1: Surviving Monday


The voices were beginning to piss him off.

At first they'd been little more than a minor irritation, but the problem had persisted for more than three weeks now and in that time the voices had given no indication that they might go away. Indeed if anything things were getting worse.

It had all started out inoffensively enough, it had been a Saturday night, and Jake had been out at a party with some friends. Student party, on the local university campus, Jake had made an effort to cultivate links with the university, it got him invites to some pretty decent parties despite the fact he was a good year or two younger than most of the students there. This one had turned out to be a particularly loud and intense party and he had probably had significantly more to drink than was sensible with his parents waiting up for him to get home. Not, admittedly, as much to drink as the poor kid who had crashed into him and wound up sprawled on the floor drenched in beer. That had been pretty funny. Jake had helped him up, the guy could only have been fifteen, and didn't look like he had ever been out drinking before. The kid had been terrified of getting beaten up more than anything and was desperately trying to apologize and thank Jake at the same time, and failing at both because he was so pissed he could barely string two coherent thoughts together. Jake was sympathetic, it was only a year or so since that had been him. Anyway, that incident aside they had managed to stay mostly out of trouble and it had been a great fun evening. They had left the party at around midnight, shouting and singing; they were being picked up by Mike's older brother, he would accept the rowdiness, he knew they were out to get pissed. Parents were different, alcohol hadn't been invented when they were young. Anyway, Mike's brother's car was not particularly well tuned; D-I-Y job and Mike's brother was not a particularly gifted mechanic. So the car was noisy and they had to shout above that noise to be heard, not that their conversation would have been significantly impaired had they been unable to hear each other, but that was beside the point. When Jake got out of the car and stumbled up the path to his front door, trying to dredge up all his well diluted sobriety long enough to con his parents into thinking he hadn't had all that much to drink, and found that he could still hear conversations going on in the back of his head, well, he hadn't been particularly surprised. Wrote it off as just the noise of the party still ringing in his ears. And it had been a fucking good party, though he felt somewhat relieved that he was able to refrain from relating that observation to his parents literally. Having passed the final test of being rational in front of his parents, if only on the technicality that they were way too tired to notice, he had climbed the stairs and collapsed into bed.

In his half sentient state he had tried to ignore the quiet but persistent murmuring in the back of his mind. It wasn't particularly what he wanted at that moment. He always enjoyed crashing into bed in silence after a loud party, the silence always helped him glide more gently back down to reality from the high of the party. Only this time the distraction was enough that the moment was spoiled to the point where he even managed to brush his teeth and undress for bed before he went to sleep. Okay, not that big a deal. But then a couple of days later, after the hangover had receded into a pleasant memory, he had noticed that the murmuring voices were still trapped bouncing around somewhere inside his head, and that somehow didn't seem quite normal. And he wasn't much sure what he could do about it. It was pretty damn difficult, it wasn't as if he could tell anyone. How the hell could he, without them thinking he was on drugs or mad? Admitting to the problem wasn't worth the hassle.

But he was a laid back kind of guy, his entire philosophy in life involved avoiding confrontation, so at first he had ignored them in the hope that they would go away. The thing was his parents were beginning to realize something was up, seemed to think he was going deaf or something. It wasn't his fault, it was just that sometimes the voices got so loud they pretty much drowned out anything anyone else was saying.

So now the voices were beginning to piss him off.

It wasn't as if they said anything interesting. They certainly weren't talking to him, that was why he was pretty sure that he wasn't loosing his grip on reality. At the same time though, hearing voices didn't exactly strike him as being particularly normal. It was as if he was listening in on conversations in the next room. Sometimes loud but always very indistinct. It wasn't very often he could make out what they were saying.

Right now he was trying to listen to some music and they were getting in the way. How could he tell disembodied voices to bugger off?

He turned the music up.

A loud banging on the bedroom door less than two minutes later forced him to turn it down again. He couldn't help if he needed it that loud to hear it above his own personal background noise. Not that his parents would buy that excuse even if he could tell them, they didn't like his music at the best of times.

He lay down on his bed and screamed 'Shut the fuck up' in his mind at the top of his voice.

And there was silence.

It took him several moments to realize that he could no longer hear them. He smiled, content but puzzled. And cynical; how long would it last? Occasionally they would shut up of their own accord for hours on end, only to return louder than ever. But right now he would be a fool not to make use of the respite.

He pushed the button to start the album again from the first track. Lying back on the bed he let his eyes drift around the room, for once actually being able to enjoy the music undistracted.

The room wasn't big, but it was big enough. He didn't like the color scheme, mainly pastel greens, he'd wanted red and black. His parents had refused to let him have black wallpaper and a bright red duvet for the bed. He couldn't see why, after all it was his room, he was the one who had to see it day in, day out. By imposition the walls were a kind of mint green shade of white, the bedspread was an almost identical hue but more saturated. The carpet was much darker, with a kind of speckled effect, by his desk there was a patch which was a slightly wrong shade of green and had no pattern. That had happened the first week after the carpet had been put in. His aunt had given him a pair of putrid creamy brown trousers for his birthday, he could never have worn that color, it looked like poodle crap. The trousers themselves were okay, shape and feel-wise, so one Saturday morning when his parents were out he had grabbed a bottle of bleach from the kitchen and had a go at seeing if he could do anything with them. He had a large bowl, and let his trousers steep in it for a couple of hours. It was a complete fiasco, the trousers came out a kind of puke shade of dark yellow with brown lumps. He also managed to spill half the bowl of bleach on the carpet, for some reason the bleach had far more effect on the carpet, leaving it somewhat less than dark green. Not expecting his parents back until late in the afternoon he had hurried down to the shops to try and get some kind of dye to try and disguise the damage with. Of course the shop didn't have the exact shade, so he had chosen one a little darker and made do. He had spent the afternoon with a fan heater trying to dry out the carpet, clearing out the bleach, and finishing off the trousers. The carpet didn't particularly work, his mother had noticed immediately, but then she would. He claimed he had spilled ink on it, she was furious, especially it being a brand new carpet, but not half as furious as she would have been if she had known he had been bleaching things in his bedroom. The trousers had come out remarkably well, at the same time as getting the dye for the carpet he had bought a bottle of bright red. The trousers looked fantastic, so despite nearly pissing himself when he had spilled the bleach, that hadn't been too disastrous a day.

On the desk he had his computer, and his TV, along with a load of magazines and pieces of paper and receipts and bus tickets and dirty socks. Most of the computer games were on the floor, kept strategically apart from the tangle of cables running to the computer and also to the old iPod dock hidden under the desk. The desk however was a step in the right direction, black metal legs and black imitation wood top.

Next to the desk was a set of shelves, black as well. Most of the books were on the desk or on the floor or on the bed, the shelves tended to be filled with junk, pairs of scissors, lumps of blu-tac, keys, dirty cups and saucers, and more dirty socks.

Covering the walls he had posters, more posters, and a few more posters. They took the edge off the crap wallpaper.

There was a wardrobe in one corner, that was a kind of worn brown color. It needed a change, his parents wanted it painted white, but that wouldn't go with the rest of the wood effect in the room. It wanted to be black. He rarely ever opened it unless he had to, the bottom part was so packed full that it tended to fall out everywhere if he tried.

In the middle of the floor lay his school bag. Unopened since he had dumped it there after school on Friday.

Okay, so the room was a mess. Nothing unusual about that, actually this mess wasn't remotely as bad as it normally was. He could see the unmistakable signs of growing old when he could no longer tolerate a messy room. Old at sixteen, what would that make him when he reached twenty.

Psychotic, if he couldn't think of some permanent way of ridding himself of his problem.

He wondered if getting laid might do it. He had thought at first that it might be some side effect of puberty, one of the kind people didn't talk about, no chapter on it in the sadistically boring text books they used at school for human biology. It would have been, he felt, a superb excuse for dumping his virginity at the first opportunity. After all he was old enough, and most of his friends had. No, most of his friends hadn't - most of his friends only claimed they had. And it was so obvious when they were lying. None of his friends were any good at lying, he sometimes wondered how they got anywhere in life. And it wasn't the solution to his problems, he knew that, to pretend otherwise he would just be lying to himself, and that would just be sad.

He had to face it, there was no easy answer. That made one hell of an unappetizing prospect for his future. His future; He figured there was something wrong when a sixteen year old was thinking more about his long term future than the next party he would get to, or how he was going to talk his way out of not doing his homework again the next morning. Ironic, but the voices had never bothered him at school, the one time he really wouldn't care all that much. Not that he hated school, just, it was frustrating. Not difficult, he pretty much knew he was a genius, though he tried desperately not to show it. He took solace in the stories of tormented geniuses down the centuries, lots of them claimed to hear voices. Lots of people thought them mad. And yet they were respected as some of the most creative people ever to have lived. On the flip side, many ended up psychotic and died young and he would be damned if he was going to end up like that. Somehow he had to fight. It was just right now he didn't know how to. Or, couldn't be arsed, which was more likely.

He glanced at the bedside clock to see it change from 10:43 PM to 10:44 PM. That would make it midnight exactly. He really had to get round to getting the stupid thing set right. Anyway, another Monday morning, and his luck with Monday mornings had never been good to begin with. Double chemistry. Maybe he could accidentally blow something up. Anything to break the monotony. Right now though he ought to think of going to bed. He had left the computer on. He silently cursed in contemplation of the effort required to get up and take the two or three steps over to the power switch. Maybe it could wait a little longer while he gathered strength. He felt drained, it had been a long day. Why had some sadist come up with the idea of having to turn things off when you finish with them? Why couldn't you remain on a permanent high? Why did you have to come down again? Why didn't good things last? Why did fucking awful things like the voices seem to last forever?

He sat back down on his bed and started to undress. He contemplated folding the clothes and then dumped them in a 'what the hell' pile in the middle of the floor. He snuggled down under the duvet and turned off the bedside light.

Warm silence and peace.


'Jake.'

He awoke, something abruptly tearing from what had been a comparatively peaceful sleep, half asleep and yet alert in that way that only happens when you get woken up in the middle of the night. The clock was claiming it was 3:21 AM.

'Jake!'

Shit, someone calling him from downstairs. They would bloody well wait until he was asleep. What the hell was this all about? Ignore them, he would pretend he was still asleep. The house could burn down for all he cared, he wasn't getting out of bed. His eyes blinked open, something was wrong, his family never called him Jake.

He tried to listen. The whir of the computer fans drowned out the silence, yeah, yeah, he'd forgotten to turn that off, his mother would be pissed at his lack of concern for the environment, but not at four something in the morning. It just meant it was hard to listen properly, a problem easily solved by turning the stupid thing off, but that meant effort on his part. He stared malevolently at his computer, wishing it would turn itself off. It did. The lack of a logical reason should have irritated him as well, but he was too asleep still to care.

'Jake.' The voice came again. Spoken this time, not shouted. A soft voice. It couldn't have come from outside the room. Definitely the same voice as before.

It was one of his voices. One of them calling his name. And for the first time in his relationship with them a new emotional reaction toward them developed. One of fear.


He awoke with a headache. A bad headache. The voices were chattering nonsensically, silence and relaxation seemed unattainable. The headaches had started shortly after he started hearing the voices. Or maybe before, maybe he just hadn't noticed earlier, maybe he was getting the headaches but they hadn't been so bad back then. Girls could have headaches, no one would ever believe he had. He tried to shut out the noise. He was feeling tired, unfulfilled, lack of sleep was half the problem.

How many hours had he lain awake the night before, too frightened to close his eyes? If it had been an irrational fear he could have told himself not to be so fucking stupid.

The voice had called his name.

How many hours had he lain there trying to tell himself that he'd only thought the voice had said his name? He could have misheard, muffled indistinct mutterings that sounded like his name in his semi-conscious state of awareness. Except that was just denial. In the strange light of the subdued early morning sun permeating the gaudy curtains the fear had faded into a nagging doubt. But how long would it be before he could have a decent nights sleep again if this was what he had to look forward to?

Sod it for now, he thought.

He dressed quickly and shoved his clothes from the previous day under the duvet, it was easier than going to the bother of hanging them up, his mother would complain if she saw them on the floor. He grabbed his watch from the desk, he had slept in. Missed breakfast, damn. Late for school he didn't mind, no breakfast he did. Sadly his parents didn't share his enlightened sense of priorities. He hurriedly pulled open the curtains, trying to look out into the back back to try and guess the weather. It looked like there had been a ground frost overnight, which was bloody irritating weather for the last week in May. Bloody silly when only a week earlier they'd been enjoying an unseasonal heat wave. Bloody global cooling, that was the problem. Jake grabbed a thick coat and gloves, and picked up his school bag. One advantage of not bothering to do his homework was that it was still packed from Friday.

He was in no mood for school right now. Not that there was much of an option, unless the end of the world had arrived early. And with that wishful thought he prepared to descend the stairs into the waiting wrath of his mother throwing a fit over a couple of wasted pieces of toast...


"Another one. Lindsay Jameson was her name. No apparent connection again. Well, tell me this, Jacob Laris, if there's no apparent connection between them all, how are they so sure there's even a link? They know a lot more than they're telling!"

Jake glanced down at the newspaper headlines. Another kid missing, that made something like seven disappeared in the last five months. Bloody great, just what he didn't need, another excuse for his mother to feel like all her worry and paranoia was justified.

"And as for the police and their investigation, I mean, really, what exactly have the achieved? Right, of course, they've worked out the connection between the victims. What connection? They're all children! Honestly, when he said that on the news last week I was in despair. Best minds in the country and all they could come up with was that the victims were all under eighteen. What was it he called them? Said they were 'tomorrow people'. Sounds more like the title of a psychedelic 1970s TV show or something. Called them that because all those kids that vanished would have been 'people' tomorrow I suppose, which has to be the most arrogant twaddle I ever heard because it means they don't consider children people already, but what do you expect from a police force that is so incompetent that they don't seem to have gotten one step closer to catching anyone, and the only fact they can reveal that the investigation has uncovered is that there is a link between the ages of the victims. Well, frankly I'm disgusted."

Jake hesitated to make sure his mother really had finally finished that single sentence. Unfortunately he hesitated a moment too long.

"No meaningful connection. Abducting boys and girls, so it isn't a sex thing, unless he happens to be some kind of twisted equal opportunities pervert. But if they just gave some hint about what the real connection was I would have an idea whether I need to get all worried about my little boy being a target or not. My little boy who, by the way, needs to keep his music more quiet that late at night because I am sure he wouldn't want me wondering what he was getting up to alone in his bedroom that he needed to drown out the noise of. Although knowing you it was probably homework."

She disappeared back into the kitchen still talking. There was no point in trying to cut in while she wasn't there, although he felt he desperately needed to cut in as this one sided conversation was really not going anywhere he was exactly overjoyed about.

"Sometimes Jacob I wonder if you'll ever get yourself sorted out. What time were you doing homework to last night? Work, work, work, it can't be good for you. Now you don't have time to eat a decent breakfast. They'll be thinking we neglect you. There's a bus at a quarter to, you'll have to run when you get off at the other end, but you shouldn't be late."

So she thought he was up doing homework last night, he wouldn't spoil the illusion. His mother was in one of her hurries for him, helping him get ready and virtually pushing him out of the door. He hadn't been late for school since year three, an impressive record that his mother didn't want spoiled. She was good at heart, but she could be a little overpowering at times. His father had already left for work, normally he was there to dilute her enthusiasm. Now Jake was getting the lot, which he could normally handle, but not when his head was hurting so much.

"... me." His mother, it might have been. He looked up and tried to ignore the throbbing for a moment.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"I said, for the third time, are you ignoring me? This is going too far Jacob, I'm making an appointment today to have your hearing tested. You've kept on saying you're alright, again and again, but this is getting beyond a joke."

"There's no problem, honestly, I've just got a bit of a headache."

"Headache, that's even worse. It could be meningitis or a brain tumor. That could be why you're having trouble hearing. That's it then, I'm phoning up for an appointment today, whether you like it or not."

His mother was a hypochondriac. She was never ill herself, but was certain that everyone else was. He could have done without it. Once she got it into her head that he was seriously ill he would have no peace. She was stubborn. He resigned himself to a hearing test. Just hope the voices don't play themselves up, he told himself. He felt desperate to get out of the house. Once at school he could shut himself up in the store room. Maybe that would give him the solitude he needed to break the headache.

"So I was reminding you to watch out for anyone strange at the bus stop. You have your phone, you call. You see anything suspicious, you call. Not having you dying of a brain tumor AND getting kidnapped."

Thankfully the voices were subsiding as they always seemed to do around school time. He had managed to shove some toast down his throat, washed it down with a cup of tea, and that was acting to counter the headache. He would have preferred a decent breakfast, but he would last until lunchtime. It was cold out, but in his hurry for the bus he wouldn't particularly notice. He pulled his gloves on and picked up his school bags, letting his mother open the door for him.

"See you tonight, bye." He called ritually as he headed down the drive to the street. He heard the door close behind him and he sucked in the silence joyously, before his mind turned to concentrate on the school day ahead.


The journey into school was after five years somewhat mechanical. Five years of walking down the same street virtually every day, five years of catching the same bus from the same bus stop, at the same time. Well, normally at the same time. He was used to going in earlier now, get in for just after eight and use the time that gave him to get his homework done. Today he would get in on the stroke of nine, with a little luck. The only chance he would have to fudge something together for maths would mean sacrificing his lunch time. His own fault for sleeping in.

He had seen that route so many times over the years, watching it change, as he had changed. growing and learning. Though it was always the same route, he saw it differently now to how he had five years ago, and he still found something new about it every time he saw it. Always new, always changing. He liked that, liked seeing the change over time. It gave him hope.

No sign of anyone following him. He smiled wryly to himself, he had no intention of getting worried about newspaper scare stories, he wasn't going to give in to the hysteria. And it wasn't just his mother, the whole news media was stirring this one up. A state of nervous panic over a statistically insignificant danger. People on the whole were a bunch of sheep he figured, and the irrational behavior of otherwise rational people in the face of a few disappearances just reinforced his opinion.

It was a four minute walk to the bus stop; down the street to the main road, then along in the direction of school. The bus ran every ten minutes, well supposedly, it never seemed like that when he was sitting in the bus stop, especially when it was freezing cold. The bus journey took about ten minutes and dropped him off just opposite the school. He was lazy, and the set up was ideal.

