《The Day Britain Lost Its Minds》 The Presentation London, Planet Earth 2058 For as long as Dr. Angus McBairn could remember, he possessed the figure of a rake made exclusively from elbows, the social charisma of a shuttlecock and the nose of a russet potato. Ginger even on the areas of his body that didn¡¯t sprout hair - Angus had spent his life in the shade, hiding from UV light, ambient light; any sort of light really. His younger years weren¡¯t easy due to ruthless bullying in the schoolyard, and his older years hadn¡¯t offered much improvement. But in spite of all this, Dr. Angus was content. He was content because he was doing important work, that would surely change the world. You see, Dr. Angus is a scientist, and a rather good one at that. In fact, Dr. Angus is the youngest ever chair of Applied Biology at the Imperial College of London, an accomplishment that had required a vast amount of years of lots of very serious work. It also required that he abandon a social life completely (which was the only real reason that friends or a love life hadn¡¯t materialised as yet - or at least that was what he would tell himself). During his time there, he¡¯d developed a number of projects that extended the human lifespan from 100 years to 135, through a mixture of advanced gene therapies, stem cells and other complicated things that don¡¯t bear going into quite frankly. These achievements, unsurprisingly, made him very popular with various billionaires who had spent the bulk of their lives accumulating hard currency, only to find themselves too old to spend it.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! But his greatest work was yet to be completed - and it was his crowning achievement. The big one. The great solution that everyone has been waiting for. Immortality. Which, unsurprisingly, the billionaires just loved. For Angus had, after many years and hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, built a supercomputer that would finally upload the human mind to a computer, gifting his (presumably unfathomably wealthy) customers with the ultimate reward - life after death. Billionaires across the world followed his every move, anxiously adding up their chances each day of living long enough for the device to make it to human trials, allowing them to continue on being billionaires for as long as they liked, which was presumably forever. Excitingly, Dr. Angus¡¯s team had recently managed to upload the mind of a rather nervous rat, making this impossibly lucky rodent the first immortal being in the history of planet Earth (for as long as the computer stayed plugged in, or wasn¡¯t switched off, of course). As could be expected, this was rather an international sensation in the science world and the popular presses, because for one reason or another death was still broadly thought of as something best avoided altogether if in any way possible. But the technology wasn¡¯t ready for humans - not yet. For rats are in a lot of ways different to humans, and not a lot similar. This was a fact that was rather unpopular with his billionaire benefactors, who were impatient and in many instances grievously ill - in particular a pair of ruthless industrialist brothers named Phillip and Herbert King, notorious in equal parts for their investments in all manner of earth-polluting industries and their broad dislike of certain racial minorities. Phillip King, as it happens, was in fact urgently ill, and as such had a particular need for Dr. Angus¡¯s device in a rather shorter timeframe than the Therapeutic Goods Administration would afford. You see Phillip King had a rather inoperable cancer, and despite the best oncologists his rather weighty wallet could afford, he in all likelihood wouldn¡¯t make it to Christmas, let alone the next five years Dr Angus needed to get the device to market. Which was a problem Phillip King intended to solve - by book, or by crook. Theft 1:59pm. An office building close by. Dr. Angus was confused. Today was his quarterly investor update, yet he was, as far as he could tell, the only one who had bothered to turn up. He was sitting alone in a huge boardroom at his offices, right up the tippy end of one of those long oblong tables with lots of chairs and a conference call device in the middle. He was wearing his usual white lab coat, keenly aware that he had sweated through it at the underarms. A pathetic cuckoo clock announced arrival of the hour with a mincy chef figurine trotting out from inside a teeny bakery door with the loaf of the day.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. His quarterly investor updates were usually very well-attended. His ageing billionaire investors were almost always there, even if they had to miss other less important appointments, like a son or daughter¡¯s wedding or an ex-wife¡¯s funeral. But even his own team was missing, and his Associate Director and number two - Dr. Keenan Fritz - was nowhere to be found. What in the blasted hell was going on? Where the hell was Keenan? Keenan; who had never missed a day¡¯s work in his life. Keenan; who normally stuck to Angus like a fruit fly to a bag of rancid cherries. Keenan; that lumbering dolt of a man with sweaty palms, a PhD in neurochemistry, and a tendency to spit aggressively while talking. Angus flicked through the slides of his presentation once while he waited, then he looked out the window of the boardroom over at the lab. It was much quieter than usual. Angus hadn¡¯t normally taken it upon himself to be particularly observant of the comings and goings of the rank and file, but he did make note of the fact that almost every member of his team had somehow vapoured out of the building. Where the hell was everybody? Don¡¯t they know we just put a rat on a computer? The Predicament Meanwhile, somewhere across town¡­ Dr. Keenan Fritz went pale and clammy, and not for the first time. The room was carpeted, even on the walls with a rich burgundy colour, which Keenan noted as being intimidating to him for some strange reason. On a makeshift stage, Keenan fiddled with a great big machine with lots of flashing lights and beeping and whizzing bits. But the machine seemed to be malfunctioning. In the audience was Dr. Angus'' Board of Directors, most of Dr. Angus'' staff, and most callously - almost all of his billionaire investors. You see, Keenan Fritz, Dr. Angus'' loyal lieutenant, had done something not very loyal at all. In fact, he had ripped Angus off, stolen all of his designs, and built a supercomputer of his own. He did this for a variety of reasons; including, but not limited to:
  1. He was jealous of Angus'' success
  2. He was an insecure, unhappy man, and
  3. He had been offered a lot of money to do so from a very sick billionaire not quite ready to die
Keenan had it all in his sights. Wealth, power, and a holiday home in Majorca. Unfortunately, however, all of this hinged on one inconvenient reality - that he was not, and probably never would be quite as smart as Angus McBairn. The supercomputer he had secretly built, based on Dr. Angus'' designs, had failed publicly and spectacularly, all in front of the investors and Board of Directors he had discreetly stolen from Dr. Angus over a year prior. Unfortunately, having wanted so very badly to be as smart as Dr. Angus, and telling all his friends at the pub that he could do his job better in a pinch - was not the same as actually being able to do it. ¡®Just a technical issue,¡¯ he said, as he switched wires around frantically. ¡®Nothing to worry about. Just let me¡­ah-¡¯ Keenan started to sweat bullets as his wire rearranging reached a frightening pace.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. The billionaires in the audience were highly unamused, to say the least. Keenan had promised them a prototype that would work on humans rather more quickly than Dr. Angus, without the bother of clinical trials. His willingness to do this entirely illegally, on the dim chance that it would succeed, appealed to Phil and Herbert King, on account of Phil¡¯s aggressive and incurable cancer (ironically, the only one that hadn¡¯t been cured by 2058). If only he could get the blasted thing to work! Sadly, instead of the fabulous spectacle he expected to occur, Phillip King sat in his chair onstage, hooked up with wires to the computer, defiantly in possession of his own mind. The screen above, which was now supposed to display an avatar of Phillip¡¯s face, remained disappointingly blank, save for an error message that Keenan hadn¡¯t seen before. But in fact, Dr. Keenan¡¯s experiment wasn¡¯t entirely without consequence. Due to a mathematical error, rather than upload the mind of Phillip King to a hard drive, the supercomputer had instead diverted energy back into the power grid, which then escaped into the cellular network, blasting simultaneously out at every man, woman and child in Britain, and confusingly, the entire population of a small green planet somewhere about umpteen light years left of the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. Several moments later, chaos erupted across Britain. Millions began quite suddenly to experience urges to live like animals ¨C very strange animals. In fact, over the next few hours, unbeknownst to Keenan and the group of billionaires (some of whom were getting rather mammalian urges of their own), complete and utter chaos would spread across the entire country. People dropped what they were doing, and started sniffing lamp posts, galloping like wildebeests, and trying, with mixed results, to fly. Sadly, and in particular for those who had taken to flying, one of the immediate consequences was that the mortality rate nation-wide shot up frightfully quickly, and continued to accelerate as the hours went on. People began adopting the different characteristics of animals on an African Savanna ¨C each separating into groups based on their perceived order in the food chain, and acting accordingly. Some people hid, some people grazed ¨C and some people hunted. Keenan looked at his audience of billionaires, a palpable sense of fear building like acid in the back of his neck. Something had, indeed gone horribly wrong. Phillip King immediately jumped with puma-like efficiency onto a ceiling rafter and started hissing at Keenan, while various other members of the audience broke out into squabbles, hooting and shrieking in various otherworldly cadences. Was this really how he was going to die? Eaten by a pack of lunatic billionaires? Keenan backed slowly towards the door, feeling for the latch with his hands as he tried to not alert Phillip (who was for all intents and purposes now an apex feline predator) to his movements. He pressed the latch gingerly, but the final click sounded loudly, echoing through the hall. Everyone in the room, animal, vegetable or mineral, stopped what they were doing, turning their attention to Keenan. This is definitely how I¡¯m going to die, thought Keenan. And then he burst the door open behind him, and ran as fast as his lanky, skinny-fat frame would allow. The Awakening of Zog Planet Zog, The Third Age, year 36 (roughly equivalent to the Earth year 2058) Meanwhile, faraway, in a world not wholly unlike Earth in certain ways (but drastically different in certain, very important ways), a young furry creature began to gain the power of insight. It wasn¡¯t so much of a ¡®now I know how protons and neutrons converge to form atoms¡¯ sort of insight, but more of a ¡®I feel rather like I could quaff down a large amount of cheese and crispbread, and I wonder if there¡¯s anything good on the telly¡¯ type of thing. Which was quite unnerving for this tiny, miniature, decidedly un-statuesque, and all-over hirsute alien creature, for no other reason than the concepts of cheese, crispbread and telly (and whether there was anything on one) were entirely foreign to it. As well as that, for that matter, was the ability to form thoughts in sentences in an entirely stuffy, foreign language ¨C and even the concept of language altogether, since before now, this really quite miniscule animal had previously only communicated through telepathy in a sort of husky binary code. Nevertheless, this teeny fuzzball with legs brushed off these strange thoughts, and went about his day, which involved hunting for even tinier creatures in the underbrush, right at the bottom floor of a heaving forest canopy, located in a tropical rainforest on a completely foreign and undiscovered planet somewhere about umpteen light years left of the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy. But try as it might, it couldn¡¯t seem to shake a strange craving for a nice big helping of strawberry sponge cake, and a fast game of french cricket in a Salisbury backyard. As it happens, in fact, this wasn¡¯t a particularly isolated event. All over this small, lusciously green planet, other creatures of great and small statures (and several species of semi-conscious moss, too) began thinking in a way that could only be described as, well, English.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Tall flamingo-esque-looking animals with boggly eyes, and wings made of a sort of skin meshed like crepe-paper, began arguing about the average goal scores of South London football players. They also suddenly had the ineffable urge to buy a pair of sturdy wellingtons, ¡®because it¡¯s a bit wet out.¡¯ Indeed ¨C the weather was a bit ¡®wet out,¡¯ and had been for millennia ¨C particularly since these lanky beaked beanpoles were wetland creatures, who had been born in, and lived their entire lives, loping around in a knee-deep fluorescent bog. ¡®Wet out¡¯ was a feature - not a bug. Bugs ¨C or what can be passed off as bugs on this strange planet ¨C also formed a large part of their diet. Though they couldn¡¯t help but wonder whether the whole thing was a bit unrefined, and whether they could be better enjoyed crushed into a pate and spread onto crackers. A colossal mammoth-like creature (though in this instance, with tusks where their eyes should be, and eyes where their nostrils ought to be located), in much the same way, felt inclined to read up on the latest misgivings and pratfalls of something inexplicably named the royal family, in the equally as inexplicable tabloid press, as well as the private lives of certain reality TV show contestants (all concepts that appeared with no logical context for which they could base their understanding on). Which was particularly inconvenient for the mammoth-like creature, since at that very moment, it was being coaxed onto a cliff-edge by a tribe of bipedal simians with spears, presumably so that they could use the height of the cliff to dispatch the poor creature and eat it. But the mammoth shouldn¡¯t have worried, because this cosmic explosion of Englishness hadn¡¯t missed his tool-using upright-walking pursuers. Suddenly, and without warning, they were all struck with embarrassment at the skimpy loincloths they had previously worn without issue. They started anxiously asking each other where the nearest H&M was; so that they could rush there immediately and buy a smart pair of jeans, a T-Shirt with a logo on it and some crisp white sneakers. When a senior member of the hunting party realised that she didn¡¯t have a watch on, she freaked out completely. This was apparently because she didn¡¯t know whether or not she¡¯d missed the latest episode of 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (which she had apparently been really looking forward to watching, particularly the Joe Wilkinson bit), and that she also now knew what 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown presumably was. On the Fritz The hallway outside Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, London, Earth. April 13, 2:11pm, Greenwich Mean Time Keenan daren¡¯t look back. As he ran, the rabid billionaires, headed by Phillip King the Puma-king, scampered violently towards him, tumbling over each other to get within biting distance. As he desperately ran down the hallway, he caught a sight of the foaming, cantering hoard behind him in a floor length mirror about ten feet ahead, and noted of particular significance that their eyeballs had all turned a strange shade of violet. He got to the end of the hall, turned right, then ducked into the first reasonably solid-looking door he could find. He shut the door behind him and locked it, using the full weight of his 6¡±5 frame to press back on it as hard as he could. The room was dark. It smelt of ammonia. Drat, it was a supply closet. All at once, the door was pounded ferociously, and Keenan for the first time in his rational, scientific life, considered whether he was a bit naively dismissive of the benefits of religion. Thankfully, the door was solid enough that it withstood all the force that could be generated by the fists of 30 geriatric hedge fund managers and senior scientists. It was helpful too that it seemed that none of the demons which had suddenly possessed his investors and colleagues had seemed to have retained the ability to use tools, or the knowhow to do a swift run-up and kick like police do in action movies. Instead, it was just the feeble pummelling only 30 sets of arthritic hands can give. Soon enough, the hoard gave up, and bounded off in search of more pliable prey. Keenan breathed a sigh of relief. He opened the door just a smidge, but it was s smidge too soon. Wei Hei - his former head of programming, was standing eerily still about 15 feet from Keenan. She was walking around like an indigenous huntress, clutching a steel signpost she¡¯d presumably uprooted from from the grass in the quadrangle to the left of the hallway, and was holding it menacingly above her head in a spear-like fashion. Normally a calming presence in the office, she now looked positively barbarian. Keenan leant a little too hard on the door frame, making the hinge creak audibly.