by Andy Ritchie
Thank God I didn’t have a wank last night. How embarrassing would that have been! It would have been bad enough to think of someone listening in, but the thought of someone watching...I shuddered.
I’d had to park up a few doors down from my front door, as expected. Interestingly, it wasn’t the huge 4x4 of the pillock at number 36 that was filling the space at the front of my house (he was probably out playing golf, as he did most Sundays, which meant the guy at number 41 was probably driving his wood into the hole of the 4x4 man’s wife, if you get my drift!). Instead, it was the crappy light blue Ford Fiesta belonging to Mrs Bell’s son — he was an obnoxious little shite who was as freaky as his mother. I doubt he has ever gotten laid in his life!
Anyway, I was just about to continue my moaning session when I noticed the black Range Rover pull into one of the gaps further back up the street, somewhere near the Audi TT that belongs to the nice bit of totty that lives at number 15.
‘We’ll talk further when we get inside. But before we talk, let me do a sweep of every room, okay?’
I nodded dumbly, my mind so awash with conflicting emotions that I could barely decide whether to be frightened, terrified, bemused or overwhelmed.
‘You get the shopping,’ he said.
We got out of the car. I got the shopping as instructed and we walked up the street to my house. I unlocked the door and was about to go inside when, all of a sudden, Tukaal began to stride determinedly up the street towards the parked black Range Rover. Almost immediately, the Range Rover’s engine growled into life and it pulled out onto the street...but it could not go racing past us because Tukaal had moved between parked cars and was now marching down the middle of the street, as if daring them to drive towards him.
Now I’ve never played chicken, and I’ve certainly never played it where my fragile body of skin and bone tries to take on a two tonne automobile made of metal. But that was what Tukaal seemed intent on doing!
As the two protagonists squared up to each other, it was the Range Rover which blinked first. There was a momentary crunch of gears as the off-roader was slapped into reverse and, with a squeal of its tyres and that strange noise that can only be made by a vehicle reversing quickly, it sped off back up the street...only, it couldn’t go very far because a white van had turned into the road and, with cars parked on either side, it now effectively blocked the escape route of the retreating Range Rover.
I can’t imagine what must have been going through the minds of the men inside that vehicle at that very moment. Behind them, white-van-man, already using his horn as a weapon of intimidation, winding down his window to launch a verbal broadside at the vehicle now blocking his way. In front of them, a very determined alien marching defiantly up the middle of the road.
They were rats in a trap.
With its exit to the rear blocked, the Range Rover suddenly accelerated forward, clearly intent on playing a new game of chicken where the clear advantage of the two tonne automobile was to be pressed home.
It was maybe twenty feet away from Tukaal when it became obvious to the driver that the man striding up the middle of the road had absolutely no intention of deviating...the screech of tyres as the driver slammed on the brakes was even more savage than the previous squeal.
For a moment, they just faced each other, the car vs the man (alien), the vehicle’s engine revving threateningly, yet seeming strangely impotent.
Then white-van-man’s horn was blasted again, this time followed by a cry of ‘Make your fucking mind up what you’re doing, you prick!’
But still the protagonists stood facing each other, barely a few feet apart.
What happened next, I’m not quite sure because I was a little too far away to see or hear the detail; but I did see Tukaal reach forward and slap the bonnet of the Range Rover with slow deliberation.
[Collator’s Note: I’ve had a look at the video that was recorded on Tukaal’s neural net. Tukaal had taken the bugs which had been placed in JP’s car and placed them on the bonnet of the Range Rover. He then says ‘I believe these are yours’. He then proceeds to clear his throat in a particularly graphic manner and spit what must be a sizeable ‘gob’ into the engine vent on the bonnet. Not the normal sort of diplomatic behaviour you would expect from an Ambassador!]
With that, Tukaal stood to one side and, requiring no second invitation, the Range Rover accelerated away, past me and my shopping and up to the end of the road, where it noisily turned left and disappeared. In a way, it looked like a chastened dog, fleeing with its tail between its legs.
Back up the street, white-van-man was now having a go at Tukaal, his arms waving wildly, his finger pointing accusingly.
Once again, I couldn’t hear what Tukaal said to him...but whatever it was, it didn’t seem to have the desired effect because, after about thirty seconds, the white van man angrily revved his engine, drove away from Tukaal and accelerated past me with the words ‘Fucking weirdo’ clearly audible above the screaming engine.
When Tukaal returned to where I stood, I asked him what he had said.
His expression was one of mild bemusement, and the only response he gave me was: ’How very odd.’
Now I have no idea what Tukaal said to the white van man, and Tukaal has chosen not to share that knowledge with me, but I have to admit I’m intrigued. Unfortunately, I guess I’ll never know.
[Collator’s Note: Once again, the answer to this is on the DVD containing the video from Tukaal’s neural net. It’s not clear whether JP himself has looked at this. If he has, then he has not recorded the fact that he has in any of his notes. I can only surmise that knowing what Tukaal said became a pretty low priority for him in the light of subsequent events.
