Beam tossed his head dismissively at this strangely twisted logic and braced himself for his drive. The caddy moved back several metres and signalled to the members of Beam’s security team to move back also. They did so with alacrity: their boss’s wild swing was legendary. Beam’s opponent, Veronica Blaylock, the local Green Party MP, also stepped aside giving Beam plenty of room.
The sun shone down from a cloudless sky, highlighting the greenness of Beam’s exposed skin. He was wearing a fashionable short-sleeved shirt and baggy white shorts, both designed to maximise exposure to sunlight. Ever since he’d become infected with endosymbiotic cyanobacteria, he’d felt less hungry and more energetic but it hadn’t stopped him eating too much: old habits died hard. As he was about to swing his club back, he stopped and glanced over at Blaylock. She was a freckled red-head and didn’t have a green tan. He played his stroke and the ball sailed into a nearby bunker. A wave of sniggering passed through the onlookers.
Beam shrugged at his bad luck and turned to his opponent. ‘How come you haven’t gone green, if you see what I mean?’ he said pointing to his green tinged arm. ‘I’d have thought that members of your party would all have done it. Save the planet and all that.’
Blaylock smiled. ‘I think it would be a good idea if you thought about how you acquired your green tan, Jim. After all, it is an STD. Hence, you might have deduced that I haven’t had sex with anyone infected with it. My partner and I have an exclusive relationship: we don’t sleep around. Whereas you …..’ She turned away and concentrated on her own shot. The ball landed on the green within a metre of the hole.
Beam’s homunculus whispered in his ear. ‘I told you to compensate for the wind. That’s what she just did.’
Beam turned his head and glared at the parasite before striding towards the sand filled bunker. He could feel the woman’s gaze on his back and the accompanying grin even though he couldn’t see it.
In the bunker, he paused, ostensibly to work out how to take his shot. His opponent’s comment on his sexual mores was a bit of gamesmanship he could have done without. That morning, Melanie had raised the very same point. She’d seen a news item about how people became infected with the cyanobacterium. He could have only contracted the infection by having sex with somebody else and she wanted a divorce. He was going to pay, she’d said, and big style. Then, taking all her jewellery and clearing the safe of cash, she’d left their Mayfair apartment and gone to her mother’s ancestral pile in Surrey. Melanie was right, of course. He’d been taken for a ride by that alien bitch: she’d made sure he’d got the bug alright and his green tan was the evidence for all to see. It had all the hallmarks of an alien sting operation and he was the fall guy again!
In a fit of fury, he whacked the ball and it flew out of the bunker with an accompanying cloud of sand, landing in the rough. Beam knew he’d lost the game. There was a round of enthusiastic applause as Veronica Blaylock putted her ball into the waiting hole with a neat economical movement. Her demeanour and body language said it all: she was not going to take any nonsense from Beam. The citizen reporters were busy uploading their reports via their e-pads having muttered a running commentary into them over the past couple of hours. Within minutes, the travesty of a game would be described in detail for all to see on the Internet.
Burghe took Beam’s club from him with a pitying look but he didn’t put it back in the bag. He drew close to the minister and started talking in a low voice. Beam bent his head to hear him.
‘You spawn of Satan,’ said the caddy. ‘That woman is right. You are infected with evil. That green skin you display so proudly is a sign from God. You have been taken over by the alien scourge and there is only one cure.’
Burghe stepped back and swung the club at Beam’s head, smashing his skull with a single blow. His victim was dead before he hit the ground.
The security detail erupted into activity and surrounded Burghe before flattening him to the ground with guns held to his head. They handcuffed his arms behind his back and sat on him while looking around for further threats. In the distance, Burghe could hear the sound of a helicopter. Why was he still alive? Minutes later, the aircraft landed on the green, its rotors spraying the area with sand. Burghe’s captors picked him up and bundled him into the helicopter where pairs of hands received him and strapped him into a seat. A black bag was thrust over his head, as they took off and an American voice spoke into his ear.
