Jonah and Mariko’s Beach House, Sisik Beach, Malaysian Geographic
Monday 6 January 2110, 7:13AM +8 UTC
I felt hopelessly out of my depth.
The sun climbing over the horizon seemed to be moving faster than usual, forcing its influence on the colors in front of me. The news over the weekend had shown me that I was outnumbered, outwitted and had little chance of success. The odds were stacked too high. How could I possibly convince people that a man sitting with the Secretary General of the United Nation could be a murderer and genocidal?
Although I had crafted Sir Thomas’s speech at the the UNPOL press conference, Sir Thomas had told me to include the Hawks name. That puzzled me at first. Why bring them into the spotlight? But then the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Pre-emptively naming the Hawks as the terrorists was a smart move. Now, if anyone claimed that the real Hawks were a small cadre of highly placed officials in positions of power, the claim would automatically be rejected as propaganda from the terrorists. The opinion polls focusing on the Tag Law told its own story. The number of those for adoption of the Tag had increased to over sixty-five percent. Gabriel’s image was everywhere. On every feed and broadcast Devscreen in every city around the Globe.
Where are you my brother? I sighed.
“Hey, why so solemn?”
I jumped and spilled my coffee on the railing of the deck. Mariko laughed.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Yes you did,” I said, smiling back at her and reaching out with my arm, pulling her in close to me. I put my mouth close to her ear.
“I don’t think we can stop them,” I whispered. Mariko pulled my head down and put her mouth next to my ear.
“Let’s go for a swim. Bring your Devstick,” she whispered. It was high tide and the underwater cave entrance would be hidden. I smiled at her and went inside to get my swimmers and the Devstick. When I came back out onto the deck, she was already stroking hard for the point off the headland where the cave was. I ran down the beach, putting the Devstick in a side pocket of my swimmers, running into the surf as far I could before diving in.
The tide was still coming in and I had to swim hard through a choppy swell. I didn’t hurt as much from the running now and my times had improved every day. I was thankful for the training — if I’d had to swim in this swell a week ago I would have been exhausted by now. About fifteen meters from the headland, I dived and swum down till my eardrums hurt with the pressure and then aimed for the mouth of the cave. I surfaced in the darkness and swam to the wall with the ledge where we had sat before, reaching out my hand, feeling for it in the dark.
My hand touched Mariko’s leg and I felt her grab my wrist and pull me up onto to the ledge. I skirted my bum over and got a firm seat, taking the Devstick out of my pocket. I opened it and folded it out onto the ledge in between us. The light from the screen of the Devstick lit the cave. Mariko was squeezing the water out of her black hair, twisting it into a thick rope that reached to her belly button. She turned to look at me.
I sat back a bit farther on the ledge. All the warmth that she had shown on the deck had gone from her eyes. She looked the same as when she’d come out of my Env in Woodlands that day when we’d left to come to Sisik. I scrambled to think who she could have argued with.
“Mark. You can stop this defeatist bullshit right now.”
I started to speak, but she sharply held up the palm of her hand right in front of my nose. “No, not yet. I am going to say this once and once only because we don’t have time for another one of these kinds of talks. I called you Mark because that is your real name. That is what your parents named you. Your brother has not been captured and so far he’s run rings around Sir Thomas and his friends. And now he needs your help. Our help. This was never going to be easy and it was always for high stakes. The minute you opened that file on your Devstick you accepted this role. Let’s run our conversation from this morning in a different way. Let’s start with the premise that defeat is not an option. Now what do you have to say?”
I looked at her, feeling pretty low about myself. I looked into her eyes. They held no compromise. There was no easy way out there. I sucked power from those big green eyes of hers. Sucked it in deep. Deep in my belly, down by the base of my spine, the feeling grew. I breathed out heavily and drank in deep the salt air of the cave.
“All right. Defeat is not an option. However, it appears to me that the chance of success in stopping the Tag has been greatly diminished.”
“Agreed. Now what are we going to do to counter that?”
“The only thing I can see possible is to somehow figure out a way to block the Tag Law legally, but I haven’t come up with the anything yet.”
“Have you been researching that online?” she spat out with a horrified look on her face.
“Yes, but it’s OK. I sort of cleared it with Sir Thomas when we played golf. At least if I get asked why I am researching the law I can say it is to help him.”
