Author's note: I am writing this story as I go along so if you find that it sort of meanders with little or no point then that is the reason why.
A man knocks on a small suburban three bedroom, two up, four down, twelve to the side, semi-detached, slightly leaning to the left, house in Bishop's Stortford in the South-East of England. Another man answers in his light blue dressing gown brought for him by his wife as a surprise present to announce the birth of her third cousin twice removed to New Zealand. The man who answered was in his dressing gown not because he was some tax-dodging student sleeping late as a means to avoid the morning; he was in his dressing gown because it was very early in the day. The cat had not yet made a mess of next-door's flower bed it was so early. The man who knocked introduced himself as…
The Man Who Knocked: "Hello. I am from MI5. I'm the man from MI5."
The man who answered was a little taken aback by the way the man from MI5 had repeated where he was from. The man who answered thought that people who have the habit of doing that usually have an over-developed sense of importance and consequently are frequently rather annoying to talk too. However he was feeling quite generous owning to a particularly enjoyable previous night, and it being so early in the morning the after-effects had not yet made themselves known, so the man who answered decided to give the man from MI5 the benefit of the doubt, which was as comparably generous as an extremely wealthy man giving one hundred pounds sterling to save the Badgers from the newly proposed A505 bypass. The man who answered decided that the proper course of action for him to take would be to introduce himself to the man from MI5 without any further delay.
The Man Who Answered: "Hello.
He began.
The Man Who Answered: "My name is…"
But before he could make the familiar (at least to him) noise that has been formally recognised by her majesty's government to mean his name, the man from MI5 interrupted him. Rather rudely thought the man who answered.
The Man From MI5: "I know who you are Mr Quadwich."
This caused Mr Quadwich some concern for he was fairly certain that he had not mentioned his name during this brief conversation and further more he had never mentioned his name to this man or any man from MI5 in any of the many previous conversations he had had in his decidedly dull life.
Mr Quadwich: "How do you know my name?"
Mr Quadwich asked rather reasonably considering the situation he found himself in and the time in which this situation was taking place, being as it was so early in the morning.
The Man From MI5: "Why should it surprise you, Mr Quadwich? Does not the postman know your name without a formal introduction by you? Why not me as well?"
Mr Quadwich was knocked for six off a sticky wicket with a slight breeze coming from the nursery end, by this sudden but surprising attack of logic. Shocked, his brain summoned up all reason reservists it could muster to respond.
Mr Quadwich: "But you are not my postman."
The Man From MI5: "No, I am not."
Mr Quadwich was happy that his powers of deduction had not escaped him in his time of need. He pressed on with the renewed rigour of a man entering the last four miles of a marathon that he has not trained for and did not know he was running until just four hours before it began.
Mr Quadwich: "If you are not my postman then my originally question still stands. How do you know my name?"
The Man From MI5: "A fine question and one that deserves an equally fine answer. However I fear my respond will only score an adequate even with a bribed East German judge on the front row of the panel. I know your name because we have a large file on your back at the secret office in the undisclosed location in the capital city of England, which I cannot reveal the name of. The system we have developed requires the name of the subject for one to access a file and I was told to access your file and hence I came to know your name."
This answer was indeed adequate, barely in fact, but since it was ever so early in the morning Mr Quadwich did not feel it proper to demand a better one. Also he was intimidated by the large quantity of words, many unnecessary in his opinion, and feared that any further answer would make that number pale in comparison and make him even paler. So he let it fly with a piece of dignified silence that befits a monarch or the stupid, or both, breaking this only with an occasional sound of approval and the related nod.
The Man From MI5: "However the purpose of my visit was not to provide adequate responses to your perfectly legitimate inquiries about my knowledge of your and your deeply interesting life. No, sadly, my business for appearing on this extremely fine doorstep is not nearly as pleasant. I come to your humble presence to request your person to join me in journeying back to MI5's secret, very hush-hush, highly classified office."
Mr Quadwich had not been expecting this so elegantly worded request at all. Yes, it would be very safe to venture the assessment that he was shocked by this request, maybe one could even go so far as to say he was very shocked, thought some my feel that an overstatement.
Mr Quadwich: "I'm shocked. Maybe even very shocked."
He said this with the matter of factness of a dung beetle describing his life as a big pile of crap.
Mr Quadwich: "I don't know what to say."
The Man From MI5: "Can I strongly advise you to say yes because I have been authorised by her majesty's government under the Official Secret Act Concerning The Secret Activities Of Secret Organisations That Don't Officially Exist of 1949, to do some rather nasty things to your naughty bits if you don't."
Mr Quadwich did not need the mental images his brain was in the progress of producing to know that he did not want any part of that and he didn't want his part to either.
Mr Quadwich: "Yes."
He said with the haste of an illegal trespasser being chased by a pack of highly trained dogs with a penchant for soft squishy dandily human bits.
End of Chapter One