Just one inch. One shitty inch. Please.
Nothing. She collapsed to the ground, cursing the stupid thing. Maybe it was best to go ask someone to help her. One of the men, make things easier. She didn’t like the idea, though. This was her find, and she didn’t want to share the credit for it.
Beads of sweat crept through the dirt stains on her arms. Her head was soaked, too. It was hard to resist the temptation to remove the gas mask, and wipe the sweat away. It tickled her, drove her mad. She punched the damp sand beneath her, frustrated.
Would she really become one of them, if she took the mask off? Would she really? Or maybe she’d catch the bug and simply die. It was better not to think about these things, though. First of all, Jacob had told them not to. It didn’t matter – all they had to focus on was wearing the mask, when outside. There was lots of stuff like that – strange things they had to do, without any clear reason why. But, as Jacob said, she had to avoid difficult questions and thoughts. All that mattered were his rules. His rules, and the Colony. Nothing else.
The other reason she’d rather not think about that sort of thing, was because it was all too easy to start wondering whether taking the mask off might actually be worth it. Especially if it killed you.
She shook her head (drops of sweat stuck to the visor, but she tried to ignore them), swept the thoughts aside. Eyes on the wheel, she rose to her feet. Her back hurt. A nagging pain, from her neck all the way to her shoulder. It was the slim mattress, the bumpy floor they slept on. Nobody ever really complained. Especially when Jacob was around.
The woman brought a hand to her neck, wiped away the sweat. Tilting her head backwards, she tried to relieve the discomfort.
The roar came unexpectedly. At first, it sounded like her own blood, pulsating inside her ears. But it grew, louder and louder.
Jacob had told them about the gods. The gods in the sky, the ones who had sent the rocks, to punish them all. When he spoke, in the flickering light of the mine, it was easy to believe him. The shadows danced on his eyes, and it was easy to think he was speaking the truth, yes. When she was alone though, she doubted his words.
Except, here they are again. The gods from the sky.
The pain in her back was gone. All she felt was the pressure of fear, the building oppression of the sky above, its terrifying roar pouring down on her.
Run, she thought. RUN.
But she couldn’t. She was inching backwards, eyes still glued to the skies. Scanning the clouds, waiting to spot the rock that would kill her.
But it wasn’t a rock.
The plane appeared through the grey coat of the heavens, darting forward at impossible speed. It was white, she noticed strangely, thinking how rare it was to see anything as white as that, any more. In the few instants before the impact, she also saw the holes and lumps on its surface. The crack on its windshield.
Windshield? Is that the right name for it? She asked herself, insanely, mouth gaping, body frozen by awe and fear.
For a fleeting instant, she also thought she saw the faces of the plane’s two pilots, the horror painted across them.
But there was no way, no time to know if she had. It flew by in an instant, huge and magnificent and doomed, sweeping up the air in powerful waves, raising the sand in prickly gushes.
It hit the ground, with a sound so loud she felt it press against her skin. It hit the ground, and so did she.
* * *
Flashes. Hard to make sense of them, sort them out.
The alien, of course. The alien peering down at him: that came first. But there was the crash, too. The tearing of metal, the world-shattering impact. And the sand. Wet sand, brown sand, like the one along the beach, back at home. Long walks with Nan, wanting to be home, at his computer, rather than there on the beach. Staring at his dragged footprints in the wet sand of England’s southern coast. Brown, dull. Like this one.
There was the heat, too. So hot you couldn’t breathe. Thick, damp air, and breathing felt like suffocating.
The plane was about to crash. But that had already happened, hadn’t it? Hard to tell, time flowed unevenly, now. The howl of the crash flowing back and forth through time, like the tide.
Yes – he was being carried by one of the aliens. So they exist, he thought. Cool.
Not just him, though. They were carrying others: he caught glimpses of arms and feet and hair he knew belonged to Checkmate, to Jeremy, to one of the two soldiers. Each being carried by one of the ETs.
