Black Monster

At the station Emma stood fumming, all the neatly ordered files were dishevieled. Someone had gone through them, she realised part of her had expected it, had set it up but the destruction always got to her. A slick coldness had smothered her stomache, Pete was the sort of person this could hurt drastically and her stupid munipulative mind hadn’t even thought on that. He was standing at the barrier tape, staring, just staring. ‘Pete?’ she said gentle, he turned a hardened face towards her, she was releived it was always going to be that or tears.

‘There’s a mole’ he said through gritted teeth, she nodded and stood companionly next to him.

‘You did have a back up?’ she asked.

‘They didn’t tell you?’ he asked sounding bitter.

She looked at him the ice in her belly rising in a painful wave. ‘My house was broken into last night’

‘Shit’ she muttered.

‘They didn’t get it though,’ he said after a long drawn out pause. Her attention snapped to him, he smiled shyly. ‘My brothers a computer archetect he set me up secure channels, encrypted and stuff so it was all saved to the servers with multiple back up. Here’s your copy I’m not giving you access to the server sorry but I’m not sure I can trust you.’ She smiled crookidly back, “I wouldn’t trust me either if I were you but that is amazing.”

‘However,’ she said in a razor blade tone, ‘someone now has some of the information which you’d colated’ Pete nodded but then shrugged.

“not that much actually and I’m not sure anything useful – I think they were looking for the file you’d taken with you.’ She nodded that would make scense.

‘Pete I would like you to unofficial chase up the results of my narcotic sample and maybe apply your analytical skills to them?’ It was his turn to stare at her.

‘You don’t think I’m a consipiracy kook?’ he asked.

She smiled, it wasn’t sweet. ‘I know you’re not’. The skin on the palms of her hands was itching again. ‘Please would you do that for me?’ He nodded slowely and his fadded blue eyes seemed so large she had an uncharitble thought about people falling in love with someone for just paying them attention.

‘Invoice me directly for over time.’ she said curtly. He seemed to jump slightly but nodded mutely once more. ‘Now lets hope the mole is a stupid creature and that there is not a team of them.’

‘You knew there was one didn’t you?’ it was a mild accusation.

‘I… I had a feeling, yes’ she didn’t dare look over at him. ‘I didn’t think they would be this brazen though’ she sighed. ‘Look I have alot of stuff to get done to be perfectly honest’ she felt like she had slapped him but she couldn’t let him get too close. Emma was feeling the bite – head quarters was a must visit and she would have to tell them just how close Pete had come. The file about the silica goo seemed to weigh heavily in her gold hand bag. Pete she hoped would not be considered a danger, he was the first person she had come across who had pieced even a fraction of it together… other than herself of course.

He was nodding mutely looking slightly hurt, he was 40 plus and well gnarly would be the best word to describe him, he was lanky and somehow knotty, he’d weathered badly. ‘I will expect a report later,’ she muttered and shuffled away, friends she could not afford and the fact he knew things she knew, things she could not share with anyone else made him an irrasistable pull. She wasn’t the only special agent in the met but agents were widely dispirsed. Emma stopped at the first floor bathroom, black and white tiles, chipped and cracked to unhieginic levels made a headache inducing pattern in the pinky yellow glow of the old style lighting above her head, the cubical doors were heavy wood and metal affairs in a dark green the still gleamed in the half light. Her reflection swum in the mirror, fatigue was getting her and this was only the beginning of the half snatched cat naps and bad food. The case would stretch out for weeks possibly months, years if she couldn’t get a proper handle on this lead.

The cult watchers had been next to useless on this case, she tried not to grind her teeth as she splashed cold water on her face, a brown bloom behind the mirror glass gave her a strange apparent extra mole. If the narcotic results came back as something new then there would be an easy trail to follow, or easier at any rate. Dead girls were not as easy to track as crime thrillers made them out to be. She frowned, it enhanced the stress lines on her face, she was young by modern standards, she knew that she just wished she felt like it. With a resigned sigh she stepped headed back out, head quarters it would have to be, she dare not go off pestering the optical fiber companies incase she stumbled over something and got herself killed.

She pulled her cream coat of the rail she’d left it on, straightened her pink stripped blouse and thought how nice it would be to bump into the Chief as she felt like shredding someone to pieces, but the blasted man did not appear. And once again it was lashing it down with rain outside. London would surely drown if this continued? She wondered how HQ was coping, of course he liked it damp didn’t he? She shuddered she really really hated having to touch base, but this was more than some anomaly needed covering up to stop others prying deeper this was something big, and that was without her sensiblities over wanting to stop young women from being drained of blood or having suckers attatched to their heads.

Her boots made a saticifying splat sound on the drenched pavement.

Emma was looking at a worried girl called Megan they had just gone through her computer logs. She had spoken to Christine and arrange to go out but then Christine had not turned up and Megan had been angry and sent texts and emails and things which were obviously now waiting her concous down. From the timings given Emma had requested access to the station and street CCTV cameras. They would take several hours to arrive at her office and even more time to go through, she had left a message at the lab hoping that they had processed her little drug package but they hadn’t phoned her back yet.

Rob and Edwine were shadowing her in a most annoying way. She understood they were worried but she needed room to think, still with out the boys or the professor she would not have gotten this far. Checking open street map she reasoned there were three routes the girl was likely to have taken. On of them would have been one she should have logically avoided, but she’d been upset and it was the shortest route – it also happened to be an alley way by the looks of things. She was walking through google maps, looking at furry leafed trees – they really did look furry with leave sprouting all the way up thier trunk. It was basically two days since the disappearance but it might just be worth conering it off and giving it the fine comb treatement.

