Hunters: A Trilogy (99 page)

Without blinking an eye, he said, calmly: ‘Our friend has managed to get his hands on a device, the word ‘Nuke’ would be the term used to describe this archaic weapon, I do believe?’ He sat and serenely looked at them.

If Ken hadn’t been doing other things…things like only just restraining himself from screaming…he would have sworn that George was so laid back the man was about to casually inspect his own fingernails. As it was, Ken had no time for such considerations. He had very nearly fallen off his chair.

He roared at the screen: ‘What? Did you just say what I thought you did, a Nuke, what? Whoa, hold on there, cowboy, we didn’t sign up for this shit – a Nuke?’ Ken was absolutely stunned.

His outburst, along with George’s little bombshell, had unleashed a crackling silence, an overwhelming sensation of static tension that forced away all other thoughts, even their concerns for the absent Maggie were now sent scuttling to the back of the line. That one word, ‘Nuke’, was enough for anyone to have taken a quick moment, or two, to think about things – maybe grabbed their bags and headed for the door in a hurry. In fact, let’s just forget about the bags and get running immediately, shall we?

In complete contrast, George sat and looked at them in silence, not a hair was ruffled upon his old head, they may as well have been screaming about the dangers of an exploding marshmallow, for all the concern he displayed. Over the next twenty seconds, or thereabouts, he sat back and allowed the unleashed avalanche of random questions to smother him.

From Michael’s: ‘Don’t we need to build a bunker?’ To Junior’s: ‘I never heard of any Nuke, never heard of such a thing, is it from history or something?’ From Jane’s: ‘Oh God, George, whatever next, what are we supposed to do about this?’ To Ken’s ubiquitous: ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ Their questions and horrified remarks kept on coming. It was only Tori who didn’t add to the rambunctious ranting of the confused Hunters. She sat quietly and waited for her much-loved family to calm down. Although, it does have to be said, her blues eyes had taken on a slightly brighter gleam than as was usual – when Ken caught a glimpse of that look, he couldn’t figure out if it was fear, maybe excitement, or possibly joy.

Perhaps it was all three.

George sat there and waited whilst they squabbled amongst themselves, listening to them as they fired questions to-and-fro, questions that no-one had any answers to. No-one, it seemed, except him. In the end, their furore had burned itself out and the only sound remaining was that of a few coughs accompanied by the drumming of some anxious fingertips on the wooden table. Junior’s chair creaked loudly as he adjusted his weight.

Silence befell them.

Hearing their ranting cease, George said, ‘Have we quite finished?’ Their silence was in the affirmative. ‘Good!’ he said, ‘I am sorry my revelation has caused such a panic, truly I am. I had no idea that it would be received so badly!’ He shook his head woefully and proceeded with the tale.

The Demon had managed to take control of a man who was at the centre of a secret project, one that had been underway in the remote northern mountains of a land known, to Ken and his wife, as Afghanistan. George said, ‘In your time it was known as that place, the place where we first met, but in Jack’s time things were different there, certainly the place was still known by that name, but its history and the future that lies before it, are totally different!’

He explained that even in its current dimension, the country still suffered from a very bloody past, but they held high hope that its future would be a much different one altogether. The host of their adversary had been working on a highly-secretive project and had been hidden in those isolated hills for some four or more years. The nature of his work – the task of perfecting plasma power and of mastering the fusion of hydrogen cells, a task that involved making machines capable of heating atoms to many times the temperature of those found in the very core of Earth’s little sun – had left him a desolate and lonely man.

George said, ‘That work will see an end to all of the power problems in their dimension, one small lake of water will be enough for decades of power; it will be a development to be shared amongst all parallels, if we can only prevent the Dragon from interfering.’

George looked at them and Ken saw the frustration on his lined face, he saw that the old guy was still struggling with the chain of unfolding events, events that for once didn’t seem to allow him and his kind to be in the driving seat.

