Department 19: The Rising

by Will Hill

  Matt blushed, and looked studiously at the ground.

  “On that subject,” continued the Interim Director, “we have begun analysis of the hard drive that was recovered from the late Professor Talbot. Mr Browning, I understand you will be joining the combined Intelligence and Science Division analysis team later on today, is that correct?”

  “I think so, sir,” said Matt. Excitement suddenly bloomed on his face, as he thought about the prospect of getting his hands on the data contained on the hard drive.

  “Good,” said Holmwood. “You are very probably the only currently serving member of this Department who is able to understand the recovered data. But the provisional analysis does support a preliminary conclusion – the motive behind Professor Talbot’s work.”

  Jamie felt cold spill through him.

  “He wasn’t working on a cure,” he said, softly, “was he?”

  “He was,” said Holmwood. “But not a cure for vampirism. A cure for vampires.”

  “What do you mean, sir?” asked Larissa, instantly.

  “A cure to be used by vampires,” explained the Interim Director. “A genetic fix for their weaknesses: vulnerability to sunlight, susceptibility to the hunger. Everything. He was trying to perfect the vampire condition, not cure it.”

  “But why didn’t Dr Yen or anyone else stop him?” asked Matt.

  “The research required was the same,” said Holmwood. “The mapping of the vampire genome, the understanding of the viral patterns, the ability to interrupt and overwrite the vampire DNA – everything he would need to search for a cure. He just had no intention of using it for that purpose. There was no way the Lazarus staff could have known what he was planning.”

  “Those poor people,” said Matt, softly, his voice choked with emotion. “They thought they were helping make the world better.”

  “They were,” said Holmwood. “Their work will be invaluable as we take the project forward. Everything they did has brought us closer to a cure than we’ve ever been. Their deaths need not have been in vain; we have their work, thanks to you and Lieutenant Carpenter.”

  Jamie smiled and glanced at his friend; Matt returned his smile with one so full of emotion that Jamie had to look away, before the lump that had appeared in his chest was able to climb into his throat.

  “We are not yet able to conclusively prove,” said Holmwood, “that Professor Talbot provided the information that allowed Valeri to launch his surprise attack on the Loop. But we expect to have that proof soon, together with proof that he has been working for Valeri Rusmanov his entire life. We have documents coming in from NS9 and the SPC that should conclusively prove it.”

  “It’s a shame we didn’t have those documents already,” said Kate, her voice low. “We might have been able to stop this before it happened.”

  “Miss Randall,” said Holmwood, solemnly, “I could not agree with you more. There is a huge amount we need to learn from what has happened, as you heard me say this morning; not least of which is that the Departments of the world need to begin to trust one another in deeds, not just in words. If we had shared information freely, it’s possible we could have prevented any of this from happening; that cannot ever be allowed to happen again.”

  “That’s not going to bring Major Turner his son back, though, is it, sir?”

  “No,” replied Holmwood. “I’m afraid it is not.”

  There was a moment’s silence, then the Interim Director continued.

  “Mr Browning, we are also expecting, once a thorough forensic analysis of the Blacklight mainframe is complete, to be able to prove that Professor Talbot alerted Valeri or one of his subordinates when you made the emergency call that attracted our attention. It seems one of his responsibilities was alerting his master to anything that might have exposed vampires to public attention. This is useful information, as it suggests that Valeri has an interest in keeping the existence of his kind a secret, at least for now. A small mercy, I know.”

  Matt nodded his head. There was a tight expression on his pale face; for a brief moment, he had been back in the darkly lit park, watching the smiling vampires approach him, and the memory had turned his insides to water.

  “Mr Carpenter,” said Holmwood. “The whole of Department 19 owes you a debt of gratitude for the return of Colonel Frankenstein. I shall await your report with great interest.”

  “It wasn’t just me,” protested Jamie, immediately. “It was Jack, and Angela, and Claire and Dominique as well, sir. They were incredible.”

