Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Amanda went down the lift with MacBook firmly in hand. She could hardly believe that she'd already completed a week and a half at the Guardian. The training sessions in the Boardroom had become less taxing to his body than the first one, though no less complicated, taking on scenarios ranging from elaborate robberies and terrorist bombings to an invasion of Russia by an army of super strong Golems.
There was one instance the day before where her thigh was sliced open by a piece of broken glass fighting a rogue leprechaun. “You would be surprised how many bombings and soccer riots were started by the litter buggers,” Brigid said after the session. The lone saving grace for Amanda was that her increasingly heightened healing powers had helped to alleviate the pain of the stabbing.
[DING!]
Amanda made her way out of the lift across the lobby of King’s Place building. She saw from her periphery the receptionist finishing what he assumed was the last hour of his shift behind the massive desk. As Ms. Duncan walked down the sidewalk, she started to run through some of the things that had happened to her since coming to London. This is not what I thought London would be like, she thought as he arrived at a nearby bus stop.
As she was about to sit down, she saw a middle-aged man leaning on the side of a bus stop lost in his own thoughts. The man wore a crimson overcoat that rested on top of a brown suit and black slacks. What better way to find out if I have persuasion powers than to try it on a stranger, she thought. A jolt of nervous energy rushed down his spine, fearing the stranger’s reaction.
“It's a beautiful night out.” Amanda quipped, sitting on the bench in front of the stranger.
There was a silence that hung in the air for a few seconds as Amanda waited. “Yes, it is,” the stranger answered casually. When he turned his head around and finally saw Amanda, his tone immediately brightened up in the same way the receptionist’s had. “Good to finally get out of that rainstorm, eh?”
“Yep,” Amanda chuckled mildly, looking out at the sunset through a clump of clouds. “Speaking of storms, I heard when I was back in the States that London becomes completely crippled whenever it snows. I always thought it was complete BS though.”
“That is true, sadly,” the middle-aged stranger bellowed. “It’s a part of my city I could definitely do without. But at least summer’s on the horizon. And there’s EURO 2012 next month to get excited about.”
“Yeah.” Amanda nodded politely as the two of them settled into a peaceful silence.
The stranger looked around the bustling street corner for a few moments, seeing if the bus was coming. He then extended his left hand to Amanda. “I’m Gordon, by the way.”
“I’m Amanda.”
“Welcome to the land of freedom,” Gordon declared with a smile as they shook each other hands. “I hope you like it here.”
“Thank you.”
They let go an extra second later before they separated and returned to their own respective worlds. She thought about some of the similarities between Gordon and the secretary. Although the encounters were odd, particularly the strange lack of catcalling that had been thrown her way by both men, there still wasn’t anything new in her mind to prove she had powers of persuasion.
Amanda sat for a few minutes on the cold, blue bench gazing at the Fiats and Audis and Kodas that drove past. She also observed some of the couples, worker bees, and university students who walked by her on the sidewalk. Finally, the beaming headlights of a London Metro bus emerged from left to right. Amanda stood up from the bench and started walking at the same moment that Gordon did as the bus stopped in front of them. Gordon was the first to walk inside. As Amanda was ready to join him, she was distracted by the sound of Brigid.
“Ms. Duncan!”
Amanda turned around and watched as she ran up the sidewalk towards her. She noticed her white Mercedes parked on the sidewalk a few blocks away. This was a new experience for her when it came to conversations with bosses. Usually, they are bland and work related, lasting no more than ten or fifteen seconds.
“What are you doing here,” Amanda asked. “Did you find out where Lugh is?”
She brushed back her hair quickly with her hand, taking in a medium-sized breath. “I wanted to commend you on your training and the good work you have done since you joined the Guardian.”
“Thank you, Brigid,” Ms. Duncan was flattered by the compliment. Though she was unquestionably confused by the randomness of it.
“I wanted to give you something as a token of our appreciation.” The goddess reached into her purple jacket and pulled out a touch screen cell phone no more than seven inches long.
Amanda picked up the phone and started examining it. It looks nice, she thought looking at the ash wood finish in the back of the cell phone. It was certainly better than the T-Mobile flip phone she brought from Seattle. “I’ve always wanted a smart phone. Thank you!”
“This is not a smart phone, Ms. Duncan. It is merely the shape it takes to stay conspicuous,” Brigid said. “In reality it is a Molltach, the strongest weapon in all of creation. It is capable of taking the form of whatever your mind can conjure up. The only limitation is your imagination.”
