by Mike Essex
It was clear the media would do all they could to run the story of king Jacobi until they had no column inches left. For George this was a huge victory. From Jacobi’s point of view I knew he wouldn’t care what the public thought of him, so long as they listened. He still had a lot of work to do to convince everyone, the remaining mob was proof of that, but it was a start.
The crowd around Westminster Abbey was enormous and no matter how much I searched I couldn’t see Rex or the golden masked figure. They could be anywhere by now, especially if they removed their mask. I had no idea who they were or why they’d helped me. In this sea of people they could be anyone now.
The screens around the abbey switched to show footage of Jacobi taking to the stage for his introductory remarks. As I continued to search I could hear his words booming out across the grounds.
“I know there are many who do not want the royal family to return. Yet despite those reservations there is one thing that I know to be true. This country needs a leader now more than ever. I know this will be unpopular for me to say but I must say it non-the-less. Eli Keyes was no leader.”
As the cameras of the world focused on Jacobi I hoped he wouldn’t tell them the truth; surely it could only lead to more attacks.
“Please do not misunderstand me. Eli Keyes was a good man, a great man to many but he did not lead you. He made decisions and took actions so you wouldn’t have to. He wrapped you in cotton wool and spoon fed you like children. He acted like a politician and I am no politician,” said Jacobi.
The crowd hung on his every world. Young or old, he captured each generation. Even those who remembered the days before the Siege were curious what he had to say.
“Although today is my coronation, I do not care for titles like ‘King’ or ‘Prime Minister’. All I care about is that you have the power to make this country better. That is something I will fight for and that is how I will lead this great nation. That starts today.”
George attempted to pass Jacobi a set of notes, no doubt some finely crafted PR words but Jacobi refused to take them.
“We will show the world that we are not sheep. We are wolves with fire in our bellies. We will show the world that when we are attacked we will not sit idly by. To those who instigated yesterday’s horrific acts all I can say is, we are coming for you,” said Jacobi.
When Jacobi was pushed he would push back twice as hard and he was making that abundantly clear. With a terrorist group poised to launch a nuclear weapon I hoped he knew what he was doing. Antagonising them didn’t seem to be the best solution.
“This country is now under the protection of the royal family of Great Britain and we and the people of these great lands will protect it with all we have,” said Jacobi. He walked away from the podium, leaving George looking stunned.
“Hello Emmie, are you there?” said Jill via my comms unit.
“Yeah it’s me,” I replied.
“I did it! I found Grace,” said Jill excitedly.
FORTY NINE
I didn’t want to leave Rex behind but he was nowhere to be seen. Finding him would be easier with Grace’s help and so following my head rather than my heart I ran towards where she had last been seen.
Following the broken tip of Big Ben’s tower on the skyline I made my way towards Westminster bridge. Much of the area had been closed off following yesterday’s attacks, making it easy to slip in unnoticed.
Unlike the beautiful proceedings a few streets away, Big Ben was still very much the definition of a bomb site. Bodies had been moved and given some semblance of peace but otherwise the shrapnel and detritus had claimed the streets. Big Ben’s broken clock face lay shattered on the floor, the clock hands fixed in the position they had been in when it fell.
Grace was nowhere to be seen by the clock itself.
“Where is she, Jill?” I asked.
“Look on the bridge,” she replied.
I turned towards what little remained of the bridge, just one tall set of supports and a small stretch of road emerging from either side. From in-between the supports I could just about make out two people facing off against each other.
“Grace!” I shouted.
One of the figures turned towards me, it had to be her. Moments later my comms unit crackled to life with an incoming call. I accepted it and listened intently.
“Why did you do it?” said Grace.
A voice replied but was difficult to hear over the wind.
“I’ll improve the signal,” said Jill, listening in on the call. “Bear with me.”
“I trusted you,” shouted Grace.
The two figures in the bridge were talking expressively with their hands and looked to be engaged in an angry discussion. I tried to get closer but what little remained of the walkway on my side had crumbled away. They were both stranded in the middle of the bridge and I couldn’t get to them.
“… Eli … sav … he … Emm…” the other voice shifted in and out of range, words partly formed and then cut off again.
“That won’t bring back Kenan or Tom will it!” shouted Grace. “You’re a sick man.”
“That should do it,” said Jill.
“Their deaths are on you,” Gabe’s voice came through clearly now. The last person Grace should be alone with.
“Don’t you dare say it,” said Grace.
“You invited them into The Deck. You knew the risks and yet you still invited in your own step-brother and an unstable kid with a vendetta. You killed them Grace, not me,” said Gabe.
“Don’t you dare!” Grace aimed her gun towards Gabe and he quickly did the same in response.
“You never could see the big picture could you? The Deck was never about stopping Tobias, it was about stealing his technology, you get that right?” said Gabe.
“Don’t patronise me,” said Grace.
