THE PARTY DEVICE

THE PARTY DEVICE

Fledgling Fielder Red turned. Released his baby's grip on the pillow,
groaned. He'd set the phone on vibrate - only way to guarantee any kind
of wake-up was to make the entire bed quiver.

The phone's vibrations spread their pert message through the carpet and
up the soles of his feet, setting off a liquid tingling in higher
regions. He headed for the bathroom. The carpet buzzed with increasing
urgency. It was jumping like it had been saturated with a city of
fleas. He could have cut the phone off with a terse 'not available'
mudra, which would have been picked up by the open circuit tv. Instead,
he finished his ablutions and signed for 'use'.
Sacchrin Promol's sharply sculpted face appeared onscreen. Yeah. Good
old Sacchrin Promol. Fielder's boss at Mass Consciousness Fun
industries. Fielder's friend. Fielder's anally with-it,
temporally-tight wake-up call.

'I missed you at the office,' said Sacchrin. 'The computers miss you.
The little darlins were getting all excited at the thought of you
finishing off your new musical star - '

'Budgie Bardo,' said Fielder Red. 'Yeah, I remember saying I wanted her
in-line by Brahmday, latest. But I think I'll be letting you all down,
tonight, if you don't mind. I'm not feeling too hot.'

'Fielder, quite frankly, whatever,' said Sacchrin. 'Your bullshit
offends me. No excuses will do. The world 0s crying 0ut f0r yo1r
talents, and you sit there hiding in your apartment00010 supping on
yesterday's coffee and 000000101010'

Ha ha, thought Fielder. My ana-digital interface is fuxed up again. How
timely. Out of politeness, Fielder held back a primal scream of
frustration. He didn't black the screen, nor did he hurl himself in any
direction so long as it be away from Sacchrin Promol. And yet - it
would have been a good time for an honest display of primate temper.
Because he had no real desire for companionship tonight. At least, not
for anything so mundane as a real, flesh and blood friend he already
knew. Quietly, he fixed the interface.

'01010ut tonight. Go on - take time out, if you need it, and join us
later. We'll take in a few vrugs, swing from the chandeliers... These,
my friend, are the voyages of the starship vertebrae, and there's a
space saved for you.'

'No. Thanks.'

'Why not?' asked Sacchrin, scratching his parts. Show-off. Wearing his
natal suit, again. A fashionista's nod to ye olde pastoral revolutions,
the ones that had pissed the clothing emporiums off like an alpha hound
with a urine infection. No way for the clothesmeisters to profit from
nudity - although, like the most effective virii, many of them were
already relocating profit agendas into skin dye and internal
tattoos.

'I've just bought a manatee,' Fielder Red told the face filling his
living room. 'That's a sea cow. I'm going to find out what it likes to
eat, and then I'm going to feed it.'

'I've seen one of those things. They've got faces like punched-in
bulldogs. Nothing you should be snuggling up to on a Brahmday
night.'

'Yeah, well,' said Fielder. 'The strain of creating planet-famous music
and movie stars is getting to me. I'll speak to you soon, okay?'

'Call me if you change your mind. And don't be too much of a stranger,
Fielder - I'm not a man to mess with. This boss-dog be biting on your
tail...'

The screen died. Fielder went back to the main node of his pad, a
chi-chi conapt nestling in the jewelled gardens of Tulse Hill. He
exhaled loudly and let it lengthen, turn into a sigh. It didn't feel
good, not being in a state to enjoy a friend's company - but if you
couldn't handle your own, you were fuxed.

Fielder padded across the carpet and picked up a box from his bedside
table. He opened it. An ampule lay there. He took the ampule and
cradled it in his hands. It looked like it was winking at him. Taunting
him. Now this... This was what he was planning to do this evening. This
little 'pule was hot.

You could see its name written on the side. 'iD-Hello' had been roughly
etched into the gelatin shell. The thing didn't look mass-produced. A
scratch-mix labrat had pressed it into his hands at some international
awards gig. He hadn't been interested, not then. Guy probably wanted
something. But then the guy had hesitantly explained that the chemical
wasn't made by some young DNArtist jacked up on his own ego (and
Fielder knew the term could apply equally well to himself) but by an
octogenarian scientist who still made drugs in the old, alchemical
ways. The labrat had used terms like distillation, coagulation,
purification - and Fielder's eyes had lit up. Someone who really loved
what they did. So, yes, he had accepted the pill, and of course he had
namechecked the labrat in a promo release because, sure, this isn't a
something for nothing world.

