Harold on the Brightside

Episode 90

2012-02-12T13:34:00.000-08:00

“Well, I hate to say it, old button,” said Teatime, “But I did tell you so. These OGS types are putting up with you only for as long as takes to resolve the current situation. I must say I’m glad you’ve finally seen it for yourself. Mind you,” He paused for a wicked moment, “I’m surprised that Agent India waited this long before using her taser on you again.”

“Oh, ha, ha,” replied Harold sarcastically, “I might have known better than to expect sympathy from you, but I really thought we were finally getting somewhere here. She even agreed with my idea of getting Mr Box out of the hospital. I’m such an idiot.”

“For the record,” said the little monkey, “She was acting for the good of the mission, if what you have told me is true. I’m sure she took no pleasure whatsoever in it.” He could barely keep his little mouth from stretching into a grin as he said this, however.

Harold knew the little fellow was right of course – he usually was, the smartypants. That didn’t make it any easier to accept, though. He sighed to himself. Why, oh, why did he always have to crave everyone’s friendship and approval? You’d have thought that after all these years he’d have grown out of that particular weakness, especially since that was precisely the character defect that had got him banished to the Basement along with the rest of the rebels all those long desolate years ago – as his father never tired of pointing out.

Live and learn?

Apparently not.

“What are you two talking about?” asked India. Harold and Teatime had been talking in low tones in Infernal for privacy.

“Nothing,” replied Harold curtly.

India raised an eyebrow: clearly the demon was still ticked off. She didn't care. It wasn't like she needed its forgiveness anyway.

Harold, Teatime, Mr Teeth and India were travelling in the back of the Infinity Recycling van. Driving the van was a very morose member of unit four, whose cooperation was being encouraged, so to speak, by the gun that Box was pointing at him from the passenger seat. As an additional assurance of his good behaviour, the other members of the team were being held – after some rough but effective first aid - at Mr Teeth’s house by some of Pauli’s men. The rest of Pauli’s people were following on in their own vehicle.
Box was wearing a silver suit cobbled together from the least visibly damaged bits of the suits that the intruders had been wearing. That the ski mask-like headgear that went with the suits obscured his features was an added bonus.

Mr Teeth had not been happy to have one of the Infinity Recycling people drive the van but, as Box pointed out, they would need someone with valid credentials to get past the security guard at the gate. What happened after that… well, any battle plan was only any good until the first encounter and everyone had their part to play and all they needed was to get inside the compound.

“Ok, we’re getting close now,” said Box from the front, “Demon, you’ll need to switch on your suit.”

Harold did so. He had no idea whether the invisibility suit would prevent Infinity’s detectors from registering his presence – they only had India’s experience (and Box’s when they had tested it again to be sure) to go on.

Once again, the world seemed to switch to bizarre hues and all sounds became slightly muffled.

India, sitting opposite, relaxed slightly, the constant irritation of Harold’s presence having ceased the moment he had activated the suit. She took this as a cue and activated her own suit.

This had been the weirdest mission; working with demons instead of banishing them, fancy invisibility suits… They never covered any of this in training. Maybe she should request an extra module to be added in future… As things stood, she could not wait to get this strange mission over and done with, could not wait to get back to the everyday business of spotting the Fallen and despatching them back to their accursed home where they belonged. Well, the way things were turning out, one way or another, she would not have much longer to wait for that happy day.

The van bumped and swayed a little as it made a right turn onto the business park that housed the buildings belonging to Infinity Recycling.

“Get ready, people,” said Box, his voice tight with excitement. “We’re almost there.”

Episode 89

2012-01-29T15:51:00.000-08:00

Teatime was still some distance from the house when he heard the sound of Mr Teeth’s shotgun. He scampered a bit more quickly through the leafy darkness of the lower branches of the many ornamental trees surrounding the property. The scent of oranges hung distractingly in the air, but there was no time for such things now. He got to the edge of the trees at last and peered towards the house.

The security lights at the rear of the property had come on and in their fierce white glare, the little monkey could see two men sprawled on the ground near the open patio door. They appeared to be wearing silvery suits, whose metallic sheen was now being spoiled in places by trickles of blood from the men’s wounds. The men were still moving feebly, and Teatime could hear their faint cursing.

Abruptly, the sound of another shot rang out – a different weapon this time, by the sound of it. This was followed by the sound of something smashing and tinkling inside the house, but Teatime could not see who had fired. It certainly hadn’t been the two men on the ground, so that must mean there were more invisible types about. How jolly annoying! If it weren’t for the fact that the demon and India needed the invisibility suits that Harold had liberated, he was all for going back and advising that they drive away and leave Mr Jackson to sort things out himself. He seemed capable enough.

The suits were needed, though, and they were in the house. Teatime scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment. If Mr Jackson could see the intruders properly, he could probably deal with them: he’d probably faced worse odds in his time on the streets as a young man, and he clearly had no qualms about shooting people.

As he gazed around for possible solutions, Teatime’s eye was caught by something over at the base of the back wall of the house. An idea suddenly sprang into the little monkey’s head. It would be risky, as he would be in plain sight if he went over there. Still, he was confident the two wounded intruders were in no position to interfere with his plan, and he was willing to bet that any others would be intent on the doorway into the house.

There was no time to lose. He leapt from the tree, landing lightly upon the smooth green expanse of the lawn, and raced for all he was worth towards the thing he had seen.

-0-0-0-0-

“I should have gone with him,” Harold said, as the sound of the second shot came to their ears.

“No,” said Box, firmly, “Those people are bound to be looking for you, and we don’t know if they have any more of those freezing machines. You’re best staying away from them.”

“But what if he gets hurt?” protested Harold, “You humans seem to have no qualms about shooting each other for the slightest reason – a little animal isn’t going to be very safe, is he?”

“He’ll be OK,” said Box, “He’s a smart little creature; he won’t take any unnecessary risks. Just sit tight.”

Harold slumped unhappily back into his seat. Box was probably right, but if anything happened to the little fellow....

He drummed his fingers.

He tried to think calming thoughts; usually, a nice piece of music would pop into his head to do the job but, tonight, his mental orchestra seemed to be gigging elsewhere.

Nope.

It was no good.

Harold flung open the car door and jumped out.

“What in the name of Zeus are you doing? Get back here!” barked Box, opening his own door. He and
India exited the car as Harold set off down the street towards the high wall encircling Mr Teeth’s garden.

The other two set off after him, India lugging out her taser as she ran.

Harold was already astride the top of the wall when they reached it.

“For pity’s sake, come down!” urged Box, his voice ragged from running.

India didn’t say anything, she simply whipped up her taser and fired.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Teatime covered the ground between the trees and the house in several nerve-wracking seconds. Banking on the idea that the intruders would be looking anywhere but into the garden, he ran in a straight line across the lawn, veering off as he reached the edge of the pool of radiance shed by the security lights. Here, he ran round the edge of the lighted area so as to remain invisible as long as possible.

A low stone balustrade ran round the edge of the patio, which was a stone-flagged area slightly higher than the lawn. Teatime kept this low barrier between himself and the area of the doors as he scrambled quickly round to the house’s rear wall.

Another shot roared from within in the house; the first weapon Teatime had heard had evidently been discharged again. Although the weapon made a terrific racket and shot peppered the area, it had no other effect. Teatime hoped fervently that this did not mean that the other intruders were inside the house already. If they were, his cunning plan would be to no avail.

Crouching as low as possible and thanking the universe for his grey colouring, he made his way to his objective. At the base of the wall, there was a hinged metal cover. Teatime flipped this up, glancing around nervously to check that he was not being observed. Idiot! He chided himself. They’re invisible. How in the name of all that’s unholy are you going to know if they’re watching you?

Having no means to prop the cover open, Teatime resorted to the undignified expedient of resting it on the top of his head. Behind the cover was a simple control panel, whose controls were labelled in Spanish. Teatime pressed the large green ‘Activar’ button and the ‘sistema de aspersión‘ sprang into life.

-0-0-0-0-0-

India skipped smartly out of the way as Harold hit the pavement with a crunch that made even the grizzled Box wince.

“Are you out of your mind, Agent?” Box whispered furiously. Somewhere over the wall, another shot rang out.

“Sorry, didn’t exactly have time to discuss it,” she replied, rolling Harold onto his back with her foot. She leant over him. “Listen, demon. Believe it or not, I did not want to have to do that, but I am not going to let you ruin everything by running off and getting yourself caught. I get that you’re concerned for your little monkey-thing, but he’s way smarter than you are and knows how to keep his head down, which is more than can be said for you.”

The effects of a taser are more severe and longer-lasting for demons’ vessels that they are on humans. This was just as well, because if Harold had been able to move right then, he would have liked very much to throttle Agent India on the spot. She was right, of course– at least in part – which was pretty annoying in itself. Teatime was smart and quick. The thing that really galled him, though, was that India had used her taser on him – again! He hadn’t been planning to just go running in willy-nilly; he had learned that much from recent events, at least. But the fact of the matter was, she clearly still didn’t trust him or respect him.

After all they’d been through. After all he’d done to convince her that he was on her side!

What did you expect? said a cynical little voice at the back of his mind. Did you really think they would ever see you as part of their cosy little team and all go running around having jolly adventures together? Wise up, dummy! They’re just using you, and when this is over, it’ll be back to the Basement like nothing ever happened.

“We don’t have time – “ India’s voice trailed off.

When she’d shot Harold that first time, his eyes had displayed shock and surprise more than anything else.

This time, however, they were absolutely ablaze with anger.

-0-0-0-0-0

Mr Teeth’s expensive garden sprinkler system came to life. From many artfully concealed nozzles, jets of water gushed out and began to play over the garden, soaking everything in sight – including the patio.

The state-of-the-art Rainbow Industries camouflage suits were fantastic pieces of technology. Although they were sufficiently waterproof to keep on working perfectly well as the sprinkler water landed on them (they had been developed for the military, after all), they – and the men wearing them – still provided a physical obstruction to the water’s inexorable journey to the ground. At once, two intruders were outlined by the water, sparkling silver in the glow of the security lights, splashing off them. From inside the house, Mr Teeth’s deep bark of laughter came to Teatime’s ears, followed immediately by the roar of his shotgun. The blast caught the two men, who had been crouched close together by the doorway, obviously looking to creep into the house and take its owner by surprise.

As the buckshot tore into them, the hi-tech suits immediately stopped working, leaving two more sprawled silver-suited bodies on the patio. Teatime pushed a large red button on the control panel and the water shut off. He watched as Mr Teeth strode out through the ruined patio door and deftly disarmed all four intruders, before turning to where he was crouched.

Seeing that his saviour had been none other than the tiny monkey, the big man’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Thanks, man, that was good thinking – and good timing.” he rumbled, “I owe you. Never would have thought of using the water like that." His voice turned thoughtrful, "Pity the fancy suits got wasted, though.” Setting his shot gun against the wall, he checked the four men’s injuries – the buckshot had left multiple wounds, but none appeared life-threatening.

He retrieved the gun again and leaned up against the wall where he could see all four downed men.

“What now, Mr Jackson?” asked Teatime.

“Now we wait for Pauli and his boys and then we’ll figure out what to do with these guys.” He waved the tip of the shotgun’s barrel at the erstwhile intruders. Where are the others, anyway?”

“They’re waiting in the next street,” Teatime replied, “I’d better go and fetch them I suppose.” He scampered off into the trees once more.

Episode 88

2012-01-10T12:22:00.000-08:00

“Drive on past and don’t slow down” barked Box from the passenger seat.

They had just turned into the road that led to the gates of Mr Teeth’s swiss-cheese-windowed mansion. A white van bearing an Infinity Recycling logo, its lights out, was parked so as to block the gateway. The gates themselves stood ajar. There was no sign of anybody around.

“How on Earth did they find us?” India wondered aloud.

“No idea, but they obviously did.” Box exhaled heavily. “This is not good. We’ll have to assume that Mr Jackson won’t be able to help us now, I think.”

“We can’t just leave him, surely?” said India.

“I’m not sure we have a choice,” replied Box, “We don’t have any weapons apart from your taser and we have no idea how many or how heavily armed the Infinity Recycling people are. Our best bet is to get ourselves away from here. I’m betting the Infinity goons aren’t looking for Mr Jackson anyway, so once they find out we’re not there, they might well just leave.”

“We have to get into the house, anyway, though.” Said India.

Box frowned. “Why’s that?”

“The invisibility suits are in there. We need them if we’re going to get into that building. Plus, if we just wait around for them to go, they might find the suits and take them back. We didn’t exactly hide them.”
Box rubbed his brow.

“OK, ok, drive slowly and let me think.” He sighed.

Harold, Teatime and India waited in tense silence as the little brown man cogitated.

“Alright,” Box said, at length. “The first thing we need is information. Mr Teatime,” he said, turning to the little monkey, “would you be willing to go on a information-gathering mission?”

-0-0-0-0-0-

Mr Teeth woke with a start. He’d been dozing at his desk, waiting for the OGS people to come back from the hospital with their colleague. He cast a bleary eye around for the source of the insistent beeping that had awoken him. On his computer screen, a message balloon had popped up, informing him that the front gate had been opened without authorisation.

Mr teeth had grown up on the streets and had a very keenly developed survival sense. He knew that the OGS people had the code to get in the gates legitimately, so whoever had triggered the alarm was no friend of his, that was for sure.

Silently blessing the foresight that had made him spend so much on his security system, he pulled up the feed from the gate camera.

The gates were ajar. A truck was parked across them, but of its occupants there was no sign.

He flicked through the feeds on all the other cameras around the house and grounds.

Nothing.

He stood up and operated the combination lock on the silver-grey metal cabinet behind his chair. The lock gave one final click and he swung the door open. From inside the cabinet, he took out a pump-action shotgun which he quickly loaded and cocked. He grabbed a handful of extra shells and stuffed them into his pocket – you could never have too much ammo as far as he was concerned.

He made his way out of the study into the unlit hallway, pulling the door closed behind him. He stopped to listen for a moment, at the same time allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness.

No unusual sounds came to him, but then it would take anybody a little while to reach the house from the gate – even running.

He fished his mobile out of his pocket, quickly thumbed through the contacts list and selected one.

“Pauli, this is Elroy,” he said quietly when the other person picked up the call. “Got some unwelcome visitors here, gonna need you and your boys sooner rather than later.”

“Be there in twenty.”

Mr teeth grunted, ended the call and dropped the phone back into his packet.

There were three ways into the house: the front door, the patio doors at the back, and the door from the garage. Mr Teeth didn’t think that the intruders would come in the front door. The garage would be problematic too, as the intruders would have to get it open it, then skirt the car to get to the house door, which was an extra obstacle if locked – which it was. No, too much could go wrong with that, and it would take too much time for them.

That left the patio doors.

With the house empty but for himself, only Mr Teeth’s study had been lit.

Keeping out of direct line of sight of the living room doorway, he moved quietly along the dark hall until he could stand to one side of the door to the living room and look in.

A rectangle of pale moonlight marked the position of the patio doors. Through them, Mr teeth could see a smooth expanse of lawn running down to the trees and the ornamental pond. Nothing moved out there; not even the wind stirred the tree branches tonight.

After about a minute, Mr Teeth became aware of a soft sound, a kind of metallic clicking, coming from
where the patio door lock was located. Someone was trying to pick the lock. So, whoever it was had elected to take a quiet approach.

Mr teeth steadied the barrel of the shotgun against the doorframe assumed a more balanced stance. He could
still not see anyone out there – and his PIR-activated lights had not come on either, which they most certainly should have done by now. Clearly, whoever was out there had access to one of those invisibility suits that the OGS girl and the demon had been going on about.

This was a problem: there was no telling how many people were out there. The van he had seen on the camera feed looked like it could hold half-a-dozen people at most. Six to one were not great odds and when the six were invisible….

Part of Mr Teeth’s brain kept trying to tell him to exercise that particular type of discretion which is the better part of valour and beat feet out of there. A more stubborn part of it, however, put its fingers in its ears and hummed loudly; this was his home after all and he would not be driven out of it.

A soft click came from the lock area. Mr Teeth angled the barrel of the shotgun towards that spot.
The patio door began to slide open – all by itself, apparently.

Mr Teeth fired.

Episode 87

2011-11-13T12:31:00.000-08:00

“This is highly irregular!” The young nurse’s voice was stiff with disapproval. “Mr Box is sleeping and mustn’t be disturbed.”

“But this is really urgent,” said India, “Please, can we have just a few minutes. We’ll be very quiet, I promise.”

Standing behind her, Harold favoured the nurse with his friendliest smile and was pleased to see a little uncertainty creep into her frosty expression.

“Please,” he added, “We just need to give him some very important family news. We’ll be gone before you know it.”

The nurse glanced around to see if anybody else was watching and sighed.

“All right,” she said, “I’ll let you see him, but you get five minutes and that’s it.”

“Thanks,” said India. “That’s all we need, honestly.”

It had all started with India wishing out loud that Box could be there to offer his advice about the current situation. Mr Teeth had offered to loan his not inconsiderable resources to project Distraction, as Harold had insisted on dubbing the current phase of activity. India had been uncertain whether to accept more of his help – so far, his house and the use of a car had been the only things they’d had from hm. All along, India had been squeamish about collaborating with someone who was almost certainly involved in who knows what criminal ventures, but she was pragmatic enough to realise that beggars cannot always be choosers. Still she had sighed and wished for Box’s counsel.

Harold had suddenly had an idea and, well, here they were.

Box was sleeping like the proverbial baby when the nurse ushered them into the dimly-lit room. She went over to the bed and roused his gently.

“Mr Box,” she said softly, “There are a couple of people here to see you. I can send them away if you don’t want to be disturbed.”

Box blinked blearily around the room for a few moments and then his eyes settled on India and Harold.

“No, it’s fine, they can stay.” He pushed himself up the bed and fumbled for the controls to raise the end of it.

“Five minutes.” The nurse said sternly as she left the room.

India and Harold moved over to the bedside.

“I take it things have gone awry.” Said Box, “Pass me that water will you? Thanks.”

Harold handed him the glass from the nightstand while India quickly outlined what had happened.

“And you’ve not been able to contact Mercury and Co since.” He confirmed when she had finished.

“No.” she replied, “But we’re thinking of putting together some kind of a distraction and using the invisibility suits to get inside Infinity Recycling. You’re a much more experienced agent, though, and I wanted to get your take on it.”

“Well, it’s going to take more than a few hurried minutes for me to get my ideas together.” Box said, “Do you have layouts of the uilding, things like that? How many people can Mr Jackson provide?”

“We can go into that back at the house,” said India.

Box blinked.

“Are you fixing to break me out of the hospital?” He said, his voice a mixture of disbelief and just a little glee.

“You’ll be walking out on your own.” Said Harold.

Box frowned. “Say what now?”

“We don’t have a lot of time to explain.” Said India, “The demon here thinks he can fix your leg. I have pointed out that it’s a bit more complicated than a china mug, but he seems to think he can do it and, given the urgency of the situation, I think it’s worth a try.”

-0-0-0-0-

“OK, I’m here,” said Flowers, as she walked into the cramped security office containing Moon.

“Doctor, we’ve had some developments tonight. Some OGS Agents have discovered our little hideaway and, while we’ve rounded up some of them, there is at least one other, plus a Fallen running around loose. We need to know where they would most likely have gone. We’re so close now with this project, we simply can’t have things ruined by a couple of loose cannon.”

Flowers frowned.

“And you’ve called me in because – ?“

“I was thinking that you could maybe,” Moon was suddenly less sure of himself, “well, give one of them a shot of something that might, you know, loosen their inhibitions a bit, get them to tell us where they’ve been hiding out.”

“I see,” Flowers said, hesitantly. Her cabinets down in the lab did contain several drugs that would undoubtedly do the trick, but... She knew she was being a total hypocrite for being so precious all of a sudden about using her drugs in this way, especially when she had already done so once. Nevertheless, her conscience had been nagging away at her since then and she was not keen to feed it any further. Then she remembered something.

“I think I might have an idea where we can look for your loose cannons,” she said.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Box gingerly lowered his feet to the cool linoleum of his hospital room. The stab of pain he had been expected did not come and he breathed a sigh of relief. “So far so good,” he murmured.

Carefully, India and Harold helped him to transfer his full weight to his feet and stand. On the bed behind him lay a tangle of discarded bandage and broken chunks of plaster of Paris. Box had taken a bit of convincing to get him to allow a Fallen – even one he’d recently been working with – to touch him. In the end, though, he’d relented and Harold had set to work with, it now appeared, good results.

Box took a few test steps unaided and pronounced himself satisfied. He was just pulling on his leather trousers when the door opened. The nurse froze in the doorway when she took in what was going on.

“It’s OK,” Box said quickly, before she did anything rash. “I’m going to discharge myself. I’m a whole lot better and my cousin needs me. Can you get the paperwork ready please?”

“Mr Box,” she gasped, “It’s the middle of the night! I strongly advise you at least to wait until morning, I can’t in all conscience – “

“Please,” said Box, in a firm voice. “I’m leaving. Now. I’d rather not make any more fuss than I have to, so please get me whatever I need to sign and I’ll be on my way.”

And, twenty minutes later, with India at the wheel, they all headed back towards Mr Teeth’s.

Episode 86

2011-10-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

No sooner had the words left her mouth than India could have kicked herself – really, really hard. Unbelievabley, she had just blurted out to one of the Fallen that it had hold of technology that could render it completely undetectable as it went about its wicked business. Brilliant work there India, she told herself severely, truly outstanding!

She half-expected Harold to pounce on her mistake with an evil cackle or something, but the stupid demon just tugged of the ski-mask and carried on drinking its coffee like nothing had happened. Maybe she’d got away with it after all.

One look at the suddenly thoughtful expression on Teatime’s face, however, instantly disabused her of that notion; the demon may have been too slow-witted to realise the strategic implications, but the monkey-thing clearly wasn’t.

When the little monkey spoke, however, it was not to gloat over her foolishness.

“That might well be jolly useful, actually,” he said.

“Oh?” said Harold.

“Well,” continued Teatime, “I was wondering how we were going to get around the fact that these wretched people seem to have a way of detecting your kind, and this just might be it. If Agent India’s gift doesn’t work when you’re in that ridiculous getup, then perhaps the Infinity Recycling people’s machines won’t either.”

Keen to keep the conversation going down this particular track, India said.

“We have two of these suits, so we could both sneak in, couldn’t we?”

“Yes,” replied Teatime, “But as I said earlier, we still have the problem of physical obstacles and guards to bypass. Magic suits aren’t going to get us through locked doors. We will need a diversion, as I said.”

“It would have to be something pretty big,” said Harold, “those guards seemed quite professional and well-organised.”

“Then it sounds like we’re going to need some help.” said India.

-0-0-0-0-

“No, we do not give him what he wants,” declared Prada, folding her arms firmly across her chest. “India and the demon are the only ones who know what’s going on and where we are. We cannot possibly allow Moon and his friends to get hold of them.”

“Assuming the demon hasn’t just run off somewhere, of course,” observed Othello, “If it was looking for a chance to get away from us, it’s just been handed the best one yet.”

“I don’t think it will do that, somehow.” Said Mercury. “It has been pretty helpful thus far, besides which, the Reckoner made it quite clear that he would take it personally if the demon betrayed our trust in any way. No I suspect it will follow the plan and go back to the -” He stopped himself and grinned ruefully. “Oooh, I nearly blew it then, didn’t I? Heh, I bet Moon’s got this place bugged in some way – I would if I were him.”

Moon did indeed have the place bugged, and could not help but smile at Mercury’s stopping himself from blabbing at the last moment. He leaned back in his chair, away from the security console. A small screen showed a grainy video feed from the conference room with the three OGS agents in it. It was clear they were not going to give anything away for free, but Moon had just that moment had an idea. He picked up the phone and dialled a number. He drummed his fingers lightly on the arm of his chair as the call went though.

“Hello?” came a woman’s sleepy voice. It was, after all, the middle of the night.

“Dr Flowers? This is RolexBoy. Can you come down to Infinity Recycling right away please?”

Episode 85

2011-10-04T15:57:00.000-07:00

India flung open the door before Harold even had a chance to ring the bell. He allowed his hand, with finger extended, to hang in the air for a moment for comic effect.

“Get in here, demon, and tell me everything that happened!” she barked.

“Pleased to see you too, Agent,” Harold replied, which earned him a Look.

Between them, and with many an irascible shouted instruction from Teatime, Harold and the little monkey had managed not only to get into the car (Mercury had the keys), but also to get it going and to pilot it back to Mr Teeth’s swiss-cheese house without crashing into anything or drawing unwanted attention from the police. Quite an achievement, Harold thought.

He recounted the night’s events in detail to India, a mug of steaming coffee in one hand. He purposefully left out anything about the two silvery cases he had liberated from the crashed truck. He wanted her to ask about them. When he was finished, she obliged him. She pointed to the silvery cases.

“What are those things, then?”

“Well,” replied Harold, lifting one on to the table and opening it, “they might just be the answer to our prayers.” He lifted a bundle of sleek, silvery material out of the case and shook it out for India to see.

“OK” she said carefully, eyes narrowed, “I’m seeing a fancy-looking oversize romper suit. How is going to help us?”

“This is what the guards who captured us – or should I say Prada – were wearing that allowed them to sneak up on us.” Harold explained.

“Seriously? They were dressed in a thing like that and you didn’t see them coming?”
Harold set aside the clothing and reached into the case a second time, lifting out an object the size and shape of a small backpack – complete with straps. “I think this is the power unit or something. When it’s switched on, you can’t be seen or heard, it’s really spooky!”

“Leaving aside for a moment the ironic fact that one of the Fallen thinks something’s spooky, how can we make use of it?” India had reached out and was rubbing the cloth between her thumb and forefinger, like it was a blouse she was considering purchasing.

“Well, I thought we might wear them and sneak back into Infinity Recycling, rescue our people, put an end to whatever’s going on and every one lives happy ever after.” Harold said, brightly.

“If I might inject a much-needed note of reality,” said Teatime, who had been watching. “Even with your magic suits, you can’t just waltz in there. There are still physical obstacles to overcome – locked doors and suchlike.”

“But, I can deal with those,” said Harold, “I – “

“Yes, old stick, I’m sure you can, given time.” Said the monkey patiently, “But don’t you think someone will notice a door opening all by itself – they’ve clearly got cameras all over the wretched place and probably heaps of guards. No, we’re going to need a diversion.”

“Actually, before we all rush down the road making plans,” said India, “we should probably make sure the suits actually work. We might need a special code to operate them or something. If we can’t get them switched on, there’s no use wasting time planning to use them.”

“You make an excellent point, Agent,” said Teatime. He turned to Harold, “Well, off you go old shoe.”

“You sure you want me to do this?” asked Harold.

“Well, the suit’s too big for the monkey, and if it goes bang or something, I’m not indestructible,” retorted India, “so, yes, demon, you get to do it.”

Harold was secretly rather pleased. He’d been itching to try out this clever bit of human technology. Yes, ok, he was a demon and many demons could and did make themselves invisible at will, but he’d never had the time to work on that – and probably never would now. He slipped off his jacket and began to undress down to his underwear. India took one look, blushed and stalked out of the room.
Harold grinned. Teatime sighed and rolled his eyes.

Harold wriggled into the romper suit which was quite stretchy when it came to it, and fitted his six-foot frame quite well. In addition to the suit, there were bootie-like things with soft soles, gloves and a ski-mask. Harold donned all of these.

“It’s safe to come back in now,” he called out to India. “I’m decent.”

“That’s something you’ll never be,” she muttered as she came back into the room.

“Aww, I’m hurt!” said Harold, mockingly, placing a hand over where his heart would be.. “Just when I thought we were beginning to get along and all.”

“Hmph!” was India’s only response. She walked over to the empty case and looked inside. “Hmm, I guess it was too much to hope that they’d leave a handy instruction booklet lying about.”

Harold had picked up the backpack-like object and was examining it.

“There’s a cable here,” he said, “Maybe it connects to the suit somehow.” He ran his hands over the suit until he found a hard lump in the collar of the romper suit. He teased it out between finger and thumb and slid the jack on the end of the cable into it until a soft click told him it was seated correctly.

“Am I invisible yet?” he asked.

“No.” chorused India and Teatime.

“Hmm, obviously, there’s a switch somewhere that’s easy to get to – it would need to be. There’s not one on the backpack, so it must be around here on the suit somewhere.” He put his arms through the straps and shrugged the backpack into place, being careful not to pull the connection apart. He cast his mind back to when the guards had first magically appeared. They had drawn weapons, but before that they’d been apparently clasping one wrist with the opposite hand.
“Got it!” he cried in triumph, pressing the small stud located on the left hand cuff.

He felt a soft vibration start up in the backpack. The biggest change though was that the world had suddenly been re-rendered in weird colours – all purples and greys in lower definition than normal.

“How bout now?” He turned round to see a look of utmost surprise on India’s face, and Teatime bolt upright on the table, his tiny teeth bared – an instinctive monkey reaction to the strange, no doubt.

“Very well, turn it off, turn it off, old sock!” urged Teatime, “We don’t want to run the battery down, do we?” Harold pressed the stud again. The vibration stopped and the world returned to normal colours.

Now he could see her again properly, Harold could not but help notice that India had gone very pale and very quiet.

“Agent? Are you alright?” he asked. “Shall I get you some water?”
“Turn it on again.” She said faintly.

Harold shrugged and did as he was told. The purple-o-vision bloomed silently, filling he field of view once more.

“OK, off again.” India’s voice was firmer now.

Harold complied.

“That is so weird,” she said, shaking her head.

“What is?” asked Harold. “Didn’t the suit work properly? Was I still visible?”
India wiped a hand across her forehead.

“Not only were you not visible, demon,” she replied grimly, “but my teeth stopped itching. I couldn’t sense you at all.”

Episode 84

2011-09-29T12:08:00.000-07:00

Agents Mercury, Othello and Prada looked up guiltily as the door opened. They had been going through the few drawers and cupboards in the conference room, looking for a plug-in telephone after Othello had spotted a socket for one on the wall.

Agent Moon walked in.

“Moon! Tell your goons to let us go!” Prada was on her feet and shouting before the door was even closed behind him.

“Agent Prada,” warned Mercury, “let’s just stay calm and see what Moon has to say for himself.” He looked enquiringly at the latter. “Well?”

Prada slumped grumpily into a seat and began to worry at a hangnail with her teeth. Moon perched himself on the corner of the long conference table and surveyed the three of them. He looked different somehow, more confident, more mature and self-assured.

“Look,” he began, “I realise that this looks really bad –“

“Ya think?” muttered Prada, which earned her a frown from Mercury.

“- but, please believe me when I say that what’s going on here, what I’m involved in, is one of the most important projects this world has ever seen.”

“That’s a bold statement,” said Othello, “Care to elucidate?”

Moon took a moment to scratch at his temple as he composed his thoughts.

“I’d be more than happy to, believe me, but first I need some information from you guys.”

“Oh?” said Mercury, guardedly.

“Yeah, it’s just a small thing really, but I really need to know where Agent India and your pet demon are right now.”

Mercury, Prada and Othello looked at each other briefly, then Mercury spoke.

“And why would you need to know that, Agent?”

“We’re at a very sensitive stage in our work here,” Moon replied, “We really can’t afford to have unpredictable elements running about the place, disturbing things. It’s just too important.’

”You don’t seriously expect us to tell you, just like that, surely.” Said Prada.

Moon sighed. “I suppose not, but I thought it was worth while to ask, anyway.”

“So what now?” said Prada, “You going to start threatening us? Get one of your goons to shoot one of us like you did to Emerald? Like you did to Box?”

Moon’s face reddened.

“Those things were never meant to happen like that, I swear.” He said fervently. “A few people misunderstood what they were supposed to be doing and …” he trailed off, and suddenly, for a moment, he was the Moon they recognised - young, uncertain.

“Did whoever it was who planted the bomb in the warehouse misunderstand as well?” asked Othello, “Only, it seems to me that setting up something like that would take a certain amount of premeditation. Firing a gun can be a spur of the moment thing, but not planting explosives, that takes planning. You’re going to have to do better than that, Moon.”

Moon showed his palms in a conciliatory gesture. “You’re right, of course. In retrospect, it was a stupid thing to have done and, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry, I really am. It’s just that what we’re doing here is so very important.”

“Look, Fallen and Loyal alike have disappeared completely,” said Mercury, “Gone. Vanished. Not dismissed – which was always sufficient before now, but vanished. Are you destroying them somehow? And why target the Loyal when they’re on our side, for pity’s sake! Don’t you realise that you’re upsetting an ancient arrangement that has stood the test of time for centuries?”

“I understand that there are serious implications to what we’re doing here, believe me,” said Moon, “We appreciate that neither the Basement nor the Penthouse is going to be happy with what we’re doing here, but – “ he stood up and began pacing, as if about to deliver a speech.

“Humans have always been stuck in the middle between the two of them, at the mercy of either temptation from the Basement or whatever crumbs of bounty the Penthouse sees fit to bestow.”

“But that’s how it’s meant to be,” interrupted Prada. “If it – “

“Let me finish, please,” said Moon, cutting her off. “The Fallen and the Loyal have abilities that none of us humans can match and yet they hardly ever use them. There’s so much good they could do in the world but they don’t. Why? Because of some ancient agreement – to which we were not even party!”

“Moon, you know perfectly well why they can’t get involved in human affairs,” said Mercury, a not of irritation creeping into his voice. “Any one of them could rule this world without hardly lifting a finger if it so chose. The arrangement is for our protection, so that we are free to conduct our affairs as we see fit. They can try to influence us – that’s all. Our free will is what’s at stake here.”

“I know that!” Moon was beginning to sound angry himself now, “But is it an infringement of anybody’s free will if they get cured of cancer, or if a drought-stricken region suddenly get some rain for once? If a starving kid gets a bowl of rice? They see all this misery and they stand by and do nothing! If somebody saw an old lady fall down in the street and hurt herself, and yet just walked on by, we would be outraged at their lack of compassion. If we mortals can act altruistically, then why can’t they? It would be nothing to them.” He stopped, a little out of breath.

“I’m sure the Loyal at any rate would agree with you,” said Othello, “And I’m sure they very much want to help, but where do you draw the line? You can feed a single starving mouth easily enough, you might even feed a village or a town. Then you might just say to yourself, well, I can end starvation in this whole land altogether by getting the government to stop fighting internecine civil wars with their neighbours. Oh, and while I’m at it, I should get the neighbour governments to improve their human rights records. Pretty soon, if you go down that road, you’d be running the whole place. So it’s best not to even start down that road – hence the arrangement.”

“Well, I think it’s time things changed.” Declared Moon. “If they can’t – or won’t - help then –“

“- you’ll wipe then out.” Prada finished for him, flatly.

“No. That is not what’s happening here – the last thing we want is for any of them to be wiped out.”

“Then what?” asked Mercury.

For a moment, it looked as though Moon were actually going to tell them, but he obviously thought better of it. He shook his head.

“Sorry,” he said, “As I said, I’ll tell you gladly, but only when India and the demon are secured.”

