Kingdom: The Complete Series (36 page)

Mark nods his head,
taking a breath as though he is about to plunge underwater. “I'm ready.”

Time snaps back into
flow, and the Trespasser takes his finger from his ear and turns to the alien.

“
Ok,”
he says, shaking the nervousness from his bones. “How long do we have, and what
do we have to do to beat this thing?”

The man-shape rotates
without moving its legs, and raises its arm to motion them in closer.

“
We
have an hour and twenty two minutes, roughly. As for how we defeat it: gather
round, and I will tell you.”

Episode
10

Betrayal

Gregor strains his
ears, listening: a door creaks open somewhere in the facility, and footsteps
echo through the damp concrete, a faint pitter-patter like raindrops. As they
pass he closes his eyes, counting three – no, four people.

They are whispering
among themselves, though he can't hear what they're saying. The tone of their
voices betrays a conspiracy; or a rebellion.

Silence settles in
again, and he lays his head back on the pillow, concentrating on the other
sounds. Above him, through the protective dirt layers of their bunker, he can
hear jet aircraft streaking through the sky, and heavily armoured vehicles
rocking the earth with their tracks.

Gregor tries to connect
the dots as he listens:

Twenty men and women
left the bunker to capture the people hit by the second arrival – to capture
those with powers. Four have returned, and now the military has taken the city
as though war has been declared.

Something has gone
terribly wrong.

Wincing at his broken
ribs, Gregor reaches under his pillow. His hand closes around the cold metal
grip of his silenced pistol. He holds it in front of his eyes, checks the load
in the magazine, and flicks the safety off.

Sliding his hands under
the thin, rough blanket that is draped over him, he rests his head back; to all
the world, he looks like an injured man sleeping through his pain in a rickety
hospital bed. The pistol waits under the covers, like a shark.

Focusing his mind, he
lets the sounds haunting the facility filter into his ears. There is shouting,
somewhere. The argument is escalating – he hears something smash and tenses up.
Everything in his bones urges him to get out of bed and go to the King's aid:
but with his broken body, he is of no use.

The shouting stops –
for a moment, he wonders if the King has talked them down. Then there is one
long burst of angered monologue, followed by a strangled cough.

Then silence.

Gregor opens his eyes,
feeling a warm tear well at the edge. Footsteps click-clack like hooves through
the stone corridors – four sets of them. Hidden beneath the blanket, he readies
his pistol.

The door to the medical
room creaks open and a stout, heavy woman with an under-bite like a bulldog and
a bright red face comes in, holding a pump-action shotgun at the ready. Three
men in long black identical coats follow behind her, clearing and securing the
room.

“
He's
alone,” says one of the men, a grey-haired veteran that Gregor knows well. He
puts his hands in his pockets, and the bulldog-lady rests the shotgun over her
shoulder.

Like student-doctors,
they gather around his bed.

Gregor watches them,
his finger tense against the trigger under the covers.

“
You
look terrible, son,” says the bulldog, her voice like a crow with a forty-a-day
habit.

“
I've
felt better,” Gregor rasps. “What happened?”

“
It
all went to hell,” says the grey-haired man, sadness clouding his boyish
features. “Some glowing alien bullshit killed the others.” He takes his hands
from his pocket and opens them as though he is miming a firework going off.
“Flash. Dead.”

“
You
retreated?”

“
No
need for us to die Gregor,” the bulldog rasps. “The arrival was a bust. No new
powered people. Nothing.”

“
So?”
asks Gregor, wheezing through his crushed lungs. “You had orders.”

“
Which
became null and void. Can you hear that racket out there?”

“
Military,”
says Gregor, nodding.

“
Glasgow
is a lost cause, man,” says the grey one. The other two begin to open cabinets
and stuff medicine and bottles into bags. “Whatever is about to happen, it's
bad enough that they've started moving civilians out of the city centre.
They're using the subway tunnels and everything. It's all gone to shit.”

“
What
Paul is trying to say,” she says, “is that it's over. We're leaving the city.
We wanted to ask you to join us.”

“
Leave
the city?” asks Gregor, sneering. “Have you lost your minds? This is our
Kingdom -”

“
Aye,
aye,” Paul sighs. “The Kingdom and all that.” He gives Gregor a sympathetic
smile. “That's over, Gregor. It's not happening.”

“
And
the King?” asks Gregor. “What did he think of this idea?”

The bulldog waves his
question away.

“
It
doesn't matter – all you need to know is that we're leaving. We could make a
lot of money, us five. We've got the skills and the connections -”

“
What
did he think?” asks Gregor, sterner this time.

“
Greg,
man,” Paul puts a hand on his shoulder. “That guy stood on your broken ribs
because you made an honest mistake. What do you care what happened to him?”

Gregor can feel himself
shaking, his lips twisting in anger and grief.

“
What
did you do to him?”

“
What
he would have done to you – or us,” says the bulldog, shrugging. “He's past it,
Gregor.”

Gregor shouts, shaking.
“What did you do to him?”

The men packing the
medicine bags stop and turn around.

“
Here
Paul, maybe we should leave him.”

“
Shut
up and keep packing,” he replies without turning around.

“
Gregor
you can't still believe in all this Kingdom shite, surely,” says the bulldog,
stepping in closer and cocking her head. “It was a great idea to start with,
but after the investors got shafted... we don't have anything left. We're just
criminals now. It was never going to work after those superhero pricks got
involved.”

Gregor lowers his head
and closes his eyes, fighting back angry tears.

“
What,”
he whispers, “did you do to the King?”

“
I
put a knife between his ribs,” says Paul, his hands still in his pockets.

