They are smelly, they are demanding, normally they are hairy, they restrict what you can and can’t do, they cost money in so many different ways and, well, when you get right down to, what are they good for? They produce nothing of value, they pay no rent, they don’t even make you a cup of coffee in the mornings. Hell, given half a chance they’ll knock over your coffee and then steal your chair while you’re cleaning it up.

But, things have changed. Sort of.

I now live in a house surrounded by animals. There is one dog – Biscuit. We have two cats – Tetley and Kenco. And then there is the bearded dragon – Porkie. There is probably a spider or two kicking around as well and the occasional moth, but for the purposes of this conversation we won’t consider them as pets and class them as uninvited guests instead. Although don’t tell Bekae that – she has a thing about moths. She seems to believe that moths were created with the one simple purpose of trying to kill her. I’ve tried to explain that the odds are on her side in any fair fight that she may have with a moth, but she doesn’t listen. Anyway, that’s not the point.

The point is that there are a lot of animals in the house. Something that I would have run screaming from in the past, but now, for the majority of the time, I accept it and even like it. However, this is not the time to talk about the good points of the animals, this is the time to talk about how much they drive me absolutely insane and in so many different ways.

Let’s start with the dog shall we. Man’s best friend they say. Hmm, I have my doubts about that one. For one thing, the dog has a habit of following me into the bathroom when I’m shaving and then, just when I’m concentrating the most on not slicing assorted parts of my face off, she either barks or bangs into my leg. Roy screams, blood flows and the dog looks up at me with a big grin as though she doesn’t understand why I don’t appreciate the joke.

Then there’s the times when I’m sitting at this PC either writing, playing a game, watching a film, something that is taking up a lot of my attention. The dog will sidle up to me and sit beside me, dropping her had onto my lap. “What’s wrong that that?” I hear you ask, well, not really, but I can imagine that you’re saying that. And the answer is nothing, nothing wrong with that at all. But, that’s not where it ends, oh no. So, the dog is there with her head on my lap and I will, for the first couple of minutes, reach down to pet her and give her some attention. Admittedly, this does sometimes mean that I poke her in the eye with my finger or stick a thumb into her nose because I’m not looking at her, but the way I figure it is that this is her fault.

But, I tend to let my attention drift back to the computer screen pretty quickly and forgot that she’s there. This does not go down well with the dog. I should know better than this, I should know that she is the centre of the universe and when she wants attention she wants my undivided attention and she wants it now. Her next stage in this campaign, if I stop petting her, is to wait until I forget about her and, normally just as I’ve picked up a mug of coffee, the hotter the better, she barks.

As barks go, the dog has quite a quiet, almost camp bark. However, when you’re not expecting it and it comes from right beside you, it does nothing for your inner karma, your peace of mind or any clothing you may be wearing that isn’t coffee coloured. And again, the dog seems to derive huge amounts of pleasure from my screams of pain and anger and fear.

But let’s not forget about the cats. Cute, furry, placid little things that they are. At least, that’s the way they are for the majority of the time. When the mood takes them they seem to forget that I’m not actually some kind of mouse or other small furry rodent for them to stalk, attack and torture. I can be sitting there, minding my own business, nose in a Kindle, watching TV, doing whatever it is that my rock and roll lifestyle demands when suddenly, from out of the blue, a cat is clinging to my ankle and making a serious effort to eat my shoe.

Both cats have decided that the most fun they can have is playing with my shoe laces, normally while I’m trying to tie said shoes. They do this first thing in the morning, their way of wishing me the joy of the day I guess, but they will also do it ninja-style when I’m not paying attention. First thing I know about it is when I get up, stand on one lot of laces, try to step forward and end up flat on my face. Up to this point I haven’t landed on a cat during the fall, but I am determined that it’s going to happen.

Now, I spend a lot of time writing one thing or another. And this means that the keys on the keyboard making that little clicking sound a lot. And the cats have a certain fascination with this sound. Not the kind of fascination that involves them sitting there listening to it calmly and intently. Oh no, this is the sort of fascination that involves them creeping across the room, sneaking up on me, hiding behind the monitor and then leaping out to attack my fingers – the things that are obviously the source of this strange and threatening noise.

This does nothing for my typing skills and it manages to seriously confuse the spell-checker as well.

Of course, this winds the dog up and she starts barking at the cats who react by digging their claws into me. Yes, I know that this hardly seems fair and I have tried, at length, to explain to the animals that I’m am the innocent victim in all of this but they seem unable to follow my logic in this matter.

And we can’t forget the bearded dragon. It sits in a tank by my desk, basking under the sun lamp and eating crickets. How can a creature like that possibly cause you any harm. Simple. IT STARES! I don’t mean it looks at me, I mean it sits there for hours at a time, not moving, not blinking, simply staring through the glass at me and no doubt plotting my horrible demise. Sometimes, I can ignore this, forgetting that the creature is there. But there are other times when I catch it out of the corner of my eye and then our eyes lock. My amiable, warm, friendly blue eyes staring into its cold, orange, maniacal eyes. When I was a kid I used to have staring competitions with my goldfish, this was before I learned that fish don’t blink. Don’t laugh, I didn’t know! And I thought I had a decent stare, but this damn dragon is the champ. The more it stares at me the harder it is for me to think for myself. I’m being mesmerized, the Hypno-Toad has had its day – Porkie the Lizard is the new champion hypnotist on the block.

I can’t turn away, if I break the gaze first something horrible will happen, I know it. The dragon is waiting for me to look away, it’s daring me to ignore it. It wants me to feel secure because there is a thin pane of glass between us but I know better. If I turn away from this evil creature, just for a moment, all will be lost.

And then the dog barks, one cat attacks my shoes and the other goes for my fingers. As I scream I can hear the faint ghost of a chuckle coming from the lizard which is no doubt the mastermind behind this conspiracy against me. It relishes my anguish, my pain is like the finest wine to it. It is evil, pure and simple. I’ve got nothing against evil, evil is good in it’s place. But not when all the evil is being directed against me!

So, yeah. Aww, they’re just like people really . . . . yes, yes they are, People that should be locked up in padded cells and on a strict regime of medical tranquilisers. The sort of people who have reports written up about them in the papers, the ones where their neighbours say “she was such a quiet person, kept herself to herself, who would have though that she even had that many knives!”

Damn animals!

But no, I wouldn’t swap them for the world.

