Authors: A. G. Taylor
The SUV skidded to a halt, throwing everyone inside forward violently. Wei braced himself against the dash to stop from being thrown through the windscreen.
“Go easy on the brakes!”
“It’s not me,” Alex said. He put his foot down on the accelerator. The engine howled. Wheels spun in the mud, throwing up dirt against the windows.
“Look!” Wei exclaimed, pointing ahead.
Louise stepped in front of the vehicle. She was already drenched with water, long blonde hair hanging in straggles around her head and shoulders, but she seemed oblivious to this. Alex eased off
on the gas and gave a sigh. “Looks like we aren’t going anywhere.”
“What do you want, Louise?” he said, jumping out of the SUV. The rain soaked his clothes in an instant.
“I can stop you from leaving,” she said.
“I know,” Alex said softly. “But you won’t. You know this is the right thing to do. We need to get back to HIDRA and tell them what we know about the hypersphere. They
need to be warned it’s going to become a portal for the Entity’s armies. We’ll come back for Sarah.”
“And by that time she might be lost for ever! The longer we leave her under the Entity’s control, the stronger it gets! How can you leave her, Alex?”
His face reddened. “She made me promise to get you all to safety. If it was up to me I’d go back right now. But Sarah’s the leader—”
The sound of the back door of the SUV sliding open made them both look round. To their surprise, May was standing in the rain now. “Louise is right,” she said. “We can’t
leave.”
Alex shook his head. “Staying is completely the wrong decision. I made Sarah a promise to look after you all—”
Wei climbed out of the passenger door. Hack emerged a second later and said, “It
is
the wrong decision. And it’s the one we’ve got to make.”
In that moment Alex knew that they weren’t going anywhere. Louise slipped her hand into his. “It’s going to be okay. Sarah’s rescued us enough times – don’t
you think it’s about time we did the same for her?”
He smiled at her through the rain. “Let’s go after her then,” he said, looking round at Hack and May. “I take it you two can make yourselves useful in an impossible
fight?”
The two looked at one another and grinned. “Actually,” Hack said, “I think we’ve got just the thing.”
“Two armies go to war,” the old man says as he lays another black stone on the board, adjacent to one of his others. “Black and white. Justice and
injustice. Good and evil.”
Sarah reaches into her velvet bag and removes a white stone. She places it to the left of the last stone laid. They are sitting beside a fountain amidst a city of towering skyscrapers. All
around, people in business suits half-run from one location to another, never stopping.
Time passes. More stones are laid on the board.
“The aim is to keep your forces unified,” the man says, laying a black stone on the other side of Sarah’s. “To become surrounded, cut off from the mass is… to
die.”
She lays another white stone and looks him in the eyes. “Who are you?”
Another black stone goes down. “Don’t you remember?”
“No.” She places another stone, forming a complete barrier of whites, trapping two black stones within. With a triumphant grin, she picks up the three captured, or
“dead”, stones. “But it’s coming back to me.”
“You won a small victory, but lost the war,” he says, placing another black stone – cutting off a group of twelve white stones. He picks the whites off the board and lays
them down on the edge of the fountain. His pile of captured stones is three times the size of Sarah’s.
“Who are you?” she asks, studying his ancient face.
“Who do you think I am?”
“I think… I think…”
Sarah rises swiftly as a memory of another time, another places rushes across her mind and then disappears. Her knee catches the edge of the board and it goes flying. Stones skitter across
the concrete.
“I think I don’t want to play with you any more.”
The old man’s eyes twinkle, at once playful and full of spite. “But you have nowhere else to go, Sarah.”
She looks around the towering skyscrapers… The bland, uniform faces of the people walking by
…
“None of this is real.”
The old man gives a cackling laugh. “It’s as real as you want to make it.”
“I want to go home.”
“This is your home now.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Before he can respond, she turns and runs across the square, into the mass of people. Shoulders jostle her as she runs against the tide of men and women. Every way she turns, they seem to be
going in the opposite direction.
