A voice crackled through in the operator’s ear, barely audible.
“Where do we want to focus?” the operator asked his guards. “Do you want everyone on camera?”
“Just… just film,” the first guard responded awkwardly.
“Yeah, it doesn’t work like that. My partner in there needs to know who to focus on, and he’s not about to interrupt your boss to ask her.”
“Just the scene,” the second guard reiterated, shaking his head.
“Thanks a lot, Kubrick,” the operator muttered under his breath. “What about the other woman? Do you want her in?”
“Who?” the second guard snapped.
“Her, there,” the operator said, pointing at the screen and the third woman on it, the one that he did not recognise. “I obviously know Summer and Cynthia Arrow, but who’s the third woman?”
“That is Number One,” the first guard said as he followed the operator’s finger.
“Great. Number One. Fantastic. And who the hell is she? I’m guessing important by the moniker?”
“That is our leader’s first in command and daughter.”
“Well is she in or out?”
The two guards looked at each other and froze.
“In,” one said.
“Out,” the other offered at the exact same time.
“Fantastic. You geniuses are going to get me killed.” The operator sighed heavily as the two guards started to argue amongst themselves.
Three minutes to transmission
Stanley Bush sat nervously in the control booth back at the ARK station.
There were several military-clad people that he didn’t recognise inside the booth and more outside.
These men and women were not wearing the normal navy blue suits of the station’s security officers; instead, they were wearing black combat gear that looked more military in nature to him than private security.
No one in the station had quite found the nerve to question these people when they’d first shown up under direction from up above.
Even though he was acting station manager, in reality he had no control or power. He was just following orders like everyone else; he was just first in line to get his.
He was in intermittent communication with Reagan Holgate in the van, and while he was usually a very capable operator, now, in the brief conversations they’d had, Reagan had sounded uncharacteristically nervous.
All Stanley knew was that they were to start broadcasting in under three minutes, and despite being the station manager, he had no idea what they were about to show to the country and he didn’t dare ask.
Two minutes to transmission
Link motioned for Jamie-Lyn to quietly steal away from the back of the news van and away from the soldiers who were staring intently into the van and watching the screen, all three of the men discussing the scene that was being recorded.
When they were at a safe distance, it was Link who spoke first.
“I thought CJ couldn’t be…,” he said, shaking his head.
“He couldn’t. He can’t.”
“Then what the hell just happened?”
“I don’t know,” Jamie-Lyn admitted.
“I mean, she stabbed him, right? We both just saw that, right? It was a crappy old knife? Right?”
“Jesus, Link, I don’t know what happened, okay? Nothing is supposed to hurt him, certainly not an ordinary blade.”
“Maybe it’s not ordinary.”
“What?”
“The knife, maybe it’s not ordinary.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. She was just yelling about an Angel Blade.” He shrugged in a kind of ‘I’m not really saying that, but I kind of am’ motion.
“Are you asking me if I think that crazy ass bitch is running around with a weapon from God? That CJ is some kind of demon sent from hell and Cynthia Arrow is heaven’s warrior? Are you seriously asking me that?”
“No, no of course not… Why? Do you think she might be?”
“I don’t care how crazy she is, she’s not talking to God.”
“Then how did she stab him?”
“Was there anything in Gustafson’s notes about a weapon?” she asked hopefully. “Maybe something that could hurt CJ?”
He thought for a moment before answering.
“Nothing that I saw, but that would make sense, right? At least more sense than… you know…” He made a pointing motion upwards before a stabbing motion forwards.
“Well it doesn’t matter now anyway. She’s got something that can hurt him, and we’ve got to stop her.”
They started to head towards the hangar, keeping low and watching out for any more of Cynthia’s soldiers. There were several groups of two around the outside of the hangar, but they were all staring inwards, seemingly and understandably fascinated by the scene inside.
Link pointed over to the far side where there was a small door leading back inside, one that was currently unmanned by any guards.
They held a pistol each, which hardly seemed adequate to face the amount of firepower that they had seen surrounding the building.
“Do you think they know that we’re out?” she asked him as they jogged across some open grassland.
“If they do, then I’m guessing that they don’t care. Cynthia’s got what she wanted, what she’s always wanted. At this point, she’s probably forgotten all about us. I know that…”
Jamie-Lyn ran into the back of him when he stopped suddenly and just stood there silently with a furrowed brow.
“What is it?” she asked.
“That guy back in the van, he said something about… about the other woman.”
“So?”
“On the screen I saw CJ, Cynthia, Summer Sloan and another woman; who was she? I’m sure the guy said, but to be honest, I was still stuck focusing on the fact that our nuclear option had just managed to get stabbed.”
“Um…, right hand, the guy said; he called her Number One.”
“He also called her something else.”
“Oh yeah, he said daughter. Who knew that Cynthia had the time to start a family?!”
Something seemed to occur to him, and instead of returning to a soft jog, he started sprinting across the grassland towards the small door into the hangar.
