First 12627 words of Nano 08

Mark fidgeted on the chair as the head of operations flipped through his and Gwendolyns files, playing with her beard contemplatedly. He coughed. "Isn't it against company policy to send me a mission on my own?" he asked.

The head of operations cackled, exposing her long canines. "Red China doesn't have a company policy, as well you should know by now, Mr. Henson. And it's not so much a mission, rather than the end of one."

Mark sighed. "Can't it at least wait until she gets out?"

"No. The assignment has to be completed in 48 hours, our temporal engineers can only hold the thing in limbo for so long, you know. I'm also afraid it looks like your colleague is going to get quite a hefty suspension."

Mark looked up at the head - he hadn't known about thaat. "Another one?"

The head gathered herself together, quite literally, as her nine disembodied and sentient tails had wandered into various crannies and corners of her office. She flipped through the files again so that she didn't have to look up at Mark. "Cracking a superior officer over the head with a bottle of scotch is highly frowned upon at the RCI, not to mention highly inappropriate. It's very lucky Calthorpe didn't have brain damage."

"Well..." Mark began, and then stopped because he realised that what he had been about to say was, 'Well, I don't think he actually had one to start with,' but that was something Gwendolyn might have said had she been here, and in fact something that she probably would say in court, leaned back in her chair, tapping her nails against something disparagingly. Mark glanced up at the head again.

"So... why do I have to do this on my own. Wouldn't you normally assign me with a new partner until Gwendolyn comes back?"

She shrugged and her beard and jowls quivered. "Normally we would yes, but there isn't time to find one before this assignment has to be finished. We'd have to find you a suitable partner who would be able to cope with the mission, character profiles, compatabilitiy tests, briefings, and of course it all depends on who is free and it would take much too long. I'm sure you'll be fine, there's not a lot to do."

Gwendolyn would have argued. Gwendolyn would have picked up the plastic vase of plastic flowers and tipped them down the front of the head's voluminous blouse. Even though the vase didn't have any water in it, it was the thought that counted. He stared at the edge of the head's desk, thinking how he was going to die, and how he was going to kill Gwendolyn when she came back from her suspension, and then how he was going to hug and never let her leave him again, and possibly never let her drink again either.

The head coughed politely. "Is there anything else you need to talk about, Mr. Henson?"

"No. Sorry..." Mark picked up the folder containing his revised mission statement and briefing and left the office. There was a window at the end of the hall, and it was raining - everything was grey sky and the miserable cold droplets of rain beating against the glass.

*

Bruse Redpath of the RCI internal police force flipped open his notepad and held a pen against the paper, poised for action. Gwendolyn leaned back in her chair and raised an eyebrow at him.

Bruce looked at her across the table, and eventually Gwendolyn's eyebrow dropped, her face growing tired of keeping up the expression. Bruce cleared his throat. "Now Gwendolyn. Before we can proceed with the tribunal, we need to have a proper statement from you."

Gwendolyn fidgeted. "Can I have a cigarette please?"

"No, you can't. You're not supposed to smoke." The girl rolled her eyes heavenwards and kicked at the chair leg.

"I've already given you a statement."

Bruse smiled at her. "I know, but we need something a little more objective than..." Bruce opened her file and peeked inside, "'Fucking bastard called me an alien, so I hit him over the head with an empty bottle. He should be glad it was bloody empty!' end quote..."

"I don't remember saying that."

Bruce smiled again. Technically he was her defence council for her upcoming tribunal. Where internal crimes were concerned, defendants who worked for the Red China Institute were not allowed to have their own lawyers. "Well, it is strictly off the record... let's just say you were suffering from a slight chemical imbalance at the time."

"Really? I thought that was the entire case? I was pidoozled out of my head and hit an officer because he insulted me."

"Whilst on duty."

Gwendolyn thought for a moment. "So, if I'd hit him on the head in my spare time it would have been alright?"

"No, but in that case it would have been out of Red China's hands."

"Ah..." She licked her lips and pondered some more. "This isn't being taped, is it?"

Bruce Redpath burst out laughing. "Taped?! You must be joking. Bloody things. No, only a nice hand written record. Can't be tampered with." He glanced down rather guiltily at his notepad, which was still blank.

Gwendolyn saw this too, and leaned forward slightly. "Can I play the racism card?"

Bruse considered this and finally said. "I don't think it'll wash. Tachnically, you are still registered as human. If you'd renounced your native species you would have been alright, but no. Sorry."

"What if I did renounce my nativity?" Gwendolyn asked, tapping the table top thoughtfully.

"That would be a court case in itself. Too much hassle for you, too complicated, and I know you said you'd like this tribunal to be over with as soon as possible."

Gwendolyn nodded. "Honestly, I'll do whatever it takes to get off with a small suspension. I'll be good, and I'll say anything you like." Gwendolyn paused, choosing her words carefully before she spoke again, unsure if she wanted to hear the answer. "How long do you think I'll get?"

"Three months at the very minimum. At worst, I think you could get a permanant expulsion. I think, if you're very lucky and play it right, you might get away with about nine months. Maybe twelve."

"Ok. That sounds... well, yeah, it's not good, but it's ok. It's just Mark I'm worried about, my partner. He'll kill himself if he's left on his own for too long. He won't even mean too, he'll just have an accident or something. It's like we've been working together for so long I'm scared he won't be able to function without me." Bruce gave her an odd, wondering look, mouth twitching as though he wanted to speak but thought he might regret it if he did. Instead, he started to write in the notepad.

"Right... I'm going to do a little statement for you, and then you can have a look at it and see if there's anything you'd like to add. When we've both agreed on something, you need to sign it, date it and I'll do the rest. You might get away with nine months, but don't get too hopeful."

"Right. Ok," Gwendolyn said, and helped herself to a glass of water while she watched Bruce write out the next year of her life.

*

The Visor chuckled appreciatively as the gigantic eagles swopped to the ground in front of him, and deposited Mark at the feet of the black haired and moustached villian.

Mark got to his feet rather shakily. "You git! What happened to letting me find my own way to you?"

The Visor shrugged. "It was getting boring. I'm losing out on my beauty sleep just being here with you."

"Fuck you." It seemed like a good idea to say that when it was still inside his head, like something Gwendolyn would say. Outside, it seemed a little bit childish and pretentious. The Visor seemed to enjoy it though. He laughed, and fingered his moustache.

"Very good!" Mark noticed that his slight German accent was getting stronger. "Such wit you have for a little fellow. But enough of wit anfd games, come and see my magnificent machine..." The Visor put an arm around Mark's shoulders, and pulled him over to the centre of the room. Mark used his free hand, the one not trapped by the Visor's huge meaty arm, to try and tease his gun out of his coat pocket.

"I'll take that. I can't have that sort of thing near my beloved machine. Heaven knows what sort of damage it might do!" The Visor took the gun away from Mark and flung it into the corner with a flourish. It went off, once when it hit the ground and once when it bounced, and both of the Visor's eagles dropped down dead.

"Oh, dear," the Visor said, licking his lips. He giggled nervously, then carried on guiding Mark to the middle fo the room, where a huge metal thing churned and shrieked as it went about whatever dastardly work it was doing.

Mark started to struggle again as they neared the centre of the room and the noise grew steadily louder. "What the hell is that thing?"

