NO ORDINARY ROOM (21 page)

‘I’ve got a really big project to do by Monday, Dad, and I need to make a start on it’

‘We’ll bring you an ice-cream cornet back.’

‘Very funny, sis,’ Jamie replied.

‘There’s some cheese in the fridge and I’ve put some fresh bread out,’ his mum said and gave him one of those unwelcome hugs.  What was it with mum’s who always acted as though you had either just got back from a war or were about to go and join in one.  His dad was predictable when he warned him not to sneak in his girlfriend while they were out.

The family had just driven off when Jamie raided the biscuit tin and grabbed himself a fizzy drink and then headed upstairs.  As he waited for the PC to come to life he was thinking of the dramatic experiment the last time that they’d communicated, but his thoughts were interrupted when Daniel’s greeting came out of the twin speakers on the desk and then he told Jamie to standby while he sent a photograph of himself.  They had been in voice communication for quite some time, but Jamie was curious to put a face to the voice.  Daniel had an accent which was a bit like a kid’s that they’d met on holiday once.  He’d come from Barnsley and been a bit of a mudder, but funny with it.

 When the photo of a smiling, faired boy, appeared on the screen it matched Jamie’s idea of a typical public schoolboy, but he still rated Daniel as A OK.  Jamie didn’t actually know any public schoolboys, but Daniel looked familiar.

‘I thought you might like a look at our modest family home as well.’

The photo of the boy disappeared and was replaced by one of a building.

Jamie gave his familiar cry of, ‘Wow,’ but quickly followed it with.  ‘You’re having me on, Daniel.  That’s Buckingham Palace and the other photo was of a young Prince William and your accent was different.’

‘Sorry about that, Jamie, but I’ve been waiting to play that little joke for ages.  Anyway, here’s my photo coming up.’

The screen flickered and then the face of a smiling boy appeared. ‘Hello, dummer.  You really fell for all that
Planet Titantula
 and Soppypotty rubbish.  Wait till you get to school and they all start chanting ‘Titantula, Titantula. Jamie is a thicko.’

Jamie had no trouble remembering the face or the familiar voice of Jason Patmore, alias Porky and Blobby.   How could he have fallen for it all? So much for street wise Jamie, but he was relieved that he didn’t have to live with the secret anymore because it really was all make believe.  Perhaps Isobel would leave him alone when she found out that he was a king sized mudder, but she would probably feel sorry for him and that would make things worse.

‘Sorry, Jamie, for playing that real gotcha.’ It was the familiar voice of Daniel.

Jamie was totally confused now, uncertain about what to believe, but he scolded himself for thinking that Jason could have pulled off such an elaborate hoax.

‘To be honest, Daniel that experiment we did with the coconuts  knocked me for six and it really is doing my head in and now this latest stuff.’

‘It’s a lot to take in, Jamie?’

‘You can say that again.  It seems so farfetched that at times I think I must be imagining it all.  Perhaps if we can meet up during the school holidays and go through some of these things then I can accept them.  At least you have your granddad to share things with.  If only Uncle Stanley was still around it would be different.’

‘I know how difficult it is for you to accept what I have told you because I had the same trouble when my Granddad first explained it to me.’

‘How could you create that image of Porky and impersonate his voice like that when you don’t even know him?’

‘That’s easy, but I don’t think you are ready for that just yet.  Anyway, here’s boring Daniel from Scarborough,’

Jamie closed his eyes just after the screen went blank, waited a few seconds before taking a peep at the screen which now displayed a photo of a boy about Jamie’s age, dressed in Leeds Unites top and he had, dark, curly hair.

‘And that’s really you?’  Jamie asked.

‘That’s me,’ Daniel replied. ‘I enlisted the help of my Granddad with obtaining Jason’s voice, but I’m not allowed to tell you how.  Unless I forget, my Granddad wanted to  know if you’ve had any other unusual experiences like those that got you into trouble at school?’

‘No I haven’t, but I was going to talk to you about those things.  You told me that your granddad believed that the incidents I had at school had been caused by cosmic interference or something like that, but it doesn’t make sense.
’

‘Why not?’   

