by Goss, James
Gwen looked at him. At the gun. At us. She shrugged and the bolt cutter sank into another link.
Sebastian fired the gun.
One shot.
That was all.
Right into the heart of the pram.
‘The baby!’ I screamed.
Rhys
OK. One of the nice things about having a baby was that for a while our rows had been normal. Lovely bit of nice awkward silence, tread carefully around each other for a bit before making some casual peacemaking comment. You know the drill: ‘Would you like me to change her?’ ‘We’re running low on tea.’ ‘Philip Schofield’s not going to get any older, is he?’
Rowing between couples. ‘I thought it was your turn to do that.’ ‘Seriously, would it kill you to put the seat up just once?’ ‘Shall I put the rubbish out again, then?’ Rows like that are what the English language was made to cope with. Nice simple sentence structure. Subject, object, passive aggressive. Strangely comforting.
But now Gwen and I were back to the kind of rows we used to have. Uncharted territory. ‘Off out to spend the evening with your handsome immortal alien boss again, is it?’ ‘Why does hunting down the alien shape-shifter assassin always have to come first?’ ‘What the hell is that giant fish doing dancing in the living room?’
Here we were again. ‘So I let a girl flirt with me while we were surrounded by creepy alien pod children and you’re now off to their secret base to try and sort it all out while I’m stuck alone in the pub. Is that it?’
I stood there alone in the rain.
Nerys came out and plonked herself wetly down on the picnic bench. Rain was sputtering down the umbrella. We sat there, glumly staring across the stink thistles at the distant children. Nerys did something slight, rearranging her top. It was freezing, but she showed no sign of feeling the cold.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, placatingly. ‘I’ll put my claws in.’ She shifted over a bit nearer. ‘Gwyneth Paltrow gone, then?’
‘Yeah. She’s going to try and save us all single-handed.’
‘Tricky,’ said Nerys, chewing gum and pulling at her hair.
‘Yeah.’
‘You not going after her?’
‘Nope.’
‘You are always supposed to go after her, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘And?’
‘Sometimes I choose not to.’
‘Eh?’
‘Sometimes, sometimes, I happen to believe that I am right and my wife is wrong, see?’
Nerys considered this for a bit. ‘Brave.’
I smiled just a little. ‘Yes.’
Nerys and I sat there watching the kids. They watched us back. Sort of.
She jerked a thumb at them. ‘So, what are we going to do about them? We can hardly throw a sheet over them, can we?’
‘No,’ I replied.
‘You’d need a really big sheet for a start.’ Nerys giggled.
‘Thing is,’ I said, ‘they’re going to attack us. Sooner or later.’
‘You really think so?’
‘Let’s just say that, in my considerable experience… yes.’
‘What?’ Nerys looked at me. ‘You and Gwen really have experience of this kind of thing?’
I nodded, trying to look modest.
Nerys wasn’t fooled. She nudged me in the ribs. ‘But mostly Gwen, yeah?’
‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘Mostly Gwen.’
Nerys
I’m the last child of the village. Born in 1987.
Imagine that, eh? No one to play with growing up, not really. Just me and Davydd and Sasha… and then, gradually… Those Scions. It’s not that we ignored them, really. It’s just that to start with, they were so much older. You never play with older kids, do you? And they didn’t play properly. They tried. But they just liked games with each other. And when you were a little kid, they were creepy, know what I mean? Actually, if you’re a grown-up, they’re still creepy. Every morning, Sasha, Davydd and me would queue for the school bus. The only children to go to school. The only ones who needed to. And every evening I’d come back to find my mum waiting for me at the bus stop. And she said to me, time and again, ‘If ever anyone asks, don’t tell them about this place. About the other children here. Cos they’ll think you’re like them. They’ll think you’re… funny too.’ Then she’d hold me and tell me how lucky she was. To have a normal kid. So I tried so hard to be normal. I guess that’s what we all do in life, kind of not stick out. But… you know how it is, growing up in a place that’s kind of sad. You feel sad too. You try not to be, but you are. You make it worse.
