Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
June 2nd, 2012: Ghede watched from the cheering crowd in front of a pub as the Prime Minister’s convoy passed through Colchester. Her mind rushed with the realization that this would be the final day she’d have on this planet. It was a sobering feeling. But she had her orders from Brigid: “When the opportunity presents itself at Gerry Arthur,” she told her the night before. “Stop them.” As she had many times before, Ghede was ready to follow orders.
Lugh One sat in the lead car next to Charon, looking out at the bustling city and the same cheering crowd. It was a scene that had become commonplace for the two deities the past seventy-two hours. The doppelganger’s mind raced with the same questions of the future that Ghede had.
“The day has finally arrived,” the doppelganger smiled. “Where centuries of thought and labor bear glorious fruition.”
“With a sizable amount of help from the Underworld,” Charon added with a grin.
The two supernatural beings shared a chuckle. Charon leaned back in his car seat and returned to the visual outside. “Speaking of reminders, don’t forget the deal you and your original struck,” he warned. “In exchange for his paradise on this lump of rock, I get sole control of the Underworld.”
“The original will follow the deal once the deed is done,” said Lugh One. “We are very much men of our word.”
***
The original Lugh rose from bed inside his London flat as the Prime Minister traveled on to Gerry Arthur in the lead car. He calmly walked over in a white shirt and boxers to his closet, picking out a shirt and pants to wear. As he pulled each article on, Lugh glanced at the steel suitcase and smiled. “The hour draws preciously nigh.”
After buttoning his shirt, Lugh was suddenly felled by a strong migraine. At the same moment, in Colchester, his doppelganger was struck with the same affliction. They both screamed, clutching the center of their forehead. The other occupants of the Prime Minister’s auto reacted with alarm but, as quickly as the ailment hit, it subsided. Lugh One woozily looked up at the roof, rubbing his forehead.
“Are you alright?” Charon asked.
The doppelganger nodded, straightening himself back in his seat. “A minor interruption. Nothing to be concerned about.”
The convoy arrived at the front gate of Gerry Arthur at eleven, stopping at the newly rebuilt security outpost. The security guard stepped out and approached the front car. The guard and the SPS officer driving the car chatted for a couple of minutes as the guard looked over the identification. The guard handed it back to the driver and signaled for the convoy to proceed.
Charon and Lugh One looked out at the cheering crowd that was gathered there. Some of the people started to run toward the Prime Minister’s car, looking to see the man inside as the vehicle came to a stop. They held banners and shouted positive exclamations to the man who “brought the swagger back to Britain.”
Charon stepped out of the car and was mobbed by the crowd as he made his way to the platform. Lugh One followed with the rest of the staff, trying to catch up to their boss. As he had in the other two cities, Charon greeted each person with a smile and a handshake. The speakers on each side of the stage played “God Save The Queen” as he finally arrived on the stage. Near the podium stood George in a navy blue dress suit with a Union Jack pin on her lapel.
“Welcome to Gerry Arthur, Mr. Prime Minister,” she said, smiling, as flashbulbs bombarded them. “We are glad to welcome you here.”
“Thank you, Ms. Koetter,” said Charon with a camera-friendly smile. “I have heard many good things about this facility.” He shook her hand.
“I hope we can live up to the reputation.” George remarked, releasing his hand. As Charon approached the podium, Lugh One offered her a handshake. The doppelganger leaned in close to George.
“Nice touch with the security,” he said. “I wonder if it’s lightning proof.”
George pushed him off, keeping hold of his hand as she smiled for the cameras. “I can’t wait till Karma bites you in the arse, you silly twat,” she hissed.
“I’m afraid it will be a very long wait!” Lugh One grinned. The two of them separated to take their seats next to each other behind the podium.
***
Ghede watched from inside a nameless photog in the press pool as Charon began his speech. She had mentally planned out what to do once Charon’s speech ended and the tour began, which involved bouncing from body to body until the crowd reached the Tuning Fork. When she believed Charon, or someone else, would turn the machine on, she would reveal herself and stop them. If she was unsuccessful, Brigid told her, there was plan B. A little incantation Ghede had given her years ago in a dire situation not unlike today.
***
“The Chélie,” said Brigid, seated inside her office at the Guardian’s temporary office, showing Amanda a scroll that rested vertically on the desktop.
Amanda stood from her chair and leaned forward, picking up the scroll. She sat down and looked at the object from every possible angle as the speech played on TV. “What does it do?”
“From what I remember, it realigns the world to its natural structure,” the gaelic goddess replied, standing up. “Flushing out any foreign entity to a separate pocket dimension.”
“What if it flushes you out to this separate dimension? Or me for that matter,” Amanda placed the scroll down on the desk. “Technically, in the ‘natural order’ of things, we’re both foreign entities.”
“I have no idea, Ms. Duncan,” Brigid slipped her purse over her arm. “The spell has only been used to alter a single person’s timeline. It has never been used to hold together the whole of reality.”
“Groovy,” she groaned.
As Brigid began to walk out, her phone started to vibrate. She stopped and pulled it out after the third ring. “Yes?”
Amanda leaned forward in his chair, trying to discern Brigid’s conversation. A short while later, she hung up the phone and calmly placed it back in her purse.
“Who was that?” Amanda asked, standing up.
“Just some well-timed advice from a friend,” she replied, opening the door. “I will tell you all about it in the car.”
