Work Blog 10

Helicopter Crash

I was surprised and very sad to be reading about another helicopter crash in the
north sea this weekend. I've been on plenty of Super Puma's and so have most of
my friends and colleagues in my department.

There has been lots of talk about how terrifying it must have been and whether
or not they remembered their survival training. I am a nervous flyer at the best
of times and really do get on edge when I'm in a helicopter. I think that will
go for most people from now on.

There has been talk about what the options are for the Oil and Gas Industry from
this point on. I think I would be rather dismayed if the next trip I am on
(perhaps next year some time) I have to step onto a Super Puma. I am not sure
how they can convince anyone of their safety onboard one now given what has been
happening over the last few years.

I like travelling by boat, but that's just my preference. I don't know how practical
it would be and the fact that people never do it makes me suspect it would probably
be more dangerous.

Well, my heart went out to the poor families of those lost at sea as did everyone's
here in Aberdeen. I really hope they are the last.

(G175 23/08/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF, AP(GM))

(G175 23/08/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF, AP(GM))

[Back in Cormyr. Later I heard Jiggles account of what happened when the Fire Trap alarm
went off and they came to rescue me from the Temple of Mystra. I have recorded it here.]

DAY 207 continued...

'Well boss, we was waiting at the house like you said and your big sister there was keeping
an eye on the magic purse. Then after a bit, like, she says 'It's gone! He's in trouble!'
So, we was all ready to go anyway and piled out the door. Your misses sent me up first to
talk to the guards on the wall because I'm all sweet and innocent like!
'You have one of ours!', I says, 'We need to see him!'
'The temple is closed!', they say.
I spun a story about him needing medicine, but then when I said
'He might go mental, like! He might be fighting your priests inside. We need to check up
on them!'
That got them interested and one of them went to check.
'His wife needs to see him!' I pleaded and pointed at Lavinia looking all sorrowful and stuff.
So they opened to gate and we all piled in. Shump came running up from the guard house and
Sylvia clattered in, in her full plate.

Then it was a right old fight. I was telling them to surrender and stuff, honest, but they
were all fanatical like. I told the priest to stand down, but his guards just started shooting
arrers at me! The one called Kevran shouted 'Sinners!' and that was that.

Well, there was no holding Sylvia back, cos she likes a good ruck and she cast her Spiritual
Weapon spell and sent this big magic hammer after the guards.

Shump came in and tried to close the door behind him and bar it, but the other guards from
the guards house came running up and pushed against it from the other side.

Your good lady wife went over to help him and the Sylvia too. They didn't harf look a sight!
Shump and your girls pushing against the door on one side and the guards on the other.

But there woz guards in with us too and once the spiritual hammer had dealt with them I chased
Kevran down to the lower part of the courtyard. He went invisible and so I called the Badger
to come and sniff him out. Your badger had been happily biting guards on the ankles at that
point.

Well Mr Badger reckoned the sneaky priest had gone into his room and locked the door. So
I picked it open and went in. Mr B was 'pointing' wish his hackles all raised up so I reckoned
he was in here.

In the courtyard the other priest called Shan Thar turned up with two more guards and shouted
'Defend the temple!'. He cast a Sound Burst spell which hurt the guys at the gate but didn't
stop them getting the bar across it.

Back in the room though I had an idea and picked up the nearly full chamber pot and doing
a spin, got its contents across every wall in the place! I heard the sound of a badger vomiting
from under the bed.
I also heard a startled cough from the corner and picked up a bottle from the table and threw it.
I heard a curse as it hit him square on the 'ead! He then attacked me, but I'm tougher than I
look and soon had him knocked out.

After that we came out and helped with the rest of the fight. Mr B went off to savage another
guard. We thought we had the gate secured but the guards burst it open and we had to fight
them all too. But they were pretty poor fighters against the likes of Shump and Sylvia and towards
the end we were just knocking them out since it seemed unkind just to slaughter them.

Once the fighting was over, we dragged the live ones inside the doors to the east and shut
them. One of the guards had ran down to fetch the Purple Dragons so we were in a bit of a hurry.

We stripped the few knocked out and live guards we had and the two priests. One of them
had an odd circular featureless silver disk hanging from a simple silver chain.

There were also two more guards stood at a door further in the temple. By that time you
could hear us, my lord and I heard you call 'Coo-eee! I'm in here!'

We had some chat with the guards and we heard you say,
'I apologise for knackering your door. I just can't help myself,' which made us laugh
but the guards said they were honour bound to defend the door so we just knocked them out. One
of the wretches thought it was ok to stab me though so I gave him an extra kick in the
voonrables.

Shump and the girls then battered down the doors and the rest you know because you woz
there! Still, I saw you mess around with the crystal ball or whatever it was and then put it
down again in a big hurry. You then looked at the two women who woz just standing there
and your sister said the were 'Waiting for Instructions' like.

Well, I dunno what's up with them, but there is another door there leading down into
the mysterious depths of the temple so shall we get going like?'

Work Blog 9

SMACS6

I've worked with SMACS6 now since its beginnings in 2007/8 until now, 6 years later. It
started life as SMACS5E. An 'Extended' version of SMACS5, the main difference being
that it was running on Trihedral's SCADA product VTS rather than WEB.

The first one to go in was EON Johnston, a SMACS4 to SMACS6 conversion. I then joined
the SMACS6 gang with Nexen Telford Scott. This was a challenging job, more for the hard
ware chaps than us software people since it was the removal of two separate SMACS4 racks from two separate platforms (separated by a bridge). These were replaced with a single sleek black SMACS6 MCS cabinet.

From here on the came thick and fast, Shell Anasuria, Taqa Pelicans, Mobil Nevis, Shell Nelson. All SMACS4 conversions. The next one I worked on was Shell Gannet, which was sadly never used.

By 2010 though, we were starting to make 'Greenfield' SMACS6 cabinets and software and the
hardware was progressing to be more PLC and portserver based. The next SMACS6 job I worked
on was the software for Atla WOCS. WOCS systems are very interesting and quite different
from your average MCS.

In 2011 my main job was Fairfield Dunlin Alpha, another SMACS4 conversion. This job I
have nothing but fond memories of, even though some other people on the project might have
disagreed! The software was very interesting, in that it had a lot of topside control of
separators and suchlike while also controlling 29 wells.

After that I strayed briefly back into SMACS5, but this year I have been right back into it with the SMACS4 conversion of Marathon West Brae.

By now I am quite familiar with SMACS6 and love these conversion jobs. While I have been
working away on my ones, a great many more Greenfields and conversions have gone in, such
as Centrica Ensign, CNOOC Yacheng and Origin Otway. They are being built in Houston and Malaysia now as well.

In my team alone there are two Greenfield developments going on, namely Siakap and Dana Western
Isles.

Speaking from my experience, SMACS6 builds on the ease of use that SMACS5 had. Most of the
work has already been done in the SMACS6 core and is mostly usable straight out of the box.
The big conversions take time though, developing mimics, shutdowns and writing new code for
such things as flow calculations and shutdown logic.

SMACS5/6 systems tend to be (relatively) simple and robust and skills that you have picked
up in one system are easily transferred to another. Thanks to the core being so universal, if
you have worked on one SMACS6 system you can support any other one.

SMACS5/6 systems are almost always dual Windows PC based and while this limits how much it
can be involved in safety critical areas it doesn't limit the amount of wells or lines it
can handle. This is limited only by the amount of modems you can stick in the rack, you could
handle 200 wells with one SMACS6 MCS.

Thanks to early design decisions, a SMACS6 rack is very distinctive in appearance with a matt
black finish to the front of the panel and bright blue digital display lamps, more than just
a big box of wires these things really have a personality all of their own.
(Someone once told the hardware guys, it should look like my iPod, but bigger!)

There are 34 SMACS6 systems out there now or in production. It looks like many of
the SMACS5 systems will now be upgraded and there is 120 of them. That should be enough to keep
us going for a while!

'Confessions of a Space Librarian' by J.H Graham Foss (7055 words)(26/05/2008)

'Confessions of a Space Librarian' by J.H Graham Foss (7055 words)(26/05/2008)

Hello! Is this thing on? Is it on? The red light means it's on yes? The red light? On? Ok. Jolly-jolly. Hello. My name is William H. McGonagall of the Federation of Planet, Satellites and Orbitals, Deep Space Research Vessel, The Hallion. I am the Librarian and Poetry Officer of the Hallion and have served on board for six years.

Anyway-anyway, we had been in deep space for a year, well beyond the galactic rim, I don't think anyone expected to find much, in fact everything had been pretty quiet up until the point of the incident.

