Smith steps forward. ‘Research Site Two has been completely disabled,’ he says, ‘as a result of the incursion by the terrorist empowered. The project is in serious jeopardy. Stanly Bird is most likely on his way here, and rest assured, he intends to finish what he and his allies have started. You have only been informed in the vaguest of terms what the consequences will be if these terrorists succeed, and I apologise for that.’ His voice takes on a different tone now, and it’s one that seems utterly foreign coming out of his mouth. He sounds like a leader. ‘You have all been hand-picked because of your skills, your loyalty and your willingness to see the bigger picture, and you have served with distinction. We are beyond such petty distractions as nation states and regime changes. We are not fighting for religious freedom, for the purity of one country or one ideology. We are fighting for the human race, and the planet on which we live. No goal can be more important.’ Now his voice hardens again, and I get the familiar chill. Fair dos, Freeman said he was a good liar. ‘So suffice it to say that if Bird succeeds in his endeavour, the effects will be catastrophic in ways that none of us can begin to imagine. If he does manage to get down here, I don’t want any hesitations. Shoot to kill.’
Wow.
I line up with some other soldiers and try to compose myself, keeping that one thought in my head, round and round. I’m supposed to be here. I sneak a glance at the hexagonal control room jutting out of the wall above and see another familiar face behind the glass, scrutinising everything happening below. Lucius. Immaculate suit, immaculate hair, slight and sinister. The true believer of the two I met at the Kulich Gallery, utterly convinced that he is on a mission from God. I wonder if it comforts him. I wonder how many of the soldiers I’ve fought believe the same thing, whether in their own heads they are righteous defenders. I wonder how many of the empowered they’ve enslaved believe in the same God, whether those who volunteered had even an inkling of what they were being asked to do, or if they were simply so desperate to shut out the pain, the noise in their brains, that they’d sign anything. Anything for a bit of peace. I stand there, hating the Angel Group, hating Morter Smith, hating so hard that I can barely think straight. Smith’s bare-faced lies, telling these men that they’re protecting the world.
Keep it together, kid.
Not long now.
Morter Smith’s phone rings and I notice that Lucius has pulled out his own. Smith answers. ‘Lucius?’ I see Lucius speaking urgently, and Smith turns his back on us, and I smile behind my black face plate. Now. I think part and the soldiers fly in different directions, weapons escaping from their hands. There are many yells of surprise and hard thuds and groans of pain. I think spin and whirl Smith around to face me, I think drop and his phone hits the floor, I think up and his arms are raised above his head, I think freeze and he is immobile. I think off and my helmet is off my head, on the floor, and I’m pointing my gun at him. ‘You should probably re-think your door policy,’ I say. ‘They’re letting in any old riff-raff these days.’
Smith smiles and I barely have a second to wonder what it means before something launches itself down from the metal balcony above us. My gun is no longer in my hand, it’s whirling through the air, and I’m rising off the ground, a foot, two feet, against my will, my limbs completely paralysed. I can’t speak, I can only move my head, and even that takes a huge effort. Smith is no longer under my control and stands there watching me, dusting off the lapels of his suit for effect. Arsehole. Now someone lands behind him and stares at me with terrifying, empty eyes, and my stomach sinks way, way down. I know him. Tall, paler than pale, spiky black hair, his black suit and white tie blending perfectly with the black and white of his hair and skin, like a possessed portrait.
Leon.
But Eddie killed you . . .
He’s added some accessories to his outfit, a samurai sword in a scabbard on his back and a pair of handguns visible inside his jacket. Really completes the human anime character look. I struggle, physically and mentally, but nothing happens, all I can do is blink furiously. It’s a horrible feeling, panic rising inside, bubbling, popping, a horrendous vertigo. I think release and no and out but nothing happens. My limbs don’t even tremble. I just hang in the air like a puppet on invisible strings with Leon watching me, unsmiling, un-anything. One by one the soldiers are getting up and running over, weapons raised, but Smith raises his hand. ‘Hold your fire.’
Well, that’s a relief, I guess.
His smile cracks and I see the hate that drove him while he tortured me, and he hits me in the face, hard.
Ow. Maybe not such a relief.