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Wei¡¯s purple eyes were suddenly upon him, and the spear was in the air, hurtling towards the disconcertingly large space between Keenan¡¯s eyes. Keenan¡¯s schoolboy crush on his 5¡±3 West Chinese colleague evaporated instantly. Had he shut the door a nanosecond late, Wei¡¯s metal spear would have been introduced quite easily into Keenan¡¯s hippocampus, but instead, it hammered through the door, just missing him as he ducked. Keenan anxiously looked around the supply closet. Bottles of cleaning fluid, mop buckets, a sign-in sheet on the wall for whoever presumably was employed to use said fluids and mop buckets. A particularly virulent patch of black mould that was eating the left rear corner of the rotting fibreboard roof slats that made up the ceiling. But no doors. No means of escape. Keenan sweated, and sweated some more. And then he revisited his pompous dismissal of religion and its¡¯ progressively more appealing promise of having somewhere nice to go to after one is suddenly impaled by a rusty steel signpost. Would a Hail Mary help? Wei Hei, meanwhile, had spent the past few moments inspecting the door handle on the door. She pushed it and pulled it, this way and that. A door handle was something that she had seen and interacted with a million times before, surely. And yet, the information - the neural pathways that had been reinforced every time she had used one were suddenly inaccessible to her. What she did have, however, was a comprehensive knowledge of how heavy blunt objects could be used to bash things that were in her way, so she looked around for something that might do the job. ¡®What dat? Dat look hevy,¡¯ she thought rather neolithically. BANG! Keenan winced as Wei Hei flung a heavy object (in this case, the fuse box responsible for powering a watering fountain) at the door. It left a dent, which didn¡¯t look good for Keenan¡¯s chances of surviving the next few moments. In a similar, but inversely proportional way, the dent in the door was rather encouraging to Wei Hei, who felt instinctively that it increased her prospects of making a meal out of whoever was behind it. So she re-martialled her efforts, and took another swing at the door, this time making a small hole. Keenan, at this stage began hurriedly barricading the door with shelves, mop buckets; anything he could find really, while trying to calm his shaking hands enough to unlock his phone. He scrolled through his list of contacts, and finally stopped on Dr. Angus¡¯ number. In these sort of moments when one is surely doing a precarious dance with his mortal end, one might automatically assume that things like swallowing one¡¯s pride, and risking a potentially bankrupting antitrust suit would become easy enough to do, considering the grave alternative. But Keenan was a malignant narcissist, and a wimp, so he erred several groaning moments, until Wei Hei launched the fuse box once more at the door, making the hole large enough that she could dislodge her signpost spear and poke her beady, hungry purple eyes through it. Sure enough, as Wei Hei started to back up and prepare to launch the signpost through the hole, Keenan¡¯s pride was swiftly swallowed, and he tapped Dr. Angus¡¯ contact, and put the phone on loudspeaker. Dr. Angus = in a Pickle Dr Angus Angus had managed to get home from the lab unscathed. On the way, he had certainly noticed some people acting strangely. He saw a homeless man making a meal of a pigeon, and a few accountants pecking in some shrubbery like chickens. He even saw a man in a Saville Row suit running about on all fours trying to climb a lamp post. But even these occurrences, to him, weren¡¯t entirely out of the ordinary for South London. Maybe a little more strange than usual, perhaps. In any case, Angus was too depressed about the no-show investor meeting that day to have really cared much about anything. No, surprisingly, the moment when Angus finally began to suspect that something was truly wrong was when he noticed his elderly neighbour, Edwina Higgins, swinging like a chimpanzee from one of the very top branches of an Elm tree in his backyard. He watched in wonder as she quite happily stripped pieces of bark off the tree trunk and licked up the ants she found there with relish. He wondered how a woman of eighty was able to do something so athletic, particularly since he knew that she suffered from crippling arthritis. It was at this point that the beginnings of a realisation started to pour into Angus¡¯s head. And because Angus is a scientist, he tends to think in hypotheses. The hypothesis that he was noodling with at this particular junction went something like this: Edwina Higgins = acting like monkey (this = strange) ¡®Mrs Higgins,¡¯ he said. ¡®Are you really quite alright?¡¯ Mrs Higgins turned and inspected Angus, quickly deciding that he wasn¡¯t of interest. She then made an aggressive hissing noise and continued on with her business of eating ants and holding onto branches. ¡®Do you want me to call Derek? It¡¯s just that you¡¯re awfully high up in that tree there, and I don¡¯t think it¡¯s safe, especially at your age.¡¯ Derek is Mrs Higgins¡¯ son (the Doctor). Mrs Higgins now paid a bit more attention to Angus, this time beating her chest and hooting at him. Angus immediately regretted his remark about her age. ¡®I think I¡¯ll call Derek. Not to worry, help is on the way.¡¯ Angus started dialling Derek¡¯s number into his phone while fixing himself a nice cup of tea. Then his mind began to wander. His thoughts went something like this: My computer experiment = mind transfer (This = not exactly dissimilar to Mrs Higgins¡¯ behaviour {at first glance}) The phone rang out. Angus left a polite voicemail, while peering out the window at Mrs Higgins, who had now taken to licking her cardigan with great enthusiasm. Angus then noted concerningly that her eyes looked a bit¡­purple?Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. The mind cogs whirred again, this time with a soup?on of anxiety creeping into Angus¡¯s subconscious. The manner of the whirring of the cogs went again something like this: My supercomputer = success on rat Perhaps Supercomputer = also success on Mrs Higgins(?) He shook off that thought. What a terrible thought indeed. It couldn¡¯t be seriously considered ¨C the math was solid. It had done what it was supposed to do. Rat mind + computer = immortal rat. But what if he was off in his calculations? Angus hesitantly picked up a yellow marker he had been using to mark use-by dates on portions of Shepherd¡¯s Pie he was freezing, and began to slowly write out ¨C on the window ¨C the mathematical equation by which his computer performed the processes that made the thingies go boop and zing in his machine. As Angus kept one wary eye on Mrs Higgins outside, who was now swinging lithely from one branch to the next (particularly commendable for a woman of 89), his writing became more furious, and more desperate. His thinking went a bit like this: My supercomputer = mind transfer Mrs Higgins¡¯ mind = monkey(?) Therefore, Withstanding other plausible explanations, My supercomputer = responsible? Eventually, the entire window was filled with a long, overly complex mathematical equation, and at the very end, Angus encircled a single number 1 above a zeta symbol, which was on top of a theta symbol, divided by ¡®m¡¯ minus ¡®c¡¯. In a moment of catastrophic realisation, Angus rubbed out the number one, and moved it to the other side of the zeta-theta/m-c bit, then frowned deeply and miserably. Had he forgotten to carry the 1? Surely not, his mathematicians had been through every line of code over a thousand times. The stakes couldn¡¯t be higher if something were to go wrong, so this sort of attention to detail was baked into Dr. Angus¡¯ operation from the start. But what if someone had gone rogue, and was operating the supercomputer independently? Surely not. But where was everybody today? Had someone gone rogue? It was a terrifying thought. Because this technology was immeasurably powerful, and could be catastrophically dangerous if misused. It would be a bit like like playing footsie with an atom bomb. The mind cogs whirred again. Let¡¯s play devil¡¯s advocate here. If (and it¡¯s a big ¡®if¡¯) someone had taken control of the device and bungled up the code, a mistake as simple as forgetting to carry the 1 would (cogs whirring again) instead of concentrating their Trademarked Gamma-Theta Ray computer add-on bit at a simple rat, instead cause it to travel back into the electricity source, and then out along electrical lines, which of course would link up with telephone lines, which then link up with the cellphone towers, which would then transmit brain swapping rays out indiscriminately, all across mainland Britain. Had they transferred the mind of a rat to the whole of Britain? He couldn¡¯t be certain of that fact - since rats aren¡¯t known to have quite such manual dexterity as Mrs. Higgins was currently displaying. But it was a horrifying thought all the same. Angus hoped briefly that the problem was only limited to his own backyard, though when he went do do a quick check of what was going on in the street outside his home, He witnessed Abe Tillerman, a mild-mannered accountant, chasing his shrieking wife around their front garden on all fours while growling like a honey badger. Immensely crestfallen by this point, Angus walked back into his kitchenette and plonked himself onto a stool. If someone were to get into the machine and try to use it, he thought - who would it be? Who would be stupid enough to try? Only Angus knew the intricacies of the system in its¡¯ entirety. Angus checked his phone. On it, he saw some very ominous words: Keenan Fritz: Missed call: Voice message left. Oh Keenan. You bloody idiot. Keenans Confession Keenan The hallway outside Fyvie Hall, University of Westminster, London, Earth. April 13, 2:11pm, Greenwich Mean Time Voicemail left for Dr. Angus McBairn by Dr. Keenan Fritz at 2:11pm, April 13th: Angus, mate, ah-Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Look, I don¡¯t know how to exactly - ah - Well look I better just get straight to it, I¡¯ve got Wei at me with a fire poker. I¡¯ll tell you all about that later. But look - I did a very bad thing - I stole your designs and made my own computer - you see, the Kings offered me a mint to do it - because you know old Phillip¡¯s got that tumour in his whatsit - you know - ¡®down there¡¯. But I cooked the goose Gus. I turned the whole lecture hall into violent lunatics. I hope the problem is just in that room. But I suspect it isn¡¯t. Oh God. Look, I¡¯ve got to go. But you have to meet me back at the Institute. We¡¯ve got to put things back, before - Mate, hold on a sec - *The sound of a ruckus, Wei shrieking like a banshee, a disgusting clunking noise, then a thud* Oh God, oh God, oh God. I¡¯ve just brained Wei. Oh Jesus help me. It was in self-defence - you have to believe me! Oh God - there¡¯s more coming. Meet you at the Institute Gus. Quickly! A Note on Zog Meanwhile, on Planet Zog Due to something to do with the gravitational pull of an errant star, or black hole, or some other interstellar whatsit; the time on Planet Zog goes somewhat quicker than it does on Earth. In fact, rather a lot quicker. In fact, for every Earth hour, something around a Zog year or two seems to transpire. Which is, really, of no real consequence to the people of Earth, who frankly have quite a lot of other things to be worried about. Not yet, anyway.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. But for the denizens of Zog, the effects are quite profound. Because for every hour that chaos reigns on Earth, the opposite seems to be unfolding on Zog; namely, a shrift assembly of rational thought and industrious fervour at a breakneck pace. Society seemed to break out like cosmic acne across Zog. Various institutions and industries were being built in fast forward, as this strange alien planet benefited from thousands of years of British technical know-how and hutzpah in small fraction of the time it took Britain to assemble it originally (which was hardly fair, really - but life isn¡¯t). Plaarcqke the Brief It¡¯s a widely held belief amongst scientific communities that alien life, if it were ever found - should be so distinctly different that we might not even recognise it to be life at all. But in the case of planet Zog, evolution has seemed to take much the same paths as on Earth, just with a few doglegs and traffic jams along the way. Which would explain why the dominant life-form on the planet is an upright, bipedal creature that operates in much the same way that a human does - except for the fact that it¡¯s a bright pink colour with waxen skin and a face that looks a bit like a bald hornet that¡¯s just heard a metal stool scraped across a concrete floor. These creatures had already managed to organise themselves into various stone-age tribes - adept with rudimentary tools and exhibiting very early signs of civilisation. They wear loincloths, they farm fluorescent shrimp in paddies by the river, and they like to occasionally invade, rape and murder each-other when the need or want arises. Plaarcqke had always been a leader of men. Or whatever you call men when they¡¯re pink and waxy and have heads like squinty hornets (which is what men looked like on Planet Zog, as well as women for that matter). He¡¯d not been a particularly good one, though. In fact, he¡¯d been hanging onto power by the flimsy grip of his squidgy alien fingers for a while now, and the vultures were circling. Others in his clan, a tribe called Smzog, had been saying things like ¡®Plaarcque¡¯s gone a bit soft hasn¡¯t he,¡¯ or ¡®Jesus, we should be ruling this fuckin gaff by now. Plaarcque¡¯s a fuckin edjit,¡¯ and, ¡®I reckon we could take him. You know, really bollocks him and then we get all the birds¡¯ (or whatever the equivalent of that is in the local Smzog language). And while Plaarcque didn¡¯t know that this was all going on specifically, he could definitely feel something was off. People stopped talking when he walked into a drum circle, or suspiciously changed the subject to something about the day¡¯s weather. And Bernard, a rival tough in the clan who¡¯s always had ambitions of leadership, had developed a habit of slowly sharpening his hook-spear and leering at him. But he needn¡¯t have worried. Because, unbeknownst to Plaarcque, he was about to come across a whole lot of useful knowledge, without having earned it at all. Since the unexplained event when every second inhabitant of the planet gained a very specific understanding of a world far away in the galaxy, the reams of information that every second person, animal and semi-conscious moss species now possessed - initially thought useless and overwhelming - were now becoming useful and enjoyable, particularly to Plaarcqke. Though it was frustrating to have a deep craving for bland and unimaginative foods that were unavailable on his home planet, the thoughts did give him ideas about other things that could benefit their society, and most importantly, himself. Since, unbeknownst to him, his mind had been swapped with the elderly conservative (and ruthlessly machiavellian) Tory party whip Sir Edmund Chatterton III, who at this moment back on planet Earth was currently enjoying a raw but nutritious meal of the family beagle. What¡¯s more, this all happened in full view of his poor wife, who, as it happened, was not mind-swapped at all. While she observed this wanton display of consummate barbarism, she rightly considered