Mariko blew out her cheeks. “Sheesh, don’t do that to me, please. Tell me more about this game of golf. What happened when you talked about the Tag Law?”
“I can do better than that. I can show you.”
“You recorded it?”
“No, Call did.”
“Who’s Call?”
“Call was the Devcaddy that Sir Thomas rented for me when we played golf. They can record your game so that you can study it later for improvement. I just asked him to keep recording at all times. Here, look.” I flipped the screen of the Devstick over so that she wouldn’t have to view it upside down.
She watched intently as I talked with Sir Thomas, the two of us sitting at the drinks stand. We were suddenly treated to a close up of the back of the wall of the stand until Call had emerged from the other side and refocused on Sir Thomas and I. The image zoomed in on the two of us and the sound was clear. Mariko nodded at me and I hit pause.
“Who’s this Annika Bardsdale?”
“I saw her on a newsfeed sometime ago. She was arguing, not very successfully, against the Tag Law on a panel discussion.”
“So you don’t know her at all?”
“No.”
“Perhaps you should. How about this for a short-term plan? You get together with your uncle again, as soon as possible, on the memoir. You’ve planted the seed of Annika Bardsdale so use that. What if you tell him that you’re planning to offer your services to her and you wanted to prepare him for the inevitable media fallout that will cause?”
“Why would I do that? I’ve already told him that I’m for the Tag Law.”
“So that you can betray their efforts at the last moment. You show Sir Thomas that you’re capable of doing that and he might just invite you into the Hawks.”
“OK, so that gets me next to someone who wants to stop the Tag Law but cannot, and into the Hawks. The only action that I can think of so far to discredit Sir Thomas is to expose myself as Mark Zumar. Suppose I had an independent DNA analysis done and requested, under a court order, that Sir Thomas had the same done, to compare. Even allowing for the fact that might take up to two years to get through the courts. He could easily corrupt the process somehow.”
“Yes, but Sir Thomas is an evil man. No matter how clever he might be, that fact pervades and touches everything he does. The fact is that your birth is registered in a hospital and your DNA is registered at that hospital. Gabriel substantiated that.”
“But that’s all we have. The birth register in Byron Bay shows Mark Anthony Zumar on the 23rd of September 2075, and then there’s Sir Thomas’s registering of my birth in Glasgow which shows my birth as being registered on the 29th of October 2075, thirty-six days later. Then there’s my entire upbringing within the auspices of the Oliver Foundation. Wait a minute. That is one possible avenue. The Oliver Foundation. What if I’m not the only one? What if Sir Thomas has killed the parents of other children?”
Mariko pursed her lips together and nodded her head. “Go on.”
“The Oliver Foundation was started with me. I mean he founded it the year of my birth and the year of the death of my fictional parents, his brother and step-sister. But it has spread. They are on every continent except the Poles and in every major metropolis. What if there are other Jonahs? And what is he really doing with the Oliver Foundation? It’s for gifted children only, so doesn’t that define them as Hawks, or at least a breeding ground for potential Hawks. Hawks started with families right? Passing it down from one generation to the next, father to son and daughter. Sir Thomas has no family but he has the Oliver Foundation, right. What if he’s using children from there as his branch of the family?”
“Cochran was Oliver Foundation you know.”
“No. I didn’t know that. How do you know that?”
“Just SOE gossip. I was talking with a colleague about her being wounded in the bomb and he mentioned it.”
“I could visit the foundation under the guise of doing the memoir. I mean the home where I was raised, it was the first of the orphanages. I could dig around in my birth records and try to identify other ex-Oliverans.”
Mariko shook her head. “No it would take too long, and what if you do identify others like you? You have no way of knowing if they’re Hawks or not. Stick with Bardsdale. That seems like the best course of action for now.”
It made sense. We were running out of time and to try to convince others without knowing where their loyalties lay was too dangerous. At least if I got close enough to Bardsdale, it could lead me to being more trusted by Sir Thomas and hopefully induction into the Hawks. At least it was a direction to move forward in. I nodded.
“Agreed.”
“I’ll get closer to Cochran. You know I helped her the night of the bombing?”
I shook my head. I had no idea.
“I was the first team member to get to her. Patched her up. Anyway, I’ll also ask her to assign me as your personal bodyguard. In light of the bombing she might agree.”
“Be very careful, OK. She’s telepathic. When you’re with her, don’t think about anything other than what you want her to know. Best would be to think about impressing her and what a brave woman she is. What do you think about that? Was she seriously wounded?”
