Zinc Finger
   
Ancestry is everything
 
 
FBond is back!
in ZINCFINGER...
....Ancestry is everything.
Disclaimer
This work is the product of a deranged imagination. No offence meant. Characters and situations bear at most minimal resemblance to anything in the real world.


Cast and Dramatis Personae
Bond, 00T7, our hero Chris Evans?
Angus Lee-Black, dashing but dastardly villain Jeremy Irons
Obi-Wan Fincham, venerable guide to Bond John Gielgud
Adrian Swift, suave geneticist by day.. by night,
Adrienne Swallow, singer and temptress Ralph Fiennes
Mercedes Bones, chic, leggy professor Susan Sarandon
Nick Translation, hyperintelligent pan-dimensional being Christopher Lloyd
David Beginagain, Angus's mole and head of Institute Rowan Atkinson
Bill Chainsaw, outspoken cytologist Michael Keaton
Jocelyn Pinkerton, 005, small but perfectly formed Winona Ryder
Stuart Beard, leonine postdoctorate Ewan McGregor
Lord Ken Lambda, rich and decrepit philanthropist Victor Meldrew
Lady Doreen Lambda, his virologist spouse Phyllida Law
Coleman French, 006, charismatic developmental biologist Pierce Brosnan
Basil Walliker, stiff-upper-lipped time-traveller John Cleese
Miss Moneypanther, secretary to the BTO Honor Blackman
Agent P, lab technician extraordinaire Julie Walters
Gene Gags, barmaid and yeast geneticist Miranda Richardson
John Cardinal, seldom sober with a shady past Oliver Reed
David Bleach, nervous molecular biologist Richard Gere
Nick Hurrie, imposing Prof. with supersonic hearing John Thaw #
William Ladbroke, animal breeder of stature
Dash, libidinous postgrad with pierced navel Jarvis Cocker
Odd Job Meltdown, irascible safety advisor Dany DeVito
Mark Clampbell, nematologist with heterodox dress sense Sylvester McCoy
Steven Goodman, apprentice of Pinkerton
Peter Knightley, Ladbroke's hard-headed apostle
Ian Trafalgar, speculative evolutionary biologist
M, vociferous protein biochemist and head of BTO
Willie Walrus, eccentric bacteriologist Bob Hoskins
Millie Molar, strident spouse of Walrus Roseanne Barr
Jim Brodie, flash gum-chewing compere Old bloke from Strictly Ballroom
Brian Trilby, private eye Richard Dreyfuss
'Dr Professor', mysterious moustached man Hugh Laurie
Special Guest Stars - the Splice Girls! #
Nic C (Curly Splice) Cindy Crawford
Nic C (Mad Splice) Naomi Campbell
Jude (Good Splice) Linda Evangelista
Fari (Fire Splice) Iman Bowie
Beri (Tough Splice) Elle McPherson
Lou (Bad Splice) Eva Herzigova
Contents
Prologue 4
�Chapter One 4
& Chapter 2 6
�Chapter Three 9
>Chapter 4 13
�Chapter 5 18
N Chapter 6 21
New scene- digging up mustard gas 22
QChapter 7 26
y Chapter Eight 29
The trouser victims are saved - unwritten 31
Jo finds Angus's parentage - Unwritten 31
MChapter Nine 32
Epilogue 34
Other stuff that needs to be put in somewhere 36

Prologue
The Great Mind pondered the Mathematics of All Things, with special reference to the belly patterns of toads.
Eventually it occurred to him that he was forgetting something. Ah yes. Breathing. Grudgingly he resurfaced to the world of solid objects, blinking. The other creature looked at him with a similarly glassy expression, chewing on a prawn.
The Mind remembered where he was, and recognised the creature. Tortua terrapinis, the common terrapin, his pet. He was proud of himself for remembering.
