Prospero's Half-Life (44 page)

“
Never thought we’d end up here, eh, Richard?” he said calmly.
“I should have taken up with the ones outside after all, I guess”.
Richard laughed at this.

“
You would be a lot better off, let me tell you,” he replied
with a light step in his voice. Simon grinned, and shrugged
ruefully.

The soldiers
crossed the remaining distance between them and stopped in front of
the semi-circle of servants. They looked from one end of the group
to the other, and if they were unsettled by having to face such a
large group they did not show it. Two of them unholstered
battered-looking pistols, and the other two loosened heavy-looking
cudgels from their straps. Richard grimaced; a lot of people were
going to get killed here, and it was largely unnecessary. He felt a
heaviness envelop him, and he felt his heart reach a decision
before his brain had time to process it into words.

“
I have to give myself up,” he said quietly. “They’ll kill
everyone if I don’t”.

Carolyn
grabbed his hand and looked into his face with blazing eyes.

“
No!” she shouted, oblivious to the people who turned their
heads to look at her. “You can’t do it! They’ll just kill you and
then kill everyone else afterwards!”

“
You don’t know that. I don’t know that. And that’s why I have
to do it. Because there’s a chance they won’t”.

He stepped
forward and ripped his hand away from Carolyn.

“
NO!” she screamed, and everyone turned to look at her now. The
soldiers stopped as they were about to break into violence, shocked
by the sound of her voice. Richard froze. In the silence that
descended on the crowd in the wake of Carolyn’s scream, Richard
heard a faint
ding
from within his shoulder-bag. He ripped it open and withdrew
the tablet with shaking fingers. The battery indicator was at 6%.
He read the message Troy had sent and felt a shaking, nauseous
sense of despair.

ALRIGHT
BROTHER, SHE’S HERE AND I’M TALKING TO HER, BUT I HAVE BAD NEWS.
SHE THINKS IT’S A TRAP TOO, AND SHE SAYS IT’S JUST SAFER TO
BULLDOZE OVER EVERYTHING, JUST IN CASE.

Richard fell
to his knees and began to weep. In front of him, the soldiers began
to swing their cudgels into the crowd, who surged back with only
their fists. The first sharp, sickening cracks of pistol fire
echoed off of the crumbling, burning buildings around them.

ELEVEN

Sparkling
embers and scattered white dust floated down around Richard in a
strange half-time. He heard the sounds of struggle and death in
front of him, but it seemed as though it was happening across the
continent. He crouched until his knees protested from the strain,
and clutched at the tablet with white fingertips. In a ludicrous,
detached part of his mind, he wondered that the screen didn’t crack
under the force of his grip.

“
I’m so sorry,” he mouthed, unsure in the cacophony of
dragged-out sound that surrounded him if any words escaped his lips
at all. “I’m so, so sorry”.

Carolyn knelt
behind him and put a steady hand on his shoulder. He did not
acknowledge it; what was there left to do? After everything that
they had done – everything he had been through since that day he
had shed his old life for a strange new one – this would be how it
would end. Blown apart by mortar shells fired by a faceless army on
the other side of a shattered, burning wall of old brick buildings.
More tears slid down his dust-caked face, carving out a warm, wet
track. He clenched his eyes shut tighter, wanting to block out
everything: the sun, filtered by iron-grey clouds and billowing
smoke; the sounds of buildings collapsing into splinters and dust
around them; the sight of people that he had once considered his
charges fighting and dying to protect him. Carolyn’s hand squeezed
his shoulder and he forced his eyes open. If he was going to die,
he was going to see it coming. The world owed him that much.

He loosened his grip on the screen and looked at the tablet.
The simple outline of the dialogue box was open before him, a
vertical line flashing and waiting to be transformed into words,
meanings. He used a hand to wipe the quivering tears away from his
face and sniffled hard to clear his nose. He saw that other
soldiers had arrived, likely fleeing the collapsing city hall, and
that they had joined their fellows to engage the servants
surrounding him. Their struggle had intensified; the servants were
fighting back viciously, although their casualties were becoming
serious. Richard began to tap on the screen.
One last try pays for all
he thought,
and wondered where the thought had come from.

WHO IS SHE?
CAN I SPEAK WITH HER?

I DON’T KNOW,
BROTHER. I MIGHT BE ABLE TO HOOK UP A VISUAL LINK, PRETTY SURE THAT
TABLET HAS A CAM ON IT. HOW’S YOUR BATTERY?

