Kingdom: The Complete Series (52 page)

“
Look
what I found in the cupboard,” she says, and attempts a smile. “Should help us
sleep if nothing else.”

“
I
don't want any,” he says, staring at his phone.

“
Well
that's very well Mark,” she sighs, “but you
need
it, so shut up and take
a bottle.”

He doesn't look up as
she offers it to him, his gaze fixed on the phone.

“
Fine,”
she sighs, and tosses it into his lap. “What are you reading about?”

“
Nuclear
bombs.”

She gives him a look
that he doesn't see. “Nice cheery topic then.”

“
I'm
trying to figure out if I could survive one.”

“
And
could you?”

“
Well,
comparing the force required to break my skin when I'm only tipsy to the force
of, say, a ten kilo-ton nuclear explosion is fairly hard maths to do mentally.”

“
Doesn't
your phone have a calculator?”

“
Well
yeah but it doesn't do scientific notation Stace.”

He hasn't looked up
yet.

“
Uh,
Mark?”

“
Hm?”

“
Why
are
you looking this up?”

“
Because
the Kingdom is going to happen.”

She squints. “And
you're going to nuke the King?”

“
No”,
he says. “But the rest of the world might.”

“
Ah,
so you're wondering if you could survive it?”

“
I'm
wondering,” he finally looks up, and she sees the dark rings around his eyes,
“if
he
could.”

“
Could
he?”

He goes back to the
phone. “Haven't figured that out yet.”

She unscrews the top of
her bottle and takes a swig, grimacing. “Ugh, it tastes like feet.”

He doesn't respond.

“
Hey,
Mark?”

“
Hm?”

“
Like
– what if he
can
survive it?
”

“
That's
what I'm worried about.” he says, and with a sigh he turns the phone off and
looks up at her, two silhouettes in the gloom. “If the biggest bombs that
mankind has can't kill him, then he will, eventually, take over the entire
world. Through attrition more than anything else. Humanity would be powerless.”

“
They'd
think of something.”

“
I
hope so,” he says.

The phone lights up
again, exposing the kind smiles on both of their faces.

“
Text?”
she asks.

“
From
Chloe,” he growls. “Again. I wish they'd leave me -” he stops talking as the
words nail themselves to his eyes. “Oh.”

“
What?
Don't just 'oh' me, you know I hate that -”

“
It's
happening. It's happening right now.”

“
What
is?”

“
The
Kingdom. Do you know the rough direction of the BBC building? The one by the
Clyde?”

“
Uh,
kinda, roughly. Use the map on your phone Mark, jesus, it's not the nineties.”

“
Good
point,” he says. “Ok..”

He stands up and takes
a deep breath as though he's about to plunge into the ocean.

“
I
hope this is worth it,” he whispers, with an open-handed slap, knocks the top
of the wine bottle off, sending shards of glass across the room. Mark downs the
bottle in a matter of seconds before reaching down and taking Stacy's bottle
from her flinching hand.

“
Sorry,”
he mumbles as he punches the top off of it and empties it into his open mouth.

Wine and drool run in
wiry rivers through his beard, drenching it. Stacy stands up, brushing herself
down in the darkness.

“
I'm
not sitting another one out,” she says. “Is this it? Are we going to get the
King?”

“
Yeah,”
he says, and turns to her, their faces hidden by the night. “If you want to
come with me, I'm going to have to jump with you.”

“
That's
fine,” she says.

“
It's
kinda scary. We're gonna be really high up.”

“
I'll
close my eyes.”

“
If
you vomit on me I swear -”

“
You
smell like piss and vomit anyway, man.”

He shrugs, and sweeps
her off her feet like an eager groom. She laces her hands around his neck and
buries her head in his chest.

“
Let's
go then,” he says, and walks with her in his arms to the front door.

He kicks it open, and
is careful not to hit her head as he walks out into the dark street.

“
Ok,”
she says, pulling her phone from her pocket as he starts to swagger down the
empty, moonlit road. “Turn like, thirty degrees right.”

Mark does a ninety
degree turn.

“
No,
no,” she sighs, “like half of that.”

“
Right
direction?”

“
Let
me put my phone away first.”

She stuffs it in her
pocket, fastens her coat, and holds on. Gritting her teeth and closing her
eyes, she grimaces against his neck.

He can feel her
shaking.

“
You
sure about this?” he asks. “We could get a taxi -”

“
Out
here? No chance. Just jump before I change my -”

“
Ok.”

There's a deep boom,
followed by the echo of a woman screaming.

The BBC building
overlooks the River Clyde, a dark churning vein running through the heart of
the city. Its lights sparkle in the murk of the river like stars in the sky.
Two cars screech to a stop outside, on the pavement, and their doors are flung
open.

