"Drats," Alistair winced as he dribbled a blob of molten solder across a plexus strip; he deftly flicked it away with his finger before it did too much damage. His mind wasn't on the job as he kept thinking of his encounter in the tunnel, the ambiguity of the graffiti and his subsequent chat with Robert.

"Alistair Raven," Delilah's prissy voice called. "There you are," she said exasperated, "I've been calling out for you." Placing her hands on her hips, and tapping her toe like a mother hen, Delilah was not pleased.

Alistair lowered the soldering iron and blew gently across his handiwork.

"Do not ignore me when I address you," Delilah implored.

He tried not to giggle – he loved it when she tried to act so tough. Without turning around, he pulled his gloves off and pushed his goggles up on to his forehead and fossicked in a jar for a capacitor.

"I'm sorry I didn't hear you," he finally acknowledged.

"My, my," Delilah tutted, "what a petulant young man you have become. Why I can remember when you were just a small boy in nappies, so uncertain on his feet. Now, this is all the thanks I get."

Alistair shrugged. "I remember there was a time when your circuits weren't programmed to keep cheesing me off." He picked up his sonic soldering iron and twirled it in his fingers. "You know you're not so far removed from an atomic dustbin. If you give me five minutes I could recondition some of your circuits and upgrade you from a DomBot."

"Or I could realign your original circuitry, back to the factory setting, eh?" he offered cheekily.

Delilah stammered, embarrassed.

"ALISTAIR!!!"

"Are YOU blushing?" Alistair teased the obviously distressed and flummoxed Delilah.

"Why do you torment me and crush my central processing unit? And just what are you insinuating? Yes, a long time ago I was a different fabricant. But that was a very long time ago and now I am a lady."

"You were a BlissBot," Alistair taunted.

"Perhaps I was a BlissBot. But I'm definitely not that kind of girl anymore."

"Well, I'm not a kid anymore. So stop treating me like a child," Alistair counter-argued.

"You're just mean," Delilah cried, fed up with his antics.

"I'm fourteen now and I've grown up and don't need a babysitter anymore," Alistair maintained. "I can look after myself, you know."

"You might not need a babysitter, but certainly do require a few lessons in manners."

"I do not," Alistair exacted.

"Really?" Delilah answered, turning up her nose. "You could have fooled me." Frustrated, Alistair unloaded with both barrels of pent up teenage angst.

"You're fussy and you're prissy. You always say you're allergic to Balderick. You loathe me getting grubby and detest me hooning around New London on my HyperBoard. You always want to swaddle me in cotton wool. Heaven forbid if I scuff my boots or sneeze."

"Well then," Delilah flared, clearly stung. "Two can play that game! You are a smart boy who could use his brain for better things than building smoke bombs and HyperBoards. And you give me so much cheek and grief. All you say is how much you wish you could use your techno wows to redevelop my culinary skill or you'll upgrade me to some menial machine. Why not invent something useful once in a while. And you do always dredge up that I used to be a BlissBot, thank you very much. I would very much like you to refrain from bringing it up again. All I've ever done is love you and nurture you and care for you and be there for you. I don't know what else I can do."

"You could go away!"

Upset, Delilah clicked and whirred sadly.

"I don't know why you must pick on me. Just because I'm a fabricant doesn't mean I don't have feelings. One day you'll need me, and I won't be there."

Delilah spun around on her heeled feet, her pleated skirt twirling and she huffed off to the rooftop exit doorway, without once looking over her shoulder. Allowing the door to bang behind her, Alistair developed a guilty conscience. Scooping up his patched-up HyperBoard, he threw it to his feet and gave chase. From the top of the stairs, he could hear Delilah's shoes clicking as she stormed down the steps; he called out after her.

"I'm sorry Delilah," he apologised. "I'm sorry I was rude and upset you," he added, his voice echoing in the stairwell; Delilah halted and he heard her sigh.

"Apology accepted," she came back with a bothered air.

"Don't forget though: you're a bot, so really, you don't have feelings," Alistair said tactlessly.

