Purple Monster

Ok so from my outlining I have realised that the Tower of Babel is actually some sort of super computer probably with AI capabilities – maybe even some cybernetics and I think nueral networks will definatly have to make an appearance.

But I need the essence of this giant information system that has global reach to be broken down into components that are things like the Onyx Ocelot – I’m thinking that these maybe the back-up or something but not really sure at this point.

Annoyingly though this now means that I have to look at computer arcetecture to even begin constructing this thing!

i also need a way of covering up the heavy industry that the Elves must have been mucking about with which as I’m a geologist has to be actually 100 percent viable other wise I just wont be able to write it!

Fortunatly I am married to a computer expert so it shouldn’t be as taxing as it would otherwise be!

Well wish me luck and if any one has any relavent info or ideas with this one – please let me know!

‘Can I see them?’ she asked. The Nurse brightened he even smiled at her, it was a soft gently smile and sad at the edges but it warmed her.

‘Of course you can, though Immanual is a bit of a mess I must warn you,’ he lead her out of the room and away from the cold seething Dr. She wasn’t sure but she felt the Nurse hated the Dr more than she did.

They walked into the ICU there were machines that went bleep and and the sound of bellows hissing air – somethings were just high tech versions of simple mechanical apparatus. Other things were not really recognisable as machines at all and had a greasy organic look to them. Snake lay on a bed in the corner, in a drugged sleep, reddy fluid was seeping through the white-synth cloth, wipe clean and breathable – perfect for a hospital. She sat on a stool pad that flipped out from the side of the bed. She took his hand it was cold, and waxy looking, mottled yellow and quesy pink. She felt a pressure build in her chest. His chest rose and fell in a slightly asymetrical way beling the new diamond ribs he would be sporting.

She remebered how warm he had been in her bed the almost burning quility of his skin and she wanted to weep. She kissed his fingers and the Nurse with drew discretly. She rubbed her check on him time spun away from her and she stayed pinned to him, unable to take her eyes off his blue hair – they’d shaved half of it off.

She smiled thinly at the thought of what he’d say to that when he awoke.

An hour later the nurse took her to see Bodge, he was in a High Dependency Unit and one of the greasy machines was wrapped around him with spiked tendrils puncturing his skin. It made her feel sick it was like watching an alien chow down on him. She knew what it was but that didn’t overly help. She had never felt a revultion like this when she had seen the first machanical life supports not even the Iron Lung.

‘It’s horrible isn’t it?’ the Nurse asked indicating the machine, she nodded.

‘It looks sort of organic and alive,’ she said shivering.

‘It is,’ he said, ‘Its a cyborge made with stem cell tech, it is actually working out what he needs biologically and then through nano-tech nerve splices telling the computer bits. The machine and the animal it is are inseperable.’ From the tone of his voice he really didn’t like it.

‘They are useful they save lives mechanical means couldn’t but I can’t help thinking that they are some how a huge parasitic life form we are attatching.’ He convulsed slightly in a shudder of his own.

‘Oh Bodge I’m sorry’ she whispered.

As she left the ward she felt so unbeleivably weary, the Nurse gave her a hospital meal even though the Dr maintained she had discharged herself with her refusal to let him poke around in her insides in the search of Bio-Nan.

He winked at her as he set it before her in the day room, ‘you were right to prod the Doc about Corp intervention.’ he said smiling. ‘He wont tell you this but… Snake? Will get his treatment all covered and they even said they would transfere payment from you to him ie you don’t need as much treatment as you were entitled to so they are giving it to him.’ his face dropped though. ‘It is only a fraction of what he needs but it will probably keep him alive until his next installment of medi-allowance comes in.’

She thanked him and then gobbled up the fish in white suace. She beamed her gratitude to him. At reception she had a few issues trying to get all her artifacts back. The Lasar pen was technically illegal but as it wasn’t a registered design they couldn’t proove it as such. Changed back into her Still suit gash and all she left the hospital – apparently security would soon be calling at her rooms for a chat.

She got back to her rooms and slumped on her bed fully dressed the acid pink bomber jacket and all. She slept fitfully for a couple of hours and then awoke starving. Her suit really was gashed though and she felt it needed repairing before she did anything else – just in case. If the attack was aimed at her or was just the begininning of the islands failing she’d need to bail and fast. She dug out her micro-eleectronics kit from one of the many pockets hidden in her jacket and stripped out of the suit.

She was just seeling up the cosmetic rubber type coating of the irridescant suit when a lound and perfunctional knock hit her door and echoed jarringly around her room.

She sighed and scrabbled into the suit. The repair chaffed abit on the inside – she would have to try and sort that later.

She opened the door and two Security stood there in there ‘office’ uniforms Black double breasted jackets with Russian-Oriental type frogging and fastenings. They were three quarter length with square formal cut and she almost choked shoulder pads there trousers where drain pipe tight afairs in a lycra type fitting material hugging there not skinny legs. They had curly toed black felt shoes on – completely impractical for chasing criminals but they did look kinda cute in a pixie type way.

‘Yo’ she said letting them in, ‘Bevy?’ they nodded and she flipped the switch on the kettle. Then begain the hunt for a third mug – she knew she had four so why where there only two in evidence?’

She finailly found it acting as a book mark in a tome on 20th centry atomics.

With hot drinks served all round and them perched on the limited white plastic furniture in her room. Before they could start asking her awkard questions like what her legal name was about she blasted them fortunatly she was on friendly banter terms with most of the Islands security. ‘What the hell happened last night? I thought you guys were supposed to have weapons decetors and stuff?’ She was scowling at them and to her relief they withered slightly.

‘We…er… don’t actually know to be honest. The club was attacked – they got projectile weapons in which should be impossible and they got into the restructed areas and hit the lighting curcuits. We were sort of hoping you’d have noticed something unusual?’ She shook her head – or course there had been the Goth-Chick but she wasn’t about to start spouting that kind of suspicoun – not wehn it could lead people to asking questions about her.

‘They also hit the Club,’ they said – she stared at them.

‘Anywhere else hit?’ she asked but she already knew the answer.

‘No,’ her heart sank the two places she worked had been hit. No where else and they were not the only ‘clubs’ or entertianment rooms on the Island.

