“You want me to get a hold of Mark?”
“Yeah. Or Stacy. Either way, let them know they've got company up there.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, tell Mark to get drunk. He's going to need to be more than bulletproof.”
Stacy pats Mark's chest as they soar into the open sky.
“Mark,” she urges him, and they slow to a standstill.
“What?”
“There's more than one plane. I can feel them – faster, smaller. Fighter jets, I think.”
“Escorts. Ok, well, most planes have heat seaking missiles right? I'm pretty cold.”
“Mark they'll kill us. What do we do?”
He thinks for a moment. “How far away are they?”
“A minute, tops.”
“How's your power feeling?”
“I dunno, the same as always?”
“Reckon you can stop two fighter jets from firing their weapons?”
“I – I don't know -”
Mark kisses her again, and her doubt melts away as the sun rises, bathing them both in its warmth.
“Just try your best, I've got us anyway.”
“Ok,” she says. “Wait, I think my phone is going.”
“Is it Chloe?”
“Yeah,” says Stacy, pulling the earpiece out and putting it on. “Hello?”
Mark watches her expression change as she listens.
“What are they saying?”
“That there's two escort jets.”
“Tell them we know. We're continuing anyway. Stay in touch with them.”
She nods, and they rocket into the sky again.
The King stands at the top of Buchanan Street, in front of the steps of the Concert Hall, arms spread wide and looking up at the sky. In the early morning silence he can hear the drone of engines somewhere in the sky, far off.
“Here comes the second sunrise,” he whispers to himself, grinning.
Stacy clings to Mark as he lifts his head, sending them soaring into the upper sky, where the air is thin and Stacy finds herself getting shockingly cold and light headed, as though she's running a brutal fever.
Then she feels it; the inner workings of the machines rocketing towards them, two small and angry attack dogs flanking a large bull: escort fighter jets and a bomber.
Sick and woozy, she opens her eyes for a moment and sees them bearing down on her in the distance; already she can hear the air tearing itself apart as they approach.
Mark is hovering with her in his arms, right in their path, staring them down.
Trespasser One's phone rings again, and this time he takes one of Chloe's earpieces and attaches it under his face mask.
“Trespasser One.”
“Soldier,” comes the voice of Command, the Agency's commander. “Why are my pilots reporting an unknown flying object standing directly in their flight path wearing what appears to be a cape?”
“I wouldn't know anything about that sir.”
“Trespasser One I swear to god -”
“Drop the bomb, Command. Just trust me. But if you fire on that caped man, you're going to lose those planes.”
“Is that a threat, son? You gone native on us again?”
“No sir. That's me telling you that there's a young woman up there who can manipulate technology, and if you so much as try to lock a missile or fire up a canon, I will instruct her to pop the god damn ejector seats on both your pilots. We on the same page here?”
There's silence from Command.
“Drop the bomb if you have to, Command. We've got this. Trespasser One out.”
Stacy screams Mark's name as the fighter jets pass them by, ripping the air apart and leaving a trail of jet fuel and burning oxygen. The smell fills Stacy's nose and makes her want to wretch.
Then comes the bomber.
She feels it like a relentless wave of machinery bearing down on her, millions of moving parts all interconnected, from turbines to tiny mechanical switches and cogs, a multitude of sensations.
One sticks out at her, a release like cutting off a growth. It feels like finally vomiting up poison.
Something strange, something wrong, leaves the plane and falls away.
“Mark,” she shouts as the bomber passes them by. “Mark, the bomb, they've dropped the bomb.”
The bomber scythes through the air above them.
Mark grips her and whispers in her ear:
“Hold on tight.”
Then he drops, and Stacy screams as they plummet after the bomb.
Mark races after the bomb, an angular white cuboid with a fin like a torpedo, plummeting towards the city he has given his life to over and over again. Stacy scrabbles at him for grip as they race downwards, and he holds her close with one arm whilst his other punches a clear path through the air ahead of him.
The bomb is falling as fast as it's going to, and Mark pushes himself, feeling the fire ignite inside him as he shoots through the air after it.
Stacy is screaming something, but he can't hear her. Contrails are burning off his shoulders, the air buffeting him, pulling at him, trying to slow him and throw him off course.
There's a bang that pops Mark's ears, and then all the noise, all the shaking and trembling, stops. It passes, and there's just the straight path down. Smooth.
The bomb races up towards him now, and he realises what just happened.
Mach One.
Supersonic.
The King hears the tearing sonic boom as the fighter jets pass above, and smiles. People are coming out of the shops, coming into the streets to see what the noise is. He sees panic on their faces, and they look at him. Glasgow is waking up.
“It's ok,” he tells them, his voice booming down the streets. “You won't feel a thing.”
He ignores their panic, the urgent cries to get out of the city, to get to cover. The King hears the drone of the bomber fade into the distance.
Neutron bombs, he knows, are set off high above their intended target.
Meaning it's only a matter of seconds now.
Then the world will see that there's no stopping him.
Not now.
Not ever.
The King hears something like a ripping gunshot, like the air cracking apart, and looks up with anger and confusion in his eyes.
