Well, I hadn't seen my friends and former roommates, Griff and Danny since November so when we got together yesterday, we yakked for about 5 hours and talked about everything.

Then I went home and went to bed a bit early.

I had a very strange dream, a science fictiony one.

In it, Griff was the leader of the household troops of the king of some almost-medieval country and I was his science advisor because the science was all more than up to date.

The great powers had passed our little kingdom by and we had become sort of like England was during the Cold War.

But the King's scientists had been working on a new secret weapon and Griff had asked me to find out what it was. My brother was one of the King's scientists and he wouldn't tell me though he hinted it was such an odd unconventional weapon that most people wouldn't fear it until too late.

Finally, the King's head scientist, Steve Jobs, called all the science advisors in the kingdom in to give us the goods. You could tell we were science advisors, we all wore blue robes and had pointy ears. :)

Toxic Mice. That was the secret weapon.

I said, "Very good sir, that should solve the realm's problem with feral cats and dogs but how does that keep the kingdom safe from nuclear attack?"

Well the mice were bio-engineered (we were given models of their genes in clever little plastic cases that came apart to show all the relevant info and almost derailed the dream into one about Tinkertoys). The mice had been designed to be toxic to other mice over time and half-breed mice were fertile only with full-blood toxic mice so pretty soon all the mice in an area would be toxic.

Then someone sends the messenger in the form of a virus and the mice become toxic to humans. It's not deadly, just debilitating. It doesn't have to be mice, it could be some other small common animal.

Next thing he says, all the mice in the palace are already infected and maybe most of them in the capital city.

Next, Griff (Lord Michael in the dream) is going to be in charge of the virus messenger stuff to keep it safe from being misused. He's going to be promoted to Lord Defender and will be the third highest noble office in the country. I'm getting a promotion to, all us science advisors who aren't noble are getting patents and titles and the noble ones will get land. Since I'm Lord Michael's science advisor, I get a double promotion, a patent, a title and a new piece of land in the city and the rents on some country estate. Lady Erin sounds pretty good.

Then Jobs calls me aside and says have I ever heard of Cromwell? Lord Michael is going to be set up as leading a sort of palace coup so all outsiders will think Michael and I are the leaders of the country now but it will really still be the king, Steve Jobs and my brother.

And I say, so the Toxic Mice are fake? And he says, no, they're real and six months from now there will be enough of them in world capitals to bring every government in the world down if the messenger virus is released so we've got to keep it secret.

So the king is calling a council to tell all the nobles what is going on and I'm there whispering about toxic mice to Griff. I'm just telling him that this is so complicated something has to go wrong, like the mice have developed intelligence and are making plans of their own or something.

The king comes out and it's Danny, he's wearing a fake white beard over his real brown one because it's an official council and the king has to wear the Beard of Wisdom, it's part of the job. His real beard is longer and wider than the fake one. We're having a meal too so Danny has to keep lifting the beard to eat and finally hooks it on backward, saying he may have to wear it but he doesn't have to wear it on his face. And Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are arguing with him and he and Griff are playing kissy face and winkies across the table.

The white beard on the back of Danny's head looks like a little yarmulke and someone asks me if the king is Jewish and I'm just about to say something smartass like does an admiral pee in the ocean when I look down and a mouse is tugging at my gown under the table; he has a list of demands he wants me to present to the council.

And then I woke up. :)