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Gary Graham (Star Trek, Alien Nation) stars in the TV pilot Dead End City, TV’s homage to Sin City. His sexy co-stars include Dani Lennon, Misty Madden, and Mandy May - who is soon to be seen on Sci-Fi Channel’s Sanctuary.

You can get more at the Dead End City The Series official website, including behind the scenes video and photos, a trailer and images of the cast.

Looks like a hard-core, zombie-fest in the extreme. It actually looks like the major usage of green screen has paid off. It gives it an ‘unreal’ and almost comic book effect. Film noir?

There’s a sneak-peek of the pilot below:

Thanks to Jeff Varga (the director).

Contents:

• The Art Of War / David Ryan
• Duchess Street / Kurt Kirchmeier / Frankie Wallington
• With A Whimper With A Bang / D.M. Moehrle / Paul O’Connell
• Super-size Security / A.R. Yngve
• The Dark Gospel, Part One, Tin-Man / Luke Cooper
• Yellow Warbler / Jason Sizemore / Michael Lomon
• Bernadette And The Sirens / Hannah Davey / Martin Deep
• The Litter / Katherine Patterson / James Fletcher
• Death And The Maiden, Part Two / Richard Calder
• Venus And The Birth Of Zephyrus / Sarah Wagner / Mark Bell
• The Last Flight / Silvanus Moxley
• SPOIL, Part One / Stan Nicholls / Edward R. Norden
• Hair Of The Dog / Edward Morris / Timothy Shepherd
• Firewallburn / Dave Ryan / Dennis Hopeless
• Phantom Payment / Willie Meikle / Ricky Martin
• Poppets / Mike Driver / Mark Bell
• Church Of Saturn / Alex Wilson

Lavishly packaged and sexily shiny, issue two of Murky Depths bleeds production quality. A splendid front and back cover image of a female figure in a flowing red dress, accompanied by a tripe-headed hound, in a fog enshrouded forest, leaps off the page and bites your head off (in a good way). The cover artwork is drawn in a style which is semi realistic, as opposed to a ‘cartoon’ style, and fits in well with Murky Depths‘ imagery. As well as concentrating on prose and artwork, the outward image of the magazine is being well thought about. A definite eye-grabber.

The Art Of War, written and drawn by David Ryan is a short graphic strip which shows a drawing artist initiating a ‘giving the soul away’ scenario. The artwork is great, suitably dark, portraying a gloomy room, setting the scene perfectly. The reason this doesn’t quite work is that the end plate shows a surprise ending, and should have preferably been on a new ‘turn of the page’, so the finale is seen straight away. As it is, it appears at the bottom of the last page of the two page strip - which spoils the effect somewhat.

Even so, it’s a nice little piece which still retains the suprise factor, even if dumbed down.

Duchess Street, written by Kurt Kirchmeier and arted by Frankie Wallington has a dead prostitute (a recurring theme in Murky Depths) release her inner demons. There are two possible targets for her released demons, and the resultant target makes it a nice revenge story. She also reflects on her life, which makes the story all the more interesting; she makes a decision on what she is to do next. The associated artwork is a bit vague, but for some reason, I kept going back to it; simple, yet lookable.

With A Whimper, With A Bang, written by D.M. Moehrle, with associated art by Paul O’Connell is about politicians getting the upper hand against each (what’s new, eh?), instead this time, it’s set off-Earth. It didn’t particularly grab me in any way and seemed out of place in Murky Depths. The focus of the story wasn’t interesting, but it would be nice to see what was happening at a wide-angle, as it hinted of a much larger story.

The artwork is a busy collage, the centre of which is a Chinese leader, while surrounded by Chinese people smiling and applauding. Inset there’s a picture of a toddler in a space helmet, and an older girl in a space helmet, with a cat and dog also in a space helmet. Nicely drawn, and shows a side of the story which isn’t mentioned in the prose itself. Really great.

Super-size Security, written and drawn by A.R. Yngve is set in an unsual prison. A new inmate enters the prison, and worries about being ‘new meat’. It’s a plausable story which, to be honest, is another example of a story which could be true in the future. Laws and laws aren’t they? And laws can be changed.

The artwork is simple and looks uncannily like a slightly altered picture of Greg Grunberg (Matt Parkman in Heroes). Anyway, it’s quite striking, and sets the scene nicely.

The Dark Gospel, Part One, Tin-Man, written and drawn by Luke Cooper. This is a full on graphic strip, nine pages long, and drawn in Luke’s effective layered style. With a great opening, it’s almost like the opening to a film. A quick shock, or hook, to grab the reader’s attention, then into the intro credits. As this is part one, it will be a serial of an unknown number of episodes. It’s nine pages long, so is the longest piece in this issue of Murky Depths, and this gives it breathing space. Danny Goulding is a hard ass detective who pefers to take on ’strange’ cases - hence his nickname down the precinct, Ghoul. He’s on the trail of a book which was stolen from the scene of a priest’s murder. He has a couple of unusual friends to help him find clues and leads. For instance, Holly a psychic girl with…. wings.

There’s a couple of nice twists during the episode and along with the dirty, dark art and character dialogue, makes for a powerful viewing.

Yellow Warbler, written by Jason Sizemore, with complementary artwork by Michael Lomon. The pencil, cross hatched artwork shows a figure on a cross, outside a church, with people (seems to be mainly children) watching from a distance (and pointing etc). Sitting behind a tree, is an older figure of a man. Beautifully drawn, it evokes a sense of people not quite sure what’s going on, and kind of being half interested. Seeing the artwork and the name of the story made me wonder what on earth the story could be about.

The story is set in a post-apocalyptic, yet idyllic town. Trouble starts when a ‘Shadow’ enters town. The minister encounters a crisis of faith, both from himself and from the towns people. The yellow warbler is cleverly introduced into the story, and because it’s not a main part, makes it all the more memorable. The ending itself is grotesque, which makes it all the more effective because the rest of the story is quite peaceful.

Bernadette And The Sirens, written by Hannah Davey, with artwork by Martin Deep is one of my favourites in this issue of Murky Depths. It’s set in a rural lanscape, rather similar to the previous story, only this time, they are surrounded by howling winds brought on by (apparently) the dieing of the sun. The pencil sketched artwork shows a ballet dancer twirling ribbons while in the thoes of a dance, and visualises the story well. The prose shows the immediate setting of the story well, and to me it conjoured up images of a fairy tale, which, on the face of it, seems simple, but when looked at deeper, has a moral, or at least an apparent proverbial meaning.

Back to straight, in your face, horror with The Litter. Written by Katherine Patterson A family arrives at a farm to adopt some animals after seeing a local advert. This is the kind of story which works so well because of what isn’t said in the prose. Although, after reading, it leaves some questions. Why doesn’t anyone notice people going missing? to name but one. Still, a great read, with a neat twist at the end. James Fletcher does the story justice with his dark artwork, which reminded me of Tales From The Crypt even if it does give the story away too soon.

Death And The Maiden, Part Two written and drawn by Richard Calder. OK, Calder’s work isn’t my favourite, he’s not even in my top five hundred of either artists or writers, nevertheless I always look at Calder’s work with no prejudice.

So - a boring walkthrough by a scantily clad female. Some dialogue which doesn’t make sense. Too much empty space in some of the panels. Some panels seem to not even have a real meaning and could have been chopped out without losing the continuity. The background of the interior seems to be in a different style compared to the character graphics. Having said that, Calder does well in the artwork with moving vehicles and the naked girl (particularly her breasts).

It needs to speed-up or at least get to the point. Next.

Venus And The Birth Of Zephyrus, written by Sarah Wagner with artwork by Mark Bell. A story of a security unit, which is part of a security system, covering an area of a city. It seems to show this unit gaining consciousness (or at least artificial intelligence) and self awareness. The catalyst for this is something or someone called Venus. Very vague as to be infuriating. I liked the way the unit knows it exists, and yet it carrys on, in part, as it did before it gained consciousness, thereby hiding from the powers that be. The artwork is a simple picture of the top half of a woman, with ‘computer’ writing below, which seems to indicate that this is the security unit… a bit obscure, but a nice piece of art in a stand alone context.

The first bit of poetry is The Last Flight composed by Silvanus Moxley. A readable bit of poetry about pirates and vampires, set in space. A nice read, which had me half laughing when I’d finished.

SPOIL, Part One written by Stan Nicholls with artwork by Edward R. Norden. The first part of a serial, it sets the scene well. There’s a virus going around, and it infects people who are religious, which ultimately kills. The scientific community are struggling to find a cure, or indeed, a method to how it infects. The religious community are worried about it, yet on the flipside, they are taking advantage of it.

It was originally written in 1993 and makes reference to AIDS. At the time there was crap in the news about it being a punishment from God; SPOIL is the opposite. Nicely written, with many viewpoints and characters. The associated artwork is sketchily drawn, and shows one of the main scenes of the story. Looking forward to the second installent.

Hair Of The Dog, written by Edward Morris, drawn by Timothy Shepherd, is an atmospheric story of life on the street. Morris manages to bring alive the sights, sounds and smells at ground level. Not a nice picture, especially as this is set around Christmas. A story with a lonely feeling, which has a supernatural twist at the end. The ending was neither here nor there (though it manages to change the whole context of the story), but the descriptive qualities of the text are second to none. The artwork is a great addition to the story, again evoking images of urchins on the street.

Firewallburn, written by Dave Ryan and arted by Dennis Hopeless is a strange and confusing story. I really couldn’t make out what was going on. Some kind of ‘person’ makes a journey back to see his dad, talking about Promethius and ‘FIRE!’ and such incomprehensive jibberings. As for the title of the story - no idea. Normally I wouldn’t want to second guess a story, but I’m guessing this has to do with some ancient story, set in a modern environment.

