The reason for my imprisonment

My overall game when I started on this line of self-destruction was to rage against the machine and not to be a number and be a part of the machine. It occurred to me at the very last point was if I didn’t want to be a number and I didn’t want to rage for the rest of my life the only way to beat the machine was to be the machine so sixteen years ago I decided to rage against to the machine in order to rebuild the machine for the good of the one. This is the story that started it off and it started with a bang and what followed the bang, maybe another story to be told later, but it escalated and it became the prominent source for everything.

I am not a writer and I have above average intelligence, or so the psychologists I am regularly sent to see tell me, plus I have always disliked those people who always refer to themselves in the third person, this is the reason why this extract I am writing is in the third person and you may see a few things have been fictionalised for dramatic effect. After all what better way to please the prison English teacher, the lady who is going to read this because it is part of my reformation statement.

The reformation statement for anyone else who is reading this, you know who you are, you are the ones who aren’t supposed to as this is supposed to be confidential and part of what I have agreed to, to make me a person who can integrate back into society without being a threat to the numbers outside of these constraining walls. But in truth I am writing this because the situation I am in at the moment, do you remember the Robert Redford Film Brubaker, is not ideal, time needs to be killed and soon I will be out of here and setting up Home with my family and extended family.

Here goes, the third person almost fictionalised story entitled, “The reason for my imprisonment.” I have also sub-titled this with, “Bad boys do it wherever.” Just like that sticker idiots stick on the back of their cars and another favourite is, “Windsurfers do it standing up.” Not to mention “Builders do it with a large hammer”


The reason for my imprisonment, Bad boys do it wherever.

At twenty one and the lone child of a single hard working parent, Jasper decided that his life was so mundane, so lonely and so full of whatever was regimented for him, he actually wanted something that could be seen by the masses as entirely him. This worked to an extent until he was told that he was not allowed to tell anyone what it was he had done.

It all started just over four years ago when he was seventeen, his mother had died of cancer, his father had a breakdown and everyone had told him that he needed to be strong for his dad. Carrying the burden of this responsibility during the time that he was meant to be grieving for his mother; his grief was stored away until long after his father had pulled himself together. In hindsight he had allowed this because his father blamed himself for his mother’s death, for not being able to cure her, for not noticing earlier that she had the disease. Jasper’s father was a prominent oncologist specialising in early detection of cancer and didn’t detect, until it was too late, that Jasper’s mother was ill.

Jasper spent an extraordinary amount of time on his own, refusing to go to school and sitting in front of his computer and living most of his life in the cyber world. He had many letters land on his door from his school and from the department of education that all became the fuel to start the fire in the morning. Jaspers father spent most of his day in the hospital and when he was at home he was found in his study working all waking hours documenting and re-documenting procedures to help the early detection of many type of cancer. Trying to make and amend policies in X-ray and scans to look for signs as part of the standards.

Whilst doing this Jasper’s dad hadn’t his son not finishing sixth form, after all Jasper had attained the highest grade that you could get in Physics, English, Maths, Computer Science, and Geography. Any other exams taken had been passed but no revision because he just wasn’t interested. He has a natural intellect and after finding out that he was in the top 2% on the Mensa IQ charts and being invited to join Mensa he never went to take the exam for formal testing. He however found a park with a woodland walk and as he walked past a bin he looked into it and decided there and then to live off the grid from then on. He took out his wallet and removed all of his Store Cards and reward cards, broke them in two and threw them into the bin. All he kept in his wallet was the credit card his dad had given him which didn’t have his name on it. Mr P C Oneby Jr, can’t be tracked back to Jasper but to his father.

The official Jasper software he had written would now be discontinued and removed from the mobile market places and software download site. It was while he stood by that bin in those woods that he decided to rage against the machine. He mobile application software wasn’t a big hit, less than fifty thousand downloads over the last 6 months. In real terms this made his software successful but not a smash hit. It wasn’t angry birds after all; there are only so many things you can use a GPS trail recorder for mountain biking for.

However by utilising the GPS data that nearly all modern Smart Phones have these days and Wireless location tracking on laptops Jasper managed to build a multi-functional GPS assistant that could tell you the current and forecasted weather where you are, also one touch directions to the closest cash machine, petrol station, restaurant and other things. Not only that if you do want to go to a restaurant and that restaurant signs up to restaurant reservation web sites then you can make you reservation online in just two touches of the screen. When he launched it two years ago he expected much of the same downloads he had with the trail recorder, however in just six months he had 1 million downloads and in the following 12 months he had reached 8 million and it was then, six months ago he wanted to add a little spice to his life.

After all the success wasn’t entirely down to the application, it was a free download from the Market Place and also there were no adverts and he took no revenue from it at all. Jasper thought this was part of the success also all mobile devices were catered for and there was a desktop PC and Mac application, so because of the amount of downloads he decided to patch all versions of the software and add a few refinements and because of auto update most, if not all, of the original downloads will have the new patch within 4 months.

The idea behind the new patch was to create the most amount of issue for someone else and so the contents of the patch lay dormant until they were activated. As with all marketplaces for the download of software you are advised that full internet access will be used, GPS location is also used and the Phone will not sleep whilst the tracking is in use. What it didn’t say are the dormant area of the patch will activate when told to and will utilise all phone capabilities in the back ground without your knowledge.

6.30am Jasper jumped up out of bed and ran downstairs to catch his dad before he went out to work. Jasper had decided to go away for a few days and being Bonfire Night in two days he was going to go to a big firework display. That’s what he had told his dad anyway, there was going to be fireworks but not the kind that whistle through the air and explode in a colourful display. Jasper packed a small rucksack, grabbed some food from the kitchen and packed his camper van.

He had wanted to buy a type 2 Volkswagen but instead he opted for the brand new equivalent which was much more comfortable and easier to get a Bio Diesel conversation done, you know for the environment. Also he got solar mats fitted to the roof to help the power consumption he was going to be using. He finished packing everything he had needed strapped down the bits that he definitely didn’t want to break and drove to the local rural service station 6 miles down the road. This service station was a run down over priced mess of a place but the made their own bio diesel in a shed out of site and sold it to anyone who knew about the enterprise at a quarter the cost of a litre of regular diesel. He also picked up some a couple bags of logs, a newspaper and some matches, stored it all away in the storage compartments underneath the floor in the boot and away he went.

His destination was carefully selected so he could get the best mobile broadband connection and a good sea view. One of the great things about a stone riddled road on top of a mountain overlooking the sea and a November evening is that no one else will be stupid enough be driving up there unless they were lost and then would probably think that the person in the van in the layby 20 yards off the road had set up for the night because they too were lost. But when you have a three hundred and sixty degree panorama of some of the finest landscape in Britain radio waves and microwave communications are guaranteed so the smaller towns in the coves up and down the coast had good coverage.

It was 15:30 when he arrived in the layby next to the sea and as expected it was deserted, he checked the battery charge on his solar system and it was full which is just as well as it was already starting to get dark. Unsurprisingly really as the rain was coming down and dusk was due in only an hour. Before he set up and cooked some food he opened the door and pulled out the canopy from over the side sliding door and firmly tied guide lines to pegs in the ground got out a bottle of non-French still water and a folding camping chair, he sat down, opened the bottle and just looked out to sea. Far out on the horizon he watched an orange ball of gas and flames disappear over the horizon beyond the oncoming storm. He finished drink and walked to the back of the van where there was two little black flaps, on the flaps were written two little words, “Cans” on one and “Plastic” on the other. He pushed the bottle through the one labelled plastic and folded away his chair and went inside. He left the canopy out even though it was going to be windy because if it blows out just like his unpatched GPS assistant on his phone says it is going to do he wanted it to be as dry as possible out there so he can cook his breakfast at dawn and watch the sun come up over the land side of the van.

