Children Of The Deterrent (Halfhero Book 1)

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  I didn't dare say it out loud.

  We're all spending an unhealthy amount of time down there. I finally cracked this afternoon and demanded we go home and rest properly. Father looks drawn, and I barely know what day it is anymore. Besides, I wanted the chance to write this week up.

  Father and I have a perfectly good house a few miles away, and Roger's wife and children are only just across the river. We can be back at Station within thirty minutes of a phone call. Mike and McKean are both happy to stay in Station's dormitories, so Abos will still be under constant observation.

  It's now midnight on Sunday, 19th June, 1978. I've unearthed my old box of teaching books and prepared alphabet cards, picture books, and learning games. Impossible to know what to expect, and I feel woefully unprepared. Scared, and excited too, of course. Who wouldn't be? Whatever Abos is, we will be the first people on Earth to find out. And when he wakes up, we'll be the first people he sees. It will be an encounter unlike any other in history.

  And he might wake up tomorrow, the next day, next week, or next month. Maybe next year, even, although that seems unlikely given the speed of his early development.

  All we can do is wait.

  9

  Daniel

  Every day, I learned something new about my increased strength and resilience. After the incident with the razor wire, I experimented with various sharp objects on my skin. It was just as difficult as it sounds.

  I started small, with a stapler. Positioning it on my forearm I tried to push down but was too much of a wimp. Despite my experience at Tilkley, I still imagined stapling myself might sting. It's hard to convince the human brain to allow you to do something painful or dangerous. I even worried about biting off my tongue in pain. In the end, I stuck a copy of 2000 AD between my teeth, turned away, and went for it. I felt the pressure, heard the clack of the stapler, but there was no pain. The bent and flattened staple slid onto the carpet. I tried again, watching this time. The stapler made no impression at all on my arm.

  Time to up the ante.

  I went downstairs and fetched skewers, a vegetable knife and the automatic carving knife.

  When I got back to my room, I turned my music up a little. It was only ten in the morning, so it was unlikely Mum would surface, but if she did wander into the bathroom to throw up, I didn't want to have to explain why I was attacking myself with an electric carving knife.

  The skewer was fun. I was tentative at first, just as I had been with the stapler. I put the point on my stomach and pushed. Nothing. I pushed harder. Still nothing. I stabbed myself harakiri style. The skewer bent double. My skin was fine.

  Wedging a second skewer between two books on my shelf, I ran at it, jumping when I got close. The skewer snapped.

  I turned to the vegetable knife. It was a sharp blade. Mum had cut her thumb on it slicing lemons a few days earlier.

  I tried my leg first. Sitting at my desk, I stabbed myself about three inches above the knee. The knife bounced off. I got the giggles. Thirty seconds later, I was stabbing myself all over my body, like a frenzied lunatic. One particularly savage attempt produced a tiny pink mark on my neck, which faded almost immediately.

  I reached for the carving knife, plugged it in and went to work.

  I started with a finger, then my upper arm, thigh and buttocks. Finally, I went for my wrist. I pushed harder and harder. The only result was that the blades moved more slowly, and the motor made a peculiar whining sound. There was a small bang, and the electric carving knife expired in a puff of blue smoke. I unplugged it and hid it at the bottom of my sock drawer.

  Then I remembered the electric drill.

  I crawled into the cupboard under the stairs, a torch between my teeth. Actually, my days of being able to crawl into the cupboard were over. I could fit my head and one shoulder inside, but that was it. I shone the torch around the small space. Shoes, the iron, some carpet cleaner, and a hoover. The toolbox was in the far corner, in front of a pile of women's magazines. I pulled it towards me, but the magazines shifted ominously. I stopped. They didn't fall. Gingerly, I opened the nearest side of the tool box nearest and gently extracted the yellow and black drill.

