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Sitting calmly in the back of their somewhat special executive limousine, Algernon and Winstanley were slowly progressing through paperwork that would, through its sheer boredom (let alone volume), have killed lesser entities. Strangely, they seemed not only to enjoy this work, but actually be obtaining sustenance, comfort and meaning from this activity. Some, on viewing this, might even have doubted Algernon and Winstanley's humanity on the basis of this observation, but this is definitely not intended by the authors. Honest. Trust us. We've no more idea of what's going on that you do. Heck, we're not even looking at the same realities.
They had noted the length of time the journey to the Wallops was taking, but they were not unfamiliar with the erratic times that are associated with journeys involving English motorways, especially ones involving the numbers 25 and 3. And this had the joyous benefit of giving them more time for their paperwork.
Algernon was, once again, glad that he'd had the foresight to have networking access and high speed printer (with a twenty ream paper hopper) options fitted. And that he'd persuaded that strange gibbon-like salesman to do this at no extra cost.
A rustle in the air and a brief breeze almost managed to disturb a sheet of paper.
Algernon and Winstanley looked up.
"What the.." they said in unison looking at each other. They now appeared adorned by both pegs and ear-plugs that had not previously been present.
"You've got…", they chorused, pointing at each other.
"The Ministry!" exclaimed Algernon, biting the words out in a way that not so much took the idea of a bite to a new level as applied a peta prefix whilst making a shark seem as dangerous as a low-fat cream bun and causing the editors of the Oxford English dictionary re-write several definitions (from a safe distance).
"James!"
Silence.
"JAMES!"
Silence.
Algernon removed his newly and involuntarily acquired face furniture and leant forward to slide open the blacked out glass partition to the driver. (Those following this tale carefully might have been intrigued to notice that he apparently detected nothing unusual on removing his peg, and nor did Winstanley, though they did wince slightly on removing the earplugs.)
And looked onto a passenger seat where the driver should have been. Algernon sat back and remembered that this limousine had been imported from a specialist supplier, and presumed it must have been a left-hand drive model.
So he slide the glass partition back shut on one side and opened the other one.
Onto another passenger seat.
Occupied by an apparently sleeping echidna.
With a glove compartment that appeared to be just finishing being closed from within.
Algernon sat down, opened his mouth to say something but before any words could be formed, he was thrown around as the limousine suddenly bumped, swerved slightly, accelerated, decelerated, bumped, accelerated, bumped and then came to an abrupt stop. (Relatively speaking, that is.)
This also, much to both his and Winstanley's annoyance, de-organised their paperwork and increased the entropy of the associated filing system.
Now had Algernon been a fan of movies, and watched such classics as The Italian Job starring Michael Caine he would probably have had an inkling as to what was happening. However he wasn’t, and so he didn't. Fortunately for at least someone.
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