Mystery in the Rain

Another little exercise which could be built on. Suggestions welcome.

Colin

===

Iris sat down on the narrow ledge that passed as the bus shelter's bench. Not that there was much bench - it was a beam that would make an Olympic gymnast cautious - and even less shelter from the rain, bouncing like marbles from the shelter's metal roof. All but one of the toughened-glass windows were smashed through and the one that remained was a spider-web of cracked glass. She turned up the collar of her soaking rain coat and cursed the rain, her bitch boss for making her work late and the joker who had pranged her BMW, forcing her to wait for the night bus.

A hot bath and chilled white wine waited for her at home. Perhaps some relaxing music and scented candles, too. Iris could almost smell the jasmine, feel the warm water against her skin, hear the music lulling her to sleep. Her eyelids fluttered ...

She remembered that supposedly romantic weekend in London. The shows, the restaurants, the shopping, the mind-blowing sex. The final, humiliating dumping that still hurt after all these years.

The pistol-cracks of high heels on concrete flagstones interrupted her waking dream. Fragments of that last scene at King's Cross station scattered through her mind like windblown leaves.

Iris squinted up into luminous violet eyes. The woman's head was haloed by the yellow streetlight and Iris couldn't see her face, just those eyes.

"He wasn't worth it, was he?" the stranger asked. She took a seat next to Iris.

Before she could stop herself, Iris replied: "He was married to his job. His schedule and mine would never match up."

"Stop making excuses for him. You knew he was a bastard the moment you met him. Do you even know what his job was?"

Iris looked at her inquisitor. The woman's lustrous brunette hair was perfectly styled. Not a smudge on her lipstick, her mascara nor her eye shadow. Her black leather coat was dry. And her perfume was exotic, without being overpowering. How had she gotten here without getting soaked to the skin? Iris wondered.

"He said he was in sales," Iris said. "But ..."

"... he never said what he was selling," the woman finished Iris's sentence for her.

"He sold me a lie," Iris murmured.

"And you weren't the only one." The woman offered Iris a pink Post-It note with six names on it: hers was at the top. "It seems you were the lucky one."

"Who are these women?" Iris wanted to know. "And what do you mean, lucky?"

"You didn't give him what he really wanted. The others, he took for every penny and even more." The woman stood, towering over Iris, who shrank back, cowed by her sheer presence. "It falls to you to fix the many things he has broken."

"Why me?"

"You're the only one with an ounce of sanity remaining." The woman gazed into Iris's eyes.

The hiss of air-brakes, the smell of diesel and the rumble of a heavy engine disturbed this strange tableau.

"Here, love," said a man's voice. "Are you waiting for this one? It's the last of the night."

Iris, jolted back to her senses, looked up at the bus driver and around the shelter. The woman had vanished; only the faintest trace of her perfume remained.

Iris boarded the bus and looked back over her shoulder at the now-empty shelter. "Did you see another woman at the stop?" she asked.

"No, love. Just you," replied the driver as he sorted out Iris's change. "Long day?" he asked as he handed over the money. "You look done in."

"Yeah. Long day," Iris agreed. Long and weird, she thought.

She took a seat as the bus pulled away and looked vainly in all directions for the mysterious woman. I must have been half asleep, she concluded as she settled back in her seat.

Iris fumbled to find her phone. The next level of her word game was waiting; she had had six 'please come back' text reminders during the day. As she pulled out her phone, a small piece of pink paper landed in her lap.

There were six names on that paper and hers was at the top of the list.

Circuses are weird ...

I've been away for quite some time. Life gets in the way. You know how it is :-)

Anyway, here's another little practise piece from the excellent Writer's Toolbox, by Jamie Cat Callan.

===

After only two months, Emma decided to become an exotic dancer. The employment opportunities were vastly superior, for a start. The chances of her getting a spot in the Ballet Rambert, the English National or the Bolshoi were slim-to-non-existent. So she quit the ballet classes and enrolled at a gym. She knew the moves, she just needed to get toned.

