[Sticks]

This is a 1993 rework of a story I wrote in 1988. Again I did it in episodes. Let me know how this compares with my Mystical Realms Sagas and tails

Return of a Lone Stranger

Chapter 1

The Eastern Ghost town

The dust flew in the air which whistled round the buildings of Holburn Junction, which creaked in the wind. Long empty soft drink and lager cans rolled across the deserted street as the wind blew long discarded litter. As the weather rolled in from the coast in this once prosperous part of town, an odd black headed gull wandered around the rubbish looking in vain for scraps. A second came down to eek out a meagre existence, also in vain. The exhaustion of the fishing grounds due to over fishing and pollution had meant a severe decline in the bird's natural diet. The birds that are left would no doubt be wiped out by the approaching winter. Neither of the two pathetic specimens noticed a figure off in the distance along Holburn street that was approaching on an old clapped out bicycle.

The lone figure, dressed in a dark green anorak, came riding up the street. As he reached the last roundabout before the old town centre, he caught sight of the skyline that was once familiar. He hadn't seen this view for over twenty years. He stopped to look at it just after the roundabout and then he looked to his right, and looked down towards Great Southern Road. Once this road was a great thoroughfare, now it looked liked it hadn't been used for years. He caught sight of one solitary cat as it scampered across the road in the distance. This brought back a memory to this lone cyclist, of a man he once knew in this part of the town, that man had owned a cat, whose name he could no longer recall. They were dead now, murdered the pair of them, except everyone else thought it had been an accident waiting to happen.

A vehicle seemed to approach up from Great Southern Road. The lone cyclist ducked behind the shell of the building that once was considered a local bar. The cyclist gazed as the vehicle that looked like an old car, rose into the air and flew over the houses on the western side of the street. Who ever owned a hover car was either very wealthy or very crooked, usually both. The cyclist watched the craft vanish into the distance; this had been the only other transport he had seen for five days. As he remounted his cycle he looked at the old shops that used to trade here. Boarded up, virtually everyone. Those not boarded were gutted long since by fires, accidental or deliberate he could not tell. All he knew, was that no one cared much any longer.

The two gulls flew up to the top of the deserted church building. Still no food. They then headed out for the coast, then swooped down half way down Union Street on what seemed like a morsel. As the first gull landed, it did not notice the wild cat, which jumped on it, in its own desperate survival in a city that was going out with a whimper.

The lone cyclist tried to peddle up the hill of what was left of Holburn Street. The bicycle was heavy and awkward so the cyclist found himself walking the bike. As he did so, he gazed at all the deserted buildings that littered the street. The town here seemed to have died economically a long time ago and only the empty shells remained as a testimony to man's craving to butcher the landscape with hideous eyesores. They had become rundown with the years of neglect, pollution and unremitting UV that streamed through the occasional hole in the ozone layer.

As he reached Holburn Junction he got back onto his bicycle and looked at all the deserted shops. He started to ride down Union Street, the main street of the city where most of the business locally was conducted. As he cycled the memories of a town long ago and a people long since gone echoed loudly above the howl of the wind. The cyclist stopped just before one of the abandoned churches and paused to remember happier times. The thoroughfares that used to come from this street were once busy with people, now they rang out with the silence of desertion, dereliction and decay.

The stranger dismounted and looked around. He had been to this place before when it was the hub of this part of the world. Now it seemed, that developments elsewhere and the perpetual depression were killing the place off and turning it into just another Ghost town. Soon the town would disappear from the maps altogether. Perhaps in a hundred years no one would ever realize that it had ever existed. He remembered the last two towns he had just ridden through several hours earlier. They had become deserted, devoid of all human life. He wondered how long before this town would eventually go the same way.

His reminiscences drowned out the sounds of foot steps in the distance, coming from a side road.
"Has it really been this long since I was supposed to have died here?" The stranger muttered to himself.

"What brings you here? Stranger", shattered the cyclist's thoughts as he tried to see from where this utterance had come. He must have imagined it. No one would live here now, would they?. Where there was once a throng, was now populated by rubbish and the occasional rodent. An abandoned car rusted quietly in a forgotten side street.

A sound came from behind him. The cyclist turned around. Another figure was walking down the main street slowly, eyeing the stranger that had just rode in. The second man carried what seemed like a shot gun, and wore a cloth type cap, and an old tweedy suit.
"Are you riding in alone, stranger?” asked the second man as he removed the safety catch from his gun.
"Why do you ask?" asked the cyclist as he started to move his hand towards his saddlebag.
"Keep your hands away from that bag, stranger" said the second man as he levelled his gun at the cyclist.
"That's not the customary welcome I remember when I was last here twenty years ago, since when did people start threatening passers by with guns"
"Things have got rougher in twenty years" said the man with the gun, There's rumours of white slavers coming in, and we don't want any of their kind"

The cyclist looked at the man on foot, his tartan was that of the Ferguson clan. The gun looked like an old hunting rifle rather than a shot gun. Quite old but just as lethal.
"I'm not with any one, as far as anyone is concerned, I am just a lone stranger" he told the man on foot
"Why are you here, people only leave?"
"A matter of honour to be sorted out with an American in this town"
The man on foot put the safety catch back on his gun. "Anyone with a grudge against those guys can't be all bad" he said
"So the Americans have been throwing their weight around recently then?" Asked the cyclist
"It's a question of who is the worst, the white slavers or the US forces.

This seemed strange to the cyclist, in his day the Americans were welcomed, especially during the time when the production of oil was still in its heyday. They always brought in revenue and jobs. Those from the military bases hardly impacted on the lives of people in this part of Scotland. Now it seemed as though they had out stayed their welcome. The oil was virtually gone. With the resumption of the cold war, the military contingent had increased. He had heard how the town of Stonehaven had been requisitioned by US marines as a new army town. All the locals had been removed, virtually at the point of a gun. During times of emergency in this part of the country it was to be American forces that would keep marshal law. Obviously the drills that he had heard of were only too frequent. Even though the military were under the local civilian police during such practices it was no wonder that there was a deep resentment. It would seem that he would not get much trouble from the locals, for what he had to do.

The walker walked slowly towards the rider. The rider's hand moved slowly into his bag he had with him. The walker continued to walk up to him. Both men eyed each other as the wind blew old bits of paper around them. "You pick a miserable day to ride in" Yelled the man who had come in on foot.
"I know, but its always been like this at this time of year"
"Not always "
The man on foot took out a packet of cigarettes, lit one for himself then offered one to the cyclist. The cyclist declined. The wind seemed to be getting stronger
"What happened to this part of town “ Yelled the cyclist above what seemed like a howling gale, "it's all closed down and decayed"
"It moved years ago." replied the man on foot "in fact the whole of the city is closing down. They say in five years time it will be utterly deserted, like one of those ghost towns of the old West"
"I once lived in this town "The rider yelled above the wind" And you say its moved away and now it's dying"
"That's right The developers came in and built the shopping complexes, the whole part of this town here died and everyone had to move because the shoppers would not walk up this far" Answered the stranger on foot.
"And "asked the cyclist, "What happened to those centres ?"
"Two went under last year, only one remains" Answered the man on foot
"What about the Bon Accord centre, is that still open?" The cyclist asked with an air of concern in his voice, anticipating that part of his twenty year quest might end in failure.
The man on foot spat into the gutter, "that monstrosity is still open, though not for much longer, they say that's what killed the west end off in the end"
Slowly the cyclist pulled out an old dog eared map of the town and tried to open it in the wind. The map was about twenty five years old, but it still gave a reasonable plan of the city. They were both at the western end of Union street, facing in towards the rest of what was left of the City. Looking around again, the cyclist saw that the place where he was standing had become a rat infested slum.
"Where is the remaining part of the city now? I have my business to attend to."
The man on foot looked at the cyclist's map, "Its all moved to the shopping centres on George street" Answered the stranger on foot as he pointed them out on the map. The cyclist looked up and down the street again. "Of course with centralised shopping the little guys could not compete and so they must have gone to the wall.

"What brings you here then" enquired the cyclist.
"I'm on the patrol against white slavers, we're sure the yanks are in league with them" answered the man on foot, "just to satisfy their lusts" the man added with an air of contempt"
"Well I wouldn't know about that" said the cyclist, "my beef with them goes back before the white slavers ever appeared on the scene"
"My name is Joe Ferguson" Said the man on foot "What's yours?" he added as held out his hand to the cyclist
"They used to call me Steve Gryson here during my day, before the oil declined."
Joe's face paled when he heard this "Not the legendary Gryson" he said in horror" you can't be, he was killed with his accomplices over twenty years ago, to prevent some catastrophe"
"As Mark Twain put it, News of my death has been greatly exaggerated"
"That means your back for vengeance, if that is true"
"I like to think of it as justice, like I said it's a matter of honour" Said Steve Gryson" and I have some unfinished business to attend to."
"I wouldn't put it past those yanks" Joe said, still in some state of shock. In his day he had remembered how the US air force had justified their draconian action to save the universe as it seemed. If this man on the cycle was who he claimed to be, then he was the most dangerous man in the world. He had to do something. He slowly lifted his gun up, carefully taking off the safety catch. Steve had turned round to get back on his bicycle and was putting the map back in the saddle bag. Suddenly The man and the cycle had vanished into thin air. Joe looked on in awe at where the cyclist had been. Steve Gryson or his ghost was back in town

Joe did not notice a figure entering the abandoned music hall further down the road as the winter night drew in. The Music Hall had once been the centre of all the main social events, but now it had been left to the rats and the dregs of humanity that still clung to this doomed to die town. This was where Steve would have to camp out here along with a few of the homeless that had not yet drifted away. He gazed around the its once proud interior of the main hall, a tear forming in his eye as he remembered how things were before.

This town brought back many bad memories, especially of his murdered colleagues and a female student. She had almost been a soul mate with regards to her morals in the sea of student immorality, even if they never quite saw eye to eye over the subject of religion. Perhaps they were lucky, they never had to see the sudden landslide of society in an accelerated decline. They never had to live through the time when the world had teetered on the brink of world war three.

The main stage in the main room was strewn with litter, rats running around his feet. They used to have concerts here, he had been to one once, it had been sponsored by a local radio station, now defunct for a children's charity that had been folded for ten years. No one gave a damn any more. The dog eat dog world had taken on a new level of ferocity as it became a literal matter of life and death. He counted only five other people in the hall. They had not noticed Steve coming in, he thought he might quietly observe them, after all at least one person had welcomed his return at the point of a gun. Maybe it had been unwise to mention his name. Who knows what lies of the American military still held credibility. He examined the five figures closely, there were four men, of the age of about forty to fifty sitting round a portable fire for warmth. There was a young woman of about twenty to twenty five. She looked kind of thin compared with one of the men, even through what appeared to be an old dirty grey sweatshirt.

"You know what we want you to do if you want any of this grub" said one of the men to the woman. He was wearing what looked like an indistinguishable tartan hat, "I haven't seen a naked woman in months" the figure added menacingly.
Steve watched from the shadows, as the women removed her old grey sweatshirt. She was wearing a white laced bra underneath. Steve could see that the woman had been crying. What were these men up to. Steve noticed that the oldest man of the group of four did not look comfortable with this behaviour either. The man with the tartan hat was obviously the leader of the group, and not from this part of Scotland either.
"And the rest, we want to see a lot more if you want to eat" The man in the tartan hat said to the woman.

The women looked almost like the female student that had been murdered twenty years previously. Steve felt he could not allow this woman to suffer this humiliation. As the woman in the hall was about to remove her bra for the gratification of the man in the tartan hat, Steve stepped out from the shadows. "You don't have to do that, I have food to share with you" he addressed to the women. She stopped.
The man in the tartan hat stood up and went to threaten this intruder who was trying to spoil his fun. He saw a forty four year old man with a green anorak, with a hand in a back pack come shoulder bag. "Who asked you to interfere, shorty, I want her to strip off, and please me". The man then thumped one hand into his other palm "What are you going to do to stop me"
"You can put your things on and come with me" Steve said to the woman, ignoring the man in the tartan hat.
The women looked at Steve, then at the man in the tartan hat. Steve was five foot seven, the other man was six foot tall. She removed her bra, and began to remove her trousers and other underwear. The other three men sat in silence, they only wanted to shelter here, they didn't want to become involved. The man in the Tartan hat turned round to gaze at the woman he had coerced to strip, he never knew what hit him as he sunk to the floor.
"Like I said, you can put your things back on" said Steve as he put his stun bolt gun back in the bag.
The women started to put her clothes back on. Steve caught sight of her body, she was becoming emaciated. No wonder people had lost their dignity. He pulled out a HIGH-ENG biscuit and handed it to the women.
"But what will happen when he wakes up" asked the women
"He'll be out for about fifteen hours, find one of the other rooms, stay there, be long gone before he wakes up." replied Steve
"Thank you" Said the oldest man ,"he's one of the most vicious thugs around"
"Only because you let him" Steve said curtly as he and the woman departed what was left of the main hall. It seemed to Steve, that moral decline was as rapid as the decline of the whole of the world into stagnation, except for those parts of the world that were once classed as developing, and of course the new independent state of Luna Cit.

"I'm Steve" Steve said as he introduced himself to the woman he had just rescued.
"I'm Katharine, I was sold to that man a week ago by my guardian" said the woman, her voice indicating that she had come from Shetland.
"Why?"
"The crops had failed. We were starving, we had no choice" answered Katharine
"Well, that is no way to treat people, but now you should be free of him"
"Where can I go? He will find me again"
"With full power on the stun bolt gun, with luck it will be days before he will remember you" Steve said, then handed her a wad of cash and a small card. "Take this, get the coach tomorrow go to the address on the card, it was a bolt hole for me once"
Katharine squinted at the card in the fading light, "I can't read" she told Steve.
"I'll give it to the driver and speak to him and he will help you get there. I think its getting late, we need to find some of the other rooms"

After finding a room for himself and another for Katharine from two of the old meeting rooms, he took off his back pack and unrolled his sleeping bag. He found a spare blanket and handed it to Katharine and returned to his chosen room. Tomorrow he would continue his twenty year search for Justice, for those of his friends, long since murdered on the orders of one of the most powerful countries in the Western Block of free states, now called Western Bloc. He had only just arrived back in time before the town had died. But for now he had to rest after nearly twenty four hours of riding on an old bicycle. As he settled down for the night, he thought about what he had said to the man on foot. A lone stranger, that was rather appropriate. He was supposed to be dead. He was alone in the world and a stranger to its lost values. He was in fact the Lone Stranger, and now he was back, to search for answers in a town he was once fond of in happier times. He had finally returned to Aberdeen.

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 1

This story first appeared on the college computer of the Robert Gordon’s Institute of Technology in Aberdeen in the autumn of 1988, and the original episode one was one page in length. I am not sure I had even mapped out the plot when I started, almost like when I started Season Three of the Mystical Realms Saga’s. Incidentally, the original story title was “Return of the Sticks”, so you can trace the name of my user ID back to the late to mid 1980’s

This was written in a text editor on a Honeywell PDP 11/34. (A text editor being sort of like the program, Notebook)

Later I was to rework this first story into a novel in 1993, but I never published it.

The stories were set around Aberdeen, where I did my first degree, in a future where there had been an economic collapse and an unprecedented environmental decay, coupled with a break down in law and order, with a further breakdown in morality.

We do not have the “white slave trade” as envisaged, but we do have an equivalent, today with young woman from eastern Europe, being forced into the sex industry

With the world wide credit crunch coming in 2007 / 2008, it seems very prescient, especially as later stories I was to do, were actually set in 2005 onwards.

In the original, the character of Katharine was not present, but in later stories, the white slave trade did show up, so in the 1993 rework, she was added, to help set the scene of this depressing vision of the future, to which we seem to have come almost close to realising.

[Sticks]

Chapter 2

Reflections, recriminations and desolation

It was still dark when Steve awoke, he checked his watch. Five fifty five. Still quite early, but he could not really guarantee that the man with the tartan hat would still be out. He went into the toilets. There was the stench of stale alcohol, from winos that had previously used this part of the music hall. In spite of the music halls rundown appearance this was one service that was still working. The lights were out, they had been that way for five years, as the power supplies had long since been discontinued. It was only because of good insulation that the rooms were not like the main hall, one giant ice box. Steve had to use an ever-glow lamp, which could double up as a torch, that gave out a moderate amount of light, just enough to shave by.

As Steve utilised the facilities he remembered how he had been to this building in its heyday back twenty five years ago. It had been some church event he had attended. He had acted as an usherette, showing people to seats, handing out leaflets and manning the tea earn. If his church friends were alive to see the place now, it would be a terrible shock, that even this establishment had fallen so low. Was he really responsible for all this decay. Had his experiments really contributed to this, surely not. He fished out of his cycle bag a small black radio and turned it on. Almost time for the six thirty news

The news was much of a muchness, more reports of tension between Western Bloc and Mid Eastern Bloc, had they really been to the brink of nuclear war fifteen years ago. Only the Japanese had saved the world from World War III. More news on the economy, continued slump. A report came on how the town of Scarborough had finally been abandoned to the sea, how Bridlington was on the way out. These news items did not interest Steve at all, he had heard it all before. An item about five star American West Bloc General visiting Edinburgh. The radio blurted out its speculation about the general's possible chance of becoming leader of the Western Bloc alliance. The news ended and went onto the weather. Steve paid more attention. A report of flooding in the Anglia region, advice to travellers to use filter masks travelling through certain towns. Aberdeen was quite a clean city, no masks needed. The weather for Aberdeen was for rain. The met office gave an expected ph value of about five point five for the rain. He had to make sure he had the acid proof rain protection gear and that Katharine was on the coach before the rains came.

It was about seven when Steve went to the room where he had left Katharine. He knocked on the door. No Answer. He converted his lamp into a torch and pushed the door open slightly and played the torch beam into the room, it was another old meeting room. He had been to a meeting before in this room too. As he swept the torch beam through the room he tried to find Katharine. Had she gone already? No. There were all her clothes, spread out to air on an old table. They were all she had as far as Steve could work out. A few feet away she lay on the carpet with the blanket over her, probably the best sleep she had had in some time. Steve stared into the twilight of the dim beam of the torch. He could see that she was still breathing from the movement of the blanket up and down. She was lucky that Steve had selected her the warmest room, since she was obviously having to sleep naked with only his blanket for a covering, she could have said, he could have leant her something for the night.

"Katharine "He called out
Katharine slightly stirred, but seemed to drift back to sleep. Maybe he could let her sleep a bit longer, the coach left at nine. Maybe the effect on the man with the tartan hat of the stun bolt gun could be wearing off. The gun only had two shots or one large one, which he had used. He checked the charge, then realized he had forgotten to put it on charge over night. If he put it on charge now it would be some hours before it was recharged. There was also the coming acid rain to consider, she had no protection. He couldn't risk it. He had to enter the room and wake her up.
He walked halfway across the room and called her name again.
Katharine stirred again then opened her eyes, then used her arm to shield her eyes from the torch beam.
"We need to get moving, just to make sure we are out before that man recovers" Steve said gently. He turned the torch back to a lamp.
Katharine sat up slowly, yawned and stretched her arms, she was still a bit sleepy and inadvertently allowed the blanket to gently slip down from her shoulders to settle just above her naval. Katharine put her hands down on the floor just behind her to lean back on. She made no attempt to cover herself up, and smiled at Steve weakly. She was exposing her bare breasts to Steve's view, as if she had wanted to show them off to Steve for some kind of reward, had she been more wide awake. This caught Steve off guard for a moment and he found himself looking at them with the dispassionate interest that came from his scientific training. They seemed perfectly formed, about the size of two large grapefruits, with delicate pink nipples. They would be the ideal size and shape for breast feeding if she were to be a nursing mother.

Suddenly Steve realised what he was doing. Steve turned around, his face went red.
"Err sorry, I didn't realize you weren't dressed" he apologised
Katharine shook her head to wake up a bit more, then realised why this stranger had turned his back on her. She sat up and crossed her arms to hide her breasts from sight, she went slightly red, she wasn't really that sort of girl.
"That's ok, I shouldn't have embarrassed you like this" she replied sleepily to Steve, she could tell by intuition that this was a man who wasn't really leering, unlike the man in the tartan hat. He seemed to feel safe to her, even if he seemed somewhat old fashioned.
As Steve was not looking in order to protect her privacy, she threw off the blanket and went to pick up her clothes.

Suddenly Steve heard a scream. Instinctively he turned around, to see Katharine standing naked in front of the table which held her clothes, transfixed as a rodent perched on the table sniffing the air. Steve walked across, picked up the blanket and gently put it across Katharine's shoulders. Nervously she took hold of the blanket and wrapped it around herself. Steve could feel that she was shivering violently either from the cold or fear of the rodent.
"I'll get rid of it" He whispered then walked to the table. The rodent reared up on its back legs. It was a rat, and a big and nasty one.
"Get lost" Steve said to the rat. He had to make sure the rat did not feel that it was trapped. A rat bite could be fatal, especially as rabies had finally entered the British Isles. He reached in his jacket pocket slowly; he found an old key chain. He pulled out the key chain then threw it in the direction of the rat. It ran off.
"It's gone now" Steve said reassuringly as he picked up Katharine's clothes. He turned around to hand them over to her, making sure that his eyes met hers and no further down.
"It hasn't touched them he added
"Thank you" Katharine said weakly as she took them with a free hand, trying not to let the blanket drop down again.
Steve turned around, picked up his keys and walked back towards the door, being careful not to let his gaze fall upon Katharine, to try and preserve what dignity she still had left.

Katharine stood for a while holding her clothes, staring at the rat that wasn't there. Who was this man called Steve. She had half expected this stranger to take advantage of her. But he hadn't. She slipped off the blanket and slowly started to get dressed, always switching her gaze between the table and the man. He stood in the doorway, with his back to her. Anyone else would have leered at her as she stood naked and helpless and petrified by that monster rat and they would have watched her get dressed. Maybe there were some decent men left in the world.

"Are you decent yet?" Steve said after five minutes. He had to get this woman out of town, before he continued with his personal mission.
"I'm dressed if that's what you mean" answered Katharine.
Steve re-entered the room and handed her another meal bar. Katharine took it from him gently.
"Who are you?" She asked
"I told you I'm Steve" he replied
"That's not what I meant"
"I'm just a lone stranger, just trying to make sense of what happened to me twenty years ago. I'd rather not talk about it"
"Ok"

The pair made their way down the stairs to the main foyer. Steve looked along the corridor towards the main hall. The other two men appeared to have gone.
"Just a moment" Steve said to Katharine, suddenly he vanished into thin air
"Steve!" Katharine called out.
As suddenly as he had disappeared, he reappeared, grim faced.
"The man that took you from Shetland has had his throat cut" he said, "looks like the others did it. I can't say I blame them"
Katharine looked at Steve in horror. "How can you vanish like that, are you a witch?" She asked, slightly backing away from him. Could she have been wrong about him after all?
"No, its just a gizmo device that has taken fifteen years to complete, I'm as much of a witch as your are" he answered "Now" he added "We need to get you out of here and on that coach, before what remains of the police arrive to ask awkward questions. Now he's dead do you want to return home to Shetland?"

Katharine looked out at the darkened street. She remembered her home on Shetland, how her guardian had been forced to hand her over to the white slavers so that the others could survive. "I can't she said quietly, I would only be a burden to them, and the white slavers would only come back"

Steve looked at her, her only possessions were the clothes she stood up in. He wished he had some more clothes spare that he could offer her, but that was how things went. At least he hadn't taken advantage of her, as anyone else would have done. He knew the coach driver would be a member of one of the last honourable brotherhoods that drove the armoured coaches across the country along the old disused rail network, they would get her to a place of safety, where she could have all the clothes and food she needed.
"Come on. Lets get to the station" he told Katharine as he walked his bicycle out of the building.
Katharine hesitated and then followed this strange man out. Her instincts still told her that she could trust him.

They walked together down Union Street towards the junction with Bridge Street. The traffic lights had long since failed. A burnt out abandoned ground car rusted quietly by the entrance to one of the failed shopping centres. All the other shops in the road had closed down long ago, the windows smashed; some had not even been boarded up. Eventually they arrived at Guild Street. The pair crossed over the railway bridge and passed the railway station, long since closed, and then they entered the coach station, still one place of activity. As the rich and poor divide had widened, the rich moved to the airlines for long distance travel, the poor to the coaches. The railway had then withered and died, leaving behind a large network of abandoned track beds and shattered dreams.
As they arrived at the coach station, Steve looked at his watch. Eight O’clock. There was a small newsagent shop, miraculously it was still trading. Steve took Katharine inside.
"I remember this place from twenty years ago" Steve Told Katharine. He picked up a newspaper. More gloom and doom. "What sandwiches would you like" Steve asked Katharine.
"You don't have to do that" Katharine replied. She gently held Steve's hand and rested her head on his shoulder for a few seconds. Why was this man so kind to her? What kind of man was he?
"Some one has to." Steve answered back "I let some one down once, she never survived. Are you a vegetarian?"
"No"
Steve picked from the freezer cabinet two sets of tuna sandwiches and two cartons of milk. He picked up two king sized Mars bars from the confectionery counter. He then took out the western dollars to pay for the goods. The lady at the till took the money, there was no change due. They left the shop and made their way out to the platform and found a seat and sat down. They were the only ones there.
"How come you never learnt to read" Steve Asked Katharine.
"We never had a school and all the letters seemed jumbled up when my guardian tried to teach me" Katharine replied.
Steve handed her one of the packs of sandwiches, a can and a Mars bar. It would be best not to pry. He picked up his paper and read through the predictable slew of depression, wars, famine and titillation. The one bit that interested him was the forthcoming visit of General Reynolds to Scotland, maybe when he exposed the American conspiracy of twenty years ago, General Reynolds may take action against them, especially as he was running for president.

The coach for Wales arrived at eight forty five. Katherine watched as Steve talked to the driver. Steve was telling the driver where to drop her off. Steve had told her it would be a safe place to stay. Anywhere away from the white slavers in their armed hover-trucks would be a dream. If only the rest of her family could come. If only this Steve would come. If only he would allow her to bear his child. But he was over forty, almost twice her age. It was obvious that there was no future in a relationship. Just before she boarded the coach, she hugged Steve and gave him a quick kiss. It was clear that Steve had not expected this. To him, Katharine was just another unfortunate civilian that needed to be removed from the field of battle. She reminded him of Patricia Nealson, a student whose death he had held himself responsible for over twenty long years.

As he watched the coach depart with Katharine on it he saw her waving to him, tears streaking down her face. Providing that the coach was not attacked, the religious community that he was sending her to would be able to give her a better start in life. Perhaps she might find some one else she could settle down and raise a family with. He felt a slight twinge, as if someone walked over his grave. He could not afford to let anyone else die, as his quest was nearly at a completion, the final pieces of the jigsaw were within days of his grasp.

Steve got back on his bicycle to ride back to the Music Hall, he wanted to see if anyone else had discovered the body of the man with the tartan hat. They hadn't, no one cared. Even a White Slaver had to have a decent burial, after all others would be coming here to dos down and the body would become a health hazard. He looked down the street, there were no working payphones any longer, he would have to report it in person. That he did not want to risk. How could he explain who he was, he was supposed to have died twenty years ago. He was portrayed as the evil scientist from whom the friendly Americans had sought to save the world, by killing him in an overkill manner. He would have to find a way to drop a note in later. He left the music hall and cycled down to the junction of Union Street and Bridge Street.

The weather by now was starting to deteriorate. The wind howled round the old buildings and scattered leaves from the old trees that were left from the old Union Terrace gardens, which had long since been sacrificed to the developers. The Steve stopped at the crossroads and gazed around. The old familiar stores had been boarded up, they were deserted. No one came here to stay. They just hurried through this eastern ghost town. "Is this what is left?" Steve questioned. He turned left and rode along side where the Union Terrace Gardens used to be, before everyone went mad in order to try and save a lame duck of a town. Slowly the figure rode down to a junction. The old city library, which was just opening up for the day, appeared to be the only sign of life he had seen in this part of town. He turned right at the Statue of Wallace and rode over the railway bridge and then he turned left just after the deserted dual carriageway and down another side street. He remembered this was once Blackfriars Street. He stopped at the corner of St Andrew Street and dismounted. He was full of apprehension, he was standing near the site where his friends had been murdered, and he had not been back since.

Specks of rain fell on the road, which increased in size and formed streams in the gutters. Steve stopped and got out his rain shield from his bag, a form of acid proof cagoule, and quickly put it on. The rain shield was specially designed for use in cities, so it had a face mask and an enclosed filter mask. To be caught out in a rain storm nowadays could be quite painful, even fatal because of the industrial toxins that hung above the remaining metropolises. He had got his from the community that he had sent Katharine to. If he ever got out of this alive he would have to return there one day. Steve looked at the sky, it was getting very dark, this rain storm would be quite a heavy one. He turned around to look at the place where once the building that he knew and had at one time been indifferent about had stood. This was where the Robert Gordon Institute of Technology (Known to everyone as RGIT) had had its science and technology building and most of its central student service's, including Steve remembered the very helpful computing advisory section.

Steve chained his bicycle to a street lamp. He had to go and look at the ruins for himself again. There was a wooden fence designed to keep people out and plenty of danger signs. Steve looked around for an entrance of some kind. Round the back in John Street was a hole in the fence that he could just about climb through. He peered through the hole to make sure that it was safe to enter. The Ruins of the St Andrew street building had been almost demolished. The top two floors had been removed now. The library had long since gone leaving a burnt out chasm where the basement section had been. The corridors that ran right around the building were mostly there, except the corridor that ran along side Charlotte Street on the east side of the building, and the corridor that ran parallel to John Street on the north side. These corridors had totally gone.

Steve found a hole in the wall and entered the remains of the west side of the building. This corridor was still standing. He took his torch from his back pack and switched it on to peer through the gloom. The floor was wet and littered with broken glass, burnt timbers and some indeterminate rubble. He shone the torch up at the ceiling. Most of it was sound, but some of it had collapsed. He picked his way carefully through the rubble. Looking around he saw the results of fire damage. A laboratory on his right. Completely gutted. A smashed display cabinet. It seemed as if he could once again hear the feet of students treading the corridors. Possibly it was the sound of gulls, possibly it was the sense of guilt that had plagued him for over twenty years. He was supposed to be responsible for this. If only he had chosen one of the offered subjects for his PhD instead of inventing his own, if only he had listened to some of the concerns that had been aired about his research, if only.

A sound of scurrying further down the corridor interrupted his thoughts of self pity, more rats. Steve continued down the corridor, he came to one of the stairwells, he could see that the rain was coming down heavier now. Anyone not in protective gear in this weather could easily suffer nasty acid burns. He looked along the other corridor that once lead to the library. It had long since been knocked down, so he found himself staring across what looked like a discarded building site. He could see pools of water collecting amongst the rubble. He caught site of an abandoned JCB, obviously the contractors had gone under when RGIT had fallen prey to the never ending depression. Steve kept on walking along to end of the corridor, passing other laboratories, all of them were gutted, but this time it looked like they had been stripped. Here was another stairwell, leading to nowhere. When he was a student he had been up the stairs many times to the top floor that no longer existed. He resisted the urge to climb them.
"Steve have you written up that lab book yet?" came a voice from behind him.
Steve turned around. No one was there. It was just another memory. He tried to remember how it was in his day. He found it difficult. So many memories and he could not picture the place when it was in its heyday. He turned left. The internal swing doors were just about rotting away. Steve found them difficult to open; the hinges had severe rust problems. Only one door had a pane of glass still attached. Slowly it creaked open. A mouse ran past.

This corridor was parallel to St Andrew Street, no lecture rooms or laboratories ran off of it. Steve continued to walk along; on his left was the toilet block he remembered waking up in after it had happened. He could never work out how he got there. On his right were various technician and reprographic rooms. Another two sets of double doors, one in front, and one on his left. The one on his left lead out to where the Library had been. The main wall to the games hall had also gone. Steve could stare right through to where the other toilet block had been. It was just a pile of rubble, just as he remembered it twenty years ago. He was sure that was the toilet block he had used on that fateful day. He had never really solved that puzzle, perhaps the shock and the breakdown that had given him amnesia for three years still clouded his memory. He pressed on through the double doors in front. As he pushed the door fell inwards. Steve jumped back as glass shattered on the floor. His torch picked up the other door further along.

He walked through the doorway into what was once the main entrance. It had held the Janitors room, the entrance to the games hall and of course the front door. The front door had long since gone, allowing Steve to see the other side of the safety fence, just as solid on this side. This foyer was as far round as he could go the rest of the corridor was complete rubble, where the floors had collapsed like a pack of cards. Quite a feat for a granite building. Everywhere he could see the evidence of fire damage inflicted twenty years previously

Steve left the foyer through the hole where the games hall once stood. He tried to remember the building again, in all its glory. This site was the flagship building of the whole of the RGIT organisation. A lump came in his throat when he realized that it was the accepted history that his experiments for his PhD thesis had brought this on, or had they. For five years even he had believed that, now he was not so sure.

The never ending recession, would have occurred anyway, but even with that fact, he felt he had some responsibility for adding to the East West mistrust. The rain was a constant down pour. Steve made his way carefully back to the gap in the fence, picking his way across the assorted masonry. As memories flooded back his eyes were full of tears over what had happened all those years ago. He stopped in the middle of the site. He gazed up at where the laboratory had been up on the first floor. Grey sky and rubble. He looked around the site at ground level. As he stared at the ruins, it seemed as if the place where most of the damage had been done, was where the computer rooms had been. Odd that. He tried again to remember what had happened afterwards. It was all hazy, he remembered a fire. His head hurt, bad and painful memories, or were they ghosts of his friends crying for justice or vengeance, and against whom, him or the persons responsible.

A Helicopter sounded over head. He had to take cover, they were coming back to finish the job. He rushed across to the door to the first corridor he had re-entered. The door was stuck. He was in a worse panic now. The helicopter faded into the distance, it was just an air ambulance for the local hospital. Steve broke down and wept with relief, coming back to the building had been a cathartic process after all these years. This was his reason for carrying on, some one else did this, and blamed him and some of he friends.

The door opened at last. Steve wandered into the corridor. For a moment he thought he saw Patricia, the girl that died innocently with his friends. Staring at him accusingly from the rubble strewn corridor. A shaft of sunlight, the rain shower was passing over. Steve looked back. She was gone, that's if she was there in the first place. Steve had to get out, he had seen enough. He quickened his pace, he had to leave. As he reached the hole in the fence, she was there, an expression of astonishment
"Help us please" he thought he heard
He blinked, she was gone. He climbed out through the hole in the fence. He started to walk back to his bicycle, and tried to remember what had lead up to those events twenty years ago. As he un-padlocked his bicycle the events began to come back to him again, it was just like before his nervous breakdown all those years ago. It was as if it was yesterday

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 2

Well, episode two, most of this was from the 1993 rework from what I recall, I wanted to show more of the degradation, in that the only way the lower class people could travel was by coach. Others went by air, which led to the end of the railway system. Not sure how accurate that has turned out to be.

As for the torch mentioned, yes they do exist, and I got mine in 1998, and here are two images of it. It has a sort of sleeve you pull, which converts it from a torch to a lantern.

