“The communications room is in what used to be the cellar,” Conn said as they descended the stairs. Reaching the bottom, Conn led John along a short corridor to another door with a similar entry panel. John didn’t have to be asked this time and put his right hand on it straight away. The door opened.
John then followed Conn into a large room, one wall of which was dominated by a huge screen which was split into different sections. The largest central section of the screen was displaying what seemed to be a bird’s eye view of what appeared to be a rain forest. Around the central section were numerous smaller screens showing different scenes. Some of the screens were obviously showing news programmes from different countries around the world, whilst others were showing video feeds from satellites and even some from drones. John looked around the room.
“What’s that over there?” John asked pointing to another large screen on one of the end walls of the room. In front of the screen was a long desk, with three consoles on it, a chair in front of each of the consoles. The screen was displaying what appeared to be a search engine box.
“That’s the link to the super computer which is located below the VarTech HQ in Trentbury,” Conn answered.
Just then the door opened and Morann and Padraig joined them.
“Kate’s still talking to her family, Conn,” Morann told him. “We said we’d give them some time alone.”
“Good. I was going to ask you to join us,” Conn answered. “I have some news I wish to share with you all,” Conn turned and pointed to the section of the large screen which had been displaying views of the rain forest. The scene had changed and now showed scenes of a desert. “The video feed is from one of our satellites positioned over Northern Africa and shows the Egyptian desert near to its border with Libya. It was taken some hours ago, around the time that the police stopped you on the motorway for speeding, Padraig.”
The camera now zoomed in on two tiny figures, until they were almost life sized on the screen. One of the two people was a very beautiful woman. She was tall, well over 6 feet and was wearing a shiny, silver coloured close-fitting tunic, over even closer fitting trousers. On her head was a shiny silver, close-fitting helmet, like a skull cap with ear pieces. The man standing beside her was probably about John’s age and was quite short and weedy-looking, standing not many inches over five foot. He had longish black hair and wore thick lensed spectacles. He was holding what appeared to be a type of spear with a conical spear head.
“Who’s the man, Conn?” Padraig enquired.
“I don’t know for sure,” Conn replied, “but he may be Dr Joshua Freeman, who went missing in Egypt in 1985, whilst on an archaeological dig.”
“Who’s the woman?” John asked, quite fascinated by her.
“That my friend is Fionnuala, the Nemhain,” Padraig answered, “and it would appear that she’s been released from imprisonment.” Suddenly the Nemhain and the man disappeared from the screen.
Chapter 18
Great Conch Cay, The Bahamas, Late August 2005
Great Conch Cay was a private island in the Bahamas owned by William Geacher, who had become JT’s new host when he’d had to abandon John Trevaskis’ body, way back in 1973. Following the disappearance of John Trevaskis Junior and Morann, JT had realised that it would no longer be safe for him to continue using John Trevaskis Senior’s body as his host. JT had therefore sent Terry, who as Cath Penrose had suspected was a cyborg, to find him another one. Terry had selected a young male hitchhiker, who he’d picked up on a lonely stretch of the B3306, west of St Ives. Having established that the young man was a suitable host for JT, Terry had immobilised him with a special drug that JT had given him and taken him back to Trevaskis House.
Before transferring to the young man’s body, JT had used some ground-breaking plastic surgery that he’d developed, to change the young man’s facial features. Further use of medical nanobots and advanced genetic engineering had crafted Geacher’s new host’s body, to that of a fit, twenty-year-old male, of medium build and height. JT was sure following these changes that even the young man’s mother would not have recognized her son now. Though nearly thirty years had passed since JT had acquired his new host, when looking in a mirror, JT saw the reflection of a handsome man of indeterminate age, with short blond hair.
