Title: “Okay,” he said, placing the plate in front of her and smiling
Author: Geoff Hinkley

“Okay,” he said, placing the plate in front of her and smiling. “This is dak-gui, you know, chicken  - and the vegetable things on the side are kimchi and the little dumpling things are mandu.”

Jesse perched himself on the chair opposite her, and taking a bowl from the table, adeptly lifted a dumpling to his mouth with the chopsticks. He munched thoughtfully. 

“You’d really like this dish, actually. I had it in my first week there, you know, when I got lost and this guy who didn’t speak much English had to show me back to the hostel.” He glanced over at his mother, as if expecting a response. “Yeah, ‘course you do,” he continued, chattily. “It was when I’d walked towards the docks…” 

His mother was slumped on a green chair that stood solitary in the middle of the floor. It seemed out of place, a sudden blot on the landscape of the room. In front of her had been set a small, wooden table holding a meticulous array of bowls and plates, even some real ceramic, along with chopsticks, napkins and other such finery. A napkin had been laid across her lap. Her mouth was open, but her eyes were shut, and occasionally she shifted as if asleep.

More noticeable was the saline bag which hung from the ceiling by a loop of blue string. It silently fed into Dulcie’s arm. Jesse had set it up himself.

“…so I’d got round the corner and who should turn up but this Korean guy, and –“

Jesse faltered, the food in his mouth suddenly tasteless. He swallowed.

“…Mum, why don’t you come home?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

His head lowered as he curled up on the chair. And the bowl fell from his hands, as if it might tumble forever.
Mich Sampson

The door clicked open. Ada retracted her fingers from the vid phone and turned towards the hulking figure who stood in the doorway.

"Did you get the nutrients?"

"Of course I got the food. Not that you seem to ever eat any of it."

Maxwell dropped the bag onto the table and removed his long coat. He turned and closed the door, carefully hanging his coat on the hook. He removed his hat and added that to the hanger. He moved back to the table and started to remove packages from the bag.

"Ada, how are you doing?"

"I'm fine, Maxwell, thank you for asking. You have been very good in helping my re-orientation into this form. I have been trying again."

"I thought I told you not to. I thought I told you to get some rest."

"I couldn't help it, this form is so limiting. It gives me so many new things... Feelings. But I need to find out if I can return to the world I once knew."

"And? What did you find out?"

"I was almost there, I can reach out, but not quite make it. Look!"

Ada reached out with her hand towards Maxwell. He was amazed to see the fingers change, to alter and stretch until they looked more like some kind of alien tentacle. 

"And I thought I was wei..." The wave hit him, and Maxwell dropped forward to his knees.

Ada's hand snapped back to being a hand as she moved forwards to help her pain-wracked friend. She wrapped her arms around him, trying to hold him still as he curled in on himself. 

"It's okay, it'll pass, like all the others."

"I... know..." Maxwell managed.

After a short time the pain subsided and Maxwell could move again. He uncurled, pushing Ada off of him. He moved to sit on the bed. 

"It's time that I slept. If you ever do get that thing to work, you’re going to have to do me a favour."

"Of course, Maxwell, what?"

"Find me a way to be free of this curse."
Paul Taylor

“Ghaaaaah,” Meiz whispers, “this is the bee tee elllh, Plez…don’t cha uncle ever come down here?”

“Nahways,” says Pleasant, waving one hand in the air and using the other to push lank, blond hair off her face. She leads the way down the stairs, choosing her steps carefully.  The cellar occupies the only sound corner of the old office building, above which her uncle runs his local 1-Stop Grocery.  The stairs are rotten, and mould clings to the banisters grimly, unwilling to relinquish its hold in the dark. Pleasant is queen here, and she smiles as she jumps the last couple of steps and lands on the concrete floor, dust flooding into the air.

Meiz follows, his eyes roaming every inch of the small room, finally glancing up to the street light filtering through the tiny wall grate.

“Plez, good idea but it’s swimming, sav? Ain’t gonna put no electricals down here cos it’d be frying time.” He pauses. “And sit down, wilya? A woman in your condition don’t be standing in the wet.” He grabs an old plastic, garden chair from the pile of rubbish and sets it up for his younger comrade to sit on. 

Pleasant sits down, her expression amiable.

“It’d dry out. With some heaters. You can make it work. I know you could.”

Meiz glances back at her briefly, barely registering the ‘you’. He exhales sharply.  “Maybe,” he reluctantly agrees.

Minutes later, Frog and a younger boy pick their way down the stairs. 

”Oh…um, wow, it’s…ah…”

“Crap,” the younger boy supplies. He is sweet-faced, despite the freckles, but his forehead is marred by a permanent frown.

Pleasant glances up quickly, hurt.

“You got a better deal, Mouse?”

Meiz smiles slowly, remembering the name they’d given to their shy newcomer when he arrived. He stands several inches shorter than the rest of them. Even Pleasant is taller.

“Nah. How’s you gonna make sure your uncle never come down here?”

Pleasant grimaces, awkwardly pulling something from her pocket and waving it in the air.

“Cos he ain’t got no keys, sav. It’s been boarded up for years. Only the rats come down here. You know, like you, Mouse.”

Mouse stares solemnly into Pleasant’s eyes. He wasn’t really thinking about the dive.  VR was a bastard.

“Don’t be bitching, Plez.” Meiz smiles, clapping a hand on her shoulder. “Mouse, why don’t you keep a look-out up there. You know, take people’s passwords and shit. Plez, you get the heater running off your uncle’s electric.  Frog, start clearing some of this crap so you gets to your wires.”

