“And for you sir?” the barman enquired, looking at Joshua.
“Oh, a coke for me, I don’t drink strong liquor.”
The barman served them drinks and Fionnuala downed hers all in one go.
“Another one,” she ordered the barman who looked a little startled, but nevertheless complied.
Joshua saw that the elderly man was now closely watching them. He was dressed in a white seersucker suit, white shirt and bolo tie and a white Stetson hat. The man got up off the barstool he was sitting on and walked right up to them.
“Howdy ma’am,” he tipped his hat. “Senator Bob Polkinghorne at your service. Can I get you another drink?” he said, seeing Fionnuala had finished her second glass of whisky, in the same manner as the first.
“Yes, this is a very pleasant drink. I’ll have another one.” Then Fionnuala unzipped her waterproof jacket, took it off and handed it to Joshua. “It’s rather hot in here.”
“It’s probably the whisky,” Joshua said. “You’re drinking them rather fast.”
“No, I can drink strong liquor without any problem. It’s far too hot in here.” Fionnuala said and then pulled her sweater off over her head and threw it on to a nearby chair. The Senator’s eyes nearly popped out of his head, as he saw Fionnuala’s breasts straining the material of the thin silk blouse. The fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra, made the sight even more interesting.
The barman who had also been watching proceedings carefully, had come over and was pouring the whiskies the Senator had ordered. He wondered whether Fionnuala was a high-class hooker, though he’d not seen her, or the man with her before. Joshua meantime was beginning to worry. Although he didn’t drink himself, he knew that downing drinks in rapid succession wouldn’t lead to a very good outcome. He also had a shrewd suspicion that the Senator might possibly think that Fionnuala was the type of professional lady, who hung around bars, hoping to pick up a client. Especially as Fionnuala was now shedding clothing fast.
“I really think that we ought to go now, Fionnuala,” Joshua suggested. The Senator’s ears pricked up.
“An Irish name,” he said. “An Irish lady then.”
“Aos Si.” Fionnuala corrected him.
“Ah, an Aussie,” the Senator who was slightly hard of hearing replied. “Good people the Australians,” he said. “They fought alongside us in Vietnam.” Not of course that the senator would know much about that. He’d avoided the draft, though he liked to give the impression that he was a veteran. Then the Senator made the grave mistake of slapping Fionnuala’s jean clad leg and then letting his hand linger. “Yes, good folk, the Aussies.”
“Take your hand off my leg,” Fionnuala hissed in icy tones.
“Well ma’am, there’s no need to take umbrage. I was only being friendly,” the Senator was a little shocked, having thought as Joshua had suspected, that Fionnuala was a professional lady he could come to an arrangement with. “In fact,” he continued, unabashed, winking at Joshua, who he guessed was the woman’s pimp. “I was sure that we could no doubt come to some sort of suitably beneficial financial arrangement.” His hand remained on Fionnuala’s thigh and now began to stroke it.
“Take it off now!” Fionnuala commanded raising her voice, so that everyone else in the bar looked around to see what the matter was. When the Senator didn’t instantly remove his hand, Fionnuala forcibly grabbed it and crushed it in her nanobot enhanced vicelike grip, breaking every bone in it. The Senator screamed out in pain and fell off the bar stool. “Do that again and next time it will be your neck I will break!” Fionnuala warned him.
The barman dropped the glass he was polishing and looked in wide-eyed shock at her. Another brawny man got up from a nearby table and Joshua noticed that he wore the type of lapel badge that the US Secret Service wore.
“There was no need for that ma’am,” the Secret Serviceman told Fionnuala in a Texan drawl. “I’m going to have to ask you to step outside.” Fionnuala looked at him in contempt as he moved towards her.
“Lay a hand on me and you will regret it!” She warned him and for a moment the Secret Serviceman hesitated and then he moved forward again.
As his arm moved to grab Fionnuala’s, like lightning her right arm shot out, knocked his arm aside and then the edge of her open hand hit him hard in the right side. Joshua winced as he distinctly heard the crack of ribs, as the force of Fionnuala’s blow sent the Secret Serviceman flying sideways into a table, at which two businessmen were seated, knocking them both from their seats in the process. The Secret Serviceman ended up sprawled on top of them on the floor.
