 
Synopsis

A second collection of short stories, all original, which can each be read in not many minutes:

A For Atomic Man

Alien Contact

Bluebell

Carmody and the House in Many Places

King of the Cockroaches

Peter Drummond versus the USA

Stone Dead

The Battle of the Phantoms

The Boyles at Christmas

The Tin Man

The Wizard's Apprentice

Three Wishes

Free in most places but paid for at Amazon like my first 12 Strange Stories book.

Again this is to give people some idea of what my six full length novels are like before you hand over any money. They are:

Life, Death, Gods and Aliens (book 1)

Gods, Aliens and Immortals (book 2)

The Enemy of the World

Beware the Zyn

The Inventive Assassin

The Many lives of Jim Chaney

All are available at Amazon Kindle. Let the stories start:
A FOR ATOMIC MAN..

It was a children's TV show that came out in America in the mid 1960's. In another time it would not have even aired but running alongside other shows like Batman, Get Smart and Lost in Space, it blended in with them and many boys rushed home from school to see it. Even some girls too to see the hunky young actor in the part and listen to him knock off a song sometimes when the bad guys were rounded up. And adults watched it too, though they would not admit to it. It was good, clean fun.

For three long seasons, Atomic Man fought evil aliens, space pirates, robots and monsters. Then came Apollo 11's landing on the Moon and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walking on the Moon for real, and suddenly Atomic Man was just kid's stuff and no one wanted to see it any more. Within months, the show was cancelled and the lead stars were out of work and no one wanted them.

Cliff Rockwell (it was his real name) was thrown on the scrap heap at age 27 because who wanted to hire an actor who fought make believe monsters and aliens and other nonsense?

Rockwell drifted from job to job, his past forgotten. Then Nostalgia caught up with him and suddenly everyone was interested in the TV series he had been in and he was a paid star at Comic Conventions, on talk shows and such but coming up on age seventy, it was rather a struggle for him. Shortly afterwards he was in an Old Folk's Home and when pushed into it, he still made odd guest appearances.

He was 75 now and thought Atomic Man was behind him but the children of a nearby school begged for him to come and see them so he reluctantly agreed. He still had a slim figure and at least for short periods he could be quite active. He was persuaded to dress up in an old Atomic Man uniform (a channel had been running A for Atomic Man on Saturday mornings and he now had a whole new audience.). As the kids crowded around him, he signed autographs and photos. He was in his element.

Then the bank robbers broke into the school. They had targeted a nearby bank in what should have been an easy job. There were five of them, all armed and the bank staff they knew were told to comply with would be robbers and no heroics. But the new clerk there went for the silent alarm, despite a gun on him. He was shot, and the guard took his chance and shot the robber, only to die moments later as two bullets killed him.

They quickly grabbed what money they could and the wounded man was helped outside the bank. But as bad luck would have it, some police were eating at a nearby diner when shots were fired. The bank robbers came out of the bank with the money and were met by gunfire. They somehow missed being shot as they rushed to their car and drove off at speed, closely followed by another police car which had been close by.

Followed closely by a police car with lights and sirens going, and seeing no other way out as another patrol car joined the chase, they had crashed through the gates of a nearby school and now they had plenty of hostages, both adults and kids.

While the police outside realised they had a potential disaster on their hands and tried to set up communications with the bank robbers, said robbers inside got all the kids and adults into the main hall, along with Atomic Man. They kept their masks on in the hope of getting out of this and not being known.

"Who's this old geezer?" asked one of the robbers.

His fellow robber looked at him closely.

"Gee. That's Atomic Man. He was my idle as a kid."

Then as his friend looked at him, he added: "I watched the re-runs. The originals were way before my time."

"He's got a gun" said one, pointing at the fake gun in his holster.

"That's his atomic gun," said the fan.

"It's just a stage prop, like the atomic jet pack on my back," said Rockwell.

One of the men took it out of its holster, examined it and gave it back to Rockwell.

"He won't be blasting us to atoms with that," said the bank robber with a smile rather than a laugh.

"Mind if I sit down?" said Rockwell. "The knees are a bit weak these days."

He sat down as the teachers kept the kids as quiet as they could. They robbers clearly had guns but kept them in their pockets, ready for use if necessary, so as not to spook the kids and maybe have a stampede on their hands.

The Principal walked over to the robber who seemed to be in charge.

"How long do you intend to stay here?"

"Until the police let us go. It is in no one's interest to cause trouble so you just look after the kids and your staff and hopefully everything will be alright."

"Hopefully?"

"That is down to the cops and SWAT and the sharp shooters and everyone else outside by now."

Having all that assembled law and order outside did not make the Principal feel very safe inside. All it needed was an itchy trigger finger. Hopefully the TV cameras would stop them doing anything stupid or trying to storm the building.

A ring of an old style telephone showed that communications had been established with the people inside the building. Police Captain Samson asked for the bank robber's demands and they said they just wanted to get out of there in one piece and to get away. It was suggested that the robbers let some of the hostage children go and the man in charge in the building asked the police Captain if he thought he was stupid?

Rockwell watched the proceedings and some children stayed near him though there was nothing he could do. He could not even save himself. He knew enough to keep quiet.

Police Captain Samson, who had made his way up through the ranks by his ability was replaced by people who knew everything about police theory and nothing about police work. Now in the background, he watched as sharp shooters lined up their rifles on school windows and got out of the way. If the poop hit the fan as he thought it would, he did not want to have anything to do with it. Dead kids would kill anyone's career and the pen pushers now in charge of this operation, who had told him to stay out of the way, would be looking for other people to blame.

He checked out the radio unit which had turned up.

They had some idea of who the bank robbers were and two of them were potentially bad news. They were violent, they had shot people in the past and they took drugs. Had the ring leader of the robbers used a bit of sense, he would not have used both of them in the robbery, because one of them had started the shooting off and the other had helped kill the bank guard. Now they were all looking at serious time in prison and probably thought they had little to lose if they killed some more people.

Samson listened to the radio chatter. They had eyes and guns on two men. Then on three. Then on two again. These people were crazy. Start shooting the robbers and it could be a bloodbath inside the school.

"Are these guys for real?" granted Samson? "In that Russian school years ago, Beslan was it? They started shooting there at the criminals and next thing they know, there were lots of dead kids."

The radio operator shrugged.

"I just take orders the same as you do."

Samson nodded. 'Just take orders' covered many sins and many atrocities.

Then the trouble started. Maybe one of the snipers had an itchy trigger finger, maybe he got an insect bite, a thousand maybes, but he shot and one of the robbers in the school near a window died. It was the leader they had killed, the one who had a fairly tight rein on them. Now there was no one to tell them what not to do and to have patience and the man who stepped in the dead leader's shoes was a violent drug addict. The others knew better than to disobey him.

There was shock on both sides. The bank robbers now moved away from all windows and got out their guns and pointed them at teachers and pupils. Outside, the guilty sniper was found and despite claims of innocence was dragged off in handcuffs. His career was ended and maybe worse.

The telephone frantically rang. The new leader of the bank robbers carefully pulled on the lead so it was out of line of fire with any window and answered it.

"It was a mistake. It was a mistake. Some idiot fired when he should not have."

"Sure it was a mistake, like you're all ready to shot and kill every one of us if you have a chance. Well, here's another mistake."

BANG!

They heard the shot inside the school and the outer door was slightly opened and a body was thrown through it. One of the teachers was now dead.

Everyone had upped their game and the chances of this siege ending peacefully was now pretty near zero.

Samson looked at the radio operator as if to say: 'I told you so', to which the operator nodded. He was glad he was a lowly radio operator in this siege because things would now get worse.

The person in charge of the operation was for the moment in shock so his underling asked if they could get the body of the teacher?

"No! We don't trust you anymore. Anyone approaches this building, we will shoot them dead. Any more of my men are killed by a sniper, three more teachers die. Got it?"

"Yes, I have got it."

"What you do now is get rid of them goddamned snipers off of the roof of the school buildings. You have ten minutes to do that or another teacher dies."

He was very upset and he had not had a fix in some time so was starting to get a bit jumpy.

The forces of law got the message and all the snipers vanished from the rooftops.

Things were now quiet inside but the children who had been just subdued before were now terrified. A teacher started to complain to one of the bank robbers who then hit her across the face with his gun. Her colleagues dragged her away from them, and tried to stop her nose bleeding.

Cliff Rockwell looked on in horror and in anger. If he had been fifty years younger, he would have done something about these brutal thugs who held everyone hostage. He looked at his prop gun. If only it really worked. And as he looked, it started to glow and felt heavy in his hand, like a real gun.

'What the....?' He thought.

The atomic jet pack on his back felt heavier and vibrated as if building up charge. He looked at his belt shield and there was a faint glow as if it were ready to be used.

He could only stare at them as new life seemed to flow through his body. He knew he still looked 75 as a nearby mirror showed but he felt like he was 25 again. He looked at the criminals. He did not know what miracle was happening but he felt like he had a chance against these bank robbers and killers.

The criminals were now rounding the teaching staff up in one group and the children in another.

"What about Atomic Man?" one of them asked.

"He can barely stand. Leave him alone. You hear that grandpa. Do anything and you get a slug."

Rockwell stayed where he was for the moment, unsure.

The criminals talked among themselves and it did not look good. The new leader was all for killing one of the teachers every fifteen minutes till a school bus was brought up and with plenty of kids on board, they could drive off and shoot kids if they were followed.

The teachers heard and looked aghast. The kids heard and were terrified into silence.

The crazy new leader gave his demand over the phone and told them they had fifteen minutes starting from now.

They were told it would take at least twenty minutes at this time of day to get a school bus here and were told: "Tough! That'll be one more dead teacher.

Five minutes passed, ten minutes and fifteen minutes were almost up and still no bus yet. Traffic was horrendous near the school, thanks to the siege.

"Which one of you teachers is first?" asked the new leader, waving his gun like he was ready to kill them all.

"You're a big hero hiding behind a gun," said Rockwell in a voice more firm and steady than it had been in decades as he stood up, and noticed there was no shake and weakness in his legs.

The gunman spun around.

"You crazy old man. You want to die next?"

"Should I make it easier for a coward like you by turning my back on you?" shouted Rockwell so all heard him.

The gun man lined his gun up on Rockwell and in a second, Rockwell had drawn and fired his atomic gun. He gasped as did everyone else as the gangster fell to the ground, a blackened husk, dead beyond all doubt.

"Next!" said the Atomic Man.

The four other bank robbers all stared at him. The teachers stared at him. The children cheered him.

The Atomic Man activated his energy shield as he had a hundred times in his old TV shows and bullets bounced off of it as another and another criminal fell before his atomic gun. There were two left and they looked at each other. Suddenly they were behind two teachers, with guns to their head.

"Surrender old man, or these two are dead."

There was a moment's hesitation and the Atomic Man brushed his belt and his atomic jet pack roared into life and he was flying just by thinking of it. No need to steer. He loved the writers who had thought of that idea, ridiculous as it was.

The astounded criminals gaped as they saw him fly towards them at speed, gun raised.

"I give up, I give up," shouted one.

The other looked like he would fire but his hostage had moved aside enough for the Atomic Man to shoot him. The last bank robber was rounded up by three teachers who were none too gentle in doing so, and he was very tightly tied up as all the guns were rounded up by the Principal.

The Atomic Man landed and he was Cliff Rockwell again. He felt the age of years on him as he sat down as the police, SWAT and others stormed into the Hall. The kids ignored them and rushed over to Cliff Rockwell, who noticed the strange lights and power drain out of Atomic Man's equipment. The kids all cheered him and told the lawmen what he had done. They of course were not believed but when the adults backed up their story, they had to be believed.

One of the SWAT team looked at his gun and saw only a harmless prop. His jet pack was just for show now, though there were some strange fumes near it. And his shield was just a shiny disk again.

Cliff Rockwell of course denied everything. He told the lawmen and the teachers that people would think they were crazy if they told anyone what had happened here today. They agreed. He was not sure he was not crazy himself. The kids voted him the 'Greatest Hero Ever'.

He was pleased and said nothing about it when he went back to the Old Folk's Home, with his Atomic Man suit which they had allowed him to keep. He would never know what had happened.

Many light years away on an earthlike planet, a group of almost humans cheered him on a huge 3D screen. They were the 'Planet Senti Chapter of the Atomic Man Fan Club'. His fame had spread further than he knew and for just a short time, their amazing technology had allowed their hero to live again.

THE END.
ALIEN CONTACT

The first alien contact had been a complete surprise. Like the Moon landing several decades before it, the main craft was to be left in orbit and the 'Lander' was to uncouple from it and land on Mars.

Every part of the trillion dollars plus mission had been planned to the last detail. The main craft was to make one orbit and then release the Lander, which lands on the chosen site and put the first human beings onto the surface of Mars.

What could go wrong?

The crew was getting ready for separation which was still a quarter orbit away and a high definition camera was trained on the surface of Mars when over the air, came words that were not meant for the ears of the few billion people on Earth listening to and watching the planned landing.

"What the hell?"

"I tell you, that is artificial."

"But it can't be"

Then it went quiet as they realised where they were and that a whole world was listening to every word they said. It was fortunate the Mission Control on Earth had decided on a five minute delay between receiving the signal and broadcasting it, on top of the five minute delay as the signal travelled some sixty million miles from Mars to Earth so that those words could be removed.

Talking to the Mars mission took just over ten minutes round trip so they instead investigated the footage to see what the people orbiting Mars had seen to find the cause of the comments. It took a few minutes to make a first rough processing of the images and then similar comments were heard from NASA Mission Control, though thankfully not broadcast.

Still frames showed that the Mars orbiter had flown over something getting on half a mile across on the surface of Mars and there could be no doubt that it was artificial.

Immediately the feed to the rest of the world was cut while NASA decided what to do.

There was an urgent call to the head of Mission Control and he quickly grabbed THAT phone from its receiver.

"Yes, Mr. President?"

"What the hell is going on there, Parsons. Don't say our trillion dollar mission to Mars has fouled up already."

"No sir. No sir. It is performing as well as we hoped it would."

"Then what the hell....?"

"We seem to have found an alien spacecraft on Mars."

The line went dead for some thirty seconds.

"Mr. President?"

"You saying that the aliens beat us to Mars?"

"Not quite that sir. I would guess that these aliens come from a planet around another star."

That mollified the President till he took it all in.

"Alien aliens?"

"Yessir!"

"Well, make contact with them. Tell our people to go down and see what they want."

"Yessir!"

Parsons got onto his team.

"You have the exact location of this alien spacecraft?"

"Yes sir!" said Barnes, one of his top men, who read off the exact location from the screen in front of him.

"And can our ship land there?"

"Yes sir, I believe we can. We are already working on a new landing schedule, which we will feed to the Mars orbiter and lander when we have the correct figures.

The Mars orbiter decided on an extra orbit while Mission Control on Earth sorted things out, guessing that the old mission was now cancelled and this new and far more important mission would be to make contact with the alien spacecraft.

The rest of the world was assured everything was going well with the spacecraft orbiting Mars and that there was a software problem with the transmission of messages. They would have to settle for that till it was decided what they could be told.

There was an observational satellite orbiting Mars at present but that would fly over the original planned landing site and nowhere near the new site, so would be of no use. A quick check through its huge number of images showed nothing unusual. Possibly the aliens had deliberately avoided it?

The orbiter flew over the site again and more images were taken with all onboard cameras. They showed little more than the first fly over had shown, other than to further prove that what they saw below them was a genuine alien spacecraft of some strange design.

Scientists living near the space centre were already turning up, having been woken from sleep to be there, so their opinions could be asked. It was at present the great unknown and all input would be welcome.

Finally the new coordinates were fed into the orbiter and lander for the new landing location and next time around, the lander would head down to the surface to as near as they dared to the alien craft. The last thing they wanted to do was to upset the aliens who had landed on Mars.

Separation came up and the lander gently decoupled from the orbiter and headed down towards the surface, and towards their place in history, they hoped. The two people in the orbiter would have given anything to have changed places with those three but knew it could not be so.

The people at Mission Control watched with nail biting intensity. This was not just the first human landing on another planet but their first alien contact. And worse, the signal was delayed by five minutes so they would not know if they had touched down safely for just over five minutes after it happened.

The three onboard the lander went through the procedures. They had done it a hundred times in simulations but nothing was like the real thing. They were all on edge in case something should go wrong.

The craft came lower and lower and they were thankful that the area chosen seemed to be free of the many rocks they had seen in many other pictures of the Martian surface. Maybe the aliens had cleared them out of the way, they correctly guessed.

As they came in for a landing, they nearly lost it. No one expected a human like figure in a space suit to be watching them come in for a landing and it has shaken them. But many hours of practise automatically took over and they had the desired soft landing.

It took a while before they were ready to leave the craft, and while the landing area cooled down from the blast of their rockets. Then in their spacesuits, they carefully left the landing craft, being careful of the one third gravity of Mars. The ship cameras were all pointing towards them and the alien spacecraft and no one wanted to be the first person to make a pratfall on Mars while the world watched.

They walked towards the alien in the light weight spacesuit which made their own spacesuits look as primitive and clumsy as they obviously were. When they were close, he signalled for them to follow him into the alien spacecraft and hoping they were not marching to their doom, they followed him. A little way in and a door closed behind them. The large area was pressurised and he took off his helmet and signalled for them to take off their helmets. They were not really sure but he looked to be virtually human, and if he had intended killing them, he no doubt could have done so before they landed.

The alien walked towards them.

"Greetings. I am Troskan," he said in perfect English. He shook hands with each of them.

"There is no need to worry about bacteria, viruses and such here. The air here has something in it to kill all unwanted organisms. It will not affect you in any adverse way," he assured them.

"How do you speak English?" asked John Ironside, the leader of the Mars expedition.

"I saw you were coming here and it took me half an hour to learn your language. It is quite simple. Your internet told us all we needed to know about you Earth people," said Troskan. "We are your first contact with any alien race, I believe."

They all nodded.

"Don't worry. There are many thousands of races like yours and mine in this Galaxy alone and we even get occasional visitors from beings in the Andromeda Galaxy. Don't worry about evil aliens like in your science fiction films. Generally we are one big happy family and we respect each other's differences. You are lucky you did not meet the Buxians as a first contact. You'd find them as ugly as hell, but they are real friendly beings. It takes all types."

"So, why did you land on Mars instead of landing on Earth?" asked Ironside.

"Aside from the thought that it might cause a panic, we did not want anyone launching nuclear bombs at us. Our ships have defences against them but such a war is not the best way to get off to a good start between you and us. We did not intend you knowing we were on Mars but it seems you found out and found us."

The three Earth people looked at each other. It seems that the aliens would have preferred that they not be found out. What were they doing that required such privacy?

"So, what are you doing on Mars?" Ironside asked.

"We planned on setting up a space relay."

"And that is....?"

"It makes getting about the Galaxy easier."

"Explain?" asked Ironside, noting the reluctance of the alien to do so.

"Instead of just travelling say three thousand light years in one go, we have relays every four or five hundred light years. So we travel in jumps. It saves fuel and it actually saves time over a direct route."

"So, why pick Mars? Alpha Centauri and a number of other stars are within ten light years of Mars?"

"There is some precision required in such jumps and Mars is best placed to suit our purpose."

Ironside nodded.

"Will that affect Earth in any way?" he asked of the alien.

"Not directly. But with such relays, like your train stations and airports on Earth, visitors sometimes decide to take a break and you would get aliens visiting Earth."

The three Earth people took this in.

"That would need some mental adjustment" said Ironside, "with aliens turning up on Earth. The alien visitors might all be friendly but the same cannot always be said of Earth people."

"There is no problem there. Such visitors have personal force-fields and bullets and knives will not affect them. Earth will gain greatly from such visits. We can cure some diseases, help feed your people, give you advanced technology, give you anti-gravity and so many other things you would not believe. We can give you star travel some time later. Within just a hundred years, you would not recognise Earth as it becomes a full member of the races of the Galaxy."

Troskan demonstrated some inventions to them, including anti-gravity, short distance teleportation and creating food from waste material. He talked of other things.

"We need to talk about this. In private," said Ironside finally. "We will go outside."

The three left the alien craft and walked some distance away. Rather than use suit to suit communication which might be overheard, the three pressed their spacesuits together and though it was far from perfect, they could talk to each other, unheard by the aliens, which was what Ironside wanted.

Troskan watched them. He would have liked to know what they were talking about but had to wait for their answer. They returned to the large alien ship.

"We have talked" said Ironside.

"Yes!" said Troskan.

"Suppose we say no?"

That shook Troskan. Why would any primitive race turn down a chance to join the advanced civilizations of the Galaxy?

"I know you can force us to do as you wish. Put the relay on Mars and there is nothing we can do to stop you. But I would guess that is not the way you work, that if a relay is not up and running and the locals say no, then you will not complete it?"

Troskan looked disappointed. It was true.

"You will lose many benefits that we could have given you. We could have opened up the Galaxy for Earth, Instead without us, it could be a thousand years from now before you invent your own star drive."