‘What about the other Islands?’ she asked clutching at straws. They shock their heads black shades moving errily in her over lumed room.

‘Shit’ she said quietly.

They heard her – they had to have enhanced hearing, ‘I see you’ve come to the same conclusion as us then,’ she stiffened – what that they were hunting her down and had sent in some high end assasins?

‘The band is becoming too popular for its own good,’ she stared at them, ‘the only venues hit where the ones where [forgotten what I’ve called the band] play regually and it was in the programme that you were playing last night but not weather you were DJing or playing.’ The Security nodded sagely – she was still gaping open mouthed at them.

‘Any ideas who would have it in for the band?’ they asked. She shook her head and they nodded again – she was starting to get the feeling that she had been sent the thickies as a little bit of a joke – except they were good security guards. They had little imagination meaning that they didn’t imagine that people couldn’t do things.

They left and she showered. She wanted to wash her memories away but worries pressed in on her. This ment she was most definatly being targetted and that Snake and Bodge where laying in pieces in the Medi Unit becuase of her. She had thought it would take them longer to track her down – she supposed the band had been getting popular and that maybe some video stream had made it around to them and they’d tracked her from that. MAn she thought – with the way the tech had advanced they probably had some spider crawling through the Internet looking for her face. She shuddered inspite of the warm airated water. She stepped out of the shower and looked at her body in the mirror – she was developing a tan from sitting outside in the afternoons but was still pale from all that time she had spent in labs.

Her muscles were still taught under her skin and she looked fit apart from the new red scar, still scabby and weepy. A few white echos of older scars hovered on her skin. She patted herself dry and donned the now decontaminated Still suit. She was going to have to wear it in her sleep now – she would wear the coat too. She wondered how long Snake would need to recuperiate and weather it would be fair to take him with her – and what the hell were they going to do about their Corporate debts?

Suited up she headed out to grab a ton of take away sea food – she planned to while away the evening eating – the wound repair felt like it was scouring her stomache of its lining.

An hour and three food shops later she returned with cartons of fried sea weed, Hot Shrimp Soup, oysters, battered cod, krill burgers and many sides of cockles and welks. She set it all out on her desk and begain to eat. Her brain switching off to ponder her situation.

She still wasn’t entirely sure why *they * were after here. They had been since the beginning though. She was sure that they were involved with most of her narrow escapes and the darkest furthurest memorys of the hiding and hidden or the blood running down the walls and her home on fire – she couldn’t remember the home but the sense of what what had happened – the enormity and her vulnrability.

A child an endless child set to roam the world, it had been big and scary and full of danger and she hadn’t been an endless child she had grown up just so fucking slowely it made her cry.

All her friends died so quickly it seemed and yet her life stretched forever. She hit the desk with the flat of her hand. She glared at the girl with her ‘radical’ magenta hair and felt the chasim of loneliness open up before her. If she wasn’t careful she would fall into it and never be able to climb out.

Snorting she left the room, she had to check on Snake and Bodge – perhapse the Corp would give her a top up lone to fix Bodge – somehow she doubted it. Even if they did it would add more time on to her working on the Islands than she would ever have normally considered.

At the hosptial Snake had been moved to a prep room, ‘They are preparing him for a new lung,’ said a different nurse this one with tawny tufty hair, bleaches in mottled patches – she looked like one of the extinct mountain lions. The Punk took an instant like to her.

She went in and held the still uncouncous Snakes hand she couldn’t take her eyes off of him, the thought of losing him when she had only just had him seemed so unfair. She blased with anger and stared in a glazed space untill they wheeled him out for the surgory.

The dream was a pit, a large deep pit with steep sides, she was down the bottom of it. There were names for such places, places they put you to forget you existed. Darkness pressed in on her, vague shapes and the feel of old spongue bone rotting benieth her leathered shoes. Ooglyette. She was in an ooglyette but she was floating in a dream. It was a dark deep dream and faces flew through the murk, ghosts of the chilldren burned, she felt the cold seep into her, deep in her bones, but she could not shudder.

Children, they had taken them, they had taken villages, everyone but she was here in a pit. She screamed.

Bright blue light from an over bright LED gluster scorched her like the sun, she was on a hard, narrow bed, It was obviously one that changed shape – she could feel the slight wrinkling around the fold joints. A thin poly sheet lay on top of her. It was white with a blue waffle blanket over the top of, the blanket was also light weight, they were warm enough but some how it was insubstantial she prefered to feel the weight of a blanket over her.

The world did seem a bit shimmery even when she had gotten used to the harsh light, she wanted to close them again and curl into a ball but movement showed her that she was injuried and curling up was not even to be entertianed as pain induced nuasea hit her.

An involuntary gasp left her, movement in the room instantly responded to it. A white shinning angle with blonde hair stood over her, the hair was white streaked and cut to a perfect bob. Flint eyes looked at her, the nurse smiled, ‘Ah so you are awake!’ he said checking her pulse and frowning again. Damn how different was she? It had cuased problems with medical stuff before – what had they noticed?

‘You’re recovering from your injuries remarkably fast, even with the coagulent we were suprised that your blood pressure stayed quiet high.’ That smile again and white square teeth, Artificial and lovely.

She nodded, and tried to think fast, ‘Mods,’ she said finially. ‘Peristalisis’ the nurse nodded, inside she breathed a sigh of relief – the first time modern meds had spotted this phenomina there was nothing in the way of cybernetics, no heart transplants even and even one hundred years ago she would have been disected or killed as a suspected war weapon.

But now things had moved on, many things were not quiet there but having body mods that kept your blood pressure stable with blood lose was definatly within the bounds of the current technology.

They were however expensive and not something a two bit singer in a cruise island would be expected to have. She may have just exchanged one problem for another. She would have to think on that one.

He took some other measurements and then tucked her in he was about to leave when she grabbed his arm memories hissed into her mind, ‘Snake Bodge?’ His eyes dimmed with sympathy.

‘I will find out about your friends,’ he said soothingly she could tell he was laying, he knew how they were, she refused to let him go.

‘Please tell me?’ It was almost a sob but she felt too dead inside it was like she no longer cared but there was a driving force – she had too know had to find out, had to know if she had saved him or weather they had perished becuase she was being hunted down by them again.

