The Last Of The First (Halfhero Book 3)

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  It was the last photograph that would ever be taken of all of them together.

  Inside the farmhouse, Daniel watched Saffi from the kitchen doorway. He was amazed by how composed she seemed. She wasn't fazed at all about speaking in front of an audience of billions. He scratched the skin where his left eye had been. It had been two days since he'd worn the patch. TripleDee had pointed out that, as they had been involved with the theft of an aircraft carrier, technically they were pirates. He'd offered to buy him a parrot. Daniel had gone upstairs and put the patch in a drawer.

  Abos had written the statement. It was short. Daniel pulled his copy out of his pocket and read it again.

  A statement from the First

  We, the nine individuals previously unlawfully controlled by representatives of the United States Government, have requested that the United Kingdom officially acknowledges our status as refugees. We ask for sanctuary and protection in your country. We seek no redress against the United States. We offer no threat to any government or people.

  We intend to work with broadcasters and publishers to put on record what we know about the origin of our species, and to pass on crucial information to help humanity avoid the extinction-level event towards which it is heading.

  We bear no grudge against those who enslaved us. We will dedicate ourselves to helping your species, and all species, on this planet. We will share the knowledge we have. We made the same mistake your species is making. The nine of us are all that remains of a billions-strong technologically advanced civilisation. Our species evolved, developed, and thrived, but we were destroyed. We bring you a warning from your own planet's distant past. We preceded you as the dominant species on Earth. We were the First.

  Saffi had been made up by one of the crew. Daniel looked at her. Why would a woman like her be with him? He could make no sense of it.

  With thirty seconds to go, Saffi looked up, smiled and mouthed I love you.

  Daniel gave her the thumbs up, then winced.

  Thumbs up? You twat.

  On the monitor next to the director, Daniel could see the programmed build-up leading to the live statement. They'd been showing old footage of The Deterrent and newer stories featuring the titans for over an hour.

  The kitchen fell silent as the director counted the last few seconds on her fingers, then pointed to Saffi.

  "My name is Saffi Narad," she said, looking into the camera. "I have known the individual once called The Deterrent since November last year. He, and the other members of his species—the titans—will use the next few weeks to set the record straight about their origins and their intentions. They have prepared a short statement."

  The lights flickered. Saffi carried on.

  "A statement from the First," she read.

  The lights flickered again and went out.

  Daniel looked out of the kitchen window. Abos, TripleDee, Sara, and the First emerged from the laboratory, but they didn't head for the house. They all faced the opposite direction.

  Daniel looked past the heads of the group to the fields beyond, which sloped up towards the woods. It was half an hour before sunset, and the sun was a low, orange ball.

  His eyes weren't drawn to the sinking sun, or the rich colours lent to the meadows and trees by the warm evening light.

  A man stood on the crest of the rise. He was still, and he was staring at the house. Daniel asked himself why he was referring to the stranger as he. Then he went cold as the answer became clear. He knew the figure was that of a male for the same reason that he knew he was unspeakably old, unbelievably dangerous, and full of malice and hatred.

  The figure wasn't human. It was communicating with onemind, and Daniel was picking up some of that communication.

  He didn't realise he had been shaking until Saffi put her hands on his arm and squeezed.

  "Daniel," she said, "Daniel. What's wrong?"

  At the far end of the field, his eyes staring at the group assembled in front of the farmhouse, the Old Man wept. He wept because he had found his brothers and sisters. He wept because the link they had forged between their minds was laid open to him, and he had forgotten that such a thing was possible. He experienced the consciousness of the others, their individual minds and their onemind, uncovering a memory so ancient, it was like a wisp of a forgotten dream. He wept for all he had given up, and because he could no longer remember what that was.

  Most of all, he wept because he knew what his Purpose was.

  As the sun touched the tops of the trees behind him, he set off towards the farmhouse.

  31

  Daniel turned to the film crew.

  "Get out fast," he said. "Head down to the checkpoint. Go."