"We know," said Ironside.

"You will not change your mind?" asked Troskan.

"No."

"OK, then we will take our things and leave Mars. Your solar system will be avoided by space races till you can make it to the stars on your own. We will inform the Elders of the Galaxy."

Ironside nodded and the three went back to their own ship.

An hour later as they were gathering samples of rocks and soil and from below the surface soil of Mars, they watched the alien spaceship noiselessly take off and it was out of sight within several seconds.

They stood there for some time.

"Did we do right?" asked Douglas, one of the other three humans on Mars.

"I hope so" said Ironside. "The shit could hit the fan over this. I take the blame entirely."

They could all end up pariahs and hated by all for the rest of their lives when others found what they had done.

They finished getting more samples and even managed to get some Martian ice. Photos and movies were taken. Reactions with Martian soil from a foot down suggested strongly that there was bacterial life there.

Then came time for takeoff and rendezvous with the orbiter.

The join up with the mother ship went well but when the three joined the other two they would not say what had happened with the aliens on Mars, no much how they tried to get an answer out of them. When Mission Control asked them, they said nothing either other than to tell them not to tell the world anything about them finding aliens on Mars.

There was an anger with the two orbiter astronauts on the ship, and with Mission Control back on Earth because they would say nothing about what had happened on Mars. There would be the debriefing to end debriefings when they got back home in just over seven weeks time on its 110 million mile course to the Earth, thanks to a new rocket engine.

They eventually arrived back on Earth and everyone from the President down was waiting for them, to hear what they had to say. NASA had effectively been on lockdown with dire threats so nothing of their mission had got out till everything was known.

About fifty people went with them into a locked room, with armed guards outside and they waited for an explanation. Ironside got on the podium to speak saying what happened on Mars was solely down to him. He gave a rough outline of what had happened and what was said.

There was an uproar and some wanted him lynched but he patiently waited till they quietened down again before he explained.

"Yes, they offered us amazing things that made our greatest inventions look like child's toys. Their inventions could take over so many of our daily jobs, and put over 95% of people of the world out of work within months."

There was an intake of breath.

"You might not realise that I am a full blooded Native American, or Indian as we used to be called. The white man came and with their advanced civilization they quickly wrecked our ancient way of life, and put us on reservations. The Mayans, Aborigines, people of Africa, Maoris, islanders and so on fared no better in their contact with an advanced civilization.

"And this is what these aliens offer us. Like the Europeans and others who travelled to and took over other countries, the aliens no doubt mean well but they will wreck our backwards civilization as so many backwards civilizations were wrecked by more advanced civilizations on Earth.

"These people are advanced enough to laugh at the doctorates, degrees, qualifications and such of the learned people here today because their own children are far smarter. The being we spoke to learned and become fluent in English in just half an hour. If we had accepted, give it a few years and the people of Earth would have been reduced to third class beings, selling trinkets and trashy souvenirs to alien visitors to Earth as they take pictures of we primitives for their people back home to laugh at."

There was more but that was the gist of his speech and the listeners were subdued when he finished. As much as they hated losing the first contact with an alien species, the alternative was far worse.

The President was of the old school and a man of action. He told the NASA officials and others that all film and pictures and broadcasts and such of the Mars mission must be destroyed, and that anyone who dared to mention finding aliens on Mars would end up either locked away in a nuthouse till they die or in a place which made Guantanamo Bay look like a five star hotel. The world must never know what had happened on Mars.

THE END.
BLUEBELL.

It was Sally's tenth birthday. Her father had promised her a horse for her birthday, which should not cost him much as even now, his mare was giving birth out in the barn, right on time. As the vet took care of the birth, he took care of his daughter's noisy birthday party. The food had mostly been eaten, the drinks drunk and the children were now playing a game.

It was a job that a woman could do much better than a man, he thought but it was three years since his lovely wife had died suddenly and he had never remarried, the farm keeping him busy. He watched the kids as they shouted and squealed, and there was a knock at his door. It was the vet. Sally looked around just then.

"Is it born? Is it born?" she asked.

The vet nodded and next thing he knew, eight children rushed past him and out to the barn to see the new foal. The adults slowly followed them and saw the children huddled around the stable door, looking at the new born. Some of them quickly headed back to the party. They came from farms too and had seen quite a few animals born in their short lives on Earth. Sally followed, as party host.

"There is some bad news, John" said the vet now they were alone again.

One look at his face confirmed it. There was something wrong with the horse. Sally's horse.

The vet walked over to the foal and gently lifted a back leg. Sally's father breathed in sharply when he saw it. The foot was slightly twisted. He looked at the vet.

"Any chance of it straightening as the horse gets some exercise?" he asked.

The vet shook his head.

"I have seen some conditions cure themselves within a month or two but I do not think this will. It is some kind of genetic defect maybe. It does not seem to cause the horse any pain at the moment but we will know more when it stands up. What do you want me to do?"

John knew what he was talking about. Did he want the horse put down? Farmers were not rich people and a farm animal that could not 'pull its weight' was often destroyed and a healthier animal hoped for next time.

"I don't know. I'll have to have a talk with Sally about it. This was going to be her birthday present. Her horse. She was so looking forwards to it."

The vet nodded.

"Let me know what you decide. I'll send you my bill."

John nodded and it was some time before he headed back to the birthday party.

The party eventually wound down and cars arrived to take the children back to their houses. That left just him and Sally, and somehow he would have to break the news to his daughter.

They were clearing up after the party when Sally asked: "What's wrong, dad?"

He guiltily looked at her.

"Since Mr. Stock, the vet left, you have been looking like someone going to a funeral. It's Bluebell, isn't it?"

That made it worse, he thought. She has already named the horse. He asked her to sit down and he told her. She took it well. She had grown up a lot after her mother died and become adult beyond her years.

They went out to see the new born horse. It was attempting to stand up. A new born foal often struggles to stand for the first time and it might just be that, both of them hoped. It finally managed to stand up and John examined it closely, even carefully touching the affected leg. It shook a little as if the foal strained a little to stand but there did not seem to be any pain there, which was a blessing.

He helped the foal nurse, to get its mother's milk.

"Are you going to have to put her down?" asked Sally. She hoped not. More than anything she hoped not.

John noticed a catch in his daughter's voice.

"I hope not. We'll see how she gets on over the next few weeks. Maybe exercise will help her overcome the weakness in that leg."

Sally was determined to make the new foal a success and before going to school and when home again, she worked with it. Light exercise made it firmer on its feet though as the vet predicted; the twisted foot did not go away and that meant the animal did not walk in quite a straight line. When she was at school, John gave it some light exercises that the vet had suggested.

John had feared there would be many vet's bills which is the last thing any farmer wants but a year had passed and other than its leg, the foal had been very healthy. Now a yearling, the horse was quite strong and growing stronger, despite her infirmity. With a little encouragement, she could even run having found a stride that would cope for one of her back legs not quite being straight and Sally was even more attached to the horse because of it. It was several months yet to the age where a horse might be ridden though John had doubts about it.

The age where horses have their first riders came and Sally wanted to try it. John suggested that she sit on the horse first and not go anywhere till they were sure the yearling could bear her weight.

They had no saddle and John used cupped hands to get Sally gently onto the horse. She had ridden a friend's horse a number of times so was confident on horseback. She got on its back and John kept careful watch on that leg.

"Jump, Sally, jump" he suddenly shouted and she quickly slid off of the horse's back, landing on two feet. Then her father pulled her away from the horse which after a struggle, collapsed on the ground.

The horse seemed to be unharmed and after a few tries, it was on its feet again.

"I saw her back leg start shaking" said John. "She is not ready for extra weight yet, if she ever will be."

Sally was disappointed but there was nothing that could be done.

John was on the phone to the vet.

"Sally tried riding Bluebell but it could not take her weight and fell over. Would it be possible to have an operation on that leg to straighten it and strengthen it?"

"If it was a human being, yes" said Mr. Stock "but apart from the great cost, horses ain't human beings and even if we could do it, a jump at some future time might shatter the whole leg and then it would have to be put down. I have an idea. I'm in your area tomorrow and I'll give you a look in."

It was Saturday and Sally was off school and along with her father, she too waited in to see the vet. He came and brought another man with him, the local blacksmith.

"I have given your horse and its leg some thought and maybe we can help it along a bit since exercise alone does not seem to be working. I have spent some days thinking about this and have developed a cross between a plaster cast and a splint for that leg. But first the foot itself."

The blacksmith took the shoe off of the affected leg and nailed on a new one. This was a slightly odd shape and though bigger, he assured them that it was not ordinary steel but a composite metal that would weigh no more than an ordinary horseshoe. Mr. Stock had taken measurements on a past visit with this idea in mind.

Then the vet gave the yearling an injection which put it out for a while then started work on the leg. What he put on it was like a reinforced plaster cast but longer and stronger, while being lightweight.

As they all watched, the vet assured him that it was there to help support the leg while allowing it to take some strain and gain muscle through regular exercise. It dried quickly and the vet got out a can of spray paint he had had made up and quickly sprayed it so the brown matched that of the horse's other three legs. The paint very quickly dried.

The horse was brought around and got to its feet again. It seemed to immediately notice the difference and walked about carefully, then confidentially. It gave a neigh as if of approval. John reached for his wallet but both shook their heads, the sight of Sally cuddling her horse's head being enough for the vet and the blacksmith.

Two months later, Sally sat on the yearling as it slowly walked around the farmyard. The vet had been around and checked on the special cast as the horse was still growing and said he'd check again in two months.

John took a photo which Sally printed off on her printer, wanting to show the other children at school. Many had been brought up on farms and though they might have a dig at each other, all respected animals, especially horses.

Things would have continued in the same vein had the Flynn's not moved in next door. It was a large farm and had quite a bit of flat area, the reason Mr. Flynn had bought it. To train his race horses and he had had quite a bit of success recently which had provided him with the wherewithal to buy the large farm.

A few months went by and Sally was on Bluebell and they were moving at a slow trot. Bluebell had improved lately and though he would never be a racing horse, he was all Sally wanted. A friend as well as a horse.

"Hello, there" came a voice from nearby.

Sally looked up and saw a girl about her own age looking over the wooden fence between her father's farm and the Flynn's farm. She slowly headed Bluebell in the right direction.

"How old is she?" asked the new girl, casting a professional eye on Sally's horse.

"Just over two years old" said Sally.

"Your first time on a horse?"

"No. Numerous times before."

"At two years old, I thought you'd be racing around the farm. You're welcome to try her out on our course, if you want."

"Thank you, but she has a problem with one of her legs so we take it easy and I chat with her as we ride around. No hurry, is there?"

"No, of course not. Now you mention it, I see one of her legs is different from the others."

"It's a plaster cast-splint type of thing that helps support Bluebell. Mr. Stock, the vet made it up and the blacksmith made Bluebell a special horseshoe. She'll never be a racing horse but I'll settle for her being able to trot sometimes."

"I have to go now. You must come over to our house sometime. Just ask for Linda. Everyone knows me there."

That night she mentioned the meeting to her father, who growled something. His daughter looked askance at him.

"I have heard that Linda Flynn is a good kid and by all means be friends with her but avoid her father. Patrick Flynn is just plain nasty. Since he has moved into the area, no one has a good word to say about him."

Sally and Linda did become friends, but the same cannot be said of their fathers. John one day caught Flynn whipping a horse, while he had a firm grip on it bridle. John told him to stop as the horse was obviously in pain but he did not so John leapt the fence in one leap, rushed at Flynn and then pulled the whip from his hand and threw it away.

Flynn cursed him and then rushed at him, his temper out of control. It was quite a hard fight while it lasted and eventually Flynn was on the ground and could not get up. He paid the price of too many cigarettes. John reached down to help him up but Flynn slapped his hand away.

"I don't want to see your daughter on my property anymore. Nor you either" he growled, struggled to get up on his own and limped away, leading his horse.

John watched him go. When he heard he was going to be his new neighbour, he had read up on him on the internet. It seemed that he had rose from obscurity and had started winning races, and while it might be thought that that would please him, the more races he won, the worse he seemed to become. He had had a number of run-ins with the police but was suspected of having friends in high places, so was usually let off for any offences he may have committed.

When John got home, he told Sally she would have to stay away from Linda, but when she heard how the ban had come about, she accepted it. There was however nothing to stop Linda coming to their farm, unless her father had forbidden it, which was possible.

A month later, it was early evening and Sally and Linda were talking over the fence, and Linda looked very worried.

"My father has been away for a few weeks and he has come back looking like the Devil himself was after him. I asked him and he won't say anything. He just locked himself in his room and he stays there. He told me not to go out but I'm not going to shut myself away, even if he does."

Sally did not know what to say. What little she had seen of Patrick Flynn, he had always been an excitable man. She was about to say something when there was a loud and distant roar. Both girls looked in the direction of the sound.

"It sounds like our bull" said Linda. The bull had come with the farm and she did not know why her father had not got rid of it.

The roar came again, and sounded much nearer now. They both looked in the direction of the roar and both turned pale. The bull was loose and heading in their direction. Fast.

As Linda squealed, Sally helped drag her over the fence but it was not a strong fence and both felt sure that the bull would make short work of it. They started running for the house and Bluebell who had been grazing nearby came over to see what was up. She too turned her head as there was a loud crash as the bull came through the wooden fence. Both girls screamed. The house was too far as the bull raced towards them. Bluebell watched and made a decision and ran for the bull.

"No, Bluebell" screamed Sally. Even a healthy horse stood no chance against such an animal.

Neighing, Bluebell charged and the bull momentarily slowed down as it was confronted with a new foe. Then it charged again, head down, wicked horns ready to impale the horse on them.

Bluebell had no delusions that it could withstand a charge from such a large animal. It had been slow and defensive all its life and its defensiveness saved it now as it swerved to avoid the direct charge and then kicked out with both feet as the bull passed close by. The kick hurt Bluebell on both its good and bad back legs, but it hurt the bull too as it grunted from such a blow to its ribs.

Knowing it had to try again, Bluebell ignored the pain as the animal charged again and there was a second blow to its ribs. The bull was wary on the next charge and was ready for Bluebell's side motion as the bull was ready for it. She did not get a chance to kick the bull and it scraped a horn down her side, leaving a line of blood.

Bluebell guessed she could not last much longer so when the bull charged again and it expected her to dodge again, she instead jumped up in the air and both good front hooves came down hard on its head. The bull fell over and Bluebell was knocked over. She ached and was pained in many places but she had fallen many times before and was up in an instant. As the bull struggled to get up, those front hooves came down again and again on the bull's head until the girl's came over and pulled her away from the now dead bull, its head completely crushed.

The girls cuddled the horse which shivered and swayed as it struggled to stand upright. They slowly led it to the barn where it gently laid down on the straw and a blanket. Both girls knew some young horse care and they did what they could for the horse, which seemed to be exhausted more than anything else. The scratch along its side was found to be fairly shallow and Sally used some ointment she had over from a past visit of Mr. Stock the vet, where Bluebell had scratched herself on a loose nail on the fence. A good drink of water and some sugar cubes settled Bluebell down, recovering her breath.

John suddenly looked in the barn door. He had been 'in town' all day and just got back.

"What happened to the fence and what happened to that bull?" he asked.

In quick sentences, sometimes talking over each other, the girls told him. He was shocked. And he was angry. He intended having words with Flynn, and trading more punches if necessary.

John picked up a torch and the three walked over to Flynn's large house. While they waited outside, Linda let herself in.

There was no one downstairs so she went upstairs and tried her father's door. It was locked. She banged on the door and called out to him. After a minute, he slowly opened the door and looked out at his daughter. She was shocked as he looked so haggard, and suddenly, so old.

"What is it, father?" she asked.

"Is anyone else here?" he asked in a weak voice.

"Just Sally and her father John. They are waiting downstairs outside the door."

"Are you alright?" he asked, looking closely at her. Her hair was a bit out of place and her face was red. She looked scared about something.

In a few words, she told him about their bull escaping and trying to kill her and Sally.

Flynn gasped and came close to bursting into tears.

"I have been such a coward" he gasped. "Come downstairs and I will explain how I wrecked my life."

He slumped down in a chair in the living room and signed for Linda and John to come into the room. After he had gulped down two large whiskeys, he told them his story.

"I had been a failure at many things and I tried breeding race horses and I was a failure at that too. I was visiting my family in Ireland, which is near Devil's Rock. Maybe you have heard of it?"

Three heads shook.

"Well, there was me cursing me bad luck while sitting on this rock and saying I'd give my soul to be a successful horse breeder and have some winners and some money when this man about forty come along and hears me. He asks me if he heard right and that I'd give my soul, and idiot I was, I said I would.

"You agree to a verbal contract he said and in anger and with five pints of Guinness inside me, I said yes. He walked away and when I came back to Britain, my luck changed and loser horses started winning and I could not put a foot wrong. I built up a stable of winning horses and made lots of money and everything was going well then a few weeks ago, the man turned up again one night and said he was here to collect his debt. I asked what debt and he asked me if I happened to believe my luck had changed just like that?

"I thought about it and he asked where we met. Then I knew. We had met on Devil's Rock and he must be the Devil. I had sold my soul to win some horse races and the Devil now wanted to collect. I asked for some time and he said if I did not pay up, he would take the soul of another in my place."

Here Flynn broke down into tears.

"I never guessed for one moment that he meant my only daughter", he said.

"In London I looked up some holy people and even some lawyers and none could help me, though I would guess that they all thought I was crazy in believing in the Devil, and even crazier to make a bargain with him if he existed. I came back here and locked myself in my room, not knowing what to do next. I was scared witless."

There was a knock at the door and in stepped a nondescript man about forty years old.

"Tis the Devil himself" gasped Flynn, turning white.

The other three looked at the man and strangely did nothing and said nothing.

Flynn stood up. He knew when he was beaten.

"Could I telephone my wife first?" he asked.

The man nodded and Flynn spoke to the wife he had left two years ago. He told her he was leaving and Linda needed a mother. Would she come here and look after her? The mother agreed with little cajoling and said she would arrive tomorrow by train. He told her he had made a new will leaving everything to her and Linda. The noon train was agreed on.

Flynn went to his safe and took out his will, which he had made and notorised while in London. He handed it to Linda.

"Be good to your mother, Linda. She'll be a far better parent than I ever was."

He hugged his daughter who was crying, and shook hands with John and Linda, telling them to look after Linda.

He then went through the door with the strange man and when they followed seconds later, there was no trace of either of them on a night where the full moon left strong shadows and they could see for hundreds of yards.

John turned to Linda.

"Linda. Come to our house for tonight and we'll all go to the station tomorrow and pick your mother up."

THE END.
CARMODY AND THE HOUSE IN MANY PLACES

"Vincent John Carmody?"

Carmody looked up, and nodded.

"Right, this is your release date. Get out of here before you get caught up in the chaos."

Carmody jumped up and followed the prison guard through two gates, though a large gate and he was outside the prison. There was a car waiting nearby. He got in the back seat.

"Hey! What you doing?" complained the driver.

Carmody was a rough, tough guy. The driver was thin and scrawny. Carmody put a large hand on the driver's shoulder and squeezed it like a vice.

"Drive or it will be your neck next."

The driver put his foot down and the car roared off. Behind them sirens howled in the prison behind. Carmody eased up on the pressure but still had his hand on the driver's shoulder, ready to squeeze again.

It was nearly an hour before things settled down again in the prison and they found that a new guard had released the wrong 'Vincent John Carmody' in the chaos of an attempted prison break. He complained how could he know that two people had such an odd name? Carmody had been released from handcuffs in a holding area when the 'you know what' hit the fan in the prison and it was chaos from then on. Someone had decided to get rid of Carmody immediately as that would be one thing out of the way, but they had got rid of the wrong man. The other Carmody fumed as he was shoved in a room and locked in, them thinking him a new prisoner, and locked in he stayed for four hours till someone remembered him, and when he was finally released, the car that was supposed to be waiting for him was nowhere in sight.

Meanwhile the wrongly freed Carmody was a few hundred miles away by this time. They were a dozen miles from any town when Carmody kicked the driver out and took over the wheel.

'By time he reports to anyone, I'll be long gone,' thought Carmody.

He kept driving and come nightfall, the car suddenly ran out of fuel. The gauge showed it still had some in the tank but it was obviously a faulty gauge. He grunted and got out. It had done well to travel as many miles as it had, he considered. There was nobody about. He ripped off both back and front number plates and hid them then started walking.

It had been a long, long day for him and when he finally did see an old house, he hoped to be able to stay there for tonight as he did not fancy sleeping out in the open, even if it looked to be a warm, dry night. He was lucky, or not, to arrive when he did because the house had not been there six days earlier and would not be there tomorrow.

Yawning, Carmody walked to the front of the house and hammered loudly on the door. No one came. Empty? That was good. He was wondering if he would have to break the door open when as he was leaning against it, it slowly opened. He looked at the door. He would swear it had been locked. He shrugged and walked inside.

