The Edge
Created | Updated Apr 2, 2003
Part Four
A different time. A new place. A dark room. Dark, not because the lights
weren’t working, but to hide the identities of the people in the room
and to give the room a good, wholesome, scary atmosphere. This arrangement
did indeed scare Pellicle, Doctor of TV psychology at Donworth University.
Being a Doctor of TV gives you a lot of spare time. That was one of the main
reasons he was invited here, to the association meeting of the World’s
Most Secret Society Ever1,
otherwise known as "Them" or "Big Brother." He didn’t know anybody
else’s name, which was another thing that scared him, because for all
he knew the Society could have been run by the Mafia.
Pellicle was seated around a circular table and in the middle of it were
five monitors, each pointing different ways, relaying the events on them to
different areas of the table. They were specially made to prevent too much
light coming out of them so the identities of the members wouldn’t be
revealed. The screens were connected to a complex system of closed circuit
cameras situated around the world. Pellicle had been told there were over
six billion of them, one for each person alive. At the moment they were
focused on camera number four billion, five hundred and sixty nine million,
eight hundred and seventy three thousand, one hundred and two, otherwise
known as ‘Reginald Wickrain’s flat.’
The screens turned the themselves off as Wickrain closed the door.
‘Can we trust him?’ said one.
‘Oh course, why shouldn’t we?’ uttered the others.
Pellicle felt it was time he interrupted, ‘but this task is a
difficult and hazardous one and will he accept it? After all -’ and
soon after wished he hadn’t.
‘As I said before, YES.’ This assertion came from a man with
a clear-cut English accent. Pellicle was sitting right next to him and all
he could see was a beard that looked as if it had many concealed objects
inside it. Pellicle had a feeling he was a royal, possibly a duke. ‘I
mean according to our various sources of information, he will accept,’
Pellicle knew about their various sources of information, it included sharp
knives and pools of sharks. Personally he felt sorry for members of this
poor man’s family. ‘After all, he has mountaineering
experience...’
‘He once went on a hiking holiday with the Scouts when he was
ten,’ somebody interrupted.
‘Thank you. And he has no fear of danger...’
‘He once killed a spider that was in his bathroom,’
interrupted a different voice.
‘Thank you. So the task we have set him should be a
breeze.’
Pellicle still wasn’t sure.