Being a teenager was hardest. I just wanted someone to tell me that I was doing it right. And no one does. It was just Sasha, Davydd and me – worrying that, when we got to 15, we’d look and act like the others. Cos the only people you had to compare yourself to was them… I loved it when Mum took me away on holiday. Places like Porthmadog. You know the kind of dive I mean. Like going on holiday in ancient history. The 1970s! Kiss me quick and fruit machines and guys my own age. Well, more or less. My idea of heaven was just to get out of here. To move to a dump like Porthmadog. That’s the thing about this place, it sets your sights low. I mean, look at Davydd. Me and Sasha, we were like best friends… until we realised that Davydd was the only chance either of us had. We were teenagers, we were supposed to be fooling around, right, all cheap brandy and bus stops, not looking at the one boy in the village as a potential mate. I remember my mum brushing my hair and saying, ‘You got to look nice for Davydd, pet.’ Sasha got him, of course. She was so condescending when she won, like Queen Muck, she were: ‘Oh Nerys, I hope you’re OK now that me and Davydd are going steady.’
I took it, but I knew if I was going to stand a chance of a normal life, I had to get away.
Of course, the joke was on Sasha and Davydd. They were stuck with each other and they got nothing. They tried and tried, and some fancy government doctor came out and treated them – made Sasha ever so sick. But nothing. The day she gave up was the day the village died. And it’s never forgiven her for it.
I remember that day, that day when her Scion turned up and Sasha just stood there on the doorstep, sobbing and screaming until Davydd led her back inside. The poor kid waited there for an hour till Davydd came for it. He’d only gone and made it a bloody cup of tea. Oh, I stood and watched. I stood and I watched and how I laughed. Because it was their lives that were ruined, not mine.
I knew I’d get away – this would be my chance. But I stayed here. Just for a bit. I stayed here for Mum. I remember when I got into my twenties, she asked me if I wanted one of them kids. She said I’d never be able to have one of my own. I’d kind of known that, but I took it hard, all the same. When your mum tells you something, it’s got to be the actual truth, hasn’t it?
So my only option was to give in, one day, and have one of those kids turn up.
But not yet.
Rhys
Nerys gestured at the patiently waiting crowd of Scions. ‘Well, would you want one of them?’
I thought about it. Would I swap loud, messy, demanding, incoherent Anwen for a Scion? Even before they went all Stephen King?
No. Not for a second.
‘So what do we do?’ asked Nerys gently.
‘We run away,’ I decided.
Nerys and I left the people in the pub and we went knocking on doors, seeing who was around, who’d open up and talk to us. Bashful and Gobby. We made quite a team. Some people were frightened, others were waiting it out, or pretending there wasn’t a problem. We told them all to head to the pub. And to bring along their car keys. That seemed like a good idea. We’d fit everyone we could into cars and go.
‘Go where?’ asked Nerys.
‘Anywhere. Away,’ I said.
‘Yeah, that’s not going to cut any ice with anyone, you know. Stick in the name of a B-road or something.’
I shrugged. ‘I think we should just go. We’re not lea
ving for ever. We’re just going to a place of safety.’
‘Wilkinson’s?’ Nerys laughed. ‘There’s one about thirty miles away.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Let’s go shopping.’
By mid afternoon we had everyone together. Well, nearly everyone. Even Josh had come back early from work. Still no sign of Tom. He was worried. We all were. And there was no sign of Gwen. I kept glancing towards the distant Weather Station. Wondering if we’d see a mushroom cloud. But we didn’t.
Mrs Harries was the last to turn up. Wrapped up like the French Lieutenant’s Woman, laden down with bags. ‘Not like we’re coming back in a hurry,’ she said. Her eyes were so sad. ‘Time was when we’d have village outings. Hire a charabanc. Not done that for ages. Ah well. It’s time. Let’s head back out into the world.’