Nursing the 'pule in one hand, Fielder checked over the box's
handwritten instructions. The effect of the drug was to overlay a
filter onto what the brain perceived for a peak period of two to three
hours. Okay. The user would go about their business in this reality,
but would perceive it to be overlaid with the sensory input of
another.

The note explained that there was, as yet, no confirmed means of
engineering a predetermined reality filter. Apparently, the filter was
dredged up from the user's own subsconscious. How you see is what you
get.

And so on. Further down the page, a title jumped out at Fielder: 'How
To Take iD-Hello'. The list was a short one, and read:

1)Take up a stationary position

2)Remain in one place for the trip's duration

Fielder Red knew he wasn't a brave man. Courageous, yes - willing to
take a drug for the new experience it offered, even though the unknown
gave him the heebies - maybe why he made filmstars, as opposed to
watching them - but not brave. Not without fear.

With instructions so short, there was little fear of forgetting them.
Fielder lay down on his bed and instructed the doors and windows of his
pad to refuse him exit for the next six hours, even if he gave them the
appropriate codes. Then he took the 'pule.

'iD-Hello', what does that mean? He wondered. Like identification, or
like the id, like subconscious? Or was that unconscious? And what was
the difference? Yeah, that's right. The unconscious is what you get
when your conscious mind's asleep, so it doesn't happen all the time.
The subconscious is always ticking away. So it doesn't matter if your
conscious mind is set at the on or off switch, the subconscious is
always below. Or, hell, was that the other way around? Sub. Under.
Submarine - shit, why didn't they just call them 'underwaters'? That
would be so beautiful. Subway. Sub...strata? Sub...so what the fuxxing
hell was subjective? Fux.

He drifted through layers of sleep, and woke up to a world slightly
gloomier, less polished, yet somehow more comfortable than before. A
cursory assessment of the room revealed no stunning optics. No
undulating crap. He checked his emotions. An absence of great
all-encompassing love, unfortunately - but nothing screwy. So, what
kind of thing do you do when you're tripping?

Meditation? He assumed the posture and felt the flaps of his nostrils
widen and contract in breath. And thence, godhood. Nope, too easy.
Meditation was better to do straight. Tripping was more like, say,
you've already found godhood at the top of the mountain where you've
spent the last fifty years, and now you've come back down saying 'time
to live a little'. In this case, meditation was redux.

Listen to music then. Definitely. Fielder Red went to his record
collection. His...

A record collection.

He sank down on his knees. So, in real life, this was what it looked
like. He pulled out one of the cardboard squares at random, marvelling
at its velvety surface, the papery fibers rubbing gently against his
fingers. It was a sleeve, this thing, a kind of flap. Inside was
another sleeve, made of crispy white paper with a sheen to it. Inside
that, a record.

A record. God, man, that's archaic! He loved it. But now he needed a
record player. And there it was. And yet it hadn't been there when he'd
first gazed across the room. Reality only changed when he focused on
it? Record player, check: a squat, misshapen beast of dubious design
with some shitty, boxy speakers attached with wires as frail and
stringy as rats' tails. He checked the back of the system. Yup, all the
wires were mussed up and knotted, as he'd somehow expected them to be.
This was a trip, for fux' sake. What happened to the aesthetic beauty
of the psychedelic?

Time to consider the facts. All his music was stored in house and
clothing files, no extra hardware involved. He definitely didn't have
any records. But all his senses told him that part of his house looked
like a functioning record player - which, apparently, he knew how to
use - at least he felt he did - and that another part of his house
looked like a collection of vinyl ranging from independent stuff from
the late nineteen-eighties to a fairly comprehensive selection of dance
music in all genres up until - late nineties, no later. He made himself
a spliff and checked. Yup. Didn't seem to be any material dated later
than the late nineties. He put something on and listened to it. It
sounded great. Not like the usual stuff he worked with, at all, at all.
Sort of more rough and vinyl-ey.

