Of basements and military installations

The postman’s arrival was not something Frank ever looked forward to, but today’s post would be containing The Letter, the one he had been dreading. As if the council tax bills, gas bills, phone bills, Palestine Aid leaflets, and demands for him to Drop Everything And Become A Crusader, weren’t enough, today’s possibility didn’t bear thinking about.

Birds twittered outside in that tone of voice which, whenever one was bracing oneself for bad or potentially awful news, always just seemed to say “Yes! I am happy! I can ponce around in the trees all my life! Fnar fnar de fucking fnar! You human gimboid!”.

Kids chatted in the streets as they ambled their way to school, their shrill tales of XP2ZI consoles, inane pop bands and football players assaulting his upper right eardrums in the most brutal manner. Mrs Janet from number 48b spoke to her husband about their new car radio, there were a few clicks and revs, and they departed.
He liked it here in the slight gloom of the basement, only ever fleetingly sunny, and being able to hear strangers’ voices pass him in the street so clearly as he stirred on a hazy, half-lit morning.

He pondered whether to prepare for The Letter’s arrival by blasting Sick Of It All, Minor Threat and Fugazi at full volume in a last ditch attempt at self-emboldening and postman-terrifying. Knowing that it would probably not have the latter effect, he decided to put “20 years of Dischord” on at full whack on the stereo anyway, and see what happened.

Making himself a cup of coffee and folding away his sofa bed, Frank paced up and down frantically, at first doing so while clutching his cup and then, remembering that, each and every time he did this, it meant more coffee being spilled on the floor, ever-lessening his chance of ever recovering his huge deposit.

He also loved pacing, particularly when the postman arrived. He had a personal superstition – if you were pacing away from the door as your post flopped through it, it would almost certainly bear Bad Tidings. If you were pacing towards the door, it would almost certainly not be The End of The World, rather just a Bit of A Financial Headache.

Today it was the former. Frank shuddered as he heard the postman’s heavy boots hit the top step. He put his cup of coffee down on the mantelpiece, and braced himself.
Through the letterbox dropped not just The Envelope, but four others, small, handwritten, numbered One to Four in thick black marker.

Frank opted for number One. He folded his sofa bed up, sat down with his coffee, and began to read.

Dear SV

That afternoon, besides Lake Apvid, do you remember what you told me, before you walked away?

As you did so, hands on your holster, long golden-black hair tied up into a bunch behind your head, heading down the path which led away from the lake and into the jungle, I touched the Jozantinium-embossed badge on my right collar.

My thoughts of your departure, were immediately interrupted as seven Astris warships blazed overhead, arcing in the sky and ploughing directly towards me, their lazers fixed directly at where I stood, firing at me, unable to penetrate the diluvian shield that the Joazantinium badge radiated, with the beams either whooshing past me, bouncing off the shield and flopping harmlessly into the lake, or reflecting and hitting the Astris warships themselves.

One way or another, with my shooting on absolutely peak form, the ships found themselves in the lake virtually as soon as they had taken off.

I sat for a while, watching their rusty, arrogant bulk sink into the green waters of the lake, and noted that the coming dusk was the perfect time for me to set off to the other side of Lake Apvid, to the military installation you told me to blow up.
I strode around the Apvidian banks in the half light, moon already rising swiftly, knowing that the Astris and their people tended to fear the dark, they could only come out during the day time, as their ghostly white skin tended to wither away and die without constant sunlight. They spent the evenings cowering under sunbeds, playing cards in starkly lit rooms whose lamplights emulated the effects of sun.

They’d be like sleeping doves at this time of day.

It would be in cold blood, it would be merciless, but it would be no less than they deserved.

Anyway, the warden’s nearly here. I’d better sign off for the night.

Love,

MB
Fucking scifi fanfiction. Who wrote this shit, Frank wondered. They must have got the wrong address anyway, as it wasn’t the sort of thing which interested him.

He scrunched the letter up and shoved it into his top left hand shirt pocket. He then decided to go for his customary 10:15 stroll, now that the postie had been and gone. The one advantage of being temporarily unemployed, in Frank’s view, was that you could go to the park in the middle of the day when all the kids were at school and the only people about were either crazy or in a similarly parlous position to himself, meaning that he could comfortably sit at a park bench, crack open a can of Something Stronger and/or light up a spliff with the minimum of worry.