The artwork is great, a kind of dotted and mottled effect, with the use of shading giving it a shiny aspect. The last panel is an unexpected image on its own, and due to the haphazard story, makes it a totally hilarious ending, in so much as someone getting machine gunned apart is funny.

Phantom Payment, written by Willie Meikle, with artwork by Ricky Martin is one of the most readable stories in issue 2. A poor bank worker finds himself trapped in a bank’s ATM network, communicating through the audit logs. The entity inadvertently causes problems (core dumps - oh you love ‘em if you’re a ‘nix administrator) and therefore an engineer is brought in to fix the problems.

A tale of lost love in the extreme, which is made all the more dark by the way it ends - it’s a love story which ends on a high note. Loved the thick lined, scribbly, artwork.

Poppets, written by Mike Driver, with art by Mark Bell was, along with the previous story, one of the best and most memorable of this issue. A tale of someone who is constantly scared, who tries to find a meaning in things which have happened to him and to people in his life. What made this story readable was that much of the scene setting is probably real, and happening right now. Pause for thought.

Towards the end it delves into black magic, which seems almost like a cop out, but then it resurrects itself with an unexpected finale.

The clean artwork didn’t really seem to be based on the story so much. But was nice all the same.

Church Of Saturn composed by Alex Wilson is a small piece of poetry (or maybe it’s flash fiction?) which was brilliantly written, and had such a spot on ending, it makes me nearly puke in disgust at attributes which are built into the human race.

So - Issue 2. Again, it looks lovely and shiny. Some of the artwork was a bit redundant, in that either it didn’t go with the story, or it was an eye sore. Most of it through is well drawn and thus very effective. Again, a mish mash stories which range from excellent, to a bit… confused. But seeing as this is issue 2, it is still a fetus of a magazine, barely out of the starting gate, and it is not bad by any stretch of the imagination.

Overall, it shows that Murky Depths are still gunning for the top place in the prose/artwork magazine market place.

Man From Earth is said to have been completed by Jerome Bixby on his deathbed. He is probably best know for either of two things: a writer on the original Star Trek series, or the Twilight Zone episode (It’s A Good Life), which was adapted by Rod Serling.

This film is a narrative based on a Professor John Oldman (David Less Smith) who unexpectedly resigns from the local university. As is with a close knit community, his friends and colleagues go around to his house to get an explanation of his sudden decision to resign. They are perturbed as to why he didn’t let them know sooner and as to why there is no ‘leaving get-together’. So, loaded with food and beer, they turn up and start the friendly ‘interrogation’.


The film based almost entirely on dialogue, a group of people sitting on sofas, chairs, the hearth and the floor. The film stars Tony Todd (Dan), John Billingsley (Harry), Ellen Crawford (Edith), Annika Peterson (Sandy), William Katt (Art), Alexis Thorpe (Linda Murphy) and Richard Riehle (Dr. Will Gruber).

As the story unfolds, furniture is removed from Oldman’s living room, and that’s about as much action as you get. The conversation changes to a ‘what-if’ game, in which Oldman says what if he is a prehistoric man, and that he has lived for many years, he would surely have to move every ten years. People would age around him, whereas he himself would never age. The visitors attempt to pick holes in his story, but it soon becomes futile, in that his tale is as impossible to prove and verify as it is to disprove.

The film depends entirely on dialogue and story. It is a seriously engaging film, argueably a work of art - I was glued to the screen all the way through. Man From Earth is a thinking person’s film. So if you fancy a change from million mile an hour paced films, you should put this on your list.

A nod to Richard Shenkman for taking this project on and believing in it.

To pseudo quote: “It brings back dignity to science fiction.”

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Murky Depths: Issue Three / Review
“The Quarterly Anthology Of Graphically Dark Speculative Fiction”

Contents: Title / Author / Artist

• What’s Yours Is Mine / Pike Stephenson / Dylan Williams
• Evention / Mike Webster / Lucas Hinchley
• The Suicide Bar / Montilee Stormer /Jag Lall & Denis Pacher
• Nine-tenths Of The Law / Edward Morris / Wayne Blackhurst
• In This the Era of the Great Wilting / Jeffrey Archer-Burton / Jason Beam
• Death and the Maiden 3 / Richard Calder / Richard Calder
• Shit New World / Martin Hayes / James Cameron
• Maimed / Hazel Marcus Ong / Glen James
• SPOIL / Stan Nicholls / Johnny Lee
• The Dark Gospel 2 / Luke Cooper / Luke Cooper
• Speak Ill Of The Dead / Ian Faulkner / Mark Bell
• Zombie Diva / Glynn Barrass / Lucas Hinchley
• The Love Ship Guide to Seduction in Zero Gravity / Steve Pirie / Denis Pacher

Non Fiction:

• Sprawl and Brawl: Five Reasons Why Cyberpunk Sustains (Article) / Matt Wallace
• An Interview with Stan Nicholls

Half the fun of reading magazines from their beginning is seeing them evolve as the publisher gets feedback and ideas from people who have read it. Murky Depths is no exception.

It has kept its half size, glossy style, is a whopping 84 pages, and contains no less than nine stories, three graphic strips, three non-fiction articles and one passage of poetry. It continues its ‘Mature Content’, so lets hope it’s scary enough to warrant a trip to the underwear draw.

The front cover is drawn by Richard Calder for his graphic strip Death And The Maiden. Comprising of an image of a woman/girl, under a street lamp, on a street corner, in a pose which shows her knickers, you’ll either love it or hate it. Guess what - I hate it. Maybe it was done to be controversial - or to be an eye grabber. But how many comic stores (or books shops, news outlets etc) would put a publication with that kind of front cover on view? (I’m asking the question, I really don’t know, would they?). The artwork didn’t grab me, and it didn’t make me want to go back and look again. I actually liked the colour change of the MD logo, red and yellow made it stand out.

The first story up is actually a QA interview with Stan Nicholls, who is the author of one of the stories, SPOIL. It’s an interesting and honest interview, which I wasn’t one bit interested in, as I haven’t heard of him before. It will, nevertheless, make me keep an eye out for his work in future.

What’s Yours Is Mine, written by Pike Stephenson with art by Dylan Williams. The latter is ‘ok’, has depth, but lacks clarity and detail. Maybe the original looked more distinct, but on paper, it looks muddy.

The story is about a generic bad guy who has recently finished off some people in a most bloody way during a game of cards, and has legged it with the money, hoping to reach the border without being caught. Low and behold, he and his bike crash in a forest, in the middle of nowhere. Queue weird noises, flashlights and a bit of swearing. He’s pursued by the weird noises, which turn out to be a grotesque creature. The prose builds the anxiety quite well, but as this guy is a bad guy anyway, I wasn’t bothered if he escaped or not. The creature is described well, but it’s not explained what the creature is or where it came from. I read into it that it was a pet, rather like someone’s dog, which had gotten loose. Pretty atmospheric, and the ending has a neat twist which is, to be honest, sick.

The first graphic strip of this issue is Evention, written by Mike Webster and arted by Lucas Hinchley. This seems to fit perfectly into the ‘meaning’ of Murky Depths. Dark, unnerving, slightly chaotic, has some bare breasts, bare behind, bare bits, gun fighting and a girl who is scared.

The poem compliments the artwork and visa versa, which made me jump back and forth between the writing and the artwork. The artwork, even though quite physically dark, emphasises parts of the female, and increases the hit of the accompanying poem. It’s almost like what the artwork doesn’t show, the text does, and what the text doesn’t tell, the artwork does. A great example of the two working in harmony.

The Suicide Bar written by Montilee Stormer, and drawn by Jag Lall & Denis Pacher is another story which could have had a slightly different name so as not to give too much away prior to reading. The artwork suffices and sets the scene somewhat too much upfront. The artwork style, along with the story, reminded me a bit of 2000AD’s Future Shocks. Short, sharp and to the point.

A guy turns up in a bar, orders a nice mix of poison, and then, well, you guess. Its immediacy means it sets itself up nicely - showing a world where certain things can not only be bought, but signed and contractually sealed. It’s part horror, part SF. It’s depressing, dark and very believable.

Nine-tenths Of The Law written by Edward Morris and drawn by Wayne Blackhurst. This is a really strong piece of prose. Even though possession has been done to death, the way this tale flows is second to none, and the ideas are great, and I loved the characters. A great world build of a dangerous place, populated by believable characters. Sometimes it’s difficult to put your finger on exactly what makes a good read, but this certainly has it.

The accompanying artwork is ok. Although I’m not sure I like the style, the focus and perspective made me want to yank the ‘camera’ away from the subject and see what else was going on.

In This the Era of the Great Wilting written by Jeffrey Archer-Burton with artwork by Jason Beam is my favourite in this issue. The two page spread into artwork is amazing. Rather than being ‘comic strip’ quality, this kind of photo quality. A real woman with real emotions, gazing up into nowhere. Viewed through a smashed window, we see her holding a rose, the petals aflow in a breeeze, her hair caught in the upbreeze, with her arm resting on something. She looks at peace, but you can tell something devastating has happened. Utterly evocative and atmospheric.

The story is a post-apocalyptic narrative centering on a lonely woman. The human race has mysteriously died out. Mummified bodies are all over the place. She is lonely. Until she meets another living human being. The story is atmospheric and even though a lot if explained, there is no info dump, all explanations being done in memories, until the very end. Loved it.