"Why don't you try a circus?" suggested Ralph, her personal trainer. "I don't want you to demean yourself by becoming a glorified stripper, sweet."

Emma grunted, "'Cos I fucking hate clowns," as she struggled through the fifteenth 'rep' on her quads. Only five more to go.

Ralph watched as the perspiration beaded on Emma's brow, soaking through her headband and dampening her short blonde hair. The sweat seeped into her lime green leotard. He could see why the guys, and, it was rumoured, a couple of the girls, liked her.

Emma finished her twentieth 'rep' and collapsed back onto the bench. "Fuck, that hurt," she gasped.

Ralph wished she wouldn't swear so much. It marred her otherwise angelic demeanour. "Go again?" he asked.

"No way," Emma replied. "I've done enough for one night."

Sucking on a plum lollipop, her go-to flavour now that she had (mostly) kicked the cigarettes, Emma left the gym into a riot of colour, music, laughter and blaring horns. A ten-foot tall bloke bent down and handed her a bright orange leaflet. "Rizzo's Circus," proclaimed the flyer, "The Greatest Show On Earth." Times and dates were stamped in the corner, thankfully obscuring the clown's face. The first performance was in an hour.

She looked back up at the ten-foot guy on stilts. "Coming?" he asked.

It was probably just the strain of her exercise session, Emma reasoned, but her legs were wooden and her mind fogged with exhaustion, as she joined the crowd and followed the circus parade through town to the big top.

===

Colin

Ravenmar's Luck Runs Out

Ravenmar scanned the rapidly darkening sky. The Moon was not yet risen and tatters of grey clouds scudded overhead, driven by a biting Easterly wind. He gathered his heavy, woollen cloak around him and followed the track by the river. His destination was the village of Red Crest, just beyond the hill. With luck, he would make it before the gate closed for the night.

As he approached the bridge, he slowed. You could never be too careful around here as trolls were known to sneak down from the hills and use human structures for shelter. Trolls, while not necessarily evil, were spiteful and malicious creatures, given to tricking unwary travellers with their riddles and wicked magicks. Ravenmar loosened his sword in its scabbard, a precautionary measure, and stepped onto the crumbling stone of the bridge.

"Halt, who goes there?" came the squeaky voice, in heavily-accented Common Speech. A shadow hopped over the bridge's wall and resolved slowly into the short, stooped figure of a troll. It was around three feet tall, of scrawny build, but with a large, mis-shapen head, unevenly pointed ears, one of which looked like it had been bitten in two, and almond-shaped black eyes. Its skin was covered in greyish scales and it was dressed in a loincloth. Ravenmar took in all of this in an instant. His attention was occupied by the short spear which the troll held, aimed squarely at his chest.

"A weary traveller, bound for the village beyond the hill," Ravenmar replied.

"You lie!" spat the troll. "That village is in troll-country. Your kind are not welcome there."

Ravenmar spread his arms wide and looked around. "Since when has this been troll-country? The Earl gave you territories in the hills a decade ago."

"He gave us cold, damp caves, ruins of shacks and worked-out mines!" What followed was what Ravenmar judged to be a string of expletives in troll-tongue. "He tricked us, he did. One day soon, he will pay."

This was not typical trollish bluster, however. Something in the little beggar's stream of invective struck a chord in Ravenmar. "What do you mean, the Earl will pay?" His hand went to his sword hilt.

The troll brandished his spear and gutsily advanced a couple of paces. "Halt!" he screeched. "Keep your hands away from your weapon!" He emitted a shrill whistle.

Ravenmar felt a chill, like icy fingers, run down his spine. He was by no means a wizard but even he could sense when magick was at work. The concealing glamour, which had hidden a dozen trolls, was cancelled and Ravenmar found himself surrounded by wicked spear points.

