Summer in the city was hot, dry and uncomfortable. Gary wasn't dry though. The sheets felt, rumpled, damp and sticky. He lay awake, listening to the street noises - motors starting, stopping, changing gear, voices unreasonably loud for the hour. The hum of the air conditioning irritated him most of all. It made a hell of a racket for something that clearly wasn't doing the job it was designed to do. It had been a long day and he was tired but couldn't sleep. He longed for his own bed. That's where he'd be right now, if he'd resisted temptation. It wasn't the spot of supper and a night cap that tempted him, but a tantalising hint that he might receive solid evidence of an amazing scientific development - the subject of the disappointing press conference.

All the journalists were disgusted at the complete waste of their time, but perhaps Gary had expressed it more forcefully - less diplomatically - than the rest. He could still see the remnants of anger smouldering in Bateman's eyes half an hour after his rash outburst - even as he issued his curt and unexpected invitation. The invitation was a surprise because he and the Professor disliked each other, to put it mildly. He wondered if his dislike for the man had distorted his judgement of how much the feeling was reciprocated. Bateman certainly gave the impression of being a cold, egoistic misanthrope, who seemed to regard everyone with equal disdain. Perhaps the apparent hostility with which he responded to Gary's searching questions was no more than his usual manner. Gary didn't think so though.

This had been their third encounter and he sensed real and increasing needle in Bateman's responses. The man was arrogant. That was plain enough. In his view, he should simply be believed if he said that a thing was so. He resented the accusation of dishonesty - scientific fraud - that he felt Gary's perfectly reasonable request for clear details, implied. The Professor wanted recognition for his amazing success where others were failing, but was unable or unwilling to provide convincing proof of his achievements. Remembering too well the embarrassing fiasco of the cold fusion story that went off prematurely, Gary refused to get his fingers burned again.

Journalistic antennae twitching, he wondered if Bateman intended to give him some sort of 'off the record' exclusive, to satisfy the need for something more solid than the wild claims and extravagant boasts that he had issued so far. The man was a scientist. He must surely understand that Gary's editor wouldn't accept unsubstantiated assertions. It might be good enough for the tabloids, but not for his respectable, scientific journal. On the other hand, Bateman was not a reasonable man.

They went up to the professor's suite, had a couple of glasses of whisky and Gary ate a few uninteresting and inadequate nibbles with caviar that tasted off. It wasn't much of a supper, but he was hungry. Bateman was eager for the journalist to try the caviar but declined to join him. He made an effort to seem friendly and relaxed but it was quite obviously a sham. Gary couldn't work out what the man was up to. He added nothing to what he'd already told him, other than to say, mysteriously, that the proof he wanted would be forthcoming very soon - and when it came, it would surprise him. Gary didn't like the way he said that. There was an undercurrent of threat in his tone and a smile on his lips that contradicted the hard, menacing glint in his eyes.

Less than 40 minutes after entering the suite, the professor cut the conversation short, claiming sudden tiredness, and practically ejected Gary bodily from the room. By the time he reached the lobby, he was feeling slightly unwell and decided it would be better to book a room here than attempt to drive home. The room was two floors below Bateman's and considerably humbler. But it was clean and tidy with en suite facilities - no more nor less than he required. He took a shower then went straight to bed, hoping to sleep off the whisky or bad caviar and feel fit to drive by morning.

Unable to sleep, he switched on the bed-side light and reached down for his briefcase, meaning to have another read through the handout Bateman had provided for the journalists. He didn't expect it to become any clearer, but perhaps it would lull him to sleep. It was a thick sheaf of A4 sheets covered both sides in tiny, dense print. He squinted at it in the dim light. It was no good. His eyes refused to focus. He scanned the title page and the headings in bold upper-case characters and found it surprisingly difficult to read even these.

The paper explained in frustratingly vague terms how Bateman had succeeded in building tiny, self-replicating machines. He claimed to have moved beyond the 'top down' manufacture of static nanostructures using advanced instruments for viewing, chiselling, sculpting or laboriously manipulating atoms and molecules. According to this paper, he had found a way to genetically alter certain organic materials to serve as programmable tools for the 'bottom up' biological production of nanomachines. Some of these machines were superficially indistinguishable from biological entities, ranging in size from as small as virus particles, through microscopic animalcules and right up to quite large invertebrates. The materials and means of manufacture were not specified. Mention was made of 'Prion Proteins', 'Golgi Apparatus' and even 'Bdelloid Rotifers'. It amounted to a frustrating tease; hints, suggesting real possibilities, but falling well short of the level of detail necessary to independently verify the claims. Bateman was a very secretive man, torn between his ego, demanding recognition and his paranoia, terrified of the theft of his discoveries.

