“Forgive her lord.” said Romney, she has no concept of such things of course.” Victoria felt the creature's attention shift away from her and then she realised that she wasn’t breathing. She gasped and coughed aloud. “However. There is a violation here.”
“Of what do you speak, demon of the third circle?” it roared, “Tell me.”
“The freedom of will.” said Romney, and Victoria thought she saw him moving slightly in the whiteness to her side, blazing like a bonfire of outrage, and then he disappeared again. “The device installed this woman takes away her will and she has no power over that. The necessity of choice; whether to do evil or good has been removed. She chose to accept me as her blood bound, and that has been sullied by a defiling of the power of being able to choose. Even the most high lord Satan himself would not make that choice. The power of whether to choose good or to choose evil is irrelevant. What is important is that you have the power to choose. This action removes that choice.”
There was silence, and a breeze blew through the whiteness, and then a sigh that seemed to last forever.
“Very good, demon.” It said, “Very good indeed. You have the amulet?”
“I do.” said Romney and there was a pause as if it was being handed over but all Victoria could see was the whiteness.
“It is done.” said the voice, fading with a snarl as it did so. Victoria felt dizzy and staggered slightly as something was placed around her neck but she could not see herself or indeed anything and did not know what it was.
“Boss?” said Romney’s voice inside her head.
“Romney?” she said.
“Yeh. Come on. Jump to it. We have work to do.”
She laughed, and the white turned to black.
***
Victoria felt the necklace slip around her neck and memories flood into her mind that she had not seemed to have before.
“Have we just been to Hell?” she gasped.
“Sure have, boss.” said Romney in her mind. “Glad to be back. Now we have a puzzle to solve, and next to no time to solve it. Dawn is about an hour away.”
“What puzzle?” asked Victoria, pulling information from her computational engine. “The detonation zone is in fact forty-five minutes away.”
“No pressure then.” giggled Romney in her head. “The question is this: why did they go to all of the trouble of changing your blood group and destroying the necklace in the first place? The computational computer has embedded commands that could have made me invisible to you at a word.”
“But you would still be there.” she said, the ship's wheel in her hands. She still could not move.
“Correct. The commands would work on you, but not on me. A demon of even the third circle cannot be bound to a mechanical device no matter how complex it is without its permission.”
“As you are bound to my necklace.” said Victoria.
“That was a mutual choice.” said Romney, “And there’s no way I would agree to what they did to you. So why do it?”
“I don’t know.” said Victoria and she felt Romney searching through her mind, looking through the computational engine’s logs and then there was a slight click and she felt lighter somehow.
“release the wheel Victoria.” said Romney.
“I can’t.” she said.
“Just try it.”
Victoria stood back and pulled first one hand from the wheel and then the other. She stood looking at her hands for a second in surprise and then Romney chuckled in her head.
“They wanted to get rid of me because I can switch off the computational engine commands.” he said.
“Quickly.” she said, bracing herself against the wheel. “Eradicate all the hard coded commands.”
“Will do boss.” said Romney and Victoria sagged as her head seemed to explode and then slowly settle. She looked for the computational engine and found it easily. It was still running. She flexed her left hand and a knife blade shot from her knuckle and then withdrew.
“Try it.” she said.
“Sure.” said Romney, “COMMAND: Icarus.” Victoria did not move. The command had no power over her at all.
‘What command was that?” she asked, “I had not heard that one before.”
“Of course not.” said Romney, “It was a self-destruction command.”
“Ah.” said Victoria, “So you were quite confident that you had done the job properly.”
“Of course.” said Romney, and Victoria had a quick vision of Sebastian chuckling at her in her mind. “Ninety-nine percent sure, anyway. Now, turn the micron bomb circuits off.” he said and the zeppelin bucked a little and began to turn, the cabin swaying as it did so.
“Already done.” smiled Victoria. “Now this Zeppelin has an appointment with the depths of the English Channel that I am somewhat eager to keep.”
“Oh good idea.” said Romney, “Very good idea indeed.”
***
Prentice put down his newspaper and picked up his teacup, sighing deeply as he did so. Outside Big Ben chimed ten o’clock and the streets outside were dark and quiet, night having fallen quickly several hours before.
It had been a busy day, and all of the days since the sudden disappearance of the Pegasus Zeppelin some seven days before had been busy. He was exhausted. First and foremost, he had to explain to the government that the masterstroke they were to employ against the Germanic states had faltered somewhat, and after that he had to explain also why over the course if a week several members of the scientific community who had been instrumental to the creation of the micronic bomb had suddenly disappeared into thin air, without a word of explanation to any of their fellow scientists or family.
It had slowly begun to dawn on him that the Micronic bomb project without the scientific brains behind it was dead in the water. He could reorganise, regroup of course, and he knew that he was just the man for such a job, but several committee members and higher ranking government members were at best sceptical that he was to be trusted, given that it had all fallen apart under his command last time.
