“Uh huh,” he whispered, eyes still closed. The figure in the centre of the map changed, but it was barely noticeable; it was the other’s twin, after all.
This time, my finger started to head northwest again … and then faltered. It was stopping, but not because of it finding its target; I was struggling to follow the signal any further.
“What’s wrong?” asked Straub, sensing that there was a problem.
“I can’t … Paul?” I said, the image faltering before me as my concentration struggled.
“I know, I know,” he said, “It’s like—”
And then the vision before me vanished, and my head was full of a high-pitched screeching sound. It was ear-splitting, like brass fingernails on a ridged blackboard. I screamed at the same time that Paul did, and he let go of my shoulder as I let go of my focus. Mercifully, the screaming sound abruptly stopped, but I instantly became aware that the pull had reduced. The second blue Stone Man’s signal was gone.
“What the fuck …” Paul gasped, but I knew immediately. It was obvious. Wide eyed, I turned to Straub.
“They’ve cut us off,” I said, my voice shaking. “Their owners know.”
The room was silent for a moment, with even Straub at a loss for words. This latest development implied something else; in a roundabout way, this was a form of contact. They’d responded to our actions, whoever or whatever they were. Either way—with one of the blues at least—we were out.
“The original, are you cut off from the original as well?” snapped Straub, and I already knew the answer; I still had a link to that one, at least, as strong as ever. I tried to feel for the remaining Blue as well; I had that too.
“Yeah, I’ve got the original, and the other Blue too. Paul?”
“Just those two, yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “We stayed in there too long, I think. Like, in deep contact. Maybe if we’d come out sooner …”
“Maybe, but anyway it’s too late for that,” said David, heading for the door, and speaking over his shoulder. “We still have two, and that will have to do. We’ve got to get you both in the air immediately and over Edinburgh so we can narrow down on the original’s target. We’ve no idea if you’re going to be able to find the target quickly, and even if you do we don’t know if we can beat the blue one to its Birmingham target by the time we’re done in Scotland. Let’s get in the air. Agreed?” David was aiming this question at Straub, who was nodding. She began to head for the door as well, beckoning for us to do the same. I looked at Paul; he seemed to share my confusion.
“But … you have the trajectory,” I said, following David regardless. “You can’t take the targets to the Stone Man, or they’ll die once they leave their containment zone. We saw that with Patrick, the guy started to have a goddamn seizure once we drove him away from his house. I mean, yes, the Stone Man will kill them anyway, but who knows what happens if they die before it gets them? Does the Stone Man then move onto someone else? You can’t risk the extra damage involved in that, surely?”
Straub didn’t answer, as she was busy on the radio commandeering units in the north, telling them to be on standby for our arrival and giving the evacuation orders and rough trajectory coordinates. David didn’t either, simply because he was ignoring me. We headed out of the building, and towards the nearest hanger and the now-familiar sound of rotary blades. Whether it was due the tension of the situation, or just anger from my dislike of David, I’ve no idea, but I reached out and grabbed his shoulder. I didn’t pull him around to face me—I hadn’t plucked up that amount of guts, for certain—but he stopped and turned of his own accord, looking pretty pissed off himself.
“You want our help, and I asked you a question,” I said quietly, before he could speak. I surprised myself. It was tough guy talk, certainly far tougher than I’d ever tried on in my life. I didn’t think I could intimidate David, but I thought I could let him know that I was serious, and prepared to dig my heels in even now.
“Plus,” said Paul, stepping up beside me, “we haven’t actually been told the plan here. I know time is a big issue and everything, but I want to know what you plan to do with the targets once the poor bastards are found. Hide them? Cover them with lead, and hope it breaks the signal? We didn’t know what would happen to them before. Now we know what the Stone Men are here to do to them. What do you plan to do?” Paul folded his arms, and I became aware of the size difference between him and David. Not that it probably made much of a difference; I had a feeling that David had enough training up his sleeve to take down Paul with minimal effort, and then have his reporter friend for dessert.
