‘Good, that went well enough: he’ll position the ambassador for us now. Shall we head back to my office? No point just hanging around here for the next half hour.’
‘Do you not want to listen in to the MI6 stuff?’ asked Alan, removing his headphones.
‘Nah,’ replied Warner, as she led Alan through the roaring mainframes and then back to her plush office: ‘I know he’s now dead-set on confronting the Gang of Four tomorrow and he’ll rope in MI6 to help.., you know what? – we should go too.’
‘What!? To Wiltshire? With the PM?’
‘Not with the PM! But yeah, why not? We’ll get Gavin to drive us. It’s not every day one receives an audience with a god – let alone three!’
Alan winced. ‘What makes you so sure we’ll receive “an audience” with them, or that such a thing is even worth having!? They’ve been very slippery up to now.’
‘Correction, Alan! They were slippery whilst in London, but since decamping to Wiltshire they’ve been leaving trails everywhere, and their base of operations is now almost certainly established as the Red Lion Hotel near Alton. Either they’ve suddenly grown careless or…’
Alan waited impatiently for Warner to finish her sentence. ‘…Or what!?’
‘Or they want us there. Do you not feel the pull?’
‘No, Helen, I do not. If you’d been shown The Truth–’
‘Rubbish! I reckon Russell Tebb was shown “The Truth”, and he seems quite happy to be working with them. You just had a rough one because of your Sponsor connection.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I don’t, just… intuition I guess. Sherry?’
‘Go on then.’ Alan watched as Warner poured sherry from a crystal decanter into a couple of small dainty glasses and handed one to him: ‘Thanks. So you actually feel a “pull” do you?’
‘Well, not in any tangible sense, more a burning curiosity. Curse of the super-bright, I guess.’
Alan downed his sherry in one go.
‘Sherry is for sipping, Alan. We may need to send you to finishing school.’
‘Huh?’
‘Nothing. Another?’
‘Thanks... How’s this: you go to Wiltshire tomorrow, and I stay here – well out of it thank you very much.’
‘As you wish,’ replied Warner, sounding slightly disappointed, ‘you can stay here and deal with the dismissal of Fairclough.’
All of a sudden another confrontation with the angry Earth banshee no longer seemed quite so bad. ‘I s’pose…’
‘Great! That’s settled then. You can deal with Fairclough on Monday. In the meantime you could do with a day off – I’m starting to worry about your stress levels!’
Alan rolled his eyes at Warner: ‘I need a holiday from you, Helen!’ He drained his second glass of sherry, and glanced over at the decanter.
Warner frowned: ‘I thought we could head over to the Holborn wine bar later, so no more sherries for you!’
‘Alright, Mum!’
‘Don’t call me that! Although God knows you need one, “Analogue Alan”. In some ways you’re like a newborn baby!’
Alan shrugged, but he felt uncomfortable. Thoughts of his real parents flooded into his mind, filling him with a sense of guilt and regret. Warner, of course, picked up on this:
‘Do you keep in touch with your mother and father?’
‘Let’s drop it!’
‘Why?’
Alan sighed: ‘I haven’t seen them for a few years. The Sponsors never encouraged contact, although they never actively barred it, as such. We’ve just kinda drifted apart.’
‘Hmm, I see,’ replied Warner, reflecting on this. ‘The Sponsor’s may well have quietly barred it. They clearly had no interest in your humanity and they provided you with a lifestyle that suited them: hence you lived alone, in a sterile apartment and you forgot about your past.’
‘I did not forget my past! Look, what’s your point, Helen?’
‘I haven’t got a point.’
‘Well please stop making this... non-point!’
Warner did not reply but she continued to regard Alan closely. He decided to change the subject:
‘Your work on RETC was superlative – even for a genius!’
‘Thanks!’ Warner was clearly flattered by this and her close scrutiny of Alan suddenly ceased, much to his relief.
‘How did you do all that in such a short space of time?’
‘Oh, you know me, I don’t like to blow my own trumpet.’
‘Yes you do!’
Warner laughed: ‘True enough! Okay, well, I have similar structures in place elsewhere so it was largely a cut-and-paste job, if you know what I mean?’
‘Not literally, but I can imagine. Are you the cleverest person on the planet?’
‘I’m the only one that outsmarted the Sponsors!’
‘So that’s a “yes” then.’ Warner did not respond.
Alan opened his attaché case and retrieved the RETC document; he began flicking through it… ‘I haven’t had time to study all of this in detail yet, but something concerns me…’
‘What?’ enquired Warner, glancing down at the document with an expression of complete confidence.
‘Isn’t allowing the PM to transfer funds to and from the treasury risky. I mean, I can understand that we will keep the actual transactions hidden, but surely sooner or later this will all have to get audited: you can’t cheat basic maths, if the numbers don’t add up they’ll go looking for a trail, and if they don’t find one that will surely raise alarm bells!’
‘Who’s this “they”?’
‘Treasury officials: accountants, auditors etc.’
‘Precisely! You’ve answered your own question!’
‘Huh!? Oh, you mean we “fry” them!’
‘Yeah, already done. The human element will always need special treatment. There’s more on how that’s done in the “China” section.’
‘But… how did you reach the treasury officials? I thought the PM was our only conduit,’ asked Alan, as he rifled through the document.
‘Later, Alan – we should head back to the terminal room now, it’s time for a light fry-up.’
***