“Technically it was Donald -” he begins, and Donald cuts him off.
“Let's just keep that to ourselves. Go.”
Mark gives them all a nervous smile and turns, walking towards the cameras.
Standing in front of the array of waiting cameras, with bodies lying limp around the studio, Mark struggles to find any inspiring or reassuring words to say.
“Some of you might know me,” he tells the camera, unsure of which one to look at out of the three. “My name is Mark. I, uh -” he swallows, trying to think clearly. Alcohol fogs his mind, tugging half-formed thoughts off into the darkness before he can speak them aloud. “Well, the King is gone. You don't need to be afraid of him anymore. We can start rebuilding Glasgow properly, and, uh -”
He doesn't get any further than that.
That's when the screaming starts.
The King's corpse twitches like a mangled puppet, and before Jamie can say anything the King has leapt to his feet, snarling like a wild animal, his eyes red and his nose trickling blood. His face is flushed, every vein in his neck and forehead standing out like track marks.
Jamie can't even get a shot off before the King is taking them apart.
Donald is the first – the King reaches into the bearded man's throat and closes his fist with a fleshy crunch. Grasping at his neck, Donald crumples to the ground. Jamie calls his name and drops with him, trying to help. Cathy throws herself down next to Donald, cradling him like a lover.
The King sweeps past Cath and kicks her so hard in the stomach that she is thrown across the desks, tumbling like a ragdoll.
Jamie looks on in horror, certain that he heard her spine break.
Stacy tries to throw herself clear, but the King grabs her by the hair and jerks her head back. Her neck snaps like a twig.
Trespasser One buys himself a second, firing his shotgun point-blank into the King's face as he turns. Flinching, the King holds his face in agony and rips the shotgun from Trespasser One's hands. He aims a punch at the Trespasser's heart, but a blue forcefield blooms around the soldier.
Jamie looks down into Donald's eyes in time to watch the light fade from behind them. With a shiver, the doctor dies.
The King disregards the Trespasser within the forcefield; he turns, and sees Gary with his head in his hands, focused on the forcefield, vulnerable. He charges.
Only now, fighting the pain in his head, does Jamie manage to stop time. The King is halfway towards Gary, fist cocked back. Moving quickly, Jamie grabs Gary and pulls him out of the way.
Time is burrowing through his head like a drill, threatening to shake his eyes and teeth loose. He lets time flow again, and the King smashes through the air where Gary would have been, shattering desks and glass as he tries to stop himself.
The forcefield around Trespasser One goes down, and a flurry of pistol shots hit the King in the back of the head, bowling him over. Jamie takes aim himself as the King turns; he puts two shots into the King's chest that knock him back like punches.
Then Mark arrives.
What comes out of Mark's mouth is a scream halfway between rage and grief. Cath's body lies sprawled across a desk. Donald lies lifeless on the floor, his throat caved in. Stacy's eyes have glassed over, her neck bent at an unnatural angle.
Mark hits the King hard enough to throw him over every desk between them and the wall, and through that as well. Concrete and plaster explode from the wall as the King charges back through it -
Straight into Gary's forcefield. It bends and cracks, but it holds, stopping the King in his tracks and knocking him down.
Jamie steps aside, trying to stay low behind a desk, and gets another shot off. It hits the King in the shoulder as he gets up and charges. Only a momentary time-stop lets Jamie get out the way before the King charges through his cover, almost flattening him.
Trespasser One pops out from cover and empties a pistol magazine into the King, who bats the bullets away like irritating insects.
Mark closes with him again, his mind lost to the rage now, and the two stand toe to toe exchanging blows.
Jamie keeps low and breathes, trying to stop time as he checks his revolver; two bullets left. Blood trickles from his nose, dropping onto his hand and staining it.
The thundercrack of the King's punches becomes a flurry as he rains blow after blow onto an unprepared Mark. Jamie aims and gets another shot in, but there's no point anymore; the King is bulletproof.
Gary, wiping the blood from his nose, reaches out with his power and forms a forcefield around the King, trapping him. Mark falls to his knees, leaning on his fist as he fights to get his breath back.
The King stops his relentless assault and taps the forcefield surrounding him, then looks at Gary.
“Go,” mumbles Gary, starting to shake as blood pours over his chin. “Get everyone out of here, run.”
Smiling, the King throws a wild punch at the forcefield. Gary cries out, and falls to knees, clutching at his head – but the field holds.
“Gary, let it down,” shouts Mark. “I've got the bastard.”
The King punches the forcefield again – and again, and again, till his hands are a blur.
Gary screams, holding the field up.
“Gary, stop it,” cries the Trespasser, “you'll -”
Gary coughs, and with a wet splatter his mind tears itself apart. Blood explodes from his nose and eyes.
Everything is blown backwards as blue energy erupts from his body, throwing them all through desks and computers, into walls.
Trespasser One crumples as a desk smashes into him.
Jamie flies through the air. He hits a stone pillar and feels something crack before he crumples to the ground. His vision is fading, his body aching, everything is on fire. Even the little muscle inside his mind that lets him stop time is fatigued, sore.
