Halfheroes

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  —Good. Are you ready?—

  —I am—

  —Shuck?—

  —Ready—

  There was no preparation, no ritual necessary to achieve the state of awareness they required. They simply had to accept Abos as alpha. If they wanted to merge, to become both individuals and a single organism simultaneously, to expand their awareness and abilities, there had to be a dominant mind.

  Abos took overall control, and the three became onemind.

  She turned and flew south. Shuck headed north, back towards Cornwall. Susan peeled off to the east and the French coast. They matched their speed, flying far slower than normal. At ten miles, the connection was still present. At twenty-five miles, it was there, but imperfect, like a badly tuned radio station, interrupted by static. Between twenty-five and thirty miles, the three of them slowed down as the signal became intermittent, before disappearing. They were three individuals again, although still connected at a basic level, each still aware of the others.

  Checking the coordinates later on their phones, they found that, to maintain onemind, they needed to keep within twenty-two miles of the nearest titan.

  —You cannot think of a better word than titan?—

  —not yet—

  They ran experiments, tried different combinations. First, Abos and Susan stayed together, and Shuck flew away from them. Then Abos and Shuck waited while Susan flew. The results were the same, their connection breaking up before the twenty-five-mile limit.

  Then Abos, as alpha, took control. The others allowed it, their individuality receding, rather than disappearing. She became three. It was both the strangest, and the most natural-feeling moment she could remember since first opening her eyes in 1978.

  Onemind saw the ocean, the stars and the coast of Spain, skimmed low over the waves until the salt spray flecked its body, at the same time as it headed up towards the silence of the stars, their light merging into the headlamps of ten thousand cars making a chaotic mandala of Bilbao.

  Abos understood, within onemind, the responsibility, and dangers, of entering this state of consciousness. the biggest danger was her, the alpha, the dominant mind. That mind, if strong enough, could take over. The forming and un-forming of onemind was down to the alpha. It could be forced on the others.

  What was interesting about the sense of this danger was how it had arisen within their shared consciousness. It felt like a warning from history, a distant warning from their species.

  Near the water, they called silently and watched as a school of common dolphins, thirty strong, broke the surface. Contact occurred as onemind sent mental commands, which were accepted by the mammals as if originating in their own brains. They swam in a large circle, then a figure-of-eight, finally a large V which turned in any direction onemind wished.

  The collective consciousness released its hold, and the dolphins returned to normal behaviour, then cleared a space as creatures from the deep arrived.

  Grey skin pushed through the waves, and a water-blow jetted into the night air, high enough to reach the closest onemind body. A fin whale appeared with a slow, muscular movement as its sixty-five-foot body displaced the surrounding water. At onemind's command, it rolled over like a trained dog, before diving.

  The last creature had been called from further away and took another ten minutes to appear. The blue whale, at nearly two hundred tonnes and over ninety-five feet long, stayed on the surface for twenty minutes before sliding back into the deep.

  Abos un-formed the collective and onemind fell away, one becoming three once again.

  They flew back to the farm.

  —The blue whale was aware of us—

  It wasn't a question.

  —It is intelligent—

  —unlike human intelligence—

  Accessing Abos's memory, they all knew of the decimation of other species over the past few centuries. Blue whales, once believed to have numbered over a quarter of a million, now had a population less than a tenth of that.

  The three non-humans turned their attention to their brothers with Titus Gorman, mistreated by humans, their minds imprisoned. Abos knew that by finding, and freeing the others of her kind, they would more easily find Daniel If the onemind could become nine, twelve, or fifteen, it would increase in power and understanding.

  —What do we know about Gorman? Where is he likely to be?—

  —We know little. He is American, his company is American. We should start there—

  —America is a very large country. A good place to hide if you don't want to be found—

  —But we must find him—

  —Then there is no alternative. We will search, however long it takes—

  Abos poured tea. She made toast. The marmalade was homemade, picked up from a stall at the side of the road outside Mrs Peabody's gate, half a mile along the winding road that led to the village.

  Coincidentally, Mrs Peabody was, at that moment, putting on a cardigan and preparing to leave her cottage. She had been selling homemade marmalade for a decade, eight or nine jars a week, her customers leaving the money in a tin. The small profit fed her three cats. Her turnover had risen since the farmhouse down the road had been sold to the quiet couple, and she had upped her production correspondingly. She was glad of the extra custom, and, as soon as the latest batch had cooled, decided to give them a complimentary jar.

  A few yards before reaching the driveway of the newcomers' house, an unexpected movement caught her eye, and she stopped. Behind the farmhouse, three helmeted figures had risen into the air. They were moving at speed, and, after a quick rub of her eyes, she caught sight of the soles of three pairs of boots before they vanished into a cloud.

  "Well," she murmured. "Just no telling what these London types get up to, is there?"

  She left the jar on the doorstep with a card. After all, a good customer was a good customer.

  High above her, still climbing, Abos checked her compass before she, Shuck, and Susan banked west, heading for America.

  28

  America had never experienced a day like today. Those who weren't able to sit in front of computers kept their phones and tablets close by, refreshing the screens every few seconds. The media had been informed that three Americans would die, that the government could do nothing to prevent this, and that they should take this as a sign that the old world order was finished.

