Tales of the Talking Picture

by Tom Slemen

  "Yeah, I do,' Smith replied, "Why?"

  Danny unzipped his arm pouch and produced the memory chip that had been taken from Scarecrow. "This is a memory chip from another robot. An old 900 series model. Is it possible to interface it with this SD-11 robot here?"

  "It's possible. But what's the point? You'd be downgrading the SD-11's 7000 series system. It'd make more sense to use a 7000 series memory chip," said Smith.

  "No. I want this chip to go in there. " Danny handed Smith the old memory chip.

  "Okay, then. But it looks like I'll have to patch this thing up a bit first." Smith lifted the damaged head of SD-11 and inspected the holes. From her utility belt she took out a miniature laser-powered spot soldering iron and a multi-headed electric screwdriver. Danny watched, fascinated, as she went to work. In the space of fifteen minutes Sergeant Smith repaired the SD-ll's damaged circuits and placed the obsolete memory chip into the sockets in the new robot' s brain. She clicked the machine's silver skull carapace back in place and stood up.

  "That it?" said Danny, watching the motionless robot.

  "Yeah, it seems to be taking its time to become reactivated. Perhaps that old chip was damaged," said Smith, replacing her tools in her utility belt.

  The robot's head twitched. "What happened? Have I been killed?" said the robot. Its voice sent Danny back a decade. It was the voice of Scarecrow.

  "You did it. You're a genius!" Danny was excited, and gave Sergeant Smith a kiss on her cheek.

  "What the - " Smith recoiled, shocked.

  "I'm sorry," Danny apologized, then looked at his resurrected friend. "Scarecrow, it's me, Danny! Can you see me?"

  Scarecrow got up and looked at Danny, blankly. "Danny? What happened to you? Your face looks slightly different, and you have grown tall."

  "Yes, I've grown. You've been dead - asleep - for ten years," said Danny.

  "Ten years? Somebody shot me, I was with Mr Thurber. Where is he? Is he safe?" said Scarecrow.

  It still hurt to think about it after all these years, but Danny had to tell his robotic friend. "Dad died eight years back. An aircar crash."

  "Oh. I'm sorry," said Scarecrow. The robot looked at it's strange new chromium body. "Is this a new me?"

  "Yeah. A brand new you, " Danny laughed, and introduced Sergeant Smith to the robot. "This is Sergeant Smith - who sort of woke you up."

  "Thankyou Sergeant Smith," said Scarecrow.

  "It was nothing," said the sergeant, smiling. She looked at Danny, then put her cap on. "Well, I'll see you later."

  As she was climbing out of the craft, Danny said, "Excuse me sergeant."

  "Yeah?" Smith stopped, halfway out of the interplanetary ship.

  "What's your first name?" Danny enquired, awkwardly. He felt foolish asking the question.

  "Why?"

  "Just curious."

  "Julia. Okay?"

  "Yeah, bye - Julia."

  "Bye - Danny." she smiled, then left.

  Shortly before Julia was due to leave Stendek and the life of Danny Thurber forever, Zagamor raised the alarm. He ran to Danny, who was sitting on the border of the oasis, looking at the stars.

  "Danny! Come quick! Higgledy!" said Zagamor, excitedly.

  "What's the matter? Calm down Zagamor." Danny sprang to his feet.

  "Higgledy - " Zagaraor was out of breath with running.

  "What? Has something happened to him?"

  "No, he's okay. He's eating his way through the crops. Come and look. " Zagamor beckoned Danny with a wave and started to run back towards the oasis. Danny followed him.

  Upon reaching the chequered green and yellow fields of cereal, Danny and Zagamor caught sight of Higgledy retreating into the desert, back to his cave. The terran and the Stendekian followed the animal back to its lair and Danny reprimanded the insect. Higgledy stared at him with guilty eyes and tried to hide the bundles of wheat it had stolen by laying on them.

  "You just can't do that!" Danny bawled at his old friend. The creature lowered its antennae and made a barely audible crying, high-pitched sound.

  "Perhaps we can build a fence around the crops to keep him out," suggested Zagamor.

  "No, Higgledy would just burrow under it. I forgot he was a crop menace. He doesn't really belong in this environment," said Danny, feeling sympathetic for the guilt-ridden invertebrate.

  "Where is he from, Danny?" Zagamor asked.

  "Rigel Six," Danny replied. He suddenly realised that Rigel was the destination of Julia. He looked at his watch, "C'mon, we've got five minutes."

