Day 1

'Be at Bristol Train Station, 9am, sharp. Wait for a blue car.' Having re-read the note for the thousandth time, John folded it carefully and put it back into his pocket.

Checking his watch, he breathed a sigh of relief as he alighted onto the platform. The driver had been true to his announcement and the new diesel powered train had delivered them safely and on time to the station.

"Ten minutes spare," he muttered to himself and then looked back at the elegant chrome lines of the new locomotive. Great Western trains had promised the future and they had delivered, the new Aedles class engines were fast, sleek and futuristic, the epitome of 30s style.  

Lifting his walking cane and checking his appearance in a nearby café window, he moved to the street side of the elegant brick station building and waited for the hands of the clock to finish their languid circle to 9am.  

His mind drifted as he leant against the wall in a sheltered spot out of the rain. Watching the traffic, the hustle and bustle of the Bristol city centre subsumed him in a welter of noise and excitement. Opposite the station, a young woman finished dressing the shop window with the latest in male fashion, and he was pleased to note that his attire was not dissimilar to the two figures who stood in conversational hiatus in front of an American style highway scene. He tilted his trilby to a slightly more rakish angle and then drew in an anticipatory breath as a smart looking blue sports car turned into the waiting zone in front of the station and pulled up next to him.

He bent down to look in under the soft top, the light rain producing a gentle counterpoint to his own hammering heart.

"John Deere?" a male voice enquired.

"Yes, sir."

"In you get then."

John settled himself in the passenger seat, and as he shut the car door, it smoothly pulled away, picking up speed quickly despite the rain slicking the cobbles.

"Good morning," said the man driving. "I'm going to be your guide for the day, and your interviewer. Any questions, ask 'em and I'll do my best to answer but we haven't got a huge amount of time. My name is unimportant but you can call me Dredge, everybody else does."

"Er... John," said John.

"I'll tell you what, let me drop what I know on you and you can fill in anything you consider important once I've finished. You are John Anthony Deere, 6ft 4ins tall.  You have a degree in Physics from Oxford, Doctorate in Mathematics from Edinburgh and a keen interest in butterflies."

"Er... yes."

"Don't interrupt old son, I'm in full flow here. Also, you represented Oxford in rowing, blew up your geography teacher's car after a disagreement in class but never got caught, had a brief affair with your sister's friend Anna, once pee'd through the letter box of the Royal Bank of Scotland after having one too many beers as a student, and can comfortably swim a mile even at sea. Parents dead, no siblings, no current girlfriend, can drive, likes to dress fashionably, considering working in a laboratory testing magnetic fields but saw the advert in the paper for a scientist required for a government agency and decided to apply. How's that?"

"I think you have most things covered," said John looking slightly startled. "You missed off the fact that I play the lute and once abseiled off Big Ben though."

He looked over at his companion who was staring fiercely through the window at the traffic as he zipped along the road.

"Fair enough, no need to show off though, I can't remember everything old son. Right, we'll be there in a moment, here we go."

Dredge whipped the car into a narrow gap between two office blocks and parked the car in a numbered space, quickly opening the door and hopping out into the rain.

"Come on John, it's raining cats and dogs out here, let's get inside before it starts with the zoo animals eh? Right then, here we are. Welcome to the Department of Editors and Auditors."

"Editors and Auditors? I was given to understand that this was a little more..."

"Exciting? Edgy?"

"Well, yes," said John, trying to keep the disappointment from his tone.

"It is. But there's no point calling the place The List X Building or the Department of Mysteries now is there, or we'd have all the conspiracy nuts after us wouldn't we?

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Right, come on then, I'll show you round and see what you think."

Dredge set off quickly, leaving John half running to catch up. A nondescript wooden building ran the length of the one side of the square in which they'd parked, a variety of vehicles and push bikes littering the area. Dredge walked to a door at one corner of the building and produced a key from one pocket.

"Security is tight," he grinned and twisted the key, opening the door to a darkened space on the other side. "In you go, there's a switch on the wall to the right, but wait 'til I've got the door shut before you illuminate proceedings."