He slammed the sliding side door and locked the all doors because you never actually know what kind of maniacs are around these days. He took a laptop out of one of the cupboards and plugged it in, from a drawer in the kitchen area he pulled one of the dongles that was there and pushed it into the USB port at the rear of the laptop and connected wirelessly to the world. He checked the market place stats for all mobile downloads of the patch and it was currently at twelve million three hundred and ninety four thousand and a little graphic next to it stating it was plus or minus one thousand. “Almost twelve and a half million participants, of which probably fifty percent would actually and unknowingly take part.” He said to himself and then opened the desktop application for the BBC iPlayer and watched live TV for a short while before setting out a plan for the fun he was going to be having tomorrow.

He woke the next morning, opened the flimsy curtains and wiped the condensation from the glass with a window cleaners squeegee. The early morning autumn mist sat on everything all around the camper, he could see the cool sunshine trying to penetrate the mist and he knew it was going to be a cold beautiful afternoon, A playful afternoon that will allow Jasper to setup all the building blocks to his grand plan.

He got some bacon out of the fridge and some matches from the drawer, lit the gas on the burner and cooked the bacon in a tiny frying pan. After buttering a fresh bap and filling it with the lightly fried strips and some tomato ketchup he went outside and sat to eat and look. He never did understand why people ruined a perfectly good butty with brown sauce, if you want to put a fruity taste on bacon put an apple on it.

Jasper sat outside watching the mist blow up over the cliff edge and swirl just nearby as he ate his sandwich and drank coffee that was like tar. The sound of the sea was filling the air with the occasional gull squawking down below. He had made plans for that day that didn't really need any attention until the afternoon, this is primarily because there will not be enough people out of bed. He requires the eastern hemisphere to be in the late afternoon, making him around noon to one pm and america in the early morning. This completely maximises the amount of applications online and ready to have the dormant functionality turned serviced and on standby.

When the service is activted the all mobile devices that get switched of will no literally turn off but appear to be and all desktop machine will sit in a hibernate like state until the signal is sent for them to star working as a discrete process in the background and if all goes that way Jasper has predicted he should have approximately 9 million slaves onlne and ready to do his bidding. Jasper has pragmatically allowed a 15% margin on his estimated figures due to natural battery failure.

Jasper called his dads answering service at the hospital and left him a message, November the 4th, nine years ago Jasper's mother was admitted into a hospice to live out her remaining eight days in an almost complete pain managed coma. She was only awake for at best thirty mimutes a day, only thirty minutes every single day and the other twenty and a half hours was watching TV and listening to the automatic medication pump whizzing every 30 seconds administering the drugs that allowed a comfortable pain free end.

Jasper unlocked the cupboard underneath the main seating and pulled out five identical cotton padded bags. Opening them one at a time and pulling out five identical laptops and putting them down next to each other on the camping table set up underneath the canopy outside. From a drawer he picked out five mobile broadband dongles and plugged on into each machine. The dongles were pay as you go, buy over the counter peripherals that Jasper had loaded with ten gig of data transfer from each of the main airtime providers.

He booted up each machine and logged onto the internet, running a few commands he got the broadcast address for each connection but in addition to that he gained the address that the providers allocated for communicating within their own network. Both of these addresses were entered into his configuration databases and he adjusted the status to pending.

The configuration database is a long list of IP addresses classified into relays, end points and gateways, this information and a specific selection algorithm will make what the last eighteen months of information gathering and the unselfish promotion of a free tool to the mass smart phone market worthwhile.

Jasper logged into his online presence and the back office for his website had two small panels, a command box with a button and a large over designed button with the word “Activate” written in it. He click the activate button, the word changed to begin and after a few short minutes one of the boxes highlighted and saying “*** connected” and after another few minutes the three asterisks changed into numbers that refreshed every 5 seconds and after a total of twenty minutes of sitting there watching the numbers change Jasper was happy that they were growing as he wanted them to.

He lit a match and whilst he watched the flame take hold of the little bit of wood that old puzzle flashed through his head, a man walks into his house on a cold night and needed to light his fire and the gas on his cooker for a hot cup of coffee and he needs to light his cigarette but only has a single match in his match box, knowing that if he fails to light anyone them he will not be able to do anything so which should he light first. He giggled to himself and said out loud, “get a zippo you flaming cheap skate”, he lit the stove with the match and put the kettle on top of it grabbed his cup off the table outside and put it down a little too heavily after almost falling sideways trying not to hit his head on the low roof. Spoon full of coffee times three, one and a half spoons of sugar, the real sugar granules and not the low fat sprinkles that are low taste and definitely low in humanity and wait for the whistling to start.

He settled down in the chair outside in the cold afternoon and looked at his management page, one hundred and fifty five thousand connected, he realised at this point that should have read activated. Jasper decided to live with this error as it has no impact on what is to come. He sat, watched the numbers climb in the little panel on the screen, two o’clock passed and he was already up to over two million activated Smartphone’s and or desktop machines. Jasper sat there next to his van and reading a magazine for hours occasionally glancing up to see how many agents are now activated.

After almost eight hours sitting down on the same chair he had read a magazine and then he started a book, Gunslinger by Stephen King. Jasper likes the idea that there are another six books in the series after the Gunslinger. If everything goes wrong tomorrow then he is going to have plenty of time to finish the whole series. He packed everything away that wasn't secured to the ground with a tent peg, made sure everything left in the blowy night was properly secured and then slammed the side sliding door after accidentally slipping on the glossy magazine he threw to one side. He closed the curtains and locked the doors, dimmed the interior lighting and settled down in his sleeping bag with the words of Stephen King in his head, "Beans, beans the musical fruit, the more you eat the more you toot."

Jasper finally fell off to sleep after listening to the wind buffet the van and in his head he thought about the storm, the storm that was probably going to come, if he had actually made all the arrangements as he had needed to make them. The next morning he awoke and peeled the curtain just above his head to one side and saw the sea and the distant horizon, not a perfect straight line illusion but a horizon that was more like a perfect graduated join from water to air. The harmony of this was the sign he was looking for, rather it was the sign that his head was telling him he was waiting for. “Today is the start of the rest of my life”

He sat upright in bed as though he needed to stand to attention, standing before the man, stand and hold the hand of the man who can define, cutting of his own thoughts off he looked at the single computer he left running on the counter and it had the current total of connected agents. Eight point four million agents waiting to be set into motion and a grin spread over Jaspers face and he knew it was going to be another three hours until he was going to start the whole process.

There was a loud knock on the door of the van which startled Jasper and he jumped up out of his sleeping bag and slammed the laptop lid shut. He opened the curtain that was drawn across the door of the van and saw two policemen standing outside standing under his canopy, he opened the van door after checking that all of his necessaries were where they should be. “Officers, how can I help you? I would invite you in but it would probably be easier for me to come out there.” He slipper his shoes on and stepped outside and past the two police officers. Jasper left the door open so that they could both see into his camper and allow to not only see inside but also show his is not trying to hide anything from them.

“What is your name?” one of the officers said to him.

“Jasper Oneby” he replied whilst stretching and taking a large breath of fresh morning air.

“And why are you here Mr Oneby?”

“Can I please ask you to call me Jasper, Mr Oneby makes me feel like I am a school teacher. I am just taking a few days away from home, I plan to start a new job in the next few weeks and wanted this time alone to prepare for the interview.” Jasper said.

“Jasper, you are not allowed to start over night in this area, so I must ask you to pack up and move on.”

“My plan was to move on today anyway officers, I just wanted to be here today.”

The other and the younger of the two officers said, “Why today, Mr Oneby”

Jasper asked to see the warrant cards from the police officers, they both pulled them out and showed him, he paid attention to the name of the younger, “Well officer Dibble” and the younger officer said, “Mr Oneby, I am PC Dabbie not Dibble.” The older of the two police officers turned slightly to the side and held back a small laugh. “Well officer Dabbie, it was four years ago today my mother was admitted into a hospice to live out the last days of her life. This spot is where I have my most fond memory of her because she brought me here as a child and we watched the sea pounding the cliffs and it was here”

“Right you are boring me now” said officer Dabbie, “Make sure you are out of here before 10pm, I drive passed here on my way home and I will be checking on you.”

