In such a tech-rich genre as cyberpunk, where everyone is permanently staring at digital monitor screens and committing petty crimes, the Give Me Head team needed to get it right otherwise the whole project would sink.

They all agreed that tech implants, personal computers (otherwise known as Ubercomputers in this universe), hackers and mercenary warbots like Ace were going to be hanging out on every street corner of Cyberia. “Just like Ridley did but much, much better,” Cassidy told everyone.

The man in charge of this make or break theme was Kapi, head honcho of the tech and gadgets team. While he had managed to blag his way this far, he was about to become a fish not only out of water, but lying down on a barbecue grill, baking to death in the middle of the Sahara Desert during a doomsday apocalypse.

When Kapi received the memo telling him to come up with workable ideas for something called Cybervenom in the next 48 hours, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t grasp the concept. In today’s world, everyone over the age of five would roughly identify it as a hacker using computer viruses to maliciously attack someone or something else for either money or prestige. However, in the technologically retarded era of ’88, a man of Kapi’s generation was clueless. Worse still, he couldn’t get hold of his cousin Vikram.

The next morning, before the inevitable team meeting, Kapi felt sick. He had struggled to get some shut eye as he paraded around his apartment, rehearsing how to explain the concept of Cybervenom without really explaining it.

When the moment came, it went something like this:

“Welcome, team,” Kapi said. “I received a memo last night asking us to design Cybervenom. So that is our mission for today. We must begin right away.”

Somebody’s hand went straight up. “What is Cybervenom exactly?”

The whole team stopped in their tracks and turned to Kapi, expecting a straightforward run-of-the-mill answer.

“We have no time for questions,” Kapi said with a gulp. “You must, how do you say, crack up.”

“You mean crack on.”

Another person chipped in: “How can we crack up or crack on if we don’t know what it is?”

“It is Cybervenom.”

“Yeah but is it a weapon or a device or something?”

“Yes.”

“Which is it?”

“It is a device or something.”

“What type of device?”

“One with cyber and venom.”

The whole room hushed and everyone looked baffled.

Some yuppy puppy called Perry lit a spliff, took a long pause to inhale and finally said, “Is it like a backdoor computer virus?”

“Doors or no doors, I don’t bloody know what it is,” Kapi screeched. “Now look what you’ve done! You’ve driven me to saying those naughty words.”

“I only send out positive vibrations, my soulbean,” Perry said. “I mean no harm. We shall figure it all out when the microdots kick in.”

Kapi spent that morning trying to hide in a vacant office space on the first floor, but his team members knew exactly where he was and kept coming to ask questions which he couldn’t answer.

Eventually Kapi returned to his team, observing their ideas to see if he could find any clues as to what Cybervenom is supposed to be. He even asked Perry in private to explain it, but he still couldn’t grasp the concept and not because Perry was tripping.

Tired and anxious, irritable and depressed, Kapi desperately wanted to put this project to bed. He began to interfere with his team members’ mini projects and sent them over to the special FX team, demanding that they are fast tracked.

Mitch Thorne had recently joined the special FX department after getting sober in a rehab facility. He had been working for a company which produced straight to home video action and kung fu movies. Apparently he had crashed his vehicle into a set, mistaking it for a car park. His only way to avoid jail time was a stint in rehab.

On the flip side Mitch was a highly competent and knowledgeable chap when it came to special FX and set design. He could translate pricey ideas into inexpensive reality no sweat. He had proven this with his work on classic ’80s movies such as Night Creeps, Sensei Bert and the Last Bullet trilogy. However, there was little he could do with a distinct lack of money, materials, creativity and manpower.

Every time Kapi threw one of the team’s ideas at him, Mitch provided at least something. It was just nowhere near an acceptable standard. He would tell people the same thing whenever they looked at him with disappointment whipped across their face: only Michelangelo could make works of art using horseshit. And he’s dead.

Truth is that in the couple of weeks before Mitch’s arrival, CEO Cassidy was seriously hemorrhaging cash and was spending all of his time trying to find investors. But Mitch had heard it all before. He was given a couple of hundred dollars to purchase the essentials.

As we can see from the above photographs, absolutely nothing worked and so Kapi visited Mitch to tell him off, forgetting that he wasn’t his superior.

“This is not good, Mitch, this is not good at all.”

“What have I already told you, man? Get me a couple grand and I’ll build you anything you like.”

“Is it money you need?”

“Always money.”

“I give you fifty dollars.”

“That wouldn’t buy a fucking viper fang, Kapi.”

Kapi Involuntarily yelped and punched the door. “This bloody company has driven me to say the swear words! I quit! I blasted quit!”

Kapi proceeded to quit for ten minutes and then went back to see his team while Mitch cracked on.

Turns out there was no real need to stress. It was only a couple of weeks later, at the tail end of an equally fun and gruelling summer, that Give Me Head Productions finally admitted defeat and pulled the plug.

Filming of the pilot had only been going for a short while and precious nothing was completed. On fifteenth of September 1988, it was as if that office space in the armpit of Silicon Valley had frozen over and was slowly entering the early stages of apocalyptic decay.

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