Kingdom: The Complete Series (61 page)

Mark wastes no time –
he snaps the harnesses open with his hands and lays Stacy down with her hands
still on the white, angular bomb. Only now does he look around.

They are sitting in the
middle of Buchanan Street, on a road that runs the length of the city centre,
Bath Street. Takeaways and clothes shops surround them.

From the wide glass
doors of the Buchanan Galleries emerge a gaggle of armour-clad soldiers, and
Mark recognises them with a relieved grin.

“
Guys,”
he shouts, “guys over here. The bomb is still live. It's trying to go off.
Donald, give Stacy a hand with her power, man.”

“
On
it,” he says, and crouches beside her, taking her hand as her breathing quickens.
Cathy joins him, calming Stacy down and keeping her focused.

“
Nice
flying mate,” Jamie pats him on the shoulder as he passes and kneels beside
Stacy. “Ok Stace, if it's going to go, tell me and I'll stop time for us all,
ok?”

She nods, her eyes unfocused
and her cheeks puffed out.

Trespasser One and Gary
join them, and the entire squad stand around the nuclear device – the neutron
bomb – and look at like mechanics looking at a flat tire.

“
Ok,”
says the Trespasser. “So this is a neutron bomb, it'll have a plutonium-239
core. One this small, it'll have to be a series of explosive lenses around the
core; an implosion-fission device. Neutron initiator in the centre, shaped like
an urchin, an inch in diameter. Removing that will stop it going bang, but it
could still make a bloody mess.”

“
Ok,
next plan,” says Mark. “I could throw it into the ocean if I can get fast
enough?”

“
Without
Stacy it'll detonate. She's struggling as it is. No good.”

Donald looks up,
thinking. “You said it was an implosion device?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Don't
they use shaped explosive charges all around the core? You said a series of
explosive lenses, right? You know, to force it inwards – to increase its
density and make it go critical?”

Trespasser One looks at
him with a raised eyebrow through the mask. “You sure you're a doctor, Don?”

“
What
if we removed one of the charges? It would never reach critical mass, it would
all shoot out the side, like squeezing a water balloon. There might be an
explosion, but -”

Gary steps forward. “I
can contain it?”

“
Right,
ok,” says Don, “but how the hell do we get into the casing and remove one of
the charges?”

“
Sounds
like a job for me,” says Mark. “Stacy, you holding up ok?”

Gasping for air, she
nods. “Hurry up. It's getting worse. It's angry.”

“
Ok,
Tony, where do I punch and how hard?”

“
We
can't be that blunt, we'll risk damaging the urchin at the centre, and then
we're all going to need intensive chemo.”

“
I
can heal us all,” says Donald. “I mean, if we get irradiated.”

“
Provided
the explosion wouldn't kill us,” says Trespasser One. “Ok. Hold on, we can open
the bomb casing. Stacy, can you spare any energy to open the -”

“
No,”
she murmurs, “no, sorry, no.”

“
It's
ok, it's ok,” he whispers, squeezing her shoulder. “I can manage. Just you do
your thing.”

She nods, and the
entire squad gather around her like a family, protecting her, encouraging her.
The first trickle of blood escapes her nose.

“
Ok,”
says the Trespasser. “Not often I get to do stuff outwith my training. Here
goes.”

Trespasser One produces
a multitool from his belt and flicks it open, picking out a few rivets tracing
his fingers round them. He furrows his brow.

“
Rivets.
Nothing a multitool will dent. Mark, I've changed my mind. Can you just –
gently
–
wrench this off?”

“
Sure,”
says Mark, and takes a gulp from his flask before digging his fingers into the
metal casing. Stacy starts whimpering as he pulls it.

“
It
feels like I'm the machine,” she whispers. “I'm going to explode. It's me -”

“
Someone
calm her down,” says Mark. “Hold her hand. Rub the back of her neck, trust me.”

Cathy takes over,
soothing Stacy whilst Mark pops the steel rivets out with his hands and rips
the shielding off.

“
Ok,
everyone stay clear,” says Trespasser One, “I think plutonium emits radiation.”

“
Only
alpha radiation,” says Donald. “We should be fine. Gary, get ready to put a
shield around us anyway.”

“
Uh
guys,” whispers Gary. “Guys.”

The Trespasser ignores
Gary. “Mark, If you see something that looks like a football, tell me. That'll
be the core, and we need to take one of the shaped charged off of it, then we
can get clear and set it off.”

“
Guys,”
shouts
Gary, and now they all turn.

Standing down the road,
laughing and swaggering towards them with not a care in the world, is the one
thing they had all hoped never to see.

The King, smiling.

“
Gary,
shield, now,” says Trespasser One, and stands up, readying his shotgun.

A blue forcefield
blossoms around them. Jamie takes Chloe's hand and she crouches behind him,
peering over his shoulder. Stacy begins hyperventilating, her eyes going wild
with fear.

“
Trespasser,
stand down,” says Mark, standing up. “I've got him. You take care of the bomb.”

Trespasser One nearly
hesitates, but he sees the look in Mark's eyes. As he passes him and walks back
to the bomb, he stops to whisper:

“
You
can't do the space-throw thing.”

“
Why
not?”

“
You
can't go fast enough, nor can you breathe in space. You'll die..”

