Kingdom: The Complete Series

by Steven William Hannah

  His eyes slam open and he sees six tall, heavily armoured men in black combat gear pointing assault rifles at his aching skull.

  “Okay, put him under - ” one of them begins to bark an order.

  Then Mark has risen, leapt to his feet and grabbed his attacker by the shoulders. He hadn't realised until now that he is standing in a crater, the men staring down at him like students at an autopsy.

  Alarmed shouting fills the air.

  Looking into the fearful eyes of a trained soldier, Mark turns and throws him under-arm at his comrades. Sporadic fire breaks out and Mark feels the agonising punch of bullets driving him backwards. Dropping to one knee, he raises his hands to fend off the stinging insect bites of the firing squad's rounds. One step at a time, wincing and gritting his teeth through the pain, he stands and begins to walk forward – then he is running, charging at the remaining soldiers. One of them breaks and throws himself to the side before Mark hits them.

  He crashes into the other three, throwing a wild hay-maker that sends a man spinning into a wall as though he were weightless.

  A soldier closes with him, and he feels a sharp pain in his gut: Mark doubles over and sees a knife straining to pierce his skin. Disgusted, he grabs the man by the arm, crushing it with his iron grip. Swinging him like a battle axe, Mark turns and clubs the last soldier to the ground with the screaming form of his own squad mate.

  Leaving a gurgling, groaning mess of limbs and men scattered in the cobblestone alleyway, Mark clutches his chest and gasps for air, shocked at the violence he is inflicting. He wants to apologise, and a choked 'sorry' catches in his throat as one of the men on the ground produces a pistol and shoots him twice in the head.

  Mark cries out in anger and frustration and clamps a hand to his throbbing skull as he leans down tears the pistol out of the man's hand. He throws it at a wall hard enough that it smashes into pieces.

  "I don't," he wheezes as he lifts the man one-handed by the collar of his armour. "I don't want to fight. Tell your superiors. Tell them I just want to take down the King. While I can."

  The deafening approach of a helicopter drowns out the pounding of his own blood in his ears; he claps his hands to his temples in pain, dropping the man to the ground. Like a hovering bird of prey, it drifts into view above the alley.

  Sleek metal and a jagged, angular body hang beneath a tornado-work of blades. From each of the great predator's wings hang missiles and hive-like pods of tiny rockets, flanked by machine guns the size of children.

  Mark stumbles backwards, wiping blood from his nose, and raises his arm to shield his face from the buffeting, screaming wind. He whips his head around, looking for an escape: to his back is the alleyway's end, a sheer brick wall belonging to some towering corporate stronghold.

  A booming voice cuts through the howling drone of the helicopter's blades, addressing him:

  “Get on your knees and put your hands on your head.”

  Mark looks up in absolute horror, begging with his eyes, hoping that they can hear him somehow.

  “The King,” he shouts. “I need to stop him before... my mother, they – listen -”

  “You have three seconds to comply.”

  He hangs his head, mustering the courage that he knows is still in him somewhere. All that he wants is to sit down, to have a drink – he hasn't had a moment to think straight yet. He's been threatened, shot, shot again: but they haven't been able to stop him yet.

  Mark looks up at the helicopter and shakes his head – then he turns and runs, carried by a strength in his legs that he never knew he possessed. The end of the alleyway races towards him.

  The helicopter opens fire.

  Cobblestones explode into ash and dust. Sundering blows strike him in the back and propel him forward even as the pain turns his vision white. Bowled off his feet by the force, he scrambles with his hands like an animal for purchase on the cobbles. In desperation, he gathers what strength remains in his body and bends his knees and jumps as though he were leaping off the edge of the world.

  Hissing like a cobra, a missile detonates behind him. Borne upwards by the explosion and the sheer strength in his muscles, Mark begins to fly.

  He is soaring upwards, eyes wide and disbelieving. His arms reach out for the sky.

  For a split second, he is a child once more, flying with a cape billowing out behind him.