whether the end of days was finally upon them, or worse, a Labor government. Thanks to Edmund¡¯s battle-worn years of political wisdom, Plaarcqke¡¯s brain had now been furnished with the means to consolidate control among the factions, and all sorts of ideas about how to enrich himself (and his tribe of course, if there was time) by using breathtakingly new concepts like mining the earth for minerals and gas (which presumably could be sold to someone who knew what to do with them), and creating a taskforce to quash unionisation of the workers who he would enlist and underpay to do it for him. The first order of business was to form a national committee of all the warring tribes of the valley area, stacked, of course, with representatives that were made amenable to his ambitions with bribes or threats of violence. Next, it was to locate, among his people, someone whose mind had been blessed with the ability to locate and mine the earth for the minerals, oil and gas that he so wanted to get his purple hands on. Once this science boffin had been located, they would set about locating anything valuable, whether it be shiny and look good on a necklace, bendy so that it could be turned into useful objects (like kitchen utensils, tyre rims and such) or capable of creating energy to power spaceships and cars, which were other exciting things that Plaarcqke now knew about, which came with intriguing new possibilities like invading other planets and stealing their resources, which seemed a good deal more efficient than having to dig it up yourself. Elsewhere on Zog, there was a veritable explosion of new ideas. Members of the various tribes were abuzz with the new thoughts that had been planted in them, and were busy at bringing many of their more joyous and exciting thinkerings into existence, so as to make their lives more entertaining, comfortable, and interesting. A motley group consisting of a long slender male, a bent-over geriatric female and two muscled warriors had all inherited the minds of Britains¡¯ premier barbershop quartet, and had begun singing a very raspy rendition of ¡®Mr Sandman¡¯ in the village square, which went rather nicely with the brandy that a few others had suddenly gained the inspiration and knowhow to make. There were even anti-alcohol campaigners tut-tutting the more drunken tribespeople, handing out flyers for their newly-established sober-living facility, which consisted of a cave in which patients were repeatedly lashed with stinging palm fronds until cured. Suddenly the huts they all lived in were simply far too small, far too muddy and all-over decidedly gauche, so a mincy young male who had inherited the mind of a renowned architect and television renovations personality had begun building a tasteful apartment complex (or as tasteful as one can get while using sticks, rocks and other found materials). in the mud with the beak of an unsuspecting bird not entirely dissimilar to an Ibis. This was, unfortunately, rather uncomfortable for the Ibis attached to the beak, but its day hadn¡¯t been particularly interesting so far, so he resigned to just roll with it. In fact, as his beak was scraped this way and that in the dirt, it was able to get an odd look sideways here and there at the various wonderful and complex new foodstuffs being boiled, fried, brined and salted, which looked far more interesting than the usual rancid meat offcuts it could normally procure at the edges of these settlements. It reasoned that if it were to survive whatever was happening to it at that instant, it would probably go on to live a very fat and happy life off the thrown-out bits resulting from this new elaborately prepared cuisine.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. The newly-minted Chief Geologist to Plaarcqke The Great (a self-appointed title) and the person with the skills needed to get His various mining projects off the ground was a rather strange individual from one of the poorer scavenging tribes of the lower valley, named Bickly Urgh. Bickly, who was formerly a social outcast and a child-eating sociopath (the latter presumably necessitating the former), had now been bestowed with the mind of a prominent Yorkshire mineral geologist and amateur poet named Ernst Baumgartner, and he was really rather enjoying his new-found usefulness. He now occupied a position of prestige, had the favour of a number of females, and was particularly happy that his pathological taste for newly-born infants had been replaced by a benign preference for pork knuckle and sauerkraut, which made him confident he would be much more likely to keep his position longer than the next meal time. Certainly, after discovering the vast underground river of Helium3, under the Spindly Ridge, his star was rising faster than he could have ever anticipated. He was certain that his position was secure, and that it was all roses and honey (and of course, pork knuckle and sauerkraut) from then on. Sadly, this wasn¡¯t exactly how things turned out. For across the valley, the equally war-like and pugilist Fawkin¡¯ell tribe had heard all about this mining thing, and they were rather interested in stealing it for themselves, and so on the night of the 17th of March 2162 BCE Earth time, Plaarcqke the Great was unseated in the traditional manner of separating his head from above his shoulders in his sleep, and Bickly was kidnapped at knifepoint, suddenly regretting ever having let old Baumgartner enter his mind in the first place. His captor was a barrel-chested ape type named Gloam, who had been graced with the mind of notorious underworld crime boss Munty Spitzen of the Spitzen crime family, currently locked up in the HM Belmarsh Prison in London for class-A offenders. And if there was a lesson to be learned here, it would be that for all the cunning machiavellian charm and mastery of the steel fist in velvet glove approach that Plaarcqke The Great had in spades, on a planet with no existing social structures (nor constitutionally-enforced police force), there really isn¡¯t much one can do to stop a power-hungry murderous brute from sneaking into your camp and stealing one''s head of an evening, if said monstrous brute had an interest in doing so. So with minimal fuss and a great deal of mess, the reign of the brilliant, ruthless, politically minded Plaarcqke the Great came to a rather unceremonious end, and forever will be known instead as Plaarcqke The Brief. The new self-proclaimed lord of the lands was now simply Gloam until an appropriate suffix could be thought of, but in any case, Gloam seemed to suit Gloam just fine, and if pressed, he would say that he didn¡¯t really go in for any of that over the top fancypants type stuff, and would rather just get on with the job at hand, namely robbing people of their stuff and keeping it, and murdering them brutally if they had the hide to put up a fight. But Gloam/Munty, despite being a fan of uncomplicated violence and a snatch-and-grab style of politics, was surprisingly canny as a leader. One wouldn¡¯t normally rise through the greased and bloody rungs of the London crime scene without having a keen ability to read people, an eye for business, and a cutthroat ability for cutting throats. Munty Spitzen was, in fact, known as a philosopher type among Britain¡¯s underworld, often quoting Sun Tzu, or Confucius as he tortured snitches for information, or sprung an unexpected double-double-cross on a business associate during a previously-discussed and expected double-cross. He even had a rather quirky dress sense, being quite fond of tapered velvet suits, spats and pork pie hats. He was more than a three-dimensional criminal, and in fact much more suited to the role of leadership in a society as unregulated and murderous as this one, and, with time, the inhabitants of the Valley of Zog came to appreciate this to be the case (and even if they didn¡¯t, they did, since Gloam knew where they lived). When Gloam took over control of the mining plans, he did so with gusto, not because he knew anything about how to trade in rare gases, or to whom, or for what purpose - but because he knew that as long as he yelled loud enough while shaking a big stick, people would figure out the details for him. What he did know for certain was that if Plaarcqke The Brief thought there was Chittins¡¯ to be made, then that¡¯s all the information the Gloam needed. Because Chittins meant more food, more bones to adorn his beard with, and if he were pressed on the matter, he had been eyeing a penthouse condominium in the now partially complete walk-up apartment complex being built by the mincy architect and his builders. Since Munty knew about the good life - the sheer wonder of pleasures and fineries that Munty had enjoyed in his brief time outside of prison (between getting nicked for running numbers in Shoreditch and having an associate roll over on him during a multiple murder investigation - all of which he maintains his innocence of to this day), Gloam now knew about them too. Gloam craved fineries, he wanted comfort, he wanted brandy, and jammy dodgers, and a cup of tea would be nice as well. And he wanted it all yesterday. So while Gloam barked orders, Bickly the geologist worked double hours and triple on Sundays to coordinate the galaxy''s most unstable Helium mining rig (Ernst was more on the finding the digging site side rather than the digging it up side). Though he wasn¡¯t short on indentured workers (he had Gloam¡¯s big stick to thank for that), he was rather concerned about the fact that once they had extracted enough of the gas from the ground he would be utterly loath to be the one to inform Gloam that without an actual spaceship or automobile industry to speak of, there wasn¡¯t really a market for Helium3. But he needn¡¯t have worried, because over on the other side of the valley, a charismatic young member of the Handeeman tribe of Rancid Gardens had secretly began construction of a 337 Cruiser (a common model for Galactic travel in the solar system in 2162 BCE) with found materials (mostly a unique, lightweight, super-strong and inflammable wood found only on planet Zog, as well as rocks, twigs, and twine). And while we¡¯re at it, in another distant part of the jungle, another bright young thing with the mind of an automaker was having a cracking good go at building an MG 3 (the hovercraft edition). Betrayal Dr Angus Keenan Fritz. Ah, the familiar sting of betrayal. A feeling that Angus had felt many times throughout his career. Because when you are an eminently unattractive super genius, no-talent handsome boofheads will try to take it from you - it¡¯s a law of the universe he¡¯s surprised a theoretical physicist hadn¡¯t yet put a formula to. It was surely as a reliable constant as general relativity - it was something you could really set your watch to.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Angus had had his work stolen, reattributed, relabelled and just plain ridiculed by boofheads the country over. But know who was laughing? They were probably all dead. Angus took a moment to consider how awful a person he would have had to be to fantasise about the death of his detractors. But then he kept thinking it anyway. But now Keenan? Certainly a boofhead - certainly not handsome in any normal sense of the word. He¡¯s bumbling, tall, sweaty and bald. And generally harmless. Gormless. Everything-less. A stab in the back from gormless Fritz? How novel. Let¡¯s see what he has to say for himself then. A phone-call between Dr Angus and Keenan Fritz Keenan picked up, sounding like he is sweating profusely (and he certainly is). ¡°Angus - is that you?¡± Angus stayed silent, brooding in rage. ¡°Now look Angus - I know you¡¯re probably wondering - what¡¯s going on? Things are all of a sudden pretty topsy turvy here.¡± ¡°No I wasn¡¯t wondering what happened at all. I know exactly what happened you fool. It doesn¡¯t take a Fields Medal to work out that you¡¯ve Freaky Fridayed a bunch of people. That¡¯s what our machine does after all.¡±A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡°Oh. You think? I mean - you¡¯re for sure certain? Because-¡± ¡°Do you think? Do you think? What are the odds someone else was working on something exactly like our machine, do you think? I call that longer odds than your nose when you said to Phillip King you could pull this off, Pinnochio motherfucker!¡± Keenan let out a deep sigh, punctuated by a quick SMASH. SMASH. SMASH and then a THUD. ¡°Oh god Angus. I¡¯ve just brained Wei Hei. She was coming at me with a spear! It was her or me!¡± And Angus hung up. Assessing the Damage Meanwhile, on Earth, the catastrophe had expanded exponentially. Angus had calculated that at least half of the human beings on mainland Britain had completely lost their minds - or rather had them swapped - with animals (he could only speculate at this point). He wondered if, in some arid area near Ghana there was a congregation of Zebras, Elephants and Tigers wondering whether to have tea and watch reruns of The Bill - or, at least, getting eaten very quickly by other predators, due to their completely absent survival skills. Though he would have thought he would have heard about it by now if that were the case - since, remarkably, it seemed that the fallout was limited only to mainland Britain, so live broadcasts from BBC¡¯s satellite branches in other continents were still viewable - though, for obvious reasons, they all seemed to be concentrating their reporting on the ghastly things happening in England. In any case, ground zero in South London was a complete and utter basket case. The carnage was absolutely horrifying. Planes fell out of the air, factories exploded and the nuclear energy reactors that powered the country were going into meltdown left right and centre. The most abject terror, however, was reserved for those whose minds hadn¡¯t left them at all. Those who had to watch on as their friends, co-workers and family members either injure themselves mortally doing something completely routine or - much worse - get savaged by packs of bearded university students stalking around like black pumas. Even those whose loved ones were inhabited by a relatively benign animal, like an armadillo-type thing - well they simply weirded everyone out, and had to be locked in a room or kept out in the garden whenever they had anyone over for tea. Carer¡¯s fatigue, in this case, however, was as bright an outcome one could expect from such a catastrophe. There were people trotting about on their haunches and their arms out like wings, pecking at bushes, relishing the moment when they located some sort of bug or worm on which to feast (which, of course, they would very quickly throw up, having precious stomachs not used to such bushy and unprocessed fare). There were some who had taken to wriggling like a snake on the ground (but not getting very far), and there were ones who acted like cavemen, walking about spearing other people and roasting them on spits in village centres. If something like this had happened in the United States, at least most people would have a gun - but Britons, being the stalwart harm-prevention socialists that they are - were sitting ducks, as it were (particularly those who had resorted to sitting like ducks - and there were plenty of those, too).Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. For centuries, the time-honoured and previously modestly reliable British reaction to an approaching person brandishing a spear was a simple, yet stern talking to, and if that didn¡¯t work, calling 999. But emergency services were, of course, now run entirely by people acting like chimps (and boars, and other strange things that don¡¯t bear description) and the remaining workers there who were in possession of their own minds were entirely unable to help - partly because every single person in Britain was calling them all at once - and partly because they were generally all quivering in broom closets, rocking back and forth humming ¡®God Save the King¡¯ - but mainly because the roads were entirely clogged-up with the world¡¯s last and most violent traffic jam. Angus wasn¡¯t entirely sure of where to start. Surely, since his machine was what got everyone into this mess, he would be the best qualified to get them out of it. But Dr. Angus McBairn wasn¡¯t well-suited to braving the various hazards and pitfalls involved in navigating a dangerous apocalypse. He was almost certain of that fact, since he¡¯d watched all three thousand episodes of The Walking Dead, and had remarked to himself on many occasions that if something like that were ever to happen - that in any sort of apocalyptic event, he would most certainly be one of the first to go. Grist for the mill - that¡¯s old Angus McBairn. Cannon Fodder. Chum for the sharks. A piddling extra in the cast of the world ending. Angus, you see, simply didn¡¯t have the constitution for all the slashing, running, climbing and hiding that the heroes in these types of shows needed to be good at, partially because he had inherited his mother¡¯s tight hamstrings (when attempting to touch his toes he could barely get beyond his knees) and mostly because he was a clinical-grade wimp. If he were to figure a way out of this mess, he would need backup of the thoroughly masculine, macho type, preferably well versed in survival tactics, and most importantly with access to a large supply of impressive weaponry. Thankfully, he knew of such a person. His name was Quinton Barber; a 6¡±6 Australian archaeologist he went to Oxford with. They weren¡¯t exactly friends per se, but had become somewhat friendly. Quinton was for all intents and purposes a handsome brute more inclined towards rugby, drinking gallons of beer with no noticeable effect and inspiring heated passion in the minds of other people¡¯s girlfriends. But he also had an inquiring mind and a fondness for chess. Chess, as it happened, was a game that Angus quite fond of, too - since he was a nerd, and that¡¯s what nerds do. It was at Chess Club in the Oxford refectory that Angus met this thick burlap of a man and even command a bit of begrudging respect from him, since he was rather a bit better at the game than Quinton. The White Knight Keenan Keenan had managed to escape the hall (named Fyvie Hall) without too much bother. That is to say that he was at one point in the last half hour required to extricate the cerebral matter of a beloved colleague, and that he is currently being stalked by a pride of octogenarian psychopaths. Physically, however, he was almost entirely unmolested, thankfully. But he knew this wouldn¡¯t possibly remain as the state of affairs for long. He mentally took note of the fact that psychological trauma and the resulting fallout; having experienced a good lump of it recently; seemed to him to be a luxury that people who lived outside of the food chain could afford, but not him. In any case, his therapist was most likely hunkering down on the gristle of one of her patients right now, as was her custom even prior to the great calamity. And while the walk from Fyvie Hall back to the Imperial College Main Campus was only about 10 minutes¡¯ as the crow flew, it was through one of the most highly populated areas in London, and it required him to walk astride Hyde Park for a good portion of it, or potentially through it. Which was concerning to Keenan, mainly because it seems to have attracted teems of animalistic inner-city residents with with the chief aim of stalking and eating each other. But before he would have to cross that bridge, he would need to brave Regent Street. Regent Street; a former High Street retail centre, with sales on everything from fast fashion to tablet computers. Regent Street; whose former minimum wage workers now seemed to be taking out their minimum-wage angst on each other rather violently. The Apple store seemed to have enough people in it who hadn¡¯t lost their brains to Zoggite mind invaders to team up and lock the feral out. But the ferals weren¡¯t very pleased about this turn of events, taking to prowling out the front, some leering, some banging on the glass, and others headbutting it intermittently. The staff inside looked on, ashen-faced, as their duty manager; who hadn¡¯t managed to make it back inside after an ill-fated coffee run, was trampled to a viscous ooze. Keenan by this point had made it all but one block from the Fyvie Hall Gate, and was holed up in a telephone booth. He had thought it looked as good a place as any, but he was wrong. Soon enough, a group of employees from a new-age store (one of the ones that smell like patchouli and have every flavour of incense, as long as that flavour is cannabis) began banging on either side of the phone booth, fairly quickly pulling it from its foundations. Keenan started feeling a lot like he was at sea, and he was about to get a mouthful of saltwater. Except in this case, in was far more likely to be a mouthful of his own bottom lip.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. And when everything felt like it was going swiftly downhill for Keenan, and when he thought that after the events of today, that it would be quite poetic for him to end his scientific career in a postbox outside a JC Penny - a white knight approached. The white knight was, quite literally wearing a bright platinum suit of armour from the 17th century, buffed and polished and quite obviously stolen from the stately home of someone with a peerage appointment. It was all the more impressive, as it had quite visibly experienced more combat than a French soldier at the battle of Agincourt. Blood and viscera covered him from head to toe, and he moved with a litheness one would normally reserve for those not wearing a 60-pound morning suit made of sheet metal. The white Knight cleared the area outside the postbox with an enviable poise and machismo, punctuated with guttural grunts and moans worthy of a hotly-contested semi-final bout at Wimbledon. Keenan winced as the white knights¡¯ blade went SHING, swiftly separating and offending an interloper¡¯s scone from its bodice, and grimaced when his blade went SLOOCK, straight between the eyes of another. The area cleared, the white knight cocked his face guard down and opened the door to the booth. And to Keenan¡¯s surprise, it was none other than Arsenal¡¯s star defender Tully Ronson. She looked at Keenan as if he were her funny uncle who¡¯s gotten lost at bingo. ¡°You alright love?¡± Keenan was at once dumb and lovestruck. Tully wasn¡¯t, but she had a sort of fondness for ineffectual middle-aged men, which was just Keenan¡¯s luck. ¡°It¡¯s not the best spot to hide in. I think you¡¯d better come with me¡­¡± Tully looked sympathetically at the sweaty balding man, who, though probably a foot taller than her - felt diminutive in comparison. Keenan sputtered. ¡°I love you¡­your work. You¡¯re the best running back we¡¯ve had since Battersly-Simpkins in the 40s. Oh, and I have to say - in the Champion¡¯s League against Crystal Palace - hoorah. You were - well you were very, very good. Has anyone ever told you that? My word!¡± Tully looked a little bit flattered, but she also thought this wasn¡¯t the moment for this sort of thing, and her facial expression reflected that. ¡°Ah-thanks. You watched it? That¡¯s - I mean, but this probably isn¡¯t the best time to-¡° She looked over her shoulder and ducked with laser-like precision just in time to avoid a spear that had been flung from a nearby mobile phone repair shop. The time for that sort of thing, if it existed, had presently elapsed. Tully quickly looked over her shoulder again, then grabbed Keenan¡¯s arm, and before he knew it, one foot went on front of the other, and they were scampering into a shopping mall. ¡°You know, I always wondered - you and - wossername - Watkins?¡± ¡°Oh you mean Susie?¡± They passed a makeup store and a boutique as they approached a food court. Keenan had also become acutely aware of a group of Priceline cashiers who were shooting malevolent glares from the top of a nearby escalator. ¡°Yes Susan! The midfielder - I always wondered - did you ever -¡± Tully shot Keenan a curt look. ¡°You do know that not every female football player is gay?¡± As they got closer to the food court, it became steadily more apparent that the whole area was a big fat nope. All sorts of menacing-looking creatures. Unearthly screams and scampering and chittering and general nope-like nope-ness. They reached an alley that led to toilets and a janitor¡¯s closet. ¡°Yes - of course. Sorry for assuming! That¡¯s just like me.¡± Tully slammed a button on the wall next to the janitor¡¯s closet, and a door opened. ¡°But in this case, you are correct.¡± ¡°Oh yes?¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m super gay.¡± ¡°Oh, jolly good. Good for you.¡± ¡°Thankyou?¡± Suddenly, there was a piercing waller from over near the escalators. The cashiers were making a move. Then Keenan was whomped on the head by something rather hard, and everything went dark. Quinton Barber Quinton lived in Bexley, which was convenient, since that¡¯s where Angus lived. Only Quinton lived in a slightly more upmarket street, in a grand old house filled with elephant guns, chandeliers and various curious objects from his many travels, like bronze-age sculptures of fertility goddesses, emeralds from Javanese temples, and in his private collection - one or two shrunken pygmy heads, Angus presumed. As luck would have it, Quinton was actually in the country for a change, since his planned canoe trip up the Nile River searching for a particular ancient Nubian artefact had been delayed indefinitely. As it turns out, the plane meant to be taking him from Heathrow to Timbuktu had disappeared over Burma a week before, and its woe-befallen passengers quickly digested by the local fauna. And Angus knew this all, because right up until the internet went down, he followed Quinton¡¯s social media with the same lusting eye that a teenage boy uses to lurk on the account of a page three glamour model. You wouldn¡¯t be wrong to think that Angus was transfixed with Quinton, maybe even obsessed. He represented everything that Angus wasn¡¯t, and was convinced that, if ever Errol Flynn and Bantam Hodges (Bantam was a famous interstellar explorer and incorrigible womaniser) had a baby, Quinton would probably beat it in an arm wrestle, and then steal its girlfriend. To get to Quinton¡¯s house, however, Angus would need to get to the other side of Bexley, and on the way there - well - there was what was on the way there. Anything could happen between here and there, and mostly not good things - or probably even horribly bad things. Angus rifled through his cupboards, looking for anything that might protect him from the madness on the streets. There was his old cricket gear. It definitely didn¡¯t look old - this was owing to the fact that it was only ever used once, during his only ill-advised attempt at competitive sport and broader social acceptance. In an effort to join one of the lower-ranked cricket teams at school, he had taken a bouncer to the temple in his very first turn in the batting nets, resulting in three days of amnesia, a dishonourable discharge, and a doctor¡¯s note excusing him from any future activities involving physical exertion. The cricket equipment seemed usable - there was a pair of pads, a helmet, and an abdominal guard, otherwise known as a ¡®box,¡¯ for shielding his privates. But it wasn¡¯t enough, unless the spear-wielding hunter-types had run out of spears and had taken to throwing cricket balls. Not to mention the only areas of his body to be marginally protected were his head, shins and crotch. And on second thoughts - the knee pads would probably slow him down - and he definitely thought better of his chances while running and hiding than standing and fighting. So he disposed of the pads, but kept the helmet, the box, and grabbed a cricket bat and a few balls for good measure. As he quietly crept around the narrow stretch of grass beside his red-brick apartment building, he felt a warm, wet tongue on his leg, and was surprised to find his neighbour Fred Tinker (an erstwhile boiler repairman and well-known alcoholic) doing his best impression of a domestic cat chancing for a treat. Angus sighed with relief. This was manageable. He briefly considered staying there and not going any further, making the best of things with Fred. Angus could build him a scratching pole, they could snuggle up of an evening while Angus read his books. Taking out the litter tray would be an issue though. As Angus started to pull away, Fred snarled viciously and grabbed ahold of Angus¡¯ leg. A brief struggle ensued, ending with Angus lightly bopping him on the head with the cricket bat, and Fred scurrying off and hiding behind a trash can, hissing malevolently from a safe distance. Angus peered out at the street while crouched behind the wall to the front of his apartment block. It was varying shades of mad, presenting a range of opportunities for harmless Fred-level harassment, to mildly concerning situations involving pecking, chasing ostrich-types, right up to decidedly more stabby encounters. Angus eyed a line of hedges that ran up to the next T-section, braced himself, and made a run for it, only realising halfway through his dashing that he had closed his eyes - which was understandable considering Angus¡¯s history of squeamishness, but nevertheless unhelpful. When he made it to the bushes, he found Delilah Tillerman (the wife of the man who earlier skinned and roasted the family beagle) crouched and shuddering with nerves, smoking a cigarette. ¡®You know, I quit 20 years ago,¡¯ she said, looking blankly into the distance. Angus didn¡¯t quite know what to say, so he just grimaced with an understanding look and pressed on past, her dead-eyed expression not moving an inch. When he got to the end of the line of hedges, he realised that he was going to have to cross the road and expose himself (not ¡®expose himself¡¯ expose himself - that would just be wasting valuable time and didn¡¯t have any conceivable benefit). Luckily, there didn¡¯t seem to be any particularly violent offenders about. Steeling himself and tapping his cricketer¡¯s box just to be sure, he legged it (well, legged it is a rather broad term and doesn¡¯t quite accurately describe the way Angus runs, which is more of a bow-legged amble). As he was about to duck behind another red-brick apartment fronting, he was jerked into panic by the sound of a thump and a squawk right behind him. Sadly for the squawker, it looked as if he had been attempting to hang upside down like a bat from a railing above and had found himself flat on pavement instead, with what looked to be a weather nasty spinal contusion. Angus wretched at the sight of the exposed vertebrae, offered pathetically to help - but his offer was rebuffed with an angry snarl interspersed with yelps of pain. Angus, while sympathising for the maimed individual, was quietly thankful since he didn¡¯t like the idea of having to stop in such an exposed area and was quite happy to be on his way.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Angus was able to get up the next three streets without much drama, and was even able to find a few snacks from a looted convenience store - namely steak pills (that expand into bite-sized chunks of lab-grown sirloin once popped into one¡¯s mouth) and a couple of bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale. He thought it would be a nice thing to enjoy with Quinton once he finally arrived at his home, which was coming up rather quickly, thankfully. The last three streets were rather long ones, and they looked very quiet, so Angus ambled as fast as his spindly body could amble, concealing himself behind bushes and fences as much as he was able to. Sadly, when he finally got to Quinton¡¯s street, he realised with a surfeit of dread that he would need to be entirely out in the open for approximately a quarter mile, since Quinton lived in Bexley North, which in the year 2162 was very well to-do and was entirely populated by millionaires and celebrities with walled-off private estates with 10-foot high walls, and nothing but artisanally-maintained flower pots and shrubs to hide behind - which is to say that they were no use at all, since even with Angus being not considered average or even under average height by any standard definitely still wasn¡¯t able to hide behind a one foot tall shrub, no matter how hard he tried. But Angus could see the elegant turrets of Quinton¡¯s stately Tudor home just peeking over the walls from where he was crouching, and he resolved to sprint with as much pace as his legs could muster, and he did so, and it was glorious, right up until he was suddenly winched high into the air by a crude netted trap that he really should have seen. Then, soon after, he was prodded inquisitively by a band of men from the financial district in shredded Saville Row suits who had seemed to have taken on the characteristics of some sort of hominid caveman- type characters, and Angus, while conscious of the mortal danger he was now in couldn¡¯t help but chuckle at the irony of it all. These stock trading stone-age brutes had fashioned spears from fence posts and tree branches, had feathers in their hair and while eyeing Angus they were communicating in a series of clicks, beeps and grunts while rather disconcertingly licking their lips and rubbing their bellies. Angus knew it - he was a goner. Mince meat. Dead to rights. He even appreciated the darkly poetic irony of it all - since the men whose favour he so wished to gain back at prep school were now about to cook and eat him. But while Angus considered how his sinews would end up lodged between the teeth and in the bellies of men who only just weeks ago pronounced ¡®finance¡¯ ¡®finn-nance,¡¯ his captors were suddenly engulfed in a hurricane of tanned muscle and khaki. All he could hear were the blood-curdling shrieks and the sound of bones snapping, and a gruff, manly cackle, before he was knocked out cold by a wayward-flung stone spearhead. When Angus came to, he was in Quinton¡¯s stately manor home, sprawled out on a red leather chaise lounge. His head hurt, as well as most of the rest of his body, but it was all there in the right places, so he chalked that up as a win. Quinton, who hadn¡¯t noticed Angus had awoken, was in the middle of some sort of carpentry. While reflecting briefly on Quniton¡¯s consummate Hemingwayesque manliness, Angus cleared his throat hesitantly. Quinton¡¯s ears pricked, and he placed the elegantly-hewn dovetail joint he had been whittling softly onto the mahogany Elizabethan-era credenza next to him. Then he cracked a broad, tanned grin with more fluorescently white teeth than should naturally fit in a person¡¯s mouth, with a tasteful crinkling around his sparkling blue eyes. ¡®G¡¯day Gus. Long time. What¡¯s it been? 30 years?