Purple Monster

Beginning: Waking up in the Monestry and discovering Matthew the Monk is annoyed with her

Middle: Finding out what issue is with him

End: Announcement that the Queen is pregnant

I have to say have actually taken to writing these just before I start the chapters because so much stuff is cropping up as I write and I am learning more via research as I go that its just not doable any other way! I think I’ll need to revise the over all book chapter lay out as I have already shuffled the order in which characters appear.

I am I’m afraid controlled by my characters :/

Anyway Chapter Four:

Beginning – Wakes up with Snake

Middle – Work on Sky Bike

End – Things start to be really odd at a gig

Beginning – Arrested for stealing food

Middle rescued by Priest

End Decides to settle down at a monestry dressed as a boy

His room was a suprise – though she had been in Bodges and they had both been in hers she had never been in Snakes room – it was alot bigger than she had been expecting he had a double bed and two rooms! That was unheard off. ‘How you got this?’ she asked startled.

He grinned at her, ‘cool isn’t it?’

It certianly was with a holoplex screen and a VR unit in the corner. Her stomache fluttered when she saw it and she narrowed her eyes, ‘Snake?’ she said, he’d wondered further in and was digging a long neglected out of chrom box. ‘How are you affording this?’

He ignored the question she felt uneasy, she walked over to him and put her hand on his arm, he didn’t meet her eyes, ‘why did the corp buy you out of Juvi?’ He jurked away from her.

‘Do you want a coffee? I know I have some somewhere.’ he said in a rush as if she hadn’t spoken but he was shaking slightly.

‘Snake – its ok you can tell me.’ he sighed heavily.

‘I killed my father,’ he said quietly.

She nodded, holding his hand.

‘I then hid his funds, I hide the trail so well that they had to get a code 6 to break my encryptions,’ He waited for the horror, he was tense under her fingers.

‘It was meditated, I planned the whole thing Punk all of it.’ His voice was dangerous and quiet.

‘Who’d he hurt?’ she asked, Snake didn’t seem like a cold blooded killer, but he did have a vengful streak. He twitched, ‘my sister, she couldn’t walk even with the new nano-receptors she was bed ridden she needed looking after and mum got so sick looking after us…’ She squezed his hand his eyes were bright and bloodshot, the seemed to glow with light.

She nodded, ‘So what did they buy you out for? You computing skills?’ He looked at her slightly frightened and slightly embarrassed.

She kissed him, he hesitated and then they were kissing, passion and emotion poured out of him in that kiss. She sat on the edge of his bed, he sat next to her and gathered her to him, he was still so warm she pushed him down so they could roll together.

They snuggeled and talked of the gig they might play that night – the islands had created a very unique system – there were pretty much only organised and sanctioned events but as they were attempting to emulate the Indie and Alternative cultures of the past they had set up the Bootleg Club the whole idea was that it was The Underground but and this was crusial (at least to the Punk) it was Sanctioned. The outliers of society had been factored in, she wasn’t sure how many of the customers realised this but it slightly killed it for her. It was like the annale meeting of the Federation of Anachists they had organised themselves when she had heared about them she thought it was initially a joke she had spewed synth-beer everywhere when she realised it wasn’t.

Never the less they were the back up band and Apathetic Anarchist was a good band, she had been grooming them for a while now. They were well a mish mash of styles that would have been laughed at at other periods in time but now it was an edge sound, no one was else was blending medevial court music with the electronica and thrash sound.

She wasn’t sure it was really working just yet but they had the pretend blood to spray at the audience and replica ancient TV’s and Pooter modules to trash. They were of course all made out of sugar and biodegradable poly and were safe in that the were no nasty sharp fragments but the audience again did not know this and it gave them the rush they craved.

They were due at the lock up to practice early that evening this also served as a warm up session as they were going strat from there to the gig. They had initially rarely got to play but with the record lable gobbling up all the bigger bands they were more and more frequently being called on to feel the gaps and had even amassed their own following.

Snake thought the goth girl was perhapse a talent scout and was actually quiet excited that she would be at the gig. She felt a tightness in her stomache the slightest thing made her jump and had her pumped full of adrenaline.

