Supermarket shopping

“What are you intending to use that for, Sir?”  It was Policeman 2 speaking, frowning heavily as Leslie went to put a boxed toaster in his trolley.

“I’m not,” he said.  “But if I were, I expect it would be for making toast.  Toasters are a rather one-trick pony, don’t you think?”

“Is that supposed to be funny, Sir?”

Leslie smiled; this was one of the supermarkets that had been embarrassed by the horse-meat in the beef-burgers stories that had been making the newspapers worth reading lately, but he hadn’t actually intended his comment to be a reference to it.  He had already noted a stack of leaflets near the checkouts proudly proclaiming that the supermarket had learned from this experience and wished to tell their customers about the changes they would effect.  He’d ignored them, mostly because he wouldn’t dream of buying meat from a supermarket.

“No,” he said.  “Though now you draw my attention to it, I believe I can make it funny.  You can expect to see it in about three weeks, if you watch Kirsten and Alice.”  Kirsten and Alice was a topical sketch show he submitted material to, and he’d been quite pleased to get a letter from the script editor asking him to submit more and more frequently.

“We’ll be watching you, Sir,” said Policeman 1, trying to do menacing.  Leslie felt that it came off as dull and lifeless, and it reminded him unpleasantly of his days as a drama coach trying to get wooden students to understand that acting was all about being someone else for five minutes.  He’d finally resigned, telling the head of the school that since most of the students there hadn’t worked out who they were themselves there was no hope of getting them to pretend to be anyone else.

“So why are you buying a toaster you don’t intend to use?” asked Policeman 2, the brighter of the pair.  His notebook and pencil appeared as if by magic.

“To give as a gift,” said Leslie.  He’d given up being astonished by the stupidity of his bodyguard, and although he’d entertained the idea for a while that they were trying to wear him down into a confession, he no longer thought that anyone could be that stubborn.  “My wife left me a note this morning saying that it was the housekeeper’s birthday and that I should get her something.”

“A toaster?”

“Why not?”  Leslie shrugged.  “I barely know the woman, and she only ever serves me with cold toast, so perhaps I can be generous while dropping a hint.”

“How about flowers, Sir?  My wife likes flowers.”  Policeman 1 flushed pink as he said this, and Leslie found himself pitying the man.

“I can’t imagine that my wife would be pleased if I gave the housekeeper flowers, officer,” he said.  “She might feel that it was a rather too intimate gift for the staff.  How would you feel if I gave you flowers?”

“I’ve got hayfever,” said Policeman 1.

“So we’d have to consider the intent behind the flowers,” said Policeman 2 quickly.  “That could constitute an attempt at murder, or threatening behaviour!”

“Everything’s murder with you isn’t it?”  Leslie knew he sounded bitter but couldn’t help it.  The policeman had been following him around for nearly 4 months now, and he was losing hope that the police budget crisis would put an end to it.

“Not us, Sir,” said Policeman 2.  “The only murderer here is you, if you’d only be so kind to admit it.”

There was a squeak from the next aisle and the sound of something glass striking the floor and breaking.

“You did that,” said Leslie without rancour.  “You should go and help.”

“And leave you on your own to murder someone?  You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Sir?”

“I’d love to be left alone, yes,” said Leslie.  “I don’t murder people though, and I never have.”

“It’s just coincidence that people keep dying near you, then, Sir?”

“Yes!  A thousand times yes!  Although…” Leslie eyed Policeman 2 up thoughtfully, “This never used to happen until you two arrived.  If we’re going purely on circumstantial evidence then one of you is clearly the murderer, attempting to pin the crime on me.”

“That seems a bit far-fetched, Sir,” said Policeman 2.  Leslie snorted and turned the corner of the aisle.  Sprawled in the next aisle in an expanding pool of blood was a dead young woman.

“Oh God,” he said weakly.  “How did the pair of you manage that then?”  Policeman 2 shot him a filthy look and radioed in for help.

