The Arrival

    “He’s just arrived Number Two.”
    “How is he settling in?”
    “He’s shocked, confused, disorientated.”
    “That’s only to be expected. I’ll invite him for breakfast, and have a little chat.”
   

     It’s quiet, almost too quiet enough even for a drum solo! No sound of traffic outside, he pulled up the blind and looked out of the window on an unfamiliar sight. Gone was the street outside his house, and the row of houses opposite, to be replaced by cottages, statues, a bell tower a lawn with a large chessboard set out on it, and an Italianate Piazza. He spun round in confusion this was not his house. Suddenly the telephone began to ring, he walked over and picked up the receiver.
    “Welcome back to the village. It’s time we had a little chat. Number Two, the Green Dome.”
     The man left his cottage and walked out into the village, there were a few people out and about now. One fellow riding passed on his tricycle rang his bell and bid him good day. He walked through the village, along a cobbled lane, up some steps and onto a road. Crossing the street he went on a bit then climbed the steps up to the Green Dome, where he stood for a few moments on the balcony looking down on the square on the opposite side of the road. People wearing bright coloured clothes, piped blazers, straw boaters, carrying open colourful striped umbrellas. All going about their daily business. He turned and faced the large arch, he went under it and approached the door to the Green Dome. He was just about to pull the wrought iron bell pull when the door opened for him. He walked through the doorway and into the foyer beyond. There a diminutive man dressed in black tails bowed, and ushered the man though a pair of French doors to a pair of solid steel doors, which opened at their approach. Beyond the open door was an impressive domed chamber.
    “Do come in why don’t you, you’re just in time for breakfast.”
    Understanding the butler bowed, turned and went to make breakfast. The man stepped forward and down the ramp, the big heavy steel doors closed with a resounding clang behind him.
    “Well now, how have you been keeping?”
    “I’m sorry but I seem rather confused. Where am I?"
    “What do you mean where are you, you know where you are, you’re in the village.”
    “What village?”
    “Do you know who you are?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where have you been for the past six months?”
    “Is this how it begins?”
    “How what begins?”
    “The interrogation.”
    “Is there a need for an interrogation? All I’m doing is asking you a couple of questions. Now where can the harm be in you telling me who you are and where you have been for the past six months?”
    “Because that’s where it begins, answer one question and you expect all the rest will follow.”
    Suddenly the pair of steel doors opened and a tall thin man walked in. Brown hair, hazel eyes, wearing a light blue jacket with dark blue piping, a fawn coloured turtle neck jersey, beige trousers, and deck shoes.
    “This is Number Fourteen, he’s my assistant.”
    “I didn’t think he was your wife!”
    Number 14 made a bee-line for the Prisoner.
    “Wait, it’s too soon for the strong arm stuff. Fourteen here is an expert in delivering physical pain. If I were to leave you in his tender care for two, perhaps three days, you’d come whimpering to me to tell everything you know. So why not make it easy on yourself, thus saving us both a great amount of time, and you an enormous amount of pain.”
    “Number Two can I have a word?”
    “Yes.”
    The two men turned away from the Prisoner.
    “You know who he is?”
    “Yes he’s one of ours. He was released back into circulation, but as someone else, his mind housed in another man’s body, after undergoing the Seltzman mind transference process. The idea being to gather information, then to eventually return to the village in order to give us that information.”
    “But he doesn’t remember us or the village!”
    “Something has gone desperately wrong!”
    “The amnesia room!”
    “What?”
    “Every plan has its flaw sir.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “You know what they’ve done don’t you?”
    “I think I can guess.”
    “They put him in the amnesia room and removed all memories of the village from his mind.
    “And now we’re forced to take the information inside his head!”
    “It was expected that he would be brought back to the village and then he would simply tell us what we wanted to know. But now he thinks we’re the bad guys, and that we’re on the other side!”
    “This is a fine mess someone’s got us into! Break the security of any nation my foot!”
    “What now?”
    “Take what we sent him out for, then remove all memories of the village, and send him back out there, what else can we do?”
    “Life is never easy is it?”
    “It could be worse.”
    “How, tell me how could it be worse?”
    “It could have involved Number Six! This fellow here you should get him to tell us everything we want to know in a couple of days.”

