Oh, and, if you're stuck, I've prodcued an incredibly convaluted and confused thing below, that I'm going to pass off as my

PIN Forgery:

SCREEEEE!

The piercing scratch of metal against concrete drew me out of yet another tropical daydream. I had been to another place, a place of sanguineous sunsets and soothing mornings, where a light breeze gently cooled any moisture that should be coaxed out by the midday sun. A long drink, or maybe an exotic juice, would be sweating within moments of being served, pools of pure water running down a warm wooden table and dripping onto my exposed feet. West Indies? Indonesia? Something like that. A place of slow motion, t-shirts, and luxurious laziness. It wouldn't be long now. Too many fitful nights of diving in explosive Technicolor reefs and eating delicious seafood left me resentful of anything less than paradise.

SCREEEEEE!

Opening my eyes and jerking my head, I caught sight of a burly figure leaving the canteen via the cracked and frosted glass door. From my position I could see through a hole that had been covered with thick plastic, and I often watched the world go by through the distorted filter it offered. Passers by appeared to Bend and twist as they walked past the canteen door, and even the most optimistic colours seemed somehow muted and beaten by the relentless grey.

I'd spent a long time sitting here, at this table, within this room. The canteen was a square room with a ceiling that was neither high enough to give an impression of space, nor low enough to bring any comfort. It was slung somewhere in the middle, placing the fluorescent tube lights exactly in the path of a heater that was fixed into the wall. Through the metal grills lining the tops of the walls, a choking dry heat slid down to ankle level, and did little to raise the spirits of the diners and game players that huddled below. The canteen was a place of waiting. Old men huddled in malevolent groups, forming tight grey huddles of grumbling and coughing, placing a series of bets and wagers that appeared to be more like a group ritual than a competition. Sighing mothers peered gloomily at their unhappy children, and travellers attempted to document the curious sense of both isolation and communal malaise. Young men and women sat bored, clothed in fur, wool and thick cotton, staring into congealing coffee as they allowed time to pass them by. Teaspoons would drop, and be picked up again. Newspapers would make a slow and steady progress around the room, affording the lonely a chance to hear their own voices. Eyes would never meet, a smile would never break, and the clocks served only to suggest a world beyond the cracked and battered door. It was a dismal place, which never gave a moment of pleasure to anybody.

SCREEEEEE!

On this day, however, the canteen was to play host to the most important hour of my life. I leant back on the broken chair and searched the room. In the corner, barely visible under a mound of thick brown clothing, sat an old man. To the uninformed, the man would have looked virtually indistinguishable from the card players. Steely grey eyes remained fixed on a crack in the wall, and one gnarled hand toyed with a desiccated Styrofoam cup. The other gently stroked a plait in his unkempt grey beard. The plait was my signal. The game was about to begin. As I saw this, I felt my heart punched against my breastbone and my ears begin to burn. I was more frightened than I had ever been before.

Up until this point, things had been going fairly badly. My luck had run out many years ago, and it was through a dazed belief in the black economy that I had found myself in Poland. Poor connections had led me across Eastern Europe in search of small weapons caches and counterfeit cigarettes, and after fruitlessly chasing this dream for months, I finally ran out of money, and was unceremoniously dumped at a hotel in the middle of nowhere.

It was at the hotel that the marked to start of a chain of events that were to lead to me to waiting in a dirty and run-down canteen with a fear for my life and a greed in my heart. It was also the beginning of my path towards Vogon Poetess. It was weeks ago, at this hotel, when everything changed.

I had arrived at the Europejski Hotel after a long cross-country journey on the back of a farming pickup truck. A large Sheep dog and myself had shared the space under a plastic sheet, and to this day I remain convinced that if either of us had attempted the journey alone, survival would have been an act of God. When I could bear the cramps no longer, I jumped off the truck and plodded through a wasteland towards the nearest light. To my surprise, it turned out to be a hotel. It was shabby and tired, with two storeys and maybe ten rooms. I stood at the stairs to the bar of the Europejski in a bad mood. Exhausted, aching, and completely covered in the musty oils and hairs of my travelling companion, I could think of nothing but vodka and sleep.

The bar was quiet and warm, with a cheerful fireplace built into one wall. It was also very long, and quite thin, allowing seating only against the walls, with a shelf running all the way around for glasses, elbows and ashtrays. I bought a drink and kicked my bag down the blue linoleum floor until I reached a seat near the fire. It was pitch black outside the Hotel, and it had become a nightly habit to for me to keep vodka in my stomach to prevent my bristling fears from rising into consciousness. I had 'crossed' many people on my travels who I hoped to never hear of again. I knew that were people within the darkness who wanted me dead, or at the very least, to be in extreme discomfort. It was my entertainment of these thoughts that my panic when a silhouetted figure appeared at the other end of the bar.

"Mazovia"

I could make out a strong voice, in a northern British accent. Perhaps they had found me. I reach down for my bag to retrieve the rusting CZ-75 handgun, only to find myself crossing the centre of gravity on my wobbly stool and tipping myself onto the floor. A resounding 'slap!' signalled my landing, and gave my attacker the perfect chance to kill me. I scrambled as fast as I could to try and stand, but the vodka had settled any urgency that I may have had, and it was all I could do to turn over and untangle my hair from my bag. I was still rolling around like a pig in shit when I found the stranger standing over my head, grinning as broadly as a man ever could

"Stranger, you've had enough vodka? Eh? Do you want help old man? Come on. Let me help you up there"

I grunted, trying to stall as I searched for a match to the voice. It sounded as if he was addressing me; he was talking as if I was something other than a roaming shadow. A strong hand pulled me up by my neck, and as I stood in front of the figure, I instinctively lowered my eyes and allowed my hair to cover most of my face.

"I'm not old?Just tired"

The words creaked out of me in an unfamiliar tongue. It was the sound of my voice speaking my first language. It sounded wrong; heavy with the regret and pain I left in that country.

"Aye, I can see that. Sit down.. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm a Brit, like you I think, and I go by the name o' "Ben". Not my real name, of course, but then - what would anybody be doing here, now, using his or her real name? Eh? Yer know wor' I mean, don't yeh m' friend?"

I still couldn't bring myself to engage on this kind of level with a complete stranger. I nodded and shrugged.

"Yer look starving! I'll get us some food. I reckon that they'll do a cracking Beef Stew here. Rubby tummy, eh? Rubby tummy!"

With that the man turned and returned to the bar. I turned on my seat and carefully reached down for some wood pieces that lay under the shelf. They were warm and dry from days of sitting by a heat that was probably rarely allowed to cool. Throwing a few small pieces into the fire produced faintest crackle, and the temperature rose. The backs of my eyeballs were warm in their sockets. The figure ambled back, carrying two drinks.

"Aye, I tell yer what! 'Vlad' over there reckons that the pigeon pie here is the best in't whole o' Poland. I got us one each; that okay with you? I tell yer, I'm drooling like a bastard at the thought of that tasty tasty pigeon being in my belly. I tell ya, we have to be thankful of food in these times, friend".

"Thanks. You're... very kind".

We clinked glasses and raised the vodka to our lips. As we did so, I caught a glimpse of the man's eyes. They were wide and excited, and as they turned towards the fire, they flashed with a manic eagerness. They were set in a thin face, perhaps drawn from the experience of travelling. His pale lips were cracked, and probably bled with every meal. Not much else was visible. Like me, he had long dirty hair covering most of his features. It was a way of hiding from everybody, including one's own reflection. I guessed that maybe he was as hungry as I was. We both finished our drinks in one shot - something I hadn't done for some time, and I instinctively slammed the glass down on the shelf. The man did the same, and returned his gaze to the fire.

"So...ahh. friend... I won't ask yer what yer up to here, now. I'm sure that we've both got reasons, an' both of em good ones at that. If yer like me, then you're probably staying away from something. else. Yer get me? Yer get me? Aye."

"I know what you mean. Let's just say that I'm going from A to..."

"to anywhere? Aye, I understand. I really do. Sorry- what's you name again, friend?"

"uhm.. It's. It's Benway"

Benway. Yerra good man, I can tell. Now. Now, excuse me for being rude, but I want to ask you. Something. Benway, ever heard of 'The Lord o' The Rings?' "

"I have, yeah. Bobbins, or something."

"Let me tell yer a little story, Benway".

With that the stranger reached around his back into his small rucksack and produced a clear bottle. No label, no markings. He poured some of the liquor into our glasses and leant back upon his stool, stretching his booted feet out towards the fire. I glanced behind us for a sign of the barman; in many regions this kind of vodka was either unwelcome or illegal. The barman was nowhere to be seen, although the light remained on within his small enclosure.

"Benway, let me tell yerra story here. About 'The Lord O'the Rings'. Now. 'The Lord O' The Rings' were a series of books written in the 20th century by a man named Tolkein. Very good they are too, full o' monsters and battles, all set around a quest of some little people. Hobbits, so yerwer nearly there wit' 'Bobbins'. Now, these books, yersee, were a tril-o-gy, which is three books, one two three, in order, yer see? Dya get me there? Good. One Two Three. Originals O' these three books are worth a lot o' money, yer understand?. More money than a few old Czech handguns, orra Polish tank. Oh aye, I know. I know whatcha here fer. Anyway. Yer with me?

"Yersee, everybody knows o'these three books. No secrets there. Everybody knows about them, an' they's worth millions, fer the originals. Imagine then, Benway, if yer can, jus 'ow much some people would pay, if there werrer 'nother book. Jus' turned up, like. Jus' turned up, an then sold to highest bidder? That, my dear Benway, is a windfall. Tell me, what do yer think about that?"

I didn't show it, but I was disappointed. This man, this poor man, was obviously a lunatic. I'd seen it happen before to people who'd spent too long out in the winter tundra. Months of isolation in a cabin or a tent with only one book, or one photograph for comfort. My guess was that he'd been trapped in the terrible recent weather with 'The Lord of The Rings', driving him to a level of obsession that had caused his mind to literally break. Sitting there in comfort, with the fire roaring from the extra wood, and the stiffest of drinks in my hand, I felt more of a kinship than pity. His cheeks glinted in the orange light, and his eyes danced over the embers before us. His mouth was frozen in a smile of pure joy, and I could almost feel my heart break at the sight. I tried to grin, and looked back over to the bar area.

"Hello...Benway?.. Benway, can yer smell that? Can yer? Ooooh! Rubby rubby tummy tummy! I'm thinking that we've got 'portion of pie t'eat now! Ooooohhh! Ere it comes! Rubby rubby!"

The barman edged through the narrow room towards us. Taller than both ?Ben? and myself, his face was hidden by the shadows that we were casting. Without speaking, he put two dishes down on the shelf next to me, and backed off. He remained in shadows until he turned around and headed back towards the bar. Without making a sound, "Ben" took his dish and placed it upon his lap, and I could of sworn that I saw him lick his lips

"Benway, what I'm tellin yer is true. It's not a lie. I've got wimme a copy of it. The only copy of The Illusionist. Tolkein's last work, an' number four in the series. An' I've got a proposition to make yer."

"Go on". I cut open the pigeon pie.

"Well, there's a lot of folk who might be wantin to see this ere book. Lot of people wantin to buy it. An' I'm sellin'it. To the highest bidder. Yer see, Benway, around 'ere, people wouldn't know Tolkein if he was pissin' on their potatoes an' rustlin' their sheep. Try an' sell this back 'ome, an', well, there'd be gangs all over yer 'fore you could say "the Balrog is dead', heh heh. So, I've organised a little sale. I'm expectin' a good turn out, like, but I got a little prolem 'ere. Yer see, I can't be there when the bloody thing is sold. Too many....I'm too well known around these parts. I've gotta keep a low profile. So... Benway, yer lookin' like a man who needs a break in life - maybe a clean start, like. So, I'm givin' it to yer. A clean break, like yer want."

His voice sounded different now. More pointed. More intelligent. Once again, I'd underestimated somebody, and was about to pay the price. "Ben" looked up from his empty plate and grasped me by the shoulder. His nose was nearly touching mine.

"Benway, I want you to go to 'The crumblin' city' - I've got a map for yer. It used to be right prosperous. A real buzzin' place. But these winters have been... unkind.. to the people of this region, an' the farmin' money ran out, the markets closed, and now the city is run by people like you an' me. Chancers. Gamblers. The men an' women who found a different path. I want you, and it'll be worth yer while, son, to go and take the book to a special place and wait with it. You get five percent of the final selling price. What do yer make o' that?"

I finished my second vodka and shook my head. I explained to him that there was no way I was mixing with these people - the very people who I was running away from. I didn't want to be carrying something so precious as I travelled by crime and favour across the freezing plains. I begged him to leave me as I was, to take the chance of money away from me, and to forget he ever met me. By the fifth vodka, I felt a canvas bag being pressed into my hands.

"Benway.. I'm sorry, son. It's not as easy as that, like. I can't.. I can't let yer leave here without it. D'yer get me? This book is too important.. The only people that can know about it are the ones who are gonna be there, at the sale. So, unless yer can find me ten million by the time we're staggerin' drunk, yer goin' to take the book. Find ten million, then yer get to go an' try to buy the thing. If not, and yer don't want to 'hlp me out 'ere, then yer dead. I'll shoot you right now, Benway. Run away, an' all find yer, an' do a lot worse than shoot yer. Excuse my rudeness 'ere, Benway, but those there are yer options."

His fixed stare doubled up in my vision, and his impossible grin began to float towards his brow. My glass left my hand and clunked onto the plastic flooring. It occured to me that unless I did what I was being told, I was pretty much dead. I held on to the bag and nodded. I was going to the crumbling city.

