Kingdom: The Complete Series

by Steven William Hannah

  Jamie looks at the Trespasser, and a second passes. It doesn't feel like a second – not for him. He sees everything they've been through; he can almost taste the blood the first time he tried to stop time.

  Jamie hears Mark saying goodbye to him in the gardens.

  You're not a bad man.

  He had really meant it. Mark knew that Jamie was a car thief, a career criminal with little regard for the well-being of others: a selfish man. When they had first met, Jamie had just killed two men in cold blood and knee-capped a third. He had pointed a gun at Mark's face.

  Yet Mark had meant it when he had said it: he doesn't believe that Jamie is a bad man.

  Nobody knows that better than Chloe, and she sees the turmoil in his expression, his mind working to come to terms with what he's about to say.

  So she says it first: not with words, but with her eyes.

  Chloe purses her lips, and shakes her head. Jamie gives her a faint nod.

  They understand.

  “We're not leaving,” he tells the Trespasser. “We're coming with you.”

  “You sure? This could get rough pretty fast.”

  “We're used to rough,” says Jamie. “Just do what you have to do.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Mark saved our lives,” Jamie tells him, “and right now he needs a favour. I don't know what your plan is, or if it's even going to work; but I owe him this much, at least.”

  “If you're sure,” says the Trespasser. “I'll get to work on the next part of the plan.”

  “Which is?”

  “Contacting my superior,” he says, producing his comms unit from a pouch on his webbing, “and giving him the ultimatum: expose this, or get buried under it. Same options he gave us.”

  “You think he'll go for that?”

  “He will when I explain it to him.”

  “And if that doesn't work?”

  “I'll think of something,” he says. “Trespasser's are adaptable.”

  Jamie nods, and waits. The Trespasser does nothing, and then looks up at Jamie.

  “Something wrong?” asks Jamie.

  “Why are you staring at me?”

  “I'm waiting for you to enact your master plan.”

  “I can't do it with you watching, Jamie,” he says.

  “What? Really?”

  “I'm not the greatest of public speakers, mate; I'm used to punching and shooting people. Just save me the embarrassment, ok, go sit with your girlfriend.”

  Jamie shrugs and gives him some space.

  The Trespasser sighs, trying to get the sickening nerves out of his stomach. He lets out a frustrated breath and shakes himself.

  “Typical,” he groans. “I'll punch a trained soldier in the face without a thought, but ask me to pick an argument with my boss and I turn into a child.”

  He leans over and takes the helmet off the pilot's head, and holds the microphone up to his own earpiece. The Trespasser hits the broadcast button on the helicopter's dash, counts to three, and then puts the USB comms unit back into his helmet.

  “This is Trespasser One, come in.”

  The headset remains silent, but he can hear.

  Trespasser One eases back on the throttle and lets the aircraft right itself, decreasing power until he is maintaining altitude, hovering in the one spot over the suburbs.

  He takes the tracker out, and finds it pointing back – towards the north of the city, a fair distance away now.

  “Command,” he says, louder, “either you talk to me or I say this to whoever is listening and let it spread on its own.”

  The static stops and changes, shifting to a clearer tone, and the voice that comes through the headset is the familiar, masculine, commanding tones of his superior.

  “You've got some nerve -”

  “I also have something you're going to want to hear.”

  “I can have a jet scrambled to blow you out of the sky in a few minutes. Give me one reason why I shouldn't.”

  “Because then you don't find out where I've got my trump card hidden. If you take me out of the game, you take yourself out of it too.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Trespasser One smiles – uncertainty. It's there, faint, but he's trained, and he can hear it.

  “You might want to clear the room, if you haven't already,” he takes a breath. “I know everything, Command. I know everything. The King, the truth behind Glasgow's prosperity, the truth behind the falling crime rates and the property prices; I know what price it all came at.” Command says nothing, so he continues, growing bolder. “I wondered why we were given specific areas and buildings to avoid – why I was to avoid asking questions about the King, but I get it now. The Agency doesn't just know about him. They're helping him, aren't they? They know everything, and they decided that he was so good for Glasgow, so good for the statistics and the numbers that they'd just let him stay in power. Maybe even help him out.”

  “Now you listen son -”

  “No, here's how this is going to go. You have my location as long as my comms unit is plugged in: you're going to follow me to the King's location, and you're going to help me expose him.”

  “Son, stop. Listen to sense.”

  The Trespasser hears real distress now, and he savours it, pushing the advantage.

  “You remember my target? The one that single-handedly took out a few trained strike teams with his fists? He's with the King. He's going to take the King down. So here is my olive branch,” he says, and Command is silent. “I want to give you the chance to fix this. Send a strike team. Arrest the King properly, give him due process... I don't know how high up the corruption has gone, or how he did it, but that man is going down either way. The world is going to find out, and his little empire will crumble when it does. You can either be on the side that strings him up, or you can get strung up with him.”

  “Trespasser One,” Command's voice comes over the headset. There's no uncertainty or fear in it anymore. “You are a foot soldier. The big decisions don't come to you. You do not know, nor understand, the benefits that this arrangement has brought to that city. Glasgow is just the beginning, and your friend with the powers, the janitor? He's gone. Dead. The King will have dealt with him, bulletproof or not. You should have followed orders, son.”