I can’t make a sound, can’t express pain in any way. He hits me again, in the stomach, but I can’t bend over and all my air is gone and I can barely even choke. Smith shakes his head. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The slightest clue?’
I can’t answer him.
‘You know,’ he says, ‘when you ran amuck and destroyed the other drawing area, I thought you’d gone mad, or that it was some kind of revenge against me for what happened in the White Room. But it was never about rescuing one empowered, was it? You wanted to destroy the drawing areas all along. Why?’ He stares into my eyes as though he’s never seen anything so confusing or ugly before, and I see a flash of understanding in his. ‘You didn’t know, did you? What they’re really for? What we’re trying to do? You just swallowed whatever crap you were fed, hook line and sinker. Well, let me lay it out for you in terms that you will hopefully understand. You may have doomed this city. We barely have enough power flowing into the machines to keep the tears closed. Monsters are appearing everywhere. If we can’t milk every last drop of energy from our empowered here, pulling off some kind of minor miracle in the process, that is it. No containment. Bigger holes than anyone will be able to plug. Monsters will flood in, and God only knows what else. The world will drown.’
That’s not possible.
He’s lying.
‘It was Freeman, wasn’t it?’ says Smith. ‘He served you and your crew of retards a steaming plate of pure horseshit, didn’t he? Told you we were trying to rip through to the other world.’ He shakes his head, like he can’t believe someone could be this stupid. ‘I don’t know what his agenda is, beyond apparently having gone insane, but it is over. When my people find him they’re going to kill him. When we find your other friends we’re going to plug them in, just as I’m going to do to you shortly. You’ve got power to spare. You might just be the key to stopping this. You can undo some of the damage you’ve done.’
Damage I’ve done?
But I thought . . .gun
‘The girl will have to wait for now,’ says Smith. ‘I was foolish before. I let her cloud my judgment, let her get in the way, because I thought I had you over a barrel. I didn’t realise how dangerous you really were. I should have hooked you straight up to the machines, maybe none of this would have happened.’ He breathes deeply. ‘It doesn’t matter now, though. You’ll go to sleep, and no longer represent any kind of threat, and I will find my daughter – my daughter – without you.’
Tara . . .
No. He can’t. No.
She’s mine.
‘How dare you?’ says Smith. The composure that he has just about regained slips and he hits me again. Some of the soldiers look at each other. Uncomfortable looks? It’s hard to say. It’s hard to think. It’s hard to care. ‘How dare you keep my daughter from me?’ Smith practically snarls. ‘You and Freeman and whoever else is in this with you? How dare you?’ Another punch. Leon allows me to go slack when they hit, which is very charitable of him, but I can’t seem to feel them any more anyway. I feel like a ghost. Another punch. Nothing.
I’ll have to let him plug me in.
It’s the only way.
If he’s telling the truth . . .
‘Lying.’ I manage to squeeze it out; the words are strangled, barely human.
&nb
sp; ‘Lying? Really?’ Smith moves closer. ‘Look into my eyes.’ His face is right up close to mine. I can smell his breath. I can see his eyes. I can see truth.
‘Didn’t . . . know . . .’
‘I believe you,’ he says, ‘but it doesn’t matter. I’m going to put you on a bed next to your friend Lauren. You can keep each other company.’
A crash sounds out. It came from pretty far away but that’s clearly still too close for Smith, who snaps around. ‘What the hell was that?’ His phone rings and he answers immediately. ‘What? There’s . . . what? I . . . well kill it then! It’s that little turd Alexander! Under no circumstances can he be allowed down here with that thing! Kill him!’
Alex . . .
No . . .
Smith hangs up his phone and rounds on me again. ‘So you’ve got him helping you. I should have plugged him in when we first found him, useless whinging little prick. As soon as his miniscule brain managed to comprehend that maybe I don’t actually have the power of fucking resurrection, he turns on me.’ He draws a gun, cocks it. He’s sweating like anything. ‘I don’t know how you managed to convince him to destroy the machine. He’s known since he signed on what we’re trying to do. He’s either stupider than I thought or he’s simply got a hard-on for the end of the world. Either way, he’s dead.’ He turns to Leon. ‘Take him to a bed.’