Gary's eye sight was normally very good so he didn't need to wear glasses. His inability to read even the larger print concerned him. Pushing back the sheet, he sat up and swung his legs out of the bed so that he could hold the document directly under the light. As he stretched his eyes wide to let in the maximum amount of light, his right eye darkened for a moment and he felt something slide across it. His hand reached up automatically to rub it, but he stopped himself, knowing that the worst thing you can do to an eye with a foreign body in it, is rub it. Instead, he stood up and walked to the bathroom, meaning to examine the eye in the mirror and carefully remove the offending matter.

Groping around for the switch, he caught a dim reflection of himself in the mirror. There was movement in front of his face, just below his nose. His heart rate increased as his hand made contact with a cord and pulled. The light came on and he stepped straight to the mirror, pulled a shorter cord that controlled a strip light across the top of it. Simultaneously, a thread-like something withdrew behind his lower right eye lid and, what looked like a small, grey eel, dangling from one of his nostrils looked back at him from the mirror. He reached up to grab it but it quickly shot back into his nose. It was real. No doubt about it. He knew that he really had seen it - but he hadn't felt a thing. Now he felt sick. For several more minutes he examined himself in the mirror. Then he examined every inch of his body that was reachable, minutely. He pulled the bed apart hunting for bed bugs, lice, worms, anything. He found nothing.

It just wasn't possible to even think about getting any sleep with his mind in its present, agitated state. He dared not turn off the light or get back into the bed. Instead he picked up the telephone and asked the switchboard to put him through to his GP, who happened also to be an old school friend. Bob Gifford was not delighted to receive a call after midnight but switched to his best bed-side manner when he detected the note of panic in his friend's voice. He listened patiently then suggested that Gary start out early, if he felt fit to drive and come straight to his surgery. At worst, he'd somehow picked up some parasitic worm. Yes, it was horrible, but it must be a recent infection (though not as recent as the last couple of hours) and wouldn't be instantly lethal. They just needed to find out what sort of worm and then it should be easy enough to treat. Relieved, Gary rearranged the bed and tried to sleep again. Eventually he drifted off.

Next morning he was surprised to be woken by the maid. It was 9am. He'd over-slept. The nausea of the previous night had passed and he felt re-energised - until he remembered the disgusting worm thing looking at him from the nostril of his own reflection. Pushing the image out of his mind, he dressed quickly, vacated his room, paid his bill and left. The drive through the city was slow and annoying, but once he got onto the motorway, he put his foot down and raced home. He parked the car in his driveway and jogged round to the surgery. The waiting room was empty and he was directed straight in to Bob's consulting room.

'Sit yourself down Gary, and let's have a look at you. Don't worry too much. Your sense of revulsion is quite natural but I expect we should be able to get this cleared up without too much trouble. The problem of worms is a lot more common than you might suppose.'

'Thanks for seeing me at such short notice mate - and sorry to have dragged you out of bed at such an ungodly hour last night. It was just such a shock to see that thing looking back at me from the mirror and the other thing wriggling over my eye-ball. Couldn't think what else to do. All a bit embarrassing in the rational light of day.'

Bob carried out a thorough examination, looking first in Gary's eyes and nose. There was nothing to see. He took swabs and blood samples and asked Gary to bring him further samples as soon as he was able to produce them, to send off to the lab for analysis. Finally, he asked Gary where he'd been lately, any wild or exotic locations - and where and what he'd eaten. There were no obvious clues.

'What about that caviar I had last night? I didn't have very much, but I swear it was off. I think that's what made me feel ill.'

'No, I don't think so Gary. You could get a parasitic infection from fish eggs, but what you described couldn't have developed in the two hours or so between eating the eggs and seeing those worms - one of which must have been at least three or four inches long. No. You've been incubating these little wrigglers longer than that.'

'It's a mystery then.'