It was a fair sized old house and it was empty but for one person in an armchair downstairs and that person would be no trouble as he was long dead. He was a skeleton and looking him over, he did not look quite right. The head shape, the wide chest, the long legs, and six fingers on each hand. The latter was no big deal as he had known a man with six fingers on each hand too. It happened.

Carmody considered and having found an old shovel in the basement, he dug a hole in the soft ground outside and buried the skeleton. He was not superstitious but he felt better when the job was done and he shut the outside door again and went into the living room.

He started. On the table was a cooked meal. What the hell?? He had seen no one else in the house. The man who had been here was long dead. Who was the meal for? He listened carefully and though he could have heard a pin drop, he heard nothing. He called out loudly twice and no one answered him. The place was spotlessly clean. Had a servant made the meal and left just before he arrived? That did not make sense.

He looked closely at the food and it smelt OK and his stomach grumbled to remind him he had eaten nothing since early morning and it was now late evening. He shrugged as he picked up an odd shaped knife and fork and started eating. There was a slightly odd taste but the food tasted good and he ate it all. Too late he thought it might have been poisoned, but why would anyone bother? He did not know where the meal had come from but he was glad it had, drinking the last drop of a red liquid from a tall glass. It was like good wine but not alcoholic. And it too tasted good.

Now all he needed was a bed for the night, he thought. If worse came to worse, he could hopefully stay here for a few days till he sorted something out. A big problem was that he had no money, and he had not thought to take money from the driver whose car he had borrowed.

Carmody went upstairs and the first room he looked in had a nice clean looking double bed, with covers on. He checked and found a toilet and bathroom at the end of the hall. He was set for the night, so went to bed and within minutes, the sleep of exhaustion claimed him.

He had strange dreams. He saw himself with the woman he meant to marry. He saw her ex-boyfriend eaten up with jealousy claim she was his. He saw him shoot her, and then himself. She had died instantly. He had enough life in him to throw the gun at Carmody who had unthinkingly caught it, putting his fingerprints on it. Then the ex had thrown his gloves on a blazing fire and they had quickly burned up, with the man dead by that time.

Then the police had broken in, all carrying guns pointed at him. It seems they had received a phone call, and Carmody could guess who made it. He had never fired a gun before but he had a few cases of violence against him, as he had a bit of a temper, and had actually beaten up the ex, who strangely had not pressed charges on him. Carmody now knew why. He had quickly gone through the legal system and despite protestations of innocence; he had been found guilty of double murder and could be expected to do twenty five years to life for them. By a sheer fluke he had been able to escape jail and was now on the run for the rest of his life. He would not be surprised if he had a 'shoot to kill' order out on him.

After that very realistic dream, he had slept soundly for the rest of the night.

He woke up about ten o'clock next morning and headed for the bathroom. There was toilet paper, clean towels and the shower water was hot. There was even shaving equipment. He cleaned up and went back to the bedroom and picked up his clothes. They had been pretty well used last night but now looked clean and neatly pressed. Even his shoes had been shone.

He supposed someone had been in the room while he slept and done that but a quick look around the house and he again found no one. There was food again on the table and drink and he had breakfast, feeling ready now to face whatever the world threw at him. But that idea hit the buffers when a half hour later, he opened the front door to step outside and realised he was not on Earth any more.

He stopped dead where he was, one foot raised to step outside the house. The landscape looked very barren with nothing but some mountains in the far distance through very clear air. Yet he knew there had been woods just a few minutes walk away across the road. And where was the road he had walked along? He happened to look up into the sky and nearly fell over. There was a large moon above him in the dull sunlight, and it was not Earth's moon. Everyone knew what that looked like, and this was not it, apart from being much larger than Earth's moon was.

He scratched his head, dumbfounded as he started walking away from the house and suddenly it started getting cold and then very cold as his breath misted up and the air in his lung started to become too cold, and he had trouble breathing. It took a moment for him to realise he was in trouble and he ran back to the house as he gasped for air. It was warm again and he was breathing again. He looked at the house again. It seemed to be an ordinary house. He looked at the landscape outside the house again and wherever it was, it was not Earth.

He experimented and past a certain point, the air grew thin and it grew cold. Trying an experiment, he went inside to a downstairs toilet and filled a small bowl of water then went outside again. Standing just inside his 'comfort zone', he threw the water from the bowl as hard as he could. It turned to spray and then in a second had frozen to hard ice which he did not hear hit the solid ground but guessed it should make a noise.

He was no genius but had watched some science programmes and guessed that the house had a zone of safety around it. Beyond that, this weird planet he and the house suddenly found themselves on had no atmosphere and was very, very cold. He guessed that the planet, wherever it was, would not support any life. Where? He had seen Rover photos of Mars and this definitely was not it, that huge moon aside. It could not be Venus which was a gaseous hell hole, and not Mercury which had no moon. He guessed he was outside the solar system, near another star. The house must have moved him while he slept last night. He had no idea what to do now but felt some comfort that he was way beyond any chance of Earth police ever catching up with him.

In a drawer in the house he found an old hand held telescope and looked around and saw no signs of life. The moon had some interesting features and craters but again ultimately he could see nothing that would in any way help him. He spent some hours outside on the porch in an old but very solid chair and then went inside again. There was another meal and drink on the living room table.

"Thanks, house!" he said. It had to be the house itself since he was the only living being inside it. It was looking after him. He could do nothing while they were on this planet and could only hope the house would move again to somewhere more hospitable. He would have to time how long the house spent in one place as he did not want to be away from the house when it moved again on another planet. That is assuming it kept to a schedule when moving from planet to planet.

When he had his evening meal, there was a pile of books on the table. Like the food and drink he had no idea where they came from, but they were Earth books in English and with no radio, TV or anything else, he read them. There was a pack of cards and some games. They passed time. It was, he guessed with the help of a large old clock that was now in the hell, a week later to the day that he awoke to find himself on another planet.

There was greenery about. Running water. Fat flying insects, though he noted that none came close to the house. The sun turned out to be reasonably warm when he quickly poked his hand beyond what he judged to be the area of influence of the house. He very slowly walked forwards and then stopped. Being ready for pretty much anything, he had noticed it immediately. The gravity on this world was stronger than that on Earth. Maybe half as much again.

Slowly, Carmody continued moving forwards and the gravity did not increase any more. He would not like to try running on this planet but he was fairly muscular and without excess fat and walking while weighing half as much again did not bother him too much. A fat insect headed towards him. It seemed to have nothing to bite him with or sting him with so experimentally he held out his hand, aware of his hand's extra weight.

The insect landed on his hand and while he watched, it deflated. Then after a few minutes, it started expanding again till its previous width and with a rapid flurry of wings, it took off again. He watched it go, amazed. It must have some kind of buoyancy that allowed it to fly in this gravity.

He strolled over to the slow moving river and the water looked a bit denser than normal water. The gravity? He was going to put a finger in to check it out when on second thoughts, always best, he found a bit of native wood on the ground. A twig and slowly run it through the water. There was a 'plop' and several inches of stick was gone. That could have been my finger, he thought.

He explored a little distance from the house and came across a heavily built lizard like animal about the size of a large dog. It looked harmless and did not bother him but he decided he would not to have to fight it as it might rip one of his arms off. He eased away from it, not wanting to startle it.

Another week, and he was on another planet. He was feeling quite tough now, having spent time on a one and a half gravity world, and he was now on a world about three quarters Earth gravity.

Again carefully he had tried the temperature and air. Temperature was a little warm and the air a little thin. He would have to take it easy. He was a little way from the house when he heard a very feminine scream. He rushed in that direction and saw what must be soldiers surrounding a woman. They looked very earthlike in looks but were slim and the tallest was just over five feet tall.

Always being a sucker for a pretty face, as someone had noted about him, Carmody raced over to the group. They saw him coming and held up club weapons. Three of them attacked Carmody and he beat them off like they were children. The other men rushed to their aid and fared no better. He did not deliberately harm them but made it clear that he could and they quickly ran off.

After they had gone, the woman thanked him in a language he did not understand. She made pulling motions and he followed her. He saw some soldiers hiding in nearby trees but while he was there, they dared not go near her. It took a little while but they reached what must be her residence, a large house surrounded by a wall, like a fort. He followed her inside the wall. She told the others what he had done and suddenly he was surrounded by cheering men and women.

He left later, remembering the way back to the house, and was so tired and had a headache that he went to bed without eating anything. He woke up refreshed and ate a hearty meal and decided to see those people again. There was still some time before the house left this planet.

He arrived in time to see the fort like building under siege and rushed at the invaders from the back. He took many blows but while they hurt, they did not really bother him. It was a hard but short battle when he joined and having picked out the ring leaders, he picked them up one at a time and threw them to the defenders, who locked them up.

The battle was over and people were cheering him when he collapsed. He did not know how long he was out but awoke to find an old man holding a flower over his face. He started to pull it away when the man made motions stopping him. It seemed to be doing no harm and when its sac was empty, he replaced it with another. Carmody began to feel alright now and his headache was gone.

The man looked at him seriously and produced the local equivalent of a blackboard and chalk. He gave the 'chalk' to Carmody and after some seconds thought, he sketched as best he could that he had come from another planet, with a circle far away with a 'sun' and pointing at himself, and another circle with a 'sun' and pointing at the ground under his feet and the people and everything around him.

The man got the idea and nodded. Considering how tall and heavy built and how powerful he was compared to any native people, it was not hard to believe that he had come from somewhere far different from here.

He started to take away the flower again and again the man shook his head. The old man did some deep breathing and nodded it was OK. Then he pointed at Carmody, did some deep breathing and shook his head.

There was something wrong with the air here, for him, he realised. The plants with sacs helped him. He thought about it. He had once gone on a holiday to Peru with a girlfriend after a small lottery win and he's been 16,000 feet up and after some climbing felt a bit breathless but otherwise he was OK. So it was not the thinner air here. What then....and then he realised it. A friend of his family had nearly died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty heater at home and he had talked of a headache and feeling tired and sleepy. The atmosphere here must have more carbon monoxide than on Earth and it would only need the smallest of amounts to kill him.

Carmody did not know how long he had been unconscious and did not know when the house would leave again. He drew the house and pointed to himself. The old man gave him an armful of those special flowers which seemed to harbour oxygen without carbon monoxide in it, and Carmody waving was off at a run. The local people watched him go with some surprise. If the house left without him, he was dead. He could not last long in this poisonous atmosphere and would soon run out of flowers he could use.

He ran at a speed no human being could ever match on Earth, having built his muscles up on his previous planet and this planet having less gravity than Earth. He was in a bit of a panic even as he neared the house in case he should be too late and see it vanish. He made it into the safe zone around the house and gratefully discarded the last of the flowers he had used for the journey. He went back inside the house and after a quick snack, went to bed to rest. The flowers had helped him but he still had some effects of the carbon monoxide he had breathed in while on this planet. He slept soundly and was not surprised when he woke up later to find himself and the house on another new planet.

He knew he would have to be more careful in the future. Even planets that looked safe could have poisonous atmospheres or no atmosphere. They could be too hot or too cold. They could have dangerous life forms. Even radioactivity. He vaguely remembered an experiment from science class in school where radiation could destroy the static electricity that held a balloon on a wall. And at next meal time, he got some balloons. Somehow.

Several planets along, he came on one full of advanced mechanical life and they wanted to take him apart and see how carbon based life functioned. He barely escaped them. Ten more planets and he came on some crystal people and they were very friendly to him, though he could only leave the house's safe zone at night when the temperature dropped down to fifty odd degrees centigrade.

Years passed and Carmody was tempted to drop off at some very earthlike planets. One of the best ones had no higher life there as in meat animals and such and he doubted that he would have enough to eat if he stayed there. Also the house somehow replaced his clothes when he wanted more. He could not even wear furs on a planet without animals. He never once questioned how the house did what it did and just accepted it. He looked on the house as a friend and you do not question friends.

And one day he was back on Earth again. It was the same place as before and he even recognised the grave he had dug for the skeleton of the old man who had been here before him. While he looked at it, a police car cruised by and stopped. An officer got out.

"I haven't seen a house here before. Say! Ain't you Vincent John Carmody?"

Carmody reluctantly nodded.

"You've been gone for years."

Again Carmody nodded, expecting the cuffs to be put on him.

"You going to arrest me?" he asked.

"Nah! The Crime Scene Investigator who was on your case died some months back. Seems he hated your family for some reason and before he died, he confessed that he had checked for gunpowder residue on your hands and the hands of the so called victim. Your hands were clean and the victim's hands showed he had been the shooter. We guessed that he had thrown the gun to you and you caught it, so putting your fingerprints on the gun. It's an old trick but it still works. So you were pardoned and all charges against you dropped, considering you were convicted by a bent law officer."

Carmody felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders. As the cop car drove away, he went and sat on the seat on the porch. He now had a choice. He could move with the house next time it moved, or he could resume his life back here on Earth where he no longer had family and the only woman who had mattered to him had been murdered by a madman. And he had no money and no job.

And if he decided to stay with the house, he could leave if he felt like it the next time the house visited Earth. Somehow or other, he knew that there would be endless new planets and adventures if he stayed with the house. He went inside and the house had prepared him an extra special meal today. He smiled.

"OK, house. I'm staying," he said.

THE END.
KING OF THE COCKROACHES

James Selby liked killing cockroaches. He didn't hate them. It was just that he was in the cockroach extermination business and like probably everywhere else on Earth, New York City had them by the billion.

Cockroaches had been around for three hundred million years, it is said and so had had time to evolve into bad asses that could survive almost anything. Which was where he came in since normal bug spray often did not bother them at all. As the joke went; after a nuclear war all there would be left is cockroaches eating McDonald's burgers.

Selby had been out spraying that night in an uptown apartment. Night was when the cockroaches came out. He had sealed the area off, sprayed around and then hoovered up the little bugger's bodies, making sure he searched every crevice and got every one because like others, he was finding that they were becoming immune to his old mixture. He put up signs telling people to stay out of the apartment for twenty four hours. Just a precaution.

Selby looked in his sack and most of the cockroaches were dead but some still had some life in them as he saw their legs and feelers moving about a bit. He resorted to his tried and trusted method. He put the sack on the floor and stamped all over it, listening to the bodies crunch. A pair of heavy work boots with his fourteen stone weight behind them killed one hundred percent of all cockroaches. That is what was needed. 'Boots in a can', he thought to himself as he checked for any survivors. There were none. He sealed the bag and put it away for special collection in the morning. It had a mixture of chemicals in so he did not want the normal waste collectors exposed to them.

Selby considered. His old mixture was failing so he needed something stronger, to mix up a new batch of poisons that would kill the cockroaches. It was only one o'clock in the morning so he might as well give it a try now. He had no social life to call him away to other things. When women asked: "What do you do?" his telling them that he killed cockroaches for a living went down like a lead balloon.

Selby donned his working gear and went into his work shop, a small sealed off area which would be closed down if people knew what went on in there. He had had a new jar of chemicals in today, or rather yesterday from a friend who worked for the military. It was said to have been found to be too deadly to use on humans so had been stockpiled away somewhere. He would have to find out how cockroaches responded to it.

It was said to be very concentrated so he added just a few drops to his latest mix, stirred it and poured it into his spray gun. He cursed as he spilt some on himself and quickly washed it off. Even with protective clothing, he did not trust some of the stuff he used. Now he decided to test it outside on the waste bins. There were usually numerous cockroaches there and this time of night they should be feeding.

He looked and the light from a nearby street light showed they were feeding. He crept up on them and gave just one spray and was amazed. All the cockroaches he saw (and presumably the many he did not) almost instantly dropped dead.

He swore. This was strong stuff. But how about people? He had to know if it could harm them too. If it did, he could get some lawsuits against him and be out of business or even in prison.

A mangy old dog wandered towards some other bins nearby and started sniffing at them for something to eat. He wondered, then thought what the hell and gave it a light spray. The dog sniffed the air, sneezed and then walked off at a fast pace. He watched it go. It seemed to be OK. He considered. Since the new mixture worked so well on cockroaches, he could use even less of that new chemical with his old mixture. He wandered back into his work place, not aware that the dog he had treated had dropped dead a little distance away.

He had another place he could treat tonight. He had the keys to the apartment and the couple who owned it were away for a few days. He decided to do the job now as he did not feel like sleep at the moment.

He gathered his gear together, put it in his van and headed across town. He found the place, and parking was easy this time of morning. He was getting his stuff out of the back of his van when a light shone on him.

"Excuse me, sir! What are you doing here this time of night?"

It was the police.

Selby pointed to the pest control advert on the side of his van.

"Getting cockroaches like criminals is a 24/7 job," he told the officer. "I have an apartment to spray in this block," he said pointing over his shoulder with a thumb.

The two police officers considered for some seconds, glanced at his equipment and got back into their car.

A key got him into the apartment block, and he rode up in the lift to the tenth floor and found room 1011. He opened the door and immediately heard voices. He listened. It sounded like the owners had returned early and were having sex. He silently cursed as he equally silently locked the door again and went down to his van. He would have to do that one another day, or rather another night.

He now found himself yawning and decided he was a bit tired and that he had had enough for one night. He parked up, unloaded his van, locked up (people would steal anything these days) and headed off to his own apartment to get some sleep.

He had some weird dreams, which was nothing new as he often ate some weird snacks before he went to bed.

And it became much weirder when he woke up.

There were cockroaches everywhere. Floor, furniture, in bed with him, on the ceiling, the door and windows, they were everywhere. Except on him. That was a relief for now.

There was a voice in his head.

'You will come with us!'

As he did not respond, the voice spoke again.

'Unless you wish a mouth and nose full of cockroaches.'

That persuaded him. He jumped up and grabbed his trousers. As they cleared the door area, he guessed they meant for him to go through that, he thought as he put his trousers on while walking.

He tried to remember what he had eaten before going to sleep last night. After a nightmare like this, he never wanted to eat it again. He hoped he would wake up soon. They led him to his workshop and he unlocked the door and walked in. Then they surrounded him.

He thought it could not get worse but it did when a human sized cockroach stepped out of the shadows. The voice in his head came again.

'I am the King of the Cockroaches. All cockroaches obey me.'

Selby nodded. It figured in this crazy nightmare he was having.

A leg from the monster reached out, pinched his arm and then was back in position in less than a second.

"Owwww!" said Selby.

'It is not a nightmare. It is real.'

Selby suddenly went cold, knowing he could not wake up and escape all this craziness because it was real. He was surrounded by about a million cockroaches and faced one as large as he was.

'You are on trial, human being.'

"What for?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

'For killing millions of our kind.'

"It's my job," whined Selby, knowing it was no defence.

'Your job is to kill us?' said the monster cockroach.

"Yes!" said Selby, feeling like he was hanging himself. He had known he would die one day as everyone did but did not expect a horrible death like he now thought was coming to him.

'You are condemned as guilty out of your own mouth.'

"People don't like cockroaches" said Selby. "They see you scuttling about over food they want to eat, in beds where there are young children, even over the children. You will not stay away from us. What are we humans to do?"

'You still kill us.'

"Again, what are we humans supposed to do? When you cockroaches eat our food, you cover it with saliva first which often contains harmful bacteria which can cause rashes, asthma attacks, salmonella, food poisoning and so on in we human beings. You poison the food we expect to eat. Should we thank you for that?"

There was a silence as the cockroaches appeared to look at the giant who paused to think.

'We have to eat,' it said.

"Do you have to eat and contaminate our food and do you have to live in our buildings?" asked Selby, thinking he was getting the upper hand here. The monster could speak and think to a degree but he did not think it was particularly smart.

"People call me in not because they have one or two cockroaches in the place they live but because they have many, many cockroaches, because you have become a nuisance to them. What are they supposed to do? Let you overrun their place?"

'It does not matter,' said the monster. It knew when it was outclassed. 'By your own words, you have been proved guilty of killing cockroaches.'

Selby's equipment was nearby but he would be buried under millions of cockroaches if he tried to reach it.

"So, what now?" he asked.

'Death. My cockroaches will kill you.'

"So you will not do so?" asked Selby, thinking he saw a way out. The King of the Cockroaches ruled by force it seemed and not because he was particularly liked by them. He had noted that the force of his own arguments had gained some sympathy with the insects.

"You are a coward!" said Selby. "You want your warriors to kill me because you know you cannot. Because they have more courage than you do."

There was a pause of several seconds when again the cockroaches seemed to look at their King. The King knew he had to save face. Whether it was human beings or cockroaches, some things never changed.

A space cleared around Selby and the King. It seemed it was not the King's doing, Selby guessed. The King having no choice faced him from several feet away.

'Though we are about the same size, as an insect, I am far stronger and faster than any human being,' gloated the King.

Selby had done some fighting in his younger days and was no pushover but the cockroach moved unbelievably fast. He hit Selby and knocked him off his feet. If he had believed such a thing possible, he would have thought the King was laughing at him as it waited for him to get up. As he did so, he expected the second attack and even though he was ready for it, it almost beat him. He was knocked down again but the pain in his fist told him that he had hit the giant cockroach too. It was very solid but it shook its head a bit showing it could be hurt.

