Kingdom: The Complete Series (35 page)

Its voice, when it
speaks, is a low baritone that hurts the Trespasser's ears through his helmet.
He can feel its voice in his teeth, shaking his eyeballs in his skull.

“
Where
are the other six?” it asks.

The Trespasser glances
at Mark and Donald, still unconscious. “The other six what?”

“
Twelve
seeds were sent to your planet. I count only six of my children. Where are the
other six?”

“
Seeds?”
The Trespasser points at the rest of his squad. “You mean the fire? The fire in
these people?”

“
Yes.”

Trespasser One takes a
breath, trying to control the shaking in his legs. His training hasn't prepared
him for this. He falls back on the truth, since it is all he knows.

“
They're
dead,” he says. “They're gone. There's only these six left.”

“
Then
we are at a disadvantage,” it says, stating plain fact.

“
Disadvantage?
For what?”

Mark sits bolt upright
so suddenly Jamie falls back in fright. Mark is paler than usual, his eyes dark
circles sunken into his head.

“
War,”
he gasps. “It wants us to fight a war.”

“
What?”
the Trespasser asks. “Mark, what are you talking about?”

Mark stands upright,
walking towards the alien as though he is going to pick a fight with it.

“
You
have to leave,” he shouts at it. “You have to go now, and take that
thing
with
you.” Mark points up towards the sky. “Lead it away from here.”

“
I
can flee no longer,” the alien tells him, its voice shaking the concrete in the
pavement. “This is where I make my stand.”

“
No,”
says Mark, walking closer. He is shaking, trembling with anger, pointing an
accusing finger at the human form. “No, we never asked for this. This is
your
war, not ours. That thing will destroy us, we don't stand a chance.”

“
I
must try.”

“
Then
try elsewhere,” shouts Mark. “We don't want this.”

“
I
created you for this purpose,” it says, stating fact like a robot.

“
Created
us?” whispers Jamie.

“
You
never created us,” says Mark. “You altered us – changed us.”

“
I
made you into warriors for this purpose. Your purpose is to aid me in fighting -”

“
There
are seven billion people on the planet who don't
want
to fight this
thing,” screams Mark, fear getting the better of him. “Who
can't
fight
it.”

“
There
is nothing I can do. This will be the battle ground,” says the alien. “You will
aid me. Should you abandon the cause or fail, your planet will fall with me.”

It then falls silent:
that is all there is to it.

Mark stumbles away, his
nose still leaking blood. He grabs at his head and shuts his eyes, shaking his
head.

“
No,”
he whispers. “No, no, this can't be happening.”

“
Mark,
what's wrong?” asks the Trespasser. “What are you talking about?”

Donald wakes up, his
eyes slamming open as though he just awoken from a bad dream.

“
I
saw it,” he mutters, and Cathy kneels beside him.

“
Saw
what, Don? What happened?”

“
It
made us see,” he tells her, looking up like a frightened child into Cathy's
eyes. “We have to warn everybody. We don't have long. It's coming.”

“
What's
everyone freaking out about?” asks Gary, his voice trembling. “What's coming?”

“
The
Destroyer,” says Donald, as though only just realising that he knows the
answer. 

“
Will
somebody,”
the Trespasser throws his arms up and shouts, “tell me what
in the hell is going on?”

“
Promise
you'll believe me,” says Mark, looking at the Trespasser as though everything
is a bad dream. “Promise.”

“
I
promise,” the Trespasser says, walking over to him. “Now calm down, Mark.” He
puts a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me what's going on.” Trespasser One points
over his shoulder at the unmoving human silhouette, still casting a green glow
over everything. “What is he? What's he going to do?”

“
It's
not a 'he',” says Mark, his teeth chattering as though is going through serious
withdrawals. “It's a -
them.
A multitude. A myriad – an assembly, I
don't know. They're just a collective. There's no name, but there's a feeling
like safety, shelter, something like that. Protector; I think that's what it
calls itself.”

“
And
the Protector is a collective? A collective of - what?”

Mark cringes, trying to
find the words, motioning with his hands. “Like tiny - smaller than I can
describe, like machines that -”

Donald interrupts, and
tells them: “They're a swarm of microscopic machines that exist in multiple
states at once. Tiny quantum-state machines.  They're completely
self-sustaining, they draw their energy from -” even Donald has to think of the
words. “I don't know how to describe it. Like a web that intersects the
universe at every point in space, from every angle. It's like a constantly
fluctuating field of potential – I don't know how else to describe it.”

“
They
need us – they need conscious beings,” says Mark, taking over. “They're only
tangible when they're close to life forms – then they take a single form, based
off whatever is close to them.”

“
Like
a human form,” says the Trespasser turning and looking at the unmoving man cut
out of the air. It still glows, watching them.

Donald stands up with
an arm around Cathy's shoulder. From behind his mask comes the first drops of
blood from his nose.

“
They
can alter people – biologically, chemically, physically, whatever: they latch
onto conscious beings and change them, make them into warriors – like us.”

“
Why?”
asks the Trespasser.