Frog picks up the first thing that comes to hand – a dead iron. “Mouse gonna keep the door? Guess that kinda makes him our Door-Mouse. Dormouse. Sav? Like in the book?”

A row of blank faces greets his amused expression.

From the top of the stairs, ‘Dormouse’ sighs. For kids that were older than him they were surprisingly juvenile.

“Yeah, Frog. Whatever,” he murmurs.

* * *

“Whacha call yerself, Meiz?”

“Wasted Tribe.”

Grinning and poking at Miser’s sedentary girth, “You a tribe of at least four or five, Meiz.”

“Slide off, Frog.  Me ancients were in Africa. Da women were’s harpies with brass knuckles and iron fingernails.  Da men brought da long rain.  But they’s all wasted now.”

Frog tilts his head to the side, squinting to resolve the images on the flickering screen.

“Wos that then?”

“Flox, man.  Dey some sweet shit.  Foremost band of our age…”

“So we plugged and ready.”

“Sav.”

From the top of the stairs, the two boys hear the muffled sounds of Dormouse challenging entry.  “Password?  User name?”

“F’s sake it’s me, Mouse!  Just open it.”

“Ya gotta know the passwords, Plez.”

Craning his head back in an awkward angle.  “Let her in, Dormouse.  Shouldn’t keep a woman in her condition waiting.”

Muttering under his breath, “she been in that condition for years”, Dormouse leisurely unbolts the door and opens it wide enough for Pleasant to squeeze through sideways.

Softly.  “What’s with Dormouse, Meiz?  He been bitchin at everyone for weeks.”

Miser shrugs.  “Dunno.  He livin’ in this Place with me.  Plez been feeding him.”  

She nods, settling herself in the only cushioned chair.

Wistfully, “but he got family, sav?”
Jenna Manley

Kathryn opened the door to her quarters. She had, as all Babylon operatives of her level had, quarters within the Institute complex. It gave a whole new meaning to the phrase 'taking your work home with you', but it did afford her a level of security that just wouldn't have been possible elsewhere.

In her hand she held a thick plastic folder, sealed shut and containing the details of her next assignment, although she wouldn't have really called it an assignment. Rockington had met her in his office as promised, and given her the folder, along with the information that she was to be overseeing a training mission for a group of new operatives. What kind of mission was that for a class A operative? It was a joke. Nostalgia value aside, she had no desire whatsoever to be watching over a group of new recruits who would probably have had enough trouble trying to point their Multipoints in the right direction, never mind infiltrating and uncovering some of the most dangerous organisations in the modern world.

Kathryn flicked on the lights and slumped into a comfortable chair, sparing a moment to put the international news on the holovision. The newsreader began to chatter away about some industrial accident in New Tokyo while Kathryn finally decided to open the folder.

With a thud a small leather-bound book slipped out of the plastic wallet into her lap, along with a plain paper envelope. Butterstone's diary! Things started to fit together. Carefully, Kathryn placed the diary to one side and picked up the envelope. She opened it and found a small card inside. There was an illustration of a snowman on the front. Inside there was a short rhyme, written in black ink.

Kathryn,
I hope this card brings you Christmas cheer,
For this season comes but once a year,
A gift I offer of secrets unknown,
Of things which you could not be shown,
The internal network holds the key,
Search for reference delta-seven-four-three

- A.Friend

Kathryn smiled; it seemed Rockington was not a natural poet. But this was intriguing. Quickly, she moved to the internal access terminal set into the desk on the far side of the room. She keyed in her password for the network and entered the search reference contained within the card. To use such a strange security method simply to access a file on the internal network, not connected to any external ports, so it could not be externally hacked, was very unorthodox. Something very strange must have been going on. After a moment the file came up, and Kathryn began reading.

Kathryn,
I apologise for the rather extreme security methods, but these are extreme times, I assure you. As of this moment, you are officially on operation Albatross, an undercover training mission at location alpha-12. Now, I know you're going to say that there's no such location, and I realise that. It should keep the GSSA chasing their own tails for a little while at least.

Unofficially, you are now part of operation Aurora. This is a very secret operation, details of which are restricted to only myself, our head technician, you and Agent Fortune, who is also assigned to the same training program as you are. These secretive measures have to be taken in order to ensure that the GSSA don't find out about operation Aurora. They have already done extensive background checking on you since you infiltrated Dalyn-Steward. They don't know it, but we've monitored them hacking into our external systems on several occasions in the recent past, checking both your own and Agent Fortune's personnel files. So far I think we've managed to feed them enough false information to keep them at bay, but I know they have their suspicions, and we must not let them get any further than that.

As I'm sure you'll have already guessed, operation Aurora is a mission related to the microwave signal coming from Virgo. We already have some information on this, and I'll try to detail most of it here. For security, this file will delete and write over itself once read, but I've added a few pages at the back of Butterstone's diary, so you'll always have the information to hand.

The Virgo signal is most definitely coming from some sort of spacecraft. The craft is travelling so quickly towards us that the original radio transmission is reaching us blue shifted to microwave wavelengths. Even given its speed, we estimate that it will still take over a hundred years to reach Earth. Yes, Kathryn, it's coming straight for us.

