Free All the Dead Are Here by Pete Bevan Page B

hand feebly to the room.
    “’Bye, JohnKendall,” said Cadish, and in a moment John was back in the alley, tingling all over. In the distance he could hear singing. He walked from the alleyway without looking back and never spoke of Cadish with anyone, however, he often pondered the experience and decided after a few years to join the clergy.
    Cadish hung like a silver star in the heavens for 7.6 nanoseconds. In this time he catalogued the internet, watched the whole of youtube, and everything ever made on television. He read every piece of writing committed to file. He came to the conclusion that he liked Benny Hill, Chess and JRR Tolkien the best but didn’t really like the film ‘2001’. Finally, he filed all the data away in subspace along with the dimensional search results and the trillions of simulations he had conducted, and decided to leave a marker for any passing traveller who happened upon the human race. For his own amusement he decided to leave it as a meat creature email.

‘[email protected]
    Dear Traveller,
    If you find this message it means you are in Geosynchronous orbit above a most remarkable planet, whose populace display the most interesting possibility solutions. I would recommend the inhabitants be viewed for a period of linear time, or to see the planet from first-life to fiery end, I suggest a hat-stand of non-linear time be employed.
    However, I most humbly request that you do not interfere or disturb the creatures below as their existence is short, brutal and fragile and any well meaning action can have disastrous consequences as I, Cadish, have learned.
    Best Regards,
    Cadish.’
    He simulated linear time to ensure that all who saw this message obeyed it, and unfortunately, several billion years in the future, Earth would be conquered by a warlike species from the rim of the great event. To counter this he added ‘... However, if you do interfere I will be... displeased’ to the last line, another scan revealed this would do the trick and ensure that the meat creatures would be left well alone.
    Cadish gazed at the planet one last time, thought about what had happened, and vibrated its interior space in a ‘hmmm’. Then it folded space around it like a child folding a duvet around itself in a cold bedroom and was gone.

The Minister: Verse 2

    Against the gentle whump whump whump of the helicopter blades, Paul Jollie listened to the last thirty seconds of the mp3 over and over again. He’d put the earpieces of his iPod underneath the bulky headphones to try and drown out the noise of the ancient Huey he was now sitting in. He was studying the photographs of the living room of the old croft where the attack had happened. He tried to visualise the knock at the door, the surprise of the occupants, that final, desperate struggle and what had happened after the tape stopped, after the bloody violence had ended. He had listened to the MP3 over and over again, studying every nuance of Joe Wyndham’s voice as he described the Minister and that final line, the voice of the Minister himself, his drawn out Scottish brogue dripping with menace. No matter how many times he listened, he couldn’t garner any further information from it and yet every time he listened to the recording the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention.
    The pilot leaned round from the front and pointed towards his headphones. Paul lifted each side of the helicopter headphones gently and removed the iP od earpieces. He moved the microphone into position. “What?”
    “ Twenty minutes until we hit the Edinburgh drop zone, Sir,” called the pilot.
    “ Alert me at five minutes to drop.”
    “ Yes sir,” said the pilot.
    Paul relaxed and closed his eyes, his privacy invaded by the grating whine of the chopper as it sped over the desolate British countryside . T he cold, misty morning looked almost sepia toned as the sun struggled to fight its way through the wet gloom. His mind wandered back to the meeting