The large grey sofa that sat in the middle Station 515’s main studio seemed to be out of place, surrounded as it was by dozens of cameras, lighting rigs, teleprompters, studio-men and assorted hangers on, but it was quite possibly the best known thing about the station. The sofa and the woman who normally say there, Melinda Chavez. Five days a week she would interview guests, her style an interesting mix of flirty chat and hard-nosed questioning and, for the moment at least, she was the media darling. Ever since her off the cuff interview with Cawdor, the Operative flavour of the moment, the viewing public couldn’t get enough of Melinda and her studio bosses were determined to take full advantage of this.

Tonight’s show was going to be another landmark moment in her career because Doctor Rasmus Lundvail of Karma’s R&D Division had agreed to be interviewed on his latest development, something called the Striatum Adjunct. Even though Doctor Lundvail was going to be on vid in less than an hour Melinda, and her team, knew absolutely nothing about what this Striatum Adjunct was and, if she was going to be honest with herself, the young reporter was beginning to panic.

“How the hell am I meant to interview this man if they won’t give us the slightest clue as to what this Adjunct thing is?” she demanded of her make-up artist as she was sitting in her dressing room, preparing for the show. Lissa, who was diligently trying to cover the minute flaws that the vid would pick up without mercy, was wise enough to know that no answer was expected of her.

“I mean,” continued Melinda, “it’s not as though I have anything to talk to this man about. I know nothing about him. Oh, sure. I know where he went to school, who his parents were, what else he’s been working on, that sort of thing. But really, who cares about that? Doctor R Lundvail, age 39, employee of Karma, today had a roast beef sandwich for his lunch!”

Melinda threw her arms in the air in a gesture that had nothing to do with real irritation and all to do with show. As soon as she woke up in the morning she liked to think of herself as “in-character” and it was an art form that required constant practise. She paused and took a deep calming breath, very aware of how good that looked on camera.

“I have no human angle on this one at all,” she moaned to Lissa. “I have no idea what this Striatum Adjunct is, but unless it’s earth-shattering then this show is going to be a flop!”

*****

In a smaller and much less elaborate dressing room at the far side of the studio, Doctor Rasmus Lundvail stared into the mirror, looking at himself and then at the reflection of the young man in the very expensive suit who was standing behind him.

“Jeremy,” muttered the uncomfortable doctor. “Tell me again exactly why I’m wasting my time with this nonsense? There are a thousand and one things that need doing and this is certainly not one of them.”

“Come on Ras,” Jeremy replied with an easy smile. “We’ve been over and over this. Down at the lab we all know the ground-breaking work you’re doing, we all know how the Adjunct is going to change the world, but unless we can sell that fact to the great unwashed, then it’s never going to make it into the real world. Doc, seriously, you need to focus on this. People watch Melinda, they listen to what she has to say and they take their lead from her. You want next year’s budget to have an extra 0 added to the end of it? Then you sell the Adjunct to Melinda, wow her, make her jaw drop and I guarantee, I personally guarandamntee, that every Op out there will be beating a path to your door.”

The disgruntled doctor opened his mouth to speak again but before he could say anything Jeremy raised his hand.

“Rasmus, Ras, R.. It’s a done deal. People higher up the pay scale than either you or me have agreed that this has to be done so we’re going to do it. Might as well put the best face on it. There are going to be billions of people out there listening to you speak, live. And I know that they’re going to love you. You’re a natural, the vid loves, you, I love you, the world is going to love you. But more importantly the world is going to love the Adjunct.

“Besides,” Jeremy added in a slightly calmer voice. “I’ll be in the control room where the real decisions are made and you know that I’ve got all the pre-recorded goods ready to go if anything gets out of hand. Not that it will of course, you’re going to be great.”

Doctor Lundvail stared silently into the mirror for a moment, hating his PR assistant more than just a little bit.

“Remind me when this is all over, that I either need to fire you or promote you. I’m serious Jeremy, it’s going to be one of the other. And either way, you have to learn to stop talking in clichés”

********

…and we’re back from commercial, go Melinda ….

“Doctor Lundvail, we’re back on air and our viewers are now familiar with who you are and what you’ve done. A very impressive resume I must say. But what they, what I really want to know about is this mysterious Striatum Adjunct that you mentioned. That’s what you’re here to talk about so, please, in terms that we can all understand, tell us what it is.”

This was the section that Rasmus had been dreading. He knew he wasn’t a good public speaker, that was one of the reasons he was so confused by why he had been chosen to appear on the show. He could speak in great depth about the mechanics of the Adjunct for hours, he could explain the new strains of biogenetic materials that had been grown just to make this possible. He could go into minute and excruciating depth about the theoretical problems and actual practicalities that had made this breakthrough possible, but he knew that wasn’t what people wanted to hear.

“Well, Melinda,” he said with a fixed smile. “The Striatum Adjunct is, quite simply a revolution in the way that we can absorb and understand new information and processes. Basically, it’s a new way of learning. Up to now, whenever we want to learn something new or to understand a new concept it’s done through constant repetition until our brain retains it. That’s a slow, laborious and very inefficient way of doing things. With the Striatum Adjunct we no longer have to go through the boring stages, we just go straight to knowing what we need to know.”

Melinda smiled brightly, showing no sign of her growing doubts about the security of her career, and nodded and gestured for the doctor to continue.

“As I’m sure you know,” said Doctor Lundvail. “”When we are creating Stormers, a large amount of the information that any other living being absorbs in its youth is implanted directly into learning centres of the Stormer’s brain. This aids with them coming to terms with their accelerated growth and ensures that we are not creating armies of morons. The Adjunct works along the same lines in that it can be used to insert blocks of new information into the subject’s brain.”

“I see,” said Melinda who really didn’t. “And does this process only work on Stormers?”

“Oh no, not at all. There is some very minor surgery involved in that we have to implant a small biogenetic “reader” for want of a better word, directly into the striatum of the user.”

“And the striatum is part of the brain, so we’re talking about brain surgery here.”

“Yes, yes,” snapped the doctor, beginning to forget that he was speaking to a chat show host and not holding a lecture. “But it is very minor surgery and the process is quite safe. And once the implant has been successfully bonded with the subject, it’s then a simple matter to input new information directly into the reader as and when required. In it’s most simple form, imagine the implant as a Nava-Map and the new information, which comes in the form of a very small injection, as a data slug.”