“Officer Dabbie and other officer, sorry I was only paying attention to his name, I promise you I will only be here until about 6pm depending on how well my interview goes.” Jasper said.

The two officers got back into their car and left. Jasper got the table out of the van and setup the laptops and connected them up to the vast machine. Logging each of them on, one by one, he watched the activation routines initialise and the agents connected on their respective networks. A simple number zero returned from each of them every 5 minutes, making them ready and online. So when Jasper turned the computer to stream BBC news he saw that the Prime Minister attending parliament on the day history remembers and televises every year in remembrance of that day almost five hundred years ago when the largest case of treason was perpetrated on British soil.

Jasper checked his watch and it was 11:04 he also checked the clocks on all of his computers even though they all synchronised to the same time server and they said 11:05. BBC was showing the highlights of the searching of the lower ground floors of the houses of parliament and going over the story of the gunpowder plot. Realising that the state opening will happen in fifty five minutes Jasper logged onto the main laptop and opened his online administration console, eight point nine million active agents appeared on the screen and on the right hand side a panel with a few graphical buttons displayed “Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, Alt Step 1, Alt Step 2, Alt Step 3 and BLACK OUT” all but the Black out buttons were red. Jasper Clicked “Step 1” and the colour on that button changed to amber, the panel on the left changed and a map of the world appeared and green dots appeared and then went red, every now and again a great deal of green dots appeared and very occasionally one or more of the green dots stayed green and a number would be attached to it. This dot would then be added to a different part of the map and it would then either stay green and carry on around the map or it would turn red and only show up in the original location.

The dots appeared stayed red and disappeared, changed to green and moved changed to red and moved back to the original location. Or they stayed green and moved and continued to stay green. On each of the other machines Jasper signed into an application that would be able to receive details information on each of the five available networks. Everybody’s mobile phone internet access wherever you are in the world would be handled by one of five carriers and therefore Jasper can talk to everyone of his agents on their own network minimising the chances of flagging up anything on the internet where traffic bounces between all sorts of different carriers all around the world.

Each machine’s application chirped to life and gathered detailed information about each green light directly from the mobile phone or desktop computer where it originated and now this was started Jasper clicked “Step 2” on the sixth machine. More and more dots started to appear on the screen and flashed between green and red, on each of the other machines all the details of all the green dots appeared sequentially and this happened until 12 noon. At noon the button marked Step 1 changed colour from amber to green and the Alt Step 1 button disappeared completely.

The Step 2 button stayed red for exactly 1 minute before it turned to amber and with the streaming of the Black Rod starting his ceremonial walk towards the previously slammed door of the Commons Chambers. Jasper brought up a black text console and typed a few words and watch the 5 other screens as they flashed and jittered in a colourful array until one by one the background colours changed on each machine and in the bottom corner the word “Set” was displayed. Jasper took a big slug of the extra strong coffee that was going cold quickly, and when he was happy he typed “Step Two Mute.” The word “Set” flashed off on each machine and came back to the word “Set”.

The whole purpose of the Black Rod in the State Opening of Parliament is to Summon the Commons by banging the Staff Of Office on the door to the Commons Chambers. However due to health and safety regulations gone mad, the act of hitting the door with a Staff was frowned upon. So instead they have a microphone built into the end of the staff that takes the knock and amplifies it through speakers throughout the building. So when the knock came and the noise didn’t Jasper let out a laugh to anyone who could hear him. If you looked close enough you could see the confusion on the face of the man they call the Black Rod and his look was even more confused after he hit it again and yet again no loud echoing knock, instead an embarrassingly small clinking tap. The door still opened from the other side and they continued with the age old ceremony.

Most of the ceremony had been completed when all six screens turned green and scrolling across all six the words, “All done.” And to test this he opened a console on the sixth laptop and as he did so the same console window opened on the other five. As he typed and so too the other windows displayed the same text reading, “Slow close bomb shutter; Commons Chambers” And when he pressed enter on the keyboard, he waited and typed “Initiate CCTV; Show Commons Chambers” and watched the five screens fill with all the CCTV feeds coming out of that room. Three cameras showed all or part of the exterior windows and Jasper watched as he could see the blast curtains appear from the bottom of the windows, “A few gasps could be heard on the BBC stream and a few people started to point out towards the window. Jasper focussed on the console window again and typed, “Cancel close bomb shutter; Commons Chambers” And hit return on the keyboard, the CCTV feed showed the blast curtains stopped moving and Jasper typed, “Reset bomb shutters; Commons Chambers”

Satisfied, Jasper got out of his comfortable chair and made himself a cup of coffee, whilst inside the van he picked up a WebCam and a microphone, stepping back outside he put his coffee on one side and plugged both the microphone and the camera in their necessary slots and settled down to watch the festivities unfold. But it wasn’t until 3.37pm that jasper saw what he wanted to see, it was the overly bullet proofed car that the Prime Minister is chauffeured around in pulled up outside Number Ten Downing Street and the PM James King got out and stood in front of the British press pack to address the nation, and it was at 3:58pm that he started to talk about all the wonderful things he and his parliament are going to be doing over the next 5 years. The speech, that the masses will listen to and only the supporters of the party will applaud, lasted long enough for Jasper to type into his console, “Timer 16:05; Quick close bomb Shutter; Number 10;” all screens went black and on the sixth laptop a countdown timer started at 05:45, and the seconds counted down in real time.

Jasper sat back, drank his coffee and watched the numbers descend, 04:00, 03:59, 03:58 etc until in the speech and unexpectedly well timed Prime Minister started talking about the security of the country and specifically how they plan to combat the issues of external attacks and internal cells for accumulated attacks. 00:05, 00:04, 00:03, 00:02 00:01. All screen turned green once again and a synchronised console appeared on each screen. The stream of BBC news showed the speech and a full nine seconds later showed the windows internally to Number 10 Downing street turn from the pretty net curtains to grey hard toughened steel barriers and the petalled window above the door also showed the steel curtain. The security forces rushed in and surrounded the Prime Minister and interrupted his address to the nation on his re-election to office. They forced him back to the black door with the simple number 10 on it but it wouldn’t open until Jasper typed, “Open outer door 1; Number 10;” a full nine seconds later the door opened and the security detail forced James King into the building. Jasper looked at his watch and it showed 16:05 and the seconds were ticking through the ascending numbers towards :06 and the next steps.

All kinds of things could be heard in the background from right outside Downing Street and an inset appeared and the BBC news reader now tried to wing it whilst he was fed with ideas as to what had just happened. “Initiate CCTV; Number 10;” Jasper typed and the five slave screens were all filled with little boxes of CCTV cameras from inside Number Ten. He watched as the Prime Ministers security led him towards the Secondary Bunker Lift doors, “Reset bomb Shutter; Reset security alert; Show random malfunction; Number 10;” and before they reached the open and waiting lift doors, the heavy, industrial, blast proof shutters cranked back to their safe positions, the security men stopped and addressed the Prime Minister and notified him of the malfunction and was asked whether he wished to continue into the bunker.

Ten minutes later, whilst the most senior press officer from Number 10 was outside providing the press with the details of the malfunction. Arrangements were made for a full press conference the next morning when James King will be making all the necessary apologies and explanations for the current situation in the best way all of his, best and overpaid, spin doctors can muster.

Jasper watched the CCTV panels on all of the screens he has on the table before him and saw the route the Prime Minister took, entering a windowless toilet and emerging a few minutes with a newspaper, down the corridor past the staff who stop and step to one side to let him past. He takes a phone call on a portable phone and starts to make his way to his office. Jasper brought focus to the console on his laptop, he slapped himself silly around the head as though he was the fourth Stooge. He then reclogged on to his online management site and saw there was now ten and a half million agents online and routing his communications from the four corners of the earth.