“No, minor wounds only and the rumor mill has it that a call to her Devstick from her partner Sunita Shido saved her life.”
“Do you think that was coincidence?”
“No, not for a sec. I think the whole thing was intricately planned, and perfectly timed, but it still takes a special kind of woman to walk into a bomb.”
“What about this Martine Shorne, the high-level UNPOL officer who is now on the Most Wanted list right under Gabriel? They’re saying she’s a high-level subversive, and used a booby-trapped Devstick as the bomb?”
“They found her prints on fragments of a Devstick. She’s disappeared and they’ve charged her with being absent from her post for now. Nothing more than that. She used to work with Flederson. The rumor is that he approved and supported her transfer from Large Commercial Crimes unit into Deep Trace. In there she’d have had access to everything. I suspect we just found out who our allies were.”
“You mean Shorne and Flederson?”
“Yes, but they’re no use to us now. One’s in a coma in deep regen. He’s a complete wreck of a human. Lost both legs, burst ear drums, collapsed lungs, ruptured intestines and over fifty fragment wounds. It’s amazing he’s still alive but he isn’t going anywhere for at least a year. Shorne has gone to ground. No sign. Her team were questioned and one of my guys was the guard. They haven’t got a clue what’s going on. Of course it’s possible that she’s already dead.”
I looked down into the dark of the pool. My reflection shimmered in the water. Mariko’s danced and twisted beside mine, the light of the Devstick between us a wavy shaft of white.
“There’s something else that we haven’t explored, but I can’t think of a way to do it without arousing suspicion.”
“What?”
“Bo Vinh and my father had friends. They must have. Some of those friends may still be alive. Sir Thomas couldn’t have killed them all.”
“Yes, and?”
“Well, we might find support there, that’s all. Some of those friends may be in positions of influence and power. Considering the two men, we could say that it is likely that their friends would be their peers and as such share their sentiments. If we could find out who they were, they may be willing to help us.”
“Have you started work on it yet?”
“What?”
“The memoir. I mean he’s going to ask to see what you’ve done at some point.”
“You’re right. No, I haven’t, but he hasn’t put a timeframe on it yet either.”
“Why don’t you suggest one — the Tag Law, March the 15th. What more suitable date to gain maximum exposure for his memoirs could there be than that. But if you suggest such an early date then you’ll need to convince him you’re making rapid progress. How many words is a memoir?”
“Varies but commonly between eighty and one hundred thousand.”
“That’s a lot of words to put together in a short time.”
“Yes it is. Moving up the timeframe is a good idea though. It’ll make my immediately poking around his past more acceptable if we’re on a tight timeline. Give me more freedom to move. I’ll just have to get on with it and start drafting the memoir. Show that to Sir Thomas and hope he sees the need for me to go and see the first orphanage.”
“That’s our plan then. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Mariko held a clenched fist out in front of me. I put my lips to her fist and kissed it softly.
“Not like that. You’re supposed to thump the top of it with your fist. It’s what we do in SOE each time before we go into action.”
“Oh please, I prefer my way. Yours is just a bit too rah rah for me.”
“Rah rah. All right, have it your own way but out there you’re going to need clenched fist not soft kiss. OK?” She fixed me with a stern look made hard by the harsh light and softened by the smile stalking around the corners of her mouth.
“Yes ma’am.”
I looked at the time on Devscreen. It was 10:30am. Since coming back from our swim, I’d worked steadily on the outline and had what I thought was a passable concept. As I’d discussed with Sir Thomas, I planned to tie his life into the most significant major global events that had shaped it. Or perhaps that he had shaped? A quick search online of EarthLog, the major online database of factual events, gave me a list of the major events that had occurred in the last seventy-five years. 2035 to the present day. I noticed there was already an entry for the bombing of the UNPOL Executive Club.
Within each of these ten year periods, I filled in major events. There wasn’t much to write about the early years but perhaps that could focus on his parents. He was the second child and born when his mother was in her early forties. His father fifty. The next decade dealt primarily with the war and its aftermath. His court martial, exoneration and later posting to New Boston to manage a refugee camp.
From 2066, we have the rise of One Nation and the global PopVote comes into full existence, TBO transfers from the military to UNPOL. In the early years, he is inducted as a Senior Officer Grade 3, equivalent to his rank of Captain in the military. And at the very end of the decade we have his rise through the ranks and the assassination of Bo Vinh on the 1st January 2075.