He moved to the door. “Have a think about it and if you change your mind, just tell the guard. In the meantime, I’ll have some drinks and sandwiches sent in.”

The door closed. Mercury, Prada and Othello looked at one another.

“So,” said Mercury, “Do we give him what he wants?”

Episode 83

2011-09-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

“You have absolutely no right to keep us here! Let us go!” Prada’s pale face was flushed with anger.

“Please sit down, miss, and stay calm.” Said Nugent, patiently. “I’m sure everything will be fine, but we have our orders. Someone will be along to speak to you soon.” He closed the door firmly behind him, leaving Prada, Othello and Mercury alone together for the first time since their capture.
Othello waited a few moments and then went over to the door. He eased it open a crack, glanced out and quickly closed it again.

“Two guards outside,” he said. “Armed.”

Mercury, meanwhile was checking the windows.

“These can’t be opened,” he sighed. “Looks like we’re here for the duration.”

“And since they have our phones, we can’t even let India know what’s happened.” Said Prada. The guards of units Three and Four had searched them quickly and professionally before ushering them into what looked like a perfectly ordinary conference room.

“She’ll know something’s up when we don’t make the check-in call.” Mercury looked at his watch, “in about ten minutes or so.”

“Were the guys that nabbed you wearing Predator-suits as well?” asked Prada.

“Predator suits?” Mercury inquired with raised eyebrow. “Oh! The fancy invisibility things? Yeah, they flat-footed us quite handily. What I wouldn’t give for a few of those things!”

“They’re some seriously advanced tech,” said Othello, “Military maybe. There’s a pile of money being spent here. I think we’re definitely on to something now.” He turned to Prada, “ So what happened to the demon? Did they capture it?”

Teatime crouched under a hedge, straining his tiny eyes and ears to the maximum to reassure himself that there were no perishing humans about. The car they had all arrived in earlier that evening sat, apparently undisturbed, just in the spot they had left it. During their earlier planning session at Mr Teeth’s, it had been decided that the car was the place to meet up if anything untoward happened. Well, untoward was certainly an understatement. A supposedly low-risk recce mission had turned into a complete shambles.

Teatime hoped Harold had a) got away safely and b) remembered this part of the plan. He was a good-hearted chap but, honestly, sometimes he could be such a complete duffer. Besides, it would be colossally inconvenient if the silly oaf had got himself captured. Not only would the investigation be severely hampered, but Teatime would have to explain things to Harold’s father. Not a pleasant prospect.

Harold had not forgotten the plan. It had taken a while, but he had eventually managed to find a service ladder and climb out of the culvert. As soon as he had emerged, he had tried calling Mercury’s phone to let him know what had happened. It had just rung and rung and then gone to voicemail. So had Othello’s. He even called Prada just in case, somehow, she had managed to escape herself, but the result was the same. This did not bode well. Maybe all the agents had been captured then. Well, all except one. India. His number one fan. With some trepidation, he dialled her number.

“All of them?” India cried, incredulous.

“It would seem so, I can’t raise any of them on their cells.”

“But you managed to escape. Just you.” Her voice had a hard, suspicious edge to it.

“Well, Teatime too, probably. We got split up in all the confusion.”
India rubbed her eyes. She needed to think. This was one scenario they had not rehearsed. She was effectively in charge now all of a sudden. This was only her first proper mission. She was the most junior member of the team, she couldn’t be expected to tackle this level of responsibility. It just wasn’t right. Get a grip, she told herself sternly. She took a big breath.

“OK, demon, try and find the monkey-thing and then both of you get back here, so we can figure out what to do next.“

“Will do.”

The line went dead. Well that went surprisingly well, Harold thought as he put the phone away. He had been expecting much more of a tongue-lashing than that. She must be softening.

Right then, back to the car and hopefully a reunion with Teatime.

Episode 82

2011-09-10T15:30:00.000-07:00

Harold dropped the twenty feet or so into the culvert, landing lightly. He trotted over to the crashed truck. Some kind of liquid was leaking from somewhere and spreading in a dark pool around it. Harold hoped it wasn’t fuel or anything else flammable: he’d seen lots of movies and TV programmes since coming to earth and vehicles inevitably seemed to go ka-boom shortly after crashing. If motor vehicles were so dangerous, why on earth did humans routinely trust their lives to them? Harold wasn’t afraid for himself; his clothes would be ruined, of course, if the truck blew up, but he would be basically unharmed – if a little weak and in need of pizza. The humans inside would not fare so well, however, so chop-chop, old bean, he told himself in his best mental imitation of Teatime.

The truck’s rear end was closest to him and one of the doors, having burst open in the crash, was lying invitingly open on the ground, providing a handy means for Harold to scramble in.

The inside of the truck was a shambles. There had clearly been a lot of complicated and delicate equipment in here, but most of it had been torn from its mountings in the crash and was smashed and scattered all over the place. Bits of broken glass glittered everywhere. Thankfully, there was no electrical sparking – indeed, all was eerily quiet. Harold’s night vision, demonically good as it was, soon allowed him to spot the rear compartment’s lone occupant.

The man was unconscious with a sizeable gash on his forehead which was bleeding freely. He was lying sprawled on top of a small heap of busted up equipment. Further examination, however, was hampered by two large silvery equipment cases which had tumbled onto the man’s body and legs. Harold grabbed the handle of the nearest one and unceremoniously slung it out through the door-hole, where it landed with a clatter on the concrete beyond. The second one followed suit shortly after.

Harold crouched next to the man. He was quite young by the looks of it, which was good as it meant that he would be strong and healthy. Humans’ bodies were so terrifically delicate, though. One wrong move from Harold and a bad situation might become much, much worse. Harold had seen fly-on-the-wall documentaries about hospital ERs and knew that broken necks and spines were bad news. If he moved the man… He wracked his brains for a moment, wrestling with the beginnings of an idea, then shrugged to himself: it was worth a try, surely?

He tentatively reached out his hand and, using the same facility that had allowed him to sense the locks on the various doors he had opened, he tried to ‘see’ if anything was broken in the man’s body. The rush of sensation he received in return was very odd indeed: humans, it transpired, were basically a big bag of warm squishy with a bony frame. Fortunately, the man seemed to be undamaged apart from the knock on the head he’d received.

Harold carefully manoeuvred the limp and distinctly uncooperative form out through the door hole and dragged it far enough away (he hoped) from any potential ka-boom. Not knowing anything about recovery positions or anything much else of First Aid (the Basement did not have this subject on its curriculum for some reason), he made the fellow as comfortable as he could, then headed back to the van.

As he trotted past them on his way to the front of the truck, Harold glanced at the two bulky cases he had ejected so carelessly. They bore the Rainbow Industries logo as well as some other black stencilled lettering: RI-180-A Smart Camouflage (Medium). Harold felt a stab of excitement: if those cases contained what he thought they did, then getting Prada back might be a tad easier.

There was no time for that now, however.

Harold scrambled up onto the passenger side of the vehicle, which was now effectively its roof, and made his way over to the driver’s compartment. Through the broken passenger side window, Harold could see that both airbags had gone off and then deflated, leaving their fabric draped in pale folds eerily reminiscent of a shroud, over the occupants, neither of whom was moving.

Harold stood up and tried to tug the passenger door open, but it was badly buckled and refused to budge. Favouring the universe with a gimme-a-break-already sigh, Harold crouched down again and used his abilities, just as he had done on Mr Peck’s cable-tie handcuffs, teasing the molecules of the twisted metal apart bit by bit, so as to avoid sparks and subsequent unwelcome ka-booms.

The door now open, Harold reached in and gently lifted the air-bag material out of the way, the better to see the two men. A hand-scan (as he suddenly decided to called it) revealed that the passenger had a broken arm and a couple of cracked ribs, as well as a large egg of a bump on the side of his head – no doubt the cause of his unconsciousness. He tried to reach down to the driver to check on him, but the bulk of the passenger’s body prevented it.

The passenger himself was probably not in too great a danger from his injuries, Harold thought (so, you’re a Doctor all of a sudden, taunted his own inner voice), but clearly the man would benefit by not being in the truck any longer than was necessary.

But how to get him out safely?

The truck’s front windshield was a spider web of cracks, but was, miraculously, still more or less in one piece. If Harold could just remove it, there would be a nice big aperture through which rescue could be effected. He was just starting to congratulate himself on his own inventiveness when the sound of a passing siren drifted down from the highway above.

He smacked himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand. You idiot! he told himself, you should have rung for an ambulance before getting stuck in!

He reached for his phone, but, as his fingers curled around its cool smooth plastic, he suddenly remembered all those NO MOBILE PHONE signs displayed so prominently in filling stations. Mouthing a silent phew at his lucky escape, he jumped down to the ground.

Once he got to work on it, the windscreen all but fell out of its own accord and, with the large gap it left, Harold was now able to check on the truck’s driver at last.

The driver’s corner of the truck had borne the full brunt of the vehicle’s high speed impact with the unyielding concrete of the culvert’s wall. There was nothing anyone could do for the driver now.

Shaking his head, Harold carefully eased the passenger out of the truck and dragged him as gently as he could over to where he had left the other man, laying him down beside his comrade. He then dialled 911 and gave brief details of the men’s injuries and the location.

That done, he suddenly felt quite drained. All the tearing about at high speed, followed by all the scanning and cutting of metal and glass had apparently taken its toll. What he wouldn’t give for some pizza right now! No rest for the wicked, though, he told himself.

Slinging the straps of the two cases over his shoulders, Harold started walking along the culvert and away from the crash site – it wouldn’t do to be around when the medics (and Police, probably) showed up. Now, there had to be a service ladder or something around here somewhere.

Episode 81

2011-09-03T15:25:00.000-07:00

Harold found himself running across an area of rough ground, mostly loose, dry dirt with the odd tussock of scrubby grass dotted here and there. Behind him, he could hear the truck’s engine being revved and what sounded like a very bad-tempered clash of gears as it was hastily slammed into reverse. Hopefully, the Infinity Recycling crew would waste a lot of precious time getting the truck back out of the loading yard and onto the road again, time he could use to his advantage.

He looked back to see if any of them had followed him over the fence, but could see nothing except the sweep of the truck’s lights as it swung around, and even these disappeared as it drove out of the yard.

Where would they go?

Harold’s mind raced: having seen him run off into the dark, they would try to find a way onto this open area as soon as they could. He wasn’t out of the woods yet by a long chalk. Heh, woods would be quite handy in his current predicament.

Then he had an idea. Whipping out his phone, he called up Google Maps. It took a maddeningly long time for the app to work out where he was and display the map of the area, but eventually it appeared.

Up ahead, about half a mile off, Harold could see a line of moving lights. So that would be the highway indicated on the map just there then. So, that bit was the business park and there was the loading yard. Harold zoomed the image out to get the whole of the rough ground onto the screen. It looked like there was just the one place that a vehicle could get through and was it just over there….

Sure enough, as if on cue, like the eyes of some malevolent creature, the truck’s headlights appeared and began to grow larger as the vehicle bounced and bumped its way onto the field.

Harold headed for the lights of the highway. Maybe he’d be able to persuade someone to stop and give him a ride (unlikely! he admonished himself), but even so, once he actually was on the well-lit main road, surely the IR people wouldn’t be able to try and capture him without drawing a lot on unwelcome attention. It was definitely the best bet at this stage.

The truck’s engine roared as the driver floored the accelerator. Harold risked a look back and saw that the truck was on a somewhat oblique course to his; it looked like the truck’s occupants didn’t exactly know where he was at this point, which was fine by him.

The highway lights drew steadily closer. He might make it yet.

Suddenly, the truck accelerated past Harold on what was now almost a parallel course, albeit a hundred yards to the side. Darn it! They must have figured out the highway was his best bet and were trying to get there before he did. That was not good news: the open ground was a rough wedge shape with the narrowest part abutting the highway. If they did get there in time and got their freezing machine going again there was no way he was getting past them. He slowed to a stop; no point in running straight into their trap. The obvious thing would be to head back the way he’d come, putting maximum distance between himself and them.

He turned and began to run back.

Behind him, the truck’s engine, which had been a more or less constant roar suddenly rose in pitch, giving out a tortured mechanical scream. This lasted but a moment, however, before being cut off by a horrendous crashing sound, followed by the nails-on-blackboard screech of something heavy and metallic sliding against something very hard and very rough.

Then all at once there was silence.

Harold whirled round.

The truck was gone.

He stood there for a few moments, at a loss. In his experience, trucks did not just disappear. After a while, though, a new sound came to his ears, an irregular ticking interspersed with the occasional spong of cooling metal.

Harold made his way over to where the noise was coming from. The mystery of its sudden vanishing act was solved. A twenty foot wide, twenty foot deep solid concrete drainage culvert ran more of less parallel to the highway. The truck’s driver simply hadn’t seen it in time.

The truck lay on its side at the bottom of the far wall. It must have hit at an angle, its momentum flipping it round a full 180 degrees given that it was now facing back the way it had been going. From what Harold could see of it, the driver’s side was completely staved in and the rest of the truck looked pretty bent and battered. It wouldn’t be following anyone anywhere now.

For a moment his spirits soared. This was his chance! He could get away, hook up with Teatime, Othello and Mercury and figure out how to rescue Prada.

But, a more level-headed thought insisted, there were people in that truck. If they had survived the crash, they were very likely to be needing medical attention.

So call an ambulance and leave them to take care of it.

But an ambulance could take ages, those people needed help now.

But if they weren’t that badly injured after all, he’d be walking straight into their arms.

Not badly injured? Seriously? The truck was a mess.

Harold gazed at the crumpled truck for a moment longer and then with a sigh, walked to the edge of the culvert and jumped down into it.

Episode 80

2011-08-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

Harold risked a glance back over his shoulder as he ran. It looked like Prada was trying to make use of Teatime’s distraction herself: she was struggling manfully (girlfully?) in the grip of two of the silver-suited guards. The other two were pounding along the road after him. Of Teatime, there was no visible sign. He hoped the little monkey was ok. With any luck, the humans in their usual arrogance would overlook him as just a dumb animal and he would make good his escape.

What about Agent Prada, though?

A razor-edged icicle of guilt stabbed into his mind and he almost turned back for her. A second thought, however, hot on the heels of the first pointed out, quite reasonably, that getting himself captured would be no help whatsoever to anybody, so he shifted up a gear to put some distance between himself and his pursuers. His earthly vessel was not super-strong, but it was very fast and it did not get tired or out of breath. His pursuers were soon falling behind.

Inside the Infinity Recycling building, Nugent cursed softly as the red dot on the c-detector winked out.

“Unit four, this is Sec-1, what’s your status?”

Unit four’s leader responded after a few moments. “Sec-1, we have captured one of the intruders, the other one ran off. Roe and Rehman are in pursuit.”

“Copy that, unit four ”

Nugent switched to a different channel. “Mobile team, immediate scramble. We have a contact heading south.”

“Mobile team, acknowledged,” came the crisp reply.

Mercury and Othello were caught as flat-footed as Prada and Harold had been – only they didn’t have a handy monkey-shaped distraction, so ended up being matched ignominiously into the Infinity Recycling building by the unsmiling guards of Unit three.

As soon as he saw that Harold had got clear, Teatime leapt away from the flailing arms of the stupid human guards and set off in the same general direction as the demon. He had no hope of catching him, of course, but one direction was as good as another under the circumstances. Unlike Harold, however, Teatime had no qualms whatsoever about leaving Prada to her fate. So far as he was concerned, she could take care of herself and the guards’ weapons were clearly meant to intimidate rather than injure or kill since they had not tried to use them. Besides which, any humans struggling with her were humans who were not chasing him.

Somewhere far behind him, Harold heard an engine cough into life. This was not good: he could not possibly outrun a motor vehicle, and what if it was equipped like the one at the safe house that had managed to freeze him? He had to get away from the road and hope the vehicle was not set up to travel over rough terrain – not that there was much of that in this over-landscaped and asphalt-covered place.

The sound of the engine was growing louder now. It was a hungry, angry sound to Harold’s ears.

He veered off the main road and headed for a gap between Eaton-Brewer Inc and Knight Securities, a narrow service road of some kind. He hoped that the Infinity Recycling vehicle would carry on along the main route and that his short-cut would get him clear of the business park. If he could get to some roadless ground…

The buildings were two lightless boxes looming up on either side as he ran between them, his footfalls echoing madly off the walls. Behind him, he heard the vehicle shift down and slow – it was turning too! Harold was sure that the driver could not have actually seen him; the road was curved and he would have been far enough around to be out of sight, he was sure. Either the driver had got very lucky in his guesses or he had some means of tracking him. Now that would be really bad news. It made sense though: he and Prada had been very careful to stay a good distance from the cameras and lighting at Infinity Recycling and yet they had still been discovered. So, unless Mercury or Othello had blundered – and he could not believe they would have – it must have been his own presence that had alerted the strange silver-suited guards. It would appear they had some sort of demon-detection technology.

Project Dynamo had been perfected after all.

The service road emerged onto another road, running parallel to the original one. Harold ran straight across it, looking left and right in desperation, hoping for any kind of narrow gap that would prevent the vehicle from following. Nothing obvious presented itself and he could feel panic rising as the sound of the vehicle changed: it was now between the buildings and would emerge at any moment.

He took another service road. This one curved around the back of a building into a loading yard of some sort.

Dead end!

A high fence surrounded the yard. Harold glanced around wildly. He could hear the vehicle’s wheels bump up over a drainage grating that had marked the entrance to the service road. He could not be caught here!

Then he spied it – a dumpster hunkered down in the corner of the yard. He sprinted over to it, leapt up onto it, his feet clanging noisily on the metal of its lid, and bounced-jumped for the top of the fence.

His hands closed around the topmost horizontal bar and he began to heave himself up, ready to swing over the top.

The world was suddenly filled with light as the vehicle roared into the yard and screeched to a stop. Immediately, a strange whining sound filled the air and Harold’s vision swam crazily.

The freezing machine!

More terrified than he had ever been in his long life, he hurled himself over the top of the fence, not bothering to engineer a clever landing – he was a demon after all, and it was not like he would break an ankle.

He hit the dirt on the other side of the fence hard, rolled and staggered to his feet. His limbs felt unaccountably sluggish and heavy. He felt – what was the words the humans used, tired! His head was full of cotton wool. He lurched forward a step or two, the world tilting and listing crazily, then he took another few. A few yards behind him and a million miles away, the engine of the vehicle was idling now and he could hear shouts. They sounded angry. That was a good thing. He stumbled forward a few more drunken steps and suddenly started to feel more normal. Maybe the machine wasn’t fully switched on yet, maybe it had to warm up or something.

A balloon of hope and excitement suddenly inflated inside him and he pushed himself onward into the darkness, feeling better with every step.

Episode 79

2011-08-08T14:58:00.000-07:00

Moon put down the phone and jumped out of bed. A mixture of excitement and puzzlement was building inside him. The c-detectors at Infinity had never so much as twitched before now, except when rigged for staff training exercises. Nugent had said the reading was low - a mere 3.5, but it was stable and seemed to be moving purposefully and systematically around the outside of the site.

Moon tugged on his trousers and hurriedly fished his shirt and jacket off the floor. One shoe was playing hard-to-get under the bed and he had practically to lie down full-length to retrieve it.

There could really only be one explanation for the blip. Somehow, Mercury and his team, plus their pet demon by the looks of things, had figured out where the facility was! Keys, phone, phone, phone! Where the hell was his phone? Oh, there it was on the bedside table. How on earth had they managed to find out where the facility was? Flowers's interrogation of Box had revealed that they knew nothing worth knowing. The facility wasn't even officially listed as belonging to Infinity Recycling - only some serious digging would have revealed the connection. Someone obviously had been digging, though, probably Othello, he would have been the only one smart enough. Flinging on his jacket, Moon headed for the door.

The quiet of the night was broken by the sound of an approaching vehicle.

"Quick, get down behind here," Prada whispered, tugging Harold's arm. They both crouched down behind Adept Engineering's conveniently placed and neatly clipped box hedge. Teatime hopped off Harold's shoulder and moved toward the hedge with a view to climbing up it.

"How exciting is this?" whispered Harold excitedly.

"Don't get too enthusiastic," she whispered back, "we're just keeping a low profile is all, just a precaution. After all, it's unlikely anybody would look twice at us anyway, but still..."

Teatime peered over the top of the hedge as the vehicle passed by. After a moment, he clambered down to ground level.

"False alarm, chaps," he said, "It was just a delivery van or some such."

Nugent repositioned the CCTV cameras to point to the area corresponding to the dot on the c-detector. Annoyingly, the area lay just beyond the reach of the perimeter lighting, so he brought the thermal camera to bear on the same spot. Aha! Two crouching figures could be made out, along with a third much smaller one on the ground next to them. Nugent spoke into his headset microphone.

"Units one, two and three, search your sectors, we have a positive in sector 4 and there may be others."

"Unit four. You have two targets and possibly a small animal of some kind on your front porch."

"Unit four, copy." came the crisp reply.

It was as if the guards appeared out of nowhere. Prada and Harold scrambled to their feet as the six men appeared suddenly to shimmer into existence around them. They were all dressed from head-to-toe in a snug-fitting uniform of some strange-looking material. It resembled more than anything the sort of shiny nylon silver suits actors wore in old sci-fi B movies that were meant to show that in the far, far future mankind may have had jet-packs and food pills, but absolutely no sense of style. The guards' heads were covered in a ski-mask like affair of the same stuff and round their waists they had broad pouched belts, a-la Batman, and some kind of oblong backpacks on their backs. Science Fiction props their costumes might have been, but the weapons they were now drawing looked perfectly realistic.

One of the men, a leader of some sort presumably, whipped off his ski mask. Underneath, he was revealed to be a pleasant-looking, blond man in his late twenties.

"Sir? Ma-am?" he began, "I have to inform you you're trespassing on private property and I'm gonna have to ask you to come with us please"

Harold and Prada glanced at each other, neither sure exactly what to do. Of course, the guards might just want to ask them a few questions and then let them go on their way, in which case, there would be no harm in going with them. On the other hand, if the guards were part of the shadowy organisation responsible for the disappearance of the angels and demons and possibly the murder of Agent Emerald as well, it would be very foolish to go with them right now.

Suddenly, one of the guards grabbed at his head as a quick, agile shape landed upon it and began tearing at the ski mask covering the man's face.

"Run!" screeched Teatime in Infernal and leapt off the man's head just as one of his colleagues took a swipe at him.

Harold vaulted the low hedge and ran.

Episode 78

2011-07-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

It was night once more, with just a few stars showing, as Mercury stopped the car.

"OK," he said, "The place Moon visited today is just at the end of this road on the right – you've seen it on Google earth. We're just going to go around the outside and see what we can see for ourselves. Be on the lookout for cameras and any other security . The whole idea is just to get a good look and see if there might be a way in or if there's anything else we can learn about the place. Let's try not to arouse suspicion."

Harold could feel a tingle of excitement as he got out of the car. They had finally made some real progress, they were finally closing in on their mysterious adversary.

Looking around though, he had to admit that, as secret headquarters went, this place was a bit of a let-down. The business park was typical of its type – a campus of single or two-storey brick buildings, as alike as Lego blocks. Each pale brick-built building was surrounded by a block-paved parking area and the regulation amount of carefully landscaped but essentially uninspired lawn and planting. Each building had a tasteful sign proclaiming the name of the company housed in it – Adept Engineering, MillCo, Branch & Simons, and so on.

"We'll be approaching Moon's building from the rear, which should be less obtrusive, but we still need to be careful." Mercury said quietly. "Prada, you're with the demon and Mr Teatime. Othello, you're with me." He took out his phone and dialled India's number. "OK, we're at the park and we're about to do a circuit of the building."

They set off, splitting up at the next intersection, so as to approach the building from different directions and save time by covering the area in two teams.

"Looks like a few things have changed since Google maps last photographed this place." murmured Prada, as she and Harold looked at Infinity Recycling's premises. Unlike the other Lego blocks on the park, this one had a 10-foot high fence of sturdy metal railings running around it. The landscaping had been torn out and replaced by asphalt. The building itself was not noticeably different from any others on the park. A couple of white trucks and a handful of cars were parked in the parking area and, while most of the building was in darkness, light glowed behind drawn blinds in a couple of the ground floor windows. The parking area itself was well-lit by tall light poles around the perimeter.

"There seems to be an awful lot of security for a recycling business," said Teatime. "I can't imagine anyone wanting to steal what is essentially rubbish."

"Maybe they recover gold from old circuit boards or something, or maybe it's toxic stuff and they need to keep people out for safety." said Prada, peering up at a light pole next to the fence. "Is that a camera up there?"

Harold looked where she was indicating and saw the telltale shape. "Looks like there might be more than one." he said.

"Maybe they've got infrared as well, just in case." Prada got out her notebok and jotted this detail down, marking the position of the pole on a sketch-map. She took out a camera of her own and took a few quick photos. "OK, Let's move around the next corner."

They started walking, being careful to stay well out of the range of the light.

Inside the building, a security guard set down his coffee mug. The console in front of him had emitted a beep, and a red LED was flashing. Below it, a monitor showed a red dot moving slowly to the east of the building. The security guard's heart-rate increased: this particular monitor had never shown anything, except during training exercises.

He picked up the phone and dialled a few digits. "This is Nugent at Security-one. Sorry to disturb you, but I thought you should know that the c-detector's just lit up. Yes, for real"

Episode 77

2011-04-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

Moon stopped his car at the entrance to a non-descript campus on an equally unimpressive business park. A uniformed guard emerged from the little hut next to the security barrier, clip board in hand, and motioned for Moon to lower his window.

Moon turned off his car stereo, cutting off the sound of Mitch Carpenter, lead singer of Chip off the Old Block, going on about how his heart felt like it had a great big Charley Horse now all his happiness had fled because of old ladies' gossip or some such twaddle - at least that's what it had sounded like. That was one CD that was definitely going back to its lender without being copied!

He gave his name and showed his id to the guard and was waved through quickly enough.

Now that he was actually here, he could feel the excitement building inside him. The phone call last evening had been most intriguing. If the project had actually come up with some real results, he wouldn't be the only one with cause for gratitude. The implications were staggering,

Haines was waiting for him in the Spartan little reception area. Moon signed in and the two men walked wordlessly to the laboratory where the demonstration was to take place.

As they entered the lab, Dr Flowers stood up behind her desk and greeted Moon warmly.
"Welcome, would you like some coffee or something before we get started?"
"No thanks, I had one just before setting out," Moon gazed around the room in bemused interest. There was a definite Heath-Robinson look to a lot of the equipment - a sort of mix and match approach, connecting all kinds of disparate bits of electrical and electronic components had been adopted, by the looks of it.

Flowers saw Moon looking.

"At this early stage, we're still trying to figure things out." she said, "Obviously, once we've refined our techniques, we can build something a little less messy-looking. Shall we start? If you take a seat here, you'll get a good view."

Haines sat down on a stool next to a large, blocky piece of equipment, encrusted with lights and dials and with numerous wires coming out of it. He then proceeded to pull onto his head what looked for all the world like a swimming cap. The cap was covered with round metal clips.

Flowers moved in and began to connect the wires from the equipment to the clips on Haines's swimming cap. When they were all connected, she flipped switches and the large box hummed to life.

"All set?" she asked.

Haines nodded.

Flowers picked up a telephone that lay next to the blinky-lights box.

"Pilkington? Switch on number three, if you please."

She replaced the handset and moved to where a lumpy shape lay under green surgical cloths on the bench.

She twitched these aside and Moon was surprised to see the body of a small monkey lying underneath.

Noticing Moon's startled reaction, Flowers smiled. "Don't worry," she said, "it's not dead, just anaesthetised." She lifted another cloth to reveal a surgical tray and instruments. Quickly donning some rubber gloves, she swabbed an area on the monkey's arm with antiseptic. It looked to Moon like a patch had been shaved in the monkey's fur. Flowers then took a scalpel from the tray and with deft precision, made a two-inch cut in the monkey's skin. Immediately, blood flowed out onto the green sheets. Flowers stepped aside and motioned to Haines, who stepped up to where Flowers had stood.

"Watch closely," said Flowers, and Moon leaned in, transfixed.

Haines reached over to where the little monkey lay and touched its arm, Moon wasn't sure, but he thought he saw the most minuscule flash or spark of blue run from Haines's finger to the animal. Haines then stepped back, a strangely euphoric look on his face.. With the blood covering the area, Moon could not see that anything had changed. He looked at Flowers with a quizzical expression. She grinned, stepped forward and swabbed the blood away.

"Amazing!" breathed Moon.

There was no sign whatsoever of the cut Flowers had just made.

Episode 76

2011-04-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

Seeing Harold's crestfallen look, Teatime gave an exasperated sigh.

"Well you needn't look so sorry for yourself," he scolded, "I mean, you didn't seriously believe, even for one second, that you'd be staying here when this lot's all over, did you?"

"To be honest," admitted Harold, gloomily "I hadn't actually been thinking about it at all. I got kind of caught up the excitement of trying to solve the mystery and, well, you know..." he trailed off.

"Well, I hate to break it to you, old sock," replied the little monkey, "but for you and your kind, there just aren't any happy endings, and it's no use pretending there are."

Harold stood up, picked up his plate and cutlery and carried them to the sink before opening the kitchen door.

"Now, where are you off to?" inquired Teatime.

"Just going outside into the garden for a while." replied Harold, stepping outside, "The sun will be up in a few hours and thought I'd grab a chance to enjoy the coolness."

A few stars were out, scattered randomly about the dark velvet sky like shiny crumbs dropped from some celestial table. Harold took a deep breath. The rich scent of the night garden was magical, heady and musky. A light breeze fingered the trees and plants that grew in shapeless profusion in the large enclosure of Mr Teeth's garden, causing them to whisper to one another conspiratorially.

Harold strolled across the smooth green carpet of the lawn to where he could make out a small stone seat next to a pond. Mr Teeth – or his landscaper – had designed with sensitivity: the little stone bench was simple and the pond artfully natural-looking. Harold sat down and shook his head. He liked Teatime really, and was somewhat in awe of his intelligence and general savoir-faire, but most charitable thing that could probably be said of the little fellow was that he lacked empathy at times. Scratch that, thought Harold ruefully. Teatime, my friend, you might be able to out-think me blindfolded and with one hand tied behind your back, but you're about as subtle as a pregnant rhino on a bad hormone day. He smiled at the image his train of thought had conjured up.

Overhead, a shower of meteorites appeared in the sky, blazing for a few moments against the blackness, only to disappear as suddenly as they arrived. Harold watched it. The night was really putting on a show for its lone spectator, it seemed. He would miss things like this. Humans had so much beauty to enjoy all the time. Still, there was nothing to be done about it, so there was no use moping. He lingered in the garden, savouring the time alone, until the first rays of the sun began to apply touches of colour to everything.

-0-0-0-0-

"Damn vending machine's only got mushroom soup, no tomato, sorry, Doc." The voice had lost its mosquito whine and was sounding more normal as it swirled into the consciousness of the Listener. How it knew what was normal for these voices it was not sure, but it did know, which was a small anchor-point in a vast dark sea of uncertainty.

"Oh well," Came the second voice (the Flowers woman, the Listener thought). "It'll have to do. Now let's go over what we're going to be doing this afternoon, I want RolexBoy to be genuinely impressed with what we're doing here."

"Enough to keep funding us, anyway." chuckled the first voice.

"There's more than just money at stake here, Haynes," chided Flowers.

"I know, sorry, Doc."

"Anyway," continued Flowers, "We had good repeatability yesterday with the monkeys, so I thought we should show him them."

"Just the monkeys?"

"Yes, why, what are you thinking?"

"Well," said Haynes, "I was thinking we could maybe do something a little more ambitious. Maybe demonstrate on one of us."

"On an actual human?" Flowers's voice had risen somewhat and was bordering on the unattractively shrill, "Are you mad? We've only just about got a reliable result with the monkeys – and that's only been since yesterday. It's way too risky to contemplate – and certainly not in front of the paying customer, as it were. Plus, there is the small matter of ethics. No, we'll use one of the monkeys to show him."

"I wasn't thinking of doing anything life-threatening, it would of course be a volunteer and there'd be just a small – "

"Absolutely not!" Flowers was adamant.

"You're the boss." sighed Haynes.

You're the boss.

Boss.

Boss.

The word sent a thrill though the Listener. He had been a boss once. He had been called that by somebody. The memory was like the thinnest gossamer strand - if the Listener tugged on it too hard, it would snap and leave nothing behind.

Gently, oh, so gently, the Listener allowed the whisp of memory to float where it would. Soon, it touched something and other memories began to appear one by one. A city, music, laughter. Light.

Episode 75

2011-03-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

“Quickly! Paper towels and boiling water, for pity’s sake!” gasped Teatime, as he hurtled past an astonished Harold and on down the corridor. Harold closed Moon’s door as quietly as possible before setting off after the little monkey.

“What on earth happened to you?” he asked as he caught up, “and – what IS that awful smell?”

“That perishing Moon fellow decided he wanted a midnight snack, so I was forced to sequester myself at short notice in his kitchen rubbish bin – a most unpleasant and malodorous place of concealment, I can tell you.” replied Teatime. “It is a mystery to baffle even the wisest sage why humans, with a world of delicious natural foods to choose from, still insist on filling their bellies with such disgusting lifeless fare as comes in little film-wrapped plastic trays, which they then consume whilst in the mindless, slack-jawed thrall of the television. I ended up sitting in the semi-congealed remains of such a dish – an experience which could actually be improved by a long hot soak in a bath of industrial waste!”

Harold burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny!” Teatime cried, crossly. “I was in there for simply ages. The fellow just would not go back to bed.”

“Begging your pardon,” laughed Harold, “but it is rather hilarious – having to hide in a bin – you couldn’t make this stuff up.”

“No, you jolly well couldn’t!” agreed the little monkey huffily.

“What were you doing in the kitchen, anyway?” asked Harold.

“Oh, I decided to take the opportunity to rustle up a three course dinner, of course!” retorted Teatime, “ What do you THINK I was doing there? I was looking for the key to Moon’s briefcase, the wretched fellow had locked it so I wasn’t able to plant the tracker inside.”

“I see. But you did plant the tracker somewhere?”

“Yes, yes, I settled for slipping it into the lining of his jacket in the end – I just hope he continues to wear it.”

“Well, that’s better than nothing anyway,” said Harold, “I’m just glad we weren’t discovered.”

“Indeed,” agreed Teatime.

Outside the building, the street was fairly dark and quiet. In the distance an ambulance siren wailed. Harold walked down the street and round the corner to where Othello was waiting in the car.

“Mission accomplished,” he said, climbing in.

“What took you so long?” asked Othello. “I was about to come in after you.”

“It’s a long story,” laughed Harold. “But not terribly newsworthy.” He added, seeing Teatime’s scowl. Othello grunted and started up the car.

They soon arrived back at Mr Teeth’s, where only Mercury was still waiting up for them.

