The pictures never tell the story
You can’t picture lies
They can show you in your glory
Not behind your eyes
I’ll burn your image in the fire
Burn your letters too
Though that won’t cure me of desire
Nor get me over you

©Jane Jago

As was expected of him, the president’s son returned to the States for a month in the summer, electing to leave his household up and running with Bella at the helm, rather than mothballing the house and deactivating the droids as his compatriots did. When he returned on a rainy August afternoon, he found the house clean and welcoming, and if he hadn’t known full well what Bella was he would have sworn she was pleased to see him.

Later that night, having reacquainted himself with the delights of her splendid body, he lay back against a bank of pillows and grinned.
“Did you miss me?”
She frowned at him.
“I’m a construct honey. I’m not capable of emotion.”
“That wasn’t what I asked you.’
“Then I don’t know the answer. I do know that my circuitry runs smoother when you’re about. And I also know that it shouldn’t be the case. Will that do?”
Sensing that somehow he was causing actual distress to a creature that should be unable to feel distress, Earl backed off.
“Sorry honey. Just joking about. Because I missed you.”
“Aww.”
He grinned and drifted into sleep, leaving his mechanical lover to stare into the darkness and wonder why her logic circuits were malfunctioning.

Bella became such an integral part of Earl’s life that there were times when he wondered how he was going to manage when his life in England was over. On his second summer vacation he broached the subject with his grandmother, who looked at him fondly.
“You can keep her boy. In fact I’d advise you so to do. I’ve seen the cold fish your grandfather has chosen for you to marry.”
“It doesn’t seem right to me…”
His grandmother shrugged. “You are an idealist like my own grandpapa. Just don’t let your father or grandfather notice that.”
He grinned wryly and took the tiny indomitable woman in his arms.
“I know Grandmama, believe me, I do know.”

It was while he was away that a very well-manicured gentleman in a Crombie and a pork-pie hat accosted Bella in the park as she walked a neighbour’s poodle.
“I am here,” he said threateningly, “to remind you that you have just one purpose, and that you can be broken down into your component parts quite quickly should you prove a failure.”
Bella stopped walking and turned a pair of cold blue orbs on the red-faced blusterer.
“A clean sweep is required,” she said in a voice wholly devoid of inflection,” and the place and time have been selected”.
He backed away from the emptiness he saw in her eyes and all but ran from her presence. She carried on walking as if nothing had happened.

That night, as she sat knitting a jumper for Earl, Bella thought about her creators and what they had made her for. She wondered at the obsessive hatred that drove some humans, and something solidified inside her breast. Her hands fell still as she began to make her own plan for the time when she was taken to the States to join her owner’s family.

The third year of Earl’s course passed as swiftly as the blink of an eye, and before he knew it the young American obtained his degree. Nobody from America was either interested in, or permitted to attend, graduation so he dressed Bella in a conservative grey suit and had her along to watch him receive his scroll. In a funny sort of a way it felt right to him that the one entity who had nurtured him and watched over him as he learned and grew up should be there, smiling with apparent pride, as he was named Bachelor of Arts.

Packing up the household was accomplished with minimal fuss, and most of the droids were deactivated and boxed for transportation. When Bella would have arranged a crate for herself, Earl put his foot down.
“No. I need you beside me to organise a smooth journey. Besides which I find I dislike the idea of you in a wooden box.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he silenced her with a finger across her lips.
“We’re flying in Air Force One so there are no practical problems. You travel as my secretary. And that’s my last word.”
She shrugged, attempting, he thought, to distract him with the unrestrained movement of her magnificent chest, but he was not to be deflected from his purpose.
“I’ll have your word, miss.”
She sighed.
“I promise.”

And that is how a being conceived and constructed in the USA, and shipped out of the country in tiny pieces, returned to the land of her ‘birth’ on an executive jet dressed in expensively modest clothing, and in sole charge of the disposition of the belongings of the only male child of the First Family. You can be sure that the irony was not lost on certain people who observed her from afar.