The Visor grinned and gestured with his free hand. "My amazing, glorious, fantastic temporal genetic manipulator machine! Fifteen years spent perfecting it, and now you little RCI agentettes come a roving and you try to take it off me! Well, I don't thin that will be happening any more, do you? Now your friend has gone mysteriously missing and you... you..." The Visor chuckled. "You'll see what is going to happen to you. Oh, yes!" The chuckle became a cackle. "Telpedo, activate the manipulator beam!"

A fat, purple haired gorgon leapt up and switched on a button, suffering an electric shock as she did so. "Bugger..." said the Visor, and went up to the control panel himself, to poke ineffectually at it with a stick. "Now, you... what was your name?"

"Mark."

"Yes, you, Mark. You stay there. Just while I get this bloody thing switched on and then you're going to be sucked into the eye of the machine."

Mark scrabbled around on the floor while the Visors back was turned. "I don't think so." His hands had closed around the gun and he was now aiming it at his enemy, a grim look on his face."

The Visor turned. He looked a little bit surprised to find a gun in his face, and his eyes bulged out of his pale face quite interestingly. "I don't think that's a good-"

Mark pulled the trigger.

"Shit," Mark muttered as he tugged open the gun to look inside and found that it had no more bullets in it. The Visor let out a triumphant 'Ha' noise and clamped his hands around Mark's throat. Mark bucked and kicked at the villians balls, and the Visor fell into the machine with a yelp of surprise and pain, leaving Mark to stare into the abyss of metal, mouth hanging open.

"Bloody hell. That was easy." He sprang off to the control panel to try and switch the ghastly machine off for ever, but found his way barred by two clones of the Visor, or maybe it had been a clone that he had just thrown to his death and one of these two was the real Visor, or maybe it was neither of them. Either way, it didn't really matter about the details right now. He neatly side stepped, but managed to trip over the long black cape of the Visor on the left.

"Oi! Watch what you're doing with the cape! They cost an awful lot to have dry cleaned, you know," the Visor on the left snapped as he fell over with Mark, and tried to kiss him. The other Visor tried to pull Mark to his feet, but Mark tugged on his cape too, causing him to fall down like a domino. Unfortunately he was being uncomfortably crushed underneath the two Visors, and found he couldn't breathe.

Mark strained to push out his head from between Visor one's thighs. "Get. Off. Me!" he manged to gasp, grabbing on to the lever that switched the manipulator machine on and off.

Unfortunately, tugging the lever down made the machine run even faster.

"You bloody idiot! We're all going to go into the machine," squawked the second Visor, the slightly smaller of the two. Sure enough, the intense power of the spinning, churning, writhing, metal contraption was dragging them all across the slippery floor. Mark started to swear under his breath again, and kicking, managed to get his arms and one leg free. "I don't think so, you're coming with us."

The second Visor grabbed Mark's ankle and dragged him back. Mark whimpered, pulled himself away from the clones again, slipped on the laminated flooring and slithered into the path of the machine.

Then there was a large explosion.

*

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, NO!!" The writer put her head in her hands and screamed. On her stereo, The Sword Of Damocles blasted. "What happens next?" The writer demanded of Rocky and the cat, Fluffy. "What happens after the large explosion? Tell me!" She snaps her fingers with sudden inspiration. "Perhaps I could leave it there...? No, that would never work. Why am I talking to myself?"

*

Mark was aware of a blinding flash of light and a familiar surge of music. Suddenly he found himself in a red and cream painted room with a dark floor, too stained to tell what colour it had been originally, and tasteful mahogany furnishings. He felt instant recognition, and looked round to see the writer perched behind her desk, listening to the Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack, with a glass of some alcoholic concoction in her hand. She was chewing a pen. "Hello, Mark," she said gaily and turned the music down a little. Meatloaf quieted down a fraction.

"Oh, God. Why have you brought me here?"

The writer grinned. "Why not?" she giggled. "Actually, I'm terribly sorry about this, I'm a little drunk. Mark, I think we should have a little chat. I've always felt that you're not a particularly strong character, and with Gwendolyn gone and starring in her own story for a year, I don't think you've got what it takes to carry your own story."

Mark opened his mouth, but the writer held a finger up to silence him. "Shhh. I like this bit... now then, where were we? Ah yes. Now look, I'm terribly sorry, I know I could give you a new sidekick until Gwendolyn comes back, but I just don't think I have the mental resources for that right now, so... I'm going to have to let you go. Awfully sorry. I really, really am."

"Oh. Gosh. I always thought you liked me."

The writer stood up, put the wine glass down on a pile of books. "Of course I liked you but... you and Gwendolyn were a package, and... this is a hard thing to say to anyone, and it's a worse thing to say to character you created and nurtured and loved and I'd cry if I had any tears left, I really would..." Mark just had time to register that the writer was singing these words vaguely to the tune of 'Eddie's Teddy' when his right hand decided to slap her, without any prior discussion with his brain or any other part of his body. It was rather satisfying to hear the sharp thwack of skin on skin.

"Stop it!" he shouted.

The writer clapped a hand to her injured cheek and raised her index finger accusingly. "I created you! You can't slap me. That's not fair. You can't develop your own sentient character now, there's no point."

"You just sacked me!"

"Yes, I did. Sorry. I really am." She paused, nibbling on her lip, eyes downcast. "I think you'd better go now, don't you?"

The writer watched as Mark flounced out of the room. Her mouth opened slightly as she noticed a glimpse of a spangly stocking below the leg of his jeans. Seconds later she was alone again, or as alone as she could ever be considering what was going on in her head. She took a sip of her cocktail and sat down at the keyboard again, gazed into its murky depths.

*

(Ten Months Later)

Gwendolyn walked up to the doors of the Red China Institute, a suitcase in each hand, butterflies in her stomach at being back. It had been so long, so long living in a normal life, with a normal job in a shop, or in her case, Starlight, a rival secret agency who owed her a few favours. She put a hand on the doors as she entered, closed her eyes as she soaked in the ancient and timeless atmosphere of the place. She place the suitcases on the floor just inside the hall and took a final look at the outside world, at the blue sky and the wheeling, screeching birds.

She knocked on Amish Benzal's door before she even headed to her quarters. He had sent her a note a few days before, requesting that she drop in on him before she did anything else when she returned.

"Ah, Gwendolyn... how are you...?"

She smiled. It was nice to be back. Amish's ellipses danced around her like strange pixies. "I'm very well , thank you. It's nice to be back."

Amish Benzal steepled his hands together and regarded her.

"What's the matter?"

"I think you should sit down, Gwendolyn... How is the outside?"

Gwendolyn sat down, her heart thumping. She was suddenly aware that she had started to sweat, coldly and sickly through her thin t-shirt. "Very fresh, sir."

"Good... And I hope, after this, we won't have to suspend you again. Next time it's likely to be permanant..."

"Yes, I know."

Amish watched her. Gwendolyn smiled reasurringly. Her boss raised an eyebrow. "Coffee?"

Gwendolyn nodded. She folded her hands in her lap, and wondered what he could have to tell her, as Amish picked out two mugs from the cupboard under his desk and filled them both with coffee, handing her a little jug of milk and a some sachets of sugar.

"Gwendolyn... there is something I have to tell you, I'm afraid..."

"Ok."

"Mark's gone."

Gwendolyn stared up at her boss, unaware she was dribbling half swallowed coffee all over herself. "Gone?! What do you mean 'gone'?"

Amish sighed and looked aorund his office as if for inspiration. "He's... been recalled by the writer. She obviously wasn't happy with his performance without you... so she has retired him."

"Retired??!" Gwendolyn jumped to her feet, knocking the coffee all over herself, Amish, and Amish's desk. "Retired? I'll retire her!"

