Kingdom: The Complete Series (26 page)

“
The
King won't give us that chance again – and we'd both better be careful. He
knows us – he knows what makes us tick. Don't be surprised if he tries to use
that against us.”

Mark nods in agreement,
and then rubs his stomach, changing the subject.

“
Food?
We've at least an hour before training starts.””

“
Food.”
Jamie nods, standing up and heading for the canteen's kitchen.

When they make it to
the training hall an hour later, they find the other four squad members sitting
on a bench in their gym kit. The Trespasser stands in front of them, his usual
overalls on, his half-burnt face weary with tiredness.

In the middle of the
hall stands a new, strange assault course. Gone are the walls and rope-bridges,
replaced with structures like tiny hangers, as though they have submerged a
series of giant tin cans in the floor.

“
Boys,
you're late.”

“
I'm
well fed though,” says Mark, and follows Jamie to the bench. “Waiting for us
before you start?”

“
We
have news,” the Trespasser tells them. “Now that the whole squad is here, I can
tell you.”

“
Hey,
where's the assault course?”

“
We
don't need it any more,” says the Trespasser, and takes a breath. “In light of
your performance at George's Square, and the uh,
reassuring
nature with
which you conducted your actions, Command has given us the green light to begin
using your powers during training.”

Mark almost raises his
silver flask in a cheer, but stops when he sees the expression on the
Trespasser's face.

“
Why
aren't we cheering?”

“
Medical
has given us the all clear,” says the Trespasser, “but I want to make myself
very clear. I am not leading you into combat. You are not soldiers. Your powers
have the capacity to save lives and that is what we are training for. You don't
use them unless I give the order, or human life is at stake. If you feel
yourself getting light headed, or feel the pressure building, you stop. You all
know what happens when someone with powers goes too far.”

“
What
kind of training are we talking about here?” asks Donald, looking behind him at
the new, stainless steel assault course.

“
The
research teams have found that your capacity for sustaining your powers grows
as you use them. In other words: you can train them like a muscle.”

Jamie laughs. “Is
that
what all those hours spent catching tennis balls were for?”

“
Think
yourself lucky, they launched them out a cannon for me.” says Gary, leaning
forward to laugh with Jamie.

“
They
put me in a maze,” Cathy throws her hands up. “Why didn't I just get tennis
balls thrown at me?”

Mark points at Cathy,
nodding. “Yeah, I just lifted weights. Why didn't I get tennis balls?”

Trespasser One holds a
hand up and they all fall silent.

“
We
have a new assault course, as you can see. This one is harder – a lot harder –
but you can use your powers. Medical staff will be on constant stand by.”

Jamie raises a hand. “I
thought we were just going to be negotiators when the fire hit.”

“
Agency
negotiators still wear bulletproof vests, Jamie.”

“
You
mean, in case the negotiations don't work out.”

“
Yes.
Which is why Command has made the decision to train you in the usage of your
powers. If it all goes south, at least now we know that you can perhaps prevent
any loss of life – including your own.”

Mark rubs the tiredness
out of his eyes. “So we aren't doing any more humanitarian stuff?”

“
Not
until after the arrival situation is resolved, Mark, no. I'm sorry, but we
can't take risks like that with you guys.”

Mark's shoulders sag,
but he gives a resigned nod.

“
When
do we start?” asks Stacy.

“
Today.
Now, actually. If you'll follow me, I'll show you the new course.”

The Trespasser motions
for them to follow him as he heads for the structures across the hall.

In a flat overlooking
the deserted motorway, a scrawny man with patchy facial hair and a
yellow-stained shirt peers through the gaps in his wooden-boarded window. Below
him, the streets are almost empty in the bright mid-day chill, frost coating
the pavements. The only movement is the occasional duffel-coated roamer,
pushing a shopping trolley filled with bin bags. He watches for the routine
patrol coming past, a dark green land rover covered in armour plating.