“What do you think, Winter?” said David, angrily. Aggression seemed to be his default setting. “Don’t be naïve. This isn’t the time for experimentation, and the instructions have been very clear and simple: damage limitation. So that’s what we’re doing. People die the more time we spend pissing about, so feel free to moralise all you like, but every moment we delay risks another death on your conscience, not mine.”
“But that doesn’t even make any sense,” said Paul, his voice rising to match David’s level of aggression. “Andy’s right. We can’t move them, as you risk killing them before the Stone Man gets what it needs. You don’t know what might happen. It might, I dunno, just go off wildly and never stop, you’ve no idea—”
“We’ve been planning and researching this for months, Winter, do you think we have no ideas at all?” snapped David, interrupting. “You arrogant prick. There were two radiation spikes from the Stone Man at specific points once it started walking, right? To put it in terms you’d be able to understand, these were on the long-distance frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum, meaning that they were designed to travel—guess what—very long distances. We think either of those rad spikes might have been the point that the Stone Man somehow created the barrier, if you like, for the targets. Maybe it simply affected their minds so that they believed there was a barrier there, a belief strong enough to kill them if they went far enough past it. Maybe it was a real, physical thing, we don’t know!” David threw his hands up, the nonstop tension of the day combining with his anger to animate him. “But the point is, it might mean there’s a window, a chance to move the target closer. The second major spike was several hours after the first, and that could have been the one that actually put the barrier up, with the first being some kind of seeding signal, right? That’s a long enough gap between the spikes to make it worth the effort. Plus, the original didn’t become active in any sense until roughly two hours after its arrival, and it looks like it’s been waiting for its buddies to get that process started again. It hasn’t started walking yet. So we might have that extra two hours here too. We’re not fucking morons, if we’re wrong and the target shows signs of physical seizure, as with C.I. Four, we take them back inside the barrier. We have to try the first option, at least.” He finished, and brought his arms against his sides sharply, causing his hands to slap against his legs. It was an unintentionally camp gesture that would have been funny at any other time. “Now do either of you two arseholes disagree with that, or can we get a fucking move on? Happy now?”
He stood glaring at us, jaw set, and we felt suitably chastised. I nodded sheepishly, not happy at being spoken to like that but shamed because he was right. Lives were at risk. We didn’t have all the information, and we weren’t helping. The time to challenge David was when we were presented with the whole situation, not when we knew only half of it. We should have gotten in the air first, then asked en route. I tried to ignore the more important fact highlighted by his response—that people would definitely die—by reminding myself that we would help more people live by finding the targets. It didn’t really work.
The door opened behind us and Straub appeared, looking shocked that we were all still stood there. David saw her, shook his head at us and began walking again. We fell into step, and shortly after that the four of us were airborne, again with two soldiers as escorts.
Paul and
I were silent during the flight, which took around an hour and half by my reckoning. David and Straub were in constant radio contact with various people, liaising with different aspects of the police and military as they scrambled to prep for the whole length of the two trajectories, the ones of which we knew the end points. We could only hope that the third Stone Man, the one also heading northwest, wasn’t going much further than Birmingham; its trajectory was, for the first part at least, the same as the other Blue. Paul and I stared out of the window, watching the UK pass below us like a toy landscape as the pull in our bodies slowly grew. Paul’s nose had begun to bleed again, although he had waved off Straub’s concern over it, and had been wiping it with the hem of his T-shirt ever since. I can’t speak for Paul, but as I endured the physical assault, I tried not to think about what we were doing, as the creeping, nagging thoughts questioning the morals of what we were doing began to work their way into my consciousness. Yes, we were potential lifesavers, heroes if not heroic in our demeanour; but mainly we were the point men for an assassination mission, and the targets were not terrorists or guerrilla revolutionaries, but ordinary people. If Patrick was anything to go by, they already knew that their death was coming, sensing several days in advance that something had been sent to claim them, and we were as much a part of that now as the Stone Men themselves. Hell, we wanted to help them do it quicker. They’d been sent to do a murderous job by someone, and so had we. Telling ourselves that we were doing it for the safety of others didn’t help, and knowing that my role in all of this made me feel important as well as guilty sickened me to my stomach. I couldn’t help it though. You have to understand.