Still they met Bodge and she had set the hair former to moheccian Spike, the Pink Irridescant Still Suit was polished by Snake after she had put it on – much to his embarrassement – strangly it was a job he had done with quiet enthuseasm for the past few weeks to see him blush over it now was quiet funny. The acid pink bomber jacker was slung over the top with the addition of the now glittery A in a circle that Bodge had spent the previous night embroydering. She tried not to roll her eyes at it, he’d found it in an old book and thought it was Edge.

She added the tacky flashing pink heart neckless, chuncky and faceted and something that a child would have played with in the last century. The knee high flame boots were placed upon her feet making her a tottering tower of lumanous, irridescant, glittering, strobbing pink. She added the sugar gloss, magenta tribal strips on her cheeks and chromatic eye shadow set to ‘pinks’. Her nails went into the growing cube and came out as lurid pink talons.

She looked at her reflection and grinned cheekily.

Snakes blue hair was still lank and he still looked like a badly cast character from a classic aname but then that sort of fit with it. Bodge was podgy and looked like he should be running Dev’s caffe but that was ok too.

She twerlled her drum sticks and they set off for the club.

Almost as soon as they stepped through the purple and chrome doors the Events Manager was on them, he was a ferrety man whos eyes where too bright, he seemed to be assesssinng people all the time he was talking to them. He made her skin crawl. As was happening with an increasing frequency the main act had been bought out and shipped to Shralanka for that nights Uber Gig.

They grinned at each other and proceeded to start setting up their gear. This wasn’t technically part of their job but it was the bit they would happily do for free. Then the early too keen and probably under age kids begain to arrive – off course on the islands everything was wholesome so it just restricted what rec substances they could perchase. But the young keen ones who didn’t know to be late tended to turn up as soon as the doors opened. There were two other acts – there should have been three so they would be doing a double session which would be painful and physically demanding but they were well worth it for the buzz and how the audience engaged with the music, the atmosphere the zone.

They lurked in a corner of the bar drinking synth beer or in Snakes case Mango Smoothy. The Punk scanned the club cesslessly checking for anything odd, but that was like looking for a tree in a forest. She finially gave up and bought a but load of bar nuts. ‘You shouldn’t eat those things’ Snaked said looking scandalised.

‘Why?’ she said around a mouthful.

‘They’ll dehydrate you.’ he said eyeing her up and blushing once more. She grinned at him and then ordered several more synth-beers.

And then suddenly they were on stage and her stomache gave a jolt as it always did – it didn’t matter how many times she did this sort of thing her stomache always, always flipped and somehow the thought that perhaspe Snake was right and she was wrong and that a talent scout was actaully after them made her even more nervous.

It wasn’t just how they performed though – these were her songs, her riffs, she had infact engeeneered an entire new type of music and she was worried about weather it was actually any good. Everytime the crowd surged to dance to her rhythems it was a small victory, everytime they lurked in the shadows looking at her though their make-up she died a bit inside. This was worse and better than battle, this was a rich war of self and she was enjoying it immensly, she hated actual battles actually wars but it did give you a buzz – well this gave her the buzz and then something.

They were reaching fever pitch – she was twerling and whirling and thumping a rythme that was part of her, she was riding above the cloud in her own personaly place when the trickle of fear started something wasn’t right. She tried to think throuhg the pounding beat, tried to stretch her mind back into the physicality that was the club. She missed a beat and the looked up from the drums straight into the eyes of the woman, her black alice band reflecting minute pin ppoints of the disco lights. She stared back, dark apathy seemed to radiate off of her, she was some how insectile. A cold sweat ran down the Punks back. The lights died, the clubs power was gone. The crowd panicked.

In a society where back up genreators where more than the norm they were mandatory adn power cuts had been unheard off for a hundred years it was truelly scary. They surged, the Punk shouted to Snake not knowing if he could hear her above the panicked bleatings. And then she heard a noise to chill her heart. A preassure dart. A slight deadning of the air, she surged forward seeking Snakes coat with her fingers – something mock leather touched her finger tips she locked onto it and pulled the owner over.

They both cascatded backward with a cacophany of instraments being mangeled. An explosion shock the floor and she was releived to find herself still in one piece. A slicing pain ripped through her torso but she ignored it. There was a strange silence in the club and then someone screamed. Whimpers and wails followed, there was an acrid smell of fear in the air and then the lights came back on with a vengence the brightness hurt her eyes – these weren’t the party reverlar atmospheric lights these where the cleaning and fixing things up lights. As she blinked colours popping behind her lids security poured into the room with there plex armour and stun guns. Hysteria begain to burn up the crowd – its biggest danger was now itself.

