AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I expect you know full well they are,” I replied, “and everything else about me.”
“On the contrary,” protested John Henry. “We thought that if even the sniff of surveillance was detected, you might decide to take action, and action from you, as we have seen to our cost, is never less than devastating to our interests.”
“Ah,” I murmured, suddenly realizing why there had been a deafening silence from Goliath over the years.
“So how can we help?” asked John Henry. “If,” he added, “we can help at all.”
“I want to find out what advances you have made in transfictional travel.”
John Henry raised his eyebrows and smiled genially. “I never thought it would remain a secret from you forever.”
“You’ve been leaving Outlander probes scattered all over the BookWorld.”
“The research and development on the Book Project has been somewhat hit or miss, I’ll admit that,” replied John Henry candidly. “To be honest, I had expected you to call on us sooner than you have.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Of course. And since you are here, perhaps you would grace us with your comments on the technical aspects of our project.”
“I promise nothing, but I’d certainly like to see what you’re up to.”
The car drove toward the glassy modern towers of the corporate center of the multinational and past well-tailored executives going about their administrative business. A few minutes later, we pulled up outside the front entrance of the Goliath headquarters, which was comfortably nestled into the hillside.
“I don’t suppose that you would want to freshen up or anything before we show you around?” asked John Henry hopefully.
“And miss something you might try and hide from me?” I answered. “No, if it’s all the same to you, I’d really like to see how far you’ve gotten.”
“Very well,” said John Henry without any sense of concern, “come with me.”
We walked into the expansive lobby and crossed not to the elevators or the Apologarium, where I’d been last time, but to where a golf cart was at the ready. A curious crowd of Goliath employees had gathered to watch our progress with undisguised inquisitiveness. I couldn’t think it was just me—I don’t suppose many of them had ever seen John Henry Goliath either.
We drove out of the lobby and into a tunnel that led directly back into the hillside. It was crudely utilitarian after the simple elegance of the entrance vestibule, with roughly concreted walls and lit by overhead track lights. The roadway was smooth concrete, and there were cable conduits attached to the walls. The subterranean vaults of Goliath R&D were at least half a mile inside the hill, and on the journey, John Henry and I chatted amiably about national politics and global economics. Surprisingly, a more intelligent and well-informed conversation about current affairs I have yet to have. I might even have liked him, but for the utter ruthlessness and singularity of purpose that ran through his speech. Excusable in a person of little or no power, but potentially devastating in one such as John Henry Goliath.
We encountered three different levels of security on the way, each of them waved aside by John Henry. Beyond the third security checkpoint was a large set of steel blast doors, and after abandoning the golf cart we proceeded on foot. John Henry had his tie knot scanned to confirm his identity, and the doors slid open to let us in. I gasped at the sight that met my eyes. Their technology had gone beyond the small metal probe I’d already seen. It had gone further—much further.
20.
The Austen Rover
I had been aware for many years of Goliath’s endeavors to enter fiction. Following their abortive attempt to use the fictional world to “actualize” flawed technology during the Plasma Rifle debacle of ’85, they had embarked upon a protracted R&D project to try to emulate Mycroft’s Prose Portal. Until the appearance of the probe, the furthest I thought they’d gotten was to synthesize a form of stodgy grunge from volumes one to eight of The World of Cheese.
I n the center of the room and looking resplendent in the blue-and-yellow livery of some long-forgotten bus company was a flat-fronted single-decker bus that to my mind dated from the fifties. Something my mother, in her long-forgotten and now much-embellished youth, might have boarded for a trip to the seaside, equipped with hampers of food and gallons of ice cream. Aside from the anachronistic feel, the most obvious feature of the bus was that the wheels had been removed and the voids covered over to give the vague appearance of streamlining. Clearly, it wasn’t the only modification. The vehicle in front of me now was probably the most advanced piece of transport technology known to man.
“Why base it on an old bus?” I asked.
John Henry shrugged. “If you’re going to travel, do it in style. Besides, a Rolls-Royce Phantom II doesn’t have enough seats.”
We walked down to the workshop floor, and I took a closer look. On both sides at the rear of the bus and on the roof were small faired outr
iggers that each held a complicated engine with which I was not familiar. The tight-fitting cowlings had been removed, and the engines were being worked on by white-coated technicians who had stopped what they were doing as soon as we walked in but now resumed their tinkering with a buzz of muted whispers. I moved closer to the front of the bus and ran my fingers across the Leyland badge atop the large and very prominent radiator. I looked up. Above the vertically split front windshield was a glass-covered panel that once told prospective passengers the ultimate destination of the bus. I expected it to read BOURNEMOUTH or PORTSMOUTH but it didn’t. It read NORTHANGER ABBEY.
I looked at John Henry Goliath, who said, “This, Ms. Next, is the Austen Rover—the most advanced piece of transfictional technology in the world!”
“Does it work?” I asked.
“We’re not entirely sure,” remarked John Henry. “It’s the prototype and has yet to be tested.”
He beckoned to the technician who seemed to be in charge and introduced us.
