Or so everybody thought at the time.

Little Kathy had been invited to London to demonstrate her work to an eminent computer scientist, who at the time was excitedly promoting exciting ways of networking academic machines together in Universities, for research purposes. He had heard of this precocious child who lived in a house full of pieces of expensive computers and had thought he would be able to exploit her remarkable mind to help his own causes.

He was wrong.

When the little girl and her father first arrived, they were treated with ridicule and scorn. It was impossible for the bearded collective to imagine this little girl had anything at all to offer, but the scientist was very persuasive and eventually they agreed to give the child an audience, to satisfy their own curiosity for the most part, but also 'just in case'.

Kathy was utterly terrified when the nervous little bald man gave his introductory speech. She did not hear much of it and sat on the stage in the big hall wringing her hands and biting her lip, thinking about the ashen colour of his voice and the way each enthusiastic word spiked into the air like a tiny firework. Once the anticipatory applause had picked up and then died away, her father leaned over.

'Okay love,' he whispered, 'just like you showed me last night. Everything you need is there on the table.'

'I'm scared!' she said.

'Don't worry, pumpkin.' Her father squeezed her hand comfortingly. 'You have something very special to share today, don't you? I'm right here, I promise I won't leave your side.' He stood up and held out his hand. 'Come on, I'll buy you an ice cream after.'

They stepped up to the table together. There was nothing remarkable on it, a standard IBM 486 computer. One of the ones with the new VGA colour screen, some electronics equipment (diodes, capacitors, wires) and various tools.

The computer was switched on and the audience were treated to the familiar sight of the windowed operating system starting up, projected onto a large screen behind the couple on the stage. Kathy and her father played a quick game of Reversi to show this was indeed just an ordinary computer and there was polite applause when Kathy won easily, then chuckles when she ordered her father to begin dismantling the large white case.

The next half an hour was a blur of activity, wiring and soldering during which the little girl chattered away, explaining what she was doing in minute detail. She did not refer to any notes, or take guidance from her father, but merely spoke quickly in her sing-song voice, using the special language the two of them had created in order to make sense of the shapes and colours she could see and nobody else could.

She had the feeling that not one of the people in the room really knew what she was talking about, but their eyes remained glued to the big screen, which was now showing a bird's eye view of the workbench, computer parts laid out neatly like an exploded technical diagram. She knew her descriptions often left out many crucial details, but in the end it was impossible to argue with the results. For now she would have to try and ignore the pained looks and impatient coughing.

Kathy finished by carefully placing the monitor back onto the desktop facing the audience. She picked up a microphone she had plugged into the back of the machine, which now looked like it was being attacked by a swarm of snakes, or several octopi. She held the microphone up to her lips nervously, she had been so busy building and chatting that she had forgotten where she was.

The little girl looked up at her beaming father and he took her hand reassuringly.

'Go ahead, love' he said, squeezing her fingers. She shut her eyes for a moment, then spoke loudly into the microphone.

'Hello Unicorn.' Kathy said.

The screen flickered on and briefly filled with rows of text. The text was quickly replaced by a swirling whirlpool of rainbow colours that resolved into the image of a face, looking as if it were pressed against an undulating sheet of brightly coloured silk.

'HELLO WORLD.' the face said, pixellated lips forming an impressive approximation of the words, the voice a caustically grating electronic sound. Kathy winced. She would have to work on that.

'My name is Kathy.'

'HELLO KATHY, YOU MAY CALL ME UNICORN.'

'I am very pleased to meet you,' said Kathy, 'I would like to introduce you to the members of the Royal Society.' The multi-coloured eyes on the screen seemed to wander round the room and there was not a man there who did not feel in his bones that the machine was looking at him.

'IT IS AN HONOUR TO MEET YOU, THE ROYAL SOCIETY.'

The applause was deafening.

'Open up! Davey please open up!' Davey started. Janet's voice. Hysterical. It was a few moments before his old body forgave him for falling asleep in the armchair yet again. His joints cracked and complained as he fumbled his way to the front door.

'Alright Jan, alright!' he growled, his shaking hands dropping the door keys with a crash. She continued knocking even while he was strugglling with the locks.

'Please Davey! Please! It's William - I don't know where he is, you have to help me!' The little boy's mother burst through the door, knocking the old man aside and frantically scouring the dark cottage for any sign of her son. Davey pushed the heavy door closed and turned wearily to the distraught woman, who was disappearing into the hall.

'Wait, come back!' he shouted, chasing after her as she ran from room to room, slamming doors, disturbing decades of dust and calling out desperately for the little boy. Davey caught her when she rushed back past him and they both collapsed onto the hallway floor, the little boy's mother weeping uncontrollably.

'He ain't here, love.' the old man whispered eventually.

'B-but you saw him yesterday?'

'Aye, I did that. He sat wi' me for a while, like he always does. He went straight home.'

'But he didn't come back! He didn't! Weren't you watching him? Where would he go? Oh William what's happened to you?' She clung to his chest as fresh waves of sobbing overcame her. Davey struggled to comprehend the situation, little Billy gone? They couldn't have taken him, not that quickly, not that quietly. He had watched the lad run across the lawn to the door. He felt the shock of realisation dawning. They must have been inside the house, while they slept! He pulled Janet closer to him, stroking the shaking woman's hair.