  Back upstairs, I eyed my prize appreciatively. I had been allowed to use it just once when I wanted to hang a cork board on my wall. A combination of inexperience and plain ineptitude had led to me choosing the wrong length bit, a higher speed than I needed, and an inadvisable section of wall to drill into. I went all the way through the wall into the spare room, taking out an electrical cable on the way. The electrician wasn't cheap, although Mum did have sex with him, so maybe she got a discount, I don't know.

  The upshot for me was a lifetime ban from power tools until, in Mum's words, there was, "a shithole of your own to destroy."

  I fitted the heaviest duty drill bit in the chuck and plugged in, then stuck an old Kraftwerk tape in the ghetto blaster and whacked the volume up. I thought Mum, if she heard anything, might assume it was part of the music, particularly if I made my attempt rhythmical.

  I wasn't a hundred percent confident, so I started with a toe. A girl at school only had three toes on one foot, and she seemed to get by fine. If my foot turned out to be less than indestructible, I would, at worst, be down a toe. I could live with that.

  Pulsing the drill in time to The Robots, I attacked my toe with a kind of mad glee. Nothing. No pain at all. I pushed harder and harder, stopping only when tiny flakes of metal flew off the drill.

  I thought I heard something and turned the music down. Mum's voice.

  "Keep it down, you selfish bastard."

  Good morning to you, too.

  I turned off the tape. After a few minutes, I heard her snoring.

  I took the drill downstairs, eased as much of myself as I could into the cupboard and reached over to the open toolbox. I dropped the drill inside. Even as it slid out of my fingers, I knew what would happen. The tower of Woman's Own, House Beautiful, Hello, OK, and Cosmopolitan toppled forwards.

  "Shit." I tried to stop them, but it was too late. They fell everywhere, about a hundred of the bloody things.

  I had just resigned myself to the uncomfortable and annoying task of re-stacking them when I saw it. Flat against the wall, concealed by the magazines piled in front, was a large, brown envelope. Stretching as far as I could, I got my fingertips onto one corner and, by a series of tiny movements, teased it out.

  I went back to my bedroom and quietly closed the door, listening. She was still snoring.

  The envelope wasn't sealed. Before I tipped the contents onto my bed, I had a sudden premonition. Mum had always said I was the product of a one-night stand, a man she met at a party and never saw again. The few times I had brought up the subject, wanting to find out more, maybe even meet him, she had laughed.

  "Go ahead, if you like, if you can find him. He was a salesman. Dave. Possibly Steve. Or was it Phil? Whatever. You're nothing like him if that's what you're wondering. He was quite a looker, for a start. Fit. Not a fat waste of space like you."

  She tried hard to keep that tone of casual cruelty in her voice when she dismissed my questions, but I knew her too well. She was hiding something. And the way she looked sometimes, when I caught her crying for no reason, looking out of the window. She was thinking about him. My father.

  I spread the documents out on the bed. There were a few letters in there, some pages ripped out of a magazine. But the newspapers caught my eye first. Because Mum's face was on the front of them. National newspapers. I looked at the headline and wondered why I had never even considered the possibility before, knowing immediately it was the truth. Reality can be funny like that sometimes. It can right in front of you for years, waving its arms, letting off party poppers and shouting, "Over here! Over here!" and you don't notice a thing until you trip over and land in its lap.

  I walked around my tiny bedroom on the verge of hyperventilating. I opened my window and stuck my head out for a few minutes, then went back to the bed. The
newspaper was still there, Mum's face staring up at me. Alongside her was a photograph of the most famous man in history. I read the headline again.

  SUPERSTUD KNOCKED ME UP!

  Mum and I needed to have a little chat.

  By the time she surfaced, I had spread the newspapers on the kitchen table. The magazine articles told the same story and featured colour photos of Mum. Often in her underwear.

  I felt tired. I would never meet my father. He had died the year after I was born. I knew some people said he'd survived, but they were kidding themselves. How could a seven-foot tall man hide from the entire world? No. He was dead.