An apartment had been set aside in the White House, and Bella set about putting it to rights, while Earl visited with his mother. He returned in a very disturbed state of mind.
“It seems” he said thinly “that I am to meet my intended bride tonight. And, by all accounts, I’m not going to much like her.”
Bella eyed him narrowly.
“Were you expecting to?”
“Well….. No.”
“So man up and smile. If she’s truly impossible we’ll find a way out for you.”
He grinned at her.
“I love you Bella” he said facetiously and ambled off to get his shower.

She stood for a very long time gazing sightlessly at her own hands before making a tiny sound as if something inside her broke.

That evening, as Earl was being scrupulously courteous and charming to the plain, lumpy daughter of one of the richest men in the world, Bella sat at her desk and wrote a long letter explaining her own genesis and the purpose behind her very existence. When she was done, she sealed the letter with a wax wafer and slumped in her chair. For the first time since the day she was activated, she wished she could cry, but of course she couldn’t. Instead she felt the weight of dull misery pressing against her chest as a physical pain.
It was only with a great effort that she could greet her returning owner with tolerable composure. Fortunately, he had so much to share with her that he didn’t notice how unusually quiet she was.
“The girl is plain and overweight, and it was obvious that all the men in the room, except me, held her in contempt for her lack of physical attractiveness. Even my mother and grandmother looked down their patrician noses at her, and the poor thing seemed almost pathetically grateful that I treated her with civility.”
“Poor thing indeed. But not as bad as you feared.”
“No. Not bad at all. Just a bit pathetic. And reminding me just what my family is like.” He shuddered.
Bella petted his head and he turned into her embrace.

The next morning Earl went to meet with his bankers and trustees to hear an accounting of their stewardship of his personal billions. Bella watched him go, then straightened her shoulders, dressed with careful modesty, and trod the corridors of number 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to the door of the Presidential office. She was admitted immediately and the old man behind the desk actually stood up to greet her.
“I have come to report on your grandson’s time in England.”
“Good. I’ll have his father brought here. Unless there is anything he should not hear.”
“No. His life was pretty well exemplary.”
“Good. But we’ll have a report anyway.”

In a very short time, the big thickset bully who had fathered Earl strode into the office.
“Yes” he snapped, and his own father just stared at him. For a moment he met the old man’s icy gaze with his hot brown orbs, then he bunched his shoulders and looked down.
“Better. You are here to listen to an accounting of your son’s time in England. Speak robot.”
Bella spoke for some minutes before reaching into the folder she carried.
“Here is a list of the Master’s social contacts.” She put the paper down on the desk and both men leaned over it. Closing her eyes, Bella put a finger into her mouth and pressed one tooth very hard.

The explosion was surprisingly muted, but it had the desired effect. Two headless things and a bundle of wires and components were all that met the eyes of the security guards who ran into the room with their guns at the ready.
“Oh fuck” the oldest guard said as the other two looked grey-faced at the carnage in the Oval Office.

***** ***** *****

It was very much later that same day when the twenty-two-year-old who was now the most powerful man in the western world firmly waved his entourage away and strode into his bedchamber.
On his pillow there was a folded sheet of paper sealed with gold wax. He picked it up and looked at the elegant calligraphy, recognising the work of the wide-nibbed pen he had bought on a whim at Waterstones in Oxford and presented to Bella. He turned the paper over and over in suddenly shaking hands, before breaking the seal and looking at the words.
‘My dear and only love,’ he read, ‘I will dare to call you that just once in this world before I leave you…’

© jane jago

It isn’t as if
We can wish things away
If we could
We all would be
Kings for a day

We’d wish for an end
To plague, famine and war
And that’s just
A start of what
We would wish for

We’d wish to bring down
All corruption and greed
Injustice
And tyranny
That we don’t need

We’d wish to see Hate
And his brother Despair
Far banished
And replaced by
Their sibling Care.

And what is so strange
When you think of this right
Is we all
Wish these things – so
Why must we divide?

E.M. Swift-Hook

Prunella teaches you how to cook like a toff!

