Doomware

  Tarot was the first to recover: he delivered a punch to the fair-haired man’s head that might have felled a heavyweight boxer. The man went down hard, unconscious before he hit the floor, his glasses and his nose broken. Shaken from his shock, David grabbed the gun from the boy and pointed it at Lorch.

  “Don’t fucking move,” he said. He wanted desperately to shoot the man in front of him, but something stayed his hand. It took every ounce of strength he had not to pull the trigger.

  Lorch made no attempt to move. He’d removed his glasses and was sitting there with a curious mixture of vexation and disgust on his face. Tarot busied himself disarming the fair-haired man.

  “I don’t know how you expect to get away with this,” Lorch said evenly, exhibiting admirable control of himself given the circumstances.

  “Let us worry about that,” David said.

  The boy’s expression was utterly blank. David didn’t know how he’d come to have a gun on him. He didn’t know and he didn’t care. He kissed his forehead, feeling love for the child flood anew into his heart.

  Tarot finished taking the fair-haired man’s weapons, stood and pointed a pistol at Lorch’s head. “How many people like the boy are there?”

  Lorch eased himself back into his chair. “Why are you doing this?” he said, self-assured even now. “Think about it for a moment. Why are you risking your lives for this creature, this abomination?”

  “How many? How many resisters?” Tarot said.

  “He is among the last of a bastard race. Even if you should escape from this ship – which you will not – we will hunt you down. Holohive cannot be permitted to increase his number.”

  “Why won’t you answer the question?”

  “I, sir? May I say nothing?”

  “He’s just dicking us around,” David said.

  “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pull this trigger right now?” said Tarot.

  Lorch showed no fear. “You’re no killer, Tarot … at least, not a cold-blooded one. You know I’m a true person. Like you. With different views maybe, but still kindred. And this is a changed world we’re living in, a world that needs as many true people as possible. Plus, I have a wife … and a son.”

  “So did I.”

  A flicker of fear showed in Lorch’s eyes for the first time. He hadn’t known about Tarot’s family, David realised. Lorch tried to mask the fear by studiously cleaning his spectacles and putting them back on, taking the time to curl each arm around the back of each ear in turn.

  “If you kill me you’ll be a traitor to your own kind,” Lorch said, his voice faltering only a fraction.

  Tarot stared, sweat running down his face, the gun in his hand not straying from its target. “No, that’s precisely what you are.”

  There was an uneasy silence. Lorch looked at each of them in turn before his gaze returned to Tarot. David knew only too well how it felt to be staring down the barrel of a gun, but he felt no sympathy for Lorch. He pulled the boy to him until his head was pressed against his body. Then he did an about-turn, turning his back on Lorch, shielding the boy. Now he understood why he hadn’t pulled his own trigger.

  “Tarot–”

  It was the last thing Lorch ever said.

  CHAPTER 50

  D + 521

  David peered over the side of the ship. Everything was as the fair-haired man had said it would be: a short rope ladder led down to a gas-powered speedboat, Lorch’s personal escape craft. Before either of them could stop him, the boy clambered onto the ladder and started descending.

  “Hey!” David hissed. “Be careful.”

  “It’s okay,” the boy reassured him. “It’s easy.”

  The boy scooted down the ladder as if he did such a thing every day. Within seconds, he was standing safely on the speedboat’s deck. David paused at the top of the ladder and looked up at the ship. There was no one in sight. Then his eyes settled on Tarot and he knew. They talked in lowered voices.

  “You’re not coming, are you?” David said in disbelief.

  Tarot shook his head.

  “We can’t split up now.”

  “There’s no choice,” Tarot said. “I have to put this ship out of commission.”

  “How’re you gonna do that?”

  “They didn’t take my thermite grenades; they’ll burn straight through the hull. If I can’t do that I can take out the helicopter at least.”

  “But they’ll kill you!”

  “I’ll blend right in with them. I can do it. If I don’t they’ll only come after us.”