[img=300x200]http://photos-c.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v358/25/16/642840893/n642840893_1374930_7402.jpg[/img]

Torch mode

[img=300x200]http://photos-d.ak.facebook.com/photos-ak-sf2p/v358/25/16/642840893/n642840893_1374931_7672.jpg[/img]

Lantern mode

I was given it for my trip to Lundy Island in 1998, so how is it in a 1993 rework? Well various designs of such devices were around.

As for Aberdeen geography, I did do my degree there plus I had maps when writing this

There is a small bit in green, as I have been recovering these files from the old word-processor, Top Copy Plus, for the most part I have been just correcting the spelling errors indicated in Word by red wavy lines, and the slight grammar corrections given by a green wavy line. The small part’s in green are where I could see that while grammatically correct, it made better sense to add the part in green.

[Magic]

WOW thats long, my storys are so short on TiBB.
Will have to read soon.

[Sticks]

Chapter 3

As if it were yesterday

It was all coming back to him now as he stood and stared at the remains of the building. He was supposed to have been killed along with his friends. He had risen to heights of fame and had sunk to the depths of infamy. He had been the legendary Steve Gryson.

He had originally arrived at RGIT by accident in the early days, through clearing. A serious illness during the run up to his English 'A' Levels had caused him to fail to get the grades he should have got. This had put paid to his hopes of getting in to the University of Edinburgh. Thanks to the understanding of the Scottish Higher Education system he had been given the unconditional offer at RGIT.

Diligently he got to grips with the work, concentrating on making up for what he perceived was his failure to get a place at his first choice university. His practical work excelled and he gained very high marks on the theoretical work. His work on the computers was also of a high calibre.

Socially, he always felt an outcast. Whilst his class mates went off boozing, he had to stick to alcohol free drinks as he was very allergic to alcohol. This was why he hadn't done so well at 'A' Levels, he had been to a wedding of a member of the family, and someone had spiked his orange juice for a joke. Some Joke, three weeks in Hospital with a severe reaction. This had always rankled him and he had never spoken to that person again. He got on well with the student union staff, at least he always he thought he did.

While looking for an event where he did not feel left out by sticking to the lemonades and the colas, he attended an Ice Cream party run by the Christian union. He remembered how he had had some rudiments of the Christian faith. He was invited to church by one of the female students, so he attended a house church meeting with the other students. He fitted in here, so he continued to attend. After two months he had been baptized by total immersion and had become a committed Christian. Like his academic studies, he excelled at Bible study and over the months of his first year at college his spiritual life had improved considerably.

There was a sermon about seeking the lost and Jesus visiting with publicans. Steve had taken this as an instruction to try and talk about the Bible in the local student union. This of course did not go down well at all. He remembered how he had gained a reputation of being a religious fruitcake by some of his classmates. The other student members of the house church saw him as a useful member of their evangelical wing. Some of the members of the Christian Union hardly ever set foot in the building, as it was seen as a den of vice.

He had also got involved in student politics; there was at one time in Steve's honours year, a corrupt deputy president. The deputy had managed to overthrow the president using an unknown procedural device. This guy would have been a rat if that was not an insult to rats. Steve had come in as the Executive Finance officer. He had then met Patricia Nealson, a pharmacy student, she was the president of the Parachute and paracending society and at the time was also the Executive member for the General Council for clubs and societies. She had been a very popular member of the executive, helping a lot with the clubs and societies. Steve had had to work with her to organise an extra general meeting to get rid of the corrupt sabbatical. When they ran for office for the next year, they were returned unopposed

As he had managed to gain first class honours in his first degree, he had been given the chance to go for the Phd. There was no question about the grant from the British Science and Engineering Research Council. Steve had had some other adventure with the next sabbaticals, but after that he concentrated more on gaining his PhD

It was also through his involvement in the student union that he met Neal Maclean, a life member. They first met while arguing about a point on religion, twenty five years on Steve could not remember what it was about. He discovered that they had a common interest in photography, computers and trivia. Neal had been a drop out from his electronic engineering course, and like Steve was considered a bit of an odd ball, he even spelled his name oddly, N E E L. They became best of friends and Neel even helped out with programming projects in between a number of odd jobs that he did. In time Neel had introduced him to a set of regular life members, most had an interest in computers in common. In conversations with another life member, this group of life members were described as The End-of-The-Bar-Gang, because they would hang around at the end of the bar in the main student union and have a quiet drink along side the current students.

There was Mike Waterston, who had once been a student at the same time as Neel Maclean, but he had managed to stay on his physics course longer and achieved a pass degree. He had ended up at a distribution company. NEEL and Mike always collaborated on computer and electronics projects, this was why they had become involved in Steve's PhD research more than the others.

There was also Sam Urqhart, he had done the chemistry course, and had a penchant for manufacturing his own fireworks, mostly for charity events and the occasional private party. He also had a good working knowledge on how to make various explosives and where to get the ingredients. Although he had never seen them, Sam's fireworks had quite a reputation. Steve had never found out what Sam did for a living, it wasn't important now, his firework displays had been silenced forever, by more powerful explosives than Sam had ever made.

He had also been introduced to Trevor Turner, the resident history expert, whose special subject was the history of the local public houses. Trevor had been a member once of the local branch of Campaign for Real Ale. This made him useful to the group as he knew where the best watering holes were. Sadly most of those establishments had been closed down for years. If Trevor was alive today, it would break his heart

Steve remembered being introduced to David Smith, an honours graduate from RGIT and his wife Priscilla a graduate in botany from Dundee university. They had met on a postgraduate course in management several years before Steve had ever heard of RGIT. David had worked for one of the major oil companies while Priscilla was bringing up their son at home. Their son Philip must be twenty five now, Steve thought as he put the bicycle chain in his saddle bag. He wondered if Priscilla and Philip had ever forgiven him for David's death in that building. Perhaps not, anyway there was no way of knowing, Steve was not supposed to have survived, the bombing of St Andrew Street either.

Steve got on his bicycle again and cycled back over to the library. He had to go to the library to check the microfilm files of the local papers as he had done two months ago with the national papers of the time. As he went across, the clouds were beginning to darken again.
"How very appropriate" he said to him self.
At last he reached the library, it was still open, but for how long was anyone else’s guess. The carpets were worn with holes, the air was musty. he could see only pensioners who had probably come to keep warm rather than pay exorbitant heating bills. He made his way up the stairs to the reference section.

He reached the reception desk, an old women was on duty
"Can I help you sir" she asked in a thick Aberdonian dialect
"I came to have a look at some twenty year old microfilm files of the Press and Journal and the Evening Express"
The librarian gave him a hard stare; Steve's English accent had obviously caused offence, in these times that was understandable.
"If you go and sit at the reader I'll bring them out" the librarian answered pointing in the general direction of the microfilm viewer.
Steve went across and sat down and continued to reflect on the events leading up to the bombing of RGIT St Andrew Street premises

For his PhD thesis his tutor had given him a list of possible subjects to do, but Steve had come up with one of his own. Steve's interest was in the collision reactions between cosmic radiation particles and other fundamental particles that constituted cosmic radiation and which held a neutral charge. His interest was particularly in the meason group and neutrinos. His tutor was some what sceptical of this research, as it appeared to have little practical application and it seemed to require a large particle accelerator, which RGIT did not have.

When Steve mentioned this to Neel and Mike, the three of them worked out the principal of developing a mini-accelerator, which utilised the reactions given off in Beta decay and an alternating magnetic field. Steve couldn't remember who came up with the original idea, but all three agreed to share any patent that might be stem from this work. For three weeks they worked on this device and managed to set up the small accelerator to generate the required mesons. It was of a size that could fit onto a laboratory table. The majority of its size was taken up by components that dealt with the beta emitter and the charge storage to assist in the particle generation, which in this day and age had been miniaturised to fit into the size of a standard coffee mug.

He remembered he was doing his research project with the small particle reactor and he had just finished taking results from the pi-naught meson and neutrino collisions, there were no results out of the ordinary. It was when he started investigating the neutrino effect on long lived K-zero mesons, things became interesting. With these mesons he started to get strange results. Certain particle decay tracks on the detectors were nonexistent, and certain tracks appeared from nowhere. The solution seemed obvious to Steve, so he spent one whole week picking over the software with a fine toothcomb, looking without success, for a program bug. His tutor was also baffled as to where the tracks were going to and coming from.

It seemed like his thesis would be in jeopardy. However while discussing the results with the members of the End-of-the-bar gang one Saturday in the student union bar, the consensus of opinion among them was that the results were true. Something else in the results was lurking, hidden away on the edge of the energy levels. The track from nowhere seemed to be appearing just before the time when other track had vanished. It seemed from the mathematical analysis that the two tracks were the result of one particle. The trajectory of the discontinuous result meant that only a particle, travelling past the speed of light could be the culprit. In normal physics, this should have been an impossibility, but no error in the equipment could be found and yet these were the results. There was only one solution, if Steve and the End-of-the-Bar gang were correct. Tachyons, the only particles that could travel faster than the speed of light were hypothetically discovered. If they were right, then this was possibly of Nobel Prize level.

Over the Christmas holidays Steve had decided to stay in Aberdeen to work on modifying the equipment and the software. The aim was to generate more tachyons to test the hypothesis and hopefully vindicate what some people were beginning to say was a flawed experiment. His lecturers were dubious of this, but the experiment was allowed. For the first test Steve had invited Neel along. If they were right, then at the target end would be a unique bluish glow of Cerenkov radiation. This expected light would indicate that a particle was travelling through a medium, faster than the speed of light for that medium. The target end was to be in a total vacuum.

As the mini accelerator warmed up Steve, Neel and the tutor watched with baited breath. The tutor half expected this experiment to fail, the tachyon was just a hypothetical particle. For the particle to travel faster than the speed of light, and satisfy the special theory of relativity, it would have to have either real rest mass and imaginary energy and momentum or imaginary rest mass and real energy. Officially no tachyon had ever been discovered before. But sure enough in the evacuated target area a characteristic blue glow appeared. This was the tell tale signs of Cerenkov radiation. The subatomic particle that travelled faster than the speed of light had been discovered.

Immediately Steve's tutor got him to send a letter off to the scientific magazine "Nature" to make sure he got the credit for the discovery, just in case anyone else was working on this. Within days a leaked copy of Steve's letter fell into the hands of the tabloid press. The media descended on them like a ton of bricks.

Steve and the End-of-the-bar gang became famous over night, as headlines screamed about the discovery of the century. Many of the End-of-the-Bar gang were pestered by journalists with open cheque books. Steve hid himself in the laboratory to wait for the story to die down. As well as the press they were showered with some praise from the scientific community, there was talk of honorary fellow status being confirmed by the Royal Society. They were even considered worthy of acceptance to the Gentleman's Club at Spaulding. How they kept together Steve never knew.

Very soon news broke of a private consortium planning to set up a moon base, so the rat pack moved on. Steve got back to his research. Then the other discovery occurred. A short half-life radioactive isotope in front of the target, by chance was found to have reversed the process of radioactive decay when the mini-accelerator was working. When Steve changed the polarity of the equipment, the tachyons were still produced, but the radioactive decay was accelerated. As he experimented further, with the equipment polarity reset and a better Beta decay isotope, the tachyon production was stepped up considerably. Now the phenomenon was more pronounced. Watches and anything used for marking out time would run backwards when the tachyons were produced. With reversed polarity, watches and other chronometers used, were speeded up.

His tutor suggested that he concentrate on this effect. For one of the few times since he had set up his PhD research, Steve agreed with his tutor. This was the far cutting edge of pure science. Subsequent research proved that the tachyons, on decaying caused minor infractions on the space time continuum and, the production of The hypothetical particles of time, the chronons and anti-chronons. The polarity seemed to affect the ratios severely. In conversations with Neel, Mike, Steve and David, about the imbalance in the ratios, they came to the conclusion that the missing chronons or anti-chronons must be being sent backwards in time. This meant it could not be observed normally as human perception of time was always forwards. A further test was needed.

An accurate clock was placed in the area that was affected whilst the machine was on. The equipment was set on automatic, the polarity in reverse. Moments before the equipment started up, the clock started to run backwards. The accelerator started up, the clock stopped and then started going forwards at a faster rate, as the accelerator produced its load of tachyons. By the end of the experiment the clock was reading the same time as another clock, used as a control, but was kept outside the room. Steve had developed his first law of conservation of time.

Before Steve could proceed any further, his tutor had sent a letter off to Nature. The press had another field day at Steve's and the End-of-the-Bar gang's expense.
"Time Machine invented by student" came one tabloid headline.
Steve was having to send out letters to editors, denying that such a device was possible. That was fatal, he had forgotten the old maxim, "never believe anything unless it is officially defined" and he had denied it.

As Steve looked up from the microfilm reader, he looked for the librarian to come back with the files. She was taking along time. He had more time to continue reflecting on the events twenty years ago. The weather outside was raining again. It was the media that had caused the problems. The scientific community would never have acted the way the tabloid press did. As he gazed back at the microfilm reader his mind went back again to rake over the ashes of the past.

In the media it seemed as though time travel was suddenly becoming a chilling reality. Letters came in warning of meddling with nature. Some feared that if a time machine were invented, then great leaders and events of history could be changed. Many were concerned about the possibility of the grandfather paradox becoming true. This was where a man invents a time machine, goes back and kills he grandfather before he ever meets his grandmother. If the inventors grandfather is killed then the inventor could not have been born, so he could not have invented the time machine, so he could not have gone back and killed his grandfather. His grandfather would not have been killed so he would have been born, so he would have invented the time machine, so he would have gone back, and so the loop of logical contradiction would continue tying up the universe in a never ending time loop.

A Russian team that was on an arms inspection tour heard of the experiments. Without inspecting them they considered that such research had obvious uses for the military, and because it had not been declared it was in violation of an arms treaty. The principal of RGIT and the Tutor fiercely contested this. Their class one research student had no intention of building a time machine; as such a device was not possible. As East West relations at the time were shaky, some people on the far left considered that Steve was going too far. A lot of Hysteria was being manipulated somewhere against the experiments. Steve could not work out why, as he had not even considered building any time machine. Even so the Russians demanded that experiments be shut down because of the obvious military implications as they saw it. There were also rumblings of discontent from the Americans accusing Steve of being provocative, especially in a time of international tension.

Although Steve had discounted the whole idea of time travel the End-of-the-bar gang wanted to see if a time machine was possible. The consensus was that it wasn't, there was still a lot of theoretical problems. Neel however did not agree, he was certain that the device could be modified to send an object through time, backwards or forwards by causing a chronon stable region and flooding the universe with excited chronons or anti-chronons. Steve was not convinced, plus the principal had cornered him about the nature of his research, and there was the fact that the Science and Engineering Research Council had come under pressure from somewhere to cut his grant. The SERC never said who it was, but they still continued to fund Steve's work.

Steve got down to writing up his thesis and hoped the furore would die away But one night Neel turned up, claiming that he had worked out on his PC, how to project a field to send an object the mass of a small ping pong ball, ten minutes into the future and move it a limited amount in space. Steve examined the final printout, it seemed to work, and only the equipment used to project the ping pong ball would not travel with it. If they were going to try this, then they would do it on the Saturday afternoon when Steve would have the lab to himself. Steve then informed the Janitors and his tutor that he was inviting some friends to see the mini accelerator before it was altered to make way for other things, those things being equipment to generate the Eta particle so he could finish up the thesis on "Interaction of cosmic particles". He did not tell the tutor about the nature of the experiment.

Then on that fateful day, when Steve had invited Neel to look at the apparatus in the St Andrew street building, they met in the student union bar.
"Patricia is looking for you" The temporary porter had told him
"Why?" Steve had asked
"She wants you to do some photography of the parachute club charity jump" the porter replied
Steve had remembered that he was going to do it, so he left a note for her to come across to the lab if they weren't still in the bar when she came around again.

In the bar was Priscilla and David Smith with baby Philip, Trevor Turner, Sam Urqhart and Mike Waterston. As Neel and Steve discussed the proposed experiment to send a ping pong ball ten minutes into the future, Mike suggested sending a watch forward in time, rather like in the film "Back to the Future". Over their lunch time drink it was suggested that all of them come across and have a look at the equipment. Priscilla declined as she was taking Philip to see his aunt in Portsoy, and this sort of thing did not interest her. It was thus so that David, Trevor, Mike, Sam and Neel became caught up in what was to follow.

"Here you are sir" came a voice out of the ether. It was the librarian with the microfilms. "You do know how to use this thing do you?" she asked
"Yes" Steve replied as he took the film. He started to thread the first of the strips into the microfilm viewer.
The librarian went back to the reception desk.

Steve started to look through the back copies of the Press and Journal, the first paper he saw was for the day before. As he skimmed through the pages he kept thinking of the one innocent party, Patricia Nealson. Patricia was virtually a soul mate of Steve, and he had caused her death. He stopped skimming and rubbed he eyes, he thought he heard her behind him. He turned around. It was an old man shuffling in. Steve turned back to the microfilm viewer. He tried to remember how he last saw her alive.

They were entering the laboratory in the St Andrew Street building when Patricia arrived back at the student union. The porter gave her the message to meet him at the laboratory; she went over immediately to the building. It was a nice sunny day.
"if it is like this tomorrow afternoon then the jump will be quite successful " she had told her self.
Patricia had caught up with them whilst they were setting up the mini accelerator. She knocked on the door. Steve opened it as he was just going off to the lavatory. She told Steve that she had come by to ask if Steve could do the photographic work for her parachute jump. Steve had told her that he was booked that weekend. Neel offered his services as a photographer. Patricia said that would be an ok arrangement. While Steve went to answer the call of nature he left his friend Neel to discuss with her the details of the jump. That was the last he saw of all of them.

He went down and used the toilet block on the east side, on the ground floor. As he left, he vaguely remembered seeing a shadowy figure approaching him. Then every thing had gone blank.

Outside apparently, just minutes after that, a black helicopter from the United States Airforce came hovering into range of the RGIT St Andrew Street building. After hovering for a few seconds it released its load of death at the building. St Andrew street was virtually demolished. What the missiles didn't destroy, the fire afterwards completed. The janitors had some how survived. The End-of-the-bar gang and Patricia Nealson never made it. The fire was apparently so bad that no recognisable bodies could be recovered from the ruins. Steve had survived, coming to in the other male ground floor toilets. He had spotted the helicopter through the shattered window, as it flew over the inferno. It was an American Apache helicopter. If they knew that he had survived then his life would be in danger. So Steve had decided to play dead. He became Farrow Smyth and for twenty years he had been living this lie.

He finally found the front page of the next Press and Journal on the microfilm. The Headline read "US Airforce saves the universe by bombing mad scientists". It contained a picture of the building in a total blaze. Steve was amazed at how he could of escaped unseen. Steve Stared back at the viewer. This was the first picture in years he had seen of the building after it had been bombed, the whole of the east side of the building had been demolished; the upper level of the south side of the building, where he had his laboratory was in rubble as well.

As he continued to stare, something about the photograph of the rubble of the recently bombed building did not ring true, but Steve could not place it. He would have to continue looking through the files. His resentment grew as he did so; his mind still kept wandering to how lie was heaped upon lie. The bombing of the building was not the end of the story. Not by a long chalk.

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 3

Exotic Particles
This episode is where my interest in particle physics was evident, although some of it was inspired by the old Science Fiction role play game, Traveller, (at that time during the 1980’s a serious rival to Dungeons and Dragons), where one weapon used by starships was the meson gun.

You can find out more about mesons here and to tell the truth it is more there than I knew at the time, I originally was confined to looking them up in the Penguin dictionary of Science or the Penguin dictionary of Physics. Remember this was before the world wide web, let alone Wikipedia

The long lived K-zero mesons were used, thanks to an Open University programme which ran a skit about something call invariance, i.e. can what you see in the mirror exist in the physical world. The first experiment to try and break invariance involved Cobalt 60 decay, but if you used Anti-Cobalt that attempt to break invariance failed, and they developed Charged Particle Invariance and all was right with the world. Long Lived K0 Mesons broke that, and that was why I used them.

Tachyons were considered at the time to be the particles that broke the speed limit of the speed of light, and with equations of the special theory of relativity, were cool and allowed me to bring in the hypothetical particle of time, the Chronon, defined as the time taken for a photon to traverse the diameter of an electron, ten to the minus thirty four seconds. You can tell as I mentioned above, I was I to particle physics, which is why I used this branch of science in Season Seven of the Mystical Realms Sagas along with M-theory

The other characters
The End-of-The-Bar Gang was based on real people I used to meet on a Saturday lunch time at the RGIT Student Association bar, and all of them were ex-RGIT students and life members, and all of them had interests in history, science and computing, which was why I got on with them. The character of Patricia is also based on a real person, and in the 1988 version I used her real name. The real Patricia eventually moved to Newcastle by sheer irony, where I caught up with her in 1993, sadly she contracted leukaemia and even sadder I lost contact with her. I do not even know if she is still alive, I even checked on face book and Friends Reunited, to no avail.



Assumed name
The main character travels under the assumed name of Farrow Smyth, this was the name I once used for a character in a game of Traveller, which was why I used it.

[Sticks]

Chapter 4

Aftermath and character assassinations

As Steve rubbed his eyes, he remembered the storm that followed. This was an unprovoked attack on a civilian building, by a major ally. Steve and the End-of-the-bar gang were portrayed as meddlers with very dangerous items of nature. A hate campaign had been immediately launched by the US forces, they were ready. It had been said that they had detected glitches in the space time continuum at their main radio telescope. How they could have detected such a glitch they didn't say, national security and all that junk. It was a lie of course, Steve had never sent anything back through time, he knew the risks of a continuous time loop, and even if he had set one up, no one could detect it at all.

The US forces were adamant that this was the only way as RGIT had refused access. They said that they had detected the experiment in time travel, was only moments away from destroying the fabric of the space time continuum, when they had acted. They had been very persuasive; especially in the way they twisted and distorted the data that they had somehow managed to get hold of. They should have got a medal, these Americans, saving the world yet again. The pilot was of course unnamed.

There were of course some protests that the Americans had acted without consultation. But the British and American special relationship was considered to fragile for the British to stand their ground. It mattered little to the Americans, there were other countries to build relationships with, the new independent states, a unified Germany. America could afford to loose its special relationship at that time. Britain could not, afford to loose this relationship, especially as it was dependant on America for its Trident war heads. In spite of severe cries of outrage from known left wing MP's, the Government managed to win a motion endorsing the action taken by the Americans. The official opposition abstained in the vote. The poison was working. In order to protect the universe from a great catastrophe, the government some how justified the assault on the building. Someone had leaned on them, pretty good and proper, and yet again the stench of corruption came from the American camp.

One by one, each member of the End-of-the-bar gang was vilified. First was Sam. He was easy to do being a member of the local Scottish Nationalist party and an explosive expert after a kind. Sam Urqhart was portrayed as a member of the Scottish Liberation Army. He had obviously wanted to use the time machine and his expertise in explosives to go back and change a crucial battle between the English and the Scottish. Needless to say the Scottish National Party had to disown this attempt at rewriting history. They also had to deny all knowledge of Sam's alleged link to the Scottish terrorist group. To everyone's surprise they produced a criminal record of convictions to cause explosions, especially to the surprise of Sam's family and friends. No matter how hard they protested, no one would believe that the criminal record was anything other than genuine. Before anyone started to believe them, a number were arrested after anonymous tip offs for possession of explosives. Sam's own brother was rumoured to have committed suicide by blowing his head off with a shot gun as the anti-terrorist squad closed in. There was fifty kilos of crack cocaine found on his possession. That was strange, thought Steve, Sam's brother had never owned a gun and was very much against drugs. So with those who had defended the name of Sam Urqhart, either they were arrested and charged or they had been discredited some other way. Some, thought Steve, must still be in prison. They had all been silenced.

Trevor Turner had been pictured as an alcoholic lush, lolling around in a drunken stupor all the time. His local branch of CAMRA refused to comment either way. They disclaimed all responsibility; in fact they had told the media that Trevor had been drummed out for embezzlement of funds. This was very clever for Trevor, since he was never treasurer, and had at one time turned the job down when it had been offered. The presence of American servicemen in the branch was of course pure coincidence. Trevor's involvement in the Scottish History society at one time was perfect for the authorities in the great cover up. Like Sam he was portrayed as a Scottish Liberation Army Sympathiser. He was to help Sam in his bid to change history. His role was informing Sam when to go and who to eliminate. Like Sam's friends and relatives, anyone who disagreed was either intimidated to remain silent, immediately arrested on trumped up charges that stuck or simply vanished. Some of them must be still in prison too, that part of the cover up was equally efficient.

David Smith, being English could not be branded as a Scottish terrorist, so he was branded as compulsive gambler. His purpose for his involvement in the time machine was to try and make a killing on the stock market in order to clear up enormous gambling debts. The profits were to be shared with the Scottish Liberation Army. Like Trevor they tried to make out that he had a drink problem. Some how they even managed to make Priscilla denounce him as a wife beater and a child abuser. Steve looked at the old photograph on the viewer for a Press and Journal, dated one month later. There was a nasty bruise on her face, she looked completely dejected and was holding onto baby Philip as if someone was trying to take him from her. There was a piece about how she had lost the house to pay for these huge gambling debts. The only gambling Steve could remember David doing was to occasionally play the bandit gaming machine. Steve looked further at the picture, a bruise of that size would have recovered in one month, and she certainly did not have any bruising when they met on that fateful Saturday.

As for Neel Maclean and Mike Waterston, well they were portrayed as obsessed with any project they started, that was partially true, but not to the level they suggested. The line was that they had become so obsessed with the time machine project and the glory they could have, that they had lost all sight of the implications of their evil work. Both were portrayed as total failures, academically, socially and career wise, and were trying to succeed at anything. Steve turned to another headline on the viewer. "Were accomplices of mad scientist gay". Now that was a total lie. The article was a total libel, most likely supplied by the CIA cover up squad. That was very good piece of character assassination.

Steve leaned back in his chair. He had come to the end of one of the strips. He rolled back, the papers of twenty years previous whizzing back in seconds. He stopped to look one more time at photograph on the front cover on the day after. Something about the building was just not right. He took the strip off and put in the next one to view. The lies they told about the End-of-the-bar gang were just as bad as how he had been vilified.

Steve had been declared to be clinically insane and a complete sadist, as with the others, those who disagreed were found to be drug addicts, perverts or just disappeared. He had been portrayed as the evil mad scientist, ruthless and stopping at nothing to achieve his aims, no matter who got hurt, siding with any who would help him achieve his ends. By the time the CIA press machine had finished, the press were thanking God and Uncle Sam that they had been saved from such an evil unbalanced mind as that of the Steve Gryson. Steve's personal tutor claimed he had been shocked to find out that Steve had a mental history, he was sacked anyhow and committed suicide a week later, so they said. Steve remembered the man Joe Ferguson he had met the previous day, even twenty years on his name inspired as much fear as if he were Count Dracula

Virtually everyone who had supposed to have been killed had their name blackened. The poison was designed to justify the bombing of RGIT, and it just about worked. They did admit that Patricia Nealson, the RGIT President of the parachute and paracending society was just an "innocent bystander" After all, they found that she was quite popular and had faced down a corrupt sabbatical in her other role of Executive member for the General council of clubs and societies, with the aid of the "evil and mad" Steve the executive member for Finance, and had succeeded in mobilising action to remove the corrupt sabbatical. She had done plenty of jumps for charity, had even broken a leg once doing it. There was no way they could blacken her name. In fact she was the only person they could not blacken the name of, so they had tried another track. She was used as a pawn to blacken Steve and the End-of-the-bar gang. If it wasn't for them, this popular angel of RGIT would not have perished. The responsibility for her death was blamed entirely on Steve Gryson, the ring leader. The parents of Patricia Nealson were offered an undisclosed sum in compensation from the US airforce. In light of what had happened to every one else, they wisely accepted. A new seat in one of the local parks was set up in memory of he name. Steve would have to visit it after he had cleared everything up.

As Steve looked up from the viewer, the sound of the weather outside indicated that a heavy downpour was taking place. Anyone outside without the right gear could be dead in three weeks from the poisons in the acid rain. He felt the glare of the librarian looking at him from the desk, could she recognise him? Steve turned off the viewer. He had seen enough, most he already knew. He packed up the filmstrips and got up to hand them back to the librarian.
"Is there anything else you require sir?" the librarian asked.
Steve shook his head and left the reference section without saying a word. As he walked down the steps he could hear the sound of thunder in the distance, this weather would be lethal. He reached the ground floor and entered the main section of the library and went to use the toilets. His mind was still on events twenty years ago. Steve had in effect caused the closure of an entire academic institution.

The RGIT Governors had pushed for heavy compensation for the loss of their most important building. The insurance refused to cover the cost of the damage. The insurance company stated that since they had not allowed the Americans access, they had brought it upon themselves. RGIT did lodge an action against the US Airforce. The chairman of the governors claimed that the only request they had received had come from the Russian delegation to inspect some of the work going on, but he would not say why. Two days later after he had made that claim, he was involved in a fatal car crash, the driver of the other car was never found. Then days after the court case had opened in Edinburgh, the remaining governors dropped the case, claiming that they had managed to arrive at an out of court undisclosed settlement

Although the Schoolhill site was the administrative centre, everyone knew that the RGIT St Andrew Street building was where the most vital support services were concentrated. This was where the Sacred Honeywell computer, the main computer of the entire organisation, was stored, as well as the main Library. A Hewlett packard was installed up at Hilton. The closure of the Hilton College of education meant that the new RGIT schools of Physics and Chemistry were relocated there. The Maths Department Took over the Clerk building. Their effort to rebuild was remarkable, but without the once prestigious St Andrew Building, and the fact that they had allowed experiments that the world thought could have locked the universe into a continuous time loop, the funding started to dry up. RGIT was fatally crippled, even though they tried to struggle on for five years before falling prey to bankruptcy. A lot of students were left high and dry, too late to change course and no funding left. The hatred of Steve Gryson and the Americans had gone deeper into the psyche, as hundreds found themselves on scrapheaps for life, some just weeks from final exams. The University took some on, but only those who could pay extra course fees privately. The US Airforce denied all liability.

Steve came out of the toilet. A large flash of lightening shone its light through the remaining library window. Steve could see that they had put in a new snack bar since he had last visited the place over twenty years ago. This was mainly for the beleaguered residents who used the library as a sort of dos house. As it looked like the storm would continue for some time, Steve made his way over. He brought a mug of tea and a High-Eng fruit biscuit. He made his way to a seat and stared up at a window. As he stared at the drops of acid water running down the pane, he remembered what he had done for the last twenty years.

As he had made his way from the burning building, he had overheard a report on someone's radio that he had been believed dead, and then he had heard the start of the lie. To be Steve Gryson was too dangerous, He could not return to his flat, so he panicked, and hitch hiked north out of Aberdeen. He had some cash on him, in fact more than he could remember drawing and a card with an address on in Wales, which was a mystery as to how he had come across it.

On his first lift out to Inverness he heard the newscast on a local station. It described how the fire was out of control and how the US military were preventing the emergency services from tackling the blaze in the actual building, by invoking an obscure emergency provisions measure, left over from the first cold war. The driver was a lorry driver for a petrol company. Part of the way through the journey he asked what Steve's name was. As Steve had been keen on fantasy role play games, he gave the name, Farrow Smyth, from a magician character he had played for two years, before it had been retired to concentrate on his PhD. The driver had made a comment that it was an unusual name. Steve had said he was stuck with it. For Steve learning to lie was the hardest thing he had to do.

From Inverness, he made his way across to the west coast, hitching all the way. This time lifts were hard to come by. Steve had spent some of his money buying a few more clothes a small cheap radio and a small travel bag. He spent a long time walking along side Loch Ness, yet not once did he see the fabled Nessy hunting scientist. As he walked he had listened to the news reports of the fall out from the bombing, the questions in Prime Ministers Question time, the statement, the lies.

As the reporters went on about Patricia, someone he had cared about, he had begun to believe the lies that he had caused her death. He began to get more withdrawn. The fact that lifts were looking hard to get also added to his misery. He remembered arriving at Fort William only just. He vaguely remembered trying to commit suicide by throwing himself off of a bridge. That was when his breakdown began, the rest was a blank. It was three years before he "woke up", in a mental hospital in Fort William. His recovery was at the hands of a dedicated female psychotherapist, called Katrina, who was also a committed Christian.

Steve had spent a further year recovering in the institution; amnesia had taken a bit longer to wear off. In finding out about the missing three years from Katrina it had seemed that an unidentified man in a white suite had been driving in a white car across the bridge when he had spotted Steve getting ready to jump. He had stopped the car, got out and restrained him. It was luck that local police had been passing as well. Steve had been handed over by the stranger in the white suit. The police were never able to find this stranger again. Meanwhile Steve had lapsed into a near catatonic state. Steve was lucky that he had no identification on him, even his bank cards were missing. Steve was committed to the local hospital, who then referred him to where he had "woken up". His state was so bad that for a time they had had to feed him intravenously.

He was Katrina's second assignment, her first having succeeded in committing suicide after she had played by the book. For Steve she had thrown out some of the secular techniques and had relied on unorthodox methods based on her Christian faith. Steve learned later that they were going to dismiss her from the institution one week later if he hadn't recovered. He was always riding to the rescue, except for Patricia, dear Patricia. Steve had been named John by the institutional staff, since he had been found without identification. They had asked him on recovery what he was called; he only just remembered that he was travelling under the name of Farrow Smyth. The only thing on him was the card with the address of a place in Wales, which was a total mystery to Steve at that time. Steve had asked Katrina if she knew what the address was. According to her it was the address of an obscure religious retreat she had heard of, apart from that she could not shed any further light

As the year of his recovery passed he discovered that during his breakdown he must have been having nightmares, when they came back during his recovery year he realised that they were of the St Andrew Street bombing. He was in a dark building; a man in a dark hooded coat comes up to him and shoots him. He is dragged through a corridor, then an explosion takes place, then he is on fire, it would be here that he would wake up screaming. He had related the dream to Katrina, his psychotherapist, since it had been three years since the bombing; other more dramatic events had obscured any reference that might have revealed Steve true identity. They could never work out who the hooded man might have been. In his other dreams he would be seeing his friends burning to death; the most horrid death was that of Patricia. Steve had to conclude that his mind was trying to work out how they died. If the explosion did not kill them, then the fire would have finished them off.

The time he could remember at the institution was quite a difference to the life he had lead four years previously at RGIT. The benefits of living in a cocooned environment without the hassle of handing in papers and swatting up for exams. The main difference was that they had to have chaperons if they were ever allowed near other "normal" people. Steve built up relations with other patients and staff, one time his psychotherapist took him to here church, a Pentecostal church. Steve was now starting to rebuild his life, but things were not meant to be. Then the realities of the never ending depression hit. First Katrina disappeared; Steve discovered that she had been dismissed as a cost cutting measure. Then one by one the patients vanished. They told Steve that they were being released under the policy of "Care in the Community". Then it was Steve's turn. He was up before a panel of experts. They asked him a few questions; he could not remember what they were now. Then he was declared recovered and given twenty four hours notice to quit. He picked up his travel bag, packed what clothes he could and left within an hour of the board. As he walked through the streets of Fort William he could see some of the residents who had left, now sleeping rough. So much for care in the community he thought. He looked at the mysterious card with the address in Wales. It was wearing out and becoming dog eared, but the address was readable. He decided that he would pay them a visit, maybe he would find some answers there, since he did not have the fare to take public transport he would have to hitch hike all the way to Wales.