“Well, let’s hope Moon doesn’t find the tracker or any traces of our little visit,” he said, after hearing the night’s events, as related by a grinning Harold, “he’s as sharp as a tack, that one, and can probably put two and two together as well as anybody.” He stifled a huge yawn, “Well, I think I’ll turn in now, see you in the morning.” He wandered off in the direction of the bedrooms.

“You know,” said Harold, “all that talk of kitchens and food has made me realise we haven’t had any proper food for hours – those sugar cookies have completely worn off. Fancy sharing some sort of disgusting lifeless fare with me?”

“Very funny,” said Teatime.

They wandered into the kitchen where a quick rummage through Mr Teeth’s cupboards and refrigerator yielded various cold meats, a heap of salad, bread and butter and a pile of enough fresh fruit to make even Teatime salivate a little.

“Right,” declared Harold, “that looks about enough. Let’s try it on for size.”

They set to.

“I hope this tracker device thing works out,” said Teatime, after a while.

“Yeah, it’d be nice to finally make some real progress at last,” agreed Harold. “Just think, we might actually solve the case in a few days. I can’t wait!”

“Really?” asked Teatime, “I’d have thought you would have wanted it to last as long as possible.”

“Why would I want that?” asked Harold, puzzled.

“Well, old biscuit,” explained the little monkey, “Once the case is finally over, these humans aren’t exactly going to let you hang about up here, are they? It’ll be back to the Basement for you before you can say Jack Robinson, won’t it?”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that.” Said Harold.

He put down his knife and fork, his appetite had suddenly disappeared.

Episode 74

2011-03-20T14:13:00.000-07:00

Teatime crouched anxiously in Moon’s garbage bin, keeping as still as possible. This was not easy, as he seemed to be sitting in a disgusting-smelling plastic meal tray, complete with popcorn-sized lumps of a decidedly squishy substance still adhering to it. As the sounds of Moon moving about in the kitchen came to him inside the malodorous receptacle (a bowl of cereal and a glass of water seemed to be in order), Teatime’s initial relief at having hidden himself so quickly disappeared like so much melting snow, to be replaced by an exasperated questioning in his mind of the wisdom of hiding in a place from which there was no possibility of escape if discovered.

For his part, Moon was a little puzzled: as he’d made his way across the living room with a view to fixing himself a little snack (the macaroni cheese ready meal had been as unsatisfying as it had been unappetising), he’d been sure he’d heard a noise coming from the kitchen, but when he’d arrived and flipped on the light, all had been still and quiet - apart from one thing. The cutlery drawer had been slightly open. Now Moon was sure he’d left it properly closed. Nothing else was amiss though, so he dismissed the noise as a product of the imagination of a half-asleep brain.

As he dipped his spoon into the cereal and munched, he thought about the possible new chapter in his life that looked to be opening up. The message he’d received earlier that day had been most promising, but on no account was he going to get his hopes up too much – that way lay disappointment. Still, so long as his informant hadn’t been painting too rosy a picture of things, there was much to hope for.

Moon paused for a moment to give silent thanks for the wanderlust that had taken him on that trip to Europe. It had almost cleaned out his then meagre bank account, but it had been so worth it to have run purely by chance into his uncle in Switzerland. And what a momentous meeting it had turned out to be. They’d met on a climb and had hit it off almost immediately. It had taken them both some time to realise they were related, but by then they were fast friends anyway. Once back home, Moon had found a job in OGS more-or-less waiting for him. Everything had been going along very nicely after that - until Moon had got a call telling him his uncle had been injured in a climbing accident. As the last of the cereal disappeared, revealing the ridiculous hearts-and-flowers motif at the bottom of the bowl, Moon felt more hopeful than he had at any time since then. If things worked out, after tomorrow, everybody would have to sit up and take notice: not just OGS, with its internal politics and adherence to the old ways, but eventually the whole world.

Episode 73

2011-02-20T07:03:00.000-08:00

The sweetness of the sugar cookies was but a distant memory. The minutes ticked by as Harold loitered in the corridor awaiting Teatime's return. The little monkey seemed to be taking an awfully long time and Harold was feeling more and more conspicuous. Should anyone happen along, the sight of a strange, unkempt fellow clad in too-short jeans and scruffy leather jacket would be sure to raise an eyebrow or two. It wasn't a bit like on TV, where, whenever there was any kind of covert operation going on, they never showed this side of things - the waiting about while someone else did all the exciting bits. Earlier that day, they had discussed the idea of Harold himself going into Moon's apartment to plant the trackers, but it was agreed that Teatime, who was small and nimble would be less likely to disturb a sleeping Moon.

Inside the apartment, which was dark now that Harold had let the front door close, Teatime was doing his very best to be silent and to disturb nothing. He waited for a few minutes in the main room to allow his eyes to adjust fully to the darkness and to get his bearings. He had a torch (a tiny booklight, actually), but was loathe to use it unless absolutely necessary. Around him, the shapes of the furniture gradually began to take dim shape out of the darkness. Human things looked so big and clumsy-looking! Somewhere in the room, a clock ticked away, neatly snipping off each pregnant second. From the bedroom, Teatime could just hear Moon's deep regular breathing. Good, he was properly asleep.

Once satisfied that his night vision was as good as it was ever going to be, he began the search for Moon's briefcase. The OGS agents were sure that he took this with him just about everywhere, so it was a logical place to hide a tracker. In one corner of the room, there was a small computer desk. Thinking it a likely place for Moon to have left the case, Teatime headed over to it, but there was nothing to be found except an old book of matches that had at some point been dropped on the carpet under the desk. Tut, tut, messy boy, thought Teatime. He scanned the room again, this time from the higher vantage point of the desk itself. Aha! There by the coffee table! That had to be it, surely. Teatime jumped noiselessly down to the floor and padded over the expanse of carpet to the dark oblong shape. Carefully, he laid it on its side and examined the catches. His hands being as tiny as they were, Teatime needed to use both on one catch. He pressed with all his strength on the little button that would release the left-hand clasp. The button pressed in alright, but the clasp stayed firmly engaged. Locked! Of all the bad luck! Now he'd have to go searching for the key.

As quickly and quietly as he could, Teatime went around the room looking on every flat surface – climbing up onto every shelf, peering under every piece of furniture. Humans were notoriously careless about these things, so the blasted keys could be anywhere. He'd overheard dozens of conversations involving people having lost keys and things simply because they could never be bothered to designate a particular place to put the perishing things. Honestly, for a dominant species... Teatime could feel the frustration building up inside himself. He had covered the room now and all he had discovered was a biro, a model space ship, a tasteless pair of earrings in the shape of tiny corn-on-the-cobs (a present for some unfortunate female, no doubt) and a crib-sheet listing the keyboard commands for a computer game which rejoiced in the peerless title of Moustache-Monty and the Cabbage-Lords of Pluto.
Where else could the keys be? Teatime heartily hoped that Moon had not taken them into the bedroom with him - that would put the tin lid on it for sure. Maybe in a kitchen drawer....

A streetlamp outside the kitchen window provided a more convenient level of illumination. Teatime hopped up onto a counter and looked around. On the drainer was a mug with a wishing well on it, a plate and some cutlery. In one corner, a biscuit barrel in the shape of an ample bodied piggie grinned back at him from next to a jar of instant coffee and an open packet of sugar. The front of the refrigerator had been turned into an ad hoc notice board with things attached to it by little magnets in the shape of cute chubby angels (Teatime quelled the urge to vomit). His eye fell on a note containing a reminder to tell Annie to "buy some make-up for the baby shower". Whose baby shower it was, or who Annie was, Teatime could not begin to guess, but these little snippets of another's life were quite fascinating in a way. Still, there was no time for such distraction now.

Carefully, he tried one of the top drawers. It was not easy to get the thing open from his position on the countertop, but he couldn't reach it from floor-level. He managed to slide the drawer open about an inch. Feeling that any speed added to his search by having a light far outweighed any risk of discovery, Teatime switched on his little booklight and peered in. Cutlery and no keys. The next drawer had cooking utensils and no keys. The last one had tea towels – and no keys. It looked like he would have to take the plunge and search the bedroom after all. How annoying!

Teatime slid the last drawer closed and then froze. A light had come on in the apartment somewhere, he could see it lighting up the living room through the kitchen doorway. There came the sound of a great yawn, followed by the creak of the bed as Moon got out of it. Then the soft sound of bare feet padding across the living room carpet presaged Moon's imminent appearance. Suppressing the indescribable urge to let out a monkey-screech of fright, Teatime looked for a hiding place.

There was but one, of course. Typical, he thought as he scrambled in. It was like the worst soap opera plot: the bad guy just has to get the midnight munchies at the worst possible moment and the only place to hide is... the rubbish bin!

Epsidoe 72

2011-02-06T14:23:00.000-08:00

"Hold on, not so fast." said Harold, "We can't just go running in there. Agent Moon won't be asleep yet, we have to give him chance to eat his supper and go to bed - or whatever he does at the end of the day. Agent Othello said he would call us."

"True enough, old Sock," said Teatime, "Got a bit carried away by the drama of the thing. So now we wait, I suppose."

Harold sat down on the floor and leaned back against a wall. He fished in the sports bag and brought out a paperback he had picked up earlier that evening - The Curious Case of the Candle-Holder and the Wind Chimes. It was a cheap and tacky murder mystery, but it would pass the time. Teatime tutted and fetched out a book of his own - an altogether more worthy tome on the history of the Inuit. About an hour went by when Teatime closed his book with a snap and said,

"Right, why don't you break out some of those sugar cookies you bought? I'm quite keen to get on the outside of some of them."

Harold shrugged and brought out the cookies. Soon he and Teatime set to and it wasn't much longer before there was nothing left but a few crumbs and the wrapper. Harold idly turned it over in his hands. It was a gaudy paprika-coloured thing, with a sickly-sweet close-up picture of a child's smiling mouth wide open to devour one of the cookies. The name of the product was written in such bizarrely stylised lettering that it might as well have written in ancient runes. Harold crumpled it up and tucked it back into the sports bag.

"No sense leaving behind evidence of our being here." He said, "Or of making a mess."

Teatime rolled his eyes, "A litter-conscious demon!" he sighed, "You're still not getting the hang of this whole evil malarkey are you?"

"I can't see the point of it." replied Harold, "The humans seem quite good at it all on their own without us lending a hand."

"That's not the point, though, is it?" said Teatime, his voice assuming that familiar didactic tone that Harold wasn't particularly keen on, "Your side lost. The losers don't get to dictate the terms of their surrender, the winners do. So you get to do the dirty work of providing mankind with a means to exercise his free will. End of story."

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," grumbled Harold.

"Well you should have thought of that before you threw in your lot with your so-called father."

"I know," Harold sighed, "But there's no going back now. The Penthouse does not forget - or forgive. Not the likes of us, anyway."

"So what have you got to lose? If there's no hope of a way back...?" The little monkey let the question hang in the air.

"You sound like my father," said Harold, "He keeps saying that and then calls me stubborn when I refuse to agree. Anyway, this is more fun than running around tempting silly humans, don't you think?"

"It has a certain appeal," admitted Teatime, "Although I wish we didn't have to spend all our time with those stick-in-the-mud agents."

"Well we're stuck with them unless we want to spend our time dodging Baruthiel and that big sword of his."

Demon and monkey lapsed into a rather tense silence after this. After about another twenty minutes, Harold's phone buzzed.

"Moon's apartment is in darkness from what I can see," came Othello's voice. "Suggest you make your move."

"Will do," said Harold and ended the call. "Right then," he said brightly, "Let's go." He replaced the black wig and the spectacles, but left his face as it was - he would change it only if they were discovered. He handed Teatime a small drawstring bag, which the latter slung over his shoulder.

They made their way quietly down the stairs to floor six. Harold pushed the door open quietly a crack and looked up and down the corridor.

"Coast's clear," he said quietly, "Come on".

They walked quietly along the corridor to Agent Moon's door. As the corridor was lit, albeit quite dimly, it was not easy to see if Moon's lights really were off or not. They would just have to trust Othello's judgement.

Harold placed his hands against the wood of the door and felt with his senses for the lock on the other side. Moon was obviously security-conscious: the door was secured with both a five-lever mortise plus a chain. For several seconds, nothing happened.

"Hurry up, old button," urged Teatime, "If someone should happen along..."

"I'm doing my best," Harold whispered back, "Why couldn't there have been a handy heating vent leading into Moon's place that you could have crawled into, then I wouldn't have to stand here like a lemon."

"That kind of ridiculously contrived convenience only happens in films and those cheap novels you enjoy so much, now do get on with it, there's a good fellow,"

Harold returned his attention to the door and concentrated harder. Minutes ticked by. If Harold had been human his muscles would have been seriously cramped and sore from crouching over the lock. As it was his mind was beginning to get fuzzy when, at last, there came a soft click. Harold eased the door open a little, as far as the chain would allow. He gestured for Teatime to go through the gap.

"Are you mad?" whispered the little monkey, "You couldn't get an envelope through there. We need to undo the chain, for pity's sake!"

Allowing the door to re-close a little and propping it open just a crack with his foot, Harold picked up Teatime and held him while he got his tiny arm through the gap and disengaged the chain - which had just enough slack to allow this.

"Ok, in you go and good luck" whispered Harold as the tiny simian disappeared into the darkness.

Episode 71

2011-01-30T13:24:00.000-08:00

It was past sunset when Agent Moon opened the heavy glass front door to his apartment block and stepped into the porch. As he fished about in his pocket for his key to the door leading into the entrance lobby proper, he caught sight of a movement reflected in the glass in front of him. Tugging out his earphones (the soundtrack of Kissing Cousins would have to wait), he turned round to see a rather scruffy-looking man of about his own age approaching, toting a large sports bag. The man's unfashionably long black hair flopped over his spectacles with every step as he bounced up the steps. He pushed open the outer door.

“Excuse me,” the newcomer gasped, “I’ve gone and left my building key in my apartment. Do you mind if I come inside with you? I'd really appreciate it.”

Moon wasn’t keen. He didn’t know this man. Granted, he didn’t know many of the people in his building, but he thought he’d seen most of them around at least. This fellow he had not seen, and didn't quite like the look of, although he didn't seem to be drunk or whacked out on drugs or anything. Anyway, in the confines of the porch, it was going to be difficult to stop him if he really wanted in. Moon shrugged.

“Sure,” He applied his key to the lock.

“Open Sesame!” said the stranger, theatrically..

“What?” Moon turned, frowning. This guy was beginning to creep him out.

“Oh, nothing,” said the stranger with an apologetic little laugh. “Sorry. Just something my old Dad used to say." He glanced at his watch, "It was really handy you turning up when you did, I didn't fancy having to hang around till morning.”

Moon grunted, turned the key and pushed the door open.

At this hour, the lobby was dim and quiet, and smelt faintly of floor cleaner and eucalyptus. A long polished oak counter ran down one side where, during the day, the concierge sat grumpy sentinel. Behind the counter was a bank of pigeon holes for residents’ mail.

Moon skirted the counter and collected his letters – two bills, yet more junk mail from Bucket List Superior Holidays (how he wished he’d not left his details on their website!) and a poor photocopy of a proposal by the building’s residents committee on tackling the rats in the basement, detailing who much everyone would be charged for their eradication.

When he turned around again, the stranger was strolling towards the building’s single elevator, his heels clicking on the polished black and white parallelogram-patterned tiles. Moon followed. He was not entirely happy about having to share the elevator car with this odd fellow, but there was only the one car and he didn’t fancy the stairs.

The stranger pushed the call button. The elevator emitted a soft bong, the doors slid open and the two men got in.

“Which floor?” asked Moon, hand hovering over the button panel.

“Oh, er, seven, please.” replied the stranger.

Moon jabbed seven, then his own, six. The doors wheezed closed and the car began its groaning and rattling ascent. Not being the most modern or rapid of transports, the journey took the best part of a minute, which both men spent in slightly awkward silence. The stranger glanced at his watch again, Moon noticed. At last the elevator stopped and Moon was able to step out into his familiar hallway. He hurried along to his own door and, with some relief, heard the lift doors close and the machinery start up once more. Once safely inside his own appartment, Moon relaxed.

"You're growing old and paranoid," he said to himself as he dropped his keys into the conveniently-shaped lap of a jade carving of the Buddha which sat on the hall table. "That guy was just a guy that got locked out, nothing more."

He wandered into the kitchen area.

There was nothing in the freezer but a few icicles and a macaroni and cheese ready meal which had been there for some time. With a sigh, and a promise to himself to go shopping the next day, Moon extracted it, removed the packaging and tossed the unappetising thing into the microwave to heat before flopping onto the couch and turning on the TV.

A documentary about some volcano was showing, and over the sound of ritualistic chanting, the narrator was just describing how the mountain had been sacred to the locals, who would make sacrifice to their gods by hurling people and animals into the fiery chasm at the mountain's heart. The man's face was sweating and flushed, bathed in the lurid orange glow coming from the crater behind him.

The hum of the microwave mixed with the chanting and the smooth tones of the presenter in a pleasingly soporific way, and Moon soon felt himself slipping toward sleep, only to be startled awake by the shrill beep of the microwave, alerting him to the fact that his dinner was ready.

-0-0-0-0-

In the stairwell leading down to the sixth floor, the black-haired stranger knelt down, placed his sports bag carefully on the floor and unzipped it. At once, a small grey shape clambered out of the opening.

"About perishing time, too!" grumbled Teatime, "I was almost suffocating in there."

"Nonsense," laughed Harold, "You were fine. Anyway, we're in!"

"Hmph, well, anyway. Do you think he suspected anything?"

"Nope," said Harold proudly, "I think I convinced him I was some oddball living on seventh." He pulled off the black wig and glasses, and allowed his face to resume its usual shape and colouration. He'd worked hard all afternoon on a suitable disguise but, with his limited abilities, had just about managed to get to the stage where he could only reliably hold his new face for a short period of time – hence the incessant clock-watching. As hair had proved too tricky a proposition altogether, a wig had been found, and the spectacles were added as an extra layer of distraction, just in case.

"Right then, old Sock, let's get busy," said Teatime.

Episode 70

2011-01-15T14:28:00.000-08:00

“If Moon is our traitor,” sighed Mercury, “I suppose it would explain a lot. We weren’t being particularly secretive about our investigations when we were operating out of Aunt Bessie’s, were we? He could easily have overheard what we were up to, and he would have access to our files as well." He shook his head sadly, "I still find it hard to believe, though.”

“The thing is, what can we do about him?” said Othello.

“We could grab him and threaten him till he sings like a canary!” suggested Prada, “Only kidding,” she continued hastily, “but we could maybe confront him.”

“He’d just deny everything and act all innocent, and it would be our word against his.”

“We could tell Director Opal our suspicions,” suggested India. “He might be persuaded to launch an official investigation.”

“He’d want more proof than just our suspicions, and all we really have is circumstantial stuff.” replied Mercury. “We really need to get something more concrete if we’re to get rid of him.”

“Are we sure we actually want to, as you say, get rid of him?” said Teatime.

“What do you suggest?”

“Well, our traitor’s biggest advantage has always been that we didn’t know who he was. Now we do – or think we do - and he doesn’t know that we know, if you take my meaning.”

“So the question then becomes, what use can we make of this situation?” said Othello. “Hmm, We need to know exactly how he’s connected into all this – is he just naively passing information or is he actually organising things. I, for one, would definitely like to know whether he knew about the bomb in the Osprey building.”

“OK, so let’s think about how we can de-claw our tiger then,” said Mercury, relieved to have something concrete to focus on, “Box? Do you have any ideas?”

“Well, there’s one that springs to mind,” replied Box, “You could follow him around, see where he goes, who he talks to and so on. If he doesn’t realise he’s been rumbled, he won’t be taking too many precautions against that kind of thing.“

“Maybe you could plant one of those clever little tracking things on him.” suggested Harold who had been quite impressed with this particular piece of technology.

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” said Othello.

“We should do both,” said Mercury. “Someone should be close enough to Moon to get pictures – both for our own investigation and also for evidence to show Opal if needs be.”

“The best place to hook up with him again will probably be at Aunt Bessie’s,” said Prada.

-0-0-0-0-

Dr Flowers finished off the last of her bagel, pushed aside her empty plate and picked up the newspaper. She always liked to have a few minutes alone with some carbohydrates and the daily news as a way to re-focus after the nightmare of the morning traffic and the tedium of the morning checks. The headlines were full of a mixture of gloom (Tensions Heating up in Middle East) the promising (Seventy-Year-Old Inventor Patents Non-Stick Chewing Gum) and the frankly odd (Sotheby’s Declares Hitler’s Shoe A Fake). There came a brisk knock at the door and Haynes walked in. Flowers folded up the paper with a small sigh and tossed it on top of a pile of medical books.

“Sorry to disturb you, Doctor,” Haynes said, “the computer’s finished analysing the last batch of readings and I thought you’d be interested to see.” He held out his clipboard. Flowers took it from him and inspected it carefully.

“Looks like we’re finally getting what we need.” She said.
“We’re double-checking, but if these numbers are confirmed, we could move to the next stage as early as tomorrow.”

“I think so, too. Give RolexBoy a call and tell him we’re almost ready for him.”

Episode 69

2011-01-08T15:25:00.000-08:00

High summer clouds against a dazzling blue sky, the raucous cry of seabirds and a seaport busy with shipping. The pungent smell of fish…

The Listener clutched at this wisp of recollection as it floated by, and pulled it into itself, adding to the small ball of self-awareness which was coalescing in the dark nothingness. Where had it seen this before? What disaster had befallen it that it had no choice now but to float here in darkness and silence, trying to remember? There had been a time when choices were possible, the Listener was sure, a time before this relentless impotence.

Time flies when you’re having fun. A flash of laughing blue eyes, the scent of roses...

Now where had that come from? There was no time here and no way to measure it if there had been. Nor was there any fun.

Suddenly (it could have been seconds or years after) the tinny, distorted voices were back once more.

“It sounds like we’ve got some good news to celebrate then, Doctor,” said the lower-pitched of the two. “We’re not as badly compromised as we might have been by the looks of it.”

”So it would seem,” replied the mosquito-whine of what the Listener now recalled as being a female voice. “But there’s too much at stake here for us to start getting complacent. Box and his cronies may not know all our secrets, but they could still cause trouble and they will start digging around now that they know about Infinity Recycling. That address I gave you, have you found out anything about it yet?”

“It’s a very tasty residence owned by one Elroy Jackson.”

“That name sounds familiar, who’s he?”

“He used to run Baron Samedi’s club – back when there was such a thing.”

“Interesting. Now why would Box have that man’s address in his notebook, I wonder.”

“Maybe he thought Jackson could give him some information about Samedi’s disappearance.”

“Perhaps,” the mosquito-voice agreed, “Fortunately for us, he’s as much in the dark as everybody else. Your people did a thorough job on the club - the police and the fire investigators still have nothing to go on, it seems.”

It was not yet itself entirely sure why, but a tiny pinpoint of anger began to form at the very centre of the Listener’s being.

-0-0-0-0-

To the row of printed photographs looking back down at them all, Harold added that of Agent Moon – retrieved by Othello in his third successful access of the OGS system. Now that his picture was set side by side with that of Agent Wood’s, the family resemblance was clear to see.

“According to Moon’s records,” said Othello, reading from the screen in front of him, “He was the only son of one Rebecca Bailey – a nightclub waitress in Reno. The father’s name is not recorded. Ms Bailey died when Moon was five years old and he spent his childhood in foster homes. He was academically gifted, it seems, and got a scholarship to study particle physics at MIT. After graduating, he travelled around Europe for a year. When he returned, he joined OGS”

“Astonishing,” remarked Teatime, “I have to say the boy struck me as rather dim. Awfully nice and all that, but about as bright as a 5-watt bulb. Particle physics indeed!”

“Not to be rude or anything,” added Harold, “but why would someone so bright want to join OGS? I mean, what you guys do is interesting and all, but I wouldn’t have thought you needed a degree in rocket science to do it.”

Several pairs of unimpressed eyes stared at him.

“What?” he protested, “It’s true! I really don’t mean to offend, but being an agent seems to be a lot of running around, followed by long periods of waiting about, with occasional bouts of dressing-up. I still haven’t figured out what that was all about, by the way.” This last bit was addressed to India, who tutted irritatedly and turned her back on him.

“Well done, old cork!” hissed Teatime, sarcastically, “You’ll have them eating out of your hand in no time at this rate. Just you carry on!”

“It is a valid question,” said Othello, “Most of our recruits do come from a more, shall we say, practical background and OGS doesn’t advertise, so it begs the question of how Moon would have known about us in order to apply in the first place.”

“No mystery there if Agent Wood was Moon’s father“ said Prada.

“OK, so we’ve possibly uncovered a past indiscretion of Agent Wood’s,” said Mercury, “But how does that –“

Box’s voice interrupted from the speaker on the table.

“Moon can’t be Wood’s boy,” he said, “Wood once told me that he couldn’t have kids – he had mumps and it messed up his fertility. My guess would be that he’s Jonathan’s kid - Wood’s nephew.”

“OK. Son, nephew, whatever,” said Mercury, “what does this mean, if anything?”

“Well, if he’s got ties to the Rainbow family,” said Othello, “he might have access to all kinds of stuff – the kind of resources we were thinking our so-called traitor might have.”

“Oh, no, I can’t believe Moon is our traitor,” said Mercury, “I’ve known him since he joined. He’s clean, I’d swear to it.”

“Well he hid his brains pretty effectively,” said Teatime, “who knows what else he may be hiding?”

Episode 68

2011-01-03T08:32:00.000-08:00

Pleased with her afternoon’s work, Dr Flowers dropped the used syringe into a sharps bin and headed down the corridor towards the exit of Mercy Hospital. It had been a good afternoon for two reasons. Firstly, she had been able to have a nice long chat and catch up over a coffee with her old colleague, ’Aunt’ Sally. After the usual pleasantries, Sally had been somewhat inquisitive about Flowers’s patient, which was only natural, given that Flowers had contacted her out of the blue to get him put in a private room out of the way. She had repeated the lie she had used on the phone - that he was a participant in one of her research projects, but that commercial confidentiality prevented her from saying any more. Sally had updated Flowers with all the gossip from Mercy and, when Sally’s pager had gone off, they had parted with the usual insincere promises to keep properly in touch.

The second reason for Flowers’s good mood was Box. Under the influence of the barbiturate she had administered, the man had been most forthcoming. It seemed that he and his cohorts had only the vaguest idea about what she and her team were actually up to, which was good. Unfortunately, he now knew the name Infinity Recycling, which was not so good, being a possible lead for his team. She wasn’t too worried about that, though, as the company did genuinely exist and did carry out scrap metal recycling, but the staff there had no idea that their company had other interests – the parent company had been most careful about that. Eventually, the drugs had taken full effect, rendering any attempt at further questioning pointless, and she had allowed Box to drift off. A quick rifle through his things had turned up a notebook with an address on Mountainside Boulevard in it. This she had quickly copied in case it turned out to be useful.

All in all, a most productive afternoon.

-0-0-0-0-

Next morning, after a hearty breakfast provided by Mr Teeth, the group assembled in the room Mr Teeth had set aside.

Othello and Mercury had not been able to speak with Box the previous day, as he had been deeply asleep the whole time they had been there. When visiting hours had finished they had left him a note to let him know they had called in.

He was wide awake now, however, and had dialled into the meeting.

Box filled the rest in on what had happened the previous day and they did the same for him. finally, everyone was up to speed.

"So, before we were so rudely interrupted," said Mercury, "We were looking into the backgrounds of staff and agents to see if we could uncover our mystery snake in the grass."

"We also started exploring the links between Rainbow Industries and project Dynamo, seeing that Agent Wood, who worked on it with Box, is Jonathan Rainbow's younger brother. We now have another lead in the name Infinity Recycling."

"I can do some research on them this morning," offered Othello.

"OK, good. What about our five potential snakes in the grass? Does anyone have any ideas how we can progress with them?"

"I think we should definitely strike Agent Ruby from the list," said Prada, "He's only on there because he's from a wealthy background and if that's all it takes to get on the list, you might as well put me on there!"

"Well, ok," conceded Mercury, after a moment's thought "That still leaves four. Why don't we set up a war-board and start collating our findings and ideas. Othello, can you print off pictures of everyone we're interested in?"

The room was quiet for a short while apart from the whir of the laser printer.

Harold decided to make himself useful and pin up the pictures as they came off.

Agent Cobalt - whose family were in mining - was revealed to be a middle-aged man with greying hair and a broken nose.

Agent Sabre - of the unaccounted-for six month gap in her history - was a young chinese woman of striking good looks.

Agent Oak - the one-time soap actress - was an ageing barbie doll.

Agent Callisto - whose military service had been in explosives work - was a hard-eyed, square-jawed young man in his mid-twenties.

All these, Harold pinned up on the board without comment.

The printer whirred one more time and Harold reached for the page to pin it with the others.

"Who's this?" he said, looking at the round, rather innocent-looking face.

"Agent Wood," replied Othello "or Mark Rainbow if you will. Box's former partner."

"Nice watch!" said Prada admiringly, looking at the timepiece that could be clearly seen on Agent Wood's left wrist. "If that's a genuine Rolex Daytona - and since he's a Rainbow it probably is - it's worth a small fortune!"

"Yeah, he was always dressy," Box's voice came crackling from the speaker on the table, "But I'm still not sure whether it's worth including him - I can't imagine he's up to much after his accident."

"Nevertheless, we'll keep him in for now - he culd be getting others to work for him." said Mercury.

Othello was staring at the Wood's picture again and frowning.

"What is it?" asked Prada, noticing his expression.

"I'm sure I've seen him - or someone very like him - recently, in the past few days. If I could just figure out who it is."

Harold looked at the picture with renewed interest. Human faces were all a bit of a muchness unless they had some reasonably distinctive feature or other - which this one did not.
Nevertheless, Othello was right, there was something about the face now that he looked at it properly. A certain innocent eagerness that reminded him of...

"Agent Moon!" he said, brightly, "That's who he reminds me of."

Episode 67

2010-12-04T14:11:00.001-08:00

It was the smell of coffee that finally snapped everything back into focus for Harold. Prada had just brought a pot into the living room to refill the cups of India and Mr Teeth, who had been watching Harold's recovery.

"Welcome back, old shoe," murmured Teatime, "Glad you could join us at last."

Ignoring the little monkey's sarcasm, Harold looked around the well-appointed room in some surprise. "How'd I get here?" he asked, "Last thing I remember was being near Box's friend's house – with you." he pointed at India. "Then everything went very strange."

"Strange, how?" asked India, pen poised over notebook. Othello would never forgive her if she didn't get all this down. He and Mercury had taken the car and headed off to the hospital to see Box.

"One minute everything was normal, then all of a sudden, everything just went dark and I couldn't move or see or anything, and I became really slow."

"Slow?"

"Yeah, I imagine it would be like what you humans call tiredness, but magnified – very peculiar. I couldn't gather my thoughts or focus on anything. Anyway, what happened? How did we end up back here?"

Between them, India and Teatime filled him in on what had happened.

"So, I must have just wandered into this field thing that Box was talking about." he shook his head, "No wonder they were able to capture Baron Samedi and the others – with a thing like that it would be so easy."

"They must have been expecting to find a demon at the house," said Mr Teeth, who had kept quiet up till that moment, "else why would they have switched on their field when they got there?"

"How did they even know to go to that house?" asked Prada, "We've haven't told anybody about it. In point of fact we didn't know it existed ourselves until today."

"Maybe they found you the same way I did," replied Mr Teeth, "or at least the company I hired did, at any rate. Maybe they just followed your car and watched the house for a while."

"Let's hope it was something like that," said India, "because otherwise it means our traitor is a bit closer to home than we thought."

-0-0-0-

RolexBoy's computer pinged softly, alerting him to incoming email. He glanced casually around the room to ensure that nobody was watching him. Nobody was, so he opened the message and read quickly:

No specimen found at the address. Appears that the specimen and the OGS agents were in process of clearing out of there. Only Box was still present. He is now at Mercy Hospital. Flowers is there on damage limitation.

RolexBoy deleted the message with an irritated click of his mouse.

This was not good news: if Agent Mercury and his merry band were still on the loose, there was still a chance they could find out what was really going on. Find out and interfere. RolexBoy had no doubt that they would never understand in a million years what critical and ground-breaking work was being done. No, they'd shut down the project before it was properly finished, thereby unwittingly depriving the world of the most beneficial scientific advance in its entire history.

Episode 66

2010-11-23T02:40:00.000-08:00

Dr Flowers looked down at the patient in room 22b, his bald, brown head dark against the snowy whiteness of the pillows. He was still pretty drowsy after his surgery, which was to be expected. She flipped through his chart, running a practised eye over the scribbled notes and jotted numbers. How many times had she done that in her career, she wondered. She dropped the chart back into its holder at the foot of the bed and the noise caused the patient to open his eyes and stare at her blearily.

“Hello,” she said in her best bedside voice, “I’m Doctor – “ she panicked for a moment as she suddenly realised it would be stupid to used her real name. She cast around the room for inspiration but ‘electrical outlet’ or ‘IV stand’ were not going to be good choices. “Prosperity Cane,” the name of her old Gym teacher rushed into her head to save the day.

“Hmph?” said the patient thickly, smacking his lips and pulling an irritated face.

“Here,” Flowers pressed a glass of water to his lips, “Drink this and wash it round your mouth. We always give patients undergoing surgery drugs to dry up their secretions, so you won’t be able to salivate properly for a few hours, I’m afraid. Still,” she went on brightly, “at least it’s not like the old days when we just used to chloroform people and hope for the best.”

Box slurped the water gratefully. His mouth had felt cottony and his tongue felt about twice the proper size.

“Thanks,” he croaked, “Needed that.”

Flowers replaced the glass on the cabinet beside the bed and took Box’s hand. She turned it over to expose the back of it where the surgical team had conveniently left a canula in place in case emergency drugs needed to be administered post-operatively.

Reaching out, she picked up the syringe she had prepared earlier and inserted its needle into the canula.
“I’m just going to give you a little something for the pain,” she lied soothingly, as she pressed the plunger.

-0-0-0-0-

The late afternoon sun slanted through one of the open swiss-cheese windows and the mildest of breezes carried in with it a heady, incense-like mix of scents from the preponderance of exotic flora in Mr Teeth’s garden.

Harold was sitting on one of Mr Teeth’s sofas, still looking somewhat bewildered, although much more ‘with it’ than he had been. Teatime was still speaking to him in urgent Infernal. Phrases which sounded like ‘pastiche’, ‘curlew’ and ‘chopped liver’ surfaced occasionally in the rapid river of the little monkey’s words. Across the room, India listened with some interest, even though she could not understand a word of Infernal – no human could, since demons were not in the business of giving language lessons. One sound did pop up time and time again, though – Azuriel. She jotted it down in her notebook. She couldn’t be certain of course, but she was pretty sure that this was the demon’s actual name. What luck to have over heard it.

