Mutation (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 4)

by Griffiths, K. R.

  He headed toward Michael and Rachel, leaning over the battlements with Pete and Claire. If it hadn't been for the bloodstains, John might have been able to imagine them as just another family taking in the sights at the castle.

  "Wasn't sure if you made it," Michael said as John approached.

  "Guess I got lucky," John said, and Michael smiled at that, and nodded wearily.

  "So, you have your castle," John said. "And here's your army, for what it's worth." He gestured to the group of thirty or so people gathered in the castle's courtyard below. "So now what?"

  Michael frowned, but it was Rachel that answered.

  "Now we fight back," she said. "We know how to hurt them. Now we are the virus, and we will spread from here."

  Her eyes glittered with intent.

  "Let's go make some noise."

  Epilogue

  Jake awoke with a roar of triumph building in his throat.

  Deep in the syrupy dark, after unconsciousness had taken him, he had once again felt the strange connection with the distant intruder in his mind. Exactly as he had when he had escaped the underground base, only stronger this time. For a moment the connection had built toward a blinding intensity, burning with the brightness of a dying sun.

  He knew exactly where the intruder was, and exactly how to get there. He would move through the countryside like a rocket-propelled train, and he would taste the strange old woman's oddly-familiar blood in a matter of hours. Minutes.

  Even as Jake had blacked out after fleeing from the strange weapon that had damaged him at Catterick, he had retained the presence of mind to bury himself under debris, nesting like an animal; hiding away from the world in his vulnerable state. With a grunt, he flung the heavy slabs of concrete that had served as a protective blanket away from him and rose into the morning light. He was so excited by the prospect of heading south that he paid no attention to what was around him. No attention to the activity his extraordinary ears picked up.

  "My, look how you've grown!"

  A familiar voice behind him. Jake turned and his misshapen jaw dropped in astonishment.

  "You've been a very naughty boy, Misters McIntosh."

  Jake laughed; a low, rumbling sound that heaved with menace.

  "Did you come here to die, old man?"

  Fred Sullivan grinned broadly and lifted a crooked finger.

  Four strange, square devices had been placed around Jake's resting place. He hadn't seen them. Not until it was too late. On Sullivan's signal, the things hummed into life and slammed agonising blasts of low-frequency noise through Jake, making every cell of his body shriek in agony. He dropped to his knees in anguish, paralysed by the wall of sound, locked into an invisible prison.

  Jake's vision pulsed and blurred and throbbed as he drifted helplessly on a river of pain. He saw the old man in the silver suit strolling toward him, his expression jovial.

  When he was close enough for Jake to breathe in his musky scent, Sullivan leaned in until the bristly hairs of his moustache scratched against Jake's cheek.

  "I did warn you that we were not amateurs, Mr McIntosh," he hissed into Jake's ear. "I'm afraid you ran away before we were quite finished with you. The scientists are having a little problem with your blood, so they tell me."

  Sullivan shrugged.

  "Turns out they need more of it."

  Sullivan chuckled, and signalled again as he strode away.

  Moments later a helicopter began to descend above Jake, lowering a huge steel cage over him. Jake seethed in agony and impotent rage as he watched tiny figures attaching the hateful sonic weapons to the bars of the cage, before sliding a sheet of thick steel underneath him, trapping him like a spider in a jar.

  The terrible noise beat at him, sapping his energy, and he felt himself slipping backwards into the dark, sinking like a weighted corpse.

  Fred Sullivan beamed as he watched the abomination slip into a coma. Tracking him down had been tiresome and time-consuming, but it was, Fred decided, all worth it. Just for the look on McIntosh's vile face. Fred knew a thing or two about priceless treasures. That look was up there with the best of them.

  "Shall we return to base, Sir?"

  Sullivan stared thoughtfully at his new head of security.

  "I think not," he said. "Best to take him where he can't do any harm, and I've had rather enough of watching this clusterfuck up close. The fleet is waiting in the North Sea. Take him there. I'll follow."

  Fred watched the chopper lift into the sky, hauling the cage underneath it, and felt his hair begin to whip against his forehead as his own ride landed on the grass behind him.

  The UK was lost, for the moment at least, and it was likely that Wildfire had collapsed in much the same fashion across the entire globe. It was a setback, but hardly a time for panic.

  After all, Fred thought, a good businessman should always be able to adapt to unforeseen...mutations in the market.

  As the chopper lifted Fred up into the sky, he smiled at his own pun. Project Wildfire had failed spectacularly.

  But it was hardly the end of the world.

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