Ongoing superhero tales. Based on short story ‘Just a man in a super hero land’.
Proper title to be decided.
By Jim King
One
It had been twelve years since the war was declared over. Twelve years of rebuilding, of trying to move on from the death and the destruction. The big cities had been hit the hardest, suffered the most destruction. They were still digging the remains of yet another unknown victim out of some pile of Rubble they hadn’t gotten too since the war.
Bristol and Birmingham had suffered the most, both had been what the science types called emergence zones and so had the most fighting. But no city was spared and during the last year or so when the governments were finally winning the remaining supers turned to destruction and terrorism.
But in a way the destruction had been a good thing. Not at the time of course. But now with so much to rebuild they were rebuilding everything. Unless it was a historic building it was knocked down. The new cities were open and green, building up not out and with trees and grass everywhere.
All that Victorian infrastructure was gone, being replaced with twenty first century technology and efficiency. The old was being bulldozed and built over and the old ways were all but gone as well. The new cities were bright happy places, everything anyone could want and there it was, just a short trip away on public transport. At least that’s what everyone claimed.
It cost, oh how it cost. But there was no choice; the damage was just too extensive to leave. But it was a funny thing; taxes had gone up but not as much as everyone feared. But the old ways had gone along with most of the fraud and inefficiency and waste. Even now you could still see the adverts, the ‘All in it together’ jingle and the anti waste campaigns that came round every year.
So things were looking better. The war had been like a storm, it had blown away the debris of history, created a fresh clean slate, a new start. The air was cleaner, you could even see it in the faces of people in the streets. So many had faced death, lost loved one. It had been us against them and that spirit of unity still existed. People cared about each other, like in the really old days.
Everywhere you looked it was mostly the same. A new world. Except out here that is, here and a few other places like it. Hidden away in the countryside. Old villages half filled with people who for whatever reason didn’t want to change or couldn’t be part of the new world. Little pieces of the old world, left behind and forgotten by the new world.
#
This village was tiny, sixty two houses and a pub. Nineteen of the houses were empty and the pub only stayed in business because of a government subsidy. The closest shop was in town, a half hour trip along forgotten back roads. Some of the locals did a big weekly shop for those who couldn’t make the trip. The supermarkets wouldn’t deliver out here, too far or they couldn’t find the place. So it was left to old Tom and his van or the Macey sisters with their hatchback or the once a month trip in the old mini bus owned by the hippy couple by the river.
Old Tom and his lad Tony had just come back from their this week’s trip. Their big old white transit was parked in the pub car park and a steady stream of people were arriving to collect their shopping. Tom was sitting on a stool chatting with his neighbours, a tablet in hand taking orders for next week and checking payments had come through before people took their goods. Tony was in the back of the van, sorting bags and loading people’s baskets or wheeled trolleys.
Several people even had the little robotic follow me trolleys which were fairly common in the cities but most tut tutted and stayed with their old pull alongs.
Tom finished talking to Miz Harkins, thats Miz, none of that Miss or Mrs, just Miz thank you very much, and she was turning away to walk her basket home when he noticed a figure in an old faded army jacket come round the tall hedge and enter the car park.
“Mike, how’s life treating you?”
The man in the jacket looked up from staring at the worn and cracked tarmac. “Afternoon Tom, about usual I guess.”
Tom tapped his tablet. “I was a bit surprised to see an order from you today, not often you need a shopping run. Problems?”
“Yea, ruddy landy is pissing oil all over the drive. I bought the replacement parts ready to fix it myself but they say it’ll take a week to get it out to me, some crap about outside their delivery zone of some such.”
Tom nodded. Everyone knew the big city companies gave the villages a shit deal, no real reason, just because they were city folk and you weren’t.
“No problem mate, your money’s good. If you need a run next week just send me an order. How are you fixed for transport?”
Michael Edward Cullen laughed. “I’m back to being a biker. I pulled my old 600 out of the garage and took it apart. It was in pretty decent shape and I had some jacked up shocks on it anyway so it’s good enough for the roads round here, I’m mobile. Me, back on a bike, wind in my hair and flies in my teeth.”
Tom laughed at that and pointedly glanced at the slightly younger man’s head. “What hair?” then he started laughing again and Mike joined in. By the time Tony poked his head around the van door to see what was going on both men were laughing so hard they were having trouble trying not to fall over.
Seeing Sergeant Mike standing there Tony ducked back into the van to collect Mike’s shopping, muttering something about crazy old men loudly enough that both older men could hear. That just started them laughing even more.
Eventually they stopped laughing and talking, Mike picked up the two baskets that were now full of his shopping and nodded to Tony before saying his goodbyes to Tom.
Mike walked across the pub car park and round the few cars parked there, a couple of families with relatives in the village had come round for lunch and a pint. The grownups were sitting at the outside tables, the kids running around playing on the grass. Shouting, laughing and screaming. Kids screaming.
Children screaming. A burning bus, the front half crushed flat, a handful of children crouched by the emergency exit at the back with a teacher, screaming in fear as the brawler class super that had just smashed the bus turned towards them and lifted his clenched fists.
Mike blinked away the memory and carried on walking, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him.
The village didn’t have many houses or people but it was spread out, it was a several minute walk back to Mike’s home. But the sun was shining, the air was fresh and filled with the scent of summer flowers and the walk was over before he realised it. His mood of a few minutes ago was gone along with the memory and he was surprised to find he was enjoying the sunshine.
Mike Cullen lived in one of the old cottages that made up maybe half the houses in the village. The original stone walls were a few hundred years old but still solid for all that. The roof was newer. Completely replaced ten years ago when the builders did the extension out back and upgraded everything.
The front windows were small, triple glazed in brown plastic frames to match the look of the place. Drive past on the road and all you would see was a small slightly scruffy garden, a few gnomes standing around a small pond and some flower beds and bushes. The cottage roof gleamed in the afternoon sun, last generation solar tiles, plastic but they almost looked like slate. The door, actual wood with a little bell and a half moon window of coloured glass.
Nothing to stand out, just a humble little cottage in a backwater village. Till you had a look inside or round the back, but only a few friends ever got there, or the builders from back when the work was done.
The extension had more than doubled the size of the house, the old kitchen and dining room had become just the kitchen. A new dining room and down the steps to the lounge which formed the left half of the extension stretched out into the back garden with triple glaze auto tint glass walls and a big French window. The new master bedroom with luxury on suite filled most of the right side of the extension, the back one of the pair of old bedrooms had been lengthened into the extension and had become a spare bedroom. The old front bedroom had been turned into an office of sorts though it was seldom used for anything other than memories.
The back garden sloped down from the old house and so the extension was lower than the old house, down four steps in fact. The roof was the same height as the old house which left an entire upstairs loft room available. Mostly it was full of boxes and old furniture covered in dust sheets.
The garden itself had fruit trees, bushes and long beds of flowers wrapped around a lawn big enough for a fair game of football. Down at the bottom, far from the house, was a shed, big for a garden shed but nicely settled and worn into the surroundings. Every tool you needed for the garden but Mike hadn’t been in there in years. Mo did the garden and ruled the shed.
Mohammed, the neighbour to the left, was a gardener. He hated to see a garden unloved or uncared for and he spent his time tending many of the gardens and the commons in the village. In fact most of the empty houses looked lived in because he made sure the gardens were all neat and tidy. The villagers chuckled and laughed and bought him gardening tools and loved him for his fussy care.
All in all life wasn’t bad. Between Mike’s old army pension, plus his police pension and all the bonus money he picked up in the war he didn’t want for anything. Not that he spent much these days. The cottage had been a gift after the war, his own house hadn’t survived the war and he had spent the war years living in army bases or hotels.
So the cottage was welcome and the unspoken message, that they didn’t want him living in the new city with the new people and the new society. Well that was unspoken and so ignored. To be honest this was better, too many memories in the cities as they were and no memories of what they were becoming. So the village had become his home and the other outcasts living here had become his neighbours.
Sometimes Mike wondered what they had done to be sent here. On a long winter night his thoughts wandered and the few things he had overheard combined with his imagination, it was one way to spend a quiet evening, speculating on what deeds your neighbours had done to get them exiled from society. Better than the repeats on the box anyway.
Mike kicked his door open, it was never locked. The house security system recognised him and didn’t do anything hostile and the door was only wood so why lock so flimsy a barrier. Something else from the war, home security had taken on a whole new attitude and while it was slowly fading away again, out here in the sticks just about everyone used active security and never bothered with locks.
He walked into the kitchen and put both baskets on the central island. He would have preferred a table so he could move it around but at the time the builder had talked him into the island with its cupboards and gadgets. Still he could live with it and the built in coffee machine was just what he needed to get his mornings going these days.
He shrugged his way out of his jacket and threw it over the back of the closet dinning chair, he would hang it on its hook just inside the front door later, probably.
The food into the cupboards, the tins on the shelves, the chilled into the built in fridge and the frozen into the chest freezer that was hiding under the kitchen counter. Once that was all done he was left with a few items, bathroom stuff he left in a bag and office stuff. He would do the bathroom later. The office stuff he would do now and get it out of the way.
What had been the old main bedroom was now his office. It didn’t seem that big to be honest, a long desk under the window and the back wall filled with shelves and book cases. He sorted the items he had bought in then reached down to open the door to the server stack beside the desk. New ink cartridges were loaded into the laser printer, the new paper slid into the draw under the printer until it was needed.
The other items were left on the desk, some pens and pencils were replacements he didn’t need yet. The cleaning oils and clothes, he wouldn’t need those for a few weeks but he left them on the desk as well. Not something he wanted to put away just now. Later on, when he was in the right mood. Not now.
Back in the kitchen he opened the fridge again and pulled out a bottle of cold beer. Then he walked down the four steps into the dining room and lounge, the sliding French windows were wide open already and he wandered out into the garden to his favourite thinking spot. A low and comfortable garden chair, deep cushions and its own powered self setting umbrella to shade it from the overhead sun. He settled down and popped the cap off the beer bottle that was quickly becoming covered with drops of condensation as the sun hit the cold glass.
Someone was burning something, far enough away that he couldn’t see any smoke but he could smell it. Burning wood and other stuff.
He took a deep drink and put the bottle down on the small table kept beside the chair for just that purpose. He settled back in the chair, the day was warm and still, he was comfortable and his thoughts began to drift as the smell of the smoke bought old memories to mind.
Two
It was overcast, both clouds and the smoke from fires blocking the late afternoon sun turning it into twilight. The air stank of burning, didn’t matter where you went, the whole city had the same smell.
Every so often ash would fall from the skies, the sound of gunfire and battle drifted across the city from several directions. What few firemen left on duty didn’t have enough engines and the water was out in a lot of places; they were trying to keep the two hospitals safe which was all they had the manpower to do till they got a lot more help from outside the city.
Rubbish, wreckage and abandoned cars littered the streets and made driving difficult so most traffic was by bike or cycle or on foot. People walked or more often ran from one place of imagined safety to another. Alert for snipers or random death.
Fire, lightning, shrapnel, the remains of a shattered building or a falling car. The ways to die were many and varied, but death, that was certain.
A vast tide of refugees had tried to flee, on the first day it was just a few, by the middle of Wednesday it was a torrent of people trying to leave, producing complete gridlock, combined with the rapid destruction of the transport network caused by the fighting, a hundred thousand people trapped in the streets with no shelter and no protection.
Many had then decided to go home where they at least had some cover from the weather and familiar surroundings, others had broken into strangers’ houses or found shelter where they could. Food and water had become vital and by Thursday just about every shop or supermarket had been emptied.
Attempts to bring in supplies from outside the city were ongoing but since the roads were mostly blocked, and any convoy came under attack, it was slow going.
The army had gotten moving at last. According to the morning briefing at the nick they had pushed across the M4 motorway and set up supply and refugee camps along the A4174 ring road. Of course getting to them was hardly easy and them getting supplies into the city would be far more difficult.
In fact given what news and orders were heard coming out of London the state of emergency was more about containing the situation rather than helping the people.
“Contain the situation”, Mike said to himself. “Fucking brilliant idea as I’m trapped in here along with the madness and the mutants or whatever the hell they are. A situation, that’s not what we call it, or them. We call them a lot of things but mostly we call them supers. Like something out of a kid’s comic but no comic I ever heard of was this end of the bloody world.”
It was, what, Tuesday morning when it happened, today’s Friday so three days ago plus a few hours. Three whole days since the event, three days to destroy the city and kill thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even more. No way to know how many fled, how many are hiding and how many are under the rubble. Few enough on the streets, just the desperate, the suicidal, the violent, oh and a handful of police like Mike Cullen trying to keep control and protect people.
#
Tuesday morning. It was the shouting that woke Mike, and the screaming, then the fire alarm going off. Most of the people in the building had gone mad, shouting and screaming and making noise.
Mike was out of bed and had his boots on with his home security in hand before he was even awake, home security being the length of iron pipe that he keep planning on putting away, honest officer. Mike was half way to the door responding to the screams when he started to think and realised he was starkers. Well apart from his Doc Martins, but otherwise a bit chilly.
By the time he had pulled on some clothes things had gotten bit quieter but he took his pipe along with him when he went to check the neighbours. It was crazy, everyone was, different. Some physically, others even stranger changes.
The old woman from upstairs was green, her skin, her hair, bright green. Her cat was having a fit hissing and spitting at her, she didn’t know what was happening. The couple across the corridor were making a lot of noise or at least the boyfriend was. The girl had changed, her fingers and toes were about three times as long and her neck was weird, it had split into a bunch of frilly openings and she was gasping to breathe.
Mike was as freaked out as everyone else but sixteen years in the forces teaches you to think and act no matter how freaked out you may be. Her neck, the webbing between her long fingers and toes. Like she had turned into some sort of fish person. Mike shouted at the boyfriend to help and together they filled the bath to the top and put her in, talk about unbelievable, she was underwater, breathing and all, her gills things moving in and out.
Everyone else was changed as well, apart from Mike, well he had no physical changes and he didn’t feel like he could do anything new. At least he wasn’t hearing people’s thoughts like the old man from the ground floor apartment.
That bloke just kept screaming at everyone to stop shouting at him. Mike had gone to talk to him which seemed to calm him down then left him alone in his room and walked away.
Once things had been sorted in the apartment building Mike tried to call in, get an ambulance or car round to help but all he got were busy lines or the answer phone message, your call is important, yeah right. Then his mobile went off, it was the station calling everyone in, the whole city had gone crazy and it was all hands on. He left everyone alive and more or less happy and went to find the bus down to the town centre and the station.
No buses running of course, a few cars racing around at above the speed limit. Some people in the streets, some wandering as if confused. Others were running. Then Mike suddenly looked up as he heard laughter above him and saw a pair of people flying overhead, yep flying, he had to look twice but they were flying. One doing a superman and the other with black feathered wings coming out of her shoulders. Both doing one fifty, maybe more. But a fair clip either way.
For that first day it was chaos, people were struggling to understand what was going on and we were trying to keep order. A lot of people needed help. Some people had changed so much they could no longer live in our atmosphere. There were several colonies of mermaids and mermen in swimming pools. Even one child who was in a total isolation unit breathing methane.
As the day passed it became clearer what was going on, why, now that was another story altogether. But the city had a bunch of scientists and more flying in all day, by plane or helicopter, not with wings. Bristol being the only place it had happened, whatever it was.
About 90% of the population had, changed, somehow. One in ten seemed to be immune or not affected. Mike being that one in ten with no powers. One in ten seemed to have really powerful individual powers or multiple more moderate abilities. The rest were a spread, most with a single moderate power or a couple of weaker ones. Some could use a weak power all day, others for a few minutes before they needed to rest.
Some powers seemed to suit the person, there was a doctor who could accelerate the regenerative ability of a human body, he had spent his whole life trying to heal everyone and now he could. One young lad was bullied at school and beaten at home, now he was made of some sort of living steel that a tank shell would bounce off. Some who wanted freedom could fly. At the lowest end Mike had met one bloke who could boil a pint of water then needed an hour of rest. At the top end there were fast, strong, flying, x-ray vision, walks through walls and a hundred more besides.
The science types said they were going to catalogue and quantify everyone’s abilities and power levels, they would have some answers in a month or so. In the meantime what was left of the city council and emergency services were all trying to cope.
It was the chaos that hid what was happening at first, half the force didn’t turn up for work, they were off trying to understand some new super power or other. The rest of the police along with the ambulance teams that were left and a steady stream of help coming in from outside the city were constantly going to one emergency or another.
Mike was trying to deal with some teenage tearaway who was running wild, running wild meaning about eighty miles an hour all over the town centre. While trying to keep up he went past the branch of the RBS and noticed in passing that it had been trashed, windows smashed in and such. Mike didn’t remember any reports or an alarm call but half the alarms in the city were going off so he wasn’t surprised it had been missed.
It was into the evening and Mike was frankly knackered so he took a break for some food and spoke to some of the other guys, most of them were from out of town, brought in as reinforcements and they didn’t know the place but they had been noticing things as well. Places that looked like the aftermath of a riot but no sign of any people, there was still some sort of fire brigade on Tuesday and they were racing around putting out a lot of fires, many of which had no clear cause. Dead bodies as well.
Looting, disorder and chaos and the police simply weren’t seeing it happen, just finding the remains.
After about twenty hours Mike crashed, he couldn’t get home so he slept on one of the couches in reception. Everyone at the station was hot bunking the battered old couches so each person got a few hours nap on a couch.
About dawn Mike was grabbing a mug of seriously strong police coffee when he caught a message about a battle over by the stadium. It was confused but it was clearly several people fighting and according to eye witnesses one of them was throwing lightning from his hands.
Mike went out on that shout but his car was diverted mid-way by reports of a burning figure that was attacking the fire men who were trying to put out a building on fire.
By the time Mike got there the fire engine was a burning wreck, several of the firemen were hurt despite their fire jackets and the burning figure was long gone.
That was when Mike took a good look around and noticed just how many of these supers were wearing costumes of some sort. It looked like every costume shop in the city had been raided, the rest were in makeshift stuff.
One woman was even flying around with what looked like a brightly patterned curtain as a cloak.
Plus the more powerful supers seemed to be grouping up and acting oddly, some were acting as if they were setting up their territory, others seem to be patrolling.
Things were getting even stranger and we were getting more and more reports of fighting.
By midday it was a lot clearer, the more powerful supers had split into what seem like three groups. The two largest groups were acting like heroes and villains, defending, robbing and fighting each other. The third and smallest group were doing all sorts of weird stuff like the burning figure who was just setting buildings on fire.
The city had become a war zone like something out of a comic or a Sci-Fi movie, that was when the destruction got really bad and most of what emergency services we had left were trashed or found themselves involved, what with many of them being supers.
Communicating was getting worse, some parts of the city still had working cell towers so mobiles worked, other parts had a radio repeater that still survived so the police radios could be used. Some areas were completely cut off, those were often the most dangerous since the more damaged areas were where most of the supers were to be found.
Still it’s not like there were enough police to provide backup but we had enough organisation to keep going. Some local volunteers had been coming forward to join us, plus the reinforcements from the emergency services outside the city who had been arriving in groups.
They started coming in Wednesday, they were pouring in Thursday which was good because by Thursday morning just about every powerful super in the city had joined in the fighting, coppers who had changed but stayed on duty with us Tuesday and Wednesday never turned up Thursday. Mike saw a few of them in some sort of costume, even saw one jumping across the rooftops still in his beat uniform.
Odd but Mike didn’t remember seeing any new faces that morning at the Friday morning briefing, maybe they were briefed somewhere else, let’s face it anyone arriving new to all of this would need one hell of a briefing.
So anyway the police had plenty of 4X4s, trucks and heavy equipment like JCBs along with some people that could drive them. Fuel wasn’t a problem, no one was looting it with most of the roads blocked or impassable to anything not an off road type. It’s strange but ask a dozen coppers how to jack a petrol station and two of them will know. On account of having investigated said crimes, obviously.
Food and water was more of a concern, what with all the extra mouths to feed but the station had been made one of the contact points by whoever was in charge of getting support in so what supplies made it in came to us to be distributed.
So it was Friday, late morning and Mike was walking across St Pauls. As he patrolled he checked any houses that looked occupied, just to make sure people were ok. A lot of houses round here had people living in them not the owners, but the owners were probably living in some other empty house for shelter. Hell maybe they were squatting each other’s houses, things were that strange.
“FREEZE. HANDS IN THE AIR!”
Mike froze, the shout had come from off to one side. He glanced that way and saw a pair of figures rise from behind a wrecked car. Squadies.
“Hey the army’s arrived, we’re saved.”
Mike turned towards them then stopped when both raised their rifles and took aim.
“Whoa guys, easy with the rifles. I’m police. Foot patrol.”
They glanced at each other then back to me. “Prove it.”
Ruddy hell Mike thought, these two were armed, dangerous and wet behind the ears.
If he didn’t get shot Mike promised himself he was going to find their Sergeant and have some serious words.
“You young gentlemen see the uniform, the high viz, do you see the hat, the badges. Police!”
The older of the two, by maybe a whole two years, lowered his rifle and the other followed. “Sorry, don’t know what is going on here, you could have been one of them infected.”
Mike laughed. “Do I look like a super, you see me flying or any such?”
They glanced at each other then back to me. “Look, we’re sorry but we don’t know what an infec … A super looks like, we were told to keep our eyes open.
Mike caught something they had said. “You said Infected, infected with what?”
The two soldiers looked at each other then the older one spoke.
“That’s what we was told before we was sent here. Unknown infection, not contagious so we didn’t need suits or gas masks. Mass rioting and panic, people infected were driven mad and could do strange things like be very strong. There was a load of scientific stuff no one understood but the joke was it was mad cow disease.
Once we got here we knew it wasn’t a joke but the officers and the orders are still talking about people being infected.”
The solider looked around at the destruction and then up into the sky at the pillars of smoke rising across the city from fires. “This sure as fuck ain’t no disease, more like a disaster movie or one of them zombie movies with Brad Pitt. That’s what the guys, err, the platoon are saying. Zombies. No one said anything about supers, what is a super anyway?”
Even worse Mike thought to himself, what bloody idiot sent these puppies in here armed and didn’t bother telling them what was going on. “You two got an officer around here somewhere?”
It turned out they did and they led Mike to meet him. Two army trucks, an army land rover and some sort of eight wheeled troop carrier with a light turret. Plus a dozen squadies and one fresh lieutenant standing next to a field radio shouting into the headset.
“Afternoon. Nice to see the army at last.”
Everyone looked toward Mike. The officer spoke first to do that whole take control of the situation thing they still teach. “Who would you be and what are you doing here, this area is under military jurisdiction.”
Mike stomped to attention and saluted just to prove who was more of a soldier, proper parade ground stomp and all. “Special Constable Cullen Sir. Duty patrol constable for this area. Wasn’t told the military were taking over, Sir!”
The lieutenant looked Mike up and down. Dusty and dirty, a uniform that had been slept in three times now. The sneer was obvious. “Aren’t you a little old to be a Constable, you look like one of those refugees in the camps.”
“Part time job to eke out the pension sir, you know how things are, hard to make ends meet on a sixteen year NCO’s pension.” From the Para’s as it happens so Mike wasn’t going to take any crap from a squeaky new light infantry flower.
Before the pair could exchange any more in the way of comments the radio burst into life, the officer had other pairs of squadies posted and one lot had just seen five people in bizarre costumes break into the building society at the other end of this road. Were they infected? The flow... erm officer wanted to know. Seems likely, given that one of them tore the security bars out of the wall and then smashed a hole in the window with his bare hands.
The officer called to his men and set off at a run, everyone apart from the vehicle drivers followed and Mike decided to jog after them. No idea why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
On foot they made good time, just a few minutes to reach the pair on guard opposite the building society. Mike looked around noticed they were standing outside an old hotel. This was not a good spot for a fire fight, the hotel was full, the staff had stayed put and the police had sent a lot of refugees here and put them in the empty rooms.
Maybe thirty families and another twenty or so singles plus the staff.
“Lieutenant we need to move, this hotel is full of people.”
The officer didn’t get a chance to reply, a brightly dressed figure stepped out of the wreckage that was the front of the building society and came face to face with the soldiers. The man, Caucasian, mid-forties, balding, bad dress sense, was startled then raised both his arms and suddenly some sort of blue glow flared to life around his hands.
Several of the soldiers didn’t bother with that whole halt and surrender stuff, they just opened fire and multiple hits threw the corpse backwards with bright red added to the blues, greens and yellows that he was wearing.
There was a sudden pause then something like a flamethrower fired from inside the building. Three of the squadies went up like torches, ammo cooking off in the few seconds that they danced before they collapsed into ash and shattered bones.
Mike swore to himself. “Jesus. No one deserves to go that way”. The other soldiers dropped into cover or opened fire into the building. The fire man came into sight, a human shaped ball of fire, anything fired at him had no effect and he breathed another jet of flame that killed two more squadies.
Unarmed there was no way Mike could do anything here, breathing fire, not unless there was one hell of a fire extinguisher round here somewhere.
Then another figure came out of the building and Mike saw bullets bounce off this one, he was crudely humanoid and looked like he was made of stone. Hiding behind him came another man and a woman, well girl really. Both hiding behind his stone like bulk. The girl peered round her stone guard and another soldier died, not a mark on him, stone dead.
Mike ran for cover, ducking behind the closest cars to keep out of sight.
The firing stopped, Mike paused behind a dented pickup and took a careful look back at the scene of the fight. The four supers were walking across the wreckage strewn street, no sign of any of the soldiers.
Then lighting flashed down from the sky striking the stone one and the man behind him. The stone man was undamaged but the human was cooked alive, his dead body thrown a good ten feet to lie twitching in the rubble.
The other three all turned to face off against four new arrivals, two flying and two on the ground. They immediately attacked the new group and the street was torn apart by strange energies and the stone man throwing wrecked cars at the flying pair.
Death girl did her thing and one of the flying supers just dropped dead and fell to earth, the other flyer ducked behind the closest roof. One of the men on the ground shouted something, it was a wordless sound and every window still with glass in it shattered, The stone man stopped then shuddered as deep cracks appeared all over his body, then he seemed to fall apart.
The flaming man and death girl turned and ran into the closest building for cover.
The hotel!
They ran into the bloody hotel!
Both ground supers went after them and the flying one reappeared and flew into one of the third floor windows. A great gout of flame erupted out of half the ground floor windows and screams began. There was a flare of blue white light from somewhere inside then more screaming, half the ground floor was now in flames and the fire was licking at the next floor’s windows in seconds.
More shouting and crashing then something smashed most of the top floor and the roof sagged and collapsed. More lightning on the first floor, children screaming and a burst of fire that engulfed the second and third floors in fire. An explosion, the whole building was collapsing. Every window was full of flames, the screams were fainter and deep inside, trapped, helpless, hopeless. Part of the hotel collapsed into burning rubble, even the bricks seemed to be burning.
The flying super burst out of an upper floor window just as the rest of the building collapsed.
Mike ducked, the heat crinkled his hair even at this distance and he couldn’t look at the flames. A few seconds, a few minutes, Mike don’t know which. he peered over the car again. The screaming had stopped, the hotel was a vast pile of burning rubble spread across half the street and the buildings either side were in flames.
Nothing was moving.
Mike stood up and slowly walked toward the flames. He didn’t know why, he just walked. He’d been in fire fights, seen men die and never been like this, he was cold, stone cold, moving like a machine.
Movement, in the dust and rubble. A figure, trying to sit up. The flying super, still alive. As Mike walked closer he could see that the super’s left leg was broken, the knee bent at an angle it wasn’t supposed to reach. The super was crying in pain and didn’t see Mike.
Just before Mike reached him he stopped by the squady that had been killed by death girl. The poor bastard had died so fast he hadn’t gotten off a shot; Mike picked up his assault rifle and checked the magazine was full. Then the copper slowly and methodically took three more full mags from the dead soldiers webbing and slid them into the pockets of his high viz police jacket. The bodies of the other soldiers were all burned or smashed, only this one had intact equipment.
Mike walked the last few steps to the downed super.
The sound of pulling back the locking handle was loud, that unmistakable clack easily heard over the sound of the flames.
The man at Mikes feet looked up, startled, his eyes wide, shockingly white against the black mask that covered his upper face. He tried to drag himself away from Mike but he was too badly hurt, one broken leg from that last fall and by the look of it his right arm was dislocated or badly sprained and not working.
Then he lifted his working arm and pointed his fingers at Mike, nothing happened and he suddenly looked terrified.
Mike lifted the barrel of the assault rifle, settling his point of aim in the middle of the super’s face, that silly looking black mask smeared with dust and ash. The super still held his one good arm out, but now his palm was toward Mike as if he could stop the bullets some how.
“No” the fallen super said, “You can’t shoot me.”
Mike looked down at him, his heart as cold as ice, just as it had been those long years ago in the jungle when he took aim at the boy that had just thrown the grenade that had exploded under Mikes best friend and blown both his legs off. “That building was full of people you sack of shit.”
“No, they were just in the way. We had to stop the villains; they would’ve gotten away if we hadn’t gone in after them.”
Mikes knuckles were white from his grip on the assault rifle.
“How many people did you kill?”
“Please, PLEASE. I’m a Superhero, you can’t kill me.”
“I’m a copper, yes I bloody can.”
Full auto is just like a buzz, a loud buzz, bucking and fighting against his grip. A loud buzz and then a click as Mike shot the magazine dry. The black mask was gone and so was most of the head behind it.
Mike looked down at the corpse. Supers, that’s what everyone called them apart from the official reports, but maybe the reports were right. Infected, they were infected alright. They were all mad, like dogs, mad dogs.
What did you do to a mad dog?
Mike swapped out the empty magazine for a full one, two full magazines in his pockets and one loaded. He would need to be more careful, there were hundreds of these supers around, he had to make his ammo go a long way if he was going to get them all.
The sound of fighting came from several streets away, the crash of a building being destroyed, shouts and some sort of weapons fire. With the rifle at the ready Mike Cullen started jogging towards the sound, eyes alert for movement or any sign of an ambush.
Three
Mike jerked his head up, he had almost fallen asleep or maybe he had been asleep judging by the crick in his neck, long enough to dream anyway, long enough remember how it had all started anyway.
He reached over for the beer and took a long swig then settled back in the chair to enjoy the peaceful and quiet of his garden.
“Are you Cullen, they said Mike Cullen lived here. Are you him?”
The voice was startling. Unexpected and unwelcome. A man’s voice, young and demanding. A voice that should not be here.
Mike sat upright quickly and turned, the voice had caught him by surprise and old memories flashed past as adrenaline began to surge.
The voice came from a young man, fresh faced and dressed for the summer, standing on the path that led down the side of the house from the front garden. Nineteen, twenty, maybe a bit older but who could tell these days. Pale skinned, dirty blonde hair long enough to touch the shoulders of a bright patterned shirt that was un-tucked and hung down over pale cotton slacks and white deck shoes. Slim build, the barest hint of muscle so not a physical type but there was something, the way he stood, his eyes, something made him seem older, more dangerous.
“This is private property, fuck off.” Mike was angry and frightened and his blood was pumping. Half remembered battles and ambushes flashed across his mind and both being caught by surprise and by something about this lad had pushed him into combat mode.
The young man did not leave, or even back off. Mike heaved himself out of the chair and took a step towards the intruder. Mike was getting on but he kept himself in fair shape and he had this young punk by a head and by maybe thirty kilos.
But the young man did not back off, in fact he stood his ground and looked ready to fight back.
“Are you Cullen, is your name Cullen. Are you the one they called Neg?”
Mike was startled again. “How the fuck do you know that name? No you have the wrong place, wrong village. Get lost. Get out of my garden before I take my fist to your face.”
The young man stood his ground but he did shift his stance slightly, moving his weight to the balls of his feet, a martial arts stance of some sort that Mike didn’t notice.
“It is you, isn’t it, in the photo you had dark hair and a lot less in the way of lines but it’s you isn’t it. You’re Cullen. Call sign Neg.
Mike was getting more angry but there was a strong hint of fear as well. There shouldn’t have been any photo’s, no records should exist. They promised him every trace was gone, every trace of the war, of his war. Every trace of the lives he had taken. This kid shouldn’t know anything. Unless they had lied and records still existed.
If this kid had found him others could as well, others much worse. He didn’t have many friends from the war but he had enemies, oh yes he had a lot of them.
“What photo? What are you talking about?”
The kid looked smug for a second. “So it is you after all, what’s the matter old man. You thought we’d forgotten about you.”
Mike balled his fists and raised both arms. “Get the fuck out of my garden you punk piece of shit before I bloody beat you.”
The young man sneered then as Mike strode forward and came within a few meters of him flinched backwards looking nervous. Then he stopped and leaned forward, his face close enough for mike to punch if it came to that.
“So it’s true.”
The young man started laughing, a darkly disturbing sound, and full of cruelty. He stepped back a few paces into the narrow strip between the cottage and the side fence.
“We remember you ‘Neg’, we remember you.” Then the young man turned and quickly walked along the side of the cottage toward the front and vanished from sight as he turned and stepped into the front garden. Mike was breathing heavily and slowly unclenched his fists, then he took a slow shuddering breath and went into the house to look through the front windows and make sure the man had gone.
Who was that bloke? No one should know about the nick name, no one should have been able to find him. His old life was gone, the war was gone. Forgotten. They had promised him it was gone. Should he report this? Who to? The war was long over, he still had a way of contacted them in an emergency, was this important enough. What if it was just some piece of shit kid who found an old photo and the name and was just playing stupid bloody games?
The war was long over, his war was long over. Just a stupid fucking kid playing stupid fucking games.
After a few minutes of staring out of the window at the empty front garden and the road beyond mike walked across the kitchen and grabbed another beer from the fridge, he popped the lid and drank half of it in a single long gulp.
Mike Cullen, ex para sergeant, ex copper, ex mass murderer and now just another retiree living in the countryside leaned his backside against the counter as he took another sip of his cold beer.
He was alone so there was no one to see how his hand trembled as it held the bottle.
#
By the time Mike had finished the beer the shaking had stopped. He dropped the empty glass bottle into the recycling bin where it clunked as it landed on top of many of its brothers. He looked at the fridge the sighed and stood up, a glance around and his gaze settled on the bag of shopping for the bathroom, it was something to do.
The en-suite was frankly decadent, a huge shower three people could fit into, a bath long enough and deep enough that mike could submerge himself in hot water. The rest of the fittings were good quality. A few items on the shelf above the sink and a big cabinet next to the misted glass windows.
Mike walked across and opened the cabinet door then began to take items out of the bag and put them away. A new tooth brush, a dispenser of toothpaste, the kind that made your teeth less sensitive, easier than getting an appointment with a dentist that was many miles away. A pack of soap, the coal tar stuff. A bottle, dark blue, rattling with pills.
Mike looked at the bottle, the prescription label with his name on it, the foil seal covering the lid, the warning about not taking more than one a day and only taking them if prescribed. He stared at the bottle for a few seconds and put it on the top shelf, next to another two bottles, both unopened and a third bottle that was half full.
His pills, his prescription. He had been taking them for years, since the war. One a day, seven a week, three hundred and sixty five a year. Then a few months ago the headaches had started, blinding pain behind his eyes, the world’s worst migraine. Pain so bad he couldn’t sleep. On and off, a day here, a few days without pain then another day with the headache.
Then had come the day when the pain didn’t go away, when the pain lasted through the sleepless night and all the next day as well. The day he had gotten so drunk he couldn’t stand, so drunk the pain was nothing, so drunk he passed out and woke up two days later.
So hung over that he drunk more beer, so drunk the pain didn’t come back. So drunk he forgot to take his pills for a week. A week with no headaches. So he drank less and got sober and didn’t take the pills and had no headaches.
He hadn’t taken the pills for several months now and hadn’t suffered from a single headache or even a twinge of pain behind his eyes. He didn’t know why, he hadn’t spoken to his doctor either, didn’t want to bother the man, didn’t want to make the long trip to visit him and have to answer the questions all over again.
Mike’s doctor was both a medical doctor and a specialist in dealing with people like Mike, people who had been through wars and come out the other side, still alive, but not whole. For months after the war Mike had been seeing the specialist, questions, tests, the truth, lies, more questions.
Months of strange training to deal with his special situation, months of therapy to deal with his memories. Then the pills, one a day, a bottle a month. Year after year and the dreams still came. Some nights he slept, some nights he dreamed, some nights he sat in his office and cleaned his weapons and looked at his medals and drunk himself into a stupor so the memories wouldn’t come.
Now he didn’t take the pills and just drunk to keep the memories at bay, to keep the dreams away. Dreams and memories that had become more frequent over the last few months.
The bag was empty so Mike shut the cabinet door and walked back through the bedroom and back to the kitchen, The bag went in the sack he hung from a hook on the wall, full of old bags and ready for when he needed one.
He stood there, thinking. He didn’t want to go back and sit in the garden again, not after his mood was ruined by the visitor. It was too nice a day to sit and watch the TV or a DVD. But he had to do something, get out, prove he was alive.
