Nina

Douglas flew out of the front door nearly knocking Rennie off his feet.

"RUDE." Said Rennie, trying to regain his poise in the unfamiliar kitten heels that were pinching his toes; he then looked on in horror as Douglas stole his car, which had been idling on Iris's gravel driveway.

"STOP!!" Shouted Rennie, but Douglas was already speeding out of Frigwell Crescent.

Rennie slumped down on Iris's doorstep, put his head in his hands, and then slowly pulled off the Dolly Parton wig. Why oh why had he decided to come to England disguised as Nina Mishsochlopovkovni? Why hadn't he checked the passport before blindly selecting it from his collection? He could have been anyone. He could have been John Brown - business man and candle maker, or Chuck Hudson - a salesman with a penchant for liquorice allsorts, but no, he was now saddled with being Nina Mishsochlopovkovni.

Rennie had never been to England before, and he was finding it all rather grey and squashed. How did the Brits live in these tiny little houses built so close together? He was used to wide open spaces; mountains; big trees; volcanic activity; a large bed; and driving on the right side of the road. Rennie wished he'd stayed home and felt very sorry for himself. Douglas had driven off with all his documents; his jacket; his phone; and most importantly, his connection to SpodeChode. And where was Iris? Either Iris would do right now, even the Iris-bot would be useful.

Rennie kicked off the kitten heels, and without the wig he simply looked like a man in a dress who was rather upset and lost.

"PPSSSSSSTTTTTT, over here....... are you deaf or what??"

Rennie looked up and saw a blonde woman holding a large gun beckoning him towards her house.....

Rennie Takes Flight

At that very moment, Rennie received a message via the microscopic speaker implanted in his ear canal.

“The Iris unit has been compromised. Make haste.” 


It was the voice of SpodeChode69, the self-applied nickname of Super Computer 6900. After all, what good was artificial intelligence without a sense of humor? The earlier text message from Iris had actually come from SpodeChode. Its highly evolved algorithms had detected the imminent breakdown in Iris’ relatively crude system (the early models always were a bit twitchy, as the movie quote goes). Its summations were proved by Douglas’ tugging at Iris’ tag. Why had they left that there, anyway? Oh, well, that decision had been made before SpodeChode’s time. Now it was up to SpodeChode to fix the problem. Typical.


Rennie said to the Uber driver, “I’m going to need to take over.” As the driver turned a wondering look toward him, Rennie snatched up a banana that the driver had been intending to eat for lunch from the cup holder in the center console and rammed it into the pressure point behind the driver’s left ear, momentarily stunning him. In practically the same fluid movement, Rennie unbuckled the driver’s seat belt, opened his door and shoved him out, then slipped behind the wheel and sped away.


The driver came too as he was doing a fast barrel roll right into the path of an oncoming light rail vehicle. “Oh, well”, he thought, “that job sucked anyway”.


Rennie made great time to the airport. His speeding and the many incongruously placed vegetable stands and stacks of cardboard boxes that he smashed through failed to initiate a police chase, thanks in large part to SpodeChode’s ability to control many human systems and activities, such as 911 calls, traffic cameras, police bulletins and even to issue “do not pursue” orders anywhere in the world.


When Rennie arrived at the airport, he didn’t bother with such mundane affairs as ticket counters and boarding gates. Instead, he took a service road to a seemingly disused hangar in a remote corner of the complex, where a super-fast stealth plane waited to whisk him to England.


During the flight, Rennie had time to reflect upon his relationship with Iris. He had seen her dancing at a go-go club, and had taken her to dinner at St. Ermin’s Hotel. He was trying to impress her, so he told her fantastic tales of espionage, when in reality he was only a private in the army, with dreams of one day being a spy. Be careful what you wish for.


He didn’t know then that Iris wasn’t a human. Even Iris didn’t know her true nature. By the time he found out, it was already too late for both of them. He had already gone down a dark path, one lined with laboratories where his body and mind were modified and enhanced to serve a powerful master.


He realized he was still holding the banana. He ate it. Mmmm, banana.