‘I will need to check’ he said gently removing her fingers from around his arm.

She lay back and drifted in apathy. Snakes moan echoed in her head.

Food arrived and she could have sat up herself though was releived to have the help of nurse. He propped her up and she looked forlornly at the ceral hoops floating in milk-synth. ‘No pilchards on toast?’ she asked.

He smiled, ‘I think thats the first time they’ve ever been requested – I don’t think the kitchen stocks them I’m afriad though I personally love them.’ he winked and she blushed, feeling a betrayal somewhere deep within herself.

She spooned the ceral resentfully into her mouth and chewed mechanically – it tasted like soggy cold cardboard. She then pushed the serving arm away from her and stared remosly at the scene generator on the wall. Little white clouds scudded across a pale blue sky, it was very out of sync with the dark blue broiling sky that was the reality on the cruise islands.

The images always rang false too her – the same had happened to TV it was like someone had put a green filter on the world. The reds were muted or just plan wronge.

Time seemed to drag and the white of the room pressed in on her – why they thought white was a good colour for the sick she never did quiet understand.

She could almost feel the wound healing itself – the tissue knitting itself back together again. By the time lunch arrived – meat synth pate on more cardboard – at least they had given her a side garnish of dark green salad, she was feeling decidedly twitchy with cabin fever.

The Nurse came back with the Dr who insisted on examining her wound even though she was mantaining it was fine. He looked at the wound and then at her.

‘This has healed too fast?’ She nodded.

‘Mods,’ she shrugged hoping he’d drop it.

‘What type?’ he asked quickly.

She shrugged again. His eyes darted over her body, she started to feel the familiar unsease – this was going to turn nasty if she wasn’t careful.

‘I worked as a body guard for on of the cyber tech companies, it was part of my contractional rates,’ she shrugged, she been working on a cover story during her lethagy and guarding a nano-tech or cyber-surgion seemed the best way to end up with maraculous healing powers. the fact that her ability to heal well predated the technology that was steadily appearing wasn’t something this dr was going to find out.

Besides she didn’t actually knew why she healed up and stuff – she’d studied some of it as a side line whilst in academia but as she hadn’t involved many other people her knowledge about her own functionality was limited.

‘I’d like to examine you furthur’ he said with that greedy gleam she hated so much.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said flipping herself off the bed – there were still sharp pains puncturing her but she could walk and she really didn’t want him proding her around. ‘I’m under contract,’ she said shrugging and she noticed with some saticfaction that his shoulders sagged with resignation.

‘You know it hurts when I have people in who could be saved by the sort of tech you have inside you and they die,’ it was a guilt tactic – she saw it for what it was but it didn’t make her feel any better.

‘You just hope to reverse engineer it and get a patent of your own Doc, I can see it in your eyes, you don’t care – your nurse there he cares – you dont.’ it was cutting and snide but from his blustery protests she knew she was right.

‘Now where are my friends and what the hell happened last night?’ she was growling with worry and anger. The security on the cruise islands was supposed to be beyound reproach. Any resort was under strict rules otherwise people just would not come to them, not after the Disgney Land Blitz incident 50 yrs previously. A tragidy that big doesn’t fad easily from the collective memory especially when relatives and even some of the survivors where still alive.

‘Ah, yes the Security patrols will be wanting a word with you as soon as your fit, your friends however, both are in a bad way. Without private investiment at least one of them will die. We’ve done all we can within our budgets.’ She wanted to hit him, it was all so calculating she wanted to scream.

‘Have you told the Corp about them yet?’ she asked she was pretty sure the Corp would pay for Snake Bodge she wasn’t so sure about. But they had already invested heavily in Snake and the cost of the medi treatment would be small compared to what he was doing for them – at least she hoped that was the case.

He shock his head, ‘they generally don’t pay for menuals though I was going to give it ago as you are obviously part of the entertainment core and sometimes your worth stupid amounts for no apparent reason.’ He looked like he was eating something sour as he said this.

She smiled wanely, ‘I would check if I was you – if they wont cough up please tell me. How bad is it please?’ she hated the desperation she heard in her voice and hoped it wasn’t obvious to the dr. He was a shelfish git and she wanted to remove his vitals – slowely and with a blunt spoon. She started grinding her teeth with annoyance realised what she was doing and stopped.

‘Well Petre Gandine suffered massive internal bleeding and a collapsed lung from the pressure bullet, he has had to be transfused and we have given him a mega platelette infusion so that he can cope with the lack of oxygen. The lung is pretty mangaled and we have had to reconstruct the rub cage with synths he was lucky his heart was only bruised. He needs a new lung but we are out of budget for that unless the Corp pay up or he lives for another two weeks under the Geneva Medi-Tech Incentive.’ She nodded the Medi-Tech Incetive was there to save people with no pool of cash waiting to randomly bail them out. Insurence was something most poeple had but was limited as to what sort of incidents it was cover – a terrorist act would not be covered by Snakes basic insurence she was sure.

‘And his head wound?’ she asked fearing the answer.

‘Superfisial damage – if he survives there should be no lasting brain impairment,’ the dr said. She gritted her teeth again – why did people like him think that it was a good idea to scare awkard patients/customers with techno-babble. She understood it all but she also knew that someone in her possition shouldn’t be able to understand it all.

On the plus side she know knew that Snake wasn’t Snakes legal name.

‘And Bodge?’ she asked.

He sneared slightly at her use of the nicknames, the nurse was looking sad and slightly sick behind him. ‘Mr Immanuel Jung is in a bad way. He is on life support and needs major organ reconstruction, pretty much everything I’m afraid and even if he was a top executive I could not invision the Corp paying for him.’ She felt cold.

‘He’s brain function if he survives may well be impaired we have not bothered with scans yet as it would be a waste of medical resources.’ She shivered.

His cold eyes glinted at her malcously. ‘Ok thankyou’ she said.

She did have resources she could tap for cash but it wouldn’t be easy and it could cuase her problems – she owed the Corp a lot of money for the sky bike and if she suddenly turned up with a disposable income they might start asking questions as to why she was paying them off with her pathetic wages. The other issue was she’d have to leave the curse island to sort or else trust somebody. She wasn’t due any holiday – not proper leave time – not why she owed so much money.

