The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2619 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“Have you seen this, Mummy?” Trish waved her iPad at me.

“What sweetheart?”

“Something Ricky Gervais tweeted.”

I can’t stand the man. “I doubt it would be of much interest to me, sweetie.”

“I think it will, Mummy.”

I took the iPad off her and was horrified to see a picture of blonde woman lying next to a dead giraffe she had just shot and killed with a bow. Gervais was equally horrified asking what possessed her to take a picture of herself lying alongside a beautiful wild animal and why had she killed it. It was obscene, but then I saw the woman’s name and I’m sure she posted a picture of herself with recently killed lions, not too long ago. She’s American, obviously wealthy and with no empathy for anything wild except that required to kill it. We have similar predatory, soulless beings in Britain and Europe as well. It’s funny if some people see something beautiful they need to kill or destroy it, even our other fellow primates don’t do that and we call them dumb animals. If there is any justice in this world, this blood thirsty woman will meet her end when some dumb animal turns the tables and eats her, though I suspect she probably has loads of people with guns protecting her while she indulges her sick pleasures. In which case her skills are minimal, anyone can shoot fish in a barrel.

I despise killing for pleasure as I see it as the activity of the psychopath, and there seem to be so many in this world. Fortunately it appears to be less common in women, but that could be a wrong impression.

I suppose the woman psychopath in the selfie would be just as condemnatory of me for being a weirdo in changing my gender, except the only things I’ve killed are insects who hit the front of my car and some people who were trying to kill me first. I like to think I’ve saved the lives of more than I caused to die. I hope it’s true or am I really no better than Rebecca Francis? I shuddered as this went through my mind.

“Trouble?” asked Henry.

“No, just thinking about this,” I handed him Trish’s iPad.

“How gross is that?” he gave it back to Trish, “Ugly human with beautiful animal.” It summed up my feeling too.

About an hour later, Simon phoned to say he was home and missing his wee wifey. I told him that the Lady Cameron was indisposed, trying to care for his daughter who’d been hurt trying to protect his bank. He was a little more conciliatory after that.

My phone peeped, I had a text from aforementioned injured offspring. ‘i can go home 2moro. Ypeee! Sam xxx’

If that was the case, it would be very good. Obviously our healing had helped to speed things up just a bit. I told Trish and she said she’d stay with her Gramps to keep the bank safe while Sammi was recuperating. I told her if Sammi could go home, we were all going home tomorrow. She didn’t quite storm off, but she definitely did more than breeze along.

While I was at the office I dealt with several matters including an outline strategy for the bank’s continued ecological path—albeit a wavering one. It appeared I was also the moral voice of the bank, though quite why, I didn’t know unless it was purely to enable the other directors to express their capitalistic tendencies with no inhibitions. I did warn Henry that I refused to be the bank’s apologist. He assured me I wasn’t. The expression on my face possibly showed I didn’t entirely believe him.

“You cut me to the core, Cathy.”

“I notice you didn’t say, heart.”

“Of course I didn’t, you’d know I was lying...”

“Because you’re a banker you don’t have one,” I said for him.

“Quite,” was his reply.

“Very funny.”

“Oh, was it?”

“No, it was anything but.”

“Oh,” the middle aged schoolboy looked crestfallen.

“It was too predictable, a bit like the Russians tend to be.”

“Unlike my granddaughter, apparently.”

“Which one?”

“You have so many you can’t remember which one you brought with you?”

“I have two in London at present if you recall.”

“This but one of them.”

“Trish, I suppose. Don’t tell me she’s bought out the stock exchange.”

“I won’t tell you—because it isn’t so. No, she offered to stay and look after the computer while you took Sammi home.”

“No, she comes home with us, she has school to attend once we know these bandits have been summoned back to Russia.”

“Did she mention the time bomb?”

“No, what time bomb?”

“She’s put one on the system.”
“Your system?” I was horrified.

“Our system, Cathy, collective ownership and responsibility.”

“Where is she?” I felt like rolling up my sleeves and giving her a hiding she wouldn’t forget.

“In the IT room.”

“Sammi’s room?”

“Yes.”

I followed him down to Sammi’s room where Trish was sat at her desk doing some work in a colouring book. “I want a word with you, Missy.”

“I’m in a meeting, if you leave a message with my secretary, I’ll try and get back to you fairly soon.”

“My office, now,” I said coldly.

She continued her colouring with barely a pause.

“I think you’d better, Trish, your mother is a director and if you disregard her, I’m afraid I’d have to sack you on the spot,” said Henry backing me up.

“’S not fair,” she said putting her pencil down. I led her back to my office and shut the door.

“Why shouldn’t I just send you home by Gramp’s limo this very moment?”

“The bank might not like tomorrow.”

“Because you added something nasty to their system?”

“I mighta done,” she said blushing.

“Do you realise for one moment how much damage that would do to the bank’s credibility. Do you hate Gramps and your dad so much that you want to cause them lots of pain and embarrassment. Do you despise me so much you want me to be forced to resign from my directorship here and the various projects the bank has helped me with, including Billie’s study centre? Finally, do you hate your sister so much that you can destroy in moments what she’s been doing for the past two years? If the answer is yes to any of those questions, I don’t think I want to see you again.”

She stood in front of me face like a beetroot and tears dribbling down her cheeks.

“I’m waiting for an answer, Miss Watts.”

“I’m Miss Cameron,” she said in between sobs.

“No you’re not, the Camerons have spent two hundred years building up and protecting the bank for you, a traitor to destroy it in an act of spitefulness which makes me so angry with you, I don’t think I ever want to see you again. I cannot believe one of my own children betrayed me.”

“Where shall I go?”

“That’s no longer my problem, mine will be getting a still recovering Sammi out of a hospital bed to try and sort your malevolence.”

“She won’t be able to find it.”

“I think you underestimate your sister’s ability with computing.”

“No I don’t, she’s quite good, but she won’t be able to find it.”

“Meaning?”

“I’m better ’an her.”

“Trish, Sammi has a master’s degree in cyber protection.”

“Don’t mean anything. She still won’t find it.”

“So that’s your last word is it?”

She shrugged.

I picked up my phone and pretended to dial. “Is that security, good. We have a child up here who no longer belongs here, please come and get her and show her off the premises. Take her? I really don’t care, once she’s out on the street she’s not my worry. Two minutes, thank you.”

“You wouldn’t do that to me would you?” she looked more shocked than sad.

“You have two minutes to stop me.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Take the time-bomb off the system—NOW.”