Sir Donald felt his breathing becoming more rapid as the thick black smoke seeped into his lungs. Coughing violently he stepped slowly backwards, almost paralysed in disbelief.
Retreating sluggishly along the hallway, coughing from smoke inhalation, the wall of fire crept threateningly over the top of the stairs. Turning away in panic he hurtled into his bedroom, slamming the door shut.
Racing across to the window he roughly shoved the curtains back before throwing a glance to the bedroom door. His eyes widened even further as black smoke snaked mercilessly under the door and filled the room. His senses were overwhelmed by the familiar crackling noise as the bedroom door was slowly but surely, eaten up by the flames.
He began coughing again, but worse than before, as he weakly tried to open the latticed windows.
Open damn you, open.
Pulling frantically at the window he fought in vain to open the firmly secured window lock. He’d always made security a top priority in their dream house.
What a bloody irony.
Turning back into the room he began to cough more violently, peering through the intensely hot gloom of the smoke-filled room. He could feel dizziness rising up within him as he doubled-up in a coughing fit.
Unconsciousness threatened and he sluggishly reached for the small stool that always sat in front of Margo’s dressing table. He needed something, anything, to break that bloody window.
As he moved towards the stool a thunderous crackling noise deafened the fire-consumed room. The bedroom door disintegrated like brittle matchwood. He barely heard the sound or saw the persistent flames as they shot over the bed linen and up the frame of the four poster bed.
Sir Donald screamed as the fire engulfed him, burning his flesh away in a few murderous seconds.
His screams were rapidly drowned out as the fire consumed the whole room and everything else in its path.
Michael closed his front door and began to climb the stairs, suppressing the same feelings of nausea he felt everytime he had to go to their bedroom. Dismissing the thought he opened the door and entered. And grabbing a bag from the wardrobe he began to pack his clothes.
Initially his four allies, they were hardly at a stage yet they could call each other friends, had told him to return home. Jones said it would create the appearance of normality while they attempted to get the app operational.
But he knew despite not understanding how the technology really worked there was no way he could remain at home, twiddling his thumbs waiting for their call. Of course they’d protested at first, fearing his presence would be too big a distraction. But eventually they’d acquiesced. He’d virtually begged them to let him stay. The only condition had been that he had to follow the same method for getting to Aldershot. If he remotely suspected they’d successfully followed him he wasn’t to go to the deserted mobile home park and risk compromising their security. Reluctantly he’d agreed as the prospect of another three-hour train journey loomed. But it was still more tolerable than not knowing if any progress was being made.
Piling shirts, jumpers, underwear and anything else that looked suitable into his bag he was as confident as he could be that no-one was watching his house. Nobody had been loitering on the street or watching avidly from a parked car or van. The only parked car on the street was old Mr. Thomas’ Robin Reliant. He doubted anybody would try and monitor his movements in that.
A fresh thought struck him and he moved to the window. Pressing his face to the glass he peered through the net curtains. What if they were in one of the houses in the street, carefully concealed, watching his every move?
He shook his head, realising he was becoming more and more like Brown. There was nothing he could do about it even if they were camped in a house with intrusive telescopic lenses pointed at him. He would just have to stick to Jones’ instructions.
Turning away from the steamed-up window the telephone began to ring in the lounge downstairs. Michael’s pulse quickened expectantly.
Maybe they’ve got the app working already?
Racing down the stairs he turned into the cold lounge and grabbed his telephone.
“
Put eCitTV on,” the familiar voice at the end of the line said. It was Jones.
Reaching for the eCitTV console Michael flicked the unit on, sitting down in one of the armchairs.
“
It’s started,” Jones continued sullenly as the picture snapped into life.
On the screen the BBC were broadcasting one of their many news specials. In the top right-hand corner was a photograph of a grey-haired man in his early sixties. The newsreader was talking with a sombre, reverential tone, listing the man’s early career achievements. He’d clearly died Michael thought, hearing the name ‘Sir Donald Allison’.
“
Who is he?” Michael asked, fearing the worst.
Jones exhaled loudly before answering.
“
He is, or rather he was, the President of SemComNet.”
Michael felt a slight numbness begin to spread through him.
“
How did he die?” he asked in a virtual whisper, his mouth dry.
Jones made no attempt to hide the cynicism in his voice.
“
Oh, it was an ‘accident’, of course.”
As the sentence trailed of Michael knew Jones was dying for him to ask the next question.
“
What sort of accident?”
“
An electrical fire of some sort at his house in Elvetham.”
Michael felt a lump forming in his throat, but he was unable to speak. His mind was locked in a state of confusion.
“
Michael, they must have perfected the app. This is too much of a coincidence for it to have been an accident.”
Michael shook his head as he took it all in.
“
But why would they kill the President of SemComNet? Who would kill him?”
“
Who’s the most to gain from this?” Jones asked firmly, although clearly knowing the answer to his own question.
Michael said nothing, not wanting to hear what he knew was coming.
“
Vincent Trevellion,” Jones continued somberly. “He’s just been appointed as the new President by the company’s board in an emergency meeting.”
Michael watched as the familiar face of Vincent Trevellion flashed up on screen. He was leading the tributes that were pouring in for Sir Donald.
Looking into the emotionless face he’d sat opposite not so many days before, he heard Trevellion use eulogies such as ‘online visionary’ and ‘leading pioneer’.
“
Fucking hypocrite,” Jones hissed down the line as Trevellion talked about his own sense of ‘personal loss’.