He knew it would be ready for such a move next time and it was when it attacked again at unbelievable speed but the moment it had moved before launching an attack, Selby had leaped up and kicked out. They both hit the floor at the same time, Selby feeling like he had kicked a brick wall.

The King was not looking good now in front of his troops so playtime would be over. It would try to kill him now. It rushed at him and was on him in a moment, trying to squeeze the life out of him. Gasping for breath, he pounded hard and often as he could at its head and did not seem to be making much leeway when suddenly the King of the Cockroaches dropped to the ground. He considered a number of ways to kill it as it shuddered on the floor but did not.

Then it died and laid still. He stared at it dumbfounded. He knew he had hurt it but that was all. None of his blows could have done this.

Another voice filled his mind but this time, it was the voice of a million cockroaches in the workroom and nearby. It had to be some kind of hive mind.

'You are King of the Cockroaches now. You are our new leader.'

Selby gasped. They all seemed to be staring at him. What did he do now?

"Do you mean I am your new King?"

'Yes!'

"You will do whatever I command?"

'Yes!'

"And if I order you all to kill yourself?"

'That too.'

Selby had to sit down and think about it for a moment. His new subjects dutifully made room for him in a chair.

"I need to think about this," he said.

They waited.

"Look, I know cockroaches are not bad. You do what you have to do to live. I know you recycle all waste so our world is not full of unwanted and rotting things, which trap unwanted nitrogen. I know you are food for a number of species and even some people eat you. You do have your uses and even if I could rid the world of cockroaches, I would not. You cannot wipe out a whole group of insects because you find them creepy or whatever."

'There is something you should know, King. We cockroaches as you know are everywhere. We have seen aliens on your planet, beings from other worlds. Some you would find pleasing to look at and some you would find even worse than us. One day, humans will have to learn to live with them so you cannot kill things because they are creepy or ugly looking.'

"Granted!" said Selby, amazed at the knowledge that there were aliens living on or visiting Earth.

"We need to live together. Maybe in future you could be less intrusive and when possible not live where humans live. I know we provide a lot of tasty snacks for you, but maybe try and stay out of our way?"

There was a feeling of agreement.

'Do you know how you killed our previous King?'

"No!"

It is the poisons you use when you make the sprays to kill us. Over many years they have soaked into your body and by trying to crush you, our previous King exposed himself to them by hard contact with you. They killed him as they are killing you.'

"What?" shouted Selby.

'How is your cough?'

"What cough?" asked Selby, only to cough twice.

'If you stop using those poisons now your body will recover and you will become healthy again over time.'

Selby thought it out. No more cockroach sprays? How about his job? Could a King go around killing his subjects. He had an idea.

"Look, in future when I am called in to get rid of cockroaches from somewhere, what if I use mildly scented water and spray that around, then you leave that place and do not come back, for maybe a year?"

'That is what we were hoping for.'

They were smart cockroaches, thought Selby.

"OK, I'll get rid of all my poisons and such and from now on, just use scented water spray and when you smell that, you leave."

There was agreement.

'All hail the new King of the Cockroaches.'

THE END.
PETER DRUMMOND VERSUS THE USA.

His parents knew Peter Drummond was going to be a genius from when he was a young child. He did not spend all his time playing video games like other kids. He went into the code of the games, saw what made them tick, and made his own games, which he then sold online.

As a ten year old, his fortune was already well into the millions and his parents were proud of him and let him do what he wanted. He let them do what they wanted too. They bought a big house, flash cars and such but the money, his money, that they spent was actually very little in his terms.

He soon afterwards had a company that was his in all but name which spread worldwide and the millions quickly became billions. He took time out to learn about finances and how to hide money away as his company which built computers and made software and games flourished.

The company could virtually run itself so he took time out to learn other things that may one day be useful like biology, the mind, cybernetics, and to learn about business and war tactics. He had plans.

Age sixteen he released his first implant. A tiny device which took seconds to painlessly implant at the base of the skull, a little training and people could access mobile media and the internet by thinking about them. Another implant along with a device attached to your computer and you could play video games at blinding speed. Every gamer wanted one because without that device, they stood no chance when playing someone with that device.

There were of course the 'Doom-mongers', the people who said that this could end up as mind control but people laughed at them. They said it was like saying having a fast car would cause accidents or owning a gun meant you would kill someone.

As home appliances relied ever more on technology, so they too could be controlled so things could be done on the way home from work or school, or from the comfort of an armchair.

The Doom-mongers continued and nineteen year old Peter Drummond was brought up before Congress to talk about his technology and to answer questions. Though he knew he was smarter than anyone there, he deliberately played down his intelligence to a degree so as not to scare anyone. And very smart people like himself did scare less smart people, like any politician. So he tried to look like any other nineteen year old kid at a job interview.

When asked about taking over people's minds with the coming upgrades to his mind chips, which potentially made everyone smart, he offered ten million dollars to anyone who could hack into them. He pointed out that he could not make public how they worked because unscrupulous people may then be able to use the information to do that.

They accepted what he had to say and there was a race to hack into his mind chips. He smiled as they all failed because through misdirection, a favourite of all magicians, they were all doing it wrong. The mind chip was actually in two parts and shortly after implantation they separated and hackers attacked the 'slave' rather than the active unit. And not even a body scanner would find that out.

The update was widely accepted. It was proved that with it, people's brains worked faster, and better. That anywhere in the world, their mind had access to the internet so think about something and you had access to information which could be trimmed down, so even a novice could deliver a good speech on virtually any topic they chose. They could also pass any exam since the answers were there in their heads with as much detail as they wanted. There was no way any exam board could stop this form of cheating, so what was not to love about the chips by the younger generation.

What impressed the science generation was when a surgeon performed a very difficult operation on someone using the knowledge of another surgeon half a world away. They hailed this as a possibility of humans having a 'hive mind' one day, where knowledge could be shared by all.

Peter Drummond smiled. Knowledge shared by all but controlled by one, he thought.

Another two years passed. His parents had died in a car crash. He had had nothing to do with that but they had become an increasing burden so it was just as well they were gone, he thought. Drummond had bought his own island. He bought himself a small navy and lots of weapons. He made sure his men and women all had the latest version of the mind chip, so he had one hundred percent loyalty if and when he needed it.

The Doom-mongers still plagued him online so he decided to do something about them. The idiots were using his computers; the best and the lowest price, so tracing them and finding out who they were was no problem. Nor was stopping them. They had accidents or were involved in accidents. People picked fights with them and beat them to a pulp and so on. They lived very rough lives and many drifted out of the organisation, guessing that Drummond had everything to do with what happened to them.

There was nothing to connect their many injuries and worse, other than the fact that they had all been against him. But someone did join the dots. He had a visit from the F.B.I. He denied everything in a plausible way but they were still not happy. They suggested he go to their office for further questioning, in a way that said he had better do so.

"I am twenty five now and no longer a citizen of the United States," he told them. "This is my country now, which is in International waters. I run it and I even have representation at the United Nations. I of course have my own passport too, printed here. It is entirely legal."

That had taken some mind control and some greasing of palms to the tune of tens of millions and some just plain behind the scenes manipulation.

"We are authorised to take you with us," said one man with a great sense of his own self-importance.

"And if I don't want to go," said Drummond.

"Then we will use force."

"If I nod my head, kill them all," said Drummond.

The F.B.I men were suddenly surrounded by men carrying automatic weapons.

"We have a gunboat in the harbour," sneered the man in dark glasses.

"And I have four surface to air missiles aimed at it, any one of which will destroy it. I only have to give the order. Your move."

The Government men looked at each other. They looked at the young man in front of them who they had no doubt could wipe them out if he chose to.

"We'll leave peaceably!" said the man in charge.

"Good idea!" said Drummond.

"But we'll be back."

"I remind you that this is a sovereign country of which I am ruler. If America makes any move against it, I will take it up with the United Nations who already fear that America has their nose in too many pies around the world. If I cannot beat you militarily, I will beat you politically."

They left and reported their failure to their bosses who reported their failure to the people above them and so on to the top.

No one knew how many tens of millions and more had Drummond's mind chips in their heads but the American Government decided to do something about them. They stopped new people getting implants (though it continued in other countries) and decided to start a programme of having them removed by spreading hate propaganda against them.

This ran into problems in two ways. There were huge demonstrations by people who wanted the mind chips. It was like denying the people the right to be intelligent as well as denying them direct social media and internet, etc access. The other problem was when they started removing the chips. It should have been a straight forwards operation but every one of the first batch of ten died when the chips were removed.

Peter Drummond made sure everyone heard of that and indulging in his own propaganda as he hinted that the Government were killing young people to give him a bad name. The medical profession stopped it immediately and investigated. Somehow, the chips integrated with the brain, which was how it managed to do what it did, and removing them was like removing parts of the brain, so resulting in brain death. They said they could do no more removals, now or possibly ever.

Meanwhile the people with the mind chips in found they worked as well as ever and the fact that they could not be safely removed bothered them not at all.

It had worked with Noriega, in Belize and elsewhere so America decided on the tried and trusted method of invading a foreign country. They would sort it out with the U.N. afterwards and if the U.N. complained, they did not really care.

America decided to play safe with an aircraft carrier, three ships with big guns to decimate the island if necessary and some small gunships for landings and the finicky stuff.

Peter Drummond watched them from his own satellites overhead. America when they launched them for him, under another name, had thought they had just been TV satellites. They were in fact spy satellites, with the latest technology incorporated in them and he had twelve of them worldwide, one of which was now over his island and the other over the American fleet.

He smiled. The idiots were using his computers.

There was a small fishing armada ahead which the warships fired upon sinking some and then ran through the armada, sinking some more.

There was consternation and shock on the American ships, with officers wanting to know who was responsible and how it had happened? On the fishing boats, they were radioing anyone who would listen that they were innocently fishing in International waters and had been attacked by an American fleet, a number of their boats sunk.

The American fleet came to a halt and when they offered to pick up survivors, the fishermen told them they surrendered. The Americans said it was an accident but the fishermen only laughed at them. While the Americans tried to sort things out, a few of the fishermen decided on revenge which is how come their fishing nets ended up wound around the propellers of the aircraft carrier so when it tried to move on, it got only a little distance before coming to a halt.

Drummond had caught the lot on the video feeds between the American ships and promptly broadcast it all on various internet sites and most people had seen it and copied it and passed it on before the American military could start taking it down.

That evening, the news said that the American fleet had been out on an exercise and mistaken some fishing boats for their targets, etc. Few if any believed them as the fishing boat owners put in inflated claims for all their 'brand new fishing vessels' which had been damaged or sunk as well as compensation for men hurt or injured. Getting wet aside, they decided it had been a good fishing trip for them.

What would the American military do next? That was easy. They had an aircraft carrier not too far away. Sure enough, come nightfall they launched twenty planes towards his island. He watched them get closer and closer and then he used the bug planted in the military software. It had of course been sold to the military under another name than his. Within four miles of the island, all engines suddenly cut out and the jet planes all glided gently into the water. The pilots had all ejected, whether they wanted to or not and a landing barge of the type used in WW2 to storm the beaches picked them all up and took them back to their aircraft carrier. They were not happy. Their officers were not happy. Everyone up to and including the President was not happy.

They were even less happy when Drummond recovered all twenty planes intact, less than a mile off shore in fairly shallow waters, and took them to the island. They started drying them out and the planes would be serviced by people who had had all the expert information programmed into their mind and Drummond would have his own kick-ass air force.

Two days later, Drummond was idly looking at the images of the fleet leaving the vicinity of the island when he saw a lone plane moving towards the island. He looked and looked and thought: 'surely not'.

He checked on his satellite and detected radioactivity on that lone craft. There was no time to save anyone else. Drummond ran like his life depended on it, as he believed it did. He got into his personal elevator and pressed the lowest button four times. Once took him to what everyone thought was the island basement, a large cave. Four times took him to a sinkhole and the elevator continued down and ever further down. The elevator moved at speed but not fast enough for him.

The explosion he expected came and fortunately the elevator's workings were over a number of floors since the tunnel above him caved in and the workings there were ruined. Down he continued to over three thousand feet down and the elevator stopped and the doors open to a large dank cave. Lighting had come on, showing its immenseness. And the supplies he had left down here if ever needed, as they now were.

Too late he had guessed that America and the President could not lose face like they had. He had pushed them too far, even keeping twenty of their latest war planes, armed with deadly missiles. The President had ordered a nuclear strike which had destroyed his island and everyone on it.

Well, considered Drummond, he had billions stashed in bank accounts around the world. He had houses and assets around the world. He had passports in many names. And more importantly, he had probably hundreds of millions of people around the world with his mind chips in their heads. And now he would plan his revenge.

It was two weeks later when a passenger jet dived onto the White House, killing all on board and all in the White House, including the President and a number of his closest advisors. There was no surprise that in the many passengers on board, there were muslims and they were blamed for this terrorist atrocity. Al Qaeda had had a number of setbacks lately and was happy to claim this atrocity as done by some of their own men.

Two weeks later, two thermobaric bombs were dropped on the Pentagon, killing all inside. No one could question the pilots because they crashed their plane into the burning wreckage of the building.

Al Qaeda again claimed responsibility, hoping to increase their reputation but people in high places began to have doubts. How had they got hold of the bombs? A chain of events was traced from a large military base with a stock pile of such bombs to the plane that dropped the bombs. And they could find no one suspicious enough to have done that. Muslim terrorists were quickly ruled out. They tried Mexicans, Russia and China and others who might have a grudge against America and still could come up with nothing.

Then someone in the know suggested Peter Drummond.

"What? He's dead."

"Is he? A nuclear explosion doesn't leave any corpses at Ground Zero."

People thought about it.

"I'd sure be pissed if someone had blown up my island and everyone and everything on it" someone said.

There was a slow nodding of heads.

The Interim President was there. He spoke.

"Put out a one hundred million dollar bounty on Drummond's head. Circulate his photos, film and everything else we have on him. If Drummond is still alive, that reward money should find him."

They knew they were in trouble if it was Drummond. For many years now, they had suspected that his mind chips could be used to control people, maybe even to make them kill, the Doom-monger's internet site had claimed and now, maybe they had proof. That would explain the White House and the Pentagon.

"Get in touch with the 'Doom-mongers' group and get copies of everything they have on Drummond and find out anything they know about him."

Everything they had posted on line was gone without trace, even when it had been copied to other sites. Every computer was wiped of such data. They were now sure it was Drummond.

There were reports of Drummond from countries around the world. With a hundred million dollars reward, a lot of people would have turned in their own mother if they thought they could get it.

More atrocities were expected but nothing came. The new Government waited uneasily. It was not impossible that Drummond could have sent an army of mind controlled zombies against America and killed millions. They waited.

Then some days later, a group of nurses turned up at a military centre and claimed the hundred million dollar reward which they said they wanted to go towards the building of a Free Hospital in New York City.

There was open doubt among the military as important people were called in but no one could doubt the sincerity of the nurses. A large number of heavily armed men followed the nurses to where Drummond was, expecting the worst. None of them had mind chips. That had been carefully arranged.

They came to a run-down free hospital in a poor area of New York City. They climbed the stairs as there were too many for the few lifts. On the third floor, they went through the doors of a ward full of very sick people and the nurses pointed to a bed at the end of the ward.

"There he is."

With some trepidation and guns everywhere, they rushed over to a heavily bandaged man who looked to be very sick. He looked up as they arrived. The man spoke in a weak voice, which everyone heard.

"No need for guns, gentleman. As you can see I am not going anywhere. Yes, I am Peter Drummond, or what is left of him."

There were shouts of amazement and questions. Drummond held up his hand and spoke in a weak voice.

"Please do not interrupt as I am told I only have a very short time left. Your nuclear bomb killed me. I thought I had escaped the worst of the radiation underground but I got badly burned and some radiation as you can see.

"You need have no more fear of me. I killed the people responsible, in the White House and in the Pentagon. I have nothing against others who were merely following orders.

"Before I die, let me tell you what you have done. Those mind chips you were all worried about. Yes, they could do what people said they could, but I made them hack proof so no one could ruin my work."

Here, Drummond coughed up some blood, continuing as a nurse wiped it from his lips.

"My work was this. I intended to usher in a new Golden Age of Mankind. You know I elevated the intelligences of endless millions of people with my mind chips, so people could get worthwhile jobs and not fall into crime. As to crime, I intended wiping that out. Have you noticed that almost no one with a mind chip has committed any crimes? I intended to turn them all into good people, with minor nudges in the right direction so they do not do bad things to others. I wanted to make my mind chips like a conscience for everyone on the whole planet. And I could have done it if I had had decades more to fulfil my plans.

"But you and the Doom-mongers only saw evil so you tried to stop me, and when that failed, you killed me."

Drummond had a coughing spasm and more blood was coughed up.

The men around him all looked at each other. What had they done???

Drummond pulled himself together for a last effort.

"Though you have ruined the future, you can at least pay these nurses the reward money so they can continue their good work into the coming decades."

Drummond gasped and gasped. It had all been too much for him. He shuddered and was dead.

Someone swore.

"He could have made a Golden Age for Mankind and we ruined it as Man ruins everything we touch."

There was a somber nodding of heads.

THE END.
STONE DEAD.
CHAPTER ONE

The day began like any other day. Dave Stone crawled out of bed and headed towards the small toilet and shower room of his apartment. He turned the hot water on, waited half a minute for it to warm up and then got into the shower. He was halfway through the shower when he realised that it was not hot today. Strange? He'd have to see why tonight. Still, it was not cold either so he finished his shower, dried himself on a towel he'd have to wash one day, hung it up and got dressed.

He felt his chin as he looked in the mirror. He didn't know what surprised him most. That there was no stubble there, or how pale he looked. Was he coming down with something. He stuck out a tongue which also looked pale. He felt OK in himself and he'd had a few sick days off lately so could not really chance another one so he'd go to work as normal and if there was anything wrong with him, well they couldn't argue if the company doctor gave him a few days off.

He looked in his mini-fridge. Nothing there he fancied. Well, he wasn't hungry anyway, so he locked up and left home for the twenty minute walk to work. It was overcast and looked like rain, but that had been it for the last three days and no rain. Still, it wasn't as cold as it had been the last few days. Quite mild for November, in fact.

Lost in thought, he clocked on and was slapped on the back. It was one of his mates, Roy Dyson.

"I'm surprised to see you up and about after that skin full you had last night. You got a hollow leg?"

He stopped suddenly as he stared at Stones face.

"You're looking pale this morning. You OK?"

"Yeah, no problem, Roy. You can talk. I'm glad I'm this side of your bloodshot eyes."

Dyson nodded and winced a bit. His head was still a little delicate.

Someone else clocked on and came over to them.

"Hey, white mun", quipped Leroy Jones, staring at Stone, looking closely at his face. "You OK, man?"

Jones was from Jamaica and besides being a drinking buddy, he had a strange sense of humour.

"Yeah. I'm OK apart from looking a bit pale."

"A bit pale?" said Leroy. "You're white even for a white man. Where's that tan you got from a week in Spain last month? Did your cheque bounce and you had to send it back?"

Stone smiled at the joke as it was time to start work. They headed for their machines and at a signal, the line started. It was not hard work, but it was boring and repetitive, and yet that did not bother him today. He had hardly seemed to start when the signal went for morning break. Like the others, he went over to one of the food machines and got himself two cheese rolls out of habit.

He took a bite, chewed and chewed and pulled a face.

"What's up, Dave?" asked Dyson.

"The roll has no taste this morning. The cheese tastes like cardboard", he said, examining it while holding it close to his face.

"Tastes OK to me, Dave. I have cheese rolls too. Try a bit of mine."

Stone took the bit of roll offered to him and tried it. It too lacked taste.

He offered Dyson a bit of his own roll which Dyson ate without complaint.

"It's OK" Dyson said, giving his verdict.

"My taste buds must be off this morning", said Stone. He was about to throw the other uneaten roll away when Jones' hand reached out for it. He took it and ate it. No matter how much he ate, he never seemed to put on any weight.

The tea seemed to have little taste either, despite his usual three sugars in it. It was not particularly hot either, though it did seem to be steaming. He took a mouthful and threw the rest away.

"Hey, watch it, Dave. You'll scald yourself drinking hot tea like that" said Jones.

"Mine tasted luke warm", said Stone. "I'll make up for it at dinner time", he said, a little unsure of himself.

Work recommenced and a few hours later, it was dinner time. The works canteen was good and being Friday, it was fish and chips today so he got his meal and sat down. And it was the same. The food seemed to have little taste. It was like eating paper. He added more salt and more vinegar and no change. Again the tea was luke warm, like the food. He guessed there must be something wrong with him and decided to see the Doc. He knew the doctor ate in his "surgery" at meal times so he would be available now.

"Mr. Stone. What can I do for you?" asked the doctor, looking up.

He suddenly sat up, putting some sandwiches he was eating aside. He looked Stone in the eyes from close up and then said "tongue".

Stone obeyed and he stared at it for some seconds.

"What seems to be the problem he asked?"

Nothing like getting information from the horse's mouth.

