by Frank Tayell
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think this way’s better, for now, at least. One death is better than a bloodbath. The election for those cabinet posts can go ahead, so we’ll have the appearance of democracy even if we’ve not quite got the reality. When we do hold the mayoral election, Markus won’t stand a chance. Not that I think he’ll run. Not again, not after this.”
Kim, her rifle over her shoulder, fell into step. “Was it like you thought?” she asked.
“More or less,” I said. “I don’t know when Rachel first got to Bishop, but she was using his followers to take people across to the mainland where they could be killed, and where the discovery of their bodies wouldn’t arouse suspicion. Not all of them could be paid with Bishop’s version of an afterlife. Hence, the inflation of the number of believers he had. That enabled them to claim more grain than they needed, and that was used as payment to the others. I’m not sure who all of the victims were, nor why they were chosen, but some died simply so that there would be more grain with which to pay the murderers. A down payment might be a better term for it. The balance would be paid when Markus won. Considering everything else she did, I suspect that balance would have been paid with a bullet. Not that Markus expected to win, but Rachel had arranged it so that he couldn’t lose. She was running his campaign, and was probably responsible for Donnie’s injury. I think she’d have killed Dr Umbert if he hadn’t died on the Isle of Man. If Lorraine and I hadn’t escaped, her people would have killed us, and then killed Bishop and his followers. After Markus was elected, no more questions would have been asked. Paul was the weak link, since he wasn’t just killing people, but taking pleasure in it. Leaving those bodies inside the university was a mistake, and one for which he paid with his life. Quite why Paul did it, I don’t know. Precisely why Rachel did any of it, I’m not entirely sure, though I think it might have started when Sorcha Locke arrived on this island. What was it you said about the people Kempton employed, that they weren’t waifs and strays looking for a second chance but criminals on their last one? Well, Rachel had something in her past, something she didn’t want the world to know. Add that to bitterness that she wasn’t allocated a place in one of Kempton’s refuges, and it was enough to send her well and truly over the edge. As to who the rest of the victims were, well, we’ll have to work that out over the next few days, but I think it all came down to revenge, power, and, at least partly, that Rachel never thought she’d be caught.”
“Hmm. I’ve a few questions,” Kim said.
“Save them,” I said. “At least until after I’ve told George and Mary, because I expect they’ve got some questions, too. After that, I’m going to wash, change, and sleep for a year.”
Epilogue - Leaks
But I only managed to sleep for a few hours before Kim woke me.
“There’re people here, Bill. A lot of people.”
“Did Markus give a speech?”
“He did. Sholto and I went to listen. Markus withdrew from the race gracefully, more or less. He finished by saying that Mary should continue to lead until this immediate crisis has been resolved. And he sent you a message: he’s looking forward to reading your new book.”
“He was meant to stand aside in favour of democracy, though I don’t suppose it matters. I’d not really thought who was going to run the place. I guess I should start writing something and keep my end of the bargain.”
“That will have to wait a few more hours, because everyone wants to know what’s happening. There’s about sixty of them outside the house. Do you have a plan?”
“The beginnings of one,” I said. “It’s not too far different from the idea that Dr Umbert had. We’ve got to create something new out of the ashes of the old. Something better rather than simply regressing back to the past.”
“Do you know how we can achieve it?”
“I think I’ve got the first few steps,” I said.
“Great, because George, Mary, Captain Devine, and the admiral are downstairs. I think you better tell them.”
They had gathered in the small kitchen on the terrace’s ground floor. George to the left of Mary’s wheelchair, the admiral and captain to the right. Sholto sat opposite, his expression as taut as the others.
“Relax,” I said, as I walked in. “Who wants some tea?” I walked to the wall, and put the kettle on.
“We need to talk,” George said.
“About last night? It came down to power and revenge,” I said. I’d summarised my confrontation with Markus and Rachel to an extended version of the group before going to sleep. “But it’s in the past.”
“Which brings us to the future,” the admiral said, “and that’s of more immediate concern.”
“Agreed,” I said. “We should have known that the outbreak would create someone like Bishop, and we should have been watching out for it. How we deal with the people on Willow Farm will determine how our society develops. We’ve got to view this as an opportunity. A chance to create laws, and administer justice. That’s a more lasting symbol of democracy than the election would have been, certainly more than it’ll be right now. We’re still too disparate a group, too concerned with our differences rather than that which us binds us together. People need to know how bad the food situation is. There’s no point hiding the truth from them. No, Umbert said that we were fighters not soldiers, and he’s right. We’re fighters who need to become farmers. I’m sorry, Admiral, but we’re going to need that oil, and we’re going to need Elysium and Belfast. The Isle of Man, too. Though, for the next few months, we’re going to need your sailors and soldiers to properly train us in how to wage war. We might all soon be farmers, but there’s still a fight ahead of us. We need to clear enough land to plant a proper… proper… What? What is it?”
“Tell them,” the admiral said.
“You better sit down,” George said.
“Why?” I asked. “What’s Markus done now?”
“It’s not him,” Mary said. “There’s something you don’t know. Something very few outside the room know. Please, sit down.”
