My friend, however, just picks it up and, without a trace of malice, crushes its skull slightly between his thumb and finger, and gives it a slap around the head, before slumping it by the fence.

It is still alive when we trudge inside.

The snake then speaks to me, telepathically.

"You were very loose with money when you were young"

I’m sliding down a sandbank. (I feel 12 years old)

"How do you know?"

"Oh, I know things about the world"

Remarkable.

_____________________________

Inside, the snake-being reappears, fully revived, and now wearing headgear – like a ‘Tron’ helmet – with a row of flashing red LEDs across the front.

To show me what it ‘could have done’, it clamps its lizard-like jaws onto my hand, strong, …crushing.

He continues, "…and then, I would have sucked all your blood out, by injecting 2 needles into your throat"

[Mentally, I feel needles penetrating my neck]

The snake-creature is actually involved in a clandestine recruitment program.

Would-be conscripts are required to undergo a quasi-medical procedure – for which their consent must be obtained, through whatever means – during which they are transformed, or modified, into ‘droid-warriors’, and pressed into military service as automated combat units, defending the Ganymede Nebula.

The result is ‘half human/half armament’. A sizeable remnant of biological tissue is left intact – mainly nervous system and spinal cord, reprogrammed in MicroRed, and certain major ligaments and tendons, for connection to the hydraulics of the pulse cannons, or ‘Thumpers’.

The heart of the Nebula’s strategic effort is an enormous, floating space platform, a kilometre expanse, laid out in precision lines of "Vac–Attack" squadrons, and dense rectangles of cloned, ‘modified’ infantry battalions.

The installation is open to vacuum, its vast floor saturated with sub-luminal, high dispersion grids, for the MicroRed data. Below, in darkness, hangs a Gothic and inverted chaos of fuel dumps and service bays.

Defending the perimeters, and underside, are the massive GyroMountings that house the ‘droid weapon placements.

_____________________________

On the tabletop in front of me is a scaled down model of the platform, and a number of chunky figurines – representing the robot ‘droids.

Each one is positioned into a series of slotted holes on the base, via pins on their underside, and equipped with ‘gun-arms’, which can be aimed up and down, or rotated.

I slot one of the units into position as I am explaining.

"He also asked if I’d spent any time at the Hanson-Kennedy Centre"

(Some training institute)

Mother: "…Oh, my ...God!"

By now, of course, ‘the kid’ (or me …or both) is completely hooked on the idea of becoming ‘a ‘droid warrior under the command of the evil space master dude with the huge army on the space platform…’

In fact, the snake’s very strategy for successful recruitment rests precisely on allowing the subject (having first engaged them in conflict) to prevail – thus planting the seeds of faint intrigue, where they might eventually flower.

Which they have.

The kid has taken to tossing his ‘disks’ around – prototype weaponry for grounded infantry – a set of four complex, powered annuli, featuring metal spikes and other protrusions, bouncing them artfully around the walls.

My own weapon of choice is a narrow blade – like a double-ended scalpel. Its resonant elasticity sends it careening from the floor in a succession of stylishly lethal spins, the light flicking vengefully from its precision machined edges.

The mother, distressed over the direction of events, mentions going out, and seems to have compelling reasons why we should go with her.

We don’t really take to the idea of going out. We wanna stay home … and TRAIN!!

_____________________________

Evil Space Master Dude (sic) sits down to dinner – which looks like a slab of raw fish, or a large fish finger.

Anyhoo, he puts his forearm down on the table and spears the fish, lengthwise, onto a long row of spikes on his gauntlet. Then, deciding that it’s upside down, he starts taking it off again, in pieces, flipping them over. [Bits in my mouth taste foul]

Referring to a map on the table in front of him, he continues.

"…Well, I’ll show you… In the meantime, Uranus has moved around to …here…"

[He moves a small counter around in its orbit] From what I can see of his map, Uranus appears to be orbiting Jupiter, or some other planet …like Jupiter, …but …not in our Solar System!!… […at least, ‘not as we know it, …Jim’…]

_____________________________

I am situated near the main entrance to a complex of structures underneath the (space…yawn) platform, but out of sight, behind ‘some convenient corner or other’.

Voice Over: "…It’s about to open up..!!!…" [who is that guy?!…]

Sitting out in the open, before the massive cargo bay doors, and also waiting to enter, is a …dog (well, either a dog, or a dog-like …individual but featuring the alert, perpendicular ears of a jackal…)

The doors are opening, with a spectacular rumbling of cogs. I call out to the dog, …using the words…

He leaps forward, and I follow him into a gloom. Inside, there is nothing but a row of three identical lifts, their doors shut. But, containing what. Armoured ‘droids? Bio-hazard? …Tigers? Probably, just buttons.

The dog glances up at me, smiling.

"…Yeah. Err, thanks …boy…"

I press for the middle lift at random – and the doors slide patiently shut on a poignant scene of the dog, still smiling at me from the concrete vestibule

Going …UP, and then, for a while …DOWN, then I get out, …but jump back in as the doors close, and go …DOWN, …then …UP …further UP, then …UP & DOWN & …DOWN, …UP DOWNDOWN …DOWN …UUUUUUPPPPPP …and so forth. You know, to throw off anyone who might be tracking me.

It's getting late.

_____________________________

Meanwhile, up on the main deck level… there is ...total mayhem!!!!!!!

The station ………is under attack!!!!! Some kind of.. …of …….ENERGY …DRAIN!!!!!!!!

I am assisting at an operating table, deep within the platform, dispensing medication and lubricants through a plastic, multi-celled syringe.

Distant, pounding collisions filter through the metal walls.

The ‘Evil Space Master Dude’ (sic) appears in a doorway, a sizeable man, particularly in full battle regalia; an impregnable bulk of… – and …wallops me!

I heard a white-ish hum and the room pitched right – me going down I expect. Before I can react to that, however, he helps me up, calmly issuing the following somewhat enigmatic instruction…

"…You will…mate, …or relate…"

Mate, or Relate? A rather strange feeling comes over me, as though, somewhere, a door was opening, onto a vast multitude of possibilities …social arrangements, of some kind …that weren’t there before… and which now, make suddenly available.

I realize that I find the prospect slightly intimidating – either, of ‘relating to people’, …or the suggestion that I may not be doing so. Or, just, of a door opening to such a large room, so precipitously.

I return pensively to my duties at the operating table.

Me: "…So, I guess …I’ll have to get …‘on’ to people…"

ESMD(sic): "…They’re always the ones that want you…"

Or, was it, "…You’re always the one they want..."? Either way, I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.