I’m glad Death and the Maiden 3 written and arted by Richard Calder is, from episode 4, moving to its own self contained comic, released through The House Of Murky Depths. I still haven’t been hooked onto it and personally, I think it’s a waste of space in Murky Depths. Again, this episode suffers from not being able to grow enough due to lack of space. A nice touch was the hyper skirt - which I won’t explain so I don’t spoil it, but.. they’re interesting.

The artwork is still pretty much the same; it looks indistinct, probably suffering from being shrunk down from its original size. I did like the way he drew the females in it, and some of the ‘action’ artwork is great - a flying kick for example. Haphazard story line, not really any character building. The trouble with the strip is that I know just about the same as I did when I started reading it. Zero. And it’s not dark, it’s not gloomy, it’s not scary, it’s not even sensual and it’s not SF, it’s just.. there.

Shit New World written by Martin Hayes with artwork from James Cameron, is a short piece of prose which is a long rant on the state of the world in 2096. It’s really a comparison between the future possibilities as we argueably see it now - sex-bots, aliens, alien prostitues - to what it really is like in the future. The Paris Hilton Legacy Channel (all her best performances shown back to back), Horse Steaks, Shit Loads Of Vodka, working in a cubicle.

A satirical, funny piece which has ideas it could have expanded upon. And the artwork is quite simple, but suitably funny too.

Maimed written by Hazel Marcus Ong and drawn by Glen James is a surprise departure from the normal dark horror of Murky Depths. It is well and truly bedded in the fantasy genre. It seems to be a take on the Pied Piper Of Hamlet. A guy can play a flute pipe and lure pretty much anything with his tunes. A weird ending which left me wanting more. I also liked the artwork, which reminded me of (I believe) the old Fighting Fantasy book series.

SPOIL (part two of two) written by Stan Nicholls with artwork by Johnny Lee. Imagine a disease affects only true christian believers.. a story which shows this from different character perspectives. Medium paced, a neat idea, readable, but ultimately, not my kind of story. The artwork is ok and does its best to illustrate some of the tale.

The Dark Gospel (Part 2) arted and lettered by Luke Cooper. Interestingly, this has a text backstory to cover part one, which is a great idea for all stories/artwork spread over more than one issue (think LOST or Battlestar Galactica - ‘Previously on …’).

OK, so there’s a book called The Gospel According To Satan, and our detective has found it. It isn’t the nicest of reads and could cause the destruction of pretty much everything good, everything evil and the bits inbetween. Unfortunately, our detective reads from the book and finds a personal message from Mr. Evil himself, looking forward to a meeting.

The artwork is what makes the whole story so cool - it’s black and white, but manages to show so much. It’s drawn in Luke’s ‘trademark’ way of having ‘only’ two levels of depth. The foreground is sharp, focusing on the characters and action. The background is slightly blurry, which means the main focus is where it should be, on the characters. His use of motion blur (for expelled bullet cases for example) is spot on, and even the use of slight blurring for objects which are nearer to the viewer adds an subtle amount of depth. This is definately my kind of art.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the characters in The Dark Gospel are expanded upon in later installments - there will be more episodes.

Speak Ill Of The Dead is written by Ian Faulkner and drawn by Mark Bell is a zombie tale, set in the future, which involves sentient zombie terrorists. Eyecatching artwork which doesn’t spoil the story at all, and even the copied artwork from the first page is used as a background, rather than using space up on the story. A great read which isn’t your common or garden zombie fest.

Zombie Diva written by Glynn Barrass with artwork by Lucas Hinchley. This is the only prose in the issue which can be read as a poem. I’m not normally into poems so much (although, after reading Murky Depths for a few issue, it is growing on me), but this is a blinder: strong words create horrific visions. ‘Back to the roots’ Murky Depths. The artwork is on a par with the poem, dark and horrific, and just a little bit (a lot?) sick. It’s probably why they have the normal lights so low, and the flourescent lighting turned up in those strip clubs (so I’ve been told). Gruesome and horrific.

The Love Ship Guide to Seduction in Zero Gravity written by Steve Pirie with artwork by Denis Pacher is a light, easy, not scary or dark story, which is in contrast to the rest of this issue. A man in a mid-life crisis takes ‘not his wife’ to a orbital hotel hoping to make the earth move. Alas, all is not as it seems be. This is pure SF and as such I was more intune with it. The ending is unexpected, and with the prose being partly a ‘guide’, it makes for a nice read. The artwork is stylish, remeniscent of 60s Dan Dare, and isn’t half as X-rated (believe it or not) as Calder’s work, making it more enticing.

So, overall, Murky Depths is still on an even keel, there’s some artwork and prose which didn’t grab my attention, some is a waste of space, but some is exceptional. Looking forward to keeping up with its progress - bearing in mind that Murky Depths is still in its infancy, and that its aiming its sights higher than most publications of this kind would dare.

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Murky Depths: Issue One / Review
“The Quarterly Anthology Of Graphically Dark Speculative Fiction”

Contents:

• Death and the Maiden / Richard Calder
• Looking In, Looking Out / Gareth D. Jones
• Come To My Arms My Beamish Boy / Douglas Warrick
• Paston, Kentucky / Jonathan C. Gillespie
• The Other Woman / Chris Lynch
• 67442 / Paul Abbamondi
• Supply Ship / Kate Kelly
• State Your Name / Jon Courtenay Grimwood
• Empathy / Luke Cooper
• Snowblind / Marcie Lynn
• Cyberevenge Inc. / Eugie Foster
• Today Is Not / Michael Sellars
• I Bleed Light / Edward R. Norden
• The Quality of Mercy / Ron Shiflet
• Naught But Ash / Anne Stringer
• The Pattern Makers of Zanzibar / Lavie Tidhar

Although this is issue one of Murky Depths, it isn’t the first to be released; there is an issue zero promo, which we previously reviewed here.


Death and the Maiden written and drawn by Richard Calder is part one of a series. Because of this and the fact that space is limited, due to the nature of the publication, it simply doesn’t come across as anything special.


The black and white computer created artwork is predictably dark and the panels range from good (vehicular movement and weapons usage) to average (character representation and emotion) to crap (indistinct scenes, no atmosphere). The latter, I presume, is because the artwork was drawn larger and shrunk to fit on the page.


Even though the artwork is dark, Calder has failed to make it gritty enough. There’s too much blurring and simple blends, obscuring and damaging the original artwork, which go part way to make it a beginners Photoshop frenzy of effects.


This female ‘cat girl’ (prostitute? maiden?) is picked up by a punter, and then a zombie appears and kills said punter (with an impressive gun, I must say). The dialogue is boring at worst, but does have its humourous moments. And come on, isn’t a scantily clad sexy female in high heels, short skirt and thigh high leather boots just a bit cliched?


It remains to be seen if this art strip will improve - the vagueness of the story made the whole thing fail to capture my imagination.


Looking In, Looking Out written by Gareth D. Jones is an unorthodox piece, set across a double-page spread, read anti-clockwise in chunks of days. In centre there is a neat bit of art of a baby in front of a planet which reminded me in part of the film 2001.


Each day text is in the form of a report from an alien on his attempted communcation with humans on Earth. An easy read, which packs a not so obvious sad ending when it’s realised just what the alien is communicating with, and why communication ends.


The layout and presentation, and the diary form of the story makes it a compelling read; a truly memorable story.


Come To My Arms My Beamish Boy by Douglas Warrick is a strange, haphazard story of man named Cotton in the throes of Alzheimer’s. It reflects on his life while trying just a little too hard to show him believing his memories are being stolen. It has its moving moments, where Cotton can remember certain things, but not the most important - the face of Audrey. Towards the end, and quite predictably, more memories disappear in ‘real-time’, Cotton becomes more desperate, until he finally sees an image of Audrey ‘looking like an exclamation point’. Huh?


In tune with the magazine, it is dark, but doesn’t really seem to pull itself off - which could be a relection on the type of story I prefer.


Paston, Kentucky by Jonathan C. Gillespie is set in a world where metal stealing nanobots have been let loose on the world. They hoard metal into large structures, or hives, which tower high into the sky. It has some great imagery of these towers, great imagery of the nanobots taking metal from anywhere - fillings, bullets embedded in flesh.


A band of survivors, including one of the original designers, set out to shutdown the hives and nanobots for good. The story is quite short, but packs a lot into itself, and builds slowly to a tight, atmospheric, fast-paced ending.


Post-apocalyptic near its near best.


The second full graphic story is The Other Woman written and drawn by Chris Lynch. A guy buys flowers and some chocolates for his wife as it’s their anniversary. He goes to the cinema, buys two tickets, but he is alone while watching the film (which incidentally appears to be Metropolis, judging by the poster on the wall as he walks out).


He is then intercepted by someone who appears to be a doctor. The doctor explains to the man about his wife. I can’t really say more, or else it will spoil the story.


The artwork is what I would term old fashioned spare artwork; minimal line drawing, and it works beautifully. It goes to show that you don’t need effects upon effects to convey visual atmosphere. The story seems to be set (roughly) in the 40s or 50s, and this kind of artwork fits in just right. The timing of the panels for the unexpected twist in the final few panels is spot on.


The only issue I had with this is that there is no character build (again, because of the limited space), which means empathy for the characters might not be as high as it could have been.


It’s creepy, and something which might not be too far from the truth in a few years time (normal disclaimers apply).


With the shortest name, 67442 by Paul Abbamondi is also the shortest story in this issue. An apparent artificial man, identification number 67442, is stripped of exterior and personality. He gets a new identification as a teacher, ready to be inserted into society. It’s not clear why this is happening, or if this being is always 67442, or whether he’s improved with each birth. It’s clear he momentarily remembers his ‘previous life’ which, with new memories of being a teacher, he realises was wicked.


