Why You’re Where I’m Not.
“My mind has made itself up..”
The power went out….
Victoria, London, 15:37 GMT,
The struggle in the activity of the struggling man in the room rendered the cold outside impotent.
He struggled as he pressed into his bullet wound with one hand, and kept punching keys on his MacBook with another.
Those moments — he was told — were usually the most delightful of all life moments. He was now to say, ‘Indeed, they’re,’ to it.
He looked up at the clock,
’18:30! Shite! He has to be there by tonight, if not, a country would die in vain.’
As the computer made a computerised beep to signal the completion of the task it were asked to perform, he lay there on the ground, now breathing from his multiple gunshot wounds.
He had minutes — which would soon become seconds — and he gave in to his cannibal, human instincts. He picked up his phone, and started dialing the number, as he recalled it.
The iPhone never promised screen protection against RBCs, WBCs and Patellate, but it was holding low to its long dead creator’s now dead reputation.
The ring was long, mundane and mechanical.
“Hello?” The answer came in like a burst of anxiety.
The moment he heard the voice, both the human and the human made machine gave in.
“It’s happening….”
Had said he.
Zermatt, Switzerland, 19:45 GMT.
Jules Mathis Jeanòé looked up at his Apple made machine. He had enough time to admire the State-of-the-art machine, but his mind wouldn’t let him. What was pressing him, he knew, should do more than just press him to focus.
Jules’ eyes were now red — a result of having slept seven hours in as many days.
Jules knew the pain would soon subside. The biggest subsidiary would no longer be a playing field, and he’ll be the Noah to his family and their castle.
As Jules kept bouncing in his bumpy thought lane, his MacBook’ s screen materialised, he screamed in unknown joy, as he read the sender address.
“It is on…”
Jules soon pulled out his phone, and started analysing the probability. He smiled as the application returned a single digit value.
Jules looked up to the roof, it was starting to kill itself, unable to bare the frost.
As he started punching text into the text space, his mind sent out a strong pulse — he froze. A split second later, he caught himself mocking his own idiocy.
‘This is an open network, it has to be monitored,’ he said to the cold outside, as he started punching in character after character.
‘The fate of The Great Britain now depends on you, Mr Phil Zimmermann; hope you let them down.’
Jules Mathis Jeanòé smiled a encapsulated smile, as he threw his Mac into the mantle.
Jules got up to fetch himself a bottle of Vodka, he knew, the time to celebrate had begun.
1290 meters from Jules Mathis Jeanòé’s igloo, PoleShark coughed snow. His eyes lit down as his Night Vision registered activity. Sipping his not — from-Starbucks-yet-buckishly-better coffee, he let his finger slip on the trigger.
1290 meters from the hot Espressos, Jules Mathis Jeanòé turned to past tense.
River House, London. 18:32 GMT
On the eighteenth floor of the World’s most technically advanced agency, was Abil Rachel Johnson, the MI 6’s Data Scientist.
Abil was that light of reason that shone on everyone, when all the agency had for employees were nincompoops.
But, tonight, Ms Johnson had other issues to occupy her vanity; an e-mail conversation had caught Ms Johnson’s eye, and the see — all Johnson, could smell mice.
‘Ashton,’ she screamed, the moment the bored intern answered the intercom, ‘connect me to Hill. NOW. Tell him Abil R Johnson has potential ISIS attack in her laundry.’
The intern seemed all to excited about this ISIS fandango, and without batting a ball, intervened the British Intelligence Office’s most unintelligent officer — their VP.
‘Ashton?’ The manly effeminate voice gasped.
‘It is Ms Abil R Johnson. Says potential ISIS in the kitchen sink.’
‘On my way,’ the voice smelled of desire, before it turned into a mechanical cacophony.
Vice President Luis Hill was a short, plump structure, with an unfortunate bonus of bones. He had tar for skin, and was a proud, black British-man.
As Hill feline-ly moved up to Johnson’s workstation, he kept wiping his forehead.
‘I’ve heard you’ve had intercepted something, Rach?’
‘No one’s addressed me by that name in a very long time, Hill; I’m glad some habits live to die old. And, yes. I’ve.’
‘What keeps you from sharing it? Are you not a hundred percent on this one?’
‘I’m ten times a hundred percent, Hill; but here, come, take a look,’ she pointed to her outdated junk that passed off as a computer system.
‘Elijah Jenson Beckett!!!!!’ Hill let his foul stench pervade the conditioned air of the room.
‘Yes. Europe’s most sought after man. If this piece of flesh goes, with him goes the whole nation, and a piece of lead filled up with gun powder.’
‘Can you think of any possible reason?
Or, no, are you telling me that they know who Elijah is?’ Hill’s stature now straightened.