  "Where are you going?" asked Zagamor.

  Danny ran out of the cave without answering. Zagamor followed the Earthman all the way to Sergeant Julia Smith, who had been sitting in the cockpit of her ship, hoping to see Danny one last time before she left for a distant star. When she saw him running out of the night to her ship, she released her seat-belt and descended through the craft to the hatch. The ladder whirred down, and a few moments later, she came down it.

  "I've got to be on the mother-ship in fifteen minutes. What's up?" she said, glancing at her watch.

  "I want to come with you to Rigel," said Danny, panting.

  "Why?" Julia felt a warm happiness inside, but decided she would not let the feeling reach her exterior.

  "I want to take Higgledy home; to Rigel Six. He's classed as a crop menace. He can't stay here. He'd destroy everything we've worked for. What do you say?" Danny turned around upon hearing Higgledy running behind him. The beetle had followed him.

  "Well, he's too big to fit in this ship. I'll have to radio the captain first, anyway. Even if he agrees, that thing would have to stay in quarantine throughout the Journey," Smith explained, leaning against the ladder with her hands on her hips.

  "No problem; that's 100 per cent acceptable." said Danny.

  Julia went back into the ship to radio her captain. She returned with a sombre face.

  "Well? What's the situation?" said Danny, impatiently.

  "The captain threw cold water on the request. Said he's already given you more than enough time and resources. But as the ship is already bound for the requested destination anyway, he says this is definitely the last favour he'll grant you," Julia finished the sentence with a radiant smile.

  Hours later, Sergeant Smith, Danny, Higgledy and Scarecrow left Stendek for the mother-ship orbiting the buff-coloured moon hanging over the little artificial oasis.

  Zagamor left his people for a while and headed for a desert hilltop to enjoy some solitude. He sat on a rock and stared at the crescent moon his people called Vor, and felt a deep sorrow welling up within as he thought of his terran friend.

  A brief flash of blue light from something in the vicinity of Vor suddenly lit up the darkened area of the crescent. The flash was from the engines of the unseen mother-ship as it blasted off into hyper-drive.

  "Goodbye Danny," Zagamor tried to say, but the words faltered on his lips. A lone tear trickled down his cheek.

  Matthew turned in his sleep, murmuring. 'Higgledy, I love you,' he whispered, as a waning crescent moon hung over the silhouetted skyline beyond his windows. Just over a mile away in the night, Christina awoke in her bed, screaming. She had shared the same tale as her boyfriend, and she had been Higgledy in the story, so when she awoke, she had six arms, and flickering antennae protruding from her forehead. Three of her arms threw the duvet off the bed, and she went to the full-length mirror of her wardrobe to behold the waking nightmare. She looked insect-like. Her eyes were dark and domed, and her mouth was an upside-down V. The bedroom door burst open, and Christina's mother squinted at her then switched on the light. The Goth stood there, startled, in her panties and bra, with her six arms, bug-eyes and a pair of feelers sticking out of her head.

  'Jesus!' Christina's mother shrieked, and fainted, falling to her knees, then flat on her face.

  The spare arms shrunk and vanished,and the antennae and black hemispherical eyes did the same. Christina ran to her mother's aid and rolled h
er into the recovery position.

  'I hate you Matthew Brindley, I hate you!' she said, through gritted teeth.

  That day Harry came around. He was Matthew’s young cousin, just six years old, but a very strange and spoilt young man who had caused his father Alan to become prematurely grey. Harry’s mother – Matthew’s Auntie Linda – had long given up trying to chide her demonic son, and whenever she came to visit she would just let her son loose. Matthew’s dog Larry seemed to know when Harry was due to visit because he would go missing, often to be found hiding on the flat roof of the garden shed. Harry would always want to ride on the dog’s back, and sometimes he would decide to bite the poor hound’s backside. Well, on this day, Harry had cleared the six-foot-tall garden fence and had somehow squeezed into the small kennel of the neighbour’s dog, Alfie.

  When Matthew woke in bed that morning, he thought of the dream of Higgledy for a while, and then he heard the voices of his Auntie Linda, Uncle Alan, and the high-pitched squeals of his hyperactive cousin Harry. ‘Oh no,’ Matthew said, closing his eyes as he heard Harry asking where Larry was.

  ‘I don’t know love,’ Mrs Brindley told Harry.

  ‘Where’s Matthew?’ Harry shouted, and then Matthew heard the boy coming up the stairs.