He might be no wizard, and he was certainly no warrior: he could not fight a dozen armed trolls, not even this diminutive rabble. He raised his hands and the trolls searched him, relieving him of his sword, dagger, coins and food. They bound his hands behind his back and, at spear-point, marched him to the village.

Crazy Cat Lady

I'm back after a short break. This came to me late one night, just after the cat woke me up!

Why do they call me the Crazy Cat Lady? I'm not crazy. If you want crazy, I can introduce you to Lili!

Okay, I do have upwards of a dozen cats in my home. Or their home. Sometimes it seems I'm lodging with them, not the other way round. And let me be clear: they are just lodgers here. I don't own them. They come and go as they please and they don't stay forever. One morning I might wake up with ten cats or twelve or sometimes only three. Of course, Nature has been known to take Her course and a litter of the little darlings suddenly appears.

So, yes. I like cats. Love them to bits, really, even when they leave bits of mice or birds all over the living room floor. But does that make me crazy? I think not.

They speak to me, you see. Every purr, meow, hiss. Every ear-twitch or tail-flick, I can understand. Each disdainful look through slit-pupilled eyes, each lascivious roll-over for a tummy tickle, means something and I know what they are saying.

Before you think I'm mad, just remember that you were young once and couldn't pronounce a single word, let alone string together a sentence. You made your feelings known by crying, gurgling, vomitting or pooing. You made grasping gestures with chubby fingers, struggled to crawl when you wanted something just out of reach and cried more when you couldn't move. Now you take language and movement for granted to get what you want.

Cats have their own language and I understand it. I can't quite read catspeak yet, but I'm working on it. It's something to do with paw prints and how their claws make marks. What they're scratching also means something. The door, obviously, means they want out, or food, if it's a cupboard door. The curtains mean they want to climb. And if they shred the carpet, it means they need the litter tray and, more to the point, why hasn't the litter tray been cleaned? I know these things.

Now I'm sitting in the middle of the garden, surrounded by cats, watching intently as they prowl around, sun themselves, walk along the fence, or sit and wash, looking like furry pretzels. I wish I was that flexible. Some simply watch the world go by with that infinite patience that makes them look like they're planning world domination.

School kids walk past the garden, laughing and joking when they see the "crazy cat lady". Let them laugh. I don't care.

Until one of the little thugs throws a pebble at one of my darlings. Then I get crazy. As the grey and black feline jumps down from the fence, the pebble soaring over its head, I spring into action. I leap from the lawn, hissing, yowling and screaming at the little brat. He and his friends blanche at my fury. My words aren't clear to them, but to the cats it's perfect sense: "Get out of here you little bastards!"

I can feel the perfect "cat-ness" of the moment. I am transformed, not into a cuddly, soft, furry moggy, but into the fierce warrior lioness of ancient times. I roar, bare my claws and let the light gleam from my fangs. The kids flee, calling me names as they run. Their insults patter off my fur like raindrops; sticks and stones and all that. I watch until they have run out of sight but I can still smell them, and their fear, on the breeze.

My darlings come to me. I comfort them, tell them the nasty humans have gone, that they have nothing to fear. They cuddle up against my belly or climb along my back. Their purrs comfort me after that unseemly outburst. I will protect them.

Am I crazy? Perhaps. Am I a cat? Most certainly. Am I a lady? Only when the mood takes me. My name is Bast, warrior and protector through the Ages.

A Rainy Day

It was her birthday, that day we walked in the park. Tipping down rain soaked us to the skin, driven by a biting wind which turned our umbrella inside out. We left the yellow and blue striped brolly in a rubbish bin, flapping in the wind like some drunken dragonfly.

Fortunately, the 'summer season', if it could be called that, had started about a week ago, and the park's cafe was open, having been shuttered during the depths of winter. We ran the last few yards, splashing through inch-deep puddles, their surfaces bouncing chaotically with the falling rain. The cafe's wooden-framed door was mostly glass, showing stickers of the range of drinks and snacks served here: all the big names and half a dozen less-famous brands.