  A website address had been released. A blank, black box on the otherwise featureless webpage contained the words Live feed will be streamed here. Each titan will wear body cams. Watch this space.

  The revolution would be televised. More accurately, it would be streamed live to devices as large as a home cinema screen and as small as a TimeGlob, the tiny watch-like devices that were Glob's latest success story.

  By the time midnight arrived at the end of that long day, no one in the world was sure whether they were safer, or in more danger than they'd ever been before.

  Curtis Hart-Davis was the first. On receiving an email from Titus Gorman that morning, he opened his safe and removed fifteen thousand dollars in cash plus a gun. He told his wife he was going for a ride.

  A delay of an hour between his email arriving and the local authorities being informed he was a target, meant that by the time the local sheriff knocked on the door, Hart-Davis was already forty miles away.

  A bemused and concerned Mrs Hart-Davis told the police officers to take a seat. Curtis often rode the Harley on Sundays, and she was sure he would be back soon. When the officers remained standing and asked intrusive questions about her husband's business and their private life, concern became panic.

  Hardly hearing the next few questions, she asked some of her own. These were batted aside with practised ease, and, as quickly as they had arrived, the police officers were gone. They left one patrol car behind in case Mr Hart-Davis should return, but the sheriff didn't even try to hide the fact that he was sure he wouldn't.

  As the last car turned out of their driveway, and the h
eavy iron gates rolled closed, she turned to the young officer, and asked him outright what was going on. He'd seen the same look of worry on his own mother's face every time he put on his uniform and left the house.

  "Don't you worry, Ma'am. I'm sure it'll all work out fine. Sheriff says the titans are after him, that's all. Ain't they a football team? Ma'am?"

  Mrs Hart-Davis couldn't respond, as she'd dropped to the floor like a bag of cement.

  At the same moment, in a roadside diner near the state line, her husband had just made the worst deal of his life. Making deals was what Curtis was good at. Better than good. In a career full of deals that had made history in entertainment law, Curtis had built a reputation as the lawyer to call if you wanted not only to screw the other guy, but also his entire family, and their descendants, in perpetuity.

  Trading his eighteen-month-old Harley-Davidson Low Rider S for a nineteen ninety-eight Honda would have stopped his career in its tracks, had any of his clients been there to see it. But, since Titus Gorman had promised him that his career, along with his life, would be over by the end of the day, he didn't give a shit what anyone thought.

  Ten miles along the highway, he pulled into a gas station, ducked into the restroom and shaved off his neat white goatee. He hesitated before starting on the plugs he'd paid twenty-thousand bucks for. He sighed, then hacked away at his suspiciously luxurious hair with a pair of nail scissors, before shaving what remained down to his pink scalp.

  The face that stared back from the cracked mirror was that of a stranger. Good. He closed his eyes for a moment and thought of Clarice, the fourteen-year-old he'd been grooming. His excitement about her had been building, and he knew she would be ready in a month. Then the game would begin. The meetings, the back of the car, the motel rooms, the photographs and films for his collection. She was already vulnerable, as her father had recently passed. That made her even more desirable. Curtis was planning six months of fun with this one, before the meth he would introduce her to made her too strung-out and wasted to be worth bothering with. Then he'd hand her over to the pimp he used.

  Except, now, that would not happen. Curtis knew he'd get caught one day. He'd made contingencies. A new identity in a deposit box, a long bus-ride, easy access to a few million dollars, and he'd be starting a new life within a week.

  The million dollars had gone now, thanks to Gorman. All he had was the cash from home, the gun, and half a million in bearer's bonds which might, eventually, be worth something again when the government caught this asshat.

  He gave a few seconds' thought to his wife. She'd have the house, the cars, and the knowledge that the side of Curtis's life she'd avoided asking about was far worse than she'd imagined. The woman had always been weak. She might even kill herself, the stupid bitch.

  Curtis shook his head, as he guided the Honda west, just an anonymous rider on a Sunday morning. Soon to be truly anonymous. No more Curtis Hart-Davis, Entertainment Lawyer of the year six times in the last decade. That life was gone.

  He looked ahead, along the dusty highway. The Honda had none of the romantic associations of the Hog, but it was still a bike, and he was still in America, the land of the free, with the open highway stretching out in front of him.

  Things could be worse.

  Then, abruptly, they were. Considerably.

  The Honda revved into the red, and he relaxed his grip on the throttle. As the engine note returned to normal, he noticed something unusual. The sound of the tyres on the surface of the highway had stopped. He revved the engine again. The rear wheel spun, but there was no traction, no corresponding surge of acceleration, just that same scream of revs.

  Curtis looked down.

  The surface of the blacktop was about a foot and a half underneath his wheels. The bike was flying.

  Even as he noticed what was happening, the front wheel tilted upwards, and he rose further as if climbing an invisible ramp. For a crazy moment, he stood up on the footpads, considering jumping for it, but by that time he was about sixty or seventy feet in the air. As he sank back onto the seat, he could hear the squeal of brakes as vehicles on both sides of the highway below came to a stop. Doors were opening, people were shouting and pointing up at him.