“
Traitor,”
says Gregor, his voice a low growl. Between heavy breaths he looks around the
room at the four betrayers. “You never believed in the Kingdom. You never had
faith.”

“
Did
any of us?” asks the bulldog.

“
Yes,”
Gregor snarls. “I did.”

They all see the
blankets shift, forming around the outline of a hidden pistol.

Too late, they realise
what Gregor has done.

The first round burns a
hole in the thin white sheet and passes through the bulldog's flabby neck. With
a splutter she drops the shotgun and clutches her throat, falling to the floor.

Gregor turns the pistol
with his gaze, aiming it blind. The second round misses Paul, who is still
fighting to get his hands out of his pockets as the third and fourth round
punch through his grey suit. He crumples like a paper bag.

One of the younger men
drops his medicine bag and it smashes on the ground. He reaches into his suit,
grabbing a cheap old pistol. Two rounds rip the side out of his thigh, and an
arterial spray of blood coats the ground as his femoral artery bursts open. His
eyes roll back in his head as his blood pressure flat-lines, leaving only his
unarmed friend.

The last one raises his
hands in surrender and falls back on to the ground, clutching his medicine bag.
Gregor keeps the shape beneath the blanket pointed at him as he eases himself
out of the bed, groaning with the pain.

Whimpering on the
ground, the last survivor watches him pause at the bed's edge for a full minute
before finally mustering the strength to stand on his own. Gregor sways back
and forth, his hand out for balance, the pistol hanging from his fingers as
though he is asleep on his feet.

He steadies himself and
looks up, his burning gaze falling upon the shivering figure on the floor.

With a snarl, Gregor
begins to shuffle towards him.

“
Gregor,
please man,” the survivor whispers, his voice caught behind the fear in his
throat.

“
Don't
speak.” says Gregor, taking shallow breaths to save himself the pain in his
lungs. “Nothing you can say will make this better.”

“
Take
the medicine,” the man holds out the bag. “Take it all, I don't care.”

“
I'll
be taking it anyway.”

“
The
money then. I've got money -”

“
Do
you know how many people,” says Gregor, sighing with weariness, “try to buy
their lives back from me? I've killed dozens of people, son. If you could buy
your way out of it, I wouldn't need money in the first place.”

The man says nothing.
His shoulders sag as he realises what is happening.

“
I'm
sorry,” he offers.

“
This
was only ever about money to you people. None of you ever believed that we
could make a better world.”

“
A
better world?” the man asks, incredulous. “Gregor we're like the fucking mafia,
since when were we trying to make a better world? We hurt people, we kill
people, we extort people, and we control people. We don't help anybody.”

“
There
was a time,” Gregor raises a hand for silence, “when we did. Before you joined;
before you, with your filth and your greed, joined. Rotten souls, men and women
without principles or morals. The King made Glasgow a better place, son. Before
you.”

Gregor raises the
pistol, pointing it at the man's heart. The young man flinches back, trying to
put the medicine bag between him and the waiting bullet.

“
The
King never made money off of this city. He put it all back into making sure it
ran correctly. A benevolent dictator, an all powerful ruler making the right
decisions for the good of the people. Not the easy decisions, but the right
ones. A perfect system. In time, a perfect world. A world without crime –
without corruption – except for that which the King – the Kings – allowed.”

“
Gregor
man,” the man whispers. “You've lost it.”

“
No,
I'm as sane as can be,” he smiles. “You – and people like you – are what the
Kingdom was designed to wipe out. People are inherently scum, son. They are
wicked creatures bent only on satisfying their own base needs. They need to be
controlled – through whatever means necessary; and when they can't be
controlled...” Gregor reaches in and, as though taking a dangerous weapon from
a naïve child, lifts the medicine bag from the shivering man. “When they can't
be controlled? You have to kill them. For the greater good, son. For the
Kingdom.”

Gregor empties the rest
of the pistol's magazine into the man, who cries out and jerks like a puppet on
a string as each round punches through his skin. Gregor pulls the trigger until
it clicks, then drops it.

He takes the bag, walks
through the door and, clutching his ribs, heads for the King's office.

“
My
King,” he gasps, and drops to his knees beside the bloodied figure.

The King is propped up
against the concrete wall with a knife jammed through his blue suit jacket, up
to the hilt in his ribs. His legs are splayed out on the floor, showing his
socks and some pale, wiry-haired skin. At his sides, his hands lay palm up,
open and empty. A pool of blood has stained the seat of his trousers.

He can barely lift his
head, so Gregor lifts it for him and checks for a pulse in his neck. It's
shallow, but it's there.

“
I'm
so sorry,” whispers Gregor as he opens the suit jacket to get a look at the
knife. The shirt around it is torn and stained a sick, dark purple. “I should
have been here. I could have stopped this.”

With a wheezing cough,
the King awakens. Gregor grabs his shoulders as the King's eyes open, his
entire body racked by the spluttering.

“
You're
awake,” says Gregor, grinning. He turns around and rummages in the bag,
searching for the pain killers. He finds a morphine injector and pats the
King's leg. “Sorry about this.”

He jams it into his
thigh and the King lurches forward, wheezing something through his gritted
teeth.

“
It
should start to feel better soon. There should be some bandages in here, I'm
going to need to take the knife out -”

The King springs to
life, and grabs Gregor's hand. Shocked, Gregor stops and stares into the King's
half-shut eyes, his pupils like black holes.

“
Leave
it,” the King wheezes.

“
Your
right,” says Gregor, pausing. “It might be the only thing stopping internal
bleeding. I need to get you to a hospital.”