Yes, the incident that saw me change from being a mild mannered poet to a kidnapper and murder!

Haha! Anyway-anyway, we all knew that the scientists had found something. They called it 'the Anomaly'. Everyone else called it the 'Great Big Orange Swirly Thing in Space.'

When the alarms all started going off I was on shift in the Library. Not the Digital Library, you know, the Software Tech's look after that, the real library with real paper books. Just to explain, the Ships Computers have over 30 million works of literature on file, but studies have shown that people in deep space feel better if they have a paper book to read from time to time to take to their cabin or in the bath for instance. Ahem, well, company regulations require that due to the Health and Safety concerns of people on long deep space missions there should be a librarian and a real book library on board. However, due to weight restrictions the library was - ahem - limited to just twelve books, all of which were out on loan. So, anyway... that's probably all rather besides the point isn't it? Needless to say, I was not terribly busy when the alarm sounded so I quickly went to my cabin, got my grab-bag and made my way to the muster point. Then the abandon ship alarm went and I went to my designated escape pod. I was first in, then Beatrice Fleer, the Fitness and Dance Officer arrived, then Jean Styler, the Ergonomics Officer. Yes, shame about Jean....

Anyway, anyway, we all just assumed it was drill. We knew about the Swirly Thing, but hadn't known about what the boffins had been doing to it at that stage.

So we were in utter shock when the escape pod locked down and started to go through its disengagement procedures. There is nothing anyone inside can do when the pod starts to disengage. There are not even any windows so we didn't see what happened to the Hallion as we left it. We were just pushed into our g-couches at the pod ignited its escape rockets and blasted away from the ship.

Well, none of us were any good at reading ships instruments, but I did know, from our safety briefings that the escape pod computers are quiet intelligent and are programmed to find the safest place to take the pods occupants.

After a few hours we felt a series of jolts and the temperature of the pod sharply increased.

'What's going on?' cried Fleer.

'No need for alarm my dear.' I replied calmly, 'It means we are entering the atmosphere of a planet.

Something that these pods are designed to do. Although I would suggest that now would be a good time to get into our survival suits.'

'There is a planet nearby?', screeched Styler, 'I thought we were in deep space? No one tells me anything!'

'I can only surmise there is indeed a planet near to the Hallion as we appear to be landing on it.'

An hour later I was proved right as the pod lurched suddenly as it deployed its parachutes and eventually lurched again as we hit the ground.

Everyone had there suit on my now and over the radio Styler said,

'What do we do now?'

'We get out?' I replied.

There was a green light on the panel by the door so we agreed to open the door.

I can't begin to describe how odd it felt for us as we stepped out of the pod, expecting some hostile alien landscape, but then seeing what we saw, which was a child’s play park. It made no sense what-so-ever. There were some swings, a slide, other contraptions used for entertaining youngsters. There was a row of suburban style houses behind the park, pleasantly tree lined, but seemingly lifeless.

Eventually we got our minds into gear and gathered up a few things from the pod. I took some ration packs and put them in my grab bag. I noticed that Fleer took one of the pods laser gun and put it into the holster of her suit. Releasing that might not be such a bad idea I took the other gun and holstered it too.

I was the first to step out into the park, and incredible as it was, after a few moments I recognised the place. It was Leatherhead, my home town. Surrey, England.

'Where are we?' gasped Freer as she stepped out of the pod.

'Surrey' I replied.

The town seemed quiet, there was no one around at all. As we walked slowly and nervously from the pod we noted that the streets were littered and dirty, there were cars all over the roads as if they had just been abandoned. The detritus of human existence was scattered everywhere. Here, a doll on the pavement, there a child’s buggy tipped on its side, the upturned wheels moving gently in the breeze. Cars were parked or abandoned on the street. Air pods were grounded in gardens and sticking out of hedges,

'I don't understand' whispered Fleer

We slowly walked along the abandoned street, all utterly aghast and filled with nervous confusion.

'Look up there!’ gasped Beatrice Fleer.

I wasn't wearing my distance glasses, but I could still make out something going on, on the roof of a nearby house.

There on the tiles, amongst the radio receivers and antennae, a group of people lounged around without a care in the world.

'I...’ I stuttered, 'They seem to be... I don't know. Look that one just waved his arms!'

I was right. There were about half a dozen people on the roof, acting for all the world like a group of pigeons. One of them cooed. When a cat walked past in the street, they all flapped a bit.

'This is insane.’ squawked Styler.

'You up there!’ I called out in vane hope. I got no response, the people just ignored me.

'This is freaking me out', continued Styler, 'Let’s get out of here.'

We walked across the street from the strange people on the roof and down a smaller suburban lane, which was lined with trees. It was summer as they were in full leaf.

We wandered around for a little longer and were surprised by a man that ran past some distance from us, closely followed by a woman whom appeared to be chasing him, and also appeared to be barking.

Without discussion, myself, Fleer and Styler took a different turning that the cat and dog had and huddled together in fear.

I couldn't decide whether to go further into town, or to stick to the suburbs so we walked fairly aimlessly around, looking for signs of something other than crazed animal people.

Eventually we sat down together on a secluded park bench and not long after that the L.R.C started beeping. Er, I should explain, L.R.C stands for Long Range Communicator.

Anyway, it was Captain Phillips.

'Phillips to Escape Pod Lambda.'

'Oh hello captain!' I exclaimed in delight at hearing another friendly voice.

I heard the captain groan on the other end of the LRC.

'Gods. Of course. It would be McGonagall. Did Fleer and Styler make it into your pod?'

'Yes yes, they are here with me now. All right as rain and of fine feckle!'

'Listen McGonagall. No one has no idea what is going on. The whole crew are scattered all over. There are humans here, but they are all acting like animals. We landed not far from New York zoo. I'll never be able to look at an elephant again after seeing what that man did with his.. well never mind that.'

The captain cleared his throat and continued, 'Just stay where you are. Don't provoke them. We are working on a Sit Rep. I will contact you later.'

Two hours later, myself and the girls had eaten a little from our ration packs and had mainly sat in stunned silence until the LRC went off again. This time it was a conference call.

The captain started talking first,

'Right everyone. Listen to Doctor Winter.'

Doctor Winter was the Hallion's chief scientist,

'Ah right. Hello everyone. Well to begin, the escape pods AI must be faulty or maybe when they were faced with what appeared to be Earth they reacted the way they were supposed to. Who knows? The result is that the pods all returned to the home towns of the first person to enter them. The captain and some of the crew are in New York, I am in Dubai and McGonagall is in England.'

'Ah, I see.' I muttered to myself.

'Now listen carefully McGonagall. We don't know what's going on here, but we have been able to do some research. The internet isn't functioning but there is residual data in any IPC we power up. You can do it too with the power packs from the escape pod.'

I said nothing as we had forgotten to take the packs with us.

'The name Doctor Blenk keeps on coming up again and again. Somehow he is connected with all...this.'

'Right', I said.

'The only thing is, we are all scattered all over the globe. You are the only one in the UK and in fact you landed no more than sixty miles away from where Doctor Blenk lives!'

'Oh really?'

'So we want you to go there and see what you can find out, then report back.'

'But won't he be.. you know.. a sheep or a pigeon or something?'

'Who knows? But at this stage it's our only lead so be a good chap and get to it!'

'Yes sir!’ I yelped.

The Captain started speaking again,

'You lot must be the three most useless people on the ship! A poet, a dance instructor and someone who plumps up peoples cushions! Dammit though, you are the people on the spot! While the rest of the crew are trapped in New York it falls to you!'

'Er, thanks for your vote of confidence captain.'

Something occurred to me, 'If you are in New York how can we talk over the radio? I thought these things needed satellites or something?'

'For gods sake it doesn't matter! If you must know, before the reactor exploded, besides ejecting all the escape pods the Hallion also launched a whole raft of comms equipment and distress beacons. Our comms are being relayed from them.'

'I see, I see. What, the reactor exploded?'

'Yes, but that doesn't matter right now.'

'But my dissertation, my research! All destroyed?'

'I expect so.', said the captain grinding his teeth audibly.

'Years of study into the poetry of ancient Mongolia - gone!'

'Pull yourself together! You have a mission, focus on that. Briefing notes are being downloaded to your LRC now. Read them. Get on with it! Phillips Out.'

The captain cut the connection and the radio went dead.

Well, I'm afraid myself, Bea or Jean are not very good in a crisis, so it did take us a while to comprehend the mission briefing, but eventually we got the address of Doctor Blenk out of the LRC.