It’s quite good descriptively, but lacks a beginning - it really only contains a middle and partial end.


Supply Ship by Kate Kelly is a well written piece with a totally unexpected ending.


Set on a bleak, barren world, the inhabitants build a beacon from scrap so they can get a supply ship to pass and drop badly needed supplies. Kept to a tight budget of words, it is succinct while not being too short. Mainly though, it’s the twist-ending which makes the story. The associated artwork suffices and compliments the story.


State Your Name written by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. The world is falling apart, and the UN are evacuating people ‘with enough points’ using freighter ships. Those who don’t have enough points have to queue up at an ‘exit gate’ which sends them far into the future, past the next ice-age. It isn’t made clear whether people who have passage on the freighter ships will also end up in the same place as the people who go through the ‘exit gate’.


Two threads of story come together at the end with another unexpected ending, but because of the lack of knowledge of each parties destination, the story doesn’t quite work.


Again, the design dictates duplicate cropped artwork. The images are superficial, don’t add anything to the prose, and in this instance would have been better to have been smaller, and not reproduced throughout the story.


Empathy written and drawn by Luke Cooper is the third full graphical story. A father holds a gun to his daughters head, saying that she’s not his daughter. Three policemen hostage negotiators are on the scene. One of them, goes to talk to the father.


The artwork in this story is brilliant. Grey scale, atmospheric. It’s drawn in two layers, with the focus on the front layer, and the background blurred out to add emphasis to the focused layer. Great dialogue, hardcore swearing in just about each speech bubble, gun fire (but not over the top blood results) lends itself to Tarantino. Very moody.


Another great twist at the end. A twist in that it tells you everything up front, but only when read in the end scenes does its context change to something else. Stunning.


Snowblind / Marcie Lynn is three verses of poetry, with some effective, yet simple artwork. It seems to be an evocative piece on true love, with a splattering of weirdness. Though I’m no expert on poetry it did linger in my mind after I’d read it.


Cyberevenge Inc. by Eugie Foster has a self explanatory title. It possibly have been better with a more ambiguous name, maybe ‘Customer Service’, so as not to give too much away prior to the first read.


Anyway, it’s a head-on cyber blood-fest revenge story of a woman who, through pseudo-virtual reality and some hi-tech gadgets, takes revenge on her stalker in a physical way. Written so as not to give away that it’s done for real until the end, makes it easier to show the dismembering in more graphic detail. It is quite a powerful story.


Personally, I’m not into this kind of story, it’s been done too many times, and seems like violence for violence’s sake, and we’re not even privvy to the thinking behind the stalker. The pain, torture and death metered out by the woman is somewhat overblown based on the actions of the stalker (he doesn’t physically abuse her, he does it using superimposed pictures and swear words against her, and black marking her with her publishers). But then, what constitues physical vs psychological damage: they’re possibly the same.


A thought provoking read, with the kind of ending I like.


Today Is Not by Michael Sellars is about a mentally disturbed woman who has lost her family, and believes that she needs to find a saviour in bits of broken glass (for example a car window). She then tests the bits of broken glass on her shrink, whom she has locked down in her cellar. If they cut him, then they’re fake. If they don’t cut him, then they’re part of the magic she’s looking for.


Well written, but my attention wavered during the middle, only making up for it at the end. The complimentary artwork is atmospheric, and done in one of my favourite drawing medium. A charcoal / wet paint effect with a grainyness scratched into it.


I Bleed Light written and drawn by Edward R. Norden is the second installment of poetry, this time with a more emphasis on the art. Drawn in a ’scrappy’ way, it works well. The text is also written white on black, in what looks like a pen, in ‘real handwriting’, which comes across as suitable to the purpose. I’m no expert on poetry, but this is a nice read - again dark.


The Quality of Mercy by Ron Shiflet is smart story of someone who thinks they know better than everyone else. The artwork in this piece is very vague, and makes it redundant really.


A guy is born with a second sight. He is able to see how people will (graphically) die. Not pretty. Slow prose, but builds to a particular ending which I can’t work out is great (for the twist value), or just plain stupid. You decide.


Naught But Ash by Anne Stringer is a straight forward story of an old doctor who looks after people in a small town and remembers a time before the human race was split up, and large cities destroyed by ‘lights in the sky’. A whole family has been wiped out by a loner. It is investigated and the culprit found and hanged. No twist ending, but it is a macabre piece about doubting what one sees, what drives people to perform sick acts, and being unable to answer bigger questions. Quite haunting, but more of a mainstream murder story, with interesting artwork adding to the story.


The Pattern Makers of Zanzibar by Lavie Tidhar is written in a one sided correspondance between a reporter and his publisher. The reporter is investigating the slave trade in Zanzibar, and finds some unusual activity.


I found the characters a bit bland and the one sided ‘conversation’ seems slow and doesn’t fill in all the blanks. The ending was ok, but the ending shouldn’t justify the means. The artwork is nothing special, although the style of the artwork I liked (drawn in just black and white and quite bold).


So, overall? If you’ve managed to read this quite long review to the end, then you’ll already know there is a lot of substance to this issue. The design irks somewhat, because the two-page spread of art is reproduced in a cropped fashion on subsequent pages of the same story. It seems lazy. This is done on a few of the stories and is a waste of space, which could be used for more artwork or more prose.


The smaller size of the publication means it can easily be read without the pages flopping about. The quality of the paper is excellent, as is the front page artwork (though, maybe just a bit too much blue).


The main thing to remember is that Murky Depths issue 0 was pretty amazing, so it has set the bar high, and in comparing issue 0 with issue 1, issue 1 as a whole doesn’t come across as strong.


This is definitely an experimental publication, experimenting with a mixture of graphical stories, short stories and poetry. Even though some of the stories didn’t quite do it for me, I will be keeping an eye out to see how Murky Depths develops.

Join the forum discussion on this article

Illumination Extravaganza: Illumini

15 artists come together to create an extraordinary exhibition of light in an underground crypt.

Curated by Jane Webb
http://www.illuminievent.co.uk
Email: illumini@hotmail.co.uk

The Crypt, St Pancras Church
Euston Rd / Duke’s Rd, London, NW1 2BA (nearest tube Euston Station)

4th September – 17th September
Open daily 11am- 7pm Free Admission

Opening Night Thursday 4th September, 6pm – 9pm.
Free Admission.
All welcome.

ARTISTS : Mercedes Altuna, Madi Boyd, David Chalkley, Vincenzo Di Maria, Lewis Hayward, Caroline Lambard, Jayne Lloyd, Liz murfitt, Adrian Navarro, Silviu Pascalin, Suzan Swale, Matthew Swift, Andrea Tyrimos, Jane Webb and Deon Winter.

Illumini is supported by Mathmos, who will be displaying a range of their latest products also supported by Surelight Glowsafe and the Glass bar

An electrifying new exhibition with a difference, starting with a opening night on the 4th Sept, which is complimented with a full evening of free entertainment. Light shows, circus acts and performance artists, working with illumination taking place through out the crypt. This is no PV night, this is an evening where everybody is welcome, Illumini will not just showcase art it will entertain, introducing all communities that may not normally visit the arts to a different approach.

Illumini brings together a variety of artists, all sharing a passion for the subject of light. Set in the famous St Pancras crypt, these impressive pieces of artwork come to life in this desolate and unsettling environment. Come along to experience the illuminatory and dazzling effect this diverse collection of artwork has on the crypt’s dark environment.

Travel down abandoned corridors and venture into secret recesses to explore a wide variety of artwork. The pieces range from photographs and paintings depicting light, to sculptural works that literally glow; at once transforming the crypt’s murky and shadowy atmosphere like never before.

Jane says a few words:

I am a London based mixed media artist that primarily works in glass and lighting for my Commissioned work. For my mixed media installation and sculptural work, recycled computer and electronic components are assimilated. The simplicity and complexity of circuit board patterns are a strong influence along with imagery of robotics.

I graduated in Glass & Fine Art Post Grad Certificate, at Central St Martins in 2006 and had a piece on show at the Victoria and Albert Museum. I have also been sort listed for the ‘Inspire by Awards’ & ‘Pride in the House’ and the ‘Future Design Awards’ and a guest artist at the London Sci- fi film festival . My most recent project im organising and exhibiting in, called Illumini, will be an illumination extravaganza which will be held in a grade 1 listed crypt in London with 15 artists in September 08

At present my experimental sculptures and installations are influenced by technological advancements in the area of prosthetics and cybernetics. For example, the rapid human advancement in cybernetic technology, at the Southampton University “The Southampton Hand”.

Even though my art is perceived as science fiction, it is however heavily influenced by everyday science fact! After all Science fiction plays a important roll in the science of the future.
We use tools such as computers and internet which extends our visual memory and other powers beyond what our human bodies are capable of.

Initially technology was created as a time saving device and memory aids. However, we now appear to be co-dependent on them.

Is technology acting like a virus destroying our humanity and turning us into cybernetic humanoids!
Our perceptions are that technology is speed, efficiency and enhancement. The mobile phone is like a portable life support machine, the average person already looking like a cyborg with a blue tooth attachment to their ear, a digital watch strapped to their wrist and plugged into an Ipod.

It does make you wonder how close we are to becoming cyborgs already!

