Kingdom: The Complete Series (42 page)

The Trespasser puts
down another attacker, and another, firing in bursts to control the weapon –
and then they are on him. A man leaps at him, his body contorting and shifting
into the hulking figure of a grizzly bear. It rears up and aims a scything claw
at him.

A blue forcefield
blossoms around him, and a blow that would have torn him in two screeches
against the bubble, like nails on a chalkboard. Trespasser One looks behind
him, and finds Gary pushing the forcefield around them.

Gary focuses as the
bear beats on the forcefield with all of its weight, towering above them. The
forcefield collapses, forming itself into a blue orb the size of a fist, and
smashes against the bears face.

With a choked roar, the
huge creature collapses, returning to its human form as he goes limp on the
ground.

Three identical men
swarm Mark, grabbing his limbs with strength that matches his own. He watches
them split again into six men, holding his legs down. Breaking one arm free,
Mark tries to punch one of them, only for the man to shatter like glass.
Another appears to take his place, his glass-attackers multiplying like
bacteria: twelve of them now.

Mark lets out a roar
and kicks out, freeing his legs and leaping up into the air.

His attackers hold on,
trying to pin him down, but they weigh next-to-nothing. Mark smashes back into
the ground and the clones shatter like ice, fading away on the wind.

Only one is left, the
original, trying to stand up and nursing a broken arm. With his red-tinged eyes
he stares at Mark, his face contorting into pure hatred. Blood sputters from
his nose.

Mark punches him in the
stomach, sending him flying into the last standing wall of the coffee shop.
There is a dull thud, and the man goes silent.

Cathy leaps inside the
helicopter as the engine starts to turn over faster and faster.

“
She's
doing it,” says Donald, Stacy squeezing his hand like a woman in labour. Her
face is red from the heat and the effort, and sweat has soaked her hair to her
skull.

“
Good
work, lass,” says Cathy, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Outside, the Trespasser
shouts for them to get onboard.

The Trespasser discards
his machine gun and leaps up into the cabin, swinging himself around onto the
helicopter's canon. There is already a belt of ammunition racked in, and he
grabs the trigger and aims it into the scattered mass of mutants and
psychopaths descending upon them now, dropping from the sky into the battle.

He opens fire, blowing
a hulking creature of muscle and rage off of Mark, who was pinned to the
ground. Over the rip-tear rattle of the canon, he can hear the blades begin to
beat the air as they turn.

Mark flinches as
lightning hits him, fired from the fingers of some screeching old woman
emerging from the smoke. The Trespasser focuses the canon's fire on her, and
she disappears in a cloud of pink mist, blown apart. Mark struggles to his feet
and runs for the helicopter as more monsters give chase.

The Trespasser fires
past him, cutting down anything that moves. For every creature that falls to
his bullets, however, there's another one made of steel; or one that vanishes
before the bullets can touch it. He watches his tracers bend around some of the
figures, or pass through them to no effect.

Leaping, Mark tumbles
into the helicopter.

“
Go,”
shouts Cathy, “we're ready.”

The helicopter's blades
are a booming roar now, and Stacy is crouched by the edge of the metal body
with her teeth gritted and her eyes screwed shut.

“
Where's
Jamie?” asks Mark.

A figure appears in the
helicopter, as if by teleportation. Mark almost greets Jamie, used to his
sudden method of arrival.

The figure isn't Jamie.

It is a grinning man in
a prison uniform, a deep scar running up across his face, with a serrated knife
in one hand. He is standing beside Stacy, and reaches out for her, smiling as
though he's won the lottery, his eyes wide and red.

Jamie appears out of
nowhere, and grabs the figure around the chest – then they are gone again.

“
Jamie?”
shouts Cathy. “Where did he go?”

Mark pushes past her
and looks outside.

“
We
have to go now,” says the Trespasser as his canon fires up again, beating away
the charging monsters. “Or we aren't going to make it.”

“
Not
without Jamie,” says Mark, spotting his friend.

Jamie is rolling around
the ground, wrestling for control of the knife with the teleporting prisoner.
One moment they are upright; the next they are on the concrete; then Jamie is
gone; then the prisoner is gone –

Mark blinks: it's like
watching a flick-book battle, as each fighter vanishes and reappears somewhere
else to try and get the advantage.

Then it stops.

The prisoner dabs his
nose and looks down, holding his head. He falls to his knees – enough of a
pause for Jamie to pop into existence behind him and cave the back of his head
in with a chunk of brick.

Jamie appears in the
helicopter again, and Mark grabs his arm to make sure they have him.

“
Fly!”
they shout at the same time.

The helicopter gives a
surge of effort, and Stacy screams out loud as she pushes herself.

Then the ground is
falling away from them, and they are airborne.

“
We
made it,” shouts Mark, “we actually -”

He stops as a dark
figure appears aside the helicopter, arms spread like wings.

“
Flyer,”
shouts the Trespasser, and hoses the figure with lead from the helicopter's
canon. Bullets tear through the flying man, and he drops like a stone.

The barrels of the
canon stop spinning, and the Trespasser steps away, wiping his head as the
war-zone disappears beneath them.

“
Now
we've made it,” he says. “Stacy, we're going up in a straight line. You're
going to have to steer this thing.”

“
I
-” she clenches her teeth, breathing hard. “I can't.”

