At the furthest edges of the universe It waited…

The microbes that inhabited Terror Firma had not yet reached this far into the darkness. They existed in the blissful ignorance of their safe little solar system; so secure in their narrow beliefs and limited findings, thinking they knew it all.

Yet there was so much more to be known, so much that was beyond their capacity to know – and probably always would be.

It knew them.

Pompous upstart little species, so self-congratulatory in their supposed evolution.

So very proud of their “inventions” and “innovations”… “achievements.”

Ha.

Little knowing that before Its might they were as experimental bacteria in an inter-galactic petri dish. A thriving infection upon the face of a rock just waiting to be expunged.

It knew them better than all, as It had caused their creation.

They were an accident. It had been passing through that part of space millennia ago, when what is now their solar system was nought but a shambles of drifting particles.

This dusty insignificance had tickled its nose as It passed through.

It had sneezed…

…Little knowing what It had triggered.

The propulsion of the sneeze had thrown collections of particles into clusters, the mucus; a torrent of colossal super-glue holding the jagged rocks together. Until a spherical structure had taken eventual form. It had been ill then, infected. The sneeze loaded with germs, now plastered across the face of the rocky cluster. Taking the name “human” they had learned to walk upright, speak in many varied forms, and, bizarrely, attack each other in mindless examples of barbarity.

They were a sickness.

Eventually, very eventually, they would spread beyond their rock. At first It had thought them a harmless little plague that would burn itself out. Yet already they had ventured across to that other pebble they called a “moon”. They planned to go yet further!

It could not allow that.

And so now It was waiting. Waiting for them to progress to a point at which they would become capable of reaching where It sat, just out of sight. Then when they arrived, It would eat them. Send them back to where they came from, before venturing forth to scatter their world like autumn leaves. It would take only the most gentle puff of air from its mouth.

It waited here as a kindness. Let them know a few thousand years of ignorance before It had to do the inevitable – what harm?

On the planet there where those who talked of a creator; they called it God.

Just as there were those who spoke of a destroyer; calling it Satan. Had it had never entered their minuscule minds that both were the same thing viewed from alternative perspectives?

So too had they named its sneeze all those years ago; calling it the big bang. So dramatic.

But now the Devil-God was awaiting them patiently at the edge of their known universe. Ready to see them again. And once that happened, the big bang was coming home…

“Would sir care for a drink?”

No-one had asked me this in half a millennium. Not surprising given I was supposedly utterly intangible and completely invisible, except to the eyes of my god-children. A Robbar LVX-1, one of the older models which looked like a kind-of botoxed Burt Reynolds, glided along the polished wooden bar until it stopped directly in front of me.

“May I say, sir, I am delighted to have a post-mortal in our esteemed establishment.”

“You can see me?” Well, obviously he could. He was talking with me. But I’m a ghost. And, following an unnecessarily drawn-out, hugely expensive anti-discrimination case, the universe’s only fairy godfather. I thought others would follow my trail-blazing path. I was wrong. The fact remained electronic bar staff should not be offering me a scotch on the rocks.

“Yes, sir, I have been calibrated to serve all potential customers, including several sub-species of the dead and undead. It’s a cosmopolitan universe these days. Would sir prefer one of those instead?”

The shimmery outline of a glass drunk hours ago appeared on the bar and I was able to savour the memory, the ghost, of the drink. Like all of the dead, as opposed to those undead wannabes like vampires, werewolves and taxation accountants, I couldn’t interact with the physical world. All that was left to me was the faded image of a life left too long in the sun.

“Bowie or Lynch, sir?”

“The Davids? You’ve got good taste, Robbar. Why not a mix?”

He inclined his head, praising my decision, which felt far less empowering when you realised he was programmed that way. A playlist built from Bowie’s experimental glam rock and Lynch’s electro-pop filled the empty room. Robbar hadn’t bothered boosting the illumination as he didn’t need it and I could see the afterimage of the previous night’s debauchery.

I breathed in the environment. The sweet lingering perfume of sweat, hunger and spilt beer. After-echoes of unfulfilled lust and pleasant companionship reverberated from the now darkened walls. Shadowy booths hosted love, intrigue and general mundane life.

Then I saw it.

A coffee machine.

When I had first died, the bar was a cheap pizza joint. The food was terrible but it was cheap and the coffee was top-notch, making it popular with the local university students. Now it was an upmarket centre of cuisine catering for most of the universe’s varied inhabitants. And uni students. It had been 500 years since I’d had a decent mocha and caffeine called my name.

“Don’t concern yourself with her, sir,” Robbar said with a hint of grating mechanical melancholy. “She cannot see you.”

I raised an eyebrow as the sledgehammer of fate hit me in the head.

“Cannot. Or will not?”

I swear Robbar sighed. He was in love with the coffee machine.

One of the basic errors of the late 24th century was trying to make robots like us, but not. We tried to give them human-like aspects but locked them into artificial patterns marking them as being unlike us. Take Robbar. His genial subservience was governed by algorithmic predestination. Not choice. His shoulders sloped to angular crests while his movements were deliberately forced. Despite having the technology to mimic humans exactly, we deliberately chose to make him seem stiffer, slower, wrong. If it walked like a duck, meowed like a duck that thought it was a cat and tasted good crispy in BBQ sauce, chances were it was a duck.

“She’s a CVA 3650 ST, sir. She won’t even look at you unless you have a 4-3000 microstate processor and a working knowledge of Ethiopian harrar.”

Personally I preferred Kopi Luwak but at this point in my death I’d settle for a mug of Aunt Maria’s instant. Coffee was my one true vice having failed to become a rock star or billionaire before my death and thus being unfamiliar with the sex, drugs and rock-and-roll lifestyle my parents feared would seduce me.

But I had also been in love with someone who didn’t love me.

Robbar may have been a robot but his electronic heart sparked whenever he looked at the coffee machine. I knew how he felt, watching her serve the morning customers while he was supposedly powered down. Always so close and yet so far apart. Just like me and Jenny.

I wasn’t much of a ghost. No-one ran in fear from me and despite wandering around the universe seeing more sights in my death than I ever did during my life, I always wound up back here at the place of my cessation, the gateway point to my post-mortal existence.

I decided to try asking the coffee machine, who Robbar informed me was called Ceva, for a drink. Standing in front of her, looking for a hint she was aware of my existence, I demanded a double shot soy iced latte with a squirt of vanilla syrup.

Nothing.

Robbar and I sat in frustrated silence knowing Ceva held the key to both our happiness but refused to turn it in the lock. “Why don’t you ask?”

“Sir?”

“Ask her for a coffee. Ask her for my coffee.”

Robbar looked at Ceva, his circuits trying to process if his programming permitted it. “I don’t drink, sir.”

That didn’t matter. Robbar could buy the coffee, pretend to drink it and I could indulge in its phantom.

So he did.

That night and the night after and the night after that. About two weeks later Robbar forgot to order my coffee and Ceva didn’t stop or blink back into her powered down mode. They just kept chatting.

No-one can see the dead except for cats. And witches. Well, most of the supernatural world to be honest. But no mundane should have been able to see me.

I smiled, missing only the aroma of melted marshmallow in a large mug of hot mocha misting along my nostrils.

I may not have been much of a ghost, but I was one fine fairy godfather.

“Tea!” shouted the man opposite, his voice rising and becoming increasingly frantic.

“Tea? You offer me tea when my whole life is unravelling? Everything I’ve ever done is being erased and the best you can do is make tea? I was told you might have some idea what was happening to me!”

Frank Thomson paused for a moment, caught the man’s gaze, and then spoke. As he did he kept his voice level and spaced out his words in the way he’d been trained all those years ago.

“Mr Craig. I realise you find yourself in a difficult situation. I am trying to help but I do need you to stay calm. Would you like a cup of tea while we talk? I know I want one and I’m sure Inspector Weston would like one as well.”

With that Frank nodded towards the other man in the room – smartly dressed, mid-forties, face showing the signs of too many years in the police, too many years of late nights, arguments with the wife and dealing with the dark realities of society. Having calmed the situation down Frank stood up and went to a table at the side of his small office on which were a few clean-ish cups and a kettle that most people would have replaced years ago.

Frank caught sight of himself in a small mirror above a tap. As he filled the kettle he couldn’t help but think that he didn’t look any younger than Weston. He’d left the police some years ago, he still had plenty of late nights pursuing errant husbands or missing persons. Approaching fifty, remaining hair thinning, cheap suit, with a tired face surrounding grey-green eyes all suggested that life outside the police held little more than life inside. He’d traded a pension and a career for some freedom and money worries.

As he sorted out teabags and mugs Frank used the mirror to look across to his desk and to watch Sam Craig discretely. Sam appeared to be a perfectly ordinary white male in his late twenties. Frank filed away a mental description (police training never went away) and watched as Sam sat unable to keep still, fiddling with a pencil then looking around the room as though making sure it was still there. Although he knew that Sam had been given a mild sedative he was still cautious not to excite him.

“Why do I get all the oddballs in the whole of East Anglia popping through my office?” he thought to himself.  Still, it did break up the monotony of divorce cases he mostly worked on.

Frank returned to his desk with a battered tea tray bearing a design of a large bunch of flowers on which he had placed three mugs of strong tea, one spoon and a packet of sugar with the opening part-folded.

“Help yourselves to sugar,” he said as he sat.

While Sam took two sugars, Frank picked up a biro and started to summarise his notes.

“So; twelve days ago you, your wife Angela, three year old son Daniel and one-month old son Timothy were on a family outing to Hunstanton?”

“That’s right,” agreed Sam. “Angela’s parents live near and we thought we’d have lunch on the beach. Everything was fine.”

Frank continued, “You set off for home around 3:15 pm and drove on no particular route towards Ely where you and Angela live.”

Frank paused and looked straight at Sam.

After a short pause Sam answered, “We lived there two weeks ago, with Dan and Timmy. Now I don’t know. The kids have gone, Angela doesn’t know me and she’s married to an accountant in Huntingdon. It doesn’t make any sense.”

With that Sam shook his head, then put his hands to his temples and rubbed his face as though trying to massage away a migraine.

Frank supped his tea waiting for Sam to continue. After counting to twenty with no further input, Frank returned to his summarising.

“You stopped in a layby near an old church, now out of use, near the village of Hilgay. There you stopped to change Timothy’s soiled nappy and you went in search of a bin to dispose of said nappy. You wandered around the church until you found somewhere suitable then returned to the location where you had parked your vehicle. Finding it gone you called Angela on your mobile phone to find she was at home in Ely where she said she had been all day. Eventually she drove to collect you and it was shortly afterwards that you discovered that you had only one son and the baby you mentioned did not, in fact, exist.”