There was an awkward silence before he heard her grrr followed by the click of her heels. Alistair looked at Balderick, who had nestled on the balustrade and eyed him cautiously.

"I know," Alistair laughed. "Sometimes she's more maintenance than she's worth."

**********************

Enduring Delilah's silent treatment, the unspoken, resultant punishment, was another bowl of Delilah's lumpy porridge that even spoonfuls of brown sugar couldn't make palatable. Delilah had exacted her revenge with a cool glint in her bionic eye and Alistair stood rinsing his bowl in the kitchen sink. He winced as his grandfather coughed with chest busting vigour; the wheezing sounded worse than usual and Archie Raven sat cutting his rolling tobacco in a small bowl. He paused to nip on his whiskey then blackly joked he needed stronger medicine.

Alistair watched as Archie plucked fine tobacco from the bowl, sprinkled it over a small square of paper before he delicately rolled it, sealing it with a short, sharp lick of his tongue. He tapped the end and placed it gently down on the table next to a box of matches. Alistair did not share his grandfather's passion – in fact he very much loathed it, as the smoke got in his eyes. Alistair hardly understood how a lung full of smoke could help in any way but this was his grandfather's home, and if Alistair was old enough to pass judgment, then he was old enough to find his own place to live. Alistair went to tend to his worm farm and walked past Archie, patting him on the shoulder.

"Don't burn that all at once," he chided, "you know that stuff doesn't grow on trees."

"You cheeky monkey," Archie snorted, choking on phlegmy laughter.

Alistair lifted the lid on a large glass tank that was in the corner of the room and checked a small pump which sucked up the methane, and channelled it to a small converter where it was burnt for warmth.

Delilah turned up her nose. "Must we really keep that in the living room?" she whined. "All that decomposing pulp...the smell inside that tank is woeful!"

Archie looked over his shoulder.

"Lucky for you then he keeps a lid on it," he chuckled. "It's good for the boy to have responsibility as long as he knows it's his responsibility to look after them, and realises neither you and I are ever going to touch that vile thing."

Delilah tutted and tended to the kitchen as Alistair parted some of the damp paper and watched the worms wriggle and he extracted a plump worm and dangled it out in front of him, checking its size. He hung it out for Balderick who snapped the treat from Alistair's fingertips before gulping it down.

"Mind your manners," Alistair said, stroking Balderick's strong, thick black plume. "You're a Raven, not a pig."

"Alistair," Archie called, using his wedding ring to drum his finger on his empty whiskey bottle. "Be a good lad and grab me another bottle. Top shelf."

Rolling his eyes, Alistair complied. He replaced the lid on the tank and shuffled down the hall to his grandfather's bedroom.

Pushing the door open, the room was dim and the waft of Archie's distinctive aftershave filled his nostrils. With his frugal yet fastidiously regimented manner not a single item was out of place. Turning on the low wattage lamp, the warm glow cast long shadows around the room and Alistair looked at the small holograph picture of his grandmother Claire on Archie's bedside table. She was a pretty woman but Archie kept his true feelings for her so well hidden. Apart from the picture, and the occasional bout of Archie's sleep-talking, Alistair barely knew anything about her.

Opening the inset cupboard, Alistair ran a finger over the finely pressed clothes lined on hangers in order of colour and shape. Parting aside the coats and pants, Alistair found that there were no bottles on the shelf. Looking around the room, he counted one empty bottle on Archie's beside table and found another two at the bottom of the cupboard. Along with the finished bottle in the kitchen, Alistair tallied up four in all.

Alistair was sure he'd filled five bottles last week, drawn from Archie's distillery down in the hydroponics room. Alistair got on his knees and checked the back of the cupboard and then examined the shelves.

"Top shelf," Archie echoed down the hall.

The top shelf was higher still, and in the gloom, difficult to see in to. Standing on his tip-toes, he felt for a bottle. Running his hand left and right, he groaned as he pushed higher on his toes for more reach. Thwarted, he required further assistance, and dragged over the large chest at the foot of Archie's bed and pushed it up against the large wooden wardrobe.