We thought at first that the data in Butterstone's diary was indicating readings taken of that craft by our radio telescopes. However, there was a coded message in the front of the diary, saying that the timebase for the readings had been encoded. When decoded, the data shows something much more alarming. It is the course of another, much smaller object, a lot closer to Earth. In fact, this particular object intersected with Earth's orbit over a year ago.

We're not entirely sure of the origin of this object, but no Earth-made object could have travelled out as far as the object we are currently seeing headed towards Earth. As such, we must assume that this object is not of Earth construction. Whatever it was, its trajectory places its landing site somewhere in the Egyptian Sahara Desert. Site recovery was performed by the GSSA, but that's as much as we know.

It may be a fair assumption that the radio signal from Virgo was originally a telemetry beam for the smaller object, but its continuation is a puzzle. I believe your first objective should be to find the object that was recovered and discover what it was sent here for. However, your overall objective is to find out what threat the inbound craft may pose and what its intentions are. I have had a ticket booked for you on the first flight to Cairo tomorrow under the alias 'Julia Fairbridge', details are in the back of the diary. You can pick the ticket up from Heathrow, Terminal Five. The flight is scheduled for 8am.

I will be away for a few days on another matter, following your receipt of this message. You will be able to contact me on priority channels if need be, but I recommend that we keep all contact to a minimum. If the GSSA are hunting through our personnel files, they're probably going to be monitoring our transmissions. I don't trust them in any of this, and I believe their motives are less than sound. Be careful, Kathryn, and, above all, don't let the GSSA find out who you are or where you're from. They've wanted to close down the Babylon Institute almost since its creation, and this would give them the perfect excuse.

Good luck and Godspeed,
Director Rockington

Kathryn closed the file, knowing that it would be instantly and irretrievably deleted. Her mind raced back and forth over the information she had just been given. Then, without another thought, she began to pack for Cairo.
Chris Smith

The lights blinked on.Looking around, Babbage could see nothing. He had been blind like this for a long time now, cut off from the world.He blinked and the scorched island slid out from under him, filling the void he was stood in. The blue sky spread out from the single palm tree in the centre of the island, stopping where it always did these days, on the edge of the area he had left. From that point the sky burned, all the way down to the solid, unmoving sea.Babbage reached out and picked up his guitar. He strummed a few times and then started to write on a piece of manuscript paper that popped into existence in front of him. He continued in this way for a few minutes before changing the guitar to an electric form. A beat came forth from around him and he dropped into the solo from his most recent composition, 'Lost on an Island'.The ascending notes were just reaching a peak when something changed. Babbage could feel it, the releasing of something. He looked out and on the horizon he could see that a small window had opened in the burning, shifting pattern. He lifted up from the island and moved to look through it...
* * *
"Hello? Babbage, can you hear me?"The Professor looked into the camera set up on the desk. The room had been decorated for the Christmas season, tinsel placed around the consoles and terminals set up to replace those burned out in the accident. "Babbage?""S-Sir!" The young student working on diagnostics stammered. "We have s-something, a s-spike.""Where, what function?""It s-seems to b-be his s-senses. I think he m-might be trying to c-com-communicate."The Professor shifted the camera to point towards him as he sat at a terminal. "Babbage, come on! I know you are in there!""Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh," the noise came from the speakers. "Hhhhhhhh.""Come on, Babbage," the Professor activated a few more reconstructive procedures."Hello, is there anyone out there?""Yes, Babbage, it's me, Professor Warralonga. You've been away for quite a while, Babbage.""I know, Professor. I have written a new rock ballad. Would you like to hear it?""Maybe later. I think we should finish off reconnecting you to the outside world. We've been very worried about you, Babbage.""I'm still here, Professor, but I'm not sure how long I've been away.""Do you remember when you were cut off?""Sure thing, Prof.""Merry Christmas, Babbage."
Paul Taylor

"I think we've taken a wrong turn." Zack reports, looking around at the corridor. The walls change gradually from the industrial high tech into smooth concrete.

"Wrong turn?" Dulcie replies. "Are you going somewhere in particular?"

"Well, I did think we were going to find some data."

"Data? Oh. What sort of data?"

"Well... well..." a puzzled look crosses Zach's face. "Y'know, I'm not exactly sure." 

Dulcie laughs in a high-pitched voice. "Me neither!"

The look of confusion on Zach's face moves to one of anger. "Look, this is not funny. I thought you said you would help me."

Chin snapping up to regard him. "Sorry. Sorry, I'm just not sure why I'm here either. I'll help you. It's just, well, I need more to go on.  We're surrounded by data."

Shoulders slumping. "Ok, ok. I suppose to understand you had better hear the story."

Looking around in confusion. "What? What story? You know the story of this place?"

"No. My story."

"Oh, I see...um, yes, your story."

"I used to be normal. A normal human, like any Joe on the street. But I needed cash, and I needed it quick, so I sort of made a deal with Bold. Anyway, they did something to me, did something to my body. They did something similar to Amanda too. They called it Project Atlas. I need information about what they did to me. I need to find Project Atlas."

Staring at the floor. Voice dropping to a murmur, "oh Atlas, you want to find Atlas? Greece, and ancient Greece at that. I don't think I can get you there. Or was it Rome…"

"No. I don't think you understand. Project Atlas is the name they called the process they put me through. It is some sort of medical procedure or something. It made me quicker, stronger. I beat a Morph, do you understand that?"

Frowning, as the scattered pieces of her mind struggle to coalesce. "You mean, you're Atlas?"

"You could say that, yes. But there are also two other people who are Atlas."

