by Mike Essex
“How does it feel to know that you have absolutely no control over your own life? That’s how you made me feel for seven long years. You’ll never find us and you’ll never stop us. We own you now.”
“Emmie, he needs medical attention,” said Rex, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“If I wanted to I could hurt Evan every second of every day. You’d be stuck in a Tether event forever, never moving you own body, only seeing his torture and feeling his pain.”
I’d finally found a punishment that would be fitting for Eli and all the harm he’d done. Yet I knew it could only be temporary.
“Believe me, I would like nothing more than to make you feel even a portion of the pain you made me feel,” I explained. “But, you have a friend of mine and I am prepared to make a deal. Unlike you, I’m not prepared to see someone suffer to further my own selfish ends.”
March was checking Evan’s vitals and shaking his head. He held up a needle and said “He’s no good to you dead!” Reluctantly I nodded and March injected Evan.
“I’m going to give you a single chance to end this peacefully. If you don’t hurt Tom then we can made a deal. I’ll be in touch with a time and a place.”
I walked away from Evan, whilst March tended to his head wound. I let out a deep breath that it felt like I’d been carrying for days. I smiled, knowing it would soon be over. Evan was the win we’d been so desperately searching for and March had made it happen.
In a way I felt bad for Evan, he was part of my family and didn’t deserve to be tortured but we were running out of options and getting desperate. At least I knew that Eli’s desperate need for self-preservation would give Evan a few more years of life after we handed him over. As for how happy those years would be that was impossible to tell.
Once the medicine started to kick in Evan would feel less pain but it would also mean Eli would be released from the Tether event and would send his men after us in abundance. We couldn’t afford to wait.
“Ok people, let’s roll out,” said Jacobi and his soldiers loaded Evan up into the back of a modified van, that had been kitted out like an ambulance. I sat in the back of the van with Evan and was told by Carter that I could bring one person with me. I didn’t listen. Grace, Rex and March joined me and crammed their way into the back of the van.
Carter drove us away from the house until the mansions gave way to smaller houses and flats. It didn’t take long for me to realise that we were travelling in a completely different direction to the way we had come.
“Where is he taking us?” I asked Jacobi via the comms unit.
“Don’t worry, I’m tracking you now. He’s going the right way, we just have a different way of getting around,” he replied.
The driver arrived on an estate and turned the van sharply, taking us off the road and surging down a hill. I held on tightly to the side of the van as its wheels hit the hard concrete floor at the bottom of the hill.
The van accelerated forward again, driving along this new path, until the greenery that surrounded us turned into solid stone walls. The van put on its lights but I could still see very little around me. All I could see was the entrance to the tunnel getting further away from me.
“Don’t worry, it’s a storm drain,” said Grace.
“A what?” I replied.
“It’s a way of getting down to the sewers. Jacobi may not live in Q-Whitehall anymore but he still makes us use these tunnels to get around.”
“Why?” I covered my nose from the smell.
“Security mostly. No one knows these routes better than our team and we can’t be tracked down here. That gives us the advantage of surprise.”
The damage from the fall must have done further damage to Evan because March was up on his feet, checking my uncle’s vitals. As I looked at Evan writhing from pain, Grace’s words struck a chord with me.
I stood up and started rummaging through the supplies in the van. When I’d found a tube of bandages I leant down next to Evan and unfurled them.
“We’re good for bandages,” said March.
“They’re not for his injuries. Now hold his head up,” I replied.
“Why? He’s in shock,” said March.
“Just do it!” I demanded, not wanting to wait another second.
Seeing the fire in my eyes March gently held Evan’s head up an inch from the bed. I ran the bandages under Evan’s head and then over his eyes. I repeated it until I’d gone through two rolls of bandages. When I’d finished I shone a torch on his face to see if I could see his eyes.
“What are you doing?” asked March.
I held up a finger to my lips to tell him to shush and then placed cotton wool balls inside Evan’s ears, packing them as tightly as I could without breaking his ear drums. March realised what I was doing and handed me some medical tape to hold the cotton wool in place. We ran a couple more packets of bandages around his ears and secured both sets with tape so they wouldn’t fall off.
“Will that be enough?” I asked.
“Yes. He won’t be able to see or hear anything until we take the bandages off. Neither will Eli.”
The comms unit crackled to life.
“My men found something back at the house,” said Jacobi. “Something they never wanted to see again.”
THIRTY TWO
Whilst we’d been retreating to the sewers, Jacobi’s men had continued to explore the house that had held my uncle. We’d never seen the room that Evan had been kept in but Jacobi’s men had and he explained to me what they’d seen inside.
“The last time I saw one of these it destroyed our home,” said Jacobi, explaining the images he’d been sent.
“Saw what?” I asked him.
“It’s a cylindrical glass sphere with metal bits at the top and bottom. Inside it looks like there’s a padded bit where your uncle might have been sat.”
“And a curved cutting device at the bottom?” I asked.
