Kingdom: The Complete Series

by Steven William Hannah

  “Why don't we let them know what's going on? Their resources would come in useful.”

  Trespasser One shoots down the idea. “The King would tear them to pieces. I won't bring soldiers here just to die.”

  “Whatever we do,” says Gary, “it has to be soon. If he's going for this whole Kingdom idea, there's not much standing in his way is there?”

  Jamie answers him before the Trespasser can.

  “He'll need cameras, and soldiers. Best guess is that his soldiers take the main routes in and out of Glasgow – probably why he's been convincing criminal collectives from across the country to join him, and arming them. By virtue of his power alone, he can just declare Glasgow his own and kill anybody that tries to stop him. That's how a nation is born, right?”

  Gary scoffs. “Wouldn't they just drop a nuke on him? I mean, a city of criminals, that's a golden target. Wipe out all your problems in one blast.”

  “He'll keep the civilians here,” says Jamie. “His Kingdom needs citizens. Hostages, essentially.”

  “So we've got a rough idea of how,” says Cathy. “The question is, when?”

  “He could do it now,” says Trespasser One. “There's nothing stopping him except his own timetable.”

  “You know what I think we should do?” asks Jamie, looking around at the sodden, gloomy group.

  The smell of rain has followed them in, stuffing up the place with sweat, blood and fear. It smells like a slaughterhouse.

  “What?” asks Donald.

  “I think we should get out of Glasgow.”

  Even Chloe gives him a strange look, leaning back to scowl at him.

  “Whatever the King has planned, he's not going to let his 'citizens' leave. If we're here when his Kingdom becomes a reality, we'll be at the mercy of him and his entire army. We'll be at a major disadvantage.”

  “If we leave, we can't help,” says Donald.

  “Says who? There's better ways to beat the King than us all ganging up and fighting him. We've proven that already.”

  “Guys,” says Chloe, silencing them. “Can anyone else hear that?”

  They stop and listen: the crackle-hiss of the radio over by her tech-desk.

  Cathy nods. “That's the police scanner.”

  Chloe leaps off Jamie's lap and rushes to the bank of monitors. “Maybe they picked up on our tip? Found the King?”

  “For their sake, I hope not,” says Jamie.

  She crashes onto the seat and jams the headphones on, focusing. The rest of the squad follow, clamouring round her and hushing each other, until silence falls.

  “What is it?” hisses Gary.

  Her eyes unfocus, and she lifts the headphones off like a surgeon removing his mask after a failed operation.

  “Pitt Street,” she says, pushing herself back from the desk and tensing up. “Maryhill Road. Two police stations in the city centre.”

  Trespasser One pushes her. “And?”

  “Both requesting armed response backup, immediately.”

  “Oh shit,” whispers Donald. “It's happening. He's doing it right now.”

  Gary steps away and rushes for his campbed, where his armour lies. “We need to get to those stations and help -”

  “It's too late for them,” says Trespasser One, signalling to everyone to get suited up. They disperse as he shouts over the clatter: “The King will eliminate any resistance and then broadcast his intent. Units are probably already taking the motorways, the train stations, and so on. It's too late to stop that.”

  “If it's too late,” shouts Jamie as he fastens his armour on and begins to pull his long coat over the top, “then why are we suiting up?”

  Chloe flicks every monitor on as her fingers dance across the keyboards. “Tony, are you thinking what I am?”

  “He's going to need to broadcast.”

  “The BBC building,” she answers him. “Right?”

  “Right,” says Trespasser One. “He'll want something with reach, something live: where better than the place they broadcast the news from?”

  “That's where you're heading,” says Stacy. “Right on the edge of the river.”

  “Masks on,” says Trespasser One. “We don't want our faces on the news.”

  “So what's the plan?” asks Cathy as she helps Gary with his armour.

  Trespasser One pulls a pump-action shotgun from his toolbox, the end sawn off, and checks it over as he talks.

  “We wait there until he shows up,” says Trespasser One, “and then we kill him.”