George said that the whole thing was odd; he said the man had only recently become involved in the work, and that they were unable to trace any existence of him previously. He was, however, a masterful scientist and also a physicist of extreme skill and talent. George told them that the only thing his research had revealed was the fact that the man had appeared as if from nowhere.

Several of the long-standing members of the research group had resigned in protest at the man’s sudden and unexpected promotion to leadership – who was he, and why had he been put in charge? They were all questions that had gone unanswered. And so, many of the original team had resigned and left the project immediately. Of those who remained, it seemed that three or four had already met their end in some untimely fashion or another.

‘We are now beginning to wonder if the freak accidents these unfortunate people met with, were actually ‘accidents’ after all, but we cannot see the truth at the moment, not yet…’ George said, angrily.

He explained that almost everyone who had been involved with the original research project had either moved on, or had been killed. Either way, their enemy had taken charge of the project. Most of the work had been done in more western countries, but, after the arrival of the mysterious man, more and more of it had been moved to hidden locations, vast underground bunkers having been constructed in one country after another. Eventually, the man had ended his journey of mystery and deceit by choosing to settle in the place where they had only recently found him – a large cave on top of a barren mountain, which lay, literally, in the middle of nowhere.

George paused for a moment whilst he once more shuffled through some papers. Seeming to find what he was looking for, the old man looked up and continued. ‘We have been able to determine that there is a nuclear apparatus within the confines of his cave, or at least something with a similar signature, our brief and intermittent scans have indicated the presence of such a device.’

Seeing the baffled looks on the faces of his audience, he said, ‘The technology his project has been working on is very advanced for their time, the colliding of atoms and the starting of fusion is very much a specialised field, it too may produce such a signature, some of our own early propulsion devices give off exactly the same tell-tale signs, it may well be that this is what we can see, but we doubt it. Why would he be hiding it, why is he the one, why has the Demon taken him? All of these things remain unanswered, and we don’t like it!’ He stopped and pushed his notes away before looking back at the screen.

Then, in a somewhat resigned tone, he said, ‘For the moment I believe we should leave it there, we are in the process of gathering more information, and to put it quite frankly, other more pressing events are unfolding as we speak.’

He said there was no apparent reason as to why Maggie had been taken, perhaps it was merely chance. They couldn’t see if she was in the cave, in fact they couldn’t see where she was at all. However, the one thing they did know for sure was that Maggie was still alive. ‘We can feel her, she is still with us!’ was all George said. He didn’t permit them any further discussions on the subject of Maggie. Instead, he focused them back into the present, a time where it looked as though they would have to stand ready for the Dragon’s latest onslaught.

Then, and on a more positive note, George said that it was possible that the next incursion by their enemy might well be their last. ‘He does not appear to have an infinite amount of men, and from what we have been able to see it seems as though he may well be having some recruiting problems…’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘All of the surrounding villages and towns are now bereft of human life-forms; however, we can establish that there are still a fairly large number of personnel within the cave. Who they are and what they are doing is a mystery to us at present.’ He sat staring at them before saying: ‘And that, I am afraid to say, is as much as we know, it is the limit of our knowledge so far.’

George said he would send them some more of the required equipment and, as soon as he was able to, a further update on the remainder of the situation. In the meantime, he suggested they stand ready, prepare themselves and await further instructions.

Seeing that the conversation was drawing to a close, Ken asked one final question. ‘Is there anything you can do to help us, George? Maybe send the Storm, or something, you know…when they arrive?’ He didn’t really fancy another gunfight, and the thought of losing someone else to the Darkness worried him to the point of desperation – the thought of losing Jane was unthinkable!

George’s answer put paid to any big ideas of Ken being able to sit back and watch the Dragon and his mates getting their arses kicked by someone else for a change. ‘No, I am afraid not,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately for you, and for all of us, the dimension where you exist, your current reality, does not actually exist at all. It is merely a place in-between time, a slice of time slipped between the fabrics of other dimensions. You are, or at least you should have been, totally invisible. This is what concerns us so much, we have no idea how has he found you, it should not have been possible, not unless…’ He paused to sit there, blinking his old eyes. Absolute silence was the only reply his words received.