Once we were nearing Edinburgh’s airspace, David finally addressed us; by this point, the shakes, racing heartbeat and light-headedness were back, nearly at the level they’d been at on the way to Patrick’s.
“We’re nearly there,” he said. “You two need to start doing your thing, and directing the pilot. He can hear you through your headset mic. Once we’re over the right street, he’ll land us as near as possible. Our pickup is on standby.”
We nodded—the pull was so strong that we already knew it wouldn’t be a problem—but I thought it was too soon.
“We should hold on until we’re right over Edinburgh,” I said shaking my head. “We’ve been cut off by one of them, and I think it’s because they knew someone actively tuned into them last time. I think we should spend as little time tuned into them as possible. Let’s wait until we’re right over Edinburgh.” David held my gaze for a few moments before shrugging sulkily and turning away. Obviously, he didn’t want to admit it, but he knew I was right. Finally, a point for me over David.
Once we were closer, I took the lead in directing the pilot, letting Paul keep his eyes shut and try to ride it out as best he could. He took this role gratefully, and I felt he’d earned it; hadn’t I been the one swanning back and forth between Britain and America, having the hedonistic time of my life, whilst he’d been at home with nightmares and a wife who was running out of patience? It got harder and harder to speak as we drew nearer, but I gritted my teeth and got on with it, giving directions with a weak, shaking voice. I kept releasing my grip on the signal intermittently, hoping it would make me harder to spot. Either way, we remained connected, whether it was due to my approach or not. I was not cut off at any point, and we steadily homed in on the target. One thing that did concern me slightly was the fact that I hadn’t flashed into the eyes of any of the Stone Men yet. Not that I wanted to, of course, and it might have been mainly to do with the fact that the original had been walking, and for a long time, before I first found myself seeing out of its head … but I still found myself thinking, again, that they didn’t like us snooping, and had taken more precautions this time.
By sheer, dumb luck, once I’d identified the street—which would later be revealed to be Lismore Avenue—there was a bowling club two streets over. Although the green would be ruined, and the current game abandoned once a military helicopter plonked itself down in the middle of it, the players would have something to talk about for years to come. It seemed that not even the televised Second Arrival could prevent the people of the Postal Bowling Club from playing on match day. Clearly the evacuation either hadn’t begun yet, or hadn’t reached these streets.
Straub called off the pickup as we were so close, and instructed the waiting unit to rendezvous with us on Lismore Avenue, but then took another look at myself and Paul and thought better of it. Even though it would have been about a thirty second walk, she clearly either didn’t trust us to make it in our current state, or thought it would take too long.
Once the pickup team had cleared the bowlers from the green, the chopper set down and we disembarked, with Paul and I having to be helped to step down from the chopper. We were bundled into a waiting jeep, bodies shaking and teeth wanting to burst, and after the seconds-long drive we were slowly cruising along Lismore Avenue. Parked up ahead was a military APC, which we knew contained an armed unit. There was one lone soldier stood outside it to dissuade onlookers, but already we could see faces staring out from the windows that we passed. Just like before, all the military vehicles looked immensely out of place in such a suburban setting.
“Just tell us when we’re outside,” said Straub, gently but firmly. “Tell us which one.”
On cue, we both raised our hands once the Jeep drew alongside the correct building, but it wouldn’t have been necessary; it was the only house with the curtains fully drawn. Like Patrick, they clearly knew their number was up. It made the place seem creepy, foreboding. Suddenly it became the locked down house of the crazy old inventor, or of the family that no one ever sees come and go, whilst the strange thudding and chopping sounds come from inside.