'Ludgershall? That's miles away!, I groaned.

'Sixty five miles away', corrected Beatrice Fleer.

'We need transport. A car would be ideal. A pod would do' I said glancing around the small park we were lurking in.

'Perhaps we could find one with the keys in it.'

'Or hot wire one, how exciting!', I giggled.

'You know how to?', queried Fleer.

'No' I admitted, but stroked my beard in contemplation as to how it might be done.

Then I noticed Styler staring off into space.

'Looking lost there Jean. Any ideas?'

She turned slowly towards me and looked at me like I was a vaguely interesting rock. She stared for so long that both myself and Fleer became quiet startled, but eventually she said,

'I'm taking my survival suit off.'

And she did indeed start to strip off the heavy rubber suit.

'Ahem, good idea', I muttered and myself and Fleer did the same. Styler then wandered off leaving the suit on the grass like a shed skin. I dutifully bundled mine back up into my grab bag.

Anyway, anyway, it felt more comfortable walking in my normal clothes. I still had my tweed jacket on, and wonder of wonders my pipe and tobacco was still in one of the pockets so lit it up.

We walked a few more streets until we found a car with the keys in the ignition. I turned the key and the car started first time. It was a new model so had auto-drive but when I said,

'58 Barm Street, Ludgershall’ into the voc box it did not respond.

'We'll have to do this the old fashioned way!' I said happily as I put it into gear.

Fleer jumped in the back and Styler took the passenger seat.

An hour into the drive the women were still pretty silent so I started composing a little something in my head.

Not long after that the LRC beeped and I answered it,

'Are you there yet?’ he asked curtly.

'About half way sir, but I have already got a few lines for the crash.

Beautiful Hallion of the Milky Way,

Alas! I am very sorry to say,

That all your heat shields have been blown away,

To a ...'

'For Christ's sake, shut up McGonagall! Just call me when you get there then. We are having a spot of trouble here in New York so good news would be welcome. Phillips out', and the LRC went dead.

We had a spot of trouble of our own on the road, finding ways around long queues of traffic that were not going anywhere. Occasionally a quizzical human would look at us and then either flap, bark or meow. As we got into the country we saw some cows. Real cows and humans that thought they were cows, sharing fields together.

Myself and Fleer gaped at them, but Styler looked resolutely straight ahead.

So, it was the morning of the next day when we got to Doctor Blenk's house. It was a big place on the edge of town with a big enough tree lined driveway to hide it from the road. I pulled up the car behind the garage to hide it from view.

Fleer drew out her laser gun and all three of us slowly approached the front door. It was locked.

'It won't open' I said.

Fleer pointed the gun at it, 'Well, use your ID card. It will have emergency overrides on it from the crash that will open anything.'

'Not this lock I'm afraid. It's an old fashioned mechanical mortis.'

Fleer sniffed and said, 'I'll look round the back.'

We all did in the end. Fleer then set the laser gun to a wide beam and disintegrated a window and cautiously stepped through into a utility room.

The room had a washing machine and a chest freezer in it, among other things, and lead through to the kitchen. The kitchen was surprisingly small for a house of this size but an open door showed a large dining room.

The massive table inside this room was laden with fruit and other fresh food. There were even candlesticks on the table and a lace tablecloth. Weak morning sun filtered through the net curtains and fell on the food.

'Fresh fruit!', grunted Fleer and grabbed a banana.

Styler crossed the room and dipped her finger into what looked like a chocolate fountain on side table by the back wall. I wondered where all this food had come from.

It was then that I suddenly noticed that we were not alone in the dining room. Behind the table was a little girl.

'Don't be afraid' I said, not knowing what to say, but she did step towards me.

As she came around from the table I noticed for the first time that the dear child had only one arm.

'What's your name?' I asked

'Janet' she said and looked up at me coyly.

'Hello. I'm Bill. Where is your daddy?'

She didn't reply to my question but came and held my hand.

'I'm going to smear all this chocolate all over my body.’ declared Styler to anyone who cared to listen.

‘Ok’, I nodded as I could think of no reason why she shouldn't.

Just then Fleer pointed out with her gun that a pod was pulling up on the driveway. I motioned to her to hide behind the dining room door, and with Janet still holding my hand I went over to the kitchen.

'You don't mind if I pick you up do you?’ I asked Janet.

She didn't seem to mind at all and nuzzled into my shoulder.

Doctor Blenk was first through the door, his wife being still at the car. He rattled his old-fashioned metal key in the lock and entered the house. I had my gun in its holster but it was clearly visible.

He looked at me blankly, his eyes moving up to his daughter and then down to the gun.

'Hello Doctor Blenk. Please come in, and ask your wife to come in too.'

We all moved through to the dining room and sat down at the table. Fleer remained standing by the windows, still holding her gun.

Dr Blenk sat down beside me and his wife across from him. I still held Janet. She seemed to like the smell of my strawberry scented pipe tobacco.

I realised I didn't have the LRC to call the captain. Styler had it.

'Where is Jean?' I asked Fleer.

'She went upstairs.' she replied tonelessly.

'Who are you?', put in the man I assumed was Dr Blenk.

'Ah hello yes. I am Bill McGonagall, Librarian and Poetry Officer of the FPSO Hallion. My companion here is Beatrice Fleer, the Fitness and Dance Officer, and somewhere around is Jean Styler, the Ergonomics Officer.'

'I don't understand, ' replied the doctor, 'The FPSO Hallion? What's that, a ship?'

'A deep space research vessel yes. We were out past Crysto's Star.'

'That's.. that's galactic rim. How did you get here?'

I was impressed that the doctor would know anything at all about the stars on the edge of the galaxy,

'I have no idea. But can I ask you a question? Besides you and your family, why does everyone else think they are animals?'

'Ah...', sighed Dr Blenk, 'That's a long story.'

'Until Jean comes back with the LRC we have plenty of time, Doctor Blenk.'

'How do you know my name? And what is an LRC?'

'The two are connected in actual fact. The Long Range Communicator allows me to talk to the captain of the Hallion and it was him that informed me that you had something to do with what was going on here.'

The doctor nodded and put his head in his hands. He was bald and maybe in his fifties, but still appeared to be fairly slim and healthy.

'Well, he's right. More or less. It was my brother. We were both scientists. Weapons researchers for the military. That was what it was. A weapon. We should have known better, playing around with nano-virus' like that. There was an outbreak and before we could contain it, it was spread across the whole globe.'

'But you were not affected?'

'No. To begin with we stayed isolated in our lab. But then... Well. We worked on a cure. I had used some of Janet's DNA as the carrier for the virus, it was a silly vane thing to do, just a strand of her hair was enough.'

Dr Blenk groaned. 'Go on', I said.

'For a protection anti-virus though we needed a bit more than a strand of hair. Enough to make a much more adaptive strain.'

I looked at Janet, and the empty sleeve of her little pink dress. I gulped loudly.

'Yes. That's right. Like I said, we needed more than hair. But in the end it didn't even make any difference. We didn't manage to make a cure, just something that will prevent infection. It was enough to treat my family.'

Something occurred to me, 'Is the virus still on the loose? Will I turn into an animal?'

'No. The outbreak was five years ago. The damage has been done.'

Just then Styler entered the dining room, stark naked and covered in chocolate sauce.

She looked at us and said,

'Hello everyone. Bill, I am ready for you to make mad passionate love to me now.'

'Oh.' I said, 'Oh right. Can you just give me a moment or two dear? I'm not quite finished with Dr and Mrs Blenk just yet.'

Styler tsked at me and flicked some chocolate from her fingers, a dollop of which landed in my beard.

'The process can't be reversed?', I asked.

'I don't know. Maybe. That's were we were. In the lab. Working on a cure. We need.. ah.. more than we’ve got anyway.'

'We've been at it all night and are very tired' said Mrs Blenk, speaking for the first time.

'Oh right of course. Well perhaps you would like to go lie down upstairs? Look out for Jean though. I should try and reach the captain and tell him all this anyway.'

They went upstairs and when they were gone Fleer said,

'You believe all that nonsense?'

I shrugged and put my arms and head down on the table, I was tired too,

'I don't know. I don't know anything. Is this the real Earth or a fake Earth? If it's real then how did we get here? If it's fake, then why and who? We can only deal with the information we have.'

Fleer grunted, 'Well, I'm going to keep an eye on them, just in case they try and climb down the drain pipe.'

'You do that dear, I'm going to try and get the LRC off of Jean.'

It wasn't easy and it involved a lot chocolate sauce....

