JON's STORIES

STORY 1;

Mission UA1

A double 'mail arrived' message blinked at the bottom of the screen, one with a V prefix, representing voice mail.
Now who is sending me voice mail wondered DI, with a quizzical gesture. A gutteral German accent barked into action; "Is vat Dion Phillips?".

"Certainly is, and who might you be?" replied DI in a surprised tone.
"Agent Vundebar here, I've been following your academic progress vith interest, and some of ze things you've been doing on ze Net have really gained ze attention of intelligence in my country..."
"If you are calling about that accidental hack into the German Government finance sector last year, I'm sorry, but I have apologised, and I didn't mean any harm, blurted Dion."
"No,no on ze contrary ve are werry interested in you helping us, how vould you like to do your practical component vith us this holidays? It vould be dangerous, hard vork, but exciting.
I've already spoken to your college superwisor, who has given us ze 'all clear', so vat do you say?" DI shrugged his shoulders and replied "OK, what do I do?"

"Just read ze enclosed email, and follow ze instructions, if you accept, ve vill be in touch by radio as that is more difficult to track down. Auf Weidersahn". Trembling with excitement DI hit the print command and the email message appeared a moment later.

Park at your nearest supersonic travel port and catch a class J flight to Prague and enter teleport K on arrival where you will be briefed. DI hesitated for a moment and then decided to make a tight left turn and head back to the Melbourne travel port. As the porsche snaked its way through the sky the airspeed indicator nudging 900km/h, DI wondered what his assignment would entail. Suddenly the travel port loomed ahead. DI hit the airbrakes manouvering the porsche into a parking section, docking at 3000m, directly above one of the parking chutes. As he slid down the chute he sent off an email on his wrist computer to his parents informing them that an unexpected assignment opportunity had arisen and he would be away for 4 weeks. Missing you, hope to see you in March he added.

A few hours later after a near miss with one of the new anti-gravity airliners which travel at about 100 times the speed of the ageing 1999 Concorde airliner DI was on, the Concorde touched down at Prague airport. DI quickly made his way to Teleport K and moments later was greeted in the city subway by two men, one was tall and burly, introduced as Wayne, the other almost opposite in physique, with a small wiry build. The smaller one immediately shouted "so you must be Dion?" DI nodded. "My name is Guenter, but we must go at once, for we are being followed. Jump on this three wheeler motorbike and get down."

As the vintage 1972 motorbikes engine purred to life, laser shots rang out, followed by the machinegun like stutter of sub-phasars. The motorbike screeched down a laneway, throwing a right turn as a small motor-heli followed in hot pursuit, with a wheelie over some stairs, the three wheeler rammed the front door of the house, and continued through a long corridor, and out the back door, into a backyard which had a a gateway leading onto another laneway at the back. "Jump for the trampoline," yelled Guenter. All three made it to the trampoline, although Wayne's fingers got stuck between the ice encrusted springs. The motorbike careered through the gateway on automatic pilot. Meanwhile the motor-heli was diverted as it could not risk its rotors by going through the smashed door. "They should follow the motorbike down the laneway for another minute or so" gasped Wayne as he wiped the blood off Guenter's forehead. "I say we take passage 4 in the toolshed." As they crawled down the musty old passageway, Dion thought of the Famous Five and Biggles books his Grandfather read to him as a child. It is just like that he thought.......

Finally they stopped crawling, and slid down a giant slide, at the bottom there was a large cliff, with some shadowy ropes on the edge. Lightbulbs shone at twenty metre intervals. As they swung out into the darkness Dion could just make out the outline of a 2 metre square ledge on the opposite cliff. They all landed there and carefully climbed up the steep, loose rocks from the ledge to the top of the cliff some 15 metres above. As the ropes swayed back and forth, and rocks fell down the cliff, Dion prayed and said to Wayne "I hope I've got accident insurance" "You'll get used to it" growled Wayne. At the top of the cliff Guenter exclaimed "I'm sick of those pesky DUR's that was a bit too close for comfort." "What is a DUR?" asked Dion. "Its like a cross between the old KGB of the 20th century and an organized crime syndicate. DUR stands for Diabolical Underworld Rulers, but we prefer the acronym DUR" answered Wayne. "We need to keep moving even to lose the DUR's, so this is where your fitness will be tested" said Guenter smugly as they approached 4 rough rock stairways. Taking the second one, which almost immediatly split into another 3 passageways, Wayne handed Dion a headlamp as Guenter grabbed another from a hook on the wall. Dion felt a searing pain in his chest about 6 minutes later as they ran up the 10th 5 metre climb. The dark passageway split into 5 passageways, all on an uphill slant. Another 10 minutes of running and a few disturbed bats later, they reached a large cavern, at the end was 2 narrow passageways, both with rails, and mine trolleys. A pickaxe lay beside one entrance. Guenter jumped into the large mine trolley, in the narrow passage, while Dion got into a second trolley, and Wayne pushed, then jumped into the large trolley. The trolley's rattled down the slight incline of the track for about 2 minutes coming to rest in another large cavern. A short crawl on the belly through pools of water and mud, and they reached some wooden steps, and daylight loomed ahead. A nearby waterfall cascaded into a small river, They dived into the fast flowing icy waters, as light snow fell. Two rapids later, the three men crawled out of a sheltered riverside pool, shivering. A small town in the distance beckoned, as the sun began to set. Wayne's watch read 1715hrs, as they trudged into town wet shivering and sodden. Guenter spied a washing line with clothes on it, and said; "Dion here is your first assignment. Go and borrow some of those clothes on the line, and go buy some more for all of us, and wetsuits. Sixty minutes later they all had dry clothes, and were seated in a local Italian resturant, Guenter said "Okay, my codename is SmartG, Wayne is WOLF, what do you want to be?" "How about DI7 replied Dion?". "Sounds good to me" Guenter responded, "from now on we only use code names. Now lets check into this motel for tonight, your mission is codenamed UA for 'unexpected assignment', and tomorrow I will give you the details."