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Jimmy took the time to seat himself next to Toby’s chair. ‘Well, young man, you and your sister seem to be the catalyst for all this mess. Do you have any sort of excuse to explain your appalling behaviour?’
Toby looked like he was about to burst into tears. ‘I’d just like to say, Jimmy, that I’m the real victim here. If I hadn’t have got involved with that cult none of this would have happened.’
‘Victims, victims everywhere!’ exclaimed Jimmy. ‘Seems that if you’re not a victim these days then there must be something wrong with you. Better make a note, gotta be a show in that. What cult are you talking about, son?’
Toby looked more than a trifle embarrassed. ‘They latched onto me when I was at my lowest ebb. They’re called the Temple of Planet Love. I didn’t even become a full member, just attended one of their missionary sessions. They treated me like I was special … but that was before they started doing things to my mind, giving me strange pills to take. Before they attached me to that living machine.’ Toby rubbed his forehead and looked distraught. ‘I don’t remember much else, but when they turfed me out I was prepared to shag anything that moved, and quite a lot that didn’t.’
‘Thanks very much!’ screamed Virginia, still busily lunging for her husband.
Toby continued. ‘After a while the effects died off. That was when I came to my senses, but it was too late. Jemima wasn’t so lucky, they got to her too. Seems they still have.’
Jimmy looked disgusted. ‘So not only did you debase your own body, but you dragged your poor innocent sister down into the pit of moral despair with you – that’s appalling. I hope you’re ashamed of yourself.’
Over the cheering and applause, Jemima could just be heard to say, ‘Less of the innocent, if you don’t mind. What are you doing after the show, big boy?’
But Jimmy had more important things on his mind. He looked directly into a conveniently placed camera. ‘Interestingly enough, folks, in just a few days time, in a special one-off show, we focus on these goofy oriental nut-cases themselves. If you didn’t already know it, the Temple of Planet Love is the whacky UFO cult that’s been hitting the headlines, as well as the nation’s bed-sheets, of late. If it’s not exactly ‘‘free love’’ they preach then at least they offer very competitive credit terms. Don’t forget to make a date with us, and them, on our Alien Abduction Extravaganza!’
Off in one dark corner Kate looked on, her sense of shame at being involved in this horrific farce mounting by the minute. Whatever else today proved it at least laid to rest that favourite tabloid rumour, that Maxwell’s guests were fakes. Real actors were not this good. This family’s story was so outlandish that it could only be true. But the circus wasn’t over yet. Much to her disgust Kate’s intrepid team of researchers had unearthed one more precious nugget of information – and Jimmy was too much of a pro to let it slip. Jogging down the stage he returned to where Lucinda was pinned to the floor by two burly bouncers.
‘How do you feel right now, Lucy?’ He rammed his mike in her livid face.
‘How do you think I feel, you fucking moron? I’ve just found out my boyfriend’s been banging my mum, and my father’s a pervert doing it to a whore half his age. I’m more than a little PISSED OFF!’
Jimmy was unfazed, he’d heard much worse in his time. ‘Want to tell the world your own sordid secret?’
Lucinda’s eyes held a reckless abandon. ‘Why not. OK, Toby, I want you to know that it’s not only Daddy who’s been seeing your sister. She’s more of a man between the sheets than you ever were, hypnotic mind control or not! If you took Viagra you’d just get taller.’
The audience exploded into a maelstrom of ecstatic delight. Jimmy sensed the time was right to wrap up proceedings.
‘Toby, do you have anything else to say to Lucy and your sister at this stage?’
‘Er, yes I do actually. I’ve always felt I was a lesbian trapped inside a man’s body. Next time you get it together, can I watch?’
This didn’t so much add fuel to the fire as napalm the entire lot. Lucy’s lunge to separate Toby from his testicles was the cue for Virginia to take a swipe at her unforgiven husband, who meanwhile saw his chance to hurl a chair at the sultry Jemima, who had done more than her share to jack-knife the applecart of family peace. The overworked studio hands did their best ‘United Nations Peace-Keepers’ impersonations and, despite the absence of blue berets and kevlar armour, just like their impersonatees abjectly failed to maintain order.
Whatever had become of the famously English stiff upper lip, wondered Kate.
Doggedly the bouncers rushed to separate the warring factions, and the camera cut back to a radiant Jimmy Maxwell, well pleased another segment had concluded so successfully.