Sam shook his head then spoke.

“That’s what seemed to have happened. Yet I remember Angela being pregnant, the hospital, Timothy’s birth. Everything. Only it hadn’t happened.”

Frank made some more notes then continued with his summary.

“You went to A&E then were referred to several specialists. You took time off work, were scanned and no cause was found. Diagnosed with stress you were signed off work and prescribed various medicines. By this time though your son Daniel also ceased to exist?”

Sam sobbed his reply.

“Yes.”

“And Angela had no memory of either child, there were no child’s toys, photos or any other signs they had existed? No relatives had any memory?”

“No. Only me. Only I remembered any of them.”

“You went back to the church looking for any explanation and by this time you found you didn’t live in Ely and nor were you married to Angela. Her number was no longer in your phone and your driving license gave an address in Royston.”

As Frank made each statement Sam nodded and slumped deeper into his seat. Frank looked across at Inspector Weston and raised his eyebrows as if to ask why Sam had been brought in. The Inspector in return shrugged then moved his seat nearer to the desk before joining the conversation.

“I know this isn’t a normal case but I thought you might have some ideas given some of the other things you get involved in.”

Frank made a mental checklist – UFOs, alien abductions, fairies, ghosts and other strange stories were not unknown. He blamed the University and something in the air but he did get more than his fair share of what his ex-colleagues in the force used to call nutters. Most of them were deluded or attention seeking (or drunk) but just occasionally there was more to it. Frank was baffled though as to how he could help Sam who was almost certainly suffering a breakdown.

Frank turned his attention to the Inspector who had, over the years, been himself involved in several strange events that he had been called in to help resolve.

“Why was that?” Frank asked.

“We took Mr Craig into custody last evening for assault,” answered Weston.  “He claimed that the gentleman he assaulted, a Mr Rogers, had stolen his wife. When questioned, Mrs Angela Rogers had no recollection of ever knowing Mr Craig. The duty Doctor had already prescribed sedatives and suggested Mr Craig should be referred to a specialist.”

He took another sip of tea then carried on.

“During this time Mr Craig made many claims that couldn’t be validated including that he had been arrested two other times in the past week. We have no records of Mr Craig until this alleged assault yet he has knowledge he could only get from being inside our station – names of officers, locations of toilets, colour of the carpet in the interview room and so forth. Not being able to calm Mr Craig down I suggested we visit you.”

Frank considered the facts and sat back in his seat. Clearly this was a strange story but a breakdown made the most sense. Maybe Sam had been in the station for some wholly legitimate reason recently and added details into his clearly fabricated memories. Frank didn’t think Sam was lying, just badly deluded.

“Sam,” he said. “You think your life is being erased fact by fact? Your children, wife, job, school records in fact everything. You seem physically fit if overwrought. No signs of injury or other trauma. Do you think someone or something is doing this to you? Do you have any enemies?”

Frank didn’t expect anything to come from his question and Sam obliged by shaking his head.

“It just makes no sense. I want my life back. I know the doctors think it’s a rare form of amnesia but it’s real.”

Frank sensed that Sam wanted to get angry again driven by his frustrations. A thought occurred to him.

“Sam, when were you born and where?”

“August 12th 1985 in Colchester. Why?”

Frank didn’t answer at once but logged into the computed on his desk and typed briefly before turning the screen to face across the desk.

“There you are, one S Craig born in Colchester in August 1985 in the public birth records!”

Frank turned his attention away from the screen and looked across his desk to an empty chair. He had a strange sense of déjà vu and looked all round his empty office searching for something forgotten.

“Old age I expect!” he said to the empty room. He turned his attention to his desk and noticed his computer screen was on. One of his staff must have been looking something up in the public birth records. Frank read the details out loud to himself.

“S Craig, Colchester, 1985. No records found.”

He turned his attention to the newspaper on his desk and waited for his next case.

Illustration: Rylan Cavell

If I don’t tell someone I’ll go insane. It’s been taunting me for months. You see, it’s not the dark that I’m afraid of, just the creature that lives there. It gnashes and chatters, the enamel of its teeth yellowed and foul, bare inches from my skin and it squeals in the deep dark below. Its bulbous blue tongue flicks inside a mouth stale with rot, enjoying the taste of its own bile, a sweet merlot of decay. It is something so inhuman, I can’t cope anymore.

As I squeeze my buttocks, clenching in, clenching out, willing nature to speed it along, the fear almost consumes me. My hands are clammy with sweat, my breath is becoming ragged. I can feel a trail of sweat trickling down my forehead. Why did this have to happen now? I tried to hang on, I really did, but sometimes you just, you know, gotta go.

It’s coming, but not fast enough. The reality of my situation, the horror, then finally the answer I’ve been looking for comes to me. The truth is, I don’t know what’s worse. The creature inside the toilet?  Or the one outside the bathroom door?

“Are you done in there yet!?”

The shrill voice pierces my eardrum, splintering the last vestiges of dread, and any train of rational thought. It is the shriek of a wild banshee pounding on the bathroom door that at once saves me, yet rips my soul apart with guilt. Ok, maybe she’s not a wild banshee. Maybe I’m exaggerating. It’s just my wife. Only, I’ve been listening to her inane chatter for years, so reminiscent of the creature itself, and lately, I can’t seem to bear it anymore. On and on she witters in my ear: put the rubbish out, don’t forget the TV bill, what’s for dinner? Let me have the remote.

She didn’t give me enough time to answer her.

“I said -” she started.

“And I heard you,” I interrupt, as I fight a final battle of wills against the creature that lives in my toilet, “I’ll be out in five minutes!”

Five minutes, I’ll be lucky, I’m thinking, as I groan, heave and at last get enough momentum to literally throw myself off the toilet seat with my trousers round my ankles. As I fall to the side and desperately scrabble away from the offending toilet, I thank God that I got away this time. I’ve been stuck there for ten minutes, listening to its pathetic gibbering, so like hers, its taunting, ragged voice. I can still feel its slime-ridden tongue on my bare flesh, licking my buttocks, tasting my skin.

I stand up and pull up my trousers, at last restoring my dignity. Why, oh why, is it necessary to have a shit, I ask myself? Why is the human body so – fragile and needy? It always finds me when I need a shit, not a piss. A shit, where I have no choice but to sit. Hey, that rhymes, I think absently.

Lately I’ve been holding it in, and when it got so I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I’d go anywhere, anywhere but in my own house. I use the toilet at McDonalds, the local garage, the office, Asda, anywhere but here. The only problem with the office is that the boss starts to question why I’ve been gone so long.

You see, it follows me. You’re the first one I’ve been able to tell because no one will believe me. Jayne won’t either. But she’ll see.

Work related stress, my imagination, call it what you like. But I know.

I know it lives in there. Waiting, waiting until it can catch me forever and destroy me, eat me from the inside out.

And I know what it wants.

It wants to own me. It wants to possess me until I no longer know who I am or who I answer to.

Talk, talk, all the time it talks until I can’t stand it and it’s the only voice I can hear. I just want it to be quiet. I don’t want its tongue or its lips to touch me anymore.

I’ve had enough.

“Bloody hell, are you -”

“Done,” I finish for her, as I open the bathroom door.

She’s looking a little red around the gills, suitably unimpressed by the wait she’s had to endure. Me? I feel peace at last. I know now, what I have to do.

“Sorry I took so long. Quick favour Jayne?”

“What?” she mumbles, disgruntled.

“It’s just, I think the bog’s blocked, that’s why I was so long in there, and I know you’re good at that sort of thing luv.”

“Out of my way then,” she grunts, and I try to not smile as I move aside and hand her the plunger and some disinfectant.

“Just ther -”

She doesn’t give me time to answer or offer advice.

“I can see it, okay?” she snaps, and I know I’m doing the right thing.

She grabs the plunger from my hand and a tingling warmth spreads through my loins as she kneels down in front of the ivory toilet, her head leaning in, searching for the cause of the blockage. I see her grimacing at the stench, but she’s a brave little one my wife, and I know she’ll battle on.

“Graham,” she whispers, and for the first time she sounds scared. She knows something isn’t right.

“Yes dear?”

“There’s something…”

“In there? Yes I know luv,” I reply “do me a big favour and feed it will you?”

I can’t hear her answer through her choking gurgles and the crack of her legs striking the top of the toilet seat. Her screams are buried beneath the sound of the creatures’ teeth gnashing and tearing, and my own laughter. Beneath the scent of blood and shit is the overwhelming smell of toilet-duck.

I decide to put the kettle on and celebrate.

Illustration: Rylan Cavell

Oct 30th, Cheshire.

As I turn off the dual carriageway onto a wide country lane the encroaching dusk causes the Merc’s headlights to come on. I notice with annoyance that even though the car is almost brand new, there’s a tiny blemish in the rear view mirror. Making a mental note to call the dealership tomorrow I swing in through the front gates of the hotel.

It doesn’t get much more Cheshire than this. The place was obviously a country pile back in its day. Now, as I get out of the car, I can almost smell the celebrity perfumes and fake tan. Here my new Merc looks understated amongst the convertible Astons and blinged up white Range Rovers. Back home in the Cotswolds, the car sticks out like a sore thumb but suddenly home never felt so far away. The only reason I’m back here is Anthony.

I drop my bag onto a huge leather sofa and head for the bar.

I order a large glass of an overpriced but decently aged Bordeaux. The bartender looks familiar. His tag reads ‘Mark’. Perhaps I went to school with him. God I hope not. The last thing I need this evening is to get into that awkward ‘How’re you doing, how’s your life, please say it’s not as good as mine’ conversation. Fortunately, either he doesn’t want to let on that he’s recognised me or his memory’s gone the same way as his hair. Either way I get back to my comfy seat unmolested. Before I taste the wine I check my phone; a couple of messages but nothing from Helena. Only to be expected I suppose, she still hasn’t forgiven my…indiscretion, but I had hoped we could talk, that fifteen years of marriage counted for something.

The wine looks promising, good legs and a lovely tawny tinge to the edges. I’ve chosen a seat by the big central fireplace. As the coals warm me I raise my glass and watch the flames through the blood red liquid.