“Is that the kind of information we’re talking about?” asked Melinda. “Maps and things like that?”

“Of course, the Striatum Adjunct could be used for maps, making the subject instantly familiar with a new location, but that would be just scratching the surface of what the implant is capable of. In your case, for example, if you were going to interview someone that you knew nothing about, you could receive the injection and, within an hour, know everything that was on file regarding that person. Or the implant can be used to learn a new language within minutes instead of months. The subject could, if they wished, learn the intricacies of Wraith Raider crotchet . .”

. . . we have some vid footage here Melinda, rolling it now . . .

“And I believe,” interrupted Melinda smoothly,” that we have some footage relating to the Striatum Adjunct that we need to show now. “My apologies for cutting you off, Doctor Lundvail, but perhaps we could continue this after we’ve watched the vid.”

********

Thick, greasy fog rolls over a muddy field in some far flung war world. The background music is slow and subtle, but if listened to for any length of time you will realise that it grows steadily faster and louder. In the distance you can just make out the shapes of vast tanks firing and recoiling, soldiers running and fighting and dying. Overhead, jet planes scream past leaving coils of vapour in their wake.

“Captain?” the voice is young and obviously scared although trying not to show it. “Captain, what do we do now?”

The camera pulls back and you see a young soldier in pristine armour standings beside a older officer wearing battle-scarred Sarge armour. The helmet’s been removed and the grizzled veteran of the war worlds can be seen staring down at what looks to be an heavy box covered in wires. There is a numeric keypad on the front of the box and a timer that is slowly ticking down. There is less then ten minutes showing on the clock.

“Captain, do you know how to defuse that?” the scared recruit asks. “You do, don’t you? We’re never going to be able to evacuate the civilians in time. You do know how to defuse it, you must!”

Slowly and deliberately, the officer turns from the bomb and looks up at the soldier.

“No son, I don’t. At least, not yet.”

He flicks a clasp on the forearm of his armour and a pulse of steam along with a dribble of hydraulic fluid leaks out as a panel slides open. Beneath the armour you can see skin that is scarred and leathery and, lying along the length of the main vein, is a thin membrane of biogenetic material. As you watch, the material twitches slightly and a small mouth opens at one end.

“Fetch me the Adjunct from the APC,” the officer says with strength and determination. “Vial 217. And hurry son, we don’t have much time left.”

The scene fades as the fog of war grows thicker and the music grows louder. Moments later, the fog fades once more and we can see the officer leaning over the bomb. His fingers are flying across the keypad and the countdown timer is showing 5 seconds left.

“Captain, what do we do? We’re out of time!”

4 Seconds.

“Not yet we’re not son, don’t panic, trust Karma!”

3 Seconds.

“Captain, we’ve got to run, it’s too late!”

2 Seconds.

“Be calm son, almost there, almost there.”

1 Second

1 Second

1 Second

1 Second.

“Captain! You did it! We’ve got time to save the civilians and get the Thresher scum who did this!”

The camera cuts back to the officer’s face and you see that he is tired, drained, but relieved and victorious.

“No soldier, I didn’t do it. We did it. You, me and Striatum Adjunct!”

********

“Well, Doctor Lundvail, that was most impressive. And tell me, is that a realistic representation of what we can expect Striatum Adjunct to be able to achieve?”

The doctor was staring across at the large vid screen that was on display behind the grey sofa and it took him a moment to realise that Melinda was talking to him.

“What? Oh, yes. That’s the first time that I’ve seen that actual film but yes, that’s exactly the sort of thing that Striatum Adjunct would be useful for. That and a large number of other applications of course.”

“Doctor Lundvail,” the reporter continued in a voice that was suddenly serious. “We’ve spoken so far of the benefits of this new invention, but we haven’t mentioned how it’s actually applied or what the possible drawbacks could be. I wonder if you could guide us through those?”

Rasmus Lundvail cleared his throat and readjusted his seat on the sofa. He hadn’t been expecting this sort of question but would be happy to respond.

“The application is quite simple,” he smiled. “As I said previously it does involve some minor surgery with the main component of the Adjunct being placed directly into the brain. It’s perfectly safe, we have absolutely mastered the technique and, with modern medicines you can be up and about again less than 10 hours after the surgery takes place. In addition to this we have to place an entry valve somewhere on the subject’s body. This is normally done on the forearm, as you saw in the vid, somewhere that is easily accessible, but we have found that the closer the entry system is to the main implant, the more quickly the new information will bond with the striatum area.”

“And it looked in the vid as though the brave Captain was going to inject something into himself, I’m assuming that’s how the raw information is given to the Adjunct.”

“Exactly correct Melinda,” replied the doctor patronisingly, as if he was pleased by a dense student showing the slightest glimmer of intelligence. “The information packs come in a thick biogenetic gel which, when injected into the body, heads immediately to the Adjunct and is then fed into the brain.”

“This information,” Melinda interrupted, showing no sign of her anger at the doctor’s tone. “Is it a permanent thing? Is there a limit to the amount of injections you can give yourself?”

“Ahh, no, unfortunately this is not a permanent thing,” admitted Doctor Lundvail. “The knowledge will last for anything between 15 and 25 hours depending on the individual and then it will simply fade away, as if you had forgotten it naturally. And at this point you are limited to being able to have one new information injection within you at any one time. We’ve found that trying for more than once causes a conflict between the two sources which renders both unusable.”

“I see,” mused Melinda, knowing that she was running out of time and she had to hurry things along. “And side effects? Are there any problems that we should be aware of before we all run out and have the surgery?”

“No, absolutely not. Striatum Adjunct is perfectly safe and we are looking forward to when it goes on the open market.”

“Doctor Lundvail, thank you so very much for joining us this evening. I know that I and I’m sure everyone else, will be looking forward to seeing who is the first of our celebrity operatives to make use of this wonderful new technology.”

With a dazzling smile, Melinda Chavez nodded to the bewildered doctor and turned her attention fully to the camera.

“That was Doctor Rasmus Lundvail with the new Karma product, Striatum Adjunct. We have a short commercial break coming up but we’ll be right back and we have an interview with Street Hockey Star Artemus Gideon. He’ll be speaking to us about his move to the Sauchiehall Strikers.”

. . . and we’re out. Four minutes Melinda, four minutes . . . .

********

Twenty minutes later, Rasmus was sitting in the same small dressing room talking to Jeremy.