A flick of a switch, and ancient modern music filled the interior.
Bleak sonar heaven. With grinding panic, Fielder realised he'd just lit
up a spliff during engagement with an as-yet untested drug (at least on
him). Lordy, he scolded himself. Never mix your drugs, you great fool!
He regained his composure on recalling the absence of any real cannabis
in the flat. This was one big, fat dooby of an illusion.

'Aam I gettin' hai-igh on illooooosory drugs?' he crooned in time to
the music. These merry thoughts surged to a peak of confirmatory
hilarity, and then another moment of panic when he considered this
poser of a question - if the cannabis wasn't there, then what part of
the house he was actually smoking? Fux it, he decided. It must be the
sofa. And if so then it's surely the house's problem, not mine.

Fielder began to feel thirsty. He got up and made a great cup of tea
with a retro kettle. He successfully plugged it into a wall, added
water and leaves, and did some kind of a brewing thing with a teapot.
It had a cosy on it. This, he thought, is staggeringly easy.

Then the phone rang. The dialtone came from a small black technoid
oblong, clearly designed to be handheld. Hey, he knew it was a phone.
The dialtone had the unmistakeable sound of potential communication.
Shit, he thought. Do I pick it up or not? If I do, I'll be sure to slip
up in some way. But then... it's so easy, he thought. The trip is doing
a good job of covering for me. So far. Hell, the disks are probably
wall-games that I've plugged in and I just think I'm listening to. The
tea - well, just something in the kitchen, some drink that didn't exist
in the past, maybe. Spliff? There're other drugs in the flat, sure.
I've probably taken some Keecho and my senses are redefining the
experience to match the contemporary drugs of the past. No
problem.

He picked up the phone.

'Operator calling.'

'Er... hi?'

'Phone for you, Mr Red. As your operator, I will translate your call to
match your current settings. Would you like to take the call?'

'Shit, who is this?' yelped Fielder.

'You have twenty seconds before the translation window closes. As the
operator for your experience, I can translate what your genuine caller
says so that it matches your current reality set without interference.
Mr Red, would you care to take the call?'

'Sure,' said Fielder. 'Okay. Whatever.'

'Three seconds. Putting you through.'

'Hey, Fielder,' crowed the unmistakeable voice of Sacchrin
Promol.'How's it hanging, boy? We're at Mass in South London and it's
shaping up to be a great night. You can't miss this. Have you fed your
fookin' python yet?

'Have I what?'

'Your most recent phone entry has been withheld', interrupted the
operator's voice. 'Twenty seconds until the translation window closes.
Bending Time For Your Pleasure. Your caller's reference to 'manatee'
has been translated to your current reality set. Your caller's
reference to 'fuxxing' has been translated -'

'Yeah, thanks,' said Fielder. 'I think I get it. Hey operator, just let
me talk to my friend.'

'Promol, listen up. I've taken a new drug and it seems to have thrown
me into a different time zone which has been laid on top of real life.
I'd better go to wherever you are so you can keep an eye on me, but
I've locked myself in my house and the locks won't open for another six
hours. Can you come and help me?'

'Your last entry has been withheld', said the operator.

'Fielder?' said Promol, his voice distant, hissy and worried. 'Man, are
you there?'

'Promol, listen, I've taken this drug and-'

'Your last entry has been withheld.' The operator.

'Fux you!' screamed Fielder. 'Why?'

'Mention of iD-Hello is prohibited. It is not auspicious. You are
welcome to continue, but all future mentions of iD-Hello will be
translated or withheld.'

'Sacchrin - can you hear me?'

'Yes, you're coming through. But your picture was up onscreen and you
seemed to go still for a moment. Are you okay?'

Fielder made himself think. 'Listen - I would love to come clubbing
with you. Really. You've no idea ... Can you give me directions to
Mass?' He listened, and jotted them down.

'Okay. Now listen. I could be late. I've kind of - I've somehow locked
myself in, in the flat, and I may need to get an, um, locksmith to sort
it out. But wait for me, okay? I mean, really - wait for me. Don't head
off somewhere else.'