Sighing she reached for her phone, the big chappy of a chief was not going to be very happy about this – she was going to have an arguement on her hands.

‘Hello?’ He sounded grumpy already,

‘Hi Chief,’ she began but he interrupted her before she could get much further.

‘You have not checked in at the station today and your office is an obsolute mess! Fire saftey officers had a fit.’ Emma paused, something wasn’t right about this.

‘What mess?’ she asked fearing she knew what was coming next.

‘All of Pete’s folders, what were you thinking! Stacking them up like that, well I say stacking but it looked more like you had a barny…’ this time she interupted.

‘Seal that office off now! As a crime scene, right now and no one is to go in until I get there. Do you hear?’

‘Don’t be daft woman!’ he roared.

‘I am not being daft and if it is not sealed off I will have to make a report on this and that will go badly for you, I also have an alley way here in Ealing that needs corrdening off and a forensic team.’ she said using her ascertive voice. Being an accademic by nature she’d had to have training to achieve it but it was a good ascertive voice and nearly always worked.

‘You are having a laugh’ he roared. This would be one of *those* occassions then. ‘If you think I have resources to go pissing up walks on feather goose chases you’ve got another things coming.’

Emma glanced around the kids all seemed to be pre-occupied with comforting each other. ‘DO I *need* to remind you of who I actually work for?’ She didn’t really want to say over an unsecured line like this one – you never did know who was listerning. The man began indignant splutterings, she stopped him mid ramble, ‘if I were you I wouldn’t be waisting time, you have a mole, a nasty little sniverling worm somewhere on your staff and you are their boss, the person who has allowed them to have power with the Constabulary. Now what time can I expect that team here?’ There was a long puase, she held her breath – if this didn’t work she would have to go to head quarters and that really was something she wanted to avoid until nesiscarry.

‘3:30 is the earliest give me the address.’ the poor man sounded tired and resigned, she hated having that affect on people. She gave him the particulars and hung up before any complication could arise. Then she turned to the kids. ‘I’ve got to head back to the station, I would like all of you to remain easily findable. Megan could you just pop into the kitchen for a word please?’ Megan looked started but followed, in the course of her questioning she had found Megan was a Ballet Dancer from a dance school and not from any of the institutions so far hit. ‘You are 20?’ Megan nodded, big brown eyes with matching clouds of hair held back with a flourescent orange band. ‘This is a personal question and one you do not have to answer but it could be important for yours and Christines saftey…’ Megans eyes grew bigger Emma hesitated knowing she was braking protocal, knowing that she was allowed to do so didn’t stop it beiing sticky in the mean time until it was established to those who could cuase problems that she was indeed allowed to break the rules. ‘How many sexual partners have you had?’ Megan blushed and looked away.

‘Partners or men?’ she asked quietly. Now that was an interesting point Emma realised, she wondered what the preditors were considering sex?

‘Both.’ she said getting slightly impatient with the girl.

‘Three and none,’ she whispered.

‘Three partners but no men?’ Emma asked. The girl nodded but didn’t make eye contact.

‘Ok I don’t want you to go wandering off on your own, do you have a room mate?’ Megan shook her head. ‘A current partner?’ The girl just looked down at her feet. Emma looked round it was a big flate to have by yourself as a student but she didn’t say anything.

‘What about the boys? You ok with them hanging around?’ it was dicey but she didn’t think those two would take advantage of the situation they were far too concerned about Christine. And if they did she would make sure seven shades of shit rained on them for the rest of their lives and unlike most cops she could actually make sure justice was done at least on these sorts of scales.

Grabbing her coat she asked the boys to stay with Megan, or to organise someone else but that she was not to be left on her own. And then she was once again heading out into rain drizzeled streets.

It was stuck in the back of her neck, Oh GOD no! It was she could feel it there, it had… bite her, stabbed her, it was in her head, she could feel it. Christine rocked back and forth but was strapped to a chair so it was a minute movement. Tears of hysteria were running down her cheeks. It was there she could feel it. Her fear seemed amplified, to be reflected back at her from it. She wanted to go home. this was a nightmare, it couldn’t be happening, her head hurt, it pulsed behind her eyes, a dull ache. Worms seemed to be eating at her temples and she wanted to chuck up but she dearnt. There was a gag in her mouth and it hurt the soft corners were her lips thinned.

It was some sick cult and no one knew where she was. She could see her bag with it’s little cleft keyring glinting with false diamonds, cut glass for a bit of sparkle. Rob had bought it for her – Oh God Rob, where was he? What would he think? Would he even have told the police she was missing yet? Such a stupid thing. If she could get to her bag she could try and find a network – could post on Facebook or FourSquares or anywhere – hell she could skype someone but it was over there. She couldn’t even whimper anymore, her mouth and throat were so dry, the gag made her dribble and soaked all her siliver up at the same time.

Her mind felt icy, her skin hot and papery. She was trembling. A man walked into the room, he was tall, and thin and there was something slightly odd about him, he was the one who had driven the spike into her neck. A spike in her head! Up through the neck, she must be bleeding, heamoraging. She was going to die, going to die, Oh God. The room itself was stainless steel, and halogen tubes, it had the look of a modern day abatior, Christine wanted to vomit, didn’t dear vomit, her eyes swivelled like a mad horse. she tried to take in the scene he had a huge syring. It was full of a straw coloured fluid.

