by S. T. Boston
Consciousness fully regained, Sam unclipped the safety belt and reached across to Ackhart's body. He searched for a pulse, if the inspector was somehow still alive he owed it to him to get medical help. After thirty seconds or more of searching, Sam gave up. Ackhart was dead. He silently thanked the inspector for what he'd done and hoped he had no immediate family who were going to mourn his loss. Climbing over the pilot's seat, he navigated the ruined fuselage. The overhead lockers had come open, spilling their contents over the eight large seats. The body of the pilot, after slamming into Sam's seat, had ended up halfway down the cabin, his skull jammed into the bottom framework of one of the seats, his torso contorted into an angle that made him look like a strange piece of modern art. Kneeling down Sam felt under the opposite seat. The pilot had been toting his own gun, and Sam wanted it. A few minutes later he found his folly; the Beretta Px4 9mm had been thrown to the back of the cabin and was buried under two orange life jackets. Sam turned the weapon over in his hand and checked the magazine. The weapon was missing only one round from its seventeen-shot capacity, the one which would have been in the chamber had slain the inspector.
Scouting the wrecked fuselage for other useful items he located a small backpack. Taking the SP2022 from his waistband he deposited it into the pack and slid the pilot's gun into its space, and then shouldered the pack on his filthy jacket.
In the fridge at the rear of the cabin he located six small cans of Pepsi and three sealed packs of prawn salad sandwiches, which he deposited into the pack along with two packs of dry roasted nuts. Satisfied that he'd picked the cabin clean, he stopped one final time at the body of the dead pilot and removed his shoes. They weren't a style Sam would have chosen, but they were just one size too big and far better than being in his socks. Taking the dead man's socks, he slid off his filthy grey ones and tossed them aside. The new shoes were black and shiny, and looked odd with his dirty cargo trousers, but it was nice to have something on his feet.
With a last cautious glance around the cabin, Sam pulled the emergency handle on the cabin door. It gave immediately and fell away into the field, coming to rest on a divot of ploughed earth. Sam sat on the edge of the cabin, dangled his legs over the side and dropped down to the field below.
He wasn't sure how long he'd been out for, the sun was peeking over the easterly horizon. The sky was clear, apart from some light tendrils of cloud which formed unfathomably long lines across the sky. The autumn chill bit into his shirt and he zipped up his jacket. Clearing the King Air's wreckage, he surveyed his landing site. The plane had come to rest halfway across East Field, which had found fame in 1990 when Led Zeppelin used a picture of a crop circle formation which had appeared the field for their Remasters album cover. Sam was impressed that he'd ended up almost precisely where he'd intend to land, although crash would have been a more accurate description. Nonetheless he'd survived and was now well and truly back in the game. Perhaps he'd been wasted as an infantry sergeant, maybe he should have joined the air force.
Sam crossed the roughly-ploughed field as fast as he could, reaching the hedgerow he followed it for around a hundred yards before finding an aluminium five bar gate, which he scaled easily. He wasn't surprised no one had come to his aid; this was a sparsely populated area, even more so after the Reaper – proof positive that the deadly virus had dealt its hand in every corner of the globe.
With his new, shiny shoes smacking rhythmically on the tarmac, Sam pushed on, walking the short distance from the crash site to the cottage. As he crossed the old canal bridge he stopped momentarily and shook his head at the sight of the semi-sunken narrow boat which jutted out from beneath the bridge like a massive splinter. The local duck community had taken up residence and two of the web-footed creatures were wobbling unsteadily along the breached side of the boat.
Jogging down the other side of the bridge he noticed that the Barge Inn sign was still in place, and it even looked clean. Sam hoped the quirky little pub, which had a games room ceiling decorated with hand painted crop circles was still in business. Around fifty yards further up the lane he reached the cottage's gate post. Parked on the shingle drive were two vehicles, one of which he recognised as Adam's old RX7. The Nissan Juke he'd never seen before, and it filled him with a slight sense of foreboding. Moving his hand to the back of his trousers, he removed the Beretta and clicked off the safety, but before he had chance to take another step a shrill scream punched through the air.