It trundles past and he
breathes a sigh of relief, turning back to the grimy flat. He wanders over to a
cupboard and opens it, revealing stacks of ration packs and bottles of liquor:
the spoils of a man with connections in the black market.

There's a polite knock
at his door.

He looks up from a half
opened ration pack – this one claims to be steak and mashed potato. As the
smell of dry-powdered food chokes his runny nostrils, he stares at his own
doorway.

Lifting a crowbar from
the gap between his fridge and his washing machine, he creeps towards the door.
His eyes wander over the four locks, checking that they are all intact before
he raises his eye to the fish-lens to check outside.

As soon as his eye
reaches the lens, the bottom of the wooden door explodes, a sudden burst of
splinters and lead. A slug passes through his kneecap and he screams and falls
backwards.

Lying on the ground
clutching his shattered knee, he can only watch in horror as the demon behind
the doorway smashes the door apart with thunderous strikes.

Once breaks the first
lock.

Twice rips a hole
through the door, and he sees the shining head of a sledgehammer.

He tries to scurry away
on his elbows, gritting his teeth and whimpering.

The third blow shatters
the locks and the door swings open, letting the King's lieutenant waltz in,
stowing the silenced pistol in his coat pocket and swinging his sledgehammer
like a Broadway dancer swings a cane.

He grins as he skips
over the prone man's form. Four men follow him in. The last closes the door
behind them, though the shattered lock doesn't click shut.

“
Gregor?”
Tam grunts through the pain, twisting to body to keep the suited man in view.
“I thought you were dead.”

Gregor smiles at his
own name, his forehead creasing as wrinkles overtake his receding hairline.

“
Silly
Tam,” he mews, swinging the sledgehammer over Tam's face like a pendulum.

Tam winces and looks
around for the crowbar, only to watch a smug man in a long black coat kick it
away. They circle him like hawks, producing a mixture of machetes, claw
hammers, lead pipes and -

Tam swallows, shaking
now.

A nail gun.

Gregor leans over him
like a curious owl. “You ever play chess, Tam?”

“
Look
man, I wouldn't have sold the shit if I knew you guys were still active. You
didn't contact us, nobody knew you were still out there.”

“
You
see, Tam, in chess the game isn't over until the King is
taken off
the
board.”

Gregor produces a black
chess-piece – a King, naturally – from his suit pocket and holds it up in the
light.

“
I
can give you the names of who I sold it to,” whimpers Tam, “you can get your
stuff back. The guns, the chemicals, everything man.”

Gregor continues,
paying no attention to Tam's pleas.

“
Your
mistake, Tam, was that you thought the game was over. You know the difference
between 'check' and 'checkmate' right?”

“
Look
Gregor, please man. Please.” Tam looks up into the cold eyes of the suited man
as his bowels void themselves over the floor.

“
Jesus...”
One of the men screws his face up as he steps aside to escape the expanding
puddle of fear.

“
The
King was merely in
check
, Tam. Threatened. The game isn't over until the
King is put in check
mate
– and things never went that far. They were
never going to.”

Gregor kneels over
Tam's face, producing a second, white King piece from his pocket.

“
Gregor,
I've got money, man. I've got a shit load of money.”

“
I
know,” says Gregor, passing his sledgehammer up to one of his men. He motions
for them to come around, and they kneel beside Tam's head and plant their knees
on either side of his face to stop his head moving. “You got it from selling
things that didn't belong to you. They belonged to the King, Tam.”

Gregor can feel Tam
shaking in fear beneath him. Above them, one of the men raises the sledgehammer
like an executioner.

“
Gregor
man, please.” Tam is almost screaming now. “I'll do anything you want, man,
anything, just please, no -”

Gregor ignores his
pleas as he places the first black chess piece over Tam's screwed-shut eyelid.
Tam struggles as he feels the piece press down on his eyeball, his legs
thrashing and kicking.