“Get out of my way!” she cries, pushing a woman aside.
Someone grabs her arm and spins her around. The man from the train. “You’re beginning to remember, aren’t you?” he says, pulling her out of the middle of the
pavement.
She nods. “I remember…”
“Go on, Sarah. Think.”
“My friends,” she says. “We were in a battle. Against a man called Major Bright.” She looks back in the direction from which she came. “And that old
man.”
“The Entity,” the man says, squeezing her arm. “Do you remember why you’re here?”
She shakes her head.
“You’re here to kill him. Don’t be deceived by the sheep’s clothing he wears. He’s more powerful than anything you can imagine.”
“Then how can I
—
”
“You’re powerful too. This place is yours to manipulate. Learn how to control it and you can do anything you want.” The man looks round as someone shouts from the other side
of the pavement. Two uniformed police are pushing their way through the crowd.
“Remember what you have in your pocket, Sarah,” he says urgently. “I don’t have much longer.”
“But
—
”
“Find out where he hides,” the man says as his arms are grabbed by the police. “He’s weak there. You will know what to do
…
”
As the cops drag him away, Sarah suddenly remembers who the man is.
Her father
.
“Daniel!” she calls after him.
But he’s gone. She starts to run after him, but stops at a mighty thunderclap and a cracking sound. Across the street, the lower levels of one of the skyscrapers explode outwards,
casting a cloud of debris into the air. People run in all directions, desperate to escape the destruction as the building begins to fall.
Sarah backs away along the wall, watching in horrified fascination. The skyscraper hits another as it comes down, setting off a domino effect of falling buildings. One collides with another
in a chain reaction of destruction. She knows she should run, but cannot tear her eyes away as a building lists over the street, blotting out the sun
…
Major Bright stood before a giant world map spread out on the floor of the power station. Since the Entity had surrendered his body, the black mark across his skin had begun
to recede to the point that it was no more than a bruise-like discolouration around his neck. The Entity had been as good as its word. He still sensed the alien power coursing through his veins,
but the mutation was receding.
You can have your cake and eat it
, he thought with satisfaction. He was indestructible and he had a whole city to play with… Soon, the world.
Pacing around the map, he tapped North America with the end of his boot.
“How about the good old US of A?” he said. “Could make a nice residence.”
Standing on the other side of the map, Kotler said, “Great idea, sir. Good climate. Plenty of natural resources.”
“Good skiing too,” Bright added. “We’d get Hawaii thrown in. When the Americans see there’s no way to fight us, I’ll have them make me president.”
Gunfire burst out at the far end of the station as a merc opened up on a pair of technicians deserting their posts. Kotler watched with contempt as they went down. “It seems Good’s
people would rather die than join the winning team.”
“Let them go. The spiders will get them if the mob doesn’t. We have everything we need.”
“Sir,” Kotler said, calling the major’s attention to the figure of Sarah Williams walking towards them. Although her feet touched the ground, she almost seemed to glide across
the floor. Ghostlike.
“What is it?” Bright asked.
“I have sensed the girl, Louise, using her powers ten kilometres to the west of here,” the Entity spoke through her. “I will send the spider army to deal with them.”
“No,” Bright said. Kotler grabbed a machine gun from the edge of the map. “I want my elites to deal with them. They’ve been waiting six months for a live fire
exercise.”
The Entity regarded him with expressionless eyes. A slow smile spread across Sarah Williams’s face – it was an unnatural motion. Human…and yet totally alien. “As you
wish,” it said.
Bright nodded for Kotler to assemble the men. His second-in-command moved off and started shouting orders. Bright looked back at the girl. “And don’t smile. It’s
creepy.”
A subway platform. Men, women and children huddle along its length, clinging together for safety as the walls rumble. Dust falls from the ceiling and the lights flicker as
there is another crash. High above, the city is destroying itself.
Sarah sits against the wall, face and clothes dust-covered after her escape from the falling skyscraper. She must have fled into the subway at the last minute, but she can’t remember
how. The old man picks his way through the crowd of people taking shelter, and crouches down beside her, bones cracking with the effort.