  Then his ascent slows, and the sheer brick wall of the building drops away to reveal a long rooftop coated in gravel with dull grey air-conditioning units spread along its length. His momentum carries him over the lip of the roof and he flails his arms, rolling and tumbling onto the scratching gravel.

  He picks himself up, wiping away the river of blood dripping from his nose and onto the rooftop, and begins to look around for an escape.

  The helicopter rises above the rooftop like a determined predator, and its guns bark as they spit fire and lead at Mark's crouched form. Heavy calibre rounds tear into him and bowl him over; he tumbles like a rag-doll in a whirlwind. He rolls with the blows, clutching at his skin where the bullets hit.

  The attack stops as though a plug had been pulled.

  With red rimmed eyes and a blood-drenched grimace, Mark struggles to his feet on heavy legs. His entire body sways as he feels the alcohol's graceful touch leave him, his teeth itching and his throat aching. The fading sunlight burns in his eyes and he feels himself swallowing blood.

  A single figure, clad in black combat armour and a face mask, drops from a door in the helicopter's side and rolls as it hits the rooftop. Mark turns to run for the edge of the rooftop – he doesn't even know if he'll survive another fall, but anything is better than facing the swaggering shadow drifting towards him over the gravel.

  Something hard hits him in the back of his legs and he stumbles and falls. As he gets up, he finds himself face to face with the soldier.

  This one is different; even in his half-dead state he can see that. Mark does not find himself looking into the fear-filled eyes of a soldier out of his depth. This man's eyes are cold and clear – the eyes of a professional killer.

  Mark raises his hands to defend himself, trying to strike the soldier in fear – but to no avail. A surge of electricity from a tazer surges through his body and he spits blood and froth from between clenched teeth. His legs go numb – he feels himself falling, powerless to react.

  He hits the ground and regains the use of his muscles with a spasm. Mark rolls to get away, scrabbling at the rooftop.

  “Please,” he begs the advancing shade, kicking himself away over the gravel. There is no mercy in the soldier's eyes. “The King is going to come for my mother, I need to use this power before it's gone, please listen to me.”

  Helpless, he kicks out at his attacker from the ground. Now he is standing over Mark with a stubby, wide-barrelled grenade launcher of some kind pointed at his face.

  “You have to let me find the King,” groans Mark, “we're on the same side here, please listen to me -”

  With a harsh cough, the firearm spits a ball of red gunk at Mark's face, and he tries to scream as the putty expands like insulating foam, jamming his eyes shut and clogging his nostrils. His open mouth is suddenly filled with expanding clay that tastes like surgical rubber. His scream dies in his throat as his hands pull at the plastic to no effect. It hardens and traps his clawing fingers within it, until his only thought is to breathe -

  Breathe.

  He fights it, feeling the fire ignite inside him, but it is too late.

  His vision fades to black.

  The helicopter hovers above the soldier, who stands over Mark's limp form like a proud hunter. It raises a finger to its helmet:

  “This is Trespasser One. Target Four is down, send immediate retrieval squad and hurry up that medical team; this one was bleeding too. I'll need to neutralise the foam before lasting damage occurs."

  "Good work, Trespasser One. Are we clear to move Zulu to another location?"

  "Yeah, we're all good h
ere," says the Trespasser, motioning a thumbs up to the attack helicopter's pilot, who pulls the beast away from the building and off to wherever else he may be needed, leaving them in silence with only the faint whisper of the misty rain.

  “One more thing, Command,” says the Trespasser, looking down at his target as the pride in his eyes turns to concern. “I've seen men beg for their lives – I've seen men lie to get out of a bullet to the skull. I know when it's genuine, and this guy? He's terrified for his mother. Maybe we should look into this King character, that's three times today that I've heard his name in this kind of context."

  "Negative, Trespasser One. You are going far beyond your clearance levels."

  The Trespasser takes a small vial of a thick, red syrup from a pouch on his belt and kneels over the plastic-bubble face of his target. He empties the vial onto the foaming plastic and it begins to hiss and steam away, melting onto the gravel like roofing tar.

