The Funniest Joke in History

These days, hardly anyone gets the joke and if I’m entirely honest? I can’t see the situation getting any better. History will, I suppose, say we were so sharp that we cut ourselves fatally. Assuming History even bothers to note the joke in the first place. It seems more people are missing the point each day, so who is to say that posterity will get even the faintest notion that Plato was the greatest satirist who ever lived?

My name, for what it is worth, is Lachesis. I may be one of the last men walking under the bronzed sky who remembers the laughter of the Symposium as Plato gave his first reading of Apology. I know for certain that no-one but me remains of those clever, desperate men who came up with the idea of using our respective gifts to both promote and defend the ideal of Athenian democracy after our city had lost so much in the ruinous war against Sparta. The times were dark (though not, I must concede, so dark as they are now) and we were by no means alone in fearing that the conquering Spartans would enslave and extinguish Athens and it’s culture in much the same way as they had done to the Messenians al those years ago. Armed resistance was not an option, and even if it had been I must confess, somewhat shamefacedly, that we would never have taken that option. Our talents lay in other arenas; those of philosophy, poetry, rhetoric, and politics.

You may very well snigger at that. And, in truth, I would not blame you for doing so. The last Athenian government did not, and they were perhaps the only ones who didn’t. The Spartan conquerors did, and it was that condescending laughter from them that spared our lives and allowed us to continue writing, adding to the great joke that would rescue democracy. As I have mentioned, the times were doom-laden and the city was rife with mutterings against the government who were to be the stewards of the fall of Athens. How, asked the mob, had the great Democracy which was the envy of cities all over Greece and beyond, been driven to the brink of defeat by a city of rapacious, barely civilised warriors whose barbarity would’ve shocked even barbarians? How had we not been able to lead the rest of Greece into the enlightened age that the fathers of Democracy had promised? Was this not a sign that Athens’ experiment had failed, and should be abandoned in favour of something more in line with the leaderships of their enemies? “A tyrant would never have allowed this to happen!” was a common enough cry in the streets, jostling for pre-eminence amongst others who favoured monarchies, oligarchies, and the like.

It was with this as our backdrop that we presented our counter-propaganda proposal to the Council of 500. Cratylus spoke first;

“My fellow citizens, on behalf of my comrades I thank you for gifting us your precious time. I swear that gift we have to offer in exchange is of an equal value to you.

You know (how can you not?) that the streets are awash with talk of abandoning democracy in the face of our most desolate hour. You know too that to do so would invite not just defeat, but ignominy that will echo down the ages. The Athenians will gain a reputation for high-minded talk when it suits them, and for abandoning any of the principles that we have tried to instruct the world in when things go against us. We share what is no doubt your view that even, in fact especially, in times such as these we must hold fast to the course set for us by Solon and by Ephialtes.

Yet you must also have arrived at the same conclusions that we have; that to try to force the mob to see that Democracy must be adhered to would be counter-productive. To enforce a measure by strength of arms and tell the people that it is for their own good? That would be folly on the scale of Midas!”

At this point, I confess to a certain watery feeling in my bowels. Judging by the angered expressions that peppered the council at that last remark of Cratylus’, almost a quarter of that august body did not think that such a thing would be folly in the least. I suppose that in any system of government, no matter what its overall virtues, there will always be those who will see those that oppose them as an implacable enemy. Furthermore, they see an enemy that can only be curbed with harsh words and brutal treatment in order to impose the ‘correct’ beliefs on them. Whilst I of course abhor the blood thirst of such men, I had no wish to be seen aligning myself directly against them at such a delicate juncture in our history. Cratylus continued;

“No, to win back the mob to acceptance the true ways of governance will require something quite different from the oppressive measures that our enemies of the Peloponnesus use to whip their people into obedience. We need to appeal to the hearts of our people.”

Cratylus paused, and allowed a half smile to slowly appear. This had the usual effect in that the council, even those still outraged by the implication that they were of a no better heart and morality than the Spartans who sought our destruction, quieted down and waited to see where these fine words were leading them.

“Fellow citizens, if I were to ask you who was the worst fruit of the Athenian tree, would you tell me ‘Peisistratus; that fellow was the rankest that ever there was’? Judging by your silence (and, if I may say so of such eminent men, your puzzlement) I would assume you think he is not.

Would you all cry “There have been none so foul in our history as Hippias! The cur betrayed us to Spartans and Persians for his own profit!”? Again, I would say that the answer would be no.

And why should that be? Why should these two vice-sodden men be counted only among the lower ranks of those who have done evil to our fair city? Fellow citizens, I think we all know the answer to that question. It is because we have the worst example of what Athens has to offer within our living memory, and so we have no reason to plunder tales of our ancestors to find our city’s darkest demon.

Who is it that I speak of? Why, I am sure that I do not even need to recount any of his infamy for you to know. The man who, in the name of Philosophy, filled the heads of the sons of our greatest citizens with blackened, charred obscenities. The man who stood by, smugly claiming that the attempted coup of his students was ‘no business of his’. The man who the mob would have torn to pieces with their bare hands once the depth of his venal, self-serving sophistry was revealed had he not beat a hasty retreat to Hades with the aid of a cup of Hemlock. Fellow citizens, I see by your faces that you know of whom I speak. But I ask of you, say his name to me so that we are all in agreement before my friends and I continue.”

Cratylus’ voice had strengthened and the rhythm of his words quickened as he approached this point of his speech. I could see the puzzlement that had been so impertinently mentioned begin to melt away and be replaced with savage amusement as Cratylus led them down a merry path to the name of the man who would have seen Athens fall to a tyranny worse even than the yoke of Sparta. As one, they answered his question;

“Socrates!”

Cratylus beamed at the council, as if they had just unpicked a riddle set by Apollo himself.

“Socrates. The pot-bellied, pig brained degenerate himself. Yes my fellow citizens, Socrates. Of whom the best that can be said about his teaching is that if he was filling a pupil’s arse with his cock then at least he wasn’t filling their hearts with horseshit”.

A few scandalised gasps at this (surely forced and faked for the benefit of reputations more than anything else), but mainly the council rumbled with what mirth could still be coaxed from a leadership staring into the abyss.

“But what about him, you may be asking yourselves. Who cares about a dead villain? What use is idle talk of a monster from the past when we now have other monsters on our doorstep? My fellow citizens, I shall presently give way to my friend Plato who will explain in words more apt than I just how we shall use Socrates. It will be a great irony my friends, for we shall be using the man who tried to sow the seeds for the death of democracy to ensure that it does not just weather the Spartan storm, but thrives!”

To his credit, he clearly didn’t expect applause as he gave way to Plato. As you may have gathered from his words, he was a great one for self-promotion through rhetoric, old Cratylus. We’d always assumed that was another joke; the loquacious Cratylus of Athens, direct descendant of that other Cratylus who renounced the spoken word and communicated only by pointing at words he’d drawn in the dust. His boy is one of Aristotle’s pupils now. I’d say his father did a good job with him, although he’s too serious by half; he thinks of the whole world as a logic puzzle that can never be solved. Anyway, please excuse an old man’s digressions. Cratylus swiftly gave way to Plato, allowing not one moment between the ending of his speech and the beginning of Plato’s so that the council could not interrupt the flow of what was being said.

Plato was an unusual man to be speaking to the council. He was making a name for himself as a poet and satirist in Athens, and was a young man at the time. He had spoken at the Symposium a few times, and even once at the Assembly. But never before the Council, though if he truly was nervous then he did not show it.

“Citizens of the Council, I thank you. Socrates and his teachings are a byword for greed, venality, treachery, and vice. No decree was required from any leading citizen to destroy his books after his trial; so complete was his fall from grace that even those few philosophers outside of Greece and Alexandria burnt such works of his that they had in their possession rather than risk his poison dripping into the ears of antiquity. Within a few more years it will be as if he had never existed, save as the punchline to a ribald cookhouse joke. I think we can all agree that this is a good thing, can we not?”

A sea of furiously nodding heads erupted at this. Plato nodded sagely; a good move, as the council always liked to hear from men who agreed with them.

“Yet although he is dead and his teachings anathema to all, we do not live in a city that is content with the Democracy that he tried so hard to destroy. Many are of the opinion that, although Socrates railed and raged against we democrats, his aim of getting rid of Democracy was not such a bad one. It was only that which he sought to replace it with (which was, as I hardly need remind you, a travesty of good governance with himself as a debauched and flaccid ‘Philosopher Prince’ at the titular head of such a state) which made him such a villain.

Citizens of the Council, I ask you this; would these people be so keen to abandon democracy to some lesser form of government if they thought that these other forms would have been Socrates’ final aim? I ask you to consider this; if the people of Athens felt that Socrates had been in favour of, perhaps, an Oligarchic government under the watch of his beady eyes? Or a tyranny? A monarchy perhaps? Can any of you imagine how utterly bankrupt something would become in the eyes of the mob of Athens if it was seen to be allied with the desires of Socrates himself?

If you will allow, I have taken the liberty of composing a satire taking this very notion as my starting point. In it, I have placed the honeyed and plausible words of those enemies of democracy in the mouth of Socrates himself. I have made him unrecognisable from the uncouth lout that we all know he was, and made him into a man who (if Athens did not know the truth of him) is a paragon of reason and intellect. And I have then made him speak approvingly of both those people and those ideas that run contrary to the survival of Athenian democracy. If I may…”

And Plato began to read. The smiles came quickly to the faces of the council, far quicker than they had during anything Cratylus said and quicker still than when it came to be my turn to speak to them. The laughs took longer, but slowly and inexorably they came. Plato was a writer of true genius; starting with a nod to the feigned ignorance that hid Socrates’ base cunning, he built up a verbal picture that was hilarious precisely due to its utterly bizarre nature. The replies to the charges brought against him by Anytus, Meletus, and Lycon were far from the incoherent vitriol that he had actually brought to bear. They were plausible sounding and had the ring of a deeper truth about them. But to be delivered by such a grotesque, darkly comic figure as Socrates would have left the listener in no doubt that these words, though they may seem soothing to a mind fogged with the terror of the oncoming Spartans, were nothing more than the lies of a traitor.