The wine’s as good as it first appeared, better even. I glance around. Mark’s giving me an odd look, Perhaps he’s decided he does recognise me after all. I give him a nod and realise he’s not actually looking at me. His gaze is going over my head to the man coming through the door. Well dressed and good looking in an old fashioned kind of way. There’s something of a young Robert Downey about him: dark eyes and hair with the hint of a darker soul. He turns down his collar and as he’s running his fingers through windblown hair he catches sight of himself in the long mirror on the wall to his right.

He staggers, as if what he sees in the slightly bedraggled reflection terrifies him and it’s all he can do to keep from running back out of the door. Then he sees me and he’s back. Just as I remember him. My cocksure; self- obsessed, utterly unreliable, ever loving brother, Anthony. So many vile words run through my head. All the things I wanted to say to him when I saw him again. Then he smiles, and I just want to rush over and punch him in the face.

I find myself smiling back.

‘Danny boy,’ he says loudly. Everyone looks round. Just the way he likes it. ‘Excuse me mate, give me a large whatever he’s got.’ He sees the glass of wine in my hand, ‘In fact give us a bottle. Cheers fella.’

As I stand to greet him, I wish I’d chosen something more expensive. He moves past my outstretched hand and grabs me into a hug. It lasts an uncomfortably long time. He stands back, hands on my shoulders.

‘Still the same laid back Danny then?’ Sorry… Daniel. So how the fuck are you Daniel? Long-time no…’

The pop of the cork and Mark’s shadow stop his mouth momentarily.

‘Cheers mate.’ Says Anthony.  As the wine is poured he looks up. ‘Hey, do I know you?’

‘Thanks very much.’ I cut in. ‘Ignore him he’s easily confused.’

‘Thankyou Mr Lawrence.’ Says Mark as he beats a hasty retreat. Given that I’ve not checked in yet, I’d say he recognises me after all.

‘You’re welcome’ says Anthony. ‘Mr Lawrence my arse, bloody stuck up…’

‘So what do you want?’ I ask. The façade almost drops again. His eyes give him away. I can see the boy he was, nervous and eager to please. There’s something else there too, a look of defeat.

‘Nice way to say hello to your brother. Haven’t seen you for ten years…’

‘Try fifteen’

‘Fifteen?’ he says it again. It’s as if he’s speaking a language he doesn’t understand. ‘Fifteen years?’ An almost imperceptible shake of the head as if he’s denying it to himself. He glances at the mirror behind him then his eyes focus on me again. ‘Haven’t seen you for however long and you can’t even be bothered to ask how I am. This was a mistake, you don’t even care.’

If I wasn’t sipping wine my jaw would be on the floor. Is he serious? It’s all I can do not to grab him by the lapels and drag him over the table. Instead I lean forward, fists clenched.

‘You arrogant, selfish, self- important stunted little…’ I run out of words momentarily. That’s alright. I know ‘stunted’ hit the mark. He was always conscious of his size. ‘I don’t care…I don’t care?’ My whole body’s shaking now. ‘Where were you when I got married? Off drunk somewhere with some tart and then where? You leave the country; don’t answer your phone, not even a text in all this time. I tried to find you but no-one knew…or would tell me…I don’t care?’

Mark and the couple at the bar are looking over but pretending not to. No way I’m stopping now.

‘Where were you when Martina was born? Her Uncle and not even a gift on her birthdays.’ And now I grab his wrists over the table so he can’t pull away. ‘Where the FUCK were you when that bastard hit her with his car, when we BURIED her? We put our daughter in the fucking ground Anthony and where were you? And now you have the…’

Suddenly I’ve had enough. His face, inches from mine, crumples and tears fall but it’s too too late. My tears are harder earned, colder. They freeze my cheeks as I stand to leave.

‘Yumi’s husband found out’ He speaks so quietly I almost can’t hear him. ‘I don’t have long but I had to see you, to warn you.’

‘So the tart’s husband finally caught on?’ God help me I’m almost enjoying this. ‘Did he put his millions to use hiring a hit-man?’ I’m joking but something in Anthony’s face makes me sit back down. ‘What have you done?’

He swigs from his glass, fills it back up and drinks again. He uses a napkin to wipe his face. When, at last, he raises his eyes to mine I can see real fear. Another backward glance and then:

‘It starts small.’ The wine has brought a flush to his otherwise sickly pale face. ‘A smudge or a scratch in the glass, but it grows; slowly at first. You can’t tell but it’s always there in the background getting bigger and bigger. And it’s not in the glass, you think it is and you try and clean it off but it’s in all of them and it’s getting bigger but not because it’s spreading, it’s getting bigger because…’

He refocuses on me and it must be obvious that I’m getting ready to leave again. I’ve had more than enough of Tony’s shit. Because he’s my brother and because, in spite of everything, somewhere deep and dark inside I love him; I give him one more chance.

‘What did you do?’ I emphasise each word separately so he knows this is his last chance to put things right.

‘Yumi’s dead.’ He sags visibly.

‘What?’

‘He killed her in front of me. He used a knife. He had men with him, I couldn’t stop him, couldn’t help her.’

‘Christ.’ I don’t know what to say. She stole my brother from me, dragged him half way round the world, but she didn’t deserve that. Neither of them did.

He’s checking the mirror again. Something’s nagging at me, something he said before.

‘You said you had to warn me. You don’t have long and you have to warn me.’

‘You and Helena, you’re ok right? Everything’s fine with you two?’

‘Of course it is.’ I spit back, a little too quickly but he doesn’t notice. He’s caught up in his own relief. It’s no business of his anyway. And now he’s talking again, a little of that manic look back in his eyes.

‘That’s good, that’s good.’ He seems to relax a little, then he clasps my shoulders over the table. Never cheat on her Danny, you’re safe if you don’t cheat, don’t become an adulterer. He set something after me, something…’ I can see him searching for the word, in the end he utters a child’s laugh. ‘Something evil I guess. Whatever it is it’s old. He showed me photos of what it had done, what it would do; to me. They were terrible things. It won’t stop, it never stops. Not until it’s done. It’s coming for me because he told it my name. I heard him whispering to it. “Lawrence the adulterer, Lawrence the adulterer.” And then I heard it answer him. I don’t want to hear that sound again, ever, but it’s coming and it won’t stop and it’s getting bigger. It started small but it gets bigger and not because it’s growing. It gets bigger because it’s getting closer.’

His head snaps round and his eyes lock on the mirror, maybe he can see the front door from that angle. Whatever he sees, he leaps up from the chair.

‘It’s here. Oh god it’s here, got to go, got to keep moving.’ And then he pulls me to him, kisses me, whispers in my ear, ‘I’m sorry Danny, I’m so sorry; I thought I had longer but it’s here and I’ve got to go. I love you big brother.’

When he pulls away again there’s nothing left but fear in his face and he runs. There’s the sound of an engine gunning, gravel spatters the side of the building and my brother has gone.

October 31st M6

Must remember to mention the rear view mirror to the dealership, that mark’s getting worse.

Illustration: Rylan Cavell

She wished she’d never taken that short-cut. It had seemed a decent and rational idea at the time. Of course when driving through the countryside at night in an area you don’t know, taking an even more unknown direction, one can but hope to find a road sign, let alone your destination. Tall twisted trees rapidly replaced open fields as night had fallen. Shadows had flickered into strange and unnerving shapes as her headlights picked out knotted and unexpected patterns in the undergrowth.

The car rattled and creaked as she pushed the accelerator harder toward the floor, her stiletto heel not helping the situation she bent down quickly and whipped it off. Her old, rusty Ford was held together by gaffa tape and wishful thinking. It did not need to be doing over 60 miles an hour down a dirt track.

Of course this is precisely what it did need to be doing, due to the very large, very loud and very slimy thing that was galloping along behind her. It screamed ravenously. She chanced a glimpse in the rear-view mirror. In the red light of her rear lamps she could see what appeared to be several mouths, moving independently of the main creature. And tentacles. Lots of tentacles. She hoped they were tentacles.

Her hair fell in front of her eyes in sweaty strands as she wished her car to go faster. Faster. Faster! The creature had come out of nowhere, red eye-shine in her headlamps and glistening saliva. She hoped it was saliva.

The thunderous impact of its feet on the ground behind her shook the car. She swerved as the dirt track veered sharply to the left. Grit and dust sprayed out from her sliding tyres as she struggled with the steering wheel.

‘Why did I not get a car with power steering?’ she thought to herself.

She then laughed. Partly through hysteria and panic, and partly due to how absurd that thought was, given the situation.

The creature lashed out with two of its tentacles and swung itself easily around the bend behind her. Now a good deal closer, she risked another glance in the mirror. Its bilious black body flexed and pulsed. Long legs, taught with racehorse-standard muscle. There was no way this was anything natural. This was some hellish demon. This was some monster from another dimension. This was some crazed experiment gone wrong. This was a man stood in the middle of the road.

A man stood in the middle of the road?

She slammed on the breaks and pulled the wheel to one side. Autopilot kicking in. She wanted to evade the thing chasing her, but did not want to run over a human being. God forbid!

The wheels skidded on wet grass and the car slid sideways into a tree.

The airbag deployed. Through the shock and the airbag she heard the man shouting. Was the creature turning its attention now to him? Had she escaped being devoured?

She nursed her shoulder, over which the tight seatbelt held her in place. There was broken glass all over her. Most of the windows were shattered. She tilted her head back and tried to breath calmly. Her throat was dry and her breaths were shallow and quick. She looked around. All was darkness. The crash had killed the car. The engine and the lights were gone.

The man was silent. Had he been eaten?

She noted the airbag beginning to deflate.

“Sorry ‘bout ‘Arry. Likes shiny lights is all. No harm.” The man said through the empty aperture that once held the drivers side window, shocking the poor woman into screaming.

A roar from the creature silenced her. She clasped her hands over her mouth.

“What was that… thing?” She managed after a moment.

“’Arry.” The man replied.

“What?”

“’Arry. Short for ‘Arrold. You know?”

Seeing the woman was in no way grasping what he was saying he shook his head and walked away.

“What’s your name, miss?”

“Katherine.”

“I’ll call the mechanic for you. Won’t be out ‘till mornin’ now though. Stay put.”

The man walked away a few paces, paused and whistled loudly with his fingers.

“But that thing!” Katherine hissed, “It’ll hear you!”

The man grinned at her,

“I should hope so.”

The creature trotted up to the man, sank onto its haunches and let him tickle it under the chin.

She hoped it was a chin.

“Come on boy, back home now. That’s enough walkies for one night.”

And with that the man and his monster faded into the darkness of the wood.

Illustration: Rylan Cavell

“Look, listen to me, I am not going through this same conversation again!”

“That’s entirely the point, we haven’t said anything like this to each other before.”

