Resistance is Futile

by Jenny T. Colgan

  ‘Oi,’ she said. ‘Baddie.’

  ‘We’re not the…’ Nigel gestured with his hands. ‘Forget it. Never mind.’

  ‘I need to see him.’

  ‘You can’t. Nobody can.’

  ‘I need to see him, Nigel.’

  ‘It’s orders directly from the top. And if anyone was allowed to see him, it certainly wouldn’t be you. Because if you remember the last time you two were together in this facility, you ended up fifteen hundred kilometres and several thousand pounds worth of helicopter call-out charges away.’

  Connie nodded.

  ‘But I promise. I promise I won’t do anything. We won’t do anything. I only… I have to see him. I have to.’

  ‘Brian said you were screaming at him like a banshee.’

  ‘That’s why I have to see him,’ said Connie.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Nigel. ‘I can’t. I can’t risk it. I can’t do it. I’d lose my job for starters. But it’s not just about me. It’s about everyone. I can’t risk him doing something to you.’

  ‘He would never do anything to me.’

  ‘And I can’t risk you trying to free him or attempting something tricky.’

  Connie shook her head and swallowed hard.

  ‘I won’t, I promise. I won’t. I’ve accepted it.’

  ‘You don’t look like you’ve accepted it in the slightest.’

  ‘I will never accept it,’ said Connie. ‘But I won’t try to change it.’

  ‘No,’ said Nigel.

  Connie sighed.

  ‘How do you think we got to Belarus?’

  ‘An astonishing amount of luck,’ said Nigel, who’d wondered exactly the same thing himself, almost ceaselessly, over the last twelve hours.

  ‘Seriously? You think that’s all it was?’

  Nigel looked at her.

  ‘Keep talking.’

  ‘He’s freakishly strong, Nigel. We’ve kept it a secret but… he’s much, much stronger than anyone on Earth. He could punch through a wall. He could tear off his handcuffs and tear down the doors in a second.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he?’

  ‘Because…’ She swallowed. ‘Because he’s an absolute fricking idiot. But also because he is trying to do the right thing. Trying not to make anything worse happen.’

  Nigel blinked.

  ‘That’s noble of him.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous of him,’ spat Connie. Then she pulled herself together again.

  ‘But, Nigel,’ she said, looking up at him, searching his face. ‘If he doesn’t get to see me… if he doesn’t get to see me at least once before… before. I think he might try by himself. I think he might knock down the walls – which would take him one minute – and fight his way through. I think he might mess up your plans beyond belief.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  Connie shook her head.

  ‘That was our plan. That they would let him stay on Earth and we would burst out of the facility. And this time you would never find us.’

  ‘We did before.’

  ‘Oh, we let you.’

  Nigel heaved a great sigh and looked round. The corridors of the SCIF were deserted; everyone was still in the control room being psychologically debriefed into silence by the scariest sons of bitches the army and MI5 could scare up combined.

  Nigel leaned over. He was a head taller than her.

  ‘Are you sure you haven’t just been brainwashed?’

  ‘Love, brainwashing,’ said Connie. ‘I don’t know the difference any more.’

  ‘I’ll lose my job over this,’ said Nigel, frowning. Then he thought about it again.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘Good.’

  And he opened the door.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Luke was chained to a pipe in the corner of the sluice room, head bent low. Connie thought she had never seen anyone look more alone. Nigel glanced around.

  ‘You have fifteen minutes,’ he hissed. ‘No freaking funny business.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Connie. She grasped his hand. ‘Thank you.’

  She took a step into the room.

  ‘My love,’ she said quietly.

  Luke turned around. His eyes couldn’t quite focus. He didn’t say anything.

  ‘I am so sorry,’ Connie went on. She trod softly on the stone floor. ‘I am so sorry.’

  For a long moment, they just stared at one another. Then instantly she was in his arms, sobbing on his shoulder.

  ‘Ssh,’ he said, comforting her rather than the other way around. ‘Sssh.’

  The light salt wind smell of him comforted her; as long as he was here, there was a chance, there was always a chance.

  ‘There must be something,’ she murmured.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more,’ said Luke. ‘No more.’

  He stroked her hair.

  ‘Tell me more about you,’ he said. ‘Tell me more. I want to know everything.’

  ‘And I want to know everything about you,’ said Connie. ‘So we can be equal.’

  ‘Well, you can be one,’ said Luke, smiling a little. ‘And I will be 0.9999 recurring.’

  She smiled back at him

  ‘We have no time, my love.’

  ‘It got late so soon,’ said Luke, nodding. He held her closer as the sun moved inexorably over the windowless depths of the building, over the astronomy unit, the array, the fields, the town.

