Yesterday's Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  Nikolai’s enthusiasm continues unabated. “We enter Ukraine now,” he tells us after a few hours, conveniently tipping the plane on its side so we all tumble towards the windows and get a great look at the earth coming up to meet us.

  I put my head down between my knees and breathe slowly. This is worth it. I repeat the mantra in my head. This is the right thing to do.

  Except, even if the world would have ended if I’d stayed with MI37, at least I’d have been standing on it when it did.

  I have to believe I couldn’t have convinced them. If I don’t believe that then I’m the stupidest man on earth.

  “We enter restricted airspace now,” Nikolai tells us with an exuberance usually only displayed by men discovering they’re about to receive unexpected sexual favors. “Very nice!”

  “Wait,” I say. “Restricted by whom?”

  “Nice syntax,” Aiko says, which seems to be missing the point.

  “Ukraine military,” Malcolm says without batting an eyelid.

  “Restricted like they’ll send us an angrily worded letter about it?”

  Malcolm doesn’t seem to want to answer that one.

  “They’re going to shoot us down, aren’t they?” I say to Malcolm.

  Nothing from Malcolm.

  “Aren’t they?”

  Still nothing.

  “They’re going to send up planes to shoot big holes in us. Aren’t they?”

  He has the decency to at least shrug.

  “MiGs incoming now!” Nikolai seems on the edge of clapping. “Very nice!”

  “Oh my God,” I say. “We’re going to die. Jesus. MI37 may have fucked pretty much everything else up, but even they could arrange a basic bloody flight.”

  “Hey!” Aiko seems genuinely offended. I am too busy fearing for my life to really worry about that right now.

  “You be calm, shouty man,” Nikolai says. “You no worry. I am…” He contemplates the instrument panel and the plane veers wildly to the left. “How you say?” he asks. “I no be harmed.”

  “Invincible?” I say. “You’re invincible?” It’s a testament to the weirdness of my day job that I have to weigh up the likelihood of that statement being true.

  “Doesn’t seem totally likely does it?” says Aiko, seeing my expression.

  Devon appears to be praying.

  “You see now!” Nikolai shouts gleefully.

  There is a noise like a weaponized coffee-grinder suddenly blaring into life. Then the windows fill with fiery streaks and Nikolai yanks on the flight stick like he’s trying to snap it in two.

  The plane reacts as if struck by a fist. People and possessions fly through the air and we spiral away through the air. I land upside down in a seat staring at my feet.

  “You see now!” Nikolai bellows. “Ukraine pilots very bad.”

  Thunder roars around us. Nikolai cranks on the stick. Then the whole plane shudders. There is a terrible metal grinding. Our defensive spiral becomes a shuddering half spin through the air.

  “Lucky hit!” Nikolai shouts, dripping derision. “Hit me now eater of shit!” And with that he puts us into a plunging dive. I’m relatively sure the only reason I don’t shriek like a six-year-old girl is because my stomach collides with the back of my throat and shuts off my air.

  Devon screams, and then her body slams into mine. Together we tumble, head over heel for the cockpit, for the far-too-thin sheet of glass separating us from empty, parachute-less space. Only the back of Malcolm’s head stops our descent.

  Behind us, another crackle of thunder, and suddenly wind roars. Two neat holes, one on either side of the fuselage, gape as a massive round punches through the plane.

  “He not bad, this guy,” Nikolai muses.

  I try to clamber over Malcolm, try to make sure that I get a chance to end Nikolai’s life before the Ukrainian bastard shooting at us does it for me.

  Nikolai counters my murderous impulse by pulling more Gs than I can overcome. I slam back, mash my spine against the far wall. I am pinned there, Devon half on top of me, Aiko splayed next to me, her body at a ninety degree angle to mine.

  And then, suddenly, level. Suddenly sagging to the floor. The only sound the rattle of our wings and the howling of the wind against our plane’s new perforations.

  “See, I lose him now,” Nikolai says. “Nothing to… Oh shit.”