‘That’s all we have time for today, folks,’ he beamed as the theme tune started up. ‘But remember, it’s a complex world we inhabit, and things are often not what they first seem. Society would be a better place if we all stopped being so judgmental and were less keen to poke our noses into our neighbour’s affairs – even when they are as juicy as this one! With that thought in mind, I’ll see you all next time for our Flying Saucer Special, where we’ll be elaborating on some of the themes explored today. Don’t miss it for this, or any other world! Take care of yourselves and our sponsors. Goodbye!’
As the titles rolled the camera pulled back to reveal a studio in turmoil. The audience were on their feet, cheering on their selected faction, as each group slugged it out with Security in their desperation to get to grips with each other.
Mercifully off stage, Kate put her head in her hands and, not for the first time, pondered the worth of this career. The conclusions she came to did not make for a happy frame of mind. Fortunately it wasn’t the only option open to her. Steeling herself she reached for her note-pad and began to scribble rapidly – she had an important report to file, but it wasn’t destined to be read by Maxwell.
13. Cabal (#ulink_a87835a2-3e28-545e-b719-ccad22d1ae39)
Deep Underground Facility, Pine Gap, Australia
Like an arms-dealer’s smile, the conference table was needlessly large and over-polished. To address a member sitting on the far side a delegate would have needed a loudhailer and considerable patience to overcome the pitifully slow speed of sound. So perhaps it was just as well that in front of each exceptionally plush leather bucket-seat, rising up through the reflective mahogany surface, was the sort of computer terminal not seen since the Starship Enterprise had boldly gone on and on.
Stalkish microphones were linked to each device, tand hrough them to a ring of loudspeakers carefully hidden in the darkness beyond the bowl of soft mellow light that spilled from the room’s impressive centrepiece. Above the table hung an ancient sigil of perturbing design. It was a solid marble pyramid, each carved block picked out on its sloping sides. Two thirds of the way to its glistening summit an orb of dewy radiance cast its baleful light upon the room. Few who entered the chamber could look upon it without experiencing the first gropings of the clammy fingers of insanity. Few who got this far had all that far to go.
More conventional note-keeping equipment was readily to hand at each seat. Genetically-engineered notepads and nuclear-powered pens were laid out with pedantic neatness at each place setting. Next to each sat a clear glass of a fizzy black liquid.
There was surprisingly little communication between the participants as they took their places. These men were not the kind prone to idle banter. For some the journey here had been long and hard. For others the journey back would be harder still.
One by one the twelve members of the Inner Circle of the Committee made their reports. It had been a busy six months. One major civil war had been ended and another begun. In both cases their remorseless agenda had been advanced. On four continents six problematic politicians had been eliminated; three by the standard-issue sexual-pantomime media frenzy, two by assassin’s bullet, and one by far more Semtex than was strictly necessary. In central Africa another Armageddon plague had been released, as much to foster a healthy paranoia amidst the Western public as to boost pharmaceutical share prices. The coup in Urgistan was a minor hiccup, but nothing that couldn’t be quickly nullified.
The members of the Inner Circle of the Committee of 300 were a diverse group, a gang of boardroom thugs and back-stairs crypto-Nazis, linked only by their membership of this exclusive club. They were the owners of the dark satanic mills, the project managers of hate, guardians of the Status Quo.
(#ulink_9276ae26-cb7b-560b-b8aa-9363d0fe6a07) This was the twitching nervous-system of the Military-Industrial-Entertainment Complex, and it was overdue a major fit. Its members were the powers behind the thrones, and in some cases on them.
National dress was much in evidence around the dim hall – at least the national dress of the capitalist World State. Seven attendees were smartly suited middle-aged men, the sort of captains of industry who commanded very big ships, and in one case several stealth bombers. Two were Japanese, but they represented the only splash of ethnic colour on an otherwise pallid, grey-white face. Amidst them the Vatican’s top dog winced and fidgeted – the shoes of the fisherman were tight these days, and didn’t half pinch his toes.
Next, in more traditional garb, came three wise men from the East – the bubbling, mad, bad and dangerous-to-know Middle East in fact. But they hadn’t brought gold, frankincense, or even a whiff of myrrh in their radar-absorbent executive stealth jets. What they did bring to the table was oil, oil and more oil. Between them they commanded four-fifths of the planet’s petroleum production, and judging by the state of their skin in the humid, tense bunker most of it was seeping through their pores at that very moment. They had good reason to sweat. At MIT there was a cold-fusion lab they very badly wanted shutting down – with terminal force if necessary. Despite their common goals the three were seated equidistantly around the table. More than one world war had kicked off thanks to misunderstandings in gatherings such as this. Past Chairmen had discovered to their cost that it never did to be too careful.
