to those who managed to achieve sleep. Alex gave the orders for one of the guards to activate a gap in one of the impenetrable windows so that the duty-free shop could be accessed. The only part that could be reached was that with the liquor, no food, just booze, fuel for mayhem. That led to the death of another three in a fight as two other guards foolishly let a couple of knives slip onto the table. These were hastily recovered as Alex made it clear that things were already out of hand.

Transport arrived at 0430 and took the weary and drunk onto uncomfortable buses. The guards formed groups to take the corpses onto the buses, forcing the others to believe that their actions had been captured on video and the authorities would send them to jail if they did not cooperate fully from now on. These groups were then ordered from the employed guards downwards, the latter choosing cohorts to fulfil tasks, though the most valued skill was the exercising of muscle.

The remainder was huddled onto airport buses that sped out of the facility. At a fee of one thousand pounds for an hour's work, twelve cleaners left the place spotless before the first passengers arrived for the morning flight.

Section G) On the buses.

Only the driver had a seat belt, the guards travelled together on the last bus and left instructions with the hired goons to keep order on the other buses. A total of four buses formed the convoy, the first three overloaded and travelling at excessive speeds, on one particular hairpin turn, several occupants were forced to the floor and crushed. The drivers were protected with separate driving cubicles that featured an enclosed space that could not be accessed without a computer code. However much the passengers banged on the doors, there was no way of stopping the drivers. All of the drivers had been hired on the same basis as everyone in the organisation, yet, as time was a pressing issue and this role was not considered priority and corners were cut.

One of the drivers took this revenge thing too much to heart and drove his bus to the top of a hill, breaking away from the main group. There at the top, he alighted the vehicle and lit a cigarette, bidding goodnight to those inside, he gently raised the hand brake and the bus plunged downhill a good thirty metres before sliding of the side of the road and down the side of a gorge. The other buses only realised the other bus was missing when they arrived at the camp.

The camp was supposed to be the festival site. All they could see as they left the buses were makeshift tents devised to house up to six people. Twelve people were designated to each tent. Inside there was a loaf of bread, a packet of processed cheese and three bottles of water. On site the guards were aided by the ground staff who helped maintain order. The groups were arranged, the decision was made that as the last bus had not arrived that the ratios were still applicable, so 7 tents were burned that would have accounted for the 84 people that perished on said bus. The sums had to be retouched as quite a few groovy young things also lost their lives due to crushes on the bus ride. Once everyone was accounted for, who was still alive, the remaining 132 festival goers were allowed into their thirteen tents.

Here was the first lesson of day two. In no tent was the bread, cheese and water spread equally. Only those who fought ate. Each tent had a cohort who reported to the ground staff, pointing out the weakest elements for the next phase of the festival. Alex sat at his desk aghast at developments, barking at the ground staff that it would have been acceptable to lose a few as collateral damage, but nearly half, on the first night was not tolerable, the live transmission was visible to everyone at HO, and Alex knew things had gone beyond resolution when he was told that the original plan was deemed void, and that they were all having too much fun to stop now.

Those who had not eaten were frogmarched barefoot away from the tents as punishment for not putting up a fight. The remainder of the tents were then sprayed with ice cold water as the internees shivered as the sun came up pitifully. Even in less than twenty-four hours, many young, healthy specimens were at breaking point. The guards and ground staff wanted to see how far they could push them.

Alex was now aware he had to inform the authorities, he did not know how, but knew that his plan had gone awry. As he planned the words in his head, whilst heading for the private jet to Iceland, he saw that the IT team announced that in two hours they would begin live-streaming the event on YouTube. Alex managed to get up into the air and an hour away from Iceland when the stream was up and running. Now people were horrified as they saw the conditions the revellers had to endure. Live executions of whoever fell to the end of the marching line were shown in full gore as sickened viewers were witnesses to hitherto unseen horrors.

The Icelandic police sent out a team from the capital on any anonymous tip-off but it would take its time to arrive. Finally, the guards and ground staff got their wishes and founded the resistance they craved. Some of the stronger members of the group offered something of a fight once it was made clear that not everyone was on the same side. A group of festival goers overcame the group monitoring the march and took their hand weapons. Now the executers were duly executed, shoes and clothing were appropriated and the fight was taken to the battleground.

Alex, Jenny and Seb were told in the plane that there would be no time to land, they would have to be parachuted in and take out the remainder of the ground staff before everyone ended up dead. Interpol was also sending its own plane but the chance of the forces of law and order coming to restore peace any time soon were as remote as the island the carnage was taking place on, especially as we made passage over the only bridge more troublesome that it really needed to be after crossing.

Section H) Landing Team

None of them had ever used a parachute before but were given little chance. Seb, despite his army training was the one who showed the most fear as Jenny took her knife, gun and bullets and jumped into the sky. The other eight ex-squaddies that Seb had roped in to help with logistics were forced to grab him and take him to ground.

Once on the ground, the team of eleven had to use their GPS devices to find the exact location, a task that was made difficult by the IT team scrambling the location. Time was pressing as they viewed the feed and saw the numbers beginning to dwindle. In the top corner, they had added a kind of scorecard which showed the number of festival goers still alive and the number of guards and ground staff. At the moment, the scores read 92 – 37. The guards' effervescent implementation of their brief had led to an equally exacerbated revenge. The festival goers may have boarded the plane spoilt rich kids who had never had to fight for anything in their lives, but now they had to fight for just that, their lives, and the fight that was in them surprised everyone.

Public opinion is a curious beast, despite it being a clear-cut issue what was going on, many still sided with the guards and ground staff, the idea that the posh little shits deserved everything they got was still a major pull on Twitter. The other festival was roundly denounced as fake and the general public turned its hatred towards Alex, he had forced the others to act in such a way, the full force of justice had to fall on him and his dastardly manners.

Despite knowing that his fate was basically written if he ever returned, Alex also knew he had to try his utmost to stop the carnage before it was too late, oh, and he also knew it was already far too late. They made it to the outskirts of the tent area in good time as the sounds coming from therein were audible from a fair distance. Resilience was proving strong on the part of the wealthy youth, who took out another six guards and ground staff without loss. Some of the festival goers were very weak though and would not survive another night in the cold. Some of them would not survive another day in the cold.