“You shouldn’t have run away from me, Sarah,” he says. “See what happens? The city is falling apart.”
“You did this,” she says accusingly.
He holds up his hands. “Nothing happens here without you wanting it. But you’ll find life is a lot easier if you work with me.” He leans closer and she can smell his breath
– a rank odour of stale tobacco and meat. “There’s so much I can teach you, Sarah.”
She backs away, suddenly wishing she could get far, far away
…
Wheels screech against rails as a train brakes along the length of the platform. Leaping to her feet, Sarah jumps over people on the platform and through the automatic doors.
“Come back!” the Entity calls after her, its voice a scream.
The doors snap closed and the train tears out of the station at high speed. For a split second black tunnel walls fill the windows. They zoom away, revealing brilliant blue sky and flat
countryside in all directions. Here and there, people work in the fields, little specks in the distance. On the horizon, snow-capped mountains rise through the haze.
Taking a breath, Sarah walks down the length of the empty carriage – the ultra-modern interior of a bullet train. Outside, the landscape passes by at 200 kilometres per hour.
Doors open at the far end of the carriage and a man appears. Daniel. With a cry, Sarah throws her arms around him. For a moment he hugs her back, before pulling away.
“Well done, Sarah,” he says. “I see you’re beginning to learn how to control this place.”
“How can you be here?” she says.
“I’ll explain everything,” he replies, leading her to a seat by the window. “You need to rest now. You’ll need your strength for tomorrow.”
She looks at him questioningly. “What happens tomorrow?”
“We’re going to kill the Entity.”
37
Standing in the junkyard now the rain had stopped, Hack explained, “When we were linked to the hypersphere, the Entity channelled a huge amount of information through us.
Plans for machines – their electronic—”
“And molecular,” May added.
“—structures,” Hack finished. “And it’s all still in here.” He tapped the side of his head.
Seeing the confused looks on the faces of the others, Hack and May smiled at one another.
“Let us show you,” she said, taking Hack’s hand and leaning in to him to say quietly, “This had better work.”
“Of course it will work,” he whispered back. “Probably.”
They walked over to a stack of crushed cars. May closed her eyes and placed her hand against the crumpled metal of the one on the bottom. Hack took a deep breath and concentrated as they began
to combine their powers once more – but this time it was to their own design…
He calls up the thousands upon thousands of machine designs the Entity loaded into his brain. Spiders…squids…killing machines so strange in appearance they defy easy
description. Finally, he settles on one: a skeletal frame that looks almost human, having arms, legs and a head. It’s a battlesuit, designed to hold a humanoid within and to provide an
incredibly strong exoskeleton. Its hydraulic limbs are incredibly powerful and within the suit is an array of tactical systems designed for war. Perfect. Channelling May’s power, he begins to
re-form the raw material of the assorted junk into the shell and inner components of the suit
…
The others looked on in amazement as the pile of cars began to morph together, almost as if the metal was melting in the sun bursting through the clouds. There was a crunching sound from within
as matter was rearranged, re-formed into new configurations. New shapes became apparent from the mass – a torso...crude, oversized legs…thick arms and hands with clawlike
digits…a rounded helmet with two red slit eyes, sitting atop the broad shoulders. A shiny outer layer of metal began to form over the skeleton. This protective skin now hid the innards of
the machine.
“Very nice,” Alex said. “What is it?”
“Can’t you see?” Louise said. “It’s a gorilla.”
The comparison was an apt one. Its thick arms, which hung down to its knees, and rounded torso indeed made it look like some kind of giant primate.
“It’s a battlesuit,” Hack said, stepping forward. The front of the machine opened in multiple places to allow access to the cavity within. As the others watched, he grabbed one
of the arms and swung himself inside. Then the front closed over him, the helmet slipping down over his head. Hack was gone – only the machine remained. For a moment nothing happened. The
moment stretched on…