He could make it to registration within four minutes of getting off the bus.

Of course today the bus was late. He arrived six minutes late for school, to find his class teacher hadn't bothered turning up for registration. He ticked himself off in the book and ran to catch up with his friends before they reached the first lesson.


The door clicked shut, he quickly turned the key and felt the relief building inside him. The murmuring noises had started again. It was quiet, but still damn fucking irritating.

Chemistry he had pretty much slept through, Physics had ended early. Now he had his one chance to try and get his maths homework finished before the afternoon's lesson.

He checked there was enough water in the kettle and switched it on. He put a large spoon of coffee in his cup and waited for the water to boil. He was freezing, then remembered the fan heater he had borrowed from the physics lab. It made a grinding noise as it croaked wearily into life. The thermostat was a bit dodgy, and it always smelt like it was burning, but it did its job. It was better than nothing.

He pulled out a chair, sat down, and pulled his sandwich box from his school bag. Comparative luxury, really. he smiled at the thought of the poor sods freezing their balls off in the school common rooms. Some idiot had vandalized the heaters and the school had refused to replace them until the culprit owned up. Yeah, like that would ever happen. Well, maybe it would now the weather had turned so bloody cold again.

It didn't matter, problems in the common rooms no longer affected him. On the second week of term he had been asked to help sort out the junk in a store room underneath the library. He had agreed reluctantly, hoping they would forget about it if he put in one or two token appearances. Very quickly they forgot about it, and he found himself spinning the work out. After all, they had discovered an old TV set down there, still needed a DVD player though, he had to remember that, had a plan there. He had brought a kettle from home, there was a sink in the corner, power sockets, chairs and junk. The junk disappeared quickly and not long after they had changed the locks on the door. Their own, private, hiding hole. Much more comfortable than the common room, they were sensible enough not to take any risks with it, the fact that it was underground provided excellent insulation, and no noise could be transmitted upstairs to the library. More importantly access could be restricted to only those people he trusted, not that he really trusted any of them, but that was beside the point. And they could escape; an old access tunnel linked them with a disused boiler room underneath the gym. They were pretty sure not even the teachers knew about that.

The room was valuable enough for the few of them that knew about it to ensure it remained just a few of them.

Dean and Mike had a biology practical. Kath was on duty; the more trusted inmates were given power over the younger inmates. She would probably be over at 12:30 PM to wind him up. Kath Alessi was... he found her tough to deal with. She wasn't someone it was easy to be superficial with. That was a problem. His mastery of life was built on his ability to put on a face, it was built on telling people what they wanted to hear. Easy, because he always knew what they wanted to hear. Well, other than Ms Hinton, his maths teacher. There was something wrong with her, she secretly had to some kind of other world demonic entity. But Kath, he looked at her and all he could see was that she wanted the truth. That didn't help much, didn't tell him what he needed to say. Honesty was not something he was particularly any good at.

He turned on the TV and turned up the volume. Drowning out the noise he couldn't hear. Just as well the store room was as near as damn it sound proof. The news was just a few minutes away. More bloody paranoia mongering about missing kids that would be, he didn't know why he watched. He poured his coffee and tried to relax.

He almost missed the sound of the key turning in the door, panic, not expecting anyone. They were meant to knock three times first anyway. He dived to turn off the TV, spilling hot coffee down his trousers. He clenched his jaw tightly shut, all he had to do was remain silent; the key wouldn't work unless it was one of his friends.

Dean, out of breath, stumbled into the room. The door was locked quickly behind him.

"What the fuck were you thinking of, I nearly pissed myself."

"Looks more than nearly."

"That is coffee."

"Yeah, I believe you, totally. The Sith Lord is looking for you, something about you cutting school last week."

Jake paused, 'If anyone says shit about me going to see Vader with wet trousers, you are for it. Catch you later."

He grabbed his coat, slipped it on and zipped it fully up. Cursing having to leave just as he was thawing out nicely. The door closed behind him and he regretted leaving his personal sanctuary, in boding apprehension.


Not that he had anything to worry about. He never really did anything wrong, or at least never got caught. As far as Vader was concerned the worst he had ever done was to hand in Maths homework late.

Doctor Ernest V. Vader was the deputy principal, he combined a total lack of any sense of humor with a raspy voice and a totalitarian streak. It was a standing joke new kids sent to see him often pissed themselves. It was true he could be intimidating, but Jake Templeton Laris treated all teachers as a joke, it was pretty difficult to be intimidated by someone you didn't take seriously. Anyway, even if he had been guilty Jake figured he would be able to talk his way out it. And in a way it would help if Vader did start shouting, more chance of hearing him. The background voices were just getting louder and louder, first time they had bothered him at school. This was getting bloody silly. He knocked lightly on the door.

"Come."

Jake stepped into the room, the glare of the mock interrogation lamp catching him, he squinted at the figure beyond the desk. Dark and misshapen, he observed, like a cloaked incorporeal demon rising from some hideous polluted gutter. Then the cracked, lipless mouth opened as if to utter an hideous incantation. The guy was just too theatrical to take too seriously. Worked on younger kids maybe, but not him. Okay, straight face, he reminded himself.

"Sit down, Laris." Vader tried to pause ominously, 'I take it you are aware of my reason for summoning you?"

Jake glanced across at his adversary, at the reflection in his eyes, then through the reflection. So, Vader only knew about the lunchtime, that made it easier. No use going with denial, there was an air of certainty to his knowledge of the absence. And a sense of disappointment, that was cool, he could play on that.

"Not really, Sir, only that I suppose it might be something to do with me being away last Thursday lunchtime."

"So you weren't here?"

"No Sir."

"Explain."

"Sorry Sir, I went into town on an errand for Mister Fiedler. At the electronics repair shop." Well, it was vaguely true - Fiedler, his chemistry teacher, had sent him to pick up some spare parts, but that was the week before. Not that Fiedler would remember, he would just back him up. In any case the chances were Vader wouldn't bother trying to verify the alibi.

"I see. I expected there would be a rational explanation. It had been reported to me that you had been absent that afternoon, without permission. While your record clearly indicates you are not likely to do such a thing, I must investigate these matters without prejudice, good or bad. In this case I think I need interrupt your lunch time no longer."

And that terminated the conversation. Jake expressed a profound sounding, 'Thank you Sir," and left the room triumphantly.

If only he could talk his way out of Maths homework so easily. Ms Hinton was so much harder to read though. And the interruption to lunch meant there was little chance now of getting it done in time. Tough to concentrate as well with the voices, although they had abated slightly by the end of lunchtime. This was not a development he appreciated much. Seemed like he had no escape from the voices now, and that was liable to make life a lot more complicated.


"So, Laris, so damn clever you don't need to do your homework?"

Adam Kennywell, Adam Kennywell, Adam Kennywell. Who the hell was Adam Kennywell? This happened every time. Any other teacher and he could find exactly the right weasel words to get out of any trouble. But not when it came to maths lessons, not Ms Hinton. He couldn't keep a train of thought from one moment to the next, weird, disconnected thoughts kept popping into his head. She had some kind of freakish effect on him, this time was no different. He had no clue who Adam Kennywell was, but now he couldn't get the name out of his head, it was overpowering. He had to get some kind of answer out. What did she want him to say, why couldn't he work it out?

"No Miss. Honestly I just forgot."

"Don't be a smart arse." Her Australian accent sounded so sexy when she shouted. She had a quick temper, fury and anger in abundance, but she wasn't very intimidating in her knee length leather mini-skirt and loose, flame red blouse. The usual problem was in keeping a straight face.

"I'm not wasting any more of the lesson on you. We will continue this conversation after school on Wednesday. And you had damn well better have your homework done by then."

"Detention?" he immediately regretted the accusative tone of his voice, but he couldn't believe it. Alright, it wasn't the first time he had forgotten his homework. But he had apologized, she had no justification for landing him with a detention. The fact that he probably deserved it if only for all the times he hadn't got caught was beside the point.

"Yes, Mister Laris. I'm not wasting any more lesson time on you. And the rest of you can shut up, or you can join him."

The rest of the class quickly fell silent, and she started the lesson. She clearly couldn't hear the people Jake could hear chattering loudly in the distance, which was a pity, because he had to figure maybe her bitching at them would have had some effectiveness in making them go away.


"You got some kind of crush on her?" Kath had made an effort to catch him on the way out of the maths lesson and was intent on taking the piss.

"What?" Jake asked, frustrated having to ask such a stupid question. He wasn't much used to not knowing what the answer expected of him was.

"I love watching you in Maths lessons. Watching you fumbling for words, she just doesn't fall for your puppy dog facade. You can't bullshit her the way you bullshit everyone else."

"You think I bullshit you?"

"Yes. Oh, I'll admit, I never once have caught you doing it, but I wouldn't, would I, you're too damn good at it."

"You wound me, you know." Jake replied with mock indignation.

"Yeah, yeah. So why does she have that effect on you?"

"You looking for advice?"

"Looking for your weakness so I can exploit you."

"I have weaknesses for all sorts of things."

"You certainly have a weakness for maths teachers."

"Fuck off. You think I like looking like a twat in her lessons?"

"You, you might. You're disturbed in ways like that. I don't know. No one else sees it, but you are kind of disturbed."

"Yeah, and I love you too. Look, I wasn't on form, had a headache, that's all. Been getting a few headaches recently. No big deal."

"Headaches then... you sure it isn't your guilty conscience?"

"Ha fucking ha. Alright, so want would you want to do me out of if you could exploit me?"

"I don't know. Tickets. Tickets to see Foo Fighters, front row center."

"Is that all? I'll see what I can do."

"See, there it is. Right now, you're bullshitting me. Only, you fucking will get those tickets won't you?"

"I'll see what I can do."


And that had been the end of the school day. He left straight after maths as he always did on a Monday, technically he wasn't supposed to be leaving school mid-afternoon, but it was easy to get away with that one. He arrived home to encounter a note telling him that his hearing test had been arranged for Thursday. He smiled; it was the perfect half-an-excuse, he could easily wangle it to take the entire day off. That still left him having to suffer through an evening of his mother worrying vocally about brain tumors and meningitis and kidnapping. He enthusiastically took to heart a suggestion to get an early night, and escaped to bed. He found himself lying there awake, looking back on a day he could really have done without. Not that he had any right to object to the detention. It would be something new, he had never had one before. Everyone else had, he was long overdue his first experience.

Long overdue his first experience of a lot of things, not that he minded, there was a certain amount of choice in that predicament. There was no choice in his predicament with regard to the detention, spending time alone with Ms Hinton was not something he would ever voluntarily choose. Which was nuts, she was hot, but she was also just not someone he could deal with, even in his fantasies. Which, he considered, was bordering on being a tragedy, not that anything would happen at the detention, but surely he should be able to dream. But all he could think about was the detention. Yes, there was something plain wrong with the aspect of the experience he was focussed on right now. And it was part of a bigger problem, with the house to himself that afternoon he would usually have taken the opportunity to exorcise his tension and frustration over a morally questionable magazine or two, but he hadn't been in the mood. So much for teenage urges being irrepressible. He'd done his maths homework instead. He wondered if the voices in his mind were somehow displacing his inappropriate thoughts. In which case the voices were worse than bad, they were worse than worse.

They were there now, two, maybe three. Loud but muffled. He listened intently, sometimes they became clearer at night. Listening, tempting fate, trying to hear them call out his name.

Listening, waiting, wondering in apprehension, until he fell reluctantly asleep, exhausted.


The room was open, open to a howling snowstorm on a desolate featureless landscape. The kettle was icing over, the heater battling in total futility. There were icicles hanging from the stone ceiling. The door hung limply at an awkward angle to its frame. The snow was advancing slowly across the floor from every direction. He could see nothing but blizzard beyond. He knew he had to leave the room. There were no longer any walls to hold the ceiling up, he couldn't understand why it hadn't fallen already. The problem was in deciding which way to go. Out in the direction of the door would take him towards the library, if he could find it walking almost blind. The opposite direction led to the teacher's study, that was not his idea of escape. He could hear voices above the screaming wind. He screwed his eyes trying to look beyond the maelstrom, he could see a figure in the distance. Towards, it was a direction he had never known to exist before. But there was someone there, hard to make out through the driving snow, a figure, a girl wearing a white surgical gown. Wearing that, she had to be freezing to death, she was clearly someone who desperately needed help. Jake had to try and get to her. He stepped out into the biting cold. He could feel his face freezing, his limbs seizing up. She was looking towards him, but gave no indication she could even see him, he fought on desperately, closer and closer, but never seemed to be able to reach whoever it was. Momentarily he glanced back, nothing but white behind him now, he couldn't go back. He turned to press on forward, but the figure had gone. He spun, half in panic, no one, no sound but the wind, no reference points, nothing in any direction at all around him, he felt disoriented.

For a moment the storm seemed to subside, he could see a flash of someone behind him, coming towards him through the swirling snow. Not the same person he had seen earlier, someone else. Someone with a very dorky haircut. Someone holding out his hand, reaching out towards Jake. He seemed barely inches away, yet still too far away to touch. He was screaming above the storm, but could move no closer. The figure was momentarily visible as the wind changed direction, his lips were moving, he was trying to say something.

"Jake," the voice momentarily broke above audible, before the figure faded totally into a featureless white oblivion. He could see nothing again, a total white nothingness everywhere around him. He was alone, he felt so alone. And cold, so cold and so alone. The figure calling his name now merely a distant memory. He was shivering, crying, pleading. There was no one to plead with.


He awoke sweating.

At least this time he would be down in time for breakfast.


2: Sheep Shagging


Damon Jackson pulled himself reluctantly to his feet and walked to the front of the class. Trying to work out if he would get away with the sheep sex joke. Trying to work out if he cared whether he would get away with it, and tell it anyway for the hell of it. Trying to forget his hangover, even though that was from Sunday night and it was now Tuesday. Didn't help either that he hadn't slept well the night before. Strange nightmare about being stranded outside in a blizzard, freezing to death.

"This is my science project report on human evolution." He hated talking in front of the class. "Just over three weeks ago I attended a special lecture day given by the Institute for the Advancement of Science on this topic, this last weekend we went back for a concluding presentation, and I want to summarize the content of these visits." Stilted, stupid, felt like a geek. The entire class thought he was a geek, he wasn't doing himself any favors here. But twice in the last three weeks, just for a moment, he hadn't felt like one. For a couple of brief moments he had felt what it must be like to be normal, to hang out with the popular kids. To get smashed out of his head.

"The hypothesis is that human evolution has itself evolved." How could he make this interesting? How the hell had that guy who had given the presentation at the Institute three weeks earlier managed it? But somehow the guy had. Damon tried to think himself back there. Sat in the lecture theater, watching. Watching Dr Roger Elvyn actually make evolutionary biology sound fun...


"The death of human evolution has been greatly exaggerated. Human evolution is not dead. It has merely evolved." Dr Roger Elvyn had paused at that point, caught the moment with his opening statement, and the chattering in the audience had subsided.

"It's a hypothesis, not a theory. Can anyone tell me in science what is the difference between a hypothesis and a theory?"

Hands went up, Damon's hand in the third row had gone up, and he had momentarily freaked as Dr Elvyn had pointed at him. "A hypothesis is just a concept or idea for consideration. A theory has undergone rigorous peer review and is generally accepted to be an accurate model to explain observed facts." He managed to stutter out.

"Good. Yes, I'll take that." Not perfect, but it must have been good enough for his purpose.

Damon had felt intensely self-conscious. People were looking at him, and he hated that. Looking at him, he mentally noted, as much because he looked a good year or three younger than the bulk of seventeen and eighteen year olds in the audience.

"I can't point you at observed facts that directly indicate that the nature of human evolution has changed. I will present an argument as to why it should be considered a possibility, why perhaps we should perhaps be looking for evidence, and indeed what form that evidence might take. You can go away and think about it, you can go away think about ideas how to test it, but at this point is has not been rigorously reviewed, so it is a long, long way from being a theory."

Damon watched the guy pause to sip from a glass of water on the desk in front of him. Outwardly in control but beneath the surface he could see him trying to relax, trying to remind himself this was only a bunch of high school students here to get a taste of university, it wasn't the grant committee out to screw him again. Wondering if he might even get away with suggesting some of his less orthodox ideas, a thought floated but rejected on the consideration there was half a chance that some irritating prick called Stellman might slip in the back and be listening. And Elvyn was in enough trouble with the faculty as it was, no need to invite professional suicide.

"What do I mean by 'the death of evolution'? Our species, Homo sapiens, wise man, has turned out to be too wise for traditional evolution. Advances in medicine are conquering previously incurable diseases, one hundred years ago seven out of every ten children would have died before they reached your age. Weaker people would die in a cold winter, or die if they were injured and couldn't hunt for food. Today if I have a cold I can go online and have food delivered direct to my door. An important traditional mechanism for evolution, the survival of the fittest, no longer has the same meaning it did when Darwin sailed off on his voyage of discovery.

"Also people are no longer genetically isolated as they were even just fifty years ago, people travel and mix worldwide. The differences between populations are decreasing, not increasing, that works against change, that works against evolution.

"So, is human evolution dead?

"To answer that, we need to start at the beginning. First, I want to tackle two issues. Who we are, and where we came from. In that we cover; what is evolution, what is biological evolution, what is human evolution? Once you understand that, and the models by which this has happened, then I'll tackle the third issue; where we are going?"

Starting to relax, starting to get into the presentation. He paused theatrically.

"Okay, someone tell me, who are we? From a biological point of view?"

Damon had his hand instantly in the air, but was not so bothered to lose out to an older boy across the other side. Lesson one in not looking like a twat, don't raise your hand. He knew that. But he hated not raising his hand if he knew the answer.

"Human beings."

"Yes we are, and the scientific name for humans is?"

Elvyn picked a girl at the front; "Homo sapiens."

"Right, someone was listening. We are the species Homo sapiens. What is a species?"

Hands went up, he ignored them, instead selecting the first next slide in his presentation. "Don't worry, this is a trick question." He read out directly from the screen:

"One day, Plato defined humankind as the two legged animal without feathers. The next day, they say, Diogenes dropped by the Academy with a plucked chicken."
unknown, /creation/speciationdef.html, 1998


"If you try to over-simplify a definition, you can easily loose the meaning, and often open yourself to ridicule."