The Corp controlled the islands, they contolled her rotor and her wages, her housing adn her clothing alloance. It was sort of slavery, sort of bondage but it was heavily governed by the big bods at geneva. Therefore she got food alloance, she got clothing she got days off and recreation money. The fact that all these were given to her in Corp credits that were only redeemable on the Islands was a moot point.

Beggining: waking up in a hospital unit

Middle: issues over unusual biology

End: finding out the state of Bodge and Snake

After struggling yesturday saw me writing 4,000 wordds and tip over the 30 k boundary – this made me very happy.

I then stopped and did some background reading so that today at the write-in in Cheltenham I would be raring to go. Our ML was sick (the person who organises stuff in our Nano region but I didn’t know this as I leave straight after the school run. I’ve gone along to a few of the other write-ins and found that I need to turn up a bit early to get the writing process going before people to talk to appear. I live in an isolated valley so when there are people to chat to I tend to – er… CHAT.

Anyway today I sat there in the Star Bucks from 9:30 till 2 with packing laptop up for loo and more coffee trips – no one else turned up and this was a little upsetting for me as feeling part of a communiuty with writing gives me sort of co workers and I look forward to meeting poeple.

The other issue is that not knowing everyone on the list of people who could turn up I spent alot of time looking expectantly at the people coming up the stars leading to an incident with a middle aged man.

But mainly what happened is I sat there with no note book, no back ground reading and just the laptop – the result was by the time I left the coffee shop I had 5,000 odd words and an almost completed chapter six!

I sort of want to make it a round 6,000 before bed but not sure if thats going to happen. However I have noticed that the more words I write in day the lower my rate of actually writing is which is interested.

When I got home I found I had a message from the ML apologising for not being there.

I’m going in again tomorrow just in the afternoon this time as I have a poetry reading in the evening – I am hoping that I can repeat the process – I went and asked in the Costa’s in the bookshop weather they had plugs and where happy for me to plug in my laptop – they said yes – I sort of prefer writing there so I think thats where I’m going to be 🙂

Large gold crosses and stain glass saints were still in evidence but no large crucifixtion effigies, for that she was emmensly grateful. Continual badly redured reminders of what had happened hurt her inside in away she knew to be a weakness.

Her top lip became prickled with moisture – fever was starting and even her immune system had succumed. She wanted food and rest. After the meal she went and settled down in her cell, no one argued no one made her go to afternoon vespers but she could not sleep. Her mind kept turning to the past, to all those who had died in the name of religon and she had to fight the urg to destroy the monastry herself. She kept hoping Matthew would come and see her but he didn’t of course he wouldn’t be excuessed from his chores. She felt guilty and the hunger was gnawing at her, she needed more food – they had bought her lunch to the room and she had gulped the grey gellatonous soup down as if it had been the tastest thing ever – in trueth it was bland with a side order of luke warm.

She sat and read some of the set texts sighing over how hard the medieval text actually was to read – sure it all looked pretty but the monastry had some really old books and gaps between words was still a relatively new thing. They’d got it in their heads that the harder you had to work to decipher the message on the page the closer to gods true message you got. She was glade that chanting and things had come in and to be quiet honest grammer was needed to read the writings out loud.

The scroll work around the edge of the page was bueatiful and she had done her own versions of it in the past but really as an information conveying document it was pretty useless and she had to read it. The older monks would be asking her about it – it was part of her education and it was quiet frankly once she managed to work out what a sentence said – a load of drivel.

A sense of wasted time begain to kreep in on her. She was just considering trying to remember her way back to the kitchens for some attmepted food theift when Matthew and Henry appeared. Henry looked slightly tense and like he was going to burst she hoped he wasnt still planning on hitting poor Matthew for her sake.

‘A messangers come from London!’ he exclaimed his green eyes flaring breifly, ‘we’re off the hook!’ she stared at the red headed boy berwildered as to what he was talking about.

‘Only maybe Henry and they wont let you just be a normal merchant or Lord anyway – you know that.’ Matthew said solomely.

‘Yes yes of course but this time I’m sure about it, I just hope…’ he trailed off remembering he wasn’t on his own. ‘I hope she doesn’t miscarry a boy like my aunt did.’ there was a resingned sadness in his voice and she found herself staring at him. ‘You know she’s technically my aunt too?’ he said suddenly his mouth twisting in distate.

She shock her head – she didn’t really have a clue what he was talking about.

‘Jane Seymore – the Queen? She was married to my uncle. The King got rid of him at the same time as my aunt.’ he said the words with venom. And she wondered what it must be like knowing you father who wants you as king was responsible for the destruction of you mothers social status, and the deaths of her siblings. Her gut cramped – she thought that was a fair enough assessment.

‘Anyway if its a boy we’ll be off the hook! Becuase it wont be a bastard and there wont be any hohar over him being king – I’m hoping for a boy.’ He said enthatically. She nodded her head vaccantly – a slight headache was building.

She tugged Matthews sleeve, ‘I know this will sound odd but is there anyway of getting more food than the meals round here – I was in the woods living rough for a while and my system isn’t quiet back together again. I’m so hungry.’ Her stomache growled and the two boys grinned at each other.

‘Of course there is! But erm… its not really official shall we say.’ Carey grinned and so did MAtthew she raised her eyebrow at them.

‘Do you feel well enough to come with us?’ Henry asked but Matthew shock his head and refused to listen to her protests, ‘there will be other times you can come and see – you need to rest – I can see your sick and Henry shouldn’t have asked!’

They left her and headed out to get food from their mysterious secret place – she stared listlesly out of the window the sky as always these days was grey – dampness permeated the air. she wondered how long before blight on food crops would be starving the emrald isle. Damp mild conditions bred funguses that killed off crops. She shuddred to think of these poeple starving – they were eratic enough as it was – probably the religon that did it.

A falcon shriek peirced the air and she wrapped her blanket around herself. The sound seemed to echo off the stone, she felt colder and older than she had for a long time.