  “What, we just default to killing him?” asks Cathy.

  The click-clack of preparation stops, and she gets a series of low, disappointed looks.

  “What?” she asks, and then the realisations sets in. “Oh my god, am I the only one here that hasn't killed someone? Really?”

  “Hi I'm Gary,” says Gary in mocking tones as he suits up, “and I'm a murderer. Well done Gary, sit down, you're very brave. Welcome to murderers anonymous.”

  “It was self defence,” says Donald. “You remember the whole Destroyer thing, you were there. We all took lives.”

  Cathy looks at the ground. “I just kinda forgot that those were people.”

  “Less talking,” shouts Trespasser One, “more preparing. We're on a very limited time here. Vehicles?”

  Jamie answers. “I found us two earlier, got them waiting outside.”

  “Good. Chloe?”

  She looks up. “Yeah?”

  “Can you get a hold of Mark and Stacy?”

  “I've tried a hundred times.”

  “Try one more. Send them a text explaining what's happening. We could use those two especially, even if it's just Stacy to shut down the broadcast. The King is nothing without his public image.”

  “He's kind of a super-powered invincible maniac without his public image,” says Gary.

  “I'll try,” says Chloe. “Now, everyone accept the incoming call.”

  Over the static and beeping of her bank of computers, they hear half a dozen echoes from each of their phones coming out a speaker.

  Trespasser One pulls his face-mask on, leaving only his eyes visible, and loads his shotgun, pumping the slide with a satisfying crunch.

  “We're ready,” he says. “Stay in touch.”

  They head for the hatch.

  Jamie is the last one out, and before he goes he jogs back over to Chloe's workstation and leans over. She briefly takes her headphones off and gives him a flustered look.

  “Jamie there's no time, you need to -”

  He touches her, and the world turns grey as he lifts his face-mask off. The two of them are the brightest thing in the room, almost sparkling.

  “No time?” he asks, smiling.

  She relaxes, looking up at him with her big blue eyes. “What is it?”

  “Two things,” he says. “First -”

  He leans in and kisses her, their noses brushing together as he pulls away with a coy smile.

  “Fair enough,” she laughs. “The second thing?”

  His face darkens so suddenly that it unsettles her, and she slides back in her chair.

  “No matter what happens tonight, I don't want you here when I get back.”

  She looks at him as though she doesn't recognise him. “What?”

  “If this fails, the King is going to make Glasgow just like it was before, and if he finds you then he's going to try and cash that debt we owe him. And I might not be here to do anything about it this time.”

  “I'm not leaving,” she says, “not until all of you do.”

  “Just get out of Glasgow, sweetheart,” he says, begging. “I can't do this with a clear head if I'm worrying for you. Just get far away, ok?”

  “No. We go together, or not at all. That's how we've always worked.”

  They stare at each other in silence, clashing without words.

  “Chloe -”

  “End of discussion,” she says, and reaches out of her chair to put a hand on his cheekbone and kiss
him. As she pulls away, she tiptoes up to his ear. “Put him in the ground, Jamie.”

  He nods, and steals a last kiss.

  Colour returns to the world, and Chloe falls backwards onto her chair with a heavy sigh.

  Jamie is gone.

  Mark sits on a dusty, stained carpet in the shivering darkness, his weathered face cast in shadow by the cold light of a phone screen. Stacy comes through from another room with two bottles of white wine in her hands, the glass clinking together as she shakes them.

  “Look what I found in the cupboard,” she says, and attempts a smile. “Should help us sleep if nothing else.”

  “I don't want any,” he says, staring at his phone.

  “Well that's very well Mark,” she sighs, “but you need it, so shut up and take a bottle.”

  He doesn't look up as she offers it to him, his gaze fixed on the phone.

  “Fine,” she sighs, and tosses it into his lap. “What are you reading about?”

  “Nuclear bombs.”

  She gives him a look that he doesn't see. “Nice cheery topic then.”

