by David Moody
Elsewhere, the Bleed resembled a spider web of slimy crimson strings. A short distance away, it had attached itself to the orb and was growing outwards like a plate fungus. It was adapting…changing…trying all possible permutations and deformations until it was successful.
Until it bled through.
And from what Jenny had seen in the days since her innocence had been stripped away and normality destroyed, the Bleed always bled through.
10
SURFERS PARADISE, AUSTRALIA
The intent of the crowds in the streets around the hotel was impossible to read. Jenny couldn’t tell if it was a massive lynch mob or some kind of congregation. Although much of the time the orb was barely visible to the naked eye, there was little question that this random building was, inexplicably, the source of its power, and people were tirelessly gravitating towards it like they were on some kind of life-affirming pilgrimage. The clockwork room’s observation system revealed the extent of the gigantic gathering in the streets. The camera or lens or whatever the hell it was swept fast and low over endless bodies, unseen by any of them. Many held their arms up as if reaching for Heaven.
The viewpoint abruptly shifted up and out, revealing still more crowds. The roads into the Gold Coast were clogged with crawling traffic, and the roads leading onto those roads were equally busy. Across the country, the National Highways had been opened up to allow all lanes on all carriageways to flow east. From Jenny and Maddie’s perspective, it looked like the entire population of Australia was now migrating in their direction.
“You’re going to have to talk to them, you know,” Maddie said.
“What? But there’s thousands of them out there.”
“You’ve already been seen by millions.”
“I know, but this…this is different.”
“Is it? Look, put yourself in the shoes of those poor bastards out there. They’re terrified. Hell, I’m terrified, and I kind of know what’s going on, but them…they’re completely lost, scared shitless. The only thing they’ve got left to lock onto now is—”
“Me.”
“Exactly.”
“You could do it.”
“I’m not the public face of this, in case you hadn’t noticed. I’m more back-up than leader.”
“I’m not sure…. What do I say? What do I tell them?”
“You tell them the truth. We’re doing what we can to find a way out of this mess. Until then, we’ve just about got the Bleed held at bay.”
“I don’t know…I think it’ll just make things worse.”
“Worse? How can this be any worse?”
“What if they rush the place?”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m not even sure if this room’s really here.”
“That’s a mind-fuck too far, even by your standards.”
“Think about it. There are tens of thousands of people outside. The hotel’s probably already full of them. But none of them have been able to get in. It’s configured to you and me. I doubt any of them could open the door, and that’s if they can even find it. Now stop whining and talk to them. Get your head out of the sand, Jenny, and give them something to hold on to.”
“You think I should go out there?”
“You can broadcast to them from the room.”
“How?”
“Like this.”
As if appearing to suit need, Maddie manipulated a hitherto unseen section of the console, and, though the view of the world outside the hotel remained, a close-up of Jenny’s face also appeared alongside it. “Is this thing on?” she said, and she could tell both from the instant reaction of the crowds and the booming echo of her voice that she was now broadcasting live to what was left of the human race.
She took a second to compose herself. When she walked around the clockwork room, the images walked with her. Her face remained perfectly framed. She knew that all she had to do was talk and they’d be able to see and hear her.
“Hi everyone, it’s me, Jenny,” she began, not knowing how else to start. “Most of what I’ve been through over the last few days and weeks has been played out in front of you all, so I guess you pretty much know what happened and how we got to this point. I know you’re scared—we’re all scared—and you want answers. I’m going to do what I can to explain.
“The Bleed is doing everything it can to destroy the planet, and I’m doing everything I can not to let that happen. We have to face facts, though, we’re fighting a losing battle. The reality is that too much damage has already been done to save our planet. Our home is dying, and there’s no point beating around the bush and trying to sugar coat this for you all…I don’t know how much longer we can hold out.”
She paused and studied the images of the endless thousands of people hanging on her every word. There were so many of them that she’d long since stopped being nervous. Instead she tried to pick out and read individual faces, desperate for some indication that her words were having an effect.
“A lot of you are angry with me. Many of you must think this is my fault. I hope there will be time for me to tell you my story later, but for now I’m going to have to ask for your trust. That’s a big ask, I know, but let me reassure you, I’m going to do everything in my power to get us all out of this mess alive.
“There’s a shield around Australia which is powered by the gods. Yes, I know how wild that sounds, but it’s true. Those people you saw fighting in London were gods, and it was one of them—Thirnas—who helped me survive and who showed me how to access this technology. There are other gods who were ready to sacrifice our planet and everyone on it in order that they might survive. I was tricked into helping them, and I’ll regret the fact they were able to manipulate me until the day I die. I’m hoping that keeping you all safe will go some way to helping me right the wrongs that I was unwittingly a part of.