"That's my place" came a gruff voice from behind Steve.
Steve's thoughts scattered instantly, he was back in the library snack bar.
"That's my place" the man from behind said.
Steve turned around, there was an old wrinkled man in an old tattered suit and red eyes, he looked all of seventy.
"Sorry” said Steve quietly as he shifted to another table.
The old man, muttering to himself, sat down with his mug of coffee he had just purchased, he totally ignored Steve. Steve stared at him; the spirit of the people was dying, their sense of pride, decency and honour killed by the second great depression. Just like Dundee three years previously the authorities would soon be abandoning Aberdeen by closing down what was left of local government and essential services. Resources were more needed elsewhere. He thought of Katharine who he had just put on the coach to Wales, she had come from Shetland, now that was a real betrayal of the people, just like the other outer islands they had been abandoned and left to marauding raiders. Ideal for the white slave traders to pick up their cargos of terrified girls to be sold for enforced prostitution.

Even among some decent folks now standards were ebbing away, just as the granite harbour walls would be worn away by the constant battering of the sea. Steve knew though that some had not sold out, at least he knew of one group that had not. This was the community that he had sent Katharine off to, his intuition told him that she was the kind of person who belonged with them. He remembered how he had first met them fifteen years ago.

Steve had been hitch hiking with very limited success from Fort William and had been walking most of the time for what seemed like several weeks. As his money had run out, he was slowly wasting way. He tried to get temporary jobs, but as his condition worsened he became less employable. He tried living of off wild plants as he went, but botany was never his field. It was very difficult to distinguish between edible plants and the poisonous one, so very often he had gone without. He remembered collapsing in a ditch somewhere around Carlisle. The police had picked him up; they were going to charge him with vagrancy. As he had not bothered anyone, like some of the local beggars would do, they had fed him the first meal he had in sometime, cleaned him up and dumped him as far south as their jurisdiction would allow, so he could continue his journey to Wales. The other reason that the police had done this was because of costs and paperwork; it was just not worth it.

As Steve had continued south, he had been able to pick up a lift as far as Birmingham from a truck driver. He had located the community on the driver’s atlas; it was between Fishguard and Newport. He spent a week in Birmingham, sleeping rough. He had tried to get jobs in Birmingham, but the depression and his lack of an address had meant that this was not possible. He started his way across to Wales, trying unsuccessfully to get lifts. Within a week he was suffering with hunger. He had got a lift in the back of a pig lorry as far as Newport, it was better than nothing. All through out the journey he had started hallucinating through lack of food. They arrived in Newport in the evening, he had hoped that he might get something to eat from someone at the other end, but no.

As he left the lorry he was finding it hard to walk down the road. His energy had just about gone. He remembered reaching in the small hours the address on the card he had had for nearly five years since the RGIT St Andrew Street bombing. The place was closed. Steve had collapsed at the gate. If they turned him away, he felt he would be dead in a few days.

Next morning, a young girl from the community had discovered him. At first she had thought he was a drug addict who had overdosed, so she went and got the community director. When the director saw Steve, for a strange reason he seemed to know who this person was. Steve was taken to a spare room and then nursed back to health. For an unexplained reason they knew that his first name was Steve. The community was basically a Christian community that doubled up as a conference and activities centre. After a week the director had shown him a letter, it looked old and mentioned that a man of his description would turn up and it asked them to look after him. The letter had arrived the day before he had arrived, so maybe Katrina had told them he was coming, the timing was perfect. Steve was offered a job at the centre as a "volunteer". He decided to accept, he felt safe here so long as no one found out who he really was.

After one year he was offered a salaried job in the administration headquarters on the site, which he accepted. For ten years Steve had worked steadily as an administrator. In his spare time and on his holidays he had been spitting his time between working his way to repeat the experiment that produced the chronons and the anti-chronons and researching into the bombing incident. As the depression bit, the community became more and more self sufficient, producing eventually certain basic foodstuffs to sell. Steve never made director, he never wanted to. He had never married; every female he had struck a relationship with had come to some unrelated disaster. Steve did not want to cause any more suffering. He saw over the years couples meet at the community, get married and start families. He had distanced himself from that and suffered in silence.

Then four years previously, as he was working on regenerating his last experiment he spotted a possible application. He began to modify his original reactor, to miniaturise it to the size of a standard thermos flask. It was only nine months since he had finished his device. He had then discovered that certain key personnel from the time of the RGIT bombing were on a tour of duty in Aberdeen.

It was time to start his fight to clear his name. He then took the evidence he had amassed to show the community director. The director had agreed with Steve that it was time to sort it out. When he had done so, if he wanted he could always come back. The problem was getting back to Aberdeen. Travelling around Britain by now was dangerous, because of armed gangs that hid out in abandoned towns, and the reversion in some areas to barbarism. For the less well off there was the armoured coach service, like the one he had sent Katharine on. He thought of Katharine, he would have to telephone the next day to see if she had arrived safely. If he travelled by coach, then he would appear on a computer somewhere, and that could prove fatal. The way out came when the director has been invited to visit the Iona community, to help advise on the anti-white slaver defences. Steve had been smuggled aboard with a bicycle on to a flight to Glasgow. The trip from there to Aberdeen had taken just over one week. With a fortnight supply of High-Eng ration bars and lots of cash there would be no starving to near death this time

Steve looked out of the window, the rain seemed to be easing off, and the sound of thunder was disappearing into the distance. He finished up his tea; he had spent too long in one place. He suited up to go back out. As he walked out of the library he looked at the dead trees, killed by the acid. A lot of water had passed under the proverbial bridge in twenty years. He had gone from young adolescent starting in higher education, first time away from home, to high flying student through discoverer of the century and a dead, evil crackpot in the eyes of the world, to an administrator at a last bastion of human decency.

His life hadn't been the only thing to change drastically, the world had moved on and backwards at the same time. There had been a serious breakdown in society as the west slowly stagnated. At least he didn't need a filter mask to survive in this city. You could not go back now.

His mind went back to how he had described himself to the first man he had met yesterday. Steve, now realising that in this world he was the Lone Stranger. Steve returned to his bike and cycled around to look at the ruins again. He stared at the ruins for a few seconds and then cycled across onto George Street and gazed around. Here was the last of the dying retail life of the city. The Bon Accord Shopping complex which had contributed a lot to the economic death of Union Street and the rest of Aberdeen. But the oil industry, once the mainstay of the local economy, was in the process of pulling out as the fields became uneconomic to exploit. Now it seemed that even this area was dying of economic stagnation as well. Slowly the Lone Stranger chained his bike to a lamp post, and walked towards the door of the main complex.

This Lone Stranger had unfinished business in Aberdeen. A lot of mystery still remained .Why did the governors drop their law suit? Why did the Honeywell tapes as far back as two months prior to the bombing disappear? Why could they not just have asked Steve to cancel the Tachyon project? Why did they use the most advanced attack helicopter of the day to virtually level a civilian target belonging to an ally? Why, Why, Why? His eyes were glazed as this went through his mind. He felt he was near the end of his twenty year quest for the truth. He anticipated that within a few days those who had killed his friends would certainly be brought to Justice, or he would die trying.

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 4

Unknown character in white
Through out 1993 rework there is this man in white. Having looked through the various story lines from subsequent series, I can only suppose, this was a character that would have been introduced in a later book, as he does not appear in the other Lone Stranger story lines that I wrote while at the Robert Gordon’s Institute of Technology.

Back Story
As I had been trying to expand the original 1988 script to the size required for a novel, I created the back story of what the main protagonist did from the time the building was attacked to the present, during the 1993 rework of the script. Needless to say because of the nature of the story, a number of oddities occur in this bit, which become clear later.

Bon Accord Shopping Centre
This was being built at the bottom end of George Street in Aberdeen when I was still a student there, and I believe I left before it was finished. In the early days of its build there were protests, and dire predictions as to what it would do to other parts of the city. I am not sure they ever came true, but for dramatic licence I used that idea.

[Sticks]

Chapter 5

The fifth cavalry doesn't always come

Steve stared at the glass doors. He could only just remember from photographs what the place looked like before this shopping centre had been built. He looked around, nearby was a supermarket that was not actually part of the centre. It was sufficiently close to the Bon Accord Centre to be seen by what few shoppers still existed. The Bon Accord having never gone in for the basic food stuffs, had helped keep it afloat, but it would not be for much longer. The public house attached to the supermarket building, that Steve had remembered being taken to by Neel, looked gutted. It was totally abandoned.

Steve could not really delay much longer. A sound of thunder echoed in the distance. Another storm may be the one that had gone over while he had spent the morning in the library. He could feel the sun coming out, with a severely depleted ozone level that was potentially dangerous too without protection. Steve pulled at the door, it was a bit stiff, and the costs of maintenance were on the rise. Steve could only guess at how long before this place would sink below the economic waves of despair and depression. He managed with a little more effort to open the doors and walked through into the Bon Accord shopping centre.

The inside of the centre was just as much a cause for despair. He could see that some of the shops had closed. The "for let" signs showed they had been up for some time. In the distance he caught sight of an old man sweeping up the litter. It seemed like a hopeless task with all the litter strewn around the place. There was some evidence that a tramp had been sleeping rough. Steve could remember what this place was like in its hay day too. It had been an efficient well run shopping mall, with most of the shops on the ground floor. No one would have been able to sleep rough in the mall in those days. He could hear the awful tones of piped music, this was new since twenty years had come and gone. The piped music blurted out old classic heavy metal rock music. This Irritated Steve, since he could not stand that type of music. "But then again" he mused “Since when has anyone ever liked piped music"

He walked further into the complex. Slowly he walked up to an information kiosk, this was new as well, since he had last set foot in the complex. As he had half expected, it was closed. From an old calendar he could see that it had been closed for six months. The economic depression meant that no one could be afforded to staff it. Through the grime of the window he inspected a centre guide. After several moments of study he gave up with the map, since it had almost disintegrated. He decided to talk to the old man, maybe find out information about a shop he was looking for in the complex. He noticed another man, a shopper coming out of a store for compact disks. He was carrying a side automatic pistol on his waist. In these parts this was considered normal. The man with the gun walked across to visit a men's clothes shop. Steve reached the man sweeping up the litter. He looked as if he was about seventy.
"Excuse me” He asked the old man.
The old man looked up at Steve. "How may I help you sir?" he asked, it sounded to Steve like a set phrase they had to say when talking to the public.
"I'm looking for a store called Uncle Sam's" Steve asked.
The old man looked at the floor for a moment then lifted his head; his countenance had fallen to a frown. "It's the new name for the cafeteria sir"
"Why did they change the name?" Steve asked aware that something seemed amiss.
"The people who manly use it are the yanks, worse than the bloody English." The old man replied, "That's not the only thing they changed, it’s bloody indecent what they have done up there" The old man muttered to himself, forgetting himself for a moment
Steve was curious about this mutterings. "What have they done?" he asked.
The old man looked around to make sure that his supervisor was not looking "If you go there you will find out for yourself The owners says it attracts the GI's" he told Steve with a small hint of anger in his voice. The old man looked around again, he was obviously nervous about being seen being disparaging about one of the centres key operations. Jobs were hard to come by in these times, let alone this part of the world. The old man waved a pointed finger at Steve, "It’s that young girl that's started work yesterday, I feel sorry for. She's no better off than if she was sold as a white slave" The old man ranted on, "it wouldn't surprise me if that's where they got her from" he continued
The cafeteria was clearly a bee in this man's bonnet Steve thought, but what it was about, the old man just would not say. Steve took from his pocket a packet of mints. He took one and offered one to the old man. The old man took one and popped it in his mouth. The old man looked at Steve with an air of disapproval.
"What do you want there?" Asked the old man
Steve removed from his bag a large brown package, and looked around briskly. "I have to hand a package to one of the employees there." Steve told the old man, "I've come all the way from Wales to hand it to a Mrs Marie Tavistock, the only address I had was Uncle Sam's, The Bon Accord Centre."
"If that's all I suppose that's ok, Mrs Tavistock is a decent lady she is one that has managed not to bow the knee to Baal".

Another man in the distance with a dark blue uniform appeared. The old man noticed him as well, so he picked up the litter he had collected in his dust pan and placed it in his dust cart and moved away from Steve. He was obviously upset; Steve had inadvertently trod on some bad feelings, so he concluded that discretion was the better part of valour. As he walked further through the complex he looked at the shops that were still open. A lot of the prices were quoted in US dollars, the pound had been abandoned. Most of the shops had changed hands since Steve had last walked through the centre, never the less it still brought back certain memories of shopping here. In those days it was all bright and gleaming, presenting an optimistic vision of the future. It had automatic doors, beautiful plants, a pool, a fountain and a sports centre attached. A person could literally spend an entire day in the centre, especially with the sports complex. It now seemed that his next stop was the old cafeteria on the first floor. As a student he could never afford to eat there, he only ever past it in the old days when he was using the toilet. The waitresses there had smart uniforms and straw boaters, it had seemed like a nice place to eat, yet the old man had given the impression that it had gone downhill. The particular heavy metal track on the piped finished, it started to play Ride of the Valkyries, and it was a bad rendition as well. Steve just wished they would turn it off.

As Steve walked to the bottom of the steps leading up to the cafeteria all he was concerned with was that he had to find someone he had once known, a daughter of one of the leading members and secretary of the house church group, he had once been part of. The members of the house church, he discovered later had refused to accept the official line about Steve. They had been asked to say what a total nasty piece of work he was, by the authorities. They ended up paying dearly for the consequences of standing for the truth. The secretary had ended up in prison for fraud, trumped up charges of course but effective in silencing support. One of the evangelists found his visa had been revoked and was deported. Other members ended up either vanishing from sight or in prison. One family, who had been most vociferous, had their children removed by the social services permanently, on the grounds of satanic child abuse. They had been given the option, denounce Steve, endorse the lie and their children would have been returned. In the end they were sent for trial on charges of child abuse. It had been reported that they had committed suicide while waiting for trial. The children were then placed in separate foster homes; Steve's tracing had failed at that point. The daughter that Steve was going to see was the last surviving member of that house church group; she was about eight when the bombing had taken place, before hand Steve had helped teach in her Sunday school class. Steve had been lucky to trace her.

Steve made his way halfway up the badly chipped tile steps leading to the Cafeteria. He gazed around at the cafeteria. It had been ruined. Gone were the dainty little white tables and chairs that had given it the class it had in the early days. In their place giant red white and blue mushrooms had spouted in clusters of five. Giant hoardings, advertising the standard junk that pretended to be the food which was on offer, stuck out like a forest of sore thumbs. His eyes fixed on the servers; he could count six of them, all women and no men. They all looked between sixteen and thirty years of age.

Then he could see what the old man had been talking about. The uniform had been severely modified from the conservative dark brown striped ones he had remembered. Now the fundamental theme of what little uniform there was was the old American stars and stripes. They all wore thick red glossy lipstick. The footwear, for most of them, had been reduced just to a pair of red white and blue flip-flops. On their heads they all wore red white and blue peaked baseball caps, each had a name badge. All of them, except the girl on the till, wore small red white and blue starry shorts. Of the two waitresses who were clearing tables, next to what looked like two locals, who were engaged in conversation with each other, one was wearing a normal bikini top, the other appeared to be wearing a smaller and skimpier red white and blue starry bikini top, that hardly covered her at all, the rest of her breasts were covered in a form of red silver and blue glitter dust. Behind the food serving counter they were wearing the same more substantial style bikini top as the first waitress, which seemed like a slight nod towards hygiene. In the back room was the supervisor doing some accounts, her uniform was a pair of shorts and a fairly tight figure hugging T-shirt. He could tell that she did not wear a bra underneath. Even so it was a lot more modest than the serving girls, even if it was still that garish red white and blue of the American flag.

He looked at the till area, at it stood the shortest and the youngest of all the waitresses, the new girl the old man had mentioned. She looked about fifteen or sixteen. Instead of shorts, she wore a red white and blue G-String and apart from the Red blue and silver glitter dust scattered on her breasts, she was topless. As Steve looked at her from his position halfway up the steps he could tell that her face was red with embarrassment, trying almost in vain to preserve some modesty by folding her arms across her chest. It was obvious she was not dressed like this by choice, he could tell by her face. She was glancing occasionally and nervously in the direction of the supervisors room, the men at the tables and the stair way. She hadn't seen him yet.

Steve continued to climb up the steps, his gaze directed towards the counter bar. As the girl at the till noticed him coming up, she put her arms down so her hands were both on the counter, as she was told to in her supervisor's instructions, and tried her best to smile, her face turning red. As this stranger walked passed her without looking over her assets, she seemed slightly relieved, but still wishing she could hide or wear some thing more substantial, even if it was a skimpy bikini. Steve walked to the counter and selected a large Styrofoam cup of tea, a cod burger, fries and an Aberdeen morning roll that looked lonely on the shelf. He lifted his head up; he did not want to embarrass the young girl old on the till so he made sure he had got a note ready before he reached the till. As he got to the till, he tried to make sure, as he had done earlier that morning with Katharine that his eyes did not drop below the girl’s eyes. He could see how embarrassed she was, having to stand virtually naked in front of strangers, just to do a menial job of cashier. Her cap badge said her name was Cherry. He could also tell that she was trembling slightly, either with fear, or perhaps she was shivering with the cold caused by the air conditioning in this part of the centre
"Th. that will be f-four dollars fifty five" she told Steve. Her voice was Aberdonian and quite soft. She was trying to sound very cheerful, but her eyes told a different story
Steve handed the note without comment.
Cherry punched the code of his meal into the cash register and took his note, then she pulled out his change, closed the cash till and handed him the change and a receipt
"You change sir" she said in her forced happy voice "Enjoy your meal, have a nice day"
Steve took the change and the receipt, still meeting his eyes with hers. He smiled back to her, trying to be as reassuring as possible.
He turned around and found a table; he sat with his back to the till, to spare Cherry further blushes.

On tasting the morning roll, he discovered why it was had been left on the shelf. He tasted the tea; he had tasted better at the library. At least there, they did not go in for gimmicks that humiliated the employees and turned them into sex objects just for profits. One of the waitresses who was about twenty eight, the one with the more substantial bikini top, came over to clean the table next to him. This was the person he had to see first.
"Hello Marie!" the Lone Stranger opened with.
The waitress turned round and gazed on his face, the blood drained from her face then she started to collapse. the other waitress managed to catch her before she really fell.

"Its amazing the effect I have on people isn't it” Steve commented to himself
The second waitress sat the first waitress on one of the seats and got her to bend over to get the blood back to the head. Slowly Marie started to recover. All the other waitresses that were behind the food counter came rallying around to her aid.

This was far to crowded now so Steve felt he aught to leave "Sorry if I have caused any trouble he told them"
"It's ok Steve” said Marie "I'll be ok now” she told the others.
The supervisor heard the commotion and came out, she caught Cherry crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Cherry, that is not a welcoming posture, hands in front, we don't want you rubbing the glitter off, that's part of the official uniform" she told her half-heartedly. This so called uniform, she did not agree with, but was too contractually tied up to stop it.
Cherry complied with the instruction immediately, "Sorry Miss Jarvis, Marie has just feinted and in the confusion I forgot" she lied.
The supervisor looked at the tables and went over to Marie
"What happened" The Supervisor asked the waitress
"I thought I saw a Ghost" the waitress replied weakly "It seems someone who I thought was dead, is still alive"
The supervisor looked at Steve then at Marie. Steve felt uncomfortable.
"We go way back a long time" Steve explained apologetically to the supervisor.

The supervisor looked at her watch, "it nearly time for your break Marie, do you want to take it now?" She asked her question more like a command than a suggestion. The other waitress, Susan her name on the cap, brought over a cup of tea for Marie. Two other men came up the steps, they looked like military guys. They ordered two double cheese burgers, they lingered at the till looking up and down at Cherry. Cherry wanted the ground to swallow her, but it wouldn't. Steve could tell these were Americans. The locals who were at the cafeteria decided to leave, they seemed to ignore the girl on the till.

"It's kind of a shock to see you” Marie said to Steve, "you are Steve Gry"
Steve put his finger to his lips to indicate to her to stop saying something she shouldn't
"Steve Gryson and his lunatic mad scientists and Patricia Nealson were killed twenty years ago, in order to protect all civilisation and save the universe he replied with more than just a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
"I never believed that, Steve" Said Marie, "Even when they sent the special branch round and destroyed our lives, we never believed that. We knew that you were not the type"

Steve glanced over at the American service men
"We have to talk but not here How long have you got for lunch" he asked.
"Twenty minutes"
"I don't want to talk in front of them” Steve said motioning towards the two Americans, "can we go down to the ground floor and talk"
"Ok” Marie said reluctantly

The two got up and went down the steps to the lower mall, a few more people were coming into the centre. A cool breeze blew around. Marie shivered slightly in the cold. Steve offered her his anorak She declined saying "when at, and coming to and from work, we are supposed to be in so called uniform, company policy"
"Sod company policy" Steve said irritated at this.
"What's this all about?" Asked Marie, trying to change the subject.
"I need your help" Said Steve and produced the package. "I don't believe that my experiments were the real reason RGIT was bombed. This contains all the documentation I have which proves that there was some kind of cover up twenty years ago.
"But that was twenty years ago. Its ancient history" She said as she took the envelope.
"It took me about six years to get my life straightened out, and fourteen years investigating this matter. A lot of people have suffered and my research has shown a large number of inconsistencies in the official accounts. I had to return to Aberdeen, I feel that I am so close to a resolution on this" Steve answered
"So, what if you can resolve it, that was twenty years ago. Look around society has fallen apart, does anybody care anymore" Asked Marie
"I Care. If I can find the real reason, then your parents, the rest of the church could have their names cleared. The same people who destroyed St Andrew Street are the same ones who destroyed your lives as well. Do you want that stigma over you? I knew you as a little girl. We all said you had potential, you can do better than this"
Marie sighed at this "It would clear a shadow over our lives" she said wistfully "But why give this to me?”
"You are the only person I can trust. It's not conclusive evidence, but its enough, especially with an election year coming up, to cause quite a stink, so I need it kept safe. I will be going up against the US military and if something should happen to me I want the Newspapers and the electronic media to have it" he explained.

Marie examined the sealed envelope, it was about one and a half centimetres thick. "I'll let my husband deal with this, he's a computer operator at the Evening Express and Press and Journal now" she said.

"Now let me ask you a personal question" Steve said as he put his hand inside the bag he was carrying.
"Ok" Marie answered looking at this forty five year old that had just re-entered her life, may be to right the wrongs of a generation that was just about to pass away.
"With the risk of using an old cliché, what are nice girls like you doing in a place like this" he asked, his expression grim.
Marie sat down on the side of the steps. Steve sat down beside her.
"I managed to get to art school, but when I finished I could not get a job so I came home. Dad had been released from prison and had trouble finding a job, so I looked for work back in Aberdeen" She explained
"And this was the job you found" Steve interjected.
"Well it wasn't Uncle Sam's then. We had decent uniforms then. I also got married two years ago"
"Any Children?" Steve Asked
"No, not yet"
"But how come they have turned a decent shopping mall cafeteria into little more than a crude attempt at a topless restaurant? That Cherry was very uncomfortable, you can see it in her eyes" Said Steve, his voice indicating annoyance at the current state of affairs.

Marie looked down at the floor and thought for a while. Then turned to face Steve and answered "None of us like it Steve" she replied, "it was the new owners, some holding company, who took over the Bon Accord when the previous management looked like they were going to go bust. They want to attract more customers and increase turnover for the whole centre"
"If they do this to the cafeteria, they will just drive them further away. This was where you went to have a break from shopping and bring the children in my day" Steve answered
"It wasn't done in one go or we would have stopped there and then. It was a gradual process. At first they had a study done that showed that the majority of our customers were single American Service men on leave from the new US Base near Stonehaven. The locals have hardly any money but the Americans have loads, especially those still working with what little oil industry there is left."
"Is that why you became Uncle Sam’s?”
"Yes that's exactly why we became Uncle Sam's. At first it was ok. We had uniforms like the supervisors. They asked us when the T-shirts were introduced, not to wear bras underneath. They wanted a sexy and attractive image to attract the US servicemen and oil workers, and as they were specially designed for females to be figure hugging they said they did not require a bra to be worn underneath. They said if a bra was worn underneath then the bra straps were obvious and spoilt the look and detracted from the corporate image. I objected to that but I was given the choice of doing as I was told or leaving"
"Why not walk, you must have guessed they were exploiting you?" Steve said with a moral tone
"I still need the job, and the holding company virtually owns the town. They don't have the dole anymore Steve. I had no choice Steve. None of us had" Marie explained, then she continued giving her account to Steve, of what had happened to them, "So we tried these new uniforms, and they certainly did make our figures look great and pleased most of the male customers. At first we felt flattered, but we did not attract enough of the customers. The new owner suggested last year that we wear bikini tops like mine for a special promotion during the summer. The supervisor decided as she was senior she should not to have go along with it, it wasn't compulsory then, and she argued that it gave her more an image of authority when dealing with the suppliers, if she stuck with the T-Shirt. We had worn our bikinis on the beach and at the swimming pool so we thought it would be fun, and they seemed a lot more decent than some I have seen. I wish we hadn't gone along with it now. That Miss Judith is one clever supervisor, she must have seen what was coming"
"Give them an inch "Steve started
"And they take several miles" Marie added "Anyway, the turnover increased amongst the American clientele and some of the local lads came in as well, so they made it a permanent change in the uniform. As the supervisor had not gone along with it according to a loophole in the contracts or something like that, she was able to keep the old uniform because she had not worn the new uniform when it was optional. Another two girls who were working here left because they didn't agree with the uniform and one was pregnant, and beginning to show it. Susan and Kim were hired but they changed the uniform on them to reduce the size of the bikini top. Its so small that its hardly worth wearing. They say that turnover then went up by five percent. As for Cherry she has only just started yesterday, they told us she was just small for her age, well she has told us that she has only recently turned sixteen."
"But?” Asked Steve perplexed "she's only just a kid. Why is she virtually naked?. her face was as red as a beetroot. Are they trying to attract every paedophile for miles around"
"It seems that way as long as they pay money into the coffers of the owners. Why she is here easy to explain" Marie said
Steve could detect a hint of anger was tingeing her voice now. She continued "She's an orphan, from a local children's home"
"I thought those places disappeared back in the twentieth century" interrupted Steve.
"So did we." answered Marie "Then one of members of the board hinted the other month that as turnover was starting to level out, we might like to try working wearing only the glitter dust and ditching the bikini tops and swapping our shorts for G-Strings. Because of the loophole the supervisor found we resisted that one and they seemed to back down, but Kim was not sure she could use it so she left last week, she said she had a better job to go to anyway. We got a postcard from her the other day, she is working as a clerk in Edinburgh. That of course left a gap to fill." Marie's voice started to break up. Her eyes were filling with tears.
Steve handed her a handkerchief, she took it and wiped her eyes.
"Are you ok Marie?"
"Just about" she sniffed, "this gets me when ever I think of it. Those b*******s all they care about is profit". At this she hit her fist on the steps.
"Do you want to talk about it?”
"I suppose so. Cherry was approaching her sixteenth birthday, which meant that under the new rules she had to leave and find a job and a place to stay. Apparently they could not make any exceptions. She was desperate as she had nothing of her own, even the food and clothes at the home had been provided by charitable donations and they are very short on such items apparently. She was convinced she would end up on the streets. Anyhow one of the directors of the home was also one of the members on the board of the holding company. He told the home he could help and that he had a live in job, not much pay, peanuts, really but that food and accommodation would be provided. The home's hands were tied by the regulations and Cherry had to accept." Marie sniffed a bit but went on. "He signed her up here and said she could stay at the centre. She sleeps on a couch in the supervisor’s room with just an old blanket. As she was new the loophole didn't apply. The owners decided that the uniform for all new employees was to be the lip gloss, flip flops, cap, the G-String and the glitter dust. They removed the bikini top from the list. We had er suspicion they were um considering it, but we didn't know until er Cherry joined us"

Marie's sentences were starting to get shorter now, her voice betraying how the injustice of the holding company and the depravity of their business ethic was deeply at odds with her Christian upbringing. She tipped her head back and then forward as she tried to regain her composure, what would the customers think? She struggled on to explain to Steve the sequence of events

"Er They didn't tell her of course. She was brought in by that director. She thought she would be er wearing the same uniform as me. Even that made her nervous. We er had heard she was er quite a shy and self conscious girl at the home. She said she only wore one piece costumes at the swimming pool. She had come in dressed very modestly for a teenager, even when I was her age. She was asked if she could put make up on by her self. She said she could. She put on the mascara and had managed the lip gloss. Then she was told to go into the ladies toilets to change. The director ordered her to undress completely and place all her clothes in a carrier with the centre's name on. She asked if she should just strip down to her undies. He er told her, 'I said everything' in a really nasty voice. The director then er told her to pass out the bag and she would be given a bag with her er uniform. The way she reached out from behind the door to hand out the bag while protecting her modesty was pitiful. We all thought the bag with her clothes in was for safe keeping in the supervisor’s room. The director asked Cherry to wait a moment. He wanted to have a quick word with Miss Judith. Cherry asked Miss Judith to pass her the uniform when she had spoken to him and closed the door"
"What happened next?" Steve asked with a sinking feeling. His years in the religious community had shielded him from the declining morals of the outside world. The more and more of the world outside he heard of the less he liked it. He could tell that Marie was upset, she always was one who liked to see the good guys win. In this world now, they were few and far between. Maybe he should never have asked. It was not a battle he had come to fight.

Marie wiped her eyes again, trying not to smudge her mascara. "So this director then tells us that the clothes are the property of the home and he had to return them for the others to use. He said Cherry had been given a free uniform to wear for the time being. We couldn't stop him, not even the supervisor. He just handed Miss Judith a letter from the owners and walked out. We didn't look at her uniform. Miss Judith knocked on the toilet door and handed Cherry the bag with the er so called uniform. While Cherry was changing, Miss Judith read the letter the director had given her. it just told her about the new uniform change. Meanwhile Cherry had put on the cap. When she found the G-String instead of the shorts, she thought it was a mistake, but she put it on anyway, and when she couldn't find the bikini top she called the supervisor from the toilets. The supervisor, Miss Judith went in to see what the problem was. Cherry asked if there was a mistake in the bag she had been given, and if there was a spare bikini top at least. The Supervisor had been told she had to show Cherry how to use the glitter dust and explain to her that the bikini top had been withdrawn from the uniform for new employees, and that the er G-String had replaced the um shorts. The letter said that the glitter dust was all she was allowed to wear for her top. Cherry was very distraught, especially when she heard she had lost her clothes. When she came out of the toilets, she was in tears, she tried to fold her arms to guard her modesty. The supervisor had been instructed tell her not to fold her arms in front. The letter said it was unfriendly body language, and Uncle Sam's was a friendly organisation. It also said that it would wipe off the glitter dust and she wasn't to. We allowed her the morning to have a good cry in the supervisors room. Poor kid, Susan gave her a big hug to try and comfort her. We were all glad that it was an early closing day for the centre. We asked the janitor to make sure that there were no men about and the cameras were switched off during the afternoon. Just to show solidarity with her for that afternoon, I suggested we all took our tops off while we showed her the ropes, even the supervisor agreed to it. We haven't told the owners"
"Do you think that will have helped her settle in to do something so blatantly against her nature" Steve asked
"Steve she doesn't have any other choice. We managed to convince her that we were on her side. Steve they abandoned her. They've used her and made her feel dirty and ashamed. She can't afford to get any clothes. she's trapped here, she hasn't even got a rain shield"
"So that's what the old man meant by white slavery, only unlike those scum bags who are pillaging the outer isles this has been dressed up to seem like a business decision, and I suppose if you lot walked out there would be more Cherry's. It is despicable"
"We are trying to help her out. Because of the security patrols overnight in the centre, we wanted to get Cherry something to wear overnight. We didn't have the cash to buy her anything so last night so Miss Judith leant Cherry her uniform T-shirt top for her to use overnight as MIss Judith had her rainshield with her, which is opaque, and she was the last to leave and had her car in the car park which had a spare jumper for cold weather use. I managed to find Cherry an old cardigan this morning that she can use at night. Miss Judith has found an old t-shirt for her to wear after hours. During the day they have to be left with security, because of fire regulations. We are taking it in turns, to take them to and from security, at opening and closing time, for her. Where we can, we are going to start saving up to buy her some clothes. So she can go out more on days off. We are all trying to give her support, we keep telling her we don't agree with it either. And we will try to and defend her against some of the customers. Susan even offered to forego her top so Cherry would not be the only one who has to go topless. We thought that would be just giving in to them. They are rats; they have no regard for her feelings. This is her first day with customers; she is terrified of anyone from the home seeing her. We half expected her to top herself. I would have done. That's why the supervisor locked up all the knives last night. Susan even suggested staying with her all night to make sure she didn't"
"Did she?" Steve asked
"No. Cherry knew what we were thinking. She said if she wasn't there he would force someone else into the same situation. She told us that she didn't want anyone else to suffer. She tried to seem like she was so brave. Oh Steve you should have seen the state we found her in this morning. She had been virtually crying all night. It was a good job the supervisor is a wizard with make over’s"
"Tell Cherry from me, that she is doing a good job in the circumstances. Its how she does her job and what kind of person she is, not what she wears that counts" Steve told her and then pulled out several large bank notes. "Add this to the clothing fund” he told her.
"Marie" came a voice from up top. Marie turned her head to look up. It was Susan, "Breaks just about over", she called down
"Ok I'll be right up"
She turned her head to say good bye to Steve, but to her surprise he had vanished and was no where to be seen.

She managed to recompose herself. The rest of her shift was relatively uneventful, a few people came round some making suggestive remarks to Cherry, one drunken customer tried to grope her. Susan had managed to defuse the situation. It was hard going preventing Cherry from bursting into tears. Cherry did manage to obey her supervisor and did not try to cover up, her face bright scarlet through blushing. Marie thought about the situation. Even if they were all naked this job could not last forever. They all knew Aberdeen would be abandoned soon. The chance to have their names cleared seemed the only bright spot she thought as she fondled the envelope.

After an hour she managed to get permission to go down on her own to a clothes store to buy Cherry a decent set of underwear, a pair of jeans, a decent Sweatshirt and a rain shield. Cherry was very grateful to the kind stranger who had taken pity on her. When Cherry had got dressed up in her new cloths, the Supervisor gave Marie permission to take her down to get some decent socks and shoes. Marie had told her that not all men were scum bags and that Steve had always been generous and a knight in shining armour, of a sort. Marie had asked if Cherry would like to visit her that night, but Susan had made the same offer whilst Marie was buying the clothes for Cherry, which she had accepted. As Susan had been in a home years before she had known the system, but had been luckier, she had managed to run away, a month before they could hand her over to the white slavers that plagued the west coast.