“Doc, that went better than we could have hoped for,” the assistant said enthusiastically. “Absolutely perfect!”

“I’m not so sure Jeremy, not so sure at all. Why did that bloody woman start asking about side effects? There’s no way that she could know, is there?”

“Of course not, nothing to worry about at all. She was just asking the questions that she had to. No one knows and besides, it’s a very small problem and I know that you’ll be able to work it out very, very soon.”

Doctor Lundvail simply stared up at his assistant, not in the least bit convinced.

“Let’s get out of here,” he finally said. “I’ve work to do.”

Melinda Chavez had forced her way to the front of the press crowd with the help of her cameraman, assistant and current lover Pete Whitmoor. She held her position close to the back of the pack knowing that she was enough of a celebrity in her own right to be walking into the building rather than standing outside and that when the time came she would be the one who got the all important interviews. She would be the one who was seen on the vid asking the questions that the public wanted the answers to. And she would be the one taking home the big pay cheque.

“Mel?” came the voice in her ear from the control room. “We’ve got a sighting of Cawdor approaching your position. He should be getting out of the limo in about 30 seconds. Make sure you’re ready for him.”

Melinda bit back the caustic response that was on the tip of her tongue. Of course she was ready for this, when had she ever been not ready? And Cawdor was the main name that she’d been waiting for, the prize that made the hours of standing in the cold worth-while. Well, it would be worth while as long as she managed to get a minute or two of his time and she had no doubts about her ability to do that.

“Show time,” she smiled to Pete as she took off her top coat and smoothed down the red silk dress she wore beneath. Without even having to look she knew that everything was in place, that every detail was correct. Her looks would catch Cawdor’s attention for long enough for him to realise who she was and then he would be hooked. Even a few seconds would be long enough for this but she was hoping for much more.

The gathered press started to surge forward and Melinda rode the wave to the very front of the P.P.C.C.. Armoured Shivers were on duty to keep the peace, to make sure that neither press nor celebrity got too out of hand but Melinda had greased enough palms earlier in the evening to know that a gap would miraculously appear just when she wanted it to. This is what she did and she was very, very good at it.

“Cawdor‘s walking towards you now,” control whispered through the earpiece. “He seems to be in good form, smiling, nodding at a few people and he’s on his own. We have confirmation that he has not brought a date to the event.”

Notching the smile up another level and stepping forward between the wall of green armour, Melinda stood at the side of the carpet at just the perfect time to hold out a microphone to Cawdor. She knew that her cameraman would be close enough behind to catch everything that was going on and she had completely dismissed Pete from her mind. This is what it was all about, this is the thrill that she loved so much. This was her time to shine.

“Cawdor,” she called out, “how good to see you again. Can I steal just a moment of your time to give to your loyal fans?”

The man who was walking down the carpet towards the large open doors of the centre paused for a moment and then when he realised who he was looking at, he broke into what seemed to be an honest smile.

“Melinda Chavez, as I live and breath. Always a pleasure to talk to the press and even more of a pleasure to talk to you. Please don’t tell me you’ve been waiting here all this time just to get a few words with little old me?”

Cawdor stood close to seven feet tall and his long blonde hair and model looks seem to contracts strongly with the network of scar tissue that covered the right side of his face and spread down to his neck. He was wearing what was obviously a very expensive tuxedo and seemed to be perfectly at home in this binding outfit despite the fact that he was most easily recognised when he was wearing armour and swinging a sword.

“You’re not wearing your clan colours,” smiled Melinda. “I almost didn’t recognise you there.”

She knew she was taking a risk by getting into a conversation like this. If it worked then she would have the prefect interview, but if Cawdor was rushed or simply didn’t feel like talking then she would be made to look like a fool and who knew how well her career would stand up to something like that.

“Don’t tell anyone,” laughed the Frother in a stage whisper, “but I’m in disguise. Don’t think it’s working too well though.”

He stepped away from the centre of the carpet and moved closer to Melinda, making no attempt to hide the admiring way he was looking her over.

“Cawdor,” the reporter continued. “There’s something that I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while.”

“You can ask me anything you want,” interrupted the blonde operative with a wide wink. “But don’t you think this could be a bit too public for that sort of thing?”

Laughing on the outside while gloating on the inside Melinda knew she’d made the right choice. Cawdor was high enough to want to flirt and be funny and yet straight enough to be able to talk sensibly. Luck was definitely on her side this evening.

“Everyone knows who Cawdor is,” she said. “Or at least everyone knows who Cawdor appears to be. One of the most renowned of the Frother Operatives who make their name by dispatching the enemies of SLA Industries in as colourful a way as possible. Barely a week goes by without you being shown in a fight to the death and with every swing of your sword you win more fans. What I want to know is why you do it? You’ve made enough credit to live comfortably for a dozen life-times, you could easily move away from the live fights and work on displays, or go on tours off-planet, bringing a bit of the reality of Mort to the outer zones. And yet you don’t do this. You continue to thrill us, to scare us, to make us weep and cheer with you. Why do you do this, Cawdor, why do you keep working?”

Melinda couldn’t help from biting her lip as she waited to see how the volatile Frother would respond. She knew from the sudden drop in conversation all around her that her peers in the press were waiting for exactly the same thing. She’d taken a huge risk, possibly a suicidal risk, by asking something like this. But she was sure that she’d judged Cawdor’s mood correctly. He would answer. He would open up. And this interview would go down in history.

Cawdor stared at the reporter and the pause went on for just long enough to make people uncomfortable. The operative’s green eyes that had been so friendly now looked much more threatening. And then the mood was broken as he laughed and reached out a hand to pull Melinda onto the carpet with him.

“You want to know why I do it?” he asked with a smile. “Look around your, pretty lady. Look and see everyone out there staring at you, watching you, just waiting to see what you’re going to do next.”

He easily pulled Melinda towards him and then spun her around in a smooth dance move, her skirts whirling around her.

“This is why most of us do what we do,” he said. “We do it so that we know we’re alive. We do it so that we mean something. We do it because if we stop doing it then people will stop watching us and how will we know that we’re still here. But that’s not why I do it!”

Cawdor picked the reporter up, hands around her slim waist, and held her above his head for a few moments before slowly lowering her to the ground. Her heart was pounding with both excitement and fear but she was more than aware enough of what was going on to realise that Cawdor has more to say.