"Try this one:"

"Species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations, which are reproductively isolated from other such groups." E. Mayr, 'Systematics and the Origin of Species', Columbia University Press, 1944


"Yes, your species is your set of potential sexual partners. It's about viable reproduction, for anyone confused; this does not mean Welsh men and sheep are the same species." It got a laugh.

"The definition of species is still widely debated. The one quoted here is the biological species definition. The fundamental problem is that a definition that is of use to, say, geneticists is of little use to palaeobiologists. Categorizing fossilized specimens has to be done by morphology, that is comparing the structure of the fossils, there is no DNA to work from. Similarly with an extinct species, a fossil simply cannot tell you if two specimens were reproductively compatible.

"So why the hell can these guys not get their act together? There is an apocryphal story about, oh, between three and seven blind men encountering an elephant, depending on the version you read. One touches the trunk and concludes the elephant is a rope. The second touches its side and concludes a wall. I'll stop there, fortunately no stories get past seven blind men because I hate to think what would be left for them to grope. The point is each only sees a single aspect of what the elephant is. They are all valid observations, though they may seem to contradict. The whole is something bigger and more complex than can be grasped by the limited perception of any one man.

"That is also true of the concept of a species. And indeed true of many concepts I will present here. As scientists we struggle with seeing tiny fragments of a greater whole, and trying to put them together to get a better picture. We will never have all the pieces, we will never entirely agree on what conclusions we reach based on our individual interpretations of those pieces we do have. The bigger picture in its pure form remains eternally elusive. Unless you want to get into theology, but that's a whole different lecture!"


Telling dirty jokes about sheep and intellectual jokes about chickens. Damon could really appreciate the different levels of humor. But, it was the sheep joke he cared about. That was what he needed. That was how he could walk out of that classroom not looking like a total nerd. That was the real lesson he had learned from the two weekends going to stay over at the university campus. The real lesson that had started after the lectures...


"Do we have to have this little creep hanging around?" Chris had asked angrily.

Pete agreed. "He's way too young, we won't get served anywhere if he comes along."

"Come on, kid, does your dick even have hairs on yet?" Chris had addressed the challenge directly at Damon, but wasn't listening for an answer. Like Pete, he was waiting more for a cue from Nick on how far it was okay to push things, and so far Nick had remained silent on the matter.

Damon had quickly surmised the three of them were very much opposed to having anything to do with him that night. They'd actually been pretty good humored and not verbally beat up on him all day, but the evening was their big chance to get out and have some real fun, and they weren't about to have some fifteen year old kid spoil it. He could understand their point of view, but he had his own plans to have fun. Anyway, it was fair to say that he had them by the short and curlies.

"I know about the vodka you stashed on the school bus on the way here, and I know that you bollocksed up and left it there. They'll find it when we load up the bags on the way back, unless you manage a distraction so someone can grab it out of the way first. But you can't distract me and the bus driver at the same time, and that's a problem. So, how about I make it easy for you and promise to keep my mouth shut. Problem solved."

"How about we kick the shit out of you?" Pete wasn't exactly happy at the ultimatum, but Damon wasn't worried, he knew the guy didn't have the balls to carry through on the threat.

"Exactly how the hell did you know about that?" Chris was more worried that their scheme had been uncovered.

Nick broke his silence, "The rest of us might just fake it, but no way will you pass for eighteen. Come on, be realistic here, how old are you?" Nick was intelligent enough to have skipped past any pointless debate on how Damon had worked out about the vodka, and practical enough to recognize a reasonable deal in concept at least, Nick just didn't believe what Damon was proposing was workable.

Damon fought to remain as calm as he could, trying to face them all down. "Sixteen next month. And for your information my dick does have hairs."

"This isn't going to work." Chris was blunt.

Pete shook his head dismissively, "Look at him, look at his hair, his mother still cuts his hair, right. Straight cut and poofed up like a fucking shampoo advert for women. He might as well have a big flashing sign on his head says 'I Am 9'."

Damon swallowed back, he kind of agreed about the hair thing, but there wasn't much he could do about that, he had to finish making his case. "It will work. I stay away from the bar, just about all the bars on this campus have places outside to sit, you know, where people can smoke, I've been and checked, and with the weather like this, who would want to sit inside anyway. I keep my head down, face away from the crowd. It'll work. And don't forget this is a university campus, student bars, student bar staff. As long as we keep our heads down, they aren't likely to give a shit."

"Got it all worked out haven't you?" Chris was unconvinced.

Nick, however, remained practical; "Look, here's the deal. We'll give you a chance. If one single bar refuses to serve us, or throws us out because of you, then you back down. You go back to bed like a good little boy, and keep your mouth shut. Deal?"

Pete and Chris had looked at each other. They were convinced Nick had won the battle, they figured after one bar that Damon would be on his way home to bed, then they could have their fun, and on top of that they had their vodka problem solved. And Damon had to admit, they might be right about that. But it didn't matter. He had his chance, and that was all that he cared about.

"Deal."


There was silence. Damon looked across the classroom, trying not to catch old Mrs Battleaxe's eye. Doctor Elvyn hadn't quite told the joke as explicitly, but, it had worked, he had the undivided attention of the class.

He clicked the remote to try and get to the next slide. It wasn't working properly, he glanced down, it was showing a warning for low batteries. Stopping now to fumble around with replacing the batteries was not a good idea, it would completely trash the advantage he'd just bought himself, and considering what it had cost him in terms of the trouble he was now going to be in, stopping just wasn't an option.

Damon looked across at the laptop that was running the slideshow. If he could just hit the enter key without having to walk over. Time was running out, he had to come up with some non-geeky excuse for getting over to the other side of the room in order to continue the presentation. He just couldn't see how that was possible. Stupid bloody laptop, screwing everything up just when he was getting on top of things. He focussed, trying to control the desire he had to storm over, throw the laptop on the floor and jump up and down on the bloody enter key to get the next slide up. He tried breathing more slowly. Giving in to the rage might make him feel better, but it wouldn't help him with the presentation.

In desperation he glared at the laptop, just wishing the slide would change. He noticed the eyes of the class turn collectively to reading the screen. Puzzled, he followed their gaze, and noted the screen was now showing his new slide. How the hell had that happened?

Damon relaxed, he would just have to accept it. His new slide was up, he hadn't had to fumble around to do it, and the momentary delay had been brief enough that he still had the full attention of the class. Now he could get back to trying to summarize the lecture...


Doctor Roger Elvyn was starting to settle into his stride.

"Talk about the evolution of humans, and for the most part you are talking fossil records. As an example here. We have two species of genus Homo co-existing around 100,000 years ago; Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis. Based on fossil records we categorize them as separate species. There is fossil evidence however that Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis were not only shagging, but not using condoms. Fossil evidence of mixed species kids. But wait! Separate species can't do that!

"Well, horses and donkeys can do it. Two separate species. The offspring are generally infertile. The biological definition of species is often extended to include this, remember the problems with oversimplification. So, this is possible, but it would mean these half Homo sapiens, half Homo neanderthalensis kids would be infertile. If the offspring were fertile, these two not be separate species but would rather be subspecies; Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Fossils have not provided an answer to that one. There are limitations to what we know. This becomes important later when I talk about the competing out of Africa and multi-regionalism theories about the dominance of Homo sapiens.

"More definitions:", another slide.

"In the broadest sense, evolution is merely change and so is all pervasive; galaxies, languages and political systems all evolve." Douglas J. Futuyma, 'Evolutionary Biology', Sinauer Associates, 1986


"He then goes on to narrow the definition to biological evolution, his somewhat longer explanation has been summarized as:"

"Evolution is a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations." Laurence Moran, 'What is Evolution', /faqs/evolution-definition.html, 1993


"Man, Homo sapiens, like any other species, has evolved, despite anything the creationists might want to tell you. They joke that we can't possibly all be descended from monkeys, which only proves how completely they fail to understand evolutionary theory.

"Man descended from a common ancestry with the apes, but the species diverged about six to eight million years ago. Very, very distant cousins at best.

"The fossil record is indistinct and patchy in places. But of the side of that divergence that ultimately produced our species, Homo sapiens is the only survivor. All the other species in that branch are now extinct. No question, Homo sapiens has turned out to be a pretty successful species.

"So here we are. Potted family history." He brought up a timeline slide. "On the left Kenyanthropus and Sahelanthropus are among the earliest known hominids. Few examples found, very little is known. Ardipithecus, Australopithicus.

"Australopithicus is where it gets interesting. We are looking now at about three million years ago. The fossil records become significantly more diverse. We have maybe half a dozen species of Australopithecines, be clear this is not a straight line evolution. Some of these are sister species and were around at the same time. Think about it; what would it be like, sharing the planet with another hominid species?

"The robust australopithecines were at one time thought to be a different genus, called Paranthropus. Generally not accepted now.

"Australopithicus aferensis begat Australopithicus africanus who was probably a direct human ancestor.

"Note the complete lack of lines on this diagram showing relationships between the species. When a fossil specimen is discovered, we try to fit it into this map. The fossil record is tiny. This is a best guess at interpreting the evidence we do have, at trying to make it all fit. The fact is that fossil records in and of themselves can't give us those lines to work out how the different species relate. Where we place them is guess work at best and many of us prefer to leave those lines off the picture.

"So, then, in the middle we have a couple of curiosities. Australopithicus garhi and Homo rudolfensis. Debated, contested, are they the last of the Australopithecines, or the first ever Homos.

"That always gets a smile. Genus Homo. Yes, were are all homos.

"Homo habilis is similarly debated. One of our ancestors, or a side branch, an evolutionary dead end? Probably the latter.

"Homo ergaster and Homo erectus. One species, two species? Important note here, when we come to look at the future of human evolution and talk about speciation, which is how one species arises from another, we will revisit this question.

"For now, let us consider these as separate species as we finish our march through time.

"Homo erectus was a massively successful species, but was it our ancestor? Maybe. Generally you will see Homo heidelbergensis as deriving either from Homo erectus or Homo ergaster, and Homo heidelbegensis as giving rise to both Homo neaderthalensis and Homo sapiens. Finally us.

"So, how does one species arise from another species, and how did Homo sapiens become the dominant hominid to the extinction of all others?

"Okay, I told you there were problems with the definition of species. This directly impacts discussions on speciation. How you delimit a species is fundamental to defining the transition or evolution from one species to the next.

"Let me bring back two topics I mentioned earlier. Sexual compatibility, I questioned whether Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens could produce fertile offspring. Are they species in themselves, or simply two subspecies of the same species.

"When we define species based on fossil remains, we have to talk about morphological species. We don't know if they were sexually compatible, we have no way of telling. All we can do is look at how similar their bone structure is and make an educated guess.

"In that respect, to talk about speciation in a palaeobiological context has its own problems.

"I want to describe speciation, and the two processes involved; Anagenesis and Cladogenesis. In many respects these two models underpin the two competing theories for the spread and dominance of Homo sapiens.

"Anagenesis is the change over time of one species into another. With a biological species definition, this one is a problem. Obviously at any given time the species will be sexually compatible with itself. The argument is that in fact the individual members of the species at some point would become sexually incompatible with specimens of much earlier generations. Short of inventing a time machine, you cannot prove this. Science is about being able to test theories. With Anagenesis there is no actual point of speciation. Consequently some refuse to accept it as meaningful to identify anagenesis as a speciation mechanism in and of itself. But note, we will revisit this as an option for future human evolution.

"Cladogenesis is the splitting or branching of a species. Typically this requires isolation of two groups within a species that diverge to the point where they become separate species. Sexual compatibility is much more meaningful here, though in palaeobiological terms, that doesn't help much. Often sister species will be morphologically similar, a big problem in palaeobiology when you can only use morphology to differentiate species.

"So, given these mechanisms for speciation, how did Homo sapiens evolve?

"Did I mention the paleontologists don't all agree a lot of the time? This is the big one. Multi-regionalism and Out of Africa.

"Multi-regionalism argues that Homo erectus migrated from Africa to populate the rest of the world. There was no regional isolation, but a constant movement of people between the regions. Evolution occurred essentially by anagenesis. Sapiens and neanderthalensis were subspecies of a single anagenic transition from Homo erectus. As such they were sexually compatible, they indeed constantly interbred, and consequently no cladogenic speciation occurred. Modern man, Homo sapiens is simply a product of this anagenesis, that we indeed inherited genetic material from neaderthalensis, but as well as the more dominant earlier Sapiens. This same process occurred regionally throughout all the areas Homo erectus had migrated to, and Homo erectus simply became Homo sapiens.

"Out of Africa tells a very different story. There was a migration of Homo erectus out of Africa some two million years ago. These migrations led to genetic isolation of the groups, hence cladogenesis, speciation. Homo sapiens evolved in isolation in Africa. At a later date, perhaps only some 100,000 years ago, they too migrated. They did not, on the whole, get intimate with the other hominid species they encountered. Pairings were infrequent, any offspring infertile anyway. This was a truly separate species. And they were more successful in the environment than the other hominids Homo sapiens thrived, Homo erectus and later Homo neanderthalensis failed to thrive. They were displaced by Homo sapiens, and ultimately, perhaps as recently as 30,000 years ago, finally became extinct.

"Big arguments. Right now the evidence favors the out of Africa theory. But multi-regionalism has not entirely been discounted yet, and still manages to explain a few facts that out of Africa can't. The debate will rage on a long time yet.

"So, is evolution still happening?

"Cladogenic speciation is a problem now. To a great degree we have eliminated isolation. For a group to be able to remain isolated long enough for cladogenic speciation to occur, it's hard to imagine that would be possible now. And they would be sexually incompatible with us if it did happen. Given the number of Homo sapiens in the world, and the fact the new species could only reproduce within their own group, it would take a catastrophe of almost biblical proportions to wipe out Homo sapiens. And the new species, lets call them Homo superior, a hypothetical species designation coined a long time ago, the new species would have to, in some way be immune to that catastrophe.

"More likely, I would propose, is anagenesis. We can't have isolation, we do have strong genetic crossflow. There would continue to be reproductive compatibility. Compatible subspecies could arise, a genetic trait might begin in semi-isolation, and if useful, if dominant, would propagate. By the end of the process, likely a process of hundreds of thousands of years, Homo sapiens would simply become Homo superior, as the dominant genetic trait ultimately propagated throughout the species as a whole.

"Whether multi-regionalism happened in the past is somewhat irrelevant. I propose that the principle is sound, and that it could happen in the future. Indeed, there may even be a genetic variant, a subspecies, as different from us as we are from, say, neaderthalensis. Could be sitting in this room right now. Morphologically even sister species are so similar you couldn't easily tell. And if the subspecies that person belongs to is dominant, Homo sapiens would be subsumed. Technically not extinct, as only a species can become extinct, and the dominant subspecies would survive to become Homo superior.

"Frightening thought. And interesting to think about as I mentioned earlier; what would it be like, sharing the planet with another hominid species?

"Any genetic trait that arose, back to Darwin, natural selection, would have to favor the survival and sexual propagation of that person. So, time to have some fun here as we draw this lecture to a close. What genetic traits, features, abilities do you think might exist in a population that could benefit people sufficiently to be propagated in the species and facilitate anagenesis?"

He had turned off the projector and grabbed a marker pen. Hoping maybe one of them would hand him his chance to discuss his own ideas without getting in to trouble. Hah, some chance. It was just a bunch of kids. A few hands were raised. Damon of course already had his hand raised, although he could sense Elvyn's impatience. Do this, finish, get out of here, he was thinking. Glorified baby sitting.

"Come on, lets have some interesting ideas."


Damon concluded his presentation. He looked back at all the faces still a little stunned by his sheep joke. Sure, the joke itself hadn't been that offensive, and every one of them would have sniggered at far worse on the average school day, but he'd told it in front of a class, in front of a teacher. It kind of amused him; their mock-indignation was so hypocritical, and Mrs Battleaxe for her part seemed about ready to blow a fuse. He was up shit creek for sure, but it had to be worth it, just for this one moment of being able to enjoy having shocked the fuck out of everyone so much.

No one in the class was stepping up to ask any questions. It didn't matter, they weren't interested in evolutionary biology, and none of them had the balls to ask any questions about sheep, although he could see a few were thinking that would have been the funniest thing ever if someone had asked about that.

Damon, of course, had gotten very much into the questions and answers session after the lecture, and it had brought him to the attention of Doctor Elvyn, who had actually approached him at the fruit juice and cheese reception afterwards.


"Mister Damon Jackson." Doctor Roger Elvyn had addressed him specifically.

"Doctor Elvyn, good to meet you." Damon had no clue how formal he needed to be.

"So. Am I enjoying the party?"

Damon smiled at the twisting of the question, immediately feeling a little more at ease. "You're interested by this conversation, but finding the party tedious on the whole. This isn't really your scene."

"Pretty accurate I think. And a very interesting hypothesis on your part, empathy as a genetic differentiator. Interesting because I actually think it is quite feasible, it was also a great starting point to get the discussion going. Those questions and answer discussion sessions at the end can be hell if you get a dead audience."

"So, that's why you picked me because you figured I could get the discussion started. Intuition?"

Elvyn laughed. "Experience, I'm afraid is all that was. Of the people I had picked to answer questions, you were the most sure of yourself. I've been in the business long enough to know that self confidence is the attribute most likely to get the ball rolling."

"You don't believe in intuition?" Damon had challenged. He could see Elvyn was not feeling nearly as dismissive of the phenomenon as he might have been sounding.

"Intuition is not pseudoscience at all, and I think an enhanced pattern matching ability could indeed confer evolutionary advantages. I'm just not going to lay any claim to have any particular gifts in that area."

"You think just intuition and empathy are significant enough on their own to trigger a speciation event?"

"No. Not even close. Although I can definitely see them as contributing factors, empathy more so. Clearly something that sets us apart from lower primates is our ability to intellectualize an understanding of the thoughts and feelings of others. Beneficial, in modern society certainly..."

"More of your social workers as the future of humanity claptrap, Roger?" The interjection came, according to the name tag, from one Doctor Marcus Stellman.

"Understanding how other people think and feel has to give an individual a survival advantage though?" Damon fired back. There was something about Stellman he instantly didn't like.

"Ah, yes, it clearly helps you exploit others, and no doubt that would give you an advantage."

"But I'm arguing it gives you an advantage from a cooperative and altruistic point of view, not as some mechanism for purely selfish exploitation." Elvyn countered.

Damon was starting to feel more than a little out of his depth here. "I though evolution was all about the selfish gene?"