Chapter 21
Asmodeous paced impatiently across the bridge of the Arkus 2, his large, strong hands balled into fists. Clutching the bottom of his Armani suit, he creased the material endlessly. Although he despised humanity on Earth, some of their tailoring and fashion appealed to his narcissistic nature. As such, he'd purchased numerous suits and other highly priced items of clothing while he still could. “So, Sam Becker is gone?” he boomed, the sentence as much a statement as it was a question.
On the other side of the world, standing on the top deck of a car ferry, Namtar gripped the mobile phone in his right hand so tightly he thought he would crush the small device. Taking a deep, chilled lungful of the early morning air he responded. “And Asag, my brother is dead.”
There was a pregnant pause at the other end of the line before Asmodeous replied. “Do you have any idea where he might be going?”
“Did you not hear me, sir? I said Asag is dead. Becker killed him while making his escape.”
“Yes, I heard you!” Asmodeous snapped, the bark almost reaching down the phone and biting Namtar's ear off. “This is war, Namtar, and in war there are casualties.”
“Is that all you have to say?” Namtar fumed, he knew he was on dangerous ground being so insubordinate but the loss of his brother sat hot in his gut. “Almost seven thousand years we have served you, been faithful to you, and all you can say is that he's a casualty of war! And this is not a war, this is a fucking personal vendetta, a vendetta that my brother just paid for with his life!”
“You'd do well to remember who you are addressing,” screamed Asmodeous, his face contorting into geometric lines of rage. Back on the bridge of the craft, sitting invisibly in the Peruvian desert, Namtar's voice filled the room, Asmodeous utilising the hands-free calling system Ben Hawker had designed and enabled with one of his many programs which made Earth technology compatible with the Arkkadian equipment. The small group of Earth breeds present, who were either working with Hawker or part of Asmodeous' small private army, stopped what they were doing to watch the fireworks, but at the same time tried to remain unobtrusive. “I'm surrounded by incompetents!” Asmodeous continued. “You let Becker escape in the plane you took to transport him in! And I have heard nothing from Lilith's team, who were retrieving Fisher! The same goes for the team sent to retrieve his sister!”
“What about the team taking care of the Arkkadians?” Namtar paced the length of the deck, as the ship sounded its horn and with a small jolt, pulled away from the port.
“They killed two, and two are outstanding. Oriyanna is one of them.” His voice had relaxed slightly but there was a tension in it which told Namtar Asmodeous might erupt again at any moment. While the situation was indeed grave, there was a small part of him relieved to discover he wasn't the only one to have come up short. “How hard can it be to snatch three Earth-Humans?”
“Becker was extremely well trained, sir. He was hit several times but it would appear he is in possession of the Gift.” There was a silence on the line, the carrier signal clicking a few times before Asmodeous spoke.
“Then Fisher must also be in possession of it. This was not mentioned in his account.”
“When I catch up with them I have the means to disable it.” Namtar reached into his deep pocket and removed a flat black disc; once activated it would dig itself into the skin of the subject and pulse the body, immediately disabling the nanobots which made healing possible. “That is, if I don't kill Becker first.”
“They are to be delivered to me alive, do
you understand?”
“Absolutely,” Namtar replied icily, uncertain he could trust himself not to tear Sam Becker's head from his shoulders at first sight. He placed the flat black disc into his coat pocket and removed a small tablet-style PC. Bringing the device to life he looked at the green dot which was stationary, sitting in the middle of nowhere, in a small village in Wiltshire. “I took the liberty of bugging him with a small GPS tracker while he was in my custody, it's in his jacket pocket. It's one of ours and small enough for him to miss, for now. I'm sending you the feed.”
Back aboard the Arkus 2, Asmodeous paced the bridge and reached Hawker. “Can you bring that feed up on the main holo-display?”
Hawker closed the current screen by placing his palm over the display and closing his fist, before flicking his hand to one side as if he were tossing away a piece of garbage. He was proud of his work and the way he'd made the two technologies speak to each other. He'd been one of the best during his time at DARPA, a trait which had followed him through to his new duties. His shabby appearance didn't quite fit with his intellect. His clothing of choice was a pair of faded blue jeans, a GAP hoody that had seen one too many winter, and a pair of retro Nike Air Max trainers.
