“I'm thinking that if people are willing to throw in with the King due to his power, then they need an alternative. They need an example to follow, the opposite of whatever bleak dystopian bullshit he's selling them.”
“Desperation,” says the Trespasser. “That's what I see on that screen. Desperate, frightened people.”
Mark looks up at him. “Well what's the opposite of fear?”
Trespasser One rolls his eyes.
“Hope, I guess?”
Mark smiles.
“I can get behind that,” he says, nodding. “Yeah: we need to get some good fabric and someone who can sew.”
Donald raises his hand. “I can sew.”
“Good, because I'm going to need a costume; and a cape.”
Gary grins. “About bloody time.”
Episode 8
Prometheus
The sun rises over Glasgow's city centre: a mesa of half-broken buildings and steeples, with tenements lining the streets like onlookers at a funeral. Puddles by the roadside catch the morning light as the mist pulls back, and everything is still.
A single man walks the street in blue suit trousers, with a pressed white shirt and a dark navy waistcoat keeping his gold tie in place. His face has a look of contentment to it, the smile that a man might have if he were proud of his children. Sunlight catches his eyes, and those few brave souls looking out their windows see the darkness in his pupils swallow the light whole. There's something in his eyes, some unspoken shadow that lurks beneath his skin, in his veins, curdling and festering under the mask that he wears as a face.
The King waves to his subjects in their windows, and they wave back, forcing smiles before they close their curtains. Autumn sun bathes the Kingdom, and as the King strolls down Argyle Street he looks on with a barely concealed pity at the boarded-up shops and shattered windows that were once one of Glasgow's main attractions.
Silence rules the day.
With a smile, the King begins the long, leisurely walk to his offices, swaggering with the confidence of a man who cannot be hurt.
Mark wakes up to the same silence, rolling out of the camp bed and knocking over two empty bottles of beer. The clatter of empty glass on the concrete floor stirs some of the squad – except Jamie, who is already sitting up at the computer desk with Chloe, deep in conversation.
He looks over as Mark rises, and lifts his hand.
“We were just talking about you,” says Jamie.
Mark rubs the sleep from his eyes and grimaces at the taste in his mouth.
“Nothing too bad I hope.”
“You need a name.”
“Mark.”
“A superhero name,” says Chloe, leaning out from behind Jamie.
Jamie shrugs. “I like Beerman.”
Mark trudges over to them in his shorts as the rest of the squad pull their covers up and try to go back to sleep.
“I can't call myself Beerman.”
Chloe scratches her lip. “What about Gary's suggestion? A colour and an animal? What's your favourite colour and animal, Mark?”
“Beige Capybara. Can't see it.”
Jamie frowns. “What the shit is a capybara?”
“Giant hamster,” says Chloe, patting his knee. “Who honestly says beige is their favourite colour?”
“He said it was brown last time,” whispers Jamie.
“What about...” Mark thinks for a moment. “Like. I don't know. What do I do? Punch bad guys?”
Jamie nods. “Punch-man has a decent ring to it.”
“That's awful,” says Chloe. “What about The Puncher.”
“Jesus, Chloe.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
Stacy appears out of the gloom, her hair tied in a bun and her eyes heavy from a bad night's sleep. She has her duvet wrapped around her, leans into Mark, and yawns before giving her suggestion.
“What was the alien that gave us all our powers called? Defender?”
“Protector,” says Mark, and his eyes brighten. “Shit, Stacy that's great.”
“You're welcome. Anybody for coffee?”
“Everyone.” says Jamie, turning to Mark. “So: Protector?”
“It'll do. Do I need a symbol?”
“What about a beer bottle?”
“What about a shield?” tries Mark.
“Definitely a beer bottle.”
“Hey, what about your superhero name?”
“Mark,” Jamie holds up his hands, laughing. “I am a retired car thief, who used to work for the psychopath that we're planning to kill. Not to mention my somewhat heavy handed methods – I'm not jumping around in a cape, mate; that's your job.”
“Let's call you Headshot,” laughs Stacy.
Jamie shakes his head. “Harsh, Stace, harsh.”
Chloe looks over at some of the sleeping squad-mates. “Hey, at least Trespasser comes equipped with his own cool name.”
“What, Tony?” asks Jamie.
“No, his name is Trespasser. You're the one that started with the whole Tony thing. He hates it.”
“Oh yeah.”
Stacy emerges from a corner of the bunker with mugs of steaming coffee in her hands, placing them down on the computer desk and managing to spill enough to leave sticky rings on Chloe's notes.
“Sorry love,” she yawns as she shuffles away in her duvet, standing beside Mark and passing him a coffee. “I put whiskey in yours.”
“You're a thoughtful wee thing, Stace.”
“I know,” she gives him a sleepy smile. “What are we doing today then? Hiding and hoping nobody breaks our necks?”
“I've got research to do,” says Mark. “I need to work out how feasible my plan is.”
“If you want,” says Chloe, leaning forward, “I can get you a list of websites about how to punch people better?”
“Thanks Chloe,” he winks. “But that won't be necessary. When it's dark, I need to practice too.”
“Practice what?” asks Stacy.