Before leaving Trevaskis House, JT had set an explosive charge which he had detonated remotely from his shuttle space craft. Then having dumped John Trevaskis Senior’s body in the Irish Sea, JT and Terry had then travelled to Switzerland. There, whilst using John Trevaskis Senior as his host, JT had had the foresight to buy as much gold bullion as he could and had spread it around the safe deposit boxes, he had in several of that country’s banks. JT had also deposited large sums of currency in several long term, high interest accounts, leaving it to accumulate interest. Having also travelled to the future on numerous occasions, JT had known exactly which company’s shares would be profitable in years to come and he had therefore purchased as many shares as he could in them.
After putting his financial affairs in order, JT and Terry had first jumped forward in time to 1990, where JT had bought Great Conch Cay and arranged for a luxurious mansion to be built upon it. Another jump forward in time had then followed to 2003, when JT had moved into the mansion on Great Conch Cay and started to use it as his base of operations. In between 1973 and 2003, JT had occasionally jumped backwards and forwards in time, to carry out some of his nefarious plans.
A special virus that JT had manufactured had helped the Soviets to win the war in Afghanistan, whilst JT’s machinations had also assisted Albert Brown to rise to power. Unfortunately, JT had not been able to save the right-wing dictator from his downfall, but that had all been down to the unexpected resurfacing of Oisin, who had intervened in the destiny of what had once been the UK. It had been JT’s interventions however, which had assisted his protégée Mona McBeolain to become the President of the USA.
Now however, JT was a very worried man, for he’d just received news from Mona McBeolain that the Nemhain had been released from imprisonment. She was the one person, other than Oisin, that JT had always feared, as she was the most dangerous of the Triumvirate. He turned to Terry who was standing nearby.
“We may have a problem, Terry. The Nemhain has escaped from imprisonment. She will be sure to want to know who ordered the attack on her at the excavation site. It was carried out by Black Shadow Operations which through a shell company is owned by the Aossi Corporation.”
“Then surely that’s a problem for Mona McBeolain, boss, not you,” Terry answered.
“Indeed, it is, Terry, but how the Nemhain arrived in 2005 has given me food for thought.”
“I don’t understand boss.”
“She arrived here as the result of a Time Quake, Terry. Now I wonder if anyone else has arrived here. Padraig as we know has been absent from his Cambridge College since 1975 and John Trevaskis and Morann haven’t been seen since they left Trevaskis House in 1973. I want you to go to England and then to Trentbury. Do some digging around and find out what is happening at the VarTech Corporation. You may need some help and so activate any members of the Rectifiers who may be helpful. Mona says that Marcus King was quite useful and had nearly tracked down Kate Penrose, before she too mysteriously disappeared.”
“Ok boss. When do you want me to go?”
“Right away Terry, you’d better take the Veetol.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trentbury, England, Late August 2005
“Looks like they’ve teleported somewhere,” Morann suggested, looking at the screen and then over to Conn.
“If so, probably to the Nemhain’s Deltoid, which as you know as been in orbit for the past 11,000 years,” Conn said confidently.
“Conn, do you save video coverage from satellites?” Padraig suddenly asked. Conn nodded. “Do they go back as far as 1985?”
“Of course, they do Padraig. In fact, they go back nearly 12,000 years, if I also access the Aos Si sate
llite records. but I assume that you want coverage of this site,” Conn pointed to the screen. “for July 1985.” It was Padraig’s turn to nod his head. Conn walked over to one of the consoles that linked to the super computer and quickly typed something into the search engine.
“Yes, something didn’t appear right to me,” Padraig continued to say. “It was just empty desert they were standing in, no sign of the prison that the Nemhain has been in and if that is Dr Joshua Freeman who went missing in Egypt in 1985 whilst on an archaeological dig, what’s he doing with her?” The only conclusion I can draw is that they’ve travelled forward in time from 1985.”
“What? You mean in the Time Quake that we experienced?” Morann questioned.
“Yes,” Padraig replied, turning to her.
“You could well be right, Padraig ,” Conn answered, “Let’s see what we can find out. The video feed will come up on the main screen.”
