It Came From Outer Space.

A busy week in the office often saw itself out, sat in the cellar bar of the Westminster Arms, with Imelda Montague soaking in a glass or three from the speciality wine menu. Switching off however was far from her mind. While Miss Montague worked 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, as a researcher in the houses of parliament, the rest of her waking hours were applied to her full time pastime: people watching. Nothing excited her more than the lives of others, so much so her own social life was comparatively non-existent none-the-less, tracking and documenting the lives of others was to her a natural impulse that could not go unanswered.

From her usual spot, strategically placed in the corner, Imelda could survey most of the room and have an excuse to walk across the space to either the bar or toilets, in any given direction, should someone in particular warrant a closer inspection. Initial assessment consisted of what a chat room troll would term 'a/s/l' (age, sex, locality) then a wider synopsis of their general appearance, clues to their profession, habitual behaviour and relations with others. Ultimately they would be sorted into one of two categories: Person/s of Interest and Importance(which Imelda shortened to P.o.I.I and those who were of no interest (for whom there was no abbreviation).

Stood at the bar, supposedly waiting to get served, next to particular P.o.I.I, Imelda tried her best to look unapproachable and non plussed by the surrounding conversation. Discovery alone would be disastrous but the idea of a human interacting with her on a personal level churned Imelda's innards. The P.o.I.I in question was a highly respected barrister his companions for the evening were no less than five call girls. The women, unassuming to the untrained eye, gave away their true nature to Imelda almost instantly. One had revealed herself by accidentally producing both her personal and work phones, her embarrassment and haste to hide the personal mobile had indicated she was not one of the legal cohort. After all nowadays it really wasn't all that uncommon to have a mobile provided to you by your company and to simultaneous give in to the gravitational pull of the latest handset for your own personal use. Each of them had well tended hair but clearly too well and recently tended for Imelda to believe they each spent the day doing anything as office related as their off the rack suits attempted to suggest. The list of facts to be documented went on, Imelda had the uncanny ability for total recall of each minute detail saving her the trouble of a note pad or dicta-phone.

Typically on arrival home, to her small serviceable apartment, Imelda would spend the late evening and early hours recording details on her computer and managed on only a few hours sleep before she was out again. 'There will be a lot to document this evening.' revelled Imelda internally, but that would be the end of it all. No Samuel Peeps style diary to be left for future generations, no scandal to be broken, no black mail bounty to be paid, no suspicious spouses to be informed, no behaviour to be emulated. Imelda served only to observe, process and document. Unbeknown to Imelda however, tonight would be different.

“So Miss Imelda B Montague stays for another round.” teased the barman, flirtatiously reading the name from her credit card, which had been carelessly left on the bar. Imelda started. Her mouth began to gape, she stood stunned for a second, it had never occurred that someone might become the surveyor and she the subject.

“A glass of Black Estate Chardonnay.” she flustered.

“Large?” questioned the name tagged 'Brad' raising left his eyebrow precisely 0.3 centimetres. This specimen had particularly stretchy skin, Imelda noted, giving the appearance of youth until a bombastic facial movement was deployed causing the skin to wrinkle faster than Egyptian cotton on a restless night.

“175ml with suffice, thank you.” she answered, coolly adding “Brad.” after a short pause, in an attempt to assemble at least a small feeling of superiority.

Imelda edged the corners of her mouth upward nervously, stuffing her card and purse back into her designer satchel. She then bowed as gracefully as 4.6 units would allow back to her corner, her cheeks glowing so hotly they illuminated the floor beneath her. Only when she reached her spot did she realise her last 30 minutes of voyeurism had been wasted. The P.o.I.I she had been tracking was now on the opposite side of the room, leaving her with no subtle path to get within earshot.

Imelda's hastened flight from the barman's advances had spilt the contents of her purse inside the satchel. Existing as being of immaculate order, Imelda set about returning harmony to the chaos slowly expanding inside. Her finger caught on something hard, something foreign and unexpected within the bag. Closing her fingers around it Imelda realised the object had caused and incision on the tip of her left ring finger. On closer inspection a flap at the end of the finger had been opened up, fluid was leaking out down her hand. Ignoring the pulsing sensation, red hot and glowing, Imelda fixed her minds eye upon the object that had caused the damage.

The centimetre long cylindrical tube was a construct of mainly glass with each end capped in moulded silver, to all intensive purposes it resembled your everyday fuse, without the paper wrapping. Inspecting the small surprise Imelda could have sworn a light flickered brightly before burning out but she assured herself it was more likely the bar lights catching its reflective surface. What she couldn't figure was what had caused the object to absorb such heat, a heat so intense it was already causing a red mark to radiate out across her palm.

Downing her wine, to numb the sharp pulsations in her hand Imelda made for the stairs to street level, dropping the now cooling 'fuse' into a compartment designed for lipstick in her bag. A short walk away on Bridge Street was a pharmacy, there was no way she was going to ask that pervert at the bar for help. She knew his sub type classification and that he would most likely see a damsel in distress with an open invitation to her bedroom.

The cool November air hit her as she departed her haunt four hours early, her head already throbbing from a quarter of her usual intake of alcohol. A glance at her Blackberry told her it was 6.37pm sufficient time to reach the shop before closing. Gazing up the street, the night was as pitch as the light pollution would allow, Imelda sited this as the reason she found it so hard to focus on her steps ahead yet the thought that something else was causing her nauseousness nagged her incessantly.