“Yes, he’s murdered another one while we were watching him… no, he didn’t kill her in front of us… no, he didn’t get away from us… no… no… yes… no, well, we were with him and there’s another murdered body in the next… no… yes… well he’s a murderer isn’t he?”  Finally the conversation stopped and Policeman 2 looked at Leslie.  “You’re going to have to come in for questioning.”

An unusual knife

Isabella backed David up to the top of the stairs and into the shadows there, but he refused to go back round the corner, and with a mental kick she remembered telling him about the spiders to get him down the rope.  She controlled a sigh and, not for the first time, told herself that she ought to have a clause in her treasure-hunting contracts that explicitly prohibited the person commissioning her from coming along for a jolly.  David stood in front of her so that he could peer at the corner and get first glimpse of any spiders chasing them, and she allowed him to, reasoning that if she got shot he was definitely going to die, whereas if he got shot she still had a fighting chance.

“We’re not going back up that rope, Izzy,” said David.  He was managing to keep his voice low now, and she was grateful for that.  “There’s a spider’s nest at the top.  It’s certain death.”

“They’re only spiders,” she said.  She saw immediately that it was the wrong thing to say.  David’s face paled and his eyes widened, even though his pupils shrank down to a pinpoint.  He gripped her arm urgently, and she noticed that it hurt, something she’d very much doubted he was capable of.

“They’re not!” he hissed, staring at her.  She noticed that his hair was so heavily gelled that it still looked as though he’d only done it up a few minutes ago.  It was slicked back against his scalp and down the back of his neck in a thoroughly unfashionable mullet.  He reminded her strongly of football players in the seventies.  “They’re not!”

She thought before answering this time, mostly of what she’d like to do to him for lying on the application form about his phobias.  

“Damn.  So you know too?” she said.  David’s gaze became very slightly less terrifying and his grip slackened a little.  He nodded.  “Well, then you know I’m not going to try and go back up the rope,” said Isabella, who’d been intending to do exactly that.  “But there’s a very real danger down here too, David.  Bigger even than the spiders.”  His gaze intensified again and she wondered if she’d judged it wrong and he was about to flip out.  Then he let go of her arm, though he didn’t drop his gaze.

“So what do we do?” he asked.  “It seems like we’re cut off front and back.”

“We don’t know that, we only know that there’s dangers here that we don’t know about,” she said.  “They’re known-unknowns in the matrix formualation: we know that there are things we don’t know enough about to address, but knowing that we know this allows us to prepare to address them.  It’s very meta.”

David nodded as though he were taking her seriously.  “And the unknown-unknowns?” he said.  Isabella felt her jaw drop, but she started speaking quickly to cover it up.

“Are always a problem,” she said.  “And by their very nature they can’t be anticipated or planned for.  Specifically, that is, there are general precautions we can take.  And it helps if we have some unknown-unknowns of our own.”

“Like what?  We’ve not brought much equipment.”

And whose fault is that? thought Isabella immediately.  David had first refused to carry anything that looked heavy, then he’d moaned about carrying anything at all, and eventually she’d been forced to leave quite a lot of things she’d have liked to have with her.  Most of them were geo-tagged for later collection, but it was still vexing.

“We have some,” she said.  “And in fact I’m intending to use one of them now.”  She slipped her fingers beneath her blouse and located the slender leather holster she wore against her skin.  Her fingers tingled as she touched it, the action of a neurotoxin whose antidote she ingested every morning without fail.  Undoing it with a soft clicking sound, she slid a knife out and out of her blouse.  Its handle was the length of her palm and wrapped with a fibrous plant material that gave it good grip in wet or sweaty hands, and its blade was about wavy, half as long again, and made of a metal that looked like steel.  It glittered even in the poor light of the cave.

“That’s a knife, Issy,” said David.  “That won’t stop a bullet.”