..but I think I will skate over that for just now, suffice to say I gained the LRC and attempted to hail the captain.

I was certain I was using it correctly, but I couldn't get through to him. I put it on the table and put my head down.

I must have fallen asleep because I was woken up by its beeping and the little screen on it had lit up.

‘Wake up man!’ it said thinly.

I switched on the monitor and peered into it. I could see the captain all dishevelled and dirty.

‘Why are you half naked and covered in.. is that chocolate?’

‘Err.. long story captain. I think Jean has gone a bit funny.’

Phillips shook his head as if trying to throw off something unpleasant,

‘Well, what have you got?’

I took my ID badge and inserted it into the LRC.

‘I recorded my interview with Dr Blenk. Sending it to you now sir.’

‘Right. I’ll review this and get back to you. Phillips Out.’

Ten minutes later the LRC sprung into life again,

‘Still there? Right. Blenk confirms pretty much what we thought. The whole world is affected and it can’t be reversed. Winters is working on things but its difficult..’

There was a loud bang behind Phillips and he glanced round,

‘Shit! Run! It’s the wolves again!’

The LRC went dead once more.

I was worried about the captain but I was also exhausted and I went upstairs to find a bedroom to sleep in. I took one as far away from Styler as I could.

When I awoke it was evening and it appeared everyone else was awake but me. I had put the chocolate covered LRC down by the bedside when I had gone to sleep, but it was gone now.

I went downstairs and saw Fleer in the dining room, eating an apple and reading something on the LRC.

‘It’s notes from Winter.’ she explained to me as I sat down and helped myself to a banana.

‘I need to brush my teeth’, I said, ‘Have you slept yet?’

‘No.’, she admitted, ‘I’ve been guarding the prisoners.’

‘Prisoners? I would hardly say they were that. I mean, we are all in this together.’

‘They are the ones that did this.’

‘Well, maybe. But they didn’t blow up the Hallion though did they?’

Fleer shrugged, ‘Probably not. Winter thinks it was the Anomaly that dragged us back here.’

‘The big Orange Swirly Thing in Space?’

‘Or Temporal Anomaly as Winter is calling it. Hard to tell if it is connected with all this though.’

I couldn’t think of anything else to say on that subject so I said,

‘Where is Jean?’

‘Well, up until five minutes ago she was still sleeping off her orgy of sex and chocolate but right now she is in the garden communing with nature. She’s still naked.’

‘Er.. Righto.’

Just then Janet came into the room and hopped onto my lap.

‘Hello.’, she said quietly.

‘Any news from Phillips?’, I continued.

‘No’, replied the dance instructor, ‘Winter told me they were having trouble with humans that thought they were wolves.’

‘Nasty.,’ I shuddered, ‘Lycanthropes.’

‘Huh?’

‘Werewolves’, I explained with a smile.

At some point in this day I noticed a calendar in the kitchen and asked Mrs Blenk if it was the correct date. She said it was. I looked out the window, and remarked that is was most odd that I couldn’t see the moon, even though it was a clear evening. She just shrugged and said,

‘I have been helping Harold in the lab. With more of us, we can make a cure I’m sure. My husband could explain better than me though why having more normal people, by which I mean people that don’t think they are animals, around is important.’

I nodded, but my attention was drawn to Jean, who was outside in the garden, stark naked, with her arms held up to the sunset.

‘Hmm’, I said, ‘Perhaps we should help you. I shall talk to the others though.’

With the older Blenk’s secured upstairs and with Janet on my lap, I talked to Jean and Bea at the kitchen table.

‘Well I don’t trust them. It stinks if you ask me, none of this makes sense.’ said Fleer.

‘I’m inclined to agree. There are quiet a few strange things going on. Not just the virus that turned everyone into animals.’

Fleer snorted, ‘A virus. Funny kind of virus.’

‘A nano-virus dear. I don’t see what we have got to loose from going over to their lab though. Do you have any thoughts?’, I asked Jean in an attempt to pull her back to reality, or at least what was passing for reality at the current moment.

‘Hmm? Uh?’, she replied, ‘Your asking me? This is all a dream. I’m just waiting to wake up. Want to have some more sex Bill?’

‘Ahh.. maybe later dear.’, I rubbed my temples, ‘OK. Let’s rest. If we don’t get any news from our erstwhile captain by morning we will go over to their laboratory and see what’s what.’

The route to the laboratory was cleared of abandoned cars and grounded pods, after all the Blenk’s had been travelling it for years, so it didn’t take long to get there. It was an isolated and well fortified building hidden behind a hill in the countryside.

‘There is a generator,’ explained Dr Blenk as he turned on the lights, ‘Well, this is it.’

I still had my gun, so did Fleer. Styler had refused to put any clothes and was padding around on bare feet, as naked as the day she was born.

We walked down a corridor, past the empty guard station and into a laboratory, one of several.

I noticed at once that there were about a dozen or so cubicles along the side wall of the room, which looked a lot like the deep sleep couches we used on the Hallion.

‘What are those?’ I asked.

‘These are what will save the world. If enough people who have not been affected by the virus were to get inside these cubicles we could make a cure.’

‘How so?’

‘What we have lacked so far is enough unaffected people. My wife, daughter and I are not enough. But perhaps with you three, we would have enough disparate DNA to manufacture a stable cure?’

‘There is no way you are getting me in one of those whatever they are’s.’ said Fleer bluntly.

‘You would deny the world a cure?’

Fleer shrugged, ‘We only have your word for that.’

‘Take a closer look, please. They are harmless.’

‘I can see well enough from here.’

‘Please look. There is a release on the inside of the door. It’s safe.’

Despite herself Fleer peered into the cubicle and at that moment the Doctor deftly snatched the gun from her hand and stepped back.

‘Dammit!’ groaned Fleer realising she’d been duped.

By some magic, without my brain asking it to, my right hand took my own gun from its holster and levelled it at the Doctor.

‘I didn’t want it to come to this’, said the Doctor calmly, ‘But you leave me no choice. All three of you will step into a cubicle. Please, the fate of the world is at stake.’

‘Shoot him!’ said Fleer as she slowly edged away from the Doctor and towards me.

‘I doubt a professor of poetry could find it in himself to take a life.’ said the doctor mater-of-factly.

‘Assuming you are a real human and not some cooked up fantasy.’

The doctor turned to point the gun at me,

‘Even if I wasn’t. The gun I am holding is. Trust me. Your DNA combined with ours will be enough to make a cure..’

‘I think we should do it Bill,’ said Jean, who had come up behind me.

‘Eh?’ I replied, ‘I thought you thought this was all a dream?’

Jean casually rubbed her nipples up against my back, ‘Well, maybe the dream will end when we make a cure?’

‘Please, not now dear. None of this makes any sense. This can’t be Earth. Dr Blenk, please put the gun down.’

Blenk was losing track of where everyone was in the room, because his wife was by the door and Fleer was…where was she? I then realised I should keep the doctor talking.

‘Why don’t we talk about this sensibly then? I would like to contact our Doctor Winter, he would have something sensible to say I’m sure. He’s a very sensible fellow.’

‘There’s no time!’ cried Blenk, ‘Stop waffling. We need to ge...’

And then Fleer battered the gun out of his hand with a spanner she had picked up from a bench. Dr Blenk howled and hugged his hand to his chest. The gun skittered across the floor towards me and stopped at my feet.

Fleer rushed to get it, but I said,

‘Just stay where you are Bea.’

‘What?’ she gasped, ‘We need to shoot him and stop this madness.’

‘Now now dear. Everyone should just calm down.’

‘If anyone should be shot’, sneered the doctor, ‘It should be her. We can still use her DNA even if she’s dead.’

‘Why you!’ and Fleer went for him. They started to grapple. Blenk was a lot bigger than Fleer, but what she lacked in size she made up for in ferocity.

They both had each other by the throat and were now in competition to see who could turn the most purple.

I pulled the trigger.

Blenk clutched his chest and fell.

‘Oh you fool!’ his wife screeched at me, ‘You’ve ruined everything!’

I stood in dumfoundment.

‘We were nearly free of this wretched planet! We could have gone home!’

‘So this isn’t Earth then?’

‘No. Obviously.’ she knelt down and tried to help her husband, but he was dead as a door nail. Laser guns make big holes.

‘So what’s real and what isn’t. Are you real?’ I asked.

‘Me, Harold, Janet. We are all real. Everyone and everything else are simulacrums.’

We left the lab all went to sit in the small lounge that this facility had. I made Mrs Blenk explained everything. There had been no Temporal Anomaly. What there was, was an ancient alien prison planet that could be considered sentient and that could adapt its environment to suit its inmates. It also had the power to disguise itself as something other than a planet and to affect objects that got too close to it. Overload their atomic reactors for instance.

