Hi All,
He woke with a gasp and wondered why Jeeves hadn't woken him up 'Jeeves!' he shouted. No reply . For that matter as he struggled to get out of bed, without success in fact in couldn't seem to get his head of the pillow, he noticed that the lights were off, in fact nothing seemed to work.
'What an absolute tip' came a foreign -Spanish maybe?- female voice from across the room .
What? Who? Where ? Did I? What the hell did I drink last night? he thought.
'Your boss, Helen Seville de Castro, we're at your home in the Watford Gap Estate. No you didn't. From the cutter here it looks like three bottles of wine, 2 bottles of even cheaper Vodka and 1 bottle of rum'.
Ah yes he remembered. The Watford Gap Estate was a sprawling suburbia of modern day housing and flats, built on the old Watford Gap Service station and M1. Following in the footsteps of the second industrial revolution, the 4th transport revolution meant that there was no longer any need for motor vehicles, trains or planes. Thus no need for a motor way or train network, instead they'd been sold off to various interested parties and most of the old motorway & train network had been rebuilt as 'cheap, affordable, modern housing', much to the disgust of the extremist ecology groups and old fashioned socialists who always needed some global crisis as an excuse to overthrow the existing global democratic capitalist order. Instead of roads, planes and ships, people and industrial goods were transported around by Astra Portas, an evolution of the Einstein- Rosen bridge or wormholes. You could live anywhere and work anywhere, sip around the UK, the world, the solar system and wider galaxy within seconds and minutes. How did I recall all that when I can't even remember my-
'John Cumberland, you once said to me that you could drink me under the table and it seems you were utterly wrong about that' the female voice interrupted my thoughts. 'And don't try to move because you are in a suspended force field'
What?
'Oh it's nothing to worry about, it is in fact the only thing keeping you alive at present, given that your liver and heart are more or less kaput as the expression goes'.
Great
'That's not the only thing shut down as you are maxed over on all your credit lines and thus payments for the bills have all been declined... I hope your recent trip to Venus was worth it all' .
Venus. Ah. Memories came back of someone's stag do, not mine unfortunately.
'In any case -and don't say I don't look after you- I've just got the go-ahead for us, your benevolent employer to give you a credit line from us, but no more taking out credit from elsewhere. We've put a big note on your credit file to that effect, so you won't be able to borrow from elsewhere anyway'.
Great, thinking of money at a time like this.
'We are employed by a banking company, money is everything' .
I'd forgotten that.
'Then there is the minor detail of your body, but don't worry about that as I'm about to give you a new liver and heart'.
You a doctor?
'I was once'
That's reassuring. Doctor to banker: but there was something else that was bugging me and I couldn't remember. Something about my boss.
The lights come on. And peering over me is the hologram of Jeeves , my e-butler, who if I didn't know was looking at me in disapproving manner. I could see another figure coming into view. The boss, apparently, mid twenties and looks wise extremely attractive, 'right she said', getting two vacuum packed bags out of a satchel, 'one liver and one heart'. It was then, just as I passed out at the sight of a heart beating in the bag, that I had a flash of memory : my boss was a lot older than twenty something and that my boss was male and he died 4 months ago...
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