  ‘Just sit with me,’ he said. ‘Tell me about that time when you were little and saw the UFO.’

  Connie nestled into him.

  ‘I didn’t really see a UFO.’

  ‘I know,’ said Luke. ‘But tell me about it anyway.’

  ‘Well, it was like a saucer,’ said Connie.

  ‘A saucer, what is that?’

  ‘A great big flat disc.’

  ‘Well, how would that work?’

  ‘Well, if you took, say, a wormhole, it would pivot-spin.’

  ‘Pivot-spin!’ said Luke. ‘Interesting concept.’

  ‘And it has lights you know.’

  ‘Lights!’

  ‘Aliens need lights,’ said Connie. ‘White at the front, red at the back.’

  ‘So they can properly change space lanes and obey space traffic signals.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Connie. ‘That is exactly why.’

  ‘And if a spaceman had landed and said, “Come with me, Small Hair Person,” what would you have said?’

  ‘I would have said yes, of course,’ said Connie. ‘I would have said yes without hesitation. Always.’

  ‘Any old spaceman?’

  ‘Any old spaceman would have done, yes.’

  ‘Well, I guess I was lucky I was first.’

  ‘Well, I guess you were.’

  Nigel knocked at the door urgently. He had left it as long as he could.

  ‘It’s nearly time. You have to go.’

  Connie turned round in a panic.

  ‘You can’t. We can’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but they’re coming.’

  ‘NO! It’s too soon… it’s too soon.’

  ‘Hair,’ said Luke, drawing her to him. ‘Hush now. Mathematics has no time. We are out of time, my love. It does not matter.’

  ‘Don’t you dare say that.’

  ‘Connie, please.’

  Nigel’s face was pained.

  ‘They’re coming. I don’t want… I don’t want them to have to restrain you.’

  Connie was white and shaking. She came up to Nigel and looked straight at him.

  ‘Will you be there?’

  Nigel looked away.

  ‘If I must.’

  ‘You have to be there,’ she said. ‘You have to. Someone has to be there for him.’

  Nigel looked down ashamed.

  ‘I have done nothing for him.’

  The feet grew steadily louder in the passageway. A group of men, one of whom was Brian, wearing full riot gear – which was laughable as nobody had bothered to so far – appeared in
the doorway. Connie stared at them in disbelief.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘We saw what he did to the professor,’ said Brian. ‘We’re taking no chances.’

  Connie backed away.

  ‘You have to leave now,’ Brian went on.

  Luke stood up then, forgetting completely he was handcuffed by the leg to a pipe. He nearly tripped then accidentally pulled the pipe off and ripped the handcuffs in two. Then men gasped and stood back, several taking out large, nasty-looking guns.

  ‘Stop! Stop! It’s okay,’ shouted Connie.

  ‘I’m coming,’ said Luke, raising his hands. ‘It’s okay. I’m coming, I’m all right. Don’t shoot.’

  ‘WAIT!’ screamed Connie suddenly. The masked men turned towards her.

  ‘Last request!’ she shouted, flushed. ‘Last request! Every condemned man gets a last request! I just remembered!’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any smoking on college property,’ said Brian.

  ‘Last request!’ yelled Connie again. Brian looked at Nigel, who shrugged.

  ‘I suppose that’s true,’ he said. ‘As long as it’s not, you know… an escape helicopter or a piano.’

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The shadows had lengthened on the college lawn, and the sky was streaked with pink. The odd metallic hum was back in the air, as if a storm was coming. Except, of course, the storm was here; the storm had been here for some time, waiting for them.

  The PM paced up and down the grass as his press officers in London went spare trying to explain his absence in the light of the gigantic meteor storm. Anyali kept checking her phone but was unable to read anything written there. Kathy leaned against the wall, idly trading forces gossip with the CSCs, betraying no nerves whatsoever. The rear-admiral on the other hand constantly glanced at his watch.

  Nobody looked at the small cloister wall at the other end, where a short black post had been erected.

  The bells of Cambridge tolled on: seven, seven-thirty, eight. The sky grew darker and the light was fading away. Suddenly an old wooden door at the other end of the lawn creaked open. Everyone started. The PM swallowed. Anyali leapt forward.

  It was Nigel, looking apologetic. He came forward and explained the last request concept to the others, who sighed but eventually nodded.

  ‘As long as they understand,’ said the general, ‘that if they try any remotely funny business – and that includes the fat one attempting to shout inflammatory slogans – they run the very real risk of being shot themselves.’

  ‘I’ll make that clear, sir.’

  Which was how, when Luke finally emerged half an hour later – they had offered him a blindfold which he had politely declined, explaining that his eyesight wasn’t good enough to require it – he was entirely surrounded by his friends.