"I woke up with a pale tint to my skin this morning. I never felt hungry so waited till morning break, and I can't seem to taste the food. Not the cheese rolls this morning or the fish and chips now. The tea seems to have no taste either, despite three sugars. And I was told the tea was hot but it only seemed luke-warm to me."

"Hmmmm. Put this thermometer in your mouth", said the doctor, lightly putting his palm on Stones head.

"Your head seems cool and your skin very dry. Maybe you have caught something?"

He took the thermometer from Stone mouth and looked at it. And stared at it.

"That can't be right" he muttered to himself as he shook the thermometer and placed it in Stone's mouth again. He checked it again and scratched his head.

"What's wrong, doc?" asked Stone. It looked like he might get some time off work after all, but he hoped that it was nothing serious. That he could do without.

With a puzzled look on his face, the doctor showed him the thermometer. It read 18C.

Stone only had a vague knowledge of medicine but wasn't body temperature around 37C?

"You should be dead with a temperature like this, Stone. I'm going to have to get an ambulance for you. There is something wrong with you but I have no idea what and I can only hope it is not in any way contagious."

Stone was taken to a nearby hospital and police officers turned up at the gates of the factory, with no one being allowed in or out, and no one saying anything.

Stone was taken to a small building a little distance from the hospital and people in protective clothing came into the room. He was asked questions. What he had done, where he had been, what he had eaten, what he had drank, who had he come into contact with and so on.

Meanwhile his temperature was again taken, his pulse taken, blood samples taken, he had an x-ray, an EEG, and so on and the more things they did, the less they seemed to know what was wrong with him, he heard them say.

It was five hours later and he was surrounded by men who seemed to be doctors and the like. One he had heard was a professor of tropical medicine. Another dealt in unusual diseases at a hospital in central London. The man in charge talked to him.

"We have examined and probed you. Looked at your insides and outside and I admit I don't know what is wrong with you. We first thought it was a disease you had somehow caught but we have ruled it out and thankfully whatever it is, it is not contagious. This is what we have found out. Your body temperature is around 18C. Your heard beat around 20 beats a minute though when we put you on a treadmill it went up to 80 beats a minute. After you came off it, your heart rate quickly dropped back to 20 beats a minute.

"Your blood is strange too. White cell count way down. Red blood cells are fairly colourless as are the platelets but both seem to do their job. Too much iron. There should only be trace amounts. Some other chemicals are higher than they should be and some lower. Water content lower than normal and if I thought I did not know better, I think you might have a natural anti-freeze in your blood of a kind we have found in some primitive organisms who can live in water below zero and even survive freezing.

"But as well as your heart beating very slowly, your other organs are giving us cause for concern. We have noticed that you do not breathe often. Maybe once every several seconds or so."

Stone startled. He had not realised this but who takes notice of such a thing?

"What we want you to do is to see how long you can hold your breath. Don't do any deep breathing first. Just stop breathing for as long as you can until it feels uncomfortable."

Stone did as he was told and someone started a stop watch. The seconds ticked by. The minutes ticked by. The men stared at him. One held a mirror near his mouth for a few minutes.

"Any discomfort?" he was asked, and he shook his head.

Time passed and they had him start breathing again. They all stared hard at him.

"That was twenty five minutes you either held your breath for or stopped breathing. I have never come across anything like it."

Puzzled, Stone asked what was wrong with him?

The man who was in charge told him.

"If I did not think I knew better, I would say that you are dead or rather 'undead'. A real life zombie."

Stone was stunned. He did not know what to say. How could this have suddenly happened to him? It would certainly explain his pale colour, the fact that food and water had no taste to him, and now that he thought of it, temperature did not seem to bother him either. He had not felt cold coming to work this morning but people were wrapped up. He had drank very hot tea, he realised now, and it had seemed to be just luke warm. He felt of his chin. Not a hint of stubble there. His senses all seemed to be working OK, if not better than OK, temperature aside.

"Your blood is unusual", he was told, "but no strange viruses or such in it so you are not going to start a zombie plague by biting people. You will need nourishment to keep going. Like pregnant women, eat and drink what you think you need, even coal and the like. But beware of trying anything poison. Eat ordinary food, even if it has no taste, and drink water too. You seem to have little sensitivity to heat so be careful of boiling drinks. But we also noticed that when we cut a piece of flesh off to look under the microscope, it healed unnaturally quickly. So your epidermis is still very active and will not just rot off of you as we had feared."

"What do I do in the meantime?" asked Stone.

"We would like to run some more tests on you in the coming days and strange as you now seem to be, there seems to be no reason why you cannot resume your place in society and go back to your normal life. We have informed your place of work that you have a "condition" which is in no way contagious and which will not prevent you doing your normal work. We have not told anyone yet just how different you are. As I said, we still don't know ourselves, what caused this or if it can be cured. You can go home now. Use this phone which will speed dial you in touch with me personally any time day or night to contact me if there are any changes in your condition, or there is anything that you think we should know."

Stone accepted the phone, gave it a quick look over. It was easy to use and probably only worked for that one number outgoing and incoming, he guessed, being otherwise locked.

He went home, a quick shower, still no need to shave and he got changed. There was nothing he could do about his pale complexion. He had some friends to meet at a nearby bar. He had to find out what happened after he left work today.

They were there as he expected and some young women were with them, as he hoped. Jones was buying some drinks at the bar and waved to him as he entered, buying a pint for Stone who sat down at the table they were using. Two other friends were there. Chapman who was a bit loud and a bit wild and Dyson who hoped to join a successful band one day and make millions. Chapman introduced Stone to the girls and the girls to him. In the subdued light of the bar, they looked OK and his own pale complexion did not stand out.

"What happened after I left?" Stone asked Dyson."

"All hell broke loose. There were police everywhere and people in what I think are called 'Hazmat suits'. They let us get on with our work which was just as well or Skinner would have had a fit, losing production. Some doctors checked us out. We were all pronounced OK, and eventually it was announced over the tannoy that you had a rare genetic condition. So rare in fact that you were the only person in the world with it. We were told it affected your appearance and had a few minor side effects like loss of appetite but nothing to worry about."

Stone nodded. They seemed to have defused the situation. He would know in the morning when he went into work again for some overtime. There was a big foreign order on at the moment so overtime was there for those who wanted it.

The beer seemed to have little taste, as he expected but he pretended to like it to keep in with the crowd.

"You have a condition?" asked one of the young women.

He nodded. She was quite attractive.

"I'm a nurse at More's Hospital" she added. "I hope to make doctor one day but there is so much studying."

"Play your cards right and she'll give you a full examination" said one of the other girls, in a humourous tone.

"I hope she warms her hands up first" said Stone, smiling at her.

She smiled back shyly.

"Don't worry" Stone told her. "Our Leroy is the worst at embarrassing us in front of the opposite sex."

Leroy Jones, with his arm around an attractive young Jamaican woman smiled and raised his glass. He had a wicked sense of humour and it was not good to provoke him.

"So, who should I ask for if I have an accident and they take my broken body to More's Hospital?" he asked.

"Susan Latham" she said, introducing herself.

"David Stone" he said though they had already been introduced by first names, shaking her hand. She had a firm grip. He liked that in a woman.

They made small talk, as did the others. More drinks followed and Ron Chapman had just bought a round of drinks and was coming back to their table when a man who was a little unsteady on his feet staggered into him and the tray and drinks ended up on the floor. It would have been bad enough with one of the others but Chapman had had some drinks before coming out this evening and was a bit tipsy himself and so louder than usual. He shouted at the man, grabbed his arm and demanded that he pay for the spilt drinks. The man swore at him and a right hander from Chapman put him on the floor a second later.

Stone felt uneasy as did the others and that unease was added to when a harsh voice shouted: "What's up, Tom?" from behind them.

He turned and saw four men getting up from a table not far behind them. Tom was staggering up, holding a nose from which a trail of blood flowed.

"That bastard hit me" Tom shouted, pointing at Chapman, who looked ready to hit him again. He fancied himself as a boxer, and more so when he had a few drinks.

Jones tried to defuse the situation saying there had been an accident and a round of drinks had been spilt.

That meant nothing to the other men. Their mate had been hit and was bleeding.

"Fuck off you black bastard" said one of the men. "Our mate has been hit and we are going to kick the crap out of the guy who did it."

Jones looked at Chapman and the others and saw an inevitability about what was going to happen next. He told Dyson to look after the girls, who were already beginning to edge away from a scene of potential violence.

Tom and one of the men went for Chapman and next second they were fighting hard. Jones went for the man who had racially insulted him. True he was black and he was a bastard by birth, but he did not like being reminded of it.

"Looks like you're mine" said the last as he launched himself at Stone as Dyson fought another.

The man got in a good blow at Stone's face, which he barely felt then he hit the other man hard, and another as he started falling and another as he hit the ground. The man lay on the ground groaning. He had had more than enough.

Stone separated one of the men who was pummeling Chapman by just grabbing hold of his clothes and picking him up and threw him at the wall. The other one followed. He looked for Jones who was certainly getting the best of his fight. The one who was fighting Dyson suddenly realised he was on his own and ran out the door.

"I've called the police" said the man at the bar, which was their sign to leave.

On their way out, Stone and Jones both put a ten pound note on the counter, to help cover the damage and hopefully make the barman forget them when the police arrived, and they left.

They got together a little way from the bar where Dyson was now waiting with the girls.

"How did it go?" he asked.

"No problem" said Jones. "Our man Stone was a lean, mean fighting machine. You been working out at the gym?" he asked Stone.

"Something like that" murmured Stone, only now aware of how easily he had handled the men.

That put a damper on the evening and Jones left with his woman, three of the women left for another bar and Susan Latham came over to him as she waved the other women away.

"How about The Apprentice?" she asked him, naming a small quiet bar and eating place nearby.

He nodded and smiled. That stupid fight aside, it looked like he might have a good evening after all.

They walked along some near deserted backstreets towards the bar, engaged in small talk and were within sight of the bar when a voice they recognised disturbed their peace. It was the voice of 'Tom' from the other bar.

"Look. There's one of the bastards that attacked us."

The couple looked around them. No other people about and they were on their own against five angry young men, all looking for a fight.

He tried to stand in front of her but she moved around him and held up her hands defensively.

"David did not want that fight. He was forced to defend himself when you attacked him."

"Well, he's got a fight now, and we'll have some fun with you afterwards."

"Five to one? You are all cowards" she shouted at them.

"No one calls me a coward" said the one named Tom and lunged at her with a knife he had produced from somewhere.

Stone pushed her aside and the knife hit him and he felt it sink into his flesh, but again no pain. And there was a second stab while Stone stood there, surprised. Then he became angry. Very angry. This man had meant to kill his new girlfriend and to kill him.

Before Tom could manage a third stab, Stone had hit him hard in the face several times in just over a second and he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. He now faced the others, ready for them.

They looked at him, shocked. They saw he had been stabbed in the stomach twice and yet he had within a moment and beat the crap out of the man who did it. And now he was ready for the rest of them.

One who was probably more sober than the others held up his hands towards Stone.

"No more" he said. "That idiot got what he deserved, trying to stab a helpless girl. Please leave now and we'll all forget this happened."

Stone nodded and relaxed. Susan Latham put her hand on his arm and led him away.

"I live close by" she said. She had to get him home quick. He had been stabbed twice and who knows what damage it had done. Even now he might have serious internal bleeding?

It was only a minute's walk away and they walked up some steps, she opened a door, then up some more steps and she opened the door to her apartment. She pulled him into the bathroom and lifted his T-Shirt to see what damage had been done. And gasped.

There were two small wounds which even as she watched seemed to be healing, and there were no bloodstains on his T-shirt where he had been stabbed, but traces of a colourless liquid.

"I've seen quite a number of knife wounds at the hospital but never anything like this" she said, looking him in the face from close up. "And now we are in strong light and not outside at night or in that dark club, I can see how pale your skin is. I had thought it some kind of albinism but it is obviously not that. There is no red blood tint through your skin."

She started to take his pulse but he lightly brushed her hand off his wrist.

"I'm OK" he said. "It is my condition. It has some drawbacks but I don't bleed much and I heal very quickly."

"I have never heard anything like this before in any of the medical books I read" she said.

"I am told that I am the only one on Earth with this genetic condition. The doctors who examined me don't know what it is, what caused it, how it will affect my life or even how long I will live. Being a condition and not an illness, it is not contagious in any way."

"How long have you been this way?"

"Only for a while. It came on quite suddenly" he said, not wanting to tell her just how suddenly as she would realise it was not in any way natural.

"It was brave of you to stand up to those men as you did" she said.

"And brave of you to stand up to them too" he countered.

"Can I get you a drink?" she asked.

"A cup of tea or coffee will do fine"

Stone had thought of leaving but found himself attracted to her so jumped at this chance of staying a while longer. As men do, he had thought of sex with her, but that was totally unexplored territory at the moment as he no longer quite fitted the description of 'human', apart from which he was not even sure he could get an erection or that he would get any pleasure out of sex with a woman, as he had in the past.

They chatted till past midnight when he decided to leave as he had to get up in the morning, as did she. He got a goodnight kiss, which was strange. There was none of the usual feeling but.....

He thought of using the phone he had been given but it was very late at night, and he seemed to be perfectly OK, if his present condition could be called that. Maybe tomorrow?
CHAPTER TWO

Skinner was waiting for him when he clocked on next morning. He eyed him closely.

"How are you feeling today, Stone?"

"I feel good, sir," said Stone, when he actually felt nothing.

"What was that all about yesterday?"

"I have no idea. I think the doctor here may have overreacted, but in a good cause as no one was sure what was wrong with me."

"And now?" asked Skinner, staring at him again with that penetrating stare of his.

"The doctors passed me as being OK. I am not contagious in any way and I am OK to go back to work again."

Skinner nodded and left him. He would keep an eye on Stone today, he decided.

Work started and Stone did it like an automaton. Work he had found boring before came easy to him now, and Skinner noted that he worked well, which was all that he asked of any employee here.

Morning break came and Stone had a cheese roll and cup of tea and while they held no taste for him, he had been told to continue to eating and drinking as normal. At least he had no appetite for 'brains' he thought, remembering numerous zombie films he had seen. He idly wondered what brains tasted like, and hoped he never found out.

"You went off with that nurse last night? How'd it go?" asked Jones.

"OK."

"Just OK?"

Everyone of Jones' nights out with women went fantastic, amazing, great, etc. He'd have to find out sometime if he really was a love machine as he claimed or whether he just had a big ego.

"We bumped into that Tom and his mates after he left you."

"Since you are here, I would guess they did not kill you. What happened?"

"I slapped Tom about some, and his mates decided he had got what he deserved so we were left alone."

He had left out some of the major details but Leroy was not one to pry, and he accepted his account.

Work started again, and it went as easy as the first shift went. Skinner passed by and nodded. Whatever had been wrong with Stone had not affected his work. In fact, he seemed better than before.

Dinner came and Stone had shepherd's pie, peas and chips, normally a favourite of his but not today and maybe never again. He ate it mechanically, deciding what he had eaten today would be enough for him. No more till tomorrow.

"Some of the guys are going to the baths tomorrow. Feel like a little swim?"

Stone nodded. Something to take his mind off of his condition, and hoping it did not get worse. That was something he had no thought of before. What if it did? What if he did become an immobile dead man or something as horrible?

They finished at three o'clock that afternoon and he phoned the doctor to tell him about the knife wounds last night. He went and was examined again and was again pronounced fit. The doctor could find no trace of where he had been stabbed, outside his body, or inside. He did not know whether to tell him he was going swimming tomorrow but decided not to as he suspected the doctor would tell him not to.

The swimming baths were fairly busy next morning, it being a Sunday. It was a time for all of them to relax and Leroy of course wanted to boast to his new girlfriend. He told her he could stay underwater longer than anyone there. Stone challenged him and after Jones did a lot of heavy breathing, they both ducked underwater.

Leroy was good he knew. He could make three and a half minutes but he did not know about Stone's newfound ability. They looked at each other underwater and he watched Leroy getting increasingly uneasy. Three minutes passed and Leroy began to struggle a bit. The half minute came up and now he was in trouble. Stone felt sorry for him and suddenly emerged from the water. Jones followed him a second later.

Leroy gasped and gasped as he boasted about beating Stone. Stone smiled. He would not have punctured Leroy's ego in front of the girls for anything. Some strangers looked at him and though he had black hair, they considered him an albino so ignored him. It was a good morning break and Stone felt connected to the world again, despite his condition. They eventually said their goodbyes.

When David Stone got home, there were four men waiting for him in a large nearby limo. He had never seen them before and they introduced themselves as he let them into his house. A man from the British Secret Service and the British Military, and two American counterparts. They came straight to the point.

"We have talked with medical men and others including a nurse, and for want of a term, you appear to be 'undead' "

Stone nodded.

"You were stabbed last night, enough to seriously injure or even kill a normal man and not only did it seem to have no effect on you. Also the wounds healed up very quickly."

Stone nodded again. He had an idea where this was going. He had thought about it before going to sleep last night and he was right.

"If we could make other men like you, then we could have unbeatable and maybe unkillable soldiers."

"You want to use me to help you kill other people?" said Stone with a glint in his eye.

"Only the enemies of Britain and America."

"I think you have been watching too many zombie films. Sure I can take stab wounds with little or no effect. I don't know about bullet wounds yet and what happens if they damage my organs. But if someone chops my arms or legs off, more are not going to grow back (he thought but did not know). If someone chops my head off, I'm as dead as anyone else, as I am if they use a flame thrower on me, if they blow me apart with explosives, if they blow me apart with a large enough bomb, especially a nuclear bomb.

"Let's say an army of normal soldiers advance on another army. They use bullets to stop them. Now if an army of people like me advance, they know bullets are not going to work, so they use bombs, flame throwers, whatever works. You see? Using people like me as soldiers just takes war up another notch. If the only way to truly kill someone like me was a nuclear bomb, and you had soldiers like me, then what might over wise have been a small conflict becomes a nuclear war."

That shook them. They had not thought their argument through. They talked for some more and said they'd get back to him, and he was glad when they left.

They'd be back. He knew they would. How could he let himself be used to create an army of super-soldiers who might be used to create an unbeatable army to keep people down? If not Britain or America, then other countries would use and abuse his abilities like Russia and China. He had read the novel Frankenstein some years ago and he knew what he had to do next.

Stone went online and booked himself some flights for that night. Though Sunday, Stone managed to buy some hardy white clothes. Then two flights got him to the southern tip of Chile, then a boat to King George Island and from there an Antarctic cruise ship to Antarctica. While his fellow passengers were looking at the glaciers and such, he slipped overboard and only felt slightly cold as he swam to shore, in waters that would quickly freeze to death any human being.

Stone climbed out onto the ice, the water on him freezing to ice and he moved about till it was broken and no longer inhibited his movements. He then walked for days (and nights) to get as far away from his landing place as possible. They would know approximately where he had landed but Antarctica was a big place and he hoped they could not track him down.

The doctors had said he had a natural anti-freeze in his blood and he now suspected his body temperature was somewhere below zero so they would not be able to find him with any kind of heat detectors, looking for human body heat. The white clothing he had bought helped him blend in with the endless snow and ice.

He took in snow for water and ate fish, penguins or whatever he could. It did not bother him as he had virtually no sense of taste.

Over thirty years passed and looking at his reflection on the icy side of a cliff, he still looked the same. The hunt for him had seemed to have been called off long ago but still he stayed hidden. Then planes had started flying over, calling his name and telling him to help save the human race. He might have ignored them except for the flares in the night sky. He did not know what caused them but they seemed to be getting worse.

It was finding a growing number of dead animals that provoked him into action. The flares did not bother him but they did seem to kill animals and if they also killed humans too.....?

He eventually let himself be found by marking a large area of icy landscape, with him at its centre. An advanced type of helicopter picked him up and he saw inside men wearing heavy clothing that had little to do with protection from the cold. They also wore heavy hoods and goggles.

"David Stone?"

"Yes!"

"We hoped you were still alive after over three decades. The fact that you are means you might be able to save mankind."

As the helicopter used jet assist to cover the distance to a nearby American base, where a heavy rocket like flying vehicle waited and picked him up to take him to a large base in America, they told him what had happened in basic detail.

Something had happened to the Sun and to Earth's magnetic poles. In the north and south polar regions of Earth, radiation of a kind they had not observed before was spreading outwards and when intense enough, killing all life it came into contact with. Human beings could not survive but he could and if they could find out how, it just might save the human race.

Shortly afterwards, they arrived at the American base, having travelled at over Mach 12 in a sub-orbital flight. Over a hundred doctors and specialists waited for him there and for over four weeks, he was subjected to endless tests, both day and night. He put up with them with good grace, knowing what was at stake.

Finally they had what they wanted and a procession of volunteer guinea pigs were used as trials. Some survived and some did not and the serums were refined and refined again. Now they all survived but some wished they had not, and they were killed in 1200C furnaces out of their own choice. Then one day they had it right, and Stone looked at three men just like him.

One smiled and looked at him and shook his hand, calling him brother.

