Author's Note - Sub Genre for this round is First Contact

Choose 6 out of 11 given pictures to feature in the story - I have used

Image one (compulsory) - number 314

Man looking out window down at grey foggy city

fog (suburban street view)

Prehistoric cave scene with aliens at mouth

3 robots / cyborgs descending

city with space ships firing weapons in the skies above

Word limit - under 10,000

Contact

Warren O'Neill, the President of Tantric Energy, stood with his back to the room, gazing out through the window. The glass wall gave him an excellent view of the blanket of fog settling over the city, filling the streets with grey mist, curling its way around buildings, causing tiny drops of moisture to form on the outside of this very window.

He frowned. Surely fog was unusual for this time of year? In winter, there were foggy days certainly, but not in summer. Summer was for thunderstorms and lightning, drenching rains—not fog. Yet fog had been drifting down the coast from the north for the past week.

Only this morning he had woken to find the street outside his house almost impenetrable. He'd been unable to see the house on the opposite side. His driver had taken them at a crawling pace, narrowly avoiding a neighbour's rubbish bin on the curb, and he hadn't been the only one to breathe a sigh of relief when they pulled up in front of T.E. Towers.

Every thinking person knew the current preoccupation with "climate change" was nonsense, merely a fad propagated by greenies, but there was certainly something weird going on with the weather this week.

He shrugged and turned back to the room, where ten members of his senior board were waiting for his answer. He didn't have time to wonder about a bit of fog, not when he had a hostile takeover bid to defeat.

O'Neill opened the door to his home, feeling tired but triumphant. He had won! The bid was defeated. The process had taken a whole week—longer than he had expected—but he'd won. Tantric Energy was still his, and now he could move forward with that new coal mine in India. He glanced at the small pile of letters on the hall table waiting for his attention, his lip curling with involuntary scorn. When would people finally get with the modern world and send emails?

A large envelope sat fatly on the top of the pile. He picked it up and slit open the top, expecting an advertising brochure to fall out but instead he found himself staring at his divorce papers.

"Yes!"

Finally he could move on with his life. He grinned as he climbed the stairs to his study. He'd take the night off and allow himself a glass or two of whisky to celebrate. No work for once. He'd sit down at his computer and browse the internet. Maybe a movie or maybe he'd have a quick look at that new dating site everyone at work was talking about, the one that had sent eHarmony plummeting. What was it called again? Contract? No, Contact, that was it.

O'Neill poured a large whisky into a crystal tumbler, sipped, and fired up his computer.

After checking the latest news, he hesitated for a moment. Was he going to do it? He felt a touch of unaccustomed self-consciousness. At least he was in the privacy of his own home, unlike his secretary Gail, who accessed Contact at work every time she had a break.

Why not? He'd just have a look, he wouldn't sign up or anything. Unless it had an option for "Hot Babes, One-night stands 'R Us," he sniggered to himself. Well, why not check it out, what harm could it do?

He keyed in "Contact." Immediately the site came up, at the top of the list.

"E-Contact - where people connect.

World's Best online dating service. Guaranteed. Contact for FREE until 14th February. Don't miss out! Find out more..."

O'Neill clicked on the link.

"E-Contact. The better the points of contact, the better the match. Just follow our easy three-step process. These multiple choice questions will guarantee to match you with your perfect partner.

Yes, there are 314 questions, but you will be surprised how quickly you can run through them.

Naturally, matching your personality to your perfect partner is a far more complex process than a survey to discover your favourite breakfast cereal!

Step One - First Contact

Twenty questions to reveal your core personality type. Forget those boring stereotypes offered by other companies. Whether you are an introvert or an extrovert hardly matters. Are you a hunter or a gatherer? A fearless leader or a loyal supporter? Do you look up at the stars or study the atom?

Just answer the following questions as honestly as you can. You may surprise yourself."

Despite himself, O'Neill found he was answering the questions silently as he went. Definitely a hunter and a fearless leader! The next one was a bit harder—stars or atoms? Without thinking twice, he started on the questionnaire. After all, he could always pull out if he didn't like the results.

(Author's Note 1st March 2017 - the rest of this story has been temporarily removed due to publication in "TimeLabs Inc")