¡¯ ¡®Quinton - h-hi - hello there m-m-mate¡­w-what happened?¡¯ Me head sore,¡¯ replied Angus, gradually regaining the ability to form sentences. ¡®Oh out there? You looked like you were going to become a nice fillet mignon for those kooked-out Wall-Streeters out there. You were bloody lucky I wasn¡¯t working out back today. Copped a view of the whole shebang from the front porch mate.¡¯ ¡®Ooh¡­yeah¡­¡¯ replied Angus. ¡®The¡­net?¡¯ ¡®Mmmhmmm. You were a bee¡¯s dick away from a spit roast I¡¯d say.¡¯ Quniton picked up the dovetail joint again, spat on it and gave it a polish. Angus rubbed a rather large bump on his head and winced. ¡®You took a bit of shrapnel to the head there fella. You¡¯ll probably want to take it a bit slow for a while. Just rest up and you¡¯ll be right as rain.¡¯ ¡®OooooOOohkay.¡¯ Angus looked around. ¡®Place looks¡­nice,¡¯ he sputtered, marshalling his few working brain cells in an attempt at convivial repartee. ¡®Geez, thanks Gus - you think?¡¯ ¡®mMmmmmmmm!¡¯ ¡®Well, it works for me I guess. Though I never spent this much time here before in one stretch. I get itchy feet mate - never do like to stay in one place too long. I¡¯m what they refer to as a rolling stone I guess.¡¯ Quinton slowed the pace of his whittling and sighed. ¡®To be honest with ya Gus, I¡¯m definitely getting a bit of cabin fever. Maybe even a touch of the blues. Pretty much all of my friends are dead. That¡¯s what I would refer to as a definite downside of the apocalypse. And there are a few.¡¯ Angus acknowledged the sentiment. There are definitely downsides. Quinton clicked the joint into place, finishing off what looked to be a battle fort with more panache than was probably needed, but Angus certainly appreciated the craftsmanship. ¡®So Angus, as nice as it is to see you again mate, I¡¯ve got to ask - to what do I owe the pleasure¡­we haven¡¯t exactly kept in touch...¡¯ Angus rocked in his hammock, painfully recalling the events of a few weeks earlier. The presentation. The rat. Mrs Higgins. Angus winced at the prospect of coming clean to such an accomplished man as Quinton about his monumental buggering of the current state of Britain. ¡®M-m-my f-f-fault,¡¯ he blathered. Quinton looked quizzically at Angus. ¡®What - you mean all the stuff outside?¡¯ ¡®MmmmYeahh¡­¡¯ Angus replied pathetically. Quinton¡¯s forehead knotted as he thought handsomely for a moment. ¡®Angus. Angus, you funny little bugger. Blaming yourself won¡¯t get us anywhere. Christ knows what¡¯s going on out there. It could be bacteria, or a virus, or - blimey - it could be God trying to tell us that the Jews were right all along. Ha haa. But it¡¯s not your fault.¡¯ ¡®Nnnooooo it wath meeeeh!¡¯ Angus protested feebly. Quinton sighed deeply again, heaving his rippling pectoral muscles hypnotically. ¡®Look mate, how about you have a bit of a lie down and we¡¯ll talk a bit more later on. Here, get this down ya gullet,¡¯ Quinton said, as he popped a pill out of a bottle and placed it in Angus¡¯s gaping mouth with a hand roughly the diameter of a dinner plate. ¡®This¡¯ll help ya noggin.¡¯ Quinton then turned around, and made a ¡®this guy¡¯s bloody nuts¡¯ look to himself, as he picked up another piece of wood and resumed whittling. Angus then quickly drifted off into a soft and peaceful sleep for the first time since he could remember. The Economy of Zog Planet Zog, The Third Age, year Blurt (April 13 + ~4ish years of magic space time) A lot can get done in the space of a few hours, especially when each hour is actually a year. Across the Zog-sphere over the past four Earth hours, an entire planet-wide economy had burst forth, with each and every bipedal miscreant diverting from rubbing sticks together and instead looking for careers. For to have a career (an entirely new concept for the citizens of Zog) meant that one would have access to a steady paycheque, which meant that they would be better placed to afford the various new conveniences and delicacies now on offer. For example, more or less as soon as Zog had inherited the minds of certain Britons, they became acutely aware that they were suddenly and unforgivably naked. The loincloths they had been wearing - which had previously been the look-du jour among the Zog valley elite for the last few thousand years or so - simply weren¡¯t cutting it anymore. They all felt frightfully embarrassed. So embarrassed, in fact, that for a certain proportion of the inhabitants of the valley, the only real remedy was to stay inside all day or to drape oneself in large leaves, or the oversized ears of an unfortunate native creature that looked like a cross between an elephant and a prairie dog. Thankfully, soon enough a fledgling Zoggish clothing industry took form, cornered by a particular tribe called the GZogue. They began hawking a variety of dressed up and coutured animal skins fashioned into all manner of interesting outfits, and as long as you had the Chittens, the options for physical expression (and most importantly, body covering) were now myriad, with bell-bottoms, smart slacks, and sleek bodysuits knitted from the hairs of the three-legged monocled goats snatched and domesticated from the vertiginous inclines of the tallest mountain in the Valley. The elephant-prairie dog creature (locally known as a DZogt, was never going to last long as a species - since its ears were simply perfect for fashioning into all manner of ravishing garments. And in the tradition of slow-moving species with bodily features useful or edible to beings on the cusp of an industrial revolution, they promptly went extinct. Soon enough, there was even a line of comfortably pouched underwear for men, and shapely bras and bottoms for women, in a soft cotton-like fabric - which were the most treasured innovation of all. Which was vastly unsurprisingly considering the rampant chafing that goes on in stone-age societies. There were food markets, of course, with items that were once foraged for or hunted individually as a matter of each tribes person¡¯s daily chores, now offered for sale in any way you liked it - as long as you liked it salted, skewered or dried into a rather chewy jerky. However, inevitably, when a certain amount of currency is being made, there is the tendency to want to protect said source of currency, and so certain groups of tribespeople quickly began to create their own professional associations and industry groups, and discovered that if they hired enough muscle, they could corner a certain market and form a monopoly. Of course, with there being only a limited number of food types available, including, but not limited to:
  1. Whatever bug-eyed squidgy inverterbrates that passed for seafood on planet Zog (the bigger and scarier sea creatures were still, for all their British resourcefulness, liable to eat them before the Zoggites were able to transfer them to a plate)
  2. Land animals of the horned, serrated, scaled, hirsute and clean-shaven varieties
  3. Flappy elephant eared prairie-dogs of course, and
  4. Whatever could be rustled up while foraging
In time, the stratification and success of these industries as they developed into viciously defended monopolies led, in turn, to the development of a rather exclusive group of very powerful families. In fact, flying in the face of the classic presentation of foragers and gatherers as the decidedly more docile partner of the usual stone age hunter/gatherer setup, the Land Scroungers¡¯ Union swiftly burgeoned into an organisation with the strictest and most ruthless enforcers in the business. No one messed with the Scroungers. They had spies everywhere in the valley, and with all the Chittens they had accrued, they had begun to amass a personal army of mercenaries willing to protect their livelihood. This, sadly, contributed more and more to a stark divide between the rich and the poor in Zog valley society, and those slow to find their footing found themselves at the bottom of the totem pole, bereft of Chittens, snacks, and soft cotton briefs. But those at the bottom of the totem pole didn¡¯t simply accept their lot. For what do upstanding members of society inevitably do when they are shut out of opportunities for upward mobility? Crime, of course. And flock to it they did, in teeming droves. Which suited Gloam perfectly, since crime was what Gloam was interested in chiefly to begin with anyway. Under Gloam¡¯s watch, and without any official watchdog organisations to keep his activities in line (since Gloam outlawed them), the criminal industry flourished like a black dahlia in a pool of crude oil mixed with a pair of nunchucks. Before long, and with the assistance of Gloam, theft, assassinations and fraud all became legitimate occupations, advocated for by their own unions and afforded the usual four weeks¡¯ annual leave and two weeks sick pay per year. And to Gloam¡¯s delight, the more desperate the applicant, the more dedicated to their new crafts they inevitably became. * * * So entrepreneurship on Zog, while still the most reliable path to riches and a higher standard of life, also became a requisitely dangerous occupation, due to the predatory criminals whose livelihoods depended on being able to rob those with legitimate businesses. And the higher one rose in society legitimately, unfortunately, the more likely one would be subject to assassinations, theft, fraud, or any other new and exciting categories of crime Gloam could come up with. Unless, of course, one had the muscle to defend themselves. But Gloam, despite his interest in fuelling (and funding) such illegitimate and violent activities, was in fact all in favour of progress, because ultimately, as the heads of each industry was inevitably replaced by a lackey subordinate to him (and making the required kickbacks, of course), he was enamoured with the products progress provided him, and wanted nothing more than to see it grow. He just wanted a piece of it - all of it. And so, with Gloam¡¯s Chittens-kitty ever expanding, he began to offer a rather progressive series of entrepreneurship startup fellowships, encouraging the best and brightest minds to take on a painfully high interest rate loan and follow their ambitions to create companies that he could inevitably steal from them after their business model was sufficiently proven.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The mincy architect (who had changed his name from Inghurr to the vastly more marketable Z-Pop), had managed to stay on in his position due to his unique skill set, his remarkable ability to play the deferring courtesan to Gloam and his henchmen, and his unspoken contract with Gloam to offer the very best apartments in each new building he erected to him, before turning the rest out to the free market. Fleurte, therefore, in no time at all, had risen quite meteorically to become a darling of the chi-chi Zog Valley social scene, rubbing shoulders with other successful (and obsequious) entrepreneurs, rival clan leaders, and successful criminals. In turn, Fleurte quickly became one of Gloam¡¯s top advisors, rising far beyond his dominion of the building industry, as is often the way with property developers, to having his slender fingers in almost as many pies as Gloam¡¯s grisly sausage digits. Z-Pop¡¯s most cunning idea yet was to suggest the construction of something called a ¡®ca-si-no,¡¯ which Gloam was immediately receptive towards, seeing as he had recollections (via Munty) of wanting to own one - but only as a distant possibility on the horizon. Munty Spitzen, though rising to a level altogether unheard of in the British underworld, had never gained the funds nor the governmental favour to erect one himself. But Gloam had the opportunity to achieve Munty¡¯s dream, which made him most pleased, and he was heard scoffing rather loudly to himself as he thought about his cosmic luck. He definitely knew the upsides - and it all had to do with something called ¡®gam-bling.¡¯ ¡®Gam-bling,¡¯ which is a thing that one tends to do at a ¡®ca-si-no,¡¯ involves people coming to a building with a large number of their own Chittens, playing games to win each other''s Chittens from each other. But, best of all, the house gets to keep a vast proportion of the Chittens themselves, due to the games all being slightly rigged. Plus, Munty had extensive experience in rigging all sorts of games, and hadn¡¯t let not owning a ca-si-no hamper his ability to run vast betting scams across all sorts of sports and games. Gloam had already been seeing monumental returns running a numbers racket, and his eyes boggled at all the new sorts of games he could fix. So Fluerte, emboldened with Gloam¡¯s enthusiasm, began construction of the ¡®Zog Valley Centre for Games of Chance,¡¯ promising ¡®thrills, 5 star accommodation and an all-you-can-eat flobster lunch.¡¯ There was something, however, in Gloam¡¯s memory that he thought he wanted to use this ¡®ca-si-no¡¯ for, and that was to ¡®wash his money.