They returned with cold meats, dried wrinkled fruits and flaggons of ale, wine adn mead, she googled at the cheeses and fruit cake, there was a pie and one large cottage loaf of bread. ‘Where on earth?’ the monastry did not go in for fancy foods so pies and the like were out as was fruit cake. And there was no way they would have gotten away with taking this amount of stuff from the kitchen ladders.

‘There’s a lovely widow in the village – she likes to see growing boys well fed!’ they grinned cheekily and she grinned back the smell of the bred was making her stomache growl. She sat down to devour it with one of the cremer cheeses. It was remanicent of the white rinded Cheeses she’d had in France except it didn’t stink.

It also tasted perceptably different, ‘goats cheese?’ she asked.

‘Nah sheep, thats what half the arguments have been about you know – dam sheep.’ She looked at Carey slightly suprised.

He scratched the back of his head with embarrassement, ‘sorry but its part of my education – sort of policy and stuff I think the idea is it’ll make me a better king or something.’ She nodded but was perplexed as to who sheep could be cuasing that much of a problem.

‘Whats wrong with sheep?’ she asked ripping off another huge lump of crusty bread – it was still warm, normally she didn’t go for things like bread and pulses her system seemed to prefer meat and leaf salads with maybe some sort of sort fruit type thing but the hunger was gnawring at her.

‘Its all abit silly really especially with whats happened to the monastrys – but most people lived as famers growing their own food and giving a chunck of it or takings from selling it to the landlord who actually owned their land but sheep have become the thing – cloth trade of all things – its quiet rediculas – started with my grandfather really but anyway becuase of cloth prices in Europe sheep bring in lots of money for little invested and few employers. So… ‘

‘They tuffered all the farmers?’ she interupted.

He nodded and shrugged. ‘Seems a bit silly to me after all we will need to eat as well as cloth ourselves and I know alot of stuff comes from abroad or even straight from the sea but we need vegitables reguardless of what my old nan used to say!’ She smiled at that one – vegitables had been renigated as a poor food – as something that would make you sick by not being nutrisous enough. It was bizar.

She hacked off a chunk of salted beef – it was tough to chew but was hitting the spot. Matthew was glaring at her. ‘What?’ she said spraying food everywhere.

Henry laughed, ‘You’ve forgotten what day it is haven’t you?’ She smaked her forhead with her hand – of course they had really strict rules about what was to be eaten on what days – and to make it worse it was religon that had dictated the days.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered once she had swallowed the remainder – she wanted to chew alot more of the rough tough beef but Matthew seemed to be quiet conventional when it came to food.

‘Your lucky,’ he snarlled, ‘if you were seen by other you’d find yourself arrested – they are militant about it and they are getting more so’ Ah no she hadn’t realised that.

Chuckling Henry left them, she looked at Matthew ‘I am really sorry you know.’ she said when she noticed he was still glaring at her.

‘I wish you hadn’t come here,’ he said darkly. Startled she looked at him, he was ridged with tension and his eyes shone too brightly. ‘I’ve spent ages trying to be a good novice and then you show up.’

‘How do I affect you being a good novice?’ she asked beweildered.

‘You look at me in that way and I’m going to have to go to confession! I never have to confess much and I don’t know what to confess without getting you in trouble.’ He sat on his bed shaking from the intesnisty of what he was saying.

‘You must have looked at other girls?’ she stated. He blushed and she knew then he had struggeled highly with the concept of pure abstanance. ‘Have you slept with any?’ the blush rose higher, he would not meet her eyes, ‘Brother Barnabos said that it was a moment of weakness and I’d be fine as long as I stayed away from girls.’ He bit his lip, she nodded absently.

‘The Widow has duaghters?’ she asked suprising herself, he looked away from her sharply.

‘Its a dangerous time for Monks to have concubines,’ he muttered.

‘You could leave the order?’ she asked he laughed mirthlessly.

‘My family have disowned me I have no income and I would need the Abbots blessing to go to a village as their lay preacher and it couldn’t be here – I couldn’t take her… or you with me.’ he sounded miserable and confussed.

‘And even if I got her to come with me he said no.’

‘Why’d he do that,’ she asked. He didn’t answer and the conversations of the previous night crept up on her. She patted his arm and smiled sadly.

‘I’m sorry you know but I can’t pick my sex nor control your emotions.’ she wanted to stroke him but now the situation was vastly more complecated – did he actaully love the girl in the village and if not was she pregnant – his cagyness made him think she might well be. But weather he realised he had or not he had confessed to at least being attracted to her – of course she was female and trapped in a very enclosed space with him. She was also starting to feel weary with the infection.

‘You should eat some more,’ he said suddenly, ‘but we need to stash this lot and then I’ll keep watch whilst you eat more of that salt beef.’

She thanked him and they proceeded to hide the food in concealed crevices around the room, ‘erm… Matthew?’ she said.

‘Yes?’ he replied.

‘Do you get a cell for life or are there novice cells and Abbot cells and the like?’ he looked at her puzzeled.

‘These are novice cells of course they are the smallest… Oh! I see yes that means they will know about the crevices doesn’t it?’ he smiled quirkily at her. ‘I should think that some of the older ones even made some of the crevices! But don’t worry they can’t admit to them being there without incriminating themselfs!’ he was grinning a wide lovely grin now – she grinned back and started chewing her salt beef. She yawned but thought it was such a shame she was too tired to suduce him.

She watched him pouring and mixing and studded her arms, the chickens had been quiet scary, she supposed most people wouldn’t have continured after the first one maybe two pecks but her pain thresh hold was high and she had lived in places were if you didn’t carry out the request no matter what you where facing death or worse the deaths of those too weak to work.

MAtthews behaviour was also remarkably odd and she couldn’t quiet place, he seemed to be struggling inside and the cuts had just sort of broken something in him. ‘Why are so concerned with the cuts?’ she asked suddenly breaking the silence, her voice seemed to loud in the confined space. He continued to saok a piece of rag and then he grabbed her wrist. His grip hurt and she had to fight down the urg to flip him and run. He begain to clean the peaks. It was… excrusiating and she knew all about pain. She gritted her teeth to stop from calling out, she held her arm ridged to prevent her from whipping it back. The hard tension of her arm would be making it more painfull but she was having a proud moment and nothing would make her cry at this junctor.

‘Philip did the same, but I didn’t see the scratches until they were festered and he was running the fever.’ MAtthew said quietly and carmly.