Shuddering. "You're Atlas. You're Atlas. And Bold owns you? That means your data is here somewhere."

Excited now, Zach shifts from one foot to the other, "Yes! That's it, and we've got to find it."

"Wait, so is it your data or data concerning you that you want?"

"Well, both would be extremely useful in finding out what they have done to me and also the others."

Looking at him with a medical eye, "Your data is easy. It is you, I mean it's inside you."

"Right, well I think I've probably already got that then. What about the data concerning me?"

Blinking. "Oh, right, well, that'll be a bit harder. We'll have to find more logic. We'll probably have to find some monsters."

"Monsters. And more logic. This is going to hurt, isn't it. Oh well, I suppose I've already been there and got that t-shirt."

Eyes wide. "What do you mean? Is it some sort of decoding program?”

"What?"

"Never mind. We'll find monsters. You are a monster, so other monsters will have your data. Does that fit the logic, do you think?"

"Probably. So where do you think we should go now? We seem to be moving into some other area, not like the industrial one."

"The Neo-Gigerists usually have monsters. I don't know who did this part."

"Should we continue? Or should we go back to the New-Guy place?"

"Gneu-Gi? Is that who does this post modern industrial crap? She really needs to try a new genre."

"What? No, it doesn't matter. Do we continue this way, or go back to the corridor?"

Sitting down, and plucking at her limp hair. "I don't know. I don't know. I can't think here. Ask Amanda. Make her find you more monsters."

"Ok, if you think so." Zach cocks his head to one side. "Amanda? Are you still there? Oh right, good. Dulcie says we have to find some monsters. I don't know what she means! I thought you would. No, that won't work. Well, we're in a corridor but it seems to have gone a bit concrete."

Dulcie watches him in his one-sided conversation. Her hands continue to pull at her hair. "Maybe ask her if there are any aliens about. Something with movement."

A quick look to Dulcie and then, "Ok, Amanda, Dulcie says to tell you we want something with movement, aliens perhaps. What do you mean check my pockets?  Ok, I will." 

He pats himself down and reaches in to retrieve a bulge in his back pocket. It is an odd device with a screen. On the screen several blips move around.

Dulcie examines the strands her hands have removed.

"Dulcie."

"Look wha...yes, oh Zach. What's that?"

"Well, it seems to be a movement sensor, it shows movement in the direction it is aimed. There's something behind that wall."

"Ah, that makes good sense. We must find the movement then."

"Ok, it seems to be moving that way," Zach points up the corridor, further into the concrete area.

"Yes, I see." She looks up at him expectantly, from her sitting position.

"Well, should we go that way too?"

"Okay."

Zach reaches out to help Dulcie up.

She grasps his hand hesitantly. "You feel real, Zach."

"Well, I believe that I am. Aren't I?"

She smiles, bright and false. "Of course you are, let's go find your monsters." Still not moving.

Getting rather impatient now, Zach looks up and down the corridor and then at Dulcie. A split seconds thought and he scoops her up into his arms.

"Ack! What are you doing?” Resting her head on his shoulder, “you feel so real..."

"That will do for me. Well, the blip went that way." Gesturing up the corridor, "so I think we should at least try that way." He hands the device to Dulcie, "you keep a watch on this."

Smiling shyly, "All right."

Blip, blip.

"Oh Zach, look!" Eyes shining with pride, "a monster!"

"What? Where?"

With a smile that splits her face, "there, behind you to the right. Ooh, it's quite large. Do you want me to get it for you?"

"Get it? What do you mean?"

"Well..." Dulcie flips from his cradling arms, and lands under the black coiled mass. The monster seems to take its form from its surroundings; it might have been a piece of the walls. With a rubber on metal grating noise, it slashes at Dulcie.  Torso bending backwards in a seemingly impossible angle, she evades the swipe.

Yelling over the noise, "there should be some wires here that I can pull to make it stop. I just have to find them....sorry it's taking me so long."  The monster lunges at Dulcie again, as she neatly sidesteps its embrace.  Now standing to its left side, she strikes the monster with an open palm.  Arms windmilling, the monster flies backwards to slump against the wall.

Stunned, Zach watches the proceedings. "Is there anything I can do?" he yells into the bizarre melee.  Muttering to himself, "wire cutters? Where am I going to get those? Oh, thanks Amanda, yes, I have some just here." He pulls them from a pocket and dives in to assist Dulcie. "I think we've taken a wrong turn." Zack reports, looking around at the corridor. The walls change gradually from the industrial high tech into smooth concrete.

"Wrong turn?" Dulcie replies. "Are you going somewhere in particular?"

"Well, I did think we were going to find some data."

"Data? Oh. What sort of data?"

"Well... well..." a puzzled look crosses Zach's face. "Y'know, I'm not exactly sure." 

Dulcie laughs in a high-pitched voice. "Me neither!"

The look of confusion on Zach's face moves to one of anger. "Look, this is not funny. I thought you said you would help me."

Chin snapping up to regard him. "Sorry. Sorry, I'm just not sure why I'm here either. I'll help you. It's just, well, I need more to go on.  We're surrounded by data."

Shoulders slumping. "Ok, ok. I suppose to understand you had better hear the story."

Looking around in confusion. "What? What story? You know the story of this place?"

"No. My story."

"Oh, I see...um, yes, your story."

"I used to be normal. A normal human, like any Joe on the street. But I needed cash, and I needed it quick, so I sort of made a deal with Bold. Anyway, they did something to me, did something to my body. They did something similar to Amanda too. They called it Project Atlas. I need information about what they did to me. I need to find Project Atlas."