“That’s what you think.”

This debate, if it could charitably be called that, was taking place inside a high level board room of Chronos Industries headquarters on Luna, although it was more like a verbal sparring match that was quickly becoming no holds barred. At the head of the meeting table, around which countless capitalistic covens took place, sat the company’s CEO and patriarch Jacob Winters. Standing to his right, exasperated and red faced from trying to persuade the galaxy’s wealthiest man into a new line of thinking, was Patricia Collins. She was Jacob’s descendant, and a chasm of three and a half centuries separated them.

“Why, grandfather, why do you keep doing this to yourself?” Patricia said darkly as she glowered at Jacob. He was sat in the chair with his feet resting on the table, knowing full well he owned the place and could damn well do what he liked with it.

“There are over half a dozen uses of the “great” you missed there Patricia.” Jacob said with a smug grin on his face as he lit up a cigarette, a markedly more expensive past time on Luna than on Earth given oxygen was at a premium.

Patricia’s hands twitched like she was going to slap the cigarette out of Jacob’s hand, yet despite the strong desire to do so she found a modicum of restraint and merely glared at him instead. Her “relation” had all the attitudes of a crotchety old person for whom the golden era of their lives had been and gone, never to return, yet he possessed the body of a neophyte thirty year old and those same rugged looks that had helped him build an empire all those centuries ago.

“Listen, Jacob. It’s twenty-five fifteen. This is the future! Why don’t you try and live in it for once!?” Patricia yelled. Jacob responded by blowing a smoke ring from his cigarette with arrogant indifference.

“You have no right to tell me what to do. Being blood related to me means your own future is secure thanks to my wealth. You should be goddamn grateful.” Jacob spat.

“I don’t want your money. I want you to be a part of this family you seem so intent on avoiding across time.” Patricia yelled while gesturing towards herself, although it was to signify that there were many more members of the Winters bloodline than just her, diluted as it had become.

Cool and cold as ever, Jacob rose from his seat to walk over towards Patricia and stood in front of her, nearly a full foot higher than she was. His snubbed his cigarette out on the pristine marble floor.

“Because when I set out to make this company, I had one goal. I wanted to conquer time. Time, Patricia! The very idea that we are mortal sickens me. We’re just here to pass on our genes and then to crawl into a hole in the ground, shit ourselves and die. I want something better for the human race.” Jacobs cried.

“And so now that you’ve cast this company and your… “genes” as you put it into time, you think it’s okay for you to just pop in every now and again and see how things are going?” Patricia retorted.

Chronos Industries was Jacob’s legacy, in his own mind, as much as his immediate offspring and all the children across the decades who followed like diverging tributaries in a river. Initially they perfected cryogenic storage in the twenty-two hundreds and then after re-emerging from a century frozen in time, Jacob returned to find his company had mastered the contortion of temporality through antimatter annihilation. A few skips across the pond of time later and Jacob had now come back to find time and space were humanity’s play thing, but death was still not defeated.

And, as certain as death and taxes, a member of his “family” was always waiting for him with this same dead horse of an argument.

“Damn right. I want to be there when humanity becomes the gods we deserve to be. That was my vision all those years ago, and in my dreams, cryogenic or temporal, that was all I thought about.” Jacobs said firmly.

“And what about actually living? Do you not have the slightest interest in meeting the families you’ve created? I don’t see it myself, but my son Matthew is nuts about you, he thinks you’re some sort of superhero.” Patricia explained, her simmering anger having dissipated somewhat.

Jacob didn’t answer, but instead drew another cigarette and lit it. He at least had the courtesy to blow the smoke away from Patricia when he exhaled.

“Okay, let me ask you this. What would H.G. Wells do? Do you not think he’d want to see his descendants in the future and the world they live in?” Patricia gambled, but Jacob had none of it.

“Wells is dead. Dead men don’t talk, but I do, and I can safely say, Patricia, that I have a larger goal in mind. If you’re so fond of this family you speak of go and spend your time with them rather than me. Besides, forming attachments only to have them crushed six months down the line when I go back to the stasis chamber doesn’t exactly strike me as a capital investment of one’s time.” Jacob explained with intermittent drags on his cigarette. The burning tip glowed a malevolent orange in the baleful light of the room.

“Fine.” Patricia said with a sigh. “I can see you’re not going to change.”

“Time hasn’t changed me, and you haven’t a chance. I’m sorry that I’m not the man you wished I was, but I have bigger fish to fry.” Jacob said with the first hint of softness in his voice, but the steel in his eyes did not waver.

Nothing more was said as Patricia saw herself out.

The same routine followed, the same pattern played out as usual. Jacob spent the next couple of months running his company and setting out his agenda for the coming decades, despite some stern protestations from the shareholders and many comments from the board of directors that Jacob was a fossil who deserved to be in a museum and not at the head of the largest corporate conglomerate ever known. Nonetheless, after dealing with the dissenters and getting everything in place, Jacob once again entered the temporal stasis chamber situated in a secure bunker in his mansion on Luna. The chamber was little more than a sealed box room containing a viewscreen from which he could set the duration of his time slip, and having dialled in a clean century’s worth of fast forwarding Jacob hit the start button and closed his eyes, passing the point of no return, for the time slip could not be cancelled prematurely without fatal consequences.

The sensation of the fast forward was only brief, but it made all of his hairs stand up on an end. A century elapsed in a second and Jacob opened his eyes again. The chamber was the same as before and he moved to the viewscreen to enter the necessary codes to unlock the door and rejoin the waking world.

Except, while the computer was working and had claimed to have opened the door, it had not moved an inch.

“What the?” Jacob muttered to himself. The door itself was electromagnetically sealed, but even if the power was off, which it wasn’t, it was far too heavy for even ten men to pry open.

That was of course an obstacle that could easily be rectified with outside assistance. Jacob picked the necessary commands to reach his email client on the viewscreen, but stopped short of actually composing his own and instead looked over the messages that had arrived in his absence.

Years of dialogue had been stored up, since Jacobs insistence he be carbon copied into every email sent by the upper echelons of his company, but the titles of the more recent messages were horrifying, using words like “evacuate”, “war”, “genocide”, “deceased”, all terrible in their connotations.

Sweat forming on his head, Jacob found the most recent email. It was from eighty years prior, after which there were no more. Eighty years of silence.

The email was from Matthew Collins, Patricia’s son, and read thusly:

“Hello Jacob. I hope you manage to read this message. My time is short here, since I’m leaving the Sol system tomorrow with the evacuation fleet. A lot of things have happened in your absence, and I can’t imagine what it must be like to wake up to all of this in that chamber. Mom, she hasn’t stopped crying since we realised we had to go and leave you behind. I, I just wish we could’ve met. But we’re safe, and I’ll do my best to ensure your legacy continues.”

“It’s funny. You always wanted to defeat death, yet, I realise that trapped in that chamber; he would’ve been your only companion. But, as little as it is, I promise you that me, Mom and the rest of us… we’re here with you in spirit. For what’s it worth, I’ve written something for you in these final hours. It’s the story, of my life…”

Illustration: Rylan Cavell

That afternoon I dream of cheese platters and eggs. Then I dream of the dead. Always the dead. They gather around the department store in their billions.

“You’re letting the team down,” they say through puckered holes where their mouths should be. “Come back to us, and we can all move on. No more ripples in the pond.”

“I’m not ready yet. Everett needs me, and I can’t find Jason.”

The dead laugh: the sound dry and rasping. They have no eyes, just ruined holes that leak black fluid. Their bodies are malformed, crudely constructed, as if made from memory and then dimly recalled.

“Jason’s with us,” they say.

“Show me.”

A ripple passes through the crowd. Their bodies twist into new shapes: young, old, male and female, but no Jason.

My turn to laugh.

I awake to find Everett smiling. The sun is low in the sky. Its thin light plays across the wall in a mix of shadows. The fire has long since gone out and my wood pile has been reduced to twigs and scattered leaves.

“Why so happy?” I wipe sleep from my eyes and prop myself up on my elbows. My gums ache, and I can taste blood at the back of my mouth. A tooth wobbles when I probe it with my tongue. Despite that, it’s good to see Everett smile.

He doesn’t answer, and that’s when I notice Sal has moved closer. She bobs like a discarded cork, her rifle caught in the stunted growth of a hawthorn tree.

Sal won’t take the plunge tonight. Which means Sheila will have her. She’ll smack her lips on those juicy thighs; she’ll lift Sal’s shirt and run tendrils across cold, white flesh.

“You wouldn’t want that, would you?” I shout through the window. Sal’s swollen tongue lolls within her mouth. I think she wants to kiss me.

I could eat her up. She could do her duty even in death. It’s not such a strange concept. It’s not. Many people have eaten alternative foods in difficult times. Their names escape me, but they did what they had to do. Why should I be any different?

Everett’s head dips.

“No. Don’t be like that.” I lift his chin and look him in the eye. “I have to eat.”

My head feels heavy from sleep, my legs ache from cramp, and my bladder is fit to burst.

Barely manage to get to the toilet in time before I go, soaking my crotch as I pull my pants down. My urine is all dark and red. It’s not big on dignity and as I squat there filling a plastic bottle with half-piss and half-blood, the stench is near-awful. I wish for adult diapers. You know the type: big wrap-around-your-butt ones that the old dears wear in Nursing Homes. The ones your mum would hurry you past in the supermarket aisle before you started laughing. But what did I expect my piss to look like? I’m no piss connoisseur, mind. But to hazard a guess: no food, water you wouldn’t let your dog drink, damp and cold all must have played their parts. A group mugging between circumstance and situation. The bastards. I’ve done well to get this far – better than most. So what if I pass blood. It’s nothing a course of antibiotics wouldn’t put right. Must stop at the next Pharmacy and stock up on supplies. The Pharmacy here closed forever a few weeks back when the ceiling took a tumble and the shop above it, hardware and supplies, moved in instead. Managed to scavenge a few aspirin since and a half-torn packet of lactulose, but nothing more inspiring. But you never know what tomorrow may bring.

The room sways and the ground turns unsteady beneath my feet. “Falling apart. If I don’t eat, might not see tomorrow. Certainly won’t manage the night.”

Sal continues to float, her skin the colour of lard.

“Don’t worry, I’ll save you some. You’re not a big eater; I can see that.” I pinch Everett’s arm. “Hardly a scrap on you, but Sal could keep us full for days.”

He doesn’t answer. I can’t blame him. It’s a difficult decision to make, and he hasn’t been outside since coming to the department store.