What we wanted, however, was coffee and this cafe made the best in town. This was not some wild fancy: it was based on solid research. Together, we had toured every coffee shop in town, from the multinational franchises, through small 'Mum and Dad' operations, to the greasy spoons at the train and bus stations. Some places had been pretty good but none of them compared to The Liaison Cafe. We laughed about that: just when you needed a little TLC, there was The Liaison Cafe. We'd missed coming here over the winter.

She went to the Ladies' to tidy up. Very appearance conscious, my girl, the slightest hair out of place, or smudge on her lipstick, would send her running for the nearest mirror. At times, this could be a very infuriating habit, particularly if we were running late and she was correcting a very minor fault in her make-up. I told her that she was beautiful, no matter what imperfections she thought she could see.

I dumped my soaking jacket at our favourite table and walked to the counter. Kate, the assistant manager, looked up from her celebrity lifestyle magazine and gave me a somewhat tired smile. It had obviously been a long shift for the old dear.

"What can I get you, sweet?" she asked, as if she needed to know. The order was always the same. Two large cappuccinos, one with a double-shot of espresso (hers, not mine), almond biscotti on the side, and two fingers of dark chocolate.

"And a slice of the Black Forest gateau, please," I added. It was, after all, her birthday. I hadn't brought candles, so made do with a silk rose I had stuffed hastily into my jacket pocket. It was slightly crumpled but, I reasoned, it's the thought that counts.

I sat at our favourite table and waited for her. And waited. And waited.

"She's not coming back, you know," said Kate from behind.

I turned to her, tears streaming down my face. She had passed away a year ago to the day, on what should have been her thirtieth birthday.

"She doesn't need to come back," I replied through barely restrained sobs. "She's always here." I pointed to my heart and cried.

Space Rescue

Space Rescue

This piece is inspired by the story 'Eleven Pipers', written by yours truly, in the book 'Twelve Days', available through Amazon. It forms part of the background to the war between humans and Nisalans.

Background: The war between humans and the Nisalan aliens has been raging for centuries. No-one is sure exactly what started the war but it had something to do with the 'Offside Rule'. It is doubtful anyone on either side knows the origin of the obscure law. The Nisalans look like 1.5m tall, roughly cylindrical amoebae, with locomotory and manipulative appendages, and their internal organs can be seen roiling around in the bluish-greenish protoplasm.

*

Nisalan satellite station Rostov was parked in geosynchronous orbit over the third moon of the planet Quina, fourth planet in the Bellaset system. The moon itself, having no mineral resources or strategic value worth speaking of, had no name, other than its official Terran classification: Bellaset Four Gamma.

Ellis crept along the darkened, frost-coated corridor, lit sporadically by emergency lights and glow panels. The station was deserted, or so intel had indicated, but there were still combat droids and remote sentry guns to avoid. Hence her slow progess. The air would have frozen her lungs by now had it not been for the night-suit that clung to every contour of her body, feeding her body with oxygen scrubbed from the station's atmosphere and warmed to standard temperature.

Her communicator chirped quietly. The arrow on its screen changed direction slightly, indicating a path which followed the curve of the station's corridor. Ellis padded silently for a few more metres, the sounds of her footfalls masked by the night-suit. The communicator beeped, the arrow changed to an exclamation mark and Ellis realised he has reached her goal.

The door to the lab was, of course, locked, by triple-layered security systems and requiring two biometric inputs and a ten character hexadecimal passcode. She knew the code, that bit was easy. Terran Federation spies had gathered intel on the station, and the code, purchased at astronomical price, had been downloaded into her night-suit's on-board computer. The biometrics would be trickier but the aluminium flask hitched to her webbing contained what he needed.

The flask was below-zero and divided into two compartments. One contained an optical organ, of sorts, and the other a selection of manipulative cilia which served the Nisalans as fingers. The optical organ was slippery with congealed protoplasm and it took Ellis several attempts to free it from the flask and press it into the optical scanner. One light came on green. The cilia were trickier still. There were eight cilia and they had to be pressed against the scanner in the correct order. A laminated index card provided Ellis with the sequence. The second light glowed green. He had memorised the hex-code and typed ther into the panel. The third light came on and the door to the lab opened.