“STOP DOING THAT!” she yelled to him as she started to run after him in exasperation.
One minute to transmission
Crimson drew closer to the gathering. Beyond the inner circle, he could see more and more of Cynthia’s people starting to move in. Presumably their orders were to secure the perimeter, but their fascination was understandably overriding their orders.
He reached the two well-armed guards and stood just within striking distance, which unfortunately for him had to be closer than he would usually like.
Cynthia was building up to a religious rant again but he tuned her noise out.
The reporter woman was looking rightfully terrified next to her and he had zero sympathy for her plight; as far as he was concerned, she had lain down with the devil and would get what she deserved.
CJ was still slumped forwards, and while the knife was still buried up to its hilt in his shoulder, it didn’t look like a fatal wound. He could only assume that the shock of being stabbed had caused the alien to faint, something that he personally found more than a little funny.
He did a quick calculation in his head and figured that even in his compromised state, he could handle the two guards, especially if they kept their backs to him.
The problem would be to take one of the assault rifles and close the distance to Cynthia in order to use her as protection from the guards on the edge of the hangar who would open fire.
He steeled himself and slowed his breathing as he prepared to move. In his head, he’d already shot one of the guards in the back of the head and grabbed the second from behind before he could turn around, slitting the man’s throat before taking his weapon, and the
n reaching Cynthia before she could inflict any further damage on CJ.
He didn’t want to kill Cynthia. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. He was desperate to kill the woman who’d destroyed so many lives; he just didn’t want to kill what might be their only leverage to escape. He didn’t expect that the reporter or the other woman standing nearby would stop the goon squad from opening fire and cutting them down.
He was currently working on the assumption that whatever had dampened CJ’s powers had also made him vulnerable to being stabbed despite overhearing the alien protest to the contrary. If he could get the big guy clear, then maybe he could teleport them all out.
Hopefully, Jamie-Lyn and Link had come to their senses and were already getting well clear, but he had seen that look in the woman’s eye before: she wasn’t going anywhere; he had to admire her for that.
All of this flashed through his mind in an instant, a rush of imagery and calculations at breakneck speed that would make a normal mind spin, but for him it was like breathing.
With a final deep breath, he started to move… that was until someone started yelling like an idiot and everyone turned around to see who the moron was: it was Link.
Transmission
The broadcast started, and all over the country, people’s homes were flooded with the original scene in the hangar as Cynthia Arrow unveiled her prisoner and preached to the nation.
The people at home watched the action from ten minutes ago, unaware of what was currently happening.
“IT’S HER! IT’S HER!” Link yelled at the top of his lungs as he broke into the open in real time.
All eyes turned to look at him in open-mouthed shock as he came sprinting across the concrete floor.
“IT’S HER!” he yelled again, pointing furiously. “SHE’S THE BEAST!”
In the centre of the hangar, there were three women: Cynthia Arrow, Summer Sloan and Savannah Greene.
The three women turned to Link as he ran, now with Jamie-Lyn emerging behind him.
“GET AWAY FROM HER!” Link yelled.
He’d almost reached Crimson now, and the two guards in front of him turned to face the charging Link and would any second see that the soldier in uniform standing behind them was actually Crimson.
The whole world was about to explode, and Crimson had no idea what was happening or what Link thought he was doing. If it was a plan, he had no clue as to what it was.
“HER! IT’S HER!” Link yelled again, pointing furiously, and it was… it was her.
Cynthia Arrow looked on with a face filled with poisonous rage while Summer looked scared and Savannah looked confused, but one of them soon began to change.
Savannah Greene started to shake and convulse as her body began to twist and grow into a new shape. Her limbs started to stretch and elongate and her bones cracked as her body morphed into something else entirely.
She opened her mouth and screamed in pain and terror, a monstrous sound that shook the huge hangar building. Everyone stared at her in morbid fascination at the grotesque sight.
Her skin split open, spilling blood and chunks of human flesh onto the concrete floor as she sank to her knees, her eyes wide with a yellow feral fury, an animal’s fury, a beast’s fury.
chapter 43
LIGHTS, CAMERA, DEATH
Simon Clermont was one of millions of people glued to their television sets when the broadcast started.
Homes all over the country and beyond were drawn to their screens in curiosity and soon word began to spread at lightning pace once the images of Cosmic Jones were recognised.
The online viewership would ultimately dwarf the traditional audience, even more so once you took into account the fact that most mobile devices were now being shared as public transport became open-air theatres.
There were a handful of skirmishes as young men and women objected to having their phones stared at over their shoulders by the people sitting behind. But such was the obvious enormity of the situation that most people watched on in a hushed silence.
Of course, cynicism ran deep in the population, the influx of movie magic CGI making believing what you saw with your own eyes sometimes difficult, but it was quickly agreed that those screams of pain and fear once the knife went in were impossible to fake.