‘Keep nice and quiet and you’ll come to no harm. We have further work for you Mr Burghe.’
****
Jemima Heinous-Smythe looked at the message on her e-pad.
Mission accomplished. Beam has gone.
Mike
She tapped the news icon on her e-pad. Footage of Beam’s death was being broadcast on several channels. Poor Jim, she thought. He wasn’t a bad man but he was a buffoon and had become a liability. There was no choice.
Ungreening
Marcella Bellini listened to her friend’s woes with minimal sympathy, but still she listened. That’s what friends do, she thought.
‘Have you noticed anything different about me?’ asked Zoë.
‘You’ve put on a bit of weight since I last saw you,’ replied Marcella, noticing the frizzy hair and a plump waistline pushing its way out of a very short black skirt.
‘That’s Doug for you,’ said Zoë. ‘He loves his pasta and chips and I eat the same as he does. I ought to lose weight really. No, what I mean is, something significantly different.’
Marcella looked at her companion again. ‘Let’s go outside. The light in here isn’t so good.’
Outside the shed, the two women surveyed the allotment basking in summer sunshine. Serried ranks of crops interspersed with companion plants filled the space before them.
‘You’ve really got it together here,’ said Zoë. ‘Growing all your own stuff and there’s Gerry with his recycled jewellery: it’s magic.’
‘OK Zoë, I’m looking at you. You seem to be your normal, energetic self. What’s wrong?’
‘The greening is what’s wrong! I’m infected. I’m turning green. The plague has got me!’ shrieked Zoë.
Marcella looked closely at Zoë’s cheek.
‘Right. Now I see it. You’ve joined the next stage of human evolution: the photosynthetic generation. Well done.’
‘Come on Marcella. I know it looks good to you: sustainability and all that but do you know how it’s transmitted?’
‘I read that it’s an STD. Is that right? Web stuff is so unreliable and government sites are full of propaganda and downright lies. It’s hard to get the real facts.’
‘You get it by having sex with somebody who’s infected. Now do you see my problem?’
‘Does Doug have it then? Did you get it from him?’
‘No, he doesn’t have it …. yet.’
‘Oh, but he’ll get it from you. So, where did you get it? Have you some nice juicy man stashed away? Who is he?’
‘It is a sexually transmitted disease,’ enunciated Zoë. ‘The US president is being divorced by the first lady because he turned green. Doug will go apeshit when he sees my greening skin. It was only a one night stand: he was lovely.’ Zoë burst into tears and sat on the bare earth path next to a raised bed full of dwarf beans just coming into flower.
Marcella looked at her friend with a little more sympathy. She knew that the greening, a beneficial infection by photosynthetic cyanobacteria, had been initiated by the aliens. To her, it seemed like a good idea in environmental terms, but the mode of delivery was crude. It may have seemed logical to the Gliesens but it cut across too many taboos to be accepted by the human targets of the scheme.
‘How can I help, Zoë? Do you want me to talk to Doug?’
‘No, no, don’t do that.’
‘Have you tried your doctor? It is an infection after all.’
‘Have you been to see your doctor recently? The charges are astronomical. You don’t pay for the consultation but there’s a booking
fee, seating is coin operated and getting a prescription is like taking out a mortgage. Apart from that, my GP is a Christian evangelist. He’ll refuse to treat me on the grounds of morality or insist on telling Doug he’s in danger of getting infected. So, no doctor.’
‘I know, stay out of the sun: that’ll slow things down a bit.’
‘I can’t stay indoors all the time or keep covered up when it’s nice summer weather. I’ll green up eventually.’
‘I think your best bet would be to tell Doug before you get too green. Then he’ll have time to get used to it. Tell him it was just a fling and you won’t see the other guy again.’
‘I’ve a better idea. You know an alien. Get me a cure!’
****
The members of the Alien Technology Acquisition Group sat in special session in their usual room in the building affectionately known as Babylon-on-Thames. Leather upholstered chairs creaked as they settled themselves and the clinking of a crystal decanter against glasses set the scene.