“
Because
they're fighting a war,” whispers Mark. “A war that ended a long time ago – now
these things are all that's left, weapons left to run on automatic. There used
to just be one huge swarm, but they tried to latch onto a race that was
divided. Aliens that look like - like what it was before it changed. It took on
their division, and the swarm split.”

The Trespasser helps
Mark to his feet, and he speaks directly to the alien like an investigator
piecing the puzzle together.

“
One
of the swarms: they latched onto those with good intentions. Protectors,
carers, builders, providers... the other one did the opposite. It latched onto
destroyers: murderers, predators, the hateful and the spiteful. That became
their reality. They used the beings to fight one another, altering them to make
them more and more powerful – it's all they know. Protect, or Destroy”

“
This
one was losing,” says Donald, joining Mark. “The planet was in ruins. So it
split itself and sent twelve smaller swarms to the nearest inhabited planet:
Earth. It sought out those with good intent and changed them, turning them into
-”

“
Us,”
says Mark. “That's what the fire was – the fire that hit Glasgow. It was parts
of the swarm, finding potential soldiers. It was giving itself an army to fight
this enemy. It ran out of soldiers to fight the war.”

“
And
now,” says Donald, looking at the Trespasser. “It's brought the war here.”

“
What's
coming?” asks the Trespasser, his voice small now.

“
It's
similar: it doesn't have a name, just a feeling,” says Mark. “It's like
everything bad about people rolled up into a storm cloud. It just wants to hate
and kill and destroy. Destroyer. It feels like it should be called Destroyer –
and it's coming. Soon.”

“
How
long do we have before it arrives?”

“
An
hour,” whispers Mark. “Maybe two.”

Mark stares into space
and sits down on the ground, pulling his knees up like a child.

“
Mark,
get up,” says Jamie, extending a hand.

Mark shakes his head.
“We can't fight this. You didn't see what I saw.”

“
Mark's
right,” says Donald. “We don't stand a chance against this thing. It's pure
power – the kind of power that we all have, but magnified.”

“
Can
we just give it this one?” the Trespasser points at the man-shape. “Is that
what it wants?”

“
It's
too late for that,” says Mark, his face as white as chalk. “We're soldiers now.
It won't stop until it's wiped us out, and made every corrupt and hateful human
into a soldier for itself.”

“
What
if,” says Cathy, whispering now, rocking on her heels, “we gave ourselves up to
it? Would it leave everybody else alone?”

Donald shakes his head.
“It will absorb what it can, and destroy what is left. There's nothing we can
do.”

“
We
can fight,” says the booming, bass voice of the alien. “That is your only
option.”

“
This
isn't our war,” sneers the Trespasser, turning on it like an angered animal.
“We never asked to be involved in this – so you can just piss off back into
space and tell your Destroyer to chase you somewhere else.”

“
The
Destroyer knows that I am here now,” its voice is a trembling roar in his
nervous gut. “It knows that there are potential soldiers. Either it absorbs or
kills every being on this planet, or we defeat it. There is no middle ground.
There is nothing to negotiate. We must prepare for the battle.”

The Trespasser is left
speechless, out of things to say. He lifts a hand to his ear, presses in his
comms button, and says:

“
Command?
You getting all of this?”

Command's voice is
sombre and flat.
“Heard the whole thing, son.”

“
What
are my orders?”

There is a long
silence, and the street is devoid of noise save for the nervous trembling of
the squad.

“
Orders
are to stay put. Our sensors aren't picking anything up, we can't be sure this
thing's story is true.”

The alien chimes in, as
though it can hear his comms.

“
Invisibility
is not beyond the Destroyer. You will not see it until it is here.”

“
It
says -”

“
I
heard it.”

“
Orders?”

“
You're
the one on the ground, Trespasser. What would you do?”

“
I'd
evacuate the city and alert the entire world to this: they need to know. We
need all the help we can get.”

“
You
intend to fight this thing, if it exists?”

“
I
see no other choice, sir.”

He can almost hear the
gears grinding in Command's head, considering the situation.

“
Ok,
son. We'll begin the evacuation and send help.”

“
Don't
just send help, Command,” says the Trespasser, looking around at his
frightened, shaken squad. “Send everything.”

Jamie extends his hand
again, and Mark finally takes it. Jamie pulls him to his feet, and without
saying a word, embraces him.

“
We
can't win this,” whispers Mark. “Jamie, we don't have a chance.”

Jamie grabs him by the
shoulders. “We didn't stand a chance against the King either, some would have
said.”

“
The
King's human, Jamie. This thing is – it's just power and hatred. How do you
fight that?”

“
I'm
sure the alien will tell us,” says Jamie, and only now does Mark realise that
time has frozen around them. Everything else is grey – including the alien.
Jamie lowers his head and his voice, looking straight through Mark's eyes and
into his mind. “We have to try. There's no alternative.”

Mark nods, swallowing
the fear blocking his throat.

“
Now
chin up Mark, put your brave face on. You're the squad's rock. If you're
crumbling then they will too.”

“
Really?”

“
Really.
So get your shit together. You ready?”