Once the door had thudded shut and dropped them both into pitch darkness, John fumbled around, and after a few seconds found the switch. Lighting blinked into life and John took in his surroundings. Pristine concrete walls dropped into the ground with twin stairways descending downwards in front of them. As he watched, Dredge slapped a button on the wall and the stairs began to move in endless conveyance, the gentle hum of machinery permeating the silence.

"Impressive eh?"

"I've only seen these in magazines. Hasn't Harrods got one?"

"Aye, they have, and we're the only other place in the UK that has one, although quite frankly I'm surprised the blasted thing is working. Get used to using your leg muscles; the escalator is powered by a fairly unreliable source."

Before John could ask for further explanation, Dredge hopped onto the stairs and beckoned Deere to follow.

After a swift ride down several hundred feet, by John's estimation, the steps ended in a single room.

A sign on the wall behind the receptionist's desk proclaimed "Ad Tueri Lux" in large letters.

"To protect the light," said John, half questioning, half stating.

"Well done, go to the top of the class, although you can add on the invisible line 'we walk through the shit for you'. I'll explain that more in a moment or two." Dredge turned to a rather attractive looking blonde behind the desk. "Good morning Miss Gibson, are we clear to go in?"

"Good morning gentlemen. You are cleared sir. Argus has asked you to pop in and see him at your convenience too sir."

"Thank you. Miss Gibson. May I suggest that you take your finger off the trigger as we walk past, wouldn't want a repeat of last week now, would we?" Dredge turned to Deere. "It took ages to clean that up, poor old postman. Right, follow me please and I'll show you around."

Deere glanced at the receptionist who smiled brightly at him and waved, and then hastened to keep up with Dredge who had disappeared through a very well camouflaged door to one side.

"Hair trigger?" he questioned once he'd caught up with him.

"Miss Gibson is a trained markswoman. Although she acts like she has one brain cell, she is immensely intelligent, a crack shot and our last line of defence. The unfortunate postman was a KGB agent who had infiltrated the organisation and the young lady there took him out. She fainted at the sight of the blood sadly, but still did her job admirably. We all have flaws."

"Now then, in this room we have set out a few things that highlight what we do. This is just a small selection of what we deal with here. Prepare yourself."

Dredge threw open a door with a somewhat dramatic flourish and ushered Deere inside.

Along one wall, there were several trestle tables laid out with strange pieces of equipment, various objects and at the far end a massive screen showing moving pictures, which was being watched by a vastly fat man with sandwich clutched absently in one hand.

"Think fast." Dredge tossed a silvery ball at him and, mentally thanking his old school cricket coach, John caught it and looked at the metallic sphere. "Test 1 John, what is it?"

Deere's analytical brain overcame his nerves and his scientific training kicked in as he began to analyse the sphere he now held.

"Metallic, but warm to the touch. Seamless. Sounds hollow. May I?" Deere held up a copper penny and mimed scratching the surface." As Dredge nodded with a small smile John carried on. "Copper doesn't scratch it, neither does my steel penknife. Very hard. He held it close to his eye and muttered. "Looks a little like surgical steel. Reflective." He stopped as the sphere emitted a sound. Eyebrows lifting in surprise, he whistled softly and the sphere emitted a whistle back but several tones different.

Deere looked over at Dredge who appeared to be enjoying himself immensely and then whistled a few bars of Blue Moon, almost choking on his own air as the sphere whistled back with him but in perfect harmony.

"What the hell?"

"No idea old son. You've discovered as much in a few minutes as we have in years. That's all it seems to do. We've thrown every test we can think of at it and we've never marked it or been able to discover what's inside. Fun at parties though."

"But, but what's the point of it?"

"No idea."

"But why's it here?"

"We don't know. It came down through the atmosphere somewhere above Uganda and one of our field operatives picked it up and sent it here. That's our job; we deal with all the weird stuff so that Joe Average can go home at the end of the day to his little scene of domestic bliss, safe in the knowledge that little green men only exist in comic strips, science fiction can never come true and the government in charge is all powerful and knows everything."

"You think it's alien?"