Alex and his team were in the unenviable position of trying to save the kids, by taking out the baddies. However, the kids were the ones they had tricked into being here, and the baddies were the ones they were paying to kill the kids. Either way, nobody was particularly enamoured at their arrival on the scene. The eight squaddies managed to enter into the ranks of the kids who were still fighting as they claimed to be special forces who had been sent to help them.

Fighting ensued then on three fronts, as Alex, Seb and Jenny fought Stalingrad style from the remnants of a burning building, trying to take out as many of the assailants under their auspice as they could. Jenny proved particularly adept at this and removed four on her own, including two of the more vociferous belligerents taking their work somewhat overly seriously. Soon, there were less than twenty guards and ground-staff still active, though at least four were too injured to continue.

At least ten were surrounded by a reconnaissance mission under the command of the army battalion, and just when it looked there would be now too few guards and ground staff to continue the struggle, the latter simply rolled a series of grenades towards the incoming victors and the scores were redressed. Without enough time to celebrate their victory, one of the errant grenades managed to find its way into the explosives store where they had been holed in, thus causing a chain reaction that ended them too. In one horrible action, the numbers on both sides dwindled.

From their cubby-hole, the three execs watched as the final events unfolded, and pondered how their revenge plan had gone so askew. A waif like female plodded towards them, exhausted, her finger tips blue with the cold, the eyes gone and the lips purple, with the last iota of energy inside her she fell onto them, not a victim of the violence of the people, more a victim of the violence of the surroundings. Jenny continued to shoot and berate Seb for his inability to hit even the simplest target. Her rage stopped as she realised that she was treating him with the same disregard that brought them into this hellish situation. She apologised and they stood to hug. In that exact moment, a single bullet entered her head from behind and travelled through her head into Seb's, with enough force to pierce his skull as well. Jenny died instantly, but Seb would have to wait. Covered in his accomplices' blood, Alex sought out a safer place.

Alex entered the remnants of a discarded tent. Therein he viewed the chaos that represented the last moments of those who arrived there to seek refuge. A mobile telephone lay on the floor, its video function still running. Alex stopped the video and watched its content.

It showed a girl in her early twenties, Alex remembered her from her application. Typical posh bitch, he thought then. When he saw her in this video she looked a beaten shell of that once vivacious to the point of loathsome individual, who thought the world lay before her like a smorgasbord offering morsels to pick on and discard at her volition. Her eyes were red, the tears had stopped, there were no more tears, no spare liquid in her body. Lines were drawn into the side of her face as if the salts continued to pour and burn through the dermis. Her hand shook as she tried to control and focus the camera to tell her tale, hoping that someone would one day see it and understand what had happened here. Her voice was frail and broken yet she spoke with a surety and matter-of-fact calmness that betrayed her years. He found the beginning of the video and hit play:

"By the time anyone finds this it will all be too late to save any of us. Maybe I get it now, maybe we weren't brought here to be saved, there would be no heroics, so many will see it as our just reward, perhaps it is, perhaps we deserve no more. Generations of us have used and abused a system that now seeks revenge. Am I guilty? Yes, as guilty as anyone here, but the only blood I have on my hands is my own. Would I be a different person if I ever got out of here? Of course, I would. Would I be a better person? I can't say. Will the people who have perpetrated these acts change once their vengeance is consumed? Will they feel fulfilled and complete now their mission is over? I'd like to think so. I don't know how many testimonies will surface but hopefully mine will be seen.

I'm not just a normal girl from a normal family. You get that. I'm not going to pretend to be the victim of any conspiracy to extract your sympathy and empathy. I've been a bitch, I was brought up a bitch, studied to be a bitch and excelled in my work. If anyone symbolised the despicable class that the festival aims to eradicate then it is me. Hands up. Shoot me, ah I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm not sure how much time I will have to recount my tale. I'll just try and cover the last twenty-four hours before I die.

The last twenty-four hours have meant that I do not fear death, I fear the people that are alive and on this island. There are no goodies and baddies anymore. All are consumed by an uncontrollable desire to survive at any cost, but their survival is also governed by a need to end in the most ghastly manner the lives of those who pose a threat to this survival. I did not sleep, I ceased to be awake, there is a difference, but was jolted into life when ice cold water was launched upon the twelve of us seeking refuge. The outside temperature was close to freezing, we had spent the night in the garments we thought would be excessive for the sun kissed islands we believed we would be partying on. I became separated from the group, the water on my skimpy clothing freezing around me as I sought warmth. Blue and purple patches appeared on my arms and hands, I had trouble opening and closing my fists, not that they would have been much use to hit anyone with. The coldness caused my lungs to contract and I struggled to breathe. I was in the open air and visible to all, yet could not see a soul, those that could escape had done so. I made it to a nearby hill where I found the body of a guard, for a moment my mind wandered through all of the boutiques that I had been in the world over, but never had a garment been so appealing as the jacket donned by the corpse. I put it on and felt the warmth immediately. Fuck it, I thought, and took the socks and boots. I had no idea where I was headed but knew I had to keep moving. I quickly searched the body for food or water but there was nothing. The tears came again but I suppressed them. I was one of the lucky ones. My island hymen was still intact. I had not been beaten, I had seen things, things no-one should see, but what did kids see who live in shanty towns in Rio, Paris or Delhi?

I got to the next hill. Despite the socks and boots, I was sure that frostbite was setting in. Most notably, in my left foot. I found it hard to move and walking became painful. In a short time, I had gone from close to freezing, to sweating profusely. There was a sort of flask inside the jacket's pocket, a flask that had broken. The label gave a scientific name I could not pronounce, but as my breathing became more stilted, I began to fear that the flask had been the cause of the death of the guard whose coat I stole. I took it off immediately but was seen. A group of festival goers surrounded me and accused me of being a guard. They tied me to a tree and despite my protestations refused to believe me. I told them not to wear the jacket but one said it was a trick and they jostled for it. Their bodies were covered in cuts and lacerations meaning that as each one put on the bacteria infested jacket the deadly liquid came into direct contact with their bloodstream. I screamed at them to burn the jacket but they screamed traitor at me. Hardly the worst treatment I had been subjected to. I checked my own body for cuts, I still had none, how had I got this far unscathed? (Aside from the irreversible mental torture) That meant I had time, more than them anyway, by the looks of it, the poison would have to enter me through the skin, not directly into the bloodstream. I tried to look on the bright side of that but just assumed that that would mean a slower, and more painful, death.

