The Fourteenth Adjustment

by Robert Wingfield

  Dearheat, Rannie Dodgy dealer in innovative goods, and international woman of mystery. Former lover of the Magus.

  DO-A Robot reporters for the Daily Outrage are all given letter designations. DO-A is obviously their prime reporter. ‘C’ covers medical developments, ‘G’ the animal interest stories and ‘X’ any problems with available companions.

  Doku A large, four-horned placid bovine creature, with the ability to translocate in a similar way to the Magus, only much further. They are usually found on the planet, Glenforbis, renowned for its fertiliser industry, lush pastures and bracing air.

  Doku Shunt The Doku-shunt weapon can be loaded with any small sharp items. Favoured are mined slivers of diamond from rogue asteroids, and they prove very popular with the victims, who make a special point of collecting the remaining fragments as compensation for the inconvenience.

  Doku-virus A virulent affliction that causes excessive hair growth. No known cure (as yet).

  Errorcode, Montague Shifty weasel in charge of Change Management at SCT, for the only reason that he can't be sacked because of his original contract.

  Existentialism control An emergency life-saver, put in by one of the under-graduates on an engineering/philosophy joint degree, studying the meaning of life... existence precedes essence—e.g. how badly do you need to escape? The scale goes from ‘I don’t care about life’ to ‘save me, I have furry animals to support’. The Magus always liked to have it set round about seventy-five percent.

  Fairway, Pietro Head of the car parking organisation, PUSS.

  FOAD button Stands for ‘Fuck Off And Die’. This was added by request to standard keyboards as a more extreme form of the ‘escape’ key. It overrides all the various warning prompts such as ‘Are you sure?’, “Are you really sure?” and “By pressing this key you confirm that all your personal data will be collected by the browser and search-engine, and left on a memory stick in a taxi of our choice.”

  FoFF The Federation of Footwear Fitters—shoe-sellers to the rich and famous. ‘Never knowingly under-priced’.

  Fortune, the See The Black Empress Kara’s Good Fortune.

  Fuksake Pronounced ‘Fook-Sarkey’, a strong Skagan spirit. You really don’t want to know how it’s made. (Actually, if you want to risk it, have a look at the reference in ‘The Fifth Correction’.)

  Fuksit Sapristi is breaking away from the Consortium of planets so they can set their own car-parking laws. Also known as Sapsit, but that doesn’t reflect the feelings of most of the inhabitants.

  Glenforbis The planet that supplies all the fertiliser for the galaxy from their extensive dung mines. Home of the doku. See also, Glenodure.

  Glenodure The capital of Glenforbis is one of the smelliest and unhealthy places in the galaxy, where diesel fumes lock into the reek from the dung deposits, and create a toxic smog that when compressed can be used as road surface.

  Glowplug A Skagan pilot of extreme skill.

  GoD The Galactinet of Doobries. Everything is connected in to this omnipresent data-sharing network, which is specifically controlled by the security forces for signs of insurgency, and the criminals for signs that you have gone away on holiday.

  Gong Farmers Workers in the dung mines of Glenforbis.

  Gottstein, Ludwig A wealthy Charman businessman, and one of the Magus’ main clients and friend.

  Groat A Skagan pilot of little talent or understanding.

  Headphones The Time Cylinder works on thought waves. The pilot wears the apparatus and thinks of where he/she/it wants to be in time and location, and the Time circuits read the thought waves and do the rest. Much safer than random relocations, where there is a high probability that the machine would materialise inside a planet, or worse still, Brussels.

  Itchy-sandal Secret organisation, roughly translated as ‘one-three-five’, a winning hand in Baccarat, at which they are very poor at cheating. Other players are advised to pretend not to notice.

  Lagomorph Any of various plant-eating mammals of the order Lagomorpha, having fully furred feet and two pairs of upper incisors—including rabbits, hares, and pikas.

  LARD42 A universal spray lubricant and preservative, one of only two vital maintenance items required for a toolkit, the other being duct tape. With these, you can repair absolutely anything. As Oilflig himself wisely said, “To get anything moving, use LARD42; to stop it moving, use duct tape.”