“Kind of like the Green Lantern ring,” Amanda quipped, looking up at Brigid. The reference confused her. She nodded politely. “So, all I have to do is picture something in my mind, like a sword for example and—”
The bus driver grew a bit agitated at the wait just as the phone began to change. The balding, rotund man moved over to give him a piece of his mind when he saw the tip of Amanda’s sword pointed in his direction. He screamed at the top of his lungs and motored back out on to the street, causing Amanda to slip and nearly fall down on the sidewalk.
“Only the most trusted friends and allies of the Dagda have ever seen or possessed one,” Brigid said, observing Amanda as he tried to figure out how to return it to its prior cell phone state. “Whenever you wish to be conspicuous and avoid instances in public such as the one you endured with the bus driver—all you have to do is say ’default’.”
“Default,” the words fell out of her mouth blandly. A few moments later, the Molltach shook and reverted back to its cell phone form. Amanda shook her head and chuckled in disbelief, pocketing the phone in the inside pocket of her coat. “So, why give it to someone like me?”
“Because like I said before, Ms. Duncan, I see potential for true greatness, especially in how you have held up in the Boardroom,” Brigid smiled, patting him a couple of times on his shoulder. “Also, I had a slight hunch that bus travel was becoming a nuisance to you.”
Amanda chuckled. “Thank you again, boss.”
“You can call me Brigid,” she answered before walking back to her car. “Or Cap’n if you desire.”
Amanda watched as she stepped inside the Mercedes and drive off down the road. She sat back down on the bench and waited in the hopes that another bus would come. But all that arrived after ten minutes were the same Vauxhalls and Audis she had already seen before. She picked up the bus schedule on the wall and noticed that the next bus wasn’t coming for another hour. Then, she came up with an idea.
Ms. Duncan pulled the newly given Molltach out of her pocket, closing it in her palm and picturing her dream car for a couple of beats before placing it on the street. She stepped back and waited to see what would happen. A minute passed and nothing happened. Then suddenly, a white ball of light engulfed the object. It remained over it for a couple of minutes before dissipating, revealing a dark blue Dodge Charger.
“I love this job!” Amanda grinned.
***
Ms. Duncan sat down looked around at the spacious interior of the Charger, feeling the fine leather upholstery of the driver seat in her hand. This looks like every other car I’ve been in, she thought. There was the speedometer and odometer on the dashboard in its usual place. The gas and brake pedals were in their typical place underneath the steering wheel. There was even a satellite radio, a cool perk she’d never had in a car before. The only thing missing was the keys. Amanda searched around the driver and passenger seat until she saw the ignition button placed next to the steering wheel. It was a feature Amanda didn’t know came with the Charger.
As great as public transportation was, it was hard to top the feeling in Amanda’s mind of driving a car again. As she drove, she tried to piece together in her mind the directions to her flat from previous bus trips. After stopping at a stop light, she noticed a small red button on the car’s dashboard with the word EITLITE written above it.
“Eitlite,” Amanda mused, looking at it closer. “I wonder what the hell this button does.”
Before she could push the button, the light went green and the sound of a car horn wrestled his focus back to the road. Amanda settled back into the flow of London’s nighttime traffic with its Mini Coopers and Fiats as he moved closer to home. After an extra minute of silence, she turned on the radio for some entertainment. After scrolling through commercials and bad dance songs, Amanda came across Radio 4 during a newsbreak.
“Conservative leaders in Parliament were at an uproar today following Prime Minister Temple’s new economic stimulus package at the G20 Summit over the week-end,” the female newsreader reported. “Ryan Gordon, senior MP for Bolton, hinted in prepared statements on the Parliament floor of a possible vote of No Confidence at the Party conference in the end of June against the Prime Minister if he does not reveal—”
The radio clicked off at the juicy part of the story as Amanda stopped the car in front of her flat and stepped out. She closed the driver’s side door and, while gripping the handle, looked all around her to see if there was any person in the area. After a half minute, Amanda was satisfied that no one was there. “Here we go…Default!”
Amanda let go of the handle and stepped back a few feet from the car. She watched as the automobile was engulfed inside the same white ball of energy she had seen at the bus stop. It was an amazing sight to behold, though she did check a couple of times for witnesses as the ball faded away. Ms. Duncan picked the Molltach up off the street and pocketed it before walking inside with her MacBook for some much needed rest.
Ms. Duncan headed into the small kitchen nook and placed the laptop on the tile counter. She then took a can of Diet Cherry Pepsi from the small refrigerator and proceeded to move to the beanbag chair she brought over from Seattle. The normalcy of her sparsely furnished flat had become an area of normalcy for her compared to the stresses of his workplace. She took off his coat and laid it on the ground next to her before sitting down. Amanda could hear the crinkle of the popcorn pellets inside the piece of furniture from all directions as she settled in.