Now they could save the human race from the advancing doom but as well as being seemingly ageless, Stone and the new men also seemed to be sterile. There was talking and more talking and they decided to go ahead with world inoculation of the serum, as fast as it could be made. They would solve breeding the next generation one day but it was important for now that mankind survived.

Almost all of mankind did survive but what saved them did not save the animals. They all died. Given enough time they might have been able to save them but that they did not have.

Eighteen years passed and the Sun settled down again and the mysterious radiation went as if it had never existed. No babies had been born in that time. But now with the radiation vanishing, egg and seed banks buried miles deep were opened up, and not just humans but animals were born.

As they were taken care of and grew up, a cure was sought for, to try and make the survivors human again. It took many years but they found it and started making the human race human again.

Stone took his 'shot' with others but it never worked on him, maybe because he was different to others who had been turned into the 'white people' by using his strange biological make-up. He took it philosophically and headed back to Antarctica where penguins were starting to appear again and there was always fish, which had increased in numbers in recent decades.

Stone was welcome any time he turned up at an Antarctic base, and given any supplies he asked for, which was usually very little. He could have joined humanity again if he wished but had swapped his inoculation serum for distilled water so it had not worked on him.

Thirty years spent in this Wilderness had given him a restful life and he did not miss civilization. He did not know how long he would live, he thought as he went back to the old cave he had used to hide out in. He was now a man out of time, if 'man' could be used for what he now was. He was the first and last of his kind, because once the cure had been used on the 'white men' as they had been called, they could not turn again back into 'white men'. Though a new generation could if the need ever arose again one day. He would wait, but there was no need for Mankind's saviour to hide now.

THE END.
THE BATTLE OF THE PHANTOMS.

A phone call woke me up in the middle of the night. I angrily picked it up and asked who it was. Not work, I hoped.

"Oscar Johnson!"

My anger evaporated. He was an old friend of the family. The original eccentric professor. He had worked at a University then retired to work on pet projects. Most came to nothing though he made a bit of money on some small patents he held.

"What can I do for you Oscar?" I asked, yawning.

"Can you get to my lab as soon as possible, Andrew? I'll explain when you get here."

I mumbled annoyance as I got dressed but I was at his lab twenty minutes later, still wiping a little sleep out of my eyes. I tapped on the door and Oscar opened it.

He spoke too fast and disjointed for my sleep dazed mind and I told him to slow down and tell me everything from the beginning.

Oscar had invented a new machine which could somehow realign the atoms of an object. Basically two objects could occupy the same space but only for minutes. After that they merged with disastrous results for both objects and some energy released, but not too much.

Being fully awake now, I wondered aloud what use such a crazy invention could be?

"None that I have found out yet, but you know my assistant. Frank Bolso?"

"He of the dodgy eyes? You should have got rid of him a long time ago even if only because he was clumsy and dropped stuff."

"I know. I was testing my machine out and he got in the way of the ultra-magnetic beam. He vanished for a moment and then he seemed to be OK. I am not a medical doctor but I did some tests on him and all seemed to be OK. I sent him home. He carried on working for me as normal. Then there were some robberies in the area. 'Locked Door Mysteries' as they are called in crime fiction."

"You mean......."

"I think he may be responsible for them. They started just a day after he was hit by the beam."

A voice disturbed us. It was lab assistant, Bolso.

"I wondered when you would put two and two together professor," he said.

I don't know how he had got into the room as I had not heard him enter. He picked up a heavy metal rod to hit the professor with. I reacted immediately and dove for him and went straight through him. I gasped, as I heard the heavy object drop.

Bolso cursed and faced me.

I hit out at him and my fist went through him, then a solid fist hit me. I tried again, and failed again, and he hit me again. My job as a police detective meant I notice small things and I noticed that he held his breath each time I swung at him. This time I swung at him and kept my hand in place, straight through his head. He jerked back and started breathing again.

"Curse you, Strong," he growled.

I had him now and knew how he operated. Breathing normal, he was solid. He held his breath and he could go through things and they go through him. He realised he was outclassed in the fighting scene and ran out through the wall.

"He'll be back," I told the professor and he nodded.

"I would guess that his one aim is to smash your machine so you cannot use it on anyone else."

I was perplexed. Even if he was caught, how could we hold him in a jail when he could just walk out through the walls? Handcuffs were of no use either.

"He will want to smash your machine in case it could turn him normal again," I said.

I thought for thirty seconds and came to a decision.

"Can you use that machine on me?"

"It could be dangerous," he said. "It might work the same as for Bolso or it might kill you."

"I have to try it. If it works, I will go out looking for the phantom and can meet him on even terms."

The professor reluctantly agreed and set about his machine. When he was ready to go, he had me stand in front of it. He turned it on and I felt no difference. Suddenly there was a flash when I could see nothing then I was OK again.

"Well, professor. I'm still alive. Let's see if it works."

I put my hand on a metal table and held my breath and my hand went through the table as if it was not there. Being careful not to breathe again, I removed my hand. I did not want it stuck in the table. I tried the table again and it was as solid as metal. A thought occurred to me.

"Hey, Oscar. How come me and Bolso don't sink through the floor when we hold our breath?"

"Direction may have something to do with it," said the professor. "Put your hand through the wall, then through the table again."

I held my breath and did so. It was an amazing thing to do and to see.

"Did you notice there is more resistance going through the table than the wall?"

I nodded.

"Going forwards is OK. Going down can be slower. Maybe if you stay in one place too long while a phantom, you will start to sink into the floor, something to be avoided. By the way, can you hear me or anything else while a phantom?"

"Yes! But not very well."

"Just as well or you may quickly lose all the air stored in your blood and lungs."

Not a good idea, I thought. Maybe a death sentence if I stayed a phantom for too long. I would have to be very careful what I did, experiment to see what was right and wrong. But meanwhile I had an ex-lab assistant to find. I knew his address so headed there.

I knocked on the door a few times and no answer, so I walked through the door. It was a strange sensation, being able to do that. There was no one in the house. Then I had a thought and cursed and raced back to the lab. It was in flames and Oscar was dead with his machine destroyed. Bolso must have been hidden and waiting for me to leave. Now there was no chance of ever being able to turn him back to normal again and so imprisoning him. Or turning me back to normal again either.

I looked for signs outside, a trail that I could follow to Bolso and there were some prints on the hard ground but I lost it on the pavements. I phoned the case into work, the police department. Crime Scene Investigation turned up and like the other cops who turned up, I gave them the edited version. They would not believe what really happened, and I had no intention of showing them that I was now some kind of freak.

An A.P.B was put out for Bolso and people went to his house but did not find him there. Maybe he had seen or heard them coming and just walked out through the walls? At the Precinct, I tried computer records but there was nothing on Frank Bolso. He was clean. Or was he? His life in America began at a certain point. I followed that trail back, looking for connections. A small time Italian criminal named Finaldi Bellini on the run for murder had arrived in America just before Bolso turned up. Same initials? It was a mistake criminals made and after some checking I got a picture of Bellini. Not a good picture and an old picture but it was obviously the same man. He had hidden out in a nothing job, working for the professor until a chance to hit the big time had come up, as an unstoppable thief. But not as unstoppable as he thought if I caught up with him.

I made some phone calls and checked out his few friends and visited some of his haunts. Nothing. He was lying low for the moment. I went home for a few hours sleep before going on duty later today, and it is lucky I'm a light sleeper (an asset on endless stakeouts) as a small sound disturbed me and I looked up to see Bolso about to stab me.

I held my breath and saw the shock on Bolso's face as the knife went through me. I hit out at him but my fist went through his face as he was solid. I jumped out of bed and started breathing again. Then held my breath so his knife slash went through me again.

As I made to hit him, Bolso held his breath, which meant the knife slipped through his hand but I was still holding my breath and I hit him hard in the face. There was a flash of light and my hand hurt, but on the bonus side, so did Bolso's face as he cried out in pain. He held his breath and ran out through the wall of my apartment, breathed again and ran down the hallway and outside, closely followed by me.

A taxi had slowed outside, scenting a fare and not even opening the door, Bolso went through it, shouting for the driver to "Drive".

I had lost him. I got the taxi's number but that would be little if any good since he would go elsewhere after being dropped off. And there were no other taxis about for me to chase him.

I went back to my apartment and set my motion detector alarm so it covered my bed area. It was something the crime prevention department was pushing and I had bought one cheap. If Bolso came back, I thought I would have a warning next time. And I would buy a few more of them when back at the precinct later today.

Later I went for a little one on one chat with my Captain. We had known each other since school when he was a few years above me. He was an old fashioned cop but he was one hundred percent trustworthy. I told him how Bolso was committing the 'Locked Door' robberies we had had lately. He looked at me as if I had been drinking. I told him about the professor and his invention. He still thought I had been drinking. I held my breath and put it inside his desk, then out again. He almost swallowed his 'El Stinko' cigar. I grinned.

"No one else must know about this," I said.

He nodded. He would keep my secret.

We talked about Frank Bolso aka Finaldi Bellini, where to find him and what to do when we caught him. Neither conversation amounted to much. Bolso's home was staked out. I mentioned the motion detectors and thought a few should be put in Bolso's house and the signal rigged so it came back here. The Captain agreed and set two cops on getting it sorted out. I bought a few more for my own apartment and set them up there.

It was daytime now so I went and visited some snitches and people who owed me a favour and nothing turned up but I told them to keep an eye out for Bolso. They agreed. Bolso's few friends were of no help and he had no family. I considered. He had robbed a number of places and got cash and goods. Cash went straight in his pocket but goods needed a fence so I tried some likely candidates, taking a list of things that had been stolen. It took a while but I found some of the items listed. The fence, an old target of mine, knew I could have run him in but instead I said tell me where Bolso is and you have a get out of jail free card. He told me where he had been.

I went to a lock up and there were some goods. But he was not here. With his powers, all he needed was an empty apartment nearby and he could stay there without any problems so I looked and looked and found one that I thought would do. I walked through the locked door and there he was, stunned. He ran and again I chased him. He must have expected me to catch up with him some time because he had a planned escape route. Outside he went through a heavy drain cover. I tried to lift it and it was pretty solidly in place. By time I figured out how to go through it, he was gone, lost in the sewer systems. I reported back at Headquarters with the stolen stuff, from the apartment and the stuff the fence had been persuaded to turn over. And I told the Captain the latest.

Nothing else turned up on Bolso so I spent the rest of the day working on other cases. A pity it can't be like the films and TV series where a detective just has one case they can concentrate on.

That evening I got a call from Bolso's fence.

"Bolso was in here a while ago trying to fence some hot stuff. I said I could not take any more as the police were watching me. He left but... There's someone in the store. It can't be. I locked up. No, Frank, no. I'm not betraying you to the cops...."

There was a scream and then silence. I had a car in the area sent to the pawnshop. The fence was dead. Stabbed by an old antique sword in the shop. The police had to break the door in as it was locked from the inside.

Two o'clock next morning, I was woken by an alarm going off. One of a number of motion detectors around my apartment going off. I was up and running before fully awake but found nothing other than a dropped knife in my kitchen. I did hear a faint sound of footsteps, but found no one.

Next morning, I and the other police officers were told that our police Captain was dead. A 'Locked Room' murder again. As ranking officer I was given acting Captaincy for now, to sort these recent murders out. At parade, I roasted every cop there, telling them that apprehending Frank Bolso was number one priority over every other case. That he was a mad dog killer and that he had some way of getting through locked doors and that he was to be shot on sight, because if they let him go, they are their families may be his next target. And I had pamphlets printed up with his face and details on and they were to be handed out everywhere.

Other police precincts in the area joined the search for Bolso, and the Captain had been well liked in the neighbourhood so many more joined in the search. Eventually word came on Bolso and we closed in on him. This was no one man war between him and me but I guessed it would end up that way.

Seeing so many uniforms after him, Bolso ran. The police officers did not understand how he seemingly got through walls but shot at him just the same, knowing that this evil killer needed to be killed. They thought he was lucky and that he dodged bullets, not knowing that he merely had to hold his breath at the right times, not easy to do when running hard. I had the cordons push Bolso towards the River area. I guessed that either he or I would be in trouble if we went into the water in our 'phantom state'. And if he went in solid, my men would make sure he did not get out again.

He was finally cornered in a large building and I went inside alone 'to talk him out', but actually to kill him. I saw him on one of the higher floors and chased him. Neither of us had guns as they would be dropped when we changed to our phantom forms. Like ghosts, we flitted through walls as if they did not exist. Then I cornered him and like a cornered rat he had no choice but to stand and fight. He was just a mad dog. I kept fit with judo and boxing. Like some crazy chess game, the battle went back and forth as we continually changed between phantom and solid state and as planned, I then pushed him through a wall which I knew was an outside wall.

Bolso screamed out in fear and anger as he realised what happened and reached for the wall and made himself solid again. He hung there, screaming for as many seconds as he could stand it, his solid hands embedded in the wall, then he turned phantom again and fell. To hit the ground solid from that height (ten floors up) was certain death so he turned phantom again, willing to grasp at any chance and he went through the pavements and sunk into the ground. How far down he went, I don't know but I do know this little area had no sewers he could escape through. I had checked that out. He tried to swim back to the surface of solid material again but his breath gave out and a phantom hand and little bit of an arm appeared though solid concrete then solidified.

Other than me, no one knew what had happened as all stared horrified at that hand, and I knew an entombed body was below it. There was some warmth as Bolso's now solid body merged with the concrete but no more. He was dead.

I got made full Captain and attended three funerals. My friend Oscar's, the police funeral for a much loved Captain, and a pawnshop owner who though lowlife, he deserved better. His wife was the only other person there and she thanked me for coming.

I have told no one else what I can do and almost never use the power. One phantom in this town is one too many.

THE END.
THE BOYLES AT CHRISTMAS.

This story takes place about a year after "Life, Death, Gods and Aliens."

"It's almost Christmas!" said Sid Boyle. He liked Christmas almost as much as he liked Easter. Sid was a chocaholic and the Easter Egg chocolate always seemed better to him than ordinary chocolate.

Reg grunted. It was the third time Sid had said it in twenty minutes. Reg had nothing against receiving presents but he was a bit stingy so he was not as keen at giving presents.

"You don't like Christmas because you are worried about the ghosts of past, present and future visiting you, Reg. Don't worry, it's only a story," said brother Len, having a go at tightwad Reg.

They were sitting down to their evening meal. The factory where they worked had broken up for Christmas holidays and they were not due back to work till the third of January. The meal was quite sparse because they had had had to cook it themselves. They had paid for their mother and her best friend to visit a relative of theirs in New Zealand, first class flights and quality hotels thanks to the generosity of the Grand Sahib of Bogistaan.

New Zealand was a lot hotter than freezing cold London and Reg had moaned all the way home as icy gusts of air assaulted his bony frame, complaining about: "Where is this global warming they had promised us?"

As they ate, Reg took time out to open the cheaply wrapped present in front of him. They each had one. It was a present from their foreman. He pulled a face when he saw it. It was a small games consul with a built in game. 'Monster Fighter 1'.

Reg grunted. No doubt he had got the games in the local market. They must have cost all of a pound each, he remarked.

"It's the thought that counts," said Len, between bites of food. He checked and found he had 'Monster Fighter 2'.

"I suppose his thought was that it was cheaper than a Christmas bonus."

Sid opened his present and found 'Monster Fighter 3'.

Reg was not happy. The others had got better versions of the game than he had. 'Toytown 1' would be more Sid's speed. Still, he knew he could borrow their later versions of the games.

The evening progressed and they watched some TV. At one time they would have dropped in to the local pub, but after owner Toni Boloni had left England for parts unknown (as far as everyone but the Boyles knew), one step ahead of the police, the next owner had taken it upmarket so it was more like a men's club now, and the drinks were all very expensive there.

Len and Sid had early nights. Reg decided to stay up and try out the games.

Len came down at eight o'clock next morning and found Reg still playing one of the games.

"What the....? You been playing those games all night, Reg?"

Nothing from Reg. He was engrossed in the game.

Len looked at the screen of their large screen TV. Spacemen blasted at a group of invading monsters and there were rockets and UFO's. He was impressed with the graphics if not the story line which looked to be very basic. The sounds were noisy blasts, zaps explosions and such but Reg had thankfully kept the TV sound turned down low.

Len wandered into the kitchen to cook them all some breakfast. He was just serving it up when Sid appeared, hungry as always. Len looked in the living room and Reg was still playing his game.

"Grub's up!" He called out.

He and Sid settled down to their eggs, bacon and toast. He was half way though his and Reg had not appeared.

"Reg!" he called out.

Still nothing.

Len went into the living room and Reg was still playing his game. Len stood between the TV and Reg and after some seconds, Reg seemed to focus on him.

"I'll be up to bed in a minute. No hurry as we don't have to get up in the morning."

"It is morning," said Len. He opened the curtains and winter sunshine streamed into the room.

Reg's jaw dropped.

"It can't be."

"You've been playing that game all night," said Len. "You were stuck to the screen when I came down half an hour ago."

Reg rubbed his eyes which seemed dry and to ache as if he had been staring for too long.

Sid, having finished breakfast came into the room and asked about Reg.

"Reg seemed to have been so engrossed in the game that he never went to bed last night."

Sid looked closer at Reg. He looked 'washed out."

"Better go to bed!" Suggested Sid and Reg nodded and slowly made his way upstairs, realising only now how tired he was.

They left Reg to it and went out to do some shopping in the nearby Saturday market. It was predictably busy with Christmas tomorrow, on Sunday. They picked up a few late presents, which they would hand deliver to neighbours and friends.

Sid poked Len in the ribs and nodded his head towards a busy stall. A little man with sneaky eyes and a moustache was selling video games, ready to play on any TV. One pound each. They drifted over to look at them. Len had not really looked at his one last night but they seemed to be well made and even if probably made in a Chinese sweatshop, he wondered how they could be sold so cheaply?

"Only one pound each. Very good," the owner told him, noticing him taking an interest in the games.

There were a number of titles. Nothing well known and there were no 'knock-offs', which was just as well since there were a few police officers walking through the market and looking for 'bent gear', anything stolen. The man sold some more games and Len wandered off with Sid as they headed back home. They had all their food shopping in for Christmas, which was a relief, thought Len as he watched people struggling along with bags of food to eat over the break.

They arrived back in their house to find Reg sitting in front of the TV and playing that game again.

Len grabbed his arm a little harder than intended and dragged Reg around so he faced him.

"I thought you were going to get some sleep," shouted Len. Reg certainly looked like he needed it.

"I just decided to play with the game a bit more," mumbled Reg. He did look shattered.

Len considered for a few seconds and then grabbed the game Reg was playing, pulled it out of the TV socket and out of his hands and started stamping on it.

And Reg attacked him.

It came without warning. One moment he had been sitting quietly on the settee and the next he was like a madman. Len was fairly strong and had done some boxing but even so, Reg gave him a hard time of it for several seconds as he attacked him like a wild cat. Len got over his surprise and hit Reg hard on the chin and his bony brother collapsed into a heap on the carpeted floor.

Len rushed over to him and looked him over closely. The 'madman' seemed to have gone and Reg looked to be at peace. He was breathing evenly and now appeared to be asleep. Len carried him upstairs and put him in bed, putting a heavy cover over him so he would keep warm.

Sid looked frightened when he came downstairs again.

"What happened to Reg?" he asked. "Why did he attack you?"

"I don't know," confessed Len. It had been like an addict suddenly deprived of his drug.

He looked at the broken game he had trodden on. He went over and got a powerful magnifying glass out of a drawer and studied it more closely under a strong lamp light. He looked at it from all angles for over a minute then turned to Sid who had patiently waited.

"You remember when I destroyed that statue of Bogg in Bogistaan, the one that controlled the weather there?"

Sid nodded.

"It had very intricate circuitry like inside this video game."

Sid looked suitably shocked.

"It's not Gogg again, is it?" he asked, looking scared. He believed the monster dead but with aliens, who knew? He had seen his share of horror films where monsters came back again and again.

"No, but it could be another alien. This looks far better than any Earth circuitry and the games were too cheap for what they must cost to make."

Len considered for a moment. He went upstairs to check on Reg, who was still sleeping soundly, then downstairs again. He grabbed his coat.

"Come on, Sid. We're going out again."

They headed for the market again. Len looked for the stall selling video games but it was empty now. Len asked of the man on the next stall.

"Mr. Snark? He sold out and said he was going home."

"How long ago?"

"About five minutes."

"Did you see which way he went?"

"That way. He has a beat up old green van."

Len rushed through the crowd, followed by a bewildered Sid. They headed towards a parking area and Len quickly looked around and spotted the green van just moving away. He dragged Sid forwards and they stopped in front of the van. The van had to stop. Mr. Snark did not look happy. Len knew how to get him out of the van so he did not escape.

"My father brought two games off of you today and they do not work," he complained loudly.

Snark said something unintelligible as this person did not look like he was going to move and got out of the van.

"The games are no good," complained Len.

"I will change them for you," said Snark, going around to the back of his van.