  “Command this guy is a tyrant, a warlord who has taken an entire city hostage. Trespassers – hell, the entire Agency – was created to fight threats like him. Are you telling me that you're going to just allow a psychopath to occupy one of our cities?”

  “You're failing to understand the Agency's role, Trespasser. We were created to ensure that the population is kept safe, and we are doing that. Sometimes we depose warlords – sometimes, the warlords are the best thing for the population, and we let them stay in place.”

  “Are you, or are you not,” he turns the helicopter around until it is facing the direction that Mark's tracker is pointing him, “going to help me take down the King, Command?”

  Command is silent for longer than the Trespasser can stand, and when he does speak, it is with a very grave, final:

  “He's not a warlord.”

  “I'll take that as a no, then,” the Trespasser turns again, regarding the young couple, and flashes a triumphant smile at them. “In which case, Command, let me tell you that you just announced your intent to everybody on comms in Operation Firefall. I had the pilot's helmet broadcasting on all frequencies the entire time.”

  There is silence over the radio.

  “Your move, Command. As for those of you that are still listening and remember what the Agency stands for: I am flying a standard Westland Puma transport helicopter in Agency colours, previously designated as Eagle Four – the pilot is unconscious in the seat beside me. It's easy enough to track: follow me, and I'll show you where the King is. I can't do this alone. I hope to see you there.”

  The Trespasser gives Chloe and Jamie a nod, pushes the throttle as far as it will go, and tilts th
e helicopter forward. They all hold on, watching as the body swings under the rotors like a pendulum and they rush forwards, the rain rattling the hull like machine gun fire.

  “Is that it?” asks Jamie. “Are the Agency going to help us?”

  “No,” he says. “But perhaps some Trespasser units might. We're on our own otherwise, and my superior believes that the King will be able to kill Mark without any issues.”

  “Mark? But he's -”

  “Invincible? I took him down once, he needs to breathe like anybody else. That means he can die like anybody else, too. He's in danger.”

  “Then let's go,” says Jamie.

  The King checks his manicured fingernails, and Mark is grateful not to have to hold his gaze – then his eyes snap back up, drilling into Mark's mind, and he says:

  “We're very similar, like I said.”

  “It's been a while since I kidnapped somebody's mother,” says Mark, his tone dry.

  “I thought we were past this, Mark; it was a necessary precaution. I needed you to sit down long enough to listen to reason.”

  “I'm sitting. I'm listening.”

  “Good. Now: the only reason you're even in this city in the first place is because you tried to help people. That great big project in the city centre, the Gardens? That's what brought you here.”

  “If I recall, it failed because the rent and the utilities went through the roof, forcing me to subject myself to poverty just to sustain it.”

  Mark stares into the King's eyes, the anger filling him full of bravery.

  “Fairly poetic, when you consider it,” the King smiles, “but it would have failed without my intervention. You put your business, your money, and your trust in the hands of, what? Some homeless people? Criminals?”

  “It was about to start working -”

  “How many of them stole from you? Or tried to play the system?”

  “They were the minority.”

  “They were the ones that you knew about. What about the rest? You ever find out where those power drills went? Or the copper wiring? Fetches a decent price, copper wiring.”

  They stare, Mark's bottom lip curled back under his teeth. “They thought they had no choice, these people were starving and desperate. Some of them were recovering addicts.”

  “They made the choice,” the King shrugs. “They chose to steal from you. You: an honest businessman trying to help them. D'you think they laughed at you? Sitting in an alleyway chugging cheap wine, pockets lined with your money. D'you think they laughed, Mark?”

  Mark almost shouts his reply, but he takes a moment, takes a breath, and clenches his fist in front of his own mouth.

  “Not all of them were like that. There were good ones.”

  “Mark,” the King laughs, “everybody is good when you offer them what they want.”

  The King lets the comment settle in, and Mark leans forward, both of his hands clasped at his jaw, staring into the middle-distance.

  The King steeples his fingers. “And that's the great secret behind this entire city. Behind the Kingdom.”

  Mark's mind wanders to the deal the King gave Jamie: steal cars for me and I will give you a home for your family.

  “You're talking about offering people what they want in order to control them. So you read the first few pages of Machiavelli,” he chuckles, “I applaud you.”

  The King watches him like a curious teacher would a child.

  “Ok,” he sighs, and the patience leaves his voice. “Since you apparently aren't willing to take me seriously, let me cut to the root of the issue.”

  “I'm listening.”

  The King taps his fingers on the table as he talks.

  “Do you ever think about God?”

  Mark shrugs. “Can't say I do.”

  “No,” the King laughs to himself, “neither do I. But consider people, and how they are ruled. If there were a God, would he not be the perfect form of government?”

  “What, a theocracy? This isn't the middle ages anymore -”

  “No, no, no; consider this: what type of government is the most efficient, in terms of actual change? A democracy?”

  “Well, we live in one and we do ok.”

