Read Online Jonah Havensby by Bob Bannon - Free Book Online Page A

one over on his dad, since he usually got a good selection of a lot of songs he liked, as opposed to songs from just one artist that you may never hear on the radio.
    He had just reached the center of this portion of the mall. Here, the mall opened up to the second floor and you could look all the way up to the large glass dome at the top. There was a round stone tri-level fountain here. The water would collect in the pool at the bottom and then get funneled up through the center spouting from the top in big gurgling arcs which fell into a second tier and then over-flowed back into the pool. There were miniature versions of this fountain at the three other entrances to this part of the mall. Jonah remembered people throwing coins in to those as he passed by.  He’d never seen anyone throw money in this one. This seemed to be a central waiting area where people could sit and rest while whoever they were with could take off for either floor of the mall using the escalators.
    It was here that Jonah decided to sit on one of the many wooden benches and fire up the tablet.
    He took his coat off, looking around to see if anyone was looking at him curiously, and then took the tablet out from behind him.
    He turned it on and, after a moment, the screen lit up as usual. The internet connection signal glowed red, but then flashed to green, meaning he was online.
    He decided to check the Settings menu under the Internet tab. He had always assumed that the internet required a password to get online, so it was a mystery as to how the tablet was doing this.
    The mystery went even deeper when he saw what was happening. There was the usual list of wireless networks. This list had the sneaker store, the denim store across the way, the ladies apparel next to that – any number of stores in the general vicinity. But the tablet seemed to be scanning, then signing in, then signing out, then bouncing to the next. It seemed like it was actually collecting passwords and then bouncing from one network to the next. He didn’t think that should be possible.
    Just to check, he closed the Settings tab and went back to the Home Screen. He clicked on the Sports App It checked for an internet connection, and, sure enough, opened to today’s headlines.
    So the internet was working.
    He scanned the headlines, but found himself amazingly uninterested. He was mainly just reading them in utter disbelief that he could actually see them.
    He shut the Sports App and opened the News App. He had a moment of terror that he shouldn’t try to look, but something pushed him. He typed in ‘Explosion’ in the Search box. Various international headlines came up as well as some national ones, but it seemed that nothing came up regarding anything locally. He typed in ‘Explosion Derry Road’. Most of the headlines remained the same, and the Derry Roads that came up were not anywhere near his house.
    It had been only seven days since the explosion that killed his father and the ‘dangerous men’ that had come there. There should be something somewhere. The house was remote, but it was close enough to town that probably most people heard it. And the fire department from here would have been sent out there.
    He tried again and got the same result. He typed in his name and got some ‘Jonahs’ and some ‘Havensbys’ but nothing about himself. He hadn’t really expected anything.
    There was that momentary blush of fear again, and then he slowly typed in ‘Doctor Nickolas Havensby’. He didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he released it with a long huff when he pressed the Search button.
    He searched down the list to find nothing very relevant. Again, different combinations of all three words came up. But about ten headlines down, he saw something that caught him.
    SCIENTIST WANTED IN CONNECTION TO FEDERAL GRANT FRAUD
    Under that were the first two sentences of the story and ‘Dr. Nikolas P. Havensby, Ph.D, D.Eng, Sc.D.,’ was highlighted in blue.
    He