At last her shift ended. She could leave this place for the night. Her husband Garry arrived in the main concourse to meet her with a coat to give her a bit more modesty. It was technically against the contract not to travel to and from work in visible uniform, except for using a rain shield in bad weather. They said it was considered corporate advertising by the owners, but it was another reason for resisting the urge by the owners to remove the bikini tops from the uniform and substitute the G-String for the shorts. The supervisor had waived the rule for Cherry and was due to ask the board to relax this rule with respect to the new "uniform". Marie took her coat and put it on. Marie then walked out of the complex with her husband Garry into George street.
"You've been crying" he said to her "have the owners insisted you strip further” he asked.
"No, not yet. It just I was talking to someone who was supposed to have been dead for twenty years about what the owners have done to that new girl"
Garry Stopped ."What do you mean by supposed to have been dead for twenty years"
"It's Steve, Steve Gryson, he's alive, he's back and he wants to put things right.
"It was him who caused the trouble in the first place"
"He doesn't believe it was his fault, he has given me some evidence of a conspiracy" she replied showing him the package.
Garry took the envelope "If only he could "sighed Garry, "if only he could"

None of them noticed, that from the shadows, Steve was watching them. He wanted to help, but he could not help everyone. There were some louses you could step on and some you could not. He could not fight everyone's battles after all he was not the fifth cavalry, sometimes they never came and people had to muddle through as best as possible. Steve preferred the style of a lone trouble-shooter, and for now, he had other more important fish to fry than unscrupulous and corrupt and greedy businessmen.

Steve found his bicycle and unchained it. As the GIS congregated at Uncle Sam's and other low life bars, the one person he next had to see would not be there. The man he was after was the pilot of the helicopter; he had spent all afternoon tracing him. He got on his bicycle and rode up George Street, and then he rode up St Andrew Street. He gazed once more at the ruins of St Andrew Street. A Sharp pain went through him as he remembered all the people he had once known, all the people whose subsequent lives had been lost or ruined because they had defended his memory. He had always regretted having to play dead, but with the hate campaign he would never have got a fair hearing. Someone else was responsible and someone else had to pay for what happened, others had done that for too long. They never wanted to make a time machine to travel backwards in time. Even if there was any danger an Apache attack chopper was totally unnecessary. He would have scrapped the project if there was any real danger. They only had to ask him. Something else was involved, something nasty and worth destroying the lives of innocent people for.

The Lone Stranger rode up to a more high quality eating establishment, the door to Simpsons’ opened. The Stranger walked in to the bar. He eyed all the riffraff who drank at what was a slowly degenerating sleazy watering hole. He remembered when he first visited the bar; he and the End-of-the-bar gang had spent an afternoon talking about a range of topics from the economy to how on earth could we make our own atomic bomb. In those days it was a really classy place; now all sorts of drop outs came here ruining the place. Slowly he walked up to an old man drinking in a corner on his own. Steve's eyes were narrowed with a deep seated anger. The man was not in a uniform, he had put on a few more pounds, but Steve knew who he was, he had seen him twenty years ago. He was a full wing commander now, J.W Sampson, the pilot of the helicopter that had blown the St Andrew Street building apart.
"Commander J.W Sampson" The stranger asked him trying to restrain the deep seated rage in his voice.
"I am“, said the commander in a Southern Texas accent, "what's it to you sir?"

The stranger quickly pulled from a holster some kind of gun shaped object and levelled it at the commander.
"I want some answers“ the Stranger barked " You were the Pilot of the Apache that killed Steve Gryson, Patricia Nealson, And a sizeable chunk of the life members of the RGIT Student association. If you want to continue living, I want some answers now. Why and who ordered you to attacked a peaceful civilian building?”

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 5

Episode Title
In old western movies, when all seemed lost and the Indians, (Sorry native Americans slanderously portrayed by Hollywood) were poised on mass to attack, at the last moment the US cavalry would ride in and save the day. The expression “Here comes the cavalry” usually means reinforcements of some kind or someone arriving to “save the day”. Sadly, that does not always happen, even in real life.


Piped Music
Reference is made to piped music being universally disliked; this is a bug bear for some, although I am not aware now that it is that much of an issue. Probably we have learned to tune it out, but in the 1980’s and early 1990’s it was played in to add to the ambience of the retail experience.

Uncle Sam’s
Here we have the ultimate, as it were, in worker exploitation where a young girl is forced to work as a topless waitress, and was partly used to show just far how society has broken down in this dystopia I created. It would be hard to imagine anyone getting away with what is portrayed, given the introduction of human rights into legislation. This scene came in during the 1993 rewrite, and I must admit, it did make me feel uncomfortable given the age of the main victim of a very cynical corporate decision, and maybe later probably influenced the resolution I put in right at the end. The problem s that such exploitation does happen in other parts of the world today, if not on this scale or like this, but covertly, and it behoves us all to do what we can to stamp this out (end of rant)

Aberdeen Morning Roll

This is a small flat bread product which is unique to Aberdeen. It also goes by the name Rowie. And I quite like them. Unfortunately they are not available in Newcastle

Here is a recipie

Simpsons
This is a real bar that was in Aberdeen. Am not sure if it is still there now as I have not been to Aberdeen for some years.

[Sticks]

Chapter 6

An avenging angel calls

"You must be mad!” the commander said nervously, as he looked at the gun shaped object in the semi gloom of the bar lighting, "You will never get away with this".
"You mean like you got away with mass murder, criminal damage and a campaign against innocent civilians" The Lone Stranger answered back.
The commander slowly started to move his right hand away from his plate. The Lone Stranger noticed this movement; he pulled back the hammer on his gun.
"Go ahead, just give me the excuse, it more than you deserve" He told the commander.

The general hubbub of the bar clientele fell to a hushed silence, as all eyes focused on this stranger who had come into their haven from the bleak world outside. They had all heard of shoot outs in other bars, the one on Upper-Kirkgate down the road had been gutted in a vicious fire fight the previous month. Thirteen people had died, ten were put in hospital. They didn't care much about the commander, they considered him to be a loud mouth Texan who was always flaunting his wealth and pulling rank, but to wreck their only watering hole was a different matter. A local man picked up a baseball bat and walked towards the stranger.

"Who ever you are, you better leave now" he said in a menacing tone. The Lone Stranger looked around at the crowd, a collection of some of the locals, a real motley bunch. To live in the North East of Scotland which was reverting back to barbarianism outside of the major towns, they needed to be a harder breed. He might be able to tackle at least two, but he could not take them all on, and he did not want to, since he did not have any quarrel with them. His immediate quarrel was with the commander, and he could not allow any one interfere with what he had to do.
"I have a private matter with the commander; I don't have anything against you"
"The commander stays, you leave" said the man with the baseball bat.
At this the stranger withdrew from his pocket what appeared to be a grenade with his other hand and pulled the pin out with his teeth. "This is a thermite grenade, its just two stages away from a tactical nuke. I drop it and this whole building goes up in seconds" He told the assembled on lookers, "The commander and I are going out now. Any one move to stop us and I drop this" The Lone Stranger yelled

The man with the baseball bat put it down "we don't want any trouble in here ok" he said
"Suits me fine. Ok Sampson, I want you to get up and come out side now" The Stranger ordered "or my hand gets tired of holding this pineapple"
The commander was breaking into a sweat. As he looked at the barrel of the gun and the thermite grenade, a load of questions went through his head. How could any one of guessed his involvement twenty years ago? Who was this person? What did he want?
The commander started to get up.
"Slowly and keep your hands where I can see them" Barked the Lone Stranger, “you wouldn't want to make me nervous"

The commander got to his feet and moved to the door, the stranger followed him, always pointing the gun at him. The other customers moved to get out of their way, there seemed no sense in dying over someone like the commander.
"I don't know what you expect to gain boy, but you are nuttier than an old Dundee fruit cake" The commander told the Lone Stranger
The Lone Stranger dug the gun slightly into the commanders back "I am not a Boy you worthless piece of crap" he retorted.
They reached the main front door; the commander went to open it.
"And don't try to run either, you will never make it.

As soon as the two men left the other customers sighed with relief, that was a close call. One of the other customers turned to the man who had the base ball bat. "You moron, you could have got us all killed" he said in his weasel fashion
"How was I to know he might have a thermite grenade" Protested the man. The rest of the bar gradually returned to the things they were doing before the Stranger had come in.

The sun was now starting to sink lower; the sky was turning a glorious shade of red as the two men walked outside.
Ok commander; put your gun on the ground slowly. Don't forget if this pineapple goes up, your still in the blast radius" Ordered the Lone Stranger.
The commander slowly reached for his holster, he was sure he could out shoot this man, but the thermite grenade did put things into a different light. This was no time for heroics. He pulled out the gun and held it in his finger and thumb. "This is it. It’s an ancient point four five magnum, it’s a family heirloom" he said as he held it in mid air.
"So you know what it is like to have a family then. Unload it"
The commander opened the gun up and emptied the bullets into his hand
"That's all the bullets" The commander told the Lone Stranger
"Throw them to your left” Ordered the Lone Stranger
Carefully the commander tossed the bullets a few feet away from him.
"Now lay the gun on the ground and walk forward five paces"
Slowly the commander placed his gun on the ground and then walked forward five paces, sweat dripping off his face. The Lone Stranger walked forward and picked up the gun and inspected it. The chambers were empty as he had instructed. "Now Commander we are going to the scene of the crime, start walking"

The commander started to walk down Blackfriars street, to him it seemed like the longest walk of his life. Each step seemed like an eternity wondering when he would get a bullet in the back. If he wasn't shot by this maniac then he might get caught in the blast of a high powered explosive, considered to be a quarter of the effect of a tactical nuclear weapon. This son of a bitch sure had all bases covered.
"Which institution did they let you out of?" He asked
"Shut up and keep walking" Ordered the Lone Stranger

The two men walked down the street and eventually came to the ruins of the St Andrew Street building.
"Now what?" Asked the commander
"There is a hole in the fence a little further on; we are going in to have a look at what your work has done"
The commander looked at the ruins over the fence as they walked towards the gap in the fence. He had never really looked at it; he had left Aberdeen shortly after he had flown the mission. The evening shadows made the whole ruin more sinister. A slight breeze had picked up, it made a very eerie moan He could almost imagine the ghosts of those who had died screaming at him in vengeance. He could see the hole in the fence. He Stopped by it.
"Inside" ordered the Lone Stranger
The commander carefully climbed through the gap in the fence.
"Stand still and don't move" The Stranger ordered as he climbed through the fence, "Now walk over to the old car park, take a good look around. This is what a missile attack can do; they probably never heard you coming"
"Come on, the Apache is a fire and forget. It could have been fired from a mile off" Said the commander nervously.
"That's interesting, I never mentioned it was an Apache helicopter" commented the Lone Stranger
"It was in the papers that it was an Apache" the commander tried to explain.
"Oh no it wasn't, they just said an American helicopter. Now how would you know what type of helicopter it was? Now kneel down"
"In this mud"
"I said kneel, I won't ask you again"
The commander knelt down in the driest part he could find, "Now what the Sam hill is this all about" he asked in an exasperated tone.
"Wing Commander J.W Sampson, you are the pilot who alone flew the mission against this building. You used an Apache Attack helicopter and several air to ground missiles. You killed seven people"
The commander thought he would try another tack on the man holding the gun and the thermite grenade "Boy do you have some heck of an imagination there" he said in a half joking manner
"This is no imagination and you know it, so cut the denial crap you are definitely the pilot. Start talking Sampson, Who gave the termination order on St Andrew street"
"I have no idea what you are talking about” Said the commander, "I wasn't there"
From behind him the commander heard the sound of a gun being cocked
"I am beginning to get impatient here. I have nothing to loose here, have you?”
"What makes you think I would be on that mission, the name was never released?"
"Its interesting that you know that. If I was you and I had not done it I don't think I would have remembered that fact. I mean everyone was so concerned about the hate campaign against your victims. Did you do that as well?" The Lone Stranger said trying to stem the rage he felt. Here was the man responsible for all that had befallen him, his family and friends.

"I admit I was a chopper pilot based in Britain, but there were hundreds of pilots who could have flown the mission. What makes you so dam sure that I am your alleged pilot" The commander asked as he looked at the lengthening shadows which were beginning to creep towards him
"I've had a lot of time to find you. Tracing people is something I do rather well. I once was seconded to the Salvation Army for a year to assist with their computer tracing system. I picked up a lot of experience" The Lone Stranger sneered, "I also had quite a bit of luck coming across a young runaway who was quite a wizard at hacking a while back. Your pentagon's computer has lousy security, it was a walk over. I just pulled the list of all those who served at the old Edzell base and followed up any American pilot. I found you quite early on. You were there right up to the time of the mission. Quite a lucky shot I thought" explained the Lone Stranger.
"Ok so I was stationed there, so were a bunch of other guys one of them must have flown it."
"Two weeks after the attack you got a sudden promotion over those who had been waiting for a long time. You must have been a very fast rising star. At the time you were supposed to be on leave in a Welsh fishing port. I checked you out, you were missing at the time of the attack, and your alibi was a total sham. They did not want anyone to know you were involved, or was that to get around your freedom of information act you had in those days" The stranger said in a drawled out accent free tone

"This guy is not Scottish" The commander thought
"OK I was not in Wales then. I had to attend a funeral, so I couldn't make it" The commander answered.
"Oh you forget how your false alibi was supposed to be set up, because someone with your name checked in. I knew the hotel and I had your picture from your Pentagon computer. So I went there, said I was looking for you, they said they had not even seen you. When I told them your name. They said you had been there but you weren't the man in the picture. Someone checked in at that Welsh hotel alright but it wasn't you commander. All the evidence fits into place as the only way to account for your sudden rise from being described as a second rate officer to full Wing Commander is if you took part in a very special mission, that rewarded you very well. You can deny it all you want, but we both know very well. You are the pilot, who attacked a civilian building, owned by a peaceful organisation, based in a country of a major Ally"
"This is all circumstantial evidence. You haven't got a single item of proof that it was me"
"It’s all the evidence I need Sampson"

Commander Sampson was beginning to feel uncomfortable, who ever this guy was, he was just as damn good as the old CIA. It was unnerving that all that information was kept on computers and that someone had hacked into them. What possible motive could this person have for pursuing a twenty year old event? Then a thought occurred to him
"You must be KGB, only the KGB could organise such a surveillance operation. What do you hope to achieve for the Mid East Block."
"Really Sampson, you insult my intelligence. I don't work with amateurs. Consider me as the angel of vengeance, vengeance for those who died. Vengeance for those who had their lives destroyed because they refused to believe your lies. Why don't you confess commander? You bombed this building. And I am very sure you must have known why."
"This has gone far enough who ever you are. The building was targeted because of a dangerous experiment in time travel. How would you like to live in a time loop? Reliving the same event time in time out forever" The commander said. He tried to get up, this was stupid.
"I said kneel. I have not finished with you."

"Ok so I flew the mission. Just kill me now. Get it over and done with. I'm glad I flew it. I helped save the universe from a mad evil scientist who sounds like he came from the same funny farm as you did"
"You could have just asked him to stop and he would have done so. I ask you again who ordered you to attack an unarmed British civilian building with out warning, my hand is getting tired" The Lone Stranger said in a drawl.
"I don't know, I was never told, I was only obeying orders for the safety of mankind" The commander blurted out.
"Not good enough "The Lone Stranger said in a dropped tone, "That was the argument of the Nazis in the last century. We never accepted it then. We don't accept it now. Someone gave you those orders, who were they? Why don't you tell me?"
"You had better pull that trigger. I am not at liberty to divulge that it's classified"
The Commander then felt the gun on the back of his neck.
"Sampson." the Lone Stranger said in a quiet voice, "If I pulled the trigger now. It will look like a gang land execution. Any friends and family you have will have there lives turned upside down. Trying to find where you mafia connections are. How do you feel about your death bringing shame dishonour and possible death on your loved ones?"
"You are some sadistic son of a bitch. You will never get away with it. Our guys will hunt you down" Said the commander angrily, "you sound like a real pinko"
"Can you hunt down a ghost, a dead man. Can't you hear the screams of the victims crying out for your blood? Do you want to carry the can all alone?"
"That's my job. I put my head up above the parapet. Sometimes our heads get blown off. It goes with the territory"

In the distance the sound of a police hover-car siren sounded, the owners of Simpsons had understandably called the police. If they flew over the ruins it could ruin everything.
"Get up" Ordered the Lone Stranger, "we are going to have a look inside"
"Are you crazy, that's liable to come down any minute" The commander said as he stood up.
"Maybe I am. But then I am just an angel of vengeance to you. Now in"

The Two walked into the darkened western corridor. The commander felt that it was nearing the end. He just wished he could know who was the Loony tune who had the twenty year old grudge. The broken glass crunched under foot. The commander thought he would try a psychological attack, he had nothing to loose.
"We are inside the building now. Why don't you pull that trigger if you've got the guts? And I don't think you have." he said in sarcastic tone.
"Don't worry, your time will come to feel the sword of retribution" The Lone Stranger retorted, "But first I want you to listen to the howl of broken lives"
"Come on I wouldn't of thought a man like you would believe in ghosts"
"I want you to listen to anguish of those who were left high and dry. The Students who had saved to better themselves, only for their dreams and aspirations to be crushed out of existence by your so called mission to save man kind"
"No. The responsibility was entirely that of your sick pinko friend. He set up the experiment that was the threat to mankind. We had no choice. Those pinkos on the board of governors would not let us inspect the equipment"
"Come on Mr Samson, we know that was a lie. RGIT was never asked. The attack was unprovoked and you know it. That laboratory on your right. go in and kneel down"
The commander tried the charred door. it was stiff. "It won't open"
"Then kneel here"
"No, If you are going to shoot me, then shoot me in the front. I don't think you can, because if you could, you would have done it by now"
The commander decided to turn around. He was going to confront this pinko face to face. Thermite grenade or no thermite grenade. He was a Wing Commander this guy looked like he was a bum.

The Gun shot rocked the area.

It was a couple of seconds when the commander realised that he was alive he realised it must have been either a starting pistol or blank ammunition

The commander looked around and discovered the Lone Stranger was nowhere to be seen.
"He can’t have gone far” The commander said to himself. He left the building to search for Lone Stranger. But it seemed as if he were never there. In the time allowed, the commander would have seen him, even if ran away as soon as the gun had gone off.

Suddenly he heard the sound of a police hover-car overhead. They had obviously heard the gunshot. This he could do without; the police being locals were such a nuisance, as they did not come under his control. Oh how he longed to have an excuse to implement his emergency powers to declare martial law. He would show those guys a thing or to about keeping law and order. The police Hover-car spotted him wandering about the ruins and started to descend. The commander waited for them to land. Maybe they might have seen the man run away.

"Can I remind you sir" said the policewoman who was driving the hover-car as it landed, "that this is an unsafe area to sleep in"
This assumption incensed the commander "I am no G_d dam bum, I am Wing Commander J W Samson from the Edzell air base, I have been brought here against my will"
"But you are the only person we have seen here" replied the policewomen, "We were responding to the call from Simpsons, about a man with a gun and a thermite grenade who had abducted you when we heard the gunshot. If there was anyone else around we would have seen them"
"But he can't have vanished into thin air" The commander protested.
"The important thing is sir that you are safe" The policewomen replied "just hop in the back and we can drop you back at Simpsons"

The commander nodded his head and climbed in the back of the police hover-car.
"Do you wish to come to the station and make a statement sir?" said another policewoman in the front passenger seat.
"What's there to say, this joker comes into the bar, pulls a gun and a thermite grenade. He forces me to come here and mouths a lot of rantings. He then shoots a gun at me which turns out to be blanks then vanishes into thin air. The guys obviously a fruitcake" The commander replied.
"But do you wish to make an official statement at the station?" the other policewoman persisted.
"If it’s all the same to you officer, I will send you a written statement from Edzell. I have to get back there as something has just come up"

The vehicle lifted up over the ruins and flew over the old abandoned Robert Gordons College. The Commander felt a note in his pocket. He fished it out. It read "Not yet, yours the Avenging Angel"
The commander shuddered, could this really have been a ghost. As the police had been called, he had not imagined it.
"You better have this" he told the other policewoman in the car as he handed it to her "That pinko planted it on me. I want him caught and locked up"
"We do try our best" said the other policewoman, "but we are rather undermanned"
"Just ask and I can declare marshal law, then you can have a fine contingent of marines from the Stonehaven base to help keep order"

This somewhat alarmed the two policewomen. A military takeover was the last thing they wanted, especially by foreign troops, the drills which they could have a say in were bad enough. They realised that in a time of emergency they would come under the military police. What was left of the old Scottish law would disappear, not to English law as the Scots had once feared in the twentieth century but to the Americans who were now dominating West-Bloc. Even now the local population were still proud of their heritage, in spite of the continuing cultural decay to bland Americanisation.
"Thanks for the offer sir, but I don't think we need that just yet" said the policewoman who was driving.

The hover-car landed in the vehicle park of Simpsons. One of the policewomen got out and let the commander out.
"Thanks for the lift "he told her, "Just make sure you get that pinko"
"That's ok sir, anything to help"

The commander got to his Hover-car, "They better get to that guy before I do, for his sake" he said to himself as he got in and started up the hover-car. He had enough excitement for one day, but the fact that someone had discovered his role in operation blackout was unnerving. If only he could declare local Marshall Law, he could soon flush out the pinko's, especially those who might have evidence about the real purpose of operation blackout. He had thought they had dealt with those twenty years ago. No matter, they would have to be silenced. He had to get in touch with the man who sent him on the mission, he was a lot higher up and he could not afford to let this bring him down. This Avenging angel, this Lone Stranger and any associates would have to be eliminated. "Oh yes" The commander thought, "was one loose end he could not ignore." To him it was only a matter of time. That Lone Stranger was dead meat.

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 6

Time scale
In the original 1988 version the events of the bombing of the RGIT St Andrew Street building was fifteen years in the past. In this 1993 rewrite it was increased to twenty years in the past.

Helicopter Gun ship used
In the 1993 rewrite, I used an Apache, in 1988, I referred to a Black Wing Attack helicopter. One problem is, there was never such a helicopter in the service of US forces, or any forces. I may have been getting confused with that 1980’s show Air wolf. The nearest design to the 1988 helicopter would have been the UH 1 Iroquois modified for use as a bomber

Freedom of Information Act
A Freedom of information act is referenced, at the time of both the original and the rewrite, there was no Freedom of information act in UK law. (That came in round about 2000), the one referenced was the American Freedom of information act.

Obeying Orders
After World War II, a number of those put on trial for war crimes tried to put a defence that they were only obeying orders, a defence that was never accepted.

Pinko
The commander uses the derogative pinko, this was a term of abuse levelled at those accused of being sympathetic to the left in politics, and an inference that they were supporters of communism

Pineapple
In the 1988 version, when the Lone Stranger leaves the commander, he sees that the Lone Stranger has left a real pineapple. I had this because the traditional grenade did have that affectation of “a pineapple”

Edzell
According to Wikipedia,

Edzell is a village in Angus, Scotland. It is located 5 miles (8 km) north of Brechin, by the River North Esk. Edzell is a Georgian-era planned town, with a broad main street and a grid system of side streets. Originally called Slateford, Edzell was renamed in 1818 after an earlier hamlet, located 1.5 miles (2.5 km) to the west, which by then had been abandoned.

The Royal Air Force base, RAF Edzell was situated four miles from Edzell by road, but only one mile directly east, over the North Esk. It was active for over fifty years, first as a RAF base during World War II, and later on lease to the United States Navy. Of course back in 1988 it was still an air base, and also in 1993 and I assumed at the time it was the US Air Force that had it. There is of course a danger of setting things in the future, as it was decommissioned in 1996, and its stock of 150 houses were sold off in 1999 to become a new, independent village called Edzell Woods, so in the time it was set even in the 1988 original, Edzell would not have been there.

The film 2001 A Space Odyssey suffered from this, apart from the date, it depicted Pan Am as still being in business, when by 2001, they were history.

[Sticks]

Chapter 7

Enemy Territory

The commander initiated the liftoff of his military issue hover-car, the super efficient hydrogen fuel cell that powered the motors were a dream compared to the standard models on the market. The commander had observed that even the police service here had to make do with the standard model. Sign of the economic conditions, most of the police forces that had them only had one hover-car. The majority of police forces in the British sector had to make do with the old style ground car. His model even had gun emplacements for a forward firing and rearward firing machine guns and two sidewinder-II missiles. He had always been annoyed at the civilian polices insistence on all weapons being removed, before they were allowed in to the City of Aberdeen. The only thing he could enjoy was the superior speed and power. If he piloted his craft over the old farmland instead of following the old roads, there was no speed limit. He would be home in minutes.

As he rose up into the air, he looked around, trying to see if he could spot the Lone Stranger. Nothing.
"Can't have vanished in to thin air!" he kept saying to himself.
When he had reached the right altitude he flicked a switch on his dashboard to operate the private communications link to the Base.
"This is Wing Commander Samson to base I am returning to base as the crow flies. Over"
"Roger we copy commander" came the reply over the link "Air defence will be notified of your arrival. Can you give us an ETA. Over"
"About fifteen minutes. Over" The commander replied and then he switched off the communication link and put his foot down on the accelerator. The hover car picked up speed quite quickly as it sped over the roof tops, some of the houses long abandoned to the vandals, the vagrants and the rats. Soon he was flying over Durris Forest as the hover-car reached about three hundred miles per hour. The commander did his usual trick of hugging the terrain; he liked to keep his hand in on his flying skills. After ten minutes a light came on, on his radar detector, the Edzell air defence radar had picked him off. The commander then pushed another button to activate an identification transponder, without which he would be blasted from the sky by the Edzell air defences. Soon he was decelerating by using the reverse thrusters to slow the vehicle down, to a speed so that it could use the airbrakes, this of course was all done by computer control. All the commander had to do was push down on the break peddle.

After about quarter of an hour he reached the perimeter fence. He slowed the vehicle and flew slowly over the fence of the airbase. A guard at a gun-tower smartly saluted at the commander’s hover-car. The commander noticed and saluted back. He was on home territory, no trouble from civilians here. He hovered around looking for his parking space and eventually he located it. As usual some swine had parked in it, they would soon be on a charge. He found another parking space, parked in it and got out and walked to the main front door. He didn't notice the Lone Stranger opening the door of the boot of the hover-car.

"I wish people would learn to drive smoothly" the Lone Stranger said to himself.
As the Lone Stranger peeped out through the slightly opened boot. He noticed a security guard that had just come round a corner. The guard seemed to have spotted him, this was potentially a disaster The stranger brought out a cylinder object the size of a thermos flask and pressed a few buttons. He saw the guard freeze in mid action
"Handy things Chronon accelerators" he said to himself. For over these long years the stranger had been perfecting a device which would speed up the space time continuum in a local area. This allowed him to appear to disappear, by simply making his subjective seconds the size of microseconds. This of course had not been easy, even with a better computer than the one he had originally used for his experiments. The Lone Stranger got out of the boot, it was quite dark now. The Lone Stranger stretched his legs, he had begun to get cramp. He was not young as he used to be.

As he looked at the buildings around the site, it seemed like he was wandering in a still picture of the place. He could see migrating birds, frozen in mid flight. He did not have much power left on the Chronon Accelerator so he would have to get out of sight in a hurry. He made his way to what seemed like an old building, in former days this had been an administrative centre, now it was considered redundant. At first planning rules had meant they could not knock it down, now they just did not care either way. The building also looked as if it had not recently been used; the majority of the base administration now was carried out from new buildings. As he approached the door, he noticed that in spite of the building's apparent neglect, the lock had recently been used. Something seemed odd, but he could not put his finger on it. He got out his picklock set, this padlock should be easy to open. He opened the door fairly easily, too easily for an abandoned building. He took out his ever-glow lamp and switched it to torch mode. He swept it around the room, there was the old reception desk. A rat, frozen in time, in mid scamper across the floor. According to the old plans this building had been the office of the base commander at the time of the attack. The Lone Stranger's research had never found out who it was, for some reason that information had been expunged from the record. The omission from the record had to indicate that the conspiracy had gone further than Samson, how much further up he could not say.

A lot had happened in twenty years, the optimism of the new world order had evaporated when a new coup had taken place in the old Soviet Union, and now they had a Neo-Soviet empire to worry about. Twenty years ago, the Russians were interested in his experiments, yes, but he had assured them that he had no interest in changing Soviet history; he had even supplied them with a copy of his notes. He had received a reply back, that they were interested in treaty violations at RGIT, but the man who had said his experiment was a violation, had been dropped from the team for making unguarded comments. What ever the motive was, it could not have been the paranoid reds under the beds paranoia of the McCarthy period. There was international tension then, but it was before the second Russian coup. Such motives now would be hidden in the mists of time, it was up to the Lone Stranger to see if he could unearth it now. Maybe there would be repercussions now, maybe not, that was none of his concern. Hardly anyone would notice now, nor would they care, this had really become a personal matter.

Like the rest of the world, the Edzell site had been changed a lot in twenty years, so this building might hold the old operation files, maybe the mission to RGIT St Andrew Street would still be kept here. It was an awful long shot. The Lone Stranger half expected the evidence to have been shredded by now. It had been twenty years after all, and he was not sure why he had come here. As he had now confronted Samson, he would have to work fast before any evidence was destroyed. He walked down the corridor behind the old reception desk, there were signs on the doors, each saying which rank had which office. At last he found the one that marked out the office of the base commander. Unlike the other doors, the name plate had been removed, so he could not see the identity of who he was. He tried the door. As expected it was locked. He got out his picklock unlocked the door. As he opened the door, it felt like he was Howard Carter at the opening of the tomb of Tutankhamen. It had to have been from here that the decision, that had destroyed his life, had been made. He had suffered the curse, now he wanted the goods. As he went in the Lone Stranger gazed around the office he came into. He switched off his chronon accelerator

The office seemed like any normal office, in the window hung an old venetian blind, by the window there was an oak desk. In a corner was an old style filing cabinet and a wooden locker. The Lone Stranger closed and locked the door. He had attracted enough information. As he walked around the office he noticed that the desk's drawer had been used more recently than any other item. He knelt down to look at the draw; this room should have been abandoned years ago, so why was it being used. He decided to pick this lock as well. Like the other locks the draw opened easily,

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The security guard in the car park reached the hover-car and tried to open the boot to confront the intruder. The boot seemed locked.
"Commander” He yelled.
Commander Samson turned around to look at the security guard, he was pointing a gun at the boot of the commanders hover-car, "If it’s about where its parked soldier, some Joe has parked in my space."
"Its not that sir, we have an intruder in your boot" replied the guard.
"That can’t be" said the commander as he walked back to his car. He took out his car keys and went to the rear of the car. He looked at the lock. It showed signs of scratches, as if someone had been picking the lock.
"Shall I unlock the trunk sir? He maybe dangerous "Said the guard still pointing his gun at the boot
"Do I look like a coward soldier" the commander retorted as he inserted his key into the lock. It grated slightly, but in a few seconds it was open, and they gazed at an empty boot.
"I don't understand it sir" the guard said, confused by what he had seen, "I was certain I saw someone open this trunk from the inside. There is no way he could have got out"
"When do you next go on leave soldier" The commander asked, annoyed by this pointless interruption.
"Next month sir, I just had a medical sir. I did not hallucinate. I saw someone in this Trunk" The guard insisted.
It was getting late and the commander was getting very annoyed, "Look soldier there is nothing in that" Suddenly his voice dropped as he leaned in and picked up what looked like a piece of grit. He examined it, it looked like a piece of broken glass, he remembered it from the west corridor of the old RGIT St Andrew Street building.
The commander showed it to the guard, "Sorry soldier, you may be right after all. And if I know this joker he must be on the base. Sound the alarm, shoot on sight"
The guard operated his standard issue wrist walkie-talkie, "Petree, to security, intruder on base, condition red alert"

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Lone Stranger was looking through the collection of files in the drawer of the desk when the base alarm sounded. "Rats, the guard did see me" he said to himself. Hastily the he grabbed a pile of files. No way could he operate his Chronon accelerator, at least until it had time to recharge, this took 5 hours to do and he had a very little charge left. He hid behind the filling cabinet out of sight from the door and glanced through the files. They contained what seemed like hard core pornographic magazines They all contained pictures of naked women, hands tied behind there backs, legs in shackles and necks fastened in a steel collar chained to a wall, so they could not lower their heads. Their eyes all conveyed the sense of utter despair. The quality of production seemed very poor; this would indicate that it was an unapproved version. One of the magazines was a week out of date, this seemed the latest edition. It would certainly explain why they were kept in a deserted building. A note fell out; the Lone Stranger picked it up and read it
"To humming bird, Thanks for your continued cooperation, enclosed a brochure of our latest products in the forth coming sale. Your account has been credited as agreed in our arrangements. We look forward to further business. Yours Cranmer

This was not what he was looking for, but it was certainly explosive. Someone at Edzell, going by the code word humming bird, was cooperating with the white slave runners. The magazines were obviously sales brochures, the women captured from raids on some of the outer less defended islands. One of the photographs caught his eye, it was of Katharine. He had done well to save her from these modern day parasites. His mind drifted back to think of Cherry, sixteen and forced to be virtually naked in public, all on the orders of a faceless holding company. He could remember her shivering away in the cool atmosphere of the air-conditioned cafeteria, she obviously felt the cold more because of her small size, she had also appeared to be quite thin. She was a white slave as well, only this time it was sanctioned by a cruel loophole in the law.

A door slammed in the distance. The Lone Stranger hastily put the note and the week old brochure in his water proof bag. He still had other work to do. Hastily he tried the other drawer, it had files as well. He heard foot steps coming down the corridor. Quickly he closed the drawers and hid behind the filing cabinet. The footsteps came nearer and nearer. The Lone Stranger could hear other offices being unlocked and examined, as guards yelled out room numbers in order. Soon they would be opening the office he had holed up. He noticed that the way the desk was positioned in the room, if he hid underneath it he would be hidden more from sight, than his position behind the filing cabinet. Quickly he scampered under the desk and switched his ever-glow torch off, just as one of the guards put the key in the lock to the office door.

The guard opened the door to the office and switched the light on. "Can't see the intruder here" he said into a wrist walkie-talkie, "anyway its getting pointless looking at this building, nothings stored here anyway. All the classified stuffs in the other buildings"
"Officer Petree swore he saw him, and the commander’s boot had been tampered with. And the base commander believes him for some reason" came a mangled voice over the wrist communicator, "Procedure means all buildings must be checked, no matter how daft it seems to you" the voice added.
"This is ridiculous, this office hasn't been used in ages" said the guard to the other one that was examining the building as well, "I can't imagine what anyone would want from here, even the office equipment has gone." he added as they switched off the light and closed the door, locked it and left.

Slowly the Lone Stranger climbed out from under the desk and switched his ever-glow lamp on. He read through the new batch of files. It was still not what he wanted, but it was quite revealing as well. Humming bird appeared to be supplying details of the martial law drills to the white slave raiders and the times of any patrols. The documentation kept referring to an account being credited; surely it would have been safer to use cash or other such items, if one was bribing an official. The Lone Stranger put this other document in his bag; something told him it might do for later.