“Emmie and Will were just a means to an end and you were just a way of getting close to them. The only reason you were invited into The Deck was because we wanted them. It wasn’t because we saw potential in you or because you were special. You were just the right friend for the job,” said Gabe.
“And our relationship was that all a lie too?” shouted Grace.
“What do you think?” said Gabe.
Grace screamed out so loud that I didn’t need the comms unit to hear it.
I aimed towards the bridge, gripping the gun with both hands and trying to fix Gabe in my sights.
“I think I can take the shot,” I told Grace.
“You and I were just part of the plan, like Emmie and March. Except he ruined it by getting too close. That stupid scientist nearly ruined the whole thing! If I ever see him again I will put a bullet right in that big brain of his.”
“You know I can’t let you off this bridge,” said Grace. “Not after everything you’ve done.”
Grace started to move around the bridge in a counter clockwise direction. Gabe moved his body to be in line with hers. As he moved to the side he disappeared behind one of the large pillars and I lost sight of him momentarily. Grace stopped moving.
“What are you doing? I lost the shot,” I told Grace.
Whatever she was up to, Grace didn’t want me to stop Gabe just yet. Perhaps she wanted to do the honours herself. I moved around to try and get a better angle.
“It doesn’t matter what you do,” said Gabe. “You and Emmie and all your little QWS friends have pretty much started World War Three. So congratulations on that.”
“Please! You wanted this to happen,” said Grace.
“Is that what you think? Why would I do that?” said Gabe.
“To keep Eli in power? Or perhaps just one last act of madness? What do I know, I’m just a gullible idiot,” said Grace sarcastically.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” said Gabe. “In a couple of hours North Korea will nuke this little island and everyone on it. You can’t blame them really.”
“Why?”
“When you freed Emmie from the machine we were using h
er to control key figures in North Korea to disarm their nuclear program. This included a coordinated attack on their nuclear facilities to disable their technology. But you just had to interfere,” said Gabe.
“Don’t put this on me,” said Grace.
“But it’s your fault. Emmie was freed when the team she was controlling were part way through decommissioning the first nuke. Without us controlling them they made a mistake and the nuke exploded, taking out the facility and causing nuclear radiation to spread for miles. After that it didn’t take long for the Koreans to capture our forces at their other sites and identify them as British soldiers,” said Gabe.
“Oh God.”
“You won’t be able to stop them now. A nuke was detonated on their land by British soldiers. I’m surprised they haven’t wiped us all out already,” said Gabe. “So let’s say we bury the hatchet and get out of this country before it goes nuclear?”
“I would never go with you,” said Grace.
I squeezed tightly on the trigger six times, holding my hand as steady as I could. The bullets fired across the water, until I lost sight of them. It was only when Gabe’s body arched backwards that I knew I’d hit him.
I could hear the sound of further gunshots through my comms unit. I saw Grace grip tightly on her chest and then take two steps backwards before she tumbled off the bridge.
“No!” I screamed out as she fell into the murky water.
I ran towards the steps that led down to the water, shouting out her name.
“Grace! Gra…” a sharp pain in my back sent me flying forwards, crashing down onto the floor. I pulled the needle from my back and turned to see where it had come from.
My vision blurred as the drug kicked in and an army of purple hooded, golden masked figures walked towards me.
FIFTY
I was startled awake by a foul smelling scent.
“Hello Emmie,” said the sweet voice of Corinna, holding a broken capsule.
“Corinna?” I replied and then once I remembered what had happened; “Oh God, Grace. Is she ok? Did you save her too?”
I tried to move forward but found that my arms and legs were bound, keeping me stood perfectly upright.
“What the …? What are you doing to me?” I said.
“Calm down,” said Corinna. “This is for the best. You want to save this world from sin don’t you?”
“Oh God. Is this because of the snatcher? I’m so sorry for what happened to him. I didn’t mean for him to die.”
“Calm down my child. He is at peace now. It is the will of Freyr and Freyja, that is all that matters.”
I’d known Corinna was religious but was surprised she believed in Freyr and Freyja. They were just a Greek myth popularised by the pastor to promote his cause. I reasoned that she may have been one of his followers a long time ago.
“If he’s at peace then let me go!” I replied.
“That’s not possible,” said Corinna, holding a bottle of water by my lips. “Now drink.”
I kept my mouth closed and refused to drink the water.
“As you wish,” said Corinna.
A glass door closed down in front of me and I looked around the chamber. The padded wall, the metal base and the glass door sealing me in confirmed it for me. I was in the same type of chamber Will had been hidden in. That meant one thing for sure. No-one would find me here.
“Let me out!” I screamed, my words echoing around the chamber.
I tried to shift my weight around to get free, pulling my arms up towards the hoops but they refused to budge. The chamber was devoid of sound and light. It felt like being back in the machine again.
Cleon entered the room and slowly walked towards me before opening the glass door.
“You did well Emmie, very well,” said Cleon.