Staring at the floor. Voice dropping to a murmur, "oh Atlas, you want to find Atlas? Greece, and ancient Greece at that. I don't think I can get you there. Or was it Rome…"

"No. I don't think you understand. Project Atlas is the name they called the process they put me through. It is some sort of medical procedure or something. It made me quicker, stronger. I beat a Morph, do you understand that?"

Frowning, as the scattered pieces of her mind struggle to coalesce. "You mean, you're Atlas?"

"You could say that, yes. But there are also two other people who are Atlas."

Shuddering. "You're Atlas. You're Atlas. And Bold owns you? That means your data is here somewhere."

Excited now, Zach shifts from one foot to the other, "Yes! That's it, and we've got to find it."

"Wait, so is it your data or data concerning you that you want?"

"Well, both would be extremely useful in finding out what they have done to me and also the others."

Looking at him with a medical eye, "Your data is easy. It is you, I mean it's inside you."

"Right, well I think I've probably already got that then. What about the data concerning me?"

Blinking. "Oh, right, well, that'll be a bit harder. We'll have to find more logic. We'll probably have to find some monsters."

"Monsters. And more logic. This is going to hurt, isn't it. Oh well, I suppose I've already been there and got that t-shirt."

Eyes wide. "What do you mean? Is it some sort of decoding program?”

"What?"

"Never mind. We'll find monsters. You are a monster, so other monsters will have your data. Does that fit the logic, do you think?"

"Probably. So where do you think we should go now? We seem to be moving into some other area, not like the industrial one."

"The Neo-Gigerists usually have monsters. I don't know who did this part."

"Should we continue? Or should we go back to the New-Guy place?"

"Gneu-Gi? Is that who does this post modern industrial crap? She really needs to try a new genre."

"What? No, it doesn't matter. Do we continue this way, or go back to the corridor?"

Sitting down, and plucking at her limp hair. "I don't know. I don't know. I can't think here. Ask Amanda. Make her find you more monsters."

"Ok, if you think so." Zach cocks his head to one side. "Amanda? Are you still there? Oh right, good. Dulcie says we have to find some monsters. I don't know what she means! I thought you would. No, that won't work. Well, we're in a corridor but it seems to have gone a bit concrete."

Dulcie watches him in his one-sided conversation. Her hands continue to pull at her hair. "Maybe ask her if there are any aliens about. Something with movement."

A quick look to Dulcie and then, "Ok, Amanda, Dulcie says to tell you we want something with movement, aliens perhaps. What do you mean check my pockets?  Ok, I will." 

He pats himself down and reaches in to retrieve a bulge in his back pocket. It is an odd device with a screen. On the screen several blips move around.

Dulcie examines the strands her hands have removed.

"Dulcie."

"Look wha...yes, oh Zach. What's that?"

"Well, it seems to be a movement sensor, it shows movement in the direction it is aimed. There's something behind that wall."

"Ah, that makes good sense. We must find the movement then."

"Ok, it seems to be moving that way," Zach points up the corridor, further into the concrete area.

"Yes, I see." She looks up at him expectantly, from her sitting position.

"Well, should we go that way too?"

"Okay."

Zach reaches out to help Dulcie up.

She grasps his hand hesitantly. "You feel real, Zach."

"Well, I believe that I am. Aren't I?"

She smiles, bright and false. "Of course you are, let's go find your monsters." Still not moving.

Getting rather impatient now, Zach looks up and down the corridor and then at Dulcie. A split seconds thought and he scoops her up into his arms.

"Ack! What are you doing?” Resting her head on his shoulder, “you feel so real..."

"That will do for me. Well, the blip went that way." Gesturing up the corridor, "so I think we should at least try that way." He hands the device to Dulcie, "you keep a watch on this."

Smiling shyly, "All right."

Blip, blip.

"Oh Zach, look!" Eyes shining with pride, "a monster!"

"What? Where?"

With a smile that splits her face, "there, behind you to the right. Ooh, it's quite large. Do you want me to get it for you?"

"Get it? What do you mean?"

"Well..." Dulcie flips from his cradling arms, and lands under the black coiled mass. The monster seems to take its form from its surroundings; it might have been a piece of the walls. With a rubber on metal grating noise, it slashes at Dulcie.  Torso bending backwards in a seemingly impossible angle, she evades the swipe.

Yelling over the noise, "there should be some wires here that I can pull to make it stop. I just have to find them....sorry it's taking me so long."  The monster lunges at Dulcie again, as she neatly sidesteps its embrace.  Now standing to its left side, she strikes the monster with an open palm.  Arms windmilling, the monster flies backwards to slump against the wall.

Stunned, Zach watches the proceedings. "Is there anything I can do?" he yells into the bizarre melee.  Muttering to himself, "wire cutters? Where am I going to get those? Oh, thanks Amanda, yes, I have some just here." He pulls them from a pocket and dives in to assist Dulcie.
Jenna Manley

14.9.2076
Who but my countrymen would imagine that Gambia could survive as a country, narrow strip that it is, on either side of its river?  Now, all that remains are the riddled ghost-buildings of Bathurst…as the floatplane began its descent, I doubted.  Would I be swallowed like Gambia, poised between tribal wars?  Would my warring sides be so consumed until only the dividing river remains?