He then clicked the “Step 3” button on that screen and within ten seconds, all of his screens went black except one, on that screen was a panorama of a Cliffside with the horizon higher on the right side of the screen than on the left. The screen next to that one then flickered to life with a new style desktop that had a picture of the Parliamentary logo of Number 10 Downing Street. Then all the other screens then showed up the CCTV and one had a live camera feed that showed the corner of a darkened window, Jasper wondered if this was mirrored on the exterior surface so the secret CIA satellites that have been tasked to watch all the world leaders and try and gain the advantage at an extraordinary cost to their tax payers. Three quarter height Oak panelled wall and what looks like one of those excessively over priced leather chairs that probably can recline and swivel and pump up and down.

On the CCTV Prime Minister King walked down the corridor still closely followed by his security, obviously the alert hadn’t been fully dropped, even though that particular building has been everything proofed except the windows even the toughest of glasses is very tough and says it can be blast proof, the only way to guarantee this is to have the steel curtains.

The Prime Minister walked into his office and Jasper filtered out the CCTV feeds to those in the Prime Office and the ones directly outside. Now with half a screen for each CCTV feed jasper was able to pick up a great deal more details than he could off the little thumbnail sized feeds. The PM looked through the paperwork in his In Tray and threw it back in there and from the point of view of Jasper, The Prime Minister finally sat down in his leather, overpriced, reclining, swivelling desk chair and the on one of Jaspers monitors was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Not giving him enough time to do anything Jasper said, “Good afternoon Mr President.” Whilst staying out of the field of view of the WebCam.

In the last few minutes, ever since Jasper clicked the “Step 3” every single one of the ten and a half million agents have been switching between, sending emails, making connective telephone calls, that will ring once and then hang up and performing network related instructions on a series of addresses, all of this working in the background and undetected by any of the agents. The target of the denial attack specifically on Parliament all of actions the agents perform a specific smoke screen based around the parliament buildings and not at the office of the Prime Minister. Whilst IT, telephony and overpaid government contractors are trying to stop the attacks without the need to shut down the network and connections to multiple sites around London.

“Hello” the Prime Minister said quizzically. There was a knock on the office door, “Prime Minister, is everything OK sir?” the security officer said. “I am not too sure, some just said good afternoon Mr President?”

“That would be me Mr President, it always sounded better on the television than Prime Minister.” Jasper said. The security officer said, “Sir?” and shrugged his shoulders so un professionally in the presence of the leader of the country. He then talked into a radio and Jasper continued whilst checking the CCTV feeds and looking directly at the Prime Minister, he typed a command into the console and on the computer screen in front of the Prime Minister the feed from Jaspers Webcam appeared and Jasper appeared and said, “There is no need to be alarmed sir, but I do think people who protect your office and number 10 and the rest of parliament from the cyber world need to have a good look at their processes.”

“Who are you?” James King said to the screen. He gestured to the security in his door way to come around to his side of the desk without being in the view of the built in camera in his monitor. “Sir, if you are trying to stop those people in your door way from being seen, it is too late. I see two people propping open your door and there are another two outside. I also believe one of your IT people is just walking down the corridor to you office.”

James King looked at the window over his shoulder and then looked for the CCTV cameras in his office. “I am not sure if you were aware that there are cameras in your office, I personally would have thought it would be a breach in national security that there was a feed being broadcast from the office were you do your work. Now I have proposition for you, please let me know if you are willing to listen? And although I can’t hear what the two people outside your door are saying to the IT person but I would estimate that if he or one of his colleagues has got any clue, they should be able to find my exact location in about six minutes.”

The Prime Minister said, “I am willing to listen to your proposition but I will need to have the Home Secretary in here to aide our conversation.”

Jasper replied, “Then shout her.”

“It may take me a short while for me to find her.” James King said to the screen.

Jasper checked the CCTV and announced, “Sir, you should be able to get her in your office in about 15 seconds, she is in the main reception.” And the Prime Minister nodded passed his computer screen to one of his security officers and in less than one minute the Home Secretary turned up in the Prime Minister’s office with a chair. For the next twenty minutes a proposal was made to the UK government and an in principle agreement was made on the understanding Jasper handed himself in to the nearest police station.

Jasper concluded the conversation with, “How is your IT man getting on trying to find me?”

Satisfied with the way things have gone Jasper decided to complete the flood of garbage into the Parliamentary infrastructure. Just before Jasper signed off, he typed three further commands into the console, “Set failsafe; 3 days;” and hit return, the response from the console was “Set” “Send Message; Prime Minister Computer; I will be seeing you very soon;” hit return and watched the screen in front of him that displayed the desktop of the PM’s computer and saw the message appear and the response from the console said, ”Message received on remote machine.” And finally “Initiate shutdown; Number 10;” He hit return and watched all of his machines return back to their own desktops.

Jasper took the internet dongles out of each machine one at a time and Typed, “Clean shutdown” in each one before closing the lids and packing them all away. He put them back into the small cupboard under his seating and made sure everything was secure before he retracted the canopy into the side of the van and drove away down the road and away from the cliff top. He opened up the navigation package on his own phone navigated sixty four miles to a small country police station. When he arrived it was shut but there was a yellow telephone on the wall outside. Picking up the handset and putting it to his ear the connection to a main switchboard somewhere was being made. He was surprised to hear that the voice on the other end of the phone was here in Britain and not routed to somewhere in the world that was cheaper to run than in our very own country.

He said to the person he was connected to that he was here to hand himself in for an undisclosed reason. He then told the lady on the other end of the phone that if she he had a reference id, he gave her the ID and she responded with, “I am sorry sir I am having difficulty making a connection to validate that ID are you OK to hold?”

Jasper then responded by saying, “If you send a patrol car and a recovery wagon to this location I will wait until they get here?”

“Please sir can you wait on the line and I will validate this reference and I will know better where I need to route this call.” The anonymous person said and Jasper replied, “I will wait here, in about seventeen minutes you will be able to get a response but you should be able to get someone out to me in that time, the nearest town is only 8 miles away and they have a manned police station. Would you prefer it if I went over to that town and turned myself in there?” The voice on the other end of the phone replied, there is an officer on his way sir. Please stay there and I will attempt to verify this reference and we will be able to handle your enquiry further.”

Jasper retrieved his phone and logged onto his online management page and pressed the screen where the “Activate” button was, the screen never changed for a few seconds and then when it had refreshed itself, the activate button displayed, “Failsafe Active”. He then picked the phone up again and the voice said, “Sir, sir are you still there?”

“Yes I am, could you retry that reference now. I will wait here for the officers to arrive.” Jasper said. He could hear the tapping of keys and then a tone emanating, he believed, from her terminal. And she said, “There will be officers with you in 2 minutes sir.”

Jasper replaced the receiver back on the telephone and went back to his van. On the top of the hill he could see the flashing lights of the police appear over the top of the hill and make their way down the hill, but Jasper also noticed a van, the higher headlights and the blue and red flashing lights higher over the hedge than the cars before and after it, the headlights also flashing their way down the windy road. Jasper took his coat off, threw it on the passenger seat of his van and parked it on the road at the side of the part time police station so the rear windows could just see the front of police station, he took his mobile phone out of his pocket and stood it up on one of the recycling lids by his bumper and pointed it out towards the front of the station and he said to it, “Start Transmission”. Now Jaspers mobile application will send out an invitation to all the mobile users currently using the app normally to view a live stream with geo locational information and what is just about to happen will be transmitted to all who wish to view it live. He then walked around to the front of the building and stood on the pavement awaiting the cars and van to arrive.