He couldn’t drive anywhere, the land rover was down. His bike! The sun was shining. The weather was fine, a glorious day for a ride. He could go cross country, be at the coast in an hour, walk on the beach maybe, breathe the sea air. He had taken it apart and put it back together, it worked fine in the garage, time to take it for a test run.
It was a plan.
The garage was on the other side of the house to the path, from the front it was just big enough and wide enough for the landy but inside it was a lot bigger, more of the extension. He could park the land rover at the back by the tool racks and the work area and still had enough room to squeeze in a car at the front and plenty of room for the bike and other stuff down the side. Right now it was just the landy by the work area, the bike was by the big door, the metal slat type that lifts up and back.
Mike went into his bedroom to pull on a pair of jeans and boots then went back into the kitchen, there was a door from the kitchen out to the garage and Mike stepped through and down a step into the cool garage. His helmet and jacket were hanging just inside the door along with a few old coats and jackets. Mike reached out and grabbed his bike jacket, well used but still good, brown leather, a bit faded and scuffed but still wearable. He slid one arm into the sleeve then swung it across his back and pulled the jacket up and settled it comfortably. Then he turned back to the rack to get his helmet and his eyes fell on a glimpse of yellow high viz. Something buried under his old coats and hidden by the bike jacket. Something he hadn’t seen or thought about for years.
He pushed several of his coats aside to reveal the jacket, scorched, torn, faded and dirty, the word ‘police’ across the shoulders was more grey now than black and had scratches and scuffs across the letters. Mike hadn’t looked at this jacket for years, hadn’t worn it for more years. His old police jacket, he had been wearing this back in the day.
Back when it had started.
Back when he was a copper.
Back in the war.
Four
Sunday morning and whole load of army types and outside coppers and medics had arrived, them a load of lorries full of stuff, closer to lunch time. The first real help that had arrived since Thursday so they were welcome even if they were keeping to themselves.
The army seemed to be getting its act together, at least there were more of them around the police station. Trying to set up a logistics point and command base. Problem was there just wasn’t the room.
Still they kept trying and a load of locals had been drafted in to help. Which is why Mike was standing in the police station car park along with about twenty civilians and a dozen soldiers trying to work out exactly where how they were going to get a three quarter ton generator off the lorry and somewhere useful.
While they were standing around scratching their heads a pair of army land rovers, drove in followed by one of the last two surviving police vans. The three vehicles pulled up by the back door and two constables and five soldiers clambered out of the vehicles, not an easy task given the webbing, body armour and weapons each of them was festooned with.
Then one of the coppers opened the back door of the van and they hauled out three people, two men and a woman. Each looked like they had come from a fight, clothes dirty and torn, one of the men was limping. Everyone had stopped pretending to move the genny and were now watching the show.
All three were wearing handcuffs and once they were out of the van they were pushed toward the station, each had a soldier behind them with a rifle held at half ready. Something odd here, they hadn’t arrested anyone since the whole mess had started so why were these three being bought in.
Mike was curious and wandered over to the van where one of the officers was shutting the doors, the other copper was leading the strange little conga line of prisoners and soldiers. The constable finished locking the van and turned at which point Mike could see his tags, he was one of the reinforcements, a Gloucester copper.
“What did you pull those three for? It’s not like we have spare bodies to keep an eye on them.”
The new constable, clean uniform, not slept in, clean shaven, clean, looking uncomfortable in body armour, looked Mike up and down.
“Arresting criminals, or don’t you lot do that round here anymore.”
Mike started to reply then his brain caught up with his mouth and he paused before replying. “Just joined us have you?”
“Yea, so what?”
“We don’t have the warm bodies to man the cells, we don’t have food to waste and we have better things to do with our time than pulling in a few low life’s, or hadn’t you noticed the fucking supers trashing the city!”
The Gloucester copper started to reply then bit off his angry words. “Orders and fuck you too. Briefing this morning, push to restore law and order to the city, army are going after the big trouble makers, police round up the minor ones.”
“Fucking hell, what briefing, they didn’t say anything like that here.”
The Gloucester copper looked down his nose at Mike and glanced at his badge then spoke, each word separate and insulting.
“Well. Special. Constable. Cullen.
We was briefed before we were bought in this morning, hardly my fault you lot in Bristol are so far up your own arses you can’t manage a briefing. Bout time this mess was sorted. Them three are, what is you lot call em, supers. Caught em turning over the wrecked shops down by the arcade. Smashing open the tills and the like. Fancy powers my fucking arse, they didn’t give us any trouble. Big gang of super power freaks, yea right.”
Mike was debating how much he could claim the situation had driven him to punch a fellow constable in the face when the last bit registered. “Big gang of supers, what big gang, they mostly go around in ground of six or less.”
The look down the nose was now a full blown sneer. “Limping loud mouth was full of telling us he was part of something called the Free Warriors and how his fifty super mates would come get us.”
“FIFTY. There isn’t a group in the city anywhere near that big. Unless.”
The explosion drowned whatever Mike was going to say and the shockwave staggered both of them and rocked the van. One of the army landies had just blown up, not caught fire, it was blown to bits in a ball of fire that had dropped several of the bystanders as well.
Mike spun round and dropped the assault rifle off his shoulder and into his hands at the same time, he saw movement across the road, a score of figures, some dressed in costumes, the rest in normal clothing. Three more came round the corner at the end of the block, flying. Two more in full costumes ran round behind the flyers.
Mike swore ten bellowed at the top of his voice as he burst into a sprint, rifle coming up to his shoulder. “Shit in a fucking bucket. INCOMING!” He ran for the best cover around, the lorry with the genny on the back, big, solid and too heavy to be pushed around much.
He made it to the generator, then risked a snap look. The copper he had been talking to had only just started running but he was heading for the station, across the car park. Most of the soldiers were either in cover or heading that way fast.
Then another landy was torn apart and the two men sheltering behind it were thrown into the air, tumbling like rag dolls, bloody ragdolls. Something that looked like a fast moving ball of rock had hit the land rover and it came from, there.
A figure wearing some sort of pirate costume was standing in full view in the doorway of a shop, five different people spotted him and every last one of them hit him at least once.
Lightening crashed into the truck’s cab and the front tires melted and blew as the electricity arced around the cab but for some reason it didn’t spread to the flat bed, Mike was crouched by the back of the lorry and went cold as he saw the cab melted and shattered by the hit, but he was safe. Beams and bolts of every colour were flying past and overhead, one of the flying supers went transparent then invisible, the other two accelerated towards the station.
The leading one looked like he had been turned into some sort of half man half bird of prey, head like a bird with a beak, arms were wings and legs were like a birds complete with claws, he was dammed fast, every shot missed as he twisted and flew across the car park no more than a few feet above the ground, his claws slashing and missing one soldier then swooping down to tear the running Gloucester copper in half. The bird man turned to avoid hitting the building as the windows behind him exploded, a burst of machine gun fire hitting behind him. For several seconds the super flew along the side of the building with the stream of bullets getting closer then the gunner found his mark and the super went down as the roof mounted machine gun on one of the trucks cut the bird man down.
The other flying super didn’t have wings, just appeared to float there and bullets fired at him seemed to bounce off something a metre or so below him. He drifted across the fight, looking down and laughing as the tiny humans fired their useless weapons at him.
One of the fully costumed supers started running, getting faster and faster and tearing up the road behind him as he went, he tore across the car park too fast to be hit and slammed into the station wall smashing a huge hole in the brickwork and disappearing inside somewhere.
The remaining figures were using the buildings opposite and the wrecked cars along the street as cover. Mike took aim at one woman who was firing some sort of bright green beams from her eyes then ducked rapidly as several something’s hit the genny above him, the sound was familiar, not some supers attack, the pinging hits almost sounded like.
“They’ve got guns!”
Mike didn’t see who shouted but he got the message. Things were getting better by the minute, what next, a fucking tank.
Then there came a great crashing and what sounded like falling rubble from inside the building. Tank, right, supers didn’t need tanks.
The soldiers and armed police in the car park were firing back apart from three who were down but still moving and five more who were clearly dead. One of the soldiers sprinted from behind the last intact landy and tucked himself in behind the wrecked lorry cab, he glanced at Mike, nodded and turned his full attention to shooting supers.
Mike fired the last rounds in his magazine and ejected it then slammed a fresh one home. He had just dropped his second target, or was it third, yes third unless the bloke in the afro had some super power that let him survive a round in the forehead. Looking around Mike noticed one figure standing back from the fighting, small, wearing some sort of cloak with a hood, it looked like a girl, teens, dark brown hair, spots, glasses. She was staring hard at some point to Mikes right.
Glancing that way Mike could see the soldier at the far end of the truck wasn’t firing, in fact he was crouched behind the wrecked cab, body rigid, only his arms were moving, slowly lifting the barrel of his bullpup towards his own chin.
The blood in Mikes veins was like ice as he realised what was happening, he swore and kicked off from the ground in a long step that turned into a hunched over run, he grabbed the rifle with his free hand and pushed it back down. The soldier suddenly relaxed and collapsed against the truck, his whole body shaking. He dropped the rifle and sagged to the tarmac.
“You all right mate, what the fuck was that.”
It took a few seconds before the squady seemed to be tracking again. “I, I, couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop myself. It was like, like my body wasn’t mine anymore. I was going to shoot myself and I couldn’t stop myself. Jesus fucking Christ I was going to shoot myself.”
Mike risked a snap look, the teen aged girl in the cloak was gone.
He turned back to the soldier. “Can you fight?”
“Yea, I reckon. Yea I can fight. Where’s my rifle?”
With the soldier more or less functioning again Mike went back to the far end of the truck, standing next to the soldier would give two easy kills to some super.
The fire fight went on for minutes, or maybe it was only seconds, until an explosion engulfed one of the buildings the supers were using for cover, then a second explosion and a third. Bodies were thrown up and backwards as the fronts of the buildings were blasted apart.
A cheer went up and every soldier and armed constable popped up to fire at the sudden scurry of figures trying to flee the explosions. The floating super shouted something that no one understood and floated straight up to vanish into the smoke overhead.
What looked to be a full platoon of regular infantry was working its way down both sides of the road towards the station and laying down a heavy weight of fire, several were carrying grenade launchers and they weren’t shy about using them.
It still took several minutes before the area was secure and the last shots had been fired. With the area filling with soldiers Mike stood up and came out from behind the truck, a look around told him that roughly half the thirty odd people that had been in the car park were still mobile.
He was suddenly thirsty, his throat dry, he could taste dust and coughing made his throat feel like sandpaper. Then a plastic army water bottle appeared in his field of vision, the soldier from the other end of the truck. Mike grabbed it and half emptied it before passing it back. “Thanks. Mike, Mike Cullen. Police.”
“Baz, Baz Symonds, Army.”
Both men laughed, they had survived the battle and now they were laughing at each other’s names. Laughter at being alive, the shakes would come later when the adrenaline faded. Mike planned to have a few beers inside him by the time that happened, he wasn’t a cocksure young para anymore, he didn’t have to suck it up. Beers, cold beers, that was the plan.
#
With the area under control and soldiers sweeping the wrecked buildings across the road Mike was able to head to the station building. At least one super had made it inside and he wasn’t hearing any fighting. Just before he reached the door Mike glanced down at the body of the Gloucester cop, he never did find out what the man’s name was, not that it mattered anymore.
Inside the ground floor was wrecked, internal walls torn apart, several of the main pillars were twisted metal, the concrete smashed away. Just inside the door the ceiling was sagging and further in it looked like part of the ceiling had come down.
Several dead, a few wounded being treated. One of the three prisoners, face down and half buried in rubble from the wall, no sign of the others or the super that had smashed through that wall.
The ceiling groaned and settled a little more. Someone shouted. “EVERYONE OUT. NOW.” Mike stepped over to the closest of the wounded and grabbed an arm, the paramedic who was trying to stuff a big bandage into a ragged hole in the soldiers leg looked up, looked around, glanced at the ceiling and quickly stood. Between then the lifted the soldier and dragged him out through the doors and into the car park.
As they came out they heard a shout. “OVER HERE!” There was an ambulance on the far side of the car park and it had survived the fight, several casualties were already on the ground by the open back doors and both crew were bent over one man who they were strapping to a backboard while several other coppers and soldiers tended to the less serious cases.
Mike left the wounded man and the medic by the ambulance and looked around. A cluster of police and army officers was forming in the middle of the road; they seemed to be standing around a figure that was sitting on the road, a figure in jeans and a tee shirt, a figure with bright blue hair that didn’t look like a dye job.
Mike joined the circle of people standing around the figure on the road, he recognized a few, some local coppers or others that had been helping out. Even the only detective inspector still working had come over to join them, Murphy by name and hailing from somewhere west of the Irish Sea.
Murphy was, like most of the other locals, changed by whatever happened on Tuesday, but he had no powers, he couldn’t fly or lift cars. His hair grew really fast, that was it. He shaved three times a day to get rid of the beard and every evening to deal with the hair on his head, chest and other parts. But aside from the hair he was a good copper and he was here so no one gave him any shit about being a super. Aside from Mike and others like him maybe half the locals at here had been changed in some way, about the most powerful was one copper who could freeze liquids if he touched them, not solids, just liquids. He just concentrated and he could chill or freeze any liquid, a pint or two at a time and forty or fifty times before he got tired and had to rest his power for a few hours. Handy for the beer but hardly a threat to anyone.
There were plenty more like those two, just about all of the refugees were the same, changed, made supers in some way but with nothing more than some quirk or party trick.
It seemed the more powerful the supers were, the more harm they could do, the more they had become crazy. The ones throwing energy or flying, they were the most crazy.
The one on the floor had bright blue hair and his eyes were completely blue as well, no pupils, just solid bright blue.
He was already talking, answering a question Mike hadn’t heard.
“I can see enegy like, see electricity, through walls an stuff. If there’s electricity I can see it. I Just thinks about it hard and there it is, I can see it flowin and all. People, theys electric too, I can see ya thinking an moving. Through walls if I want ta. See when ya get upset or tell lies. Thats why they let me join em, join the warriors, I can see for em.”
One of the army types asked a question. “Why this attack, why are you arming yourselves and attacking this police station?”
The blue haired man looked at the circle of faces and said nothing.
One of the soldiers covering the super stepped closer and put his army boot into the supers side, there was a sound like a pencil snapping and the blue haired man shrieked then tried to cover his side with his arms and tears began to drip down his face.
“That’s enough of that soldier.” The squady took a step backwards but didn’t look bothered by the rebuke.
The shrieking stopped after a few seconds thought he man continued to cry and draw deep shuddering breaths.
“Answer the question!”
The super flinched and started to talk rapidly.
“We knew you was comin for us, we knew. The army and the pigs and the heros, we knew you was comin for us so we got together. The big guys, they need us cause we can fight for em, keep the army and the pigs busy while they fight the heroes. All the gangs are doing it, the big guys are becoming leaders and officers like an recrutin lots of people with powers but not real strong powers.
I joined em fa protection, protection from you lot. We knew you pigs would be coming for us with ya guns and stuff. Huntin us down, handin us over ta the heroes
Aint fair, you lot call us villans an them heroes but they is just like us, all supers, just more gangs fighting for turf. They call themselves heroes, they work wi you lot, huntin us, roundin us up, killin us. We’re fightin to survive.
All the super groups are doin it, New Warriors, Stormlords crew, the Shadowkings and more besides. Getting bigger, getting stronger, getting ready ta fight you lot an the heroes, fuckin killers the lot o ya.”
“How did you know we were coming, and when?” This was a softer voice, Home Counties soft and coming from an army captain that was a few feet away and walking toward the group. A second platoon of infantry was moving up behind him and there was a new rumble of sound, something with tracks coming closer.
Mike took a good look at the soldiers as they walked closer, no backpack, just carrying what they needed to fight with. Where the fuck were all these troops coming from and what was going down? Was this what the Gloucester copper had been talking about before he died?
The captain stepped into the circle as several people stood aside to let him in. “I said how did you know about the operation and when?”
“Yesterday, Saturday, in the morning. Don’t know how but we mostly woke up knowin ya was comin fa us. Bout half o us knew an they told the rest.”
“Damn. RADIO.” The captain turned away and gestured to a soldier that was following him around with a heavy looking pack radio. The captain met the man half way and took the old fashioned phone handset.
While the captain tried to make contact with someone a tall thin Lieutenant asked another question.
“Where did the rifles come from, the M-16s?”
“We know a guy, a super. Not a Warrior, not in any gang but he helps us all. He makes things see. With his mind he makes things, he changes em and makes new things. Give him a load of metal and plastic and he can make a rifle, some metal and lead and chemicals an he makes bullets, loads of em. Scrap metal like old cars and shit, he makes em inta guns.”
The officer snorted. “That’s ridiculous, you can’t make an assault rifle out of scrap metal!”
The Lieutenant turned and gestured to one of the soldiers standing nearby, with an arm full of weapons taken from the dead, the officer pointed at the rifles.
The squady shuffled a bit closer and held out his arms, but he had stopped a bit short and the officer was forced to walk toward the soldier in order to take one of the assault rifles. The Lieutenant scowled at the blank faced soldier, took the rifle on top of the pile and turned back to the group.
“Hardened steel barrel, worked receiver, you can’t make this out of.” The officer stopped mid word and peered more closely at the rifle. “There’s no serial number but there is a name on the side of the receiver. It says Panasonic.”
The blue haired super laughed then gasped as his broken ribs stabbed him. “Told ya, we grabbed a load o stuff from an electrical shop, he turned em inta guns and these goggles that let us see at night and a radar thing.
We takes im metal and plastic and stuff, money an food. He makes us guns. Not just us, most o the gangs buy from him.”
Detective Inspector Murphy leaned a little closer. “How many guns?”
“I duno, maybe a hundred a day.”
Several people swore fluently.
“We bring im food and scrap and money and he makes stuff. That’s what the guys you caught was doing, getting money for more guns. We couldn’t do let ya keep em, you would be torturing em to make em tell you where we was and stuff. You pigs and soldiers, workin fa the government an the heroes.
The blue haired man stopped talking as the captain stepped back into the circle and nodded to the other army officers then looked at Inspector Murphy. “You the senior police on site?”
“That I am, Detective Inspector Murphy. At ya service.”
“Good, I need to brief you on the mission, it seems the infected already know we are coming which could cause problems but nothing we can’t handle.”
Murphy looked pointedly at the soldiers who were now moving past the group and into the car park, avoiding the smouldering wreckage of the destroyed vehicles but otherwise looking as if they were taking the area over.”
“What mission?”
The captain looked down at the blue haired super and looked at the soldiers guarding him. “Take him back to the rail head for interrogation.” The soldiers saluted and grabbed the man’s arms, the blue haired super screamed as they dragging him up to a standing position then marched him off, broken ribs not being of any concern to the squadies.
Once the super was out of sight the captain turned back to the waiting men.
“We’re coming in to sort this situation out once and for all, it took a few days for the powers that be to get a handle on things but it was decided that simply sending in reinforcements a few at a time wasn’t working and a serious effort was needed. That’s why you stopped receiving additional emergency services volunteers on Friday, they have been held back ready for today.
We have five full infantry battalions with armour and helicopter support moving in from outside the city, a mechanised company that drove down the tracks holding the railway station and two platoons here along with the police and medics. The army is going after these so called supers while you police are to deal with the rest.”
Several of the locals looked at each other then back to the captain, not happy at what they were hearing but it was Mike who spoke first.
“What exactly do you mean so called supers? Do you have any idea what we’re up against here?”
The captain looked at the blown apart shop fronts and the wrecked vehicles.
“Individually these people may have some abilities but they are not supermen, they can’t stand up to the fire power the British army has. They may have been a problem to you but we handled them easily enough here”
Mike snorted. “Right, I saw five high power supers here, a few costumed less powerful ones and a dozen guys with guns. We got half the grunts and exactly one of the supers and one of the costumed wanabees and that was because the pirate was a fuck wit.
In return we have what, eight or ten dead, twenty or more wounded, a bunch a trashed vehicles and the building is falling down. Ask me it doesn’t feel like we won this battle, more like we survived it.”
The captain looked across the car park to where the ambulance was sitting, the area around it a makeshift hospital full of wounded being treated.
“They caught you by surprise and in the open, hardly the best place for a fight. We are well armed, well trained in urban warfare techniques and we have plenty of support. The helicopter strike teams will be hitting the known super concentrations so fast that by the time they hear them coming they will already be under fire. This has been planned for two days in great detail.
I understand what you have done here and all of you deserve medals, a handful of civilians maintaining law and order in the middle of a city wide insurrection. But the army is here now, we will take control and deal with these supers once and for all.”
The bean pole Lieutenant interrupted the captain. “Sir, if the supers have radar they can see the helicopters coming, they know the attack is going to happen, this could be a trap.”
The captain blinked. “Radar, what radar, these supers don’t have any radar, how would they get their hands on anything like that, I understand your concern Lieutenant but them knowing we are coming will not save them, besides there is no way they would have radar so the helicopters will be a complete surprise.
No this will be bloody, fighting in a city always is. But it’s just a matter of time now.”
The captain paused to draw a breathe before continuing to speak then tilted his head to one side as a sound reached him. Everyone in the group heard it at the same time and heads turned this way and that to locate the noise.
“There.” A hand pointed and everyone turned to look as the noise got louder. A high powered engine running at full power, the buzz of propeller blades and the sound of something big whooshing through the air.
It was a British army Lynx, a few hundred feet above the ground and going flat out, but there was something wrong, the whole helicopter was glowing with a sickly green aura and it was heading down at maybe a thirty degree angle. A few long seconds later it slammed into a housing estate toward the river and a ball of fire and smoke rose to mark its grave.
After a moment of silence Mike spoke. “Anyone got any spare ammo?”
Five
Suddenly Mike was back in the garage, one hand touching his old police jacket. He wavered for a second as he got his balance and looked around him.
The dream, the memory vanished, back where it came from in the depths of his mind. That was the day the army went in and got serious, the day they wrecked half the city centre, killed a few hundred supers and retreated with a thousand casualties. Smashed and burning army vehicles all over the place leaving fingers of black smoke pointing into the sky like grave markers.
That was the day London abandoned the city and locked it down, nothing in or out apart from supplies and support for the garrison.
Garrison, taking the piss, what was left of the two infantry platoons plus the coppers and civilians.
It was just another memory from the war, another dream. Twice a week at least he had dreams like this but that was asleep, a few times a month he had waking flashbacks like this morning at the pub but they were a second long and just left him shaking. These waking dreams, they were minutes long. Not a second long flashback but a full memory of the war.
Was it the pills? No, he had been off them for months so why today?
A bike ride was off; if he had another one of these day dreams while riding he would crash. He guessed they were a minute or two each time, long enough to get him killed and he had sod all warning of them starting.
Something was fucked up, was it him? Was he still upset from the bloke who had come into his garden earlier? Yea, that was maybe it, he was still wound up.
No. It couldn’t be that. The first daydream memory thing had happened before the stranger had arrived. It had to be something else, had it taken this long for the pills to wear off, but why had the headaches stopped within days of coming off the pills and this was months later.
Unless.
Maybe he was asleep in the garden, he had been dozing off so maybe he was asleep and it was a dream. Maybe that was it, just a sleep dream memory. Maybe the memory just now was because he was wound up from the intruder.
Bollocks.
Maybe he should call the doctor and make an appointment. Trouble with that was he would have to admit he wasn’t taking the pills.
Bollocks!
Mike realised he was standing in the middle of the garage talking to himself. Things were getting bad, he was far to sober for this shit.
Beer.
The fridge.
He shrugged off his biker jacket and hung it back on its peg, hiding the old police jacket and the memories where he couldn’t see them. Back into the kitchen he swung open the fridge door, he had spent the extra to get one of those American types with two doors and an ice maker, half the right side was just for beer, two shelves each holding a dozen bottles.
Mike peered into the gleaming white fridge, one shelf was empty and the other held four bottles. He reached in and took one bottle leaving three standing there looking lonely.
He needed more beer; he had some in the pantry cupboard. It was on the other side of the kitchen beside the door to the hall, a wide double door cupboard about a foot deep full of all sorts of stuff that didn’t get eaten or go off. One shelf was generally kept for trays of beer.
Mike swung the door open and reached down to the beer shelf but his fingers met empty space. The shelf was empty. He was almost out of beer. Things were getting serious. The landy was out of action, he couldn’t risk the bike. Tony and his lad wouldn’t be shopping till next week now and no one else was going into town for days.
Unless.
The pub. They always had plenty and had sold him bottles before, not that anyone needed to know about it but a sale was a sale. He could walk over there and grab enough for a while. Or he could take his old backpack and get a dozen or more.
Or.
Mohamed had a four wheeled cart thing that he used to carry his tools round the village; maybe he could borrow that for a few minutes.
Mike had a plan and stomped his way out of the cottage still wearing his biking boots.
Mo was in his front garden talking to the next neighbour over, something about planting flowers though as far as Mike could understand them it was all Latin. Both turned and greeted him as he reached the little gate that led into the riot of colour that was Mohamed’s front yard.
A few minutes later Mike was walking across the village towards the pub, the four wheel gardening trolley bouncing along behind him on its big round rubber wheels. Mid afternoon the village was quiet, a pair of cars drove past him heading in the general direction of town though it was a long winding route on the roads out here. Both cars were packed and there were children playing on the back seats, it looked like the families from the pub had finished lunch.
Then the hedge on the left fell away to reveal an old dry stone wall and an open area beyond. Low cut grass filled with old headstones and a few statues. Beyond was the village church, local legend had it that it was first built by the Normans but apart from the tower the rest of it looked no more than a few hundred years old.
The clock on the tower was an old mechanical one, someone had once told Mike it was Victorian but it still kept ruddy good time as long as it was wound up once a day.
Mike glanced at the clock face, quarter to four, was that right? It couldn’t be that late, how long had he been asleep in the garden, it must have been a couple of hours?
Turning back to the path he continued walking the few minutes to the pub.
#
The white lion, a traditional village pub. Been in one you’ve been in them all. Old stone walls, flag stones on the floor, white painted beams standing out from the black painted ceiling. Horse brass hanging on the walls and shelves of old tankards up high round the walls.
Oh and the pictures, old fashioned pictures, farm scenes from last century, horses, that one of the dogs playing cards. Even one of some cows playing poker round a low table in a desert.
Seen one, you have seen them all. Mike walked in through the side door from the road and found himself in the dining room, The small bar in here was closed, the shutters were down, most of the old carved wooden chairs were upside down on the thick oak tables, all the woodwork was dark with age and a century of use.
Mike glanced round the room, door to the toilets, door to the kitchen, one elderly couple sitting in the window nook that gave a view out to the car park, the Carlton’s, Richard and Amanda. She was quiet, withdrawn, a decent person, baked cakes for half the village; she lost everything in the war, husband, kids. She married again then came out here about five years ago to get away from the city. Life insurance left her very comfortable, nothing made her happy apart from baking cakes and other peoples grandchildren.
Her husband was a jerk.
Second month out here ‘Dick’ had made a play for the bar maid, got a little upset when she said no. Got physical. Told his wife he had slipped and fallen to explain the limp and the bruises.
Since then he worked in the city, stayed there during the week and came back to play loving young husband to the older wife at the weekends.
Richard was sitting facing the side door and he looked up when Mike came it, for just a second his face changed. Anger then fear. He looked down quickly and went back to paying attention to his wife.
It hadn’t been Mike that had knocked him over but Mike was there and hadn’t hung back when it came to putting the boot in. Fucking city piece of shit trying to force himself on a local girl. Wouldn’t be doing that again.
Everyone knew he was cheating but no one would tell Amanda, they even helped cover it up. She was hurt inside and no one wanted to add to that pain. Even if it meant giving the little shit a let off.
Course everyone made it very clear what they would do to him if he hurt her or anyone else in the village, he could play the stud in the city. Out here he was the loving husband, they had plenty of shovels and lots of woodland, no one would ever find his corpse.
Mike ignored him and walked across the room, his boots loud on the age polished flagstones.
The door to the main lounge was old and low, Mike ducked his head a little and stepped through into the main drinking room and meeting place for the village.
It was a bit busy, lunch was long over but half the tables had people sitting at them, looked like most of the women in the village were having a meeting, all facing toward the table where the Macey sisters were sitting, a table piled high with colourful bunting.
Oh crap, it was the village fete coming up. Everyone’s families, hundreds of strangers, cars blocking every lane. Bloody fete, every year the same. Mike normally stocked up and stayed at home all day, crowds everywhere, People everywhere. Strangers everywhere.
Looking around there were a few other locals and a bunch of strangers, teens, low twenties, blokes and girls, was grunge back in style again. Not locals, bloody tourists slumming it most like.
Mike walked toward the back of the room where the bar was, wood so old it was all but black, the silver long since worn off the rails. The landlord was chatting with his wife behind the bar while running a white cloth across the glasses that his wife had just washed.
Then a flash of bright colour coming from the group of strangers, male, twenty, skinny, sallow face, maybe drugs, hair, sides of his head shaved, top of head a tall Mohawk, green, bright green.
Bright green light flashed and the point soldier glowed green then collapsed stone dead, the soldiers behind him opened fire at every window and door in sight.
Someone shouted, pointed. Fire was concentrated on one building, a figure ran from the window as it was torn apart by bullet hits, bright green light flashing. Coming through the walls, the light came between the bricks, blazing green light, more men falling, more men dying.
Mike threw himself side way to the wall looking around frantically as he did so. Then he blinked, he was back in the pub. Some of the strangers looked at him and laughed, the women kindly ignored him, it wasn’t the first time they had seen it and it wouldn’t be the last time. Besides, many of them knew, some had similar dreams, everyone in the village lived here for a reason.
“You alright Mike, you look like you need a pint or three?” The barman was a big, jolly man, round and fat, he always played Santa at Christmas though visiting children often wondered about the turban that all Sikhs wore. His accent was pure midlands, his wife was Dutch, his hobby was running the pub, his job, well no one asked, everyone in the village had a good reason for not living in the cities.
Mike stepped away from the wall and walked to the bar. “Yea, sorry, I was, erm.”
“Na worries Mike, na worries. Git this down ya.” Abhijeet Singh was the name everyone knew, Jeet is what everyone called him, beyond that no one cared, he was a good bloke and ran the pub, that was all anyone wanted to know.
Jeet passed over a brass tankard filled to the brim with froth running down the sides.
Mike nodded his thanks and swallowed half the beer in one long gulp then nearly choked as he stopped to breathe, he took another swallow then looked across the bar.
“I ran out of beer, was wondering if I could buy some bottles?”
The barman made a show of leaning across the bar and looking down at the gardening trolley Mike had dropped when he jumped sideways after his flashback.
“I’ll git ya a few trays.” Jeet glanced at his wife then went through the door behind the bar. His wife Jasminder stopped washing glasses and walked along the bar to stand near Mike, she knew the signs, she saw them from time to time on her Husband.
“Would you like another?” Her English was good, clear and with a slight accent, something she often joked about with her husband, him being born in England and yet her English was much easier to understand.
Mike drained the last of the beer and nodded, putting the tankard on the bar and sliding it across to her. As he let go and lifted his hand away the shaking was clear on the finger tips. Mike clenched his fists until his fingers were under control again.
The two started chatting while Mike sipped at the second pint, nothing important, the weather was nice, the fete should be good for business, that sort of thing.
Mike heard a grunt and Jeet came back in sight coming up the stairs and through the door into the bar, four trays of beer in his arms. He carefully slid them onto the bar and sighed, “Gettin weak in me old age, couldn’t manage five. These do or you want more, plenty enough down stairs.”
Mike shock his head from side to side, forty eight bottles should last him till next week. He reached into his pocket. “How much?”
Jeet laughed, a booming sound that went with the Santa costume. “On ya tab, pay end o the month.”
Mike nodded, “Fair enough, add these two on as well.”
The landlord thought about arguing then gave up, Mike was about as stubborn as they came. “End o th month.”
Mike lifted two of the trays onto the trolley then the other two, a bottle of beer isn’t that heavy, four dozen on the other hand was a bit much for a man in his fifties who wasn’t as fit as he had been when jumping out of perfectly good aircraft had been fun.
With a final nod to both of them and a glance around the lounge Mike walked back through the dining room and out, the pub front door had a big stone step that would have been difficult with the loaded trolley. As it happens it was the very spot ‘Dick’ had slipped and fallen.
Mike carefully pulled the trolley onto the narrow pavement and began the walk home, past the two story houses that made up the centre of the village, then passed a few cottages as the village spread out.
The gardens gave way to hedges then the graveyard and the old church.
There was aloud grinding noise and Mike looked that way.
The clock began to chime the hour, a single deep ringing chime that echoed from the trees behind the church and rolled over the village. Then a second chime, a third and a fourth.
The big old clock chimes repeating themselves in Mikes mind.
Echoing like a memory.
Six
The sound of a clock chime echoed down the road, bouncing off the lines of houses either side. Then the second came and the third until all four chimes had sounded. The ringing was loud in the absence of cars and other background noise.
The church had a big old clock and it was still working, it sounded the hour with loud chimes that could be heard across the whole of Redcliff hill and down to the sounding areas, it was one of the fixtures, no one needed a watch, they just listened for the chimes.
The church had escaped harm and the clock still worked, now it was beckoning the small group of soldiers down the street to come closer.
It was a small patrol, Mike acting as local guide, and eight soldiers sweeping the area around St Mary Redcliff church up on Redcliff hill. The church had been turned into a refugee centre and the army kept the area patrolled to protect the many people that had ended up there. JCBs had cleared the roads to the church and they had regular food deliveries.
As they walked along the cleared area where the JCBs had pushed the rubble out of the way to make a road for the lorries Mike kept his eyes on the surrounding buildings. This was his second patrol today and his tenth so far this week, he had only fired twice in all that time, once at some supers trying to hit a food convoy and once at something that had come running at a patrol that was trying to see what had been making strange roaring noises in the woods at Arno’s court park.
No one could say for sure what they had fired at; it was big and running on all fours, maybe a big lion or some such. No one hit it and it ran from the gunfire.
But the last couple of weeks were peace and quiet compared to the first week of whatever the hell had happened. Mike had lost track of the fights in that desperate week when it was a handful of people trying to hold the line in a city gone mad.
Mike counted the days and realised it was Friday the third week of the emergency, it was odd how quickly this all became normal, walking the beat in webbing with a rifle in his hands, people flying over head, alert for an ambush by people that could kill you without a weapon.
The two weeks since the army had come in heavy had changed things. They had hit the places where they knew the supers to be and the fighting had flattened a lot of buildings, the result had been that the surviving super gangs had moved to intact areas further out, this cut down on the fighting a fair bit since they were now separated from each other by distance.
But the army had also done something else, they went after all of the supers, not knowing or carrying if they considered themselves to be heroes or villains. So the heroes found themselves being attacked by the police and army as well. That caused changes that still hadn’t settled.
The heroes had recruited less powerful supers and formed large gangs just as the villains had and now it was a three way war. Heroes, villains and the army.
Oddly with everyone now away from the wrecked centre of the city the police and soldiers there came under less attacks and spent most of their time dealing with refugees, people who tried to flee the city hit the army cordon and were sent to the camps by the M4, people moving toward the river and city centre ended up meeting the only official organisation still in the city.
After the battle outside the police station that Sunday the building was half wrecked, most of the front wall came down while they were still treating the wounded in the car park and with the city fighting against the army that was pushing in from the suburbs it had been grab everyone and run for it. The emergency services and the soldiers who had come to join them were left alone in the city. Radios were swamped by static anywhere near the city for some reason, they couldn’t get orders from outside so they had quickly discussed the options among themselves.
As it turned out the only place they could go to was the railway station, that was where the army were bringing in supplies and they had a small force there already, it was more secure than a car park next to a falling down building so the whole group moved there.
Bristol Temple Mead station isn’t that big if you look at just the passenger area but it handles a lot of trains, the rail yards outside cover acres of land and there is a lot more besides. Once the locals arrived and started talking to the army a few questions were asked like why are you off loading cargo onto the passenger platform when the old parcel force buildings over there are all set up to handle train loads of boxes?
Or why don’t you set up down in the tunnels and bunkers under the station?
After what amounted to a series of guided tours the senior officers on site started giving orders and the place began to turn into a large and capable base.
The old unused parcel force buildings had been shut down years before but they were solid and were built to handle train delivered mail and parcels for the city, a train could come in with food, unload right into the warehouses and parcel handling areas and be dealt with from there. The building became the main food distribution centre for the city.
The tunnels were not so well known but they were vast, a mass of train sized tunnels, rooms and corridors. Down there was an area converted into a bomb shelter for the station staff and passengers during the Second World War. There was even an underground wine cellar.
Next to the main station building was the old Brunel terminal, thick Victorian stone walls and an iron beam roof. Solid enough to take a hit or two.