‘Philip?’ She asked though the exertion in holding back the pain rocked her voice.

‘My brother, we shared this cell, he had only just arrived, 12 yrs old. They say you are Master then but he was still so young.’ The voice was dead and it sank into her mind and rested at its centre she felt the dread, she knew what was coming but also knew he had to tell her. She wanted to scream stop at him, but his pain was already her’s.

‘He died I nursed him for 3 weeks but the fever burnt him up and his lips went blue and his breathe fast and weak. My family have disowned me.’ He begain to slosh orange liquid on the wounds and then begain to clean everything up. She watched him in mute silence. She wanted to comfort him but she couldn’t.

‘How’d he get scratched?’ she asked finially. The words were jarring and ugly.

Matthews shoulders slumped, ‘he was helping harvest the gooseberies and sloes.’ She nodded, the plants both had long viscous spikes and an over enthusiastic 12 yr old boy could well hurt himself quiet badly if he had never under gone manual labour.

‘It my fualt.’ he said quietly.

‘No its not, he would have been the same with anyone who took him to harvest.’ she shock her head emthatically. He smiled, it seemed twisted.

‘I ment you,’ he said simply.

‘Oh.’ She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

‘I wanted to show you how unglamours life her could be, you shouldn’t be hiding here like this.’ He wasn’t meeting her eye – this seemed to be his perpetual state and it was starting to grate.

She snorted, ‘Do you know how I ended up with the priest?’ she asked half angry half amused. He shook his head.

‘I was living in a self built hovel in the woods – the cathedral was in ruins and he was injuried in the burning remains. Glamour is not something I’m looking for, and as for hard work, you don’t know how hard it can be. You work hard as monks but you get down time, you get to sit and think during prayers and thats more that alot I’ve known.’ The anger was bubbling up in her and she wanted to hit him. Wanted to punch the stone walls, she hated him and the world he represented and herself as she didn’t fit in, she never did. All the different cultures she had seen she was emulating them, she didn’t truelly fit in any of them. A memory battered against her, she ignored it.

He looked perplexed and ashamed, ‘I thought… I assumed you were some catholic lady he’d rescued?’ He looked concerned. ‘Why the lie about being Henrys half brother?’ he asked.

‘That was his idea, I got cuaght, they thought I was some lords son or something becuase I speak French and Latin and my English – well its not the English I learnt, its… changed.’ these conversations always did her head in – she had to give him enough so that he saw where she was coming from but not enough to have him panic and think her either mad or demon possessed.

He frowned, ‘But if your not from one of the noble houses then were are you from,’ she sighed she’d been hoping to avoid that question. She looked at him and then away agian quickly what could she tell him? That she was from nowhere, that she’d been everywhere? That wouldn’t sit well with him and could cost her her life.

‘I… I don’t know,’ she sagged. ‘All I remember was shouting and screaming and… blood.’ when in doubt tell the trueth was one of her mottos it had worked well in the past.

He nodded and to her suprise he put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it slightly awkardly but very companionly. She felt the warmth of him spread through her. He smiled saddly at her, she smiled back, emotions rocking her from the core, she swallowed them down and put a big rock on top.

‘Did you have brothers or sister that you remember?’ he asked gently. She nodded, that was the thing that always spiked the grey of her memory. Large liquid eyes darker than midnight, and then the others – the ones like her less elegant perhapse but long lived like her. And humans there had been humans too.

‘My brother was strung up, on a cross, I saw him.’ Her voice broke and she felt the weakness of sadness pour in, this things these events had centeries possibly thousands of years between them and yet her mind always trudged one tradigy out with another – if she didn’t quash them she would drown in their misery. He sat down heavily next to her.

‘Sounds like you got cuaght up in the Underground religous war in Europe, the Luthur and Anabaptists have a tendency to ended up with familys masacared.’ He said patting her hand awkardly.

She nodded, ‘They also sluaghtered enough of the Catholics in regions they’ve taken over.’ she shuddered. It was the same a the crusades the same as so many other wars. Humans were good at spilling each others blood, she wondered if it was part of their design, she didn’t mean in a god type way and she couldn’t track down the origion of the thought. She shrugged and turned to Matthew.

‘So what’s going to happen to me?’ It was a blunt question but she wanted to feel safe if only for a little while.

He shrugged, ‘Well I wont tell them about you, I thought about it – most of last night, your an abomination to the teachings, technically I think you count as a witch.’ he looked into her eyes in this climate they were a grey green though they had turned brown in the deserts and cobolt blue on the tundra. They flicked from side to side as if he were searching for the evil in her, ‘but I’ve seen you harm no body and from what you’ve said you saved at least one life.’ He shrugged.

‘But you should leave, you should get marriad – we could say you were a nun – I hear they are arranging marrages for those they haven’t burned.’ she shook her head.

‘Marrage I don’t think will suit me,’ she said quietly, besides his closseness was starting to drive her wild once more. She looked at him from under her lashes.

‘Don’t…’ he said, ‘Just don’t.’ He got up and walked out of the cell. She kicked off her foot covering and drew her knees up under her chin. This was either going to be heaven or hell and MAtthews self control and guilt levels would govern which was to be the outcome. She curled herself up into the tightest ball she could manage and tried to trap the warmth he;d given her.

Half an hour later and Henry came bounding into her cell, looking angry and flustered, ‘are you ok?’ he said grabbing her peaked arms to studdy them. He clucked his tongue and then flopped down dramatically on the seat next to her. ‘That idiot Matthew – I tried to tell you this morning, you shouldn’t do the menial tasks, your being trained up as a possible heir, your supposed to spend your time studying or hunting not collecting eggs adn risking death from some ransid cuts. If your injured hunting or even killed they will make a song or at least a tapastry about you if you die from fever from chickens you’ll be swept aside in history!’ He’d stood up again and was pacing backwards and forwards in the suddenly too small room.

‘He should hav e known better but he gets ideas in his head like “a monastic education should include the earthly toil as well as the latin” idiot the complete idiot. It’s just becuase he’s from the merchant class, and now they have a little power they think the whole country should bow to them!’ And so he continued for several minutes getting more and more wound up until he was starting with threats of violence towards MAtthew.

