by Greg Krojac
Rachel ran forward prostrating herself at the administrator’s feet, begging for him to save her little girl’s life.
“Nobody needs to know. We’ll go away. Far away. We’ll go abroad. Nobody needs to know that you let her go. Please don’t kill my baby.”
“She needs to die.”
“If you must kill somebody, kill me. Please, kill me. But let her go.”
“Killing you will serve no purpose. If I kill you and let the girl live, who will look after your two remaining children? They’ll be a burden on the state. The girl must die.”
“But why? Why must she die?”
The two administrators didn’t know why she should die. They didn’t know why any of the thousands of children who had been killed that day had to die. They were just following orders. They didn’t know that this was an act of unbalanced rage and revenge on the part of the Pindar. They didn’t know that a group of Recarn children had stolen something from him, something that had the potential to remove his power and position in the Illuminati. They weren’t even Recarns themselves, they had been seduced by a good salary and an improvement in their quality of life. They had been recruited for their administrative skills and the fact that they would do whatever they were asked, without asking any questions. They had been unemployed with no prospects and had families to house, clothe and feed. This was just a job and a very financially rewarding one at that.
The Defender knew why the child Recarns had to die. He had volunteered to be a Defender. He liked the life of a Defender. He had fought many battles in his previous lives - some he had survived some he had not. But each life had been an adventure. He considered the life of a Defender as a great adventure. He didn’t consider that he was murdering children. He just considered it as accelerating their progress to their next life. He had sworn an oath to defend the Illuminati from all threats, and if these children were a threat, then he felt no remorse for his actions.
The administrator kicked Rachel away and bent Natalie over the kitchen table, holding her hands tightly behind her back. Defender serial number 4238/5 removed his sidearm from its holster, placed the nozzle of the pulse pistol against the back of Natalie’s neck, checked that the weapon was set to kill, and pulled the trigger.
As the three ONP officers returned to the car they didn’t look back once to see what they were leaving behind, oblivious to the wailing of a bereaved mother grieving over her dead daughter’s silent body.
***
Rose Cottage, in Cookham, was a quaint old building in a picturesque setting by the River Thames. Birds could be heard singing in the back garden of the house, and an early robin was standing on the garden fence, scanning the garden for any sign of life that might make a tasty snack. The three figures that approached the front door looked out of place against such an idyllic setting. It was 3.20pm as one of the dark suited ONP officials rang the doorbell.
The robin flew away.
The varnished wooden door creaked open and a cheery looking woman poked her head through a small gap between the doorframe and the door.
“Good afternoon gentlemen. Can I help you?”
“Mrs Potter? Mrs Ivy Potter?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“We’re from National Security.”
“Ooh. Is there a problem?”
“May we come in?”
Ivy had a feeling that this wasn’t really a request but that they would enter the house whether invited or not. There was no point in trying to refuse them entry. News of the morning’s massacres hadn’t reached Rose Cottage yet.
“Come on in then. Excuse the mess. Could I ask that the gentleman with the gun wipe his feet, please? His boots look like they might be muddy.”
The cottage was perfectly tidy but during her sixty-eight years saying ‘excuse the mess’ had become a habit. The two Administrators and the Defender entered the house, all three of them wiping their feet on the hard bristle doormat. The man who appeared to be in charge spoke.
“Mrs Potter. You have an eleven year old granddaughter who lives with you.”
“Yes. Her name is Clara.”
“She wasn’t at school today.”
“No. She has a cold, so I kept her off school today to see if she could shake it off.”
“May we see her?”
“I suppose so. Is there something wrong?”
“We just need to do a quick test. A kind of medical test. There’s a bit of an epidemic going round and we need to check that children aren’t suffering from the disease.”
“Ok. I’ll get her to come down.”
The second Administrator moved towards the kitchen.
“May I set up our equipment on the kitchen table?”
“By all means. I’ll go and fetch her.”
Ivy went upstairs and returned with her granddaughter, a slim, strawberry blonde girl who was obviously suffering from the effects of a cold. The second Administrator beckoned for Clara to sit at the table opposite him, which she did.
“This machine is called an RIA. It doesn’t really matter what it stands for. All you need to know is that it is able to identify something that we’re looking for.”
Ivy wasn’t sure if she should trust these men – after all, one of them looked quite menacing, in his grey uniform, helmet and gas mask. She’d be a lot happier if she could have seen his eyes behind those dark goggles.
“Clara. I want you to look into the eye pieces of this machine.”
Clara glanced at her grandmother who nodded that she should do as she was asked. The girl placed her eyes so that she was looking directly into the machine. A beam of purple light shot into her eyes and rebounded back into the bowels of the apparatus. The Administrator sat back in his chair.
“Positive result. She’s a Recarn.”
Ivy looked at him, confused.
“What does that mean?”
The senior Administrator grabbed the girl by the wrists.
“What it means, Mrs Potter, is that your granddaughter is a Recarn. She is an eleven year old Recarn and we have orders to kill her.”
Ivy couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“I let you in my house in good faith. You said it was just a medical test.”