Episode 65

2010-11-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

Despite the heat of the day, Agent India suddenly felt rather chilly. Her knowledge of demonkind was admittedly still rather limited as yet, but even so, she had never heard of anything like this happening before. Demons never simply stopped. On Harold’s shoulder, Teatime was still worriedly prodding and poking him in a vain attempt to stir up any kind of response, but it was as if some wicked witch had cast a spell and frozen Harold where he stood.

She fished in her pocket for her phone to call Mercury. Before she could dial the number, however, the phone rang and it was Mercury on the line.

“Oh, thank goodness!” exclaimed India, “I was just going to call you. We’re at-“

“Just a minute,” interrupted Mercury, “Where are you?”

“At Box’s friend’s house, why?”

“We’ve just had a call from Box. He’s in the hospital. Some people came to the house and he got shot getting away from them. They were in a white truck.”

“There’s a white truck here now,” said India, suddenly feeling her courage wobble the tiniest bit. Guns. Again.

“Are they aware of you?” Mercury’s voice was sharp, urgent.

“I don’t think so,” she replied, “We’re in the little street at the back of the house – I don’t think they could see us from where they are.”

“OK, you need to get out of there. Now!”

“Erm, that’s what I was calling about. Something’s happened to the demon. It’s just frozen in place. It’s like it's become a statue or something.”

“What about the monkey?”

India glanced over to see Teatime still fussing over Harold.

“He’s not affected so far as I can see, but doesn’t seem to understand it any more than I do.”

“Hmm,” said Mercury, “Box said the people in the white truck said something about a ‘field’ preventing escapes. I guess that’s what he must have meant.”

“Oh, no, I hope that doesn’t mean they know we’re here.” Said India, feeling her heart speeding up.

-0-0-0-0

The rear door to the Infinity Recycling truck swung open and Moira Ibbotson poked her head in.

“OK, we’re clearing out. Might as well shut down.”

Conrad Black, who had been running the field generator, grunted acknowledgement. He would be the first to admit that his people skills were rudimentary at best, but he didn’t care: it was electronics he was passionate about, and this hunk of complex circuitry in particular. He had designed a large part of it and built most of it himself. It had worked flawlessly every time. He was as proud of it as a parent would be of a gifted child.

He gave the case a little pad as the shutdown sequence started. He turned away from the console to tidy away his notes and, as he did so, he thought he saw a faint flicker right on the edge of the display showing the field’s area of effect. Frowning, he turned back to look properly, but by then the shutdown had completed and the screen was dark.

He drummed his fingers on the console for a few moments, undecided. Should he start the machinery back up or not? On the one hand, it would be a waste of time if there had been nothing there. On the other, ff there had been a demon there and he missed it just because he couldn’t be bothered to check…

Signing, he began the startup sequence: detectors first, then the field generator itself.

-0-0-0-0-

Somehow India had expected Harold to weigh less than a real person. His vessel, after all, was not made of flesh and blood, but he weighed more or less what you’d expect a six-foot tall human male to weigh, worse luck.

“This is utterly ludicrous,” she muttered angrily. It was easy for Mercury to say that she had to try and get the demon out of the field’s area of effect, but it wasn’t him who was puffing and panting and losing all dignity trying to do it, was it?

She had initially tried to wrap her arms about Harold’s body just under his armpits, lean his inert form over at an angle and drag him along backwards, but she had lost her grip and he had toppled to the ground.

A mean little part of had her hoped it hurt.

Now she found herself digging in her heels and dragging Harold along a bit at a time using two handfuls of his jacket. If anybody were to see them…

One foot, heave, two feet… How far would she have to - ?

Suddenly, Harold thrashed and cried out, causing India to let go of him and fall backwards hard onto her backside.

In a flash, Harold was on his feet, looking around wildly, a glassy, panic-stricken look on his face. He spotted India sitting on the ground but his eyes flicked away from her without registering anything, he clearly did not know who she was. He was about to bolt, but Teatime sprang onto his shoulder and started talking urgently to him in rapid Infernal. India scrambled to her feet, grabbed Harold’s arm and started pulling him along the street towards where the car was parked.

“Come on!” she urged, “We have to go. Right now!”

-0-0-0-0-

Black looked at the screen. Nothing. Not a flicker. Must just have been his imagination or maybe just a random blip. Either way, there was nothing there now. He shut down the machine once more, satisfied that at least he’d checked properly. He opened a little sliding hatch, allowing him to talk to the two others in the front of the truck.

“… it was a total free for all, cows everywhere. Ruined the wedding completely.” Church was in the middle of saying.

“All shut down back here,” Black reported.

“OK, thanks,” said Ibbotson, who was in the driver’s seat. She started the engine and the radio came on with the ignition. The sound of Fit as a Fiddle and Ready for Love filled the truck’s cabin. Black slid the hatch closed firmly, shutting out the noise. He had never understood what people got out of music. For all the pleasure he got from it, he might as well be listening to somebody read out the contents of the phone book or recipes for casserole. Pointless.

He felt the truck lurch into life and start moving off.

Episode 64

2010-11-09T14:40:00.000-08:00

"Dr Holton here,"

"Hello, Sally, it's Evangeline Flowers here."

"Who? I'm sorry, the line's not very good. Can you speak up a bit?"

"It's Evangeline Flowers. Can you hear me now?"

"Yes, clear as a bell now. Shrimp? Is that really you? It's been ages!"

Dr Flowers winced. Trust Sally Holton to remember that old nickname. Still...

"Yes, I know, doesn't time just fly by when you're having fun."

"Oh, are we having fun then?" Dr Holton laughed, "I didn't get that memo. Anyway, what can your old Aunt Sally do for you?"

Trust her to remember that nickname too, thought Dr Flowers as she quickly marshalled her thoughts. Sally was as sharp as ever so it would need to be something credible. Ever since they had begun studying medicine together, Flowers had known Sally Holton to possess the twin drawbacks of being nobody's fool and of being extremely curious. She would have to tread carefully to get her help without too many awkward questions.

"Yeah, er, I was wondering if you could get me out of a bit of a hole, actually."

-0-0-0-

The lady detective, Charity Lambert, dressed in the tight-fitting leather jumpsuit she had sported on the cover of her latest adventure Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death was standing over his bed smiling down at him. In her hands were two empty bottles. He thought it was rather odd that she should be here given that a) he was in the hospital (at least he thought he was, he was no longer sure now), oh, and b) let's not forget the fact that she was a fictional character from the cheap trashy novels which were his secret guilty pleasure. Why on earth was she here? He gazed up at her, puzzled, as she leant down and opened her lusciously-painted lips to whisper something into his ear. Her voice was low, with a slightly husky quality. "Listen very carefully..." He strained to hear whatever it was she was about to impart to him, it was obviously important, maybe it was something to do with the bottles. "...I shall say this only once.."

Abruptly, she dissolved into pink fluffy clouds which cleared to reveal a nurse standing beside his bed.

"Mr Box," she said, "We're taking you down to surgery now."

Episode 63

2010-11-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

Dr Flowers tutted irritably as the phone rang, breaking her concentration. In her considered opinion, the telephone belonged to the category of human inventions which she earnestly wished she could live without. For one thing, its impertinent ringing always sounded so damned loud in her small office and she had never figured out how to turn down the volume. She snatched up the instrument.

"Flowers," she snapped.

"Dr Flowers, this is Haynes."

"Yes?"

"There's been a bit of a problem,"

Here we go, she thought.

"Go on."

She listened as Haynes outlined the events that had taken place at the address RolexBoy has given them. There had been no demon present when the team had arrived. One of the people on RolexBoy's list had been there, but had fled and was now in Mercy hospital, having been injured leaving the scene.

Flowers sighed, if it wasn't one thing, it was another. First it was the uprooting of their entire operation to a more secure location, based on RolexBoy's dire predictions of discovery, now he had led them all on a wild goose-chase looking for demons which weren't there, and had exposed their operation anyway. Some 'special advisor to the project' he was turning out to be. She was momentarily at a loss for what to say.

"Where is everybody now?" she asked eventually/

"Church, Ibbotson and Black are at the house still, looking for any more information. Jones and Charter are at the hospital. Charter has managed to confirm the identity of the guy they followed there, Nathaniel Box. He's scheduled for surgery, apparently, so he won't be going anywhere for a while."

Flowers thought for a moment. "Did you say Mercy Hospital?"

"Yeah, Mercy."

"OK, tell Jones and Charter to stay put and wait for further instructions."

"What about the others?"

"Tell them to clear out when they're done."

Flowers replaced the handset and thought for a few moments. Mercy Hospital, Haynes had said. Interesting. She'd spent six years, nine months and eleven days of her life walking its fluorescent-lit wards and hallways (not that she was counting or anything). All may not be lost, after all. She flipped open her File-O-Fax, located a phone number and began to dial.

-0-0-0-

India stopped the car on Ostrich Egg Drive which led onto Goose Egg, where Box's friend's house was, and switched off the engine.

There was a short, rather defensive silence, which India broke.

"I suggest we get to the end of Goose Egg and check out the lie of the land from there. If it all looks ok, we can move in a bit closer."

Harold nodded, it sounded like a plan, and they both got out of the car.

Teatime proved his worth when they got to where Goose Egg and Ostrich Egg joined. There was a high hedge bordering the end property on Goose Egg which meant that they could not see into Goose Egg Drive itself without walking around the corner and thus possibly revealing themselves to anybody who might be lurking at the house..

"Why don't I climb to the top of that hedge for a quick recce," the little monkey suggested, as Harold and India stood debating what to do.

"Go for it," said Harold, "If there is anybody hanging around there, they almost certainly won't be looking out for a monkey."

Teatime leapt lightly from Harold's shoulder, and quickly and competently scaled the hedge, disappearing from view.

"He's a smart little monkey," said Harold, keen not to let the silence deepen into awkwardness.

"I suppose," India agreed noncommittally. As a child, she had been fascinated by how clever animals were after hearing some old professor giving a series of talks about it on National Public Radio. Of course, she knew perfectly well that Teatime wasn't just an ordinary monkey, that he'd been given an upgrade, as it were. In her opinion, therefore, he didn't really deserve any credit for his cleverness, unlike the dolphins and pigeons in the old professor's talks.

"Yes," continued Harold, "he really is a masterpiece of infernal engineering."

"I'm not sure 'masterpiece' is the word I'd use," replied India, dryly. "I think what was done to him was wrong. There are some things that shouldn't be meddled with."

"Well maybe so," replied Harold, "but some human scientists were about to do some serious meddling of their own, so you can hardly blame him for wanting to get away."

"I guess," India admitted.

At that moment, Teatime's head appeared, looking down on them from the hedge-top.

"There's a big white truck parked outside the house," he informed them. "There's no sign of Reverend Box, though, that I can see."

"I wonder if he's hiding in the house, waiting for the truck to go away." said Harold.

"Perhaps we should approach from the back and see if we can see anything."

They walked back along Ostrich Egg until they came across a little side road running parallel with Goose Egg Drive. They turned down it and were delighted to discover that the backyards of the houses on Goose Egg backed directly onto it, screened off by a high wooden fence.

"We should be about there I think," India said, stopping next to a section of fence. She tried to peer through the gaps in the planks, but could see nothing but foliage. "Would Mr Teatime care to do the honours, once more?" she asked.

"I expect he'll b–" Harold started to say, and stopped.

India turned to him questioningly.

Harold was standing completely still next to the fence, and had frozen in mid-sentence, his lips parted to say his next word. He was looking straight at her – or at least at where she had been standing before she had turned back to him. One of his hands was stretched out where he had evidently been about to reach out and touch the fence.

"What's going on?" said India, "Why has it stopped?"

"I have no idea," said Teatime in a worried voice.

"Demon?" said India, peering up into Harold's still face. "Hey! Come on!" She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes but he didn't so much as blink. "If this is one of your tricks.." she muttered.

"I really don't think it's any trick," said Teatime.

India jabbed Harold firmly in the chest with a finger. No reaction.

Teatime tugged sharply on a lock of his hair. No reaction.

"Come on, old button," he urged, "Now's not the time to fall asleep on the job."

But Harold simply stood there, the breeze ruffling his hair, as still and as lifeless as a statue.

Episode 62

2010-10-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

India was glad that it was not a particularly long distance back to Box’s friend’s house, if it had been she was not sure her sanity would have held up. It was all very well for Mercury to say ‘take the demon with you’ but he had absolutely no idea what it felt like to be in close proximity to the thing for any length of time. It was like having an itch deep inside her brain that she could not scratch and it was driving her bananas.

As she drove along, she suddenly found herself remembering that ridiculous film You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks and that (red-headed?) woman whose name she could never recall – where the two main characters hated each other at the office but fell in love over the internet. Now, what on earth had made her think of that? She gave the thought an irritated shove to the back of her mind – focus, India, focus!

For his part, Harold was glad to be out and about again and actually doing something – well, sort-of, anyway. Agent India had been the one actually tasked with looking for Reverend Box and he had been sent along, he suspected, to get him out from underfoot, as it were. He didn’t mind though, it was not like he had any devastating insights to offer or any master strategies that would solve the whole mystery. So far his only real use to the team had been as a door-opener of all things – oh, and an ad hoc bomb disposal operative. Actually, that last one was pretty cool, though he did say so himself. He smiled to himself as he stared out the window.

They were passing the construction site, so a sign proclaimed, of 64 luxury apartments with underground parking. A couple of cranes towered overhead, carefully tending their concrete nest. Always building things, these humans.

“I wonder why they call them apartments?” he said, by way of conversation.

India glanced at him and then back at the road.

“No idea,” she replied. “So you can live apart from everybody else in them, I suppose.”

“Pity they don’t build togetherments instead,” Harold said.

“I would have thought you’d relish the idea of humans all living apart in lonely misery.”

“I certainly would,” piped up Teatime. “It’s no more than they deserve. Beastly creatures, most of them.”

“Well I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” declared Harold.

“Really?” India hauled on the steering wheel and made a right turn. “I thought the whole point of your existence was to increase the sum of human misery by any means possible.”

“Not at all,” replied Harold. He could answer this one with textbook accuracy, having heard it repeated many times by his fellow demons. “Our purpose is to distract mortals away from the light. Misery is often a by-product, of course, and it’s sometimes a tool, but it’s not the point of the exercise as such. We don’t hate humans, you know.” Actually, Harold knew, some demons did hate humans with a vengeance, but most regarded them as merely the material of their trade, like leather to a cobbler or iron to a blacksmith. A material to be worked on.

“Well excuse me if I don’t believe you,” sneered India, “ but it seems to me that, doing what you do, you can’t exactly have our best interests at heart, can you?”

“Hey, don’t blame me! I didn’t make the rules.”

“Ooh, now where have I heard that before?”

“It’s true, though!”

“If I may interrupt for just one moment what I’m sure is going to be a most fascinating discussion,” said Teatime loudly. “We are almost back at the house and we’ve seen no sign of Reverend Box. I suggest that, as we don’t know what has happened to him, we should park along here somewhere and approach the house cautiously, just in case.”

-0-0-0-

Box was drifting in and out of cosy cotton-wool land. At one point, he was sure he’d heard one of the nurses say something about a parachute, but there was no sign of one anywhere, so that couldn’t have been it. In the ER, they had cut his bike leathers off him to get at his injury (Darn, they’d been expensive!) and had dressed him in one of those stupid gowns with no back to them. Why’d they have to do that anyway? It was so undignified.

Box tried to focus. There was something important he should be doing. What had he been doing before ending up here?

Infinity Recycling! That was it! He needed to tell the others about the white van and the ‘field’ – whatever that was. He looked around him anxiously. Where had they put his phone?

Seeing him trying to struggle to a sitting position, a nurse came bustling over.

“Take it easy, Honey,” she said, pushing him gently but firmly back down into the pillow, “Just try to rest. Dr Morgan is just discussing your case with one of our surgeons. Looks like you’re going to need an operation on that leg. We won’t be long, I promise.”

“I need to make a call,” Box said. “Could you get me my phone, please?”

“Sure, Honey. Oh! Here’s Dr Morgan now.”

“Good afternoon, Mr Box!” Boomed the doctor with that brassy cheerfulness that medics all seem to employ around patients. He was a tall, greying man in his middle years, whose slightly protruding belly proclaimed him something of a stranger to hunger – or want, anyway. “Now let’s see about this leg of yours.” He continued, flipping the pages of Box’s chart. “ Our x-rays show that both of the bones in your lower leg have been badly damaged by the bullet – which is still in there, by the way – so we have no option but to operate and see if we can patch things up. I should warn you that there is a risk – a small one - that we might have to amputate if we can’t piece the bones back together. Dr Giordano will be performing the operation, though, and he’s a really first-rate surgeon. Nurse Hickey here will talk you through all the paperwork. Any questions?”

“How long am I likely to have to stay in hospital after the surgery?”

“At least a week, I’d think,” replied the doctor, “We have to make sure that everything settles in properly – we'd hate for you to come back in as a warrantee job, eh? Then you’ll be needing physical therapy for quite some time after that, I imagine. Now, I must get on.” With that, he turned and strode away. Box let his head fall back into the pillow.

This was terrible. He couldn’t afford to be out of the picture that long, but what choice did he have?

One thing was for sure, he needed to pass on what he’d found out as soon as possible.

“I really need to call and let my folks know what happened,” he said, “Can I have my phone now please?”

-0-0-0-

Across the street from the entrance to Mercy Hospital, two men sat in a white car.

“Yeah, Jackson winged him, but he got to the hospital before we could stop him and they’ve taken him inside.” One of the men explained. He was holding up his mobile so that its microphone could pick up both his and his companion’s voices and it was set on speakerphone so that they could both hear the woman on the other end.

“That’s not good.” said the woman, “Church didn’t get a look at him, so do we know who he is? Is he from RolexBoy’s list, even?”

“Well, he’s a little runty guy, he’s not black and he’s not a girl, so we’re going for him being Nathaniel Box.”

”OK,” said the woman, “Go in there and see if you can confirm it’s him while I find out what they want us to do about this mess. If they ask, tell the nurses you used to work with him or something.”

“OK, will do.” The man snapped the phone shut and turned to his companion. “Wait here while I go in.” he said, opening the car door and getting out.

Episode 61

2010-10-22T09:24:00.000-07:00

“I hope Box gets here soon,” said Mercury, “I’m keen for us to get back to work, but I don’t want to start until everyone’s here.”

“I’ll call him,” said Othello. He dialled, listened for a while then hung up. “It’s gone to voicemail.”
“Maybe he’s on his way but can’t answer while he’s riding.” suggested India.

“Yeah, but I would have thought he’d be here by now, anyway.” said Othello.

“Maybe he got sidetracked by a garage sale on the way here or something,” joked Prada.

“Perhaps we should take the car and backtrack the route, see if we can see him.” Said India.

“Good idea,” said Mercury, “You drive, and you might as well take the demon with you, seeing as its at a loose end.”

Harold’s face lit up while Mercury’s suggestion had the exact opposite effect on India, making their two faces look like Comedy and Tragedy. Wisely, though, India didn’t say anything as Othello tossed her the car keys.

-0-0-0-

A crowded vegetable market. Everybody towering over him and no sign of Mommy in the throngs of people pushing past him without so much as a downward glance. The panic welling up and the hot, stinging tears starting. His mouth opening to begin bawling.

A taste of honey, sweet on the tongue. Abigail’s slim brown hands offering him another helping of honeycomb, fresh from the hive..

A lynx, lying in the dappled shadows, tail twitching lazily, glutted and sleepy after a kill.

The buzz of summer insects floating on the still air.

Himself, shaking and chilled to the bone, dragging himself over the frozen assault course under a lead-coloured sky which promised yet more snow, while Sgt McAllister yelled himself hoarse, letting him and everybody else in the group know in no uncertain terms that he was the single most useless maggot of a cadet it had ever been his displeasure to train.

The sudden silver flash of a fish just below the surface of the lake. His dad, showing him how to catch them, teaching him how to bait the hook and send the line far, far out over the water.

"Sir?" the mellow, husky voice broke into this dream, scattering lake, fish and dad. "Sir? Can you hear me? Can you squeeze my hand? That’s good, that’s very good . Can you open your eyes for me please?”

Box opened his eyes then quickly squeezed them shut against the harsh white light. All around him he could hear the noise of people talking, machines beeping, doors banging and general hustle and bustle.

The pain in his leg was now just a dull throb, its power to distract his attention marginal at best. His head felt like it was stuffed full of warm cotton wool and he floated in pleasant drowsiness . They must have given him something for the pain - a pretty powerful something if the vividness of the dreams was anything to go by. Box dimly remembered riding the bike into the hospital parking lot. He’d tried to stop gracefully near the entrance to the ER, but in had ended up slowing right down and pretty much just falling over sideways, unable to dismount. Still, he had reached the shelter of the hospital and they had taken him in, away from Infinity Recycling – assuming it was them who had been following in the white car.

He was safe for the moment then.

Episode 60

2010-10-10T11:16:00.000-07:00

Good evening Campers, it's the rather late edition of the weekly wordzzle.
The agents and Harold let themselves into Mr Teeth’s house.

Othello gave a softly appreciative whistle upon surveying the interior with its cool white walls, blond wood and abstract paintings.

“The man certainly does have taste,” he said, shaking his head wonderingly.

“Are you kidding?” said Prada, scornfully, “These pictures look like they were done by a monkey – no offence, Mr Teatime.”

“None taken,” replied Teatime, “I would venture the same opinion myself. I mean to say, just look at that one over there, all bluey-grey splodges. What on earth is all that about?”

“That’s ‘Bullet the Ocean’ by Tom Windermere, you philistines!” said Othello, walking over to the picture.

“One of his early pieces. He was very talented.”

“Was?” asked Prada, “Was? Don’t say he died a tragic death, too! What is it with these creative types always dropping off their perches early.”

“The brightest lights burn the shortest, I guess,” said Othello. Prada made a rude noise.

“Well, he should have lived to be a hundred then, looking at this.”

“Art doesn’t have to be photographically representational, you know,” Othello began to reply with some heat, but all the chatter was cut short as the house’s front door swung open and Mr Teeth came in.

He showed them all to a large, airy room that would serve them as an office for the duration.

“Let me just clear away this junk,” he said, and began sweeping bits and pieces – a broken pencil, a candy bar wrapper or several, some screwed-up sticky notes, bent paper clips and whatnot – that littered the two large oak desks into a waste bin.

“We got wireless networking here,” he continued, “Passphrase is ‘Steamy Windows’ and when Othello raised an eyebrow, he added “Don’t ask!”

“Thanks,” said Mercury, and they began to set up.

The room was well-equipped. Apart from the desks and chairs, there was a whiteboard and dry-wipe markers, a printer/copier and one of those phones with an external speaker for conference-calls.

Harold felt a little bit left out as he was not needed in any capacity at this point: Othello was setting up his laptop at one of the desks while Mercury was writing notes on the whiteboard. India and Prada were assisting him, adding material from their own notebooks. Bored, he wandered over to the printer/copier and started to press buttons for something to do. The machine emitted a series of protesting bleeps.

“Cut that out!” snapped India, “You’ll break it.”

“Sorry,” said Harold, giving the machine an apologetic pat. “Human technology fascinates me – actually, I say ‘human’, but I’m pretty sure some of my kind had a hand in designing these things.”

“I can believe it.” Said Mr Teeth, coming into the room. “Damn thing’s given me nothing but grief since I got it,” He set down his own laptop on the other desk. “One of these days I’m gonna take it out back and shoot it, I swear.”

Mercury glanced at his watch.

“I wonder what’s keeping Box.” He said, “He should be here by now.”

-0-0-0-

Box almost lost control of the bike as pain exploded in his right leg. So they hadn’t missed, after all! Well that confirmed it – as if it needed confirming - the so-called Infinity Recycling people were definitely NOT legit.

He wrestled the veering machine back onto a straight course, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with an oncoming truck, which blared its horn at him. He risked a quick glance down at his leg. It didn’t look too bad down there – he could see a hole torn in the calf of his boot where whatever they had fired at him had gone in and there didn’t seem to be much blood as yet. Maybe the damage wasn’t too severe, just very painful.

An intersection was coming up. Carefully, Box moved his foot to see if he could still change gear, and almost lost control once more as even the tentative pressure he had applied to the gear shifter caused the pain to double. Suddenly, he felt sick and could feel a cold sweat breaking out all over. Shock. This was not good. Not good at all. He should stop before he had an accident. Fortunately, there was no other traffic at the intersection and he was able to sail straight through.

He glanced in his mirror. Was that white car following him? He tried to remember the make of the car that had stopped outside the house, but couldn’t – he’d only seen it for a few moments anyway. Ok, if the car was from Infinity, he couldn’t afford to stop or they’d catch him for sure and they were playing for keeps, that much was obvious. Neither could he just ride to Mr Jackson’s house, the whole idea of moving there was to throw RolexBoy et al off their trail so he couldn’t risk them following him there.

What to do, what to do. He was beginning to feel dizzy and lightheaded. If he didn’t do something soon, all decisions would be taken out of his hands when he fell off the bike – as seemed more and more likely.

He made a left.

The white car turned in after him.

He made a right.

The white car followed him.

“Zeus’s Golden Gonads.” He breathed. “Gimme a break!”

There was only one thing for it. There’d be all kinds of awkward questions of course, but the way things were going, it was the only sane choice.

He made another right and headed downtown.

Episode 59

2010-10-02T14:24:00.000-07:00

A whole squadron of butterflies was scrambling in the aerodrome of Box's stomach – it had been a long time since he'd been involved in all this cloak and dagger nonsense on a regular basis. He heard the Infinity Recycling man's hand rattle the handle of the French doors, groping for the key which he, Box, had foolishly left in the lock. The man would be inside the house in moments. Box remembered one of his old partners - Agent Solitaire, a neurotic chatter box of a man – telling him that the best defence is not to be there.

Sound advice.

Box looked up from where he was crouching behind the kitchen counter. The door from the kitchen to the garage was about ten feet away. Quietly and quickly, he began to move towards the door, keeping an eye on the kitchen window to ensure that the woman that had rung the front door bell didn't see him moving and raise the alarm.

As he dodged through the garage door, he heard the squeak of the French doors opening. He'd not had a moment to waste then. He carefully, oh-so carefully, eased the door so that it was nearly, but not completely closed, and listened.

He heard the man walk from the living room into the hall, straight past the kitchen door and then there came the sound of the front door opening.

"Doesn't seem to be anybody here but us chickens," said the man, and Box heard the woman walk into the house.

"Doesn't mean there isn't, Church," she replied, ignoring his tongue-in-cheek manner. "RolexBoy's info is usually good and these things are capable of hiding in plain sight if it suits them. With the field up, it can't get away, so all we have to do is find it. Here, take this and do the downstairs and I'll do the upstairs."

What 'this' was, Box couldn't see, of course, but soon he could hear Church moving around the living room and every now and then there was an electronic beep. The woman had trotted up the stairs and Box could hear her moving around up there, too. Were they using some kind of scanning device? If so, what were they scanning for? And what was this 'field' the woman had mentioned?

Box could feel his heart pounding. It wouldn't take long for Church to work his way round the living room and kitchen. If he was to make his escape, it would have to be soon.

The bike was parked where he'd left it, facing towards the back of the garage, which was awkward. If he was going to ride it out the front, he would have to turn it around, which would take precious time. Then there was the garage door itself. He had the remote control in his pocket, but the door would take a while to open enough for him to get out and that would also give plenty of warning to the Infinity Recycling people that something was up.

He glanced around the garage. Its shelves were a typical dumping ground of domestic bric-a-brac: candles, matches, half-used tins of paint, barbecue charcoal, lighter fluid, rags, an old car battery, a tow-rope. For a moment, Box considered using some of the combustibles to create a diversion, but quickly dismissed the idea as too dangerous (plus the house belonged to a friend, after all). Then his eye fell on something he had not noticed before. A hand-lettered placard bearing the slogan 'Save Our Schools' was leaning up against... another door! The garage had a door into the back yard, then.

Box quickly moved the placard out of the way. The door looked just about wide enough. He tried the door handle. Locked. Box scanned around desperately. There, on the wall, a key hanging on a nail. Box grabbed it and fitted it quickly into the lock. At first it seemed to be stuck but with a grunt, Box managed to get it to turn. He shouldered the door open and grabbed the handlebars of the bike to wheel it out.

At that moment, the door from the kitchen opened and Church stepped through. His eyes were fixed on some kind of hand-held device so it took a moment for Box's presence in the garage to register.

A moment was all Box needed.

A half-used tin of 'Hint of Peach' completed its short ballistic trajectory and struck Church cleanly in the face. Startled, dazed and in pain, he staggered backwards with a roar. Crashing into the shelves behind him, he managed to dislodge their contents which showered down on him in an impressive display which, if someone had filmed it, would have been a sure fire hit on YouTube.

Not waiting around to admire his handiwork, Box quickly lugged the bike out through the door. Once outside, he jumped aboard, fired it up and with a roar was quickly round the side of the house and heading down the drive to the road.

In the bike's mirrors, he saw the doors of the big white Infinity Recycling truck fly open and a couple of white overall-clad figures leap out. One of then seemed to be pointing something at him, but they were too late by a country mile.

He grinned. Ha! Still a little life in the old dog yet, then!

He was still grinning when the pain hit.

Episode 58

2010-09-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

Agents Mercury, Othello and Prada, along with Harold and Teatime stood outside the entrance to Mr Teeth’s palatial home. India had gone over to the ornamental pool to fish for the keys.

“Who would have thought Mr Jackson would have such refined tastes,” said Othello, casting an appreciative eye over the bold pink lines of the house with its randomly placed circular Swiss-cheese-hole windows. “If I’m not mistaken, this is the work of Nina Roden.”

“Who?” asked Prada.

“Nina Roden,” replied Othello, “An English architect, worked out of Los Angeles. She liked to design buildings that look ‘edible’. She did the McCleod Higher Education Centre .”

“I don’t think I know it,” said Prada,

“The Chocolate Bar?” Othello prompted.

“Oh, right! That one!” laughed Prada, “I’d say she succeeded there – it really does look kind of yummy.”

“Yeah,” sighed Othello, “Pity she didn’t live to see it finished. She died of a brain tumour a couple of years back. Nobody even knew she had it: one day she was running round like the Energizer Bunny, the next – “ he made a gesture of hopelessness. “She left a lot of really exciting buildings behind, though. I guess they’re her eulogy in a way.”

“It must be nice to leave behind something lasting.” Said Prada, thoughtfully, “I wonder what people’ll say about me when I’m gone, nothing extra-special, I bet. My parents think I’m in the noble and estimable profession of Day Trading , for goodness sake! Hardly the stuff of legend!”

“You’ve never told them what you do?” said Othello.

“Are you kidding?” laughed Prada, “They’d freak out. They don’t believe in demons or anything like that. Listen, when all my kindergarten friends were getting bedtime stories full of magic elves, dragons and princesses, my dad would send me off to sleep with the Wall Street Journal!”

“That must have been awful,” said Mercury, appalled.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Prada brightly, “I made my first million on the stock exchange before I was eighteen.”

Just then, India returned with a dripping plastic bag containing the house keys. She stopped in her tracks at the sight of the stunned looks on the faces of everyone but Prada, who was grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“OK,” she said eagerly, “What’d I miss?”

Episode 57

2010-09-18T14:45:00.000-07:00

It did not take long for Mercury, India, Othello and Prada to get their stuff together, each had only brought with them an overnight bag with a change of clothes and some toiletries, as was usual when out on a mission. Harold had only Teatime and his rucksack, and Box had just a single rucksack of his own.

“You go on ahead,” Box said to the others, “I just need to straighten the place up a bit, leave it nice and tidy.”

The others climbed into the OGS car and set off.

Box went quickly from room to room, humming to himself, making sure there was no mess anywhere. Satisfied, he returned to the kitchen and filled the sink with hot water to wash the few cups and plates that had been used. Someone had left an empty can on the counter – McKinleys Classic Carrot Soup. The label showed a stereotyped fierce-looking Scotsman (‘Auld’ Jock McKinley, himself, apparently), complete with red hair, improbably bushy eyebrows, bagpipes and kilt, against a backdrop of green fields and grey mountains. Shaking his head at the tacky ways of marketing types, Box dropped it into the trash. The soup had probably been manufactured in that well-known outpost of Scotland known as Mexico.

The washing up completed, Box surveyed the kitchen: all evidence of occupation had been cleared away. He scribbled a quick note of thanks to the house’s owner on the little message pad next to the phone. Right, time to get moving, he told himself. He shrugged himself into his bike jacket, donned his rucksack, and picked up his helmet and keys. As he did so, however, a movement out in the street caught his eye.

A white truck had just parked outside. Against the greys and browns of the houses opposite, it stood out like a polar bear in a coal cellar. Behind it, a car in the same company livery – Infinity Recycling Inc – also pulled up and stopped.

A pleasant-looking blonde woman and a young man got out of the car and started up the drive towards the house.

-0-0-0-

“You just wait till you see Mr Jackson’s place,” said Harold, as Mercury piloted the car through the afternoon traffic. “It’s got everything: a gym, a pool, a grand piano even, although I suspect nobody ever plays it, which is a crime in my book.”

“So, he cleared his busy diary to take you on a guided tour, did he?” said Prada, somewhat sceptically.

“No,” laughed Harold, “Some of the doors were open and you’d have to be blind not to have seen the stuff he’s got. State-of-the-art sound system, plasma TV”

“The Devil looks after his own, I suppose,” said Othello.

“Not so’s you’d notice,” replied Harold, wryly.

Othello raised an eyebrow, “Really? So why’d you side with him then?” The sudden turn in the conversation caught Harold off-balance.

“I didn’t, not really.’ He sighed, not even remotely prepared to pour out his life story to these humans. “It’s complicated, and now isn’t really the time…”

Othello, clearly disappointed that more information was not forthcoming, nevertheless took the hint and turned back to face the front.

Agent India stared out the window at the passing cars and lorries, her expression neutral. If the demon had been telling the truth about not really siding with the Devil, then how come it had wound up in the Basement with all the other Fallen?

-0-0-0-

Box heard the man and woman’s footsteps approach, and the doorbell sounded its cheesy rendition of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. He had crouched down behind the kitchen counter where he could not be seen should the mysterious callers decide to try peeking in at the window. His bike was still in the garage and the OGS car had gone. There was nothing to suggest that the house was anything but empty. With any luck, they would see that and go away.

The doorbell sounded again. By Zeus’s ears, they’re persistent, thought Box. There’s nobody here but us chickens…nobody here at all.

He heard the woman’s voice ordering the young man to try round the back. Box glanced into the living room. He had locked the French doors, hadn’t he? He was pretty sure he had. He hoped he had. He didn’t have time to check, the young man would be reaching the back of the house about now. Suddenly, the handle on the French door rattled as the man tried it – rattled, and held!

Box allowed the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding to escape with a quiet hiss. He had locked it then.

The sound of smashing glass took him completely by surprise.

Episode 56

2010-09-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

“Mr Jackson, we’d like to take you up on your offer – or at least some of it anyway,” said Mercury.

“OK,” rumbled the big man, “What do you need?”

“We’d like a place to work from, somewhere private where we won’t be disturbed – preferably with an internet connection.”

