And the World Changes

A Novel

by

Alan M Kirk

1


There is no sound in space. There can be no roaring sound from the massive engines that thrust the gigantic craft between the stars at a speed faster than light; there is no Doppler-shifted whishing to indicate the passing of this saucer-shape in the vacuum; no sound of sigh, or wail or scream.
Silently, therefore, the discus-shaped craft, measuring several Earth kilometres in diameter, speeds with seemingly effortless urgency towards the galaxy spiral arm. Space bends around it, at the speed of light. For those on board, minutes last as long as the decades on the planet it is aimed towards. No, no screams can be heard.
As the rushing craft’s infinitely complex time-measuring device carries on recording its equivalent of seconds, minutes, hours… on Earth, the slow evolution of the species continues inexorably
The southern ape - whose descendants will come to rule the world - finds rough, pudgy clumsy fingers can be bent around sticks and, with a flukish leap of nascent imagination that will alter the course of life on Earth, can use them as tools to destroy beehives to get to the sweet substance within.
The craft’s navigation circuitry has been set, centuries ago, to follow those who have gone ahead. For this is a pursuit.
The great ship makes no sound as it shoots through silence, through a universe whose light and reality bend around its path.
At light speed the universe is… different. Reality’s perceived laws no longer hold sway. The solid realities of time and space become unglued, of a shifting consistency.
And on this hurtling ship, this absolute marvel of advanced design, something far removed from solid reality is unfolding.
Inside the ship the realities of some the crew have been altering. Some now see through eyes where no eyes should be; internal and external organs have been shifted as if in some gruesome joke; some no longer have mouths, or arms or legs, or have instead strange mis-shapen outgrowths of bone and flesh as their cells, genes, DNA have been altered and altered and recombined beyond all possible reason. Some of the crew are dead. All of the rest wish for death.
The ship speeds on.
It speeds towards Earth. But as yet Earth’s sun is not even a pin-prick of light in the sky visible from the great ship. Earth’s sun is millions of light years distant, warming a planet where technology still consists of crudely wielded sticks.
2
An hour after the sun had disappeared behind the still clearly-outlined peak of Ben Vorlich, Mark and Carrie remained in pleasurable peace on the slowly spinning metal-framed roundabout. They lay back, each on a segment separated by a rail, their heads almost meeting in the middle of the turning playground device. Above them, in a shining July sky of softly deepening blue, they saw the stars, one-by-one at first and then in quickening succession, begin to sparkle into existence.
“The difference between stars and planets? How can you tell?” asked Carrie.
“Oh, everybody knows that!”
“How, then, smartypants?”
“Stars twinkle and planets don’t – they just shine in a kind of steadily shining kind of way… and leave my pants out of this.”
“No problem, I assure you. Nothing was further from my mind,” Carrie replied with a derisive sniff.
“Don’t lie.”
A companionable silence stretched effortlessly for several moments. Neither felt any particular pressure to break the peace.
At last, however, Carrie sighed happily and said, “Aren’t holidays just totally great? Aren’t they just fine?”
Mark agreed. “School can be such a bore. That fourth year was such a waste of time.”
“Oh, tell me about it! Actually no – don’t tell me about it: I already know. Look, you can see all of Orion now.”
“And the three stars in a kind of line are his pants,” said Mark.
Carrie reached a hand over and tweaked Mark’s ear. “If you don’t stop going on about pants I’ll just have to… “
“What?”
“Look – a satellite!”
“Where? Oh yeah – how can you tell it’s not a plane, though?”
“It’s a steady light and it’s moving at a hell of a speed.”
“Could be a UFO… “ Mark almost regretted the idea as soon as he had uttered it. “Or, then again, maybe not.”
“No, probably not. Not any more.”
A memory now filled their minds and seemed to cast a chill over their evening.
“Hmmm… “ murmured Carrie after a moment, and she lifted herself up on to an elbow to look at Mark’s face. The spinning of the roundabout had almost stopped now, and there was a damp coolness in the air around the playpark that she only noticed with the change of position. “You’re still feeling freaked out about our visit to ‘UFO central’?”
Mark turned his head to Carrie. “ ‘UFO central’ – yeah, it sure is that. The whole thing’s just weird. I don’t understand what the hell is going on with that – thing.”
“But neither does anyone else!”
“Five years ago a space ship, a real UFO, lands in a bloody cow-field in Central Scotland…”
And the world changes. The path of life on earth changes…

3
2013.
It stands alone among years.
The birth of Christ; 1066; 1492; 1776; 1945: these do not compare with the absolute certainty of Monday July 1, 2013.
Gilbert McIntyre, a dairy farmer struggling to make a living in the middle of Scotland’s Central Belt, disappointed that the much-advertised Mayan prophecies had come to nothing and the world as he knew it continued stubbornly to exist (much against his wishes), glanced away from the early morning rerun of The Dukes of Hazzard and crossed to peer out of his kitchen window this July morning to see a goddamit-as-real-as-I’m-standing-here genuine flying saucer get larger and larger and goddam larger as it descended to land in his poorly drained lower pasture, obscuring his view of the nearby Ochil Hills and the unobtrusive grey slate angled rooftops of the little town of Dollar. His was one of the first eye contacts to confirm what radar installations all over Europe were clamouring: something big was coming down, man! Just appeared on the screens out of nowhere! Get the General, tell the Prime Minister, alert the goddam Pentagon!
What humanity had been waiting for had finally happened. You could almost sense the world turning over, like someone long asleep about to wake up with a snort and a cry of “What the hell’s going on?”
Strangely enough, the first thing that flashed through Gilbert McIntyre’s mind was not how this could be an unexpected fulfilment of the Mayan prophecies, nor how this could be the Second Coming of Christ (another event he’d often wished vehemently for in his luckless lifetime of disappointment); no, the first thing that flashed through Gilbert McIntyre’s was a large euro sign. He was going to be rich.
Goddam rich!
This space ship even now extending three mighty metallic legs to meet its discus-shaped shadow in his poorly drained pasture was going to make him wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He hugged himself in delight and watched as the cows in his field ambled nonchalantly out of the way of the massive ship’s landing gear.

4

And so began a mystery.
The people of the Earth looked and listened to the media for answers. The journalists posed their questions to elected representatives. The politicians rephrased the questions for the military advisors; and the Armed Forces pointed virtually everything in their arsenals at the grid reference on the map now known as “McIntyre’s Field”, a few miles south-west of Dollar, not far from Alloa, Falkirk and Stirling, in Scotland’s Central Belt.
Experts of every kind descended on the Alloa area. For a while everything ground to a halt as the entire range of emotions coursed through the people of the planet. The main feeling seemed to be euphoria, and suddenly experts appeared on everyone’s television and radio saying similar things:
“At last it’s clear: we are not alone.”
“Not alone in the universe. Yes, and that’s kind of reassuring, don’t you think?”
“I couldn’t agree more, but where does this stupendous event leave, you know, God?”
“And may I point out we don’t yet know who these aliens are or where they come from or what their intentions are?”
“That’s beside the point. What I want to know is, where does this leave Mankind?”
Most of those terribly important things that had bothered people all of their lives (keeping a roof over the head, fixing the roof over the head, putting food on the table, losing the weight the food put on, becoming richer, or more attractive, or fitter, or somehow better) – the preoccupations of people for much of human history in fact, now stopped being so important.
The world’s great religions, faced with incontrovertible evidence that mankind could not now be the Lord of Creation after all, as here we were apparently faced with a tangible physical not an invisible metaphysical superior, braced themselves for a massive falling off amongst the faithful – and in this, at least, they were not disappointed. For the world’s religions had no real answer to this – neither Bible nor Koran offered any guidance for such an eventuality and so, after six months or so, religious commentators reported on a marked, world-wide diminution in religious fervour.
But for all the questions posed, not a single one found answers from any source, religious or otherwise. Military, scientific and political leaders were alike in their ignorance. And like a teacher waiting silently, arms calmly folded, for an unruly class to settle down and stop making noise, the presumably alien space ship simply sat in McIntyre’s Field while the media and military turned cartwheels round about it. No sliding doors; no Klaatu, no “Earthmen! We come in peace!”; no bumbling ETs looking about for a phone; no synthesiser music or incomprehensible signals – no communication of any sort.
Silence.
Finally the furore died down, as it had to. A fever pitch of excitement cannot be maintained indefinitely. People began to simply accept the presence of the strange silent craft as a fact, and resumed their generally humdrum lives, albeit oddly conscious of the fact that everything was now different, absolutely different. The bills still had to be paid, there were still TV to watch that did not mention the alien ship, there were still parties to go to and friends to meet.
Were they watching us? Were they studying us, learning our ways and our languages? Were they testing our atmosphere for hazards before making contact? Were they the first of many? Was anybody alive on board? Were they a threat?
All these questions began to recede after a while as people realised that the texture of our lives cannot indefinitely be avoided..
Twelve months passed and no communication of any kind came from the vast, brooding ship.
Then, a year after landing, the Allied Military Command Centre at Stirling Castle received the famous first signal, in English, from the ship. The Commander-in-Chief, General Talbot, released it to the world’s media. The effect of the message rippling across the world was not so much like a trembling earthquake causing the needle on the seismograph to oscillate off the chart, but more like someone battering the seismograph itself to bits with a five-kilo sledgehammer:
“We are the Soros. We have come from the other side of the galaxy.”