"Right." Elvyn jumped in, "But within a social group, altruism and cooperation allow us to be selfish about the group rather than just the individual. You look after your own, there is a lot of evidence for those kinds of behaviors giving a survival advantage..."

"A point, I wish to point out, that I actually do agree on..." Stellman interrupted.

"We as Homo sapiens, wise men, have the capacity to rationalize longer term survival strategies that might in the short term appear to contradict the primal survival instinct..."

"Again, I don't disagree..."

"Helping others is a strong long term survival strategy."

"No totally wrong. Helping those who might assist you in return, that makes sense. Helping the useless, is pointless."

"But people do that, help people because it's right, not because it has any particular personal benefit." Damon tried to challenge.

"You're not entirely wrong there, boy. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. Just that it's counter to evolution. We could as a species choose to continue down that road, absolutely we could. But we'd end up extinct. Evolution is the survival of the fittest. Evolution is a fact. We ignore it, then as a species we die."

"We're all doomed, Damon. That is what Marcus believes, and what I disagree with." Elvyn smiled.

"I believe humanity will survive. Despite the fertility challenge that no one even seems to want to admit to. People so obsessed with the climate, with pollution, with energy, they kind of miss that for those problems to matter a damn we have to solve the problem that while population is still increasing for now, fertility is actually decreasing at an alarming rate. The species will survive, but I believe those genetically predisposed to altruism will not significantly contribute to the gene pool in the longer term."

"You're an old cynic Marcus. Leave young Damon here some idealism."

Damon could sense a great deal of frustration on the part of Stellman, who concealed it however by a jovial laugh before departing to go bother some other academic staff.

"As I pointed out in my lecture, academics often struggle to agree on much. He's right about the fertility problem though. So, you have some interesting ideas, you think you see a future for yourself in this line of work?"

"Well, either in genetics, or I'll end up as a social worker. Seriously. Intuition or empathy or call it what you like, but I'm pretty good at connecting with how people are feeling."

Right, Damon, he told himself... if you are so fucking good at connecting with how people are feeling, how come you are still such an awkward, friendless geek?


"Holy fuck, Damon, the look on her face when you pulled that joke about sheep shagging, I really thought steam was going to start coming out the collar of that starched dress of hers. Your presentation was shit, but it was worth it to see that." Damon's sort of friend Steve had whispered to him on the way out of the classroom.

Respect. Only a couple of them said it outright, but he could sense it as he walked out of the lesson. Just this once people weren't openly or even secretly sneering at him. Sure, he was in serious trouble with old Mrs Battleaxe, but it was worth it.

He looked up as he headed into the hall. Nick Smart grinning at him. "You told that sheep sex joke in front of old Battleaxe? You got balls kid, you got balls."

Three weeks ago Nick wouldn't have even looked at him. Now one of the coolest kids in school had spoken to him, and in front of other kids. Sure, it never bothered him before, he didn't much care what someone like Nick thought. Damon had figured that whole 'cool kids' thing was a bunch of crap. Nick more than any of them he had written off as just vacuous, two-dimensional, superficial. But it wasn't that simple. No one was ever that simple, not when you started to get to know them...


"We were invited, they said we could come. Don't worry about it." As the evening had passed, Nick's attitude had become significantly more mellow. Partly because he was getting drunk, but also partly because things had gone reassuringly smoothly since they'd headed out.

The plan had been simple, a few bars on campus, then back with a couple of bottles of vodka if they could get some. There had been nothing in there about getting invited to some student party. Damon was feeling totally out of his depth. Well, that and feeling the buzz from having had more to drink than he was used to. Okay, not really that much to drink, they'd spent more time keeping their heads down and worrying about getting caught than actually enjoying themselves. But for him, anything was more than he was used to. The others though, he'd figured those guys wouldn't have been so scared, figured they would have done this kind of stuff regularly. He had rapidly worked out that wasn't the case.

In one respect at least, though, the evening had worked out more good humored than he had though it would. For all they shit they'd given him about not wanting him along, Pete and Chris had not been that obnoxious towards him all evening. Damon had wondered that they might get awkward when they hadn't managed to get rid of him as early in the evening as they had wanted, but in the end they were happy enough that they were getting served that they really didn't seem to care whether he was there or not. He had to admit they were treating him a lot better than he really could have dared hope for.

Certainly better than he deserved after the scene he had just created. He was finding it difficult to navigate a straight line, and carrying two drinks he had collided with some student guy. Thankfully the other guy was still standing, Damon was on the floor with most of the two drinks over him. Then the guy was bearing down on him, and for a moment he was terrified the incident was going to end in violence. But as the guy reached out a hand to help him up he could see that all the guy was thinking was about how it didn't seem so long since he had been that young and that stupid. Damon had apologized, Nick had apologized on behalf of all of them. Nobody seemed to mind. Damon was more worried he had blown it, shown himself up to be the stupid kid they had accused him of being. Now Nick was telling him not to worry about it. Damon just didn't get it. Nick was one of the coolest kids in school, he didn't need to tell a geek like Damon not worry about it.

"But probably time to get out of here before you make a bigger prick of yourself."

That was more like it. More what he expected. But it wasn't malicious, and it wasn't angry. Partly it felt like Nick wanted to get out of there before he made a similar fool of himself. Partly it almost felt protective, like, he couldn't work it out. He was too drunk to work it out. But Damon was forced to admit, there was a lot more to Nick than the superficial cool guy he had thought the guy was.

And by the time they got back to campus, which was longer than they planned after getting lost in the red light district of town and turning down some frankly scary cut price student deals, the story had turned into Damon having a go at the guy and narrowly avoiding getting the shit kicked out of him, and they were telling him he was more than welcome to hang out with them for the follow up Institute event in three weeks time.


"Doctor Elvyn used the same joke in his presentation, I was summarizing that presentation and I thought it would have the same effect it had when he used it, it made genetic biology seem more down to earth, more approachable." Damon was trying to explain to the deputy head, without much success.

"To a group of students intending to study biology at university next year I am sure it did. I do not see the same applies to a class of fifteen year olds."

"It got them listening though. Ask them what a species is and I bet they remember."

"Jackson, that is not the point. That kind of humor is inappropriate in a school classroom. It was a special privilege for you to be allowed to attend this event with three of out brightest final year pupils, and I regret that our trust in you appears to have been misplaced. You may be a prodigy at biology, but clearly your common sense is not of a similar pedigree. Now, I've spoken to Nick Smart, and thankfully he informs you that your behavior at the event was more in keeping with your role at the event as an ambassador for this school, and I'm willing to accept today's incident as a momentary aberration on your part. But I will not tolerate this kind of immaturity again. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir."

"You would do well to look to the likes of Nick Smart as an example of how to behave responsibly. We have said before we expect great things of you Mr Jackson, but you need to learn some discipline first. Now get out."

Damon Jackson turned and departed. Nick had told them Damon's behavior at the event was 'ambassadorial', he had nearly cracked up laughing when he heard that. And Nick Smart was an example of how to behave responsibly...


"Fuck it then, we all just go back, get wasted on the vodka." Surprisingly it was Chris who had come out with that conclusion.

Three weeks had passed and the four of them had returned to the university for the follow up session. Damon had quickly adjusted back to the others treating him just like one of the guys, but he really hadn't expected Chris to come out with that.

"Right, vodka time." Nick had agreed, and Nick's word was law.

The exchange had left Damon confused. It hadn't been a spoken thing, just assumed, that the deal would be the same as it had been the last time. That Damon would back down and go back to his room if they couldn't get served. And it wasn't that they hadn't gotten served. They had, but Damon was acutely aware of the looks they were all getting, and had concluded his best option was to cut his losses and bail out before they blamed him for trashing the evening.

What was different was that the weather had changed so abruptly. The last time it had been more than warm enough to sit outside and no one had cared that Damon was there. This time it was freezing cold, bloody May and they were half expecting it to snow. This time they had no choice, they had to sit inside, but the moment they'd walked into the bar it was clear that Damon's presence was going to be an issue. Damon had been convinced Nick was going to pull him aside for a quiet word, tell him to fuck off. The last thing he had expected was Chris to side with him, not that Damon was going to argue with him.

And so they had headed back to the campus rooms they were in for the night, turned the heating up as high as it would go, put on some music, and opened the vodka. Damon was surprised, but more than happy with the way things had turned out.

"So what do you think half-pint Jackson, ready for the big boy drink?" Pete wasn't going to let Damon forget that he was two years younger than the rest of them, or that he had ordered half pints in the bar.

"Fuck off."

"Oh you can talk like a grown up as well?"

Damon laughed. He was only just getting to accept that this was sort of good humored.

The first glass of vodka was poured.

By his third shot he felt comfortably sloshed. No worse than the others though. The level of the conversation had very quickly crashed down into the gutter.

Chris was determined to keep it there. "So you've never seen a girl naked, I mean a real girl, not just pictures."

"Never. Not even seen that many pictures."

"No internet? Fuck, what else is the internet for?" Pete was genuinely feeling sorry for Damon.

"Not allowed to have an internet connection in my bedroom."

"You don't admit to that. You're making yourself out to be a bit of a sad bastard here." Nick advised. Damon had noticed Nick didn't say all that much, but it was usually way more constructive advice than Damon had figured someone like that could manage to give.

Pete sniggered knowingly. "Hey, be nice to Nick, he can set you up with some serious hard core shit."

"Right, Pete, no way am I supplying that kind of stuff to a little boy like this one." Nick had some kind of morals.

Damon was frustrated, and in his frustration he responded a little more truthfully that he felt was probably necessary. "I am NOT a little boy. Just got bloody irritating parents."

"That is sad. Hey, more vodka for Damon. He needs cheering up." Declared Pete, downing the remainder of the glass he was holding and grabbing for the bottle again.

Chris laughed: "What he needs is a woman."

"I need a woman." Pete slurred, trying to sound soulful.

"Thought you were into sheep." Damon fired back.

"Fuck off. At least I have hair on my dick."

"Okay, that's it." The alcohol had given Damon the stupidity he needed; he stood up and dropped his pants. "Take a good look. Tell me if you don't see hair."

"No, you're sick. Alright you win, now put it away for Fuck's sake." Pete laughed reluctantly and acknowledged defeat, slumping back. The response seemed to have drained him of whatever energy he had left.

Nick was doubled up with laughing, "I can't believe you did that. Hey, Pete, it's bigger than yours. A fucking fifteen year old has a bigger cock than you."

Damon couldn't believe he'd done it either. He made a mental note never to be drunk in front of his parents.

"A Toast, a toast to hairy Jackson." Nick proposed, standing up.

"Hear hear." Chris chimed in.

That meant more vodka. They all tried to stand. Pete stumbled and fell, they propped him up against a chair, he barely seemed aware of them.

"What I don't get is there you are, prissy little shit, star pupil," Nick switched to a low, piss take voice, "'We can expect great things of you, Mr Jackson'. Then look at you now, pissed as a fart and not a bad laugh."

Damon felt good, the guy didn't realize how much that compliment meant. Nick meant it. Why the hell was Nick trying to make him feel good like that?

"In fact, little boy," Nick continued, "make me laugh that hard again and I'll totally reconsider my decision not to supply you with any porn."

They played cards, laughing, making a noise. Pete fell over, they propped him back up. The drinking continued but more slowly, they sat around taking the piss out of school teachers, laughing, making a noise. Pete fell over, they left him.

Nick stumbled out to the toilets, they heard him throw up, he stumbled back and poured another drink.

They played screwing up pieces of paper and trying to toss them in the sink, they flicked coins around the room. Still laughing, slightly more subdued.

Damon was still sipping on his last glass. His stomach didn't feel so good, and he was sure he was slurring his words.

"What is that smell?"

"Oh shit, Pete's pissed himself." Chris grimaced.

Pete was lying doubled over where they had left him, dead to the world. They could see the damp stain.

They dragged him round and pulled him up onto the bed. Damon looked morbidly at the wasted figure. Why did fun always have consequences?

Chris shrugged and yanked down the soggy pants, throwing them quickly in the sink before thoroughly washing his hands. "Fucking purple underpants. No wonder he hasn't ever got laid." He pulled the covers across, "He can sleep like that."

The remaining three of them crashed down on the floor. Nick started laughing. "Not only have you got a bigger dick, Mr half-pint Jackson, but you can hold your drink better. Cheers."

Damon downed the rest of his vodka. Nick poured out what was left, half a shot each.

"Has to be... In one."

They downed them.

There was a long pause, a silent realization with the drink gone they they couldn't avoid having to get up in the morning.

"Will he be alright?" Damon asked.

Chris glanced up. "Not if he throws up. If he throws up in here I'll fucking kill him."

Damon laughed, and felt his stomach heave.

"And if you throw up in here, I'll fucking kill you." Chris got up, steadied himself, and went across to his bed, pulling open his sports bag.

"I know, stumble to bathroom to throw up. Hey, I've learned from watching a pro."

"Too right." Nick stood up slowly, "Seriously though Damon, go throw up now. I have to share a room with you."

Chris dropped his pants to the floor and stepped out of them. "Woohoo, look little boy, I also have a big fat hairy..."

Damon looked, gagged, and made a bolt for the toilets. Nick and Chris cracked up laughing.

He woke up in the toilet cubicle. More abruptly than he was in any shape to be waking up. He was feeling disoriented, last thing he remembered was being in the middle of throwing up and someone shouting at him to shut the fuck up. Yeah, like any twat trying to sleep in the toilets deserved peace and quiet.

He could still smell the vomit, he had managed to pass out before flushing. He grabbed and pulled the flush thing, then tried to drag himself to his feet. His head was splitting, he stopped at the sink to gulp down mouthfuls of fresh water, and generally clean himself up. He only had to make it two doors down the corridor before he could collapse in bed.

He looked at his watch; 4:32 AM. He'd been asleep in the toilets for over three hours? Shit. That was messed up. His forearm was messed up too. Looked badly bruised, cut. He must have fallen against something, really cut himself quite badly. It was itching like crazy. Not good, the toilet floor was not the most hygienic of places to have been lying with an open wound like that. He had antiseptic, in the medical kit his mother had made him pack. For once her overprotective insanity would be useful. Now if he could just make it back to the room.

There was a fun part to getting drunk, but he had a problem with the loss of control. The throwing up part wasn't so great either. He held on to the wall for support as he made for the exit. His head was still spinning, although not as violently as before. He could hear interrupted snoring sounded like it was coming from another one of the cubicles, he definitely didn't want to hang around.

The corridor was dark and empty. He stumbled uncertainly back to the room. Nick was lying curled up on the floor unconscious, one sock on, one sock off, clutching a towel. Damon didn't want to know.

He pulled his own clothes off, dumped them over the chair and pulled his pajama bottoms on. He managed to wipe his arm with the antiseptic where he had cut it, then roughly tape a bandage over. That was about as much concentration as he could manage. He fell onto his bed, managing to vaguely pull a sheet over himself. He lay back, the room slowly rotating above him, his head hurting.

Nick was snoring. Bloody loudly. Nope, it couldn't be Nick, Nick was still lying passed out on the floor, and making a strange subdued sobbing noise like he was crying in his sleep, but not snoring. Jake was snoring. Damon called out to him to tell him to shut up, but Jake didn't seem to be listening.

Hold on, Damon struggled to think straight. Who the hell was Jake? There was no one else in the room. At least, no, he was pretty sure there was no one else in the room.

"Jake?" He called out loud, just to reassure himself. There was no reply.

He closed his eyes. Damn, he'd left the computer on. He fought the confusion; there was no computer, he was in a student dorm room, there was nothing like that there. Except he could hear it, and it really irritated him that it was still on. No problem, there or not he could fix that. It clicked off and there was an odd silence, well, except for Jake still snoring intermittently.

"Jake!" He shouted one last time. There was no Jake, but it must have worked, because whoever it was that wasn't there had at least shut up snoring. This whole getting drunk experience was way more weird than he had ever figured it would be. Damon joyfully surrendered to unconsciousness.


3: Insanity Check


Jake had found himself disproportionately fixated on his detention as the next two days had passed. In a way that had been a good thing, it gave him some respite from spending all his time fixated on his mental problems. On that front the headaches had been intermittent, he'd been able to work around them for the most part. And the voices, although they hadn't gone silent at school by any means, had at least managed to avoid being too much of a distraction. He was coping.

News of his detention had spread quickly throughout the school. Ms Hinton had something of a reputation and there were a lot of undoubtedly very untrue things implied about what happened in her detentions. there was a general consensus of opinion that she had a secret life as a dungeon dominatrix. Jake struggled to read her for the most part but he was pretty certain there was no truth to that rumor at all, something like that would have been easy to see even with her. But there would be an expectation of a story to tell about what happened in the detention, that was something he knew he was going to have to contend with on Friday. He already had a pretty good idea how he was going to handle it; he was going to state categorically that nothing at all happened, and smile while he did so. Despite his protestations, no one would believe him, and the buzz would be all very amusing. He loved telling the truth when he knew no one would ever believe him.

Jake's biggest problem right now, though, was that the wait was proving torturous. The hours had seemed endless sat in lesson after lesson trying to get to where Tuesday could finish, and Wednesday hadn't exactly managed to pick up the pace any. And like a bad dream, the closer he got to the finish line, the slower time seemed to pass. Chemistry was Jake's last lesson of the day and he could usually count on the Fiedler to keep them in late. Fiedler was just like that, disorganized, always a dozen things to get sorted at the end before they could go. It would be so cool; he would be late for his detention, Ms Hinton would get so pissed off, but he would have the perfect excuse. Except it hadn't happened. Of all the times Fiedler could get a clue and let them out early it had to be tonight.

Now he found himself still waiting, waiting for her in an empty classroom. Waiting he could have done without. She was late. He glanced at his watch; it was nearly four. He found his mind wandering. He liked that watch. A real watch, clockwork, he had to wind it up daily. It had been a gift from grandfather, very shortly before his grandfather had died. He wasn't particularly a sentimental guy, but the watch was an exception.

His mind wandering, that was why the days had felt like they had gone so slowly, he hadn't been able to focus on just getting from one moment to the next. He had to keep his attention on the matter at hand.

He opened his bag, took out his homework and tried various ways of lying it out on the desk, trying to settle on the way that looked most business like. He was bored, he'd been sitting there for fifteen minutes. She had to turn up. He didn't dare leave, that would be suicide for his teachers pet image. Could she have forgotten? Or was she doing this deliberately, trying to throw him off balance? He wouldn't put it past her. He shifted nervously on his seat, if that was her plan then she was succeeding.