“Every time that I put my life on the line for SLA Industries and for you,” he said, speaking more to the entire crown now than the breathless reporter in front of him. “Every time I do it it’s because I have no choice in it, none at all. I live for the dance, I live for the thrill, I live for the rush. When the music in my head starts to play then I’ve got to go along with the rhythm, I’ve no choice. Can you hear it? Can you hear the drum beat in your veins, can you hear the pounding in your ears? I can, I hear it every moment of every day and there are times when it gets so loud that I can’t hear anything else.”

Cawdor’s head had started to bob slightly as he was speaking and he took on a faintly vague expression as he waved from side to side.

“I can hear it now, but it’s slow and steady and calm,” he continued. “The music is lifting me up and pushing me forward, supporting me, helping me. But soon it’ll grow louder and it’ll grow stronger and it’ll grow faster. I’m in control of the beat right now, but tomorrow, or the day after, or maybe even ten minutes from now, who knows. When the beat grows strong you have to dance to the rhythm.

“Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Sounds like the ravings of a drugged up madman? But it’s not.”

“Listen!” he shouted out at the watching crowd. “Be silent and listen, just for a second. Just listen!”

And for a moment he had the press in the palm of his hand. They all went silent, they all tried to hear what it was the Frother could hear. And for some of them, this was a moment of revelation.

“You heard it, didn’t you?” Cawdor asked Melinda and then carried on without waiting for an answer. He was breathless with his own enthusiasm, caught up in his own words. “Some of you out there heard it, some of watching this at home hear it. You can hear it now, can’t you? You can hear the beat calling out to you, it makes you want to stand up, makes you want to dance, makes you want to live! But too much of the world tries to drown out that noise, too much of life tries to dampen the sound.”

Cawdor raised his head and laughed with pure joy.

“Ahh, Melinda,” he smiled. “You still want to know why I do what I do? How could I possibly do anything else? But now, I think that it’s time for me to go inside. I don’t want to hog too much of your valuable time.”

The burly Frother took the reporter’s delicate hand and raised it to his mouth, pressing his lips gently against the back of her knuckles.

“Always a pleasure,” he whispered, just loud enough for the microphone to pick up his words.

Melinda was left to stare as Cawdor span away and hurried up the red carpet into the Centre.

“Melinda,” screamed control into her ear. “Melinda, we need closure. Dammit Melinda, say something!”

Turning back to the camera, Melinda put on her most professional smile and spoke directly to the watching audience.

“You’ve just heard Cawdor speak of what drives him forward, of what makes him the man he is. I’m sure that we have all learned a lot this evening. My name is Melinda Chavez and you’re watching Station 515.”

She pulled the ear-piece loose from under her hair and handed it over to her cameraman.

“That’s it,” she said to him. “I’m done for the evening. Lets go home and listen for what the music has to tell us.”

*****

The lab was running at full speed with dozens of technicians scurrying around, computers whirring silently and assorted unidentified but very impressive looking machines doing whatever it is that they’re meant to be doing and doing it well. Perian stood just inside one of the sliding glass doors and looked around all the activity with a sense of well being and satisfaction.

If he was going to be completely honest with himself he understood a fraction of what was going on here but he did know enough to realise that things were running smoothly. Feeling quite content with life, he wandered over to his personal terminal and started pulling up the details of labs schedule for the next few weeks. As soon as he pulled up the rota he realised that there was something wrong but before he could figure out what it was a shrill voice cut through the background noise of the lab and scrapped across his nerves like a rusty nail across a blackboard.

“Uncle Perian,” the irritating voice called out. “Uncle Perian, just the man I wanted to see!”

Forcing a smile onto his face, Perian slowly spun the chair around and looked up at the scrawny figure in the pristine white lab coat.

“Beaker,” he said, calling his nephew by the nickname that had been with him for as long as he could remember. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here today. I thought you’d be over at the drone factory.”

“I was, but I saw that you’d docked here and though I’d come across and catch up with you. So, I’ve done my share of the deal, it’s time for you to come through with yours. When do I get to go and fly the Daredevil?”

“Come on now, Beaker,” Perian replied with a tired smile. “The deal was that you get the Daredevil when the labs are up and running, which I agree they are. But also only when you’d clocked enough hours in the Haulers. And you’re not even close to that yet.”

For a moment Beaker looked like nothing more and nothing less than a petulant child and Perian was sure that there was going to be a temper tantrum, but thankfully, the frown lifted from the youth’s forehead as he saw what his uncle was looking at on the terminal.

“I was going to tell you about that.” Beaker said, all disappointment forgotten, for the moment at least. “Auto’s really screwed up this time, hasn’t he?”

Spinning the chair around again so he could see the monitor, Perian wanted to agree with his nephew but he certainly wasn’t going to say so out loud.

“Computer,” he said in the flat tone of voice that he’d found worked best with getting the programmed system to follow commands. “Get me Automatic J on a vid link. Low priority.”

In less than a minute the holographic projector whirred into life and Perian found himself looking at Auto.

“Yah, what is it?” Auto asked in his slightly Slavic accent.

“I’ve got the lab schedule up in front of me,” Perian said. “It looks like you’ve booked some network time to work on that Particle Accelerator Blueprint you picked up. From what it says here you’ve got the mainframe and a team of three techies for the next four days.”

“And?”

“And,” answered Perian, trying very hard not to let his frustration show. “And I’m not sure why you need this? The accelerator blueprint is a pretty basic one, why are you spending so much time on it?”

“But you said that if we ever get any blueprint programs we should let the lab guys see them straight away!” Auto was making no attempt to hide his growing confusion and anger. “And this is what I’m doing. I give the blueprint to them and they make it better. Just like you said.”

Perian took a slow breath and knew that he’d have to explain how blueprints work to Auto, again. This had to be the fifth time, at least.

“When we get a blueprint from one of the big producers,” he said in his calmest voice,” it’s pretty shoddy work. All they care about is getting the basic information into the program and then selling as many of them as we can. So we need to work on these blueprints when we get them, making sure that all the rough edges are off, making sure that they’re fine tuned to work in our manufacturing plants and making certain that there are no mistakes, deliberate or accidental, in them. This is a time consuming process and, like you said, we have to give it over the lab workers to get it right.”

“Which is just what I’ve done,” interrupted Auto.