5

Now, five years after the landing, the Soros craft – or, at least, sections of it – had been opened up to the public. It came to be referred to as the “Soros Museum”. But the mystery continued, for no one had ever seen what a Soros actually looked like. Photos of them in space suits had been published, but that was all. For fear of contamination, it was said, they could not be photographed in their natural states. They were, moreover, a naturally timid and retiring species. But they seemed to understand PR.
Arrangements were quickly made and staff hired so that the public, tourists, school parties could be encouraged to visit the Museum and see the marvellous a-v displays on offer there: wonderful exhibits of holograms of other solar systems, planets and stars dying and being born. It promised no fantastic rides, but as a sightseer draw, it easily out-gunned Disney. There were real, live aliens – aliens! – in that flying saucer!
Mark and Carrie had visited it for the first time two weeks before the end of term. The experience had not been a happy one for Mark.
The roundabout stopped spinning.
Carrie noticed that small clouds of midges had now emerged to perform their bizarrely repetitive evening ritual aerobatics.
A moment’s silence followed.
Carrie stretched herself over the metal rail that separated them and kissed Mark passionately on the lips. When the kiss ended, Carrie’s tone had a trace of anxiety in it as she asked, “Mark, are you all right? Lately you’ve seemed … I don’t know … kind of strange.”
“I know what you mean.” Mark ran his left hand through his hair.
She looked at him closely. She freely admitted to herself she liked what she thought of as his “nice” face. She did not think of it as handsome but it was attractive in an imperfect, well-meaning kind of way. His eyes were a warm brown and shone with humour. His dark hair was always tousled – because he ran his fingers through it all the time – and his smooth skin shone with the vigour of youth. It was just a “nice” face. Alicia Wotherspoon in the year above had fancied Mark for ages, Carrie knew – Alicia was her neighbour and occasional confidante, but for some reason that Carrie herself could hardly explain, despite the fact that Alicia was absolutely and indisputably more attractive that Carrie, it had been Carrie that Mark had – awkwardly at first - showed an interest in. Mark had never had a girl-friend before, not really. Kissing and fumbling after the occasional school dance or birthday bash at the local youth club didn’t really qualify as “having girl-friends”. And while Carrie had been out with boys before they had never sustained her interest for any length of time. They had been geeky to the nth degree, or too Neanderthal in their impulses.
She noticed again the large brown birthmark showing above his t-shirt. “I mean,” she added ironically, “you’ve always been strange, but now you’re stranger. Seriously… I mean… “ She looked down as if finding something of sudden curiosity in the structure of the roundabout . “ …if you don’t – if you don’t want to go out with me, I’ll understand…”
“Good grief, it’s nothing like that, Carrie!” Mark, genuinely horrified at the suggestion, looped a hand behind her neck, gently pulled her close and dispelled the notion with a return kiss.
A wide smile lit Carrie’s face and she looked down to hide the pleasing rush of reassurance she had just felt.
“You know I don’t like anyone as much as you, Carrie,” said Mark. “ No…” he continued reflectively, “ I just keep thinking about our visit to the Soros Museum!“
Damn! she thought, why don’t you tell me that you love me? What is it with boys? Aloud, she said, her smooth brow wrinkling slightly with a concerned frown, “I figured that was it. You really came over weird that day. Can you… can you still do what you said – actually hear the Soros talking? It sounds incredible.”
“It was incredible. But no. I can’t, not any more. It was only in the Museum that I could do that. And even then it was only for a moment and it wasn’t very clear either. Maybe I imagined the whole thing.”
“Yeah, maybe you imagined the whole thing. But that would make you a complete fruitcake and I don’t think you are a complete fruitcake. You’re maybe the bottom half of a fruitcake…”
“But you know how I get hunches about stuff? Well, they’ve been getting different, slightly stronger it seems. Like you know how McAllister tried that experiment in physics last week? I could kind of “see” what was going to happen before it did. Actually see it.”
“You should have told him. He’s still going around with that blue stuff on his face.”
“Well, I figured he’s the teacher, he ought to know.”
“Slight mistake there, my friend,” said Carrie, laughing lightly. “Teachers, like parents, don’t know everything. Only we like to think they do. “
“Anyway, to be honest, I’ve not been feeling too good. Sorry if I’m rotten company.”
“No, no, that’s all right. My parents – you remember them, don’t you? Gin and Bitter? - are having some friends round tonight – so that’ll mean lots of wine and crackers – and so, you see, I’ve nothing better to do than hang about with you, like some depraved youth.” She kissed him again, then remarked, “Not much to choose between crackers.”
“You’re too cheeky for your own good.”
“Well, what are you going to do about it?”
Mark kissed her again.
At last Carrie sat up and put a hand around Mark’s wrist to feel a pulse. “You zay you are not feeling vell, zo… tell me your simpsons, young man,” she said.
“My simpsons?”
“Ya, your simpsons, if you pleess, or I will keel you veet my
German akzent.” She punched him on the shoulder.
“Well, I… I don’t know. There’s like a tightness at the back of my throat. It’s sore.”
“ Eet sound like a cold in zee ed. I haf ze cure, but I must look – ow you say – clos-errr.”
“Now you’re French.”
“I am a doctor of many talents, you know, young man! Shut up, please!” She drew close and kissed his neck lightly. “Dass is besser, ya?”
“Ah, ya!”
She kissed his throat. “Und dass grows besser all ze time, no?”
“Well… I think there might be something wrong here, too, “
Mark said, feebly indicating his lips.
Later, Mark walked her home. The driveway and the street outside her house were lined with expensive new hydrocars belonging to her parents’ guests. As they said goodnight, Carrie said, “Look, Mark, talk to your mum. She’ll know what to do. She’s a doctor – uh-oh, I’m telling you what you already know. But promise me you’ll talk to her. Promise!”
The sound of the front door opening interrupted them. “Carrie, is that you, darling?” cried a woman’s slurred voice. The silhouette framed in the doorway held a drink in one hand.
“Oh God, it’s Bitter,” Carrie muttered to Mark under her breath.
“Yes, mum! It’s me,” she called back.
“Who’s that with you?” This was accompanied by the sound of raucous laughter escaping from the brightly lit hallway behind her.
“The party’s in full swing, I see,” muttered Carrie. “It’s Mark, mum! You remember Mark.”
“Oh.” A pause ensued during which Mrs Jenkins swayed a little, leaned against the doorjamb for support and called, “Well, don’t be long!” Upon which she turned back in and left the door to swing shut.
“Your mum doesn’t like me much,” mused Mark ruefully.
“My mother doesn’t like anybody much. Not me, not dad, not even herself, I would guess. And if we follow the usual pattern of party events this evening, they’ll be all sweetness and light until the last guests pour themselves into their cars and then they’ll launch into one another about who said what to whoever and blah blah blah – you don’t want to hear about it. But back to the important thing – promise me you’ll tell your mother and get her help!”
“Okay, I promise,” answered Mark, smiling. He kissed her. The kissing went on for a while, very comfortably.
Eventually Carrie pushed Mark back with a laugh. “That’s a good boy.” She kissed him one last time, a quick peck, pinched his cheek, touched his neck tenderly where the birthmark was, grinned and turned to go up her garden path.
Mark smacked her backside before she could retreat too far towards her front door.
He watched her pass inside into the brightly-lit, noisy hallway. How, he wondered, could he really explain to Carrie exactly how much she meant to him? He loved her. Of that he had absolutely no doubt, and had almost blurted it to her on several occasions. He could not understand why had not yet told her how he felt. Bloody teenage angst, he muttered to himself. Does this ever wear off?
As he walked home alone, however, his attention was turned again to how he felt physically and as he neared his house he became increasingly certain that there was definitely something not quite right. He was experiencing a strange sensation in his head, in the place at the back of his mouth where the nasal passages appear to join the throat. The feeling produced the same dullness, the same sense of onset of illness that he supposed could mean the beginning of a head cold. He really would have to speak to his mother about it.
He paused a moment before passing through his garden gate, his hand resting on the cool stone newel atop the low wall. The night was much darker now and, in this village removed from city glow, the stars formed a splendid spectacle overhead, from horizon to horizon. Nights as clear as this were rare. Mark took the time to drink in the breathtaking stellar panoply.
A bright streak brightened over Ben Vorlich then winked out. It lasted less than a second. A shooting star, Mark mused. Make a wish. He made a wish.
Then it occurred to him, in a half-amused reflection, that he had – as far as he could recollect - never actually had a head cold. In fact, he’d never really been ill in his life.


6 Sunday 1 July, 2018

The first Sunday of his holidays Mark lay in his single bed, hands clasped behind his head considering what he knew about his dad. More and more lately Mark had found himself thinking about his father. In the outside world the sun was only just beginning to push aside the morning cloud cover. Someone was clattering about in a garage along the road – undoubtedly Mr Jarvis initiating his Sunday morning gardening routine. A door banged opposite, setting wind chimes jangling – Dawn Greenwood across the road heading out to pound the pavement for her morning jog, still trying to lose the weight she had gained before the birth of her girl, Lucy. A dog away in the distance barked, twice, then stopped, abruptly.
Mark’s father, John, had died in a car accident just before Mark’s birth. His mother, Janette, heavily pregnant, had been a passenger, asleep, in the car at the time as they journeyed to Janette’s parents house near Alloway. The car – a Vauxhall Cavalier well past its scrap-by date. A lonely Ayrshire road, a night of violent storm, a bend the wrong shape for the car’s speed and a beech tree fifty years in the growing patiently waiting to embrace this moment for John Daniels’ car to wrap itself around its grey, glistening bark. For an hour the rain continued to batter the roof of the smashed car before a passing farmer stopped his Land Rover to investigate the still gently smouldering wreck, check the casualties inside, find one still alive, and call the emergency services on his mobile phone.
The impact hastened Mark’s entry into the world: Janette delivered him in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. At the moment when his lungs inhaled their first breath to utter his first cry, two firemen were delicately cutting his father’s body from around the steering column that held him impaled against the driver’s seat. A subsequent accident inquiry found that, for some reason, the driver’s airbag, which might have saved John Daniels’ life, had failed to open.
Mark had grown up without knowing a father’s presence about the house. Later, at school, having listened to the stories some of his friends told about the behaviour of their fathers, it seemed to Mark that the admirable qualities of fatherhood were uneven in distribution. Mark was not even sure where his father was buried, and that - just lately – had been something he had been feeling he ought to know.
Mark and his mother lived in the little town of Touch; named after the nearby hills, Touch lay four miles west from Stirling and thirty-two miles from Glasgow. A new commuter town, built in the first years of the new century, the honey-brick houses were all of reasonable proportions, most having ample gardens, double garages, distance between them. The residents were middle class, professionals, affluent, and there was distance between them too. There was no local pub: this was gin-and-tonic, cocktail-cabinet land.
The local comprehensive mirrored its middle-class catchment area clientele; its pupils, mostly, worked hard, caused little trouble and absorbed their parents’ values.
Single parent families were rare here. Mark Daniels was somewhat unique among his circle of friends and acquaintances.
His mother (the single parent) was the local GP. Her surgery, a small but well-equipped building, had been specially built in the gardens of her house. Unlike most of her neighbours, who shuttled daily to Glasgow or Edinburgh for their jobs, Janette Daniels had only a twenty second walk to get to work in the morning.
Mark was one of those nondescript sort of boys who compose the majority in nearly every class in every school. He did not stand out from the crowd, and seemed not to hang out with any one group in particular, but he was popular and could move with ease between the various factions of school society: he had played football (substitute) for the school team and was a member of the computer games club; he had gained his share of knocks and scrapes running around the local hills and woods, but could retire from the great outdoors to spend a happy hour reading a book or digging through his old stamp collection. His bookshelf held some school text-books, a couple of volumes on computing (largely unread), books on the Net, trees and birds, and some fiction – the latest techno-novels, the Harry Potter stories, and some very old Dean Koontz and Stephen King “borrowed “ from his mother.
Normal people in a normal environment? Perhaps they might have been – eighteen years ago, at the turn of the century, way back then in a time before the terror attacks, the scientific advances, the new technologies, the collapse of certain economies. Yes, back then people could drive away in their petrol-driven cars to work in fluorolit offices in congested cities and spend their days happy in the thought that mankind’s eminent scientists and politicians were busily thinking up ways out of the difficulties the twentieth century had created. There was a kind of normality, as the quaintly sensational TV programmes of the time could reveal.
But nothing seemed quite so normal anymore. Not after 2013.
Mark tried to focus on some kind of image of his dad, but none would come.
He frowned and closed his eyes. Still none would come. He could not even remember his face from the old photographs he had sometimes held, the ones his mum kept in the albums under the cine-cabinet. He tried to focus his thoughts… and a dull ache started again at the back of his throat, the same ache he had felt the night before.
He pushed the thin woollen blanket back and got out of bed. He would have to ask his mum - that was all there was to it.