The latter years were a bit sparse for major events but I pulled in things like the Australasian Travway and Vactubes being built. These could be tied into greater movement of peoples and the whole ‘we are a village’ concept that Bo Vinh espoused through his book, ‘One Nation’. I could link that back into the present day and Sir Thomas needing to close off the village to protect its inhabitants.
The whole time I was working on this I was also thinking about what kind of alternate history Sir Thomas really had. For instance in 2075 I knew he had killed my parents, stolen me and formed the Oliver Foundation, but what else had he really done. Was it possible that he was responsible for killing Bo Vinh? Was Bo Vinh’s replacement, Ted Hughes, really a puppet of Sir Thomas? Was it possible to manipulate the Secretary General of the UN? I sat back in my chair thinking about that one. Was it possible? Sure everything’s possible but was it likely that Bo Vinh’s replacement as Secretary General could be manipulated? Possible. Suppose Sir Thomas or other Hawks had incriminating evidence used to blackmail and corrupt him. Anyway, useless to speculate but worth the time to take a look at the lineage of Secretary Generals since Bo Vinh’s time.
I chopped, changed and added to what I had until I was satisfied with it. It looked real. The three hours of effort that I’d put into it was worth it. I picked up my Devstick.
“Get me Sir Thomas, please.”
Sir Thomas’s image came up. I studied his face for signs of the evil that I knew was there. His eyes were small, his head nearly bald, kept close shaven. Once more it struck me how unlike my uncle I looked. Why didn’t I ever question that?
The Devstick said, “I’m sorry, but Sir Thomas is offline at this time. Please send your message to his inbox, and he will get to it in due course.”
I went back to the Dev on the table and began to package up more coherently what I had written and collected as the outline for his memoir. If I was going to send it to him, it had to be in a format that would pass inspection. I got into it and the document was taking shape well when the Devstick on the table buzzed and vibrated nearer to my hand. I picked it up and saw that it was a call from Sir Thomas.
“Jonah, sorry I couldn’t take your call. Things are little bit hectic at the moment, what with one thing and another.”
“Yes Uncle, no problem. I was just wondering when we might get together. I’ve been working away on the outline to your memoir since we played golf and I’d like you to review it for direction before I go any further.”
“Oh yes. I see. Well all right, uhm, perhaps we could get together this evening. Would that be convenient?”
“Well actually I was thinking of taking a trip, and I was hoping to get going today so that I can be back in time for the weekend with Mariko.”
“I see. Where are you planning on going?”
“I want to travel to the locations where the major events in your life occurred. I’ve finished quite a detailed overview of all the significant events tied into a timeline of your life. Beginning with your birth — in fact going back beyond that to the latter lives of your parents, Sir Humphrey and Lady Oliver — and up to the present day. Perhaps I could just send it to you and if you feel it’s the right direction. I’ll start visiting the places I mention in the outline.”
“Right. That makes sense. It isn’t too long is it? I’m awfully busy at the moment.”
“No, Uncle, it isn’t long, and it’s pretty straightforward. What you’d expect. The war, the forming of the nation, Bo Vinh’s assassination, Oliver Foundation, your rise in UNPOL and then for the last part I want to focus on the Tag Law.”
“Yes, that sounds all right. Send it over and I’ll have a look over it.”
“I just sent it to you.”
“Yes, I’ve got it. Hold on a moment and let me quickly scan it.”
I waited while he read the file that I’d sent him. I could see that he was reading something — his lips were moving. I kept my silence. He turned and looked out of my Devscreen face on again.
“Yes, that seems fine. Good job. I’m looking forward to reading it. That’s quite a trip you’re planning there, Jonah. London, Paris, New Boston.”
“Yes, well I was hoping that you’d like the outline. I should be back before the weekend.” Sir Thomas smiled at me through the Devscreen. I smiled back.
“Good. Well safe travels then.”
“There was one other thing I wanted to clear with you?”
“Yes.”
“I was thinking about meeting with Annika Bardsdale. It might help. You know, get a feel for the strength of their case.”
“Will she meet with you? She must be aware that you are my nephew, and of my support for Tag.”
“Well, she knows I’m an arbitrator and if I pitch it that you and I are not totally in agreement on the Tag Law then I think she might be intrigued enough to at least meet me.”
