Two shadowy figures stood behind the glass panel looking into the monitor room. "Nothing? Why would the surveillance cameras suddenly stop working, do you think?"

"Not, `nothing,' sir. Not a complete whitewash. We did manage to rescue one image. The boffins are still busy, computer enhancing it."

"One image? It had better be a good one. The Big Chiefs over the water are doing the war-dance at the moment! You'd better have something to show this super-boffin they're shipping over on the big, supersonic bird tonight, my lad. Otherwise, they'll be after somebody's bollocks. And they're not having mine!" He paused. "Any idea what actually happened?"

The younger man scratched his head. "We don't know what went wrong with the system, exactly. We suspect some form of powerful, focused and short lived electromagnetic field associated with the phenomenon. It started affecting the cameras in the region of George Square and faded out in the Buchanan Street area." He paused. "But, by that time, whatever had caused it had completely disappeared. There were all sorts of complaints about TV and radio interference, mobile phones exploding, that sot of thing."

"So, it wasn't just our multi-million pound surveillance equipment going on the blink. That's reassuring. Something to tell the people upstairs." The older man's face was the personification of `sardonic'."

© copyright, 2003 AndroMan.