'Hmmmmm,' he thought. 'Better get a move on or I'm gonna be late for training.' With that in mind, he raced up the stairs to his bedroom and quickly changed into his hockey kit.
A keen hockey player and a member of the local club, he was a stickler for attending training on a Tuesday evening at seven o'clock. Having thrown on his shirt, shorts, socks and loosely laced up his Astro trainers, he grabbed his shin pads off the side, picked up his stick bag from behind the bedroom door, and just before heading downstairs, caught the faintest hint of his reflection in the full length mirror. Pausing briefly to admire the complex mantras that held his false human form in place, he couldn't decide what he was most proud of. The long wavy black hair that adorned his head, straight out of the eighties, that over the course of time he'd have to use another mantra to add just a touch of grey to? The light line of stubble around his chin that he liked so much, the 'run of the mill' face with no really distinctive features, it was all rather difficult to choose. Of medium height, not at all skinny, but certainly not overweight, he decided he looked good in his hockey kit... it suited him, and felt like a second skin... well, third actually. Nodding his head at his reflection, he bounded down the stairs two at a time and headed for his car. Five minutes later he pulled into the car park of the sports club, situated just outside the city limits away from any residential areas, at this very moment standing out like a lighthouse in a storm, with its brilliant bright floodlights blazing across the countryside for all to see. Consisting of a large two storey pavilion overlooking an Astroturf hockey pitch and grass rugby and lacrosse pitches. Picking a space in the large tarmac car park that serviced the pavilion he grabbed his gear and headed towards the changing rooms and sports pitches which were located on the opposite side of the building. Inside, the pavilion consisted of one long bar and dining area on the ground floor that looked out onto all three sports pitches, with a members only lounge, a committee room, the chairman's office, a storage area and a small bar with a balcony used only for private parties, all upstairs on the first floor. Walking past the dark reflective windows, part of him couldn't wait for the training to be over, so that he could wander into the bar in the hope of finding his two best friends. Not only was Tuesday the night for hockey training, but for lacrosse and rugby training as well, which meant that Richie would be here playing lacrosse, and Tank would be taking on all challengers at rugby. Things really didn't get any better than this.
Training went reasonably well, with Peter larking about some of the time with different members of the second XI (his team), before heading to the bar afterwards and spending over an hour catching up with his two best friends. By the time he got home it was late, leaving him with barely enough time to shower before sliding into bed and drifting off to sleep. His final thoughts before he dropped off had him wondering just what the following day at work had in store for him.
3
A Major Disappointment
Woken abruptly by the piercing sound of his alarm clock, Peter rubbed the sleep from his eyes and, almost on autopilot, wandered downstairs to the bathroom and began cleaning his teeth. Aware that most humans have their breakfast first and then clean their teeth, this wasn't really an issue for him, given that everything about his body was a lie. He did however try and get into a routine of doing all the right things to blend in, exactly as he'd been taught during his years of training. So he stood, tried to smile, although the early hour did little to help with that, finished his teeth, smeared a blue globule of gel into his hair, smoothing it back with his fingers before rinsing them off, and then headed back to the bedroom to get dressed. Grabbing a tie off the rack in the wardrobe and slapping the ‘off’ button on his clock radio on his way out of the room, he leapt down the stairs and into the kitchen, feeling much better than he had ten minutes earlier.
Pouring himself a bowl of cornflakes, he grabbed the milk and a strawberry yoghurt from the fridge and sat down at the small pine dining table, smack bang in the middle of the kitchen. He drizzled milk over his cornflakes and munched his way through the whole bowl, before quickly wolfing down the yoghurt.
Earlier than he'd planned on being, he decided to quickly catch up with events in the dragon world. Sitting back in the chair, a contented feeling of a full stomach washing over him, he closed his eyes and began to concentrate. It felt like flying. That was the only way he could think of to describe it. Reaching out with his mind, he searched for the nearest crystal booster, which not only had the power to amplify the telepathic information sent out, but was also able to store that self same information for dragons to access at will. Sitting at the table with his eyes closed, all the time maintaining his focus, small beads of sweat started to form on his forehead as his consciousness soared up and away over the rooftops of the adjacent houses, momentarily hovering uncertainly before suddenly shooting off in a south westerly direction. Even though it was only his mind racing through the cold, morning air, he was sure he could feel a chilly breeze brushing the hairs on his arms, making them all stand to attention. Thirty seconds or so later, he finally caught sight of his target. On the outskirts of the city, beautiful, famed gardens wandered along one of the main rivers, revealing amazing views of the fantastic cathedral and the picturesque water meadows. Twisting paths lined with flowers, punctuated by the occasional bench and a popular playground for young children, stood out for all to see.
Opposite the children's play area, in the middle of the duck laden, lazy river, sat a small island with a huge oak tree growing out of it. Close enough to the bank for older children to jump over to, it stood out as a marked attraction. Swooping down and across the park, strangely, the oak was Peter's destination. His consciousness headed at speed towards a particular branch that instead of tapering off to a point, had a small dark hole in the end of it, through which Peter's wayward mind now dived. The pitch black interior came as something of a shock after the bright, gaudy colours of the playground. Nevertheless, he pressed on, his sense of speed gradually fading. Knowing what to expect because he'd done this hundreds of times before, a sudden encompassing bright light offered up a sense of familiarity. In a virtual room that disappeared off as far as he could see, glancing down row after row of huge wooden filing cabinets, he scanned the italic writing on the front of each for what he was looking for. Sol (April-May), Speculum (March-April-May), Liber (April-May) and Stella (April-May).
Seconds later, he had it... The Daily Telepath (April-May). Using only the will of his mind, he pulled open the drawer, swooped up and dived in head first (well, since his head was back in his kitchen, that wasn't really possible... but you know what I mean), rifling through the thick wad of pages. To him it felt as though he was swimming through a book just as someone was flicking through all the pages. Odd and yet strangely compelling, particularly the smell, which for some reason reminded him of old books. He was so immersed in everything that he nearly missed last month's copies whizzing past him, but not quite. He knew he was close. Grinding gradually to a halt, he found himself right in front of today's copy, grasped it with his mind, and leapt right on out of the cabinet. Immediately an explosion of information wrapped itself around his conscious will and followed it back, exactly the same way it had come, until it plunged back down into his house and forced its way back into his head. With the information downloaded, it was no trouble now to access it inside his head, pretty much, in fact, like turning the pages of a real, tactile newspaper. The front page of today's Daily Telepath looked like this: