by Rufus Offor
The Boss had them all on a super sonic jet and in Singapore the morning before Shoop was due to meet the Independents in a bar to figure out the best route out of the city.
Chapter 17
George and the Map
It hadn’t been easy for George. He missed his library in the underground town in Edinburgh. He felt safe there. It was his haven and he hadn’t ventured beyond its doors for prolonged periods of time for years. He was a mole and he loved his hole. The bunker that he currently inhabited was featureless, bland, grey and cold. His library was warm, dark wood, Persian rugs and comfy leather chairs. He missed his books and artefacts, his shelves, his globes, and his stuffed animals in glass cases. He used to talk to them; they were his companions when Shoop wasn’t around.
He did his best to busy himself, but he was becoming more and more tired of the bleakness of the bunker. It was as if his skin was absorbing the grey of the walls and sucking it into his core. So it made him happy when he managed to make some sense of the coding in the second level of the map that he had retrieved from Jeeves’ cellars so many weeks ago.
To the naked eye, the map looked like a cross between a sodoku puzzle, an ordnance survey map, a diagram of an autopsy and a surrealist painting gone wrong, if such a thing could be imagined. It was also overlaid with symbols and phrases in a multitude of different ancient languages, some of which were no longer used.
He was glad that the bunker had a medical bay in it. There were lots of different kinds painkillers, which came in handy as, over the weeks, staring at the map for days on end had given him headaches akin to having dozens of knitting needles pushed slowly into his cranium.
George always dressed neatly, even if his unruly greying ginger bowl-cut tended to do whatever it felt like, but over the weeks he’d been letting himself go. The permanent greyness had sapped his will to groom. His shirt was un-tucked in places as well as being very wrinkled and grubby looking. He rarely tied his shoe laces, he just didn’t see the point any more, they would only come undone again, his bowtie looked like it had been tied by a three year old and his normally always impeccable favourite cardigan had strangely coloured food, drink, and phlegm splatters all over it. His hands were ink stained and his unruly hair had turned chaotic, almost medusa-like, writhing around in fits of ginger snake-ish madness. Even his well-trimmed bushy fire coloured moustache had taken on a life of its own. It looked like it was branching out as it was joined by patches of straggly facial hair that sprouted in random places around his chin and neck. His moustache was breeding, and its children were very ill behaved.
In short, George was a mess, but he’d broken the second level of the map’s code. True, there looked like there was at least two more levels to the damn thing, but the level he’d just broken into suggested that he would have to venture outside. Apparently, the third code level involved visiting a number of graveyards around Scotland. He simply couldn’t get any further without leaving the secret bunker. The moment that this information hit him gave him a series of mixed emotions.
Firstly joy hit him, “Finally,” he thought, “I can get out of here, find a little fresh air, walk on something other than cold hard concrete, possibly even converse with other human beings.” He’d been in the bunker for so long, that every day was beginning to feel like a month. Father time moved slowly there. He’d clearly seen fit to choose the bunker as the place that he liked to smoke weed in and he moved as quickly as a tractor with two flat tires, and a broken engine, and nobody driving it, stuck at the bottom of a river. Lets just say time was very slow. For a moment George wondered if he could remember how exactly speech worked, so he talked to a filing cabinet for a while for practice.
Secondly, shortly after talking to the cabinet, fear hit him. If he went outside, he was in danger of being discovered by the Sphere of Influence. Having worked with them for so long, he knew the kind of atrocities that they were capable of. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to withstand their information extraction techniques for long. He was surprisingly sturdy and stubborn, but the thing was, he didn’t like pain. He was scared of it and the thought of it made him ill. He’d had a few very nasty run-ins with pain and so had learnt that staying away from it was usually the best course of action. Shoop had given him a cyanide pill in case of capture but he had good reason for not using it. He wasn’t ready to die just yet. He had plans, things he needed to do before he was sent from this Earth, and finding the source of the map, and therefore the vessel was one of them.
He knew that, eventually, he’d tell the Sphere everything that they needed to know and Shoop, George’s best chance of finding the vessel and the source of the Priory Of Sion, would be gone. They would catch Shoop and kill him, not that this worried him too much, but over the years, even with their tentatively turmoil ridden relationship, he’d rather that Shoop didn’t die. He didn’t really like him but didn’t hate him either. He was the closest thing to a friend that he’d had for as long as he could remember and he could remember a long way back.
Something had to be done. George needed to talk to Shoop.
Luckily, or wisely depending no how you want to look at it, Shoop had held back certain technologies from the Sphere, one little piece of wizardry being microscopic wormhole technology. It worked on the principal that every atom in the universe has a twin. A device had been developed, in conjunction with a helpful little green man that could find an atom’s twin and connect to it via a tiny wormhole. The aliens had used this technology in communications devices. It had a vast array of other possibilities and the aliens also used it as a way to learn everything that they could ever want to know from the universe, but mostly used it to look at porn.
The communications devices had the added bonus of being completely untraceable. The phones that Shoop and his team used all encompassed this technology, only George and Shoop knew about it.
George felt quite safe calling Shoop on his “secure” phone without the sphere ever being able to catch the signal.