'Y-you promised me!' she said. 'You told me - you said they wouldn't come back, ever - not after Michael!'

'I know love. I made sure it were all over. He's probably just out with his Fancy Pirate friends, out in the woods. You know how he is.' Davey cringed, even as the lie left his lips. He had to get Janet away from here before they came back. He had to get out there and find the boy, find him before it was too late. She pulled away from him.

'You don't believe that! You can't believe that! You must have felt it yesterday. I felt it, I knew someone was watching, oh Billy what have we done?' Davey seized the tearful woman by the shoulders and tried to hold her gaze. Her eyes wandered over his face, unfocussed, frightened.

'Now stop that Janet, look at me!' he said. 'You know I would do anything for the lad! I'll find him, don't you worry. I swear on my...' He struggled to find something she would believe and found nothing. 'I swear I will find him for you.'

'But the Seekers, they're back, aren't they? It's happening again, isn't it?'

'Seekers will never take the child from us, not while I'm alive, you hear?' Janet searched the old man's craggy features for signs of further deceit, then nodded reluctantly. She sagged.

'I was so scared, Davey, I don't - I called the Police, they said -'

'You did what?!' The old man was suddenly fierce and Janet shrank away from his anger.

'I'm sorry! I just wanted him to be safe, they said...' she tailed off, studying her wringing hands, eyes downcast. Davey forced himself to swallow the anger squeezed her arm reassuringly.

'Sorry, love. I didn't mean to be harsh.'

'I just don't want it to be true, tell me it isnt, tell me Davey please!'

The old man ignored the question. 'So what did old Smailes have to say for himself?'

'He- he told me to wait until the morning, he said he probably wasn't missing and I was just panicking about nothing. He said Billy was always in trouble and he wouldn't bother to come out until morning.'

'Hmpf, that bastard were always good with the ladies.'

'I'm sorry Davey, I just didn't know what to do.'

'Ah, don't you worry about that, I'll handle the police. It'll be alright, love.'

'No, no it won't, and you know it.' she snapped. 'You know William, he doesn't know where he is half the time. I don't know where he is, even when he's in the room with me!'

The old man sighed his agreement and helped Janet up off the floor, leading her gently into the kitchen.

'Aye, he's a funny one. But he knows what's what, even if he can't explain it sometimes.'

'I just don't understand him, I don't understand all this,' Janet waved her arms vaguely indicating Davey and herself. 'What's going on? Have they really come back?' She collapsed into a chair, her head in her hands. Davey watched her and wondered what the hell he was going to do now.

'You promised,' she whispered, defeated. He filled the kettle and the pair sat in silence for a while listening to the bubbling water, the hiss of steam and the loud irregular ticking of the old man's grandfather clock.

Tick... TOCK-tick... TOCK-tick...

'You might do something about your boiler, Davey.' Janet said, pulling the threadbare dressing gown tight around her. 'It's freezing in here.'

'Aye, suppose I might. Seems little point now, though hey?' The woman shrugged and worried at the dirty tablecloth with her fingers.

'I should be out there, I should DO something.' She was pleading with him now, as if hoping he would produce the boy from under the table at any moment. There he is. Now wasn't that a funny joke?

Davey pressed a hot cup of tea into her hands and settled down next to her. It was getting late. Every moment they delayed was a moment wasted. There had been so much he had meant to do last night. Everything was still all locked away, where it had been for the last seven years. He was not even sure if the mechanism still worked. He worried that he was too old for this, a couple of local thugs was one thing, but it had been mostly muscle memory and the muscles still betrayed him on occasion. Still, now he had to distract Janet, keep her busy and more importantly, get her away from here, from him. He stood up.

'Come on, we'll go out together. Bring the tea, it'll keep you warm.'

There was a flash of silver from amongst the trees as the two sad little figures stumbled out into the early morning mist, calling out the little boy's name. Once they were safely out of sight, a cloaked figure stepped out from behind the trees and moved towards the two houses.

She was sitting on a thick comfortable rug by an open fire at her father's feet. A minute ago he had been idly struggling through his sudoku puzzles and half listening to the girl practising her homework. She had said something. He had dropped his newspaper and was staring at her, with wide, questioning eyes. Her mother was absently embroidering a hideous cushion cover, or other such ghastly upholstery decor for their already over-decorated living room. She too, had dropped her work and was watching the girl, warily.

'What do you mean, Kathy?' asked her father. He sounded amused, but a little bit curious. Kathy felt the familiar flush of embarrassment sending a wave of redness up her throat to her cheeks. She clutched Alice, her little red-haired rag doll to her chest and tried to encourage an answer to her reluctant, trembling lips, to somehow explain what she had meant without seeming too silly.

They had been going through her times tables and something had happened, she'd managed to get one of the numbers wrong. What was it? She struggled to remember, to relive the moment and find out what had made her mother tut so loudly, and her father lean forwards in great excitement.

Two, four, six, eight, ten - no that wasn't it.

Five, ten, fifteen - no, not that either.

Three, six, green - The little girl gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Her father raised his eyebrows and caught her eye. He winked.