Life was not easy for Nick Translation. Over the years he had learned to distinguish the dim things with scales from the dim things without, those others not quite of his kind - Homo sapiens, the common ape. It had been difficult. He still sometimes caught himself patiently attempting to explain matrix algebra to the reptiles, although not for years had he distributed prawns to his undergraduate class.
Some of the apes had a little potential, though, to learn useful tricks. The one who had come to see him yesterday, for example, the one with pockets all over his trousers, distibuted according to a very complicated mathematical function - the trousered one could be very useful for his plans. Still breathtakingly stupid, though.
Nick realised how to travel faster than the speed of light, but didn't bother to write it down. He swallowed a prawn and reimmersed himself in calculation.
�Chapter One
In which Angus is cast out from the Bridge Club for impropriety, and our hero has a narrow escape.
In Castle Coli soft music played, candles glowed. The whole party were in high spirits, not least our hero as he cast his eye over the plush furnishings, the ankle-deep red carpets and the sparkling chandeliers. How good it was to be here with his colleagues! Another sip from the huge brandy balloon made things even rosier. It was always this way when Lord and Lady Lambda were hosting a Bridge Club meeting. Bond surveyed his cards thoughtfully.
Across the table, Angus Lee-Black looked shifty.
'I bid two spades,' came a cultured, good-humoured voice from Bond's left. The speaker stretched an arm upwards toward the tray of canap�s, and was only just able to reach when the butler leaned lower toward her.
Popping the delicacy into her mouth, Jocelyn Pinkerton resumed her position on the leather armchair, her knees against her chest and elbows on the table. She was easily the best player there, and could tolerate the occasional inevitable loss faced when playing with Lord Lambda, who sat slack-jawed opposite her. His lordship had used up his whole brain in one incredible idea, which had stood him in good stead. It had allowed him to buy this place, anyway. Through the high Gothic windows the lights of the University Queen's Buildings twinkled in the distance. This was indeed the most select and elegant bridge club in the city, and Jo too felt proud to be there.
Bond played ineptly, but tonight he did so on purpose. It was Lord Lambda's eighty-seventh birthday and he wanted him to win. Unfortunately, Lee-Black had no such compunctions. Lady Lambda, a sprightly eighty-two, looking dazzling in an off-the-shoulder gown, looked over her husband's shoulder and whispered in his ear.
Bond and Pinkerton exchanged glances. They would have to speak to Angus.
Luckily, the awkward silence was broken by the musicians, who struck up a lively major groove. All the players rose to their feet to dance the Flying Scotsman. Professor Fincham, Bond's mentor, had the honour of dancing with the impossibly chic Mercedes Bones. She swayed elegantly, winking at all and sundry. Fincham stumbled often, not used to the steps.
Pinkerton took Lee-Black's hand as they twirled into their starting positions. She wasn't one to use her feminine wiles frequently, but for the sake of Lord Lambda's dignity she threw back her short, tousled hair and gazed into his face.
'Angus,' she whispered, 'do something for me.'
Angus was quite taken aback. Under her intense, deep brown stare, he thought he would do anything.
'Lose the game, Angus. Give Ken a treat, this once. Bond isn't trying tonight.'
'I'm trying to lose,' replied Angus with an air of conceit. 'I can't help winning.'
Jocelyn was unconvinced. Bond, overhearing, grabbed Angus and, with finely concealed skill, made it look as if he had danced out into the corridor by accident.
'Angus, you know it's his birthday,' entreated Bond. 'Does it really matter if you lose this once? We must maximise his happiness today of all days.'
Angus tightened his lips. 'Lose against those stuck-up geriatrics? Never!'
Bond gave a resigned sigh as Lee-Black marched back to the drawing-room.
Angus took his place opposite Jocelyn, and Bond shrugged at her to indicate that his words had fallen upon deaf ears. As if in revenge she swung Angus harder.
Not expecting brutal treatment from such a delicate frame, Angus fell over his feet.
He landed with a loud thump, attracting everyone's attention as he stood up. In the fall, one of his numerous trouser pockets had flung open and a number of cards spilled out onto the floor. A cheat in the bridge club!