“
Shh,”
Gregor tries to calm him, talking with the soothing tones of a doctor. “Shh,
Tam. No more struggling. It's over. Just some pain, then it's over. It won't
take long.”

He gives the signal,
and the man above them brings the sledgehammer down with the precision of a
craftsman, driving the chess piece through Tam's eye.

His scream splits their
ears, and Gregor winces at the sound as he lines up the second piece.

“
Hold
him still, hold him still.”

When the second piece
is driven through his other eye, Tam finally stops struggling.

Dropping the
sledgehammer with a thud, the executioner picks up his nail-gun and leans
forward, pressing it against Tam's forehead and pumping the trigger until it
clicks empty, each nail driving his forehead back against the floor with a pneumatic
hiss.

Gregor stands up,
brushing himself down. Spittle and blood coat his suit jacket and he wipes them
away, clenching his jaw to stop the shaking from the adrenaline.

His men look at him.
“What now, sir?”

“
Hang
him out the window for the city to see.” Gregor shakes himself, producing a
cigarette packet from his pocket and lighting up, taking a long draw to steady
himself. “Then pack your shit up. We've got two more targets before the day's
done.”

“
You
want me to do the tag now, sir?”

“
Yeah,
go ahead.”

One of the men pulls
out a can of spray paint and finds a suitable wall. When he is finished the red
writing drips like blood across a wall covered in yellowed wallpaper from two
decades ago.

It reads:

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy
Will Be Done.

Episode
4

Jagged
Crown

Mark leads the way into
their new assault course: the thick metal door hisses aside as he approaches,
tense and low, his eyes darting around the room as he enters. The layout has
been changed since their last run to keep them on their toes.

“
New
room,” he announces, and stops.

Behind him the rest of
the squad pause, crouching. Peering through the visor of his mask, he takes in
the chamber: it seems plain enough, a steel cube with a slit cut along one wall
and a door straight ahead.

“
I
can feel something behind the wall,” says a nasal female voice.

“
Can
you tell what it is, Stace?”

“
No.
Just that it's mechanical.”

“
Might
be guns,” this comes from Jamie, who turns and finds Gary. He pats him on the
shoulder. “You're up, wee man.”

Gary, staying low like
he was taught, comes to the front of the squad and steps in front of Mark.

“
We'll
go when you're ready, Gary.”

He nods and lowers his
head, focusing. A blue screen of light, like the reflection off the ocean on a
hot day, fades into existence along the middle of the room like a parting wall.
The path to the door is clear.

“
You
first, Mark,” says Jamie, pushing him.

Mark shrugs and jogs
across the room.

Without warning the
wall across from him explodes with sound and light, and he flinches and turns,
braced for the impact of a dozen rubber bullets like the last time.

He opens his eyes and
relaxes as he sees hundreds of tiny plastic ball-bearings bouncing off Gary's
forcefield. He gets to the door and waves the others across. Once the squad has
gathered at the door he opens it and sends them through, pausing only to make
sure that Gary makes it.

“
Whenever
you're ready, Gary, come on.”

Gary moves slowly,
trying to hold his concentration. The guns behind the firing-slit haven't
stopped, their barrels popping like bubble wrap over and over again. Finally,
Mark gets Gary into the cover of the doorway and the forcefield collapses. Gary
leans against the wall as though he has finished a sprint.

“
How's
your head?” asks Stacy.

“
Sore,
but I'll live.” He checks the armband on his left arm: the same one that they
all wear now. It flickers from green to orange, and then back again. “Vitals
are green, I guess?”

“
Good
man,” says Jamie. “Next room.”

“
Oh
I remember this one,” says Cathy as they enter and spread out along the wall.

“
They'll
have changed it somehow,” Donald reminds her. “Trust me.”

This one is a mixture
of various tests. The only way through is a thin corridor, and at the far end
is a camera linked to two guns that will spit pellets at them if they set it
off.

“
Cathy,
you or I could get this one,” says Jamie. “What do you think?” She shuffles
back, folding her arms. “Cathy come on. You need the practice.”