“Yes, however, I’ve also said that there are limits to what ever the best technicians can do with blueprint. You’ve set up the computers and the crew to spend four days trying to improve this blueprint. Four days. It would take less than twelve hours to get this accelerator blueprint to the best we could possibly get it. But because you’ve told the computers to work on it for four days, that’s what they’re going to do. So they’re going to be offline to the rest of us for that time. Three and a half days wasted.”

“And how am I meant to know this?” yelled Auto. “I’m not a geek, I work for a living!”

“I’ve told you over and over again,” Perian yelled back, his attempts to control his temper forgotten about now. “You look to see what resources the blueprint uses and then you simply calculate what percentage of Davior’s Hypothesis is going to work in their case. All you have to do is use the revolving equations that Matheson Woo laid down when he expanded the principles of Newton’s Third Law to cover the pressures of Worm Hole . . . . ”

Perian took a deep breath and rubbed at his temples while he tried to calm down.

“Okay,” he said after a moment. “You’ve got a point. It’s not always easy to tell what to do for best with the blueprints. So, how about this. I set up a program in the mainframe’s open access systems. That program will give you a guesstimate, a rough idea of how long you should give to any blueprint. It won’t be 100% accurate, but at least it will give you a good idea of how much of our labs’ resources to dedicate to this. All I ask is that you consult the program before you start working on any Blueprint. You do that for me and I’ll stop nagging you about this.”

“Fine, fine, whatever you say,” snapped Auto. And just before he broke the connection he could be heard to mutter, “Bloody key hitting geek!”

Perian leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He couldn’t help but wonder where it had all gone wrong for him. He had started his career working freelance for the Federation Navy, doing all the jobs that they were either unable or unwilling to openly admit to. How did he end up spending most of his time in the labs or factories of TEMOE?

“So,” he heard Beaker say from behind him. “About that Daredevil.”

So, I was sat in the pub the other day and got into a discussion with a friend of a friend about the nature of truth and whether it was, or was not, the best policy. The discussion grew heated and while we could both see the other person’s point of view we were still adamant that we had the right of it. Voices were raised, knuckles whitened and the next thing you know tables are being knocked over, glasses are shattering and the fists start to fly. I have no idea who through the first punch, but I do know that it wasn’t me that slugged the bouncer who rushed over to break things up.

It was like something out of an old western as everyone else in the pub got involved. Whether it was just them struggling to get out of the way or fighting back when their pint was spilled, I don’t know. But the table next to ours was knocked over and the two couple sitting at it started screaming and yelling. More bouncers came in, someone grabbed me by the arms and the last thing that I remember is yelling at this guy I was arguing with.

“There is no truth, there is only opinion!”

Okay, I admit it, none of that really happened. What did happen is that I got into a very brief discussion on Facebook after a posting by a friend about whether it was better to be brutally honest or not. But, you have to admit that the first version of the story is much more interesting, so would it have been better for me to be brutally honest right at the start or did I do the right thing by getting you interested and then moving onto my point?

I firmly believe that Truth is a completely subjective thing. What I believe to be true may be something very different from what you believe to be true. The obvious example of this that springs to mind is religion. Some people know that God, or Gods, exist while other people know that there is no God. Both groups know this to be the absolute truth. Another less blatant example is that I know that I looked good in my old purple shirt but the rest of the world disagreed. What was the truth behind that one?

Another aspect of being honest, as you see it, is why are you doing it? Part of the Facebook discussion was the difference between what you want to hear and what you need to hear. If I was to ask how I looked in that purple shirt (yeah, I really liked that shirt, deal with it!) it wouldn’t have made any difference to whether I wore it or not. But if I was told, “No, you look ridiculous,” then I would have got annoyed with the person telling me and that would have put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. They were just being honest as they saw it, telling me something that they thought I needed to hear, but it wouldn’t have stopped me from wearing it and would have ended up with both of us in a bad mood. So, did I really need to hear that?

Or should they have avoided being honest and gone for the silent approach?

Yes, there are times when you have to be honest and say things which are going to be hard for the other person to take, but you need to take into account that “The Truth” is just your opinion of the situation.

“What do you think of my new boyfriend?” she asks.

There are a few possible answers that flash through my head at that point. The first being “The guy is a prat, what do you see in him?” Next is “Does his mum know that he’s out this late – I mean, he is a bit young for you.” Then comes “I was told he looks a lot like me, don’t see it myself though.”

All of those would have been honest replies but none of them would have done anything useful or productive. So I keep quiet and mutter something along the lines of “as long as he makes you happy.”

Should I have been brutally honest in that situation? Or would my honesty only reflect the fact that I don’t like the new boyfriend for personal reasons that should have no affect what-so-ever on their relationship?

The point being that honesty is just your opinion on a matter. And brutal honesty is your just opinion put over in a rude manner. Of course, that’s just my opinion on the matter. I’m not for one second suggesting that people shouldn’t have opinions or should be afraid to air them, but you should be aware that you could be completely wrong about what you are about to say. And, whether you are right or not, is the honesty worth the consequences that it is likely to cause?

Another thing to consider is the old saying – “Honesty is the best policy?” Really? So how does that CV look when you don’t embellish it in any way? And sticking with the job theme, when was the last time you called in sick saying “I just can’t be bothered getting out of bed today?”

Everyone lies. And everyone wants to be lied to. We all have our self-deceptions that we don’t want to lose. Lies make the world go round. Fiction of any kind – lies. This means books, films, TV. We know that it’s lies and we love it because of that. Even TV that is touted as reality comes with that little disclaimer that states that some scenes have been created for entertainment value. Another way of saying that they’re lying to make it better.

Everyone lies and the world is a better place for it. Don’t believe me? Try being brutally honest for a week and see how many friends you have left at the end of it? I’m certain that you have a couple of people in your life who would appreciate the honesty, up to a point. But the majority of people you have any kind of communication with will see you as being nothing more than rude and opinionated.

Trust me about this, I’m only being honest.

Today was the fourth visit and the worst of the lot. I spent an hour in the chair staring up at a light that came close to blinding me and trying not to gag as the dentist shoved his entire first into my mouth along with assorted instruments of torture. Okay, the entire fist thing may be a bit of an exaggeration but not much. My mouth is not overly large, so why did this maniac feel that he had to try to break the Guinness record for “most uncomfortable and sharp items put into a human mouth?”