The Home Secretary, Jemima Heinous-Smythe, opened the meeting. ‘As you know, we’re here to discuss the green plague,’ she said, looking around the table at the other members. ‘I am glad to see that none of us has acquired it. That would not be good PR.’
‘Not to say somewhat hazardous,’ interjected Mike, the CIA representative.
‘Yes, a pity about the Golf Minister, Jim Beam,’ replied Heinous-Smythe. ‘We don’t want any more assassinations of prominent politicians.’ She glanced round at her right shoulder. Her parasitic advisor, her homunculus, wearing a grey suit and blouse that matched its host’s outfit, nodded its agreement. It leant over and whispered in her ear. Heinous-Smythe paused until it had finished and then continued. ‘The PM has come to the conclusion that the green plague is not the great leap forward that the aliens would have us believe.’
‘So, what’s her take on it?’ asked the bio-terror consultant.
‘It’s all to do with moral sexual behaviour,’ replied the Home Secretary. ‘Turning green and being ecologically correct is all very well but showing everybody that you’ve been sleeping around is not that good an idea. It flies in the face of our stance on old fashioned family values.’
‘The president thinks the Gliesens are trying subvert our morals and send us all to hell,’ interjected Mike.
Heinous-Smythe looked at him with interest. ‘That would be putting it strongly, I think. However, the president is obviously thinking along similar lines.’
‘So, what does the PM want us to do?’ enquired George the MI6 man.
‘We have to find out if there is a way of reversing or preventing it.’
‘All attempts at vaccination have failed so far. The Gliesens have engineered it to circumvent the human immune system: very clever,’ added the bio-terror man.
‘In summary then: we need to get the aliens to give us a way of nullifying the green plague,’ said Heinous-Smythe. ‘The PM is not too fussy about how we get this info but it must be done with no publicity. Once we have a cure, however, we can make a lot of political capital out of it, especially if we release news of the breakthrough just before the next election.’
****
After Zoë had left, Marcella thought about how she could help her. Going to see Prof Mzorkl Probtzl was a possibility but she thrust that idea to the back of her mind for the moment. Working with the aliens could have unforeseen consequences as she had found in the past. Bearing in mind that the Gliesens were the originators of the greening, she couldn’t see any reason for them to help her anyway.
She pulled out her e-pad and got on to the Internet. She knew it was going to take time trawling through the plethora of information on the green plague, so she went back into the shed. It wasn’t so much a shed but a compact three roomed residence fitted out with most of the usual necessities of life. The kitchen-diner doubled up as a workshop and there was a separate bedroom and very small sitting room. It suited her and Gerry very well. Mental lubrication, she thought, as she poured a glass of parsnip wine. Then she set about searching for ideas for curing the so-called green plague. To her mind, being photosynthetic and able to make your own food like a plant seemed to be a brilliant idea. The human carbon footprint would be substantially reduced if everyone became infected. She’d considered getting the greening herself but hadn’t quite worked out how to do it. Perhaps Mzorkl Probtzl would be able to tell her what to do. In the meantime, she would gather as much info as she could and perhaps find some way of helping Zoë out of her predicament.
Marcella was still ploughing through the acres of stuff on the web about the green plague when Gerry returned from Ormskirk market, three hours later.
‘I’m starving,’ he announced. ‘What’s for tea?’
‘I’ll do something in a minute. Just been getting some info together on the green plague. Zoë’s in a bit of a fix and I’m trying to find out how I can help her.’ Marcella went on to explain Zoë’s problem.
Gerry laughed at first but then thought about it more deeply. ‘Yeah, Doug is the puritanical type. He’d not take it too well if she turned green. What have you found so far?’
‘Lots of stuff but nothing concrete. There are so many charlatans out there trying to make a quick buck, it’s hard to see anything useful amongst the dross.’
‘Your herbalist friend helped when I got depressed. How about asking her?’
‘That’s an idea. I’ll go and see her later.’