“
You
can,” he reassures her, shouting over the blast of the helicopter's blades.
“I'm going to put my hand on your shoulder, and I'm going to tell you what
parts of the machine make it turn and tilt forward, ok? You're going to just
take it nice and easy, little movements at a time.” She nods her head, and then
manages to open her eyes. The Trespasser looks into her bloodshot, wet eyes,
her trembling lips pressed together, and starts explaining. “Ok, we're going to
tilt forward, there are -”

“
I
can't, there's s-so many little p-parts all moving.” She struggles to pronounce
the words. The Trespasser sees her determination start to crack, and the fear
setting in. “If I stop one of them, then -”

“
Hey,
hey,” he squeezes her arm. “If I can fly this thing, so can you. Ok?”

The tone of the blades
begins to falter as though the engine is about to cut out.

“
Stacy...”
the Trespasser says, his hand hovering over the parachute cord on his
combat-webbing.

“
She's
got this,” says Mark, pushing in and putting a caring hand on the side of her
face. He wipes her tears away and locks eyes with her. They exchange a look
that says more than words can. “You've got this.”

She takes a deep
breath, closes her eyes and nods. “Ok, tell me.”

The Trespasser leans
in. “We need to point this thing towards the Destroyer. Now: helicopters would
spin in circles if they didn't have the tail rotor acting against the movement
of the blades, right?”

“
Yeah,”
she whispers, struggling to concentrate. Donald feels her squeeze his hand
tighter.

“
So
if you decrease the speed of the tail rotor just a little –
just a little,”
he
says. “Then you can make it turn one way, or by increasing it you can make it
turn the other way. We're going to tell you whether to increase or decrease,
and that's how we'll steer, ok?”

“
I've
got this,” she says, her eyes opening again. Her determined glare burns a hole
in the floor, and she twists her face up as the helicopter begins to rotate in
the air.

Mark watches Glasgow
burn beneath them, holding onto the edge of the doorway as the world speeds by.
Besides the sound of the helicopter whirring through the air, all is silent. He
looks over his shoulder, through the cockpit and out the glass, and sees the
flaming red orb hanging in the sky.

His stomach twists into
knots, and crouching beside him, Jamie looks up and sees the fear in his eyes.

“
You
ok?” he asks, standing up and looking out across the ruined city.

From the west end and
the university buildings, all the way across the city to Dennistoun and the
tower-blocks of Partick, Glasgow is a black, scarred landscape lit only by
sporadic, blazing fires and choked by pillars of smoke. The stars are hidden
behind the swirling clouds of ash and dust, an entire city coughing an
infection out into the air.

“
No,”
says Mark, barking out a bitter laugh. “I'm about to leap out of a helicopter
and try to punch an alien that's going to burn the earth to ashes. Jamie, I've
almost died twice in – what, has it even been twenty-four hours?”

Jamie pats him on the
back. “Yet here you are. You're bloody hard to kill.”

“
Doesn't
feel that way. Thanks, by the way; for saving me. I thought I was gone. I
thought I was going to be blind even if I did survive.”

“
You
were,” says Jamie. He forces a smile and nudges Mark. “Hey, if we get through
this, I think we should buy some shares in a whisky company.”

“
Yeah,”
says Mark, distracted as the helicopter climbs higher into the sky. “Listen man
– if I don't make it -”

“
You
will.”

“
But
if -”

“
Mark.”
He says it with such stubborn belief that Mark turns and looks in his eyes: he
sees no obnoxious wishing or naïve optimism in Jamie's face. “You're going to
make it. This thing nearly got you before – but that was
before.
” Jamie
reaches inside his overalls and pulls out a small thirty-five centilitre bottle
of single malt, and passes it to him. “I thought I'd better keep this for you
in case you got blasted again. You can down it before you jump.”

Mark takes it, nodding,
holding it in his hand since his shorts lack pockets. “How do you even fight a
thing like that? I mean – it's just hatred and power. You can't
punch
that.”

“
Yes
you can. You just need to punch it harder.”

“
I'm
doing it alone this time.” 

“
I'd
come with you if I could, man,” says Jamie. “We'd kick this guy's head in.
Alien invades Glasgow, gets battered by a drunk guy. That's almost poetic.”

Mark fakes a laugh and
looks away, biting his lip.

Jamie pats his back.
“Looks like this is a job for beer-man, right?”

“
Why
does it have to be me?” asks Mark, turning around. Jamie sees the façade break
like he knew it would, and the fear underneath it. “I don't want to do this,
man.”

The noise of the rotors
fade as Jamie plants a hand on Mark's shoulder, and the world slows to a halt.
Time gives them a moment to themselves, the only people talking in the world.

“
You're
in the rare position, Mark, of being in the right place, at the right time,
and
being the right man for the job. You are, literally, the only person who can
save the world.”

“
I
didn't ask for that. I didn't want any of this.”

“
Nobody
ever does – but the world is going to burn, and everybody else with it, if you
don't try. I know we always make a point of saying we're not superheroes, we're
not going to start wearing capes, blah blah blah – but Mark, you're about to
fly into an alien monster that's going to destroy the world, and try and punch
it to death. You
are
a bloody superhero.”

“
I
don't feel like one. I'm terrified. I don't want to fight.”

“
Nobody
said heroes don't get afraid. The difference is that they don't let it stop
them.”

Mark nods. “Thanks
Gandalf.”

“
Don't
be a smartarse. You saved me and Chloe more than once. You're already a hero,
mate.”