"Possibly. It could be from the future or even the long distant past for all I know. Unsatisfying isn't it?" Dredge grinned.

"Deeply. Right, so we have a humming ball, a receptionist with an itchy trigger finger and a massive man with a sandwich watching movies over in the corner. Where do I fit in here?"

"Good question, and if I'm honest I don't know. We need someone on the team with a more scientific background, someone analytical but not afraid to get stuck in with the team effort as a whole." Dredge sighed. "We are not normal here. We look after all the odd stuff that people can't cope with, can't explain or just don't know what to do with. We are the UK branch of a worldwide organisation that transcends politics, ethnicity, religion or any other boundary you can think of."

"So, you deal with odd stuff, but why it is considered dangerous enough to warrant potential infiltration by the KGB and have a psychotic blonde with a firearms fetish on reception?"

"Aye, I thought you might ask something like that. Have a look at this. Don't touch though."

Dredge opened a small wooden box, inside of which lay what looked like a magic wand or conductor's baton.

"I'll give it a couple of seconds to power up."

"Power up?"

Dredge grinned at him again and watched the wand. After a minute or so he reached in and lifted it from the velvet lining of the box. Flourishing it and pointing it at a table he spoke a single word in a language John didn't recognise and the table slowly sank to the floor before silently dissolving into a small pile of white dust.

"What the bloody hell just happened?"

Dredge put the wand back into the box and closed the lid.

"The wand feeds of light energy. If you know the correct Mayan words you can get it to do many things. It was found during an archaeological dig in 1923. The professor who found it was examining it and left it on his desk while reading some Mayan inscriptions. He accidentally turned his assistant into a statue. The wand found its way here, where we keep it firmly locked away, unless of course we're trying to impress on potential employees the oddity of what we have to deal with."

"Point proven," noted John running the white powder through his fingers.

"Right, we'll just pop over and see Argus and then we'll have a look at some more oddity. He gets even more grumpy than normal if I don't pop in and see him occasionally."

Dredge walked swiftly out of the room and John followed his face a map of puzzlement and curiousity.

Stopping by a metal door, Dredge reached into an alcove and pulled out some gear. "Here, put these on." He handed John some overalls, goggles, and a gas mask.

Keeping the questions that burned in his brain firmly behind closed lips, John did as he was bid and dressed swiftly, adjusting the mask to achieve an airtight seal.

"Ready?" John nodded.

They stepped through a door, shut it, and opened another inner door where something sat in a noxious green fug.

"Good morning Argus," said Dredge cheerily and waved at the creature.

"Good? Really?"

John stood, open mouthed at the creature that sat before him. The green blob was the size of a small bus and seemed to be glowing gently whilst occasionally puffing out small clouds of greenish gas from an orifice on one of three shoulders.

"Argus, this is John."

"Good morning Argus," said John, his voice muffled slightly by the mask.

"Ah, 'good' again. You humans really do have a fascination with 'good'. What was your name again?"

"John, John Deere."

The creature let out a weird squeal and pumped out a huge plume of gas that instantly reduced the visibility in the room to virtually nothing. As air pumps struggled valiantly to clear the smog, Dredge thrust him back out of the door and John staggered out into the corridor ripping off the mask and leaning against the wall.

A few minutes later, Dredge slipped quietly out into the corridor, removed his protective clothing and faced the dejected looking John.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset him, er.. it. I...er..."

"Oh don't worry old son, apparently 'John Deere' in his home language is one of the funniest things you can say. You just cheered Argus up for the first time in about two hundred years. Well done. At least the escalator will work properly for a while now and when it doesn't we'll just show him a picture of you. Smashing, good job old son."

"I'm not sure I fully understand," said John, his cheeks flushing with anger and embarrassment.

"No need to get tetchy lad. Argus glows because he produces energy as a by product of his metabolism. A couple of hundred years ago he managed to open some sort of portal from his home world and ambled through to take a look, but something went wrong and he was stranded here, eventually finding his way to us.

"We feed him, and in return he powers the complex but he's always in a foul mood, so sometimes the elevators don't work. Well, until now." Dredge grinned brightly at him. "I'm rather glad I introduced you. Right, let's go and see what effect you have on Bob."