The others – when there were others – all died in the open. They were fellow refugees finding shelter from the chaos the world had become: shop workers still in uniform, commuters, a couple of gangly teenagers. When the food ran low they left and promised they’d return. None ever did.

And Aunt Sal comes each lunchtime without fail. Everett looks up to her. God knows he needs a mother in his life. I can’t be expected to do all the work. But without food . . .

I rest my head against the wall and close my eyes. Jason waits within the woods, between ancient trees, underneath a curious orange sun. He waves me on.

Everett will have to understand. I’ll make him understand.

And making another torch helps. I lash together sheets and curtain poles. There’s enough gas left within my Harley’s tank for the task, but afterwards it’s empty. My bike’s gone anyway. Pointless to try and fix it: two flat tires, engine ruined. I’m no mechanic, and even if I were, without spare parts there’s nothing to be done. I give Everett a hug, turn him towards the window, and without giving myself time to think, step outside.

The coldness of the air catches my breath, and I’m aware of every sound I make, like the world is watching. It’s impossible to be quiet: each footfall echoes within the stillness of the late afternoon. Sheila sleeps during the day – or at least is inactive when the sun is highest. She will come if I make too much noise.

I think of Jason. It will be his fifth birthday soon. I’ll buy him a bike when I get into Bristol. Hell, I’ll buy him one for each day of the week. It’s been two months since I’ve last seen my kid. Luke made sure of that.

“You’re a dreamer, Paige. You’ve got no money and no brains,” Luke had said. A semblance of a smile curled his lips as he spoke. “Your head is so far in the clouds you can’t see the world around you. Why would I want my son to be raised by a woman like you?”

“But I love you. I love him.”

“It isn’t enough.”

Sal rolls within the water, her eyes fixed across the marshes. Despite myself, I glance in that direction. A white object gleams in the ice and winks between the trees.

“What is it, Sal?”

Sal isn’t speaking. I don’t know what I’ve done to upset her. I’m sure she’ll tell me in her own time.

Inching forward, I push aside the dead branches to get a better view. I’ve not been out this far before. The cold needles my skin. It hurts to breath, like I’ve swallowed glass. I could die out here, and who would know? Everett’s still there in the store, watching. I could make it back. There’s time.

The white shape floats upon a frozen river: small, round and unobtrusive. I crouch down, rest my torch across my knees, and pull out a human skull joined by ribs, spine, and a rusted pocket watch that slips free from the bone and slides out across the ice. Despite the odds, it produces a faint ticking sound.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a pocket watch, and I cross onto the ice, my intention to pick it up. The watch is a memory, one I can touch, hold, fee–

With a powerful crack, the ice breaks beneath my feet. Stupidly, I tense like an animal sensing danger, thinking that if I don’t move it’ll somehow settle. But fate has other plans and I watch thick lines sneak past my feet and the ice snaps into smaller sheets. There’s time to lunge towards the nearest tree, but I’m not Wonderwoman, never really bothered with the gym and I get nowhere close. On the way down, my head strikes a protruding branch in mockery of my failed lunge. I open my mouth to scream and get two lungs’ full of water for my trouble. The cold rips my spluttering breath away and makes my limbs feel like lead. An iron clamp tightens across my chest, and I clutch at roots and broken branches. Anything will do. Spots of garish red explode before my eyes like a private firework show, and I sink beneath the surface.

The world dims, as if the light has been funnelled out, it’s not an unpleasant sensation – like coming home. I wonder how Everett will fare without me. He wouldn’t survive a day. He’ll die. Then I think of Jason. I want to hold him and say: “I’ll never let you go again. Never let you out of my sight.” His hair smells clean, freshly washed. His jumper is made from wool, rough against my fingers. He still wears those stupid over-sized Wellington boots. If I could only catch my breath. It’s difficult. I want to. Can’t seem . . .

My feet hit something solid. I want to live – oh, how I want to live – and kick out. The barrier breaks, and water explodes amongst the trees.

Near frozen, I’m deposited on the banks. Can barely move my fingers – like five brittle branches, easy to snap. Tongue feels odd: bloated and big. I can’t feel my legs. Should cut them off and eat them. Always recycle, why stop now, just because the world has come to an end doesn’t mean I should stop doing my part. My laugh sounds like the sudden cawing of a crow, takes a while to recognize the sound for what it is.

Madness.

Won’t cut my legs off. Stupid. I slide onto my stomach. The ground is odd, hard and white. There’s a stench in the air, the charnel smell of meat, the sharp tang of blood. The ground gleams ivory in the half-light.

I’m lying on the dead: hundreds of leering skulls, broken bones and shattered lives stretching into the depths of the earth.

Into the pit.

****

A sound like paper being shredded breaks the silence. A faint grunt of satisfaction – of a job well done – and a hand appears from the gloom.

The flesh is yanked away like a magician’s new trick. The rigid muscle, congealed blood, and shrunken veins exposed for an instant, then they too are gone, suckled into the dark. What’s left is discarded like a child’s broken toy.

Sheila watches from the shadows. She is the shadows.

I want to run, but my legs won’t work. Fear swells inside me like a monstrous growth, and I’m rooted to the spot.

“Don’t,” I manage to say. “I’m not ready. I’m your friend.” The words just come out. I’d say anything to stay alive.

Sheila ripples as if in the grip of an alien tide. If she wanted, she could kill me in a thousand different ways. But she doesn’t. She hesitates, unsure of herself, and a crazy thought occurs – an impossible thought.

She’s afraid of me.

Faces emerge across her surface. Hundreds at first; each jostle for space until it becomes difficult to distinguish them apart, and they burst like pustules from a necrotic wound. Two faces remain, larger than the rest and both recognizable: Mum and Dad, their expressions a mix of sympathy and pain.

“No more ripples in the pond,” I say, remembering the dead from my dream. “It’ll be night soon. Wait until then. No more fires. I promise.”

Sheila clucks, and my parents move in and out of focus. They seem swollen, gorged, and flushed crimson. A reddish stain swirls through the darkness like strawberry sauce stirred into chocolate.

“Save me for later,” I say, “when you’re hungry. I’m worth the wait.”

Sheila reaches out a tendril of black tar and caresses my cheek; her touch is cold like the space between stars. Yet my cheek smoulders then burns. The pain doesn’t seem real. Like it’s happening to somebody else.

Not me.

“No!” It comes out in a hot rush of air, more force than noise. I grasp the first thing that comes to hand – a skull – and send it spinning towards Sheila. It passes straight through as if she were no more real than a ghost.

Then it’s Sheila’s turn. She lashes out, strikes across my chest in a fluid blur, and I tumble into rocks. Something gives in my side: the wet snap of a rib.

I grab the walls and try to stand. A black tentacle whips out and sears flesh from my shoulder, passing through cloth, sinew and muscle. My screams turn high-pitched before the pain leaves me breathless. Half my shoulder is missing, sliced free as if under a surgeon’s knife.

Sheila lunges forward, and the blow takes my feet away. I experience a sensation akin to flying before crashing back to earth with enough force to make the world shift out of focus.

Blood, hot and sticky, runs down my face. Two of my teeth have been knocked out, and I spit them onto bone like twin red dice. They bounce across the dead to stop against my torch.

My torch! How could I forget my torch? My hands are heavy and unresponsive. I need my lighter, but groping inside my pocket is near impossible. Sheila slides towards me, enjoying the moment, playing with her food. The lighter’s cold edge brushes against my fumbling fingers and I pull it free. It’s wet, soaked from my time in the marsh. Please, God, let it work.

A strike against my knee: nothing. Sheila rears back, she blocks out the day, small bulges like writhing teeth squirm inside her. Mum and Dad watch, their expressions one of rapt attention.

The lighter strikes, it flares and the flame springs into life. I throw it onto the torch and – whoosh – a beautiful orange nimbus. The sizzle of soaked curtains – has there ever been anything more beautiful?

I launch the torch like a javelin. My strength has faded, and the torch carries a few yards at most. Sheila tries to pull away, but the torch drops into her dark folds. Mum and Dad’s face explode into flame, and a rolling wave of blue fire shoots across her body. She gives a high shriek and writhes on the ground, black tentacles flailing.

“Burn,” I whisper. “Just fucking burn.”

Sheila drags herself back into the pit, whimpering and grunting as she goes. The top layer of her skin has gone. Thick smoke curls above the pit. The smell of oil and charred meat hangs heavy in the air. Still the flames dance, melting away her innards. Slops of burning liquid are deposited in her wake. She gives one last mournful cry and slithers into the dark. The light in the pit flickers for a moment before going out.

In the silence that follows, I’m reminded of my pain. My legs don’t want to work. They tremble and spasm. The skulls now regard me coolly, as if uncertain of what I shall do next.

“Me too,” I say. The skulls shift, blend into each other, becoming an indistinct blur. My shoulder feels cold and itches like crazy. I want to scratch it, reach into the ragged flesh and get my fingernails into the spoiled muscle, but one sight of the torn shirt stained crimson is enough for my stomach to buck.

The sun has almost set: a sliver of light amongst the half-drowned trees. It’s dangerous to be out in the dark.

Far away there is a soft murmur, like a stirring of leaves. A babble of voices follow, a gibbous mishmash of sound, part human, part animal, part something else. Nothing human could make that noise, but it doesn’t come from Sheila, or the pit, but rather out there . . . in the marsh.

READ PART 3…

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On moon lit nights she would visit my tiny window as I lay in bed thinking of when we last were together. Staring at the grimy, damp ceiling listening to the twig tapping at the window, I wait for her to call. The stained bed is beneath me, sheets crumpled beneath my rigid body, while the wind whistles and howls as I remain. All is motionless on the inside while a whirlwind of furious movement is all I hear from outside. The tap drips into the brown stained sink. The clock ticks, the window creaks and still I lie, waiting silently and patiently for the woman in the wind, the woman who no longer lives. 

We were happy once, a lifetime ago, before the wind and the rain. Her long red hair glowed like gold in the sun as we laughed together in days long gone. Under blue skies, we would walk in bliss with neither a care nor fear in the world. She would smile a warm smile that couldn’t be controlled and couldn’t be stopped as it spread from cheek to cheek. If the wind blew she would flick it from her face, golden streaks pouring round her, careless and uncontainable. Now she is gone because of what I did, but sometimes I still hear her laughter carried to me on the wind outside my window.