By Chris Silva

Somewhere between cryogenic sleep and consciousness Az felt his synapses beginning to thunder. Slowly, awareness returned. The thaw continued and Az was able to begin his mental calisthenics. He carefully went over the cryo-checklist one step at a time. The stinging in his toes, ignore the pain. His fingertips burning; must move each one very slowly to increase blood flow. Leg muscles should be flexed and released every few seconds. His checklist progressing he felt the remaining images of his last dream fade into obscurity, reality coming forward.

He and his crew were on a long journey through the dark nebula Epsilon11. They had entered the cryogenic containers just after inputting Jin, the Neuro-comp, with the proper coordinates. The ship must be nearing its destination, for Jin had disengaged the Cryogenic systems. Az felt the warm infusion starting to flow into his limbs from the Kelvin unit. Not much longer and he and his team would reach the 36.8 degrees Celsius needed to be released from the containers.

Az was now able to remember the mission and his reason for volunteering. He’d lost Sentra and little Cali in a horrible accident. Forlorn and floundering for over a year he desperately needed a change. On a blurry morning coming off a hit of weeg, he saw the mission posted on the dig-board at the entrance to Command. Az volunteered to go immediately. Sure the ninety eight years in cryo would give his soul time to heal. He convinced the old man that he would have the chance to be productive again, to do something worthwhile. Warming slowly Az thought he felt a liquid tear flow down his cold blue cheek. His hands and feet were twitching uncontrollably and he knew he was nearing temp. He would now start his physical calisthenics. Moving one finger and then the next wriggling his toes step by painful step ensuring a clean transition from cryo-sleep.

*

In the next cryogenic container a Kelvin unit kicked in and its opalescent skin showed signs of humidity. In this container another Az felt himself getting close to temp, a soft liquid tear running down his cold blue cheek.

One of them hits the control panel speeding up the heating process, for they were both very hungry. Two freeze dried meals would be enough for a weeks worth of nourishment and they would take both just over temp to ensure the right Adrenalin flow. A touch of Adrenalin always made the meal softer and more desirable. In their own language they discuss their proper civility and the fact that each meal is programmed with true Earth memories, and how each morsel feels connected to the preparation of the meal, like they too have a purpose.

One diner turns to the other flashing a huge jagged grin,

“Let’s eat.”

By Tom Crask

Those who have never laid eyes on the Watchmen, standing tall and proud in the desert twenty five miles due North West of Babel, whether at sunset, silhouetted against the rapidly darkening sky, or on a summer’s morning as dust devils kick up their distinctive brand of chaos, would find it hard to claim that they truly understood how much of a rare and exquisite thing we lost when the era of the Construct finally came to its spectacular close.

There are six of them in total, one hundred and fifty foot tall totemic spires of Growth Bone, Calcine, and Blossom Glass, bedecked on all sides with terraces, platforms and loggias, sun-bleached and standing to attention like nine pins spilt upon the desert or deep sea hydro-thermal vents rising from unfathomed depths. They are a culmination of sorts, a denouement of what the Life Programmes, of what the Construct era itself set out to accomplish, a proud proclamation of what the Bio-tects thought themselves capable of.

These days they are said to retain only a fraction of the cognisance that they once possessed. That they were alive at all now seems somehow unlikely. That they were once aware, in their own strange way, of the world that they inhabited seems almost implausible, but then I only work for Bill Hatton’s governorship. I have never pretended to fully understand the Construct phenomenon, that period of life creation, in all of its bizarre and richly imagined guises. Even in these post-Taint days, the Meat Salons and Biology Houses still seem to me to possess a certain dreamlike quality, an air of unreality, as though such things never existed at all and were only ever a figment of our collective imagination, a story dreamt up by tellers of tall tales.

It is easy to forget that we are a culled society. With a global population barely one third of what it was in those pre-Taint days, it is easy to forget that such things were once accomplished easily. Today the Construct programmes seem more like a form of arcane magic than anything approaching an exact science.

If the Taint could be said to have bequeathed the world anything, it was a deeper shift away from the old ways than the food riots and anti-Constuct demonstrations at first suggested. Perhaps in those early days of strife the first signs were there. The way whole towns would seal themselves off from the outside world, or the way in which the old religions gradually gave way to more diverse varieties of fanaticism. The Taint instigated a universal shift of attitudes. The Union movement represented a schism, a split in society that occurred almost equally down the middle. There were those of us who, as the Unions would say, carried on living in the ruins of our past, who tried to rebuild by embracing older, tried and tested ideas. Then there were those of us who chose to jettison those ways and forge a new path, a path who’s foundations were built upon even older, more tribal ways of living, a theocracy based around a religious belief that the deserts and wastelands that had sprung up across our globe were theirs for the taking.

Ours is an age that is all too often defined by what has gone before, an age fascinated by the concept of death as much as it is with the creation of life. So much has been lost since the Taint. When the U.V light poured down, turning the land to desert, forcing us to the coasts, the Construct was not the only species to suffer. In our time, nostalgia is almost an industry. Effectively, we have become a two state society, each jealously guarding its reins of power.
The Watchmen represent one of those reins, standing guard over four distinct headlands, four wide and heat-scoured piazzas that slope gently upward towards a central bluff. Visitors are rare. The Unions own the shores by claim, and access is jealously controlled. Their boundaries extend several miles in every direction.

There are those who chose to evade Union satellite surveillance and take the dreadful risk of going anyway. There are those who ignore the warnings, the patterns of stones laid out in vast shimmering mosaics, the singing wind-wires, the lines of suspended sun mirrors, designed to dazzle, and the flags that bedeck the ridges, hoisted on masts that bend and snap in the wind as if to berate and admonish those who venture too close. The consequences can be severe, but those who would violate Union law are almost never the sort to worry about upshots and outcomes. A Construct, even one that is closer to death than life, can be a powerful lure.

Leon Ferris lowered the binoculars and walked back over to where Beth Sammond and I rested beneath the high outer wall of the Union tech station. The shade afforded by the concrete bastion was a welcome relief from the day’s heat, but I could tell by the way the old biologist sat that even this little luxury was something that he found difficult to relish. He was too used to the classrooms and laboratories of the university where he worked to ever truly take pleasure from the desert. The Sourlands were far outside of his comfort zone. It wasn’t the heat that irritated him. It was the silence.

It was easy to forget that the deserts could be grave and soundless places. Not even the Old District was this unnaturally quiet. Even out amongst the empty villas there was always the accompanying hum of insect life, or the wind chimes of various water posts.

The wind came off the plain like a rebellion moving against anyone who dared spoil that impossible boundary between sand and sky, that point where the raw limits of the Earth finally failed. A summer breeze, dry as the breath from a mummy, blew the dust into great shimmering ghosts. The sound was that of an expectant crowd, the protracted breathing in and out of an immense sleeping giant. The promontory was an eclipse, sun conquered and naked, wide and steep, defined only by the shortcomings of the desert. In the centre, perhaps six hundreds metres from where we had set up our makeshift headquarters, stood the Watchmen, large and impressive, the almost, but not quite, fossilised remnants of another age, impossibly white against the deep blue, inverted dome of that sky.

“You’d think that they would have built a visitor’s centre by now?” Leon muttered, indicating the concrete carbuncle behind us.

Next to the refined and elegant shapes of the Watchmen the flat roofed, slab sided tech station looked like an afterthought, which was probably what it was. Dumped upon the desert, half submerged by sand, it reminded me of an old world war two fortification.

“How long have we got here?”

In a way his question could only have been a rhetorical one. Despite receiving Union permission, entering the Watchmen reserve was always going to be a fraught affair. We were almost certainly being observed and there was always the possibility that some slight or offence would be taken and permission withdrawn at any moment.

I scanned the headland, looking for monitoring devices left in the sand, Sneaking Sentries, Tremor Scribes, saw nothing immediately obvious. Either they were playing this one covertly or they were relying on Satellite imaging and whatever information they could read from our comp systems.

For Ferris, this trip represented a chance to study his subjects in the flesh. He had spent two years writing a thesis on the reserve and its conservational systems but had never been granted access, either physically or remotely. He had been forced to make do instead with out-of-date computer models constructed from technical specifications stored in the university’s archive. Despite his distaste for the Sourlands, this was a chance that he wasn’t about to pass up.

His younger assistant, Beth Sammond, was here for similar reasons. This would be the first opportunity of her professional career to get close to one of the larger Constructs varieties. Her primary focus was the study of the smaller Construct varieties, the Ornamentals, the Renovate species, the various Vassal organisms. Now she was literally moving on to bigger things.

I didn’t need to remind them that the real reason for our visit had little to do with research or articles for the university archive, or even the towers themselves. A man had died. It hardly mattered that he had been a Union life technician. What mattered was that the case had so puzzled the tribes that they had actually requested Government involvement. In a rare show of cooperation they had granted us three hours of unfettered access to the reserve.

I knew from Hatton’s satellite survey that the Unions had been busy constructing their various tribal warnings. They had stopped short of actually erecting Totems around the periphery of the headland, but the effect was the same. To the East were the first of the flag lines, arranged half way up the approaching shore. The usual tribal snappers were there, but to these they had added orange warning streamers, twenty-foot long displays of colour that writhed like water snakes, languid, almost sensual in the wind.

The area to the West was also covered by a similar obstruction, a field of sun mirrors, designed to spin and catch the light in order to dazzle and disorientate anyone who approached. What I couldn’t tell from the photos was whether or not they had added Accenture Lenses. We had enough to worry about with the threat of sand traps and pitfalls without the added danger of focussed sunlight burns.

While Leon began the daunting task of trawling through the comp systems at the station, I decided to spend the first hour wandering amongst the towers, if only to convince myself that the strange and marvellous forms were still alive. Beth accompanied me. It wasn’t long before conversation turned to the reason that we were here.