It’s not bit of good you groaning like that – little Parasol (or whatever outlandish moniker you have decided to burden the fruit of your loins with) will have been invited to, and attended, parties for every other little monster in their group at school. Ergo, when the anniversary of their own birth comes along it is incumbent on you to do the decent thing.
I have suffered through several of these occasions, before Rodney Junior and Caroline reached the age where they would sooner have their eyeballs plucked out than have a party anywhere near their aged parents, and I am feeling magnanimous enough to share what I have learned.
First. The invitations. It is neither cute nor funny to write the things yourself – most particularly if you elect to do pretend child writing. No. Get your local speedy print, or the geeky nephew of your daily woman, to make them and then all you need to do is pen the name of a child on the envelope.
Next. The entertainment. A conjurer no longer answers the trick (even if you can find one without a police record). No. A discotheque is the thing. For preference in one of the outbuildings and with a sensible mummy tasked to keep and eye on the deejay.
The Food. Ask yourself what children actually eat and prepare accordingly. Do. Not. Be. Fooled. By. Any. Popular. Cookery. Expert. Children really won’t eat couscous, raw vegetables with dips, hummus, homity pie, cupcakes (they eat the icing and attempt to murder each other with the rest), jelly, or any trendy little number whose texture resembles cold porridge. What they will eat is chips (fries if you are of colonial descent), burgers, sausages, chicken dippers, crisps (chips to colonials), chocolate buttons and ice cream. Therefore the plan goes as follows. The day before, assemble the actual burgers. They should be small, flattish and consist solely of minced steak (with a little breadcrumb and egg to bind). Place same in the refrigerator overnight. If you are lucky enough to be in possession of a large enough refrigerator, the burgers can be placed on lightly greased oven trays before refrigeration – thereby making it the work of but a moment to shove them in a hot oven. Purchase sufficient small bread buns in which to shove said burgers when cooked. The addition of a slice of revolting processed cheese will serve to convince the bloody little heathens they are eating ‘proper’ burgers and not pale home-made imitations.
On the day, place packets of crisps and ‘fun sized’ packs of chocolate buttons on a table and let the little darlings help themselves.
At the appropriate time shove the burgers in the oven alongside trays of ‘American fries’ (very thin chips) serve in cardboard boxes with paper napkins.
On No Account let the brats have salt, vinegar or ketchup. It is not worth the tantrums.
When the main course has been eaten/stamped into the floor/thrown up save the day with ice cream cones. Don’t be cozened into buying the expensive stuff from the local artisan place, or offering choice of flavour. You want soft scoop vanilla.

On the other hand you could make the Hon. Rodney put his big fat fingers in his wallet. (He was there at the conception (probably) and has had little to do with the brats since.) Take the tribe to the cinema where they can sit through whatever Disney has on offer, and then troop them all across the road to the golden arches where they can stamp their food into somebody else’s floor.
Note: this also has the advantage of you not having to provide gin and canapés for their dreadful mothers.

Look out for more tips on how to cook like a toff next week!

He had carried the thing from Syracuse to the shores of the salty sea where he fell in with a band of travellers. It was a relief to ride the tail of one of their carts and exchange a word or two with the toothless old woman whose family plotted his end.

The gilt metal box on his back grew hotly heavy as they drew near to  their night stop, but he ate his drugged stew without complaint, even when he felt it rob his limbs of strength.

His last thought as a slim blade slipped between his ribs was that someone else could carry the evil now.

©Jane Jago

The name’s Nero, Sam Nero. Private eye and augmented android. Me and my holographic sidekick, Sugar, operate out of an office on the fifty-fifth level of The Last City. We do okay. But some days are a bit bumpier than others…

I waved Myk and Zig after her, then went back into the blood-spattered office. Twenty minutes got me everything I needed to know and I went in search of Katie. I found her sitting at the bar moodily sipping what looked to be a very large martini. I must have raised an eyebrow because she pushed it towards me.
“Virgin, Sam. You can taste it if you don’t believe me.” She didn’t sound too fond of me so I favoured her with my best overgrown schoolboy grin.
“None of my nevermind, Katie Scarlett,” I said pacifically.
“It could be your nevermind if you wanted,” her voice turned into honey being poured over warm rocks and she licked her full lower lip with an adorably pointed pink tongue.
I leaned over and swatted that portion of her excellent backside which wasn’t resting on the barstool.
“Behave, Katie Scarlett. There’s a game on.”
For a second she pouted, but underneath the flouncing and posturing she’s daddy’s daughter through and through, so she sat upright and regarded me flatly.
“There is? Then it’s about time I was told who’s playing.”
“I guess it is about time I filled you in. But not here. And not quite yet.”
Her diamond-bright gaze raked my face as sharply as a set of painted fingernails. Whatever she saw in that face must have satisfied her because she nodded briefly.
“When?”
“In twenty minutes or so, if everything pulls together.”
She crossed a pair of silk clad legs and crooked a finger at the bar droid.
“I’ll have a proper martini, and Mister Nero will have a bourbon on the rocks.”
The droid almost bowed before scuttling off.
“What’s with the barkeep?”
“Oh. They all think Daddy is gone. And that makes me the boss. And they aren’t sure they like the idea.”
I grinned. “And why would that be?”
“Because I have an eye for detail, and I don’t have patience with anyone or anything that doesn’t do its job.”
“I just bet you don’t.”
The bar droid came back with the drinks and she flashed it a dazzling smile.

