What was that?

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Oh, nothing my Lord…

(The footage changes again to show a large white mass of hair)

What’s that?

I’m not sure, slow the recording please…

(The camera speed slows as the spider pans across the white mass, suddenly, a huge blue eye appears on the monitor, then a dark nose and mouth)

Soooo…is that the President?

I’m warning you General…

Sorry my Lord.

You know, I really must get my cats’ teeth cleaned…

(The image changes again as the spider crawls around the room, then briefly changes to show Doctor Sinister walking around the room wearing a pair of Superman underpants)

My Lord…

Say nothing. I mean it. Spool back – twenty times speed!

(The two men take seats as the footage becomes a blur of rocky ventilation shafts and occasional darkness)

You know, this takes me back…

It does? Spent some time in the air ducts did you?

No Sagacity, I mean back to the days when spying was all the rage – the Cold War.

The Cold War – ah yes, I read about that once, those Eskimos were mighty tough.

Eskimos?

Yes, you know, the chaps who fought in the snow – pretty cold there if I recall correctly.

My Lord, I’m not really sure the Eskimos have fought anyone.

Oh. I’ll scrub that idea off the list then. (He removes a notepad from his tunic and uses the pen built into his cybernetic hand to scribble some lines out on one page) What were you talking about?

The Cold War lasted for about 45 years after the end of the Second World War. Back then there were two Superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, each armed to the teeth with conventional and nuclear forces, diametrically opposed, each one determined that their way of life would prevail over the other. Most conflicts during the Cold War had one side or the other poking their nose in and stirring the pot. What’s more, during the Cold War, espionage was big business, imagine what they could have done with robotic spiders back then.

Not a lot if they were frozen…

No, my Lord, it was named the Cold War because both sides were rather frosty toward each other, not because it was, literally, cold.

I was going to say, because what with the global warming and everything…

Sigh…yes my Lord. My point is, that if they’d had robotic spiders back then, incidents like the shooting down of a U-2 in 1960 would never have happened.

I didn’t know U-2 had been around that long…Bono looks really good for his age doesn’t he?

Excuse me my Lord, I just have to pop to the little boy’s room…

(The General walks stiffly out of the command centre and is careful to close the door behind him. A long wail of anguish is heard before he comes back in and sits down again. The Doctor is oblivious and staring into space)

New Year’s Day, that’s my favourite U-2 song. Yours?

Majesty, I think you’ll find the band was named after the spy plane. In the late 1950’s, the USA would regularly send U-2s over the USSR to spy on their activities. They flew faster and higher than any interceptor so could invade Soviet airspace with impunity, until the Soviets shot one down on May the 1st 1960. The pilot, Gary Powers, was on a mission to inspect ICBM installations – the Americans denied any intent to spy of course, but it all got rather messy.

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