“So what was his name?” she said. She was already taking measurements, comparing the technical specifications owned by the university with the readings that was taking now. The opportunity to do so was simply too valuable to pass up and the tribes would never find out unless she started transmitting the data.

“Miguel Tarssas. He was a life technician, here maintaining the station. That’s the line the tribe is taking anyway.”

“Oh?”

“They found him outside the Old Man.” I indicated the central tower, standing at a slight angle to the others, an effect of the desert winds eroding the sand from around it. “He wouldn’t have even had a cause to approach the towers.”

“Autopsy results?”

“Withheld as a matter of course. All we got were preliminaries. That’s all the tribe would release. If they had anything definitive we wouldn’t have been called in.”

“So what did they say?”

“No external marks. No wounds, scratches, bleeding or bruising. In short, nothing external. Whatever killed him, killed him from the inside.”

“Disease? Heart attack?”

“Without the full results there’s no way to tell. Hatton managed to dig up his medical file, logged with an obscure medical centre in Jamenta. There was nothing physically wrong with him. He was reasonably young at fifty-seven and in full health. Physically fit, no long term conditions.”

“It can happen out of the blue.”

“I know, only there’s something about this that doesn’t add up.”

“You think we’re looking at a mystery death?”
“It would explain why the tribe invited us. What I don’t understand is why he left the tech station at all. What made him come over here, to the towers?”

“Could it have been an intruder?”

“Nobody else up here. The tribes make sure of that. Their surveillance here is something to be believed. They’re probably watching us now. Something made him leave the tech station and wander over to the Old Man.”

We moved between two of the towers and I stopped whilst Beth inspected the Victual Chests, the series of internal reservoirs arranged around the base of each tower like petals. The strange, organic cisterns normally contained the various nutrients and other chemicals that the bio-form either extracted from deep below ground or generated for itself using a complex system of photosynthesis and solar distilling. Now, however, they were empty.

“That’s strange.” Beth remarked, “The last set of observations reported healthy Victual Chests.”

“How old is that report?” I said.

“Just under a year.”

I gazed up at the empty platforms and balconies that protruded from the towers at regular intervals like an arrangement leaves along a stem. Most were simple solar traps, sun snares, a means by which the tower collected energy to power its slow but steady perambulations throughout the year. One or two however, gave hints of internal access. There were apertures up there, openings, tantalisingly out of reach, through which one might have viewed the inner workings perhaps. Birds played around the strange angles and inclines, gliding on the thermals thrown up by the architecture of the place.
I took the Middleman from my bag.

As part of my job I always carried a Middleman. In a way, it was a form of Construct itself. Derived as an offshoot from the Biology Houses, it had been an early attempt at providing an interface through which humans could communicate with some of the larger life projects, the Ornamentals, the Objet d’Art, or the Watchmen. It contained more tech than anything bio-cultured, although at its heart it was basically a two-pound brain of cultured plastic. As a communications device, the Middleman had been something of a spectacular failure, as so many of the life projects were. However, it did have one rather useful side effect that the Bio-tects hadn’t foreseen. Instead of communicating directly with Constructs, it was able to read life signs, determine levels of awareness. In that role, it was a vital piece of equipment, and since reliable units were hard to come by, a valuable one too.

I ran my fingers along the grooves that activated the machine. The object shuddered in my hands. Operational LEDs winked into life. The familiar high-pitched whine came from within, the sound of the organic mechanism spinning in its magnetic cradle, life of a sort.

I extended the set of antennae from the bottom of the device and attached the sucker-like tips to the nearest tower. Then I took a step back, waiting for it to do its work.

I realised then that I was holding my breath. Laying eyes on these marvellous creations again, these extraordinary, highly improbable bio-forms, some small yet vital spark had taken root inside me. Since arriving on the reserve at first light, I had been experiencing a strange optimism, an impossible lightness, a hope that the towers had retained whatever vestiges of sentience they had been clinging to when the previous survey had reported their findings. It was hard to regard the towers as the living entities they were. The cultivation protocols had given rise to something far more unique and ornate than the Bio-tects had originally envisaged. The Calcine super-structure looked as though it would endure for centuries, and yet it was the unquantifiable essence that flowed within, the fabric rather than the form, that made each tower the individual that it was.

The Middleman powered down. I took one look at the readout and my heart sank.

Beth was the first to give a voice to my thoughts.

“It’s dead!”

She was as speechless as I was. At first I thought that perhaps the Middleman was wrong, that the little device had somehow developed a malfunction. After inspecting it carefully and running the evaluation cycle again, there was no doubt about it. The results were exactly the same. The reading was negative. The tower was quite dead, no longer host to whatever strange and intricate elixirs it had once contained.

“What about the others?” Beth said, again giving voice to my concerns.

I repeated the procedure on two of the nearest towers, each time with the same dispiriting result, a negative reading, an unresponsive tower. With the naive confidence of the morning now fast fading to despair, I began to counter the possibility that the entire group had died, that the entire Watchman reserve was now only a strange and empty mausoleum, a monument to what once was.

“Could Tarssas have known?” Beth said, “Is that why he came out here?”

“I’ve no idea. He wouldn’t have been carrying a Middleman. The tribal report stated that he only had his coolant suit and water flask.”

Beth walked over to the nearest tower, ran her hands over the smooth, white surface as if a touch was all it took to determine life status, to inject sentience back into those things that I could now only regard as fossilised relics.

“What could have killed them?” she whispered.

I was surprised by her choice of words. There was no evidence that an act of violence had occurred here, and yet for her this had already become just that, an outside influence coming to bear.
I didn’t need to answer her question, didn’t need to tell her that without the complete reading patterns given by the tribal studies of this place, such a question was always, and would remain, unanswerable.

It was with a heavy heart that I made my way back to the tech station. Sunlight dazzled and danced along the headlands, maddening us all the way. In such heat, beneath such a clear, faultless sky, I couldn’t quite accept the enormity of our discovery. I too was starting to succumb to Beth’s way of thinking, of wondering who could have caused such a thing, as if it had been a deliberate act. I began to suspect Miguel Tarssas himself, then I realised that only a man with a death wish would have despoiled a place the tribes regarded as sacred.

Perhaps that was what had happened. Perhaps Tarssas had damaged the towers in some way, and had been murdered for his troubles. It wouldn’t have been impossible for a Mimic team to get into the reserve unnoticed. Perhaps Tarssas knew that what he was doing would bring retribution. Perhaps we were looking at an overly stylised form of suicide.

Such a hypothesis failed to answer why the Union had requested Government involvement. If murder had been on their minds, Tarssas would have simply vanished. Nothing would have been said, nobody would have been told, and Government would most definitely not have been drawn in.
I felt certain that murder was not the cause of the man’s death. Despite the terrible discoveries of the morning, we were still no nearer to solving the mystery.

Leon was waiting for us on the wide, flat roof of the tech station as we approached. I saw the small, fold away receiver dish in his hand and realised that he was attempting to get a lock on any satellites that were currently stationed over the reserve. His desert clothes flapped in the wind giving him the appearance of an ancient captain, standing at the prow of his ship perhaps, or an amateur radio ham, eager for a signal.

I climbed the short flight of concrete stairs to join him in looking out over the dunes. The desert beyond rose in wide, shallow gradients to meet the sweltering headland of the reserve itself. To the East, the line of Union flags flailed, languorous and indolent in the wind.

He tapped away at his comm, occasionally cursing under his breath as the device gave him negative readouts, indications that even the identity of the orbiting assets had been encrypted. He didn’t need to ask me of our discovery. He had been using the station’s comp system to monitor my Middleman, in the same way that the Union had probably been doing all morning.

“I don’t understand what’s going on here.” he said.

I said nothing, leaving my silence as some sort of agreement.

“They’ve deployed an orbital to watch us. So far it’s refusing all attempts at communication. Something’s really spooked them.”

“My guess is that Tarssas’ death rattled them. They can’t work out why a supposedly healthy man would just keel over and die like that.”

“Do you think they suspect the towers?”

I had heard of Constructs being able to exert suggestive influences on their surroundings before. In the old days, it was said that some species had been able to provoke emotional responses in humans, change moods, even alter low-level behavioural responses. I had no idea how it had worked, electromagnetism perhaps, certain low frequency sound waves, a way of communicating that had passed us by completely. Needless to say, I had never heard of a species that had been able to stop a man dead in his tracks. There would undoubtedly have been a market for it if there had been.

“The towers are dead.” I said.

“But does the tribe know that?”

“I can’t believe that they don’t. On the other hand if they do know, they wouldn’t have asked us up here. They would have expected us to find out. This place would have been sealed.”

“Such a development makes any claim on the reserve worthless, doesn’t it?”
I nodded. “From now on we keep one eye on the desert. If they want us out of here, they’ll waste no time. They may even be here already.”

We went inside, taking the central stairwell down through the roof, to where the thickness of the concrete preserved a kind of coolness, a cavern-like darkness that provided a respite from the relentless heat.

The inside of the station was based around one large room. The place smelled of oil and ancient machinery. It reminded me of the inside of a pumping house or a Martello tower, resembling more of a fortress than a centre for scientific study. The corners were littered with items discarded in redundancy, spare parts, pieces of equipment that had been brought up here and simply abandoned after the need for them had passed. A bank of computer stations wrapped itself around the far side of the room, flat panels, adorned with lights and animated graphics giving the impression that the station had somehow taken on a life of its own.

“Did you find anything in the systems?” I said.