He groans and gets to the his feet.
Already the King is standing, pacing over to Gary's body. He looks down at the corpse, and gives a smug smile before turning on the rest of them. Trespasser One is writhing on the ground, clutching his ribs.
Mark struggles to his feet and tries to fight the King again, stumbling towards him like a drunken brawler. The King beats him to the floor with three rapid punches to the abdomen, letting him fall where he stands.
Trespasser One reaches into his webbing and pulls out a grenade, pulling the pin and staring the King in the eye through his mask's visor. The King looks at the grenade as he walks over, and chuckles. Leaning down over the still Trespasser, he cups his hands around the explosive.
There he stays, staring into his eyes, until it explodes with a muffled cough, blowing the Trespasser's hands to pieces. Before the scream of pain can leave his mouth, the King stands up and, as though killing an insect, stamps on his face.
The scream comes from somewhere else – all this time, Jamie realises, Chloe has been screaming in his earpiece. He tries to listen, but his ears are ringing – there's just sound and noise, no coherence.
Jamie grunts and tries to stand, still clutching the useless revolver.
As he rises, he sees Mark get to his feet. The last two left.
Their eyes meet for a brief moment, and through his bloodied face, Mark mouths the single word:
Run.
Then he leaps for the King.
Jamie ducks as the two exchange blows, every punch a deafening boom with all the weight of a train behind it. He checks the revolver again, his tired fingers fumbling with the mechanism.
One bullet left.
The storm of punches has stopped. Clicking the revolver shut, Jamie peaks out from above his overturned desk.
Mark is dangling in the air, the King's hand around his throat, the two staring into each other's eyes. The King carries him, kicking and struggling, over to the podium. To the cameras.
He punches Mark twice, hard, in the gut, doubling him over as he drops him. The King turns him to face the camera with him, squeezing his neck in the crook of his elbow.
“You see?” shouts the King to the world. “You see how your best soldiers fare against me? This is the world now. This is the way things are.”
Mark struggles, reaching backwards for the King's eyes, only to have his grasping hands batted away.
“The Kingdom has come,” says the King, smiling at the camera.
Jamie tries to stop time.
He closes his eyes and concentrates, and he feels the cold, tingling rush come over him, but it lasts a second before the colour drains back into the world and time keeps running. Blood trickles from his nostrils with the effort.
“Tomorrow I take my throne. Anybody still in Glasgow when the sun rises can stay. Send your soldiers, and they will suffer the same fate as this one.”
With no ceremony, the King grunts and wrenches his elbow upwards, snapping Mark's neck.
The drunken hero gives a strangled cry and goes limp. Spreading his arms wide like a victorious gladiator, the King lets Mark crumple to the ground with a heavy thud.
Jamie sinks down behind the desk, staring into space. Numb.
Chloe is screaming in his ear for him to run, to get out of there.
“Chloe,” he mumbles. “Get out of Glasgow, sweetheart. I'm sorry. I love you.”
He reaches up and pulls the earpiece out.
The bodies of his friends lie around him, staring at him with accusing eyes.
In front of the cameras, the King gives a parting speech that Jamie cannot hear. All of his senses have switched off.
He looks down at the revolver.
One bullet left.
Last man standing.
Jamie stands up, and walks into the middle of the room as the King finishes his speech and turns.
The King stops, and tenses. He looks pleasantly surprised.
“I thought I had you all accounted for.”
“Not all of us,” says Jamie.
Episode 6
The Kingdom
Jamie and the King stand across an open field of debris and dust, surrounded by the bodies of Jamie's friends and a dozen other unnamed journalists. The smell of blood drifts in a haze, making Jamie light-headed and throwing his aim off. His revolver's sight drifts over the King's head and chest, hovering for moments at a time before trembling off in the wrong direction.
The King smiles. “You again.”
“Well remembered,” says Jamie, blinking away the tiredness in his eyes, struggling to focus. “Funny thing; when I beat you unconscious with your own gun all those months ago, I was going to shoot you.”
“You should have,” says the King, “while you had the chance. Speaking of which -” the King laces his hands behind his back, “what exactly do you plan to do with that revolver?”
Jamie gives him a bitter laugh. “Shoot you again?”
“For all the good it will do?”
Jamie closes his eyes and sighs. “I have to do something.”
“Do you? It looks to me like you're a natural survivor, son.”
Jamie keeps his eyes focused on the King's, no matter how hard the crumpled bodies of his friends try to pull his gaze downward. The King smiles, and swaggers down from the podium towards Jamie, who tenses and steps backwards.
The King's dark features crease with joy.
“You used to work for me, right?” asks the King, stopping his advance. “J-something. John? Jim?”
“Jamie.”
“Right, right. Thief of some sort?”
“Cars.”
“Car thief. Right,” the King nods, looking away. “So, you did ok under my rule before? I imagine we gave you the standard package: a flat, an income, a life, you know, in return for only committing crimes we sanctioned?”
“Yeah.”
“Good deal.”
“Only at the highest price I could afford.”
“Insurance?”
“Yeah.”
“Family member?”
