by Sam Kates
“We started not far from here, in West. . . . pardon me, I forget the name.”
“West Drayton,” said Grant.
“Ah, yes,” said Luke. “West Drayton. Thank you. We had only been out for a few hours and had already encountered two, maybe three hundred rats. They are easy to control with three of us working together. Even the largest group—you say ‘pack’, like ‘rat pack’, yes?—of fifty or sixty creatures presented no difficulty. We took over their minds, such basic organs, yet filled with greed and cunning, and sent them to the Burning Fields.”
“Yes?” prompted Milandra.
“We had sent a pack of thirty away when I saw the girl. She was watching me from behind a garden wall in the road to our left. The same road we had sent the rats into. When she saw that I had noticed her, she ducked out of sight.
“I told my companions what I had seen and I think I shouted to the girl to stay where she was. We hurried to the corner so we could look down the road. There were two, the girl and a boy, running away from us.”
“How old were they?” asked Wallace.
“Not easy to say,” said Luke. “We did not get close enough to see them clearly, but I estimate that the girl was between fourteen and sixteen. The boy, twelve. Maybe younger.”
“Why didn’t you get close enough?” asked Lavinia. “Why not combine psyches and force them to stop?”
“That is precisely what we did,” answered Luke. “Or tried to. It worked on the boy. He stopped running. But the girl. . . .” He frowned.
Milandra had been filled in on the gist of what Luke would be telling them, but was hearing it from Luke himself for the first time. She felt a sensation deep in her stomach, like something alive waking up, and took a few moments to recognise it. Excitement. Not dread or sorrow as she had experienced, although was still reluctant to admit even to herself, when sending the signal to release the virus. Pure excitement, that maybe something good was about to happen.
“What about the girl?” she asked, keeping her tone soft and neutral.
“The girl resisted. Completely.”
“So?” That was Lavinia. “There were only three of you and you were already controlling the boy.” She shrugged. “Humans are still strong enough to keep us out unless we heavily outnumber them.”
“There is more to tell,” said Luke. “Then it may not be so clear.” He looked at Milandra who nodded for him to continue. “When she realised that he could not move, the girl ran back to the boy and. . . .” He paused and took a deep breath. “She did something. I don’t know what. But in the next instant, we had been expelled from the boy. We tried to go back, but could not. His mind was no longer open to us. The girl had blocked it.”
There was a moment’s silence.
Wallace broke it. “No way. That’s impossible, man. Freaking impossible.”
Luke held out his hands, palms upwards. “When the impossible happens, it is no longer the impossible.” His gaze locked with Milandra’s once more. “There is something else. . . .”
Milandra nodded. The feeling of excitement was growing. She sensed that the others were experiencing it, too, though perhaps not in quite the same way as she.
“For the few moments that we were in the boy’s psyche,” said Luke, “I could see that he had been subjected to the electrical process that makes drones easier to manage. But the evidence was faint, like a scar that marks human skin after an old surgical procedure.” He took another deep breath. “The electrical process had been reversed. Not entirely, as shown by the scars, but there is no doubt as to what has happened. The other two members of my team are in full accord. The boy’s mind has been healed.”
“Holy shit,” muttered Grant.
“Humans can’t do that, can they?” That was Simone in her best silly little girl’s voice. “Are you sure she’s not one of us?”
Wallace turned on her. “You know as well as anyone that we don’t emerge as young-looking as fifteen or sixteen or anything-else-teen. For fuck’s sake, Simone, if you’re going to ask a question, try to make it half-intelligent.”
Simone opened her mouth to retort, but Milandra could not face that high-pitched warble again.
“Leave it, Simone. I don’t agree with George’s choice of words; he has never been the diplomat. I do, however, agree with his sentiment. Now, let’s hear the rest of Luke’s tale without interruption.”