  “I’m sure they were,” replied Holmwood. “Nonetheless, it was your mission, that you petitioned Admiral Seward for permission to run, and which you led. So take a little credit, son, especially when it’s deserved.”

  The Interim Director smiled at Jamie, who felt heat rise in his cheeks.

  “There is more to be said,” continued Holmwood. “And there will be time to say it later. But what barely needs saying is that we were hurt last night, ladies and gentlemen, hurt badly. And before we can even think about engaging Valeri Rusmanov and his master, or trying to rescue Henry Seward, I need to get this Department back on its feet, starting immediately. So I have news for all four of you, both good and bad.”

  Jamie looked along the line of his friends; he had a sudden urge to take Larissa’s hand, and tell her to take Matt’s, and tell him to take Kate’s, but he resisted.

  “Mr Browning,” said Cal Holmwood. “You are hereby placed in interim charge of the Lazarus Project.” A gasp emerged from Matt’s throat, and his face flushed a deep crimson. “You are to liaise with the Intelligence and Science Divisions to restaff and resupply the Project, and you are to get it up and running again as soon as possible. At that point, you will hand the Project over to a suitably experienced successor to Professor Talbot. Do you understand?”

  “I can’t do that,” spluttered Matt. “I wouldn’t know where to start.”

  “If I thought that was true,” said Holmwood, “I would not have suggested you do it. You understand the science, and you are, as of this moment, a full member of this Department. You are the only choice; Lazarus is too important to be allowed to fail.”

  “You can do this,” said Jamie, looking calmly at his friend, who was staring wildly around the room, looking anywhere but at Cal Holmwood’s face. “You know you can.”

  “I don’t know that,” said Matt.

  “Then you do your best,” said Larissa. “For me, and for Jamie’s mum, and for every other vampire who wishes they weren’t. OK?”

  Matt swallowed hard, and nodded.

  “Good,” said Holmwood. “There are copies of the recovered hard drive waiting in your quarters; I will expect your preliminary recommendations, staff numbers, equipment requirements, that sort of thing, first thing tomorrow. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Matt, his eyes widening.

  “Miss Kinley, Miss Randall,” said Holmwood. “You are hereby both promoted to Lieutenant, and your security clearances are upgraded to Noble, the same as my own, or Director Seward’s. Mr Carpenter, the same clearance upgrade applies to you. Congratulations to you all.”

  There was silence for a long moment; the three Operators were quite literally speechless. Jamie’s mind was racing with incomprehension, even as he felt a smile begin to creep involuntarily on to his face. He turned his head, incredibly slowly, and looked at Kate and Larissa. Kate’s mouth had popped open into a perfect little circle, and Jamie had to fight back laughter when he saw it. Larissa was staring at the Interim Director, as though she didn’t quite believe what she had heard him say.

  Cal Holmwood looked at their faces, and laughed. “You can thank me later,” he said. “And I’m afraid that constitutes the good news. The bad news is that I am disbanding Operational Squad G-17, and assigning each of you as squad leader to a new squad. You will no longer be working together in the field.”

  Larissa was the first to respond. “Why, sir?” she asked. “How can you recommend us for honours and punish u
s at the same time?”

  “Miss Kinley, this is not punishment,” replied Holmwood, gently. “I have no wish to break up squads unnecessarily, especially one with as high an Operational success rating as yours. But after the events of last night, the three of you are now senior Operators in this Department, with significant Operational experience. We are going to need to recruit heavily in the coming months, and new Operators need experienced Operators to be their squad leaders; it’s necessary for the continuation of the Department. I hope you can understand.”

  The room lapsed back into silence.

  He’s right, thought Jamie. I know he’s right. But that isn’t going to make it any easier when I head out on a mission and Larissa and Kate aren’t with me. No easier at all.