Plato gave way to rapturous applause as I came forward to outline to the Council just how we would use satires such as this to bolster the Athenian commitment to democracy. There were some on the council who disapproved of what we were proposing, feeling that it was little better than trickery on their part. They said that they had no wish to deceive the Athenians into backing Democracy. At the time, I was able to dismiss such concerns as the worrying of womanish old men (and being of no small comedic gifts myself, was able to do so whilst keeping even those who had objected smiling). With the benefit of hindsight, I am inclined to think that those womanish old men were the wisest people in the council. Ah, but regrets are the main coin of we who have seen all that they have sown grow into a bitter harvest. You will, I trust, forgive me for more digression from the main thrust of what I have to say, but I will remind you again; we were young. We were fiercely intelligent, and believed that we knew better than the old men of the Council. Whilst they had shepherded Athens’ democracy, we believed we would be its sheepdogs; fighting off the many wolves who would tear our flock apart. Now I am older and I recognise our naivety for what it truly was.

The Apology was read out across the city within a few days. Our allies too wished to take advantage of our propaganda, subtly altering here and there to ensure that their citizens too would get the joke; that anything championed by Socrates was a sure path to damnation and suffering. We all received the warm thanks of the council, Plato more so than anyone. Seemingly inspired by the use of Socrates as a Philosophical device, he wrote many more works designed to ridicule those who held views contrary to those of the greater body of the Assembly and Council; Crito saw Socrates arguing for justice from a prison cell, and caused hilarity when first read. Laches silenced those citizens who called for surrender to the Spartans, saying that perseverance in the face of fortitude was no courage at all. Other works such as these helped rally Athens to the common good of our Democracy.

And it was all for naught. Athens still fell, and the 30 Tyrants began their rule. We were fortunate that they cared little for our wordplay and linguistic games. So we wished to write comedies that glorified an old sot? As long as we contented ourselves with clever words that did not stray into politics too overtly, then we were left to our own devices. The Tyrants ruled in the name of their Spartan masters, and did so with no small degree of viciousness. Plato for his part revisited the Apology, rewriting some parts to make Socrates (for all his incalculable vices) seem morally superior to those people who now controlled our city. So subtle were the changes that they were not noticed by any of the Tyrants’ men until the whole city had heard the new version. Similar changes were put into all of his other works to that point. This Socrates, whilst still the epitome of all that could be wrong with Athens, was used to make the Tyrants and their masters seem even lower than he.

Plato’s words were far too clever by half for the Tyrants. The end of their reign was brought about in no small part by the democratic fervour whipped up by his seemingly endless river of witty, inventive satires that helped make the people unafraid of their bullying masters. Once such a mindset had been forged, the Tyrants were doomed to meet their end.

After that, Athens was free from the dominion of anyone but Athenians. Plato had no reason to continue his polemics and savage attacks on the enemies of democracy, and he began gradually to work on matters that were closer to his actual philosophical interests; the cosmological musings of Empedocles and Protagoras were his chief passions. However, he still held bitterness in his heart for the militarism and vicious arrogance of the Tyrants, and for the many still-extant tyrannies that pock-marked Greece like boils on a Persian Princess. So he dusted off Socrates-as-literary-device one final time, and wrote a scathing rebuke of those who believed that a perfect state involved having one man sat at its head; The Republic.

Had Plato been content to read it in his newly founded Academy, then no doubt things would have ended there. But he was growing proud as well as old, and the acclaim afforded to him by his fellow Athenians was not enough for him. He wanted universal recognition of his gifts, and so he charged his Academy students to take Republic back to their homelands so that other cities would hear of and appreciate his work.

Unfortunately, Plato’s naivety had not shrunk in proportion to the growth of his ego. What was recognisable as satire to even the most ignorant Athenian was less so to a Persian, or a Syracusian, or even someone so near as a Corinthian. Where we saw the morally bankrupt words of a cunning fool, they saw the well reasoned arguments of an intelligent man. What we knew to be Socrates’ hack-Sophism was translated by Plato’s beautifully written comedy into compelling philosophy.

At first, we all thought little of this. We didn’t care whether more ignorant cities missed the point; that gave us one more thing to laugh at them for. In our hatred of the arrogance of our conquerors, it appears that we had allowed ourselves to sink into the arrogance of the conquered, in that we sneered at any and every man who was not an Athenian. We had lost because we were not as obsessed with force of arms as these barely-cultured Greeks surrounding us were. So it therefore followed that we Athenians were the most cultured, and the most concerned with matters of intellect out of all the cities of Greece. I suppose that such was the puncture to our armour of pride caused by our defeat against Sparta that we thought along such lines purely as a method of preserving our Athenian identities. But then again, maybe I’m just making excuses. For whatever the reason, we allowed the misconceptions to spread unchallenged for almost 15 years.

By this time, there were few outside of Athens who thought of Socrates as he really was. From villages on the highest mountains to colonies across the bronze sea, everyone spoke of the erudition and common sense of Socrates. Plato has recently tried to correct this misconception, charging one of his finest pupils to counter the fallacious Socratic thought that has swept the world. But it seems that this Aristotle is as much concerned with chiding his teacher for his pride as he is for ending the insidious spread of the venomous teachings that Plato placed in the mouth of Socrates. Disheartened and ashamed, Plato writes little these days. He seems tired, too tired to even attempt to correct the mistake that is starting to see works of satire being treated with the utmost po-faced seriousness by men who must surely lack a developed sense of humour.

I too feel I can do little to combat this monster of Plato’s creation. I am merely a poet whose works number less than 30, none of which can even be quoted now even though the most recent was written less than 2 years ago (and I would be lying if I said that that did not sting my soul more than a little). This, then, is my attempt. Not for me the duplicity and trickery that Plato first used, and which now seems to be getting compounded by Aristotle. No, I shall settle on what I now believe we should have stuck to in the first place. I have told you the truth. Though if Plato is as good a writer as I believe he is, much good it will do you. Soon the joke will become the truth. And if anyone actually tried to apply the thoughts and ideals outlined in, say, Republic? Then I truly don’t believe that anyone will be laughing.

What do Beans Mean?

Someone challenged me to write a short story about cannibals and a giant tin of baked beans. So I did. Sort of.






The first thing that Jamie became aware of was the unpleasant smell and sensation emanating from and focused around his trousers. It says much about the strange workings of the human brain that his first conscious thought was that of disgust; at some point between passing out in what he presumed to be a drugged haze and now, Jamie had shat himself. And he was mortified as to what his companion might think. Even as the urgent demands of his recent memories began to make themselves heard, and he was reminded of some of the rather more excellent reasons to feel upset, the nagging feeling that he had somehow rendered himself less manly stayed with him.

“Beenz meenz Heyenz!”

The words were barked out a few feet in front of Jamie. Although fear (and self loathing) had kept his eyes closed, his curiosity (which had no times for faeces-related self pity) was piqued by hearing this vaguely familiar phrase in this unexpected context. That same curiosity fought a brief battle with his mewling fear, was victorious, and forced Jamie’s eyes open as its prize.

“Beenz meenz Heyenz!” said the ragged, rangy, filthy figure on the left, presumably to return the…greeting? Let’s go with greeting…to return the greeting of the equally dishevelled and marginally more hairy man on the right. It was difficult to make out much more detail than that due to the opaque cloth that had been used to blindfold him; it was night now, and the two men were stood in front of a large fire. Had Jamie been a little less concerned with the smell of shit, and a little more anxious to find out just what was happening, he might have wondered a little more about the 10 foot tall metal tube sat in the centre of the fire. He would certainly have been professionally intrigued by the scratchily written “Heyenz!!” that had been scored into the metal tube over and over again.

Instead, his brain picked this moment to provide him with a full summary of his current situation.

The field work for his Anthropology doctorate was, basically, not going very well. As a lover of the easy life, Jamie had thought that studying some of the remote settlements of the Appalachian Mountains was a stroke of genius. Not only were these hillbilly hamlets relatively untouched by academia (thus guaranteeing him publication once he’d completed his thesis), but he wasn’t too far away from the creature comforts of the big city. He’d only need to endure one night of camping. Two at the most. And he’d be hailed as the first man to try and untangle the anthropological roots of the modern redneck. That he had an attractive undergraduate with him on the trip made it all the sweeter. He may be an overweight, prematurely bald, middle aged man with a scattered brain and questionable hygiene, but like all men he was convinced that any woman who spent enough time with him would find herself unable to resist his obvious charms.

This last thought, having nagged at him for a short while, kicked his conscience back into gear; where the hell was Lucy? They had both been sat in one of the 5 desolate looking shacks that made up this hillbilly hell when he had began to feel woozy. He’d knocked back his draught of moonshine (to his hosts obvious delight; Jamie had always prided himself on being able to relate to the lesser peoples he studied), whilst Lucy had looked on smiling. She had refused hers, which had annoyed Jamie no end; she’d NEVER make a decent anthropologist in his opinion. Too stand offish, and unwilling to get her hands dirty. Too concerned with keeping up appearances, thought the man who was taking time out of contemplating his imminent doom to fret about having shit in his trousers.

From behind him, a hoarse female voice erupted;

“You shower of fucking CUNTS! People know we’re here! They’ll come looking for us, and then you hillbilly ARSEHOLES will be FUCKED!”

Said pair of hillbillies made a strangled, snickering noise at this outburst, which continued without hesitation, repetition, or deviation regardless of the men’s seeming amusement at it. Jamie tried to turn his head. His failure to do so gave him his first clue that, just maybe, he was bound and gagged. In fact, this was a perfect opportunity to use the words “trussed up like a turkey”. Perhaps Jamie’s brain was being kind to him by not providing this alarming turn of phrase; he would then have had no choice but to consider what happens to turkeys once they’re trussed up, and then his last few minutes on earth would’ve been even more horrifying than they actually were.

He started to half-heartedly struggle, but after a few ineffectual moments, he instead began to cry. This seemed to break Lucy’s concentration from her efforts to break the world record for the longest uninterrupted stream of abuse.

“Jamie? JAMIE! Are you awake? Can you hear me?”

He paused in his weeping, strained to turn his head properly to see her through his makeshift blindfold, failed, nodded an acknowledgement, and then he carried on with the important business of crying.

Unfortunately, this also seemed to attract the attention of the two men. He felt rough hands on his face, and the blindfold and gag were pulled away.

“Izhee ruddy fur tost?‘

”Ah reckun.”

And with that, the hairier of the two hawked up a gobbet of phlegm. He did so in truly epic style, spending almost 20 seconds snorting and clearing his tubes before, satisfied with the mouthful he had acquired, he spat in onto the ground next to Jamie, where it landed with an audible thwack.

Jamie became aware of some movement around the edge of the fire, He could make out the hunched, ungainly shapes of what he assumed were the other villagers. Something like 15 to 20 people were beginning to gather, seemingly only showing their faces after hearing the apocalyptic spit of what, had he asked her, Lucy would have identified as the Head Hillbilly.