**********

Mark lay still on the softly padded examining couch, trying not to fiddle with the sensor wires stringing from his head. His mother was studying the magnetic imaging resonance results which should show whether or not there was any growth or obstruction at the back of his throat. The mini magnetic resonator, virtually a portable hand-held device, had largely replaced X-ray machines and the need for hospital X-ray wards because of its practicability in ordinary GP surgeries. Janette’s machine was transferring data from small sensors around Mark’s head to the large and very sophisticated Dell computer terminal on the work desk.
His mother frowned at the images, deep in thought. “And it feels like a cold, you say?” Janette asked.
“It feels like the start of a cold,” replied Mark. “But actually – I know this sounds daft - it also definitely feels like there’s some thing way back there.”
In fact Mark had never had a day’s illness in all of his fifteen years. His mother had never enquired too deeply into this. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it was possibly her guiding principle in matters affecting her son. So when her son complained of feeling there was something at the back of his throat which shouldn’t be there, she was going to listen to him. “Okay,” she said, “it’s done. You can take those things off and get up.”
Mark sat up looked at his mother. “Well?” he said at last. “Is there anything there?” He began to detach the sensors from his face and neck. One of them had covered the darker patch of his birthmark.
Janette Daniels looked at Mark. He was more and more every day coming to resemble his father. The resemblance was uncanny, she sometimes thought. Like twins, or clones. Most bizarrely, Mark even had some of the same physical mannerisms John used to have, such as the habit of running his fingers through his hair when he was thinking.
“What did you expect there to be?” she asked.
“Answering a question with a question,” remarked Mark. “All right. I thought there would be a growth of some kind.”
“Why?”
“Just a feeling. You know?”
“I see.” Janette knew the worth of Mark’s “feelings”. On numerous occasions, in a variety of circumstances Mark’s feelings had been correct. Like when he knew what was wrong with the car when it didn’t start that time last December; or when he predicted that their neighbour across the street, Dawn Greenwood’s child would be a girl and they would name her Lucy; or when…

**********

Positioned in geostationary orbit a hundred miles above the Atlantic, the Nordik IV Communications Satellite turned several degrees from its normal orientation. No one outside of the innermost defence circles in the US and the UK knew of the Nordik series of satellites or their prime purpose. Rumours of their existence circulated in defence journals but officially enquiries about the Nordik program were greeted with stony silence. In the US Defence Control Command in the heart of Cheyenne Mountain – the former home of the legendary NORAD – two terminals suddenly blanked out.
“Goddam!” muttered Sam Webster. “Boss! I got nada on screens one and two.”
“Route Nordik IV through to me,” said the “Boss”, Major Jack Bruce. Bruce was known was his unflappable coolness . “Do it now, Webby, not next Fourth of goddam July.”
“Both terminals have gone AWOL on me, Major.”
“Get that uplink back for me, please.”
“I’m on it, Boss.”

**********

Janette passed the IMR results across to her son.
He looked at the images intently for a moment. The hand ran through his hair.
“Do you see it?” his mother asked.
“Yes. I see something here, at the back of what I assume is my throat. So I was right.”
“You were. Do you have any feelings about what it is?” Dr Daniels was concerned. It was no help to her to know that the latest surgical techniques could remove virtually anything from anywhere in the body without serious inconvenience to the patient. And this was not likely to be a malign tumour, not in a fifteen year old boy. And even it were, the genetic therapy techniques developed over the last ten years, since the completion of the human genome project in 2003, now ensured an almost 100% recovery rate for cancer victims.

**********

An iris door opened in the enormous barrel hull of Nordik IV. Huge solar panelled antennae shifted slightly to maximise solar exposure and maintain normal energy levels. But the secondary power source, a nuclear one, began to kick in - something which was not supposed to happen unless the United States, or its allies, were under attack from a nuclear missile. From the open portal in the barrel hull slid the apparatus which would enable “the weapon” to fire.
Major Jack Bruce keyed commands into his console, to no effect.
“Goddam flakey system!” muttered Webster. “This is the second time in about two weeks this has happened. It’s in the duty log.”
Bruce’s left hand reached for the red phone at the side of the desk while his right continued to press “enter” to no effect.

**********

“Yes,” replied Mark, “I have a feeling about what it is. I think it’s organic.”
“Yes, the IMR makes that clear. Something inorganic - metallic, say - would show up differently.”
“But it has these strands, like wires, going up here… Where are they going?”
“Your growth – if that’s what it is - is situated just below the frontal sinus and seems to project into the olfactory bulb…”
“The bit that gives me a sense of smell? And from there, to the brain, right?”
“Right. The olfactory bulb is actually a part of the brain, the only part you don’t need major surgery to reach.”
“Mum – “ Mark put the MR image on the desk and stood up. “ -right now I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this.” Mark’s voice lost his warmth. Janette frowned. Mark had a way of communicating his bad feelings to others. She rose and went to the window, without knowing why.

**********

The beam weapon charged up in seconds. Nordik IV was absolute state of the art in particle beam technology. The “Grandson of Star Wars” had been given fresh impetus in the early twenty-first century and its development moved into high gear with the arrival of the Soros. Every possibility had to be explored to ensure Earth was not about to fall victim to an alien invasion. No fewer than seven beam weapons existed, three of them in perpetual geo-stationary orbit above McIntyre’s Field. Nordik IV was one of these. Electronic lenses aligned and focused and verified target.
In Cheyenne Mountain control monitors remained blank. Phones were ringing now as back-up staff became alert to the condition. The red phone patched not to the President but to Allied Command in Stirling.
“Get me General Miller,” said Jack Bruce, speaking words he had never wished to say. There was a three second delay and a voice five thousand miles away said, “Miller. What’s the problem?”

**********

Early Sunday morning in her surgery. Janette Daniels looked out at the world from the white painted Georgian style surgery windows for the last time. Their house was just twenty metres away. The neighbourhood was invariably quiet at this time. She saw Mr Jarvis a couple of doors down moving to his garage to fetch his lawnmower, to continue his summer Sunday morning ritual. He was a decent sort, had been kind to Janette when she first moved here, and remained a good neighbour. Not the nosy sort.
“My feelings,” said Mark, “have been getting … I don’t know how to describe it, Mum – sharper, clearer, but more varied. I don’t see things, like your usual clairvoyant might, I just sense them. I know them.”
Dr Daniels had complete faith in her son.
She looked out of the window at the quiet street. Images of John Daniels leapt unbidden to her mind – his flappy old overcoat, his disarming gee-shucks-folks smile, and she recalled, too, the unstructured, interminable debates which in the last year of his life had made Janette doubt her husband’s sanity.
Mark went on: “This latest thing started – I mean, really started - when I went to the Soros Museum a couple of weeks ago.”
Janette tensed. She looked sharply at her son. “The Museum? You went there?”
She moved from the window. Mark met his mother’s concerned eyes. “I think I know now,” said Mark, “why the Museum makes you nervous. It has to do with dad, doesn’t it? Dad is connected to the Museum in some way.”
Janette sighed. “Your father’s been dead for fifteen years, Mark.”
“Yes, I know, but there is some connection. You felt it just then and I feel it too. He knew about the Soros! “ As he said the words he became convinced of their truth. “That’s it! He knew about the Soros before they came here. Before they even landed! But how could that be? How was that possible?”
“The Soros,” sighed his mother, sitting down beside Mark. “Yes. I wondered if…”
Mark stood abruptly, his hands holding his temples. His mother watched his blue eyes lose all focus, like they were staring into a different universe. Mark groaned and when he looked up his expression chilled her. “Mum - that bad feeling just got worse,” he said. “We have to leave here. Get out of this house. Right now!”
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure yet. Something bad’s about to happen. Here. Very soon.”
Without further debate they left the examining room and quickly crossed the reception area. Mark paused long enough to hand his mother her wallet that contained not just her money and credit cards, but also her car and door keys. She had left it on the reception desk earlier. Puzzled by his action, she slipped the wallet into a pocket and they moved outside.
All was quiet.
Mr Jarvis down the road was wheeling his electric lawnmower out of his garage. He gave them a cheery wave. Somewhere else a dog was barking. Little Lucy Greenwood was dangling a dolly from an upstairs window across the road. A calm, bright summer day.
“Into the car, mum,” said Mark. “We have to get away from here. Something terrible is about to happen. We’ve only got a few minutes.”
Real fear, the kind that dries your mouth and makes mush of your insides, now meant that Janette was not disposed to argue or question. Their four year-old silver Hyundai estate was still parked at the kerb. They ran now towards it. Quickly they got in. Janette hurriedly keyed the ignition.
Janette, never a slow driver, pushed up to thirty in second gear, swung round the corner towards the dual carriageway, accelerated through the turn, then into third, holding it there until fifty registered on the speedo and then a more relaxed fourth gear to cruise down Stirling Boulevard at sixty.
Scotland’s Central Belt, that largely flat plain that cuts the country in two, spread out around them. They headed east along the Boulevard that would eventually take them to Stirling itself. Stirling Castle rose up out of its volcanic rock to dominate the landscape ahead of them.

**********
The beam generated from Nordik IV could be widened to scorch an area the size of a county or narrowed to focus an intense beam of light onto a space a couple of centimetres square. In this mode it could punch a hole in the ground up to fifty metres deep. The iris narrowed.

**********

The car sped along Stirling Boulevard at seventy. Only three minutes had passed. Already Janette was starting to listen to doubts in her mind.
“What sort of danger? Are we - “ Janette started to say, but her words were cut off.
An eruption of light flashed in car’s rear-view mirror and seconds later a loud explosion blasted the landscape behind them.
Janette braked the car to a screeching halt and the car swerved over the centre line, trailing black skid marks. It stalled and all the dashboard warning lights flashed furiously. In the rear view mirror, and then through the back window when she turned round, she saw a column of smoke rising from the village they had just left. She could hardly breathe as she asked, “Is that what I think it is?”
Mark nodded. His eyes were wide with fear. “It’s not Mr Jarvis’s lawnmower, that’s for sure.” But no irony could hide the deep shock he felt. Both mother and son felt sick. “God, I hope he’s all right. I hope they’re all all right.”
“Our house!” Janette whispered.
“You need to drive now, mum.” Mark emphasised the word drive. “We’ve got to get out of here. Keep driving. But stay on the country roads. Not the motorway.”
“Why?” Janette asked, as she forced her trembling limbs to get the car going again.
“I don’t know why,” Mark replied. “I just know they’re better.”
The car headed east again. The thin column of smoke dwindled in the distance behind them.
“Ten minutes ago our lives were ordinary,” said Janette. “Now – what’s happening to us? What the hell’s going on?“
Mark’s eyes were glassy and there was a tremor in his voice as he said, “Our lives have never been ordinary.”
He wondered how he could let Carrie know about what was happening to them.
Janette’s hands tightened on the wheel, knuckles showing white.


