Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Twenty five days until the Global Unveiling of Bluetannia: Amanda had spent over two days reading various online news reports detailing the Chief of Staff’s scandals. The whole thing seemed to follow the same pattern of political scandals. A reporter reveals the stupid actions of a politician in a story through the aid of a “hidden source.” Commentators and other reporters then spend day after day analyzing the story and hounding the politician for answers, sucking the life out of any other story as a result. After a week or so passes, the coverage reaches its end and the public moves on.
Even the Guardian was not immune to this phenomenon, spending a majority of its front pages covering the burgeoning scandal which overshadowed criticism from the minority about the Prime Minister’s strange and erratic judgment. Another story that was relegated to the paper’s back pages was the release of the Pearson Memo, hidden deep in the daily briefing released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs who were given the outline of the Gerry Arthur mine complex.
Amanda shifted her focus away from the scandal and back to the details of the Memo saved on another link. Most of the document was redacted for security purposes because, she assumed, it contained the names of people in higher pay grades than he. What did survive the black marker blew Amanda away in its complexity. The pools, the Resonator, the light blue strings hung on the walls of the main cylindrical complex. All under the banner of a massive structure called the Tuning Fork. She was surprised to find that all of this had been created in under two months. Then she remembered the human collaborators that helped the demi-gods along the way.
There was the head of the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs Trevor Martin. Amanda had read multiple press releases from environmental groups like Greenpeace UK who charged that the minister was dragging his feet towards establishing a set of regulations on the sale and distribution of Bluetannia. There was the chairmen of the BBC and ITV who were caught in attendance at a fundraiser for the Prime Minister shortly after he arrived from Valencia, thirty-six hours before the endless wave of positive press about the energy source flooded the nation’s airwaves. There was also the little noticed story of the sudden increase in power in Colchester, a 200% surge in power capability according to the city’s power company, all without any outages or fluctuations.
“Go to the source. Gerry Arthur herself.”
The words from Kahrter reverberated in Amanda’s mind as he read the document. She had told Brigid about the conversation after he came back from Y Crug. She tried to convince her boss then to send her out to the mine. But every time Ms. Duncan brought it up to her, she was rejected for the same reason: “You are not ready.” As she read a section of the Memo detailing the intricate arrangement of pipes outside of the mine going to Colchester, she remained stubbornly optimistic that she would come around.
“Today’s the day.” Amanda gathered every shred of self-confidence she could muster, closed the screen on his MacBook and stepped out of his cubicle toward Brigid’s office. She knocked on the door a couple of times. A minute passed by without a response. She opened the door a short while later and went inside. Ms. Duncan found her concluding a conversation on the phone using the voice of the human editor of the newspaper.
She looked up as Amanda closed the door behind him. “Shut it, Amanda. We have already been over this,” she snarled in her normal voice, slamming the receiver down. “There is no way I can send you out to Gerry Arthur!”
“You know this would be a boon for the newspaper, Cap’n,” she fired back, moving toward her. “While everyone focuses on the Chief of Staff, we can be the outlet for those looking for hard news. And Gerry Arthur is absolutely hard news.”
“That is a fair point,” Brigid bellowed, coming out from behind her desk. “But it hardly answers the biggest concern I have here. Namely, that you are not ready to engage in such a dangerous mission.”
“When am I going to be ready,” Ms. Duncan barked, stepping so close that she could feel her hot breath. “I’ve gone through the full training gambit of the Boardroom for weeks, flirting with death on more than one occasion. That has to mean more than being a bike messenger for Kahrter!”
Amanda immediately went quiet, realizing the potential consequences this type of blow-up against her could bring. After a few moments of tense silence, Brigid sighed and moved back behind the desk “This is different, Amanda. Given the current news landscape and the considerable amount of power Lugh has in human society, I cannot risk one of my reporters getting arrested or potentially killed over a hunch. Even when it comes from a source as reputable as Kahrter.”
The young woman followed Brigid to her desk. “But this could be the break we need to blow Lugh’s entire grand plan out of the—”
“We do not even know if Lugh has any connection to the Bluetannia,” Brigid said standing over her chair. “All we have are photographs of Charon in a field with some youths. The human public is not going to connect those dots, and you know it!”
“Unlike any other newspaper in the country, failure for us carries far larger consequences,” she continued. “Our anonymity will be lost; there will be more people starting to examine who we are and how we go about our business. From there, it is only a matter of time before they find out about us and about Avalon. I fear it is a situation that neither we nor the rest of the world are ready to handle.”