A small green holographical dot began to blink in the bottom left of his display. He touched his finger to it, making the dot turn from green to red as he dragged it to the centre of the display area. Once in the centre it changed back to green and expanded and the GPS read unfolded before him. “There you go, sir.”
“I monitored him throughout the whole flight,” Namtar's voice came over the speaker system. “I think he landed about ten minutes ago, he was mobile and on foot, but he's been stationary in this position for the past two minutes.”
Asmodeous watched the green dot, amber eyes squinting in frustration. “If I don't hear from the other two teams in the next hour, I am going to assume they have failed,” he said. “I don't know how or why and as impossible as it seems, I am afraid it's very likely.”
“I will be on British soil in four hours,” Namtar cut in, watching the French coast steadily disappear behind the ferry and thinking that if the teams were not dead and had indeed failed, then they were likely to have gone to ground and be taking their chances, rather than facing almost certain death at the hands of Asmodeous.
“Good, once you are there you will be working with Peltz and Croaker, and any of the others if they check in. Wherever Sam Becker is, I can almost guarantee you will find Adam Fisher and his sister, and more than likely, the two Arkkadians, too.”
“My thoughts exactly, sir.”
“You will control the operation. I have dispatched the Gulf Stream jet to you from Portugal, the co-pilot, as you know, stayed with the plane. He tells me there is still some hardware on board that you may find useful – tranquilisers and such.”
“How long do I have?”
Asmodeous looked at Hawker, who opened a number of smaller screens within the large one; the GPS read shrank and adjusted to the same size as the others, and all still retained the visually pleasing holographical 3D layer effect that Earth's computer scientist had not yet managed to perfect. “North Korea will have Kwangmyŏngsŏng live in around ten hours. The United States, Russia, China and the European Alliance will be live by this time tomorrow.”
“Thirty hours,” Asmodeous boomed. “You have thirty hours to secure them and get them here. The jet is going to RV with you at a place called Netheravon, it's an old military airbase, decommissioned now. From what my team here can tell it's used, or was, up until recently for skydiving and pleasure flights, so the runway should be in good shape. It's about ten miles from Becker's current position. When you get to the UK, meet up with Peltz and Croaker and make your way up country, it should be there waiting. That's your first stop.”
“Understood.”
“Oh, and if you fail, don't bother coming back to the Arkus. I hope that gives you enough of an incentive to do a good job.”
The line went dead. Namtar wanted to launch the handset into the channel, but he resisted the urge and clenched his teeth tightly together, trying to force his anger to recede from boiling point. Placing the phone into the pocket of his jacket he paced to the rear of the ship and stared down into the broiling, churning water. He had no desire to fail and he was certainly not planning to have a front row seat for the coming apocalypse.
Chapter 22
A persistent blackbird, perched among the twisted branches of the plum trees, serenaded Taulass with a pretty, yet somehow annoying song, rousing him slowly from his deep, restful sleep. For a few brief moments, in the period between awake and asleep, the birdsong seemed to form part of some twisted dream, in which he thought he was in his bed, safe. Then like a train emerging from a tunnel, reality hit. He sat up in the reclining sun lounger which had acted as his bed for the night. His body still thrummed with dull pain, although it was nothing like what he'd experienced the previous night. Standing up and looking down at his ruined clothing, he ran his hands over his body in an exploratory fashion, checking his wounds had healed. Much to his relief, they had. The Gift was a wondrous piece of technology, however Taulass couldn't help but feel that he'd tested its effectiveness to its limits, and then some. Despite its miraculous ability to heal, it had done nothing to stifle the initial pain of the injuries, and being shot to shit hurt – a lot.
Stretching his aching limbs, he crossed the small timber building, his bare feet making the wooden floor creak. Drizzle dusted the thin glass door, grey clouds filling the dawn sky, as if someone had thrown a blanket over the sun. He shivered and looked across the garden toward the house he'd fled. His view was obscured by several pine trees which lined the adjoining property. He'd made good his escape from that direction last night, but didn't recall seeing them. Nonetheless, behind the trees he could still see a solitary plume of smoke tracing its way into the damp sky, seemingly eager to join the cloud which had placed a lid on the morning.