'Come on, love, you can tell Daddy. What do you mean; 'green'?'

'No! I-' Kathy looked down at her exercise book, running her fingers along the row of numbers. 'I meant gree- ' She paused again, her heart beating furiously, the rush of blood pumping through her ears making her head spin. This was all getting a bit much. She'd only started having these problems a few weeks ago, and it was not normally this difficult. She took a deep breath and concentrated on the page as hard as she could.

'N-Nine!' she managed at last. 'That's what I meant, nine! Not green! That would be silly, wouldn't it daddy? Three, Six, GREEN!' She began to giggle a little too earnestly, her desperate eyes searching his face.

'Yes dear, it would be silly.' he said gently, leaning down and lifting her onto his knee. 'And do you know why?' The little girl shook her head, still giggling desperately. Her mother sighed pointedly, exasperated at the child's silliness.

'Why Daddy?'

'Because "Nine" is a yellow-ochre colour, not green. "Three" is green!' He sat back, triumphantly. The little girl's giggling stopped abruptly. She stared at her father, stunned, her mind in overdrive. His words rang out in the suddenly silent room with only the crackle of the wood on the fire as accompaniment. Kathy watched them fly around the room and get sucked up into the chimney, their oscillating colours contrasting with the golden red of the fire. Was he joking? Was he making fun of her?

'No,' she said carefully, 'Nine is definitely green, look!' She turned the page in her exercise book and wrote a large nine on it. She held the page up for him to see.

'Green.' she said, settling the matter.

'I'm sorry sweetheart, I just don't see it the same way you do.' he said, shaking his head and laughing. 'It still looks yellow to me.' A disapproving cough erupted from her mother's seat on the other side of the fire.

'What are you two on about?' said Kathy's mother crisply, 'I've never heard such nonsense!' Her father gave Kathy a reassuring hug.

'I'm sorry dear,' he said, 'I know you've never believed me, but I think our little Kathy has the same synee responses as I do.' Her mother rolled her eyes, but had stopped embroidering and was watching the little girl nervously. Kathy wondered what she was really thinking.

'Syn- what?' she asked.

'Tell me about the other numbers, love,' her father said. The little girl told him.

Over the next few months the two of them devised a system of categorising the numbers and letters by colour, according to the way the little girl saw them. She discovered that now everything had a place she was able to find the answers to mathematical problems without having to go through the tedious process of writing out the workings. She could see the answer right there in her mind's eye, the shapes and colours of the different numbers twisting and merging together so there could only be one possible answer. The most difficult thing was keeping the whole process a secret from the other children.

'They wouldn't understand,' her father had told her. 'It is best if we keep it between us.'

But keeping her skill a secret proved quite impossible.

Within a year, the little girl had completed - and rewritten in places - all of the maths books the small village school had access to. Furthermore, mathematics was not the only thing that Kath understood better than everybody else. She quickly developed a remarkable sense of electronic engineering, such an affinity in fact, that rumours of her conversing in binary sent ripples through the country.

In the autumn of 1989, Kathy received an invitation to present her latest project to the Royal Society of London. Her father was more excited than she was, but Kathy thought that it was probably time to share her creation with the world.

They had no idea that the Seekers were watching.

'Mother wouldn't hear o'it, not wi' Seekers hanging about the place and no father around to protect us. The war were just about over, beautiful country wasting into dust. Thought it would get better, but the real horror were just beginning.'

The boy wrapped his arms around his grubby knees and shivered. He was only 7 years old, why would this strange old man want to tell him these things? Usually good for a yarn or two about the days after the war, the old man's features were gaunt, greyish with cold resigned eyes and hands trembling more than usual. Somehow today was different. There was no exciting narrative of the old man's own father's wartime heroics and how they all Pitched In to Make Britain Great again, there was no ruffling of the hair and wanting to know how many ships had been sunk this evening. There were no cookies.

They sat quietly together on the dusty old step outside the old man's front door and contemplated the shadows in the overgrown hedgerow along the drive.

'So y'see, I couldn't go sailing on a pirate ship, not with the pond all dried up, all stinking of rotting weeds and neglect. Worst of all, I could never go Adventuring. In those days the bushes were too overgrown and dangerous, full of sticky cobwebs and dark secrets.' He raised his eyes slowly to look at the boy. 'Poor mother. Got her too in the end you know.' The old man shivered at the memory. 'Aye, it were a sad, sad day and what were I left with?'

'But what did you used to do?' said the boy. 'What else is there apart from flyin' an' playin' an' findin' treasure? Inside is borin', why couldn't you go outside?' The boy tried to keep the tone of impatience out of his voice, old people were so funny sometimes, why don't they play like normal people? 'There's always Important stuff to do!' he added, almost triumphantly.

The little boy tried to show confidence in this view, although he could sense the old man's trepidation. There was another emotion hanging in the air that he did not understand. Guilt, no - anger? It clawed at his mind but he pushed it aside, back into the general shadows where such things belonged. The night closed in on them then, when the old man stopped talking and there was no light, save for the dim flickering bulb in the dusty porch.