I looked at Sholto and Kim, but they were as nonplussed as me. I sat.
“A few weeks after the nuclear power plant was turned back on,” Mary said, “there was a leak from a steam pipe. It wasn’t radioactive, but we couldn’t repair it. We had to reduce the plant’s output. With so few of us on the island, it hardly mattered. The night after the Harper’s Ferry arrived, the fire suppression system broke. Neither of those was critical, at least not to keeping the plant running. While you were in Ireland, during a storm, an alarm rang. We thought that a crack had developed in the reactor. Fortunately, it was only a malfunction in the detection system. Unfortunately, that system is now offline. While the plant was being inspected, another leak was found. This time, it was radioactive. We lost two people sealing it. We said that it was a rare type of leukaemia. I thought that was better than the panic that would come from sharing the truth.”
“The power plant is breaking?” I asked.
“More or less,” George said. “I’d go so far as to say it’s broken. I thought, or Chief Watts did, that if it could survive the winter, it could last for a couple of years. Well, winter’s almost upon us, and the power station’s failing. The problem is a lack of spares. We’ve got some for the critical systems, but it’s the precision, everyday stuff like the high-pressure pipes that we don’t have and can’t make. Before the outbreak, no doubt we could get it from any of a dozen factories in Britain. Now, we don’t even know where to look.”
“How… How long do we have?” Kim asked.
“Eighteen months,” Mary said.
I breathed out. “That’s not—”
“Eighteen months if we shut it down now,” Mary continued. “We’ve no way of properly decommissioning the reactor. We can’t dispose of the radioactive material inside, nor can we seal the pile. Within eighteen months, containment will fail.”
“And if we don’t shut it down now?” Kim asked.
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p; “Then it might be tomorrow,” George said. “It might be next week.”
“It’ll most likely be after the next big storm,” the admiral said. “If we don’t shut it down, we’ll be lucky to have a month’s grace before we have to leave. We might only have a matter of days.”
“Maybe only hours,” George added.
“Who knows about this?” I asked.
“The four of us,” Mary said. “Mister Mills and some of his engineers, and the Chief from the Harper’s Ferry and a few of his team. We’ve kept the news close because no one else has the knowledge to help.”
The kettle boiled and automatically clicked off. I found my gaze caught by the plume of steam coming from the spout. “People should have been told,” I said. “We should have been told.”
“We always knew that the power plant would have to be shut down someday,” George said. “It was why we were looking for wind turbines and so much more. I had high hopes for that expedition to Hull, and the ones that went elsewhere. Too high, as it turns out.”
“We all did,” Mary said. “High hopes and grand plans. I thought we might be able to relocate across the Irish Sea. It’s why I encouraged people to look at those satellite images of Ireland, rather than pushing them to work on the farms. There’s no point ploughing this island’s fields if we’ll never grow anything in them, though I wanted people to learn how to plough for wherever they end up next. The work they’ve been doing in Menai Bridge will provide us with the seeds to take with us. Wherever we go, once we’ve cleared the land, we’ll have something to sow. If we’ve time, we can even dismantle some of the greenhouses they’ve built so we’ll have fresh food next winter, and in all the winters to come. If we’ve time.”
“So the election was… was what? A distraction?” I asked. “You mean you had no intention of stepping aside?”
“The opposite,” Mary said. “When the election was first announced, I really did think that this would become humanity’s new home. As it became clear that we would all have to leave this island, I thought the election would play out in one of two ways. Either we’d become united behind a single candidate, or it would further reinforce the groups in which people had arrived here. From that, we’d know whether we were leaving as one community or as separate groups. I’d thought— I had hoped that the election would become a debate on the possible futures our species could have and the directions it could take. I didn’t expect Markus. I was never the leader this community needed, but I was the one it got. It is time for me to step aside, but not for the likes of him. Had Markus not been the candidate, had this been a race between Dr Umbert and other, more rational people, we would have told everyone about the reactor. But Markus? Bishop? They would have used this as a stick to beat their way to victory.”
“Then you must have had a plan to win the election,” Kim said. “A way of defeating Markus.”
“A few,” George said. “A few that changed as the circumstances have. Most recently we settled on the idea of a write-in candidate. That was the admiral’s idea. Something borrowed from America. We’d have handed out stickers with a name printed on them to everyone entering the polling station.”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” I said.
“Whose name?” Kim asked.
“Bill’s,” George said.
“That hardly matters now,” the admiral said. “There is the issue of Willow Farm to be addressed. Half of my crew are guarding them, and I’ll need all my personnel for our voyage.”
“To America?” I asked.
“Do you understand why it’s so important?” the admiral replied. “Elysium might be a temporary refuge, a place to which we can run if we have to leave tomorrow, but until the undead die, it won’t become our home.”
“And if America is as bad as those few satellite images we took implied?” I asked. “If it’s as bad as Britain and Ireland, what then?”
“Then we disperse,” the admiral said. “Elysium, Svalbard, wherever we can reach, with whoever will travel with us. We set out in the hope that enough of us will outlast the undead.”
“What were you doing in Belfast?” I asked. “I mean the sailors digging up that playing field?”
