Argleton, Chapter 3: Found
A discovery and a warning, but will Matt listen?
Read Chapter 2 first or start at the beginning.
“For God’s sake, will you stop doing that!” Charlie snapped. Matt looked guiltily up from his mobile phone to see a sea of staring faces.
“Sorry,” he muttered, slipping his phone back into his pocket. “Just an ongoing, er, project. Need to monitor alerts.”
His friends murmured understanding noises and conversation resumed. As soon as he could, Matt slipped away from the group and went outside, standing on the pub doorstep so he could check his email in peace. It had been several days and whilst plenty of people had decided to have a go, so far nothing had been found. A couple of false alarms had proven to be, on further examination, very small conurbations missed by Free Map UK but corroborated by other sources.
But at 9.43pm, an email had arrived in Matt’s inbox. A glance at the subject line and his heart began to beat a little faster: “Phantom Town, Dorset”.
He clicked. There had been other emails that had sounded promising, including one Hard To Find Farm, but that had turned out to be a real place.
He read the email. User Magma had located a town called Ibemcester in Dorset. He or she had cross-checked not just with Free Map UK but with every other mapping service on the web, yet could not find a town listed with that name, either at that location or elsewhere. This was it. The real thing. Again.
Matt ran back into the pub, waving his phone at Charlie and their bemused friends.
“Strike two!” he said, his face painted with glee.
“Really?”
“What is it?” asked one of their friends.
“The second phantom town in GeoMaps. And it’s legit as far as I can see. But we need to check it out.”
“Where is it?”
“Somewhere in Dorset. Want to come with me, Charlie?”
---------------------------------------
Subject: Friendly warning
From: Thoeris <no-reply@nospam.com>
To: Ch4r1i3 <Ch4r1i3@geekmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
---------------------------------------
Dear Ch4r1i3,
I just saw your app on ManyHands. I KNOW what you're really trying to do. Please DON'T. It's too DANGEROUS. I don't want to go into detail, except to say that I have been there and TRUST ME, you don't want to go through what I've been through. Please, for your own sake, for your own safety, GIVE UP NOW.
Please take this friendly warning seriously, OTHERWISE THINGS WILL GO VERY BADLY INDEED.
---------------------------------------If you want to read Argleton all in one go, download the free ebook now. And why not try The Gates of Balawat or The Lacemaker as well!