“It’s a kris,” she said.  “It’s made of some odd alloys that are quite hard to find.  It’s proper name is a Brinchev kris and there are supposedly only five of them in the world.”

“It’s valuable then?”  David’s voice took on a note of greed which made her feel slightly sad.  The man had more money than he knew how to spend and was bored enough to hire her for a treasure hunt and then insist on coming along, yet show him an expensive rarity and he wanted it.

“In a way,” said Isabella.  She held the knife out in front of her, laying on her open palm, and slowly turned in a circle.  About two thirds of the way round the knife quivered, but she completed the full circle before returning to that point.  “They’re used for a very specific purpose usually, so if you don’t have that purpose they’re not all that useful.”  She took a step forward, watching the knife tremble.

“What purpose?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she said.  “The propaganda is very good.”  She took another step and was gratified to see a bar of light suddenly shoot down the length of the blade and strike the floor, where it vanished.

“What was that?”

“The location of the door,” said Isabella.  “There are doors everywhere, David, but what’s on the other side is generally not safe.  And I really, really mean not safe.  The only reason I’m doing this is because I know what’s on the other side, and I don’t know what’s going on in that cave.  So we trade a known danger for an unknown one, and hope that it’s all worthwhile in the end.”

“I don’t think I understand you.”   His voice was small and his head drooped.  His eyes focused on his feet, but she refused to feel sorry for him.

“I know that,” she said.  “But you’ll have your chance soon enough.”  She gripped the Brinchev kris firmly, pushed into empty air, and began to cut.

All your parents are dead

Grandmother looked around the Hook, but their waiter had disappeared, probably in the kitchen.  There were two other waiters flitting around like monochrome butterflies, but they were all staying in their respective thirds of the restaurant.  There were only two tables near enough to them to eavesdrop, and they were both empty, but she still checked out the people at the tables further away.  None of them looked like they’d have extraordinary hearing.

“So child,” she said to Red Riding Hood, noting the silvery snail-trails of silent tears, “all your parents are dead in fact.  You’ve had a total of eight so far.  The originals, your real parents, were my daughter Belle and an older gentleman called Tom.  I confess, I could see exactly what Belle saw in Tom, but I never did figure out what he saw in her.  At least, what he saw in her that he couldn’t see in me.  But anyway, despite all that, they got married and seemed happy and had a daughter of their own, which would be you.  Then one day they turned up at my house with you, spent an hour drinking coffee and eating biscuits, and then ran off leaving you and a letter behind.”

“Do you still have the letter?” said Red, her eyes wide.  She felt as though her centre had somehow slipped slightly and she was balanced precariously at the edge of a whirlpool.

“Oh no!  That letter told me exactly who Tom was and why they were running away, and it was a death warrant for them if the King ever found it.  I ate the wretched thing, just to make sure there was no chance of the words escaping up the chimney if I tried to burn it.  And I realised that if people knew they’d left then suspicion would fall on them.”

“But… wouldn’t people notice that they weren’t around?”  Red forced herself to scan the room for threats, recalling her grandmother’s lessons that when things got out of control you reasserted control by doing what you knew worked.

“I started off by telling everyone they’d gone on holiday,” said her grandmother.  “Then I found a young girl with the brains of a cow and told her she was being adopted.  The poor thing nearly moo-ed with excitement, and I brought her home, dyed her hair and told everyone that there’d been a horrible accident that had killed Tom and left poor Belle a half-wit.  You could see from how eagerly they all gossiped about it that they were secretly delighted.”

“I don’t remember this,” said Red.  Their waiter had reappeared with their food – but no sushi – and was walking over to their table as reluctantly as he could manage.

“No, you wouldn’t.  She managed to drown herself in the well when you were two.  I think she was trying to fish the moon out of the water.  It really wasn’t a great loss, and it made it easier for everyone to think that you were now a poor little orphan girl.  Then Anne-Marie and her ‘best friend’ Madeleine turned up in the village looking for somewhere to stay and work, so I hired them on as your nannies.  It was easiest to tell you that they were your parents though, since you were still so young.”