Her boss reached for her hand across the desk to try and calm her down. "No, you won't. You'll only get yourself into worse trouble and if she decides to get rid of you as well... well... you're a straong character. Red China needs you."

Gwendolyn picked up her suitcases, and turned to march out of the door, licking coffee off her chin. "Bollokolls to Red China," she said.

"Where are you going...?"

"I am going to get my partner back. Although I might unpack first. Do I still have the same room?"

Amish nodded and fished in his special drawer of lost and useless things for the key.

"Come on. I haven't got all day. I want to pick my suitcases back up and flounce out of the room before I lose the moment." Gwendolyn sat back down while she waited and poured herself another cup of coffee.

Finally, Amish came up with the goods and tossed her the key. Gwendolyn jumped back up out of the chait, spilt the second cup of coffee all over herself, picked up her suitcases and flounced out of the room, tripping over a set of unused ellipses as she went, cursing (Gwendolyn, not the ellipses).

*

"Hello! I'm Gwendolyn. I'm the girl who got suspended for hitting Colonel Calthorpe over the head with a bottle of scotch, well, it didn't actually have scotch in it at the time, but it was the thought that counted, I suppose. Hi!" Gwendolyn sat herself down in the red plastic chair in front of the Compatability assessors ebony desk. The compatibility officer looked at Gwendolyn as though she was afraid the girl might suddenly sprout tentacles and throttle her with them.

"Yes? Can I help you at all?" asked a small orange penguin, a glove puppet.

Gwendolyn grinned and bent slightly in order to address the glove puppet. "Actually, I am here to look for a new partner. My last one was recalled by the writer, you see." She wondered if she could make her grin any wider.

The officer stared at her impassively, while the glove puppet continued in a squeaky, castrato esque voice. "What sort of thing were you looking for?" The officer reached under her desk with her free hand and brought out a folder, which she flipped open at random to reveal mugshots of various RCI agents, complete with profiles and histories and CVs.

"Erm..." Gwendolyn looked at the folder, suddenly caught out. She had no idea you could just pick a partner. She and Mark had been saddled otgther for five years, completely by accident to begin with, but they had grown on one another. She frowned as she perused the file. "Does no one in this place have a computer? I can't help but thin it would be a lot easier to do all the admin if you had some. And it would take up less space."

The compatibilty officer stared at her as though she had just vomited up a purple unicorn upon the floor. Gwendolyn forced another smile out of her straining face, and decided to shut up.

"Have you found anythin you like the look of?"

Gwendolyn glanced down at the folder in her lap. "No. I've never had to choose a partner before. To be honestm it will only be a only a temporary measure while I get my old one back - I night need some help, so I wondered if you could find me one."

The penguin clapped it's hands togethr happily. "I've got an idea. Why don't you tell me what sort of qualities you're looking or in a potential partner, and I'll have a look throught the files and let you kniw if I can find anything to match?"

"Ok." Gwendolyn sat there for a moment while the penguin gloce puppet looked at her expectantly with its little beady black eyes. "ould I have a piece of paper please? And a pen?"

"Of course," said the glove puppet. The offier grunted as she betn down again and thrust a handful of used envelopes at Gwendolyn, along with a chewed biro. Gwendolyn smiled her thanks and iwiped the saliva and a few odd specks of blue fluff from the pen.

Tapping the pen gently against her left arm (she struggled to resist the urge to start chewing on the pen herself), gwendolyn pondered exatly what attributes she was looking for in a partner. Well, she had to be clevr, know her own mind, be able to give someone a mouthful if needed, be well versed in an obscure and preferably dead language, be able to hit someone over the ehad with a plank of wood. What else? She had to be able to hold her drink, sleep with anyone she fancied on a whim after getting them drunk, able to foil dastardly plans in a variety of interesting and amusing ways, and be able to line dance.

Anything else? Gwendolyn nibbled on the end of the pen ansently. It might be nice if she had had a hard life, series of dodgy boyfriends, possible miscarriage or similer baggage, alcohol problem to give her character a bit og an edge. She loked up. The compatibility officer was pretending to type a letter with one hand, but actually watching her as she went about compiling her list.

"I think I've done..." Gwendolyn hesitated, and then held out her little hseaf of papers. The officer (or rather her glove puppet would) would probably laugh at her when she saw the list of atributes. The officer snatched it from her, as the puppet stared at her with the beady eyes, seeming as though it was snickering at her. The Officer stood up and went into the adjoining room.

"Wait here! I will be a few moments," the glove puppet squawked as the woman wobbled through the door, leaving Gwendolyn to marvel at her outfi, which consisted ofa garish orange dress, pourple tights and a darker orange belt, as well as black four inch heels with bows on the toes. She was just getting onto wondering if the compatibilty officer was actualyl a man when she (he?) returned, cluctching a sheaf of notes and a small folder. She spilled htese onto the table and Gwendolyn looked at them for a moment, not daring to look inside.

"There you go, according to the records and my consultation staff, that's your perfect match. A young woman, recently come onto the singles books, lost her business partyner to a curious accident. twenty five, very bright. You'll like her."

Gwendolyn glanced at the officer, then cautiously lifted the corner of the folder.

"Excuse me. I thin there may have some mistake..."

"No. No mistake. I don't make mistakes."

Gwendolyn sat back in her seat, a relieved and incredulous smile, one of the few genuine ones she had smiled all day, spread across her face. "This can't be right. You've... this is me. You've chosen my file."

The compatibility officer looked stunned, her flabby face turning into a pout, while the glove puppet gesticulated wildly, stubby arms waving in the air. "Well... that wouldn't be too bad, wouyld it? Surely? I mean, if that's what you wrote, and that's who your ideal working partnership would be with, I don't see what is wrong with it. You'd ger on very well>"

"It's me! I can't go and save the world with myself. Surely its against the rules or something. You know, my terms of employment and that kind of thing."

"What about having a custom build Mary Sue made?"

"No!" Gwendolyn slumped back in the chair, even through she couldn;t actually recall ahving got out of it, and massaged her temples. "Are there any other compatibility officers?"

"Only me."

"I suppose that explains why you're a globally recognised and respected department." She looked round the office in despiar. "Alright. If I make out another set of requirements, would you go and find me a partner who isn't me? Similar to the one i already did, but, you know, not me."

The glove puppet shurhhedm which Gwendolyn decided signified acceptance. She pulled a few more bits of scrap paper to her and began to write.

"What about these?" She asked, pushing the scraps of paper to the officer a few minutes later.

The officer squinted at them for a minute, scrunching up her nose. "Perfect," the glove puppet squeaked, "I know just the person."

*

Half an hour later, Gwendloyn wandered down a corridor in the vast depths of the RCI building. This was the campus on the other side to the one she lived in. This dingy white grey hallway was the home of the Robotics and Inventions unit, the area of Red China that dealt with robot aliens and mad scientists. Someone had writen grafitti on the wall - blurred and fuzzy, Gwendolyn could make out words like 'vampire' and 'robot' and blood bath fest' and 'Mars'. A poem on the wall, a quote from an old film. Gwendolyn stopped and looked at the sheet of paper in her hand, illuminated by the shadowy half light of the dirty bulb on the ceiling.

'Farne - flat 22T, R & I. Bring chips'

Gwendolyn knocked.

A short girl, slightly plmump, but still on the right side of being fat, yanked the door open. "Yeah?"

"Hello. I'm Gwendolyn. You're Farne, right?"