I start moving through the air, Leon walking impassively alongside me. I can’t move my head but my eyes flash around desperately, looking for something. Anything. I can see that Pandora has joined Lucius up in the control room. They speak briefly, then she leaves and appears on the balcony. She hurries down the stairs and walks towards Smith. ‘You’re going to—’
Smith doesn’t speak to interrupt her, he just raises his gun and shoots her in the thigh. The venom in his expression suggests that he’s been wanting to do it for a long time. Pandora doesn’t make a sound at first, she’s too shocked, collapsing to the floor, shaking and clutching at the wound. A dark scarlet puddle is already forming on the pristine floor. It takes a few seconds for her to scream, but when she does it’s piercing, terrible. Smith points his gun at her. ‘Shut up.’
She doesn’t at first, so Smith fires at the floor just next to her. That silences her. The guards all seem really uncomfortable now, it’s obvious from their body language, the way they’re looking at one another, even if their faces are obscured. Smith seems to notice, and if anything it makes him even more pissed off because he starts yelling at them. ‘This isn’t a bloody seminar! We might have a dangerous monster heading down here in a moment, with a psychologically disturbed teenager in the driving seat. Assume positions and get ready to blast the bloody thing! NOW!’ The guards mobilise, running towards the door while Smith turns back to Pandora, shaking his head, his gun hand trembling with fury. ‘Of all people,’ he said, ‘I never expected you to side with Freeman. I thought you were committed. One of us. Obviously not. What is it about destroying everything that so turns you on, Pandora?’
She lied too. It makes sense. Perfect, horrible, obvious sense. She was in on the whole thing, from the beginning. My mind, which barely feels attached to my body, drifts back to the Kulich, when I beat her and rescued Tara. It was Pandora who told me that the little girl was my daughter.
Freeman and Pandora . . .
How could I have been so stupid?
She can’t speak, she’s in too much pain, her head wobbling from side to side. Smith brandishes his gun. ‘You knew all along where she was! You knew! You knew I had a daughter, you knew before I did, and you hid her from me, you gave her away, gave her to this cretinous wannabe superhero. You hid my child from me! How dare you?’ He loses it, fires twice, and Pandora snaps backwards, her head hitting the ground. She doesn’t even twitch. Dead. Leon has stopped to observe, but his expression is still entirely unreadable. The grim pool beneath Pandora’s body spreads. More worried looks between the remaining soldiers. Smith is panting heavily, and now Lucius emerges onto the balcony.
‘What are you doing?’ he bellows, running his hands through his hair.
‘She’s a traitor!’ Smith yells. ‘She betrayed us all! She might have ended everything!’
‘There are procedures, Morter! We have rules! You should have done things by the book! Just as you should have with him!’ Lucius gestures towards me.
‘Don’t lecture me about procedures, you sanctimonious tosser! Pandora conspired against us! And as for this one—’
‘You should have done things by the book!’ Lucius yells again.
For a second I wonder if Smith might shoot Lucius as well, but he forcibly reins himself in. ‘When this is over,’ he says, doing a passable impression of a reasonable human being, ‘I will answer for what I’ve done. You have my word on that, Lucius. But right now, as far as procedures, guidelines and rules go, it doesn’t bloody matter, all right? Nothing matters apart from sealing us off from the other world. Are we agreed?’
‘Nothing matters?’ repeats Lucius. ‘Nothing? Did I imagine all the time that you have wasted searching for the child, then?’
‘Don’t push me,’ says Smith. ‘Not now. Not today.’
Lucius wants to keep blustering, I can tell, but he seems to think better of it. Maybe he had the same thought as me. Better not to resist. Better to give up. ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Just . . . get on with it.’ He returns to the control room and Smith turns to Leon.
‘Get him on the bed now!’ he yells.
Leon continues to float me towards the rows of slumbering ghosts, and I see an empty bed, all the various tubes and electrodes ready to be allocated, a shimmer sitting placidly in a glass box at the head of the bed. A lady in a white coat scurries over and picks up the box, and I am turned over in the air and lain down gently on the bed. It’s grotesque.
No.
No.