Sir Thomas leaned back in his Siteazy, his hands folded over his stomach. He looked directly at the camera. I thought I might have pushed it too far. My thoughts scrambled for something to say that would convince him, but he interrupted.
“Yes, that might be useful. But are you sure you want to do that?”
“It’s worth a try isn’t it? If they’ve got something in the wings she might give it away.”
“You feel pretty strongly about this Tag Law then?”
“I know how important it is to you and, as I told you on the golf course, I’m for it although I haven’t broadcast that fact.”
Sir Thomas smiled at my words. I thought I might have overdone it but he seemed convinced. I smiled back.
“Goodbye then, Uncle. I’ll be in touch as soon as I return.”
“Goodbye, Jonah. Safe travels.” And his image disappeared from the screen of my Devstick.
The Lev to London had been tiring, crowded and noisy, when travelers had joined the Express Lev at the stop in Paris for the last fifteen minutes. The final leg of the trip to London.
Tossing my beach bag on an overstuffed ancient chair next to the large double sleeper, I sat down and thought about the call I had to make. Annika Bardsdale, head of the Social Responsibility Party. Not a major party but still with significant numbers. More of a leverage player in large Popvotes, able to swing their followers’ voting to one cause or another and thereby keeping themselves as a fulcrum in politics. They mostly campaigned on green issues and civil rights.
I picked up my Devstick and called the SRP office. The Interactive Voice Receptionist led me smoothly through a list of options but the one I wanted wasn’t there. I could register with them, donate, complain, recommend a cause, join a march, but I couldn’t speak to them. I didn’t have her direct contact details, so I decided that the only other thing to do was to walk down to her offices. I had hoped that I could call in advance and make the meeting a bit more normal than me just walking in off the street, but it seemed that this was the only option. I clicked through to their site.
I must be tired, I thought. All the pressure from those Lev tubes had squeezed my brain so it wasn’t functioning. Right there on the front page was a huge banner suggestion to send a message to Annika: Go Here.
I thumbed Go Here, and with a quick glance in the wall-length glass mirror opposite the sleeper to check my appearance, set my Devstick on the table next to the sleeper and looking directly into it, said, “Hi Annika. I am Arbitrator Jonah Oliver — Sir Thomas Bartholomew Oliver’s nephew. I am in London on my way to New Boston. I hoped we might have a chance to sit down together and talk. I believe that I may be able to help you with your goal to stop the Tag Law. I’m attaching my contact details with this message. Hope to hear from you. Thanks, Jonah.” And with what I hoped was a convincing smile reached over and thumbed End Message.
I needed a shower and I needed some clothes. I spent the next ten minutes ordering clothes and asked for them to be sent to the hotel. Stripping off, I walked through to the outlet and was surprised to find that unlike the building and the room, the outlet was modern, with a sanitizer dryer and shower unit with a mirror running the length of the room. I took out my shaver and got rid of the stubble that had formed over the day. The Dev in the outlet read 11:45am, so 5:30pm in New Singapore. I wasn’t that tired but I was hoping that I could get some sleep before meeting with Annika. If she wanted to meet, I guessed it would be after leaving her contribution which typically means 6pm. I wouldn’t be at my sharpest after going for seventeen hours without sleep. I stepped into the shower and my Devstick in the room buzzed.
I wrapped a towel around my waist and went back out into the room, feeling a bit cool, the room’s temp was set too low. I picked up the Devstick — it was Annika. I thumbed show my face only for the transmission and answered.
“Hello Annika,” I smiled at the beautiful Annika Bardsdale. Prior to becoming involved in politics Annika had been a model and a flick star. To say star is a bit of an understatement, though. She was a mega star, until she quit saying that the flicks had given her enough of a platform to be of use and she entered politics. That had been twenty years ago but she was still an extremely beautiful woman.
“Hello, Jonah. I must say having the nephew of Sir Thomas, my most vocal opponent, call me to say he thinks he can stop the Tag Law was not what I was expecting when I got out of my sleeper this morning.”
An image of Annika in her sleeper popped into my head. I was glad I’d said face only, otherwise this conversation could have got very embarrassing.
“Yes, I imagine that would be a surprise. I have to tell you that I have already informed my uncle of my decision in this matter and while of course he’s not happy about it, he accepts it as my personal choice.”
“I see. And how do you think you may be able to help?”