He wouldn’t have asked her, even if his throat wasn’t dry and parched. Because right now, he had finally noticed the enormous steel cylinder and the fire. He had also noticed the steam rising from the top of the cylinder. And, now that he REALLY concentrated, the bubbling noise coming from within. Despite himself, and regardless of the fact that he estimated that he already voided himself completely, he shat himself a little more.

Lucy, having remained conscious for the 4 hours of Jamie’s drugged sleep, was already well aware of the contents of the vast tin can. She’d watched the 5 hillbilly women fill it with pail after pail of water. They had dumped handfuls of what might have been either beans or seeds in there as well. Then they’d lit the fire and waited. She may only have been a 1st year student, but she didn’t need any sort of degree to speculate on just what these grinning, moonshine-swilling savages had lined up for her. As such, she spent most of her time bellowing insults and venom at the increasingly amused rednecks. This suited her just fine, because whilst they were amused, they also assumed she was expending all of her energy on impotent fury. This further meant that they hadn’t noticed her free herself from her bonds, or that she was tensed and ready to grab whichever one of their captors came anywhere near her.

Disappointingly, they were concentrating entirely on Jamie. The two men hoisted him up and carried him toward the tin can. Her eyesight wasn’t great without her glasses, so she couldn’t quite make out the “Heyenz!” scrawlings on its surface. Jamie, however, could. He could also hear the low murmuring of the crowd that was now gathered. “Been zontost…Been zontost…Been zontost”. Initially with some solemnity, but with a rising undercurrent of excitement as the two men brought Jamie closed to the tin can, the crowd chanted in unison.

Lucy was in a dilemma. She could, at any moment, make a run for it. All eyes were focused on the shaking corpulence that was Jamie (quite a few noses were too, even through the sour stench of redneck sweat).She knew the trail they’d taken to get here, and she was confident she could get back to the hired pickup within a few hours. She was young, fit, and could run at a decent speed even without the incentive of not being killed and eaten by morons. But what about Jamie? Okay, so he had treated her as a glorified note taker, and if his hand had “accidentally” brushed against her arse or her chest once more, then she would’ve probably killed him herself and cheated the cannibals out of a hearty, if somewhat fatty meal.

Fortunately for her, though not for him, the decision was taken out of her hands.The men put Jamie down, and the senior hairy bastard raised his hands aloft. The crowd went suddenly silent.

“Woss Beenz meen?!” was his shouted question.

“BEENZ MEENZ HEYENZ!!” came the bellowed reply from the crowd.

This was quickly taken up as a chant by the assembled hillbillies. As they gleefully yelled their bastardised slogan, the two men once again hoisted Jamie up, and took him toward the enormous tin can.

For his part, Jamie had time for two final thoughts. His second-to-final thought, he was pleased to note, spoke volumes of his dedication to his discipline; he wondered what had led this isolated hamlet to set up what appeared to be a bizarre, cannibalistic cargo cult. Why were they all so entranced by an advertising slogan from 20 years ago? What made them ritualistically worship a vast idol representing a tin of beans? He would love to spend more time trying to unpick the threads of this mystery, but time was something that was in diminishing supply.

His final thought, as he was hurled into the boiling mass of water, herbs, and beans amidst the whooping and hooting of the crowd was a certain satisfaction that the hot water would at least clean the shit off his bottom. “Because no-one wants to die an undignified death” he thought, as his eyes melted from their sockets and his organs burst inside him.

As the crowd hollered their approval and their bellies gurgled in anticipation, there was no attention paid at all to the Lucy-less area of the enclosure where the two had been tied up. She had made her decision to make a run for it just before poor Jamie was sent fatally into the beans. It was over 40 minutes before her absence was noticed, and by the time they started their pursuit, she was almost back at the car. She had driven almost 70 miles away before she saw a billboard advertising Heinz beans.

The police were puzzled as to why she was screaming, laughing, and crying at the same time when they found her.

Short Story: The Female of the Species

She checked her watch again; T minus 20 seconds. She’d been in place for six minutes and she was impatient to begin. There was no thought of whether the other three were in position; she had enough faith in them to expect nothing less than complete success on this mission. Nevertheless, she had enough experience to beware overconfidence. Once they moved in, they would only have a few minutes to take down the few perimeter guards and get Cassie inside, to the nearest terminal. That was going to be the biggest challenge; if a single guard managed to raise the alarm…well, then they’d have the whole base to deal with. And not on the terms she’d like either. Extraction was not an option unless the mission had been completed. As with so many previous missions, they all had to be perfect. Anything less would get them killed. Or worse, captured.

At exactly 26 minutes past 3 in the morning, the power for the electrified fence went down, and 3 grey clad figures emerged from the darkness and made their separate ways to the perimeter fence. They stealthily made their climb over the perimeter wall and were inside the facility by 26 minutes and 54 seconds past 3. At 27 minutes past, a soft crackling noise indicated that the fence’s power was back on. Though the three women had no reason to doubt Cassie’s ability to take down the power and delay the alarm, they all breathed a sigh of relief that the first phase had gone off without a hitch.

There were eight guards to deal with before the three women could send the signal for Cassie to join them. They had chosen their points of entry with the split of the guards in mind; both Lucy and Clare were to take down two guards apiece. This left Amanda to deal with the remaining four; one patroller and three gate guards. The Captain had been insistent that Amanda do the lion’s share in phase 2. This had annoyed Lucy to an extent; so Amanda had screwed up on the last mission. Everyone made mistakes, but as far as the rest of the team were concerned, Amanda atoned for hers by making sure all 6 of them got out alive. Yes, Nicky was still in hospital but in a few months she’d be back and good as new.

The Captain, though impressed with Amanda’s initiative subsequent to that (admittedly horrendous) cock-up was furious at the lapse in protocol that had led to it. This, Lucy reasoned, was her way of making Amanda prove her professionalism. “And if she doesn’t and winds up dead, will the Captain be sorry? Or will she just shrug and take on another team member?” Lucy, annoyed at herself for the distracting thought, shook her head to clear it. Amanda was one of the best Special Ops soldiers that Lucy had ever worked with. They could have told her to take down all eight and she’d probably still manage it quicker than with all five of them working together. But Nicky wasn’t here, and the Captain was co-ordinating this from the Eyrie. And so the three would have to do their tasks without the additional support. So be it.

Despite Lucy’s faith in Amanda’s ability, it was Clare who made the first contact. As the fence’s power had returned, one of her two guards had heard the crackle and made his way to the fence. Clare froze into perfect stillness as he passed her by without noticing, his eyes fixed on the fence. With a sweep of her arm executed with a ballerina’s grace, she took her Glock from it’s holster on her shoulder, brought it to bear and fired a single shot. She was close enough that the silencer had minimal effect on her aim, and the guard dropped to the ground. Working quickly in case anyone else had heard him hit the floor, she moved him into the shadows of one of the outlying facility buildings. She whispered “First contact, complete” into the microphone under her ski-mask.

Amanda smiled as Clare’s voice came through her earpiece. The others tended to write Clare off as lacking the killer instinct. “Too methodical and too damn slow” was the main complaint. Amanda on the other hand, never doubted Clare’s ability for a second. So she was methodical? Then she made fewer mistakes. And Amanda had recently had cause to really appreciate getting it right without any errors. Now Clare had just proved that she could be as good as making snap decisions as she was making them with the luxury of time on her side. All Amanda had to do was the work of two women against four Spetznaz trained guards. Simple, right?

She dealt with the patroller first. For all his Special Forces background, weeks of idly patrolling what had become the world’s most boring perimeter must have dulled his edge. She had gotten both arms into place before he even registered her presence, and the compression of his carotid artery made for a silent death. As she lowered him to the floor, she whispered “Second contact complete”. Almost instantaneously, Clare’s voice was heard “Se…third contact complete”.

In spite of herself, Lucy was impressed. She’d always regarded Clare as being fundamentally unsuited to field ops. As Intel, she was second to none but Lucy had misgiving about trusting her with the simple task of killing. It seemed her doubts had been misplaced. Once again, the Captain’s decisions were the right ones. The Captain was always right it seemed, and that fact provoked a faint, nebulous sense of irritation in Lucy.

Happily, she had an immediate opportunity to deal with it; both of her patrollers had met on their circuitous route. Amanda and Clare’s kills had made it imperative that these two not live to walk their patrol again. Rather unprofessionally, both had stopped to exchange a few words. This gave her a couple of seconds to decide on how she was going to do this. She couldn’t give either man a chance to shout or raise any sort of alarm that would lead to the alarm going off. And good as she was, it would be arrogant in the extreme to assume that she could get two perfect shots off in the short time it would take either man to draw breath and make a noise.
With the speed and grace that was her norm, she set a simple trip-trap. A volley of darts, loaded with Ketamine, would launch from the small box she positioned at chest height and at least one would hit the target’s flesh. She retreated back to the few shadows that the numerous floodlights in the facility grounds allowed, and waited.

The men finished their final chat, and made their way onwards. Their pace was maddeningly uneven; by the time that the first guard had triggered the trap, the second was at the very edge of her vision. Though they generally worked without night sights, Lucy found herself wishing for one as she fired the shot simultaneously with the darts finding their target.

She should have spared her wish for another time; a red Rorschach blot blossomed on the ground in front of the man as he fell, looking for all the world like a man who had drunkenly stumbled and fell. When she was satisfied that he wasn’t getting back up, she made her way over to the prone, pin-cushioned, and heavily drugged guard. She placed her gun to his temple, and pulled the trigger. A quick spasm marked the end of his life. Lucy checked both guards for a pulse. As she dismantled the trip trap, she muttered “Contacts four and five complete”.

Amanda had just finished getting the dead man’s fatigues on over her own grey combat suit when she heard Lucy’s voice. The final three contacts were all down to her, and it had to be done quickly. She tried to remember how the guard had walked, silently cursing herself for not allowing him a few more moments of life so that she could better observe how he moved. Not bothering to hide the body now that all the patrollers were dead, she took a deep breath and advanced on the gate.

One of the guards sat in the booth flipping idly through the worn pages of a magazine. The other two, a man and a woman, were at the gate itself. The man turned and nodded an acknowledgement to Amanda, confirming that her disguise was good enough for what was required of it. She nodded back and, head down, approached the booth. She walked around it to the door, opened it, and stepped inside. She closed the door behind her and turned to face the guard who looked up from his magazine

The report of the rifle rang out at an almost painful volume in the cramped booth. Although it muffled the shot to the outside world, it didn’t muffle it nearly enough to hide the sound from the two guards on the gate. The door was kicked open just as Amanda had turned to face it. Three shots sent him staggering back, and Amanda followed him, training her gun on the momentarily startled woman. Her life ended in that moment. The echo of the final shot faded away.