There was a shocked silence. It was broken by Pinkerton.
'You have all the propriety of a ram lamb, Angus,' she remarked, tempted to stand on his spidery fingers with her miniature Timberland boots.
Angus gathered himself to his feet, his pulse racing. What must they think of him!
'I think we can assyoum, Angus, that we will not require the pleasure of your company in the Bridge Club in futyour.' Bond felt it was his duty to say this, although he was certain Lee-Black's heart was in the right place.
'Hear, hear,' chimed in Jo. 'Only persons of good breeding..'
At this comment, Angus' eyes blazed and he hurled his glass at Jo as he sped from the room. She ducked as it smashed against the stuffed and mounted plasmid on the wall.
'I'd better talk to him.' Bond left Professor Bones to attend to the swooning lady of the house.
Lee-Black stormed down the corridor, knocking over suits of armour as he proceeded and tipping the fine oil paintings to the floor. With unusual speed, Bond caught up with him.
'What's the matter, Angus?' Bond attempted to lean a friendly hand on his shoulder, but he whipped around, his jaw jutting. With surprise, Bond noticed tears in Lee-Black's eyes.
'Breeding.. breeding!' he muttered savagely, 'oh yes, she's right.'
And he gave a bitter chuckle, then turned and leant against the wall, weeping.
'Somethin's wrong, isn't it,' said Bond astutely.
A fresh burst of sobbing greeted this remark. 'Ancestry.. it's all we have, you know.' He ripped a coat of arms from the wall.
'Look, Jo didn't mean to upset you, come back and sit down. We'll forget this ever happened.'
Suddenly incensed, Angus grabbed Bond by the tie. 'Oh yes,' he shrieked, 'I bet there's a lot of things you pretend haven't happened. You and the rest of the department. You've forgotten all about it, you bastards..'
'Ah, well, ah but, but well..' Bond lost his composure for a second as Angus grabbed a sword from a nearby display, but just in time saw a large red button on the wall, marked S. O. S.
'Look! A, er, phylogeny!' he yelled, distracting Lee-Black for long enough to push the button.
Sirens howled, lights flashed. Bond fled back to the drawing-room, the still shouting Lee-Black on his tail. But the Lambdas were busy constructing an icosahedral escape pod.
'It's all right,' yelled Bond, but too late. Ken pulled his lady wife aboard and the virion's rockets fired, blasting it through the thick stone walls.
Bond, Obi, Jo, Linda and Angus stood dumbfounded, then as the building began to shake panic set in. They fled out across the drawbridge just in time to see the huge building collapse in on itself. The butler leapt into the moat with microseconds to spare.
Mercedes gasped. 'Oh, my goodness!'
'It's all right,' said Jo. 'They're always doing this. They'll have another one by next week.'
'Well now,' Bond was determined to restore harmony, 'it's a good thing we're all all right. Angus, would you be so good as to lend Jo your coat?'
But Angus had gone.
Back in his office, Angus groaned at his own atypical stupidity. They wouldn't let him back in the Bridge Club now. It seemed that all his careful plans had come to nothing. Despondently he pushed a sheaf of paper from his desk into the waste paper basket.
Quietly opening the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet, he knelt down to examine the contents. There they were, twenty of them soaking in the solution, all ready for the day when he finally took his revenge. But how? He had intended to invite the bridge club on a muddy hike, then offer them clean clothes afterwards. That wouldn't work now though.
Stretching himself, cat-like, back into a standing position, he looked out of his window over the expanse of Queen's Buildings.
And then it struck him. How unadventurous, to restrict his plan to the Bridge Club when there were other scientists out there, hundreds of them, who would do just as well. Better!
The smile sprang back onto his face, and he made a mental note to order another hundred pairs. Then with a dramatic sweep of his long arms, he gathered the papers back from the bin and began to read from them in a pompous, resounding tone.