Making her way down Storey's Gate, toward Great George Street, Imelda, for the first time since conscious thought was activated inside of her, failed to notice the people passing by. Adulterers, MI5 agents and secret squatters all passed underneath the radar as she stumbled not knowing if the pounding in her ears was caused by her headache or increasingly heavy foot falls. She was stepping so heavily she swore ten paces back she had actually cracked a paving stone. Imelda assured herself it was most likely just the wine, usually she didn't drink New World, she made a note to never again.

Stopping abruptly at a crossing with every expectation of an emergency vehicle making an appearance, Imelda was surprised to be buffeted by the shoulders of other pedestrians into the road. The lights and sirens were seemingly something only she was experiencing. Having resided in the city her entire life she had grown accustomed to the London air however this evening she felt as if the pea soup of the Victoria era had rolled in with hopes to drown her. Soot and the burning smell of exhaust fumes seemed to cling onto the insides of her nostrils. The acidity of the wine she had drunk began to creep back up her oesophagus as heat began to ripple up her arm and radiate out across her body.

After what seemed a marathon, Great George Street finally became Bridge Street and Imelda, wheezing and drenched in her own bodily fluids, stumbled through the door of Boots. The heater inside the door made her reel, jetting scorching air over her, her skin tightening as the sweat crusted over her pores. Despite moving away from the street the sickly smell of motor oil clung to her sense mixing with the nauseating aroma of TCP and her own body odour.

Stumbling towards the worried cashier, plasters in hand, Imelda tipped the contents of her bag onto the counter, too exhausted to find her purse any other way.

“Oh gosh,” fussed the young cashier, “you don't look too well. Did you know we offer annual flu shots?”

By this point Imelda was hunched over the cash desk gasping in the air, as if it would be any cooler from below. Sweat was now running off her face and dripping onto her leather brogues, surely she was just hallucinating but the droplets seemed to instantly evaporate and there was a suspicious smell in the air, like over cooked beef. Spotting an all in one flu remedy Imelda swung her arm in an attempt to collect a batch. After knocking the majority on the floor she managed to heave a packet onto the desk where the cashier’s voice boomed on, sending well meaning reverberations through Imelda's eye sockets. Advice on dealing with flu rumbled round the inside of Imelda's skull and tripped down her spine as she clumsily mashed her pin number into the key pad.

Collecting her receipt from the babbling assistant Imelda watched as the paper began to turn black with the outline of her hand. She began to ask why this might be but stopped as she looked up to see the young girl crying and clutching at her fingers which appeared to have been blistered.

Imelda turned to leave upon hearing an older staff member asking the cashier

“Amy dear, what is it, what's wrong?”

Having stepped into the store on a bitter evening, Imelda would have sworn she stepped out into Death Valley at high noon. Her vision became overexposed and blurred as she struggled out of her coat, not even this gave her relief as her skin felt like molten latex clinging to her muscles. Tearing into the box of plasters, Imelda noticed her arm up to her elbow was congealed thick with fluid appearing almost black, from her earlier injury. Fumbling with a plaster, she gagged as her arm radiated a salty metallic odour.

Having no luck fitting the plaster from her current position slumped against a wall Imelda pressed on further down Bridge Street. Upon reaching St Stephen's Tavern she practically fell through the door past a group of well dressed construction designers. The sound system was blaring out ELO's hits to drown out the guffawing of the sloan rangers occupying the bar area, only adding to her disorientation. Imelda's legs gave way as she was overcome by the odour of gin and ale, falling to the carpet as her senses began to drown in the cocktail of spilt drinks and the remnants of smoke, soaked into the fabric cira July 2007.

“ ...so I said to Tarquin... Fuck, what is that smell?!” exclaimed a tall architect to his companions who were now roaring with laughter. “No seriously, I mean what is that smell? Smells like a dead body in a burnt out car.” The laughter died down and was replaced but wrinkled noses and repulsed frowns. Their loud and high pitched complaints to the long suffering manager were snuffed by a loud and earth shaking crash from above.

From her position slumped on the floor Imelda was showered with glass shielded partially by the tables and chairs that were being upset around her in the mass panicked exodus from the bar. The rumbling continued shaking light fixtures and lumps of musty smelling plaster down from the celling. Imelda in her half conscious state could smell the alarming odour of melting carpet however she feared this was caused by something much closer to home than the commotion on the upper floor. The impulse to escape was growing duller inside, her head so thick with heat even her nose was burning the air she feebly sucked in. Her limps were increasingly heavy, skin sagged and dripped off of her lead weight bones.

Had she not by this point passed into deepest oblivion Imelda may have found it hard to discern it it were thunder or footsteps descending the staircase. And if she had been functioning correctly she may even of been able to translate the alien conversation reverberating through the atmosphere.

“Really, Quadra, I thought you passed your spacecraft operation with 3 minors. Your parking is terrible!”

“Just shut up Zned. Look there it is. Another fuse blown. Looks innards are liquid, only got the warning signal 5 clicks ago! I thought you passed your reconnaissance engineering module with the highest marks in your pod?”

Zned had no answer, instead just stood in the wreckage of the bar their craft had created.

The clapped out sound system slain out upon its side, jarred into repeat, played back the same tune the lyrics echoing out through the desolate ruins of the St Stephens Tavern.

“I met someone who looks a lot like you

She does the things you do

But she is an IBM”