‘Well the experiment we  did with the coconuts proved that my information store was affected and that would have accounted for my poor showing during the first exams, but when  I said those things to the headmaster it  because of some change in my character and behaviour.  Now that’s different.’

Daniel reminded Jamie that what makes a person in terms of their intelligence, personality, character and everything else is determined by their memory, experience and other items that were all part of the brain.  Jamie said he couldn’t argue with that, but it didn’t really help him take it all in. 

‘But now you know that your brain is located somewhere else and everything you do and the way you react is because the bits that you need are downloaded you must see that if the download is interrupted or worse still, corrupted, then it can have dramatic effects like it did in your case.’

Jamie was beginning to see the logic, but there was still one thing that bugged him and he raised the question. ‘If my problems happened because of atmospheric disturbance, then why did it only affect me and not my classmates as well?’

 Daniel replied that it might have affected others in different and more subtle ways.  It was best to think of it in terms of a glitch that happened very rarely.

‘Does that mean that people, who are being treated for medical conditions, like I was, actually have nothing wrong with them?’

‘There’s bound to be some cases like yours, but most will probably be due to what you would call a faulty modem in their bonce.  Remember the ‘modem’ in your head is a vital part of the transference process and it’s vulnerable just like any other part of our bodies.  Anyway, I think we’d better leave this for now Jamie and hope you can come to terms with what you now know.’

‘I’m not sure I ever will, but I do have another question. Is the interference thing that happened to me like lightning?  Does it mean that I will never ever be affected again because it doesn’t strike in the same place twice?’

‘I’m afraid that it could happen again.’  

Jamie signed off the session after telling Daniel that he had a lot to mull over.  At the moment he was thinking that he was going to wake up soon and this whole experience was some way out dream or that he was actually in hospital in Liverpool after an accident.  That’s it, I’m in a coma and mum, dad and Leanne are at home in number forty two Marie Curie Avenue.

     Jamie decided that for the moment he would follow Daniel’s advice which was to just accept things and enjoy his computer and so he went the Games Folder and selected Virtual Movie.  The menu listed twenty well known films, but there was no competition for his first choice.  It had to be a Harry Potter film.  He entered his name and then selected an image of his face that he had taken from a photograph and placed in a folder on the computer.  Two minutes later a dumbstruck Jamie was watching himself starring in the film in place of the actor who had played Harry and the other characters were addressing him as Jamie.  It was the most awesome thing that he had ever seen and he would love to have been able to let his family see it, but he already decided that he would be showing it to his friend Geoff when he came to stay during the holidays.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

It was just after seven o’clock when Jamie switched on the computer.  He’d heard his dad leave for work earlier, so he wouldn’t get any aggro from him.  With luck Daniel would be at his machine having an early morning play.

Jamie heaved a sigh of relief when he heard Daniel’s voice.

‘I had an idea you might try and make contact today because the things I told you would still be troubling you.’

‘You did promise that you were telling the truth, but I’m still having trouble trying to understand how it could be for real.’

‘But you don’t doubt the results of the experiment.  You do remember the experiment with the coconuts?’

Jamie remembered the experiment all right.  That was an amazing thing, but he couldn’t see how it all fitted in with the events that had affected the family.  He told Daniel that it all seemed too farfetched that the weather or cosmic interference in outer space had caused those odd things to happen.

‘You’re right, Jamie.  I haven’t told you the whole truth, but I had my reasons.  I’m going to do another experiment first and then I will tell you everything, but you still might not believe me.’

‘It doesn’t involve onions and carrots, does it?’ Jamie joked.

‘Jamie, look down by your feet.’

Jamie slowly looked towards his feet.  He sensed that he was in for yet another surprise and he wasn’t wrong.  There was a very large snake wrapped around the legs of his chair.  Jamie sat upright and made his body rigid in an instinctive attempt to keep perfectly still.

‘It’s not real, Jamie.  Touch it, or rather try to touch it,’

‘I’ll take your word for it, but tell me what’s going on here and why?’