Coming down the final part of the hill and around the corner in front of him, the trees and few houses around were all bathed in red and blue light and the sirens drowned out everything including the screeching of the tyres as they came to a stop as far to the other side of the road as they could. The van pulled up further down the road with the rear doors facing Jasper and out jumped policemen with guns pointing straight at him and he was told to get on the ground, face down, with his hands stretched out to his side. He did as ordered and lay on the ground with his face on the worn pavement, the loose bits of concrete dug into his cheek and when the officers came in for the arrest and forcefully placed knees on his back and neck. His hands were bent around his back and nylon quick cuffs tired them both together, he was then dragged to his feet and managed to make sure he was facing his van when he asked what the charge was. All officers lowered their guns and one officer came forward and said, “You are going held because you are a threat to national security and a potential terrorist who directly threatened the Prime Minister.”

Jasper then replied with, “I am going to held under the terms of the anti-terrorist laws meaning I can be held for an indeterminate amount of time.”

The officer replied, “Yes”

Jasper said thank you and shouted very loud, “If only someone would upload this to You Tube.” He was then forcefully put in the back to the van and then taken away to a police station for processing.

It was over four days later he got a visit from one of the representatives from a company that deals with the network infrastructure for Parliamentary buildings in London which includes Number 10 Downing street. After sometime of talking and the representative not getting anywhere with Jasper he suggested that they get Number 10 on the phone. It still took another 7 hours for a call to be placed to where Jasper was being held and it was the Home Secretary who spoke to him. Not long after that an official turned up to retrieve Jasper and ushered him away in an official car.

----

This is how I ended up incarcerated in this claustrophobic block walled box, doing mundane psychotherapy with real criminals. However I was meant to be here and knowing that people who read his drivel will never actually read it. In reality I am in here on a recruitment drive, looking for my merry men.

Very soon I am going to be let out of here on a technicality, one of those things a good lawyer can effectively explain away as wrong place wrong time or contaminated evidence. But now I know that my Friar Tuck is now on the outside and picked up by the family I am expecting the call any day now to take my place as leader of The Home. I will leave here and drink some good Columbian and eat rare steak with petite girlie fries and lashings of red sauce.

For doing what I do needs to have the blind say so of certain people and all of those certain people sit in the oak panelled offices looking over the big river and don’t have any clue exactly who I am, what I look like and will never agree with anyone that I exist. For when things need to be sorted out and when the people who make decisions can’t make the best decisions for the only people who count, I sort things out in the only way that it can be done, the dirty way.

In need of an end

If we were able to see how a day would turn out we would do everything we could to change the elements we didn't like.   Two weeks ago today if I could have seen what was going to happen I would never have got out of bed.  I have been around family members when they have died; I have grieved for my loved ones on far too many occasions.  But for the last two weeks I have been forced to grieve for the final seven members of my immediate family including the one woman who, in all my years, I can say is my soul mate and our two children who I live my life for.  Today is the day I am going to bury the seven most important people to me.  Today is the day I want to die.

I was the only survivor in a tragic coach crash in the Swiss Alps where forty one people died and I walked away from the tangled mess of metal with minor injuries.  I did everything I could to help get people out of the wreckage, but when the coach had plunged face first off a road over a sheer cliff, hit something hard and after, it fell to the side and rolled what seemed like an eternity down a slope and came to rest on top of two cars parked in a lay by next to the road on our very route we had be on before it happened.  Fortunately for the families of the two cars they had been tourist and missed the commotion because of a pair of binoculars and the immense beauty all around.  I remember how beautiful it was, it was very beautiful and I noticed this whilst I pulled body parts from the wreckage.

The smashed glass nuggets, mangled metal bodywork, electrical wiring, material from seats, clothing and luggage lay strewn all over the lay by and partly in the carriageway as I heard the sound of the emergency services coming to the scene.  I looked back up the hill and towards the cliff face and saw the devastating site of people lying in amongst the carnage.  The road was closed even though it was almost clear in both directions.  Police cars rallied up the hill to the next safe junction and set up road closed barriers and park their cars across the road barring the way whilst their piercing blue flashing lights and brilliant orange bands warned of the closure and strongly hinted of a fatal accident further down the road.  I am only guessing this is what they do as I was still trying to help people that may have still been alive.  I think human nature kicked in and in reality I was looking to try and help my family so I had been looking for them.

All emergency services arrived at scene within minutes and the amount of police, fire and ambulance services gradually increased.  A paramedic dragged me away from the wreckage and escorted me to a close ambulance and asked me a few questions in very good English whilst asking me to remove my blood soaked shirt to attend to my injuries.  The look on the paramedics face when she wiped away the blood from my chest only to find minor injuries, I did point out to her that I had quite a major cut to the back of my leg.  She asked me to lie down on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance after I had removed my jeans.  There was a large chunk of flesh about eight inches in length flapping in the shape of a crescent moon.  She irrigated the wound and placed a bandage tightly around my thigh.  She wanted me to wear a splint so I couldn't move my leg and tear the wound any more but I refused, I wanted to get back out to search for my family.

I was not allowed to search some more the police and fire service made me stay back and finally got me into an ambulance and then on to hospital.  I was discharged later that day and went to the British Embassy where they told me that there were no survivors.  My entire family had died; this had been until now the best twelve years of my life and the happiest a person could be to fill a thousand lifetimes.

The funeral of my entire family is in 1 hour and I am sat here in my house on my own, I am only alone now because I told my closest friends I wanted this time.  They have been pulling together and have my best interests at heart, I just want to be alone and remember those perfect times, those time that define love and happiness.  Those times you will never forget they will live with you through death and onto the next whatever.  I have lived a lifetime in the last two weeks, I have revisited the day I ask my wife to marry me, the days m children were born.  The many times I have been starting work early and coming home late not seeing either of my children awake for days on end.  Settling down beside them and seeing in their sleeping faces the fun and laughter they have had.  Their closed eyes saying, "Daddy, today I built a castle in my Lego and there was an evil man attacking it until the police turned up and ran them all over."  Knowing this is what had happened because the remnants where all over the floor downstairs for me to trip over and swear under my breathe.

I know people are going to be coming around in a few minutes as the funeral directors will be here for me in fifteen.  Seven grave stones, five of which you can say that they at least had a life however short it was but two children, my two children, taken away from me and from the world.  Both have spent a combined 6 years on this miserable planet, their laughter echoes around in my numb head, their smiles making my eyes water and their tears flowing through me run down my face and fall from my chin causing wet patches on my trousers.  I have made a small shrine in my pocket with the last photographs taken of them all just the day before the accident happened.  With all of this I want to know how to die so I can be with them all again so I can again see the light they have brought me and the rid me of the pain I will hold with me forever.  I wish I could find that one way that will end this suffering for me for all the life time I have lived in this last two weeks remind me of all the life time I have actually lived.  My name is not Connor MacLoed, I have never been to Loch Shiel and I was not born in 1518 but I am immortal and know of no way that I am able to die.
  

Ten days ago I walked away from the graveyard wiping the remnants of the earth from my hands with a tear soaked tissue.  I have just thrown the first handfuls of soil into the grave of my only family members the only family I have unnaturally grieved for.  I was the only survivor of a coach crash in the Swiss Alps and I have just buried my life.  My name is Nathanial Forever, it is a name I gave myself some time ago and I am looking for a way I can end my life.  My real name is so old I can barely remember when I changed it, my real name is Anselm I am more than sixteen hundred years old and I am immortal.

Since the crash I have been seeing a psychiatrist, kindly assigned to me by the British Embassy in Switzerland.  My shrink was kind enough to return with me back to England and continue with my therapy.  Unfortunately for me my grief is not the only therapy I need to deal with, so we can keep the things in context the psychiatrists name is Elise and on the flight back over here she managed to get out of me my story in a nutshell, I am pretty sure she didn’t believe a word and I am even more sure she is humouring me by asking me to write a retrospective journal of my entire life.  However I get more of a feeling she had other things to get back to, namely her husband and little girl. 