“Shoop? It’s George, I’ve managed to break through the next level of coding in the map and think I know what to do next but it involves a few practical problems that need your attention.”
“Okay, tell me all about it and I’ll see what I can do.”
George went on to explain the situation, how he was going to have to leave the bunker but was worried that he’d get picked up by the Sphere. After that, Shoop told George all about his problems in Singapore. The house in China-town, Carl going mental and getting caught and that they’d need to get out of the city very quickly.
Once their stories had been exchanged, Shoop told George about a room in the bunker that housed a collection of disguises. The first place that George had to go was deep in enemy territory. He had to go to Greyfriar’s graveyard in Edinburgh, less than half a mile away from the Sphere’s head quarters. In fact, there were sandwich shops there that were frequented by Sphere staff, and bars that were very enthusiastically utilised. He would need a bodyguard.
Not following the lead that the map had unearthed was not an option. If Shoop’s investigations in Singapore failed then George was the only hope of getting the Sphere off their backs. George HAD to go to Edinburgh no matter what and would need some protection.
George complained and whined for a while but Shoop soon shut him up saying that their current position had only two foreseeable outcomes. Success or death.
“I’ll stay in contact with you,” said Shoop, “But it may be difficult for a while. If we don’t get out of Singapore without being noticed, then we might as well just top ourselves right now! I’m waiting for the boys. Should be on our way out of here within the next few hours, but if the boys haven’t dug up any information on where the vessel went after here, we’ll need to disappear and leave you to finish the investigation from your end. There are places we can hide. High, remote places and jungles, but if we don’t get this figured out, we’ll either have to die, or spent the rest of out lives in loin cloths swinging fr
om tress and I can’t see you lasting too long in the wild.”
The thought sent shivers up George’s spine.
“I’ll get onto Chuntley,” continued Shoop, “she’s the best woman for the job. She’ll meet you outside Fettes College in Edinburgh at 8am two days from now. Now get going with that disguise and head down there. There should be a van in the main entrance that’ll get you there.”
“I hate this Shoop, I’m not a field worker, I’m a bookworm, I don’t like it outside, it’s full of people and things that might hurt me and I’m almost out of brandy!”
“Stop bloody whining and get on with it you frilly pair of ballerina pants!” Shoop hung up.
“Bugger!” Said George. He slumped in a chair. Suddenly the dingy concrete bunker was beginning to look infinitely more appealing. He longingly glanced around at the wealth of flotsam and jetsam that they’d stolen from Jeeves’ basement. He hadn’t even begun to sift through the mass of wonderment. He wished he could stay and spend the rest of his days going through it all with a fine-toothed comb. He was sure that he would make it all homely again, given time. But time he didn’t have.
His mind ambled away into the murk of the past.
When George had first met Shoop they’d both been twelve years old. At the time, George spent his days building models of ancient cities, reading reference books on myths, ancient civilisations and the occult. He enjoyed his past-times but secretly yearned for more. He had a deep seeded need to know more, to see more, to find something, but he couldn’t put his finger on what and where it was.
Some desires he did know. He dreamed of vast cavernous reference libraries and finding secrets that eluded the most learned of scholars. He had the intellect for it too. He had nurtured his mind from a very early age and, by the time he met Shoop, would’ve put many a genius to shame. He loved information. He loved knowing things and finding things out. He loved unconventional theories and conspiracies and his hunger was never satisfied.
One of his favourite pastimes as a child was to sit, late at night, in graveyards, reading books of secret societies, UFO stories, the battles of Alexander the great, the crusades in the holy land, accounts of ancient Greece and Rome, anything that would expand his understanding of the way the world moved. He made rubbings of old tombstones and collected them, deciphering their hidden symbols and connecting the secret dots of the ages.
One night, while making a rubbing of an old Templar grave tone after having snuck out of his orphanage, he heard a strange rumbling growl coming from the dark eastern corner of the graveyard. He looked up, trying not to move the piece of paper he was making the rubbing with. He couldn’t see anything but then it was a dark corner. There could’ve been a twelve-foot tall werewolf hiding in the shadows and he would’ve been none the wiser.
Directly behind him, from the western corner of the graveyard, he heard footsteps, light crunching plods on gravel, slowly getting louder, working their way towards him. Still holding his precious rubbing in place on the gravestone he swung round to look in the direction of the footsteps, slightly concerned that he shouldn’t be taking his eyes off the dark eastern corner but risking it anyway. He saw a boy, roughly his own age by his stature but older somehow. The boy was wearing a dirty brown suit and a battered trilby on his head. By his side, swinging gently with every light considered step he saw a crossbow. He looked older because of the lines of his face. The boy grimaced with unnatural intensity and the facial offence of his expression had etched itself on his face, leaving shallow crevices on features that should’ve been young and sprightly.