    The man refused to talk. One day when he was allowed to reconsider his position he went for a long walk off the cliffs.

Be seeing you

Who’s That On The Telephono?

      

    No.2 “Yes what it, what’s the matter?”
    No.112 “The shopkeeper here sir, I’m on black.”
    “Black?”
    “The colour of my telephone, its black.”
    “What’s that got to do with the price of fish?”
    “Nothing sir.”
    “Well if it is of any interest to you, I’m on yellow and black.”
    “Yellow and black, two telephones at the same time, that’s impressive.”
    “Not really, now what’s all this about?”
    “I just thought you’d like to know that Number Six has just purchased a small notebook.”
    “What about it?”
    “Perhaps he’s going to write a thank you note for the flowers.”
    “What flowers?”
    “I’ve no idea sir.”
    “Do you sell flowers?”
    “Not since that oriental girl set up her flower stall business. And sales of The Tally Ho have dropped since you gave Number 236 a license to run that kiosk of hers!”
    “So Number Six bought a small notebook, anything else?”
    “Yes sir, a Cuckoo clock.”
    “A Cuckoo clock, what are you doing selling Cuckoo clocks?”
    “They’re a special import sir, like cameras and the records.”
    “Well alright, just as long as you don’t go mad and start selling mobile phones!”
    “Mobile what sir?”
    “Oh never mind, just get off the line!”

Be seeing you

What Was That?

    It sounded like a click, something in the mirror, or was it over there, yes over there too!
    Why am I under surveillance? What have I supposed to have done, what am I suspected of having done? All I did was resign, if you can’t chuck up a job things have come to a pretty pass!
    I would go on holiday but I cannot make up my mind where to go. Paris, perhaps not, although Engadine would be pleased to see me, darling she would say greeting me with open arms. No not Paris, Ireland? No, rather too cold this time of year. I bought a load of brochures from the travel agency, World Travel, they were very helpful. Greece, Italy any number of places I could go. Perhaps somewhere different, somewhere quiet where I can think and contemplate my future, whatever future there can be for an ex-secret agent of British Military Intelligence.
    Perhaps I’ll travel the world living out of a suitcase, become a private investigator. I’m sure that sounded like a click, and what’s that hissing sound……………
    “We’ll be open in a minute, do you want breakfast?”
    “Where, where is this?”
    “The Village, I’ll see if the coffee’s ready.”

Be seeing you

THEPRIS6NER

     A man wakes up in the desert. He has no idea where he is, why he is there, or how he came to be there. He walks for mile after mile, after mile in the scorching heat. Out of the darkness he sees the lights of a town and rushes towards it. This is the village, and he is 6. Eventually 6 is brought before 2.

     6 claims that something is wrong, he wants to get back to New York. But he can’t, there is no New York, there is only the village! And this is what THEPRIS6NER does, it plays with the mind and makes one question one’s surroundings, questioning reality. Are we in fact where we think we are?

    11-12 unlike 6 was born, or rather created in the village, and for him the village is a far worse place than it is for 6. For 11-12 the village is not enough, even though his mother M2 tells him that village is best for them. He questions the village, and wants to leave, to go to the other place. But as his mother explains he cannot, because only people brought to the village can go to the other place. Because if 11-12 should leave the village he would cease to exist!
    Broken people, people with mental problems are brought to the village to be made better, 11-12 has problems of his own, he has no memories of his childhood, he questions everything, the village, of his very existence even. He murdered his lover 909 by stabbing him in his neck. And finally he sees that his mother is the cause if his trouble. She tells 11-12 that he is her son, but she didn’t physically give birth to him, she created him in her subconscious. The boy never grew up because he has always been the age that he is. In order to solve his problem 11-12 commits matricide by suffocating his mother to death with a cushion. Who now will make him better? No-one, and in despair his final act is one of suicide. The only way out of the village for anyone!