“Contacts six through eight complete. Cassie, in you come.”

Lucy and Clare joined Amanda at the booth.

- “No silencer?” Clare’s tone neutral, not implying any fault.
- “No need. All the other contacts were done. There’s no way the noise will have been heard in the facility.”

Lucy nodded in agreement with Amanda’s assessment, as did Clare. They waited for Cassie to join them. She was there in just over two minutes, her cheerful face red with exertion and perched on her stocky frame. She smiled at all three of her colleagues, then made her way to the terminal within the booth. From a pocket came a flash drive, filled with all manner of beautifully coded pieces of poison, which was inserted into a dock in the terminal.

“O-kay…lockdown is easy enough to initiate, but there’s a bitch of a failsafe to ensure that the main alarm goes off. The Captain says that there are 3 people in there who have the authorisation code to disarm the Suppression measures, and if they hear that alarm you can be damn sure that’s what they’ll do.”

Lucy sighed inwardly, knowing exactly where this was going. Amanda gamely played her part; “Can you deal with it Cass?”

Cassie’s grin broadened. “What do you think? Give me 10 minutes to bypass it and get the lockdown started. Unless one of them decides to come out for some air, the first they’ll know of it is when they hear the gas vents. At which point, they’re fucked. The corporation chiefs are so shit-scared of any of the fun that they’re researching finding it’s way out of that facility that the Suppression won’t leave fleas alive, let alone people.”

Lucy nodded. She hadn’t been happy at the unknown factor; what if one of them did decide to come out for air? She would have to trust Cassie to make sure that any disarm codes’ binary scream went unheard. Again though, she needn’t have worried. It was seven minutes later when Cassie said “Okay, we’re on.”

It would be three minutes before the Suppression measures began, and Cassie had hacked the facilities internal cameras to monitor things. The women clustered around the terminal and watched anxiously. The three minutes passed without incident. The majority of the people were sleeping in their bunks; the entire Research team were in bed. Only a few insomniacs and security staff were out of their beds.

The cameras showed those facility staff that were still awake reacting with puzzlement to the hissing noise from the walls. That soon gave way to shock, and then fear. Whatever that stuff was, it was effective. The twenty or so people who had been awake were unconscious within twenty seconds and dead in another twenty. Those who had been sleeping died quietly and without fuss.

Cassie touched a button and the monitor went dead. She retrieved her flash drive, and left the booth with the others. As they made their way from the facility gates, Lucy spoke into her face-mic.

“Facility staff neutralised. Lockdown complete. ETA at extraction point, 5 minutes”

A mellifluous voice answered. “Good work. See you all back at the Eyrie.”

From the Captain, that counted as the ringing praises of a choir of angels. Satisfied with a job executed professionally, the women made their way to the extraction point and from thence, home.

Short Story: Any Regrets?

If I were to be allowed just one regret in my long life, it would be that I haven’t been an honourable man. That may surprise you, but I imagine it would surprise you more to know that it is an honest and heartfelt truth.

Everything started out so simply and without any guile. Much has been said about my humble beginnings. My early life in the army, that of an unspectacular Second Lieutenant who did the job that was in front of him and nothing more. Of my subsequent fledgling career as a journalist and all that stolidly written, workmanlike copy. What is all the louder for being unsaid is the bafflement at how someone whose ambition seemed limited to doing what he was told and doing it competently got to where he is. What you have to understand is that nothing was planned. I didn’t have any Caesar like machinations to get where I am. Things just happened.

I have a second surprise for you; those first few weeks were terrifying for me. Have you ever experienced the fear that comes from knowing you’ve done the wrong thing and are just waiting to be caught? I had the dread borne of knowing I’d done the right thing and only having my conscience to answer to. Although I suppose that realisation only hit me fully his wife wanted to speak to me.

I’m getting a little ahead of myself I suppose, but you’ll allow an old man his meandering thoughts, won’t you? The part that you all know about is the kidnap and the subsequent murder. That’s all a matter of public record, the Home Secretary kidnapped along with the hack interviewing him. The killing of all his bodyguards. The three days before anything was heard, and what was heard being far from what was expected. Trust me, if you’d heard what had really happened…but that’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? The last words of the Peacemaker. When I do move on to the next life, I expect Orwell to punch me squarely in the face for that title.

All I knew was that we were in van, we were hooded, and we were travelling at speed. Our captors spoke in harsh, barked commands in a language I recognised as Farsi. “Al-Qaeda!” was the blindingly obvious conclusion I had drawn, and I assumed the Home Sec would draw the same one. Then I heard his familiar voice calmly stating “All right Michael, I think we can drop that now.”

Then silence for a moment. There was a rustling noise, then “Ah, Christ that’s better! Okay, could you give me our status please Michael?”

My initial fears of terrorists allayed, I assumed I was taking part in some sort of exercise, a demonstration of the vulnerability of a senior minister with a view to building support for the current raft of security legislation that had caused rioting when first announced. And here was I, the tame and unimaginative hack to write the exclusive.

“What? Oh him. I wouldn’t worry about Christian names Michael; I rather doubt it will matter very much to him in a few days. Now come on, status report.” The smooth voiced politico voice was gradually faded to be replaced with that of a man dealing with his subordinates. The next voice to make itself heard was a deep Scots burr.

“Very well sir. The kidnap itself went exactly as planned. The grab has resulted in the deaths of your bodyguard, and 3 civilians were unfortunately caught in the crossfire. Our contacts in the Met have ensured that only the false information concerning our vehicle and whereabouts is acted on, and we’ve made sure the usual sources are already disseminating misinformation over the media and internet. Our ETA is 15 minutes. We need to get you made up and him beaten up before we start filming. If we keep on schedule, we’ll be out of their by 2pm and travel in a rented car to the safe house. We’ll keep you both out of sight for 2 days, wait for the media frenzy to build. Them we’ll release both video and body. Any questions sir?”

“No…no, thank you Michael. Very good. Now, as our friend here appears to have soiled himself, do you think we could do something about the smell?”

I didn’t know what was going on, but what I did know was not good news for me. I few (very very un-Islamic) voices started a groaning, mocking chorus.

- What fucking unit was this wanker in?
- To shit himself like that? Probably the marines Geordie!
- Yeah yeah, fuck off Rich. Well done, you’ve just won first prize in the Cleaning up the Shitty Journalist competition. We're going to be working on him, and I don’t want shit sprayed around the place while we’re working.”

A cacophony of laughter almost obscured the litany of complaints from whomever Rich was. No one else said anything for the rest of the journey. I was left to myself, head in a hood and shit in my trousers. I didn’t think it was worthwhile offering that I’d been no more than a glorified clerk in the army. To be honest, I had other things on my mind.

When we arrived, I was stripped but for the hood. Cold water blasted my indignity clean before fists and feet inflicted it afresh. I still didn’t know who these people were and what they wanted, but they clearly enjoyed a good time at someone else’s expense; I was beaten so badly that I wished I could’ve died, then paraded in front of a camera in a room draped with black flags and golden Arabic script. This was the first time they’d even taken the hood off me, and the first time I saw any of my dark haired, olive skinned captors. When they took it off, a blurred figure in front of me spoke in that same Scots voice I had heard in the van.

“Jesus…Heh, you boys had fun then? Alright, can you speak son? CAN YOU SPEAK?”

A blow to the jaw followed. I tried to say something, a plea perhaps. My word came out as a slurred string of nonsense.

“Okay, let’s get started. We’ve got 10 minutes while that prick is still in makeup so let’s try to go for one take. Ready? On my mark…mark”

The brogue vanished in a flash leaving a screaming, ranting Farsi in it’s wake. I’ve no idea what was being said; I was broken and resigned to death by this point. I just wanted it all to end.

We must’ve got what was desired, because we did get it in one take according to an audibly satisfied Michael. The hood went back on, and a volley of punches and kicks drove me to the floor, with some more of the same to keep me there.

As I regained consciousness, I was aware of hearing the Home Sec’s scared but measured voice.

“…are serious. They wish me to tell you that the body that came with this message is the first of 2 if their…please. Please I have a wife, I have children! Please! I…okay okay, stop! Please don’t hit me any more, I’m sorry!

If their demands are not met then there will be another body to follow the first. Be brave Sarah, and tell Ka…no, please let me say something to my wife!”

- It’s alright sir, the camera has stopped running
- Oh, righto. How was that?
- Yeah, that was good. The makeup looks excellent. You’d think you’d got the worst of the beating.

These two voices chuckled at that, just two people sharing a joke. I’m not sure why, but that’s what set off the fuse in my mind. “You’re going to die, and it’s just a joke.” That was the first thought.

I was picked up and dumped in a van, hands still tied in front of me. After we arrived at our destination, I was taken indoors and down some stairs. My hood was taken off my head a second time and I was face to face with one of my captors. He put something down next to me, and stood to leave. “Call it a last drink mate” came the genial voice, and the door closed on me.

The room was small and windowless, bare of everything but walls, ceiling, floor and door. Next to me was a half-drunk bottle of Jack Daniels. It took me an hour to make out the label; I later found out that the beating had almost caused one of my retinas to detach.

The next few hours should have been a lonely hell made bearable by whisky. Instead, the fuse that a poor joke had lit began to burn away in my brain. They were going to kill me in the morning. I was a prop in a performance, nothing else. I didn’t matter. I was inconsequential. My only value in them lay as way of drawing attention to a fake message. I wanted to stay alive.

By the time the same man arrived in the morning to take me to my end, he looked into the room and saw an empty bottle and a glazed expression on my face. He came in the room and squatted down beside me.

It’s safe to say that he didn’t expect to find himself lying on the floor, groaning in surprise as his brain tried to process exactly how the semi-comatose drunk had managed to snatch the bottle from the floor and smash it into the side of his head in a single, sweeping motion. Had he the time to consider it, I’m sure he would have expected to find hand scrabbling at his holster to get his pistol. That time was cut short by an almost certainly unexpected click of the safety catch and the following explosion of the bullet through the back of his skull before it tore into the greyness that made him what he was.

Maybe I should've told him I'd poured the whisky onto the floor and watched it seep away into the boards?

I had heard people like them before when I was the glorified army clerk. Big boys with dangerous toys and letting the whole world what big, swinging dicks they are. They’d already relegated me to the status of body, and I will treasure the look of surprise on the faces of the two men who came bundling into the room as I shot them both.