  As they ran for the van outside, he went to the back door. Saffi followed. He shook his head. "Stay here, Saff. I don't like the look of this."

  She grabbed his hand. "Whatever we face, we face it together," she said. "It's non-negotiable, Daniel Harbin, so don't waste your breath."

  He looked grim. "Stay behind me."

  Daniel opened the door. The approaching figure was halfway across the field, his features impossible to pick out against the setting sun.

  "Who is that?" said Saffi.

  "One of the First," said Daniel.

  "What? Abos said the US government and the titans had searched pretty much the whole planet."

  "No more dormant ones," said Daniel. "I guess he wasn't dormant."

  "Then why has he stayed away until now?"

  "I don't know," said Daniel, as the tall figure got closer, "but something's not right. The First feel it. I do too, a little."

  Saffi said nothing. The man had reached the gate. He opened it and stepped into the yard.

  He was tall. His hair was a little longer than was fashionable, but he wore the nearly ubiquitous beard of the under-forties British male.

  It wasn't his appearance that drew everyone's attention. Daniel didn't believe in auras, filing them in the same category as homeopathy and palm reading, but this guy had an aura and then some. There were no glowing bands of light around the body, but looking at him was like looking at a piece of tarmac baking on a hot summer day. Except the haze surrounding the figure wasn't heat; it was power.

  Since the first time Abos had shared onemind with his children, Daniel had felt linked to the First. It was weak, but it was there. He concentrated on it now, then flinched. He had been shut out by the stranger as firmly as if a hand on his chest had pushed him away. But, for a split second, he had meshed with the First and knew what they knew.

  "Methuselah," he whispered.

  The stranger looked at the First, then at TripleDee, Sara, Daniel, and Saffi. He turned his golden eyes on Abos last of all.

  "This," he said, "is very disappointing."

  They were his only words. He continued to look at Abos, his expression devoid of emotion. Abos stumbled backwards.

  "Daniel," said Abos, speaking as if every word was causing him terrible pain. "He... he is trying... onemind... he will be dominant. You must run. All of you. Run, now."

  His voice had risen almost to a shout as he spoke, and his body was shaking. Daniel looked at the other First. Four of them were rigid, their bodies as still as dead trees, eyes shut and faces slack. Two of them had their eyes open, but their faces were wet with perspiration. Abos, Shuck, and Susan were fighting the hardest, every muscle tight, every vein on their necks and faces standing out. The three of them were moving towards the stranger, but it was as if they were walking into a hurricane. Their progress was almost imperceptible, and Daniel could see they were weakening. Abos was right. They had to run. This was not a battle they could win here and now. The First were buying them time, at great cost.

  "Come on," he said, leading Saffi back towards the house and hissing at Sara and TripleDee. "We don't have much time. Come on!"

  Sara backed towards the door, but TripleDee stood his ground.

  "Trip! NOW!" The Geordie halfhero hated being called Trip, but Daniel wa
sn't going to use any more syllables than he had to.

  "No. Wait," said TripleDee, shaking his head and taking a slow step towards the bearded man.

  Sara stopped moving. "What the hell are you doing?" she said.

  TripleDee kept moving. Another two steps, and he would be within punching distance of his target. Punching people had long been his favoured method of ending disputes.

  "No," said Daniel. "He's too strong, he'll kill you."

  "In his dreams, mebbe," said TripleDee. He pulled back his fist in preparation. A straight right to the throat would do nicely. "He's distracted. We might never get another chance to save them."

  Before anyone could protest further, TripleDee took a final step and unleashed a punch at the bearded man's exposed throat.

  TripleDee had only put all his strength into a single punch on one previous occasion. The recipient of that punch had been buried in a closed casket, as there was so little left of his head. TripleDee assumed the current punch would have a similar effect.

  That's the thing about assumptions. You only learn that you were wrong to make one when it's too late.