There was some nodding. Some of the nodding was a bit sluggish, some of the stares a bit glassy. I figured a lot of the people there had been drinking for quite a while. I hoped we’d have enough people sober enough to drive. Hey-ho.
‘One thing,’ said Mrs Harries. She lifted up a wicker basket. ‘For you, dear.’
In the basket was Anwen. Snoring.
Eloise
Gwen fell as Sebastian fired – at first I thought she’d been shot, but it was just a bit of shrapnel from the pram. She lay down there in the mud. Tom and I were already running to her. To her and her baby. We had no idea.
Imagine the relief. The relief of realising that Sebastian hadn’t slaughtered the baby.
He locked us up. In the very shed that had given him birth just hours before. The rain was drumming on the tin roof. Thankfully there was the heating lamp in there.
I checked the graze on Gwen’s arm and she, Tom and I all looked at each other. I realised the last time I’d seen her, I’d been wide awake and she’d been exhausted. Now our roles were reversed.
‘It’s at times like this I miss having a gun,’ said Gwen. ‘Lots of guns.’
‘Riiight,’ said Tom.
I burst into tears.
Gwen was good about that bit. Really good. Which made me feel worse. She was so kind – she had a sympathetic, naturally interested face. Remember when you were at school and you’d fall over and get a graze on your knee? There was always one teacher with that face. You’d run to that face to dry your eyes, slap on a Band-Aid and give you milk and a cookie.
And yet… there was something about Gwen. Like a candy with a hard centre. That face – it made you tell her too much.
‘I killed Sebastian,’ I said. ‘He was so gentle and kind and wonderful and I killed him.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said.
I told her what I’d done to Sebastian and she got very angry. Tom didn’t look too pleased to hear it again, either. I tried softening my part in it. But I really couldn’t make it look good from any angle.
‘Poor Sebastian.’ I looked up at Gwen, begging her to understand. ‘He wouldn’t harm a fly. Ever so docile. Not a bad bone in his body. There to greet you every morning. Knew just when you wanted something… but when the other Scions were birthed, they took their mental lead from him. It was like he controlled them. The guiding mind. Which… for the original purposes of the project… Well, there’s just no place in the world for nice people.’
Had Sebastian been there, he’d have known what to say. But he wasn’t. Because I’d killed him.
‘I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. His replacement had been ready for years,’ I finished lamely, sniffing. ‘But I just didn’t… I didn’t want to do it. But they’re talking about closing us down. That’s the threat. Government Cuts. Rationalisation. As though any bit of this project was rational. But in the end it all comes down to money.’
‘So you activated them?’ To give Gwen credit, the smile was still in place. Just about.
‘That was the plan,’ I told her. ‘All along. They’d realised the Scions could make a lovely fighting force. Unswervingly obedient to their leader, following commands without question, able to communicate by thought. But best of all… disposable. Acceptable casualties. Thing is, they let the project slide for a bit… last couple of decades it’s just ticked over, really. But then the heat was on. All those losses abroad in all those wars – all those pictures of nice young people who wouldn’t be coming home. To you and me, each of those pictures is an unspeakable tragedy… but to your government it was an embarrassment. It was bad PR. War didn’t look so good all of a sudden – not when our people were still dying. They’ve spent a lot of effort on trying to make war look nice and clean from our side – big planes blowing up bases from a distance, while the soldiers build water tanks and fit new roofs on schools with sunglasses and a smile. None of that actual killing. War was starting to look nice and tidy. But not any more. Suddenly it looked messy and horrible and people didn’t want any part in it. And someone somewhere remembered the Scion Project. Well, I say remembered – I think stumbled upon it. I think they only really noticed when the woman who founded it… well, she retired. Odd how vast government conspiracies actually work. From the internet you’d assume that it’s all run by scary people in giant secret caverns. Actually, this whole project appears to be run by someone in Personnel. She was asked to recruit a replacement to run the project… and so she had to find out what the project was first. And she looked through the file and went ‘Jackpot’. She knew she was on to something. The making of her. This tiny little corner of the UK has been paid for and controlled by standing order for years. But she took over and she marshalled it. She turned over a new leaf. She brought me in and demanded I show some results. So I sat down, and I started growing Sebastian II. I’d almost completed it when I realised what a damn stupid thing it was to do. But by that time… I stalled her, but it was only going to work for so long. Poor Sebastian.’