  The letters were sad and desperate. The first few were replies from the Ministry Of Defence, who, politely at first, then more bluntly, asked her to desist making ludicrous claims about a national hero. Letters from three legal firms regretted they would be unable to take her case. One firm advised her to get back in touch if her baby started flying around the nursery. They were laughing at her.

  When Mum finally made it downstairs and saw what I was reading, she stood in the doorway for a few seconds, then bypassed her usual cup of tea in favour of an earlier than usual raid on the drinks cabinet.

  "Well, you were going to find out sooner or later, I suppose," she said as she filled a tumbler with vodka, reached for the tonic water, then changed her mind and took a gulp.

  "Why didn't you tell me, Mum?"

  She sat down and looked at the photographs in the newspaper. One of them showed her lying on the bed wearing a black negligee, pouting at the camera.

  "I had quite the body, didn't I?"

  I didn't respond. She smiled.

  "It was good enough to get the attention of The Deterrent, so it doesn't matter what you think, does it?"

  I kept my silence. She took another long swig. Neither of us spoke for ten minutes. I've read about 'companionable silences.' I've never experienced that, but I can confirm the existence of uncompanionable silences. The atmosphere in the kitchen was thick with nearly eighteen years of bitterness, negligence, regret, and failure. I looked at my mother. The only thing we had ever shared was self-hatred. Now we didn't even have that. The past weeks had seen me change in ways well beyond the physical. I could feel a new feeling of self-assurance every time I got out of bed. I had found myself looking forward to the possibility of a life where I could make things happen, rather than work on ways to prevent life happening to me in its usual, painful fashion. It was possible that I might even, one day, not be unhappy.

  Finally, she spoke.

  "Look, I know this is a lot to take in. I couldn't bring myself to tell you, Danny."

  Danny? No one called me Danny. I couldn't even remember the last time Mum had used my name.

  "I had post-natal depression. Could barely bring myself to look at you. Then your nan died, and I had to deal with everything on my own. I know I've been a terrible mother. I know it."

  I looked up at her. She was actually crying. I felt nothing.

  "But you have to understand, Danny. Those newspapers twisted everything. I only called the army people because he...he didn't answer my letters. They said hundreds of women had claimed the same thing. Didn't stop them sending some bloke round when you were born though. I saw him at the hospital, looking at you, shining a torch into your eyes, trying to take a blood sample. When I shouted, he left. Bastards."

  She waved at the photos. "The papers offered me a lot of money to take my clothes off, Danny. A lot of money. And I needed it, we had nothing. Nothing. But I was a virgin before...him. I want you to know that."

  I snorted. Whatever goodwill she was hoping for had been crushed by years of bullying and neglect. I think she knew it, too.

  "Danny, look, give me another chance, will you? I'll work on the drinking, cut down. In my own way, I've tried to love you. I kept you, didn't I? And we've got a roof over our heads. I could've had you put into care. That's what my mates all told me to do. Back when I had mates."

  I looked at her, haggard, ill-looking, her face streaked with mascara tears, eyes puffy and red. She was trembling. I felt myself thaw just a tiny bit. Despite myself, I reached over and took her hand. She was a terrible mother. An awful, appalling, selfish, bitter woman. But, somewhere in there was the lost girl who'd found herself alone and pregnant in her teens. And she was all the family I had. Perhaps I owed her one more chance.

  "Okay," I said. "Let's talk about it. About what we do next."

  She looked up at the word "we," the naked, desperate hope clear in her face. She squeezed my hand.

  "Do you mean it, Danny? Do you really mean it?"

  "No promises, Mum. We'll see how the next few days go, see if you can sober up. We'll talk more."

  She squeezed more tightly, nodding, not daring to speak.

  "But I mean it, Mum. No promises."

  She looked at me strangely. It took me a few seconds to work out what she was doing. Even as a baby, I imagine I'd never seen that particular arrangement of her facial features.

  She was smiling.

  She stood up and made me a cup of tea. Another first. But the day wasn't quite finished with us yet. As she sat back down, the phone rang. She half stood up, but I waved her down again.

