======= Date Modified 12 Nov 2009 11:28:13 =======
"The Valentine's Day research department?", Jemima wondered. Well she knew well what Valentine's Day was, she was just a child, but she knew it was all about LOVE:-x and couples being nice to each other on this one day in February. It was all about chocolates, roses and lovely things! But what was there to research about all this? As if what had happened so far was not enough of a puzzle, this was just so strange...

and why did her father let her go on the omnibus when he knew it wasnt for school?! It seemed to Jemima that there was more to this than chance....

It really was very strange. Valentine’s Day. Jemima suddenly realised sometimes. She stopped dead in her tracks, causing the elf behind her to bump into her. Valentine’s Day, the day her mother had disappeared. And there was something else she suddenly remembered: a pink folder on the desk in her father’s study. A pink folder with hearts all over it. The label on the folder: Valentine’s Day Research.

What did her father do in this crazy place?! and why had she never heard about it before?! walking through the building she noticed shimmering lights to her left, just flickering dimly through a crack in the wall. Nudging the elf beside her she asked "what's that? see that light?" The elf looked but couldn't see anything. The light got brighter and brighter until it seemed the wall was about to break from the force of light squeezing through the crack. "How can you not see that?!" exclaimed Jemima. The elf looked at the wall but still couldn't see anything. Then he looked back at Jemima and was so surprised by what he saw he couldn't even believe it...

"Well, the crazy genius! He's only gone and bloody done it!" cried the elf, in sheer disbelief! "How in Libido's name did he achieve it though? I thought we'd run out of grant money and couldn't afford the reagents from Calbiochem..."
The Elf shook his head in disbelief, tears welling up in his eyes. Jemima looked at him, quizzically, not really understanding what all the commotion was about, or really how she had ended up here when she really thought about it for that matter.
"What's he supposed to have done? What on earth is 'this'? I'm not sure I understand anything..." said Jemima, very confused indeed.
"I, I, I don't know where to start," mumbled the elf. "This is an achievement for Valentines day what walking on the moon was for space exploration, what the internet is for academia...my God...comparable to what Gillian McKeith has been for health and nutrition. This is the holy grail for Valentine's day. And they said it couldn't be done. This, is, is-"
"Ahh, Tarquel my good man! I see you have fetched our guest. Jemima, what an honour! I'm very pleased to meet you and you've arrived just in time. So, what do you think?"
Stood before Jemima was a very small and slight man with a very tall head of hair (like a mini version of Don King who'd used too much hairspray). He extended his hand and smiled.

======= Date Modified 13 Nov 2009 12:56:33 =======
Jemima, remembering her manners, reached out to take the slight mans hand. He was cold to the touch. Jemima flinched, surprised by his touch. The man smirked.



"Who are you?" Jemima asked. She recognised him vaguely, but was not sure where from.



"Why, do you not remember me?", the short man responded. "I'm your uncle Carlos, did your father not tell you we were expecting you?"



Jemina suddenly realised where she knew the man from. Her memory frightened her somewhat. She had seen him before. He had been to her house before. In fact he had been several times during her youth. The last time she had seen him was the day her mother had disappeared...

‘What’s going on? What’s happening in this place?’

‘Ah, let me show you our latest invention. Pure genius.’ Uncle Carlos led her into the nearest room. It was huge. There were rows and rows of desks with computers, behind each computer an elf.

Jemima stared in amazement. ‘Each of these computers is hooked up to the computers of ten PhD students,’ Uncle Carlos explained proudly. ‘We can monitor what every PhD student in the country does. As soon as one of them comes up with a really clever, original idea, it shows up on that large screen over there.’ He pointed to an enormous screen near the door. It was blank.

‘But there is nothing on there!’ Jemima observed.

‘Ah, yes. There seems to be a bit of a problem. All these PhD students seem to spend most of their time at their computers playing games, posting on forums, checking the news and generally procrastinating.’ The disgust in his voice was obvious. ‘One of them has even started a story recently, encouraging other gullible PhD students to join in and procrastinate even further! And that’s, my dear, where you come in.’

‘Me? But what…’ Before Jemima could finish her sentence the door opened and in came…

an elf dragging a young man along in shackles, he had a spiky collar around his neck and looked under nourished and somewhat ill.

"Who's that?" Jemima asked

"That, is Phase 2" said her Uncle in a smug tone, "the computer links are not consistent, we only have ideas coming through about once per month, and they tend to be about changing the type spacing to look like more has been written. We need more publications, more idea generation and knowledge transfer to industry to keep Peter the Dark Lord happy. To do this we needed to implement the master plan which consists of three stages, R, E and F - I will tell you what these stand for later, but you need level 8 clearance for that"

Jemima wondered who Peter the Dark Lord was, what the three stages of the master plan were and why the screen in the centre of the room kept on flashing with an image of...

.....her father. Could it be that he was more involved than she first thought?

For one thing "uncle" Carlos and her father looked nothing alike. Facially, Big Bird and Lenny Henry had more in common. And there were no pictures of him at her grandparents home. In fact, she'd never heard him mentioned by anyone in the family. This was getting stranger by the minute.