As I was lying in the chair, which would have actually been very comfortable if it wasn’t for all the obvious discomfort that was going on, I had a lot of time to ponder. I tried to think of anything other than dentists, teeth and pain but my treacherous mind kept dragging me back to what was going on and during that time I learned a few things about myself.

I learned that when someone speaks to me and I’m not really listening to them I nod my head to make it seem as though I am listening. This is not something that I was aware of doing and it’s certainly not something that is due to conscious effort on my part. So, when the dentist’s assistant started talking to me about her plans for the weekend, and I hasted to add that the dentist was still up to his elbows in my mouth at this point, I nodded along to show that I was listening. NOT A GOOD PLAN!

I also learned that the sight of blood on latex gloves is something that is oddly fascinating and hypnotic, even when it’s your blood and a dentist is wearing the gloves. It may be something to do with the splash of scarlet on the surgical white, it may be something to do with the contrast in purity and pain, or it may just be my mind switching off as I realise I am looking at my own blood and it is not where it should be.

Another lesson was that no matter how hard I try, I cannot count all the hairs on my dentist’s wrist. He’s hirsute enough to make Robin Williams look like an egg and I can only wonder how much hair he loses every time he has to peel off those latex gloves. I hope it hurts him, I really do.

The last thing I learned is that dentists should provide a mirror for when you are wiping the cement type stuff they use from your face. Especially if you have a beard. Finding those crusty white bits stuck in the goatee after I walked home made me realise why so many people were looking at me strangely as they passed by. It would even explain why that one man smiled at me and winked.

I’m sure that dentists are very nice people and I know they do an essential job, but I’ll be delighted if I never see another one in my life. Or at least until my next appointment in about ten days.

I open my mouth but no words come out. Taking a sip of water from the plastic cup in my hand I clear my throat and try again. Still, no words and this is beginning to seem more and more unreal, like a nightmare come true. Once more I try to speak and finally, in a voice that is weak and shaking, it happens.

“My name is Roy and I’m a Larper.”

Okay, none of that should be taken literally and I think that it may require some explanation as well. LARP – what is it good for? Who knows. Anyway, LARP or Live Action Role Play is a hobby which I have been involved with in some fashion or other for about half my life now and I have a love / hate relationship with it. I go through phases when it’s my main pastime and then I go through phases when it strikes me as being slightly ridiculous.

LARP is a form of role-playing where instead of sitting around a table and rolling dice or frantically pushing buttons in front of a game console you get dressed up as your chosen character and go and live as that character for a short length of time. You enter into a make-believe world with a group of like-minded people and you do your best to grow and prosper in this world. There are rules and guidelines that you have to follow, but to a large degree you are free to act as you see fit.

Yup, it is Cowboys and Indians for grown-ups. Although grown-up may not be quite the correct word for us. There are many genres or types of LARP game, everything from the afore-mentioned Wild West to Vampire, Middle Earth, futuristic, horror and pretty much anything you can think of.

Those who have any kind of opinion on LARP tend to be divided into two separate camps. On one side of the cloth fence that has been painted to look like a stone wall are those that love it. They view it as being the highest form of role-play, a way to express your creative side, to deal with problems that you would never face in your real life and to push your imagination as far as it can possibly go. It promotes both team work and lateral thinking, it is an environment where people from all kinds of social background can mingle on an equal footing and it is good, clean, healthy fun.

The other view is a bit less complex, basically all Larpers are socially inept losers who try to escape from their sad lives by wearing stupid costumes and hitting each other with rubber swords.

My view is somewhere between the two. LARP can be a lot of fun but it has more than its fair share of people who take it way too seriously. The mix of people involved always impresses me. On one side of the coin there are the highly creative types who love to experience a small slice of life from the viewpoint of someone other than themselves, and then you have the less socially skilled types who do believe that pretending to be someone else is the only way that they have to really experience life at all. And of course the vast majority of us fit somewhere in-between those two extremes.

For the last year or so I’ve had very little to do with LARP in any form and I’m beginning to get withdrawal symptoms from it. I used to play in the Lorien Trust gaming system, a huge event where people from all over the country got together, and in a few different local Vampire games, mainly Embraced. The Vampire games tended to be higher quality than the national games, but when you see the same people at every game things can grow stale.

I enjoy the side of LARP that lets you push yourself, lets you learn a bit more about yourself and lets you deal with problems and situations that you are never going to face anywhere else. How often do you have to find a way to stop a Demon Lord from gathering sacred artefacts and raising an army of mindless zombies in your normal office job? Okay, the mindless zombies bit may have a bit of a cross over, but you know what I mean.

So, I’m looking into going back to LARP, at least in a small way. Time to get back in touch with old friends, or at least adventuring companions and see what world needs to be saved this week.

Or, of course, I might go along to one event and realise that I stopped playing for a very valid reason.

Time to roll the dice and see what happens. (Not really, we don’t use dice in LARP, that’s the whole point. Oh, you understood what I meant. Sorry, just didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding. Okay, yes, I’ll shut up now.)

However, even I have to admit that snow does have its good points. For one thing, it covers a multitude of sins, literally. I’m walking outside every day for a couple of hours and I have to admit that there have been many occasions when I’ve realised that the glittering coat of ice and snow all over the world has given it a veneer of beauty and freshness, something similar to an aging B-List celebrity going in for expensive plastic surgery. You know that nothing has really changed, that you’re still looking at the same person, but somehow they don’t seem to be as grating and annoying,.

When I’m out and about in an area I know well and the snow is covering the ground, many of the little things that annoy me are hidden and, as the old saying goes, out of sight out of mind. It is in my case anyway, there are so many things that annoy me that I can only focus on a few of them at a time and if some of them are hidden away from me then I can easily over-look them. I may not forgive easily, but I do forget at the drop of a hat.

Anyway, the snow melted in my part of the world about a week ago. At least most of it did, there are still a few patches of grubby ice kicking around. And, as the snow melted the terrain underfoot became visible once more. In the local park, this wasn’t an issue, there were paths, ponds, grass, the usual sort of things. The park ius very well maintained and there are people working in it almost constantly, so it’s a nice place to visit, to wander around in. Photogenic even. But, the snow also cleared away from the streets of the estate that I live in and that could be no stretch of the imagination ever be considered to be a photogenic place. Unless you count those pictures you see on the BBC Website of the urban disaster areas.