  "Let the machine get it, Mum."

  When the caller left his message, she got up again, in a hurry this time, but I reached across and grabbed her arm. As the voice spoke the words that ended our relationship, she went pale, then all the strength seemed to leave her body, and she slumped at the table.

  "Miss Harbin, this is Barry Grogan from the Mail. I've been thinking about what you told me earlier and, if it's all the same with you, I think I'll come over a wee bit sooner than we arranged. I'm going to drive up tomorrow evening, have a chat with your young superhero, get photos of both of you. I should be at yours by six. See you then."

  Mum said nothing as I climbed the stairs and packed some clothes into a rucksack. I took a rolled-up sleeping bag, some candles, matches and a map. I lobbed my house keys into the kitchen as I passed on my way out of the front door.

  I was a few days shy of turning eighteen. I was alone. I had superpowers. And I had the rest of my life in front of me.

  10

  Cressida

  June 23rd, 1978

  One mystery was cleared up today, much to my relief. I'm not going mad after all. For days now, I've been looking at Abos's face as he sleeps, wondering if anyone else was seeing what I was seeing. The resemblance was fleeting at first, but as the days went on and the facial features defined themselves, losing their generic nature, it became harder and harder to ignore what was happening.

  Finally, I broke my silence when I was sharing a shift with McKean. It was something in his expression that prompted me to do it. McKean had just leaned in closer to Abos, making notes. He studied the face, and I saw his brief look of distaste. I sighed with relief. His reaction confirmed my own observations.

  "You see it too, don't you?" I asked.

  McKean looked up at me in surprise.

  "His face," I prompted. "You recognise it."

  McKean grunted dismissively, then looked at me again and shook his head slowly, reconsidering. "I admit there is a strong resemblance," he said, "but it's not a hundred percent. The symmetry is stronger, for example. The cheekbones are more pronounced and the jawline stronger. This is the face of a much younger man - a much bigger one, too. Also,"—He grunted again, and I realised he was amused—"his nose isn't broken."

  We both agreed, as did the rest of the team later that day. Abos looks very, very like Roger.

  August 27th, 1978

  Father and the team have come up with a theory about why Abos looks the way he does. Father presented their findings to Hopkins and some high-level military types in the briefing room opposite the lab yesterday. He's always been a good lecturer, and I could see he was holding the attention of his audience, all older men, sharp-eyed and serious. They made me nervous, but it didn't seem to affect Father.


  "During the years since the item was discovered in Marsham Street, we have been trying to amass as much data as possible about it. We have run every conceivable test, and we have exhausted all known methods in our efforts to get a sample. As our reports have shown, nothing has worked. The cylinder's construction is beyond anything of which we are capable. Well beyond."

  "Russian? Chinese?" The questioner was a tall, lean man in his seventies. He wore a suit. All six of them other than Hopkins were wearing suits, but their bearing gave them away as military.

  "No."

  "You're sure of this?"

  "Completely." Father's tone was confident. "Whatever material was used in the cylinder's construction, it is far beyond our current understanding. Imagine a stone age man confronted with a solid steel door. Not only do we not know what this material is, we lack the technology even to begin to analyse it."

  Another man spoke up. I won't describe all of them as they seemed interchangeable.

  "What are you saying, then? It's from another planet? It's from the future? What?"

  Father sighed. I knew why. He has never been a fan of what he calls fruitless speculation.

  "Your guess is as good as mine. I'm a scientist. I deal with facts."

  Before he could go on, the same man spoke up again. Father hated being interrupted.

  "On the contrary, Professor Lofthouse, my guess is not as good as yours. My expertise regarding the security of this country surpasses your own. I also deal with facts. But, when necessary, I am prepared to use guesswork in the field. On some occasions, my guesses are good enough to save lives. Put aside your professional modesty, or pride, for the moment, and indulge me. Guess. Where did the item come from?"