Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 ï>¿OK, so I *had* revisited my view of Maggie, had begun to take more of an
interest in her ...  in *her*, indeed.  And the sudden re-emergence of my
long time collaborator and fulltime pain in the nuts, Tim, did throw me a
bit.  But, then, so did the phone call.

   This time, it was Simon.  Simon, interestingly, I felt, even as I was
listening to his ...  *contribution* ...  alternating between emollient and
threatening  -" offering me the Earth and threatening damnation by turns.
It was curious.  I mean, I was sitting on Maggie's couch, listening to the
wanker and watching *her* shove analgesics down *his*  -" Tim's  -" throat,
providing glasses of fruit juice, that sort of thing.

   And, when that got a bit nauseating, actually concentrating on what The
Man was saying.  Which focus achieved, was ...  not a lot.  Well,
apparently we had a deal which would make us all rich.  Alternatively, we
had A Contract  -" you could hear the capitals  -" which gave him, at a
minimum, a majority share in our immortal souls, and which he intended to
enforce to the max.  It was all, I concluded, almost distractedly, mostly
grade A bullshit.

   When his rant down, momentarily, I told him so.  Pointed out that we'd
signed nothing, contract wise, that I'd prefer *not* to get rich if it
involved working with his sort of methods  -" or just with people like him.
Which was good, and I was glad I'd said it and vaguely hoped that it would
get back to Steve and the rest of the 'community'.

   Simon just laughed, asked if I knew the status of a verbal contract in
English law ...  and rang off.

   + ++ +++ ++++ +++++ ++++ +++ ++ +

   Call ended, I had an uncomfortable gooseberry moment while Maggie and
Tim continued their spooning or grooming or whatever the fuck you'd call it
and I had nothing to distract me.  Well, aside from an as yet untouched
glass of Bushmills, to which I applied myself with gusto.

   Surprisingly, it was Tim who first realised that I was still there or,
perhaps, that I was no longer talking on the phone.  Coming up for air, he
asked what was up, seemingly picking up on my thunderous expression.  Well,
lots of things, I thought, but decided to concentrate on the work side for
the moment.

   "That was Simon," I said, after a while, "and not a happy Simon, either.
Seems to think he has some sort of hold on us, seems, in fact, to think
that *we* owe *him*."

   Which, of course, went straight over Tim's head  -" he'd been pickling
himself while things had been developing, after all  -" but it certainly
got Maggie's attention.  And, after I'd given her the gist of Simon's call,
she asked, reasonably enough,

   "Can he do that?  I mean we got a DVD out of him, and promises of vast
amounts of new capital, but we haven't actually seen any *money* have we?
And we *do* have actual written contracts with our other backers, don't we?
So what's he actually capable of doing?"

   Well, I thought, *that* was the question.  Mag had, as ever, made a good
point  -" whatever assets we had, our existing funders surely had a better
claim to, if push came to shove.  Not that that was a particularly happy
thought ...

   I decided that talking to lawyers  -" hardly my favourite occupation  -"
had to be priority number one and said so, even as I was gathering my stuff
together and making ready to depart.

   "Shit, man," Tim chipped in, "shit ...  I ...  oh, hell, look after
yourself mate.  Whatever the *fuck* is going on ...  just look after
yourself."

   Which was about as profound a comment  -" and as near to an apology  -"
as I was going to get, so I left it at that.  Except for arranging to meet
*both* of them in the office the next morning, 9am sharp.

   + ++ +++ ++++ +++++ ++++ +++ ++ +

   Being part of a small tech start up does not, unfortunately, give one
priority access to one's lawyers  -" they tend to want to be sure that
they'll be paid, for one thing  -" so by the next morning I was no clearer
about our legal position.  Nonetheless, we sat around for about an hour,
taking most of the time to bring Tim up to speed, with a little while at
the end spent inconclusively meandering around the issues in a fairly
dispirited way.

   The bottom line was that we had very little concrete information, little
to base decisions on.  What we *had* was a rapidly growing collective
paranoia, a DVD  -" I was quite tempted to play the damn' thing, just for
the hell of it  -" and ...  well, we had Steve's implausible idea, didn't
we?

   It was, I felt, time to phone Steve.  Gratifyingly, he answered pretty
much straight away and seemed almost pleased to be talking to me.  And
talking tech again, reviewing the field and doing what amounted to an
option analysis  -" that was quite reassuringly comfortable.  And maybe it
was just the comfort and familiarity of our conversation  -" and my need to
feel OK about *something*  -" but at that point it all sounded almost
realistic.  Something like a core group appeared to have emerged within the
'community' and something approaching organisation was developing.  OK, so
the mooted consolidation and its inherent mass self-sacrifice was still
some way off, but ...  Well, at that point, it didn't sound *entirely*
ridiculous.