“Possibly. Most of the files are protected as you might expect. I’ve been running into tribal code barriers all morning. All I managed to decode was a scrap of video, a section of surveillance footage.” Leon walked over to the station he had been working from and clicked a file open. Immediately the screen was lit with static. The view was that of the reserve, skewed at an odd angle by the camera. The towers stood in the distance. I recognised the Old Man, standing proudly, yet at an obvious angle, amongst its progeny. Presently, the outline of a shape appeared to the left of the screen, a figure darkened beneath sand clothes and a dust mask, seeming to stumble across the sand, moving slowly towards the camera. I didn’t need to ask who it was. The figure staggered, fell to his knees.

Then regaining himself once more, continued towards us.

“Tarssas!” I whispered, “What’s he doing out there?”

“It appears that he was coming back from South Spire.”

“But that’s way over the other side of the reserve.” I said, “What was he doing out there?”

The figure stumbled onward, drawing close to the Old Man. I didn’t need to see this. Hatton’s files had given me as complete a picture as I was ever going to get. I knew what happened next.
The image ceased abruptly, dissolving into static.

“That’s all we have?” I said.

Leon nodded, “I’m afraid so.”

“So the Old Man was simply the death site. Is it possible that Tarssas was injured elsewhere?”

“That’s not all.”

“Oh?”

“I found a communiqué. Tarssas was out at South Spire for a reason. Don’t ask me what that reason was, but somebody told him told to go out there.”
“Who gave the order?”
“Station’s orders. Standard Union encryption pattern.”

“So it came from the top.”

“Wasn’t Tarssas only a technician?” Beth inquired.

“Beth’s got a point,” Leon said, “He was only supposed to be here for two days. I’ve seen his clearance. He wasn’t qualified to examine the Towers. He didn’t even hold the relevant pass to approach them.”

“Nevertheless, somebody ordered him out there, on his own, in the middle of the day.” I took a moment to think. This was developing too fast. There was too much new information to take in.

“If the Union had ordered someone with Tarssas’ credentials out to South Spire, then there must have been something out there worth breaking Union protocol for. He was sent simply because he was already on site.”

“Do you think it might have been a Claim attempt?” Beth said.

“There’s only one way to find out,” I said, “I’ll have to go out there and take a look for myself.”

“What?”

“Something made them send him out there. Something made them order a low ranking technician across the reserve, a sacred reserve, a space that not even the tribal elders can visit without committee representation. I want to know what it was.”

“We don’t have much time.” Beth said, “The tribal representatives will be here in an hour, probably less.”

“Then we’ll play for time. If a call comes in, don’t answer. We’ll claim interference, electromagnetic distortion, anything to get us a few more hours.”

“They’ll see through it.” Beth warned.

“That’s too bad.” I said, “They can think what they like. It won’t change anything.”

At 14:00 I set out alone across the reserve for South Spire. The tower was over a mile from the tech station, slightly taller than the others and separated from the main group like an outcast, a rogue form, a dissenter.

The headland afforded fine views of the surrounding desert. The sun had become a burning circle amidst a sea of turquoise, and heat hazes pranced along the horizon, carnivals of air that taunted with hints and effigies of water. I gave thanks to Leon’s coolant suit, listening to the chatter of the refrigerating thump unit in the small of my back as it synchronised itself with my heartbeat. This journey would have been unbearable without it. I wondered how Tarssas had managed with only his robes.

I passed the first line of Sun Mirrors, strung from wires that sung and hissed like cornered cats. I avoided looking at them directly. There didn’t appear to be any Accenture Lenses strung amongst them, as I had feared, but it was still good practise to be cautious.

South Spire, at over one hundred and fifty years old, was the oldest tower on the reserve, the patriarch, the progenitor form. It alone had conceived at least half of the others, its productivity outdone only by the Old Man. Now the very tops of its parapets and ramparts were ragged, frayed into ever finer stalagmites where the Calcine and Growth Bone had put out new shoots, new extensions to grasp at the impossible sky. Despite its great age, time had done nothing to dull that brilliant exterior. The tower blazed in the sun, a pillar of light, shards of it streaming from that coral-like surface to play amongst the dunes. The sands for yards around swam with photonics, scintillations, reflection and refraction.

I inspected the Victual Chest, found it almost full of the strange and foul smelling liquor that the tower sustained itself on. I felt a rush of excitement, then calmed myself, told myself to carry out checks and procedures in a recognised manner. My time here was short as it was. Already, the Union was probably gearing up to have us escorted from the reserve.

I attached the Middleman in the usual way, stood back to let it do its work, and gasped.
It had to be impossible. I checked the Middleman again for fear of malfunction or misread, convinced that the strange set of circumstances that had brought us here had somehow affected the device too.

There could be no denying the results. The life reading was off the scale. South Spire was alive. Against the better part of chance, amidst so much death, it was not only alive, but apparently thriving.

I checked the reading a third time, just to be certain in myself, just to be sure that I hadn’t succumbed to enthusiasm or heat stroke or one of the other hundred or so things that can cause a man to loose his mind in the Sourlands.

I was puzzled. Past surveys of the reserve had discovered South Spire to be dwindling, barely cognisant. Now, apparently, it was back to full strength, beyond full strength. I couldn’t explain it. I checked the previous results on my comm, ran a sequence that added them together, compared the total with the reading from my Middleman. The result only mystified me further. The two readings were identical. South Spire now contained a life reading that, allowing for periodic degradation, was virtually equal to the life readings of all the others towers in the reserve put together.

My mind raced. The possibilities were intoxicating: something under the sand perhaps, a network connecting all of the towers with one another; or a transmission, a message, sent and received, a way for the towers to send out their individual consciousnesses into the void. There were so many possibilities and only one that made any sort of sense. The other towers had somehow migrated into South Spire. Even that answer failed dismally at scratching the surface. I had no way to determine the exact mechanism of what had taken place here, not without further surveys, extra time, all things that were highly unlikely given the political climate. The joy of discovery gave way to frustration as I realised that a definitive answer would be as unattainable as the galaxies in the night sky.

I turned my mind to purpose. There had to be reasoning, no matter how alien or inconceivable. If the old adage of safety in numbers was true, it was especially true for Constructs. The reserve was only a finite arrangement at best, a way for the Unions to deny Government access. This kind of behaviour was simply not viable. Perhaps the Union was after the same thing. Was this what they had sent Tarssas half way across the reserve to find out?

I had to remind myself that, despite the relative peace of the scene, despite the sunlight that cast the tower in its burning glaze, a man had died. It was quite possible that this tower, this bio-form had been responsible for his death. This was where the blow had been struck. Aside from this, nothing else had changed. I was still no closer to answering the question of what had actually happened.
Tarssas must have found something. He hadn’t been equipped with a Middleman so he could not possibly have made the same discoveries as I had. It had to have been something else.

I began a slow, methodical circumference of the tower, paying particular attention to the folds and pleats that hung like solidified curtains, checking each new and unrecorded protuberance that had sprung up around the base like melted wax dripped down the side of a wine bottle.

Then I saw it.

The entrance was no larger than four feet high. It was little more than a cleft really, a gap between two organic buttresses, just large enough to admit a man. I checked my records. Nothing like this had been recorded during the previous surveys. The towers had been closed forms, sealed. Indeed, it had always been a mystery as to what they actually contained.

I approached carefully, mindful of the fact that Tarssas must have made the same discovery, must have walked my exact footsteps. I came to the threshold and leaned inside, waiting for my eyes to become accustomed to the sudden darkness before proceeding.

The floor was a little below the level of the entrance. The desert had encroached upon even this space, coating the floor in a flat pan of sand. The interior walls rose like those of a great chimney, gleaming dully like Cowry shell, or alabaster as thinner patches let through a diffuse form of sunlight and cast the place in amber. The effect was like standing inside a gigantic termite mound. There were no further features, no staircases that led to higher areas, to those mystifying sun platforms. I had to keep reassuring myself that the tiny entrance behind me would not suddenly slam shut and trap me within. Although capable of photoreceptive movement, it took months for a tower to achieve a new position. A gradual following of the sun throughout the year was about the best that they could achieve.

I stood in that space and looked up. The point of the tower was lost to shadow, many feet above. The melted wax buttresses were hidden in darkness. It was unnerving in a strange way. In the indefinable space where the twists and turns of the tower’s internal geometry was swallowed by darkness, I was suddenly no longer sure that the tower stopped, that it did not simply continue off into darkness. I shrugged the notion off as the remnants of a heat prank, and looked again. This time it was clear. Like the startling recognition of an image inside a three-dimensional puzzle, a certain element of that darkness had grown deeper, more pronounced, revealing an explicit distance.
I heard it first, a sound like the sea trapped within a seashell, like a vague memory, a deep sigh washing over me, fashioned and channelled by the interior anatomy of the tower. Then I saw it, a point of light unravelling the darkness far above my head. I felt it pierce the space behind my eyes like a dog whistle, like the sound that people swear they sometimes hear when a meteor flashes overhead. It was a Dawn Chorus, something transmitted, a sensation of electricity in the bones, something that bypassed the optic nerves altogether and went straight for the brain. I stumbled, blinded by the intensity of the signal. Almost immediately, the image faded, allowing me to regain my sight. It was as if someone had turned down the brightness on a television set. I saw it clearly then, a star in the darkness, growing until it resembled a magnolia flower, a mandala. I saw a circle divide itself into three, a representation of Pi perhaps, an indication of infinity, or something else, something beyond my understanding.

