Ed Adams: Pearl - Phantom Missions(04)

Another section, from amidst the missions...

Phantom Mission 04: Notches in the spine

 

It didn’t appear in the logbook.

But the fuel was burned, and the gun barrels were warm, and Paperboy came back with dried blood on his collar—neither his nor human. Stitch woke mid-flight, hands on the yoke, tears already drying on his cheeks.

He hadn’t taken off. Pearl’s clock read zero. Her compass: not applicable. A phantom wind carried them, fast and slow, across coordinates with no resistance.

Shoes swore he saw a city burning in reverse— “unburning.”

Flames curling into rooftops.

Glass leaping back into windows.

Children laughing without mouths.

He mapped it, named it:

Holland, 1945.

He underlined it once.

Later, the paper bled red through the margin.

Elsa tried to override the nav system, but the diagnostics looped into song.

Not music, exactly. Not from the time.

But:

“The only girl I’ve ever loved

was born with roses in her eyes…”

The words pulsed on-screen, heartbeat synced.

Elsa tore the cable out, but the screen stayed lit.

Midway sensed shadows across the bomb bay: seven bodies, eight reflections.

Nix whispered something that was almost prayer:

“Now she’s a little boy in Spain

playing pianos filled with flames…”

The line matched the flak pattern they flew through.

Each burst sang it back.

They dropped no bombs and yet: something fell. The bomb bay opened.

Not mechanically—organically, like a ribcage remembering famine.

Whip: “There was no payload.”

Pearl didn’t speak. She just hummed, faintly, in frequencies that bent ink, warped audio, and would leave Halvorsen holding a tape that refused to erase.

When they landed—if it was landing—the base was empty: only a final wind and two white roses laid at the Section 1945 dispersal pad, already dry.

 

On their stems: a note, torn from a codebook, unsigned.

 

“And now we ride this circus wheel…”

700 years of HMRC Hold music.

 

Well, I'm on hold now, to HMRC, having been on hours of prior calls which have not resolved my current situation.

It's difficult to do anything else whilst waiting for the call to be answered, so I thought I'd create this little blogpost.

I have an appeal running and have separately sent in a letter, online form and phoned them, yet they want to chase me with a debt collection agency. I sent them the money owed in January 2025 and they have misfiled it. 

One guy I spoke to even found it. It is entirely their fault yet they are being heavy-handed with me about the situation. I'm embarrassed to say the amount, which to me is considerable. Yet I paid it on 28 Jan 2025 exactly in line with their request.

I have also got the payment reference that the payment was sent to and I had someone even confirm that they had seen the payment and it had been misallocated.

They have ignored my Appeal, which has a reference number as well. They also say they have contacted me. It's not true. I would certainly have picked up on a call from HMRC when I'm in a dispute.

Oh yes and I'm around 40 minutes on this particular call, with its short scratchy guitar lick.

Update: 47 minutes until answered. I'll see whether this time has made any progress, but they won't know until next Tuesday or Wednesday and are to send me a letter through the post. As policy, they won't respond by email.

The Oracle Coffee Machine – Worship, But With Foam

Sometimes it is easier to pause for a while. I still have 100 pages of Pearl to write, but thought a light-hearted diversion into my next novel would be a useful ice-breaker.

So here is a snippet from Part One of The Numbers.

Interlude: The Oracle Coffee Machine – Worship, But With Foam

There are coffee machines,

and then there is The Oracle.

It stands alone in the corner of the break area,

gleaming, too clean, like it was designed to summon caffeine, not deliver it.

No one installed it.

No one refills it.

No one knows where the grounds go.

But it always works.

⸻

The Oracle is a WMF 9100 S+ Pro

or something that resembles it after four dreamlike upgrades.

Its interface runs on what appears to be retired fighter jet UI.

You don’t press buttons.

You engage coffee strategy.

Josh once called it:

“A machine that makes coffee like it’s writing poetry in Klingon.”

