Señor 105 grunted. He was a man of immense solidity, his gray-blue business suit packed with granite-hard muscle tissue. He looked as if he could absorb the impact of a medium-sized family saloon and stay standing, though possibly slightly dazed. His face was obscured by a gray mask, with huge black ovals concealing his eyes, two tiny nostril-holes and the number 54 stitched across its forehead. The frightening effect was mitigated, partly by the way it opened at the bottom to reveal his mouth and grizzled goatee beard, but mostly by the brown fedora he wore over the top of it.

     Above his right shoulder bobbed a delicate shell-pink balloon.

     ‘I don’t know,’ Señor 105 admitted with reluctance. Linguistics, like most areas of human knowledge, were something of a specialty with him. ‘The writing system is like nothing I’ve seen before. Some of the symbols could come from ancient languages, though not the Roman alphabet we in the West use. Others seem new.’ Though built like the wrestler he was, Lori’s friend was also the scientist and scholar which his masks, each themed around one of the 105 known elements in the periodic table, would suggest. He had told Lori that the one he wore today represented xenon, whose name came from the Greek word for ‘alien’.

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All material © Philip Purser-Hallard 2013 except where otherwise noted, and not to be used without permission.
Cover image © Cody Quijano-Schell 2013.