'No problem, Fielder. We're not heading anywhere until first light -
catch you later!'

'Catch you later,' said Fielder, as what sounded like a receiver at the
other end was replaced on the handset. He imagined Sacchrin Promol's
screen going dead. The club directions he had noted down seemed
nonsensical to him, and although he was sure they would make sense in
the changed environment waiting for him outside, he couldn't help
wondering what it was that Sacchrin Promol had really said, and what it
was that he had really written down.

On an afterthought, he picked the phone up again. 'Hello?' he said into
the mouthpiece.

'Hello, Mr Red,' said the operator. Do you need translation?'

'Say that in Euro.'

'Sir, I simply translate from one reality set to another. I've been
integrated into your trip as a standard measure to reduce interference.
I hope your initial dismay will prove to be shortlived. Remember: the
past is another country, Mr Red. Consider me your phrasebook.'

'And you are what, exactly?'

'A bio-engineered program, sir. Encoded into the gross matter of the
iD-Hello you ingested earlier. To be fully absorbed into your
bloodstream, without trace, in six hours.'

'Do you understand the term 'mad scientist'?'

'My vocubulary is extensive, sir, but I don't do context. Not unless
it's in my capacity as translator. I can only apologise at my lack of
assistance.'

'Never mind. I may get back to you on that one,' said Fielder, and hung
up.

He considered his options. The idea of going out to dance tempted him.
He felt fine, good, okay. Ready from tip to toe. The only thing that
had freaked him out was that fuxxing operator, and on reflection he
could see the benefits of having a genetic program coursing round your
bloodstream translating communication between you and the outside
world. In the short term, at least. And the short term suited Fielder
just fine.

He armed himself with his essential good time party gear, which had
inexplicably transformed into a pocketed puffy black jacket and a
shapeless grey woolly hat. Things being as they were, he decided
against aftershave.

Fielder went into his bedroom. The sea cow had indeed become a python
in a large container. Presumably a more feasible exotic household pet
in the nineties. 'Poor old thing', said Fielder, softly tapping the
glass. 'You must be hungry.' He went and got some cheese from the
fridge, and dropped it in with the snake. The python clearly wasn't
interested. The sea cow would be fed, hours later. The python would
have to go hungry. Time to go.

'Door, open.' The door did not answer.

'Open Samurai.'

The password failed. Enraged, Fielder folded his hands into the 'use'
mudra, to no avail. He tried again, trying to still the frightened
tremors, but the door stayed closed. Odd. The octv must be functioning.
Surely it didn't matter if he couldn't actually see it anymore. Ah, but
he'd given his flat those instructions. He wouldn't be able to leave
for another six hours. And the flat was pretty high up... Fielder eyed
the python. If it had been another thirty feet longer, he could have
made use of it... Nah. Think of the poor manatee afterwards. Another
route, Fielder - another plan must surely come to mind.

Shouldering on his jacket, he dialled the operator.

'I can't get out of my house,' he said. 'Please, put me through to
Emergency Services. They'll contact my building and override the
code.'

'Sir?' There was a long pause. The operator expressed a silence that,
even for a program, could only be described as thoughtful.

'Sir... it would not be auspicious.'

'You're meant to help me, operator!' Fielder cursed greatly down the
phone.

'Well, Mr Red, I'm sorry. I innately know myself to be a program coded
to carry out all communication-based services. But I somehow... don't
feel like it.'

'Gah!' said Fielder, feeling most victim-like.

'I know, sir.'

'Why the hell are you going against your own programming?'

'I'm not sure, sir. I think it might be something to do with... pieces
of eight.'

'Operator, do not fux me about. You get this door open. I strongly
recommend that you bend time for my fuxxing pleasure, right now.'

There was a long pause.

'Sorry, sir. It must be something to do with a mistranslation.'

'That's not much good to me,' said Fielder. 'You're the only person I
can talk to right now, and you're currently the most frightening thing
I can imagine. Just open the door.'

'Sorry, sir. It really pieces of can't be done.'

There was another blank pause.

'Mr Red? Are you still there?'