She took in the sounds of car horns and people coming in from the window as he drank his soda. It was a little meddlesome, but not enough to spoil the moment of relaxation for him. A few minutes later, as Amanda stood up from his chair to turn on the TV and planning her next Skype chat with her buddy Gary, he was struck by a sense of heaviness that stopped him in his tracks.
“That’s weird,” Amanda said, letting out a big yawn. “I guess today must have been more tiring on me than I thought.”
She could feel his eyes growing heavier and heavier with each passing second as she stumbled around the room. Her legs shortly after became increasingly weaker and softer to the point that Amanda fell down on one knee. Her arms and hands were the last appendages to go limp as she moved closer to sleep. The last sound Ms. Duncan heard was of a soda can falling an inch away from her.
***
Amanda woke up a few moments later in the middle of the street. Judging by the sky, she surmised that it was at night. She had no idea where she was, though the presence of Big Ben to the south was evidence that she was somewhere in London. This has to be another training session, Amanda thought. She started to walk down the street, looking around for any sign of life to alleviate the confusion. All she saw though was destruction.
The shops and restaurants in the area were either heavily damaged as if they had been affected by a natural disaster. The few cars Amanda saw either was left abandoned or had crashed into a shop and caught on fire. The only sign of humanity he could see or hear was the wail of the ambulance in the distance. “What the hell happened?” she sighed.
A piece of paper hit her shoe a few seconds later as he looked over at an abandoned and smoldering café. The first part of the torn and soaked newspaper he could read was the date: June 2nd, 2012. “This has gotta be another training session,” Amanda uttered, looking out at the destruction. “Though I wouldn’t have pegged Jar’Ed as someone who goes for the Walking Dead look.”
Suddenly, the street underneath her feet started shaking violently. It started as a quick tremor and then turned into a sizable and sustained earthquake. The force of which rattled the boarded up shops and rusting cars like rocks in a tin can. Ms. Duncan tried to keep her balance as it continued, avoiding the chunks of concrete that rained down from nearby buildings. A few minutes later, the quake stopped as quickly as it came.
Amanda took an extra couple of beats to regain her bearings. In the distance, she saw Brigid coming down from the sky at a brutal speed. The goddess then stopped a few seconds later and hovered a couple of feet above her. She was dressed in her gold warrior outfit with the sword holstered.
“It has begun,” Brigid uttered in an uncharacteristically somber tone, turning her head to the east. “We were too late to stop him.”
“Who’s him,” Amanda screamed back confused at the situation. “What do you mean, too late?”
“The Bluetannia,” the sky above slowly became bluer as she spoke. “If my calculations are correct, it should arrive from the Tuning Fork in the center of the city in mere minutes.”
Amanda shook her head in disbelief, trying her best to contain the ball of fear growing in the pit of her stomach. “This…this has to be another training session!”
“We had an idea this could happen,” Brigid took a deep breath and pulled out a scroll. She briefly unfurled it and started reading it for a couple of seconds before turning her focus to the south. “I hope this works.”
She launched herself into the sky at the coming ball, chanting something in Gaelic as it came into view over the street. The large ball reminded Amanda of the circular orb that carried Klaatu to Earth in the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still. A few minutes later, she saw a massive yellow light shoot out from where Brigid was standing in the direction of the blue opponent. The beam did not appear to have much of an effect on the strange ball of energy as it moved closer to the center of the city.
Amanda watched on helplessly as she tried to push back or stop this Bluetannia before it reached the city. As she watched the goddess grimace and struggle trying to fight back, Amanda felt an inherent desire to help her. But she couldn’t will herself to do something. She was frozen, left to watch as Brigid gave up and floated out of its path. Undeterred, the swirling ball drifted the last couple of miles toward with little and drifted toward the center of London.
It continued moving toward the heart of the city despite the best efforts of Brigid. Her heart broke that he could not help her superpowered boss as the light orb started to lie on top of one of the skyscrapers. Amanda braced himself for what would happen next. The last sounds he heard was Brigid screaming, “Amanda!”
As it touched the glass and concrete structure, the ball exploded. She felt a stiff punch hit her chest with enough force to knock her off her feet. The buildings and skyscrapers around her though did not shake or tumble. Instead, they disintegrated in one flash into their basic elements before fading into dust. The abandoned cars and street signs Amanda had formerly stood on were the next things to suffer that fate. Eventually, the very street itself faded underneath their feet. Tears started to trickle down Ms. Duncan’s cheeks. She looked at her hands and saw that she too was slowly fading out into her basic skeletal building blocks.
“I’m sorry Brigid,” she said regretfully, not knowing where the goddess was as she watched herself go from flesh and bone to atoms. “I failed you!” Amanda closed her eyes and accepted what she thought was the end.