They were planning what to do with me when the first signs of illness overcame them. I assumed that I might be spared a rape as there were two women and three men, but it was the women who goaded on the men to steal my sex. And they would have done if they had had the energy, sadly, or gladly, the poison took away their sex drive before it left them bereft of life. Within minutes five of them were on the ground writhing in agony, reading my palm as the bacteria squeezed the last of the life out of their bodies. Only one girl was still conscious. I had seen her at the airport, she tried to befriend me, I gave her the brush off. Now I asked her to set me free. She walked over to me with a knife in her hand, hopefully to cut me free, though why I assumed being cut free would mean anything other than dying somewhere else, and I tried to give her a look that would reassure her.

I realised that she had not worn the jacket. Two healthy girls could maybe get out of this. "You want me to set you free?" She asked. "Please." My eyes begged her. She smiled.

"You were too good for me at the airport, and now I get to save your life? Give me a reason why I should. Why didn't the jacket kill you? You are with them. If I set you free you will kill me. How do I know you haven't called them already?" She taunted my ties with the knife but solely cut off a lock of my hair with it.

"I'm infected too. I robbed it off a guard. I have no cuts, that's why it's taking longer to act. If you leave me, I will die too." Was that a good tactic?

"Oh well, in that case. It's been horrible knowing you. Have a nice death". She smiled.

"What's your plan then? Walk to safety? Back to the airport? First class to Heathrow? We're all going to die here." I returned her smile.

"I'll be saved, they'll be here soon. I'll just sit down here and watch you die." She gave one last smile as a gunshot rang out and her head was flung back.

I looked around. Whoever had shot her could see me and take me out whenever they wanted. Would a quick bullet be a better option than the slow poison? Fuck that. I was going to use up my last breath trying to escape, trying to win the gift of life, not tied to a tree waiting to be shot.

She was too far away from me to get to the knife. At least I did not have to put up with the ignominy of a red light bouncing around my skin warning me of the impending bullet. There was no way I could wriggle free and before I could consult my brain as to the wisdom of the manoeuvre, I dislocated my shoulder to allow for a certain amount of purchase, enough to squeeze my frame out of its trapping, the pain was intense but I was free, well from the shackles that held me to the tree. I did not know whether I was humouring the sniper or boring him, I don't know why I assumed it would be a "he", I'd seen enough here to know both sexes are equally vicious. I hobbled to the nearest hill, expecting the bullet to end my life at any moment, wondering if each step would be my last, wondering why I bothered to move at all when the outcome had already been decided. I made it to the hill, each step and section serving as a minor battle to be won. I thought for a minute the marksperson had found someone else to torture when a bullet swished past my left ear, taking a chunk of my hair with it. Such precision. We weren't finished, it would seem. I continued, every time I stopped a bullet would ring past me. Close enough to feel the air move, but far enough to miss me. I stood in the middle of an open field and screamed "JUST DO IT", but there was nothing. Then I laughed, uncontrollably, it hurt me how much I laughed. In the distance I saw a tent, my life's work was to get to that tent and die in peace

Every step became more burdensome for me, every movement of my body meeting resistance and pain, and when I stopped, the bullet whistled past to remind me I could not die here. I made it. I know they let me, but it felt like a victory. It felt like I had done it. Beyond the tent I saw blue lights and heard sirens. Was there time?

Inside the tent, I fell to the floor and waited. The sirens became louder. I checked my skin and it didn't seem too bad, at least it hadn't worsened since before. Maybe my dosage had not been lethal. I don't care about changing, I'm not making promises just yet, I could still die here. The sirens are louder it's closer now, hang on, can you hear them? I don't feel so bad now, fuck, I'm cold but my breathing is better. It's just that if I promise to be a good person if I survive, I'm not sure I can live up to that. So I don't want to promise. I can't go from being a hideous witch to a saintly bastion of fairness just like that. I have a right to anger. I'm surrounded by corpses, I'm potentially fatally infected with hell knows what, I hate everything I can think of. I hate the idea of what will happen if I am rescued. I will be everywhere, the press won't leave me alone, you see? That's my first instinct. Always me. They sound close now. OK, I'll try, that's not a promise, I'll try, but I can't guarantee anything. I'll just try.

She drops the phone but it continues to record. We can hear her breathing becoming shallower in the sirens grow louder. The police have been here. An Icelandic voice is heard but they do not enter the tent. They must assume that everyone inside is dead. At this point the video is on thirteen minutes, Alex stopped it on forty-seven. Some memory card she must have had, he thought. There was nothing for him in this tent other than the phone, which he took and made his way to the next one. As he was about to leave, he returned and gave the girl who had made the video's corpse a long hug. "I deserve this." He told her.

Alex thought that anywhere in his past life would have been a safer place, including that initiation ceremony that brought all of this on the world. The figures told the frightful truth. 4 festival goers remained and 2 assassins. Alex was sure he could find them and eliminate the latter, hoping that the saving of four might be seen as some kind of victory. He didn't want to die, yet knew that any kind of life he would have, would not depend on him. He heard a noise from inside one of the tents and peered in. There, in a row were four boys bent over with their trousers down waiting obligingly, tears rolled down their faces as their assailants began to plan their final enjoyment. The stench of death providing no grounds for impotence as they almost acted as if it were an aphrodisiac. The scene was too much for Alex who took his gun and shot both the guards in the back of the neck in a matter of seconds, he never knew he had such an aim, let alone the forthrightness to go through with the action, but four he had saved, and that was something. They begged him not to kill them and he said that he had come to save them.

They wept again as the police arrived.

The remaining five were taken in a police van where they could be treated. Alex was not originally seen as a culprit by the Icelandic police who were having trouble putting together the pieces of this horrifying event.

It was warm and comfortable inside the van. For a while nobody spoke. Alex knew that this was no victory by any sense of the word. There was nothing to be gained from what he had done, no lessons had been taught, indeed, the world was a worse place for what he had done. Yes, he could claim that his team had let him down, that when they had the chance to exact revenge, they were incapable of remaining within the confines of the script. People act in the strangest ways, he thought.

