Kingdom: The Complete Series (32 page)

Jamie steps forward
from the squad.

“
Jamie,
clear the line of fire -”

Jamie opens his arms
wide in a challenge and begins swaggering towards the advancing horde. To his
surprise, they stop.

“
Was
this your plan,” he shouts to the roof, his voice trembling with anger. “Trap
me in a prison with your dogs and kill my friend? You thought that would work
out for you?”

He drops his arms and
starts pacing towards the horde. Some of them step forward to meet him.

He vanishes.

“
Open
fire,” shouts the Trespasser, and their guns light up, bullets cutting into the
horde, throwing them backwards in puffs of red mist.

Jamie re-appears in the
midst of the horde. He grabs a lead pipe from the hands of a surprised prisoner
and smashes it into the man's face, breaking his nose.

The prisoner's react
like one organism, turning on him with their weapons raised.

He vanishes again.

Jamie reappears behind
them and mashes the lead pipe against their ranks. Two prisoners fall,
clutching their skulls in agony, before they can react. Then he is gone again.

The bullets start to
fly. Rather than try to fight a phantom, the prisoners form into one unit and
charge straight into the gunfire like a medieval regiment, even as their bodies
go limp and their friends tumble to the ground.

Leaping over the
scattered bodies of their fallen comrades, the prisoners close the distance
with the Trespassers.

Trespasser One throws a
stun grenade into the air as he holsters his pistol. Beside him, his squad have
emptied their assault rifles and discarded them.

“
Knives,”
he shouts.

The squad pull their
knives from their belts in one fluid movement. With a loud bark, the stun
grenade goes off, blinding and deafening every one of them.

The Trespasser's ears
ring, and everything slows down.

A wall of orange
descends upon him – somebody, covering their eyes and swinging, gets a lucky
strike on his shoulder with a crowbar. His armour holds, but the shock of the
blow puts him off his stride.

He pushes the figure
aside with his knife, driving the blade through the target's throat as he does
so. Another takes his place, trying to grapple with the Trespasser; he ducks
his grasping hands and drives the knife deep between his ribs, extracting it
and moving past the limp attacker. Another man comes at him with a wrench,
swinging it. The Trespasser ducks, but someone behind him drives a claw hammer
into the small of his back.

Grunting in pain, he
turns and slashes the man's face in two; he goes down screaming. The Trespasser
does not hear his wailing: everything is a loud and constant ringing.

Two men have forced
Trespasser Two – the large American – to the ground, and are holding his arms
apart as though they intended to crucify him, whilst two prisoners repeatedly
jam blades through the underside of his mask until he stops struggling.

Trespasser Three goes
down under a hail of blows – one prisoner gets a lucky hit with a spanner on
the back of her helmet, and the shock turns her legs to jelly. Even as she goes
down she gets her knife into someone's thigh, bringing another down with her.

A flurry of rapid
strikes from men with lead pipes ends any resistance she had put up, smashing
her visor open. The Trespasser sees her sharp blue eyes, devoid of life,
through a forest of orange legs.

Orange clad arms wrap
around his waist and stop him twisting away– hordes of hands pin his arms back and
stop him punching and kicking. A prisoner gets close and Trespasser One
headbutts him so hard he sees the man's eyes go blank as he falls back.

Trespasser One realises
that he is screaming.

They grab his legs
despite his kicking, holding him still as they tackle him to the floor.

One of them grabs his
head, pulling it back to reveal his bare neck. He keeps struggling, fighting to
get a hand free.

A prisoner produces a
knife and leans down.

Time stops.

The Trespasser can
still hear his heart pounding in his ears, the executioner's knife inches from
his neck. Still hyperventilating, it takes him a moment to register what has
happened.

Jamie is crouched above
him, one hand on his shoulder. Jamie's mask is shattered: his eye is swollen
shut, and there's a bloody gash cut across his forehead leaking blood into his
eye. He is clutching at his ribs and grimacing in pain, blood leaking from
between his fingers. Another, smaller trickle of blood is coming from the
bottom of his broken mask.

Trespasser One manages
to find his voice.

“
Jamie?”

“
We've
got to get out of here,” says Jamie. “I can't hold us for long. Get up, come
on. Where are the other -”

“
Dead,
just go.”

“
Shit,”
whispers Jamie. He offers the Trespasser a hand, and looks around. “Let's just
get out of here, man.”

Jamie, holding a
blood-spattered lead pipe, gets him to his feet. The Trespasser keeps a firm
hold on him, shaking with adrenaline as they start to push through the silent
crowd.

“
What
have they done with Mark?” asks Jamie, talking through gritted teeth and
leaning on the Trespasser.

“
I
think...” he sighs. “Ah shit. The Gardens. I think they buried him under the
Gardens.”

“
We
need to go back and get him.”

The Trespasser says
nothing.

“
Oh
no,” whispers Jamie, stumbling.

“
What?”

They finally get out of
the crowd and Jamie tightens his grip on the Trespasser and falls to his knees,
clutching his temples through his mask. 

“
Run,”
he gasps, before he finally lets go.

Time comes crashing
back to them.

The Trespasser picks
him up again as the crowd stop in confusion.

“
They're
over here,” shouts a prisoner.

The crowd turn around
to see the Trespasser and Jamie hobbling towards the closed bars.

They begin pacing
towards them.