A soft moan escaped the body she had dragged down with her, she forced herself to look, Snakes hair was palstered to his head with blood he looked pale and sweaaty. She checked him over, he’d got a bad wack on the head. He needed treatment the preasure bullet maybe cuasing bleeding inside him even though it hadn’t hit him. Her heart hammered in her chest, she needed to check on bodge but part of her was corcous, the gunman may still be lurking awaiting its next chance. Looks like she was right after all. Security were suddenly above her their head torches blinding her, she almost reacted on reflex she almost fought them. But she was bleeding and they were there to stop the attackers.

‘Help?’ she said, the light bobbed and there was static of a comm unit. Her head tingled. ‘Snakes hurt, Bodge? Bodge?’ She tried to sit to look at the stage. The Security tried to stop her, but blood lose was never that much of a problem for her unless it became extreme. She located the keyboard. there was blood all over the keys. ‘Bodge? BODGE!’ she started to fight the security a medi dart punctured her neck – she slumped forward into oblivian.

I have decided that I really want the Punk to appear in all the stories and as Series One happens before she is born I needed some way of involving her – then I thought about the structure of series two and thought I want to run this into series One and Three.

And the only way I can do this is by combining One and Three – I’m thinking that as the whole memory banks of the Elves are in the super computer the Punk could access them through the computer allowing me to have the one past one future chapter structure I have designed.

This also brings the project of the Punk down to something I can envision being completed in my life!

The Punk in Pink is part of a larger story arch – one that is split into 3 series’

Series One – Rise and Fall of the Elves

Series Two – The Punks Quest

Series Three – The Results of the Quest

The Punk in Pink is in Series Two which consists of 14 books – the titles are:

1)The Punk in Pink

2)The Punk in Yellow

3)The Punk in Blue

4)The Punk in Green

5)The Punk in Red

6)The Punk in Orange

7)The Punk in Brown

8)The Punk in Black

9)The Punk in Grey

10)The Punk in White

11)The Punk in Denim

12)The Punk in Velvet

13)The Punk in Silk

14)The Punk in Lace

Of course I’ll probably completely change my mind.

Introduction to the Modern/Futuristic Punk

Beginning: Packing her decks up in the Ball Room

Middle: Grabbing some Food

End: Crashing in her room being slightly concerned that somethings out of place.

At her look up the Sky Bike sat looking a little battered but quiet frankly bueatiful, it was missing a lot of the poly-synth beads which where going to be quiet expensive to replace but then they weren’t essential to the thing – it could fly though needed a few tweaks to make it efficient and then alot of tweaking to make it a comfy ride.

But this was half the fun, she slipped into some pastel pink stained coveralls and placed her light reactive goggles on – she would have to use the mazar torch to do some of the work and she did want some eyesight left afterwards!

She had the portable lab ready with its electron microscopicapy facilities some of the bike were smart materials ie the wings and any work on them had to be done in a vacuum chamber with nano-tools inside a low end scanner. The materials were so finiley designed that normal optical microscopes that relied on wavelengths of light just couldn’t see at a fine enough level.

SOme of the gases used by the machines where nasty and had to be under high pressures and cold temperatures but it was alot safer than Mig welding had been in the previous centery so she had bodged the machines to get the max out of them taking them well beyound their saftey parameters. She had however done the calculations herself and knew full well that she was still within some pretty good margins as far as saftey was concerned and she had uped the effiecence of the machine by 200 odd percent. She was good, mechanical stuff just came easy too her. Too easy sometimes.

she had often found herself in situations where she had to pretend not to see a solution or slowely coherce others into making the discover. People got funny about you always having the answer. It was strange but thats the way it was especially in the more modern sooped up cultures. However in the past too much knowledge could have you looking at ostracism as in no food or place to live on an entire island and no boat either or people trying to drown you for being a witch. The last two centries three really had been tame in comparason. People just tended to get a bit snotty with you and the worst that happened was that they would stop you getting the grant you needed to continue a line of research.