“Why are you doing this? I did as you asked!” I replied.
“That is true, your debt is repaid,” he said.
“Then let me go!” I shouted.
“First, I would like to thank you. Bringing Evan out into the open really was a master stroke. We’d been trying to track him down for years and until we knew where he was we couldn’t take action against your father,” said Cleon.
“You killed them?”
“Of course. We said we wanted to restore order.”
“He was mine to capture, not yours to kill!”
“What do you care? You wanted him dead and now he’s gone.”
“I wanted him to suffer,” I replied.
“People like that are better gone. Trust me,” said Cleon.
“Then why did you even need me?”
“Your father had great power over Tethers. We wanted to be sure he and his brother would die with no chance of coming back. That’s why we needed you to stop the machine and draw Evan out.”
“So now I’m just disposable?”
“Of course not. We simply need you to tell us where your brother is located.”
“Not a chance,” I replied.
“I suspected as much. No matter, eventually you will tell us whether you want to or not.”
The glass door closed, sealing me back inside. His words echoed around my mind as I thought about the type of torture he could inflict on me.
Corinna and Cleon had been uncertain allies but I’d never expected them to do anything like this. Killing my father in that way had been cruel and unnecessary and for all their talk about restoring order they were just another group of heartless killers.
Tobias had been right; I never should have trusted them. As I sat there in the dark space I wished he was still in my mind. With nothing but the darkness around me I needed to hear a familiar voice. I waited and listened for him but nothing came. He was well and truly gone.
At least I knew Will was safe inside the QWS base. The innocent blocking devices surrounding the building would stop him from being found, no matter what methods they were using to track him down. I wondered what they could possibly want with Will and remembered how important he’d been to Tobias.
Will was the capstone, the key part the machine needed to function and if they wanted him then that was bad news. They already knew far too much about my father’s machine and once they had both of us they could start things up again.
I had to make sure that didn’t happen. The cycle had to end and I couldn’t allow them to have the same influence over people as Eli had held. Eli had used the machine to at least try and do good things, I had no idea what their motives were and suspected things would be even worse if they took control.
The glass door slid open and a golden masked figure stared at me. From inside their purple robes they retrieved a needle. They pulled my shirt from my trousers and lifted it up, plunging the needle into my exposed belly.
The mysterious liquid flowed through the needle and into my body. The masked figure held up both hands towards my face and then closed the glass door.
FIFTY ONE
I felt tense as the unknown substance surged around my body. Whatever the golden masked figure had unleashed upon me it felt like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
My veins felt like they were on fire as heat surged throughout my body, my mind wide awake like I’d been given a shot of adrenaline. I felt my eyes widen as they dilated and could feel my breathing start to intensify. It felt like I was having a panic attack.
I tried to control myself but the heat intensified as it reached my head. It felt like daggers were being driven into my skull, cutting their way from one side to the other, shutting down parts of me as they carved through my brain.
Unable to control myself I screamed out in agony, my cries for help echoing round the chamber, reverberating in my ears. I brought my head back to centre and felt a sticky substance coming from my nostrils on both sides. It ran down over my lips and I tasted my own blood.
My head felt heavy and I looked down at the floor, no longer able to support it. The blood dripped down from my nose. I closed my eyes and felt weak, the adrenaline no
longer surging through me. I felt so hot, I wanted to make it stop.
With my eyes closed I could see the last traces of light from the room, imprinted on me like a final memory. I thought about moving towards them, desperate to get into another body and find a way out. In time even those shades of light faded.
The door slid open and my eyes stung from the intense light. It rebounded off the golden mask in front of me as the figure behind it stared at me. Unexpectedly, the mask was slowly removed, revealing the woman’s face beneath.
“I told you I would find you,” she replied.
“Catherine?” I said weakly, struggling to raise my head. “But you’re in jail…”
“The rich never go to jail. There’s always someone we can blame in our place,” she replied.
“Why do you want Will?” I said, slurring my speech.
“The same reason we want you. So we can watch you both die,” she replied.
Catherine McDougal had promised to make my family suffer if she caught up with me again. Using Corinna and Cleon she had manipulated me through this entire process all so she could track down my family and kill us all. She truly was sick.
“Who is ‘we’?” I asked.
“The Vanir,” she replied. “But if you don’t know now then I guess you never will.”
“Wait,” I replied, seeing her reach inside her robes.
The pastor had spoken heavily about the Vanir, a covert group that had been responsible for the deaths of Freyr and Freyja, the first twins. Their actions had cursed the whole human race to be born with Tethered twins. At least that was the pastor’s theory.
“The Vanir? They’re a religious fable,” I said.
“Religion and science are not so far apart at times,” said Catherine. “What was always reality can sometimes be mistaken for myth.”
“So you believe in Freyr and Freyja? That we’re all just a result of their curse?” I asked.
“I believe in the things we can prove with science. In many ways your father helped me to realise that, even in his death.”