‘tighten the straps’ he said calm washing out from him. She noticed vaguely that his nose was just a slightly raised mound of flesh with slits instead of nostrils. It reminded her of something. But the thought was chased away by the painfull tightening of the straps that held her in the chair. She almost choked herself with the effort to cry out NO No NO, her toungue swelled uselessly at the back of her mouth but a muffled sqeak was all that came out beyound the accursed gag. The syringe was coming near her! It was for her!

‘Are the straps tight?’ The men in white coats nodded. ‘it is very important, I need to add more fluid, she has leaked more than expected but if she where to jurk it would be a disastor.’ Christine closed her eyes. A star of pain, an ice flower bloomed in her head. It cut her with razor edges, like crystal shards. She wanted oblvion, to be beyound this pain, the mantra began from her core. ROB, she called silently, ROB. Her muscles tense but the pain was subsiding, after an eon that was less than a minute. Her heart was hammering on her chest. She felt a strange queasyness in her gut. It writhed as if it wanted food, as if it would eat her for not sustaining it, vertigo had her in a dizzying wave. She did not want food but the taste of meat was in her mouth.

Machines bleeps at the side of her and she began to gag at the thought of meat, at the thought of food. ‘She is vomiting!’ on of the normal humans uttered, startled.

‘Remove the gag fool!’ the man said stepping up to her once more, he held a light to her eyes. And clicked his tongue in a strange way, he had a smell, oil, salt, almost a chip shop. That thought had her spewing, the blessad releif of gag removal didn’t really register, just the spasms, she couldn’t hunch forward, she knew she would drown in her own vomit. ‘Did you starve her for the 48 hrs like I asked?’ the man hissed.

The lacky’s looked at each other, ’48?’ one stammered.

‘Yes 48’

‘We er… thought it was 24’ breath was inhailed through the strange slitty nostrals, they had some sort of membrame with in them.

‘We are lucky she is not dead, you had better hope that she hasn’t inhaled that vomit into her lungs, if she dies of pnumonia you will be bringing me you sister.’

The man stood momentarily frozen and then bowed, ‘yes master of course.’ They were cleaning her up. She felt a tug between her legs and became aware of the cathater. She closed her eyes and tears pushed large and salty from them. She didn’t want to attract attention didn’t want them to reaslise she did not have the gag in. Her mouth was vile. It had come out through her nose and it stung, as well as stunk. She gagged again.

A tingling burned at her lips again and the world tilted, ‘Food,’ her vocal cords had acted on thier own, the word was slurred, all attention in the room was on her, ‘starving both’ it was gravily and then high pitched. Christine whimpered. It was her voice but she hadn’t said the words, except she could fell from her through that she had.

The Master stood before her, his smell filling her acrid nostrils, ‘the mapping process is not yet done, do not try to communicate yet you could damage your self and the interface. I will bring sustanance for both of you though the interface is likely to be too scared to eat for a while yet.’ Christine felt her eyes blink in response.

‘Bring in number four’

A lacky nodded and hurried out of the room. Christine stared at the Master, there was something else in her mind with her, but not in the way she would have expected for a possession, she laughed. IT was sudden and bright and too jarring, Possession! Like her grandmothers was right in her foundling of the rosary, ghosts and gouls and there was a FUCKING MONSTER attatched to her head, she sobbed and laughed and cackeled, it was absurd, truelly absurd, she was in some kind of nightmare, she should wake up she needed to wake up becuase this could not be happening. The Master watched her, his nostrils doing thier slite thing, she thought he seemed hard, angry, his tongue clicked again. Another girl about her age shuffled into the room. She looked pale under a tan, her lups were white and cracked, hair lank. Zombi was the thought that sprang to Christines mind. But the girl looked up at her with frightened eyes. She was shivering with cold.

Attatched to her by tubes that seemed like tenticals were machines and scaffold for drips. They were being man handeled by the lakies.

The girl was ushered into a chair similiar to hers and then the machine placed between them. ‘Please let me go’ she whispered. A lacky flushed a canular, a visous spike driven into the girls arm. He attatched it to a tube on the machine and blood begain to flow – the girl whimpered. The achine gurgled and rumbled and in horrid facination Christine watched as the blood ran out of the machine through a pipe next to her.

A sigh, came from deep within her, but it wasn’t hers then the metal tang corressed her tongue. She fought her restraints, the girls blood she could taste the girls blood, she screamed and fought but The Master appeared with another syringe, ‘sorry but I can’t have you damaging yourself,’ he purred and a cotton wool cloud smothered her thoughts.

Emma, had over slept, her head felt clear though and she had a quick but stingingly hot shower including hair treatment to help keep it smooth enough for the plait. It was drying slowely in a towel turbine as she crunched her way through whole mill toaste and gulped teeth achingly cold orange juice. She undid her cameloen safe and flicked through the papers. She was late anyway so she brewed herself some tea and read.

Pete really had been thourough, she thought as she listed the business affect and those that made silca components. She frowned and the companies thinking she must have missed something – there was nothing there that was catching her eye – nothing at all and that was wronge. Sighing she gave up and suffeled the papers away. She checked the drug pack was still there and stood stretching. She wanted to go to the gym and work out the tired sore muscles but she needed to get into the office.

Sighing she pressed the button on her phone, ‘Hello? Hello Inspector please pick up! It’s Professor Atkins here you came and spoke to me! Phone back as soon as you can it’s about a missing girl.’

