In the sky directly above me a second helicopter swoops down and fires into the building I've just escaped from, killing scores of unprotected people who continue to pick their way through the rubble. I manage to take a few more staggering steps away before throwing myself back down again as the first helicopter turns and opens fire on the second. A precisely-placed missile hits the middle of its tail boom, taking the rotor clean off and sending the aircraft spiralling down to the ground where it explodes, filling the night with more fire. There is mayhem all around me now, the deafening noise and hysteria of an all-out battle to the death. But who is fighting?
'Get out of here,' a soldier yells, picking people like me up off the ground and pushing them on. I follow the crowd, heading towards an open gate in what's left of the chain-link fence which surrounded this place. Almost as one we run along a gravel track which snakes away into the darkness. Now that we're free we move like a pack, hunting together. The enemy here are few and far between. When we discover them we swarm over them and rip them apart. Behind me the burning building is bathed in light. I look back at it long enough to see hundreds of figures running away from it in every direction.
More soldiers usher us along a track which climbs up into the darkness as another helicopter swoops low overhead. Friend or foe? It's impossible to tell until it launches a volley of missiles into the crowds on the ground. As another ball of flame stretches high up into the sky behind me the sudden increase in light enables me to properly see my surroundings for the first time. The ground below us is littered with an incredible number of bodies. Many of them are victims of the battle now raging but it's clear from their location that many more corpses are those of people like me who have been executed by the others. Their cadavers have been stacked up, ready for disposal. Here alone hundreds of people have been killed. How many other places like this are there, and how many more would have died here tonight? How many of us have been murdered by these bastards, and who are the Haters now?
The top of this low hill now looms ahead of me. I dig in and keep running, my feet slipping and sliding in the greasy mud. I can hear more fighting up ahead and I run towards it, now desperate to be a part of the battle and wanting to take revenge for all the death and destruction I've seen. A few more breathless seconds and I've finally reached the top of the climb. Another huge explosion once again bathes the world in light and I can see a wave of enemy soldiers advancing towards us. Unprotected and without any fear of the consequences I sprint at them. I glance from side to side and see that there are hundreds of people like me moving forward as one. We must destroy them before they can destroy any more of us.
The first of the enemy I reach is firing into the crowd. She has her back to me. Without pausing for thought I leap up onto her back and wrap my arms around her neck. I grab her chin and the back of her head and twist as hard as I can, feeling massive satisfaction as her neck snaps and she crumbles to the ground. In seconds I'm up again, already looking for the next kill. One of them has their weapon aimed directly at me. Before they can fire I run straight at them and charge them down. I move with a speed and power I have never felt before and I feel alive. Faced with death I actually feel more alive! I wrestle the soldier's rifle from his pathetically weak grip and shove its barrel round and hard into his mouth. I fire and watch the top of his head explode into the mud. All around me this animal instinct is taking over and we are killing to keep ourselves alive. This is what I was born to do.
Now another. I rip off a trooper's battle helmet and turn the pathetic creature around to face me. Those eyes. Those fucking eyes glare at me and they are filled with utter hate. I push my thumbs into the sockets and gouge the damn things out, leaving the soldier screaming and writhing on the ground.
All of the confusion and uncertainty has gone. The pain has disappeared. Without fear we fight with unparalleled strength and ferocity. I snap bones and tear flesh and end lives again and again and again.
In the flashes of light and fire which still fill the skies all around here I am able to see the full extent of this battle. It now stretches across a huge expanse of land. It is brutal and relentless, basic and almost medieval. Weapons have been cast aside. This fight is hand-to-hand - one-on-one - and our enemy has no answer to our strength and determination. They may have numbers but we have more than that. We have the desire to destroy them and to protect ourselves and others like us. Every one of us will fight with the last breath in our bodies.
Another helicopter rises up in the sky in front of me. I look up and watch as four snaking trails of fire whip across the darkness over my head accompanied by an ear-piercing whistle and a sudden gust of red-hot air. I look back just long enough to see missiles strike the battered and now virtually empty remains of the building we escaped from. There is a momentary pause - like the shortest possible gap between lighting and thunder - followed by the loudest explosion I've yet heard as the hellish place is blasted into a million burning pieces. Even from this distance I can feel the heat of the fire on my skin.
A knife flashes at me from out of nowhere and slices my arm. The adrenaline disguises the pain I feel and I immediately turn on my attacker. He swipes his blade at me again. Somehow I am able to catch his hand midway through its arc. I twist his fist back in on itself and then force the knife round into his own gut. He falls next to the burning shell of an overturned vehicle. Where did I learn to do this? Where did this strength and speed come from? This is instinctive and unstoppable.
'Move out,' a voice screams, barely audible over the confusion. I look up and see that the battle on the hillside is petering out. Although the fighting around what remains of the building below us is continuing, up here on the ridge we have destroyed the enemy. 'Keep moving forward,' the voice instructs. I follow the rest of the crowd as we begin to scramble through the darkness.
43
It's late and out here the world is silent. The noise of battle has long since faded away to nothing. Still surrounded by hordes of others we move quickly through the empty countryside. Armed scouts guide us through the darkness. I don't know where we're going, but I know that I can trust these people and I follow on regardless. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach which tells me that before long I might finally start getting answers to some of the thousands of questions I've been desperate to ask.
