Des has a disturbing dream in which he sees two of the insect-like Xux constructing a humanoid duplicate of Mr Horsley from the Town Council. When he tells Jim the next morning, they both realise that instead of a premonition, Des has had an out of body experience through a time warp, which has enabled him to see into the past. Their musings are interrupted by the arrival of Miss Griffin, complaining that the spare key Des cut for her has bent in its lock. Having fixed the key by bashing it with an iron, Des then receives a visit from a shabby rag-and-bone man named Charley, who shows him his latest acquisition: a sack filled with knives, forks and spoons, all inexplicably bent out of shape. Learning that the twisted cutlery came from the canteen of the Bingleton Borough Council, Des and Jim immediately suspect Mr Horsley to be the culprit – could it be that the town official is using alien psychometric energy to bend metal objects as part of a devious plot to demoralise humanity?