The journey was long and painful. The flat landscape allowed the winds to build up speed, and they drove the rain so hard that the drops felt like nails upon the small areas of my skin that remained exposed. I travelled mostly in farming vehicles, paying with cigarettes that I earned by working on the scattered farms. The bag remained with me always, and when the temptation to open it overwhelmed me, I found inside a metal box that was welded tightly shut. Its contents were unimportant to me anyway; I knew that I just had to keep travelling. More than once on my journey, I thought that I saw "Ben". Perhaps a face in a passing car, or a figure leaving a farm as I arrived. I'm sure that it wasn't really him, but exhaustion and fear often played on my mind in this way. I wasn't quite yet ready to die, so I kept my head down and made the journey with quiet intent.

The map lead me to a cafe. The city itself was indeed crumbling. Vast structures were scattered alongside empty roads. The clouds hung low and heavy over empty billboards, rusting cars and hungry dogs. Shops contained only a few worthless items, and every human head was bowed to the ground. As far as I knew, there had been no military activity here in fifty years, although it looked as if it had been freshly bombed. The empty buildings were anorexic; their rusted iron bones protruded through their scars and scratches. Concrete lay scattered around their windows and front doors as the weather tore relentlessly to gain entrance. There was no joy in this town. There certainly wasn't any in the canteen.

On the back of the tattered paper was a crude drawing of plaited hair. Up until now I'd had no idea what this plait was, let alone what it represented. Now I saw the old man, I was struck by the resemblance. The picture of the plait had been drawn around a month previous to my arrival at the cafe, although it looked identical to how I saw it now. The old man in the corner of the canteen wasn't looking at me. I was beginning to doubt the whole set-up, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the first time in weeks that anybody had touched me. I twisted in my seat and barely managed to prevent it tipping over as the figure of a woman moved around the Bench to sit opposite me. How long since I'd sat this close to a woman! It was intoxicating. She was beautiful.

"Benway? Yes, you look like a 'Benway'. What are you? Nice middle class boy trying to escape the crushing mundanity of your pathetic life? So sickened by your own dullness that you would risk your life for a bit of small excitement? It's sad. Really sad. No matter. Do you have the book?"

Her sneering did nothing to reduce the incredible clarity of her beauty. A pale and delicate face appeared from within the swaddle of a grey overcoat and hat. When she spoke, her features moved in beautiful unison. Her eyes brows gently raised and fell with the aggression in her voice, her lips became fuller as they pursed in disgust, and her eyes gleamed as she cast her judgement upon me. It was a sweet pain. For a few seconds I forgot everything.

"Bloody hell, you're useless. I take it Ben didn't tell you what you were to actually do once you got here? No, no I didn't think so. Completely retarded, that man. Show me the book. Where is it?"

I went to lift the bag onto the table.

"What the FUCK are you doing?", she hissed, "Don't get it out so everybody can see it! Are you completely stupid, or just trying to wind me up? Open it under the table, for God's sake. And don't let it fall out. If you make a sound then we'll both be dead".

Fumbling with the freezing metal of the bag's clips, I eventually managed to lift the top of the bag enough to reveal the contents. As I closed it again, the buckles clanked against the metal of the box. The woman made no sound, but her look was withering.

"Right. I'm going to be looking after the bidding. The man with the plait, that's Bamba, and he's security. If you fuck up in any way, then he'll be breaking your feeble little neck in seconds. My name is V.P. That's all you need to know. So, you may as well sit back and enjoy the show. Unless, you have any questions...? I imagine that you do".

"........"

"Perhaps even more stupid than I first thought then. Never mind. Sit there, shut up, and be ready to hand that bag over in seconds - when the old man says so. I take it that you know what is in there? I doubt you have any idea just how important it is, or if you've even heard of Tolkein, but for out loud, try and keep it safe for now, okay?".

With that, V.P. stood and appeared to glide over to another corner of the canteen. She sat with her back to wall, facing me. I tried to smile, and I could taste blood in my mouth as my lip gently split. The bag was safe between my legs. The canteen seemed no different to how it had for the last few days. I withdrew from mutual staring with VP to watch a mother breastfeed her child. Her breast was pale and heavy, and I began to drift away from the sale, from the book, and from "Ben". I was so damn tired.

SCREEEEE!

*Cough!*

The scrape of the metal chair once again erupted, causing me to jolt. I looked over to V.P, and she flicked her hair from her shoulder.

SCREEEEE!

*Ahhhhheem*!

A horribly thick and phlegmy choke came from behind me. I was about to turn around to find the culprit, but VP threw a cold glare at me, letting me know that I wasn't allowed to do this. She flicked her hair again, this time off the other shoulder, and pulled any erroneous strands away from her face.

*UUUUhhhhmmmMM-hmM!*

*COUGH*

*SCREEEEE!*

I didn't try and turn around this time, but I could see that VP was staring fixedly at something behind me. The old man was also staring at me as I stared at VP. She took off her scarf and put it back on again. I was beginning to understand. It was an auction. I grinned, and a little blood ran down my chin and dropped onto the dirty surface of the table.

*CccccCCRRrrraHHHuuugh!*

*SCREEEEE!*

*GGGgrrrhuhhh!*

And so it went on. A rhythm of choking, gagging, coughing, wheezing, slapping and huffing broke out behind me, punctuated with the scraping of the metal chair. VP remained seated and silent, but through a continuing sequence of physical gestures, appeared to be chairing the auction. I had no idea how much the book was worth - a ten million entrance fee would suggest that it was a lot. The increments weren't clear, and although VP's movements were obviously co-ordinated in some way, it probably appeared to the uninformed as if she was simply very uncomfortable in her seat. Bamba remained motionless save for his eyes, which darted with every 'bid'. There was anger in his stillness. A rage that threatened to break into furious physical force should anybody break the rules. I was trying not to catch his glimpse, in case my interest was to be taken as a sign of fear, and therefore a sign that I might do something unpredictable. As it was, I too remained still, and I held the treasure tightly between my legs. So tightly, that after only a few minutes I could feel them cramping, but moving them would have been too dangerous. I was also having difficulty keeping a straight face. This scene was so ludicrously inventive that I couldn't help but admire the audacity of "Ben", and find my own position utterly ridiculous. Even in the face of such tension and mortal threat, the surreal phlegmatic symphony behind me served as a comedic requiem for my attempts to avoid this kind of trouble.

SCREEEEEEE!
*Kahhhhhh! Kahhhhhh!
*UUhhhh-HRRRUmmm*
*SCre*
*Scre*

The metal chair produced two tiny squeaks, and all other noises from the auction ceased. The sounds were the same as they had been for the last few days. VP let her head droop, and Bamba very slowly began to stand. I must have fucked up. I must have done something to break the process. There was tightness in Bamba's stance as he stood. I could see that he was wearing something akin to a monk's habit, only bulkier and heavier. A thick black fur lined coat lay over his shoulders. He began to walk to towards me, and I could tell from the bulges in the habit that he was carrying more than one firearm. His face was blazing with intent and malice. I knew that I had a weapon in a holster on my back, but I couldn't remember the last time I had calibrated or cleaned it. It probably wasn't even loaded, and even with the adrenaline that was now making my whole body throb, I doubted that I could have been quick enough. He moved towards me. His left hand reached into his coat and I squeezed my eyes shut. I had done everything that "Ben" and VP had asked. I didn't deserve this.

I felt a weight no my shoulder, and I nearly buckled onto the floor

"air noo, dorn't pahni-c..yerr ore-kair. Sit tight noo, an' yull be feen mairt". His whispering breath was hot on my ear. I felt him standing in front of me, and when I opened my eyes, he was crouched under the table with his hands on the bag. I saw that VP was looking straight at me. There was immaculate concentration playing across her face.

"alreet noo pal - move yer lehgs ah-ware frohm t' baag.. real slore noo..thassit, real slore..

*SCREEEE!*

" 'Appen! 'Ello there, V.P. "

VP froze. Her gaze landed somewhere to left of my head. I went to turn in my seat, before I felt a tiny movement from Bamba. I wasn't entirely sure, but the voice that had come after the last screech sounded like Ben. VP looked back to me with confusion. She searched my face for something, as if I were something other than what she had thought. Bamba slowly stood up, and moved his hand from underneath the table. I could no longer hear the ambient sound of the canteen. I saw Bamba's shoulder twitch slightly, and VP threw him a concerned glance. There was a clicking sound directly behind me, a sort of "ker-LICK". It was a familiar sound. I wasn't smiling anymore.

"Alright there, VP, are yer?". Ben's lilt was a soft as it had been when I first heard it at the hotel, although now there was a menacing edge to his extended vowels. VP looked up behind me. Bamba was staring at the same spot, his hand planted into a pocket on his coat.

"Well.. I'm sure th' yer doin' jus' fine, our VP. Jus' fine. Yer met me new pal then, 'ave yer? Benway here? He been okay, 'as he? 't all went 'as planned', did it? Lovely. Bamba, yer can tek yer 'and out yer pocket now, friend. Nice an' slow, like. Nice an' slow.. I bet yer weren't expectin'.."

"BAMBA, NO!" VP shouted as Bamba went to draw a handgun from his pocket. I could just see the top of the barrel protruding from his pocket. There was a deafening blast, and then utter silence. The sound caused a shooting pain in my head and I instinctively had my hands over my ears. Bamba took his hand from his pocket and looked down at me. A grin spread across his face. "Behn..yerra wee bah-stard, ya knor tha'?". A choke and a gag and before I knew it, I was blinded with the blood that exploded from his mouth. I cried out - the first sound I'd made since the auction began. The canteen was silent save for the thud as Bamba fell at my feet.

"Ben...Ben.. You?re not supposed to be here...You're supposed to wait..". VP sounded worried. There was a strain in her voice.

"I know tha' , VP, an' I was waitin' at th'airport an' all, but then I thought, well now Ben, what if old VP fancies tekkin' the money fer 'erself, like. 'Elpin' 'erself to Benny's share an' all. So, I thought I'd come down 'ere like. An' now I'm 'ere, I'm wonderin' if I shouldn't try and... re-negotiate, like. 'Ow much d'it come to in th'end?"

"Ben, you can't do this... please leave, and I'll meet you... We can't be here together... For God's sake - you just killed Bamba! The police will be all over us in minutes!"

" 'Old on now, jus' 'old on. 'Ow much didya sell that thing fer in the end?' "

"Fifty five million"

"An' 'as it been, yer know, paid in already?"

"Yes, it was paid in electronically the second the auction ended. The buyer is in the room. It's all finished, Ben! Let's just get out of here!"

"Yer right VP.. Yer right. 'Ello again there, Benway.. I 'ope you enjoyed yerself. 'Fraid I've gotta dash now, but I'm sure I'll get th'money to yer eventually. Ah shouldn't be too 'ard to find, now. I'll jus' tek this..". I felt the bag being slipped from under my seat. I still couldn't see and there was a ringing in my ears. The smell of the old man's blood was filling my nostrils. The taste of it was still sliding down the back of my mouth.

"I'll jus' tek this, an' we'll be on our..", there was a scuffle behind me. I turned, but I couldn't open my eyes. Another gunshot thundered around the room, and I felt a hot spray on my face. VP screamed from the corner, and I turned back to face her. I felt safer sitting this way, although I couldn't be sure where Ben actually was now. The second shot had rendered me deaf in my left ear, and the taste of yet more blood was making me retch. A screaming pain was pulsing in my head. Things didn't seem like they could get much worse.

"Bloody idiot, eh V.P.? Anybody else in the'room got a problem wi'me tekkin this book back? Eh? There's plenty more o' these little fellas fer everyone, like. I'm not 'ere to play silly buggers wi'you lot. Heheh, 'appen at Benway, would yer VP? Lookit all th'blood that's on 'is face! heheh. 'Ope it di'n't get in yer eyes there, son. Nasty, that"

I blinked my eyes open. VP was standing in the corner now, her arms outstretched in plea. I was covered in blood.

"Ben, please, let's just go now.. we've got the book and the money.. we can make a clean break. Come on! Now!"

"Yer know, V.P., tha' I've always liked you. Always 'elped me out an' tha'. So, I'm not going to kill yer 'ere, in this canteen. Nobody deserves that'. Well, heheh, 'part from Bamba there, an Vlad over 'ere, mind. So. I'll give yerra chance. For now, I'll be thankin' yer kindly, VP".

Two more gunshots, and screaming. I stood up, and saw than "Ben" had left. As the game players, and the couples, and the travellers ran out of the broken door, I moved over to where VP was laying on the ground. There was blood pouring from her stomach. I placed her arm around my shoulder and stood to lift her, only to find myself crumpling under the weight. A searing pain shot up my leg and into my chest. I had been shot in my left leg. I sat down next to VP, and watched as our blood spread out across the cheap plastic flooring. The two blooms ran into each other. The canteen was now empty, and the only sound was that of the heaters. Dry stinking heated air was pouring from a grill on the wall and cascading over us. It was making me feel tired.

"It was me... I bought the book off him, Benway...I was the final bidder.. The fourth Lord of the Rings...". She grinned and let her head droop. A line of bloody spittle hung from her lower lip. I lifted her again, and this time she took as much weight as she could. "We?ll get it for you... We'll get it", I whispered to her as we carefully picked our way across the floor. It was slow progress, and we nearly slipped in the pools of blood more than once. "I... I need that book, Benway...It's...you don't understand yet.. I can't die...It's...There's more to this..."

I gathered my strength and pushed open the door. The blood I had swallowed finally hit the bottom of my stomach, causing me to vomit onto the cracked grey pavement. A storm was drawing in in front us. I held onto VP as my leg gave way underneath me. She held me by the waist. I held her by the shoulders. Keeping each other upright, we began stumbling towards the only hospital in the crumbling city. We weren't going to let ourselves die.

edit: I should have proof read it first! O well..

[ 03 July 2003: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Dr. Benway:
Okay, here's what I'm thinking. You're a criminal, or you're a victim of crime. You're comminting this crime with or against your fellow forumites, or they are committing it against you. Any crime, anywhere, with anybody, as long as they are forumites. Whaddaya think? I thought that it could be good, months ago, but I neglected to make the thread. So. Here it is.

Oh, and, if you're stuck, I've prodcued an incredibly convaluted and confused thing below, that I'm going to pass off as my

PIN Forgery:

SCREEEEE!