¡¯ But Gloam already had a team for that and didn¡¯t really see the point - his piles of Chittens were scrubbed and polished regularly. The groundbreaking ceremony for the new casino site was conducted with the usual sort of fanfare that Zoggite society had come to expect from Gloam, who was fast developing a leadership style strikingly similar to one of the more ruthless members of the Caesar family. There was even a press event, since Zog now had a burgeoning media industry, with newspapers printed on a new type of paper some industrious types had been making out of the ground up fibres of the only type of plant vaguely similar to an Earth tree. These trees were, as it happens, in extremely short supply, and the news industry was getting perilously close to rendering the species extinct, which allowed them to participate fully in another time-honoured human tradition; being that of carelessly eroding the biosphere that supports their continued survival on the planet. The press junket interviewed the gloating Gloam, with Z-Pop now by his side as his chief communications adviser, adding to his ever-growing portfolio of responsibilities. There was a ribbon-cutting, and the breaking of a bottle of alcohol against something, which Gloam thought of initially as rather wasteful since he would normally enjoy drinking the contents of said bottle, but in his (or, more accurately, Munty¡¯s) memory, it seemed right to do so for public spectacle, which entertained the public, and meant that they saw him as a man of the people, which made his job of stealing from them, enslaving them, and generally abusing his position of power infinitely easier. And the spectacles didn¡¯t end there either - nor did the comparisons to the Roman Caesars, for Gloam had announced a week of gladiatorial games (Munty was, in fact, a student of history - or at least of the bits that he liked, usually blood and guts-related stuff), which the public both adored (satisfying their base interest in wanton gratuitous violence) and were made nervous by, in equal measures, since the gladiators were conscripted at random and given the choice of fighting each other for the entertainment of the public, or fighting Gloam himself (for the entertainment of Gloam). Gloam, as well as enjoying his developing proficiency for ruling with his big green dirty fists, had come to enjoy a good party as well. Parties now were absolutely a step up on the rudimentary hopping about around a campfire while a village elder rhythmically clicked some goat hooves together. Now they had proper lighting, booze of ever expanding varieties, and even music (though it wasn¡¯t really very good and wouldn¡¯t even rate a mention even on the ¡®world music¡¯ category on Earth) that they could dance to. Gloam liked to party so much, in fact, that he had decided to party almost every single day since he had remembered the concept existed. In fact, when the people he partied with became too tired or hungover to party when Gloam wanted to continue, he was so steadfast in his enthusiasm that he would force them to carry on by threat of gladiatorial conscription. The managerial style that Gloam was adopting was also, quite surprisingly, reasonably well thought out. This was owing to Munty¡¯s most guarded secret - being his college education. In fact, Munty was all set up to take a job at a prestigious management consulting firm in the financial district when he, all at once, became thoroughly unemployable, owing to some rather disturbing police allegations that he had threatened several of his professors with the prospect of having one of their fingers removed (it didn¡¯t really matter which - Munty gave them the option to choose - an egalitarian from the start) if he were to receive unsatisfactory grades. Thankfully, the charges were dropped, owing to his accusers suddenly having a ¡®change of mind,¡¯ being put into witness protection, and then being found in witness protection and perforated with bullets. With no proof of his malfeasance, Munty avoided a jail cell, but due to the public nature of the allegations, he was disappointingly deemed ¡®not the right fit¡¯ for the white-shoe firms that he had been applying for. So, as a result of this knowledge of waterfall and agile management structuring, pie graphs, spreadsheets and what-not, Gloam¡¯s operation was steadfastly becoming what would possibly represent the largest and most well-accounted for corporation on the planet - and if there was anything like a stock market (which there surely would be very soon, and Gloam would steal it from whoever came up with it as sure as apples is apples), a keen investor would be rightly advised to think of Gloam¡¯s business as a very safe place to park their retirement funds, if it weren¡¯t Gloam¡¯s practice to take any money given to him and never give it back. Meanwhile, deep inside a cave on the other side of the valley, the Zoggite building the planet¡¯s very first interstellar vehicle was making progress. She had already managed to get a small prototype off the ground, with rudimentary rockets fuelled by a sticky type of resin that was known to burn very well and long. The test pilot was a small but hirsute creature not unlike our friend from the first chapter of this book. It was understandably ambivalent about the whole thing, but it came to no harm, aside from a few singed fronds of its matted purple fur. The prototype was a great deal smaller than the vehicle she dreamt of - an interstellar transporter that could take her to the 17 moons orbiting Zog, and perhaps even beyond that, but it was capable of lifting off the ground, and it was able to be controlled via a rudimentary chipboard she had fashioned out of a bendy conductive metal she was able to find abundantly in certain streams, simply sitting there in smooth, shiny pebbles. No-one had a name for the material yet, and our engineer hadn¡¯t bothered to think of one, but she was pretty sure no one apart from her knew of its value, and she hoped to keep it that way, lest she have her secret discovered and stolen (probably by Gloam). As the test craft hovered in the air, shuddering slightly, it gave the small hairy monster inside it something akin to a massage (which was something it somehow knew about, and therefore saw the good in it, and consequently rather enjoyed it). Using her chipboard, she pressed a button that then slowly lowered the craft back onto the ground, bringing the engine to a stuttering stop. The test pilot bleeped happily. The engineer was emboldened, and looked over at her blueprints (scrawled in ink drawn painfully from a small squid-like creature found in the same stream the shiny rocks came from) for a slightly larger machine, capable of transporting a larger, Zoggite-sized haul. It wouldn¡¯t be long now before she could take her inventions public, and to ensure that she wouldn¡¯t have her designs stolen by Gloam and his associates, she had also created another invention unique as yet in the Zog Valley - a gun. Femme Fatale Planet Earth, 2162 AD As Angus awoke again, several hours later in the same place on Quinton¡¯s feather-soft burgundy Chesterton sofa, he felt his faculties finally return to him. On a dumb waiter next to him was a glass of water, two ibuprofen, and a note from Quinton: Out for the morning. Food in the kitchen. - Quint Out? Who goes out during the apocalypse? Quinton does, that¡¯s who. For what? A drink with friends? A spot of birdwatching? The man¡¯s intrigue was only matched by his madness. After fixing himself a fresh breakfast of boiled eggs and toast cut into soldiers, Angus set about writing down the various members of his team that he would need to reverse the whole mind-swap bungle, and hoped to God some of them were still alive. His ideal list went something a bit like this: Mike Felch, head of biomechanics - address: somewhere in Hackney Puneet Singh, Lead project engineer - address unknown Fred Semple, Lead Physicist - He knew this one - he¡¯d been to his place for cocktails one night and made some witless remark about his wife¡¯s pantsuit, and whipped himself mercilessly for days afterwards. Where was it? Camden Town, that¡¯s right. Note to self: apologise for mentioning the benefits of vertical over horizontal stripes to Celia at the after Christmas bash. Further note to self: on second thoughts - don¡¯t mention it at all, since they¡¯ve probably already forgotten about it - or I was overthinking it, which I¡¯m prone to do. Further, extra note to self: best to get these things aired out quickly, so they¡¯ll know you¡¯re not a complete arse. Final note to self: maybe we don¡¯t need Fred, actually. Fred Semple, Lead Physicist - 66 Boynton Avenue, Camden Town Terrence Cockburn - Head of Programming - Somewhere in Eastbourne Well that¡¯s not going to happen. The two hour drive to Eastbourne under normal circumstances was now more alike in risk of loss of life and general unpleasantness to a 6 month journey to Australia aboard a leaky convict ship. He was probably dead anyhow, Angus reasoned darkly. Terrence wasn¡¯t the handy type. Angus would probably give poor old Terry the same sort of odds of surviving an apocalyptic event as himself, which is to say - rather awful - mortal in fact. He was almost certainly either dead, or some sort of apex predator. Those seemed to be the options these days. And in Eastbourne of all places, the poor sod. Perhaps Angus hadn¡¯t been paying him enough. But could Angus do Terrence¡¯s job in a pinch? Programming was sort of like entry-level geek. Coding. Pah. He could read a few books. How hard could it be? Roderick Dalrymple - Head of Nanotechnology and Mathematics - Dagenham This was a bit of a clincher, since if there were anyone that Angus probably needed, it was Roddy. Not just for his talent for biting quips that put the churlish business types in their place around reporting season, but for the fact that nanotechnology was, in fact, quite fiddly work. They¡¯re just so damn small, you see. And nanobots creeped Angus out. Suddenly Quinton burst through the door, glistening with sweat and spattered with blood.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. ¡®How/s the head?¡¯ he said, wiping blood out of his blonde ringlets with his rippling forearm. ¡®Mmmm,¡¯ said Angus, mouth full of egg. ¡®What you got there,¡¯ said Quinton, pointing at the list. ¡®Oh - ah - my list? ¡®You¡¯ve got a list have you.¡¯ ¡°Well we¡¯re going to need find a few people¡­¡± ¡°Riiiiight¡­.what for exactly?¡± ¡°To fix it.¡± ¡°Fix it?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°Fix what?¡± ¡°It. You know¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure I do.¡± Then Angus wildly flailed his arms about. ¡°The whole thing. You know¡­out there?¡± Then Quinton swung a chair round and sat on it, bursting crotch to backrest, resting his chiselled jaw on his closed fist in a considered manner. ¡°What the hell are you talking about?¡± ¡°Well, you see - and don¡¯t take this the wrong way¡­¡¯ And then Angus proceeded to tell Quinton the key role he had in all the general mayhem that had been occurring for the past two and a bit weeks. He took pains to accentuate the fact that it was actually all a terribly big mix-up, and that it was actually Keenan¡¯s fault, really. Then he explained that, of course at the moment there¡¯s a great deal of bad stuff happening (with the dead friends, relatives, mad people ruling the streets and the general destruction of British society), but at some point, once we¡¯re all back up and running again, we¡¯ll be able to look back on it and have a great big laugh. Quinton cocked his head to one side, as if to say ¡®you wot?¡¯ ¡®So it was your fancy ¡®machine¡¯ that scrambled everyone¡¯s noggins then. Is that what you¡¯re telling¡¯ me.¡± ¡°Well, it was my machine - but it was stolen¡± Quinton grimaced and shook his head. ¡°So your ¡®buddy¡¯¡­Kevin -¡± ¡°-Keenan.¡± ¡°Whatever. He tried to put a mouldy old billionaire¡¯s brain on a computer, but he buggered it up, and the whole world went to pot.¡± ¡°More or less.¡± Quinton¡¯s nostrils flared like an African Hippopotamus eyeing off a zookeeper for dinner. ¡°And this Kevin-¡± ¡°-Keenan¡± ¡°- I don¡¯t care what his name is McBairn. Where is he?¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°Because I¡¯m gonna rip his ankles off.¡± ¡°I suspect that you may have been beaten to the punch on that one.¡± ¡°There is a God, then.¡± ¡°Well, as a scientist-¡± ¡°-whatever Gus.¡± ¡°If it helps at all - I¡¯ve been feeling really rotten about the whole thing.¡± ¡®Oh that¡¯s nice. My mum was eaten by a physiotherapist last week¡­¡¯ he said coldly. Angus winced. ¡°All I could find of her was a few strips of biltong the physio was saving for later.¡± Angus wretched, very quietly. ¡°And the physio?¡± ¡®In a freezer out back. Not sure exactly what to do with him. Beyond slowly torturing and eventually murdering him, that is. Which I of course did.¡¯ ¡®Understandable.¡¯ ¡®I still think there¡¯s something else that he deserves, but I haven¡¯t thought of it yet. Grief tends to sap my creativity, Gus. Don¡¯t know if it does that to you?¡¯ Quinton seemed earnest in his question. Angus gulped. ¡°I¡¯m actually reasonably sure my Aunt and Uncle in Shropshire were chased off a cliff into a quarry by a gang of Greenpeace activists over the weekend. I didn¡¯t particularly like them, but all the same. Did you er - have a service?¡± ¡°I buried the biltong in the backyard and said a few words. She wasn¡¯t much for ceremony.¡± Then Quinton got up, walked over to the kitchen table where Angus was seated, and picked up the list. As Quinton first tried to read it, he progressively pulled the list a bit farther away from his eyes trying focus them, then a bit farther, and then a bit farther again, until his arm had locked at the elbow. And then with an air of resignation, patted around in his top pocket and fished out a pair of reading glasses. ¡®Mmhmmm¡­Hackney, Twickenham, Chelsea¡­Mmmhmmm¡­yep, yep¡­Oh¡­¡¯ Quinton said the last ¡®Oh¡¯ with an air of despair. ¡®Oh?¡¯ Said Angus quizzically. ¡®Hmmm¡­You do know about the Hampstead Heath Sinkhole don¡¯t you?¡¯ Angus went a pale shade of green. His head of Human Resources lived in Hampstead Heath. While he hadn¡¯t made the list - heads of human resources (who are almost always ¡®head¡¯ when they¡¯re a department of one) rarely do, Angus had rather liked him, and wouldn¡¯t have wanted him to end up in a sinkhole, no matter how many conflict resolution sessions he had to sit through. ¡®I haven¡¯t. How have you heard of it? Do you have internet?¡¯ ¡®Nah, I saw it when I was out on a walk.¡¯ ¡®Oh.¡¯ ¡°But the rest of your list looks¡­doable.¡± Quinton breathed in and out deeply and purposefully in the way that a man who¡¯s about to do something he¡¯s not particularly interested in doing does. He clicked his teeth. Quinton then thought for a moment, grunted with agreement with himself, and then felt along the mantlepiece above the fireplace, his fingers locating a hidden hidden latch, which he pulled, and the fireplace groaned forward and moved to the side. It revealed possibly the most comprehensive privately-held weapons collection in the entire United Kingdom. It contained all manner of death-dealing implements, including about 20 different pistols (ranging from antique to modern), machine guns, bats, spiky bats, a flame-thrower, buckets of grenades, and a dusty pair of nunchucks. He then proceeded to inspect, load and stack about 20 of the biggest, scariest-looking ones in a pile. Angus was curious. ¡®Are those all for us?¡¯ Quinton snorted. ¡®Us? No, these are all for me. This one¡¯s for you.¡¯ Quinton then cast his hand over the pistols, hovering over several, before he got to the puniest, most emasculating pistol in the entire collection. He picked it up, cocked it, and handed it to Angus, handle first. Angus went to snatch it, but before he could, Quinton jerked it back. ¡®Who, easy sailor. She¡¯s small, but she¡¯s deadly. I got this for my first ex-wife. She was about the same build as you. Should work fine.¡¯ Quinton stopped for a moment to think. ¡®No - actually - she was a bit taller from memory.¡¯ Quinton handed it to Angus carefully. Then, on second thoughts, he grabbed it back, uncocked it, taking the bullet out of the chamber and removing the clip. ¡®I don¡¯t want you shooting off your old feller before we even get into trouble. I¡¯ve seen it happen. Ugly stuff. Some blokes don¡¯t want to go on living after that kind of an accident.¡¯ Angus nodded with a sigh of resignation. He believed him, and considered that even though his ¡®old feller¡¯ hadn¡¯t got much use over his lifetime, that he, too, would probably count himself in the category of those men wrought suicidal by the loss of their most favoured appendage. Quinton handed over the revolver. Angus inspected it. It had diamontes in the handle, and the words ¡®Femme Fatale¡¯ in swirly lettering across the barrel. And when Angus felt he couldn¡¯t feel any more emasculated than he already felt, he was wrong. The Knights of Regent Park Keenan opened a foggy eye and winced at a rather serious bump on his head. He was in a food court. A motley group of apocalyptic survivors stared inquisitively back at him, about 15 or so - all looking very frightened. To their right there was a Johnny Rockets. On their left - a dumpling joint. He felt his tummy rumble - he hadn¡¯t eaten since morning tea. The silence was deafening, save for the hum of the Bain Marie from a nearby Curry Palace. Keenan cleared his throat. ¡°Ah¡­so I¡¯m Keenan.¡± Keenan¡¯s introduction only served to increase the intensity of the staring.A twitchy-looking black man nervously put his hand up. ¡°Ah yes - in the back?¡± Said Keenan, unsure of whether to follow classroom protocol. ¡°Hi Keenan - Gary Sanders, Head of P.E. At Dagenham High School. Are you a scientist?¡±If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°Oh - well, yes actually. That¡¯s a marvellous guess. How did you know that? Gary pointed at Keenan¡¯s white lab coat. ¡°Your coat. Looks¡­science¡­ey.¡± ¡°Oh yes. Good spot!¡± Keenan looked down at his coat and self-consciously rubbed at some dried bloodstains, from when he had to regretfully brain a violent former employee. ¡°Ah yes...for my sins¡­I¡¯m a Doctor of Molecular Engineering actually. Keeps me out of trouble!¡± Keenan laughed hesitantly. The motley group murmured among themselves for a bit. Keenan heard muffled sounds to the effect of ¡°but he¡¯s a scientist - he should know what¡¯s going on,¡± replied to with ¡°I don¡¯t trust him. His eyes are too close together¡± and ¡°I think we should feed him to the carpark trolls.¡± Gary seemed to be on Keenan¡¯s side. ¡°You don¡¯t have any idea what¡¯s going on do you?¡± He said with sympathetic eyes, as if to convince Keenan to prove his worth. Keenan weighed his words carefully. For while he did, of course know a great deal about what was ¡®going on¡¯ he probably quite rightly suspected that information to that effect might work against him in this situation. ¡°Oh no¡­It¡¯s all a bit mad isn¡¯t it?