'Nobel Committee, Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, I should like to thank you all for this great honour I so richly deserve. I would like to thank my great friends, many of whom are former recipients of this award (wait for audience admiration) for the support they have given me, and my media personality tutor who warned me of the downside of stardom (wave to groupies). But I have an announcement to make, and that is that Edinburgh University Genetics department are the greatest collection of scummy, hypocritical worms it has ever been my misfortune to come across (wait for audience gasp). May they all develop tertiary syphilis. I hope they enjoy this ignominious fall from grace as much as my mother, who was driven to her grave by Professor Monopoly and his cronies. I hope that they shall find it as difficult as I have done to claw their way back to respectability. Thank you.'
With a flourish, Angus replaced the papers on his desk and opened the door only to find a small bald man in blue-green clothing crouching with his ear to the keyhole.
'You're from the Ministry, aren't you? What are you doing here?'
'I, uh, overheard,' gabbled the man, 'ah, I agree completely, let go of my nose and I'll explain. My name is David Beginagain, and my father-in-law..'
Two hours later, the two men toasted their new-found common aim with lab ethanol.
'To the complete destruction of the Genetics department.'
'Especially the Monopoly Building,' drawled Beginagain.
'If you insist.' Angus smoothed the material of his trousers and grinned.
In the next building but one, transgenic ears picked up a few strains of their conversation.
& Chapter 2
In which Bond is engaged to investigate Lee-Black's activities, and Obi-Wan Fincham has a story to tell.
Coleman French, 006, stepped into the lift at the 7th floor of the Alfred Wallace building, grinning even more broadly than usual. He had just come from the lab. of Mercedes Bones - how he loved their discussions on Drosophila segmentation! She had winked at him twice today, and even complimented him on his Dennis the Menace jumper, joking that the red and black stripes must be the products of pair rule genes. Nothing could spoil his good mood...
As that thought flitted through his mind, the lift opened at the ground floor to reveal a tall, many pocket-trousered figure: Angus Lee-Black.
'Hello Angus,' said Coleman without much enthusiasm. Lee-Black could only be in this building for one reason - to see Mercedes. The very thought of Lee-Black with Mercedes made him want to amputate Lee-Black's left arm and graft his right leg in its place.
The two men attempted to pass each other, one trying to leave the lift, the other trying to enter it, but each time one moved the other moved in the same direction. Finally in sheer irritation, Coleman pushed past Angus, causing a sheaf of densely printed acetates to fly from Angus' hands.
'Now look what you've done,' said Angus testily, as he bent to gather the escaped documents.
'Sorry' Coleman muttered, but Angus was already in the lift and away. 'Hey, you've missed one....' Too late. Coleman picked up the stray acetate and glanced at it. He could make out some diagrams...they looked like trousers....what was that word? Transduction? With trousers? This looked serious. Coleman hurried towards the BTO. He had to show this to van M.
'Good morning, Dr Bond,' said Miss Moneypanther sweetly. 'van M isn't quite ready for you, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait a moment.'
'Ah well' responded Bond with a wink, 'Very few people are ready for me.'
Miss Moneypanther allowed him a brief smile, then enquired 'How is your work these days, Dr Bond?'
'I'm not doing as much wet work as I'd like' Bond replied, a little suggestively. 'But then, I have to keep my powder dry.'
At that moment, a vast bellow issued from the depths of the ministry.
'BOND!!!'
'Ah well, I'd better go in. Best not keep van M waiting. If this doesn't go well I'll be making a speedy withdrawal.'
'I can't imagine you doing anything prematurely, Dr Bond,' Miss Moneypanther said drily, as Bond headed down the narrow corridor.
van M was sitting on his desk, swinging his legs. 'Ah, 00T7. Sit down theyah. No, not heyah, over theyah.' Bond took the chair next to Coleman French as van M began his customary advice.