“Flying, of course.”
The sun is high in the sky when the King strolls down the Kingston Bridge, and light sparkles in diamonds off the waves of the River Clyde. The air is fresher than he's ever smelled it here; no traffic today. No cars; the turn of summer has lit the sky a chalky blue, only a few fleecy clouds in the distance.
Two men wielding assault rifles give him a nod of respect as he approaches the crude barrier they have erected, all sand bags, barbed wire and heavy metal posts. They wear long black coats and scarves, dressed like businessmen; dressed like the King.
“Men,” he smiles, puffing out his chest and lacing his hands behind his back. “You said you had something for me to turn my attention to?”
“Aye, sir,” says the large one with a shaved head. “There are men at the barrier requesting your presence. They say they're from the government.”
“About time,” he says. “I'll talk to them. Wait here.”
The King eases himself between the barriers and steps out into the road, where two men lean against the road's divider, clutching briefcases and binders and shivering. Their black company car is parked a few feet away, the engine off.
“Is it cold?” the King asks, by means of making conversation.
The men look up and freeze as though to answer his question. One of them, clearly the one in charge, stands up to his full height and adjusts his glasses.
“Mr. Paul King?”
“That's me; though, I'd prefer just King.”
“We're here to open a dialogue; discuss demands, the treatment of civilians within the city, and so on.”
The King gestures to the barrier. “Would you like to come in?”
Both men look at each other, unspoken words passing between them.
“Of course,” says the first.
“It's much nicer on my side of the fence,” says the King, smiling. The two men laugh politely as though being told a joke. “I trust, of course, that you haven't come alone?”
“I'm sorry?” says the on
e with the glasses, his tone breaking.
“Oh you know,” the King shrugs as he leads the men through the barrier. Assault rifles are aimed as they step onto the other side of the tarmac. “Snipers. Spy planes so high I can't see them. That kind of thing.”
The one in the glasses loses the jovial smile, and straightens his shoulders.
“You're not an idiot, Mr. King.”
“Just King, please,” he whispers, stopping and turning around. “I've already asked you to just call me King.”
The King and the man in the glasses stare at each other, neither blinking.
“Do you have an office that we could use?”
“Everything past the barrier is my office. Everything outside it will be too, eventually.”
“No doubt, no doubt. Let's discuss demands then, hm?”
“I don't have any demands,” the King smirks. “This is just how things are. You can't negotiate with a hurricane.”
“And you're the hurricane?”
“I'm much worse than any disaster, son.”
“Ok,” the suit turns to his colleague, “well this has been fruitful indeed. Let's go.”
The other one nods, and the two head for the barrier at a brisk walk. Smirking again, the King moves so quickly that he leaves a breeze on their faces. They jump as he appears before them, standing between them and the barrier.
“In a rush, gentlemen?” he smiles, stepping forward and forcing them back. “Haven't you ever met a King before? It's customary to bow.”
Though the smaller one hesitates, the one in the glasses swallows and fixes his tie.
“I will not bow before a terrorist, sir.”
“Is that what they're calling me? Just the usual buzzword for whatever enemy of the state they've dreamt up? Shame. King sounds so much better. I'd have settled for tyrant.”
“Tyrant it is, then.”
“Well,” sighs the King. “I can respect a man with strong principles, being one myself. Tell your superiors you did your best.”
The King extends his hand, giving the glasses-man an open, honest smile; his shorter colleague is trembling, clutching his briefcase like a lifeline.
With a wary hesitation, the leader reaches out and takes the King's hand as if to shake it.
Without any effort, the King closes his fist and crushes every bone in the man's hand. His scream splits the air, and the King's strength drives him to his knees, scrabbling with his free hand against the King's grip, to no effect.
The little one, the shrew as the King has come to think of him, is staring, aghast.
“See?” the King grins, staring at the shrew. “Apply enough force, my man -” he squeezes harder, and the scream gets louder, “ - and everybody bows. Tell your superiors: in the end, everybody will bow.”
Mark's sits on the edge of a tower block as the sun disappears over the horizon. In the far distance lie the hills and fields near Milngavie, leading out into the wilderness. Lights sparkle to life in the twilight, and Mark tips the rest of a beer can down his throat, wiping his beard clean with one grubby sleeve.
He sighs, and smiles as the breeze picks up, blowing the clouds aside and letting him see the half-moon, peering through the gap like a giant.
A door clicks shut, and he glances behind him. Jamie and the Trespasser join him on the roof, sitting near the edge with him.
“Nice evening,” says the Trespasser, hanging his legs off the ledge.
“Brought you a present,” says Jamie, sitting a four-pack of beer cans beside Mark with a clank.
“You're so thoughtful. Where did you get beer at a time like this?”
“There are shops open, believe it or not. It doesn't really feel like a disaster zone.”
“It's not,” Mark grumbles, and takes one of the cans. It hisses as he cracks it open. “Either of you want one?” he asks, taking two more cans and offering them up. The men shrug and take them; the three of them sit on the roof's edge, looking out over the twilight city and its suburbs, and enjoy the peace.
Trespasser One breaks the silence. “How did your research go?”
