LS35-J Chapter 3
Paula was totally unaware that she was being observed.
Not only observed, but followed.
Blissfully ignorant that every footstep was being carefully noted and documented.
Paula walked into Lucky Lens bookshop to pick up her post,
as she did every morning.
"Hello Len" She said.
Len was 48.
An ex-hippy,
his bookshop contained mostly occult books and cookbooks with near-fatal
mushroom recipes.
"Hi Paula, Whats up?"
"I need a book on the art of staying young. I want to live forever!"
Laughed Paula.
"Hold on a minute - I might have just the thing you want",
Len reached under the counter and pulled out a weighty tome.
It was one he had 'liberated' on one of his nocturnal house-clearing visits.
It had - as he remembered - come from the large gothic looking mansion
at the end of town.
Paula touched the black crumpled edges of the pages.
"It looks like it has been saved from a fire at some time" She
remarked.
"Oh No" Said Ken,
"I do that to all the occult books on sale, it gives them a more authentic
look".
As they stared at the mighty tome a crashing and splintering of glass grabbed
their attention.
It was Len's son, Todd.
Todd had tripped on his unlaced Nike trainers
and had fallen headlong through the front window of the shop.
"Respect Pa!" Said Todd, rather unnecessarily.
Following Todd through the shop window came the rest of the
gang of delivery boys and collecting agents.
They stood in a neat and orderly line and saluted Len.
Time to make a quick exit thought Paula.
Later on she looked in the index of the book.
"Life, Secrets of... pp763-765"
She quickly turned to the relevent pages.
"Strange", she thought,
"they're not there!?"
Tap, Tap, Tap -
someone was knocking on her bedroom door.
Paula recognised the knock as that of her bloody irritatingly nosy neighbour,
the one who ironed his underpants and listened to
Annie Nightingale on the radio on his own.
"Come in Nigel"
She scringed.
Nigel was wearing a yellow cagoul.
His black dandruff-flecked hair looked like it hadn't been washed for several
years.
He was holding a book entitled
'British Trains - The Last 70 Years'.
"Something very strange Miss Paula" He stuttered.
"W-W-When I opened the page to where there should be a
detailed list of Norfolk Rolling Stock 1938-1939,
I found two pages of another book and a note to you,
signed by a Professor Snideblast".
"Don't worry about the rolling stock",
Paula fished under her pillow and brought out a sheaf of notes
"Here just take these, they're part of my new thesis - just give me
the two pages you've got".
"I was wondering..." Began Nigel,
thumbing his train manual nervously,
"...if you fancied going down the Red Dog for a drink later"
"Unlikely" Said Paula,
firmly shutting the door,
"I shall be busy this evening trying to transcendentally meditate
myself
out of Chelmsford and your life!".
She opened the letter from Snideblast that had been sellotaped to the pages
of the book.
Snideblast, that name seemed familiar she thought.
She read on...
"Dear Paula,
I am glad that finally you have the chance to read the most important pages
of my thesis.
You will notice the pages are slightly sticky to the touch,
this is because they have been heavily impregnated with LS35-J".
Paula turned to the two pages and read on...
Meanwhile Rufus,
the gamekeeper,
stuffed the two hares still dripping with blood into the back pocket of
his jacket.
"'Spose I better see what Master is up to".
He shuffled off in the direction of the large mansion house.
"...To transmute base material into gold, first take
a chicken... Just my little joke"
wrote Snideblast.
And so it went on,
in a seemingly meaningless,
but somehow ordered way.
The rest of the night was a blur to Paula,
and the next thing she clearly remembered was turning up for work at midday
the next day.
Paula was the host of a highly successful and very stupid daytime TV show,
"An Afternoon with Paula and Mike".
Paula generally spent the entire show pretending to be married to Mike.
However today seemed to be different.
She could suddenly see things as they really were -
how could anyone actually be in love with a guy with two horns coming out
of his head.
"Strange" she thought
"I'm sure I've never noticed them before".
The autocue seemed to be scrolling by at an amazing rate.
The story about the one legged donkey that ate small children made the
cameraman laugh
so hysterically that the news section had to been cut short.
Paula realised that Mike was going to be less than understanding about
her
small mistakes and so she left by the back exit,
determined to find Professor Snideblast.
Unfortunately,
in her confused state,
she hadn't realised that she had left the show half-way through,
through a false scenery door at the back of the set.
In fact she hadn't realised quite a lot about todays program.
It had been quite clear to the viewers of the show however,
particularly Bruce Presely,
humble lab tech. from Snideblast's lab,
home on permanent sick leave after one stolen chemical too many.
He motioned his wife to the television.
"Look! That Paula woman is on TV naked!"
Paula had found her way into what she thought was her dressing room
and was struggling back into her normal everyday clothes.
"Funny I don't remember buying any hares this morning"
Her brain sort of thought,
sort of hinted at,
amoungst all the turquoises and purple triangles floating exhaling bubbles
and tendrils
all over her body in a delicious lubrication sensation.
It was as Paula's mind went into overload that Snideblast came out of the
shadows and led Paula away.
Later, Snideblast let himself into Paula's flat and retrieved the book.
He returned it to Lucky Lens in time for the next person that needed it.
A story was leaked to the Sunday papers about Paula's sexual inadequacies
and her drug binges.
She was dead, or was she?
Various rumours started to circulate,
that she was living as a recluse on a remote island,
or had been seen in an Eastbourne supermarket.
She was replaced on her TV show by the buxom Billy
(those breast implants were a real success, thought Snideblast).
She was the ideal replacement.
She didn't even need the autocue, she knew exactly what you'd want her
to say!
Snideblast laughed hysterically,
He had formulated a plan.
He had invented a totally new designer drug.
He made it illegal, but easily available
(fairly easy using the already existing underground drug movements).
By subtly altering its chemical formula he could set about massive mood
swings
amoungst a large part of the populus.
Even now he was working on a new form of LS35-J that could replace the
fluoride in the water supply,
clean teeth with an altered mind!