7 Logan#1

He runs his fingers over the interface. The pathways, routes and avenues of the Supernet open before his impassive, unblinking gaze. He is a master here, in this cyber-world. He has bonded with this world spiritually, he has become it and it has defined him.
He finds the particular site.
The familiar imagery welcomes him. He keys in the complex passwords.
Welcome, Logan.
The words appear on the screen, and the computer’s synthvox sounds in his ears, but the voice has a deeper, third dimension quality: it sounds like a gentle reverb inside his head; almost a direct, telepathic communication. Logan vaguely wonders if the other League members who have visited this site feel the same effect. Or maybe this heightened perception – for that is undoubtedly what it is – arises out of the qualities that have made him the chosen leader for this sector.
Andrew Logan (31), Supernet banking clerk for the RBS Conglomerate, orphaned since early youth (his parents died in a car crash), single and unattached. All his life he has felt rootless, restless, impelled by a need to matter, to belong, to be embraced by something bigger than himself. Andrew Logan, in the lonely hours of his cyberspace searching finally came upon a site that offered him salvation from his own pointlessness. He has, over the last couple of years, found the cause that he can devote himself to, a mission worthy of his dedication. He is a Commander in the League in Britain. It is not an honour he can, as yet, openly show pride in, and his promotion through the organization was not marked by public ceremony. The League and its activities must remain secret. If his colleagues at the RBS heard of his out-of-hours commitment, he would be the target of sly jokes and sideways, suspicious, ironic glances. The League is not yet viewed by many as seriously as it deserves. No, no, the time is not yet ripe. But soon, very soon.
As if his thoughts are translated from mind to screen, similar ideas appear in the text:
The time we have been working for is soon to be upon us.
At last!
These years of secrecy, training and preparation… they have not been for nothing.
The Human Freedom League is about to strike such a blow against the accursed aliens…
Logan exults. His pulse quickens and the hollowness in his stomach returns. He keys in his questions and receives replies from a source he has never seen, but which identifies itself as the Chairman. Certain turns of phrase from the Chairman over the years have led Logan to believe the Chairman is from a military background, perhaps someone high up in the Army. Someone like Logan, who has no reason to like the alien intruders, and every reason to be suspicious.
Logan is no doubt that the aliens intend great evil. They are the advance party of an invasion force - of that he is sure. That is one of the primary beliefs of the League. But now the time is at hand…
Logan’s full concentration is bent upon the screen and the interface. Around him the shadows of the July day slowly shift, lengthen and deepen. The cappuccino in the cup to his left grows cold. Papers, junk mail, advertising flyers for shopping savers occupy much of his desk space. Some millimetres of dust have settled a gossamer blanket over the untidy bookshelves that spill their contents on the linoleum floor. On the wall opposite the window where he sits, behind Logan’s black slicked-back hair, some dark-background posters of metal rock bands ( Frog’s Head Easy) brood and curl away from the weakening blu-tac that holds them up. The single bed is cold and unmade. A thin cobweb stretches from lightshade to ceiling.
Unseen by Logan, the light from his window traverses the wall behind him as the day grows older. His window, high up in a Stirling tenement building offers a stirring view over Central Scotland. With the aid of binoculars Logan has, often, been able to scrutinise the alien ship in McIntyre’s field. And from this window, though he does not know it, Logan could glimpse the smoke still rising from the mysterious explosion in the respectable little town of Touch .
Beside the bed with its rumpled sheets stands a couple of B&Q workbenches surmounted by a variety of drills, sanders, a small lathe, moulds, plastic boxes containing a wide variety of tools. Next to this workshop area is a built-in wardrobe. The brown-painted, unobtrusive wardrobe door is closed. Its padlock is stout. What it contains, assembled under the instructions of the Chairman, is very dangerous.
Very dangerous indeed. Four men would struggle to lift that wardrobe now, and what it contains.


8 Flight

The Hyundai pulled in to park on the grassy verge of a little-used country road that crossed the Ochil Hills. The view to the Campsie Hills in the south-west, and the wilder Perthshire Hills in the north was dramatic. Stirling lay in the valley behind them, out of sight. But the scenery held no interest for Janette and Mark.
“What the hell is going on?” cried Janette. She banged the wheel as fear gave way to anger. “What the hell is going on, Mark? Do you have any idea?”
“I only know this has something to do with the Soros. I really don’t know what or why or how, but… somehow it all comes down to the aliens.”
“Right. Then let’s talk about the Soros,” Janette began. “Recap time. Let’s think - the Soros - what do we know about them? Their ship, now called the Museum, landed on Earth, in an ordinary field in Central Scotland, five years ago, in July 2013. People thought the world had either ended or was about to start afresh. They went wild. It was incredible. You were ten then, and you were very excited about it. Aliens! Wow!”
“I remember,” said Mark.
“But nothing happened for a whole year. The ship just sat there, an extra-terrestrial anti-climax, in McIntyre’s field, the most famous field in the world. Nothing came out, nothing went in. The Army cordoned it off. The scientists and experts had their say, but the ship stayed silent.
“Then, after a year, communication began. The aliens said they were called the Soros. They gave reasons why they had stayed silent for a year. They’d been analysing our atmosphere, our cultures, our languages. Anyway, they said they were trying to establish a means of communication, because their vocal structures were so different from ours that we would never be able to speak each other’s languages. And that year had also given the human race a chance to adjust to the fact that we were no longer alone in the universe. That really took some getting used to.
“You know, it’s funny, Mark. Your dad and I used to watch a lot of science fiction films. Towards the end of the last century there were a whole lot of them – Star Trek, Star Wars, the horrible Aliens series of films, Contact, the X-Files - a whole lot of them to do with alien contact with humans. We used to wonder if it meant some kind of conspiracy to get us ready for real contact. Lots of people thought the Millenium would herald in real aliens, you know.”
“I know.”
“All the cranks, the so-called abductees, they all had the time of their lives.” Janette smiled, but not a happy smile.
Mark saw behind the smile. “You’re thinking about dad,” said Mark. “Tell me.”
Janette regarded her son. “You’re so like him. Your eyes, they way you smile, the way you sometimes read my mind…”
Suddenly Mark sat upright in his seat. Images, impressions, insights had merged for one moment into another razor sharp realisation. “He was an abductee!” he breathed. “My dad was one of those who had been abducted. I never knew.”
Janette sat back in her seat, her hands limp in her lap. “Yes.” She sighed. “He was.”
“But no one believed him!” Mark seemed to be reading words on a page, figuring out their meaning with increasing skill. “You didn’t believe him.”
“No. That’s true. At first, I didn’t. Try to understand, Mark. The way John was… I loved him very much, but the things he said sometimes just didn’t make sense and there was no proof… No, I didn’t believe him.”
Fresh images were rapidly forming in Mark’s mind. Like disjointed scenes from a badly edited film, they flickered across the screen of his mind’s eye: his father walking rapidly across a hillside, coat flapping behind him, his mother calling to him to come back; in a car, rain falling, windscreen wipers making noise; his father’s face smiling tenderly; his blue, troubled eyes in close up, as Janette had seen them; snowfall on a dazzling blue day, and snowball fights with hands that tingled and later stung when their warmth returned… dozens, hundreds of images cascaded across his consciousness as he felt himself tap into a record of his parents’ life together. He wondered if he were reading his mother’s memories. Then rose the image of a needle, a syringe, coming closer, and Mark felt fear rise inside him and he thrust that image away. Mark felt instinctively that this was not one his mother’s memories. This one came from some inexplicable source. Mark had never liked needles and he suspected this fearful image might help to tell him why, but he was not ready for this. Not yet. He held that image of the approaching needle firmly at bay.
“I see a little of how it all fits… but I can’t see it whole,” he said. “Mum, it’s like I’m getting some kind of weird telepathy and there’s all this stuff being processed in here.” His left hand touched his left temple. “But there’s something missing. Dad believed aliens abducted him and took him up in their space ship… But he could not have known about the Soros because his abduction took place years before. No, that’s not it, that’s not it… I can kind of see… Wait! They took him to their mother ship, which was … which was… hiding somewhere. I can’t quite see where. Hiding in the sky? ”
“Whoah!” Mark’s mother gripped his shoulder as if to keep him in this world. “Those are the same words your father used when he talked about it. ‘Hiding in the sky’ he said. How can you possibly know that? No one ever mentioned that to you. I’ve never mentioned any of this to you! Where are you getting it all from?”
“I don’t know, mum! It’s like I’m tuned in to something, some creepy broken database, and I can understand stuff, but bits of it are all garbled.”
“Tuned into something? Tuned into what for God’s sake? Tuned into what?”
Eyes blue and blank turned to Janette. “The Soros,” Mark replied. “Don’t ask me to explain it, because I can’t, but I can hear the Soros again. This is what happened to me before – at the Soros ship, like I told you before.”