“It was. We have the results. Clara must be killed.”
He forced the frightened girl to bend over the table and beckoned over the Defender. The Defender unholstered his pulse-pistol, made sure that it was set to kill and walked over to where the girl was being pinned down by the stronger Administrator. He raised the pistol towards the girl’s neck and suddenly swung round, shooting the Administrator in the face, killing him instantly. Before the second Administrator had had a chance to react he too was shot by the rogue Defender. The soldier took off his goggles so that his deep blue eyes could be seen.
“I didn’t join up to kill children, Recarns or otherwise. Come on, we have to get out of here. Their car is outside; we can use it to get far away from here, to get somewhere safe. Did you know that Clara is a Recarn?”
“Of course I did. So am I. What’s your name, young man?”
“Daniel. Major Daniel Driver. But most people call me Danny.”
“Well, thanks for saving my granddaughter’s life, Danny. How can we repay you?”
“Just come with me and stay safe. That’ll do for me.”
As they ran back outside and got in the car, the second Administrator opened his eyes and dragged his fatally wounded body to the door, just in time to see his car disappearing into the distance.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
10:13 Thursday 31 October 2069
A storm was brewing above an old farmhouse on Dartmoor, in the county of Devon. Some might have considered the farmhouse to be off the grid but it wasn’t so remote that it didn’t enjoy the home comforts of running water and mains electricity. Inside one of the barns, there was a hive of activity as what appeared to be a small group of children were putting the final touches to a complex piece of scientific equipment tha
t they had been assembling. As the storm intensified and the first bolts of lightning started to light up the sky, the irony was not lost on Tommy, the leader of the group of young Recarns that had been waiting eagerly for this moment.
“This is ridiculous. All we need now is for Christopher Lee to fly in through the window as a bat and for Vincent Price to start playing the organ, and we’ve got ourselves a bona-fide Hammer Horror film set.”
One of the other children quipped.
“It’s more Frankenstein than Dracula.”
In a room inside the farmhouse, a clone of Philip Armstrong, the tall lad who did most of the driving for the group, had now reached its twenty-fifth day of existence. Probably the most critical information that Peter, Jenny’s previous incarnation’s twin brother, had managed to get to them before he died, was that the Growth Hormone Inhibiting Hormone, Somatostatin, had to be applied on the twenty-fifth day of the clone’s existence. With this information, they could reproduce the conditions that had allowed the creation of Marcus Gallagher, which in turn meant that they could bring back the true Pindar.
The equipment was almost ready, all that it needed now was the addition of the two vital components - the clone body and the introduction of the Pindar’s soul. The clone body had been grown from one of Philip Armstrong’s stem cells. After a long discussion and several people volunteering, it was decided that, as Philip was the biggest and strongest of them, it would be a good idea to place the Pindar’s soul into what could potentially be the healthiest specimen. Philip volunteered to be one of those to take care of the clone, being fascinated to discover what he was going be like when he became a man, as well as feeling a sense of biological kinship with it.
The door to the barn opened and Philip entered the building, supporting as best he could what could pass for his older brother, the clone naked except for a blanket wrapped around him. The clone had been dressed until he had grown to the same size as Philip, but they couldn’t keep making trips to the local village for clothes. It was risky enough getting food and provisions. As a group, they were very grateful for online shopping and drone deliveries, but to start buying clothing every day – and the size of that clothing increasing each day – could have aroused too much suspicion.
The sight of the clone brought back bad memories for Tommy, who, as Professor Ingrams, had suffered one of the early Illuminati experiments and occupied a clone body himself for twenty days. His clone body was one of those whose rate of growth hadn’t been able to be reduced and he had asked Michelle to kill him to put him out of his misery. But this clone, which they had named Philip 001 (old habits die hard) would develop normally and hopefully live to a ripe old age.
Philip led his doppelganger to the soul transfer equipment that almost filled the barn, and he and Jenny removed the blanket. The clone was unaware of his nakedness, as he operated only on instinct having none of the finer sensibilities that the soul provides. Jenny looked the clone up and down and made Philip blush.
“I’m going to have to stick close to you Philip. I like what I see and what you’re going to become.”
The clone was helped into the receiving chamber and lay there, perfectly peaceful. It had no reason to be otherwise. Nobody was hurting it, it wasn’t feeling any pain. It was just existing. Two of the children reached up and closed the transparent lid. Still, the clone was unperturbed.
Tommy picked up a thermos flask sized capsule that had been sitting on top of a nearby table. He walked over to the soul transfer apparatus and clamped the capsule in place inside the donor chamber. He was a little nervous. The equipment that they had constructed was an exact copy of Marcus’s apparatus; at least, as far as they knew. They were relying on their memories from working with the original equipment and trusting that they hadn’t forgotten anything important. The introduction of the vessel containing Nathan was a new addition, one for which they had had to make some alterations to the donor capsule, particularly the introduction of a mechanism to remove the capsule lid so that the true Pindar’s soul could be released.
Tommy pulled the chamber lid closed, creating an airtight seal.
