Mister Jackson

Mister Jackson trades in the financial markets. He is very successful and earns a large income. He attributes his success, in part, to not paying rent for office accommodation. Instead, Mister Jackson uses various mobile telecommunication services to conduct his business.

It is necessary, for good reception, to remain in one place for a period of time. Long-term car parking is almost as expensive as office space in the areas covered by the broadcast data services which Mister Jackson uses. Hence, Mister Jackson is frequently to be found in Café Ultimate. On average two days out of every seven.

His car pulls up outside, he gets out, instructs his chauffeur “Collect me in four hours for lunch.” then carries his briefcase inside. His chauffeur drives around more or less at random, but never more than a few minutes from Café Ultimate.

Mister Jackson always leaves his credit card behind the counter. The staff know his order - black decaffeinated coffee to be kept coming, and two slices of buttered crispbread every half hour. He sits at a table by the wall and takes his data display and message pager from his briefcase. When he is not working, but is in a restaurant, Mister Jackson finds mobile phones annoying and considers those employing them indoors rude in the extreme. Hence, when Mister Jackson switches on his data display he always sets low brightness, and he carries a pager which has both “bleep” and “vibrate” settings. When he wishes to make a trade he hurries to the soundproof telephone kiosk just inside the door of Café Ultimate.

Mister Jackson uses an advanced model of data display - and expensive item - and one day somebody in the café decided to steal it. He waited until Mister Jackson had hurried to the telephone kiosk, then stood up, as if to leave.

His exit route took him past Mister Jackson’s table and as he passed he suddenly snatched up the unit and ran for the exit. Mister Jackson was making a deal at the time:

“No, I want to sell fourteens at seventy-five.”

“I’m not interested in selling sixteens.”

“No. Fourteens at seventy-five.”

“Fourteens at seventy-five I said.”

“Hang on a moment I’ve got something else. How about if I buy those XM’s from you?”

“You’ve been sitting on them for ages. Offer them as thirties and I’ll bid seventeen.”

The thief was just about to pass the kiosk and make good his escape. Mister Jackson took two quick steps backwards out of the booth, still holding the handset to his ear. The cord between the handset and the phone unit stretched out and caught the thief at neck height. Mister Jackson quickly wrapped the cord around the struggling thief’s neck and pushed him back into the kiosk, resuming his conversation.

“Sorry I didn’t catch that.”

As the thief tried to free himself from the cord Mister Jackson’s left palm caught his chin and struck the back of his head against the metal casing of the phone unit.

“Sorry there’s some noise here. It sounded like you offered them as thirties for twenty.”

Mister Jackson hit the thief’s head against the metal box a second time.

“Didn’t catch that either, it sounded like you said you weren’t interested.”

The thief slumped from the combined strangulation and blows to the head.

“Yup, I heard you fine that time, it’s a deal. Mine at seventeen.” Mister Jackson completed the deal by giving authorisation codes for both trades then pulled the telephone hook down with his hand. He released it, then called his chauffeur.

Soon the car pulled up outside Café Ultimate. Mister Jackson helped put the failed thief on the back seat.

“Take him to the nearest casualty room. I’ll pay the bill, but make sure it’s anonymous.”

“Very good sir.”

Hekst Hardcore

Meridienne looked at the men’s black uniforms and the implements attached thereto. She thought “They project hate, if I don’t respond with fear the can’t attack.” Jamis, her only companion looked like a little boy compared to the men in the café.

“We’re just trying to find the road to the North” she said. “We must’ve passed your café four times before we thought to come in. Ask directions.” Meridienne smiled. Jamis looked nervous. The men looked blank.

After a short pause their leader smiled. “All the roads kind of look the same don’t they?”

“Yes they do.”

Meridienne and Jamis laughed slightly, all the men smiled too and the tension seemed to be broken. Inwardly the men were smirking - their leader, Hekst, was only ever friendly to strangers when he’d thought of something really hard-core to pull on them.