However, for the sake of completeness, Tukaal’s conversation with white van man went like this:
WVM — 'What the fuck are you doing standing in the middle of the road, you nutter. Don’t you realise some of us have got work to do?'
T — 'I’ve read about people who drive around in white vans, how they have a reputation for being aggressive and impatient, and for having poor driving skills...'
WVM — '(bristling, indignant) Are you saying I’m a shit driver...?'
T — 'No, I’m saying that there exists a pejorative stereotype regarding men who drive white vans as part of their occupation...'
WVM — 'What?'
T — '(stern) Tell me, are you like this when you’re not working, when you are at home? Always in a hurry, shouting at people, using foul language and adopting a combative attitude?'
WVM — '(defensive, a little hesitant) Er, no...'
T — 'Do you not worry that there may be consequences to the way you drive and the way you treat people? You may end up crashing your vehicle and injuring someone, yourself maybe or a small child perhaps, crushed under the wheels of your van. You could be stopped by the police and convicted of a traffic offence which, cumulatively, result in you losing your job. You could enrage another road user who has the same, if not greater tendency for aggression as you, and as a result you end up getting stabbed and bleed to death in the street...or the accumulation of days and days of stressful driving could take a sudden toll on your body and you could die, right here, at the steering wheel of your vehicle, through a stress-induced acute myocardial infarction...'
WVM — '(talking slowly) What the fuck are you talking about?'
T — 'Just trying to understand why, with so many possible scenarios where the outcome leaves you injured, jobless, dead or haunted, anyone would choose to act the way you do.'
The white van man looks at Tukaal with an expression of incredulity and, for a fraction of a second, seems to consider the point which Tukaal is making. Then his expression changes and hardens, and he crunches the van into first gear and drives off without another word...that is, until he shouts ‘Fucking Weirdo’.]
Once we were inside the house, I went as silently as I could into the kitchen to put the shopping away and to put the kettle on. Meanwh
ile, Tukaal methodically moved from room to room with his iPod nano-thing, scanning for bugs and cameras and all other kinds of snooping shit. After about ten minutes (in which time I had put together a full tea-tray (Darjeeling, this time) and cracked open a pack of Boasters), he entered the living room with a satisfied grin and a handful of very serious looking pieces of espionage equipment.
He put the iPod nano-thing on the table, seemed to make one more check, and then sighed heavily.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘They certainly have been busy fellows whilst we’ve been out. Most of this, I think, went in yesterday, but they may have been back in today as well. It’s hard to be sure. We’ve got three cameras, one from in here, one from the kitchen and one from the spare room. We’ve got seven microphones, one for each room plus the stairs and landing, plus an extra one for in here. There’s a bug in your mobile, a bug in your landline. Oh, and they’ve got laser mics on the windows...now I can’t stop them, but this neat piece of kit will ensure all they can hear is static. They’ve also had a go at opening my case...but without success.’
As he was speaking, rhyming off the list of surveillance equipment, I found myself become more and more outraged at the thought of this...violation of my home.
‘They...who is ‘They’? What the fuck is going on here? People inside my house, people watching us at Sainsburys, people planting bugs in my car...and on me...and on you...?’
‘Oh yes, almost forgot about them,’ he said, jumping up and walking over to where my jacket was hung up at the bottom of the stairs. He then proceeded to remove his own jacket and, after a minute or so, returned to the settee, triumphantly showing off the final two bugs.
‘But how...?’ was all I could manage to say.
‘Oh, that’s easy,’ he explained. ‘All they needed to do was put one of their men into the supermarket and, as we made our way around, they simply brush by us and stick one of these little things onto our clothes. It’s simple really. I guess we should be thankful that their equipment is pretty crude. If they had used a more sophisticated system, like a liquid voice resonance detector that actually soaks into the fabric, then that would have been a lot more difficult to deal with.’
I took a long sip of my tea. It didn’t refresh me.
‘But who are ‘They’?’
I think my tone of voice, pathetically scared and bewildered as it was, clearly indicated that the last half hour had completely freaked me out. I suddenly felt totally and utterly out of my depth, as if somehow I’d stepped out of a pleasant family film like ‘E.T.’ and straight into something far more sinister, like The Bourne Supremacy.
The black Range Rover may have been an archetypal cliché, but it was all the more scary for it. I never thought that they really used those sorts of vehicles for spying on people and yet there it had been.
‘I’m not entirely sure who ‘They’ are, and I’m not entirely sure what’s going on myself. But I can fill you in on what I know and what I suspect, if you like.’
I picked up another Boaster and listened.
‘Do you remember I told you yesterday about Researchers and what they did?’
I nodded to confirm that I remembered and that I wasn’t a complete moron with the attention span of a goldfish. He continued:
‘Well, a Researcher can, in certain circumstances, delay a First Contact if they discover something of major significance which they believe could have a material impact upon the First Contact process and/or the Life-Form Classification. In such a scenario, the Ambassador, if already en route, is bound by Protocol to meet with the Researcher in order to understand the issue identified and determine whether it is something which requires additional action.’