He opened the door and there were three or four video games there.

"Give me back the games you bought."

Len hit Snark hard on the chin and for a moment, it looked like the man was not going to go down so Len hit him again. He threw him in the back of the van and told Sid to get in with him and to tie him up with his own belt. He shut the back doors, got in the driver's seat and drove off.

There was some waste ground nearby where they should not be bothered today, as all were out shopping or recovering from it back home. Len stopped the old van and got out, then opened the back door. Considering the way Len had had to hit the little man a second time when one hit should have sufficed, he was not wholly surprised when Snark leapt out of the van at him. He tapped Snark hard on the head with the brick he had picked up for the job and had held ready. Snark went down.

Sid was in the back of the van, looking a bit battered. Len grabbed hold of Sid's leather belt from around his waist and tied Snark up as tight as he could. He then found a bit of wire nearby and finished the job off. Then he and Sid waited for Snark to recover which happened quite quickly. Snark was a lot tougher than he looked.

"What are you doing?" asked Snark when he was able to speak. "I have nothing worth stealing."

"What are YOU doing, Mr. Snark," asked Len. He still had the brick handy and Snark kept an eye on it.

"What do you mean?" complained Snark. "I am just a business man trying to make some money before Christmas."

"Where did you get those video games?"

"A warehouse in China sells them. I bought some, cheap."

"Cheap enough that you could import them all the way from China, and sell them in the market here and maybe other markets at one pound each and still make a profit?"

Snark said nothing. He just looked upset.

"I had a look inside one after they affected my brother like hard drugs," said Len.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out some bits of the game he had wrecked, showing the circuitry.

"This was never made on Earth," said Len, staring at Snark who said nothing but looked a little shocked.

"You are not the first alien I have met, Snark or whatever your real name is."

Snark looked more shocked.

"Well?"

Snark thought about it then answered.

"No, I am not of Earth. This is a disguise I wear so as not to frighten you Earth people. I know how delicate some of you are."

Sid did not look happy. He wondered what horror might hide beneath the disguise. He still sometimes had nightmares about the horrific true face of Gogg.

"And....?" added Len.

"I travel about the galaxy, buying and selling. I bought those games on Jaff, an earthlike planet and decided to sell them here so I could buy some of your Earth comic books to sell elsewhere. There is a market for them on Benix. Surely there is nothing wrong in that?"

"You say Jaff is earthlike but I think there is some difference. You see, my brother tried one of your games and would not stop playing it. He was like a drug addict with no thought of anything else."

"Ohhh!" said Snark. "I put Earth labels on them but I never thought of testing them out on an Earth person."

"I don't know how many people have tried them out already but there could be what....hundreds, thousands stuck in front of screens now, playing them like zombies."

"Ohhh!"

"Can you do anything?" asked Len.

Snark thought for a moment. He asked for Len to release him then he went into the back of his van. There was a small box there and he turned a dial. It had been set at what looked to be a very high setting. He now set it at minimum setting.

"It is done. All the games sold and in this van now work at minimum setting where they should be no problem at all now. On Jaff they use the top setting as it gives the games more excitement."

"OK, then I think we are alright now. You said you wanted some comic books?"

Snark nodded.

Len looked at Sid who shook his head.

"Not my comics."

"Come on, Sid. You've read them all a dozen times and mum has been on at you to get rid of them."

"But they might be worth money. Some comic books are."

"Not those ones, Sid. Reg has been through them all looking for anything valuable and none of them are."

Sid reluctantly accepted it and they drove to their house, where Sid grudgingly helped load about sixteen hundred comic books from the outdoor shed into the back of Snark's van. Snark was beside himself with gratitude, and thanked them. Sid watched him drive off, wondering who, or what would be reading his comic books next.

They went back into the house and living room and found Reg playing with one of the games again.

"What the....? said Len

Then Reg threw the game control on the floor and pulled the connector from the back of the TV so deprived of that, a film came on. It was a Carry On film.

"What did I ever find interesting in that game? It's the same old, same old" he moaned.

Len and Sid breathed a sigh of relief. Things were back to normal and so was Reg.

"You two been out again?" he asked.

"Yes. Sid has given away his comic book collection to a good cause as a Christmas present to some needy aliens."

Reg looked at him and before he could say anything; on TV, Kenneth Williams in his nasal voice said: "Stop messing about!"

Reg nodded. He could not have said it better himself.

THE END.
THE TIN MAN

Consciousness came slowly to me. I slowly opened my eyes to be confronted with a semi-circle of six young men. There was a cheer but I was confused. My mind seemed to be foggy. Not only did I not know where I was or how I got here, I was not even sure who I was?

Now quite knowing what to say, I said: "Hello!"

There was another cheer.

"What is your name?" asked one of them.

I thought for a moment and said: "Stan!"

They cheered again. They were a happy lot, it seemed.

"Hold up your right arm" said the one with glass over his eyes. He seemed to be a spokesman for the others.

I saw no problem with doing that so I did it. I looked for my first time at my arm. I looked at the arms of the people around me. They were not the same.

"Why is my arm not the same as your arms?" I asked.

They looked at each other. It has to come said one of them, producing a mirror.

I looked in the mirror and almost jumped out of the chair. Was that me?

I examined the figure more closely, noting that the mirror image moved as I did. The young men all watched me to see how I took this. I considered for several seconds.

"I am a mechanical man?" I asked. I knew I was. I just wanted confirmation.

"Yes. We made you."

I considered for a few more seconds. This was my situation and there was nothing I could do about it, so I reluctantly accepted it. I remembered to put my right arm down.

"Why did you make me?"

"You are our science project. I don't mean you are a toy or anything like that but we wanted to see if we could make a life-like robot."

"So I have mechanical workings inside of me", I said as I understood what the word 'robot' meant.

"Yes. As we have flesh, bones and blood, so you have certain metals and certain fluids."

"And you control me?"

"No. We did not want a remote controlled model as others have made. With computers getting ever smaller and better, though they are still a long way from the human brain we have given you a rudimentary ability to think as well as programming in as much information as we could about the world and everything in it."

I decided to stand up, and being careful not to bump into the humans, I did so. At least I did not squeak, I thought.

"Why did you call me Stan?" I asked.

"A certain person who shall remain nameless wanted to call you the tin man". Here all eyes turned on one of the men who turned red, "But we decided on 'stannum' meaning tin, then shortened it to Stan."

"So I am made of tin?" I asked. I did not like the idea of that as tin was a weak metal that could bend easily.

"No. You are made of tungsten steel, carbon fibers and other tough materials. Your skin covering is a very tough fire-proof polymer made to look a bit like human skin."

I liked that. I did not want to be a being that could dent easily and have the indignity of having those dents knocked out all the time.

"My name is William" said the one with the glasses. "Please copy the moves that Don is doing."

Don did some aerobics, run on the spot, jumped, bent in various directions and then did a back flip. I managed them all but did not get the back flip quite right first time. On the second time, I did it as good as Don did.

There were cheers and then William said he would ask some questions. Most were simple things, and answering them got easier as I continued the exercise. Then William asked me about the meaning of life. I thought for a moment.

"Why does there need to be a meaning to life? Surely expecting life to have meaning would mean that you exist for a reason, like in the world's religions? Or in my case for a science project."

The last I said in a neutral tone, not wanting to sound ungrateful to them for creating me, though I did wonder what they planned to do with me afterwards? Would I be scrapped?

"Well, he looks OK and seems to have passed every test" said William. "Better put him away for now?"

They nodded their heads and as asked, I followed them upstairs to a small room, a study of sorts.

"Stand in there" said William, pointing to a large closet, and I did as asked.

"Stasis" said William and the next thing I knew, William was there with some friends and he asked me to step out of the closet. I have an internal chronometer and some time had passed. Twenty hours to be exact. I puzzled over this while William talked to the others. He had said "stasis" which means 'a period or state of inactivity'. I was not a genius but I could guess what had happened. I had been pre-programmed with a word that could turn me off, and William had then used another word (unknown) which had turned me on again.

This left me feeling deeply uneasy, that I could be treated like a toy and only turned on when wanted. They had built a diagnostic programme into me so I set it to finding anything to do with the word 'stasis'.

"The science fair is on tomorrow" said William. "I gave you a check over while you were turned off and you seem to be fully functional. We'll have a walk around the College and campus to see if there are any faults in your programming. Come with us."

I followed them along corridors and up and down stairs. We looked in on class rooms and in other buildings and talked to people. Then we walked out onto the playing fields where a game of baseball was going on. I watched it with some interest. I knew the basics of the game but could now watch it being played as it should be.

"Who's your good looking friend, William?" asked a tall strong young man who was looking at me. I believe he is what is called a 'jock', a sportsman who excels. I would guess that calling me 'good looking' was some kind of sarcasm on his part.

"He's our science project, Andrews. I modelled him on you, but decided to add a brain."

That was a good comeback, I thought. Now what would the jock do? Violence?

"Since you modelled him on me, can he play baseball?"

Another good comeback. His estimation of Andrews went up a few notches. He liked this 'human watching'.

"Well, he has never played before. Show him a few basics and see how he does."

Andrews showed me where and how to stand. He explained the rules of the game and what to do. Then he had someone throw a ball to him, which he hit a good distance.

"I will try it", I said nodding.

Everyone was now looking at me.

The ball came fairly fast but I had good hand to eye coordination, faster than human thoughts and reflexes and we would now see how strong I was. I swung the bat and hit the ball.

BANG!

Everyone jumped including me.

We looked at the ruins of the ball and the damaged bat.

"I think I may have hit it too hard" I said.

After the surprise, there was laughter and cheering and Andrews slapped me on the back.

"We might be able to make a champion baseball player out of you but you are going to have to take those swings a bit lighter."

I nodded and smiled. Or at least I thought I smiled. I would have to check my features in the mirror some time.

"Try it more carefully, champ" said Andrews, giving me another bat and asking for another ball to be pitched. It took several more tries between too weak and too strong but I eventually got it right and the coach who had turned up was wondering if the rules allowed me to be in the team.

As we left the baseball field, I had an internal message. 'Stasis' had been found. 'Action' I was asked. I considered and asked it to ignore all future uses of the word where it interfered with my operation. I would not let William know but if he gave a machine free will, then he could not complain if a machine exercised that free will.

Next we went to the track and they were impressed with my three minute mile. They would have been more impressed had I run fast instead of medium pace but it occurred to me that maybe I should not show how good I was. In the weights section, I listed over 700 pounds but knew I could lift a lot more. The humans had done a good job of building me. Better than they knew.

Then it was back to the studies again and William asked me to stand in the closet again and said "Stasis". I stood still. Ignoring me now, they talked.

"Stan performed better than I believed he would."

"We're sure to win the big prize tomorrow."

"How about his energy level. Will he be OK for tomorrow?"

"No problem. That uranium capsule I got will power him for another three weeks at least."

"So, what do we do with him after the competition? We can hardly have him as a roommate."

"I don't know. I'll leave him turned off till we decide."

They later went out to get something to eat and I was left with my thoughts. I was almost tempted to run away but where would I go, what would I do?

They came back later, talked about girls, and finally left to go to their dormitories for their own sleep periods.

Next day was the big day. The science fair. William woke me up, or believed he did so, by saying the word 'bugle'. A bugle call, I guessed. I started moving again. We ran through some last minute tests then it was down to the Large Hall for the Fair.

There were a lot of people there, and many exhibits. Someone else had built a robotic man but it was remote controlled and so far behind me it was not worth mentioning. There was a radar camera which drew some attention. A freezer chamber which was the reverse of a microwave and I think worked on liquid nitrogen. And some other interesting exhibits. But I attracted most of the attention. The two young men who had built the other mechanical man snidely suggested that there was someone inside my shell, operating me but a small, portable x-ray someone had invented disproved that and they left, taking their poor imitation with them, knowing it had no chance of winning.

The judges talked with the inventors and saw inventions demonstrated. They were pleased with this year's entries, but I won easily, having had a good conversation with the judges, which obviously was not pre-rehearsed.

William and his friends had received their science fair cup when there was a fracas at the entry doors. Five rough looking young men barged into the hall, followed by the two younger men who had built the failed robot. Two security guards tried to eject them from the hall but guns were drawn and they were beat about the heads with them, and left bloody and bruised on the floor.

One of the rough types fired his gun in the air twice and everyone froze.

"That's showing them Cyril" said one of the two failed inventors.

"It's Rock" growled Cyril. "You don't call me that name outside the house again or so help me, I'll pistol whip you too."

"OK, Rock. OK" gasped the unfortunate younger brother.

He pointed me and William out to his brother who then did a John Wayne walk towards us. Everyone would have laughed at this had he not been carrying a gun and looked dangerous enough to use it. His cronies menaced the others with their guns and made sure no one pulled out a mobile phone to contact the police.

He came over and inspected me.

"He don't look much" was his verdict. "Maybe there is someone inside it?"

His brother assured him there was not. Rock looked around. No one had a control box.

"You a mechanical man?" he asked me.

"Some would say that" I answered.

"What can you do?"

"Some human stuff" I replied, using a similar tone to Rock.

"You ever ride a motorbike?" he asked.

"No. but I hope to one day, along with a lot of other things, if I am given a chance to."

Rock nodded. He looked at his brother.

"This robot is a lot better than your one" he admitted.

His brother growled. He did not like his face rubbed in his failures.

"Well, shoot it and then it won't be."

"You been shot before, mechanical man?"

"No."

Rock fired three shots at me from close range.

Internal sensors recorded their impacts but I seemed to be tough enough to withstand them.

Rock stared, looking for damage.

"Damn! This robot is a lot better than yours" he said to his brother who jumped up and down on the spot.

His brother pulled a gun from inside his jacket.

"Maybe I can't hurt that damned robot but I can kill his inventors" screeched the youngster, pointing the gun at William.

I moved fast and his first bullet bounced off of me, and straight back through his shoulder. He dropped to the floor.

"Dang, you shot my little brother" said Rock, turning an angry face to me.

"It was a ricochet" I said.

"Same thing. You shot my brother and now is time for revenge."

He pulled out a large gun. A magnum I would guess from someone's whisper, and fired at my body, putting two dents in it, then at my head.

One of my mechanical eyes exploded before I had time to get out of the way, his next bullet missed, then his next entered my head casing as did the following one.

"That should finish you" gloated Rock. "I wish I had a sledge hammer to crush your punkin' head flat."

I could still see out of one eye so rushed at Rock. I gripped his gun hand and squeezed. He howled as his hand was pulped, and dropped to his knees.

That was Rock out of the fight but his cronies rushed forwards and started firing at me. They had seen that bullets to the body did little damage so aimed at my head. My other mechanical eye was damaged and through a spider-web of quartz I barely saw them as I started throwing punches.

Another three of them were down when the last one sneaked up behind me and took my head off with a fire axe. I still had life in me though I could see nothing as the fire axe hit my body. The next time it happened, I grabbed it and yanked it towards me and as a human body hit mine, I threw it up in the air and it came down again, solidly I guessed from feeling it hit rather than hearing it.

I stood still now as I could see and hear nothing. Unknown to me, the police had been phoned for and arrived brandishing guns. I was later told that seeing me, they thought I had caused the mayhem till many told them I had not and pointed out the guilty people, who all went off to hospital before sentencing.

Days passed in a limbo for me and suddenly I had a new head and connections and I could function properly again. I thanked William and his friends.

"I do not understand" I said. "My head was destroyed yet I am as I was before, with a working brain again, as before. Was it not damaged?"

"Your head was totally destroyed" said William. "But you are not human so we overcome a human weakness where the brain is put in a too easily destroyed head by putting your brain in your chest where it was well protected. From there it can safely control your body".

"Why did you repair me? I thought that you would just discard me now the fair is over."

"I admit we thought of it" confessed William. "But seeing you in action gave the Headmaster an idea. A month ago, Tenworth High School across the county line was attacked by two former pupils who shot and injured seven pupils before they were stopped. And it was lucky it was not far worse.

"When the Head saw you in action, he decided he would like you to guard this College from such incidents. This incident aside, everyone has said how friendly you were to them. We have replaced your nuclear pellet with a fast electrical charging system and thirty minutes charging will keep you charged up for four days at a time. The job is yours if you want it."

I nodded and like a human, shook William's hand. And like a human being, I have my job to do, looking after the College. I patrol the grounds day and night and everyone knows me, and feels safer for me being there. I have even met many of the parents on Open Day and they too have learned to trust me.

Soon after William and others created me, he asked me the meaning of life and though I cannot put it into words, I think I have found the answer.

THE END.
THE WIZARD'S APPRENTICE

"I am Batec and I have to see the Wizard," came a voice from the door.

"He is away at the moment," a young man answered. "A wizard's convention."

"He can't be away. I need him and his magic."

"Sorry!" said the young man.

"Do you know any magic?" asked Batec.

"My name is Cedric. I know a little but I am only a first year apprentice. I doubt that I can be of any help."

"It is my daughter...."

Cedric's ears perked up. The few good looking women in town were taken which left only the homely ones. She might be beautiful.

"Can you at least look and see if you can help me?"

Cedric got off his hard wooden seat and put down the book of spells he had been studying. Other apprentices got to go to wizard's conventions. He was just given a book to read and 'maybe next year', after he had done his other tasks (which was the main reason wizard's kept apprentices). Well, he had had enough of reading for now and had a headache from all that studying.

"I will see if I can do anything," Cedric said, and allowed himself to be led outside by Batec.

They went through the old town's narrow streets to a large house on the edge of town, but not into the house. They went into a barn next door. Cedric jumped when he looked inside.

"An ogress!" he shouted.

"Shhhh!" said Batec. "It is my daughter, Solona, and she is sensitive about her appearance."

"What happened?" said Cedric, recovering a little. He had heard about ogres, male and female, and nothing any good.

"We owed the wizard Garth a little money and I could not pay at the moment, so he turned my daughter into that till we could pay."

Cedric thought for a moment and faced Batec.

"If you cannot pay Garth, how are you going to pay me or my master for undoing the spell put on your daughter?"

"Well, I....."

"Owww!"

Cedric howled as it felt like a vice had just squeezed his arm, and he looked to see the ogress Solona standing next to him.

"Sorry!" she said. "I am not used to my strength in this hideous form."

Cedric rubbed his arm and Batec looked annoyed at his daughter. How to get some free help from someone if she nearly breaks their arm?

"The money?" Cedric reminded Batec.

"It will be here any time now" Batec lied. His brother owed him money but whether he would pay today, next week, month or year was anybody's guess. His brother was as sneaky and untrustworthy as he was.

"Garth is away like your master so even if I have the money now, my beautiful daughter must endure this horrible form till he returns."

Batec noted how the boy had smiled when he used the term beautiful. He had allegedly been a young man himself once and knew what young men liked.

"My beautiful daughter would be very much in debt to anyone who could help her get her beautiful form back again," said Batec, wondering if he had overdone it

Cedric took a look at the very ugly ogress and wondered what the girl looked like inside? He would have to see if he could find out as things on the female companion side of life looked bleak at present, and in the future.

"The problem with undoing such a spell is that I must know what the spell was that made your daughter like this," spoke Cedric, partly quoting his master.

"We will have to go to wizard Garth's house and see if we can find anything to help there."

The three left Batec's house and headed in that direction. A few townspeople looked at the ogress but most would not in case they upset here. It was best not to upset such a beast as they could do a lot of damage with little effort (which was why Batec had not kept her in his own house).

Garth's house was fortunately not far away and Cedric wondered if the wizard had left any protective spells on it while away. He tried the door and it would not open. He pushed harder and still it did not open. A large hand pushed over his shoulder and the door flung open. It appeared that the door was just locked and no door could stand long against ogre or ogress strength.

They walked in and looked around. It was quite tidy and based on his own master's way of putting things away, he quickly found where the wizard kept his magic tombs. He tried to remember a spell which showed where a book was last opened so he would know where to look, then noticed a book mark.

He opened the weighty book and looked at the page. He could not read the words. The wizard had used a scrambling spell on them. He was trying to remember the spell to unscramble words when the door was flung open and a spiteful voice was heard.

"What are you three doing here?"

Cedric cursed. It was Peed, wizard's apprentice to Garth.

"Cedric!" said Peed, making it sound like a curse. "What are you doing here?"

"The same as you. My master did not want me at the wizard's convention."

Peed was annoyed. He and Cedric had taken an instant dislike to one another when they first met, and Cedric had told everyone in their class at school that Peed got his name because as a baby, he had peed (urinated) all over the 'namers' new robe, and in revenge the namer had named him 'Peed' instead of Peter, and once given, the name could not be changed. And what had hurt Peed most was that the story was true.

"Are you trying to steal something?" growled Peed.

"No. I am just after a little information."

"My master will not be happy when he gets back."

"Batec here will pay the money he owes and all will be well," said Cedric.

Batec nodded though he was certainly not sure on that score.

"You must leave now," said Peed, waving his hands.

"Make us!" said Cedric.

Peed was only a first year apprentice like himself but he had not counted on Garth teaching him a spell to get rid of any intruders while he was away.