The old man sounded scared. SHIT she thought. And grabbing her phone began punching the old mans contact details. The phone was ringing by the time she got on the bus. He answered.

‘Professor?’ she said.

‘Inspector thank goodness, it’s my grandson we had lunch yesterday and he was frantic, he’d been up all night looking for a girl’ Emma hesitated.

‘A girl? A student?’ she should be refering him to a normal police station but she knew they wouldn’t take this seriously for another couple of days yet.

‘Yes, she was upset and left without her boyfriend or her flute last night – she’d mucked up some big performance but she didn’t turn up at home or the library.’ The old man sounded shaken, Emma felt slightly releived at this fact, he wasn’t entirely off her list but it would be stupid of him to phone her with this new if he were part of it, what ever it was.

‘I will come over to your office – could you try and get the boys over there as well so I can talk to them’ a library? They had checked the library for her, it was looking like she fit the demographic. A shrill of excitement filled her stomache folllowed by the cold taint of guilt, getting the girls back alive was important but sometimes her mind went on cop-criminal chases all on its own and just for the exhillaration.

She couldn’t go straight there she needed to get the sample to the lab. She hesitated and then called for a car. 30 minutes later and she was at University College being dropped off illigally on red lines. The police car got no complaints though. She felt the tremble of expectation within herself and pushed it down horrified at herself. The old adgage of cop and criminal being the same came back time and again too her. She had been working too long and too hard. She’d never wanted to be a cop anyway, never wanted to do anything other than piece together humanities dawn. She’d been too good at it though and so the Masters had given her some very clear choices.

And all those science skills, all those history decoding and forensic skills well it turned out to be what made a good police investigator. She jogged across the square and hurried to Atkins office. The old man looked up with tired eyes as she knocked and opened the door with no preamble of false politeness.

‘The boys are on thier way.’ he said quietly.

‘What can you tell me?’ she said.

‘Only that she is a music student, my grandson likes her but she has a boyfriend – the other boy. They were going to check all her less close friends and then the class mates. The police…’ she nodded they wouldn’t be interested in a female student having a tiff with her boyfriend and going awol, they didn’t knwo what she did.

The old man seemed to shudder, ‘do you want coffee?’ he asked suddenly jumping to his feet and bussling at his kettle, she wondered briefly why they had had to go to the little room of draws and glass cases if he had mugs and a kettle here. She didn’t actually answer he just assumed an affirmative. She ignored him slightly as her mind turned things over in her head. If the girl really was missing then this was the nearest thing she had to a lead. They might even be lucky enough to work out exactly where she had gone missing! She tried not to smile with the realisation.

He was bringing the coffee over shakily when two too tall youths entered the room. They were both gangly one slightly shorted than the other with dreaded hair and a star tatoo on his hand, the other had a mop of hair tamed into a femanine style and a silver ring and ball through his lip.

They stopped at the sight of her, she gestered for them to sit down, one of them, the dreaded boy looked at the professor and he nodded. The boys sat down on too foam slashed, metal framed chairs. The sort old hospitals and universities tend to accumulate.

Emma fished out her warrent and flashed it at them, they squirmed in the way normal people did, fearful they’d inadvertantly done *something* wronge. ‘Hello boys I’m Dective Inspector Emma Dursley and I am investigating a series of disappearances, the professor here seems to think that you boys could help me?’

They looked at each other, a fear passed between the two of them. It broke her heart to see it, these two probably hated each other for their liking for the girl and here she was playing a game to get information whilst they had teamed up to find her.

‘It’s my girlfriend Christine, Christine Angular Rose Samuals, she’s a music student. She disappeared last night… I…’ he took a deep breath. ‘I thought taking her to the Union was a good idea as she had mucked up a performance at the Royal Alber Hall in front of paying customers and everything! She’s going to be chucked out of the orchesta for certain after that and it was all her OCD I know it was.’ he was pulling at a thick metal ring on his hand absent mindedly.

‘OCD?’ she asked, the girl was definatly fitting the profile, a sinking feeling threatened to give her vertigo.

‘Yes, I think it was the cieling, they had to put these mushrooms on the cieling for the accustics.’ Emmas brow wrinkled mushrooms and what was the Union?

‘I told her she should say it was the OCD and she… she flipped, I should have guessed that would be how she’d react.’ He slumped into himself.

‘How old is she?’ she asked thinking, how old are they?

‘Twenty two, she took a gap year and had to repeat her second year when the OCD got too bad, before we knew what it was.’ Guilt shimmered in his voice but Emma couldn’t waste time on the little intricasy of their love life and the windy path it had obviously taken.

A phone bleeped and a pretty light show lit up in the other boys pocket. He fumbled and produced a small computer that was what passed for a phone for the modern student. ‘SHIT!’ he said and began to tremble. The dreadlocked boy took the phone and read the message, he looked over to Emma with tear filling eyes.

‘It’s a message saying Christine was supposed to meet one of her friends but didn’t turn up.’ Emma grabbed the phone and stared at the message. This was it then this was the lead she needed, her teeth clenched as she tried to block out the sound of the boys distress.

It’s been 10 days of Noveling madness and I am actually now away on a mini holiday with my husband! I have broken the 30 K barrier and am hoping that during our time away he will get to 10K and I will get to 40K. We’ve set up a thing so that people can sponsor us if they would like – the money goes to charity to set a) help nano keep going and b) to help set up libraries and schools and all things like that.