George heard another guttural growl from the opposite corner and he sensed movement, he span round again and out of the darkness that could’ve hidden a twelve foot tall were wolf, lunged a twelve foot tall were wolf, moving with gut wrenching speed in his direction. George’s heart went into spasm like an epileptic in a disco. His head flicked back to the grimacing boy to see if he was, as he should be, running like a mad man in the other direction. He wasn’t. This struck George as slightly odd. If he hadn’t been so paralysed with fear and hadn’t been so concerned with his grave rubbing, he would’ve been half way around the globe by now, his manic feet parting oceans like Moses. The grimacing boy was calm, collected and still slowly plodding in George’s direction, not the slightest flicker of emotional change visible in any part of his demeanour. He slowly, lazily almost, raised the arm that held the crossbow.
A flash of silver whizzed past Georges eyes and imbedded itself in the werewolf’s chest just as its claws were inches from his tender frame. The creature thudded to the floor instantly, dead before it landed.
The grimacing boy ambled forward with consistent, steady, unfailing steps until he reached the animal’s corpse. He bent down and retrieved the silver crossbow bolt from the beast. There was a series of spurts of dark liquid as the werewolf’s heart pumped the last of its lifeblood into the air. It slowed after a while and became a trickle. The boy wiped the bolt clean with the animal’s hide, pulled the string of the bow back into readiness with astonishing ease and loaded the silver arrow into his weapon. It seemed as if he anticipated more trouble before long and didn’t want to get caught unawares.
He looked at George, emotionless; he had cold dead eyes and an aura that screamed “predator!”.
“What’s that?” he asked with a lifeless monotone voice. He pointed at the piece of paper that George was still holding in place on the grave stone of the Knight Templar.
“Um…..” said George, his complexion grey with fear and astonishment. It’d all happened so fast, but yet had lasted an age, like time had slowed down in the face of this undauntable young man.
“Its um….” George slowly entered the conversation and the realms of normality, such as it was, and managed to say, “…its paper!” and then looked a little confused at the obviousness of the answer.
“I can see that dip-shit! What are you doing with it?”
The question made more sense now. They talked for a while, or more accurately George talked for a while, and before long the boy, who said his name was Shoop Winkle, which George found hard to believe, had been taught a great deal of the secret going’s on of the world, its secret societies, its weird and wonderful tales and their roots in truth, its occultism and its oddness. George didn’t really want to share as much information as he had but his new friend didn’t really talk so the silences had to be filled somehow, and anyway, the boy had just saved his life, surely that demanded some repayment.
It did, but not the way that George had anticipated.
“I could use someone like you!” said Shoop after listening to George prattle on for twenty minutes non stop, “I do a lot of this sort of thing, but sometimes find myself needing to know more about what I’m doing, you know, the technicalities of it all. It sounds like you already know quite a lot.”
The rest, as they say, is history. George had spent the rest of his life helping Shoop hunt down the weird and the strange, but after that night, very rarely ventured outside. He didn’t want his mission to find out the world’s greatest secrets to be spoiled by some wayward claw or bloodthirsty screeching harpy. He didn’t have to risk his own flesh, Shoop could do that instead as he was much better at it. He had everything he ever needed to find the secrets that he craved. Years later, he’d managed, with Shoop’s help, to track down two individuals that’d found a crashed alien spacecraft in the highlands. They weren’t easily tracked down but the dividends that Shoop and George had reaped were more than worth the effort. The vessel that they were hunting was the very pinnacle of George’s life-long search for the ultimate secrets.
Back in the highland bunker, slumped miserably in a chair, the dishevelled George half wished that he hadn’t broken out of his orphanage that fateful night. In hindsight, the gravestone he was making a rubbing of wasn’t really that impressive anyway and hadn’t yielded any new signs or symbols. There was no way, however, of knowing that he would land in the predicament that he curre
ntly found himself.
He shook his head as if to clear away the cobwebs of disgruntlement from the inside of his skull, trying to remove as much doubt as he could. He thought back to the night that he’d been in the graveyard. He’d had some gumption back then. He’d had a bit of gusto. He tried to call the feeling back. He pictured himself dangling from the third story window of his orphanage from a rope made of bed sheets (he’d seen it on an old black and white TV show. The rope made him feel a bit like Zorro) and running off into the night. It made the old need for knowledge creep up his spine; it lit up sparks his brain. He thought about how much he’d learned since those days. How close he was to his ultimate goal. How far he’d come. Even if he had used Shoop to do the legwork, it didn’t matter. He was so close now. Shoop’s sixth sense had told him as much.
He thought on, trying to batter the fear of the outside world into submission. It took his a while but he got there eventually. Slowly, over the course of an hour or so, he felt his slump straighten, his resolve grow and his will to see the whole thing through become a pillar of strength. He hadn’t lived this long just to give up now. Just because he was a little cowardly, small and weak, didn’t mean that he had to give up his search just yet.
He felt his need for a clean shirt come back to him. He suddenly realised that he wanted to tie his bowtie properly and wash his cardigan, possibly even try and tame the wild ginger bowl-cut hissing on top of his head. The medusa would be controlled!
He got up, straightened himself out a little, doing his best to remove the worse of the stains on his cardigan with spit and a hanky and went in search of the room that Shoop had mentioned, the one with all the disguises in it.
Shoop’s direction to the room had been pretty clear and he found the room quickly, which was a bit of a surprise as every door looked the same as the last, much like pop music in the mind of a seventy year old.