“I warned him!” Fionnuala said, staring around to see if anyone else would dare to lay a hand on the Nemhain.
Joshua saw that the barman had gone to a telephone on the bar and was hurriedly speaking to someone.
“Come on Fionnuala! We have to leave now!” Joshua urged, quickly handing Fionnuala her sweater and jacket, he’d snatched up.
“Yes, I think you’re right, Joshua. This place is not a fitting place for me to be,” Fionnuala said, discarding the sweater, but putting on the jacket and zipping it up. She then started to march towards the door out of the bar.
“What about your sweater?” Joshua shouted, picking it up.
“Leave it, Joshua, I’m too hot.” Fionnuala shouted back, marching purposely on through the door out of the bar. Joshua dropped the sweater and ran to catch her up.
No-one challenged them as they walked through the lobby and up to the door out of the hotel. As they reached the door, Joshua turned and saw that two burly, hotel security guards were striding towards them.
“We’ve got company,” Joshua said to Fionnuala, who stopped and turned and faced the men.
As the two men reached her, both of Fionnuala’s arms shot out, fists clenched. Her right fist hit one man under the chin, whilst her left fist hit the other man on the side of the head, smack on his ear. Both men went down, their legs crumpling up beneath them. Fionnuala then turned around and walked out of the door and onto the street followed closely behind by Joshua. Police sirens were wailing in the distance, drawing ever nearer.
“The police are coming, Fionnuala. We’d better run for it!” Joshua told her.
Chapter 20
The White House, Washington DC, USA, Late August 2005
JT in his present form of William Geacher had seen the tall woman stare closely at the car as they’d driven by, but had thought nothing of it. By now he was well aware of the curiosity that the people of Earth and particularly in Western cultures had regarding what they saw as celebrities. The car had drawn up outside a side entrance of the White House and JT had been shown straight into the Oval Office, where he found Mona McBeolain looking very worried. Mona dismissed her assistant and security detail, needing to speak to JT in private.
“No interruptions, Gayle, unless it’s a red priority one.” Mona had ordered her assistant. The pretty girl with black hair cut in a bob, nodded.
Anyone who had been at the party at the US Ambassador’s residence in London, in 1985, may possibly have recognized Gayle and remarked that she hadn’t aged a day. This was very true, Gayle still looked to be about thirty years of age, but then of course, androids don’t age. No-one however, ever suspected her of being an android. Certainly, none of the young men who had tried to date her. Nor for that matter later, any of the young women, who when the men had failed, attempted to date her, thinking that she might possibly be of the same sexual orientation as they were. No, Gayle had turned them all politely down.
As soon as everyone was gone, Mona turned to JT.
“She’s here in Washington!” Mona told him anxiously.
“Who?”
“The Nemhain!” Mona told him white faced with fear.
“The Nemhain’s here? How do you know?” JT questioned.
“Someone scanned the perimeter of the White House grounds and triggered the defence screen less than ten minutes ago.”
“How do you know that it’s
the Nemhain?”
“The frequency of the scanner was one used by the Aos Si military.”
“All right. So, what have you done?”
“Put security on full alert,” Mona told him, “and we are searching for the whereabouts of the Deltoid, which would have brought her here. It must be well cloaked though, for we haven’t found it yet. We’ve also increased the defence screen to cover all of Washington and a twenty-mile radius around it. If she attempts to teleport up to the Deltoid, we’ll know instantly.”
Just then the telephone on the President’s desk rang. Mona went over to it and picked it up. She then started to smile.
“Bring them to me, Gayle,” she said. Mona put the phone down and turned triumphantly to JT.
“The Closed-Circuit TV cameras out in Pennsylvania Avenue have photographed the Nemhain. Sounds like she was trying to get a close look at you, JT, as you drove by her.”
There was a discrete knock at the door.
“Enter.” Mona ordered.