He adjusted the books on the desk. The work was completely correct, beautifully laid out. He wasn't going to allow her any legitimate opportunity to criticize him.

His mind started wandering again. And not in directions that were all that productive. He found himself thinking about the last conversation he'd had with Ms Hinton, her getting all unreasonable and giving him the detention. Except he wasn't thinking so much about what she had said, he was more remembering what her breasts had looked like while she was saying it. No bloody wonder she had a reputation for illicit trysts with pupils, wearing clothes like that. Jake tried to pull himself back to reality. In truth, as attractive as he found her, and she was seriously attractive, he didn't really have any particular desire to get off with a teacher.

"I take it this is your homework."

She startled him, reaching over his shoulder to pick up the book. She must have been damn quiet arriving, or had he been so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he had failed to notice. How long had she been standing there? He kind of hoped she couldn't read minds. He tried to swallow back his momentary inability to speak and managed to croak rather weakly, "Yes, Miss."

"I assume full marks as usual. To be honest it was only an excuse to get you here."

He froze, he was ready to freak. What the hell was she saying? Did she really want to handcuff him naked to the chair and thrash him on the backside with a leather belt until he begged for forgiveness? He couldn't see what she was thinking, if he was looking for reassurance he wasn't going to find it.

"Alright, you've got an attitude problem, show me a sixteen year old kid who hasn't. You start acting like you can't hear me. Funny joke, makes you look cool to the other kids, only I can see it isn't a joke. You really are so totally distracted you aren't hearing, and you've started looking like the walking dead in lessons, so it is pretty clear you aren't sleeping. Right. I've seen abuse, bullying, girlfriend troubles, lack of girlfriend troubles. And you don't fit any of those categories. I admit, I'm puzzled."

Jake remained frozen, she had walked round the desk and was now sat opposite. He kept staring down at the books on the desk. He couldn't bring himself to look up. Couldn't look her in the eye. Couldn't really understand.

"You are intelligent, you have a hell of a lot of potential. But you've got something on your mind. Something in your eyes says that something is not right in your life, or would if you bothered to look at me."

He looked up, she left him little choice. He felt on the verge of tears, this was not how it was meant to go. He tried to speak, his voice cracking up. He was so out of his depth. It would have been easier if she was shouting at him. He would have known how to deal with that. "I..."

"I didn't expect you to answer. I am fully aware of your golden boy image. Not all of us fall for it. Teachers are not all as stupid as you would like to think. But you need to work this out, whatever it is. If this goes on you could quickly end up deeper in shit than even you can dig yourself out of."

Jake remained silent.

"Think about it. Now, get out, go home."

He was thankful that he had the next day off.


The hearing test went well, in fact the Doctor had told him his hearing was extremely acute. Jake had, in a moment of misplaced cynicism, felt like asking if that was why he could hear things that weren't there, but fortunately had restrained himself. Anyway, he'd passed the test, the voices had been well behaved for a change.

In an uncharacteristic concession Jake had mentioned the headaches. Just made the comment in passing, kept the admission restricted to one or two mild headaches, nothing significant. He'd been able to see the Doctor struggling, determined to come up with some explanation for the problem, something he could report to Jake's mother that sounded at least half convincing, the Doctor was almost as used to dealing with her as Jake was. The headaches would give him an alternative direction to work from, something to help him come up with a diagnosis that would satisfy her without unduly causing concern.

The Doctor had risen to the challenge and come up with a pretty outstanding story. The trouble, Jake's mother had been assured, was simply one of overwork at school causing problems with his concentration, all because he was 'at that age'. Overwork at school, the doctor had said. Jake couldn't believe his luck; he would have paid the guy good money for a diagnosis like that.

The down side was that his mother was now insisting that he made the effort to get out and get more fresh air. Every silver lining...


Friday morning came too quickly. Thursday had stubbornly refused to last nearly as long as either Tuesday or Wednesday had. Why was life always screwed up like that? The one day of the week Jake would really have appreciated spending a little more time enjoying and it had slipped away with such a fleeting disregard for his sense of justice. The week really hadn't ended up feeling particularly balanced.

He rocked back on the chair and put his feet up on the bench top. He had been first to arrive again, as he generally always was. He liked getting there early, he liked the solitude, the quiet. The only noise was the whine of the heater. Well, the only real noise was the whine of the heater, there were unreal ones but he was trying to ignore those.

His contemplation on the unfairness of the perception of time was interrupted by three knocks on the door rapidly followed by the arrival of Mike.

"Where did that come from?" Mike had asked immediately on coming through the door.

"Oh, what, the DVD player?" Jake mused innocently.

"That's from the language lab."

"Yes. On loan."

"On loan, from the language lab?" Mike repeated.

"Yes. I know you're slow, but; language lab, on loan, yes. Right?"

"You swiped it?"

"No. Can't swipe. There's an alarm. Goes off if you try to take any of the equipment out of the lab. Only a teacher can turn that off. So, how could I have swiped it? Anyway, there's an entry in the loan book, to say it was legitimately moved. Go check if you don't believe me. And, if anyone wants to find it, they'll find it. In the meantime, we have it. On loan."

"On loan?"

"Mike, you're not only thick, you're starting to sound like a broken record. And, you do know what a broken record is, right?"

"How the hell did you pull that off?"

"Pull what off?"

"Pull... This conversation isn't really going anywhere is it?"

"No."

"Right."

"Want to watch some French oral DVDs?"

Jake observed that at this point Mike had pretty much given up caring exactly where the player had come from. Jake smiled, it was helpful when people were predictable. Made them so much easier to deal with. But not Ms Hinton, he still didn't quite know how to react to his encounter with Ms Hinton. Not much predictability there. And Kath wasn't much better.


Jake sat through an uneventful Physics lesson followed by an unusually uneventful maths lesson. The maths was probably less eventful than it should have been because he was too distracted fighting a headache to have been his normal irritating self. Subdued was okay, it confused the hell out of her, and it confused the hell out of the rest of the people in the class who were expecting some kind of smoldering fireworks. If he couldn't get the reaction he wanted out of people, confusing the hell out of them was the next best thing.

He had walked back to the store room with Kath. Something about that kind of confused him. She normally went for lunch with a bunch of her girl friends. Jake liked confusing others, but he hated being confused himself. Kath had to have a motive, a reason to have followed him back there. If it hadn't been for the headache it would have made for an interesting game trying to work out what exactly she was up to. But he did have a headache, and any level of paying attention to her was an effort.

"So, I thought you would call me. Get up to much last night?" Kath went for a standard generic opening statement. Always a sign with her that she had an ulterior motive. She was usually direct and to the point.

"Yeah probably." Jake went for a good generic response. It just didn't fit.

"You aren't listening to a word I'm saying are you?"

"I don't really know. Why?"

"Has Dean got the hots for me?"

"Okay."

"Okay, what? Try listening. Is Dean having completely inappropriate sexual fantasies about me?"

"Yeah, I, maybe, don't know."

"My naked body?"

"You, sorry, what did you say?"

"Hello! What is up with you?"

"Sorry. I'm having real issues with focus right now. Pretty bad headache."

"Right, good excuse. Must remember that one next time Dean asks me on a lunch date in the school canteen."

Jake looked up. At least now he knew what she had been loitering to find out about. She'd finally worked out about Dean. Jake had known for months, but it didn't much surprise him to discover it had taken this long for other people to work it out, most people were very slow to catch on. He'd expected more of Kath though, and even now she was only just guessing. Well, discussing Dean's confessions of undying infatuation with her, that wasn't a conversation he was really in much of a condition to get into right now, so he avoided it. "Aren't you late for Biology?"

"As late as you are for Chemistry."

"Right." It wasn't a great direction to pull the conversation it, but there was silence, it had achieved that much.

The silence continued long enough to let Jake feel like he had recaptured the advantage. He was struggling with the conversation though. Even if it hadn't been for the headache, he was too preoccupied with what Hinton had been saying to have engaged with what Kath was wanting to talk about. A thought crossed his mind. He hesitated, he figured this wouldn't go well, but, she would at least tell him the truth. "Alright, look. Have I been acting weird. I mean, the last few weeks, more weird than usual?"

"Talk about a loaded question, what brought that on?"

"Hinton, Wednesday night, said I'd been acting weird. She was concerned for my welfare. I know I piss her off, but have I been acting any worse recently? And then the Doctor yesterday, said I had concentration problems."

"You seem more distant at times. I have noticed that. But not any more weird."

"Distant?"

"Like you're thinking about something the whole time. Like you're here in body but not spirit half the time."

So, they had noticed something. Everyone knew something was up, no one knew what. How the hell had he missed that?

"Yeah, I guess. I suppose the headaches I've been getting, they have kind of they've been getting worse."

"They're getting worse, shit, Jake, shouldn't you be telling someone?"

"Telling you."

"I mean telling someone who actually gives a shit. Headaches, getting worse, you know, it could be serious."

"If there was something serious wrong then I figure they'd have caught it on Wednesday."

"At a hearing test, you think?"

"I mentioned the headaches."

"Right, Jake, but if you'd told him you were getting headaches that were so bad they were driving you to distraction already, and getting worse. Let me guess, they got the diagnosis totally wrong?."

"Yeah well, you're too right there. Said I'd been working too hard. I mean, me, working hard? Bleeding joke."

"You do work. Harder than you admit. And you're so tense the whole time, because you're always having to play mind games with people. When was the last time you actually felt relaxed?"

"How can I relax? I can't think straight, and I'm tense the whole time because..." He stopped...

"Because?"

Admitting to the headaches was one thing. Admitting to the voices... No. That wasn't an option.

"Because you're human, maybe. Seriously, Mr Always Perfect, I was beginning to wonder."

He looked up sharply. She was smiling at him. For the second time in almost as many days, he didn't know how to react.

"Seriously though, I think you need to think about telling someone about the headaches, that's just good advice Jake."

Jake frowned. She was sounding like his mother. She was right, but she was sounding way too much like his mother. Still, he could easily change the topic of conversation. Get back in control. "About Dean. Yes, he's totally got the hots for you. Has for months, you only just noticed?"


Saturday was fun. Well, other than having to sit through breakfast listening to his mother buying into the hysteria over another abduction. That had encouraged him to actually take a couple of ibuprofen, not something he was that willing to do regularly as a way to combat the headaches, but he figured it would give him a chance to really enjoy the afternoon in town with Dean and Kath. And the afternoon was set for some interesting entertainment with how nervous Dean was getting around Kath now that he suspected she knew something, and how much Kath was trying politely to ignore the way Dean was behaving because she did know something.

Right now though, the conversation had dried up. They had stopped for lunch at the food court in the mall and had managed to get a table on the balcony, sat by the railing overlooking the park below. It was a great place to stop and watch the world go by. But not so great when Dean was desperately trying not to be seen staring so obviously at Kath's cleavage. Jake decided to intervene and distract them.

"So, those two down on the park bench. Sat, half close, but not that together, but, closer than you would sit to someone you didn't know without risking getting a slap."

"You having a lot of experience of that, right." Kath liked her barbed responses.

"Right. So, you can see they aren't looking at each other. Both staring straight ahead. Both looking kind of blank. Well, they're not married, but she was like thinking it was only a matter of time. You know, they'd moved in together, seemed to be working out. Until this morning, instead of meeting him here, she heads home unusually early from her Saturday morning gym session, finds him in the bedroom, tied face down on the bed with handcuffs, and a milk bottle stuck half way up his ass."

"Come on, fuck off Jake. You're sick." Dean found it funny, but hated admitting that in front of Kath.

"Hey, I'm not sick. I'm telling it like it is. He was getting it on kinky with the milkman."

"And you can tell that, at this distance, just by looking at the way they're sitting." Kath pushed for some rationality.

"From the way he's sitting, look at him, obvious there was a milk bottle up there and not that long ago."

"You would know."

"No I wouldn't, I don't do milk bottles. And from the way she won't look at him, and she's got those tickets in her hand for the holiday in Venice, but now she doesn't want to go because he once made a comment about a gondolier's ass, and now she's convinced he only wants to get to Venice for some prime time gondolier bondage. When in fact he was only planning to propose to her there, and the thing with the milkman was his own repressed fear of commitment subconsciously trying to screw up his plans to get married. And he really does love her. But he's convinced it is all fucked up and over between them now. Of course, she would like nothing more than having a threesome with him and a gondolier there."

"And you can tell that how exactly?"

"That way she curls her lip, look."

"Right. Of course you're totally insane."

"So, go ask them. Prove me wrong."

"One of these days I will."

"And boy, will you be embarrassed."

"Why them? I mean, why pick on them?" Dean had remained silent for some time, but always managed to interject with questions that Jake considered half intelligent.

"They're upset I guess. Makes them louder than everyone else down there. Not talking about loud as in noise, but, you know, loud as in Hawaiian shirt. They stand out. And the fact that what they're thinking about is more than a little bit, well, not your normal domestic, adds some kind of clarity. They just, stand out like a bloody sore thumb. I mean, why wouldn't I pick them. You telling me you can't see it?"

"I don't know whether you're serious or, no, I don't get it. You're totally serious. How the hell can you be so outrageous, and yet so bloody sincere? No fucking wonder you can wind people around your little finger." Dean was genuinely impressed though.

"People for the most part are completely transparent and predictable. What I don't get is why no one else seems to notice that. I mean, are you all just stupid?" He phrased it as an obvious wind up, but once again observed that he was telling the truth knowing no one would believe him.

"You know, Jake, one day you are going to screw up. I mean it. Big time." Kath, as always, spoke with a blunt and heartfelt honesty and still managed to make it sound like a wind up. "I like you, fuck knows why, you're arrogant and I never know whether you're telling the truth, or just telling me what I want to hear. And honestly, mostly I think you tell me what I want to hear and it scares the crap out of me that you know what I want to hear so precisely. But for all I like you, I would still love to be there to watch when you do totally lose it."

Jake grinned, he so enjoyed messing with people's minds like that. Sure he made the stories up that he told Kath and the guys. But, just sometimes it almost felt like it did seem clear to him what the people were thinking. With most people it was kind of a mumble, mostly just vague ideas, very much a sensation more about emotions and feelings. A few it was just like a color wash, a general awareness of happiness and sadness and some range inbetween. A very small number positively screamed out thoughts with a clarity that was kind of unnerving, usually when they were upset or really feeling things intensely, telling him their stories whether he wanted to hear or not. He was almost half afraid Kath would go and ask some time, because sometimes he could half convince himself that the stories were true, and he wasn't sure he ever wanted to find out that maybe he really could read minds.


On Sunday he grudgingly complied with his mothers advice to get some fresh air and found himself out walking along the sea front despite a freezing cold wind. The beach was almost deserted, sure the cold was a big factor there, but he figured the growing climate of fear over the missing kids must have had some impact as well. That worked to his advantage though, he could enjoy the solitude. It was always tough to manage any level of detachment if there were too many people around. That much of what he had said to Dean was true, people were just loud like that, Hawaiian shirt loud. Always thinking, always feeling, always just being people. It was difficult to escape, to find the solitude he needed.

At one point he'd wondered if the voices he was hearing in his head were in some way connected with that, just a different manifestation of the same basic phenomenon. The voices though, he heard those even when there was no one else around, so the idea didn't really work. There was also the fact he'd always been aware of what people were thinking, feeling, as long as he could remember, the voices though were something recent, something new.

Hearing voices was also a common symptom of schizophrenia among other things, and Jake was worried that could easily earn him the label of being completely mad if he wasn't careful. Then there was the question of awareness; if the voices did seem to be aware of him, then he had to give in and accept it was something like schizophrenia. On the other hand, maybe the voices were just his own subconscious mind trying to tell him something important, like, he was being a bit of a tit and needed to stop. No, that made even less sense to him. Plus it didn't explain where the headaches fitted in to all this, and it seemed pretty likely they were clearly connected. These were not normal headaches, not when they were getting to be this intense and this frequent. Something was very wrong there. He could try to rationalize, try to write it off, try to pretend as much as he wanted, but none of that would change the basic problem; he was screwed up. Kath was right, he had to talk to someone. Except he couldn't, it was all so insane that he knew no one would believe him.

He didn't know what to think, he was confused. He stopped and leant against the railings, watching the waves breaking on the shore. Out to sea there was a heavy fog, penetrated only by the periodic sweep of the lighthouse on the mouth of the river. How much longer could he go on faking it, pretending nothing was going on? How long before he had to give in and get real help? Maybe if he ignored it long enough it would all just go away. The one cheerful thought he clung onto was that at least it couldn't get any worse.


On Monday morning he had another headache. And this one was bad. Made it tough to enjoy the entertainment; Mike was winding up Dean, fairly normal for a Monday morning.

"You like her?" Mike had clearly heard the rumors.

"No." Dean clearly hadn't realized that by now everyone had heard the rumors.

"So you do."

"No."

"That is the least convincing 'no' I've heard in a long time. Come on, trying saying it again, with feeling this time."

"Fuck off Mike."

You wouldn't be getting this wound up if you didn't like her, now would you?"

"Will you just shut it."

"Nice tits. I mean, I have to say, she does have nice tits."

"That's not even funny."

"Come on seriously, if you like her you need to say something to her."

"Right. Like what?"

"I like your tits, want a shag?"

Jake looked up. Dean was at his limit. Mike was cruising for a punch. Well, bitch slap was likely more Dean's style. Truth was, Mike was pretty lame at pushing and had never pushed Dean over the limit, so they had never seen what he would do, but Jake was pretty sure a bitch slap would be the result.

"Hey, joking." Mike backed down, only just in time, although probably more out of luck than judgment. "I just think, you know, really. You should say something."

Jake was surprised, good of Mike to end it with some positive reinforcement for once. That wasn't something Mike was usually any good at getting right. Jake all too often found himself having to step in to pick up the pieces and get them talking again, Dean had definite insecurity issues.

But, although it was fun to listen too, the conversation hadn't been distracting enough to take Jake's mind off the fact that his headache was fucking killing him.


Chemistry had been a farce; Feidler was ill and the few of them who bothered hanging around for the lesson spent their time pissing around, connecting a hydrogen cylinder up to a Bunsen burner, see how hot they could get it. Hot enough to start melting the burner was the answer. It would have been a great laugh had his head been in any condition to cope with it. The Physics lesson that followed wasn't bad; he just ignored everything. He'd retired quickly to the store room after that.