Mark gulps down the beer, staring into the distance. “Well.”
“Ready to let me in on the secret yet?”
Mark shakes his head, his shoulders slumping. “I don't know if I can do it.”
“Physically?”
“Not just that. It's way worse than I thought it was.”
“What is it then?”
Mark sighs, downs the beer and tosses the crumpled can behind him. “You two have killed people, right?”
Jamie shrugs.
Trespasser One nods. “Yeah. You have too, right? During the whole Destroyer thing?”
“That was fight or die stuff, I mean like... pre-meditated, had a plan to kill someone and went through with it.”
“I was a Trespasser,” says Tony, “that was essentially my job.”
“Why?” asks Jamie. “You starting to feel bad about killing the King?”
“That's the thing,” says Mark. “He can't die.”
“We think.”
“He's fairly certain – the same way that we just know what our powers and their limits are: he knows he can't be killed.”
“If he can't be killed -” the Trespasser begins, and Marks cuts him off with a raised hand.
“He can't be. He can, however, be stopped – but it's going to be horrible. Almost unfathomable.”
“How so?”
Mark opens his second can and leans back.
“You guys know the legend of Prometheus?”
Jamie frowns. “Greek guy? Roman?”
“Something like that. Greek, I think. Stole fire from the gods, gave it to man. His punishment was to be chained to a rock, where every day a raven – or an eagle, whatever, it changes in the telling – would come and eat his liver. It would grow back by the next day, and he'd have to endure it all over again.”
“Didn't he escape in the tale?”
“I think so, eventually. I don't know, to be honest,” says Mark. “My point is – that's hell. Constantly suffering, being unable to stop it – and worse, being unable to die. I'm talking about putting the King through an ordeal so terrible that I don't know if I'll be able to live with myself.”
“This is what you were researching, right?”
“Right,” says Mark. “He's invincible. Can't be killed. Stronger and faster than me, probably powerful enough to survive a nuclear strike. He told me that there's no prison that can hold him. Nowhere we can keep him that he won't eventually break out of.”
“Seems that way,” says Jamie, sipping his beer and pulling his jacket around himself as the breeze picks up and the sky darkens.
“Well, there's one place I can send him. Theoretically. Provided that I can learn to fly.”
The Trespasser sits his beer down and leans forward, looking at Mark with an alarmed expression on his face.
“Hold on a bloody minute -”
“I can throw him into the sun.”
“What?”
“Escape velocity for Earth's gravity is seven miles per second. Provided I make him miss the moon, he'll drift at constant speed until either the Sun or Jupiter's gravity pull him in. He can't fly, and even if he could, the speeds and forces required to break free of their gravity wells are so high it's pointless to consider.”
Jamie crumples his finished can. “Isn't Jupiter just gas?”
“We think the core is rock. Metal liquid hydrogen maybe. Unbelievably strong gravity would crush him, and he'd drown over and over again in boiling acid. If he misses Jupiter and ends up in the sun? Well, we don't think a nuclear strike will kill him, but a constant nuclear fusion reaction as intense as the sun? With that much gravity? Provided he can't die, he'd sink to the middle of the sun and be trapped there, burning, crushed, over and over for eternity. For the next few billion years. By the time he finally escaped, the universe would mostly just be brown dwarf stars and black holes. I'm talking about sending a man – a
human being – to hell, for eternity, to die over and over and over again, alone, billions of miles from home.” Mark looks at them both, his face gaunt and pale. Neither have anything to offer him. “I need to know,” he goes on, “that there's no other option available. That there is no alternative than to inflict this upon him. Because I will – if there's no other choice. I will. It would take him, what, hundreds of years to even hit anything at that speed. Hundreds of years just floating through space, alone, freezing to death repeatedly. Unable to die.”
“Mother of god,” whispers the Trespasser. “That's a bit more extreme than killing somebody, Mark.”
“Prometheus,” he whispers. “I hope against hope that he can die. But I'll never know. If I do this, I'll never find out the truth. And I'll always wonder.”
“I don't see an alternative,” says Jamie. “Other than to let him carry on with the Kingdom, till he eventually takes the world for himself and bends it to whatever vision he has. I know, for one, that I could never sleep again knowing that he's out there somewhere, on Earth. If this is the only way to stop him...”
“I think it might be,” says the Trespasser. “Could you hit that speed? I mean, you've never flown before; now you've got three days to learn to fly fast enough to leave Earth?”
“Whilst,” adds Jamie, “presumably, carrying the King, who will be fighting you the entire way. Not to mention: you won't be able to breathe past a certain height.”
The Trespasser finishes his beer. “We could see about getting you a pressurised flight suit and some oxygen cylinders? Plus – if you go into space, you need to come back down. That means re-entry – you know, that thing that tends to set even specially designed spacecraft on fire.”
“I've endured fire before,” says Mark. “Anyway, all of these are complications to the main point. I reckon I can do it. The question is: should I?”
Jamie and Trespasser One look at each other, then back at Mark. In unison, they nod:
“Yeah.”
“Then I might as well start practising. How hard can it be -”
Mark stands up and – before they can protest – throws himself off the building.
Kingdom: The Complete Series Page 46