Farne blinked, lookedd own at the piece of paper Gwendolyn held in her hand. "Are you one of Verdigris's lot?"

"Verdigris? No. I'm here about the job."

Farne blinked again. She seemed to do that a lot, and gwendolyn was surprised to find that it was rather reassuring. "Oh... you must mean the partnership?"

Gwendolyn nodded.

"Oh.. come in, please. Cup of tea, glass of wine. Vodka? Oh dear, I'm in a hell of a mess. I was boired out of my skull so I was going to sit down and read shakespeare in my jammies..." Farne flew around the room, picing up books and peculiar bits of metal, and cat toys. "Oh, gosh, all Verdigris mess. He can't clean p after himself you know. No fingersd, if you kow what I mean."

Gwendolyn sat down on a cat haired sofa, which she dthought might be beige if only someone would take the time to brush it. Funny, Farne didn't strike her as a cat person. More the sort of person who would buy a cat because of it's adorable little face and big baby eyes, then forget to change its little tray and have the cat walk out in disgust five months later.

"Would you like me to come back later?"

Don't be daft!" Farne had open a bottle of Vodka, and was ferreting around trying to find glasses.

Gwendolyn coughed, in what she hoped was a polite way. "Um... I think I@d prefer a cup of tea. I'm not supposed to drink in the institute. I've been to court."

"Really?" Farne was staring at er, eyes wide and shining with delight. "You've got a drink problem? How... urbane."

"Cheers..." Gwendolyn glanced round the room, dirty white walls and gunge in the corner. "So, what happened to you? Why are you on your own?"

Farne perched on the sofa beside her, and shrugged, her slim pale face contorting as she thought ut her words. "I left my old partner. She was Canadian," Farne said, as if that explained everything. "I just thought, you know, time for a change, time to get out there. I want to get out of this stupid department... what do you do excatly?"

Gwendolyn was jerked out of her comtemplation. She had been hapily listening to Farne's monologue when the girl sudden;y stopped. "Oh... I specialise in Temporal Distortions, people fiddling with timelines, that kind of thing, changing things that have already happened."

"DOn't you have an admin team for all that. The ones that keep all the universes in check and all?"

"Yes... but the're only management. I'm a field agaient..." she trailed off. "Ot I was. I've lost my partner, so I've gone kind of freelance now."

Farne tried to follow Gwendolyn gaze, but whereFarne's point of view ended at the wall, Gwendolyn's travelled, onto a better time and place, where ashe wasn't in this silly mess, before the writer took ark away from her. "What happened?"

Gwendoyn explained, about Mark being retired byt he writer, and about her trial and about the mission she never got to finsih, leaving Mark on hsi own. After she'd finsihed, she said, "Well? Thee story of Gwendolyn Carvetti, what do you think?"

"I'm in. It'll be fun."

The two girls shook hands. Farne was grinning again, reminding Gwendolyn faintly of a laborador that had been let off it's leash and allowed to run around a beach, sticking its nose into filth and wagging it's whole body along with tis tail. "So... how do we go about getting your friend back then/"

"Well, that's the thing..."

*

The writer was dancing around in her study, waving a purple scarf around her head like a feater boa, twirling her arms and kickig her legs in the air like a jeans clad can-can dancer.


Presently she sat down at her keyboard and began to write. The story had been niggling at her for a few hoursa, but she had ignored its plaintative voice in order to go out to the shops and buy a new album, and also to have a glass of wine while she waited for te muse to really strike her.

*

It was winter, probably even Christmas. At the very leastm, it was just befoe or just after Christmas. He walked through the nineteenth century streets, young boys hawking apples, snow falling, ladies rushing to and fro in long skirts and bustles.

He stucj his hands in his pockets and began to trot through the white powdered streets. He went briskly, and he didn';t feel the cold.

There was sudden;y a big sigh from somewhere in the sky, a painted blue with cloluds drifting lazily, a winter sun bleeding through the blue lik emilky egg yolk. A voice muttered something, a voice that seemed to echo through the world. The man in the overcoat looked up, hands still in his pockets.

"Oh, this isn't working at all... it's bloody dreadful. I don't even know what I'm trying to do here..." The voice seemed to some nowhere and yet everyhere at once, a 7rich and warm, reassuring voice. "Look, I'm sorry.... you're an interestign character. I'll keep a record of you and get in touch, ok?"

With tthat the sky closed over the voice, and the man in the overcoat went along on his way, only to be swallowed up by the growing blackness.

Somewhere....

*

"So, how is this going to work then?" Ebveryone looked around, but looked downat the sound of a polite cough.

Gwendolyn looked down at the cat. "I don't know. Sorry."

Verdigris took a pause to link his right paw, and then glanced up at Amish. "Well? This portal thing is your babu, tell me how it works."

Amish looked uncomfortable. "It's a... Literary Transportation and Sympathetic manipulation device. To activate it, you need to attune to the writers thought s and what the writer is writing or thinking about at this actualy moment, and then you're personalities will be able to bleed through into her stories, causing you to actually be there, but she won;t notice you and you won't be part of the plot unless tou make yourselves known."

In response to the blank looks, he conyinued, "You won't be noticed by either the reador or the writer unless you draw attention to yourself. You probably will have to draw attention to yourselves in order ti investigate and find Mark, but hopefully the writer will think she's just writing a story of her own imaging, and she won't realise that we are manipulating her." Amish smiled and looked aorund the room, hopefully, at the three bemused faces.

Verdigris flicked his whiskers. "Great. Did anyone else understand that?"

"I think so." Gwendolyn was looking at the machine - not really a machine, just a small red leather bound book. "I don't get how you built it, or how it works, but I think I understand what it's supposed to be able to do..." She glanced up at Amish, her eyes narrowed slightly. "How the devil did you build it, if you dont mind me asking?"

A secret smile, faintly shilling, lit up Amish Benzal's face. "Now that would be telling, wouldn't it? I'll just say it's based on a type of interdimentional warping."

"WHo tought you to do that? I had no idea that humans had that kind of technology." She looked around at FArne and Verdigris. "What? I'm not hman - I have no shame... I just don't like people saying that I'm not."

Verdigris yawned. "So? I don't care. One allien, one human and one cat - formidable super hero crime fighting team, or what?"

Gwendolyn turned back to Amish. "Hang on. If you... you're not human?"

Again, that small smile lit up her boss's face. "Nope."

"Bloody hell, you got any other little secrets taht you decided not to tell me, I mean, being my supervisor and all, I think it would only be fair."

Amish was silent, appeareing to think. "Can't think of anything, or at least, nothing that can be revealed at this point in the story."

"So... how alien are you, exactly?"

"Mostly." They all waited for him to say something more, but he didn't, just stood there, seeming to challange them with his deep purple glinting eyes, which Gwendolyn had always thought were a bit odd.

It was Verdigris who broke the silence. "Ok... are we going to get on wtih this or what? I hope no one is thinking about opbulishing this drivel, because it's taken us sixteen pages to get tot hsi point in the non story and if it goes on for much longer, I'm in serious danger of dying of old age before the end. I'm a cat you know. I mean, I have various non feline qualities, like being able to talk, bt I'm still only going to live to be about twenty. Can we get n a bit, please?"

Amish picked up the book. "Of course." He held the red book out to Gwendolyn first, who took it after a seconds hesitation. "What's it going to feel like?"

"Probably lik ea transdimensial cellular shift."

"Ok. Great. So, I bit like travelling in time without the machine aspect of the phrase 'Time Machine'?"