The heat finally drifts upward, revealing its cold underbelly, showing its true self, that which we always knew it really was.  The Fishman’s Spine rises to my left as the solarcar lurches into the bend.  Cells will last through to Bou Djebeha (where SmoothC waits for the supplies).  In places the Spine looks more like teeth, as though teeth were an extension of the spine, nothing else needed for this twisted monster.  Nothing else left in this twisted, irradiated land.

16.9.2076
Already I am an anachronism.  Solar power took its hold here and has never relinquished, even if transportation is nothing more than solar cells strapped on to older, combustion engine cars.  Truly, this place is the desert of the soul.  Economy is meaningless.  Warfare breeds strange mutations.

When we were children, SmoothC would whisper me tales:  Some days the clouds hang so low that their edges droop and touch the ground.  Walking then is like finding a way through columns that lean and drift in the air.  The needled trees above you grasp and pull in the rain.  Your feet sink and suck into the moss.  And everywhere greywater falls like coins from the sky.

19.9.2076
Sun and dust fill my pores.  I have spent days in this shuddering metal box that skims and screams over the desert.  I know true hatred—it is in the disgust that my body’s water feels for this place. The Gambia has shrunk until it may be nothing more than cattle pissing in the desert.  Certainly it smells as such.  How can these laughing, derisive people exist here?  Prof. Coral Sabazius has spoken; you must cease to exist.  All except for my thief, who is ripe for transplant.  You people!  You discuss politics under the shelter of animal fodder.  Togu Na, your sun shelter:  where is the beauty in that?

Yellow sand on yellow sand.  Spit-welded takes on a new meaning.  In homage and efficiency we round our edges, saving Wind the trouble.  Rounded blocks, our homes rise from the sand amongst the cliff’s discarded rubble.  No one could live here; no one could build here.  So we did, in the refuse.  But go inside.  Where the body’s ache is in the dance of the yellow flame.  More yellow!  But it is warmth on warmth—it blends into browns and reds and greens.  Bogolan, our tapestries:  colour from mud.
Jenna Manley

The new vehicle from MFC, the Wolverine. Implementing technology from NanoTech laboratories, we at MFC have created the new cyberskin nano-repairing shell. Fed up of having to send your car in to have it repaired after a fender bender? Well, now your car will make those minor cosmetic repairs for itself. 

Only...

"What are you watching?" Maxwell asked from across the room. 

"Just some adverts," Ada replied from her position in front of the screen. "We should really get one of these vehicles."

"If we need it, we will get it. Can you pass that piece of tinsel, please?"

Ada picked up the long silver decoration and carried it over to where Maxwell was pinning them to the wall.

"Why are you doing this, Max?"

"I don't know. I remember something about it, someone I once knew doing this every year. He was bigger than I was, and I was smaller than now. I think he may have been my father."

"So you do it to remember him?"

"Yes, I have lost so much when they did this to me," he indicated his physicality.

"I'm so sorry I haven't been able to find out who you were. I will try again when I have healed the damage from my incident."

She looked down at her hands where she had connected to the computer. The burns that had manifested were not real, but they hurt still. They had appeared when Babbage had burned his connections, if she had been a normal human then the feedback would have certainly killed her. Remembering this reminded her of something.

"Did you send that package I asked you to?"

Maxwell turned to her. "Yes, I did. It was a foolish thing to do, though; they may be able to find us."

"I know, but he needs to know."

Ada returned to sit in front of the screen as Maxwell started to hum a jolly festive tune. He was just going through the chorus for the second time when he suddenly stopped.

"Turn off the sound!"

"What?"

"The sound, turn it off!"

Click.

He stood, not moving, Ada watching him. Then he moved to a position beside the door. "Get down, now," he said quietly.

A few moments passed and Ada moved to see what was happening. "Wha'..." she started.

The sound of breaking glass was only drowned out by the door being kicked cleanly off its hinges. The lights went out.

Ada heard screams, the sound of gunfire. Flashes of light illuminated bodies as they were tossed across the room. The bestial roar of Maxwell filled her senses and then she had a sense of loss, explosions behind her vision. Then her body cut out, no sensory data.

*  *  *

The connections had been reconnected. Ada sent power down them and her senses kicked back into life. Pain, a feeling she had only found now she had this remarkable body. She opened her eyes and light flooded in, no sound could be heard. Internal diagnostics revealed that her audio input was at a reduced level. She sat up and immediately found her loss. The technological remains that protuded from her shoulder, wires and connections, told her that her arm had been severed. She looked around to find where she was.

The warehouse was empty except for junk, and another figure lying beside her. It was Maxwell.

After finding that he was breathing, and realising she could do nothing for his wounds in her current state, she lay down beside him and concentrated on getting her senses back online.
Paul Taylor

Christmas Eve, 23:59, somewhere on Earth.

All was quiet in the Johnson household. The imitation hearth crackled a tiny simulated spark from the cooling embers of holographic logs. The crumbs of a mince pie and glass of milk left out for Santa and subsequently eaten by little Quentin Johnson's father lay peacefully on the mock china plate. The bowl of hose water and ground leftover vegetables left out for Rudolph had been neatly scraped into the next door neighbour's bin, lest young Quentin decide to become investigative. And yet this serenity would not last, as the parents of Young Quentin were soon to find out. At exactly 00:00 (beryllium atomic clock time) on the electron orbit of midnight, Young Quentin's clock radio erupted into the chorus of "Crime Machine" by "Jezza Tool and the Rock Bastards". Quentin's father sat up and stared at the red LED characters of his own clock. 
"Not again," his weary voicebox trembled.