Mr Teeth produced a small note book and began writing. “Anything else?”

“That’s it for now, but we might need an extra car later, maybe if that’s alright.”

“OK, then,” Mr teeth said, tearing a page out of the notebook and holding it out to Mercury, “Go to this address, It’s my own place and it’s plenty big enough for all of us. Now I have some business to attend to, so I’ll meet you there when I’m done in about an hour. Key’s in a plastic bag in the pond – look for the mermaid statue.”

“OK ,” said Mercury , “and thanks, your help is much appreciated.”

Mr Teeth grunted acknowledgement and left.

“So, not only are we working with demons, we’ve taken up with criminals now as well?” India had been against accepting Mr Teeth’s help from the start
.
“Agent India,” said Mercury. There was just a hint of a snap in his voice and his use of her formal title caused her mouth to shut with an almost audible snap. “We’ve been through this and, as squad leader, I am making this decision and I will take responsibility for it.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Look, we’re all still tired. Let’s get packed up and get out of here as soon as we can.”

“Ooh, I think your charm must be working at last, old sock,” whispered Teatime gleefully, “You apparently rank slightly above the local criminal fraternity now – a step up, if I’m any judge.”

“Well, it had to happen sooner or later,” grinned Harold. “What with me being so irresistible and all.”

-0-0-0-

Dr Evangeline Flowers quickly scanned the document Haynes was holding out to her and scrawled her signature on the bottom. She sighed as he took the clipboard back and walked away. Was this what her life had come to? Scribbling on documents and organising the movement of boxes, crates and tanks?

It hadn’t always been like this, of course. She’d never been a ‘sugar and spice, all things nice’ kind of girl – had only ever wanted to be a neurosurgeon like her beloved father. She’d done well enough at med school to get an internship in a good teaching hospital – she’d even made Resident there and was looking at Attending in a couple of years, hospital politics permitting.

Then she’d slipped over on – of all the stupid things - some mixed nuts she’d spilt in her own kitchen, and had broken her arm, broken it badly enough to cause permanent nerve damage, leaving her right hand just a bit less sensitive and precise than the left. Not a big injury and, for anyone else, not even an inconvenience, really, but it was an earthquake of magnitude ten toppling the bricks and mortar of her ambition. Unable to bear the thought of having to start over in some other specialism, she’d turned to research. She’d done well at that too, and had found it fascinating in its own way - there were, after all, still plenty of diseases out there that needed to be conquered or at least understood properly.

She hadn’t been able to believe her luck when she’d got the call. Her own lab, her own staff and a budget she’d only been able to dream of before. All this to do pure research into why certain people had certain abilities and how they might be replicated technologically. That’s what they had told her, anyway.

And it was sort of true, she supposed. She cast a practised eye over the row of blinking lights on the side of tank three – all nominal.

Only the ’people’ hadn’t exactly been people.

Episode 55

2010-09-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

To her annoyance, Agent India’s teeth were itching again. That could only mean one thing.

“The demon’s back,” she announced gloomily, heading for the front door. She knew she was being a bit irrational, the demon was helping them after all and if it had really disappeared, the investigation would have suffered a setback. It wasn’t like they had a back-up demon in the cupboard all ready to go that they could use to … Now that was an idea! Perhaps they were going about this whole thing entirely too passively. Maybe there was a way to force the hand of whoever was behind all this.

She yanked open the door - and stepped back in surprise.

The demon was there just as she expected, grinning all over its stupid face like it was pleased to see her. Behind it, however, stood a huge African-American man - a veritable inverted pyramid of immaculately-tailored muscle.

“Hi,” said Harold, “I’m back. Can we come in?”

Wordlessly, India stepped aside and allowed the two to enter.

“And so,” said Harold, having related the events of his life in the last few hours, “The long and the short of it is: Mr Jackson has decided to offer us his help.”

“Well, that’s a kind offer, Mr Jackson,” began Mercury, “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“I can get you stuff you might need: vehicles, guns, people, place to work from.”

“I see,” said Mercury, somewhat nonplussed by the big man’s openness, “We don’t tend to use guns in our operations, they don’t work on demons and they can always be taken away and turned against us. While, we are definitely having some internal difficulties with our organisation, I don’t think - ”

“Your traitor?” interrupted Mr Teeth, “Yeah, Harold told me about that. Look, if he’s as deep in your outfit as you suspect, you should drop right off the grid until this is all over, or until you can figure out who he is. If you don’t, he’s gonna be bird-dogging you at every step. It ain’t gonna matter how clever you are or how much preparation and planning you put in, he’s gonna know about it and is gonna rip your operation apart like wet toilet paper. I can give you anything your outfit could. I know a few people in this town.”

“I have to say,” piped up Teatime, causing Mr Teeth’s eyebrows to shoot up in surprise, “That I think Mr Jackson has rather hit the nail on the head. I vote he join our little gang.”

“You never told me bout any talking monkey,” he said, looking at Harold, “And you didn’t have him with you before. What’s the deal?”

“My father sent him,” explained Harold, “to investigate the disappearances. That was before I met these lovely people, of course.” He directed a sunny grin at the OGS agents, at which India rolled her eyes in disgust, “ He’s very smart and being so small, is very good at hiding. He rides on my shoulder so he can talk to me without people noticing.”

“Hmmph,” rumbled Mr teeth, “I guess it’s a good job your father didn’t send you a talking orang-utan then.”

There was a small amount of rather tentative laughter at this, as the others weighed up what Mr Teeth had said, and decided that the dour black man-mountain had actually made a funny of sorts.

“Anyway,” Mr Teeth continued, “I’m offering you a safe place and whatever you need to get the job done.”
The others looked at each other.

“Do you mind if we discuss it for a minute,” said Mercury. Mr Teeth shrugged his massive shoulders and walked out into the garden.

-0-0-0-

“Infinity Recycling. Ernesto speaking. How may I direct your call?” There was just a hint of Spanish in the man’s accent.

“I have some greasy dishes that need to be dealt with,” said the caller. Ernesto didn’t miss a beat. “Putting you through now,” he said. There followed a series of electronic clicks and a ringing tone which was soon cut short.

“Special Projects, Haynes here.”

“This is RolexBoy. I have a specimen for you.”

“Really?” Haynes didn’t much like RolexBoy. Sure, he had his uses and had ultimately been responsible for the formation of the Special Projects group, but he was still an arrogant, over-privileged, young pup.

“Nothing’s showed up on the network or we’d have known.” He said.

“This one’s not been up here before and is a bit weedy, so won’t have high enough C.”

“Can I ask how you know about it then?” Haynes’s voice leaked a little irritation. He was busy, dammit!

“I’ve seen it and spoken to it. It’s real” replied RolexBoy.

“I’m not sure we need another specimen just now – especially if it’s low C. Dr Flowers and the rest of us are up to our eyeballs in the move. Maybe after we get set up in the new place?” Haynes was hoping that RolexBoy would take the hint and ring off, but he didn’t.

“You need to collect this one,” he said, “Because it has got together with a group of OGS and they are intent on tracking you guys down. “

“I see,” Haynes was sensible enough to know that they could not afford any loose ends on this project “Do you know where it is now?”

“Yes, 1472 Goose Egg Drive.” Haynes scribbled it down.

“OK, I’ll talk to Dr Flowers and see if we can get a team over there today.”

“Good,” said RolexBoy, “I’m emailing over pictures and details now.

Sure enough, the computer beeped for an incoming email. Haynes opened it up and studied the pictures and text for a while, before tapping a few numbers into a desk phone.

“Dr Flowers?” he said when the call was picked up. “Haynes here. We’ve still got a holding tank here haven’t we? Only I think we’re going to need it.”

Episode 54

2010-08-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

His name was Steve Corner and he had been in telecoms ever since he’d managed to escape the dunghill town (as he privately thought of it) of Cold-Stone, Missouri. Although he’d been armed only with his high school diploma when he escaped, he’d impressed the hiring manager at Rainbow Telecom enough to get a place as a trainee engineer. He’d been bright and hard-working, and in a few short years had made it to Lead Systems Engineer, a good, well-paid position.

This morning, he was whistling Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head’ softly to himself as he sat down in front of his computer and logged in for another shift. His inbox was bulging with all the usual work requests, chasers for work requests, company Health & Safety bulletins and the like. One email, however, caught his eye. It was from a sender he hadn’t heard from in a while and had really hoped not to have to hear from ever again.

The sender was RolexBoy99. Steve sighed: they’d been trainees together and close friends once upon a time. So much so that RolexBoy had been the one he’d turned to when he’d hit and killed a pedestrian one night while driving home from a night out. There’d been no witnesses and Steve had fled the scene, terrified of what he’d done. RolexBoy had been supportive, had even urged him to go the cops at first, but had stood by him even when he hadn’t.

After a few months, RolexBoy had moved to another job and that had been that – until the emails started. They had always been just simple requests, getting Steve to alter RolexBoy’s phone records and reduce his bill, give him unlimited texts, that kind of thing. This one was different, though.

Hi Steve

One last favour – and I do mean the last one ever this time, buddy. I need the text of all messages sent to and from these numbers since 00:00 this morning

07993345276
07993333299
07443314251
07448754023

Do this for me and you’ll never hear from me again, promise.

RB

Accessing subscribers’ messages without authorisation was cause for instant dismissal, of course, but Steve’s heart leapt at the thought of never having to give in to RolexBoy’s blackmail attempts ever again.

His hands fairly flew over the keyboard in an effortless dance of access codes and menu-shortcuts. Soon he had the information on screen. There was very little activity, as it tuned out. All of the traffic, it seemed, had been between just one of the numbers in RolexBoy’s list and one other.

There were several outbound calls – not answered, evidently, then an exchange of texts, starting with an outgoing one:

07993345276: All safe here. Please call or text as soon as possible. Othello.
07744332257: Safe also. Box says there is a traitor in OGS. Meet us at 1472 Goose Egg Drive. H
07744332257: Do you have an ETA? H
07744332257: Do you have an ETA? H
07744332257: Do you have an ETA? H
07993345276: On our way. O.

Out of curiosity, Steve called up the subscriber names for the two numbers. The first one was registered to Aunt Aggie’s Family Cheesecake Company, the second to a Mr Raymond Donnelley.
Not recognising any of the names, Steve shrugged and pasted all the information into a reply email and hit send. Now maybe RolexBoy would finally leave him alone. He started whistling again.

Seconds later, a tinny little computer speaker beeped to alert its user to an incoming email. The user shut down the game of solitaire with which he had been amusing himself and opened up the message.

It was a good thing he was currently the sole occupant of the room – his air-punch and whispered exclamation of Yessss! would have raised more than one eyebrow.

Episode 53

2010-08-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

"So what do we do now?" Prada wanted to know. "The demon's disappeared and, let's face it, we're no nearer to solving this thing than we were before."

"Can you not track him down," asked Teatime, "the same way you did when he and I were on the run from you before?"

"No," sighed India, "We were only able to catch up with you that time because I planted a tracking device in the demon's backpack – which, as you can see, is sitting right over there."

"We're not completely out of leads yet," said Othello. "We've still got our traitor to find plus something that occurred to me while we were sitting around with those UPS guys." He turned to Reverend Box.

"You said you worked on project Dynamo with another agent - Mark Rainbow. If he's still around then maybe whoever is trying to revive the project has approached him. Do you know where he is now? Maybe would could talk to him."

Box looked less than happy at this turn in the line of enquiry. He scratched one of his large ears for a moment before answering.

"Rainbow and I didn't exactly part on the best of terms." he began, "We'd worked on the project for ages, thrown our whole lives and a lot of OGS resource into it, and had got pretty frustrated at our lack of progress. Then he had this crazy idea that instead of Dismissing the next demon OGS came across, we should just Bind it and keep it around for study. I was totally against it – as was the OGS hierarchy when I told them, so the project was canned. Our relationship became more than a little frayed after that, shall we say. The way he saw it, I'd sabotaged his life's work, but it would have been far too dangerous – a Bound demon is still a demon after all."

Prada, who had been fiddling with her phone as Box talked, suddenly spoke up.

"Your Mr Rainbow wouldn't be related to the Rainbows of Rainbow Industries, would he?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, he is," replied Box, "He's Jonathon Rainbow's younger brother and because of him OGS was able to buy quite a lot of equipment from Rainbow Industries for the Dynamo Project. When it was canned I think he got some heat from his older brother for allowing a lucrative arrangement to come to an end."

"That's very interesting," said Othello, "I don't know why we didn't think about this before. Rainbow is well-connected and might well be motivated to try to complete his life's work, wouldn't you say?"

"It's possible, I suppose," admitted Box, scratching his ear again, "But, last I heard, he was badly injured in a climbing accident at Casino Rocks. There's a part of it called Tumbling Angel, where you have to climb along hanging upside down from a roof-crack like Yosemite's Separate Reality. His safety wasn't hammered in hard enough and he fell a good forty feet. He was lucky to be alive, but the accident left him paralysed and, while his mind's OK, he's permanently on a ventilator now. I suppose he could be trying to finish the project, have one last throw of the dice, as it were, but it seems unlikely."

"He could have handed over the project to someone he trusted, though, someone able-bodied, maybe." said Othello. "Rainbow could be bankrolling it and providing guidance..?"

"I guess," Box acknowledged doubtfully.

"We have to check him out, surely." said Prada, "If only to eliminate him."

"And what of our traitor," added Teatime, "If this Rainbow chappie is really behind everything then our traitor must be connected to him in some way, keeping him informed of our movements and so forth. Is it worth looking again at those files you downloaded - or at Rainbow's own file for that matter?"

"Monkey's got a point," said Mercury, "It's something tangible to look for at any rate." He stifled a yawn. "It's been a long time since any of us slept. I suggest some of us take a nap while the others get another cup of coffee and start searching the records. We can take turns."

"Shouldn't somebody keep watch?" asked India.

"Fat lot of good it did us last time," said Prada. Then, seeing a faint bloom of red blossom under Othello's dark skin, she patted his shoulder, "Sorry, Othello, that was out of line."

"It's OK," he sighed, "I shouldn't have opened the door, it was stupid."

"Well, those guys got what they wanted, so I don't suppose we'll be seeing them again." said India. "I'll keep an eye out though, just in case. Let me just go and splash some cold water on my face first."

Meanwhile, Othello had booted his computer and was accessing the OGS system once more using Opal's password.

"What was Rainbow's codename as an agent?" he asked Box.

"Oh, it was Wood," replied Box, "after Ronnie Wood from the Rolling Stones. He was a huge fan of theirs, always playing their stuff while we were working. Boy, if I never have to hear Rip This Joint again it'll be too soon."

Othello's fingers tapped keys and brought up Agent Wood's file. An image of the agent stared out at him from the screen. Othello frowned.

"What's up?" asked Box, seeing the change in Othello's expression.

"It's probably the tiredness kicking in but there's something really familiar about that face and yet I'm pretty certain I've never met this guy."

"Well, he does resemble his older brother, Jonathon." said box, "You've probably seen him in the media about a million times."

"I suppose that could be it," said Othello, "But I'm sure I've seen a face like this just recently, but I can't put my finger on who it is or where it was." His fingers drummed lightly on the table as he tried to remember. "Nope," he said, after a while, "It's not coming back to me."

At that moment, the doorbell rang.

Episode 52

2010-08-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

Mr Teeth placed his glasses on the desk as Harold sat down opposite him. They'd been an impulse purchase when he'd stopped at the drugstore for some whey powder on the way here. Far from fixing his reading problems, however, all the glasses had done thus far was to give him a headache. He resisted the urge to rub the spot between his eyes.

"You can leave us," he informed the two fake UPS guys. "Tell Mr Peck to send me his final bill."

The one called Jeff grunted assent and the two men left the room, closing the door quietly.

There was a pregnant pause as Mr Teeth regarded Harold for a moment, noting the latter's change of clothes since the last time they'd met at Baron Samedi's. The little punk was still going with the scruffy look, it seemed, in contrast to his own businesslike dark suit and tie. Over the years, Mr Teeth had come to believe that his hugely muscular frame made much more of an impact on people when he dressed smartly. Jeans and t-shirts were all well and good when putting pressure on some kid in a back alley, but Mr Teeth himself rarely needed that kind of muscle these days - not that he didn't like to keep up the training, of course.

He leaned forward, steepling his fingers. The desk creaked slightly as he rested his elbows upon it.

"I've gone to a lot of trouble and expense to get you here," he said, "So I'll cut to the chase: I can see why you'd want to torch the club after we threw you out, but what have you done with my boss?"

So that's what it was all about! Harold was relieved. It seemed he wasn't about to be 'disappeared' after all. He remembered seeing Mr Teeth on the TV news saying he thought he knew who had burned down the club, but had never for a moment thought he was actually going to follow up on his suspicions – especially not to the extent of hiring people to kidnap him. He decided that the truth would be the best bet in this situation.

"Well," Harold said, "first of all, I didn't burn down your club and I have absolutely no idea where Baron Samedi is or what happened to him. I was actually in the middle of trying to find that out when your people waved guns at my friends and dragged me over here."

"You expect me to believe that?" said Mr Teeth.

Harold shrugged, "It's the truth. I wasn't even in town that night."

Mr Teeth did vaguely remember Mr Peck telling him that Harold had been seen getting on a train the day of the fire, but had decided that the little punk must have sneaked back into town on a later train or something. Who else could it have been?

Before he could pursue this line of thought any further, the silence was broken by the voice of Eddie Cochran singing I'm a-gonna raise a fuss, I'm a-gonna raise a holler.... It was Mr Teeth's phone. He picked it up, glanced irritatedly at the caller id and shut it off, putting an abrupt end to Mr Cochran's summertime blues.

"Look," said Harold, "I can prove I wasn't in town,"

So saying, Harold twisted his wrists apart, snapping the already weakened plastic cable-tie securing them. Seeing the sudden movement, Mr Teeth jumped out of his chair, gun in hand, pointing at Harold's head. Harold quickly held up his own hands to forestall any unpleasantness. Mr Teeth couldn't actually kill him, of course, but he'd already had to repair a considerable amount of damage to his vessel recently and he doubted Mr Teeth would be understanding enough to offer him pizza like the Reverend Box had.

"I'm just getting something out of my wallet," He said.

Mr Teeth lowered the gun slowly,

"You should have said what you were doing first," he grumbled, sitting down again.

Harold fished out his wallet. If he remembered rightly, it should still be in there tucked behind the bills. Yes!

"Look at this," Harold said, holding out a crumpled piece of paper.

"What is it," asked Mr Teeth, taking it.

"The bill from the Motel I was staying at that night."

Mr Teeth unfolded the paper and studied it for a few moments.

"You could have got this anywhere, it doesn't prove anything."

"You could always call them. I'm pretty certain they'll remember me, I left in rather a hurry and there was some damage." One kicked-in door, one smashed bathroom window...

Mt Teeth picked up his phone and, keeping a wary eye on Harold, dialled the Sleep-E-Zee Motel.

-0-0-0-

The Listener was awake again. No, that was too strong a word. The Listener was aware again. The voices were back, just on the edge of its hearing.

"If you don't believe me, just google 'parallel parking accident', the video's hilarious!" This was a new voice, quite deep and clearly amused at something.

"OK, if we can just focus on the job here please, people," This was the mosquito-voiced Dr Flowers, the Listener seemed to remember. "OK, careful now. Haynes, bring that dolly a bit closer will you? That's it. OK. Now lift."

"Ok, Doc, this'll be a slam dunk!"

There came a metallic whining noise and the Listener felt an unpleasant change in its world. A sort of slow invisible shimmering ran through its being like ink diffusing languidly through water. The whining stopped abruptly and the shimmering began to subside.

"Easy there," said another voice, deeper this time, "it's not quite centred. Haynes, move it a bit to the left will you?"

The machine-whine came again and with it the unsettling swirling feeling. Each swirl was almost enough to scatter the Listener's consciousness to oblivion. It was all it could do to hold on to the tatters of its self, to keep them integrated. The Listener wanted the swirling to stop. There had been a time when it could have made it stop, it thought. When was that? Memories hovered just out of reach, each one a faded postcard too indistinct to make out. Given time, though, the Listener felt sure it could make sense of them. Given time.

Suddenly, the Listener's world lurched and the voices were all shouting at once.

"Haynes, you idiot! I said LEFT!"

"Watch it!"

"Stop!"

The whining noise cut off.

"Sorry, Doc, the damn tank swung when I wasn't expecting it," said a voice (Haynes's?), "I've got it now. I've got it."

"Alright," this was the Flowers voice again - it sounded very nervous. "Just slide the dolly a bit further under and let it down more slowly this time. There's absolutely no rush."

Another whine and swirl, albeit much shorter this time.

"That's got it," said one of the deeper voices, "Dead centre now, Doc."

"OK," said the Flowers voice, "Now unhook the chains and let's get it loaded into the truck, but for goodness sake, take it slowly!"

The world moved again, in a different way this time and, exhausted, the Listener allowed the swirling to carry it away into the dark.

Episode 51

2010-08-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

The UPS truck rattled to a halt and the driver turned off the ignition. After the racket of the truck's diesel engine, the quiet was sudden, and Harold was surprised to hear birdsong coming from somewhere nearby. They were here, then – wherever 'here' was.

The back doors of the truck were opened and the occupants got out. Wherever here was, it was certainly nice. A long curving gravel drive wound its way up from the main road through a grove of scented orange trees. In front of a large house, fountains played noisily up and down in a large shallow pool the size of a small lake. The house itself looked like one of those experimental projects that architects like to feature in their portfolios to impress rich clients – it was a bold statement in wedding-cake pink stucco. Here and there, circular windows had been dotted, seemingly at random, giving the whole thing a curious Swiss cheese look. As he was marched up the gleaming white marble steps leading to the house's huge front doors, Harold could not help but think that there were worse places to end one's days – if it came to that..

-0-0-0-

Teatime worked on the delicate operation of freeing the stupid human OGS leader with as much speed and as little blood-loss as possible. Once or twice, he had to control a sudden desire to bite the man's hand – the old un-reconstructed monkey in him coming out, no doubt. He hated being this close to humans, they smelled horrid and had big, frightening hands that could grab and hold onto a little monkey like him and do whatever horrible pointless experiments they wanted - and had done just that in the past.

Finally the last bit of plastic parted and the job was done. Mercury briefly rubbed his wrists where the cable-tie had dug into his skin, thanked Teatime, and went into the kitchen to find some scissors or a knife to free the others.

Teatime looked up to see the other agents looking at him with a quizzical expression.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Have I got something in my teeth?"

"Oh, nothing, "said Prada, "We just didn't realise monkeys could growl, that's all."

-0-0-0-

The interior of the house was cool, pale and fashionably minimalist in decor. The tasteful monotony of cream walls and blond wood floor was relieved here and there by vividly–coloured abstract paintings. To Harold's untrained eye they looked more like the frantic daubings of a chimpanzee than the subtle expression of some deep artistic truth, but then Harold would be the first to admit that his knowledge of painting was marginal at best.

'Jeff', the fake UPS worker, knocked politely on one of the pale wooden doors leading off the hallway, then opened it to allow Harold and the other UPS guy to enter.

Whatever Harold, in his current, rather paranoid state had been expecting, it certainly wasn't the sight of an african-american man-mountain sitting behind a desk, a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles perched with incongruous delicacy on his nose, fingers tapping away on a computer keyboard.

Mr Teeth removed his glasses and used them to point to a chair.

"Siddown," he growled, "You got some explainin' to do."

Episode 50

2010-07-30T16:07:00.000-07:00

Teatime was not happy with the range of options currently open to him. On the one hand, he felt it would be sensible to stay with the stupid OGS humans and help them locate Harold – they had tracked him down once before, after all, maybe they could do it again. On the other hand, if these fake UPS fellows were part of the organisation responsible for the disappearances of various infernal and heavenly folk, then this was the first real break the investigation had had, and therefore it might be useful to try and get them to take him along with them.

The first option was the safest for himself, but it was argumentative whether it would bring results. The second option was more personally risky, but would give him a better chance of finding out more about what was going on – oh, and maybe of rescuing the amiable dullard as well. Well, there was nothing for it, he decided to take a gamble and see if anybody wanted a nice, cute, pet monkey.

Loathing himself for what he was about to do, Teatime ventured out from behind the sofa and attempted to look like something that even the Disney Channel would reject as being too gooey. He minced his way to the centre of the floor, where Garcia and/or Thompson would be sure to see him. Garcia spotted him first.

“Where’d he come from?”

“Who?” Thompson had been gazing out into the back garden and had his back to the room, his dump truck sized body blocking out a fair portion of daylight.

“The monkey here,”

Thompson turned around in time to see a small grey-furred monkey, clad in waistcoat and tiny bowler hat capering and simpering on the charcoal-coloured carpet.

“Must be a pet. Don’t let it distract you.”

India and the others could only look on helplessly. Garcia had ordered them all to sit on the floor with their backs against the wall, and had sternly warned against any talking. What on earth was the monkey-thing up to?

“Aw, he’s not doing any harm,” said Garcia, “Are ya, little fella?”

Upon being addressed directly, Teatime cocked his head to one side and assumed his most hopeful expression. This might just work…

“Ha!” laughed Garcia, “It’s like he understands what I’m saying.”

“Cut it out, Garcia, we’re working here.” Thompson aimed a grumpy half-hearted kick at Teatime, more to scare him than anything else. Seeing he was not likely to make any further headway, the little monkey scuttled over to where the OGS agents were sitting, insinuating himself between India and Prada.

-0-0-0-

What was it the humans said when they were nervous? I’ve got fireflies in my digestive system? No, it was more earthy than that. Oh, yeah, that was it: butterflies in my stomach! Harold did not have a stomach as such, but he was certainly a little nervous about what his immediate fate would be. Much more powerful demons and angels than he had been made to vanish into thin air somehow, and now it looked as though he might be next.

Well, Teatime wasn’t here to help now, so he’d have to shift for himself if he was going to get out of this in one piece. He had been prodded at gunpoint into the back of the UPS truck where another fake UPS person was waiting. He supposed he could have made a run for it then – it wasn’t as if they could have killed him, but there were the humans and Teatime to consider. Some demon he was, worrying about the safety of mortals. He could imagine what his father would say about that – the words would be sharp and at considerable volume.

There were no windows in the back of the truck so Harold had no idea where they were headed. The vehicle rattled along, swaying around corners and lurching to a stop at the occasional traffic light. Harold applied his attention to the plastic cable tie securing his wrists and began to cause the plastic to soften. Carefully does it, he warned himself, the humans must believe the tie was still intact. When he had finished, a few bumpy minutes later, he knew the cable tie would offer no more resistance when pulled apart than chocolate to a hot knife. Now he just had to await the right moment.

-0-0-0-

Garcia looked at his watch. “OK. We’re done here, let’s go.” He stood up and, followed by Thompson, walked out of the room. The agents heard the front door slam, followed shortly after by the sound of a car engine starting up and driving away.

The agents looked at one another.

“Well that was weird,” said Prada, clambering to her feet. “I thought we were at least going to be killed or something, not just ignored for an hour.”

“Oh, Gee, you want me to call them back?” said India sarcastically.

“OK, people, focus.” Said Mercury, “First, we need to get untied. Mr Teatime, could you possibly assist us?”

“I’m not sure I can, old bean,” said the monkey, hopping up onto the table. “I think your human knives and scissors will be too big for me to wield.” He waved his tiny black hands.

“Well, could you not, you know, gnaw the plastic or something?” This was Prada.

“Gnaw the plastic?” Teatime was scandalised, “Gnaw the plastic? Like some common animal?”

“Please?”

“Very well,” he sighed, “But I’m only doing one of you then that one can free the others. Now, who’s it to be?” Honestly, he thought disgustedly, they’d never have asked a human to do such a demeaning thing.

Episode 49

2010-07-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

“So, are we happy with this list?” asked Mercury. Othello and Box indicated their agreement. They had, between them, worked their way through the complete list of OGS agent files Othello had downloaded from the OGS system – some one hundred personnel files.

“So who’ve we got?” asked Prada from her place at the window.

“Agents Cobalt, Sabre, Callisto, Oak and Ruby.”

“Ruby?” Prada was incredulous, “You’re kidding right? I went to his birthday barbecue last month. I taught his daughters jump rope. He’s solid, I’d bet my life on it.”

“You’re probably right,” said Mercury soothingly, “but at this stage we’re just pulling out anyone with anything unusual in their background. Ruby’s family is significantly wealthy, so he might be able to buy stuff other folks couldn’t. The family owns a chain of jewellery stores. Remember, we’re not accusing anyone of anything yet.”

“Cobalt’s background is in mining, that’s why he’s on the list,” added Othello, “he might have been able to get his hands on explosives.”

“And Sabre?” asked Prada, “What’s your justification for including her?”

“She has a gap in her history of about six months, which is very unusual - OGS is usually very thorough. It’s probably nothing, but nobody else had any gaps.”

“And Oak had a fairly long-running bit part in a soap opera.” Othello again.

“How is that relevant? I know some soap operas are criminally bad, but, even so.”

“Well, I suppose we’re clutching at straws here,” explained Othello, “but I was thinking about acting ability and how someone who was good at dissembling might be our traitor.”

Harold was only half listening to the agents’ discussion, he was enjoying looking at the garden. Box’s mysterious friend obviously had green fingers if this pleasant and well-kept space was anything to go by. At this time of the year, many of the plants were in bloom, adding splashes of colour here and there and the plants themselves looked to be in a lot better shape than the hot-housed, wilted specimens Harold had sometimes seen on sale in filling station forecourts. Of course, this garden, as fine as it was, was not a patch on that other one, the very first one… He stopped his thoughts right there, before they could take a turn down a rocky and painful road, to coin a figure of speech.

He wished he could be more help with the task in hand. Spotting a traitor in one’s midst was never easy, such a one was hardly likely to leave any obvious clues. Of course, Harold himself did not know any OGS agents apart from the ones in the room, their boss, Opal, and that young agent, Moon. All of them seemed super-duper squeaky-clean to him. Humans were masters of deception though, so you could never tell. He smiled to himself: talk about calling the kettle black.

“What’s tickling you?” asked Teatime, seeing Harold’s grin.

“Oh, nothing much,” Harold replied, “just the huge and fascinating ironies of life.”

“I do wonder about you sometimes, old sock, I really do.”

The doorbell rang.

“It’s a delivery guy,” said Prada quietly, “I’ve been watching him. He’s just been to the house across the street, but it looks like they’re not at home. I guess he’s looking to see if we’ll take in the package. Ours is the only house with a car in the driveway, so he probably thinks there’s someone here.”

“Does he look legit?” asked Box.

“He’s wearing a UPS uniform and his truck has the right livery.”

“I’ll get rid of him,” said Othello, standing up.

“Why don’t we just ignore him?” said India, “Surely that would be safest.”

Othello was already at the door. From the living room, they heard a brief low-voiced conversation. Othello then came back into the room, followed very closely by the UPS guy, who had a silenced gun pressed into the small of Othello’s back.

“Everybody keep calm and nobody will get hurt,” he said loudly and clearly. He gave Othello a push. “Face down, on the floor, all of you.” His voice dropped to a more normal level as they scrambled to comply, he was addressing an unseen colleague via an earpiece, evidently. “OK, I’m in. Garcia. Thompson. You’re up. Andrews, inform Mr Peck.”

A few moments later, Garcia and Thompson appeared. They too, were sporting UPS livery, earpieces – and guns.

“What’s going on?” demanded Mercury, “who are you people?”

“No talking.” Replied the first fake-UPS guy, whose name-tag identified him as Jeff. “Garcia. Get all their phones and those computers. Thompson, tie them up.”

Harold had briefly considered rushing Jeff before the others appeared. Bullets would not kill him after all, but, in a rare bout of think first and act later, he realised that there was a high risk of the gun going off and injuring or even killing one of the humans. By the time he had worked though this logic, the moment had passed anyway, so he followed Jeff’s instructions. Teatime jumped off his shoulder and ran behind the sofa, doing his best to act the dumb-monkey-who-is-no-threat-whatsoever-to-anyone-no-sir.

Garcia and Thompson were briskly efficient, and soon everybody was phone-free and wearing the latest in plastic cable-tie bracelets.

“OK, good,” said Jeff, when they had finished, “Now you, blond guy in the leather jacket. On your feet, you’re with me. The rest of you stay nice and quiet for my colleagues here.”

Harold got to his feet with some trepidation. Was he about to join Baron Samedi, Susan, Illyriel and all the rest?

Episode 48

2010-07-17T12:59:00.000-07:00

“I’m pleased to see you‘ve taken on board the gravity of the situation, Doctor Flowers.” The voice was deep, but thin and tinny, as though it came from a long distance away.

“I certainly have,” replied a second voice – Flowers’s, presumably. “Arranging the logistics of the move is pure aggravation, but a sensible precaution given what we’ve been hearing.” This second voice was higher-pitched, distorted to almost a mosquito-whine. The listener could barely make out the words, but the words were all that existed in the listener’s world – there was neither light nor shade, neither warmth nor cold, and – up till now, at least – there had been no sound. Memories stirred lazily in the depths of the listener’s mind, like fish in the depths of a frozen pond. It had not always been like this. The listener struggled to recall what exactly it had been like, but the effort was exhausting. The first voice was speaking again.

“Have you done the ten o’clocks yet?”

“I was Just about to do them, sir. Would you care to see?”

“Yes, I would, actually. Lead the way.”

The voices fell silent, leaving the listener alone to wonder if it had imagined them.

-0-0-0-

“I wonder how long this heat wave is going to continue,” grumbled Prada from her post by the front window, “it wouldn’t be so bad if we had air-con or something.”

A couple of hours had passed and the mysterious telephone truck was still parked, apparently deserted.

Behind her, in the living room, Othello stood up and stretched, a few joints popping as he did so.

“Seen anything yet?” asked Box, who was indulging his sweet tooth with the jar of jelly beans from the kitchen.

“Nothing that jumps out at me,” sighed Othello.

“Me neither,” added Mercury, sitting back from his computer and rubbing his eyes. “Let’s take a break and come back to this, my head’s buzzing.”

“I could take over if you like,” offered Box. Mercury gave him a be-my-guest wave and wandered into the kitchen in search of a cooling drink.

Remembering not to stand in full view, Harold wandered over to where India was watching the back garden.

“I could watch for a while if you need a break.” He said. India favoured him with a killer stare, but then seemed to reconsider and, mumbling her thanks, walked after Mercury.

“I think she’s thawing,” Harold whispered gleefully to Teatime. “She didn’t even insult me that time.”

“I think the final hours of the universe will be but a distant memory before she ever warms to you, old button.” Teatime replied

“I live in hope.” Grinned Harold.

“Then it’s a jolly good thing you’re immortal.” Was the monkey’s dry response.

-0-0-0-0-

The voices were back, closer and louder this time. With an effort, the listener dragged together the shreds of its diffuse attention and tried to focus on what was being said.

“…pioneering work was first done in Scotland,” the one the listener dimly remembered was called Flowers was saying.