Like the rest of the deserted station, the lab was in darkness. Ellis didn't need much light. The goggles on her night-suit amplified available light and gave a greenish tinge to everything she saw.

The bio-cell, a coffin-sized prison capsule intended to keep the captive unconscious, alive and mentally 'accessible' (the thought chilled Ellis) to its interrogators, was wired into the centre of the room. Floating in the thick, yellow gunge was the target of ther rescue mission. A young man by the name of Darius Pugh, supposedly a high-level intelligence asset and double-agent working for both the Terrans and the Nisalans. Why she hadn't been ordered to simply shoot the traitor was a question above her pay grade.

She threw the lever that emptied the bio-cell, the ugly yellow fluid draining away to heaven-knew where with an even uglier sound. Once emptied, the capsule's hatch opened and, coughing, choking and vomiting, Darius Pugh fell forward out of his prison.

Ellis did not attempt to catch the agent, who fell and landed with a loud thump on the deckplates. Pugh groaned and Ellis took that as a good sign and hauled him to his feet. Wires that had allowed the Nisalans to probe his brain snapped or were pulled from his scalp, leaving angry red scars on his shaved head.

"Come with me," she ordered, as she almost dragged the agent to the door.

"Who are you?" he asked in a weak voice.

Ellis ignored the question. "I'm here to get you off this crate and back to civilisation."

"Why?"

"Beats me," she admitted. "You're a traitor. I'd just as happily shoot you," she added, chillingly, resting her hand on the butt of her trazer pistol, "but orders are orders."

Together, they staggered to the array of escape capsules on the port side of the station. "Get in," Ellis said.

"This is an escape pod," he protested. "It'll never get us back to a Terran zone."

"Leave that to me," Ellis said, as she forced Pugh into the capsule at gunpoint. Nisalan vessels were not built for Terran-standard body types, so Ellis rigged a cargo web across the capsule, tied the spy into the heavy duty straps and belted herself in. "Going down," she said, and kicked the release lever.

Explosive bolts powered the escape capsule from the station and the little lifeboat began its freefall to Bellaset Four Gamma, where a Terran Federation insertion force was waiting.

The Woman From 3B

I promised elsewhere that I'd try to write a piece per day. This one is a little late but that's what deadlines are for :-)

===

The smell emanating from 3B was not unpleasant. Somewhere between freshly picked vegetables, flowers and that earthy smell left after rain; petrichor, I think they call it. The odd thing was, the scent never dissipated, never weakened in any way. It hung around 3B, a permanent fixture, as if it was leaking through the walls.

I live in 3C, just across the hall. I'd seen the woman from 3B a few times through the little security lens in my own flat's door. In her twenties, I'd guess, she reminded me of an actress from one of those 'Magic School' movies. We on Floor 3 tended to be an insular bunch and kept ourselves to ourselves, unlike the weirdos on Floor 4, who always seemed to be visiting each other. I heard parties just about every weekend, emanating above my head, from 4C.

It had to happen one day, I suppose. I was, admittedly, a bit sloshed and was standing at my door fumbling with my keys. Feeling a little woozy, both from the beer and the ever-present scent from 3B, I was trying to fit the right key into the right keyhole when I heard her voice. It was soft, almost musical, and each syllable was perfectly pronounced.

"Don't suppose you could lend a hand, could you?"

I dropped my keys, cursed and turned. There she was. Or at least, I assumed it was the woman from 3B. I couldn't see her face, or indeed much of her, hidden as she was behind a dozen or more brightly-coloured shopping bags, each one with the logo of one of the city's big department stores. A bunch of shiny silver keys jingled invitingly from the little finger of her left hand.