  "The guy just sounds like a criminal, Command," he says, “and that's our area of expertise right there. I could depose a crime lord with one hand, I don't mind staying behind after the operation is done to -"

  "I said negative, Trespasser," comes the response, and Command's calm and level voice is tinged with unusual anger. "Cease this line of inquiry and await the transport vessel."

  Trespasser One looks down at Mark's unconscious form as the red gunk froths away, clearing his airways and leaving his face red and bruised. The tattered janitor takes his first, struggling breath. Placing a hand under Mark's stubbled neck, the Trespasser counts his pulse with his eyes closed, tensed in case his target wakes up.

  He brings his hand up to his communication module, a tiny USB piece plugged into a socket on his helmet, and his fingers grip it for a second.

  Trespasser One almost pulls it out, but before he can the roar of the transport chopper cuts through the mess of thoughts plaguing his brain. Sighing, he depresses his comms button and replies,

  "Roger that, Command. Preparing for evac."

  He looks at the unconscious janitor, then up at the approaching helicopter, and waves it in as the rain whips itself into a frenzy beneath the churning wind of the blades.

  Episode 4

  The King's Castle

  Jamie stares down the jagged sights of the pistol, trying to focus despite his trembling hand. Chloe is pressed against his chest, staring down the same corridor. To their back is a solid steel slab.

  A cold, strained voice comes down the stairwell, into their little hallway. The unmistakable voice of the King, slurring in pain.

  “There's nowhere to go, Jamie.”

  “It's him,” whispers Chloe.

  “I shot him in the bloody knee,” says Jamie. “How is he here?”

  The same voice drifts into their hallway-stronghold.

  “Caught in a trap, Jamie,” they hear a strained breath. “Let's talk about this, hm?”

  “The next person down those steps is dead, King,” he retorts. He feels Chloe press herself harder against him.

  Footsteps begin to echo down the staircase until two pairs of legs are visible, stumbling, manoeuvring down the stairs; a moment later, Jamie sees why.

  The King, his knee a tattered mess of exposed bone and cartilage, is being carried by two of his servants, his arms around their necks. He is pale and sweating in agony, his teeth are clenched and his eyes are burning with intense anger. Patting one of the servants, he is set down on the bottom stair and, with a trembling breath, he leans on his good knee as though he were having a relaxing seat in the park.

  Jamie feels his finger tighten on the trigger, his trembling hands making the gun rattle in the silence.

  “Killing me won't improve your position, Jamie,” the King says as his men take up guard on either side of him, producing machine-pistols from their jackets. “Trust me on that.”

  “And your bullets aren't going to work on me,” Jamie says. “Trust me on that.”

  “That was quite a trick you pulled on us up there. This must be what you meant when you said that you had a 'game changer' to discuss, hm?”

  Jamie says nothing, but the King sees it in his eyes.

  “So you came here, thinking that because you're a little bit special – that because now you can flicker about the place like a little cricket – that you are somehow capable of beating me.”

  “I already shot you once. I can do it again.”

  “I said 'beating', not killing. So kill me. Then what? Please, tell me this grand plan of yours. Shoot me. Kill me, even, and then: what?”

  “I have that covered, don't you worry,” Jamie lies. He feels his heart racing, and finds himself clutching Chloe's waist tighter.

  “I assume that your plan includes this new capability you seem to have found yourself with.” He fixes Jamie with a fiery stare, and Jamie feels as though his soul is being searched like an open tome. “It was the fire, wasn't it Jamie? The fire that came from the sky has changed you, am I right?”

  The King is leaning forward eagerly, his terrifying eyes urging Jamie to answer. Jamie can feel Chloe looking up at him in confusion.

  “I think you underestimate me – as everybody does.” The King leans back. “When I say that I know everything that goes on in this city, I'm not lying. Even the stuff like this. Have you considered,” the King continues as though he were talking to a child, “that the more you use this power, the more blood starts to gush out of your nostrils? Have you made the link yet, son? Are you starting to get it?”

  Jamie licks his lips and tastes the blood that is soaking into his stubble.