I would watch her laugh. I could drink her joy and bask in her beauty. Hands in pockets, strolling beside her, her boundless energy would fill me with pleasure, though I would not show it. My sarcastic, silly comments about those we saw in the park would make her giggle constantly. She would give me the eyes of an embarrassed child or perhaps a stern parent when I said something too coarse about one of the people we saw walking amongst us in the park. Her big cheeks would flush red and she would leap around me, pulling my hands out of my pockets and dancing, swinging my arms and staring at me with simple childlike delight. Still my head would be lowered, unable to look this beauty in the eyes, still unable to share unabashed in her joy.

‘What about them?’ she would whisper in my ear as we strolled towards another young couple, lost in each other and enjoying the hot sun and how it shimmered on the lake.

Picking up on anything I could criticise, I would say ‘he’s an artist, a fashion designer maybe. He’ll be through with her if she wears the wrong shoes.’

She would giggle and whisper ‘And her?’

‘She’s Britain’s next top model… thick as shit but knows what styles are in this season. Daddy’s probably been subsidising her fashion sense until this bloke came along and now she calls him Daddy’.

‘Gross!’ she exclaims, smiling and pulling my hand from my pocket again so she can link her arm with mine. So affectionate she was, so innocent, so sweet and so vulnerable.

I squint at the couple. He really does look like a fashion designer. Skinny with even skinnier black jeans, a child size black leather jacket, stripy t-shirt, and hair that says wind swept but to me says hours in front of the mirror, meticulous grooming. My hands clench unconsciously, my chewed nails dig into my palms. I bite down on my lower lip and look ahead as we pass the delightfully attired young prats. I could literally tear their fucking heads off right here.

I’ll never understand what she saw in me. Me… allergic to happiness like only the middle class really can be. Spoiled and surly, my only redeeming feature was being able to make her laugh. She would dance, sing, raise her head to the sunshine and let it soak her. Her long flowing hair would wildly sweep around her and all the while, I would walk beside her, hood up, hands clenched tightly in my pockets, stealing snatched glances at her radiating happiness. I thought she might be able to change me but I was wrong. That is why she is no longer here and why I am alone.

As the twig taps incessantly at the window, I can see the moon, bold and brilliant just like all those many moons ago when I lost her. She was too young for such a terrible fate and now the moon and the stars, the twig tapping and the drips in the sink taunt me. It was inevitable that it would end. One so beautiful on the inside and out could never be contained by one so vile, so hateful and so wretched. But I tried. I desperately attempted to keep making her laugh, furiously desired to keep her wanting to spend time with me and pull me around like a loose limbed hooded puppet. I tried to hide the darkness that lurked beneath my sick sense of humour but keeping that seething resentment at happy humanity bottled up could not work forever.

The red-haired woman in the wind is dead now. Long ago it feels since I made the mistake, the hours have stretched into days, months and years and my torment is now permanent. She carelessly let me go for another lover who could make her happier. Her beauty and her laughter needed feeding. My dry put-downs could only amuse her for so long. And of course when we were alone and there were no passers by like in the park, my insults would turn to her, and it was she who would bear the brunt of my need to criticise and make myself feel better by putting others down.

So when she left, I did something unspeakable. All that rage, all that anger came rushing out like a force 12 hurricane. On a moonlit night like this, I took a life. I raged at her. I raged at him. I tore them both apart. I didn’t have the power or the control to stop myself. She hurt me and she got what she deserved. The pair of them, lying there unsuspecting. If I’d had a gun I’d have done it with that and saved them the suffering. But I didn’t so I took a knife to them. No jokes. No smiles. No laughing. I tore into them like an unleashed monster. Again and again I stabbed them. Their faces, their bodies, their outstretched arms; her beautiful red hair flying around as she tried to protect herself. Blood everywhere, in geysers and all over me. I tore them both apart.

And now I sit alone. Forever alone with only my thoughts of her and the golden hair that glistened in the sun. The twig taps at the tiny barred window, the tap drips in the sink and all I can do is lie here in my crusty cell, the moon barely visible from behind the bars, casting a long shadow over me. I’ve got all the time in the world to wait for her to visit me but I doubt she’ll be back. The wind carries her laughter to me often enough and it is more than I can bear.

Illustration: Rylan Cavell

 

CHAPTER ONE

Federation Communications Hub, Xantos Beta

Sub-technician Glynd Tandar stared with tired eyes at the flare of data juddering across the large wallscreen. He had been on shift for seven hours, and was not due to be relieved for another two. His red-rimmed eyes ached from the long hours spent monitoring and deciphering the never-ending comms traffic. The coded information held little meaning at this stage of his shift.

Tandar knew the work they did here was important. Maintaining the network of communication hubs across the Federation was vital to security – especially in the current climate. The installation on Xantos Beta was a prime node in this sector for cascading top priority transmits through the hyperspace network. If Xantos Beta ever fell silent, it could cripple the Federation.

Pinching the bridge of his nose to relieve a build-up of pressure, Tandar forced himself awake and focused his concentration back to the instrument banks.

On the chair next to Tandar, clothed in the same pristine white uniform of the science-corps that he wore himself, Olivar yawned. They had been working this shift together for nearly three years, and knew exactly how each other thought.

Tandar glanced at his younger comrade, adjusting a control as he did. ‘You too?’ he asked.

Olivar ran a hand though sandy hair and smiled ruefully. ‘Yeah. The Eighth Hour,’ he announced with mock drama. It was a joke among the comms technicians on Xantos Beta. The Eighth Hour: the hour of your shift cycle where, if you were going to make a mistake, it would be then. Olivar pointed his stylus at the screen. ‘I’ve no idea if this is detailing troop movements on Saurian Demos, or if it’s the President’s shopping list.’

Tandar smiled. Olivar always knew how to cheer up a long shift. His colleague waggled a plastic beaker at him and he nodded. Olivar picked up another beaker and walked the short distance across the control room to the food dispenser. He placed a beaker in a small alcove and pressed a button. With a dull whine, the machine began to dispense a dark, steaming liquid.

Olivar leant against the wall and watched the stream of liquid. ‘They should just get computers to do everything. Aren’t they supposed to enhance the quality of life?’

‘You’d soon get bored with all that leisure time,’ Tandar said over his shoulder. ‘And besides, what would you do without me for company?’

‘I’m sure I could think of –’

Olivar broke off as the heavy door at the back of the control room was slammed open. Tandar tensed and rose to his feet as a black-clad trooper stalked into the room, boots thudding heavily on the metal floor plates. The trooper’s face was completely obscured by the helmet and he moved slowly around the room like some sightless mantis. Hefting a standard-issue Federation blaster rifle, the trooper looked first at Tandar, then at Olivar, before raising a comm-unit to his mouthpiece.

‘Section Gamma clear,’ the trooper rasped into the unit. ‘Green condition.’ Satisfied, the trooper stalked back to the door, the two technicians watching nervously as he stopped at the drinks dispenser. Without a word, he took the recently poured beverage and left the room. The door was pulled closed after him with almost unnecessary politeness.

Olivar visibly sagged against the wall and Tandar realised he had barely breathed throughout the last minute.

‘These additional security checks make me nervous,’ said Olivar as he stabbed the button to dispense another drink.

‘Relax,’ soothed Tandar. ‘They’re doing their jobs.’

‘Yeah, scaring innocent Federation citizens.’ Olivar walked quickly back to his work station, drink in hand. ‘Just because some freedom fighter goes on the rampage, our personal liberty has to suffer because they up all the security rotations.’ He sat heavily back at his seat. ‘Am I the only one who sees the irony in that? Thanks a lot, Blake.’

Tandar had to laugh. ‘This Blake seems to be getting the blame for everything now. I even heard a transcription clerk blaming the quality of the food in the refectory on him.’

‘Maybe she has a point.’ Olivar took a gulp from the beaker and returned his attention to the screen.

‘It’ll all die down soon enough,’ Tandar tried to reassure his colleague. ‘These things always do. Remember all that trouble with Baban the Butcher? How often do you hear about him these days?’

Olivar shrugged. ‘I guess.’ He returned to work, tapping a sequence on the wide control panel. ‘Do you think we can reach the end of this shift without any foul-ups. I’d quite like to enjoy some personal relaxation time later.’

Grinning, Tandar wheeled his chair up close to the control bank next to his colleague. ‘I’m sure we can get through the next two hours without –’

Tandar felt a sudden pressure as a cold, solid tube was pressed against his neck. He froze.

A voice, soft and calm, said: ‘If you do exactly as I say, neither of you will be harmed.’

Olivar leapt to his feet, immediately squaring up to the presence standing behind Tandar, but was roughly shoved back into his seat by a dark-haired man who appeared from the shadows.

‘Sit down,’ hissed this second newcomer, pressing an identical device hard against Olivar’s cheek. The tube was attached to a cupped base of concentric rings and smooth moulded black handle. The man’s thumb wavered over a stud set into the device’s base. Tandar had never seen anything like it, but the intent behind its use was obvious.

‘You won’t shoot us,’ Tandar said, his pulse quickening as adrenalin rushed through his body.

The man standing with Olivar broke into a thin, sardonic smile. ‘My friend here has a streak of honour that renders the chance of him pulling the trigger at around 98 per cent. I, on the other hand, have no such emotional disability and guarantee you, one hundred per cent, that I will shoot if you do not follow our instructions.’

‘That’s enough, Avon. We have a job to do.’

Avon? Had Tandar heard right? Olivar was hauled roughly from his chair and the man – Avon – shoved him bodily across the control room. Seconds later, Tandar himself was pulled from his seat and thrust towards the back of the room. Olivar caught him and helped him to stay on his feet.

Both men faced the second aggressor. He stood a short distance away, covering them with the strange weapon. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘don’t move and nobody will be hurt. I give you my word.’ This tall, powerfully built man radiated a calm sense of power. He was clothed in heavy boots and some sort of hooded green combat fatigues; much like his comrade.

But it was the face that Tandar was drawn to. The unruly mop of dark hair framing an intelligent face. And the eyes, careworn and sad, darting between Tandar and Olivar.

Tandar knew that face. It had been burned into his memory from the constant security bulletins that dominated the Federation comms network.

Roj Blake.

Insurrectionist. Rebel.

Murderer.

Blake didn’t take his eyes from the technicians. ‘Avon?’

Behind him, the other man had sat at the bank of instruments, moving dexterous, confident hands across the controls. ‘I’m concentrating,’ he said without looking up.

Kerr Avon, thought Tandar. One of Blake’s band of ‘outlaws’.

Computer genius. Embezzler.

Murderer.

‘Concentrate faster,’ said Blake.