  The King lets out a loud and genuine laugh, and wipes a fake tear from his eye with a manicured finger.

  “Oh Mark you precious thing, we don't live in a bloody democracy. Besides, democracy is one of the fairest systems. I didn't ask about fairness. I asked about efficiency.”

  “Well, a dictatorship then.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What, like you have here?”

  “I asked you about God – imagine he was real; imagine he was in charge. Absolute power, absolute knowledge, and best of all? Absolute benevolence. He would be perfect.”

  “A benevolent dictator?”

  “The most perfect form of government.”

  “Yeah, and how many benevolent dictators are there?”

  The King doesn't answer – just gives Mark a winning smile. Mark laughs.

  “What, you? You think you're benevolent?”

  “I do what's best for my people -”

  “You kill people!” Mark slams his fist on the edge of his chair, and the wood buckles under his hand. The King flinches. “You were going to have me executed for the crime of trying to help people.”

  “You were going against the system – I had to remove you, Mark. But look what you did with that situation, look at you now. You've already forced me into meeting you for a compromise. In one day you've changed everything. Nobody could have predicted this, not even me; I apologise for what I did to you, no denial there.”

  Mark sits back in his chair, ruffling his hair and calming himself.

  “Look,” the King lowers his voice. “You're young – what are you, twenty something? You've got a good heart, you're smart as a tack, you're driven – you're a good businessman. Don't you think we all start out like that? Desperate to fix the world?”

  Something in the King's voice makes Mark lift his eyes from the floor.

  “Surely you're not trying to convince me you want anything except power?”

  “Want? I have power, son. Now you think I want to use that to hurt people? I tell you, that's a side effect and nothing more. That was never the goal – but it is a necessity.”

  “We'll have to disagree on that.”

  “You're young. You don't see the big picture.”

  “And you do?”

  The King leans back and cracks his knuckles, relaxing into his chair.

  “Listen. Humanity has only really crawled out of our caves relatively recently. A generation ago it was illegal to be gay. Before that, it was completely okay to own people – still is, in some places. Before that, most women died in childbirth. In the past fifty years we have come so, so far. And we're going to go even further, even faster.”

  “Yeah. And?”

  “And every time we make those leaps, Mark, we unearth knowledge – and you know that knowledge is true power. Every time we make a discovery, we find a new way to wipe ourselves out. At the end of World War Two we finally learned what we needed to do to completely wipe ourselves out – and a decade or two later, we nearly bloody did it. Nuclear weaponry is not the worst thing we are going to develop, Mark – and next time we might not be so lucky; we might not be so restrained.”

  “So what? All of this is because you don't trust humanity with its own power?”

  “Do you?”

  “Well, yeah. We've come this far.”

  “Then you're naïve. Like I said, you're young. People are idiots – there are psychos right now who would just love to drop a nuclear bomb on someone who's a different colour or worships the wrong god, and they'd set the whole world on fire just to see it happen. We have achieved power beyond our own ability to control it.”

  “Control,” says Mark. “There it is – I was wondering when that word would rear it's head. So what, you think that the only way to stop us blowing ourselves to he
ll is to control everybody?”

  “Well, I believe it's humanity's best chance.”

  “I think they tried this in Nazi Germany, did they not?”

  “Oh, comparing me to the Nazis? What are you, twelve years old? They were fanatics based around a cult of personality. I'm talking about a guiding hand to ensure that the best and brightest aren't wiped out when the peasants press the fucking reset button on civilisation.”

  “By controlling them.”

  “You say that like it's a bad word, Mark, so let's take some metrics. The Kingdom; a sociological experiment a couple of decades in the making, wildly successful on paper, based around controlling a huge populace with a minimal size of government: one man, a benevolent dictator. Some of the wealthiest people in the world, and some of its best minds, conceived this idea, and they think it's working. The Kingdom works, Mark. What would you offer as an alternative, for humanity's future? A model like your business, like The Gardens? Support the worst of us until they can join the rat race?”

  “At least the people I helped wanted to change. They weren't forced – they weren't afraid, they didn't suffer.”

  “And what was your success rate? Roll out a system like yours across Glasgow – one of welfare, and charity, and compassion, and do you know what will happen? They will take advantage of it, and make a mockery of your good intentions.”

  “And what gives you the right to enforce your will on these people? By force, no less?”

  “Some people have to be forcefully lifted out of the squalor, because they are content to sit in it. Is it not the duty of those on the riverbanks to save those who are drowning? People like you and I, Mark... it's our duty to look out for these people. It's our duty to protect them from themselves.”

  “If they don't help themselves, it's meaningless. They have to want to better themselves,” says Mark, though the longer he tries to argue the more he feels he is spewing ill-thought out rhetoric.

  “Do you believe that, Mark?” the King asks him, his expression melting with a gentle affection. “Or were you simply told to believe that?”

  Mark looks away, frowning.

  “There will always be crime,” says the King, “but if you control the crime, and keep it to a minimum? If you can decide how much crime happens, and where, and to whom, then you can ensure that nobody comes to harm unless they deserve it.”