The piercing scratch of metal against concrete drew me out of yet another tropical daydream. I had been to another place, a place of sanguineous sunsets and soothing mornings, where a light breeze gently cooled any moisture that should be coaxed out by the midday sun. A long drink, or maybe an exotic juice, would be sweating within moments of being served, pools of pure water running down a warm wooden table and dripping onto my exposed feet. West Indies? Indonesia? Something like that. A place of slow motion, t-shirts, and luxurious laziness. It wouldn't be long now. Too many fitful nights of diving in explosive Technicolor reefs and eating delicious seafood left me resentful of anything less than paradise.

SCREEEEEE!

Opening my eyes and jerking my head, I caught sight of a burly figure leaving the canteen via the cracked and frosted glass door. From my position I could see through a hole that had been covered with thick plastic, and I often watched the world go by through the distorted filter it offered. Passers by appeared to Bend and twist as they walked past the canteen door, and even the most optimistic colours seemed somehow muted and beaten by the relentless grey.

I'd spent a long time sitting here, at this table, within this room. The canteen was a square room with a ceiling that was neither high enough to give an impression of space, nor low enough to bring any comfort. It was slung somewhere in the middle, placing the fluorescent tube lights exactly in the path of a heater that was fixed into the wall. Through the metal grills lining the tops of the walls, a choking dry heat slid down to ankle level, and did little to raise the spirits of the diners and game players that huddled below. The canteen was a place of waiting. Old men huddled in malevolent groups, forming tight grey huddles of grumbling and coughing, placing a series of bets and wagers that appeared to be more like a group ritual than a competition. Sighing mothers peered gloomily at their unhappy children, and travellers attempted to document the curious sense of both isolation and communal malaise. Young men and women sat bored, clothed in fur, wool and thick cotton, staring into congealing coffee as they allowed time to pass them by. Teaspoons would drop, and be picked up again. Newspapers would make a slow and steady progress around the room, affording the lonely a chance to hear their own voices. Eyes would never meet, a smile would never break, and the clocks served only to suggest a world beyond the cracked and battered door. It was a dismal place, which never gave a moment of pleasure to anybody.

SCREEEEEE!

On this day, however, the canteen was to play host to the most important hour of my life. I leant back on the broken chair and searched the room. In the corner, barely visible under a mound of thick brown clothing, sat an old man. To the uninformed, the man would have looked virtually indistinguishable from the card players. Steely grey eyes remained fixed on a crack in the wall, and one gnarled hand toyed with a desiccated Styrofoam cup. The other gently stroked a plait in his unkempt grey beard. The plait was my signal. The game was about to begin. As I saw this, I felt my heart punched against my breastbone and my ears begin to burn. I was more frightened than I had ever been before.

Up until this point, things had been going fairly badly. My luck had run out many years ago, and it was through a dazed belief in the black economy that I had found myself in Poland. Poor connections had led me across Eastern Europe in search of small weapons caches and counterfeit cigarettes, and after fruitlessly chasing this dream for months, I finally ran out of money, and was unceremoniously dumped at a hotel in the middle of nowhere.

It was at the hotel that the marked to start of a chain of events that were to lead to me to waiting in a dirty and run-down canteen with a fear for my life and a greed in my heart. It was also the beginning of my path towards Vogon Poetess. It was weeks ago, at this hotel, when everything changed.

I had arrived at the Europejski Hotel after a long cross-country journey on the back of a farming pickup truck. A large Sheep dog and myself had shared the space under a plastic sheet, and to this day I remain convinced that if either of us had attempted the journey alone, survival would have been an act of God. When I could bear the cramps no longer, I jumped off the truck and plodded through a wasteland towards the nearest light. To my surprise, it turned out to be a hotel. It was shabby and tired, with two storeys and maybe ten rooms. I stood at the stairs to the bar of the Europejski in a bad mood. Exhausted, aching, and completely covered in the musty oils and hairs of my travelling companion, I could think of nothing but vodka and sleep.

The bar was quiet and warm, with a cheerful fireplace built into one wall. It was also very long, and quite thin, allowing seating only against the walls, with a shelf running all the way around for glasses, elbows and ashtrays. I bought a drink and kicked my bag down the blue linoleum floor until I reached a seat near the fire. It was pitch black outside the Hotel, and it had become a nightly habit to for me to keep vodka in my stomach to prevent my bristling fears from rising into consciousness. I had 'crossed' many people on my travels who I hoped to never hear of again. I knew that were people within the darkness who wanted me dead, or at the very least, to be in extreme discomfort. It was my entertainment of these thoughts that my panic when a silhouetted figure appeared at the other end of the bar.

"Mazovia"

I could make out a strong voice, in a northern British accent. Perhaps they had found me. I reach down for my bag to retrieve the rusting CZ-75 handgun, only to find myself crossing the centre of gravity on my wobbly stool and tipping myself onto the floor. A resounding 'slap!' signalled my landing, and gave my attacker the perfect chance to kill me. I scrambled as fast as I could to try and stand, but the vodka had settled any urgency that I may have had, and it was all I could do to turn over and untangle my hair from my bag. I was still rolling around like a pig in shit when I found the stranger standing over my head, grinning as broadly as a man ever could

"Stranger, you've had enough vodka? Eh? Do you want help old man? Come on. Let me help you up there"

I grunted, trying to stall as I searched for a match to the voice. It sounded as if he was addressing me; he was talking as if I was something other than a roaming shadow. A strong hand pulled me up by my neck, and as I stood in front of the figure, I instinctively lowered my eyes and allowed my hair to cover most of my face.

"I'm not old?Just tired"

The words creaked out of me in an unfamiliar tongue. It was the sound of my voice speaking my first language. It sounded wrong; heavy with the regret and pain I left in that country.

"Aye, I can see that. Sit down.. Allow me to introduce myself. I'm a Brit, like you I think, and I go by the name o' "Ben". Not my real name, of course, but then - what would anybody be doing here, now, using his or her real name? Eh? Yer know wor' I mean, don't yeh m' friend?"

I still couldn't bring myself to engage on this kind of level with a complete stranger. I nodded and shrugged.

"Yer look starving! I'll get us some food. I reckon that they'll do a cracking Beef Stew here. Rubby tummy, eh? Rubby tummy!"

With that the man turned and returned to the bar. I turned on my seat and carefully reached down for some wood pieces that lay under the shelf. They were warm and dry from days of sitting by a heat that was probably rarely allowed to cool. Throwing a few small pieces into the fire produced faintest crackle, and the temperature rose. The backs of my eyeballs were warm in their sockets. The figure ambled back, carrying two drinks.

"Aye, I tell yer what! 'Vlad' over there reckons that the pigeon pie here is the best in't whole o' Poland. I got us one each; that okay with you? I tell yer, I'm drooling like a bastard at the thought of that tasty tasty pigeon being in my belly. I tell ya, we have to be thankful of food in these times, friend".

"Thanks. You're... very kind".

We clinked glasses and raised the vodka to our lips. As we did so, I caught a glimpse of the man's eyes. They were wide and excited, and as they turned towards the fire, they flashed with a manic eagerness. They were set in a thin face, perhaps drawn from the experience of travelling. His pale lips were cracked, and probably bled with every meal. Not much else was visible. Like me, he had long dirty hair covering most of his features. It was a way of hiding from everybody, including one's own reflection. I guessed that maybe he was as hungry as I was. We both finished our drinks in one shot - something I hadn't done for some time, and I instinctively slammed the glass down on the shelf. The man did the same, and returned his gaze to the fire.

"So...ahh. friend... I won't ask yer what yer up to here, now. I'm sure that we've both got reasons, an' both of em good ones at that. If yer like me, then you're probably staying away from something. else. Yer get me? Yer get me? Aye."

"I know what you mean. Let's just say that I'm going from A to..."

"to anywhere? Aye, I understand. I really do. Sorry- what's you name again, friend?"

"uhm.. It's. It's Benway"

Benway. Yerra good man, I can tell. Now. Now, excuse me for being rude, but I want to ask you. Something. Benway, ever heard of 'The Lord o' The Rings?' "

"I have, yeah. Bobbins, or something."

"Let me tell yer a little story, Benway".

With that the stranger reached around his back into his small rucksack and produced a clear bottle. No label, no markings. He poured some of the liquor into our glasses and leant back upon his stool, stretching his booted feet out towards the fire. I glanced behind us for a sign of the barman; in many regions this kind of vodka was either unwelcome or illegal. The barman was nowhere to be seen, although the light remained on within his small enclosure.

"Benway, let me tell yerra story here. About 'The Lord O'the Rings'. Now. 'The Lord O' The Rings' were a series of books written in the 20th century by a man named Tolkein. Very good they are too, full o' monsters and battles, all set around a quest of some little people. Hobbits, so yerwer nearly there wit' 'Bobbins'. Now, these books, yersee, were a tril-o-gy, which is three books, one two three, in order, yer see? Dya get me there? Good. One Two Three. Originals O' these three books are worth a lot o' money, yer understand?. More money than a few old Czech handguns, orra Polish tank. Oh aye, I know. I know whatcha here fer. Anyway. Yer with me?

"Yersee, everybody knows o'these three books. No secrets there. Everybody knows about them, an' they's worth millions, fer the originals. Imagine then, Benway, if yer can, jus 'ow much some people would pay, if there werrer 'nother book. Jus' turned up, like. Jus' turned up, an then sold to highest bidder? That, my dear Benway, is a windfall. Tell me, what do yer think about that?"

I didn't show it, but I was disappointed. This man, this poor man, was obviously a lunatic. I'd seen it happen before to people who'd spent too long out in the winter tundra. Months of isolation in a cabin or a tent with only one book, or one photograph for comfort. My guess was that he'd been trapped in the terrible recent weather with 'The Lord of The Rings', driving him to a level of obsession that had caused his mind to literally break. Sitting there in comfort, with the fire roaring from the extra wood, and the stiffest of drinks in my hand, I felt more of a kinship than pity. His cheeks glinted in the orange light, and his eyes danced over the embers before us. His mouth was frozen in a smile of pure joy, and I could almost feel my heart break at the sight. I tried to grin, and looked back over to the bar area.

"Hello...Benway?.. Benway, can yer smell that? Can yer? Ooooh! Rubby rubby tummy tummy! I'm thinking that we've got 'portion of pie t'eat now! Ooooohhh! Ere it comes! Rubby rubby!"

The barman edged through the narrow room towards us. Taller than both ?Ben? and myself, his face was hidden by the shadows that we were casting. Without speaking, he put two dishes down on the shelf next to me, and backed off. He remained in shadows until he turned around and headed back towards the bar. Without making a sound, "Ben" took his dish and placed it upon his lap, and I could of sworn that I saw him lick his lips

"Benway, what I'm tellin yer is true. It's not a lie. I've got wimme a copy of it. The only copy of The Illusionist. Tolkein's last work, an' number four in the series. An' I've got a proposition to make yer."

"Go on". I cut open the pigeon pie.

"Well, there's a lot of folk who might be wantin to see this ere book. Lot of people wantin to buy it. An' I'm sellin'it. To the highest bidder. Yer see, Benway, around 'ere, people wouldn't know Tolkein if he was pissin' on their potatoes an' rustlin' their sheep. Try an' sell this back 'ome, an', well, there'd be gangs all over yer 'fore you could say "the Balrog is dead', heh heh. So, I've organised a little....auction. I'm expectin' a good turn out, like, but I got a little prolem 'ere. Yer see, I can't be there when the bloody thing is sold. Too many....I'm too well known around these parts. I've gotta keep a low profile. So... Benway, yer lookin' like a man who needs a break in life - maybe a clean start, like. So, I'm givin' it to yer. A clean break, like yer want."

His voice sounded different now. More pointed. More intelligent. Once again, I'd underestimated somebody, and was about to pay the price. "Ben" looked up from his empty plate and grasped me by the shoulder. His nose was nearly touching mine.

"Benway, I want you to go to 'The crumblin' city' - I've got a map for yer. It used to be right prosperous. A real buzzin' place. But these winters have been... unkind.. to the people of this region, an' the farmin' money ran out, the markets closed, and now the city is run by people like you an' me. Chancers. Gamblers. The men an' women who found a different path. I want you, and it'll be worth yer while, son, to go and take the book to a special place and wait with it. You get five percent of the final selling price. What do yer make o' that?"

I finished my second vodka and shook my head. I explained to him that there was no way I was mixing with these people - the very people who I was running away from. I didn't want to be carrying something so precious as I travelled by crime and favour across the freezing plains. I begged him to leave me as I was, to take the chance of money away from me, and to forget he ever met me. By the fifth vodka, I felt a canvas bag being pressed into my hands.

"Benway.. I'm sorry, son. It's not as easy as that, like. I can't.. I can't let yer leave here without it. D'yer get me? This book is too important.. The only people that can know about it are the ones who are gonna be there, at the sale. So, unless yer can find me ten million by the time we're staggerin' drunk, yer goin' to take the book. Find ten million, then yer get to go an' try to buy the thing. If not, and yer don't want to 'hlp me out 'ere, then yer dead. I'll shoot you right now, Benway. Run away, an' all find yer, an' do a lot worse than shoot yer. Excuse my rudeness 'ere, Benway, but those there are yer options."

His fixed stare doubled up in my vision, and his impossible grin began to float towards his brow. My glass left my hand and clunked onto the plastic flooring. It occured to me that unless I did what I was being told, I was pretty much dead. I held on to the bag and nodded. I was going to the crumbling city.

The journey was long and painful. The flat landscape allowed the winds to build up speed, and they drove the rain so hard that the drops felt like nails upon the small areas of my skin that remained exposed. I travelled mostly in farming vehicles, paying with cigarettes that I earned by working on the scattered farms. The bag remained with me always, and when the temptation to open it overwhelmed me, I found inside a metal box that was welded tightly shut. Its contents were unimportant to me anyway; I knew that I just had to keep travelling. More than once on my journey, I thought that I saw "Ben". Perhaps a face in a passing car, or a figure leaving a farm as I arrived. I'm sure that it wasn't really him, but exhaustion and fear often played on my mind in this way. I wasn't quite yet ready to die, so I kept my head down and made the journey with quiet intent.