Breathe in….breathe out….more village, more PRIS6NER

Be seeing you……in any village

Observers of Life…….

    No.240 is one of their best observers according to No.2, in fact she’s No.6’s personal observer, at least during this episode. However there are a couple of questions. Why is No.240 gallivanting about the village with No.2, when she’s supposed to be doing her job as an Observer in the Control Room? And why were No.2 and 240 skulking about beneath the Lookout in the first place? They could have been on a tour of the village’s outer perimeter along the cliffs I suppose, but they are so casual in their manner together, this when No.2 is always so business-like. The truth of the matter is No.240 appears to act more as No.2’s assistant than that of an Observer. You will recall how 240 reported direct to No.2 the fact that she couldn’t find No.6, having looked everywhere. But that was no way to report, as the Supervisor was quick to point out.
    There is really no logical reason why No.240 should be in the company of No.2. Had No.240 been at her post in the Control Room she would have observed No.6 on the Lookout listening to the radio, then she would have reported the observation to No.2 who would in turn act on that information. Perhaps she did, perhaps they did, although they didn’t seem to be in any hurry. It might be that they were enjoying each other company {after all in real life actress Norma West enjoyed a deep friendship with the late Mary Morris, and she with her} a friendship I believe is reflected in ‘Dance of the Dead,’ and so came upon No.6 by accident.

Be seeing you

Bureau of Visual Records

    In ‘The General’ Number 2 enters the Control Room and gives the order “Section Thirty-two sound and vision.” The Supervisor-No.28 gives the order “Put up section thirty-two sound and vision” via the intercom in his hand. After watching the scene in the General’s office No.2 wants to see the seminar taking place in Madam Professor’s garden. The Supervisor then gives the order “Put up section thirty-nine sound and vision.” Who did the Supervisor give those orders to? No-one in the Control Room that’s for sure otherwise there would have been no need for the Supervisor to use the intercom. This indicates the possibility of a secondary Control Room somewhere, or at the very least a room where someone is controlling the images projected onto the wall screen via the surveillance cameras. However by the time of

‘Dance of The Dead’ a control consol has been installed, or at least moved, into the Control Room operated by No.240 as she keeps a sharp watch on No.6. It is via this control consol that the Observer-240 operates the cameras and changing the views on the wall screen.

Be seeing you

The Therapy Zone

    What was behind the Prisoner known as Number 6’s resignation? What reason could he have had? He was after all engaged to the boss’s daughter, perhaps through that marriage he was looking to better his professional prospects. So what went wrong? He certainly hadn’t told his fiancée Janet Portland of his decision to resign his job, she had no idea. What’s more he was doing a runner out of the country. Chambers had gone, and ‘A’ had made world news when he defected to the other side, and that is perhaps the way Number 6 would have gone had they not got to him first! But really is that any reason to have ZM73 abducted to the village? After all, if you can’t chuck up a job things have come to a pretty pass, to quote Number 2. But I suppose it all depends on what job you did and what you know. Perhaps his resignation had nothing whatsoever to do with it, that Number 6 had been abducted to the village in order to make sure the knowledge inside his head was secure, that he would not talk under any circumstances.
    But they need not have worried, Number 6 was still loyal, he still put a value on the Official Secrets Act he would have had to sign. So, in not extracting the information, Number 6 was in the village to have that knowledge protected. But if that’s the case why did the doctor in ‘Dance of the Dead’ try and extract information, but then again did he? After all he didn’t ask for details, just heading of files he had seen of projects he knew about. It seemed that the doctor was going to an awful lot of trouble for so little. But then they were used to that, so many elaborate plans and schemes, and for what? Precious little as far as I can see! They might have saved themselves a great deal of time and effort. What did it matter why he resigned, I stopped asking myself that question a long time ago. But I’m sure he must have agonized over that decision a long time, and after he had taken it, it must have given him much anguish after he had made it.

Be seeing you