George told them it had already been an ultra-difficult task. Just to get the communications working again had, in itself, been nearly impossible, the movement of weapons and equipment a near miracle. He said, ‘Now was not supposed to be the time, we were not expecting this chain of events! You were all supposed to be where you are for quite some time yet – for several more years, in fact. This has been hard for all of us, but I know that you can do this, we know that you can, you have to!’ He sat there in silence whilst his Hunters looked up at him.

The atmosphere became heavy once more; unsaid words and an even more uncertain future causing the darkness of despair to open a bleary eye. Ken didn’t intend to let it awaken fully. He said, confidently: ‘Right, well that’s fair enough then! No problem, George, no problem at all!’ He rose to his feet and looked at the others. ‘Okay, people, you heard the man – we’re done, let’s get back to the defences, shall we? George, do you need another ‘wish-list’ from me, or what?’

The old man smiled at Ken, said he didn’t need a list, and that Ken would have some additional items within the day. With a final wave, and a sincere: ‘Take care, all of you…please, take care!’ George’s image flickered once and then melted away with the screen.

They remained seated for a while, each of them sitting in silent reflection, soundless thoughts tumbling around their own heads. No-one dared share those particular thoughts. Some were of fear, and some were of rage – most were of the Darkness.

George was as good as his word. At twenty-past three the very same afternoon, his promised re-supply arrived. Michael, who had been up in the Eagle’s Nest at the time, became aware of a bright green glow, more of a flash, actually, illuminating the area below his perch in the roof of the barn.

Ken heard him calling.

‘There’s a green light in the barn! Stand to, stand to!’

Ken heard the alarm in Michaels’s voice, felt it in his own head, and turned toward the building at a run, shouting as he did so. ‘Stand to, everybody stand to!’ He sprinted toward the barn, rifle in both hands, eyes flashing from the rooftop to the hedges and then back to the barn. ‘Where were they?’ The thoughts rushed through his head as rapidly as his eyes scanned the ground around the farmyard. He needn’t have worried.

Michael appeared in the doorway with his rifle still slung over his shoulder. He was carrying a small, grey box in his hands. Looking over to where Ken was racing across the courtyard, weapon at the ready, the boy said, ‘This thing has just appeared on the floor of the barn – what is it, the weapons?’ He laughed as he saw Ken’s furious charge toward him, slow into a gentle jog. ‘Sorry Ken, it made a weird flash is all,’ the boy said. ‘I thought it was them coming back, you know…Moving?’

Ken laughed, and replied with, ‘Don’t worry Mikey, well done for raising the alarm, mate!’ He grinned at the boy and then turned around and shouted towards the house. ‘Stand down, guys! Stand down…it’s only some stuff from George!’

Turning back to Mike, he said, ‘Let’s have a gander shall we, Mikey?’

He took the container from Michael and together they walked back into the cool, dark interior of the barn. They were soon joined by the others and in a short space of time, after zapping the box, Ken was busily demonstrating how the new grenades and mines, which had been contained within the box, worked. George had also included some more ammunition and three new weapons. The addition of a belt-fed machinegun, a sniper rifle, and, best of all, a fat-barrelled grenade launcher, to their armoury was indeed a welcome one.

As it turned out, it would also be a decisive addition.

Ken had no idea how George had managed it – he knew from previous discussions that simply procuring the weapons was in itself a sizeable hurdle. Firstly, George had to find someone who happened to be in a dimension where such items were available, then the person had to know what he, or she, would be looking for – then they would have to buy them. Finally, the most difficult task, as it now seemed, was that George had to find a way in which to squeeze the items into that ‘tiny slice of time’ where Ken and the others now lived, in a time that apparently was not quite-so-well hidden as they had hoped. It must have been a hellish task, but here they were – a neat row of shiny new ‘toys’.