I am struggling with the exacts of plot – I know where the story arch goes but what happens inbetween is a mystery until it gets written – I need to do a lot of research for things but I don’t want to stop to do that – I know I’ve made mistakes like giving people the wrong names etc…

My plan is to just write things and to do the research later – to write the bones of the scene and add in the organs and flesh later on ones I have down time to look things up and what have you.

I am enjoying my new NaNoing mug 🙂

And the jelly beans that came with them.

We are currently in The Stone London which is an Eerie Pub – these pubs are great for spooky ambience and I am about to write the next chapter next to a resin skeleton embedied in the wall!

Growing pains had it, it was fresh and new, it was being shown things but it wasn’t complete no not complete at all, big gaps yawned at it in the darkness of itself. The things beyound it’s senses were there again, was it they that were growing it, it hurt. Why were they hurting it? It sloshed against it”s flesh canister, tasted the sides, they were warm and orange, a word cinnamon appealed to it. But it did not know what these words were, a landscape of thought rolled it’s self out. A mind, it was a mind. The things beyound its senses? Were they minds too?

There was the protien mass that had been put in a few weeks ago. It felt at it once more, ate it slightly, erroded the surface a bit. There would be more… or itself within. That was were the words had come from wasn’t it? From one of these. The burning happened, blue spikey world of pain and then a package. It was growing, having growing pains.

Something was happening to the meat canister, it’s bucket of flesh, they had… grafted? Something onto it. Nerves had zinged into life, had racked at it and were throbbing dully in a sickly yellow now. It tasted the connections, more senery cells than it had had in total before and they were throbbing. It didn’t want this, where was it’s dark cradle?

Fear made it swirl in chemical potentials. This had happened before hadn’t it?

But it was supposed to be pure! Pure! But the parcels? They might not be but it couldn’t ignore them, it felt the disire to nibble to errode but more than that it wanted to be whole, wanted to know. And even if it could ignore the package it would become untastefull, it would be grung coloured taste, ash and sulphur, with black spikes, it would taste the spikes and it hated tasting spikes.

The package was meat, was flesh, like it’s container, some how alive, it’s container was alive but not part of it, not yet and not really ever. Simbiont? Mutulism? No wrong artificial, no made, no created. Created perfect, magestic.

Made for? Made for something. The meat tasted good but like it would grow weary of the taste soon. Could it eat it’s canister? Could it leak out of the bucket? What would that be like? No boundaries, no form to constrain it?

It strained momentarily agains the fleshy surface, it stood resolute and squeezed back. Growing pains, constriction, stretchng. It wanted to scream but how? Screaming was something the… others did? Others? It remembered the taste of minds, talking, being part of it, but just the sensation. The package was spilling it’s little coded packages, macro molecules, biological tools. They spun in it, it tasted them, all colours, all tastes. It spasmed with the over whelming surge of self.

It fused with flesh, became aware of it. It would be an ache of eternity to be seperated once more from this but it couldn’t take the senses, it poured feeling over it, it was not distincct anymore, there was, feeling, pressure, aching, thrumming and beat, ticking nutriunt so it didn’t spasm and it resented it for being inside of itselt. IT was two and one and one of two and two seperate and two joined and one thing crying with birth panges and it wasn’t over no were near over and it could feel the shape it would consume and it didn’t want it and yet it was ment to be. Soemthing? A destiny, a purpose, those it could not sense it suddendly had always known, lovenly caressing it, easing it’s cramp and cutting it open, filling it up… up with itself.

It quivered at it’self, they would cut it again but for now they had wrapped it in warmth and fed it. The package was still pressing at it, it had burst forth completely now and it had problems to solve, it moved it’s tastes around, it combine and catalysed and ripped the molecules asunder. If there is one thing and another thing there are two one things? Yes two and if there is one more it is two and another which is called… a lime green taste. A lime green three, three one things, it eat the one thing, turning it into other things, it begain again.

Numbers, shapes, landscapes, more than taste? More than potential, more than the new feeling that pushed and pulled and tugged at it, the world was not a series of lines? It could be discribe as such, it could be seen in.. in dimensions, more than lines of potential. More than how far away it is. It formed the shapes, it learnt words it already knew from the severed self that had disolved and disgorded macromolecules, tools and code and memory.

Combine, uncomine, rip unsundar, frustration not enough things, not enough bits to recombine, have to find away to do the bigger out of the small. Represent the idea of the number, lime three as… symbol? As taste of three one things. It begain again. No it stopped. Not needed, to many symbols, not needed, just two… just two one things, no not, an absance and a one thing? Yes maybe, no, it swerled and surged and the new sensation that was also old, spasm and fit and sudder and pulse. Vibrations hit it’s outside now, soemthing it could not think on. An outside, it’s container was it, was an outer surface. It was… sound? It knew it was sound from a thing called frequency it could not remember frequency but the taste shape was there and the vibration fitted it. Waves of air hit it’s surface but it could not hear, had no way to tell what the sounds were.

It felt the pressureon the new, extention, the tube of flesh the others had attatched to it. It felt a blinding flash of pressure and then it was bombaded with a Universe. It tasted a mind, it cringed away and surged forward and it grew into the mind, oozed it’s way with potentials of taste. It drank in the sensations of this new form, an extention, no it was another mind. It was an Other and it was weeping. it tasted the fear and sudded with it. Bruised browns and seepia blooms of pain, anguish. It didn’t want this, the other was as scared as it had been.