Dr Blenk, his wife and daughter were indeed who they said they were and had indeed been in a lot of trouble back on the real Earth for mucking around with nano-viruses. So much so they had fled Earth and set off for the edge of the galaxy in their space yacht. But they had been forced to land and had put down on thus faux-Earth. By chance Janet was the first person to step out of the yacht‘s air lock. She had been in deep space for four years and could barely remember what her home planet looked like. Her parents had told her over and over that people on Earth were animals…

This strange sentient planet had been a blank slate for thousands and thousands of years, the original alien inhabitants were long dead. It responded to Janet’s mental images of what Earth looked like, but through the eyes of a young girl.

They had been trapped on this nightmarish vision of their home planet for the last five years.

But when the Hallion had come within range they had struck a deal with the prison planet. They could leave if they could make sure the people on the Hallion were unable to leave. The cubicles had been Dr Blenk’s idea. They were indeed deep sleep couches, much like on the Hallion and would have put us on ice for as long as the Doctor cared to keep us that way.

This also explained why we appeared to land where we did. Doctor Winter had thought the pods had malfunctioned. But perhaps this strange planet had simply rearranged itself to suit its incoming guests, reading our minds in some fashion?

‘Wait. How did you communicate with the planet?’ I asked.

Mrs Blenk nodded at her daughter.

‘Janet. I think she is only half our daughter now, or even less. She is now a conduit for the planet. It looks at us through her eyes and speaks to us through her mouth.’

I looked at Janet, who returned my gaze with a blank stare, until finally she said,

‘What made you so sure this wasn’t your own planet?’

‘I’ve not seen the moon. You can fake humans – sort of – but not a moon, apparently. According to the calendar there should be a full moon.’

‘That was all you based it on?’

‘Other things too I suppose. It all seemed rather far fetched.’

I sat down and Janet came and rested her head in my lap,

‘I like you’, she said, ‘But I suppose you don’t want to stay?’

‘I like you too, but I think everyone will want to go home now.’

‘But it is my function to keep everything here.’

‘Please?’

Jean was stood beside me,

‘Wait a minute’, she said, ‘So this isn’t a dream? It’s all real?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’, I replied.

‘Oh, shit.’ she squawked, ‘Oh. Shit. I slept with you.’

I said no more, but I took off my jacket and handed it to her so she could cover herself.

Janet sighed,

‘It is my function to detain everyone that arrives here. It cannot be otherwise.’

‘Dear. What can we do to convince you? Whatever it was that you used to keep here, it’s gone. We didn’t do anything wrong.’

Janet merely nodded, ‘I know. That isn’t the problem.’

Beside me, Fleer tutted, talking to Janet as if she was no more than the little girl she appeared to be, ‘Now we know where we are, we want to get off. You can’t keep us here.’

Janet sighed and lowered her head, ‘I can only tell you what I told the Blenk’s when they first arrived, it is not my function to let you leave. I will do everything I can to stop you.’

Fleer groaned, and behind her Styler, who had been standing, slumped down in an armchair.

Everyone was silent, sitting around in dejection. Even Mrs Blenk was gazing out the window as if lost in deepest thought. Fleer stood in indecision and Styler looked as if she was falling asleep.

I couldn’t think of anything else to say so I decided to quote some ancient Mongolian poetry,

‘Like a beautiful swan stretching its neck and folding its wings

A dozing girl falls asleep, resting her head on her arms

Evening dusk settles in the fading glimmer

Filling the space around it with its magic, soft and flowing waves

Crafting a piece of extraordinary beauty

Is the Universe, displaying its twinkling golden flash before my eyes?

I gaze, afraid of the slightest move, forcing down the lightest breath of mine

How splendid her golden and silky hair?

For this flash of time, did I leave behind thousand years in my dreams?

Or did I turn into a marble stone with no heart beating with life?

As if in a Heavenly Voyage to a distant world beyond compare

Everything around me looks so new and so magnificent.’

‘I don’t understand.’ said Janet quietly, but I could see I had affected her.

‘Mongolian. By a poet called Dashbalbar. I lost all my research when the Hallion was destroyed. Now I only have what is in my head.’

‘I liked it. I think I liked it.’

Fleer grunted, ‘You should have heard him on the Hallion when he had all his notes to hand. Never shut up with the stuff.’

Janet turned to me and said,

‘Very well. I want to be your friend William. You are a librarian. Perhaps I can think of a way out for you. I am capable of negotiating an exchange on a one for one basis. It is the same deal I offered to the Blenks.’

‘You mean, well..,’ I said then pondered for a second, ‘There were two hundred people on the Hallion. You mean we need to find two hundred people?’

‘No. Not people. Poems. If I can have a copy a poem for every person, then you may all leave.’

‘Wow. Even Janet?’, I asked

‘Yes. If you have that many poems.’

‘What?’ gasped Mrs Blenk, ‘We were here for five years! You mean we could have read you something and you would have let us go? What sort of prison is this?’

Janet gazed over to her mother and said, ‘This isn’t a prison, I never said that to anyone, you just assumed it was. It is more like a … library. With a bit of menagerie thrown in I suppose.’

Mrs Blenk, with her head in her hands, said, ‘Do you have two hundred poems in your head, Bill?’

I cleared my throat, ‘Well, let’s see now. Jolly-jolly, a fellow librarian? Well I never!’

I patted my pockets, I would need my pipe for this.

Glancing over to Fleer, I could see her face was a mask of confused emotions, ‘Ye Gods! You mean to go free we have to listen to Bill recite over two hundred of his Mongolian poems? Is it going worth it I ask myself?’

I gave her a rye smile and began.

Much later Janet told us of where she had hidden the Blenk’s space yacht and we went and fetched it. It was a sophisticated machine and luckily easy to pilot. I set the coordinates for the position of Captain Phillips escape pod. Hopefully we would get there in time to rescue him from the lycanthropes. Something seemed to occur to Fleer and she said,

‘You were aiming for the Doctor and not me, right?’

‘Err of course’, I said although I was still trying to figure out the truth of that. Had I even been aiming for anyone? I don’t think I was, I think I was trying to scare them both into stopping throttling each other, to be honest.

We found our erstwhile Captain, quiet literally treed in Central Park, New York, but I’m sure he can tell you more about how they had got on, besides the rest of it is on record from here on in. We gathered together the others and left. We then made it back to Crysto’s Star. I was arrested. Hopefully just a technicality seeing as how confused the situation was, but I suppose I did kill someone after all! Deary me.

Anyway, this is my testimony. One more thing has occurred to me. The planet we were on, whatever it was. Who put it there? God? Or at least a god like being? It’s looking like now no one is going to believe us anyway. They think the whole crew of the Hallion had some sort of mass hallucination. Well, they just need to go out along the path we took and the planet will be right there. And when they get there, they’d better take along a Librarian and Poetry Officer like they did on Hallion, or they might find they are in for a rather long wait!

Ok that’s it, how do I switch this thing off? Can I light my pipe now? I…*click*

THE BOT (3367 words)(23/09/2009)

THE BOT (3367 words)(23/09/2009)

The sun was blazing in the sky, it was going to be another roasting day in Haze City. Jinny, scratching himself and yawning pulled the blinds down again on his thirty-fifth floor hab cube's living room window, letting the light in through the chinks to illuminate the countless motes of dust floating on the warm air.

He then padded along to the iFood machine and placed his hand on the receiver. From analysis of his skin and electromagnetic body signal (so the instructions said) it worked out what exactly his body needed. After a moment or to of whizzing and clicking the door on the front opened to reveal a steaming bowl of hot cereal.

'Always the same...’ he muttered.

His mother had got him the machine, to wean him off the junk food. At lunch it would give him a salad carefully prepared to give him the exact RDA of all the vitamins he needed and at dinner either chicken or fish. Usually around 10pm Jinny would be so hungry he would dial a pizza from the iJunk machine and be done with it. He often wondered if he stuck to the iFood’s regime if it would eventually give out anything more palatable but so far he had not had the will power.

With his breakfast then he slouched down onto the sofa and switched on the GleeMax. He set it to passive/stealth mode and relaxed. He was in temporary unemployment at the moment and since the hab cube was government issue he was loving it. He would have to get another job eventually but for the moment he was glad to get away from the industry.

'Check the live feeds' he said, and the GleeMax separated out six windows on the TV’s 60inch screen and presented him with the current choices,

'Stick on Wheel of Inversion then', he said, 'And list my downloads - left.'