As he sat down at his favourite bench, he reached to his left inside jacket pocket for his can of Special Brew, and then to his right hand outside pocket where the remaining three letters were stuffed. As he retrieved them, his neighbour Fred, a jovial old‘un with a penchant for drinking Gold Label, sat next to him and cracked open a can of same.

“Morning Frank, whatcha reading?”

“A few letters,” Frank replied, “Some writing competition thing. Wrong address.”

“So you’re reading them anyway? Nice going. What are they like?”

Frank opened Letter Two and read aloud to Fred.

“Dear MB

I can remember even now the explosions of the Astris ships you downed, the splashing noises as they hit the water, and thinking “That’s my boy!” as I walked into the jungle.

The Astresian jungle can be a scary place in the half light. Even to my finely tuned Silharvian senses, the trees appeared to be constantly shifting, the colours dying and fading and then coming back, the branches grabbing out, moving, disappearing, reappearing. After hours of hacking, cutting, writhing, and sliding, I made it through to the Astris encampment which stood some five hours through to the Western side of the forest, near our city of Del’Silver.

As you did, I realised as I stood there that now was the perfect time to strike.
My mind was ablaze as I gazed upon their ghostly grey tents, all translucent with the eerie red gas lamps they used to keep their skins alive during the long, dark nights, meaning I could see the Astris’ silhouettes as they sat round in circles, playing at LaTwigs, basking under their all-important lamps, and sipping Visteljuiz.
Catching them unawares like this at night time would be a schniz. All I needed to do was set fire to every tent as they sat there, the lamps would soon explode and the Astris would be at the mercy of the night sky.

As I stood at the edge of that clearing, I remembered well their blitzes upon Del’Silver, the mass midday incursions of their troops into our houses, killing and raping at will, and the night time bombings keeping us hemmed in. So few of us realised that night time was the time to hit back, that by the time anyone did realise, it was all but too late.

Was it right, despite all that, to kill them all in cold blood?

The blaze subsided, and the calmer side of my Silharvian mind took over.

As with you, my jailer returns. I’ll sign off.

All my love,

SV

Fred snorted in the particularly aghast way he was prone to as Frank folded letter two up and shoved it back in his envelope. He cracked open his can of Gold Label, then looked at Frank.

“Who sent you this crap?”

“I dunno,” Frank replied, “I haven’t moderated the writing competition at Transverational for a few years now. Anyway, that was more offbeat weird fiction. None of this sub-Star Wars nonsense. Anyway. I think I need a spliff before I read the final two. And I’ve got The Letter still to come!”

“The letter?” Fred replied, “Well, out with it, get the thing open!”

Frank paused and reached for his baccy tin, casting a brief glance over Millfields Common to check no rozzers were about. He wavered as Fred’s iron, rasping voice cut into him, but then decided to skin up first anyway. He did so very quickly, sparked it up and offered it to Fred.

“You know I don’t smoke that crap. Now, The Letter?”

Frank put the joint in his mouth, lit it and pondered a moment.

“Nah,” he replied “Number Three, first.”

Fred laughed.

“You want me to listen to more of that crap? You read it yourself boy, I’m off for a walk along the Lea. Let me know how the important one goes when I get back.”

Fred walked off up the tarmacked path which led up to the lock and the Prince of Wales pub. Frank smiled and finished his spliff slowly, before starting on Number Three, wondering where this odd little sequence was going to end and why they had all been mailed to him separately rather than as a compendium.

Dear SV,

I stood outside that Astris military installation for some twenty minutes. Like you, I deliberated. Like you, having reached that point, and having the capability, with the guns I possessed, to take it out within seconds, I suddenly realised that thinking I could do it was one thing, but actually doing it was another. I reached to my side, to my bolt-gun which could take out the lights, and to the missile launcher which would destroy the majority of the installations and kill their inhabitants even before the half light did.

But – alas – I paused too long. I felt the dullness of five Astris guns dig into my back. A warm glow emanated through the air above and behind me.

“Don’t even think about turning around and breaking our lamps.”, a voice came, “We’ll kill you before you even try.”

They said nothing more. I was frogmarched immediately through the installation and taken to a cell in Room forty five, section twenty six. They asked if I had any friends or relatives still alive. I told them your name and they said you had been captured, and that it was possible to write to you.