'Until the lab results come back, yes.'

'But it's probably harmless?'

'Well, some are worse than others, but you haven't visited any of the locations where the worst ones are to be found. So you should be okay. Anyway, don't worry about it. We'll soon know what it is. In my experience, these things can be cleared up pretty quickly.'

Gary smiled doubtfully and Bob gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder and sent him off with his sample pots.

He dropped the samples off at the surgery early in the afternoon, the same day.

A few days later all the results were in and reported negative findings for any trace of worm infestation - eggs, larvae or adults.

In the meantime, Gary had ceased to worry about worms. Things had moved on.

Once he'd dropped off his samples, he felt more cheerful. Good old Bob. Just like when they were at school. There was something reassuring in his manner. It wasn't just his words. There was nothing more Gary could do for the moment. It was in Bob's hands so he might as well just get on with life as normal and try not to let his mind dwell on parasitic worms.

There was work to do: an article to write on Prof Bateman's claims. Neither the interview nor the press handout - and especially not their private talk later in Bateman's hotel room - had convinced Gary to write them up as anything more than unsubstantiated claims.

It took him most of the afternoon. He tried to word it diplomatically, not to offend the haughty, irascible scientist more than was unavoidable. The telephone rang as he was wrestling with the concluding paragraph. Distracted, he reached across and pressed the telephone's hands-free button and answered with a grunt - eyes and mind still on the text in front of him, hands hovering over the keyboard. It took a few moments to recognise the voice and pay attention to what it was saying.

'Professor Bateman? What an unexpected .... '

'Yes, yes. I don't usually telephone journalists. You're surprised to hear from me. You're writing your article about me? About my work? The latest development?'

'Yes. But ... '

'But I failed to convince you of my spectacular contribution to the advance of nanotechnology yesterday. So what are you saying?'

'Well, I'm outlining your claims. Reporting what you said and, of course, what you didn't say. I have, as you must realise, to give both sides of the issue; draw readers' attention to the evidence that would be needed for your claims to be taken seriously.'

'Evidence! You want solid proof? Of course you do! I'm going to give you solid proof Davies. I know you think I should just lay out all my work and workings for all to see and thereby enable any cheat, any charlatan - men of inadequate talent, meagre imagination, paltry intellect - to steal my ideas and claim my work for their own. I'm not going to do that Davies! Certainly not! But I will provide you with sufficient proof to convince you. Just you, Davies!'

Gary didn't reply straight away. The edge of menace in Bateman's voice chilled him. The man aimed to intimidate, and he succeeded. On the one hand, he was generously offering the journalist exclusive access to the proof he'd requested. On the other, he made it sound as though he was sending a thug round to break Gary's legs.

'Are you still there Davies?'

'Yes, I'm here.'

'I trust that you will be modifying your article in light of the proof you are about to receive?'

'Yes, of course, if I'm satisfied by it. But this has to be submitted within the next six hours. Can you supply your proof before my deadline?'

'Oh yes. Let's see. It's two minutes past six. I take it you must transmit the piece to your editor by midnight tonight?'

'That's right.'

'Then I guarantee you will have more than adequate proof, well before your deadline, to give you sufficient time to make the necessary changes to your text.'

'What sort of proof?'

'Gone six o'clock, Davies. Tea time. You must be starving. Mustn't keep you. Aren't you very hungry? Aren't you very hungry indeed?'

'No, I'm not. What are you talking about Professor? I don't eat until nine. Just tell me. What sort of proof?'

'You'll know it when you see it Davies! Enjoy your evening, if you can.'

And he hung up.

Gary sat frowning at the telephone. Bateman's performance disturbed him. What could he possibly be getting at? Should he be looking out for some sort of special delivery? The man was unlikely to set out his methods and results clearly, in black and white and send the documents by courier to a journalist. Not at this stage. The man was paranoid and, Gary now suspected, completely unhinged.

Fretting about it wasn't getting the piece finished. There was a conclusion to sort out. Once the thing was done, he could hold on to it for a few hours - just in case Bateman's mysterious 'evidence' materialised during the course of the evening, and the text had to be amended. The conclusion eluded him. The words just wouldn't come. His stomach rumbled. Couldn't concentrate. So hungry. He felt famished.

