how to get home, and she knew he knew. He’d left her to figure it out for herself, and she’d only made it back by sheer fluke. Considered in that light, her stranding him here was little more than a prank, and he probably deserved it. In fact, he was only feeling angry because she’d made a fool out of him. How she’d laugh when he got back – in her terms, a fraction of a second after he’d left – and how helpful it’d be to their working relationship (he told himself) if he took the joke in good part. Query: would he feel this way if she hadn’t kissed him before he went off to face the old man and his idiot grandson? He thought about that, and decided not to think about it any more.
He yawned. It was really quite pleasant here. The sun was bright, the rocks were warm and the blue water of the lake was crystal-clear. You could spend a lot of money and waste many, many hours being publically humiliated in airports and end up at far worse places. A beach umbrella and a long, cool drink would be nice. He wished for them, but that didn’t seem to work. Well, it wouldn’t, would it? Once you were here, the experience was real. That was the whole point.
A cool breeze, just enough to be refreshing, blew across the lake, ruffling the surface. Because time didn’t pass inside YouSpace, he could stay here as long as he liked and lose no time at all. He lay back on the rock and absorbed sunlight like a lizard for a while. There would definitely be a public demand for this product, he decided, if it could be made to work safely and reliably. Or even if it couldn’t, he reflected; after all, Microsoft did OK, and their stuff –
The voices were getting closer. Damn, he thought. He was enjoying the solitude, and a large party of tourists would spoil the mood. He looked round. It was a huge lake; plenty of space for them and for him, without anybody having to share. He stood up, but he couldn’t see anyone. The voices were coming from just over the horizon, where a gently inclined sand dune slouched against the sky. From the top of the dune, he ought to be able to see where the tourists (Germans, probably, or Italians, if the racket was anything to go by) were coming from.
The sand was a bit awkward to walk on, but he made the top of the dune without undue effort and looked across a wide valley. About two hundred yards away was a cornfield, on the edge of which he could make out tiny figures. They didn’t seem to be heading his way. In fact, they seemed to be happily engaged in playing in the corn; an odd thing to do, even for holidaymakers. His curiosity piqued, he set off down the slope to get a closer look.
Halfway down, he made out an interesting sight: a red and white striped awning, in the middle of nowhere. As an old YouSpace hand, he reckoned he knew what that was: the local doughnut outlet. Not a bad idea, he told himself, to get his doughnut now, while he thought of it, just in case there was a problem. He altered course a few degrees and headed for the doughnut stall.
He’d covered half the distance when it occurred to him to look back towards the cornfield. He could see the people rather more clearly now. There was something weird about them. For one thing, they were dressed oddly. He stopped for a more deliberate view. They looked like actors or fashion models – they were all young, strikingly tall and uniformly blond – but for some reason best known to themselves they were dressed up as cavemen. Also, they weren’t playing in the cornfield. They were robbing it.
Curious behaviour. They were grabbing handfuls of wheat ears and stuffing them in their mouths. There was, of course, some logical explanation, probably involving a New Age colony or a music video, but the image was disturbing enough to make him quicken his pace towards the doughnut stall. After all, the werewolf scenario had seemed normal enough until the full moon butted in and spoiled everything. He’d had a nice relaxing half-hour, he decided, and it was time to go. No point in ruining an otherwise pleasant experience by hanging around too long