The final member stood out from the rest in more ways than one. She’d held her post for fifteen years, ever since the previous incumbent had regrettably fallen off his yacht. Despite what the press had been told, this had not been down to a slippery deck and one-too-many G&Ts. He had rubbed the wrong people up the wrong way – always a fatal move when those people were sat in this room.
The figurative leader before the reluctant swimmer had doubled as America’s Head of State – not a happy combination as it turned out. A carefully staged break-in and the threat of impeachment later, and he had gone as quietly as his insane tape-recorded ramblings would allow. The Committee had learned an important lesson with him: no more career politicians, their power was illusionary at best and too easily swayed by the pathetic whim of the great unwashed. The real power in the world was gathered here today, like pus in a festering wound. And at its centre sat a malevolent yet inconspicuous foreign body.
OPEC’s leading light was just ending off a rambling rhetorical monologue, on the satanic evils encased in the atom, when the Chairman felt the need to interject. She wasn’t the first of her line to hold this post, for her power was very much a family affair – as was her perfectly formed accent. She spoke the Queen’s English, as well she might.
‘Yes, thank you, Yashif. One takes your point.’ Reaching for a glass of fizzy black liquid she paused to address the haughty corporate head seated next to her. ‘This cola, Bertram, I trust it’s not the mind-altering kind you feed to the masses?’
The Corporate Man looked shocked. ‘Of course not, Ma’am. These days we’ve far more effective means of market penetration. Read the Abduction-Scenario Report and see for yourself. The stuff we drink is as pure as new snow.’
‘Not as pure as the glowing snow lying outside these devil-built reactors, I hope,’ muttered the Arab delegate, clearly heard over the elaborate sound system. The others chose to ignore this slight to Madame Chairman’s power; not so the lady in question. She had an unnaturally long memory for insults and an infinite appetite for revenge. But that could wait. Revenge was a dish best served cold, and she was colder than most. The Chairman felt the need move the discussion along, before they were sidetracked any further.
‘Now to more pressing business. I trust you are all aware that Operation Madcap is ready to begin? Potentially a most profitable endeavour for us all. The funds for the campaign are available and the production lines spool up as we speak. The merchandise will soon fill the warehouses. One simply requires the formality of an authorizing vote, then selected agents can be instructed to get the party going.’
She’d get no dissent on this one. Too many round the table had fingers rammed in this particular pie to take them out and lick just yet. The voting console before her lit up pure green, signifying unanimous assent.
‘Good, we can proceed. But now to a less happy task. It has come to One’s attention that our Executive Section has been conducting an operation to recover certain … items that have fallen into the wrong hands. I’ve taken the liberty of summoning the head of that section to account for his actions. I know that some of you have reservations regarding his motives in this matter. Shall we call him to state his case?’
A scattered affirmative rumble ran around the room. The Chairman thumbed a console switch. ‘You may enter now, Mr Becker.’
The Dark Man looked defiant as he strode purposefully through a pair of vast sliding doors. The faces of his superiors were lost in shadow, but he knew each of them by voice, as well as reputation.
The CEO of the world’s biggest aerospace corporation came straight to the point. ‘There’s been a serious leak from your department. We’re going to hold you personally responsible, Becker. You’re not going to weasel your way out of this one, like you did that Jamestown fiasco.’
The intelligence chief snorted. ‘If it’s blame you’re looking to apportion may I remind you the Visitors escaped in one of the back-engineered craft your corporation were testing at the Nevada site. If your craft hadn’t been so easy to shoot down we’d be in a lot more trouble than we’re in right now.’
The aerospace CEO looked ready to explode. It was left to the Chairman to raise a restraining hand. ‘Now, gentlemen, let’s not descend into fruitless bickering. Why do you both assume this leak to be a bad thing?’
The newcomer shifted his weight, while marvelling at Old World aristocratic eccentricity. ‘Ma’am, there has been a serious breach of security, that I admit. We are currently mounting operations to recover the remainder of the crashed material. They have not gone smoothly to date, but you have my assurance our resources will tighten to crush the saboteurs in due course.’