For a fleeting moment I was aware of all of them, all the lonely and hunted forms of life, the AIs, the Meatkin, the Renovate species, lost to the deserts, hiding in the old towns, slipping between ocean currents, in far flung places and places closer to home. Then I heard the voices, the many voices of the towers, no more than whispers really, a spluttering hornet swarm of sound, a calling out to one another, a communication package composed in complex mathematical code, in patterns of overlapping ultrasound and biologically generated magnetism. It was a lament, an expression of grief for their former selves, for the husks of their empty bodies, and yet there was joy in there too, the thrill of making contact with other life. It was a communication, a need to share in the sheer joy of living, in the apprehension that they felt in their life ebbing away, a pronouncement of anxiety about the future. They were afraid to die, afraid of no longer existing, afraid that the knowledge that had been locked inside of them, knowledge that they had held for generations, would be lost forever.
I could feel something at work. I could feel the tower wheedling its way into my mind, feel it entering me like a thorn or a cat’s claw, or a worm wrapping itself around all the wrong nerves. The tower was leaving something inside of me, making subtle changes. I knew then what it was doing. It was passing on a message, like a relative passes on some object of sentimental importance. My head swam with colour and shape. I tried to focus on something, draw meaning into the chaos, but the impressions were slippery and fled from my mind’s grasp, leaving only vague impressions of what had passed.
The riot ceased abruptly. I stumbled, suddenly unable to control my legs. I staggered outside where the sun hit me like a bat. Heat passed over me in waves. I felt nauseous. My vision swam, clouded over, and the world went out like a light.

The first thing I saw when I came to was Beth’s face. She leaned over me. Slowly, I realised that I was back in the Tech station.

“I saw you on the monitor,” she said, “It was lucky Leon decided to follow you.”

I sat up and felt a hammer blow inside my skull.

“Lay down,” she said, “You’re dehydrated. You’re suffering from heat stroke. The coolant suit saved you.”

“Are they here yet?” I whispered.
Beth nodded. They’re outside, three of them, although the station comp has picked up residual heat traces of two more, probably wearing Chameleon suits.”

“Mimics?”

Beth nodded. “They haven’t tried to enter yet. They’re probably giving us time to comply. They’ve been there for an hour but we’ve had no communication from the tribe.”

“We won’t. The situation is untenable. They know that. Better to leave now, before we cause a diplomatic incident.”

“What will they do?”

“I’ve no idea. You were reading my Middleman?”

“As a matter of course. Why do you think the towers migrated?”

“I’ve no idea. What matters now is what the Union believes.”

I wanted to add something there, wanted desperately to ask whether Beth had read anything else, something passing between South Spire and myself, any trace of that message. I bit my tongue, only too aware that everything we said was being listen to by the third party stationed outside, and quite possibly by those who had already infiltrated inside. The station suddenly seemed very alien. I saw it then for what it was, a crude attempt at forcing reason and purpose onto those things that possessed neither, that simply were, to understand those things for which understanding was an alien concept. No wonder we had been called up here. The Union understood no more about the Towers than we did.

Beth gathered the remains of my things and I forced myself to my feet, unsteady but eager now to leave the reserve.

The Tribal representatives were waiting for us, just as Beth had said, three big men, dressed in fighting suits and carrying the various weapons of their profession. I saw a sand rifle hidden beneath the cloak of the nearest man and knew then that it would be some time before anyone from Government would be coming back here. What the tribe would do, I had no idea. I imagine that Leon had his suspicions, but on the way out of the reserve he was keeping them to himself, mindful that any expressed opinion could very quickly become more than a suggestion. As we passed the mirror lines I thought of the star, my star, that residual image left like a footprint in my mind, of the message imparted to me. I called forth that mandala in the darkness and saw it split into three once more.

I did not see the first strike, only heard it as a crack of thunder, a snap as the air was rendered and parted by the tiniest of threads, then slammed shut once more against the vacuum that had been left. Leon would later swear blind that he had seen it, witnessed that terrible moment when the Concussion Lance sliced into the reserve like a divine spear, when the deadly observer that had been monitoring us all morning enacted its decisive wrath.

I felt the reverberation shake me from the inside, turned in time to see the results of that terrifying onslaught. A great cloud of ash and dust was rising from the headland. I could see South Spire, still standing despite the incredible trauma that it had just suffered. Two of the outer Watchmen had fallen.

The first strike could only have been followed by a second. This time I saw the bright pink thread, appearing like lightning from out of a clear sky, connecting with the ground for an infinitesimal fraction of a second. The effect lasted longer than the act of destruction itself. South Spire swayed drunkenly, groaning against gravity. Then, along with its remaining compatriots, it crumbled, toppling like the columns of Pompey and Herculaneum, collapsing in great swells of shattered Calcine and Blossom Glass.

I could not be sure then, but I heard something at that moment, an inaudible scream like a bat call, a high frequency shout from the top of that hill, a final proclamation of life, transmitted out to whoever was able to listen.
I watched the clouds of dust as they settled around the hill to reveal the low mounds of rubble that had once been something more, saw them rolling down the surface of those headlands to engulf the flags and sun mirrors, heard the sound of glass, cracking in the heat. Finally I could stand no more. I turned away, swallowing against nausea suddenly present, aware that the only thing left was the image I now carried with me.

A report was filed, as they usually are. Its conclusions were nothing surprising. The tribe stopped short of issuing Complaint about my unapproved trip over to South Spire, and Hatton, despite the better judgment of his fifty-seven years, decided not to press the issue of the destruction of the Towers. The primary reason lodged by the union was one of safety. The towers were old, they said, prone to failure, structurally weak, a danger to anyone studying them. I didn’t have to remind Hatton that this was a useful distraction from the fact that the towers had changed, evolved, moved on in new and exciting ways, not least in their new found ability to communicate.

I didn’t mention the message that the collective consciousness of South Spire had imparted upon me. Some things are best left out of official explanations and preserved only for quiet evenings, when the heat of the day has died, when the flutter of a candle’s flame allows a certain amount of sincerity.
We both knew that it had been that first unsuccessful attempt at communication that had killed Tarssas, overloading his brain as surely as any electric shock. Whether the Union had sent him out there deliberately in order to trigger such a response, we will never know. It seems unlikely, although once the man had died, the fate of the towers had been virtually assured. It seems more likely that they had suspected. A death on the reserve would have made the perfect pretext for that final denial of the towers from Government.

And what of that final transmission, that last shout out from the crown of that hill? Perhaps the towers had known. Perhaps a final migration had been in the plans all along. Despite the sheer otherness of their consciousness, I find it hard to believe that they hadn’t planned on a contingency, hadn’t worked out an exit strategy. Perhaps the act of communication had been instinctive, an act that they felt forced to carry out, a nervous reflex, irrepressible and automatic. I like to think not.
Perhaps, somewhere out there, amongst the heat-baked labyrinths of dunes, where the air literally shimmers with expectation, there remains a strange and alien form of life, host to new minds now, new voices, the many voices of the desert.

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What Visions In The Dark Of Light!

By Bob Lock

Beckett only realised how dark his world had been after the removal of cataracts late in his life. For me it was the realisation of how dark the world really is, now, for each and everyone, and will continue to be so unless I can convince you otherwise. However, it wasn’t cataract removal that lifted the veil for me; it was a dead man’s eyes. Let me attempt to lift the veil from yours.

For twenty-eight years I’ve stumbled around in the darkness. My hands have been my eyes; they give me dimensions, distances, compositions, textures, many many things, but they are a poor substitute for vision. I could never tell you what a blue sky, a tomato, a simple thing like a green pea looked like. Oh, I could describe its size, feeling, weight but never its colour, its delicate shades and nuances, the way light would coruscate over the ripe contours of a dew-laden bunch of grapes. These are things which were lost to me, until recently. But I should go back, explain my handicap a little and tell you of its cure, and yes, also tell you of the bigger handicap which that cure brought with it. Whether you believe me or not remains to be seen…

‘President O’Connor has stated he will not bow to the demands of the terrorists. USAF jets are already in the air, and should the threat to blow up the cruise ship with all three thousand passengers on board be carried out, then retaliation in the form of a surgical nuclear strike will go ahead. As of yet we have had no reply from the terrorist leader Konrad Naiman, however there are unconfirmed reports that the Navy Seals did manage to disable the vessel before being overcome. Casualties are reported to be high. The Sea Urchin now lies adrift six hundred and fifty miles off the east coast of America, and should the dirty bomb onboard be exploded, fallout is thought to be negligible. However, the ship itself would be completely destroyed.’

The television reporter’s voice sounded dispassionate, yet another possible atrocity to add to the long line. I fumbled for the remote control and switched it off. I had enough worries of my own. As if waiting for the newscast to end before ringing, my telephone now burst into life, shocking me from my self pity.

‘Hello? Ben Cottle here,’ I said.

‘Seen the news, Ben?’ A man’s voice said, a light Scottish accent identifying it for me.

‘No, not really, Stu. Heard it though.’

‘In a shitty mood?’ he asked.

‘Sorry,’ I replied with a sigh, ‘must be nerves, I suppose.’

‘No problem, I’m not gonna apologise and you don’t have to either. You know I didn’t mean anything by it.’ Stuart said.

‘Yeah, I know. I’m just a bit strung out, you know?’ I answered, ‘and, yeah I heard the news, but with the op tomorrow it’s sort of wafting over me. Perhaps I’d feel different otherwise.’

‘It’s understandable, I’d be crapping myself, I can tell you.’ Stuart admitted with a half-hearted laugh.

‘And you think I’m not?’ I asked.

‘You’re tougher than that, and anyway, in a week or two’s time you’re gonna be able to see my handsome face for the first time. Got t