  I don’t even have time to form a suitable expletive before a plane seat drives the air from my lungs. I sag over it like a child’s toy—deflated and discarded.

  “This…” Nikolai suddenly doesn’t sound quite so confident. “This may not be so good actually.”

  And then the tail of the plane disappears. A great ripping tear crashes through the body of the plane, and then all that is between us and a Ukrainian MiG fighter jet bristling with missiles, machine guns, and other assorted instruments of death is air.

  FIFTY-ONE

  All I can think, and this is probably unfair, but if I somehow get out of this, once I have murdered Nikolai, I am going to murder Malcolm as well. “Reliable,” my left arse cheek.

  “Hold on! Hold on!” Nikolai is screaming at the top of his lungs, but it sounds like a whisper against the roar of the wind that claws and chomps at the ragged tail of our aircraft.

  Down we go. Down and down. I watch suitcases, holdalls, and light reading material fly out into the desolate European sky.

  A cloud swallows us. Nothing but screeching white behind us, lapping at us. I cling to a chair roughly bolted to the rusted floor. My feet fly up above me, flapping in the screaming turbulence. And how long will these bolts hold? Will any of this hold?

  “Hold on!” Nikolai keeps screaming it. And I don’t know if he’s yelling at us, or the plane, or at the world itself. One more second. Just one more to live, to try and rectify this absolute fucking disaster.

  Blackness laps at the corner of my vision. If I pass out I’ll let go. I can feel my fingers slipping. I want to look, to see if everyone else is safe, to see who we’ve lost. But I don’t dare move my head. I need to concentrate on this seat. I need to make it my world. My anchor. I need to pour my will into it. Hold on. Hold on.

  Down.

  Down.

  Out of the cloud. And the ground below us is so close. It’s right there.

  And then it’s flung away. And my feet slam against the floor of the plane. And my teeth rattle. And I slam my head against the floor. And everything seems to be spinning, but maybe that’s just me. And Nikolai is cheering, shouting wildly. And the wind is still howling, still trying to drown him out. But somehow it all feels a little bit less like I’m going to die.

  Not enough less. But a little.

  “Ok,” Nikolai screams. “We land now. No more in the air time. Party over.”

  And the plane lurches like the hand of God swatted it, and we plummet down and I release the last of my breath in what has to be my worst attempt at my last words yet. One long drawn-out syllable.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—”

  The ground comes up like a fist. Nikolai lets out a grunt like he’s been headbutted by a warthog. The plane bucks, tilts up, remembers half of itself is missing, and slams down to earth. I fly up. Everything flies up. A nanosecond of weightlessness, and then the plane leaps up to meet us, to carry us down to dead, dry dirt once more. Up, down, up, down. The back of the plane rips over the ground, over dirt and chunks of tarmac, vomiting up sparks, screaming at the universe. A seat breaks free from the fuselage, rolls down and away. It strikes the ground, spins, splays open, spills its stuffing in a messy tangle. Another chair scatters away. And the bolts on the one I’m still clutching, still have seized in a death grip, they rattle and shake as the floor of the plane quakes and bucks.

  And then finally, slowly, shuddering, the plane rolls to a stop.

  We lie there. Smoke and dust billow quietly around us. Someone is sobbing, and I’m trying to pry my fingers loose from the chair so I can see who it is, see if they’re hurt, but
I can’t let go. I can’t. My breath is ragged, my heart a wild galloping beast.

  Hold on. Hold on. I just need to hold on a little longer.

  Of all the ways this job has almost killed me that was… well, the second worst. Probably.

  Not that this is even a job any more. What is this? A calling? A hobby?

  Jesus. This is what I’m choosing to do in my spare time.

  “You…” Malcolm’s voice from the cockpit breaks the silence. “You OK? Everyone OK?” Even he sounds shaky.

  Finally I let go of the seat. It takes a while to stand up though. My legs are trembling violently. Everything hurts. “Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, I think I’m OK.”

  “I… I… I…” Jasmine doesn’t get any further than that.