It needed to do something? What was it? Map the mind? Find the language center, hook into the nervous system. It drank it in, drank the world of vision and hearing. It rocked back and forth, the world was to bright, too loud, too flaversumfull and too pushy.

It screamed and this time it had lips, stolen lips that screamed for it but they screamed their own scream in unision. Three had become one.

Emma tucked a stray whispt of hair away, the plait was beginning to look dishevieled and she vowed it was home time, the large jug of coffee that Pete had brought up with him was down to cold dregs and her eyes were burning. The policemen opposite her was increadible, it was sad in some ways that his collegues mis took him for a kook. He had pieced together a lot of stuff and what he had gotten wronge was due to missing information but more importantly he had information she did not. He had been colloating stuff she hadn’t thought to look at and which even if she had would have taken her weeks of hard draft.

‘So she said looking at the stacks of files he’d spent the first hour of their meeting bringing up, ‘this one is file for all the cases that showed up the strange same residue? A silica compound? What do the chemists say about it?’ She glanced at the clock – it was 3:30 am when had it gotten that late?

He nodded, ‘it is almost the sort of thing you’d expect in a fiber optic factory but it is not quiet right.’

‘Hmmm’ was all she could think to say. Then she gave yawn.

‘erm… I think it’s well past my lunch break,’ he said giving her a way out.

‘Gosh yes I hadn’t realised, I’d best be heading home. Have you got electronic copies of these?’ she asked.

He hesitated, ‘Not officially,’ he said slowely. She nodded in sympaphy.

‘All of it on there?’ she asked.

He nodded looking apprehensive.

‘Ok in which case I want a copy of it all in digital format by tomorrow lunch time. No don’t clear it away.’ She slurred the last word out of fatigue.

Pete shrugged, she put the file he’d indicated into her oversized handbag and then they left the room. Pete discretely disappeared round the bend in the stairs so as not see how tired she was. She was getting old, too old for this sort of thing. She had a sick feeling, she was going to have to pay head quarters a visit sooner rather than later with the optical residue appearing on things. It did not bode well, it ment another Master was out there playing games.

She dared not drink anymore coffee, and just hoped the cold night would snap her awake enough to get home without falling asleep on the night bus. There was a cluster of night goers at the stop, the bueatifully dressed Lady had an adams apple though her legs were waxed to perfection. She glared a tad unsure of herself until Emma smiled at her at which point she seemed to relax. The skinny fit jeans braggaid must have been under age or she really was getting old, their clashing colours hurt her eyes. And the Middle aged mans body language told her exactly what he’d been doing and she hoped his wife saw the lipstick smudge on his collor before he did.

She was cold and awake but in a painful sort of way, she flexed her toes in her boots as they had started to go numb. The bus arthritically pulled up and she got aboard being charged a high primium on her much abused Oyster Card for the privillage of traveling in the smell of urine and a fear that if she sat on a seat a dampness would seep through her clothing. An old man gibbered to himself at the back, he smelt delicatly of fetted cheese.

She found a ripped but mercifully dry seat and sat and tried to cocoon herself away from the rest of the passangers but the young woman with the pin point eyes was insistant on trying to pounce some food or money off of her fellow passangers. To make her go away Emma, produced a squashed kitkat. The girl beamed and moved away in a clatter of bling, rings, braclets, earrings containing enough gold to keep her drug addiction going for a while.

Emma pondered the missing girls and the new information, something was going on. Something that required different types of labs, museums and factories to be hit. She thought about getting the file out and reading it but she was just too tired. Drugs, none of the girls took drugs well at least not until after they were kidnapped. Suddenly she sat bolt upright and looked for the little gold covered junkie. She was too Emma’s suprise giving the kitkat to the homeless guy at the back. Swollowing her nausua she stood up shakily, her palms prickling with sweat.

She made it to the back of the bus with out loosing her balance, some feet as the bus driver through them round a sharpe bend.

‘Aiiii me sister!’ the girl cooned.

Emma, smiled and tried to make it real and not that of a shark out for blood, if the got a whiff of cop then this branch of investigation would be over, possibly with a knife making an appearance. ‘I’m looking for some Lotus?’ she said gentle. The girl cocked her head to one side and tapped her lip.

‘Don’ know no lotus, what effek you looking for?’

‘Something new’ Emma said trying not to shake.

‘You ga withdrawal?’ the girl drooled?

Emma nodded dumbly, it was just fatigue and too much coffee but it fitted this like a glove.

‘Got some Isis, mmm mmm yeah got some Isis.’ she murmmered happily, that sounded promising. ‘Run out of Lak though.’

‘Isis will do’ Emma muttered, not reigning in her impatience. The girl haggleled, and struck a deal, neither were happy about but she only accepted it as Emma began to walk – she already had two new drug names to find via other sources if this fell through. She took the profered bag and got straight off the bus, knowing full well that she had just been caught on the buses CCTV unit buying drugs. The girl would probably get off at the next stop too, she wasn’t as dim nor as drug addled as she appeared. It would pup a crimp in things if she was caught and had to produce her warrent.

She walked the rest of the way to her flat, she saw the answer phone blinking a light but she couldn’t cope with anything else tonight, she stashed her bag in her camelion vault, if another Master was invovled she could not afford to take risks. She stripped and sank into her beg, making a nest of the duvet. MArshmellow sleep took her. In the morning she cursed herself for not have the landline linked to her mobile.

It was seven in the evening and Emma was still on the case, not that there was anything new as such, she was watching the CCTV footage of Bondstreet, the last sighting of one Marria Jones a half Brit, half Italian and Art Graduates from St Martians. Like all the Victims she was in her 20’s this time mid though they spanned the entire decade. She was educated and not exactly what you would expect from a fun loving student.

