seen Jasmine. I couldn't even remember what she looked like really.
Doll-like, porcelain pale. But there was nothing fragile about her.
Back to that morning, and the inevitable email from Jasmine. At first it seemed no worse than the others, but it was. It was the start of something dreadful.
Hey,
Thanks for the report! Looks great at first glance.
99% there for me first time, so hooray!
There's a few tiny things that just aren't working for me, though, sorry. Maybe I'm just being slow, but there appears to be no progress on the issues we discussed last time. Should we not try and get them dealt with in the next work cycle? I've had a brief look in the shared folder, but there doesn't seem to be any info there. Am I looking in the wrong place?!? If you could perhaps ping over some data asap on those two topics that are outstanding, then I know that everyone here would be really thrilled.
Hope that's not bombarding you! Let me know if it's getting too much for you, won't you?'
xx Jas x
I stared at the email. Then at two buff folders on my desk. I kept a lot of stuff as hard copy only. After a few early incidents, I knew better than to leave files lying around on the server. Jasmine had a habit of seizing on raw data and twisting it to suit her purposes.
That's why I liked those decades-old computers that lined the corridor. They did their job marvellously and just couldn't be linked up to a network. They wouldn't understand what the internet was. They just did their job and issued their reports, burning the information onto ancient sheetfold paper with a reassuring rasp.
I stared again at the two cardboard folders. 'Mind control', said one. 'Aggression', said the other.
I stood up. Jasmine could wait. I was going to the hangar.
I made it as far as the corridor. Sebastian was collecting printouts, folding them neatly and immaculately tearing off the serrated edges. He would do this for most of the morning, then go and spend an hour checking on the flowers that grew around the village.
Tom slouched into the corridor and stood at my elbow, humming and harring, hovering like a fart in a bath. He clearly wanted to say something. I folded away the printout and looked at him.
'Seriously, boss,' he said. 'Can I have a word?'
He'd pocketed his phone. Clearly he was giving me his undivided attention.
I nodded. Sometimes you have to accept fate. Fate did not want me to go to the hangar today.
'What is it?' I tried to be businesslike.
'Right,' he began, stumbling a little. 'That family that have turned up in the village?'
'The Williamses?' I nodded. 'Has there been any progress?'
'Progress!' He was angry. 'Tony Brown bloody attacked one of them.'
'What? The policeman?'
'Sexually...' Tom paused. 'Er... Like a sex-starved rabbit.'
I felt a strange, chilly sensation. 'Jeez,' I said.
'The kids picked up on it somehow and stopped it.
But it was a close call.'
'Oh my,' I said. 'That's dreadful.'
'I had Megan Harries round demanding something was done,' Tom thundered. He raised an eyebrow.
'It's a real problem, isn't it, boss?'
'The Williamses,' I groaned. 'And that's why we introduced the policy of managed isolation.' I drummed my fingers on a computer casing turned grey with age. 'Rawbone has been gradually closed off from the outside world. I knew that having strangers appear would interfere with the data set.'
'Data set?' Tom was shouting. 'They're people!
The poor woman was bloody traumatised. She was nearly raped.'
Oh my gosh. 'Yeah.' I held up a hand. 'Yeah,' I repeated. Ts she OK?'
'Kind of,' said Tom. 'I dragged Josh round there last night so I could check on her. Hence the hangover.'
'And the baby?' I felt a knot of tension in my stomach.
'Oh, the child is fine as well. It could have been a lot worse.'
Sebastian spoke up. 'The Scions stopped it going too far.' He looked up from reloading a printer. They have followed your standing protocols. A further incident was prevented last night.'
'A further