From the army point of view the railway tracks were the best road into the city, they didn’t need to clear them of wreckage and the supers seemed to be ignoring them. At first trucks and a few wheeled APCs had simply driven along the rail lines. Now they were running cargo trains in twice a day, like something out of an old news reel of the war, flat bed cars lined with sand bags, pintle mounted machine guns, a few box cars with firing slits cut in the sides and the important train that bought in the passengers and troops had a pair of Scimitar light tanks parked back to back on one flat bed then surrounded up to their decks with sand bags, a make shift fortress with two turret mounted 30 mil cannons.
So the trains rolled in and the warehouses filled up with food that was then sent out in convoys to the main refugee points. The tunnels had been cleared out, the bunker now had sleeping rooms, a command room and stores. The army engineers had found all the ways into the tunnels and either blocked them or fortified them with bunkers and pill boxes. They were also deploying prefabricated walls and towers, hollow boxes that they had first filled with sand, gravel or dirt. After the first week they had a water line down to the river, several concrete mixers and a good stock of cement power and sand, they were filling the walls and towers with concrete now.
With the concrete canvas tents being set up in lines at the edge of the tracks and the walls and towers all the place needed was moat to look like a castle or something from the Napoleonic wars.
There were even machine gun nests made of sand bags on the every flat roof with orders to engage any flying super that looked like a threat, an order the gunners took to mean fire as soon as they came into range.
The Brunel building was used to house the medics and the handful of scientists who were working inside the city, most of the high foreheads were studying the situation from all over the world but about a dozen were running labs and the like from inside the emergence zone. That was what they called it but anyone who asked them what that meant spent five minutes trying to understand scientific gibberish and gave up.
The Bristol Emergency Management Local Command had come into being and had been working round the clock to feed the thousands of people who for whatever reason were still in the city.
Forty odd police, about the same number of medics and firemen and about eighty soldiers though that number changed daily, the army was cycling troops through for a few days or a week so there could be fifty one day and a hundred the next. In addition they had something over a hundred locals, a mix of low power supers and normals who were trying to help out or who just wanted the feeling of safety and were happy to help out in return.
On top of that was anywhere from a fifty to a hundred volunteer emergency services people from outside, they came in for a week to help out then vanished again, a few of them mentioned that the government frowned on people doing this and kept the numbers down, no one knew what had happened to the people in the city and there was still a fear that people who went in would become infected.
The air over the city was mostly empty apart from small groups of flying supers, the air force ran recon drones above 10,000 feet but they reported at least three radar units active in the city that moved all the time making targeting them difficult.
Fighters were all but useless, radar or infra red targeting systems were useless against a flying person and engaging with cannon was difficult when the target was the size of a human. Only helicopters could fight flying supers and they were appallingly vulnerable to supers in the air and on the ground.
So the supers controlled the air while the army and BEMLoC walked or drove.
Regular food convoys went out to the refugees and the army kept up almost constant patrols in those areas. They didn’t often run into problems but the thinking was if the army looked in charge the supers would stay clear. It may have been a stupid idea but it seemed to work so maybe it wasn’t so stupid after all.
Which is how Mike came to be walking along the A4044 toward the chimes of the church bell, with soldiers in front and behind. Everyone alert for trouble but hoping not to find any.
These soldiers had arrived two days ago, this was their first patrol outside the base and they were more than a little nervous. Barracks gossip outside the city had been spinning wild tales of super powered men who could tear tanks apart with their bare hands or kill with a glance. Though to be fair a few red top newspapers were running the same stories so it wasn’t just soldier’s gossip.
Which was why the sight of a man running towards them shouting had them reacting as if it was an attack, most had their rifles up and covering the running man before the first shout had finished echoing off the houses around them. Mike had moved away from the squad and was covering the side away from the shouts, he found another soldier doing the same while a third covered the road behind them. Good training if a bit wet behind the ears.
“HALT, halt or we shoot!”
The sight of five men aiming assault rifles at him bought the running man sliding to a stop a good ten metres from the soldiers.
“Please, please, you have to help, the nurse says it’s twisted, you have to help us. Please.” The man was all but wringing his hands, he sounded desperate but that could be a trick.
More people were coming towards the soldiers, one walking ahead of them with his hands out to either side, the flash of a white dog collar clearly visible against the dusty black of his jacket.
“It’s his wife, she needs help, he didn’t mean any harm, could you lower your guns, he just got carried away.” The priest stopped beside the distraught man then slowly reached out and put one of his hands on the husbands arm.
Mike heard the priests voice and risked a quick look, he had been patrolling up here once a day for two weeks now and had spoken with the padre a number of times. Seeing that there didn’t seem to be any imminent attack he coughed to attract the attention of one of the other soldiers, pointed at the man, then his own eyes then the direction he wanted covered.
Once the soldier had turned to watch the indicated direction Mike walked to the front of the group and called out to the priest.
“Your man there going to rush us again?”
The priest visibly tightened his grip. “No, no he won’t. It’s just that he’s worried, it’s his wife you see. Her baby is coming but there is some sort of problem. They need help you see.”
Behind Mike one of the soldiers muttered something about not being paid enough for this shit. It sounded like the patrols medic but Mike didn’t turn to look.
“That’s OK, we have a medic with us.”
“Bastard.” Came from behind Mike, spoken just loudly enough to be heard.
Mike walked over to the priest and the two shook hands then they both turned to the distraught man. “Lead the way.”
The man took off at a run toward the church, Mike waved the patrol to follow and he walked alongside the priest toward the church. They turned up Pump lane with the church ahead of them and beyond the church was the open green of a small park though the grass was barely visible with all the tents.
The man they were following had run between the brightly coloured tents and to the entrance of the large white marquee. He slowed to a walk and pushing the tent flap aside walked in.
Mike and the priest followed, the soldiers behind them.
At the entrance to the white tent the priest went straight in, Mike paused and turned to the soldiers. “This is a job for the medic, maybe the rest of you should sweep the area, amke sure its secure. You got your maps?”
Most of them nodded. “Right, stay in sight of the church, one circuit then back here.”
A few people watching may have wondered why the soldiers were taking orders from a policeman but as far as the soldiers were concerned, if it walked like a sergeant, talked like a sergeant and had 16 years in the forces then the uniform didn’t matter.
Besides which things were, flexible, here in BEMLoC.
As the soldiers move off Mike entered the tent. It was set up as a makeshift hospital, several tables and field beds. One of the beds was occupied, a woman, moaning in pain, holding the frame of the bed with white knuckled hands. She was wearing slacks and a bra leaving no doubt as to her status.
Several other women stood nearby including one white haired old grandmother who was talking quietly to the medic who was gently resting his fingertips on the woman’s belly.
“Yep, I can feel the head here. Your right, not turned at all, maybe caught on the umbilical.”
The sound of the tent flap dropping back into place caught the medics attention and he looked at Mike who took in the scene then spoke. “You got this one?”
“No, hell no. This one’s a doctor job. Mums water broke but the baby’s side on. No way I can deal with this one, sure as hell not here. Needs a doctor, can we get one out here?”
All of the soldiers had radios but the interference was so bad that even such a short distance from the base they got more static than signal. Mikes police radio got a better signal because it was picking up a few still working cell towers so he was the radio man for the patrol.
He spent several minutes repeating himself before he finally got the message across then had to listen carefully for the reply.
“Ten minutes they say, hang on for ten minutes.”
The medic looked down at the pregnant woman. “There ya go lass, ten minutes and they’ll have you all sorted. You can hang on for ten minutes can’t ya?”
The woman didn’t reply, just carried on groaning.
“We’ll stay with er, she’ll be areet.” That was the grandmother. “Just make sure ya get that doctor here quick.”
Mike nodded and went outside with the priest and the medic, not a lot more they could do so they adopted the age old standard male response to a woman having a baby, stand outside and wait.
#
Eight minutes later and Mike received a crackly radio message, incoming army convoy checking that the area was secure.
Mike confirmed that it seemed to be while the medic tried to reach the rest of the patrol on his army radio, he got some sort of a message to them which he thought they understood.
“What the fuck is with these crap radios?”
Mike pointed at his own police issue. “Local towers are mostly down but we still have a few working. Otherwise all radio is messed up in the city, no one knows why.”
The medic slapped his radio a few times and grunted. “Made in china most like.”
The remainder of the patrol came into view a minute later at the far side of the sea of tents that filled the open area and began making their way between the guy ropes. As they came close enough to be heard the corporal in front shouted.
“What was that you was trying to say, all we heard was crap?”
The medic sighed and shouted back. “Convoy coming in, doctor for the pregnant woman.”
Mike joined in the shouting. “They’ll be coming up the 44, let’s have two men on watch both ends of the church covering the main road and the rest cover the civies up here.”
The leading corporal turned and spoke to the squad too quietly to be heard over the distance but quickly a pair of soldiers began to jog toward the far end of the big church, another pair covered the distance to the front of the church and turned to go down to find a point where they could cover the A4044.
Nothing more happened for several minutes then the army radios by the tent began to sequel and crackle and a voice could just about be made out. “Coming in now.”
Then the sound of diesel engines could be heard in the distance, slowly coming closer, driving along the path cleared through the abandoned and wrecked cars that blocked most of the main roads in the city these days.
The first vehicle reached the corner and turned onto Pump Lane. Mike chuckled at the sight of the six wheeled armoured vehicle, something he remembered from many years ago.
“Where’d they find the Saracen, a museum?”
The corporal answered. “Mothball reserve. They pulled a lot of old stuff out for working in here.”
The second vehicle to turn the corner and come into sight was a battered looking city ambulance, dirty and with the light rack on top smashed by something that had also put an almighty dent in the roof. Behind the ambulance came the third and last vehicle in this little convoy, an army land rover.
All three vehicles made their way up the lane, the Saracen pulled up on the lane, the ambulance bumped up onto the path and onto the grass before stopping next to the marquee and the landy pulled up next to Mike and the soldiers.
The ambulance crew got out and Mike pointed them toward the tent opening, outside volunteers. Bright shiny high viz jackets, not a speck of dirt on either of them. Four soldiers clambered out of the back of the APC and two got out of the Landy, one of whom was a Lieutenant.
Mike looked at all of the new arrivals and then spoke to the officer. “No Doctor?”
“No sorry, orders are to take the woman for treatment at the base. Everything secure here?”
Mike laughed. “In this city, this is about as secure as it gets.”
The officer turned to one of the soldiers from the APC. “Sergeant, let’s have some more pickets out.” Then as the sergeant gave the orders he turned back to look at Mike. “You Cullen?”
“Yep.”
“Ah, heard a few stories about you. Para weren’t you?”
“Yep.”
Getting no conversation the officer turned to the tent, “Is it just the one casualty, the woman?”
“Seems to be, we come up here daily and the squad medics treat the minor stuff then.”
The officer nodded and was about to say something else when the tent’s canvas door was pushed back with a heavy rustle and one of the ambulance crew came out, nodded to the men who were standing watching and walked the few steps to the ambulance. He opened the back doors and slowly pulled out the wheeled stretcher trolley, once the legs were down and the wheels were on the ground he pushed the trolley to the tent opening where the Priest who had been standing quietly so far pulled the flap aside.
With the ambulance man and the trolley inside and out of sight the men went back to standing quietly.
Maybe five minutes later and the tent flap was pushed open again, this time the ambulance crewman who came into sight was walking backwards, the canvas slid across his high viz with an odd rasping sound before dropping aside. He was pulling the stretcher while his colleague pushed. They carefully manoeuvred the trolley to the back of the ambulance while keeping an eye on the woman who was on top, she was moaning quietly but seemed in less pain now and was hidden under a blue blanket that left only her head visible.
The ambulance team began to slide the trolley into the back of the ambulance, making sure it locked into the rails on the floor.
“What’s that?”
“Where, direction ya bloody idiot.” That was the sergeant.
“Shit, west, ten o’clock, above the houses.”
Everyone turned to look and quickly found the movement, three birds perhaps, flying above the long line of roofs.
Three big birds.
Flying fast.
Flying closer.
Three ruddy big birds.
One of which was on fire.
“SUPERS!”
Mike pulled out a pair of binoculars and had a better look, one man with bat wings sprouting from his shoulders, no idea how they could lift his weight but they did, the second had wings instead of arms and the third from the waist down was a ball of fire that seemed to be working like a rocket.
All three were flying closer and seemed to be looking down at the vehicles, nothing that looked hostile, more curious that anything. Then the one with wings for arms dived toward the church, getting lower and closer very fast.
The ambulance crew finished loading the trolley into the back and turned to see what was going on.
One of the soldiers opened fire, his first burst missed wide but his second hit one of the arm like wings and the super came down in a tumble of limbs and slammed into the tarmac hard. Ignoring the shouts coming from Mike and the patrol sergeant to hold fire several of the other soldiers started shooting as well, every shot missed but the fight was on.
The bat winged super turned rapidly and seemed to vanish into a cloud of darkness that then dropped behind the closest line of houses.
The man who was half fire began to accelerate towards the soldiers, leaving a trail of flames in the air behind him.
The flaming super dropped rapidly and landed on the road close to his dead friend and across from the church car park, the ball of fire below his waist shrank down and became his legs then his arms became flame and he fired a ball of fire at the closest soldiers. His form wavering behind the walls of heat that poured off his entire body.
A cloud of darkness poured out of the houses across the lane and quickly spread out, several of the closest soldiers fire blindly into the cloud then stumbled backwards as it close on them.
Mike had turned, took several long steps and slammed the ambulance door shut while screaming at the driver “GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!” Some sixth sense warned him and he turned to see the super pointing at him, or the ambulance but it was the same thing. Mike felt cold gripping his chest tight.
The turret on the APC rotated rapidly and began to spay rounds into the darkness which was by now half way across the lane, the black mist changed course and moved quickly toward the six wheeled vehicle.
The super’s hand vanished into fire and a football sized ball of flame leapt across the distance, Mike could feel the heat on his face as the insanely hot ball raced toward him.
The Saracen engine noise jumped as the driver revved it into the red and tried to get away from the cloud, but the mist formed tendrils that leapt out and seemed to grab the back of the vehicle.
The ball of fire rushed toward Mike, the grass underneath it burst into flames, the tents ether side caught fire or melted as the intense heat raced past them.
The ambulance driver got the engine started and put his foot down, the rear wheels began to spin as they tore apart the grass they were sitting on.
Too late.
The fireball reached them.
And vanished.
About four meters in front of Mike the ball of fire just vanished, not a trace left, gone.
The super stood there, his mouth open in surprise, ignoring the shots coming from the soldiers as every bullet turned to a puff of vapour before it touched him. The super screamed and started running towards Mike, both arms blazing with fire.
Mike fired his rifle from the shoulder, one burst, two, then a third did nothing. Then suddenly, at the same distance that the ball of fire had vanished, the flames around the super vanished and Mikes fourth burst smashed into his chest. The super staggered to a stop, his chest a bloody mess, he looked down at his wounds then looked up to stare in Mikes face. A single word escaped his lips before he pitched over.
“How?”
Then the supers dying body hit the ground.
The Saracen hit top speed and seemed to pull itself free of the black tendrils, the small turret continued to hammer rounds into the mist, every round vanished, none came out the other side.
Mike put a final burst into the supers head then looked round to find almost every other soldier now pouring fire into the darkness, the rounds seemed to have no effect, no sign of hitting anything. But was it, maybe, YES, the cloud of darkness was shrinking, slowly but surely it was getting smaller. The two soldiers who had been at the far end of the church reached the fight and added their fire to that of the others.
Then above the sound of the rifle fire there was a loud thump, something small and too fast to see properly entered the cloud. A flash of dull red lit up half the cloud and it shrunk by a quarter.
The lieutenant who was standing by the back of the land rover quickly opened the grenade launcher and slid another round into the barrel.
The darkness suddenly pulled back, it moved at running speed to the houses, flowed over the walls and into the gardens where it vanished from sight.
As the dark cloud dropped into the gardens Mike dropped out the used magazine in his rifle and without moving his gaze from the gardens slapped a full round into place.
The sergeant ordered a pair of soldiers forward to check the gardens, the ran to the wall while every rifle covered them, one cautiously stood up at tall as he could then looked into the closest garden before dropping down again.
“Clear, it’s gone, whatever the fuck that was, it’s gone.”
Mike lowered his weapon and straighten his back, he had been in a shooting stance and wasn’t that young anymore. He looked around to access the situation and found everyone staring at him, the soldiers, the civilians from the church, even the priest.
Everyone staring at him like he had just grown horns.
#
The three vehicles had left quickly, heading back to the base. The woman in labour and two soldiers with burns.
The patrol had gone on, in silence. No one talked, every one watching for an attack outside the group and watching Mike inside the group.
No one knew what had happened, Mike sure as hell didn’t. It wasn’t anything he had done, it just happened. The ambulance crew, the woman, Mike, they were alive because of, what. What had stopped the ball of fire, what had gotten rid of the supers flames. What could do that, what power could do that. No one had ever seen a super do anything like that, it wasn’t some sort of science fiction force field or glowing lights or a wall of cold.
The flames had just vanished, snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane.
Mike didn’t know what had happened and sure as hell didn’t like it.
Was he a super, one of the mad dogs that killed anyone who got in their way. Was that why he wanted to kill them, was he one of the infected?
The rest of that patrol had seemed to take forever.
Seven
Mike drew a shuddering breathe, his legs like rubber. He grabbed the dry stone wall and managed to stay upright though he pulled the top few stones apart and a small avalanche of dust fell from the wall that had stood undisturbed for hundreds of years.
Another one.
Another memory.
Why that one?
The bells, the fucking church bells. He had heard them that day, just before he had found out he wasn’t untouched, just before he realised he wasn’t human anymore.
Not human, not a super, not, what?
That was the day when everything changed. For him at least.
Mike decided fuck it with dignity, he let go of the wall and slid down to sit on the cracked tarmac that made up the foot path. He just sat there for several minutes while he tried to slow down his breathing and his pulse.
Then he glanced around and spotted the trolley, it was a few feet away, he had dropped the handle when the flashback or whatever it was started and it was just sitting there.
He reached for the handles, it was a bit too far but he couldn’t face standing up again so he rolled over a bit and stretched another few centimetres till his finger tips touched the handle. He dragged the trolley closer, tore at the plastic covering the tray on top and wrestled a bottle free.
The bottle was cool from the cellar, not cold but that didn’t matter. Mike popped the lid and lifted the bottle to his lips and took a sip. Then a proper gulp and another.
Oddly his hands weren’t shaking this time but his legs didn’t feel up to standing so he sat there, the afternoon sun shining down, trying to warm him up and failing.
Mike finished the beer and was reaching for a second when a voice interrupted him.
“You alright mister?”
Mike slowly turned his head to see a pair of boys on dirt bikes, curly hair, olive skin, brown eyes, under ten, tee shirts with some sort of logo on the front. They looked familiar somehow, at least Mike was sure he had seen them before.
“Yea, fine, just having a drink. Want one?”
“What is it?” The boy sounded suspicious.
“Beer, good stuff?”
“Mum says beer rots the brain, she says people who drink beer get stupid. Gran says beer is for pigs and to only drink whiskey. Mum says gran only got to be so old because she is pickled.”
Brain cells fired up and Mike remembered who these two were, their mother’s mother lived in the village, they lived in town, too far to cycle here so they kept bikes at their grandmothers house. One was Shawn, the other was, something, began with R. But a bit young for beer.
“I’m fine, go bother someone else.” Mike was recovering, his legs felt like they would work again, his heartbeat was back to its normal level and the adrenaline buzz was fading. He watched the two boys cycle away and tried to stand.
Maybe he needed to sit here longer.
Sod that. He grabbed the wall and levered himself upright. More dust showered out of the old stones but he got himself standing. Once he was upright he felt better, at least his legs were taking his weight.
The walk back to his cottage took a lot longer and it wasn’t just being careful with the loaded trolley of beer.
#
By the time Mike reached the cottage his mood hadn’t improved much. He pulled the trolley to the front door and carefully pulled it up over the front step and into the house. It was just small enough that he could get it into the kitchen and over to the fridge.
He tore the plastic on the top tray apart and put the eleven beers that were left into the fridge then pulled a gap in the plastic of the next tray and filled the remaining space.
The few bottles left on that tray and both full trays went in the pantry cupboard.
Work done, time for one of the cold beers and a sit down. Mike had a lot to think about and a decision to make. He opened the fridge door to grab one of the few bottles that were cold then swore. He had stacked the new warm bottles in front, the cold ones were trapped at the back.
Mike stood there, he wanted to hit something, someone. Then he felt sharp pain from his hands, from the palms of his hands and the anger vanished. He had been standing there clenching his fists so tightly that he had sunk his fingernails into his palms. He lifted his hands and turned them palms up, he could clearly see the little half moons marking the skin.
Slowly, bottle by bottle, keeping a tight control on himself Mike lifted out enough of the new bottles so that he could reach the back and pull out all three of the cold ones. Then he pushed the new bottles in and carefully put two of the cold ones at the front.
Slowly and with tight control he shut the fridge door.
He could see what was going on. What he couldn’t see was why. The flashbacks, the day dreams, the memories. He was getting angry at the slightest things.
It must be the pills, he had been off them long enough that bad shit was happening.
No, why was it all happening on the same bloody day, he was fine yesterday, it couldn’t be like a switch. One day fine, the next day a psycho with flashbacks to the war.
Mike leaned against the kitchen counter and popped the lid on the beer, took a sip and thought some more.
He was having these flashbacks in order, that didn’t make sense either. His dreams at night were random, his nightmares were from the worst battles, the massacres, the times he had been hurt the worst of come closest to death.
Compared to his nightmares today’s flashbacks barely rated, well the church maybe because that was the day he found out he wasn’t one of the immune ones.
But why was it all happening today, why where his bloody dreams in order, one after the other like he was replaying the highlights of the last war in his head.
None of this made any kind of sense.
Which meant he needed to talk to someone who could make sense of it, which meant talking to the doctor, the shrink. Which meant admitting he wasn’t taking the pills. Which was probably the problem. Which meant this was all his fault.
Bollocks!
#
Mike sat down in this favourite arm chair, the one that faced the wall screen. A voice command bought up the screen and phone function and he used the virtual touch screen function to go through his phone numbers, it was not a long list.
To someone watching he would have been waving his arms in mid air in front of himself but technology developed from an old console game of all things detected his movements corresponding to the display on the screen. He was using a 4 meter wide touch screen while seated in his arm chair on the other side of the room.
He found the doctors number and poked his hand at the ring button.
A few rings later and the doctors answering service responded, a woman’s voice, synthetic but very good. It was one of the newer reception packages, a Turing package that pretended to be a secretary twenty four seven. The screen became an animation of a woman, brown hair, 30s, hazel eyes, it wasn’t a bad graphic.
“I’m sorry, Doctor Rosen is not available at present. Do you have an appointment?”
“No, I want to talk to the doctor.”
“I’m sorry, the doctor is not available. I can make you an appointment, do you have a preferred date and time or would you like to book an appointment at the first available slot?”
Mike sighed. “Put me through to a human being.”
“I’m sorry. No one is available over the weekend unless it is an emergency. I can make you an appointment.”
Mike interrupted the software. “It’s an emergency, I’m having an emergency. Put me through to a human being. Now would be good.” It was pointless getting angry or swearing at a software package and Mike didn’t have to deal with them often but he was getting very tempted.
The screen changed to the English Telecom icon for a few seconds then changed again to show the wall of what looked like an office, it was all old fashioned wooden shelves covered in leather bound books. A young man came into the picture, late twenties, dyed black hair with blue edges, grey eyes that had to be contacts, fake tan, either very clean shaven or facial hair removed permanently, he seemed to be leaning over to get into view of the screen since his head was sideways in the Picture.
“Doctors busy, can this wait?”
Mike swore under his breath. “NO. Can I speak to the doctor. NOW!”
“He’s busy. Are you a patient?”
“Yes I am a fucking patient!”
“No need to get upset, what’s your name?”
“Cullen, See, ee, you. Double ell, ee, en. Cullen. First name Mike.”
The man walked round the desk and his head twisted into a more normal position. He sat down on a chair that was below the view of the screen camera and began to type off to the left. “Cullen, Cullen. Mike you said. Nope, no Cullen on the patient list, are you sure you have the right doctor?”
“Yes I have the right doctor, my name is right, I get a bottle of pills off him every fucking month. He is my doctor, I am one of his patients.”
The young man frowned and glanced at something to the left. “Well you’re not on the patient list, what sort of pills?”
“Blue ones, dark blue bottle, pale blue pills, oval shaped. Pills.”
“Oh, do they come with a foil security seal on the cap.”
Mike gritted his teeth. “Yes they have a bloody foil lid. Blue pills.”
“Ah, you’re one of those patients. Just a minute.” More air typing. “Cullen, here you are. Oh.”
“What the fuck do you mean oh?”
The young man looked directly at the screen and Mike. “Sorry, one of the old cases, from the war. My father doesn’t have many of those left. I can see your name but everything else is behind a confidentiality lock. Hang on, I’ll go get dad.”
The man vanished from view but he left the screen on so Mike was left staring at row after row of immaculate leather books, after a minute or so he turned his head to one side to try and read the titles on some of the books.
It was at that moment that the screen changed to reveal the doctor, the background was masked by an electronic fuzz.
“Michael. Is there a problem, we haven’t spoken since last year.
“Yes. Look doctor, I don’t know what’s going on but I’m having dreams, flashbacks, all day today. It’s freaking me out.”
“Well why don’t you start from the beginning. Don’t worry Mike. We’ll find out what’s going on.”
We’ll find what’s going on.
Eight
“We’ll find out what’s going on with you Mr Cullen, it’s what we do around here.”
Mike looked into the earnest and excited face of the elderly man and sighed to himself, it had been a long day so far and had every sign of being longer.
After the incident at the church and the rest of the patrol Mike was oddly exhausted by the time he got back to the rail station base. He had grabbed something to eat and hit his bunk. He had fallen into a deep sleep and woken when the soldiers sleeping in the bunks around him had been roused for morning stand to and the change of duties at six o’clock.
He had crawled out of bed still feeling tired, the kind of bone deep exhaustion that simple rest doesn’t cure. A shower did a little to get him working and thinking and clean clothes helped some more.
The Army engineers had been hard at work since Bristol Emergency Management Local Command, or BEMLoC for short, had set up here. They may have been living in old railway tunnels but they had showers, running hot and cold water, army camp beds and wonder of wonders, a laundry.
There was something life changing about peeling off the clothes you had been wearing for more than a week and climbing into clean underwear and army fatigues and no longer being able to smell yourself. That had marked the middle of the first week at the railway station and moral had jumped noticeably that day when the hot water had come on line and the clean clothes were handed out after that glorious first shower.
So when Mike pulled his battered old police jacket on it was over fresh clean clothing he had grabbed from the stacks on the table outside the shower room. All neatly piled up by sizes, army organisation at its best..
Wide awake but deep in thought he had paused to grab a tin mug of army coffee before walking down into the bunker and the command centre.
BEMLoC had been based at the train station for two weeks now but it hadn’t been until a few days ago that they got reliable encrypted communications running. Any lines above ground had been cut by the fighting, satellite links were overwhelmed by some sort of unknown static and radio was unreliable for the same reason.
The bright sparks had been trying to set up reliable comms for a week until someone wandered in and said why not use the big fibre optic that ran alongside the railway that is just outside.
The following day and the place had broadband, encrypted comms, satellite news, the works.
Which was why as Mike walked into the main room, coffee mug in hand, he was met by a soldier who thrust a piece of paper towards him. Mike read the note; it was an order for police officer M Cullen to attend a compulsory medical evaluation and assessment at the Cordon command at Cribs Causeway shopping centre.
Whatever had hit Bristol seems to have affected a roughly circular area and covered the bulk of the city centre and surrounding areas but the big shopping centre had been outside of the affected area so the army had taken it over, loads of car parks and room for all their vehicles and tents.
Rumour had it they had kept the staff of the fast food places on site so they were eating Mac Ds and Burger Kings while the people in the city ate Meals Rejected by Everyone.
Bastards!
The journey was all planned, out of the city on the supply train that was being used to bring in supplies, the supers were ignoring the trains but just in case two of the flatbeds had sandbags round the edges and a lot of automatic weapons. Then a ride in an army copter from there to the shopping centre and a compulsory assessment whatever that was.
The soldier who had given Mike the message had scurried off as soon as he had delivered the slip of paper. As Mike looked up from the note to watch the squady go he noticed that everyone else in the room was watching him, giving him sideways looks. News about yesterday had spread fast around the building and everyone was keeping their distance. No one knew what had happened, even Mike had only a vague idea of the events and he had been right in the middle of them but the story was getting wilder in the telling.
It had been a relief to get on the outbound train when it finally arrived, no one would talk to him, everyone was watching him, Men he had served alongside for weeks, men he had fought beside, all of them acting as if he had two heads and cloven hooves.
#
The train trip had been slow and nervous, the trains hadn’t been attacked so far but they were big slow targets and the men and women on them were well aware that a few sandbags wasn’t much protection against the sort of fire power that some supers could use.
Everyone on board had breathed a sigh of relief when they made it out of the city and reached the army cordon.
No one officially said so but the cordon was containment, a quarantine, the army were trying to keep the city locked up and the population trapped there. The refugee camps that had quickly sprung up on the major roads were now inside the army cordon though at least they were well supplied.
Problem was no one had as yet worked out how to detect a super, unless they were one of the weird ones that had changed into something obvious a super could walk past the troops all day then suddenly start throwing energy blasts or some such. So as far as the army was concerned everyone in the city stayed there.
The train pulled into what had been a disused local village station but which was now a busy logistics hub. Lorries and containers everywhere, forklifts moving cargo back and forth. It looked like the engineers had been here as well, what looked like a bridge had been set up so vehicles could drive up onto the platform and load the trains directly.
Three military police were standing on the platform, they had obviously been briefed as they walked up to him as he stepped out of the train carriage.
“Mr Cullen, this way please, we have a Lynx waiting.”
The four men walked down from the platform and across the station car park, weaving between trucks and eighteen wheelers. Across the road and through an old rickety looking five bar gate into a farmer’s field, to the left were big army tents, the green kind that boiled in summer. A few gazebo type shelters with tables under them and partially hidden behind the big tents a load of eight man bivies.
To the right was a clear area and one British army Lynx helicopter, wingtip weapon pods with what looked like a pair of seven sixty two machine guns, the copters had door guns as well, more machine guns though these had the long articulated ammo belts reaching across the door way and up to the ammo bins that for some reason where mounted high and at the front. The gunner for the closest side gun was standing beside the bird smoking, he glanced across at the approaching group, took a deep drag on the cigarette that turned the tip red than threw it away.
He banged on the Perspex window closest to him then turned to face the four men and spoke.
“You the gents wanting a taxi?”
One of the MPs climbed straight in, the second waited by the door and the third stopped behind Mike, “Get in”
Mike didn’t miss the fact that they seemed to be guarding him as much as guiding him. For a moment he wondered what would happen if he said he didn’t like flying and could they get a car then decided not to bother. The sooner he got there the sooner this would be over.
Mike climbed in, clambering round the door gun and sliding along the bench seat that ran the length of the read bulkhead. The second MP slide in behind him and boxed him in, a criminal sandwiched between cops. The last MP clambered in and took one of the jump seats that were back to back with the flight crew. The door gunner climbed in and took his position by the weapon.
The flight crew immediately bought the engine to full power and spun up the rotor blades. As the Lynx bobbed up and left the ground both door gunners pulled the charging levers then began taking an intense interest in the sky outside.
Mike leaned toward the door gunner that had been outside, both MPs blocked him and Mike glared at them till they sat back on the bench. Bloody idiots, did they think he was trying to escape from a flying copter. Still it confirmed one detail, they were treating him like a prisoner.
Leaning as close to the door gunner as he could manage Mike shouted to try and be heard over the rotor noise. “You get attacked this far out?”
“WHAT?”
“YOU GET ATTACKED THIS FAR OUT?”
The gunner shook his head from side to side and mouthed the word ‘no’ then went back to watching his side of the airspace as if he was expecting to see flying supers closing in at any minute.
The flight around the cordon to Cribs Causeway and the headquarters took a good ten minutes, there was no other air traffic until they came within sight of the sprawling complex of shops and car parks. Looking out of both sides Mike counted five other helicopters, one of which was a US blackbird with US army tags.
They slowed down as they started crossing the busy car parks, green military vehicles everywhere. One car park was a village of one and two storey porta cabins, they looked like something from a building site. Then their Lynx banked to the right and slowed for landing, looking out and down Mike noticed they were flying over another car park full of green painted vehicles and a lot of men sitting everywhere eating, then the golden arches came into sight and the smell of fast food tantalised Mike’s nose for just a second.
The rumours had been right, they had kept the burger places working.
Bastards.
A few seconds later the copter slowed almost completely and bumped as it landed a bit fast. The pilot slowed the rotors and the noise levels dropped. The same door gunner climbed out and stood outside with his head ducked to avoid the still turning rotor blades.
“That you for flying 669 Squadron, we hope you enjoyed your flight.”
One of the MPs shot the door gunner a nasty look, the gunner smiled in return then glanced at Mike, the gunner rolled his eyes and Mike nodded in understanding.
The four men walked across the car park that was being used as a landing pad and paused at the main road waiting for a gap in the traffic, once a pair of trucks had rumbled past they were clear to cross and two of the MPs quickly started across. The third was behind Mike and when he hesitated pushed him forward.
The far side was another car park, high sided lorries and flatbeds with containers on the back, they made there was through the maze of metal and came to another road and face to face with the glowing yellow M.
The smell of fast food hit them and Mike began to drool, it was like an addiction, go cold turkey for a while and the smell sets you off.
“Hey guys, can we grab a burger while we’re here? Been a long time since I had anything but army rats.”
The leading MPs barely glanced at him and the third MP walked straight up to Mike to push him into moving. Bad practice Mike thought to himself, it they really thought I was dangerous they would have one leading and the other two would be behind me, out of arms length behind me.
Across that car park, walking away from the smell and looking at a few dozen men and women who were wolfing down burgers, fries and milkshakes Mikes stomach rumbled to remind him that breakfast had been a mug of coffee and that had been a long time ago.
Mike’s attention was drawn back to where he was when walls loomed up on either side and he realised they had walked into the village of porta cabins. Several had the names of well known builders still on the sides. One double stack ahead of them had a pair of guards covering both the ground floor door and the external metal staircase that led up to the door above.
One of the MPs stopped by the guards and took some paperwork out of his pocket which the guard made a show of checking. Then both guards stepped back a little and went back to watching around them.
The MP turned and gestured Mike to enter then stepped in behind him, the other two stayed outside.
“Doctor Anders, this is the man you are waiting for.” The MP dropped the paperwork on the closest desk, turned around and stepped outside where all three MPS walked away. Towards the MacDonald’s Mike noted. Complete and utter bastards.
The porta cabin was chaos, metal tables down both sides and a long metal table up the middle of the room, a portable server of some sort in a metal frame sitting next to a fridge and an air conditioning unit against the wall at one end, empty shelves filled the other end. The table tops were covered with piles of paper, lap tops, monitors of varying sizes and several keyboards.
A mixture of secretaries chairs in the narrow gaps between the tables, different fabrics and colours and state of wear. Above the tables down each long side of the cabin were single glazed windows, heavy metal bars on the outside stopped the windows opening more than a few inches. Directly opposite the door was a blank wall, patches of old sellotape and blue tack indicated this had been used as a notice board though the only thing on the wall was a last years day planner and a small grubby picture that looked like it had been cut out of a glossy magazine. Female, twenties, fake blonde hair, fake smile, fake lips, fake and very big tits.
Oh and one inhabitant. A man, late fifties or early sixties, a full shock of white hair over a narrow face, thick glasses with metal wire rims, an actual white coat over, ruddy hell Mike thought, the bloke was wearing tweed.
“Mr Cullen, please come in, sit down. Take a chair. Delighted to meet you.”
Mike looked around and pulled up the chair that looked to be in the best condition.
“Look doc, doctor, what’s all this about, what’s going on?”
The doctor looked happy.
“We’ll find out what’s going on with you Mr Cullen, it’s what we do around here.”
The man in the white coat had fussed around his laptops and paperwork for several minutes while Mike sat there and thought about burgers, with cheese.
Finally he grabbed a random chair, pulled it over and sat down facing Mike.
“So Mr Cullen, oh can I call you Michael?”
“Mike, its Mike doc.”
“Ah yes, Mike. Now then Mike let’s start with the events of yesterday, I want to you to go through everything that you did yesterday, start from starting the patrol. I want to know everything that happened during the battle at the church.
#
Mike talked and the doctor asked questions then Mike repeated himself.
By the time he had finished he was very hungry, his mouth was dry from talking and he had a twinge in the small of his back from the chair.
The doctor had been listening carefully but oddly hadn’t been taking notes, then after mike had finished he glanced at one of the laptops. Mike looked at the same screen and noticed his face, the laptop camera was recording everything.
Thank you Mike, that’s fine for the moment. I’ll ask some more detailed questions later.
Mike grunted, he thought those had been detailed questions.
“OK doc, so what is going on then?”
