The Bureau of Visual Records

     No.2, who is due to retire on Appreciation day, has been watching and listening to No.6 and No.50 talking together at the café, on the wall screen in his office. The pair of steel doors open and the tall, lean figure of his assistant No.22 enters the domed office.

    No.22 “Did you call?”
    “Yes…..send someone to the bureau of visual records, there’s a tape I want to review.”
    “At once, Subject?”
    “Subject, warning of an assassination plot, persons Number 6 and my successor………..well get on with it.”
    “It would be a waste of time there is no recording of that description.”
    “How strange.”
    “You must be misinformed.”
    “Strange although you have no function in the bureau of visual records that you can state instantly and with total assurance that the records I require are non-existent…..please explain.”
    “No Number 2 I am not able to.”
    “I understand, that fact that you won’t explain explains everything.”
    No.22 inclines his head; his demeanour is one of regret as he leaves the office.
   It must have been difficult for No.22 assisting two masters, not that he was of any help to either of them all that much. He seems to regret what is due to happen to No.2 on the day he retires, and the fact he is powerless to do anything about it.

Be seeing you