Chapter 1

My bus broke down one day. Well, I say 'my' bus, but it wasn't really mine, I was just sitting on it. Myself and around 20 other hapless passengers. Lothian Regional Transport service number 42: Davidson's Mains <-> Portobello - that was 'mine'. Still, it was on the way home from work (which meant this one was a bus from Portobello to Davidson's Mains) and I'm a laid back kind of guy so no pressure. OK, maybe I would have quite liked something to eat soon.

My name is Dave: 'Dave Cuthbert' if I have to give you my surname and 'David Edward Cuthbert' if I have to show you my passport or you're my Mum. I always thought 'Cuthbert' was kind of dorky - and a bit English sounding too, which can sometimes be a bit of a liability in Scotland. I suppose I should respect my ancestors more or be interested in my roots and all that crap, but I never could bring myself to care about genealogy: it's like gossip about people who aren't even alive any more (sorry ancestors). 'Dave' I like though.

I'm 5' 9", so about average around here, with blue eyes, dark brown hair and a cheeky smile. My complexion must come from some Mediterranean background somewhere (like I said, I don't keep track) because I tan easily, unlike most Scots. Unfortunately, due to the scarcity of sunshine strong enough to make it worth baring flesh, I'm as peely-wally as everyone else most of the time (curse you, Scottish weather!).

As we waited for a replacement bus I sighed and stared out of the window. It was pitch black, so I couldn't really see anything, but I didn't need to: I was lost in thought. Mostly about how my life sucked. Dave Cuthbert, recipient of a crappy surname; a crappy corporate wage-slave working from a crappy cubicle in a crappy building for, and this was the worst part, a crappy boss. The rest I could take: the surname I had learned to live with, the cubicle and its surrounding building might be OK if people were friendly and the computer corporation I worked for treated us peons reasonably well, considering; but my boss was an arse and he made my life hell.

My boss was one Mr Anderson and, as I have just stated, he was an arse: a big fat hairy arse. Right, now that I have those admittedly childish sentiments out of the way, the big problem with Mr Anderson was that he was a control freak. Couple that with his lack of knowledge in the team's field of endeavour (his qualification was a management degree, no other IT experience) and you get a recipe for instant disaster. In our case, make that repeated instant disaster. How he could serve up so many such disasters and not be fired by the higher-ups was the source of much gossip amongst the team, whispered with many glances over the shoulder to make sure 'Mr A' wasn't in range.

Now I was the longest survivor in the team, and I'd been there since before Mr A arrived, so I thought I knew why. I reckoned there were several things amiss, all converging into the miniature miasma of doom that presided over us.

First up: Golden Child. Mr A had previously worked in another section of the company. There he had had the luck to be in charge of not one but two highly successful projects. These success stories had firmly established the aura of light around him in the eyes of local head management.

"There's one to watch", I was sure they said to one another in conspirational tones.

Unfortunately for them (and subsequently my team), those projects were mostly successful because of one Amanda Barrett, a damn good software engineer and, as it turned out, brilliant project manager. She had left for a competitor after Mr A stole her credit - a story I had discovered after Mr A did the same thing to me, albeit on a less grand scale.

Next: Blame Shifter. Mr A was a master of shifting blame - away from himself. It helped that he had been assigned to our team as a troubleshooter. We had missed some targets; targets our previous boss had tried to argue were completely unrealistic (which they were). Unfortunately all he got for his trouble was reassigned to the corporate equivalent of Siberia - we hadn't seen him again since. And so Mr A came to town. Whenever something went wrong he would blame one of our team, and since we were branded as 'trouble' and he was the golden child, the blame would stick. This was the main reason I was the old hand around here: all of the rest had either been fired to cover for one of Mr A's mistakes, or had quit in disgust.

Last: Glamorous Bullshitter. As much as Mr A was ugly on the inside, his outside was all sweetness and light: tall, handsome, sharp suit; you know the drill. As study after study shows, tall, handsome blokes get through life more easily - people just seem to want to believe them. He also had the gift of the gab: if he happened to fancy some equine limb, he could convince the proverbial donkey to do without its hind legs for a while.

So why hadn't I left? Well I hadn't been blamed or fired yet because I was the most clued up, most effective member of the team; not that the others had been numpties - far from it. Mr A needed me around to make anything happen and he knew it. I hadn't quit because I'm a coward. I had the fear. The fear of being jobless in a recession, the fear that Mr A would sabotage my references and I'd end up working as a goat-herd in Azerbaijan, and the fear that my mum would find out I'd been fired (sad, I know). I dreamed that one day I'd quit: I'd tell Mr A to stuff it where the Sun doesn't shine. I'd been careful to keep copyright on most of my code - I would take all of my knowledge and expertise and start my own wildly successful company with fancy offices, attractive secretaries and a helicopter! That would show them.

But when it really came down to it, when the chips were down and it was time to do or die, I wouldn't do it; I knew that. The fear ruled my life. It had steered me to this point slowly and surely, and it kept me where I was now: on a bus on the way home from a dead-end, high stress job.