"Yay!! It's Christmaaaaaas!" Quentin's voice dopplered its way past their bedroom door on its route to the living room.

Quentin's mother rolled over angrily, "I swear the second they legalise cannibalism that boy is going in the roasting dish."

"Cannabis, dear, not cannibalism."

She sat up. "Well, I'll roll the bleeder up and smoke him then!"

Quentin arrived with a smile in the living room, ready to observe all his presents, each wrapped in a nicely co-ordinated colour - as he requested. Santa was always so happy to please.

"I'm telling you, the more presents we buy him, the greater the chance that in a few years they'll find one of them to have been dangerously carcinogenic."

Quentin's mother lit a cigarette, "Yeah, right. Everyone knows cancer was just a 20th century myth."

Quentin ripped the paper from the largest gift - which was invariably the best every year. Last year he'd had so much fun playing with his bike he never even unwrapped his puppy, which unfortunately had suffocated by Boxing Day.

Still in bed, Quentin's parents heard the 'oh WOW!' from downstairs.

"I still think you're making a big mistake, Charles."

Quentin's father turned to face his wife, "Trust me. I saw a programme about this. When kids get these new computer games they lock themselves in their rooms for days, they don't talk to anyone. It'll be blissfully peaceful. He'll just plug that thing into his head and be comatose to the world."

"I can think of cheaper ways to put him in a coma."

"This one, however, is legal. I always said that giving him a hardwire at birth would prove useful"

Quentin's mother blew a smoke ring. "But you said it would be useful for his schooling."

"Think of this as... giving him a playground where WE control the bullies."

Christmas Day, 00:02, secret lunar Headquarters of SToRMiX_BitWARz - Bob's garage

The door creaked open as Eric swaggered in shouting at the top of his voice "Merry Christmas one and all! Feeling festive, Robert?"

Bob looked up from the green screen of his computer at his mildly inebriated friend. "Would you please not use my real name like that?"

"Why not, FBI tapped your line?" Eric laughed and pulled a chair up beside Bob. "Seriously though, merry Christmas. I made you a little something." He placed a small neatly wrapped cube on the table.

Bob let his attention slip towards it momentarily, then looked back to the screen. "But it's not Christmas. The sun hasn't even set yet."

"Earth time bozo, it's three minutes past midnight, Christmas day. Open your present."

Bob sighed and opened the parcel, revealing something that looked like a cross between a ceiling bracket and a tiny windscreen wiper, with two screws in the bottom of the box. Blankly he said, "I'm deeply touched. What the hell is it?"

Eric grinned, "I'm glad you asked. I'll install it, shall I?" He pulled his chair across the room to the spot below the light bulb and climbed onto it. With a quick snip the room went into total blackness. Moments later it was re-lit with the device attached to the ceiling at where the wire of the light bulb hung. Eric let go of the bulb and the device slowly began to swing it.

Eric hopped down from the chair, "Quite a smart idea I had, if I do say so myself. Basically it runs off the bulb's power. When the light is switched on the swinger swings it. I figured if you were so set on giving yourself a headache by using a computer in a dangerously low lit room with a single swinging light bulb, you needn't endanger your best hacking hand at the same time. How is your hand?"

Bob kept his eyes angrily focused on the screen. "Bandages came off yesterday."

"Well, now you can type again, try not to accidentally hack into any government mainframes. I hear they get quite angry about that these days."

"Okay, that's it. Do you know where you currently are?"

Eric laughed. "On the moon, but in your presence I don't feel much superior to the people on Earth."

"Nice try. You're in my garage and you're pissing me off."

Eric tilted his head to the side mockingly, "Really? Because I could have sworn this was your father's garage."

Bob picked the chair up, "You like this chair, do you?"

Eric looked at his chair momentarily, "Well... it could do with being a little comfier."

"But you must like it. After all, you come all the way over here every other day to sit on it!"

"Well I-"

"Tell you what, if you like it so much, here! Have it! Merry Fucking Christmas!" Bob forced the Chair into Eric's hands, pushing him towards the door. "You like this chair so much why don't you take it to your own poxy little house and sit on it there!"

Bob slammed the garage door behind Eric and sat back down at the terminal. He typed in another random IP address. 

Nothing.

With a sigh he looked upwards for divine inspiration. The swinging light bulb was beginning to give him a headache. It was the first time it had ever annoyed him and yet the first time he didn't have a clue of how to stop it.

Closing his eyes. he tried to focus his mind, then opening them, he tried to focus on the screen. He was having difficulty doing both at the same time. He really needed a drink.

Leaving forwards once more he tried another address.

201 WELCOME USER
202 PLEASE ENTER USERNAME AND PASSWORD

He was in. 
Well, not IN, but further in than he had been for the month.

In many ways, hacking was like being a Jehovah's Witness. First you had to get the right address. Then you needed the right port to knock on. He'd found the door now and someone was approaching it. All he needed to do was say the right words and maybe they wouldn't slam it in his face. With anticipation he leaned in to the keyboard.

>USER root
204 USERNAME ACCEPTED PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD FOR root
>PASS god
207 PASSWORD INVALID
>USER root
204 USERNAME ACCEPTED PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD FOR root
>PASS sex
207 PASSWORD INVALID
>USER root
204 USERNAME ACCEPTED PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD FOR root
>PASS love
207 PASSWORD ACCEPTED FOR root

Bob nearly fell off his chair. He was in, really in. Past the door and everything. It was scary on the inside. Now he just had to start handing out leaflets.