Jamie follows the
Trespasser out of the car, wincing at the cold as the squad converges on the
large glass doors leading into the lobby. The doors open automatically,
beckoning them inside to the cavernous, colourful room, filled with stairs and
pillars and the scent of coffee.

“
There's
nobody here,” says Jamie, looking around.

The squad draw to a
stop, and as they examine the scene the little details come together.

One glass panel has a
crack in it, at head height.

Two bullet holes in a
chair, a smear of red on the ground.

Brass casings from
fired rounds catch the light.

A single paper cup with
its still-steaming contents strewn across the ground.

“
We're
too late,” whispers Cathy. “He's here.”

“
Not
just him,” says the Trespasser. “He wouldn't need to use a gun, and those are
rifle rounds. Seven point six two, probably assault rifles. He has his soldiers
with him.”

Donald steps back,
closer to the squad. “Where are all the people?”

 “
Best
guess?” says the Trespasser. “Hostages. Worst guess, dead.”

Then the ground
trembles, and a cloud of dust and debris billows outside, in the car park.

Trespasser One drops to
his knees, spinning and aiming his shotgun out through the glass panels of the
building.

Gary throws a
forcefield around them, a thin film of blue light. “Oh shit, it's him, it's the
King -”

“
Easy,
Gary,” says Jamie, smiling as he sees the figure emerging from the dust.
“Easy.”

It's Mark, bearded and
staggering, carrying Stacy in his arms like a sleeping child. He sets her down
on uneasy legs and together, they walk through the door, eyebrows raised as
they meet their old squad again.

“
Am
I late for the reunion?” slurs Mark, one eye half-shut.

Jamie storms across the
room and embraces him, laughing.

In the atrium above the
squad stands a line of men and women in long black coats, each cradling a
stubby assault rifle. Row after row of them file around the banisters in
silence as the squad exchange pleasantries below them. Walking amongst their
ranks like an inspector, in a three piece suit and a long coat of his own, is a
gangly man with a pale face and thin, greasy hair.

He lifts a small radio
to his rubbery lips.

“
King,”
he murmurs. “This is Gregor. They've come like you suspected.”

The voice of the King
comes back, heated with anticipation.

“
Wonderful,
Gregor. End them.”

“
Of
course, sir. It may be best to begin your transmission now.”

Gregor stows away his
radio, cracks his knuckles and allows himself to enjoy a grim smile. Catching
the eyes of his legion, he draws his fingers across his neck and raises three
fingers, counting down in silence.

Three.

Two.

One.

He drops his hand, and
his soldiers step forward.

Sixty assault rifles
open fire on the squad below.

Episode
5

Foundations

Mark is too concerned
with the warm reception from his old friends – all smiles and arm-patting –
that he almost ignores Stacy. Only the urgency in her voice shocks him out of
the moment.

“
Guys,”
she comes between Mark and Jamie, flapping her hands at the rest of the squad.
“Guys, I can feel guns, there's guns near us, lots of them -”

Trespasser One acts on
training. He grabs Gary:

“
Forcefield,
son,
now -”

The words are barely
out before the first shots hit. Ricochets kick up the floor at their feet in
puffs of smoke; Mark grabs Stacy and spins around, shielding her.

Gary gets the
forcefield up, brought to his knees by the force of every impact. His blue
bubble cracks and trembles like ice, colour and light cascading around them as
a thunderstorm of gunfire falls on their heads.

“
Cath,”
shouts the Trespasser, grabbing the older woman by the shoulder. “Get a hold of
everyone and get ready -”

Stacy stops them,
shaking her head.

“
Wait,
I can do this. I can – just -”

She grabs Mark's hand
out of instinct and squeezes tight, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth.

A single trickle of
blood runs from her nose.

“
Stace
-” begins Gary.

Then the noise stops as
though a blade has cut it. A soft rattle of mechanical grinding and clattering
echoes through the lobby, and then the confused shouting.

“
I've
broke their guns. Go,” mutters Stacy, hands still on her head.

Gary drops the
forcefield and the Trespasser motions upward, giving the order.

“
Take
them,” he shouts, and storms the stairs.

Gregor, the King's
right hand man, watches in amusement as Mark leaps from the lobby up into the
atrium, smashing through the glass and steel banister and tumbling into a desperate
group of armed men. They try to club him with their rifles, which clatter off
his shoulders like toys before he floors them each with a series of wild
drunken punches.

All along the C-curve
of the upper level stand confused and angry shooters, fumbling with magazines
and trying to unjam rifles that have taken on a mind of their own. They look to
Gregor for guidance, and he gives them a winning smile that offers nothing.