  “Just a moment. I just need… Just a moment.” Aiko isn’t faring any better than us.

  It’s Devon who’s crying. I take a step towards her.

  “We land!” Nikolai shouts with glee, seemingly oblivious to all. “Very nice.” He claps his hands. “You like very much.”

  And I find that, despite the shakes, despite the last dregs of adrenaline rattling in my body, I still have the wherewithal to step up to the cockpit and lay him out with a single punch.

  FIFTY-TWO

  Pripyat, Ukraine. An hour later.

  It’s probably not fair to say that everyone has calmed down, but we have at least achieved the status of rational human beings again. Devon has cried herself out. Malcolm has finished obsessively searching for every piece of lost luggage, no matter how damaged. Jasmine is starting to talk again. Aiko has finished barking orders at everyone. And Nikolai has stopped threatening to have the Russian mob rub out me, my family, and anyone I may have said hello to during my tenure on this planet. And I have recovered from totally losing my shit over no longer having a way to fly out of this hellhole and finally accepted Malcolm’s promises of “an exit strategy” without threatening to resort to violence.

  It’s a desolate bloody place we’ve landed in. What’s left of the plane lies on an old road, a thoroughfare that is now more weeds than asphalt. Gray buildings, ragged and sharp-edged, stare blindly down at the ruins of their city. Every window in the place is shattered. The whole place looks shattered. Like whatever happened here took the city and broke its back. It is a city gutted, all its viscera on display.

  Even mother nature has been halfhearted in her attempts to reclaim the place. The trees are straggly things, anemic arms reaching desperately for the heavens. The vines clamber halfway up the walls and then seem to lose their sense of urgency. Dead gray strips of leaves hang down like discarded thoughts.

  Malcolm is going round handing out guns like penny candy. We lost Nikolai’s giant sack of weapons, but fortunately by that point, so much of its contents had spilled about the fuselage that we have enough guns lying around that no one goes empty-handed. I even get another shoulder-holster.

  “Alright then!” Aiko claps her hands. “Let’s get going!” She’s talking too loudly, too brashly.

  “It’s OK.” I reach out a hand to her. “We can take a moment.”

  “No.” She shakes my hand off. Then she stops and looks at me. “Please,” she says, and her voice almost breaks, “can we get out of here?” She takes a breath, it sounds loose and too long. “Come on,” she says, the false brashness back in her voice. “Let’s get moving, people!”

  So we pull together our remaining bags, dust off our wounds, and start walking.

  Two miles deeper in

  Finally I see it. I’d expected it earlier, and had almost lost my faith. Had almost started to believe this was all for nothing, that I’d been blown out of the air for nothing. But then: proof. This is the correct path. For all of its terrifying implications, we were undeniably right.

  The deer paces slowly out into the road before us. It lowers its head, nibbles at a weed, then raises its head and looks at us. After a moment it moves slowly on.

  Copy after copy of the deer drags after it as it moves. A concertina of flesh. It stops to eat again, and one by one the multiple hindquarters fold into the whole.

  Wonder and horror in equal parts leave me speechless. There is something majestic about it. Something awful.

  “Woah,” Nikolai says, summing up the moment as best he can. “That is some pretty fucked up shit.”

  He takes a step towards the animal, and it lurches into movement, leaping up and away. It multiplies as it does so, copy after copy of its own body hesitating momentarily before leaping after the first. Like photographic stills laid over each other. It bounds away, trailing its elongating body, disappearing into a long abandoned office building.

  “That’s it,” Aiko says. “That’s what you saw at Trafalgar Square, right?”

  “Yes.” I nod. “Yes that’s it.”

  “Residual temporal-spatial disturbance.” She smiles and holds up a palm. It’s a confused moment before I high-five her. “Proof, Arthur. Not belief. Just there. Just happened.”

  I smile.

  “So.” Jasmine looks worried. “It just, like, wandered into a pocket of space-time crazy and that totally happened to it?”

  “Pretty much.” I nod.

  “So,” Jasmine persists, “we could totally walk into one and become, like, creepy monster us, right?”

