Flickering Flame (short story)

 was the third short story in Down the Middle.

Plot
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.
 * 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. (PROSE: Original Sin, et al.)
 * Chris had a mission recently in Deptford County. (PROSE: Fountain of Youth)