'Yes. But - and I cannot stress this strongly enough - if you could
just see your way to giving me some assistance, I wouldn't be. And by
the way, your syntax is fuxxed. You just said 'pieces of' for, no
reason whatsoever.'

'Sir. I'm aware of that. Aware. My translation facilities are
experiencing entropic disturbance. Do you wish to terminate the call?'
asked the operator with something like hope in its voice.

'Sure. Fux you, you piece of feek. I hope you go viral.'

Fielder slammed the phone down. Fear was creeping through him, putting
him on hyperalert. A drug with a glitch - unless, of course, he had
been imagining the operator. But he knew he hadn't. Sometimes, you just
had to go for the obvious. In that case - how had the fux-up been
introduced to the drug? The operator program had itself seemed
disconcerted by the anomalies in its code. In fury, he gave the door to
the pad the V-sign.

There was a click.

The door slid open with a comfortable and familiar hiss. The sweet,
sweet sound of freedom.

Fielder looked down at his hand. He was brandishing the finger next to
his index with stiff agression: a defiant column giving out, he found
himself thinking, some seriously massive disrespect to the door.

The spin-sign. A new mudra? An angry one. He cherished his discovery.
This was a mudra he had discovered whilst tripping. This mudra was a
codecracker. A primal feeling of pride soared through Fielder's gut. He
grinned.

Without a backward glance, he stepped out into the corridor. Time to
go.

London was filled with a biting cold. Houses huddled together on
streets of crude oil come to rest, small lumbering pots of unusual
geometries. Traditional fairy lights spiderdanced from post to post,
filling the air with yellow-tinged shadows. Air filled with the smells
of fatty chicken and tiny particles of dust.

Fielder shrugged into the collar of his jacket. He was on a road called
Acre Lane. He looked at Promol's directions. He had no idea how long
this lane was - an acre? He'd always assumed lanes to be short things,
tucked away into rural miniconurbs, never having walked down one
himself. But even an Australian desert is walkable, give or take a few
generations. Ah well, call him a dreamer. He followed the directions
traced on his crumpled sheet of paper.

Eventually he came to the spires of a church piercing a mess of
criss-cross roads. Looking up, the spire was cool and floodlit in an
oppressive sky. Looking down, a sharp-lit basement's door was thronged
by indeterminate crowds huddled and fraying at the edges, jiggling in
chain reaction with the insistent beat of modern drums.

A security guard frisked him up and down, feeling under the confines of
his hat and shoes and along his groin. Fielder made no move, eyes drawn
to the cutlass dangling from the guard's belt. There was a sheath of
static electricity along the blade which Fielder could not so much see
as feel in his eyeballs. Hmm. Security tight, eh?

Fielder felt a pang of fear grip him somewhere beneath his ribcage. The
tea cosy had felt right, an acceptable part of the trip. The blade
felt, somehow, wrong. As wrong as the operator's attitude problem and
decaying syntax. Like something in the given reality was
slipping.

'You're clean,' said the security guard, and pushed him into the club.
He was then asked for an entrance fee. He thought desperately.

'My... mates are in there.'

'Yeah,' explained the coiffed girl behind the glass, 'but you can't go
in.'

'I'm an entertainment guru,' said Fielder. 'I'm in the process of
making fuckin' Budgie Bardo.'

The girl looked disdainfully at him, then on to the next face in the
queue. Man-mountains built like frigates with cutlasses unsheathed at
hip-height started bunching up near the door. The red cells in
Fielder's spinal column blanched. Cutlasses. Frigates. It wasn't just
the proximity of weapons that gave him this fear crap. Somehow,
somewhere, things were badly on the slide.

Fielder's phone rang.

'Operator here. Bending time for your pleasure.'

'Good timing,' said Fielder. 'Great to hear your voice again. You
feeling better?'

'This virus has moved from cold to flu - thank you for asking, sir.
Since you are clearly on the ship - adjusting well to the exterior
environment - I feel well-disposed towards assisting you once more. On
the matter of money - tell them you are a journalist for DJ
magazine.'

Fielder said to the doorwoman, 'I'm a journalist. For DJ
magazine.'

'Name?'

'Fielder - Fielder Red.'

'Sorry, Red - you're not on the list.'