It didn’t take long. Luke recounted how the two humans had taken to their heels again and disappeared into a nearby house, locking the door behind them. The female member of his team, Olga, had shot in the double-glazed front window with her pistol, but had badly cut herself in gaining entry to the property.
“As she was stepping through the opening, she slipped.” Luke grimaced. “The glass that remained in the window frame was jagged and sharp. It cut deep.”
Luke and the other man had squeezed past their stricken team-mate and arrived at the back exit in time to let off a couple of shots at the fleeing humans through the thickly paned glass of the kitchen window, but the girl and boy scurried down an alley that ran behind the back garden. By the time Luke and his colleague had staunched the worst of Olga’s bleeding and returned to the street, the humans had disappeared from view.
“Olga had weakened considerably through loss of blood,” said Luke, “but we nevertheless managed to send a message to every other team in the vicinity, warning them to be alert for the humans and to shoot them on sight. Nobody else saw them.” He shrugged. “There are many places to hide in London.”
“And Olga?” asked Milandra. “Is she okay?”
“She will be,” said Luke. “We had to sacrifice a drone from a clean-up crew. She was losing blood faster than she could replace it. She needed fresh blood, and energy, before her heart and brain started to shut down.”
“Slurp, slurp, slurp,” said Simone, and tittered.
Luke regarded the Chosen with a carefully guarded expression. Milandra suspected that he found her a little distasteful but was unsure about revealing his true feelings. Quickly, she cleared her throat.
“So we lost a drone, but saved Olga?”
Luke nodded. He looked relieved to be distracted from Simone. “She is undergoing intensive solar treatment, but will fully recover.”
Milandra recalled the aftermath of the Commune when she had joined with almost five thousand other minds and called the survivors of mainland Britain to London, before spreading the net worldwide to persuade survivors outside Britain to remain where they were and not seek out other survivors. It had left her so drained that not even copious amounts of food could fully replenish her energy reserves. Jason Grant had done the trick by rigging up a sunlamp to a series of car batteries and she had bathed in the warm, white glow until the batteries ran out. The lamp still stood in a corner of the hotel suite. Jason had reattached the plug. Now that the hotel’s electrical systems were running from a diesel-powered generator, the lamp was ready to use in need. She suspected that the need might soon arise.
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you.” She glanced around at the Deputies. “Does anyone have any questions to ask Luke?”
“I have plenty of questions,” said Wallace. “Like how in the heck did this girl, a drone, shield the boy from the team’s probing? And did she heal the mind of the boy? How can this be?”
Lavinia murmured in agreement. Grant nodded thoughtfully. Only Simone didn’t react; she was staring off into space as though her part in the proceedings was done.
“Well, those are questions we’d all like answers to,” said Milandra, “but I doubt that Luke knows them.”
Luke shook his head.
“I’d like each of us to give some thought to what we’ve heard here this afternoon,” continued Milandra. “We’ll meet again this evening when we can bounce ideas off of each other. Luke, if you think of anything that might explain this, come straight to me or to one of the Deputies.”
He nodded and shifted in his seat as if to stand.
&nb
sp; Milandra held up her hand to indicate that he should remain seated. “I want to ask you a favour,” she said. “With your permission, I’d like to see for myself the encounter with the two humans.”
Luke shrugged. “No problem.”
“Good.” She turned to the Deputies. “There’s no need for any of you to remain. Let’s meet back here at, say, eight o’clock.”
Three heads nodded in assent.
“Simone?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Eight o’clock. I’m gonna watch rats pop till then.” Milandra frowned and Simone rolled her eyes. “I can think just as well about the drones in the Burning Fields.”
Milandra sighed. “Okay. But I’ll expect you to come up with at least one idea as to how the girl might have healed the boy.”
“Jeez. It’s like being in school.”
Lavinia snorted. “How would you know what being in school’s like?”
Simone grinned. “True. Till later.”
She stood and trotted from the room. The three other Deputies filed out after her.
Milandra turned back to Luke.
“That Simone. . . .” she said.