¡± Keenan laughed very awkwardly. There was a pregnant silence where the group just stared with eyes like needles bearing into his neck. He needed to come up with something good to close on. It seemed like his integrity of his skull depended on it at this stage. ¡°But I do think I have an idea of how to fix it, funnily enough.¡± That was good, he thought. Who wouldn¡¯t get onboard with that? The group murmured among themselves again, softly building to a fever pitch. Suddenly a crash was heard from the door to the right of the room. It was Tully, dropping down her longsword to make a point. ¡°I think we should listen to what he has to say.¡± The Glorification of Gloam scalability. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. 3 3 3 The Baroness imploded (rather confusingly). The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. gun, which she was undecided on whether to commercialise (for surely it would instantly become a ¡®must have¡¯ for all the fashionable young murderers and scoundrels of the valley), or simply keep it up her sleeve as insurance if Gloam got any ideas. Inghurr, otherwise known as Z-Pop, as the Baroness had heard that Z-Pop now had the ear of Gloam, and might be biddable to bending it in the Baroness¡¯ direction, and she thought that that would potentially be rather useful, given her current ambitions. It read something like the following: The Office of the Baroness Volt 7 Chifley Mews Rancid Gardens PO BOX 8452 To the esteemed Mr. Gloam, I am writing to seek a partnership in business. I have, as of today, proven that flight is possible, through my proprietary device, which I am naming the Baronet, after my dear uncle Cyril. I believe it to have vast applications with regards to transport, both personal, industrial and military. I also have plans to execute a design which will breach the barrier into space, and allow us to visit the 17 moons in our orbit. With the scalable economic solution you have devised known as ¡®slavery,¡¯ I feel that we will be able to commercialise this product, and create a business that is not only profitable, but will alter the course of history for our humble planet. For the glory of Zog, The Baroness Thelma Volt Mortal Danger Planet Earth, 2162 AD impolite force - wasn¡¯t something that Angus would have even with a thousand years of training. st If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. stnd Middlesex House The band of merry apocalyptic survivors had thankfully pulled together in the intermittent moments, agreeing for the most part that the chance of having their family members turn back into regular people was worth the risk of having their limbs removed from their bodies by the creatures outside. It was resolved that, led by Dr. Keenan, the mysterious and benevolent science-man, they would press onward to wherever he led, to salvation and hopefully some tea and biscuits afterwards. The target was the Methuselah Institute - only about 10 minutes as the crow flew - but with all manner of unearthly terrors sitting in wait of a tasty human-shaped morsel to eat, as the crow flies would very likely get it eaten. So Tully, taking over as chief tactician, mapped out a plan of assault on a Curry Palace Roti roll. The A5204 was off-limits certainly. Apparently a group of rabid stockbrokers were hunting slow-walkers there, and several of the groups¡¯ members were less than speedy. No, Tully reasoned that if they took the slightly more inland route through the BBC offices, up Langham and Foley, through Middlesex House, Up Chitty and Torrington to comeat the University of London through the South-West Gate. This route minimised the chances of disembowelment to a much more palatable level, apparently. This pleased Gary; since Gary was generally opposed to disembowelment. Marching in a trembling triangle formation, the group of unlikely soldiers of fortune hesitantly pushed out onto the street, taking care to look both ways simultaneously, which made everyone go the opposite of cross-eyed and gave Keenan the beginnings of a ripping headache. The BBC building was eerily empty, save for a few sketch comedians yahoo-ing halfway up the flagpole out the front. The team passed through the reception area virtually unmolested, and pushed on through the scripted drama area. The canteen had been thoroughly pillaged unfortunately, which was, frankly, to be expected in publicly funded organisation. The motley crew had the BBC buildings east exit almost in sight when they clocked Ernest Templeton, an evening news anchor, hanging from a ceiling fan, blood dripping from his mouth, shrieking like a banshee with ants in its¡¯ pants. Tully hadn¡¯t particularly liked Templeton - he was about as arch-conservative as one can go on the BBC - and being a friend of Dorothy, she didn¡¯t feel too badly at all while dispatching him with a brisk ninja star to Templeton¡¯s temple. Once through Templeton, the crew pushed onwards to the East wing exit. Of interesting note; they came across a janitor strangely continuing on with his job like nothing out of the ordinary was going on. They even asked him if he would like to join them, considering that he would have a much higher chance of survival, and for the company, too - to which he simply waved and replied ¡°No English¡± without removing his headphones. After peering outside the BBC block; the Wall Street savages nowhere in sight; the team pressed onwards, using a skip bin to scale a back fence so they could cut through a few backyards onto Langham street, safe from any peckish local cannibals, aside from a person acting like some sort of marsupial nesting inside the skip bin itself with its two young children. Thankfully, the maternal instinct was stronger than any urge it may have had to do violence to members of the group. Langham Street wasn¡¯t as wide open as a main street - but there were plenty of opportunities for people to get picked off as they ran, shrieking and whooping from behind retaining wall to hedge to Purple Smoke Bush. Thankfully the street seemed to be hunted out - piles of bones picked dry lay in piles left and right, averting anyone of thinking that their situation was anything other than deathly serious. Foley Street was relatively empty, too. Which made Keenan wonder. Was the problem as widespread as he had believed? He thought it to be affecting roughly 50% percent of people he had seen so far. Perhaps the problem was limited to specific area around Fyvie Hall, where he had held his failed presentation. That would certainly be somewhat of an ideal situation out of a series of very unideal ones. The team pushed forward silently in shaky triangle formation; a bit like a Roman phalanx with a learning disability. Tully had read a few books in her time which had helped her to develop her leadership abilities on the soccer field - like Sun Tzu¡¯s Art of War, and a few Colleen McCulloch books on the Caesars. But truthfully - she hadn¡¯t understood a lot of it, or even finished any of them, really. She was a professional sportsperson, after all - not a scholar. And some of the younger members of the group were getting hungry. Specifically an eight year old boy with red hair, freckles and a fairly nonchalant attitude to staying alive. Ron - as it turns out the urchin was named - had mentioned that his tummy was grumbling on a number of occasions by now, and if he were pressed - Gary would probably admit that he could do with a snack himself. So Tully resolved to find a source of munchies (without risk of getting munched on) in short order.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. As they approached the end of Foley Street, human remains became commonplace, littering the sides of the streets. Being a corporate campus housing a number of High Street corporate raider finance outfits, it was not surprising to see these generally disagreeable types, feasting on each other openly in the courtyard of the building. Somehow, they had managed to carry over a semblance of their devil-may-care attitudes to social mores in their previous life over to their newer, much more openly violent, post-apocalyptic personalities. Keenan wondered quietly whether this was a feature that had applied more broadly to the phenomenon and thought it rather curious in a rather dark way. (There was no quieting the compulsive ticking over of a mind whose life has been dedicated to scientific enquiry - it analysed, it made hypotheses - and unfortunately in Kennan¡¯s case, it was capable of the most dastardly actions of which he had become progressively more ashamed as the day went on). Finally at the gate of Middlesex House, our team of unlikely heroes lined up along the outside fence with Tully at the front. Carefully, Tully peered through the gate. Ron, being a precocious young freckled boy, couldn¡¯t help but sneak a peek, and unfortunately, got more than he had bargained for. When Ron wasn¡¯t able to stifle a terrified yelp as he witnessed a bike courier prancing about wearing the skin of a justice of the peace, Tully and Gary had to dispatch a few rogues, which they hadn¡¯t wanted to do. It was here that Gary received the first of a series of mortal wounds; namely a totem soccer pole through the left lung. Everyone was now very worried about Gary, being the good cop to Tully¡¯s bad cop of the group; the peoples¡¯ leader. Middlesex House, previously thought of as a not-an-option option, considering the blatant murder and mayhem going on inside it - became more of a necessity, considering the middling possibility of a OH & S-mandated first-aid kit existing somewhere on its¡¯ grounds. Gary colour was quickly changing from a warm mahogany to a rather sickly gray, and Ron was quite anxious that his erstwhile apocalypse father would last the night, considering his actual father had been torn to shreds by a postman only 11 hours previously, and he had become quite attached to Gary in the time intermittent. The first enemy Tully had in her sights was an overweight accountant-type who had been snacking on a receptionist, until Ron accidentally stepped on a dried-out rib bone. Alerted by the shrill snap of some poor sods¡¯ 7th verterbrosternal rib; the rabid bean counter fixed its blood-thirst on the group, specifically Sheree, a 52-year old astrologist from Debenham (who certainly did not see that coming). Sheree shrieked, but Tully sliced expertly, liberating the offending calculator wielder¡¯s head from his body with a satisfying SLOOSH followed by a sickening THUD. THUD.THUD. Emboldened by the disposal of the accountant, Tully moved onto the bike courier, who had interrupted his feasting to begin several ranging strides towards Ron. Thankfully, by repositioning her sword ever so deftly, Tully ensured that the courier strode straight onto her blade, doubling him up into a sort of sickly human kebab. SLOOSH. CHITTER. HEAVE. And then silence. And then another SLCHLONCH as Tully removed her blade, and the courier crumpled onto the ground in a way a human body generally shouldn¡¯t. Now that the bike courier and the accountant had been dealt with, that left only a shrill human resources manager (her occupation being something nobody could have rightly known by her appearance - it is only mentioned here for added clarity) who had taken to darting back and forth along the entranceway to Middlesex House, foaming at the mouth with a vacant look in her eyes. She reminded Sheree of a pitiable tiger she had once seen in a tier-10 zoo in Darjeeling - bereft of hope, and probably wanting it all to be over if it were completely honest. Tully decided to simply bop her on the top of the head, neatly placing her out of harm¡¯s way. And if they thought they had seen the extent of the weirdness London had to offer them that day - they hadn¡¯t. For upon entering Middlesex House, they found a hoard of people walking upright with their arms out adroit to the left and right, pointed like crabs. And sounding like crabs, with a faint ¡®CHITTER, CHITTER, CHITTER.¡¯ And even walking like crabs - a little to the left, a little to the right. And there were thousands of them, walking in a swarm, tearing apart desks and chairs as they moved in lock-step, and leaving droppings as they went, never stopping to drop a bog - simply dropping them as they walked. Thankfully these crab people were skittish as all get-out, and when approached, they retreated en masse, leaving carnage in their wake. It wasn¡¯t looking good for a first aid kit - and Gary was bleeding out quickly. The crabs left devastation wherever they crab-walked. Every room was reamed, cleaned out, and mulched into little chewed up bits. Ron¡¯s stomach audibly groaned at the sight of a break kitchen fridge door, separated from the rest of the fridge, pummelled and chewed lying pathetically on the floor. Food would most likely have to wait a little longer. And first aid, it would seem, would have to wait as well, which was bad news on the order of ¡®I brought home a train hobo for Christmas¡¯ despair for the entire family. But particularly Gary was crestfallen by this, as his blood loss was becoming imminently unsurvivable. But thankfully, what they did find - unbelievably - was a bottle of glue. And Tully had watched enough army thrillers to know that anaconda grip can usually and in a pinch be a really top notch substitute for stitching. But sadly, as it turns out, the movies are not much help for informing best practises in real world medical emergencies, and there wasn¡¯t nearly enough Hobby Glue (as it turned out - not quite Hercule¡¯s grip unfortunately) for both entry and exit would (of which there were both). So now Gary had to continue to limp on looking like a sort of human pin cushion (it was earlier decided that short of knowing what to do with a wildly gushing transected aorta, they would probably be best leaving that totem soccer pole where it was for the time being). The Partnership of Gloam Planet Zog, The Third Age, year 36 (roughly equivalent to the year 2162 in Earth years) Glome Rottley Court Zogtown 0208 Dere Baronness, I was most delited to receve your correspondense via Dodo-male, and to ear of yor poposed sinnergies with our respctive endevors. I regaet to inform yew that yor male-Dodo fell ill an dyed, so I have sent our male-badga in playse. I am paticulaly flatted that you see the patentchal in my latest inervation of Scalabul Slayvery?. We ar all very happye wit the ressults so fa. Exeedinly optmistic of our pospects. If you wer to cum to Zogtown and vist me in my apattment, I wud very much like to discus the matta furtha. Besst Regars, Glome x The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. 3 3 rich. Roderick Dalrymple Planet Earth, the year 2162 The coast finally clear, Angus dropped down from the branch and scanned the area. Save for a few whimpering wildebeest people rolled up in balls on the bitumen, there wasn¡¯t a whole lot going on, which was a welcome relief. But then Angus remembered the fact that his old mate Quinton was probably bleeding out in a gutter somewhere with two kidneys short of a body, and his relief quickly festered into misery. The misery compounded as his mind whizzed through the many possible ways in which Quinton could have met a messy end. Firstly, and most likely to Angus was that he was trampled and turned into a squidgy pancake of a man. It was an incredibly visceral thought to have with a stomach full of coffee. Angus pulled out the map that he had managed to hold onto, and started to orientate himself. He looked at his list - the first member of his team due to be collected was Roderick Dalrymple, his head of nanotechnology, and thankfully located reasonably nearby in Dagenham. He would have to cross the Thames to do so, however, which normally wouldn¡¯t worry him so much, but considering the tendency for local infrastructure like bridges, tunnels and buildings to have been blown up or rendered useless in the past six weeks, he was mildly concerned about it. Angus wasn¡¯t a particularly strong swimmer by anyone¡¯s standards. Could he have found a tree? Angus hoped he would have. Yes, that¡¯s the most likely scenario. Quinton¡¯s nothing if not an able-bodied problem solver. He¡¯ll be up a tree somewhere, calmly waiting it out. Or perhaps even whittling himself a treehouse to relax in as he figured out how to find Angus. But he wasn¡¯t running fast enough. Not fast enough at all. Angus had done the mental math, and his velocity couldn¡¯t have increased enough to outpace the thundering hoard. But men like Quinton don¡¯t let things like physics limit their potential. Yes. No, Angus needn¡¯t be worried, surely. But he couldn¡¯t help it, for Angus was genetically prone to worrying. Worrying, after all, was how he managed to do so many interesting things with his life. He worried about something, then he fixed it - or changed it - or invented a new thing that gave us all a new paradigm to imagine it. And then after that, he would find something new to worry about, and on the cycle went. Angus meandered along the road, following the map, keeping his eyes peeled for threats. Thankfully all was very quiet. The other elements had yet to peek their mad faces out after the stampede, and Angus felt somewhat safe for the time being. He followed in the stampede¡¯s riptide, a bit like someone late for work might follow a path cleared by an ambulance in heavy traffic. The thames was only a mile or so away. He kept walking with his fists and teeth clenched, ready for action. But just as Angus¡¯s worrying reached an internal mental crescendo, he felt a tap on his shoulder from a dinner-plate-sized hand. ¡®G¡¯day Gus. How¡¯s tricks?