‘Uploading a virus of this nature is not just a case of pressing a button. I need to encrypt the chameleon subroutine before I can lay it into the hyperspace network. If I get this right, it should be enough to knock out this node of the entire Federation comms network for weeks.’

‘How long?’

‘Five minutes.’

‘You’ve got two.’

Avon said nothing and continued working. He pulled a crystal from a pouch on his belt and inserted it into the control bank’s data port. It began to whirr and click as the upload process began.

‘What are you going to do to us?’ blurted Olivar. Tandar just wanted him to stay quiet and not antagonise the terrorists. Thankfully, Blake ignored him and quickly activated a control on a bracelet adorning his wrist.

‘Liberator, Blake,’ he said into the bracelet, training his weapon back on the technicians. Tandar placed an arm across Olivar, hoping to calm his jittery colleague.

‘Jenna here,’ crackled a woman’s voice from the bracelet.

‘Jenna, we’re in and everything is going to plan.’

‘We’re standing by on teleport and awaiting your signal.’

‘Good. Advise Gan and Cally we’ll see them at the rendezvous point in three minutes.’

‘Will do. Liberator out.’

Blake lowered his arm and backed slowly towards Avon, gun always levelled at Tandar and Olivar. Tandar could feel Olivar’s shaking body tense. He gave the younger technician a warning look, but he could see the anger in his eyes.

‘Come on, Avon,’ said Blake urgently. ‘Hurry it up.’

Avon looked up with narrowed eyes. ‘I am,’ he replied drily.

‘You won’t escape!’ Olivar blurted. ‘The Federation is too big, they’re going to bring you down!’

‘Shut up,’ Tandar pleaded with his colleague. ‘You’ll get us killed.’

‘I don’t care, they’re terrorists!’

‘I told you to keep quiet!’ said Blake as he strode back towards them, the sudden flash of anger immediately convincing Tandar that Blake was capable of everything the Federation accused him of.

‘Blake, it’s done,’ called Avon from the control desk. The data moving across the screen turned from green to red. ‘The entire hub will be down within minutes.’

‘Well done, Avon.’ Blake glanced at the screen as spidery lines began to appear between the blocks of comms. In that moment, Olivar pounced forward, barrelling into Blake and shoving past the rebel. Before Blake could react, he leapt towards the panic button set into the wall. Olivar’s hand slammed over the alarm and a klaxon began to blare. In the next second, a terrifying shriek drowned out the alert and Olivar screamed, his body spasming and jerking back. He fell to the floor, dead, sightless eyes looking up towards Tandar.

‘No!’ shouted the technician. He had wanted none of this.

The bright flare of energy that had suffused Avon’s slim weapon dulled to nothing. He stepped forward and kicked the lifeless technician with a booted foot.

‘I did warn him,’ said Avon, almost by way of casual apology to Blake, who was already moving to the door.

‘We have to get out of here,’ was all Blake said before opening the door and checking the corridor outside. Alarms blared all across the base and shouted orders could be heard moving closer. ‘Avon,’ he barked before disappearing into the corridor.

Avon stepped over Olivar’s body, turning calmly to face Tandar. The Federation technician raised his arms in surrender as Avon aimed the weapon directly between his eyes. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Just go.’

Avon stood for a second, eyes locked with Tandar’s. Then he smiled a cruel, arrogant smile, jerked the gun back in a swift movement and was gone, following Blake out into the chaos of sounding klaxons and the thud of booted feet.

Tandar collapsed to the ground in a sobbing heap next to the corpse of his dead friend.

  

CHAPTER TWO 

Blake and Avon ran.

Alarms blared rhythmically throughout the complex, echoing around the landscape of twisting steel towers and labyrinthine walkways. The two men emerged into the open air through a heavy vaulted doorway onto a balcony overlooking the communications base. Vapour from cooling vents obscured much of the industrial terrain, lending the base an eerie quality as Blake and Avon clattered down a grilled stairway to reach ground level.

They had almost reached the bottom when a trooper emerged like a black ghost through the miasma, his gun up and ready to fire. Blake launched himself down the remaining steps, smashing onto the trooper. Both men went down, the trooper’s rifle skittering away as Blake landed the butt of his gun into the man’s face once, twice, shattering the eye lenses of the trooper’s helmet.

A second guard sprinted into view, aiming straight at Blake’s exposed back.

‘Blake, down!’ shouted Avon.

Blake felt the heat across his back as Avon’s blaster shrieked, the trooper slamming roughly against a concrete wall. Blake was up and running before Avon reached the bottom of the stairs.

‘Thank you,’ Blake called as the pair ran down a straight walkway between two buildings.

‘Don’t thank me yet! Which way?’

‘Left here.’ The two men ducked nimbly into a side passage as a retinue of helmeted guards marched into view at the end of the walkway, their boots splashing through oily slicks of water. They spotted the two rebels and broke into a sprint.

Avon followed Blake down one passage, then another, always dodging the squads of pursuing Federation troopers. But logic dictates that luck, sooner or later, must run out. They reached a junction where six walkways carved into the landscape of twisting steel intersected. From all around, a symphony of thudding boots, barked orders and klaxons told them they were out of options.

Dark smudges appeared in the distance of every thoroughfare, soon focusing into black phalanxes of troopers marching closer. Hot sparks haloed just above Blake’s head as the first shot slammed into the wall. He raised his gun with a determined gleam in his eyes, a look mirrored back in Avon’s angular face. ‘Make them count,’ said Blake grimly.

Both men fired into the lines of approaching troopers, selecting their targets carefully. The air crackled and fizzed with the heat of the energy discharge from their weapons, which screamed fatal blasts of power into the Federation ranks. As bodies began to fall, the troopers took cover, returning the aggressors’ fire, but never finding their mark.

‘How much more of this, Blake?’ Avon shouted over his shoulder as shots gouged shards of scorched metal from the floor.

‘Until Cally –’

‘That’s not what I mean,’ Avon countered, dropping another trooper. ‘How many more communication bases? Depots? Insignificant supply routes?’

A flash of black came into Blake’s line of sight and he fired, a trooper falling with a cry of pain. ‘This is what we do, Avon. This is the fight.’

‘It may be your fight,’ said Avon, shifting position and firing, ‘but how long it will be everyone else’s remains to be seen.’

‘What’s your point, Avon?’

‘How long until this rebellion starts to mean something? How long can you keep striking at the edge of the Federation? Sooner or later, you will have to aim for the heart.’

Blake didn’t reply, mouth set into a determined line as he fired again and again.

Avon paused, glancing back questioningly. ‘Blake?’

‘I’ll know the moment. For now, I just need you to trust me.’

‘Right now, I’d settle for trusting we’re going to get out of here.’

‘Oh, I think something should be happening right about… now.’

An explosion erupted across a walkway, the retinue of guards caught in a blast of fire and debris. Other discharges erupted in sequence, some rumbling in distant corners of the base, others close, ripping savagely into the attacking troopers. One body lay, blood spurting in a sticky river where an arm should have been, another ran screaming as fire engulfed his entire body.

Avon averted his face away from the wall of heat that squalled towards him, trying to ignore the screams of the dying men. ‘That was close,’ he said. ‘Too close.’

Blake smiled as two figures emerged sprinting through the flames of the walkway directly ahead of him. One was a giant of a man, his tall, broad frame like a running wall of muscle. The other was a woman, lithe and graceful, her curls of brown hair bouncing as she ran. Avon levelled his blaster towards them then pulled back sharply as he recognised the pair.

Blake greeted them. ‘Cally, Gan. Right on time.’

Olag Gan towered above his three comrades, smiling benignly. ‘Always happy to help, Blake.’

‘Mission accomplished?’ asked Cally.

‘For what it matters,’ Avon said coldly.

Cally’s eyes narrowed and she looked questioningly from Avon to Blake.

Blake placed a hand on Cally’s shoulder. ‘Ignore him. Yes, mission accomplished.’

‘So can we please get out of here?’ said Avon impatiently.

‘I’m with Avon,’ said Gan.

‘You have no idea how much that pleases me.’

Gan ignored him. ‘Those guards won’t be down for long.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Blake. ‘Time to leave.’ He raised the teleport bracelet on his wrist and thumbed a button. ‘Liberator?’

‘Thank goodness,’ Jenna’s voice crackled from the speaker. ‘Vila thought you’d got lost.’

‘I did not,’ joined in another crackling voice. ‘I just… worry. I’m a worrier, okay?’

Avon rolled his eyes wearily.

‘We’re fine,’ said Blake. ‘And ready for teleport. Bring us up.’

‘Teleporting now.’

The four rebels remained still as the air around them began to vibrate with energy and with a gentle burst of static they were each outlined in a halo of thin white light. Seconds later, the whine of static altered pitch and the freedom fighters vanished, the white light discharging to nothing.

Dirty red flames licked at where Blake and his three followers had stood seconds before, black smoke obscuring the dead bodies of fallen Federation troops.

CHAPTER THREE

Federation Space Command

A Federation trooper was flung aside as an explosion tore apart the side of a building. Black smoke obscured the troopers as they scattered in the chaos created by the blast, one screaming in agony, uniform shredded and skin blistered. A second blast erupted…

… and Supreme Commander Servalan of the Terran Federation swivelled her chair away from the screen relaying the security archive feed from Xantos Beta. She met the probing gaze of the hawk-faced man standing before her desk with a questioning, almost amused look.

‘300 hundred troops dead, many more injured. Incalculable damage to the physical infrastructure of the base. The entire communications hub disabled, plunging our military forces in that sector into chaos. This is not to mention –’

‘Secretary Rontane,’ Servalan purred, cutting him off mid flow, ‘I am well aware of the facts pertaining to Blake’s recent attack on Xantos Beta. I did pen the official report, after all.’

‘And most illuminating reading it was. The President was especially interested in the section relating to Blake’s escape – yet again – from the capture that has been promised by your office for several months. The President is a patient man, Supreme Commander. But his reserves are not, shall we say, limitless.’

‘The President’s continued understanding of the Blake situation is appreciated,’ Servalan said with a disarming smile. ‘While I realise he is still at large, along with his associates, I have every confidence that Blake’s liberty will be coming to an end very soon.’

‘I wish I shared that confidence,’ Rontane said, his dark watery eyes staring at her from beneath a severe black fringe. The Secretary was not known for his looks, and it proved a challenge for Servalan to bring herself to look upon him. Indeed, in the early days of her career, she had known the woman who was now Rontane’s wife. How she pitied her, having this creature pawing at her under the bed sheets with those cold, clammy hands. She suppressed a shudder, her demure smile never slipping.