The waiter laid down the plates, and grandmother smiled as him as though only half-remembering him.  “Where’s yours?  I know you’re having the sushi with us.”

“My manager won’t allow me time to sit and eat,” said the waiter, a note of relief evident in his voice.

“You just send him over to talk to me,” said grandmother.  “Please.”  Her last word was like the closing of a tomb, and the waiter turned pale.

“Yes ma’am,” he said with ill-grace.

“I don’t think I remember Anne-Marie or Madeleine either,” said Red.  “What happened to them?”

“They went to a cornfield one afternoon,” said grandmother, “for some alone time I think.  They were sitting in the corn apparently when the harvester ran them over.  I’m told it was messy.”

“Oh!”

“Yes.  And then the Gingerbread man turned up and he needed somewhere to stay, and he seemed a lot more sensible than the last two, so I hired him.  So your seventh parent was his first wife, but she ran off with a soldier after two weeks, which made room for Dorothy when she needed hiding as part of a witness protection program.”

“You’ve tried to help a lot of people out, haven’t you grandmother?”  The tears were trickling down Red’s face again, and she hid them by starting to eat her little pigs in blankets.

“I try,” she said.  She turned, just as the manager approached.  “Ah, the very man!”

Research Report I

February 23^rd 2013.  Report by Sylvain Samathan on [REDACTED].  Classified [REDACTED].

Synopsis: the experiments that have been performed as part of this research project have been successful, though that success is qualified rather than outright.  The indications are that, given additional research funding, the results from these experiments can be extended and improved on, and that the overall goal is, as expected, achievable within a reasonable time frame and without excessive fiscal costs.

Recommendations: 1) a new research proposal should be submitted with a clear roadmap for achieving the goal.  This report will make clear that there is a well-defined road that should reach the goal in three months or less, and that set-backs that have occurred during the current research phase are all avoidable given adequate project management.

2) A new project manager should be provided as the old one is dead.  The new project manager should be uncurious about the physical aspects of the experiments and inclined to stick to managing spreadsheets, timesheets, and the occasional team outing to bowling alleys, cheap-ticket movies and pot-lucks.

3) A safety protocol regarding the storage of fissile material should be implemented as a priority.  While the research team appreciates the government’s enthusiasm for this project and their willingness to supply materials of excellent utility and questionable provenance, there is a lack of experience of handling such materials and their care and storage.  A safety protocol is the minimum recommended strategy, and if a security officer familiar with these kinds of materials could be supplied as well we are sure that research will go faster.

4) A padlock is recommended for the poisons cupboard, the key to be held by the uncurious project manager.

Experimental methodology:  Standard methods were used for the majority of experiments, with new methods only being invented when there was either 1) a clear need for them, or 2) no precedent in the area to provide guidance.  All experimental methods were submitted to the Ethics committee and their recommendations treated as absolute requirements.  We would like to note at this juncture that there was some doubt amongst the members of the team that the Ethics committee were entirely qualified or suited to their job, and that some of their decisions were either irrational, ill-thought-through, or both.  In particular, Lady Agatha [REDACTED] seemed only concerned about the possible environmental effects on seagulls, and Mr. [REDACTED] the [REDACTED] was very hard to waken during meetings, yet voted enthusiastically and with vociferous opinion.