  The stranger didn't try to avoid the punch. The full force of the impact hit his throat. Or it seemed to. It should have. But instead of injuring him, the massive store of kinetic energy was returned to the man who wielded it, travelling through TripleDee's arm, into his shoulder, and throwing him backwards. He flew through the gap between Sara and Daniel, hitting the farmhouse wall so hard that bricks shattered, and the whole wall rippled and sagged. TripleDee came to rest in a cloud of brick dust. He didn't move.

  Saffi pressed two fingers against his neck.

  "He's alive," she said.

  Daniel knelt beside the fallen man. What happened next was over in seconds, but he would rerun it in his mind for the rest of his life, always wondering if there was anything else he could have done.

  "No."

  The word was a whisper. Daniel looked up to see who had spoken. It was Sara.

  The stranger had turned towards them. If TripleDee's attack had done nothing else, it had got the bearded man's attention. He walked towards the halfheroes, but every step was an effort. He was straining as if being held back.

  As the man came closer, his arm rising to his shoulder, his fist clenched, Daniel looked beyond him and saw fear in his father's eyes. Abos couldn't stop Methuselah. He could slow him down, but he couldn't stop him.

  Daniel grabbed TripleDee's collar. He tried to drag him out of danger, but he could see it was too late. The bearded man would reach them before he could get TripleDee away. He dragged the unconscious man towards the door, despite knowing it was useless.

  Then his view of Methuselah was blocked.

  Sara.

  She had moved so quickly, Daniel and Saffi hadn't noticed until she was in the path of the approaching stranger.

  At the same moment, their brains lit up with a command so powerful it was as if they had lost control of their actions. Sara had screamed at them to leave, to get TripleDee out, but she hadn't done it in words. She had planted it directly into their minds, something she had promised she would never do.

  By doing it now, she knew she would never have to apologise.

  Daniel and Saffi dragged TripleDee's unconscious body across the back doorstep, through the kitchen, and out of the front door. Throwing their sibling onto the back of the old pickup parked outside, they jumped in, and Daniel floored the accelerator.

  It wasn't until they reached the checkpoint that they allowed themselves to acknowledge what had just happened.

  It was one moment in the kitchen, unnoticed at the time as they had dragged TripleDee to safety, that would return to Daniel in nightmares for years to come. As Saffi opened the front door and Daniel followed, he had heard a sound like heavy rainfall on the window looking out to the yard. With one step to go, he had turned his head, his mind not letting him understand what he was looking at until much later.

  It wasn't rain running down the glass and pooling on the windowsill outside. It was blood.

  Sara was dead.

  The soldiers at the checkpoint were staring up the rise at the farmhouse. They shifted nervously as the ground began to tremble.

  The commanding officer's manner was calm and professional, but her voice shook as the ground moved more violently.

  "What's the situation up there?"

  Daniel thrust the fact of Sara's death away and focussed on the immediate danger. "There's a new First - a titan. Not like the others. He's dangerous, he's powerful, and he's attacking the rest. He killed, he killed—" Daniel didn't break down, just stood there, unable to say the words, as if acknowledging Sara's death out loud would make it real.

  Saffi took over.

  "He killed Sara." She swallowed.

  "A halfhero?" said the commanding officer.

  "She died saving us," said Saffi.

  The officer considered the new information. "And the others are fighting this new titan?"

  "Yes," said Saffi.

  After considering the implications, the officer walked to the nearest vehicle and pulled out a radio.

  "Base, this is echo one-four, repeat echo one-four. We have a developing situation and require reinforcements. Get me the general. We—"

  She didn't finish her sentence. The wall of the farmhouse yard blew apart. The outbuilding was flattened, the violence of its destruction sending bricks and dust flying into the fields. Then the farmhouse sagged drunkenly and crumpled, its roof falling in a shower of tiles. The trees in the adjacent wood, some of which had been standing for three centuries, leaned outwards before being uprooted.

  The shaking underfoot increased. Most of the soldiers were knocked off their feet by the shock-wave. The armoured vehicles and the tank slid away, pushed by an invisible force.

  Daniel hung on to the wheel of the pickup which was moving down the road, its tyres, held by the handbrake, screeching as it went.