‘So this Researcher of yours must have discovered something important then.’
Tukaal raised his hands as if to prevent me from rushing to a false conclusion.
‘Not necessarily. You see, Researchers do this sort of thing all the time. Some of them do it because they are inexperienced and over-eager; they think they’ve discovered something which they believe is hugely important, and, because it’s almost time for First Contact, they get over-excited and call for a postponement. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, what they’ve found actually turns out to be completely immaterial. Other Researchers, however, particularly the more experienced, and particularly those who are conducting specialised research which they are looking to get published in one of the prestigious technical journals throughout the galaxy, wait until the last moment to raise an issue related to their research because they know that any sort of breakthrough in life-form research which actually stops a First Contact is far more likely to be commented on...’
There was a touch of resentment in Tukaal’s voice which I had never heard before. It looked like we had touched a nerve or two.
‘So you think this Researcher may be trying to ‘big up’ some research he’s been doing?’ I asked.
Tukaal shrugged, but his overall body language suggested it was a distinct possibility.
‘I have to admit, when I got his message, I did suspect that that would be the case. He’s been on assignment on Earth for about fifty years, studying human culture, social interaction, that sort of thing. However, in the last few years, he has been following a very particular line of research, focusing on a phenomenon called ‘induced, extensive melancholia’, has written a couple of reports on it.’
I decided to ignore the question: ‘What the hell is ‘induced, extensive melancholia’ when it’s at home’ and instead go for:
‘But you don’t think that’s the case any more, do you, not with what has happened today...you think that there’s something else going on, don’t you?’
I thought for a moment.
‘Maybe he’s in trouble with the Police.’
Tukaal seemed to entertain the idea, or was doing a good job of at least feigning consideration of it.
‘But if the Researcher had broken the law, that would not explain why the Police have taken an interest in us, would it?’
‘No, no it wouldn’t,’ I mumbled slowly, slurping my tea and taking yet another Boaster from the tray.
We both munched on biscuits for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. I get the feeling Tukaal’s thoughts were more impressive than mine.
‘When he called me, he was convinced that whoever was looking for him was able to track him through his URG...’
‘Just like they can track people through their mobile phone,’ I added helpfully.
‘That’s why he suggested I de-activate my URG and take the power sources out.’
I nodded thoughtfully, even though I had no idea what I was nodding about.
‘So we are talking...I don’t know...the security services...’
I tried to sound a little blasé about using the term ‘security services’, as if I talked about them all the time and knew them so well as to not be scared of them. But, to be honest, the mere idea that I could end up being involved in something which also involved the spooks made me go a little queasy. I had seen what those guys on the TV series got involved in.
‘It may be the security services,’ Tukaal said thoughtfully, ‘but then again, I don’t think your security services will have the knowledge or the technology to track a URG sub-space communicator. No, I suspect that it may be parties a lot more sinister than your security services.’
I almost choked on my Boaster.
‘More sinister than the security services, MI5, MI6, all that shit! Who the hell could be more sinister than the people who make people disappear?’
Tukaal looked at me sternly...the sort of sternly which my geography teacher, Mr Sutcliffe, used to give me just before he told me that there was more to life than being able to do a Rubik’s Cube in 45 seconds.
‘Believe me, Jeth, there are plenty of others on this planet of yours who should concern you far more than your security services. The question is, what has happened to make them actively interfere with one of the Confederati
on’s own researchers?’
Once again, I found myself asking the obvious question.
‘Them? Who is ‘Them’?’
‘For now, at least, Jeth, it’s probably better that I don’t tell you. That way you may stay insulated from a universe of scary beings.’
Fat chance of that, I thought to myself. They’d already been in my car and my house. It was also pretty certain that they’d already collected and examined every single scrap of information there is about me out there in the big wide world; bank accounts, e-mail accounts, calls made on my mobile and on my landline, magazine subscriptions, tax records, employment history, medical records, places travelled to, lottery numbers, etc, etc, etc; in fact, any and every piece of personal information that living in our modern society requires us to share with others...ever.
And that fact leads me to a very strange admission.
The thought of the giant, faceless, bureaucratic police-state suddenly taking an interest in my life is ball-achingly frightening. It should be the stuff of nightmares, the thought that every element of our existence can be gathered, dissected and scrutinised, that no part of our lives, however jealously guarded, can be protected from their all-seeing gaze.
And yet, I do not believe that it is the idea of falling under the gaze of Orwell’s Big Brother that truly scares us most. Nor do I believe it is even the thought that our most private sexual foibles (like the stash of porn and the DVDs) may be brought into the light.
No. I believe that what each of us fears more than anything is the possibility that, when our lives are laid completely bare, when every secret we keep is exposed for all to see, some sinister men and women huddled together in a darkened room will look at each other and say: ‘Christ, is this guy a boring fucker, or what?’
‘So you’ve no idea what the Researcher wanted to talk to you about, except that it might be this ‘induced, extensive melancholia’ thing he was working on.’
Tukaal frowned again.
‘Protocol does not require the Researcher to make known the issue they are raising before the meeting.’