Gayle came in holding several high-resolution, close-up photos, which she handed to Mona.
“My, oh my, JT, the Nemhain looks rather worried,” Mona said smiling broadly now, as she handed the photographs to him. JT studied them closely and instantly recognized the tall, blonde woman who’d stared intently at him as the car had entered through the gates of the White House.
“Who is the young man with her? I don’t recognize him.” JT asked.
“Neither do I, but we’re searching our databases, as we speak.”
Then telephone on Mona’s desk rang again. Mona who was still studying the photos, indicated that Gayle should answer it. Gayle went to the desk and picked it up. She listened to it and then turned to Mona.
“There’s been a disturbance at a bar in a hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue. Senator Bob Polkinghorne, a Secret Service man and two hotel security guards, have all been assaulted by a tall, blonde woman who was accompanied by a small, weedy -looking young man,” Gayle told them. “There was also shortly afterwards an attempt to teleport up to a Deltoid, but it was of course blocked. They have pictures of the couple on the hotel CCTV, which they’re sending through now.”
“Right Gayle, get Colonel Hoskens and his team down here ASAP,” Mona gave the order.
“Will do,” Gayle said briskly, walking to the door and out of the room.
“We’ve got her JT,” Mona said, turning to him. “She won’t escape Hoskens and his team and if we can locate her Deltoid, we’ll no doubt take out that bitch Fenella as well.”
“I sincerely hope so, Mona, for both our sakes,” JT said. He wasn’t so sure of success as Mona was. Although he’d never met the Nemhain, which was why he hadn’t recognized her earlier, JT knew what a formidable enemy she could be and a sense of foreboding suddenly came over him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Washington DC, Late August 2005
Fionnuala and Joshua were running down Pennsylvania Avenue as fast as they could, which was a challenging task as it was quite crowded, and they had to keep dodging around people. Well at least Joshua was. Fionnuala wasn’t so bothered and had already bowled several people over, who had got in her way. Joshua was sure that the old Joshua would never have kept up pace with Fionnuala, but the medical nanobots had enhanced his stamina, lung capacity and leg muscles and although running faster than he’d ever ran before in his life, it was effortless. Joshua then noticed that Fionnuala had come to a halt and was pulling something out of her pocket, As he halted beside her, she thrust it into his hand.
“Put it on your wrist,” she told him, stretching her arm out to hand it over to him. He looked at what Fionnuala had given him and saw that it was a bracelet with two of the Pictish symbols on it.
“Now press the symbol that looks like a mirror,” Fionnuala instructed him. Joshua did so and then he gasped with shock, his hands had disappeared and looking down at the rest of his body he saw that that too had disappeared. He looked across to Fionnuala who was smiling as she too put one of the bracelets and then disappeared.
“We’re invisible now Joshua, so let’s find our way out of here,” Fionnuala’s voice came from where she had been standing, but could no longer be seen. “It’s a cloaking device. It will make us invisible for about 8 hours, before it will then need recharging.”
It was quite weird, Joshua thought as he and Fionnuala then moved through the streets, without being seen by anyone. He felt as though he were in a dreamlike state, he could hear the other people speaking, but their voices sounded muffled and distorted.
“We can talk to each other normally and without being heard by anyone else,” Fionnuala explained. “I will now try again to teleport us out of here.” Fionnuala took the tablet PC out again and tapped on its screen. Then she studied it, a look of dismay coming onto her face. “The defence screen has been extended again. We cannot be teleported from here. We’ll have to find out how far the defence screen extends and then try again outside it.”
“Can we be detected by anyone? Joshua asked.
“I honestly do not know,” Fionnuala answered. “There shouldn’t have been technology available to stop us teleporting back to the Deltoid, but obviously there is. Mona has all the resources of the Aossi Corporation at her disposal as Fenella told us and they must have developed it. The technology they have is far in advance of that of the humans.”
“So, what’s the plan?” Joshua asked.
“We need to get out of this place and go somewhere where Fenella can teleport us back to the Deltoid. We need transportation of some kind.”