The GleeMax dutifully complied.

He finished his cereal and threw the plastic bowl and spoon in the trash chute. After a while of half-watching the game show where people tried not to vomit and scrolling through his downloaded media a blinking light on the panel alerted him to an incoming body-send request.

It was his mother, the info box told him on the body-send readout of the screen. Dang it, he thought, what was the use of stealth mode when folk like his mother just sent requests willy-nilly? She was old though and hadn't quite got the hang of this new fangled medium.

'Accept.' he said and the image of his mother was faded into the room.

New technology meant that she appeared as real as if she had been there, cast from multiple holo-projectors positioned around the room. Intelligent software analysed the position she was in, in reality and fitted her into the room. So when she sat down on the sofa of her own living room, she appeared, to Jinny, to be sitting down on his spare chair.

He rolled his eyes, why did she check the chair for dirt when she knew she was sitting down in her own house?

'Morning mum', he said with a smile. Despite her sudden arrival he always tried to be pleased to see her.

'Morning Jinny. I'm just calling to remind you about your Uncle Skoda's birthday.'

Jinny groaned, 'Oh no.'

'Jinny, you promised!’ scolded his mother, 'I know he tends to go on and on, but he's not getting any younger and it means so much to him.'

Jinny sighed and said, 'I suppose so.'

Later, he'd got rid of his mother in under an hour, which was amazing, he was browsing the job section of the local online paper. He disregarded any jobs that would mean he would have to leave his hab cube. Were these people living in the dark ages? Jinny tried to remember the last time he'd left his hab cube, had it been a year? Why bother when the good old GleeMax provided everything you needed.

Things had been different in his father's day, he knew that. From Haze, the jet shuttle would have you in New York in an hour, Tokyo in two. But then the fossil fuels had all dried up and the human race went back to windmills and waves for their power. If you wanted to travel anywhere it was either walk or ride (a horse or bike) for short distances, take the SRT (Solar Robot Tramway) if you were travelling in a town or a dirigible for intercity.

Even just a few years ago his mum would still be demanding that he turn up in person to family events, but she had long since stopped insisting on this. The SRT was less used and less reliable now and more and more people were becoming hermits. Hermits with very diverse virtual social lives though.

Back in Jinny's dad's day, a period known as the Age of the Global Family, the whole world was like a village. Jinny's aunt, uncles and cousins were scattered all over the globe. Some in Hong Kong, some in Rio, some in Perth (Australia) and some in Cape Town. Travel between these places had been easy and like most families these days Jinny was an interesting mix of races, in his case, Scottish, Indonesian, Brazilian and Afrikaans.

All that had changed now though. Nowadays you visited your in-laws by way of the GleeMax. If you had the deluxe model (as Jinny did) then you could go on virtual holidays too, not all of them being based in the real world either.

After looking through the jobs section and finding nothing that he fancied he played a few games, both on- and offline, then checked his e-mail, g-mail, twit-mail, iSpod-mail, plethora of personal social network mailboxes, message boards, forums, PMs, ICQs, chat handlers, blogs and the many other ways that he interacted with people all over the world. This took hours.

He had lunch, dialling it from the iFood and receiving what it thought his body needed. A glass of orange juice, two slices of dry toast and a vitamin supplement. Sighing keyed in a low-carb option into the iJunk and received three bags of crisps. He then made a crisp sandwich using the toast.

He'd been going back to his old hobby of coding ancient open source games lately - there was no money in it - but he enjoyed it immensely. Looking through some old files on his slam-drive he found some game code he'd not touched since he was a kid (he was in his fifties now).

It had been written for a game called World of Witchcraft back when it had gone open source and was what was termed at the time 'bot code'. This was back when games were actually written by humans and not AIs.

Games such as Witchcraft allowed someone to take on the character of an elf or goblin or whatever and stomp around a persistent online fantasy world. To progress in the game you killed monsters to take their treasure and gain experience, new skills and spells.

However, to get to the highest levels of the game took months and to someone like Jinny there was more fun in programming some software to play the game for you than playing it yourself.

The programme he had coded was called JinBot 1.6 and would in essence 'play' the game for him, hunting monsters, taking treasure, even going back to the town to sell the loot to the merchants.

It had worked very well, but his on-line friends who had also been playing the game had quickly spotted when JinBot was in charge as it would not respond to /tells and other means of communication.

So he had recoded it with some simple routines to ape speech. JinBot 1.7 would respond to things like 'hello' with a few stock replies. By the time he'd got to JinBot 2.0 it was so good that his friends would tease him that it actually made more sense than him!

He spent all afternoon going over the code and reminiscing about his youth and when he looked away from the old VDU and back at the GleeMax widescreen monitor an idea began to form in his mind.

The LAST thing he wanted to do was go to his uncle's shindig as the old duffer would go on for hours about whatever topic of the day was bothering him the most. The beauty of it was that he wouldn't even have to re-write most of the code which was in good old 'C' because all he would have to do would be to skin it into an app and the GleeMax would send it off to the central AIs at G-corp who would then parse the whole load into BufferD AI code. Genius!

However, he would need a TON of motion capture and the more vocal recording he made, the more authentic the JinBot would sound convincing, so to that end he spent the rest of the day walking around, sitting, standing, drinking and pretending to have conversations. All of this was captured by the GleeMax sensors and fed into the JinBot code. Then he did the vocals, saying things like,

'Yes, it is warm isn't it?' and 'That's very interesting Uncle Skoda, do carry one.'

Still, it took all night to embed this stuff into the code and several more days of working round the clock before JinBot 3.0 was ready. He decided to trial it straight away at his Uncle's birthday, why not? If he got rumbled he could just say his GleeMax was malfunctioning, his mother and the other oldies knew so little about this sort of thing he was sure they'd fall for it.

So when it was time, instead of using the body-send in the GleeMax he ran the JinBot app. He let the thing run in a windowed off corner of the widescreen while he got on with the much more interesting activity of playing games and chatting to friends.

He couldn't keep his eyes off the bot though, it seemed as if they were all taken in!

He turned down the volume of his game and watched it for a while. His infuriating cousin Mercedes was talking to the bot,

'So you listening to the Jaxon 10?’ she said, mentioning the latest insipid AI created holo-band.

'That's very interesting, please continue... Mercedes’ replied the bot.

'What-ever.', said his cousin and wandered off.

Score one to the bot!

Next her kid brother, Honda, came and addressed him in the latest kiddie speak that was all across the interweb.

'Tundra, bra. Chopup grilled kungfu hose-beams n' e-codex?’ the lad asked innocently enough.

'Syntax error.’ replied the bot, 'External command not recognised. Terminating.'

Dammit, thought Jinny, the boy's idiot jargon had crashed the program.

'Tun, bra, tun’, nodded the lad sagely, 'Mo' bun fun four oh four yah? Max out.'

It seemed like the bot's error message had fooled the boy too! Score two to the bot.

The bot then sat for a while and stared into space. His mother sad down beside him and said,

'Turn off whatever feed your watching and listen to me...'

Ah, thought Jinny, I can stop watching now. The bot was programmed to go into a nod-and-smile loop while his mum was talking. She could be passing on gossip to it for up to over an hour.

Maybe later he would fast forward through it to see if there was anything interesting, but probably not.

After the initial success, he refined the code a little, building yet another release, and sent the bot to two more parties, a christening and his brother's third wedding.

The bot seemed to work like a charm. He even added a dancing routine, lifted the avatar code straight from an open source forum and cutting and pasting the whole lot into his own program.

At his brother's wedding he danced like a disco king!

This gave Jinny much more time to do things he loved, namely sitting around and playing games on the GleeMax or chatting up women on the X-rated 3D channels.

One day, much to his surprise, an unsolicited body-send materialised in his living room. The last time that had happened was when there had been a fire in the building. Only emergency response units had the authority to body-send to you without permission.

It was a small man in a grey suit.

‘Mr Jonathan Jonnington-Smythe I presume?’

Jinny brushed nacho crumbs from his lap and stood up, ‘Er..yes.’

‘I am an AI avatar, designated B8-KIP. I am here regarding your illegal use of the GleeMax.’

‘Huh?’, Jinny was confused. Sure he downloaded torrents and jab-files, but who didn’t? Usually you just get a nasty letter and they squeezed your bandwidth for a month. I had happened to him loads of times.

It dawned on him, ‘If it’s about the porn then…’

The avatar held up its right hand,

‘This does not regard that matter. I am from the BufferD programming unit. It is in regards to the code you have been parsing via the GleeMax.’