We've marched for more than an hour now and have seen and heard no-one else. Our route has avoided all roads and buildings and virtually all other signs of civilisation. Now we're moving along the base of a deep valley, shielded from view by trees and bushes.
We stop.
'In here,' one of our guides says, ushering us towards a large copse. Without question we move into the trees, stopping only when we've reached the densest part of the woods. The light in here is almost non-existent. One of the scouts kicks around in the undergrowth, seeming to be looking for something. Her foot strikes a small mound in the leaf-covered ground. She bends down and grabs the strap of a bag which one of them must have hidden there previously. She pulls the strap and drags up a large rucksack. Leaves and dirt fall from it as she stands it up and brushes it down. She opens the pack and starts to empty it out.
'Sit down and rest,' one of the other scouts says as his colleague throws packets of food and bottles of water to us. 'Get your strength back,' he continues, 'then listen to the message and leave.'
The message? What message? What's he talking about? I decide that I'll find out later. Right now eating my first food in more than a day is more important than anything else.
I'm sitting with three other people. In the middle of us is a mobile phone, set up ready to play the message. This message, our guides inform us, is as close to the truth as we'll get tonight. It has been distributed as a file by people like us and has spread around the country like a computer virus. It now sits on hundreds of thousands of phones, computers, media players and other devices, too widespread to be deleted.
'Chris who?' a man sitting next to me asks.
'Chris Ankin,' one of the guides replies.
'Who the hell's he?'
'He was a politician,' he explains. 'Used to be fairly high-ranking in Defence. He was an adviser to the government when it began. He got to hear a hell of a lot of information before he changed.'
'So where is he now?'
'Rumour has it he's dead.'
'Great.'
'Doesn't matter. He did what he wanted to do before they got him.'
'What was that?'
'He wanted to let us know what was happening. He wanted to warn us. He wanted to try and coordinate us.'
'Coordinate us?'
'Make sure we all know what we have to do.'
'And what's that?'
'Why don't you just play the fucking message?'
The man leans forward and picks up the phone. He struggles with the controls for a second but soon manages to locate the file and starts it playing. At first the words are hard to make out. He adjusts the volume and lifts up the phone so that we can all hear what's being said.
'If you're listening to this,' Ankin's weary voice says, sounding tinny and distorted, 'chances are you don't have a clue what's happened to you or what's happened to the rest of the country. You won't know why you feel the way you do or why your life has just been turned upside down. I'll give you some information but I won't be able to answer all of your questions. I'll tell you what I know but that's not what's important now. Ultimately it doesn't matter why this has happened or what caused it, what matters is how we deal with it. Because of the unprecedented nature of the change and its effects on our society we need to act now and we need to act quickly. There will be time enough to look for reasons when the fight is over.'
I shuffle on the ground and glance at the other faces gathered around the telephone. They stare at the small handset with bewildered expressions. I'm not sure if anyone believes what they're hearing.
'Put simply,' Ankin's voice continues, 'there is a fundamental genetic difference between us and them. A fundamental and basic difference which, until now, has remained dormant. I can't yet tell you why, but something has happened to trigger a change, and that change has created the hate. If you're hoping for me to give you a more scientific explanation, I can't. If you're waiting for me to explain why we can no longer exist alongside the people we loved, lived with and worked with just a couple of weeks ago, I can't. One day we'll understand, but today we don't have the luxury of having either the time or resources to find out.
'Initially it was presumed that the change was limited to just a small minority of people. Before it happened to me, while I was still in office, I saw figures which indicated that our numbers are much greater than was first thought. It's likely that as many as three people in every ten are like us. That's around thirty percent of the population. That's enough to take the fight to them and stand a chance.
'The change strips away some of the restraint we used to have. In very basic terms it makes us less susceptible to bullshit and more likely to take action. The change seems almost to amplify our instincts. We immediately know who is like us and we know who isn't. We know who poses a threat to us and who is on our side. Many of the layers of conditioning and control imposed upon us by society have been stripped away by the change and no longer apply. Now you fight when you need to fight and you destroy the enemy because you know that they will destroy you if you give them half a chance.
'Until now we've discriminated against each other according to race, religion, age, gender and just about every other differentiation imaginable. Look around you tonight and you'll see that those differences are gone. Now, to put things as simplistically as possible, there is just 'us' and 'them', and it is impossible for us to coexist. We have no alternative but to fight, and we must keep fighting until we have wiped them out.
'The change has spread across the world with an incredible speed. No corner of the planet has been left untouched. We are everywhere. You must remember that we are not the underdogs. Their advantage over us is in physical numbers only. We have served at every level and among us we have experts in every profession. Among us we have every skill imaginable. We have everything we need to fight them and destroy them.
'Forget your past. Forget your families and friends and who you used to be. In time some kind of normality will be restored. Until then we have no alternative but to fight.'
The message ends and I look at the phone in disbelief. Is this a joke? Can any of this really be true? For a moment I'm overloaded, unable to take it all in. Then my mind begins to fill with memories of the events of the last week and particularly of the last day - the killings, the battles, the bloodshed, the emotions - and I know that every word I've just heard is true. I remember the feelings of strength and power I felt as I killed the enemy soldiers with my hands just a few hours ago and I know that it's all real. Impossible and unproven but real.