And there, behind his own alien’s bobbing shoulder, was the plane. Crumpled and crushed like a sheet of paper, its metallic organs spilling out across the sand. How could he have survived that, he wondered. It seemed impossible.
He let himself be carried by the man in the mask. Of course, he told himself. These are not aliens. It’s people in gas masks. Saving them, capturing them, something. His head was spinning. The plane was about to crash.
But before it did, he’d let the alien take him along these sands just a little more. These sands, he realised, that were the sands of America. Of the New World.
Chapter 20
A Throne Fit for a King
Tonight.
Neeson walked briskly, hands pushed deep into his pockets, eyeing the crowd around him. He was heading towards the castle, as were the rest of them. A jittery flow of humans, propelled as much out of curiosity as they were out of fear. He too was curious. But not afraid.
Along the road, the Warden’s men stood guard, weapons at the ready. The muzzles of their firearms drifted from one body to the next, surveying, threatening. Ensuring no one got silly ideas.
A silly idea like mine, he thought.
Two dull weeks had gone by, since the invasion. Fourteen days that had been enough for the people of Bately to slip into the routine set out by the occupiers. The daily food deliveries had done the trick: full stomachs make it easier for heads to bow. And so they had accepted to work in the fields, to avoid gatherings, to respect the curfew. All willingness to rebel, if ever there had been, was now gone. Then, the announcements had come. The posters hung along the streets, like in the old days. A gathering, in the castle, hosted by the Warden himself. No one was to miss it. And although he suspected it would be some sort of brainwashing propaganda exercise, Neeson couldn’t help but wonder what it was they were about to witness.
Don’t get distracted. You have other plans for tonight.
He dipped his nose behind the scarf, felt the moist warmth of his own breath against his cheeks. It was cold. Cold and damp, the air tinged with a sickening sweetness, like rotting leaves.
“Good evening, Lieutenant.”
Neeson looked up. It was someone among the soldiers. A young lad raised a hesitant hand towards him. “It’s Rice, sir. Steve Rice… from the Guard.”
“Yeah. I remember,” Neeson said, considering the brand new uniform the kid was wearing. Rice had been one of the younger recruits, not a particularly promising one, but his eagerness had satisfied his superiors, allowing him to join the now-defunct Bately Guard. Neeson jerked his chin coldly towards the others standing by. “You with them now, are you?”
Rice lowered his forehead, ashamed. A man next to him observed Neeson. “Don’t call him sir, boy. He’s no one, now. No one.” Rice’s expression went from shameful to fearful. Little coward, thought Neeson.
“Y–yessir,” said Rice, squaring his shoulders and looking back at Neeson. His eyes were filled with weak resolve. “Move along please,” he said. “To the castle now.”
Neeson chuckled and shook his head. “On my way, sir,” he spat out.
Except, I can understand him, can’t I? Young lad, eager to find a cause to fight for. That’s what it is, for some of us, isn’t it? A Cause to devote our lives to. He’s been lured in by the neat black uniforms, the Warden’s esoteric talk. I can understand that. Except, my cause never required me to burn a priest alive, did it?
He reached the castle gates. The same gates he’d tried so desperately, so
uselessly, to defend. The crowd slowed down, squeezed into the bottleneck of the tight entrance. There was lots of coming and going, between the Warden’s people and the others. Good, he thought, it’ll make things a bit easier.
Cathy and Moore weren’t there. Likely, they were already inside. He’d told them to try and stagger their arrival, to avoid raising any suspicion. Their communications had occurred through secret notes, hurriedly slipped under doors, or passed on via discreet handshakes. The plan was a simple one, he thought, as he entered the castle, and followed along towards the grand hall they were being guided to. A simple one, yes, but it could still go wrong.
The feverish desire to vindicate his fallen comrades, and all those that had died by the hand of these men in black, kept messing with his mind, inflaming his thoughts.
Yet, as focussed as he was, he couldn’t help but gasp at the sight of the object at the far end of the hall, beside the Warden.