  Arnold came first, walking slowly and proudly, head in the air.

  Then Connie was at Luke’s right shoulder. Evelyn at his left. They were not to touch him, but when he stumbled involuntarily at the step between the pathway and the grass, both put out their hands to help him, and were allowed to keep them there.

  Sé came next. Sé and Luke had stood face to face in the common room.

  ‘I did not want this to end this way,’ Sé had said stiffly.

  ‘Neither did I,’ Luke had replied. There had been a pause.

  ‘Will you walk with me, Sé?’

  ‘Yes. Yes I will walk with you.’

  Beside him was Ranjit, crying and stumbling like an exhausted child.

  He was led to the post at the end of the college lawn as the final rays of sun vanished from the mullioned windows above, in the rooms where Connie had sat and dreamed her nights away, of sailing in a star-tossed sea.

  There they were motioned back by the men in the riot suits to the edge of the green, and Luke stepped on alone. Ranjit had started to wail.

  Connie was the last to let him go, staring at his bent head, tears streaming down her face, soaking into the grass beneath her feet.

  ‘My love,’ she said. ‘My darling. My Luke. Look at me. Look at me.’

  He did so.

  ‘Always,’ he said simply.

  And then he said her name.

  ‘My Constance. My constant girl.’

  ‘Don’t call me Constance,’ choked Connie. ‘Just call me Hair.’

  ‘Hair,’ said Luke, so gently, as gently as if they were falling asleep. ‘Farewell, Hair.’

  She was shaking her head as he stroked her cheek one last time, and she closed her eyes and let her tears run down his fingers. Only Anyali, staring intently, noticed what happened next: Luke’s hand moved down and passed inside Connie’s hand. That for a moment they were totally merged; something like a little flicker seemed to pass between them and the terrible pain etched on Connie’s face was erased – temporarily at least – as there was absolutely no way of telling where one of them ended and one began. Anyali’s hand went to her mouth.

  The uncomfortable static in the air crackled menacingly. There was no need to wonder what it was. They were here.

  ‘It’s time,’ warned Nigel.

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s time.’

  In the end he had to take hold of the backs of Connie’s arms and lift her away as she reached out frantically, then collapsed, sobbing, into the others. They held her up.

  ‘I can’t look,’ she said.

  ‘You should,’ said practical Evelyn. ‘He needs to see you.’

  The pressure now in the air had reached painful levels. Ears were starting to pop. It was very uncomfortable to stand.

  The Prime Minister stepped forwards. He had been planning a few apposite words for the occasion but Anyali had persuaded him this was not the time. So instead, as the men took up their firing positions, he simply said, ‘I hope the next time two great civilisations meet… we can perhaps at least attempt to be civilised.’

  He nodded to the general, who saluted, then said, ‘Ready. Aim.’

  It must have happened quickly, but it felt incredibly slow to the people who were there. Connie, unable to help herself, broke free of the group, and hurled herself across the lawn. Just as the general brought up his hand and said ‘FIRE!’, Sé charged across after her, pushing her out of the way of the rounds and rounds of ammunition.

  The first of seventy-five expended bullets ripped through his shoulder as he was still flying through the air. The second hit his leg.

  The next fourteen hit Luke over the top of Sé’s collapsed form, as he landed on top of Connie, staining the grass bright red, as Connie screamed to wake the dead and rolled herself underneath him and onto her belly where she could see Luke – but there was no Luke. Or rather, there was the shape of him, still in the air, an outline as the first bullet had hit him and blown apart the control of his own shape that had held him as he was; threw him instead into the majestic, tall, clear figure only Connie knew, while the rest of the people watching gasped in horror, and Brian, immediately and without hesitation put down his gun. But his shape, against the twilight, stayed only a second, hovering in the air, and in the next second, it too disappeared and a wall of salt water, a fountain, crashed down and mingled with Sé’s bright blood on the jewel-covered grass and washed it all away.

  And the crackle and static in the air of the alien presence dispersed and disappeared, and suddenly, after the hot days and tempestuous nights, a soft, English summer rain began to fall.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Eighteen months later

  Arnold was fanning himself. He looked profoundly uncomfortable in a white embroidered shirt.

  ‘How many people are here anyway?’ he said. ‘Thousands! I’ve never seen so many people. Canapés alone must cost them a FORTUNE.’

  ‘Could you be quiet?’ said Evelyn. ‘I’m trying to be respectful.’

  ‘Also all these GORGEOUS women here,’ said Arnold. ‘And seriously, I’m probably not allowed to talk to any of them. I bet I’d have been a good caste.’

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