The map lead me to a cafe. The city itself was indeed crumbling. Vast structures were scattered alongside empty roads. The clouds hung low and heavy over empty billboards, rusting cars and hungry dogs. Shops contained only a few worthless items, and every human head was bowed to the ground. As far as I knew, there had been no military activity here in fifty years, although it looked as if it had been freshly bombed. The empty buildings were anorexic; their rusted iron bones protruded through their scars and scratches. Concrete lay scattered around their windows and front doors as the weather tore relentlessly to gain entrance. There was no joy in this town. There certainly wasn't any in the canteen.

On the back of the tattered paper was a crude drawing of plaited hair. Up until now I'd had no idea what this plait was, let alone what it represented. Now I saw the old man, I was struck by the resemblance. The picture of the plait had been drawn around a month previous to my arrival at the cafe, although it looked identical to how I saw it now. The old man in the corner of the canteen wasn't looking at me. I was beginning to doubt the whole set-up, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the first time in weeks that anybody had touched me. I twisted in my seat and barely managed to prevent it tipping over as the figure of a woman moved around the Bench to sit opposite me. How long since I'd sat this close to a woman! It was intoxicating. She was beautiful.

"Benway? Yes, you look like a 'Benway'. What are you? Nice middle class boy trying to escape the crushing mundanity of your pathetic life? So sickened by your own dullness that you would risk your life for a bit of small excitement? It's sad. Really sad. No matter. Do you have the book?"

Her sneering did nothing to reduce the incredible clarity of her beauty. A pale and delicate face appeared from within the swaddle of a grey overcoat and hat. When she spoke, her features moved in beautiful unison. Her eyes brows gently raised and fell with the aggression in her voice, her lips became fuller as they pursed in disgust, and her eyes gleamed as she cast her judgement upon me. It was a sweet pain. For a few seconds I forgot everything.

"Bloody hell, you're useless. I take it Ben didn't tell you what you were to actually do once you got here? No, no I didn't think so. Completely retarded, that man. Show me the book. Where is it?"

I went to lift the bag onto the table.

"What the FUCK are you doing?", she hissed, "Don't get it out so everybody can see it! Are you completely stupid, or just trying to wind me up? Open it under the table, for God's sake. And don't let it fall out. If you make a sound then we'll both be dead".

Fumbling with the freezing metal of the bag's clips, I eventually managed to lift the top of the bag enough to reveal the contents. As I closed it again, the buckles clanked against the metal of the box. The woman made no sound, but her look was withering.

"Right. I'm going to be looking after the bidding. The man with the plait, that's Bamba, and he's security. If you fuck up in any way, then he'll be breaking your feeble little neck in seconds. My name is V.P. That's all you need to know. So, you may as well sit back and enjoy the show. Unless, you have any questions...? I imagine that you do".

"........"

"Perhaps even more stupid than I first thought then. Never mind. Sit there, shut up, and be ready to hand that bag over in seconds - when the old man says so. I take it that you know what is in there? I doubt you have any idea just how important it is, or if you've even heard of Tolkein, but for out loud, try and keep it safe for now, okay?".

With that, V.P. stood and appeared to glide over to another corner of the canteen. She sat with her back to wall, facing me. I tried to smile, and I could taste blood in my mouth as my lip gently split. The bag was safe between my legs. The canteen seemed no different to how it had for the last few days. I withdrew from mutual staring with VP to watch a mother breastfeed her child. Her breast was pale and heavy, and I began to drift away from the sale, from the book, and from "Ben". I was so damn tired.

SCREEEEE!

*Cough!*

The scrape of the metal chair once again erupted, causing me to jolt. I looked over to V.P, and she flicked her hair from her shoulder.

SCREEEEE!

*Ahhhhheem*!

A horribly thick and phlegmy choke came from behind me. I was about to turn around to find the culprit, but VP threw a cold glare at me, letting me know that I wasn't allowed to do this. She flicked her hair again, this time off the other shoulder, and pulled any erroneous strands away from her face.

*UUUUhhhhmmmMM-hmM!*

*COUGH*

*SCREEEEE!*

I didn't try and turn around this time, but I could see that VP was staring fixedly at something behind me. The old man was also staring at me as I stared at VP. She took off her scarf and put it back on again. I was beginning to understand. It was an auction. I grinned, and a little blood ran down my chin and dropped onto the dirty surface of the table.

*CccccCCRRrrraHHHuuugh!*

*SCREEEEE!*

*GGGgrrrhuhhh!*

And so it went on. A rhythm of choking, gagging, coughing, wheezing, slapping and huffing broke out behind me, punctuated with the scraping of the metal chair. VP remained seated and silent, but through a continuing sequence of physical gestures, appeared to be chairing the auction. I had no idea how much the book was worth - a ten million entrance fee would suggest that it was a lot. The increments weren't clear, and although VP's movements were obviously co-ordinated in some way, it probably appeared to the uninformed as if she was simply very uncomfortable in her seat. Bamba remained motionless save for his eyes, which darted with every 'bid'. There was anger in his stillness. A rage that threatened to break into furious physical force should anybody break the rules. I was trying not to catch his glimpse, in case my interest was to be taken as a sign of fear, and therefore a sign that I might do something unpredictable. As it was, I too remained still, and I held the treasure tightly between my legs. So tightly, that after only a few minutes I could feel them cramping, but moving them would have been too dangerous. I was also having difficulty keeping a straight face. This scene was so ludicrously inventive that I couldn't help but admire the audacity of "Ben", and find my own position utterly ridiculous. Even in the face of such tension and mortal threat, the surreal phlegmatic symphony behind me served as a comedic requiem for my attempts to avoid this kind of trouble.

SCREEEEEEE!
*Kahhhhhh! Kahhhhhh!
*UUhhhh-HRRRUmmm*
*SCre*
*Scre*

The metal chair produced two tiny squeaks, and all other noises from the auction ceased. The sounds were the same as they had been for the last few days. VP let her head droop, and Bamba very slowly began to stand. I must have fucked up. I must have done something to break the process. There was tightness in Bamba's stance as he stood. I could see that he was wearing something akin to a monk's habit, only bulkier and heavier. A thick black fur lined coat lay over his shoulders. He began to walk to towards me, and I could tell from the bulges in the habit that he was carrying more than one firearm. His face was blazing with intent and malice. I knew that I had a weapon in a holster on my back, but I couldn't remember the last time I had calibrated or cleaned it. It probably wasn't even loaded, and even with the adrenaline that was now making my whole body throb, I doubted that I could have been quick enough. He moved towards me. His left hand reached into his coat and I squeezed my eyes shut. I had done everything that "Ben" and VP had asked. I didn't deserve this.

I felt a weight no my shoulder, and I nearly buckled onto the floor

"air noo, dorn't pahni-c..yerr ore-kair. Sit tight noo, an' yull be feen mairt". His whispering breath was hot on my ear. I felt him standing in front of me, and when I opened my eyes, he was crouched under the table with his hands on the bag. I saw that VP was looking straight at me. There was immaculate concentration playing across her face.

"alreet noo pal - move yer lehgs ah-ware frohm t' baag.. real slore noo..thassit, real slore..

*SCREEEE!*

" 'Appen! 'Ello there, V.P. "

VP froze. Her gaze landed somewhere to left of my head. I went to turn in my seat, before I felt a tiny movement from Bamba. I wasn't entirely sure, but the voice that had come after the last screech sounded like Ben. VP looked back to me with confusion. She searched my face for something, as if I were something other than what she had thought. Bamba slowly stood up, and moved his hand from underneath the table. I could no longer hear the ambient sound of the canteen. I saw Bamba's shoulder twitch slightly, and VP threw him a concerned glance. There was a clicking sound directly behind me, a sort of "ker-LICK". It was a familiar sound. I wasn't smiling anymore.

"Alright there, VP, are yer?". Ben's lilt was a soft as it had been when I first heard it at the hotel, although now there was a menacing edge to his extended vowels. VP looked up behind me. Bamba was staring at the same spot, his hand planted into a pocket on his coat.

"Well.. I'm sure th' yer doin' jus' fine, our VP. Jus' fine. Yer met me new pal then, 'ave yer? Benway here? He been okay, 'as he? 't all went 'as planned', did it? Lovely. Bamba, yer can tek yer 'and out yer pocket now, friend. Nice an' slow, like. Nice an' slow.. I bet yer weren't expectin'.."

"BAMBA, NO!" VP shouted as Bamba went to draw a handgun from his pocket. I could just see the top of the barrel protruding from his pocket. There was a deafening blast, and then utter silence. The sound caused a shooting pain in my head and I instinctively had my hands over my ears. Bamba took his hand from his pocket and looked down at me. A grin spread across his face. "Behn..yerra wee bah-stard, ya knor tha'?". A choke and a gag and before I knew it, I was blinded with the blood that exploded from his mouth. I cried out - the first sound I'd made since the auction began. The canteen was silent save for the thud as Bamba fell at my feet.

"Ben...Ben.. You?re not supposed to be here...You're supposed to wait..". VP sounded worried. There was a strain in her voice.

"I know tha' , VP, an' I was waitin' at th'airport an' all, but then I thought, well now Ben, what if old VP fancies tekkin' the money fer 'erself, like. 'Elpin' 'erself to Benny's share an' all. So, I thought I'd come down 'ere like. An' now I'm 'ere, I'm wonderin' if I shouldn't try and... re-negotiate, like. 'Ow much d'it come to in th'end?"

"Ben, you can't do this... please leave, and I'll meet you... We can't be here together... For God's sake - you just killed Bamba! The police will be all over us in minutes!"

" 'Old on now, jus' 'old on. 'Ow much didya sell that thing fer in the end?' "

"Fifty five million"

"An' 'as it been, yer know, paid in already?"

"Yes, it was paid in electronically the second the auction ended. The buyer is in the room. It's all finished, Ben! Let's just get out of here!"

"Yer right VP.. Yer right. 'Ello again there, Benway.. I 'ope you enjoyed yerself. 'Fraid I've gotta dash now, but I'm sure I'll get th'money to yer eventually. Ah shouldn't be too 'ard to find, now. I'll jus' tek this..". I felt the bag being slipped from under my seat. I still couldn't see and there was a ringing in my ears. The smell of the old man's blood was filling my nostrils. The taste of it was still sliding down the back of my mouth.

"I'll jus' tek this, an' we'll be on our..", there was a scuffle behind me. I turned, but I couldn't open my eyes. Another gunshot thundered around the room, and I felt a hot spray on my face. VP screamed from the corner, and I turned back to face her. I felt safer sitting this way, although I couldn't be sure where Ben actually was now. The second shot had rendered me deaf in my left ear, and the taste of yet more blood was making me retch. A screaming pain was pulsing in my head. Things didn't seem like they could get much worse.

"Bloody idiot, eh V.P.? Anybody else in the'room got a problem wi'me tekkin this book back? Eh? There's plenty more o' these little fellas fer everyone, like. I'm not 'ere to play silly buggers wi'you lot. Heheh, 'appen at Benway, would yer VP? Lookit all th'blood that's on 'is face! heheh. 'Ope it di'n't get in yer eyes there, son. Nasty, that"

I blinked my eyes open. VP was standing in the corner now, her arms outstretched in plea. I was covered in blood.

"Ben, please, let's just go now.. we've got the book and the money.. we can make a clean break. Come on! Now!"

"Yer know, V.P., tha' I've always liked you. Always 'elped me out an' tha'. So, I'm not going to kill yer 'ere, in this canteen. Nobody deserves that'. Well, heheh, 'part from Bamba there, an Vlad over 'ere, mind. So. I'll give yerra chance. For now, I'll be thankin' yer kindly, VP".

Two more gunshots, and screaming. I stood up, and saw than "Ben" had left. As the game players, and the couples, and the travellers ran out of the broken door, I moved over to where VP was laying on the ground. There was blood pouring from her stomach. I placed her arm around my shoulder and stood to lift her, only to find myself crumpling under the weight. A searing pain shot up my leg and into my chest. I had been shot in my left leg. I sat down next to VP, and watched as our blood spread out across the cheap plastic flooring. The two blooms ran into each other. The canteen was now empty, and the only sound was that of the heaters. Dry stinking heated air was pouring from a grill on the wall and cascading over us. It was making me feel tired.

"It was me... I bought the book off him, Benway...I was the final bidder.. The fourth Lord of the Rings...". She grinned and let her head droop. A line of bloody spittle hung from her lower lip. I lifted her again, and this time she took as much weight as she could. "We?ll get it for you... We'll get it", I whispered to her as we carefully picked our way across the floor. It was slow progress, and we nearly slipped in the pools of blood more than once. "I... I need that book, Benway...It's...you don't understand yet.. I can't die...It's...There's more to this..."

I gathered my strength and pushed open the door. The blood I had swallowed finally hit the bottom of my stomach, causing me to vomit onto the cracked grey pavement. A storm was drawing in in front us. I held onto VP as my leg gave way underneath me. She held me by the waist. I held her by the shoulders. Keeping each other upright, we began stumbling towards the only hospital in the crumbling city. We weren't going to let ourselves die.

edit: I should have proof read it first! O well..

---

You know, just in case.

Another off day, Benway?

[ 03 July 2003: Message edited by: jonesy999 ]
 

Edit, christ three words and you still spell one wrong?

[ 03 July 2003: Message edited by: Vogon Poetess ]
 

I'm still trailing and I've been holding my breath for longer than 10.2 seconds. I knew I should have eaten.
 

I think that this'll probably break the forum..

WOO BENWAY - WOO INDEED !
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dr. Benway:
Anybody else have any exciting TMO Crime stories?

