The Nymph Of Hampstead Heath

The Nymph Of Hampstead HeathAt night, it’s almost silent. Just the rustling of the leaves, and the odd yip of a fox. The bats fly low, close to the water, mopping up moths, skimming the air.

In the day, it’s different. Still quiet, still peaceful, but there are women in the pool of water. They don’t see me, in the water with them. They feel me sometimes, and they think its weeds, twisting against them. But they never see me. Not in the water, and not out of it either. They tell me their secrets and sometimes, just sometimes, I listen very closely.

What sort of secrets? The sort you only tell another woman, here in the pond, separate from the world and guarded by me. And those secrets – they’ve barely changed, all through the years. Secret pregnancies, illnesses they’re too scared to face, relationship problems. Their fears. Mostly, I listen and the stories don’t touch me. Mostly, I’ve heard them all before and I know that come the next time Sandra or Jess come back to the pond, it will all be fixed. The money will have been paid, or the fight made up, and they’ll splash and shout and make the air tingle with happiness.

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Zodiac Eclipse – Demon Hunting

Zodiac Eclipse – Demon HuntingNight had fallen. Gertrude glanced at her half-dozen comrades, and was glad that they had embarked at once instead of waiting for daylight, and the boiling heat that would come with it. The narrow-headed, furry Naxonians seemed as comfortable on two legs as four, and were all around eight feet tall on their hind legs. Their uncertainty about her trustworthiness meant that whilst each of them carried a long, stone-tipped spear, she had been given only a flint knife.

Before leaving the Naxonian village she had been shown the rest of The Tiger’s Eye’s crew. All seemed well, other than being confined, and were relieved to hear her explanation of the situation. If she could help the natives deal with the ‘demon’ that had been hunting them, the crew would be released.

“When you find it, try not to damage his ship,” Drusus muttered. He slurred his words, presumably still groggy-headed after being hit with a tranquilliser dart. “It might work despite the atmospheric interference, and could be our way off this rock.”

Gertrude had grunted acknowledgement, though in truth she was uncertain whether or not she would prefer to leave without the crew she had been forced to join.

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Return

ReturnI pulled the hood over my face as the guards rode past for the third time. Children wailed as the group of us migrated away from the burning village. Fury raged through my veins, but I tried to show myself as nothing more than a cowering villager sauntering on to look for shelter somewhere else.

I saw Franklin’s wife ahead and shuddered as I remembered her husband standing definitely between the king’s guards and the town. He lost his head for the trouble. Guilt was a deep burden and I’ve felt a lot of it over the past ten years; ten years since I’d left; ten years since I left him behind.

Henry walked over to me, his eyes were red and his hand shook as he spoke. “What are we going to do Harold? Everything we’ve built is gone…our homes…”

I knew nothing I said would comfort my friend so I just put my hand on his shoulder as we walked. After a while, I gave his arm a squeeze and stopped walking. It was time. I felt the old familiar weight of my scabbard against my leg, and even though it had been years since I’d worn it, I still practised out of sight every week.

Once the group had passed by me, I turned west. I could almost see the king’s castle spire in the distance.

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Insert

InsertThe doors closed with a whine of servos and that heavy clunk particular to armour plate. My visitor was a man of medium height with a friendly, open face, seemingly devoid of guile. He smiled. “Good evening Mister Ghent. My name is Peter Anders. I’m the designated hostage negotiator, and my only interest is in achieving a peaceful resolution.”

Around us the server farm blinked and flickered. The room was otherwise empty apart from a table and two chairs. I sat down and motioned Anders forward. “Given the little army you have outside I’m surprised you feel the need to negotiate. Doubly so as I’m unaware of anyone being held hostage.”

“What you have in here, Charles – may I call you Charles? – is more valuable than flesh and blood, but just as vulnerable. And, please, call me Peter.” I inclined my head. Anders leaned forward, adopting a conspiratorial tone. “Very well, cards on the table. The information you’ve amassed over the years would make earlier revelations by Bradley, Snowden and Hardcote look like idle gossip over tea at the vicarage.”

“So you apparently believe.”

“A Finnish hacker managed to retrieve a partial master file index, but that was enough to bring the sky down on your head. To put it simply, you could ruin the careers of numerous prominent politicians and put the cause of international diplomacy back decades. That isn’t going to happen.” Continue reading

Zodiac Eclipse – Angels or Demons

Zodiac Eclipse – Angels or DemonsThe natives might be primitive, but they packed a hell of a punch. When Gertrude peeled her right eye open her head was ringing like a bell. Her artificial left eye flickered to life as she became conscious. She was alone, in a spacious cell of mud bricks. Narrow windows cut high into the wall allowed a little sunlight inside, and told her it was probably around midday. The cell was surprisingly cool, though whether that was due to her artificial lungs and heart working hard or because of the cell’s design she did not know. There was no sign of Drusus or anybody else, and the size of the wooden door suggested whoever had built the cell had done so with a species significantly larger than Homo sapiens in mind.

Should I stay, or should I go?

Gertrude searched for her pulse pistol, but it was nowhere to be found. She swore, but her cybernetic arm could probably reduce the door to matchwood. Gertrude had no idea where she was, or where the rest of the crew were. She had no particular fondness for most of them, but with The Tiger’s Eye at the bottom of the sea it seemed her best hope of getting off Naxos was to stick with them and hope Captain Brasidas sent down a rescue boat.

