Kingdom: The Complete Series (18 page)

“
Is
that it?” asks Jamie. “Are the Agency going to help us?”

“
No,”
he says. “But perhaps some Trespasser units might. We're on our own otherwise,
and my superior believes that the King will be able to kill Mark without any
issues.”

“
Mark?
But he's -”

“
Invincible?
I took him down once, he needs to breathe like anybody else. That means he can
die like anybody else, too. He's in danger.”

“
Then
let's go,” says Jamie.

The King checks his
manicured fingernails, and Mark is grateful not to have to hold his gaze – then
his eyes snap back up, drilling into Mark's mind, and he says:

“
We're
very similar, like I said.”

“
It's
been a while since I kidnapped somebody's mother,” says Mark, his tone dry.

“
I
thought we were past this, Mark; it was a necessary precaution. I needed you to
sit down long enough to listen to reason.”

“
I'm
sitting. I'm listening.”

“
Good.
Now: the only reason you're even in this city in the first place is because you
tried to help people. That great big project in the city centre, the Gardens?
That's what brought you here.”

“
If
I recall, it failed because the rent and the utilities went through the roof,
forcing me to subject myself to poverty just to sustain it.”

Mark stares into the
King's eyes, the anger filling him full of bravery.

“
Fairly
poetic, when you consider it,” the King smiles, “but it would have failed
without my intervention. You put your business, your money, and your
trust
in the hands of, what? Some homeless people? Criminals?”

“
It
was
about
to start working -”

“
How
many of them stole from you? Or tried to play the system?”

“
They
were the minority.”

“
They
were the ones that you
knew
about. What about the rest? You ever find
out where those power drills went? Or the copper wiring? Fetches a decent
price, copper wiring.”

They stare, Mark's
bottom lip curled back under his teeth. “They thought they had no choice, these
people were starving and desperate. Some of them were recovering addicts.”

“
They
made the choice,” the King shrugs. “They
chose
to steal from you. You:
an honest businessman trying to help them. D'you think they laughed at you?
Sitting in an alleyway chugging cheap wine, pockets lined with your money.
D'you think they laughed, Mark?”

Mark almost shouts his
reply, but he takes a moment, takes a breath, and clenches his fist in front of
his own mouth.

“
Not
all of them were like that. There were good ones.”

“
Mark,”
the King laughs,
“everybody
is good when you offer them what they want.
”

The King lets the
comment settle in, and Mark leans forward, both of his hands clasped at his
jaw, staring into the middle-distance.

The King steeples his
fingers. “And that's the great secret behind this entire city. Behind the
Kingdom.”

Mark's mind wanders to
the deal the King gave Jamie:
steal cars for me and I will give you a home
for your family.

“
You're
talking about offering people what they want in order to control them. So you
read the first few pages of Machiavelli,” he chuckles, “I applaud you.”

The King watches him
like a curious teacher would a child.

“
Ok,”
he sighs, and the patience leaves his voice. “Since you apparently aren't
willing to take me seriously, let me cut to the root of the issue.”

“
I'm
listening.”

The King taps his
fingers on the table as he talks.

“
Do
you ever think about God?”

Mark shrugs. “Can't say
I do.”

“
No,”
the King laughs to himself, “neither do I. But consider people, and how they
are ruled. If there were a God, would he not be the perfect form of
government?”

“
What,
a theocracy? This isn't the middle ages anymore -”

“
No,
no, no; consider this: what type of government is the most efficient, in terms
of actual change? A democracy?”

“
Well,
we live in one and we do ok.”

The King lets out a
loud and genuine laugh, and wipes a fake tear from his eye with a manicured
finger.

“
Oh
Mark you precious thing, we don't live in a bloody democracy. Besides,
democracy is one of the
fairest
systems. I didn't ask about fairness. I
asked about efficiency.”

“
Well,
a dictatorship then.”

“
Exactly.”

“
What,
like you have here?”

“
I
asked you about God – imagine he was real; imagine he was in charge. Absolute
power, absolute knowledge, and best of all? Absolute benevolence. He would be
perfect.”

“
A
benevolent dictator?”

“
The
most perfect form of government.”

“
Yeah,
and how many benevolent dictators are there?”

The King doesn't answer
– just gives Mark a winning smile. Mark laughs.

“
What,
you? You think you're benevolent?”

“
I
do what's best for my people -”

“
You
kill
people!” Mark slams his fist on the edge of his chair, and the wood
buckles under his hand. The King flinches. “You were going to have me executed
for the crime of trying to help people.”

“
You
were going against the system – I had to remove you, Mark. But look what you
did with that situation, look at you
now
. You've already forced me into
meeting you for a compromise. In one day you've changed everything. Nobody
could have predicted this, not even me; I
apologise
for what I did to
you, no denial there.”

Mark sits back in his
chair, ruffling his hair and calming himself.