Gregor watches, his
hands still comfortable behind his back, as Mark crashes into another pair of
men like a bowling ball, knocking one out with a single headbutt and grabbing
the other by the collar, throwing him across the atrium and into a wall.

Over the other end, a
man in full Trespasser combat armour is using a shotgun like a baton, and
clubbing Gregor's men to the ground as they try to attack him. Beside him is a
flickering, teleporting man in a long coat, bending a lead pipe over the bones
of his legion.

Gregor chuckles, amused
at the scene. Like a spectator he watches the battle rage. His men try to go
for pistols and side-arms, but nothing works; guns jam and click empty, slides
and triggers come loose and fall apart.

Three of Gregor's
soldiers go for a short, scrawny looking lad and the older, more rotund man
beside him; the small figure extends his hand, and a blue wall of force crashes
into his attackers, knocking them onto their backs.

Two men go sailing past
Gregor, who flinches a little. Their screams stop when they hit the
plaster-white wall and crumple together. Gregor turns around, and finds himself
staring Mark in the eye. He smiles.

“
No
introduction needed” he says. “We've met before.”

Mark is bent over,
staring up at him with his fists clenched, anger shining through his bared
teeth.

“
You,”
he says, narrowing his eyes. “You were the tramp in the Gardens.”

“
Mhm.
Gassed you and brought your life's work crashing down on top of you.”

Mark doesn't bother
with threats or one liners – he snarls and leaps.

Without losing his
smirk, Gregor drops his hands and opens them wide, palms facing towards Mark. A
rippling wall of force tears the air apart with a low boom, and Mark is thrown
back with such force that he crashes through the white pillars before leaving a
deep indent in a wall and tumbling out, struggling for balance.

Gregor shivers with
anticipation, licking his lips.

“
Oh
I've been waiting to let this out,” he sighs, rubbing his neck like an aching
athlete.

The sounds of battle
fade away – only a gurgling protest comes from one of Gregor's men, before
Trespasser One smashes his jaw with the handle of his shotgun.

One by one, as Mark
gets to his feet across the wide open hall, the eyes of the squad fall on
Gregor, who is waiting patiently.

They converge on him
carefully, all apart from Stacy who stays on the lower floor, keeping the guns
jammed.

“
Interesting
to watch,” he says, projecting his voice like a priest. It echoes around the
silent, plaster-cavern, and he has the attention of the squad; even the mousy
brunette crouched in the lobby in her winter coat, blood trickling from her
nose. “Very interesting.”

He gives them a
sarcastic clap, shaking his head and laughing.

Mark shouts over him,
to the rest of the squad.

“
He's
the one,” he tells them, pointing. “He brought the Gardens down on top of me.”

Jamie flickers and
reappears behind Gregor, bringing the lead pipe in a wide arc towards his
skull.

Before it connects, a
bubble of force pulses around Gregor and throws Jamie back into a wall. He
tumbles to the ground with a painting that was hanging there, and the smash of
the glass breaks the moment.

Trespasser One takes
aim and fires twice from his shotgun, moving towards Gregor as he unloads his
weapon. It clicks empty, and he drops it and charges.

Palms towards the
Trespasser, Gregor throws out waves of trembling air, scattering the shot into
the walls. Gregor aims a blast at the Trespasser's head and lets it go, but at
a flat sprint the Trespasser drops to his knees like a dancer and slides. The
blast ruffles the hair on his head and as he skids towards Gregor, clenching
his fist.

Rising under Gregor's
guard, Trespasser One snaps his head back with an uppercut – his brass knuckles
cut Gregor's jaw open and blood flies upwards like a fountain. Out of instinct,
Gregor puts a hand on Trespasser One's armour and pushes him back with a wild,
instinctual blast of force.

Trespasser One spins
through the air like a ragdoll before slamming against a wall and staying
there, lodged in the plasterwork like a taxidermy, unmoving.

Gregor laughs and
massages his bleeding jaw; he peers over the smashed banisters at Stacy below
him, still struggling for breath on the floor after using her powers. He aims
an open-palmed blast at her and lets it loose.

A roaring freight train
of raw force barrels towards Stacy, who scrambles to try and escape it. Blue
force blooms around her, and windows and glass throughout the lobby shatter as
the two forces clash.

Gregor looks around for
her protector, and sees Gary's scrawny frame in the dust of the atrium. Gary
puts a hand on his head and motions his arm as if he's throwing something – too
late Gregor sees the wall of blue force screaming towards him, and Gary's
bubble hits him like a car, knocking him off his feet.

He tumbles, scrambling
to his feet in time to see Mark pounce through the broken pillars and hit him
in the chest with a punch that breaks ribs and throws him back against the
wall, spluttering blood.

