Putting the Genie back in the bottle

Summary: Freedom is sometimes not all it seems.

Disclaimers: Naturally I own neither Gene et al, nor LoM/A2A: they belong to Kudos and the BBC, alas...


When I was young, they told me I was rare,

a force for righting wrongs, for doing good

throughout the world: so, needed everywhere,

I went where I was told, did what I could

to help mankind, by smile or curse, along

its potholed road. The methods I employed

were dubious, but Genies can't be wrong;

I thought I'd earned the freedom I enjoyed.

Then I forgot myself: I made a friend,

a proxy for the brother I had lost.

But friends are not allowed and, in the end,

my 'liberty' was bought at his life's cost.

Your love could lay a snare to capture me,

and trap me here: and then I would be free.