by Sam Kates
“Whoop!” Simone yelled, jumping with glee. “Strrr-ike, and you’re out!” She clapped her hands and laughed.
The male drone continued to stack seaweed on the bonfire, oblivious to what had just happened. The female drone hadn’t moved from its kneeling position in the sand. Blood ran in rivulets from its bowed head, turning the white hair scarlet. A dark stain was forming on the filthy blouse it wore,
“Hey!” Simone shouted. “No slacking. On your feet.”
In the thirty seconds it took her to close the distance over the loose sand, the stain on the back of the drone’s blouse had spread considerably.
“Oops,” said Simone. “That might have been too good a shot.”
She probed.
The drone’s mind, such as it was, was fading fast. Simone went deeper, curious as to what remained of the individual the drone once had been. Fragments only. A man, resplendent in fresh-faced vitality and morning suit, turning before an altar; the same man, a little older, smiling and holding out a tiny, swaddled form; a young boy lifting up his hands to be hugged, tears running down grubby cheeks. The boy’s face began to melt and run like heated wax. The memories were dispersing like wind-tossed smoke as the drone died.
Simone pulled back a level. She needed to work fast if she wanted to tidy up this little mess. There was no problem implanting the impulse. The drone had nothing remaining with which to resist; little enough with which to obey.
Withdrawing completely, she watched as the drone jerked to its feet. Blood dripped from the flapping wound on its head. With what must have been the last of its will, the drone tottered forward and began to clamber the embankment of smoking seaweed. Its strength ran out before it could reach the summit. It slumped face-down and lay still.
Simone let out a deep sigh. Entertainment was hard to come by and all too fleeting these days.
Her thoughts turned to Milandra, and why she and Grant had remained behind in the village. She suspected that the Keeper was up to something, but had no idea what it could be. Hmm, yes, Milandra was the Keeper, but for how much longer?
It irked Simone that she had never laid eyes on Earth Home. Yet, if she had, she would not now be the Chosen. That title had come to her fortuitously: she happened to be the next female to be born after the Keeper who preceded Milandra had died in some stupid war between the Babylonians and the Kingdom of Judah. (The Keeper before that, the one who had travelled to Earth Haven as one of the original ten thousand, had died even more unnecessarily a millennium earlier after becoming involved in a land dispute on the banks of the Nile; Simone did not know the full story—others’ stupidity did not interest her greatly—but understood it to have involved a crocodile.) When she succeeded Milandra, she had no intention of allowing herself to be drawn into any situation that placed her at personal risk of harm. All that knowledge, all that power, at their fingertips and they had let it slip away like so much dry sand.
Simone started as the voice barked in her mind: Simone! Will you quit killing the drones!
She glanced up in the direction of the hotel. Wallace stood at the cliff’s edge, gazing down at her.
Screw you, Raccoon! she sent back. Why don’t you quit your whining?
That’s the third one this week. We’ll have none left at–
Simone blocked him out. George Wallace had always been odious; since the Beacon had been activated, he had become tedious. It wasn’t even fun to josh him about the two black eyes he’d suffered. They had healed completely in less than two days, but the old Wallace would have been good for yuks for months as he rose to the bait every time it was offered. The new Wallace had become withdrawn and introspective. Boring.
The Chosen sighed again and turned back to the pyre. The male drone had partially covered the smouldering corpse of the female with strands of seaweed. It continued to work, paying her not the slightest attention, but its movements were growing laboured as it tired. It surely was too old, too decrepit, to justify its continued existence.
Simone’s eyes narrowed.
* * * * * * *
The roads into England’s capital city were largely clear. The two cars made good progress, only slowing to weave around the occasional abandoned vehicle or small knot of wreckage. Some vehicles still contained the remains of their occupants: forlorn, ragged remnants, creamy skulls grinning from leathery scraps of flesh.
Only once did they find their way completely barred. A line of military jeeps and lorries stretched across the road. Broken bodies of civilians and soldiers dotted the tarmac either side of the blockade. Whether it had been set up to keep people in or out of London, it was difficult to tell.
Levente pulled on the handbrake and stepped out of the car. The Pole and Croatian appeared from the leading car. Aletta and the Italian woman stayed put.
The Pole disappeared inside one of the army lorries, while Levente and the Croatian moved from soldier to soldier, picking up rifles, examining them, before letting them fall back to the road. The weapons had been lying there for months, completely open to the elements. Maybe they had started to corrode.
Aletta’s father had owned a hunting rifle, which he had shown her how to use during her teen years. During her adult years, she had barely used a gun, but could see some wisdom in acquiring one now.
The Pole reappeared, clutching a rifle. He called to the others. They, too, clambered into the lorry. Soon Levente returned to the car, carrying two rifles and grinning. The rifles looked nothing like Aletta’s father’s hunting rifle. These were shorter, more compact, meaner-looking, with magazines. The Hungarian also carried a canvas bag. He shook it before placing it on the back seat with the rifles and Aletta heard a clunk of metal on metal.
“Bullets,” he said. He pointed an index finger beneath a raised thumb. “Bang!” His grin grew wider.