“Taking soil samples,” the admiral said. “Checking radiation and other contaminants. It all comes down to the undead. Without them, Belfast could be habitable again. The Isle of Man, too, though I would be concerned about radiation leaking from the power plant into the Irish Sea. Those places could be the answer for those who can’t reach America, and for those who don’t wish to travel with us.”
“It’s not just the undead,” the captain added. “It’s Bishop’s people, and Markus and his followers. Do you want to bring them with us, too?”
“If we disperse,” I said, “we’re giving up on the species. We have to stick together.”
“Which is easier said than done,” Mary said.
Silence settled for a long minute. It was Kim who finally broke it.
“When will you shut the power plant down?” she asked.
“We won’t,” Mary said. “Not until we have to, and hope that we don’t leave it too late.”
“It’s ammunition,” George said. “Or the lack of it. We don’t have enough to hold Belfast, or Elysium for that matter. If we’re forced to flee, most people will be living in their boats again, and that’s not a pleasant prospect during the winter. If we can hold out until spring, the admiral might have found a safe harbour in America or the undead might have died.”
“What if she hasn’t, and if they haven’t?” I asked. I stood and walked back over to the kettle. I flipped the switch, listening to the water boil. “You know you have a spy on your ship, Admiral,” I said. “Someone informed Markus that Dr Umbert was dead before we docked.”
“Sergeant Conrad,” she said. “I thought it best to have someone inside Markus’s camp so it would be easier to deal with him if the time came.”
“By deal, do you mean kill him?” Kim asked.
For a moment, I thought she wasn’t going to answer. “My duty is to humanity, and to my crew,” she said. “I still hold that oath dear. Had Markus won, then the island would have been divided, thus it would have been simpler to work out who to take with us, and who to leave behind.”
“You weren’t planning on invading?” I asked. “Of course not. What would be the point? That’s what I thought, you see, that you were setting up Markus for failure, and that you’d come sailing in to rescue the survivors on the island.”
“I promised my crew I would take them home,” she said. “That promise is what holds us together. It has to be fulfilled.”
“What about the plane?” I asked. “Are you really aiming to fly it between Maine and Newfoundland?”
“If we still have fuel,” the admiral said. “The best-case scenario is that we have eighteen months on this island, though that requires us shutting down the power plant today. Eighteen months without light, refrigeration, mains water, and all the other luxuries that turn drudgery into life. If we don’t shut it down now, we’ll be forced to before the end of winter. If we’re lucky, we might have a month of grace before we have to flee, though that month will be spent in darkness. Those are the best-case scenarios. The worst case is that we’ve already left it too late. When the plant fails, we’ll have hours to flee, perhaps only minutes. Most of the smaller craft, those now dragged up above the high-water mark, were on the verge of sinking. The rest were in danger of being lost in the next storm. If we leave them in the water, we may lose them before they are needed. If the disaster comes while our larger ships are at sea, those who escape by plane might be the only people who survive. There isn’t room on that plane for all the children on this island, but there is room for all who would make it to the airfield in time. At present, the only other clear runway we know of is in Belfast. The people I left in the city are preparing for its arrival, and for their rescue, but Belfast would only be a temporary refuge. Whoever survived, whether by ship, plane, or luck
, would have to carve out an existence on Svalbard or at Elysium, and we would just have to pray that they can outlast the undead. Yes, we can hope that we have months, but I have to prepare for the worst case in which we have only minutes. That plane represents the least we can do to give our species some chance at existence. I hope that we can do more. I hope that I can fly it to Canada and then home, that I can use it to find more survivors, and perhaps even a refuge for us all. Hope won’t save us. Planning might.”
“This is too big a secret,” Sholto said. “Look at Prometheus, at Archangel, at the world those two delivered. The apocalypse was the product of secrets and lies and schemes.”
“You’re hardly innocent on that score,” George said.
Mary tutted.
“Sorry,” George said.
“We shall tell people,” Mary said. “It was never my intention to keep this from them, but whether we scatter to the four winds or depart together, if we do so as individuals now, at the beginning of winter, then most will die.”
“How long will you wait before you tell everyone?” Kim asked.
“No more than a week,” I said. “Maybe we shouldn’t tell them how long you’ve known about this. That might get Markus to change his mind about stepping aside. On which note, there’s no point delaying the election any further. It’s been brought forward once, let’s do it again, and get it over with. We’ll get some legitimacy for those cabinet posts. When we announce the results, we can also announce that there’ll be a public meeting to formally discuss Bishop and his flock. Instead, you can reveal the problems with the reactor. If nothing else, this new crisis should get Markus to stay off his soapbox for a while.”
“That leaves the question of who will lead us,” Mary said.
“Haven’t you heard?” I asked. “Markus said he was stepping down in favour of you.”
“You’re to be a steady hand on the tiller as we navigate this sea of troubles,” Kim said. “That’s what Markus told everyone.”
Mary sighed. “I had heard,” she said. “I was hoping…” She trailed off and met my eyes. There was a genuine longing in her face, an aching tiredness for which I’d have felt sympathy if it hadn’t been for the revelations of a moment before.