I realised I was crying again, and I wiped away my tears, feeling embarrassed – I’d ended his life. It wasn’t really my place to feel sad at his passing, was it?
‘He looked at me… ever so trustingly and I still did it. He was beautiful and amazing. I guess as soon as I arrived his days were numbered. I’d do it eventually.’
I noticed how tired I sounded. ‘This is the end of the road, Gwen. I’ve done it now.’
Gwen
So, there I was, locked up in a shed. The wind outside rattled the roof. It was a couple of hours since I’d last fed Anwen, although I’d left Mrs Harries with a couple of bottles.
OK, great example of altered priorities there – that’s how having a baby rewrites your mind. I should have been thinking, ‘Ah, now, wait, alien super-soldiers on the rampage,’ but that’s coming in a poor third, some way after ‘How many nappies did I leave her with?’ Dear Anwen, at some point I would like to get my brain back, please. If Mummy is to try and clear this mess up, then she’d like to be able to out-think a trouser press.
Strangely, Tom took the reins. ‘I think we should break out,’ he announced, boldly, like he was planning on launching a rocket. ‘I am cold, I need painkillers, a hospital, and a slash.’
Funny what motivates boys. Rhys is just the same. I’m all nappies, he’s all pot noodle. We are so rocking that cliché.
He grabbed a large pair of scissors off the desk. ‘It’s something, isn’t it, surely?’
Not a lot, as it turned out. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to jimmy open a padlock from the wrong side of a door with a pair of kitchen scissors, but I can tell you for free that it’s a non-starter.
After a few minutes we stood back, Tom sucking a small cut on his thumb.
‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘that was a bit of a failure.’
‘We could always try digging a tunnel,’ I suggested.
Eloise didn’t laugh. Odd woman. I mean… she’d killed someone. Not even for a reason that she believed in. But because she was scared. And it was like something was loose in her head, and if you shook her brain you’d hear something rattling. Not really the kind of woman you’d want unleashing a murderous al
ien life form on the planet. On balance.
Eloise stood up, pulling her hands out of her gilet pockets. She snatched the scissors from Tom’s hand and marched over to an old sheet of join-the-dots clapboard fastened to one wall, stabbing into it again and again. Tom rolled his eyes. But Eloise was tearing away chunks of the board, revealing an old window.
She stood back, admiring her handiwork. ‘There.’ She sounded pleased for the first time in hours. ‘This was designed to keep people and sunlight out. Not as a prison. Now, I’m too old to go through, Gwen’s liable to explode like a milk fountain, so here’s the key to the padlock outside, Tom. Go crazy.’
‘With my arm in a sling?’ he protested.
Eloise nodded. ‘Do your best.’
A few minutes later we stood on the darkened runway. What we really needed now was a plan. Stupid Gwen. I’d had all that time to work one out, but I’d got nowhere. It was obvious that Sebastian needed to be stopped. Switch him off and the Scions would be without a leader. But how were we going to do that?
Eloise, though, seemed fired up with excitement, a gleam in her eyes that you could see in the dark. ‘We’re going to the hangar,’ she announced.
We stood in front of the Juniper Tree. Its leaves tangled and rustled. At the base of the tree was a curled-up figure, mostly moss and leaf, but still wearing traces of a suit.
‘Oh god,’ wailed Tom. ‘Sebastian.’
Eloise nodded, but dismissed it. Her brain had hardened like a politician’s. She was drawing a line and moving on.
I went over to the body and knelt down as close as I could. The skin was green, but turning rapidly brown, crackling like old paper. There was still an expression of gentle calm on the face. I felt sad looking at it.