He could no longer handle being seen as a victim and announced in the police station that he had been one of the organisers. Interpol arrived to pick up the jaws of the Icelandic police from the floor as Alex recounted in detail his endeavours in the name of revenge. The other four were still in the room with him and had to be restrained. Finally, the police staff brought order to the proceedings and Alex finally heard the names of those he had saved. If he expected to feel any reward from his final action, the remaining life was drained from his soul as the names were read out. One after one he heard the surnames of the four minor moles that had deflowered him that night, every syllable of the double-barrelled surnames driving into him like a knife into his heart. All he had saved were the offspring of those who had driven him to act. He could not help but laughing, and as he did so, he felt the first effects of the bacteria that would end his life.

#  26. Player Registration 326B

A small village around eighty kilometres to the east of Seville seemed an unlikely birthplace for one of the greatest footballing talents the world has ever seen, but then again Pele was born in town of "Three Hearts", hardly within earshot of the Maracana. Yet that was where Sergio Castro spent his formative years, a happy enough child kicking a ball around the dusty pitches of mid-eighties Andalusia.

As good a backdrop as any for a kid with dreams and aspirations to have football take him away from the charming yet listless village that offered him a comfortable and loving home. But there were tons of kids in the village who were decent with the ball at their feet, the Spanish automatically believed that their defining moments with the ball were similar to those of a matador coming in for the kill. Entertainment was what the players wanted to offer.

Often when players become famous, TV stations love to return to their hometowns and interview excitable PE teachers who claimed that THEY spotted that raw talent, but in Castro's case he passed all of them by. Nothing was standout about him in primary, indeed, his oversized frame and girth made him seem like more of gangling clown than a cultured striker. It was as if young Sergio had undergone an "ugly duckling" phase, from which he awoke one fine morning aged twelve and with his laces tied.

In a short space of time, the lad who was picked last for five-a-side was tearing through defences and causing a stir at junior level. That aroused the interest of one of the two big sides in the city, Andalusia Red to offer him a place at their academy. There, his progress did not go unremarked upon and eventually a more enticing offer came along.

Many miles away from Seville, the less successful outfit in Liverpool, Merseyside Blue was undergoing a complete overhaul since the installation of the Japanese manager, Yobakishi Kawabata, in his tenure with a series of revolutionary ideas to invigorate and enliven the youth set-up at the club, with an aim to reducing transfer fees paid to bring new players in, and fetching a hefty fee for those who were sold on.

Part of Kawabata's dream was to bring in an elite group of teenagers and have them immersed in his footballing philosophy, an ethos that transcended merely kicking a ball, he wanted the club to be a pivotal part of the players lives and instil a level of discipline and dedication in them that would aid them in their adult lives.

The idea was to take four players from diverse backgrounds and bring them to the club, along with their families, to start a new life that would hopefully, in his view, create world-class footballers and upstanding individuals. He had one from Iceland, Halidor Sigurðardóttir, one from Lithuania, Vinclas Venclova and one from Italy, Italo Manzoni. Kawabata needed a Spanish player to complete his set but could not find one that fitted his ideal criteria: late developer, no or very little English, working-class and humble origins.

It was only when MB's star striker Nicholas Cavanagh married the Spanish actress Mar Rodriguez did Kawabata find his man. Castro was Rodriguez's cousin and had managed to all under the MB radar whilst the project was in its initial phase as the club's performances on the pitches required more of the Japanese genius's input. As MB improved, more time could be dedicated to his vision.

The Castro family were somewhat reluctant to take the side up on its offer at first. They considered that he had just as much of a chance as making it with Andalusia Red, maybe even more so than uprooting the entire family and emigrating. Yet somehow, they were convinced and Castro signed as a fourteen year old. This was in March of 1997 and MB were already beginning to look like a club that would revive its fortunes.

The project involved full-time education for all four, as indeed it did for all academy players. Kawabata insisted that all his junior players completed their secondary education and had in place a back-up career plan, should football not provide them with the life of luxury they dreamed of. Players who did not do their homework or failed exams would be ineligible for selection for the weekend's matches, and would be allocated private tutoring.

The parents were also expected to be involved in all aspects of their offspring's development. Taking part in language classes but also sharing their own language with other members of the club and its infrastructure, on the understanding that MB would soon return to the European fray and require linguistic ability to operate as ambassadors for the club.

Inevitably perhaps, Sigurðardóttir and Venclova had fewer problems linguistically at the start than Castro and Manzoni. Yet it was the latter two who were making more of an impact on the pitch. Both were given special dispensation to make their debuts with the B Team while still only fifteen. When Castro hit sixteen in March 1999, he was given a squad number with the first time after racking up 83 goals with the B Team and becoming the scourge of opposing defences.

Three months later, he sat his GCSE's and managed to pass six of them. Mazoni was less successful and had to resit, meaning that he was not given a squad number. Sigurðardóttir's progress academically was notable, but the intervening time between signing and reaching the age at which he could sign professional terms had been less kind, and the other members have the group had advanced more quickly. He and his parents sat down with Kawabata to announce that his talents would be best served in the field of sports science and that he would like to explore than avenue rather than professional football. Kawabata thanked them for their openness and sincerity and offered to pay for the boy's university education. Years later he would return to MB as a fully qualified physio.

Venclova progressed at a slower pace too but was still deemed worthy of continuance in the B Team before being loaned out to Wearside Stripes. Manzoni failed to get up to speed with his academic requirements and the club, much to its chagrin and with the Chairman begging Kawabata to reconsider bending the rules, transferred him to Milan Blue Stripes for 3M GBP before he had even played professionally.

Castro then moved onto the fringes of the first team and in August 1999, at the age of sixteen years and five months, came on as a substitute against London Purple. He had only been on the pitch for fifteen-seconds when he received the ball from a throw in and cut inside two defenders. Looking up in an instant, he latched onto the ball with alacrity launched the ball into the top right hand corner to become an instant legend.

Competition was fierce for places up front but Castro still managed to make eighteen appearances (although twelve as sub) and score fourteen league goals as MB claimed the Premiership title for the first time. They also reached the Champions League final but were beaten by the team closest to Castro's father's heart, Madrid White, in a game that proved just one too many for the Merseysiders.