“Oh, yes,” agreed the first, as yet, unnamed voice, “Shark-something and Webber, or something, wasn’t it?”

“Sharkey and Webster, sir, yes.” replied Flowers. “Brilliant researchers, both, but sadly not given the credit they deserve. It was tragic the way they were killed before they could publish, truly… Oh hello.”

“What is it?”

The voices were very close now; the listener did not have to struggle at all to make them out.

“The reading’s are a bit high on this one.” Flowers explained, “Could you just hold on to this for me, while I change the settings? We don’t want to go the way of Shark-something and Webber, now do we?”

The two voices laughed together quietly for a moment. There followed a rapid series of clicks and suddenly the listener forgot itself once again.

Episode 47

2010-07-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

“… and I used to dream that the spiders living under my floor boards would come out at night and lay eggs in the carpet,” Prada was saying as Harold re-entered the living room with the coffee tray, “Took me years to work up the nerve to walk barefoot in that house. Ah, coffee!”

Harold smoothly placed the tray of cups and the coffeepot on the table.

“Right,” said Mercury, “Down to business. The way I see it, we have two things to worry about: our original investigation into the disappearances, and the fact that there may be someone in our midst working against us.”

“No ‘may be’ about it,” muttered Box into his coffee cup.

“This could actually work somewhat to our advantage,” piped up Teatime.

“How could that possibly work to our advantage?” said Prada, disbelievingly, “All it’s done so far is messed up our investigation.”

“Well,” said the little monkey, “Our ‘traitor’ is a definite link to Enigma – in fact, the only real link we have. If we can identify him – or her – then we may be able to use that to get to the bottom of things.”

“Yes,” agreed Othello, “That’s a good point. Thinking about it, I bet Agent Emerald was killed because he was either getting too close to the traitor or had uncovered something about the resurrection of project Dynamo.”

“I’m willing to bet,” chipped in Mercury, “that Emerald had some suspicions of his own and felt threatened, else why go to the trouble of setting up clues in his apartment the way he did?”

“Pity he didn’t leave any clues as to who he thought the traitor was.” Said India.

“Maybe he did,” said Othello, “but we didn’t know to look for them. Let’s face it, we almost didn’t find the Dynamo clues. Maybe if we went back there and looked again…?”

“It’s an idea,” agreed Mercury. “We have to be careful about the places we go, though. We don’t want to find any more presents waiting for us.”

“That’s a point,” said Teatime, “Who at OGS would have known where we were going?”

Othello pursed his lips, “Our mission wasn’t exactly secret, so anyone who could log onto our system could pull up our case notes and plans. Plus, we haven’t exactly kept our verbal discussions private – anyone could have overheard them.”

”Are we assuming then that our traitor is local – based at Aunt Aggie’s?” asked Prada.

“I think so, although we should beware of leaping to that conclusion too readily,” replied Othello, “Emerald worked out of Aunt Aggie’s, though, as do we. Add to that the apparent speed with which our traitor was able to organise his little surprise party and it’s a not unreasonable assumption – at least for now.”

“Whoever it was also moved quite quickly to intimidate Reverend Box,” said Harold.

“Yeah,” growled Box, “The guy was dressed in a nice suit and tie – I thought it was one of you at first, having arranged to meet you. Wouldn’t have let him in otherwise.”

“What exactly did he look like?” Mercury asked.

“He was about five-nine, average build. Black hair, brown eyes.”

Othello got out his laptop and brought it purring to life. “Give me a minute here,” he said, “There’s a site on the web that lets you do your own e-fits. It might be useful.”

About twenty minutes of clicking, pointing, pursed lips, wrinkled foreheads, tutting, squinting sideways and correcting later, a face stared out at them from the computer screen.

“Don’t recognise him at all.” Said Mercury. “If he’s OGS, he’s not from around here.”

“That would have been too easy,” grumbled Prada.

“I’m not sure he was actually OGS anyway,” said Box, “More likely, he was someone hired to warn me off helping you. Makes sense to use hired help when you think about it, nobody can point the finger at you later on.”

“How annoyingly far-sighted of him,” said Teatime. “He must have access to a fair amount of resources to hire his own goons – and have bombs planted on request. You chaps do background checks on your people don’t you? Are those records kept anywhere we could get to them?”

“We do conduct background checks and there are records, of course, but they’re only accessible to Directors. Why do you ask?” Said Mercury,

“Well, our traitor might have things in his background – occupational connections, maybe, or family ones – that might give us a clue.”

“There must be a hundred agents working out of Aunt Aggie's,” said Mercury, “Even if we could access their records, it would take time to go through each one’s background. Anyway, we can't access them, so it’s not an option.”

“It might be,” said Othello. The others looked at him. “A while back, Director Opal was having some computer problems and I helped him out. I had to use his password to log in.” Othello’s fingers did a rapid QWERTY two-step. “I told him to change it immediately after, but I’m betting….” His fingers danced some more, tapping in m-o-o-n-s-h-i-n-e-2-1. The login screen, bearing the crossed crook and key of the OGS crest, disappeared, to be replaced by a menu. “Gotta love human nature,” sang Othello, “His last password ended in two-zero. I just knew he’d do the absolute minimum to change it. Now, let’s see… It should be possible to download the records onto my laptop. Box, do you still have your laptop?”

“I do,” replied Box, “I’ll just go and get it.” He disappeared upstairs.

“ If I copy the records to a CD and give them to Box, then two people can work on the records at the same time on two machines. I don’t want to have to stay logged in here for any length of time – if Opal tried to log in now, he’d be told that he was already logged on. The system only allows a user to be logged on once at any one time.” He dug in his laptop bag, retrieved a CD, flipped open the transparent jewel case and placed the shiny disc into the computer’s drive.

A short time later, Box came trotting back down the stairs, laptop in hand.

“I don’t want to worry anyone” he said, “but when I was upstairs, I looked out the bedroom window and there’s a telephone company truck parked just down the street.”

“What of it?” said Mercury.

“It’s only just turned seven a.m.” The little man said, “Since when did the telephone company ever show up this early in the morning?”

“Might be nothing,” said Mercury, “Maybe we should keep a lookout, though, in case. Prada, you take the front. India, the back. Is that CD ready?”

Othello handed the CD to Box and explained quickly what they were about. Box started up his machine. Othello began scanning records on his computer while Mercury did the same on Box’s.

Having nothing else to do, Harold wandered over to where Prada was looking out of the front windows.

“Don’t stand in full view,” she scolded, “stand so the curtain hides you.”

“Sorry,” he said, “Haven’t exactly been trained for this.”

Outside in the street, all was quiet.

Episode 46

2010-07-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

"Doesn't look like much, does it?" said Prada, parking the car outside the very ordinary-looking residence corresponding to the address that Harold had texted.

"Probably why it was chosen," said Mercury, "It's not like you'd want to post signs outside saying 'Safe House This Way'."

Prada shrugged and got out of the car. The others followed suit and they walked up the drive to the charcoal-coloured front door. Othello pressed the bell and they were rewarded with the first few bars of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, played on what sounded for all the world like some kind of adenoidal Patagonian nose-flute.

"Quaint," he murmured.

"I was thinking of going with tacky," commented Teatime from Othello's shoulder, where he had taken to riding, "But quaint is more charitable, I suppose."

Harold opened the door and stepped back to allow them all to enter.

-0-0-0-

Mr Teeth was squinting at the maddeningly small text printed on the packaging of the new muscle-growth supplement he had just bought. He was really going to have to get some reading glasses one of these days. The package blurb claimed the powder had been used successfully by eastern European gymnastics coaches with minimal side-effects, and the list of chemical ingredients was worryingly long and unpronounceable. It looked like his credit card had got him DuPont's annual output and had almost maxed out doing it. Oh well, easy come, easy go, he thought, pouring the unappealing grey powder into a jug.

The phone rang.

"This is Peck."

"Go on,"

"My associates have tracked your quarry to an address in the suburbs, where the other people he's been associating with have joined him. There is also one other there – a small, bald male, rides a motorcycle."

"I don't recognise him from that description."

"No matter, my associates are watching the house now. How would you like this to play out? We can put together an operation at the house or we can intercept them if they leave."

"I actually just want to talk to the punk for now," replied Mr Teeth, "and don't want to go stirring up trouble that might attract attention."

"My associates are very discreet and very competent." Peck's voice was smooth and cool.

"I'm sure they are." and expensive too, I bet, "OK, see what you can do. Call me when you've got him to the address I gave you."

"As you wish." The line went dead with a soft click.

-0-0-0-

"We thought you'd sprouted wings and flown away, old sock." said Teatime, hopping onto his accustomed place on Harold's shoulder once more.

"Not quite," laughed Harold, "although I did spend a small amount of time in the air when the bomb went off. Luckily, Reverend Box came along at just the right time." Between them, Box and Harold filled in the missing pieces of the night's events.

"OK," said Mercury, when they'd finished, "We need to work out how to flush out the traitor in our midst – maybe he or she will lead us to whoever is causing us so much trouble."

"I've been thinking," said Othello, turning to Box, "Your Dynamo records, did you really send them away and, if so, where?"

"I never actually had any," said Box, "I made all that up so I could give you the Osprey building's address. Sorry"

"So there are no records left then? You mentioned an Agent Iris having some, but there was no such agent in our database."

"Ah," Box smacked his hand against his forehead, "I'm such an idiot. Iris was the joke name I used to call him back then, on account of his surname."

"Which was?"

"Rainbow – his name was Mark Rainbow. Iris is a messenger of the goddess Hera and the personification of the rainbow, you see?"

"No wonder I couldn't find him." Othello rubbed his eyes, "Any coffee around here?"

"I'll make some," volunteered Harold, who quite fancied a cup himself. He went into the kitchen and began fiddling with the coffee maker. After a few moments, he heard the kitchen door open. He turned around and was surprised to see India coming into the kitchen.

She held something out to him.

"Thought you might want this," she said, curtly. It was Harold's backpack, containing his trumpet.

"Wow!" he cried, "Thanks! I thought I was never going to see this again, that was really – "

But she was already closing the door on her way out.

Episode 45

2010-06-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

It was full daylight now and Box was pacing agitatedly up and down the living room. Even though it was still early, the heat was building up. Through the French doors that he had thrown open, the angry buzz of a neighbour’s lawn mover started up.

“Zeus’s beard,” he said, irritated, “It’s not even six-thirty. The only ones who’ll be sleeping through that racket are people who wear earphones to bed. Where are those agents?”

Harold glanced at his phone again just in case, but there were no missed calls and no new messages.

“I’m sure they’ll be here as soon as they can,” he said, “What are we going to do when they get here anyway?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure yet,” Box replied, “From what you and the others have told me, it looks like someone’s trying to get Project Dynamo up and running again. The thing is, if it’s not OGS - who have an obvious motive to get rid of demons at least - then who is it and why?”

“And how, don’t forget how.” Said Harold, “Demons like Baron Samedi aren’t that easy to overcome. Even if Dynamo is working somehow and Enigma – “

“Enigma?” Box gave Harold a quizzical look.

“It was quicker to say than ‘our mystery adversary’ all the time,” grinned Harold, “Personally, I think it’s a bit obvious and cliché, we should really have gone for something like the Congregation or something spooky like that. Point is: having located one of us, it’s not a simple matter to get the upper hand. Demons who’ve been on the Brightside as long as Samedi and co – and angels like Illyriel - are practised in exercising their various powers. You were an agent once, you know this stuff.”

“Yeah,” Box flopped into a chair, “Binding would work, of course, if you were quick enough - and the demon couldn’t get away before you finished the words.”

“Tell me about it,” said Harold ruefully, remembering the unpleasant barbed-wire prickling sensation of Mercury’s Binding.

Box raised an eyebrow. “You’re Bound?” He snacked his hand against his forehead, “Of course! So that’s why you’ve been helping OGS. I should have realised. Honest to goodness, if I were any dumber, I’d lose a battle of wits with a flower pot. Getting careless and stupid in my old age is what I am. Here’s me treating you like one of the team and all the time -”

“But, I’m not Bound,” interrupted Harold.

“What?” Box’s face was a picture of disbelief. Demons helping out? This was new.

“I’m helping of my own free will.” Harold went on. And the moon is made of green cheese, his inner voice finished for him. “Well, sort of, anyway. Look, the Basement and the Penthouse have come to an arrangement of sorts – until this is over at least, and I’m sort of assisting OGS.”
“I see.” Box pursed his lips, “Well, there’s a thing. There’s a thing indeed.” He lapsed into a thoughtful silence as he paced.

Harold stuck his hands into the pockets of his borrowed leather jacket and was surprised to discover they were not empty. Carefully, he withdrew the items and laid them on the coffee table – a box of matches, some cinnamon tic-tacs and a small bottle of antibiotics. Harold checked to make sure that no other personal property of the jacket’s real owner remained – it was only polite after all.

His phone beeped. He snatched it up quickly and read the message.

“It’s Othello, “ he said, “They’re on their way.”

Episode 44

2010-06-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

“You’ll be needing some clothes,” said Box. “Wait here a minute.”

As the little man went upstairs, Harold looked down at himself. The reverend was right: the bomb-blast had pretty much reduced what he had been wearing to rags and tatters, but with all the excitement, matters of a sartorial nature had been the last thing on his mind. Of course, more experienced demons than him would be just able to change their appearance to mimic any clothing they desired, but Harold had not developed his skills beyond maintaining a basic simulacrum of human form – hair had been the hardest thing to do and he hadn’t even bothered with details like a belly button. He sighed. He had such a lot to get to grips with.

Box reappeared. “Try these, they might be just about big enough.” He said, dumping an armload of clothes onto the living room sofa. Harold quickly picked through the stuff, rejecting a tee-shirt declaring Guaranteed Satisfaction! for one adorned with a spoof road sign ordering everyone to Stop in the Name of Love. The jeans were a little short in the leg but fitted well enough otherwise. A far-from cheap black leather jacket completed the ensemble.

“Whose things are these?” Harold asked wonderingly, carefully folding the items he’d rejected. They were clearly not the property of the five-foot-nothing Box.

“A friend’s.” replied Box, tersely, “Owes me a favour or two so lets me use this place on and off. Are they coming or not?”

Taking the sudden change of subject as a hint not to enquire further, Harold fished out his phone, “No reply as yet. “

-0-0-0-

“A traitor? In OGS? That’s not possible, surely?” said India, aghast.

Othello snapped his phone shut. “Well, it’s a rarity, but it has happened. When you get a chance, you should read up on Operations Swiss Cheese, Left Luggage and Black Saturday – so-called agent Cleopatra really did a number on us until she was found out. We lost a dozen good agents because of her.”

“How did she get into OGS, though?” India persisted, “When I joined, even my germs were background checked!”

“Well, we’re a lot more careful these days.”

“What happened to Cleopatra in the end?”

“She committed suicide, had some poison hidden in a perfume bottle.” Othello’s voice was grim.

“Ingenious,” commented Prada, “But what are we going to do now?”

“I think we should do as the demon suggests.” Said Othello. “Someone’s definitely been a step ahead of us. I vote we go to the address it gave us.”

“I agree,” said Mercury, “But I suggest we approach with caution in case the demon wasn’t the one who sent the message. Somebody else may have got hold of its cell phone.”

They were about to get back into the car when the door to Aunt Aggie’s opened and Agent Moon came trotting out.

“I thought I saw your car,” he cried, excitedly, “Thank goodness you’re safe! It was on the news, there was a big explosion near where you guys were going. Director Opal wants a full report right away.”

Episode 43

2010-06-12T16:26:00.000-07:00

“That’s quite a story,” said Box thoughtfully, as Harold finished relating the latest chapter in what was turning out to be one of the most bizarre phases of his long life. Weirdness, it seemed had become something of a universal constant, like gravity.

“It is,” the demon agreed, “And it’s all true. But what happened to you? We were worried.”

Box began to pace around the kitchen, his bike leathers creaking with each step.

“After Agent Othello called me to set up that first meeting, I had a visitor who warned me that if I was too helpful, there’d be consequences.”

“Ah,” said Harold, “Teatime said he thought someone else had been at your place before us – he smelt spearmint.”

“Very perceptive of him,” Box thought for a moment, “Wait, which one was he? I only remember two male agents: Mercury and Othello.”

“He was the monkey on my shoulder. Well, he’s a bit more than a monkey really. My father ‘upgraded’ him in return for his service.”

Box narrowed his eyes.

“So the Basement is messing with animals now.” He shook his head disgustedly.

“It’s not like the Penthouse hasn’t done it,” retorted Harold, feeling obliged to stand up for his own ‘team’ – he was, after all, a sort of charter member, having been one of the original Fallen - even if he was not one of its most vigorous ‘players’, “let’s not forget Balaam’s Ass.”

There was a pregnant pause and Harold could feel the tension building like static before a storm. He should say something and defuse the situation because, while he was not exactly planning to cut a rug with the strange little human, the man had helped him and that counted for something. He was about to say something when Box spoke.

“Ok, ok,” he said, spreading his hands in apology, “We could fling things at each other all night, but we’re wasting time. Where was I? “

“You had a visitor,” prompted Harold, glad to return to the matter at hand.

“Oh, yes, that was it. He made it clear I was not to give you any help or I’d pay for it.”

“But you helped us anyway. Wasn’t that a bit risky?”

“It was,” Box admitted, “But I will not be threatened. I’m not stupid though, I got out of there. ”

“And left the shipping receipt for us to find?”

“You, or whoever was threatening me. Took me a while to put it together on the computer, but I was quite pleased with the look of it in the end.”

“You mean it was a fake?”

“Yep.” Box looked pleased with himself, “I knew about the Osprey building from an old case from years ago, so I used the address.”

“I don’t understand,” said Harold. This was all a bit too cloak and dagger for him.

“I wanted to see who’d show up there,“ explained Box, “If it was you guys, I was going to make myself known. If it was the others, I was going to follow them and try to find out what was going on.”

“So you knew about the bomb? Why didn’t you warn us?”

“Zeus’s golden gonads!” cried Box, “Do you think I’d have let you all go walking in if I’d known there was a bomb in there? Of course I didn’t know about any bomb!”

“But if you were watching the place…?”

“Look, I saw that young blonde agent nosing around there, but she cleared off before I could approach. Then a bit later, some guy came along and went into the alleyway. From where I was, I couldn’t see what he was up to. He was in there about five minutes then he came back out. I thought he was just checking the place out, I never dreamed he might have a bomb with him.”

“Then we came along.”

“Then you came along. You went in. Next thing I know, you’re high-tailing it out of there. I went and got my bike to follow you and here we are. The question is: what now?”

“Well, I think I should find out if the others are OK,” said Harold, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Oh,” he said, reading the display, “Looks like Othello’s been trying to get in touch. Good!”

“Do you trust those agents?” asked Box. Harold stopped dialling and looked at Box enquiringly.

“Yes,” he said, “yes, I do.”

“Good,” said Box, “Text them and say this…”

-0-0-0-0-

Dawn was just breaking when Mercury, Othello, Prada and India reached Aunt Aggie’s. As they got out of the car, the sky was lightening to a clear blue apart from a few clouds the colour of whipped cream which were scattered sparingly about.

Othello’s phone beeped. He took it out at read the message.

“What is it?” asked Mercury.

“It’s the demon,” replied Othello, “It’s telling us not to come back here because there’s a traitor in OGS.”

Episode 42

2010-06-04T15:29:00.000-07:00

“Well that’s where the bomb went off,” said Mercury as the car rounded the final corner. In the middle of a largish piece of waste ground, there was a large crater with piles of dirt, fallen masonry and other disturbed rubbish radiating out from it.

“So where’s the demon got to?” wondered Prada.

“I imagine he would have thought it prudent to conceal himself, pending our arrival,” replied Teatime, who was himself straining to see out of the car window into the darkness. “He’s a bit dim, but he would know enough to keep out of sight once the police sirens started up.”

“Speaking of which,” said Mercury, “I don’t think we can hang around here for too long. Stop the car, but keep the engine running. Maybe it’ll realise we’re here and come out.”

Prada brought the car to a halt and they all waited.

“You could try phoning him,” said Teatime. With an annoyed why-didn’t-I-think-of-that grunt, Othello dug out his mobile and dialled. “No answer,” he said after a while, “Maybe its phone got damaged in the blast.”

“Or maybe it’s decided that this would be a chance to give us the slip, once and for all.” Said India darkly.

“Now look here!” cried Teatime, annoyed by the woman’s constant insinuations. “I don’t think that’s a very fair thing to say, given that he just saved all our lives. If he’d really wanted to get rid of us for good, he could have just run off, but he didn’t.”

India had the good grace to look abashed.

“Monkey’s got a point,” admitted Othello, “Let’s keep an open mind, shall we? I’ll send a text message, you never know.”

-0-0-0-

They had been travelling for just a couple of minutes but already they were out in the suburbs and, although he couldn’t be sure over the roar of the bike’s engine, Harold was pretty sure the sirens had been safely left behind. He was delighted to discover that zipping along the road in the dark, with the wind streaming though his hair was actually very pleasant. He’d have to get himself one of these marvellous machines!

The mysterious rider turned off the main road into a side street which rejoiced in the name Goose Egg Drive. It was a street of unremarkable family residences such as could be found in just about any town. About half way down the street, the rider slowed the bike and piloted it up onto the driveway of one of the houses. Ahead, a garage door was already rolling upwards and they slid neatly inside. They came to a halt in a very ordinary-looking domestic garage, complete with a pegboard of rusty tools, half-full tins of paint, packets of chemicals for getting rid of carpenter ants and all the usual bric-a-brac. Harold climbed off the bike, followed by the rider, who thumbed a remote control, closing the door.

Now that the rider was standing up, rather than sitting astride the bike, Harold could see that he or she was quite short – the top of his (or her) head only coming up to Harold’s shoulder. The rider reached up and lifted off the all-concealing helmet, to reveal a familiar knobbly brown head.

“Reverend Box!” exclaimed Harold.

“No. Mickey Mouse, who’d you think?” retorted the strange little man, setting down his helmet. “Come on in.” He led Harold through a door into the main part of the house and flicked on the lights. Bright fluorescent light flooded a tidy modern kitchen. The room’s ceiling fan began to turn lazily. After the nights alarums and excursions it all seemed bizarrely normal.

“You’ll be needing energy, no doubt,” said Box, “There’s some cold pizza over there and some olive oil in the cupboard if you need a lot of calories quickly. Don’t touch the jelly beans though, they’re all mine.”

“Pizza sounds good, thanks.” Harold flipped open the box and grabbed a slice. His recovery was going well, but the extra energy would speed him well on his way to being good as new.

Box leaned against the kitchen counter, his bike leathers creaking faintly, and faced Harold.

“So,” he said, folding his arms.

-0-0-0-0

“OK, let’s head back to Aunt Aggie’s,” sighed Mercury, “Doesn’t look like our friend is going to show up now.” There was a murmur of agreement from the others.

As the car began to make its way through the dark, litter-strewn streets, Teatime began to worry. The explosion wouldn’t have been fatal to Harold and he’d certainly had enough time to scamper up to the waiting car if he’d been skulking abut anywhere nearby, so where was he? Had he, as India had so mean-spiritedly suggested, made a bid for freedom? Teatime considered himself a good judge of character and this scenario struck him as extremely unlikely . Grabbing the bomb and removing it to a safe distance was the kind of altruistic nonsense that would have got Harold labelled a freak down in the Basement – actually, most other demons probably thought that about him already, what with his eternal reluctance to involve himself in his father’s diabolical affairs. No, he had been right to act as the demon’s champion, for what it was worth. So, if he had not run off, did this mean that he had disappeared like the other demons? Now that was an upsetting thought - not because Teatime had any huge amount of affection for Harold (although he was sort of vaguely likeable in his simpleminded way), but because it meant losing a useful asset. Harold’s father had always meant for Harold to serve as bait for whoever was behind the disappearances, but his intention had been that the circumstances should be more controlled and that Teatime should be able to report back in a little more detail than he just disappeared, my Lord. He shivered. Harold had better turn up soon or there’d be trouble.

Episode 41

2010-05-29T13:18:00.000-07:00

“Everybody OK?” Mercury looked around, the noise of the blast still ringing in his ears.

The rest of the team seemed to be pretty much unscathed apart from a couple of minor cuts caused by flying glass fragments. They had all been fairly well shielded from the main brunt of the explosion by the Osprey building itself, but its windows had shattered, raining down little pieces of grimy glass.

“What the hell was that?” demanded Prada, shaking bits out of her hair.

“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” came Teatime’s exasperated voice from down by her feet.
“There was a bomb in the warehouse.”

“A bomb?”

“Yes! You know: tick-tick-boom. A bomb!” Teatime jumped up onto a pile of boxes (McKinley’s Organic Clam Chowder) which provided a more convenient platform from which to address these maddeningly thick-headed humans. “Someone left us a little present, it seems. Harold found it.”

“And ran off to save itself. “ said India sourly, “Nice.”

“No!” cried Teatime, irritated. “He ran off with the bomb to save us!“

The wail of a police siren insinuated itself into the surprised silence.

“Look, we can’t afford to be found here,” said Mercury, “Let’s go find that demon and get out of here. Shake a leg, people!”

Harold carefully levered himself up into a sitting position, causing little avalanches of dust and debris to cascade off him. He was nowhere near fully recovered yet, but the sound of sirens had started up somewhere in the distance and was getting louder. While he didn’t know exactly what would happen if one of his tribe were to fall into the hands of human law enforcement, he had no doubt that if such a thing were to happen, awkwardness would certainly ensue. He had better get out of here and quickly.

Part of a nearby wall had come down in an untidy pile onto his left foot and lower leg, pinning it to the ground. Sighing, he set to work as quickly and carefully as possible removing the bricks one by one and tossing them aside. They seemed ridiculously heavy in his weakened state. He hoped the humans and Teatime were all safe, that he had got the bomb far enough away and that this had not all been for nothing. Running off with the bomb like that was arguably the most reckless course of action in the circumstances – he might have triggered it himself. Somehow, though, it had seemed exactly the right thing to do and there had been no time to give the humans chapter and verse on the situation anyway.

He wondered if they’d come looking for him or just simply write him off. If the latter, a little voice in his head whispered, he’d be free to do as he pleased, maybe find a quiet little town somewhere, settle down, get a job, compose jazz pieces in his spare time with pretentious names like Blue Dangling Participle, Noetic Concordance or Purity of Possibility. He would stay out of everyone’s way, not attract any attention. After a few years he could give himself gray hair and a few wrinkles to allay suspicion. A quiet life, now that was an appealing thought.

The pile of bricks was getting gradually smaller. Soon he’d be able to get his foot out.

No, he told himself, disembarking reluctantly from the rather pleasant train of thought he’d been riding, the OGS humans would come looking, definitely. They would know he couldn’t have been killed by a mere explosion. He was also fairly certain that Agent India wouldn’t let them leave a loose end like that. No, they’d be here any minute with that useful car of theirs. His foot emerged from under the bricks, decidedly the worse for wear. They’d better be: in his current condition an untidy stagger would be the best he could manage.

“Here!” said Mercury “Turn left and don’t drive over the – “
The car’s tyres crunched over a bent and battered sign - Tired of smelly shoes? Odour-Eater Mega Sale Now On! – flattening it out once more.
“Never mind.”
“We’re definitely getting closer,” said Othello from the passenger seat. “There’s much more debris down here.”
“How can you tell?” asked Prada, sarcastically, “This whole neighbourhood looks like someone blew it up long before we got here. I bet even the rats have moved to a better area.”
“That demon can’t have got too far away, there wasn’t enough time.” said Othello. “It must be around here somewhere. Keep looking”

Harold heard the welcome roar of the approaching engine. He got to his feet and began hobbling towards it. At last! Those sirens were getting decidedly too close for comfort. When the vehicle appeared, though, Harold was dismayed to see it was not the OGS car – not a car at all, in fact, but a motorcycle. It was piloted by a rider in black leathers whose features were hidden by a full-face helmet. Harold glanced around quickly for possible motorcycle-proof escape routes, but none presented themselves. There wasn’t time anyway. The machine roared to a stop, blocking his way before he could do more than stagger a few feet. The rider jerked his thumb at the pillion seat behind him.

“ Jump on,” he ordered, “The police are almost here.”

Seeing no other option, Harold clambered aboard and they roared off into the night.

Epsisode 40

2010-05-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

Behind him, Harold heard the startled shouts of the humans plus the screech of one very indignant monkey which had just been dumped without ceremony onto the grimy concrete.

He had no time to spare for them now.

He had to get himself as far away as possible. The rhythm of his feet pounding the pavement brought the words of a chant into his head and he found himself running in time to it: one-two-three-four-five-six-seven. All God's children go to Heaven. One-two-three-four... He pushed this irrelevance aside and tried to remember where he'd seen the safe place, it had to be around here somewhere...

"I knew it!" cried India as Harold suddenly shot past her and out the door, "It's getting away!" Taser in hand, she set off after him.

"What?" Mercury and Othello spun round in surprise, having been intent on the crumpled old speeding ticket they had found.

"The demon's making a break for it!" This was from Prada as she herself ran toward the doorway.

"Helluva time to pull a stunt like that," grumbled Othello as he and Mercury followed.

"Wait!" cried Teatime, but it was too late.

Harold was not strong as demons went but he was fast and had soon put several streets between himself and the crumbling old building. This was not a good neighbourhood, its days of prosperity were well behind it. It was a wasteland of failed businesses and broken dreams, a desolate sprawl of padlocked doors and smashed windows. Even the gangs didn't bother coming here any more, such was the spirit of listless despair that hung around the place.

Where was it?

Harold rounded a corner, passing the shuttered windows of Sweetman's Cafe - Cucumber salad a speciality and Bergdorf Solar Power and Light Inc, now ironically in total darkness. Sale of Surplus Library Books! shouted a hand-painted sign as he flashed past. He was close now, he was sure. Rooster & Trench – False Teeth and Dental Supply Company proclaimed a faded hoarding to his left. Yes! He was almost there now, just down this street: he'd seen it on the way in.

"Darn it!" India skidded to a stop in the empty street. Of the fleeing demon, there was no sign. "I knew it couldn't be trusted." There was a savage edge to her voice, "I just knew it!"

Beside her, Mercury sighed and shook his head. "Guess you were right after all." he said, "I have to hand it to that demon though, he had me fooled. I really thought he was helping us."

"It was just biding its time, obviously." added Prada, "Now what?"

"Well, we've still got –" began Mercury.

The bomb exploded.

Glass and brick fragments and great clods of earth flew everywhere, and the air immediately filled with a great spreading cloud of choking dust. Where the bomb had been, there was now a large hole in the ground as if a giant had wielded a great big invisible spoon, scooping up the earth. Knocked flat by the blast, Harold could only watch helplessly as shards of glass and lumps of masonry rained down on him from out of the smoke, the whole thing a weird sort of drizzle and fog. He'd still been too close to the bomb when it had gone off and he would be going nowhere until his vessel had repaired itself. He closed his eyes. It was such a pity that humans weren't as durable.

Episode 39

2010-05-16T07:20:00.000-07:00

Whilst life in the world of men was a definite improvement over the one he had led in the Basement, Harold could not but help being a little disappointed sometimes that things were not more, well, glamorous. He and Teatime found themselves, once again, in a narrow alley. This one was behind the crumbling old building that was supposedly the home of a hi-tech medical plastics company. The alley was a classic of gritty gumshoe movies and hack cop-shows. Rubbish lay everywhere, piles of cardboard boxes labelled McKinley's Organic Carrot Soup were stacked untidily, ready no doubt to be crashed into at any moment and sent flying by a speeding car. There were a couple of dumpsters (with bodies or incriminating evidence in them for sure) and Harold expected at any moment to turn the corner and come across some ill-lit figures conducting a furtive and shady deal of some kind. Yep, definitely not glamorous, but at least he wasn't sitting in his little room at Aunt Aggie's, being bored to tears.

Earlier in the day, Prada had visited the place and had found it locked-up and deserted. Far from being the home of a hi-tech medical supplies manufacturer, the place looked more like an abandoned warehouse. There had been nobody around to ask about it either, so it had been decided that a night-time visit was in order.

"OK, demon," Came Prada's soft voice in the darkness next to him, "time for you to do your thing."

"My, my, what it's like to be in demand, eh, old sock?" came Teatime's amused voice from his shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah," replied Harold, "It's what we ache for, now step back please, ladies and gentlemen." He flexed his fingers theatrically. India rolled her eyes: what a show-off!

Harold placed his hands against the peeling paintwork of the door.

"Ta-daa!" he sang softly, as it clicked open after only a few moments' concentration - he was definitely getting better at this.

They quickly entered the building and Agent Othello closed the door carefully behind them. No point advertising their presence, after all.

They paused for a few moments to listen out for any signs that their ingress had been detected, but the dead stale air in the place was playing it cool and was not being split by the sound of wailing sirens, angry shouting or the thudding of running footsteps.

The humans clicked on their flashlights.

"Mag-lights?" Harold said to Prada, in mock disappointment, "I'd have thought you agents would have had some fancy gizmo like a powder puff that turns into a set of night-vision goggles or something."

"Mag-lights are reliable and cost less," replied Prada.

"Yes, and they're just about heavy enough to make a handy bludgeon as well," added India darkly.

"Focus, people." admonished Mercury.

They were in a narrow hallway. A door led off one side of it and another stood ajar at the opposite end to the one they came in by. A cursory glance through the side door revealed an empty room.

The door at the far end gave out into a large space which was mostly empty. Here and there, the concrete floor had metal brackets sticking up out of it - presumably once used to bolt down machinery, and the odd wooden pedestal here and there which may once have supported a tool rack or a workbench. Two rows of metal column marched down the room, holding up the corrugated metal roof. The agents played their torches around some more, and the shadows rose in clouds like dust before settling back into place once the light had moved on.

"Well, this looks like a bust." said India, with a sigh "If those records ever came here then they must have been picked up long since."

"Spread out and keep looking," ordered Mercury.

Harold and Teatime wandered over toward the farthest corner, away from the OGS agents and their lights.

"Oh," he said disappointedly when they reached the corner.

"Oh, what?" demanded Teatime, "You know, you could turn on your flashlight, old bean. You might be able to see like a cat but I see like a monkey."

"Oh, sorry, I forgot," laughed Harold. He got his own light out and switched it on. He shone the bean down at the remains of a cardboard box. "I thought I saw something here, but it's just an old box after all."

He knelt down to look more closely. The box was labelled Changeling Electronics Inc – Amplitude Modulation Circuits. Setting down his torch, he lifted the top flaps to see inside.

Behind him, he was dimly aware of Agent Mercury announcing that he found an old speeding ticket, but that was all a very long way away.

The inside of the box was dimly lit by a single red LED, whose sullen light also showed a tangle of wires and a slab of something that looked a lot like Play-Doh, but clearly wasn't.