Gregor slides down the
wall, pawing at his chest in silence, his breath gone.

Mark stands above him,
fists clenched, and lowers his voice.

“
Horrible
feeling isn't it?” he murmurs. “Not being able to breathe.”

Donald and Cath
materialise next to Trespasser One, pulling him out of the plasterboard as
Donald lays his hands on his chest. Stacy and Gary lift Jamie off the ground,
his arms around their shoulders as he fades in and out of consciousness.

Bodies litter the floor
of the atrium, dust wafting up from the lobby like steam. Mark stands like a
statue over Gregor, who has sank to his lowest and looks up at Mark, fighting
for breath.

“
What's
the King planning?” asks Mark.

“
Too
late to stop anything anyway,” says Gregor, giving him a spluttering laugh.
“The police in this city are all dead. Most of them, I guess. Not a lot you
guys can do either.”

“
We
might surprise you yet.”

Gary and Stacy are
helping Jamie over to Donald, motioning to him for help. Cathy stands up, one
hand on the little earbud in her helmet.

“
Mark,”
she says, walking over to him. “Chloe is on the comms, she says that there's a
broadcast going out. It's the King.”

“
He's
in the studio?”

Cathy nods.

Gregor looks up at Mark
and laughs.

“
Go,”
he wheezes. “Try and stop him. He'll kill you one way or another. Today.
Tomorrow. It doesn't matter.”

“
Mark,”
whispers Cath, touching his arm. He turns around. “We're in no condition to
fight the King. He nearly beat us last time, we've got men down -”

“
I
know,” says Mark. “Get everybody out of here. Get out of Glasgow. Tell Chloe to
do the same.”

Stacy looks up from
Jamie's prone form as Donald lays his hands on him.

“
We
can't leave,” she says. “The King can't win after all this.”

Gregor wheezes again.
“He already has -”

Mark silences him with
a brief, brutal kick to the chest. Gregor goes limp, his head lolling forward.

“
He
isn't going to win,” says Mark. “But we're in a mess right now. Get everybody
out of Glasgow. We can come back when we're ready, when we can
win.”

It's Jamie who answers
him, sitting up with Donald's hand on his shoulder.

“
We
can win now,” he grunts.

“
Mate,
no,” says Mark. “Look, we're all angry, but this guy nearly killed us all
before
he had powers.”

“
Give
me one second with him and I'll jam a gun down his throat and unload it,” says
Jamie. “See how invincible his insides are.”

He starts to check the
load on his revolver.

“
You
saw this guy move, Jamie,” says Gary, shaking his head. “Mark's right, we
should regroup. You just got knocked out, man, we need -”

Jamie snaps the
revolver shut. “Wasn't asking.”

Then he flickers and
vanishes.

“
Shit,”
hisses Mark, and turns to Stacy. “Stace, get everyone out of here – out of
Glasgow, do it.”

“
We
can't
just leave -”

Mark doesn't hear her,
and starts running for the doors to the studios.

Stacy and Gary look at
each other, then at Gregor, unconscious against the wall.

Cathy and Donald help
Trespasser One up, who groans and lifts his mask off his face. He picks up his
shotgun, stepping over the scattered, unconscious bodies of the King's men, and
begins thumbing shells into his shotgun.

“
Trespasser?”
asks Stacy, ruffling her jacket. “You're not going to leave Glasgow, are you?”

He finishes loading and
racks the slide.

“
Like
hell I am.” His voice is coarse, the wind still knocked out of him. “Follow
me.”

He leads them after
Mark, towards the stairs leading up to the studio.

Jamie has seen the BBC
newsroom more times than he can count – the red panels and rows of computer
desks frame a familiar podium. His footsteps on the carpet are drowned out by a
loud, sonorous monologue echoing through the room. Jamie cocks the hammer on
the revolver and stalks through the desks, averting his gaze from the man
standing at the podium giving his speech to the cameras.

He can hear the words
as he steps over bodies riddled with claret stains and bullet holes.

“
No
longer,” announces the King to an array of unmanned cameras. “No longer will
the Kingdom be a shared secret. No longer will Glasgow's true benefactors hide
away in the shadows. Bullets and bombs cannot stop me. Politics and sanctions
cannot stop me. When the sun comes up, those of you who remain loyal, who
remain within the city centre...” he takes a breath and Jamie hears the
contented joy in his voice. “You will wake up to a new world – a changed world
– where the only suffering is necessary suffering. Where the only crime is that
which I allow – where the only victims are those who deserve it. Citizens of
Glasgow, you have until sunrise to make your choice. As soon as light falls
upon Glasgow; nobody will be entering or leaving, upon pain of death. Together
we will build a world we can all be proud of, where people are at their best.”