Peed started speaking in a high pitched voice and waved his hands.

Cedric started towards Peed at a run, and then the three of them were outside in the street again. He looked around and Peed was grinning from one of the windows. The ogress didn't like that and hit the door, hard, and bounced off. Powerful magic.

"Try the window," Cedric suggested.

That proved no better.

Cedric thought for a moment. He knew his own master's place. Wizards needed certain things....like a cellar. He looked around and barely outlined near the house was a good sized square.

"Jump on that" Cedric told the ogress.

She did, and crashed through the cellar doors. She stood up, unharmed. Not a lot bothered ogres.

Cedric and Batec followed down the hole, to the floor several feet below. They walked up the stairs and opened the door, confronting the shocked Peed. He started his enchantment again and Cedric rushed him, and got him before he could complete it. Peed was quite a good fighter, but Cedric was better, and both of them knew it. Peed quickly gave up, to save taking unnecessary punishment.

He dragged Peed over to the magic book and pointed at the page.

"What does it say?"

"It's a travel protection spell," smiled Peed. He guessed it was not what they wanted.

Cedric groaned. The Wizard was going on a long journey, so why not.

He opened the book to numerous other pages trying to find the spell that changed the girl into an ogress and Peed grinned as he did not find it. Of course considered Cedric, Peed might be lying and they had already passed the page with the spell on and he had said it was something else. It was possible, knowing Peed.

"Well, if I can't persuade you, let's see if an ogress can."

He turned to Solona who had been listening to all that was said.

She advanced on Peed who looked like he was going to live up to his name.

"You wouldn't." he said to Cedric.

"No, but she would. Don't kill him, Solona as we need him alive to tell us what we want to know."

Solona picked him up effortlessly with one huge hand and swung him around her head a few times as a warm up exercise.

Peed howled.

"Let us know when you are ready to help us?" said Cedric.

"I give up. I give up," wailed Peed.

Solona put him down again.

Now tell us the spell.

Peed went to the book and read it out for Cedric. It did not make sense, but magic spells did not.

The ogress stood in front of him and as told, Cedric waved his arms and repeated the chants. There was a flash and she had changed.

Peed burst out laughing. The large fearsome ogress was gone and in its place was a small furry creature.

"Don't hurt me, furry creature!" begged Peed amid howls of laughter.

Cedric looked on in shock. Peed had tricked them by making Solona harmless.

Peed continued laughing and Cedric thought. Solona in animal form looked on helplessly. Cedric had an idea and brought Solona up to the level of his mouth and whispered in her animal ear. She nodded.

"Well done, Peed. You tricked us so got rid of the ogress, but you also tricked yourself. Don't you realise what she is now?"

Peed stopped laughing for the moment to look closely at the small furry creature Cedric had put on the floor again.

"It's a qatax. One bite from it and you die a horrible death."

Suddenly the little creature growled and ran at speed for Peed's feet and legs. Peed screeched like a little girl as the creature angrily chased him around the room. Having climbed on top of a bureau and safe for the moment, Peed waved his hands, said something and the little creature was an ogress again. It had been a cancellation spell. Cedric smiled. It had been a qatox and not a qatax (both similar in appearance) and was quite harmless but Peed had not known that.

"Now where were we," said the ogress, reaching for Peed.

"I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to tell you," screeched Peed and for the present moment, Cedric thought he meant it.

"Just a minute, Solona. I would like a word with Peed."

She reluctantly let go of his arm and leg.

"Now Peed, maybe we can work something out?"

Peed, still shaking but his limited courage sticking for the moment looked at this possible way out and nodded his head. He climbed down from the bureau.

"Batec here owes your master some money, which is the cause of the problem."

Batec and Peed nodded.

"Batec assures me that the money will be here in a day or two so your master can be paid off when he gets back."

Batec nodded, hoping it would fool Peed and Cedric.

"Now, Batec assures me that his daughter Solona is a very beautiful girl...."

Batec nodded like his head was going to fall off.

"And I think she will be very grateful to the young man who changes her from an ugly ogress back into a beautiful young girl again. VERY grateful."

Batec and Solona nodded.

Here Cedric whispered to Peed that that was why he was helping them but he knew now that he could not accomplish what he wanted without Peed so was willing to let Peed claim her as the reward. Peed looked at him and was sure Cedric was sincere. The young men could read each other, and both would do anything for a half way decent young woman.

"You will let me have her?" whispered Peed.

Cedric reluctantly agreed. He did not like Peed but he did not like this beautiful young girl being a monster either.

"I can help you become human again," Peed said to Solona the ogress.

"Thank you, thank you. I will be eternally grateful if you do," Solona said.

Cedric sighed and Peed smirked.

The ogress stood in a small circle Peed had chalked and while Cedric held the book, Peed chanted and made gestures. There was a moment of silence and a puff of smoke and Solona was a human girl again. Her father gasped with relief and thanked Peed, shaking his hand.

Cedric and Peed stared. The girl was Peed's now. She believed in keeping her word. But Batec as you may have noted was a bit of a slimy character and as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Now Solona was human again, it was an improvement over being an ogress but not much of one as Cedric and Peed both thought. She was a large girl with a face that was both plain and horsey. Her hair looked like it had been cut by a blind man and in a voice that grated on Cedric and Peed's ears, she said: "Oh, Peed. You are mine now."

Before Peed could escape, she had him in a bear hug.

Cedric remembered to shut his mouth and was very, very relieved at his narrow escape from that same fate. He quietly and quickly left the other three and headed back to his master's house, and locked the door.

A few days later, Garth arrived back home and was met by Batec. His brother had paid up, so he paid the wizard what he owed him and the wizard made a short cancellation spell (unneeded) that would change Batec's daughter back to normal wherever she was.

But he could not find his apprentice. He sighed. He would have to get another one.

A few days travel away and still going strong, Peed was still on the run.

THE END.
THREE WISHES.

Dennis Wade was one of life's losers. Everything he did seemed to go wrong. It had been so at school where under his photo in the Yearbook, was written: "Person most likely to lose". Girls had stayed away from him like he had the plague and were it not for bullies, no one would have noticed him.

He left school and actually got a good job. After just months he was promoted and it had seemed like he might be going somewhere and then the bombshell dropped. A number of people were using the company to swindle public money on a large scale and when the police checked, his name seemed to be on most documents.

'That explained his promotion' he thought as he was dragged off to prison and then court.

It was his attorney's first case, and probably his last considering what a mess he made of Wade's defence and whereas he might have got off with probation with a reasonable attorney, he ended up in jail. Sure it was a short sentence but jail????

Wade was inducted into the penal system and got to share a cell with Louey the Rat.

When the guard put him in there, he said to Wade that he must have been born under an unlucky star. Wade nodded. No doubt there.

His bad luck continued as he found out what the guard meant. Louey was gay and had a great sexual appetite. The other gays in the prison wanted nothing to do with Louey, because he was a rat in numerous ways, including poor personal hygiene.

So as with previous cellmates, he pestered Wade for sex. And despite endless refusals, pestered him and pestered him.

Wade could not even trust himself to sleep as Louey had climbed into the bunk bed with him a number of times, which resulted in many fights. The only good thing here was that Wade though a bit of a wimp could beat Louey who was even more of a wimp. The beatings did not stop Louey. And shower time was bad too as Louey leered at him when naked. He was glad there was liquid soap as no way would he bend down to pick up anything he dropped while Louey was nearby.

So Wade punched a guard. He got in three hits before he was dragged away. He was taken before the warden.

"I see you are in a cell with Louey Small."

Wade nodded.

"Thirty days isolation OK?" the warden asked.

Wade nodded and was taken away. He found isolation was not so bad after all.

Somehow he got through his jail sentence with his sanity and was released.

But having served time, no one now wanted to employ him for any decent job. His Parole Officer landed him a job in a warehouse full of spare parts as there was probably nothing there worth nicking. And a bed at a hostel.

Wade moved things about, packed stuff for sending and was fairly competent at his poorly paid job. Then Louey the Rat turned up there, having finished his jail time too. A week later, Louey was found about thirty feet up, his overalls stapled to a wooden wall by a large staple gun used for packaging. The Rat ratted on Wade and they were both sacked.

Wade was back inside again, having violated the terms of his parole by not keeping his job, as was Louey. Fortunately for both, they had different cells this time, and Wade watched a new sucker get ushered in to share a cell with Louey. And no one was surprised when Louey ended up dead, a pillow still held firmly over his face by his new cellmate as the guards busted in. It seems that the man had been a sound sleeper, which Louey had taken advantage of.

Wade got out of prison again and was again found a menial job as a washer upper in a small restaurant. It had seemed to go well and one of the waitresses there seemed to take a liking to him. He wondered why he was getting the evil eye from the very large cook there, and the other waitress tipped him, that he fancied himself as the other waitress's boyfriend, though she could not stand him. Wade tried to ignore her but took the hint when the cook threw a large meat cleaver at him, and handed in his resignation.

Someone he had known in prison offered him a driving job for cash, moving stolen stuff. Wade shook his head.

"I'm the original bad luck kid" he told the man. "If you took me on, somehow or other the cops would find out about your racket and we'd both be in prison again."

The man let it go. He had now remembered that Wade had seemed to be very unlucky in prison.

Wade found another job, poorly paid of course and then his luck seemed to change. A woman who he saw daily struck up a conversation with him and it blossomed into a romance and he moved in with her, she owning her own apartment. For a month life was good for Wade and he thought 'about time' then one day her husband came home.

She had neglected to say that she was married and that her husband had been in jail for various drug offences, for ABH (Actual Body Harm), for stabbing a detective when arrested and beating up on three others, as well as having a 'rap sheet' as long as his arm.

They were having fun in bed when her six foot eight husband strode into the room. He looked to be built like a brick outhouse. The same old, same old thought Wade as he grabbed his clothes and dived through the window onto the fire escape and then started down it in leaps and bounds. It was dangerous to do so but from the angry roars behind him, breaking his neck seemed like the safest option.

Wade somehow safely made it to the ground and dressed as he ran. As a taxi dropped a passenger off, he jumped in and slammed the door and gave the local bus station as his destination, just missed by a huge hulking figure not far behind him.

As he arrived at the bus station, a bus was getting ready to leave so he got a ticket and was lucky enough (for once) to get on it and get out of town. A few hours later he arrived at the terminal station and wandered around town, feeling like a bad luck version of Doctor Richard Kimble.

In a shop window he saw some ads and one was for a 'dig'. They were looking at an ancient site and needed people to help them with the manual work. It promised room and board. He decided that would do for now till he found better and a short bus ride took him to the site. No problem here with being an ex-con he thought as he was hired and shown where everything was before starting work.

It was not hard work but it was intricate work as they did not want to damage what might be below the surface of the dirt. Days passed with fairly good weather, and along with others he found some bits and pieces which were photographed, logged and then turned over to the 'expert team'. The food was good and filling and sleeping in a tent on camp beds was not bad and he earned a little money so was satisfied for now.

Then he made a big discovery. The others were leaving to go to the food station and he was about to follow them when he almost tripped over something that just poked above ground. He wondered whether to call others as he carefully cleared around it with his hands in the manner he had been taught. He gasped. It looked like a stereotypical genie lamp from an Aladdin pantomime.

He looked around. No one was anywhere near him or looking. He hid the lamp in his clothes, went to a nearby bit of woods and hid it where he could find it again. Then went to get something to eat.

Thoughts whirled through his mind. It looked like an 'Aladdin's lamp'. It had the dust of ages on it. Of course he did not believe in magic and lamps, and genies only existed in fairy tales and.....and somewhere at the back of his mind, he thought: 'What if this is the real thing? Do I get three wishes and can I wish for anything?' This could be his chance to get out of his unhappy life. He could wish for a million, or even a billion. There were endless possibilities. He had to think about it.

That night, he had trouble getting to sleep as the sound of slumbers sounded around him. His mind was in a whirl. He'd have to check the lamp out as soon as he could. Even if it was just a metal lamp, it was obviously old and could be worth a good sum to the right person. He had never stolen before but he had led a crap life and thought he finally deserved something out of it.

The next day was Sunday, a day off so while people relaxed, and some went to a nearby beach and others into town where some shops would be open, Wade found his lamp and walked over a mile away, finally away from anyone disturbing him. He rubbed the lamp in the time honoured fashion and it seemed that nothing would happen then suddenly there was a vibration in the lamp, a little smoke and then a man stood before him in Medieval clothes.

"I am the servant of the lamp. You have three wishes. What do you wish for?"

Wade nearly dropped the lamp as his mouth hung open. He had hoped for this but like doing the lottery, you hope to win the jackpot but know deep down it is never going to happen. But this had happened. He had won the jackpot for once in his crummy life.

"Can I wish for anything?"

"Within reason, anything. I am not going to kill everyone or make everyone immortal and such. Even I cannot do that but I can do some pretty amazing stuff. Also you cannot wish for more wishes."

Wade had spent some time thinking of what he would wish for before finally dropping off to sleep last night. People in stories wished for huge amounts of money, which often got them self into trouble. He had a better idea.

"Genie. I have led a real crap life upto now. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I want to change that. My first wish is that I should be a lucky person. I am not talking phenomenally lucky but to have things go my way and for life not to be an uphill struggle all the time."

"Is that what you wish?" asked the genie.

"Yes!" said Wade.

"It is done" said the genie.

"No waving of hands?" asked Wade.

"Not unless you want me to," said the genie. "By the way, that is a good wish. In many such cases people wish for lots of money and that often does not end well since as they say, money is the root of all evil."

"So, I am lucky now?"

The genie nodded.

"How do I know?"

"People go looking for lost things with metal detectors on the beach and around here. Dig around in the soft soil and see if you can find anything."

Wade humoured him and spent some minutes looking through the loose dirt before finding a small, hard object. He picked it up and examined it closely. He gasped. It was a Rolex watch. He knew rich people spent ridiculous amounts of money on them, and this one though in excellent condition looked to be quite old, so worth even more than a standard Rolex. He put it in his pocket. He was convinced. He was officially 'lucky'.

"Your second wish?" asked the genie.

"I'm not sure now," confessed Wade. "When I thought the lamp was just an old oil lamp, I thought up some crazy ideas but now I think I need to think things over."

The genie nodded.

"When you have decided on your second wish, let me know by rubbing the lamp again."

Then he vanished into the lamp.

Wade slowly walked back to camp, his mind in a whirl. It would take time to think of what to do next if he could have virtually anything. He could not waste it. He wrapped the lamp in a neck cloth and buried it again where he was sure it would not be found.

The rest of the day was quiet and next day, 'the dig' started again. And Wade unearthed a number of ancient finds, with the others saying how lucky he was. He smiled. They were glad for him as they were a good bunch of people, all working selflessly for the same cause. They had little money but they had friendship and had accepted him as one of them. Wade did not give the lamp any thought and decided when he went to bed tonight, he would think about it again.

At supper time, two fairly young women came over and talked to him about his finds that day. They were both experts from the museum which was funding this 'dig'. Wade knew little about archaeology, about as much as the average man in the street, but found the conversation still went well.

He was lucky, he thought to himself. This had to be the best wish ever. If only his whole life could have been like this, he thought.

When the others went to bed that night, Wade crept out and dug up the lamp again. He rubbed it and talked to the genie about having a life full of good luck.

"Sorry but I cannot do that. You see your life impacts on others, which impacts on others and so on. And then there are time paradoxes. In your new life, you might not even find my lamp then how can I grant your wishes? Generally changing what has happened over the past week is about as much as I dare and even then not major things."

Wade said he understood and the genie went back into the lamp.

Well, the past was behind him now, thought Wade so maybe he should settle on a good future instead? He reburied the lamp and went to bed. As he went off to sleep, wishes came and went and he did not know what to wish for. He still had two left and could do amazing things if he wished for the right thing.

A new day and there were more finds, mostly thanks to Wade. It was decided that he was either very lucky or he had chosen the right spot to look for ancient artifacts.

They had the midday meal and things had been going well when there was an ear shattering rumble like a slow motion bomb going off and when the dust cleared, six people who had started on a new section were buried under tons of rock, and undoubtedly dead. So were the two women he had talked with the previous day.

Wade stood stock still in shock, then while the others rushed over to see if anyone was alive after that rockfall, he rushed in the opposite direction into the woods. He unearthed his lamp, rubbed it and the genie appeared.

"I know what I want for my second wish, if you can grant it. Follow me"

They emerged from the woods into a scene of devastation as people were trying to dig out the dead bodies. Wade pointed.

"I want you to stop that rock fall happening so no one is injured or dies," he told the genie.

"Is that what you wish for your second wish?" asked the genie.

"Yes!" said Wade and suddenly everyone was working as normal at 'the dig'.

The genie went back into the lamp and Wade buried it again and continued his work there as if nothing had happened, and it had not as far as anyone knew.

Wade's mind was in a whirl as he looked up at the now very solid ridge above the diggers. He had used his second wish, but would not change it for anything. Despite his lousy life, there was a spark of goodness in Wade.

Two more days passed and they were coming to the end of 'the dig' now, with almost no finds in the last 24 hours. The team had found plenty and the museum people called 'the dig' a great success. They had a last evening meal and their meagre pay was handed out. They would leave tomorrow.

Wade wandered into the forest again and dug up the lamp.

"I can't decide what I want for the last wish. There are so many things I would like but I only have one more wish."

The genie considered.

"I told you that you could not wish for more wishes but there is a way around it where you could have as many wishes as you want," he said.

Wade's eyes lit up.

"How do I do it?"

"Simple. You use your last wish to become a genie like me and then you can have unlimited wishes."

"That easy?"

"That easy," the genie assured Wade.

Wade made his third wish.

"I wish to be a genie!" he said.

"That is your third wish" asked the genie.

"Yes!" said Wade, and he became a genie.

And the genie became a mortal man again.

"I was caught by that same wish" confessed the ex-genie. "That is how I replaced the previous genie, and probably how he replaced the previous genie. Sure you can now make endless wishes but only what your new master commands. Which unfortunately cannot be me. Back in your lamp, genie. I go to join the race of men again."

Wade suddenly found himself inside the lamp. The ex-genie picked it up and threw it down a deep fissure in the rocks.

"Someone will maybe find you in a few hundred years" he said as he left the area.

A human being cannot fit into anything that small but genie stuff can be whatever size it wants to be and Wade found himself inside a large palace. It looked OK but he would prefer a normal sized house. Next moment he was in a house that seemed normal sized. He tried other habitats and they all changed according to his wishes, whether a cave or a hundred room mansion.

In the house again, he wished for a fridge and there it was. Beer he said and there were a dozen cans of cold beer. He tried one and it was just like drinking the real thing.

"Pizza," said Wade and he had a piping hot family sized pizza of the kind he liked.

"Large screen TV," said Wade and there it was.

I want to watch a football match he thought and there it was on the screen. He sat down on a very comfortable settee and drank beer and ate pizza as he watched the game. In the confines of the lamp, he did have endless wishes. He was lord of all he surveyed.

How about some male and female company? He tried and there were men and women in the room with him like at a cocktail party. A thought and cheese and wine appeared as well as soft music. He could wish for anything he wanted in his own small kingdom.

Days later and Wade still couldn't believe it. He was in bed with a Hollywood starlet of the nineteen forties whose films he had seen and who he had fancied since he was a kid. She was real class and had been when they were together at a steak dinner last night in a rooftop restaurant overlooking a great river somewhere. He had all he wanted here, and no bad luck. The genie must have been an idiot to give it up.

He got proof that the previous genie was an idiot some days later. He heard a distant voice. It was the ex-genie.

"Genie. Help me. I cannot stand this outside world. Please let me be a genie again."

Wade knew he was way too far down in sold rock for anyone to get at him, even if they knew exactly where he was, so he blocked out the sound of the ex-genie.

A servant in a clown's uniform came in and served him and his friends drinks. He was playing cards with Humphrey Bogart, Edward G Robinson and George Raft in a riverside bar from about 1940. He was down twenty bucks, but with unlimited money available, who cared?

"That will do Renson," he said, giving the clown a hard kick up the backside to help him on his way.

Everyone laughed as Renson left whimpering. He was not now the big bully he had been when they were at school together, when he had made Wade's life hell.

Tomorrow he would attend a baseball game (why watch it on TV) and the day after, a visit to a Caribbean beach he had seen on a Travel Show. This was why the last genie had failed. He probably had no education, no life experience and he had probably just eaten endless food and had just sex with endless women (or men) till he became bored with both.

Wade meanwhile had had a good education, though he had not appreciated it at the time. He had watched endless TV and movies and read thousands of books and even romance books he had to admit (as he had spent so much time on his own). Even in prison where people felt sorry for him being stuck with Louey the Rat he had talked with people who had done many and varied things and who had lived interesting lives. Even gay men talked to him out of sympathy, and he had learned so much about life from them.

And now he could have whatever he wanted. All the world was his. He did not care whether it was real or not. It all seemed one hundred percent real to him and that was all that mattered. Life was good, thought Wade. He could certainly stand a few more centuries if not millennia of this.

THE END.