“Well, wouldn’t that make going there the logical move, Brigid” she countered, slowly circling to his left. “Everyone’s so busy with the raids and the Chief of Staff’s penis that we are guaranteed exclusivity on whatever pops up from it. If I come back with nothing of use, we can sweep it under the rug and go about business as usual.”
Brigid stared at her eager underling for a couple of beats before finally sitting down on her high-end chair. “I sense that you are not going to stop pestering me until I say ‘yes,’ are you,” Amanda shook his head. “Alright, you can go,” Brigid sighed. “But you are going to have someone there with you.”
Amanda grinned. “Fair enough. What about Ghede,” she asked. “She’s good in tight spaces. Would be pretty handy when it comes to slipping through doors and handling their security system.”
“I cannot spare Ghede at the moment. She is out covering the Chief of Staff scandal.”
“No shit,” Amanda sounded slightly surprised upon hearing it. “Sex scandals don’t seem like her cup of tea.”
“That is true,” Brigid chuckled. “But the level of humiliation the politician faces for some reason makes the experience more palatable to her.”
Amanda chuckled at the idea. “Okay, uh, Jar’Ed then,” she remarked. “A psychic genius could come in handy going up against a worker or some type of security mug to stop us cold.”
Brigid shook her head no as a vibration could be heard beneath her desk. She stood and placed her purse on top of the desk. “Alright, I’ll go with Chabe,” Amanda relented after a few seconds of silence. “Unless you want to be my backup.”
“Chabe is fine.” Brigid pulled her phone out of her purse. She looked at the screen briefly before walking over to the metal barrel. “I have to go. I have some business to attend to.”
Amanda stepped in her way, puzzled by the vague statement. “What kind of business?”
“Just business,” she replied dismissively as her phone quickly morphed into her sword.
At the same time, the barrel was engulfed in a pool of white light that covered the small patch of floor. A few seconds later, the light dissipated revealing the same armor Amanda had saw the moment she first saw her. Brigid holstered her sword picked up the two-piece armor, and strapped it to her impressive frame. All the same, she seemed to completely ignore Amanda’s presence as she left the room a split second later.
“What the hell?” Amanda took a few moments to contemplate what had happened before heading for Chabe’s office. She found the Bear god standing in front of her desk. Chabe was dressed in a trench coat that draped over his body, covering up his regular suit and tie. Lying on top of the desk was a big duffle bag filled to the brim with stuff.
“You going to stand there gawking,” Chabe bellowed, looping the duffle bag strap over his shoulder. “Or are we gonna get our arses over to Gerry Arthur?”
“How did you know about Gerry Arthur?” Amanda asked as Chabe forcefully moved towards her.
“Jar’Ed filled me in about your personal crusade before he left,” Chabe replied, slapping the young woman once on the shoulder as he walked past her. “It’s pretty hard to fool a psychic!”
“Where is Jar’Ed anyway?” Amanda asked, following Chabe. “I haven’t seen him all day.”
Chabe stopped a foot away from the front door, pondering the question with his big hand gripping the knob. “That is a very good question, comrade. The last time I spoke with him he told me that he was doing some top secret assignment for Brigid.”
***
“What the hell happened?” Jar’Ed thought as he woke up woozily. The last thing he remembered he was sitting in a hotel room attempting to hack into government databases for any information of tests the government may have run on the Bluetannia, or how it intended to be distributed to the masses. All of a sudden, the door slammed open and in stepped large men dressed in body armor. They proceeded to spend the next minute and a half smashing the entire room up, including the computer itself. He tried his best to stand up to them, but one of them had knocked him out by a fairly powerful Taser. Before he passed out, the other had stepped forward with a syringe.
Jar’Ed looked around the room, hoping to find any sliver of a hint that would tell him where he was. He eventually surmised that he was being held in a dark, windowless room somewhere. Possibly a basement, he thought, or a rundown tenement house in south London. He sensed that his mind was not as sharp and clear as usual. The feeling was unique.
“Where—am I?” Jar’Ed bellowed out weakly as he tried to break free from the handcuffs that bound him.
“That is not of your concern anymore!” An unseen voice replied from within the darkness.
The small room was suddenly bathed in yellow light emanating from the iron lamp dangling above, revealing an image standing in the door arch a long away from him. He focused on the stranger, trying to discern details, but he couldn’t get a substantial fix. Even as it approached Jar’Ed could not affix any facial or body characteristics to it.
“You like the concoction I made you, Jay?” another voice called out as the image stopped ten feet away. The new voice appeared to come from the left side of the room, shrouded in darkness. “It's a lovely mix of Gentian, some Cerrato, and a little sprig of Mimulus and Rock Rose for some additional spice. And a few berries for taste.”