The old man made no reply to the outburst, but instead reached a shaking hand into his threadbare tweed jacket and pulled out an ornate wooden box, about the size of a cigarette packet. The little boy craned forwards for a better view. The box was covered in what look like intricate carvings, depicting a caricature of a man whose features were built from tiny pistons, cogs and pulleys, connected to even more elaborate machinery that covered the whole contraption. On the back of the box all the wires and cables converged on a hole in the centre, a beautiful, hypnotic pattern in the circuitry.

'What is it?' asked the little boy.

The cartoon man's face was contorted into a terrifying grin and the boy could not tell whether it was a grimace of pain or pleasure. Mechanical eyes seemed to follow him as the old man turned the box over and over in his hands, fingers tracing the lines of metalwork around its edges.

'Well lad.' the old man continued, ignoring the question. 'There are a lot of things in the world we pretend we can't see and there are people out there in the shadows who take a deep personal interest in the affairs of extraordinary folk like you or I.' The boy looked at him, startled. How did he know about the Shadow? What did he mean, 'extraordinary'? He began to speak, but the elderly gentleman stood up wearily, leaning heavily on the boy's shoulder. He patted the young lad's back thoughtfully and turned to retreat into the warmth of his house.

Almost as an afterthought he spun round and thrust the wooden box into the boy's hand. The boy looked down at the strange object wonderingly. The cartoon man grinned grotesquely at him and he was overcome with the old familiar feeling that somebody was watching, waiting. Behind the old man the grandfather clock in the hallway began to slow, a hypnotic, familiar sound of slightly out of time tick-tocking echoing far into the night, conjuring whirligigs of light slowly spinning and flashing into infinity. The old man laid his hand on the boy's head, bringing him out of the trance with a start.

'Now then, stay with me here, son.' he said, smiling kindly down at the frightened little boy. 'We can worry about that later.'

'Yes sir.' The boy watched his friend, warily.

'Don't worry,' the old man said, 'keep the box close to your heart, I pray to the Gods you won't need him but he will protect you when the time comes. Now go straight home and tell your mother I said to keep you safe. Tell her - Tell her Davey says it's time to move again. Tell her it will be okay, I'll call in the morning. Now go, quickly and don't look back! I'll see you soon, I promise.' He stretched with much bone crunching and a satisfied groan.

'Right. It seems I have work to do tonight, so off you go!' The old man smiled vaguely again and slowly shut the creaking door.

The boy ran.

The old man watched the boy head for the gap in the hedge and scramble frantically back into his own garden. He muttered to himself as he headed back inside, securing all five large iron bolts on the big oak door.

'Mark my words, lad. There've been stirrings in the shadows these last weeks. Somebody knows about you, and it's not safe anymore. I thought I could keep them away but it's all starting again. It always starts again. I'll see you soon, I promise. I swear I will make it right.'

The old man did not catch the movement in the bushes. He was unaware of the cold eyes watching, a sudden glint of metal in the moonlight and the hurt mewling of an indignant cat that had just been kicked.

The little boy did not come around again.

The next day there were sirens and dogs and shouting. The old man let the net curtain fall and slumped heavily into the tired old armchair in the window, sending up a little cloud of dust.

He put his head in his hands.

Mother and son perched on rickety worm-eaten chairs around a small oak table, stoically munching through an uninspiring combination of shrivelled and insect-plagued garden vegetables and potatoes.

Conversation was scarce - the little boy's mother had long since given up asking him about his days at school. Either he would not reply at all, or would blurt out some fantastic story of his Latest Adventure, which just confused and upset her. His teachers always gave him glowing academic reports, but regularly told her he did not mix well with other children. The other children were afraid of his quietude, his knowledge. His aptitude for mathematics and science.

Once, his teacher, Miss Hollinshead had come round to the house, shown her a copy of what the little boy had written and asked her what it meant, as if she had been doing work for him. Unable to help, ashamed and frightened, she had accused the poor teacher of making it all up to embarrass her and sent her packing. Her son hadn't spoken to her for days afterwards, although she guessed he was as confused and worried as everybody else. Not to mention that the incident had made his life in the classroom just a little bit more difficult.

A tense, worried woman, she kept constant watch over her son lest he abandon her, following the example of his father. Every day she anxiously watched the boy return from school quiet and thoughtful. She would stand at the kitchen window and wonder at the transformation from aged philosopher into a typical 7 year-old, playing happily in an unfathomable world, bursting into life in their wild garden.

Later, while knitting absently by the fire and half listening to the boy chatter about his latest adventures, she would daydream of a time when life wasn't so secluded, when the world used to be safe.

The little boy knew nothing of his dear mother's dark moods, of course. His world was too full of wonder and excitement. Of course, the Shadow always lingered on the outside of his consciousness, but he was used to pushing it aside in favour of lighter pastimes. He did not know any other way to be.

Eventually the woman's weary head drooped onto her chest, pins and wool falling to the floor as she began to snore. The little boy gently covered her in a blanket then quietly slipped out into the dark. He blocked out the clawing, clutching Shadow and crawled through a well-worn hole in the overgrown hedge into next door's garden.

The old man was sitting on the front doorstep as usual, his hunched figure silhouetted against the open doorway, a thin wisp of white smoke swirling out of an ancient wooden pipe far up into the stillness of the November sky. They often met like this, the old man and the little boy, both appreciating the opportunity to share stories of the day's adventures.

