Chapter 13

Lunn was walking back to the new headquarters after a few hours’ sleep. It had taken nearly the whole night to set up the new secure connections. The previous owner had used Datanex as their provider. That wouldn’t have been a problem if the physical connections weren’t hosted by Datanex as well. It was a shocking realisation that they were obliged to use Datanex encryption to get a stable connection: all other forms of secure connections were dropped by Datanex within a minute. Lunn knew he had failed, and if they remained here, Datanex would finally gain access to everything. The new headquarters were utterly useless unless they found a way of keeping their information safe and hidden from Datanex. They had to come up with a solution because this was the only available space which could withstand an EMP.

He had slumped down on the floor holding his head between his knees trying to fight the horrific visions. He dreaded the fact that he had to report the huge setback to the financier. He also knew that remaining in the old headquarters was no longer an option.

Lunn was flabbergasted when Alice came up with an incredibly simple solution, and he had real trouble stopping himself from hugging the wonderful and smart woman. He was still a little jealous of her brilliant but simple solution: encrypt the “secure” Datanex connection again with your own.

While Lunn and his team were building the new hardware, Alice had found another panel hidden in a cupboard. It was the original data connection to the national grid.

Lunn was pleased that they could change their provider eventually, and he planned on doing that after the planned EMP attack at the plateau. He still hadn’t had the opportunity to have a talk with his main technician, John, about the financier’s request.

He entered the quarters and hoped to find the technician there alone. As he passed through the secure main entrance, he heard a voice shouting, “Who’s there?”

Lunn chuckled, aware that John was yet to be convinced of the accuracy of the entrance security Lunn had developed. He retorted, “It’s me, Lunn.”

John murmured, “I still can’t believe you’re solely using your access system.”

“All other systems are hackable John.”

“Yeah, yeah I know, but it still freaks me out that I just can walk in without using any kind of key.”

“If we have more time, I’ll let you into my secret, but now we need to discuss something really important.”

John sat down and as he rubbed his face he grumbled, “Here we go, again.”

Lunn could see that John had had as little sleep as he had and he knew that John might be a little short-tempered.

“Well? Shoot.” John said.

“How many satellites do we still need to launch?”

John squinted at Lunn as if he knew there was trouble coming. He blurted, “Two hundred and forty in the last two batches. The biggest, counting one-hundred and eighty satellites will be launched later today.”

Lunn was shocked because he’d been unaware that the timing was so tight, and muttered, “Wow you’re cutting it fine John! Is everything ready for that?”

John bragged with a sly smile on his face, “Yeah, we can do it from here, and I have my apartment as a backup. I’ve been sleeping with a satellite dish hanging just a few inches above my head.”

Lunn had to laugh as he imagined John’s little place stuffed to the gunnels with equipment, but he also admired John’s commitment to the project. Lunn cleared his throat and asked, “What if we need to use the ring within a few days?”

John looked up and his burning eyes made clear that he was not happy.

“I assume it bloody can’t wait,” he scoffed.

Lunn heard John was about to explode into a tirade. He said calmly, “No, it can’t wait another six weeks.”

John sighed and shook his head. He revealed, “You’re lucky I haven’t ordered anything for the last batch yet.”

Lunn was pleased that John hadn’t exploded yet and mumbled softly, “Oh okay.”

“If you want to use the ring we need to spread this batch to fill the gaps and after that, we need to initiate the ring. It is do-able, but there’s a risk that it might fail if the gaps between the satellites are too big.”

“I see,” mumbled Lunn.

“Yes, and the other thing is, once the ring has been initiated you can’t add more satellites.”

Lunn started to understand what John was saying and wondered whether moving the activation forward was too great a risk. He also knew that the Bionex group wouldn’t continue to practise for weeks on end on the plateau.

He sighed and said, “I think we should take the risk.”

“I knew you would say that,” John grunted.

“It’s good that you understand.”

“Yeah, but don’t blame me if we have for five billion credit of worthless shit hanging up there.”

Lunn had to laugh and smirked, “Don’t worry John, I will inform him about the risks.”

He was pleased that John had taken it so well. They still had a huge amount of work to do before the headquarters would be fully operational.

Alice woke up with a start. Bewildered she looked around the strangely decorated room, but it quickly dawned on her that she was in Lunn’s bedroom. She fell back onto the soft pillow, and she realised she was still dressed. She remembered that they had entered the bedroom and that they both were too tired to get undressed. It was strange but also very comforting to fall asleep being cocooned by a person, especially when it was by Lunn. She turned her face into the pillow to inhale Lunn’s strong masculine smell. She loved the spicy tones of his scent because it made her light-headed. She would love to be able to breathe in that scent every day.