Doctor Anders pushed his glasses up until the frames touched the bridge of his nose.
“Now that is an interesting question. I’m heading one of the research teams looking into the situation, my field is Theoretical Physics, specifically quantum physics. I’m looking at the physics of what the people who have been affected by what happened are doing.
I’m also the closest since we’re taking readings over the affected area and I like to be close at hand so I get the data fresh, oh and I get to handle the interviews.
Now you are an interesting case. Every example we have been studying so far is a clear manipulation or manifestation of one or more of the fundamental interactions of matter or directed energy releases.”
“A do what doc, how about you treat me like a squady and go from there.”
“Ah yes of course, sorry.
“We are still trying to identify all of the different manifestations of powers that we are seeing and given that many are hiding what they can do it’s not easy.
Several teams trying to divide the manifested into broad groups, specific powers and overall power levels but it’s extremely complex. Groups are easy, we look at the general way that the super acts and classify then in that way regardless of what powers they may have. For example a Brawler gets up close and fights, a shooter fights from range, a Tank simply gets attacked a lot with little to no effect, a brain has some sort of mental powers, speeders move very fast and so on. No I didn’t come up with the names.
Anyway what has us puzzled is how so many of these so called supers are able to act in defiance of the conventional laws of physics, they should not be able to do what they clearly can do. This is something that came in this morning which shows you what I mean, this video which was recorded a few days ago.”
The doctor touched the screen of his laptop and a short video began on the screen.
It was filmed from a mobile phone that was close to the action, the hand holding the phone was shaking so the recording wasn’t very clear but it was enough to show a section of street, shops with shattered windows and a line of burnt out cars in front of them. A woman came into view, maybe five feet tall and forty kilos dripping wet. She was wearing some sort of bright yellow full body stocking with a black one piece swim suit over the top and knee length black boots. Standard bizarre super costume but Mike had to admit it looked good on her. The girl ran up to one of the wrecked cars and grabbed the door frame with one hand and reached under the bottom of the car to grab the chassis with her other hand, she was just about able to reach. Then without any sign of effort she lifted the entire car into the air. The doctor paused the video.
“Now at this point what she is doing is possible, that’s a straight lift braced against the ground, well its possible with levels of physical strength far above that of a normal human. Watch what happens next.”
The video started again and the girl threw the entire car across the road at a target that was outside the shot.
“See that, do you see, she didn’t move, she threw the car horizontally and she didn’t move at all, we checked and that car is 870 Kilos and it was moving at 22 meters per second. That’s a huge amount of kinetic force, she can’t weight 50 kilos and yet she threw the car without the slightest sign of movement. Completely impossible, basic physics, equal and opposite force and all that.
Which is what led us, after some arguments it must be said, to quantum physics and the unified force. She is somehow acting as a focus and control for a manipulation of the underlying quantum energy field. It’s not her physically throwing the car, she is going through the motions but in reality the force to throw the car is quantum and as its pushing against a car on one side and the universe on the other side there is no movement in the middle.
What we are seeing is a manifestation of a unified field, energy control and change of all four of the main forces. The transformed changing so suddenly and so radically but still being alive, complete transformation at the atomic level both cellular and genetic. The transformed are such complete changes they will probably be able to breed with each other, well in most cases anyway.
Flying in some way, manipulation of the gravity part of the unified field, wings that would never get a full grown human off the ground and yet they fly.
Don’t you see, it’s clear. These so called supers are the result of a manifestation of the quantum unified field, somehow it not only emerged here in our reality but as an after effect the supers are still connected to it.
Amazing, absolutely amazing. I will be getting bestselling books out of this for decades. My colleagues are so jealous, they aren’t allowed this close to the quarantine.”
The doctor chuckled then noticed the look on Mikes face. “Was that ok or do you want me to make it simpler?”
“Quantum what?”
“Ah, let’s try this. Come over here Mike and push against this table.” The doctor pointed to the long metal table that ran most of the length of the room in the middle, it was piled high with reports, monitors and laptops.
Mike looked at the table and tried to guess how heavy it was. “How far do you want me to push it?”
“Just try to move it.”
Mike walked across to the table and gave it a tentative shove then leaned his whole body toward it and pushed,, the metal legs squealed as the table moved slightly.
“No, no, not like that, Stand upright like the girl did.”
Mike stood upright and pushed against the tabletop then took a half step backwards to keep his balance.
“You see, it’s a matter of force and weight. You push against the table but the force you use works against you as well, you are much lighter so without leaning over and bracing yourself you move and the table doesn’t.”
Mike thought for a second. “Right, so the girl should have gone backwards because using enough force to throw the car would have pushed her as well. She should have gone flying.”
“Exactly, but she didn’t move in the slightest. So the force wasn’t coming from her. Hence the quantum unified force theory.”
Mike grunted. “Makes some sort of sense, size doesn’t seem to make any odds with the supers, big muscle bound blokes or tiny little girls, same strength. I saw the solid metal kid, he’s maybe ten or eleven, I saw him take a grenade in the chest, it blew everyone near him off their feet but he didn’t even budge. Even if it didn’t hurt him it should have moved him, he doesn’t sink into the floor so he can’t be that heavy.”
“Exactly. All of the supers, well apart from you, are somehow.”
“I’m not a fucking super!” Mike clenched his fists and glared at the doctor.
“Ah yes, of course not. Clearly not a super, very unusual but completely different. Yes, not a super. Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you.”
The scientist managed to look pathetic with his pleading and Mike was shocked to realise that without meaning to he had scared the man enough that the doctor had gone pale. Mike unclenched his fists and tried to look less threatening.
“Not your fault doc, sore spot. Just don’t call me that again, call me Mike.”
“Yes, sorry, didn’t. Ah. Anyway the supers seem to be acting as focal points, their actions or thoughts seem to be manipulating the unified force somehow, the physical ones act out what they are doing, the energy projectors all have an action or clearly concentrate.
Physical and mental keys to using the field. But how they do it, that’s a much bigger question. Also what happened, why it was in a limited area, what caused it, can we detect it, prevent it or control it. So many questions. This could change our very understanding of the universe, the laws of physics are going to need a serious rewrite at the least.”
The doctor actually looked happy.
“Anyway, back to you. Is this the first time this has happened to you, what does it feel like, do you consciously do it, do you feel tired afterwards?”
“Whoa just a minute there doc. I don’t do anything, it just happened and it’s never. . .” Mike paused mid sentence as he started to think.
“Its, its happened before. Several times I think. The first super I killed, he was throwing lighting around but when I stood over him he pointed his fingers at me and nothing happened. The big fire fight outside the police station, I saw one of the soldiers, I thought he was going to shoot himself so I ran over to him, as soon as I got to him he stopped. He was being mind controlled by a super. A few other times maybe, I picked up my share of bruises and scrapes but never been directly hit by a super, come to think of it they never got close either.
All the glowing beams or balls of fire or lighting flying around. Never got hit by any of it though plenty around me did.”
Mike remembered something else, something that had happened about half the time he was in a fight with supers.
“I was cold, but it was inside, I could still feel heat on my skin, I could feel the heat of a burning building the first time I killed a super but inside it was like I was ice cold. The mind control chick, I was cold. The ambulance, I could feel the heat of the fireball coming towards me on my face then it was gone but it was like I was in the arctic without a parka.
Freezing cold inside.”
The doctor looked like a child with a new toy.
“Really. That’s fantastic, this is going to be great. You are somehow the very opposite of whatever makes the super powers work, that cold feeling, it could be you are suppressing the unified field, literally blocking the field, it must bleed across into our reality and suppress energy in your body as well, hence the cold feeling.
You could be the key to understanding all of this, if you are the other side of the equation we can begin to make some serious progress in understanding all of this. Once we understand it we can control it, and then stop it.
We are going to have a wonderful time investigating you.”
The doctor was smiling again, a wide grin, a happy man.
Mike sighed deeply and wondered if there was any beer around.
“Mike.”
Nine
“Mike.
MIKE!
Are you all right Mike?”
Doctor Rosen was leaning forward, almost touching his screen.
“Yea, yea. I’m alright. Sorry Doc, another bloody flashback. Been having them all day, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
The doctor sat back in his chair but kept his eyes on Mike. “This has happened several times today, tell me everything please.”
Mike started with the few second flashback in the pub car park, then falling asleep in the garden, the garage, by the church in town and just now. “Five times today doc, one was just a few seconds long, I get them a few times a week, but these others. Each a couple of minutes long, come out of nowhere. It’s like I’m reliving the past, dreaming about things that happened.
I can’t go anywhere doc, I was going for a drive but had a flashback when I saw my old jacket, this happens on the road I’d be dead.
What’s going on doc, is it the pills?”
Mike was worried, more worried than he thought he was showing but he had spent months working with doctor Rosen and the man could read him easily.
“Tell me Mike how long has this been going on, you said several times today, did it happen yesterday?”
Mike shook his head from side to side. “No, today, just today. Never happened before. Dreams at night, yea I get them, quick flashbacks, them too. These dreams while I’m awake, I never had these before. What’s going on doc?”
“That we will find out. Now Mike I need you to answer some questions, have you been taking any other medication over the last few weeks, any change in your diet or health?”
Mike thought about what he should admit to. “Food nothing new, drink, maybe a bit more than normal, I get drunk a few times a month, not much. Nothing new or odd over the last few weeks. You think I caught something, or ate something?”
Doctor Rosen steepled his fingers, a habit Mike recognised, the doctor was thinking.
“The dosage you are on, the length of time you have been taking it, if the dosage is too low or too high the changes would be gradual, not suddenly on a single day. Pharmacological interference, something else combining to give side effects, but so strong an effect and on one day. Unless it was something that took rapid effect.
No it couldn’t be a long term effect, must be short term, within twenty four hours.
It must be something that has taken effect in the last day or so, no other explanation for the strength of the reaction and the lack of preceding symptoms. Mike, you are still taking one tablet a day aren’t you, you haven’t been taking extra pills or skipping days?”
Mike’s first thought was lie or tell the truth After a few seconds of thinking he decided to go all out.
“I sort of, that is, I was getting headaches, bad headaches. I got drunk, very drunk, I spent a few days too drunk to do anything and I forgot to take the pills. But the headaches stopped so I, I sort of stopped, erm, taking the pills.”
Doctor Rosen managed to look like Mikes grandmother, the disproving look was exactly the same.”
“Mr Cullen, you should have called me when these headaches started. You stopped taking the pills, this would have been, what, two weeks ago, maybe three to allow your system to completely flush itself clean of the medication?”
“No, two weeks, no Doc, I stopped taking them a couple of months ago.” Mike did a quick count. “Erm eleven weeks ago I think, ten or eleven weeks ago. I can check if you want the exact day, I have the bottles in the bathroom?”
The doctor looked puzzled. “Several months, that can’t be right, the pills are a strong anti depressant mixed in with a few special compounds for your metabolism and suppressants for your special condition. The effect would have worn off completely within a few weeks of you stopping. Tell me Mike, how have you been since then, without the medicine?”
“Fine, drinking a bit more, that’s all. I get the same dreams and flashbacks since I stopped that I got while taking the pills. It’s just today its gone weird.”
Mike was looking directly at Rosen’s face and caught a few expressions that the doctor quickly hid, the one when Mike said he was drinking a bit more had been clearly disbelieving.
“It’s not a problem doc, I drink a lot, sometimes get drunk, nothing special. Some days I drink more, some days less. It’s not like I suddenly started drinking a few days ago to cause this.”
Doctor Rosen nodded. “Mike I don’t think this is to do with your drinking, no this is something else. Without the pills for so long it must be something in the last day or so to trigger such immediate effects.
I would like you to write everything you have eaten and drunk for the last, lets say forty eight hours. The places you have been, anything you may have come into contact with, anywhere using chemicals. As comprehensive a list as you can manage.
Sent that to my office mail, I’ll pick it up from there.
Let’s try another approach. You said you had a flashback this morning, tell me about that.”
Mike settled back in the chair and started to reach for a beer before remembering that he didn’t have one handy and didn’t want to get one while talking to the doctor.
“It was in the village, some kids playing, running around and screaming. I remembered being in Manchester, during the terror attacks. A super was smashing up a bus station, a bunch of kids were screaming. It was just a flash, a few seconds.
Oh yea, there was another flash back. In the pub, another quick one, some kid with bright green hair and suddenly I was remembering one of the radiation supers, the green glow ones. That was a quick flash back as well.”
The Doctors hands were air typing above his desk. “So two flash backs today and four of these long waking dreams. How often do you have two flashbacks on the same day?”
Mike thought about that one. “Maybe a few times a year, if I’m really stressed out by something. Not often.”
The doctor carried on typing, his fingers rapidly flicking across the empty air above his desktop.
“Alright Mike, now tell me about these long dreams.”
“The first one, that was when it happened, I was at home in bed when the screaming started. Then I was on patrol when the army arrived and the real fighting started.”
Doctor Rosen’s hands moved from side to side, virtual windows being moved around.
“So your first two waking dreams were when it first happened and then the army arriving. What about the other two?”
No doc, that was my first dream. I was there when it first happened and then when we were trying to keep things going over the first few days. The first dream sort of jumped across several events.”
The doctor stopped typing and peered at Mike.
“Multiple scenarios within the same dream structure. Where any of the other dreams like that?”
“Yea, all of them. Well apart from the second, that was when my old police station was trashed in a super attack, that was when we had to move to the railway station. The first day of the big army push when it became a proper war.
The third dream was in the base at the railway station and on patrol. The day at the church where I found I was, well it was the day things changed.
This last one was in Bristol, then going out to the causeway and meeting doctor Anders. I was dreaming, remembering how he told me all about his theory about how the supers had powers. Turned out he was right but back then it was just wild theory.”
Doctor Rosen was back to typing. “So each dream relating to a short period of time or evens closely related to each other. Were there any dreams, any memories that didn’t relate to the rest?”
Mike shook his head no.
“Hum, that’s more of a positive sign, interrelated dream sequences based on specific memory recall.
Just a moment. The first dream was when it all started, then you said something about a police station being destroy so you had to move to a new base, then being at the new base then the most resent dream was you leaving the base.
Are all the dreams happening in chronologic order, are you having these dreams and memories in the same order they happened to you?”
Mike frowned as he thought about it. “Yea, yea they are. First few days, then a few days later, over a week later then days after that. Yea the dreams are all in order. That’s never happened before, my night time dreams, they are all over the place. One night it could be the fighting in Bristol, another the last few days of fighting that new years, then another night it could be end of the first year.
I never dream in order, not like this.
Doc, what the fuck is going on?”
Doctor Rosen stopped typing. “Mike, I would like you to come and visit me in the morning. The London office is too far so come to my house; I have a full facility set up here.
I would like you to start taking the pills, take one today. Pack an overnight bag, a few changes of underwear and the like. I may want you to stay here for a day or two. Do you still have my home address?”
Mike flicked his fingers to activate a corner screen and bought up his friends and contacts list, he quickly found Rosen’s contact details, the London office and the home address in the country, about an hour away by car. “Yea, I have the address.”
“Good, come round tomorrow morning. Or if this gets worse then come round tonight, I’ll set the house to alert me. Mike this may just be something you have been exposed to, food, drink, something you didn’t notice but I would rather be overly careful than not.”
Mike nodded then a thought struck him. “Doc, I’m doing OK money wise but whats it going to cost, weekend calls, a day with you?”
Doctor Rosen chuckled. “You, nothing. You are still covered by veterans support. Normally it’s for a year or two but given the, the special circumstances you are on lifetime cover. The government pays. So don’t worry about my exorbitant rates and don’t worry about these dreams. Come over tomorrow, stay for a few days, I’ll have a few tests run, blood checks, that sort of thing. Don’t worry Mike, we will sort this out.”
Mike nodded. He didn’t feel all that confident but the doctor seemed sure it wasn’t that bad. Of course he was a psychiatrist, his job was making people feel better.
“Sure doc, I’ll get a taxi and come round tomorrow.”
“Good, now don’t forget, one pill tonight and draw up that list of everything you have been up to. Send it over tonight if you cane, that will give me time to have a look before you arrive.”
Mike nodded. “Sure doc. And thanks.”
The doctor shut down the connection and the screen went back to the English Telecom logo then bought up Mikes personalised page, a few news feeds, his email and message queue and the weather.
Mike considered sitting there for a while, maybe watching the news but there was a problem. The beer was in the kitchen. Sighing he heaved himself up out of the leather arm chair and walk to the fridge. He grabbed a cold bottle, after this he had one cold beer left. It would take an hour for the fridge to properly chill the new arrivals.
Still with a bottle in hand and one more cold one he could last an hour.
Holding the cold beer he walked down the steps and across the lounge to the wide open French windows, the heat of the afternoon was still in the air and he could feel droplets of water forming on the glass as he held it. He popped the lid and took his first gulp.
There were birds singing in the trees at the bottom of the garden, somewhere across the village he could hear faint music, it sounded to real to be a radio, someone’s music lesson or a secret performer.
The English countryside in summer, there shouldn’t be nightmares here, not dreams of old wars, not memories of death and destruction. It didn’t seem right to be standing here in such peace worrying about nightmares.
Mike sighed to himself, he was just putting off the inevitable, the pills.
He turned and walked across the lounge, into his bedroom and then into the en suite bathroom. He opened the cabinet and reached up for the open bottle, it rattled as he lifted it down. For some reason the sound disturbed him. He suddenly had an image in his mind, the bones of the dead rattling together as they fell down a slope of black ash.
“Fuck.” The morbid thought vanished as Mike swore out loud. “Where the fuck did that image come from?” Mike asked the question out loud but no one answered.
Mike sat on the edge of the bath, the bottle of pills in his hand. He knew what the doctor had said about taking the pills again, start immediately, one a day. But it wasn’t the pills, somehow Mike knew it wasn’t the pills. The headaches had been but they were long gone. The dreams, they were something else. He sat there, the dark blue bottle in his hand, wondering, go with his gut or do as the doctor said.
Outside he could hear voices then the sound of a lawn mower starting up. Mohammed in his back garden. The thrum of the electric mower came across the hedge between the houses and through the open window in the bathroom and the open French windows in the lounge.
A steady buzzing, then as the mower began to move across the grass the sound changed to a louder whirring, the blades cutting through the grass.
Spinning at high speed, cutting through the air. A whirl that almost sounded like a rapid whump whump whump.
Ten
Once you have spent enough time flying one, once you are tired enough, then the constant sound of a helicopter becomes almost soothing, something to lull you to sleep. Even the odd angles of armour and webbing sticking into tender parts of the body or seats designed for nothing even remotely human were not enough to keep you awake if you are tired enough or so used to the discomfort that you no longer notice it.
The heavy crunch of landing jarred everyone in the large passenger compartment and woke Mike Cullen from an uneasy sleep. He was barely awake and struggling to stand when the soldiers either side of him lifted him out of the canvas seat and turned him toward the exit ramp where other soldiers of the strike team were already filling out. Each heavily laden with equipment, canvas bags and rigid polymer cases.
Almost carried down the ramp Mike had no chance to look around until he was jogging across tarmac with yellow lines across it. The sudden surge of wind buffeting his back told him the helo was lifting off again and the roar of a second troop copter was coming from one side.
The first helicopter was airborne at maximum power and quickly moved away to join the pair of escorting attack copters that were hovering under the cover of no less than six fighters flying a race track a few thousand feet overhead. By the second years of this damn war the British armed forces had learned the hard way how to fight these supers and they had to trade firepower and technology against the individually far more powerful men and women with their strange powers.
Now it was the turn of the Germans and they had been paying attention to what the Brits had learnt. The first day Bonn went mad or super they rolled everything they had and they weren’t messing around.
The second Helo thumped down and two more squads of heavily laden men jogged down the ramp and across to where Mike was standing. As he turned his head to watch them approach he caught sight of where he was. This was the roof of a car park.
All four squads had reached the edge of the car park and dumped their bags by the doors of twin lifts. There were three German officers waiting there for them, two regular military and one with the badges of Grenzschutzgruppe 9, Germanys elite counter terrorism unit. Bags, boxes and men were loaded into both lifts till they were packed then they were sent down to the ground, everyone else waited.
Mike found he was sweating heavily already. The fierce summer sun was beating down from above and the tarmac under his boots was radiating yet more heat back up. With his almost bomb disposal level of personal armour he was in an oven and he quickly began to suffer. He lifted the visor on his helmet and tried to grab a canteen but between the torso armour with its heavy inserts, the shoulder and upper arm sections, the waist and groin protectors and the heavy gloves that covered him from his elbows to his finger tips he had no chance of getting the water. The science and engineering types were prototyping specialised body armour and weapons for the military to use against supers but they were still some way from full scale production. Mike had also been promised his own suit of personally customised armour and he had been laser scanned to get his exact measurements. But the armour was likely to be a month or two away so in the mean time it was a miss match of the heaviest body armour NATO had availalbe.
One of his nannies saw what he was trying to do, took a canteen from his own belt and unscrewed the lid before passing it to the thirsty man. Mike nodded his thanks before drinking the entire canteen of water, it may have been luke warm but it was as good as beer today.
His power was good, it saved lives but it had limitations, a super with great strength became just a man inside the radius, but outside that radius if the super picked up a car and threw it at Mike it was still a fast moving car and he would be a slow moving smear if it hit.
So when he had been drafted after Birmingham erupted one of the early officers working with him had given him a pile of body armour and a bodyguard team. Over time the concept of the bodyguards came to be seen as a bloody good idea and on every mission he would have a nanny squad with orders to keep him alive no matter what.
Which is how he came to be wearing enough armour to protect a small horse and with a four man team of the most lethal nannies and baby sitters in the world looking after him.
This mission it was Marine Commandos and some lads from the SAS. All British because only the British army trained with him and were used to working with him. This hadn’t been a problem until this year, the other European nations sent help, advisors and military units. NATO had activated its ‘Attack on One Member’ clause after Birmingham and the problem spread so it was fairly common to find European and US units supporting British troops on anti super operations.
Then a few weeks ago half of Bonn had gone crazy or become super, things had changed and now he was doing missions for the Germans as well as the British. The German government were muttering about having to have British troops perform the anti super missions just to get Mike and there was talk of German units being assigned to train with him and carry out missions in German with him supporting them. That was the plan but for today it was British troops standing on the roof of a German car park in the burning heat waiting for the slowest lift in the city to makes its way back up to them.
#
The two lifts finally made it back to the top and the doors opened. One lift was a pile of men and bags, the other lift remained empty for a few seconds and Mike and his escort walked in and squeezed themselves against the back wall. Others pushed in behind them and bags were thrown in as well. Whoever was closest to the control panel and could still move pushed a button and the doors slowly ground shut and the lift began its slow jerking trip down to the ground, the drive motors overhead wheezed and groaned under the load of soldiers and supplies.
Two more trips and the entire unit was down on the ground where a small fleet of German police vans waited with the back doors open. This time more care was taken with loading the equipment, they were going to drive to the bank where the supers were holed up, they could come under attack on the way or have to bail out into a hot zone. So bags and boxes at the front, troops by squad facing the back door with weapons ready. Mike and his nursemaids got a van to themselves and the remaining boxes and bags went in the sixth and last van.
The trip was short and silent, no sirens to give them away. Some light made it into the stifling interiors of the old police wagons through the tiny side windows and air vents, sweeping across the inside as the vans made their way across the city. Then one by one the vans went into shadow and slowed to a stop.
They were in an alley, a delivery lane between the backs of two long rows of shops, the alley was cluttered with police cars and vans. Something over a hundred meters down, towards the far end of the alley were a pair of armoured personnel carriers, parked side on to block the alley, half a dozen soldiers were crouched behind them facing towards the end of the alley. Snipers crouched on the roof tops looking the same way
The entire unit was waved into the loading bay of a shop on the left, a number of uniformed police came out to help with the bags and everyone quickly went inside. Concrete wasn’t much against a raging super but it was a lot better than being caught standing in the open in an alley with nowhere to run.
The men in those two armoured vehicles were safe from 95% of all supers. On the other hand that last 5% would turn those vehicles into burning metal coffins. More than a few of the British soldiers making their way into the imagined safety of the building glanced at the carriers and thought themselves bloody lucky to be infantry.
Inside they found a German supermarket, much cooler than outside. The customers long gone and replaced by German police and special response troops. Tables had been found somewhere to make up the command centre, covered with maps and monitors. The teams techs began opening hard plastic cases and pulling out all sorts of tech which they set to plugging together on whatever flat surface that had space.
The soldiers found floor space and dumped their packs and bags then mostly sat and checked their weapons and equipment.
Mike looked around and decided it was safe enough to remove his helmet which he then managed to do, the bulk of his armour may be a life saver but it made doing even simple tasks complex and time consuming. With the helmet out of the way his wet hair stuck to his head in a flat damp mass, but then he felt something, just a touch on the back of his head, a few hairs moved, dried and became cold.
Mike turned so quickly he wobbled and felt a gentle cold breathe of air on his flushed face. Ignoring the puzzled looks of his nursemaids he took several steps towards where the cold seemed to be coming from. Nothing. He walked a few steps more, then just continued walking to a doorway covered with opaque white plastic strips hanging down from the roof.
The cold seemed to be coming from between the heavy plastic slats.
#
Over the next hour the techs connected all of their equipment to the German sensor net, a pair of the SAS men had slipped out and quietly made their way to the roof where under the watchful eyes of the German snipers they had silently made their way down the row of shops along their rooftops. Reaching the roof of the bank that was the focus of all the attention they spend several minutes emplacing a number of their own sensors and bugs, some were carefully lowered down the front on rigid rods so they could peek into the ban through the windows, others were drilled into the soft tarmac of the roof.
They even dropped a pair of micro drones into the air vent of the banks air conditioning, then as silently as they came they made their way back along the roofs without being detected.
With a comprehensive network of sensors in place and active data began to flow in and it was time for the planning meeting. All officers and senior NCOs attended and they bought many years experience to examining the maps and floor plans of the bank along with the sensor information. The known locations of the supers were plotted, good lines of sight were noted for the team snipers with the anti material rifles they used, American fifty calibre bull pup rifles with armour piercing or homemade frangible rounds.
The planning needed to be done quickly, they had only a few hours of daylight left, even with night vision equipment the risk of the supers breaking out was much higher at night and the Germans wanted this problem dealt with before the supers escaped. Take out the supers, secure the area, saving the hostages if possible was third on the priority list.
This group of supers was small, the German supers had not yet begun to form the larger and much more dangerous gangs that the British faced. So for now it was like Bristol, small groups of high powered supers and lots of independent less powerful ones.
They had been active since the first day and they were extremely powerful, the smart types were still categorising and quantifying the supers but these seven were among the strongest and most aggressive in Germany. They had hit five banks in only a few weeks and left a body count every time. Usually they were in and out too fast to respond but this time one of them had been spotted by facial recognition software casing the bank and the whole thing was set up as a trap.
The supers had rolled in and robbed the place then rushed out into a gun fight. Unfortunately the Germans had overestimated their firepower and had only known about six supers, the seventh had been sitting on a roof some distance away and had hit the troops as they moved in.
So the supers were now in the bank, surrounded by police and troops, one additional super with ice powers had been spotted outside the cordon and being hunted by several hundred well armed and trigger happy security forces. General thinking was that he was part of the gang and had been on guard outside.
He had been identified as Snowstorm, known to have the ability to cause an intensely cold blizzard like effect that covered an area some thirty meters across and was cold enough to kill unprotected men and women in seconds,
Captain Marshal listened to what was said and quickly outlined his plan for everyone to consider. Suggestions were made and the plan was revised. Specific details were considered and either discarded or accepted. No one liked the thought of the hostages being expendable but the German government’s insistence that taking out the supers was more important that rescuing anyone made the planning simpler.
The planning was done in a hurry but it was coming together nicely, the Captain pointed to a wall on the map, between the larger front room of the bank and a row of small private offices. “Now if Mike can push his effect through this wall, most of the supers are behind the counters here, he should be able... Where’s Mike?”
He glanced at the closest bodyguards, a frown on his face saying more than his voice did. The Marine pointed a thumb towards the supermarket store room. “He’s covered.”
“Go get him; I want him to check he can do this before we move.”
One of the watching German officers spoke up, his English clipped but almost accent less. “I will go.” When the British captain nodded he spun on one heel and briskly walked across to the store room.
#
Mike was sitting comfortably on a cardboard box, the label was German but the picture looked like some sort of microwave meals. It wasn’t comfortable sitting in the armour but for the first time since reaching Germany he was cool.
The sound of the plastic curtain being pushed aside broke his train of thought and he glanced up to see a German special forces officer sliding between the plastic strips. Mike glanced at the ranks insignia on the officers collar and tried to remember the Briefing he had been given on European ranks.
“What can I do for you, erm, Oberleutnant is it?”
The German came to attention. “They would like you to join them Sir.”
Mike chuckled. “Don’t call me sir, I work for a living. I’m technically a sergeant or just call me Mike. He lumbered upright. “Lead on.”
After lumbering out of the fridge and back into the main room Captain Marshal quickly bought Mike up to speed, two squads assaulting, one from the front and one from the side, another squad firing through the front windows. Stun grenades everywhere without regard to the civilians and Mike moving into position as the attack started to shut down the supers as the troops went in.
Mike studied the map. “This wall, what is it?”
One of the Germans present leaned over the map to see where Mike was pointing. “Internal partition, schalldicht, sounding, it blocks sound.”
Mike nodded. “If you can get me here I can pull the zone in tight so they don’t notice anything then when you call it I can push out to cover most of this area, fourteen meters if I push it a bit.”
“Fourteen meters, you been practicing?”
Mike chuckled. “Yep, every day I’m not with you lot I’m being prodded and poked by the egg heads. I can pin point a single super at over two hundred meters now as well.
Captain Marshal nodded at that and looked thoughtful for a few seconds. “Can you, that’s good to know, we can use you with a sniper if that’s the case.”
That thought had occurred to Mike as well but it had only been the last few days that he had been able to focus on a small target at distance rather than producing a globe around himself, something in the training and practice just clicked and now he was pushing the range a few tens of meters a day.
“Any other questions?” There were none. Well there were plenty but the rush on this one meant that little details were being ignored or would be dealt with as they went along. Not the best way to deal with a bunch of insanely powerful supers who were known killers but in war you do what you must when you have to.
“Alright then, move out. I want everyone in position in fifteen.” Everyone present nodded and moved away from the table, no one saluted, rank insignia were all low visibility, no one wanted to make a target of any officers by doing anything stupid.
The soldiers moved out, packs and bags left behind, each man or woman carrying only what they need to kill supers.
#
Mike was crouched by the dividing wall, he was in one of the double row of offices that filled the back of the bank. He found himself staring at the light blue painted plasterboard and the single picture that hung on the wall. Some strange, almost cartoon like, landscape. Trees, fields and old fashioned houses in the distance.
“Neg in position” Click.” Shield in position.” Click. One of Mikes guards used a burst transmission to alert the captain that they were ready. Other clicks came across the channel, each one being decrypted into a few seconds of message. The system was a pain to use for long messages but for quick reports or comments under five seconds it turned them into nothing more than a clicking or crackle.
Without matching decryption it was often mistaken for static. With some supers that could hear into the radio frequency old fashioned scrambling didn’t work. They couldn’t understand what was being said but they could hear that people were talking by radio and if it was scrambled that told them it was the security forces. The burst transmission prevented that because all the listening supers heard were odd clicks.
One by one the other squads and covering German units reported they were in position and the word was given.
“GO!”
Mike concentrated and push his power out as far as he could, shivers of cold raced down his arms and legs as he forced the zone outwards all around him.
The glass front windows shattered, toughened glass no defence against high calibre bullets, a second behind the first rounds came grenades and with the windows shattering there was nothing to stop them as the bounced across the bank floor and began to explode like firecrackers.
The hostages were caught in a storm of shockwaves and sound blasts and shattered glass but they were sitting on the floor in the middle of the bank and so escaped the worst of the explosions which were engulfing the long bank counter behind which the supers were sitting.
So most of them survived the first few seconds with nothing worse than burst ear drums. The counter was shattered in numerous places, chunks of wood and several cash draws blown into the air by multiple blast grenades. Then the assault troops came in, literally charging into the clouds of dust and debris and firing as they came.
The first super to die was a middle aged man, overweight, a greying beard hiding several chins, wearing a dark suit and top hat. His powers were mental, he could confuse and befuddle, create illusions and force individuals to do whatever he wanted them to. He staggered to his feet, his suit now ripped and torn by the blast, his face speckled with blood, his top hat oddly untouched. He concentrated, trying to use his powers to distract the soldiers, but inside Mike’s zone he was nothing more than a target and three bursts took him down.
The second super to die was a teenager, male, long greasy black hair, leather jacket, torn jeans, tattoos, his winds could strip flesh from bone or flip a car over. He had taken delight in killing several police at previous raids. He staggered out from behind the wrecked counter, blood pouring from his ears, his eyes filling with blood from face and head wounds and screaming for his mother.
His mother wasn’t there and couldn’t have stopped that many bullets.
Third and forth supers died together. A married couple, they had become supers side by side, they had robbed banks and laughed as they killed helpless victims side by side and now they died side by side. Neither able to use their powers because of Mike, they died as helpless as their many victims.
Number five had taken the pistols from several guards in the bank. His powers of speed and reaction were not functioning but he was able to lift the pistols above the counter and fire them, one in each hand. He wasn’t hitting anyone but the British soldiers ducked into whatever cover was available. Then both pistols clicked, empty. A burst message over the radio. “Hold, grenade.”
The troops held their positions for a few seconds as one of the soldiers outside used the latest in US tech to fire a grenade that detonated exactly above the crouched supers head.
It was the blast and smoke from this that hid the last and final super, from the eyes of the troops. The first warning anyone had that the final super was moving was the sound of the partition wall being torn apart.
Mike and his team were in the middle office to give the negation zone maximum coverage of the bank, the supers had been on the other side of the wall and it was through this wall that the super came. The wall torn apart with ease by his claws and strength.
Everyone was caught by surprise as the tall muscle bound wolf like figure smashed through the wall and into the room, claws and strength seemingly not affected by Mikes power. One of the Marines went down, bowled over by the big super and a section of wall that hit him. The SAS man across the room covering the corridor outside turned with reflexes that would put a snake to shame and put five rounds of nine mil into the supers hairy chest.
The super didn’t seem to notice and instead turned to slash out at the closest target. Mike. The transformed super’s muscles could bench press a small car and drove it’s two inch long claws into Mikes chest with crushing force. The blow slammed Mike sideways, into the wall and then through the wall as the whole structure, damaged by the super going through it, collapsed completely.
The remaining marine and SAS trooper recovered quickly and also opened fire, they could see their rounds hitting, spurts of blood marked every bullet, but the wolf like super in torn jeans and a leather vest seemed to feel no pain. It growled like an animal and turned toward the closest soldier then snapped its head round to look though the fallen wall into the main room of the bank as both assault squads came into view.
It snarled and leapt across the room to the door, smashing the wooden door and door frame into splinters as it crashed into the corridor.
“Transformed werewolf. FIRE EXIT!”
The creature vanished from view down the corridor.
“Mike, where’s mike?” The three standing soldiers looked around, seeing only wreckage and the marine on the ground who was pushing bits of wall off his legs.
“We lost Mike, fuck. FUCK. Find him!”
All three of them moved to the wrecked wall which had been the last place they had seen Mike, they had one job, just one.
The closest soldier reached the hole and looked through, smoke, a shattered bank counter, sections of wall and soundproofing foam everywhere. The remains of a super shredded by an airburst. A boot, British army issue, size twelve. Attached to a leg with a hard plastic riot greave, disappearing under a section of wall.
All three climbed through and grabbed the wall section, trying to lift it. The sheet came apart in their hands but they frantically dragged the pieces away and reached into the mound of foam and debris to grab Mikes webbing and armour.
They started to pull him out from under the wreckage then stopped as he shouted in pain. “Shit he’s hurt. MEDIC!”
Soldiers from the assault squads went past them, German troops began coming in through the shattered front windows. Follow up soldiers from the British contingent were also moving in, making sure the downed supers were dead by putting a burst into their heads.
Both team medics pushed their way across to Mike and knelt beside him as the action moved outside. From behind the bank through the smashed wall and torn open fire door came the hammering of heavy machineguns and the crack of sniper fire as the werewolf met the forces covering the alley behind the bank.
Mike groaned as one of the medics pushed the last of the wreckage off him and started checking for the damage. He managed to gasp a word through the pain. “Chest”.
The medic on the left checked and found the holes the claws had punched through the steel plate and through the Kevlar underneath. Blood was beginning to seep up through the layers of armour.
“Chest wound, under the armour. Stretcher fast.” The medic tried to remove the chest armour to get to the wound. “How the hell do you? Someone get over here and help me get this bloody armour off Mike!”
Mike was struggling to breathe, gasping for air, his chest was fire and pain. The medic that wasn’t trying to unbuckle his armour leaned over, there was a sharp pain in his neck and the pain vanished into fluffy warmth and everything slowed into darkness.
