Kingdom: The Complete Series (24 page)

“
I'll
get reading this. I trust you will take care of my other request?”

“
Which
one is that, sir?”

“
The
George's Square refugee camp. I don't want the people thinking that the
military can protect them from us. Fear comes before submission, son. See to
it.”

“
Of
course, sir. Some of our men are already in the camp – I'll have what
explosives we can spare sent over to them. You realise, of course, that the
survivors of Operation Firefall will be there today? The, uh, 'super-humans'?”

The King laughs – he
doesn't even look up from his reading.

“
Why
do you think I chose it as a target?”

“
Shall
we attempt to include them in the blast?”

“
Might
as well,” he looks up, giving him an earnest smile. “Make it personal. Really,
I just want them to know that they aren't safe. Nobody is. We need to become an
enemy that can't be fought with soldiers and tanks – and certainly not an enemy
that can be fought by anybody with powers.”

“
Yes,
sir. I'll have it done. We have a few willing participants who wouldn't mind
wearing a
heavy coat,
if you catch my drift.”

“
Suicide
bomb? Gregor, twenty seconds ago I told you that we need to keep the devoted
around, not blow them up.”

“
With
respect sir, not all of the faithful are
worth
keeping around. Two
birds, one stone.”

“
I'll
leave it in your hands then. Good man. Good man,” mutters the King, shuffling
through the papers. “Shame to have to do it, of course, but the people should
all have known better than to forget about me. They've shown their true
colours.”

“
Will
that be all, sir?”

“
Get
me a roll and egg or something, too. Prison food is atrocious.”

“
Of
course, sir.”

“
And
a can of ginger, son. Maybe two.”

“
There's
not a lot of luxury items like that left in the city -”

The King looks up from
his papers, raising an eyebrow.

“
Gregor,
I believe I made myself quite clear.”

The runner bows his
head. “I'll acquire some,” he says, and leaves without another word.

“
Mark?”

The voice is just
another piece of static in the background. Through the mask, Mark's expression
is hidden – he is speechless, staring out across the rows of canvas tents as he
tries to formulate what he feels into words.

“
Mark?”

Jamie shakes him, and
he snaps back to the present.

The noise is all around
him: the clamouring of the crowd and the constant click-snap of cameras.
Somewhere a reporter is speaking into a microphone. In the bitter, frozen air,
Mark sees Jamie's words as fog in front of his mouth.

Then the noise is gone;
the cold vanishes, turning to a balmy neutral heat, and Jamie and Mark are the
only ones for whom time still marches.

Jamie lifts his mask,
and taps Mark's visor.

“
Time's
not flowing, you can come out now.”

Snapping into the
frozen present, Mark lifts his mask.

“
Jamie?”

“
Look
man, if you need to take a seat or something, you do it. You're going full
zombie on me here, people are starting to notice. Not good for the cameras, you
know what I mean?”

“
The
people are starving, Jamie.” says Mark, looking out at the grey, unmoving crowd
beneath them. With time stopped, he can make out the desperate expressions on
those clawing at the food packages. Above them stand the others in their black
overalls, faceless robots throwing aid packages into the mass. “We did this. We
caused this.”

Jamie gives him a light
slap across the face that Mark barely feels. The drunken haze fogs his vision
until he's no longer sure if he's standing up straight or not. Jamie's
dark-ringed eyes anchor him to the spot, keeping him focused.

“
The
King did this, not us.”

“
But
we can fix it -”

“
In
time, Mark. In time – and not today.”

“
It
looks like a bloody third world country.”

“
This?”
Jamie waves a hand out at the still camp, in all its poverty and grime. “This
is preferable to a life of terror, believe me. You know how bad it was under
the King.”

Mark takes a breath and
presses his hands against his closed eyes.

“
You
ok?” Jamie lowers his voice. “Need a minute?”

“
I'm
fine. Just -”

“
Just
breathe.” Jamie squeezes his shoulder. “Get your head in the game, and focus.”

“
I'm
too drunk for this, mate.” 

“
Just
focus on getting they aid packages out, we'll be done in no time.”

“
Ok.
Ok,” Mark takes a deep breath and sighs, his vision sharpening into focus.
“Thanks Jamie.”

“
Don't
mention it. We good? Ready for the big snap when time comes back?”

“
I
think I'm used to it by now.”

“
Ok
then,” says Jamie, and then he is gone.

Colour and sound blast
back into the world.

Mark's visor is back
down, his face covered without him touching his mask, and he is standing atop
the truck once more.

Shaking away any
disorientation, Mark grabs one of the aid parcels from the back of the truck
and passes it into the crowd. A grimy faced man with a young girl clinging onto
his shoulder takes it, elbowing his way past two others who reach for it.

Mark makes sure to pass
the next parcels to those who were shoved aside, growling under his breath.

“
That's
the last of it,” the Trespasser pats Mark on the back as the crowd disperses.
“Well done.”

A gaggle of reporters
are still hanging around the truck, taking snapshots of those aboard it.