"Yeah, yeah, of course, no problem," I rambled, as I picked up my own keys and reached for hers. She shuffled to one side and I unlocked her flat. I pushed open the door and immediately the scent from her flat ramped up several notches.

The woman edged past me into the small hall. I had the mirror image on the other side of the hall. Wobbling on one leg, she kicked open the living room door, bustled in and dropped all the bags on the sofa.

She turned to me, a slightly embarrassed look on her pale, delicate face. "A girl has to get new clothes every so often," she said.

"New clothes?" I asked. "It looks like you've bought a whole new wardrobe."

"Seasons change, fashions change," she explained. "I've lost count of how many times I've done this sort of thing."

Her current ensemble of mini-skirt, tight top, calf-high boots and a hair-do to match. I'm no fashion expert but, looking at her, it seemed she had just stepped out of the Sixties.

"Well, don't just stand there. Put the kettle on. I've got to see my babies."

Babies? I thought, as I stepped into the living room. It was then that I realised where 3B's curious, not unpleasant, smell was coming from. The living room was a jungle. The sofa was set in a clearing, of sorts, surrounded on all sides by greenery: palms, ferns, grasses, flowers of every shade, cacti. This was the the sort of vegetation I had only seen on nature documentaries. The smell of loamy soil came from dozens of grow-bags spread around the living room. My head was spinning from the heavily scented air: incense, joss-sticks and various illegal herbs.

"What a clever girl!" she said. "You caught one. Well done. Mama give you a treat."

I looked over, expecting some jungle cat to emerge from the foliage. Instead, she was talking to what looked like a Venus Fly-trap. I swear the thing belched! She reached for a small, green plastic watering can and filled the plant's pot with yellowish coloured water. If, indeed, it was actually water.

"Don't just stand there, looking like a lemon. Go and make the tea."

Whatever was in the air was weakening my will and her voice, her soft, dulcet tones, was guiding me, puppet-like, through the motions of making tea. The kitchen was much like the living room, overgrown with a bewildering array of plants. Was it just me, or were some of them looking at me with small, beady black eyes?

I found her lounging on the sofa. The shopping bags had gone, as had her Sixties fashion sense. Now, she was bang up to date, in a soft green sleeveless dress, sheer stockings, high heels and a hair-do straight from the salon. Her hair had grown six inches in as many minutes.

"Sit with me," she said, as she patted the cushion.

I did as I was told. I couldn't stop myself.

"I've been waiting a very long time to meet you, Adam. You can call me Lili."

===

If you're interested in what Adam and Lili get up to next  (because let's face it, I have no idea!) let me know in the comments section.

At the races

Another little exercise, this one linked to the story Secrets (posted on the blog earlier http://colinabrett.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/secrets.html ) and describing an incident from the protagonist's (John Armstrong) past.

===

They were drinking champagne and losing their shirts at the races that day. Did they care? Did they heck! The money they were losing wasn't theirs. It wasn't, technically, stolen, either. At least, not stolen by John and his peers.

It was the technicality that made it interesting. John Armstrong had found a 'leak' in the company's finances. Project ARGENT, through a series of fronts and blinds, was funnelling money into the Chief Financial Officer's retirement fund. And a tidy sum it was, too. John had confronted the CFO, blackmailed him into stepping aside, and taken the old man's job. Several thousand Pounds had been routed from ARGENT to John and he had decided to celebrate.

Now they were standing in the VIP marquee on the day of the Grand National. The titled, well-heeled and filthy rich were flowing around John's knot of hangers-on, assistants and part-time lovers. Some of the job descriptions overlapped.

Stephanie Morgan leaned closer to John. She ignored the venomous look she drew from Alexandra Stewart, John's current sweetheart, who, in Steph's opionion, deserved to be replaced. "John," she said, her voice like honey, "I've just met this fabulous gent who has given me the most solid tip for the National." She snuggled closer still and began playing with the white carnation on the lapel of his jacket. Her voice became husky. "I don't suppose I could, you know, place a bet," she wheedled.