"Yeah."

Farne and Verdigris looked at each other, their near identical green eyes sparkling with fear. Gwendolyn smiled at them. "It's fine. It's just a bit of... shock."

"I wish you'd mentioned this bloody book before I agreed to come with you," said Farne.

"That's not how it works. You're not supposed to know what's going to happen before you embark on your fantastic adventure. If people knew about how awful things can get do you really think Bigwig would have bothered? Or Captain Scarlet? Or that bird out of King Kong?"

Farne shrugged, but it seemed she couldn't take her eyes from the little red bound book. "Well..."

Gwendolyn held it at arms legnth. "Activate it, would you? I can't bear the suspense."

"In a moment. There's just one more thing you will need..." Amish went back to his desk drawers and rooted aorund a bit, evebtually digging out a small device that looke very like a mibile phone, mainly because that's what it was. "Here - it's a-"

"Transdimensioanl communications device?" asked Gwendolyn.

"How did you know? When you've got to whereever your're going, give us a call - I've set my office extension to number one on the speed dial. Let us know where you are, if it's somewhere really awful I can call you back and we'll try again in a few mintues."

"Ruight." Gwendolyn licked her lips nervously, vaguely wished she had tken up smoking before she came out. "Where am I going?"

"The writer's' mind. You'll be taking a trip to whatever fictional world is buddling away inside her rotten little head at this very moment, which is why it could change in a matter of minutes." Amish smiled and laid a hand on her arm, squeezing gently. "God help you."

Gwendolyn smiled back, and was surprised to feel a tear springing into her eye. "Thanks. Go on then. Do it, before we all lse the nerve."

*

The writer stripped off the cardigen, and moaned slightly. She stared at the black type on the screen of her computer as she folded her legs underneath her and flexed her fingers in what she hoped was a busy looking manner. Uninspired, she gazed artound her red draped rom, pulled the curtainms back a little more, and considered changing the view outside her window to one of a post Victorian bohemian France instead of the image of modern streets, complete with people scurrying to and fro, intent on various menial tasks.

She pondered the white screen again, and wondered if it might be worthwhile having another break for three hours, tahn having a cup of tea, followed by a further three hour break before sitting down to write anything. But there was something in her head that wouldn't budge.

Sighing, she turned the music on, had a short pause to dance rather frantically for a few minutes, and then plonked back down in her, exhuasted and with her fingers twitching.

*

The light was dim as Gwendolyn opened her eyes. "Oh..." she started as she picked herself up, and then decided that it might not be a good idea to start talking to herself out loud in a dark house. A dark and silent house. She sat up and looked around. The room was dark, lit by candlelight, but she could make out the grey rain filled light filtering in through the grimy bluish curtains and there were lamps and a sofa and what looked like abr alonf one wall of the room. She wanted to say 'Oh, shit' but she bit her lip, and instead reache for the communicator Amish had given her.

"Amish? You there mate?" Her head pounded with the words.

"Don't mate me, Carvetti. Where are you?"

Gwendolyn glance about her agin, not sure what to say. "It ;looks like an old house. It's raining. It doesn't seem too scary."

She heard a sig on the other end of the line, and Verdigris and Farne talking to each other. "Don't underestimate the writer, Gwendlyn. Have you seen anyting living?"

"Not unless you cound the spiders, no." There was something teasingly familiar about the room and the house, though, and it wasn't good. She felt as if she had visited it in a dream, or somewhere she had lived in a previous existance. There was no sound though, no people that she could hear, She stepped ot the window, and saw how bog the house really was through the marks on the window and the swishing rain. There were some lights on, but they too were dim and there was no movement or shadows behind them that indicated life. In a house this big, who ould tell?

Amish coughed. "Can I send the othetr two through?"

"Yes. I thikn we'll be alright. If it gets too bad, I expect there will be a portal somewhere around here, so we can slip into story."

That was the good thing about fiction. Gwendolyn had never worked in the literary department before, but she had an ida f the basics. Every story was somehow connected to another staory, eiither by the same writer, or another. Most pieces of fiction had more than one link. Just looking at the house, Gwendolyn could see portals to two of the writers previous stories, and two or three stories by other people that were similar in some way to this one. "The butler in the ballroom with the dagger...." she muttered

"Sorry?"

Gwendolyn laughed. "Sorry, Amish. This place... it looks like the Cluedo house."

"That's probably not a good thing. Hundreds of stories branching off from that one idea, and non of them particularly good."

"I don't thnink we're going to get anywhere nicer. I've been living inside this woman's head for a lot longer than you havem, Amish, and she can come up with some mighty hundingers, I can tell you."

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "She knows you're there, Gwendolyn."

"I know." Gwendolyn knew an attempted character shift when she felt one.

"Up to you. I can recall you, or I can send these guys over. If I send them over, you will be on your own. I won't be able to generate enough power to een talk to you."

It was just an empty house, but it had the potentaill to be so much more. And who had taken the tme to light all these candles?

"Ask them. If they don't want to come through, I@ll come back and we'll try again later."

She heard a brieh spate of mumbleing, while Amish spoek to her two companions. She heard Farne's slightly annoying, high pitched voice rise in what sounded like an affirmative, and a second later a shimmering figure apperae din the room beside her, n top of the pool table.

"What kind o moran wastes money on candles when he has perfectly good lamps?" asked Verdigris. He looked around the room before falling over and being violently sick on the green fabric.

Gwendolyn came over and stroked his fur while he was coughing out the rest of the mucus spittle. "Oh, god... Verdigris. I should have warned you better. You've never done a moleucasr transfer before have you?"

"Have I bollocks! I'm from the streets of Nottingham. Bloody hell."

She smiled. "You get used to it."

"I bloody won't. If I have to do this agian, I'm going to die. On purpose. And stop fondling my tai, you pervert!"

Gwendol;yn abrubtly let go. "The portals are better. The more similar a story is to another one, apparebtly the easiler it is to shift between them. This world is probably nearly as far from our world as we can get, which is why Amish found it so hard to get us into the writers mmind."

"Frigging jargon..."

At that moment, Farne arrived. She seemd to take the trip a lot better than Verdigris had, and even better than Gwendolyn did. She arrived standing up, at least, and clung to a lifesize suit of armour, her eyes closed whle she gto her breath back. Gwendolyn scowled.

At last Farne opened her eyes. "Wow.. my great granded used to live in a house like this. He was one of the manservants."

"Really," said Gwendolyn, rhetorically.

"Yeah. Til he got shot for trying to usurp the mastr of the house and murdered several of the guests at a dnner partu." Both of Farne's companions gave her a withering look.

"Let's not talk about that now. I'm just expecting Tim Curry to waltz into the rom in a pair of suspenders in a minute," said Verdigris, tail twitching.

"Don't tempt her," replied Gwendolyn. She picked up a small metal figurein from on top of one of the bookcases. It was some kind of angel with devils horns and a tail. It also appeared to be either naked, or wearing a skin tight garment that was very inapproprate for an angel.

Suddenly the grandfather clock in the corner of the room chimed and they all scrreamed, the cat jumping a full metre in the air andf fleeing behind Farne in terror.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

And nothing else happened.

When they had all got their breath back, Gwendloyn sprang to the door, heavily wooden and silky to the touch, and pulle dit open. "Come on! I'm not going to let this house freak me out. Let's go and do some exploring."

