(no subject)

The town hall is crowded, and people give Vyvyan the usual evil glare as he walks through. It doesn't help that he's reset too recently, after Rick shoved him through a wall, meaning that he's got his usual ghastly odour. Bastard.

"Yes?" the woman behind the counter asks, glaring at him and getting out some air spray.

"I want a copy of my birth certificate please." Vyvyan says.

The woman makes him try and fill in a form, which he struggles with, and show his driving licence.

"Thank you. Four to six weeks." the woman says.

"What? That's no good, I need to know my date of birth." Vyvyan says.

"You don't know your date of birth?" the woman raises an eyebrow.

"I don't care about the day, I just want the year." Vyvyan says.

People behind him begin to snigger. He barely contains the urge to smash the place up. He knows what they're thinking. How can anyone not know their date of birth?

"It should be on your driving licence." the woman says, irritably.

Vyvyan looks at his licence.

"Well it isn't." He says, showing her. "Look. I need to know how old I am."

"You don't know how old you are?" she starts to laugh.

"Yes, what part of that don't you understand, you patronising middle-class shit?" Vyvyan yells.

They throw him out. Of course they throw him out.

He's never had a birthday party, so how is he meant to know when his birthday is? Okay, sure, every now and again as a kid he said it was his birthday, so that people wouldn't realise he didn't know. He knows Mum doesn't know, because he's asked her before. A wave of anger rushes over him. What kind of mother doesn't even know her own son's birthday.

He'd asked Neil and Rick what age they were. Rick had said that was 'a bit personal', which was stupid, and probably meant he didn't know either. Neil had said he was eighteen. Vyvyan knew that wasn't correct. They were at university at least three years before they all got kicked out, and Neil certainly wasn't fifteen when they started. That was how they started the argument that ended up with Rick shoving him through the wall. Great. No chance of getting their security deposit back now.

***

Back in his Milliways Man Cave, he turns on the video camera to update with his latest findings.

"I estimate our ages to be somewhere between twenty one and thirty. My mum is still aging. So are Neil's parents. Whatever this is, it keeps us young.

"Here's what I know so far.

"Something happened to us in our late teens before we turned eighteen. The last age I can remember being before I started university was about fifteen or sixteen. But, I didn't always get my birthday right, so it's possible I didn't lose a whole year. Maybe I just didn't realise I was seventeen.

"I don't remember applying to Scumbag College and the form you have to do it is too complicated for me to fill in. I don't have the qualifications for medical school. So someone got me in there. And someone let me stay.

"Mike keeps telling me to stop asking questions. I think he knows something I don't.

"My mum knows something but she won't say what. She quoted a Cliff Richard song, the Young Ones. Rick called us that once before, when I was about to crash the bus off the cliff..."

He pauses the camera for a moment. Then starts again.

"Something has always bothered me about that bus crash. When I looked up, and saw Cliff Richard on that poster at the side of the road, I couldn't stop. We all stared straight at it. We went straight through the middle, I didn't even brake. Why? Why didn't I brake?"

***

When he steps back into his own world, Neil is cleaning up some of the mess from the broken wall. Mike is home now, and Vyvyan goes up to him.

"Have you got a job yet?"

"Working on it." Mike says.

"Mike, how old are you?" Vyvyan asks. "What year were you born?"

"I'm the same age as you." Mike says. "Why?"

"I don't know how old I am." Vyvyan says. "I'm trying to work some stuff out."

Mike stares at him. Vyvyan goes to his own room, and sits on the horrible tatty bed. It's still better than sleeping on the floor as he was the best part of a year. After about fifteen minutes, he hears a banging noise, and then the record player being turned on.

It's the Young Ones, by Cliff Richard.

He gets up and goes back into the living room. The record player is playing, alone, and someone has hung a sheet on the wall on a washing line attached with two nails. And right in the middle is that same picture, stuck to the sheet with selotape.

Cliff.

A second later, there is a sharp pain in the back of his head, then sudden darkness.

Mike takes the silencer off his gun, and tucks the gun back in his pocket. He pulls the sheet off the wall, blood and all, then picks up Vyvyan, shuts his own eyes, and chucks him back through the doorway into the hallway.

Mike opens his eyes and looks at the unconscious Vyvyan. The bullet wound is already gone. Good. Killing him completely would be a pain, since he's the only one paying any rent at the moment and it takes him ages to get back to a useful state when he dies properly. He gives Vyvyan a prod with his foot.

"Wakey wakey."

Vyvyan opens his eyes and sits up. He's got a banging headache and the first thing he does is to vomit all over the floor.

"Oh nice one, Vyvyan, can't you hold your drink?" Mike asks, watching him carefully. "Neil's not going to thank you for making him clean that up."

Vyvyan takes a breath. What just happened? Is he hung over? He doesn't feel hung over. He feels like he did the time Wilford shot him at point blank range...

And suddenly, he's on his feet. He grabs Mike by the throat, and forces him into the wall.

"You shot me."

"What?"

"You shot me." Vyvyan says. "You tried to make me do a full reset. I was getting close, wasn't I? You know what happened to us."

"No, I don't..." Mike protests.

Vyvyan reaches into his pocket, pulls out the gun, and holds it to Mike's head. "I can do this as many times as it takes."

"All right!" Mike puts his hands up. "I don't know all of it, okay? But I'll tell you what I do know."

Vyvyan lets him go, but keeps the gun. Mike takes a deep breath.

"You're a test subject. We all are." he says. "For immortality. Scumbag College was observing us until the project ended. You're still being tracked but you're not being watched."

"Immortality?" Vyvyan asks.

"Yeah. We're involved with something called the CLinical Institute of Forever Fledglings. CLIFF." Mike says.

"How do you know about this?" Vyvyan asks.

"Because I signed up for it." Mike says. "I wanted to be young and handsome and get all the girls. You three didn't know."

Mike is quiet for a moment, then continues.

"They did me first. They weren't happy with the results, said I didn't have enough powers. They started looking for volunteers but they were struggling. Then Rick's parents approached them, said they'd give their permission if they could make Rick stay their little boy forever. They never told Rick."

"And Neil?" Vyvyan asks.

"His parents signed him up too, in the hope that immortality would keep him safe from himself." Mike says.

"What about me?" Vyvyan asks.

"You were in the gutter. They picked you because nobody would miss you, and then paid your mum off to keep quiet. You were the last one. They succeeded in giving you all the powers they meant to give the four of us, but they didn't bank on you going quite so insane. That's when they put the four of us together. They only agreed to let you loose if I carried the gun just in case."

Vyvyan glances at him. So he was picked because he was disposable. Nice.

"You need to stop asking questions now." Mike says. "You know all you need to."

"Or what?"

"Bloody hell, Vyvyan, they've tried to kill us at least three times." Mike says.

"You tried to kill me tonight." Vyvyan says.

"No I didn't." Mike says. "I'm about the only one who knows how, and I didn't, did I?"

"I'm keeping the gun." Vyvyan says.

"You're not. They find out I'm not capable of neutralising you any more, they'll put both of us down." Mike says. "Permanently. And probably Rick and Neil too."

Vyvyan looks him in the eye, then reluctantly hands over the gun.

"No more questions, right?" Mike says, pleading.

"No more. For now." Vyvyan says. "But if you ever shoot me again, I'll leave you so no girl will ever look at you again."