John straightened in more ways than one. Stephanie had that sort of effect on him. "Of course you can." He found his credit card and held the glittering Platinum plastic in front of avaricious blue eyes. "Shall we?"

Stephanie linked her arm through John's and looked daggers at her rival. She made sure her hip swayed against his as they walked to the bookmaker.

"How much?" John asked.

"I don't know," Stephanie wondered how much she could get away with. "A couple of hundred, maybe?"

John doubled the stake and took the betting slip for £400 at 66-to-1. If the horse came in, that would be over twenty thousand in winnings.

They watched the race from the VIP stands, sharing John's compact binoculars. Excitement built to unbearable levels. Two horses fell. Another six threw their riders. Their horse, Second Dawn, won by several lengths after a nail-biting finish. Stephanie, ecstatic, threw her arms around John and kissed him hard on the lips. She enjoyed the effect she was having on him.

As they collected their winnings, John said, "You must introduce me to your tipster. Where is he?"

Stephanie looked around. "He was over there," she pointed to the corner of the marquee. "Oh," she said, "he seems to have gone. He was a nice-looking man, well dressed. Little moustache. Couldn't guess his age, though. Anywhere between thirty and fifty. He must have been at the deviled eggs from the buffet, though, because there was such an odd smell around him."

The description, for some reason, triggered an alarm bell in John's mind but, try as he might, he couldn't work out where he had seen the man. John had more pressing things to deal with and currently, she was pressing against him, swaying slowly, her silk dress rustling and her inviting blue eyes locked on his.

Chances

Another little exercise from the Writers Toolbox.

===

"If you don't take chances," said the man in the striped pyjamas, "you might as well not be alive."

He was obviously taking his own advice. After all, strolling through downtown in PJ's and pink fluffy slippers was taking a whole world of chances! A sprightly sixty-something, the man was alternately laughing and joking with passersby, and trying to have a serious conversation with Max. His curly grey hair swayed in the breeze and his wispy beard jiggled every time he laughed. He, that is they, were starting to draw curious and somewhat unpleasant looks from a gang standing at the street corner.

"Max, my boy," he said, fixing him with diamond-hard eyes, "It's like this ... " He didn't finish his sentence. Instead, he stepped out into the road and began to cross.

Max was a split-second late in catching the old man's arm and preventing him dancing with the traffic. Unable to stop the old geezer, Max stared, panic-stricken as a huge black Mercedes thundered around the bend.

Maybe it was just the fear of seeing the old man smeared across the road. Maybe it was a weird fight-or-flight reaction as his body flooded with adrenalin. Maybe it was the imminent threat of death. Max would never know why, but that split-second stretched into a month.

"Stop!" he managed, just as the Merc reached the old man.

What happened next was impossible. No blaring of the car's horn. No bone-shattering shock of impact. No thud. No blood. Max stared as the car reached the point where the old man stood and passed straight through!

The man in the pyjamas danced a merry jig across the road. Two more cars ignored the laws of Physics and slid through the old man as if he was made of fog.

Laughing maniacally, the old man gestured at Max. "Your turn!" he yelled.

Sod that for a lark, thought Max. The old man was plainly as mad as a box of frogs. Max turned away with a dismissive wave. He had an urgent appointment with a cold beer.

The old man watched Max depart and shrugged. Life was all about chances. Max had just used one of his. Maybe, in another year or so, he would be ready for a second.

Cold November Day ...

A cold, wet November day in Peterborough. "I promise," Ted swore on his mother's grave. But then, he swore on just about everything and, most of the time, not as pleasantly as a simple 'promise'.

I knew the pain Ted was experiencing. I had lost my mother in similar mysterious circumstances. At least Ted had a grave to pollute with his language. My mother had vanished without a trace almost ten years ago and I had nowhere to grieve her absence.

