On Friday 26 Apr 2002 2:12 am, Gary Peterson wrote:
> Hi all!!
>
> So for those of us who want to contribute to the book here, should
> we just send something to the List, or should we send it to one of
> you first?
>
> Thanks-Gary
Hi Gary,
Yeah, just send something to the list.
I've finally finished my contribution - just a bit of fun, escapism,
hope people like it (apologies to Ian Fleming!!).
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ON HER MAJESTIES SECRET SERVICE
The Aston Martin pulled up at the entrance to Dorton House, the "spy
school" for MI6. James Bond leapt the steps 2 at a time, knowing that
his rheumatism would make him pay for that tomorrow - still you had
to show these young bucks a thing or two.
"Evening Mishh Moneypenny", as he flicked his golfing cap onto the hat
stand in the corner of the room, "let me whisk you off to Alicante,
are you free this weekend". He stands with his back to her taking
"practice" shots with an "air putter".
Unseen Miss Moneypenny puts 2 fingers down her throat and does a
"gagging" action, "Oh James - I'd love too but I promised to visit my
sick Aunt - maybe in a few months!".
"What's all the flap about, I don't often get called down to the
training school these days".
"You'd better talk to 'M' but it looks like they might have found your
replacement at last. There's a young chap called Max Powers whose
doing awfully well in all the tests."
Suddenly the intercom crackles and 'M' barks, "No time for your
shennanigans 007, come straight in - this is important."
Dorton House was a large rambling Tudor Manor, taken over by MI6
during the war to train saboteurs to drop behind enemy lines, but for
the last 60 years it had been churning out "production line" spies.
Each year the cream from Oxford & Cambridge universities would apply,
very few made it. It gave James Bond a warm feeling that in all those
years noone had ever beaten his score - top in each test (well all
except the last, "Escape from a Guarded Cell", but noone had ever
completed that test, impossible, you were locked in an absolutely
bare cell with an armed guard outside).
James Bond went into the inner office to find 'M' behind his desk
gazing at a monitor. "Ahh, Bond, interesting times, your record for a
new recruit has already been equalled by this new chap, Max Powers,
and he's currently in the final test. We aren't sure what he's doing
- can you throw any light on it".
James leant forward impatient to see this young pretender to his
record, 'M' flipped the monitor round. The screen showed a young man,
with a shock of tousled ginger hair, sitting in a power wheel chair.
His face was a picture of ntense concentration, as he slowly,
deliberately was unwinding copper wire from what looked like the
electric motor from a dismantled extractor fan. He was humming to
himself very softly, as though the rhythm of the tune would help his
hands unwind the cable. Every now and then his body went rigid, head
back and turned to the side, and he'd have to pick up the remains of
the motor and start unwinding again.
"Is this some sort of joke? Your not trying to tell me that this ...
this ... spastic, is thinking of becoming a spy, its a joke - your
all winding me up - this isn't serious."
"On the contrary, so long as he doesn't get disqualified during the
final test, he will become a spy, the person with the highest score
is always selected, that's the rules. Max got a Double First at
Cambridge, he's quite a chap."
James shook his head, still not believing what he was seeing. "But,
but, I don't see how he can have possibly passed first in all the
tests. What about languages, I thought every recruit had to be fluent
in at least 4 languages, at least enough to get by with the ladies,
arf, arf".
"True, his voice is rather difficult to understand, but actually he's
fluent in 27 languages, and he uses the new Prentke Romisch
"International" model, flips a few switches and it speaks with a
perfect accent, he can even set it up to mimic other peoples voices."
"Ok, Ok, so he's a clever little sonofabitch, but" - just then Max has
a particularly violent spasm that rocks the chair back & fore - "he
cant have scored well on the shooting range!!".
"On the contrary, a single shot and he bulls-eyed all three targets,
50m, 100m, and 150m, quite a shot!"
"But how!".
"Well you know back in the 70's, when we had to let women apply the
same as men, the rules were changed to let recruits choose their own
weapons because the standard Luger was a bit too heavy for the ladies
to use comfortably, well Max brought an armaments magazine with him
and chose the latest "fly by wire" mini missile, got 'Q' to integrate
the controls into the joystick on his power chair (provided his own
blueprints of course)."
"But that's cheating..."
"Steady on Bond, I seem to remember when you were a recruit you
smuggled that damned Walther PPK onto the range, and the rules
definitely required standard issue Luger then. Its not cheating, its
initiative."
James paused staring at the monitor, Max was still slowly unwinding
the copper wire from the motor. "What about unarmed combat, he can't
use new fangled fancy gimicky weapons there".
"Came top, disabled his opponent in 0.3 seconds - I believe your
record was something like 3.9s".
"I don't believe it, who was he fighting, his granny, arf arf".
"He fought Wu Ton, our resident 7th Dan black belt karate expert, he's
still on sick leave. I have the fight on video, do you want to see
it?"
'M' crossed the room and inserted a video into the recorder, a picture
burst from the TV...
*************************
The view is of Wu Ton standing perfectly still watching Max
laboriously get out of his power chair, standing very wobbly one hand
steadying himself on the arm
of the chair.
Wu Ton: Would honourable student desire to sit in chair during fight,
I assure
him my blows will not harm delicate machinery?
Max: Are you sure its Ok? I don't want an unfair advantage.
Wu Ton: Student with chair, like man with legs, both will be defeated
by the
skill of Wu Ton.