Aletta returned it, a little half-heartedly. Boys will be boys.
They took a detour around the blockade via a series of side streets. Soon they were nearing the city centre and Aletta was catching sight of buildings and landmarks that she recognised from movies, although her knowledge of London was not so great as to be able to name them.
Apart from animals and birds that darted and flapped away at their approach, the streets remained deserted. The first stirrings of disquiet tingled in Aletta’s stomach.
“Where are the people?” she wondered aloud.
Levente snorted. “Dead, of course. All dead.”
“No. I mean the people like us. Survivors. There must be some.”
The Hungarian shrugged.
They drove deeper into the heart of the city and still there was no sign of human life. Aletta’s unease intensified.
“This is wrong,” she muttered.
Levente glanced at her. He seemed unconcerned, but the sense of things being out of kilter, even in this upside-down world, kept growing inside Aletta. Became a certainty.
The car containing the Pole, Croatian and Italian had pulled a little ahead. It turned a sharp bend to the left and Aletta caught the red flash of its brake lights coming on as it drove out of sight.
“Slow down!” she hissed. She thumped the dashboard with her fist. “Slow down!”
Again Levente glanced at her, this time wearing a puzzled frown. He did not appear to share Aletta’s rising sense of panic, but stepped on the brake nonetheless, muttering under his breath in Hungarian. They approached the bend at a crawl and edged forward until the road into which the lead car had disappeared came fully into view.
“Stop!”
She could have saved her breath. Levente had already brought their vehicle to a halt and was peering past her down the street, eyes wide.
The other car, too, had stopped, maybe thirty metres away. A loosely clustered group of around ten people stood in the road ten metres or so farther on. Behind them, two black four-by-fours or SUVs were parked nose to tail across the road, blocking it.
The new people all bore arms, mainly snub-nosed submachine guns, slung at their s
ides from shoulder straps. Each of them stared intently at the first car.
Both front doors of the car—it had only two doors—stood open. The Pole climbed out from behind the steering wheel. The Croatian stepped out of the passenger side, holding one of the assault rifles they had collected from the blockade a few miles back. But something was wrong. Both men moved unnaturally, jerkily. They stumbled a couple of steps before coming to a swaying stop in front of the car, their backs towards Aletta and Levente. The rifle fell from the Croatian’s grasp to the road. He made no move to pick it up.
A woman at the front of the group, slim and maybe of Japanese descent, stepped forward. It was difficult to tell from Aletta’s vantage point, but she thought that the woman was looking past the men into the car.
There was movement at the open passenger door. The Italian woman emerged, holding another of the assault rifles. As she cleared the door and straightened, she brought the barrel of the rifle around towards the group of people.
The Japanese woman raised her submachine gun to chest height and fired a short burst. The Italian dropped her rifle and took half a step back before her knees gave way. She crumpled to the road, twitched once and lay still.
Through a haze of shock, Aletta became aware of two things at once. Levente had started an unintelligible stream of harsh-sounding monologue; the Japanese woman had noticed their car and was motioning forward others in the group.
“Paska!” exclaimed Aletta, forgetting in her panic to speak English.
The Pole and Croatian remained standing in an unnaturally stiff pose at the front of the car. Aletta’s view was partially obstructed by a group of four people, led by the Japanese woman, striding down the road towards them. The group passed the motionless Italian, then the rear of the other car. Further back, one of the SUVs was moving, swinging round to face them.
Aletta turned to Levente. Still muttering, he was staring at the prostrate form of the Italian woman.
“Let’s go!” she hissed.
Aletta felt something tickle her head. She raised her hand to brush whatever it was away, but realised something odd: the tickling sensation was coming from inside her head. Levente must have felt something, too. He flapped at his head as if shooing away a bothersome fly.
“Get us out of here!” Aletta yelled.
The sensation increased. It felt as if a cluster of bristle-legged spiders had found its way inside her skull and scratched to be let out.
No, not spiders. Something worse, something clutching and grasping, sapping her will, threatening to steal her very being. With the last of her mental strength, Aletta screamed.
“Move!”
The Hungarian seemed to snap out of a trance. He shoved the gear stick into reverse and gunned the throttle. The car shot backwards.
An overwhelming compulsion came over Aletta to put the car into neutral and apply the handbrake. She reached out with her right hand and clutched the gearstick. Before she could shift it, her hand was engulfed in a larger hand that held hers tight, preventing it from moving.
“S’okay,” hissed Levente. He was concentrating on the view in the rear mirror. “The feeling will pass.”
Aletta nodded. The compulsion had already lessened. Her will was returning.
“I’m all right,” she said. “Turn us round. We need to get out of here.”
Levente released her hand and she removed it from the gearstick. The sensation of something taking over her mind was not one she ever wanted to experience again.
The Hungarian craned around to look behind them and swung the steering wheel hard over. The car bumped the kerb and came to a jerky stop. He moved the gearstick into first and edged forward, turning the wheel hard to the right to complete the turn.
Aletta gave a low moan.
“Hurry! They are coming.”