**********

After a moment Mark grew anxious and Janette drove on. They headed north, keeping to quiet B-roads where possible.
After a few minutes Mark went on: “They’re using satellites to track us. In the cities and main roads they can use CCTV and traffic control systems. The Soros are wired in to just about everything electronic. Don’t switch on our SatNav system in the car or they’ll find us straight away. They used some kind of new American beam weapon satellite to destroy our house. The beam ignited the gas main and that was what caused the explosion. They did it on purpose. They were trying to kill me. They still are.”
“This is just incredible. I can hardly believe this, Mark.” After a moment in which Janette considered what Mark had said, she had to ask, “Why would the aliens be concerned about a fifteen year old boy living in a village in the middle of Scotland? I love you more than anything, Mark, but you are just a fifteen-year-old boy! Jesus!”
Mark thought for a while. He tapped his head with a finger. “Because of this. Whatever is growing inside my head.”
Mark looked out of the car window as Perthshire trees and fields sped by, and they sat in thoughtful silence until Janette slowed for a tractor in front.
She said, suddenly, “Okay. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you about John. I met your father in 1998. We were both students at Glasgow University. He was studying biology and went on to teach it in schools for a while. Anyway, we met, and fell in love… He was clever, witty, and utterly charming. I remember my knees used to just go weak the first couple of times we started meeting. Funny. He was a bit taller than you are now. You’ll grow yet; you’ll be about his height soon, I think. Anyway, in 2001, a few months after we got married, something happened that changed everything for us.”
“What was it? The abduction?”
“Yes,” sighed Janette. “John was working in a school in the east end of Glasgow, teaching biology and maths. He left the school one Thursday afternoon and started to drive home. His colleagues saw him get into his car – it was a beat-up old Ford Sierra, I remember – and he was all right, there was nothing untoward or odd about his behaviour. Well, that was it. He got as far as a set of traffic lights in Springburn and he just vanished off the face of the planet. And he stayed vanished for three weeks.”
“Three weeks!”
“Yep. I just about went off my head. The police investigated very thoroughly. I believe they did. You see, John had briefly been a member of a stupid organization called the ‘Tartan Liberation Army’, when he was a first-year student. It was nothing serious, of course, and he thought they were a bunch of dope-heads eventually. But they’d had this scheme to blow up the new Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh – its costs were going through the roof, and this group thought that doing a fifth of November would be a just way of saving taxpayers’ money. But the point is the police classed them as a terrorist outfit, and because of John’s weak connection with them, the police had a file on him as a potential terrorist, and that explained why they were so anxious to locate him. Anyway, to get back to the disappearance: John stayed missing for three weeks and there was absolutely no trace of him anywhere. I was just going to pieces. I was on tranquillisers, everything. Then one day, about three weeks later, I opened the door to the flat, just heading off to work in the morning, and there’s John, naked as a new-born, asleep on the door-mat.”
“Naked?”
“Yep. Naked. Well, I got him inside, and it was like he’d been drugged. He was very thin, like he’d been starved. I took samples of his blood, but there was nothing. And he had no idea where he’d been. He didn’t even know what day of the week it was. It was a mystery. So things settled down for a while and seemed to go back to normal, but he still couldn’t explain where he’d been. And I believed he was telling the truth when he said that. But then the nightmares started. Oh my God, they were terrible. He’d wake screaming – and I mean screaming – and he’d run around the flat banging on the walls as if they were a prison and holding his head. It went on for about three months. He said he kept seeing things, like visions, or waking dreams. Then, eventually, he said he thought he had been abducted by aliens. Of course, he did not call them the Soros. Like you said earlier, he couldn’t have known about them, but you know – as soon as they landed I wondered. I wondered if they’d been here, somewhere, around us, for years. It crossed my mind they might have been scouting around long before they made themselves known to us. Anyway, John used to spend hours on the Internet, as it was called then, searching for some explanation as to what had happened to him, and trying to find reason in accounts of others who had shared a similar experience. There were plenty of them! I didn’t really believe them, and I’m sorry to say I didn’t really believe your dad at that point either.
“Then, about a year after John’s abduction, he told me he thought the aliens had implanted something. Something in his head. He thought it was some kind of metallic bug that could read his mind and control his actions.”
“Did you ever do any tests on him?”
“Me? No, apart from the blood samples and they were pretty straightforward. I was just a junior doctor then. Despite what you see in films, doctors can’t just waltz into a hospital and start firing up the X-ray machines. But he did go for an X-ray. Nothing showed up. I really began to think he was going out of his mind, I really did.”
“But that wasn’t the end of it,” said Mark.
“Well no. Just before you were born, John was driving us all to see his parents in Ayrshire. Granma and Granpa Daniels. You were almost nine months grown and usually kicking like mad to get out, I remember. Anyway, it started out a stormy night and got worse as we drove. Rain was absolutely battering off the roof of the car. We should never have made that journey, but John, well, John had insisted. I’d not been getting much sleep, because of you kicking and performing your acrobatics inside me, and I was getting more and more worn out. He thought his parents would help to look after me better than he could. He was going to pieces himself – not sleeping, not eating properly… Anyway, I’d been asleep in the passenger seat and then woke up. He started to bleed from the nose. I hardly knew what was happening and this all happened so fast. The blood was very bad, and I was so scared I could hardly think straight.”
Janette was finding it hard to speak. Longer pauses separated her sentences as if she were examining each memory before telling of it.
“He was screaming and he must have been in terrible pain, but he’d had the presence of mind to try to slow and stop the car. But you know, Mark, I’d swear the car didn’t slow down. I seem to remember John banging the brake pedal with his foot in the seconds before… but nothing happened. He managed to say something about a pain in his eyes, and he – and he – “
“The car went off the road,” said Mark.
Janette pulled into a lay-by. Tears, even after all this time, still came, silent and unbidden. “I can still see his poor face, and his eyes, they… they seemed to be looking right at me, as if…”
Mark put his arm around his mother, who rested her head on his shoulder and wept as she had not wept in fifteen years.

**********

A coffee bar in Crieff High Street. The window looked to the north so the room was in shadow. The menu was simple, traditional: tea, coffee, scones, cakes, filled rolls. The waitress was in her mid-forties and couldn’t really be bothered working on a Sunday morning. Mark and Janette were the only customers.
“It’s funny,” Mark remarked.
“I don’t see anything funny right now, given our situation.” Janette held her coffee cup in both hands as if the warmth could somehow impart a sense of security.
Mark went on: “Here we are, the human race, in the third millenium, or after four million years or so of evolution. We can fly in space, we can cure most diseases, we understand almost completely how life works, we have the most amazing, magical gadgets, we work miracles every day: we do all this and yet there always have to be people who work in coffee bars.”
Janette looked at her son curiously. “John used to say similar things. ‘The poor are always with us’.”
“But have you noticed how much we take all these things for granted?”
Janette nodded. “I’ve had all this conversation with your father, Mark. A hundred years ago the majority of the world lived in the most appalling squalor. Measles, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, polio were all serious killing diseases. If someone had said back then ‘Hey everybody, I can rid the world of these things’, he would have been hailed as a saviour. Well, hey everybody, we damn near did, and no one really thinks anything about it. No one really gives it a second thought.”
The waitress approached. “Is everything all right?” She was only making polite enquiries, part of the shop’s customer service plan.
“Everything’s fine,” Janette replied, and then was conscious of the enormity of her lie.
The waitress smiled. Her overall tag identified her as Laura. “Some more coffee? Second cup’s free.”
Mark and Janette nodded and Laura refilled their cups. Laura returned to the counter and busied herself with restocking some shelves.
Mark looked at the window displays. Pictures of the Soros space ship were on nearly everything. “Look at that,” he said. “I’ve never really noticed it before, but the Soros have even entered our Scottish culture. Someone is making money out of them.”
“Just about everybody seems to be making money out of them!”
Alongside gift ideas like shortbread tins, tartan dolls and miniatures of whisky, the shop sold models of the Museum, maps showing how to get to McIntyre’s Field, books and DVD discs on the aliens and the impact their arrival had made on the world.
“I wonder what they really look like,” mused Janette. “Do you know?”
In recent communications from the Soros space ship, it had emerged that Earth’s air was unsuitable for them, and they did not want to take any chances on being contaminated by the many microbes that hover in our air. They were familiar with H.G. Wells and the War of the Worlds. This comment was interpreted by many as a sign that the aliens had a sense of ironic humour, and were therefore like us and were therefore good.
World leaders had been invited to meet with the Soros, to come aboard their space ship, but always the Soros wore protective space suits that made them look stocky and clumsy. Experts had made a lot of money analysing the shapes and bulges of the Soros suits, and many of the details looked similar to human space suits. But no one really knew what the bulges signified, if anything. They may have been merely decorative.
Some people thought they were the spindly almond-headed, large-eyed aliens of popular fiction, and the suits were to make them look stronger.
“No,” replied Mark. “But I have the feeling that the Soros are certainly not weak, gangly creatures,” replied Mark after a thoughtful pause. Then, slowly, he added, “I have the feeling that we… know them.” He frowned. “ And I have a feeling that they… how can I explain this? They like to play.”
“Play?”
“Play games.”
“What sort of games?”
“Ah. I’m not sure. Yet.”
Janette shivered. “God, I still can’t believe what’s happening to us. My house, our home. All our things… just like that. And now it looks like these things were responsible for your father’s death? That’s no game.” She shivered, although the day was not cold. “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go for a walk.”
Janette paid at the counter and smiled weakly in return when Laura wished her a nice day.


9 Crieff


Church bells were summoning the faithful. The High Street was beginning to fill with tourists. The Woollen Mills and Souvenir Shops displayed their goods. The Soros items were becoming very popular. One shop advertised a new brand of whisky, the Soros Single Malt.
Janette said, “We are going to go into shock in a little while, I think. I’m amazed we haven’t already.”
Mark understood. People as a general rule need time to adapt to traumatic experience. Three hours ago their lives had seemed to be as normal as anyone else’s, whatever “normal” meant. Now it seemed they were on the run, hunted by aliens intent on killing them, for reasons unclear.
They found a little park and sat down.
“It was the magnetic imaging that helped to start all this going,” said Mark. “I think this thing in my head connects me to the Soros. When you used the magnetic imager it somehow jump-started it. I think we’re right about them being around a lot longer than it seemed. They were experimenting long before they made themselves known. This “thing” is like the thing they inserted into dad’s head, only… “
“But you’ve never been abducted,” Janette pointed out.
“No, but… I got this from dad.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry. This is like looking at something through a cloud. You know those satellite images the weather forecasters use? Sometimes you can’t make out if you’re looking at the coast of America or Europe or whatever? Then other times the cloud is gone and it’s perfectly clear? Well, what I’m feeling is that my mind’s eye is a bit like that. The cloud is not as thick as it was, but I’m still not getting a good picture.”
“But it’s getting clearer, you mean?”
“Definitely.”
“Then we must keep you safe until the cloud clears.”
Suddenly Janette yawned, a huge jaw-cracker. “Oh my God! I need a sleep. I can’t drive any more just yet. This is the reaction setting in.”
Mark nodded. He had read about people in intensely stressful situations, how they need sleep and can pass out with swift suddenness.
Janette looked around her. “This place is bursting with bed and breakfast places. Let’s see if we can find one.”
“Okay. But I have to brush my teeth after that coffee.”
And that reminded them that they had come away with nothing but the clothes they stood up in. The joined the tourist throng of shoppers.


10 Logan #2

Logan powers down his interface into standby mode. His face glows with inner satisfaction as the light of the screen blanks out. He stands, stretches, tightens his buttocks and legs to increase blood flow and as he rolls his head the ligaments in his neck click and crack. He breathes deep; his purpose in renewed. At last!
Underpants, a couple of pairs of old socks, one of his favourite black t-shirts, a change of jeans and running shoes, and finally his toiletry assortment are flung into a small black overnight bag. Into one of the side pockets he stuffs a small atlas and his G5 phone. This will enable him to access his home interface should the need arise. He unwraps some gum to take away the taste cold coffee always leaves in his mouth. He sits on the bed and pulls on his ultra-lightweight Scarpa walking boots, a kilogram a piece, to enable fast coverage of difficult terrain. His dark blue blue knee-length trail jacket he folds over his arm and takes his bag down to his battered 08 Jeep to throw the items in the boot. This had been pre-owned so many times he had picked it up for next to nothing at a car auction, using knowledge gained from the interface of course. There was virtually nothing members of the League could not find access to. The Chairman, whoever he was, had certainly performed miracles in data assembly, organisation and dissemination techniques.
Overhead the Sunday afternoon sky is blue and clear. Contrails cross the sky. He stretches languidly, muscles still tight from hours in one position at the interface screen. Mrs Hartley is waddling up the road, a bag of shopping in her hand. She is one of those old souls who stoutly refuse to let an interface into their lives and stick to the old-fashioned way of actually walking to the shops for provisions instead of simply ordering them from a computer. Hardly a day goes by without her needing to make a trip to the New Galleries market in the Thistle Centre. Well, Logan has often mused, if that gives her a purpose in life… Old fool. Logan does not see himself ever being old.
Madge Hartley slows her steps a little, partly to get her breath, for it’s a long trudge for her from the Thistle Centre up the hill to her little flat; but also partly in the hope that the strange young man from downstairs will drive off before she reaches the tenement door and so she won’t have to speak to him. His flat is the top flat, directly above hers. Some weeks ago she had to complain about the constant drilling and tapping and banging that had carried on into the early hours on several occasions. He had listened to her complaint with obvious – what’s the word? – disdain. Yes, that’s it – disdain. Oh, he was polite enough, and had said he was sorry, but his eyes told a different story.
She sees Logan turn and go back into the building. She hurries on, now, the shopping bag awkward in her hand. She will try to get inside her flat before he comes out again. It’s not that she’s in any way afraid of him. She’s had too much experience for that. It’s just that… well… it’s nearly time for the Sunday afternoon wrestling on the home-cine, and Madge never misses that.

