"The Vyton" is out on 16th Jan in eBook, Kindle Select, Paperback and audio. 20 Sci-Fi short stories - mostly from the lighter side of a deep, dark universe...

Twenty Sci-Fi Stories from the Lighter side of a Dark Universe - Pre-order for 16 January

Well, the hut itself was fine, but the view from it wasn't what I expected...

The new picture was wonky. Typical, you buy something at a car boot in the morning; hang it on its very own screw on the back of the door at dinner; and by mid-afternoon, it’s gone wonky.

‘You were fifty pee wasted,’ I told it, ‘if you go wonky every time I look the other way.’

I straightened it up.  Unusual frame, it had: a silky sheen, slightly glowing in this light. The picture was a strange yellowy-orange beach with peculiar palm trees at the back.

‘You’re not Mablethorpe or Skeggy,’ I said.

‘An abstract done by some weird colour-blind wannabe Picasso,’ the woman on the stall said. Great sales technique she had. ‘Come on, cheapskate. Brighten your life up.’

I hung it on the inside of the beach hut door so I didn’t have to take it home, or into the caravan. Also, I could pretend it was the beach in there when I was sheltering from the inevitable rain.

Funny, though, how the waves really captured the motion of the sea. I reached to stroke them.

‘Ooh.’ My fingers went in...

Felt wet...

And there, among all the usual gear, was the Maxie unit... its little lights flashing... monitoring me...

‘Of course,' I stated loudly. 'I’m aware that SajBase might perceive me as being wrong about this, but this is my home planet I'm orbiting; my culture and heritage, I’m sworn to do whatever I can in its defence or interests. It’s not interpretable or optional. I do it.’

I said it plenty loud enough, and waited to see if Maxie would respond. But no: it just sat there, a little array of lights going back and forth, on the worktop. Silent, but hearing and monitoring all, real-time reporting - as much as that's possible out here.

And it ignored my seditious, rebellious challenge.

It's still sitting there, positioned next to the controls for the Blendgun. Just behind the Octain-44 console I’m checking out.

‘But,’ I carried on with my rant, ‘by SajiFed dictate, I am commanded to do what they want, which varies spasmodically, but has the power of the Fed to enforce their orders. Largely, of course, in the form of you, Maxie, eh?’

But, with a continued lack of response from my Maxie guardian-cum-enforcer, I just wondered if they'd gone off monitoring for a coff'n'bikk break?

I mean, most unusual... if I say anything off-policy, I generally get a zap, a head-ping and an injection of something foul.

But nothing.

Have they left me, as you might say.... er... unfettered? With the sector's most powerful weapon under my unmonitored control?

Now, this has possibilities...