Max clambers back into his chair and manoeuvres it to a point 7ft from
his opponent. Then he does a deep bow, almost resting his head on his
knees. Wu Ton returns the bow, never taking his eyes off his
opponent.
Before rising from the bow Max flicks the joystick forward. The flaw
in Wu Ton's inscrutable logic is realised too late, a chair which
reaches its maximum 15mph almost instantly is not like "man with
legs".
***************************
James watched the inevitable with a wince, grudgingly admiring the
little lift of the head before impact aiming just below the ribcage
into the "sola plexus", the timing of the raising of the knee to
present a second point of contact somewhat lower than the first, even
the deft flick of the joy stick which ensured that both the front and
back wheels rolled over Wu Ton's groin area as he passed beneath the
chair. Maybe there was something about this Max fellow.
'M' moved back to his desk continueing to watch Max still slowly
unwinding copper wire onto the floor. "The reason I've called you in
Bond is that we are totally flummoxed about what Max is trying to do.
As you know "The Bare Cell test" IS meant to be impossible to
complete, its meant to test an agents ability to recognise an
impossible situation, when to do nothing except wait for
circumstances to become more favourable. The best recruits usually
realise this after an hour or so and just bang on the door to get
"caught" and end the test. Max has been in there 5hrs 45mins
unwinding that motor, he's only got 15 minutes left before the end of
the test, if he doesn't work out that he's not meant to escape, just
accept that some things are impossible, I'm afraid the psychiatric
team are going to have a field day, he'll probably only get offered a
desk job after their report. I just wondered if you had any insight
into what Max was trying to do."
"That room is totally secure, the walls, floor, ceiling are completely
smooth, except for the light fitting which is innaccessible behind
steel bars and the extractor fan on one wall, even the door is smooth
on the inside - no chance of electrocuting the guard through the door
handle!!). That extractor fan is s red herring anway, since it is the
only thing accessible, every recruit beelines for it, trying to
fashion it into some sort of weapon, it just won't work. Several have
dismantled that motor before but you soon discover there is a "break"
in the wire and there is absolutely nothing you can use as a switch
so you have to twist the 2 wires together."
"Ah, but that's the interesting point", interrupted 'M', "when he came
to the break in the wire he hasn't joined them together he just
placed both ends on the floor by his chair, you can clearly see them
not quite touching - about 1/4 inch apart."
"Well, what the devil is he playing at, if he hasn't got a complete
circuit there'll be no juice, what does he think, the guards going to
trip over that mess of wire, arf arf. Poor show. Several recruits
have tried this, never works, either you have the juice on when the
guard comes in (but they always check and go out and turn it off at
the junction box), or the juice is off and the recruit thinks he can
beat the quard to the switch on the wall - they can't. Frankly I'm a
bit disappointed, with that break in the wire whatever he plans isn't
going to work anyway. Probably, just as well, being a spy is not just
about running about doing spy things - you need a certain way with
the lahdies, arf arf".
Miss Moneypenny's voice breaks in over the intercom, "I can assure you
he beats you in that department as well, huh hmm."
'M' butts in, "hang on, what's he doing now?".
Max moves across the cell and turns the switch on, carefully
manoeuvres the chair back to where it was, throws a few switches on
his communicator and it starts shouting "The guard's a hairy ape,
brain the size of a grape ... come and get me you overgrown gorilla".
The guard opens the door slowly, makes eye contact with the prisoner,
and surveys the scene, looks carefully at the mess of bare wires on
the floor, takes out a penny from his pocket and tosses it onto the
wires - no spsrks.
James exclaims "See I knew Wilkinson would not fall for any trick like
that, look he knows the power's off, he's edging round to make sure
he can get to the switch first in case Max makes a dash for it - ha
ha ha Max has failed."
Max's face was a picture, initially he had been eagerly leaning
forward - alert, but when the guard had tossed the penny, and was now
advancing towards him accross the useless wires, Max had slumped back
in his chair, a resigned look on his face. A slow river of dribble
started to trickle down his chin.
Just as the quard was 5ft away, the end of all his dreams of becoming
a spy, Max tilted slightly over the arm of his chair, a faint smile
appeared on Max's face as a drop of dribble left his chin and landed
precisely between the two ends of wire on the floor.
The lights in 'M's office momentarily dim but the monitor stays on,
showing Wilkinson almost mid stride topple like a great oak in the
forest, hair sticking out, an unfocused stare in his eyes.
"but... but...", James is still looking disbelievingly at the screen,
when 'M' says "oh don't worry about Wilkinson, there's a micro fast
breaker on that circuit (normally to protect the recruit, their
always electrocuting themselves when trying to build a booby trap),
he will have a large headache though."
A new camera is now tracking Max as he drives his chair out of the
room to freedom. 'M' picks up the microphone, "Powers, its 'M' here,
I am exceptionally pleased to inform you that you have superbly
completed every test, and, once you have completed training you will
be allocated your new code number '007', Commander Bond is intending
to retire from field duty in a few months, I'm so relieved we've
found someone capable of stepping into his shoes. As soon as your
cleaned up pop up to my office, I'm sure Commander Bond wants to take
you to the Officers Club to celebrate you beating his record score."
Max smiles at the camera, "that would be very nice sir, but my shout,
I insist, its quite lucky Commander Bond prefers his martinis
shaken!!".
FINI
Max Powers will return in "The Spy who Shaked me".
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