“
I
don't want to let everyone down -”

“
It's
training
, Cath,” says Donald, patting her arm. “Relax.”

“
Ok
fine,” she says. “Everybody hold onto me.”

They grab her arms
wherever they can find a grip, and begin to manoeuvre like a large crab towards
the hallway. As they walk, the camera begins buzzing as it zooms in, focusing -

A fog descends on them.

As though they were
caught in a shock blizzard, the steel walls fade away, leaving them to push
through a dense mist. Cathy has fallen silent, rigid with concentration as she
guides them down the hall. Only when he focuses his eyes can Mark make out the
camera in the distance, obscured by the clouds.

“
That's
it, Cathy,” whispers Donald, squeezing her arm. She shushes him, concentrating.

Halfway there, a break
appears in the fog as though the wind were blowing it away. Cathy stops, one
hand on her head: the fog fades back in.

“
Keep
it together Cath,” says Gary. “We're halfway. That's further than you got last
time.”

Mark hazards a look at
the armband on Cathy's arm and sees it flash from green to orange.

“
My
head,” she groans, stumbling onwards. By now they're supporting her, holding
her up as she stumbles forward. “I can't -”

She drops to her knees
without warning, and the fog dissipates as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving
them visible.

The camera chirps.

The guns click on,
their slides racking back to load.

“
Ah
I hate this bit,” says Gary.

Mark throws himself to
the front of the group, arms spread to cover them as they help Cathy up.

The shots never come.

“
Everybody
go,” says Stacy, her hand outstretched towards the guns. He can hear the strain
in her voice. “Just go.”

Mark turns and helps
Cathy up, lending his immense strength to help push the group up the corridor.
They get to the end and head for the door, getting clear of the guns, before
Mark turns and heads back in.

Jamie grabs his wrist
and stops him.

“
Mark,
I can get Stacy -”

“
I'll
get her – she needs to practice, you don't.”

Shrugging, Jamie nods
and follows the rest through a door, Cathy still clutching her head.

Mark heads back down
the corridor, where Stacy stands with one hand on the wall and another on her
head, trying to feel her way out.

“
Stacy,
I'm here,” he says, getting under her arm and lifting her. “Just try to keep
the guns off, ok?”

She manages a nod, and
Mark notes that her armband's indicator has also turned orange. Together, they
stagger towards the end of the hall. He can hear her grinding her teeth beneath
her mask.

“
Almost
there,” he whispers. “Almost there -”

She lets out a breath
and collapses onto him, clawing at him for purchase. Expecting this, Mark loops
a hand under her limp legs and lifts her, sprinting down the hallway.

The camera chirps. The
guns rack their slides.

He turns his back to
them throws himself the rest of the way, catching the harmless pellets on his
back. Mark doesn't even feel them. Sliding along the floor, he comes to rest
against the bottom of the guns' parapet and stays low, carrying Stacy out
through the open door, beneath the electronic eyes of the cameras.

They meet the others
outside and, as Stacy climbs down from Mark's arms, Jamie grins and high fives
his friend.

Behind them, the others
are leaning on their knees and catching their breath. The warm lights of the
training hall catch the shine of sweat on their foreheads as everybody removes
their masks for air, glad to be out of the halls.

“
Hey,
we made it to the end.”

“
Of
two rooms.” The Trespasser appears behind them, mask off, arms folded.
“Nevertheless, that was good. Nobody's vitals spiked into red, so well done.
You're getting better.”

“
Still
not enough.” says Cathy, still panting and clutching her temples. She gives up
and sits on the ground, sighing, jaw slack from exertion.

“
Cathy
you made it halfway. You did well. It looked better on the cameras too – you
started your thing early enough. We didn't even see anybody's feet in the
camera room.”

She manages an
exacerbated smile and gives him a sarcastic thumbs up. “What does it look like
from outside anyway? Do you see the fog too?”