Without thinking about what he was doing - not conscious of what he was doing, Gary put his computer aside, stood up and walked to the kitchen.

The next thing he knew, he was eating mouthfuls of dry bread between spoonfuls of white, granulated sugar. It was a shock. He'd never eaten in such a desperate frenzy before. He'd never felt so hungry before. He'd never come out of a trance to find himself gorging. But then, he'd never been in a trance before. It was too much. He felt sick. Had to sit down. Think. Take stock.

It took some time, sitting at the table, leaning back against the wall, eyes closed, mind in turmoil, before he could calm down and arrange his thoughts. When a measure of reason had returned, he remembered Bateman's strange, sudden suggestion that he should be feeling very hungry. Was it hypnotism? Gary didn't think that he would be so sensitive to suggestion. He imagined that his will was too strong, his nature too stubborn and sceptical. But he'd never undergone hypnotism before so it was possible that he was more disposed to domination by a stronger will than he had supposed. What other explanation could there be, after all?

No alternative explanation presented itself. The more he thought about it, the more he felt convinced that he had been psychologically abused by a man who was able to take unfair advantage of him. Bateman, he now felt sure, had no intention of sending proof. He was just trying to intimidate Gary - shake his confidence, fill him with self-doubt. It was spiteful. And it made him feel very angry. If Bateman would ruthlessly use hypnosis as a weapon against anyone who challenged or annoyed him, then he should certainly be exposed. There must be some law to protect people against this kind of ..... assault!

Then he remembered the worms. Didn't parasitic worms make you feel hungry? Only some types. What sort? Tape worms. He thought it was just an infestation of tape worms that would make the host feel hungry. But he wasn't sure. Bob would know. He reached for the telephone on the wall and punched in Bob's number. It was picked up by an answering machine that assured him Bob would telephone him back if he would leave his name, telephone number and a short message after the tone. Gary couldn't think how to word the message, so he just told Bob's machine that he needed to see him as soon as possible.

He'd lost control of himself and he felt sure Bateman was to blame. But he didn't know how. Hypnotism or worms? Bob didn't think the fish eggs were responsible for the worm infestation. Gary wasn't so sure. He went over the facts and the conversations with Bateman. He remembered how eager Bateman had been for him to try the caviar and how he wouldn't touch the stuff himself. Then there was the smug confidence in his tone when he telephoned. He sounded like a man who believed he had won and wanted to rub his enemy's nose in it.

As Gary sat there, picking over the data, trying to make sense of it, he felt a movement in his left ear. It hurt. He grunted, tilted his head over to allow what he thought must be ear-wax, to dislodge itself and come out. The thing felt as though it was expanding and heating up as it simultaneously pushed against his ear-drum and forced itself up through the ear-canal. It was a horrible sensation. He shifted his jaw from side to side to assist its passage out and he tried to insert his little finger into the ear to try to get it out more quickly. His finger met something coming in the opposite direction and it nipped the end of the finger.

With a yelp of: 'Ow! What the ...... ?' he jumped up and grabbed a shaving mirror from the kitchen window sill, turned it to the magnifying side and looked to see what was emerging from his ear. It was grey-pink. It had a mouth. He leaned over the washing-up bowl in the sink and allowed the thing to drop into it. Then he could only stare in disbelief. It looked like a gecko. A small, pale pink, gecko - about four inches long, with a diamond shaped head. Legs were growing from its flanks as he watched. When they were fully formed, the thing scuttled across the bottom of the bowl and straight up the side, as if it were no more trouble to run up the vertical side of the bowl than across the horizontal bottom. Just in time, Gary made a grab for the thing and managed to catch its tail. The tail broke and the front end made good its escape.

The tail squirmed in his hand and he dropped it as though he'd received an electric shock. It fell back into the bowl where it lost its tint of pink and appeared to melt into a puddle of grey goo. Gary was appalled. His stomach was contracting. Bread and sugar churned and rose up his oesophagus but he clapped a hand over his mouth to prevent the vomit obliterating the slimy grey puddle - because the slimy grey puddle was doing something. With great determination, he kept it down and continued to observe the second act of the creature from his ear. It divided into three smaller puddles. These expanded and the plastic bowl sagged beneath them as though melting. Then the three blobs lost their blobbiness and took on recognisable shapes: became well defined beetles, each with six legs and long, whip-like antennae. They darkened to the colour of old, mottled walnut and when their metamorphosis was complete, they were three, large, handsome cockroaches.