‘That’s illegal?’

‘It may come as a surprise to you, but yes. Yes it is. It is illegal to represent yourself or others by any other means than direct interface of a human body via the body-send software. In short, bots are not allowed.’

‘But.. really? Surely no one has ever done it before.’

‘No.’, the avatar admitted, ‘It has been done before and we always respond the same way.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ said Jinny defiantly. He had dealt with internet Nazis before.

‘Cut you off and lock you in. You, My Smythe are a waste of skin and if you don’t want to participate in society in an active way then you will be terminated. Goodbye!’

The avatar vanished leaving Jinny in a state of dumbfoundment.

He rushed over and checked the door to the hallway. Locked. He rattled it then pulled it, but it was hopeless. The thick metal portal was designed to withstand a terrorist bomb blast.

In fact the whole hab cube was bomb proof, and although he had never thought about it before, a very effective prison.

To calm his nerves, he picked up a dirty glass with the thought of getting a drink and took it to the sink. He turned on the tap, but no water came out.

‘They’ve cut off the water too!’ he cried.

He tried the Batfone, the Gleemax and the Didotron. All were dead. He tried a light switch. Dead. The electricity was off.

‘What now?’ he moaned in despair.

He went over to the windows and saw that one had been open when the lockdown had occurred. As luck would have it an empty soda can had blocked it when the windows had gone into autolock and he could still swing it open. It was high up on the wall, at head height, but at least he would still have air.

He leaned out, hoping to call down to someone for help, but was dismayed when he saw the streets were deserted. Somewhere in the distance he heard the ringing bell of an SRT went over an unused pedestrian crossing.

The water was off, did that mean they had cut off the food too? He found himself suddenly starving and approached the iJunk and the iFood that sat next to each other on the otherwise empty kitchen work surface.

They were both dead, but he looked at the back of the iFood. There was a long hose plugged in the back, as well as the power cable. With a hard wrench he pulled the whole thing from the wall, lifting up a couple of tiles and leaving the hose dangling down off the counter. Some grey mass leaked out of it.

He sucked on the hose, but only a little of the mass came out. It must be off at the mains like the water he supposed. The grey mass tasted of well.. everything.. it was salty, sweet and greasy, he assumed all the flavour and texture was sorted out in the iFood itself. He ripped off the iJunk and found it too had grey matter in its hose pipe. It tasted the same. It filled him up but gave him a raging thirst.

Eventually he slept and the next morning, his head pounding from dehydration he drank the water from the toilet cistern. He went around the hab cube looking for things that could help him, but could find nothing.

Finally he scooped the last of the cistern water into empty cans and pots to save for later.

Three days later the water had all run out but when he set the sofa on fire to set off the fire alarms he had it replenished when the sprinkler system kicked in. He was wet and no longer thirsty, but no closer to escape.

Starving he tried the food hoses again. He sucked on them, but nothing came out. They must come into the cube somewhere though he thought and began to pull on one of them. Tiles and plaster came from the walls and clattered on the floor.

He followed the hose under a cupboard and down to below the sink. There were two valves plumbed into a box set flush with the wall.

Next he pulled one of the hose pipes out of the valve. Nothing much happened but he wondered what would happen if he removed the valve, which seemed to be deadlocked.

Savagely he ripped the GleeMax from under the TV and rushing across to the sink, dove under it and began hammering at the valves. Bits of electronics scattered everywhere and a shard of plastic cut him on the cheek, but one of the valves suddenly sheared off completely and a jet of grey mass hit him full in the face.

Laughing he scooped it up and hungrily devoured several handfuls. The jet of matter wasn’t letting up though and after no more than five minutes the living room was ankle deep in gunk. Confused Jinny climbed up onto the burnt sofa. After fifteen minutes the gunk was covering it.

Even with the bedroom and bathroom doors open the whole cube was full after an hour. Jinny leaned out the window despondently as a torrent of grey mass fell either side of his head to fall splattering on the street far below.

Well, he wouldn’t go hungry he supposed, but if he fell asleep then he would probably be washed out of the window or more likely drown.

Suddenly there was a popping and grinding sound from the front door. Moments later it swung open and two work men were swept off their feet by the flopping rolling mass of grey ooze.

‘Thank God!’ cried Jinny as he swam for the door.

‘What happened?’ said one of the men, ‘We had a complaint from the cube below about someone pouring porridge out of the window. Your door was locked, we had to use the manual override.’

‘Let me out of here!’ was all Jinny managed as a reply as he ran off down the corridor as fast as he could, shaking off the gunk as he went.

That night he had managed to make it into some woods on the edge of town. Here he was, a fugitive! But free of his cube at least and murderous AIs. He had ran and ran, heading for the hills. This was it, he thought happily as he lay down in lea of a tree, this is how man is meant to live, not trapped in a hab cube eating junk and watching his ass grow bigger day by day. He could start a revolution, get people to wake up.

With such cheerful thoughts in his head he settled down to sleep. All he needed now was a banjo, so he could play it for the rabbits and squirrels, just like in the cartoons…

(G174 16/08/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF(GM), AP)

(G174 16/08/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF(GM), AP)

[These notes added later. Back at Waterdeep where Fenrir and Corum had just arrived back
at the Artemel Villa.]


DAY 213 (10 Marpenoth)(October) continued...

Fenrir and Corum were instantly spotted by the Artemel Villa house guards and the captain
shouted 'Arrest them!'

Fenrir was indignant at first and said
'Lets not embarrass ourselves, we defeated Gilliard De Rosan where the Grey Hands could not.
Don't let this get unpleasant.'

The Captain was a rough, tattooed looking fellow called Haven who seemed interested in this
since as he said 'The Lord hasn't been telling us anything of what's been going on.'
He also said Fenrir could find him in a nearby tavern after his working hours if he wanted
to tell him more.

As they talked though Bresnoss Artemel came out of the main building. He was a tall, bald
man with long hair at the side. He also had ten more guards with him and he shouted
'Don't just stand about! Arrest them!'

Fenrir went invisible and flew up onto the roof.
'Get Tanya out here. The warlock is using magic!' shouted Artemel as his guards took Corum
into the house.

Fenrir watched for a while from behind a chimney, but was slightly beaten at his own game
as an invisible flying wizard cast a dominate spell on him. A middle aged woman appeared
and gave him a small smile and asked him to follow her inside, which he was compelled to
do.

He was thrown into a small room and locked in for the night.

DAY 214 (11 Marpenoth)(October)

Around about three in the morning Maliantor arrived to take him away.
'Thanks Tanya, I'll take it from here.'
'Looks like a flight risk' said the other wizard, but released the Dominate spell none-the-less.

Maliantor took Fenrir back to the Blackstaff Tower and made him a cup of tea in a small kitchen
in her quarters.

They talked for a long time, Fenrir telling her about what had happened in Darkness Deep and
Maliantor telling him about what she had learned. With all the information added together
she thought that Fenrir and Corum had been in a 'bubble' in Hell, a special area created by
the Vengeance demon especially for De Rosan. A world where the villain thought he was the
ruler of everything, but a complete work of fiction created by the demon. That was why the
world seemed fainter and more ghostly further away from De Rosan and also why the portals
they tried didn't work.

She gave three hundred platinum coins to Fenrir and bid him farewell also adding that something
odd had happened to Corum and he would be staying a bit longer.

Around six in the morning Fenrir arrived, in disguise, at the OJB and met Nestoone in his
office. He went up to Corum's room and sent Raya on some errands (an expensive mithril shirt
being the main thing on his shopping list).

Raya and Veddic were back! A few days after Fenrir and Corum had vanished they had been
bagged up and thrown off the back of a cart in Dockward.

At noon, while he was eating his lunch, a quasit appeared at the window and asked to be
let in. It said its name was Rick-de-Ben who said he had been sent by 'the boss' to reward
him. He could have any of the magical items he had found in Darknessdeep and Fenrir went
for Jandor's Ring. (Later he learned that Corum had also been given something;
'The Darknessdeep Amulet'.)

Fenrir spent the rest of the day in Corum's room, resting and recovering from his ordeal
in Hell.

DAY 215 (12 Marpenoth)(October)

In the afternoon of this day Corum arrived back from the Blackstaff Tower saying that he'd
been in long talks with Maliantor who had been poking and prodding him. He took his boots
off and flopped onto his bed.
Apparently some vague magical power that had lain dormant in him had been awoken by spending
days in a very magical part of an alter plane. Maliantor was greatly interested in him as
he did not fit into any sort of Wizard, Cleric or Sorcerer category but was a type of
Spellcaster she had never seen before.
Corum wasn't very interested in his new skills though, being more interested in his bed
and his pillow.