A moment later a desert scene was displayed. Conn zoomed the camera in and the top of what appeared to be a pyramid could now be seen and also a small encampment. Bodies were lying about and there appeared to be the wreck of an aircraft, possibly a helicopter and what appeared to be a lorry which was also burning. The camera zoomed even closer in and the figures of the Nemhain and Joshua could now be picked out. Nearby by to them, on his knees, was what was probably one of the Egyptian workers on the site. Then the sky started to darken and seconds later the Time Quake occurred. When the Time Quake had ended, the Nemhain, Joshua and the Egyptian worker had all disappeared.
“So, they also experienced a Time Quake,” John said..
“The same one that we did,” Morann told him.
“So, what were they doing there?” John then asked.
“Can you run the video back a bit in time, Conn?” Padraig requested. “So, we can see exactly what happened.”
There was a slight pause as Conn took the video back a few minutes and then they saw the Nemhain, Joshua and the Egyptian worker who’d been on his knees coming out of a door in the pyramid. A small group of men, which John thought were probably the other Egyptian workers, were walking towards them. Some sort of confrontation then took place and things looked like they were about to get very ugly when a helicopter suddenly appeared in the sky above the site. Then, they all saw the attack take place and Joshua fire at the helicopter which was attacking them.
“I thought that was a spear he was holding,” John said, watching the helicopter explode in a fireball and plummet from the sky.
“It’s an Energy Staff, John,” Morann explained. “A highly efficient weapon.”
“I can see it is,” John agreed. “It took that chopper out with no problem at all.”
“That was a Hind attack helicopter, built in the Soviet Union. A very deadly killing machine,” Padraig told them. “We need to find out where it came from and who ordered it to attack the dig site. That attack didn’t happen by chance, that was planned.”
“The pyramid, that the Nemhain and the other two came out of . . . ,”John started to ask.
“That was the Nemhain’s prison, John,” Conn told him. “Oh, and I’m just getting confirmation that the young man with the Nemhain is in fact Dr Joshua Freeman, Frank Guthrie’s Research Assistant and it would seem that he may have been responsible for releasing the Nemhain from captivity.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
“I could quite get used to this,” John said to Kate the next morning, as they both lounged back in the comfortable seats of the Limo, they were travelling in.
Conn had told John and Kate the previous evening, before Kate’s parents and brothers had all returned to the Isle of Man, where they now lived, that they would both need to go to the VarTech HQ the following day, to formally take control of the Corporation.
“As joint owners of the VarTech Corporation, you both hold the position of Joint President,” Conn had told Kate and John.
“I’ll need some new clothes, “Kate had responded to the news. “In fact, I think we all need to buy some,” Kate had said, looking pointedly at Morann, John and Padraig.
“There are shops in Trentbury where we can get some,” John told her. “Well I assume there still are,” he looked over to Conn.
“Indeed, there are, a wide selection,” the android responded. “I suggest you go there in the morning. You can then go to the VarTech Corporation HQ in the afternoon.”
They’d all agreed to this and were delighted to find out that money was not a problem. Kate and John as joint owners of the VarTech Corporation were now both multi-billionaires with apparently dividend payments already due to them. They were issued with debit and credit cards, which were an unfamiliar novelty to John, who’d never had one before and were also issued with some cash. Morann and Terry, now that they were considered to be VarTech employees, had also been issued with VarTech Corporation Credit Cards and personal debit and credit cards too.
“Your appointments have been back dated to January this year, “Conn informed Morann and Padraig. “So, you have a fair amount of back pay.”
All four of them had in addition been issued with photo ID cards. These had been brought in by the UBF the previous year, but as yet were voluntary for citizens, although there were moves by the Government to make them compulsory. Padraig had also been issued with a photo ID driving licence, in case he wanted to drive himself anywhere.