One of the sheiks chipped in from the shadows, his accent as thick as the tension-filled air. Few noticed the knowing glance he exchanged with Madame Chairman; Becker wasn’t one of them. ‘Why do we need to recover this material? Why not simply debunk it as we have done so successfully in the past? Remember the fake autopsy footage?’
For the briefest instant Becker showed the first signs of stress. ‘In this case the evidence will be impossible to refute. If it gets into the public domain the truth of our Visitors’ presence will be in the open once and for all. We all know what that could do to the public’s fragile state of mind.’
The head of a major entertainment conglomerate had to disagree. ‘You haven’t been keeping up with our latest research. Hard physical evidence has leaked before; we’ve even released it ourselves to help further our aims. On each occasion the majority haven’t given it a moment’s credence, while those few paranoids who do believe our lies help bolster our hold on power.’
Madame Chairman nodded with an inscrutable smile that sent an icy shiver down Becker’s spine. His face, however, showed no sign of such emotion. ‘This time things are different. Events have quickly spiralled out of control, almost as if an exterior force were aiding the terrorists as they fled. I have proof that …’
The Chairman interrupted him impatiently. ‘This is most worrying, Becker. There are rumours that your concern for the retrieval stretches to a personal matter. Can you assure us that nothing of the sort clouds your judgement?’
Becker fixed her with the sort of frosty stare which could have triggered an ice age.
(#ulink_47c943a8-8e23-56d8-b614-2f1a2a0ccbe0) ‘It is my professional opinion, Ma’am, that the dangerous lunatics who have the creature must be stopped at any cost. And stop them I will. But this situation highlights an issue I feel duty bound to bring to your attention once again.
‘I grow increasingly alarmed at the unintended results of Unified Conspiracy Theory. I fear our willingness to spread paranoia and irrationalism could turn out to be disastrously counterproductive. Already some unknown player seems to match us in an undesired duet. Whoever initiated the Glastonbury operation, it certainly wasn’t me. I have some very unusual satellite photos of the South Pacific you all must see.’
Madame Chairman had heard enough. She held up a restraining hand and shut her eyes in disgust. Did Becker imagine it, or was she showing the first imperceptible signs of distress?
‘Yes, yes,’ hastened the aerospace CEO. ‘We’re all aware of your pet theories, Becker. But I find it hard to believe that we are playing into the hands of some unseen enemy. Our efforts to engender a widespread belief in conspiracies have been most effective. As long as the public think we know more than we do, they’re more likely to let us get on with running the show. No one seriously expects their leaders to be honest and open anymore. As long as we make the airlines run on time, and TV drip feeds them a constant stream of mindless crap, the rank-and-file scum live happily in their cosseted world.’
Becker looked at him as if he were a small child who’d recently overpopulated his nappy. ‘I’m not arguing with the success of the policy, I myself have been instrumental in making it so. What concerns me is the mood of apathetic irrationalism that has spread like wildfire throughout the lower orders. We’re not simply making them believe we are cleverer than we really are, we’re making them believe everything. Hasn’t it ever crossed your mind that we might have been set up for a very long fall? Our dim-witted charges are ripe for the plucking, but not for harvesting by us.’
Now it was the turn of the Chairman herself to fix him with a frigid stare. ‘One summoned you here, Becker, to answer for your actions, not to bore us with your own ungrounded fears. You’re blowing this incident up out of all proportion. After all, it’s only one dead Grey. Learn to ‘‘let it go’’. One orders you not to try to retrieve this material, Becker – its exposure can’t possibly do us harm.’
Becker’s jaw twitched for a moment, then was still. ‘Very well, Madame Chairman, as you wish. Are there any other duties you require me to perform, to help me fill my empty days?’
She gazed at him with open contempt. ‘As a matter of fact, there are. You know what must be done in Urgistan, we’re due another war. The case file is in your in-tray. See the plan is initiated by the end of the week.’ The aerospace CEO nodded to their leader his heart-felt respects. Madame Chairman acknowledged him graciously with a smile.
‘You may go, Becker. Let us draw a line under this matter, once and for all. Is One understood?’
Becker nodded and smiled his sweetest alligator smile, all the while promising himself this was not the end by a long way. He was well used to his theories being ridiculed, but this time the reaction of his superiors went further still. Some other force was at play. For the moment he’d bide his time, tamely following orders – well, some of them at least; meanwhile he’d remain vigilant, forever searching for the final confirmation he craved.