  He thought of all the places they had been together, all the things they had seen, and done, and he was suddenly overcome with an enormous sense of change, a feeling that things were never going to be the same as they had been. He looked at the two girls, in whose hands he had willingly placed his life, time and again, and wondered if they were feeling the same thing.

  A small alarm buzzed once on Interim Director Holmwood’s desk, and he reached over and turned it off.

  “You will have questions,” he said. “Many of them, I’m sure, in the coming days and weeks. When they occur to you, I’ll be here. But for now, I’m afraid I must say dismissed.”

  Jamie looked at the Interim Director, his mind brimming with things he wanted to say, but held his tongue. Instead, he walked across the small room, and pulled open the door. He stepped out into the grey corridor, his friends following behind him.

  The four Operators walked silently back to Jamie’s quarters, aware even as they did so that something had changed between them; that their futures no longer lay on a single path.

  They sat on the chair and on his bed, and they tried to discuss the implications of what Cal Holmwood had told them, but they got nowhere; it was all too big, too profound, and all four of them needed time to process what they had heard.

  Kate was the first to leave, telling them she would see them at dinner; she had agreed to visit Major Turner in his quarters. This raised the eyebrows of both Jamie and Larissa, but they said nothing; instead, they let her go without a word.

  Matt went next, saying that he had better get a start on the data from the recovered hard drive if he was going to be able to say anything coherent the following morning. He too promised to see them at dinner, but Jamie wasn’t quite sure he believed his friend; again, though, he said nothing, and neither did Larissa, even after Matt shut the door and left them alone.

  Jamie and Larissa lay on his bed in silence for a long time, their minds racing with thoughts they were not ready, or not willing, to express to each other. Eventually, Larissa’s hand crept across the gap between them and curled gently round Jamie’s own; he held it tightly, holding on to the one thing in his life that still felt the same.

  After a period of time that neither Jamie nor Larissa could have accurately estimated, Jamie asked her if she wanted to come and see Frankenstein with him. She smiled, but told him she thought he should go on his own. Then she released his hand, and floated up into the air. She paused when she reached the door, and smiled at him, a wide, warm smile, full of love.

  “I’ll see you later,” she said.

  Then she was gone.

  Jamie watched the space where she had been floating for a long moment, then hauled himself off his bed. He had no idea what to do about her, or Kate, or Matt; perhaps there was nothing to be done, or nothing that needed doing. He had felt the shift that occurred as Colonel Holmwood spoke, however, as though the world had suddenly tilted a degree or two on its axis. Not enough to cause disaster, but enough to shake foundations.

  He walked slowly out of his quarters, and to the lift at the end of the corridor. Inside the car, he pressed the button marked G, and realised, quite suddenly, that he was about to see Frankenstein again, about to see the man he had believed was dead. A smile crept on to his face, widened into a big grin; when the lift doors slid open, Jamie took off down the corridor at a flat sprint.

  The non-supernatural cells were located on Level H, but were only accessible via a secure lift from Level G. Jamie entered the Director override code into the panel beside the door that sealed the corridor that led to the lift, a corridor that was restricted under normal circumstances to Operators from the Security Division. The door slid open, and Jamie ran down the long curved corridor to the secure lift. He pressed the CALL button, stepped in between the opening doors and waited impatiently for it to take him down.

  On Level H, Jamie signed in with the Duty Operator. Then he was past the small guard desk, and on to the block itself. It was a much smaller version of the supernatural containment block, just four cells on either side of a white corridor, with heavy metal doors instead of ultraviolet walls. Seven of the doors were standing open; the eighth, the last one on the right, was not. He stopped in front of it, and shouted to the Operator. The guard keyed a code into a pad on his desk, and the heavy door unlocked with a series of rumbling clicks and thuds, and the heavy tone of a buzzer. Jamie stood stock still, and watched it swing open.