This was all very interesting, but not what he was looking for, the reason why St Andrew Street was bombed had to be here. He tried the drawers to the filing cabinet, it was locked. He tried his picklock. This lock was more difficult, even with his three years of experience in picking locks. It was a skill he had never anticipated having to learn. He heard footsteps outside the office. He froze up. The footsteps went away. He waited for a minute and then resumed his attempt at picking the lock. He managed it at last. He slowly pulled open the bottom drawer. It was empty apart from an empty envelope. He gently closed it, trying to make as little noise as possible. He tried the middle drawer. Plenty of old document holders, but no documents. He closed it carefully. As he pulled at the top drawer he had a sinking feeling. The drawer jammed. He moved the drawer back in and tried again to open it, it still jammed. He got out his old Swiss army penknife, although it had really been made in China. He stuck the blade in to try and dislodge the obstruction. After about thirty seconds of poking around the obstruction, a miss-aligned document holder cleared, and he managed to open the drawer. He folded up his penknife and put it away and then peered in side to see another empty document holder. He realised he would have to try the cupboard. The sound of the base alarm was still ringing. It was only a matter off time before they upgraded the search, he would have to hurry. He closed the top drawer.

He moved over to the cupboard and started pick the lock. He found it easier than the filing cabinet. The cabinet creaked as the Lone Stranger slowly opened the door, it was years since the door had last been opened, and the hinges complained about their lack of attention. as he looked inside, he could see an old faded copy of a book and a pile of documents. The Lone Stranger looked the book in his torch light. It was a copy of "Mein Kampf. He picked up the pile of documents. Most were old duty rosters from twenty years ago, but the last document seemed just what he wanted. Bingo! He found one dated from twenty years prior. The document was entitled "Operation Black-out, for your eyes only"

He took the file and sat down beside the filing cabinet. As he glanced through the file, He found hardly anything to do with his experiments. A few pages of it looked like biology notes, so the Lone Stranger could not quite decipher it; he was a physicist after all. All he could make out was that in the file he had just discovered, somewhere in St Andrew Street there was some other project that needed to be seen to be destroyed. He read the chilling words, "Congress or the White House must not know of this at all costs."

The file also went on to mention that destruction of the main college computer was paramount. Now he could understand what was wrong with the pictures of the ruined building, the entire corridor which held the computer had been obliterated, much more than the corridor which held the laboratory. If they really were trying to stop his experiments, then most of the destruction would have been confined to the particular corridor that the lab opened onto. What could possibly have been on the computer to require such a sanction? Even if it did, why not use a CIA demolition squad, why use a helicopter gunship. More questions without answers

He read on. The file seemed to give the impression that something else was being done at the time at RGIT which was politically explosive apart from the Tachyon-Chronon experiments, but the file did not say what? The Lone Stranger thought of Patricia, she would have been the one that could decipher the few biology notes in the file. The end of the file gave a name of the author of the report. The name chilled him to the marrow. This man was a five star general and currently in charge of all US forces in Britain and currently running, with a good lead in the polls for president of the Western Bloc alliance. It was General John Reynolds.
"Oh s**t" he said to himself. He had hoped to present the findings to the general, now it seemed the general was in it as well.

He went to put the file in his waterproof bag when he noticed another file in the cupboard. He fished it out. It was a lot more recent, and indicated that this office was still being used, despite being abandoned for all these years. What he read was just as chilling. What ever they were up to twenty years ago, they were attempting to recreate it. It mentioned that the loss of the original Honeywell backup tapes was a great hindrance, but they were on the way to overcoming this. This told the Lone Stranger one more thing, whatever it was; it was not past history by a long chalk. If only he could get his hands on those tapes, especially as the US did not have them either. Then he realised, the only people who could hack into a Honeywell were Neel and Mike. He stared in to the darkened room, he had hit a dead end, unless, maybe Neel had been onto something. He could remember now, Neel was convinced that they could make a device to project things forwards and backwards in time, from the equipment used in the Lone Strangers thesis. As soon as he got off the base, he would have to hunt down Neel's computer and look at his notes. To help crack the case, he would have to return to twenty years ago, steal the backup tapes and rescue his friends. This was a very tall order

He heard a door bang down the corridor, they were coming back. He went to put this file in his bag when a leaflet dropped out. The Lone Stranger picked it up, it was a blank "with compliments" slip from a company called Tellerson Conglomerate. He looked at it, something seemed familiar, but at that moment he could not put his finger on it.

The Lone Stranger got up; the guards were now combing this area again for him. Now he would have to be more careful, as he did not have sufficient charge in the Chronon Accelerator to walk off the base. Carefully and quietly, he picked the lock on the office door. Every sound he made seemed amplified several fold. His face was dripping with sweat. He heard the sounds of footsteps coming past the door. The Lone Stranger froze. The sound of the footsteps then diminished into the background.

Slowly he opened the door and edged his way out of the room into the corridor. He dropped down to all fours to crawl along the corridor, in the shadows towards the main exit to the building. Suddenly it seemed like his luck had finally failed. By the door were two Military policemen The Lone Stranger took from his bag a small facemask and another canister. He put on the facemask and pulled out a pin from his other canister and chucked it down the corridor. It spewed out black tear gas. Quickly the Lone Stranger dropped down further to the floor as M18 rifles fired above him. He could hear the guards choking on the tear gas; he had picked it up from ex army supplies. He rapidly crawled between them and hit his head on something. It was the door, he forgot it opened inwards. He moved backwards and one of the military policemen opened the door to let the smoke out. In the confusion they had not noticed him, that tear gas was powerful stuff. The military policeman then activated a personal alarm which shrieked above the din of the base alarm. The Lone Stranger was only just able to inspect his Chronon accelerator, there was only enough charge for 20 subjective seconds. He activated it and ran out to a nearby ground car. The keys were still in it. He jumped into it and started the car as the Chronon accelerator exhausted its charge. The Lone Stranger put his foot down hard on the accelerator and headed towards the nearest fence. He could hear the sound of machine gun fire heading his way. Suddenly the back window shattered as a stream of bullets hit the back of the car. He had no choice; he would have to crash through the fence. The Lone Stranger drove the car through the fence, across a deserted road and then crashed down a small embankment into a stream. Then a stray bullet hit the fuel tank, a second later they had no need to worry about the cars rust problem, as the hydrogen fuel tank made a nice pretty fire ball on the side of the road.

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 7

Hover Cars
This is an idea borrowed from various Sci-Fi films and comics, but principally the one movie that came to mind was Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott. The research into such vehicles is still ongoing, but unlikely to give us anything remotely like those envisaged.

Reds under the beds and McCarthy
During the 1950’s there was a lot of paranoia during the cold war in the United States that a fifth column of communist agents and sympathisers would mount a coup against the US. This was the paranoia of Red’s under the beds. One person to latch onto this was Senator Joe McCarthy, who ran the House Un-American Activities Commission, which decided to investigate alleged influences in Hollywood by communists. He personally destroyed the careers of many innocent people, before he was removed. Not a single shred of evidence of communist infiltration was ever found.

The stash of white slavery catalogs
In this chapter / episode, the Lone Stranger comes across what appears to be pornographic magazines, which turns out to be catalogues for the whit slave trade. This was added in the 1993 rewrite. In the original 1988 version, they were just comics.

Swiss Army Penknife from China
Yes I do have one, but I no longer carry it with me, as it was damaged by a neighbour, so I ended up with a real one, which is what I carry today. This scene was also a nod towards that old 1980’s TV show, MacGyver. (Look it up)

Mein Kampf
A book that the Lone Stranger stumbles across, is the book that Adolf Hitler published first in 1925. Need I say any more?

Exploding cars
I am just as guilty here, but out of interest, the TV show Mythbusters got a car, filled the petrol tank and shot it several times in the petrol tank. There was no explosion. This being hydrogen, I do not know if that would be the effect, I suspect not, but hey, this is poetic licence. However, it could be argued that they were using tracer rounds, there may be a case there.

Incidentally in the 1988 version I had wanted the Lone Stranger to drive the car into the sea as a cliff hanger, but this was how the story decided to play out. Odd that, I had thought I was writing the story, but it took on a life of it’s own.

[Sticks]

Chapter 8

Who hunts whom?

The car lit up the night sky, as it blazed away in the stream on the side of the road. The sound of barking, above the base alarm increased as the guard dogs were unleashed. Two large Doberman pinchers came with in five foot of the burning wreckage and stood barking their hearts out. The dog handlers came over a few moments later to put the leads back on. One looked up at the inferno; a hydrogen fire was one of the most ferocious types you could get. Who ever was in that car was toast. The handlers turned back to return the dogs back to the base.
"Which building did they say he came out of?" asked one to the other
"I heard it was the old admin building" he replied, "why I can't imagine, that building should have been condemned years ago. All the operational details are in the new building"
"It seems like those reds aren't as smart as we thought" said the first handler.

About five minutes later Commander Samson and a guard appeared on the scene to inspect the wreckage.
"Whoever that was" Thought the Commander, "Our secret is still safe".
Just to make sure, so it seemed to him, he went back to the old building. The tear gas was beginning to disperse throughout the building. The two military policemen were outside the doors, gasping for breath and looking in a very bad way. Samson caught a slight whiff of the gas, it wanted to make him wretch instantly. He recognised it immediately as ex army, developed by the British side of the Western Bloc Alliance.
"Get these men to sick bay" ordered the commander, "This is Neo-Soviet tear gas".

Samson backed away from the building; he would need a pretty good gas mask before he could go in there at this moment. It would be about three hours before the tear gas would break down. He just hoped that they would find a body in the wreck; they had to with so much at stake. He could not afford it, if anyone became too suspicious as to why an empty building was the target of a Neo-Soviet agent.

It took half an hour to put the fire out in the car. Now they could pull the water logged wreckage out of the stream. This could be left till morning, the commander informed them. Any evidence left in that car would be burnt up and now just a distant memory, but just to make sure he had a guard posted to watch the remains.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was about one in the morning when Barney spotted the lone figure wandering in the road. He had just caught sight of it in time to avoid a collision with his ground car. He slammed on the brakes and only just managed to stop, inches from the figure. The figure was swaggering about in the road, possibly a drunk, but from where? Barney was trying to meet his cousin at the Stonehaven Marine base, and he could do without this delay. As Barney got out to give the figure a piece of his mind, his foot squelched in something.
"Rats!" he thought "someone must have been herding cattle nearby". The figure appeared to just keep on walking, oblivious to the man with the ground car.

Steve was barely coherent, all he could think of was getting back to Aberdeen, to find Neel's computer. The effects of diving into the icy cold muddy water of the stream, just as the fuel tank had ignited on the car, and then hiding submerged, breathing by the means of a hollow pen case as he made his way down stream, were now taking its toll on him He collapsed in the middle of the road. Barney rushed up to the figure who had collapsed and tried to man handle him back to his ground car. He noticed that the man was about forty five and had a bag with an assortment of belongings and files.

He found a name tag "Farrow Smyth" Why was this man out this far from civilisation at 1am in the morning?. Barney decided to look through the man's bag at the files. He found the file on operation blackout with General Reynolds name on it, and the indication that it had come from the air base at Edzell.
"For a Neo-Soviet spy, this man is incredibly inept" Barney said to himself, the file was twenty years out of date. The other file was equally uninteresting; the type of folder used did not indicate anything official. Then he came across the letter to Humming bird and the brochure of young women paraded by the white slave runners. This was the jackpot. Some thing Barney could give to his cousin at Stonehaven. He removed the brochure and the letter and placed them in his glove compartment. Now he had to get this man to a hospital, Barney thought, he had helped them enormously with this evidence.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was first light when the guards were ordered to look through the remains of the car as the Wing Commander looked on.
"What have you found?" he asked
"Nothing" replied the guard, "It looks like he got out somehow. Must have travelled down stream"
"Damn" Samson said to himself. He had checked through the files in the old room and a number of incriminating documents were missing. Maybe the man had come from the sitting president of the Western Bloc Alliance. Politics was an even dirtier business now, as the years of pollution and exploitation of the land and others, were coming home to roost.
"Tow the car back inside then and get this fence repaired" he ordered and then started off for his office.

It was nine in the morning when the videophone rang in General Reynolds Edinburgh campaign office. He answered it, but the caller was rigged for voice only.
"General Reynolds presidential campaign office." he replied
The voice on the phone was a voice that he knew, but did not expect to hear, Full wing commander J.W Samson.
"Can you switch on to scrambler sir"
General Reynolds got a sudden sense of foreboding. He waved to his secretary to leave before switching on the scrambler.
"I thought I told you to maintain communication silence, we are only 5 points ahead of the president."
"I am sorry about this sir but there is something you aught to know. I think the president may have sent a man to sniff out some dirt on us"
"That's all part of the game, Samson. What do think we are doing here? Every one does it"
"Some one stole some files last night from the base."
"Which files would they be Samson"
"The files on operation Blackout, operation Clean Wipe and a brochure from some of our business partners up north. We thought they were killed when a ground car which he took to escape blew up. We found no trace of a body in the wreckage this morning though."

The Generals face went white. "I want you find and liquidate that man. If he uncovers the real reason of operation Black out we are both in for a lot of hot water. We can not allow him to interfere with Clean Wipe" The general said as he started to quiver. He knew that his involvement twenty years ago would destroy all his hopes of gaining control of one of the largest military powers in the world.
"I have a lead on who it might be sir" came Samson voice, "It looks like they got someone with a grudge over what happened twenty years ago. I believe he has returned to Aberdeen"
The general stared at the blank screen on the videophone, still in a state of shock. "I'll get in touch with my mole in the presidents office to see who has sanctioned it."
"Shall I deal with this intruder myself?”
"I'll come up to supervise this myself" the general replied, "after all, as a general I can declare martial law on a city"
"Do you think that will be necessary sir"
"I would nuke that city if it proves necessary"
"General I don't think we need go that far, Mother Goose has found a fresh-start subject in that city"
"Don't worry Samson, I will not endanger clean wipe, if a nuclear strike is required, the fresh-start subject will be removed first"
"When can I expect you to arrive sir" Samson's voice asked.
"I have a rally at eleven, I can't cancel, it would create too many rumours. I can get there at two, expect a Neo-Soviet Mig ninety eight helicopter."
"Ok Out" The videophone fell silent. The general chewed on a finger nail; he had come so close to power". He pushed the button to call his secretary. "I have some official business to attend to this afternoon, get me a line to our special operations branch" he said over the intercom

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

As Steve came too, he caught sight of bright lights. "Have I died and gone to heaven?" He said aloud
He heard a voice that sounded like it was coming from a deep well, but he could not distinguish what was said. He had trouble focusing his eyes, as the bright lights blotted everything out. A tall figure came up to him, it was dressed in white.

"Mr Smyth" he heard a voice saying. This told him that he was not in heaven after all, angels would not make that mistake. He sat up. He felt his head spinning slightly. "Where am I?" he asked.
"Forester Hill hospital, an American brought you in last night, he said he picked you up off the Laurence Kirk bypass" answered the figure in white.
Steve opened his eyes wide at this, "Where's my bag?" he asked.
"Look, you need to rest" answered what Steve realised was a female nurse.
"I need to check my bag, I was carrying something important"
"It’s in the locker beside you, but you need to rest, you are lucky to be alive. You were suffering from exhaustion and hypothermia"
Steve shook his head to get rid of the cobwebs that were still flying around his head. Slowly he moved his legs off of the bed so he could reach for his bag. He could see that his clothes had been washed, folded and placed on the locker. He still felt slightly woozy as he leaned over to get his bag from the locker. The nurse came round to hold him as he looked unsteady.
"I'll be ok" he told the nurse as he unzipped the bag.
He began his search through his belongings, The chronon accelerator was still there, as were the files on blackout and the the other file. He discovered that the brochure was missing. He felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"This American, did he leave a name?" He asked the nurse.
"I don't know, is there anything missing"
"Possibly, any idea where he was headed?”
"He said something about visiting a cousin in the Stonehaven marine base, that's all I can tell you"

So, they were on to him, but why leave the files on him. He could have just taken him to the marine base, and have him shot as a spy. Could this man have known the identity of humming bird? More questions with out answers.
"I have to leave, I have got places to go and people to see" he told the nurse
"I don't advise this sir" The nurse advised Steve as he started to put on his cleaned up clothes.
"I can't afford to stay here" Steve replied
"If it’s about arrangements for payments to Forester hill Hospital Trust, that's the problem" The nurse responded.
"It's not that, I have money" he told the nurse, as he took out his wallet to get the last few notes that he had. He took them and handed them to the nurse, "if that's not enough then I can let you have a cheque"

The nurse handed the money back to Steve. "There's no need to be like that, your bill has been paid by the man that brought you in. Because of the state you came in, this morning, you still need to rest. If you leave here it will be against medical advice. We will not be held liable" she insisted.
"I have some one to see urgently" Steve answered as he zipped up his bag.
"Look!" insisted the nurse "you were picked off the road last night mumbling something about a blackout and some thing about Neel's notes"
Steve stopped and turned to face the nurse. "Is that what he said?"
"Yes he did, by the time you got here, you were unconscious"
"If that is the case" Steve said, "then there maybe someone else is in danger"
"And what do you mean by that?”

Steve decided not to answer that question, the fewer people that knew the better. He left the hospital as soon as he could; if the Americans knew about Neel's computer files then he had put two people in danger, Priscilla and Philip Smith. This he did not want to do, and so he would have to go straight over and locate them. It was lucky that he had tracked down their address beforehand, but he had no idea of what head start the Americans had.

He got to the hospital taxi rank, only one old battered taxi seemed to be waiting, it was a ground car. Aberdeen was not a city to have hover taxis, in a couple of year’s time, even the ground car taxis would be gone. Steve got in and gave the address to the driver.
"Anything on the news?" he asked the driver
"Only about this bloody election for president" the taxi driver replied in a blunt manner.
Steve decided not to press it, it seemed like he had not made the morning news bulletins. Strangely enough he felt it quite unsettling, what were the Americans trying to cover up. Whatever they were doing twenty years ago, and what they were doing now, was still worth killing for. Who knows what lengths the Americans would do to cover their tracks; after all, it was common knowledge that they were quite accomplished in that field of expertise. They had raised it from an art to a science.

After five minutes they arrived at the run down housing estate. The physical look of it was utterly depressing. It had once won an architectural award when it had first been put up, back in the twentieth century. Now it was more a breeding ground for all kinds of vermin. Whatever families that had remained in this twenty first century slum, they all hoped to leave, before the city would inevitably go under, just like the surrounding abandoned towns which had gone before them. Steve got out of the taxi and paid the driver off. He hastily sped off leaving Steve behind, this was obviously a place not to hang about in, even when Steve was a student it had a reputation. For Priscilla and Philip, it was a terrible come down from their small holding on the south side of the city. Steve felt another pang of guilt. If only he had not allowed David to come and inspect his experiment, they might still be there. He heard a sound in the distance; it was a rat knocking over a glass bottle as it scavenged for food. He gazed at the old brick buildings, looking for the number of the flat. It took about two minutes to find. It was an old maisonette, it had six flats, two were occupied, and all the rest were boarded up. When some one moved out, only squatters moved in, and no one bothered about them any more. He climbed the stone stairs, unlike the unattended buildings; they were not strewn with rubbish. He remembered how tidy a person, Priscilla was; he could recognise her handy work, no matter how pointless it seemed now.

The door bell went at Priscilla's flat. "Strange? No on ever visits here” she thought, "Answer that Philip I'm busy" she called out to her son.
The young man opened the front door. At it was a stranger he could not remember seeing before. The stranger looked very middle aged and worn, wearing a dark green anorak and carrying a dark colour zip up holdall; he also had a huge plaster on his forehead
"Is your mother here Philip" the Stranger Asked.
"Yes, but what's this about, she's busy right now" answered Philip.
Priscilla overheard and came into the hall to see who this mystery man was.
"Priscilla I need to speak with you" said the stranger.
The voice was familiar to her, but this was a voice of someone who should have perished twenty years ago, along with her husband and his friends. All this time she had known that their deaths were ordered when the authorities decided that they were tampering with things they shouldn't. She had been forced to lie, just to avoid loosing her only child. Over the years she had grown to hate the one person she felt was totally responsible for her husband’s murder, now it sounded like he had returned from the dead to torment her further. Priscilla turned around half afraid of what she might see. Her horror was finally realised, the man she had hated these twenty long years had returned. She examined the strangers face, he was aged but it was it was Steve Gryson.

"You b******d "she Screamed "David would still be alive if he hadn't listened to you. Get out of this house. Get out of Aberdeen".
She half lunged at the stranger; she wanted to rip this monster to pieces. All the years of hatred and resentment welled up inside her. Philip caught her; he had never seen his mother like this before.
"I hate you, you b******d" she screamed, trying to get past her son to wreak revenge on the one person who had so blighted her life.
"Priscilla" Steve shouted "It wasn't me who ordered the attack"
"It was your lousy PhD project that brought it on" she yelled back.
Philip decided that it was best for everyone if he closed the door on this object of his mother's hatred. Philip turned around; the stranger had somehow teleported in to the hall behind him. Priscilla threw herself at the stranger, to try and kill him. The stranger blinked out of existence, and reappeared behind her. She stopped just before she hit the wall. Philip stood by, completely stunned by the sudden anger in his mother, and this stranger’s ability to disappear and reappear at will.

"Priscilla" Steve said loudly, "I came to warn you, you may be in danger".
Priscilla turned around, half sobbing, her eyes full of hate "Only from you, haven't you done enough"
"Do you know each other?" Philip asked in his state of confusion.
"It was this b*****d’s experiments that caused the death of your father" she screamed, pointing an accusing finger at Steve, "They almost took you away from me because of him".

This accusation struck home, because Steve had lived with this for twenty years, but now was not the time for recriminations.
"It may not have been my experiments that precipitated the attacks" Steve told them, "I've discovered that there was something else being done at St Andrews street and I need your help" he added.
"What makes you think I would help you, you murderous hypocrite" Priscilla replied.
"Because whatever it was, they are starting it up again, and they don't care who they destroy"
"And why should I give a damn, I hope they get you this time" Priscilla said as she started to advance on Steve. Steve backed off.
"Because I may be able to save David, I may be able to bring him back" Steve replied.
"How" Screamed Priscilla “He’s been dead for twenty years all because of you"

"I think you had better leave now" Philip said as he opened the door. He was beginning to see how upset his mother had become, and he did not like it.
"Priscilla, Philip, if we cooperate, we can fight against the real culprits, otherwise they might gain control of the Western Bloc Alliance" Steve insisted.
"I don't care, they can have it" Priscilla shouted back, "now ******* off".
"I really think you should leave now" Philip said more insistently.
Steve could tell that he was not going to get anywhere, especially with Priscilla in this state. Like many others, she had believed the lie about his experiments years ago. The trauma of a CIA clean up crew still caused deep emotional scars. He had no choice now, and discretion was the better part of valour, so they said. He decided to leave.
"Ok, I'm going" Steve said as he moved to the door, "I have to warn you that they may be coming back to finish the job. So I advise you to get out of town as soon as possible. But if you change your mind about helping, I will be at Bobs, for the next two days". With that he vanished into thin air before there very eyes.

Priscilla sat down heavily on a stool in the hall. How could anyone just vanish like that? Had this monster really returned from the dead to torment her. She remembered the happy times she had with David, she put her head in her hands and sobbed uncontrollably. Time certainly did wound all heals.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was approaching lunch; Colonel Samuel Travers was working in his office, auditing the accounts for the Stonehaven Marine base. He stared at the figures on the screen, everything seemed in order, and he wanted to make sure his was a watertight outfit. Edzell may be superior to his garrison in rank, he thought, but one day they would step out of line, then he would have them. He looked out of his office window towards the town square. Stonehaven was a beautiful seaside town, ideal place for his marines. He did not think much of the people who were driven out, it was just before his time. The contingent was supposed to have people from all parts of the Western Bloc Alliance, but the only non Americans were some of the civilian workers that carried out some of the menial tasks. It always seemed strange to him that the majority of the contingent had come from the American sector, rather than the indigenous population. No matter. He was in Stonehaven, and he had his reasons for staying.

A bleep sounded on his intercom. Travers turned his swivel chair round to his desk. He pressed the reply button. "What is it Miss Johnson?" He asked.
"It's a mister Harris sir", came the voice of his secretary, “he says he has a lunch appointment sir"
Travers chewed on his pen for a moment, "Where does he wish us to eat?" he asked his secretary.
The intercom was silent for a moment, and then came the reply he had been waiting for, for months. "He says he has news of a good Greek restaurant"
Travers pushed a key on his computer that commenced its shut down procedure, after a minute he shut the machine down and walked out of his office.
"Long time, no see" said the middle aged man in spectacles.
"How's Shona and Peter now?" the colonel asked, showing no signs of emotion.
"They have had a bumper harvest in Montana" replied Harris.
"Lets go do lunch" the colonel answered.
"Fine by me" said Harris as he turned back to the door.

Soon the two men had left the building, and started walking towards the coast.
"What have you got Barney" asked the Travers
"I picked up some guy off of the road last night, he goes by the name of Farrow Smyth, it was obvious that he had penetrated Edzell" replied Harris
"A neo-soviet spy?”
"I don't think so, the files he had were not official and one was twenty years out of date, looks like some amateur"
"Why tell me, that's Edzell’s problem"
"I would of thought so, but he had these" Harris replied as he handed over a brochure and a letter.

Colonel Travers took them and looked over them. The brochure looked more like a hard core pornographic magazine to him, but he had seen similar. He read through the letter, and smiled evilly. "We have them, I am going to be so glad when we pin their hides to the wall" He put the brochure and the letter in his inside jacket pocket. "Tell me Barney" he said as he turned around to face Barney Harris, "What did you do with our Mr Smyth"
Barney smiled back, "I took him to the hospital, paid his bill, it came to less than what I would have expected to pay for it on the open market"
"You know Barney, ever since I left the officer training school; I have tried to play everything by the book. This underhand dealing, is more your style than mine"

"Samuel" Barney said, in a near reassuring tone as he put his hands on the colonel's shoulders, "It’s the sign of the times. You have men, going around remote islands, around this insignificant speck of land. They attack communities, kill all the males they find and sell every young girl and women to those who want to satisfy their own lusts. You know what's been happening here, we both do. Sometimes the official channels, need to be bypassed. Just remember Kerry"

The colonial’s eyes turned an even more steely grey, "Those sons of bitches are going pay for what happened to Kerry"
Barney’s voice dropped and he stared the colonial straight in the eyes, "don't forget, she was my second cousin, Samuel"

A hover tank came gliding down the street. The two men crossed over the street to avoid it.
"What about our Farrow Smyth?" Asked Barnie.
"Maybe he has something else on him. Quite frankly I don't care. Let him flush out our darling little Hummingbird. If he is a Neo-Soviet spy, we'll deal with him in the usual manner"
"Just in case, I planted micro tracker on him, usual frequency" Barney said with another grin, "when you haul him in, you will know just where to find him"

"You know what Barney?" Travers said as he looked out towards the sea, at the incoming weather front.
"What's that Samuel?”
"I hate Greek food, have you ever tried the Scottish Haggis, it really is very good, especially from the mess"
"You're the boss, Samuel, but I can't say I share you taste in food"
With that they made their way to the mess hall.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Wing commander Samson came into the base's air defence control room at three. He had to make sure that the general did not get blown out of the sky, well not yet any how. The two men at the controls stood up to salute the commander.
"As you were men" he said, "We have a VIP due to touch down here quite soon"
"I don't have him listed sir" said one of the controllers looking at the itinerary on the screen, "what craft will he be in sir"
"We don't have it on the itinerary because it is a hush, hush, need to know mission. The craft is a captured Neo-Soviet Mig ninety eight helicopter, we aim to do some infiltration" The commander lied.
The radar suddenly picked up a track; it was coming in from the south east. The commander looked at the trace, "that should be it" he told them. Then he picked up a radio mike and tuned to the appropriate frequency. "Hummingbird out to you, Eagle Owl, over" he said into it.
Static
"Hummingbird out to you, Eagle Owl, over" he repeated.
"Eagle Owl, out to Humming Bird, Am looking for a safe place to roost over" came a crackly voice over the radio.
A grin broke over the commander’s face; it was all going to plan. He spoke into the mike again, "Humming Bird, maintain current migration path, barn door is open over"
"Eagle Owl, ok over" came the response.
"Do we need to provide an escort sir?" asked the other radar operator.
"That won't be necessary, lieutenant, the least air activity the better" Samson replied, "Just make sure he isn't shot down"
"Yes sir" the lieutenant replied.

The commander left the control room to walk across to the new administration building. He looked at the clouds on the horizon, he had heard a weather forecast predicting snow, he didn't expect it to happen, but it was certainly getting cold enough now. As he entered the reception area of the new administration building, he was hit by the huge wall of warm air, it was a sharp contrast to the old administration building as it now stood. A young women of about twenty five, in a respectable US Air Force regulation shirt and blazer, was sitting in reception. She stood up and saluted.
"As you were miss" he told her, then he asked the receptionist for the public address microphone. She handed him the mike.
"Attention, all personnel" his voce echoed around the base, "in several minutes a Mig ninety eight Neo-soviet helicopter will be landing here. It is a captured helicopter for special purposes. That is all".
He handed the receptionist the microphone back, and departed for his office.

The red helicopter gunship touched down at Edzell after about an hour, it bore neo-soviet markings, but no one seemed worried about it now, except for Commander Samson. General Reynolds climbed out carrying a black brief case, and walked over to the commander. "If you had destroyed all evidence of black out five years ago this would never have happened" he shouted above the roar of the rotor blades.
"He still would have got the file on Clean Wipe" countered the commander, "anyway it was you who made up the file in the first place Sir"

The two men went into the new administration; the receptionist stood up and saluted.
"You're a very pretty girl" the General said as he eyed the receptionist up and down.
"Thank you sir" she said, blushing slightly.
"Do you want to come to my office sir" The commander asked the general, irritated at this man's, womanising habits. It was well reported that most of the general's female campaign workers wore skimpy bikinis, some had worn only briefs and made up the rest with body paint or they wore only thin white cotton shirts and mini skirts. It was rumoured that he had banned them from wearing any brassieres, this was of course dirty tricks from the president, designed to loose him the feminists vote. The general’s dirty tricks were also as lurid, it was what was expected.

The two officers went into the commander’s office, and sat down in leather seats. The commander rang through for coffee.
"It’s a lot nicer than your old office" the commander said to break the ice
"Maybe"
"Why the Roosky chopper?" queried the commander.
"Simple" explained the general, "our intruder is to be pictured as a neo-soviet spy. We use the helicopter to give the impression that he is part of an invasion force; perhaps bomb a few, annoying civilian targets with the helicopter. As Aberdeen is about to be invaded by the neo-soviets, this means that we will have to move in and declare martial law" The general continued.
"Won't that mean that some innocent civilians might get, slightly killed?" asked the commander.
"Napoleon Bonaparte once said ' you can't make an omelette without cracking a few eggs".
"What about the people here, they believe that the helicopter is for a penetration mission. What do I tell the men here?" asked the commander
"For most of the men, we can use the Marines from Stonehaven. As for the people here, well, we only need a few MP's for our personal escorts of course. But just to make sure of their loyalty" The General opened up his brief case and took out a white catering pack of chewing gum. "A present from some of my friends in the old CIA"
"What is it?" Asked Samson.
"a guarantee of loyalty, its the same brand as that used by most of our servicemen"
"So General what happens now, do we declare martial law now"
"Tomorrow will do Samson; we need to prepare our men"
"But won't he get away, or even worse try and go public?" the commander asked, getting concerned about this delay.
"Oh no, he may be trying to smoke you out, you say he was going on about that research student you killed twenty years ago. Maybe someone who was related to those we had to use as scapegoats all those years ago has got out of jail. I have high level access. If anyone still exists, who knew that third rate scientist, we will have them."

A knock sounded on the door.
"Come in" yelled the commander
It was the receptionist with the coffee.
As soon as she left, the general spoke to the commander in a quieter tone "This time, we will make sure the job of blackout is completed properly.

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 8

Geography
In all probability I suspect that there is not a river that one could hide in near the site of the real Edzell RAF base, it just sounded a cool idea.

Barney
In the 1988 version, Barney did not get much more of a role than picking the Lone Stranger up off of the road. In the 1993 rewrite, he would get more of a role – so watch this space.

Exchange between Priscilla and the Lone Stranger
The 1988 story was based on real people, and some of them were amused that they were appearing as fictional characters. When I told the person Priscilla was based on, I had her swearing at me and then disappearing up to Port Soy, a real place on the North East of Scotland in Bamfshire is was “I could easily do that” Incidentally, as well as the son she had at the time in 1988, she also later had a daughter.

Voice Procedure
Anyone with military training should be able to determine that the military personnel are using such as Hummingbird out to you, Eagle Owl, over. This is actual voice procedure. In 1990 - 1991 I was in the MOD for a year and at one time I had got hold of a sheet on official voice procedure for radio communications at that time. I do not know if it is still used, but this was the best I could do at the time for research, pre-internet and pre Wikipedia

Roosky
This was slang for Russian

[Sticks]

Chapter 9

Martial law

Steve looked round at the union bar in the failing light. This place brought memories back to Steve, of how he used to frequent this place, how he used to enjoy talking to the staff and the End-of-the-bar gang. It was all coming back to him now, all the happier times. He had spent a lot of time in this building in his student days. It was here that they worked out a lot of the theory that had lead to the Chronon Accelerator, but it had also lead, so they all said, to the bombing of St Andrew Street, and the deaths and imprisonments of many people he had known. If he concentrated hard enough, he was sure he could see the main bar as it was. He never knew what happened to the staff of the Student association, the closure must have been a real heavy blow to them as well as to the students.

To see the place as it was now was heartbreaking. Like the rest of the student union, paper littered the floor of the main bar. The drinks had long gone, but that was the least of his worries. The placed had closed down five years after the St Andrew Street attack due to the bankruptcy of RGIT. The students at Garthdee weren't really bothered about it, until their college was closed down as RGIT folded, since without the St Andrew street premises all the technology moved to Heriot Watt. Squatters had moved in after six months, and stayed for a year before they were evicted.

Now it was just an empty shell, anything that was not screwed down had been removed, and some things had been unscrewed and removed as well. A lot of the windows had long been replaced by wooden boards, and some of them had been used for camp fires. At least in the basement it would provide a decent shelter. Steve walked down the back steps to the old launderette, in the light of the ever-glow lamp, it looked cavernous without the washing machines and dryers. He found a dry spot on the floor, and unrolled his sleeping bag that he had left before getting into the commander’s car the previous day. All he could do now was wait and hope, that Priscilla or Philip would see sense. If they didn't, all was lost as the only way to stop what was going on was to travel backwards in time. He slowly drifted off to sleep, dreaming about ghosts drinking at the bar, doing their laundry in the basement and watching nonexistent televisions.

