Alfred was the only one that sensed him, the cyber doctor never slept as he continued to arrange and categorise his expanding databases of knowledge. ...��What is it Sydney?’ came his voice as he noted the man’s increased heart rate and the pumping of adrenalin into his charge’s body. Alfred saw the figures on the beach and the woman that they were now binding to stakes driven into the sand. ‘No Sydney! There are too many of them!’ he screamed as the man ploughed into the group knocking several of. In one sentence he can have me trembling in fear that I will never be allowed in the comfort of his steel again but hopeful that he might give me a chance. I think he relishes the power he has over me, knowing he keeps me in suspense, frustrated and confused but oh, so overjoyed that he allows me a chance to try. I don’t think I can put eloquently enough into words all that he was and is to me or begin to explain the thousands upon thousands of hours that he spent with me, molding and shaping. “Look we mostly cater to businessmen who put it down as a cost of the deal. It varies how often we do it and yes that includes me on occasions, if it keeps our clients sweet. One dissolute old girl makes it a condition of the booking. Actually, whilst not most people’s idea of attractive she is great in bed but I would never tell her that it would spoil the fun.”“So, you do have fun?”“Not all the time but which job does, we get more than most and not one of us has pulled out, if anything we. It was as if the figure were there, but also not there.The figure leaned forward. A tendril of the darkness in the shape of a human arm emerged. The hand splayed its fingers and hovered over Melissa. She saw it silhouetted against the stars above her. Despite the fact that the hand was several feet in the air above her, she shrank back from it in terror, as if trying to sink herself into the earth to get away from it.The hand was withdrawn. There was the sound of shifting dirt and sand as the.