Logan returns to his flat. The padlock key is on a chain round his neck. He takes out and disconnects the padlock from the door. He opens the door carefully just a little and unhooks the booby-trap wire by reaching a finger round the edge of the door. The wire falls free, harmlessly, and he opens the door wide.
Inside sit two plastic boxes bought from B&Q, one larger than the other. The smaller box is what Logan wants now. It is the size of a shoe box. He takes it out and opens it. He has cut and shaped a section of foam so that the pistol’s components fit snugly into their places and will not be jostled or rattle in transit. It is a work of art, the product of drilling, tapping and banging in the early hours of several mornings, following instructions from another interface site supplied by the Chairman. It fires 9mm ammunition from a magazine containing 10 rounds and its 17cm long barrel gives it an accuracy of four hundred metres. A work of art, which he quickly assembles. Logan puts on a specially made shoulder holster and inserts the completed loaded pistol. It feels snug, comfortable, reassuring. Ammunition he stashes in a belt pouch and then conceals everything with a dark, breathable waterproof jacket. He checks his appearance in the mirror.
He closes and locks up the wardrobe, having reset the booby-trap. He lifts a pair of dark glasses from the desk to complete his look. At last! The League is about to go into action!
With a last glance at the wardrobe door he leaves and locks his flat. He feels strong.
Logan does not like to think too closely about what the second, larger box in the wardrobe contains.


11 The Museum


Evening light subdued the colours in their little bed and breakfast room when Janette awoke. The sense of catastrophe immediately overwhelmed her. She knew now that her old safe life had gone for good. There could be no going back. No returning to her home and the surgery and saying “I’m back, it’s okay, it was just a gas explosion, I left the cooker on and overcooked the Sunday roast. Sorry folks.” All that had changed.
Now she realised that she had been preparing on some unconscious level for this moment for a long time, certainly since the Soros had landed; but even before that her life with John had been a mental gearing up for disaster. His convictions that the world would change in some immensely significant way, his complete belief in his abduction experience, even all the media hype about the turn of the Millenium – all contributed to shape her feeling that her life had been heading towards this moment.
“What rough beast is this that slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?” she spoke to herself as she lay looking at the ceiling with her hands linked on the pillow behind her head. Yeats’ words came to her, a distant memory from a distant sunny schoolroom long ago.
Mark was already awake. He had always been an early riser. He was fiddling with the kettle on the dressing table. “I’m trying to make you a cup of tea, madam,” he said.
He smiled at her and Janette smiled back and their resilience was guaranteed. “I have to brush my teeth,” she said, swinging her legs off the bed. Earlier, she had bought two small bags, of the most subdued tartan she could find from a gift shop, and filled them with some still-wrapped underwear, changes of clothes, toiletries.
“We cannot be beaten as long as we have dental hygiene,” said Mark.
“Humour in times of stress – a human characteristic, I suppose,” mused Janette. “Our world falls apart and we make jokes.”
Later they sat in two easy chairs by the window and sipped extremely strong and foul cups of tea. The view looked on to a small car park and some gardens beyond, and past the compact traditional houses the gentle wooded hills of Perthshire rolled away to the south.
“You left the tea bags in the cups too long,” observed Janette. “And these chairs are specially designed to create back problems, you realise that, don’t you?”
“We need help, mum,” Mark said, “and I’m not talking about tea and back-rests.”
“Are your feelings any clearer?”
“Yes. I saw things in my dreams, but things that make sense, unlike most of the stuff you see in dreams.”
“Like some prophet of old,” his mother remarked. She curled her legs under her in the chair and sipped the tea, grimacing. “Tell me.”
“There’s something about magnetic fields. I don’t think we really understand about them. They can affect things, animals, people.”
Janette nodded. “Magnets have been known to assist in healing. Some birds use the earth’s magnetic field to navigate over the globe, but no one knows exactly how it’s done. Obviously it’s to do with –“
“Something in the brain,” Mark finished for her. “It’s two weeks since I visited the Museum and every day the feelings have been getting stronger. There’s obviously some connection.”
“Did you go to the Museum on your own?” asked Janette.
“No, Carrie came with me.”
Janette arched an eyebrow ironically. “Oh?”
“Never mind my love life. I know what you’re thinking, you dirty old woman.”
Janette laughed softly.
Mark continued, more sombrely now. “As we passed through the entrance to the field… ”

**********

As Carrie and Mark disembarked from the coach that had brought them to McIntyre’s Field, Mark was struck again by the technology of the craft. Neither he nor Carrie paid any attention to the toffee apple vendors, souvenir sellers or the smells from the hamburger and hot-dog stalls that proliferated in McIntyre’s Field. Each of them paid the owner a franchise fee, naturally.
Visitors passed through a visitors’ centre and paid their entrance money at the set of turnstiles. The area of the field was completely fenced off by strong tungsten wire barriers twelve feet high topped by barbed wire. Armed military guards patrolled the fence. It was felt a military presence had to be maintained, even though no harm had ever come to anyone from the craft or its crew. A barracks and a Command Centre had been set up nearby and the occasional buzz of military helicopters came and went in the background.
Road links to the farm had been drastically improved to cope with the huge volume of traffic bringing the curious to gawp at “The Ship from Across the Universe”. A rail link from Falkirk was being built; hotels were springing up; property values had increased by more than a hundred per cent.
The ship itself was a smooth, flattened spherical structure, like an enormous discus. It had to be smooth, because anything fixed to the outside could be a problem with the friction caused by entering a planet’s atmosphere; only in human science-fiction films did space craft have pipes, junction boxes and antennae bristling on their outsides.
It was, however, huge. Several football pitches could have been laid out inside its area.
It seemed to hang in the air. Three legs provided support, but they were thin, weak-looking structures. The ship had rested in the same spot for five years but the legs had not begun to sink into the soft soil. Some anti-grav effect was being used, but no human understood how. That technology the Soros had not begun to share yet.
A silver metal ramp descended from the shell of the craft to the ground, and this was the entrance to the Museum. Mark could see no other doors or openings. Indeed, the metallic shell appeared to be seamless, as if made from a single massive piece.
With a couple of hundred others, Carrie and Mark made their way up this ramp and passed under the arch of the portal.
At that moment the first dizzy spell overwhelmed Mark.
Carrie half bore him up as he leaned on the ramp safety rail. “What is it?”
“Dizzy. Feel a bit sick.”
Carrie stood by him as others passed them by. Presently a guide – all the guides were human - came over. He wore a grey-blue uniform that was crossed from right shoulder to left hip by a stiff pale yellow sash. Despite his nausea Mark could not help thinking the guide looked like a Thunderbirds puppet from the old TV show. A metallic name tag informed that the guide’s name was Jason.
“Are you all right? Some visitors do experience a bit of giddiness on their first visit. We think it may be something to do with the anti-grav. Once you get inside it will pass. Can you make it into the reception hall? Come on, I’ll help you. If your girlfriend takes that arm…”
The guide led them under the portal and, as predicted, the dizziness went away. The incident was soon forgotten as the reception hall opened up before them. The guide led them to their pre-arranged group and another guide, this one wearing a white sash, began to talk them through the sights.
3-D images on the walls displayed far-off galaxies and nebulae, all brilliantly illuminated; star charts portrayed the Soros’ journey through space; interactive displays showed the Soros home world, a vast planet circling an orange sun. The planet’s surface teemed with life, and above great plains or fertile land, giant cities reared, miles high. Yet there seemed to be no overcrowding, or population problems of any kind, and indeed the voice of the tour guide assured the party of visitors that this was the case. The Soros seemed to have solved all of the problems twenty-first century mankind had inherited from his predecessors and was currently grappling with.
Mark’s eyes lost focus. He was looking into the display of the Soros home world.
Carrie squeezed his arm. “You look funny again. Dizzy?” her voice was a whisper.
“No,” Mark also spoke in low tones. “This is something else. For a moment there I saw something else. Like a shadow of something on the display.”
“A shadow of what?”
“A different reality,” replied Mark simply. His eyes came back into focus. She could see he was afraid, and she grew frightened too. “I see that planet, and I see the orange sun, but it’s like they are laid over another image, a different image. It’s like a puzzle or one of those trick pictures you get, where if you look at it long enough – “
“Oh, yes, I know the kind you mean. All dots and blobs and suddenly a blue dolphin on a motorbike appears in it and it’s been there all the time. Gin and Bitter used to have one in the upstairs loo.”
“That’s it. This picture of their home world is like that. Keep an eye out for dolphins,” said Mark.
“Let’s walk on,” she said, linking arms and moving towards the rest of the group. Carrie did not know where the instinct to appear normal in this place came from, but Mark felt it too. They tried not to look out of place.
“I heard the guide’s voice,” said Mark in a low tone, “and I was looking at the images when suddenly it all seemed fake, and it was like I could hear other voices, voices behind these walls and screens, saying something completely different, something that made all this be – a lie.”
“What voices? What were they saying?”
His eyes unfocused again. “Not human voices… but I could understand them. The Soros, I think. It’s all very weird.”
“You’re telling me!”
The guide was saying, “And this door leads into other parts of the ship – the crew quarters, their rest rooms, their games facilities – for the Soros love to play games, ladies and gentlemen…”
That part is true, thought Mark.
“… and although access is not permitted, for fear of contamination, we are allowed to see the Soros at work and play by means of these viewscreens…”
But the beings they saw were wearing space suits and helmets. No features could be seen. There were six figures, some of them at some kind of work at consoles carrying out some alien programming, or holding what seemed to be checklists. Two in particular, Mark noticed, were engrossed in a board game whose patterned colours and odd carved shapes set out in an incomprehensible pattern, reminded him of chess.
“Don’t they ever take those suits off?” one of the visitors asked.
“The Soros can take no risk of infection while on this planet. The slightest germ that would be perfectly harmless to you and me might have a catastrophic effect on them. Why, among our own species the common cold wiped out whole populations of South Pacific Islanders in the eighteenth century simply because the cold germ was unknown to the Islanders. European sailors had brought it there. So no, the Soros will take no chances. Deep within the craft, I understand, there is the “Inner Sanctum”, where they can take off their suits, but no human can go there or camera show it.”
“Why not?” someone asked.
“In the same way as come of our religious priests observe the idea of an inner sanctum, so the Soros like to have their privacy. In the Jewish religion, for example…”
“Do you see how everything is related to human experience?” whispered Mark.
Carrie nodded. “Makes it all seem plausible,” she murmured. “And it doesn’t sound right. What do you think?” asked Mark.
“I don’t know. The guide’s obviously spouting a prepared speech…”
“And it doesn’t sound like the truth.”
“No, I think I agree with you. Now that you’ve said that, I think I see what you mean. It’s blue dolphins, boy, on motorbikes!”
Other wonders were there to behold. The births and deaths of stars, the bizarre views from the ship as it travelled near the speed of light, the strange creatures existing on other worlds – but nowhere, not in all the cosmos, were species as intelligent as the Soros or humankind. Intelligence was a slow attribute to evolve, and only occurred in very rare places.
“For the universe,” rounded off the guide, “as the Soros assure us, at six billion years, is still a very young place.”
Mark looked at the door that led to the so-called Inner Sanctum. He felt drawn to it for reasons he could not explain. Something seemed to call him to it, softly urging him to take the risk and press the panel at the side that would cause the doors to slide up.
“Come on,” said Carrie. “Come on! What are you so nosy about that door for? You’re getting that look again. Let’s go.”
Finally as they passed through the portal by the way they had come, Mark looked up. A small semi-sphere, half the size of a gold ball, was embedded in the metal-work above the reception area. It did not move, it did not flash red like any CCTV camera, it just glinted dully in the reception hall’s light. But Mark had the certain feeling that someone or something was observing him very closely.
It was not a good feeling.
But the idea of it passed when the dizziness assailed him again, worse than before, as he left the ship. Carrie struggled to help him down the rampway and away from the craft’s shadow.