Over the next two seasons, Castro's influence would increase as he became one of the top strikers in the league. MB repeated their league success two years later in 2002 with Castro scoring the goal that brought the title home, and, most notably, scoring the winner in the 92nd minute of the final of the Champions League against Manchester Red.

His performances against Madrid White in the Champions League had led to continued interest for the Spaniards to acquire Castro's services. Kawabata was against such a high profile move so soon, as he feared that he was not ready for the adulation that went hand-in-hand with being a superstar at one of the world's biggest clubs. At MB, they did things differently.

Castro had also continued with his education and achieved some impressive A-Level results. In September of 2002, he enrolled in Liverpool University to do a degree in Hispanic Studies and received praise from sports and non-sports commentators alike.

As part of his contract at MB, he was also heavily involved in community programmes and donated 66% of his salary to charitable endeavours, claiming that if his family had managed for decades on a pittance, a third of twenty-five grand a week would be more then enough for them to live comfortably. He personally oversaw the projects his money was used for, creating sports and learning facilities for children in underprivileged areas in Liverpool; adding an adult education centre to John Moore's University that allowed for people who had been forced to abandon education at an early age to retake steps to learning. He had plans and more plans, but his head had been turned.

He was persuaded to stay for the next season and then review his situation. However, 2002-3 was less successful for MB as they crashed out of the groups stages of the Champions League and could only finish fifth in the Premiership. Castro received an offer from Madrid White for 53M GBP and neither side was in a position to refuse.

Whilst he was undoubtedly a star at MB, his move to the Whites converted him into something quite different, a level of adulation and devotion that he found quite difficult to assimilate. In the last season at MB, he saw the continued presence of his parents as an unnecessary force, he was now 21 and no longer needed mollycoddling. They were also insistent that he be shackled with the daughter of a friend of theirs and enter into marriage at a young age. Castro felt that he had missed out on part of the his youth, and with his family firmly back in Seville, he decided to make up for lost time in the capital.

He put his university career on hold and began to make plans. Plans that would have to wait his tenure with the Spanish national team across the border during Euro 2004. Castro had made several appearances already with La Roja and managed a brace on his debut in qualifying against Lithuania, with Venclova in goal. Spain were highly fancied to do well in the tournament, when Castro got injured in training. He broke a small bone in his foot and would play no part in the tournament.

Nor did he stay to watch it. He made hastily to Ibiza where he began his recovery process. There he appeared on the pages of the Spanish press but for reasons far removed from the footballing world that had formed his life until then. Uncompromising photos of him were smattered over the tabloids as he lounged in the company of model after model. The former sweetheart appeared in tears on the television as the wedding plans never got to chime. Madrid White sent a delegation over to control Castro but it returned with little success, claiming that it was little more than high jinks and that he would be fit again soon.

That was where he met Carmen Gopequi, an actress stroke model stroke socialite who would not exert the most positive of influences over him. She did not mind his dalliances with other furtive souls. She had enough control over him from the outset to know that she would always have him coming back to her.

The rest of the summer was a blur for Castro as MW tried to mop up the damaging images that caused him fame in Spain to rise. By the time he returned to Madrid, he weighed eleven kilos more than when he had left Liverpool and could still not place enough pressure on his right foot to run. His projected debut was set for October but the Board began to entertain the idea that the purchase had not been a success.

Castro's rehab programme was hindered by a larger problem, the Madrid nightlife. When he left MB, he promised to continue to contribute to the social programmes in which he was involved in Liverpool, and open new ones as his salary was now four times what he was on before. By September, he had reneged on both promises as Gopequi convinced him that it was his money and that "the scroungers can find another way to fund those wastes of time". A week later she introduced him to heroin after MW were warned of his cocaine use.

The MW Chairman decided enough was enough and took, in true Spanish fashion, the bull by the horns. Castro was called into the offices, he had still not been inside the Berbabeu as a MW player, and told to clean up his act or face legal action. Castro reacted to this infringement of his civil liberties by sitting in the middle of Madrid's Puerta del Sol with a bottle of Cava singing the songs of their rivals, Catalonia Free State Purple.

When the inevitable fighting broke out, he was arrested and Gopegui came to bail him out. A delay with the paperwork meant she became irate and went to the ladies' to calm down. There she was found with a needle hanging out of her arm after OD'ing, she would survive, but things would not get any easier.

MW placed Castro in rehab and brought his parents to try and talk sense into him. MW accused MB of treating him like a baby and so now, in the real world, he did not know how to react with all this new-found fame and fortune. This was laughed off by MB, but the tension between the clubs would always remain.

Castro in rehab was only slightly better than on the outside. Underpaid orderlies were bribed a thousand euros to bring in liquor and other goods as he sat through the life-enhancing sessions with a hangover before waiting for the lax nightshift to come in and drink in peace.

The information about Gopegui had been kept from him deliberately, making him believe that she had abandoned him and was shacked up with somebody else. When he discovered the truth, the blind eyes that were turned to allow him to continue with his vices were equally turned so that he could escape during the night. MW had a private detective at the hospital where she was recovering and his abscondance was duly reported.

More seriousness was needed on the part of the institution, but the first step was always going to be the player himself wanting to get better. Castro's decline from an elite footballer to a failed playboy in a matter of months caused concern throughout the footballing world. Other players tried to intervene, he was visited by Kawabata and several senior players from MB when they were drawn against Castro's side in the Champions League but he refused to take their advice on board.

Christmas came and went and he was in and out of rehab institutions. No progress was made either on or off the field. Castro was not even training and his weight suffered. The only good news from that time was his realisation that Gopegui was not looking out for his best interests and their relationship came to an end. However, the down side of this was his continued desire to find a solution to his romantic failures in the bottle.

One by one, his drinking partners also sought to flee as Castro's behaviour became more and more erratic. Even those desperate to cling on to a famous and rich person who would pay for their drinks and buy their friendship began to lose patience. He was capable of snapping at any given time and with no forewarning, having to settle out of court on two occasions for breaking noses.

MW's fans had now completely lost patience with him, meaning that he could no longer enjoy his pleasures in the bars and restaurants of the Spanish capital, no matter how upmarket these were. Someone would always take offence at his squandering of the club's money, and his own talent and that would inevitably lead to an altercation.