“Let’s see now, North you say.” Meridienne and Jamis nodded and Hekst began to give directions. “OK, you go left out of here down to that star junction. Now you’ve got two roads going like this.” He gestured with both hands. “Then there’s a kind of track, going off, sort of at an angle like this.” He made another gesture but became dissatisfied. “Hey I know. Why don’t I draw you folks a map?”

“Thanks very much, that’d be great.” said Jamis.

Hekst’s left hand caught Jamis’ collar, whilst his right grabbed the young man’s belt. The other men moved quickly. Meridienne found her arms pinned to her sides from behind. She struggled and a second man wrapped his arms around her neck. As she tried to fight them off Meridienne caught a glimpse of Hekst picking Jamis up onto a table. Meridienne felt a piece of wood passing against her chin. Then, with a sharp twist, her head was jerked upwards. From the corner of either eye she could see the long stick the man was using. In front of her more men were holding Jamis down, one applying the same stick neck lock which held her in painful immobility.

Hekst flicked open a six inch blade and cut the buttons off Jamis’ shirt in one staccato motion.

“Now then. We’re here.” Jamis took breath sharply through his mouth as Hekst cut a small square, millimetres across, just to the right of Jamis’ solar plexus. “Don’t squirm so much son, I’m trying to help.” Hekst teased Jamis’ left nipple with the blade and his men sniggered. “So you go left out of here”, drawing the knife across to Jamis’ left ribs, a little blood sprang immediately, “then there’s a star junction with one, two, three, four, five, six roads coming off it. You want this one.” Hekst extended one arm of the asterisk up towards Jamis’ neck. “On this road you want the one, two, three, fourth turn-off. That’ll take you North.” Hekst wiped and closed the knife, then had an afterthought.

“I’d better”, he searched for a word, “emphasise that turn off.” Hekst opened the knife once more and made a second cut by the last and flicked out a narrow wedge of flesh. Jamis cried out.

As the men released Jamis and Meridienne one asked a question:

“How come you give them the right directions Hekst?”

“So they have to look at it, idiot.”

The Cruelty-free Commando

So long as you buy something, the staff don’t mind if you sit a while. Especially at a quiet time of day. You can have a cassette recorder on your table even. Not for playing of course, but for recording. Like if you’re doing an interview.

Interviewer: So how did he come to be called “The Cruelty-free Commando”?

Subject: (laughing) Not just him but the whole group of us. That came about after one time, a long time back, near the start when we were making Molotov cocktails. Anyway we’d got a load of bottles, I don’t remember where from, just collected here and there I reckon, and we’d stole some cans of petrol - holding up a gas station and somebody says “What about soap”. Anyway we didn’t know anything back then so everyone says “What soap?” like what do you want soap for, you know with petrol bombs. So they said they’d read in a CIA manual about adding shredded soap to the petrol, and we thought well you can’t argue with that, you can’t argue with the CIA you know? (laughs). Well first thing we thought is how are we going to shred it and somebody says they saw a cheese grater in the kitchen. I couldn’t believe that, man, like its a broken up old squat house and there’s a cheese grater in the kitchen. Anyway there was one. So I said I’d go to the corner store and buy soap. It’s now that your man pipes up and says “What brand of soap you getting?” I thought he was joking so I said just whatever’s cheapest you know, maybe get a money off voucher for the next purchase (laughs). But he’s serious, I think with him everything had to be a statement or it wasn’t worth doing. We stole petrol so as not to prop up the oil companies, we lived in a squat because paying rent just helps to prop up the regime of ownership and so on. Anyway, to return to the soap, he said he didn’t see why we should support vivisection and that he didn’t use soap and shampoo that had been tested on animals or that contained animal ingredients. Well at first we just laughed and somebody said “What is this, the cruelty-free commando?” and because we were all laughing like that, I think, is why the name stuck. And of course we couldn’t come up with any counter arguments so I had to go out shopping for cruelty-free soap.

Interviewer: You’re saying that every incendiary bomb you threw contained no animal products?

Subject: Yes sir! He made sure of that. The Cruelty-free Commando.

Interviewer: The Cruelty-free Commando.