“Yes,” said Luke. “Is she always so infantile?”
Milandra smiled. So you can’t see it’s an act? she thought. “Back to what happened,” she said. “Are you sure. . . . ?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you.”
Milandra reached. As the Keeper, she didn’t need Luke’s permission to probe his mind, but saw no need to be invasive without the subject’s consent. Besides, having a willing subject made the process easier and quicker.
With a skill honed over many centuries, Milandra located the memory and ran it, watching closely as though she was viewing a reel playing on a cinema screen.
A girl’s head ducking behind a wall; a longer view down a house-lined street with two small figures running into the distance, holding hands; both wearing bulky jackets that hid their builds; a knapsack bouncing up and down on the taller figure’s back; the smaller of the two coming to a halt and the girl turning to face Milandra’s viewpoint. The perplexed faces of Luke’s companions came into view as they hurriedly conferred.
Milandra studied the girl’s face as she returned to the boy’s side. Too far away to make out her features clearly, but Milandra thought that Luke’s estimate of the girl’s age was about right. Some sort of mark spoiled the clear lines of the girl’s brow: a wound of some sort, maybe a lump? The girl gripped the boy’s shoulder and seemed to be studying him intently. Then she glanced towards Luke and his companions. Now Milandra was certain that the girl had suffered an injury to her forehead. Even at this distance, the cut stood out like a molehill on a bowling green.
The girl grabbed the boy by the hand and they spoke briefly. She turned and together they ran. At this level of probing, Milandra could only view the memory; to experience what Luke was feeling, she would have to delve deeper into Luke’s mind. That would not be necessary. She could imagine how dumbfounded Luke and his companions would have felt at how easily the girl had shaken off the mental shackles with which they had bound the boy.
The memory wound on and Milandra watched until the young pair had run into a house and slammed the door behind them.
She withdrew.
Luke was watching her closely. “What does it mean, Milandra?”
She shook her head slowly. “Quite honestly, I don’t know.” She stood. “Thank you for your help, Luke. Please, if you see Olga, pass on my best wishes for a full recovery.”
Luke nodded.
After he had gone, Milandra considered what she had heard and seen. The sensation of excitement had faded, to be replaced by something else. An idea. It nagged at her, demanding her full attention, but she did not dare confront it head on. To do so would be to concede that her feelings towards the surviving humans ran far deeper than mere sympathy. She wasn’t yet ready to take that plunge.
Chapter Nine
The throngs of people that used to clog the centre of London had been replaced by pigeons. Gulls and crows and ravens, too, had taken over the tourist and shopping thoroughfares, feasting on waste and corpses. Rats and dogs, alone and in small packs, roved among the birds, fighting them for the choicest morsels. Cats stalked pigeons—quite successfully judging by the number of headless, partly-chewed pigeon carcasses Brianne and Will passed—and spat at dogs.
Will stuck close to Bri’s side, grasping tightly at her hand when any dogs came near. They were approached frequently, occasionally by an animal that seemed nothing more than inquisitive, sniffing in their direction, ears cocked, before moving on, but more often by one or more dogs with bared teeth and bristling fur.
Acting almost subconsciously, unable to explain to Will when he asked how she did it, Bri enveloped herself in an aura that extended perhaps two yards in all directions, one that told any encroaching creature, whether bird, rat, cat or dog, that she was not to be messed with. Even the meanest looking dogs, those with wild eyes and slavering jaws, understood the message and slunk away with a whine.
Bri’s head twanged when she first cast out this aura, but maintaining it seemed second nature and cost little in terms of mental effort. Thus her headache remained at bay, although she kept an eye open for a chemist where she could obtain a fresh supply of painkillers.
The number of corpses increased the closer they drew to the centre of the city. Many had already been torn apart by bird or beast. A few had decomposed to only skin and bone, held together by ragged clothes. Most were still in the process of decomposition, the cold weather delaying nature’s relentless march. Bri and Will became, if not accustomed to the sight and stench of decay, inured to them. Although neither were keen to step too closely to a body, they stopped staring in stomach-churning fascination or averting their eyes in horror. They stopped clenching their nostrils in disgust.