He woke suddenly to the sound of footsteps, he jumped up. He knew he should have hidden himself more. He started to reach inside his bag for his Chronon Accelerator.
"Mister Gryson" came a voice he recognised. Steve looked down the corridor at a figure that was coming towards him. It was Philip.
"You said you could save my father, How?" he asked.
Steve rubbed his eyes as he sat up. "What time is it?" Steve asked.
Philip looked at his watch, "it's six thirty"
"Philip, why did they say your father was killed?" Steve asked as he got out of his sleeping bag.
"You were making a time machine that would cause something horrible to happen to the universe, I never understood it. They all said you had evil intentions to change history, and the US Air Force saved the universe by blowing you up before you could try" Philip answered, puzzled as to why Steve had asked it.

Steve sighed and switched on the ever-glow lamp. "The only person who believed my experiments could be modified to produce a time machine was Neel. I had no interest in constructing a device to travel in time, the risks are too great"

A light dawned across Philip's mind "Your going to go back in time and save them aren't you"
"It seems I have no choice, we were all scapegoats. Whatever the Americans are up to, they are resurrecting it, and the only way to find out what it is, is to travel back to before the bombing, steal the tapes and pull the entire team out, before those rockets hit"
"But how can we help?”
"I need Neel Maclean's computer and his old discs with our notes on it. Priscilla had them at the time, so the authorities never got hold of them. Neel was convinced he had worked out how to generate anti-Chronons or Chronons on their own, while maintaining a stable field, in which an object could sit. I need Neel's computer to produce a program to feed into my Chronon Accelerator and the equipment in the lab twenty years ago"
"Mr Gryson?"
"Call me Steve"
"What's a Chronon Accelerator?"
"Its the device I used to disappear and reappear, it just allows me to seem to go faster" Steve explained, "Will you help me?”
"Yes" Philip replied, "Mum’s gone to the Portsoy settlement for a while so there won’t be any trouble there."

Steve picked up his bag and followed Philip out. As they reached the front door, they could see the snow beginning to fall. It looked white, "obviously from the Arctic" Steve thought, as it was white, it would be pure from all toxins. The sound of the explosion coming from the police station shattered the silence of the light snow shower. The two raced around the building into Schoolhill, they could see the flames on the Horizon. They watched helplessly as they saw the police hover car burst into a fire ball above the city, brought down by a heat seeking missile.
"They never stood a chance" Steve whispered
"I can hear a helicopter" Philip said.
The two men gazed into the falling snow, as they were only just able to make out the shape of a Neo-Soviet helicopter gunship.
"We better get inside quick" Steve suggested, "Whatever it is, it’s going down."

The two men re-entered the old union building. The helicopter seemed to recede into the background.
"My guess is, that they will now declare martial law" Steve told Philip "what ever I stole from Edzell has to be behind this"
"We better hurry then Steve, you better get in the van"

Steve looked at the old white Volkswagen van, the years had not been kind to it, but it was transport. Steve thought for a moment, and got in the back. Philip got in the front, closed the door and belted up. He turned the key and the van complained at this torture.
"It’s always like this in cold weather" Philip explained, "Pseudo diesel never did give the performance of the real stuff"
Steve hunted around the back of the van, there was an old torn blanket and cardboard box with old rusted jump leads. The van coughed and spluttered again, then started up under protest. Steve took the blanket and folded it up, so he had a cushion to sit on. He would have preferred to sit up front, but if soldiers were to descend on the streets, he would have to keep out of sight. The van lurched forward as Philip coaxed the van along the road in the snow. The road seemed very bumpy, as the council had very little money to make any repairs. The vans antiquated suspension did help matters either.

"Uh oh" Philip said after about five minutes
"What's the matter"
"I can see a police ground car behind us and it wants me to pull over"
"Do it, don't worry about me"
Philip went to park the van on the side of the road; suddenly he heard a loud explosion behind him. The police car had been hit. They both heard the helicopter over head.
"Try that narrow side street" Steve shouted as he pointed to an old disused road.
Philip sped the van up and did a sharp turn into the narrow road. They heard the helicopter scream over head, totally ignoring them.
"What's going on Steve?"
"I think they are definitely trying to find an excuse to impose martial law. If the local police force is knocked out, the local military has emergency powers"
"Why the Russian helicopter?”
"They need more scapegoats, but it’s me they're after"

They waited in the street for a further five minutes, in the distance they heard other explosions as the Helicopter picked off police ground cars one by one. Then Philip started the van up again. The rest of the journey back to Philip's house was uninterrupted.
"What the hell is it all about Steve" Philip asked as they got out of the van and crunched through the freshly fallen snow.
"That's what I have to go back and find out"

They walked up the stairs, Philip opened the door and went in. Steve followed him in and went into the lounge to wait. Philip went to search for the computer and the disks. Steve searched through his bag and found his radio; he switched it on and started looking through the stations. Nothing, Aberdeen could be reduced to rubble and no one would ever know, nor would they ever care. He suddenly had a thought.
"Philip do you still have a telephone?”
"Yes" Philip called out from another room.
Steve picked it up, it was dead, and they really were alone.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was seven forty five in the morning when Colonel Samuel Travers finished addressing the contingent of Marines that had been assembled in the Stonehaven Town square, and climbed down off of the platform stage. He gazed steely eyed as he saw the armed Hover-car of the Edzell Wing Commander descend through the snow shower. He saluted the hover-car as it landed beside a parked hover-tank. A hover-troop transport came in as well and landed. General John Reynolds got out of the hover car.
"Can I address your men sir?" The General asked.
"Yes sir" The colonel responded

The General walked out in front of the amassed ranks of armed marines and climbed up the stage. Wing commander Samson got out of his car and walked over to the platform stage. He did not climb up it. The general cleared his throat. "As you are aware this morning, a Neo Soviet Helicopter took out all civilian law enforcement agencies. We have intelligence reports that a Neo Soviet spy, who penetrated Edzell two nights ago, is due to lead an invasion force. It is our job to find and eliminate this threat. Most of you will be involved in re-establishing law and order. I will have photo fit pictures of the spy distributed shortly. He is extremely dangerous and a top agent, so shoot to kill on sight. As soon as we see the invasion force we can call in air support. Hopefully we can crush this incursion before we are over run. As from this moment, under the Western Bloc Alliance, emergency powers act, I formally declare Martial Law on the city of Aberdeen. Now assemble at your transit vehicles and prepare to move out"

The marines slowly started to file over to various ground Lorries, various sergeants barked orders to expedite the mobilisation. While they were doing this the colonel walked over to the general and the commander, two marines followed him.
"General, Commander" he started, "I must insist that you take along with you these two men"
"There's no need colonel, I have my own men for our escort" The general replied.
"With all due respect sir, these men have trained in Aberdeen and are familiar with its territory. Your MP's have trained in Dundee and will not be familiar with this territory. For your own safety, as you insist on going into a theatre of operations, I strongly urge you to take these men with you as well"
"But" insisted the commander, "We don't have room in the hover-car"
"They have their own armed hover-car, and will ride shotgun behind you" The colonel replied.

The general looked at the two marines, one had red hair and looked like he was in his early twenties, and the other was of afro-Caribbean extract. The general did not feel comfortable with the second marine, but he managed to hide his prejudice. There was no sense in attracting suspicion. "Ok colonel, this is your patch and we would not want to fall into any traps"
The colonel turned round to the two marines, "Ok soldiers, you have your orders"
"Yes sir" they both replied
"Ok, dismissed"
The two marines then ran across the square to pick up the other armed hover-car. The colonel turned back round to the other officers. "I will be accompanying my men in one of the hover-tanks. We will be patrolling the shoreline looking for landing craft"
"Very good colonel" said the general "we have information about subversives who may be assisting the enemy, and we intend to deal with them."
"General, before I depart to my hover-tank, permission to be frank sir"
"What's on your mind?"
"This is a military operation sir; I know you are running for president, so I request that you don't risk my men by using this as a photo opportunity. After the emergency, you can capitalise all you want on this."
"So noted Colonel, Samson, lets go" With that the general and the wing commander walked back to the commander's car. The colonel watched them through his steely coloured eyes. A hover-tank came up behind him and opened up a door.
"Would you like to get in sir" said the marine that was driving.
The colonel turned around, got in the hover-tank and strapped himself into the front passenger seat. "Routine coastal sweep Sergeant, and get me lieutenant Peters on the blower"
The driver made the hover-tank climb thirty feet into the air and handed Colonel Travers a radio mike.
"This Sparrow-hawk, ok, over" came a voice over the speaker.
"This is zero, where are you now ok, over"
"We're following the birds, ok, over"
"Which way are they migrating? Ok, over."
"Over to the city, ok, over"
"Remember to implement the Roosting procedure, ok out"
"Ok out"
Travers handed back the microphone to the driver, it would be along day.

Barney Harris watched from the office of Colonel Travers as the four hover-tanks flew out in formation across the Stonehaven bay. He picked up an audio only telephone and dialled a number. He got through to an answering phone.
"Tell the Boss, operation turkey shoot has just started" he said down the phone. Barney replaced the handset, "Samuel, you never did ask who I worked for"

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Just look at that view General" Samson said as the hover-car flew over the Kincorth area of Aberdeen.
"And in about five years time, it will probably be a ghost town" the general replied, "you were right, this was a good place for operations"
"Ok, who are we going to pick up first, the Smiths or the Tavistocks, General"

The general looked out of the window and thought for a moment, the Tavistocks, Mrs Smith was easier to persuade of the official line, Mrs Tavistock, still protests their innocence. Whoever your intruder was must be connected with them. Besides, a little birdie told me she had a visit from an old flame the other day."
Samson banked the Hover-car around and headed for the city centre, "And if we arrive in time, we can catch both Mr and Mrs as he drops her off for work at the Bon Accord centre"
The generals eyes lit up, "Oh yes, do you guys, there in the back want a coffee at Uncle Sam's"
"Yes sir" came the voices of the two military policemen riding in the back
"We don't need to go in there" the commander insisted, "we can pick them up outside. In fact, we can do better". The commander flicked a switch on the steering column. A television screen lit up, displaying the hover-cars weapon system.
"Please place hand on screen for identification" came an electronic voice.
"It’s fully armed, general, we could just destroy their car before they park." suggested Commander Samson.
"You forget our shadows, the colonel's trusted marines. We will wait for them to arrive at the centre, and Travers men can bring them to us while we wait at Uncle Sam's. There's also some merchandise I need to see, you know what I mean"

The two hover-cars flew over the docks, a naval patrol ship was seen, still burning away and half sunk, the pilot in the Mig, had really excelled him self. They flew across the city centre and landed in the Bon Accord centre's delivery yard. The snow was getting heavier now. The general, the commander and the MP'S got out of the hover-car. The general walked across to the hover-car carrying the marines. "A red ground car is due to come by and drop off an employee of the Uncle Sam's cafeteria, they are spies and traitors. You are to apprehend the man after he has dropped the women off and she has gone inside."
"What do you want us to do with him sir" asked the red headed marine.
"Under the emergency powers act, he is to be sentenced to death, and you are to carry out his execution"
"In cold blood" the red headed marine said in surprise
"Listen soldier, this could be war, and he and his accomplices are responsible. As soon as you have executed him, come inside to Uncle Sam's, we will apprehend the women there and hand her over to you for her execution. Its not murder, because I do have that power to authorise summary executions on enemies of the state"
"Yes sir, but what do we do with the bodies"
The general looked around the yard, "put them in that skip over there" he said pointing to a giant wheeler bin, "its more than those scum deserve"
"Yes sir" the marine answered back.

The two officers and the MP's entered the shopping centre. As it was just half past eight, hardly any shops had opened. With the weather as it was, that was understandable. In the distance they could see a slim young figure in shorts, a very small bikini top and a red white and blue hat. She looked about nineteen, and was walking in a huddled fashion.
"How do fancy that one commander" the general asked, the lust in his voice was nauseatingly obvious, "let’s carry out a strip search"
"I don't think we have the time general" Commander Samson responded, "any way what would our shadows think about it, you know the Colonel's reputation"
The general sighed, "You’re right Samson, but it would only have been some harmless fun. You are such a prude Samson".

They followed the figure up the stairs to the cafeteria. A single solitary man in a black suit and tie was sitting in the far corner sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup. The general recognised him instantly. It was Larry Rider, one of the major share holders of the holding company that ran the Bon Accord centre.
"What are you doing here" Larry asked.
"Martial Law has been declared" the general explained, "One of your employees is suspected of being in league with the Neo-Soviets. After all, they have wiped out you police force"
"You better sit down General Reynolds and you Commander Samson" said Larry. "Cherry" he ordered, "Bring these gentlemen a tray of coffees.

Cherry went behind the counter to get the coffees. As she felt the warmer air from the cookers on her thin semi naked body, it felt like shear bliss. Mr Rider had found out about the clothes that the friend of Marie had paid for. He had said something about it being classed as a tip, and as some sort of tax was liable on tips, he had to confiscate them until he had seen the accountant to check the tax situation. All of them objected, even the supervisor, but he was the boss, and they were told they were very lucky to have a job. The supervisor had made the point of Cherry needing something to wear for the evenings at least, but Mr Rider had said that because the security guards could see her in uniform during the day, there was really no need. She had to spend a cold night with nothing but the thin blanket to wear. Cherry put the coffees on the tray, with the cream and sugar and the stirrer, just as she had been taught. Even after two days of serving customers virtually in the nude, she still could not get used to it, because in her heart she knew it was wrong.

Cherry carefully carried the tray to the MP's standing near the entrance. She felt a cold draft from the weather outside, she was aware that her teeth were chattering slightly. She desperately wanted to wear something more during the cold weather, but alas it was not to be. Then she took the tray, with the other coffees to the three men sitting at the table. As she put the tray down on the table, General Reynolds took hold of her left upper arm. His grip was very strong, and caused her pain as his fingers dug into her thin arm, it was all she could do to grit her teeth, to prevent herself screaming out in agony. She tried to smile; Mr Rider had told her the day before that she had to be "more friendly" to men in her body language.
"You’re absolutely right Larry" the general said with an evil grin
"Is this necessary" protested Samson.
The general ignored him and took his machine pistol from his holster, flicked off the safety catch, and placed the muzzle to Cherry's throat. Cherry froze with utter terror. The other two men at the table froze as well, they knew he was sadistic, but they could not make out what the general was doing. The MP's just looked on impassively, as the other waitresses and the supervisor found themselves unable to move. The general started to slowly bring the muzzle down between Cherry's breasts. He then used the gun to fondle her left breast, and then her right breast.
"You have a beautiful body, Cherry" he said in lecherous manner

Marie came up into the Cafeteria and saw what the general was doing.
"What are you doing to her" she shouted as she pushed forward past the MP's
"Arrest her men" Samson ordered.
Immediately the two MP's grabbed her by the arms. The general pulled his gun away, replaced the safety catch and re-holstered his gun. He released Cherry's arm and pushed her away. Cherry felt her legs turn to jelly. Susan managed to unfreeze and rushed forward to grab her as Cherry feinted. Marie then recognised the man who was molesting Cherry, "Its General Reynolds, the presidential candidate"
"Well we certainly won't be relying on your vote" he retorted.

A gunshot sounded in the distance.
"That was Mr Tavistock" the general said smugly, "don't worry, by the emergency martial law act I have ordered both your executions"
Marie's mouth went dry, she started to panic, but the grip of the two MP's was very strong. Susan looked up from Cherry, at the general, her eyes full of hate, for this b*****d. The frightening thing was, this man was leading in the polls and would soon be president.

"Susan, take Cherry to the supervisors room, she can sit down for a while and have a coffee" Larry said, still seething with rage at the general. What was he playing at, Cherry was a lucky find and this man could have killed her.
"Yes sir, Mr Rider" Susan replied, she did not know who she hated more, the general or Mr Rider. She gently picked up the now sobbing Cherry and helped her to the supervisors room. She sat her down on the supervisors chair and wrapped the blanket around her. Cherry was obviously in shock, and was starting to say how sorry she was. Angela, one of the other waitresses, brought in a small coffee and handed it to Cherry. Cherry's hands were shaking badly, she really felt that she must be being punished for some sin she could not remember. Susan could tell that she was very near breaking point.

The two marines arrived in the cafeteria.
"Take Mrs Tavistock outside and institute the judgement of the military court" Samson ordered the men.
"Don't worry Larry" the general said with an air of reassurance, "I can get you another one, unless you have someone else lined up"
Larry remained silent. Marie was dragged away screaming by the marines, five minutes later, the other waitresses flinched as they heard the sound of a single gunshot.

The general turned to the commander, "The Smiths, I think next" he suggested. Silently the commander nodded. The two men got up and left the cafeteria. Larry Rider just sat there and stared at the stair well for a moment, and then he too got up.
"Miss Judith" he said to the supervisor, "I will see that Cherry can have her clothes for after hours from now on"
"Thank you Mr Rider that will be just great" she said sarcastically, it was obvious that she hated his guts like the rest of them.

As the general and the commander left the shopping centre, the general caught sight of a hover-tank taking off. "Who was that?" he asked the red headed marine, "I thought the hover-tanks were patrolling the coast"
"They dropped off a vigilante they picked up, and want us to take him into custody. They believe that he might have some relevant information Sir" the marine replied.
"Who is he?" Asked the commander
"He's a local man, called Joe Ferguson; he says that knows the name of a very dangerous criminal that has returned to Aberdeen"
This intrigued the general, "Tell me soldier, did he give you the name of this criminal?”
"Yes Sir, he said it was Steve Gryson, whoever he was"

This was like a thunderbolt from the blue. The commander and the general looked at each other in disbelief.
"But he's dead" protested the commander, "He died when we had to destroy that building, to stop his experiments"
"But" said the general, "none of the bodies could ever be identified, the fire saw to that"
"But if it is Mr Gryson" The commander started
"Then we are in deep trouble, if he is still alive" the general finished.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Steve managed to load the disc in to Neel's, now ancient, PC. It was a mere dinosaur compared to the modern fibre-optic computers and pocket books. Steve had spent two hours looking through the old files. Suddenly he saw through the formulae to what Neel was getting at.
"Eureka !" he exclaimed "Anti-Chronons"
"What are Chronons ?"Philip asked.
"Hypothetical particles of time. When we first discovered them we realised they could be made to speed up time, but anything in a certain zone where they weren't present continued at the normal rate and thus appeared to go backwards. Anti-Chronons should make time run backwards but anything in the exclusion zone would run at normal rate." Steve explained "and therefore you have the basis of a crude time machine."
"How will this information help you save my father?" Philip asked having not understood a single word Steve had said.
"I have reprogrammed my Chronon accelerator to create the Anti-Chronons to send me back to the time before helicopter attack. But there is one snag"
"What's that?" Philip said still puzzled at what on earth this man was talking about.
"The Chronon accelerator is designed so that with out complex modification taking several weeks, it will effectively stay in this time stream."
Philip understood this time and asked with concern "Then how will you get back from the past to this time"
"Simple sitting in St Andrew Street in the past is a crude Chronon generator. It needs only one control setting change and this program on this diskette, to project a room full of people forward in time."
"Do you want to set it up here?" Philip asked
"No, we can't stay here; the Marines could be descending on us like a ton of bricks any second."

They got up and started to go down to the van. As they got to the van, they saw a single marine with an assault rifle. Luckily the marine had not spotted them. Steve crept into the back, and Philip got into the drivers seat. He did his best not to draw the attention of the marine. The marine walked on by, he had not noticed anything out of the ordinary. Philip sighed with relief and started the van.

The drive down to the old student union building was quite uneventful. At one time, they passed a troop transport lorry, but no one was interested in the white rusting van.

They eventually arrived at the building.
"I want to depart from one of the old television rooms; it was never used much, so it is a perfect entry point"
The two figures trudged up the stairs in silence, through the accumulated filth of the years of neglect. At the top floor Steve entered the particular television room, now devoid of every thing, and open to the elements. Philip watched as he set the Chronon Accelerator down on the floor.
"Philip?"
"Yes Steve"
"If this works, then in fifteen of your minutes we should arrive on the first floor of the ruins of the St Andrew Street building, on the north side. The floor will still hold seven people, but I may need help getting some of them down. I don't know what the disorientation effects will be"
"And if you fail?" Philip asked
"Wait twenty minutes, get this letter to General Reynolds, and get the hell out of here. I don't want any more deaths on my account" Steve explained as he handed Philip a buff coloured envelope.

Steve looked out of the window at the falling snow, and then, taking his kit bag, went inside and switched on the device. He stepped in front of the machine and waited a few seconds, for it to start its new programme. Philip gazed on in amazement as Steve vanished into thin air.

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 9

RGIT Student Association Building
When I wrote this in 1988, the layout of the student association was a lot different to the lay out it is today at the Robert Gordon’s University Student Association. (They even changed their name when RGIT became RGU in the 1990’s as a number of colleges and polytechnics became universities.

In 1988, the main bar was on the ground floor, along with the porter’s box and the gaming machines. On the first floor were the shop and the café, plus the Sabbaticals’ room and that of the Secretary and the pool table. The next floor up was an overflow bar which also served healthy snacks, plus the video room and the Manager’s officer. There was also a large meeting room. Above that were the TV rooms, a hair dressers called DI and access to the offices of the communications officer.

Down in the basement, were the laundrette and the showers.

Toilets were on the Ground floor, 1st floor and the top floor.

When I visited in 1997, the entrance had been moved, the laundrette was gone and the shop is where the bar was. The bar is upstairs somewhere. Beyond that I can not recall the current layout of the RGU Student Association building.

Back in 1988, I could not have foreseen this, so much for my prescience

Time loops
In the story, the justification for blowing the building up was to prevent a time loop. This is a variation of the Grandfather Paradox. Suppose you were to build a time machine and travel back in time and kill your grandfather before he met your grandmother, then so it goes, you would never have been born so you would never have gone back in time, so your grandfather would never have been killed so you would have been born so you would have gone back in time and so this logical loop goes on. This is in essence the idea of the time loop.

There is a get out clause, but this came later than 1988, and involved quantum universes and parallel universes. What happens is you disappear into the past, and your actions cause another universe to branch out, and you travel that new branch.

Yes this does get heavy…

Pseudo Diesel
When I wrote this, I may have been thinking of some form of bio-diesel to be used by the Volkswagen van that the character Philip drives. It was not unheard of, even in 1988, as due to oil sanctions, South Africa at that time had been using sunflower oil as an early form of bio-diesel.

The Blower
This is slang for a telephone, in 2008; this slang is anachronistic, i.e. very old

”Lucky to have a job”
The staff at Uncle Sam’s are told when they complain at Cherry’s clothes being taken, that they are lucky to have a job. This phrase was one I heard from a programme about poor work conditions. A good writer will use things he hears.

Anti-Chronon’s
Sadly there is technically no such things as anti-time or anti-chronons as far as I am aware, but then there is no such things as hyper drive and warp drive, or teleportation devices, which are staples of science fiction. We will have to continue to suspend our disbelief

[Sticks]

Additional note on episode 9

Martial Law
I almost forgot this one. During the latter stages of the cold war, it was mentioned that during a time of national emergency in the run up to World War III, those enforcing martial law, should it have ever been declared, would have been American troops



Luckily, it never happened

[Sticks]

Chapter 10

The more things change

Steve looked on in wonder, it seemed like he was falling through a multicoloured void. It seemed like he was gazing upon the whole of eternity, as the field which he had created became a bubble, totally separated from the space time continuum. He wondered if he would see himself coming back, maybe they would meet half way. What had concerned him was arriving in the vacuum of space, millions of miles from where the planet was, twenty years ago. He felt light headed, may be the atmosphere that had gone with him in the field was leaking out. In the distance he could see flashes of multicoloured lightning. The whole experience reminded him of a description someone had made of an LSD trip. He only hoped, he would survive it, the depravity of man seemed as nothing compared to the forces of nature. His light headedness was getting worse, he felt as if he was totally detached from reality. "But that's what they always thought, when I was a student" he said to himself, before passing out.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was just over twenty years ago, and about eleven thirty in the morning. A female student, Jennifer Bruce, was working alone outside the old BBC2 television room, sitting with her back to it. She was writing up a lab report in the study area, from the morning’s chemistry lab. The weather was very warm for the middle of April. With that plus the fact that she had been to a disco the previous night, she was finding it hard to concentrate as she kept dozing off. "Boy is it hot" she said to herself. She had even braved the wolf whistles from some of the male students, by wearing her strapless bikini top to the college that day, in order to keep cool. It had seen like a good idea at the time, but she found it had been a big mistake. It had only occurred to her how impractical it was when she was on the bus. It must have stretched since she last used it, as it kept slowly slipping down, all the way to the college, and she had to keep pulling it up. She was glad of the lab that morning, so she could wear her lab coat over the top. She hoped no one had noticed that her top was slipping, although one of the other students was puzzled that she did not wear her lab coat unbuttoned in the heat of the laboratory, like everyone else. At the end of the lab she had gone back to the lavatory, pulled her top up, as she was almost falling out of it, stowed her lab coat in her locker and walked over to the student union. She was going to buy a T-Shirt from the union shop, but it was closed for a while, so she was hiding up on the third floor away from view.

She picked up her purse to see if she had enough money on her to get a can of coke from the machine, and a T shirt to wear for the next lecture. She only had a couple of pound notes, so she would have to endure it. Maybe she should go and put her lab coat on, or just skip maths and go back to the flat and change.

A sudden crack of thunder exploded behind her, and she felt a sudden wind on her back. She looked up, "That's odd the sky's still blue and thunders not forecast for today" Then she heard what sounded like electricity arcing behind her. She turned around to see a middle aged man slumped on the floor; arcs of electricity caressed his body. "Oh ****, some ones electrocuted themselves" she said in a panic. She went into the room, maybe she could find something to knock the source of the electric shock away. But, there was nothing there. The television had long gone, all the room contained were leaflets from the welfare officer.

As she looked at the man, it seemed as though she had seen him somewhere before, but could not place him. She bent down to feel for a pulse. It was quite normal. Then she noticed the snow melting on his jacket. Snow, in the middle of a very hot April. Something was very odd. She felt she better report this to someone so she started to pack her bag up.

Steve groaned slightly, and tried to get up. He tried to focus his eyes. He felt really drained of energy. He caught sight of the student packing her bag up. He tried to get up. A steam train ran straight through his brain and everything blacked out again.

Jennifer heard the sound of the man trying to get up. Suddenly she felt very scared. She was alone on the top floor of the Student Union, in what could be described as provocative clothing and a strange man was near her. She started to panic, if only she had a rape alarm. She walked out quickly onto the stairwell, and walked quickly down the stairs to the second floor snack bar and safety.

Steve managed to recover at last; slowly he got up from the floor. The girl had gone, Steve felt it was better to make tracks as well, she had obviously seen him and he did not want to attract attention. He walked out of the room and moved briskly towards the emergency stairs. As he ducked around the corner, Timothy Green the union president came up with Jennifer.
"Well he's not here now" the president told Jennifer
"You can see the wet carpet, he was here" Jennifer insisted.
"I believe you" the president replied, "after last year’s trouble, I'll believe anything. By the way Jennifer" he added, "your top is slipping down, and that might get you arrested for indecent exposure"
Jennifer's face went red with embarrassment; her top was almost coming off. She blushed ferociously as she lifted her top back into place. It tried to slip down again, this time faster. She pulled it up again hard in frustration at the front; suddenly she felt the fastener give way. Just in time she caught the front with her forearms to prevent her top falling off completely, and to preserve what modesty she could, she felt the back of her top flapping loose and hanging by her sides.
"Damn it, the fastener on my top's broken" she said, turning red with embarrassment, "I was going get a T-Shirt, but I don't have the cash on me right now. I don't suppose you have a safety pin on you"
The union president fished in his pocket and found a safety pin. "Your in luck, I have, my trousers once split, so I always carry one"
"Could you pin my top up please" she pleaded, angry at putting herself in this predicament, why didn't she bring a T-Shirt with her.
Timothy's face went slightly red, he wondered what his girl friend would say if she came in now. He gently took the two ends of the bikini top and fastened it with the safety pin, he could tell that she was very tense. "That should hold for now" he told her
Jennifer relaxed her arms, the top was still slightly loose and more revealing than she would have liked, but it was holding. "Me and my big" ideas she complained, "I suddenly had visions of having to attend my maths lecture, topless. I just hope this holds" she said, almost forgetting her encounter with the strange man.
"I can also lend you one of my T-Shirts for the day if you like" The president offered
Jennifer nodded, crossed her arms in front of her and followed the president down stairs to his room; this was just not her day.

Steve walked down the steps to the second floor and went into the Theo’s snack bar. It was starting fill up as lunch time approached. Steve felt very warm; he had come from December to what was the hottest April on record. He took off his coat and walked across the floor to get to the other stairwell. He resisted the urge to see the union manager. They had got on quite well when he was a student here, but what could he say. Would anyone believe he had come from the future, would they believe that the US Air Force would launch this unprovoked attack? As he looked at the snooker room, he caught sight of some of his old class mates that had done the first degree course with him. They had been lucky; they had managed to finish their courses. Others were not so lucky and in a few years from this time, their courses would be terminated as a result of the Attack, some would be lucky and finish off in the university.

He went out onto the main stairwell and walked down to the first floor. He went in to the shop to buy a newspaper. "Rats!” he said to himself. The earliest date on his small change was dated five years from now, and that was a penny. He did have a couple of old Scottish pound coins, minted three years after the penny. The rest of his money was in West Bloc dollars, not Stirling. He felt the Scottish pound coins and remembered that they weighed the same as the English pound coins of this era. He left the shop and went down stairs to the change machine. He held his breath, half expecting the machine to tell that these coins were not strictly legal tender. Suddenly he heard the sound of clinking coins as the machine paid out in a currency he could use. As he received the four fifty pence coins, it occurred to him that he was getting change of two pound coins before they were ever made!

He walked out passed the porters box. One of the porters was on duty. Steve looked at the clock in the porter’s box. Quarter to twelve. Steve concluded that the other porter must have gone to the bank to get more change for the bar. He climbed the stairs and went to enter the first floor section. Just then he noticed a familiar figure in an ill fitting suit, carrying a bag, coming out of the toilets. It was, it was "Himself" this was the Steve Gryson that belonged to this time, not as he was, a visiting Steve Gryson from the future.

The young Steve opened the door on to the stair well and ran up the stairs to the second floor. The stranger he brushed past seemed very familiar, but he could not put his finger on what it was. The older Steve Went back to the shop and purchased a Press and Journal. He looked at the day, Thursday. He had arrived as planned two days early. His next problem was to gain more cash that could be used in this time. He reached into his kit bag and took out a wash bag. He opened it, inside was a wallet that he had kept for the past twenty years. He took it out and flicked through the contents. They were the old plastic cards he had when he was a student. He remembered how they had turned up, out of the blue a year ago in his own time, delivered by a solicitor. He knew why he had received them now, but who and how were still a puzzle. It was time to leave and withdraw some cash out on his credit card, then he could think about finding a place to stay.

Jennifer came out of the president’s room, she had slipped on his black Motor head T-shirt over her bikini top. She was on her way to buy a can of coke when she spotted the man from the welfare room, coming out of the union shop.
"It’s him" she said to herself. This place was more public and now she had a rape alarm, she felt safer because of that. She went up to the stranger, she was going to confront him.

Steve felt a hand on his shoulder as he reached the door to the stair well. He stopped walking and turned around to face the person who stopped him. It was the girl he had seen just after he had landed.
"Who are you, how did you manage to get into that room, what was that electricity and how come you had snow on you"
A shiver went down Steve's spine, someone had seen him land, and that was what he had been trying to avoid.
"If you come out on to the stairwell, maybe I can explain"
Jennifer still felt nervous, about this man as things did not add up. He still looked familiar, but she could not place him. "I'm not going anywhere alone with you; we all heard how that student was raped up at Hilton last week"

Steve tried hard to remember, it was twenty years ago to him, one week to her. He could only just remember the fear that had run through the female student population at the time, as a serial rapist had started to stalk the student community. He could remember now, that by chance this was the day that he was caught. He had forgotten entirely about this, but he realised that the climate of fear could seriously hinder his attempt to find the Honeywell tapes.
"If you listen to midday news on North Sound, you will hear that they have just caught the man who did it. You can hear it on my radio if you like" Steve replied as he took his radio from his kit bag, switched it on and tuned it to Radio North sound.

Jennifer listened in fascination as the news broadcast went through various news items. At the end of the bulletin it said "..And news just in, the stalker who has raped four students in Aberdeen, has just been arrested by undercover police on Aberdeen University grounds. More details on this in the next bulletin."
Steve switched off the radio.
"You're a policeman?" Jennifer said, maybe she had misjudged this person.
"If you want to go to Burger King, it’s a public place. I think I better explain about the electricity and the snow"
"Are you buying?" she asked
"Yes, but I don't have much cash on me" Steve replied, "I need to get some cash from a machine"

Steve and Jennifer went out onto the stairwell; Steve went first because he had sensed Jennifer's apprehension. They walked down the stairs and out of the door. Steve was hit in the face by the bright sunshine and blue sky. It was quite a change from the Aberdeen he had just left, clogging up with snow and a place of utter despair. This Aberdeen was the middle of spring, warm and bright, bursting full of optimism, hopes for the future. It pained Steve when he remembered that in a few years time, they would be smashed to pieces, sparked off by an earthquake in Tokyo, worsened by the near advent of world war three, and continued by a never ending slump.

Steve took out the old credit card and joined the queue at the auto bank.
"I need to take out some cash" he told Jennifer, "By the way, although its not my real name, I go by the name of Farrow Smyth, for personal reasons, just don't ask. What's your name, or what would you like me to call you?”
"Just call me Jennifer" she responded, intrigued by the fact, that this man could not use his real name, perhaps he was an undercover officer. She took a card from her small leather hand purse she had on her shoulder and joined the queue for the auto bank, "I just hope the bank manager doesn't complain too much about my overdraught."

Steve fed in the card and punched the pin number in; he could still remember it, even after all these years. It accepted his identification and he withdrew a hundred and fifty pounds, well within the younger Steve Gryson's credit limit. He moved aside to allow Jennifer to use the auto bank, while he looked at the traffic. All those people driving in their own ground cars, powered by the burning of fossil fuels. Steve could not help but compare it to his own time; all the results of pollution from the increase in the use of cars and the industrial plants had made life very hard in his own time.

In the world he had left behind, in the future, the rates of respiratory illnesses had quadrupled, due to the toxins in some cities, cancer had raced away and the average life span was about fifty in some parts. People could not survive for more than a quarter of an hour without filter masks in certain parts of London and the midlands. In fact the whole town of Coventry in England, had been abandoned because of the atmospheric pollution, some still hoped in vain that they might return, but others knew it could only be done in full breathing apparatus. Yet in this time zone, it was still probably a cleanish city. He felt that he should try and tell them what he knew, tell them to go another route, but that would be changing history. It would be extremely dangerous to tamper with history; he could set up a never ending time loop that would tie the universe up in logical contradictions.