  “I'm trying to figure out if I could survive one.”

  “And could you?”

  “Well, comparing the force required to break my skin when I'm only tipsy to the force of, say, a ten kilo-ton nuclear explosion is fairly hard maths to do mentally.”

  “Doesn't your phone have a calculator?”

  “Well yeah but it doesn't do scientific notation Stace.”

  He hasn't looked up yet.

  “Uh, Mark?”

  “Hm?”

  “Why are you looking this up?”

  “Because the Kingdom is going to happen.”

  She squints. “And you're going to nuke the King?”

  “No”, he says. “But the rest of the world might.”

  “Ah, so you're wondering if you could survive it?”

  “I'm wondering,” he finally looks up, and she sees the dark rings around his eyes, “if he could.”

  “Could he?”

  He goes back to the phone. “Haven't figured that out yet.”

  She unscrews the top of her bottle and takes a swig, grimacing. “Ugh, it tastes like feet.”

  He doesn't respond.

  “Hey, Mark?”

  “Hm?”

  “Like – what if he can survive it?”

  “That's what I'm worried about.” he says, and with a sigh he turns the phone off and looks up at her, two silhouettes in the gloom. “If the biggest bombs that mankind has can't kill him, then he will, eventually, take over the entire world. Through attrition more than anything else. Humanity would be powerless.”

  “They'd think of something.”

  “I hope so,” he says.

  The phone lights up again, exposing the kind smiles on both of their faces.

  “Text?” she asks.

  “From Chloe,” he growls. “Again. I wish they'd leave me -” he stops talking as the words nail themselves to his eyes. “Oh.”

  “What? Don't just 'oh' me, you know I hate that -”

  “It's happening. It's happening right now.”

  “What is?”

  “The Kingdom. Do you know the rough direction of the BBC building? The one by the Clyde?”

  “Uh, kinda, roughly. Use the map on your phone Mark, jesus, it's not the nineties.”

  “Good point,” he says. “Ok..”

  He stands up and takes a deep breath as though he's about to plunge into the ocean.

  “I hope this is worth it,” he whispers, with an open-handed slap, knocks the top of the wine bottle off, sending shards of glass across the room. Mark downs the bottle in a matter of seconds before reaching down and taking Stacy's bottle from her flinching hand.

  “Sorry,” he mumbles as he punches the top off of it and empties it into his open mouth.

  Wine and drool run in wiry rivers through his beard, drenching it. Stacy stands up, brushing herself down in the darkness.

  “I'm not sitting another one out,” she says. “Is this it? Are we going to get the King?”

  “Yeah,” he says, and turns to her, their faces hidden by the night. “If you want to come with me, I'm going to have to jump with you.”

  “That's fine,” she says.

  “It's kinda scary. We're gonna be really high up.”

  “I'll close my eyes.”

  “If you vomit on me I swear -”

  “You smell like piss and vomit anyway, man.”

  He shrugs, and sweeps her off her feet like an eager groom. She laces her hands around his neck and buries her head in his chest.

  “Let's go then,” he says, and walks with her in his arms to the front door.

  He kicks it open, and is careful not to hit her head as he walks out into the dark street.

  “Ok,” she says, pulling her phone from her pocket as he starts to swagger down the empty, moonlit road. “Turn like, thirty degrees right.”

  Mark does a ninety degree turn.

  “No, no,” she sighs, “like half of that.”

  “Right direction?”

  “Let me put my phone away first.”

  She stuffs it in her pocket, fastens her coat, and holds on. Gritting her teeth and closing her eyes, she grimaces against his neck.

  He can feel her shaking.

  “You sure about this?” he asks. “We could get a taxi -”

  “Out here? No chance. Just jump before I change my -”

  “Ok.”

  There's a deep boom, followed by the echo of a woman screaming.

  The BBC building overlooks the River Clyde, a dark churning vein running through the heart of the city. Its lights sparkle in the murk of the river like stars in the sky. Two cars screech to a stop outside, on the pavement, and their doors are flung open.