Once Cynthia had stabbed CJ in the shoulder, all doubt faded away as to the authenticity of what people were watching.
The Queen’s Guard had been painted into a corner, the heroes turned villains in the eyes of a once grateful nation; now they were the bad guys, wanted criminals, killers on the run. But was this justice? Was seeing CJ tied to a chair and tortured really what anyone wanted to see?
Discussions started across the country, discussions that rose into arguments. Older people who remembered the SOUL war and what it had felt like to live through still held onto the belief that their heroes had been exactly that, while the younger cynics, who distrusted all authority, found themselves staring into the eyes of a madwoman on their screens, a madwoman armed with a knife and lacking the compulsion to not use it.
‘Fascist pig, getting what he deserves’ was a popular phrase amongst the young, while ‘I told you we couldn’t trust that crazy woman’ was the older person’s choice of comment.
“Oh dear God, what the hell is she doing?” Clermont gasped as he watched Cynthia Arrow move around her bound captive like a scene from Reservoir Dogs.
“I honestly have no idea, sir,” Dennison admitted as his own eyes were both captivated and horrified by what he was seeing.
“She’s lost it. I mean she’s really lost it!”
“That is assuming that she ever really had it, sir.”
“Oh yes, Dennison, this is actually the perfect time to make jokes!”
“My apologies, sir,” the aide replied and actually managed to make his apology sound sincere.
“She’s going to ruin us all… ruin me,” Clermont said as he slumped in his plush, high-backed leather armchair. “We’re finished.”
“That is assuming that Ms Arrow links herself to you, sir.”
“Oh she will. My luck is too bloody lousy for her not to. You wait and see… two minutes from now, she’s going to be blabbing all about me, all about our deal, all about working with us, all about my link to him!” he said, jabbing a finger at the tied CJ on the screen.
“Isn’t this what you wanted, sir?”
“What I wanted?” Clermont exclaimed.
“Mr Jones, sir. According to Ms Arrow he was, after all, responsible for your father’s death.”
“And does she currently strike you as a reliable source?”
“Fair point, sir.”
“Jesus Christ, what are we going to do?” Clermont said in a hissed whisper.
“I suppose there is nothing to do, sir, except watch and wait. Perhaps we will get lucky. In fact, I’m sure of it, sir. Positive thoughts and all that,” Dennison replied comfortingly, even though in his head he was already calculating just how much time he would need to make his escape.
----------
While the watching country operated on a delay and had yet to catch up with the sight of Cynthia Arrow’s daughter transforming into the beast, back in real time, the aircraft hangar was now filled with blood and death.
Link had pulled up short before he’d reached the group in the centre of the hangar with Jamie-Lyn chasing in behind him.
Jamie-Lyn could see that there was essentially a line of people running from her at the rear, to Link, to Crimson, to the two guards in front of him, to the man operating the camera next to Summer Sloan, to Cynthia’s daughter, to Cynthia herself and finally CJ sitting slumped on a chair.
Crimson had been about to make his move when Link had come in shouting. This had caused the two guards to turn in his direction, but before they could recognise Crimson, Savannah had changed everything.
Gone now was the woman’s slim and toned feminine form, replaced by a killing machine.
One of the guards had been an ex-sold
ier with a high level of training; it was those reflexes which got him killed first.
He’d turned to the beast and made the mistake of raising his weapon in an aggressive stance while his partner, an ex-school teacher, had simply stared dumbfounded at the transformation going on before him.
With one sweep of a razor-tipped claw, the beast had severed the soldier’s head and sent it spinning across the concrete before it landed with a wet splat.
The beast roared, its wide jaws opening and letting out a primal scream of sheer bloody fury when it spotted CJ on the chair.
“CJ!” Jamie-Lyn screamed to try and rouse him.
Crimson had seen close up just how the beast had responded to imminent threat and took a few paces back out of reach before he raised his weapon and started to fire directly at the thing’s head.
The beast turned and cocked its head as the bullets bounced off its skull with no effect. There was little in the way of humanity within its yellow gaze, other than the mocking of Crimson’s effort.
It moved with astonishing speed and closed the distance between them in a flash and would have slain a normal man, but however compromised Crimson might be at this point, he was still far from normal.
Crimson grabbed hold of the second guard who was now attempting to flee and yanked him in front of him just as the beast lashed out.
The blow slashed through the guard’s chest, tearing it open and striking with such force that both men were sent flying backwards through the air. Although Crimson avoided the claws, he was still sent spinning before crashing down hard with the dead guard landing on top of him.
The beast started to walk towards CJ, its movements slow and deliberate.
It ignored the cameraman, who was now sprinting as fast as his trembling legs would carry him away from the scene. His camera continued to film, now a handheld operation as Summer Sloan snatched it from the tripod and aimed it at the action, swinging it from side to side to capture the best view.
Cynthia stepped in front of the creature that only moments ago had been her daughter, her eyes wild with anger at the sudden and violent interruption.
Capes Page 60