Bri remained wary, but they had not seen any more packs of rats running in formation—what Bri had started to think of as ‘trained rats’—and gradually she began to relax.
“I’m hungry,” said Will after they had been walking for an hour.
“Me, too.” Bri shrugged her right shoulder to indicate the backpack. “I want to keep all the food we’ve got in case we need it later. We’ll find a place soon. There seem to be plenty of shops ahead.”
They were walking down a silent street, lined each side by tall buildings, some as high as six storeys. The road was empty except for the occasional abandoned vehicle. Ahead of them, strung across the road between buildings, they could make out rows of giant Christmas baubles and snowflakes, expensive-looking, not gaudy.
“Wow,” breathed Bri. “They must look quite a sight lit up. Where are we anyway? It’s a bit posh around here.”
Will stopped. He glanced around and a slow smile stole over his features. “I know where we are. This is Knightsbridge.” He pointed ahead. “Harrods is just up the road. Mum used to bring me and Poppy.” His smile faded. “We could never afford to buy anything. She used to like looking. ‘Seeing ’ow the other ’alf live,’ she used to say.”
“Harrods. . . .” Unlike many of her friends, Bri hadn’t been one for make-up and jewellery. She had always preferred surfing on the ocean to surfing online for clothes, but nevertheless an image popped into her mind with the clarity of a memory: her posing in a designer ballgown, a diamond tiara twinkling on her head, rubies dripping from her neck. You might be sixteen, she told herself, but you’re never too old to dress up.
She glanced at Will. He was gazing up at her, his smile returning. She grinned back.
“Shall we?” she said.
They didn’t need to break in. Someone had beaten them to it. The glass in one of the entrance doors had been smashed and most of the jagged pieces removed. Trickles of black, long-dried blood smeared the remaining shards of glass and the doorframe. Inside all was silent with no rotting corpse smell, but whoever had been in here had gone on a mini rampage. Their feet crunched broken perfume bo
ttles that littered the ground floor; the faint smell of expensive perfume still hung in the air. Elsewhere, cases of jewellery designed by people most of Bri’s friends would have heard of had been smashed, clothes seen on catwalks in New York and Milan torn from racks and thrown to the floor, urns with two thousand pounds price tags hurled against the wall.
It didn’t spoil their fun. For the rest of the morning, they forgot their peril and became as children again. The floors of Harrods echoed to their gleeful laughter.
Three hours later, stomachs full of tinned caviar, potted hare and luxurious sweets, they reluctantly left the store. Each was clad head-to-toe in new outfits, including water- and windproof jackets, and training shoes that alone would have cost more than Bri’s dad used to earn in a week.
Will had acquired a backpack of his own. It bulged with gadgets and sweets. They included three new mobile phones, even though they had tried a few inside the store and not found a single network that was working. They each carried tins of fancy meats and fish, packets of biscuits and crackers, and bottles of mineral waters with French names.
Bri had dropped the bracelets and necklaces of pearls and emeralds and diamonds onto the counter with only a twinge of regret. She had kept just one item: a ridiculously expensive watch that ran off a battery guaranteed for ten years. All the battery-powered watches had told the same time, so she assumed it was correct.
They left Harrods at 12:34 pm. If the date setting on the watch was also correct, it was the 16th of January. Bri had no idea what day of the week it was. She didn’t suppose it mattered one jot.
“Which way shall we go?” she asked when they stood once more in the open air. The wind had freshened and she felt glad of the jacket. She pulled her new hat down a little tighter around her ears, wincing as the material scraped across the lump on her forehead.
“Have you ever seen Buckingham Palace?”
She shook her head. “Never been to London before so never seen the Houses of Parliament or Nelson’s Column or Big Ben.”