I had no idea how many there were you know. I didn’t much care about anything at that point. I didn’t expect to escape, and I didn’t expect to live. I just wanted to make sure that I didn’t die a joke. Can you understand that? It wasn’t my military training, as some of the more entertaining conspiracy theorists have hinted at. And it wasn’t the desire to be the hero of the hour that the media painted it to be. I didn’t have a wife and children to get away to, and my parents were long dead. The only regret I had right then was that no-one would feed my cat Miette when I was gone. 3 of them were dead because they thought I was a joke, and I wanted to kill more until I stopped being funny.

One of them had a semi-automatic rifle, which relegated the pistol to getting tucked into the back of the green combat fatigues I’d been given to replace my brown crusted jeans.

There was no look of surprise on the man I encountered on leaving that room, simply a gunshot that was answered with 8 of my own. I stepped over the contorted, bloodied, and extravagantly dead man and continued to the foot of the stairs. It looked like I was being held in a cellar of some kind. I decided not to chance peering up through the trap door, preferring to let another 5 bullets precede me. A thump followed by a panicked shout and a door slamming seemed to confirm the wisdom in those bullets, so I pushed up and out. Michael’s vacant eyes greeted me.

That was the first thing that even gave me pause. It was perhaps just over a minute since I’d fired the first shot and 5 people were dead. Dead by my hand. I may sound regretful as I say that now, but at the time…at the time I had less compassion toward the men who’d placed me in that situation. And I’d heard a door slam, probably the one on the wall less than 10 feet away.

I stood for a moment longer, staring back into Michael’s dead eyes. The door flew open, and the minister burst into the room holding a gun in shaking hands whilst he stared at me with wild eyes.

His shots all went wild. Every one. The click-clicking of the empty gun went on for a long time before I spoke.

“Why?”

The impotent gun ceased it’s noise and dropped from his hands as he sank to his knees.

“Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me! I’ve got a wife, I’ve got children I…”
As I advanced on him he cowered and received the rifle butt in his face for his trouble.

“WHY!?”

It was difficult to make out any coherent narrative in the whimpering and mewling that followed. And to be fair, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind to have what seemed a turgid little power-play explained to me. But I learned that the 5 men I had killed were ex army, all of whom had been employed by the Home Office whenever MI5 needed to be kept out of matters that might cause them any dismay. And I would guess that killing 5 British Muslims and storing their bodies in this safe house to be found when the crack 5 man military unit save the Home Sec and kill the 5 radicals who kidnapped him and killed the journalist with him would cause significant dismay.

What dismayed the Home Secretary was the amount of money he stood to lose if the Security legislation did not see the light of day. I’m afraid he wasn’t very clear on the specifics of that; he was babbling and crying a lot, and I’m happy to say that he’d shat himself too.

Then he started crying for his wife and children again so I shot him. I’ve always hated hypocrites.

We were in an isolated enough place that the gunshots caused no alarm. I was left in a house with 6 dead men for company. What started as an angry attempt to win back some dignity had ended in blood, tears, and freedom. And I now had to cope with the reality of what I’d just done.

From there, we enter the wonderful world of public record again. My heroic attempt to save the Home Sec from a rogue element of the Security Services who wanted to stoke the fear of the Islamic world for their own benefit became a very popular story for a while, and everyone wanted a piece of me.

But I was scared. There was no way that he could have planned this alone, without the knowledge of anyone in government. I was terrified of having an “accident”, though my paranoia was diagnosed and dismissed as post-traumatic stress.

When his wife came to see me, cameras blazing in the ward, I was practically hallucinating with the fear. I’d barely slept in days, and I didn’t know who was going to get me or how. Maybe she would be the one to kill me? Revenge for her husband? Stupid of course; she was a nice enough lady and gave no indication she’d ever had much interest in politics. But she must have adored her husband. The pain in her eyes as she asked me if her husband had suffered much at the hands of the Faked Five was…well, I don’t like to think too much about it. I didn’t answer her, and the nurses said I was too doped up. But I never made any effort to speak to her later. I couldn’t bear facing her and shattering her illusions or trying to maintain mine.

And so I got myself into politics. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? There was enough goodwill toward me that getting elected wasn’t a problem. And you know all about how the cabinet at the time made good use of me as an example to get some of that Security legislation brought in to fanfare and cheers later on. I really didn’t care; the fuse was still burning; they’re going to kill you. You need to stay alive. And I did it by being their poster boy. They got what they wanted, and I got to smile for the cameras and help them get rich.

You know, I don’t know whether them naming the final Act after me when it became law was a stunt for the public or a joke on me. But I didn’t care. I was the Peacemaker, the man who brought about the laws that ensure security for the public.

Even after those laws bit them on the backside, even after the majority of that cabinet had been shot after show trials, and even after that new breed of bastards got on the scene, the ones that don’t even kid themselves about their greed, I’ve stayed sacrosanct as the Peacemaker. And more importantly, alive.

Now isn’t the best time to decide whether a noble death would have been better than this longevity at the price of liberty. But it’s death that’s coming for me soon, and I suppose I’ll find out afterwards whether it was worth it. But I hope that regret counts for something.

Untitled Short Story #2

The thing that struck me most when we arrived was the stillness in the air. Not oppressive, nor as the prelude to a thunderstorm. Everything felt so…peaceful. Even when we started searching and found the horrors that lay behind every door in that tiny hamlet, the aura of the place was one of serene tranquillity.

I know I wasn’t the only one who felt it either. As Jim and I got out of the patrol car, our conversation had ceased suddenly, as if the air had been stolen from our lungs. We had pulled up next to what we took to be the village green. I remember that Jim said something about how the smattering of houses that made up the hamlet of Dantons View could fit onto that green 3 times over. It wasn’t a particularly amusing or witty comment you understand. It was exactly like Jim; factually accurate, somewhat irritating, and requiring a forced laugh from myself to prevent any repetition. But it’s the last thing I remember him saying. I’m told we were there for just over 15 minutes before backup arrived, and I can’t remember either of us saying a thing in that whole time. I mean, we must’ve of course, but I just don’t remember what it was.

We both stood there stunned by, and into, silence. At the risk of repetition and incurring your disbelief, I have to stress this; everything felt so golden. So…so awesome. Don’t get me wrong; what we found there knocked that feeling right out of my head. But sometimes, I do wonder about why it all felt so right when everything turned out to be so wrong.

Jim cleared his throat, and I looked across the patrol car at him. He jerked his head toward the small cottage to my left; it was a pretty little stone-built affair with a small but clearly well tended garden that was an explosion of summer bloom. Jim placed his helmet on his head and started toward it. I shook my head to clear it, and then refocused on the task at hand.

We didn’t hear the 999 call that had led to us being here. All we heard was the dispatch calling all cars about a possible violent disturbance at Dantons View. Jim and I were just finishing up a working lunch in the beer garden of The Hanged Man. Jim always liked to stop by at one of the many pubs that seemed to be scattered around Dorset like seeds in a field. He was a Dorset boy, born and bred, and I think he liked the status afforded him as a dedicated country-boy bobby. Me, I always thought that was just an act to get himself free beer and lunches. But I suppose you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.

I got to hear that call a few months later, when the doctors said I was well enough to be interviewed about what had happened. It was the strangest thing; you hear the 999 operator’s voice, professional tones cut with that oo-arr accent I used to love. But she’s cut off by a woman saying…no, shouting I suppose. She shouts “Please!” Just once, that’s all. And not crying and tearful either. She sounds scared all right, but she sounds shakily in control. Then there’s a click, and then a sort of high pitched whining, bit like what you get on them old tellies when you switched them on and off. Only it keeps going, gets louder and higher. All the doctors in the room looked like rabbits in crosshairs when they got to that bit of the tape, and I don’t suppose I looked to good either. You can just hear the operator going “Agh!” and there’s some thumping, which I suppose must’ve been her ripping her headset off and throwing it away. That whine lasts for 20 seconds, but it felt longer. Then there’s a silence for just a moment.

After that, I hears this voice saying one word. It’s a difficult voice to do justice to, but I’ll try and describe it although you might not like what I’ve got to say about it. It was…well, I’m a father twice over. If you’re a dad like me, you’ll know what I mean but if not you’ll have to take my word for this. Anyway, when you’re a dad, one of the proudest moments of your life is when you hear your little ‘un say it’s first word. It’s a joy, it really is. You see this little intelligence behind your kid’s eyes; they’re not just babbling, they’re communicating with you for the very first time. I’ve heard it twice now and it hit me in the same way each time; pride, joy, tears, and wonderment. Your little lad or lass stops being something that you just care for, and they start to be something you can relate to. They’re not just a gurgling receptacle for you your love and care any more; they’ve started on the road to being thinking, talking, breathing beings, and they’re something that came from you from nothing. You feel like you’re part of a miracle. All of that, all of it comes from that first word from your child’s mouth.

The voice said “Good.” That’s all it said, but in that one word I got that same feeling; something making tentative steps toward intellect and it’s own identity. It even sounded like a little kid’s voice. If you’d heard it in any other context, you would’ve coo-ed and ahh-ed at it. As is, soon as I heard it I started screaming. They had to sedate me for another week; every time I came round I started screaming again. I hear two of the three doctors who were there listening have quit now. Doesn’t surprise me.

Anyway, Jim walks up to the gate and unlatches it. We both walk through and take the 6 steps to the front door. Jim knocks on it. No answer. He knocked again, a bit harder and this time the door opens. No Hammer Horror creaking or anything like that, just a duck egg blue door swinging slightly and quietly inward. There weren’t any noises inside except for the tick of a Grandfather clock. But in that crack of the door opening, I thought I saw something inside.

I shoved Jim aside, interrupting him as he was about to call out “Mrs Henderson?” I would guess (her name, along with the name of the house, was all the dispatcher had given us). Jim always took himself very seriously, and I can’t imagine he would’ve let me off easy about that shove later on. As it happened, it didn’t matter and I don’t suppose it would’ve mattered even if he’d lived bearing in mind what was in there.

Considering how much blood there was in that living room, I don’t know why it struck me as odd that none of that sticky crimson mess had seeped through into the kitchen or the entrance hall. It was as if someone had taken that living room to another building to commit its atrocity, then quietly taken it back. I stood there, dumbfounded; walls, ceiling, floor, and anything on them were covered in blood. When you say that, you just say it and you imagine a room painted red, right? This wasn’t like that; there were thick black clots of it oozing around. There were purples in there; it looked like a madman’s palette. And the centrepiece…I understand that they’ve still not been able to figure out how he did it; the bones and fibres of muscle were all knotted together. 7 people died to make that abomination. Both of Mrs Henderson’s cats too; I saw a couple of paws sticking out from that ungodly mess.

Jim and I, well we were rooted to the spot. We didn’t want to see something like that, but when you do see something like that…well you just can’t stop watching, can you?