  “You haven't been watching the news,” the King shakes his head, “and you don't have the information that I do. You haven't seen what happens to people like you when those nosebleeds get worse. You try to use your little trick again and I'll bet that your brain will haemorrhage so violently you'll be dead before you hit the floor.”

  “You're bluffing,” says Jamie – though he cannot tell who he is trying to convince: the King, or himself.

  “Turn on a television, son. There's been a strong military and police presence building for a few weeks: they knew the fire was coming. You know, they asked me permission to move soldiers into my city? What nice manners they have, these government types. Soldiers in black, they use – I'm surprised you haven't ran into any.”

  Jamie says nothing, remembering the dark figure that tried to bring him in after the fire hit.

  “They didn't know what was coming,” the King continues. “They knew it wasn't an asteroid – asteroids don't make course corrections, they told me. Then they found people at the crash sites this evening – humans, but different. Like you. Already we've had people leaping off rooftops and fighting armed soldiers by the dozen. There's a video of a man in overalls shrugging off gunfire from a helicopter's cannon.” The King grins. “You should watch the news sometime, Jamie, you really are missing some incredible stuff.”

  “He's not lying,” whispers Chloe. “It is all over the news.”

  “I don't know what it is that you're doing, Jamie, but if you push that power too far, it goes badly. Some poor soul got cornered on a bridge over the Clyde earlier. Soldiers on every side, no hope of escape. Seconds later, that bridge collapsed without warning. I think,” the King looks at Chloe as though she's an old friend, “it was about twenty dead at the last count, right? Drowned under the debris? And if I remember right, his nose was bleeding just before it happened.”

  The King looks straight through Jamie, seeing past the bravado and the posturing. He sees the truth settling into Jamie's thoughts.

  Jamie's mind races. He remembers waking up after the fire had hit him – the soldier had radioed it in: something about his nose bleeding.

  He knows that the King is a master manipulator, but he can't help but feel that there is some truth in what he's saying.

  “What if I don't believe you?”

  “Then by all means, go ahead and shoot me and my men and try to escape. Then this beautiful
woman – who you value so much that you used her for insurance -” the King mockingly gestures to Chloe, “can watch as your brain tears itself apart and you die.”

  Jamie looks down at Chloe, and she meets his eyes and shakes her head, her blonde curls bobbing from side to side.

  “You aren't leaving me with a lot of choices here,” he says, turning back to the King. “What's the alternative?”

  “We revise your contract?” the King suggests. “For a man with your talents, I'm sure we can find a job.”

  “I'm only in this mess because I tried to hand in my resignation,” he says. “I want out. I want to walk away from this, and I want my pension. You owe me a hell of a lot of money. Give me that, and let me walk out of here.”

  “Jamie, you can't walk out,” the King shakes his head. “Those men in black are scouring the city for you. Everywhere you go, they'll be waiting. Believe me, I've had dealings with these types before and they are not ones to give up on their mission.”

  “So what's your offer?”

  “Put the gun down, and we can talk.”

  “I'm making the demands here, King,” says Jamie, “and I don't think I need your help.”

  “Maybe you don't,” the King admits, “but she does.”

  He points to Chloe, who tenses up.

  “Leave her out of this -”

  “Oh she's a part of it now, whether she wants to be or not. They'll be coming for her too.”

  “Chloe?” he whispers.

  “Mhm?” her voice is small and frightened.

  “Close your eyes, I'm going to get us out of here.”

  “But your nose -”

  “It's our only chance,” he hisses.

  “Decision time, Jamie.” The King's agonised expression squirms into something resembling a smile. “What's it going to be?”

  Jamie levels the pistol at the King's chest and grits his teeth.

  Mark's mind is awake before his eyes have caught up. Roaring fills his ears as though he is caught in a tidal wave; he recognises the rhythmic chopping of helicopter blades. He keeps his eyes closed, savouring the breaths that fill his lungs. Over the engine's roar he makes out a female voice like that of a stern teacher: knowledgeable and with little patience for the opinions of others.