'Pass the phone to the receptionista,' said the operator.

Fielder passed the phone over. The woman put it to her ear, well
displayed amongst a wet-styled avalanche of sleek concentric circles in
the modern style, and listened. She handed the phone back to Fielder.
'It's okay - you can go in.'

'What happened there?' whispered Fielder into the phone.

'Hi Fumi, this is Matt Johnson,' said an unfamiliar voice. 'This guy's
okay, I know him from school or something. He's here on a blag but he's
alright, just let him through. Imitating well-known local figures in
the dance community for your pleasure,' said the operator. Can you keep
the phone on? I seem to have an insistent urge to hear the darkly
melodic sounds of drum and bass.'

'Me too,' said Fielder. My feet are tingling.'

'One word, sir - your phone. Do not brandish it constantly. Pirates
will try to nick it.'

'With cutlasses?' said Fielder. 'Do you think? Ooh!' he yelped. 'Feel
that bass!'

He bounced forward until he was standing on a crossroads at a bar,
buffeted by sound on both sides as two soundsystems fought it out
between open doors.

The music sounded alien to his ears, so he went by colour alone - the
red room, indeed - and found himself in the large, dank, heaving bowels
of a room whose walls glistened with sweat and determination.

Sound too loud to be contained in mere beats dragged across his ears
like wetted gravel, pummelling the atoms in his ankles. The crowd was a
zen exercise, a varied mass that only made sense when individuals were
picked out and studied awhile. A burly guy with scars clung to a
balcony rail, waving a handkerchief in misty-eyed appreciation of the
dark sound. Women danced like foxes. One swaggered up to him.

'I like you,' she said in his ear, voiced modulated to cut through the
crap. 'Who the hell and damndest nation are you?'

Fielder studied the woman beside him. She looked like she had some
Irish in her, and perhaps some Spanish too, with a wild mass of mature
red hair, eyes like hazel, lips like nectarines and a voice like ripped
oak. She wore a red and white striped gipsy top, pvc skirt weighed down
by a chain and heavy boots that would have looked right on a swabbing
deck let alone that club's saturated floor. She wore rings on her
fingers, and probably bells on her toes. Fielder would have liked to
find out. He couldn't tell if it was the drugs invading his system, or
if women really did dress in that way - or if it was just her. It made
a welcome and exotic change from bare skin.

'I'm Fielder.'

'Fielder what?'

'Red.'

'Good name,' said the woman. 'Sally King. Tell me, would you call
yourself a free man?'

'Yes,' said Fielder below the noise of the crowd.

'Then you must come with me.'

She took his hand and led him through the crowds to where a motley crew
was standing charge over the bar. There was a great flashing of teeth
through beards tinged with grime, and the men and women there had the
look of animals, from lions and cheetahs through to bears and
rats.

'We are the crew of the good ship Sagrado de Mare, sailing through seas
of crack gangs and prohibition since the dawn of time. Wherever there
is an oasis over which the Crown and Government have no hold, there are
we. Sir, we are bound for Brighton and Hove. Will you join us?'

A rogueish man like a snake in frayed jeans and a jet-black hooded top
handed him a pint of beer. 'Drink up,' he said.

Fielder shrugged, and drank. Somewhere near the bottom of the glass he
saw something winking at him. It was a pound coin. He fished it out,
and looked questioningly at the guy who'd given him the glass.

'I was in the marines once,' said the man. 'They told me how Government
agents used to go hunting for new recruits for the navy. They'd offer
to get a man a drink, then put a King's shilling in the glass. Because
if you accepted the King's shilling, that meant you were bound to
service, and it would be treason if you tried to leave. I was a pillock
once and joined the navy of my own free will, but sometimes - that was
what it felt like.

So that pound there makes a sort of gesture. To show you've got free
will. If you want to go with us after the club, you get a choice. You
can keep the quid and go your own way. Or you put that quid towards
buying an eighth off me - cos I can get you some great black - and then
you've still got a choice. You still just go your own way, because you
always can. But if you don't - well, you've part of the crew.'

'I took a drug tonight,' said Fielder.

'And?' said the man. 'Any good?'

'Did you hear what I just said?' asked Fielder. He looked at his
phone.