‘I doubt it, highly,’ Johnson said in a flash.
‘No one knows that this UCL drop out cracks encryption for the MI-6. NO one I know of does.’ Hill knew something unpleasantly unpleasant was coming.
‘But..?’
‘I’m not saying….but Mr Beckett may or may not have gone out on a date.’
‘God Fucking Damnit!’
‘You need to call the Palace. MI 6 may have been compromised.’
‘Johnson, you are our best — the most sagacious of the flock, save that dumb smartarse.’
‘In times of turmoil, turbulence, tenacious tantrums are to be trailed,’ Johnson, pulled out her PDA as she smiled at her wile.
Still fathoming the unnecessary, Hill left the room, paging the Agents to hunt down Elijah Jenson Beckett.
Bordeaux, France. 19:10 GMT
Elijah Jenson peered out of his Ceased Suite.
The French slut in the raunchy robe was his only recreation, and the man in him wanted him to tear her apart.
Elijah kept staring at the slowly appearing stars, as his mother spoke to him in an unknown form.
His pale blue eyes were now rebelling to be kept from working. Elijah had straws for fingers, and his coiffure was now an natural bun that could cage any virus in the world.
‘Venez ici, mon amour,’ the mouth spoke from behind the breasts.
Elijah turned around to find his ‘surprise’ moaning in undesirable pleasure.
‘Je vous ai dit, vous êtes libre de quitter,’ Elijah said, as he turned down her plea to be with her.
‘Mais pourquoi?’ she rose from her arousal.
‘This is supposed to be my ‘Me’ time? I’ve seen the open sky for the first time in seventeen months; can you just let me be?
Drink. Eat. Sleep. Leave. That’s all you’ve had to D’accord to.’
The women he didn’t desire felt the disappointment in her lust, and she slipped into what seemed like clothes, and disappeared into the light.
Elijah looked at his fitness band; he had run for seven miles in the last seven hours. He knew the band was right in being wrong. He had run seven miles in just 7 minutes.
Elijah kept asking himself if he should call Hill, or maybe Abil. He knew he had to. He just didn’t want to.
River House, London. 20:40 GMT.
‘Abil, the House says you have a ‘Go fuck them all’,’ Hill screamed as soon as the elevator door opened.
Johnson waited to see her boss be his usual self. She had worked in this abattoir long enough to know how it takes a only fart for the Boss to turn on their employee’s. Johnson really had nothing to lose, but a life that was saving a million lives, was about to be lost, and Abil Johnson was in no mood to let that happen.
‘Not on my watch,’
She told herself.
As Hill settled in a chair, that, if could grow a voice of its own, would bark at him for not suffocating her wooden soul with his corpulent arse.
He was watching Johnson closely. He needed this time.
Abil, being Abil, pulled herself into the lavatory. Out came the gloss, the mascara, the products that made God look like a really good architect.
In a matter of seconds, Abil Rachel Johnson, in all her natural beauty, slipped into her work ballerinas.
‘Get Frey and Cook on. I can only trust them,’ she gestured to Hill.
‘What?’ He asked.
‘Get me Frey and Cook. Now.’
‘Hill pulled out his PDA, and the workstation turned red.’
For the first time in seven years, the English city folklore had seen the River House burn in a red flame. People driving back home, on the Piccadilly road, knew it was James Bond time.
Though the aura kept the folk common, the men that mattered were where they needed to be.
‘Where’s Beckett?’ Hill asked.
‘Bordeaux, France.’ Abil said, as she scrutinised the e-mails at her station.
As the boss and his better unlucky soul kept up with time, two MI6 agents walked in.
‘Simon Fry? Guy Cook?’ Johnson asked.
‘Johnson! What pleasure,’ said both, in unison, of course!
‘Save the pleasantries for the soul you have to save, Chimps; this guy’s name is burning with a fire red, and we have to pull him out of the sea before the flame turns blue.’
‘Who’s he?’
Simon asked.
‘Fuck the details. Save that fucker.’
‘Details?’ The chef’s mistaken — to-be-a-synonym asked.
‘Reach Bordeaux, you’ll have everything. Bird flies in the time you take to shit, germs; off you go.’ Abil was starting to have thoughts. Not thoughts, not second, but ghastly thoughts.
Bordeaux, France. 21:30 GMT.
Elijah had now run into the opening of the Place de la Bourse. He sure was not supposed to here. He knew it. But the people chasing him certainly did not. Elijah wondered if Agne-Jaqcus Gabriel had thought of a secret ‘hide-way’ for foreign computer hackers, when designing the massive design, way back in 1730.