The smart materials could form some pretty neat aerofoils and would change themselves depending on the manouver of the bike or if on a direct path with no time limit it would glide on thermals the same as the old and now extinct birds of prey had. She had loved those birds and held a hope that they would be on the short list soon for the genetic synths. The planets biodiversity had plummeted during the last century to a point where fear of nitrate fixing bacteria being killed off begain a real threat.

No macro organism on the planet could ‘fix’ nitrogen so that it was usable by animals and plants and it was only symbiotic bacteria in things like bean plants that could do it but with the bio crash they were almost wiped out. And without those tiny organisms no animal could live.

It had been a scary few decades the Punk was sure she needed nitrogen as much as the next person.

She was looking forward to getting the this bird into the sky!

‘What you gonna call it?’ Snake asked from his place at the work bench – he was patiently threading the beads that where left onto a diamond filament 1/2 a millimeter in diameter.

‘Thunder Falcon,’ she said automatically.

‘Thunder Falcon?’ he asked her turning from his work, ‘What’d a Falcon?’

She sighed, ‘A type of bird but not like the sparrows you see or the seagulls. It’s hard to explain you’ll need to look it up I think – you won’t believe me if I expain it to you.’ He nodded.

‘So why that name?’ he inquired.

‘It was the name of another bike I had,’ he nodded looking slightly confused – she wasn’t apparently old enough to have had a vechile previously but it had been a push bike a green BMX well over a hundred years ago now. They had been stunt biked without spokes so the wheels could take the damage it was before the bucky tubes had become so prevolent. She’d rescued some kid – like 10 years old she was being thrown into a rapid flowing turgid river by kids roughly the same age. That few years extra and the dress had led her to stop the kids actions.

The ten year old had been stubbon and greatful and shy. Burning eyes, she’d called the bike Thunder Falcon because it sounded like a spaceships name and she’d wanted to be an astronuat.

She’d hung around to look after the kid for a while and then it had escaped to a boring adult life with things like family and commitments. Though the girl never lost those intense eyes. She wished she hadn’t remembered the girl. But why she wasn’t sure.

The metal fenders that made the bike so retro needed to be beaten back into shape – Snake pointed out that with the orbital mining going on metal pricess where not exactly high so she could have had new ones just made from scratch. No infact they were rock bottom especially as extraction technics where getting more effiecinet all the time. But it was not the same as fixing it and it was the fixing she was keen on – sure she wanted to coast the bike through the clouds too. This was definatly part of the buzz process though.

Engines, computers, ploughs all these mechanisms had fascinated her – it was like she under stood how they all worked before she even got to have a proper look at them. The number of things she had designed over the years, the amount of things that had sparked whole new areas of interest and research. Sometimes she wondered where human sciecne, technology and medicine would be if she hadn’t been bumbling her way through history.

Once the panels where delt with and the smart material wings there was the breaking and manovering systems. This was unfortunalty softwear based and softwear covered by some pretty strong and crippling patents. But there was always away around them if you knew how to look and what to look for. With a synth beer in hand she used the cord keyboard to programme the material. It was seriously complecated and she frowned into the projecto-screen. She had to wrap processes inside of one another in a way that they could all still mesh together like clogs in a clock. It was high level and made her zone out for a while, she hummed tunelessly why she did it.

Tinkering and bashing things and swearing and shouting at Snake and laughing as well seemed to take up most of the day finially late afternoon they finished, she was starving and pondering what to have fore lunch when Snake suggested they go to his rooms. She smiled slightly at this – no one had cooking facilities in their rooms staff as well as holidayers had to eat in the restrants and cafes. But when food was avalible she wanted at least three meals in a day – their were too many times when there had been no food at all for her to shirk meals. This was another differnce she had observed between her and other humans – many of those who had been starved never really got eating properlly back, they would forget meals and had to be gently reminded to eat. Either that or they spent all their time chowing down.

‘I need lunch!’ she said trying to sound playful and not like she was regecting his advance.

‘Oh ok,’ he said sound very small.

‘You coming with me?’ she asked trying not to be impatient with him, he brightened slightly ‘yeah sure.’ he said.