  Jamie follows the Trespasser out of the car, wincing at the cold as the squad converges on the large glass doors leading into the lobby. The doors open automatically, beckoning them inside to the cavernous, colourful room, filled with stairs and pillars and the scent of coffee.

  “There's nobody here,” says Jamie, looking around.

  The squad draw to a stop, and as they examine the scene the little details come together.

  One glass panel has a crack in it, at head height.

  Two bullet holes in a chair, a smear of red on the ground.

  Brass casings from fired rounds catch the light.

  A single paper cup with its still-steaming contents strewn across the ground.

  “We're too late,” whispers Cathy. “He's here.”

  “Not just him,” says the Trespasser. “He wouldn't need to use a gun, and those are rifle rounds. Seven point six two, probably assault rifles. He has his soldiers with him.”

  Donald steps back, closer to the squad. “Where are all the people?”

  “Best guess?” says the Trespasser. “Hostages. Worst guess, dead.”

  Then the ground trembles, and a cloud of dust and debris billows outside, in the car park.

  Trespasser One drops to his knees, spinning and aiming his shotgun out through the glass panels of the building.

  Gary throws a forcefield around them, a thin film of blue light. “Oh shit, it's him, it's the King -”

  “Easy, Gary,” says Jamie, smiling as he sees the figure emerging from the dust. “Easy.”

  It's Mark, bearded and staggering, carrying Stacy in his arms like a sleeping child. He sets her down on uneasy legs and together, they walk through the door, eyebrows raised as they meet their old squad again.

  “Am I late for the reunion?” slurs Mark, one eye half-shut.

  Jamie storms across the room and embraces him, laughing.

  In the atrium above the squad stands a line of men and women in long black coats, each cradling a stubby assault rifle. Row after row of them file around the banisters in silence as the squad exchange pleasantries below them. Walking amongst their ranks like an inspector, in a three piece suit and a long coat of his own, is a gangly man wit
h a pale face and thin, greasy hair.

  He lifts a small radio to his rubbery lips.

  “King,” he murmurs. “This is Gregor. They've come like you suspected.”

  The voice of the King comes back, heated with anticipation.

  “Wonderful, Gregor. End them.”

  “Of course, sir. It may be best to begin your transmission now.”

  Gregor stows away his radio, cracks his knuckles and allows himself to enjoy a grim smile. Catching the eyes of his legion, he draws his fingers across his neck and raises three fingers, counting down in silence.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  He drops his hand, and his soldiers step forward.

  Sixty assault rifles open fire on the squad below.

  Episode 5

  Foundations

  Mark is too concerned with the warm reception from his old friends – all smiles and arm-patting – that he almost ignores Stacy. Only the urgency in her voice shocks him out of the moment.

  “Guys,” she comes between Mark and Jamie, flapping her hands at the rest of the squad. “Guys, I can feel guns, there's guns near us, lots of them -”

  Trespasser One acts on training. He grabs Gary:

  “Forcefield, son, now -”

  The words are barely out before the first shots hit. Ricochets kick up the floor at their feet in puffs of smoke; Mark grabs Stacy and spins around, shielding her.

  Gary gets the forcefield up, brought to his knees by the force of every impact. His blue bubble cracks and trembles like ice, colour and light cascading around them as a thunderstorm of gunfire falls on their heads.

  “Cath,” shouts the Trespasser, grabbing the older woman by the shoulder. “Get a hold of everyone and get ready -”

  Stacy stops them, shaking her head.

  “Wait, I can do this. I can – just -”

  She grabs Mark's hand out of instinct and squeezes tight, closing her eyes and gritting her teeth.

  A single trickle of blood runs from her nose.

  “Stace -” begins Gary.

  Then the noise stops as though a blade has cut it. A soft rattle of mechanical grinding and clattering echoes through the lobby, and then the confused shouting.

  “I've broke their guns. Go,” mutters Stacy, hands still on her head.