“Exactly. Just like the pods that burrowed into Q-Whitehall.”
Watching Q-Whitehall fall was not the first time I’d seen those pods. Will had been hiding in one beneath the Houses of Parliament and had stayed hidden there for months. Eli had played the same trick on me here, hiding his brother in a pod so that no one ever would be able to find him.
I told Jacobi how the pods worked and how they’d originally been designed by TethTech to bury soldiers at war and keep them alive until rescue came. If Tobias had still been with me I’m sure he would have been frustrated to hear Eli was using his technology for his own ends.
“Did you destroy it?” I asked.
“No. We caught sight of a heavy wave of military vehicles approaching via satellite. I had to get my men out of there.”
“You ran away from a fight?”
“There’s no shame in running. Their force was larger and their vehicles were owned by the British military. Those may have been grunts for hire that you shot in the house but I’m not prepared to kill innocent soldiers. No matter how misguided they are for following the PM’s orders.”
Jacobi may have turned his back on the royals but he was still a man of honour.
The van stopped in the dark recesses of the sewer and I heard the ignition stop completely. The light from the headlights shut off plunging us into darkness temporarily before the inside lights turned on.
“Why are we stopping?” I asked.
“To keep you safe,” said Jacobi.
“They’re looking for your van on the surface right now, we need to keep you hidden down here. You’ll be safer underground.”
“They know we’re down here Jacobi. Evan was still in a Tether event when we came down here. Eli will know.”
“Damn,” said Jacobi and he went silent for a minute.
“Can’t we come back to your base?” I asked.
“No,” he replied.
“Jacobi! Let us head back to the base,” said Grace.
“I won’t risk the lives of my men, Grace. This base has stayed se
cret for seven years and I won’t let it fall like Q-Whitehall.”
“It won’t, please you have to protect us,” I begged him.
“They’ll be looking everywhere on the surface for you and when they see your van trundling along to our base guess what they’ll do? They’ll rain hell down on every single one of us.”
“There’s no way we can escape them if they find us down here,” I said. “There’s just the five of us and he has the entire British army.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve watched my citizens be almost wiped out once and I won’t let it happen again. Let me know when it’s all over.”
“It will be over if you do nothing,” I told him.
There was no reply.
“Jacobi? Jacobi? Jacobi!” I shouted his name until it lost all meaning but he didn’t reply. The call was worryingly quiet. He’d already gone.
I took the comms unit from my ear and tossed it to the floor. Then there was nothing but silence.
I knew that Jacobi would always put the lives of many before the lives of one but I thought even he would understand that stopping Eli would do so much good in the long run.
“He’s right,” said Rex.
I looked at him in shock.
“How can you say that?” I asked.
“Do you know how many people work at QWS?”
I shook my head.
“Thirty six thousand. That’s ten times the size of Q-Whitehall and isn’t something Jacobi will be willing to risk.”
“This is bigger than that though Rex.”
“He doesn’t see it that way. Those people are like family to Jacobi. He recruited every one of them, many of them have-nots. By giving them jobs when no-one else would he helped them protect their families and gave them a second chance in life.”
“So we can’t change his mind?” I asked.
“No. Think how far I was willing to go to protect you,” he took my hand and placed it over the lung that he’d lost for me. “That’s how Jacobi feels about his citizens. He won’t back down on this; that I’m sure of.”
I moved my hand to the side and felt Rex’s heartbeat. Whilst mine felt like it was going to explode, his was beating calmly. Years ago he would have been panicking just as much as me and now here he was being my rock.
“You’re stronger now,” I told him.
“I had to be strong for you,” he replied.
I lay my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat and trying to let it influence my own. The soft comfort of his chest and the soothing rhythm helped calm my nerves. This was the life I wanted, one where I could finally feel safe.
“You won, Emmie. You’re free now and your father can’t control you anymore,” he told me.
“And he never will again,” I took my head from Rex’s chest and raised myself up. Pulling my gun from its holster I aimed it at Evan.
“Woah, woah,” said March, stepping in front of Evan’s body in the way of my gun.
“Get out of the way March,” I told him firmly as Rex and Grace stood up in unison either side of me.
“Think about this for a second,” said March.
“I have thought about this for a long time, Eli has to die.”
“That may be so but if you kill Eli now then we will never get the chance to save Tom,” said March.
“Tom made his own choice,” I replied. “Jacobi has it right, you can’t sacrifice the life of many to save the life of one.”
“Tom saved you,” said Grace. “Would you leave me behind to die as well? Or Rex? You are not Jacobi.”
“Think about when you lost Will,” said Rex. “You were willing to do anything to get him back, risking you own life over and over.”
“This is bigger than me! It’s for all the lives he ruined and to stop him damaging any more. Eli is toxic and has to be stopped, today.”
“Wait,” said March as I clicked the safety off of my gun. “There’s a way we can bring him to justice. We can make him pay for every single thing that he did.”
“How?”