“Girlfriend. I had to sign her into sex slavery if I broke my terms.”
“We have to keep control somehow, Jamie.”
“Except you wouldn't let me quit,” he says. “All I wanted was a normal life for me and Chloe. That's what I promised her.”
The King looks around, raising his hands in a shrug.
“You could still have that,” says the King. “Walk away. Turn and walk out the door, go and get her and leave the city before sunrise.”
Jamie shakes his head. “I can't.”
“Why not?”
“Because you've killed my friends,” he says, his voice turning into a harsh whisper. “It's over for you now. I don't know how, but if it takes me the rest of my life I will find a way to kill you.”
“Good luck.”
The two men stare at each other. After a pause, the King raises an eyebrow.
“You, uh... you going to shoot me now, or what?”
Jamie looks at the revolver again, a memory and a smile flickering across his face.
“You know,” he says, weighing it in his hand. “Funny thing. When I first got these powers, I had almost no control over them.”
“I had that too,” says the King. “I'd rip doors off when I tried to open them. Got this horrible feral violence boiling up inside me. I learned to control it.”
Jamie ignores him. “The power tended to kick in just before I got hurt. A few times it kicked in without me even realising it,” he scowls as he speaks, “like when your suicide bomber set himself off.”
The King says nothing, just laces his hands behind his back and watches, intrigued.
“My powers would kick in to save my life,” says Jamie, his voice wavering. “Now I'm almost spent. I mean, I'm struggling to stay upright here.”
Jamie closes his eyes and tries to focus his power again; nothing. His power splutters like a car with a flat battery and his nose trickles blood, his temples throbbing with pain.
“Chances are I'm going to die trying this anyway,” says Jamie. “So what the hell.”
“Trying what?”
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” says Jamie.
He raises the revolver to his head and pulls the trigger.
Jamie stands in the grey twilight, the King a statue before him, flinching at the gunshot. The bullet has stopped halfway out of the barrel.
He drops the revolver and rubs his head. The flow of time is already building up against his fragile mind like a raging river, finding the cracks in his willpower.
Taking a breath, Jamie steadies himself and keep time where it is, reinforcing the walls that hold it back.
He sits down, cross legged on the floor, wincing at his aching muscles and the broken rib somewhere in his chest. Feeling at his wrist, staring into space with concentration, he undoes his watch and lays it on the floor in front of him.
From his coat pocket, he takes his wallet and flips through it until he finds a picture of Chloe, all blonde curls and blue eyes, smiling out at him. He lays that beside the watch, trying to ignore the pain building in his skull, pounding like a bass drum in time with his heartbeat.
Jamie takes the watch and stares at it, looking at the seconds hand: stopped completely, of course. Staring at the watch face, he urges it backwards, thinking loud thoughts at it, holding his breath and straining till he is bright red and trembling.
All that gets him is another pounding headache. Blood drips from his nose, splattering across the watch. He remembers Gary, blood spewing out his face as his brain ripped apart with effort.
He fights for his breath as his body tries to capitulate. His heartbeat is the loudest thing in the silent moment, counting off every second passing by, making it harder to focus, harder to breathe, harder to stay in his trance-like state.
Jamie almost gives up.
He looks up from the watch in despair, and he almost gives up.
Doing so, however, brings him face to face with the horror of his situation. Jamie looks into the dead eyes of his friends, into the blazing, frozen pupils of the King, and he makes his de
cision.
One way or another, this is not a world that he intends to live in.
Accepting that he's probably going to die lifts a weight off of his mind.
Jamie closes his eyes, and looks inwards. There, he finds a river flowing steadily by, shaving seconds off of his life like a swinging guillotine. At some point, deep within his consciousness, it hits a solid dam of brick and mortar, and dashes hopelessly against it: time stops there, building itself up.
Jamie is on the other side of that dam, a blockage in time's flow. He feels it pushing him back, trying to break his hold on it. With every second it gets stronger, angrier. It frightens him, the fury that is building behind that wall. It wants to bring time to pass, to sweep over him with all the horror that the rapid passage of years brings. It wants to sweep him up, to age him and cripple him with all the time he has held off.
Jamie is terrified. To push too hard is to throw himself into the abyss – his brain will tear itself in two and he'll leave Chloe alone in a world that has the King walking free, unstoppable.
The alternative is to live on in a world without the only friends he's ever really known – a prospect too bleak for him to accept.
With the abyss facing him whichever choice he makes, Jamie centres himself and begins to push back.
His heart is racing as though he is sprinting. Every moment aches and turns like rusted gears, creaking as though the plates in his skull are grinding against one another.
His nose trickles blood, and as the bitter taste hits his lips he almost loses his focus.
Almost.
Drawing in breath, Jamie pushes harder still, feeling his brain start to pull itself apart.
He holds it, for better or for worse.
Jamie pushes – and slowly, moment by moment, second by second, time begins to yield.
The watch begins to tick backwards.
Fifteen Minutes Ago
Cathy walks across the atrium to Mark.
“Chloe is on the comms, she says that there's a broadcast going out. It's the King.”
Kingdom: The Complete Series Page 43
