Genie and Other Weird Tales Read Online Free

that produced the copy would be based on years of research and would be tweaked by the technology itself which would never stop learning and self-improving as long as it had access to data. Alex Shuttlecock, the self described digital renaissance man, was in daily contact with the people on a distant continent who were actually building the app, and he assured Henry that the current teething problems were only temporary.
    But Henry had only seen the Copyware app work once, and he had a sneaking suspicion that Alex had fudged the results because the copy produced was just the sort of schmaltz that Alex thrived upon. All other times the results were garbage.
    Once a soft drink firm had agreed to participate in an experiment. They'd shared many years worth of secret market research data and analysis and eagerly awaited the killer strap line that this exciting new tech would create for their brand. After two days of data crunching the result was:
    Lubriciousness is the anemone. Feed the challenge.
    “That's brilliant!” Alex had said. Henry had remained unruffled, and made something else up in time for the meeting. A disappointed Alex had accused Henry of being old-school.
    Sometimes Henry suspected that the other people in his life perceived his calm outward demeanour as something else entirely. When they bought a doormat for the flat Elaine had suggested they call it Henry. He'd put the slightly harsh note in her laughter to stress at the move and worry about how Ruby was going to adjust to lower Tooting after the rippling fields of the Surrey commuter belt. Alex had once introduced him to a potential investor as “My partner Henry – you know, like the hoover. Only less suction.” Henry didn't really know what he meant, but suspected it was a reference to his calm demeanour. Typical of Alex to mistake it for weakness, he'd thought. On the whole he was very proud his calmness. He believed that his hard won equanimity helped improve the world around him, and he hoped this improvement rippled out to the world at large.
    But his calm outward demeanour had been achieved at a terrible price. After years of being denied expression, the part of Henry that felt frustration and rage split off from his main personality and took the form of a fierce, dissolute beast who walked upright like a man but had the skin and eyes of a reptile, and whom he decided to call Lachlan.
    It took a long time for Lachlan to manifest himself fully. At first he was a physical feeling that Henry experienced from time to time. Sometimes, at night, when he lay awake next to Elaine, thinking about the need to move into a bigger flat to accommodate Ruby and their unborn child, random groups of muscles would clench and become hard as concrete. On the way to work, as he sat on the bus wondering if Copyware was ever going to bear fruit, he would sometimes feel dreadfully claustrophobic. His friend Roger, who was a GP, advised him that he was feeling the symptoms of long term stress, and should seriously think about a holiday. Elaine said much the same thing. No one was able to tell him the truth, that these were the first stirrings of a ravening demon.
    Henry first glimpsed Lachlan in the garden shed as he worked on his matchstick galleon and smoked a moderately packed reefer. A small desk lamp lit up his work surface and thew broken curved shadows on the walls. He was absorbed in the intricacies of the poop deck when from behind him there was a rustle and a belch, a hiss and a scraping. He turned to see what was up and saw red flashes in the clutter pile at the back of the shed, and a shifting in the complex shadows, a glimpse of incisors and a gaping maw. He stood abruptly and ran to Elaine who greeted him with the sardonic scepticism she reserved for when she knew he'd been on the puff. She said she hoped one day he'd stick around after dinner for a proper chat instead of disappearing to the shed to get stoned.
    “I saw something, though Elaine. Something