“
Trespasser
One?” asks Donald.

“
Yes?”

“
The
medical staff here are sorely under-supplied and stretched thin. I'd like to
help, if that's possible.”

“
Sorry,
Donald. Rules are rules.”

A young female reporter
with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail tiptoes to see over the edge of the
truck, waving for attention. “Actually, I wouldn't mind a few shots of that.
Are you medically trained, sir?”

Donald almost answers,
before the Trespasser puts a hand on his chest.

“
You've
gotten the pictures you were promised, lass. Stop trying to worm more out of
them.”

With that, the
Trespasser leaps off the back of the truck and onto the ground. He claps his
hands twice and the six masked figures look around, standing up.

“
Ok
squad, work's done for the day. Pack up and wait for my word, we'll extract the
same way we came in.”

“
Can
we get a group picture of your squad?” This question comes from an older
photographer with his camera balanced on his protruding gut.

“
No.”

 
The
Trespasser turns to find that Stacy has already arranged everybody into a row
with their arms around one another.

“
Come
on, Tony,” she urges him. “It's like a family day-trip.”

The Trespasser sighs
and throws his hands up.

“
Fine.
Fine, just one. Stop it with the Tony nonsense, too.”

He stands in front of
them and kneels in the red tarmac, his chest puffed out as he leans on one knee
with his forearm.

A circle of
photographers form around them, freezing the squad in a rapid strobe of
flashing cameras.

One photographer, a
thin man with sallow eyes, muttering to himself under his breath, steps forward
with a small camera. It is attached by wire to something inside his bulky
winter jacket – far too large and padded for a man with a neck that thin.

It all happens in about
two seconds.

The Trespasser has seen
suicide bombers before – he's even stopped a few.

His mind races – first,
he assumes the worst.

Head and body shots are
ruled out – he might be wearing a dead man's switch. Electrical weaponry like
his tazer are useless: the direct current will force his hands to contract,
maybe setting a trigger off.

The man stutters
through his chattering teeth.

“
The
King s-sends -” 

His wild eyes, pupils
like black holes, focus on the Trespasser. For a second, the two men stare at
one another.

The Trespasser draws
his pistol, deciding on a forearm shot – but too late.

He presses in the
button, and the explosives coating the inside of his coat go off, sending the
packets of nails stuffed into the lining of his jacket flying into the squad
and the photographers.

Time stops for Jamie.

He feels his brain
become a barrier, halting the flow of time like a blockage in a pipe. Already
the pressure is building like a migraine.

A huge cloud of grey
and red dust hangs before him, spiked and jagged where the explosives float in
mid detonation.

Thousands of tiny
pieces of shrapnel hang unmoving in the air, like a swarm of flies descending
on the crowd. Pieces of the bomber – a finger, a piece of skin, some scalp and
hair, teeth, red mist – hang in the air too, forcibly removed from his body by
the blast.

The rest of him is
suspended in the middle of the cloud, an unrecognisable lump of human.

Jamie looks around. The
photographers have barely had the chance to flinch. One of them already has
flecks of blood emerging from their body where the shrapnel has hit.

The one closest, the
blonde-haired girl with the ponytail, is frozen in mid air. Her skin is rippled
from the force of the pressure wave, her eyes flinched shut.

Time begins to build up
in his mind, urging him to let go: to relax the invisible muscle that keeps it
held there and let the pressure out. He steadies himself and, though his heart
is pounding in his ears, forces himself to think.

He turns around and
grabs the Trespasser by the forearm. The echo of the Trespasser's pistol shot
is muffled and fades to nothing, missing the bomber's arm.

Calming himself down,
the Trespasser looks around at the frozen scene.

“
Time
stop?”

“
Yeah.
What do we do?” asks Jamie, his mask hiding his pained expression.

“
How
long can you hold this?”

“
Not
much longer. Maybe a minute.”

“
Then
hold it that long. We need Gary.”

“
Gary?
What can Gary do?”

“
Forcefields.”

“
Some
of the people are already hurt.”

“
I
know. Donald can help them afterwards.”

“
Healer?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Mark
can't help, can he?”

“
Not
yet – same for Cathy and Stacy. Nothing they can do.”

“
Ok.
Grab their arms, I'll try to hold everything together.”

The Trespasser realises
now that dark red fluid is dripping steadily from the bottom of Jamie's mask.
He turns around and grabs Gary's skinny wrist.

Mark watches the the
explosion bloom and the  fade as quickly as it came.

A faint blue aura
ripples and blossoms around the explosion, expanding like a bubble and then
deflating with the pressure wave. It dissipates, leaving a swirling cloud of
smoke and debris.

Gary falls to the
ground, his mask leaking blood from the jawline. Mark catches him as he falls
and lifts him into his arms, calling for help.

Donald, unmistakable by
his bulk, places a hand on Gary's neck, checking for a pulse. He nods, and
motions to the helicopter.

Mark begins carrying
the skinny figure to the helicopter with Stacy running after him.