Lunchtime had similarly provided little respite. He'd actually done his maths homework over the weekend this time, which was just as well as the extent of his headache wouldn't have allowed him to use the lunchtime to get anything useful done at all. That and the fact the voices were now about the worst they had ever been. In moments he had almost even been able to make out what they were saying. Odd phrases had broken to the surface; dirty videos, killing parents. He hadn't bothered trying to make any sense of it.

Now his watch was telling him that it was time he headed to the lesson. He reluctantly he pulled himself to his feet. The throbbing quickly got worse. This was no good, this was not working, what he needed was to lie down. But that really wasn't one of his options right now.

He steadied himself, tried to focus on the route he had to walk. The classrooms were not that far, he could make it. Out the store room door, up the stairs, across the yard, that was all he had to do, how could he possibly screw that up.

Fear. Fear? What the hell was he afraid of? He glanced around nervously, nothing, just the store room, no one there but him. No one else would be back there, not today. One more lesson and the day was over. He just had to get to that lesson, and he could surely manage that.

Panic, he had to run, run if he wanted to live. No, that was nuts, all he needed to do was walk to the next lesson, only he wasn't exactly making a brilliant job of doing that. He could see the door to the store room ahead. Just a few steps and he could be out of there and on his way. He flinched, something coming towards him he couldn't run fast enough to dodge, he looked wildly around, but there was nothing. His balance gave way, and he fell backwards back into his seat.


Jake was sitting in a chair in the store room. In the store room, it felt like he'd been sat there in the store room only minutes earlier, what was he doing back there so soon? Didn't he have a lesson to go to? He looked down at his watch, it had just gone 4:00 PM. School was out. He sat momentarily immobile, scared, confused. Where the fuck had the past three hours gone? Had he been sitting there the whole fucking time? Why couldn't he remember what had happened? It didn't make sense.

In a panic he checked the date on his watch, he was relieved to find it was still Monday. Relieved, but the feeling was superficial; it didn't make things easier, it just didn't make things worse. This was fucked up, this was all very, very fucked up.

He had to get out of there, had to get home. Had to get out now, he was already in danger of being missed. But what had happened? Had he fallen asleep? It didn't feel like he'd been asleep. And he'd never slept sat upright and motionless in a chair for three hours, or fallen asleep in a moment of panic before.

Panic... he remembered that part. Something really weird had been going on. Okay, paranoid delusions had been going on.

Overwork. The doctor had diagnosed overwork, could overwork have caused this? Caused what? Jake wasn't sure he had enough of a clue to even begin guessing.

He managed to stand up, but he was feeling dizzy, extremely light headed. He felt himself loosing balance, he quickly tried to sit down again but missed the chair, found himself sprawled on the floor.

"Jake, you okay?"

He looked up panicked, he didn't want anyone seeing him like this. Except, there was no one there to see him. No one there to talk to him. So he was hearing things. But not random things, not indistinct background chatter. And not misheard, muffled, mutterings mistaken for his name in a state of half sleep. Denial wasn't going to help this time, this time the voice hadn't just said his name, it really had sounded like it was trying to start a conversation with him. That made it schizophrenia.

Jake pulled him up and back to sitting in the chair. He found himself blinking, trying to hold back tears. There was no point getting hysterical about it, that wasn't going to help.

He'd had some kind of major mental aberration, a blackout. It had to be connected with the headaches, it had to be connected with the voices. He really was totally fucked up, and he needed help. He'd tried to convince himself both the voices and headaches might just go away, they hadn't. He had thought it couldn't get any worse, it had. The voices and the headaches he could fake his way through, but not this. There was no way he could reliably cover up something like this if it ever happened again. And it was probably going to happen again. Who the fuck was he kidding if he tried to pretend otherwise?

He tried to stand a second time. This time he was more successful. He had to call, come up with some excuse for being late home, then he had to get to the bus stop, get home. Which really shouldn't have been so big a task, only Jake was well aware how badly he'd failed hours earlier just trying to get as far as a maths lesson. Anyway, once he was home, then he could think. Think how he was going to get help.


Somehow he made it home. Somehow he managed to fake acting rational in front of his parents long enough to eat something, make his apologies and head for an extremely early night.

Lying in bed the voices were so loud he couldn't sleep, and so clear, they sounded almost as if they were in the room with him. He was desperately trying not to listen to what they were saying, that would be tempting fate. He didn't want to hear.

He felt frustrated. It was no good, there was nothing he could do, he was losing control. And on top of all of that it was too hot in his bedroom. He couldn't believe it could really be as hot as it felt, he had the heating on the lowest setting and there was still a heavy frost outside. It didn't add up.

He was stressed out. Overwork? Could this really all be about overwork? No, that was just a story he was using to trade on people's sympathy. The last thing he needed was to start falling for his own confidence tricks. No, it had to be something else, he just had no clue what. The whole fucking mess was so hard to understand, and he wanted so desperately to understand it. He was struggling to reach any answers. He knew he had to tell someone, anyone. He just didn't know how, and with the state he was in, his mind was too messed up to give him much opportunity to think the situation through rationally.

If he slept at all that night, it was fitfully at best, he wasn't sure. He certainly didn't manage to get the relaxation he was so desperately in need of.


When he stepped off the bus outside of school on the Tuesday morning he was shivering, freezing. He didn't have his coat, he hadn't remembered it was still fucking cold out even if it was the first week of June. Hadn't worked out that a coat might have been useful. He really wasn't thinking straight at all. He needed time to get his head together, to sort out some kind of plan, but any hope of concentrating on how he could make that happen was being buggered up by yet another headache. The situation was just too messed up. For now he was resorting to going through the motions because he couldn't work out what else to do.

He stumbled into the store room, locked the door, turned on the lights, turned on the heater, and turned on the kettle. No one ever got down there before lunch time on a Tuesday, he would see the others in class first. That gave him an hour or so to try and pull himself together ahead of the lesson. He sat down in his chair, yawning. It wasn't even nine in the morning, but he felt so tired. He poured his coffee, and drifted unintentionally off to sleep.


He awoke still feeling awful. He was hot. He reached across and pulled the heaters plug out. The effort was too much, he slumped back into the chair. It was almost lunchtime. Great. He had missed the only lesson he actually needed to turn up for that day. The voices were louder than ever, he had to shout to think above them. He was in serious shit, and the situation was rapidly escalating out of control.

The room felt like it was burning up. He contemplated the effort required to get the fan heater blowing cold air; more than he could be bothered to exert. He had to get out of there, go home. Crash out. Then he just had to tell someone, even if he did figure no one would understand or have any clue how to help. Even if they just locked him up and drugged him up for being mad, it had to be better than this. The situation was way beyond anything he could handle on his own.

He pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, waiting for the room to stop spinning. He walked slowly and dejectedly over to the door and reached for the handle. There wasn't one there. He halted, confused; there had to be a handle, he was holding it, he could feel it in his hand. He could see the rest of the door no problem, just no handle. Damn it, it was in his hand and he couldn't see it. He couldn't see his hand either. He could see his arm, he followed it down, but somewhere just before he reached the hand he found himself looking at the door. As if some small portion of reality had been erased from his vision.

He pulled his hand away from the door sharply and looked at it. It still wasn't there, but in the background he caught sight of the handle, once more in it's rightful place on the door. His eyes immediately shifted to focus on it and it promptly vanished, and as it did so his hand appeared to rejoin the end of his arm.

He closed his eyes and opened the door, his head screaming in opposition to any potential attempt at rational thought. He made it up the stairs and out into the yard.

'Jake.'

"Yeah," he called, turning around. Nobody, except for a few weirdoes giving him funny looks.

'Jake.'

In front of him this time, he looked round. Just people he didn't know. The one he was looking at had no head. None of them had heads, except when he wasn't looking at them.

'Jake.'

He panicked, it was one of his voices, calling out his name. He turned and stumbled uncertainly towards the open school gates. He had trouble keeping his balance; there was ground, sky, but most of the horizon wasn't there, just the bits on the edges. He vaguely felt himself bumping into people who weren't there either. He pushed past them. Running from the voice. He could hear it so clearly, calling out his name, coming closer. He had to get away. He started to run, he couldn't see where he was running, pretty much everything wasn't there any more. It didn't matter, he just had to run, just had to get away. Faster, faster, he could sense whoever, whatever it was gaining on him. He momentarily glanced back to see a figure dressed in something extremely unfashionable and dorky, reaching out to him. It didn't make sense, he was going blind, couldn't see anything of the world around him any more, and yet he could see this person so clearly. And something about the face was vaguely familiar.

'For God's sake get out of the fucking road.'

The guy was looking at him in terror, the emotions were all wrong, this didn't seem like someone who was after him. And what the hell was all that about the road? Was that some kind of manifestation of his subconscious trying to tell him something? Then he heard a screeching noise accompanied by a car horn. The bleeding obvious meaning of the warning had finally occurred to him. He tried to twist around, but he had no clue where the noise was coming from, he still couldn't see a thing. He smelt burning rubber, and then felt an all consuming darkness surround him, pulling him inexorably downwards.


4: Having A Life Is A Crime?


"Right. And you want to try telling that to Adam Kennywell. Yes, listen to that name; Adam Kennywell. He thought it was fine to go out and visit his friends on Monday. Just five days ago. Fine, despite a story in THAT morning's newspaper about a girl called Lindsay Jameson. I am sure he told his mother exactly the same story about being careful that you are telling me right now. But did it help him? No. He's probably dead now is Adam Kennywell, buried in a shallow grave in the basement of a terraced house in Liverpool most likely, right next to the shallow grave of Lindsay Jameson. And you just want to take the same risk. And if you end up dead do you think it will console me that I will be able to say I told you so? Well, no it won't. Two children in five days. I don't think that is an acceptable risk. We will drive you there. When you want to come back you will call, and we will drive back there to pick you up. And you stay inside until we get there. And I don't care even if it is just a ten minute walk, you are NOT walking, and that is final."

She used the magic words. When she said 'and that is final', Damon pretty much knew it was no longer an option to try and change her mind. He had long ago learned to pick his battles. This was just another Saturday afternoon out with his friends, and he didn't actually mind getting driven there and collected. At least she was allowing him to go. When he'd first seen the headline he had been afraid that all his effort scripting his report about the events of the afternoon would go to waste.

And he had a really good script prepared this time, although it was a pretty sad situation that he needed one. He would go out and his mother would continuously be asking him where he was going, what he was up to, who he was with. Brief words wouldn't suffice, she wanted a minute by minute account. He was frightened of being vague, she would get suspicious of any vagueness immediately. His basic method was to stretch out the tales of the more mundane events to fit the time he had to account for. He was concerned that sooner or later he would slip up. His mother never missed a thing; watching television thrillers she could usually spot whodunit before even the writers had worked it out. Not that he was allowed to watch television thrillers, too much sex and violence. He had to watch that stuff when he went to friend's houses. She would be more than a little furious if she found out about that as well. She didn't approve of his friends at the best of times.

Damon hated it, hated the deception, hated the need for the deception, hated getting treated like he was still nine years old. And none of this did anything to help him shake off his geek reputation, just when he was making some real progress starting break free from that at school. Now he was resigned to look a complete twat when he told his friends he would have to be escorted home. But, his mother had an apparent determination to contribute to the general climate of fear over the abductions, and nothing Damon could say or do was going to change that.

All because some idiot of a kid called Adam Kennywell got himself missing. Maybe Adam Kennywell had just run away from home. Maybe his mother had been even worse than Damon's. No, the newspapers never went there, never gave anything but the most glowing reports about how these kids had stable home lives. He had thought about it, running away. Never seriously, he had nowhere to go, he was too much of a realist. But there were moments when abduction seemed almost seemed like a preferable alternative. Could hardly be worse, he already felt like a prisoner. Weird déjà vu though, Damon could swear he had heard that name Adam Kennywell somewhere before.


"Beer Damon?" Steve asked.

"No thanks." Damon replied. Steve was probably about as close as he had to a best friend. He wasn't entirely the friendless geek he considered himself, he just wasn't sure how much they were really friends, how much just people he hung out with because they were geeks as well. Much as he enjoyed hanging out with them at times, Damon never really felt like he connected with them in any way beyond that.

"Wash your mouth out with cool, minty, refreshing, whatever that stuff is afterwards and she'll never notice." Josh suggested.

"She'd wonder why I'd been using mouthwash, I'm not that bothered, honestly." Which was the truth. He wasn't entirely sure he was recovered from the last time he had been drunk.

"What time do you have to be back for?" Asked Steve.

"Nine. So I'll have to call for my lift promptly at a quarter to, she'll be watching the clock."

"Shit, I don't know how you put up with it. I'd go crazy in a week."

"One day I'll escape."

Josh picked that time to hit him with the question Damon had been waiting for. "So you going to make Tuesday evening?"

"She hasn't said no yet, but, I don't know. I want to make it. We'll see." It was Josh's birthday, his mother wouldn't like him going, but he couldn't see her objecting directly.

"Meanwhile, what are we watching?" Josh accepted the answer was as good as he was going to get, and figured it safest to steer the conversation away from dwelling on Damon's problem parents.

Steve checked out the cover. "'Hairy Plodger II – The Sex Nymphs of Nudie Island', do we need to know what happened in 'Hairy Plodger I – The Stoned Sorceress' to understand it, or do they do a recap of essential plot elements?"

"How do you get this stuff? This is seriously hard core." Josh had grabbed the box and was acting like he was trying not to drool.

"Nick Smart." Damon answered, trying not to sound like he was bragging.

Josh stopped staring at the box and looked straight at Damon. "No fucking way, he's like the coolest guy in school. Those guys never talk to people like us."

"They do when you tell sheep shagging jokes to wind up old Mrs Battleaxe."

"So I heard. In fact just about everyone at school heard about you doing that. Wish I'd been there. Fucking sweet."

Fucking sweet it might have been, but Damon had still been completely taken off guard on the Friday when Nick had approached him to give him the 'Hairy Plodger II' disc. Although it shouldn't have surprised him, he'd already worked out that Nick was very much someone who absolutely and completely kept the promises he made. Even promises made to geeks.

"Come on, quit the crap, start the movie. You got the remote control Damon?" Steve was impatient.

"Yeah, hold on." He pointed the remote control at the video, but didn't use it. The novelty of being able to set the video recorder going without using the remote hadn't worn off yet. He went through the motions so as not to arouse suspicion. It was a trick he'd been playing with ever since he'd done the presentation earlier in the week. At first he'd assumed that the remote control had been flaky and had just started working again, but as the presentation had gone on he had reassured himself it genuinely was totally dead. But somehow he hadn't needed it, he could make the laptop change pages just by concentrating on it. Afterwards he'd worked out he could do the same thing with a whole bunch of electronic devices. If he used a remote control it was like he could sense the signal it sent, and somehow he could copy it, he figured kind of like some people could hear a bird call and copy that. He didn't really understand how, but then his specialty was bio-genetics, not electronics. It was a great trick though.

Great trick, but, he conceded, on the scale of things it was not nearly as miraculous a feat as convincing Nick to give him a porn movie like that. A few weeks ago he would have believed that was an impossibility. A lot of things had changed in the last few weeks, more than he could have hoped or imagined. Well, in some respects; what he really needed was for his miserable life at home to improve as much as the rest of his life had. Some hope there, he considered sarcastically.

But, this was supposed to be his escape from all that. He had to try and chill out a little bit more. Not that he was really that interested in watching the movie right now, but anything was better than spending another night in at home. Things had always been pretty tense there, but now with the scare stories about kids going missing, it was all starting to get a little on the unbearable side. Sure, he tried to remind himself he would escape one day. But right now that day seemed a long, long way off. In the short term what he really wanted was the time to try and think up excuses to get out of going clothes shopping with his mother the following afternoon. He hadn't been very successful at that in the past, his mother could see through most of his excuses, and seemed to think he absolutely needed to be there to decide what clothes he wanted, even though he was very seldom able to sway her approval or disapproval of anything, and he usually ended up with her choice and not his own. Which was another reason he was struggling with a bit of a geek image, on top of everything else he dressed like a twat. But then 'Hairy Plodger II' started, and he quickly gave up trying.


By Sunday evening Damon Jackson was not in the best of moods. Wasn't Sunday supposed to be a day of rest? Some bleeding chance. Other than another infinitely embarrassing experience having his mother buying his underwear for him in the store that afternoon, he had been buried under homework, more homework and even more homework. On top of that his mother was now complaining that his room was in a mess and that if he didn't tidy it, she would. Her idea of tidying involved disposing of anything that was left in open view that wasn't clothing, school work, or firmly fixed down. He didn't much fancy the idea of her coming in during the day while he was at school and going through his cupboards and drawers. He suspected she did it anyway, but she would never pass up the chance to be a lot more thorough. Not that she could find anything that would incriminate him in her eyes, he was too cautious to risk leaving anything where she could possibly get at it. He just resented the violation of privacy.

Homework had to be his first priority though, however much he was finding it difficult to concentrate on that. He was pretty sure he could finish that and still have time to get the room tidied by ten, by which time he was expected to be safely in bed. No, his problem wasn't getting the work done in time, his problem was that he had nothing of the weekend left for himself by the time he had gotten all the work done. Between work and school he felt squeezed out of any opportunity to have any life of his own. Which, he conceded, was probably a good part of his mother's intention.

So. Biology homework. He smiled. That had been one of his minor victories. His mother didn't approve of the science of biology in the slightest, had some quite fundamental differences with the way it was taught at school. Ironic it should turn out to be his best subject. So when it had looked like she was going to get awkward about him pursuing that direction it had been fairly easy for him to encourage the school to write her a letter saying how impressed they had been with Damon's academic potential and how much encouraging him along this path would give him a head start on his future university career, not to mention that it would also make the school look good. He had thought it was pretty funny, watching her try to reconcile her general distrust of science with her pushiness to guide him to greatness. Damon had turned it into a confrontation between her and the school, it had been an interesting battle to watch unfold, and ultimately the school had won.

It was sad, but sometimes he felt like he lived for such minor victories.

He managed to get the homework done, and the room tidied by a little after nine, which gave him a whole hour to himself. His only problem there was, he couldn't much think of anything he could do with it..


