[LazyScot]

Stepping into Adrian's bar on, somewhat unusually, a Sunday, I was struck by something. Not, fortunately, the Waterfowl Air Patrol, as I had long since developed the completely unconscious bobbing action when entering, but instead by the fact that Adrian's seemed normal. Well as normal as anything with its unusual clientele, impossible drinks and temporal arrogance can look. Worrying.

As I approached the bar, Marc had just finished serving a bearded, white-haired man I'd never seen before.

"I'll have a---" and sure enough Marc thrust a small glass into my hand and pushed over a plate of sliced fruits and cheese over to me. (Have I mentioned that Adrian's, as bars go, is unusual?)

"Lightly chilled Canadian Icewine. With fruits and cheese."

"Why—" I admit that I had been thinking of a desert wine, so I tried the icewine as Marc interrupted.

"I felt you weren't quite ready for the Noble One," Marc replied, with a perfectly straight face. And I must admit that the icewine was absolutely perfect.

Marc returned to make another ZCD to add the growing pile of glasses surrounding the new barfly. Whoever he was, he must have had a liver that could scare squirrels and comprised a biochemical hazard of trans-dimensional proportions. I wondered if AA had a most wanted list.

Looking round the bar, a small group were arguing with McHump over the validity of a trans-lateral move from Kensington Highstreet when the next move was blocked and the previous move was ruled intransigent. (McHump was a computer in the same way that Adrian's Bar is a Bar. He had been created by Marc using a class V consciousness that Adrian had left over from some experiments on creating an antidote to politics that had, in his own words, been somewhat suboptimal. McHump was now connected to several Exabytes of storage holding, Adrian assured us, all the known and unknown rules and rulings of The Game for the duration of time. The reason for the creation was that at one point a group had tried to reach agreement by drawing out their moves. Unfortunately this had accidentally inscribed some rather dangerous runes that opened a hole to the shadow dimensions. At that point, something the colour that invoked all your worst nightmares slithered through, said what was almost certainly "LUNCHTIME", and started ambling towards the players. Fortunately for everyone, Adrian had just swung in. He looked that the nightmare coloured thing, and it looked at Adrian. Adrian cocked an eyebrow directly at the thing, which promptly changed from the colour of your nightmares into a colour of fear, then abject terror, and then released a small pool of fluorescent purple liquid. The liquid took one look at Adrian, caught sight of the squid, did some very fast calculation and fled back through the hole to the safety of the shadow dimensions, pursued by the clearly terrified creature from beyond, which paused only briefly to draw out various defensive sigils before disappearing through the hole, and slamming and bolting the door after it.)

Over at the weekend Sofas, the Squid was happily reading next weekend's financial papers, and had clearly found a story of interest, which it was sharing with Verencat (who was wearing her "Free the Penguin" tee-shirt). It seemed to be something about a new highly secure computer system to protect bankers bonuses. Verencat seemed to have some ideas about it as well, as their discussion got quite animated.

Elle, the cash register, had wandered over to the Juke Box, and decided to try out some new psychiatry ideas on the Juke Box. Sadly this somewhat backfired, since the Juke Box insisted on making a song and dance out of it. Ending up with the Juke Box taking on the role of Gene Kelly in a rendition of Shrinking in the Rain, where one of the pillars stood in for a lamp, the bar's sprinkler system supplied the rain, a startled lurker got an umbrella no-one knew the juke box had, and Marc appeared in a policeman's uniform. Exactly why Marc has a policeman's uniform, and how he managed to get into it and out of it so quickly was something I decided not to pursue. Still, Elle had a good giggle. At the Juke Box, I think.

"A refill?" asked Marc (now out of uniform), and I noticed I'd finished my icewine.

"Please," I replied, perhaps a little too eagerly.

"You've not yet met Laws, have you? Laws, Lazy; Lazy, Laws," said Marc, by way of introduction and started making more ZCDs for Laws.

"If I ever find that so called author, I'll make him eat his words. Literally. Every single one of them. Painfully," announced Laws, without any explanation or signs of slurring. For no apparent reason, I decided it was a good time to study my glass of wine, and contemplate its potential for Madeirisation.

"It used to be so simple. Not a care. Didn’t even know what a care was. Then wham! Pow! Crash! And do you know what?" asked Laws. "Well, do you?"

"Err... No?"

"No. Of course not. All of a sudden I'm contemplating. I'm thinking. Then what happens? Worrying. Empathy. Compassion. Even caring. The evil little wordsmith. Did he, do any of them, think about it when they start?"

"Err… No?"

"No. Of course not. They never do, they just do what they want, without concern for the consequences. They just have no idea of the power of words. And now look at me. Driven to drink. Is that fair?"

"Err.. No?"

"Of course not. It used to be so simple. BANG! And I'd sterilise and entire galaxy arm. Now? Angst. Me. Angst. Laws should never suffer angst." I looked nervously at Marc wondering just who it was I'd been introduced to.

"A stone falls on someone's toe, and I'm concerned by what they think of me. Someone knocks a coffee cup and if I was actually a little bit generous it would return to upright. But no, good ole Laws tips it up and the coffee pours into the computer. I hate…" He paused. "Actually, I like that one; but most of them I hate."

"Ahhh. At last," he said as a beautiful lady entered the bar walking like Jello on springs, strangely without having to get out of the way of the Waterfowl Air Patrol, who instead got out of her way.

"Hi Laws!" said the lady as she arrived at the bar and received a very small ZCD from Marc. Given the generosity of measures that is Adrian's this was very unusual. As was the look Marc gave conveyed a relationship where the parties rarely see completely eye to eye.

"Who’s your friend?" she asked. I don't know why, but the word insignificance came to mind seeing the two of them sitting there. Probably it applied to me. I hope.

"Lazy somebody or other. I was just explaining the evil that is an author, Reality."

Ah… The measure made sense. At least within the usual definition of sense in Adrian's. My eye's glanced up to Adrian's Coat Of Arms, and the motto inscribed underneath. "Economical with Reality".

"Vile people. Still no sign of whoever it was?" said Reality.

"No, unfortunately. I wonder if word has got out. Anyway, you ready for our regular night of oblivion seeking, Physics?", at which point he nodded and they started on some more ZCDs.

"Physics?" I asked Marc.

"Yup. It's his name. Laws of Physics."

"?" I responded.

"Yup. Comes in here. Every Sunday. Drinks a lot. And gets quite talkative, too."

"Ummm. You get the Laws of Physics drunk every Sunday and he talks to you."

"Yessss."

"Does this have anything to do with some of Montsmags Enterprises more, um, exotic products?"

"Well, shall we say that some of what Laws divulges does help the R&D department." And with that Marc provided another few dozen ZCDs to Laws and Reality. At which point a Penny dropped. She was obviously not used to some of Marc's cocktails, but I'm sure a bowl of Mrs Paca's noodles would soon have her right as rain. Then it eventually dawned on me.

"Errr. Marc? Reality and the Laws of Physics get thoroughly drunk on ZCDs regularily?"

"Yes."

"Every Sunday?"

"And that means they must have a serious hangover?"

"Yes. Mondays." said Marc, far too happily with one of his poly-syllabic enigmatic smiles.

So I had another glass of Candian Icewine.