'Now, Bond, I have a mission for you, should you choose to accept it. Remember to make your choice very carefully. You shouldn't choose a mission because you think it's the trendy thing, or because it won't have any early starts. And we all know that certain missions, that shall remain nameless, have a reputation for being easy and won't bring you much credit. But if you desperately want to work on a mission involving the membrane proteins of the parasite of the lesser spotted Mississippi beetle, then by all means go ahead. It's your choice, your decision.' van M paused, and feeling that he had done his duty with this little caveat, turned to Coleman.
'Bond, we in the Ministry have reason to believe treachery is afoot. Nick Hurrie, one of our finest agents, overheard Angus Lee-Black plotting with some unknown confederate to destroy our Department. We know that this was in his possession, but beyond that, nothing. 006, show Bond the acetate.'
Bond scrutinised the document, unsure of what to say. He was usually able to turn up an interesting fact or quotation on any subject, but he had never seen anything like this before.
'Is it really possible to perform transduction with trousers? And who would do such a thing, and to what end?' he said.
'That, Bond, is what I want you to find out.'
Bond was sure that this was going to be a dangerous mission. He was dealing with unknown quantities and unknown qualities, and it was all very disturbin'. He needed to enlist some more assistance. Tucking in his shirt in a purposeful gesture, he set of in search of Agent P.
Agent P had once been based in the Alfred Wallace Building, but ever since an unfortunate incident with a self - locomoting spectrophotometer and an agar -superglue hybrid, she had been moved to a dilapidated old lab just west of the Monopoly Building.
Gingerly, Bond entered P's domain. He heard a cry of 'Duck!' and luckily took it to mean "get down on the floor" (which he did) rather than a reference to the former professor of Molecular Biology. A conical flask flew overhead and smashed on the floor, sinister green liquid seeping from it.
'Sorry Bond' said P, emerging from behind a bench. 'I've been so busy all day, haven't stopped since 5:30 this morning..'
She kept bustling around as she spoke, half talking to herself.
'Now, what can I do for you?'
Before Bond could reply, she was talking again. 'I've got some new gadgets in, just your sort of thing, taken me weeks to do...good God, I'm supposed to be over at the Wallace building in a moment....so much to do, I'll be here until midnight again no doubt.'
She steered Bond over to another bench where an assortment of dubious looking items were arranged. 'Take your pick of these Bond, let yourself out, I really must go, I have to make a finance report to David Beginagain...'
What a bewildering array of gadgets! How was Bond to choose?
Brian Trilby (*), private eye, looked around the BTO foyer appraisingly. Hmm, he thought to himself. Rundown plywood-and-breeze-blocks kind of joint. Good-looking dame at reception: a well groomed, moneyed cat - yeah, she had style. He approached her and tipped the brim of the hat that habitually shaded his face.
'Mornin' ma'am,' Trilby drawled. 'Ah'm here to see the boss.'
'Yes Dr Trilby, M is expecting you. May I take your coat?'
'Why thank you ma'am, most kind, but if you don't mind Ah'll decline. This trenchcoat don't ever leave ma sight.'
Miss Moneypanther (for it was she) lead the detective into M's office.
'Ah, Trilby,' boomed M. 'At last. Been searching for you everywheyah. Not to waste time now though. I have a job for you. Usual rates of course, plus a bonus for your slush fund. What do you say?'
'Well if you'll explain..'
M showed Trilby the acetates found by agent 006. 'We need to uncover the meaning behind this. I've put Bond onto it, but, well...'
Trilby nodded in understanding. 'Anyway,' M continued, 'I need someone who is a little more immune to the, shall we say 'darker,' side of life than Bond is. 00T7 is a good, pure soul...' M sighed. 'I don't have to spell it out Trilby. You know the score. You're a man of the world, of mutagenesis and malarial replisomes... Can I count on you?'
'Damn right you can. No case ever eluded Trilby yet.'
And with that, the deal was sealed.
Bond's footfalls echoed along the musty corridor to the Elmworth Annexe. The Annexe was peopled with a human museum of decrepit geneticists who shambled up and down, slowly falling to pieces. van M was hoping they would stay alive long enough for his brain transplantation technique to be perfected, but rumour had it some were already dead. Hopefully not Fincham, though. Bond had seen him moving just that morning.
