by Phil Hurst
She curled up in the king size bed and pulled the covers close around her. She didn’t know what else to do. What was she supposed to do without Sam? While she was in London, she’d barely given him a second thought. But now she realised how important he was to her. There was always the knowledge he would be there for her, waiting if she needed to come home.
She ran the events of the night over in her head. She tried to understand what she could have done differently to stop him. Maybe in her last call, she shouldn’t have told him to leave the pier. He could have hidden, found a small room to hide in and still be there. He’d be in trouble, but the pier might still be in one piece and would still be alive.
The call was the reason he was dead. She shouldn’t have called him. She only did because she had nowhere else to turn. The reckoners were chasing her; the Unjudged were insane. Where else could she have turned to but family? And it turned out her mother was involved with the Unjudged. So Sam had been her only option.
She realised she was worrying about her mother and felt a swell of grief. Her brother had died, and she was worried about that woman! Paige dug her fingernails into her palms so hard she felt her knuckles click. She didn’t deserve to have had a brother like him. She should have been the one in the water. She should be the one riddled with bullets.
She leaned over the side of the bed and vomited on to the carpet. She saw a waste-paper bin and grabbed it, emptying the rest of her stomach into it. The pressure didn’t release. If anything, it got worse. Her mother would be fine—she was sure of it. She’d be in the family home, accepting well-wishers and those stopping by to say how sorry they were for the family’s loss. Everyone would be saying about how brave she was and wasn’t it a shame her daughter couldn’t be there to help her in such a difficult time.
They wouldn’t know Paige had been hidden away in a hotel room like a child who didn’t want to go to school. Paige spat and put the bucket down. There was a glass of water by the side of the bed, and she swilled it around her mouth before spitting again into the bucket. She could taste salt water. She could smell salt water. She could feel the waves hitting her legs as she collapsed into the swell.
She was sick again.
Someone had changed her. She wasn’t wearing the blood-stained clothes from last night. Instead, she wore an old white T-shirt, which was well worn in. It was second-hand, and it wasn’t one of hers. The fact she was in different clothes became one of the most disturbing things about her situation.
Paige lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling. She took another deep breath, and her eyes filled up with tears. But they refused to flow. What was wrong with her?
The room filled with light as someone opened the door.
“Mum?” Paige asked. She sat up.
“I’m afraid not,” Lana said. “Are you feeling better?”
Paige scrambled back against the headboard and wrapped her arms around her legs. The covers began to slip, and she pulled them up to her chest.
“What are you doing here?” Paige demanded.
“I thought I’d come and see if you were alright.”
Lana sat on the edge of the bed.
“Shouldn’t you be out murdering people?” said Paige.
“I know what you’re going through.”
“I’m not talking to you,” Paige said. Lana had also changed her clothes and wore an old New England Patriots top and a pair of clean jeans. Her hair was washed and combed into a parting on the left. She looked younger, fresher. The grime of the night’s fighting was gone.
“I’m here to take you to your mother,” Lana said.
“She couldn’t come here?”
“It’s not secure.”
Lana stood and walked around in the half-light. “We control the hotel but not everyone in it.”
Paige looked around the room for something she could use as a weapon before speaking: “Why would she send you? You’re a killer. I’m not talking to you.”
Lana peered out of the curtains. A shaft of light illuminated her hair. “I will avenge your brother. But first we need to go to her. Are you ready?”
Paige was upset, but it was anger that drove her. “Get out of my room.”
“Last night should have been bloodless. He wasn’t one of us, but he was still our kin. His death is a stain on our honour.”
“How did you expect the URC to react when you started killing them?” Paige muttered as she stared at Lana. She couldn’t believe the woman was talking about honour after the way she had butchered the three reckoners.
“The reckoners do not usually resort to violence,” Lana said, letting the curtain fall back into place. “It was an unusual tactic.” Paige turned her head away. Lana walked to the door. “I’ve lived in Cromer too Paige. I care about this place. I wanted you to know. The Unjudged downstairs, they see the place as symbolic—a last stand against a tyrannical empire. They are here for the final battle, but they have no ties to the town. They are protecting their freedom.”
“And you?”
“It’s my home,” Lana said.
“You have family here?”
“Close enough.”
“Are they still alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then fuck off and see them,” Paige said before pointing to the door. “Spend some time with them. Because what you’re doing, what you fucking Unjudged dickheads are doing, you’re putting them all in danger.”
“All of this. We didn’t do it lightly. We’re keeping them safe. Our actions will protect the world from oppression.”
“What oppression? The reckoning is a good thing.”
Lana smiled. “Then why are you here?”
Paige stood, still pointing to the door. Her arm was aching. “You’re delusional. You’re a militia. A poorly organised one.”
“Your brother understood…”
“Don’t tell me that. Don’t you dare tell me what my brother understood.”
“He understood the cause. How could he not? He was your mother’s son.”
Paige pushed Lana out of the room. Lana didn’t protest and allowed herself to be moved. Paige turned towards the room and leaned back against the door, using her weight to stop any further unwanted intervention.