“I’d prefer if we talked about that offline, face to face. Would that be possible?”
“Sure, when and where would you like to meet?”
“Whenever’s good for you. I can travel anywhere.”
“OK, come over to the offices. You know where they are right?”
“Yes. What time?”
“About six would be fine. We can meet here and then go get something to eat if you’d like?”
“Sure, that sounds fine. I’ll see you at six.” I smiled and she smiled back. Putting the Devstick on the side table, I remembered my promise to Mariko about sexual partners. I fell on the sleeper and shut my eyes. I could shower later.
“Hold all calls and wake me up at 5:30pm,” I said to my Devstick and shut my eyes.
Five and half hours of deep sleep had restored my energy. It felt good to be doing something. Anything was better than inaction. Mariko’s talk with me in the morning had given me confidence and renewed my faith in our cause. I felt a sharp spike of a ‘sense of her’ within me. I missed her: thinking how lovely it would be to walk these streets with her, without a care in the world.
The Social Responsibility Party headquarters was in an old brick building on the border of the city where fire and shockwave had not reached. Much of Richmond had survived and had remained largely unchanged over the years with many buildings being declared national treasures for the architecture and style of a time gone by. I was dressed in a long coat, wearing thick woolen leg outers and a silk top outer with a light woolen outer over that. The colors I had chosen were differing shades of grey. I had a scarf wrapped around my neck, defending it from a temperature that had now dropped to one cel.
I walked up the steps and pressed the intercom. It was 6pm, midnight in New Singapore, but I had slept for a few hours and was rested. I was also hungry and looking forward to having dinner with this beautiful woman. The door buzzed open and I went in. Annika was waiting in the entrance hall. She looked even more beautiful in person, standing perhaps at one hundred and seventy two cents tall, with dark brown hair sweeping off her high forehead down across her breasts. Her cheekbones were pronounced, and she had the largest blue eyes I’ve ever seen. She smiled and her full lips stretched out wide, putting a dimple in her cheeks.
I paused and gave her a polite wai, which she returned, bowing at the same height to indicate that she thought we were equals.
“Come with me,” she said, turning. She was wearing a long black dress open at the back in a vee that went to her buttocks. I followed her down a flight of stairs and we turned left into a room that had a fire. Small windows just at ground level would provide light in the day, but it was dark and the only light came from the fire.
“Isn’t that a bit environmentally unsound,” I said, nodding at the fire as she sat down in a large comfy looking Siteazy next to the fire.
“No, the carbon is recycled, as is the material burning. In fact we need a bit more carbon than we’re getting in this part of the world.”
“Oh, I confess I don’t know much about the environment. I sort of assumed that since the raft of green laws most of that battle had been won.”
“It has, but there’s never a time when we can relax. The Ents are always looking to lower costs, cut corners, and before you know it you’ve got a mess on your hands.”
“Yes, sure, that I do know.”
“Jonah, you don’t mind me calling you Jonah, do you? And please do call me Annika.”
“No, not all, Annika.”
“Good. Could you please lay your Devstick on the table and strip. When you’re done, please place your devstick and clothes into the box next to the fire.” She said, and nodded at a small black box with an open lid to the left of the fire.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I wasn’t sure I had heard her correctly.
“Please turn your Devstick off and strip. I want to make sure that it is just us having this conversation.”
I looked at her for a moment and then took off my scarf and put it on the arm of the Siteazy opposite hers. She was sitting less than a meter away from me. I stripped off the tops outers. The room was warm but still I got goose bumps. Annika sat with her hand under her chin, watching me with a slight smirk on that wide mouth of hers. I thought to hell with it and undid the catch on the bottom outers, pulling them off one leg at a time, remaining facing her and looking into her eyes. Her expression didn’t change except for a slight lift of one eyebrow like she sensed my change in attitude.
I put a thumb into the top off the inners and pulled them to my knees then stepped out of them with my hands by my sides standing in front of her, looking into her eyes. She looked right back, smiled and said, “Not bad.”
“What about you? How do I know that you’re not recording?”
Her eyes flashed and narrowed. “You were the one who asked for the meeting. Not me. And I could have this whole room wired for sound for that matter.” Her eyes changed, widening. Then, arching her back in the Siteazy she said, “However, if it will make you feel better, and in the interests of fair play.”