Of course, it was my dad who took it worse. When he wasn't drinking or plotting Mum's last movements and associated events on a highly detailed map, he did a weird thing with his newspaper. He kept folding it in and over itself, (he sometimes read it upside down), perhaps looking for clues to Mum's whereabouts, hidden in the finger-smudged newsprint.

Where had our mothers been taken? I wondered, as Ted and I walked from the grave back to the car. What had been done while they were away? And why had Ted had his mother returned when I had not? Too many questions and not enough answers. One thing was clear. The answers were not hidden down a crack in the pavement. I would go out into the world and find my mother, or the answers, in the forgotten parts of the globe.

CyberNet

Larry stood her up. The bastard! Amanda was incandescent. She had been looking forward to the movie date for the last week. She had her naturally blonde hair cut and styled, had bought herself a horrendously expensive pair of shoes and a new dress, short enough to show off her shapely legs. A new bag concealed her favourite gun.

Amanda found Larry in the Terminal Bar and Grill, Finally! she thought, after trawling through several downtown bars. The leers of the dirty old men in those bars clung to her like sump-oil. The Terminal was not named after a bus station or airport lounge. The name harked back to the old, old days, when computers were the size of rooms and terminals with weird names, VT240, Wyse and Ansi, were 'hardwired' back to a 'server'. That was way back, before the CyberNet (version 0.1) had gone live in 2021, the year Amanda was born. Even the clientele in Terminal were old, styling themselves as 'hackers' in the traditional sense.

Larry was old. Nearly thirty. At least he was sober, for a change. Sat at the bar, wearing a week's worth of beard, a week's worth of sweat, Amanda could smell him from here, his brown hair in disarray, his black leather jacket slung over the back of his bar stool. Amanda knew there would be a switchblade in the right pocket, cash in the left and various electronic gizmos stashed in the others. He rarely carried a gun. Three chromed interface sockets studded his left temple, ready to be linked to the cellular cybermodem hidden in his jacket.

Amanda plonked herself in the next bar stool and surreptitiously pointed her gun at Larry. She wasn't too worried about setting off metal- or weapon-scanners in Terminal. The gun was a 3D-printed polymer model, which fired caseless high-density plastic ammo. Largely undetectable, it probably wouldn't penetrate Larry's jacket, but it would cause a helluva lot of pain if she shot him in the stomach, something she was very tempted to do.

"Where the hell have you been?" she asked, the gun never wavering from Larry's stomach.

Larry stuffed the last piece of peach pie into his mouth, chewed, swallowed and belched before replying. "Pleased to see you, too, Mandy," he replied, then, when he saw her finger tighten on the trigger, said, "I mean, Amanda, sweetie."

Amanda did not relax her trigger finger. She hated being called Mandy. "Where the hell have you been?" she repeated.

Larry looked over the young girl. Amanda was maybe eighteen, smart, determined and a genius with cyber-systems. Could he trust her with what he'd found? "I'm in a world of trouble," he said simply.

The Empath

I had this system for getting exactly what I wanted out of people. I'm not a telepath, a psychic or psionicist. I'm an empath. That means I can tune into peoples' emotions and read exactly how they are feeling. This trick works wonders when trying to get guys into the sack. When it comes to money, however, it really does work like a charm. I use an object from the person, or 'mark', something small like a pen, lighter, even a phone. I can feel how they're feeling through the impressions left on the object.

But there was this one guy I just couldn't read. I decided the only solution was to seduce him, the old fashioned way. A few drinks, some footsie under the table, light touches. I played with my hair, loosened a couple of blouse buttons, loosened a couple of his shirt buttons. Lingering looks and suggestive smiles.

As I cuddled closer, I finally got it. The day his mother slapped his face was etched into his feelings, into his very soul. It had hurt, not just from the stinging cheek, but right down, deep inside. His mother had damaged his sense of self worth. That was my 'way in'. "I know how you feel," I said, "my mother did the same to me."

And the rest was easy.

I have a tag line ...

“All writers are magicians of a sort. We create illusions and make people believe them.”

Colin Brett, February 2018