  Curtis looked down at the strangers, many of them holding their phones towards him and shading their eyes. No. They weren't pointing at him. There was something above him.

  He knew what he would see if he looked up. He resisted the urge to do so. His shoulders sagged.

  Curtis had seen a certain expression appear on the faces of his opponents in some of the more high-profile cases he had handled. It was an expression he had never tired of seeing, because it proved he was the best at what he did, and that anyone who thought of taking him on would be well-advised to remember it. It was the look of defeat. Not just defeat. Defeat with no hope of a reprieve.

  He didn't need a mirror to know the same expression had now appeared on his freshly-shaved features.

  He looked up.

  Along the highway, about another ten feet above him, a man floated. Not a man. A titan. Stupid name.

  Curtis cracked open the visor of his helmet and shouted at the huge figure staring impassively down at him as they hung in space above the highway.

  "Stupid name, it's a stupid name. Fuck you. Fuck you and fuck Gorman, and fuck you fuckers with your fucking cameras and fuck the President and fuck America."

  In a career marked by oratorical successes, this last speech was somewhat of a blemish on his record.

  The titan looked down at the assembled crowd, their cars, pickups and trucks blocking the highway.

  "Yeah, shithead, you have an audience." Curtis hoped he sounded braver than he felt.

  The titan pointed at Curtis, and he was jerked away from the Honda. Then he fell. At the last moment, he shut his eyes. When he felt the blacktop underneath his boots, he took an unbalanced step to one side and opened his eyes again.

  He was back on the road. Unhurt. Alive. The whole death-threat angle had been just that. A threat, no more. Gorman wasn't the killing kind. He should have known. Computer geek with a messiah complex. The kid was a pussy.

  Curtis had just started to laugh when the Honda landed on his head, crushing the helmet, his skull, and neck, snapping his spinal cord in seventeen places as it drove the top half of his body through his pelvis before forcing his corpse through the blacktop.

  The crater was fifteen feet deep and eleven feet wide. Smoke rose from within as the little fuel left in the bike's tank ignited. The resulting fire kept Curtis's corpse smoking until the fire department arrived fourteen minutes later.

  A small crowd gathered around the perimeter. It was oddly like a graveside scene, the mourners assembling on each side of the open grave. Only, instead of bibles or orders of service, they were clutching their phones.

  By the end of the day, the death of Curtis Hart-Davis was the most viewed YouTube clip of all time.

  Being in the army was boring. Piloting drones across Afghanistan was boring.

  Niles hated the camaraderie, and he hated the stupid jargon. Insurgents were innies, civilians were outies. The children who appeared as small black shadows on the drone's screens were fun-sized Bin Ladens. Terrorists in the top ten of the USA target list were blue ghosts. That one was a Pacman reference, a game Niles could win while asleep.

  The air force had insisted any drone pilots they recruited needed to be actual, real-life, qualified pilots, but the army had taken a more practical approach. They saw technology being developed for remote drone piloting, and made the obvious connection. It looked like a game. The army began quietly recruiting gamers.

  Niles Cahill was a gaming legend. Not under his own name. The worldwide gaming fraternity knew him only as KaKill.

  The recruiting officers had turned up at his parents' house in a gleaming black car, wearing crisp uniforms and smiling. It had taken Mr and Mrs Cahill ninety-seven minutes to sign the form committing their son to a year at military school.
Patriotism was undoubtedly a factor, but the new car that appeared on his parent's drive the day before Niles left for Nevada suggested cruder motives.

  Not that he had been sad to go. At seventeen, he was still living in the same room in the same house in the same town, seeing the same idiots at the same stupid high school every day. When he was away from a screen, he felt dull, half alive. He had passed through the school system like a piece of flotsam carried along by a river.

  If anyone had known his identity as KaKill, his life would have become a living hell. His anonymity as one of the best gamers in the country was central to his sense of identity. As KaKill, he could be whoever he wanted to be. No one knew he was a pasty kid in a shitty small town in the Midwest. No one knew a single thing about him.

  The army guys, though. They knew. Which confirmed everything Niles had always suspected about his country's government. They spied on people.

  When they had asked his parents to leave the room and the older guy had said, "Hello, KaKill," he was convinced his entire existence was about to unravel.

  Only it didn't. The army dudes were smarter than that. They explained it all to him, and he could see it made sense. They needed to kill scum on the other side of the world. No point risking the lives of Americans if they didn't have to. The best gamers, the ones who had honed their reflexes over tens of thousands of hours playing made them the perfect candidates to be drone pilots. Niles could be a hero.

  All the talk of military school was just a front. They made it clear it was his decision to take part. Or not. They didn't threaten him, didn't say they would expose his identity. They didn't have to. He told them what he wanted, and they agreed.

  Which meant, a week later, when he arrived in Nevada, his new home had a high-speed military-grade fibre-optic connection, and his front room was a gamer's wet dream, with all the hardware and software he had demanded.

  Each month, his bank account was credited with more money than he'd ever imagined earning. The training was laughably simple compared to some of the strategy and combat games he had mastered.