---

[ 03 July 2003: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
 

As with anything, though, you get a Jones. Marching didn’t do it for me any more. After the war marches, I knew I needed something more. Time was, Derek and I would get back from a march and collapse onto our meagre bedding in our Brixton squat and fall straight to sleep, breathing together in time, huddled together for warmth. After the war marches, though, I lay awake, staring at the damp patches on the ceiling as Derek’s hulking body rose and fell with his heavy, sleepy breathing.

I didn’t sleep at all that night, and when Derek awoke, I was standing, staring out of the broken window, knowing that I had to do something more.

“What are you doing?” he grunted.

I turned to him, he was haloed in a pool of sunshine, looking up at me blinking.

“I need more Derek. I need to do something more.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hunkered down in the long grass, we lay in wait. Halogen spot lamps were positioned on every corner of the facility, casting bright white pools of light that only seemed to emphasise the blackness of the night around us. I could barely make out Derek’s form beside me, but the soft grunts of his breathing comforted me. He had made it clear that from this point on we were to refer to each other by call signs only. I was ‘Thorn’. He was ‘Harlequin’.

“OK… go!” he hissed at me, there was an urgency and insistence in his voice I didn’t recognise. It almost wounded me, until I ascribed it to ‘Harlequin’ rather than Derek.

We scrambled forward along the grass, running swiftly, despite being hunched double. Within seconds we had reached our next waypoint – a blindpoint between security lights – and we sat there, panting, our backs against the concrete wall of the animal testing facility.

Expertly, swiftly, Harlequin reached into his backpack and removed some items. He was emptying the contents of a bottle into a handkerchief. Chloroform. I had procured it for him earlier.

Together we raced round to the guard’s hut, a pre-fab building containing a fifty-year-old man reading a paper. No problem. But we had to be swift.

Harlequin led the way. It happened so fast. Before I even knew what was going on, he had booted the door down, and was behind the guard with the handkerchief over his face. The guard struggled and struggled, but Harlequin’s bear-like grip was too strong. I stood and watched, waiting for the guard to drop, but he didn’t.

And the, suddenly he was free. He broke away and headed for the door. I leapt out after him and took him down with me. I rolled him onto his back and pinned him with my knees. Panicking I grabbed something from my belt. My flashlight. Three times I brought it down into the guards face, swift, powerful arcs slicing through the night and impacting on the guard’s face, each time landing with a wet crunch. On the third strike, the guard’s nose broke open and released a bubbling burst of blood, and then he lay still. I stopped and stared at what I had done.

“You idiot!!!” hissed Harlequin. I looked back at him. He was waving the bottle at me, “This is chlorophyll! Not chloroform!” He hurled the green handkerchief to the ground, and snatched a set of keys off a hook in the guard’s office, and stormed angrily on.

Our torches pulled shadows and shapes out of the darkness, taking us down these deserted corridors. Eventually we reached the room we were looking for, identified by the three key letters above the door. Harlequin took out his bolt clippers and cut the lock. We were in.

Any doubts I had that we were fighting the good fight vanished the instant I got inside. Cages and cages of chimps stretched away from us. The animals were kept upright, in cages that allowed them no room to turn around. Wires and drips stretched away from each primate. It appeared that they were heavily sedated, yet they twitched and shook in obvious discomfort.

Further in to the lab there was a chimp strapped to an operating table, its eyes held open by a cruel metal headbrace, images playing across the screens in front of it. It appeared to be in a state of full consciousness. I wondered over to the poor animal.

I touched its arm, gently and it mewled at me. I was also able to take a look at the images on the screens. It was a bizarre montage, of the most heinous acts ever captured on camera – people being butchered, burned alive – interspersed with footage of daytime TV presenter Eamonn Holmes. I looked at the tag on the animal’s wrist. “Jonesy999”.

Horrified I scampered to the rest of the cages. They all had names. Dr. Benway. London. At the end of the line, a large chimp, still half asleep, rattled and ranted angrily at the bars of his cage. His name was Bamba.

Tracing the wires from the heads of the animals I could see that they led to some kind of server. Some kind of computer. These bastard scientists were reading their thoughts. Storing them somewhere. But where?

“Harlequ…” I began, turning to my partner. But it was too late. Two men in lab coats were silently taking him down. Handkerchief over the mouth. Of course they knew the difference. They were scientists.

I was trapped, at the far end of the lab.

“Don’t try and run,” a chilling voice intoned. I shone my torch at the source. It was a short man, in his thirties. ‘Darryn’, his name tag read.

“My assistant Damo and I have been hoping for some human subjects for some time. Project: TMO needs human minds. You and your friend her will suit us well.”

I tried to run, but the little man was too quick for me. Within seconds he had me down, the acrid fumes of the chloroform filling my lungs. That was the last thing I remember.

I send this plea out to you now. If there are any other human minds out there… please if anyone can read this… please help us…
 

Hey, this could descend into a chimp pics thread. Sweet.
 

That's a very threatening piece of writing Thorn. I liked the Chumbawamba T-shirt bit, along with the rest of it. As DD said,
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Octavia:
Is anyone going to start new freds or are we going to be restricted to five all morning?

---

I did this for you L@@K
 

-------------
It was that strange time in London. The vinegar stroke of rush hour. The mid-afternoon lull was clearly over but the crazy saturation of people rushing to get home or go out had not yet materialised. Nowhere was this more noticeable than here in Waterloo station. At it’s peak it was a spectacle every bit as remarkable as the early evening flock of starlings over the cities sky, all moving in different directions, all managing to avoid not just physical but also eye contact. It was the perfect place, and the perfect time to indulge in a spot of flaneurism. Kovacs didn’t go in for the city walker however, there was far too much effort involved in pacing the streets and observing, in the modern world that was a sure fire way of getting run over. Black cabs had little patience for French post-modernism in his experience. So it was that he sat at a small, round, silver table outside a Costa coffee in Waterloo station.

Kovacs was a strange sight, at once awkward yet assured. He had a long, pointy face with a nose that came to such a peak it could conceivably be used as a weapon. Yet despite these pointed features he could almost certainly be described as handsome. His eyes were drowsy, yet sharp, his mouth pursed, yet full and on top of his head sat a deliberately ruffled, wispy head of hair. It was also clear, even sitting, that he was a tall man. He sat cross legged, the left leg tight over the right seemed to flow downwards and onwards to a black winkle picker boot. The black trousers hung loosely on him, tight enough to show that he was a lean man, with very little fat wasted. He was bent over, in his left hand an espresso cup, dwarfed by his large bony hands and in his right he clasped a cigarette. The pose was reminiscent of that of a praying mantis. He was wearing a cotton sweater with a fairly high neck, again this merely served to accentuate his wiry, Dickensian appearance.

On the table in front of him was an opened graphic novel. Although some would describe this as a comic Kovacs was clearly getting more than just action and violence from this, he was gaining meaning from it that perhaps even the writers hadn’t intended. The way he turned over each page, using great care with his long, white fingers suggested a scholarly approach, and also that he was aware that he was being watched, just as he was watching others. The whole look that Kovacs portrayed was studiously pulled off, he knew how he wanted to be perceived, and his dress, his body language, down to the way he dragged on his cigarette was intended to scream this self image at others.

Looking up he noticed a young girl walking along the concourse. She was roughly 18, wearing suede adidas trainers, a pair of brown corduroy trousers, tight at the top flared at the bottom, and a halter neck top that presented her smooth brown arms. Although slim she was by no means skinny and Kovacs took great care to look her over, taking in her curves, noticing the nuances in her walk. She was extremely pretty, large brown eyes with long noticeable eye lashes and her hair was cropped short giving her a boyish look. She strode confidently and seemed happy, a light smile playing across her face. Kovacs played out a conversation in his head. “Hey sexy, how r u? a/s/l” He smiled himself now, a whole world of young women were out there, with their newspeak, eager to interact with men called sexylad2000, or hunk4u. He had used chat rooms for many years, initially he had found it exciting and sexually arousing, now he used them to display his power, his great wit, and to exert this power over the young women of the internet. Unconsciously he stoked his head and shifted slightly in his seat, a perceptible shift in his state of arousal leaving him uncomfortable.

He lowered his head again, turning another page and casting a glance towards the coffee shop, wondering if they offered table service. He suspected not. As he moved his head around he saw an incredible sight walking towards him. It was a man of about 6 foot, any who saw him would immediately describe him as stocky. He had a large square head, his hair, untidy, fell over his forehead and sat on his thick, dark brow. His eyes were deep set, sunken in to large dark sockets. They were dull and seemed to fix on a certain point and unwaveringly remain there until something new attracted his attention. His gaze would then move to this new point of interest and again remain fixedly on it. He had a large, flat nose and square protruding jaw line. With neck as thick as head he gave of the appearance of an old school boxer, not the dancing pretty boys who enjoyed money and women, but the swedger who lived a brutal life and relished the crack of bone on fist. He walked, perhaps walk is not the correct word, he stamped his way down the concourse, ungainly and threatening people instinctively moved out of his way. Equally people stared.

They stared because of the clothing this incredible bulk was wearing. It was a one piece suit, a multi-coloured patch work of triangles. Red, green, blue and white it was stretched over his thick body. In his prodigious hand he held a large bunch of rolled up magazines, The Big Issue. Kovacs watched him with a mixture of amusement, disgust and to a certain extent pity. The man was clearly living on the streets and equally cannot have been of completely sound mind to be walking the streets in the colourful get up. He followed the mans path carefully and as he passed him suddenly sharply drew his breath. On the back of the patchwork suit was sewn the most beautiful white rabbit. It had silver eyes and golden paws and above it was a deck of cards, the queen of hearts the most prominent. Kovacs stoked his long chin and raised an eyebrow, “Curiouser and curiouser”.

He quickly tossed down some change for the coffee, gathered up his things and followed the white rabbit down the tunnel to the northern line. He was overcome with excitement, couldn’t believe what he was doing. The giant man walked laboriously but with considerable pace, and Kovacs made little effort to hide the fact he was following. They delved deeper and deeper into the underground system, Kovacs increasingly aware that he had never seen this part of the tube, the lights seemed darker, the pathway dirtier. Suddenly the colourful tramp darted off down a corner and disappeared out of view. Kovacs felt a wave of panic and ran, desperate not to let the beautiful rabbit out of sight. He skidded round the corner to see the man standing, Big Issue in hand in front of a large steel gate. “Big Issue mate?” Kovacs stuttered, “N-No ta”.
“What you following me for then mate? Following the rabbit were you? Heh heh heh. I bet you were weren’t you? I know all about you Kovacs.”
Kovacs reeled at this, “How, how do you know my name?”
The man rubbed his head roughly, “Heh heh heh, I’m Derek, Ko, you know, Harlequin, the board joke. You know me Ko. Heh heh heh.”
Nausea began to grip Kovacs, of course it was Harlequin, from TMO, a place he went to display his superior wit, a place that was actually a challenge.
“Right, Harly, yeah, how you doing mate? What you lead me down here for?”

At this there was a change in the atmosphere, the air seemed to be sucked out of the tunnel and suddenly the heat became unbearable. Kovacs watched in silent horror as Harlequin began to bulge, the suit became visibly tighter and although Kovacs thought he must have been imagining it Dereks skin seemed to take on a green hue. There was a roar and suddenly what was before Kovacs was not just an incredible bulk, it was the Incredible Hulk. Kovacs opened his mouth wide, although terrified he was also awe struck, a hero in front of him, he couldn’t help thinking to himself ‘Is Batman real?’. Harlequin grabbed Kovacs spindly arms and slowly lifted him until he held him in a Jesus Christ pose. He slowly began to rock his body, holding his arms tightly, and then with a flick of his wrists Harlequin began to spin Kovacs torso round and round. His arms broke immediately and as he span his sinew twisted thinner and thinner until at last the arms snapped loose of the bloodied body. Kovacs fell before Harlequin, armless, on his knees, he looked pleadingly into Dereks eyes but saw nothing but darkness. Harlequin brought the two arms down violently on Kovacs’ thin neck, striking from either side they chopped his weak neck and for a moment his head hovered above his body, his death pose was that of an exclamation. Derek laughed, “You idiot” his face red, his teeth bared, his eyebrows furrowed to a point in the middle.

Dropping the arms of the deceased he played his fingers over the steel gate, a lightness now to his body. “The forum ladies will be mine. Your next Davis”
 

- ...all adds to be an engrossing portrayal of a seriously disturbed individual.

-Hmmmm.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by kovacs:
except that I have never smoked.

---

Yeah, I did think that might be the case. I don't think Derek has ever really turned into the hulk though to be fair.
 

Jonesy sat at his computer, staring dull eyed at his latest tortuous ‘links’ for Gloria Hunniford’s new chat show. “And now from the star of the Hulk, we go to a man who might have been in a sulk, once probably, and that rhymes with Hulk…”

It was crap and he knew it. He hated this. He hated writing these stupid shit links almost as much as he hated Gloria Hunniford’s stupid shit gurning face. He wanted to kill her, no question. He reckooned he could do it too, if the opportunity arose. Maybe. Sitting there, staring at the dirge on his screen, Jonesy began to wonder whether he would have what it took to kill a man. Or a woman. Or a sort of half woman/ man thing like Gloria. He jumped, as the phone rang, the shrill ring slicing through his daydream like cheesewire through the throat of a tedious daytime television presenter.

“Michael! Hey! Michael!” chirruped the voice at the other end of the phone. It was grating at the best of times. Today, to Jonesy, it sounded like sandpaper on your tongue. It was his producer, Jon Fish.

“Hello Jon,” said Jonesy, trying to strain all the hate from his voice. All that was left was a HAL –esque emotionally bereft monotone.

“We need you down at the studio today. Gloria’s got a surprise guest, but it’s going to be tight. He may not make it. We’re going to need you there, making last minute changes to the script.

“I’m working John. Can’t you do it, John?”