   And so, after I'd finished with Steve, and after spending a couple of
hours helping Tim clear up the workshop  -" and listen to his latest ideas
as to how things could be yet further improved, engineering wise  -" I was
in a vaguely optimistic mood when I set off for my half hour 'slot' with
the solicitors.

   + ++ +++ ++++ +++++ ++++ +++ ++ +

   Back in the office, barely an hour later, I had to admit that I wasn't a
lot clearer about anything much.  As far as I could interpret the lawyer
speak, Simon was correct vis a vis the verbal contract stuff, but whether
he could capitalise on that depended on a whole load of factors ...  all of
which involved lawyers, lawyers' bills and probably many other things we
simply couldn't afford.  And all we were trying to do was provide
sustainable energy ...  on a *cost effective basis*.

   Ah, well ...  whoever said life was *fair?*

   Tim and Maggie were ...  well, Tim and Maggie.  Specifically, he was
down in the workshop, cutting an alloy rod on a lathe, distinctly
complicated designs and calculations showing on the various CAD monitors,
she was in the office ...  dealing with stuff.  As soon as I walked into
the room she handed me a printout and even I was scanning the first couple
of sheets  -" spreadsheet, by the look of it, not one of ours from the
formatting  -" also gave me a cup of coffee.  Which I took, looking at her
for some sort of explanation.  She smiled, patted me on the shoulder and
suggested that I should stop scanning and actually *read* the thing.

   So I did.  I admit, it took time to get my head into gear but I began to
realise that this was good stuff: It was the activity breakdown that Steve
(or his 'core group') had put together, a pretty comprehensive overview or
the strengths, weaknesses, synergies and unique factors of all our various
tide and wave power projects ...  and it looked like there were enough
overlaps and general 'fits' to make some sort of consolidation possible
after all.  Oh, and it was gratifying to see Tim listed as something like
'most valuable engineer' (Steve had been to school in the States and
sometimes it showed) while both Maggie and I appeared to have high approval
ratings amongst our peers  -" and not hard to imagine why, my cynical side
put in, at least in Maggie's case...

   I wondered how much of all this Simon knew  -" how good his and *Ruth's*
intelligence gathering had been, quite what opportunities he'd seen and
when.  Which made me wonder whether our original meeting on the train had
been quite such an accident  -" except that it had to have been, I told
myself, firmly  -" and then to go over again some of the stuff the lawyers
had told me earlier.  I realised that I really didn't want to have to deal
with this shit  -" not now, not ever  -" and sat heavily in the nearest
chair, wondering where Maggie had got herself off to ...  and whether there
was a chance of another consoling pat on the shoulder ...

   Except that Mag was nowhere to be seen, presumably having gone
downstairs to help Tim grind something or the other  -" and just at that
point, my phone rang again.

   Ruth.

   + ++ +++ ++++ +++++ ++++ +++ ++ +

   "Oh, I got you ...  how *nice*.  No, don't bother to give me your
*particular* take on proceedings, I already know.  Face it, you *hate* my
father, however much he's tried to help *you*, and, as a consequence,
you're probably not that keen on me.  Sad, really, but that's life ...  and
I *do* have things to say."

   She paused and I stayed quiet.  And then she went on.  I wasn't sure
that I was entirely happy about that.

   "My father," she said, as my subconscious tacitly supplied the 'Who Art
In Heaven' addendum, "is not happy.  Well, you probably gathered that, I
assume, so maybe I should add some *value* to this conversation.  He knows
that  -" his phrase  -" the muppets are organising.  This 'consolidation'
you guys are working at ...  he knows about it, OK?  And he's working to
prevent it.  My father is *working* to *prevent* it.  My father ...  oh,
hell, you do see the significance, don't you?"

   There was a pause.

   "Well, maybe you do, maybe you don't.  When he fucks you right over,
though ...  well, don't say I didn't warn you."

   And then she rang off.

   + ++ +++ ++++ +++++ ++++ +++ ++ +

   I went down to the workshop, if nothing else to share this latest bit of
info with my *colleagues*.  What I found was a note from Maggie  -" gone
home, didn't want to interrupt your phone call  -" so I wandered round the
place, in lieu of conversation, switching off computers, and wondering
whether I should phone one or the other of *them*.

   Probably not, I thought, after a brief stint in the office  -" where
nothing was happening  -" and, eventually, decided to go home.  Live with
it, I thought, realising that apparently nothing had transpired across
Steve's network all day and that ...  well, that it was time to decant for
the day.