  Inside the cell, sitting on the floor opposite a narrow bed that could never have possibly held his huge, mangled frame, was Frankenstein’s monster. He looked up as the door opened, his great grey-green head swivelling in Jamie’s direction, where it stopped.

  Jamie stared at his friend, unable to breathe. Then he took a tentative step into the room. Frankenstein lumbered to his feet, his head scraping the ceiling of the cell, and peered at Jamie with wonder on his face.

  “I remember you,” he said, softly. “I know your name. It’s Jamie, isn’t it?”

  Jamie felt tears spill down his cheeks, and then he was running into the cell, and hurling himself against the monster’s broad, uneven chest. He wrapped his arms round the monster’s back, as far as he was able to reach, then felt Frankenstein slowly envelop him in his huge arms. He laid his head on the monster’s chest, and closed his eyes, and they stayed like that for a long time.

  “I forgot myself,” said Frankenstein. He was sitting on the floor again, while Jamie perched on the narrow bed. “I couldn’t remember anything. Who I was, where I’d been. Nothing.”

  “Do you remember what happened after Lindisfarne?” asked Jamie, gently. “After you fell?”

  Frankenstein shook his head. “I remember falling,” he said. “Then I remember waking up aboard a fishing boat. What happened in between is lost to me.”

  “We wondered why you hadn’t contacted us,” said Jamie. “It was the main reason no one believed you had survived. It makes sense now.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  “You saved me,” said Frankenstein. “Like your grandfather did. Saved me from my own past. From myself.”

  “We don’t have to talk about this now,” said Jamie. “You need to rest.”

  “How did you find me?” asked Frankenstein, his voice trembling. “How did you come to be there last night?”

  “That’s a long story,” said Jamie, smiling at his friend.

  Frankenstein looked round at his cell. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere,” he said.

  Jamie smiled, and sat down on the floor beside the monster. “I almost don’t know where to start,” he said.

  “At the beginning is traditional,” replied Frankenstein, the corners of his mouth curling into the faintest of smiles.

  FIRST EPILOGUE: IN THE FLESH

  Deep, empty darkness gave way to a midnight purple shot through with scarlet ribbons of pain. Henry Seward forced his eyes open, and stifled a scream.

  He couldn’t see anything. His field of vision was nothing more than a sheet of inky blackness.

  The Director of Department 19 grabbed for his face, his hands clutching upwards from where they had been dangling at his sides, and he felt soft material covering his skin. The relief that flooded through him was
so sweet it made him gasp, but was short-lived. Claustrophobia burst through Seward, and he clawed at the material. It came free easily, sliding up and clear, until light streamed into the Director’s eyes, and he hauled in a deep, aching breath as he waited for them to adjust.

  Not blind. Thank God. Oh, thank God.

  Slowly, the bright motes of light before him began to shrink, and solidify. He breathed deeply, in and out, and watched a large, wood-panelled room take shape before his eyes.

  He was sitting in a chair in the middle of the floor, a worn, comfortable armchair made of green leather. In front of him was a huge, imposing desk, its brown leather surface empty. Beyond it, the wall was wood, stained dark with ancient varnish. Pictures hung on it, oil paintings of ancient-looking battles and medieval encampments. To his right, a large window looked out over dark forest, and he realised he could faintly hear the rustling of the trees.

  Henry Seward gripped the arms of the chair, intending to push himself up on to his feet, and felt pain flare from his right forearm. He looked down at the limb, and saw a neat square of white bandage halfway between his wrist and his elbow. He looked at it, nonplussed, then sank back into his seat as memory and realisation flooded into him.

  He had fought and struggled against Valeri Rusmanov’s grip, every second of the way, but the ancient vampire had not so much as flinched.

  They had already reached the Lincolnshire coast when the silent explosion of purple light had filled the sky behind him. Seward, who had been marvelling, even through his panic, at the awesome speed of the old monster, let out an involuntary roar of triumph, a roar that was cut off as he was jerked through the air and lifted to face Valeri.