‘I will, but take another look at your feet.’

Jamie flinched with fright when he looked down.  The snake had been joined by a small crocodile and it was snapping its jaws and tugging at his trouser leg.  Jamie kicked out, but he felt nothing although he was certain that he must have made contact with the crocodile.  Jamie was relieved when the crocodile and snake disappeared, but then gasped when he saw a hairy spider that covered almost the whole of his hand that had been resting on the computer mouse.  The spider crawled up his arm and across his chest before coming to rest under his chin and Jamie was still holding his head rigid after it had disappeared.

‘You can relax, Jamie.  What you saw were only images because I hacked into the image processing area of your brain which is located on Planet Laret.  None of those were real because if they had have been you would have felt the crocodile when you kicked out and you would have felt the spider under your chin, but you didn’t.’

‘But how can you do that from where you are, even with a special computer like we have.  How is that possible?’ asked a shocked Jamie.

‘
First you must know, Jamie, that I am not using a special computer.  I am a computer and I’m located on Planet Titantula which is not known to earthlings.  Daniel, the boy does not exist in human form, nor does my pretend grandfather, who is actually Koolebron.  Koolebron is a superior computer to me and did communicate with your Uncle just like we have been doing.   I didn’t want to lie to you, but it was felt that you would not be able to accept the concept that I was a machine and it might cause you anxiety as you struggled to take it all in.  There is also the burden that you carry in trying to keep yet more secrets. ’

‘How can you be a computer?  You look and sound just like I would expect a boy of my age to sound.  You have a sense of humour.  You can’t be computer.  You can’t be.’

‘I am Jamie.  I have been programmed to sound like I do.  Just like I was when I imitated your old antagonist Jason Patmore.  I can be who I want to be.’

While Jamie was struggling to understand what Daniel had just told him a voice from the speakers on Jamie’s desk shouted out, ‘Jamie, get down here, now.  Your breakfast’s ready.’  The voice was identical to his dad’s.

‘Jamie I had to tell you because you are in danger, but you need not be afraid of me.  Another computer in our system, who we shall call, Devilmortex, has reprogrammed itself with evil intent.  So far he, we’ll call it a he, has only used image changes to scare you, but he was not responsible for the incidents that happened to you at school. The reason I have been authorised to tell you the truth is to warn because Devilmortex is capable of doing you real harm.’

 Jamie’s mind was in turmoil.  He was being asked to accept something that was so mind blowing and yet he couldn’t ignore what he had seen and experienced.  The snake had looked so real and the crocodile really had freaked him out when he’d expected its jaws to chomp into his leg and he would never forget the monster spider that was on his hand before it had crawled up his arm, or what happened at Crowley Door.  Uncle Stanley’ super computer was definitely real, but could he have built it without some special ‘outside’ help? Perhaps the help had come from someone or something in outer space!

‘You said that we were not in danger from the sharks and the ‘door’ wasn’t going to crush me, but what about    our car landing in the spot we had been sitting just minutes earlier.  Did Devilmortex make that happen?’

‘Your car was probably pushed off the cliff by some, what you call yobs, who were messing about on the cliff top.’ 

‘But why did he frighten us and why are we in danger?’

‘There have been some objectors to Koolebron’s experiment of communicating with your Uncle and then allowing my contact with you.  I have already told you that Koolebron is also a computer, but far more powerful than me.  It seems likely that Devilmortex is connected with those objectors.’

‘Why can’t we just stop communicating and end Koolebron’s experiment, especially now Uncle Stanley is no longer with us!’ Jamie suggested.

‘Devilmortex has turned this into a contest between him and me and we have already been joined in battle.  I have been unable to communicate with you on occasions because he succeeded in temporarily crippling part of my system.  I am fully operational at present, but I may suffer other malfunctions in the future.  The good news is that I have inflicted some damage to him and you may have some respite from him, but I fear that you will be targeted again.’

‘Now that you’ve told me about images being changed I’ll be all right, but my family will think they are real.  So, I suppose we’ve just got to hope that he leaves us alone.’