They walked out of the lock up and the Punks neck and scalp began to prickle. She hesitated slightly as she looked it up then looked sideways at Snake he was frowning into the corridor. ‘Who was there?’ she asked quietly out of the side of her mouth. His head jerked to her ‘I thought I saw that Goth-ette from the club. Maybe I’m going made but I swear she’s following…’ he broke off scanning the now empty corridor once more.

She suddered, and felt queasy she didn’t like this. ‘You know Bodge said that Insipid Records where around asking him about our act and the band?’ He looked sort of relieved if some how paler. She nodded, that could be an explanation, to be fair they were normally alot more subtler and the goth-chick had been very obvious really.

She realised she was hunching in on her self – she stratened herslef up and rolled her shoulders to try and ease her tension.

Snake took her hand and patted it distractedly, ‘I know you must have been in some sort of trouble in the past but you’ve got a contract with the Corp now no ones going to come all this way to hunt you down and even if they have the Security System willl pick them up – honest.’ He wasn’t looking at her he was still scanning the empty hall. She lent against him slightly – all the times she had been on her own, all the times she had been in charge, it was alsways nice to curl into someone else and feel protected.

They got to a mid level coffee house for Pannis she had shrimp and water melon and a vat of coffee. ‘How did you know?’ she asked – of course she wasn’t in trouble with the authorities as such well not for the last few years anyway. Electronic ID and genetics had caused her a few problems with her long lived ness but nothing she hadn’t been able to work around. One of her main issues had been staying out of labs as the subject it was one of the reasons she had hid in a lad for so long.

‘I owe the Corp,’ he said flatly not meeting her eyes, he fiddled with the napkin with its greasy looking sheen that showed it to be reusable. ‘They bought me out of Juvi’ He fidgetted and went quiet.

Juvi, a concept resirected by the collapsing mega states, a prison hard and harsh to put minors who had offened but it had become the place to send the unwanted, the street kids and orphans. Though if he was bought out and for alot then he must have done something real bad.

‘What did you do?’ she asked out of curiosity, blazing eyes looked into her.

‘I killed… someone’ He’d looked away again she felt a stabbing chill, this was something she had sensed in him, from his body movements from the first time she’d seen him.

‘Who?’ she asked unable to leave a festering wound alone.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he moaned and she took his hand, shekissed his fingers – it was the only thing she could think of doing. If he knew how many people she had killed? How many people she had ordered dead would he still be sitting there with her?

She trembled slightly with emotion but swollowed it. ‘You come from one of the collapsed states don’t you?’ he asked. She shrugged, she came from no where really and everywhere. She had tried explaining to people in the past – she’d rapidly given that up – she valued her skin far to much. And even someone you think loves you can turn and have you driven from a village.

She had also learnt that there was alot of merrit to be had with letting people assume things about her. When your past isn’t really what everyone knows should be your past then its like there is no past, a blankness. She felt very lonely.

They left the lunch room hand in hand, Snake was shanking slightly, she let him lead her to his room.

The dream was upon her, waves crashed at the creaking hull of a ship, the ceasless motion was comforting, she drifted with the knowledge that a shore would soon be in sight, the ice coated the sides of the boat as its oars men kept warm by rowing. The wood splintered there was shouting and then the rushing of water. The sensation of a blade at her throat.

Icy water, shocking the air out of her, she sat up in the bed gasping, the room was harshly white and smelt of ozone. A warmth was there huddled in the bed with her, for a moment she couldn’t remember where she was or the name of this gangly male beside her. So warm he was almost burning to touch. Goats flittered across her vision and tears of frustrated anger threatened her. She kicked him in the side.

‘Wassup?’ he drooled, she sighed and climbed out of bed, naked and in need of a shower, she could smell him on her, felt his primal cliam in scent upon her. Yuk bodily fluids.

She took extra time with the shower even if she did get fined she didn’t care, the aerated waster felt so good on her skin.

When she got back in the room Snake was already dressed and was to her suprise boiling a kettle she tried not to dwell on him being in yesturdays cloths and having not washed – it wasn’t like it would be the first time she’d kissed someone who hadn’t washed – hell there was a time when people thought that washing was bad for your health. That it would was away all the protective grime.

She snorted at the thought but then thought about the autoimmune system diseases that had spiked half way through the last centry due to things being too clean. Everything seemed cyclic, everything a balance. She wondered if she was something that would tip the balance, how had this system produced her?