“I understand why you wanted to sacrifice me today, but that would have been an extremely bad idea because there are only two of us who can control this technology, and it’s going to take both of us to get us out of this situation. I don’t expect you all to believe me, but I’m appealing to every last one of you listening to me today to give me a chance. My friend and I are going to do everything we can to get us to safety.”
She stopped speaking, unsure if anything she was saying was of any value to anyone outside the clockwork room. The weight of expectation she now felt was huge, the pressure almost unbearable.
The images showed that the crowds were almost completely silent. The traffic had stopped moving to listen to her. The entirety of the world under the dome had momentarily paused, perhaps realizing that this girl—this young, frightened, inexperienced, terrified girl—actually was their last, best hope of survival after all.
Maddie was alongside her now. She put her hand on Jenny’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t say you’re killing it, but you’re doing all right,” she said.
Jenny nodded and shot her a quick glance that said thanks very much, but I don’t believe a word of it. She cleared her throat again.
“I know how crazy all of this sounds, but you have to believe me. For now, you just have to have faith. Anything is possible, and this doesn’t have to be the end. Just remember, the power that we’re now able to wield was strong enough to protect me from a firing squad at close range. It’s our intention to use that power to protect all of us.
“Friends, all I ask is that you give me a little time. Stay safe and be good to each other, and I’ll get us out of this mess just as soon as I can.”
11
SURFERS PARADISE, AUSTRALIA
The dome of the orb was still holding strong after several hours, but there were signs of trouble out to sea. The clockwork room had alerted them to a specific point on the perimeter where the Bleed’s behavior had begun to change.
Jenny didn’t think she’d ever get used to the bizarre sight of where the Bleed and their protective forcefield collided. Within the orb, the ocean remained curiously untroubled and artific
ially calm. It reminded her of the surface of Greenwich Boating Pond in London where her dad had taken her countless times as a kid. It hurt when she thought about Dad and times past. The loss of innocence she’d endured since the arrival of the gods on Earth was something she knew she’d never get over, even if she happened to live through this crisis.
Focus on the here and now.
She shook her head clear, not allowing her emotions to take control and distract her. There would be time to come to terms with everything later, after the war had been won. At least she hoped there would be, anyway.
After a period of relative calm, when the people filling the streets had been temporarily placated by Jenny’s speech, and the status quo between the Bleed and everything else had been maintained, suddenly things were now beginning to change again. The balance was shifting. Out here, the noxious liquid was moving in ways they hadn’t seen before. Previously, unless it had been carrying out a specific attack, it had appeared to mimic the behavior of water with waves and currents and ebbs and flows. Occasionally it would become semi-solid and lash out, as it had when they’d witnessed the destruction of that Japanese warship. Now, though, they were watching it do something altogether different.
“What the hell is it doing?” Maddie asked.
“Mutating,” Jenny answered, concerned. “Re-focusing.”
The point at which the Bleed was changing its approach was far out in the South Pacific Ocean, somewhere south of where Fiji used to be. As they watched, they saw the demonic force shifting and evolving. The fact that something so huge could alter its shape and direction with such speed and clear intent was sobering in itself. Despite being made up of the component remains of the millions upon millions of individual lifeforms it had assimilated, every last one of the countless billions of molecules it had absorbed and taken over now played its part in servitude of the poisonous whole. It would have been impressive, awe-inspiring even, if it hadn’t been so completely damn terrifying.
“That thing is a mess,” Maddie said as they watched. The level of detail the room presented to them was extreme, the kind of resolution that had to be experienced to be believed. It allowed them to see deep into the toxic sludge where the remains of individual creatures formed and reformed then broke up and reformed again. They were constantly evolving, morphing into shapes and structures with clear design but unimaginable purpose.
The Bleed had no need for subtlety or finesse, no complex tactics for its enemy to deduce and counter, it was a freakish, thuggish motherfucker of a thing that had an endgame; it was base and carnal and only thought to kill and destroy. It would do whatever it needed to win.
The clockwork room showed Jenny and Maddie things but didn’t always tell them why. That was how Maddie had come to learn so much about the god-tech: the machine had offered her an outcome, which she’d reverse engineered to understand. Similarly, searching for explanations and connections was key to Jenny understanding how she fitted into this incredibly complex war between the gods and the Bleed. Right now, they both needed to understand what the Bleed was doing so they could work out how to counter it.
“I just wish for once we could get the upper hand with this thing,” Jenny said, thinking out loud.
“You won’t,” Maddie told her. “You’re human, it’s not. You have feelings. You give a shit. That thing doesn’t.”
“Where’s the brain?” Jenny asked.
“Good question.”
“If there was an obvious brain, some kind of control centre, then maybe we could take it out.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think it works that way.”
“What then? A hive mind, something like that?”
“Yeah, I think it must be some kind of collective. The control comes from everywhere and nowhere. If you split part of it away from the whole, it’ll just keep on killing.”
“I get that. You wouldn’t have a mama Bleed and a baby Bleed, would you?”
