There was a jungle outside my front door this morning. Sorry if I don’t sound adequately phased by that. Believe me, I’ve been through all the relevant emotions. Disbelief, astonishment, confusion, despair, fear, anger. Even swearing. After today I’ve decided that swearing can be an emotion. If you’d been here you’d understand.

I suppose I should point out that I’m not being metaphorical here: it’s literally a jungle out there, not figuratively. It’s not just that Sissy forgot to prune her geraniums, either. I went out a ways. Kept the door in sight. I heard some kind of big cat in the distance, though. Couldn’t tell you which, it’s not the kind of thing that’s come up before. Anyway, I came back and I threw the latch and I haven’t been out again.

Outside the kitchen window it looks more like woods. Not quite as wild. I didn’t notice that to begin with, but I’ve had a few hours to sit and look at it now and it’s definitely different to the front. The bedroom window looks like Antarctica. Lots of ice, not much else. Cold as hell, too. I think I’ll be sleeping down here tonight.

Sissy was banging on the wall, earlier. At least I think it was Sissy. These walls are thick, and I couldn’t hear well but from what I could tell it’s not just my apartment that’s… wrong. Not sure about the other two. No sound from the new couple on the other side of me, but they could just be curled up in a ball in a corner. I did that for a while. It helped some, but not much.

Anyway, this is like the third message I’ve left, in case you didn’t get the other two for some reason. I’m not sure what you’ll find when you show up for our date tonight. I get the feeling we might have to take a rain check. Call me back.

Moros stood atop the rocky outcrop, his hair spiking in the charged air. He clutched his sword with both hands, leaning his weight on it just a little. A thin trickle of blood came down his right arm from somewhere beneath his sleeve. The onlookers were slowly recovering, and one started towards him from the tree line.
“Stay back!” he called. “Stay amongst the trees! This isn’t over yet.”
Without moving his eyes from their constant scan of the surroundings he hooked one foot under the body, hooded and masked, that lay beside him, and with a heave sent it tumbling to the waves below. More room to move now; that was important.

The charge in the air grew suddenly, and Moros shifted his grip slightly. As the lightning forked down from the sky he was already moving, his blade scraping along the rock then coming up in a wide arc. His opponent was there suddenly, cast in stark relief as the lightning struck the ground between them in a crash that drowned the clash of blades. The battle was joined.

There was an impression he had in her presence. Something he couldn’t quite place. Sometimes it seemed like a quality of the light; sometimes it was almost a sound. Sometimes, she seemed to fill the room.

He took to watching how other people interacted with her, when he could — stall-holders, bus-drivers, children on the street. As far as he could tell nobody else could sense whatever it was.

He had always loved watching her. Loved looking at her. Every inch of her fascinated every inch of him. This puzzle was no exception, and sometimes he wondered whether it wasn’t an excuse he made himself to revel in her all the more.

It wasn’t until the night that she held him as they fell asleep that the mystery was finally solved, and he felt her wings fold around him.

They were trying to open a portal into an alternate universe, you see. The idea was to use quantum entanglement events as the branch points in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics to form an entangled link across parallel universes. It didn’t work as planned, but the surprising thing was that it did in fact work. There were two problems: the first was that they came up with a way to send information across the link, but not matter or energy. The second was that the link only held while the parallel universe was close to our own.

It seemed a shame to throw out the technology just because it didn’t do what they had wanted it to, so they tried plugging a voice transmission system into it. Since the parallel universe on the other end was very close to this one, the scientists there did too, and suddenly the scientists were talking to themselves. Now, of course, they sell the things in those fancy online gadget stores. It turns out, being able to talk to a slightly different version of themselves is a great help to a lot of people in crises or times of indecision. Some people, of course, come very quickly to the realisation that they are prats.

On reflection, teaching her how to pick locks had been a bad idea. She had always loved to hide and jump out on him, and for years after she’d gone he would find himself checking every room of the house for her when he came home, in case she’d broken in while he was out and was waiting behind something to surprise him. If he heard a bump in the night and went to investigate, it wasn’t burglars he expected to find. Of course, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that no matter how many times he looked, she was never there.

A West End man yesterday died of natural causes in his home at the age of 184. Doctors initially listed the cause of death as heart disease, however an autopsy later showed that although there was considerable cholesterol build-up it was within safe limits. This is the first death of natural causes to be recorded on British soil in over 40 years and, although it does not earn the deceased the record for the oldest ever human being, scientists are claiming that it provides great insight into the increased life expectancy the medical advances of the last century have afforded the developed world.

“A wise man once said to me: ´Some people don´t know what´s good for them. Sometimes the few can govern the needs of the many better than the many can themselves.´

I´m not sure if he was right. I don´t know whether it´s true that some people inherently need governing. But I challenge any of you to convince me that the people who rule over our lives today ‘know better’. Governments and corporations have had too much power over the people for too long, and they wield that power to their own ends. I looked at the world around me, and I saw war and I saw death and I saw greed and I came to the decision that it’s time I had power. Not over other men’s destinies, but over my own. And so I have worked long and hard, and finally I have that power.

I am offering you the chance to have that power yourselves, and what I ask in return is that you help me offer that power to everyone. I want to build an empire: beyond borders, beyond sex and beyond race. One that does not seek to govern or replace governments, but seeks instead to empower the people.

This is not hyperbole. This may be the most important endeavour mankind has ever undertaken. Imagine Romulus and Remus stood before you, asking that you help them to build Rome.”

He understood about security blankets, and had never been surprised that they weren’t called security trucks or security dolls. He had a small stuffed toy with a ribbon around its neck that, for all intents and purposes, went everywhere he did. This is not to say that he took it with him when going to work or nipping down to the shops or heading out on the town; nor is it to say that the stuffed toy ever went anywhere outside the house. Still, whenever he slept in a bed that was not his own, the ribbon went with him.

“The base is under attack! Send the new recruits to the gate!”
“Sir?”
“There’s a spy in the outer compound. Some of the guard dogs have been found dead.”
“Just one spy, sir?”
“Yes, Colonel. Is that a problem?”
“No, sir, only… are we the bad guys, sir?”
“What insubordination is this?”
“No insubordination, sir. I’ll send the recruits as you’ve asked.”
“Good man. Get the rank and file on double patrols inside the base, post the elite guard around the lab, and then take up your position in the observation room. I’ll be in the lab itself.”
“Should we perhaps not post the elite guard on the gate? If the spy can kill them we’re all pretty screwed, and I’d rather not lose all our men to find that out.”
“Don’t be absurd, Colonel! Next you’ll be suggesting we all attack at once rather than hold back and take turns.”

“It’s just unsettling, is all.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like there’s any alternative.”
“I know,” said Lucas, “but that’s the point, isn’t it? All the major governments and religions have signed off on it being morally sound, but if the only other option was the extinction of the human race what the hell else were they going to do?”
“You don’t believe it?” asked Sarah.
“Of course I don’t believe it. I don’t even believe that they believe it. Even discounting all that, I’m still uncomfortable with the fact that my refrigerator is excited when I come home.”
“Oh you’re such a prude, Lucas. They do good work. Besides, I’ve seen the appliance reserves: herds of exercise bikes roaming the plains, water coolers gathering around drinking holes, flocks of mobile phones texting in trees. They have a good life when they’re out of service.”
“Fine, fine,” Lucas sighed. “Just don’t come crying to me when your alarm clock starts watching you sleep.”