Stepping up, he peered in to the space, then reached in and patted the interior for the elusive contraband. His hand touched something unusual and he managed to grasp a corner and pulled it back towards the edge. It was a black, worn leather bag fastened at the top by two rusting clasps. Curious, he craned his neck around the cupboard door to listen, and satisfied Archie and Delilah were still in the kitchen, he sat himself on the chest and ever so gingerly clicked open both clasps, and pushed the soft leather apart. A puff of dust tickled his nose as he examined the stomach of the bag.

Alistair withdrew three thick bundles of loosely bound polymer pre-war banknotes. The face of a serene, stoic looking middle-aged man wearing a crown caught his eye and underneath the portrait, clearly printed, was the name King George VII. Accompanying the portrait was a smaller decoration of three lions. He raised the money to his nose; smelling musty, he wondered what possible use his grandfather had for each bundle. Differentiated by ink hues and denominations, Jeremy Clarkson decorated the fifty-pound note; a dashing looking chap named David Beckham embellished the one-hundred whilst a lady by the name of JK Rowling graced the third note. He gently placed the banknotes to one side and continued snooping.

Spreading a tatty, thrice folded card, it was a Transport for London Tube Guide combining the Underground and Overground lines, dated: From May 1st 2022. Alistair laughed; the QEII was 'new' and the Wiggins and Tennant lines merely 'under construction'. Tracing his finger along the thick gold spaghetti of the Olympic Overground Line - the original Overground in London - Alistair contained himself knowing things had certainly changed in 55 years. Unbelievable! Pop was right, there was only one Overground line he mused; there were forty-four tiered Overground lines in operation today.

Alistair thrust his hand deeper in to the aged leather bag; his hand grasping another odd item and whatever it was, was thickly wrapped in bubble wrap and tightly taped up across its length and width. Holding the item up in to the light, he tried to see through the bubble wrap but it was too opaque and he daren't try to peel back the wrapping.

Disappointingly, all that was left was a moth eaten red and green striped woollen scarf. Alistair was about to put all the bits and pieces back in the bag when a metallic wink attracted his attention. Tugging out the scarf, his hand took hold of a small metal tin box; a little tarnished, he gave it a quick rub with the scarf. He paused as an embossed emblem began to glow on the top of the box.

Alistair's mouth went dry and he furtively looked around the room then back down at the softly glowing image of three lions. He held the tin box out and turned it around in his hands. It was seamless and on the front of the box was a digital keyhole lock surrounded by ten small circles. Prodding, the circles began to softly glow numbers zero to nine and tempted; he pressed the number seven but spooked himself when he heard Archie coughing from the kitchen.

Running his fingers over the embossed lions again, the tin felt cool against his fingertips. Why has pop got a box with three lions on it? he asked himself. Mightily intrigued, he wondered what secret his grandfather had kept in this box. Not knowing the code was annoying and Alistair figured whatever was contained within would be a challenge to reveal.

This time, Archie did call out, breaking the silence.

"You better not be sipping in there," he warned, adding: "I'm not getting any younger out here."

Alistair quickly wrapped the scarf back around the tin box then put everything in its right place back in the bag. Hastily locking the clasps, he jumped up on the chest and pushed the bag back up on to the shelf and, shoved it back to the corner where he had found it. Tidying up so it didn't look like he may have gone through the cupboard, he shifted the chest back to the end of the bed and closed up the wardrobe doors. Scooping up the empty bottles he switched off the light and stepped back in to the hall.

"You took forever," Archie grumbled from the kitchen. "Lose yourself?"

"You're empty," Alistair answered with the bottles under his armpits.

Archie breathed through his nose.

"Be a good lad and pop downstairs," Archie said.

"I'll just be a tick," Alistair replied as he scrambled for the door.

Archie lit a match as Balderick flew over, and settled on the top of a kitchen chair.

"What are you squawking about?" Archie grumbled, exhaling a lungful of smoke. "Who made you the fun police?"