The contents of his stomach erupted across the kitchen like a volcano. He abandoned his mad dash to the bathroom. It was too late. The vomit was a seething mass of legs and bodies. Most of it looked like red spiders and grey worms. The last thing he spat out was too long and too fat. It wriggled up his throat and over his tongue urgently, as if it was late for a party. It had more segments and legs than seemed decent. A centipede of tropical proportions. Horrible, vicious looking beast! Gary staggered back to the seat by the table. He was beyond shock. And he was feeling ravenously hungry again.

The telephone rang. Clutching at straws now - he hardly dared hope that Bob had got his message. If his doctor friend came over now, he'd witness Hell and know it was all real. Gary picked up the 'phone and put it to his ear, too weak to speak. The voice was familiar. It wasn't Bob's.

Bateman gloated on the other end of the line.

'You can't really send that disgraceful article in now, can you Davies? You can see that I have indeed, created self-replicating machines. They don't look very machine-like, I grant you - but you know that's what they are, don't you? If only you could see them under a sufficiently powerful microscope, you could watch their construction at the molecular level. It's harder to see what goes on at the atomic level but, as you must have observed by now, they can utilise just about any kind of material and turn it into more of themselves. They can clump together to imitate just about any life-form. Do you want to see something really clever, Davies? ....... Davies? Are you listening?'

Gary grunted.

'Look in the mirror beside you Davies.'

Gary looked round at the shaving mirror he'd used earlier. There was a worm hanging from one of his nostrils again. He didn't even make an effort to swipe at it. He watched as the head of the worm swelled and features appeared on it. Human features. It swivelled round to look in the mirror and he saw a tiny facsimile of Professor Bateman's face looking back at him. It was smiling. Bateman laughed down the telephone at him.

'Your face is a picture Davies. Sorry, I can't help laughing. The 'organism' dangling from your nose, is behaving as a remote camera. It's transmitting your mug-shots back to me. Anyway, I haven't got all day to entertain you Davies. I have work to do. Perhaps you'll believe me next time I tell you I've made a spectacular break-through.'

Dull eyed and feeble, Gary nodded and made an assenting noise that was almost inaudible.

'That's good Davies. Only there won't be a next time, unfortunately. I'm afraid you're finished man. I'm working on a way to control this technology now. Not making much headway so far. It's a shame you made me so angry earlier. I fear it's loose now. Not at all sure I can get this genie back in the bottle. Well. Goodbye Davies.'

Bateman hung up.

Voraciously hungry once more, Gary hauled himself up and stumbled to the fridge. His mind was now entirely focused on food. Nothing else.

The following afternoon, Mrs Vicars stepped out of her front door and immediately noticed the man standing on the other side of the road, opposite her house. He was just standing there, placidly staring down the road, into the middle-distance. There was something familiar about him, but she wasn't sure what. Her eye-sight was not very clear and she wasn't wearing her glasses. She could see that he had an unruly mop of dark chestnut hair. He was tall and painfully thin. His clothes looked as though they were expensive and would have been smart on a man several inches bigger around the chest and waist. It was the hair, she decided, that looked familiar. Her neighbour, Mr Davies. Perhaps it was a relative. Same hair and height, but Mr Davies had a far more substantial build. This vague looking person, standing still as though in a long, invisible queue, was almost skeletal. As she turned to lock her door, he moved off down the road, slowly, indecisively - as though he wasn't sure where he was or where he was going. He looked confused.

The pavement ended and the road became a lane. The man almost fell off the kerb stone where the paved way ended, then continued his shuffling walk down the lane, going the same way as Mrs Vicars. She was going on her annual elderberry-gathering excursion. But the man in front of her was worrying her. She didn't like to pass him. There was something about the way he moved - it was too slow and erratic and he kept stopping for no visible reason. Then he drifted over to the hedgerow and started ripping violently at the blackberries, rose hips and sloes and thrusting handfuls of them into his mouth, with stalks and leaves still attached. The blackberries and rose hips, she guessed, must still have thorns attached. She was close enough to see the blood trickling from the corners of his mouth. She was close enough to see a mole on his cheek that was exactly like a mole her neighbour, Mr Davies, had on his cheek.