'That foolish old man,' the little boy's mother would say, 'He has a worse imagination than you!' But the old man hardly looked up when his young friend settled down next to him and began to tell him about the pirates. The old man let him finish, then with a sigh began to speak softly, as if ending a conversation he had started in his head.

The little boy listened.

The little boy stood before a full and silent classroom.

Everybody was staring at him open mouthed. He saw Bobby Gibson sitting at the back of the room, grinding his fist into his palm and cracking his knuckles. The Bully shook his head slowly. I'm gonna get you later. The little boy looked away, trying to blink away the embarrassment and stop thinking about those fearsome eyes, about the pain they promised.

Young Miss Hollinshead had her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. The air was heavy with unspoken questions, jealousy, amusement, embarrassment. The little boy turned back to the blackboard, which was covered in numbers and Greek letters and meaningless squiggles. A second ago it had all made sense. But while he was talking, an unbearable wave of emotions had come over him and now it meant as much to him as to anyone else in the room. He tried to read the numbers again, but with each snigger from behind him a jagged flash of light scythed across his vision, leaving traces across his eyelids and spearing painfully into his temples. His brain was overflowing with a terrible cocktail of derisive amusement and shame.

Leave, now. The voice cut through the mess, a stark white trail of words hanging in the air and the little boy ran out of the classroom, screaming his embarrassment to the empty corridors. A few curious faces appeared, poking out like gophers from the rooms along the hall, but they were quickly withdrawn when they realised who was causing the commotion.

The little boy cowered in a dusty old broom cupboard, hands clamped over his ears trying to shut out the laughter, which danced across his consciousness leaving rainbow spirals of neon light spinning deep into his brain. He remained like this for the rest of the afternoon, rocking and staring through tear-filled eyes at walls covered in the same strange markings.

This was a normal day.

The Captain drew himself up before his loyal troops as he finished speaking. It had been a good speech, a glorious call to arms, rousing the rabble from their sadness and preparing them for the last big push. It was make or break time. The brave Captain surveyed the scene before him and slowly raised his right fist.

'Onwards men!' he shouted, punching the air in time with the words. 'On to VICTORY!'

Holding his arms outstretched, the little boy leapt off the old tree stump with a whoop and took off, now the world-renowned Fighter Ace; Red Leader, sprinting furiously around the small garden as fast as his legs would carry him. Charging through the apple trees, he swooped and climbed, narrowly avoiding a direct collision with a tree here, making a daring sideways dive over the pond there, and causing little flashes of gold to disappear into the pondweed.

'Red Leader to Red Five! Cover me! Bogies on your six!' he called, excitedly commanding his wingmen to follow and laughing with delight at the tiny people far, far below, like ants in a model village. Thomas, the fat tabby cat, barely escaped when the little boy descended upon him, guns blazing. He chased the cat, who retreated to a safe distance in the bushes with barely a backward glance, resuming his washing with a wary, suspicious eye on the hyperactive child. The boy laughed and taunted the animal. He never got tired of this game, no matter how disdainful the cat tried to be.

'Come on lads! Let's bag us a Big Cat!' The little boy pulled on his Big Boots and wedged The Exploring Hat onto his tousled light blonde hair. He ventured cautiously into the thorny hedgerow hunting for Monsters with only his trusty pocket knife for protection.

'Steady boys, steady,' he whispered, freezing and making a complicated gesture with his raised hand. There was a rustling in the bushes and a streak of orange-brown fur. He had been too slow, Thomas had spotted him well in advance and now sat well out of reach in the old cherry tree, staring back at the Great Adventurer with an air of detached interest. The little boy grinned up at him and scratched his head.

Moments later the Dreaded Pirate Blackbeard scuppered a hundred wealthy merchant ships, saving a grateful maiden or two on the way and showing a little mercy to his enemies, but not so much that he risked losing the respect of his men. The dreaded pirate cheerfully persuaded Thomas to come down from the tree once the world was safe again and they had both been called inside for supper.

In the house nearby, net curtains twitched and shuddered.

A powerful wave of nervous energy suddenly overcame the boy and he turned quickly, eyes wide and questioning, but saw nothing. The movement in the curtains was not unusual - he knew the old man often watched him playing - but the sensation of being watched was not normally so negative and overpowering as this. It felt different, more oppressive, like a thick blanket of darkness beginning to smother him. He called it 'The Shadow', an ever-present sense of impending doom he had known for as long as he could remember. As long as he kept playing make-believe, the Shadow remained on the edges, but in recent days the behaviour of the other people in the village had changed towards him and the little boy was beginning to suspect that they had noticed it too. As a result his play had become more intense, more desperately carefree.

While running errands for his mother, it was becoming increasing difficult to ignore the whispers that followed him; Oh the poor thing, what with his daddy gone and his mother struggling so... Yes - the Shadow was getting stronger, but only he saw it as a physical entity, a clawing darkness threatening to smother his very soul. The others reacted as if they saw something rotten in him, making him feel like a disease carrier, a devil child. He noted the fear in their eyes, the involuntary shudder, the way they clutched their own children close, shielding them from him as if he would kill them with a glance. He saw emotions laid bare on bitter faces, etching themselves on his mind's eye for night-time awakenings.