Revisions have been made to the methods of calculations after it was discovered that the standard method provided in [1,2] and [6] had a typo in the logarithmic method.  This lead, unfortunately, to the prediction of fatalities to be out by a factor of 1,000, meaning that an experiment was performed with the expectation of 0.1% fatalities (rounded to 0 individuals), 3.4% serious injuries (rounded to 0 people), 12.8% minor injuries (rounded to 2 people, with the anticipation being that it would be the rather more replaceable janitorial team that would take the losses) and 18.9% transient injuries (such as bruising, hysterical blindness and pregnancy) (rounded to 5 people, of which none were women, as a precaution).  In actuality the fatality rate was 100%, as should have been predicted.  Interestingly, the other percentages did correctly predict the degree of damage done to the corpses, and we are applying for a separate grant to study how accurate these percentages are and if they can be used by the clean-up crews to anticipate the levels of disinfection needed after [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED].

Tools have finally been found that are capable of handling [REDACTED] without dissolution or subsequent corruption.  These are described in Appendix A.  It should be noted that the design of these tools is, surprisingly, of utmost importance.   Additionally, where angles appear to add up to an excess the manufacturers should expect that this will be possible provided they follow the steps in the order given.  We hope to have another paper published explaining this after the team’s mathematician is released from the psychiatric ward.

Precautions: 1) Do not look at any of the subjects except through the goggles (Design 1, section 4.2).  The optic nerve appears to be a infection vector for some or all of them.

2) Do not attempt to stem an escape with bare flesh.

3) Do not attempt to squash any of the subjects with items of clothing, footwear, or beakers of sulphuric acid on the countertop.  (Note that the acid was effective in halting the escape, but the scientist involved lost both hands and was in severe pain from bone and nerve damage until [REDACTED] and fed to [REDACTED].)

4) Monosodium glutamate in crystalline form must not be allowed into any area where the subjects will be studied.

Details of experiment 1

[REDACTED.  To read more of this paper please present yourself, your credentials, and at least one family member with power of attorney to [REDACTED] between [REDACTED] and 5pm.  There will be a [REDACTED] and failure to [REDACTED] will [REDACTED].  [REDACTED]].

The overflow morgue

The mortician at the overflow morgue lets me have my own key because she got tired of trying to find how I’d broken in again.  She sighed as she threw it at me, and then laughed as I struggled to bend enough to pick it up.  I’d had a particularly difficult time with a particularly tricky case the night before, involving a sadistic acupuncturist, a loose goose and a bag of leaf tea and I really wasn’t set up for bending, stretching, or even moving faster than a stumble.

“Sweet beggared Moses, Mac,” she’d said, without any more malice in her tone than people who don’t know me use, “what have you done to yourself this time?  I don’t know, but you keep coming in here so you may as well call it home.  It’s people you know who keep this place in business, so perhaps I should show some gratitude, however indirectly.”

I hooked the key with a shoe and started to pull it up my leg to where my aching fingers could reach it.  “I like it in here,” I said.  “It’s quiet, no-one tries to bother me or interrupt my thoughts.”

“Who in their right mind would bother you, Mac?”

“People wanting me dead, mostly.”

“So you’re giving them a bit of a head start, eh?  Where better to hide a dead body than a morgue?”

“The graveyard, but it involves digging and a bit of heavy lifting.”  I got my fingertips to the key and tried to straight up again.  It proved painful, and from the sound of her laughter, humorous too.

“Don’t scare my assistant,” she said.  “And try not to let anyone official catch you.  If they come in while you’re thinking hard –,” her tone suggested that she thought I was sleeping, “– don’t sit up and greet them.  Not unless you’re trying to add to the population here yourself.”

I grunted, mostly with the effort of dragging my shoulder up so they were level with one another and she left it at that.  As she walked off I remember thinking that from the rear she was stunning, but when you saw her face she was breath-taking.  As in, she took your breath away so much that you couldn’t even beg for mercy.  She could have given Medusa tips on both make-up and hair-care.

I let myself in to the morgue and sniffed.  There was a strong blast of formaldehyde in the air, but there were the subtle, almost-citrussy notes of chloroform underneath.  I asked Miss Sapphire about it once, wondering if it’s supposed to smell like Japanese lime and she just wrinkled her delicate little nose at me.