  “We’ll take our chances, like we always have. We’ll keep running.”

  Tarot was placid, resolute. “You have to let me do this, David. You have to let me finish what I helped to start. Don’t you see? This is why I’m here. This is why we met. I’ll get off this ship somehow. I’ll find you. Now go – save the boy.”

  David knew there was no point in arguing. They clasped hands and stared into each other’s eyes. There was a limpidity in Tarot’s eyes, a contentment, so different to the confusion that had been haunting them only last night, making it seem as if an infinitely greater length of time had passed than the mere hours it had actually been. He also saw, for the first time in true totality, Tarot’s age reflected in his eyes. He saw century after century of work and woe, of pleasure and pain, of disappointment and joy. He saw the weight of it, the weariness of it, in eyes that were still so full of life despite all the death they’d seen, as hard and immutable as stone, unmistakable and glorious like twin memorials to it all.

  He started for the ladder, but was stopped by Tarot squeezing his hand.

  “You told me once that Shawn was the future of this world,” Tarot said, “but look at how you shelter and protect him. Look at how you treat him as if he’s your own. Look at all the chances you’ve had to give up on him. You’d sooner give up your own life. You’re special, David. You’re the future of this world just as much as he is. As long as there are people like you we have a chance. Don’t ever forget that. Ever. I will find you. I promise.”

  David gave a small, half-embarrassed nod. Then he climbed onto the ladder, machine gun slung over his back, and started climbing down. All through this they held hands, and did so for as long as possible, Tarot ostensibly helping him to negotiate the ladder. When he was halfway down he looked up. Tarot waved to him and the boy, and something seized his heart, making him gasp out loud.

  What he did next he did on instinct, without thinking, quite unable to stop himself. He raced back up the ladder and grabbed Tarot in a bear hug, one that he seemed prepared, eager, to accept. An indescribable energy flowed between them, loaded with tenderness despite the roughness of the embrace. Loaded with meaning. In that moment he, David Lawney, the great hater of all public displays of affection, would not have given a damn if the entire population of the world could have seen them.

  Their foreheads pressed together, David said, “Live, God damn you! Live!”

  It was all he was capable of saying.

  CHAPTER 51

  D + 521

  David looked at the speedboat’s controls. He was concerned about how to drive the thing, but as it turned out its operation could hardly have been simpler. There was an ignition, a throttle and a steering wheel similar to the Land Rover’s. After ensuring the boat’s moorings were untied, he switched on the engine and pushed the throttle lever forward. The engine roared, sounding horribly loud in the still air. He took a course perpendicular to the ship, aiming to put as much distance between the two vessels as possible as quickly as possible. Despite the recent bad weather the ocean was calm. It was overcast and cold, and there was a whitish mist in the air. When he looked back at the Cankered Host he couldn’t see Tarot anywhere. He did see members of the crew on deck, which made him grimace, but they appeared either to be ignorant of their presence or, if not, looking on with curiosity rather than alarm.

  Looking at the ship’s name, he remembered the anagram the boy had mentioned.
Rather than asking the boy, he set about trying to work it out for himself, his mind rearranging the white letters of the name against the black metal of the ship’s hull. He was about to give up and turn to the boy for the answer when finally it came to him. The Second Ark. Lorch really had regarded himself as a Noah-like character.

  The ship turned a pale shade of grey, receding, before it became no more than a ghostly silhouette on the horizon. Much more quickly than David had anticipated, it vanished completely, swallowed up by the mist. The sun was masked by cloud, so he asked the boy which direction was east. The boy pointed, and they sailed east for a while, followed by north-east. There was no sign of land. David listened for the sound of an approaching ship or helicopter, but none came. The boy said he could hear what sounded like a klaxon, but David’s hearing was unable to pick it up.