"Bob? What does he do, act as a seat for Miss Gibson?"

"He wishes," muttered Dredge. "No, Bob is the fat bloke watching the screen in the other room. He's a complete git, but a useful one. Shall we go say hello?"

"Aye, why not? Not sure it can get any stranger..."

"I wouldn't bet on it."

The two men moved back into the main room and moved to stand behind Bob who had finished his sandwich and was now munching his way through a vast fried breakfast whilst watching the screen and making occasional notes on a greasy looking pad.

"Morning Bob."

"Pass the sauce Dredge."

Dredge obliged and then stepped back as Bob proceeded to whack the bottom of the glass bottle until a quart of brown sauce had spattered across his bacon and eggs.

"What do you want Dredge?"

"Just thought I'd introduce John, I'm showing him around."

"Show him something else."

"Be nice Bob, he could end up as part of the team."

Bob made a disparaging noise, burped, and shoved a massive forkful of food into his mouth. As he chewed his way through the greasy mass, John started to watch the screen.

"Where's the projector?"

"There isn't one you dolt," muttered Bob.

"What Bob means," interjected Dredge smoothly, "is that the screen is a piece of technology that we found and have managed to use to our advantage. Only Bob is really any good at it, but the information we get can prove useful.

"What sort of information?"

"You scratch yourself when you're waiting for people to pick you up from the station," muttered Bob.

Dredge ignored him and carried on. "It gives us glimpses of the future. The machine can be manipulated by a skilled user to explore the many possible futures. Although even decisions such as which hat you choose to wear can theoretically produce a myriad different futures, we've noticed that little decisions like that have only a tiny effect on things. We, or rather Bob here, watch for more major trends and if necessary we act on them."

"You can predict the future?"

"No," stated Bob firmly, his eyes still on the screen. "We can predict the most likely course of the future from the many possible futures."

"We protect the light," said Dredge. "We look at as much of what could go wrong as possible. Think of us as paid pessimists. I can see you're looking slightly pessimistic yourself, or possibly just disbelieving." He tapped the fat man seated next to him on the shoulder. "Show him the Hitler reel."

Bob grunted and pressed a button on the equipment in front of him.

"You heard of Hitler, John?"

"Small, funny moustache, leader of an extremist group in Germany, recently put forward for position as Chancellor. He died last year when someone objected to his stance on certain policies and shot him didn't he?"

"Yup, that's the fella. Now watch this..."

John watched in silent horror as Hitler rose to power, as Poland was invaded, as German soldiers rolled across Europe and millions from both sides died in agony. He watched as the Britain and other nations struggled to resist and then groaned audibly as Japan bombed Pearl Harbour.

As the A bomb hit Nagasaki John looked away, his lips pressed tightly together and jaw clenched.

"So if some nut job hadn't offed him last year, this would've been our future?"

"If Miss Gibson hadn't taken him out, we would now be gearing up for war."

"Miss Gibson?"

"She was on holiday," noted Bob with an evil grin.

"Who decides who gets 'removed'?" asked John.

"We do," said Dredge, his face grim.

"And if we get it wrong?"

"People die," he said bluntly.

"And now that he's been removed from any possible futures, I assume that they've changed, so what happens now in the future, do we descend once more into war?"

Bob switched back to what he'd been looking at before and talked as he watched. "There are some minor skirmishes, and we're now keeping a close eye on Russia. Germany takes a bit longer to mount an economic recovery but bounces back. They develop a curious fashion for odd little moustaches though."

"I've just got to pop out and see Miss Gibson a moment," said Dredge. "I'll leave you in Bob's capable hands."

Dredge wandered out of the room and John turned his attention back to the screen, watching as endless scenes flickered past manipulated by Bob's skilled hands.

"How did this machine come to be here?" he asked eventually.

"We got the keys for the building and the next morning it had installed itself," said Bob. "We've tried to work out where, how, why and so on but we've never had a satisfactory answer."

John paused and then asked another question. "Why is he called Dredge?"

"Because he was dredged up out of the sea by a fishing boat. He's his own personal mystery."

