Din Eidyn Corpus (Book 2): dEaDINBURGH (Alliances) (24 page)

Epilogue 1

Alys cradled her mug of mint tea between her hands and sat her rear onto the wall of the Half-Moon Battery, dangling her legs over the edge of the stones. A chorus of snarls from below drew her attention. Scanning along the legion of The Ringed, Alys sipped at her tea. Thousands of them filled the Esplanade. Hundreds crowded at the walls, the gate, clawing, thrashing, crushing each other. Some had begun to wander off along The Mile, past the secure doors of Mary King’s Close or down Bank Street where the fences had fallen with the weight of their numbers.

It would take weeks for The Ringed to disperse, to wander or be led away, and months more for them to scatter themselves throughout the city-centre. The immediate area would be more dangerous than it had been in decades, maybe since First Night, when The Ringed ran out into the streets from Mary King’s Close and tried to consume the city.

They failed then and they’ll fail now,
Alys thought.
People will endure. We’re more skilled than ever, more content with our lot. A few more days and we can take a wander out, maybe check on Joey’s friend, Bobby, and The Brotherhood. They’ll be low on food by now.
The box of Carrionite Bobby had given Joey would be a Godsend.

Alys threw the dregs from her cup across the wall and swung her legs around to dangle into the courtyard. Steph was running up and down the Lang Stairs, punishing her body. Building her stamina. The change in the girl was stunning; sad in some ways, wonderful in others.

Jennifer, hair loose and free for the first time in memory, played with a group of kids on the grassy slopes, rolling down the hill in turns. She caught Alys looking in her direction and blew her a kiss.

James and Fiona watched their daughter from the upper courtyard, both in wonder at her existence.

A group of women from The Gardens were teaching some of The Beach refugees how to plant seeds. Some Rangers she knew well sat in a circle, a map of the area stretched out on the ground. They were planning visits to some of the communities who’d refused help. Many of the new Castle residents had volunteered to accompany them to the communities they’d once been part of. Help bring more people to their new walled town within a fenced city.

Alys hopped off her wall and strolled across to the Governor’s House, where Joey had been resting in a small chamber having received treatment and medication for his injuries from the Sisters, formerly of Fountainbridge Sanctuary.

Joey would heal
–
probably get a stiff leg in the winter, but he’d heal. No-one knew if his transmission reached the public on the outside. They couldn’t and wouldn’t know if anyone had seen it at all. Similarly, whether the destruction of the servers and cables inside The Hub had an effect on the flow of images from the city-centre or not, they couldn’t be sure. Tricia was adamant that the feeds were down and would be difficult to re-establish. It didn’t matter: Alys and Joey had agreed to live as though the cameras were gone. It was the only way to have a real life, a good life. It was the best they could do. Would that life be together? Of course. He was her best friend and there was no-one in the city she trusted or loved or admired more.

Pushing through the heavy wooden doors, Alys Shephard reminded herself that with the condition Joe was in, she shouldn’t punch him…

Well, not too hard at any rate.

Epilogue 2

Draining the last of his whisky, Fraser rose from his lounger and strolled merrily to the automated dispenser. As he reached out to place his glass under the outlet, he changed his mind and headed for the drinks cabinet instead.

Fraser pushed past a dozen or so bottles of rare malts, fingers searching for the distinctive shape of a bottle whose contents he’d only tasted once before. Holding the Glenmorangie Pride 1978 up to the light, he smiled in anticipation.
If today’s not a special occasion, I don’t know what is.

Fraser fetched a clean glass and carefully poured a single.
To hell with it,
he thought and doubled the glass’s contents. The bottle had been a gift from some minor Royal who’d told him that it had been the late Prince Harry’s favourite whisky. Fraser hadn’t liked her much but had accepted the bottle gratefully, idly wondering how long the ginger Royal had lasted after the quarantine of Edinburgh so many years ago.

To hell with him. Idiot of a boy that he was.

Sipping the gorgeous malt, Fraser walked to his apartment floor-to-ceiling windows and defrosted the privacy glass. From his Knightsbridge apartment at One Hyde Park, Fraser enjoyed views of the park itself, out across the little lake. He rarely made use of them, but the warmth of the whisky and from the new show’s launch were working on him.

A humourless smile came to his lips as he recalled Joseph MacLeod’s attempt to contact the outside world and simultaneously sever the feeds coming from the city-centre.

Garrett and his tech team would have a live feed form the city-centre zone in a matter of weeks. The Castle itself had no camera. There was little they could do about that in the short term, but the newly-founded Castle community, with its residents a mixture of former communities, would most likely be a more active and social one than those previously established in the preceding years. There would be ample opportunity to follow their biggest stars. He clinked his glass against the window.

“Here’s to you, Joseph.”

Watching a couple stroll through Hyde Park, arms around each other, Fraser eased into the dreamy wave of relaxation washing over him, half-wondering how many double whiskies he’d had.
Three? Four?

Five seconds later, Fraser Donnelly’s face slammed into the bulletproof glass and slid to the luxury carpeted floor. His expensive whisky splashed against the window, running down the panes of glass as he lay there drooling onto his carpet.

Thirty minutes later a
bleep-bloop
sounded from the apartment’s door. Three men entered. The oldest, and smallest, of the three, dressed in a very expensive Brooke’s Brothers suit, stepped over Fraser’s sprawled legs and surveyed the scene.