He knows a sonic boom when he hears one, and he's already heard two from the jets.
That was a third.
Stacy is banging on his armour, trying to get his attention. Mark catches up to the bomb and grasps it by the fins, keeping his speed even with it. As he slows down, the air tugs and pulls at him again. Glasgow is not so far away now, visible through the gaps in the clouds.
“Don't do that,” shouts Stacy as he steadies them at the bomb.
“What?” he shouts over the rush of air.
“Don't go supersonic, it hurts like fu -”
They pass through the clouds, and Stacy screams out of reflex.
“Stace, Stace,” he calms her, pulling her in tight. “Ok, you need to do your thing. Turn it off.”
“I'm trying,” she groans. “Give me a minute.”
Stacy reaches out with her mind, feeling the myriad of tiny moving parts, some electronic, some mechanical. There's something counting down, she feels, something clicking faster and faster.
Radar altimeter. Clicking faster and faster until it's a constant signal.
Then detonation.
It's already a rapid snare, clicking over and over like a field of crickets in her skull.
Fear strikes her, paralysing her.
The bomb is going to go off and her and Mark will be turned to ash in a split second. It could happen at any moment and she won't even feel it.
She feels Mark squeezing her hand, and her head is nestled beside his ear. Her eyes open, and she finds herself staring up into a gorgeous sky filled with misty, rolling clouds, baby blue peaking out behind it.
“Focus,” he shouts.
Seconds left.
Stacy reaches into the bomb with her mind. There's a relay that is waiting to close as soon as it gets the continuous signal. One domino that, once tipped over, will start the entire reaction, activating the neutron gun and turning the ball of plutonium into intense, focused heat and radiation.
There's nothing else she can do.
The signal goes continuous.
Detonation.
The signal races down towards the relay and stops.
Stacy's mind blocks the relay open, preventing it from closing.
“I'm holding it,” she shouts, and Mark begins to slow them down. “I'm holding it open, it's not – it's trying to go off, I can't shut it down.”
“Ok,” he whispers in her ear. “We're nearly on the ground, just hold on Stace. Just hold on.”
Trespasser One listens in to his earpeice, and turns to the group, his shoulders falling with relief.
“Stacy's got it,” he says. “She's shut it off.”
There's a ripple of relieved sighs, followed by the Trespasser cutting them short with a raised hand.
“Wait,” he says. “Wait – she's just holding it off. It's not defused. Everybody get outside. We need to meet them where they drop the bomb, worst case scenario, Jamie can buy us some time, right man?”
“Right. Let's go.”
The squad get themselves together.
“Wait,” shouts Cathy. “What if he's out there?”
“The King? He most certainly will be, so keep your eyes open. Be ready to hide us, Cath.”
They run outside into the brisk spring morning and look up, listening for something, scanning the sky. It's Gary who points them out.
Mark's cape catches the sunlight as they fall, the bomb dragging them down towards the ground, and Stacy is clinging to him.
“They're coming down fast,” says the Trespasser. “Near the Buchanan Galleries. Cut through the shops, go, we can be out before they hit.”
Trespasser One charges across the road and through a set of revolving doors into a long abandoned superstore, leading the squad to the imminent crash site.
Mark starts to pull up, slowing their descent towards the city. They're only a few hundred feet above the streets now, and Stacy is staring into nothingness, her entire mind focused on keeping that relay open. Her breathing is starting to quicken, as though she's tiring herself out.
Grunting with effort, taking himself to a better place in his head, reliving that kiss in the clouds, Mark decelerates till the bomb is hanging from his two hands like a parcel. He rests it on the ground as they touch down, cradling Stacy in one arm.
“Ok Stace,” he whispers, out of breath himself. “We're on the ground. What do I do? What do we -”
“I don't know, I don't know, I don't know -”
“Stace, calm down, calm down -”
“Mark it's going to go off, I'm sorry, I'm sorry -”
“Stacy.” He rests a hand on her cheek, and she stares up into his eyes. “We have got this. Say it to me. Take a breath and say it to me.”
She does as he says, and takes his hand, squeezing it as though she is in labour.
“We've got this.”
“Good. Now I'm going to disconnect us in case I need to fly away with this.”
“Ok, ok,” she whispers, flustered and breathing heavily. Her cheeks are flushed and her hair is matted to her forehead with sweat. “Do it.”
Mark wastes no time – he snaps the harnesses open with his hands and lays Stacy down with her hands still on the white, angular bomb. Only now does he look around.
They are sitting in the middle of Buchanan Street, on a road that runs the length of the city centre, Bath Street. Takeaways and clothes shops surround them.
From the wide glass doors of the Buchanan Galleries emerge a gaggle of armour-clad soldiers, and Mark recognises them with a relieved grin.
“Guys,” he shouts, “guys over here. The bomb is still live. It's trying to go off. Donald, give Stacy a hand with her power, man.”
“On it,” he says, and crouches beside her, taking her hand as her breathing quickens. Cathy joins him, calming Stacy down and keeping her focused.
“Nice flying mate,” Jamie pats him on the shoulder as he passes and kneels beside Stacy. “Ok Stace, if it's going to go, tell me and I'll stop time for us all, ok?”