  'No! Come back, Harry! Matthew's still in bed! Harry!' Mrs Brindley shouted after Harry, to no avail of course.

  Matthew ducked under the blankets, ready for the attack, and seconds later, the door burst open and in ran Harry with a full-sized genuine leather-skinned cricket ball. ‘Matthew!’ Harry yelled, and he hurled the ball across the room. It smashed a bottle with a ship in that had belonged to Matthew’s paternal grandfather, now deceased.

  ‘Harry! You idiot!’ Matthew’s head came up from under the temporary sanctuary of the blankets to behold the splintered glass and crushed ship. ‘What dickhead decided to give you a cricket ball?’

  ‘I did, sorry,’ Uncle Alan peeped around the bedroom door with a sheepish expression.

  ‘You’d better take it off him before he destroys the place!’ Matthew advised his dopy uncle.

  ‘Harry,’ Alan called to his son, ‘give that to daddy – come on! Harry!’

  Harry took no notice – as usual – and he opened a cabinet and pulled all of the Play Station games out and threw the discs on the floor until he found an old iPod. He put the earphones in his ears and tried to switch the device on but it didn’t have an ounce of power in it so he threw it across the room, then decided to jump up and down on Matthew’s bed.

  ‘Harry! Come here now!’ Alan yelled at his son.

  ‘Go and die!’ Harry shouted back, then attacked Matthew and tried to bite him in between frantic giggles.

  Matthew screamed, and Harry yanked his son off him, but Harry kicked out violently and Alan let him slip from his hands. The boy landed on the bed, and made his whole body become floppy so his dad couldn’t pick him up. ‘That’s it, Harry! I’m telling your mum!’ Alan was red-faced and breathless, and he left the room and called down to his wife. ‘Linda! Linda!’

  ‘What?’ Linda shouted back from the kitchen, where she was chatting with her sister Maureen about the effects of stress on the state of her hair.

  ‘Harry’s being a bleeder!’ Alan shouted to his wife.

  No reply came. Linda was telling Maureen Brindley she was thinking of asking the doctor for a tonic to revitalise her.

  ‘Linda!’ screamed Alan, ‘Can you come and get Harry?’

  ‘Tell him to behave!’ Linda shouted back.

  There were horrific screams in Matthew’s bedroom. Alan rushed in to see Matthew holding his face. Blood was streaming from his nose. Harry had thrown the cricket ball at Matthew’s face, and now the boy was sitting there, cross-legged on the bed, looking at the blood trickling from under Matthew’s hands with a morbid fascination.

  ‘Harry! What have you done?’ Alan gasped.

  ‘He hit me with the cricket ball!’ came a muffled exclamation from Matthew’s cupped hands.

  ‘It was a “haccident” – I’m sorry!’ Harry told his father.

  ‘That’s it, you’re going home!’ Alan bawled at his son. ‘Give me that cricket ball!’

  ‘No!’ shrieked Harry, ‘It was just an “haccident”. '

  ‘It wasn’t a friggin’ accident, you threw it deliberately at my face!’ moaned a tearful Matthew.

  ‘Give it to me you little –‘ Alan’s face was turning a cerise pink.

  Harry emitted a grunting sound and hurled the ball at his father, but it missed him by inches and went through the doorway, somewhere out onto the landing outside.

  Alan grabbed his son – seizing him with each of his hands under Harry’s armpits. The boy tried to go floppy, hoping he’d slip from daddy’s grasp, but this time Alan put the boy under his arm and walked out the room, laughing triumphantly. ‘You think you’re clever don’t you Harry? But Daddy’s got you now – ‘

  And suddenly, Alan slipped on the cricket ball, and before he fell down the staircase, he dropped Harry. The boy screamed with laughter when he saw his father, lying at the bottom of the staircase with a dazed look. Uncle Alan was taken to hospital with a broken arm.

  Just as Linda, Harry and Mrs Brindley went into the ambulance with Alan, Christina Masters called around. For a moment the girl thought something had happened to Matthew, and she was so relieved when she discovered it was only his uncle who was being taken away. She had meant to tell Matthew about the way she had been transformed into an insect-human hybrid after the Higgledy tale last night, but instead she said nothing, especially when she saw how bruised his nose had been left by the cricket ball, and so, the young couple went upstairs to hold hands and kiss for a while, under the smiling wise face of Rhiannon.

  ‘Well, what did you think of Harry?’ Matthew asked the Talking Picture, and Rhiannon said he seemed alright, just a little wild.

