Web Site Story

next week?'

'How amusing,' said Mr Shadow. 'Shall we proceed to the editor's office and discuss business?'

'I have a paper to put out.'

'Yes,' said Mr Speedy. 'And all on your own, by the look of it. Unless you noticed a crowd of employees queuing up to get in. On your late arrival.'

'Hm,' went Derek. 'Actually no.'

'No,' said Mr Speedy. 'There is only us. We three and we must put the paper together by ourselves.'

'Couldn't possibly be done,' said Derek. 'You need typographers, compositors, mixers of inks, straighteners of paper. Someone to make the tea and pop out for doughnuts. It's all terribly technical, you wouldn't understand any of it.'

Mr Speedy shook his head. Slowly he shook it. 'We only need this,' he said, pointing to that tiny briefcase jobbie that those in the know call a laptop.

Kelly's hands were in her lap. Demurely.

The office where she now demurely sat was a pretty swank and fab affair. Walls of brushed aluminium, clothed by the works of Rothko, Pollock, Humphrey (in his pre-video, postmodern, hyper-realistic period) and the inevitable Carson. The floor was of black basalt, a stone desk rested upon steel trestles like a fallen monolith. There were two chairs, one behind the desk, with Mr Pokey upon it. One before the desk, with Kelly, hands in lap. Demurely.

She sat upon a chair the shape of a scallop shell. It was silver grey in colour and it didn't have any legs. The chair hovered eighteen inches above the floor, but did it in centimetres, as they were far more modern.

There was something alarming about sitting in a chair that didn't have any legs, and Kelly found herself ill at ease and constantly pressing the heels of her fashionable footwear to the floor.

'It won't collapse,' said Mr Pokey. 'It works on a principle similar to magnetism, but not. If you catch my drift and I'm sure that you do.' He smiled upon her breasts. 'Do you?'

'Naturally,' said Kelly. 'But it is somewhat disconcerting.'

'Yes, they never caught on with the general public. People eh, there's no telling what they will respond favourably to. Well, actually there is, but we like to keep them thinking that we don't know what it is.'

'Yes,' said Kelly. 'I can understand that.'

'The company that cares,' said Mr Pokey. 'Founded by…' He waved a hand and the face of Remington Mute appeared ghostlike and all 3-D above the desk of fallen stone. 'A legend. A true innovator. The man behind the most successful computer games company in the history of mankind. hellcab.' Mr Pokey waved his hand and a game screen gleamed and twinkled in the air, replacing the face of Remington Mute. Cars whizzed, explosions flashed. Sound effects came from hidden speakers.

Kelly barely suppressed a yawn. hellcab was standard stuff in her personal opinion. Hardly wonder boy or altered beast. But then she loved the old-fashioned games. They had a certain, well, humanity, if such a thing can ever be said about computer games.

'speedo,' said Mr Pokey and speedo hovered in the air. 'big truck rumble, fight night fifty, dog tattoo and maggot farm.' And up they came and dangled in the air.

'You know them all,' said Mr Pokey. 'And of course the search is on for even better and better. Better, faster, trickier, more challenging for the game-player. Back at the turn of the century everyone was placing their bets upon virtual reality. But what of that now? When was the last time you ever saw a player in a headset?'

'Yes that's true,' said Kelly. 'Why do you think that was?'

'Fashion,' said Mr Pokey. 'Plain and simple. As with clothes, music, cars, art, architecture, home furnishings, everything. You don't have to go on inventing things. Coming up with new things all the time. That's not necessary. You have Retro. Retro music, retro fashion, retro architecture. It's an homage to the greatness of the past. That's what made Remington Mute, he made computers big and comfortable again, the way they used to be. The way that people got nostalgic over. And the games. They were like the old games. Only better.'

'What makes them better?' Kelly asked. 'Is it the Mute-chip?'

'Mute-chip?' The big fat smile faded from the face of Mr Pokey. His gaze left Kelly's breasts and fixed itself upon her eyes. 'What do you know about the Mute-chip?'

'Well, nothing,' said Kelly hurriedly. And remaining very demure. 'I overheard two men talking about it, when I came into the building.'

'Did you indeed?' said Mr Pokey, leaning across his desk.

'I've no idea what it is. I thought it was only a Web Myth. Is it real? Is it something special?'

'Just product,' said Mr Pokey. But Kelly could see that he was pressing lighted pads that were set into his desktop.

'Anyway,' said Mr Pokey. 'I'm sure you'll learn all about the Mute-chip in the fullness of time. When you have risen to sufficient status within the company. But I wouldn't mention it in public if I were you. I am just replaying the CCTV footage of your arrival. If I can identify the two operatives, I will have them dismissed for their indiscreet talk.'

'No, please,' said Kelly. 'I wouldn't want that to happen because of me. They were whispering, actually. It's just that my hearing is very acute.'

'I wonder if you're lying,' whispered Mr Pokey.

'I can assure you I am not,' said Kelly. 'Now please tell me all about the job.'

'The job in hand', said Mr Speedy, 'is to promote Suburbia World Plc. Naturally this will be done mostly across the World Wide Web. But here, in this Luddite backwater, it must be done through the borough's official organ, the respected Brentford Mercury.'

'It's a newspaper,' said Derek. 'Not an advertising circular.'

'But this will bring jobs to the borough.'

'We don't have an unemployment problem here,' said Derek. 'And we don't have any homeless people sleeping on the streets. Well, we do have one, Mad John. But every borough has a Mad John, it's a tradition, or an old charter, or something. He sleeps in a hedge and he shouts at shoes.'

'Shoes?' said Mr Shadow.

'Shoes,' said Derek. 'He roots them out of the black bin liners that people of a charitable persuasion leave outside the charity shop on a Sunday night. Mad John gets the shoes out and puts them on parade upon the pavement and gives them a good telling-off.'

'Why?' asked Mr Speedy.

'Because that's what he does. He's a local character.'

Mr Speedy had his tiny briefcase laptop jobbie open. He was pressing tiny little jobbie keys on it. 'Sunday evenings, you say?' said he. 'Outside the charity shop. That would be the one on the High Street would it? The sfsasbisoagh. The Society for Small and Shoeless Boys in Search of a Good Hiding.'

'What are you doing?' Derek asked.

'Putting it on the schedule,' said Mr Speedy. 'All we have down for Sunday evenings so far is', he pushed more keys and peered at the screen, 'watching Old Pete plant sprouts in Allotment World…'

'Allotment World?' said Derek.

Mr Speedy read from the screen. 'Enjoy a real-life safari across Brentford's very own horticultural kingdom and wild-life preserve. Can you spot the giant feral tomcat of legend? Identify twenty-two different species of sprout? Find the spot where the sacred mandrake grows…?'

'Mandrake?' said Derek. 'It grows in Brentford?'

'A character called Old Vic grows it. We have a file on him. He used to be a prisoner of