“
You
vanish. No sight, sound, like you're not there. Infra-red, sonar; nothing; as
if you dropped out the universe.”

“
I
dunno, Cath,” says Gary. “That sounds a bit spooky. Where do you take us?”

“
Bathgate,”
says Mark, chuckling and taking a swig from his flask.

“
That's
not even funny,” says Stacy. “Your jokes get worse the more you drink.”

“
They'd
be worse if I was dead. You know, I also get stronger the more I drink,” Mark
points out. “Which is why I can do things like... oh, carrying you through the
last half of a training room. Whilst getting shot. Just saying.”

“
I
could've made it.”

“
You
swooned into my arms.
Swooned.”

“
Swoon
my arse. I felt light headed.”

“
You
swooned. Just wait until I start wearing my pants outside my overalls and put a
cape on. Everyone'll be swooning then.”

“
Are
we getting capes?” asks Gary, perking up.

“
We're
not getting bloody capes.” Trespasser One sighs. “That was well done by
everybody. Stacy, you've come leaps and bounds. How did it feel?”

“
It's
still easier to make technology work than it is to stop it working.”

“
Practice
makes perfect. Keep using the training dummy we gave you.”

She sighs. “Aye ok.”

“
Donald,
how's your training in medical going?”

“
There
aren't a lot of injured people,” he says, “but there's enough to do that I can
practice.”

The Trespasser almost
says something else, pointing at Gary next – but he stops, lifting a hand to
his earpiece. His eyes deaden and his face drops, his professional demeanour
returning.

“
Oh
no,” says Mark. “I know that look.”

“
Everybody
to the briefing room,” he says, dropping hand. “It's time you all heard this.”

“
-
a spate of brutal murders, likened to ritualistic executions,” says the voice
of the female news presenter as the camera pans over Glasgow in the early
morning frost. “The nature of the killings, and the profiles of those involved,
seem to confirm the fears that official sources have continuously denied: that
the criminal warlord known as the King has indeed escaped custody, and is once
more at large. Plans to reduce the amount of military personnel in the city
have been cancelled in the wake of this news, giving weight to such claims. A
spokesman from the military had this to say -”

The Trespasser turns
off the screen, and silence falls over the room.

“
We
all knew he'd escaped, so this isn't a surprise,” he tells the squad seated in
the plastic chairs. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the murders sooner. The
news won't tell people the details, but I want you guys to know. You deserve to
know; and I don't want you getting a shock if you hear it from somebody else.”

“
I'm
hard to shock,” says Donald.

“
We
aren't all doctors, Don,” says Cathy, folding her arms.

“
The
first victim was a black-market merchant who lived in St George's Cross. He had
his kneecap blown out, two chess pieces – the white and black kings,
respectively – forced into his eye sockets, and was shot seventeen times in the
forehead with a nailgun. Autopsy confirms that the nails came last. He was hung
from his flat's window in full view of the street.”

Mark leans forward,
clasping his hands in front of his face.

“
The
second victim was a man who used to run a garage for the King. His jaw was
forcibly removed from his head and his tongue attached to his chest with –
again – a nail gun. He either drowned on his own blood, or died when a playing
card – the King of Spades – was nailed into his left eye.”

Jamie looks up. “He
used to run a garage?”

“
Yes.
For the King.”

“
Huh.
I probably knew the poor bastard.”

“
I
have his name if you want -”

“
No.”
Jamie raises a hand. “Better that I don't know.”

“
As
you wish.” The Trespasser continues to read off the horrifying murder accounts
as though he were reciting a poem. “The third victim was a police officer under
investigation for his involvement in the Kingdom Project. He was presumably
forced to wear a steel crown which had been sharpened and was too small for his
skull. They put it on him upside down, whereupon it was then hammered onto his
head until it began to cut through his forehead, his eyebrows, and eventually
his nose, shearing them off. The killing blow was delivered with a sledgehammer
to the back of the skull, rendering the crown almost impossible to remove.”