Proper title to be decided.
By Jim King
One
It had been twelve years since the war was declared over. Twelve years of rebuilding, of trying to move on from the death and the destruction. The big cities had been hit the hardest, suffered the most destruction. They were still digging the remains of yet another unknown victim out of some pile of Rubble they hadn’t gotten too since the war.
Bristol and Birmingham had suffered the most, both had been what the science types called emergence zones and so had the most fighting. But no city was spared and during the last year or so when the governments were finally winning the remaining supers turned to destruction and terrorism.
But in a way the destruction had been a good thing. Not at the time of course. But now with so much to rebuild they were rebuilding everything. Unless it was a historic building it was knocked down. The new cities were open and green, building up not out and with trees and grass everywhere.
All that Victorian infrastructure was gone, being replaced with twenty first century technology and efficiency. The old was being bulldozed and built over and the old ways were all but gone as well. The new cities were bright happy places, everything anyone could want and there it was, just a short trip away on public transport. At least that’s what everyone claimed.
It cost, oh how it cost. But there was no choice; the damage was just too extensive to leave. But it was a funny thing; taxes had gone up but not as much as everyone feared. But the old ways had gone along with most of the fraud and inefficiency and waste. Even now you could still see the adverts, the ‘All in it together’ jingle and the anti waste campaigns that came round every year.
So things were looking better. The war had been like a storm, it had blown away the debris of history, created a fresh clean slate, a new start. The air was cleaner, you could even see it in the faces of people in the streets. So many had faced death, lost loved one. It had been us against them and that spirit of unity still existed. People cared about each other, like in the really old days.
Everywhere you looked it was mostly the same. A new world. Except out here that is, here and a few other places like it. Hidden away in the countryside. Old villages half filled with people who for whatever reason didn’t want to change or couldn’t be part of the new world. Little pieces of the old world, left behind and forgotten by the new world.
#
This village was tiny, sixty two houses and a pub. Nineteen of the houses were empty and the pub only stayed in business because of a government subsidy. The closest shop was in town, a half hour trip along forgotten back roads. Some of the locals did a big weekly shop for those who couldn’t make the trip. The supermarkets wouldn’t deliver out here, too far or they couldn’t find the place. So it was left to old Tom and his van or the Macey sisters with their hatchback or the once a month trip in the old mini bus owned by the hippy couple by the river.
Old Tom and his lad Tony had just come back from their this week’s trip. Their big old white transit was parked in the pub car park and a steady stream of people were arriving to collect their shopping. Tom was sitting on a stool chatting with his neighbours, a tablet in hand taking orders for next week and checking payments had come through before people took their goods. Tony was in the back of the van, sorting bags and loading people’s baskets or wheeled trolleys.
Several people even had the little robotic follow me trolleys which were fairly common in the cities but most tut tutted and stayed with their old pull alongs.
Tom finished talking to Miz Harkins, thats Miz, none of that Miss or Mrs, just Miz thank you very much, and she was turning away to walk her basket home when he noticed a figure in an old faded army jacket come round the tall hedge and enter the car park.
“Mike, how’s life treating you?”
The man in the jacket looked up from staring at the worn and cracked tarmac. “Afternoon Tom, about usual I guess.”
Tom tapped his tablet. “I was a bit surprised to see an order from you today, not often you need a shopping run. Problems?”
“Yea, ruddy landy is pissing oil all over the drive. I bought the replacement parts ready to fix it myself but they say it’ll take a week to get it out to me, some crap about outside their delivery zone of some such.”
Tom nodded. Everyone knew the big city companies gave the villages a shit deal, no real reason, just because they were city folk and you weren’t.
“No problem mate, your money’s good. If you need a run next week just send me an order. How are you fixed for transport?”
Michael Edward Cullen laughed. “I’m back to being a biker. I pulled my old 600 out of the garage and took it apart. It was in pretty decent shape and I had some jacked up shocks on it anyway so it’s good enough for the roads round here, I’m mobile. Me, back on a bike, wind in my hair and flies in my teeth.”
Tom laughed at that and pointedly glanced at the slightly younger man’s head. “What hair?” then he started laughing again and Mike joined in. By the time Tony poked his head around the van door to see what was going on both men were laughing so hard they were having trouble trying not to fall over.
Seeing Sergeant Mike standing there Tony ducked back into the van to collect Mike’s shopping, muttering something about crazy old men loudly enough that both older men could hear. That just started them laughing even more.
Eventually they stopped laughing and talking, Mike picked up the two baskets that were now full of his shopping and nodded to Tony before saying his goodbyes to Tom.
Mike walked across the pub car park and round the few cars parked there, a couple of families with relatives in the village had come round for lunch and a pint. The grownups were sitting at the outside tables, the kids running around playing on the grass. Shouting, laughing and screaming. Kids screaming.
Children screaming. A burning bus, the front half crushed flat, a handful of children crouched by the emergency exit at the back with a teacher, screaming in fear as the brawler class super that had just smashed the bus turned towards them and lifted his clenched fists.
Mike blinked away the memory and carried on walking, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him.
The village didn’t have many houses or people but it was spread out, it was a several minute walk back to Mike’s home. But the sun was shining, the air was fresh and filled with the scent of summer flowers and the walk was over before he realised it. His mood of a few minutes ago was gone along with the memory and he was surprised to find he was enjoying the sunshine.
Mike Cullen lived in one of the old cottages that made up maybe half the houses in the village. The original stone walls were a few hundred years old but still solid for all that. The roof was newer. Completely replaced ten years ago when the builders did the extension out back and upgraded everything.
The front windows were small, triple glazed in brown plastic frames to match the look of the place. Drive past on the road and all you would see was a small slightly scruffy garden, a few gnomes standing around a small pond and some flower beds and bushes. The cottage roof gleamed in the afternoon sun, last generation solar tiles, plastic but they almost looked like slate. The door, actual wood with a little bell and a half moon window of coloured glass.
Nothing to stand out, just a humble little cottage in a backwater village. Till you had a look inside or round the back, but only a few friends ever got there, or the builders from back when the work was done.
The extension had more than doubled the size of the house, the old kitchen and dining room had become just the kitchen. A new dining room and down the steps to the lounge which formed the left half of the extension stretched out into the back garden with triple glaze auto tint glass walls and a big French window. The new master bedroom with luxury on suite filled most of the right side of the extension, the back one of the pair of old bedrooms had been lengthened into the extension and had become a spare bedroom. The old front bedroom had been turned into an office of sorts though it was seldom used for anything other than memories.
The back garden sloped down from the old house and so the extension was lower than the old house, down four steps in fact. The roof was the same height as the old house which left an entire upstairs loft room available. Mostly it was full of boxes and old furniture covered in dust sheets.
The garden itself had fruit trees, bushes and long beds of flowers wrapped around a lawn big enough for a fair game of football. Down at the bottom, far from the house, was a shed, big for a garden shed but nicely settled and worn into the surroundings. Every tool you needed for the garden but Mike hadn’t been in there in years. Mo did the garden and ruled the shed.
Mohammed, the neighbour to the left, was a gardener. He hated to see a garden unloved or uncared for and he spent his time tending many of the gardens and the commons in the village. In fact most of the empty houses looked lived in because he made sure the gardens were all neat and tidy. The villagers chuckled and laughed and bought him gardening tools and loved him for his fussy care.
All in all life wasn’t bad. Between Mike’s old army pension, plus his police pension and all the bonus money he picked up in the war he didn’t want for anything. Not that he spent much these days. The cottage had been a gift after the war, his own house hadn’t survived the war and he had spent the war years living in army bases or hotels.
So the cottage was welcome and the unspoken message, that they didn’t want him living in the new city with the new people and the new society. Well that was unspoken and so ignored. To be honest this was better, too many memories in the cities as they were and no memories of what they were becoming. So the village had become his home and the other outcasts living here had become his neighbours.
Sometimes Mike wondered what they had done to be sent here. On a long winter night his thoughts wandered and the few things he had overheard combined with his imagination, it was one way to spend a quiet evening, speculating on what deeds your neighbours had done to get them exiled from society. Better than the repeats on the box anyway.
Mike kicked his door open, it was never locked. The house security system recognised him and didn’t do anything hostile and the door was only wood so why lock so flimsy a barrier. Something else from the war, home security had taken on a whole new attitude and while it was slowly fading away again, out here in the sticks just about everyone used active security and never bothered with locks.
He walked into the kitchen and put both baskets on the central island. He would have preferred a table so he could move it around but at the time the builder had talked him into the island with its cupboards and gadgets. Still he could live with it and the built in coffee machine was just what he needed to get his mornings going these days.
He shrugged his way out of his jacket and threw it over the back of the closet dinning chair, he would hang it on its hook just inside the front door later, probably.
The food into the cupboards, the tins on the shelves, the chilled into the built in fridge and the frozen into the chest freezer that was hiding under the kitchen counter. Once that was all done he was left with a few items, bathroom stuff he left in a bag and office stuff. He would do the bathroom later. The office stuff he would do now and get it out of the way.
What had been the old main bedroom was now his office. It didn’t seem that big to be honest, a long desk under the window and the back wall filled with shelves and book cases. He sorted the items he had bought in then reached down to open the door to the server stack beside the desk. New ink cartridges were loaded into the laser printer, the new paper slid into the draw under the printer until it was needed.
The other items were left on the desk, some pens and pencils were replacements he didn’t need yet. The cleaning oils and clothes, he wouldn’t need those for a few weeks but he left them on the desk as well. Not something he wanted to put away just now. Later on, when he was in the right mood. Not now.
Back in the kitchen he opened the fridge again and pulled out a bottle of cold beer. Then he walked down the four steps into the dining room and lounge, the sliding French windows were wide open already and he wandered out into the garden to his favourite thinking spot. A low and comfortable garden chair, deep cushions and its own powered self setting umbrella to shade it from the overhead sun. He settled down and popped the cap off the beer bottle that was quickly becoming covered with drops of condensation as the sun hit the cold glass.
Someone was burning something, far enough away that he couldn’t see any smoke but he could smell it. Burning wood and other stuff.
He took a deep drink and put the bottle down on the small table kept beside the chair for just that purpose. He settled back in the chair, the day was warm and still, he was comfortable and his thoughts began to drift as the smell of the smoke bought old memories to mind.
Two
It was overcast, both clouds and the smoke from fires blocking the late afternoon sun turning it into twilight. The air stank of burning, didn’t matter where you went, the whole city had the same smell.
Every so often ash would fall from the skies, the sound of gunfire and battle drifted across the city from several directions. What few firemen left on duty didn’t have enough engines and the water was out in a lot of places; they were trying to keep the two hospitals safe which was all they had the manpower to do till they got a lot more help from outside the city.
Rubbish, wreckage and abandoned cars littered the streets and made driving difficult so most traffic was by bike or cycle or on foot. People walked or more often ran from one place of imagined safety to another. Alert for snipers or random death.
Fire, lightning, shrapnel, the remains of a shattered building or a falling car. The ways to die were many and varied, but death, that was certain.
A vast tide of refugees had tried to flee, on the first day it was just a few, by the middle of Wednesday it was a torrent of people trying to leave, producing complete gridlock, combined with the rapid destruction of the transport network caused by the fighting, a hundred thousand people trapped in the streets with no shelter and no protection.
Many had then decided to go home where they at least had some cover from the weather and familiar surroundings, others had broken into strangers’ houses or found shelter where they could. Food and water had become vital and by Thursday just about every shop or supermarket had been emptied.
Attempts to bring in supplies from outside the city were ongoing but since the roads were mostly blocked, and any convoy came under attack, it was slow going.
The army had gotten moving at last. According to the morning briefing at the nick they had pushed across the M4 motorway and set up supply and refugee camps along the A4174 ring road. Of course getting to them was hardly easy and them getting supplies into the city would be far more difficult.
In fact given what news and orders were heard coming out of London the state of emergency was more about containing the situation rather than helping the people.
“Contain the situation”, Mike said to himself. “Fucking brilliant idea as I’m trapped in here along with the madness and the mutants or whatever the hell they are. A situation, that’s not what we call it, or them. We call them a lot of things but mostly we call them supers. Like something out of a kid’s comic but no comic I ever heard of was this end of the bloody world.”
It was, what, Tuesday morning when it happened, today’s Friday so three days ago plus a few hours. Three whole days since the event, three days to destroy the city and kill thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even more. No way to know how many fled, how many are hiding and how many are under the rubble. Few enough on the streets, just the desperate, the suicidal, the violent, oh and a handful of police like Mike Cullen trying to keep control and protect people.
#
Tuesday morning. It was the shouting that woke Mike, and the screaming, then the fire alarm going off. Most of the people in the building had gone mad, shouting and screaming and making noise.
Mike was out of bed and had his boots on with his home security in hand before he was even awake, home security being the length of iron pipe that he keep planning on putting away, honest officer. Mike was half way to the door responding to the screams when he started to think and realised he was starkers. Well apart from his Doc Martins, but otherwise a bit chilly.
By the time he had pulled on some clothes things had gotten bit quieter but he took his pipe along with him when he went to check the neighbours. It was crazy, everyone was, different. Some physically, others even stranger changes.
The old woman from upstairs was green, her skin, her hair, bright green. Her cat was having a fit hissing and spitting at her, she didn’t know what was happening. The couple across the corridor were making a lot of noise or at least the boyfriend was. The girl had changed, her fingers and toes were about three times as long and her neck was weird, it had split into a bunch of frilly openings and she was gasping to breathe.
Mike was as freaked out as everyone else but sixteen years in the forces teaches you to think and act no matter how freaked out you may be. Her neck, the webbing between her long fingers and toes. Like she had turned into some sort of fish person. Mike shouted at the boyfriend to help and together they filled the bath to the top and put her in, talk about unbelievable, she was underwater, breathing and all, her gills things moving in and out.
Everyone else was changed as well, apart from Mike, well he had no physical changes and he didn’t feel like he could do anything new. At least he wasn’t hearing people’s thoughts like the old man from the ground floor apartment.
That bloke just kept screaming at everyone to stop shouting at him. Mike had gone to talk to him which seemed to calm him down then left him alone in his room and walked away.
Once things had been sorted in the apartment building Mike tried to call in, get an ambulance or car round to help but all he got were busy lines or the answer phone message, your call is important, yeah right. Then his mobile went off, it was the station calling everyone in, the whole city had gone crazy and it was all hands on. He left everyone alive and more or less happy and went to find the bus down to the town centre and the station.
No buses running of course, a few cars racing around at above the speed limit. Some people in the streets, some wandering as if confused. Others were running. Then Mike suddenly looked up as he heard laughter above him and saw a pair of people flying overhead, yep flying, he had to look twice but they were flying. One doing a superman and the other with black feathered wings coming out of her shoulders. Both doing one fifty, maybe more. But a fair clip either way.
For that first day it was chaos, people were struggling to understand what was going on and we were trying to keep order. A lot of people needed help. Some people had changed so much they could no longer live in our atmosphere. There were several colonies of mermaids and mermen in swimming pools. Even one child who was in a total isolation unit breathing methane.
As the day passed it became clearer what was going on, why, now that was another story altogether. But the city had a bunch of scientists and more flying in all day, by plane or helicopter, not with wings. Bristol being the only place it had happened, whatever it was.
About 90% of the population had, changed, somehow. One in ten seemed to be immune or not affected. Mike being that one in ten with no powers. One in ten seemed to have really powerful individual powers or multiple more moderate abilities. The rest were a spread, most with a single moderate power or a couple of weaker ones. Some could use a weak power all day, others for a few minutes before they needed to rest.
Some powers seemed to suit the person, there was a doctor who could accelerate the regenerative ability of a human body, he had spent his whole life trying to heal everyone and now he could. One young lad was bullied at school and beaten at home, now he was made of some sort of living steel that a tank shell would bounce off. Some who wanted freedom could fly. At the lowest end Mike had met one bloke who could boil a pint of water then needed an hour of rest. At the top end there were fast, strong, flying, x-ray vision, walks through walls and a hundred more besides.
The science types said they were going to catalogue and quantify everyone’s abilities and power levels, they would have some answers in a month or so. In the meantime what was left of the city council and emergency services were all trying to cope.
It was the chaos that hid what was happening at first, half the force didn’t turn up for work, they were off trying to understand some new super power or other. The rest of the police along with the ambulance teams that were left and a steady stream of help coming in from outside the city were constantly going to one emergency or another.
Mike was trying to deal with some teenage tearaway who was running wild, running wild meaning about eighty miles an hour all over the town centre. While trying to keep up he went past the branch of the RBS and noticed in passing that it had been trashed, windows smashed in and such. Mike didn’t remember any reports or an alarm call but half the alarms in the city were going off so he wasn’t surprised it had been missed.
It was into the evening and Mike was frankly knackered so he took a break for some food and spoke to some of the other guys, most of them were from out of town, brought in as reinforcements and they didn’t know the place but they had been noticing things as well. Places that looked like the aftermath of a riot but no sign of any people, there was still some sort of fire brigade on Tuesday and they were racing around putting out a lot of fires, many of which had no clear cause. Dead bodies as well.
Looting, disorder and chaos and the police simply weren’t seeing it happen, just finding the remains.
After about twenty hours Mike crashed, he couldn’t get home so he slept on one of the couches in reception. Everyone at the station was hot bunking the battered old couches so each person got a few hours nap on a couch.
About dawn Mike was grabbing a mug of seriously strong police coffee when he caught a message about a battle over by the stadium. It was confused but it was clearly several people fighting and according to eye witnesses one of them was throwing lightning from his hands.
Mike went out on that shout but his car was diverted mid-way by reports of a burning figure that was attacking the fire men who were trying to put out a building on fire.
By the time Mike got there the fire engine was a burning wreck, several of the firemen were hurt despite their fire jackets and the burning figure was long gone.
That was when Mike took a good look around and noticed just how many of these supers were wearing costumes of some sort. It looked like every costume shop in the city had been raided, the rest were in makeshift stuff.
One woman was even flying around with what looked like a brightly patterned curtain as a cloak.
Plus the more powerful supers seemed to be grouping up and acting oddly, some were acting as if they were setting up their territory, others seem to be patrolling.
Things were getting even stranger and we were getting more and more reports of fighting.
By midday it was a lot clearer, the more powerful supers had split into what seem like three groups. The two largest groups were acting like heroes and villains, defending, robbing and fighting each other. The third and smallest group were doing all sorts of weird stuff like the burning figure who was just setting buildings on fire.
The city had become a war zone like something out of a comic or a Sci-Fi movie, that was when the destruction got really bad and most of what emergency services we had left were trashed or found themselves involved, what with many of them being supers.
Communicating was getting worse, some parts of the city still had working cell towers so mobiles worked, other parts had a radio repeater that still survived so the police radios could be used. Some areas were completely cut off, those were often the most dangerous since the more damaged areas were where most of the supers were to be found.
Still it’s not like there were enough police to provide backup but we had enough organisation to keep going. Some local volunteers had been coming forward to join us, plus the reinforcements from the emergency services outside the city who had been arriving in groups.
They started coming in Wednesday, they were pouring in Thursday which was good because by Thursday morning just about every powerful super in the city had joined in the fighting, coppers who had changed but stayed on duty with us Tuesday and Wednesday never turned up Thursday. Mike saw a few of them in some sort of costume, even saw one jumping across the rooftops still in his beat uniform.
Odd but Mike didn’t remember seeing any new faces that morning at the Friday morning briefing, maybe they were briefed somewhere else, let’s face it anyone arriving new to all of this would need one hell of a briefing.
So anyway the police had plenty of 4X4s, trucks and heavy equipment like JCBs along with some people that could drive them. Fuel wasn’t a problem, no one was looting it with most of the roads blocked or impassable to anything not an off road type. It’s strange but ask a dozen coppers how to jack a petrol station and two of them will know. On account of having investigated said crimes, obviously.
Food and water was more of a concern, what with all the extra mouths to feed but the station had been made one of the contact points by whoever was in charge of getting support in so what supplies made it in came to us to be distributed.
So it was Friday, late morning and Mike was walking across St Pauls. As he patrolled he checked any houses that looked occupied, just to make sure people were ok. A lot of houses round here had people living in them not the owners, but the owners were probably living in some other empty house for shelter. Hell maybe they were squatting each other’s houses, things were that strange.
“FREEZE. HANDS IN THE AIR!”
Mike froze, the shout had come from off to one side. He glanced that way and saw a pair of figures rise from behind a wrecked car. Squadies.
“Hey the army’s arrived, we’re saved.”
Mike turned towards them then stopped when both raised their rifles and took aim.
“Whoa guys, easy with the rifles. I’m police. Foot patrol.”
They glanced at each other then back to me. “Prove it.”
Ruddy hell Mike thought, these two were armed, dangerous and wet behind the ears.
If he didn’t get shot Mike promised himself he was going to find their Sergeant and have some serious words.
“You young gentlemen see the uniform, the high viz, do you see the hat, the badges. Police!”
The older of the two, by maybe a whole two years, lowered his rifle and the other followed. “Sorry, don’t know what is going on here, you could have been one of them infected.”
Mike laughed. “Do I look like a super, you see me flying or any such?”
They glanced at each other then back to me. “Look, we’re sorry but we don’t know what an infec … A super looks like, we were told to keep our eyes open.
Mike caught something they had said. “You said Infected, infected with what?”
The two soldiers looked at each other then the older one spoke.
“That’s what we was told before we was sent here. Unknown infection, not contagious so we didn’t need suits or gas masks. Mass rioting and panic, people infected were driven mad and could do strange things like be very strong. There was a load of scientific stuff no one understood but the joke was it was mad cow disease.
Once we got here we knew it wasn’t a joke but the officers and the orders are still talking about people being infected.”
The solider looked around at the destruction and then up into the sky at the pillars of smoke rising across the city from fires. “This sure as fuck ain’t no disease, more like a disaster movie or one of them zombie movies with Brad Pitt. That’s what the guys, err, the platoon are saying. Zombies. No one said anything about supers, what is a super anyway?”
Even worse Mike thought to himself, what bloody idiot sent these puppies in here armed and didn’t bother telling them what was going on. “You two got an officer around here somewhere?”
It turned out they did and they led Mike to meet him. Two army trucks, an army land rover and some sort of eight wheeled troop carrier with a light turret. Plus a dozen squadies and one fresh lieutenant standing next to a field radio shouting into the headset.
“Afternoon. Nice to see the army at last.”
Everyone looked toward Mike. The officer spoke first to do that whole take control of the situation thing they still teach. “Who would you be and what are you doing here, this area is under military jurisdiction.”
Mike stomped to attention and saluted just to prove who was more of a soldier, proper parade ground stomp and all. “Special Constable Cullen Sir. Duty patrol constable for this area. Wasn’t told the military were taking over, Sir!”
The lieutenant looked Mike up and down. Dusty and dirty, a uniform that had been slept in three times now. The sneer was obvious. “Aren’t you a little old to be a Constable, you look like one of those refugees in the camps.”
“Part time job to eke out the pension sir, you know how things are, hard to make ends meet on a sixteen year NCO’s pension.” From the Para’s as it happens so Mike wasn’t going to take any crap from a squeaky new light infantry flower.
Before the pair could exchange any more in the way of comments the radio burst into life, the officer had other pairs of squadies posted and one lot had just seen five people in bizarre costumes break into the building society at the other end of this road. Were they infected? The flow... erm officer wanted to know. Seems likely, given that one of them tore the security bars out of the wall and then smashed a hole in the window with his bare hands.
The officer called to his men and set off at a run, everyone apart from the vehicle drivers followed and Mike decided to jog after them. No idea why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
On foot they made good time, just a few minutes to reach the pair on guard opposite the building society. Mike looked around noticed they were standing outside an old hotel. This was not a good spot for a fire fight, the hotel was full, the staff had stayed put and the police had sent a lot of refugees here and put them in the empty rooms.
Maybe thirty families and another twenty or so singles plus the staff.
“Lieutenant we need to move, this hotel is full of people.”
The officer didn’t get a chance to reply, a brightly dressed figure stepped out of the wreckage that was the front of the building society and came face to face with the soldiers. The man, Caucasian, mid-forties, balding, bad dress sense, was startled then raised both his arms and suddenly some sort of blue glow flared to life around his hands.
Several of the soldiers didn’t bother with that whole halt and surrender stuff, they just opened fire and multiple hits threw the corpse backwards with bright red added to the blues, greens and yellows that he was wearing.
There was a sudden pause then something like a flamethrower fired from inside the building. Three of the squadies went up like torches, ammo cooking off in the few seconds that they danced before they collapsed into ash and shattered bones.
Mike swore to himself. “Jesus. No one deserves to go that way”. The other soldiers dropped into cover or opened fire into the building. The fire man came into sight, a human shaped ball of fire, anything fired at him had no effect and he breathed another jet of flame that killed two more squadies.
Unarmed there was no way Mike could do anything here, breathing fire, not unless there was one hell of a fire extinguisher round here somewhere.
Then another figure came out of the building and Mike saw bullets bounce off this one, he was crudely humanoid and looked like he was made of stone. Hiding behind him came another man and a woman, well girl really. Both hiding behind his stone like bulk. The girl peered round her stone guard and another soldier died, not a mark on him, stone dead.
Mike ran for cover, ducking behind the closest cars to keep out of sight.
The firing stopped, Mike paused behind a dented pickup and took a careful look back at the scene of the fight. The four supers were walking across the wreckage strewn street, no sign of any of the soldiers.
Then lighting flashed down from the sky striking the stone one and the man behind him. The stone man was undamaged but the human was cooked alive, his dead body thrown a good ten feet to lie twitching in the rubble.
The other three all turned to face off against four new arrivals, two flying and two on the ground. They immediately attacked the new group and the street was torn apart by strange energies and the stone man throwing wrecked cars at the flying pair.
Death girl did her thing and one of the flying supers just dropped dead and fell to earth, the other flyer ducked behind the closest roof. One of the men on the ground shouted something, it was a wordless sound and every window still with glass in it shattered, The stone man stopped then shuddered as deep cracks appeared all over his body, then he seemed to fall apart.
The flaming man and death girl turned and ran into the closest building for cover.
The hotel!
They ran into the bloody hotel!
Both ground supers went after them and the flying one reappeared and flew into one of the third floor windows. A great gout of flame erupted out of half the ground floor windows and screams began. There was a flare of blue white light from somewhere inside then more screaming, half the ground floor was now in flames and the fire was licking at the next floor’s windows in seconds.
More shouting and crashing then something smashed most of the top floor and the roof sagged and collapsed. More lightning on the first floor, children screaming and a burst of fire that engulfed the second and third floors in fire. An explosion, the whole building was collapsing. Every window was full of flames, the screams were fainter and deep inside, trapped, helpless, hopeless. Part of the hotel collapsed into burning rubble, even the bricks seemed to be burning.
The flying super burst out of an upper floor window just as the rest of the building collapsed.
Mike ducked, the heat crinkled his hair even at this distance and he couldn’t look at the flames. A few seconds, a few minutes, Mike don’t know which. he peered over the car again. The screaming had stopped, the hotel was a vast pile of burning rubble spread across half the street and the buildings either side were in flames.
Nothing was moving.
Mike stood up and slowly walked toward the flames. He didn’t know why, he just walked. He’d been in fire fights, seen men die and never been like this, he was cold, stone cold, moving like a machine.
Movement, in the dust and rubble. A figure, trying to sit up. The flying super, still alive. As Mike walked closer he could see that the super’s left leg was broken, the knee bent at an angle it wasn’t supposed to reach. The super was crying in pain and didn’t see Mike.
Just before Mike reached him he stopped by the squady that had been killed by death girl. The poor bastard had died so fast he hadn’t gotten off a shot; Mike picked up his assault rifle and checked the magazine was full. Then the copper slowly and methodically took three more full mags from the dead soldiers webbing and slid them into the pockets of his high viz police jacket. The bodies of the other soldiers were all burned or smashed, only this one had intact equipment.
Mike walked the last few steps to the downed super.
The sound of pulling back the locking handle was loud, that unmistakable clack easily heard over the sound of the flames.
The man at Mikes feet looked up, startled, his eyes wide, shockingly white against the black mask that covered his upper face. He tried to drag himself away from Mike but he was too badly hurt, one broken leg from that last fall and by the look of it his right arm was dislocated or badly sprained and not working.
Then he lifted his working arm and pointed his fingers at Mike, nothing happened and he suddenly looked terrified.
Mike lifted the barrel of the assault rifle, settling his point of aim in the middle of the super’s face, that silly looking black mask smeared with dust and ash. The super still held his one good arm out, but now his palm was toward Mike as if he could stop the bullets some how.
“No” the fallen super said, “You can’t shoot me.”
Mike looked down at him, his heart as cold as ice, just as it had been those long years ago in the jungle when he took aim at the boy that had just thrown the grenade that had exploded under Mikes best friend and blown both his legs off. “That building was full of people you sack of shit.”
“No, they were just in the way. We had to stop the villains; they would’ve gotten away if we hadn’t gone in after them.”
Mikes knuckles were white from his grip on the assault rifle.
“How many people did you kill?”
“Please, PLEASE. I’m a Superhero, you can’t kill me.”
“I’m a copper, yes I bloody can.”
Full auto is just like a buzz, a loud buzz, bucking and fighting against his grip. A loud buzz and then a click as Mike shot the magazine dry. The black mask was gone and so was most of the head behind it.
Mike looked down at the corpse. Supers, that’s what everyone called them apart from the official reports, but maybe the reports were right. Infected, they were infected alright. They were all mad, like dogs, mad dogs.
What did you do to a mad dog?
Mike swapped out the empty magazine for a full one, two full magazines in his pockets and one loaded. He would need to be more careful, there were hundreds of these supers around, he had to make his ammo go a long way if he was going to get them all.
The sound of fighting came from several streets away, the crash of a building being destroyed, shouts and some sort of weapons fire. With the rifle at the ready Mike Cullen started jogging towards the sound, eyes alert for movement or any sign of an ambush.
Three
Mike jerked his head up, he had almost fallen asleep or maybe he had been asleep judging by the crick in his neck, long enough to dream anyway, long enough remember how it had all started anyway.
He reached over for the beer and took a long swig then settled back in the chair to enjoy the peaceful and quiet of his garden.
“Are you Cullen, they said Mike Cullen lived here. Are you him?”
The voice was startling. Unexpected and unwelcome. A man’s voice, young and demanding. A voice that should not be here.
Mike sat upright quickly and turned, the voice had caught him by surprise and old memories flashed past as adrenaline began to surge.
The voice came from a young man, fresh faced and dressed for the summer, standing on the path that led down the side of the house from the front garden. Nineteen, twenty, maybe a bit older but who could tell these days. Pale skinned, dirty blonde hair long enough to touch the shoulders of a bright patterned shirt that was un-tucked and hung down over pale cotton slacks and white deck shoes. Slim build, the barest hint of muscle so not a physical type but there was something, the way he stood, his eyes, something made him seem older, more dangerous.
“This is private property, fuck off.” Mike was angry and frightened and his blood was pumping. Half remembered battles and ambushes flashed across his mind and both being caught by surprise and by something about this lad had pushed him into combat mode.
The young man did not leave, or even back off. Mike heaved himself out of the chair and took a step towards the intruder. Mike was getting on but he kept himself in fair shape and he had this young punk by a head and by maybe thirty kilos.
But the young man did not back off, in fact he stood his ground and looked ready to fight back.
“Are you Cullen, is your name Cullen. Are you the one they called Neg?”
Mike was startled again. “How the fuck do you know that name? No you have the wrong place, wrong village. Get lost. Get out of my garden before I take my fist to your face.”
The young man stood his ground but he did shift his stance slightly, moving his weight to the balls of his feet, a martial arts stance of some sort that Mike didn’t notice.
“It is you, isn’t it, in the photo you had dark hair and a lot less in the way of lines but it’s you isn’t it. You’re Cullen. Call sign Neg.
Mike was getting more angry but there was a strong hint of fear as well. There shouldn’t have been any photo’s, no records should exist. They promised him every trace was gone, every trace of the war, of his war. Every trace of the lives he had taken. This kid shouldn’t know anything. Unless they had lied and records still existed.
If this kid had found him others could as well, others much worse. He didn’t have many friends from the war but he had enemies, oh yes he had a lot of them.
“What photo? What are you talking about?”
The kid looked smug for a second. “So it is you after all, what’s the matter old man. You thought we’d forgotten about you.”
Mike balled his fists and raised both arms. “Get the fuck out of my garden you punk piece of shit before I bloody beat you.”
The young man sneered then as Mike strode forward and came within a few meters of him flinched backwards looking nervous. Then he stopped and leaned forward, his face close enough for mike to punch if it came to that.
“So it’s true.”
The young man started laughing, a darkly disturbing sound, and full of cruelty. He stepped back a few paces into the narrow strip between the cottage and the side fence.
“We remember you ‘Neg’, we remember you.” Then the young man turned and quickly walked along the side of the cottage toward the front and vanished from sight as he turned and stepped into the front garden. Mike was breathing heavily and slowly unclenched his fists, then he took a slow shuddering breath and went into the house to look through the front windows and make sure the man had gone.
Who was that bloke? No one should know about the nick name, no one should have been able to find him. His old life was gone, the war was gone. Forgotten. They had promised him it was gone. Should he report this? Who to? The war was long over, he still had a way of contacted them in an emergency, was this important enough. What if it was just some piece of shit kid who found an old photo and the name and was just playing stupid bloody games?
The war was long over, his war was long over. Just a stupid fucking kid playing stupid fucking games.
After a few minutes of staring out of the window at the empty front garden and the road beyond mike walked across the kitchen and grabbed another beer from the fridge, he popped the lid and drank half of it in a single long gulp.
Mike Cullen, ex para sergeant, ex copper, ex mass murderer and now just another retiree living in the countryside leaned his backside against the counter as he took another sip of his cold beer.
He was alone so there was no one to see how his hand trembled as it held the bottle.
#
By the time Mike had finished the beer the shaking had stopped. He dropped the empty glass bottle into the recycling bin where it clunked as it landed on top of many of its brothers. He looked at the fridge the sighed and stood up, a glance around and his gaze settled on the bag of shopping for the bathroom, it was something to do.
The en-suite was frankly decadent, a huge shower three people could fit into, a bath long enough and deep enough that mike could submerge himself in hot water. The rest of the fittings were good quality. A few items on the shelf above the sink and a big cabinet next to the misted glass windows.
Mike walked across and opened the cabinet door then began to take items out of the bag and put them away. A new tooth brush, a dispenser of toothpaste, the kind that made your teeth less sensitive, easier than getting an appointment with a dentist that was many miles away. A pack of soap, the coal tar stuff. A bottle, dark blue, rattling with pills.
Mike looked at the bottle, the prescription label with his name on it, the foil seal covering the lid, the warning about not taking more than one a day and only taking them if prescribed. He stared at the bottle for a few seconds and put it on the top shelf, next to another two bottles, both unopened and a third bottle that was half full.
His pills, his prescription. He had been taking them for years, since the war. One a day, seven a week, three hundred and sixty five a year. Then a few months ago the headaches had started, blinding pain behind his eyes, the world’s worst migraine. Pain so bad he couldn’t sleep. On and off, a day here, a few days without pain then another day with the headache.
Then had come the day when the pain didn’t go away, when the pain lasted through the sleepless night and all the next day as well. The day he had gotten so drunk he couldn’t stand, so drunk the pain was nothing, so drunk he passed out and woke up two days later.
So hung over that he drunk more beer, so drunk the pain didn’t come back. So drunk he forgot to take his pills for a week. A week with no headaches. So he drank less and got sober and didn’t take the pills and had no headaches.
He hadn’t taken the pills for several months now and hadn’t suffered from a single headache or even a twinge of pain behind his eyes. He didn’t know why, he hadn’t spoken to his doctor either, didn’t want to bother the man, didn’t want to make the long trip to visit him and have to answer the questions all over again.
Mike’s doctor was both a medical doctor and a specialist in dealing with people like Mike, people who had been through wars and come out the other side, still alive, but not whole. For months after the war Mike had been seeing the specialist, questions, tests, the truth, lies, more questions.
Months of strange training to deal with his special situation, months of therapy to deal with his memories. Then the pills, one a day, a bottle a month. Year after year and the dreams still came. Some nights he slept, some nights he dreamed, some nights he sat in his office and cleaned his weapons and looked at his medals and drunk himself into a stupor so the memories wouldn’t come.
Now he didn’t take the pills and just drunk to keep the memories at bay, to keep the dreams away. Dreams and memories that had become more frequent over the last few months.
The bag was empty so Mike shut the cabinet door and walked back through the bedroom and back to the kitchen, The bag went in the sack he hung from a hook on the wall, full of old bags and ready for when he needed one.
He stood there, thinking. He didn’t want to go back and sit in the garden again, not after his mood was ruined by the visitor. It was too nice a day to sit and watch the TV or a DVD. But he had to do something, get out, prove he was alive.