Still. So far, so good. He still had a long way to go before a new bomb could be built but he knew it was possible and above all that he could do it. Yet he could not understand what had happened to the Pegasus in the first place. The logs that the scientists had been able to run before they began disappearing showed that the Zeppelin and therefore the Micronic bomb had been nearly at the detonation point when the system had completely shut down just before the ship swung around and headed back the way it had come. Fishermen in the channel had reported a massive zeppelin crashing into the sea and rapidly sinking, so its location was more or less known, even if it was lost to them for in that part of the channel salvage was all but impossible so deep were the waters and strong the currents.
He stood up from his desk and looked out over the Thames as it flowed past the houses of Parliament. The lights of London bridge were lit, the sky full of zeppelins moving to and fro, criss crossing the city. He stood there for a moment and there was a small buzzing sound from his desk. he did not turn immediately however, and when he did so he did so slowly.
“Hello Victoria.” he said, and very slowly slipped into the chair behind his desk. She was dressed in a tight synthetic suit, the ocular device on her right eye spinning and turning as she focused on him.
“How did you know I was here?” she smiled and he pointed at his desk.
“Small tracker device fitted to your computational engine.” he said. “Minimal use as its range is only twenty feet or so. Thought it might come in handy one day though.”
“I know.” she said, and there was a small pop and a puff of smoke wafted up from a draw in his desk.
“Oops.” she smiled. “I thought I would leave it on for a while. Sadly, it seems broken now.,”
“Well.” smiled Prentice, leaning forward with his elbows on the desk and clasping his hands together, staring at her as he did so. “It hardly matters now you have returned.” he said.
/> “Oh I won't be staying long.” she said, moving towards him slowly, “I have just come to kill you.”
‘Is that so? he smiled. “Tell me. How did you do it? I am rather curious.”
Victoria leaned forward and slowly from inside the blouse of her suit pulled out the necklace. The eye in it glowed red, as if glaring at him.
“You could say I dared hell and all.” she said as Prentice stood quickly.
“COMMAND: Icarus” he said and Victoria smiled, turning her head at an angle to look at him in the same way a cat does before it attacks its prey.
“Oh dear.” she said. “Your toy seems to be broken.”
“You don’t appear to be broken to me.” said Prentice.
“Not in the conventional sense no. Everything you gave me still works. It is quite useful too I must say. What does appear to be broken however seems to be that you have no control over me anymore.” Prentice stood by the window, his face red as he gulped down air, his hands clawing at his tie as if it was about to strangle him.
“Don’t kill me.” he pleaded, and looked as if he was about to throw himself at her feet, but Victoria sneered at him and he reconsidered moving towards her.
“Oh I could kill you in so many different ways. I have the pulse cannon in my hand, or the knife. In fact, I could keep it simple. You have made me so strong I could snap your spine easily.” She smiled widely and took a step forward. Prentice shrieked and moved backwards.
“But I am not going to do any of that in fact.” she smiled, and moving past him she took hold of the small leaded glass window and tore the whole frame out of the wall, throwing it across the office where it landed against the door, crashing loudly as it did so. “In truth I feel I have deserved a year off. The remuneration my computational engine has ...shall we say… secured from your office’s coffers is really quite embarrassingly high. Enough to drive you over the edge if it was ever found to be missing I would say, and missing it most definitely is. Well to you, anyway. Not to me however.”
“Out of the window.” she said, and Prentice crawled backwards to the window, squealing as he did so.
“No.”
“Out of the window.” she said and she lifted him up, but only enough so that he was standing upright. Once happy that he was standing on his own two feet she backed away from him a little way.
“We are ninety feet from the ground.” he gasped.
“Precisely.” she said. “Jump.”
Prentice looked at her and then leaning forwards spat in her face. Victoria smiled but said nothing as the civil servant turned away and with a scream leapt out of the window.
“for you…”
Prentice felt the air on his skin, and spinning saw the ground hurling towards him and then everything went white, and he was aware of something watching from the brilliant whiteness, waiting for him.
“Ah. Prentice.” came a voice that seemed to shake the very ground itself. “We have been waiting for you…”
We Want All of Your Jam
The day they came for the jam was about a year ago. We didn’t know they were coming. There we were with our Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, the football scores, the latest fashions and who was trending and who was not. We all seemed to have collectively taken our eye off the ball as they say, and all we seemed to be paying attention to wasn’t going to help us with the jam situation and that’s for sure.
Once the jam had gone we seemed to almost come to our senses and it became much more obvious what our real priorities should be. Food to eat (not counting the jam of course), friends and family and somewhere where we can be safe.
I think if you asked before it happened (in what I often think of as, “Jam Day Minus One”) that most people of the world didn’t have a clue what an EMP was. Almost everyone would have said it was a bad seventies band I think. They soon had an education on that one though. The minute the power went off as a huge electrical surge that as far as we knew covered the entire world made every electrical device obsolete in a second then the shit well and truly hit the fan.
