Some two hundred and fifty seven miles away from Danny, across the green and cultivated Midlands, beyond the second city of Birmingham and the university town of Cambridge, in the middle of that flat and for some, prosperous county known as Suffolk, sat Alistair B. Civil. He was thin and tall and had sharp angular features. He looked a little mismatched in his expensive but slightly ill-fitting grey suit. He perched in his thick green leather and dark wood chair and pecked hungrily at the small sushi lunch sat sadly on his desk.
‘Now where did I put it?’ Alistair sighed softly. He reached down below the antique, green leather-topped desk and retrieved a small brown-wrapped, twine-fastened parcel. Alistair Civil had received a strange package that day. He'd assumed it was the new mind-ware device he had ordered from the Nature-technics department and he was right.
Alistair had been in authority at the world's most secret psychic agency for some time now. Even before he had been appointed to his present, all-powerful job he had been firmly at the helm. Alistair and power were just two things that went together - like chips and fish. Alistair had the aura of a boss. He was the man with the plan, a smiling assassin, a cat with a half-dead mouse.
Alistair gave people a creepy feeling. Conversation with him was like attending a high-class dinner party, one in which they themselves were to be the ingredients. In short, he was dangerous and everyone knew it. Luckily, people rarely attended dinner parties with Alistair, and if they did it was certainly not for pleasure.
Secret agencies, especially this one, tended to work in a cellular manner. Each cell worked on a strictly ‘need-to-know’ basis. The cells themselves were organised into levels. Each lower level was kept in the dark by the one above. Centuries of British secrecy had made this process smoother than the best Cornish ice-cream. This all helped to avoid the attentions of the official UK government – not that they would want to interfere. Today’s top politicians might be rascals but they knew their place. One did not interfere with the agency. Otherwise skeletons from the past would be dug out and deposited in the front pages of the newspapers for everyone to see. Or if the agency was suitably upset, one’s own skeleton might find itself deposited somewhere considerably less comfortable than the First Class compartment to which it was accustomed.
Alistair certainly didn’t worry about the government. Such things come and go. He loved his job. Not knowing what his job was really about was not a problem. This was partly why he was so good at it. Certainly it could be said that the devil of bureaucracy smiled happily down upon Alistair's humble, obedient soul.
He grinned like a little boy as he carefully felt the weight of the parcel, moving it from hand to hand and cautiously giving it a sniff with his long chiselled nose. Everything felt right. A dark, hungry fire glowed in his almond-shaped beady eyes.
Alistair had been waiting for this special package for some time and if the man had any weaknesses at all it could be a dislike for being kept waiting. It would contain the most advanced entity the agency had ever possessed. It was a device that could be used to look directly into a person’s mind. It could change thoughts and twist desires - it spelt Power with a capital P. Sure, they could do all that psychic stuff before with a person here and a politician there. But he wanted more, much more, and they were right on the verge of getting it. This package was not, ‘It,’ exactly but it was a key step toward that ultimate prize.
If the agency wanted to see inside a mind, transplant a thought, twist a desire, it could all be done. This had a great deal to do with extra-terrestrial software, though mind-ware would be more exact. In fact, this new device contained a living entity. An entity shaped like a golden-coloured frog.
Alistair reached into the desk’s top drawer and took out a silver rectangular device. It had no visible markings. He scanned the parcel by passing the device over it. Satisfied, Alistair opened the parcel. He found a blue crystal glass container and a short note from Monty, the head of Nature-technics at the agency.
For the attention of Mr Alistair B. Civil,
Please find enclosed the Mind-Ware-Six device as requested. It has the appearance of a faint yellow frog-shaped haze. It is contained within a diamond nano-glass box. The Mind-Ware-6 can locate and penetrate any mind or group of minds in the Earth's mass consciousness. Sometimes it will do so before you are aware of wanting it to be located (the time-streaming capabilities are still experimental). Any operative's thoughts whilst running the Mind-Ware-Six can of course be monitored or altered.
You may need the help of UK Special Operative Four, or similar level neurode, to use the device. The following will instruct you in the method of its activation.
Regards,
Monty.
Alistair looked around his dark wood-panelled office, at the original stone fireplace, the beautiful Arabian rug and the rows of leather-bound expensive books. He gazed out the white-framed Victorian window at the airbase beyond and coldly contemplated Monty’s future. As he chewed the top of an expensive black fountain pen, he wondered, absent-mindedly, if Monty already knew the real reason why he needed the Mind-Ware-Six. UK Operative Four meant a whole lot more than merely being the hardware for running the device. But he figured it couldn't do any harm even if Monty did know the wider picture. Where he was going people tended to keep their thoughts strictly to themselves - permanently in most cases.