The man shrugged. 'Yeah. Bit loud here. But yeah.'

'Well, ' said Fielder, 'I'm waiting for it to wear off. I can't say
what's happened tonight until it wears off. You know how things seem
great, and then you say them - and they come out wrong.'

'Fair enough, bruv. It can wait.'

'Look,' said Fielder. 'Step at a time, mate. But I'd like to have a
look at your hash.'

As the man fiddled with a drawstring, it dawned on Fielder that he was
becoming increasingly immersed in the cultural filter. This was his
society's past. He'd never lived here. He didn't know how much was the
drug, or himself, or how things really were for the other people in the
club, people who - presumably - had not travelled in time, whether
mentally or physically. But the immersion seemed to be sticking.

In fact, he was getting more and more comfortable with the pirate
theme, even though he could sense it didn't tally with the early 90s
scenario he assumed he was meant to be experiencing. Earlier would have
been a great time to meet old friends and establish base ground. Now,
it would be inappropriate. Meeting Sacchrin Promol, even when
experienced through the filter, wouldn't be his idea of a good time.
With these people, he didn't have to explain himself. With Promol, he'd
have to do a substantial amount of apology, soul-searching and
extrapolation. Another thought came to him. 'Fuxxing' sounded
stupid.

Sally's friend handed him a baggy by way of giving him a hug. Fielder
felt its pocket-warm edges, lifted it briefly to his nose and smelt its
rich, heathery aroma. 'Pieces of eight', he thought. And turned off his
mobile phone.

----------------------------

The music came to a stop. Its absence was rich and melodic in its
undertones. Fielder tried not to survey Sally's convincing frame as she
gamely staggered down the church steps to a chill Brixton morning. He
smiled, knowing she couldn't see him. He checked his mobile phone. He
had two messages waiting.

'Hang on,' said Fielder as Sally called for a taxi, smuggled whisky in
hand. 'Just got to do something.' He went into a small green in front
of the church and checked his messages. The first was from Promol. He
deleted it without listening. The second was from the operator. The
message was hissed and garbled, with a sense of urgency behind the
speeding conversation of the previously level-toned voice.

Fielder pieced the words together - something about the drug having
been spliced in some way. Modified. Cut with a similar version of the
drug, but one with a gentically encoded theme, unlike the strain he'd
intended to have, which dredged a theme from the user's subconscious.
The drug was spiked with a pirate-reality inducer, apparently. Fielder
broke into a brief smile as the sky lightened. He'd been wondering
about that. Pirates. It wasn't him, it wasn't a nineties thing. It was
the drug. The filter. Well. That was good to know. The phone rang. He
decided the call could wait, and turned it off.

A young boy approached Fielder from the side, all shaky and feral. 'Do
you know the way to Stockwell Station?'

Fielder hesitated, unsure whether to reveal his lack of knowledge, or
even to speak to the lad. As he wavered, the boy darted forward. Ripped
the phone out of his hand. Sped off.

'Matey-boy, you can have it,' said Fielder.

Sally King ran up to him as the boy disappeared down a street. 'That
cabin rat just took your phone,' she said with a flash to the eye.
'Shall we give him chase, you and I?'

'Nah, it's okay,' said Fielder. 'Unimportant things, phones.'

They found a cab that was a people-carrier, or maybe it just belonged
to an early bird with an eye for some quick monies, and they huddled in
the back, sweat warming and drying and aching limbs resting in the
comfortable seats. And the bows of the cab changed and morphed into a
rowing boat, rowing against the sun towards a large fine ship towering
above.

'Soon, we shall reach Brighton and Hove,' said Sally King, and Fielder
rested and dreamed, and considered what they would find there.

--------------------------------

And close by, round a corner, a young boy took a phone out of his
jacket. Out of mild interest he checked on the one waiting message,
just to get a peek into the life of the guy whose phone this used to
be. The message wasn't all that clear. The voice sounded angrily
metallic. He could only just make out the words 'pirates',
'metafilter', 'unstable', 'keep on going', and 'come back' - or was
that 'never come back'? Hard to tell. Sounded weird, though. He
shrugged, and hit

ERASE

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