Richard
checked, and grimaced at the information.

NOT GOOD.
4%.

YOU WON’T BE
ABLE TO TURN ON THE CAMERA WITHOUT IT SHUTTING DOWN, THEN. I DON’T
KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO.

WE’RE ALL
GOING TO DIE HERE.

I KNOW, MAN, I KNOW. LISTEN, SHE’S COMING AROUND HERE, ONE OF
HER MAIN ASSISTANTS IS HERE, SHE WANTS TO GATHER EVERYONE UP BEFORE
THEY STORM INTO YOU. I CAN TRY AGAIN, SEE IF SHE’LL LISTEN. I’VE
ONLY TALKED TO HER THROUGH HER ASSISTANTS SO FAR, MAYBE I’LL HAVE
BETTER LUCK FACE TO FACE
.

TRY
Richard typed, and struggled to
figure out how to finish it. In the end he shrugged and sent it as
is. That was all he could ask, in the end. Troy would try, and the
people trapped inside the collapsing fortifications of the
Stratford square would live or die on the outcome of his trying. He
hugged the tablet close to his chest and closed his eyes. The sound
of gunshots increased, as did the desperate sound of bone crunching
on bone. He wanted to rip off his ears and cause the screaming that
he could hear everywhere to cease.

“
GED TUH FUGGER!” he heard a wet, snuffly voice cry out. He
thought that it was Karl’s voice, if he could imagine Karl with a
smashed nose. ”A THOUSAND GOINS TUH THE MAN DAT GILLS DAT FUGGER!”.
Richard chuckled weakly. Karl had paid at least five times that
amount for him; even now, at the end, the man was trying to hold on
to every last coin that he could.

There was a
commotion behind him and when he turned to see what was going on he
saw a large collection of men and women running to join the fray.
They were dressed as servants, and they swelled into the crowd of
Richard’s people with a tidal force. The servants surged forward
with a great resounding cry, and the soldiers suddenly found
themselves surrounded. The amount of gunshots increased, but the
pacing between shots was off, to the point of seeming random. They
were panicked shots; there were agonized screams and moans from
those who were shot, but within moments the sounds of gunshots
ceased altogether and was replaced with the simpler, brutal sounds
of men and women struggling hand-to-hand. In a way, Richard found
this to be even worse.

“
Come on, Troy,” he whispered, and in that moment he heard the
tablet ding and vibrate slightly against his chest. He flipped it
over and ran his eyes eagerly over the screen.

HER ASSISTANT
WON’T EVEN LET ME SPEAK TO HER, MAN. SORRY. SHE SAYS, AND I’M
QUOTING HER HERE, “SAMMIE DOESN’T NEGOTIATE WITH THE ENEMY. END OF
STORY”. FUCKING BITCH. BOTH OF THEM. ALL OF THEM. I’M SORRY,
RICHARD. YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, YOU KNOW THAT? I’M SORRY IT HAS TO END
LIKE THIS.

Richard stared at this message, unable to believe what he was
reading. His hands shook, and he began to laugh. It was low,
chuckling laughter at first but it grew to a much louder, more
unstable type in less than a minute. He felt Carolyn’s hand come
off of his shoulder; she would be concerned.
Let her be
he thought wildly. He
tried putting some coherence to his racing thoughts, but he found
that he was utterly unable to do so. He shook his head, trying to
shake his brain into functioning. Ahead of him, he saw that the
mass of servants was being pushed back; the soldiers from the wall
must have broken ranks and fled into the square, where they found
their brethren engaged in a losing battle with the rabble. He
checked the battery. 3%. It dropped to 2% while he watched it. So
little time. He let out a short, harsh exhalation and began to
type. Try, he had told Troy; Troy had tried and failed. So now
Richard would try, with a final shot into the darkness.

TROY IF YOU’RE STILL THERE TELL HER I’M STILL SORRY I KILLED
THE DOG. TELL HER EXACTLY THAT.
He
hesitated, unsure of whether to add in his next thought, and then
let out a bale of crazy laughter.
Fuck
it!
he screamed inside his head, then
typed:
THEN TELL HER “IF YOU WANT TO BE A
GOOD PERSON THEN COME HELP ME. OTHERWISE, FUCK YOURSELF. I HOPE YOU
MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION.

UM, WHAT?
came the reply, and Richard
shook his head with frustration.

