Mr Yorrick Kaine yesterday announced plans to set up a defensive network to counter the growing threat of God's wrath unto His creations. Specific details of the 'anti-smote shield' are still classed top secret but defence experts and top theologians have both agreed that a system might be in place within five years. Kaine's followers point to the smoting of the small town of Owestry with a 'ram of cleansing fire' last October and the Rutland plague of toads. 'Both Oswestry and Rutland are wake-up calls to our nation,' said Mr Kaine. 'They may have been sinful but ultimate retribution without due process of law is something that I will not tolerate. In today's modern world where the accepted definition of sin has become blurred we need to protect ourselves against an over-zealous deity keen to promote an outdated set of rules. It is for this reason that we are investing in anti-smote technology.' The 14bn contract will be awarded exclusively to Goliath Weapons. Inc.

Article in The Mole, July 1988

The news networks had a field day. The death of St Zvlkx so soon after his resurrection raised a few eyebrows, but the Windowmaker's somewhat bizarre accident while 'on assignment' became a sensation, supplanting even the upcoming Superhoop from the front pages. Incredibly, despite severe internal injuries and a devastating head wound, she didn't die. She was taken to St Septyk's, where they battled to stabilise her. Not from any great sense of moral duty, you understand, but because she could finger the sixty-seven or sixty-eight clients who had paid her to carry out her foul trade, and this was a prize the prosecutors were keen to claim. Within an hour of her coming out of surgery, three attempts by underworld bosses had been made to silence her for good. She was moved to the secure ward at the Kingsdown home for the criminally insane, and there she stayed, comatose, attached to a ventilator.

'Spike was right. I should have told him earlier,' I said to Gran, 'or tipped off the authorities or something!'

Granny Next was feeling a lot better today. Although greatly enfeebled by her advanced years, she had actually walked around for a bit this morning. When I arrived she had her reading glasses on and was surrounded by stacks of well-read tomes. The kind of thing one generally reads for study, and rarely for pleasure.

'But you didn't,' she replied, looking over the top of her spectacles, 'and your father knew you wouldn't when he told you.'

'He also said that I would decide whether she lived or died, but he was wrong — it's out of my hands now.' I rubbed my scalp and sighed. 'Poor Spike. He's taking it very badly.'

'Where is he?'

'Still being interviewed by SO-9. They got an agent down from London who's been after her for over ten years. I'd be there yet but for Flanker.'