This meant that he would rely on deliveries from El Corte Inglés and partaking in his leisure time at home. He was technically injury free, but as his first season was drawing to a close, it was clear that he was not going to play any part of it. MW made moves to have him return his cut of the transfer fee due to breach of contract.

Whether the club intended that to act as a catalyst or not, that action, and him falling down the stairs at home, blind drunk and photographed by an unscrupulous houseguest who sold the image to tabloids (but even these were tiring of him), Castro had a sort of epiphany in May 2005.

A year wasted, he appeared on television seemingly repentant and ready to wave goodbye to the life that had overpowered him during his stay in the capital. It was hard to believe that the same man had won so much in just a short space of time in England, as he sat weighing ninety kilos and with an unkempt beard. He took his last drink on May 16th, 2005 and began a much needed period of temperance.

And for a while things went well. He stayed off the drink and began to get his weight down. He returned to training and kicked a ball for the first time since before Euro 2004. He was slow and had lost technique, but he was on the way back, albeit very slowly.

After a couple of weeks, he was able to train with the group. The group of players not yet granted holidays in an odd-numbered year with the season over. Castro renounced his summer holiday and promised to use the time to get to the same level of fitness that he was in before his injury. This went some way to placating the irate MW fans, though the majority of them preferred to reserve judgment until they could actually see some proof of his brag.

By August, he was a different man, well he was the same man in his old guise, but most MW fans took that as being different. Now he needed match practice, on the training ground was all well and good, but any genuine return would need to be backed up by real performances.

He began the 2005-2006 season in Madrid White Castile, effectively the B team. His debut came in the second game of the season and was modest. Even at this level, the third tier of Spanish football, his pace and stamina were lacking. That said, his touch and ability were far and away beyond the wildest dreams of most of the players on the park. There were reasons to be happy.

Between August and September 2005 he played seven games for the B Team and scored five goals. He had been alcohol free for months and seemed to warrant a shot at the first team. The manager informed him that he would be in the squad for the Champions League fixture in Cold Norwegian City and Castro celebrated only with grapefruit juice.

It meant a lot to him, though was met with general derision in the press as he came on to the pitch as an 85th minute substitute with the game already won. He only had one touch, from a thrown in, but had finally made his debut for MW.

The next match was against third place Valencia Beachy Coast and the boss felt that was too big a game to risk him. So he returned to the B Team with instructions to keep building up his fitness. His first game back was against Basque Strappers who featured a particularly unpleasant left-back, Txitxi Tekero, who was the current beau of Castro's former firebrand, Gopegui. As they walked out, Tekero whispered into Castro's ear "voy a terminar tu carrera", and six minutes into the game, a high tackle came in.

A player just knows, they hear the crack and they know. That is that. The pain took a while to come, but when it did, it made up for lost time. It was a broken leg, whether it was a clean one or not, it was hard to tell at that juncture, what it did represent was another setback to Castro's return.

The camera crews were on hand to film him leaving the hospital, unable to make a statement as the tears filled his eyes and his tongue seemed to grow, thereby preventing any articulate sound from being released. He returned home with his parents and pondered the long recuperation process.

He finally made a statement in which he exonerated Tekero from blame, stating that everything that had befallen him was his own doing and that he deserved this after the way he had abused his privilege.

Like any addict, the ease with which he switched favoured substance was astounding. The painkillers he had been given for the more unbearable moments were washed down like sweets. Soon, after their effect was limited, they were washed down wine. Just one, maybe two, to start with. He convinced his parents he could control it. He had been through a lot, he needed to unwind. He could barely smile as these lies exited his mouth. As they slept, he opened another bottle.

This continued for a while. He managed to, once again, convince his parents, and the club, by working in the gym during the day, and knowing how much he could drink during the night. He viewed the subject scientifically, finding the best way to make his body do the necessary to fulfil his requirements.

After a while, this was not even enough and Castro was soon looking for other outlets. Gopegui returned and once again proceeded to cause major disruption to his life, evicting his parents and easing his pain, first with opiates, then morphine, then heroin. Whilst he was out cold, she would try to bend the leg he had broken so that recovery was further hindered. She also made use of advancements in on-line banking to transfer his money to her account, on the proviso that MW would soon take him to court and try to recoup the vast amount prodigalised on him.

Castro was alone. He was worse than alone, because she was with him. She made no attempts to hide what she was doing, even telling him to his face that she was worsening his injury so that he would never play again. He phoned his mum and begged for help. In the meantime, he was going to show the world the truth about her.

He made his way to the Madrid neighbourhood of Lavapies and did a deal to purchase a revolver and organise some sort of live stream that he could broadcast from his car. We may have become somewhat spoiled in recent times with the ease of broadcasting any type of event to millions just with our phones, but even eleven years ago, an action of this magnitude required hefty equipment operated by professionals.

This meant someone riding in the car with him but they would be well paid and if they were flogging weapons in Madrid backstreets, they were unlikely to be at the overly moral edge of society. Castro's plan was to get her into the car on the pretext of scoring (his days of scoring on the park now only involved little plastic bags punted by sketchy looking characters) when he would pull the gun on her and get her to confess. It was not a great plan, but he did not have a better one.

He could not drive due to the leg injury, so she would have to do it. That would mean she would have to be relatively sober for long enough to drive and articulate. He pretended to take the entire stash so that she had leeway to give him a telling off in the vehicle. She did not seem to care about the other occupant holding a laptop in the car as they drove off.

When they got a couple of kilometres away from the Castro residence, the guy in the back gave the nod and they were on air. The audience was limited, there was no social media, or at least not as we know it now, for the flames to be fanned in a matter of seconds. This document would be reviewed and re-viewed at a later date by most people. Castro extracted the gun.

She caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. "What's that?" She asked.

"Confess." He responded.

"Confess to what?" She retorted.

"To everything. What you have done." Castro said.

"You don't have the guts. Put the gun away and let's get high." She saw through his obvious pretence, but Castro was riled. He moved the gun away from her temple and shot through the driver's window. Now he had her attention.

"Chill man. This is me. Come on. We're in this together." She looked at him and pleaded.