“
Look,”
the King lowers his voice. “You're young – what are you, twenty something?
You've got a good heart, you're smart as a tack, you're driven – you're a good
businessman. Don't you think we all start out like that? Desperate to fix the
world?”

Something in the King's
voice makes Mark lift his eyes from the floor.

“
Surely
you're not trying to convince me you want anything except power?”

“
Want?
I
have
power, son. Now you think I want to use that to hurt people? I
tell you, that's a side effect and nothing more. That was never the goal – but
it
is
a necessity.”

“
We'll
have to disagree on that.”

“
You're
young
. You don't see the big picture.”

“
And
you do?”

The King leans back and
cracks his knuckles, relaxing into his chair.

“
Listen.
Humanity has only really crawled out of our caves relatively recently. A
generation ago it was illegal to be gay. Before that, it was completely okay to
own
people – still is, in some places. Before that, most women died in
childbirth. In the past fifty years we have come so, so far. And we're going to
go even further, even faster.”

“
Yeah.
And?”

“
And
every time we make those leaps, Mark, we unearth
knowledge –
and you
know that knowledge is true power. Every time we make a discovery, we find a
new way to wipe ourselves out. At the end of World War Two we finally learned
what we needed to do to completely wipe ourselves out – and a decade or two
later, we nearly bloody did it. Nuclear weaponry is not the worst thing we are
going to develop, Mark – and next time we might not be so lucky; we might not
be so restrained.”

“
So
what? All of this is because you don't trust humanity with its own power?”

“
Do
you?”

“
Well,
yeah. We've come this far.”

“
Then
you're naïve. Like I said, you're young. People are idiots – there are psychos
right now who would just love to drop a nuclear bomb on someone who's a
different colour or worships the wrong god, and they'd set the whole world on
fire just to see it happen. We have achieved power beyond our own ability to control
it.”

“
Control,”
says Mark. “There it is – I was wondering when that word would rear it's head.
So what, you think that the only way to stop us blowing ourselves to hell is to
control everybody?”

“
Well,
I believe it's humanity's best chance.”

“
I
think they tried this in Nazi Germany, did they not?”

“
Oh,
comparing me to the Nazis? What are you, twelve years old? They were fanatics
based around a cult of personality. I'm talking about a guiding hand to ensure
that the best and brightest aren't wiped out when the peasants press the
fucking reset button on civilisation.”

“
By
controlling them.”

“
You
say that like it's a bad word, Mark, so let's take some metrics. The Kingdom; a
sociological experiment a couple of decades in the making, wildly successful on
paper, based around controlling a huge populace with a minimal size of
government: one man, a benevolent dictator. Some of the wealthiest people in
the world, and some of its best minds, conceived this idea, and they think it's
working. The Kingdom works, Mark. What would you offer as an alternative, for
humanity's future? A model like your business, like The Gardens? Support the
worst of us until they can join the rat race?”

“
At
least the people I helped
wanted
to change. They weren't forced – they
weren't afraid, they didn't suffer.”

“
And
what was your success rate? Roll out a system like yours across Glasgow – one
of welfare, and charity, and compassion, and do you know what will happen? They
will take advantage of it, and make a mockery of your good intentions.”

“
And
what gives you the right to enforce your will on these people? By force, no
less?”

“
Some
people have to be forcefully
lifted
out of the squalor, because they are
content to sit in it. Is it not the duty of those on the riverbanks to save those
who are drowning? People like you and I, Mark... it's our duty to look out for
these people. It's our duty to protect them from themselves.”

“
If
they don't help themselves, it's meaningless. They have to
want
to
better themselves,” says Mark, though the longer he tries to argue the more he
feels he is spewing ill-thought out rhetoric.

“
Do
you believe that, Mark?” the King asks him, his expression melting with a
gentle affection. “Or were you simply told to believe that?”

Mark looks away,
frowning.

“
There
will always be crime,” says the King, “but if you
control
the crime, and
keep it to a minimum? If you can decide how much crime happens, and where, and
to whom, then you can ensure that nobody comes to harm unless they deserve it.”

Mark bites his knuckle,
listening for the sound of a helicopter: but he hears nothing but his own
heartbeat and the slow measured breaths of the King.

“
So
you think you've made Glasgow a better place?” he asks the King.

“
It's
not that simple – there will always be corruption, and there will always be
crime and depravity and drugs and people hurting one another. I just control
it, and keep it to the minimum where possible. So yes, I'd say I have. I've
manipulated the populace into creating a better world for themselves.”

“
You
control people by force and blackmail.”

“
Sometimes,
people don't know what's good for them, Mark.”

“
And
you do?”

The two men regard one
another, and eventually the King nods and says,

“
Yes.
I believe I do. So do you,” he adds, “or you wouldn't have undertaken your
project.”

“
My
people were free to choose – those who did good through it, did so out of their
own free will. It had weight, it had meaning.”