With a start, she realised that her belief system was weakening. Her mantra was to keep herself at arm’s length. It was simple but effective: better to be alone than suffer heartbreak.

She had always been able to keep her feelings for him under control, but ever since Danette had dumped him, it had become harder to ignore what was truly simmering in her heart. Deep down she knew that she was fooling herself because right from the first moment she had laid her eyes on his gorgeous body she’d felt an irresistible attraction to him. She couldn’t keep her eyes off his beautifully developed muscles, and his strong facial features made him so incredibly handsome. He was so hot!

At the time, she had needed the additional job to pay for her place. It was practically impossible to live with her sister Lily under one roof. She could count the number of nights that she’d had a proper and undisturbed night of sleep on one hand. The fact that she was regularly bumping into strange men made her decide to live alone.

She had enjoyed the life of solitude, but now her body and her mind were longing for something more. Her time with Lunn had made her even more aware of it. Alice knew she was trying to rationalise what had happened over the course of the last few days. It was her way of dealing with things that were bothering her but this time, it seemed that she was having great difficulty comprehending her feelings. That was something which never had happened before!

She desperately craved his warm touch, the comforting feeling that his strong muscles were protecting her. His smile and the twinkle in his eye were all so disarming. Thinking about it made her tingle all over. Could it be that she had fallen for him?

No! No!

With a gasp, she jumped from the bed, and rushed towards the door. She had to go! If she stayed here any longer, she would suffocate. It should never have happened! How could she have been so blind?

Andena sat on a bench in a large hall waiting for ‘the others’ to arrive. Joshua had instructed her to sit on the bench which clearly felt like an order. Her mind was still sluggish as if it was repressed in some way. While she was waiting she tried to make sense of it all: she knew that something wasn’t right. The fact that she saw text appearing in front of her right eye was somewhat disturbing. It was as if she was being controlled by something and it felt unnatural. She had stumbled several times over her own feet and as far as she knew she’d never had such problems before. She was wondering if she could walk around the hall without stumbling if she were to concentrate hard on her movements.

As she got up, she found herself flying, at least six feet up into the air, and she barely had enough time to adjust the position of her body to break her fall. A little dazed she got up very slowly afraid that she might launch herself again. Andena was frantically trying to fathom what was going on with her body because it was abundantly clear something was really wrong. She knew that she should be scared, but was aware that her emotions had been considerably repressed somehow. It made her realise that she needed to be bolder and after a brief moment of deliberation, decided to explore the strangeness of it all. She had already discovered that her muscles were much stronger than before, and her initial jerkiness was starting to make sense. She needed to investigate her capabilities and decided to do some simple tests.

As she stood, she bent her legs and concentrated on making a small jump. She was surprised to see a little dial appearing in front of her eye. By tensing her muscles, she could manipulate the number, and she came to the conclusion she could vary her power. She practised with several jumps and quickly learned that the dial only appeared when she concentrated for a little longer.

Andena prepared herself to jump to the other side of the hall and to her astonishment the display indicated the exact amount of power she had to use to successfully complete the task. Her tensed muscles released the immense power, which felt like a small explosion and she launched towards the other side. But as soon as she was descending she realised she had forgotten that she needed space to come to a stop!

She knew she would collide with the door, and she brought her arms forward to soften the blow somewhat. At the moment she braced herself for the impact, the door opened, and Andena saw that she was flying straight at a woman she vaguely recognised.

As soon as she touched the floor, she grabbed the woman’s shoulders which changed her forward momentum into a turn. The woman began screaming when she saw Andena flying towards her, and she didn’t stop until she was lying, unharmed, on top of Andena’s body.

As she scrambled up from Andena, she shouted, “What the fuck were you doing? You could have killed me!”

Andena was still a bit dazed from the blow she had endured when she had landed roughly on her back. The collision with the angry woman’s body had slammed all her air out of her lungs, and she could only whisper, “I’m sorry.”

She ranted, “You were told to sit on the bench and wait for me. Who gave you the order to charge at the door at such a dangerous speed?”

Andena stood up and said meekly, “Nobody, Miss.”

She looked straight into the woman’s eyes and the display in her right eye gave the next information, “Danette Williams, Trainer Bionex. Age 31. Weight 140 lb. Heart rate 170. Body temp. 98.4.”

When she saw the name, she vaguely remembered her being the associate of a very nice man she thought she knew. It bothered her only a little that her past was blurred and that she couldn’t remember his name.

Danette sighed and said, “Right. Go back into the hall and sit on the bench.”