12 Dreams

The evening light had deepened as Janette listened to her son’s story.
“There was some kind of force, I think, on that ship, that changed me in some way, and made me more receptive to… things,” said Mark. “And when you wired me up to the magnetic resonance imager this morning, that gave it an extra push.”
Janette had made another cup of tea during Mark’s account of his visit, the first being finally undrinkable. She stirred sugar into it.
“So to sum up: you think the Soros are up to something. The trip to their ship has set something off in your head, some ‘sensory organ’ and when I passed the magnetic resonator over you that augmented the effect. Somehow the Soros know you know something and they want to kill you. To do that they aim a satellite beam weapon at our house and make a hole in the landscape. Yes. It all makes wonderful sense now. Let’s go to the police.”
Mark laughed. “It’s all a bit tricky, isn’t it?” He smiled, but then his smile faded, and he said simply, “I know these things, mum. I know them.” He stood up impatiently and moved to the window, looking out. “ I’d like to give Carrie a call. Just to let her know we’re all right.”
Janette said nothing. She looked out of the window too, lost in her own thoughts.
“I’ll give her a call,” said Mark. “But I don’t want to use a mobile. I’ll use the call box just outside, in that car park there. Can you lend me a euro?”
“Sure. Mark, you know... I do believe you. I have to. I’ve seen the proof. You’re it. The proof is you. Give her my best.” She handed over her wallet and Mark took out the small silver coin. He could have used a phone card, but he wasn’t sure if that could be traced or not, and there was no knowing what the Soros might try next.
The clouds in his mind were still clearing but there were many of them. Outside, the sky was a clear July evening blue. He crossed the road to the phone box, put in the coin and dialled Carrie’s number.
Her father picked it up, and without identifying himself Mark asked for Carrie. He didn’t want to stay on the phone too long, and speaking to Mr Jenkins would take up time. In a moment she picked up what Mark felt (knew) was the extension in the upstairs landing.
“Hello? Who is it?”
“It’s me – Mark.”
“Mark? Mark!” A lot of noise came from the receiver, whoops and general exclamations of relief. Once Carrie had calmed down a little she said, “It’s been on all the news programmes – a gas explosion, two feared dead, etc, etc. But I knew you were all right. I just knew it. Boy, I’m glad to hear your voice.”
“Carrie – “ He was about to tell her about it all when an almost tangible fear, invaded the call box. Images, very fast but very vivid, flooded his mind.
Printed circuits and CPUs; electrons moving and being moved at the speed of light; information flowing; an alien face, indescribable, looking up from programming at a console, horribly certain; cold space and a satellite turning on an axis; Carrie’s phone line, connected to a larger network; everything connected to the larger network; someone, an American army officer, jumping up from his console deep inside a mountain and shouting angrily; and the satellite, turning, turning.
“Carrie! I have to go! I’ll call you later!”
He flung the phone down, lunged out of the door.
“Mum! Mu – um!” His shouts shattered the peace of the street.
Across the road, tearing the door open. “Mum!”
His mother’s slim form moves fast at the top of the stairs. She knows. She has grabbed the little bags containing all their worldly goods. She has presence of mind and she is racing down the stairs to join him. She pauses at the foot for two seconds, for though she knows destruction is imminent she cannot let the other people in the bed and breakfast house die.
Mark has stopped at the street door, holding it open. His face is wide-eyed with panic. “Come ON!”
She shouts one word: “FIRE!” and smashes the glass alarm at her side. The alarm sounds and voices are heard, but Janette is away and out, and the two are running, running.
Twenty-five metres.
Behind them puzzled residents are emerging from the b & b.
Fifty metres now.
They had parked the car a couple of streets away and they run to it now. They bend breathlessly, wheezing over the bonnet. Three minutes have passed and behind them, behind the houses of a couple of streets a gas main ignites and a family’s livelihood is blown in pieces through the air. The explosion rocks Janette and Mark and makes them move again. They get into the car. Janette flings the bags into the back seat. Chunks of stone, wood and plaster begin to land. The car drives quickly away and inside it Janette and Mark are shivering with terror.

**********

Courage is what comes after fear. You cannot have courage unless you first face fear. It is the power that makes the human get up and keep going; it overrides the emotions and speaks with calm, clear logic, and it says what must be done. Sometimes running away is what must be done.
Mark and Janette fled for an hour. They spoke little in that time, except for swearing occasionally to express shocked disbelief. Janette had no idea where she was aiming the car and didn’t care, just as long as it was away from back there.
But quarter of an hour after leaving Crieff, as they sped out of the little village of St Fillans on the shore of Loch Earn, they did not notice the battered Jeep that emerged from a lay-by and began to follow at a discreet distance.

**********

Clear skies and a setting sun as the car sped down the long straight road that leads to the little settlement of Bridge of Orchy, which consists of a railway station, a tiny garage selling both petrol and hydrogen fuel, a handful of houses and a hotel. After that, nothing until Glen Coe except the bleak hypnotic expanse of Rannoch Moor, mile after mile of undulating peat bog, stream and lochan. The unfenced road was the only security for the campers and caravans, the coaches and cars that traversed it by the hundred daily in the summer.
The car slowed on the approach to the settlement – it hardly deserves the name of village – and pulled in to the hotel car park. Only one space remained, recently vacated by a group who had just had dinner in the hotel and were ready to move on. Janette reversed the car into the space. Just in case a quick getaway was required.
“Where are we?“ asked Mark. “I know there was sign back there, but –“
“A place called Bridge of Orchy. Out there’s the Orchy – that’s the name of the river – and behind that corner you come to the bridge. Bridge of Orchy.”
They sat in silence for a while, still too numbed by what had happened.
“You’ve been here before then?” Mark asked.
Janette nodded. “With your father. We used to visit the Highlands quite a lot.”
A massive slope rose steeply in front of them. Its upper reaches were beautifully lit by sun. “What’s that hill?” asked Mark.
“Ben Dorain.”
“Oh. Have you been up it?”
“No. But your dad had.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly Mark yawned, a huge, jaw-cracking, tonsil-shaking mouth-opener. “I’m tired,” he remarked, superfluously.
“We need a good rest,” replied his mother. “You in particular. Dare we check into this hotel?”
“I don’t know.”
Janette drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “You’re tired and I’m starving. Let’s risk it. We can pay cash. Get the bags, will you? A change of clothes might be in order.”
They went inside.
A hundred euros secured them a twin bedded room. Although the hotel was busy, most travellers were on a tight budget and were accommodated at the attached bunkhouse. The rooms in the hotel itself were pricey, it being the high season, but Janette did not want to compromise. Paying cash ensured that no electronic record of the transaction would be transmitted anywhere. Anything electronic Janette now viewed with extreme suspicion. There was no knowing just what the Soros could be doing to keep tabs on them.
A meal, a shower, and a plod up to their room were all Mark could manage. He could not even undress before collapsing on his bed and falling straightaway asleep. Janette covered him with a quilt, and then she too went to bed, still wondering if they shouldn’t just call the police.