"Keep your eyes on the road." He commanded

"Man. Everything I did was to get you better. I love you. You know that. Don't do this. We're good together." She pleaded but her gaze remained straight.

He shot through the empty window once again. "I'm serious. I don't care if you crash. Confess."

"OK. I confess. Happy?" She hoped that would be enough.

"Confess properly. Explain what you did." He demanded.

"I drugged you. I stole your money. I have no intentions of absconding with you as I'm hooking up with Tekero once you are ruined. You were such an easy target. It hasn't even been fun, you're a boring drunk and a pointless junkie. You'll never play again, I've made sure of that, why don't you run back to mummy and daddy and try and get clean in your shitty little village?" She seemed to be enjoying herself now. This was not going as well as he had hoped.

"What if I shoot you? That will scupper your plans." Now it seemed like him who was begging.

"Wouldn't do yours much good either. Premeditated murder. You willing to do 25 years for me?" She started to laugh.

The guy in the back had had enough. "I'm out, man. Let me out here, keep the laptop". He said.

"Nobody is going anywhere until she confesses and apologises". Castro retorted.

"I'm really sorry. Sorry I didn't think to pull the gun on you, you pathetic loser". Her laughing became more intense, taking on a haunting and piercing quality.

"Stop." He ordered.

She laughed more.

"Stop." He was crying.

"Shoot yourself and do society a favour". She responded.

"Stop." He knew it was pointless.

"Hey blondie, let me out here." The guy in the back wanted out.

Castro knew he was defeated and cocked the gun one last time. "Go on then, big man". Her laughter unceasing.

Castro pulled the trigger but nothing happened. She laughed more and smiled at him, unbuckling his seat belt as he inspected the empty chamber. He had only been given two bullets.

She stopped laughing to say "Goodnight Castro." Hitting the accelerator, she took the sporty vehicle well past 100km/h and began to swerve so that the impact against the post would be on Castro's side. In the frantic final seconds, he realised she had removed his seat belt and tried desperately to put it on once more, but in vain. Impact cause the car to jolt and Castro was thrown threw the windscreen to his death. The guy in the back suffered head injuries against Castro's seat that would leave him in a coma. Gopegui walked away from the crash unscathed and phoned the authorities.

When the ambulance came, it was accompanied by a number of police cars, and, following the medical examination, she was duly arrested. In the police station she saw the playback of the live stream and was asked if she had anything to add. She said that she didn't and was charged.

Castro's attempt at revenge failed miserably and led to his club severing all links with the player, cutting their losses and trying to move on. Footballing society shunned him, his parents were hounded out of their village and forced to find a new life abroad. Short of money, their only means of supplementing their meagre income was by selling their part of the story to the tabloids and writing a dreadful yet money-spinning account.

His funeral was attended by just the parents and a couple of family members, his cousin Mar included, who often wondered what might have happened if he had refused MB's offer. As the coffin was lowered into the crematorium, a further attendee appeared, an older Japanese gentleman who offered his condolences.

# 27. Love in Another Elevator

"Not because they have too much mind, but too little" then Elaine stopped to look out of the window. She surveyed the reduced committee group that formed the council in the small town in Saskatchewan. When she entered politics, the idea was to get a foothold into the male dominated world of local decision-making, not that there were many decisions to be made, and even fewer funds to implement them with, yet as the years went by the numbers of males on the council, just as the number of testosterone wielding subjects in the streets of the town of Love, dwindled, now there were none. Why had all the men gone and why were there only Women in Love?

She tried to return to her speech. As was commonplace in these events, the majority of spectators were left open-mouthed, not due to her eloquent persiflage, but moreover as a result of her failure to make a point. She had already meandered into the realm of nonsensical piffle before that phrase popped into her head. "Was that Lawrence?" she asked herself. Composing her thoughts, she managed to at least entertain the idea of a point:

"Why does Love take our men? What is stifling them? Our population has gone from a healthy 68 down to 43. Males cannot survive her after the reach the age of majority, they become overwhelmed with a sense of foreboding, so I ask, why do men fear Love?" She looked to her committee members and all three failed to come up with a suitable response.

When the men started to wane, (it was the elderly first, they lacked the strength to survive in Love and often had been left alone in Love) nobody took too much notice as towns like Love could see their demographics thrown off the scale with a bad bout of flu or the right team winning at ice hockey. However, this time it was different, Love was making the older males waste awy, and Love was taking its toll on the younger specimens. Only the children were able to carry on as normal, but again they were few and far between. 6 male children under the age of eighteen lived happily unaffected by Love. It was once the male celebrated his eighteenth birthday that Love began to take its toll on the men. Some tried to leave but always ended up wandering back, bewildered, others withered and became part of the snow, as if Love was too much for them.

Gloria had a pencil in her mouth. Like Elaine, her husband had gone, and her eldest son, she had another boy who was sixteen and was keen to find a solution. At first, they took on the idea of bringing in people from outside, to make the locals fight for Love, but the newcomers were overcome by Love as soon as they entered the municipality. For the time being, Love had closed its doors. She looked up.

"We have all lost something in Love. Something that was dear to us and some of us are awaiting our next loss. We know from past experience that time is ticking away, and if we don't do something soon, our children will become men, and as we know, there are no Men in Love."

Elaine looked at Gloria and her colleagues. "We have studied everything, if we allow the outside world to know what's wrong with Love the place will become a circus. There is always a solution, it's always just out of reach. We just need to think. Let's get everyone in here."

As the room filled with all the town's inhabitants, they split into groups to go over, once again, the details of their men's disappearances. It was not exactly death that befell them, just a death like aura that pervaded their bodies and meant they were, to all intents and purposes, dead, so you could say that the foregoing is somewhat relative. Elaine insisted that they took a scientific approach.

"When did the first man go?" She asked.

"End of 2002. Old Jed, but he was 92. Found him crying next to the old Wheat Pool Elevator." A lady responded.

"My Gary was crying about the Elevator too when he stopped. Just said "I can't believe they closed it" and it was like he was shut down too.