Katie Scarlett took a sip and inhaled the icy vapour.
“Sam,” she said and her voice was kinda soft and appealing, “am I ugly?”
I looked at her assessingly allowing my eyes to caress her creamy skin, and I was rewarded by a rosy blush that spread up her long throat and mantled her cheeks.
“No,” I said, “and you know you aren’t. But that’s not the question is it?”
She met my eyes bravely. “It isn’t. You know what the question is.”
“I do. But I promised your daddy that I wouldn’t explain.”

We finished our drinks in silence, and I looked at my watch. I was just beginning to think I would have to ask for a few more moments when the cellphone in my pocket bleeped. I pulled it out and the readout was what I was waiting for. I stood up and offered Katie Scarlett my arm.

She looked puzzled for a second then put one red nailed hand on my sleeve. I signalled Myk and Zig to follow us and we made our way to the private elevator.
“Where to?” I could feel the waves of puzzlement coming from her rigid figure.
“Your daddy’s apartment.”
“Okay, but we won’t be able to get in.”
I lifted one eyebrow and Katie gave a small moue of defeat. She put one slim hand to a palm plate.
“Daddy’s apartment.”
The elevator moved with a silky smoothness that spoke volumes of money and maintenance. The doors hissed open and the four of us stepped out into a white painted foyer with a thickly carpeted floor. Opposite us was a set of double doors, painted to look like wood, but if I’d have been a betting man I’d have put the farm on them being plasteel.

I took the card out of my pocket and applied it to the almost invisible plate beside the doors. Katie Scarlett opened her mouth, but I forestalled her with a finger across those delicious red lips. It almost went without saying that the door which slid open wasn’t even in the same wall as the imposing looking ‘entrance’. I chuckled inwardly as I shepherded Katie and the twins inside, the door closed behind us and we found ourselves in another elevator. It was a quick trip, I guessed one floor only.

From ‘Sam Nero and the Case of the Dutiful Daughter’ one of the stories in Sam Nero PI by Jane Jago

He felt safe and secure behind his screen, in a comfortable chair with the remains of a take out close to hand, ordered online.
Flitting through social media, picking, choosing. Writing pithy, well-deserved comments and sharing his astute observations.
All anonymous.
Smart speaker close at hand, controlling his smart home – even monitoring the new doorbell that protected his house.
He didn’t see the data being gathered. Noting when he had visitors, recording his purchases, how often and when. Tracking his every mouse click, knowing everywhere he visited online – even places he’d never admit to his closest friends…
Safe and secure?

E.M. Swift-Hook

They said you could find the Creator anywhere, but they would say that when churches fell to dust alongside their secular neighbours. They also said the androids of the lord were as holy as the old men who sat in places of safety burning incense – and the occasional heretic.

Trouble with old men, though, is they don’t see the future too good – specially their own.

The Lord’s Android’s in charge of things now, and he ain’t swayed by money, nor sex, nor threats.