It was Gary Davies. He was oblivious to his neighbour, watching him with an expression of shock and disbelief. There was very little of his personality still operating. He was vaguely aware that he felt nauseous. The pain in his mouth, torn to ribbons by briar thorns, was almost imperceptible. His voracious appetite blotted out all the rest. As Mrs Vicars watched, Gary suddenly stopped his wild gorging and slumped to the ground. He curled up and sagged. Wet looking patches appeared on the ground around him and spread rapidly outward. Mrs Vicars had seen enough. She dashed back to the village as fast as she could move. Normally, she would have gone over to help the man, but something about his behaviour rang alarm bells that told her it was not safe to approach him.

There was no police presence in the village. She went straight to the doctor's surgery and demanded to see Doctor Gifford. He was just preparing to visit Gary in any case, having listened to the messages on his answering machine. The slight edge of hysteria in Mrs Vicars' voice galvanised him to a new level of haste.

What he found when he reached his friend, appalled him.

As Mrs Vicars had warned him, his old friend was barely recognisable. It looked as though he'd been ravaged by some hideous wasting disease for years. Bob thought at first that Gary was dead. It seemed inconceivable that a body in this condition could sustain any remnant of life - any memory of life even. The body was nothing more than a skeleton with a thin covering of papery, grey flesh - considerably worse than Mrs Vicars had described, in fact. Bob was almost in tears. When Gary had consulted him, only yesterday morning, he'd looked normal - worried but physically normal.

Bob pulled his mobile 'phone from his pocket and called for an ambulance to take his deceased friend to the mortuary. There was clearly nothing more he could do as a doctor. He bent down and pushed back a lock of Gary's hair. Gary opened his eyes and Bob stepped back with a gasp. When Gary tried to speak, all that came out was a dry, grating rattle. Bob moved towards him again and tried to make out his words. He watched Gary's mouth, now crusted in brown blood, in an effort to lip read. What Gary seemed to be trying to say was 'Stay away' and 'Don't come any closer'. It was a pitiful sight and a pitiful sound. Even Gary's eyes looked shrivelled - his once clear, white, healthy scleras were a dirty, diseased, yellow-brown. All around him was a sense of movement. When the movement caught Bob's attention, he stepped back once more and looked round sharply.

There was a dark, moist looking patch in the otherwise dry dust of the path, around Gary's body. Peering hard at this area, Bob saw that it continued slowly to expand outwards, but not in the natural way of ordinary fluid. There were straight edges and wedges that gave the impression that the patch was behaving like an army advancing on several fronts. Further out, the grasses and herbs of the verge appeared to be vibrating and undulating as though creatures were swarming through it. At a higher level, the hedgerow also seemed alive with motion and the sound of rustling.

When the ambulance arrived, half an hour later, Gary was dead. His body looked like an ancient mummy, incongruously dressed in a suit big enough to accommodate three of him. The crew had been led to expect a very ill patient, recently deceased, but they were astonished at the desiccated state of the corpse and unable to believe that he had only just died.

Bob was sitting on the grass verge beside him, head in hands. When he looked up, the men could see that they had a live patient to drop off at the hospital, before taking the body to the mortuary. Bob looked ill and confused. As they lifted him onto a stretcher, he was sick. He apologised weakly and sank back against the pillow.

'Don't you worry about it Doctor. It looks as though you've picked up something nasty.'

And to his colleague, the ambulance man said, 'Look at that Dave! There are worms in that vomit. Lots of 'em!'

Dave wrinkled his nose in disgust and nodded.

'Anyway doctor, don't you worry. Better out than in, I always say. They'll soon have you right as rain. Worms are easy to treat. One of my young'uns had 'em a couple of years ago. Nothing to it. Well ... you're the doctor. You know, don't you? Nothing to worry about. No need to upset yourself.'

Bob was shaking with emotion. Before they reached the hospital, he had the sense to try to persuade them to confine him, Gary's body and themselves to isolation. But it was already too late and, in any case, they dismissed his warnings as the ravings of a man in the grip of fever. As the mad scientist, Bateman, had anticipated, this genie could not be forced back into its bottle.

Fiction by Tibley Bobley

Tibley Bobley

19.06.08 Front Page

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