She shivered as she stepped into her decontaminated suit, the cathiter inserts still wrapped away in their hygine seals where she hoped they would stay for the longest of times. He handed her a badly made cup of coffee which she sipped gratefully, he wasn’t meeting her eyes. His hair needed brushing and he seemed pensive. She sat down in the one chair and watched him over the rim of her white plastic mug. His eyes darted to hers and then quickly over her body, he blushed. She slurped the coffee in a show of unladylikeness.

She kicked her legs up and stretched back in an apparently relaxed poise – what was wronge with him? Had he not enjoyed last night? He was certainly pensive enough she stealed herself for a blow. Synical and yet desperate for it not to be the case. She felt the rejection building and found that it hurt more than she thought possible. After all these years, all the loses and betrayal adn it still hurt deep and hard. Her throat felt soar.

Finially after what seemed an eternaty he sighed and stamped his foot slightly in agitation then looked up at her. ‘Do you want some breakfast?’ he asked in a rush. She raised an eyebrow. All that tension just to ask her to breakfast after they had slept together?

‘I mean I’ll understand if you don’t want to go and stuff, if you want me to just leave or somthing?’ Good grief the poor guy was on the verge of stuttering. She smiled at him, sometimes she forgot that they were so much younger than her, no she forgot she was old.

She had seen the new world arise and had seen it progress and the uncertainties of youth had always been there sometimes it was pandaered too other times it was quoshed into a zeloest zeal far scarier and unpredictable than any mature person would do.

At some point the concept of teenagers had crept in, she was always unsure of weather it was a good thing or a bad thing. But once there it remained sticking itself as another wedge in society. Kids for longer, they hated it as much as the responsibilty had crippled half of them into never fully growing up. But then what did she know? She had been a teenager for a long long time, she had also been an adult for alot of that time and it hurt, deep down in the raw place she coushioned so well.

He was staring at her intently and she realised she had gone off into a pondering daydream instead of answering him.

‘Breakfast sounds good,’ she said, he sagged with relief.

‘What do you want?’ he asked her, meaning breakfast but she tempted to say something crude – she bite her tongue he was already really edgy.

‘Do no something sea foody?’ she said he wrinkled his nose and went a bit pale but nodded.

‘We’ll go to Dev’s’ She looked at him Dev was a friend and the best chief off all things fried, to a crisp if not burn to an unregonisable blob. Some people really loved the stuff had it pegged as traditional food though as it was tempura mixed with deep fried mars bars she was never entirely sure which country it was supposed to be traditional of. ‘Well its cheap!’ he said then blushed, ‘erm not that that matters I erm… we can go somewhere else if you want.’

She grinned at him fast and shark like, ‘no Dev’s sounds fine he does smoked mackerel. Vat grown macerkel but its ok.’ He looked relieved and he stood up excited and worried looking still. He offered her a hand, she stared at it for a moment wondering what he was upto then decided to take it anyway. Once they were stood up he didn’t let her hand go and she let it nestle there though gave no impression of ‘holding’ the hand back, she just let it lay there limply just not pulling it out of his grasp.

He looked happy but slightly confused. She wondered why she was playing games with him like this. She gave in and held it propelly. His eyes gleamed at her, the intensity of emotions almost sent her rolling.

Dev’s was basically up on a roof – not in one of the garden plateforms but next to the cubby whole offices that where the cruise islands admistration. The place had plastic wipe clean red and white or yellow and white or green gingam style table cloths though as they were all scared and rucked the whole wipe clean business was mitigated by food detritous getting wedged in the rips.

Dev was always going on about getting new-cloth gingam, a smart material that he could program to change colour – he had some insane idea that changing the colour of the little check patterns in the caffe on a sessional basis would make a difference. She couldn’t see it personally, there were even curtians in the same awful stuff she supposed that at least with the new-cloth everything would match and it was nion indestructable like the [can’t remember the name of the fabric with the little colour changing ecosystem in it] but there was just one down side to it – it cost more than the Caffe bought in in a year.

They went in and sat on the hard shiny plastic chairs and Dev busseled over, the Punk tried not to roll her eyes, he was wearing an ill fitting blue dress with baggy greying baige stockings, a floral apron with frills on it and a broom in his hand. ‘Dev why the stockings?’ she asked in mock distain.