“You sniff chloroform, Mac?”  She shook her head and exhaled very gently, a ladylike take on a very masculine gesture.  “How are you even still alive?”

I walked through the little entrance office without signing the visitors book; I figured that this was like a home away from home so I wasn’t really visiting.  And if I wasn’t here there was nothing to explain if someone noticed a trolley out of place, or a roll of bandages borrowed for a while.  In the next room the temperature dropped noticeably.  The overflow morgue is dug into the ground for insulation and they keep it cold enough that it doesn’t smell much except in summer.  The floor sloped steadily downwards as I headed towards the corpse bays where the bodies for autopsy are prepped.  There was pretty much always a free trolley there, and I have faith I’d wake up before they cut too deep; while if I slept in the fridges I might not wake up until I was in the chiller cabinet.  They lock those doors from the outside too.  I asked about it, and the mortician just shrugged her shoulders.

“Mad Frankie went to the city council and insisted,” she said.  “Sat there in the Mayor’s chair, banging his fist on the table and insisting that we put security in, saying that he wanted to know that when he died he wasn’t going to be some necrophiliac’s sex toy.  God only knows what kind of people he hangs out with, Mac.  Well, God and you, from what I hear.”  I had my own opinions about why Mad Frankie might want to be able to lock people into a morgue fridge, and I wasn’t going to speculate.

The corpse bays were unusually crowded, and when I started opening body bags and checking the contents I found that everyone seemed to be missing an arm or a leg, sometimes both.  Then I found the bag that contained all the arms and legs and realised that the mortuary staff would be doing jigsaw puzzles come the morning, and I permitted myself a grim little smile.  This wasn’t Mad Frankie’s style, he was much more direct.  This looked and felt like Natasha Monkeybutt to me, deploying some police weapon without due care and consideration.  I pushed the bag of limbs onto the floor, climbed on to the trolley and lay back.  I exhaled deeply, closed my eyes, and tried to think about all the things that had happened since I went looking for Little Boy Blue.  And I realised that I still hadn’t found out where he was and why someone had dragged a sheep up to his room to slaughter it there.

Chip Inside

Cort woke with a start.  He was sure that something had woken him, but the room seemed quiet and dark now.  He lay perfectly still – quite easy as he was still restrained by the semi-intelligent nylon bands – and listened carefully.  He closed his eyes after a couple of seconds; even though there wasn’t much to see in the gloom it helped him concentrate.  For a few moments there was nothing and then… something.  Something faint, on the edge of hearing.  Ah, something trying to match his own breathing.  Cort held his breath and listened harder.  Sure enough, someone breathed softly and slowly, exactly when he would have breathed himself.  There was someone in the room with him.

He allowed himself to start breathing again, aware that complete silence would be a give-away as much as if he started shouting, and twisted slightly as though trying to turn over in his sleep.  The bands tightened, but it was more of a warning squeeze than aggressive, and as they did so he stretched his arm until it reached his toes.  He’d discovered this trick while playing backgammon with Bad Kitty, as it meant he could throw the dice himself.  Curiously, after he’d done that he’d stopped unaccountably losing in the end-game every game.

With his hand at his feet he had enough flex in his arm now to reach the emergency button on the headboard of his bed, so he walked his fingers gently up the covers until he got there and reached up to press it.  It clicked very faintly as he depressed it, and then – nothing.

“You’re awake then, Cort?”  The voice was warm and friendly, even slightly familiar, and for several moments Cort thought that it was the Doctor back from the dead for a fourth attempt.  He tensed, and the bands squeezed back like a strait-jacket.  “Don’t you remember me?”

“Doctor?”  Cort shook his head even as he said it, remembering that the Doctor was dead and that he, Mr. Stretch, was in lock-down while his sentient mucus was checked-out.  “No.  Bad Kitty?”

“Getting warmer,” said the voice.  “Are you always this slow to wake up properly?”