Episode 38

2010-05-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

Mr Teeth was annoyed that he'd had to turn back from following the OGS car. They had gone a good way out of the city onto empty desert roads and to have kept on following would have looked suspicious. Frustrated, he flicked on the radio. "...dream a little dream of me. Stars fading but I linger on, dear... " Mama Cass's distinctive voice came floating out. Not in the mood for easy listening, Mr Teeth turned the dial: "The flowers are in bloom again here at Providence Floristry! Surprise that special someone with a nice bouquet that won't upset your bank balance! Ask about our special Bride and Groom package today!" He spun the dial again "... special offer on bagels and lox at Rosenbaum's Deli!" He flicked the radio off again in disgust. If there was one thing Mr Teeth hated, it was those brassy-voiced, super-cheery radio commercials. Dammit, though, he'd been so close! If he could just get his hands on that little trumpet-playing punk, he was sure he'd be able to get some answers to the mystery of his boss's disappearance. Not today, though. Not today.

If this were one of those TV detective dramas, thought Harold, we'd be able to get DNA samples and things and find out what happened to Reverend Box. DNA samples always seemed to be the answer for some reason on those shows – even when it made no real sense. Still, it was only entertainment, after all and didn't have to be true-to-life. It was curious, though, how the strange little man had just seemed to vanish into thin air. Harold hoped he hadn't come to any harm like agent Emerald had - that would be tragic. He nay have been as crazy as a racoon but he had been quite likeable and, come to think of it, he hadn't actually been all that crazy anyway. Just because he worshipped Zeus and ran around the place with no clothes on didn't make him much more insane than most of the humans he'd met so far.

The car pulled to a stop outside Aunt Aggie's. They were back.

Othello headed straight to the nearest computer with the shipping receipt from Box's place in his hand. Harold and Teatime wandered over to watch him work his magic – and it really was magic to Harold. Computers were so clever and interesting! No wonder so many demons worked in IT. Where better to build things that held out the tantalising promise of such a variety of information, entertainment and efficiency while actually delivering such an amount of disappointment, expense and tooth-gnashing, hair-tearing, blood-vessel-bursting rage and frustration. Yep. Demonically perfect.

"So, who lives at 223 Oakland Drive," murmured Othello, typing the address into a search window. The computer thought about this for a moment, then displayed the answer: Osprey Medical Plastics Inc.

"Now what on earth would a company making naso-gastric tubes, disposable aprons, instrument trays and whatnot be wanting with information about Project Dynamo?"

"It doesn't make any sense," agreed Teatime, "Is it definitely a genuine company?"

Othello typed some more. "Well, it's certainly registered in this state as one so I guess it's a real company alright." he said, "But why would this so-called OGS agent get Box to ship the project records there of all places? Why not to here or any other OGS office? It just doesn't add up."

"Perhaps this agent was working on his own, not as part of some official OGS activity?" suggested Teatime.

"I wish Box had managed to get the guy's name," sighed Othello.

"Assuming he was a real OGS agent," replied Teatime.

"Yeah, that's argumentative, I suppose," Othello pushed his chair back and stood up. "I'm getting a coffee, you want one?"

"No thanks," said Harold. This was a lie: he did want coffee, having developed quite a taste for it since coming to earth, but right now he didn't want to go into the break-room.

"Any minute now..." sang Teatime softly.

Spring Has Sprung! The familiar bright pink letters shouted up at Agent India from the mug sitting in the centre of the table. The perfectly undamaged, totally-not-in-a-bajillion-pieces mug sitting in the centre of the table. She reached out and touched it lightly with a finger and, when it didn't fall to pieces or prove to be a hallucination, she picked it up, cradling it thoughtfully. The demon had done this, obviously. No human could have repaired it so thoroughly - not in one night. Now this was a conundrum: she had loved this mug, cheap and gaudy as it was, but if that demon thought it could wheedle its way into her affections by fixing it then it had another think coming.

She walked over to the garbage bin and pressed the foot pedal to flip open the lid. She held the mug over the bin, ready to drop it in, but for some reason her fingers just couldn't let go. Darn it, she really loved that mug! With a sigh, she lifted her foot, letting the bin lid fall closed and, mug in hand, wandered over to the coffee machine. Doesn't mean I like you any better, demon, she thought to herself as the hot bitter liquid splashed into the white china.

Episode 37

2010-05-02T16:05:00.000-07:00

“I wonder what the exact opposite of ‘raining cats and dogs’ is,” mused Teatime, gazing round at the featureless and aridly grey-brown desert, “Because this is definitely it.”

They were back at Reverend Box’s ‘church’ and, as before, all was quiet. The agents, Harold and Teatime had been standing around for several minutes, expecting the strange little man to pop up out of his hole in the ground, having seen them on his cameras, but so far he had failed to do so.

“Did anyone notice that car that was behind us for a while back there?” said Prada, “I could have sworn it was following us until it suddenly turned off.”

“It would be difficult to follow someone in these conditions undetected – there’s no cover for miles around. ” commented Othello. “It doesn’t look like Box is in any hurry to come out and join us today, what say we drop in on him?”

Prada rolled her eyes, “Very droll.”

When they reached the bottom of the access shaft leading to Box’s underground living quarters, they found the door locked.

“Don’t suppose he’s left the key under a plant pot or anything like that,” sighed Mercury, looking around the now rather crowded space at the bottom of the ladder.

“Doesn’t look like it.” Replied Othello, regarding the plain grey metal door, “We could try knocking I suppose, but this door is quite thick as I recall and he may not even hear it.”

“I think you could assist here, old sock,” Teatime whispered into Harold’s ear, “Remember how you got the jazz club’s door open?”

“Oh yeah!” agreed Harold. Aha! Here was a chance to make himself useful to the team – actually useful – for once. He stepped forward.

”Excuse me,” he said, “I think I can get us in.”

Mercury raised a quizzical eyebrow but stepped aside with a be-my-guest gesture, and Harold set to work.
It took longer to get this particular door open than when he’d opened the old fire ext door at Baron Samedi’s – the mechanism was more sophisticated - but, after a couple of minutes of concentration (along with a number of sceptical glances from the others), Harold was able to give the door a push and was rewarded with the sight of it swinging silently inwards.

“Nice job,” murmured Othello, slipping his notebook into his pocket (he had been making a careful observation of Harold the whole time). “I’d love to know how that’s done.”

“Sorry, trade secret,” Harold grinned as they all filed into Reverend Box’s bunker.

The lights were on and the refrigerator was still humming away in its corner, but of Box, there was no sign.

“Hello?” called Mercury, “Anyone here?” He listened for a few moments but there was no answer. “Ok, let’s look around carefully and see if we can figure out what’s going on here. Prada, you check what’s through that door. India, you take that one, Othello, check in here.” He paused, “Demon, you help Othello.”

The group dispersed as instructed.

Harold followed Othello over to Box’s desk and watched as the agent opened the drawers one by one. The first drawer just contained a sheaf of papers devoted to the various aspects of ancient Greek religious practices of which Box was so fond, many of which he had apparently written himself. The second drawer held office supplies, spare ink cartridges, staples and so on, but the last drawer contained a surprise.

“Well, well,” chuckled Othello, lifting out a stack of well-thumbed paperbacks. “Charity Lambert and the Spoof Spooks’ Book Club, eh?” he said, holding up the first one. The cover art was a luridly-painted scene featuring the eponymous Ms Lambert, a rather voluptuously endowed young lady PI, clad rather impractically in six-inch heels, tight leather jeans and an even tighter t-shirt, standing in dramatic pose under a streetlamp, gun pointed at a rather salacious-looking criminal. “Who’d have thought Box was into these penny dreadfuls,”

“I suppose it must pass the time.” Opined Harold, picking up the next book off the stack: Charity Lambert and the Magical Mystery Tour. “I imagine life down here could be quite lonely and boring.”

“Hmm,” agreed Othello, setting the book down, “I guess. Oh, hello, what’s this?” At the bottom of the drawer was a folded sheet of paper. Othello picked it up and unfolded it.

“Aha,” he breathed, “the legendary Lost Shipping Receipt!”

At that moment, Prada came back into the room, sneezing loudly, “The dust in this place,” she moaned, brushing her sleeves vigorously, “You’d think a guy could flick a duster round once in a while, sheesh!”

“Find anything?” asked Othello,

“Nah, I think that was just an old store room - loads of old clutter, broken desks, empty filing cabinets and a bicycle, of all things.” She shrugged, “You?”

Othello held up the receipt.

One by one, the other returned. Box, it seemed was nowhere to be found.

“Guys?” said India, after a few moments, “Didn’t Box have a computer when we were here last time?”

“That’s right, he did.” Agreed Othello, “a laptop. It was right here. I knew something was missing. He must have taken it with him.”

“Now what?” said Prada.

“Let’s leave a note for Box,” suggested Mercury, “and then let’s go check out the address on the Shipping Receipt.”

Episode 36

2010-04-25T04:18:00.000-07:00

“She won’t thank you, old button.” Said Teatime, “You do know that don’t you?”

Harold teased a tiny fragment of china into place and concentrated really hard. The fragment became part of the whole. There was no noise, no spark of eldritch blue light or anything, the shard was just suddenly not separate any more. Harold flopped backwards into his chair and let out a breath.

“I know, and I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t started this now,” he said ruefully, “This is tough!”

India’s mug was about half-reassembled – a triumph of gaudy flowers and pink lettering.

“Well it’ll do you good to exercise your abilities once in a while,” replied Teatime, eyeing Harold’s handiwork critically. “Not bad,” he murmured, “Not so much as a crack anywhere. Would have been quicker if you’d used glue though.”

“A true artiste such as myself does not use glue,” Harold said airily.

Teatime snorted.

There came a knock on the door and Moon entered with delicious-smelling takeaway cartons and cans of drink.

“I thought you might like Chinese for a change.” He said, placing the goodies on the table. He caught sight of the half-repaired mug.
“Wow!” he exclaimed, “I didn’t know you could do that! India will be thrilled when she sees it!”

“I rather think not,” said Teatime drily, “My bet is that it will be in the bin before you can say Jack Robinson.”

“Ten dollars says you’re wrong!” declared Moon.

“You’re on.” replied the monkey, sourly eyeing Harold, who was spooning – or chopsticking – strings of steaming flaccid noodles into his mouth at a rate of knots. Becoming aware of the little monkey’s baleful stare, he paused, several noodles still hanging out of his mouth.

“Whamph?”

“Great Cthulu’s ghost,” sighed Teatime, “A little decorum if you can possibly manage it, dear boy, a little decorum.”

“Sorry,” said Harold, having quickly made the noodles disappear, “I was really, really hungry. Must be all the jigsaw work.”

“Wasted effort, I tell you.” Said Teatime, shaking his head, “That woman hates you with a passion.”

“But I’ve never done anything to her.” Harold reached for a carton of duck in plum sauce.

“Perhaps she’s had a run-in with another demon in the past.” Said Moon, “I could find out for you if you like.”

“How?” asked Harold.

“It’ll be in her files I expect,” replied the young agent.

Harold frowned, “I’m no lawyer but I’m guessing there are rules about poking around in people’s personal information. Anyway, we’d probably find out her animosity was down to some demon misusing an apostrophe or something.”

Moon shrugged, “Heh! A demon with moral angst over accessing someone else secrets, whatever next? Well if you change your mind…” He got up and left the room.

“What an odd little fellow,” said Teatime.

-0-0-0-

Next morning, Harold, Teatime, Mercury, Prada, Othello and India were gathered once more in the Salamander room.

“So how long do we give Box to come up with this more and more spurious-seeming agent Iris and that shipping receipt?” said Othello.

“I take it he hasn’t called back then.” Said Mercury.

“Nope,” replied Othello ,”And I tried calling him again this morning: no answer.”

“He’d better not be pulling some kind of prank,” said Prada, “Cos if he is..”

“No, no, as mad as he is,” replied Mercury, cutting her off, “He’s not the type. Once upon a time he was one of our very best agents. In the nineties, he virtually single-handedly took down the New Genesis cult, he infiltrated no end of enemy operations, spotted more Fallen than you could wave a stick at.” He trailed off, shaking his head sadly. “He’s not playing games, I’m sure of it.”

“Perhaps we had better pay him another visit,” suggested India. “Maybe the monkey was right, maybe there was someone else with Box and that’s why he can’t or won’t answer us.”

“Well, we don’t have any other leads at the moment,” agreed Mercury, “Let’s go, people!”

-0-0-0-

From where he was parked some way down the street and across the road from Aunt Aggie’s, Mr Teeth was in an excellent position to observe the small group of people – including one trumpet-playing little punk - come out of the building and climb into a large car. Yes, he could have let Peck and his associates handle this but, truth to tell, he was getting to the point where the PI’s condescending manner was becoming more and more irritating, as good as he was at what he did. Besides, with the club still closed, there wasn’t all that much else for him to do anyway. Mr Teeth waited a few moments then started his engine, easing his nondescript vehicle out into the road after the departing OGS car.

Episode 35

2010-04-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

“Oh, my aching bones!” groaned Mercury, clambering up into the sunlight once more. The ladder leading down to Box’s lair had been long and steep. “I don’t want to have to do that again in a hurry, It’s like climbing up a giant’s chimney.”

“I suppose living in a place like that is one way to ensure a certain amount of peaceful solitude.” Said Othello, “I can’t imagine he gets many people dropping in – unless they fall in the hole.”

The others laughed.

“It’s interesting you should say that, Agent,” said Teatime, “Because I had the distinct impression that someone else was there but keeping out of sight, in one of the side rooms perhaps.”

“If I was associating with a nut job like Box, I’d been keeping out of sight too!” laughed Prada, “What makes you think someone was there?”

“There was a faint smell of spearmint in the air, like chewing gum or toothpaste or some such” replied the little monkey. “And Reverend Box was not the source of it – more’s the pity.”

“Well, the man’s allowed to have friends over – or down – I suppose we should say.” Said Mercury.

“Anyway, let’s get back to the ranch and check out this Agent Iris fellow.”

“That was pretty neat!” grinned Harold as they headed back to the car.

“I have my uses, old sock,” replied Teatime smugly, “I have my uses.”

-0-0-0-

“Nothing!” said Othello, slapping the table next to his keyboard, “Not a trace of any Agent Iris anywhere in the OGS system. Either Box lied to us or his memory’s gone the way of his sanity. ” He rubbed his eyes. “I‘ll call him and check the name.” He punched numbers into a nearby desk phone, listened for a while and then left a message, asking Box to call and confirm the name of the Agent he had worked with on project Dynamo.

“Well that’s all we can do for now, I think", said Mercury

"Yeah," agreed Othello, "Let’s hope he comes through with the name and with that shipping receipt. Oh, thanks!” This last was directed to Agent Moon who had just placed a fresh coffee on the table in front of him. The young agent smiled.

“You looked like you needed it. Tough case, huh?”

“Yeah,” sighed Othello, “One step forward, two steps sideways.”

“I’m sure you’ll crack it,” Moon paused, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, go ahead.” Moon perched on the edge of the desk and lowered his voice.

“That demon that’s hanging around here, how long is it going to be around?”

Othello shrugged, “Till we solve the case, I suppose. Look, if it bothers you, I can get you a transfer till it’s gone.”

“Oh, no, nothing like that!” protested Moon, “It’s kind of interesting actually. Did you know it likes music?”

“I did not.” Othello frowned, “Have you been talking to it?”

“Well, yes, actually,” admitted Moon, “When I delivered the pizza last night, we got to talking.”

“Well, if you take my advice,” said Othello, “Don’t interact with it – it can’t be trusted and will do its best to deceive, disarm and ultimately ensnare you.”

“I’ll be careful.” Promised Moon.

-0-0-0-

India wandered into the break room and was irritated to see Harold and Prada sitting at one of the tables, sipping coffee and chatting - for all the world like normal people. Yes, yes, Othello had said that Prada was just probably pretending to befriend the Fallen, to see if it knew more than it was telling, but still, such flagrant fraternisation was immensely galling to witness and no amount of platitudes about who was fooling whom would change that.

Annoyed by the situation, and annoyed at herself for being annoyed, she swilled her own coffee mug under the tap and banged it down on the stainless steel drainer with a little more force than was necessary. To her chagrin, it shattered and pieces flew everywhere.

Prada and Harold stopped talking and looked over at her in surprise.

“Everything all right?” asked Prada.

“Fine!” India snapped. She began angrily picking up pieces of crockery and dropping them into an old cardboard box.

“But that was your favourite mug!” Prada hurried over and began to help. She picked up the largest piece. The motto “Spring has sprung!” in bright pink lettering was still just about readable – the mug had been a promotional item for India’s favourite uncle’s flower shop. India took it off her and dropped it into the box with the other pieces.

“I was getting tired of it anyway,” she lied.

Harold got up and slipped out of the room. He had an idea.

Episode 34

2010-04-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

“Give me a minute,” Box scurried through a grey painted metal door, leaving the others staring bemusedly around them at the large underground space he’d led them into.

The deep dark hole they’d all climbed down into had turned out to be an access shaft leading to what was by the looks of it an old military or Civil Defence bunker of some kind. The large main room into which Box had led them was about twenty feet by twenty feet with several doors – one of which Box had just disappeared though – giving off to various side-rooms and tunnels. Relics of the place’s cold-war past remained in the form of an old PA speaker system mounted high on one wall above a row of dusty clocks, all stopped, labelled with the names of various capital cities. Below the clocks was a row of old-fashioned CRT screens, also dusty and non-functional. Of more modern addition, the walls also boasted some neatly-mounted slabs of stone engraved with what looked like someone’s – presumably Box’s - attempt at calligraphy using Greek letters.

Box re-emerged a few moments later, clad in a pair of crumpled khaki shorts and some sort of singlet that looked as though he’d made it himself by cutting up an old jute sack with blunt scissors.

So this was where Reverend Box lived, comfortably cool away from the desert sun. Comfortably cool and comfortably, period. Box was clearly no desert ascetic: all the amenities were here. In addition to the basics of electric lighting and power, a large refrigerator hummed away in one corner and on a counter nearby sat a microwave oven, coffee machine and toaster. On the other side of the room, a laptop lay open on Box’s desk – currently showing a split-screen picture of the wooden “church” above and its surroundings fed, presumably, by a number of hidden cameras.

“Saw us coming then , eh, Box?” said Mercury, seeing the display.

“A man can’t be too careful these days.” came Box’s gnomic reply. He wandered over to the kitchen area. “Coffee? Orange juice?”

“No thanks, we’re not staying long. We just wanted to ask you a few questions about project Dynamo.”

“That old thing again?” said Box, pouring himself a glass of juice from a cardboard carton.

“Again? What do you mean ‘again’?” asked Othello.

“Well, let me see it was…” Box stopped to scratch absently at his hairless scalp, “Hmm, It would have been about two months ago. I’d just finished researching the Eleusinian Mysteries as I recall. Did you know the Mysteries were celebrated for over two thousand years? Of course, we have resumed celebrating them here now rather than in Eleusis. Had to piece them together myself, though, from vase-paintings here and there and scraps of writing, because those old Greeks were very secretive and the rites probably involved the use of drugs of some sort which doesn’t exactly make for full and clear descriptions of what went on.” His eyes took on a faraway look, “I think Peyote might be an acceptable substitute these days and – “

“Box?” prompted Mercury, “ Project Dynamo?”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” The snapping of Box’s attention back to the here and now was almost audible. “Yeah, a couple of months ago I got a call from a guy claiming to be from OGS asking about that old project, wanting to know if I had any records of it.”

“And what did you tell him?” asked Othello.

“I told him yes and that he could have them if he was willing to come out here and pick them up.”

“And did he?”

“He did. Well, when I say he did, what I mean is he sent a courier for them. There were several boxes and some old video tapes and whatnot, must have cost him some to get them Fed-Exed like that.”

“So you never saw the man?” Mercury could not hide his disappointment and annoyance. “Never met him in person and yet you let him have confidential OGS records without checking him out?”

“Who says I didn’t check him out?” retorted Box, “He knew all the right things when I challenged him, used all the right terminology and I was satisfied – and still am – that he was definitely OGS.”

“I’m sorry,” Mercury showed his palms in a conciliatory gesture, “I didn’t mean to insult you, it’s just that we lost an agent recently because of project Dynamo. We’re a little jumpy.”

“I see,” said Box, somewhat mollified, “But don’t go assuming that because I live in the desert, the sun has baked my brains. Don’t forget: I was an agent before your daddy had his first shave.” He took a slug of his juice.

“Excuse me,” said Harold, “Perhaps I missed something here, but what was project Dynamo actually about?”

Box regarded him coolly for a moment as though weighing up whether he should give anything away to one of the Fallen, one of the enemy. Eventually he said.

“Dynamo was all about us trying to find a way to detect your kind using technology. With Spotters being as rare as hens’ teeth, we were trying to improve our rates of detection.”

“So why was it shut down?” asked Prada.

“Because we spent a ton of money on it and we never got it to work.” replied Box, “It was deemed too costly to continue, so it was disbanded and all of us agents returned to our normal duties.”

“Were yours the only records of the project?” asked Othello.

“Agent Iris might still have some, I suppose.”

“Agent Iris?”

“Yeah, he and I led the project together. Haven’t heard from him in years though”

“Well, I guess we can look him up – OGS will have some record of his whereabouts I daresay,” said Othello, jotting down the name. “Oh, just one more thing: do you have a receipt from the courier company for the boxes they took?”

Box scratched his head again, “Probably, but it’ll take me a while to dig it up. I can email you the details when I find it if you like.”

“That would be great,” said Mercury, “Thanks for all your help.”

With that, they said goodbye and started the long climb back into daylight.

Episode 33

2010-03-28T13:40:00.000-07:00

“No, no, no, old sock, your nose needs to be bigger. Think of a squashed potato.”

Harold sighed. They’d been at this for what seemed like hours. Mercury, Prada, India and Othello had all departed for the night, leaving demon and monkey alone at Aunt Aggie’s – alone, that is, apart from a dozen or so OGS agents. To pass the time, Teatime had suggested that Harold should practise shape-shifting, a skill that all demons possessed but one which Harold had neglected over the years. He was, under Teatime’s critical eye, currently attempting to impersonate Agent Mercury. He’d got the eye colour fairly quickly and the rough shape of the face, but the finer details were proving difficult.

There came a knock on the door. Harold quickly allowed his usual form to snap back into place as the door opened and a young OGS agent entered the room bearing a pizza box and some cans of drink.
“Agent Mercury told me to get you some food,” he said, setting his burden down on the table, “They were all out of kittens, so I got pepperoni, hope it’s OK.” He let out a kind of high-pitched nervous giggle.

Harold was puzzled for a moment, kittens? Then he remembered: this was the young agent he had teased that morning. He laughed, “Very funny, agent -?”

“Moon,” replied the young man, “Agent Moon.”

“Well Moon-agent-moon, fancy sharing some of this pizza?”

Moon glanced at the door, “I’m not sure I should be hanging around in here. Agent India said –“

“Oh, come on,” interrupted Harold, “Where’s the harm in having a slice of pizza. Besides, wouldn’t it good experience for you in your career? Not many of you get the chance to study the enemy up close, now do they. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”

Moon pursed his lips, “I suppose I could stay for a short while.”

-0-0-0-

After the cool comfort of the car’s air-conditioning, the desert heat was an almost solid thing.

“So where’s this church then?” said Prada, slipping on an expensive pair of sunglasses.

“There.” Mercury pointed.

Just off the highway, Reverend Box’s “church” squatted, apparently deserted. It was a single-story structure built of wood the colour of bleached bone. It looked like it had once been used as some kind of large storage shed, although what on earth anyone would have wanted to store out here was anybody’s guess. On the side facing them some words had once been painted but these were now too faded to make out.

“Not exactly Notre Dame, is it?” murmured Teatime.

They trudged around the outside of the structure, looking for a way in. Eventually, they came across a metal door. Agent Mercury reached out to grasp the handle.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. This time of day, that handle gets pretty warm” Came a voice from behind them. They turned to see a little brown goblin of a man with a completely bald knobbly head, wearing a kindly smile on his sun-weathered face – and nothing else. Prada stifled a giggle while India immediately discovered that her shoes were possibly the most fascinating objects yet created.

“Aw, now you didn’t say anything about bringing female people with you,” Box complained, walking towards the group. “And,” he stopped directly in front of Harold and looked up at him, eyes narrowed, “Neither did you say you were bring a Fallen! You do know you have a demon tagging along with you, don’t you?”

“Yes, yes, we do.” Replied Mercury, “He’s working with us on something, don’t mind him.”

“Huh!” snorted Box, as he beckoned the group to follow him round the side of the building, “OGS working with Fallen now, and they say I’m mad.”

Round the back of the “church”, out of sight of the road, was a deep square hole in the ground about three feet on a side. When they reached it, they found a metal ladder descending into darkness. Box immediately started to climb down, agile as a spider.

“Well, come on,” he called, when he realised they were not instantly following him. “You can’t stay out here, Apollo’s pretty mean this time of day.”

Exchanging quizzical glances, the agents and Harold followed Box down into the dark.

Episode 32

2010-03-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

"Dysprosium, Sodium and Molybdenum, are you sure?" said Othello, raising a quizzical eyebrow at Prada and Harold.

"Absolutely," declared Prada, "OK, there were other hits for the numbers, but when you add in the chemistry book, this has to be it."

"Well, it could be, I guess." acknowledged Othello, "I haven't found anything even remotely pertinent on Emerald's computer, so maybe this is the direction he wants us to go in. Sodium and Molybdenum, I've heard of but Dysprosium?"

"Should we google them too?" Asked Harold, brightly. He had been mightily impressed with this instant knowledge-giver and was keen to see it in action again.

"We could," said Othello, "but, I'm thinking the answer might be in front of us." He picked up the chemistry textbook from Emerald's apartment.

"Now, let's see..." He flipped open the book and turned to the inevitable reproduction of the Periodic Table of the Elements. The others leaned in to get a good look at what he was doing. With the combined stares of several people boring into him, Othello ran his eyes over the chart, looking for the three elements. Maybe Emerald had written something or left some other clue. The page, however, was as clean as the day the book was printed.

"Nothing here," murmured Othello, and began to turn the page.

"Wait a minute!" said Teatime, excitedly. "Go back to the chart." Othello did so.

"Look at the chemical names for those three elements!"

"Dy, Na, Mo!" breathed Othello, "Well I'll be.."

"Dynamo?" asked India, who had mentally been wishing Harold back to the Basement as hard as she could ever since he had entered the room and – just to be annoying – had deliberately stood right next to her.

"Does that mean something to you?" asked Prada.

"It's the name of an OGS project that was discontinued years ago."

"What was the project about?"

"That I don't exactly know, but I think I know someone who does."

-0-0-0-

"This is Peck," the Private Investigator's smooth voice reeked of culture and a private education.

"Go on." Mr Teeth had had a long day and had just exhausted himself at the gym. His skin still tingled from the pounding the masseur had inflicted upon it, but he was wide awake now and his attention was riveted to the telephone.

"My associates have traced the vehicle your boy was seen getting into. It belongs to a company called "Aunt Aggie's."
"Aunt Aggie's?"

"Yes, they used to make cheesecake apparently. Used to – the company no longer exists."

"And yet they own a car?"

"Apparently so."

"Did you get an address?"

"Naturally." The temperature of Peck's voice dropped a few degrees at this slightest of hints that he had been less than completely efficient.
"Let me get a pen."

When the call was over, Mr Teeth stared thoughtfully at the slip of paper containing his barely legible scrawl. He could send Peck over there, he supposed, but he was curious now. Aunt Aggie's must be a front, but for what? It would be very interesting to find out. He yawned suddenly. Whatever it was, though, would have to wait till the next morning: Mr Teeth was beat.

-0-0-0-

Othello put down the phone. "Ok, it's all set. Reverend Box will meet with us tomorrow."

"Reverend Box?" asked Mercury, who had just joined the others. "The Reverend Box?"

"Who's Reverend Box?" asked India, "And why would he know about Dynamo?"

"Box used to be an agent," explained Mercury, "but he retired from active duty."

"And became a preacher?" said Prada.

"In a manner of speaking," replied Mercury. "He's not actually an ordained minister, but he's built himself a little church out in the desert."

"I can't imagine he'd have a very big congregation out there." Said Prada.

"He doesn't." said Mercury, "In fact, no-one actually goes to his church – unless you count the sheep."

"Sheep? In the desert?" cried India, "Wouldn't they die of thirst?"
"According to Box, the Gods provide for them."

"Plus the fact he's got a fairly decent well in back of his place." added Othello, drily.

"Hold on a minute," said Prada, "You said he said the Gods provide? The Gods, plural?"

"Yeah," sighed Mercury, "That's why he had to retire: he started telling everyone that the Gods of Ancient Greece were back and were demanding worship."

"Oh, great," groaned Prada, "So now our most reliable source of information is a nut-job. This just gets better!"

Episode 31

2010-03-14T04:49:00.000-07:00

Agent India watched as Othello worked on Emerald's computer. His slim brown fingers flew over the keyboard as he scanned directories, opened up files only to close them, ran searches only to discard the matches they threw up, all the while not saying a word, totally absorbed and barely aware that she was in the room, it seemed.

It was nice to be away from that demon, she thought. She hadn't been joking when she said it made her teeth itch: its physical presence was a constant irritation, like fingernails scraping down a blackboard. It was also nice not to have to witness its slimy attempts to make friends with everybody. Did it seriously think anyone here, of all places, would fall for its blandishments? It must be the stupidest demon in the history of the world if it thought that. It probably was, though, she reminded herself: it was that monkey-thing that was doing all the thinking in that outfit.

She couldn't be the only one champing at the bit to send it back where it belonged, surely. What had that angel been thinking, teaming OGS and a demon up together? It was like one of those really terrible B-movies, where the hero and his arch-enemy have to work together and then become grudging friends – the sort of movie that has you reaching for the channel changer after the first five minutes. Well, there'd be no friendship, grudging or otherwise from her. Not after what had happened to her family because of fiends like that one.

Her brother David had been in his last year in High School when he'd met the beautiful Saskya. She had been new in town, new to the school and, being a kindly soul, David had taken her under his wing, as it were. Soon they were dating and when he brought her home to meet the family, India's teeth had itched mightily. Of course, she hadn't known what was making her feel so bad whenever Saskya was around – her gift had not been explained to her yet.

She had tried to warn David that she was suspicious of this beautiful, funny, charming, clever girl that he was smitten with, but he'd just laughed it off as younger sister jealousy. She sort of half-believed him. The two of them had always been close – as thick as thieves, as their grandma would say - and the arrival of David's love interest had reduced the amount of time he spent with his little sis. That's all it was then, just little sister jealousy. Wasn't it?

Then David had started staying out late on school nights, and when his parents tried to talk to him about it, India's normally peaceful and easy-going brother would fly into a rage and go stomping upstairs to his room. All of this could just have been teenage rebelliousness, but then he started skipping classes, choosing instead to lie on his bed all day, talking to Saskya on the phone or just staring up at the ceiling. Suspecting depression, India's parents had tried to get David to see a doctor, but he was having none of it.

He became gradually more and more moody and withdrawn. India had suspected he was using drugs and had searched his room when he was out. She didn't find anything; he was obviously too smart to hide stuff in the house.

So she'd confronted him.

If there was one single moment in her life that India would go back and change, it was this one. She'd accused him of taking drugs, and had accused Saskya of giving them to him. As soon as she'd mentioned his girlfriend's name, David had gone berserk, shouting and swearing and throwing stuff around the room, denying everything and telling her to get the hell out of his room and his life. As she'd been scurrying out of the room, he'd called her name. She'd turned around, thinking that maybe he was going to apologise or something.

The look on his face still gave her nightmares. His eyes were as dead as two stones and, while he was smiling – at least his mouth was in the shape of a smile – there was a fixed, frozen look to it, as if someone else were operating his muscles by remote control.

In his hand, he held up a little china figure that India had bought him when she was eight. It was Mickey Mouse and Pluto at the seaside, complete with buckets, spades, starfish and whatnot. Having got her attention, he slowly and deliberately set the thing down on the floor and then stamped on it, smashing it. Keeping his eyes on her the whole time, he had ground his heel back and forth on the pieces.

When he had started laughing, she had fled the room.

That day, David had left the house and disappeared. The Police searched, India's parents searched, driving for hours all over the town and local area. The school reported that Saskya had also disappeared and the address on her file turned out to be a derelict property which had not been lived in for years.

The end of the whole sorry chapter came a year later when a policeman had turned up at the door, bearing the news that a body had been found in a filthy squat in a town in the next state. ..

She was startled upright out of her reverie as the door opened and an excited Prada and Harold burst into the room.

Episode 30

2010-03-06T13:49:00.000-08:00

It was a subdued group that made its way back to Aunt Aggie’s bearing the two pieces of a puzzle left for them by their late colleague.

In the outside world, life continued unabated, heedless of their loss. Apparently (according to the headlines displayed on a newsstand they passed), supermodel Page Brookes had split up with her sugar daddy, the famously craggy-featured and fabulously wealthy octogenarian media mogul Copernicus Blizzard. The thrash-metal band, Suicide by Propeller, had pulled out of their “Fifty Dates in Fifty States” tour, citing their lead singer’s illness following surgery to correct long-running dental problems. The economy was in its usual poor state. Some politician had been caught falsifying his expenses.

In short: the usual.

Harold stared thoughtfully outwards and upwards at the shining blue trapezoid of sky visible through the car window. He felt vaguely sorry for the humans – they were never going to see again in this life someone they cared for. Demons didn’t have that problem, of course, being immortal. At least, he corrected himself, they hadn’t until now. His old friend Illyriel had disappeared and might never be found again and, while it had been thousands of years since Harold had seen him, the years had not dimmed his affection for his old friend, nor damped the sense of separation and loss he had felt when he had found himself cast out with the others, never to return to the realms of light, love and warmth. If only he hadn’t been such a milquetoast back then, things could have been so very different. Still, what was done was done and there was no mending it now. He sighed.

“Something up, old sock?” enquired Teatime.

“Not really,” replied Harold, “I was just thinking is all…”

“I shouldn’t do that if I were you, you might hurt your head.”

“Ha, ha, very funny! You know, I really don’t see the point of us hanging around with these humans. I mean, we’re not actually helping them and pretty soon they’re going to realise it and…”

“Relax,” soothed Teatime, “The humans will do only what Baruthiel tells them. Besides, we may not be helping them, but it looks like they could be helping us, what with the all cryptic clue nonsense. At least they have a lead of sorts.”

“I suppose,” Agreed Harold reluctantly, “But it would be nice to make some kind of contribution.”

“Oh, dear, you’re not hoping to impress the humans are you?” warned Teatime, “Because if you are, I’d have to say you’re wasting your time. They’ll never trust you and they’ll certainly never like you. The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be for everyone.”

“I don't know,” mused Harold, “That agent Prada seems friendlier than the others. She was quite chatty this morning.”

“You are such a dullard at times,” groaned the little monkey, “It’s a wonder you can tie your own shoelaces. She wasn’t being friendly, she was trying to get you to let your guard down and maybe let slip some useful information.”

“Do you think?” Harold was disappointed. The idea that Prada had been anything other than genuinely friendly had not even occurred to him. He really was a dullard. He’d be on his guard now though all right.