Momentarily energised at having both escaped and survived, Taulass ran through what he needed to achieve in his head. Firstly, he needed clothes. His loose fitting jogging bottoms and shirt were wrecked. Although the shirt was red, it did nothing to hide the massive, dark crimson pool of blood which had congealed and dried into the material overnight. He needed to wash, dried blood was caked onto his skin. Catching a watered down, ghost-like reflection of himself in the drizzle-powdered glass he imagined he closely resembled what could only be described as the walking dead. Last year, a number of boisterous children dressed as zombies had trick-or-treated at the house, and his current state of dress and appearance wasn't a million miles away from their costumes. With it still being a good six or seven weeks until the unusual Earth festival, he doubted he'd pass as a reveller on his way home after an evening's fancy dress party.
After cleaning up, he needed to get to the safe house. The small, two-bedroom property in Kingston upon Thames had been rented by them for the past two years. Although furnished, it had never been used. It was nothing more than an emergency backup plan to be used in the event of things going south, which over the last twelve hours, they undoubtedly had. Stabbing his hands into his pockets he clutched the recall tab, relieved that he had a way out – even if the worse happened, he was not stuck on Earth. He had no intention of pulling the plug on the operation yet, though. Oriyanna was alive and if she hadn't gone to the safe house, he needed to find her.
* * *
If there were a headstone in a cemetery somewhere, commemorating Taulass' life on Earth as a Watcher, it would read Richard Blake 1840 – 1950. Richard was his Earth name; it was an unassuming name, and he'd held a very unassuming position in society, hence his longer than normal one-hundred-year service. During those years, firstly in London, then moving further south to the safety of the country, he'd witnessed humanity at its darkest hour, twice over. The second time stuck in his memory more clearly, for by the time World War Two broke out, Earth tech had developed enough to allow death to
touch every country on the globe. Working as a reporter for the Daily Express – a paper which on his return to Earth he'd proudly discovered was still in publication – he'd kept a low profile, yet easily kept up to date with news from around the world. In those days, information hadn't been so readily accessible and television wasn't the main medium for news. On September 7th 1940 he'd almost lost his life, when on the very first night of the Blitz, a high explosive German bomb had detonated near his small terrace house on Union Street. The blast had stripped the front facing wall from the property and caused the roof to cave in. Thankfully, he'd taken shelter in a cupboard under the stairs, crouched next to his old iron bath and string mop. That one occasion had been enough to convince Taulass to relocate to a quiet part of Surrey, where he lived out the rest of the war. Although he'd regularly find himself in war-torn London for work, it was far safer to live in an area not targeted by relentless waves of German bombers which seemed hell bent on burning England's capital to the ground. Despite the Nazi threat being great and the death toll during the war unthinkable, it wasn't his job to protect Earth-Humans from each other. Wars between men were not his concern, he merely had to endure them and hope humanity would learn from its mistakes.
It had pained him to witness both the world wars, but when his time on Earth came to an end in 1950, he couldn't help feeling a new hope for the Earth-Humans. The winds of change were coming and he was certain those bleak and death-filled days would never be repeated on such a wide scale, a foresight which had proven correct. After returning to Arkkadia, he'd kept a close eye on information provided by the next generation of Watchers, keeping himself abreast of Earth technology and advances in medicine. He'd been astounded by how quickly technology had developed and how fast things progressed during times of peace. Unfortunately, war seemed to come naturally to Earth-Humans, and despite the atrocities he'd lived through and witnessed, smaller wars and conflicts continued to break out on the planet he'd left. As soon as one ended, another crisis seemed to arise. Eventually this led to John Remy's time, and after much deliberation the council decided to try and steer humanity away from conflict and toward peace. It was a plan which worked until the night when all four Watchers were killed by Finch, the start of the events which plunged humanity into unprecedented times of hardship and death. A small part of Taulass suffered the odd pang of responsibility for what had happened. After all, Buer had been on Earth for some eighty years before the plan was put into action, and those eighty years spanned back to his time as a Watcher, but neither he nor his two dead colleagues had known. Buer had been cunning, the Earth-Breed program designed to keep this new army unknown and untraceable. A sleeper-cell style attack on a massive scale, one that had taken decades to nurture into fruition.