Bond spent a few minutes determinedly knocking on Fincham's office door, and eventually was invited to come in. He did so, and stood uneasily by the venerable old professor's desk, resisting a powerful urge to dust him.
'Sit down,' muttered Obiwan, in his peculiar half-cough. 'Take the weight off your feet. The chair has more legs than you, by a 2:1 ratio, you know.'
Bond chuckled at the joke, and a peaceful smile spread over Obi's acromegalic face.
'What was it you wanted to talk to me about?' Obi was always so happy to please, it broke Bond's heart that he was so bloody useless.
'Ah well,' started Bond, nervously, 'I need to talk to you, privately. It's about the past. When Angus tried to kill me, he shouted somethin at me, somethin about restorin his name, and now he was goin to have his revenge for what this department did.'
Fincham sat still, staring into space, but whether he was listening intently or had merely lapsed into a coma, Bond couldn't tell.
' And I shouted back,' he continued, ' what could we possibly have done to him? And he looked sort of bitter and said that for a molecular geneticist, ancestry was everythin. He's up to somethin, Obi. Somethin terrible. Somethin to do with trousers.'
The old man dropped his gaze, evidently having made some momentous decision. He hauled himself with some difficulty over to the window, and pulled the blinds tight, then opened a locked drawer in his desk and handed over a small, plainly-bound book. 'Past Masters, by Edith Simon,' he explained. 'The, the, the..'
Oh, he was stuck again. Bond struck him gently on the shoulder, and he continued 'the most shameful chapter in this University's history. I was looking through it last night, remembering old Monopoly. Made this department what it was today, he did, back in the old days. Not without his enemies, though. Strong character.
'Anyway, I noticed this photograph. Look at the girl on the right there.'
Bond scrutinised the yellowing picture. Yes, there was something familiar about her. She was tall and thin, with a sheepish expression and a mop of dark curls.
Fincham leaned closer and whispered. 'Andrea Lee, honours year 1954. Left due to pregnancy the week before her finals. Her family disowned her, said she'd blackened their good name. She died in poverty a few years later, and the child was brought up in an orphanage. Andrea never let on who the father was.'
A blackened name indeed, mused Bond.
�Chapter Three
In which a Bridge Club meeting provides Angus with valuable information, and Beginagain meets his match.
Out of the corner of her eye, Doreen Lambda caught her cloudy reflection in a dust-coated old mirror as she gingerly climbed a spiral staircase. She sighed - the whole place would have to be cleaned. The second Castle Coli, though beautiful, was as tumble-down as its new inhabitants. But it reminded her of bygone days, and the library was magnificent. It was in the library that she and Ken had decided to hold their housewarming bridge meeting.
The mirror diverted her attention for a moment, and in response to it she ran a hand through her wispy silver hair, making a pretence at tidying it. She wondered whether to put on some lipstick for the occasion, and decided against it. She felt old tonight. Once, she had been the undisputed queen of bacterial genetics, and along with her husband had shed light on so much - but even the best of laurels can grow uncomfortable if rested on too long. A cobweb brushed her frail shoulder as she entered the great hall.
His Lordship sat by the fireplace with a copy of Nature, but they both knew his eyes were too weak for the figure legends, and the rest of the article was always useless. 'Doreen?' he started, hearing her footsteps on the stone floor. She answered warmly, although she had always felt her name was slightly inappropriate for a Professor. It was a name for cleaners and bus drivers and women who work in post offices.
'When are they coming?' he asked.
'They should be here any minute, dear. I think that nice Mercedes girl was giving them a lift. And we have those new people coming today, as well.'
'Who?'
'I told you yesterday, dear. Coleman French, who's a developmental biologist, and David Beginagain.'