All around the room the women agreed that the first disappearances were due to the closure of the  Saskatchewan Wheat Pool elevator at Choiceland. Since its construction, in 1947, the elevator had, so to speak, put the town on the map, a small dark speck on the top corner, but, nonetheless, there was Love. It brought farmers to the town and allowed for local commerce to flourish. The population soured over 100 and many winter nights were made cosier next to the fire at Jiggers Tavern. Many of the town's residents and some of the ladies still in the council chambers today were the products of those heady nights in the Tavern after a particularly successful fair. The grain shifting between towns without overlooking Love and creating a pleasant place to live and grow.

Love had been rejuvenated, even the older folk seemed to have let a decade or two slip, astounded travellers looked on aghast as happy couples strolled Love's streets, even as hard times raised other villages, Love continued to flourish, Love could not be stopped, Love was going places.

Then there was talk, talk of closing down the elevator, talk of moving the grain markets, talk of doing things without Love. All the trade was moved to Prince Albert, more than 100 kilometres away. Love began to suffer, finally, in 2002, the closure was announced.

Over the years, the male residents began to lose their verve and slowly drift into the limbo like state they found themselves in now.

"Let's go and see them." Gloria suggested. "We might get some inspiration." Nobody had a better idea and all the ladies agreed that there was something comforting about seeing the men, even though they were preserved in a chamber above the council offices, waiting, hoping, that one day a solution would bring them back to Love.

And there they were, the men, all aged eighteen and over. All alive yet effectively dead. Gloria's boy and the next oldest began to cry. This was their fate, this was what Love had to do with them.

"Build another elevator." Elaine exclaimed.

"This is not Field of Fucking Dreams." A voice retorted.

"I'm serious. They all went this way when the elevator closed, why can't we bring them back with Love's elevator?" Elaine demanded.

"You have a degree in Sociology, right?" Said Edna, a noted opponent of Elaine's work. "Anyone else have any building experience? Any engineers? How do you propose we build a grain elevator without outside help? For fifteen years, we have kept the men here, safe from the outside world. No-one can know." She finished.

"I know no-one can know. We can build it. If we build it, they will return and finish the elevator. They will make it work. They never wanted to say goodbye to Love." Elaine added.

"That's probably enough milking the Love gag, don't you think? At the beginning it was quite amusing, now it's just getting tiresome. I'm prepared to do anything for my boy, he has less than a year before he ends up like the rest of them. I don't know how to do it, maybe there is a video on YouTube, but until someone comes up with a better plan, we're going to build a grain elevator. What's more, it's spring now, this is the time to do it, if we wait till the winter, the task will be even harder. All we have to do is build the second-best grain elevator that Love has ever known." Gloria effectively seconded Elaine's proposal.

Elaine and Gloria walked over to their family's section, and told their husbands and children that they were going to bring the elevator back. For a brief moment, Gloria saw a glimmer in her husband's eye when she mentioned the project. Maybe it was the glimmer she wanted to see, maybe it was nothing, but inspiration was thin on the ground these days, and she took it. Making sure no-one heard her, she quipped "Soon we'll be together in Love" and laughed to herself.

The work was hard. They had to invest all of the town's budget and their own savings. They had to buy the products for a grain elevator from Saskatoon and Ribera without drawing attention to their town's plight. The women had spent years steadfastly acting for the benefit of the outside world as if the men remained active. Their salaries were paid every month, rosters were created so that they could use public services and healthcare, tax declarations submitted so that the rest of Canada would think this meaningless place in the middle of nowhere was busy getting on with being a meaningless place in the middle of nowhere. Fake news stories were published at first but soon after, the wise decision to close the local paper was made. Love was not a story, and there was no story in Love.

Building a grain elevator from scratch is quite a challenge for people with no formal training in engineering, yet as they began, each of the women felt a natural calling to perform a single task that would help the project as a whole. As the spring turned into summer, work progressed at an astounding rate, one night, as they celebrated in the council chambers, liquid began to seep through the ceiling. Instinctively, Gloria and Elaine, tasted the liquid. It tasted sweet, they could not describe what it tasted of, but if they were forced to do, they agreed that it tasted of life.

They raced upstairs and saw the pods of the youngest and fittest males beginning to melt, life was returning to the youths' faces. They stopped their festivities and returned to work. The liquid was now flooding into the rooms from above. A group of women collected it and shared it out between the workers. Immediately they felt stronger and younger and put in more productive shifts. The rest of the liquid was smeared onto the pods, the owners of which faces began to change instantly.

With the youths now out of their pods and strong, work advanced at a startling pace so that at the end of the summer, the elevator was fully operational and all the pods began to melt. The last pod to melt was that of Old Jed, who now 109 years old, could easily pass for 87.

They helped Old Jed to control dashboard so that he could be the one who sent the first grain package via the elevator for commercial purposes. The town of Love was alive again, people danced and frolicked in the streets as all those wasted years were made up for with a youthful exuberance many had not seen in years. The remainder of the liquid from the pods was stored and frozen just in case the future became less bright.

Winter came and went without a hitch in Love and the townspeople began to plan for an expansion of the elevator. For the first time in years, the maternity department had work to do, the first birth after the construction of the elevator brought the town twins, in one swoop, a 4% population increase.

Gloria and Elaine sat content in the council chambers, looking out over the balcony onto the square as couples danced in the delightfully clement spring evening warmth.

"We did it." Gloria said.

"We sure did. You know what I always said to you all, don't you?" Elaine replied.

"What was that?" Asked Gloria.

"Don't give up on Love!" She said, and the pair fell about laughing.

# Acknowledgements

This book is dedicated to Mar and Nico, without whom these fingers would have no need to type, without whom there would be no inspiration, no light and no words. Every day in their company is the greatest story I will ever tell.

I would like to personally thank Lee Roby, Stephen Sarbutts, Matthew Prescott, Dermot Ledwith and Paul Blake for their invaluable editing skills and recommendations (et sans oublier Marie Collet pour sa revision du texte français). Por último, mi más sincero agradecimiento a Alberto Payán Sierra por su estupenda labor con el diseño de la portada.

This work is freely available on several digital platforms with the intention of its dissemination to the widest possible public with a view to arousing interest on the part of hard copy publishers. If you have enjoyed its content, or, more importantly, have suggestions on how to improve the same, please leave a review on Amazon, iTunes, Smashwords or the writer's Facebook page. Feel free to share this with whoever you believe would enjoy its offerings.

CC November 2017