Damon awoke early the following morning. He had to be at school early, so he couldn't get a lift from his dad. He had a twenty minute ride on the train to look forward to, but first he had to finish breakfast. His mother was up and about long before him, she wouldn't let him leave the house until he had a decent meal inside him and she was sure he had enough money and had been given her standard speech on what he should and shouldn't do while he was out and that drugs were evil and he should look both ways before crossing any road.

He took it as he had every other time he had left the house without her. Fifteen years and any reasonable parent might have thought he would have got the message. His mother wasn't dictatorial, just over-cautious. He could cope. He was kind of surprised she was allowing him out alone. Although the trains were probably safe she must have thought. There had been some newspaper campaign, somebody please think about the children, they had succeeded getting security police on all the school trains. It was all bullshit, it wouldn't help, none of the abductions had taken place anywhere near any trains, but it gave his mother some false sense of security, which made his life marginally more tolerable.

Her parting words had come close to pushing him over the edge into anger though. With a killer on the loose she really didn't think that Josh should be going ahead with his birthday party, but that they could discuss that when Damon got home from school that night. Right. She'd decided he wasn't going to the party then. She would never say that directly of course, it would just be a recommendation, it would just be good advice. And then when Tuesday came there would be some other plan made for the evening, and if he had the temerity to remember the party, she would tell him that she thought they'd all agreed he wasn't going. Then if he pushed the point she would say it was unacceptable for him to agree not to go and then think he could back out of the agreement. If he attempted to claim he had never made any agreement like that in the first place, well then she would demand to know if he was accusing her of lying. He wasn't going to win. He'd been through this too many times before to hold onto any delusions that he might be able to convince her to change her mind. All he could do was to bite his tongue, and depart quickly.

He made his way furiously to the station, the trains ran every ten minutes, he wouldn't have long to wait. Once on the train he could try and relax, escape, try and work through his anger. At least he had thought he would be able to, the plan didn't work all that well. He was heading to school, it didn't feel much like an escape. Truth was, it was just leaving one oppressive regime for another.


"You, little boy, look miserable."

Damon stopped in his tracks. That was the third time in a week Nick had spoken to him at school. Even if he had managed to make sympathy sound patronizing. "Do you have to call me 'little boy'?"

"Yes. Because it's funny."

"But I thought you said I wasn't exactly little."

"That's why it's funny."

Nick's voice had pulled Damon back to reality though, and that was definitely a good thing. Lunch was just about over, he had lessons to go to. Most of the lunchtime he had been trying to work though, to plan what he could say that might get him to the birthday party after all, but then his mind had started wandering. Really, seriously, literally wandering. It was like, he would blink, and he would be somewhere else, blink and he was back home. And this was not the first time that it had happened. Might have been fun if he had any control over it, but the places he wound up seemed odd, places that were not that interesting really. And this time a place that had been more than a little freaky.

This time it had been an abandoned building site, or demolition site, something like that. And someone, a boy, pretty much the same age as Damon had been stood there, freezing cold, he was only wearing underwear. Damon figured the guy would have frozen to death already if he hadn't been quite so insulated by being somewhat overweight. The kid was also terrified, beyond terrified, there was a man there, a man wearing a balaclava that obscured his face, a man pointing a gun at him. The gun wasn't a big gun, it didn't need to be, it could still kill someone when it went bang. The kid was very well aware of this, and very confused, he had no clue if he was going to live or die. The man had gestured at him to run, and the kid had not hesitated to start running, like he'd learnt this maniac wasn't to be debated with. And now the boy was running. Running hard, terrified. Running for his life.

Damon could see it all as clearly as if he was standing there. Standing right beside the kid. Which didn't quite make sense on account of Damon was stationary and the kid was running. He tried calling out, but the kid didn't act like he could see him, in fact the kid had ignored him completely, like he wasn't there. Which, in fairness, he wasn't. Anyway, the kid was too distracted, too focussed on running to have responded even if he could have heard Damon's shouting.

The kid was too unfit to be able to run very fast, and then he stopped and turned abruptly, in a fragment of a second before the trigger was pulled. And then, well, Damon didn't know what had happened after that. He'd blinked again, and he'd been back at school. Still at his boring as shit school. Just daydreaming. Weird as fuck daydreams though. More like waking nightmares.

Magical visionary experiences to add to the magical stuff he could do with remote controls, and to the magical way that cool kids were actually talking to him now. All three were things that would make his mother absolutely freak. Which would have been cool, but the problem was that she was already so totally freaked by the media frenzy over the disappearing kids that his life was starting to feel impossible. And maybe that was what this was all about, the visions were just a paranoid manifestation of his sublimated fear over getting abducted, juxtaposed with his ongoing battle with his mother to stop her totally controlling his life. And that was really what was bothering him. Try as he might to forget, his thoughts were continually returning to the problem with the party.

And now Nick was trying to talk to him about it.

"The abductions, making my already miserable life worse. Hey, thanks for the discs. It was, well, educational." Damon answered, trying not to snigger. Then, abruptly he sensed frustration. A pent up anger and a frustration. For a moment, and then gone. Had that been from Nick? It had been gone so quickly it was hard to tell.

"No problem little boy! Education is good." Whatever he might have been feeling a moment earlier, Nick managed to make a joke of it. "Just let me know if you want to get your hands on any more."

"I would but, not exactly easy right now. With everything going on, hard to have time when I won't get caught."

"Uncool parents?"

"Seriously uncool. Living nightmare."

"That would kill me. A life that sheltered, no wonder you wound up a bit of a geek."

"Right. And I was finally starting to get my act together, get invited to a party, even if it was a geek party, and she isn't going to let me go." Damon tried to summarize his frustrations. Usually people didn't care, didn't want to hear. He really couldn't work out why Nick was listening, but Damon very much appreciated the opportunity to vent anyway.

Nick grinned, an infectious grin that actually made Damon feel better in an inexplicably weird kind of way. Like, it was as if Nick had a plan. "You really have a problem with them, I sympathize. You ever think of killing them?"

Damon smiled at the joke. At least he hoped it was a joke. He was starting to notice that Nick could be very difficult to read at times, and right now he definitely gave the impression that he had some kind of nefarious scheme brewing. Much as his parents frustrated the crap out of him, Damon didn't really want them dead.


The day had ended and Damon had headed for the train home. He spent much of the train journey rehearsing what he was going to say to try and rescue what was left of his chances of getting to the party. Thankfully he had arrived home to find his mother busy, so he had been able to retire to his bedroom to make an early start on his homework. That kind of conscientious behavior maybe might work to his advantage. Luckily making it look like he was doing homework didn't actually require him to actually do any homework. Good because as much as he tried to focus, his mind had kept on jumping tracks.

For the second time that day he had found himself having weird visions. This time he had been in some grotty closet as far as he could tell. Some guy called Jake flat on his arse on the floor, looking stoned out of his head. There was something really familiar about the face, but he couldn't place it. He had asked the guy if he was okay, he hadn't got any response, and then blinked, and then he wasn't there any more. In a closet with another guy, old Sigmund Freud would have a fucking field day with that one.

The experience interested him from a scientific point of view. His options, he figured, were that it was delusional, or paranormal. He wasn't about to write himself off as delusional, so he was hoping for a paranormal explanation. There were a set of facts that clearly needed an explanation, but that had no explanation within the realms of his understanding of conventional neuropsychology. His scientific side kicked in at this point, he had to start with a hypothesis, see if he could test it, work towards a theory.

Testing it, that part should be easy. He was looking for elements of the vision that he could connect with real events, real situations, real times, real places. Anything he could identify within what he was seeing that he could not only verify independently, but also establish that there was no way he could have had any kind of prior knowledge about. Of course, that then depended on what the nature of the visions was. His favored option was that it could be astral projection, if not then maybe some kind of clairvoyance, perhaps a premonition.

Damon tried not to dwell on the consideration that if there really was some reality to the visions, then he had to conclude he might have actually witnessed a genuine gangland style execution a few hours earlier. Definitely not something that he wanted to think too closely about.

So, the paranormal, pretty wild as any hypothesis went. Mainstream science took very little of this seriously, and with good reason, despite all the many hypotheses, none of them had managed to stand up to even the most basic level of testing. Generally every paranormal hypothesis failed miserably when they tried to reproduce it in the lab. It didn't mean parapsychology was wrong, just that no one understood it yet. Parapsychology remained more a matter of belief than of theory at this point.

Damon was certainly interested in parapsychology, although he half considered that was just an act of rebellion. His mother wouldn't have approved, she had pretty old fashioned attitudes and would have lumped all parapsychology with witchcraft and the occult, and would have forbidden him absolutely from getting involved. She would have been certain that he would end up participating in satanic rituals and bizarre sexual acts, and no amount of rational explanation on his part would have swayed her opinion. Damon smiled to himself, bizarre sexual acts, actually made the occult sound way more fun than it probably was in reality.

One thing he was pretty sure of though, if she had ever found out about the visions she would probably have concluded that he was possessed and then would likely have tried to have him exorcised. He hadn't told her anything, he wasn't that stupid. He didn't feel bad, it wasn't like he was lying, there was a vast difference between simply hiding the truth and lying. She would be furious if she found out though. She wouldn't understand. She wouldn't listen. She never listened.


Damon had headed down for dinner, then sat through half the meal waiting for his mother to pass judgment on his plans to go to the party. She had remained silent on that topic, and the conversation had been subdued. They had just gotten to discussing his homework plans for the evening.

"I have biology and maths tonight. But I need to get my Chemistry done as well so I can still go to Josh's birthday tomorrow." Damon was biting his tongue. This was red rag to a bull, and was going to result in disaster, but he couldn't keep his mouth shut any longer, he had to confront the problem.

"Oh, I thought we'd agreed it wasn't a good idea for you to go to that party. Anyway, you seem to have forgotten you have other commitments that evening, and I think it would be more than a little unreasonable for you to break those commitments just to go to a party you had already rightly concluded might not be safe in the current climate."

Jake tried not to feel good that he had been able to predict her response so accurately. He wondered if she was aware just how transparently passive aggressive she was. So he had other plans, did he? Odd how he had no clue at all what those other plans were. He decided to play along with the charade. "Other plans? I really did totally forget. I mustn't have written them on my wall planner. Just as well you remembered. What do I have planned?" He tried desperately not to sound snarky, she wouldn't appreciate that and he was in enough trouble already.

"Really Damon, you need to organize yourself a lot better if you wish to have any hope of making anything of your life. When you make plans you must write them down. It is just as well your friend Nicholas Smart called me to remind you about your special biology study group tomorrow night. Now there at least is a young man with his head screwed on right, having the sense to call to confirm the arrangements."

Damon tried to keep a blank face. What the fuck was going on? What the fuck was Nick up to? What the actual fuck was he meant to say to his mother now? His plans had entirely been based on a conversation that was nothing like the one that was now taking place. "Oh, the biology study group. With Nick. Yes. That's on Tuesday evening?"

"Well, really, Damon, I think you should know the answer to that. I really am quite disappointed with your level of organization here. I mean, I'm very pleased that you have taken the initiative to get involved with this study group, but when I look at how badly you manage to mess up your arrangements even when you do the right thing, really Damon, sometimes I despair."

"I will try to do better, I promise."

"So, none of this going to the party nonsense?"

Damon hesitated before answering. He didn't want his mother to think that the victory had been too easy. "I can't do both, and I suppose I agreed to the study night first. I would really like to have gone to the party, and I do think it would have been perfectly safe, but, obviously that is academic. Because I'm going to the study night." He tried to make the concession sound reluctant, and was pleased with himself for pointing out that he thought she was wrong about the level of danger. Telling her she was wrong was usually insanely dangerous, but he could get away with it when he was giving in and letting her get her way.

He could sense her feeling smug. That meant she was convinced she had won totally, that he had backed down completely, and that order was restored. Damon finished eating then headed to go do the rest of his homework. He was also desperately curious to find out what Nick was up to. Damon had his suspicions, but if that really was Nick's plan, it was pretty outrageous.


A cool kid could condescend to talk to a geek, it was a whole different thing for a sad geek to approach a cool kid. Damon knew his only hope was to try and catch Nick when no one else was around. That was proving to be way more difficult than he had anticipated.

His mother had been almost tolerable at breakfast that morning. She always seemed to overdo the facade of being reasonable right after she won a battle with him. To Damon it felt like she was rubbing his face in it, although he knew she was genuinely trying not to upset him any further than she needed to... it was bizarrely magnanimous of her in a twisted kind of way. Damon was sure that from her point of view it felt like she was doing the right thing, she was protecting him from his own bad judgement. And that was his problem, there was no way of challenging her opinion of what made for bad judgement on his part, she just had no concept of compromise.

Except this time he hadn't lost. Well, at least he didn't think he had. He'd spent half the evening trying to get his head around what was going on, but what he really needed was to talk to Nick. And soon, he didn't exactly have a large amount of time to spare, it was Tuesday morning now and the party was only a matter of hours away. So while he should have waited for Nick to come to him, he had decided the had to go see Nick. Unfortunately Nick wasn't alone, and Damon was trying to work out what on earth he could do next. He stood quietly in the distance trying not to look too conspicuous. He would have to wait until Nick was free, and hope that happened before they had to head to class registration.

In the event Nick made it easy for him. "There you are little boy. I wondered how long it would take you to show up."

Damon had been taken aback. Nick hadn't waited until the people he was with had gone. Nick was talking to a geek in front of other cool kids. "I got the message and..." he managed to stammer out nervously.

"And you're wondering what the fuck is going on?"

"Er, yes."

"Well, Cinderella, I'm your fucking fairy godfather. And I decided you shall go to the party."


Damon headed to the first lesson of the day feeling incredible. Pumped, happier than he could remember having been, maybe ever. Not that he was getting to the party, but that he was finally pulling one over on his mother.

It wasn't perfect, he would get dropped at Nick's place by 6:00 PM, then have to get over to Josh's, and he would have to leave the party no later than the stroke of 10:45 PM in order to get back to Nick's in time to be picked up by his parents. Late wasn't an option, and the consequences would be far worse than turning into a pumpkin. But that didn't matter. His mother had said no, and he was going to the party anyway. Life didn't get any better than this.

Okay, Damon conceded, it was a pretty sad life that this should be the pinnacle of his existence. He still wouldn't be able to drink much at the party, but he would at least be able to drink something, Nick had even thought of that. The story was that they were eating strong curried snacks to keep them going while they studied, that would explain the smell of mouthwash on his breath. He was totally looking forward to the party.

He wasn't exactly sure what he had done this time to warrant getting helped out by Nick again. He half freaked out wondering if Nick was secretly gay and had some kind of crush on him... but, no, if that had been the case he figured he would have spotted something had been up when he had shared the room with Nick at the Institute conference. He'd noticed a lot of things about Nick, and that was not one of them. But that left the puzzle. He couldn't help feeling that sooner or later there was going to be some kind of price to pay. But, for now, he was happy. Honestly, to win one over his mother like that, he was pretty much okay whatever the price turned out to be, even if it had turned out to be something freaky, it was worth it.

His victorious thoughts were not even tempered as the teacher arrived and the lesson started. He was sure he spent the entire lesson grinning inappropriately.


Damon was sitting alone for lunch. He often did. It wasn't that he couldn't go sit with Steve and Josh and the other misfits, they would accept him, and no one would think less of him for sitting with them. He didn't have a problem hanging out with them, he just liked to eat lunch on his own, it was the one opportunity he had in the day to get lost in his own thoughts and not have to worry about other people.

That was the theory anyway. All he had wanted to do today was sit in smug happiness, enjoying his moment of triumph. That was not what seemed to be happening. His pasta salad had been abruptly interrupted by a momentary chill. Damon had blinked and glanced around. If this was a vision, it was kind of half-arsed. Doorknob, hand, doorknob. What kind of stupid was going on here? It was lunchtime, he was sat in the middle of the school canteen, and he seemed to be... in the closet again. He was having a vision about coming out of a closet. That was just wrong. Thankfully he was sitting alone. and thankfully all the other people in the school canteen were ignoring him, it wasn't really the ideal place to be having an out of body experience.

Maybe that was it, maybe that was his subconscious fighting, why the vision only felt half there. Stairs. Jake. Jake again. The guy in the closet. He called out to him, kind of pointless, no one ever responded in his visions when he tried to talk to them. The guy was spinning around. Disembodied heads seemed to hover around him. Something was wrong, this was no normal vision. Right, like any vision was exactly normal, but this was seriously not normal.

There was an enormous lake. A small lake, okay, maybe just a small pond. Gates, park gates maybe. The guy was frenzied, out of control. This, Damon contemplated, seemed to be a common theme in the visions. He could see a house, a pub, it was a pub, the Pheasant Plucker's arms. Bloody silly name for a pub, but distinctive, an internet search shouldn't turn up too many pubs with that name, that was exactly the kind of detail he was looking for. But most of the other images were too confusing, Damon tried to focus, tried to...

The vision broke into reality. This was more like it. A single coherent scene. He had some real chance of being able to gather details he could use to verify the vision now. The pond was just a puddle, a puddle by the school gate. The pub was on the other side of the road. Jake was pushing past people towards the gate. Pushing past them like he couldn't see.

'Jake.' Damon tried calling out to him again. The guy seemed really panicked about something. Damon couldn't work out if the distorted nature of what he was seeing was part of the reason for the panic, or if the vision was getting garbled because of the panic. He was running from something, desperately running from something.

The guy was more than just panicked. He was stumbling into people, it wasn't just because he wasn't looking, he really couldn't see them, the guy was, his mind was broken. He was stumbling towards the road, but he couldn't see the road, couldn't see the cars. Couldn't see the cars. Shit, he couldn't see the car headed right for him.

'Jake. Get out the fucking road you idiot' Damon tried shouting in his mind. It was no good, people in the visions could never hear him. Nothing he could say was going to help, he just had to look on and watch in horror.

Jake turned, apparently entirely oblivious to the fact there was a car headed straight for him, he turned and looked back. Damon looked into the blank face looking back at him. Puzzlement, he could sense puzzlement. It was like Jake really could see him. Jake was trying to work out where he recognized Damon's face from. Holy shit, this wasn't just a vision, this was real. Jake really could see him. Damon felt his momentary elation sinking fast, if Jake could see him, why couldn't he hear. Why the fuck wasn't he listening?