   Except that I was wondering, throughout, just quite what Ruth had been
trying to say ...

   + ++ +++ ++++ +++++ ++++ +++ ++ +

   Next morning, I arrived at the office just as the bailiffs did.  Proper
bailiffs, too  -" gorillas with ID, basically, but showing that Simon had
*some* respect for the legal niceties.  What he didn't have  -" what he
couldn't *possibly* have, unless I was tragically mistaken  -" was any sort
of court order, given that the UK still has a semblance of a justice system
and getting a CCJ thus requires things like a court hearing, notice, the
opportunity to defend one's self, all that sort of old fashioned stuff. 
Consequently, I felt, sitting on a convenient bollard and wondering when
someone would notice me, this had to be the proverbial 'shot across the
bow'.  Faster than I'd expected, to be honest, but ...  well, hardly a
surprise.

   Eventually the head goon noticed that their vaguely purposeful milling
about was being observed and lumbered over to where I was sitting.  I
contemplated standing up but the guy was probably about 50cm taller than
me, so, real;y, there didn't seem to be a lot of point.

   "You connected with that bunch?" he said, with practised menace, waving
an elephantine thumb at our little bit of rented real estate.  I nodded and
he went on, "Only, our client has an interest in your activities  -" a
financial interest, primarily  -" and so we're her to ensure that his
*investment* is protected."

   I wasn't sure where this was going: I mean, the *implication* was clear
enough, but, as yet, paperwork was significantly lacking, So I said
nothing, thought better of whistling something jolly  -" my whistling has
been known to annoy people at the best of times  -" and waited for him to
get to the point.  As he wasn't the most sophisticated intellect on the
planet, this didn't take long.

   "*Specifically,* Mr Josephs"  -" I recalled with a total lack of
surprise that that was Simon's surname  -" "has commissioned me to recover
a quantity of DVDs, belonging to him, and sundry other items sufficient to
cover his actual and future liabilities.  So, if you would like to assist,
such as by allowing us *easy* access to the premises, that would make all
our lives considerably more pleasant."

   I wasn't overly impressed by the fact that he moved distinctly closer to
me as he was giving this little speech, nor by the fact that he'd been
joined by his two even uglier companions in doing so.  Then again, I was
sitting in a North London street at about 9am on a weekday, so it seemed
unlikely that blackjacks or knuckledusters would feature any time soon. 
Also, a life living on or around the breadline had given me a degree of
experience with bailiffs and, in particular, Rule #1 of dealing with the
bastards: *Whatever you do, don't let them in.*
So I simply shook my head.  "We did receive some DVDs from Simon  -" I
mean, *Mr Josephs*, but in fact he kept most of them to distribute
directly. I think there are maybe ten of them in the office, so ...  call
it 50p each  -" which is generous  -" that makes five pounds, so have a

fiver and we'll call it quits, OK?

   "And as for your *employer's* claim to anything else, well ...  come
back with a court order, at a minimum, and we'll talk about it then."

   Which, strangely, more or less ended the matter.  OK, there was a
certain amount of residual bullshit and some, literal, flexing of muscles
but, eventually, they gave it up for the day and left me sitting on my
bollard.

   Shaking like a leaf.

   + ++ +++ ++++ +++++ ++++ +++ ++ +

   Mag and Tim arrived when I'd more or less got myself together and
received the news with equanimity.  Well, they hadn't been the ones dealing
with six and a bit linear metres of steroid-inflated muscle, I felt, but
....

   We talked.  Not that we had much *else* to do, but we did give the
latest developments a bit of a verbal kick-around and, within a reasonable
amount of time, came to three conclusions: (i) Simon was an arsehole, (ii)
he wasn't feeling particularly well disposed to us and ours and (iii) we
didn't particularly like the way things were going.  All of which, clearly,
was a masterly summation of the situation but, as conclusions go, it did
kind of miss one vital point.  Which was, *quite what were we going to
about it all?*

   I floated this thought to my esteemed colleagues and got a
disconcertingly rapid response: Given that I was in charge  -" which was
news to me  -" they would happily go with whatever I suggested.  And, Great
Leader status having, thus, been conferred, I duly gave us all a task or
two.

   Tim, to bash metal to his hearts content ...  and also to ensure that
every bit of sensitive data we had was encrypted, backed up and copied off
site.  Maggie, I set to making coffee and then to pass on the latest news
to the community, while I, myself, took on the twin tasks of drinking the
coffee that Mag produced and ...  phoning Ruth.
   Something told me that that way answers lay ...