by A. G. Taylor
She shakes her head.
“It’s okay,” he continues. “You just have to concentrate more, Sarah. Hold onto this for me, will you?”
He reaches out and deposits an object into Sarah’s hand: a white stone the size of a penny. The stone is perfectly smooth, almost warm to the touch.
“What is…” she says, looking up, but the man is gone. She moves to the other side of the viewing platform and looks round, half expecting to see him hanging off the side of the train. He isn’t there. Just the endless view of the carriages stretching ahead into the distance.
Turning the stone over in her hand, Sarah opens the door into the carriage. There’s plush carpet on the floor and people sitting on leather couches in old-fashioned dress. Like something from the early twentieth century. Her jeans and T-shirt stand out in the crowd, but no one seems to notice as she walks past people drinking at the bar, towards a table at the back.
An old man is sitting, facing away from her. She can tell he’s old because of the thin, grey hair stretched over his scalp and the hunch of his shoulders. Moving past his shoulder, she notices the object on the table before him: a wooden board with a grid of squares and various white and black stones laid out. The stones are identical in shape and size to the one she has in her hand.
“Were you talking to someone back there, my dear?” the old man asks, not looking away from the view of the bridge passing the window.
Something tells Sarah to keep the stone a secret, so she slips it inside her pocket before taking the seat opposite.
“Just some guy,” she says.
“You shouldn’t talk to strangers,” the old man says, turning to face her. His skin is pale and lined, the texture of old paper, but his eyes are intelligent and alive. Sarah tries to remember who the man is as he begins to remove the black stones from the board, putting them into a velvet bag on his side of the table. She starts collecting the whites. There’s a bag for them as well.
“What is this?” she asks, meaning the board. “A game?”
“Yes. A very old game. It’s called Go. I first came across it in eighth-century Japan.” With the board clear, the man removes a black stone from his bag and lays it on the board at a point where lines intersect. “It looks very simple. But it fact, it’s incredibly complex.”
Sarah leans forward and examines the board. It’s old – an antique. “What’s the game about?”
The man’s thin lips stretch into a smile. “War. Would you like to play?”
“Does it take long?”
“Don’t worry,” the old man says softly. “We have all the time in the universe.”
She frowns again, trying to remember something. Something she had to do. With a shake of her head, she removes a white stone from the bag and places it on the board.
It can’t have been that important anyway.
“Put your foot on the gas!” Alex called to Wei. He had his head stuck under the bonnet of a rusting SUV they’d found near the junkyard office. Compared to the wrecked vehicles all around, it looked in usable condition. Just.
In the distance there was a flash of lightning followed by a rumble of thunder. The temperature had dropped several degrees in the last few minutes and there was humidity to the air which suggested the coming of a storm. Another flash in the distance. More thunder. Alex turned his attention to Hack and May, who sat in the doorway to the yard office. Hack had found a blanket from inside and had draped it over the girl’s shoulders in an attempt to stop her trembling.
“Is she going to be okay?” he asked.
“She’ll be fine just as soon as we get out of here.”
“Well, make yourself useful then,” Alex said, waving a hand at the engine.
Hack rose and walked over. He placed his hand against the battery and electricity sparked around his fingers. “Try it now,” he said.
Wei turned the key and pumped the gas again. The SUV protested, but the engine fired and kept turning over this time. Hack grabbed the edge of the bonnet and slammed it down.
“It won’t get us far,” he said. “Maybe just to the edge of the city.”
“That’s far enough,” Alex said, moving to the driver’s door. “We need to get back to HIDRA. Regroup and work out some way to stop all this. Let’s get out of here.”
Hack returned to May and helped her to her feet. They climbed into the back of the SUV as the first giant drops of rain began to spatter against the van roof. Wei slid across into the passenger seat as Alex took the wheel.
“What about Louise?” he asked.
“I don’t think she’s coming with us, Wei.”
“Then neither am I.” Wei half-opened the passenger door, but Alex placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“We won’t help Sarah by getting ourselves caught or killed today,” he said. “Sometimes the best thing to do is retreat. She understood that.”
As Wei thought this over the downpour started – a waterfall of rain fell over the yard, turning the ground into mud in seconds. Finally, the younger kid hauled the SUV door shut against the storm. Alex breathed a sigh of relief. He had no intention of leaving Louise behind, but he was certain that she would come with them the moment she saw them driving out of the yard. It was his instinct to go after Sarah as well, but rationally he knew this was not an option. They’d lost Nestor and Octavio already. Now Sarah. Who would he lose next? For the first time he was beginning to realize what Sarah had gone through all those months. The responsibility of being in charge. The fear of losing members of the team. Of putting them in danger.
Alex threw the vehicle into gear. The ageing tyres spun in the mud before finally finding traction. The SUV’s broken suspension threw them around inside as it bumped over the uneven ground. Alex turned round a stack of semi-crushed cars and headed towards the open gates leading out to a road…
The SUV skidded to a halt, throwing everyone inside forward violently. Wei braced himself against the dash to stop from being thrown through the windscreen.