At first, I thought the noise was Jim throwing up until I realised that it wasn’t coming from behind me but in front of me. A small, squelching, and human noise. I swear to God I saw the thing move, and that broke my trance. I turned and I ran. Jim took his lead from me for once, and he ran too. We got back to the patrol car, an oasis in the desert of sound with it’s crackling radio. I hadn’t noticed that our own radios had gone dead as soon as we’d gone into the house, and they stayed that way after we got out. I grabbed the mic and tried to say something. My throat was cracked though, and all I could manage was a couple of little squeaks that would have sounded hilarious at another time. I guess the fact that I was trying to talk to control but couldn’t was what made up their minds to send backup. By my reckoning, that means there was about 10 minutes between my failed attempt to use a simple police radio, and the arrival of half a dozen squad cars, ambulances and (a little later on) a team of 4 soldiers to try and take old Albert down.

I heard Jim give a gasp from outside of the car. When I looked out, he was staring at the upper window of Number 1, Dantons View. It was a great big old thing, probably a farmhouse way back when, but now owned by a burnt out bigshot from the city, Jonathon something or other, and his wife. There was something undulating in the window, but I couldn’t quite see what it was; it was greenish-white and I can’t swear to this, but I thought it looked like old dead skin. The more I looked at it, the more I became certain I could hear, just at the margins of the silence, the sound of someone giggling.

Jim turned and ran. He ran the 200 or so yards across that village green, went straight over a fence, and through the open door of one of the other houses. The door slammed shut, and I was 100 yards away, Jim’s mad dash having taken me off-guard. I flung the door open as I got there 15 seconds later. Jim was stood only 2 yards in front, his back to me. Facing him was a man who must’ve been in his Sixties. He was a strange looking man, beanpole legs supported pot bellied and sallow frame which in turn sprouted spindly arms. His white hair was wild, but his face was serene and he was smiling that terrible, calm smile that I still see in some of my nightmares. I’ve been told his name was Albert, and that he was a retired antiques dealer. That smile never left his face. Not then, not when he killed 2 more police officers who were there as backup, not when he was shot through the knees to render him immobile. I’m told that as he bashed his own head in whilst he was awaiting trial in his cell at Brampton, even whilst his brains sprayed out of his self-destroyed skull, he still had that smile on his face.

I don’t know about that, but he was definitely smiling when his hand snaked out and took Jim by the throat. Smiling when he lifted him. Smiling as he looked into Jim’s eyes. Smiling when, without any seeming effort, he closed his hand into a fist crushing Jim’s larynx and tearing through his arteries. Jim danced a stringless puppet dance as he died, and Albert kept staring at him. Again, this could be just an imperfect recollection of a pretty emotional moment, but I thought Albert’s eyes changed a little as Jim died. They went from blankly smiling to a kind of puzzlement. No, that’s not right. Curiosity.

Then he looked at me, and dropped Jim like an old toy. I’m not ashamed to say that my bladder failed me when that old man looked me in the eye. It wasn’t fear though. Aye, I know; that sounds like coppers bravado, but it wasn’t. I felt elated when he looked at me. I felt like everything bad that had happened to me didn’t matter any more, and that everything was going to be all right. Now you might say that’s a stupid thing to think whilst Jim’s arterial blood was spraying me, Albert, and the whole room, right? And you’d be right. But you weren’t there. So to hell with you; you don’t know.

Albert’s beaming visage came closer to mine, and as it did the ecstasy in my brain doubled, then tripled. It was sheer bliss, that feeling. I wondered if that’s how everyone feels when they know, unequivocally, that they are about to die. Then everything went black.

By the time I came round, 4 days had passed. The doctors said that they couldn’t find any injuries on me, and that my coma had been as a result of extreme nervous trauma. My parents, worried looking and drawn, were sat by my bed as I woke. I don’t see them much nowadays. I think seeing their son screaming obscenities and with madness in his eyes when he first woke up has somewhat affected their view of me.

It took even more time to get me from screeching loon, to catatonic stupor, to tentatively sane recovery. In all that time, no-one has told me what was in the other houses in Dantons View. No-one has explained what happened to me. No-one seems to want to talk to me about it. I know none of the houses there have been re-occupied; they all sit empty with rather forlorn looking FOR SALE signs in each of their gardens. The story may not have made headlines, but word gets around and even the whispered rumours of what happened have been enough to put off any interest.

I’ll be getting medical retirement from the force in a few months. No-one seems to begrudge me it. In fact, most of ‘em are happy to see me go. Coppers can be a superstitious bunch, and I think they see me as a Jonah or something. Or maybe they’re angry at me for not dying like Jim or the other two. I don’t know, and to be honest I don’t care. By the time I get my retirement, I’ll have been on convalescence for almost a year. I’ll have saved up £20,000. With the way things are, I’ll be able to put down a good sized deposit on a house in Dantons View. I haven’t decided which one yet, but I’m counting down the days until I can go and see the Estate Agent’s and put in my offer.

This could be a new beginning for me; the start of something much better.

Army of Me: Fifth chapter

386 days ago

The key rattled in the lock of the front door. Joanna awoke on the sofa with a start, and looked around in that special state of bewilderment reserved for the suddenly woken. Why was she on the sofa? What time is it? Where the bloody hell was Alex? What is that abominable shite on the TV? She glanced at her watch and was greeted with the revelation that it was just before 6am, which meant that the gaudy celebnews vomiting from the screen was Breakfast TV on BBC1. She was on the sofa, she remembered, because she had waited up for Alex to come home from what he had promised was going to be “a quiet one with some of the lads from work.” And that key in the lock was, presumably, Alex attempting to make a stealthy return from his sedate evening’s fun.

She heard the front door slowly open. A few moments later, it closed quietly. She waited until she heard the creak on the stairs and shouted “Alex? Is that you?” Judging the immediacy of the creaking’s cessation, it was. A croaking voice confirmed it; “You’re up early. Are you okay?”

The fug of her awakening was blasted clear by burning fury. She leapt up from the sofa and stormed through into the entry hall to see a dishevelled, bleary eyed, and unmistakably guilty looking husband half way up the stairs. “Oh I’m fine Alex, just fine. I thought I’d wait up for my husband to return. And here I am. Alex, just what fucking time do you call this?”

Alex winced at his wife’s raised voice. He walked back down the stairs to come and face her. “Jesus…look, Joanna I’m really sorry. I’m sorry, I just…look I was going to come home I really was. It’s…well…” he sighed as his thoughts tailed off, and as he reached her he tried to cover for the non-existence of his answer by enveloping her small frame in a hug. “I’m so sorry Joanna; it won’t happen again I promise.”

Joanna put up with the embrace for a few moments before shoving Alex back. He gave her the look of a freshly kicked puppy as she did so. “WHAT won’t happen again Alex? Where exactly the fuck have you BEEN? You didn’t even call, I’ve been worried sick!” And true enough, she had been. When he hadn’t returned by midnight, she’d assumed he’d gone onto a club to continue his quiet and refined evening out. When the clock struck one and he hadn’t returned, she had begun to fret for him. She hadn’t dozed off until well after 4, which was a testament to just how hard she’d been working over the previous few weeks, because by that point she’d convinced herself that he might be lying dead in a gutter or awake in some other woman (in which case, the former would very soon become true).

Alex, eyes cast downward in a gesture of supplication, offered no immediate answer. Indeed, he seemed to be lost for words. Joanne felt a sliver of ice cold fear stab through her stomach and into her heart. She thought that she recognised the guilt of a man caught cheating in his face, and she fought to control the renewed surge of anger before asking in a voice strained with tension “Were you with someone last night?”

His head snapped up at this, and his eyes blazed through the misty beginnings of teardrops. “No. Joanna, Jo no I’ve not…shit is that what you think?” He searched her drawn face for confirmation, and took her continued glare as such. “Jo, I swear to you on my life that I wasn’t with another woman last night. It’s not like that.” He paused, then added with a curl of his lip “It’s a long way from being like that.”
Joanna looked hard at her husband for a few moments more until she was convinced that his face contained no semblance of a lie. In fact, she realised, it contained more than a few clues to self loathing. Newly concerned, she drew closer to him. “Alex…baby, what happened?” she softly asked him.

Something in the gentleness of her tone connected directly with the hot shame that Alex had been trying to banish from his mind since waking up in a cold, dark cell in a police station. He felt his body crumple, and for just a moment he gave in to the despair and disgrace he felt as tears began to streak down his face.

“Oh baby…” and Joanne moved forward to embrace her husband. At this, Alex stiffened a little and controlled himself, putting an end to he always thought of as shameful mewling. Collecting his thoughts, he returned Joanna’s embrace.

“Jo, I’m sorry. I was stupid. Can we go and sit down please?” Without waiting for an answer, he took her by the hand and led her back through to the living room. He sat on the brown leather sofa and Joanna sat beside him. Alex took a deep breath. “I got arrested last night.” He tried to keep hold of Joanna’s hand, but she withdrew it sharply.

“You got arrested?” She was genuinely shocked. She knew Alex had a dangerous habit of letting his mouth say whatever it felt was funny without reference to his brain when he was drunk, but he also had enough sense to know when to shut the hell up if he was pushing someone too far. “What did you do? Did you get into a fight or…what?”

“I got caught in the men’s toilets with a gram of charlie.” Alex risked a glance at his wife. She was struck dumb in what would otherwise have been an amusingly “mouth hanging open” sort of a way before looking away from him. “It wasn’t even mine. Steve brought it, and I’d bought a line off of him so…look baby, I’m really sorry. I was pissed and I was stupid.” In a somewhat quieter yet unmistakably regretful tone, he unwisely added “I didn’t even get the line.”

(It would probably have been some consolation to Alex to know that Steve was not, in fact, in possession of “top class gear” but rather of some bastardised combination of a tiny amount of speed and a rather larger amount of baby laxative).

Fortunately for him, his wife was lost in her own world of astonishment. She was shaking her head, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly. Alex sat quietly next to her, waiting to see just how this was going to play out. He hoped it would proceed with the minimum of recriminations followed by an extended visit to bed for make-up sex and sleep (not necessarily in that order). His head was pounding and his brain had that “dipped in liquid nitrogen” feeling that accompanied the Tequila hangover. He understood that his wife was going to be upset by his night’s absence and the reason behind it. He just hoped that it would be the kind of sadness that would be expressed gently and with a minimum of shouting.

His hopes were then dashed at about 80 decibels.

“WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING YOU STUPID SHIT?!” The colour had drained from Joanna’s face as she yelled into Alex’s. “Arrested for taking drugs? Alex, you could lose your job. Your job Alex!” Alex resumed his downcast stance on the sofa and began muttering platitudes of an “I know, I’m stupid and you’re right” tenor. Alas for his aching head, these were as much use as a Noct Immigration Request. “What were you thinking? Were you even thinking? Alex, what if your company find out about this? If you have a criminal record you’ll get sacked, you know that.”

“Jo, please calm down. Please. Look, I got a caution and that’s it. They only kept me in for the night because I was so drunk. I think they thought they were doing me a favour; I was a bit of a state truth be told. I’m not going to get sacked over a caution. Christ, Andrea will probably be laughing about it when I go in tomorrow.” The seeds of his attempt at levity fell on predictably stony ground.

“Yeah, but it’s not as simple as that is it Alex? Anything could’ve happened because you wanted to get high. I can’t believe you’d be so stupid! I know you hate your job but are you trying to get sacked?”

“What? No! Jesus, I don’t want to lose my job. I’m not that stupid Jo, I know we’ve got a mortgage to pay. I know we’ve got J-Accounts payments to keep up. I know I need to keep working and anyway, work has been getting better recently. I told you about the Vault-Tec stuff I’m working on?”

Joanna recognised the attempt at distraction. “What’s that got to do with anything?” Alex continued to try and throw her off this particular scent and onto the one labelled “Bedtime and a shag. Okay, maybe not a shag but definitely bed. And some paracetamol.”

“Well for one thing it’s about doing something I feel good about myself for doing. I’ve spent my working life pushing back nocts to whatever godforsaken hellhole they’re trying to escape from. Vault-Tec wants to start employing a lot of noct workers and I’m heading up the team working with them for that. I’m going to be doing something good Jo, and for the first time in my life I’m enjoying my job.”

Joanna remained resolutely unimpressed. “So that’s why you went out and did something stupid was it? You’re having such a good time at work that you decided to jeopardise your happiness there? Well done Alex, smooth move. I know I’ve been complaining about you working late so much but I don’t think I wanted you to make sure you’d be stuck at home permanently.”

And with that, Joanna uncorked the argument genie that had attending pretty much every one of their spats over the last month. Alex’s justification that his long hours meant more money toward a J-Account and the greater likelihood that they would both enjoy a much longer and happier life together which would more than make up for this lost time…well, it had grown very thin very quickly to Joanna. Curiously, despite the fact that such quarrelling was clearly borne from Joanna’s increasing sense of isolation from her husband and her desperation to keep alive their love for one another, Alex usually managed to completely fail to see things from Joanna’s point of view.

As a matter of fact, these disagreements of theirs were currently few and far between, but every single one of them eventually wound it’s way to Alex and the hours he insisted he had to work “to make things better for us.”. It frustrated Joanna to the point of wanting to scream. She had tried explaining that she didn’t care about a brighter, cloned future. That she wanted to have a husband in the here and now. And, unspoken by her thus far, that she didn’t want to watch the love she had for him whither and die in a succession of lonely nights whilst he toiled away slamming doors shut in the desperate faces of noct immigrants. They had only been married for a few years, but over the last 8 months she had begun to worry immensely for her husband and his mental health. He spoke less and less about his job; she knew he hated it and knew that every day destroyed him a little more. She thought that maybe the sensitive and caring man that she knew Alex to be was more haunted by the implications of his work than he ever let on to anyone, including her. But he steadfastly insisted that he could handle whatever his firm threw at him, and took on extra projects happily, almost hungrily. It was as if he wanted to prove to someone that he could master any task he was set. And if that meant taking on the Government contracts for Immigration work, so be it. If he had to fill his J-Account with noct blood, he would do so. And that, she thought sadly, was crushing the life out of this vibrant and compassionate man. It was as if he was dying slowly before her very eyes and it was becoming unbearable for her because whenever she tried to help, he shut her out.

She had tried to say all of this, but truth be told she rarely pursued these disputes to their logical conclusion because Alex…well, he frightened her when they clashed over work. It wasn’t that he was violent, or that he turned his sharp tongue on her. It was, she thought, silly to be scared of him when he was in what he later always referred to as his “big gay sulks”. And if she hadn’t been in his presence whilst they were happening, she would probably have laughed at herself for feeling any fear of the smiling eyed man that she married. He just seemed to slam shut emotionally whenever the subject of the hours he was working came up. And whether she harangued or cajoled, he wouldn’t respond. He just sat there, seemingly at the centre of a gathering storm cloud that he could will into exploding at her if the mood took him. Unlike the battering sarcasm he usually mustered when angry, he became silent and sullen. The features of his face were as those of a fresh corpse somehow given life and looking mightily pissed off to be in that situation, and the only sign of even listening that he gave came in the form of a few clipped words. Alex had protested when she first brought up her disquiet at his bouts of solemn fury, hugging and pleading with her to understand that, no matter what, he would never raise his hands to her. And she knew that to be true, felt horrified at herself for suggesting it and hating herself for the pain she caused her love by doing so. But she couldn’t entirely shake off the sense of danger that he emanated at times like that. And not the good “all the girls love a man with a dark side” kind of danger either. More the “husband and wife found dead in murder-suicide” brand of menace, and she braced herself for it’s creeping arrival.

But it did not materialise. Maybe it was because Alex was tired. Maybe it was that he admitted defeat in the face of Joanna’s undeniably valid point that he was idiotic to jeopardise the chance to actually do some work that he believed in. Had she asked, he would have told her that it was because the tequila hangover really was that unbearable and he would’ve gladly suffered any indignity in exchange for being allowed to stumble into bed, and to hell with the shagging. Once she had finished yelling at him for that, he might have let slip that he had also looked over a terrible precipice of guilt as he realised just how distraught his wife, his wonderful wife, must’ve been last night and just how much of an arsehole he thought himself for scaring her. And to Alex, this was the first time that he knew he really had scared her. He was aware that she had hinted at a fear of him previously, but had quickly dismissed this entirely. He would have been surprised at the depth of that fear, because to Alex’s mind, things between them were as they always had been.

Instead, he looked up and at Joanna. In that moment all thoughts of fearfulness left Joanna’s mind, chased away by the heartbreaking sight of her husband looking tired, broken, and more vulnerable than she could ever remember seeing him. He tried to tell her “I love you”, but the words stuck in a throat cracked with emotion, and his words formed noiselessly in his mouth like the silent miaow of a cat. A cat that stank of piss.

“Oh baby…” she took Alex in her arms and he sagged forward, breathing the heavy breath of a man determined not to cry. “Baby baby shhhh come on…it’s okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you it’s…I was worried about you Alex. I thought you were hurt or something had happened or…”

“No…no, it’s okay.” He sat up from her embrace and attempted a sheepish smile. “You’ve got nothing to apologise for Jo. You never have to apologise to me, not about anything. It’s me, it’s…I was stupid. You’re right, I was an idiot and I just…I just want to try and forget it.”

“I understand baby, I understand.” Joanna paused, some words clearly just having been bitten back. Alex recognised that something had gone unsaid. Being Alex, he wanted it cleared up to avoid any ambiguity.

“What?”

“It’s nothing, don’t worry.”

“No, come on Jo. You can tell me. What is it?”

“Well…will you promise me something?”

“Baby, of course I will. Anything.”

“I want you to promise you’ll never take drugs again.”

There was an moment which lasted exactly enough time to become an awkward pause.

“What, any of them?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, come on Joanna! Look, I work hard and I need…”

Joanna decided to cut it off there. She was happy about their earlier escape from the choppy waters of dispute and had no wish to see her husband navigate them both back into a tidal wave. “Well, okay not weed.” Alex visibly untensed. “But no more class A stuff. No one gets arrested for weed any more but the other stuff…it frightens me Alex. It frightens me that we could lose everything over some fucking…powder.”

Alex was already nodding before she’d even finished. “Of course baby, anything you want. I promise. No more pills and powders.” He took her hands in his as he said this, and tried to smile a reassuring smile, kidding himself that his lip wasn’t wobbling as he did so.

Joanna embraced him once more and held him tightly. Alex hugged back and they sat like that for a few minutes. Joanne was just beginning to think to herself “This could be the watershed; this could be the point where 8 months of deepening gloom stop and I’ll get my laughing, charming husband back!” When she heard Alex snoring gently into her ear.

Army of Me:Third chapter

Re-Orientation Schedule for Mr Alexander John Atkinson

Welcome, Alexander, to your new life!

Here at Vault-Tec Ltd, we pride ourselves on a thorough and professional service that goes beyond mere cloning. We aim to provide each one of our clients with a full and personalised three day package which will assist you in your re-integration back into the society of your friends and family.

Over the next three days, you will enjoy a series of lectures and activities designed to fully re-orientate yourself back into the life you lead prior to your Revival, as well as inform you about cloning specific issues that you might like to know more about.

During this time, you’ll be housed in the Re-Orientation section of the London Vault, situated right here on The Isle of Dogs. You’ll find that your quarters are luxuriously appointed, and your meals will be of the highest standard. But don’t worry about the cost! Your J-Account has taken care of all of that!

Your first meal will be at 7pm this evening. Please note that all meals are carefully selected to provide the correct levels of nutrients for the recently revived. We have also taken every care to match the meals to your individual tastes.

Please take the time to look through your schedule. We strive to provide all the information that we believe you will need, but if there is anything missing from it then please don’t hesitate to let us know, and every effort will be made to accommodate you. Please also refer to the map of the facilities you will be using during your stay with us.

So then Alexander, just relax and enjoy your stay with us. This first evening will your own. You’ll note that there is no Screen in your room; this is so that you’re not overloaded with any information about the 384 days that have elapsed since your last Memory Specific DNA (D-NAM) update. Rest assured that all the information you need will be provided over the coming days. We’ve provided a number of books for your enjoyment; if you don’t find anything to your liking, please don’t hesitate to use the intercom and ask for the use of our well stocked library. Your Multimedia Unit will be returned to you upon your release.

Regards,

Matthew Moore

Head of Vault-Tec Revivals (London)


Day 1

0655: Alarm

0700: Breakfast in bed - Smoked Salmon and scrambled eggs, wholemeal toast, Olive oil spread, Darjeeling tea.

0730: Please use the next 30 minutes to attend to your toilet and hygiene needs.

0800: Lecture #1 – The Legalities of Your Revival

This lecture will address the more immediate questions that you may have concerning the aftermath of your revival. Topics covered will include Employment Law (specifically the 2 week “grace” period following your Revival which requires employers to hold open your post for 14 days should you wish to return to your job), Probate and the validity of your will (you will be given advice on the new will that you are required to draft), as well as general matters such as your Death Certificate and new National Insurance Number.