⸻

Spurious Fact #1:

WMF stands for Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik.

But insiders know it really means:

“We Make Feelings.”

⸻

Bev insists the Oracle doesn’t use beans, but emotional residue—

that it harvests forgotten thoughts and steams them into americano.

Jay claims the milk wand is sentient.

⸻

No one has ever ordered a decaf from it.

Once, someone tried.

The machine printed a receipt that read:

“This is not who you are.”

⸻

In contrast:

Downstairs, in the secondary kitchen (aka Exile Nook),

sits a rust-colored Bunn drip unit that smells like tax documents and hurt feelings.

Next to it:

An army of orange-handled flasks, lined up like retirement home mascots.

Spurious Fact #2:

The orange lid means “decaf” in ANSI coffee protocol.

But really, it means “You’ve given up.”

⸻

The Oracle, by contrast, never speaks.

But its display sometimes shows messages like:

“Existence Confirmed. Brew Now?”

Or:

“You hesitated. Would you like something bolder?”

Or (rarely):

“You are enough. This is your latte.”

⸻

Josh once dreamed it made a drink called The Silence.

No one’s ever found that option.

⸻

Spurious Fact #3:

The original WMF espresso algorithm was based on weather prediction software

and contains a hidden Easter egg where, on certain solstices, the crema will form a QR code that says:

“The beans remember everything.”

⸻

Kara says the Oracle saved her life during Q2.

Jay says it knows who’s leaving before HR does.

Josh once stood in front of it, unsure whether he wanted coffee or absolution.

He pressed flat white.

The machine made a sound like a sigh.

Pearl- Draft Cover Mk 2

 

Testing cover ideas for Pearl. I've finally gor the tailcode right, but it took some effort. FX-P. Here's another bit from the Work in Progress...

First Sight

 

RAF Scampton, February 4, 1944

Dawn, ground visibility: 20 metres

Group Captain Wakefield stepped outside his office.

The fog was even worse that morning. It clung low, thick as wool, swallowing sound before it travelled. Someone joked in the mess: “Even the sun’s not reporting for duty.”

But on the runway, in the cold watch of morning, he stood with his coat buttoned high, collar turned up, gloves held in one hand.

He hadn’t intended to be there. But he couldn’t sleep. Too many letters unfinished. Too many names without forms yet.

He heard the engines first.

Not the rumble of Merlins—they had their own rhythm. Familiar. This was smoother. Lower. Almost beneath hearing. Like a breath inhaled and held.

At first, he saw nothing. Just the fog.

Then—

A silhouette began to form. Low. Wide. Lancaster profile—but wrong.

•           The wings: too smooth.

•           The belly: sleeker than standard.

•           The paint: no shine, no markings.

•           No serial. No name. Just the tailcode:

FX-P

She coasted down the runway in perfect silence. No screech. No rattle. No brake hiss. As if the air itself moved aside to let her pass. One ground crewman crossed himself. Another whispered: “She’s too quiet.”

Wakefield narrowed his eyes. The fog drifted, parting in swirls around her frame—not lifted by wind, but displaced.

He stepped closer. From the side, he could see the bomb bay—closed, but flush to the fuselage like a sealed scar.

No rivets.

No panel seams.

No visible controls.

Just the spiral. Barely visible. Etched like a watermark near the nose.

The ladder dropped. The hatch opened.

No one stepped out.

Not yet.

Behind him, his adjutant spoke, voice just above a whisper.

“She doesn’t look built.”

Wakefield shook his head.

“She doesn’t look… tired.”

That was the strangest thing. Every other aircraft on the base bore the wear of war—soot, scratches, history in their skin.

But this one— She looked like she’d just arrived from a place where time was still clean.

A breeze moved through the airfield then. And for just a second, the fog pulled back enough to see her whole—

FX-P.

Dark as mourning. Silent as breath. Waiting, not to take off…

…but to begin something different.