“Go easy on the brakes!”
“It’s not me,” Alex said. He put his foot down on the accelerator. The engine howled. Wheels spun in the mud, throwing up dirt against the windows.
“Look!” Wei exclaimed, pointing ahead.
Louise stepped in front of the vehicle. She was already drenched with water, long blonde hair hanging in straggles around her head and shoulders, but she seemed oblivious to this. Alex eased off on the gas and gave a sigh. “Looks like we aren’t going anywhere.”
“What do you want, Louise?” he said, jumping out of the SUV. The rain soaked his clothes in an instant.
“I can stop you from leaving,” she said.
“I know,” Alex said softly. “But you won’t. You know this is the right thing to do. We need to get back to HIDRA and tell them what we know about the hypersphere. They need to be warned it’s going to become a portal for the Entity’s armies. We’ll come back for Sarah.”
“And by that time she might be lost for ever! The longer we leave her under the Entity’s control, the stronger it gets! How can you leave her, Alex?”
His face reddened. “She made me promise to get you all to safety. If it was up to me I’d go back right now. But Sarah’s the leader—”
The sound of the back door of the SUV sliding open made them both look round. To their surprise, May was standing in the rain now. “Louise is right,” she said. “We can’t leave.”
Alex shook his head. “Staying is completely the wrong decision. I made Sarah a promise to look after you all—”
Wei climbed out of the passenger door. Hack emerged a second later and said, “It is the wrong decision. And it’s the one we’ve got to make.”
In that moment Alex knew that they weren’t going anywhere. Louise slipped her hand into his. “It’s going to be okay. Sarah’s rescued us enough times – don’t you think it’s about time we did the same for her?”
He smiled at her through the rain. “Let’s go after her then,” he said, looking rou
nd at Hack and May. “I take it you two can make yourselves useful in an impossible fight?”
The two looked at one another and grinned. “Actually,” Hack said, “I think we’ve got just the thing.”
“Two armies go to war,” the old man says as he lays another black stone on the board, adjacent to one of his others. “Black and white. Justice and injustice. Good and evil.”
Sarah reaches into her velvet bag and removes a white stone. She places it to the left of the last stone laid. They are sitting beside a fountain amidst a city of towering skyscrapers. All around, people in business suits half-run from one location to another, never stopping.
Time passes. More stones are laid on the board.
“The aim is to keep your forces unified,” the man says, laying a black stone on the other side of Sarah’s. “To become surrounded, cut off from the mass is… to die.”
She lays another white stone and looks him in the eyes. “Who are you?”
Another black stone goes down. “Don’t you remember?”
“No.” She places another stone, forming a complete barrier of whites, trapping two black stones within. With a triumphant grin, she picks up the three captured, or “dead”, stones. “But it’s coming back to me.”
“You won a small victory, but lost the war,” he says, placing another black stone – cutting off a group of twelve white stones. He picks the whites off the board and lays them down on the edge of the fountain. His pile of captured stones is three times the size of Sarah’s.
“Who are you?” she asks, studying his ancient face.
“Who do you think I am?”
“I think… I think…”
Sarah rises swiftly as a memory of another time, another places rushes across her mind and then disappears. Her knee catches the edge of the board and it goes flying. Stones skitter across the concrete.
“I think I don’t want to play with you any more.”
The old man’s eyes twinkle, at once playful and full of spite. “But you have nowhere else to go, Sarah.”
She looks around the towering skyscrapers… The bland, uniform faces of the people walking by…
“None of this is real.”
The old man gives a cackling laugh. “It’s as real as you want to make it.”
“I want to go home.”
“This is your home now.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Before he can respond, she turns and runs across the square, into the mass of people. Shoulders jostle her as she runs against the tide of men and women. Every way she turns, they seem to be going in the opposite direction.
“Get out of my way!” she cries, pushing a woman aside.
Someone grabs her arm and spins her around. The man from the train. “You’re beginning to remember, aren’t you?” he says, pulling her out of the middle of the pavement.
She nods. “I remember…”
“Go on, Sarah. Think.”
“My friends,” she says. “We were in a battle. Against a man called Major Bright.” She looks back in the direction from which she came. “And that old man.”
“The Entity,” the man says, squeezing her arm. “Do you remember why you’re here?”
She shakes her head.
“You’re here to kill him. Don’t be deceived by the sheep’s clothing he wears. He’s more powerful than anything you can imagine.”
“Then how can I—”
“You’re powerful too. This place is yours to manipulate. Learn how to control it and you can do anything you want.” The man looks round as someone shouts from the other side of the pavement. Two uniformed police are pushing their way through the crowd.
“Remember what you have in your pocket, Sarah,” he says urgently. “I don’t have much longer.”
“But—”
“Find out where he hides,” the man says as his arms are grabbed by the police. “He’s weak there. You will know what to do…”
As the cops drag him away, Sarah suddenly remembers who the man is.
Her father.
“Daniel!” she calls after him.