"I knew it would come to this. I'll give her exploring, I'll explore her leg with my claws. That'll teach her to go knocking around an old house in the middle of the night." Verdigris, nontheless, trotted aftern her, eaving Farne to glance warily at the grandfather clock, and eventually follow the other two out of the room.

They found themselves face to face with a large and ornate staircase, carpeted with some rich and brightly coloured material that had now faded into a shadow if its former glory. Verdigris bounded up the stairs, crouching down as he neared the top and peering over into the blackness of th landing beyond. Nothing. Not even a quickly moving shadow flitting into darker shadows. Not even a figure at the end of the corridor, staring at him intedntly and beconing him forward. He looked down at the dim and nrvous looking faces below him. "It's ok."

The woman came up the starirs together, Gwednolyn probably a footstep ahead of Farne, who dropped down beside her cat and peered through the bannisters.

"What are you doing?" asked Gwendolyn. "If this place is empty, I propse we should go back down to the bar and get smashed." She ignored the looks the cat and Farne gave her and pushed open the nearest door, shutting it again a second later with a squeal and pressing herself against it as if to keep it shut. "Oh my!"

"What is it?" asked Farne.

"You don't want t know."

"Is it anything to do with I said earlier?" asked Verdigris.

"Not exactly, no..." Gwendolyn eased away from the door, expecting it to burst oen aagin at any moment.

Farne went up to the nearest door on the other side of the stairs - the mirror opposite of the one Gwendolyn had opened. She stood with her hand on the doorknob, while Verdigris and Gwendolyn crept up behind her.

Farne opened the door to the same near complete darkness. She could make something out in the shadows - something like a piilar.

A voice said. "Come inside." It was a gentle and educated voice that seemed to come from nowhere. There was a rustle from deep inside the room and Farne slammed the door shut before the kind and seductive voice coudl tempt her.

"I think our next step is to find a potal and get out of here."

"Not so fast."

"Oh, for heavens sake..." said Gwendolyn, rolling her eyes skywards.

The speaker was a female butler, holding a gun at arms length. She had blonde hair piled into a bun at the back of her head, a skirt that was just below her knees, and was dressed like a cross between a maid and a butlers, with a sort of black fitted jacket and a wiastcoat. She didn't look mad, or obscene, or particularly murderous. But Gwendolyn found she couldn't take her eyes off the gun. "Who are you?" asked the butler-maid. Her voice was trembling, and although she had her head held back in a look of defiance, her blue eyes were wide with fear.

Gwendolyn stepped forward, arms held out to signify that she wasn't athreat. "I'm sorry. We're travellers. We found ourselves in your house by accident. It's quite alright, we are going to go in a minute. There's no need to take us to see the master of the house, absolutely no need."

The butler wavered. "There isn't one. Not any more."

"What happened to him? Or do we want to know?" piped up Verdigris.

The butler looked surprised, and stared at the cat. "He's dead. I had to shoot him. Something is happening in this house. You are right... if you can't help me, you should go." She looked beyond them, at the door they had jjust opened. "Have you opened any of the doors?"

"One or two," said Farne.

The butler instantly went pale. "They will be restless. The raven will want feeding. And did you disturb... them?"

Gwendolyn knew who she meant. Those creatures behind the first door she had opened. "Yes. Sorry."

The butler's gun hand wavered. "I have to look after them all," she said. "Since it happened, I've worked so hard to subdue these poor... things, give them each their own part of the house. I try to keep it all under control, but it's so hard. And people are attreacted to this house, and when they come, they find their way into the arms or the claws and they die, and I'm only one person." She sat down heavily in a chair, and Farne went to comfort her, which was instantly a mistake, becasue a second later the gun was trained at her face, and the butler was gripping her arm fiercely.

"Help me. The three of you, together we can patril this house and keep people safe we can have our own parts of the house. Work shifts. Don't you see? We can make it work!" Her eyes her shinging with a horrid, tired feverishness. Farne stoodd still, not daring to struggle.

Gwendolyn moved forward, and the butler's death grip on Farne's arm tightned. "Don't."

"I won't. I want to help you. Tell us what happened."

"The history of this house is too much to tell. But if you stay, and you will stay, we can mend it... make them better, or at least help them and keep them here so they can't spread their horror into the world."

"They?"

The butler laughed. It was a bitter and hollow sound. "All kinds of they. Those two doors hold the first of many secrets." Gwendolyn kept looking at the gun, thinking that the burlet's grip on it was tenuous enough. If only her concentration woul waver for a few seconds it would give her chance to snatch it and allow them all to run. Probably the woman had another gun shoved up the back of her tights. It sounded a likely scenario.

"Alright, Evangeline. That's enough." Gwendolyn's nerves were so strung out at the sound that she creamed, clapping her hand to her mouth to stop it. The gun went off and Farne screamed too, while Verdigris shot back down the staircase, only to run back up again, mewling in fright, with a large dog at his heels, red eyes rolling in its head. Farne, Gwendolyn and Verdigris huddled togeher, peering to the end of the hall to where the strangers black shadow could just be seen. The butler had fainted at the sound of her gun, whioch she had probably nevcer fired befor ein her life.

The stranger stepped out into the candlelight near the stairs. "Poor Evangeline." He looked down at the slumped figure temderly. "You couldn't help me carry her back to her room, could you? They have a habit of getting out."

"Who the hell are you?" spat Gwendolyn. The new arrival raised one eyebrow and flicked a fleck of spittle from his leather jacket.

"Calm down. I haven't got a gun, I'm speaking nice and quietly, and I'm not wearing tights, or suspenders." At the final words, he looked at Verdigris, who pushed himslef further into the gap behind Gwendolyn's legs and the wall.

"Tell me who you are, first. Then we'll see."

The man sighed. "Very well. My name is Charlie Smith. I'm a reasuring and knowledgeable gestalt figure."

"Charlie Smith?" Farne queried.

"It's not my real name, of course. I dont' have a real name. But it's nice and reasuring, don't you think?" He stepped forward, and they all shrank in fear. Charlie bent down to take the butler's pulse. Then he bent down to retrive the gun, and held it out to Farne. "There you go. You can shoot me if I try any funny business. Now you, what's your name?"

"Gwendolyn."

"Gwendolyn. Charming. Would you be so kind as to helo me carry Miss Redding back to her room, and then I suggest we have a little dinner and a chat. And on't talk to any of the other.. guests."

*

Half an hour later, the four of them were seated at a grand wooden dinner table, spread with white napkins and two sets of cutlery per person, ornate wine glasse son the table. Gwendolyn had refused any foor, and Farne had followed suitm but Verdigris was tiucking happily into a chicken leg and purring his pleasure. Their host nibbled on a chicken sandwch, and watched the three guests warily. Three of the wine glasses wee full of a sweet white wine, that Gwendolyn had chosen at the back of the cupboard and then opened herself, after wshing her and Farne's glasses.

She took a sip of the wine and stared at Charlie equally warily. "Ok. Tell us. What has happened here? Why are you here?"

Charlie sipped his wine while he thought, and then stroked hs dark stibble reflectively. He had taken the jakcet off to reveal a pair of suit trousers and a plain black shirt. "I'll start with me, I suppose I'm the guardian. The guardien of this house, and the things in it. That oart of what Miss Redding said was true. There are creatures from many different stories living in this house, and it's my job to keep them all in order."

Gqwednolyn looked at her wine glass, at the colours, crystallised pale yellow and green. "These creatures... are they just the writers creations, or characters from other stories?"