“Nah. I’m covering a news story. Some scientist is unveiling a new robot. Or he’s crippled or something. I can never remember. Either way, it’s your ass, chief.”

Jonesy was about to protest. Then it suddenly occurred to him. Why complain? This is the opportunity to finally take that yellow haired bitch out.

Slowly, deliberately, Jonesy got up from his writing desk and made his way to the kitchen. There was bound to be something in here that he could use. Steak knife, maybe? No. He could never hide it from security. Egg whisk? He pondered for a glorious moment the shocked expression on Gloria’s face as he drove the twin-prongs of the egg whisk through her breast plate, pushing further in until it was churning heart and lungs into a gluey pulp in her chest cavity. Maybe. But, no. There were too many things to consider, the power supply, the noise. It’d never work. Then, he saw it. A small, black handled fruit knife. The blade was short but –heh- lethally sharp. Elegant. Simple. Perfect.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Empowered with the feeling of this blade in his pocket, Jonesy strode into the building. He flashed his pass at the receptionist, who barely acknowledged him, and strode onwards. He clasped the knife in his jacket pocket, gently pricking his finger on the blade. He wouldn’t hesitate, he knew that now. He’d go straight for the throat. Fuck the consequences. No-one could take this away from him. He’d –

“I’m sorry sir, you can’t go beyond this point.”

Jonesy stopped and stared at the man blocking his way. This stocky, ageing security guard. How could he! Over the man’s shoulder he could catch a glimpse of the studio. Goddamit! He was so close!

“But… I’m a writer… I need…”

“Sorry. Sir. You’re not allowed on the set. You have an office down the hall, and they’ll radio you instructions. Gloria’s pretty funny about people she doesn’t know hovering around. Paranoid, like.”

Jonesy’s stomach sank. So close. But, no. He realised it was a fool’s dream he had been chasing. The hag would remain, and he would remain her slave, cooking up absurd links for her. That was his fate. A broken man he trudged down to his office, and sat down in front of the word processor waiting to discover the identity of the mystery guest for whom he would be spewing out the links.

An hour went by, and Jonesy had slipped still further into despair, slumped dejectedly in his chair, when the radio crackled into life.

“Micheal, are you there?”

Sullenly, he reached forward and pressed the ‘Talk’ button.

“What,” he snapped, this time not bothering to keep the contempt from his voice.

“We’re a bit tied up here, and we’ve just got word that the new guest has arrived. Can you go down to the gate and meet him? Keep him occupied for a bit. Give him the tour, you know. Good lad.”

Again, Jonesy began to protest, but the radio had fallen silent. He sighed and began to trudge his way back to the entrance.

At the gate, a white stretch limo pulled up. The back door opened and Gloria’s mystery guest stepped out, and stood up. Both Jonesy and the man stopped, stunned. Stared. It was uncanny… like looking in a mirror. The man offered his hand, with a broad, toothy smile.

“Hi,” He said, “I’m Kurt.”

“Michael,” smiled Jonesy, a plan forming in his mind.

Giddily, he led Kurt past the receptionist, and down the corridors, giving a gabbled, overly excited account of what went on in the various sections of the studio. The tour went on. Kurt was polite and amiable, always showing interest even as Jonesy became increasingly excited and agitated.

“So you’re being interviewed by Gloria, eh?” he gurgled. “Sitting right opposite her, eh?”

“Yeah,” drawled the American, “though to be honest I’d rather be at home with Goldie and the kids.”

They rounded a corner, into Jonesy’s lonely, windowless room. Jonesy’s shoulders started shaking now, and he thought to control his laughter.

“That’s too bad mate!” he screeched, spinning round and plunging the sharp blade of the fruit knife into Kurt’s neck. He pulled it out, and it was followed by a deep red, gouting gush of blood. Jonesy side stepped it, and helped Kurt to the ground as the stuff poured out of him. He pulled of Kurt’s jacket and tried it on. A perfect fit. More of a problem was the hair. Kurt’s ragged mop, was far different from Jonesy’s own crew cut. Thinking fast, Jonesy took the fruit knife and began to slice round the hairline of the corpse.

“My next guest, who has never been known to sulk, is Hollywood superstar Kurt Russell.”

The audience burst into applause as Kurt walked, grinning deliriously from ear to ear, to the sofa. He held one hand up as a greeting, and kept the other plunged deep into his jacket pocket. He seemed genuinely excited by all the adulation.

Kurt sat down heavily on the sofa, on the near end to Gloria, close enough to touch her. His free hand went up to his hair, and his entire barnet seemed to slide across his scalp by a couple inches.

“Kurt Russell, Welcome to London,” grinned Gloria by way of a greeting.

Kurt just sat there, teeth clenched, with that wide, wide smiled, wide wide eyes, and one hand in his pocket.

“Kurt?” she asked again.

In a flash, he lunged forward.
 

Every day for three years I walked past the Scientologists on Tottenham Court Road. They never approached me. No blue-bibbed, clipboard wielding grinbot ever attempted to steer me away from the tide of West One and into the confines of their 'Centre' for an informal chat or Q and A session. No pleasing blonde caught me in her tractor beam smile and dragged me helplessly out of the reach of innocent bystanders for an impromptu interrogation and brain washing session. I'd seen it happening to others; I'd heard it even happened to John Travolta, but somehow I always escaped an audience with their Grand Puba.

As you have probably gathered, my knowledge of Scientology is pretty sketchy. Some might even say I possess ignorant prejudices about it. Perhaps if I had been plucked from the streets of London by one of their representatives I'd feel different.

At first I was pleased to find a secret passage through their corridor of polite advances. Quite frankly, I had enough on my plate with the 'Learn English as a Foreign Language' posse at the other end of the road. They couldn't get enough of me. I had enough of their cards thrust upon me to keep a medium sized printer in business for months. But the Scientologists left me alone.

After a while this began to irk me. It's much the same as weddings: no one wants to waste their weekend in a church, watching live hypocrisy, but it's nice to be asked. Likewise, if a Scientologist barred my way, I'd make a polite excuse and continue on my journey.

After a while, though, I began to suspect there was something wrong with me. Science was never my strongest subject but surely this should swing both ways: my first class English degree didn't stop the Foreign Language Gang mugging me on a regular basis, why should mediocre GCSE chemistry results keep the Scientologists at bay? Eventually I took the perverse step of trying to catch their eye.

The Londoner's gait is key to his survival: in a city of census takers, beggars and worse, a purposeful stride is just as important as a blinkered stare on a fixed point twenty yards ahead. If you haven't got those two off pat, you'll never even get chance to raise your palm mid-stride (in a "speak to the hand" gesture) and say, "Sorry, running late." They’ll already have you by then.

Such survival techniques are painfully learnt. Whole days can be swallowed up answering questionnaires and entire bank accounts emptied before you reach the next post code. Slowing my pace and actually looking at them was a Darwinian disaster akin to a snail leaving its house behind and writing "Thrush Bait" accross its back in bright red letters.

Each day I became more shameless, baiting the hook more desperately. Strolling became loitering, looking became smiling. But still they didn't bite. These were the pathetic sharks of street canvassing.

I tried to convince myself that my invisibility was a good thing. Surely their inherent fear was down to a natural aversion to my unbreakable mind. They weren't going to waste hard-earned brain washing mantras trying to win me over. But they didn’t need to. Somehow I was being reeled in without any verbal communication. Maybe that's how they did it. Maybe every one of those people stopped in the street – hundreds each day – was a Scientologist in disguise. The canvassing was an elaborate pantomime to make the whole thing look interesting. And I was falling for it.

They were clever bastards and make no mistake. A few more weeks and I’d have strode right past them into their building, rung the bell and joyfully announced, "I’d like to be a Scientologist please. Where do I sign up?"

Fate rescued me by making me redundant.

Brain washing is all about routine, and mine altered dramatically when that happened. Crucially, my route to work changed – because I didn’t have one any more.

Safe in my flat, over the next few weeks I had plenty of time to reflect on my near miss with the Scientologists. It wasn't only the feeling of exclusion which prompted my insane urge to be included. I wanted someone to ask me about my beliefs. I wanted to reinforce my own values by disagreeing with theirs.

I'm not religious but I've always considered myself to be a relatively spiritual person. I've known brick blunt granite-heads with a taste for the literal; I've witnessed them breathing in the beauty and mystery of life before exhaling lungfuls of choking, dead fog. I've encountered tarot card wielding eccentrics who wash their hair in semen, marinade their souls in the sap from the Cabalistic Tree of Life and experience the energy of the planet like some sort of human lightening conductor.

Myself, I’m somewhere in the middle, hence 'relatively'.

"Relatively."

That was my answer - the thought process which got me there was a kind of diluted speed read of everything above.

"Relatively?"

That clearly wasn't an acceptable answer for Benway.

"Relatively? Either you're a spiritual person or you're not."

We were tucked in the corner of The Green Man, nursing hangovers and pints of Guinness. All around us Berwick Street Market traders celebrated their close of business for the day with equal measures of booze and noise.

I surfed a top lip through my Guinness without actually drinking any.

"It's more complicated than that, course it is. Let's just say I'm more spiritual than some and less spiritual than others. Why do you want to know?"

"Fack," Benway replied, "That's no kind of answer. I want to know because I've got a little job for you, my son."

Cockney Benway. He'd been coming up with little jobs for me since we were twelve. And, following in a glorious tradition of Tucker Jenkins, Arthur Daley and Del Boy Trotter, those 'jobs' usually belonged in a folder marked, 'hair brained schemes'. OK, so Tucker wasn't a cockney but I can't think of any 12 year old cheeky-chappy, cockney wheeler dealers at the moment - except Benway of course. For that's what he was - the bastard child of Del boy and Arfur.

"It's simple really, me old bone china. Uncle Benway's gone and got him self a treasure map."

"Fucking hell, Benwad."

"Straight up. 'X' marks the spot and everything."

I held my Guinness to the light - "Aren't you supposed to see a purple patch in Guniess if you hold it right?"

"I'm not facking about, Jonah. This is legit."

"A legit treasure map. Now, there's a phrase you don't hear on the Antiques Road Show every week. Where the fuck have you got a treasure map from?"

Benway looked theatrically over each shoulder then drew his chair close to mine. It was all I could do to stop laughing.

"The other side," he whispered.

"What, south London?" I asked, taking a mouthful of stout.

"No, you prannet," Benway exclaimed loudly, before checked his voice and whispering, "The spirit world."

I spluttered with laughter and discharged a shower of Guinness into his earnest face.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Benway shrieked. "This coat cost forty quid."

I threw him a serviette left over from my scampi and chips.

"Sorry. Something about getting a treasure map from the spirit world made me laugh. Don't know how it happened."

"What the fack is this?" Benway shouted. "I'm covered in fackin' claret."

His face was crimson mask.

"It's ketchup" I managed, through choked sobs of laughter. "Wrong serviette."

"Ketchup? Ketchup? What the fack is wrong with you, JoNo?"

"Sorry. I thought it was clean."

"Nobody puts ketchup on scampi!"

"What?"

"Haven't you ever heard of tartar sauce? Fackin' plank. Now, where was I?"

"Pennies from heaven?" I ventured.

"What? Oh, right, yeah, treasure. Well, it's not so much a treasure map as a location. Chiswick, to be precise."

"Chiskwick?"

"Alright, keep you fackin' voice down, sunbeam. Jesus. Yeah, Chiswick. Well, a graveyard in Chiswick to be more precise."

"Of course."

"It's some kind of big shot, rich 'sorts' graveyard - blue soil from all the noble blood. That kinda thing. Anyway, in one of these posh plots is a grave which doesn't contain the bones of Lord Dead Sir of Cash Island. This one grave's got something else in it?"

Here he paused for dramatic effect. Clearly this was my cue.

"What's in it? Worms?"

"No, you fackin McMuppet burger, diamonds."

"Priceless." I said.

Benway clapped his hands together.

"Exactly."

"And where, pray tell, did you get this information from?" I asked.

Benway pulled his collar up against an invisible wind then, much to my amusement, crossed himself.

"From Leonard Rossiter."

I stood up. "That's it. I'm going to bed. I suggest you do too."

Benway grabbed my arm and forced me back into the chair.

"I'm not fackin' about, Jonah. This is on the level."

"Benway, I love you. But, to put it politely, what you're telling me doesn't really add up."

"Why?"

"Well, for a start, Leonard Rossiter has been dead for ten years."

"I told you. I got this information from the other side."

"Let me guess. You were visited by three ghosts. Rigsby was the ghost of Benway past, right?"

"Don't be fackin' soft."

"Don't be surprised if tonight's ghost is wearing a white coat and carrying a straight jacket."

"Eh?"

"He'll be your future."

Benway rubbed his beard and pulled his 'angry face'. The face could be conjured up to order but the beard rubbing, I don't think he knows he does that. The only way to read the man is through subconscious signals like that. Anything he has a handle on, he'll have an angle on. The pleading, angry, innocent faces, they're all bullshit. If he rubs his beard or folds his tongue beneath his bottom lip in a thoughtful Joey Deacon pose, he means it."

"Alright," I said, "How did you come by this information?"

He eyed me suspiciously, no doubt braced for more sarcasm. After several seconds his face broke into a smile and he said, "I spoke to him."

"Who?"

"Leonard fackin' Rossiter! Keep up."

I sighed. "How the fuck could you speak to Leonard fucking Rossiter?"

"On the old magic dog and bone."

"What?"

"You know, the Ouija board. 'Yes', 'No',
'is there anybody there?' All that."

"I don't believe this." I said.

"I know," Benway cackled. "Mad, isn't it? So, are you in or what?"

"Am I in? So, let me get this straight, Benwah: you want me to help you break into an exclusive cemetery in west London, where we'll then embark on a grave robbing operation on the express instructions of the ghost of Leonard Rossiter, who contacted you from the spirit world via a Ouija board. Have I missed anything out?"

"Just that you'll have to do all the digging, 'cos I've got a bad back.."