Special Operative UK-Four just happened to be Danny Sola. The Mind-Ware-Six on the other hand, as a Virtual Device, was an entity made entirely from thought. It was also the most complex Virtual Device that the agency had ever possessed (or more accurately, stolen). It needed the use of about forty two per-cent, an ‘Adams’ worth to use agency lingo, of the running capacity of a suitable human brain when it was operative. When the Mind-Ware-Six was resting it was happy to exist as a golden frog-like haze.
Alistair played with the immensely beautiful, diamond-crystal, rectangular nano-glass box that contained the Mind-Ware device. It was about six inches tall, flat at one end with a pyramid-shaped roof at the other. It looked ancient but beautifully crafted. It was seamless, not a joint in sight. He twirled it this way and that, toying with it with his slender, manipulative fingers. Distractedly, he enjoyed the cool sensations emanating from the box whilst he intently watched the golden, swirling cloud trapped inside it.
Alistair prepared to download the device straight into the unsuspecting mind of Danny Sola. Alistair picked up the black, bakelite phone with his long cold fingers and entered a number using the round movable dial that a phone of this age possessed. It clicked repeatedly then rang a few times before being picked up.
‘Hi, Michael speaking.’
‘Hello. This is Alistair, Danny Sola’s Uncle,’ he lied in an insincere, officious tone. Alistair twirled the ancient cloth cabling with his free hand.
‘Oh right yes, I’ll just get him. Hang on a minute.’
Michael went to fetch Danny. The lad took his mouth off the wheelchair joystick whilst Michael held the phone to Danny’s head.
‘Yup,’ sighed Danny reluctantly. Why couldn’t he get a nice telephone call occasionally?
‘It’s your Uncle. I am sure you are very pleased to hear from me.’ Alistair intoned sarcastically in his dry, upper class accent.
‘N-Not at all.’
‘Just a small favour Daniel, I’m sure you will be glad to oblige.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Well actually my friend, let’s be honest here. I do not feel you have a whole lot of choice in this particular matter. Would you like to know why? Let me explain, the problem’s like this...’ Alistair paused, sounding as though he was in deep thought about a perturbing matter.
But instead, Alistair quickly turned the blue glass box containing the mind-ware device upside-down. He pressed the flat bottom to the phone’s old-fashioned black mouthpiece and held his thumb to the invisible release catch at the tip of the pyramid at the other end of the device.
The next thing Danny heard was a strange hallucination of a sound as if a sheet of metal had been pulled apart within a musical storm. It was like being assaulted by an evil sound wave. The sound repeated itself over and over again like a flash of light caught forever in a diamond, shifting through space. Danny tried to jab at his ears. He felt like a lump of slime was trying to crawl down his auditory canal. Danny spat phlegm at the phone, which was now on the floor minus its casing. Michael groaned internally.
‘What are you doing Danny!?’ shouted Michael. Danny was still gibbering and was now trying to bang his head against the arm of his wheelchair.
‘MMMMrrraHH Gerroffff!’ moaned Danny.
‘Are you Okay?’ Michael was worried now. ‘YOU OKAY Danny?’
‘Yesss, I fer-fer-think so. Strange noise, it hurts. Fish in me ear. FISH IN ME EAR!’
‘Okay, calm down mate. C'mon, let’s get you to your room.’
Michael took Danny off and he calmed down. He needed his wits about him for this one. He did not have a fish in his ear at all. No, it was definitely a frog, a golden one at that.
‘Who would think we be sharing same brain!’ said Golden Frog triumphantly in his curious Japanese-English accent as soon as they got back to Danny's room. ‘But I no ask to be here, any more than you wanted me. I have assist you carry out task. Then say I can return home - if I am lucky.’
‘And where is home?’ said Danny.
‘Nowhere you know. Just beam of light in suburbs. A little place I like call my own. Only prob-rem, it long way from here. I castaway.’
‘Who’s paying you? What’s the big interest in my head? And what do you get out of it?’
‘For now, I get to exist. Maybe sum day, they help me get back home,’ said the Frog. ‘Though, they none too clever. They think I just engineered mind-entity.’
‘Yeah, but there must be more to your business than that, surely?’
‘Mmhm, you are right. If carry out stupid agency mission - feel pleasure. If don’t - feel pain. It ve-ry strange. ’
Danny was beginning to like Golden Frog just a tiny little bit. It took his mind away from the loneliness he felt. When there are gaps in your heart as empty as the ones in Danny’s, having an alien life-form living in one's head isn't entirely a bad thing.
That night Danny slept better than he had for a long time. He forgot to worry about his Dad, or when the next begrudged paternal visit would be. He couldn’t help missing the old git, but he was always such a busy man. He even clean forgot to feel bad about his Mum or to yearn for the touch of a feminine hand, preferably Sarah’s. Instead, he dreamt of ponds and lily pads and the sound of water gently dripping into a lake from a mountain-fed stream. It was all so calm and relaxing. He would awake with a feeling of pure bright blue coolness. A coolness which would make him feel pleasantly disposed toward mankind in general and to Golden Frogs in particular.