The image resumed advancing toward, moving closer toward Jar’Ed. At last, he could make out what this figure looked like: long dark hair and a rugged young face like that of a warrior. An armored chest plate shown from beneath a coat made from the fur of a bear. Even with his mind in its fogged state, there was only one person he knew who matched this description.
“Lugh…”
“It should be enough to keep you in a suitable haze,” he said, walking towards him. “But not so much that you end up a big pile of Kraken refuse. Now, we wouldn’t that, would we?”
Jar’Ed shook his head, trying to clear it. “How—How are you...”
“How am I here and at Downing Street at the same time,” Lugh grinned, walking to the side of his chair. “That is an excellent question, Jay. One man existing in two separate places. It is as if it were, how you say—”
“Magic,” the voice in the darkness uttered once again, stepping in to the light and standing next to Lugh. Jar’Ed squinted for a moment, noticing the incredible similarity between the two of them. It took a couple of seconds before he realized the truth. “You...you are…”
“That’s right, my ever intelligent friend,” Lugh One said with a great smile, walking back towards his copycat. “Doppelgangers. Physical manifestations of the original to take care of tasks the cockroaches need not to see. The two of us specifically though were created to capture you for one distinct purpose.”
“What purpose…is that?” Jar’Ed asked.
“We are looking to procure some information,” Lugh Two replied, cracking his knuckles. “Information that the original would find most beneficial.”
“What kind of information?”
Lugh Two balled his fist and moved menacingly towards Jar’Ed as Lugh One stepped back to watch. “What do you know about the grand plan?” Lugh Two asked, stopping inches from him.
Jar’Ed slowly lifted his head to meet his captor’s gaze. “I fail to see what grand plan you are talking about. Maybe you are referring to the Sumerian—”
Lugh Two growled at the non-answer and socked Jar’Ed with a vicious right hook, sending his head whipping to the left. It was followed by a left hook which sent his head spiraling in the opposite direction. Blood spurted from Jar’Ed’s mouth and nose. The doppelganger rubbed his fist and walked back to where Lugh One stood.
“You know precisely what we are talking about, Jar’Ed.” Lugh One stepped forward and stopped a foot from Jar’Ed. He looked directly at the deity’s bruised and bloodied face. “The original saw your friend Ghede in Valencia. Charon saw a group of ogres spying on the advance team in Colchester. These are not the actions of an organization that knows very little.”
The doppelganger went down on one knee, lifting Jar’Ed’s bloodied head as he leaned his face in closer. A growl formed in the back of his throat. “Now, tell me what exactly that little ghost told you and your bloody friends!”
“She said…”Jar’Ed smiled with blood running down his cheek. “That the original punches like a baby dingo!”
Lugh One slid his hand away from Jar’Ed’s chin, letting it droop. The doppelganger then delivered a bicycle kick, which lifted the deity and the chair a foot off the ground before crashing on the concrete back first. He walked back over toward Lugh Two. “Have at him!” he whispered, patting him hard on the back.
Lugh Two propped the chair and his captive upright. The room echoed a second later with the sounds of bruising fists smashing many bones on Jar’Ed’s face that rang throughout the small room for minutes on end. There were periods he would pause, hoping that would be the moment the deity would relent and spill all the secrets inside him. But all he gave Lugh Two were workplace anecdotes and the lyrics to Australian folk songs.
He resumed the barrage of uppercuts and jabs, continuing on for another forty five minutes. It reached a point that Lugh Two’s knuckles became red and bruised by the whole exercise. Jar’Ed woozily watched his assailant walk away through bloodied, bruised eyes and flashed a chipped smile.
“There is no purer victory than a moral one,” he boasted, spitting some blood out.
Lugh One patted his cohort on the back before making his way back to his captive. “Why do you continue to resist,” he uttered a minute later standing above his captor. “This filthy planet needs to be cleansed so that humans can make their ascension to the peaks. You of all people should know that!”
“This isn’t a holy act, you daft bastard. It’s murder,” Jar’Ed paused as the scars and bruises around his face began to heal. “I have faith that they can and will be better.”
Lugh One’s laugh was echoed by Lugh Two. “I used to believe the same thing. I thought these humans could resolve their faults and petty bickering by themselves without the need for destruction. Then I realized that hope and faith are useless in the hands of brainless apes!”
“I hate to break it to you, mate,” Jar’Ed uttered, coughing a small amount of blood. “But the plan Charon and the ‘original’ have will never succeed. You will be back in the chains of the Neamhchinneacht before this month is through.”
“And how do you surmise that,” Lugh One snorted back. “Given the precarious position you find yourself in.”