‘It’s Caffe cleaning day – the most hallowed day of the week.’ Large brown eyes in a face of blotchy pink and brown looked at her, she raised an eyebrow, ‘and that means you have to wear baggy stockings and a broom?’ she asked.

‘Of course it is our siants day,’ he replied as if she had said something blasphomas – she supposed in his eyes she had but really come on! She didn’t really want to know anymore religion and militant creed where things she detested but had lived within. They always stiffled, always closed the doors, always provided a scaffold for the majority to cling to in desperation.

‘And your saint in?’ she asked fearing that she already knew.

‘Nora, the patron saint of caffes, cafe[need the accent], greasy spoons and caffiterias everywhere.’ He looked serious but she shock with laughter evently she had seen the birth of yet another religon and had not realised it. ‘Nora? As in Nora Batty?’ She asked chocking down her giggles.

‘You know of her?’ he asked truelly suprised.

‘Yes.’ she said simply becuase if she said any more she would be on the floor laughing until her ribs hurt. There had been some comedy programme in England of all places that satired country life – there had been a Nora Batty running a Cafe in it. She’d chase some old unkept guy with ferrets down his trousers – she’d chase him with a broom! Dev was indeed wearing a Nora Batty outfit. She wondered what the actress would have thought if she could see him. Mind due would have probably just been incorporated into one of the next episodes.

They ordered breakfast, she had calimary rings, and sweat and sour king prawns with a side helping of fried seed weed. Snake had the tofu special English Gone Large – which as far as she could see involved lots of differently shaped and coloured lumps of tofu which had been fried with some beans, chips, hashbrowns and a rather over cooked tomato.

He smothered it in red squirty suace and brown and white and green and yellow squirty suace as well. She smiled remembering the first time she’d encountered suaces like that – it had taken her decades to stop putting some of everything on anything.

She shoveled her food in, it was safe to do that in Dev’s she had seen and had to learn many different eating customs, but Dev’s was easy – anything goes.

It was well deep fried but the salt and the sea food hit the spot, she was starving again, Snake was still eating his when she finished and went to order a protien shake. Dev did a fantastic range of them, all synth but he added in real fruit and veg and cough chocolate or coffee or something stronger if you wanted.

She had a bannana malt and sat down spooning it out of the actually glass tall glass. ‘Wow!’ Snake said looking at her startled.

‘How comes you’re still so skinny?’ he asked and then went bright red.

‘I’m skinny?’ was the only answer she could come up with.

‘Well yeah in a sort of erm… curvey way?’ He was going redder.

‘I’d button it before you dig your self in furthure.’ She pursed her lips in mock disapproval. She hadn’t really thought about being ‘skinny’ most people had been skinny until the processed foods had arrived and then they spent like a century working out what the problem was and another trying to fix it whilst still keeping the convenience.

‘Are you taken pips?’ he asked suddenly. She laughed, ‘no – anthetimines are still anthetamines what ever they are calling them and reguardless of if they are produced organically with low CFP’ besides she thought all that happened when she took them is she buzzed for half and hour and then got a mild headache, no appetite supressent or anything no good enegry increase – drugs tended not to work on her.

‘I have a fast metabolism,’ she said shrugging, that wasn’t entirely true. But she tended not to dwell on the little things that set her apart like wanting to eat two three times as much as everybody else – she could gain weight but it took some doing. It was like her body had a unique way of storing the goodies from the food so that when times where rough she could get by though it hurt like hell. It had once taken her 15 years to get over one particully bad lot of starvation. She had been unconcous and laying in the snow when she’d been found. She had no idea how long she’d been out for – she got the feeling though it had been a long time.

‘What about all that salt and stuff? That can’t be good for you.’ he asked.

‘I like to live on the edge,’ she smiled. Hoping to divert him to another topic. ‘You ganna help me rebuild the bike?’

He grinned and nodded and then paid for her breakfast. She blushed but didn’t refuse she wanted out of the Corp debt as quickly as she could.

We are introduced to the Punk as she was in the Tudor period this will be during the rein of King Henry VIII

Beginning: Awakes in a stable – go insearch of food and stuff

Middle: Walking about as a vagabone

End: Gets into trouble for steeling food