  ‘Well he’s more than a little wild,’ Harry told Rhiannon and Christina, ‘he put my goldfish in mum’s blender once.’

  ‘Oh my God, that’s gross! Ew!’ Christina grimaced.

  ‘My dad thinks there’s something evil about him,’ Matthew said with a pensive look. ‘He thinks he might turn out to be a mass murderer one day.’

  ‘Perhaps Harry is one of the new ones who will take over one day,’ Rhiannon remarked enigmatically with a baleful look.

  ‘The new ones?’ Christina asked, ‘What are they?’

  The walls of the room fluctuated like a picture seen through a distorted lens, and Matthew and Christina found themselves looking out of a window onto a sunny street…

  The Ultras

  Calum Quarrenden sat placidly in a sumptuous pleather window seat at Starbucks, his eyes chewing on the usual mundane panorama of London streetlife beyond the plate glass; the ever-moving scenes of kaleidoscopic bustle were bubble gum for his visual cortex, and this coffee shop was one of the few sanctums where he could try and forget his job for a while. It was an untypical hot English summer’s day, and on the other side of a heat-stricken Oxford Street, a police car with flashing blue lights but no wailing siren drew up outside a building society. Right away, Quarrenden sensed a hold-up was in progress, and he was right, for seconds later, two police armed-response-vehicles arrived on the scene, and sure enough, two excuses of men emerged from the building society – a shaven-headed guy of about thirty in a black and white Adidas tracksuit came out first clutching a grass-green bag stuffed with cash. His other hand held what looked like an old Luger. The other punk – a man of about forty, well below average height, with long greasy red hair, dressed in Superdry jeans and a baggy Nirvana tee shirt, came out the building with his arm around a tall young woman’s waist and a Baretta pointed at her head. She looked as if she was about twenty-one at the most, and Quarrenden could see her tears glistening in the harsh noon sunlight. There was a chorus of surprised exclamations and profanities from the staff and lunchtime customers in Starbucks as they witnessed the unfolding drama, and Quarrende
n automatically reached inside his jacket and placed his hand on the handle of the sleek Gauss 89 pistol nestled neatly in its holster. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to use it. Hopefully, the good old police could deal with this situation. Sure enough, three officers of the armed response unit had taken up positions – one crouched behind a high-impact plastic litter bin and the other two behind their vehicles. Two shots rang out from the Heckler & Kochs, almost in unison, and the little fellow holding the girl hostage gave an almost comical look of surprise as a spot appeared between his eyebrows before the back of his head exploded, throwing his long red hair up and splattering the windows of the building society with pink brain matter and shreds of hairy scalp. The robber’s partner in crime was thrown backwards as a bullet blasted its way through his right eye and exited through his left ear. The bodies of the dead robbers twitched with nerves as a regular policeman grabbed the young lady who had been an intended hostage/shield and took her to the patrol car, but she fainted and fell on the bonnet of the vehicle. Screams erupted in Starbucks and out on the street, as people unaccustomed to seeing such gunplay witnessed the double death. Quarrenden smirked at the stances the police marksmen had adopted when they opened fire; he would have simply raised his gun-wielding hand in one Zen-like movement and killed both armed robbers in a less messy and much more silent manner with the Gauss 89, but this wasn’t Quarrenden’s gig, so he sucked at the straw of his peppermint java chip Frappacino and watched the young man at the neighbouring table stroke his weeping girlfriend’s head as he hugged her.

  But then the real drama began.

  Out on the street, a boy of about seven, with bright blond hair ran towards the startled police marksmen who were crouching by the slain robbers. The child was screaming hysterically, and he was being pursued by a man in his late twenties who was brandishing a rather familiar gun. That man was a friend of Quarrenden, and he was an agent too. He was Luke Matthews, and the 27-year-old fired off two rounds from his silent Gauss 89 at the fleeing boy – who was running towards the very two Authorised Firearms Officers who had taken out the building society robbers. The magnetically-launched high-muzzle-velocity bullets should have taken the boy down, because they would have knocked down an elephant and Matthews was a crack-shot – but somehow, both bullets missed the target. One passed through the tire of an armed response vehicle and drilled a hole in the sidewalk, and the other slug impacted into the edge of the Kevlar bullet-proof vest of one of the armed officers, knocking him backwards onto the bonnet of the plain old police patrol car with the terrific force only a Gauss slug can deliver. The other armed policemen swiftly lifted their weapons and automatically took aim.