The Eleventh Dimension or, a Series of Events that were NOT MY FAULT

2

At the time I was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar... sorry, couldn't resist that. I was working for a bloke who sells things; mostly legit, as far as I can tell, but with some problems with creditors. So it's my job to make sure that the money that's owed to him comes in on time and is all present and correct. He calls me his accountant, and, you may not believe this, I do actually go through the books for him too, as well as paying doorstep visits to the organisationally challenged. Because I'm good at my two jobs – very good, actually, even if I do say so myself – he's doing well, and he pays me well. And half a dozen months roll by, I forget all about Malecho Smith and the cruise, and he turns into a strange half-true part of the cruise anecdote, no longer real, just a crazy guy in an ex-girlfriend story in the pub.

Well, as the great man says, the past has a strange way of raising its head. And one night, nearly half a year later, I get a message from an address I don't immediately recognise: a Dr M Smith from some institute or other, and it doesn't look like junk. I open it, expecting to be offered steroids or sex with women dressed as zombies or something; but, no, short and sweet.

Tristram Jacobson. Further to our conversation, I enclose the location of our lab, the times we require assistance, our proposed wages, and a confidential video filmed for the research council earlier this year, detailing our objectives and methods. Please do not re-distribute this material, or discuss the contents with anyone. I look forward to your reply to confirm. Malecho.

First thing that surprises me are the times. Mostly evenings and weekends: not the kind of times that you run a normal business. These people are academics, and – if Mal is a fair representative – would not be filed in the drawer marked 'normal', so maybe that's OK. Then I notice the fees. Someone must have cocked up, because there are two more zeros than I was expecting. If that number is right, that's a nice little earner, right there.

I shrug. Whatever. Let's see the video. Let's, what was it, believe in demons and the Devil himself?

First a big screen saying 'private and confidential; restricted to authorised viewers only', or some such, with some vague warning about imprisonment and fines. Big deal, you get worse than that on most video games these days. Then the dreadful music rolls, and it begins properly.

To start with it's hysterical, and I laugh my tits off at the sight of Dr 'senior research director' Smith with his hair combed back, in a lime green suit, trying to smarm the camera with raw animal magnetism, as it bounces around in a shitty unprofessional way. Put it this way: the only animals with that kind of magnetism are flies on an electrified dog turd. So, I have my chuckle at his weird fawning, gurning face and his unbuttoned flies and the toothpaste on his chin, and I don't really listen much to what he's saying, except something about moving things out of higher dimensions. Then it cuts to some rubbish graphics of a big circle with arrows coming out of it, and he uses technical language that goes totally over my head. I get bored, so fast forward to the end. More warnings that my first child will be taken by the angel of death if I so much as fart the theme tune, the end.

Hmm.

I wonder what they want me for. I don't seem particularly skilled for their needs. And I wonder, a lot, about the pay cheque.

Hmm.

I send a reply saying basically that I'm curious as to why they think I'll be useful to them. I start to query the amount of money they are offering, and then I think better of it. Don't look a gift horse up the arse, in case it shits on you while you do so. We can negotiate that later, I think to myself, and by accepting his terms I put myself in a better bargaining position.

The reply is almost instant.

Need your abilities as security consultant. Client is nervous about secrecy of research.

Aha. Ah-fuckin-ha. Ah-take-on-me-Morten-Harget-with-a-troupe-of-spider-monkeys-up-his-bum-fuckin-ha. So client is big money, military or one of the weapons companies, say; don't want rivals muscling into the inter-dimensional bomb of the decade. Or something else. Whatever.

I smell money.

I check the dates and times again. Yep, it's a schedule that lasts about a month, not actually that far from here (I wonder if this is coincidence, wring my brain out about what I told him about myself, and can't remember) and I could probably do it. There is three weeks of odd hours followed by a solid fortnight of work, eight till eight every day. I could take holiday, or unpaid leave...