I hope you have some way to get out of this grim, overlit, seedy steel prison. They can’t read our letters. They consider us primitive and backward, to them our scrawls are like an animal scraping in the dirt.

I await your next instruction eagerly.

Love,

MB

Frank laughed and folded up letter three, sticking it in his jeans back pocket. He reached for the spliff, which was still smouldering on the bench, and sparked it up again, inhaling deeply and thinking about his plans for the rest of the day. Those would largely revolve around the outcome of The Letter.

Before that, though, was Letter Four.

Dear MB

It appears that your indecision, so common to our species, got you captured, as it did me. I cannot kill in cold blood, not even those who have slaughtered our own people. I lingered by that campsite for far too long, and, like you, I felt the warm glow of the Astris torches as a preface to feeling their guns buried in my back.
They laid out the terms for living here in this grey empty prison very simply. They have no more people to catch, so I can wander relatively freely. They know about you, and I can write to you, but other than that, there is no one.

Which leads me, now, to the final part of my plan.

We shall lead them into the ultimate blind alley, into a society so different from their own they won’t know what hit them.

When you get this letter, key in co-ordinates E125 S5 E5 1TF into your watch, and, all being well, you will break out of their prison, and at the same time opening a door into a new world, a new society.

I’m signing off now.

Love you.

SV

Frank laughed. What a load of tosh. He chucked the roach in the bin, folded up the rest of the letters and put them in his inside jacket pocket, then reached for It. The big brown envelope which would possibly change his life forever.

He paused and took a deep breath. Would he open it sitting at this bench? No, this was the Unlucky Bench where he’d incorrectly predicted West Ham would win the 2013 FA Cup. Ouch. He still winced about that one. Holding the envelope, he took thirty paces towards the River Lea, stopping at the bench where, previously, he’d cleverly predicted that England would win the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. That had earned him a fair few bob and quite some kudos.

He ran his finger under the envelope flap a millimetre at a time until he had got the thing open. He was just about to extract the letter itself when a voice to his right said “Hi, can I sit here?”

He looked around and saw a tall, blonde haired woman wearing tight, dark combatty trousers and a dark blue jacket.

“Sure,” Frank replied, “Be my guest.”

“What’s that you’re drinking?” she asked, pointing at his can of Special Brew.

“Spesh,” he replied, “You can’t beat a good bit of Spesh.”

“May I?” she asked, reaching for the can.

Frank gladly obliged. The woman raised the can to her lips, drank the remainder without even flinching, and threw it in the rubbish.

“Thanks,” she said, standing up again, “I needed that. Just had a rather trying transdimensional warping to deal with.”

She began to walk towards the river.

“Wait!” Frank said, “What’s your name?”

“Silastra,” she replied, “Silastra Veldana. I’m looking for my friend and lover. Have you seen him? Taller than me, dark haired, probably wearing a light silver badge on the right shoulder of his blue jacket.”

“No,” Frank said, “I haven’t. Well, good luck finding him.”

As she neared the Lea, Frank had almost forgotten about The Letter, as a rather eerie truth was beginning to dawn on him. Silastra Veldana… SV? Could the letters
he had received today be real?

He reached into his pocket for them. They weren’t there. Standing up now, he began to panic, patting down each part of his coat and trousers carefully. Nope, they’d gone. He turned and walked away from the Lea towards the other bench, scanning the ground as he went. He still had The Letter, though. It was time to read it. He pulled it out of the envelope quickly this time and read it. As he did so, his heart leaped for joy. He’d got the job! He was starting next Monday. Nice one!
He stood on the junction of the two paths in the centre of Millfields, buzzing with excitement, to the extent that he had almost forgotten the peculiar encounter of just now. It was probably a set up, a couple of his mates messing around.

“Frank!” a voice boomed out. It was Fred, back from his stroll up the Lea, coming down the right hand path towards him.

“So?” Fred said excitedly, pointing at the letter.”

“I got it!” Frank replied, “Starting on Monday.”

“That’s fantastic!” Fred said, “Well done, my boy. What will you do to celebrate?”

“Maybe go home, get scrubbed up, go out on the town, a few beers. Care to join me?”

“At my age? You go and enjoy yourself.”

“Fair enough,” Frank replied.

Fred wasn’t listening now, though, he was looking at something behind Frank now with a mixture of near total terror and absolute fascination.

“What’s up?” Frank asked, “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”

Fred pointed. “Look at that!”

And that was that.