  Luigi, Big Three-Fingered Rannie’s henchman, loves rabbits and runs a polite extortion racket. Also a part-time hitman.

  Magus, the Private investigator, owner of the doku herd, and strange little man with alien physiology, odd powers, and a hat.

  Maurice the Bastard Usurper of the throne of Out. Acting as Grand Vizier until another Emperor can be found that is stupid enough to accept the post.

  Maurice the Other Bastard His devious twin brother. Head of the Out army, what there is left of it.

  MUPPET Mental Unconscious Permanent Physical Ethereal Translocation—Auto-Telekinesis.

  Musoketeba The location of the Nishant Corporation—it could be a planet, a country or a star system. Nobody knows, or really cares. The outsourcing deals are cheap.

  Nishi, Joshi Head of the Nishant Corporation.

  Norbert Deity of the Skagans, who have many gods, all called Norbert, to make things simpler for them.

  Out, the Planet The wettest world in the universe. ‘We gotta get out of this place’, became simply, ‘Out’, once the water got into the CD player. Was the headquarters location of the Temporal Conduct Authority.

  P units Small autonomous killer drones, built by the SCT workshops for STOP, with instructions to reclaim parking fines, or destroy the offending vehicles.

  Personal Development Plan PDP: an idea thought up by personnel departments and top management to keep their workers unsettled in their jobs. This results in the brightest, and therefore most troublesome, of their workers handing in notice, and subsequently saves the cost of redundancies.

  Phoist, Oilflig The legendary founder of everything in all universes, wit, oracle and nemesis of most of the good guys. His name is used as an exclamation of shock, surprise, and dismay at postal deliveries that consist of small cards telling you to go and get the parcel yourself.

  Pionio In particle physics, a pion consists of a quark and an antiquark and is the lightest meson and of lowest power. In this case, a directed stream of pions is the equivalent of flag waving, and very secure for line-of-sight ship-to-ship transmissions. The ‘pionio’ is that transmitter and receiver device.

  Poordraw, Ferguson Main head of TBP. May be related to Ferdinand Badloser. Assumed the leadership of STOP.

  PUSS Parking under Special Sircumstances (sic)—acronym developed by trained marketing people at Nishant.

  Sapristi Also known as ‘Fukeds’ by people who live there and disagree with the government... which is just about all of them.

  SCT The company Tom found himself in charge of. Nobody could tell him what the initials stood for. It has been rebranded ‘SCT’ as ‘Space Community Transport’ simply to save having to change the headed notepaper and shiny hats.

  Sex There is a school of thought that suggests that terrorists and warmongers are only so because they don’t have enough sex. In a more liberated society, folks are more interested in rutting, than blowing things up. Ask yourself, how many wars have been started by Bonobo apes, who spend all their time at it?

  Shunt See Doku Shunt.

  Singpurvitch, Mr Representative from Nishant Engineering.

  Six, Caryl Former lover of Tom, refugee from a people farm and newly discovered heiress to the galactic ‘Six’ empire. She is currently away, tracking down her family, in the hope she can get some of the wealth for herself, and doesn’t feature much.

  Skagans Stunning (in looks and effect), statuesque race of warmongering sex maniacs.

  Skagos Home planet of the Skagans, beautiful, peaceful and newly terraformed after an unpleasant st
rip-mining invasion by the Consortium.

  Skull Stitch A variation on cross-stitch, where instead of a cross shape, each of the stitches resembles a skull with an axe imbedded in it. Also known as ‘the mad psycho-stitch’.

  Spigot A Skagan woman. Always wanted to be a poet, but very good with engines too.

  STOP Secure Terrain for Orderly Parking. Ferguson Poordraw is CEO, with May Welby and Pietro Fairway.

  Swedwayland A distant country of coldness and lakes, famed for the beauty and height of its few inhabitants who grow tall and blond, in an attempt to reach what little light there is. First discovered by Earnest Swedway, and quickly abandoned again when he also discovered the size of the mosquitos. Repopulated many years later, after the invention of anti-aircraft weapons. The women are known across the galaxy for their compliance and willingness to move to any country where they can marry for a local passport, and their make-up doesn’t have to contain anti-freeze.