He breathed in the air, it was clean and pure, at least that would be the same in twenty years for this part of the world.
"Oh ****" he heard Jennifer say. His thoughts of the world as it would be, scattered to the four winds.
"What's the matter" he asked
"That f-ing machine has swallowed my card, "and I needed to go to a clothes shop before the next lecture. What the hell am I going to live on till the end of term?"
Steve leafed through the cash he had just taken out, offered Jennifer a twenty pound note.
"What kind of girl do you think I am" she said, suddenly suspicious of this strange man, "if you think you can buy me, you have another thing coming"
Steve took the note back, he was handling this very badly, "I wasn't trying to buy you; I was only trying to help. Burger King's on me, if you're still interested" he said trying to salvage the situation.
"You still haven't explained the snow, the arcing and hand how you knew of that rapist’s arrest. Just who exactly are you"
"I'll explain on the way to Burger King, if you still feel uncomfortable, I'll leave"
"It had better be good" she replied, her hostility was very evident.

The two set off walking down Schoolhill, now side by side, Steve kept his distance.
"What course are you doing?" he asked
"Applied sciences" she replied, "And I'm in the first year, and I'm going to do the physics route, if I reach the third year"
"Have you heard of a Steve Gryson?”
"Yeah, from some one in the third year, some one said he had just produced something called chronons, I read in the paper the other day that the Russians think he is going to invent a time machine. Load of utter rubbish if you ask me"
"Why do you say that"
"Time travel is impossible, it can't be done"
Steve pulled from his wallet the penny that had the future date. "Look at this" he insisted as he handed the coin to Jennifer, "look at the date"

Jennifer read the date and stopped in the middle of the pavement. This was a complete bombshell. "Excuse me Mr Farrow Smyth or whoever you are, are you saying that you come from the future, because I find that hard to believe"
"How do you explain the coin, the news bulletin, the snow you say you saw?"
Jennifer thought for a moment, "So Mr Gryson is working on a time machine, just as the Russians have said"
"No he is not; it’s just that his work will lead to a time machine"
"Why have you come to our time?" Jennifer asked.
"Something horrible is due to happen"
"And your here to stop it"
"No, I'm here to find the evidence to bring to justice the people who did it, in my time, and to stop them from gaining power"

This annoyed Jennifer for a moment, if this Farrow Smyth was from the future, he could stop it couldn't he. But then he would never have had reason to come back and a time loop would be generated. They walked down to the Burger King shop in silence, the St Nicholas Kirk clock tower chimed the quarter hour. Jennifer could feel that the bikini top was slipping down underneath the T-Shirt.

"I'm sorry that I snapped at you back there, is that twenty pound note still on offer, I need to get something" she found herself asking.
"Yes of course" Steve replied as he handed her the note.
Jennifer took it and entered the Bon Accord shopping centre, Steve followed her in. The centre was crowded, and full of locals, unlike the same centre in his own time. He watched as she made a beeline for a clothes shop, Steve shrugged his shoulders, perhaps he aught to follow her, perhaps not.

As he wandered through the centre, he kept comparing it with the centre of his time. In this time it was a vibrant and very profitable centre, all clean and optimistic, full of hope for a future, a future that he knew was hopeless. The centre of his time was just hanging on, it was all tarnished, and everyone was waiting for it to roll down and die. And as for Uncle Sam's, that travesty of a cafeteria, could never take place in this time. His mind began to wander; he could not help but think of where all these people would be, in his time. Some would be dead, some might still live in the Aberdeen of his time. There was no way of knowing where these people would be. He saw a young married couple pushing a baby in buggy, would they be making long term plans for the future, or were they, like many families in his own time, living hand to mouth. The quality of the baby buggy suggested they were comfortably well off, in his time, you were either very rich or very poor. The middle class had all but disappeared in his time, the rich and poor divide had sharpened intensely.

"Farrow". A voice broke through into Steve's reflections.
"What" he said looking around to try and find out where this voice came from. He felt a tug on his arm, he turned around. It was Jennifer; she was carrying a bag from a clothes shop.
"Before we go to Burger King, I just want to go up to the toilets and change, OK" she said.
"How about eating at the cafeteria instead of Burger King" Steve suggested, he wanted to see what it once was like, before it was butchered by the holding company of his time.
"The foods more expensive there, you bet" she replied, "any way, I prefer MacDonald’s to Burger King" with that she started to run up the stairs to the cafeteria.

Steve climbed up after her, as she disappeared into the ladies, Steve looked around at the cafeteria, and this was how it should be. There were male servers as well as female servers. All wore the respectable brown uniforms and straw boaters; he could see mothers and children eating here as well. If only it could be like this in his time, there were none of those gaudy signs here and they had decent tables and chairs. He could not help but get the feeling that something else was not right, either here or in the cafeteria of his time. Steve closed his eyes and tried to remember Uncle Sam's, it seemed incredible that this respectable cafeteria could so degenerate to the sleazy burger bar of his time. If only he could change history, but that was not his battle, or was it. Something seemed very wrong, but he could not quite work it out.

As he waited for Jennifer to come out, his mind kept drifting back, or was it forward; time travelling was a very disconcerting. To a person from this time, they must have felt that they had a clean slate, free will to choose. To Steve, an intruder into the past, they were living out a set pattern, no free will, it was all predestined. It was like living in a movie, that he alone knew the end of.
"What do you think?”
Steve musings vanished as he woke from his day dreaming. "What?”
It was Jennifer; she had changed out of the presidents T-Shirt into a short sleeve, yellow and orange striped Sweatshirt.
"Why ask me?" Steve replied.
Jennifer's scowled at this remark, "you really know how to make a person feel good, don't you" she said sarcastically, "you frighten the living day lights out of me by landing behind me, you make me think that you were that pervert they just caught, and you turn out to be somebody from the future"
Jennifer seemed to Steve, like she was about to burst into tears for some reason, somehow he had hit a raw nerve. "Jennifer, do you really want my opinion on how you look"
"Well how do I look?" She asked again, with her hands on her hips, "why are men so impossible" she thought.

"It looks ok on you, and in my opinion, what you have on now, is a lot more practical than what I saw you wearing when I first landed."
"Well I won't make that mistake again, my fastener broke, I was just lucky the president had a safety pin and a T-Shirt I could borrow, otherwise I would not have had anything else to wear" Jennifer replied as they moved towards the serving counter.
"Anyway what do you want to eat" Steve asked, changing the subject.
Jennifer pursed her lips and looked at the menu, "I wonder what a vegetarian dish would be like" she said to nobody in particular.

The two of them joined the queue at the self service bar. Jennifer chose a vegetarian quiche and yoghurt for her desert, while Steve picked up a lasagne and a piece of chocolate gateaux. They chose their drinks and Steve paid at the till. The girl serving at the till almost reminded him of Cherry, she was not yet conceived in this time Steve had realised. Unlike Cherry, this girl had a smile that was genuine, unlike Cherry she was happy to work here. They carried their trays to a table and sat down. Jennifer immediately tucked into her meal; it was a lot more substantial than one meal a day she had been subsisting on with her minuscule grant. "I was wondering Farrow" she said with her mouth full of quiche, "you said you were trying to bring some one to justice, for something horrible that is yet to happen. How dangerous are they?”

Steve took a swig of his Seven Up, and thought for a moment, "They have military capability, and two of them come from the US. But if you're wondering, there's no danger of a terminator arriving, because he would have arrived at the same time and place as I did. As far as I know, they don't know I've come here."

Jennifer took another mouthful of the Quiche, and then a sip of her cola. She tried to work out why he seemed so familiar, but for the moment it escaped her. "You know what Farrow, if you’re trying to find this evidence to help the people of your time, maybe we should see Matthew Green, the President. They say in November he, Brad Peters the deputy and Steve Gryson"

Steve cut in, "I know what they did then, but the only reason I have told you, is that you witnessed my landing in this time. Its better that the least people who know the better"

"But", insisted Jennifer, "he helped then, he's even trying to investigate the fatal car crash of that American research biochemist, three months ago"
Something nagged at the back of Steve's mind; it was the biology notes in the file on operation blackout. "What biochemist was this?" he asked, trying to hide his surprise.

As Jennifer finished her quiche, she explained, "It's really tragic, first his wife gives birth to a child with Down's syndrome, then his car goes off of the road near Cove and lands at the bottom of a cliff"
Steve sipped his drink and finished up his lasagne, "If that's the case, then I don't want to hinder their investigation, plus knowing what a knight in shining armour those guys are, it could run the risk of changing history"

Jennifer wiped her forehead with her right hand, "I wish they could put their air conditioning up" she said, "this hot weather is why I tried wearing that stupid bikini top to college"
Steve stopped in mid mouthful of gateaux; Jennifer had just put her finger on what was wrong. He finished his mouthful, looked around at the cafeteria, "of course, that’s it"
"What's it?" Jennifer queried.
"The air conditioning was on too high" he replied, thinking about Uncle Sam's, "but why, a defective system would not be as efficient, surely"
"Which air conditioning system is this" Jennifer asked, suddenly curious, maybe she could get a glimpse of the future.
"It's a cafeteria, on this site; the owners in the future have taken to mistreating their employees, because it brings in profit. In my time, all workers rights have virtually gone. If you think unemployment and poverty are bad, you should see my time"
"How far ahead is that?”
"I really can't tell you, I've said enough"

"It can't be far, because who ever they are, they are going to do whatever horrible thing they are supposed to do, and they are still in control in your time" Jennifer speculated as she waded through her yoghurt.

Steve looked at the girl, she was very perceptive, if only she hadn't seen him arrive, then he could have remained totally anonymous. She seemed like a relatively nice girl, but she belonged to the past and it was imperative that history was not threatened. For all Steve knew, Jennifer could be dead in his time, she could die tomorrow, he just did not know.

"Even so Jennifer, I hope you understand, no one else can know of my incursion into the past. It might jeopardize my mission, if the people I'm fighting against read of it in the history books"
Jennifer looked at this strange man's eyes; he seemed weathered, battered, sincere and kind. She wanted so much to ask him what the future was like, but maybe it was better not to know. Her intuition seemed to be telling her that this was a man she could trust, in spite of her initial encounter on the top floor of the union. "How long are you staying before you return to your own time" she asked, tipping her head to one side.
"Three days, then I have to go"
"My flatmate is on a placement this week, so you could have her room"
"Are you sure that's wise, How do you know, I'm not really one of the bad guys?”

"I can tell your not" she said softly, "a baddy would not question the offer; you seem like a person I can trust. I can lock myself in my room for the night anyway." She looked at her watch, "I have a maths lecture at two, and I want to drop Timothy's T-shirt at the union. Meet me outside the front entrance of St Andrew Street at three". With that, she got up and left. Steve just stared as she walked away, "a young girl like that should not take risks with strangers" he thought, "not while they still have freedom of choice". He finished up his meal and stood up. He felt in his pocket for the "With complements Slip" he had found at Edzell, with it he found an address card for the religious community in Wales, that he had spent most of the twenty years hiding away in. "Maybe I should go to the commercial library, and see if the Tellerson Conglomerates exists yet" he said to himself.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Timothy woke up from behind the Apple Mac, he looked up at the clock. It was five past two. He looked at the screen and found he had drifted off to sleep pressing the "s" key and had a screen full of the letter. He heard a knock on the door that was characteristic of Brad, his deputy. "Come in Brad" he yelled out.
Brad came in, grinning like a Cheshire cat, "I didn't want to walk in on anything I shouldn't see"
"What do yer mean ?" asked Timothy, puzzled at Brad's behaviour.
"I heard about you helping out a semi naked first year" Brad replied, trying to stifle a laugh, "is this some new service or what".
Timothy's face went red with embarrassment, "It wasn't like that, and I hope you don't tell the Exec women's welfare officer that, I'm sure she would try to get rid of me"
Brad sat down on the chair by the door, still smirking.”who do you think told me?"
Timothy wanted the floor to swallow him up, he felt sure he was out on a sexual harassment charge. "Oh" was all he could muster, in a despondent manner.

Brad could see Timothy's discomfort, but it did seem hilarious to him. "it's ok" he said, "Mandy saw her on the bus this morning, trying to keep her top up, and was also in Theo’s when Jennifer came down about that bloke that appeared out of thin air. She noticed that the fastener on Jennifer's top was about to give way, but before she could say anything you two had both gone up stairs. When you both rushed down the stairs, she noticed your red faces and the safety pin, and when Jennifer came out of your room wearing one of your T-Shirts, she says it wasn't hard to tell what had happened"
"Is Mandy out to get me then" Timothy asked, still apprehensive.
"Oh no, you’re in the clear, but she says if it ever happens again, the decent thing to do is get rid of any males from the scene, take you shirt off and offer it to the girl, and turn your back to her while she puts it on. Besides Mandy collared the girl when she dropped off your T-Shirt at the porter’s box, some man took her to lunch and gave her some money so she could get a bra and a decent sweatshirt to wear. Mandy told her that she was irresponsible to come to college dressed like the way she came in this morning, without a T-Shirt just in case"

Timothy's ears pricked up at something Brad had said, "What man was this" he asked.
"I have no idea; I only just got in when Mandy was chewing her out"
"Its just that I saw her talking to some man in his forties outside, he looked familiar, but I couldn't place him. He sounded like the description Jennifer gave for the man that suddenly appeared out of thin air"
It was Brad's turn this time to get interested, "what do you mean out of thin, it's nothing to do with that lot we ran into in November is it?”
"I hope not, Brad, we were lucky that time."
"At least he wasn't that b******d that's been raping all those students, they caught him this morning at the University"
"I heard Brad, I overheard Jennifer talking to this man, and he predicted the news of his arrest, just before it was transmitted on North sound. There was no way he could have known."
"What are you getting at Timothy?”
"You know what they have been saying about Steve's PhD work"
Brad stood up and walked passed Timothy to get to his desk, then turned around, "Come off it Timothy, Steve is adamant, he is not interested in making a time machine, he's told me that on Monday they dismantle the apparatus"
"All I can say Brad, is that after what happened last November, I'm prepared to believe it." Said Timothy as he swung around in his chair, "In fact I heard a loud bang, before she came down to see me, when I got up there I could smell ozone."

"What do you want to do Timothy, if for arguments sake, this man is from the future. Do we tell Steve? Because we don't know if this person is some sort of terminator, or if some nasty is likely to appear in order to stop him."
Timothy chewed on a pencil, he remembered back to November, when the two sabbaticals and Steve Gryson the exec finance teamed up to defeat a user of the black arts, who had kidnapped a number of students. The things he had seen were quite hairy. He remembered the old cliché about there being more things in heaven and earth. "Just what has this man done Brad" he asked.

"As far as I can work out, he has only taken a student to lunch and given her money, so she could get something decent to wear because she was stupid to come to college this morning inadequately dressed"
"Are you saying my T-shirt isn't decent" Timothy said in a half joking manner.
"You know what I mean."
"Well Brad, something seems odd. Lets not bother Steve for the moment, Jennifer is doing maths now and she gets out at three, so go and see her then, if we put to her our suspicions, maybe we might be able to get to the bottom of this."

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Steve looked through the microfiche of the records of companies house, nothing on a Tellerson Conglomerates came up. It must not be formed yet. He switched off the microfiche viewer; this was getting no where fast. His main priority was to steal a copy of the Honeywell backup tapes and reprogram his equipment to get back to his own time, this conglomerates business was a side line. He rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He looked at the clock in the library, it was twenty past two. He packed up the microfiche slides and took them across to the librarian. "Did you find what you want sir" she asked.
Steve shook his head and uttered "nah"
"Did you try Kelly's international directory?”
Steve shook his head, "I thought the company was a British company"
The librarian left the desk and walked over to an isle; she selected the volume and took it back to the desk. "What was the name of the company?" she asked.
Steve handed over the compliments slip; she took it and flicked through the directory. "Here it is sir" she said after a minute, "it’s a small company based in Washington DC, there's just a box number given as an address. Is that any help"

Steve nodded, “yes it’s a great help" This seemed like a bombshell; to him the company smelled like a CIA front organisation, and someone in it, was using it for their own needs. He looked at the clock and decided to head off to meet Jennifer, he still felt uncomfortable about staying at her flat. He could sense that something was eating her up, but he did not want to risk changing history. He left the commercial section and walked into the main library and used its toilet. The last time he had used this one, was twenty years in the future. He left the library and headed towards St Andrew Street. As he gazed upon the un-bombed building, he was overwhelmed by the splendour of it, compared to the burnt out shell he had left behind in the future. In three days time, this building was to be attacked, unprovoked and he and his friends would be blackened and blamed for its destruction. He waited at the entrance, any second now Jennifer would be coming out.

Brad watched from the opposite side of the road, he looked at the figure waiting outside. The bag he was carrying was nothing like he had seen before. Brad crossed the road; he decided that he would have it out with this man. He got to middle of the road and caught sight of the man's face. His jaw almost dropped through the floor, he changed his mind, he had to see Timothy, and so he crossed back and started to walk back to the Student Union.

"So you decided to meet me after all" came Jennifer's voice, as she came out into the sunshine.
"If you are sure, I could go and try a bed and breakfast" Steve replied.
"Don't be stupid Farrow, if you go to a B&B, then you have to sign a name and you leave a record. If you come to my place, you don't leave a trace."
"Ok Jennifer, if that is what you want, but I insist that I get you some groceries, I know what student poverty is like and the way you demolished your quiche indicates that you aren't eating properly, and you do seem slightly underweight". Steve suddenly realised something, "She's underweight as well, it never occurred to me until now"
Jennifer looked at him Puzzled "Ok, but who are you talking about"
Steve did not answer.

They both walked to the Gateway store and loaded up with two days worth of shopping; Jennifer had told Steve that she did not have much space at the flat. Steve insisted on buying her a large box of breakfast cereal, all the same. Steve paid for a taxi back to the flat, in spite of Jennifer's protests, but he did not want to hang about in the city too long, as someone could recognise him. The flat, when they arrived, was in the south side of the city, it looked small and barely adequate. It had a lounge, a shoe box of a kitchen, a dingy bathroom and two small bed rooms.

As Jennifer started to put things away in the cupboard, Steve wandered into the lounge. On one of the worn out chairs was a yellowed Evening express, Steve picked it up and looked at the date, it was just over two weeks old. He looked down at the headline "Campus Prowler Strikes at victim number 3". The story was about the rapist that had just been caught, he had abducted his third victim as she had left the RGIT St Andrew Street Building late one night, after studying at the library". Steve put the paper down on the chair and sat down on the sofa. Jennifer came in with two cups of tea, handed one to Steve, switched on a battered black and white television and sat down in the other chair. It was a local newscast; the news headline was of course about the arrest of the campus prowler. Steve watched in fascination, he remembered that he had become so caught up in his work that he only listened to the radio and so missed the news programmes on the television up to when the building was, or was about to be bombed. Then at the end of the bulletin, was a news item about a Russian delegation, due to visit RGIT on Monday. Nothing else was said, but this told Steve a lot, now he knew why, that time was chosen. The Americans did have something to hide, something they did not want the Russians to see. Steve had always said they could visit his work anytime, he had nothing to hide. No one outside the End-of-the-bar gang knew of the planned experiment they had planned for that fateful Saturday afternoon.

The news finished and Steve turned his head round to look at Jennifer who had been watching as well from the other chair. Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she was sniffing.
"What's the matter?" Steve asked
"You know, I said my flat mate was on a course placement"
"Yes?"
"Well I, uh, lied, she was that guy’s third victim, and her parents have taken her home. I was at the library that night as well, but I left earlier, this curb crawler drove past me slowly, and uh I, was sure someone was following me. I kept thinking, what if he attacked me. I just kept remembering what my Stepfather did to me"
She broke down in tears, Steve felt awkward, and he stayed on the sofa. This girl had been through a trauma and his sudden appearance behind her that morning had not helped. Why did he keep jumping in with both feet? Jennifer just managed to recompose herself, and took a sip from her tea.
"I take it he sexually abused you" Steve said softly, not daring to move, in case his intentions were misinterpreted.
"Yes" she said weakly, "He even tried to rape me, I er tried to tell my mother, but she did not believe me, and slung me out. I was lucky to get this place, because I just turned eighteen. And now, I'm er, about to loose it. I was supposed to get a parental contribution, but my mother doesn't want to know. I'm behind with the rent and the electricity, and my only friend has gone". Jennifer collapsed in uncontrollable sobbing.

Steve got up and put an arm around her and gave her a reassuring hug, while Jennifer cried on his shoulder. He wasn't really sure if he should; now knowing what she had been through. But Jennifer seemed to sense that Steve would not take advantage of her, in fact she needed somebody to be there, and at that moment he was that somebody. Why on Earth did he keep running into these sob stories he wondered? It seemed that in the past and in his time, there were still people ready to exploit other people. Steve found himself thinking of that old French phrase "plus cha change, plus c'est la mˆme chose"

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Brad had been waiting in the office, playing "lemmings" on the computer, for about an hour before Timothy came in.
"Have you managed to speak to Jennifer?" Timothy asked.
"Nope"
"Why not?”
"Because we don't need to Timothy, I recognised who that man was"
"Well Brad is he from the future or what?”
"He's from the future all right"
"What about Jennifer, is she safe"
"I don't think Jennifer's in danger from this man at all, guess who he is"
A sudden thought ran through the union presidents mind, "It can't be, he told you he wasn't interested"
"Your right" Brad said, "This man is none other, than an older version of our Steve Gryson. The question is why is he here?"

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 10

Episode title of the 1988 version
In the original 1988 version, only one episode was devoted to the journey back into the past, as opposed to three in the 1993 rewrite. This episode was called “Forward to the Past and Paradoxes anonymous”. This was a nod to the 1985 film, Back to the Future.

Travelling back in time
For the part where Steve Gryson travels back in time, I thought of the sequence in 2001 A Space Odyssey, where the astronaut goes through the wormhole at the end

Jennifer Bruce (Character)
This character is not based on anyone, and was solely an invention of the 1993 rewrite. I am not sure if any female student would be stupid enough to come to lectures wearing only a strapless bikini top, that turned out to be on it’s way out as it were, without some back up. Mind you having said that, when I was visiting a coffee shop in Basingstoke I did see an employee turn up for work wearing a bra top with a bare midriff, not quite the same and more substantial and she did have as a back up, the T-shirt that was part of the uniform of that coffee shop.

Arrival in the past
The effect of electrical arcs you may recognise from the various Terminator movies

Scottish Pound Coins
Those who live north of the border will be aware that Scottish banks can issue their own notes, and do so. These notes did include, at the time this was originally done in 1988, Scottish pound notes. By this time the English pound note was no longer in existence, having been replaced on cost grounds by the pound coin. I am not sure if Scottish pound notes still exist, maybe those living north of the border can verify if they do, but because of their existence in 1988 and 1993, the idea of a specially minted Scottish pound coin did seem like a good futuristic idea at the time. Incidentally, Scottish pound notes are not lawful tender in England, where as Scottish five pound notes technically are, but some shops in England refuse to accept them

North Sound
In the 1980’s Radio North Sound was a very popular commercial radio station in Aberdeen and the surrounding area. I used to listen to a programme on Sunday called Sunday best. The plot device of the serial rapist was added in the 1993 rewrite as it was not in the 1988 original.

Earthquake in Tokyo
In the 1980’s there was a programme on the BBC, may have been Horizon, their flagship science series, which looked at what would happen if the big one, as in Earthquakes hit Japan. This was shortly after the quake in Kobe. It suggested that because of how communications systems and financial systems are so interconnected, that it would cause a world wide global melt down. It is interesting to note that a year earlier than the original version of this story; in 1987 a major storm hit London and the South East of England, which corresponded to the 1987 stock market crash.

Abandoning of Cities
In the bleak vision of the future the Lone Stranger stories are set in, we have towns abandoned totally because of the economic gloom and environmental factors. It seems bizarre that in 2008, somebody did actually propose abandoning several cities for economic reasons (See here) Yet again, one of the few forecasts from back then of a possible future almost coming true – Yikes!

Clothes shopping on £20
The Jennifer Bruce characters buys some clothes for £20 in the Bon Accord shopping centre in this episode, which may seem to some unbelievable, especially as shops in shopping centres pay high rents. Bear in mind this part was done in 1993 when prices were not as high as they are today

Timothy and Brad and a former adventure
Two characters, a student union president and a deputy president make reference to an earlier adventure in which the younger Steve Gryson took part. In 1989, during my post graduate time I wrote two further stories connected with this genre. The first one had an adventure told in flash back of a time before the bombing of the St Andrew Street building, and as I was trying to keep continuity in the 1993 rewrite, I felt I had to make reference to this earlier adventure. Had this novel taken off therefore, the actual adventure would have been referenced in the forth book. Confused? Well time travel can be like that.

Also a word about sabbatical positions as they were at RGIT at that time. There were two positions, president and deputy president, which were sabbatical, this meant that the elected office holder took a year out from their course to hold office and for that year were paid employees of the RGIT Student Association. I believe this is similar in other universities.

Microfiche viewer
In this age of the internet we have access to online archived files. In the 1990’s that did not exist, and documents were put onto what was called microfilm to save space, and you needed a special reader to view the celluloid film. Sometimes the film was on a role and sometimes in a rectangular piece of film.

Staying at Jennifer’s
In the 1988 version, while the Lone Stranger was visiting the past he was sleeping rough near the beach. Like the character of Jennifer, staying at her place was introduced as part of the 1993 rewrite.

Gateway
This was a supermarket that had previously taken over the local Fine Faire store. Gateway in turn were taken over by Safeway in some parts of the country, only to be taken over by Morrisons.

plus cha change
This is a French saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”

[Sticks]

Chapter 11

Paradoxes anonymous

Steve heard Jennifer lock her bedroom door, as he peered through the Press and Journal he had bought that morning. He could hear the gurgling of the emptying bath she had just had. She was a very lonely and frightened girl but Steve could not understand why someone with her tragic background, would invite a stranger into her home for the night. She had admitted that since her flatmate had been taken home, she would cry every night, maybe she just needed someone around, and he just happened to be there. He looked at the clock in the lounge; it was obviously broken as it showed six o'clock. He looked at his watch; he had set it to local time so it could give him an indication of what time it was. It showed nine thirty.

"Poor kid" he thought, but he could not afford to be sentimental, if history decreed that she was to get chucked into the gutter then he could not interfere. It was bad enough that his entrance into the past had been witnessed, let alone trying to change history in anyway. He picked up his paper and scanned through the classifieds, he couldn't think why. Then he spotted it. A sale of bankrupt stock was to be held the following day, of a shop that sold marine equipment. Among the items were several distress flares. Steve thought of the police hover-car, blown out of the sky. If those guys were using heat seekers, then he needed some decoys.

He picked up an official letter; it was Jennifer's final demand for the electricity bill. It came to seventy pounds forty five. Steve looked through the cash he still had on him. If he had any money after getting the distress flares, maybe he could clear that at least. No, he could not change history. What would have happened if he had not arrived, had he thought of that? The only thing he could do now was have an early night. He had yet to break in to the main administration building, locate and steal the Honeywell tapes. He went into the spare room and lay on the bed. His mind was still racing. He kept thinking of how a system could allow two vulnerable people, Jennifer here and Cherry in his own time, to get into the situation they were in. He kept wondering, if he would be able to get the equipment in the lab to send him back. There were loads of questions and no answers, yet in spite this turmoil, he fell asleep.

Steve was running from an attacking helicopter, bullets hitting the ground behind him, when he woke up. He was sweating. He looked at his watch, it was half past six, and he had over slept his usual getting up time. He went out of his room, Jennifer had not got up yet, she had told Steve that she got up at seven thirty. Steve went into the bathroom; he noticed that she had left the water heater on for the bath. He closed the bathroom door and shaved off the stubble that had accrued over two of his days. He set the bath running and used the toilet. As he tipped in some cheap bubble bath, it occurred to him that it was not as light as it should be. He opened up the bathroom window to look at the weather outside. The weather was absolutely foul, but with Aberdeen that was about right for April. He undressed and got into the bath, he hadn't used much water, but it seemed like heaven as he sloshed the water over himself. It had been nearly two weeks since he was last able to have a bath in his own time
"Oh sod it, I will pay that bill" He thought, "It not what I came back for, so I can't see what harm it can do". Steve pulled the plug and got out of the bath, it was just past seven o'clock, and he dried himself off and put on some clean clothes from his kit bag. He went into the Kitchen; he decided to cook the rashers of bacon and the eggs he had got the previous day. Jennifer was to have her first decent breakfast in months, and Steve's in days.

It had been ages since Steve had cooked, and it felt good to be doing something for someone else. He just hoped his efforts would be appreciated. Jennifer came in looking stony faced, wearing an extra large baggy T-shirt, with a picture of Snoopy on the front.
"What's the matter" Steve asked, worried that he was doing something wrong.
"I just looked through the fresher’s handbook" she explained, "Your real name is Steve Gryson. I trusted you, why couldn't you trust me"
"I didn't say who I was, because the horrible thing that will happen, will happen tomorrow, and my younger self will be assumed to be dead. It is vital, that everyone thinks that. Anyone who stuck up for me, had their lives ruined, some of them were murdered. I did not want there to be any more victims of those people. I did not tell you my real name, because I wanted to protect you" Steve replied, "do you want me to leave then?”

Jennifer thought for a moment, "no" she said softly, "does this mean they will come after me?" she asked, her voice showing slight signs of fear.
"Only if they can connect you to my younger self. You must never disclose to anyone, who I am, for your safety as much as mine. Outside, still call me Farrow Smyth"
"The fact you're still here, Steve, means that I won't tell" a small smile flickered across her face, "maybe it’s because I get run over by a bus"
"Let's hope not Jennifer, now get dressed and I'll serve breakfast"
"I can't usually afford to eat breakfast" she responded wistfully
"Do you want any?" Steve enquired as he broke an egg into a frying pan
"That smells good, you bet" She said and then returned to her room to get dressed. This time it would something very conservative, she had learnt her lesson on that, the hard way.

It was quarter past eight, when the pair of them caught the bus into town. The rain was coming down in torrents, as thunder rumbled in the distance. Jennifer had a small cheap umbrella, under which they had been sheltering. For Steve it had been the first time in years he had walked in the rain, without the need for a rain shield. The toxins in the atmosphere had not built up to the levels they had in his time. He had been able to taste the rain water, without fear of being fatally poisoned. They dripped onto the bus and Steve insisted on paying the fare, in spite of Jennifer's protests. Jennifer made her way to the back of the bus, Steve followed behind. There were no empty double-seats, so Jennifer sat on an aisle seat and Steve sat on the aisle seat opposite. Steve was about to tell Jennifer of his decision to pay her electricity bill, when to his horror, he saw Mandy, he only just remembered her, she was executive officer for woman's welfare issues. He pulled up his collar and desperately tried to hide his face from her. Mandy seemed not to spot him, she gave a slight wave to Jennifer, Jennifer returned it and Mandy went up stairs. Steve breathed a sigh of relief. "That was close" he told Jennifer.

"She told me off yesterday" Jennifer replied, "said I should always carry a T-Shirt top with me when I wear a bikini. She said I was very irresponsible"
"Maybe she has a point there. Where I come from Jennifer, anyone who goes out in the sun unprotected, is more likely to suffer burns from the ozone holes, and they are not pleasant"
"Yeah, you're right. It was my own stupid fault" she said looking at the floor, "I can't do anything right, I suppose I lead my stepfather on as well" she added looking Steve.

Steve felt numbed by this remark, it reminded him of all the guilt he had born, ever since RGIT St Andrew Street was bombed. The guilt of being a cause for the deaths of those who had defended his memory, the wrecked lives, and the lies that everyone still believed about those who had helped him. "I don't think so Jennifer, but I know how you feel" he said quietly.

After a while he looked out of the window, they were approaching the stop he wanted to get off at. He pulled out a five pound note, took Jennifer's hand and placed the note in it
"This is for your lunch, no arguments, I recommend the union canteen, the foods quite good there" He told her, then picked up his kit bag and jumped off the bus. Jennifer was left speechless; she looked at the crumpled note in her hand for a moment and placed it in her purse. He reminded her of her real farther, before he was run down by a drunk driver when she was thirteen. A tear formed in her eye as she remembered the happier times, when her father was alive.
"You'll miss your stop Jennifer" came a voice from someone. It was Mandy, the exec women's welfare officer.
Jennifer picked her bag and umbrella up; it was still chucking it down.
"Who was that sitting next to you?" Mandy asked as they waited for the bus to stop.
"It's er my Uncle Stephen" Jennifer lied, unconvincingly.
"Jennifer, we both know that's the man said you saw yesterday, come out of thin air" Mandy said as they got off the bus, "Timothy spoke to me last night, so I know what kind of man he is"
"He's a very decent man" Jennifer protested.
"I know, Timothy told me, but they're very few and far between these days". Then a thought occurred to Mandy, "you've been crying, anything you want to tell me?" she enquired, "I'm not just there to tell you what you should wear"

Steve looked at how much cash he had on him, It was just over ninety five pounds. He walked into the electricity board shop, took out Jennifer's bill, went to the customer accounts window and put the cash down on the counter. "I would like to settle this account please" he told the man behind the glass.
The man took the bill and the cash and typed the account number into his terminal. "Just in time sir, we were going to send the man round to disconnect you this morning"
"Will that still happen?”
"Not now sir, if you wait a moment, I'll get you a receipt"
As Steve gazed around at the bright show room, he remembered how this shop had been smashed in and looted long ago, when he had arrived on his bike, the other day in the future. The man came back to the window and passed a slip of paper under it, "That's fine sir, but try not to leave it until the last moment in future" he told Steve.
Steve just nodded and left, if only he had enough to pay her rent off as well, but he was not the fifth cavalry. He still had the General and the Wing Commander to deal with in his time. He had no time to get sidetracked.

Steve could remember how he had withdrawn money from his bank account the day before the building was bombed. It was his usual trick to get a balance that was why he was taking money out on the credit card. He slowly walked down Union Street. The street was full of people scurrying off to work, or to do their shopping in the pouring rain. It was quite a contrast to the deserted Union street he had cycled into. Here was all go, there was utter desolation. "How can a city change so much in twenty years" Steve said to himself. He kept bumping into people, as he was so unused to a crowded a street like this. He walked passed the music hall, it was as it was, a centre of cultural excellence, rather than the dos house it had become in his time. When he reached the junction with Union Terrace, he found the traffic unnerving as he tried to cross the road. A couple of cars hooted at him as he dodged passed them. The expressions on the faces of the people he passed made it seem as though Steve was not there. Everyone seemed wrapped up in their own little worlds, unaware of what was to come.

Steve arrived at St Nicholas Street in time to see his younger self at the Clydesdale auto bank. He stood at the corner watching himself tap in the pin number, obtain a balance and then withdraw thirty pounds. Steve ducked behind the corner as his younger self left the machine. He remembered that he had gone through the St Nicholas Centre after he had taken the money; Steve was safe from being spotted. He went over to join the queue for the auto bank. To his surprise Nigel, the person he used to talk to on the Honeywell about religion, had joined the queue behind him. Steve turned his face away; he remembered how like the members of his church, after the St Andrew Street attack, Nigel had refused to denounce Steve Gryson as an utter maniac. However those who refused to comply to this demand, suffered intense persecution. Some went to prison for surprise finds of illegal drugs in their possession, some found themselves on every black list in the country, and some had just vanished. Steve never knew what had happened to Nigel. He lost touch with so many of the people who believed him dead, but not a danger to man kind. A lump appeared in Steve's throat. This was what it was about, some one had used him as an excuse, and they would stop at nothing, and everyone was expendable. He thought of the policemen in the ground and hover-cars, massacred, for what. He felt certain that the death of the biochemist must have had a connection to what ever Blackout was about, and the secret behind Clean-wipe, the biology notes he had found at Edzell seemed to point in that direction.