“
Trevellion was the only one to survive an attack from the anti-net activists,” Michael said bitterly as he watched Trevellion speak, although failing to register a word he said.
“
If he was attacked at all,” Jones added doubtfully.
“
You’ve to get that app working,” Michael said firmly, watching Trevellion’s feigned grief.
What does he know about loss?
“
We’re still working on it,” Jones said thoughtfully. “But testing is going to take a bit of time because we simply don’t have the same resources that are available to UKCitizensNet.”
“
Just get the damn thing working,” Michael replied angrily, flicking a button on the eCitTV console, any button just to get Trevellion off the screen. He turned away from the picture before noticing he’d inadvertently activated UKCitizensNet.
“
We’ll do our best. I’ll talk to you later.”
Michael slumped into his armchair, holding his head in his hands. For the first time since he’d left the care home he didn’t feel overcome by grief. Now he was feeling something quite different. The nausea had gone. The feelings of self-pity and loss had been replaced. All he felt now was anger. Raw, undiluted anger.
Despite all he’d read and had been told, there’d always been a sense of doubt clawing at the back of his mind.
Did anti-net activist Davey Wilkes really kill Colette and Clare?
The whole thing had been too clever and precise for a campaigner who lived his life up a tree to have done it. In retrospect the soil samples they’d found, allegedly from the Brookwood area, were also just a little too convenient.
An image of Trevellion flashed through his mind again. No, someone, or something much cleverer than Davey Wilkes was behind this. Something like SemComNet. And Trevellion himself.
Michael grimaced as UKCitizensNet’s logo slithered silently across the screen. Closing his eyes for a moment he let his troubled thoughts wander to a happier time and place.
In front of him the swing in their garden was bobbing backwards and forwards, temptingly close to him. Colette gently pushed Clare to and fro. She giggled happily, the wind rushing through her hair as she went higher and higher. He watched in utter contentment as he gazed at the two most important women in his life.
Clare laughed again as the swing rushed upwards leaving her dangling in the cool autumn air. Colette was laughing too, speaking to him from behind the swing. He could see the words forming but they were lost in the autumnal wind. He leant forward slightly, straining to hear.
“
Michael,” came the hollow voice. “Michael, Michael, Michael…”
His eyes flicked open as he sat up with a jolt, a slight sweat on his forehead.
“
Michael,” said the familiar voice again, filling the quiet room.
“
Colette?” he whispered as her image flashed up on the screen.
His pulse began to quicken as he watched. Colette stood motionless on a hill in rolling countryside stretching further than the eye could see. At the back of his mind the voice of logic was telling him he was imagining the whole thing, imagining Colette. The funereal black dress clinging to her shapely body and the rolling countryside simply couldn’t be real.
But he could see it all on the screen. And he could hear her, hear her angelic tones.
“
Michael, I’m with you. I’m here to guide you,” the voice said again, although her expression was vacant and looked straight through him.
“
Justice can be yours. You are the only one who can stop him.”
The voice paused.
“
Stop who?” Michael finally managed to splutter.
“
You must stop the only survivor. This is his will, his game. My pain, and your pain, is his triumph. Please stop him. Please stop Vincent Trevellion.”
Michael’s breathing was becoming more rapid. He rubbed his eyes as the image of Colette began to flicker and slowly fade.
“
The great dragon was hurled down - that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the world astray. He was hurled to the Earth, and his angels with him,” the voice echoed as the UKCitizensNet logo melted back onto the screen.
Covering his eyes with his hands Michael heard the words reverberate through his mind again.
Is it real? Did I imagine it?
He didn’t know how, and he didn’t really care either, but he knew he’d seen and heard Colette.
But he knew she was dead. That was painfully real. But he also knew there weren’t voices in his head telling him what to do, what to think.
His thoughts briefly returned to the lonely care home. They’d pumped him full of drugs for months when he’d arrived. Was this a side effect of that? He shook his head. The one thing he knew for certain was that the words in Colette’s message hadn’t come from some piece of information picked up in the past and filed away in his unconsciousness. And now he’d heard her tell it to him twice. That was the only real truth he could see at the moment.
Reaching for the eCitTV console Michael flicked the ‘Web’ button and sat back in the chair. It was about time UKCitizensNet actually did something to help him. The origins or meanings of Colette’s message surely had to be somewhere amongst the millions of UKCitizensNet pages.
When the UKCitizensNet search engine appeared on screen he rapidly typed Colette’s message whilst it was still fresh in his mind.
His thoughts were cluttered with images of Vincent Trevellion who Colette had implicated. Or maybe it was all just in his head? Perhaps he’d listened too much to what Jones and the others had to say. He’d never realised until this point how contagious paranoia seemed to be.
Before another image of Trevellion could form in his mind the screen changed and a list of matches to his search appeared. Moving his finger over the first item in the list he clicked on the link and waited expectantly.
His eyes widened in surprise as a page entitled ‘Online Bible’ appeared. Quickly scrolling down the page he stopped as he saw Colette’s words highlighted in red in the middle of a paragraph. To the right of the text in blue it read: ‘Book of Revelation, 12:9’.
The Book of Revelation?
Colette had never been the most devout person he knew. Although more so than him.
His eyes scanned the words again. But as he read it, it was her voice speaking the words.
“
The great dragon was hurled down - that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the world astray. He was hurled to the Earth, and his angels with him.”