She stood up and with her hand released something on the side of her dress. Grasping it, she pulled it aside to reveal that she was naked underneath. A thin half inch strip of dark pubic hair acted like a runway for my eyes landing there and I quickly lifted them to look across the flat stomach, with what looked like a large diamond nestled in her belly button, and up to her generous but perfectly shaped breasts. She was stunning and my cock knew it.
She looked down and I smiled at her. She smiled back.
“I must say that standing naked with Annika Bardsdale was not what I was expecting when I got out of my sleeper this evening,” I said with a smile. She burst out laughing and still naked sat back down in the Siteazy, crossing her legs and waving at the opposite Siteazy with her hand. I scooped my clothes and Devstick up and placed them in the box as she’d requested and then sat in the Siteazy and faced her.
“So, Jonah, what do you have in mind?”
“Is this room really safe for a confidential conversation?”
“Yes. It might look old-fashioned — I like it that way — but it has white noise filters surrounding it. Nothing gets in or out.”
“Good, because what I am going to tell you could cost us our lives if it becomes known to anyone other than us. I need your help, and while it is about the Tag Law, it is also about me. Before I begin, I feel compelled to offer you the chance not to hear what I have to say. Once I have told it, your life will be in danger.”
Annika’s face remained calm and expressionless. She regarded me with those huge eyes but her eyes didn’t move. They remained fixed on mine. She suddenly leant forward, her breasts swinging out a little, and placed her elbows on knees — her face a few cents from mine. She said, “After a build-up like that, do you really think that I could not hear what you have to say?” And she smiled. I couldn’t see her lips as her eyes were too close to mine but I saw the set of fine wrinkles around her eyes crinkle up. She sat back in her seat and her breasts wobbled deliciously on her chest.
I let out a soft sigh. I thought about calling Mariko and asking her permission to fuck Annika, but just as swiftly dismissed that idea. Our first night separated and I call her to ask if it is OK to fuck one of the hottest women on the planet? No, Mariko, I said in my mind. If our roles were reversed I couldn’t say yes. I don’t want to share you with anyone else.
Annika broke into my thoughts of not fucking her.
“Do you want an alky? I find that serious chats always go smoother with a glass of wine in your hand.” Saying this she reached over and picked up a bottle of red wine and poured two glasses, handing me mine. Her breasts swung forward again. Puffy pink nipples.
I switched my glance to her face to find her with that same wry grin she had when I was stripping.
“Do you want to have sex?” she asked softly.
“Yes, but I can’t. Or at least if I was going to I would have to call a woman in New Singapore, where it’s midnight now, and I doubt that she’d give me permission. So… as much as I want to, I can’t.” Annika took a big swallow of her wine and, holding it in her closed mouth, ballooned out her cheeks, swirling it around. She turned her head in profile to me and the cheek facing me ballooned in and out rapidly. She swallowed loudly and dripping her finger back in the glass ran it dripping with red wine down her throat between her breasts and around the diamond in her belly button coming to rest on that little landing strip.
“Annika, you’re killing me. Please stop it. I know I am going to regret this decision for the rest of my life but I can’t change it. Please!”
I wasn’t quite begging but my resolve was crumbling fast. She laughed while she was taking a sip of her wine and it went down the wrong way. She coughed and spluttered as the wine she had spat out was sizzling in the fireplace. I reached over and gently patted her back. She held up a hand recovering.
“I’m sorry. I’ll be a good girl. It’s not nice to tease you like that, even if it is fun. And I seem to have at least one supporter.” She nodded at my cock which was poking straight up.
“No, honestly, you’ve got two supporters. Even I think I’m idiot but a promise is a promise.”
She reached over and smiling patted my leg. “I think I would have enjoyed sex with you very much, but I think also that I am going to enjoy the man even more.”
I took her hand in mine and raised it to my lips, kissing it softly, looking it her eyes as I did so and swirling the tip of my tongue ever so slightly on the taut skin of her knuckles.
“Ooh look, you made the hairs stand up on my arm,” she said, chuckling. I sat back releasing her hand.
Her face was open and honest, as beautiful inside as out. I knew I could trust this woman. We needed friends for this cause of ours, and I chose to trust her.
“My name is not Jonah James Oliver. My real name is Mark Anthony Zumar. My father and mother were murdered by Sir Thomas just after I was born. I never knew them. My brother, Gabriel, is now the most wanted man on the planet, and he’s trying to stop six billion people from being killed. And I need your help.”