Three penguins. Sticking out of the barren plain of snow; ash black shells with a pool of snow in the centre. It sqwaddled into Alex's mind they they were really rather cute.

Until they grew the extra legs; matched in time by the slavering warty skin which clambered up to welcome their bodies home.

Not to mention the abundant bulbous heads, which were puffing up like direly oversized zits. The oozing stuff, they could summon from the stumps where hands should be; was another giveaway to their not so cuteness. Especially if it was squirting toward him at great speeds.

Like it was right at that moment.

Luckily he'd already prepared the 7 up/Worcester sauce concoction in his spray canister; grimacing as the browny-greyey indescribable gunk acquainted itself with his jacket. The penguins- come- whatever they were, froze along with the entire scene. Following multiple seconds in limbo, his eyes began to pick up a slight tinge of blue in the wash of surroundings. In a burst of light, sharp enough to permanently blind the average human, well, the average of any species really, he coughed consciousness.

Whitewashed, barren walls echoed the silence; no, the calm; peacefulness. Automated machinery eased away the projection helmet.

Reality, the real world!! as ancient human texts would put it. Three weeks in the imaginations of some far off boffin... He could just lie there forever and...

“Greetings, my young but tall apprentice” uuuuurrrrrrgggghhhhh!!! As per usual, majesty was eked out of every pore coating his lacking figure. Politely, Alex chuckled, like it was a original quality joke. There was possibly a time, when it just might have passed into a subcategory approaching the status. After a few weeks of every time they happened to bump into each other, the stubby dwarf inflicting the same greeting on him, it started getting tedious. This was five years after that.

“What do you want master?” trying to intensify wilting levels of energeticness, not helping was he'd had to finally opened his eyes, forcing himself into a state of savage blinking. He was unable to fathom the point in bothering, his 'master' lived on his own little planet. It was quite probable that the beard embossed midget never so much as set his eyes on Alex; in-fact, his perfect vision was almost definitely a result of never actually observing anything. Coupled with this feature, was the ability of drawing everything stretched out as far as possible.

“I am certain, that you will be glad to hear, you passed the examination in the subconscious illusion suite.” Alex nodded speedily, wishing fervently the blundering man would dematerialise so he could quench three weeks worth of hunger. After a gaping pause,either much longer than deemed normal,or elongated by Alex's impatience, the standing figure yawned towards the door.

There isn't much point in saying Alex was,is, a ordinary guy (though he is). If someone's writing about him (as I seem to be) then he's not exactly gonna fit into the 'norm' is he? He manages to fit into, the weird, run- of- the- mill way that most books attempt to focus on commonplace characters. A teenager working for an intelligence service/is a wizard/solves mysteries; but really, they're just ordinary. If they were average, they'd be weird. Ordinary is not ordinary.

So,anyway...

Alex.

I suppose I should tell you what he's like. In personality he is, as established above, ordinarily, not ordinary ( or unordinarily ordinary),he enjoys the classical music of the Strawberryicecreamwithafewmeaslychocchips tribe. Hates lectures by Renni Orfess. He doesn't always do what's right, but he does usually.

If you want to know how 'nice' he is and stuff like that, well, get stuffed. I don't know wether you'd like him.

His appearance, is also, as was established slightly more above, than the last time I said it was established above, standardizedly not standard.

He's scruffily brown haired, with yellowing teeth and an over large nose. His eye's change colour according to his mood (though he reckons they look at their best a vivid purple). He has three legs, one which is dragged behind with a wheeled tip, instead of webbed toes.

Around...wait...wait...w...a...i...t...........NOW , in a multiple of his parallel universe. he is sat on his bed within the soldiers L2 complex he inhabits (with 500 others of his kind, on top of an assorted 400; inside the Vittiori- a space centre the size of Plicintor [named, accidentally, after a Earthling Hungarian dance.] ) And at approximately........ this moment he has begun rubbing, the aching, flesh shrouded of his limbs. The rationing system of liquids was stupid. The 100 Ikk didn't even need to consume liquids! They could, for pleasure, but it simply came out the other side exactly the same. Unluckily most of the council was made up of the devious bastards, and the rest were devious bastards of other races .Who spat out something about equal opportunities (of course they were more 'equal' than others so received triple the ration), all the while enjoying expressing their power crazedness watching the rest of them suffer from dehydration.

Importation chance, after chance, the people back home must be overly eager to grab us back. Still I stay here. It's a bit stupid really but...well...Okay, I can't finish that sentence. I honestly have no idea why I can be arsed to do it.

Back on Earth... ooooooh...my heart melts at the thought of it (just like their chocolate. If I ever forget that harshly soft,creamy, lingering.....).Everything was so, soooooooooooooo, simple, I was bored, but nothing compared to the mind-numbing chronicles over here. I never had any family, well obviously,I had parents, a sister as well I think. I never met them. No, this isn't going to turn into some soppy crap, all it means too me is I can't miss them. An advantage really, but not really. Before I trespass even further past the borders of driveldom...

Ahhhhhhhh, music. That's ahhhhhh in a good, nice, no not 'nice', putrid word that is, relaxing, more like it, blissful, there's the word: blissful; ahhhhhhh in a blissful way. The speakers are about the best you can get, not like the rubbishy, earth muck most of them have! At first I couldn't use them too their full impact,the bloody 'authorities' imposed a sound limit. Luckily,weeks spent collecting egg boxes, accompanied by most of my spare time fixing them to the walls, solved the dilemma. Now all four are free, they love me for it. Sad though it is,I love them back.

I mean...who needs friends? Lounging, within the depths of the glorious, blissful, sound. Nothing one can touch me, harm me,harm the moment...

Can't I get a minutes peace? Damn Jerrii! In my mind the music had already subsided. Accepting that Jerrii shouting the same unfathomable message proves otherwise, reluctantly, I reach for the controls. His voice seems a vague sleepy mumbling compared to the music, though it is elevated far beyond normal levels.

“I'M GOING UP TO,oh...I'm going up to the main decks.”

This means nothing to me, I sense myself staring blankly.

“singing cows?” he pursues.