So, it was the next morning that the four of them were now on their way to Trentbury’s shopping centres. As soon as they had reached the outskirts of Trentbury, John started to notice the changes that had occurred to the town since he had left there in 1969, almost 36 years ago. New housing estates had sprung up where there had once been fields and as they got nearer to the centre of the town, he saw that there was also housing where some of the old brewery sites had once stood. He looked out of the side window as they passed by a massive new supermarket with a name unfamiliar to him.
“Morrisons? Who the heck are they?” John said, turning to Kate, who sat beside him.
“You’ve never heard of Morrisons before?” she answered surprised.
“Well they certainly weren’t around in Trentbury in 1969.” John replied. “Strewth! There’s a Sainsbury’s too and a Tesco!”
“What’re we playing? Spot the supermarket?” Joked Padraig who was seated opposite him, alongside Morann. The limo was a stretch one, with two pairs of seats in the back, facing each other,
“I suggest that we get the driver to drop us off outside the entrance to the main shopping centre, John,” Morann said. “Then you and Padraig can go and get some new clothes, whilst Kate and I can get some too.”
“What you mean we don’t get the chance to ogle you both whilst you try them on?” Padraig quipped.
“Definitely not!” was Kate’s adamant reply.
“Now John, you do know how the debit and credit cards work, don’t you?” Morann enquired.
“Yes, I put the card in the card reader and then punch in my pin number on the keypad. I just hope that I remember the pin number.” John had memorised it though and was pretty sure that he would.
The limo drove into a large carpark, on what John remembered as being a yard, where one of the breweries had stacked its empty beer barrels. That brewery had been taken over by one of the three remaining breweries in Trentbury and the land being surplus to requirements was now the carpark for the huge Riverview Shopping Centre. This had also been built on former brewery land. Stopping outside the entrance to the shopping centre, the chauffeur, an android called Bill sprang out of the driver’s seat and opened the rear door of the limo for them. John and Padraig waited until Kate had Morann had got out and then followed them.
“Contact me when you need picking up again,” Bill told them and then got into the limo and drove off. It had been explained to the three of them that androids were quite common in 21st Century Britain and had been so for about seven years since the first ones had been revealed to the British public. They weren’t quite as sophisticated as Conn
, or any of the other androids that John had got to know, but they were able to carry out complex tasks, including driving vehicles.
The limo was an electric powered vehicle, with a battery which was capable of journeys up to 1000 miles in distance. The battery was quick charging, reaching full capacity after a 15-minute charge. The limo also had an in-built satellite navigation system and hazard awareness and collision avoidance systems, making it impossible to crash the limo. Especially in their case as Bill was also a better driver than any human could hope to be.
“But what about other vehicles crashing into it?” Padraig had asked.
“If there was imminent danger of that happening, then the limousine would automatically take evasive action to avoid a collision,” Bill, who had been explaining to them about the limo had answered.
Padraig and John had by now wandered into the shopping centre.
“Crikey, there’s some shop names that I’m not familiar with,” Padraig declared looking around him.
“Same here,” John answered.
“So what clothes are you after? Business suit or smart casual?”, Padraig asked.
“I’m not a suit kind of person, Padraig. Smart casual is more my style.”
“Me too. Ah, there’s a Marks and Spencer over there. Let’s try that.”
“You’re posh, Padraig, the market was usually where I went to buy clothes back in the 1960s.”
“Didn’t you go to Burtons?”
“Yes, sometimes, but I didn’t get much money as an apprentice.”
“And now you’re a multi-billionaire, John,” Padraig told him.
“That will take a lot of getting used to”
By now the pair of them had entered the store.
“Where’s the menswear then?” Padraig asked, looking in some embarrassment at the range of women’s underwear they were now confronted with.
“Can I help you, sir?” A voice enquired behind him and turning John saw that it was a female android shop assistant.
“We’re looking for the menswear,” John told her.
The Sol 3 Agenda Page 20
