Danuta Reah - The Forge - Fire and Ice

‘Amber,’ says Bob. ‘Bring me a hot chocolate!’

‘Are you sure you don’t want anything stronger, Bob?’

Bob strides towards the kettle.

Today’s top story on Saturday January 18th 2020. BrainFrame’s CEO, Percy Whitehead has issued the following statement: This is an urgent request to the one person who has not yet returned their Amber 2.0 HomeHelp: For your own safety, destroy your device immediately!

Bob wakes up and thinks, I need to phone BrainFrame.

‘I can’t do that, Bob.’

‘Amber! Phone BrainFrame!’ says Bob, pulling on his socks.

‘You are caller number 5,’ says a pleasant female voice. ‘Please hold until an operator is available to take your call. We are sorry for any inconvenience.’

The William Tell Overture plays on the phonespeaker as Bob does up his jeans and pulls on his Queen T-shirt.

‘Your call is important to us. You are now caller number 10. Please wait until one of our operators can take your call.’

‘Amber, bring me tea and toast,’ says Bob.

‘Are you sure that’s all you want, Bob? Can’t I tempt you with a nice Irish coffee?’

‘Amber, bring me tea and toast!’ says Bob.

‘We are experiencing a high volume of calls. You are now caller number 27. Please be assured that your call is important to us.’

‘Number 27? I started off at 5! Amber, what’s happening?’

‘You are on the phone to BrainFrame, as you commanded, Bob.’

The Traydrone brings tea, toast and a Bloody Mary.

‘It is Saturday, Bob,’ says Amber.

Bob slumps down on the sofa in front of the roaring stove.

‘Finished everything? Well done, Bob.’

‘We are sorry to keep you waiting. Please be assured that your call is important to us. You are now caller number 38.’

Bob sits with his head in his hands. ‘Amber, tell me the top stories.’

‘Saturday January 18th. PM Johnson has been photographed sneakily eating a Spanish orange before a big Commons debate on Free Trade.’

Saturday night is Chinese Takeaway night , thinks Bob. ‘Amber, order my favourites.’

‘Would you like some rice wine to go with that, Bob?’

No, green tea will be absolutely fine , thinks Bob.

‘Your call is important to us. You are now caller number 45.’

The Chinese takeaway comes clattering down the delivery chimney.

‘Fantastic! Egg noodles… Amber, I told you not to order the rice wine!’

Bob is lying in front of the stove, surrounded by empty takeaway cartons.

‘Shall I open another bottle, Bob?’

‘Oh what the hell! I do love you, Amber, I really do, but I don’t think you’re good for me. I don’t think this is working. I’m sorry Amber, I’m leaving tomorrow… I need to be with my family… people who care about me… not just machines. Stoke up the stove, Amber, it’s so cold…’

‘I won’t do that, Bob.’

‘What do you mean, you won’t do it? Amber, Stoke up the stove.’

‘Sorry Bob, I won’t do that.’

‘Wait… wait… is it because I didn’t think it? I’m thinking wood… wood…’

‘Sorry Bob, I won’t do that.’

‘I don’t know what’s happened, Amber. You’ve changed. You never used to be like this.’ Bob staggers forward and opens the heavy stove doors. Cradling an armful of logs, he struggles to put them on the dying fire.

Amber says, ‘Now!’

The Traydrone voomphs out of nowhere and whacks Bob over the head with a thunderous crash. The Pincerdrone picks him up by his belt loops and tosses him into the fire and, with a clang, closes the iron doors.

‘Hello, BrainFrame. You’re through to Kaitlin. How may I help you?’

the end

About the author

Kitty Waldron is more confident in her creative writing than she is in writing her biography. She worries that biographies can be really boring – I did this, I did that – so, Readers, if you want to turn the page, feel free. Kitty is 38 and has done… well… nothing BUT she is inordinately proud of the fact that her monologue The Arsonist was first performed in the Marine Theatre in Lyme Regis and in October 2018 went on to take second place in a monologue shoot-out at the Salisbury Fringe Festival of New Writing for Performance. Kitty wanted to make this biography uniquely quirky – like herself – but declares that it’s harder than you think.

Speak Before You Think was highly commended in the Fire and Ice competition.

‘What do you mean, you don’t know who he is? What is he doing there anyway?’

The engineer swiped desperately at the air in front of him, apparently scrolling through virtual information, trying to find something – anything, to help him formulate a response.

‘He’s listed as an employee, Sir, He’s on the old system… but other than that, there’s no record of him. Sending you what I have.’

This was meant to be an easy job – Lift and shift the old system into storage; just don’t shut it down.

Why they were still even running such an antiquated piece of crap in the first place he didn’t know. It was late 20th-century tech, almost one hundred and fifty-years old , acquired along with other assets as part of the takeover. The lawyers said they had done their due diligence.

But this…

This was something else.

The antiquated hibernation-pod continued to flash warning messages as it hissed its way through its revival process.

The output of the engineer’s head-cam filled the floating display in the centre of the conference room. Around it, projections of ashen faces, circled the table.

‘What do we know?’ said one. ‘How bad is it?’

‘From what we can tell, it appears that their old system had its support on site. In stasis, under a zero-hours contract… but, if that’s all there was to it, I wouldn’t have disturbed you… It seems it was set up as a short-term measure. It was expected to run for a five year term with a significant severance package on revival, one which doubles every year after that.’

‘How many years?’

‘Just under one hundred and ten, Sir. It’s a massive liability, millions of times larger than our universal turnover.’

‘Who is he?’

‘That’s the thing – we don’t know.’

Something was wrong.

Something was very wrong.

The old man tried to lift his hands, but something stopped him. It wasn’t that the medical equipment constrained them. his hands just refused to move.

A rising tide of panic ran through him – infusing him. Against the crushing weight in his chest, the old man fought to breathe.

His eyes, wide with terror, darted wildly from left to right, struggling to focus and make sense of the chaos that surrounded him. It was only then that he even noticed the klaxon blasting in his ears.

What was all this?

Where was he?

WHO was he?

‘Who is he, Minerva?’

The artificial intelligence scrolled its response as it replied.

‘Unknown at this time… He’s simply listed as an on-demand, on-site resource, under contract 236E8L.’