“For the last few years Jill has been compiling a record of every person Eli controlled with the machine and every act he made them perform. It’s enough to make him rot in a jail cell until the end of his life.”
“And you kept this from me!”
“It comes at a cost. Once those files are out there and people start digging around it will lead back to each and every one of us. Rex, Grace and I will be implicated. We’ll all be put on trial.”
“I won’t let you,” I replied.
“It’s the only way. Without someone to pin the crimes on, the UK will make a lot of enemies overnight. At least if we confess and Eli is captured there’s a chance the damage can be minimised,” said March.
“And Emmie will be safe?” asked Rex.
“Yes,” said March. “If all of our stories line up then we can make the case that Emmie was a victim in all of this.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” said Grace, placing a hand on my shoulder.
“Agreed,” said Rex, doing the same on the other side.
“Once we have Tom, I’ll have Jill submit the files. We can still beat him Emmie, and we can protect you,” said March.
I looked at the three of them, prepared to give up their freedom for me. They’d been through so much for me already that I had no reason to think they wouldn’t follow through with this plan. Yet it was too much to ask them to destroy their lives any further. I wanted it to stop, not for my friends to ruin their lives well.
“No,” I said, pushing March out of the way.
I took out my knife and bent down. “I’m sorry Evan, none of this was your fault,” I told him.
Delicately I manoeuvred the knife under the bandages until it was touching his skin and then in one solid movement I trust the knife outwards, cutting through them just enough to expose his ear. I pulled the cotton wool out and slammed the knife down between his fingers, digging into the bed.
Unable to see me, he jumped from the shock and I knew a Tether event had been triggered.
“Dad?” I asked. “I know you have found us but I’m asking you to tell your men to stand down. If you don’t then I will kill Evan and I will kill you.”
I edged the knife forwards, cutting into the skin between Evan’s fingers like a deadly paper cut.
“Meet us tomorrow at 10am in the grounds of Buckingham Palace and keep your army away. Bring Tom and you may still have a way out of this.”
THIRTY THREE
After stuffing the cotton wool back into Evan’s ear and reapplying the bandages I turned to my friends.
“So what’s the plan?” asked Grace.
“We capture Eli and force him to confess,” I replied. “None of you deserve to go to jail for what you did.”
“That’s debatable,” said Rex, looking at March. “Besides, how are we going to capture the most guarded man in Britain?”
“Jacobi,” I replied.
With my comms unit destroyed Grace used hers to dial Jacobi. She set it on to speaker mode so that we could all hear. It took a few calls for him to answer but eventually he did.
“I told you Grace, you’re on your own. You knew the risks,” said Jacobi, bluntly.
“This isn’t about that,” she replied. “We’ve arranged a meet.”
“And you expect me to help?”
“I hope you will, I expect you won’t.”
“I won’t use my forces to attack the British military,” he replied.
“I know that,” said Grace. “We just want you to give us a home advantage that’s all.”
“I’m listening.”
“Buckingham Palace. Tell me everything.”
Jacobi knew that building better than anyone. He’d been through every door and inside every secret passageway. Long ago it had been his home, now it was just a forgotten relic that served as novelty value for an ever shrinking set of tourists.
“A lot of the passageways around the building were closed off as
part of the regeneration efforts,” said Jacobi. “But there’s still one route you could take. It’ll get you into the grounds in secret and give you a way out.”
“And then where do we go?” I asked.
“What exactly is it you want to do?”
“Capture Eli,” I replied.
“Are you asking me to help you torture the Prime Minister of England?”
“If a power hungry dictator needed to be overthrown in another country would you send in your forces to help?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Then that’s all I’m asking. Help us stop a man who has abused his power. The army he commands and the title he has shouldn’t matter. It’s the people he controls and how he influences them that do.”
I heard Jacobi walk away from the line, followed by a trickle of water. The sound of metal could be heard tapping against something hard and then a similar clatter was heard moments afterwards. Jacobi took a slurp of his drink and then replied.
“Do you know why they call it Earl Grey tea?” asked Jacobi.
“No,” I replied, curious what he was getting at.
“It was named after Charles Grey the second Earl Grey of England. The legend goes that the Earl was presented with the tea after putting his life in danger.”
“How?” I asked.
“The Earl saved a boy from drowning and was given the tea as a gift. He had never met the boy before and owed the boy nothing but yet he was prepared to risk his own life for the sake of a stranger.”
I was curious what Jacobi was getting at and how this would possibly help us. Grace gave me a look as if to say ‘humour him’ and I obliged.
“Do you know what title the Earl would later have bestowed upon him?” asked Jacobi.
I looked around the van, none of us knew the answer.
“The Prime Minister of England,” replied Jacobi. “That is what a leader should be like. Not like your father. The best politicians understand that they must only intervene when absolutely necessary and that they must be prepared to sacrifice their own lives for others.”
“So you’ll help us?” I asked.
He took another slurp of his tea and clinked the cup down onto the table.