“Well we could get a train from the Washington Union Station, that’ll get us out of here,” Joshua replied.
“Is this Union Station far from here?”
“Not too far, it’s on Massachusetts Avenue.”
“Right, let’s go there and get one of these, what did you call them, Joshua, is it trains?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well we get one of these trains, to get us out of Washington.”
“Where to?”
“What do you mean where to? We get one of these trains and we get to where Fenella can teleport us up to the Deltoid.”
“Fionnuala, it doesn’t work like that. Trains travel to specific places. They run on railway lines, which I suppose are a bit like roads,” Joshua struggled to describe the concept of trains to the Nemhain. “Where specifically do you want to go?”
“I do not know the geography of this land, what is it called again?”
“The United States of America,” Joshua told her.
“Ah yes, the United States of America. Is it a big land?”
“Enormous, so where do you want to go? A city is the kind of place the train will take us to.”
Fionnuala pondered on this for a moment or two.
“A city by the sea would suit us well I think,” she eventually said.
“Norfolk, Virginia, is on the coast and I believe that the train goes there.”
“Then Norfolk, Virginia, is where we will go.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Trentbury, England, Late August 2005
John couldn’t help wondering whether the man that Kate had seen had really been his father, but then if it had been him, why hadn’t he approached him? There was also the question of where his father had been for the past 36 years?
“You’re looking very thoughtful, John,” Kate said. They were in the limo on their way to the board meeting at the VarTech Corporation.
“Just wondering whether that was my father that you saw on Saturday.”
“Do you really think that it might have been?” Kate said, thinking how very hard it must be for John, not knowing whether his father was alive or not.
“I don’t know. If it was him, why didn’t he make himself known to me.”
“Conn said he’d find out if there are any CCTV cameras near to the ‘Market Hotel’ and if so, he’ll obtain the video footage.” CCTV cameras were in widespread use in the United Briti
sh and Irish Federation and had been installed in most towns and cities considerably reducing crime.
“That’ll be good if he can,” John answered turning sideways to look at Kate. It had been the first time they’d been alone since arriving in 2005. Morann was up on the Deltoid, seeing to some routine maintenance, which she said had to be carried out periodically. Padraig had gone back into Trentbury, to take back some jeans that he hadn’t tried on in the shop and had now found to be too tight. Kate, Morann & John had had great fun teasing him about this. “I’ll bet it was great to see your parents and brothers again.” John said.
“It was, John. To tell the truth, I’d been afraid that I wouldn’t ever see them again.”
Looking out of the window, John saw that they were now drawing up outside the VarTech Headquarters. Bill got out of the driver’s seat and opened their door for them.
“I’ll wait here until your meeting has ended,” he told Kate and John. Conn was waiting outside the building and ushered them both into the lift which took them up to the Board Room which was up at the top of the building on the 9th floor. He ushered them into the room, which to their surprise they found empty.
“Please sit down,” Conn said, indicating chairs at a medium sized round table. Kate and John sat down.
“Where is everybody?” John asked, looking at Kate who looked as perplexed as he probably did.
“This is everybody,” Conn replied, taking a seat himself.
“I don’t understand,” Kate said. “We were told that this would be a Board Meeting where John and I would be confirmed as the Joint Presidents of the VarTech Corporation.”
“Yes, that is correct Kate and with the powers invested in me as the Chief Executive Officer of the VarTech Corporation and also as the acting Chairman of the Board of Directors, I can confirm your appointments as Joint Presidents of the Corporation,” Conn told them.
“Hold on, surely there’s got to be more directors,” John said, looking at Kate, who looked totally bewildered now.
“Nope,” was Conn’s answer. “Only John Trevaskis Senior and Catherine Penrose held shares in the VarTech Corporation, and they’ve all been passed on to you two. I hold a position on the board purely on the grounds that I’m the Chief Executive Officer and at present the temporary acting Chairman. It is all in accordance with the articles of the Corporation, which in turn complies with the United British and Irish Federation Business Incorporation Act of 1991. In other words, everything is above board.”
The Sol 3 Agenda Page 22