“Yes, sort of now,” said Cort.  “Chip.  Chip Inside.  I haven’t seen you in years.  What are you doing in my room?”

“Well, it’s not really your room, is it?” said Chip.  He sounded amused, and pleased that Cort had finally identified him.  “This is one of the general rooms of Surgery 2.  They’ve got you in here in case more of that mucus turns up and they need to stop you producing more of it.”  There was an odd note in his voice, and Cort easily deduced what was meant by ‘stop.’

“As in, Terminate with Extreme Prejudice?”

“You’ve got the slang down, daddio,” said Chip.  “It’s hard to believe you’re in a retirement home.”

“It’s hard to believe you’re pretending to be normal and holding down a government job!  With a pension!”

“Yeah.  Yeah, that’s not so cool, but, well, there is the matter of the pension.  It’s tracked as well, it’s a good one.  And the work is interesting a lot of the time.”

“Anything you can talk about?”

“What do you think?”

Cort laughed, a slightly gaspy noise as the nylon bands weren’t sure what to make of the chest movements and kept gripping.

“So why are you in my room?” he said.  “Are you the committee for bringing bad news?”

“Not exactly,” said Chip.  “I’m here discretely, on other business.  Your mucus is fascinating stuff, but it looks like a one-off, one of those little oddities somehow connected with our mutations and super-powers.  It’s not about to eat London, if that’s what you’re scared of.  No, I’m here instead on behalf of Sylvestra.”

“I’m too old for a job,” said Cort.  He laughed a little again.  “I can’t even imagine what she could have in mind.”

“Not much of a job, really,” said Chip.  “But important in its own way.  And if you agree we think we can get Bad Kitty to pitch in too.”

“Oh I see, that’s it is it?  You really want Little Miss Hairball and I’m just the easiest way to get to her.”

“No.  Really no, Cort.  I want you, and if we get Bad Kitty as well then that’s a bonus, a little bit of icing.  But you’re the cake, Cort.  All of it.”

“I’d be shaking my head if these restraints let me,” said Cort.  “I don’t believe you for a minute, but let’s pretend I do.  What do you want me to do?”

“Watch.”

“Watch what?  Bad Kitty undressing?  Her burlesque days are long gone, Chip!”

“I should hope so!” Chip sounded a little alarmed at the thought of an elderly lady with too much hair dressed in a tightly-laced corset and thigh-high heeled boots.  “We want you to watch for visitors to Fizz.”

Cort stayed silent for several seconds thinking about that.  When he spoke again there was a note of fear in his voice.

“Fizz isn’t allowed visitors.”

“I know.  But we think she’s going to get them, and we need someone on the inside, someone who can let us know if that happens.  That’s all, Cort, nothing else.  Just keep the embargo on Fizz Mission the way it’s supposed to be.”

“Sure,” said Cort.  “Of course I will.  You know, sometimes I wonder just how lonely she must be in there, you know?”

“She barely knows,” said Chip.  “The drugs they have her on mean she sees one day where the rest of us see sixty.  She doesn’t have enough time to feel lonely before something happens to distract her.”

“I see,” said Cort.  “Could be a blessing, really.”

“I hope so,” said Chip.  “Will you watch her then?  Let us know if anyone tries to visit her.”

“Sure thing,” said Cort.  “When do I get out of these straps then?”

“Tomorrow,” said Chip.  “Better to go through standard protocol really.  Thanks, Cort.  Sylvestra will be grateful for this.”

“No problem,” said Cort.  “Fizz is a sweet girl really.”

The spider rose

The spider rose is only thorns,
around a sooty, blackened stem,
its heart contains six maggots which
consume whatever love they can.

A bunch of these is rare as gold,
and cost more than a man should pay –
I've pawned the house and sold your dog –
your valentine arrives today!

No words can say the thanks you owe,
no gift could recompense this act.
I win! You owe me ev'rything;
I love you most and that's a fact.