'Didn't know Beginagain played bridge,' grumbled Ken. He didn't like new people, but Doreen had wanted to fill Lee-Black's empty seat as soon as possible.
'He says he hasn't played for years, he wants to start again. We'll have to teach him the rules, I'm afraid. But it will be nice, won't it?' Doreen took her seat opposite her distinguished husband and whiled away the time reading aloud to him from his favourite book, The cro Road.
About fifteen minutes later the butler showed in Mercedes, Bond, Coleman, Fincham, and Beginagain. Jocelyn had gone to St Kilda for the exam period and sent her apologies.
They were sitting in their two sets, Coleman patiently explaining the intricacies of the game to Beginagain, when the old brass door-knocker sounded again. Doreen was puzzled. Maybe Jocelyn had shown up after all?
The butler showed in a tall, thin, grey-haired man with a distinctively clipped moustache. They all recognised him from somewhere, but couldn't quite place him.
'Evening all,' he breezed, waving a check-shirted arm. 'Nice of you to invite me.' And he sat down at the Lambdas' table and picked up a pile of cards from the wrong deck. Doreen was horrified, and pulled her husband to one side.
'Did you invite him, dear?' she hissed urgently.
'Of course not. Who is he?'
Oblivious to the havoc he was causing, the moustached man produced a Tupperware box from his holdall and began to eat a sandwich.
Coleman and Mercedes, on the other table, speculated to each other about the mysterious stranger. 'Well, I've seen him in the library.'
'And I've seen him in the journal club.'
'And I've seen him at QBU.'
'But have you ever seen him in a lab?'
Bond tried to break the ice. 'So what do you do, then?' he asked the bristle-faced enigma.
The man munched at his sandwich deliberately for a few seconds before proudly announcing, 'I'm a scientist. I do research.'
Bond was nonplussed. 'Um, what do you research?' he inquired, feeling something was amiss.
'Genes,' declared the stranger. In response to gentle questioning, he further ventured that his primary research interest was DNA, and cells, and his name was Doctor Professor, and he had a lot of white coats to wear. And a pipette. Bond's perplexity cleared as he realised he was talking to a nut. He signalled to the Lambas, who made a few phone calls and in a short time they welcomed a harassed-looking woman into the room.
'I'm so glad you've found him,' effused the social worker, 'we've been looking all over. I'm sorry we didn't warn you before, but he's harmless, really, except to mice. He has delusions of being a scientist, and wherever we send him he's off to the nearest university getting under everybody's feet - we thought in Edinburgh people might not notice. What with Care in the Community, we can't really keep a constant eye on him. You don't mind him coming to your seminars, do you?'
Doreen handled the situation graciously, and Dr Professor was bundled from the room, still burbling that he had read a very interesting article in a journal, with experiments.
'Well,' declared Coleman, 'It's certainly been all go today. First the Ministry send me fact-finding and now this!'
'Ministry?' Beginagain was suddenly interested. 'What are you doing for them?'
Somewhat unwisely, Coleman took the chance to show off. Dusting a morsel of caviar from his tight white jeans, he splayed out his legs even further and told Beginagain all about his acetate dilemma.
A few minutes later, before the game was even finished, David made his excuses and left.
The janitor of the biochemistry building shuffled his feet, studiously looking out of the large glass door and trying his best to ignore the sounds from the lecture theatre. He didn't know why, it just made him uneasy when the Chromatin Club met here. The snatches of music and giggling, the strange smells floating out to him.. but it wasn't his job to notice what the staff were up to. What he was ignoring at the moment was deep, heartfelt singing, barely audible from the corridor but filling the lecture theatre itself as densely as the thick perfumed smoke that lay like a blanket over the forms strewn within.
'Why don't you dooo riiight..' the singer was perched on the lectern, long, shapely legs protruding from the draped folds of a white coat. Surgical-gloved hands suggestively caressed the microphone held inches from thickly painted scarlet lips. The long, blonde hair flopped forward over one piercing blue eye, and she flicked it back as she adjus
 
 
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