  * * *

  They’d been travelling for less than an hour when the engine died. The speedboat’s fuel gauge had been close to zero from the start of their journey, and now the fuel tank had run dry. They searched the boat for another source of fuel, but there was none. Clearly somebody had believed that Lorch would never need his escape vessel. They would have to drift with the current. In an icebox they found some bottled water, which they drank down liberally until David realised they ought to be rationing it.

  Too exhausted for anything else, they curled up together on one of the boat’s cushioned seats and fell asleep almost immediately.

  EPILOGUE

  When he woke David had the strongest feeling that Tarot was no longer alive. It was as if some psychic signal had been switched off, its existence revealed to him now only by its absence. He felt as if he’d shared a cybernetic-like telepathic union – the kind he’d always fantasised about – with Tarot, and only Tarot. And now it was gone. For ever. A hollow, hungry feeling filled his torso. He might have thought it was hunger had he not known better. The feeling swelled inside him, filling every cavity. It intensified until it became a physical pain, and it felt as if his insides were being pulled out hand over hand. He clutched at his body, trying to get at the pain, but it was no use. He wanted to cry, but tears would have been too great an acknowledgement of the truth.

  It took a long time for the pain to subside. He lay there with one arm around the boy, breathing shallowly, comforted by the gentle undulation of the ocean beneath them. Why hadn’t he said something to Tarot when he’d had the chance? Tarot had left him with such memorable words, wonderful words, and he had said virtually nothing in return. Why hadn’t he told him how he felt? The words were so simple, so human. In a world so bereft of love it should have been easy to speak its name. It knew no boundaries, no divisions, no limitations. It knew nothing about gender. He understood that now. Had Tarot known anyway? Had the pseudo-psychic bond between them been enough? He felt useless for letting his friend down so gravely. No, he thought. I am not useless; I am special. He hadn’t believed it from his own mother’s mouth, but from Tarot’s he didn’t doubt it. He resolved to tell the boy he loved him as soon as he woke. The words had to be said lest he regretted not saying them later.

  He smoothed the boy’s hair as he slept. Here they were, two freaks of nature cast adrift on an ocean serene. Why the boy was immune to the virus was still as great a mystery as why his body had rejected cyberneticism. All my talk! he thought. All my talk about protecting him and it was he who saved me. Later the boy would tell him his reasons for taking a gun without permission: he’d wanted a job to perform like David’s self-appointed job to protect him. He’d wanted to defend the wearer of his father’s ring. And he had. Thank God I have you, Golden One, he thought. You are my son. I am your father. As long as you live, I live. You, the most hunted boy in history. This phrase repeated itself over and over in his mind. The most hunted boy in history. He had the boy now, but for how long? If zombies didn’t get him the Initiative would. If the Initiative didn’t get him Holohive would. Suddenly the insurmountable nature of the task before him was overwhelming. How on earth could he, alone, protect the most hunted boy in history? It was impossible, no matter how special he might be. He realised the strength he’d gleaned from Tarot, and ached to have him back. The ache was all but unbearable.

  Taking care not to disturb the boy, he shifted into a sitting position. The vision that presented itself to him took his breath away. They must have been drifting for hours, since westwards the sun was beginning to set. The whitish mist was gone, and above the horizon shafts of multihued light were slanting down, first one way and then the other, from a patch of luminescent cloud. Where the shafts met the ocean was a pool of light, and in the exact centre of it, as if the dying sun’s rays had been positioned deliberately just so, was the dark shape of a small island, the surface of the water all around it shimmering with a retinue of fragmentary light.

  It could only be one island. It was the island.

  If he’d ever seen a more beautiful sight in his life he was unable to recall it. The idea that no conscious mind had been involved in its composition was laughable, even to a person with his pagan sensibilities. And indeed he did begin to laugh – quietly, gently, as tears welled in his eyes. Tears of admiration for the sheer timeless beauty of it. He forgot about zombies and offliners. He forgot about Holohive and the Initiative. They were inconsequential in the face of such beauty, in the face of such a vision of hope.

  Oh Tarot, my dear friend, he thought. You were right.

  You were right.