“Luckily for us,” Teatime continued, “You don’t actually know anything that would be of use to these OGS lickspittles.”

“Thanks a lot. Can I help it if nobody tells me anything?” retorted Harold, slightly stung.

“You have a point there, old shoe,” conceded Teatime. “But be careful all the same. These people are not to be trusted.”

"Were you speaking Infernal back there in the car?" asked Prada. They were back at base and Othello had disappeared to work on Emerald's computer, leaving the others at something of a loose end.

Harold sipped his coffee, relishing the taste of the bitter liquid, before answering in the affirmative.

"It sounded really quite beautiful." Prada went on, "I kind of expected demons' talk to sound, you know –"

"All gutturals and hissing sibilants?" prompted Teatime, from his usual perch on Harold's shoulder.

"Well, yes, actually." Prada admitted. "That's how it's always been portrayed in books and movies, anyway."

"Well it is actually a variant of Celestial, and has not diverged that much over the centuries." replied Teatime. Harold could sense a lecture coming and was tempted to remind Teatime about his earlier comments regarding giving away information.

Teatime nattered on for a bit and Prada appeared to be listening intently, nodding and umming in the right places. Harold's mind wandered. He started thinking about the three strange numbers they had found what their connection might be to the chemistry book. Then he had an idea.

"Why don't we try typing those numbers into the Internet?" he said, interrupting Teatime's exposition on the Great Vowel Shift or some such.
"What?" Teatime said, slightly annoyed at the interruption.

"Let's type the numbers into Google and see what pops out."

"I hardly think agent Emerald will have made it that obvious, old sock." began Teatime. But it was too late; Harold and Prada were already heading out of the coffee room to the nearest OGS computer.

"You have to careful what you put in here," said Prada, seating herself in front of the machine, "I once typed in 'food cream' when I actually meant 'foot cream'. I didn't get anything for my grandma's bunions," she laughed, "but I did discover the history of ice cream. Now, what were those numbers?" She flipped open her notebook and typed in the string of digits and dashes.

"Interesting," she murmured, as a series of links appeared on screen. "They do seem to be connected with chemicals."

"Try each one separately," suggested Harold.

Prada's immaculately manicured fingers rattled over the keys.
"Hmm, nothing here but a load of radio station frequencies," she said, disappointed, "Oh wait, there is a chemical reference. Seems this number relates to 'Dysprosium', whatever that is."

She repeated the exercise with the two remaining numbers.

"So, we've got Dysprosium, Sodium and Molybdenum." she jotted this down in her notebook. "I flunked chemistry at school so I have no idea what this means. I think we need to talk to Othello." She got up and hurried off to find him.

"There you go, old bean," said Teatime, "you've made a contribution after all."

Epsidode 29

2010-02-27T14:16:00.000-08:00

“The crafty old beggar,” breathed Teatime in admiration, “Now all we need to do is work out what the numbers actually mean. May I see them for a moment?”

Othello held up the paper.

162.500 – 22.98976 – 95.96

“Three numbers.” Teatime mused, “ Could it be something like a map reference, I wonder?”

“I would expect that to be just two numbers,” replied Othello. “Anyway, before we get too deeply into that, we should look around and see if there’s anything else he might have left for us. Look around people, but don’t disturb anything”

The agents busied themselves around the deceased agent’s apartment, looking inside every lampshade and underneath every stick of furniture, searching for clues. Harold and Teatime were left at a bit of a loose end in the living room. Harold wandered around, taking care not to arouse agent India’s wrath by touching Emerald’s personal things. His feet soon brought him to the corner where Othello was working on Emerald’s computer, operating it with a smothness that Harold found quite fascinating.

“You’re pretty slick with this technology, aren’t you?” Harold said, “And it looks so complicated. It must take forever to learn.”

Othello spared him a brief glance and carried on working. Slightly disoppointed, Harold thought the agent was going to ignore him completely, and was about to move away, but Othello began to speak quietly.

“I went with him when he went to buy this machine. He wanted my supposedly expert opinion on it as it was a big purchase for him. I said it was good enough for anything he was likely to want to do with it and he laughed and said I might be surprised at what he wanted to do with it. So I asked him what his plans were and he just laughed some more and said he was thinking of trying his hand at computer art. He fancied having a go at drawing a web comic or something. I hadn’t really had a lot to do with him before that, I just assumed he fitted the usual stereotype of the dedicated bachelor agent with no time for anything but the job. Just goes to show how easily we make assumptions about people when we don’t know them.”

“But you became friends after that?” Harold was keen to keep the man talking, the story was interesting in its own right and it felt good to just be having a simple conversation with someone.

“Yeah,” continued Othello, “We’d go for the odd beer at the end of a shift or go see a play or sometimes just sit around and talk for hours. The guy could talk for his country - and he could draw too.” Othello turned the computer’s screen so Harold could see it. “Look at this.”

Emerald’s desktop background was a stunningly rendered moonrise over a fabulously turreted fantasy castle, all perfectly reflected in the gleaming ebony waters of a lake.

“It’s beautiful,” said Harold, wonderingly. “You humans are amazingly creative at times.”

As if Harold’s words had suddenly reminded Othello that he was chatting casually with a demon, the agent was suddenly all business again.

“I’m going to take this back with us.” He said, quickly starting the shutdown sequence. “I’m going to need more time to look through what’s on here.”

“Othello,” called Mercury from the bedroom where he had been looking around, “I found something.”

Othello made his way to the other room and Harold trailed after.

Mercury held up a paper wallet with a colourful airline logo on it. “Looks like he never went to Hawaii,” he said, “His ticket’s here.”

“Well that answers that question, anyway.” Othello looked round the small room. Everything was so neat and precise, not a thing out of place. He was about to go back out of the room when he stopped, frowning.

He knelt down beside the wooden bookcase where Emerald had housed his small collection of books. He had not been a particularly voracious reader and these were mostly reference titles, plus a few biographies.

Othello ran his eyes along the neat rows.

“Ah ha!” he said after a few moments.

“What is it,” cried Mercury, leaning over to see better.

“Another clue, I think,” Othello reached out and indicated a book – Basic Inorganic Chemistry by Prof. S J Chirping & Dr O N Kendrick.

“OK, I see the book, but so what?” said Mercury.

“It’s been put in the shelf in the wrong place.” Said Othello, “Everything is in alphabetical order except this one.”

“Are you sure?” asked Mercury, “That’s an awfully subtle clue if you ask me. Might it not just be a bit of carelessness?”

“Not likely,” said Othello. withdrawing the book from the shelf. “He did this on purpose.” He held the book by the spine and shook it gently to see if anything would fall out, and when nothing did, he turned it over and opened it.

“Bingo!” he breathed.

“What? “ demanded Mercury, “What?”

Othello held up the book so the flyleaf could be clearly seen. It bore an inscription “Happy 30th birthday, Emerald. Enjoy. Othello.”

“I never bought him that book – and that’s his handwriting, not mine.” Othello stood up still holding the book. “What on earth is he trying to to tell me?”

Episode 28

2010-02-20T10:58:00.000-08:00

Agents Othello, Prada and India all stood frozen for several silent seconds, transfixed by shock at Mercury’s news. Eventually, a frowning Othello broke the silence.

“How’d it happen?”

“The cops think it was a mugging – he was found in an alley off Spartan Street behind the Heavenly Fragrance cafe. He’d been shot at close range and his wallet was found nearby. His credit cards and money were gone”

“That’s not right.” said Othello. “He was supposed to be on vacation in Hawaii and wasn’t due back till next week. How could he have been here?”

There was a pregnant pause as this sank in.

“Perhaps he came back early from his holiday?” suggested Teatime, somewhat diffidently as he was not sure how the humans would react to his including himself in their discussions at this sensitive time.

“I doubt it,” replied Othello, “He’s talked about nothing but this vacation for months – it was a dream holiday for him. There’s no way he’d have come back early.”

“Do the cops have any leads?” asked Prada.

“I don’t think so,” sighed Mercury, “Spartan Street’s in a bad neighbourhood and they’re overworked. Emerald’s case will probably end up at the bottom of the pile in some rookie lieutenant’s in-tray. They’ve done the basics as far as forensics are concerned and nothing came up, so it’s not a huge priority for them.”

“I’m wondering if there’s any link between Emerald’s death and what we’re currently investigating.” Said Othello. “Maybe we should do some investigating of our own. At the very least I’d want to know whether Emerald ever went to Hawaii – and if not, why not.”

“Well, the police have returned his personal effects,” Mercury held up a plastic evidence bag. He had us listed as his next of kin, apparently. His keys are here, maybe we should have a quick look around his place.”

There was an uncomfortable silence: one the one hand, the agents wanted to find out what had happened to their friend, while on the other, going into his home felt like an intrusion.

In the end, though, it was decided that they would visit Emerald’s home – if only to see if there were any contact details for family members that might need to be informed of his death.

Emerald’s apartment was the first human residence Harold had ever set foot in. Standing in the small, tidy main room, his eyes were drawn to the many framed cartoons adorning the walls. Evidently, Emerald was something of a fan of the funnies and quite of few of the pictures appeared to have been autographed by the artist. Better than any tacky printed sampler, thought Harold, thinking back to the Sleezee Motel. One picture – “Larry the Lark and the Pirates of Treachery Bay” – was slightly askew, which seemed odd to Harold, given the meticulous neatness of everything else. Instinctively, he reached out to straighten it.

“Don’t touch that!” snapped India, “Keep your hands off his things.” Harold snatched his hand back is if burned.

“What’s going on?” demanded Mercury from Emerald’s bedroom, where he was looking for address books, letters or anything of that kind.

“Nothing,” said India firmly and, favouring Harold with a warning glare, she went to join Prada in the tiny kitchen.

“This picture is crooked, I was going to just…”

Othello, who had just booted up Emerald’s computer, hurried over. He took in the scene briefly then reached out and took the picture down off the wall.

“Emerald was a total neat-freak,” he said, “There’s no way he’d leave a picture hanging like this.”

“Oh, come on!” groaned Prada, re-entering the room, “This isn’t some low-budget TV whodunit, you know, where the victim leaves a mysterious clue by deliberately – “ She broke off as Othello, having turned the picture over, removed and held up a folded piece of paper that had been tucked into the frame, completely hidden when the picture was on the wall.

“You have got to be kidding me!” she exclaimed.

Mercury and India came over. Othello set the picture down and unfolded the paper.

162.500 – 22.98976 – 95.96

“What on earth is that?” said Mercury.

“I have no idea.” Replied Othello, shaking his head, “But Emerald hid this, knowing that only someone who knew him really well was likely to find it.

“Oh, great,” sighed Prada, “Now it’s the DaVinci Code!”

Episode 27

2010-02-13T16:21:00.000-08:00

    It was a beautiful Saturday morning with the rising thermometer inviting folks to venture outside in just their shirtsleeves. Through a gap in the Salamander room’s blinds, Harold could see a sparrow on the lichen-draped branch of a nearby tree singing its little heart out in the sunshine – albeit silently, as no sound penetrated the double-glazed window. He was getting a bit fidgety, truth to tell, the magic of PowerPoint having worn off already. Agent Othello’s carefully bulleted list of information was depressingly short: little more than some names and last known locations.
    “What other things do we need to consider?” asked Mercury, watching Prada languorously completing another one of her vivid and intricate doodles.
    “You might want to think about how whoever is behind this actually locates their targets.” offered Teatime, “Neither demons nor angels stand out in human society unless they choose to.”
    “That’s an interesting point.” replied Mercury as Othello tapped it into the computer, “Are they using Spotting or some kind of technology?”
    “Spotting?” asked Harold.
    “Yes,” explained Mercury, “Some people have the gift of being able to sense your kind – India, for example, has this gift.”
    A few things suddenly made sense to Harold.
    “So,” he said turning to India, “Back at the railway station, you knew? Fascinating!”
    “Yes.” India replied, “You made my teeth itch – still do, as a matter of fact”
    “India!” said Prada, looking up from her sketch of a garland of flowers around the words “apple dumplings”. “That’s not very nice!”
    India shrugged, “Well, it’s true. That’s how it feels”.
    “Could whoever it is – “ Teatime stopped, “Can we please give our mystery opponent some kind of name? I’m fed up of saying “whoever it is” all the time.”
    “OK, we’ll call him, her, it or them Enigma,” declared Mercury, “Now, moving on, Mr Teatime has raised a very good point. So far as we know, only Spotters can detect angels or demons. It would be very handy for us if some technological means existed, but it doesn’t. It’s a gift, and a rare one at that.”
    “Is it so rare that Enigma couldn’t be employing a Spotter?” ventured Teatime. “Over what range does this gift work?”
    “About 20-30 feet at the most” said India.
    “All of the disappearances,” said Othello, bringing up a map on his computer, “were within 20 miles of here, but not particularly close together. Unless Enigma has a number of Spotters, it’s hard to see how they could have been so successful in locating their targets.”
At that moment, there was a polite knock on the door and the fresh-faced young agent that Harold had scared earlier poked his head into the room.
    “Agent Mercury?” he said, “A report from the Watch Tower has just come in and I think you should see it.”
    “Excuse me,” said Mercury, making his way out of the room. “Take five everyone, get a coffee or something.”
    Glad of the interruption, the others repaired to the break room.
Someone had brought in a tray of home-made cupcakes and had left them with a hand-written sign indicating that anyone could have one provided that they left a donation in the box provided. The money raised would go to fund research into diseases of the pancreas.
    “These look very tempting,” remarked Harold, dropping some money into the box and snagging a cake.
    “You’d know all about that,” said Prada lightly, taking a cake for herself.
     “I’ll let you into a secret,” said Harold, lowering his voice in a mock-conspiratorial whisper, “I’m not actually very good at it, but please don’t tell the others, I have a reputation to maintain.”
    Prada laughed.
    “Your secret is safe with me.”
    “Ahem,” interrupted Teatime, “Are you planning to keep that cake all to yourself, old sock? Only, being the brains in this partnership is hungry work, don’t you know?”
    “Sorry,” Harold apologised, breaking off a large piece and handing to the little monkey. He bit into his own piece and closed his eyes in pleasure: these were good!
    “Can you actually taste things?” asked Prada. “I always thought your kind didn’t need food…”
    “We need energy, and food is as good a way to get it as any – and very enjoyable too, I might add. “ explained Harold, “Plus, I can eat anything and not get fat..”
    “Now I know you’re evil!” groaned Prada, “I’ve just bought myself another 2 hours in the gym.”
    “She’s being awfully friendly with that Fallen,” said India quietly to Othello as she poured coffee for herself. “Someone should have a word.”
    “Prada’s an experienced agent,” replied Othello softly, “She knows what she’s about. I reckon she’ll get more information out of that one than the rest of us ever will. ‘Softly, softly catchee monkey’, as they say.” He chuckled a little at his own wit.
    “Hmm, she needs to be careful she doesn’t end up like Pandora – opening up a box full of trouble.” Was India’s sour reply.
    Agent Mercury entered the room, his face grave.
    “People,” he said, “I’ve just received some very shocking news.” He paused to ensure they were all listening. “Agent Emerald has been found murdered.”

Episode 26

2010-02-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

“OK, people,” announced Agent Mercury, “Time to get started.”

They were gathered in the Salamader room - one of the oddly-named conference rooms at OGS. Mercury was running the meeting. Othello had his laptop open on the table in front of him connected to a projector. It was currently displaying his screensaver – animated fishes swimming all over a coral reef complete with overflowing pirate treasure chest. Prada looked bored already and was doodling on her notepad. Harold could make out the words “pantry” and “laundry list” in amongst a growing number of cartoon flowers, hearts and spirals. India, on the other hand, was leaning forward, pencil poised, all alert attentivemess. Harold himself was quite interested in the proceedings. There were no briefing sessions in the Basement, although Harold had heard humans claiming that they thought they had died and gone there after a particularly long boring meeting up here. Teatime sat quietly on the table in front of Harold.

“OK, I think it’s safe to assume that since both sides have lost –er – people then neither side is responsible for what’s happening. Agreed?”

A murmur of assent ran round the table.

Othello tapped his keyboard and a neat bullet point appeared on the whiteboard.

“So who does that leave?” continued Mercury.

“Humans,” suggested Teatime. India tutted and shot him a look with a wind chill factor strong enough to freeze a small bird to death.

“Well, who else is there?” he continued, unperturbed.

“Aliens?” Prada didn’t even look up from her dodles. “Vampires? Dragons?”

This was greeted with a chorus of general disagreement.

“Perhaps we should shelve that point for the moment, pending more information.” said Othello as his fingers danced on the keyboard once more.

“OK,” agreed Mercury, “Let’s record such information as we do have. Mr Teatime, I believe you have the details of the Fallen that have disappeared. Would you care to share them with us?”

“Yes, of course” Teatime assumed his schoolmasterly tone, “The Basement has lost touch with five demons thus far. The most recent was Baron Samedi. Before that there was Crippled Tom, then Akim, a.k.a Baying Wolf, Michael Everest and Susan.”

Prada let out a giggle.

“Susan?” she said, “Seriously? There’s a demon called Susan? What is she, the spirit of extreme bossiness? ‘Cos if she is, then you’ve just described my little sister.”

“Very funny, Prada,” said Othello, “Now, on our side, we’ve lost three: Territhiel, Auriel and Illyriel, according to the information given us by the Penthouse.”

Harold started at that last name. He and Illyriel, while not exactly BFFs or whtever the human idiom was, had nevertheless been quite close before the Great War, and it was shocking to imagine that he might be gone for good. Even though he had been banished from the Penthouse along with all the other Fallen, Harold had, in those first terrifying dark days, taken a little comfort in knowing that former friends were still there, safe and happy.

“How can an angel or a Fallen just disappear, though?” asked India. “They can’t be killed, can they?”

“That’s right,” agreed Harold, “Our vessels are pretty much indestructible.”

“But vulnerable to electricity, or our tasers wouldn’t work.” observed Othello. “In all our dealings with Fallen, we’ve never found any other practical way of restraining them – apart from Binding, and only a very few of us can do that.” He looked at Harold, “in the interests of solving this mystery for both our sides, do you have any other weaknesses we should know about, that might have been exploited by whoever is behind this?”

Yeah, like I’d tell you if I had, thought Harold. “Not unless you count trad. Jazz.” He said. “I’m a real sucker for that.”

“We’ll take that as a ‘no’ then.” said Mercury drily.

It was going to be a long meeting.

Episode 25

2010-01-30T04:46:00.000-08:00

    The phone rang . Mr Teeth set down the scissors he had been using to open his morning sachet of protein drink (beef flavour today) and picked it up.
    “This is Peck. “ came the cultured voice of the private investigator . “Your boy is back in town. He was seen hanging around the club last night. Unfortunately, he left there in the company of some others – two men, two women. We have a licence plate though and my contacts are tracing the owners.”
    “Thanks,” grunted Mr Teeth, “I still want to speak to that boy, so keep on it, will you?”
    “Of course,” came the smooth reply, “I’ll let you know if anything changes.” The phone went dead. For 1500 dollars a day, the man might at least say goodbye occasionally, thought Mr Teeth.

    They had given Harold a tiny, hastily emptied-out office with no windows (to prevent opportunistic escape attempts, presumably). Someone had rustled up a camp bed and they had left a desk and chair in there too. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was better than nothing.
    Teatime was still delicately sawing logs when Harold woke from a pleasant night of quiescence, wondering what the day would bring. He dressed, opened the door and stepped out into the main operations room of OGS. This place had fascinated him on his last visit but he had not exactly had a chance to explore.
    Even at this early hour, the place was far from deserted: there were agents tapping reports into computers, agents on the phone, agents scouring the internet for information – a veritable hive of activity. A fresh-faced young agent at a nearby desk noticed Harold.
    “I don’t think you’re meant to be wandering about out here.” He said, rather timidly. Harold guessed that he had probably not been in the job long. It was wrong of him, he knew, but he could not resist having a little fun. He placed his hands on the desk in front of the agent and leaned over him, forcing him to lean back to maintain eye contact.
    “I was just looking for something to eat,” he said, bestowing upon the agent his most friendly grin. “Know where I can get hold of some nice fluffy kittens?”
    The young agent looked horrified.
    “Err, I don’t think we can do that.” He stammered, “I can get you something from the canteen. Will that do?”
    “That would be lovely.”
    “Stop that!” India snapped, having just arrived.
    “I’m sorry,” Harold said to the young agent, “I was just having a little fun. Some food would be nice though. Teatime will be hungry by now and he gets really grouchy when he’s hungry.”
    Relieved, the young agent scuttled off.
    “Do anything like that again and there’ll be trouble.” India said angrily, looking like she could have slapped him.
    Harold held up his palms apologetically, “I’m sorry. You idealistic types have a certain stereotypical view of us demons, so I was just living up to it. Won’t happen again.”
    The fried egg of his apology splatted against the Teflon coating of her cool stare and slid off, leaving no trace of humour in her eyes. Mind you, when Harold thought about it, he had been a bit mean to torment the young agent like that. The young fellow had been about as tough as a marshmallow and not really fair game. He sighed. Guess it was just his wicked fallen nature coming out.
    “Get your monkey-thing and come with me.” India ordered.
    She was back to being dark-haired again today for some reason which tickled Harold’s curiosity somewhat. He’d have to ask her about that at some point – after making sure her taser was well out of reach first, of course.

Episode 24

2010-01-22T10:54:00.000-08:00

“Work with a demon?” cried Agent Mercury, “Are you serious?”
“Quite serious,” replied Baruthiel calmly. “The decision to combine forces was not made lightly, I assure you. Now I can’t put any pressure on you to do this, but I would strongly recommend it.”
The agents’ faces were so comically frozen in disbelief that Harold was tempted to whip out his phone and take a picture. He suspected that it would be a poor start to their working relationship though, so he forbore. What puzzled him was that the female agents had changed their appearances. The older one – Agent Gucci, was it - looked amazing (for a human). The younger one though looked faintly ridiculous and distinctly ill-at-ease in her blonde wig, make-up and heels. He felt a smile starting a tug-of-war with the corners of his mouth.
For her part, Agent India couldn’t believe her ears. She couldn’t have been more taken aback if the angel had suggested they team up with Gandalf and his pixies or Hobbits or whatever those little guys were. Surely Mercury would say no and then they could nail that – wait a minute – was that demon smirking? At her? The nerve! She felt the weight of the taser in her hand. Oh, If only…. Come on Mercury, just say no, she urged him silently. Just. Say. No.
“Does director Opal know about this?” asked Mercury, apparently impervious to India’s thought-beams boring into the back of his head .
“He has been informed, yes,” replied the angel. “He says that, as you’ll be the ones directly affected you should decide whether you want to work with a Fallen.“
“I vote no.” said India, straightaway.
“Oh, quelle surprise,” whispered Teatime, sarcastically.
“I would vote yes,” said Othello, “Except we can’t have demons running around unbound and I’m assuming,” and, here he turned to Harold, “that you wouldn’t agree to be Bound?”
“Correct” Replied Harold
“Since when do we ask demons for their permsision before Binding them?” said India, incredulously. “Surely, we should just do it and then the question doesn’t arise!”
“I think it would be more productive if all parties in this arrangement were willing rather than coerced.” Interjected Baruthiel. “But your point is well made.”
Othello thought for a moment then said to Harold, “Perhaps as a compromise, you could base yourself at our HQ and a member of OGS could accompany you at all times when out and about.”
“I’d be OK with that,” said Prada, “Besides, it’s about time we had some eye-candy about the place – no offence, gentlemen.” India shot her a scandalised look.
“I’d be OK with that too, I suppose,” said Mercury drily, “but probably not for the same reasons as Agent Prada.”
“Well?” Baruthiel was looking at Harold. The latter’s brain went into top gear as he tried to consider the ramifications of agreeing to this latest idea.
“Just a moment,” he said, walking a few paces away down the alley. “What do you think, Teatime?”
“I hate to badger you over this but I think you should never have agreed to work with these people in the first place,” replied the monkey sternly, “but that’s academic now. I suspect refusal to join their little party at this point would be unwise: these OGS lackeys on their own are dangerous enough but with Baruthiel as well.. No, we’d better make the best of it, old button.”
“OK,” said Harold, returning to the group. “I’m in.”
“Good,” approved the angel, “Now I must go.” He addressed Harold in Celestial, “The Penthouse has placed an unprecedented amount of trust in you, Fallen. Betray that trust and I will take it as a personal affront.”
And with that, he was gone.
“So, what now?” said Harold brightly.
“Back to HQ for you, then a good night’s sleep for the rest of us.” Said Mercury.”There’s just about room in the car I suppose, let’s go.”
“Will my room have an ensuite?” Harold asked India jokingly, in an attempt to break the ice.
“Hardly.” She replied sullenly, “It’s not like we’re going to roll out the barrel for the likes of you.”
“Could you at least run to a lovely cup of tea then?” Harold continued, “Only Teatime is rather partial to it.”
“Stop talking to me.” India snapped.
“Just being friendly,” Harold said, “We are going to be working together after all.”
“So? It doesn’t mean we have to do small-talk.”
Harold sighed. These humans were no fun.

Episode 23

2010-01-16T01:31:00.000-08:00

“You can tell your pet it’s safe to come out of the shadows now.” said Baruthiel.

Teatime had obviously been listening the whole time because the words had barely left the angel’s mouth before he was once more upon Harold’s shoulder.

“Why in Hades’s name did you agree to that?” his voice was a furious frantic whisper.

“It’s not like I had a lot of choice, is it?” Harold replied, “And I don’t need a load of aggravation from you about it – the Basement and the Penthouse have a common interest for once and it might be useful to pool our resources.”

“Have I somehow fallen through a wormhole into an alternate reality?” Teatime was incredulous, “Those goody-two-shoes types will never trust us enough to share anything they find out and they’ll never believe anything we tell them. By Pluto, If you told them tomatoes were red, they’d still go to the nearest greengrocer and check for themselves. No, we can’t do this, old sock, we simply can’t.”

“We have to, “ insisted Harold, “I’ve already agreed to it.”

“But your Father will be furious!”

“He’s alwaysfurious!”

“Music to my ears,” commented Baruthiel, “A house divided….”

If looks could kill, Teatime’s glare would have had the local florists rubbing their hands and ordering extra lillies.

“Look Teatime,” said Harold patiently, “I’m not changing my mind on this now. I say we at least give it a try. If it doesn’t work out well…”

Teatime considered this. “Very well,” he sighed after some time, “but don’t come crying to me when these OGS lickspittles slap you with another Binding or worse – as they surely will.”

“They’re here,” announced Baruthiel, as four figures appeared at the end of the alleyway. He sheathed his sword and altered his appearance. Gone were the radiant armour and long flowing locks, to be replaced by a modern-looking army field uniform and a crew cut. Harold could only envy the angel’s mastery of his physical appearance – a skill he was really going to have to start working at one of these days – if he ever got the chance. If only you could get an instructional DVD or something – “Shapeshifting for Beginners” or “A New Face in 10 Easy Steps”. Maybe if he ever got the hang of it he would make that DVD himself. Yeah, right! His Father would be riding a snowmobile to work before these OGS types would leave him alone long enough to a) practice the art and b) stay here on the Brightside. Which rather begged the question: what was going to happen once all this was over. He was about to ask Baruthiel, but at that moment Joshua squad arrived.

This was India’s first encounter with an angel and, although she knew better, she was ever so slightly disappointed that he wasn’t more, well, angelic-looking. Oh, he was beautiful alright and contained within himself an inner light which was unmistakably not of this earth, but she had secretly hoped for wings. Big fluffy white wings – and maybe a halo. This isn’t It’s a Wonderful Life, she chided herself, and he’s not Clarence, so get a grip!

“Good evening, Agents,” said the angel, “Forgive the bizarre location of this meeting, it would have taken place in more salubrious surroundings at OGS HQ had someone not taken it into his head to go running off in the company of Black Sheep.” This last was, of course, directed at Harold but the latter just shrugged.

“Now,” he continued, “I have a very unusual request.”

Episode 22

2010-01-08T15:17:00.000-08:00

“Well that’s rather put the kibosh on my pet theory,” murmured Teatime into the silence. “Still, a few less angels about the place? Bit of a silver lining, I’d say.”

Baruthiel seemed to notice the little monkey for the first time and the flaming tip of his sword moved to point at him.

“Begone, abomination,” the angel’s voice was melodious ice. “My business is not with you.”

Teatime bared his teeth in a brief show of defiance but, not wishing to be turned into monkey-chips, he quickly leapt down from Harold’s shoulder and scuttled away into the darkness.

“That wasn’t very kind, Baruthiel,” said Harold, “Teatime can’t help what he is,”

“Yes he can.” replied Baruthiel, “He made a choice – he entered into the Contract.”

“Some choice!” retorted Harold, “It was either that or die in some nameless human laboratory somewhere. No-one from the Penthouse was prepared to help him, were they? My Father offered him the deal and he took it – who wouldn’t under the circumstances?”

“I wouldn’t!” declared the angel.

“How do you know?” cried Harold, becoming angry with Baruthiel’s relentless self-righteousness, “You’ve never been put in that position, have you? How can you possibly-”

“Enough!” roared Baruthiel, “I did not come here to debate morality with a Fallen One – especially you!”

“So why are you here?” demanded Harold.

“It has been decided” the angel replied, calming himself with an effort, “That you will assist us in finding out what is behind the disappearances.”

It took a moment for it to sink in then Harold burst out laughing.

"You have got to be kidding me! The Penthouse and the Basement do not work together, you know that. Never have, never will."

“True,” agreed Baruthiel, “so you will be assisting some of our human agents – that much is permitted.” A cellphone appeared in the hand not holding the sword, and he began to thumb its buttons.

"Oh, no." said Harold firmly, "I've met some of your agents and we didn't exactly get along. There's no way we'll be able to work together. There'll be what the humans call 'trust issues'. Anyway, why do you need my help when you can investigate perfectly well yourself?"

Baruthiel's thumb paused and he regarded Harold contemptuously..

"That's just like you, isn't it?" he sneered, "You're given the opportunity to do something that would really make a difference and you choose to walk away – again! I told them this was a bad idea, that you wouldn't have changed, and I was right."

"Now, wait a minute!" cried Harold, "I haven't decided either way yet, I just want to know what's going on. The Penthouse has never asked a Fallen for any kind of assistance before, so you can see why I might have questions."

Baruthiel considered this for a moment, then said.

"I can't tell you anything at this time. Just work with Joshua squad, that's all." He held up the phone, his thumb hovering over the green DIAL button. "Well?"

"Fine," sighed Harold, "I'll do it, but I suspect I'm not the only one who will need convincing." His hand tightened its grip on the wood of the club’s fire door: It would have to be Joshua squad, wouldn't it?

Baruthiel dialled.

-0-0-0-0-

“Darn it,” muttered Agent Prada, dabbing at her blouse with a paper towel, “This doughnut grease gets everywhere!”

“Try dabbing it with some perfume – the alcohol will act as a detergent,” suggested Othello.

“Really?” Prada rummaged in her bag and drew out a bottle of Mandala perfume.

“You’re such a space cadet, sometimes, Othello,” remarked Mercury, “Fancy knowing a thing like that. What’s next? A recipe for Turtle Soup, perhaps, or a lecture on the Architecture of the Minaret?”

“Maybe he’ll tell us about ceramic mug sales in prehistoric Mexico,” laughed Prada, joining in.

“Well, excuse me for having an education, I’m sure.” Othello replied with mock indignation. “At least I can spell spaghetti.”

Mercury’s phone rang, interrupting the laughter that followed. After he had finished the call, Mercury turned a grinning face to the rest of them. “That was our Penthouse contact. He wants us to meet him in the alley behind the club.”

“But isn’t that where…?” asked India.

“Yep!” replied Mercury, “Let’s roll, people. This should be interesting!”

Episode 21

2009-12-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

India took a sip of water to wash down the last of her doughnut. Othello had grumpily fetched a box for them from a nearby store – anything to quiet Prada's rumbling stomach. For someone so image-conscious, she can certainly eat, thought India, watching Prada fussily wiping her hands with one of the frustratingly inadequate paper towels from the doughnut shop. In the front seat, even Mercury had resorted to doing a crossword by torchlight to pass the time. They had been here for hours - or so it felt.

"Woe is me, 4 letters." Mercury sighed.

"Alas," replied Othello, staring through the window at a deserted and windy street.

"Did Opal say when this guy was going to show up?" asked Prada.

"Nope." replied Mercury firmly, "What's another word for greed, beginning with 'a'?"

"Avarice," Othello could not keep the boredom from his voice. Like all of them, he just wanted to get in there and deal with the demon they had followed here, once and for all. Having to wait was maddening.

"Doesn't fit,"

Othello glanced over at Mercury's paper, "Spaghetti ends in an 'i' not an 'e'." he grunted.

"Oh yeah, thanks." Mercury's pen scratched the paper.

Outside in the street, nothing was still doing its best to happen.

-O-O-O-

The armoured figure facing Harold was like something come to life from one of those old mythology books. It topped Harold's six feet by a good head, and was broad of shoulder and narrow of hip. Its flowing golden hair framed a bronzed face of such surpassing beauty that, if it had smiled, it would have lit up the whole alleyway.

It was not smiling, however.

"You!" cried Harold in disbelief and not a little trepidation.

"They told me that one of the First Order was roaming around on Earth," said the armoured figure, "Imagine my surprise when they said it was you." He took a step closer and in so doing, brought the flaming tip of his sword close enough to make the front of Harold's jacket begin to smoke a little. "Do you not remember me warning you what would happen if our paths ever crossed again?" The perfect grey eyes were ablaze with anger.

"Of course I do," answered Harold, his voice calmer than he felt.

"And yet you still come up here to the world of men to make mischief."

"That's not what I'm doing here, Baruthiel," Harold protested.

"Oh?" the angel (for such it was) raised a perfect eyebrow, "So you got Lolita LaChaise to sign away her soul for her own good then, did you?" Even dripping sarcasm, the voice was lovely. "You are truly pathetic!"

Harold had no answer: he had indeed ensnared that young actress with a promise of a major part in All My Children, but that was before – and she had been drunk at the time, so even the best of the Basement's lawyers (and there were plenty to choose from) would probably not be able to get the Contract to stick. The Contract had to be signed knowingly and willingly. Harold doubted that would cut any ice with Baruthiel the Reckoner, though, and prepared himself for a swift and painful trip back home. It was a pity really, things were just getting interesting.

"I would love to deal with you as you deserve, Fallen," continued the angel, "but fortunately for you, there are more important matters at hand. I assume all this amateurish skulking in alleys is your way of investigating the disappearances?"

Harold was stung by the angel's scathing tone and, with the threat of imminent Dismissal having receded, somewhat irritated by his holier-than-thou (though technically quite true) manner.

"What's it to the Penthouse if there are a few less Fallen?" he retorted, "I would have thought you'd be pleased."

"Oh, we would be," Baruthiel assured him, "Except that some of the Loyal have also disappeared."
Even Teatime, who had been perfectly still and silent up to this point, gasped.

So Angels were disappearing too.