He couldn’t drive anywhere, the land rover was down. His bike! The sun was shining. The weather was fine, a glorious day for a ride. He could go cross country, be at the coast in an hour, walk on the beach maybe, breathe the sea air. He had taken it apart and put it back together, it worked fine in the garage, time to take it for a test run.
It was a plan.
The garage was on the other side of the house to the path, from the front it was just big enough and wide enough for the landy but inside it was a lot bigger, more of the extension. He could park the land rover at the back by the tool racks and the work area and still had enough room to squeeze in a car at the front and plenty of room for the bike and other stuff down the side. Right now it was just the landy by the work area, the bike was by the big door, the metal slat type that lifts up and back.
Mike went into his bedroom to pull on a pair of jeans and boots then went back into the kitchen, there was a door from the kitchen out to the garage and Mike stepped through and down a step into the cool garage. His helmet and jacket were hanging just inside the door along with a few old coats and jackets. Mike reached out and grabbed his bike jacket, well used but still good, brown leather, a bit faded and scuffed but still wearable. He slid one arm into the sleeve then swung it across his back and pulled the jacket up and settled it comfortably. Then he turned back to the rack to get his helmet and his eyes fell on a glimpse of yellow high viz. Something buried under his old coats and hidden by the bike jacket. Something he hadn’t seen or thought about for years.
He pushed several of his coats aside to reveal the jacket, scorched, torn, faded and dirty, the word ‘police’ across the shoulders was more grey now than black and had scratches and scuffs across the letters. Mike hadn’t looked at this jacket for years, hadn’t worn it for more years. His old police jacket, he had been wearing this back in the day.
Back when it had started.
Back when he was a copper.
Back in the war.
Four
Sunday morning and whole load of army types and outside coppers and medics had arrived, them a load of lorries full of stuff, closer to lunch time. The first real help that had arrived since Thursday so they were welcome even if they were keeping to themselves.
The army seemed to be getting its act together, at least there were more of them around the police station. Trying to set up a logistics point and command base. Problem was there just wasn’t the room.
Still they kept trying and a load of locals had been drafted in to help. Which is why Mike was standing in the police station car park along with about twenty civilians and a dozen soldiers trying to work out exactly where how they were going to get a three quarter ton generator off the lorry and somewhere useful.
While they were standing around scratching their heads a pair of army land rovers, drove in followed by one of the last two surviving police vans. The three vehicles pulled up by the back door and two constables and five soldiers clambered out of the vehicles, not an easy task given the webbing, body armour and weapons each of them was festooned with.
Then one of the coppers opened the back door of the van and they hauled out three people, two men and a woman. Each looked like they had come from a fight, clothes dirty and torn, one of the men was limping. Everyone had stopped pretending to move the genny and were now watching the show.
All three were wearing handcuffs and once they were out of the van they were pushed toward the station, each had a soldier behind them with a rifle held at half ready. Something odd here, they hadn’t arrested anyone since the whole mess had started so why were these three being bought in.
Mike was curious and wandered over to the van where one of the officers was shutting the doors, the other copper was leading the strange little conga line of prisoners and soldiers. The constable finished locking the van and turned at which point Mike could see his tags, he was one of the reinforcements, a Gloucester copper.
“What did you pull those three for? It’s not like we have spare bodies to keep an eye on them.”
The new constable, clean uniform, not slept in, clean shaven, clean, looking uncomfortable in body armour, looked Mike up and down.
“Arresting criminals, or don’t you lot do that round here anymore.”
Mike started to reply then his brain caught up with his mouth and he paused before replying. “Just joined us have you?”
“Yea, so what?”
“We don’t have the warm bodies to man the cells, we don’t have food to waste and we have better things to do with our time than pulling in a few low life’s, or hadn’t you noticed the fucking supers trashing the city!”
The Gloucester copper started to reply then bit off his angry words. “Orders and fuck you too. Briefing this morning, push to restore law and order to the city, army are going after the big trouble makers, police round up the minor ones.”
“Fucking hell, what briefing, they didn’t say anything like that here.”
The Gloucester copper looked down his nose at Mike and glanced at his badge then spoke, each word separate and insulting.
“Well. Special. Constable. Cullen.
We was briefed before we were bought in this morning, hardly my fault you lot in Bristol are so far up your own arses you can’t manage a briefing. Bout time this mess was sorted. Them three are, what is you lot call em, supers. Caught em turning over the wrecked shops down by the arcade. Smashing open the tills and the like. Fancy powers my fucking arse, they didn’t give us any trouble. Big gang of super power freaks, yea right.”
Mike was debating how much he could claim the situation had driven him to punch a fellow constable in the face when the last bit registered. “Big gang of supers, what big gang, they mostly go around in ground of six or less.”
The look down the nose was now a full blown sneer. “Limping loud mouth was full of telling us he was part of something called the Free Warriors and how his fifty super mates would come get us.”
“FIFTY. There isn’t a group in the city anywhere near that big. Unless.”
The explosion drowned whatever Mike was going to say and the shockwave staggered both of them and rocked the van. One of the army landies had just blown up, not caught fire, it was blown to bits in a ball of fire that had dropped several of the bystanders as well.
Mike spun round and dropped the assault rifle off his shoulder and into his hands at the same time, he saw movement across the road, a score of figures, some dressed in costumes, the rest in normal clothing. Three more came round the corner at the end of the block, flying. Two more in full costumes ran round behind the flyers.
Mike swore ten bellowed at the top of his voice as he burst into a sprint, rifle coming up to his shoulder. “Shit in a fucking bucket. INCOMING!” He ran for the best cover around, the lorry with the genny on the back, big, solid and too heavy to be pushed around much.
He made it to the generator, then risked a snap look. The copper he had been talking to had only just started running but he was heading for the station, across the car park. Most of the soldiers were either in cover or heading that way fast.
Then another landy was torn apart and the two men sheltering behind it were thrown into the air, tumbling like rag dolls, bloody ragdolls. Something that looked like a fast moving ball of rock had hit the land rover and it came from, there.
A figure wearing some sort of pirate costume was standing in full view in the doorway of a shop, five different people spotted him and every last one of them hit him at least once.
Lightening crashed into the truck’s cab and the front tires melted and blew as the electricity arced around the cab but for some reason it didn’t spread to the flat bed, Mike was crouched by the back of the lorry and went cold as he saw the cab melted and shattered by the hit, but he was safe. Beams and bolts of every colour were flying past and overhead, one of the flying supers went transparent then invisible, the other two accelerated towards the station.
The leading one looked like he had been turned into some sort of half man half bird of prey, head like a bird with a beak, arms were wings and legs were like a birds complete with claws, he was dammed fast, every shot missed as he twisted and flew across the car park no more than a few feet above the ground, his claws slashing and missing one soldier then swooping down to tear the running Gloucester copper in half. The bird man turned to avoid hitting the building as the windows behind him exploded, a burst of machine gun fire hitting behind him. For several seconds the super flew along the side of the building with the stream of bullets getting closer then the gunner found his mark and the super went down as the roof mounted machine gun on one of the trucks cut the bird man down.
The other flying super didn’t have wings, just appeared to float there and bullets fired at him seemed to bounce off something a metre or so below him. He drifted across the fight, looking down and laughing as the tiny humans fired their useless weapons at him.
One of the fully costumed supers started running, getting faster and faster and tearing up the road behind him as he went, he tore across the car park too fast to be hit and slammed into the station wall smashing a huge hole in the brickwork and disappearing inside somewhere.
The remaining figures were using the buildings opposite and the wrecked cars along the street as cover. Mike took aim at one woman who was firing some sort of bright green beams from her eyes then ducked rapidly as several something’s hit the genny above him, the sound was familiar, not some supers attack, the pinging hits almost sounded like.
“They’ve got guns!”
Mike didn’t see who shouted but he got the message. Things were getting better by the minute, what next, a fucking tank.
Then there came a great crashing and what sounded like falling rubble from inside the building. Tank, right, supers didn’t need tanks.
The soldiers and armed police in the car park were firing back apart from three who were down but still moving and five more who were clearly dead. One of the soldiers sprinted from behind the last intact landy and tucked himself in behind the wrecked lorry cab, he glanced at Mike, nodded and turned his full attention to shooting supers.
Mike fired the last rounds in his magazine and ejected it then slammed a fresh one home. He had just dropped his second target, or was it third, yes third unless the bloke in the afro had some super power that let him survive a round in the forehead. Looking around Mike noticed one figure standing back from the fighting, small, wearing some sort of cloak with a hood, it looked like a girl, teens, dark brown hair, spots, glasses. She was staring hard at some point to Mikes right.
Glancing that way Mike could see the soldier at the far end of the truck wasn’t firing, in fact he was crouched behind the wrecked cab, body rigid, only his arms were moving, slowly lifting the barrel of his bullpup towards his own chin.
The blood in Mikes veins was like ice as he realised what was happening, he swore and kicked off from the ground in a long step that turned into a hunched over run, he grabbed the rifle with his free hand and pushed it back down. The soldier suddenly relaxed and collapsed against the truck, his whole body shaking. He dropped the rifle and sagged to the tarmac.
“You all right mate, what the fuck was that.”
It took a few seconds before the squady seemed to be tracking again. “I, I, couldn’t stop, couldn’t stop myself. It was like, like my body wasn’t mine anymore. I was going to shoot myself and I couldn’t stop myself. Jesus fucking Christ I was going to shoot myself.”
Mike risked a snap look, the teen aged girl in the cloak was gone.
He turned back to the soldier. “Can you fight?”
“Yea, I reckon. Yea I can fight. Where’s my rifle?”
With the soldier more or less functioning again Mike went back to the far end of the truck, standing next to the soldier would give two easy kills to some super.
The fire fight went on for minutes, or maybe it was only seconds, until an explosion engulfed one of the buildings the supers were using for cover, then a second explosion and a third. Bodies were thrown up and backwards as the fronts of the buildings were blasted apart.
A cheer went up and every soldier and armed constable popped up to fire at the sudden scurry of figures trying to flee the explosions. The floating super shouted something that no one understood and floated straight up to vanish into the smoke overhead.
What looked to be a full platoon of regular infantry was working its way down both sides of the road towards the station and laying down a heavy weight of fire, several were carrying grenade launchers and they weren’t shy about using them.
It still took several minutes before the area was secure and the last shots had been fired. With the area filling with soldiers Mike stood up and came out from behind the truck, a look around told him that roughly half the thirty odd people that had been in the car park were still mobile.
He was suddenly thirsty, his throat dry, he could taste dust and coughing made his throat feel like sandpaper. Then a plastic army water bottle appeared in his field of vision, the soldier from the other end of the truck. Mike grabbed it and half emptied it before passing it back. “Thanks. Mike, Mike Cullen. Police.”
“Baz, Baz Symonds, Army.”
Both men laughed, they had survived the battle and now they were laughing at each other’s names. Laughter at being alive, the shakes would come later when the adrenaline faded. Mike planned to have a few beers inside him by the time that happened, he wasn’t a cocksure young para anymore, he didn’t have to suck it up. Beers, cold beers, that was the plan.
#
With the area under control and soldiers sweeping the wrecked buildings across the road Mike was able to head to the station building. At least one super had made it inside and he wasn’t hearing any fighting. Just before he reached the door Mike glanced down at the body of the Gloucester cop, he never did find out what the man’s name was, not that it mattered anymore.
Inside the ground floor was wrecked, internal walls torn apart, several of the main pillars were twisted metal, the concrete smashed away. Just inside the door the ceiling was sagging and further in it looked like part of the ceiling had come down.
Several dead, a few wounded being treated. One of the three prisoners, face down and half buried in rubble from the wall, no sign of the others or the super that had smashed through that wall.
The ceiling groaned and settled a little more. Someone shouted. “EVERYONE OUT. NOW.” Mike stepped over to the closest of the wounded and grabbed an arm, the paramedic who was trying to stuff a big bandage into a ragged hole in the soldiers leg looked up, looked around, glanced at the ceiling and quickly stood. Between then the lifted the soldier and dragged him out through the doors and into the car park.
As they came out they heard a shout. “OVER HERE!” There was an ambulance on the far side of the car park and it had survived the fight, several casualties were already on the ground by the open back doors and both crew were bent over one man who they were strapping to a backboard while several other coppers and soldiers tended to the less serious cases.
Mike left the wounded man and the medic by the ambulance and looked around. A cluster of police and army officers was forming in the middle of the road; they seemed to be standing around a figure that was sitting on the road, a figure in jeans and a tee shirt, a figure with bright blue hair that didn’t look like a dye job.
Mike joined the circle of people standing around the figure on the road, he recognized a few, some local coppers or others that had been helping out. Even the only detective inspector still working had come over to join them, Murphy by name and hailing from somewhere west of the Irish Sea.
Murphy was, like most of the other locals, changed by whatever happened on Tuesday, but he had no powers, he couldn’t fly or lift cars. His hair grew really fast, that was it. He shaved three times a day to get rid of the beard and every evening to deal with the hair on his head, chest and other parts. But aside from the hair he was a good copper and he was here so no one gave him any shit about being a super. Aside from Mike and others like him maybe half the locals at here had been changed in some way, about the most powerful was one copper who could freeze liquids if he touched them, not solids, just liquids. He just concentrated and he could chill or freeze any liquid, a pint or two at a time and forty or fifty times before he got tired and had to rest his power for a few hours. Handy for the beer but hardly a threat to anyone.
There were plenty more like those two, just about all of the refugees were the same, changed, made supers in some way but with nothing more than some quirk or party trick.
It seemed the more powerful the supers were, the more harm they could do, the more they had become crazy. The ones throwing energy or flying, they were the most crazy.
The one on the floor had bright blue hair and his eyes were completely blue as well, no pupils, just solid bright blue.
He was already talking, answering a question Mike hadn’t heard.
“I can see enegy like, see electricity, through walls an stuff. If there’s electricity I can see it. I Just thinks about it hard and there it is, I can see it flowin and all. People, theys electric too, I can see ya thinking an moving. Through walls if I want ta. See when ya get upset or tell lies. Thats why they let me join em, join the warriors, I can see for em.”
One of the army types asked a question. “Why this attack, why are you arming yourselves and attacking this police station?”
The blue haired man looked at the circle of faces and said nothing.
One of the soldiers covering the super stepped closer and put his army boot into the supers side, there was a sound like a pencil snapping and the blue haired man shrieked then tried to cover his side with his arms and tears began to drip down his face.
“That’s enough of that soldier.” The squady took a step backwards but didn’t look bothered by the rebuke.
The shrieking stopped after a few seconds thought he man continued to cry and draw deep shuddering breaths.
“Answer the question!”
The super flinched and started to talk rapidly.
“We knew you was comin for us, we knew. The army and the pigs and the heros, we knew you was comin for us so we got together. The big guys, they need us cause we can fight for em, keep the army and the pigs busy while they fight the heroes. All the gangs are doing it, the big guys are becoming leaders and officers like an recrutin lots of people with powers but not real strong powers.
I joined em fa protection, protection from you lot. We knew you pigs would be coming for us with ya guns and stuff. Huntin us down, handin us over ta the heroes
Aint fair, you lot call us villans an them heroes but they is just like us, all supers, just more gangs fighting for turf. They call themselves heroes, they work wi you lot, huntin us, roundin us up, killin us. We’re fightin to survive.
All the super groups are doin it, New Warriors, Stormlords crew, the Shadowkings and more besides. Getting bigger, getting stronger, getting ready ta fight you lot an the heroes, fuckin killers the lot o ya.”
“How did you know we were coming, and when?” This was a softer voice, Home Counties soft and coming from an army captain that was a few feet away and walking toward the group. A second platoon of infantry was moving up behind him and there was a new rumble of sound, something with tracks coming closer.
Mike took a good look at the soldiers as they walked closer, no backpack, just carrying what they needed to fight with. Where the fuck were all these troops coming from and what was going down? Was this what the Gloucester copper had been talking about before he died?
The captain stepped into the circle as several people stood aside to let him in. “I said how did you know about the operation and when?”
“Yesterday, Saturday, in the morning. Don’t know how but we mostly woke up knowin ya was comin fa us. Bout half o us knew an they told the rest.”
“Damn. RADIO.” The captain turned away and gestured to a soldier that was following him around with a heavy looking pack radio. The captain met the man half way and took the old fashioned phone handset.
While the captain tried to make contact with someone a tall thin Lieutenant asked another question.
“Where did the rifles come from, the M-16s?”
“We know a guy, a super. Not a Warrior, not in any gang but he helps us all. He makes things see. With his mind he makes things, he changes em and makes new things. Give him a load of metal and plastic and he can make a rifle, some metal and lead and chemicals an he makes bullets, loads of em. Scrap metal like old cars and shit, he makes em inta guns.”
The officer snorted. “That’s ridiculous, you can’t make an assault rifle out of scrap metal!”
The Lieutenant turned and gestured to one of the soldiers standing nearby, with an arm full of weapons taken from the dead, the officer pointed at the rifles.
The squady shuffled a bit closer and held out his arms, but he had stopped a bit short and the officer was forced to walk toward the soldier in order to take one of the assault rifles. The Lieutenant scowled at the blank faced soldier, took the rifle on top of the pile and turned back to the group.
“Hardened steel barrel, worked receiver, you can’t make this out of.” The officer stopped mid word and peered more closely at the rifle. “There’s no serial number but there is a name on the side of the receiver. It says Panasonic.”
The blue haired super laughed then gasped as his broken ribs stabbed him. “Told ya, we grabbed a load o stuff from an electrical shop, he turned em inta guns and these goggles that let us see at night and a radar thing.
We takes im metal and plastic and stuff, money an food. He makes us guns. Not just us, most o the gangs buy from him.”
Detective Inspector Murphy leaned a little closer. “How many guns?”
“I duno, maybe a hundred a day.”
Several people swore fluently.
“We bring im food and scrap and money and he makes stuff. That’s what the guys you caught was doing, getting money for more guns. We couldn’t do let ya keep em, you would be torturing em to make em tell you where we was and stuff. You pigs and soldiers, workin fa the government an the heroes.
The blue haired man stopped talking as the captain stepped back into the circle and nodded to the other army officers then looked at Inspector Murphy. “You the senior police on site?”
“That I am, Detective Inspector Murphy. At ya service.”
“Good, I need to brief you on the mission, it seems the infected already know we are coming which could cause problems but nothing we can’t handle.”
Murphy looked pointedly at the soldiers who were now moving past the group and into the car park, avoiding the smouldering wreckage of the destroyed vehicles but otherwise looking as if they were taking the area over.”
“What mission?”
The captain looked down at the blue haired super and looked at the soldiers guarding him. “Take him back to the rail head for interrogation.” The soldiers saluted and grabbed the man’s arms, the blue haired super screamed as they dragging him up to a standing position then marched him off, broken ribs not being of any concern to the squadies.
Once the super was out of sight the captain turned back to the waiting men.
“We’re coming in to sort this situation out once and for all, it took a few days for the powers that be to get a handle on things but it was decided that simply sending in reinforcements a few at a time wasn’t working and a serious effort was needed. That’s why you stopped receiving additional emergency services volunteers on Friday, they have been held back ready for today.
We have five full infantry battalions with armour and helicopter support moving in from outside the city, a mechanised company that drove down the tracks holding the railway station and two platoons here along with the police and medics. The army is going after these so called supers while you police are to deal with the rest.”
Several of the locals looked at each other then back to the captain, not happy at what they were hearing but it was Mike who spoke first.
“What exactly do you mean so called supers? Do you have any idea what we’re up against here?”
The captain looked at the blown apart shop fronts and the wrecked vehicles.
“Individually these people may have some abilities but they are not supermen, they can’t stand up to the fire power the British army has. They may have been a problem to you but we handled them easily enough here”
Mike snorted. “Right, I saw five high power supers here, a few costumed less powerful ones and a dozen guys with guns. We got half the grunts and exactly one of the supers and one of the costumed wanabees and that was because the pirate was a fuck wit.
In return we have what, eight or ten dead, twenty or more wounded, a bunch a trashed vehicles and the building is falling down. Ask me it doesn’t feel like we won this battle, more like we survived it.”
The captain looked across the car park to where the ambulance was sitting, the area around it a makeshift hospital full of wounded being treated.
“They caught you by surprise and in the open, hardly the best place for a fight. We are well armed, well trained in urban warfare techniques and we have plenty of support. The helicopter strike teams will be hitting the known super concentrations so fast that by the time they hear them coming they will already be under fire. This has been planned for two days in great detail.
I understand what you have done here and all of you deserve medals, a handful of civilians maintaining law and order in the middle of a city wide insurrection. But the army is here now, we will take control and deal with these supers once and for all.”
The bean pole Lieutenant interrupted the captain. “Sir, if the supers have radar they can see the helicopters coming, they know the attack is going to happen, this could be a trap.”
The captain blinked. “Radar, what radar, these supers don’t have any radar, how would they get their hands on anything like that, I understand your concern Lieutenant but them knowing we are coming will not save them, besides there is no way they would have radar so the helicopters will be a complete surprise.
No this will be bloody, fighting in a city always is. But it’s just a matter of time now.”
The captain paused to draw a breathe before continuing to speak then tilted his head to one side as a sound reached him. Everyone in the group heard it at the same time and heads turned this way and that to locate the noise.
“There.” A hand pointed and everyone turned to look as the noise got louder. A high powered engine running at full power, the buzz of propeller blades and the sound of something big whooshing through the air.
It was a British army Lynx, a few hundred feet above the ground and going flat out, but there was something wrong, the whole helicopter was glowing with a sickly green aura and it was heading down at maybe a thirty degree angle. A few long seconds later it slammed into a housing estate toward the river and a ball of fire and smoke rose to mark its grave.
After a moment of silence Mike spoke. “Anyone got any spare ammo?”
Five
Suddenly Mike was back in the garage, one hand touching his old police jacket. He wavered for a second as he got his balance and looked around him.
The dream, the memory vanished, back where it came from in the depths of his mind. That was the day the army went in and got serious, the day they wrecked half the city centre, killed a few hundred supers and retreated with a thousand casualties. Smashed and burning army vehicles all over the place leaving fingers of black smoke pointing into the sky like grave markers.
That was the day London abandoned the city and locked it down, nothing in or out apart from supplies and support for the garrison.
Garrison, taking the piss, what was left of the two infantry platoons plus the coppers and civilians.
It was just another memory from the war, another dream. Twice a week at least he had dreams like this but that was asleep, a few times a month he had waking flashbacks like this morning at the pub but they were a second long and just left him shaking. These waking dreams, they were minutes long. Not a second long flashback but a full memory of the war.
Was it the pills? No, he had been off them for months so why today?
A bike ride was off; if he had another one of these day dreams while riding he would crash. He guessed they were a minute or two each time, long enough to get him killed and he had sod all warning of them starting.
Something was fucked up, was it him? Was he still upset from the bloke who had come into his garden earlier? Yea, that was maybe it, he was still wound up.
No. It couldn’t be that. The first daydream memory thing had happened before the stranger had arrived. It had to be something else, had it taken this long for the pills to wear off, but why had the headaches stopped within days of coming off the pills and this was months later.
Unless.
Maybe he was asleep in the garden, he had been dozing off so maybe he was asleep and it was a dream. Maybe that was it, just a sleep dream memory. Maybe the memory just now was because he was wound up from the intruder.
Bollocks.
Maybe he should call the doctor and make an appointment. Trouble with that was he would have to admit he wasn’t taking the pills.
Bollocks!
Mike realised he was standing in the middle of the garage talking to himself. Things were getting bad, he was far to sober for this shit.
Beer.
The fridge.
He shrugged off his biker jacket and hung it back on its peg, hiding the old police jacket and the memories where he couldn’t see them. Back into the kitchen he swung open the fridge door, he had spent the extra to get one of those American types with two doors and an ice maker, half the right side was just for beer, two shelves each holding a dozen bottles.
Mike peered into the gleaming white fridge, one shelf was empty and the other held four bottles. He reached in and took one bottle leaving three standing there looking lonely.
He needed more beer; he had some in the pantry cupboard. It was on the other side of the kitchen beside the door to the hall, a wide double door cupboard about a foot deep full of all sorts of stuff that didn’t get eaten or go off. One shelf was generally kept for trays of beer.
Mike swung the door open and reached down to the beer shelf but his fingers met empty space. The shelf was empty. He was almost out of beer. Things were getting serious. The landy was out of action, he couldn’t risk the bike. Tony and his lad wouldn’t be shopping till next week now and no one else was going into town for days.
Unless.
The pub. They always had plenty and had sold him bottles before, not that anyone needed to know about it but a sale was a sale. He could walk over there and grab enough for a while. Or he could take his old backpack and get a dozen or more.
Or.
Mohamed had a four wheeled cart thing that he used to carry his tools round the village; maybe he could borrow that for a few minutes.
Mike had a plan and stomped his way out of the cottage still wearing his biking boots.
Mo was in his front garden talking to the next neighbour over, something about planting flowers though as far as Mike could understand them it was all Latin. Both turned and greeted him as he reached the little gate that led into the riot of colour that was Mohamed’s front yard.
A few minutes later Mike was walking across the village towards the pub, the four wheel gardening trolley bouncing along behind him on its big round rubber wheels. Mid afternoon the village was quiet, a pair of cars drove past him heading in the general direction of town though it was a long winding route on the roads out here. Both cars were packed and there were children playing on the back seats, it looked like the families from the pub had finished lunch.
Then the hedge on the left fell away to reveal an old dry stone wall and an open area beyond. Low cut grass filled with old headstones and a few statues. Beyond was the village church, local legend had it that it was first built by the Normans but apart from the tower the rest of it looked no more than a few hundred years old.
The clock on the tower was an old mechanical one, someone had once told Mike it was Victorian but it still kept ruddy good time as long as it was wound up once a day.
Mike glanced at the clock face, quarter to four, was that right? It couldn’t be that late, how long had he been asleep in the garden, it must have been a couple of hours?
Turning back to the path he continued walking the few minutes to the pub.
#
The white lion, a traditional village pub. Been in one you’ve been in them all. Old stone walls, flag stones on the floor, white painted beams standing out from the black painted ceiling. Horse brass hanging on the walls and shelves of old tankards up high round the walls.
Oh and the pictures, old fashioned pictures, farm scenes from last century, horses, that one of the dogs playing cards. Even one of some cows playing poker round a low table in a desert.
Seen one, you have seen them all. Mike walked in through the side door from the road and found himself in the dining room, The small bar in here was closed, the shutters were down, most of the old carved wooden chairs were upside down on the thick oak tables, all the woodwork was dark with age and a century of use.
Mike glanced round the room, door to the toilets, door to the kitchen, one elderly couple sitting in the window nook that gave a view out to the car park, the Carlton’s, Richard and Amanda. She was quiet, withdrawn, a decent person, baked cakes for half the village; she lost everything in the war, husband, kids. She married again then came out here about five years ago to get away from the city. Life insurance left her very comfortable, nothing made her happy apart from baking cakes and other peoples grandchildren.
Her husband was a jerk.
Second month out here ‘Dick’ had made a play for the bar maid, got a little upset when she said no. Got physical. Told his wife he had slipped and fallen to explain the limp and the bruises.
Since then he worked in the city, stayed there during the week and came back to play loving young husband to the older wife at the weekends.
Richard was sitting facing the side door and he looked up when Mike came it, for just a second his face changed. Anger then fear. He looked down quickly and went back to paying attention to his wife.
It hadn’t been Mike that had knocked him over but Mike was there and hadn’t hung back when it came to putting the boot in. Fucking city piece of shit trying to force himself on a local girl. Wouldn’t be doing that again.
Everyone knew he was cheating but no one would tell Amanda, they even helped cover it up. She was hurt inside and no one wanted to add to that pain. Even if it meant giving the little shit a let off.
Course everyone made it very clear what they would do to him if he hurt her or anyone else in the village, he could play the stud in the city. Out here he was the loving husband, they had plenty of shovels and lots of woodland, no one would ever find his corpse.
Mike ignored him and walked across the room, his boots loud on the age polished flagstones.
The door to the main lounge was old and low, Mike ducked his head a little and stepped through into the main drinking room and meeting place for the village.
It was a bit busy, lunch was long over but half the tables had people sitting at them, looked like most of the women in the village were having a meeting, all facing toward the table where the Macey sisters were sitting, a table piled high with colourful bunting.
Oh crap, it was the village fete coming up. Everyone’s families, hundreds of strangers, cars blocking every lane. Bloody fete, every year the same. Mike normally stocked up and stayed at home all day, crowds everywhere, People everywhere. Strangers everywhere.
Looking around there were a few other locals and a bunch of strangers, teens, low twenties, blokes and girls, was grunge back in style again. Not locals, bloody tourists slumming it most like.
Mike walked toward the back of the room where the bar was, wood so old it was all but black, the silver long since worn off the rails. The landlord was chatting with his wife behind the bar while running a white cloth across the glasses that his wife had just washed.
Then a flash of bright colour coming from the group of strangers, male, twenty, skinny, sallow face, maybe drugs, hair, sides of his head shaved, top of head a tall Mohawk, green, bright green.
Bright green light flashed and the point soldier glowed green then collapsed stone dead, the soldiers behind him opened fire at every window and door in sight.
Someone shouted, pointed. Fire was concentrated on one building, a figure ran from the window as it was torn apart by bullet hits, bright green light flashing. Coming through the walls, the light came between the bricks, blazing green light, more men falling, more men dying.
Mike threw himself side way to the wall looking around frantically as he did so. Then he blinked, he was back in the pub. Some of the strangers looked at him and laughed, the women kindly ignored him, it wasn’t the first time they had seen it and it wouldn’t be the last time. Besides, many of them knew, some had similar dreams, everyone in the village lived here for a reason.
“You alright Mike, you look like you need a pint or three?” The barman was a big, jolly man, round and fat, he always played Santa at Christmas though visiting children often wondered about the turban that all Sikhs wore. His accent was pure midlands, his wife was Dutch, his hobby was running the pub, his job, well no one asked, everyone in the village had a good reason for not living in the cities.
Mike stepped away from the wall and walked to the bar. “Yea, sorry, I was, erm.”
“Na worries Mike, na worries. Git this down ya.” Abhijeet Singh was the name everyone knew, Jeet is what everyone called him, beyond that no one cared, he was a good bloke and ran the pub, that was all anyone wanted to know.
Jeet passed over a brass tankard filled to the brim with froth running down the sides.
Mike nodded his thanks and swallowed half the beer in one long gulp then nearly choked as he stopped to breathe, he took another swallow then looked across the bar.
“I ran out of beer, was wondering if I could buy some bottles?”
The barman made a show of leaning across the bar and looking down at the gardening trolley Mike had dropped when he jumped sideways after his flashback.
“I’ll git ya a few trays.” Jeet glanced at his wife then went through the door behind the bar. His wife Jasminder stopped washing glasses and walked along the bar to stand near Mike, she knew the signs, she saw them from time to time on her Husband.
“Would you like another?” Her English was good, clear and with a slight accent, something she often joked about with her husband, him being born in England and yet her English was much easier to understand.
Mike drained the last of the beer and nodded, putting the tankard on the bar and sliding it across to her. As he let go and lifted his hand away the shaking was clear on the finger tips. Mike clenched his fists until his fingers were under control again.
The two started chatting while Mike sipped at the second pint, nothing important, the weather was nice, the fete should be good for business, that sort of thing.
Mike heard a grunt and Jeet came back in sight coming up the stairs and through the door into the bar, four trays of beer in his arms. He carefully slid them onto the bar and sighed, “Gettin weak in me old age, couldn’t manage five. These do or you want more, plenty enough down stairs.”
Mike shock his head from side to side, forty eight bottles should last him till next week. He reached into his pocket. “How much?”
Jeet laughed, a booming sound that went with the Santa costume. “On ya tab, pay end o the month.”
Mike nodded, “Fair enough, add these two on as well.”
The landlord thought about arguing then gave up, Mike was about as stubborn as they came. “End o th month.”
Mike lifted two of the trays onto the trolley then the other two, a bottle of beer isn’t that heavy, four dozen on the other hand was a bit much for a man in his fifties who wasn’t as fit as he had been when jumping out of perfectly good aircraft had been fun.
With a final nod to both of them and a glance around the lounge Mike walked back through the dining room and out, the pub front door had a big stone step that would have been difficult with the loaded trolley. As it happens it was the very spot ‘Dick’ had slipped and fallen.
Mike carefully pulled the trolley onto the narrow pavement and began the walk home, past the two story houses that made up the centre of the village, then passed a few cottages as the village spread out.
The gardens gave way to hedges then the graveyard and the old church.
There was aloud grinding noise and Mike looked that way.
The clock began to chime the hour, a single deep ringing chime that echoed from the trees behind the church and rolled over the village. Then a second chime, a third and a fourth.
The big old clock chimes repeating themselves in Mikes mind.
Echoing like a memory.
Six
The sound of a clock chime echoed down the road, bouncing off the lines of houses either side. Then the second came and the third until all four chimes had sounded. The ringing was loud in the absence of cars and other background noise.
The church had a big old clock and it was still working, it sounded the hour with loud chimes that could be heard across the whole of Redcliff hill and down to the sounding areas, it was one of the fixtures, no one needed a watch, they just listened for the chimes.
The church had escaped harm and the clock still worked, now it was beckoning the small group of soldiers down the street to come closer.
It was a small patrol, Mike acting as local guide, and eight soldiers sweeping the area around St Mary Redcliff church up on Redcliff hill. The church had been turned into a refugee centre and the army kept the area patrolled to protect the many people that had ended up there. JCBs had cleared the roads to the church and they had regular food deliveries.
As they walked along the cleared area where the JCBs had pushed the rubble out of the way to make a road for the lorries Mike kept his eyes on the surrounding buildings. This was his second patrol today and his tenth so far this week, he had only fired twice in all that time, once at some supers trying to hit a food convoy and once at something that had come running at a patrol that was trying to see what had been making strange roaring noises in the woods at Arno’s court park.
No one could say for sure what they had fired at; it was big and running on all fours, maybe a big lion or some such. No one hit it and it ran from the gunfire.
But the last couple of weeks were peace and quiet compared to the first week of whatever the hell had happened. Mike had lost track of the fights in that desperate week when it was a handful of people trying to hold the line in a city gone mad.
Mike counted the days and realised it was Friday the third week of the emergency, it was odd how quickly this all became normal, walking the beat in webbing with a rifle in his hands, people flying over head, alert for an ambush by people that could kill you without a weapon.
The two weeks since the army had come in heavy had changed things. They had hit the places where they knew the supers to be and the fighting had flattened a lot of buildings, the result had been that the surviving super gangs had moved to intact areas further out, this cut down on the fighting a fair bit since they were now separated from each other by distance.
But the army had also done something else, they went after all of the supers, not knowing or carrying if they considered themselves to be heroes or villains. So the heroes found themselves being attacked by the police and army as well. That caused changes that still hadn’t settled.
The heroes had recruited less powerful supers and formed large gangs just as the villains had and now it was a three way war. Heroes, villains and the army.
Oddly with everyone now away from the wrecked centre of the city the police and soldiers there came under less attacks and spent most of their time dealing with refugees, people who tried to flee the city hit the army cordon and were sent to the camps by the M4, people moving toward the river and city centre ended up meeting the only official organisation still in the city.
After the battle outside the police station that Sunday the building was half wrecked, most of the front wall came down while they were still treating the wounded in the car park and with the city fighting against the army that was pushing in from the suburbs it had been grab everyone and run for it. The emergency services and the soldiers who had come to join them were left alone in the city. Radios were swamped by static anywhere near the city for some reason, they couldn’t get orders from outside so they had quickly discussed the options among themselves.
As it turned out the only place they could go to was the railway station, that was where the army were bringing in supplies and they had a small force there already, it was more secure than a car park next to a falling down building so the whole group moved there.
Bristol Temple Mead station isn’t that big if you look at just the passenger area but it handles a lot of trains, the rail yards outside cover acres of land and there is a lot more besides. Once the locals arrived and started talking to the army a few questions were asked like why are you off loading cargo onto the passenger platform when the old parcel force buildings over there are all set up to handle train loads of boxes?
Or why don’t you set up down in the tunnels and bunkers under the station?
After what amounted to a series of guided tours the senior officers on site started giving orders and the place began to turn into a large and capable base.
The old unused parcel force buildings had been shut down years before but they were solid and were built to handle train delivered mail and parcels for the city, a train could come in with food, unload right into the warehouses and parcel handling areas and be dealt with from there. The building became the main food distribution centre for the city.
The tunnels were not so well known but they were vast, a mass of train sized tunnels, rooms and corridors. Down there was an area converted into a bomb shelter for the station staff and passengers during the Second World War. There was even an underground wine cellar.
Next to the main station building was the old Brunel terminal, thick Victorian stone walls and an iron beam roof. Solid enough to take a hit or two.
