Kingdom: The Complete Series (60 page)

Stacy pats Mark's chest
as they soar into the open sky.

“
Mark,”
she urges him, and they slow to a standstill.

“
What?”

“
There's
more than one plane. I can feel them – faster, smaller. Fighter jets, I think.”

“
Escorts.
Ok, well, most planes have heat seaking missiles right? I'm pretty cold.”

“
Mark
they'll kill us. What do we do?”

He thinks for a moment.
“How far away are they?”

“
A
minute, tops.”

“
How's
your power feeling?”

“
I
dunno, the same as always?”

“
Reckon
you can stop two fighter jets from firing their weapons?”

“
I
– I don't know -”

Mark kisses her again,
and her doubt melts away as the sun rises, bathing them both in its warmth.

“
Just
try your best, I've got us anyway.”

“
Ok,”
she says. “Wait, I think my phone is going.”

“
Is
it Chloe?”

“
Yeah,”
says Stacy, pulling the earpiece out and putting it on. “Hello?”

Mark watches her
expression change as she listens.

“
What
are they saying?”

“
That
there's two escort jets.”

“
Tell
them we know. We're continuing anyway. Stay in touch with them.”

She nods, and they
rocket into the sky again.

The King stands at the
top of Buchanan Street, in front of the steps of the Concert Hall, arms spread
wide and looking up at the sky. In the early morning silence he can hear the
drone of engines somewhere in the sky, far off.

“
Here
comes the second sunrise,” he whispers to himself, grinning.

Stacy clings to Mark as
he lifts his head, sending them soaring into the upper sky, where the air is
thin and Stacy finds herself getting shockingly cold and light headed, as
though she's running a brutal fever.

Then she feels it; the
inner workings of the machines rocketing towards them, two small and angry
attack dogs flanking a large bull: escort fighter jets and a bomber.

Sick and woozy, she
opens her eyes for a moment and sees them bearing down on her in the distance;
already she can hear the air tearing itself apart as they approach.

Mark is hovering with
her in his arms, right in their path, staring them down.

Trespasser One's phone
rings again, and this time he takes one of Chloe's earpieces and attaches it
under his face mask.

“
Trespasser
One.”

“
Soldier,”
comes
the voice of Command, the Agency's commander.
“Why are my pilots reporting
an unknown flying object standing directly in their flight path wearing what
appears to be a cape?”

“
I
wouldn't know anything about that sir.”

“
Trespasser
One I swear to god -”

“
Drop
the bomb, Command. Just trust me. But if you fire on that caped man, you're
going to lose those planes.”

“
Is
that a threat, son? You gone native on us again?”

“
No
sir. That's me telling you that there's a young woman up there who can
manipulate technology, and if you so much as try to lock a missile or fire up a
canon, I will instruct her to pop the god damn ejector seats on both your
pilots. We on the same page here?”

There's silence from
Command.

“
Drop
the bomb if you have to, Command. We've got this. Trespasser One out.”

Stacy screams Mark's
name as the fighter jets pass them by, ripping the air apart and leaving a
trail of jet fuel and burning oxygen. The smell fills Stacy's nose and makes
her want to wretch.

Then comes the bomber.

She feels it like a
relentless wave of machinery bearing down on her, millions of moving parts all
interconnected, from turbines to tiny mechanical switches and cogs, a multitude
of sensations.

One sticks out at her,
a release like cutting off a growth. It feels like finally vomiting up poison.

Something strange,
something wrong, leaves the plane and falls away.

“
Mark,”
she shouts as the bomber passes them by. “Mark, the bomb, they've dropped the
bomb.”

The bomber scythes
through the air above them.

Mark grips her and
whispers in her ear:

“
Hold
on tight.”

Then he drops, and
Stacy screams as they plummet after the bomb.

Mark races after the
bomb, an angular white cuboid with a fin like a torpedo, plummeting towards the
city he has given his life to over and over again. Stacy scrabbles at him for
grip as they race downwards, and he holds her close with one arm whilst his
other punches a clear path through the air ahead of him.

The bomb is falling as
fast as it's going to, and Mark pushes himself, feeling the fire ignite inside
him as he shoots through the air after it.

Stacy is screaming
something, but he can't hear her. Contrails are burning off his shoulders, the
air buffeting him, pulling at him, trying to slow him and throw him off course.

There's a bang that
pops Mark's ears, and then all the noise, all the shaking and trembling, stops.
It passes, and there's just the straight path down. Smooth.

The bomb races up
towards him now, and he realises what just happened.

Mach One.

Supersonic.

The King hears the
tearing sonic boom as the fighter jets pass above, and smiles. People are
coming out of the shops, coming into the streets to see what the noise is. He
sees panic on their faces, and they look at him. Glasgow is waking up.

“
It's
ok,” he tells them, his voice booming down the streets. “You won't feel a
thing.”

He ignores their panic,
the urgent cries to get out of the city, to get to cover. The King hears the
drone of the bomber fade into the distance.