He was no longer allowed to play with any of the other children. Even at school they had begun to give him a wide birth, so on he played, his imagination keeping him free when the world was trying to imprison him.

Yes, his fancies are all well and good, but where does it lead, I ask you? The words haunted him daily. It was not his fault that The Shadow was here, but it was definitely here for him. He did not understand the hypocrisy of the adults, how they could make great claims to care about truth and honesty, pitying him one moment and avoiding him the next.

The old man knew about truth.

Even a truth observed from behind dusty net curtains by a grumpy old man who lived next door, a man who had not been allowed to do anything at all when he was a little boy. A man for whom 'Truth' was beyond imagining, but his help would come too late.

When the Truth came to visit this little boy there was nothing anybody could do to save him.

'If I am so wrong, tell me! Maybe I can help you.' He struggled to put the words together. His cheek was swelling fast, but he somehow sensed that Balan wanted to talk, to teach him the error of his ways. The man was so full of his own cleverness. Perhaps that was the way to end this.

'I don't need you, I just wanted to see the look on your face when I bested you.' Balan put on a whispering, mocking voice, 'Let's finish this, it ends now, oh help!' He tugged the earpiece out of his ear and dangled it in front of the Hunter's face.

'How -?!'

'Shut up, child.' Balan hissed. 'There is more to this story than you and your little gang. The intrepid Adventurers, fighting crime without recourse to the Law! You would have realised this a long time ago if you could only stop playing games long enough to see beyond your own pathetic achievements. You and your little whore - '

The Hunter felt himself slipping over the edge. The man's voice became deeper, slowing down as if time itself had paused at the shock of his cold words, which sliced through the pain like knives. He flexed his fingers, welcoming the old familiar feeling that he was outside of reality, watching himself. The entire world seemed to compress, existence itself becoming just these two men, locked together, faces centimetres from each other. The Hunter could barely make out the words now.

'We... are... the same... You... ... ... and ... .. ...I...'

The Hunter held his breath and slammed his forehead into Balan's nose as hard as he could. He tried to ignore the sickening pain in his cheek and instead focused on the loud drawn-out crunch of tearing cartilage. Smiled as he watched the shocked eyes rolling and blood spraying in slow motion back into his face. It would be easy now. He was back in control. He spun the staggering figure around and with his good leg propelling him forwards, leapt onto the man's back. Balan lurched and swore, voice too deep and elongated to make any sense. He was too slow to escape when the Hunter locked his arm around the man's neck.

'She... was... innocent!' He shouted through his tears while the large man drove his elbows slowly into his ribs. At last Time glanced at the struggling figures and realised that one of them was out of place. The darkness lifted and the Hunter clung on through the familiar rush back to normality. The last blow was full speed and a rib cracked, but he pulled his arms tighter, hearing the uncertainty creep into Balan's voice.

'You don't understand... you fool...' Balan slammed himself backwards into the walls, but the young man held tight for this was his last chance, his life really did depend on it.

At last the big man collapsed on the floor. The Hunter fell beside the unconscious body and allowed the sobs to overcome him. Found his knife. Held it high over the murderer, but his shaking hands refused to make the strike. He tried to summon the anger again but everything seemed so wretched now. Always take them alive, the old man had told him, for they know not what they do. The faces of the dead processed before his eyes, so many lives, so much loss. He had had the whole thing sewn up, the future planned.

We are the same, you and I... Now it seemed like he did not know anything at all.

A hand fell upon his shoulder.

'Hello, William.'

A deep rasping voice. A voice he had not heard for twenty years. The Hunter almost choked.

Grabbing the stranger's arm with both hands the Hunter tried to maneuver himself onto his feet. His broken leg collapsed under him but he held on tight, right hand flying up to grip the man's throat. He used the momentum to spin them both round until he had this new opponent pinned to the wall.

The man had had the same reaction. A metal hand gripped the Hunter's throat like a vice and when he stared up into the glowing red mechanical eye, he could clearly see the tiny metal blades around the iris adjusting as it focused on him. What can you see? he thought vaguely as the man smiled, slowly. The pressure on his carotoid artery was tremendous. It would not be long before he passed out.

'YOU!' The Hunter gasped.

The Hunter grabbed the array and ripped the glasses off his head, screwing up his eyes with a sharp intake of breath at the shock of the sudden darkness. The painful disconnect when the contacts on his temples separated. The earbuds, connected to the glasses by a thin membrane of silica also popped out of his ears, tinny piano music fading as the apparatus fell. In the silence he was horrified at the clear sound of his own weeping.

The shooting downstairs stopped momentarily. He imagined she had felt the disconnect and was desperately trying to send him messages but they meant nothing to him anymore. He cradled the limp body in his arms, his face buried in sweet-smelling auburn hair. He did not even notice when the gunfire ceased for good.

'Hunter!'