Over my years walking this world I have gained a whole lot of experience in nearly everything, I have seen the science of psychiatry grow up from a few people making assumptions about a few things, until out of a small purse of knowledge was brought a wealth of experience by some of the best minds now known to humanity.  Although I wasn’t born when Hippocrates theorised about mental disorders but when the doctors actually practiced in the eighteenth and nineteenth century I was able to help with the theories they now have as the basis of modern psychiatric principles.  I used to go drinking with William Battie and Sigmund Freud was on my Christmas card list so I can consider that I had a helping hand in the way mental disorders are treated.

I met up with Elise on a daily basis telling here stories and recounting a few of the parts of my life I can consider the best and only on one occasion, since being back in Britain did we talk about the one heart breaking experience I have had.  I have had people die before but because they have all been either in battle of due to natural causes I resolve those experiences as a natural course in life but twenty four days ago is the only occasion that has ripped the heart out of my body and made me realise the only thing I want now is to end this existence and be reunited with the one woman I have ever truly loved.  My wife, my soul mate died in the crash along with my two children who were my other reasons to exist.

I don’t believe for one minute I will ever convince Elise of my story but in an attempt to put my life in an order that can be understood I decided to do what she asked of me but I don’t think I will be able to remember everything in order, as there are a great deal of stories that could be told.  But I gave Elise some points of interest, points in history that she could corroborate my existence.  However she could investigate these instances and say I spent a fair amount of time on Google to make up things to immerse myself in to help my grieving process.  I also need to do this to remember the people in my long past who did understand and the people who knew from their beliefs how and why my life is what it is.  Those beliefs might give me an insight into how I can die and if so maybe I will be able to pull it off.  In my vows to my wife I took out the bit that says “Until death do us part” and I replaced it with Forever, unfortunately people thought it was funny because it is my surname.

My entire story began the first time I was supposed to have died.  I was born in Germany near what is now the border with the Netherlands, the village I grew up in was situated in a large forest with wood and mud huts built around the base of trees.  In hindsight this was stupid as the fires made for heating and cooking regularly burnt the huts and trees to the ground. 

When I was seventeen our village was invaded by other villages from the surrounding areas around ours, our village was seen to have good resources to make a community survive for a very long time.  We had good sources of wood for fires and buildings, a river for water and great fish, surrounding fields for agriculture and rearing of animals for food and work.  During the attack my people were either killed or run out of the forest splitting our peaceful community.  What seemed like a large army, walked across the succulent fields and waded across the river, walked right in and killed whatever stood in their way.  I was one of those who stood up to fight. 

My family were farmers growing crops, raising animals and cutting wood, I stood in front of the people attacking us trying to stop them from getting my family when the men charged me and impaled me with a large wooden stake.  It went straight through my body and the sharpened end came out the other side.  I fell to the ground in such an amount of pain my eyes misted for a few seconds until very quickly it cleared.  From the ground I looked as the men walked towards me and I could hear the screams of my mother and sisters from behind me; I got to my feet and roared an adrenalin filled scream as the men stopped right in front of me.  Taking one step towards them with the stake pointing out right in front of my body and swung the axe I was still holding.  The long handle of the stake fell to the ground and the men watched it fall and as they looked at it hit the ground I attacked them with the axe.  I took my mother and sisters out of the forest and away towards the area that my brothers and father were working.

After that point, with my family reunited and a new home built I was treated more and more like the devil walking the earth, my mother wouldn’t speak to me and I had been made to live away from the rest of the family.  After a few weeks my wounds had healed and the pain went away and I was beaten by my brothers in the night and left lying face down in a stream tied by both legs to trees on both banks, whilst the blood was washing away, I attempted to turn myself over to breathe air.  After two days lying there being constantly turned over to lie face down I was cut free and my limp body floated effortlessly downstream and away from the lives of the people I loved.  Little did they know that I had set up home in a cave that I built a wooden frontage to just six miles away from them and three times a month I would go and check on them at night?  After what I believe was about twenty five years I found out that my mother had started to become more and more ill.  Wanting to be close to them, I made a successful attempt to get a job for my family and because they had aged with the years that had passed and I hadn’t, they never knew who I really was a new name, twenty five years and my still youthful life allowed me to pass as a poor worker.  I watched my mother and father grow old, my brothers and sisters had married and made their own families until finally my mother died, I had a short moment with her before she did and told her who I was.  She held my hand and stroked my face before she said, “My son died in an attack on my village many years ago”, and I could only watch on and grieve away from the families.  My father died a short time after I can only believe was from a broken heart.  My brothers and sisters, their spouses and families left the area soon after that and I was left on my own to live whatever existence my life could give to me.

This is obviously the abridged version of those events, most I have probably forgotten or have decided to wipe from my memories but after sixteen hundred years I still have fond memories about my family and never once blamed them for the way in which they treated me after that attack on our village.  After all how can you accept such a faith shattering thing as not being able to die, it goes against everything nature has got for you to believe in.

After a week of me going through the broad details of my life and compiling a large series of journals, I met with Elise again at her office in the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London.  He assistant called my name from her desk in the outer office and showed me through to where Elise was sat behind her pristine desk; she pulled down the blind on the door as she left me.  Elise shuffled together a few papers and pointed for me to sit on the ox blood Chesterfield next to the open fire.  For a second I thought this was a romantic setting until she wheeled over a TV unit and a low table on castors.  On the table were papers, photographs and other artefacts that made up 7 days of research that she had been doing and said to me, “Firstly can I have you permission to record all of our conversations and copy any other media that is produced during our sessions?”

I replied, “That completely depends on what you want to do with them.”

To which she said, “I want to publish a paper about your problem, all the research material is confidential and your information will be protected under doctor, patient confidence.”

Why should I care if she does this, I have spent many years perfecting how to change my identity, “I have no problems with this as long as you allow my solicitors to review a contract prior to anything being published.” 

Elise started the consultation by pointing out a great deal of information she had attained over the last week regarding the points of interest she should investigate to validate my story.  As I expected her too she said that it took her longer to print the pages from various sources than it did to find them in the first place.  I said to her, “How often do you get handed a torch in darkness?”  She threw a puzzled look at me so I elaborated on my comment, “I could have just said to you I am sixteen hundred years old, I am immortal.  You would have thrown me in a padded cell where the only way I would have been able to prove it to you, would have been to still be there on the day that you die of old age.  I gave you the specific things to look for I didn’t tell you where to find them.  I do know of a few places that the information resides, because I used to help validate the finer details of past events.  However I can see a photograph on the table that proves my existence in one movement and I didn’t know it existed.”  I stood up and walked around the table and placed my finger on one particular photograph.  A black and white photograph of Winston Churchill talking to troops in World War two.

Elise stood up and looked down to the table and said, “What am I supposed to be seeing here?”

I said, “Look at me and then when I say, look back at the photograph.”  And she did, she looked me in the face and I said, “Look now.”  She looked down to where my finger was still touching and she said, “Sorry I don’t see you point.” So I moved my finger she gasped and picked the photograph up and said, “When was this taken?”

I said in reply to her, as I sat back on the Chesterfield, “1942 or 1943”  I reached into my bag and pulled out the journals she asked me to keep and put them on the table, she was still looking at the photograph and looking back at me.  She had printouts and I had eighteen identical leather bound journals each of them containing a two or three page synopsis of which part of my life I am planning to fill the pages with.  She looked at the journals and said, “Starting a library?” that I can only believe was an unintentional response to the confusing thoughts she probably has racing through her educated mind.

She then said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.” She looked back at the photograph and continued, “It is just that it is an remarkable resemblance to you.”  I said back to her comment, “This is how I have managed to get away with it for all of these years, people have come up to me in the street, mind I am talking about people I haven’t seen in forty or fifty years, I have seen them stop and shake their head and carry on.  I have been asked if I am me and I say no, I am sorry.  I believe that people pass reconcile it in their heads that I have a remarkable resemblance to someone they knew in a different life.”  She nodded her head and gestured that I should sit on Chesterfield and I looked at her until she realised that I was already sat down.