Unless he’s left already. Brasidas doesn’t exactly have a trustworthy reputation. Continue reading

Flame of Desire

Flame of Desire

My mother clutched my hand as she lay under the wreck of the vehicle whose auto-steering had gone crazy. Pain etched heavy lines across her face. Her body trembled. She tugged at my hand for me to come closer.

I bent my face over hers, trying to hold back the blurring tears.

“Promise me…” she whispered.

“Yes, mother?”

“A lit candle… on the table… when boyfriends come to dinner.”

It was a crazy thing to ask for, a small thing to beg of me and I wondered why it was so important to her.

“Promise…”

“Yes, mother.”

She closed her eyes and her hand relaxed, letting go of mine. She died smiling. My tears drowned out the sight of her and much of the days that followed.

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Zodiac Eclipse – Naxos

Zodiac Eclipse – Naxos“By the stars,” Nicephorus moaned. “What are we supposed to do now?”

Drusus laughed. Like everyone, except Gertrude, his voice was modulated by a filter mask. “Calm down. You sound like a schoolgirl whose pigtails have been cut off. The captain’s no fool, and he’ll have tracked us coming down. He’ll kit out one of the other boats with shielding and send it down to pick us up. In the meantime, we need to make for the temple.”

“Shouldn’t we stay near to The Tiger’s Eye?” Gertrude suggested. “The Sun Dancer probably tracked us as we came down. If we leave the crash site they won’t know where we are.”

Several other pirates nodded agreement.

“And if the sun comes up before the rescue boat comes down?” Drusus countered. “It’ll be fifty degrees or more during the day. Do any of you think sitting out in the sun is a good idea?” He gave them a moment to contemplate that prospect, and continued, “Besides, do you want to face the captain without the rhodium? There’s a fortune waiting to be claimed. So what if we’ve lost a bucket of rust? It’s time to plunder a ton of treasure. We’ll occupy the temple and use it to shelter from the sun.”
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The Survivor

The SurvivorWe were not alone.

I’d the sense not to speak my thoughts aloud this time. One more word and I would be disciplined at best, demoted at worst. Spencer had no patience with my hunches.

When the screaming started, I was the only one to drop to the ground, pulling Spencer with me.

“What the f–?” He began. I clamped a hand over his mouth.

All around us our fellow scientists, my friends, were being snatched.

Only a few feet away, someone was hauled past us, yanked along by an unseen force. Odd socks identified her as Georgie, our xenobiologist. The bags of cuttings we’d collected still swung from her belt. I moved to grab her as she flashed past.

Spencer pulled me back. He gripped my wrist, glaring into my eyes, silently ordering me to stay put. He knew I’d gladly lay down my life for her. She was my best friend on this expedition. My lover.

The screams faded into the distance. I couldn’t leave the little rat to follow her – he’d die by himself. I had to get him back first. Spencer’s face had turned a sickly yellow.

Not for the first time, I wondered why a man like this had been put in charge of an exploratory expedition. ‘No sentient beings on this planet,’ my arse. Continue reading

Ripped Away

Ripped Away* Winner of the 2015 Story of the Year Award *

George found the rip in the fabric of space on a Thursday morning, some time after elevenses. He leant over to throw away his empty packet of rich tea biscuits and there it was, a tiny hole hanging in the air behind the long-dead hydrangea the HR people had put in his cubicle in an attempt to pretty up the place.

After a quick look around, George cautiously stuck the tip of a pencil in the hole. The pencil slid in halfway, the tip disappearing into thin air. George left the pencil hanging there and went back to work on the Masterson report, after carefully moving the hydrangea a little to disguise the hanging pencil.

Next day, the rip had torn a little wider and the pencil had disappeared. George bent over and peered into the tear. It was now wide enough to see into. On the other side he saw white sand and gentle waves of the clearest, aquamarine blue. The sun shone and trees rustled softly on a distant hilltop. The pencil, disturbed by the growing hole in the fabric of space, lay on the sand.

George looked sideways out of his cubicle, to where he could catch the barest glimpse of the grey office block across the street. The hum of London traffic was audible even above the ordinary office noises. From the rip, a soft breeze blew and the salty tang of the sea beckoned. Continue reading

Zodiac Eclipse – Textbook Landing

Zodiac Eclipse – Textbook LandingGertrude opened her eye. It was dark, and all she could hear were a few quiet groans of pain. Her head throbbed, and she felt the warmth of blood trickling down her temple. Flickering to life, her artificial eye switched to night vision, revealing the carnage of the crash landing. Everything that hadn’t been tied down was strewn in pieces throughout the ship. An ugly gash had been ripped into the military grade plastic windscreen, but it had withstood the impact largely intact. Despite it being night, the warmth of the atmosphere seeped into the ship through the gash.

“Are you alright?” Drusus asked the cyborg. The ship’s power had died on approach to the planet and she could see the Murovian fumbling with his buckle.

She leaned over and unfastened it for him. “I’m going to have strap-shaped bruises, but otherwise I’m fine. In future, could we have landings without a 50G impact?” she asked.

He smiled. “Glad your eye’s still working. And your lungs.”

Not to mention my heart.

All around them crewmen were groaning and struggling to free themselves from their seat straps. Gertrude found hers had been damaged by the force of the impact and couldn’t be loosened.

Time to give my hand a test. Continue reading