From the army point of view the railway tracks were the best road into the city, they didn’t need to clear them of wreckage and the supers seemed to be ignoring them. At first trucks and a few wheeled APCs had simply driven along the rail lines. Now they were running cargo trains in twice a day, like something out of an old news reel of the war, flat bed cars lined with sand bags, pintle mounted machine guns, a few box cars with firing slits cut in the sides and the important train that bought in the passengers and troops had a pair of Scimitar light tanks parked back to back on one flat bed then surrounded up to their decks with sand bags, a make shift fortress with two turret mounted 30 mil cannons.
So the trains rolled in and the warehouses filled up with food that was then sent out in convoys to the main refugee points. The tunnels had been cleared out, the bunker now had sleeping rooms, a command room and stores. The army engineers had found all the ways into the tunnels and either blocked them or fortified them with bunkers and pill boxes. They were also deploying prefabricated walls and towers, hollow boxes that they had first filled with sand, gravel or dirt. After the first week they had a water line down to the river, several concrete mixers and a good stock of cement power and sand, they were filling the walls and towers with concrete now.
With the concrete canvas tents being set up in lines at the edge of the tracks and the walls and towers all the place needed was moat to look like a castle or something from the Napoleonic wars.
There were even machine gun nests made of sand bags on the every flat roof with orders to engage any flying super that looked like a threat, an order the gunners took to mean fire as soon as they came into range.
The Brunel building was used to house the medics and the handful of scientists who were working inside the city, most of the high foreheads were studying the situation from all over the world but about a dozen were running labs and the like from inside the emergence zone. That was what they called it but anyone who asked them what that meant spent five minutes trying to understand scientific gibberish and gave up.
The Bristol Emergency Management Local Command had come into being and had been working round the clock to feed the thousands of people who for whatever reason were still in the city.
Forty odd police, about the same number of medics and firemen and about eighty soldiers though that number changed daily, the army was cycling troops through for a few days or a week so there could be fifty one day and a hundred the next. In addition they had something over a hundred locals, a mix of low power supers and normals who were trying to help out or who just wanted the feeling of safety and were happy to help out in return.
On top of that was anywhere from a fifty to a hundred volunteer emergency services people from outside, they came in for a week to help out then vanished again, a few of them mentioned that the government frowned on people doing this and kept the numbers down, no one knew what had happened to the people in the city and there was still a fear that people who went in would become infected.
The air over the city was mostly empty apart from small groups of flying supers, the air force ran recon drones above 10,000 feet but they reported at least three radar units active in the city that moved all the time making targeting them difficult.
Fighters were all but useless, radar or infra red targeting systems were useless against a flying person and engaging with cannon was difficult when the target was the size of a human. Only helicopters could fight flying supers and they were appallingly vulnerable to supers in the air and on the ground.
So the supers controlled the air while the army and BEMLoC walked or drove.
Regular food convoys went out to the refugees and the army kept up almost constant patrols in those areas. They didn’t often run into problems but the thinking was if the army looked in charge the supers would stay clear. It may have been a stupid idea but it seemed to work so maybe it wasn’t so stupid after all.
Which is how Mike came to be walking along the A4044 toward the chimes of the church bell, with soldiers in front and behind. Everyone alert for trouble but hoping not to find any.
These soldiers had arrived two days ago, this was their first patrol outside the base and they were more than a little nervous. Barracks gossip outside the city had been spinning wild tales of super powered men who could tear tanks apart with their bare hands or kill with a glance. Though to be fair a few red top newspapers were running the same stories so it wasn’t just soldier’s gossip.
Which was why the sight of a man running towards them shouting had them reacting as if it was an attack, most had their rifles up and covering the running man before the first shout had finished echoing off the houses around them. Mike had moved away from the squad and was covering the side away from the shouts, he found another soldier doing the same while a third covered the road behind them. Good training if a bit wet behind the ears.
“HALT, halt or we shoot!”
The sight of five men aiming assault rifles at him bought the running man sliding to a stop a good ten metres from the soldiers.
“Please, please, you have to help, the nurse says it’s twisted, you have to help us. Please.” The man was all but wringing his hands, he sounded desperate but that could be a trick.
More people were coming towards the soldiers, one walking ahead of them with his hands out to either side, the flash of a white dog collar clearly visible against the dusty black of his jacket.
“It’s his wife, she needs help, he didn’t mean any harm, could you lower your guns, he just got carried away.” The priest stopped beside the distraught man then slowly reached out and put one of his hands on the husbands arm.
Mike heard the priests voice and risked a quick look, he had been patrolling up here once a day for two weeks now and had spoken with the padre a number of times. Seeing that there didn’t seem to be any imminent attack he coughed to attract the attention of one of the other soldiers, pointed at the man, then his own eyes then the direction he wanted covered.
Once the soldier had turned to watch the indicated direction Mike walked to the front of the group and called out to the priest.
“Your man there going to rush us again?”
The priest visibly tightened his grip. “No, no he won’t. It’s just that he’s worried, it’s his wife you see. Her baby is coming but there is some sort of problem. They need help you see.”
Behind Mike one of the soldiers muttered something about not being paid enough for this shit. It sounded like the patrols medic but Mike didn’t turn to look.
“That’s OK, we have a medic with us.”
“Bastard.” Came from behind Mike, spoken just loudly enough to be heard.
Mike walked over to the priest and the two shook hands then they both turned to the distraught man. “Lead the way.”
The man took off at a run toward the church, Mike waved the patrol to follow and he walked alongside the priest toward the church. They turned up Pump lane with the church ahead of them and beyond the church was the open green of a small park though the grass was barely visible with all the tents.
The man they were following had run between the brightly coloured tents and to the entrance of the large white marquee. He slowed to a walk and pushing the tent flap aside walked in.
Mike and the priest followed, the soldiers behind them.
At the entrance to the white tent the priest went straight in, Mike paused and turned to the soldiers. “This is a job for the medic, maybe the rest of you should sweep the area, amke sure its secure. You got your maps?”
Most of them nodded. “Right, stay in sight of the church, one circuit then back here.”
A few people watching may have wondered why the soldiers were taking orders from a policeman but as far as the soldiers were concerned, if it walked like a sergeant, talked like a sergeant and had 16 years in the forces then the uniform didn’t matter.
Besides which things were, flexible, here in BEMLoC.
As the soldiers move off Mike entered the tent. It was set up as a makeshift hospital, several tables and field beds. One of the beds was occupied, a woman, moaning in pain, holding the frame of the bed with white knuckled hands. She was wearing slacks and a bra leaving no doubt as to her status.
Several other women stood nearby including one white haired old grandmother who was talking quietly to the medic who was gently resting his fingertips on the woman’s belly.
“Yep, I can feel the head here. Your right, not turned at all, maybe caught on the umbilical.”
The sound of the tent flap dropping back into place caught the medics attention and he looked at Mike who took in the scene then spoke. “You got this one?”
“No, hell no. This one’s a doctor job. Mums water broke but the baby’s side on. No way I can deal with this one, sure as hell not here. Needs a doctor, can we get one out here?”
All of the soldiers had radios but the interference was so bad that even such a short distance from the base they got more static than signal. Mikes police radio got a better signal because it was picking up a few still working cell towers so he was the radio man for the patrol.
He spent several minutes repeating himself before he finally got the message across then had to listen carefully for the reply.
“Ten minutes they say, hang on for ten minutes.”
The medic looked down at the pregnant woman. “There ya go lass, ten minutes and they’ll have you all sorted. You can hang on for ten minutes can’t ya?”
The woman didn’t reply, just carried on groaning.
“We’ll stay with er, she’ll be areet.” That was the grandmother. “Just make sure ya get that doctor here quick.”
Mike nodded and went outside with the priest and the medic, not a lot more they could do so they adopted the age old standard male response to a woman having a baby, stand outside and wait.
#
Eight minutes later and Mike received a crackly radio message, incoming army convoy checking that the area was secure.
Mike confirmed that it seemed to be while the medic tried to reach the rest of the patrol on his army radio, he got some sort of a message to them which he thought they understood.
“What the fuck is with these crap radios?”
Mike pointed at his own police issue. “Local towers are mostly down but we still have a few working. Otherwise all radio is messed up in the city, no one knows why.”
The medic slapped his radio a few times and grunted. “Made in china most like.”
The remainder of the patrol came into view a minute later at the far side of the sea of tents that filled the open area and began making their way between the guy ropes. As they came close enough to be heard the corporal in front shouted.
“What was that you was trying to say, all we heard was crap?”
The medic sighed and shouted back. “Convoy coming in, doctor for the pregnant woman.”
Mike joined in the shouting. “They’ll be coming up the 44, let’s have two men on watch both ends of the church covering the main road and the rest cover the civies up here.”
The leading corporal turned and spoke to the squad too quietly to be heard over the distance but quickly a pair of soldiers began to jog toward the far end of the big church, another pair covered the distance to the front of the church and turned to go down to find a point where they could cover the A4044.
Nothing more happened for several minutes then the army radios by the tent began to sequel and crackle and a voice could just about be made out. “Coming in now.”
Then the sound of diesel engines could be heard in the distance, slowly coming closer, driving along the path cleared through the abandoned and wrecked cars that blocked most of the main roads in the city these days.
The first vehicle reached the corner and turned onto Pump Lane. Mike chuckled at the sight of the six wheeled armoured vehicle, something he remembered from many years ago.
“Where’d they find the Saracen, a museum?”
The corporal answered. “Mothball reserve. They pulled a lot of old stuff out for working in here.”
The second vehicle to turn the corner and come into sight was a battered looking city ambulance, dirty and with the light rack on top smashed by something that had also put an almighty dent in the roof. Behind the ambulance came the third and last vehicle in this little convoy, an army land rover.
All three vehicles made their way up the lane, the Saracen pulled up on the lane, the ambulance bumped up onto the path and onto the grass before stopping next to the marquee and the landy pulled up next to Mike and the soldiers.
The ambulance crew got out and Mike pointed them toward the tent opening, outside volunteers. Bright shiny high viz jackets, not a speck of dirt on either of them. Four soldiers clambered out of the back of the APC and two got out of the Landy, one of whom was a Lieutenant.
Mike looked at all of the new arrivals and then spoke to the officer. “No Doctor?”
“No sorry, orders are to take the woman for treatment at the base. Everything secure here?”
Mike laughed. “In this city, this is about as secure as it gets.”
The officer turned to one of the soldiers from the APC. “Sergeant, let’s have some more pickets out.” Then as the sergeant gave the orders he turned back to look at Mike. “You Cullen?”
“Yep.”
“Ah, heard a few stories about you. Para weren’t you?”
“Yep.”
Getting no conversation the officer turned to the tent, “Is it just the one casualty, the woman?”
“Seems to be, we come up here daily and the squad medics treat the minor stuff then.”
The officer nodded and was about to say something else when the tent’s canvas door was pushed back with a heavy rustle and one of the ambulance crew came out, nodded to the men who were standing watching and walked the few steps to the ambulance. He opened the back doors and slowly pulled out the wheeled stretcher trolley, once the legs were down and the wheels were on the ground he pushed the trolley to the tent opening where the Priest who had been standing quietly so far pulled the flap aside.
With the ambulance man and the trolley inside and out of sight the men went back to standing quietly.
Maybe five minutes later and the tent flap was pushed open again, this time the ambulance crewman who came into sight was walking backwards, the canvas slid across his high viz with an odd rasping sound before dropping aside. He was pulling the stretcher while his colleague pushed. They carefully manoeuvred the trolley to the back of the ambulance while keeping an eye on the woman who was on top, she was moaning quietly but seemed in less pain now and was hidden under a blue blanket that left only her head visible.
The ambulance team began to slide the trolley into the back of the ambulance, making sure it locked into the rails on the floor.
“What’s that?”
“Where, direction ya bloody idiot.” That was the sergeant.
“Shit, west, ten o’clock, above the houses.”
Everyone turned to look and quickly found the movement, three birds perhaps, flying above the long line of roofs.
Three big birds.
Flying fast.
Flying closer.
Three ruddy big birds.
One of which was on fire.
“SUPERS!”
Mike pulled out a pair of binoculars and had a better look, one man with bat wings sprouting from his shoulders, no idea how they could lift his weight but they did, the second had wings instead of arms and the third from the waist down was a ball of fire that seemed to be working like a rocket.
All three were flying closer and seemed to be looking down at the vehicles, nothing that looked hostile, more curious that anything. Then the one with wings for arms dived toward the church, getting lower and closer very fast.
The ambulance crew finished loading the trolley into the back and turned to see what was going on.
One of the soldiers opened fire, his first burst missed wide but his second hit one of the arm like wings and the super came down in a tumble of limbs and slammed into the tarmac hard. Ignoring the shouts coming from Mike and the patrol sergeant to hold fire several of the other soldiers started shooting as well, every shot missed but the fight was on.
The bat winged super turned rapidly and seemed to vanish into a cloud of darkness that then dropped behind the closest line of houses.
The man who was half fire began to accelerate towards the soldiers, leaving a trail of flames in the air behind him.
The flaming super dropped rapidly and landed on the road close to his dead friend and across from the church car park, the ball of fire below his waist shrank down and became his legs then his arms became flame and he fired a ball of fire at the closest soldiers. His form wavering behind the walls of heat that poured off his entire body.
A cloud of darkness poured out of the houses across the lane and quickly spread out, several of the closest soldiers fire blindly into the cloud then stumbled backwards as it close on them.
Mike had turned, took several long steps and slammed the ambulance door shut while screaming at the driver “GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!” Some sixth sense warned him and he turned to see the super pointing at him, or the ambulance but it was the same thing. Mike felt cold gripping his chest tight.
The turret on the APC rotated rapidly and began to spay rounds into the darkness which was by now half way across the lane, the black mist changed course and moved quickly toward the six wheeled vehicle.
The super’s hand vanished into fire and a football sized ball of flame leapt across the distance, Mike could feel the heat on his face as the insanely hot ball raced toward him.
The Saracen engine noise jumped as the driver revved it into the red and tried to get away from the cloud, but the mist formed tendrils that leapt out and seemed to grab the back of the vehicle.
The ball of fire rushed toward Mike, the grass underneath it burst into flames, the tents ether side caught fire or melted as the intense heat raced past them.
The ambulance driver got the engine started and put his foot down, the rear wheels began to spin as they tore apart the grass they were sitting on.
Too late.
The fireball reached them.
And vanished.
About four meters in front of Mike the ball of fire just vanished, not a trace left, gone.
The super stood there, his mouth open in surprise, ignoring the shots coming from the soldiers as every bullet turned to a puff of vapour before it touched him. The super screamed and started running towards Mike, both arms blazing with fire.
Mike fired his rifle from the shoulder, one burst, two, then a third did nothing. Then suddenly, at the same distance that the ball of fire had vanished, the flames around the super vanished and Mikes fourth burst smashed into his chest. The super staggered to a stop, his chest a bloody mess, he looked down at his wounds then looked up to stare in Mikes face. A single word escaped his lips before he pitched over.
“How?”
Then the supers dying body hit the ground.
The Saracen hit top speed and seemed to pull itself free of the black tendrils, the small turret continued to hammer rounds into the mist, every round vanished, none came out the other side.
Mike put a final burst into the supers head then looked round to find almost every other soldier now pouring fire into the darkness, the rounds seemed to have no effect, no sign of hitting anything. But was it, maybe, YES, the cloud of darkness was shrinking, slowly but surely it was getting smaller. The two soldiers who had been at the far end of the church reached the fight and added their fire to that of the others.
Then above the sound of the rifle fire there was a loud thump, something small and too fast to see properly entered the cloud. A flash of dull red lit up half the cloud and it shrunk by a quarter.
The lieutenant who was standing by the back of the land rover quickly opened the grenade launcher and slid another round into the barrel.
The darkness suddenly pulled back, it moved at running speed to the houses, flowed over the walls and into the gardens where it vanished from sight.
As the dark cloud dropped into the gardens Mike dropped out the used magazine in his rifle and without moving his gaze from the gardens slapped a full round into place.
The sergeant ordered a pair of soldiers forward to check the gardens, the ran to the wall while every rifle covered them, one cautiously stood up at tall as he could then looked into the closest garden before dropping down again.
“Clear, it’s gone, whatever the fuck that was, it’s gone.”
Mike lowered his weapon and straighten his back, he had been in a shooting stance and wasn’t that young anymore. He looked around to access the situation and found everyone staring at him, the soldiers, the civilians from the church, even the priest.
Everyone staring at him like he had just grown horns.
#
The three vehicles had left quickly, heading back to the base. The woman in labour and two soldiers with burns.
The patrol had gone on, in silence. No one talked, every one watching for an attack outside the group and watching Mike inside the group.
No one knew what had happened, Mike sure as hell didn’t. It wasn’t anything he had done, it just happened. The ambulance crew, the woman, Mike, they were alive because of, what. What had stopped the ball of fire, what had gotten rid of the supers flames. What could do that, what power could do that. No one had ever seen a super do anything like that, it wasn’t some sort of science fiction force field or glowing lights or a wall of cold.
The flames had just vanished, snuffed out like a candle in a hurricane.
Mike didn’t know what had happened and sure as hell didn’t like it.
Was he a super, one of the mad dogs that killed anyone who got in their way. Was that why he wanted to kill them, was he one of the infected?
The rest of that patrol had seemed to take forever.
Seven
Mike drew a shuddering breathe, his legs like rubber. He grabbed the dry stone wall and managed to stay upright though he pulled the top few stones apart and a small avalanche of dust fell from the wall that had stood undisturbed for hundreds of years.
Another one.
Another memory.
Why that one?
The bells, the fucking church bells. He had heard them that day, just before he had found out he wasn’t untouched, just before he realised he wasn’t human anymore.
Not human, not a super, not, what?
That was the day when everything changed. For him at least.
Mike decided fuck it with dignity, he let go of the wall and slid down to sit on the cracked tarmac that made up the foot path. He just sat there for several minutes while he tried to slow down his breathing and his pulse.
Then he glanced around and spotted the trolley, it was a few feet away, he had dropped the handle when the flashback or whatever it was started and it was just sitting there.
He reached for the handles, it was a bit too far but he couldn’t face standing up again so he rolled over a bit and stretched another few centimetres till his finger tips touched the handle. He dragged the trolley closer, tore at the plastic covering the tray on top and wrestled a bottle free.
The bottle was cool from the cellar, not cold but that didn’t matter. Mike popped the lid and lifted the bottle to his lips and took a sip. Then a proper gulp and another.
Oddly his hands weren’t shaking this time but his legs didn’t feel up to standing so he sat there, the afternoon sun shining down, trying to warm him up and failing.
Mike finished the beer and was reaching for a second when a voice interrupted him.
“You alright mister?”
Mike slowly turned his head to see a pair of boys on dirt bikes, curly hair, olive skin, brown eyes, under ten, tee shirts with some sort of logo on the front. They looked familiar somehow, at least Mike was sure he had seen them before.
“Yea, fine, just having a drink. Want one?”
“What is it?” The boy sounded suspicious.
“Beer, good stuff?”
“Mum says beer rots the brain, she says people who drink beer get stupid. Gran says beer is for pigs and to only drink whiskey. Mum says gran only got to be so old because she is pickled.”
Brain cells fired up and Mike remembered who these two were, their mother’s mother lived in the village, they lived in town, too far to cycle here so they kept bikes at their grandmothers house. One was Shawn, the other was, something, began with R. But a bit young for beer.
“I’m fine, go bother someone else.” Mike was recovering, his legs felt like they would work again, his heartbeat was back to its normal level and the adrenaline buzz was fading. He watched the two boys cycle away and tried to stand.
Maybe he needed to sit here longer.
Sod that. He grabbed the wall and levered himself upright. More dust showered out of the old stones but he got himself standing. Once he was upright he felt better, at least his legs were taking his weight.
The walk back to his cottage took a lot longer and it wasn’t just being careful with the loaded trolley of beer.
#
By the time Mike reached the cottage his mood hadn’t improved much. He pulled the trolley to the front door and carefully pulled it up over the front step and into the house. It was just small enough that he could get it into the kitchen and over to the fridge.
He tore the plastic on the top tray apart and put the eleven beers that were left into the fridge then pulled a gap in the plastic of the next tray and filled the remaining space.
The few bottles left on that tray and both full trays went in the pantry cupboard.
Work done, time for one of the cold beers and a sit down. Mike had a lot to think about and a decision to make. He opened the fridge door to grab one of the few bottles that were cold then swore. He had stacked the new warm bottles in front, the cold ones were trapped at the back.
Mike stood there, he wanted to hit something, someone. Then he felt sharp pain from his hands, from the palms of his hands and the anger vanished. He had been standing there clenching his fists so tightly that he had sunk his fingernails into his palms. He lifted his hands and turned them palms up, he could clearly see the little half moons marking the skin.
Slowly, bottle by bottle, keeping a tight control on himself Mike lifted out enough of the new bottles so that he could reach the back and pull out all three of the cold ones. Then he pushed the new bottles in and carefully put two of the cold ones at the front.
Slowly and with tight control he shut the fridge door.
He could see what was going on. What he couldn’t see was why. The flashbacks, the day dreams, the memories. He was getting angry at the slightest things.
It must be the pills, he had been off them long enough that bad shit was happening.
No, why was it all happening on the same bloody day, he was fine yesterday, it couldn’t be like a switch. One day fine, the next day a psycho with flashbacks to the war.
Mike leaned against the kitchen counter and popped the lid on the beer, took a sip and thought some more.
He was having these flashbacks in order, that didn’t make sense either. His dreams at night were random, his nightmares were from the worst battles, the massacres, the times he had been hurt the worst of come closest to death.
Compared to his nightmares today’s flashbacks barely rated, well the church maybe because that was the day he found out he wasn’t one of the immune ones.
But why was it all happening today, why where his bloody dreams in order, one after the other like he was replaying the highlights of the last war in his head.
None of this made any kind of sense.
Which meant he needed to talk to someone who could make sense of it, which meant talking to the doctor, the shrink. Which meant admitting he wasn’t taking the pills. Which was probably the problem. Which meant this was all his fault.
Bollocks!
#
Mike sat down in this favourite arm chair, the one that faced the wall screen. A voice command bought up the screen and phone function and he used the virtual touch screen function to go through his phone numbers, it was not a long list.
To someone watching he would have been waving his arms in mid air in front of himself but technology developed from an old console game of all things detected his movements corresponding to the display on the screen. He was using a 4 meter wide touch screen while seated in his arm chair on the other side of the room.
He found the doctors number and poked his hand at the ring button.
A few rings later and the doctors answering service responded, a woman’s voice, synthetic but very good. It was one of the newer reception packages, a Turing package that pretended to be a secretary twenty four seven. The screen became an animation of a woman, brown hair, 30s, hazel eyes, it wasn’t a bad graphic.
“I’m sorry, Doctor Rosen is not available at present. Do you have an appointment?”
“No, I want to talk to the doctor.”
“I’m sorry, the doctor is not available. I can make you an appointment, do you have a preferred date and time or would you like to book an appointment at the first available slot?”
Mike sighed. “Put me through to a human being.”
“I’m sorry. No one is available over the weekend unless it is an emergency. I can make you an appointment.”
Mike interrupted the software. “It’s an emergency, I’m having an emergency. Put me through to a human being. Now would be good.” It was pointless getting angry or swearing at a software package and Mike didn’t have to deal with them often but he was getting very tempted.
The screen changed to the English Telecom icon for a few seconds then changed again to show the wall of what looked like an office, it was all old fashioned wooden shelves covered in leather bound books. A young man came into the picture, late twenties, dyed black hair with blue edges, grey eyes that had to be contacts, fake tan, either very clean shaven or facial hair removed permanently, he seemed to be leaning over to get into view of the screen since his head was sideways in the Picture.
“Doctors busy, can this wait?”
Mike swore under his breath. “NO. Can I speak to the doctor. NOW!”
“He’s busy. Are you a patient?”
“Yes I am a fucking patient!”
“No need to get upset, what’s your name?”
“Cullen, See, ee, you. Double ell, ee, en. Cullen. First name Mike.”
The man walked round the desk and his head twisted into a more normal position. He sat down on a chair that was below the view of the screen camera and began to type off to the left. “Cullen, Cullen. Mike you said. Nope, no Cullen on the patient list, are you sure you have the right doctor?”
“Yes I have the right doctor, my name is right, I get a bottle of pills off him every fucking month. He is my doctor, I am one of his patients.”
The young man frowned and glanced at something to the left. “Well you’re not on the patient list, what sort of pills?”
“Blue ones, dark blue bottle, pale blue pills, oval shaped. Pills.”
“Oh, do they come with a foil security seal on the cap.”
Mike gritted his teeth. “Yes they have a bloody foil lid. Blue pills.”
“Ah, you’re one of those patients. Just a minute.” More air typing. “Cullen, here you are. Oh.”
“What the fuck do you mean oh?”
The young man looked directly at the screen and Mike. “Sorry, one of the old cases, from the war. My father doesn’t have many of those left. I can see your name but everything else is behind a confidentiality lock. Hang on, I’ll go get dad.”
The man vanished from view but he left the screen on so Mike was left staring at row after row of immaculate leather books, after a minute or so he turned his head to one side to try and read the titles on some of the books.
It was at that moment that the screen changed to reveal the doctor, the background was masked by an electronic fuzz.
“Michael. Is there a problem, we haven’t spoken since last year.
“Yes. Look doctor, I don’t know what’s going on but I’m having dreams, flashbacks, all day today. It’s freaking me out.”
“Well why don’t you start from the beginning. Don’t worry Mike. We’ll find out what’s going on.”
We’ll find what’s going on.
Eight
“We’ll find out what’s going on with you Mr Cullen, it’s what we do around here.”
Mike looked into the earnest and excited face of the elderly man and sighed to himself, it had been a long day so far and had every sign of being longer.
After the incident at the church and the rest of the patrol Mike was oddly exhausted by the time he got back to the rail station base. He had grabbed something to eat and hit his bunk. He had fallen into a deep sleep and woken when the soldiers sleeping in the bunks around him had been roused for morning stand to and the change of duties at six o’clock.
He had crawled out of bed still feeling tired, the kind of bone deep exhaustion that simple rest doesn’t cure. A shower did a little to get him working and thinking and clean clothes helped some more.
The Army engineers had been hard at work since Bristol Emergency Management Local Command, or BEMLoC for short, had set up here. They may have been living in old railway tunnels but they had showers, running hot and cold water, army camp beds and wonder of wonders, a laundry.
There was something life changing about peeling off the clothes you had been wearing for more than a week and climbing into clean underwear and army fatigues and no longer being able to smell yourself. That had marked the middle of the first week at the railway station and moral had jumped noticeably that day when the hot water had come on line and the clean clothes were handed out after that glorious first shower.
So when Mike pulled his battered old police jacket on it was over fresh clean clothing he had grabbed from the stacks on the table outside the shower room. All neatly piled up by sizes, army organisation at its best..
Wide awake but deep in thought he had paused to grab a tin mug of army coffee before walking down into the bunker and the command centre.
BEMLoC had been based at the train station for two weeks now but it hadn’t been until a few days ago that they got reliable encrypted communications running. Any lines above ground had been cut by the fighting, satellite links were overwhelmed by some sort of unknown static and radio was unreliable for the same reason.
The bright sparks had been trying to set up reliable comms for a week until someone wandered in and said why not use the big fibre optic that ran alongside the railway that is just outside.
The following day and the place had broadband, encrypted comms, satellite news, the works.
Which was why as Mike walked into the main room, coffee mug in hand, he was met by a soldier who thrust a piece of paper towards him. Mike read the note; it was an order for police officer M Cullen to attend a compulsory medical evaluation and assessment at the Cordon command at Cribs Causeway shopping centre.
Whatever had hit Bristol seems to have affected a roughly circular area and covered the bulk of the city centre and surrounding areas but the big shopping centre had been outside of the affected area so the army had taken it over, loads of car parks and room for all their vehicles and tents.
Rumour had it they had kept the staff of the fast food places on site so they were eating Mac Ds and Burger Kings while the people in the city ate Meals Rejected by Everyone.
Bastards!
The journey was all planned, out of the city on the supply train that was being used to bring in supplies, the supers were ignoring the trains but just in case two of the flatbeds had sandbags round the edges and a lot of automatic weapons. Then a ride in an army copter from there to the shopping centre and a compulsory assessment whatever that was.
The soldier who had given Mike the message had scurried off as soon as he had delivered the slip of paper. As Mike looked up from the note to watch the squady go he noticed that everyone else in the room was watching him, giving him sideways looks. News about yesterday had spread fast around the building and everyone was keeping their distance. No one knew what had happened, even Mike had only a vague idea of the events and he had been right in the middle of them but the story was getting wilder in the telling.
It had been a relief to get on the outbound train when it finally arrived, no one would talk to him, everyone was watching him, Men he had served alongside for weeks, men he had fought beside, all of them acting as if he had two heads and cloven hooves.
#
The train trip had been slow and nervous, the trains hadn’t been attacked so far but they were big slow targets and the men and women on them were well aware that a few sandbags wasn’t much protection against the sort of fire power that some supers could use.
Everyone on board had breathed a sigh of relief when they made it out of the city and reached the army cordon.
No one officially said so but the cordon was containment, a quarantine, the army were trying to keep the city locked up and the population trapped there. The refugee camps that had quickly sprung up on the major roads were now inside the army cordon though at least they were well supplied.
Problem was no one had as yet worked out how to detect a super, unless they were one of the weird ones that had changed into something obvious a super could walk past the troops all day then suddenly start throwing energy blasts or some such. So as far as the army was concerned everyone in the city stayed there.
The train pulled into what had been a disused local village station but which was now a busy logistics hub. Lorries and containers everywhere, forklifts moving cargo back and forth. It looked like the engineers had been here as well, what looked like a bridge had been set up so vehicles could drive up onto the platform and load the trains directly.
Three military police were standing on the platform, they had obviously been briefed as they walked up to him as he stepped out of the train carriage.
“Mr Cullen, this way please, we have a Lynx waiting.”
The four men walked down from the platform and across the station car park, weaving between trucks and eighteen wheelers. Across the road and through an old rickety looking five bar gate into a farmer’s field, to the left were big army tents, the green kind that boiled in summer. A few gazebo type shelters with tables under them and partially hidden behind the big tents a load of eight man bivies.
To the right was a clear area and one British army Lynx helicopter, wingtip weapon pods with what looked like a pair of seven sixty two machine guns, the copters had door guns as well, more machine guns though these had the long articulated ammo belts reaching across the door way and up to the ammo bins that for some reason where mounted high and at the front. The gunner for the closest side gun was standing beside the bird smoking, he glanced across at the approaching group, took a deep drag on the cigarette that turned the tip red than threw it away.
He banged on the Perspex window closest to him then turned to face the four men and spoke.
“You the gents wanting a taxi?”
One of the MPs climbed straight in, the second waited by the door and the third stopped behind Mike, “Get in”
Mike didn’t miss the fact that they seemed to be guarding him as much as guiding him. For a moment he wondered what would happen if he said he didn’t like flying and could they get a car then decided not to bother. The sooner he got there the sooner this would be over.
Mike climbed in, clambering round the door gun and sliding along the bench seat that ran the length of the read bulkhead. The second MP slide in behind him and boxed him in, a criminal sandwiched between cops. The last MP clambered in and took one of the jump seats that were back to back with the flight crew. The door gunner climbed in and took his position by the weapon.
The flight crew immediately bought the engine to full power and spun up the rotor blades. As the Lynx bobbed up and left the ground both door gunners pulled the charging levers then began taking an intense interest in the sky outside.
Mike leaned toward the door gunner that had been outside, both MPs blocked him and Mike glared at them till they sat back on the bench. Bloody idiots, did they think he was trying to escape from a flying copter. Still it confirmed one detail, they were treating him like a prisoner.
Leaning as close to the door gunner as he could manage Mike shouted to try and be heard over the rotor noise. “You get attacked this far out?”
“WHAT?”
“YOU GET ATTACKED THIS FAR OUT?”
The gunner shook his head from side to side and mouthed the word ‘no’ then went back to watching his side of the airspace as if he was expecting to see flying supers closing in at any minute.
The flight around the cordon to Cribs Causeway and the headquarters took a good ten minutes, there was no other air traffic until they came within sight of the sprawling complex of shops and car parks. Looking out of both sides Mike counted five other helicopters, one of which was a US blackbird with US army tags.
They slowed down as they started crossing the busy car parks, green military vehicles everywhere. One car park was a village of one and two storey porta cabins, they looked like something from a building site. Then their Lynx banked to the right and slowed for landing, looking out and down Mike noticed they were flying over another car park full of green painted vehicles and a lot of men sitting everywhere eating, then the golden arches came into sight and the smell of fast food tantalised Mike’s nose for just a second.
The rumours had been right, they had kept the burger places working.
Bastards.
A few seconds later the copter slowed almost completely and bumped as it landed a bit fast. The pilot slowed the rotors and the noise levels dropped. The same door gunner climbed out and stood outside with his head ducked to avoid the still turning rotor blades.
“That you for flying 669 Squadron, we hope you enjoyed your flight.”
One of the MPs shot the door gunner a nasty look, the gunner smiled in return then glanced at Mike, the gunner rolled his eyes and Mike nodded in understanding.
The four men walked across the car park that was being used as a landing pad and paused at the main road waiting for a gap in the traffic, once a pair of trucks had rumbled past they were clear to cross and two of the MPs quickly started across. The third was behind Mike and when he hesitated pushed him forward.
The far side was another car park, high sided lorries and flatbeds with containers on the back, they made there was through the maze of metal and came to another road and face to face with the glowing yellow M.
The smell of fast food hit them and Mike began to drool, it was like an addiction, go cold turkey for a while and the smell sets you off.
“Hey guys, can we grab a burger while we’re here? Been a long time since I had anything but army rats.”
The leading MPs barely glanced at him and the third MP walked straight up to Mike to push him into moving. Bad practice Mike thought to himself, it they really thought I was dangerous they would have one leading and the other two would be behind me, out of arms length behind me.
Across that car park, walking away from the smell and looking at a few dozen men and women who were wolfing down burgers, fries and milkshakes Mikes stomach rumbled to remind him that breakfast had been a mug of coffee and that had been a long time ago.
Mike’s attention was drawn back to where he was when walls loomed up on either side and he realised they had walked into the village of porta cabins. Several had the names of well known builders still on the sides. One double stack ahead of them had a pair of guards covering both the ground floor door and the external metal staircase that led up to the door above.
One of the MPs stopped by the guards and took some paperwork out of his pocket which the guard made a show of checking. Then both guards stepped back a little and went back to watching around them.
The MP turned and gestured Mike to enter then stepped in behind him, the other two stayed outside.
“Doctor Anders, this is the man you are waiting for.” The MP dropped the paperwork on the closest desk, turned around and stepped outside where all three MPS walked away. Towards the MacDonald’s Mike noted. Complete and utter bastards.
The porta cabin was chaos, metal tables down both sides and a long metal table up the middle of the room, a portable server of some sort in a metal frame sitting next to a fridge and an air conditioning unit against the wall at one end, empty shelves filled the other end. The table tops were covered with piles of paper, lap tops, monitors of varying sizes and several keyboards.
A mixture of secretaries chairs in the narrow gaps between the tables, different fabrics and colours and state of wear. Above the tables down each long side of the cabin were single glazed windows, heavy metal bars on the outside stopped the windows opening more than a few inches. Directly opposite the door was a blank wall, patches of old sellotape and blue tack indicated this had been used as a notice board though the only thing on the wall was a last years day planner and a small grubby picture that looked like it had been cut out of a glossy magazine. Female, twenties, fake blonde hair, fake smile, fake lips, fake and very big tits.
Oh and one inhabitant. A man, late fifties or early sixties, a full shock of white hair over a narrow face, thick glasses with metal wire rims, an actual white coat over, ruddy hell Mike thought, the bloke was wearing tweed.
“Mr Cullen, please come in, sit down. Take a chair. Delighted to meet you.”
Mike looked around and pulled up the chair that looked to be in the best condition.
“Look doc, doctor, what’s all this about, what’s going on?”
The doctor looked happy.
“We’ll find out what’s going on with you Mr Cullen, it’s what we do around here.”
The man in the white coat had fussed around his laptops and paperwork for several minutes while Mike sat there and thought about burgers, with cheese.
Finally he grabbed a random chair, pulled it over and sat down facing Mike.
“So Mr Cullen, oh can I call you Michael?”
“Mike, its Mike doc.”
“Ah yes, Mike. Now then Mike let’s start with the events of yesterday, I want to you to go through everything that you did yesterday, start from starting the patrol. I want to know everything that happened during the battle at the church.
#
Mike talked and the doctor asked questions then Mike repeated himself.
By the time he had finished he was very hungry, his mouth was dry from talking and he had a twinge in the small of his back from the chair.
The doctor had been listening carefully but oddly hadn’t been taking notes, then after mike had finished he glanced at one of the laptops. Mike looked at the same screen and noticed his face, the laptop camera was recording everything.
Thank you Mike, that’s fine for the moment. I’ll ask some more detailed questions later.
Mike grunted, he thought those had been detailed questions.
“OK doc, so what is going on then?”
Doctor Anders pushed his glasses up until the frames touched the bridge of his nose.