* * *
Cathy felt the prickly touch of Moore’s gaze. He was standing a couple of rows down, next to Mathew and his wife. It was all too easy to respond to the call of those eyes, share a look of resentment, perhaps of love. She’d studied that look, the expression she would wear when she’d finally get the chance of a quiet exchange. There was so much she’d have liked to say to him. Most of it was swearwords, to be honest. But some were not.
And now, it pleased her somewhat to know he was searching for her, although, granted, it might simply be because of the plan they were meant to carry out, that night. The three of them – Neeson, Moore and herself. An accomplice’s sort of look maybe, nothing else. But it didn’t feel like it, not in the brief instant their eyes had met.
Yes, it would have been easy, now, to turn around and let her eyes say what words could not. In normal circumstances, that was. But her gaze happened to be drawn to the Warden, the incredible throne by his side. There was no looking away from that, however hard she tried. It was strange, but even before the Warden began to speak, she knew the truth about that throne. No doubt in her mind, at all.
She felt a gentle nudge, and Neeson was there, by her side, the same expression of awe reflected in his own eyes.
“Amazing,” he whispered. Then again, shaking his head in disbelief, “Amazing.”
Cathy nodded. “I think we’ve just discovered the contents of that black box they were dragging through town.”
The swish of hushed voices slithered about the hall, under the Warden’s watchful gaze. He held his hands joined behind his back, chin slightly raised, eyes on the crowd. Basking in their awe, until silence fell.
“You all know what you’re looking at,” he said, striding over to the throne. He caressed its ragged surface, fingers lingering in the pores and fissures. “This, people of Bately, was part of Europa. I had it removed, chiselled into the shape you see before you this evening. There’s a sister throne, sitting in a palace east of the Ural Mountains, in what-was-Russia. That one is carved out of Nero.”
He paused, as people glared at the throne, taking in what they just heard, but already knew. Cathy felt something flex inside her chest, like a tangling of tears and awe and veins. This throne was, quite literally, the imposing fragment of another world. A deathly ambassador from the far reaches of space. One of three alien rocks that had plunged old Earth into nothingness.
“Consider this rock,” the Warden said, his voice resonating with the same enraptured wonder of Cathy’s thoughts. “It worked its way through spaces unimaginable, in the emptiness of an expanse so vast our minds simply fail at grasping it. No noise, up there. Just shadows, silence and matter. Some of it minute, mysterious, misunderstood by our scientific means. And other so large, titanic, that our stumped notions of the vastness of the universe would fit comfortably inside it.”
The Warden walked about the throne, disappearing behind it, then reappearing at the other end. His footsteps echoed between the stone walls, fashioned from rocks that looked so much more familiar, earthly, than the one on centre stage. “Through space. Through our atmosphere. Then, the impact.” He turned to the audience. “And the end of our world.”
Cathy noticed that the base of the rock had been shaped into a set of three steps, leading up to the throne itself. She had little doubt whose feet would be climbing them.
Suddenly, the Warden’s arm lashed out, pointing a finger at it. “How much have we all suffered, because of the meteorites? How many lives were lost, or ruined, or plagued by the disease they carried? Impossible to say, isn’t it?”
Sobs were heard, throughout the hall. Silent weeping, comforting hugs.
“But please, consider this,” he continued. “You have all lost loved ones, haven’t you? Every one of us has, at one time or another, lost a father, a mother, a child even. We know that suffering. We know the pain, the grief that seemed so impossible to convey to others. Strange, this – the devastating sense of loss we all share, makes us feel alone like nothing else. As if our true, secret nature is that of solitude, of unspoken sadness.” The Warden nodded thoughtfully. Beside her, Neeson was shuffling his feet nervously. At first, she thought it was because the Warden’s words must’ve reminded him of his lost comrades, in all the battles he’d lived through as a soldier. But a quick glance told her he was almost shaking with hostility. “Enough with this bollocks,” he whispered to himself.
