Page 10 - As the Cold Wind Blows Mark Jones

CHAPTER 2

Back in their bodies and reality Min and Howard woke feeling tired but remembering

nothing. Neither of them knew what had happened. Min went back to her computer, shaking
her head at falling asleep for twenty minutes, while Howard picked up the phone to let Min
know that he had arrived home safely. The memory of her being dead had been eradicated.

“Hello, only me,” he said as she answered. “Just letting you know that I’m home.”
“Home?” said Min, “Home from where?”

Howard thought for a moment, unable to remember.
“I don’t know.”

He couldn’t explain where he had been, just that he had been somewhere. Min couldn’t
recall her experience either as Howard told her that she was with him wherever it was they had

been.
“But I haven’t been anywhere today, Howard.”
He sat, confused, trying to remember and succeeding only in conjuring up the odd

flashback. Howard strained to recount his and Min’s movements in the virtual reality world that
he didn’t yet know existed.

“Did we have the same dream?” he said.
Min again had no recollection and thought Howard had got his wires crossed. They did

though agree to meet the next day at ten thirty in the morning when they could maybe make
some sense of what was happening.

“Good night, Howard, sleep well,” she wished him, before pondering what had just
transpired. Min found herself frustrated, trying to make sense of what Howard meant by “You
were there too.” She was certain that she hadn’t left the house all day.

‘Oh, I need a drink,’ she thought, and then set her mind to what she could find out on the

computer. Someone, she hoped, may have set up a new web site describing the deaths that
had taken place in Silwall and the mystery surrounding them. Min looked at the screen and
gulped her drink in one go to steady herself for what she might discover. Clicking away on the

mouse, the tenacious Scot was finding information difficult to come by, but as she continued to
trawl through the system, her mind clear and not really thinking about anything in particular,

Min was stunned at the image which had entered her head. Not just one but several black-
suited, synthetic-looking characters all standing in line like the drone type figures Howard had

described to her earlier that evening. Min’s memory was still fractured and patchy but returning
slowly. She stood up and walked away from the screen, trying hard to think. ‘What else?

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