Much later, as he boarded his personal black-operations helicopter, Becker played back the meeting in his head. Perhaps it wasn’t only him who was following a personal agenda all his own. But surely such tainted corruption couldn’t reach to such lofty heights?
(#ulink_2dca3886-9564-50ad-89c4-c06c6b78d8de) Responsible for the publication of all their albums.
(#ulink_f6f1362f-0336-59b3-a0ec-8085b7140151) But not as effectively as the Committee’s last-ditch ‘Doomsday Weapon’, housed in central Greenland – control of which was forever being sought (for ‘testing’ purposes only) by the power generation lobby. Not even they knew the device was currently working overtime in a hopeless struggle to counteract the effects of global warming.
14. Mail (#ulink_1f85a64e-40cb-5ebe-b217-382a00578b78)
Dave sat in the shabby motel room, staring at his laptop computer screen, sipping warm flat beer, seriously considering suicide.
In truth he didn’t ‘seriously consider suicide’. He didn’t have the bottle to do anything that would have annoyed his mum that much. Flirting with suicide was just the sort of thing he liked to think he did from time to time, a bit like cleaning the fridge or having sex with another person present. It fitted his perception of himself as a tragic hero. But it was getting harder to dodge the inescapable conclusion that he had the first part of that ambition down pat, while the second eluded him like the smallest piece of soap in a very big and cloudy bath.
His and Kate’s love was not doomed to failure because of some unbridgeable class divide, nor an incurable fatal illness; it was doomed because one half of it wasn’t really interested in shagging the other. But that didn’t stop Dave’s gothic daydreams continuing to roll on and on in a grainy black and white film noir.
When he had been a teenager Dave had been heavily influenced by a certain type of eighties band; the sort that wore baggy black jumpers, stuck daffodils down their pants and wrote morose songs about their girlfriends getting flattened by JCBs. Listening to this kind of music hadn’t made Dave feel any better about himself, it had just convinced him that somewhere, someone with a silly haircut was more depressed than he was. This would help for a while, until he began thinking that – at that very moment – the apparently dour mop-haired waif was no doubt hammering his sports car around LA as he siphoned champagne from a groupie’s navel and snorted cocaine through a rolled-up royalty cheque which could have kept Hendrix in purple haze long enough for him to be reclassified as a new type of meteorological phenomenon. This sure knowledge tended to throw the pop star’s professional depression into stark contrast with Dave’s purely amateur, yet far more profound, melancholy state.
So Dave had come to the painful conclusion that there was only one thing more depressing that being young, sensitive and celibate; that was to be young, sensitive, celibate and listening to a mopey record. This horrendous state of affairs was in no way mitigated by his perception that everyone else on the surface of the planet was humping away like it was going out of fashion, including the dewy-eyed singer – who was currently droning on about how tough life was, coming from his home town and being unemployed – unless of course you happened to be in a chart-topping band, in which case it was much, much worse.
Back then Dave had only one refuge from this heady mix of sixth-form poetry and synth-based pop. Taking a copy of Busting Out All Over – Underwear for the Larger Lady, he’d retire to his room, if not exactly to spank the monkey then at least to give it a jolly stern talking to. Thankfully these days he had more meaning to his life, or at least that’s what he tried to tell himself. The pages of ScUFODIN Magazine would wait for no man, not even if he was the victim of unrequited love and what Dave was fast coming to believe was a vast and awesomely subtle hoax that made a mockery of his entire working life. In the absence of a suitably morbid record, or any mail-order catalogues for that matter, Dave got back down to work.
Currently he was attempting to type up an account of the previous night’s UFO event, if you could go so far as to call it that. It was a tried and trusted routine he always performed after one of his ‘encounters’, as he liked to call them. Best get it down while it was still fresh in his mind.
But it wasn’t just the infuriating vagueness of last night’s incident which had him depressed. Dave was no stranger to the intense feeling of anticlimax which often followed a sighting – this went deeper than that. He had often reflected how UFO watching was much like being in the infantry in time of war; ninety-nine per cent stupefying boredom, one per cent shirt-drenching panic. After any fleeting high came an equally dramatic and far less fleeting low. The growing suspicion that someone, somewhere, in a darkened room, wanted it that way didn’t help in the slightest.