Seeing the elves hooked up to their machines, frantically tapping away, Jemima felt a terrible sadness descend upon her. Why did they do it, she wondered? There was no glory when they did succeed (supervisor Carlos took that), the hours were long, the conditions terrible, and even after the ten year elf intern scheme, their prospects were little bleaker than before they started.

What kept them here?

...masochism. That would at least explain why the elf that previously walked past worse a spiky collar. "Mmm, that's an awfully mature word for a young child like myself," thought Jemima to herself. "I suppose the Daily Mail is right - all children truly are becoming corrupted at a very young age. I suppose that it's attributable to the decline in modern day family values and all things Labour and socialist..."
Jemima's musings were suddenly interrupted by a series of angry exchanges by a small group of elves behind her.

"No, I'm going to be second author on that paper! You can be third!" shouted one of them.
"Hang on, I did the figures and the abstract. You just wrote the title! Really, you should just be in the acknowledgements section!" countered one of the others.

Poor Jemima didn't have a clue what all the fuss was about. To her they looked like a famished pack of wolves fighting over the last remaining chicken leg bone in the world. Why the desperation, back-biting and infighting? This really was all getting stranger and disconcerting by the minute.

Uncle Carlos marched forwards, a stern look on his face...

"It's too damn late!" He thundered. "Those bastards have beaten us to the punch, and now they've gotten the Wellcome grant to boot. Damn Clause and his contingent of genetically-modified elves."

The elves shrank back (in so far as an already diminutive elf can), all thoughts of authorship, cast out for the moment by the chill of Carlos' stare. Jemima wondered whether the Daily Mail was in some way to blame for this as well, they certainly were keen on Christmas.

Just as everyone was wondering how the silence could possibly be broken, a striking women careered into the room "Carlos!" she declared, "come with me, I have something to show you". To Jemima's amazment, Carlos unfurled his knitted eyebrows, simpered lightly, and followed, obedient as a well-trained chihuahua.

"Who", Jemima asked, "was that?"

“That,” the friendly elf from the bus said “is the editor of the Daily Mail.”

“But … isn’t the editor of the Daily Mail a man?”

Jemima’s question remained unanswered. Suddenly there was great excitement amongst the elves. They crowded around the large screen. Numbers and letters were moving across it at great speed. Jemima was beginning to feel dizzy.

“Look, look,” one of the elves shouted, “one of those no-good PhD students must have had an idea!”

At last the screen became still and one single sentence appeared in large pink letters. It said: …

The words "The World's First Time Machine" appeared to gasps of awe and astonishment.

The student responsible for this aberration of physics stepped out. He gazed at the expectant crowd then proclaimed proudly "Indeed, I have invented the world's first time machine, and this very building is it!"

A frenzy seized the crowd, as the elves climbed upon one another in a bid to reach the fire exits.

"Oh no you don't!" cackled the student, as he pulled a hefty lever sending jolts of energy throughout the walls and chairs, through the floors and through all the atoms of the building's spacious chambers. A bright flash of light, like unto the radiance of a thousand quasars burst forth with radiant brilliance from every direction, and then, there was silence.

======= Date Modified 22 Nov 2009 14:12:52 =======
John rubbed his eyes, then gazed about himself. "Goodness grief!" he exclaimed, as he realized he was on the Omni bus. A half eaten bag of the Real McCoys crisps, Flame grilled steak flavour, was open in his hand, and a confused John had no recollection of his arrival.

Suddenly some rustling beneath his seat caught John's attention. He gazed down and out crawled a strange bug like a cockroach, yet with 978 legs. It had five segments, and upon four of these segments was a yellow star.

"What kind of bug is this!!" exclaimed a very confused John. He looked about the omni bus but the other passengers were too busy with their ipods to notice.

"I'm a PhD bug", replied the small beast in a boisterous tone. John instinctively scooped up his foot and accelerated it down to squish the bug, but the strange beast quickly interjected.

"No! I'm the queen of the last family of the endangered and rare species Phdbugus tetrastarius! Don't squish me!"

John looked under his seat and, lo! The PhD bug was not alone! "Who are you", asked John of the other five bugs.

"I am A Sapsucker Winkle Mi!", replied the bug with 605 legs.

"I am Snakes!", replied the bug with 673 legs.

"I am Wurby!", replied the bug with 1316 legs.

"I am Sassy Pic Me!", replied the bug with 935 legs.

"I am A Blob Big Sing!", replied the bug with 415 legs.

John noticed that these small bugs were sprouting new legs. This bizarre spectacle inspired John to renew the thought of squishing them.

"Please!", pleaded the queen PhD bug, "don't harm us -- we're the only living Phdbugus tetrastarius bugs left!"

The appeal to John's empathy succeeded; bending down, he scooped the bugs into his crisp packet using a copy of the Metro left on the adjacent seat.

"No canoodling in there!", John requested of the Phd bugs, as he folded over the top of the crisp packet and slipped it into his jacket's side pocket.

The Omni Bus chugged along, with John sat quietly gazing out the window, contemplating its bizarre nature.

BANG!