‘No don’t hit him please, it was my fualt honest, he didn’t make me go to the hen house I wanted to do the minual stuff’ she interserted between bouts of almost hysterical anger.

‘He cleaned me up too – look he took me to some old monk to ask for medical supplies and stuff.’ Carey nodded and then sat down heavily.

‘Sorry I get a bit carried away! I was a bit shaken this morning – theres news that a friars been hung in his own gatehouse. Things are starting to get out of control. I know this monastry was chosen for us becuase it leans towards the new religion but The King is killing Anabaptist for herasey the same as the Catholics and I’m not sure what he’s counting as wwhich religion.’ She nodded the country was onn the brink of a change or possibly just annialation. Under such cercumstances the monastry could be a haven or a prison and only time would tell. New laws on vagrancy were being passed so wondering the English country side was out.

For the time beign she was trapped and Henry more so. ‘I was just worried about you – you feeling ok?’ She shrugged, her teeth had begun to throb adn she was starving hungry. These were indicators she was fighting an infection off. She should have been more careful.

‘Anyway its also breakfast time – you coming?’ he did seem genual concerned, she nodded and followed him out of the cell after reappying her foot coverings.

Again the breakfast was cold and it bearly touched the sides – she was still so hungry she was starting to wonder if there was a way of gettin extra food – she’d ask Henry at some point but a wave of tiredness hit her. Her body was reserving resources to fight the infections.

She decided she really really hated chickens, but then the thought of roast chicken sneaked into her mind and she begain to salivate again.

The meal was consumed in silence – all of them sitting on long wooden benches at long wooden tables she looked around and was suprised at the lack of icons in the room. Instead of every inch of stone and wood being painted in clashing colours and intracate patterns – all meaning something they were just bear yellow sandy collums with little fluting. It was a very simple building compared to the other religous institutions she had been in.

Ok so I thought I’d best keep track of my main characters

• good guys:

The Punk

Henry Carey

Matthew A novice at the monestry

Catherine Carey

Nurse Maid

The Punks Band – Snake and Bodge

Bad Guys or unlickable for some reason:

The assasin – Goth Chick

‘Good elf’

‘Bad Elf’

You may have noticed there was no Punk excerpts the last few days – this is unfortunatly becuase there were none. I was doing really well averaging 3000 words a day but then I got sick during the first week – when I say sick it was a whole saga of emergancy Drs appointments and orders to rest and pain killers that make it hard to think. But ironically this did not impact on my word count – infact it helped it blossum.

Then however, my family came to visit and that was it – up the creek without the proverbial paddle. I was still scrabbling between 500 and 1500 a day but the productivity dwindled especially after an incident with my four year old and ‘pretend’ paint. Said pretend pain was in fact water and we thought we’d caught her when she had only done one room – namely the bathroom but we were mistaken.

A mistake I only discovered at bedtime – her bedroom had been decorated in imaginary paint too – including her bed and all the bedding. I was days clearing this lot up and on top of my meds and what have you I was just too worn out and tired.

So I was just about managing to keep pace with until the rest of my family turned up for a weekend visit and today I finially got a chance to write after 3 days and I managed around 1500 ontop of 500 I had managed over the weekend. I am now scheduled to finish on the 30 November – this morning it was the 1st December – I just couldn’t have that! Though I realise that if the family come back again that completion date will get furthure and further into the future and there is nothing I can really do a bout it.

On the plus side it does mean I have sneaked in a bit more back ground reading – something I am starting to really feel the lack of here!

I am hoping productivity will increase again 🙁 wish me luck!

The dream flickered and there was shouting, there was a buzz in her head, the intensity pounding out thought, she was hiding hidden, flames licking at surfaces the sky a charred ruin, her lungs clogged and she choked.

Suffocating she awoke.

Darkness pressed in on her and the air was a damp chill pressing in on her face, the stone bunk she was on seemed to be drawing all the warmth out of her body. A clanging painfull noise peirced her head, she had a blocked nose and a headache. It was early in the morning and she ffelt dreadful.

Movement from the other side of the room cuaght her attention, Matthew appaered to be up and already dressed, ‘You awake?’ he hissed at her.

‘Yes, what time is it?’ She asked feeling annoyed – he’d woken her up with his movement and with the clanging of the damn bell there was no way she would be able to get back to sleep.

Light flared with a the smell of sulphur, and Matthew lit a few of the candles about the place. A fussy warm light filled the room but it was somehow fuzzy and didn’t reach the edges of the room, flickering the way it was it felt insubstancial against the chill spring weather.

He looked over at her bunk, ‘Are you actually going to get up?’ he asked abit shortly.

Realising that she was in a Monestry and remembering what the ones in France had been like she scrambled out of bed and begain to get dressed in a woozy sort of way. Matthew hurriedly tried to turn away from her. She collided with him anyway. He recoiled and she felt a sadness spread inside her. His long fingers patchy from the cold wrapped themselves around a candle to busy himself with more candle lighting.

‘So what time is it?’ she asked. Looking at the sky through the unpanned window she was sure it was pretty early 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning and they had stayed up too late chatting about princes and successions.

‘4:30 of course we have half an hour before morning pray, then you and me are going to clean the chicken house out and collect the eggs to deliver to the cook.’ there was a grit in the boy-mans voice. A resentment that had not been there before.

‘Ok,’ she shrugged and washed her face in icy water. The sting of the cold made her a little more awake and set about arranging her bed. Her skills as someone in a Holy order where out of practice but making everything in order seemed to cheer Matthew up at least.

He even smiled at her as they left the room.

Morning pray was as always a trial for her, she had to maintain silence and an uncomftable position, she had always struggled with this sort of thing her system seemed to brim with a sort of vibrating energy. It ment her responses were good and she noticed things and could get stuff done and it wasn’t like she didn’t like sitting still becuase she did but when she wanted to. Her stomache was also complaining quiet heavily, months of malnutrition didn’t go away in a few weeks. And before that time her system had been healing so no reserves had been stored. Even if she was eating four square meals a day she would still be hungry.

