Just to prove that Book 2 is not a myth. I have reached page 176, and am still going strong.
Here is a brief glimpse of part of Chapter One......................

Sam was a tall, gangly young man, with neither the build nor the face of a girl; neither had he the demeanour nor voice to pass in company. Following the males in his family, he’d started losing his hair at twenty-one, so was by twenty-six suffering from a very sparse forehead and crown. He’d bought a wig, but lacked the confidence or courage to even think about going out. That notwithstanding, there just wasn’t anyone to see him at this time of year, save a few moist sheep. At least they didn’t gossip.

He’d converted one room of his croft into a workshop where he could repair and build computers for local people, so managed to make a few extra pounds for that. Up here (NW Scotland), many outlying homes and crofts had embraced the computer generation as a means of maintaining contact with the outside world. However, it was never going to be enough for him to earn a huge living, so the Telecom company were only too happy to take him on, as he was well able to repair faults in a really inaccessible part of the world.

With his own Land Rover, tools and list of parts, he was independent and a free spirit. Occasionally, he’d drop down to the nearest depot and collect fresh parts, but for the most part, he was on his own.

He spent most of his time in a fantasy-land of his own mind. A land where he was the person he so wanted to be, and on those few occasions when he actually dressed, he was left feeling that there was an awful lot missing, plus a little extra that he often considered removing with a very sharp knife.

Sam was a very unhappy man as he pulled up next to a remote telephone pole, with junction box up high on the pole.

There has a fault isolated to this particular box, which under normal circumstances could have waited until the morning. However, this particular box wasn’t an ordinary exchange line, but actually housed MoD lines that ran from the Northern Early Warning Centre.

A leftover from the cold war, this centre still existed just to monitor shipping and aircraft. No longer so concerned with the Russians, the authorities now concentrated on those who sought to bring drugs, pirate DVDs, cigarettes and other illegal items, including immigrants and potential terrorists, into the UK. This junction box wasn’t vital, but important for their computer communications systems. Sam may have been unhappy, but he wasn’t stupid. A call-out after midnight meant a call-out fee and extra money.

He wasn’t a Scot for nothing!

Sam got out of the vehicle, grateful that the rain had slackened slightly. Unfortunately, such was the altitude that he was actually walking about inside a rain cloud, so no matter what he did, he got wet. He pulled on his bright orange coat and his hard hat, and strapped his toolkit around his waist. After propping the ladder up against the pole, he buckled his spiked soles onto his boots.

He was almost at the top when he heard the noise. It was a low-pitched whistle, with a strange throbbing feel to it. Then came the wind, causing the mist to curl and swirl in the lights of the Land Rover. The air buffeted Sam, so he grabbed the pole to prevent himself from being blown off his perch.

Then it stopped abruptly.

He hung in his harness, looking around him, trying to work out from where the weird wind originated. He stayed there for a few minutes, as the mist returned to its usual bland, damp nothingness. Shrugging, he continued up to the box, opened it and started work, illuminated by the small lamp on his hard hat.
He found the fault quickly; it was a loose connection caused by some slight corrosion. With all the damp in this atmosphere, it was impossible to make these boxes completely waterproof.

It took him a few seconds to repair, so then he attached his mobile testing phone and put through a test call. It worked, so he closed the box and started back to planet earth.

He never got there.

Just as he reached the top of the ladder, the ground started to shake, toppling the ladder from the pole. A swathe of brilliant blue light struck him from above, blinding him.

It was the last thing he remembered.
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Is there going to be a new girl in town?

Watch this space.

Tanya