Different (37 page)

Then Henry yelled out in surprise and pointed up to a woman who was standing astride a cylinder that was lazily circling above them on billowing white silken wings. In one hand she held a tube that was pointing down towards them. Immediately the machine guns and all the other metal the tube swept over disintegrated.

Russell knew then, it was the freak and she'd built another weapon. “Shoot her down, Henry!” He yelled urgently. “Use the weapon and shoot her down!"

Henry pointed the weapon at the flying machine and pulled the trigger. For a brief microsecond he seemed to glow with a white light that was so bright that Russell could actually see Henry's skeleton. Then the weapon clattered to the ground, and Henry was gone. The freaks had booby-trapped the weapon and left it to be found, Russell realized. They'd tricked him.

Down below, in the streets, hand-to-hand fighting between the crowds and the troops had broken out. Russell, his teeth bared in rage, drew his laminated plastic knife and leapt towards the helpless prisoners. A shadow passed over him and then the woman was standing between him and the Vice President. He feinted with the knife and lashed out at her stomach with his boot. The boot connected and she doubled over. With a cry of triumph, he slashed the blade across her exposed throat. Clamping her hands to the gaping wound she sank to her knees blood pumping from between her fingers. Standing over her, Russell raised the knife but his wrist was seized in a vice like grip.

"You fucking bastard!” Roger Thompson the British Prime Minister snarled and swung a punch at Russell's face.

Russell saw the frayed nylon rope still around the man's wrist. A ham-sized fist grazed the side of Russell's head, he'd just managed to jerk away from it in time. Russell's other hand found the big man's neck and he dug his thumb into the artery. The grip on his knife hand faltered and Russell wrenched it free and plunged the knife into the man's heart. He collapsed at once and Russell calmly pulled the knife free and walked up to the Vice President. “Are you ready to die?”

Defiantly the Vice President stared back at him and chuckling, Russell pulled the man's head back exposing his throat.

"Russell!” It was a woman's voice and coming from behind him, he released the Vice President and turned to face Janine. Janine wearing a blood saturated dress with an angry red mark across her throat. The face changed to Henry's and then to the freak's and she walked towards him, her eyes glowing with an inner light.

He charged towards her and she extended her arms, fingers up and palms towards him. Although she was still several feet away, he was hurled backwards to crash against the wall. He screamed as he felt his rib-cage snap, and he fell crippled to the ground and screamed again, but this time in terror, as he saw her coming towards him.

His scrabbling hands closed around something smooth and he saw the booby-trapped weapon in his hand. His finger closed around the trigger and with a yell of defiance, he pulled it.

Roger Thompson was buried with full military honours at a funeral attended by leaders from almost every nation on Earth. Rebecca, her one arm held comfortingly by Doug watched as Scott Mallard laid a wreath by the grave. The President of the United States of America spoke with emotion, about the great courage of the man who gave his life in an attempt to save his and the other prisoners.

He also spoke about the weapon that had been developed by Matheson and Downey. The weapon had been destroyed along with its plans so that it could never be duplicated and used to threaten civilisation again. He spoke of his regret that the Generals who'd supported Matheson had apparently committed suicide rather than be tried for treason, and were now all dead.

"It was,” he said, “a tragedy."

Rebecca switched off the TV and walked over to the flap of the Wigwam. Jay, her stomach heavily distended by her pregnancy, was walking with one arm around Laura's shoulders, they were giggling. Adam and Dan were talking to a new arrival over by the fire. Originally there had been three Wigwams by the lake, but now there were fifteen.

They came from all over the country the new arrivals, many of them children but all of them having one thing in common. They were different. Some boasted an unusually high level of intelligence. Others were psychic, or healers and some were called sensitives, whatever that meant.

No one had told them where, or who Adam and Jay were. But still they came, and all of them took extraordinary precautions to ensure that they were never followed. They would stay for a week or a month and use Adam's untraceable communicator to ring their friends or parents to say that they were taking a brief vacation. Then they would leave whenever they felt that the time was right.

Rebecca sighed, it was too good to last, too many people were aware of the truth about Adam, Jay and their capabilities. Yes, one day they would come for them, but until then, she had Doug. Jay and Adam had each other. Yes, she thought patting her own slight bulge that was Doug's and her baby, until then, life was pretty damned good.

Tony Butler was born and raised in Wolverhampton. He attended the local Grammar School and then embarked on a career in marketing. His career was cut short following a diving accident that left him partially deaf. Unable to here telephones ringing or hear customers on the telephone Tony, an accomplished semi-professional magician decided to make his living as an entertainer and thirty-five years later his Clown Zozo, is one of the most popular and sought after children's’ entertainers in the East Midlands.

Like most writers, Tony has always had a love affair with books. The magic of a good, well-written novel never fails to enthral him.

Tony had been writing routines for magicians and one-line gags for comedians for years when about eight years ago he saw a writing competition advertised in a magazine. To his surprise he won that competition and several others that year and was invited to join Nottingham City writer's Club, and is the current chairman of Eastwood Writers Group.

In 2002 he won an award from the Times Newspaper's Educational Supplement for his work with reluctant and slow readers in schools, and Derby City's Adult Literacy Competition with his children's fantasy story, “Abby and Jackdaw's Adventures."

In 2003 after being short-listed in the BBC's short story competition, Tony was invited by BBC Radio-Derby, to write and broadcast ten ‘Morning Thoughts.’

It was after this and following the suggestion of established authors that he was finally persuaded to start writing novels. Merlin's Granddaughter, a children's novel, is aimed at readers (Aged 10+). He has written the first draft of a horror novel, the outline for a time travel novel, and has just completed ‘Different’ a 100,000-word novel about a teenager who discovers that she has been genetically modified, which is aimed at young adults.