"I get the feeling that working here will pose more questions than answers."

"Yup, bang on."

"Why do you work here Bob?"

"Because I get to play with this and they feed me. Who wouldn't want to? Now shut up there's a good lad, I've got stuff to do."

Dredge appeared silently at his shoulder.

"So John, what do you think? You interested in joining our little team of miscellany?"

John paused and looked at the screen in front of him, then at Bob and all the odd trinkets on the tables that lined one wall.

"I reckon it beats working in a lab. Aye, why not? I'm in. What have I got to lose?" He held out a hand and Dredge shook it as Bob muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'probably your sanity'.

"Welcome to Day 1 of the rest of your life, I'll go and get your contract and then we can start."

John watched the man move quietly away and then turned back to Bob, risking asking another question. "So, what would my other futures have been if I'd not started work here today then?"

"You really want to know? First lesson John; be careful what questions you ask."

"Aye, I want to know."

Bob clicked a switch and the screen went dark.

"You other future," he stated.

"There's nothing there."

"You're a bright lad, work it out." Bob turned and looked at him intently, his eyes not leaving the other man's face as confusion, then anger and then horror moved across his features.

"I have no future other than here."

"Correct. This is the job interview from hell. You passed. Congratulations. Many don't."

John stepped away from Bob as the man laughed, and moved back to the table of oddities.

"He told you then." Dredge appeared next to him.

"He did. By what right do you choose to ruin my life?"

"Ah see, this is what I mean by Bob being a git. He told you that had you not taken the job you had no future.

"He did."

"Not entirely true. In every scenario we ran on you, and we ran a lot, you died within minutes of leaving this building." He held up a finger. "Listen..."

There was a muffled thud and dust drifted down from the ceiling above them. "That sound was a lorry crash on the street above us. You were walking along the street, having declined a position with us, in a bit of a daze and obviously thinking hard about what we'd shown you. You were the only person killed, although sadly a small terrier tied to the lamppost outside the Post Office was also squashed when the truck driver jumped out of his cab to look at your squashed remains. He was called Charlie.

"The driver?"

"The dog.

"What we do here is important. We walk in the dark so that others can live in the elegant, prosperous, shiny chrome and electric lit world above us. It's not perfect, it never will be. However, this little department of oddity and others like it around the globe will strive to keep the world in general moving in the light. Occasionally we fail and that's something we take on board and try not to let happen again. We are very few John, mere dozens, we do what we can. Sometimes it's not enough.

"Welcome to Day 1. It's up to you what you make of Day 2. Oh and don't believe everything Bob tells you either, particularly about my name. Ask him again in a couple of months and you'll probably get a story about me dredging the English Channel for a missing diver who had stolen something from the vault. He gets a little starved for human company sometimes but is utterly addicted to his job and that damn machine. We get to go out and do things.

"Ready?"

"No, but I doubt I ever will be, so we may as well get on with it."

Dredge gave him a shrewd look. "Well said and you're probably right. I'll get you your ID card and then we can go out and get started. Apparently there's a drain in Cardiff that has started emitting Shakespearian verse. I'm not sure how much you know about the bard's work, but I reckon we need to get there before it starts on Hamlet. Back in a moment."

John wandered back over to Bob as Dredge left the room.

"You really do love this big screen thing don't you?"

"Aye. One day we'll work out how it works and we'll be able to reproduce the screen. Can you imagine that?" said Bob. "A screen in every house, possibly in every room. You could watch movies at home in the comfort of your living room."

"Really?" John shook his head doubtfully. "See, all this stuff," he waved a vague hand at the tables behind him, "I can sort of get my head around all that, but something like this in every house? I don't think so. I think I'll stick to radio. I can't see this screen thingy catching on somehow..."

~~~ The End ~~~

Day 1

by

Gavin Wilson

Wattpad EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Gavin Wilson on Wattpad

Day 1             Copyright © 2012 Gavin Wilson.

All rights reserved.

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Round 5 of the SF smackdown. DecoPunk / ComicSF.  Based on the four pictures in the slideshow on the right hand side.