The missing girls were not virgins, that truelly was a rare find for people in thier twenties though Alex the 21 yr old from Stock On Trent had been, but they were all… not promiscuous. That was the only way she could think of putting it, they had all be in one maybe two sexual relationships and were introverted. They were all highly educated with a tendency to disappear to be on their own. But that was all they had in common, they studdied different subjects – everything from science to business to art to sport and they were scattered through out London, no two studdied at the same institution. The only absence was that of medical students – no nurses or Doctors at all which was strange considering the diversity.

Some one had to be staking out the girls, following their habbits and finding out what they were like before targeting them. She had 30 bodies and a further 20 missing persons that fitted the spec – all having gone missing over the last five years but the rate of disappearences was going up. An worse than that she knew from dates of disappearnces verses the time and state of the corpse found that Maria was probably still alive and would be for another 60 days. But she had no idea where she was and worse than that there would be at least one other potential victim sitting there with her.

There was no race for the girls lives Emma was stuck, the old man would need to be gently sussed out but he probably was just too clever for his own good. Everything he’d said was deducable from what she had said but he was as of yesterday a suspect. Though she had to admit not a very good one.

No likely common thread. Emma pressed the palm of her hand into her forehead to try and forestool the headache that was pushing at the back of her eyes. A mix of creed, colour and just about every other factor, everything different except they were girls who were quiet and shy and ‘good’ in the old fashion sense of the word. No drugs, little sex and bizarly even littler alcahol. The girls who stayed in to write essays, the girls that disappeared to write poems in the park without telling anyone. Loners, sad little things but no that was wrong as well that tended to be their image of themselves but many of them had a long term partner who though initially not worried soon became so.

That a cult was involved was obvious but it was no ordinary cult if she had been called in.

She had a police warret but was more than a police woman, they had called her back from important work on some unuasual ice mummies for this. Emma goaned as she thought of what she would have to do if she couldn’t move a head on this case soon.

The Police Cheif wondered in she could tell he resented her as much as a journalist hates a D-order. She waited with patience she didn’t really have, soemthing was up otherwise he would not be their, if he could have he would have sent her a minion.

‘That narcotice lead you gave us?’ he asked bluntly after waiting too long for her to brake the silence.

She nodded, it hadn’t seemed much but the scrap of info that their were several plants refered to historicially as the Blue Locus had got the cops hept up into a frenzy.

‘Well I sent one of the lads out to investigate and they came back some interesting stuff, spent the afternoon chatting to some crumpeled up old academic at Kew Gardens.’ He looked to bloody smug for her liking.

‘You’ve found it?’ she asked raising an eyebrow that she had plucked within a mm of its life.

His cheek twitched slightly, ‘not quiet,’ he admitted.

‘But we have sent samples of several plants of for annalysis plus I’ve got the names of some people to talk to at the Darwin Centre and The British Museum. Should I send one of my boys to investigate or do you want to do it?’ The tick again, she knew it wasn’t her gender that illicited the response though but rather her status, the boys he spoke of simply refered to police officers, reguardless of gender.

She sighed deeply, ‘I’ll do it, I have the training,’ she winced internally at the thought of the extra hours it would add to her work load. However she really did have a better idea of how to extract information out of academics than your average officer plus she knew more about what was going on than any of them did.

‘Thankyou, if you could mail me the info on who to talk to that would be great.’ he wasn’t going and she had alot to do still, she diverted her gaze to the CCTV footage once more in a pointed kind of way, ‘is there anything else?’ she asked after an awkward silance.

‘Well..’ he started almost apologetically, ‘Pete seemed to think that you might be interested in his file of old lab brake ins’ she froze, and snaped her head up sharply to reguard the over weight bull dog. He laughed nervously, ‘he’s a bit of a nut when it comes to those files but a damn good officer…’ he fininshed a bit on the defensive.

‘Just London or the UK as a whole,’ she asked

‘Both… and erm… he even collects stuff from other countries where he can find it. It’s a bit of an obsession with him, he’s got some sort of conspiracy theory about people trying to build computers to talk to god.’ his laughter died at the look on her face.

‘I’ll send him up then shall I?’ he asked after a while of turning plum red.

‘Yes if you would be so kind, and some coffee too if it would at all be possible,’ she snapped the last words out and regretted it at the resentful mask that flashed into possition on his face. ‘I’m sorry but it has been a long day and I want to find were these girls are being taken preferably before the latest lot of kidnapees end up as fish food in the Serpentine.’ To her suprise he nodded.

‘Coffee and conspiracy nut will be with you shortly,’ And he was gone. She went back to staring at the screen.

Christine had known Rob would follow her so had dived into the disabled loo just outside the bar in the stair well. It was still mercifully clean though the air was cold and damp in the cubical. It smelt of disinfected and she tried not to gag. She heard him calling her name and sat down on the loo seat and cried as quietly as she could. She tore some loo paper off to catch the enevitable nose drip that would come.

It seemed an age of racking sobs and she rocked and rocked and thought how nuts that would look and even though no one could see her she stopped instantly. Everytime she thought the crying had stopped she would start again, she kept getting up and splashing her face with water from the wash basin, she looked a fright with her fine hair matted to her head at the front with water, and red rimmed eyes, her pale skin was blotchy. Great just great. Taking deep breaths she finially pulled herself together. She had her wallet but not her phone – that she realised with a pain of worry was sitting in the bar with her flute.