But he’s gone. She starts to run after him, but stops at a mighty thunderclap and a cracking sound. Across the street, the lower levels of one of the skyscrapers explode outwards, casting a cloud of debris into the air. People run in all directions, desperate to escape the destruction as the building begins to fall.
Sarah backs away along the wall, watching in horrified fascination. The skyscraper hits another as it comes down, setting off a domino effect of falling buildings. One collides with another in a chain reaction of destruction. She knows she should run, but cannot tear her eyes away as a building lists over the street, blotting out the sun…
Major Bright stood before a giant world map spread out on the floor of the power station. Since the Entity had surrendered his body, the black mark across his skin had begun to recede to the point that it was no more than a bruise-like discolouration around his neck. The Entity had been as good as its word. He still sensed the alien power coursing through his veins, but the mutation was receding. You can have your cake and eat it, he thought with satisfaction. He was indestructible and he had a whole city to play with… Soon, the world.
Pacing around the map, he tapped North America with the end of his boot.
“How about the good old US of A?” he said. “Could make a nice residence.”
Standing on the other side of the map, Kotler said, “Great idea, sir. Good climate. Plenty of natural resources.”
“Good skiing too,” Bright added. “We’d get Hawaii thrown in. When the Americans see there’s no way to fight us, I’ll have them make me president.”
Gunfire burst out at the far end of the station as a merc opened up on a pair of technicians deserting their posts. Kotler watched with contempt as they went down. “It seems Good’s people would rather die than join the winning team.”
“Let them go. The spiders will get them if the mob doesn’t. We have everything we need.”
“Sir,” Kotler said, calling the major’s attention to the figure of Sarah Williams walking towards them. Although her feet touched the ground, she almost seemed to glide across the floor. Ghostlike.
“What is it?” Bright asked.
“I have sensed the girl, Louise, using her powers ten kilometres to the west of here,” the Entity spoke through her. “I will send the spider army to deal with them.”
“No,” Bright said. Kotler grabbed a machine gun from the edge of the map. “I want my elites to deal with them. They’ve been waiting six months for a live fire exercise.”
The Entity regarded him with expressionless eyes. A slow smile spread across Sarah Williams’s face – it was an unnatural motion. Human…and yet totally alien. “As you wish,” it said.
Bright nodded for Kotler to assemble the men. His second-in-command moved off and started shouting orders. Bright looked back at the girl. “And don’t smile. It’s creepy.”
A subway platform. Men, women and children huddle along its length, clinging together for safety as the walls rumble. Dust falls from the ceiling and the lights flicker as there is another crash. High above, the city is destroying itself.
Sarah sits against the wall, face and clothes dust-covered after her escape from the falling skyscraper. She must have fled into the subway at the last minute, but she can’t remember how. The old man picks his way through the crowd of people taking shelter, and crouches down beside her, bones cracking with the effort.
“You shouldn’t have run away from me, Sarah,” he says. “See what happens? The city is falling apart.”
“You did this,” she says accusingly.
He holds up his hands. “Nothing happens here without you wanting it. But you’ll find life is a lot easier if you work with me.” He leans closer and she can smell his breath – a rank odour of stale tobacco and meat. “There’s so much I can teach you, Sarah.”
She backs away, suddenly wishing she could get far, far away…
“Come back!” the Entity calls after her, its voice a scream.
The doors snap closed and the train tears out of the station at high speed. For a split second black tunnel walls fill the windows. They zoom away, revealing brilliant blue sky and flat countryside in all directions. Here and there, people work in the fields, little specks in the distance. On the horizon, snow-capped mountains rise through the haze.
Taking a breath, Sarah walks down the length of the empty carriage – the ultra-modern interior of a bullet train. Outside, the landscape passes by at 200 kilometres per hour.
Doors open at the far end of the carriage and a man appears. Daniel. With a cry, Sarah throws her arms around him. For a moment he hugs her back, before pulling away.
“Well done, Sarah,” he says. “I see you’re beginning to learn how to control this place.”
“How can you be here?” she says.
“I’ll explain everything,” he replies, leading her to a seat by the window. “You need to rest now. You’ll need your strength for tomorrow.”
She looks at him questioningly. “What happens tomorrow?”
“We’re going to kill the Entity.”
37
Standing in the junkyard now the rain had stopped, Hack explained, “When we were linked to the hypersphere, the Entity channelled a huge amount of information through us. Plans for machines – their electronic—”
“And molecular,” May added.
“—structures,” Hack finished. “And it’s all still in here.” He tapped the side of his head.
Seeing the confused looks on the faces of the others, Hack and May smiled at one another.
“Let us show you,” she said, taking Hack’s hand and leaning in to him to say quietly, “This had better work.”
“Of course it will work,” he whispered back. “Probably.”
They walked over to a stack of crushed cars. May closed her eyes and placed her hand against the crumpled metal of the one on the bottom. Hack took a deep breath and concentrated as they began to combine their powers once more – but this time it was to their own design…