The other thing of note today was that a female gnome called Hazalender came looking for
him. When Nestoone turned her away she said she could be contacted at the Dragon's Head Tavern


Fenrir chatted to Nestoone and Dwerry a little bit, but otherwise the rest of his day was quiet.


DAY 216 (13 Marpenoth)(October)

Cavu came to see them today. He said that the notes Gertrude had left him had told him to
come and look for them at the OJB today.

He said he had some people he could hire for a trip to the Undermountain to look for Barndal
but wondered if Fenrir and Corum would be interested. After some discussion they agreed on
the following party:

1 Fenrir
2 Corum
3 Raya
4 Veddic
5 Cavu
6 Nestoone
7 Dwerry

For the rest of the day they made plans, got everyone together and purchased supplies, which
included:

14 cure light wounds potions
14 blessed bandages
14 acid jars
14 alchemist fires
35 sun rods
280 rations
2 everburning lanterns
2 crowbars


DAY 217 (13 Marpenoth)(October)

In the morning they all sent letters to whomever they thought best and made arrangements for
their absence. Fenrir sent a letter to Giselle.

They then made their way to The Yawning Portal, Waterdeep's most famous entrance into the Undermountain.

It was after lunch when they arrived, but they kept quiet when asked what their quest was.
They entered the Undermountain via the well, lowered one by one, at the cost of a gold each, by the
staff of the Yawning Portal.

And so here they were! I feel like I should be starting a new chapter of a heroic legend. I feel
like it should have capital letters.. oh what the heck.. 


                THE UNDERMOUNTAN
               
From the room at the bottom of the well a narrow corridor lead to the Hall of Pillars. Raya went
first, checking for traps and things as she went. She spotted a gold coin on the floor and startled
a rat which scampered north.
There was also the skeleton of a snake wrapped around a pillar. Corum whacked it with his sword
but nothing happened.

They went west from here and entered the Hall of Mirrors. Raya checked for traps again and at the
last mirror she glanced into it and was suddenly attacked by a duplicate of herself!

The 'Evil Raya' was quickly defeated though and vanished. Veddic then went up to destroy the
mirror with his morning star. When he struck it though, it vanished and two 'Evil Veddic's appeared!

These were much tougher to deal with. Veddic fell over with a miss-timed swing of his chain and
the first 'Evil Veddic' cast Inflict Critical Wounds on him.

As the fight continued the second one also cast it on him, bring Veddic an inch away from death
and collapsed bleeding on the floor.

Cavu jumped past and was hit as he went to help Veddic. The others shot arrows down the corridor
at the enemies and the duplicates were finally destroyed by blasts from Fenrir.

They poured potions into Veddic and got him back onto his feet. Meanwhile, Dwerry at the back
had seen four strange looking Drow coming up on them. She shouted an alarm and they turned to
face this new threat.

They were drow, but with a strange white pallor and gibbered with madness as they came. They
were easily defeated by Fenrir's blasts and Corum's sword, but once on the floor they lay
motionless but appeared not to be dead.

Corum tried to chop one's head off, but it was like a magic force was keeping this strange
being together. He then poured oil on it and set it aflame and although it burnt it was not
reduced to ashes and continued to gaze on him with a disturbing malevolence.

They decided to leave them alone after that.

(G173 09/08/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF, AP(GM))

(G173 09/08/2013 Fri via Roll20 - JF, AP(GM))

[Here are some of more of my notes taken during my time in Cormyr. Note to self : Sort out
notes! I appear to have written Corum's adventures on the reverse pages of my own undertakings.
I should really pay a scribe to get this all sorted out!]

DAY 204  (1 Marpenoth)(October) continued....

I appear to have trapped myself! Anyway, I am waiting for 'rescue' now but I'm sure I could
think of something or just go deeper into the temple, but anyway, while I am waiting I will
jot down in my journal how I managed to get into this mess. It will pass the time and maybe
explain to those who find (Hoho! That's it Rollo lad, keep your spirits up!) my body if I
never get out alive!

It was midnight and I had a sort of plan formulating in my head, but first I popped back
to the inn to discuss it with TD before he left. But he had left, and according to the
landlord it was on horseback, so it looked like we'd not have further help from him.

So, since we could not use TD as a source of authority I recalled Jiggles and we formulated
a plan. Myself and Shump would go in to the temple and do the three day indoctrination thing
while the others stayed outside incase a rescue was needed.

In the morning the half-orc and I went up to the temple and the others went to ask around in
town for more information.

We were told to come back at twilight though so I took the opportunity to take a look around
also and talked to Orlenstar Thirthorn in the God's Grove, and area east of the town used for
picnic's and weddings. Thirthorn was a druid and told us a little about the new temple.
I gave my name as 'Ollor Savis' and my half-orc friend as 'Nigel'.

Thirthorn wasn't keen on the new temple to Mystra and found the cleric to be 'false'.

We heard similar opinions at 'Han's Herbs and Medicine' as well as rumours about prisoners
being sent to the temple and going missing and others going up there and never coming back.

We had lunch at a tavern near the watchhouse were I talked to a watchman for a while. He
assumed that the 'disappearing people' went to a training place 'further up the river.'
I checked at the Boathouse and other places but the Temple did not hire or own any boats
for this purpose.

We also took the precaution of renting two rooms in a house next to the Temple were the
others would wait while 'Nigel' and I went in. When we entered we were greeted by Fembrys
and there were also 'three other fuds' as Nigel said waiting for the enrolment.

Fembrys warned us all that  'The next three days will be tough! But you will eventually
learn the secrets of the Starnicom.'

We were taken through to the petitioners quarters and assigned bunks. We were told to
remove all our clothes and equipment and put on petitioner's robes. One of the other
woman refused to take off a ring of sentimental value though and was asked to leave.

From this moment on it was all about 'sitting in meditation', nightly ceremonies and
daily chants, the jist of which was 'magic is born between the stars'.

It all seemed to be about making sure we didn't get any proper sleep though.

DAY 205  (2 Marpenoth)(October)

Another nightly service in the morning, then just three hours sleep and into the
chanting again. Another short sleep and then right back into it. I was fine really,
being a tough old adventuring type and so was Nigel. The two women were dead on their
feet though.

Fembrys and Shan Thar were going about. I used Detect Magic and detected magical
aura's on both of them.

DAY 206  (3 Marpenoth)(October)

More ceremonies and more chants. Just balderdash really.

Today I tried to talk to a couple of the guards but they were not much use. The one that
talked the most seemed to really believe all the stuff Fembrys was saying and was a
dedicated follower of Mystra. He said he'd been here a while and five to ten people
had been going through this three day thing for the last eight months. So that was something
like sixty people! He said they just went further in to the temple and he didn't know
what happened to them after that.

DAY 207  (4 Marpenoth)(October)

Today I altered the plan slightly and sent Nigel home. He took his stuff and all of my
stuff too, just to keep it safe and was to report back to the others that I would be coming
further into the temple tonight.

I also cast Fire Trap on an old purse as a sort of alarm bell. When I dismissed that spell
it would mean I was in trouble and needed help.

In the evening then, myself and the two remaining ladies entered the inner temple. It had
a wooden door to the west which we had just come in and another to the east. There was
an alter and two statues.

Here Fembrys waffled on about Mystra again and got out this black globe and told us to look
on the 'Starynosis' for the 'knowledge that lies between the stars'.

As I looked on the globe I felt myself being hit by magic and knew that I had been
bewitched! I complained to Fembrys about it but then snapped out of it.
He explained that this was the only way I was going to be allowed further into the temple
though and continued. When I felt the magical effects again I stepped forward and knocked
the globe from his hands.
'Stop that!' I cried.
'Sinner!' he retorted and two shadowy warriors appeared.
Well I'd had enough of this and went 'the full crocodile' and summoned four of my big scaly
friends. They made short work of the shadow guards or whatever they were and slapped
Fembrys around a bit with their tails. He ran for the door but I woodshaped it shut.
He banged on it, calling for the guards. I asked him to surrender but he would not, so I
ordered a croc to knock him senseless, which it did.

I went over and made sure he would live then relieved him of his weapons and valuables and
tied him up. After that I gave the chamber I was in a good old search, checking the altar
and both statues. I found nothing that looked like keys so used a 'Stone Shape' spell
to get around the east door.

It fell backwards and revealed a shadowy and mysterious corridor leading further in. At
that point I decided to think for a while and sat down to write all of this!