  Swipes, Faye Sister of Len Swipes, fighter and dermatologist. After marriage to Basil the Second time around of Out, changed her name to Faye the Blurgar Saver.

  Swipes, Len Leader of the Blurgar barbarian tribes and part-time optometrist.

  Tanda Skagan second in command, the milder face of Skagan intelligence.

  Tay, Kara Anatomically perfect former pleasure gynoid and creation of one of Tom’s other persona. Hates Tom but can’t dispose of him because of her original programming.

  TBP Total Bastard Parking—the force determined to take over everything. Evolved into the combined organisation, STOP.

  TCA The Temporal Conduct Authority was set up to stop all these time travellers mucking about with history. Disbanded after its leader, Ferdinand Badloser, lost at tennis.

  Tuesday, Mrs Tea lady, nouveau Director of the SCT Incorporated Catering Kitchen (SICK) and Duchess of Twatt.

  Tween Space There are thought to be several types of space: External Space, in which all the normal conditions rule, Inner Space, where thoughts, emotions and satire comes from, Tween Space where you go if you get really lost, and Third Space, where there is no thought, no emotion, and little energy—much like the content of some road planners’ heads.

  Tweenies Inhabitants of ‘Tween’ Space, of limited intellect, but easy to please, and willing to be educated.

  UNIX Universal Network Information Exchange, a vintage operating system, famous for its transparency in using the default administrator password, which it is mandatory never to change, and the fact that its programmers have to learn a secret language, understood only by those over the age of 60.

  Vac Skagan chief and original head of security for SCT.

  Vermicelli, Mycroft Spokesperson for the common employee. Trade Union leader.

  Welby, May Owner of CRAP and lesser member of the new STOP triumvirate.

  WIMPS or wimps. Weakly interacting massive particles—Rannie is of the opinion that the Magus converts himself to dark matter when he performs his MUPPET telekinesis. She is still trying to find a practical application for it, but has only so far succeeded with relocating teaspoons and ballpoint pens.

  Young, Pete Pete Young is a talented engineer, working for SCT. Took over from Old Pete when that worthy was blown up in the tragic accident that took out the original SCT Plank of directors (See ‘Into the Fourth Universe’).

  Robert Wingfield

  W

  hen the man was asked to take a friend to Stanstead Airport and came across the new draconian parking restrictions, where you even have to pay to drop someone off, he got to wondering why these people are allowed to get away with taking such liberties. Outsourcing had to be the answer, and there is more and more of this going on, where organisations shift the responsibility on to other organisations, so that they are not accountable themselves. Go and tackle the main owner of the airport, and he/she/it will say ‘not my problem’. Alas, but it is his/her/its problem. Sometime in the not too distant future, he/she/it will be made accountable.

  The Fourteenth Adjustment is a fictional image of that future, where the free people of the galaxy rise up against the domination of forces intent on removing personal liberty and making themselves a tidy profit.

  Beware you industry leaders, you traffic planners, you speed camera spreaders and everyone else intent on controlling the people. The revolution is coming.

  Oh, and he writes a lot too, from sci-fi and Gothic to travel, children’s and social satire. You will find details at:

  http://www.cantbearsd.co.uk

  Other Works by the Author

  If you enjoyed The Fourteenth Adjustment please do put a favourable review up on your supplier, and also have a look at the others in the ‘Dan Provocations’ Series:

  The Legend of Dan

  This is how it all started. Tom is whisked away on a chaotic and erotic tour of the universe, in an attempt to resist the domination of a malicious mail order consortium.

  Third Universe

  Slipping into another universe via the railway system (you’ve all been there), Tom spends time on a people farm in apocalyptic UK, and ends up having to save Time and Space from total collapse.

  Into the Fourth Universe

  Now in charge of a major corporation, Tom is shifted into another alternative universe, where bureaucracy and process have taken over from all logic and good sense, and begins a lusty romp through everything wrong with business and life today.

  The Fifth Correction

  The Magus finds the answers to everything, as Two-Dan desperately tries to avoid his downfall at the hands and feelers of the Temporal Conduct Authority.

  All can be found by searching the Internet or via www.cantbearsd.co.uk or by contacting the author directly via rw at cantbearsd co uk. Comments and encouragement always welcome.