  There were shouts of, "Get out!" "Withdraw!" "Pull back!" Daniel released the handbrake, stamped on the accelerator and, pulling around the tank, headed north away from the village.

  For the first mile, the road writhed beneath them like something living, then it suddenly stopped. Daniel pulled over. He and Saffi got out and looked back along the road.

  It was quiet for a few seconds, then the birds in the surrounding trees resumed their dusk songs. The scene was idyllic; the last sliver of the setting sun disappearing behind a hill, sending long shadows across the fields, meadows, woods, and hedgerows. Only a few jarring elements spoiled the picture. One was the devastated wood, its dead trees scattered, a hundred thousand habitats destroyed. Another was the military convoy, their vehicles half a mile behind the pickup.

  Most jarring of all were the ten figures in the air above what had once been the farmhouse. They were in a V formation, like migrating birds. It was too far to make out any details, but Daniel didn't need even the evidence of his one eye to know who was leading the formation. His connection to onemind had been severed completely. The stranger, Methuselah, the Old Man, led the First now and, as Daniel and Saffi watched, the First turned and flew south until they were lost from sight.

  TripleDee sat up, flexing his shoulders and arms and rubbing the back of his head.

  "Fuck me sideways," he said, a rueful smile on his face. "That hurt. Did we get him?"

  Then he looked from Daniel to Saffi and took in their expressions before turning and looking all around him.

  "Hey," he said, "where's Sara?"

  32

  They drove for three hours in silence. TripleDee looked out of the passenger window. Sometimes, he frowned as a wave of pain from his rapidly healing body washed through him.

  Saffi sat in the middle, crying, her head against Daniel's arm. His shirt was soaked with her tears, and he had lost all sensation in the arm twenty minutes earlier, but he didn't move.

  Daniel didn't want to do anything except drive. They were on the M5, and there was a k
ind of numb comfort in the simplicity of motorway driving. He was looking ahead, staying in the inside lane as far as possible. Tarmac, bridges, blue signs for junctions and services. The occasional piece of shredded HGV tyre on the hard shoulder. Fast food litter on the grassed banks. Each turnoff they approached and passed was marked by a mile of lampposts, their flat, dull light flashing rhythmically across the cab of the pickup.

  Exeter, Taunton, Bridgewater, Clevedon. Bristol, Gloucester, Cheltenham.

  It wasn't until Daniel had turned off the motorway at Worcester, stopped to fill up with diesel, and headed west, that Saffi had broken the silence.

  "Where are we going?"

  Daniel wasn't sure. He was driving, that was all. He didn't dare stop, he had to keep moving, keep going forwards. He didn't even know what road he was on. Then a sign flashed by, and he remembered the route he had looked up after reading Palindrome's last email.

  "Shropshire," he said. "We're going to Shropshire. To the Devil's Chair."

  TripleDee turned his head away from the window and looked at the others. His eyes were dull, his expression slack. Saffi reached out her hand but TripleDee turned away, staring out at nothing.

  “Sounds lovely," said Saffi.

  They reached Church Stretton at three-thirty in the morning. Daniel drove the pickup along the High Street, then over a cattle grid onto a single track that led up the Long Mynd. The road climbed, the drop to his right falling steeply away to the valley below.

  He parked in the first lay-by he found. When he turned off the engine, the sudden silence combined with the darkness lent their surroundings an other-worldly ambience.

  TripleDee was the first to move. He fumbled with the door, then dropped from the cab and shuffled away from the pickup, moving like an old man. A sound came from him. No words, just a long groan, interrupted only when he had to take a breath.

  Saffi shuffled along the seat and followed him. Her eyes adjusted to the lack of light, and details of the scenery became visible as shades of navy and grey. Lit only by the stars, she saw TripleDee's hunched shape. He was next to a stream which whispered and burbled in accompaniment to his broken, gasping moans. She sat on the sheep-cropped grass, put her arm around his shoulder and drew him close. A few seconds later, Daniel sat on the other side of the weeping man and put his hand on his back. They cried together as the stars wheeled along their tracks in the firmament above.