“And all that,” continued the Warden, “was happening well before the rocks. It has always been so. To be human, is to suffer. Maybe these monstrous meteorites, these gods from the shadows, hold a truth we fail to acknowledge…” he let the words hang there, without elaborating. Again, he turned towards the crowd. His voice was louder, now. “Now, I must beg for your forgiveness,” he said. “I must apologise.”
A tense silence. The feeling that this was a joke, somehow. A twisted prank played by the Warden and his people. Nothing, in him, in his men, suggested the humility he was now demonstrating.
“I do. My arrival plunged you, once again, in that desperate pit of sadness. I killed the ’wraiths who were attacking you, yes. But I also killed tens of your fellow townsfolk. You friends and family members. For this, I am sorry.”
To the crowd’s utter disbelief, the Warden got down on one knee, and bowed his head to them all. He held that position for so long, that Cathy began feeling uncomfortable, jittery. This is crazy, she thought. This man is absolutely insane.
The Warden rose, dusting off his trousers with slow, elegant motions. When he looked upon them again, his eyes were slightly colder, back to the way they were before his odd speech. “I owed you that, and the matter is now settled. I want you to understand one thing: although I caused pain and suffering to you all, my aim is to remove suffering from our lives altogether. The deaths I have to bring about in order to achieve that goal are all well worth it, as I see it. Necessary.” The armed men inside the hall nodded their agreement.
He has them enchanted. They would follow him anywhere, do anything he asks. Peering among the people of Bately, Cathy was stunned to see quite a few of them wearing the same expressions. Not many, but enough to unsettle her.
“We give you food. We ensure order is maintained. We will protect this town against any attack or attempted invasion. That’s because we want peace. Peace, and the end of suffering.”
You ended Claudio’s suffering, all right, you bastard.
The Warden looked down, gently shaking his head. “If you knew… if only you knew how long we have worked for this. For this: to stand here, with you, with my brave men and women in the town of Bately. So close to the completion of my vision.” There was a dense pause, then the Warden raised his hands in the air, “Join us!” he called out. “Become one of us. One with us. I shall now sit on that throne, like I did in what-was-Russia, and I will gladly welcome any one of you who wishes to don our uniform, to join in this wonderful scheme. The others may leave this castle if they wish. The door will always be open to you, as long as you obey our rules. Not everything is clear, yet, I know.
I promise it will be, when the time is right. But sometimes the details don’t matter, do they? Sometimes, the heart knows before the mind can even begin to understand.”
With that, he spun on his heels, and walked towards the throne. With deliberate, solemn movements, he placed his feet on the steps, one after the other. Then, once on top, he turned towards his audience and Cathy had to admit he truly looked like a king. A king after the end of the world.
When he finally sank into the seat of rock, a cheer rose from the crowd. It was his people mainly, but she spied a few of the Batelyites joining in, too.
A couple of young men ran forth, crazy tears lining their cheeks, and knelt before the throne. The cheers surged once again. A uniformed man walked up to the two men, had them rise, and shook their hands. They were lead aside, perhaps to receive their new uniforms.
“Okay, that’s enough for me,” Neeson said. He nodded towards the exit, the trickle of those who had decided to leave. “Let’s go.”
Cathy dipped her chin, relieved to be leaving that crazy spectacle.
As they quietly walked out, Neeson signalled to Moore.
And now the show truly begins, Cathy told herself.
Chapter 21
The Way This World Works
“Get your fat hands off me,” shouted the ’wraith.
Sixfingers shoved her back, snarling. “I will if you get the fuck away from here!”
Ana heard the last few words of the exchange as she approached. She’d been sitting in Jake’s office, pouring over the pigeon messages, trying to glean any information she could from them. But she was tired, and had read them all tens of times.
“What’s going on here?” she asked. A group of three ’wraiths was standing in front of one of the supply storage huts, with Sixfingers blocking the way.
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