When The Invisible Killer jumped him, it was more instinct than skill that caused the Hunter to drop forwards, rolling with the murderer's momentum and slamming him onto the hard floor. His riposte was only a glancing blow to the ribs as the man's fist met his chin. Balan was already on his feet. He was fast for his size, and strong. The Hunter allowed himself to fall back and roll sideways into a crouch. Drawing his knife, he waited warily in the darkness. Tried to slow his breathing down, to allow the usual connections to fire up and break the scene up into manageable chunks, but the emotional shock of seeing the twisted body had devastated his neural responses. Perhaps he had damaged himself further when he had unceremoniously ripped the AR system from his head. Have to do this the old fashioned way. He struggled to focus on Balan through the undulating mists of colours and lights.

The black-clad man danced around him. The Hunter watched and waited, noting his tight-fitting clothes, designed for stealth and swift combat. Invisible, indeed. There appeared to be extra padding around the chest, body armour of some description. Two fierce grey eyes were all that was visible of his face and they seemed to sparkle in the darkness, taunting the young man. Suddenly Balan lunged forwards, feinted high and landed a brutal uppercut that seemed to drill all the way up through the Hunter's skull. His mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood as he bit through the tip of his tongue. His teeth practically rattled. Balan easily caught his clumsy swipe with the knife and crunched the bones in his hand together painfully. To the Hunter's shame and horror, the knife tumbled to the floor. Balan yanked on his arm and planted several swift punches on his exposed kidney then shoved him back. The Hunter reeled away, doubling up, stumbling, but the old man's teachings kicked in and at the last possible moment he turned the movement into a sweeping kick at his assailant's legs.

The Hunter could not see a thing now, his world had become filled with flashing lights and neon swirls in the encroaching darkness. He barely heard the sound of the bones in his leg breaking and collapsed to the floor in agony, helpless to prevent the man striking him again and again. His cheekbone cracked and the pain exploded with bright yellow sparks, rendering him temporarily blind. Balan laughed and took a step back. Through the mists of pain and frustration the Hunter saw that he was panting with the exertion of their combat, drawing rasping, wheezing breaths.

'Finally we meet on my terms, Hunter' The voice was deep and gravelly, betraying a lifelong love of tobacco and liquor.

'Your terms?' The Hunter spat a long stream of blood onto the floor. He felt dizzy, the room was bathed in glorious spinning golden lights. Balan was a mere whisp of bluish motion in front of him. The world was shapeless. This is not how it is meant to be. He looked up. 'It ends here, Jackson.'

'For you, maybe.' Balan sighed. 'I have to admit though, I thought you were better than this.'

'Why? Why did you do it? Why her?' The Hunter started to pull himself to his feet, but Balan pushed him down, grinding a sharp heel into his injured knee. The Hunter nearly fainted with the pain. He tried to keep his breathing steady while his brain thought treacherous thoughts; YOU put yourself here, in this situation, YOU made them come with you, YOU killed them. No-one else, just you. He attempted to pull himself together, to shut out the words. There was no-one left. The feelings were so strong, he did not think that he could invoke the trance now, but he had to try, or he would fall too. It was time to show the old man his sacrifice had not been wasted. Balan was speaking again.

'Perhaps you should ask your precious Unicorn. Seems there's a lot they don't tell you.'

'Unic- How dare you pretend to know about us! Scum like you? You've killed fourteen people!'

'Oh, that many?' He seemed pleased. 'And none more deserving than our little friend there.'

'But - she did nothing! She was just -' the Hunter spluttered, 'you know nothing!' He added lamely, quietly, his hand on her hair.

Balan reached down and pulled the Hunter up by the lapels until their noses touched. He tried to resist but the man was inhumanly strong and he could not help crying out when the bones in his injured leg ground together.

Acrid breath overpowered the Hunter's senses and the man began to laugh.

The foreman's house appeared to be held together by ivy, thick twisted trunks curling up the wall, roots growing into the brickwork giving the building the appearance of a big mutant plant. Although nearly pitch dark in the forest, the Augmented Reality glasses made everything clear as day as they scanned the outside of the building and presented him with a quick and easy route up the plant to the window on the first floor, the one furthest away from the staircase. He made short work of clambering up the plant, hoping that the noise of the shooting was enough to mask the sound of his ascent.

No time to worry about that now son, just stay alert, stay focused. The echo of the old man's voice cut through his thoughts. The Hunter tried to ignore it, just a remnant of an old friend long gone. He was desperate to avoid coherent thought and thus transmitting his true intentions to the combatants inside.

They had been forced to switch to sign language when he had realised what had been going on.

He must be listening in on the Neuros!

What? How? The girl's eyes had been wide.

I don't know, but we need a different approach.

What do you want to do? He's pretty well dug in up there.

I don't know.... Need a distraction. Think you can hold him?

Sure thing! I'll keep him busy! She had been frightened, her hands almost shaking too much to do the signing although the sentiment was ripe with bravado. He had seen the darkness descending around her and he'd left her there, alone.

He shook his head. Little lights began to appear in his peripheral vision, pulsing in time with the blood pumping round his head, like he could see his heart beating. Music: Stars, he thought and a gentle staccatto melody began to feed through his earbuds. With each note a white dot was extinguished and soon he was able to concentrate on the task in hand.