I had read on the internet before everything went completely tits up that fourteen percent of the American population thought that there was a chance of a zombie apocalypse. Fourteen per cent! I wouldn’t like to have been anywhere near any of those buggers that believed in zombie Armageddon when all of the lights went out. I think it would have freaked them out completely, and there was always the distinct possibility that they might cut a bit fast and loose with the nearest axe regardless of whether you were a zombie or not.
Anyway. There we were. No more Facebook. No more television. No more anything really. Electromagnetic pulse it meant by the way in case you don’t know yourself what it means. EMP remember? Apparently the military were already working on things like that. Just not as powerful as the one that had turned the power off world-wide. Those clever ones told the least clever ones amongst us what it meant. I already knew, but that doesn’t make me one of the clever ones. Oh no. It just makes me one of the more informed ones. But these people who for whatever reason felt the need to educate the masses exactly what had happened and what an EMP was, they didn’t do it on the television or on the radio or on Wikipedia. No siree. They did it face to face. On soap boxes no doubt, some of them, and so not everyone got to hear the explanation. It didn’t matter much. Most people were too busy looting to show much interest at all really.
Then the saucers came. They slid silently across the morning sky, suspended above cities, hanging in the air motionless and not making a sound. They were huge. As big as the cities they floated over. Everyone below craned their heads upwards, waiting for them to do something, and nothing happened. They were still as silent as they had ever been when they had first appeared. A month passed. Even the looting stopped. We still had no power, but slowly we began to adapt.
Then every television, every computer, every radio in the world sprung to life. Even if it was not turned on. That threw quite a few people I can tell you. Still. It was the saucers. They had a message.
“People of the planet Earth,” said a voice that was completely neutral; accent less. I heard later that the message was transmitted in every language on the planet at the same time. I have no idea how they did that. “There is no need to fear our arrival.” continued the voice. It was flat and emotionless, almost like a voice designed by a machine. “We have travelled far but our intentions are not to cause you any harm. We have but one demand of all of your peoples: all nations, all countries. It is a simple demand but we do insist that our needs are to be satisfied.” There was a pause as billions of people all over the planet looked to the sky in anticipation, waiting to hear what these alien visitors wanted of us. We didn’t have long to wait. “We want you to stockpile in your capital cities a certain foodstuff that we desire greatly.” continued the voice. Lots of people all over the planet cast puzzled looks at each other at this point, no doubt.
There was a pause that seemed to stretch for a very long time, but in truth was probably no more than just a few seconds.
“We want all of your jam.” the message concluded and then all went silent.
Crowds gathered, discussing this strange demand but some must have somehow contacted whoever was sending the messages from above, for there was loud blast of what could best be described as similar to planet wide feedback and the same voice started again. “That includes marmalade too thank you very much.” The voice then fell silent once again but mere seconds later there was another crackling sound as if a microphone was hastily being snatched for the last time.
“You can keep the Marmite thanks all the same.” said the voice, “It is not really a fruit preserve. In fact, we are not entirely sure what it is.”
That was the last thing the visitors said. The jam was stockpiled in the cities and from time to time bright violet beams would shoot from the silver ships overhead and the jam would be gone. All of it went; the fruit preserves and conserves, the lemon curd and lemon cheese, the peanut butt
er. (We took a chance on the peanut butter and it disappeared all the same. Personally I was glad to see it go. Whoever thought a butter made from peanuts was a good idea has got a screw loose if you ask me.)
So they took all the jam. They did not show themselves at all. No other messages. No nothing. Some people think it is odd that they asked for the jam.
I don’t though. I think they were actually being very clever, because they took all of the jam very easily. Very, very easily indeed, and that is my worry, because if they took all of the jam so quickly and without any fuss at all… what are they going to ask to take next?
The Trial
Five cats gathered upon a shed roof as dusk approached, the neighbourhood slowly quietening down as night drew in nearer. They were gathered closely together almost in a circle as if they were conferring over something or another that was obviously important to cats in general, and to these five cats in particular. At the top of the circle was Lucky (real name: Darkclawsofdoomandblood) who sat washing himself, not paying much attention to what the other cats were doing. He had a sense of aloofness or importance, a fact which the other four cats on the roof appeared to be keen to acknowledge.
To Lucky’s left was Tiddles (real name: surrrrendernowallyoumiceandrodentsdeathapproaches) and facing him was Ginger (real name: callmegingeronemoretimeandyouwilldiehorribly) who was sitting looking up at the occasional bird flying overhead almost as if she was picking a target. Besides Ginger lay Smokey (real name: clawhammerdarkdeathdestroyerthethird), who was eying the final cat in the group who sat almost directly opposite Lucky, and this was Smudge (real name: danceswithbutterflies).
“I suggest that you bring the charges, Ginger.” said Lucky, who appeared to be presiding over proceedings. “We don’t want to be here all night. I believe there may be a mouse in my feeder’s shed and I am keen to investigate.”
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