From the corridor Lana shouted, “I’m waiting out here. There are clean clothes by the window.”
“Fuck off!”
Paige couldn’t understand why she couldn’t be left to grieve her brother’s death. Slowly, she sank to the floor and buried her head in her hands. This time, they were clean. No blood. She tilted her head back and knocked against the door.
From the other side of the room, her display started to ring. She cursed and crawled towards it. It was her mother. When she reached the coffee table she placed her hands on the surface and pushed herself to a kneeling position. Between her hands, the image of Jennifer Grimwood rotated until Paige declined the call.
She didn’t want to talk to her mother for the first time since Sam died through a display. She rolled over and again smelled salt water. She needed to wash the previous night away.
She used the bathroom mirror to inspect the scratch caused by Oliver’s knife. Despite the pain, it looked to be healing. Then she splashed water on to her face and stared at her reflection. Her hair was dirty and matted with blood and sand, and her face was stained and muddy.
She took the T-shirt and her underwear off and stepped into the shower. The pressure of the water felt good on the top of her head, and the heat— she turned it up to the maximum—reinvigorated her. At her feet, the water circled the drain before disappearing. The mud and sand flowed off her skin with every movement.
She lost track of time but eventually her skin started to burn. She got out. Her hair would take some time to dry, so she pulled it back into a ponytail. Then she returned to the bathroom mirror and stared at her much cleaner appearance.
“You can do this,” she told herself. “She’s only your mother, for Christ’s sake.”
&n
bsp; At the foot of her bed neatly folded clothes had been left for her. She pulled on a plain black T-shirt, a green and white-striped jumper and some faded blue jeans. Standard charity shop fodder. Her mother must have told them her size.
Outside the room, Lana stood as Paige passed her. “I’m glad you’ve changed your mind,” she said.
“I’m going to speak to my mother, and then I’m leaving.”
“OK,” said Lana, who fell into stride beside her.
As they passed through the hotel lobby, most of the Unjudged were moving large pieces of furniture to block the windows and doors. A blonde Eastern European woman who had a name tag announcing her name as Olga was protesting about the rearrangement, but she was being ignored. The only exit was now a solitary door that faced the street behind the hotel. The grand views of the pier and the North Sea below, which so many had paid large amounts of money for in the past, had been blocked with sofas, display cabinets and sideboards.
Lana grabbed her pike from one of the Unjudged, and the image of the reckoner’s head dividing into two flashed across Paige’s vision, and she stumbled as she remembered that the apparently sympathetic woman who was taking her to her mother was a cold-blooded killer.
“What do you need that for?” Paige asked, pointing to the pike. “I thought The Unjudged were in control.”
“Control is an illusion,” Lana said and refused to elaborate, shaking her head when Paige asked her what she meant by that.
There was no vehicle to take them to her mother’s house. She knew it wasn’t to be expected given the small size of the town. Her mother lived in a row of Victorian houses about 10 minutes’ walk along the coast away from the hotel. Paige had entered from the other side of the town the night before, and the reckoners had invaded from the railway station, which was about five minutes from the seafront.
Outside, it felt like a Sunday morning. The town centre was mainly a tight-knit semi-circle of shops nestled next to the cliffs and beach. Given the town’s age, the buildings were occasionally a lot closer together than modern building regulations would have allowed, some hovering imposingly over the street below. Alleyways and small, narrow roads cut through the shops at random angles.
Normally at this time of day, the traffic would be terrible, but the roads were almost empty. Most of the shops were closed, and although a few had opened their doors, there were hardly any shoppers around. It was a sunny day, although in the distance, Paige saw a collection of darker clouds. They seemed unlikely to interrupt the weather for a while. Paige noticed a number of people seemed to have shopping bags full of canned goods, which she assumed was in case any URC retaliation cut the town off.
People weren’t talking to each other. Everyone kept their heads down and got on with what they needed to do. Paige saw the old ladies she remembered as the town gossips completely ignore each other as they passed. Instead, they glanced nervously at the Unjudged, who were scattered along the street, sitting on public benches or leaning on bins and railings.
Although they looked friendly and greeted the townspeople enthusiastically, Paige recognised impatience as they scanned the shopper, as if they were waiting for someone to start trouble, just so they could put a stop to it. They reminded Paige of nightclub bouncers at the beginning of an evening. The Unjudged patrolled in pairs, looked scruffy and carried old-fashioned weapons. The weapons themselves varied from 16th-century muskets to World War Two pistols to police batons.
“Why don’t you have anything more…modern?” Paige asked. “The reckoners will have better guns than you.”
“If we use URC technology, the pulsers we used last night will castrate us as much as the our enemies.” Paige shook her head. “Sometimes the old ways are the best.”
An Unjudged carrying two pirate-style cutlasses walked past. She stared at Paige without blinking. Paige held her gaze for a moment but couldn’t match the woman’s intensity.
“So you decided to go old school with the weapons?” Paige asked.
“There’s an armoury at Sheringham Hall.”