“Here goes nothing.”
A nine year old boy with a crew cut touched a control and the capsule lid was removed, releasing the previously trapped soul. The movement of the invisible soul was monitored by the boy as it floated around the donor chamber, trying to find a way out. The soul found its way into the connecting tube between the donor and recipient chambers and headed towards the receiver pod, where the clone was patiently waiting. Once inside the recipient chamber, the connecting tube was closed, constraining the soul within the clone’s chamber. With nowhere else to go it enveloped the clone and seeped through its pores.
A tense couple of minutes followed as the clone showed no visible change, still laying back in the chamber perfectly calm. Suddenly the clone blinked furiously and tried to sit up. Unable to do so, it started panicking.
Tommy rushed forward and unfastened the release clamps of the lid of the recipient chamber, allowing the lid to spring open. The clone sat up and then proceeded to haul himself out of the confines of the chamber. He stood up and looked around him, a curious look on his face as he became aware that everybody in the room was a child.
“Are there any adults here?”
Tommy spoke for the group as a whole.
“No, My Lord Pindar, sir. We’re all Recarns. Recarns that were killed by Marcus Gallagher in the course of soul transference experimentation. Some were volunteers but many were not. Like myself.”
Jenny passed the clone a jump-suit, the only adult clothing that they had at the moment. The clone put it on and then continued with his orientation.
“Who are, and more importantly, who were you?”
“I’m Tommy Mullery, my Lord. I used to be Professor Ingrams. I was killed by Marcus Gallagher, the clone who usurped you.”
“Ingrams. Yes, the name rings a bell. So who’s in charge here?”
“I suppose that would be me. I traced these people here and gathered us all together.”
“So I’m King Arthur and you’re my knights of the Round Table.”
“In a way, yes my Lord.”
“Right. I need a name. Who’s the kind person that supplied the stem cells to create this marvellous body?”
“That would be Philip Armstrong, sir.”
Tommy beckoned Philip to come to the front.
“He’s the biggest, tallest, and strongest of us. For his age that is.”
“Thank you, Philip Armstrong. I’ll keep your surname – it’s a strong name, no pun intended - but I’ll change the Christian name, to avoid confusion. I like the name Ethan. I shall be Ethan Armstrong.”
Ethan shook Philip’s hand. Philip beamed with pride. He felt like Ethan Armstrong was an older brother, something that none of the others could say. Of course, he kept this thought to himself. To do otherwise would be a sign of disrespect.
“I shall now take charge of this merry band, but please dispense with the ‘my Lord Pinder’ stuff. When I regain my true place as head of the Illuminati, then it will be correct to refer to me as such. But until then, please call me Ethan. Now, who’s going to make me a cup of tea?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
08:47 Friday 1 November 2069
"Look, I don't mind looking at myself in a mirror, in fact, I quite enjoy it, but it's freaking me out having to look at that and see my face, my body walking around as if it were me."
Caitlin was not taking being at home very well. She had been through so much, such a terrible ordeal, and Philippa was an easy target to vent her anger upon. It was true that Philippa had been complicit in her abduction to some extent, but she had had no idea that Marcus would abuse her as he did. She thought that she was simply undertaking a spying mission. Like Caitlin, she had thought that she was in love with Marcus but even spending such a short time with Maurice, Karen, and Michelle had shown her that these were good people who didn't deserve being lied to. Add
to that the discovery that Marcus was cheating on her with Caitlin, and she quickly realised that she couldn't allow the deceit to continue. She had to stand up and be counted, she wouldn't allow herself to be enslaved anymore. Caitlin continued her rant.
"I mean, can't we turn her off or something? She's not real. She's like a robot or something."
Michelle slammed her book down on the table, making such a sudden noise that it startled her sister.
"Right, that's it. We know how you suffered at that place but you have to stop blaming Philippa."
"Philippa? You've given it a name?"
"Of course Philippa has a name. She's not a machine. She’s not an ‘it’. She's a human being. Granted she wasn't born, like you or me, but she's organic just like us. She is made of flesh and blood. If you cut her she bleeds. Would you be saying this about an IVF baby?"
"No, but I don't have to like her."
"No, you don't. But she deserves some respect and gratitude.”
“If you want me to be civil, I’ll try to be civil. For you.”
“That’s a start, I suppose. She’s a good person, a really nice person when you get to know her.”
Michelle almost told Caitlin that Philippa reminded her of her, but this would hardly be tactful under the circumstances; Philippa was, after all, a carbon copy of Michelle’s sister. Caitlin looked at Michelle.
“Whilst you’re here, Mitch, I’ve something I want to ask you.”
“Go on.”
“Well, I’ve had a pretty rough deal recently - that’s probably the understatement of the century – and I’m fed up of waiting for things to happen. I want to be more proactive. You and dad do your bit for the resistance and even mum does what she can, and I’ve been a passenger all my life. I want to learn not only how to defend myself but I want to be useful too. One Life took the trouble to rescue me, and I should at least try to do something to thank them, to pay them back”