“
Jamie,
can you -”

He shakes his head,
blood from his nose dripping from under his mask. “I'm trying, man.”

The Trespasser reaches
the cage door and fumbles at his belt for an explosive to blow the railings
open. Jamie huddles like a cornered animal as the prisoners close in around
them, savouring the moment.

A handful of them step
forward, and one prisoner orders the others:

“
Finish
it.”

The crowd step forward,
bringing their weapons high. Even the Trespasser closes his eyes and bows his
head. With the last of his strength, he tries to shelter Jamie from the coming
assault.

But the blows never
land.

Trespasser One opens a
wary eye and sees a blue bubble protecting them from the horde. The mass of
prisoners are trying to push against it, smashing their weapons against it.

He looks at the other
side of the bars and sees four black-clad figures, one of whom is holding his
head and stretching his hand out.

“
Gary?”

The lock clicks open
and the railings slide back without anybody touching them. Trespasser One picks
Jamie up and throws them both through the gap. He feels arms closing around
him, pulling him away from the horde.

With a clang, the
railing's close over, and Stacy takes a deep breath. As one unit, they help
each other scramble away from the bars.

“
That
was tough,” she wheezes.

Gary is rubbing his
temples as the forcefield disintegrates, letting the prisoners reach their
tattooed arms through the bars like the undead. 

“
Hey,
Gary,” says Stacy, patting his arm. “Well done.”

“
Where's
the other two?” asks Donald. “The other Trespassers?” 

Trespasser One just shakes
his head, getting to his feet. He and Jamie put their arms around one another's
shoulders, and begin limping for the exit.

“
It
was a trap,” he says, his voice low and tired, beaten. “Mark's gone. The others
didn't make it.”

Stacy stops walking.
“What?”

“
I
said he's gone, Stacy,” the Trespasser snaps. “We need to get out of here.”

She says nothing, and
though the mask hides her face, he sees her shoulders drop and the fight go out
of her.

“
Donald,”
the Trespasser waves at him. “Jamie's hurt, can you help him?”

Donald snaps upright,
and plants a hand on him as they walk. Jamie feels himself heating up, and the
pain becomes a tingling memory as his skin knits itself back together and his
blood congeals between his fingers. Jamie, his head hanging low, mumbles to
himself:

“
This
isn't over.”

“
I
know, Jamie,” the Trespasser says as they make it through the last prison wing
towards the exit. “We'll find the King and his men, and we'll bring them all to
justice.”

“
Justice?
I'll have justice when I choke the last breath from that bastard's body
myself.”

“
We'll
be right behind you,” says Stacy as they emerge into the courtyard, the evening
settling in to stay. The helicopter's engines are spinning to life as they
approach.

“
I
should have killed him when I had the chance,” says Jamie.

The Trespasser shakes
his head. “Mark wouldn't want you saying that.”

Jamie says nothing.

The Trespasser puts a
finger to his ear.

“
Trespasser
One to Command. Mission aborted. It was an ambush: Trespasser's Two and Three
are KIA.” He rips the mask off his face as he walks up the ramp, Jamie still
hanging onto him. “Mark is missing in action, presumed dead. He wasn't here.
Have our boys search the rubble at the Gardens for his body. Don't tell his
mother yet – I'll do it myself..”

“
No.”
Jamie puts a wavering hand on his wrist, and rips his own mask off. The
Trespasser stops, seeing the angry tears coating his red cheeks. His eye has
turned yellow and black, and the blood coating his face has dried. He looks
like something from hell. “I'll do it. I'll do it when I can tell her that the
man who killed her son has paid the price for it.”

The Trespasser nods. He
continues to talk into his headset as the squad file into the helicopter, and
the ramp closes over.

“
We
need an entire unit here, Command. The prisoner's are armed, they own the
place.” He listens to the reply and then nods, turning to the squad: “They're
sending in the cavalry. They're going to storm this place.”

“
I
hope they fucking wipe it out,” says Jamie as he straps in. He glowers in
silence. Stacy straps in beside him as the helicopter takes off.

“
We'll
find the bastard,” she says.

“
I
know.”

She squeezes Jamie's
arm as a single tear escapes his swollen eye and runs down his cheek. He wipes
it away as though it were a fly, and twists his trembling lip into an angered
grimace rather than let it out.

“
Do
you want me to fix that, too?” asks Donald, motioning to Jamie's face as he
takes his mask off for some fresh air.

Jamie shakes his head,
and Donald accepts it without protest.

“
So
what do we do now?” asks Cathy.

“
Agency
men will search the rubble at the Gardens for Mark,” says the Trespasser.
“Asides that: the arrival is in three hours. We still have a job to do.”

“
The
King is still out there,” says Jamie, “and we have three hours to hunt him down
-”

“
Jamie,”
the Trespasser stops him, and the tension in the helicopter spikes like a
temperature. “The King blew his chance to get a powered person on his side with
Mark the first time. Chances are he'll try to get to the second batch of people
before we do. If you want to hurt him – if you want your chance to get to him –
then the arrival is where you need to focus your anger. He wants us distracted
for this, so concentrate. Ok?”

Jamie says nothing, but
gives him a nod that is only barely visible.

Beneath the Gardens,
something shifts. Of all the fires that are burning beneath the ground at that
moment, Mark's burns the brightest.