Jar’Ed smiled. “Call it an educated hunch.”
The jovial mood on Lugh One’s face faded away, replaced by one of a cold business-like nature as he moved closer to Jar’Ed. “Well then, I guess we must go to Plan B.”
The light above them was shut off a few moments later. All that could be seen were shadows and the sounds of pained screams.
***
Back inside the halls of Downing Street, the staff was pulled in a dozen different directions doing a dozen different things. There were people from the Home office putting together the department's budgetary outline for FY 2013 into one dossier. A small group of workers in the Press office were typing up parts of the six-hundred word statement decrying both the protesters who had initiated the riot and the G4S for their ‘reckless behavior.’ There was an administrative assistant from the Home office phoning the Mayor’s Office to ask for help in handling “Left Wing Labor” types who had taken to the streets en masse throughout London in support of the people arrested at St. Thomas’ Church.
The only one who appeared calm was Lugh as he walked through the halls with a beaming smile on his face. He was carrying what little stuff he had from his previous office in a box beneath his arm. He could hear the jealous whispers that spilled from the mouths of veteran workers cursing him from their gray cubicles as he passed them on his way to the lift.
Ever since that day with Charon in the Masonry, as he slid the folder of evidence against Mr. Arnold toward him, Lugh knew that this would be the logical result. All it took was one anonymous tip he delivered to the desk of a hard on his luck reporter at the Independent and the rest fell into place. Lugh though admitted that the effects came quicker than he could ever have projected.
“What will happen if Mr. Arnold does not resign,” Lugh remembered asking Charon that day as he went over the documents. “Or if the Prime Minister chooses someone else as his successor?”
“Don’t worry, Arnold will exit,” Charon had replied. “I’ll make sure of that.”
Back inside 10 Downing Street, Lugh made his way out of the lift onto the floor of the executive staff. He walked past the beige walls bearing portraits of deceased Prime Ministers, arriving a few minutes later at what would soon be his new office as Chief of Staff. A janitor was scratching out the remaining letters of his predecessor’s name from the glass exterior of the office door. Only a few spare vowels remained on the pane before it would fade completely from view.
He slipped past the worker to find the deposed Mr. Arnold standing near his desk, placing the last of his personal effects into a large carton. He looked up contemptuously as Lugh arrived.
“Mr. Pearson…” Ryan snarled, dropping his faux gold nameplate into the cardboard container.
“Mr. Arnold…” Lugh replied with a sly smile.
The two men stared each other down for a couple of seconds, separated in the room by six feet and a wooden chair. Lugh sensed that Mr. Arnold might try to punch him very soon. Mr. Arnold walked over to Lugh. Instead of punching him though, he extended his hand in friendship.
“Good luck to you,” he said to Lugh. His words sounded cordial, but his eyes shot fiery daggers.
Lugh looked at Mr. Arnold’s slightly pale and wrinkled hand for any signs of a hidden agenda as their hands shook. “Thank you, that is quite big of you.”
The two briefly shook hands. Suddenly, Mr. Arnold gripped Lugh’s hand and pulled him closer, causing Lugh to drop his box of stuff on the ground. “I will be watching very closely, son,” he whispered in Lugh’s ear threateningly. “If you screw up. If there’s even the slightest gaffe that comes spilling out of your mouth...I will come back like a fucking Phoenix and end your political present and future in a heartbeat!”
Mr. Arnold pushed Lugh away roughly, causing him to stumble. He then grabbed his carton and stomped out of the room, roughly bumping into the man working in the doorway.
Lugh picked up his small container and placed it gently on the desktop. He then took a seat in the comfortable leather chair. He could hear the janitorial worker continuing his work, carving off the last vestiges of the old regime from the office space. He settled back into the fine brown leather, reveling in the sound when the phone rang. He picked up the receiver on the second ring. “Yes?”
“You have a meeting with the PM at half past three, sir,” the receptionist reported in a Bristol dialect.
“Thank you.” He hung up and turned his attention to the assortment of papers and folders that Mr. Arnold had left, one of which caught his attention. It was something from an independent engineer from Oxford.
The scientist in charge was a specialist in physics and alternative energy who, through a FOIA request, had conducted an independent replication of the Tuning Fork’s delivery mechanism. The results were published in a dense academic journal that few people outside of faculty members and colleagues would read or know have existed. The last sentence of the paper read:
“The technology, although impressive, is not ready for primetime. If the delivery process is ever interrupted before the Bluetannia reaches its intended destination, there is a 99.9% chance of catastrophe.”
Lugh smiled widely and closed the folder shut. He leaned back in his chair. Life is good, he thought, and soon to get better.