“Bloody waste of good whisky. Get him out of here, gentlemen.”

“Yes, sir.”

Solveson watched as his men sealed his one-time protégé into a thick, plastic body-bag and hefted him unceremoniously out of the room into the private elevator.

As he left the apartment, Solveson scooped up the bottle of Glenmorangie.

“Waste not, want not,” he said jovially.

Epilogue 3

“Sorry, can I call you back, Jay?”

Without waiting for a reply, Jack Thatcher swiped at the air, flipping the Holo-Screen of Jay Steel into the virtual trash can.
Bloody interview was boring anyway.

Flipping through a myriad of news feeds, Jack searched for the bulletin he’d half-glimpsed whilst speaking to Jay.

From his new apartment in Saint-Germain, Paris, Jack was being placed as the face of the newly-launched AMSTERDAMned spin-off show. Mr Donnelly of the UKBC had contacted him directly days before. Donnelly had told him that he simply must take the job. With his social media status and wholly genuine love of the dEaDINBURGH franchise, Jack was the hottest consultant they had and the only choice for the role.

Catching Fraser’s name on the news bulletin had snapped him out of a fairly one-sided and very predictable interview with an American chat show host.

Finally finding the right feed, Jack swiped it over to his main screen and plucked some cucumber fingers from the salad bowl.

The body of Fraser Donnelly, CEO of the UKBC, was discovered by a friend and colleague this morning in his London apartment. Early examinations suggest Mr Donnelly was the victim of a massive heart attack. A lifelong champion of the poor souls sealed inside the quarantined city of Edinburgh and philanthropist, primarily through his innovate development of the dEaDINBURGH show, which he launched to provide a revenue for research into a cure for the plague, Mr Donnelly has no relatives but leaves many, many grateful friends behind.

The reporter’s face was replaced by that of a man in his seventies. Clearly upset by the news, the man, identified by ticker tape across the screen as Mr Solveson, Director of Communications at the UKBC and Mr Donnelly’s mentor, looked deep into the camera. Grief flowed from him.

I will take Mr Donnelly’s post, temporarily, whilst his colleagues and friends attempt to come to terms with the loss of our very dear friend. Despite being my protégé for many years, Fraser surpassed my skills and quite simply became my hero in every way conceivable. I learned much more from my dear friend than he ever did from me.

Overcome with emotion, Solveson excused himself and was replaced by another man in a suit.

As per Mr Donnelly’s instructions, his body was taken to the crematorium within hours of his death. All of Mr Donnelly’s business matters and commitments will continue as planned. His foundation for clinical research will continue also to strive to develop a cure for the two strains of plague now present. The cities of Amsterdam and Edinburgh have Mr Donnelly’s eternal efforts in freeing them.

Jack swiped the screen away.

Thank goodness. Thought I was out of a job for a moment there.

Epilogue 4

 
Fraser woke to find himself laid face-down on a very cool, white-tiled floor. The cool sensation wasn’t entirely unwelcome and helped him focus on something. Pull his thoughts together.

Rolling onto his back, his head swam and his neck ached with the effort. Opening his eyes seemed an insurmountable challenge, a mountain too steep to conquer. Not many nuggets of information were presenting themselves to his ever-more alert mind regarding his current whereabouts or situation. Two things Fraser knew for certain. He wasn’t in his living room and the Glenmorangie he’d enjoyed so liberally the previous night had been a hell of a lot more potent than he’d bargained on.

He blinked hard six or seven times and finally managed to get his eyes in focus. A clinically harsh, xenon glare of lights blasted the familiar too-white room.

Looking down at his body, he saw that he was clothed in rags. A filthy sack-like canvas shirt covered his upper body loosely. Rancid-smelling trousers draped his lower half.

As the brightness became normal, he became aware that he was alone. Moving his eyes was painful.

Fraser’s drug-addled mind, courtesy of Solveson’s lacing his whisky glasses, throbbed inside and twitched, spewing up the truth, so starkly white it paled the bright walls of the room he inhabited.

Jokingly called
the green room
, it was the area they released
new volunteers
from.
 

Fraser felt a spasm work its way from his diaphragm and up out of his mouth. A manic screech of a laugh echoed around the room. He almost turned around to scowl at the person who’d issued it before realising it had been himself. He laughed again, for long minutes
–
long enough for tears to stream and intercostal muscles to ache with the effort. Irony always had made him laugh.

Eventually the laughter subsided, though the feeling of abandonment did not. The anger surged. He kicked at walls and threatened and cried and raged and railed. When the trap door finally opened and the springtime Edinburgh wind whistled into the room, cutting at his face, Fraser did the only thing left to him and ran out into the city.

Four hundred miles away, new UKBC CEO, Marty Solveson, smiled as he watched former CEO Donnelly disappear through the trapdoor. It hadn’t been easy, finding a body so similar to Donnelly, replacing the medical and dental records, but he’d had plenty of motivation and time to see to the task. Since Michelle MacLeod’s son appeared at the hospital, Donnelly’s days had been numbered only by how long it took Solveson to arrange a doppelganger and for Fraser to put the finishing touches to the Dutch project.

A father and son should spend time together,
Solveson thought, smiling at his own grim humour.

Exciting times lay ahead.
 

Solveson raised his glass and toasted Fraser and his wonderful whisky.

End of Book 2