¡¯ He was never happier to see 250 pounds of tanned Australian muscle in his entire life. His eyes welled up with tears, and he planted one of the biggest hugs on Quinton he¡¯d ever planted (though his arms only reached around two-thirds of his body). ¡®Ha ha¡­easy there mate. I missed ya too.¡¯ Quinton hugged Angus back, lifting him off the ground so his legs flailed about. As it happened, Quinton hadn¡¯t turned into a pancake, or built a tree-house - he¡¯d simply hidden in a sewer. Angus didn¡¯t have to ask him to find that out - he could smell it. ¡®Oh Quint. You really had me worried for a minute there.¡¯ ¡®Don¡¯t worry about me mate. If there¡¯s anything that you ever do - don¡¯t make worrying about me one of them. I¡¯ve survived worse that that twenty times over. It¡¯s not my first stampede by a long shot.¡¯ ¡®Thank heavens for that.¡¯ ¡®Definitely was my first stampede in a city centre though. I was sweating like a gypsie with a mortgage for a second or two. Actually does Timbuktu count? Anyway, I guess I can scratch that off the bucket list.¡± ¡®I wonder if the water¡¯s still running in that building over there? I¡¯d love a shower. I smell like shit stew.¡¯ Wonderfully, the water was still running, and they both had a nice long shower. Quinton - to wash the putrid stench of stormwater and human excrement off - and Angus, just because he thought it was a nice treat after such an ordeal. The fridge in the studio apartment they were in still had a few things in it, too, which was great, since they were both a bit peckish (it was almost time for afternoon tea). Once back on the road, they picked up the pace a bit. It was ideal to get to Dagenham before dark - for obvious reasons. But another reason was that Roderick Dalrymple was not actually the helpless weedy type that one often associates with scientists. Roddy was an immense burly man, perfectly suited to survival of the elements. His main passions in life, after science and rigorous hard work, was Judo, which he was frightfully good at. It made a lot of sense, therefore, to make his the first stop - since in firstly, he was far likelier to be alive, and secondly - he would add an extra layer of ass-kickery to their merry little band of apocalyptic survivalists.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge was thankfully still standing, and save for a few leering baristas squawking like pelicans on the muddy shoreline, there wasn¡¯t much to be alarmed about. Before they knew it, they were outside Roderick¡¯s house - a wonderful 4 bedroom Tudor facade, which he was able to afford after the second round of venture capital money came through. Apart from a few human-sized splurges of blood on the exterior, the building was entirely unmolested, which Angus took as a good sign. They knocked on the door, which was a welcome bit of before-times behaviour that they hadn¡¯t been required to do for a long time, and it was comforting. Angus heard a sudden commotion, as if a possum had just been frightened while asleep on top of a pile of Christmas ornaments. Then a booming pair of footsteps approached the front door from within. It got closer to the door, paused, and then backed up a few metres. ¡®Who¡¯s that? If that¡¯s you Edgar, bugger off will you, I haven¡¯t got any more condensed milk.¡¯ ¡®Roddy? Is that you? It¡¯s Angus. McBairn? You know, from work?¡¯ The heavy footsteps ran towards the door. ¡®Gus?¡¯ The door opened, just a smidge, with the latch still firmly on. It was dark inside, and a very tall man¡¯s face looked down at the visitors with one eyebrow raised almost at a right angle to the other, to indicate that their owner was very suspicious. The right eye looked bugged out and very twitchy. The twitchy eye, as well as the untwitchy one, looked Angus and Quinton up and down, and then suddenly a look of calm washed over what was hopefully Roderick Dalrymple. The door closed again, then the sound of the latch being un-latched could be heard, and then the door swung open wide to reveal all 6¡±6 of Roderick Dalrymple. The last six weeks hadn¡¯t been kind to Roderick. The interior of his stately home looked as if a herd of bulls had trampled through it once, played a game of twister in each room, and then trampled everything once more on the way out for good measure. ¡®I ah¡­I¡¯m sorry I don¡¯t have anything much to offer you gents. I ran out of tea a couple of weeks ago. In fact, I ran out of almost everything.¡¯ A thought struck him. ¡®Oh - I¡¯ve got some tubes of condensed milk if you fancy some of that? Just don¡¯t tell anyone about it.¡¯ ¡®Ah¡­¡¯ Angus started. ¡¯Look it¡¯s alright Fritz, you keep your condensed milk.¡¯ Roddy¡¯s expression melted into relief. Angus was a little bit weirded out by how much he didn¡¯t want to share his condensed milk - but then he considered that since he¡¯d spent six weeks in mind-swapped Britain, his behaviour was probably on the more reasonable side. Quinton looked at Roddy with pity in much the same way that someone might look at an owl trying to mount a postbox. He shrugged amiably, and opened up his satchel. He pulled out a few strips of biltong, raised his eyebrows at Roddy as if to say ¡®you want this, mate?¡¯ Roddy nodded with his entire body. Quinton tossed it to him, and he inhaled both strips almost instantaneously. ¡®Jesus mate. Is that Paprika? That¡¯s fantastic. That¡¯s got to be the best damn biltong I¡¯ve ever had. What¡¯s your name sorry? I¡¯m Roderick. Nice to meet you. Did you say if you had any more of that biltong?¡¯ Keenan offered the hand he wasn¡¯t using to stuff the biltong into his mouth to Quinton. ¡®Ah¡­Quinton. Nice to meet ya.¡¯ ¡®Quinton, I must get the recipe for that. That¡¯s got to be the best damn biltong I¡¯ve ever had in my entire life that is.¡¯ Keenan licked his fingers ravenously for any remaining morsel, almost taking them clean off. After catching up on all the latest goings on - whose neighbour ate whose and whatnot, they finally got down to brass tacks. ¡®So ah - Roddy - how likely is it, do you think, that we had anything to do with it?¡¯ ¡®It?¡¯ ¡®You know - the whole¡­¡¯ then Angus mimed an atom bomb explosion. ¡­¡¯Thing.¡¯ Keenan thought for a moment. ¡®About 96% I¡¯d say.¡¯ Angus sighed deeply. He didn¡¯t know what he was expecting, but it didn¡¯t help his mood at all. Then Roddy had a thought. ¡®No, hang on,¡¯ he said. Then he picked up a pen and did a quick bit of arithmetic on the back of a battery packet. Then he summed and ahhed, and finally got to a point where he was happy with his conclusions, nodded, and looked back up at the expectant Angus. ¡®Closer to 98% I¡¯d say.¡¯ Keenan showed Angus his work. Angus looked at it, sighed, and concurred. Keenan was a mathematician. One of the most profoundly gifted ones of his generation, in fact. If he thinks it was them, then it was definitely them. Angus started another thought. ¡®You know actually, I rather thought it might have had something to with forgetting to carry the¡­¡¯ Before he could finish, Keenan cut him off ¡®Carry the one. Yes, that¡¯s the one. It¡¯s a colossal cock up. Carry the one Roddy, CARRY THE ONE!¡¯ Fritz then started hitting himself in the head repetitively, while repeating the phrase ¡®CARRY. THE. ONE.¡¯ It was clear that he hadn¡¯t been taking it all particularly well. ¡®Stop that Roddy. You¡¯ll give yourself a concussion.¡¯ Angus tried to grab his hand to stop him hitting himself. ¡®Stop it. STOP IT man! JE-SUS.¡¯ Roddy stopped it finally, collapsing in a heap on the sofa. ¡®Oh it¡¯s miserable innit,¡¯ He said from behind balled fists. ¡®We¡¯ve offed about a third of the country, at least.¡¯ Quinton sighed, again with a look of pity, but this time the pitiful look was more the look one might give an owl who married a postbox. ¡®Mate, there¡¯s no way of knowing that¡­¡¯ Angus gave him the ¡®zip-it¡¯ mouth signal. Roddy burst into a lumbering, moist cascade of tears. The depth of emotion in his weeping was so great that it contorted his facial expression so much that every feature was violently frowning - his eyes, his mouth, and most curiously, his nostrils. ¡®You know I can. I can¡¯t not know. I¡¯m a bloody genius ah bahaaaaaoooooooo¡­¡¯ Roddy pointed desperately at the wall to the right of the study, revealing a metre long equation with the title ¡®How many people have I offed¡¯ and the fraction ¡®1/3¡¯ circled violently and repeatedly in the bottom right corner, then written again and again over the top of the rest of the equation, then again on the other walls, and, for that matter, all over the sofas. Roddy¡¯s sobs went on for another minute or two in earnest, before finally running out of steam. ¡®I¡¯m a bloody monster.¡¯ Angus sighed. ¡®Roddy, you¡¯ll be glad to know that - in actual fact - your maths was solid. It wasn¡¯t your fault.¡¯ Roddy looked at Angus incredulously. ¡®You¡¯re just trying to make me feel better. I¡¯m the mathematician. I¡¯m the one wot¡¯ did it. It¡¯s my own damn fault.¡¯ ¡°No - no¡­it was Keenan. He stole the design. He tried to skip the clinical trials.¡± ¡°Keenan? I¡¯d never believe that. Keenan¡¯s good people, Gus.¡± Angus pulled out his phone and played the message from Keenan. Roddy sat for a moment, a look of sheer disbelief pocking his facial features. Then the disbelief swiftly gave way to rage. Then he got up, and started pacing violently. ¡°He did WHAT?¡± Roddy punched a wall. The wall came off second best. ¡°It was the Kings I would imagine Roddy,¡± offered Angus wimpishly. ¡°I¡¯m sure they gave him a lot of money to betray his ideals, friends and better instincts.¡± Roddy sighed and sucked his teeth. ¡°I heard Phillip had ass cancer. Terminal actually. So I suppose this all tracks. And Keenan¡¯s always been very grabby with money. Remember when we found out he¡¯d been rounding up our portions of the lunch split bills? What a cad.¡± Quinton, by this point had gotten so completely bored that he had begun whittling a Javanese fertility goddess out of a piece of Roddy¡¯s dining room table. ¡°Well is it awful that I¡¯m a bit relieved by all this? I mean not by all this. I just mean specifically the fact that I play a not quite so central role in it all.¡± ¡°I think it¡¯s perfectly reasonable Roddy. Keenan really is a cad. And arguably an international war criminal to boot. Though I¡¯d be more on the side of internationally colossal cretin if definitions were left upto me.¡± Amidst the considered discussion, Quinton had discovered a bottle of rum. He shot Roddy a look as if to say ¡®could I have some?¡¯ Roddy acquiesced. Quinton gulped. Angus interlaced his fingers thoughtfully and rapped them on the part of the dining table tat Quinton hadn¡¯t yet whittled. A voicemail from Keenan The North East Entrance of Middlesex House, London, Earth. April 13, 7:37pm, Greenwich Mean Time Hello there mate. I¡¯m guessing you haven¡¯t seen your phone, or you¡¯re mad at me - and rightly so. I¡¯m not even sure what possessed me to betray such a dear friend as you, and in such a duplicitous way. And for money! God.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. We never cared too much about money. That wasn¡¯t the point of it all. Money grubs everything up. When did I forget that? I suppose I¡¯m old. I was 35 when we met - that was 15 years ago. You¡¯re in the prime of your life now - I¡¯m just getting further over the hill. I suppose the me getting married and having a happily ever after boat has well and truly sailed. Try not to blame an old man for trying. Well-in any case - as per the apocalypse scenario we are all currently living through - I still think it best that we recon back at IMPUN to bash our respective noggins together and see if we can think our way out of this. I have a very strong feeling my machine caused all this. I think it¡¯s the only way we have a shot really. As far as I can tell, this whole thing isn¡¯t limited to the area around the hall where the presentation was. It may even be the whole of London. Or - God - the whole of London County? Perish the thought. I have no idea what¡¯s happened by the way in case you were wondering. We¡¯ve swapped some minds - but with who - I have no idea whatsoever. Jesus Gus - what if we freaky fridayed the entire planet? I¡¯ll be at IMPUN very shortly. I¡¯ve met a team of strapping locals who have been helping me to batter my way through. Please do hurry. Keenans Ride up Regent After leaving Middlesex House, Tully, a limping and sickly Gary, Ron and the other ten brave souls were lucky for a time. They were able to take backstreets around the rear of some terrace houses, managing to avoid the attention of anything awful for a good ten minutes or so. When they finally made it to Chitty Street, Tully was relieved, because she knew they were almost on the home stretch. Just up and through the Anglican Church, onto Torrington Street and then they were at the University - to safety (hopefully) and to the salvation of our Great English homeland. Chitty Street was uneventful. A team of the crab-walkers were out and about, mulching up every bit of greenery (and metal street signage) they came across, but as we all know - the crab-walkers are no match for literally anything that makes them skittish, like a slow-walking group of equally terrified humans. As the crabs scattered, they cleared a path to the Anglican Church at the end of Chitty, and they went for it. Straight into the church, through to the pulpit, out back through the bishop¡¯s offices, past a stark naked bishop who was howling like a stuck pig in the corner, and had obviously not been out to be toileted for a few too many hours. Ron left the bishop the last of his beef jerky, careful not to get bitten. And it was at this point, when the group were feeling rather emboldened by recent successes, that Ron had a rather brilliant idea as to build upon their momentum, and push on through to Torrington Street safely, albeit a little bit slowly. A scheme that was so brilliant and strange - that it just might work.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. He thought that if it were possible to shepherd the crab-walkers around the block, they might act as a sort of barrier against other scarier things. Gary liked it a lot, because being the mortally-wounded member of the group, he was very keen to not get re-mortally wounded, which would almost certainly render him mortally dead. But, of course, a lot of the success of this scheme depended firstly on whether the crab-walkers were able to be shepherded. Amazingly - they were. Lewis, a mobile phone salesman from Essex used some latent skills that he had lurking in his subconscious from a childhood growing up on a farm in Cornwall. He clicked his mouth encouragingly and moved the crab people left, then right, left, then right. Then when he started to build confidence, he began to scoop them up out of the Church courtyard, out onto the street running parallel to Chitty, and slowly push them to go around the block. The scheme worked so incredibly well that Gary remarked that isn¡¯t it funny that when you¡¯re doing some annoying, repetitive task like matching up the black screws with the right holes on an Ikea table - you can tend to get so good at it you¡¯re almost crushed that there was no real world application for this sparkling new skillset. Gary thought that Lewis¡¯ remarkable crab shepherding fitted that category and then some. The group followed in their shaky triangle behind Lewis as he conducted his human orchestra like moses parting the red sea. It was a perfect symphony of nervous, twitchy humans moving en masse, driving out every single violent offender in their path. Stalking pumas, angry rhinoceroses, mangy monkeys and spear-wielding finance types were all pushed to the wayside as Keenan, Tully, Gary, Ron and the rest pushed triumphantly up Torrington Street towards the entrance of Imperial University. They had done it. They were here. But now their trials were just begun.