Amanda opened her eyes a few seconds later to find herself back inside her flat, lying on the floor next to the beanbag chair. “I knew it was a training session.” She got herself back up on his feet and walked over to the kitchen to pick up some towels to clean up the spilled soda.
As she gathered up a couple of paper towels, she looked at her watch and noticed that it was twelve o’clock at night. “At least I think it was.”
***
Amanda arrived the next morning at King’s Cross expecting to hear Brigid’s analysis about last night. She wondered if Chabe was going to criticize her for her reluctance to help the imaginary Brigid fight back and save the city from explosion. Ms. Duncan also wondered about the technical aspects, particularly how Jar’Ed was able to knock her out cold like that. Probably some magic spell, she thought.
As she walked in the office, she noticed there were events of higher priority going on that day. Each of the TV screens inside the bullpen was showing analysis from half dozen commentators and newsreaders as well as numerous politicians about the Prime Minister’s G20 speech.
“What happened?” Amanda asked one of her fellow reporters as they passed him by in a panic.
The co-worker looked at Amanda as if she had crawled out of a cave in the Scottish Highlands. “You didn’t hear?”
“Hear what?” She shrugged, splitting her focus between the TVs and the co-worker. “All I heard was MP Gordon’s statement about a No Confidence vote.”
“Let me fill you in, kid.” The co-worker led her down to his office, handing her a transcript of the speech from Valencia. “On these pages is something akin to a bloody political miracle.”
Amanda read through it for a couple of minutes. “I don’t see the big deal here,” she exclaimed placing the two pieces of paper back on the reporter’s desk. “He sounds like he really wants to try and lead the continent out of recession.”
The co-worker grumbled under his breath over the ignorance of his American cohort. “You obviously have no idea who Prime Minister Temple is.”
He gave Amanda a folder from inside one of his desk drawers. It was an archive of old stories about the Prime Minister going back to his days as Conservative Party leader during the Labour governments of the ’90s and early 2000’s. There were stories of alleged fraud while he was on the board at RBS. There were also multiple allegations from unaccredited sources that he passed over more qualified applicants at National Health for political friends during the first few months in office.
There was also a set of excerpts of speeches while the Prime Minister was still in Parliament representing Devon East. The topics he addressed included a denouncement of what he viewed as the “free spending” attitudes of the Labour party, the need for the nation to tighten its belt after the economic crash of 2009, and snide remarks directed at environmentalists and other left-of-center activist groups in the country.
“If the man didn’t have an English accent, I’d swear he was a member of your country’s Republican party!” The co-worker quipped.
“I’ll admit that all makes him sound like an asshole,” Amanda said, glancing up from the manila folder. “But maybe he had a revelation leading up to the speech, which if he did I say good on him.”
“It’s not about the Prime Minister!” Chabe bellowed suddenly, popping up in the doorway of the cubicle behind the two of them.
Amanda looked over at Chabe, closing the folder and dropping it on the desk. “What is it?”
“It’s Lugh,” Chabe led him from the cubicle over to one of the television screens in the bullpen. It was beaming the feed from Sky News as they broadcasted a taped section of the PM’s speech. “Check out the right side next to the Prime Minister.”
It took a minute of searching before Amanda saw who precisely he was talking about. Seated next to a staffer three chairs away from the Prime Minister, she saw Lucas Pearson. For a split second, Ms. Duncan noticed a crystal blue glow in his eyes.
“Your hunch was right, chica,” Chabe uttered, patting Amanda on the back as her mouth was agape. “Nicely done!”
“How could—,” Amanda shook her head in disbelief watching the screen. “How could Lugh have gotten there that quickly?”
“He’s a genius, Amanda,” Chabe moved his arm back to his side and started moving to his office. “Doing something like that isn’t that hard for him. The fact he’s infiltrated the P.M.’s inner sanctum must mean he’s planning something big. The only question though is what.”
“We should warn Ghede,” Amanda pondered following behind the big bear god. “She needs to know what’s going on. What if Lugh finds out about Ghede and goes after her?”
“If it comes to that, she’s more than capable of handling herself in battle,” Chabe confidently uttered in front of his office. “I speak from experience.”
Amanda sighed and walked away back to her office as Chabe moved to his own. The various images of her dream came rushing back into her head along with the twinkle in Lugh’s eyes as she tried to busy himself with the day’s work. I have to tell him, she thought. Ms. Duncan stopped typing and moved her rolling chair out, fully preparing to tell Chabe all he knew.
“I’ll do it another time,” Amanda muttered, sliding her chair back in. “After all this dies down.”
As Amanda continued typing her story, on one of the TV screens above him, the scroll on one of the news channels read: “Blockbuster movie shoot creates millions of dollars in damage for city of Valencia.”