Either way, inside that house was the man or woman we had been sent to try and take to their murderer. Even in my current state, I felt cold and sick. This was awful. Truly awful.
“Can you see where he is? Like before? Can you see where in the building he is?” asked David rapidly—he knew all the details of our previous excursion—and we stared through our tired, wincing eyes at the front of the house.
Like before, the pull had become so strong that we had that strange effect of half-seeing, half-feeling the figure inside. This time they were easier to spot. This time they weren’t lying on the floor.
“He’s … sitting, right?” said Paul, looking at me.
“Uh huh,” I agreed, trying to make out more of the image. “Looks like he’s on a chair. He’s sitting very still.”
“He? A man again?” asked Straub, pulling out her walkie.
“No … no, I don’t know,” I babbled, frustrated with both the effort and the question. “I mean they are sitting then, whatever sex they are. If it’s a woman though, she’s a stocky one.” Meanwhile, the other soldiers got busy ‘evacuating’ the neighbours (read: removing witnesses) and loading them onto a newly arrived truck. They were each brought out over the next few minutes, featuring the expected complainers and shouters, but they were moved without real incident and extremely quickly at that. Straub and David were silent whilst this went on, apart from the odd ‘hold position’ reminder over the radios to the other waiting men, who were now in a line along the terraced row of houses. I sat quietly and tried to ride it all out, to shut it all off as much as possible whilst my body rebelled against me. I thought Paul might have been trying to get my attention, but I was having none of it.
“Okay,” she said, and began to raise her walkie to her mouth.
“Wait,” said Paul, suddenly lunging forward. “I can feel something—”
“You’re done here, Winter,” said David, already stepping out of the jeep and heading to the APC, from which several soldiers were already emerging and beginning to converge neatly by the house door. It looked like David didn’t take any chances on the front lines. He addressed the soldier driving the jeep; whatever David’s job title, it clearly held some rank. “Take these two up the street,
around the block, wherever, and keep an eye on them until further notice.”
“Hold on,” said Straub, still seated and talking to both the soldier and David. “I have the authority on this operation.” Silently, I rejoiced, loving the one-up on David even in my fragile state. She turned to Paul, but her face was, as usual, all business. She was, I noted again, a thorough professional. “What is it, Mr Winter? Be extremely quick.” I saw David bristle, then watched as he turned to the ranking soldier stood nearby and started to bark questions.
“We have to go in,” said Paul to Straub, meaning the two of us. He slurred his words slightly as he spoke, his mouth slower to react than he wanted it to be. “We have to make contact. There’s something … Andy, can’t you feel it?” He didn’t make eye contact with me, and I knew why; I had absolutely no idea what the fuck he was talking about. So far, this situation was exactly the same as before in terms of the pull and the abuse my body was enduring. What the hell was Paul playing at?
“Don’t try me, Mr Winter,” said Straub, terse and stern. She was clearly about to end this interaction, and we’d been extremely lucky to get this much time. “If you’re trying something on, you really will regret it, I promise.”
“They’ve bloody changed something, I’m telling you they’ve changed something,” said Paul, his voice rising to a shout as he suddenly leant out of the jeep and shouted at the advancing soldiers. “Stop those men!” he screamed. “If they go inside, they’ll kill the target!”
“Halt!” shouted Straub, and the advancing men did exactly as they were told, but she grabbed Paul’s T-shirt and yanked him back into the jeep, a movement that he either allowed or couldn’t resist in his weakened state. With both of them sitting, he looked like a giant compared to her, but it didn’t matter; her blazing eyes made me cower, and I wasn’t even the guy they were being trained on. Straub, finally, had nearly lost it, and I should have known what it would take to cause this; somebody interfering with her professionalism, and at a moment when it really counted.
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