Neutron bombs, he
knows, are set off high above their intended target.

Meaning it's only a
matter of seconds now.

Then the world will see
that there's no stopping him.

Not now.

Not ever.

The King hears
something like a ripping gunshot, like the air cracking apart, and looks up
with anger and confusion in his eyes.

He knows a sonic boom
when he hears one, and he's already heard two from the jets.

That was a third.

Stacy is banging on his
armour, trying to get his attention. Mark catches up to the bomb and grasps it
by the fins, keeping his speed even with it. As he slows down, the air tugs and
pulls at him again. Glasgow is not so far away now, visible through the gaps in
the clouds.

“
Don't
do that,” shouts Stacy as he steadies them at the bomb.

“
What?”
he shouts over the rush of air.

“
Don't
go supersonic, it hurts like fu -”

They pass through the
clouds, and Stacy screams out of reflex.

“
Stace,
Stace,” he calms her, pulling her in tight. “Ok, you need to do your thing.
Turn it off.”

“
I'm
trying,” she groans. “Give me a minute.”

Stacy reaches out with
her mind, feeling the myriad of tiny moving parts, some electronic, some
mechanical. There's something counting down, she feels, something clicking
faster and faster.

Radar altimeter.
Clicking faster and faster until it's a constant signal.

Then detonation.

It's already a rapid
snare, clicking over and over like a field of crickets in her skull.

Fear strikes her,
paralysing her.

The bomb is going to go
off and her and Mark will be turned to ash in a split second. It could happen
at any moment and she won't even feel it.

She feels Mark
squeezing her hand, and her head is nestled beside his ear. Her eyes open, and
she finds herself staring up into a gorgeous sky filled with misty, rolling
clouds, baby blue peaking out behind it.

“
Focus,”
he shouts.

Seconds left.

Stacy reaches into the
bomb with her mind. There's a relay that is waiting to close as soon as it gets
the continuous signal. One domino that, once tipped over, will start the entire
reaction, activating the neutron gun and turning the ball of plutonium into
intense, focused heat and radiation.

There's nothing else
she can do.

The signal goes
continuous.

Detonation.

The signal races down
towards the relay and stops.

Stacy's mind blocks the
relay open, preventing it from closing.

“
I'm
holding it,” she shouts, and Mark begins to slow them down. “I'm holding it
open, it's not – it's
trying
to go off, I can't shut it down.”

“
Ok,”
he whispers in her ear. “We're nearly on the ground, just hold on Stace. Just
hold on.”

Trespasser One listens
in to his earpeice, and turns to the group, his shoulders falling with relief.

“
Stacy's
got it,” he says. “She's shut it off.”

There's a ripple of
relieved sighs, followed by the Trespasser cutting them short with a raised
hand.

“
Wait,”
he says. “Wait – she's just holding it off. It's not defused. Everybody get
outside. We need to meet them where they drop the bomb, worst case scenario,
Jamie can buy us some time, right man?”

“
Right.
Let's go.”

The squad get
themselves together.

“
Wait,”
shouts Cathy. “What if
he's
out there?”

“
The
King? He most certainly will be, so keep your eyes open. Be ready to hide us,
Cath.”

They run outside into
the brisk spring morning and look up, listening for something, scanning the
sky. It's Gary who points them out.

Mark's cape catches the
sunlight as they fall, the bomb dragging them down towards the ground, and
Stacy is clinging to him.

“
They're
coming down fast,” says the Trespasser. “Near the Buchanan Galleries. Cut
through the shops, go, we can be out before they hit.”

Trespasser One charges
across the road and through a set of revolving doors into a long abandoned
superstore, leading the squad to the imminent crash site.

Mark starts to pull up,
slowing their descent towards the city. They're only a few hundred feet above
the streets now, and Stacy is staring into nothingness, her entire mind focused
on keeping that relay open. Her breathing is starting to quicken, as though
she's tiring herself out.

Grunting with effort,
taking himself to a better place in his head, reliving that kiss in the clouds,
Mark decelerates till the bomb is hanging from his two hands like a parcel. He
rests it on the ground as they touch down, cradling Stacy in one arm.

“
Ok
Stace,” he whispers, out of breath himself. “We're on the ground. What do I do?
What do we -”

“
I
don't know, I don't know, I don't know -”

“
Stace,
calm down, calm down -”

“
Mark
it's going to go off, I'm sorry, I'm sorry -”

“
Stacy.”
He
rests a hand on her cheek, and she stares up into his eyes. “We have
got
this.
Say it to me. Take a breath and say it to me.”

She does as he says,
and takes his hand, squeezing it as though she is in labour.

“
We've
got this.”

“
Good.
Now I'm going to disconnect us in case I need to fly away with this.”

“
Ok,
ok,” she whispers, flustered and breathing heavily. Her cheeks are flushed and
her hair is matted to her forehead with sweat. “Do it.”