***
Ghede looked on from within the press pool as it converged toward the complex’s main Bluetannia mine. She inhabited one photographer then another as they moved through each floor in the office. They reached George’s top floor office an hour later where George positioned herself in front of the windows overlooking the parking lot and smiled for the cameras. “Now with that taken care of,” she said to the sixty people gathered. “Let’s move on to our crown jewel: the Tuning Fork.”
She led the crowd out to the lifts nearby which would lead them back down. The large group of visitors split into two groups, boarding each individual lift. Ghede followed Lugh and Charon into their lift. She pulled out her Molltach and typed a text message as the metal doors closed.
“She is in,” said Brigid upon reading the text as she and Amanda moved through the Bullpen. “You remember the plan?”
Amanda nodded. “Keep Lugh distracted enough for Ghed to do her thing. And if need be, stop him before you do your thing.”
“Are you ready for what that might entail, my friend?”
Amanda glanced at one of the TVs showing the members of the press and distinguished guests boarding the hovercrafts. “Ready as I’ll probably ever be,” she replied.
***
The original Lugh stood in his Flat, watching as the BBC cameras showed the pipeline of Bluetannia that slowly came into view. He grabbed the suitcase off the couch and stepped out. As he walked along the narrow hallway to the lifts, some of his neighbors emerging from their flats turned their heads watching the important bureaucrat pass by.
Lugh stepped out of the building entrance. He took a deep breath and sighed pleasantly. He looked up at the cloudy early morning skies and started to cross the street to the Café de Paris, whistling an Irish tune. As he reached the concrete stoop, he was struck by another migraine. This one was stronger than the first. It also felt to him as if the affliction had somehow moved.
He growled and stumbled around the sidewalk a couple of steps. A group of onlookers started to gather around where he stood, trying to see what was happening. A few moments later, the migraine subsided. Lugh stood back up and met the group’s collective gaze.
“Sorry about the theatrics, folks,” said Lugh. “It was just a little bit of a migraine.”
The onlookers shrugged and dispersed quickly. As Lugh took his first step on the stoop that led to the entrance doors, one question crossed his mind: What’s happening to me?
***
Meanwhile, as the Prime Minister’s hovercraft descended to Gerry Arthur’s main mine, the same question crossed the doppelganger’s mind as he struggled to come to grips with his own migraine. The others seated next to him looked on with concern, including Charon, as they unbuckled from their seats.
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Charon asked, standing up.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Lugh One replied with annoyance as he unbuckled from his seat and stepped out. He calmly walked over to the rest of the group as they made their way to the derrick-like structure. “This is a minor setback, nothing more.”
Charon shook his head. He joined George and some of the Prime Minister’s staff as they moved toward the complex. Ghede emerged from the body of a reporter from the United States near the end of the line of hovercrafts and entered a reporter from Canada who was closer to Lugh and Charon. The two groups jelled back into one a short time later. They gathered around the metal doors, waiting to get in.
George typed the code into the security panel, and the door slid opened. She then led the group inside which hummed with activity and the bluish hue that shined upwards to the three pools of Bluetannia. “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, here she is,” she proclaimed. “Sweet Bluetannia!”
Some of the cameramen tried to step close enough to get a close-up shot of ones of the pools. They were quickly pushed back toward the large group by other researchers. “Ms. Koetter, how is it refined for daily use,” an ITV reporter asked. “Or does it already come that way?”
“An excellent question, Robert.” George turned toward the reporter. “The refining process involves a variety of chemicals introduced in to the pools, which help to control the energy output so that it can be used in our nation’s power stations and automobiles.”
“What are the chemicals?” the reporter asked.
“I cannot tell you,” George replied. “State secret.”
“So how do you plan to deliver this all over Great Britain?” asked a Sky News reporter. “Or to the rest of the continent, once this thing takes off.”
George smiled. “That’s where the real technical brilliance comes into play.”
The cameramen panned around the complex’s interior as George led the assembled pool toward the mechanical lift. She was the first to board the lift, followed by Charon and Lugh. A group of ten reporters, one of which included Ghede, quickly gathered inside the lift in order to be the first to gain exclusivity. The rest watched with a degree of jealousy as it started to rise, musing with one another what George was referring to.
The front gate of the lift opened a few minutes later. At the end of a long metal walkway there was a computer panel. “This is the Tuning Fork,” George said matter-of-factly, leading the press across the walkway. “A complex, computer driven delivery system where fresh Bluetannia can be sent to any corner of the country and, in time, the world in a matter of seconds.”
Here’s my chance, Ghede thought as she watched the reporters fawn over the Fork. As she moved, she checked her watch to time her last twenty seconds perfectly. As the twentieth second passed, she emerged from her human host.
She floated above the crowd for a short time, looking for a new host closer to Lugh and Charon. A cameraman from the United States turned his head to the side when he heard a thud. He looked down and noticed the photographer’s unconscious body. He quickly looked up to see Ghede in ghost form.
“What...the Hell...is THAT?!” He screamed. The rest of the reporters looked up and screamed, heading back to the exit.
George bent over the edge of the railing and looked down. “Security!” she screamed to a nearby security guard.
Lugh One looked over at Charon as it all went on and nodded. The doppelganger walked toward Ghede as Charon approached the computer. “I was wondering when you would show up again, Ghede,” he grinned, pulling out his Molltach.
“I was hoping for the original,” Ghede quipped. She pulled out her Molltach, which transformed into a black steel sword. “But I guess you will do.”
The doppelganger’s Molltach turned a second later into the same sword of the original Lugh. He levitated off the metal walkway, hovering directly in front of Ghede. “Let’s end this now.”