The woman in front of Steve finished at the machine, he went up to it and inserted his bank card. He tapped in the pin number and held his breath. The machine accepted the card and Steve let out a sigh of relief. The machine asked what service. Steve asked for a balance. Apparently he could draw seventy pounds that day, there was more than that in the bank, but it had a hundred pound a day limit. He withdrew the seventy pounds, he could get the rest tomorrow, and why not, it was his money after all, the young Steve would wait at least twenty years before he used his cards again. He withdrew two hundred pounds from his credit card account, he had had a repayment insurance arrangement on his card, and as the authorities had decided he had died in the attack on St Andrew Street, the insurance could pay up.

Steve then set off down Market Street, passing the shops that he knew were gutted in his time. He reached the harbour and looked at the ships in dock; he saw a ferry, departing for Shetland. In his time, the outer islands had virtually been abandoned by London, the people stayed on, even when raiders would come and take the young women off for the white slave trade. Here the outer islands were still an integral part of the economy. He made his way along to the entrance of Albert Quay; this was where they were going to hold the sale of marine supplies. The rain showed no signs of abating, in fact it seemed as though the more he walked towards the end of the quay, the heavier it got. It was a great relief to get to the place where the sale was to be held. He could see cars parked, waiting for the sale to start. He tried the doors, but they were locked. The notice on the door stated that the sale started at ten. Steve looked at his watch, it was nine thirty four.

"Great" he said angrily to the door. There was nowhere to shelter, and nobody it seemed, wanted a drowned rat in their car. "Why me" he pleaded to the sky. The sky answered with more rain and another crack of thunder in the distance. All Steve could do was stand right up against the door to the building. He kept thinking that he should have put the rain shield on, but that would have attracted attention, which he did not want.

No matter, he had to work out how to steal the spare back up tapes for the Honeywell. It was usual practice for organisations to cycle three tapes in the grandfather, father, son format. He remembered how every Monday, between nine and ten; the computer would go down for incremental saves. This allowed the computing staff to put the contents of the many Winchester disks onto the backup tapes. His research had led him to believe that one of the backup tapes that went missing was stored in the old administration building in Schoolhill. This was part of computer security, in case of a fire; a record of the files would be safe in another building. It would be a race against time, and the Americans, because somehow even that tape went missing. He had his lock pick, and his stun bolt gun, but no chronon accelerator this time. He would have to hide somehow in the administration building when they locked up, steal it and let himself out. It was not much of a plan, but it was all he could think of, either that or try and get a tape from St Andrew Street on the Saturday morning. There had been a special function at St Andrew Street, the Friday night before the building was bombed, so there was no way he could get a tape from there. He only hoped it would have the key to why the place was destroyed, and he and his friends, vilified. The next job would be to get out of Aberdeen and find another five star general to stop General Rennyld's.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door being unlocked from the inside. The door was opened by a middle aged man. Steve went to go in. The man stopped him.
"Sorry, we're not open yet" he said.
"But its pouring with rain out here" Steve protested
"I can't help that sir, but you will have to wait outside until ten" the man responded curtly
This annoyed Steve, but he could do nothing about it but wait a further ten minutes in the rain. Another man got out of his car and tried to go in. He got the same brush off, so he returned to his car. It was as if Steve was not there, the way he was ignored. He gazed at the men inside setting up the tables for the sale. Even in this time some companies failed.

At last they were allowed in the hall and Steve made a beeline for the signal flares. He picked up a small box and looked at the price; it was twenty pounds for five flares. He picked up another box and made his way to the counter with his cash; near the counter he saw several boxes of Kendal Mint cake. He thought of his experience of travelling back through time and how he had felt drained afterwards, so he picked up a box. He went to the counter and offered the correct money to the man collecting the money.
"That's a lot of flares" the man at the till said, "what do you want that many for"
"It's part of an expedition" Steve lied, "why do you think we got the mint cake"
"Who with?”
"A private organisation, I can't say who"
"Well, they have to be shifted, we've got a failed electrical shop tomorrow" the man replied as he took the money and put the boxes into some spare plastic carrier bags.

Steve walked outside the building, the rain had stopped, the storm had passed over. As the wind blew in from the North Sea, he was suddenly aware of how soaked he was. He would have to change and get his clothes washed somewhere. He walked back along the quay to the main road and took a bus into the centre. On the bus he took the flares out of the boxes and placed them in his kit bag. He did the same with the mint cake

As he got off the bus at the library, he could see the sun breaking through the clouds. Steve started to walk along towards Schoolhill, it was too risky to go near the Student Union, so he would have to get onto George Street via St Andrew Street. He could change clothes in the lavatory at the St Andrew Street building and then use the laundrette on George Street.

Brad had just arrived at the Student Union and was going up to the first floor when he spotted the older Steve Gryson coming down Rosemount Viaduct. He decided he would have it out with him, so he jumped down the stairs and ran out of the door. It did not seem as though this Steve Gryson had spotted him, so Brad continued to run on his intercept course.

Steve was walking along Black Friars Street, looking at the sky, trying to remember what the weather was going to be, when he heard a voice behind him that gave him a shock.
"Long time no see, Steve" came the voice behind him. Steve turned around; it was Brad Peters the deputy president.
"So you know then" Steve just said.
"So does Timothy and Mandy as well" Brad said with a tone of annoyance, "you said you weren't interested in making a time machine"
Steve looked at the deputy, long and hard "you can add Jennifer Bruce to the list as well", was all Steve could say. He was gobsmacked.
"You better come over and see Timothy in our office" Brad told Steve, "unless you want me to tell your younger self"
"Ok I'll come quietly then"

Steve walked over to the Student Union, followed by Brad. "What have I done" thought Steve, "I must have changed history now"
"You’re lucky, the porters are elsewhere" Brad said as they entered the reception area, the anger from Brad was quite discernable. Steve just remained silent; he was in enough trouble already. A minute later they entered the president’s office.
"Sit down Steve we want a word" Timothy said to him.
Steve put his kit bag down and sat on a chair in the centre of the room. The two sabbaticals positioned themselves between him and the door. The atmosphere was distinctly cool.

It was the president who spoke first "You told us you were not interested in making a time machine, why have you lied to us"
"Do you want to prove the Russians right?" added Brad.
"My younger self, in this time, does not want to make a time machine, I did not lie then"
"So what made you change you mind" Brad asked, "Why are you here, I thought you knew the risks of a time loop".
"Level with us Steve" Timothy chipped in, "nothing will go further than those who know your here"
"Tomorrow, something very terrible will occur, and it will seem as though several people and my younger self will be killed."
"But obviously you won't be" Brad said as he leaned on a table.
"Yes, but please don't look for me, It is vital that I am thought of as being dead"
"Why?" Asked Timothy, "your younger self is a student, and I am supposed look after student welfare"
"Timothy, Brad, what I have to tell you, you must promise not to try and prevent, because it is history."

Brad sat down sideways on a chair, "What is it Steve, what's going to happen, it’s not another person like Zoraxima Thraal, is it?”
"No Brad, these people are quite normal, but just as deadly. At two ten tomorrow, while my younger self is in the St Andrew Street building, along with some life members and another student, the US air force will launch an attack on the building. There will be a severe fire, which the US forces will not allow the fire brigade to put out. The pretext, will be to stop my experiments"
"If you can't change history Steve, why come back" Asked Timothy.
"The people, who will do this, are doing it to cover something up, and I believe that it has something to do with the death of that Biochemist. But that's not the worst of it guys"
"How come” asked Brad "what are you getting at.
"Anyone connected with me, who does not accept the official line, will come to an untimely end, if you don't want them to get you, you must denounce me as a mad and evil scientist"

"Ah so you have come back to warn us then Steve" Timothy suggested.
"No. Whatever they are hiding, they are trying to regenerate it in my time. I stole a file from them and they have now declared martial law on Aberdeen in order to eliminate me. My guess is, that locked in one of the files on the Honeywell is the key to this whole thing. All I have to do is get a backup tape, and rescue my friends by turning my experiment in to a time machine, that will send me back to fifteen minutes after I left to return to this time."
"How did you expect to steal a Honeywell tape" Brad asked, "Do you know where it is stored."
"Somewhere in the administration block. I was going to hide in the building overnight and pick a few locks"
"You have a snowballs chance in hell" Brad said dismissively
Timothy turned around to face Brad, "What about your contacts Brad, you could get it with you charm"
"Thank you Timothy, I'm glad you recognise an expert"
"Modest as ever" said Steve sarcastically.
Brad looked daggers at Steve, "you do want that tape don't you" he replied.
"Ok you two" Timothy interrupted. "Brad, you get that tape, Steve, you had better stay here out of the way"
"What ever you two do" Steve said, "don't tell my younger self, he would only try to change history"
"Ok Steve" replied Brad as he left the room.

Steve and Timothy looked at each other across the room. His research never said what happened to the sabbaticals or the executive committee. Maybe the general and his crony's had over looked them. He had always hoped that was the case. He was about to request that he could change his clothes, and get them washed in the basement laundrette, when a thought occurred to him. He took out his wallet and fished out the receipt from the electricity bill. "Do you know a girl called Jennifer Bruce, she's a first year applied sciences student"
"Yeah I ran into her yesterday" Timothy answered.
"Did you know that her flat mate was the third student that rapist attacked"
"No I didn't Steve"
"And did you know her stepfather sexually abused her, and her mother has thrown her out. Since her flatmate has been taken home by her parents, she has been crying virtually every night". Steve handed the receipt to Timothy; Timothy took it and looked at it in silence. "She would have been cut off today, had I not paid that for her. She's also about to be evicted. Timothy, I think she's on the edge of a nervous breakdown, believe me I know" Steve noticed that his voice was breaking up, he was allowing someone else’s problem to get to him. He stopped talking wiped his eye and took several deep breaths.

Timothy looked at Steve in silence for a moment; it seemed incredible that this man had come from the future. He may be twenty years older and a lot more scarred by experience, but he still seemed very much the same person that he knew as Steve Gryson, the younger one. "It's Ok Steve, we know about it. She took your advice and confided in Mandy earlier this morning. At least it’s more in our official line"

Steve opened his wallet and leafed through the notes; he took out fifty pounds and placed it on the desk. "She also does not have access to any money, the machine swallowed her card yesterday. Can you pass this on?"
Timothy picked up the money and placed it in a draw, "we're seeing the counselling service this afternoon, so I can pass it on then. If you are concerned how it turns out, I can arrange for a letter to be delivered to you at a future date"
"That would be a good idea, have it delivered to a Philip Smith at eleven forty, on the ninth of December twenty years from now. He will be on the top floor of this building"
"Ok I can arrange that, is there any other letter that could be delivered at a future date Steve?”
Steve thought for a moment, he remembered the letter that had arrived at the religious community the day before he turned up and of course the bank cards. It must have been he who had written them. "Yes I do two of them but one of them will be a bit more difficult to do"
"Why's that?”
"Because it will contain the bank cards that my younger self is carrying. Someone will have to accompany me into the building tomorrow, when I shoot my younger self with a stun gun. Then I can take the bank cards off of him, put them in an envelope with the letter, and that someone can drop them in the post, while I go up and try and return to my own time"
"You can count me in Steve, who ever those scum bags are, I need to do something".

Timothy left the room to allow Steve to get on with the letters. He walked out to the stair well, Steve, the older one, had let him on something so horrendous. If only he could do something to stop it, but as the Steve Gryson he knew had said, when people had asked him about travelling to the past, we can not change history. Steve was hiding something, he did not say if the building would be rebuilt, whether RGIT would still be there or not. He did not even know if he would be alive twenty years from now. Perhaps it was best not to know, all they could do now was make sure that in twenty years time, the record that was about to bent double, would be set straight.
"This is just great" he said in frustration, "why in my presidency, just when we were turning things around"
"What's wrong Tim" came Mandy's voice from behind.
"It's just that Steve has told us why he came back" Timothy started.
"You better not tell anyone then, whatever it is Steve will sort it out in his time. Timothy, I would appreciate it if you did not come to our counselling session with Jennifer this afternoon"
"Why not?" he asked, "I have something to pass on to her."
"We have invited the police in, and the questions will be somewhat personal. Whatever you have, you can give it to me at lunch time, and I will pass it on"
Timothy got the picture, "I see, I can baby sit the older Steve"
"You do that Tim, by the way, can you put him up tonight, as I’m staying with Jennifer tonight as my husband's working offshore this weekend"

"Hey you two" came Brad's voice up the stairs as he ran up clutching a plastic carrier bag, "I got it." Brad pushed past them and went into the presidents office, "I got the tape" he told Steve
"How did you manage that" Steve asked.
"Don't ask, you won't believe what I had to do to get it. I'm glad you won't be around for our next gig" he replied, and handed the tape over.
Steve looked at it. "Somewhere in this mega-hay stack is the needle to the whole case. It's going to be a long day tomorrow, a very long day"

[Sticks]

Notes on Episode 11

The Butterfly Effect and other temporal paradoxes
The Lone Stranger wonders if he should pay off Jennifer’s electricity bill, as maybe she was due to be cut off and thrown into the street.

What he was wondering about is what is called the butterfly effect, which is to do with chaos theory right? Well not quite. There is a Science Fiction story where someone goes back in time and inadvertently kills a butterfly, and the whole of human history is changed, and this sci-fi story, the Sound of Thunder came out before Chaos theory was popularised. However the concept is still the same.

There is another paradox, the Predestination Paradox, where a person was predestined to go back in time and carry out a task in their past.

Another paradox is the Pago paradox, once mentioned on the TV series Star Trek Voyager, this is where an attempt to prevent something from occurring by going back in time, causes the event trying to be prevented, occurring in the first place.

Then there is the Chronology Protection Conjecture, which states that attempts to change history will always fail.

A British Summer – Three fine days and a thunder storm
In the story there had been a heat wave, yet the following day it is chucking it down. Yes the weather can do that, especially in the British Isles, hence the expression, three fine days and a thunder storm.

Nigel and other “Real” characters
Reference is made to a Nigel. In 1988 when I was doing this, I was in the middle of writing the back in time episode and I wanted to use a certain person as an incidental character. The person I wanted to use was sitting or standing next to me and objected to being used, so I ended up using someone else. He was the only person to object to being used. Of course in the 1993 rewrite, I changed the names of all the characters to protect the privacy of those I had used in 1988 on a restricted circulation computer system. (And no I am not ever going to say who they really were, apart from the Lone Stranger character which was based on an idealised version of me)

Grandfather Father Son
This is a reference to how backup tapes were cycled in the days before CD-ROM’s, DVD’s and other forms of back up storage we use today. Assume you back up once a day. Tape one records the contents of the hard drive and is stored on day one. On Day two, you record onto tape two, and on day three you record onto tape three.

Because of space restrictions then, you could only keep so many tapes, and three was the number picked. Tape one is now the Grandfather, Tape two the father and tape three the son

On day four, you wipe tape one, and reuse that tape for day four’s back up run. Tape one is now the son, tape two is now the grandfather and tape three the father. On day five, you wipe tape two and reuse that. So now Tape three is the grandfather, tape one is the father and tape two is the son, and so on.

This form of cycling tapes was therefore known as the Grandfather father son system.

Kendal Mint Cake
Kendal Mint Cake is a high energy minty sugary bar that they sell to hill walkers and mountain climbers because it is small and has a high number of calories, needed when hill climbing or mountain climbing. You can usually get it at outward bound stores, and it is really nice to eat.

Zoraxima Thraal
This was the name of the main villain in the story I wrote in 1989, previously mentioned. (See notes on episode 10)

[Sticks]

Chapter 12

Second time around

It was a warm April Saturday morning as the sun rose above the Edzell US Air force base. Wing commander John Reynolds stood looking out of his office window at the sunrise, it looked a beautiful sight. He left the window and picked up a file marked "Clean Wipe" from his desk, and proceeded to put the contents through his desk shredder. It was imperative that no one saw this file, operation "Blackout" was going to be bad enough, but clean wipe was suicidal. The very least they could get him on, was misappropriation of government research funds. He could not afford a court martial, it would expose the network, and so drastic actions were needed.

He picked up another file marked "Compliant Friends" and flicked through it. It was a list of CIA agents and politicians, all with something to hide, all perfect fodder for blackmail. He sat down at his desk and leafed through its contents. Reynolds chuckled away to himself; he enjoyed the ability to make people feel small. Many people behind his back had said that he was a complete sadist he remembered. So what if he was, it got the results he wanted and it was fun at times. He leaned back in his chair and looked at the clock on the wall, "My secretary should be in now" he thought. She was a civilian employee, a local girl of about twenty one, an unmarried mother as well, and she even had a suspended sentence of three months for shoplifting. Commander Reynolds liked her, she was someone he could intimidate, and he knew she dare not report him. She needed this job to stay out of trouble with the courts and to keep her daughter from being taken into care. Reynolds’s had insisted that she wear short skirts and only a thin white cotton shirt. He had prohibited her from wearing a bra; this was so he could leer at her. He was sure, that in time he would get her to sleep with him and she would have no choice in the matter. He leaned forward and pressed the intercom. "Judy are you in yet" he said into the machine.
"Yes Commander Reynolds" came the reply, "do you want your morning coffee now sir"
"Yes Judy and can you ask Lieutenant Samson to report to my office as soon as possible" Reynolds asked.

Commander Reynolds took the file on "Compliant friends" to the filing cabinet, and put it in. The secretary knocked on the door.
"Come in Judy" Reynolds shouted.
The red headed secretary came in carrying a tray. She hated this job, she hated the commander, but this was a man not to cross. As she placed the tray on the desk, Reynolds came up behind her. She turned around to face him. "Samson is on his way sir" she said to him.
"Thank you Judy" he said and then grinned slightly. Judy dreaded this grin; this usually meant he would molest her. If she complained, she had been told she would end up in gaol and she would never see her daughter again.
"Do you find it hot today?" he asked in a sly voice.
"Not especially" She said, hating every word he said.
"According to the weather report Judy, it’s going to get hotter" he said as he undid the top button of her shirt with one hand. "Maybe you should have the door open, to let the air in" he added as he undid the next button down.
"I need to get on sir" Judy said, trying to find an excuse to get out of his office.
"There's nothing that can't wait" He undid a third button.
"Please" she pleaded.

He just undid another button, and then used his other hand to assist in undoing her shirt. "You have a lovely daughter Judy, would be a shame to loose her just because you could not hold down a job and stay out of jail"
Judy just stood there and closed her eyes, trying not to cry.

Reynolds finished undoing her shirt and pulled it out from her skirt. He opened it up and gazed on her bare breasts for a moment, and then he took the two front corners of the shirt and tied them in a knot. "You look much cooler now Judy, try wearing your shirt like this for the summer. You can go back to your desk now"

Judy turned and left the room, she felt angry and humiliated, if only the father of her child had not walked out, if only she had not been caught trying to steal food for her child, if only the magistrate had been more understanding. Now she was under the thumb of the most sadistic and lecherous person yet. She sat down at the desk in the reception area, put her head in her hands and wept.

Lieutenant Samson came in the building and caught sight of Judy, he could tell by the shirt and her eyes that the Commander was up to his old tricks again. Samson never did like the way Reynolds treated women. As a Texan, Samson was brought up to treat women with respect.
"The commander will see you now" she sniffed.
"Thank you mam" he said and walked up the corridor and entered commander’s office, and stood to attention.
"Don't you ever knock, Lieutenant" Reynolds asked indignantly
"I'm sorry sir, but I feel that your conduct towards Judy McKay is beyond the pale, sir"
"Samson, when I tell you how to fly gun ships, you can tell me how I treat my staff"
"With all due respect sir, your actions could jeopardize Clean Wipe, what if some one complains about the way you treat her"
"No one will stick up for her; she's a convicted felon and an unmarried mother. She would not dare complain Samson, her probation is conditional on holding this job and she knows it. If I wanted her to work in the nude, she would willingly comply"
"She would comply sir, I grant you that, but it won't be willingly"
"Shall we try; I can call her in here now and order her to strip"

This was getting nowhere Samson realised; he did not want to make her situation worse. "I don't think you called me here to discuss Judy McKay. You were going to explain why my leave was cancelled"
Reynolds went and sat down at his desk, "Yes you are right Lieutenant, it is about clean wipe"
"What about it"
"We have to suspend it indefinitely. A Russian delegation is due to visit the institute where the technical data is being stored on the mainframe computer"
"So, Commander, since we arranged Drafaus's little accident, not even we can break his cipher code. We can't even hack into the main computer yet"

Reynolds gazed out of the window for a moment and then turned back to the lieutenant. "The operators will be able to bypass it, The Russians will get it and a copy will go to the congressional committee. Damn, it was a nasty move he made, informing the Russians, if he had informed our side, I could have squelched it"

Samson looked at this wing commander, even though they had shared the same ideals, Samson could not help but find this man obnoxious. But Samson was very good at hiding it, the feeling was probably mutual.
"So what has this to do with my cancelled leave" Samson asked
"Oh your leave wasn't cancelled, you left on time, or should I say, your double did. I need you for a very special mission, I have called it Operation Blackout" the commander explained and then took a swig from his coffee cup.
"So what are we going to do commander?”
"Samson, you are to fly the Apache attack helicopter over to Aberdeen and attack the RGIT building on St Andrew's street, and destroy it."
"What?" Samson questioned
Commander Reynolds pulled out a map and handed it to Samson. "The east corridor is to be obliterated, it holds the computer and it is vital that it is destroyed." he explained
"Excuse me sir but how could we get away with it? This is a civilian target, won't they get suspicious" Samson queried, still not sure if the commander was having him on. "You are kidding sir, aren't you"

Reynolds' expression turned to stone, "No I am not, and this is the only way to cover our asses. A Steve Gryson is doing a physics project which the media claim could make a time travel machine. Probably a load of garbage but some one in the Kremlin believes it. If you look at the map of the building, the yellow dot is the laboratory where the equipment is stored. You must hit that part with the first missiles, then the missiles which will level the computer, will be seen as strays. Our excuse is that we are going to destroy this Steve Gryson and his experiment in order to prevent him from creating a perpetual time loop, and to stop him changing history." the Commander explained, "the rest of Blackout will involve the discrediting of anyone who does not go along with this line, but you will not be concerned with that"

"Ok commander, suppose I fly this mission for you, there's something I want"
"Yes lieutenant, your promotion will be confirmed, with what I have on them, that can be arranged. In time you can have my job perhaps"
"What time should I fly the mission then sir"
"The attack should take place at fourteen ten hours, according to our intelligence, that is when this Steve Gryson goes up to his lab"
"There is one thing else sir."
"What's that Samson?”
"If you continue to sexually harass that secretary then someone you can't quite silence, may just bring us some unwanted attention. Just lay off of her, let her wear what she wants. I ask you as a fellow member of the clan"

The commander glowered at him for a moment; Samson was using his position as a fellow clan member to spoil his sadistic games. "Very well Samson, you have my word as a member of the brotherhood, she's already soiled goods anyway. Tell her to wear what she likes as you leave, but remind her if she reports what happened to her, she and her daughter, dies!”
Samson was taken aback by this callous remark, but said nothing. "Yes sir" he said sarcastically, saluted and left the room.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Steve turned off the gas from under the kettle and poured out a mug of tea. Timothy was still dead to the world, considering the time he had got in last night, which was hardly surprising. He checked his clothes on the clothes horse; they were still a bit damp, just what he expected. He would have to find a laundrette to finish them off. He looked at the time, eight thirty, he would have to shift.
"Timothy are you up yet?”

Silence

Steve went and knocked on his door. Still no answer, Timothy was obviously a very heavy sleeper. He knocked on the door again, this time louder. He heard a slight groaning through the door, "Is it noon yet"
"We haven't got time Tim" Steve yelled through the door.
"Oh no of course" he heard Timothy mutter. Steve went back to the kitchen and sat down at the table. Five minutes later Timothy emerged, looking unshaved and unkempt. "I don't usually get up at this time of the morning on a Saturday" he complained as he sat down and put his head in his hands.
"That washing is still damp" Steve opened with, "before I go back I need to get them dried"
"Is there anything else you need Steve?" Timothy asked.
"Yes, you have to make sure that no one is in the library studying, history does not say either way"
"How do you expect me to do that, walk in and say guys the Americans are going to nuke this place"
"I don't Know Tim, isn't Brad coming across at nine, maybe he has an idea how. After all, he did manage to con them into giving him a backup tape somehow"
"This is going to be the worst day of our lives, Steve"
"How do you think I feel Tim, I have to go through it twice" Steve pointed out.

It was quarter past nine when Brad knocked on the door. Timothy opened the door. "Do you feel as bad as you look?" Brad quipped.
"How do you manage it Brad" Timothy moaned as he let Brad in.
"How's it going guys" he asked in his cheerful voice.
"Any ideas on how to evacuate the library Brad" Steve asked.
"Easy, sound the fire alarm" Brad replied.
"It would have to be done as soon as I got to the lab"
"That should be easy Steve" Timothy cut in, "there's an alarm button just as you go into the lab."
"Will that get them out in time?" Steve asked.
"It's all we can do Steve" Brad insisted, "If you use your stunner thingy to knock your younger self out, we can carry him to the other toilets that should give you more time."

Timothy went to the clothes horse and started putting Steve's clothes in a carrier, "There's a laundrette across the road Steve. They can get these dry, if you would like to go now"
"You want to get rid of me then?”
"Let’s just say Steve, Brad and I have some confidential matters to discuss, we are still sabbaticals in this time."

Steve picked up the carrier and left the flat, he wandered across the road to the laundrette. It had just opened.
"Can I finish my drying off here?" he asked the lady who had opened up.
The lady looked around, "no one's here yet, so you might as well, but it is really for those who do their washing here" she replied.
Steve bundled the clothes into the dryer and put the coins into the slot and started the dryer. He sat down on a bench and found an out of date woman’s magazine, and started flicking through it idly. His eye caught on a feature about white slavery in the Middle East before the British Empire. "If only they knew" he said to himself. He thought of Katherine, and her picture in the missing brochure. He wondered how society in the British isles so degenerate, as to allow this sort of thing to occur in its own territorial waters. As he watched his clothes tumble in the machine, he thought of Cherry for some reason. What was it Marie had said about her, she was a shy conservative dresser, forced to work as a topless waitress? As he had thought a few days earlier, Cherry was a white slave, maybe she had not been forced to have sexual intercourse, but her body was being abused. It was a holding company that was doing it. He fished through his pocket for the compliments slip and looked at it. The logo was very familiar; he could remember now where he had seen it. He looked in his wallet; there was the receipt for his meal at Uncle Sam's. The logo on the back of the receipt was identical.

"Oh great" He thought. A cold shiver ran through him, if there was a connection, maybe they did know he might still be alive. The puzzle was what was the connection between Wing Commander Samson, General Reynolds and the holding company that ran the shopping centre in his time. He put the magazine down, the tumble dryer had stopped. Steve went to feel the clothes again, they were still a bit damp, and so he put in another coin. There was humming bird, the person in the pay of white slavers, from the date of the letter, it could only be J.W Samson, Reynolds was in the Americas at the time. The dryer stopped again, Steve opened the door and checked his clothes, and they were dry by now. Suddenly the reflection in the door of the open tumble dryer, showed a man in a white suit, just like the man who had stopped him all those years ago from jumping off the bridge. Steve looked around, there was no one there. He continued to put the clothes into the kit bag, then left the laundrette, and headed back to Timothy's flat.

He arrived there just as Timothy and Brad were about to leave. "Hi Steve" Brad said as they were about to close the door.
"We're off down to the union" Timothy said, "We’ll meet you at St Andrew Street at twenty to two, ok"
"You don't usually go to the union on a Saturday morning" Steve said suspiciously.
"It's ok Steve" replied Brad, "we're not about to go up against the Americans, we're just going to do some backside covering"
"What do you mean by that?”
Timothy answered, "We are getting what we can of the exec together, to pass a motion of no confidence in your younger self. We haven't told the others about you or the attack"
"That way Steve, if the Americans investigate us, we can throw them off the scent"
"Which members of the exec have you contacted then?" Steve asked, aware that history could be inadvertently changed.
"Everyone except Patricia" Brad replied, "Why do you ask?”
Steve put his kit bag down on the steps, "There's something else I have to tell you"
"What's that Steve" Timothy asked.
"Patricia is the other student; history says that she died as well"
"What?" Shouted Brad
"If it's any consolation Brad, they won't blacken her name, in fact she will be put on such a high pedestal, they will hate me even more" Steve replied.
"I say we go public on this" Brad said to the two of them, now clearly upset at this.
"No Brad, Steve is right, we can't change history"
"But Tim"
"That's the end of it Brad, we can have a quorum without Patricia or our Steve"
"Plus, if I succeed, she won't be dead, just shifted forward to the future"
Brad calmed down, but he did not like the fact, that the most popular executive member, apart from himself of course, would possibly be killed. Timothy handed Steve a spare key to his flat. "Wait here for a bit Steve, is there anything else you might need.”

Steve thought for a moment, "Yes, a decent blanket. In my time it is snowing, and I can only just remember that Patricia was wearing clothes more suited to the summer than mid winter. Everyone else had coats with them"
"Take one from my room Steve, I'll see you later" Timothy replied and left with Brad in the direction of the Union. Steve opened the door to the flat and walked back in. He went into the battle zone that was Timothy's room, and picked up a red and yellow chequered blanket. As he was folding it up, he noticed the man in white, reflected in the mirror. Steve turned around, no one was there. "What is going on" Steve questioned. As ever, more questions without answers

It was twenty five to two and approaching attack time. Steve waited outside St Andrew's Street for the sabbaticals.
"Where the hell are they" he asked himself
He watched as his younger self along with Neel, Mike, David, Sam and Trevor entered the building. A twinge of pain ran through him. It was painful to watch these final moments, knowing he could not prevent the attack that was to happen.

Twenty to two. Patricia Nealson had already entered the building to look for Steve Gryson. No sign of the sabbaticals. Where were they?

Quarter to two. "Sorry we're late Steve" it was Timothy's voice.
"Right I've got to get the janitor out" said Steve in an excited manner.

The older Steve entered the St Andrew's street building. He went up to the janitor on duty. It was the head janitor. Steve produced some sort of ID card, flashed it in front of the janitors face," I'm from special branch" he opened with "We have reason to believe that a terrorist attack is about to enacted against here, I want every one evacuated"
"Pull the other one it’s got bells on "said the janitor, "where's your car with the sirens, why haven't you phoned.
At this Steve pulled out his stun bolt gun, a small pocket torch like object, and activated it. The janitor collapsed on the floor. Timothy and Brad came in and dragged the Janitor out of the building to safety on the other side of the road. He seemed dazed, but he would be ok. Timothy and Brad went back inside.

Ten minutes to two. Steve ran down the corridor to the computer terminal room. Looked into the room, there were about six people in there. He opened the door and yelled "everybody out, we have a bomb scare". He did not stop to see if anyone took notice of him.

Steve rushed along the corridor to the main toilet block he remembered going into. He realised his hood was up, so he was the person he had nightmares about all these years. There was the younger Steve Gryson coming out. The older Steve fired his stun gun. The younger Steve collapsed. Steve ran up to his younger self and rifled through the pockets. He found the bank cards and placed them in an envelope. Now where were those sabbaticals? He caught sight of them coming down the corridor. "Hurry up" he yelled.
Brad arrived first and took the envelope from the older Steve.
"Take my younger self to the other ground floor toilets, I will be safe there. Get out of here and make sure you post that envelope" Steve ordered.
"Sure thing Steve" Brad replied.
Timothy caught up, he was out of condition.
"Tim, you take his feet, I'll take his arms" Brad ordered Timothy. Timothy, still wheezing took hold of the younger Steve Gryson's feet. Brad picked him up under the arms.
"By the way guys, put this on him, I won't need it any more" Steve said handing the rest of the money from this time to Brad. Brad took it in his teeth. "Get going Steve" he said through his gritted teeth.

Five minutes to two. Steve rushed up the stair case to the first floor and the school of applied science. He found himself gasping for air; he was not a young man any more. He looked along the wall for the fire alarm. He found it, he smashed the glass with the handle of his stun bolt gun. No sound, the button was not connected.
"S**t" he shouted.
Suddenly the fire alarm sounded and he caught sight of the man in the white suit.
"You better get going now" he shouted to Steve.
"Who are you?" Steve shouted back above the noise of the alarm.
"You will be me" the man in the white suit said, "Something is trying to kill us in the future, and we haven't much time. When you get to that point in time you will understand, now hurry" with that the man in white vanished.

Two o'clock. Steve raced to the Physics lab. Patricia Nealson was just about to leave after talking with Neel. The others were just about to leave as well because of the fire alarm. The stun bolt gun had exhausted its power cells, so Steve charged at Patricia and sent her sprawling into the room. At the same time he took out his album which contained the twenty year old newspaper cuttings, detailing the attack that was about to occur.

1 minute past two.
"Who the hell are you?" Mike asked the Stranger.
"My Name is Steve Gryson, I've returned from the future to save your lives" Steve Shouted, "just look at the cuttings please"

Neel picked up the album and read through the article; "Oh s**t, we're all going to die" He looked up from scanning the article. "How do we get out of this one Steve?”

Four minutes past two.

Steve took the disk he had programmed on Neel's PC from a side pocket in his kit bag. "Load this new program" he shouted and handed the disk to Mike. Mike grabbed the disk, ejected the disk that was in the machine already, and replaced it with the one Steve had handed to him. He loaded the program in two minutes. The others just stood by in a stunned silence; it was as if this was not really happening. In the distance they could just discern the sound of a helicopter.

Seven Minutes passed two.

"Set the power dial to maximum, open the shield as wide as possible" Steve yelled above the sound of the mini accelerator as it hummed into life. "The coordinates are preset" he added.

Neel and David set to work with the power and shield controls. Patricia was starting to recover from being knocked flying. The fall had slightly stunned her, and she was still not with it. Steve took out the blanket and wrapped it around her. "Put your coats on, it’s snowing where we will land"
All the men put their coats on, there was nothing further they could do, it was all up to the mini accelerator. They stood in front of the machine and waited. Patricia was still a bit woozy, so Steve and Sam had to help her up.

Nine minutes past two. The mini-accelerator screamed as it reached its high charge. It was time for its last ever act of operation, every one waited with baited breath.
"Now" shouted Steve.
Neel hit the fire button on the mini-accelerator.

The Apache helicopter reached firing range. Every missile was loosed at the building. Within minutes the section of the physics labs, the Chemistry labs and the computer room were rubble, and in flames. The head janitor got up after the effects of the stun gun. he looked at the building. That man was right after all. There was a terrorist attack.
"Humming Bird to base” Samson said over his radio. "Operation Blackout successful" With that he swung the helicopter around back to Edzell.