You wake up startled and sitting up. You try to look around, but see nothing, but pitch black. Your blind folded. You try speaking, but you voice is gone. You attempt to move your hands, but you cant. You stop moving when you hear a deep soothing mature female voice. "Hello, my name is Dr. Laing, and You are a test subject who has just woken up after ta...
LXIX Ivory Towers Iris 2058 Iris had never lived anywhere other than London before in her life, but now here she was: renting a room in an ancient sprawling house in the suburbs of Oxford. Although she'd had to make new friends, was now earning somewhat less money than she'd used to and had to sleep on a disgusting mattress that should have been replace...
LXVIIGive Unto OthersOdile2110 The remuneration for a day's work was meagre. It amounted to nothing more than the use of a second-hand blanket and a meal that was double the size of what Odile normally had to eat. That was all. But it was something. Edith was helping to boil a pot of stew on a stove, while Odile doled it out into wooden bowls that were gr...
XLA Well-Rounded EducationKaren2063 It was with genuine affection that Karen gazed across the kitchen table at the hairs on Kevin's chest. She leaned forward and placed an open palm over them, entangling the tips of her fingers in its grey wiry forest. He was still damp from the shower they'd shared after making love together on the living room sofa. She ro...
XXX Britain Means Business Tamara 2095 It didn't come as much of a surprise to Tamara when Zoe died. The mystery was rather that she'd managed to live so long given that she'd managed to maintain for so long a drug habit far in excess of what a woman of advanced years was designed to withstand. All the same, it had been good while it lasted. She and M...
LIIIHope and GloryLord Newbury2078 The whole thing had been a bloody fiasco. In fact, it had been a disaster from beginning to end. Instead of rallying the whole nation to the defence of the beleaguered nobility, the actions that Lord Newbury had foolishly allowed himself to be associated with had rather hastened its decline. On this very day, one and a ha...
LXXXVII The Food of Love Iris 2062 The demo wasn't originally going to be anything more than a protest. It was meant to be just one of the many other demonstrations that had grown steadily in number and frequency and extent over the last few weeks. The banners were unfurled. The paraphernalia of protest such as masks, tents and protective padding were all...
LXXIXSick and SoreLindiwe2069 Although this was by no means the first time in her life that Lindiwe had been ill, she'd never before felt as desperately sick as she was now. Her luck had run out. The Buffalo Pox that had spread across England as it had the rest of Europe, Africa and Asia had finally chased her down. The horrible boils of pus on her face and...
LXXVIII Sick and Sore Iris 2059 Although Iris missed living in London while she was living in Oxford, she hadn't really felt ready to return there from so soon. However, the Biotech Lab was one of the first businesses to shut down when Sheep Fever struck the nation. And now she was effectively evicted from the city along with everyone else who didn't have a...
LVIDance the Night AwayIris2055 Iris knew the risk she was taking, of course, as did all her friends. Who didn't? The terms of the State of Emergency imposed on the citizens of the Kingdom of England were spelt out clearly and unambiguously. All public gatherings of a hundred or more people were banned without special dispensation and this included events o...