"Both. Miss Redding belongs to the writer, the Raven is Mr Poe's character What you saw is a bit of the writers and a bt of someone else. There are three spaceships in the basement, all from different planets, adn currently there are five murder mysteries taking place in this same house, just different parts. It is also haunted by a variety of different ghosts, and approximatey four peope are going mad, beleiveing themselves to be alone in this house and in the univers."

"Sounds like fun," asid Farne.

Charlie smiled.

Gwendolyn poured herself more wine, offering it around the table. Farne shook her head, and Charlie held a hand up to demur politely. "And what does that make you?"

"I told you what I am. I'd quite liek to know how you cae to be here. I've got every creature in this house catalogued, eveen the abstracts things that don't really exist. How did you arrive? I should have alarms warning me when there is an intruder."

Farne and Gwendolyn looked at each other before Gwendolyn spoke. "We come from another universe. One created byt he writer, but different from yours." However, that wasn't quite true. Things were similar. Charlie himself looked like Tiayln, a man she used to know before she and Mark returned to Earth and settled into their life at Red China. Charlie spoke like someone else, someone equally familiar, although she couldn't place him, but he looked like the man who genetically her second father. She wondered if there another version of herself in this dreadful huse, some hussy with black hair and vampire teeth, or a frightened little girl being hunted by a demon. And Mark... perhpas Mark was here too, in this other universe.

"We're lookingf for a friend of mine. He was retired by the writer because of his chacter. This house is the first place we came to from our own world."

Charlie pushed away his plate and steepled his fingers together. "I see." He paused, as though about to say something more, but then sank down into thought.

The door burst open. A young woman, naked, with her dark hair billwing out behind her, was screaming as she tore through the dining room. She was followed by a snarling hump backed man with cropped and bleached hair, salivering and apparently wearing a purple dress.

Charlie rolled his eyes and smiled faintly. "Sorry. Excuse me," he said with a nod. He opened the door at the other end of the dining room, allowing the woman to slip through. "That way, up the stairs," he said, pointing.

"Thanks," the woman gasped before running through the door. Immediately Charlie shut it and draw a bottle of perfume from the table near the door, which he sprayed in the creatures face. It stopped, sniffed the air, wrinkled it's nose, and burst into tears. Charlie csnapped his fingers.

Farne screamed as the chandelier cam crashing down on top of the hump back man.

Gwendolyn leapt up. "What-"

"Every night. Every night he trie to kill her." Charlie pulled the remains of the chandeliar off the vcreatures body, and together, he and Gwendolyn dragged the body out of the room and throught the door he had run through.

Charlie dusted his hands. "Now, I think you had better go befor one of you gets killed."

"What about you?" asked Farne.

"I belong here. My story is here, with them."

Gwendolyn touched his hand briefly with hers. "I'm sorry."

Charlie smiled at her, and Farne didn't like the look of tenderness that passed between them.

"Smith!?"

Charlie started at the voice, his composure gone. He shrugged off his sudden fear and drew himslef. "Yes?"

"I need you up here. Bring your new... friends. I have plans for them."

"No, I'm sorry, Gwendolyn," he said, as he picked up the gun that still ay on the dinner tabel where Farne had left it.

She sighed and walked through the door as soon as he gestured to it, indicating that Farne was to follow her. Verdigris left his chicken bone and went to follow them, but she shook her head slightly, and the cat stayed where he was on the table, likcing his chops, and trying to shrug off the bib that Farne had put around his neck while he ate. Then they were gone, leaving the cat alone.

"Are there any nice dark old mansions? This is really clouding my judgement. I mewan, whenever I end up in a lonely old house in the middle of nowhere in the futue, I' going to like 'uh-oh, what going to happen?'"

"I told you, you should have got out of here," muttered Charlie, walking behind them, hte gun poised. His body was clearly being controlled by whatever was upstairs. Probably a maniac with a meat cleaver and groupies.

The door swung open slowly, creaking, as they had both known it would. "Go on in," said Charlie softly.

Gwendolyn went in first. She felt it was her duty to do so. The room was brightly lit and windowless, the light coming from two overhead strips of artificial lighting, bookcases and an old fashioned radio set along the wall. There was a dark green sofa in the middle of the room opposite the bookcases, just in front of a large red curtain that separted the room into two halves.

"Well, aren't these two pretty? And so clever, too. Well done, Charles."

The huge woman propper herself up on one green sequinned clad elbow and gestered for them to sit beside her. "I think I will have the eyes from this one, and the hair from the other. How delicious! Charles, do stop standing there with that gun. You're making me nervous as though you like it to go off. Put it down."

Charlie put the gun in the cupboard, and went to the womans side, looking away from the daggers of hate Gwendolyn was looking at him with. The woman swung her legs off the sofa, and Gwendolyn saw how shapely they were as they poked out from the flimsy green material she had draped herself with. It was quite grotquese, seeing this woman with a quivering and jelly like mound of fat from the top of her head to her wobbling bottom, with the legs of a woman half her size and probably half her age. They were a slightly different colour to the other exposed areas of the woman's flesh, a healthy brown so unlike the sickly pinkish yellow of the rest of her complexion.

Farne tried not to shudder as the woman reached out and stroked at a piece of her long golden hair, shutting her eyes and smiling, probably imagining the same locks being on her own head. She turned to Gwendolyn and looked into her violet eyes. Gwendolyn held her stare, looking into muddy brown, and vaguely cowlike pits, which seemed to glow with an inner fire.

Neither Farne nor Gwendolyn noticed Charlie creeping up behind them.

Gwendolyn got the hypodermic first. Gasping as the needle pierced her arm, but not having time to do anything before the dose hit her and she collosped, her head hitting the soft cushion of the sofa and bouncing off. Farne kicked at Charlie and turned to run.

"No, sweetie. You're staying right here," said the woman, who grabbed her arm while Charlie plunged a fresh hypo into her arm with a flourish, so practised was he at injecting any visitors to the woman's mansino. She was a creature of terror like any other, and it was his job to keep her under control, but she was stronger than the others, and they all rented rooms in her house, nowing that they wer safe and that they would have someone to care for them until the time came to live their story. She could control minds, and could cal people to the mansion when she desired it, and she ha an immortal mind and the desire for a perfect body, and no one lived long enough to run screaming into the night from her house.

Only those who lived there, waiting dormant in the writers mind for their stories to be told, or living out their retirement years in peace after their narrative had taken place. But for Charlie, the butler who could never reveal his true name, whose job it was to be caretaker of the house, and whose likeness was a feature in so many stories, but never him himself.

Charlie carried the limp bodies into the second half of the room, and strapped Farne and Gwendolyn to the metal operating slabs, while the woman busied herself abot getting her equipment together. Quite why Farne needed to be unconcsious just to have her hair cut off was anyone's guess, but knocking people out seemed to be part of the woman's regime and it didn't seem semsible to question her. Not with that gigantic huge sharp knife she had in her hand anyway.

Mirabelle threw the carving knife over her shoulder, and instead seclected a very thin and delicate scapel with which to remove Gwendolyn's eyes. She arraged this, along witha swab and some sterilising fluid, on a little tray next to Gwendolyns slab. "You'll have to put my eyes out for e and slip hers in when I've cut the out," she said. "I won't be able to see." She chuckled. "after that I will put my eyes in the girls head. I'd like them both to see how beautiful they've made me."

"Yes, Mirabelle." He looked down at Gwendolyn and thought of her eyes and the way she had smiled at him. He could still feel the soft pressure of her hand on his. No other girl who had come to this place had done that. None had touched him so deeply inside, and he'd stood by and let them be killed, not that he could have done anything to stop her. But then, none of the other girls had had a cat.