“No, you’d just have more Bleed.”
“So that begs the question, can we even attack it? Is it even possible to kill it?”
“Is that on the table?”
“Do you think the clockwork room has weapons?”
“Not that I’ve seen. You might be able to use it as a weapon, though. Or use it to power a weapon.”
“But we still don’t know if that would have any effect.”
“Precisely.”
“One thing we do know, though,” Maddie said, gesturing at the image they were watching, “is that the Bleed can definitely attack us.”
The Bleed was on the move, but it looked like it was pulling back. As they stared at the image, they saw it was beginning to retreat from a section of the orb, moving like some kind of impossible inverse wave, washing back instead of crashing forward. As it withdrew, it grew in height, rising taller the farther it was from the forcefield, and leaving the barren seabed visible in its reverse wake. It was like a slice of the Bleed had been removed, and on either side of the slice, everything remained exactly as it had been, colossal walls of blood standing proud.
But Jenny and Maddie were focusing on the section that was moving away and continuing to grow. It was changing shape now, standing almost as tall as the orb itself, and starting to form something that looked like a rudimentary hammerhead.
And that was exactly what it was.
Without warning, that section of the Bleed was thrown forward with unprecedented speed and force. Jenny and Maddie both braced for impact, even though the actual attack was taking place thousands of miles from the Gold Coast, and the clockwork room itself was shielded by the god-tech.
The hammer struck the outside of the orb and recoiled, bouncing back then immediately flying forward again, striking the dome a second time.
“No damage that I can see,” Maddie said. “Thank god.”
“I wouldn’t bother thanking him.”
The hammer-thing flew forward a third time, pivoting from a base which must have been several hundred miles away from the surface of the orb. But before it had struck, their view was interrupted. The clockwork room needed them to see what was happening around the hotel now, and across the country as a whole.
People were panicking.
It took several seconds, almost a minute, for the shockwave caused by the Bleed hammer’s attack to reach Surfers Paradise, but once it did, its effects were devastating. Buildings shook. Windows were shattered. And the people in the streets, already crowded together through necessity and fear, had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They tried to look for cover, but the congestion was so extreme that it was virtually impossible for anyone to move. Fights began breaking out. Small skirmishes at first, which seemed poised to turn into widespread riots.
The panic appeared to subside. People who lived in this part of the world weren’t used to earthquakes or tremors, but they weren’t unheard of, either. Calm had barely begun to be restored when the shockwave from the Bleed’s second strike hit, then the third, then the fourth. Miles out in the ocean, the horrific thing had got itself into an established routine, bizarrely machine-like.
Again and again and again and again and again.
“So that’s the plan,” Jenny said. “It can’t get to us, so it’s going to do what it can to turn us against ourselves.”
“Talk to them. Reassure them. Tell them to calm the hell down.”
The clockwork room opened up a channel for her. Once again, alongside her own face, Jenny could see what was happening outside.
“Listen to me,” she said, and she immediately saw a reaction in the masses, though it wasn’t clear whether her voice was genuinely providing any solace, or if they’d just been startled by her sudden noise. “We’re under attack, but you all knew that already. The Bleed is trying a new tactic, and that’s what you can hear. It’s attacking the forcefield we’re using to protect you all, way out to sea, but it’s not getting through. It won’t get through. The only impact it’s having is on you.”
She paused a
s another shockwave struck. The room alerted her to a scene in Sydney, some five hundred miles south. The Sydney Tower Eye, one of the tallest observation towers in the Southern hemisphere—now one of the tallest buildings left in the world—was shaking precariously.
“We’re doing everything we can to look after you all,” Jenny continued, “but you’re going to need to take some responsibility yourselves. Try and move away from built up areas, if you can. I know it’s difficult, but I also know you can do this. Work together. Help each other. Remember, we’re all on the same side here.”
She anxiously watched trickles of people trying to move, but the open spaces they were slowly herding towards were filled with other people already. Elsewhere in the country it would be better, but in the built-up metropolis like Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, people’s options were severely limited.
She wanted to say more, but she’d just be talking for the sake of it. There was nothing else she could tell them, no other reassurance she could give. Her heart went out to those terrified millions left out there. Just when it appeared that some semblance of calm was returning, another shockwave would hit and with it, another sweeping wave of fear.
“I’ve tried to rebalance things,” Maddie told her. She was on the other side of the console, her hands moving with expert speed and precision. “I’m moving more of the energy in the orb over to the area where the Bleed’s attacking. It won’t make a lot of difference, but I’m thinking it’ll cushion the blow a little, reduce the size of the impact.”
“Good call. Thank you.”
And for a few minutes, it seemed to be working. Maddie watched the hammer-thing continuing to strike, while Jenny watched what was happening across Australia. Fortunately, they’d ended up in a country where the population was relatively well spread. Apart from in the cities, particularly those towards the east, people appeared to just about be coping.