“And that’s where you’re based?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Lana smiled and pointed towards a coffee shop, “in here.” She tried to buy Paige a pastry and a coffee, but the girl behind the till wouldn’t take her money. She insisted on giving them free choice from the counter. Paige chose a croissant and ate it quickly as they continued on their journey. Next to her, Lana moved her head in short, sharp gestures as she constantly scanned the environment around them. She then took a slow, measured bite from the Danish whirl she’d chosen. In their hands, two coffees steamed as they cooled down.
When Lana finished eating, Paige decided to ask her a question. “Why did you join the Unjudged?”
Lana sipped her coffee and then held it in both hands.
“Your mother persuaded me,” she said.
Jules
J ules ran an expert eye over the display that showed the new pier defenses. The reckoner team had worked through the night to ensure their new base would be secure by the time the sun came up. The chaos of the previous night had served its purpose: maximum distraction. It was a shame Sam had needed to die to accomplish that, but his first loyalty was to the mission, not civilians.
He zoomed in to inspect the newly planted sensor-barbed wire along the sides of the pier. Short of using a helicopter, the only way someone could now access the pier was a single maintenance hatch underneath the main theatre. That was booby-trapped and set to send a powerful electric shock to anyone stupid enough to open it. In addition, he had four cat-sized drones charging around the pier, deadly against any land- or sea-based threat.
The damaged end of the pier groaned and creaked, but the fires had abated, and it would take a strong wind to inflict any further damage. He heard a large crash from the auditorium but wasn’t concerned. Wix had been tasked with cutting a hole in the roof to allow resupply drones to land safely.
Through the viewfinder installed on the roof, he used the display to look at the top of the cliff that towered over the pier. The Hotel de Paris was up there, casting a long shadow over the water below it. The cliff path, dug into the stone by industrious engineers over a hundred years ago, zig-zagged its way down from the hotel to the pier and beach.
There were a few people milling about, and Jules tried to make out some faces. He wanted to know whether any of his former workmates were up there, wondering how they hadn’t realised he was a reckoner. He knew why. They were all fucking stupid. The one thing he could have done with was a sniper rifle. Then he could have taken some potshots at the idiots gawping at him from the edge of the cliffs.
Inside, Udan was checking the soul staff they had brought with them.
“Don’t bother with that,” Jules told the heavyset Ghanaian. “It’ll be no use against them unless they’ve got implants.”
Udan put the staff down and crossed his arms. He looked at Jules like a disapproving teacher. “This is what we use, Jules. Not the gun.”
Jules shrugged. He scratched the back of his neck. “Mistakes happen.”
Udan shook his head. “It was not in our briefing to kill people.”
“Not in your briefing,” Jules said as he reached the bar. He hopped up on to a stool, the same one that Sam had been sat on the night before, and he threw the gun on the surface. It slid into the staff and nudged it sideways. Udan shook his head. He poured himself a coke and downed it in one go.
He turned to the sink and washed the glass out, placing it carefully where it came from. “We were supposed to be observers,” Udan said. “We need to whisper in ears to ease the coming reckoning. Now we are just murderers.”
“We are reckoners.”
Jules picked up the staff and powered it up. He ran his hand along it as if checking it for damage. The plastic was smooth and cold. He gripped it tight and felt small vibrations in his palm. “It is easy to take a man’s life, Udan. Any man could kill. But to control the destination of som
eone’s eternity, that is power. If I wanted to, I could have had you or Artur or Wix tag the poor bastard before I killed him. And where would he be? Locked up in The Store for eternity.”
Udan didn’t answer. Jules powered the staff down and placed it on the bar between them. Jules was getting annoyed at working with amateurs. He’d been hired from the URC for this special mission and was incredibly proud of his position of command. Udan was right, to an extent—although his team had officially been just keeping an eye on the mood in Cromer prior to the reckoning, they were all trained in counterinsurgency techniques in case of this type of eventuality. What did Udan think they were going to do? Paint pictures while the town burned?
No. Better to cause a disruption, force the enemy to divide its time and resources. In the pier, they had a perfect location from which to launch drone attacks against The Unjudged. The rebels would either have to deal with them, creating weaknesses in any front line they had created against the main reckoner force, or ignore them, allowing Jules and his team to strike with precision across their rearguard.
The URC rules of engagement were unnecessarily precise, in Jules’ opinion. If a disturbance were expected, until significant violence broke out, his team were limited in the actions available to them. Although the Unjudged’s arrival last night had been mainly peaceful, Jules had been quick to let URC command know a full-blown insurgency was underway. In response to requests for more information, he had shot his laptop from behind. He then walked through town trying to find the other reckoners.
The hostel Udan and Wix were staying at was under a type of quarantine. Artur realised what was happening and escaped to the rendezvous point. Jules saw no harm in ending the peaceful revolution with an outbreak of violence. Down the road from the hostel, he started a gunfight with the Unjudged, distracting them. By the time Artur let him know the other two were free, his bullets had hit at least one of the Unjudged. Despite his desire to cause a little chaos, Jules withdrew and left them all alive. The gunfire had the required effect. Residents had started to panic and caused the Unjudged a crowd-control nightmare, allowing the reckoners an easier route to the pier.