We request that you do not discuss your recent memories with fellow revivees. Staff will be enforcing this request.

Please note that there will be a break for refreshments at 1030.

Lecturer: Jon Holyoak Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall

1130: Lecture 1 Q&A Session

1200: Lunch – Lunch will be served in your quarters. There will be a starter of Tomato Soup and wholemeal roll. The main course will be Chicken in a Balsamic jus with steamed vegetables. Dessert will be Fruit cocktail. Choice of beverages: Fresh Orange or Cranberry juice.

1300: Lecture #2 – Recent History

This lecture will be delivered to you solely and is tailored to cover the main events across the world since your D-NAM update. It is the first of three lectures. In this lecture, we will look specifically at events outside of The United Kingdom in the 384 days since your update. Please note that this lecture covers both events in The Cloned Territories (CTs) and Non Cloned Territories (NCTs).

Lecturer: Prof. Jane Miller Location: Your room

1430: Refreshment break. Please note that you are permitted to discuss recent memories pertaining to the previous lecture with your fellow Revivees.

1445: Lecture #3 – Faith and Revival

As an Atheist you may be wondering just how the world’s religions view you now that you have been revived. This lecture will discuss the attitudes of all major faiths towards the Revived. You will be happy to learn that, by and large, all faiths have shown great respect and tolerance toward the Revived. It will also discuss the impact of cloning upon faith, from the rules excluding the Revived from the Catholic Priesthood, to the enabling of a lasting peace in the Israeli-Palestine Allied Territories.

Please note that this lecture will not discuss the beliefs and activities of The Church Of The Immortal Soul. This topic will be discussed in a later lecture.

Lecturer: Dr Clive Runcie Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall

1600: Lecture 3 Q&A Session

1630: Lecture # 4 – A Background to Cloning and Finance

This short lecture will discuss the setup of your new J-Account. It will also provide some history behind Cloning, the finance of cloning (such as how the name “ J-Account” legitimised the previously used colloquialism, “Joanne May Account” used by the major banking corporations), and a brief audit of your previous J-Account.

Lecturer: Andrew Powell Location: Your room

1700: End of days lectures. You will have an hour to rest from the day’s activities. During this hour you will have access to the Leisure floor of the Vault, located on floor 38.

1800: Evening Meal which will be served in the main dining hall (please refer to map for location). There will be a starter of Grilled goat’s cheese with Mediterranean Vegetables. The main course will be Venison Forestier with Mustard Mashed Potatoes and steamed Green Beans. Dessert will be a selection of cheeses from our board. Coffee to follow dessert.

1930: You will have 2 and a half hours in which to make use of our Leisure facilities.

2200: We request that you return to your room to prepare for bed. Please note that all revivees must return to their own rooms .

2230: Lights out.

Day 2

0655: Alarm

0700: Breakfast in bed – Choice of Cereals, wholemeal toast, Olive oil spread, Darjeeling tea.

0730: Please use the next 30 minutes to attend to your toilet and hygiene needs.

0800: Lecture #1 – Cloning and Crime

This lecture will look at the distinct strand of jurisprudence concerning what has come to be known as “Cloning Crime”. We will discuss the main cloning crimes; destruction of client DNA and Gene Splicing. In addition, we shall also consider the penalties for Cloning Crimes (deportation to an NCT-located Penal colony being the most common),the use of cloning as a judicial tool (primarily in the Revival of witnesses to a Capital Crime), as well as some of the limitations on the cloning process (such as the impossibility of cloning from dead tissue)

Please note that there will be a break for refreshments at 1000.

Lecturer: Prof Robert Sayer Location: The Huxley Lecture Theatre

1030: Lecture 1 Q&A Session

1100: Lecture #2 – Recent History

This lecture will be delivered to you solely and is tailored to cover the main events across the world since your D-NAM update. It is the second of three lectures. In this lecture, we will look specifically at events within The United Kingdom in the 384 days since your update. The focus will be on any major social and political changes, though we shall also discuss any matters relating specifically to you, your career, and your social life.

Please note that after this lecture, we will be notifying your next of kin of the end date and time of your Re-Orientation. If you wish, we will also pass on any messages that you may wish to give to your loved ones in advance of your release from The Vault.

Lecturer: Prof. Jane Miller Location: Your room

1300: Lunch – Lunch will be served in the dining hall. There will be a starter of Shredded Aromatic Duck. The main course will be Penne Arabiatta. Dessert will be steamed Toffee Pudding. Choice of beverages: Fresh Orange or Cranberry juice.

1400: Lecture #3 – The Church of the Immortal Soul

Although this is your first Revival, you will doubtless have heard of the activities of The Church of The Immortal Soul. The lecture will examine the background to this cult, from their initial formation by an inter-faith group of clerics unhappy with their respective Church’s stance on cloning, to their spread throughout both CT and NCT alike, and finally to their current status as a banned organisation in CT.

We will also be discussing simple and affordable safety measures that you can take to avoid the unwelcome attentions of these fanatics. Whilst it is only the more extreme members of “The Immortals” who have murdered or attempted to murder Revivees in recent years, their prejudice against Revivees has regrettably infected the public domain.

This lecture will end with a Q&A session with a former Immortal, and for your convenience and safety we will also be providing you with a list of suspected Immortals in your local area.

Lecturer: Jamie Bell Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall

1600: Refreshment break. Please note that you are permitted to talk freely with your fellow Revivees.

1630: Tour of Vault Facilities

Your day will end with a full tour of the Vault facilities. You will be shown the research labs where the D-NAM and DNA are combined prior to Revival, and taken round the many offices which comprise the bulk of the Vault facility and where our Corporate Division does most of it’s work. The tour will climax with a visit to the Underground Storage Chambers. Here you will be afforded an unparalleled opportunity to look at the chambers from whence you so recently came.

The chambers, all heavily fortified after the Indian and Pakistani launched their joint nuclear attack on Tokyo and Osaka in an attempt to force their way onto the CT Council of Nations, are rarely seen by the general public. Even media access has been halted since the attempted assault on the Manhattan Island Vault by a cell of Immortals. Once you’ve gone through the security screening, you will be rewarded with an experience that few can ever hope to see; you will witness the Revival of one of our clients!

We will also discuss some of the science behind cloning as well as some of it’s benefits and limitations (for example, the impossibility of cloning from dead tissue).

The tour will be conducted by Dr Roberta Wilson.

1800: End of days lectures. You will have an hour to rest from the day’s activities. During this hour you will have access to the Leisure floor of the Vault, located on floor 38.

1900: Evening Meal which will be served in the main dining hall (please refer to map for location). There will be a starter of Leek and Potato soup. The main course will be Monkfish served with seasonal vegetables. Dessert will be tiramisu. Coffee to follow dessert.

2030: You will have 2 hours in which to make use of our Leisure facilities.

2230: We request that you return to your room to prepare for bed. Please note once more that all revivees must return to their own rooms .

2300: Lights out.

Day 3

0655: Alarm

0700: Breakfast in bed – Full English Breakfast, wholemeal toast, butter, Darjeeling tea.

0730: Please use the next 30 minutes to attend to your toilet and hygiene needs.

0800: Lecture #1 – NCT Relations

This lecture will address the social anxiety that attended the split in the United Nations between Cloned and Non Cloned Territories. It will examine some of the reasons behind the withholding of Vault Technology from NCT (made up of the entirety of the African, South American, and Central American continental nations plus Asia with the exceptions of the Russian Free Trade State and China) and how the subsequent series of CT-NCT border wars grew into the Nuclear devastation that was unleashed upon Japan by two NCT nations.

The lecture will also look at current CT attitudes towards NCT and its citizens. Whilst the various CT Immigration laws have removed almost all contact between CT and NCT peoples, this has not stopped a uniformly anti-NCT attitude becoming prevalent among the CT citizens (for example, the growth in popularity of the derogatory name for NCT citizens, Nocts, across CT).

Lecturer: Dr Phillip Naut Location: Huxley Lecture Theatre

1000: Refreshment break

1030: Lecture 1 Q&A Session

1100: Lecture #2 – Recent History

This lecture will be delivered to you solely and is tailored to cover the main events across the world since your D-NAM update. It is the third of three lectures. In this lecture, we will discuss any matters that you are curious about that have arisen from the previous lectures. We will also provide an inventory of items on your person prior to your Revival and would be grateful if you could confirm its accuracy. These items will be returned to you at the end of your Re-Orientation.

Lecturer: Prof. Jane Miller Location: Your room


1230: Lunch – Lunch will be served in the dining hall. There will be a starter of Baked Feta and Pita bread. The main course will be cold roast meats with potato salad and crusty bread. Dessert will be a selection of Ice Cream. Choice of beverages: Fresh Orange or Cranberry juice.




1330: Lecture #3 – Politics and Society in the CT

This lecture will detail the political and social background to the creation of the CT. It will discuss the changes in the political landscape as well as the more solid social foundations that cloning has enabled. In particular, we will examine the CT Council, universally recognised as the finest system of Government in the long history of humanity.

We will examine the effect that cloning has had on our armed services and the laws surrounding cloning of military and certain civilian personnel and conditions for their revival (which are, broadly speaking, only activated if the person is Killed In Action).

As you have a career in Immigration Law, we will also spend the final hour with you in a 121 setting whereupon we will endeavour to update you as to any legislative and procedural changes that may affect your work. Please note that this 121 will be preceded by a refreshment break

Lecturer: David Carlton Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall

121 Session: Derek Nairn Location: Your room

1630: Lecture 3 Q&A Session

1730: All items confirmed as yours earlier today will be returned to you. You will be afforded the opportunity to pack and prepare for your release this evening. Your Multimedia Unit will also be returned, although please note that its power supply will be returned to you upon your release.

1800: Evening Meal which will be served in the main dining hall (please refer to map for location). There will be a starter of Prawn Cocktail. The main course will be Medallions of Beef in a Red wine sauce with Creamed Sweet Potato. Dessert will be a selection of cheeses from our board. Coffee to follow dessert.


1900: Lecture # 4 – General Q&A

This short Q&A session will provide you with the opportunity to ask any other questions that have arisen over the previous three days. Should you have any questions outstanding at the end of the session, please feel free to stay and talk to our Re-Orientation staff.

Lecturer: All Re-Orientation Staff Location: Eric Blair Memorial Lecture Hall

2000: Please return to your room and collect your belongings. From there you will be escorted to the main entrance hall. Your Multi-Media Unit power source will be returned, and your next of kin will be there to greet you.

Congratulations Alexander Atkinson! You are ready to begin life anew!