Rontane slowly paced the length of Servalan’s expansive and plush office. ‘Computer, display security file Blake 1.’

A rhythmic chime sounded and the screen behind Servalan changed from an image of smoke rising above the burning communications base to the face of a man. A face that had become very familiar. Text scrolled in a column next to the picture.

‘Roj Blake,’ announced Rontane, glancing towards Servalan when she did not appear compelled to turn and face the screen, instead choosing to face her guest with a beatific smile. Blake’s face stared out from the screen, his eyes dead and emotionless. ‘Activist. Dissident. Terrorist. Public enemy number one.’

The picture changed with a chime to show a woman, blonde hair tumbling in curls around stunningly attractive, but hardened, features. ‘Jenna Stannis,’ Rontane continued as the text burned across the screen, detailing the woman’s crimes. ‘Smuggler, a self-styled free trader with affiliation to several terrorist organisations.’

As Rontane warmed to his theme, Servalan fought to keep the indifference from her face as he listed in turn the crimes and activities of Blake’s crew, moving from Stannis through the cold, calculating features of Kerr Avon, to the man called Vila Restal.

‘Delta grade,’ barked Rontane. ‘Thief with a particular talent for bypassing high-grade security systems.’

Servalan finally turned to face the screen, if only to hide her irritation at Rontane’s tediously theatrical performance. She closed her eyes briefly, before looking at the wall screen with an imperceptible sigh. Vila Restal looked back, his thin, brown hair framing a round, open face that belied the keen intelligence that hid behind the eyes.

The screen changed yet again, showing the one member of Blake’s crew that had briefly been captured during an incident on Centero. This one fascinated the Supreme Commander. Her motivations in joining Blake’s movement had been unclear and, despite the opportunity for extensive interrogation, this Cally remained something of a mystery.

‘A native of the planet Auron, with known affiliations to other insurrectionist groups. Intelligence had placed her previously on Saurian Major.’ He paused. ‘Olag Gan.’

Servalan absently rubbed a temple, no longer concerned if her boredom showed or not. ‘Common murderer with overt tendencies towards violence.’ The kind eyes staring from the screen suggested he was anything but, the features were those of a retrograde yokel better suited to manual labour or those of a common farmer.

Servalan elegantly swivelled her chair back to face Rontane. If she was uncomfortable in his presence, her straight-backed poise did not betray her as she placed her hands delicately on the arms of her chair. ‘Perhaps, Secretary,’ she said, ‘you would now like to give me a detailed appraisal of the essential schematics and capabilities of the Liberator?’ She smiled charmingly. ‘They appear to have quite slipped my mind.’

Rontane returned her smile coldly. ‘I find it never hurts to review vital information, especially in such delicate matters.’

‘I quite agree, and I thank you for that. I can assure you, and the President, that the matter of Blake and his associates is quite under control.’

‘I am relieved to hear it.’

Servalan leant forward, the material of her figure-pressing white dress rustling with the movement. ‘So you may return to Earth and inform the President.’

Rontane paused, regarding the Supreme Commander with the hint of a smile flickering on his bloodless lips. ‘I shan’t be returning to Earth. At least not immediately.’

‘What?’ For the first time during the meeting, a note of emotion crept into Servalan’s voice.

‘It was thought best to inform you in person, Supreme Commander. The President has assigned me, purely in an observatory capacity of course, to monitor your progress in person.’

Servalan resisted the urge to stand.

‘While you have the full backing of the President’s office, it was thought some on-the-ground assistance would be a welcome… encouragement to your efforts to bring Blake to justice. I shall be remaining on Space Command Headquarters for the foreseeable future.’ Rontane produced a sheath of folded papers from within his tunic and offered them across the desk to Servalan. When she didn’t take them, he placed them neatly before her. ‘The President’s orders are quite clear.’

‘I’m sure they are.’ Finally she rose to her feet. ‘Of course, I fully appreciate…’ Rontane cut her off. ‘To that end, for the first step in this process I would like you to recall Space Commander Travis for immediate debrief. I am eager to be updated on his progress in apprehending the insurrectionists.’

‘That may not be possible,’ said Servalan evenly, regaining her composure. ‘Travis is currently on deep space manoeuvres following the incident on Xantos Beta. Telemetry data on the anticipated course of the Liberator has been relayed to his command ship from our tracking platforms. I am confident that the Space Commander will be reporting with positive developments quite soon.’

Rontane’s nostrils flared as he considered Servalan’s statement. ‘Very well,’ he eventually said. ‘I wish to be informed as soon as Travis reports in. Do I make myself clear, Supreme Commander?’

Servalan flashed her most dazzling and professional smile. ‘Crystal,’ she said, maintaining the charming, mannered shell that had protected her on her meteoric rise through the ranks of Federation civil servants.

‘I have assigned myself the executive guest suite,’ said Rontane as he finally made a move to leave.

‘Of course you have,’ Servalan replied, making a mental note to reprimand certain members of her staff for failing to inform her of this turn of events. ‘You’ll join me for dinner, of course?’

Rontane paused at the door, a visible wince of distaste indicating he’d rather spend the evening in a slum with a group of Delta Grade labourers. ‘Has the catering improved since my last visit to Space Command?’

‘My personal chef is a graduate of the Curbishley Academy on Roba Nine. I personally vouch for his excellence.’

‘Very well,’ Rontane said wearily. ‘’Until later.’ The door opened with a brisk hiss of air and the Secretary oozed out of the room.

‘Yes. Until later.’

Servalan closed her eyes and sank back into the comfort of her chair. She felt dirty, oily even. Rontane always left her with the urge to cleanse herself immediately beneath the wave of a sonic shower.

She turned slowly in her chair and opened her eyes, finding that the screen had frozen on the image of Blake. He stared impassively out at her and she was taken with a sudden desire to sit with this man, to talk to him, perhaps even to share a drink. She simply wanted to know why.

She dismissed the thought, removing Blake with a curt flick of a control on her desk. The image faded, replaced with the view outside the station. The field of stars shifted slowly as the structure rotated on its axis, maintaining Earth natural gravity in every area of Space Command. Servalan watched, trying to empty her mind of the stresses and strains of high office.

The Supreme Commander of the Terran Federation’s military forces set her mouth in a tight line and swivelled back to her desk. She pressed a control on the console that responded with an efficient chime. When she spoke, her voice was edged with cold steel.

‘Get me Space Commander Travis. Now.’

At that precise moment, Space Commander Travis was shouting orders into a comm-unit, the engines of his Starburst-class pursuit ship screaming with the torture of sudden acceleration.

‘Squad Beta, come about and target sector four! Delta, hold off at 500 spacials, they’ll come running straight at you. Cappa, target all weapons and fire at will!’

The wide viewscreen mounted above the command deck flashed brightly with the sudden firing of plasma bolts. Travis gripped the arm of his command chair with a black-gloved hand as the floor plating shuddered beneath his feet. His mutoid pilot compensated for the shockwave and brought the ship back to an even course.

‘Holding steady, sir,’ relayed the pilot calmly, her hands moving deftly over the flight controls. Mutoids, thought Travis. Cold as ice, but unswerving in their loyalty and stoic under the most extreme pressure. He found their reliance on the blood serum that nourished their augmented physiognomy somewhat distasteful, but it undoubtedly made them more reliable. Control the serum, and you controlled them.

Travis sank his broad frame into his command chair, feeling the intelligent material moulding around his body to secure him against sudden flight turbulence. He glanced up at the screen, gazing keenly at the image displayed, with a single eye. His left eye was obscured, the terrible scarring of a previous battle injury covered with a patch that looked like tar oozing across his face.

The weapons fire receded, and Travis leant forward greedily, his right eye glinting at the image on the screen. Three pursuit ships flashed in the distance as they swooped round on a new course heading, but it was the ship in the centre of the screen that held Travis’s attention.

It was a vessel like no other he had ever seen and, every time he saw it, a perverse thrill shivered through his body. The sleek lines burst forth at steep angles from the pulsing green orb of the propulsion module. They swept up into three identical pods arranged in a triangle configuration around a central superstructure that tapered into a needle point. Each of the three modules was mounted with powerful shard-like neutron blasters, and the whole ship had all the appearance of a silver talon hanging in space.

This was his target. His quarry. His prize.

The Liberator.

And Blake’s ship would soon be his for the taking.

‘Squad Epsilon, advance to sector seven and lay down a barrage of fire. Let Blake know that’s a dead end.’

‘Acknowledged, Alpha,’ crackled the response over the speakers.

‘Cappa, keep firing!’

Plasma bolts were loosed from the three ships of Squad Cappa, fiery suns hurtling towards the Liberator. Seconds later, the rebel ship was engulfed in a searing firestorm. The huge ship shook visibly under the impact, but the plasma energy dissipated, burning off harmlessly into space. The Liberator was unscathed.

Travis slammed a fist against the arm of his seat.

‘Their forcewall is still operational,’ said the navigator, her mutoid eyes never moving from the banks of instruments.

‘It won’t last for ever,’ growled Travis. ‘And then they’ll be ours.’

‘They’re moving, sir.’

For a large ship, the Liberator had an amazing turn of speed and fierce manoeuvrability. The ship powered into action, arcing round in a graceful curve to bring her blasters to bear on the attacking Cappa squadron. Incandescent beams of energy shot out from the three neutron blasters. Two of the pursuit ships had anticipated the move and employed evasive strategy, but Cappa Three was caught in the blast, a beam of neutron energy slamming into it. It flashed negative for a split second, before vaporising into space dust.

Before Travis could issue counter orders, orange pinpricks of light flashed at intervals along one side of the Liberator’s primary hull. ‘Seeker missiles launched,’ intoned the pilot. ‘Locked on.’

‘Evasive!’ shouted Travis, gripping his comm-unit tighter as the deck lurched sickeningly. ‘All squads, evasive manoeuvres! Evade and regroup!’

The pilot’s hands flashed across the controls and the ship spiralled into a dizzying dive, forcing Travis to wedge himself firmly against the padded grip of his command chair. The engines shrieked and the deck shuddered as an explosion impacted off the left flank. Sparks fizzed from the flight controls, but the mutoids never flinched, and the ship was soon back on a steady course.

‘Status,’ Travis barked.

‘Minimal damage. Squads Beta and Cappa are down one ship each.’

Travis could hear the blood pumping in his veins, fury surging through him in waves. ‘Damn you, Blake! Launch plasma bolts. Launch!’

*** 

The Forgotten will be published in May by Big Finish Books.