She nods, her eyes unfocused and her cheeks puffed out.
Trespasser One and Gary join them, and the entire squad stand around the nuclear device – the neutron bomb – and look at like mechanics looking at a flat tire.
“Ok,” says the Trespasser. “So this is a neutron bomb, it'll have a plutonium-239 core. One this small, it'll have to be a series of explosive lenses around the core; an implosion-fission device. Neutron initiator in the centre, shaped like an urchin, an inch in diameter. Removing that will stop it going bang, but it could still make a bloody mess.”
“Ok, next plan,” says Mark. “I could throw it into the ocean if I can get fast enough?”
“Without Stacy it'll detonate. She's struggling as it is. No good.”
Donald looks up, thinking. “You said it was an implosion device?”
“Yeah.”
“Don't they use shaped explosive charges all around the core? You said a series of explosive lenses, right? You know, to force it inwards – to increase its density and make it go critical?”
Trespasser One looks at him with a raised eyebrow through the mask. “You sure you're a doctor, Don?”
“What if we removed one of the charges? It would never reach critical mass, it would all shoot out the side, like squeezing a water balloon. There might be an explosion, but -”
Gary steps forward. “I can contain it?”
“Right, ok,” says Don, “but how the hell do we get into the casing and remove one of the charges?”
“Sounds like a job for me,” says Mark. “Stacy, you holding up ok?”
Gasping for air, she nods. “Hurry up. It's getting worse. It's angry.”
“Ok, Tony, where do I punch and how hard?”
“We can't be that blunt, we'll risk damaging the urchin at the centre, and then we're all going to need intensive chemo.”
“I can heal us all,” says Donald. “I mean, if we get irradiated.”
“Provided the explosion wouldn't kill us,” says Trespasser One. “Ok. Hold on, we can open the bomb casing. Stacy, can you spare any energy to open the -”
“No,” she murmurs, “no, sorry, no.”
“It's ok, it's ok,” he whispers, squeezing her shoulder. “I can manage. Just you do your thing.”
She nods, and the entire squad gather around her like a family, protecting her, encouraging her. The first trickle of blood escapes her nose.
“Ok,” says the Trespasser. “Not often I get to do stuff outwith my training. Here goes.”
Trespasser One produces a multitool from his belt and flicks it open, picking out a few rivets tracing his fingers round them. He furrows his brow.
“Rivets. Nothing a multitool will dent. Mark, I've changed my mind. Can you just – gently – wrench this off?”
“Sure,” says Mark, and takes a gulp from his flask before digging his fingers into the metal casing. Stacy starts whimpering as he pulls it.
“It feels like I'm the machine,” she whispers. “I'm going to explode. It's me -”
“Someone calm her down,” says Mark. “Hold her hand. Rub the back of her neck, trust me.”
Cathy takes over, soothing Stacy whilst Mark pops the steel rivets out with his hands and rips the shielding off.
“Ok, everyone stay clear,” says Trespasser One, “I think plutonium emits radiation.”
“Only alpha radiation,” says Donald. “We should be fine. Gary, get ready to put a shield around us anyway.”
“Uh guys,” whispers Gary. “Guys.”
The Trespasser ignores Gary. “Mark, If you see something that looks like a football, tell me. That'll be the core, and we need to take one of the shaped charg
ed off of it, then we can get clear and set it off.”
“Guys,” shouts Gary, and now they all turn.
Standing down the road, laughing and swaggering towards them with not a care in the world, is the one thing they had all hoped never to see.
The King, smiling.
“Gary, shield, now,” says Trespasser One, and stands up, readying his shotgun.
A blue forcefield blossoms around them. Jamie takes Chloe's hand and she crouches behind him, peering over his shoulder. Stacy begins hyperventilating, her eyes going wild with fear.
“Trespasser, stand down,” says Mark, standing up. “I've got him. You take care of the bomb.”
Trespasser One nearly hesitates, but he sees the look in Mark's eyes. As he passes him and walks back to the bomb, he stops to whisper:
“You can't do the space-throw thing.”
“Why not?”
“You can't go fast enough, nor can you breathe in space. You'll die..”
“We don't know that -”
“You nearly drowned the other night, you can't bloody breathe in space. Keep him busy until we fix the bomb.”
“Deal. Gary, let me out of the forcefield.”
It flickers, and Mark steps through, cape billowing behind him, to face the King.
“Well, look at you,” says the King, sizing him up, chuckling. “Armour, cape; blue and gold, no less, good colours son.” The King looks down at his own dark navy suit, with its gold cuff-links and his golden rings. “I admire your dress sense.”
“You've lost today, King. No nuclear bomb is going off in Glasgow.”
“You sure? Because I think that looks like an airburst device. Which means it already should have gone off at the right altitude. Meaning... say, who's that breathless, stressed looking girl with her hand clamped to the bomb? Could it be -”
The King steps to the side and Mark steps with him, lowering his head and his voice.
“You take a step back, King. Even you aren't going to set off a nuke straight in your own face.”
“Why not? The Agency was going to and it didn't frighten me.”
Kingdom: The Complete Series Page 49