She didn’t dare go back though as Rob may have come back or worse Edwines kind eyes would ask questions he would never speak. Plus the nose level and number of people trying for the loo had gone up meaning that there was probably a crowd now and this close to the start of term ment a press of Freshers all off their heads which had never been pleasant even when she had been one of them.

She had her keys and wallet but she lived with Rob and she really just couldn’t face him right now, she shouldn’t have blown up like that, now it was going to be even worse. What was she going to do? She could go to the library they’d made it 24 hr but he would probably look for her there eventually and she was exhorsted from the crying.

Sighing she got out her ipad clone and hoped Rob was not online somewhere. She hooked into the college WiFi via the stupid security website that made everything uber slow and waited. Eventually she found the menu of friends avalible via Skype and chose the best of the bunch that was not going to be an obvious place for Rob to check.

The stupid thing made a false phone trill which made her heart pound in her throught, she kept waiting for a knock at the door, if it was late enough for a crowd it was late enough for Stewards and they would notice if the toliet was always ingaged.

‘Hi!’ came a staticy voice. Christine rolled her eyes in a silent pray of thanks.

‘Megan!’ she trilled falsly happy, she was going to be honest but then Megan was a new friend from the Scifi Library in the Quad basement, she wasn’t a musician and geeks always tended to be more stable than flaky musicians – she was sure of it and so she couldn’t say she’d had a row with Rob or that she was upset.

‘Do you want to meet up tonight?’ she asked before the other girl could get a word in.

‘Yeah could do’ she replied with annoying slowness caused by the slow connection. ‘Want to come over here first?’ Christian thanked the heavens and agreed, explaining she’d lost her phone and so getting the girls address a new.

‘I’ll be over in a bit’ she said and clicked off the connection and packed the tablet PC away. Then she got up and unlocked the door, cracking it open carefully to see if Rob was anywhere about. Tammi from Chemistry was chatting to someone on the stairs, some Dram Soc dude with pony tail down to his waist. She waved at them and scuttled past. The air was chill and the evening was drawing on, she hugged herself and tried not to look around to much, the quad was filling up even in the drizzle.

She said ‘night’ perfunctionally to the steward on the gate and the noticed the security guards had turned up – she must have been crying for ages! MUPPET she silently scolded herself. She hurried along relieved to find the tunnel to the tube still open. She hurried down the steps, she liked the tunnels even though they had slime moulds growing over the instatution salmon of the flaky victorian walls. South Ken Station loomed at her and she hurtled through the barriers and hurried onto the plateform just in time to slip onto a train. She scrambeled for a seat and sat trying not to feel too squished, the peak traffic had already been and gone but the train carriage still sported no free seats.

Christine turned inwards on herself, bloking out the press of people around her and hummed ariars to herself. Three years allowed her to run on instinct on the Underground meaning that she clicked back into awareness just in time to alight at the correct stop. Megan’s place was a bit of a trek but it took her out of the usual huaghnts.

The drizzel had stopped by the time she reached the open air ones more and the street lights and shop signs luminesed off of the wet pavement in a bueatiful way. Her sneakers where however soaked through, gold glitter to match the cream of her floaty blouse. Megan’s flate was by a tree with a white strip around it. There was supposed to be an elephant burried undernieth it, Rob had told her the story one night when they had gone on an explore. His family lived in Ealing one of the many parts of the expanse called London.

The station as always was brimming, she smelt the tantalising smell of the Chip n dips place, her stomach grumbled but she ignored it. She headed out into the night, humming, she was starting to look forward to the outing, they would probably end up in some late night cheese club, her sneakers would be accepted anywhere as they were glittery, she smiled at the thought of maybe even ending up back in South Kensington in the basement of one of the hotels drinking until dawn.

She reached the tree lined avenue, a wide ally really with a the gateways of houses with actual gardens leading off of it, the warm glow of the street lights gave it a cozy feel and the trees looks fuzzy with new growth on the trunks. Christine was barely aware of the hands that clasped her, a moment before she smelt a strange acrid tange that seemed to mug her of her senses. Her knees buckeled.

It is fireworks night here in the UK – most of the big celebrations actually happened over the weekend but we are doing ours tonight along with a pumpkin supper and a taking down of halloween decorations.

I have been working hard but not hard enough for my self imposed word target 🙁 But I still broke the 10 K barrier yesterday so I am really cheerful. I am managing my 2000 minimum daily but finding time for that extra 1000 quiet hard.

I made two write-ins during the week and have been doing after school write ins with my little ones. I am finding the writes-ins harder to write in than previous years, I am very distractable at the moment and there were a lot of people at Sunday’s meet in Gloucester.

But I got 497 words written in a 10 minute sprint which was frankly amazing – I managed 1000 odd during the whole hour and a half I was there. this has given me an idea of how to push my productivity up. I am putting single songs on on youtube whilst I write and using the songs timing as my own personal word sprint – this morning was my first attempt and I had 1000 words done and dusted within half an hour!

I also have a new tea mug instead of the normal writing Jelly Beans 🙂 It is a Jelly Bean mug with a silicon rubber beaker cap thingy so that it is harder for me to spill and the drink stays warmer for longer which is great.

At mine and the kids write ins we have been lighting a candle inside the pumpkin and eating roasted pumpkin seeds as a writers snack 🙂 The little lego robot in the picture above is the mascot my little girl got me for my writing 🙂