With a heavy sigh Dave concluded that this depression, like most of his others, could be traced back to a far less mysterious source. For the ninth time that day he checked his email to see if Kate still cared whether he lived or died. The answer on this occasion was no different from his previous eight attempts to will his incoming mail prompter to go ‘ping’. Not for the first time that day he re-read her last message.
Dear Dave,
Hope you’re enjoying yourself as much as I know you are able. Have you met any other Californian beach babes yet? I do like a spring wedding.
All hell’s broken loose back home. Have you heard the news of what went on at Glastonbury? It’s all people are talking about over here.
All hell’s broken loose at work too. After one of the most nauseating shows I can remember we’ve started researching a special one-off to go out in just a few days time. Word’s come down from the very top that we have to be on-air ASAP. It’s to be the usual format, Mr Sunbed-Tan and a studio full of ‘real people’ queuing up to have their insanity beamed out for all the world to see. But this time, the subject matter will interest you. We’re getting an audience together of folks who claim they’ve seen flying saucers. You know, ‘I’m having an alien’s love-child,’ that sort of thing, all the stuff you’re into.
Went over to the west country the other day to interview a farmer with a funny tale. I’ll pass on the details when you get back. Perhaps you can line me up some other cranks to swell the ranks. You must know a few? It’s appalling that my ‘career’ has come to this. Thinking of you as I scan the appointments pages.
Love K
x
P.S. Give me a chance to reply, why don’t you. Some of us do have better things to do than sit in front of a computer all day typing emails – even if we aren’t on holiday.
When he finished it Dave re-read it a second time. It was hard to focus on her sudden interest in Ufology, or the latest rock-and-roll PR stunts, with such a clear subtext underpinning her every word. Was it his imagination or were there signs of a subtly increased level of affection tucked in there? Of course she always ended with ‘Love K’, though this time he got the sense she’d wanted to say much, much more.
But wait a minute, she had only signed off with a single lower-case ‘x’. All last week she’d used capitals, and on Wednesday she’d used three. Dutifully Dave got out the small notebook he carried with him everywhere and entered this month’s total email kisses. At home he had a wall-planner solely devoted to graphically charting the perceived fluctuations in her affection; it would be filled in on his return.
It was at this moment that Dave concluded, not for the first time, that he was a very sad individual indeed. Yet if he could recognize that fact, didn’t that mean he wasn’t so sad after all? Or, alternately, all the sadder for being unable to do anything about it? Catching himself before he could slip into one of his all too unproductive bouts of doubt and self-loathing, of which this was just the relatively mild first stage, he composed another reply to the woman of his dreams. The fact that he’d sent three now without response didn’t deter him for an instant.
Dear Kate,
As you know, the trip so far has been a resounding success. Obviously I can’t go into details over an open channel, but I know you’ll be enthralled when I show you my snaps of Area 51. The up-coming show on ‘The Phenomena’ sounds good – glad to see you’ve finally taken an interest. Perhaps you can get me tickets.
The people over here are so friendly I’ve hardly had a moment to myself. Despite the impression I might have given in my last note, I’m just friends with April and Nadine. I’m meeting them both for drinks later. Who knows where we’ll end up – probably back in their jacuzzi again. Gosh, they wear me out.
Gotta run, I’m giving a speech to the Nevada State Saucer Convention. I’ll have to write it in the limo they’ll send to pick me up.
Love as always, see you soon,
Dave
He didn’t put any ‘x’s’ on the end of his mail. Despite the overwhelming emotions he felt for Kate, Dave couldn’t bring himself to remind them both of it at every opportunity – there was only so much his fragile ego could take. She knew how he felt about her, and he had no desire to appear as desperate as he actually was.
Dave felt no guilt over the little white lies he told to spice up the trip, Kate would see through them immediately. What was important was that Kate knew she hadn’t entirely crushed his heroically indomitable spirit.
Dave was startled by the melodic chimes which signified incoming mail. For one second he thought it might be from her – wasn’t she getting eager? But when he saw the address his heart sank. It was undoubtedly junk-mail advertising some sordid anatomically-minded site. Who had ever heard of Alien@Outerspace.org anyway? Already filling with righteous indignation, he clicked open the message and read it, waiting to be incensed. He wasn’t to be disappointed.
Greetings Earthling,
I am an Alien. Hard to believe I know, but in this case completely true.