Apart from the layer of muddy grit which the snow had left behind, the streets are back to normal. Instead of a covering of snow, they have a covering of junk food boxes, broken bottles and crushed cans, bookie pens, dog crap and for some reason which I haven’t quite been able to understand, parts of furniture, such as drawers and cupboard doors and things like that. Paints itself a very pleasant image, doesn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe for one second that where I live is anywhere worse than any similar sort of place, but it doesn’t do much to give you a sense of community spirit or pride of ownership.

A lot of the rubbish lying around you expect. We live within a stone’s throw of both a McDonald’s and a KFC so fast food cartons are to be expected. There is a bookie nearby as well, so those tiny little pens that they have are scattered everywhere. Seems to be a never ending supply of them. Lots of people in the estate have dogs and very, very few clean up after them so yeah, dog crap every ten feet is not pleasant, but hardly comes as a shock. There are some things which are less easy to explain, or at least they are less easy for me to understand.

The bits of broken furniture confuse me. If they were entire shelf units that had been dumped at the side of the street then that would make a kind of sense. But it’s not, instead it is just single parts of cupboards or desks or shelves. One lonely cupboard door sitting in the middle of the pavement, surrounded by dog crap, fag butts and crushed Tennetts Lager cans. Where did it come from, where is it going to, where is the rest of the cupboard? Why is it on my pavement? Is it a message of some kind, a warning from an unknown guardian angel? Or could it be a secret code to unearth the greatest secrets of the past.

Or could it just be a bit of junk that someone has abandoned and the drunks and junkies have moved for some reason that makes sense only to them?

I’ve met some of the people who live in this area and they all seem like decent enough types. But the community as a whole is, well actually it’s pretty non-existent. Everyone keeps themselves to themselves and doesn’t get involved in anything that doesn’t directly concern them. There is no estate factor or group to oversee maintenance and the likes so no one is willing to do anything that affects the area as a whole . Rubbish piles up, vandalism becomes more common and property prices drop. And more importantly, I’ve got a pretty high chance of getting dog crap on my shoes whenever I go out.

So, despite it going against everything I know to be true, I’d be quite happy to see the snow come back for a while. Just to give the area that appearance of being clean.

Thankfully, we’re going to be moving out of this place soon and I will have to find something else to become irritable about.

Before I go, if you happen to see any furniture roaming the streets looking for their lost doors or drawers, let me know. It would be an act of kindness and generosity to put the media unit back in touch with it’s lost shelf or give the bathroom cabinet back the missing mirror.

Snow, the lack of it and what the difference between the two situations really means to you and me.

People. (Yeah, a bit of a broad topic I know, but I have something in mind for that one.)

Things nowadays just ain’t what they used to be. (Please Charlotte, no comments about my youth, or lack of it.)

The difficulty of narrowing down creative options. (Yup, not a very fun sounding topic but trust me, I can make it work.)

Eve. (Sorry to you sensible people who don’t play Eve, but I do have to mention it now and again.)

SLA Industries. (Again, an apology to those of you who don’t role-play but I promise that I will try to keep it at least vaguely interesting and entertaining.)

There will be a lot more monologues put up and I have the very best intention of being much more regular with the blog. No, that’s not a Resolution, I don’t do Resolutions. I just resolve to do more stuff.

See you soon.

Now, the park is quite a big place and it has a lot of different paths and in the morning it’s quite possible to walk for more than half an hour without seeing another living soul. Especially when you go through the woods at the back of the park where the dog has plenty of opportunity to chase squirrels and rabbits.

Anyway, the dog was running ahead of me and I was strolling along underneath the trees, watching the snow fall and seeing the sun glint on the frozen ponds that I was passing. I have to admit that I was getting a bit mesmerised by this, the crunch of the snow underfoot, the dog leaving prints in the virgin snow, my breath coming out in breaths of steam and Pink Floyd playing through the headphones. It’s easy to get hypnotised by that sort of thing, well, it’s easy for it to happen to me.

Okay, I’m sure you’re wondering where this is going because, at this point, it sounds like the basis for a poem by Wordsworth. I was looking ahead now, watching the dog trying to catch snowflakes as they were coming down and laughing to myself at her sheer joy in life. All was well with the world. And then it happened. The disaster that all this had been building up to.

Lost as I was in my own little world I didn’t notice that I had wandered off the path slightly and the next thing I know is my feet go from under me and I’m falling forward. For what seemed like an eternity I was slowly falling and then I was surrounded by snow. I’d fallen face-first into a snow-drift that I later found out was almost four feet deep.

I guess I was lucky because my fall was broken by the frozen thorn bushes that lay at the bottom of the drift and, as I lay there, a number of thought went through my head. First and foremost was “Ouch!” Even through all the layers of clothes I was wearing to combat the cold the thorns were sharp. Next I was thinking “Oh my god, it’s bloody cold!” The snow had got down the back of my neck, up my sleeves, everywhere and the comfortable warm feeling I had been enjoying was most definitely gone.

After that came “Crap, I’m drowning.” At this stage the snow had got up my nose and into my mouth and it was unpleasantly like the sensation of drowning. Quickly following this was “I wonder how long it’s going to be before I’m found and I hope I die in a dignified pose.” This led on to “There’s no dignified way of drowning to death in a snow drift in a park.”

Maybe my mind was becoming irrational, or more irrational, by now because then I was thinking “Where’s that bloody dog, shouldn’t she be trying to rescue me? Maybe she’s gone for help or at least to pick up a barrel of brandy to force between my frozen lips. I’m sure Lassie would have got me out of here by now!”

I think that my mind gave up trying to figure out what was going on at this point and my body took over because, without conscious thought, I stood up. Yes, the snow did come to just over my waist, and yes I had landed in bush and no, the dog wasn’t trying to rescue me. In fact, the dog didn’t seem to have noticed that I’d gone – I could see her in the distance trying to catch up with a rabbit.

After a few failed attempts I managed to drag myself out of the drift, brushed myself down, checking that the MP3 player was still attached to my belt and continued my walk, looking around to make sure that no-one had seen my embarrassing journey. The point to this little tale is that in the face of potential disaster, my mind was absolutely no help at all, but left to its own devices, my body saved the day. If I’d continued to think about what was going on I’d probably still be down that damned hole.

Tomorrow morning, I think I may just take a different route around the park, one of the more travelled paths. And I need to do something about training to dog to rescue me in times of need.