From the street down which their companions had turned emerged one of the black SUVs. The windscreen and side windows were tinted so Aletta couldn’t see in, but she would have bet that its passengers included a slim, Japanese woman clutching a submachine gun.
Levente straightened the car and pressed the accelerator. The car shot forward in the direction from which they had come.
The scratching sensation began anew inside Aletta’s skull. She glanced behind. The black vehicle had a more powerful engine and was gaining.
She moaned again.
Levente must have felt it, too. He floored the throttle, making the engine scream in protest.
The compulsion to disengage the car’s gears and yank on the handbrake was trying once more to take over Aletta’s will. Terror lent her strength to resist, but she would not be able to do so for long. Despite Levente’s best efforts, the SUV was still gaining and the compulsion grew ever stronger.
“There,” gasped Aletta.
She pointed ahead to their right. They were approaching a narrow side street, the one from which they had driven when detouring past the roadblock.
“Too fast,” muttered Levente. “But can’t slow down.”
The closer the chasing vehicle approached, the stronger the takeover of Aletta’s mind became. If they reduced speed to negotiate the right turn, the black car would be on them and she would have to give in. She suspected that this time Levente would not try to prevent her; would probably stop the car himself as his will, too, was lost to whatever arcane power was at work.
A plan—half-baked, reeking of desperation—came to her, occupying the last remnants of her mind that remained within her control.
“Slow down as we near the turning,” said Aletta.
“What? No!”
“There’s no time. You’ll have to trust me.”
Levente’s jaw clenched tightly. He nodded.
“Slow down a little,” said Aletta. “Keep off the throttle and press the clutch.”
They were on the junction. Levente stepped off the accelerator and touched the brake. He dipped the clutch and the engine shrieked as it over-revved.
“Now!” shouted Aletta. “Turn hard to the right.”
Levente obeyed and the car veered towards the side street. But it was travelling too quickly to make the turn. They were on course to slam into the wall of the building that stood on the corner.
Gritting her teeth, Aletta grabbed the handbrake lever and yanked it up, keeping the release button firmly depressed. The back end of the car stopped in mid spin as the rear wheels clung to the road, rubber burned and some distant part of Aletta prayed that the tyres would take this manoeuvre without blowing.
“Straighten!” she gasped. “Throttle!” She released the handbrake.
The car shot forward, Levente manfully struggling to correct its course. It rocked dangerously as he over-corrected and headed straight for the parked vehicles lining one side of the street. He yanked the wheel back the other way. With a squeal of grinding metal, the front wing glanced off a parked Toyota.
“Not too much!” yelled Aletta. “And keep accelerating.”
Levente’s knuckles grew white as he battled the steering wheel. With another sickening lurch, the car began to head towards the cars parked on the other side. But the Hungarian was getting its measure and this time corrected without hitting anything.
Aletta jerked her head around in time to see the black car pass the junction. It hadn’t slowed.
“Yes!” She thumped her thigh. “They don’t know that the road is blocked.”
With a start, Aletta realised that her mind was once more completely her own.
Levente now had the car fully under control. He kept them moving quickly, but not so fast that negotiating these narrow back streets became hazardous.
He favoured Aletta with a huge grin.
“To turn like that. Crazy lady! How you know?”
Aletta grinned back. “When I was young and, yes, perhaps a little crazy, I drove a rally car in the forests of Finland. Not in competition, you understand. For fun.”
Levente’s grin grew even wider. “For fun! Ha! You should driv
e, not me.”
“You’re doing fine.” Aletta sobered as an image crowded her mind. “They killed the Italian.”
The Hungarian’s grin faded. “Yes. The Pole, the Croatian…” He shook his head.
“Who are they?”
“Bad people. Very bad people. We keep away.”
Aletta pushed away the vision of the old woman’s crumpling body. It was replaced by one not much better: a powerful black car smashing through a roadblock, shoving rusting army lorries aside as it rushed to intercept them. When Levente pulled the car up to the junction down which they’d first come when leaving the main road, her heart felt like it was trying to escape up her throat. She glanced fearfully to her left as the main road came into view and let out her breath in a hot rush. The road was clear.
Levente turned right onto it and picked up speed. The blockade was a good half mile behind them.
“Where we go?” he asked.
“Away from London. It is wrong here. Once we have left the city, hmm… We came from the east. Let’s go west.”
Chapter Five
Joe Lowden felt as good as new. Almost.
After remembering his own name while lying in an office in Amesbury, much of his memory had remained shrouded in a haze. He suspected that much of it still would if it wasn’t for that girl, Brianne.
During those long days in Salisbury waiting to see if the boy would pull through and before Bri underwent her own life-threatening procedure, she had sat down and looked at Joe so intently that it reminded him a little of them.
“What…” He cleared his throat. When he tried again, his voice sounded less tremulous. “What are you doing?”
“Up there.” Bri pointed towards her forehead. The cut in her hairline had dried to a black scab, but the skin around it remained raised and bruised. “They did things to you.”
It wasn’t a question. Joe waited.
“There’s stuff you don’t remember,” she continued. “You know your name, right? And where you come from?”