'For God's sake get out of the fucking road.' Damon screamed again in desperation. He had never felt so helpless in his life, watching the car break hard and desperately try to swerve. Damon tried to dive forwards, reach out, pull the stupid fucker out of the way. Except he couldn't, because he wasn't really there.

'No.' The guy was trying to turn, the bloody obvious must finally have occurred to him and he was trying to get out of the way of the oncoming car. But he didn't know which direction the vehicle was coming from, and now in his confusion he had stumbled to where he was even more directly in the path of the car. But then just as the guy seemed like he was aware that he had made a mistake, it was too late.

Damon blinked, he was sat in the school canteen. Life was going on around him as if nothing had happened. How could they all be so cold about it? He sat, tried to control his breathing, tried to conceal his own shock and trauma. He just wanted to get away. Escape the cold darkness, escape the emptiness. But he had nowhere to go, he was back where he belonged, safe. And Jake was gone.


5: Happy Drugs


Jake turned his head on the pillow and blinked a few times. He could see. The headache had passed, he felt better. Well, physically he felt like he had been through the proverbial hedge backwards, but his head was clear. No voices either. Alright, there was one, but it was a real one. Someone sitting by the bed, talking to him. At least he assumed they were talking to him. There didn't seem to be anyone else around to be talking to.

Where was he? It looked like a hospital bed. It looked exactly like the hospital room he'd woken up in briefly after the car had hit him. Had he been hit by a car? Or had it all been a dream? Had he blacked out again, had he imagined it all? Safest for his sake to let them do the talking, it would avoid all sorts of awkward questions. It wasn't bad though, this hospital, he could smell fresh lemons, and the sheets were beautifully clean. He also noted that he was hungry, but didn't feel particularly weak. He appeared to be hooked up to some kind of drip, that implied to him that his condition had been considered fairly serious at some point.

"Hi," he smiled weakly. "Did I survive?"

"Just about. Welcome back to the land of the living. Hold on, I'll call the doctor."

Jake watched a moment while she spoke to the disembodied voice on the other end of the call. It was considered normal to hear disembodied voices on telephones, he contemplated, hearing them without telephones was not quite so normal. But, that wasn't a problem right now. He looked up at the ceiling and cleared his mind. He felt almost too calm, it didn't seem right.

The doctor didn't take long to arrive. He imagined his parents would be in some waiting room, and that was even before he had to deal with school, probably the police. But it was the doctor he had to convince, the Doctor that would help him spin a story that would satisfy all of them.

"Hello Jacob. How do you feel?"

"Exhausted, all in one piece. I suppose that's some consolation."

"Consolation? The car managed to swerve, but it still hit you at some speed. In my humble medical opinion, after a cranial impact like that, you shouldn't really still be capable of using words like that with three syllables. That is how serious this was. You escaped, it seems, almost unscathed both physically and mentally. You were more than lucky, you'd almost have me believing in miracles if I wasn't such an old cynic. So, tell me what you remember."

Serious, yeah right. Jake tried to refrain from smirking. This was the part he'd been waiting for since he'd woken up, his opportunity to perform. "Lunchtime was over, it was physics next lesson. I remember grabbing my books. I had a headache, and didn't really feel up to the lesson. I was going to go and apologize. I got out into the yard, and I couldn't see. Between leaving the common room and getting to the yard it just became more and more difficult to see. I thought I was going blind. I guess I panicked. Ran. I don't remember much else. Then I woke up here, the nurse called you, and that's it." It sounded so simple, so clean, so sanitary. The doctor would have to come up with some explanation for it.

"You said you could see less and less. Describe it, in detail if you can."

He smiled inwardly to himself. The had asked him for detail, he could give it to them; selectively. He explained how the door handle had vanished. The gradual loss of vision until he could no longer see. Everything, except for the fact that after loosing his sight completely he had seen the weird geek staring back at him. He didn't mention the voice calling out to him either. He decided he would rather hold that one back as well, at least for now.

"Has anything like this ever happened before?"

"No, never." Well, strictly speaking that was questionable. But he didn't want the diagnosis clouded by something that might not have been relevant.

"And you had a headache at the time?"

"Yes. You think the two things could be connected?" He knew the answer was yes, his question was directed to try and find out what the doctor was thinking.

"Sounds to me like an attack of migraine. It really could scare you, being the first time. You've had problems with headaches recently?"

"A bit, yes." Absolute truth.

"Concentration problems as well, I have some hearing test results here, and I think you played down the headaches at the time. So nobody realized just how serious it was. "

"I didn't think they were important." At the time they hadn't been, it had been a hearing test.

"That is for your doctor to decide. You could have been killed in that accident. So. Do you have a headache right now?"

"No. Just tired." More truth.

"Right. Well you are not going back to school until at least the week after next, and when you do go back, we will be keeping a check on you from time to time. I know it's good for a dedicated student to work hard, but there is such a thing as working too hard. In your case exacerbated by what seems to be a slight chemical imbalance in your neurology, makes you prone to scrambled signals in the brain, and that is likely what is causing the migraine. So I'm also going to prescribe you a migraine suppressant, we'll start with sodium valproate, take one a day. We'll monitor you on that, if that isn't helping we can switch to a tricyclic anti-depressant or a beta-blocker. Just know there are alternatives, and our job is to work out what works best for you."

"Yes." Was is really as simple as that?

"You know what day it is?"

This was more like the kind of questions he had been expecting, see if he was sane. "Tuesday."

"It's Thursday today."

He didn't need to fake the surprise, "You mean I've been unconscious for two days. No wonder I feel hungry, when do I get to eat?"

"Thursday the 18th."

Holy shit. He'd been unconscious for sixteen days. No one was joking. This was all seriously serious. He started to regret playing mind games with the doctor. Jake Laris feeling regret? Well, maybe that was okay. No headaches, no voices. Maybe having to deal with having a newly found conscience wasn't so bad a trade.

"Right now you need rest. I'll let your parents see you for a short time, you can have something to eat in a few hours, once we know it's safe. Otherwise have yourself a good nights sleep, and we can think about letting you home in the morning.


He got away with it. His mother had been all I-told-you-so, and saying that he would have a week of lying in, breakfast in bed, he figured that could get enjoyably addictive. It should have been a gift, a gratuitous extra week of sloth, but he'd managed to spend the whole half term holiday in a coma, so in some ways it felt like little more than a compensation for losing that. Plus, the lost time wasn't going to help with his revision for exams, he would only have a week back at school before those started. But, he figured, there he would have to be allowed some leeway, and it wasn't exactly like these were critical exams or anything, just regular school end of year exams.

The school for its part had somehow felt that it was partly to blame and Vader had sent a really groveling letter. They hoped he would make a full recovery and were looking forward to seeing him when he returned. Of course, in their eyes he was still the model pupil. One who tried too hard.

Jake could hardly believe it, even he couldn't work out exactly how he had managed to talk his way out of this one. Maybe the doctor had been right, maybe it had just all been overwork. Was he really falling for the doctor's explanation? The doctor's diagnosis certainly appeared to have been right, and the treatment was working. Right now there were no headaches, and more importantly no voices either. Kind of rude of them to piss off without saying goodbye, but he wasn't going to get worked up about that. A slight chemical imbalance in his neurology, could that really have been all it was?

He recovered his strength within a few days. By the end of the weekend he was feeling better, much better than he had been ever since the hangover that had started it all. His moment of weirdness finally over. The next week passed equally peacefully, no trouble, no cares. His mother was being so conscientious about not getting him stressed that she hadn't even made a big fuss on the Wednesday when another disappearance had been announced. It really was uninterrupted relaxation. By the end of it he found himself starting to get so bored that he was almost looking forward to school. And in his opinion that feeling couldn't be good for him.


He left the house on Monday morning relieved in a way, he wanted it to be the end of the matter. Time to forget his problems and get back to reality. He suspected that his desire might be nothing more than wishful thinking. For a start the change of routine had thrown him off and he had nearly forgotten to take his medication that morning. It wasn't a big deal, but it was a reminder that things could never go back exactly as they were.

He turned the corner and continued down the street to the bus stop. It was the first time he had been out alone in over three weeks. It felt strange to be out, somehow beautiful, a solitary contemplation of the world around him. The cold snap was well and truly over, this felt much more like a normal June day. He sat on the bench in the bus shelter, enjoying the sunshine. Enjoying the five minute wait, or however long it turned out to be, it was as ever impossible to rely on the buses. But that gave him time to think, time to reflect.

He kept one hand on the strap of his bag by his feet and watched diligently for the first sign of the bus coming. Sometimes it went straight past if he didn't notice it coming, he needed to be ready to make a move.

His eyes tended to wander though, as always. He only watched for the bus most of the time, in other moments he found himself looking across the street at the bus stop on the other side, watching the figures waiting there. He recognized most of them. Over six years he had watched people coming and going, the regulars, he had never met them, but had always felt like he somehow knew them. All familiar faces today. Odd though, they did seem much more distant than he remembered.

But, in the scheme of things, not a big deal. The bus arrived and he boarded it.


He arrived at school to find himself being treated as something of a celebrity. Not necessarily for the best of reasons. The incident had been well reported, even made the local papers. The status was enjoyable for a time, but he was glad to make his retreat to the store room. He descended the stairs and hesitated as he reached the door. He didn't exactly have pleasant memories of the last time he had been in there. He knocked three times just in case; it shouldn't matter, he was normally first in in the mornings, then shoved his key in the lock and tried to turn it.

It wouldn't budge.

He pulled the key out, cursed silently and tried again. Still no luck. He removed it and considered. After what had happened had they been found out? Mike and Dean hadn't mentioned anything, he had seen them more than once in the past week. It made no sense.

Whatever the explanation, the key was useless. Angrily he thumped the lock.

"Chill, don't stress, you'll have the men in white coats here to cart you off to the funny farm again."

His solitary contemplation was interrupted by the gratuitously grinning face of Mike peering round the corner.

"Very original. I take it you had to change the lock as a result of me going apeshit."

"No."

Mike pushed him to the side and pulled out his own key. The door swung open. Mike stepped aside and gestured a mock welcome. Jake entered a room pretty much unchanged from how it had been four weeks earlier. Four weeks, it hadn't really occurred to him just how long he'd been gone, although, being unconscious most of that time kind of distorted his view.

He switched on the fan heater, used for blowing cool air this time, it was kind of muggy and humid down there at this time of year. Jake increased the volume on the radio to counteract its monotonous hum.

"See that key?" Mike asked as he followed him in.

Jake tossed the key over then put his bag down on the chair and pulled it open to check his books for the day.

"This isn't the key, the pattern is totally wrong."

"Same key I always used."

"No way. Check it out."

Jake took both keys, ready to launch into his defense. Only the keys were totally different. No way he could deny it.

"Huh weird. So how did I never have a problem getting in before?"

"You sure you didn't just confuse the keys when you went loco?"

Jake stopped. Truth was he couldn't be sure. Time to cut his losses, let it go. "I need to borrow that, get a copy."

"No problem." Mike hesitated. "Hey, you okay about all that? I don't mean to wind you up about the crazy thing, not if you got a problem with it."

"What? Not really. I guess." He looked across at Mike, unsure what the guy was getting at. Somehow it didn't help, his eyes were blank, not giving anything away today. "I'm okay now. I can deal."

"Cool. Don't want you killing yourself."

Jake kept looking at him, but he couldn't see what Mike meant. There was just silence. He gave up, puzzled. Not worth it, let it go. More important things to think about, time to face the day. He would be having a reasonably light workload for the week, even with exams looming over him the teachers had finally been forced to accept that he didn't really need to do as much work as everyone else. Really they should have been able to work that out for themselves a long time ago, but, Jake figured, maybe that was expecting too much of them.


One physics and one chemistry lesson later he was happy to observe that the teachers were indeed keeping to their promise. Both Price and Fiedler had been very reserved, scaling back their normally quite pushy expectations of him. Jake could see this was going to work out very well for him. Very well indeed.

Kath finally caught up with him on the way out to lunch. She hadn't managed to make it to see him, since he'd regained consciousness. She'd apparently turned up a couple of times when he was in the coma, but obviously he didn't remember any of that. Then she'd had issues of her own the week after that with her grandfather being rushed into hospital. For a time that hadn't looked hopeful, and she had been sitting there with him most evenings. For now his condition had stabilized, but Kath was still looking pretty tired and upset. Dean had passed on her apologies for not making it to see Jake at all.

"You had a lot of people worried." She stated, sounding somewhat subdued still.

"I had me worried too. Well, apart from when I was in the coma. Didn't worry much then." He tried to lighten the mood.

"Make a joke of anything."

"Sorry, I'm sorry. It's just easier than thinking about what might have been. I didn't mean to upset anyone."

"Is this Jake Laris being honest, Jake Laris sharing his feelings?"

"Don't tell anyone, I"d never live it down." He grinned.

"You coming to lunch, me and Dean were skipping the canteen, headed to the mall."

"Yeah. You and Dean? Lunch? No shotguns involved? Did I miss something while I was unconscious?"

"You were only gone a matter of two or three weeks. Let me point out it would take Dean a lot more than a few weeks to get a clue."

"Fair point."

"He's just, been pretty supportive. His gran died last year, so I guess he had some clue what I was going through."

"How's your granddad doing?"

"Out of intensive care. They think he'll make it. Oh, he won't be able to go climbing trees any more, but honestly, he's in his eighties, I don't get why he was out climbing trees anyway."

"Because he could? I still want to be climbing trees when I'm his age."

"You don't climb trees, you're terrified of heights."

"You always have to complicate poetic metaphor with cold technicality, don't you."

"And the rate you're going with throwing yourself in front of moving cars, there isn't much chance of you making it to eighty anyway."

Jake smiled at her reply, it was sarcastic humor, but it was at least humor. The mood had been successfully lightened.


Dean finally turned up about five minutes late. Some story about being held back after the lesson because he'd been in trouble for talking back to the teacher. As excuses went it sounded like it was bordering on the ridiculous. Oddly Jake couldn't work out if Dean was telling the truth or not.

Anyway, they had finally managed to sneak out of school to head to the mall. It was ridiculous, having to sneak out for lunch. School was starting to resemble a prison camp in a police state. A year earlier there wouldn't have been an issue, but now there was a serial killer on the loose. With the disappearance the week before a diktat had now been issued to the effect that no pupils were allowed off of school premises at lunchtime. So, what they were now doing, sneaking out for lunch, was a direct violation of school rules. Even that was on the daring side for Dean. Whatever Kath had been saying, Dean had definitely changed more than a little, even in just a couple of weeks. For one thing he'd always been one of the easiest to read before, and that somehow just wasn't the case any more. For another, he was also pushing a little more attitude out than before, and Jake considered that a definite improvement.

"Okay, how about that guy, down there. The one nervously fiddling with what looks disturbingly like a pocket trumpet." Dean was asking. They had wound up back at the food court again.

"What?" Jake had been distracted looking across the concourse.

"He looks, like you said, loud. Come on, what's his story?"

"Don't know."

"You okay?" Kath chimed in, acting like she was concerned, although Jake couldn't figure out why.

"Yeah, fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Nothing, no reason."

What the fuck did she mean? Of course there was a reason, she wouldn't have asked if there hadn't been a reason. She never had been all that easy to read before, now she was just completely blank. He looked away, No point stressing himself out. He was meant to be happy. Back at school, everything wonderful again. And it really was great, the peacefulness, he could look out over the crowded square below and almost still feel a sense of solitude. Nothing bad about that, he'd never found it so easy to relax.

The guy with the pocket trumpet. Yeah, he did look kind of freaky. No story though. No big deal, not everyone had that focus or intensity to them. And honestly, as odd as the guy looked, Jake was pretty relieved he didn't have any particular story to tell.

Peaceful, that was it. He could get quite used to that part. And the rest, Kath, Dean and the others. Well, after what had happened it wasn't exactly surprising that they were acting a bit odd around him. They were likely as unsure about dealing with him as he was unsure about them, and this was only his first day back after all. Bound to take a little time to settle back into the routine. And, not only had he flipped out, he'd been acting weird for months, Kath had admitted that to him. It had to be pretty weird for them, having Jake acting normal again. It all made some kind of twisted sense. It was good, good that things had changed, good that they could get on with adjusting back to that.

He smiled. Fucking weird guy with the pocket trumpet. Was pretty funny. That was it. When was the last time he had really just let go and found the world around him a complete spectacle of perverse humor? He'd been so miserable he'd forgotten how to take the piss out of life. Well no problem, that failing was one he could work on.

"Now, I could tell you what he gets up to with that pocket trumpet, but really, we're in a public place, and we're eating. And you could not begin to imagine how shockingly gross it is..."


Maths had been amusing. Settling the class down Ms Hinton had been on regular form. Not even phased by his pulling his school books from his bag at the start of the lesson.

"Homework on time Mister Laris? That car finally knock some sense into you? I think a few others in this class could do with getting hit by a speeding car, help sort them out. And I am so up to volunteering to be the one driving that car. So shut up the rest of you."

He'd found the work relatively easy to focus on. He wasn't exactly sure that was supposed to be an effect of the drug he was taking, or if it was just the fact he had to concentrate because he didn't seem quite so able to wing it as he was used to. Either way, after all the frustration of the last few weeks, it was great to be able to pay attention to the lesson. Even if it did mean that he was actually having to do some work. He had noticed Ms Hinton glance across at him several times in class, he couldn't work out if she was astounded or bemused to watch him working. Either way he had to concede it was a novelty for her.

She'd stopped him momentarily on his way out of the lesson. She was smiling, he wasn't sure he'd ever seen her smile at him before, that was something pretty different as well. He figured it was some kind of 'I told you so' smile, but he'd never been all that good at reading her.

"Never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I think I actually miss the way you used to wind me up." She informed him.

"Yes, Miss."

"Good to see you got yourself sorted out anyway. Not sure I think you picked the safest way to go about that, but then I never rated your common sense at the best of times."

Jake smirked, from her that was actually as close as he was ever likely to get to a compliment.


Celebrity was fleeting, and Jake found himself thankful for that truth. The unnatural interest in him had very much worn off by the end of Tuesday. By the end of the week life was back to being boring as shit. The week after that he had exams. And given how disrupted the last month had been for him, he had officially been given dispensation to totally crap them up. Not that he would, which would make the teachers even more astounded at his achievement. Brilliance in the face of adversity. Jake was happy. At long last things seemed back to normal.