That was deadpan. He wasn't joking. The frightening thing is, he wasn’t joking about any of this and, like some insane cockney terminator, nothing would get in his way. Wherever I ran to, he'd track me down. That's what he does. That's all he does. And he wouldn't relent until I was knee deep in blue soil, rotting bones and worse, while he swigged from a can of Redstripe, barked orders and tunelessly whistled Diamonds are a Boys Best Friend.

I let out a long sigh.

"So, what's the name on the grave?"

"Like I'm gonna tell you that."

"Oh, I see, so we're like the good the bad and the ugly in this instance?"

"Speak for yourself, pig features." He swallowed the remainder of his drink and stood to leave.

"Right," he announced. "I'm going for a slash but then we're off to buy a spade, negro. You dig?"

"Very droll" I replied raising my eyebrows.
 

I look forward to reading it!
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thorn Davis:
if (when) finished it would run to at least 15,000 words.

I look forward to reading it!

---

That would be cheating though, wouldn't it?

Actually it was part of a thread I never started and it seemed a shame to waste it.

It's still a shameful cut and shut job, though.

[ 04 July 2003: Message edited by: jonesy999 ]
 

With distance lies devotion, the last words he remembered after being nudged awake by the conductor repeatedly crashing into his foot. He dug his ticket out of his pocket and fed it into the machine, seconds passed, his ticket returned. Only another hour to go before he reached London, thinking about the outcome of this journey made him cold.

He left the station at 14:00 and walked slowly through the concourse, all around him the steady efficiency of the cleaning bots ensuring the battle with the detritus of the city was at least being fought. He calmly looked around for his illuminated nametag. He saw the delicately coloured board gently displaying “damo” and walked over to it. He placed his finger on the pad, the needle sting wasn’t even noticeable anymore. A minute or two passed as the embedded sequencer ran a profile check on him.
“Fack me damo. We thought you’d never get here”
“hello benway”
“Yeah, Right hello. Well we’ve got a little job for you.”
“i gathered as much.”
“Hey hey sarky monkeyboy, you better facking watch it. Remember I can hit play on that takashi mike shit in your head any time”
damo gave an involuntary yelp and a small patch darkened his clothes.
“You need to go to the Hotel Yorba. We’ll be round to see you later, the details will follow. A room is booked for you. Everything you need is there. One hour. Be there”

with the underground now little more than a permanent temporary housing solution and the internal combustion engine no longer permitted within the city limits, he’d have to walk quickly. Arriving at the hotel and checking into his room he was given an envelope, he waited until he was in his room before opening the envelope.
A small plastic wafer dropped out, inside the envelope was a handwritten note:
“plug this in at 15:15”
He checked his watch, 2 minutes to go. He emptied his coat pockets, found the viewer, turned his earpiece on and waited. He put the wafer in the viewer and turned it on, there was a knock at the door.

A new voice, someone a bit older, more assured, came from the viewer.
“Now that we’re all here, lets start. damo you’re here because you have the brains. Don’t think its for any other reasons and this will all go to plan. Start believing in your own press and it’ll go tits up. Got it? Good. Right you’ve got twelve hours to work out how to get rid of this man. Good luck”

A picture flashed on screen. He recognised the face.
He knew what he was going to do. He knew that the target had altered their DNA to match that of one of their heroes. This was going to be easy.
Using the hotel provided computer, damo went to the sequence repositories and started looking in the historical section of the human genome repositories. Finding what he was after he quickly downloaded the whole gene sequence required. Identifying the introns and the microsatellite markers within the noncoding sequence enabled him to identify those regions to which he could make siRNA molecules specific for the target. By targeting the alcohol dehydrogenase mRNA in the hepatocytes, any ingested alcohol would not get metabolised into safer by products. Leading to a body awash in toxic chemicals.
This was gonna be sweet.
5 hours later and the double stranded RNA molecule had been synthesised and suspended within a liposome targeted towards hepatocytes.
He had seven hours to get to the meet. Even if he crawled on his hands and knees he’d make it

He made the call to Benway.
“dude, stop thinking about tae-kwando and chimpanzees.i’ll be there in 20 minutes. i've not met this lot for a long time, so i'll stick out like a sore thumb. can you be there and introduce me? otherwise this isn’t going to work.”
“Fack me damo. Do you want me to do the hit as well? You Facking northerners, all the facking same. Giving it big licks in your provinicial little northern shitstacks, soon as you get to a proper city you facking shit it. Yeah course no problems. He’s been waiting to meet you for ages anyway, so it’s gonna be sweet. I’ll meet you in there, you’ll see my shirt from miles off”.

Walking into the bar damo instantly recognised the music as “Ass and Titties” one of Assaults better contributions to Ghetto-tech. He saw the glow of Benway’s shirt from outside now he just had to pinpoint him. Easy, find the Guinness find the Benway.
”Benway”
“damo. Fack. How ya doin’? this is Rick. You didn’t meet last time did you?”

He didn’t even fill the tiny edge nick the inside of his palm, above the shout of “ASS TITTIES ASS TITTIES ASS ASS TITTIES TITTIES” he didn’t hear the hiss as the Nitrogen fuelled syringe delivered the liposome cocktail.
“so can I get you a drink? “
“Gewürztraminer, bitte”
“that’s easy for you to say. and 2 pints of guinness please mate?”
 

and Bob,

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bob:
enabled him to identify those regions to which he could make siRNA molecules specific for the target. By targeting the alcohol dehydrogenase mRNA in the hepatocytes, any ingested alcohol would not get metabolised into safer by products. Leading to a body awash in toxic chemicals.

---

are you sure you're not damo?
 

[ 04 July 2003: Message edited by: Bob ]
 

So my contribution is very short.

"How marvellously apposite," he smiled, "The Phoenix. Acrid ashes of the burned bird shall newly soar, brilliant as the diamond that once was base coal." He bent to his keyboard.

Shortly before 9:30 on Saturday morning, a new thread appeared, as he'd expected, in TMO Talk: "Meat Pix". He watched a string of images appear, one by one as Misc uploaded them. He smiled thinly as the words Misc typed, intended as captions, gave way to frustrated outbursts of "What the fuck is this?"

Satisfaction grew in him throughout the day, as he read a steady flow of posts about Friday's meeting - followed by short, puzzled messages about the board. By Monday evening, he reckoned most of the regulars had now seen his work. Time to add his signature.

Darryn and Damo, anxiously watching their screens, continued the frantic search for rogue code that had kept them awake throughout this last 60 hours. Nothing. Every headline, every topic, every post now read simply: "Your Forum Has Been Stolen."

At 21:30, UK time, on Monday 7th July, the screen went black. One word, a hand-scripted signature, spread spider-like across the black.

"Rillion".

[er - or any other now-defunct, possibly disaffected poster!]
 

*bleep*
Deep down in the basement of the British Library, in an area that doesn’t appear on any of the building plans, a small light flickered at the bottom of Ben’s monitor.
He immediately sat bolt upright and yelled:

"We got one! SOS!"

With a flurry of activity, the SCAR ready-room came to life: Sidney, Octavia and Scrawny leaped up from their reclined positions in the soft area, MiscFiles carefully put down the high-tech looking gadget he was fiddling with, and Lowlevel paused, mid-scrape, from his ritual knife sharpening. They all gathered around Ben's terminal.

"How degrading!" gasped Octavia before Ben, fumbling with his mouse, managed to shut down the XXX-porn site and its various pop-up windows through which he'd been whiling away his morning.

"Shuttup and listen." he barked, reaffirming his authority.

"We've got a Code Red! SCAR! A Serious Crime Against...Riting...".

The dubious nature of this threatening sounding yet poorly conceived acronym hung heavily in the air for a moment until,

"Gosh!" Once again Octavia gasped, unwittingly affirming her fictional stereotype. "We haven't had one of those since we brought that Thorn Davies reprobate in!"

"Yes," commented Sidney, clearly the Velma to Octavia's Daphne, "he was the guy that wrote How to Train a Fighting Chimp, back in 2003."

"Uh." Grunted Lowlevel, the joyous expression on his face reminding all those assembled just how long it had taken Davies to finally confess.

Ben too seemed lost in a moment's reverie as he recalled witnessing the pitched battle between Sidney, Octavia, Scrawny and Thorn's army of Kung-Fu chimps, before the self-styled “novelist” was finally taken down.

"South East London, ladies. It’s a job befitting the SOS team. We’ve got a rogue university professor dabbling in fiction…”

“Oh my!” gasped Octavia, making a mental note to show a little more resolve at any future revelations.

“As I was saying,” Ben continued, his gaze unnecessarily lingering on Octavia’s still heaving chest, “the perp’s alias is Kovacs, forename Will, surname…”

“Looks like a contender for this year’s Brooker Prize” quipped Scrawny, looking over Ben’s shoulder at the name emblazoned across the top of the screen.

The room burst into thunderous guffaws and clapping, everyone looking around for the source of this outburst. Not finding it in their small but elaborately furnished ‘base’, they turned their attention back to the computer screen.

“I’ve got a lock on him.” cried MiscFiles, fine tuning an overly complicated looking hand held device.

“Have you recalibrated to allow for the heavy geo-magnetic variations we’ve been experiencing recently Misc?” asked Sydney.

“Ermm…” said Misc, furiously trying to remember which of the superficial stereotypes he was cast to fulfil.

“Never mind that,” Ben continued “look what he’s writing! It seems he’s started on a prequel to Alice in Wonderland!”

“Chou…bleur…huh!” coughed Octavia, choking on her dramatic impulses.

“What’s it called?” asked Scrawny, “Alice in Bastingstoke?”

Once again the room erupted in laughter and applause, the origin of which remained a mystery.

“South London… GO!”

Without another word, the three SOS squad beauties skipped and high kicked their way out of the door.

------------

“I’m not happy with our name,” grumbled MiscFiles when the girls had gone, “it doesn’t really do justice to the rest of us. We should be called the M-O-S-S-L-B or something.”

“I’ve always fancied ‘Bennie’s Angels’ myself”

“Uh” growled Lowlevel.

“I once killed a boar with one punch you know!”

[fade out]

[Scene 2 – Improbable]
 

Everyone's gone to the meat, haven't they. Hello? Hello?

[ 04 July 2003: Message edited by: Octavia ]
 

It didn’t take long to find his house – armed with an A to Z and a Great British Pub Guide to Manchester, it couldn’t have been easier. All I had to do was skulk in the shadows of the door well and wait for him to return home from the lab. I spotted his hunched, tired form walking through the grey, evening drizzle. He was shorter than I expected. As he walked nearer, I was again surprised – I had been expecting an Uber Urban Boy not Man At C&A. I felt a pang of guilt as I took in his plastic shoes, white towelling socks, and the thin grey coloured suit that was obviously purchased for him when he started at secondary school. The guilt soon gave way to glee: already reality was yielding riches. What other elements of his online persona would fall away before my eyes? How many more skins would be shed before this night was over?

He approached the doorway. I tried sinking further into the shadows but needn’t have worried. My obscurity was so well developed – even if I had worn red sequinned hot pants and a sombrero, he would not have noticed me. He turned the key in the lock and entered, stumbling over the Netto carrier bags he carried. This gave me just enough time to slip past him into the hallway. I stepped backwards towards the foot of the stairwell and watched him struggling with his carrier bags. A notebook had fallen free and I read the words “The Spotter’s Digest – InterCity West Coast Routes”. I glanced around, noting the flowery wallpaper and patterned carpet. Again, not the city living, minimalist abode of a hott boy about town.

“Robert? Is that you, love? Did you remember to get my mazola?”

He slumped forward, resting his forehead against a garishly coloured peony.

“No, mum. I forgot. Sorry. Send our Tracy down the chippie instead, eh?”

“’Appen you’ll forget your head one of these days, son! TRACY! Nip down to the Codfather’s will you? Saveloy and chips all round!”

“Gimme a shout when she gets back, mum.”

He ambled past me and began dragging his feet up the stairs. My heart was pounding – he was going to his room! I followed behind, matching my steps with his to avoid any tell tale creaks. He opened the door to this room. It was small and dark and, like his suit, reminiscent of a 13 year old boy. I shrank back into a corner and began to absorb my surroundings: his single bed adorned with a Playboy motif bedspread, Robot Wars posters on every wall, the shelves filled with Dungeons and Dragons paraphernalia. There, in the corner opposite me, was my prize: the record collection, stacked neatly next to his Alba midi system. He walked by me, just a breath away and still he didn’t notice me, straight to his Alba. The thick square power button clunked inwards and a dim green power light struggled to flare.
“What’ll it be tonight then, eh? What’s gonna get us in a Friday mood?”

He started thumbing through the vinyls. No white labels. No rare editions. Just dog-eared, plastic coated albums.

“Aha! That’s just the ticket! This is what I need.”

From the pile, he pulled out a particularly weather beaten album, it’s plastic coating blistering upwards, distorting the face of the artist beneath. Despite this, the face was immediately recognisable: the gap-toothed gagmeister himself, Jimmy Tarbuck.

“Now then, now then, Sir James! Work your magic – turn little Bob Pothlewick into the man, the legend, the babe-magnet…….DAMO!”

I clasped my hands about my ears, as the noise began. First an accordion, than a saxophone and horribly and without warning, the aural assault that is Jimmy Tarbuck’s voice.

“Damo knows the words, Sir James! Lemme help you out……
Follow the Fairway! Doin’ it our way! Everything’s ok when we’re out on the green…”

I watched, transfixed, as he peeled off his jacket in time to the thumps of Jimmy’s Fairlight. He sashayed from side to side, mimicking a golf swing. He pulled the plastic shoes off and they left his feet with a sweat ridden slurp. He shimmied his way towards an ancient Dell, precariously perched on a side table. He spent the 15 minutes it took to boot up incorporating his golf swing dance into a more complex Hank Marvin Shadows step routine.

“’Appen it’s been busy on the Moon today, Damo. Let’s see who’s still online. C’mon, Sir James, lemme have it!”