In the way only a typical psychiatrist could do, she sat back in a chair, crossed one leg over the other; both hands fell naturally in position, one on her face with the finger pointing up by the nose with the fingers almost covering her mouth and her other arm fell limp on to the arm of the chair and I said to her, “You are not going to ask me how my relationship was with my mother are you?” to which she replied, “Did I just turn into a psychiatrist or what, even if I tried I probably wouldn’t have been able to pull that off again, but in a way that is exactly what I wanted, that photograph is on my mind.  I can see that the person in the photograph is predominantly you but obviously that was over 60 years ago an you haven’t aged, therefore all of my training, my experience is telling me that there is no way it can be you.  I could write this up as a convenient doppelganger and this is how you wanted this to play out.”

At this point I would have hoped the agitation was starting to show in my face and ever changing mannerisms, but she seems preoccupied as though in her heart she believes in my story but her training and experience she thinks I am crazy.  By using the word crazy I am not talking about a genuine mental illness but the classification of someone might just throw around to identify a person that is more forward thinking or just thought in a different way to the normal.  Just by not conforming to what is generally accepted as normal doesn’t make you mentally ill but can make people throw that word crazy at you just to make their own normality equal.  Non-conforming people can be very imaginative and extremely convincing which is how they are able to go through their lives not being questioned outside of the group whose normality is in line with the equilibrium.

Elise placed everything she was holding back on the table and made some conforming piles just in front of her and picked up a jotter and her pen.  She also pressed a button on a remote control handset and a small red light on a recording system over her shoulder blinked to life.  She said, “On the plane back from Switzerland two weeks ago you said to me you were looking for an end.  You also told me you were immortal, both are the reasons why we are having these consultations.  I am bound by client confidentiality and you have allowed me to record these consultations for future use on the understanding that your identity is hidden.  Do you agree with this statement?”

I replied, “Yes.”

Elise continued to say, “The dictionary definition of immortal in its lowest common denominator is, not subject to death or decay; having perpetual life.  So are you saying you cannot die?”

I replied, “Yes.”

Elise said for the tape, “You are identifying yourself as someone who cannot die but you wish to, in your own words you said that you were looking for an end.”  She pressed a button on the remote control again and the red light died behind her and she said to me, “Sorry about this I need to get this for your safety and for mine too.  I need to know that my research and questions are initially bound by this statement and therefore anyone who starts to listen to them outside of this is also bound by these statements. Formalities over, what year were you born?”

“I was born in 505AD” I replied and she responded, “Where were you born?”

“I was born, as modern geography goes, in south western Germany” I said, “at this point do you want any more details?”

“If you can add anything extra that you may think about, no too much, but something that may allow me to substantiate what you tell me.”

“If you look at a modern map the area I was born in is now called Wegberg and a British forces hospital now occupies some of the area where my tribe created their community.  The Roman Empire was advancing over much of Europe but we managed to miss a lot of this until the migration into the western lands happened towards the end of the 6^th century”

“Do you know I have looked up on the internet a specific timeline from 500CE to present day and do you know what I found?  Well, being a rhetorical question I will tell you I too found information to do with the Migration and the advancing of the Roman Empire through Europe.  So this can be placed into the grey area which is easily proven because it is information that is readily available.” Elise said with her sceptical head screwed on nice and tight.

I replied, “If you look into this and I am guessing some of your information came from Wikipedia, you will find that this entry was edited by a specific person.  Part of my life’s endeavour is to make historical references as true as possible, because I was there.  We all know that Wikipedia doesn’t have the best track record for displaying accurate information which is why I am an editor on it.  Oh by the way you said you started in 500CE what does CE mean?”

Elise said, “CE is a reference to Common Era, because of the nature of my job, I have to have a non-scientific Bias, a non-religious bias, a non-political bias and other non-biases.  I need to and try to remain neutral to everything and everyone.”

I replied to this in a way that throw doubt into the non-bias her job requires, “So you need to make sure you do not take a single side but see the stand point to both sides or more sides if more exist.  However you remain sceptical about my statement that I am immortal.  Isn’t that your bias, if you asked me to prove it I could, however I would refuse, simply because like you and the next Joe Bloggs around the corner I still feel pain in the same way as you do and the next Joe Bloggs around the corner.  So you are able to sit here in front of me and discount what I am saying.”

"The only reason I discount it is because it only exists in Myth or fiction.”  She said.

“Are you aware of a process that exists in Biology called, ‘Regeneration’?  There is a Sea Star that can regrow its arms, certain types of geckos and other lizards can regrow their tails.  Even in the human body we are able to regenerate at a cellular level, granted human cellular regeneration takes seven to ten years to complete the entire body.  But did you also know that many cancer cells are considered immortal.” Elise looked at me as if she was trying to swallow then entire Wikipedia website, “If I had one cell in my hand and that cell divided so I had three cells but the first cell died there are now two cells that are exactly the same as the original.  I believe, but I will stand to be corrected the concept behind something called the immortalised cell line.”

 She took a long gulp on an old cup of coffee and pulled a strained face until she had swallowed it all, I do believe that if I wasn’t present she would have spat the whole mouthful back into her mug.  She replaced the mug onto the table but she placed the small cork mat she would have ordinarily put the mug back on, on top of her cup to remind herself not to drink any more of it.  Elise said, “OK science facts about regeneration and immortal cells, I will look into these further before our next session, this however from what you have said still puts my point about immortality, what I mean to say is, the point that a human can be wholly immortal in its own right is still the basis of Myth and of fiction.  At the moment I am still lacking the evidentiary proof that belies fact, everything in life can be categorised as a myth or as fiction until the evidentiary proof has been substantiated.”

“Try this one, in 1060CE I moved in the Aosta Valley in the Italian Alps, this was the first time I had decided to become reborn and after years of living there in a monastery with a legion of Benedictine monks at the Abbey of Bec the monks realised that I wasn’t aging or dying and I told them my story,  I was then officially names as Anselme de Candie Genève and my life was then written.  I kept my first name as I had no need to change it that was until people started to realise that ordinary people could think for themselves.  In 1079 I became Abbot and subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury under William the second and Henry the first.” I said.

Elise looked at me again with yet more questioning disbelief, “Archbishop of Canterbury?”

“Yes”

“You really expect me to believe that you were the Archbishop of Canterbury to William II and then to Henry I?”

“Elise I don’t expect you to believe anything of me, I provide you with the facts and you decide that I am a complete fruit cake and that is it, I was originally here for you to help me through my recent loss and because I said to you I was in need of an end.  My grief will always be with me and I am tired of my existence because my life, the one I have waited a number of lifetimes came to an end in Switzerland and I want so much to be with my family again.”  I started to talk aggressively and the anger followed the aggression and then I was fighting back the urge to break something to release the pent up, bubbling grief that every second of my life is filled with.  “I don’t care if you believe me and I wish I had never said what I said on the plane journey back here, if you want to substantiate anything then follow the money!” 

With that outburst I got up off the Chesterfield collected all my belongings together, threw them unceremoniously into my back pack and left her office, maybe for good.

Two weeks later I had decided to fly over to Vermont and stay in a lakeside cabin in the woods to work on the journals I had been asked to keep.  When I say the woods it is a three bedroom tree house with a full height glazed aspect overlooking the lake and because it lies on the western shore of the lake I see the full sunset every night.