She tried not to fidget and pondered on why she was apparently going to stay here. She had a horrible feeling it had nothing to do with self preservation and everything to do with a cute gangly novice who was being sultary at her. Matthew’s physique was indeed the type she went for and the burning intensity present in his eyes was enough to make her fall straight into the self destructive abyss that was was her in Love. Her in love resulted in others safty coming before hers, of her doing stupid things that often resulted in pain both emotional and physical, it lead to a desolate place where she found herself more on her own than she had at the beginning and yet she craved it. She knew how it always ended – either she watched them slowely die, tearing herself up over it or she watched them drift away when the urg for children finially drove them from her embrace.

She felt sick inside but Matthew was kneeling next to her and a sweat warmth was radiating off of him. She wanted to taste those lips that were stained with the metaphysical blood of christ, she wanted to lay with him, but knew how dangerous that would be. Love taken unthinkingly of those so deeply indoctronated could lead them to self hate and the turning of the blame onto the object of their affection. Many times had a girl been burnt for witchcraft becuase an Abbot or similar had desired her or unthinkingly she had seduced the young and zelost novice.

It wasn’t even like holy men where a novelty for her especially in a time when the oath of chastity where more about not marrying than about sex at least with the priests in the villages and towns those who lived a monastic existance had generally sworn off the carnal as well as the marital status. She wondered if Matthew was there for religon or education?

She felt it would be the access to knowledge that would be driving him rather than a devout christian need but then they could be the most dangerous. A man who doubts his supposed convictions and who’s power relied on being seen to have those convictions would be more likely to over react, to carry them to knew and torturous extremes than a man who truelly believes.

She sighed loudly getting herself a glare from a young Monk opposite her, off course he wasn’t supposed to be looking at anyone whilst praying but he was glaring at her with an intensity equal to Matthews, but there was a greasy feeling to it. She took an instant dislike to him.

The prayer session dragged on and on and her thoughts stretched to fill the gap, she felt a stab of memory at a monks particular pronouncement in latine – his accent stiring within her the old latin she knew. This modern stuff sounded so course and well lout-ish too her.

And then just as her mind started to find the space to turn around and look at itself – a place she found refreashing and the worst possible place to end up, the prayer session ended and she was heading out to do chores with Matthew. Carey noticed them heading out the door and tried to intercept but the albino dragged him away. The young prince looked over his shoulder puzzeled at her.

Finially they reached a door that lead outside outside and not just into some inner court yard, little squares of grass with maybe one tree. The air somehow felt freasher. She laughed at the sky and then shut it off abruptly when MAtthew glared at her.

‘Sorry,’ she muttered and followed him sullenly across the damp grass to were the animals were kept. He gave her a basket and they ducked into the hen house, it stunk, messy splodges covered everything, her feet slide on them. She wanted to hold her breath but knew that it would only make worse on the giant intake of breath she would have to make. She hurriedly begain to hunt for eggs amongst the aggressive chickens. Reptilian eyes stared at her from the roasts and her arms were scratched to ribbons before she had half filled the basket. She really hated birds in enclosed spaces like this, somehow she got the feeling they were going to eat her if she stayed still long enough.

The drizzel of the morning greeted them as they left the animals, she breathed the air in gratefully. ‘You arms look bad,’ Matthew said suddenly, he was looking at the spots of blood dripping onto some of the speckeld shells.

‘They’re fine.’ She said looking away from him, for some reason she wanted him to think her tough and reliable. They walked to the kitchens in silence, the lack of spoken words was starting to grate on her even though she had spent all those months in isolation, normally she would have found voices loud and jarring but this time she needed the companionship the voices brought. A monastry was not the best place for this.

They placed the baskets on the sides she hovered whilst Matthew had a brief and animated conversation with an old wirey monk, everything about him seemed to be made of old iron. Hair, eyes, paled grey skin and stringly muscles. She wasn’t listening to them, rather she was looking at the cook stove and wondering how likely she was to get sick with food poisoning. Blood from hanging carcasses was being collected messily into pots to make various things with. Black pudding she supposed but didn’t really want too know. The hanks of meat showed far to much of the animals origonal structure for her too.

She remembered too many times when poeple had looked like that. Suddenly she felt an urg to go veggi.

She saw the wire monk move and almost clobbered him, restraining herself hard she allowed him to pull up the corse sleeves of the working habbit she was wearing. The nice ‘prince’ cloths she had left on their hanger with an idea of keeping them nice. She had no way of replacing them if they got ruined and they could proove more than useful. The old man clucked with his tongue, ‘Matthew you were right these will need Iodine, go and clean this pretty boy up, fever will hopefully be avoided.’ He dimissed her as if she were a piece of cow shit and Matthew was leading her out of the steam and blood filled room. The old man was muttering to himself about babes that should be men. Puzzeled she fallowed the gangly novice. The cuts weren’t bad, yes they would probably go bad but her system generally coped with that sort of thing easily and she was looking at maybe one uncomftable night.

‘The cuts are fine!’ she said a bit too shrilly, dark eyes glared at her.

‘They are covered in chicken shit! You’ll be lucky not to be burning up with fever by tonight.’ He turned from her and turned a large black metal handle, his hand was shaking.

‘I’ll be fine honest,’ she said.

He sighed and pulled her in the door. He refused to let her say more and she found herself seated in their room whilst he went off to get things. She felt slightly irritated at him and also a flush reached her cheeks, never the less this was an over reation. It was true cuts could kill but people just sort of took it as divine providence and half the time didn’t bother to disenfect even if they knew they could.

He arrived looking awkward with a steaming bowl and a leather satchel.

‘The apocraphy said I had to clean everyone of those scratches and that I’m to pin you down if you struggle.’ He placed the bowl on the stone bunk, the bedding had been rolled up and placed in little custom made alcoves.

She smile at the joke, ‘And why would I struggle?’ she asked trying desperatly not to sound coy.

‘Becuase its going to burn, I’ve got a mix here to add to the water, wood alchahol and believe me it burns especially on open wounds, and those pecks would hurt just with the hot water.’ His voice was dead, as if he was going through a ritual she started to feel a disquiet. she rolled her shoulders realising the tension she was building in them.

‘I’ll put some Iodine on when I’m finished but we will have to make a journey to make some more when your better.’ He’d opened the satchel – it was full of little crudely made glass vials.