****
In failing light, on her way back from seeing Elsie the herbalist, who lived in a highly decorated wooden caravan on an adjacent allotment, Marcella had a feeling that she was being watched. She scanned the surrounding area for movements and was rewarded by a glimpse of a figure emerging from behind a hedge.
‘Come out if you want to talk to me,’ she said loudly. ‘If you want anything else, be warned I have martial arts training.’
The tall slim man walking towards her looked like a typical grad: scruffy jeans, tee-shirt and trainers. Something didn’t quite gel though. His blond hair was far too tidy. The illusion was shattered completely by his voice.
‘Ms Bellini, I know all about your martial arts training. It’s in your file,’ he said in a plummy public school accent.
‘My file? Surely an unemployed graduate couldn’t be so important that she’d be in some security service file. That’s ridiculous.’
‘Not so ridiculous,’ he said, now standing in front of her. ‘You vanquished a security service agent on this very allotment a couple of years ago, did you not?’
‘I don’t know who he was or who he worked for. All I know is that he attacked and threatened me. I dealt with him and he ran off nursing his balls.’
‘I have not come here to attack you. Can we sit somewhere?’
Marcella motioned towards a bench alongside the path and they sat down.
‘OK Mr Agent, what do you want? If it’s to do with my parent’s tree rat business, I had nothing to do with it. That was all their own doing.’
‘You can call me John. Shall I call you Marcella? Good. Now we’re on first name terms we can talk.’
Marcella looked at him enquiringly and he continued.
‘I’ll come straight to the point, Marcella. We need your help.’
Marcella held her hand up. ‘Who is we. You could be anybody.’
John pulled out an ID wallet and flipped it to show her the details. ‘I work for the government and it is your country that needs your help.’
‘Are you joking? My country, as you call it has done nothing for me. I’m just a statistic, a grad, a useless unemployable history graduate with a huge unpaid student loan. And the government needs my help? Think again.’
‘Let me explain. You have heard of the green plague, no doubt and you know that it has not gone down well with large numbers of people across the globe.’
‘Mainly the religious bigots, you mean. Ecologically speaking it is a sound strategy. The Gliesens have done us humans a favour.’
>
‘I can see where you are coming from, Marcella. As a sustainability concept it has merits but being human many reject it because of its alien origins.’
‘So, where do I come in?’
‘The aliens are very close knit and don’t take humans into their confidence very much. You have an alien contact, a friend even: Professor Mzorkl Probtzl at Lancaster. Correct?’
‘Yes. So what?’
‘We would like you to infiltrate the Gliesens and find out how to cure the green plague.’
Marcella laughed loudly. ‘What do I do, just walk into his office and ask him for the details. He may be a friend but he’s unlikely to tell me anything. It’s not his field anyway. He’s a neurologist.’
‘You are an attractive young woman, Marcella and it is well known that Gliesen men, when in season, find human women very seductive. I am sure that you could persuade him to help you.’
‘No way!’ said Marcella standing up. ‘I am not going to be some sort of prostitute so that the government can undo the greening.’ She started to walk away.
John followed. ‘Look, we know where your parents are and could easily have them extradited from Spain. They would be found guilty of several offences in a British court: their pyramid selling scam would be enough to put them away for years. And we know it was you who planted the tree rat colony in the House of Commons. We found it very amusing actually, but we could become very unamused.’
‘So that’s it: blackmail,’ replied Marcella stopping suddenly and turning towards him. How low can you stoop?’
‘Very low my dear. Now I’ll tell you what to do.’
Once the agent had gone, Marcella made her way back to the shed. Gerry was watching a documentary on honey bees and she sat down beside him. Instead of telling him about the security man’s visit, she described her visit to the herbalist. It had been very promising: something about Colombian folk remedies that Elsie was working on. It looked possible that Marcella could help Zoë with her little problem of infidelity. She would go back to see the herbalist in a couple of days. Marcella said nothing to Gerry about the teeming thoughts at the front of her mind: he would only worry if he knew.
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