“
We
don't know that -”

“
You
nearly drowned the other night, you can't bloody breathe in space. Keep him
busy until we fix the bomb.”

“
Deal.
Gary, let me out of the forcefield.”

It flickers, and Mark
steps through, cape billowing behind him, to face the King.

“
Well,
look at you,” says the King, sizing him up, chuckling. “Armour, cape; blue and
gold, no less, good colours son.” The King looks down at his own dark navy
suit, with its gold cuff-links and his golden rings. “I admire your dress
sense.”

“
You've
lost today, King. No nuclear bomb is going off in Glasgow.”

“
You
sure? Because I think that looks like an airburst device. Which means it
already should have gone off at the right altitude. Meaning... say, who's that
breathless, stressed looking girl with her hand clamped to the bomb? Could it
be -”

The King steps to the
side and Mark steps with him, lowering his head and his voice.

“
You
take a step back, King. Even you aren't going to set off a nuke straight in
your own face.”

“
Why
not? The Agency was going to and it didn't frighten me.”

“
It
should. Perhaps you aren't as invincible as you think.”

“
Or
maybe you just
hope
I'm not.”

Mark takes a breath and
then nods.

“
You're
right. I
hope
you're not invincible. I hope you
can
die,
otherwise what I'll have to do to you is going to be like sending you to hell
for an eternity.”

“
Big
talk again, Mark,” the King sneers and narrows his eyes. “Thing is, you said
that three days ago, and yet here we are. No harsh punishment, no torture of
the soul to make me regret my actions. You don't play much poker, do you?”

“
I'm
not bluffing. Just accept that today isn't your day. We can have this fight
another time, when there aren't so many innocent lives at stake. You can't say
you aren't a tyrant and then throw people's lives away.”

“
Tyrant.
King. Emperor. God. It doesn't matter, they're all just measures of power,
Mark. Power is king – and I have the most power. Do you know what that makes
me?”

“
It
makes you a constant,” says Mark. “One that has to be taken out of the equation
entirely. Just stand down, man. Don't make me do this.”

“
Do
what? Are you going to fight me again?”

“
There's
a peaceful end to this if you want it.”

The King smiles, a
genuine, heartfelt smile. “Of all the people who could have ended up with your
power, Mark, it had to be the person too soft to really use it for anything.
What luck for the Earth that I came into the same power.”

Mark gives him a bitter
laugh. “Yeah. Luck.”

The King puts his hands
in his pockets.

“
I
do genuinely enjoy our little chats, Mark. There aren't many people I consider
an equal, but you – you could have really been something in the Kingdom.
Imagine what we could both do – if you weren't so afraid of your potential.”

“
We
aren't alike. I'm done telling you that.”

“
No,
not alike – two sides of the same coin. Power, control, domination – versus,
what, hope and inspiration? Almost poetic. Funny how the universe likes to bring
forces together in a way that they oppose each other. Like the Destroyer and
the other one -”

“
The
Protector.”

“
That's
balance – and here we are.”

“
Here
we are.”

“
Maybe
I owe you an apology too. Because I think what I'll do is this: I'll kill that
girl, and set off the nuclear device. Nice clean start – and the world can see
that there's no way to get rid of me. I think that's what I'll do.”

The King starts
swaggering forwards.

“
You'll
have to get past me first,” says Mark, and plants his feet, tensing himself and
pushing his fear out of his mind.

“
Fine
by me,” says the King.

He rushes at Mark, and
Mark meets him, arms up, ready for a fight.

Behind the forcefield,
Jamie has his arm around Chloe and his other hand holding his revolver. Beyond
the blue energy wall, Mark and the King are trading blows, each one giving a
booming thunder-clap. Mark's armour buckles under the King's assault, and
despite his vigour and strength, Mark is getting beaten on to his knees.

“
Tony,”
shouts Jamie. “How's the defusing getting on there?”

“
Uh,
I think I have the core. I just need to pry off one of these shaped charges and
we should be ok.”

“
Guys,”
says Cathy. “You know how when I go invisible, I go somewhere else entirely?”

“
Yeah,
you drop out of the bloody universe,” says Jamie.

“
Well,
why don't I take it?”

“
What?”

“
Take
it wherever I go and just – let it go off.”

“
Cathy,
nobody is sacrificing themselves today.”

“
If
it's either that or you lot dying too, I – I don't mind -”

“
Cathy,”
Jamie turns and stares her in the eye. “No. We can do this without losing
anybody.”

Stacy's breathing has
become a low, panting whine, and her nose is gushing blood now. She's no longer
capable of speech, slurring desperate pleas with every breath, talking
gibberish.

Outside the forcefield,
Mark takes a harsh blow to the jaw and buckles over, clutching his face. The
King grabs him by the throat and, as Jamie watches, slams him into the ground.
Mark's face is bloodied, his eye swollen, his armour torn and dented, his cape
ragged.

He leaps to his feet.

The King comes at him
with his fists balled, and plants his foot in his chest. He kicks him through a
shop wall, before jumping in after him.

Jamie reaches out and
grabs Trespasser One's wrist. Everything goes grey, and Tony looks up.

“
What?
What are you doing?”

“
Stacy
can't hold on much longer man. Work fast, I'm giving you time.”