He sat down and began to browse today’s active topics. This was my chance. Quickly, I leaped forward and grabbed a handful of the albums. Where was all the Miami Booty Bass? All I could find was The Bobby Socks – A Tribute to Abba, Bucks Fizz The Hits and Grease The Soundtrack. However, this would suit my purposes perfectly well.

Later, back home, I examined my haul. Sure enough, it was incriminating enough. How long could I successfully blackmail him for with these? Only way one to find out. I sat in front of my own monitor and was careful to log in as my troll persona, ‘Exploit-ater’. I hit post reply…..

HUlLo BoB. I SeE yOu LiKe ObScUrE yEt TrEnDy MuSiC. NOtIcEd AnYtHiNg MiSsInG fRoM yOuR cOlLeCtIoN lAtElY? hahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaa
 

Edited for image spazzerkiness

[ 04 July 2003: Message edited by: herbs ]
 

Location: Outside

The three SOS chicks dashed out a secret back entrance of the British Library, all shining lip gloss and tight lycra. For a moment they just stood there majestically, each with their legs confidently apart and their hands on their svelt, yet still very feminine, hips.

Sidney gave her hair a swish, catching the light of a nearby streetlamp. Octavia planted her juicy-tube in her ample and well supported bosom, leaned her head forwards and re-applied her prune flavoured shine. Scrawny watched the other two disdainfully before scanning the ground. Seeing what she wanted she strolled casually over to an empty coke can lying on the pavement. In one swift movement that defied the eyes of casual observers, she did the splits right down to the pavement and then bounced back up again, her momentum taking her off her feet, up into the air. She performed 3 somersaults in a tight tuck high up and over a green wheelie bin, landing perfectly on the other side. Seconds later, and with a tinkling peal, the now compacted can landed in the bin.

"Gosh!" gasped Octavia, momentarily forgetting her previous resolve.

"It's nothing to be proud of you know!" chided Sidney in exasperation.

*blee-eep*

Their watches chimed in synchronicity.
"Get the fuck on with the plot!!!" Screamed Ben out of their watches.

"Gosh!" muttered Octavia.
"Affirmative!" chimed Scrawny.
"Let's kick some Arse!" cried Sidney.

And with that, the three lycra-clad lovelies hopped into their pink hot-rod and sped off. Destination: Sarf Lundun. Mission: The arrest of a renegade University professor for a Serious Crime Against...Riting!!! (much like this!)

---------------------------------------------

Scene 3 - Dredging the Barrell

[ 04 July 2003: Message edited by: fish ]
 

Opening scene - Octavia stands with a small cluster of friends, idly chatting by the roadside in a street lined with cars.

cut to

Small red Peugeot darts in and out of traffic. Slice camera, through window to show dashboard. Tachometer hitting redline. Sound focus on exhaust note. Slice camera back to exterior close up of front wheels as they swing left and right. Sound focus on tyre squeels. Camera pan out, rotating, to rear of car showing the road and the traffic ahead.

cut to

Octavia talking to friends. Cutting off small talk and saying goodbye.

Camera pan to road showing red car in the distance, approaching at speed. Pan back to Octavia stepping out to cross the road from between parked cars.

close up of Ringos eyes focusing on what's ahead. CGI into Ringos eye, through the optic nerve, into the brain. A spark indicates synapses of recognition. CGI pans through the brain, down the nerve stem, through the spine, down to Ringos foot, leaving the body to show close up of Ringos foot move from the accelerator to the brake. Pan out to slow motion close up of the front wheels skidding along the tarmac. Lots of smoke.

"Bullet time" style CGI from this point

Pan out to profile of the road showing Octavia as her head turns to see the car skidding towards her. Car impacts with Octavia, visibly breaking both her legs on the bumper. Her body tumbles across the bonnet, smashing the windscreen. Camera pans along with her body rolling across the roof, panning to rear of the car, revealing another car in front. Red car impacts against the parked car, launching it into the air. Octavia is thrown clear of the car as it spins in mid-air. Fast zoom to underside of the red car. There is a crack in the fuel tank and petrol is gushing from the crack. Still in slow motion.

Red car lands on it's roof and rolls back onto it's wheels, stopping almost instantly.

Cut back to regular speed, close up of Ringos face. There is a cut acros his right brow and blood runing down his face. Slowly his eyes open. Close up of Ringo un-doing his seatbelt then pan out to Ringo exiting the car. Ringo limps down the road to Octavia who is lying in the road. He falls to his knees and gently lifts her broken body. There is blood on her white top and she is obviously dead. Ringo looks down and a tear runs down his face.

cut to shot of underside of car showing petrol running into a pool. There are two wires swinging just above. The wires contact and a spark ignites the petrol.

CGI of car exploding in slow motion.

Ringo on vioce over - I never even got to bone her...

Fade to black with white caption "So you think that your driving impresses the ladies?"

Fade to second caption - "Ringo thought the same thing. Now he's totally blown his chances"

Fade to third caption - "Think about it"

Cut to shot of Ringo hanging by his neck on a rope in a prison cell.

Fade to fourth caption - "Ringo thought about it for the rest of his life"

fin

[ 06 July 2003: Message edited by: Ringo ]
 

Followed by

*Applause!*
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Dr. Benway:
I tried to smile, and I could taste blood in my mouth as my lip gently split. The bag was safe between my legs. The canteen seemed no different to how it had for the last few days. I withdrew from mutual staring with VP to watch a mother breastfeed her child. Her breast was pale and heavy, and I began to drift away from the sale, from the book, and from "Ben". I was so damn tired.

---

That was excellent - well worth the wait!
Let's be fair though, now - I'm not really that menacing a character... and I probably wouldn't shoot VP like that, not even for 50m quid! Also: I don't say "rubby tummy" quite so much!

Still, excellent stuff and a powerful consolation for this being Monday morning.
 

She makes no approach, no movement at all, in fact, except for the steady cycle of her wrist a few inches above her glass on the bartop, stirring a hurricane in her drink. I wait for her to take control of the conversation, my fingers still on the door handle, a hole of foreboding swelling in my stomach.

Uh ... hi, I say, for the second time, trying to catch her eyes. Where ... where is everyone?

She clears her throat, or chuckles, maybe. Janson is in the toilets, she says. And Joshua – will arrive soon.

I nod, with skewed eyes. And, uh, everyone else?

I give up on eye contact, settle instead for the view of her wrist. Something about its rhythm – its stable momentum, maybe; its perfect sketch of a cocktail glass rim – is quite hypnotic, lulling. I make my way to the stool next to her, sit myself down. She keeps stirring.

It’s just that, well, I thought more people would be here by now.

Do you know who I am? she says.

I smile hesitantly. Well, you look like Niffer. Stir, stir, stir. In, you know, the photos I’ve –

Which people? she interrupts.

Which – ?

– did you think would be here?

Oh. I ... Ringo?

The hand suddenly drops the stick in her drink and she puts a finger to the side of her head. Taps. Stops.

Um, I say. Um, and I thought maybe Mart –

And she fingers her temple again, three short taps of her fingertip.

And ... Modge? I say, experimentally.

Her arm bullets straight, points in the direction of the men’s room.

Modge is in the toilets?

Tell me, Fionnula, she trundles on, Why did you come tonight?

Well, I say. Niffer delves a finger into her drink. I wanted to meet everyone, I guess. She writes a cocktail sick across her tongue. I thought it would be – I try to swallow the word, but it hauls itself past my lips – fun.

O. The sticky, crimson lips pucker around the word. I imagine kissing those lips, imagine my mouth crumpling inside them, as it might crumple through a bullet-hole in an aeroplane window. Fun, the lips repeat, Fun-ny? Fun. Nay.

And she snatches up the cocktail, her arm swinging suddenly towards me and the side of my head shatters. Last thing I see is her fist, arcing back.

*

The knock of a knuckle on wood swings into range. Splinters of a face fill my eyes.

Dead. Knock-knock. Wood.

More hair on his face than his head. Lips are pocked and yellow, rotting off his mouth. Gruesomely familiar. Janson. I struggle to my feet, climbing the wall with my palms. He giggles, combs a hand through his face. Deadwooood, he singsongs, twirling a finger in a corkscrew curl. His other hand is fishing inside the filthy robe he’s wearing, and from it he procures a quaint mahogany box, so similar in design to that of a birdhouse that I immediately remember the box my father nailed to our garden shed a few summers ago. A family of blue-tits made it their home; every morning, I would watch them diving for worms in the soil, or wriggling, mossy-beaked, out of sight through the hole in the side of their box, until one day they did not emerge. A whole week passed, and still there was no sign of them. After a month, when we'd decided they must have caught the autumn wind to a warmer climate, my father unfastened the box from the shed wall and set it down on the patio floor. I watched him unscrew the lid and wedge it to with the screwdriver. He was bowed over his knees and retching into the cracks between the patio tiles before I realised – realised that the brilliant blue-and-yellow downy clumps inside the box were dead babies. Skinny-necked, gaping-beaked blue-tit corpses. We put them in the wheelie bin and tried to forget.

Janson is knocking a swollen yellow fist upon the box lid, grinning a brown methadone smile. What's inside? he gurns. Have a guess.

At the other end of the bar, Niffer tuts and spins off in the direction of the door. Janson takes no notice, keeps on stroking the mahogany box. The gesture seems grotesquely paternal. I shuffle backwards against the wall.

Won't yer guess, Deadwood? A cackle rattles between the gaps in his teeth. Yer'll never guess. Look.

The hinges do not creak, unless I don't hear them. He pushes his face to the opened box; a thick, sonorous breath rustles in his nostrils, and then he exhales thickly, spent. His muddy eyes creep over the edge of the lid, and even though I cannot see his mouth, the creases around his eyelids prove he is smiling. I shut my eyes – sudden blind terror – and wrench open them again. Janson is cradling the box to his heart, rocking it maniacally in his elbows, crooning, There now, there now, as he shuffles towards me. I don't know if he is talking to me or to the box. There, therrrre now – his tongue rolling over the glistening hunk of his bottom lip.

The stench of him is impossible to ignore now, just feet away. He flourishes the box as if it is a lover's gift. I sniff quiet laughter – You Don't Scare Me – and peer inside. As I'm making sense of the colourless mound of ... skin? yes, a bloodless lump of flesh with a cherry on top, his voice bristles in my ear: Victoria's breast; but the bile at is already burning in my throat, my head wrenched to the side, eyes burrowed shut, and he is cackling again as I try to pull the room back into focus.

*

Janson has vanished. There is a man in the doorway. Niffer is whispering in his ear. He has no eyebrows, but a loop of metal pierces the skin where the brow should be. He’s shirtless, wearing just brown plaid shorts and trainers. One of his nipples is shot through with a silver bolt. Niffer leans against the door frame. Joshua approaches me. I am looking at the syringe in his hand.

The needle-tip tickles my neck. I feel heavy and weightless at the same time, which might explain why I cannot move. He fingers the bolt back and fore through his nipple; the teat looks melted, drips off his chest under the weight of the stud. He wedges a finger under my nose and my head recoils, smashing into the wall like a fired shotgun, then his fingers are in my hair, winding their fastidious grip tight to my scalp, and the needle itches the side of my neck, and his face mushes against mine, and there’s a wetness on my chin, scuppering now across my upper lip, the fetid stench of it thick in my nostrils, then a sour explosion on my tongue, and the hand rips out of my hair and punctures the waistband of my jeans, anonymous guttural whimpers shattering any remaining sensory clarity, every pore of me gagging, it seems, as his fingers rake through my pubes, the crotch of his shorts bulging into my thigh, and the kneading of his papyrus fingers, coarse now on the skin of my cock but

– no, Jesus fuck– no, please don't let, don't – fuck, stop me getting, stif–

Uhmmmmm, thassa boy, he gutters, wrapping me tight in a gnarled, horny fist, Thass... awmmyeah, thass, thassa boy.

Focus on the needle at my throat, picture the point penetrating the skin, plunging a liquid death into an artery. Try to puncture my neck against the tip. Can't. Can't make myself do it. His fingers, receding from my trousers. A helmet of pressure on my scalp: his hand, I realise, plunging me like a syringe. The No catches in the back of my throat; the Please in my head swiftly aborts itself. I submit. Crack open.

The stump of flesh plugs my mouth. Gag after a second, not on the tangibility of his stuffing, but on the tang of him, the acerbic flush of yellow sweat, the broil of vintage piss bleeding onto my gums, his fusty pubic bush writhing in my nostrils, and he's hissing for me to, to, no, Jesus, I can't–

Wank, stiffbitch. Wank yourself – uhmmm yeah – wank yourself off.

My neck pierces, rips slightly. I reach down for myself. Voices flutter nearby.

–some sick shit. Stop them–

Wasn’t sick shit when you it was your turn with Bai–

None o’this sick fuckin gay shit, though, was there.

Chill out. The fuck deserves it.

My hands are numb on myself. My head is wedged between waist and wall, his stump pummelling my open face. My eyes leak; his pubes are slick. I try to dry my face but he slams me still, makes a vice around my head with his palms, grinding. His noise is pitching in depth, or deepening in pitch – I can’t decide which. I am manfulctioning, or is it malfunctioning? But he mashes my skull through the wall before I can decide, and voices are splintering over his groans –

–one’s gonna have to calm him down before he fuckin haemorrhages the fuck.

Joshua. Not yet, Joshua. Not yet.

–what we decided, gonna do it together, draw it out.

– not yet.

He’s fuckin ... primordial.

Eh, pri–?

Off his fuckin shelf.

And my vision is beginning to blot, my neck wrenched to one side, then there’s a conclusive tightening of his grip on my skull, my throat whimpering down on the now convulsing stump, and a bestial growl, suddenly splitting the room in two, and he yanks savagely on my head until my neck spli–
 

Yay Fionnula.
 

Hello everyone.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Fionnula the Cooler:
Pungent brilliance.

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Words fail me. And reading the above I realise they always have.

 

PlizThankYou