His mistres caught his look. "Oh, dear. We're not getting all sad for the pretty girls are we?" she clucked her tongue and went back about her work, sharp scissors for Farne, morphine for Gwendolyn for when the time came.

She turned on the lamp above Gwendolyns head, then the one baove Frne's. She didn't need the extra light, but Mirabelle liked to get a lcose look at what she was doing. Charlie saw the small shape creeping in the door, a ginger cat intent on keeping himself as low down on the ground as possible. He said nothing He didn't even allow a small, hopeful smile to cross his face. She could make him kill Verdigris if she knew he was there, make him kill the only rthing that stood btween Gwendolyn and disfiguration, possibly even death, if the pain was very great. He imagined his body moving to her command in slitting the cats throat and tossing the body into the corner to be disposed of later, or made into a nice stole for his mistress. He kept silent.

Verdigris had hidden under a table ocvered with a clean white tablecloth, and was crouching therem watching everything. Charlie oculd see the glint of his green eyes. He summoned up enough of his own will to wink at the cat when Mirabells's back was turned, and the cat blinked back, slowly.

"Do you think I'll need the saw?" asked Mirabelle.

"I shouldn't think so, ma'am."

Mirabelle shrugged and turned away from him, putting her hands on her vast hips and surveying her tools. She pulled on a white lab coat over her green dress, and pulled on a pair of bright green rubber gloves. Charlie saw Verdigris shoot out from his hiding place, but didn't say anything. He didn't know where the cat was going, and wondered if he was fleeing.

Mirabelle turned to him. "Don't just stand there! Come along, and hold this one's eyelid's open. So she was going ot do Gwendolyn first. He took the girl's head in his hands.

"Step away from the girl, you bitch." Both Mirabelle and Charlie glanced up in shock as the voice rang out over the tannoy system that was rigged up inside the house. Charlie was stunned because the voice was so similar to his own, his accent. Mirabelle wheeled round, dropping the long thin scapel that she had been holding, and thn wheeled straight back round to fac Charlie, he rmouth open. She pointed at him. "You?"

"No, ma'am."

"No, Ma'am." The voice was echoing him, and a small shadow crossed the room and something jumped up on the table.

"Oh my god!" Farne was awake and stared at the apparition on top of the white table.

It was Verdigris, but he was unrecognisible, in tiny golden spangly coat, wearing small stockings on his feet with suspenders and a doll sized basue. Completeing the outfit was a hat with a feather in it and a b;ack and pink feather boa. As they watched, the cat flung off the golden coat. "Come on then, I'm taking requests. I;m thinking I could doi a few little numbers and then we could all have a nice sing song and an orgy. It would be much nicer than hacking bits off each other, wouldn;t you say?"

Twirling the feather boa around his head, Verdigris started to sing the first thing to come into his head, which, unfortunately was the first thing that came into the writer's head, which unfortunately happened to be 'Wire to Wire' by Razorlight (well, I've namedropped way too many songs from the Rocky Horror Show in this damned thing and it looks like it is started to border on an onsession). Mirabelle steppe closer to him for a better look.

Upon finisheing his song, Verdigris did a little dance along with a high falsetto note and launched himself at the womans fat head. She screamed, as he dug huge red rivlets into her skin with his claws. Mirabelle screamed and flailed under him, but the cat was stronger than she anticipated. "Charles!! Charlie boy, com and save me. Fucking kill the cat!" she roared, grabbing for him with ehr own red manicured claws, but missing every time as he was too quick for her sluggish arms.

Verdigris jumped clear of her, so he could see both irabelle and Charlie clearly. "No you don't, lady. No one is going to kill me." But he looked up to see Charlie advancing towards him with a large meat cleaver in his hand. He looked back at the huge woman on the floor beside him, struggling to get to her feet, and shot inside the front of her vile green dress, stealing himself against the sharp smell of stale body odour as he burrowed about between the thin material and the woman's skin. He could see light in between the threads, and Charlie's hesitating siholete.

"Bastard! Get the little shit of my sodding three thousand dolar dress," howled the mountain of flesh as she bashed at him with her huge hands. He shot out of the other side of the dress, and as Charlie lunged at him with the cleaver, Verdigris ran to Farne's slab and tugged at the strap holding her arm fast. She saw what he was doing and pulled the gun out of his basque, wheere he had been concealing it, and shot Mirabells sveeral times, but at least five and no more than six.

Verdigris wen about freeing his friend, pulling the straps free with his teeth, while they waiti=ed to see f the woman was alive or dead. Charlie was no bother. He was standing in the middle oif the room, holding the cleaver above his head, and seemed to be in a state of shock.

"|Charlie? Are you alright?" shouted Verdigris, while Farne set about removing the starps that held the still unconcsious Gwendolyn to her slab.

Charlie's head twictched, as though he was trying to turn to look at Verdigris. "I don;t know. I think she's dying, and she;s trying to keep a hold of mybody, but it isn't working, and I can't get control either..."

"Then drop the bloody cleaver! Can you do that?"

"Is Gwendolyn alright?"

"She's fine, just drop the bloody cleaver!"

Mirabelle mumbled something through the blood on her lips. Charlie turned around and flung the cleaver at Verdigris. The cat tried to duck. The huge knife struck the sla that Farne had been lying on appeared to bounce off it, but a second latert there was a scream of pain. Mirabelle smiled briefly and her chest ceased to move with her breathing.

"Verdigris! You bastard," Farne put a hand to her cat's head. He was writhing in pain and trying to lick at the jagged stump where his tail had been sveered. "I'll kill you dor this, you bloody tosser, you can help me fix him up. Oh, Verd, it'll be alright. I promise. We'll reattach it." She was sobbing now. Charlie, now back in control of his own body, credpt up to her, and tried to put a hand on her shoulder. "get off me before you kill someone else!"

Charlie was surprised to realise he was crying. "No, Farne," he aid. He put a hand on her shoulder again and swungher round to face him. "We have to do something about that stump before he dies of blood loss." He picked up the hypo again, refilled it with a morphine dose. Verdigris decided to bite his hand while he was injecting him, all the while glowering at him with hateful green glowing eyes before he passed out, too weak and shcoked to even utter onscedntites.

"I;m so sorry." Farne gave him the same look, but helped him as he went about fixing up the cat. It didn't take long, and then Verdigris's tai, or what remained of it, was all bound up and cauterised. "It's lucky it happened here..." said Charlie, trying to make a joke out of it and ailing miserably. Farne took up a potision next to the cat;s bed whil ehe slept off the anesthetic and Charlie went thought the details of what sort of pain medication he might need while the wound healed.

"You seem to know an awful lot about all this."

He couldn't catch her eye. He had helped with too many of Mirabelle's 'operations' for him to count. Legs, face, fingers, skin, nose, all replacements, all the poor doners requiring care after the surgery. "Yeah..."

They sat togeter in silence, Farne watching the cat to make sure he was still breathing. "Why hasn't she woken up yet?" asked Charlie, indicating Gwendolyn.

"She's only part human. No doubt whatever you gave her in that injection has affected her more badly than it did me." She gave him that bitter look of hatred again. Charlie sat on the slab previously occupied by Farne and watched Gwendolyn. She looked peaceful and her body moved gently with her breaths. Regulkar. Heartbeat was regulat too, but really he had just wanted an exse to touch her. Perhpa sshe would never wake up. And maybe that ws a good thing after what he had done.