Flickering Flame (short story)

was the third short story in Down the Middle.
== Plot ==
Chris Cwej is sent on a mission by his Superiors. He meets the individual who he is working with on the mission, a renegade Superior named Iris Wildthyme.
more to be added
== Characters ==
* Chris Cwej
* Iris Wildthyme
* Attendant
* Frederick Garness
* Receptionist
* Elaine Padgett
* Pathologist
* Blond attendant
* Bearded attendant
* Alien researcher
== Worldbuilding ==
* In Chris's time as an Adjudicator, he mostly ate foodimals, algae and fungus that lived beneath the Overcities.
* Chris meets Iris in the Salt Lamb.
* Iris Wildthyme is performing community service for the Time Lords. 
* According to Iris Wildthyme, there has been a "thinning" of the ranks of interventionists recently.
* The Hoothi is a fungus that Iris' people had to deal with once.
* Dickens wrote about spontaneous human combustion in one of his novels.
* Iris has a yo-yo, a bag of mints, a 28th century plasma pistol and an Orthogonal Dimensional Retensioner in her bag.
* There is a jacuzzi and a mini-bar with Venusian Tequillas in the upper level of the Celestial Omnibus.
* Chris uses Google Maps.
* Neuralgia means having pain in one's nerves.
* Frederick's body is found in a Lexus.
* Iris is friends with a local Community Policewoman.
* Frederick left behing a wife and three children.
* Frederick worked at the Plymouth Oceanographic Research Institute
* Elaine Padgett is the Human Resources Manager at the Institute.
* The Institute conduct DNA-lever research on marine animals.
* It is believed that sharks never died of old age.
* One of the animals in the Institute is a frilled shark. They are usually found a kilometer and a half beneath the surface.
* Dr Garness' speciality was communities viling in the abyssopelagic zone of the ocean.
* Padgett uses atmospheres as a unit of measurement.
* Chris and Iris rent a small SUV.
* Hyperbole is greek for exaggeration.
* The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and the Nobel Prize winner Wolfgang Pauli called synchronicity the force in the universe what looked like coincidence.
== Story notes ==
to be added
== Continuity ==
* Chris was once a companion of the Evil Renegade. This was shown in the latter half of the Virgin New Adventures, beginning with .
* Chris had a mission recently in Deptford County, as shown in Fountain of Youth, the previous story in the anthology.
== External links ==
Category:Down the Middle short stories
Category:Iris Wildthyme short stories
Category:Stories set in England
Category:Stories set in 2020
Category:Regeneration short stories