JUST DO IT!!!!
he typed, and saw that
the battery was at 1%. Ahead of him, a figure was pushing its way
through the fighting throng. He stuffed the tablet into his
shoulder-bag and then handed the bag to Sandra. She was standing
stiffly, watching the melee, her eyes round with shock; she didn’t
notice the bag at first and only took it once Richard shook it
under her nose. He turned back and saw that one of the soldiers had
managed to get through the barrier of servants; he was young, and
he looked dazed and frightened. Richard leapt forward with an
inarticulate, barbaric cry of rage; his fist struck the young man
in the chin on an upward angle. The soldier’s feet left the ground
as he went backwards into the backs of the surging servants; he was
tangled up with the limbs of several others and then dragged into
the crowd. Richard bent over and rested his palms on his knees, his
breathing coming heavy and laboured. He was too old for this sort
of thing, and he felt it all catching up with him.

Another
soldier came through, this one much thicker than the previous one
and also much more alert. He snarled as he spotted Richard and
charged towards him. Tyler appeared beside him, running swiftly and
brandishing one of Sandra’s kitchen knives. Tyler swiped it through
the air as he closed the gap with the soldier, but the soldier
knocked Tyler’s arm away and drove one meaty fist into the former
horse-trainer’s gut. Tyler fell to his knees, gasping for breath,
and the soldier took the opportunity to apply his denim-covered
knee to Tyler’s face. Tyler sprawled onto his back, blood
splattering in a messy arc away from his face. He lay on the
cracked asphalt, twitching and scraping the back of his head along
the ground. The soldier resumed his stride towards Richard; a
moment later one of the servants from the crowd darted out and
threw themselves around the soldier’s legs, tripping him up and
driving him to the pavement. Two others joined in, piling onto the
soldier and clawing at him like animals. They growled and screeched
like animals as well, and Richard had to turn away. He had no wish
to see anyone literally torn apart, whether they were his enemy or
not. He wondered if Troy had ever acted on his message, or whether
it even had any meaning.

He turned back
to see if Tyler had gotten up and saw that Karl was emerging from
the bloody, writhing mess around him. Blood soaked the bottom of
his face and his shirt; he was moving with an odd lurch, and he was
breathing exaggeratedly through his mouth.

“
Fuh...found dew...you...you fugger. Deach you...tuh hit your
master”. He lurched forward and Richard sighed heavily. At that
moment there was a loud explosion from the main gateway of the
walls, which lay a hundred yards away or so. The sound of cement
collapsing inward drifted over a moment later, followed by the cry
of a mass of people flowing into the square.

“
WHAT DUH FUG WAS DAT?” Karl screamed, and Richard charged at
him, his head down. He caught his former master off-guard, driving
them both into the hard pavement. Karl flailed and clawed at him
but Richard found that he was unable to move; he could catch his
breath but only barely. It felt like he was breathing through a
straw, and when Karl bunched his strength up and tried to flip him
over Richard had no recourse but to let him.

Karl straddled
him and drove a fist down into Richard’s face. The man’s
knucklebones crashed with brutal force into Richard’s nose, and
Richard felt it break in a searing flash of nauseating pain. His
shallow breathing was cut off entirely, and he pulled in through
his mouth with panicking, trying to get as much oxygen to filter
into his abused system as he could. Karl’s fist came down again,
into his jaw this time, and Richard felt more of his teeth shatter
upon impact. The fragments fell backwards into his throat, choking
him and cutting up the lining of his esophagus. He hacked out a
forced cough, trying to get them to dislodge; Karl swayed slightly
on top of him and readied his fist for another blow. Richard saw,
through a haze of pain and blood, that a lot of the strength seemed
to have drained out of Karl, as though the two solid blows to
Richard’s face had taken most of the energy out of it. When Karl
brought his fist down again it was much slower, and Richard was
able to twist his head so that Karl’s fist went directly into the
pavement. Karl screamed wordlessly and reared back, flailing his
now-limp hand in the air. Richard pushed at him with all of his
remaining strength; Karl went toppling backwards and fell off of
Richard with a loud crunch as his head hit the ground. Richard
tried to lift himself up off the ground to his feet, made it a
sitting position, and then collapsed back onto the ground, fighting
for breath. He rolled his head to the side to look at the crowd and
saw Karl getting to his feet. Richard let out a ragged, painful
breath and wondered with deep sadness where Carolyn was. He wanted
to reach out for her, take a shaking grasp on her hand. She had
wanted to die together. The thought kept repeating itself over and
over again inside of his skull. All she had wanted was to die
together, when the end came.