I look to my left and there is Lauren, and I think no so hard that it momentarily breaks Leon’s mental grip. I feel him struggle to maintain it, but I’m not fighting to escape, just staring, and I’m quickly under his control again. Lauren looks so peaceful. I wonder if her shimmer is giving her good dreams. I hope it is. I hope they’re good memories. God, I hope it’s not like what I’ve had. I look at the creature and will it to be kind. I remember the one in the forest whispering to me, as did the others at the other drawing area. They think. They’re alive. Be kind to her, I think. I think it so hard, trying to filter every ounce and shred of power I have into it. It makes no indication that it’s heard me.
I have to let them hook me up.
If it’ll save the world.
It’s the only way.
Another crash, much closer. ‘Leon!’ yells Smith. ‘Sort him out now, I need you to go and help those useless bastard soldiers!’
There’s nothing I can do.
They’ll kill Alex.
Except it won’t be him, just the creature. He’ll be back in his body. He’ll go free.
Did he really know what would happen?
Did he really want to destroy the world?
Electrodes are fitted to my temples and chest and I feel my last drops of fight trickling away. I failed. I practically dived into the trap that Freeman and Pandora laid for me and nearly ruined everything. Tara’s not mine. She never was. My future self never left me that note. It must have been Freeman. He had the cabin in the woods built. All him. A trap just big enough for me to fall into, covered with the bare minimum of leaves. The perfect story. I . . .
He knows where Tara and Kloe are.
Freeman knows. He must do. It was his plan. Get them to the middle of nowhere where I couldn’t protect them.
He didn’t give them to the Angel Group . . .
That must mean he wants them for something else.
Something worse.
I have to go and get them. I have to.
If I go . . . the world may
end.
What do I do?
What can I do?
The distorted slam of a heavy body against metal, and the big door bends towards us. He’s here. Another crash and it bends again, and now there is a slight opening and I see tentacles snake through, gaining purchase, trying to force the door apart. A howl of rending metal and Alex leaps almost gracefully through the gash in the door, and Smith and the soldiers fire at him and draw blood but he doesn’t slow down, tentacles snapping like whips, pummelling, brutal. A soldier’s back visibly breaks, others are pounded into the floor and up towards the ceiling, and Smith is hit hard in the head and sprawls across the room . . .
And I’m free. I sit up on the bed and watch Leon run towards Alex, forgetting all about me. Alex leaps at the silent empowered, wailing, wrapping him around and around with tentacles and hammer-throwing him through the air towards Morter Smith. I jump up onto my bed and yell, ‘Alex! Stop!’
He actually stops. Turns. Looks at me. ‘Alex,’ I say, holding up my hands. ‘You have to stop this. It’ll destroy everything! It’ll destroy the city! People will die!’ As always, it’s so hard to tell whether he really understands me. He is watching, and he could even be thinking, but how the hell do I know? ‘You have to stop,’ I say. I get off the bed and walk towards him, keeping my hands up, trying to keep my voice calm, reassuring. ‘It’s over. We have to—’
His tentacles move almost faster than I can see, one to my stomach and one to my face, and as I fly away from him I think stop, but nothing happens. Leon must still be blocking my powers. ‘No!’ I yell. ‘STOP!’ Alex ignores me, grabs one of the beds and bats Leon away with another tentacle. The empowered and the shimmer lying on the bed roll off onto the ground and Alex chucks the bed straight at the one of the massive power collectors on the ceiling. The bed lodges there with a splintering crash and blue flames spit from within the shattered light, spraying plastic and glass. A shockwave passes through the other lights, bursting them, and they belch flame and debris. All the readings on the computers bleed to red, an alarm screams, and a wall of expelled energy knocks me to the floor as fire rushes across the ceiling, the smell of smoke and electricity burning my nostrils. I see Leon leap towards Alex, the sword rising from its scabbard seemingly of its own accord, but the monster doesn’t even try to fight back. He just sits down heavily, all of his tentacles becoming instantly inert, and Leon lands on his back and plunges the sword into the back of his head. The beast slumps, dead, the sword finds it way back to its sheath, and its silent owner turns to Morter Smith like an animal quietly awaiting instructions. Smith, for his part, is holding his temples and shaking his head in disbelief. ‘No,’ he says. ‘No, no, no, no, NO!’
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