“Now that is an interesting question. I’m heading one of the research teams looking into the situation, my field is Theoretical Physics, specifically quantum physics. I’m looking at the physics of what the people who have been affected by what happened are doing.
I’m also the closest since we’re taking readings over the affected area and I like to be close at hand so I get the data fresh, oh and I get to handle the interviews.
Now you are an interesting case. Every example we have been studying so far is a clear manipulation or manifestation of one or more of the fundamental interactions of matter or directed energy releases.”
“A do what doc, how about you treat me like a squady and go from there.”
“Ah yes of course, sorry.
“We are still trying to identify all of the different manifestations of powers that we are seeing and given that many are hiding what they can do it’s not easy.
Several teams trying to divide the manifested into broad groups, specific powers and overall power levels but it’s extremely complex. Groups are easy, we look at the general way that the super acts and classify then in that way regardless of what powers they may have. For example a Brawler gets up close and fights, a shooter fights from range, a Tank simply gets attacked a lot with little to no effect, a brain has some sort of mental powers, speeders move very fast and so on. No I didn’t come up with the names.
Anyway what has us puzzled is how so many of these so called supers are able to act in defiance of the conventional laws of physics, they should not be able to do what they clearly can do. This is something that came in this morning which shows you what I mean, this video which was recorded a few days ago.”
The doctor touched the screen of his laptop and a short video began on the screen.
It was filmed from a mobile phone that was close to the action, the hand holding the phone was shaking so the recording wasn’t very clear but it was enough to show a section of street, shops with shattered windows and a line of burnt out cars in front of them. A woman came into view, maybe five feet tall and forty kilos dripping wet. She was wearing some sort of bright yellow full body stocking with a black one piece swim suit over the top and knee length black boots. Standard bizarre super costume but Mike had to admit it looked good on her. The girl ran up to one of the wrecked cars and grabbed the door frame with one hand and reached under the bottom of the car to grab the chassis with her other hand, she was just about able to reach. Then without any sign of effort she lifted the entire car into the air. The doctor paused the video.
“Now at this point what she is doing is possible, that’s a straight lift braced against the ground, well its possible with levels of physical strength far above that of a normal human. Watch what happens next.”
The video started again and the girl threw the entire car across the road at a target that was outside the shot.
“See that, do you see, she didn’t move, she threw the car horizontally and she didn’t move at all, we checked and that car is 870 Kilos and it was moving at 22 meters per second. That’s a huge amount of kinetic force, she can’t weight 50 kilos and yet she threw the car without the slightest sign of movement. Completely impossible, basic physics, equal and opposite force and all that.
Which is what led us, after some arguments it must be said, to quantum physics and the unified force. She is somehow acting as a focus and control for a manipulation of the underlying quantum energy field. It’s not her physically throwing the car, she is going through the motions but in reality the force to throw the car is quantum and as its pushing against a car on one side and the universe on the other side there is no movement in the middle.
What we are seeing is a manifestation of a unified field, energy control and change of all four of the main forces. The transformed changing so suddenly and so radically but still being alive, complete transformation at the atomic level both cellular and genetic. The transformed are such complete changes they will probably be able to breed with each other, well in most cases anyway.
Flying in some way, manipulation of the gravity part of the unified field, wings that would never get a full grown human off the ground and yet they fly.
Don’t you see, it’s clear. These so called supers are the result of a manifestation of the quantum unified field, somehow it not only emerged here in our reality but as an after effect the supers are still connected to it.
Amazing, absolutely amazing. I will be getting bestselling books out of this for decades. My colleagues are so jealous, they aren’t allowed this close to the quarantine.”
The doctor chuckled then noticed the look on Mikes face. “Was that ok or do you want me to make it simpler?”
“Quantum what?”
“Ah, let’s try this. Come over here Mike and push against this table.” The doctor pointed to the long metal table that ran most of the length of the room in the middle, it was piled high with reports, monitors and laptops.
Mike looked at the table and tried to guess how heavy it was. “How far do you want me to push it?”
“Just try to move it.”
Mike walked across to the table and gave it a tentative shove then leaned his whole body toward it and pushed,, the metal legs squealed as the table moved slightly.
“No, no, not like that, Stand upright like the girl did.”
Mike stood upright and pushed against the tabletop then took a half step backwards to keep his balance.
“You see, it’s a matter of force and weight. You push against the table but the force you use works against you as well, you are much lighter so without leaning over and bracing yourself you move and the table doesn’t.”
Mike thought for a second. “Right, so the girl should have gone backwards because using enough force to throw the car would have pushed her as well. She should have gone flying.”
“Exactly, but she didn’t move in the slightest. So the force wasn’t coming from her. Hence the quantum unified force theory.”
Mike grunted. “Makes some sort of sense, size doesn’t seem to make any odds with the supers, big muscle bound blokes or tiny little girls, same strength. I saw the solid metal kid, he’s maybe ten or eleven, I saw him take a grenade in the chest, it blew everyone near him off their feet but he didn’t even budge. Even if it didn’t hurt him it should have moved him, he doesn’t sink into the floor so he can’t be that heavy.”
“Exactly. All of the supers, well apart from you, are somehow.”
“I’m not a fucking super!” Mike clenched his fists and glared at the doctor.
“Ah yes, of course not. Clearly not a super, very unusual but completely different. Yes, not a super. Sorry, didn’t mean to upset you.”
The scientist managed to look pathetic with his pleading and Mike was shocked to realise that without meaning to he had scared the man enough that the doctor had gone pale. Mike unclenched his fists and tried to look less threatening.
“Not your fault doc, sore spot. Just don’t call me that again, call me Mike.”
“Yes, sorry, didn’t. Ah. Anyway the supers seem to be acting as focal points, their actions or thoughts seem to be manipulating the unified force somehow, the physical ones act out what they are doing, the energy projectors all have an action or clearly concentrate.
Physical and mental keys to using the field. But how they do it, that’s a much bigger question. Also what happened, why it was in a limited area, what caused it, can we detect it, prevent it or control it. So many questions. This could change our very understanding of the universe, the laws of physics are going to need a serious rewrite at the least.”
The doctor actually looked happy.
“Anyway, back to you. Is this the first time this has happened to you, what does it feel like, do you consciously do it, do you feel tired afterwards?”
“Whoa just a minute there doc. I don’t do anything, it just happened and it’s never. . .” Mike paused mid sentence as he started to think.
“Its, its happened before. Several times I think. The first super I killed, he was throwing lighting around but when I stood over him he pointed his fingers at me and nothing happened. The big fire fight outside the police station, I saw one of the soldiers, I thought he was going to shoot himself so I ran over to him, as soon as I got to him he stopped. He was being mind controlled by a super. A few other times maybe, I picked up my share of bruises and scrapes but never been directly hit by a super, come to think of it they never got close either.
All the glowing beams or balls of fire or lighting flying around. Never got hit by any of it though plenty around me did.”
Mike remembered something else, something that had happened about half the time he was in a fight with supers.
“I was cold, but it was inside, I could still feel heat on my skin, I could feel the heat of a burning building the first time I killed a super but inside it was like I was ice cold. The mind control chick, I was cold. The ambulance, I could feel the heat of the fireball coming towards me on my face then it was gone but it was like I was in the arctic without a parka.
Freezing cold inside.”
The doctor looked like a child with a new toy.
“Really. That’s fantastic, this is going to be great. You are somehow the very opposite of whatever makes the super powers work, that cold feeling, it could be you are suppressing the unified field, literally blocking the field, it must bleed across into our reality and suppress energy in your body as well, hence the cold feeling.
You could be the key to understanding all of this, if you are the other side of the equation we can begin to make some serious progress in understanding all of this. Once we understand it we can control it, and then stop it.
We are going to have a wonderful time investigating you.”
The doctor was smiling again, a wide grin, a happy man.
Mike sighed deeply and wondered if there was any beer around.
“Mike.”
Nine
“Mike.
MIKE!
Are you all right Mike?”
Doctor Rosen was leaning forward, almost touching his screen.
“Yea, yea. I’m alright. Sorry Doc, another bloody flashback. Been having them all day, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
The doctor sat back in his chair but kept his eyes on Mike. “This has happened several times today, tell me everything please.”
Mike started with the few second flashback in the pub car park, then falling asleep in the garden, the garage, by the church in town and just now. “Five times today doc, one was just a few seconds long, I get them a few times a week, but these others. Each a couple of minutes long, come out of nowhere. It’s like I’m reliving the past, dreaming about things that happened.
I can’t go anywhere doc, I was going for a drive but had a flashback when I saw my old jacket, this happens on the road I’d be dead.
What’s going on doc, is it the pills?”
Mike was worried, more worried than he thought he was showing but he had spent months working with doctor Rosen and the man could read him easily.
“Tell me Mike how long has this been going on, you said several times today, did it happen yesterday?”
Mike shook his head from side to side. “No, today, just today. Never happened before. Dreams at night, yea I get them, quick flashbacks, them too. These dreams while I’m awake, I never had these before. What’s going on doc?”
“That we will find out. Now Mike I need you to answer some questions, have you been taking any other medication over the last few weeks, any change in your diet or health?”
Mike thought about what he should admit to. “Food nothing new, drink, maybe a bit more than normal, I get drunk a few times a month, not much. Nothing new or odd over the last few weeks. You think I caught something, or ate something?”
Doctor Rosen steepled his fingers, a habit Mike recognised, the doctor was thinking.
“The dosage you are on, the length of time you have been taking it, if the dosage is too low or too high the changes would be gradual, not suddenly on a single day. Pharmacological interference, something else combining to give side effects, but so strong an effect and on one day. Unless it was something that took rapid effect.
No it couldn’t be a long term effect, must be short term, within twenty four hours.
It must be something that has taken effect in the last day or so, no other explanation for the strength of the reaction and the lack of preceding symptoms. Mike, you are still taking one tablet a day aren’t you, you haven’t been taking extra pills or skipping days?”
Mike’s first thought was lie or tell the truth After a few seconds of thinking he decided to go all out.
“I sort of, that is, I was getting headaches, bad headaches. I got drunk, very drunk, I spent a few days too drunk to do anything and I forgot to take the pills. But the headaches stopped so I, I sort of stopped, erm, taking the pills.”
Doctor Rosen managed to look like Mikes grandmother, the disproving look was exactly the same.”
“Mr Cullen, you should have called me when these headaches started. You stopped taking the pills, this would have been, what, two weeks ago, maybe three to allow your system to completely flush itself clean of the medication?”
“No, two weeks, no Doc, I stopped taking them a couple of months ago.” Mike did a quick count. “Erm eleven weeks ago I think, ten or eleven weeks ago. I can check if you want the exact day, I have the bottles in the bathroom?”
The doctor looked puzzled. “Several months, that can’t be right, the pills are a strong anti depressant mixed in with a few special compounds for your metabolism and suppressants for your special condition. The effect would have worn off completely within a few weeks of you stopping. Tell me Mike, how have you been since then, without the medicine?”
“Fine, drinking a bit more, that’s all. I get the same dreams and flashbacks since I stopped that I got while taking the pills. It’s just today its gone weird.”
Mike was looking directly at Rosen’s face and caught a few expressions that the doctor quickly hid, the one when Mike said he was drinking a bit more had been clearly disbelieving.
“It’s not a problem doc, I drink a lot, sometimes get drunk, nothing special. Some days I drink more, some days less. It’s not like I suddenly started drinking a few days ago to cause this.”
Doctor Rosen nodded. “Mike I don’t think this is to do with your drinking, no this is something else. Without the pills for so long it must be something in the last day or so to trigger such immediate effects.
I would like you to write everything you have eaten and drunk for the last, lets say forty eight hours. The places you have been, anything you may have come into contact with, anywhere using chemicals. As comprehensive a list as you can manage.
Sent that to my office mail, I’ll pick it up from there.
Let’s try another approach. You said you had a flashback this morning, tell me about that.”
Mike settled back in the chair and started to reach for a beer before remembering that he didn’t have one handy and didn’t want to get one while talking to the doctor.
“It was in the village, some kids playing, running around and screaming. I remembered being in Manchester, during the terror attacks. A super was smashing up a bus station, a bunch of kids were screaming. It was just a flash, a few seconds.
Oh yea, there was another flash back. In the pub, another quick one, some kid with bright green hair and suddenly I was remembering one of the radiation supers, the green glow ones. That was a quick flash back as well.”
The Doctors hands were air typing above his desk. “So two flash backs today and four of these long waking dreams. How often do you have two flashbacks on the same day?”
Mike thought about that one. “Maybe a few times a year, if I’m really stressed out by something. Not often.”
The doctor carried on typing, his fingers rapidly flicking across the empty air above his desktop.
“Alright Mike, now tell me about these long dreams.”
“The first one, that was when it happened, I was at home in bed when the screaming started. Then I was on patrol when the army arrived and the real fighting started.”
Doctor Rosen’s hands moved from side to side, virtual windows being moved around.
“So your first two waking dreams were when it first happened and then the army arriving. What about the other two?”
No doc, that was my first dream. I was there when it first happened and then when we were trying to keep things going over the first few days. The first dream sort of jumped across several events.”
The doctor stopped typing and peered at Mike.
“Multiple scenarios within the same dream structure. Where any of the other dreams like that?”
“Yea, all of them. Well apart from the second, that was when my old police station was trashed in a super attack, that was when we had to move to the railway station. The first day of the big army push when it became a proper war.
The third dream was in the base at the railway station and on patrol. The day at the church where I found I was, well it was the day things changed.
This last one was in Bristol, then going out to the causeway and meeting doctor Anders. I was dreaming, remembering how he told me all about his theory about how the supers had powers. Turned out he was right but back then it was just wild theory.”
Doctor Rosen was back to typing. “So each dream relating to a short period of time or evens closely related to each other. Were there any dreams, any memories that didn’t relate to the rest?”
Mike shook his head no.
“Hum, that’s more of a positive sign, interrelated dream sequences based on specific memory recall.
Just a moment. The first dream was when it all started, then you said something about a police station being destroy so you had to move to a new base, then being at the new base then the most resent dream was you leaving the base.
Are all the dreams happening in chronologic order, are you having these dreams and memories in the same order they happened to you?”
Mike frowned as he thought about it. “Yea, yea they are. First few days, then a few days later, over a week later then days after that. Yea the dreams are all in order. That’s never happened before, my night time dreams, they are all over the place. One night it could be the fighting in Bristol, another the last few days of fighting that new years, then another night it could be end of the first year.
I never dream in order, not like this.
Doc, what the fuck is going on?”
Doctor Rosen stopped typing. “Mike, I would like you to come and visit me in the morning. The London office is too far so come to my house; I have a full facility set up here.
I would like you to start taking the pills, take one today. Pack an overnight bag, a few changes of underwear and the like. I may want you to stay here for a day or two. Do you still have my home address?”
Mike flicked his fingers to activate a corner screen and bought up his friends and contacts list, he quickly found Rosen’s contact details, the London office and the home address in the country, about an hour away by car. “Yea, I have the address.”
“Good, come round tomorrow morning. Or if this gets worse then come round tonight, I’ll set the house to alert me. Mike this may just be something you have been exposed to, food, drink, something you didn’t notice but I would rather be overly careful than not.”
Mike nodded then a thought struck him. “Doc, I’m doing OK money wise but whats it going to cost, weekend calls, a day with you?”
Doctor Rosen chuckled. “You, nothing. You are still covered by veterans support. Normally it’s for a year or two but given the, the special circumstances you are on lifetime cover. The government pays. So don’t worry about my exorbitant rates and don’t worry about these dreams. Come over tomorrow, stay for a few days, I’ll have a few tests run, blood checks, that sort of thing. Don’t worry Mike, we will sort this out.”
Mike nodded. He didn’t feel all that confident but the doctor seemed sure it wasn’t that bad. Of course he was a psychiatrist, his job was making people feel better.
“Sure doc, I’ll get a taxi and come round tomorrow.”
“Good, now don’t forget, one pill tonight and draw up that list of everything you have been up to. Send it over tonight if you cane, that will give me time to have a look before you arrive.”
Mike nodded. “Sure doc. And thanks.”
The doctor shut down the connection and the screen went back to the English Telecom logo then bought up Mikes personalised page, a few news feeds, his email and message queue and the weather.
Mike considered sitting there for a while, maybe watching the news but there was a problem. The beer was in the kitchen. Sighing he heaved himself up out of the leather arm chair and walk to the fridge. He grabbed a cold bottle, after this he had one cold beer left. It would take an hour for the fridge to properly chill the new arrivals.
Still with a bottle in hand and one more cold one he could last an hour.
Holding the cold beer he walked down the steps and across the lounge to the wide open French windows, the heat of the afternoon was still in the air and he could feel droplets of water forming on the glass as he held it. He popped the lid and took his first gulp.
There were birds singing in the trees at the bottom of the garden, somewhere across the village he could hear faint music, it sounded to real to be a radio, someone’s music lesson or a secret performer.
The English countryside in summer, there shouldn’t be nightmares here, not dreams of old wars, not memories of death and destruction. It didn’t seem right to be standing here in such peace worrying about nightmares.
Mike sighed to himself, he was just putting off the inevitable, the pills.
He turned and walked across the lounge, into his bedroom and then into the en suite bathroom. He opened the cabinet and reached up for the open bottle, it rattled as he lifted it down. For some reason the sound disturbed him. He suddenly had an image in his mind, the bones of the dead rattling together as they fell down a slope of black ash.
“Fuck.” The morbid thought vanished as Mike swore out loud. “Where the fuck did that image come from?” Mike asked the question out loud but no one answered.
Mike sat on the edge of the bath, the bottle of pills in his hand. He knew what the doctor had said about taking the pills again, start immediately, one a day. But it wasn’t the pills, somehow Mike knew it wasn’t the pills. The headaches had been but they were long gone. The dreams, they were something else. He sat there, the dark blue bottle in his hand, wondering, go with his gut or do as the doctor said.
Outside he could hear voices then the sound of a lawn mower starting up. Mohammed in his back garden. The thrum of the electric mower came across the hedge between the houses and through the open window in the bathroom and the open French windows in the lounge.
A steady buzzing, then as the mower began to move across the grass the sound changed to a louder whirring, the blades cutting through the grass.
Spinning at high speed, cutting through the air. A whirl that almost sounded like a rapid whump whump whump.
Ten
Once you have spent enough time flying one, once you are tired enough, then the constant sound of a helicopter becomes almost soothing, something to lull you to sleep. Even the odd angles of armour and webbing sticking into tender parts of the body or seats designed for nothing even remotely human were not enough to keep you awake if you are tired enough or so used to the discomfort that you no longer notice it.
The heavy crunch of landing jarred everyone in the large passenger compartment and woke Mike Cullen from an uneasy sleep. He was barely awake and struggling to stand when the soldiers either side of him lifted him out of the canvas seat and turned him toward the exit ramp where other soldiers of the strike team were already filling out. Each heavily laden with equipment, canvas bags and rigid polymer cases.
Almost carried down the ramp Mike had no chance to look around until he was jogging across tarmac with yellow lines across it. The sudden surge of wind buffeting his back told him the helo was lifting off again and the roar of a second troop copter was coming from one side.
The first helicopter was airborne at maximum power and quickly moved away to join the pair of escorting attack copters that were hovering under the cover of no less than six fighters flying a race track a few thousand feet overhead. By the second years of this damn war the British armed forces had learned the hard way how to fight these supers and they had to trade firepower and technology against the individually far more powerful men and women with their strange powers.
Now it was the turn of the Germans and they had been paying attention to what the Brits had learnt. The first day Bonn went mad or super they rolled everything they had and they weren’t messing around.
The second Helo thumped down and two more squads of heavily laden men jogged down the ramp and across to where Mike was standing. As he turned his head to watch them approach he caught sight of where he was. This was the roof of a car park.
All four squads had reached the edge of the car park and dumped their bags by the doors of twin lifts. There were three German officers waiting there for them, two regular military and one with the badges of Grenzschutzgruppe 9, Germanys elite counter terrorism unit. Bags, boxes and men were loaded into both lifts till they were packed then they were sent down to the ground, everyone else waited.
Mike found he was sweating heavily already. The fierce summer sun was beating down from above and the tarmac under his boots was radiating yet more heat back up. With his almost bomb disposal level of personal armour he was in an oven and he quickly began to suffer. He lifted the visor on his helmet and tried to grab a canteen but between the torso armour with its heavy inserts, the shoulder and upper arm sections, the waist and groin protectors and the heavy gloves that covered him from his elbows to his finger tips he had no chance of getting the water. The science and engineering types were prototyping specialised body armour and weapons for the military to use against supers but they were still some way from full scale production. Mike had also been promised his own suit of personally customised armour and he had been laser scanned to get his exact measurements. But the armour was likely to be a month or two away so in the mean time it was a miss match of the heaviest body armour NATO had availalbe.
One of his nannies saw what he was trying to do, took a canteen from his own belt and unscrewed the lid before passing it to the thirsty man. Mike nodded his thanks before drinking the entire canteen of water, it may have been luke warm but it was as good as beer today.
His power was good, it saved lives but it had limitations, a super with great strength became just a man inside the radius, but outside that radius if the super picked up a car and threw it at Mike it was still a fast moving car and he would be a slow moving smear if it hit.
So when he had been drafted after Birmingham erupted one of the early officers working with him had given him a pile of body armour and a bodyguard team. Over time the concept of the bodyguards came to be seen as a bloody good idea and on every mission he would have a nanny squad with orders to keep him alive no matter what.
Which is how he came to be wearing enough armour to protect a small horse and with a four man team of the most lethal nannies and baby sitters in the world looking after him.
This mission it was Marine Commandos and some lads from the SAS. All British because only the British army trained with him and were used to working with him. This hadn’t been a problem until this year, the other European nations sent help, advisors and military units. NATO had activated its ‘Attack on One Member’ clause after Birmingham and the problem spread so it was fairly common to find European and US units supporting British troops on anti super operations.
Then a few weeks ago half of Bonn had gone crazy or become super, things had changed and now he was doing missions for the Germans as well as the British. The German government were muttering about having to have British troops perform the anti super missions just to get Mike and there was talk of German units being assigned to train with him and carry out missions in German with him supporting them. That was the plan but for today it was British troops standing on the roof of a German car park in the burning heat waiting for the slowest lift in the city to makes its way back up to them.
#
The two lifts finally made it back to the top and the doors opened. One lift was a pile of men and bags, the other lift remained empty for a few seconds and Mike and his escort walked in and squeezed themselves against the back wall. Others pushed in behind them and bags were thrown in as well. Whoever was closest to the control panel and could still move pushed a button and the doors slowly ground shut and the lift began its slow jerking trip down to the ground, the drive motors overhead wheezed and groaned under the load of soldiers and supplies.
Two more trips and the entire unit was down on the ground where a small fleet of German police vans waited with the back doors open. This time more care was taken with loading the equipment, they were going to drive to the bank where the supers were holed up, they could come under attack on the way or have to bail out into a hot zone. So bags and boxes at the front, troops by squad facing the back door with weapons ready. Mike and his nursemaids got a van to themselves and the remaining boxes and bags went in the sixth and last van.
The trip was short and silent, no sirens to give them away. Some light made it into the stifling interiors of the old police wagons through the tiny side windows and air vents, sweeping across the inside as the vans made their way across the city. Then one by one the vans went into shadow and slowed to a stop.
They were in an alley, a delivery lane between the backs of two long rows of shops, the alley was cluttered with police cars and vans. Something over a hundred meters down, towards the far end of the alley were a pair of armoured personnel carriers, parked side on to block the alley, half a dozen soldiers were crouched behind them facing towards the end of the alley. Snipers crouched on the roof tops looking the same way
The entire unit was waved into the loading bay of a shop on the left, a number of uniformed police came out to help with the bags and everyone quickly went inside. Concrete wasn’t much against a raging super but it was a lot better than being caught standing in the open in an alley with nowhere to run.
The men in those two armoured vehicles were safe from 95% of all supers. On the other hand that last 5% would turn those vehicles into burning metal coffins. More than a few of the British soldiers making their way into the imagined safety of the building glanced at the carriers and thought themselves bloody lucky to be infantry.
Inside they found a German supermarket, much cooler than outside. The customers long gone and replaced by German police and special response troops. Tables had been found somewhere to make up the command centre, covered with maps and monitors. The teams techs began opening hard plastic cases and pulling out all sorts of tech which they set to plugging together on whatever flat surface that had space.
The soldiers found floor space and dumped their packs and bags then mostly sat and checked their weapons and equipment.
Mike looked around and decided it was safe enough to remove his helmet which he then managed to do, the bulk of his armour may be a life saver but it made doing even simple tasks complex and time consuming. With the helmet out of the way his wet hair stuck to his head in a flat damp mass, but then he felt something, just a touch on the back of his head, a few hairs moved, dried and became cold.
Mike turned so quickly he wobbled and felt a gentle cold breathe of air on his flushed face. Ignoring the puzzled looks of his nursemaids he took several steps towards where the cold seemed to be coming from. Nothing. He walked a few steps more, then just continued walking to a doorway covered with opaque white plastic strips hanging down from the roof.
The cold seemed to be coming from between the heavy plastic slats.
#
Over the next hour the techs connected all of their equipment to the German sensor net, a pair of the SAS men had slipped out and quietly made their way to the roof where under the watchful eyes of the German snipers they had silently made their way down the row of shops along their rooftops. Reaching the roof of the bank that was the focus of all the attention they spend several minutes emplacing a number of their own sensors and bugs, some were carefully lowered down the front on rigid rods so they could peek into the ban through the windows, others were drilled into the soft tarmac of the roof.
They even dropped a pair of micro drones into the air vent of the banks air conditioning, then as silently as they came they made their way back along the roofs without being detected.
With a comprehensive network of sensors in place and active data began to flow in and it was time for the planning meeting. All officers and senior NCOs attended and they bought many years experience to examining the maps and floor plans of the bank along with the sensor information. The known locations of the supers were plotted, good lines of sight were noted for the team snipers with the anti material rifles they used, American fifty calibre bull pup rifles with armour piercing or homemade frangible rounds.
The planning needed to be done quickly, they had only a few hours of daylight left, even with night vision equipment the risk of the supers breaking out was much higher at night and the Germans wanted this problem dealt with before the supers escaped. Take out the supers, secure the area, saving the hostages if possible was third on the priority list.
This group of supers was small, the German supers had not yet begun to form the larger and much more dangerous gangs that the British faced. So for now it was like Bristol, small groups of high powered supers and lots of independent less powerful ones.
They had been active since the first day and they were extremely powerful, the smart types were still categorising and quantifying the supers but these seven were among the strongest and most aggressive in Germany. They had hit five banks in only a few weeks and left a body count every time. Usually they were in and out too fast to respond but this time one of them had been spotted by facial recognition software casing the bank and the whole thing was set up as a trap.
The supers had rolled in and robbed the place then rushed out into a gun fight. Unfortunately the Germans had overestimated their firepower and had only known about six supers, the seventh had been sitting on a roof some distance away and had hit the troops as they moved in.
So the supers were now in the bank, surrounded by police and troops, one additional super with ice powers had been spotted outside the cordon and being hunted by several hundred well armed and trigger happy security forces. General thinking was that he was part of the gang and had been on guard outside.
He had been identified as Snowstorm, known to have the ability to cause an intensely cold blizzard like effect that covered an area some thirty meters across and was cold enough to kill unprotected men and women in seconds,
Captain Marshal listened to what was said and quickly outlined his plan for everyone to consider. Suggestions were made and the plan was revised. Specific details were considered and either discarded or accepted. No one liked the thought of the hostages being expendable but the German government’s insistence that taking out the supers was more important that rescuing anyone made the planning simpler.
The planning was done in a hurry but it was coming together nicely, the Captain pointed to a wall on the map, between the larger front room of the bank and a row of small private offices. “Now if Mike can push his effect through this wall, most of the supers are behind the counters here, he should be able... Where’s Mike?”
He glanced at the closest bodyguards, a frown on his face saying more than his voice did. The Marine pointed a thumb towards the supermarket store room. “He’s covered.”
“Go get him; I want him to check he can do this before we move.”
One of the watching German officers spoke up, his English clipped but almost accent less. “I will go.” When the British captain nodded he spun on one heel and briskly walked across to the store room.
#
Mike was sitting comfortably on a cardboard box, the label was German but the picture looked like some sort of microwave meals. It wasn’t comfortable sitting in the armour but for the first time since reaching Germany he was cool.
The sound of the plastic curtain being pushed aside broke his train of thought and he glanced up to see a German special forces officer sliding between the plastic strips. Mike glanced at the ranks insignia on the officers collar and tried to remember the Briefing he had been given on European ranks.
“What can I do for you, erm, Oberleutnant is it?”
The German came to attention. “They would like you to join them Sir.”
Mike chuckled. “Don’t call me sir, I work for a living. I’m technically a sergeant or just call me Mike. He lumbered upright. “Lead on.”
After lumbering out of the fridge and back into the main room Captain Marshal quickly bought Mike up to speed, two squads assaulting, one from the front and one from the side, another squad firing through the front windows. Stun grenades everywhere without regard to the civilians and Mike moving into position as the attack started to shut down the supers as the troops went in.
Mike studied the map. “This wall, what is it?”
One of the Germans present leaned over the map to see where Mike was pointing. “Internal partition, schalldicht, sounding, it blocks sound.”
Mike nodded. “If you can get me here I can pull the zone in tight so they don’t notice anything then when you call it I can push out to cover most of this area, fourteen meters if I push it a bit.”
“Fourteen meters, you been practicing?”
Mike chuckled. “Yep, every day I’m not with you lot I’m being prodded and poked by the egg heads. I can pin point a single super at over two hundred meters now as well.
Captain Marshal nodded at that and looked thoughtful for a few seconds. “Can you, that’s good to know, we can use you with a sniper if that’s the case.”
That thought had occurred to Mike as well but it had only been the last few days that he had been able to focus on a small target at distance rather than producing a globe around himself, something in the training and practice just clicked and now he was pushing the range a few tens of meters a day.
“Any other questions?” There were none. Well there were plenty but the rush on this one meant that little details were being ignored or would be dealt with as they went along. Not the best way to deal with a bunch of insanely powerful supers who were known killers but in war you do what you must when you have to.
“Alright then, move out. I want everyone in position in fifteen.” Everyone present nodded and moved away from the table, no one saluted, rank insignia were all low visibility, no one wanted to make a target of any officers by doing anything stupid.
The soldiers moved out, packs and bags left behind, each man or woman carrying only what they need to kill supers.
#
Mike was crouched by the dividing wall, he was in one of the double row of offices that filled the back of the bank. He found himself staring at the light blue painted plasterboard and the single picture that hung on the wall. Some strange, almost cartoon like, landscape. Trees, fields and old fashioned houses in the distance.
“Neg in position” Click.” Shield in position.” Click. One of Mikes guards used a burst transmission to alert the captain that they were ready. Other clicks came across the channel, each one being decrypted into a few seconds of message. The system was a pain to use for long messages but for quick reports or comments under five seconds it turned them into nothing more than a clicking or crackle.
Without matching decryption it was often mistaken for static. With some supers that could hear into the radio frequency old fashioned scrambling didn’t work. They couldn’t understand what was being said but they could hear that people were talking by radio and if it was scrambled that told them it was the security forces. The burst transmission prevented that because all the listening supers heard were odd clicks.
One by one the other squads and covering German units reported they were in position and the word was given.
“GO!”
Mike concentrated and push his power out as far as he could, shivers of cold raced down his arms and legs as he forced the zone outwards all around him.
The glass front windows shattered, toughened glass no defence against high calibre bullets, a second behind the first rounds came grenades and with the windows shattering there was nothing to stop them as the bounced across the bank floor and began to explode like firecrackers.
The hostages were caught in a storm of shockwaves and sound blasts and shattered glass but they were sitting on the floor in the middle of the bank and so escaped the worst of the explosions which were engulfing the long bank counter behind which the supers were sitting.
So most of them survived the first few seconds with nothing worse than burst ear drums. The counter was shattered in numerous places, chunks of wood and several cash draws blown into the air by multiple blast grenades. Then the assault troops came in, literally charging into the clouds of dust and debris and firing as they came.
The first super to die was a middle aged man, overweight, a greying beard hiding several chins, wearing a dark suit and top hat. His powers were mental, he could confuse and befuddle, create illusions and force individuals to do whatever he wanted them to. He staggered to his feet, his suit now ripped and torn by the blast, his face speckled with blood, his top hat oddly untouched. He concentrated, trying to use his powers to distract the soldiers, but inside Mike’s zone he was nothing more than a target and three bursts took him down.
The second super to die was a teenager, male, long greasy black hair, leather jacket, torn jeans, tattoos, his winds could strip flesh from bone or flip a car over. He had taken delight in killing several police at previous raids. He staggered out from behind the wrecked counter, blood pouring from his ears, his eyes filling with blood from face and head wounds and screaming for his mother.
His mother wasn’t there and couldn’t have stopped that many bullets.
Third and forth supers died together. A married couple, they had become supers side by side, they had robbed banks and laughed as they killed helpless victims side by side and now they died side by side. Neither able to use their powers because of Mike, they died as helpless as their many victims.
Number five had taken the pistols from several guards in the bank. His powers of speed and reaction were not functioning but he was able to lift the pistols above the counter and fire them, one in each hand. He wasn’t hitting anyone but the British soldiers ducked into whatever cover was available. Then both pistols clicked, empty. A burst message over the radio. “Hold, grenade.”
The troops held their positions for a few seconds as one of the soldiers outside used the latest in US tech to fire a grenade that detonated exactly above the crouched supers head.
It was the blast and smoke from this that hid the last and final super, from the eyes of the troops. The first warning anyone had that the final super was moving was the sound of the partition wall being torn apart.
Mike and his team were in the middle office to give the negation zone maximum coverage of the bank, the supers had been on the other side of the wall and it was through this wall that the super came. The wall torn apart with ease by his claws and strength.
Everyone was caught by surprise as the tall muscle bound wolf like figure smashed through the wall and into the room, claws and strength seemingly not affected by Mikes power. One of the Marines went down, bowled over by the big super and a section of wall that hit him. The SAS man across the room covering the corridor outside turned with reflexes that would put a snake to shame and put five rounds of nine mil into the supers hairy chest.
The super didn’t seem to notice and instead turned to slash out at the closest target. Mike. The transformed super’s muscles could bench press a small car and drove it’s two inch long claws into Mikes chest with crushing force. The blow slammed Mike sideways, into the wall and then through the wall as the whole structure, damaged by the super going through it, collapsed completely.
The remaining marine and SAS trooper recovered quickly and also opened fire, they could see their rounds hitting, spurts of blood marked every bullet, but the wolf like super in torn jeans and a leather vest seemed to feel no pain. It growled like an animal and turned toward the closest soldier then snapped its head round to look though the fallen wall into the main room of the bank as both assault squads came into view.
It snarled and leapt across the room to the door, smashing the wooden door and door frame into splinters as it crashed into the corridor.
“Transformed werewolf. FIRE EXIT!”
The creature vanished from view down the corridor.
“Mike, where’s mike?” The three standing soldiers looked around, seeing only wreckage and the marine on the ground who was pushing bits of wall off his legs.
“We lost Mike, fuck. FUCK. Find him!”
All three of them moved to the wrecked wall which had been the last place they had seen Mike, they had one job, just one.
The closest soldier reached the hole and looked through, smoke, a shattered bank counter, sections of wall and soundproofing foam everywhere. The remains of a super shredded by an airburst. A boot, British army issue, size twelve. Attached to a leg with a hard plastic riot greave, disappearing under a section of wall.
All three climbed through and grabbed the wall section, trying to lift it. The sheet came apart in their hands but they frantically dragged the pieces away and reached into the mound of foam and debris to grab Mikes webbing and armour.
They started to pull him out from under the wreckage then stopped as he shouted in pain. “Shit he’s hurt. MEDIC!”
Soldiers from the assault squads went past them, German troops began coming in through the shattered front windows. Follow up soldiers from the British contingent were also moving in, making sure the downed supers were dead by putting a burst into their heads.
Both team medics pushed their way across to Mike and knelt beside him as the action moved outside. From behind the bank through the smashed wall and torn open fire door came the hammering of heavy machineguns and the crack of sniper fire as the werewolf met the forces covering the alley behind the bank.
Mike groaned as one of the medics pushed the last of the wreckage off him and started checking for the damage. He managed to gasp a word through the pain. “Chest”.
The medic on the left checked and found the holes the claws had punched through the steel plate and through the Kevlar underneath. Blood was beginning to seep up through the layers of armour.
“Chest wound, under the armour. Stretcher fast.” The medic tried to remove the chest armour to get to the wound. “How the hell do you? Someone get over here and help me get this bloody armour off Mike!”
Mike was struggling to breathe, gasping for air, his chest was fire and pain. The medic that wasn’t trying to unbuckle his armour leaned over, there was a sharp pain in his neck and the pain vanished into fluffy warmth and everything slowed into darkness.