He crept through the window, Neuros silent now, lest Balan was still listening in. When he scanned the room, his glasses highlighted potential obstacles and showing him the optimal path through them. No readings from Balan himself. Somehow the bastard had managed to throw the system off so it was impossible to see him on the infra-red. He felt his muscles tense and tried to relax, to concentrate his mind so that when he finally caught up with the man there would be no mistakes. He would be on top of things this time.

But when he saw what lay there waiting for him, he felt his heart leap into his throat and a wave of nausea caused him to double up, throwing a hand out to steady himself against the nearby wall. The body of a young woman discarded on the floor, lying across a rotting old mattress. Limbs twisted awkwardly, beautiful face scratched and bruised. Blood still pumping slowly out, soaking into the material. He reached out to place his fingers on her neck. She had no pulse, but her soft pale skin was warm. A recent kill, then.

The scanner had already told him this and in much more disturbing detail than necessary, but the Hunter had always felt there was no substitute for real touch, real feelings. He needed to remain in touch with reality at all costs. Looking at the broken body, his eyes filled with tears and his vision tunnelled until all he could see were shadows and death, dark winged daemons spiralling around her battered face. They had only just found each other and now she was gone. He sank to his knees.

They were all gone.

All he could think about was the look on the man's face when they had met for the first time on the train a couple of weeks ago. The sneer as the murderer had leapt backwards out of the car and rolled away into the bushes. That was the closest they had ever been, until now.

Balan. The Hunter felt the bile rise in his throat as he thought the name. Nari had come up with it. The demon of finesse and ruses. Also a prince of hell and this bastard certainly lived up to the description. They had learned his real name when the Hunter had downloaded his image off the glasses into Unicorn's systems, but it was too late to adjust their thinking by then. The name stayed.

The press had called him The Invisible Killer. This year's big thing, leaving behind a trail of bodies with no evidence, no DNA. Twelve bodies to be exact, twelve that they knew about, anyway. Fourteen now. The Hunter felt the pressure begin to build behind his eyes.

They were all dead now.

Mummy, why is Daddy going blue?
I tied the knots all nice and tight, he kicked his legs about a bit -
I will kick the chair away, that will do the trick!

Mummy, why is Daddy's blood so slow?
It gushed and spurted out at first, but now there's just a trickle -
I will put the knife back in, and see if any more comes out!

Mummy, why is Daddy on the floor?
I put the strychnine in his dinner, hoping it would taste all nice -
I will fill his mouth with arsenic, that will get him up again!

Mummy, why is Daddy underwater?
I tied the breeze-blocks to his wrists, thinking it would help him swim -
I will drop some concrete on him, that will make him float!

Mummy, why is Daddy banging on the door?
I locked the tiger in his room, so that he could play with it -
I will put the leopard in too, then they will have fun together!

Mostly yes.

For some time now the idea of writing a proper story has greatly appealed to me, not only because work Got Wise to my online ramblings and put a stop to that particular outlet, but I do really enjoy it. The Wife says "Why don't you turn it into a book?" and I um and ah about it but ulimately decide that admin is really not that interesting.

So my first plan is to just start writing, make it an organic serial-type affair of 500-word installments, but after I sit down and write a couple of thousand words I quickly realise that I'm not going to get away with it. I have too much to say. What if I change something later that affects what I write in the beginning? Of course, given the flexibility of the web I CAN go back and change things organically, adding in pages and moving stuff around but it can't be too inconsistent so I'd better have a Plan!

So I begin to plot and outline, suffer a brief distraction learning about writing software (eventually settled on Liquid Story Binder), then spending more time reading about writing than actually writing and finally, about 20,000 words down the line (and that's only 3-4 chapters) I'm afraid that my story is going to be a lot bigger than I had originally anticipated.

I am going to start posting it up on Skip the Budgie in the New Year, will probably be scenes of about 700-1500 words a week and the story will flow from there. I've got all the Important Stuff planned out - the big twists - a complicated timeline, I just need to get it all down on paper now.

With the baby on the way time is ticking, but that's it really.

That's why I haven't been writing here.

I've been writing elsewhere.

I hope you enjoy it.

I lie awake listening to the soft breathing next to me and thinking about the little life that's brewing in there. This is what everybody goes through, right? It's not unusual.

So this week we have the second appointment with the midwife. She is very nice, but does kind of give me the impression that I shouldn't be here. It's all worth it though when we get to hear MiniMonkey's heatbeat, a sound which is at once both terrifying and exhilarating. Almost tempted to try and find out where I can get one of the listening gadgets from but am persuaded that I might become a touch annoying about it!

Anyway, the internet says she¹ is able to do all sorts of facial expressions, such as squinting, yawning and grimacing, which I'm sure has absolutely nothing to do with the constant poking and singing she is subjected to in our house!

Not to mention that she can suck her thumb and grab the umbilical cord! Ding ding ding! Hey you up there! How about some more of those penny sweets?

Trying to read lots of Books About Babies, I know there's a million of them and everybody says they're all crap, but it's as much as a frame of mind issue as actually learning how to become Superdad². Got some interesting ones about baby psychology and a funny one called Fatherhood, which women on Amazon hate.

Things are picking up so fast we've even got the school all planned out, will try not to be too disappointed when our dear child is 35, unemployed and living in the attic...