"Oh, bloody hell," Stanley muttered when the computer he was trying to fix crashed for the fifth consecutive time. "I swear this vicious thing is laughing at me."

He'd already spent all morning and well into his lunch hour trying to get the thing running again and was ready to give up. Stanley blinked, stood up, and pushed the entire machine off the desk and into the trash. The noise caused quite a disturbance in the hallway, and several people came running to find out if anybody had been injured; but, since there was no blood anywhere, and there was only Stanley behind the desk, staring at them, they started to disperse. Stanley jumped on top of the desk, pulled an Uzi out of his suit with swift fierceness, and began to fire wildly at his coworkers. He screamed the scream of primeval blood lust and ran madly out amongst the office staff, mowing people down with bullets all the while.

Stanley blinked. He was still sitting at the desk; the computer was still intact but inoperable; and several people walked by the office door, looking at him with mild curiosity as they passed, as people usually do when walking past an open door.

"Whattya doin' in there?" their looks asked him, and he had no good response.

"Bugger," Stanley said and left the nasty heap of processors and data ports to rot while he went down the hall to fetch a cup of coffee.

Stanley Weston had worked at Zanderwaldin Enterprises in London, England, for seven years now, and, in that time, had made his way up to Senior Systems Manager, which meant that he had control of all computer systems in the building. Normally, one of his underlings would take care of such a routine problem as bringing up a crashed computer, but this particular computer had been causing a ruckus for several days, and Stanley was the last one to give it a go. If he couldn't fix it, nobody could. And, right now, it looked as though the only option for that menacing lump of evil was to turn it into a fishbowl.

After Stanley poured his coffee, he headed to his own office to take a break. He sat down and gazed out his office window, forcing his mind to wander away from work to more pleasant things, such as, oh, anything. The ringing of Stanley's office phone thundered into his daydream and jolted him back to reality.

"Hello? Yes?"

"Stan! How the hell are ya?" a voice bellowed into Stanley's ear.

"Oh, Monty! Hello. Yes, I'm fine," Stanley said and leaned back into his chair. "I've been trying to fix this bastard computer all day, and I've finally just decided to take a break; I haven't even eaten lunch yet."

"Great!" Monty cut in. "Why don't you take a lunch now and meet me down at Wally's? I've got some important business to discuss with you, ol' chap."

"Well, I've really got to get back to--"

"Nonsense! You're starved, brain dead, and desperately in need of a beer. Besides, how can you turn down your best friend when he needs you most?"

Stanley drummed his fingers on his desk and glared at the phone. He knew Monty was up to something, but, as usual, he had no idea what. Monty was always dragging Stanley into one ridiculous situation after another, like the time they drove out to the country in the middle of the night, happened upon a castle, broke in, and chased sheep around in the courtyard until the groundskeeper chased them out with a shotgun. Stanley had to admit that he always ended up having a good time, but that good time always came with a price: the mad scramble to flee the livid groundskeeper left him with a pain in his side for three days.

"All right," Stanley found himself saying, with a surprising note of enthusiasm jumping into his voice. "Just no beer--I have to come back to work, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, sure; but come right out."

"I'm leaving now," Stanley reassured his friend.

Each one of Stanley's nightmares started out this way: Monty sensed when Stanley was ready for a break from work and called him out to Wally's for a beer, they'd chat for a while, then Monty would hit Stanley with his newest scheme. Without fail, that's how the trouble always happened, and Stanley had become accustomed to the routine over the years.

He'd been friends with Monty since their days at Churchill College Cambridge, nine years ago, when, purely by chance--Stanley was working on a computer science degree, and Monty was focusing on chemical engineering--they'd ended up in a couple classes together. They developed a wonderful system where Stanley did all the work, and Monty copied the answers. Stanley might have become a bit resentful, if it hadn't been for Monty's ability to talk their way out of any tough situation. This trait allowed them to get away with quite a few daring exploits, most of which were much more exciting than the sheep-herding experience.

After college, Stanley got a job, first, at a small-time stock company in Cambridge and eventually took a job in London, at Zanderwaldin Enterprises. Monty left immediately for Ireland, and Stanley had always been in the dark about where he was working and what he was actually doing. He suspected that Monty worked for the government, which would explain why he never talked about work. Stanley's requests for information about Monty's career were always answered with a laugh and, "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

Stanley walked into Wally's, and Monty called out to him from the bar, beer in hand, "Hey, Stan! Over here!"

Stanley made his way to his friend, and the two sat in a booth in a vacant corner.

Monty engaged in idle chitchat for a couple minutes, then came out with, "So I was thinking, 'It's my good friend Stan's 30th birthday in two weeks--'"

Stanley groaned.

"'Why not do something fun to celebrate?' Whaddya think?"

"I'd really rather not be reminded, thank you very much," Stanley said, wishing he'd had the intelligence to stay at the office.

"Crikey! It's only 30. It's not like you're 50, or dead, or anything. And I promise, this time, that we won't do anything very exciting. I mean, it's your birthday, so why should I drag you off on a crazy scheme of mine? Besides, you have two weeks of holiday pay to use before the end of the year, or you'll lose it."

The waitress walked up to take their orders.

"Hello..." Monty looked at the girl's name tag, "Doreen. Listen, this is my friend Stan," he waved in Stanley's direction, "and his birthday is in two weeks. He hasn't been out of the city in ages, but I'm having an awful time talking him into going on holiday. Perhaps you could help?"