Seems to us mortals that the church is morally and spiritually strong now, if unchancy to cross…

©Jane Jago

Imagine waking up one day unable to recall who you are or where you came from – only to find you are serving a sentence as a convict conscript for crimes you have no memory of ever committing…

“It does not change what the man has become,” he said. “Revid is a totally conditioned soldier of the Legion. You may not know what that means, but I do. He may want to try being a civilian, but there is nothing in his life experience in the Legion that has any bearing on it. So if he tries he will fail. And I for one would not like to see what the consequences of such a failure would look like.”
He wanted to explain he was trying to make the task less, not more, difficult and show her the issues were real, not personal. He cleared his throat and ploughed on:
“This is not about refusing Revid a chance to have a normal life or not wanting to let him go. It is he has no chance in civilian life even if I do let him go. If what you say about his desire to serve holds true then offer him military release. I could be persuaded to sanction it – to the right unit.”
“We already did. And he won’t take it.” She sounded deflated and her teeth pressed into the soft flesh of her lower lip with obvious frustration.
“Doesn’t it suggest something is not quite right then? Why would he be so keen to leave the military when it is obvious that is where he can serve the Coalition best?”
Var Tyran smiled again, but it looked more than a little strained, as if she found the entire situation over-challenging.
“Perhaps it has something to do with the friendship I mentioned.”
“Friendship?” Vane frowned and stepped back to sit on the edge of his desk, bringing himself to her eye level. “There is no such thing here. Friendships are not part of life in the Legion. Relationships amongst the troops are based on primitive debt transactions in which the strong maintain a kind of patronage system over the weaker. Unless, of course – are they lovers? Although even that is usually more about power and control than any real affection in this Legion.”
“Not that we know.”
“And you would know?”
She moved slightly and Vane caught a subtle breath of the perfume she wore.
“We would, Commodore. And I use the word ‘friendship’ to imply the idea of mutual debt and a bonding emotion. I mean someone he cares for, feels responsible towards and is to some great degree emotionally dependent upon. I apologise if my shorthand terminology was a little imprecise.” A touch of self-depreciation slipped into her tone as she spoke and she accompanied it with another small smile.
“So why would he want to leave this ‘friend’ you mention?” Even as he asked the question, Vane had an epiphany.
“Well this friend –“
“Is the man I discharged a little over a year ago,” he finished for her.
Var Tyran laughed with delight, a genuine and infectious sound. Vane found himself smiling.
“You are absolutely right, Commodore.”
Vane recalled the other man clearly. Jazatar Baldrik. His interview was very different from today’s. And he could see why the term ‘friendship’ could even be applied to that man in a meaningful way.
“But he had a family to return to and he stayed in the military. I signed his transfer to a Planetary Security Unit on Thuringen. I even wrote him a reference. Fine soldier, achieved the highest promotion possible to the Legion’s rankers in the shortest possible time. Been a military careerist at one time, Marines, and it showed. Very sorry to see him go. Very sorry.” He broke off and then chuckled self-consciously as he realised what he had said. “Well, not, really, of course. He deserved to leave us.”
The woman nodded, clearly appreciative of his meaning and he found himself smiling at her again.
“So Revid wants to go and join his friend. Makes sense. If I had known there were such plans in place to look after him, I might have viewed the proceedings differently,” Vane admitted. “I just don’t think such a man would ever get by on his own. But, under the close guidance of someone who has shared his experiences in the Specials, who knows the specific issues and problems he would be facing and who’s willingly agreed to support him, I can see an argument there could be a very different outcome.”
With a slight sense of relief he realised, this highly pertinent factor, missing from the equation before, explained all the discrepancies. This would be why the other reports discounted the risks and recommended proceeding with the discharge. And it was a very compelling justification in his opinion.
“It is probably my fault then,” Var Tyran said, her compelling sapphire gaze found and held his once again. “I was a little high-handed earlier when I should have been briefing you more thoroughly.”
“Well, we all make mistakes,” Vane said, with an understanding smile. “I am not sure why this did not get mentioned in the background file either, so the error was not entirely yours.”
She smiled warmly at him.
“Does this change things for you Commodore Vane, at all?”
“Change things?”
“I mean, do you feel able to confirm the recommendation for discharge now? My people really want me to bring this home.”
Vane could see the hope in her face as she gently brushed away a tress of hair that was straying over her face. She badly wanted a success to take back to her department. He could see that and see how it explained her earlier anger and pushiness. It struck him she would feel very grateful if he could help her with it. A trace of the perfume tugged at his senses.

From Trust A Few – book one in Haruspex, the second Fortune’s Fools trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook – which is only 0.99 to buy for a limited period.