  “It’s on the continuum of possibilities,” Devon responds.

  “So, you, like, totally have a way to spot those right? Because I am really so not about ungluing myself in space and time.”

  “Erm.” Devon turns to me.

  “Erm,” I say.

  “Totally reassured, guys. Totally.”

  Another mile

  “There.” Devon points. “That building there.”

  Things have been getting decidedly weirder the closer we get to the Chernobyl power station. The fountain that flowed backwards was desperately strange to look at. And there was the massive flock of birds caught in an infinite spiraling loop above a high-rise of cheap housing. The crumpled bag of crisps caught quivering in mid-air spitting out potatoes that melted to seeds on the ground. We’ve taken wide berths around these phenomena. So far everyone appears to be attached to the same space-time continuum they arrived in.

  The same can’t be said for our surroundings. As we’ve moved towards the edge of Pripyat, closer to Chernobyl and the epicenter of the explosion, the levels of dilapidation have been increasing. The buildings are coming more and more to resemble giant piles of rubble.

  But the building Devon is pointing at is remarkably whole.

  “Reinforced structure.” Malcolm nods.

  “Which means?” Aiko looks perplexed.

  “Government building,” Devon and Malcolm say in unison.

  Aiko and I get to the conclusion of that thought at the same time, but she’s the one who gives eloquent utterance to it.

  “Pay dirt.”

  FIFTY-THREE

  The building reeks of mold and wet cement. The walls are covered in graffiti—skulls, roses, jagged Cyrillic letters, and amorphous blobs in drab shades of red and green and brown. None of the bright Day-Glo colors that London’s disenfranchised use to tag its public spaces and vehicles. But apparently we’re not the first people to make it this deep.

  Whatever branch of the soviet government occupied the building, they left in a hurry. There are rusted filing cabinets wrapped in thick mutant strains of ivy—all stalk and no leaf. Smashed computer monitors litter the floor. Bookshelves spill their former occupants, providing rotten shelter for rodents. The place is a monument to abandoned bureaucracy.

  Winston would fit in here. He’d hate it, but he’d fit in.

  I wonder if I’ll ever see Winston again.

  It’s funny how it leaks in. The realization of what I’ve done. Of what I’ve left behind. Who.

  I wonder what they’re doing back in London. If they’ve worked out how to get closer to the heart of this. I wonder if I’m on a wild goose chase.

  But the temporal effects
are here. So the truth is here. It has to be here.

  We go deeper still. Malcolm leads. Nikolai trails at the back. His exuberance is significantly dampened.

  “This is not being so awesome now.” He tries to reason with us.

  “It’s where we need to be,” I tell him curtly. Now I don’t need to rely on him for transport I find I don’t nod and smile so much.

  We come to a stairwell. Tiles are peeling off the walls, collecting in small shattered piles at the corners of the landings.

  “We split up?” I ask.

  “Have you never even seen a horror movie?” Aiko looks at me like I’m insane.

  And the truth is I’ve seen many, but I’ve never met anyone else who seemed to think they provided legitimate strategic advice. In fact, if I’m applying Hollywood logic, the best bet is running away very fast. The serial killer traps you on the roof. The giant monster lurks in the basement.

  Maybe there is something to that logic after all.

  “Down,” I say, letting randomness supersede Hollywood’s life lessons.

  So down we go, to a landing with a great white stencil that reads α-1. A door leads onto the basement floor. The stairs carry on, descending into darkness. The sound of dripping water is louder down here.

  “Sweep this floor?” Jasmine looks to Malcolm for confirmation. He seems to be fulfilling a role that lies somewhere between surrogate parent and drill sergeant.

  “Sweep the floor,” I confirm as Malcolm nods.

  It’s dark. Medieval dungeon dark. In a few places the ceiling has given way and light filters in. But all it reveals are more filing cabinets, more derelict computers, more rotting books. The place is a maze of little rooms with no clear purpose. One resembles a surgical theater. One looks more like a dentist’s.