I have not been answering the phone to anyone in my house in Britain and I have learnt to route incoming calls from specific numbers on my mobile straight to voicemail, Elise had phoned me twenty one times in the last two weeks.  Modern technology also allows me to retrieve my voicemail over the internet.  On my first night in the cabin I stood in front of the window and looked at the lake, the last time I was here my wife and children were with me and that room was filled with noise and fun.  Now all I could hear was my shoes squeaking on the highly polished floor and even the sunset filling the wide open space with pink champagne coloured evening light was audible. 

My heart lay as low as I ever though it possible to lie and my memories were the only things I had shooting through my head.  My children racing around the lower floor on push along tin cars laughing and shouting, “brrmmmm” and “screachhhhh” as they took corners and mimicking the sound the tires made.  My wife, my beautiful wife handing me a glass of wine after putting the children to bed and cuddling up to me as we watch the summer sun disappear over the canopy of the trees on the far side of the lake as the shimmering glints on the almost still water vanish for the evening getting ready for all the work they have to do another day.   We settle down on the comfortable sofa and she cuddles up to me further and before too long we make love under the evening stars and sit watching the fire crackle whilst draped with an itchy blanket but it doesn’t itch enough to make me want to lose the memory.

The next morning I got out my laptop and connected to the internet and review the entries on Wikipedia I spent so much time updating.  I could see from my admin login that the quite a few of the pages I was an editor of had recently been viewed a few times over the last fourteen days.  I believed that Elise had been checking the fine details of all the information I had given her in our last few visits.

I had a little window appear in the bottom corner of my screen, you have one hundred and fifty seven emails unread, I clicked the box and my email program opened and I sorted the junk from the legitimate ones.  A few from business, one from my oldest friend and my solicitor, there were many from Elise Hadsworth (e.hadsworth@lon.edu.ac.uk).   I started from the bottom of the list and read; the first one was an apology and a little long to keep my attention from the start.  As I read and got to the top and the one dated two days ago, from the way she was writing I started to believe she had hit upon that one little piece of information that corroborates something I had told her.  I don’t believe for one minute she could follow the money as she is a psychotherapist not a forensic accountant.

I click the reply button on the email I had received from Jos, my friend and solicitor and just said to him, “It is time to move on”.  I hadn’t seen him since the funeral and he was aware about my state of mind and he expressed his concern in one of the ways I believe someone in that position could, “Come and stay with us for a while, you need your friends around you at a time like this.”  I declined and walked away alone and lonely.  After that he had tried to call me every day but I wasn’t taking any calls from anyone regardless of who they were.

I never returned any calls and just now when I read his email I knew I had to cut all my ties and move on to whatever life has to offer and being here in this cabin with the memories I have I am filled with the feelings that defined my life and the way my life will be for however long it will now last.  My life disappeared on the winding roads in a beautiful country many miles away from here; my life as it was is lying out in this room and the memories of the last twelve years.

I have now spent two weeks writing down what on reflection will read as the most fictional set of events a non-writer could ever have dreamed up.  I decided to dedicate the final journal to my hand written epitaph.  I can only manage a single page of this one and it has taken me a whole day of thinking and have only come up with this, “Life deals you the cards that no imagination can deal, the heart breaks in ways nothing can heal.  It’s time to move on.”

I click reply on the last email I received from Elise and just wrote, “I have finished the Journals, they are lying in chronological order in my cabin.”  I gave her the address and added, “PS time is up” and clicked send.  I went down to the lake front took off my deck shoes and socks, climbed into the row boat I have tied up on the jetty and rowed out into the middle of the lake.

Elise received the email on her a few minutes later, she happened to be in America attending a seminar in New York.  She made a few calls and made arrangements with the British Consulate to travel to Vermont to the address in her email.  The consulate had made arrangements on her behalf to have the police and the letting agent to be there when she turned up.

She entered the cabin and she saw the immense window that over looked the lake she went down the few steps and passed the kitchen and dining table into the main living area.  Just because it was in her nature to examine things she felt the log burner to see if it was hot and said, “Cold”  Elise walked up to the window and looked out, “Wow, I can see why he comes here.” She spent some time looking out over the lake and around the trees that enclosed the cabin in perfect solitude.  On noticing the jetty down below her she let out an inaudible gasp.  In her head she looked closer as if the camera deep inside was trying to zoom in, “Does this cabin come with a boat for the lake?”

“Yes, it is only a small rowing boat but yes it does.” said the letting agent.

“Is it kept in a boat house when unoccupied?” Elise enquired.

“No it is always tied up on the jetty, there hasn’t been any crime around these parts for years, this is part of the attraction and also in the agency fee we arrange keep a patrol company on the roads and on the lake.  Mostly it is window dressing” the agent was saying when Elise cut off her conversation, “So where is the boat now.”

Elise quickly left the cabin and ran down the steps to the jetty and right to the very end.  She came to an abrupt stop just by the deck shoes still on the side on the jetty next to a post with a big steel ring bolted to the side.  She moved out to the very end of the jetty and looked forwards and then scanning left and right.  There was no sign of the little rowing boat anywhere, Elise turned to the Agent and said, “I think you had better get your window dressing patrol company to do some real work.”

The agent looked at her with a very puzzled look all over her face, Elise pointed down to the deck shoes, pointed at the empty ring that had no little row boat tied to it and then shrugged her shoulders looking around.  The agent took a little bit of time staring at Elise looking around still shrugging her shoulders until finally the penny dropped, “Nooooo” the agent said disbelievingly and got her phone out held down one of the numbers to speed dial the entry that the number is setup for.  She put it to her ear and started to talk to the person in an office somewhere else.  Elise walked up the wooden steps back up to where the consulate car was parked.  The police were still waiting up next to it and she explained what she had found.  One of the police men pick up the radio and called it in.

Within two hours the place was teaming with police and the patrol company had boats on the water.  Elise thought to herself that is probably the most amount of work they had ever done.  The row boat was found about a mile or so down the shore with a jacket inside, Elise ventured inside and after the police had catalogued the contents including eighteen leather bound journals and the laptop she signed a receipt and took possession of everything under the authority of the British Government.  She handed over her business card and wrote the number of the embassy in New York that made all the arrangements.  She asked for a little help to get everything packed into her car and set off.

Three days later she was in her office back in the university in London awaiting the delivery of the journals and the laptop from the home office.  When they eventually turned up she signed for the boxes and cut the tape that help the lids in place.  Removing the journals she started by skim reading the first few pages when the phone on her desk rang, it was official communication from the sheriff in Vermont to say they have found partially eaten clothing in the middle of the lake but as yet they haven’t found anything that they can completely substantiate as the body of Nathanial Forever.  However they are running tests on a certain amount of biological material that has been recovered.  Early indications are that they are human remains and were found in the lake near to where the boat had been recovered.  She continued to look through the journals until the very last one, on the cover had been a crude branding saying, “The End” and she read the uncomplicated statement on the first page and turned the pages to find the rest of it empty.

Elise, the psychotherapist who had a biased view on what Nathanial had told her in the meeting she had with him and had made up her mind that he was suffering from grief, that together with information gained out of the Wikipedia offices that a great deal of entries had been edited over the last four weeks on the website using a login that was registered to a validated account owned by a Mr. N Forever, from an address in Bexley Heath, Kent.  This was the same address Elise had for him, she almost cried when she thought about how much he truly loved his wife and how the grief had made up this imagination of immortality.  In her notes later that day she made a comment on the initial page simply stating innocent grief induced psychosis.

Elise packed the journals into a bag, turned off the lights and left early for the day.  She made it to the underground station down the road in a matter of a few minutes got onto a train and got off at the station local to her house.  Her children were still with the sitters for another hour so she stopped off in the brasserie around the corner and had a glass of wine and started to read the journals more closely.  After thirty minutes or so, the waiter came over to her with another glass of wine and told her that the man at the bar had asked him to take it over to her and when she looked over to the bar she saw the back of a man leaving through the front door.  She quickly got up to run after the man only to see him put a helmet on and ride off on a motorcycle.  She stood there and watched the bike turn a corner and away from her sight.