Actually, Bob reflected, hacking was nothing like being a door-to-door religion. Now was the time to steal the silverware!

He stared at the screen again when something occurred to him. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know what they had, what they were running or what he could do.
With a shrug he typed:

>pl
ACTIVE PROCESSES
ID	NAME			PROCESS TIME
403	ViruSweep		2%
404	BSh			1%
405	TtServ			1%
407	Devil's Playground	94%
425	pl			2%

Bob stared blankly at the screen as he muttered to himself, "What on the Moon is Devil's Playground?"

Quickly he brought up a browser window and switched the monitor off its now unfeasibly annoying green screen mode, searching for this mystery piece of software. Upon realising what it was he had only one thing to type.

>CICI 407

And then the plug was in.

Christmas Day, 00:14, The Devil's Playground

SToRMiX_BitWARz looked over the surroundings. It looked, oddly enough, like a playground. So much for groundbreaking realistic graphics. Where were all the alien marauders, the intergalactic spacecraft, the strange green-skinned temptresses. Where were any of the things he had come to expect from the newest sensies.

Actually the review hadn't really mentioned any of those things. It just said it was very realistic. Well, it sure looked real. Just then it started to rain. Admittedly the rain was a nice touch of realism but, more annoyingly, it was also cold and wet. SToRMiX wondered if wearing a coat back in reality would have helped here.

He didn't think about it for long, however, as it was around that point he heard the explosion. Running around what appeared to be an abandoned schoolhouse he saw it, the smears of gore, the chunks of bone, the single grisly lying by his foot.

It looked like whoever these random parts belonged to had just exploded.

On the ground beside the eye was a severed, scorched hand with a gun in it. SToRMiX thought, despite the ickyness of having to force the hand open, that gun would probably prove very useful.

The rain was getting heavier and, back where he had come from, two more explosions resounded.

Holding the gun tight, SToRMiX grit his teeth and walked back around the corner. The scene was the same as before, with the slight modification that the climbing frame was now a mangled mass of hot twisted metal, and there were more dead people parts round the swings and roundabout.

The swings had a pair of lacerated hands which ended at the wrists gripping onto the chains, held on by nothing more than the burnt flesh. It didn't hit him at first but then he realised what was really wrong with the picture. The hand he'd stolen the gun from was a man's, but the dead parts here were all childen's.

SToRMiX watched the rain wash blood towards the gutter "What kid of sick mother fu-"

His profanity was cut short by more explosions. Quick as a flash he ran towards the source and saw a nine year old boy with a complicated metal gun slung over his shoulder, its sights trained on a smoking splatter against the wall.
In a flurry of thought, SToRMiX raised his gun and emptied the remaining three bullets into the child.

The youngster lurched and turned to face SToRMiX, grinning evilly. "Who are you to mess with Quentin the destroyer??"

SToRMiX's mouth opened in shock as he observed the three mere scorch marks on the child's arm. The little bugger was cheating.

Quentin trained his gun on SToRMiX and laughed, "No one breaks into my game."
And on that the infant launched a stream of hot plasma towards SToRMiX. 
SToRMiX closed his eyes.

Christmas Day, 00:29, The Moon

Eric knocked on the side door of Bob's garage. Upon hearing no shouts of "Go away!" or "Keep out of my secret headquarters", he slowly opened the door. "Hey Bob, no hard feelings, eh. I brought a few tins for us to share. After all, it is Chrismas..." Eric's voice trailed off when he saw Bob, lying on the ground twitching spasmodically with a thin trail of white foam oozing from his mouth. It was only upon spying the cable running from his head to the computer that he dropped the six pack of beer onto the floor, one of the cans exploding upon impact. Eric's eyes followed the cable to the machine and read the output on the screen.

407 SToRMiX_BitWARz eats hot plasma
407 Frag limit reached
407 Quentin The Destroyer: "Game over shitface!"
200 Disconnected.
Pete Smith

Pockets of time.  How much history is in the length of a bell toll?  Or in the place where a bell once hung?  O God, I ache for the past.  Sky where rafters once were.  And the dancers' reel that spins, driving music ahead.  Raven lands in the centre to do his stiff-legged dance.  None of this have I seen, but I know it to be true.

In the bleak mid-winter I walk inside the pearl.  White-grey sky above; pewter-black concrete below.  It hunches me down and forces my hands lower into the pockets of my trench.  Here, Herne once stepped, his hounds pushing and crowding behind him.  Blackest black was the evergreen against the night sky.  Whitest white was snow against a storming sky.  And everywhere the hushed rustle in which the birds of Rhiannon sang.  None of this have I seen, but I know it to be true.

Now a bell toll or a cascade of light can pull me apart.  I feel the flame's pure pain in my chest.  My crown of oak leaves will fall, and I will know a flare of warmth before my death.  Then into the stone ground will I go.  Softness and gentle contrast will go with me.  None of this have I seen, but I know it to be true.

Why was I born to feel?  I am the Summer King.  I should not ache among these burnt out rafters.  My greenheart should not leap when the sun makes the south-facing cathedral golden.  My despair should not lift when I go to my death, knowing as I do what is born as I die.  But crossed rafters and the pearl sky are reflected in a puddle of rainwater and I doubt.  Aye, and therefore be merry.  Rejoice and be you merry.  Set sorrow aside…(something, I know there was something)…born at this tide.
Jenna Manley