His now networking mind told him he hadn’t. Elijah kept running. The yellow BMW was now lost in the lumina of the city. A fire burned inside him. Elijah wanted to pull out his PDA and dial ‘6789’, in which case, he’d be back in Victoria, even before the yellow BMW could reach the Place de la Bourse.
But he didn’t. Elijah stopped in a rush. The Three Graces kept spilling out water the way Indian vehicle drivers spill abuses at the local policemen.
‘Fuck it! Like it isn’t already fucked up!’
Elijah pulled out his ‘personal’ phone and dialled a number.
A machine returned,
‘Pas de connection.’
‘Now, of all times? Where on Earth are you Jules?’ Elijah burnt fifty calories as he cursed under his panting.
He was shaken off his senses as he heard wheels roar. He turned his head half, to see a Yellow BMW make limping towards him.
‘Impatient Fools!’
Elijah cursed, as he ran into an opening.
River House, London. 22:17 GMT.
‘Why the fuck have Fry and Cook not called, yet?’ Abil scowled to herself.
Hill came running into the room he had left.
‘John…son… your agents, they are gone. The bird never made it out of London.’
‘Get me my fucking bag, Hill.’ Johnson started storming out of the room.
‘Where to, Johnson?’ Hill asked.
Even before Hill could turn around, Johnson had been long gone.
Tour Pey Berland, Bordeaux, France. 22:37 GMT.
The ancient Gothic Bell Tower was now a place for trysts. Elijah’s kidnappers knew that. Even before they could get Elijah to the Tower, they had to shell out 1300 Euros to get the suits and the boots and the whores to leave the Tower.
Elijah was now starting to feel the combustible oil pour down his esophagus.
Elijah was a computer graduate from UCL even before the course could finish. He knew better than most people when their time was up.
It took every bit of strength he had stores in his stack of a body to open his eyes, and when he mustered it to, all he could see was masks and men.
‘Sorry about Jules, El; I had to get rid of him. He had known far too much. I’m glad you didn’t carry your MacBook to your vacation.’
Elijah tried asking, ‘What do you mean?’, but ended up saying,
‘Wh………aT?’
‘Oh, poor you. Now, you see, you might be the world’s best computer hacker, but I’ve led the world’s most intelligent; and fooled them since long before you were born.’
Elijah wanted to say a lot, but the combustible oil was now starting to combust. Inside Elijah.
The voice was now starting to get clearer.
‘No time. Rapidement….’
Elijah was now starting to think. His mind was no more running calls back and forth.
‘Wait a minute,’
he thought to himself,
….is this…?
‘Time to go, El. Au Revoir,’ the voice said.
‘Luis Hill?’
‘Ah, well. You took your time, now. Haven’t you?’
‘Why, you rodent worm?’
‘It is most unfortunate, Beckett, that the Queen never paid me whatever I deserved.’
‘And you sell out your country?’
‘Obviously.’
‘Where is Jules?’
‘Oh, he had learnt a lot about me; piece of dirt even sent you all the information he had collected on me. It was sad, but taking him out only added to my retirement amount. I couldn’t risk being a man with all name and no balance, now.’
Elijah could feel his spirit burning. He saw an alpine whispering to Hill.
Hill turned around, raises his cap, and said,
‘Was a pleasure working with you, young man; I promise I’ll have my men collect your ashes and give you a proper funeral…..’
Elijah thought he heard a gunshot.
Like clouds fighting the Sun, he fought with all his soul, to look up and find Abil Rachel Johnson walking towards with a Ceska Zbrojovka CZ2000 in hand.
Johnson had Hill and his men running for cover.
Elijah tried to untie himself, and as he made an attempt, he heard Johnson scream,
‘Stay Put! I’m coming for you.’
‘What’s all of this Abe?’
Johnson screamed as her assault rifle was proving to be quite an assassin,
‘Will explain on the way back home.’
Elijah could feel the combustion. As he tried lifting himself from his ambient misery, his phone chimed, and the vibration caused him the phone to fall off his pocket.
“My mind has made itself up….
Hill is a snitch. He’s been committing treason. Grant gave his life to send me this, and I’m sending it to you now, El. If you cannot do anything, Abil Rachael Johnson is next. Fuck the Lord, Elijah, save the Queen.
Regards,
Jules.”
Elijah could read the e-mail…
As Johnson ran towards him, a flame sparked in the farthest proximity of Elijah Jenson Beckett’s vision.
In the next ten seconds, The French Police were answering to calls of there being a fire rising in the Tour Pey Berland.
To,
Joshly Mary Johnson –
Di, it took JC three days to bring Lazarus back from the dead; if I had to choose between white robes and you, to save me from choking on the noose my neck’s in, I wouldn’t flip a coin to turn Him down.