**********

Mark dreamed.
A door slid upwards on the Soros space ship, the Museum. Warning signals were sounding faintly in the cavernous reception area and amber lights were flashing and this was to alert the human staff in their Thunderbirds uniforms that the Soros leader was about to appear. But the workers had all gone home and only a Duty Officer remained at the desk. The signals meant that the Duty Officer would contact the site’s military Commanding Officer, General Aaron Miller, using the Soros designed communication device on the desk.
“Inform the General that the Leader is on his way. Anteroom one,” said the DO softly into the mouthpiece.
“Roger that,” replied the General’s aide-de-camp. “I’ll pass that along. The General’s already on his way as planned.”
In a few moments the General’s car arrived at the foot of the metal ramp in front of the Museum. Part of his job was to act as liaison officer between the Soros and the rest of the planet, and the procedures and protocols had been developed over the years. The Soros would not leave their space ship, for reasons of safety. They maintained that the slightest tear in one of their suits could result in contamination of the suit’s environment by Earth’s atmosphere, and vice versa. It had not been overlooked by Earth scientists that the Soros could introduce some possibly damaging bacteria or viruses into Earth’s air with potentially catastrophic effects. The Soros always stressed that this risk of infection was extremely small, but neither side, it seemed, wanted to take unnecessary risks. Obviously this led to problems in conducting a dialogue.
In his dream Mark saw the leader of the Soros, distinguished by nothing other than a simple red band round the upper right arm of his suit, emerge from the inner confines of the ship and take a seat at a large round table situated in one of the partitioned areas off the main Reception Area. The room’s walls were subtly padded, giving an impression of complete safety. The Soros was about the same height as the average human but, as he (or she, or it – there was no way to tell) moved, the bulky suit conveyed the impression of massive strength tightly controlled. There was no clumsy slowness in his movements either and Mark wondered if the suit somehow gave power to the wearer. The helmet seemed to be made of the same metal as the space ship, and while it gleamed dully in the soft light it gave no reflection. It was fronted by an opaque visor that showed absolutely nothing of the creature within. The effect of this was disconcerting. The leader was alone, but Mark sensed that cameras were watching everything.
The General and his aides arrived and took their seats facing the Soros leader. Miller was a small, compact man, and wore his immaculately tailored uniform with elegance. He took off his cap to reveal short greying hair and his eyes appeared to show a sharp light of intelligence as he took a seat and observed the Soros Leader opposite him. No attempt was made to shake hands. Miller gave the impression of calm authority and a readiness to cope with any eventuality. He was one of those individuals whose age could be anywhere from forty to sixty.
Mark felt light like an intruding, eavesdropping ghost, adrift in the room, unfettered by gravity.
Consoles like computer keyboards appeared in the table’s surface. The Soros, who had, Mark noticed, a thinly gloved three-fingered hand, typed his message which was then transformed into a deep, male voice that came from a set of synthvox speakers mounted in the table. It reminded Mark, comically, of a voice from a very old film he had once seen – “The Lion King”. It’s the great circle of life…
How are you General Miller? I trust I find you well.
“Yes, thank you, very well. Is there anything in particular we can do for you this evening?”
It is rather a question of what I can do for you, said the voice from the speakers. It seemed to Mark that he was also hearing it beamed directly inside his head.
He watched as a holographic display appeared on the table top, then resolved itself into a three-dimensional photograph. Mark drew closer. It was an aerial photograph, taken by a satellite.
We are carrying out some routine surveys of this area, General Miller, as you know, and this morning as the satellite we were using at the time passed overhead, it photographed this event.
Mark recognised his home, seen from above. The photo changed, as the Soros leader pushed buttons to make it zoom in and show successive frames. Two figures appeared, obviously running – Mark and his mother. As one picture succeeded another, Mark watched himself get into the car. The Soros made the image backtrack and zoomed in further, to show the look of complete panic on both their faces.
We were aware of the explosion, of course – our sensors picked it up and once we had established that we were not in danger we began to scan our satellite images for information on the probable cause. You may well understand, General Miller, we find explosions going off in the vicinity of our ship a little concerning. We gather that the local police believe it was a gas explosion, and it is not my position to disagree. However, if you observe the expressions of the faces of the two humans in the photographs, it may look as if they are running away from what they know is about to happen. And how could they know what was about to happen, unless somehow they were instrumental in its cause?
“Yes, I see what you mean.”
We gather also that the owners of the property have not been found, and there were no bodies found in the remains.
“I don’t know much about that, I’m afraid.”
If you agree, then, that it looks as if these two are fleeing the scene of the crime, it may interest you to know that our sensors detected another, much weaker tremor a little while ago, in the area of the town you call Crieff. Not a little curious about this second event, we turned our satellite eye on to that area and saw this:
The display transformed into a holographic image now. The Hyundai estate car speeding out of Crieff, Janette tensed nervously over the wheel.
“It’s the same car!”
It would appear so, agreed the Soros.
“Did you track them further?”
Unfortunately no. Our satellite moved out of position shortly afterwards and we had no time to re-align it. Also, as you can see the road along this “loch” is lined with overhanging trees, which makes it difficult to stay in visual contact. But perhaps you, or the local police, can hazard a guess as to where the pair may be headed.
“I’ll pass this on to the Criminal Intelligence Section as soon as I can,” replied the General. “At the moment there’s not much else I can do, I’m afraid.”
The Soros helmet seemed to look up at that point. It turned left, then right, its visor mirroring the soft padded walls of the anteroom, the light cast by the holograph and the General’s face.
“Is there something wrong?” asked the General.
No, replied the Soros, after a long pause. There is nothing wrong.
Mark’s dream dissolved a little at that point, like a radio or TV station moving off its best frequency.
The General had left. Only the single Soros was left. He continued to manipulate the console keys. The keys, he noticed, were not at all like those of human design. The console, like everything else about the ship, was rather beautifully designed, but nevertheless held an indefinable alien quality. Other images appeared in the holograph, but Mark recognised none of them.
He drifted. The door into the inner sanctum remained open. He felt himself float through it. A strange clicking noise came from behind, and he turned to find the Soros Leader was facing him, looking at him.
You can’t see me, Mark thought, I’m in a dream. My body is lying asleep in a hotel in the Highlands. I’m miles away from you.
The clicking noise he then realised was the Soros’s voice. He could have sworn it was speaking to him, but Mark could not understand. No, that was ridiculous. No way could he be seen. He turned away and drifted through the doorway, into the heart of the ship.
A door panel slid up to his left. He turned into this room. It was full of holographic images of planets, stars, solar systems. He was drawn to an image on one wall. It was a map. The colours of it were brown and yellow, but there was no way to tell if the brown represented the sea or the land. Mark was struck by the thought that perhaps the Soros perceived colour differently from humans – maybe they saw brown where we saw blue. If so, how did that affect what else they saw?
But now Mark felt that old fear again. Something was happening deep within the ship. He sensed that some thing, something awfully powerful had been turned on. Something to do with… gravity?
He had to get out. Somehow, he was in danger here.
The room, the ship, the dream, all faded, suddenly and finally.
He opened his eyes, wide awake.
Mark had no trouble remembering where he was. He threw back the quilt and swung his legs off the bed. He ran his fingers through his hair. He knew he had to write his dream down, quickly, before it faded. There was something important there.
He found hotel writing paper on the writing bureau by the window. Stopping only briefly to marshal his thoughts, he jotted down as much as he could recall in as much detail as he could. He ended by drawing the map. That bothered him. He had seen this map before.


13 Logan #3

Logan sat behind the wheel of the Jeep, waiting. Light was starting to fade as the evening wore on. The hotel was in the shadow of the hills to the west, but Logan still wore his dark glasses. He heard the sports car before he saw it racing down the long road coming from the Fort William direction. He watched as the Mazda S10 turned off the road with a squeal of tyres and shot recklessly and neatly into the remaining parking space as if it belonged there. The amount of space remaining on either side meant its driver was crazy, or lucky, or extremely skilful. The driver turned off the engine and got out.
The dark glasses were a recognition convention favoured by the Human Freedom League, but Logan would have recognized Tony Cameron anyway. They had met before, several times, at League rallies. Cameron spotted the Jeep, parked away from the door of the hotel, and sauntered over. The S10, flashed and bleeped as its alarm self-activated. Logan smiled. Cameron liked his gadgets. Logan quite liked Cameron. He was the son of a wealthy Highland coach operator and took a hand in the business. He had a penchant for high-performance sports cars, of which the S10 was his latest, and he shared Logan’s passionate hatred of the aliens.
“Logan. Hi. Good to see you, man. Got the call. Came as soon as I could. “ Cameron leaned on the open window of the Jeep. “Still driving this piece of crap?”
“Yes,” replied Logan. He was not sure that, as Vice-Chairman of the League, he was too fond of hearing his subordinate refer to the Jeep as “a piece of crap”. “Let’s focus on this mission, Cameron. You got the details from the Net?”
“Sure, sure. Okay, let’s do this. Where is he? Where’s the target? Do we need to check it out first?”
“The target is in the hotel. He’s with his mommy.”
Cameron sniggered. “We’ll take her out too, man.”
“Possibly. I have no instructions about her yet. But we’ll focus on the boy first. We’ll go in, have a drink, check out the area,” said Logan. “I’ve tried to get us a room but they’re all booked up. We’re sleeping in our cars tonight.”
“Och well, I’ve slept in worse places,” said Cameron.
“But listen. We have to wait here. We can’t do anything tonight. If something goes wrong and they get away, we have to have the contingency plans in place. All we’re doing for now is observing. And try not to let the targets observe us!”
“Yeah, I understand.”
“Now, who’s covering the road north?”
“There’s my brother Jamie stationed at the lay-by on the way into Glen Coe, and I’ve got the rest of my team moving down from Fort William tonight and tomorrow. We’ll have enough to cover all this area.”
“Good. What’s communication like here?” asked Logan.
“Comms is fine. They’ve built a new set of masts across the moor, cunningly disguised as Scots pines. But it’s fine – coverage is good, now. Who else is coming?”
“I’ve got Fisher based at Tyndrum ten k down the road, and Denton’s team are in Crianlarich.”
Cameron nodded. “You’ve got them boxed in, then. Road and rail, it’s all covered.”
“Right. Good. It’s coming together. Now all we do is wait for the go from the Chairman. Got your gun on you?”
“Sure. I’ve got the weapon right here, man. Say - did you see what those bullets can do? God, man, I fired a few rounds into a deer out on the hill – it just blew right apart!”
Logan was angry. “You didn’t leave the bullets in it, did you, for anyone to find?”
“No, no. Honest, Logan, it’s all right. I got them all back. Trust me. Come on, let’s get that drink. I’m desperate.”
They put their dark glasses away and entered the Bridge of Orchy Hotel. Logan could feel the marvellous weight of the weapon against his side under his jacket. The Human Freedom League was going into action. The feeling in his gut was back, stronger than ever.


13 The Train

After breakfast, they took coffee in the large, well-furnished lounge and watched as other residents departed. Some of the departing guests heaved huge rucksacks onto their backs and sauntered cheerfully past the wide windows to rejoin the West Highland Way, the long distance path from Glasgow to Fort William that passed right by the hotel; others mounted bicycles, laden with panniers; others loaded up cars and waved cheerio to fellow travellers they had met only the night before but whose company they had clearly enjoyed. All seemed happy, proceeding with holiday plans in complete ignorance of the isolated pair who watched them through the old-fashioned single-glazed windows.
Appetites, however, had been somewhat restored. Janette poured them both a second mug of tea. She had read Mark’s notes. “You’re not very good at drawing maps,” she remarked.
“No. Geography was never my best subject.”
“So tell me what you make of it. Your instincts have kept us alive so far.”
“They’ve set us up. They have suggested that we were somehow to blame for the gas explosions, in Touch and in Crieff. The police at the very least are going to want to question us. They will take us in, the Soros will know exactly where we are and – “
“Goodnight and thank you for playing?”
Mark nodded.
Janette threw down her teaspoon in a gesture of impatience and frustration. “But why? That’s what I still don’t understand.”
“Okay, let me run this by you, see how it sounds. The Soros see me as some kind of threat. Somehow I can tune into them. It seems to have something to do with magnetism. If I can tune in to them I can read their files and plans and know what they’re planning.”
“But what I can’t understand is that they’ve repeatedly said they mean Earth no harm. Those were the first words they said once communication had been established. They mean Earth no harm. Now it’s pretty clear they’ve been up to something for years and playing us for fools.”
“That’s pretty clear to me. When I think of them I get the impression of immense power, and – although not evil – a feeling of pretty strong dislike.”
“They dislike us? What, just you and me, or –“
“No – the whole human race. They really don’t like us very much.”
Janette was about to ask how he could know that, but thought better of it. She knew the answer.
Mark continued, the thoughtful look on his face: “And when you say that their first words were ‘We mean Earth no harm’, well, Earth could just mean the planet. It doesn’t have to include the people on it too, does it?”
“Hmmm.” Janette frowned.
“And when I think of those words, ‘We mean Earth no harm’ I get the definite impression of games-playing.”
“Huh. I remember, when I was a little girl, there was a TV series they used to show called ‘V’. It was about these aliens that came to take our water, because their own planet had run dry. They disguised themselves as humans, but really they were reptiles or lizards or something underneath. It was water, and I think they also wanted us for food. They had these huge space ships that hovered over our major cities – “
“Like in that old film, ‘Independence Day’?”
“Yes! Big round things, huge. And they stored our water and bodies on these space ships.” Janette lost herself in her recollection for a moment. “There was a really nice guy who led the resistance. I used to fancy him.”
“Mum! I don’t think this is the time to start remembering childhood loves.”
Janette laughed. “Sometimes you sound exactly like your dad.”
“But no,” said Michael, after a mouthful of tea.
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“They are not after our water, and they don’t want us for food.” Mark’s eyes took on the far away look again. “They are not a scout ship. They only have the – hey, wait a minute…” For a long moment Mark fell quiet, his face set and serious, as if scanning a distant horizon. “I see… I see the other ship. I see it in my mind’s eye. I think that was true what dad said about the mother ship. McIntyre’s field is just a landing craft. I can see the other one. They’ve hidden it, but I can actually see in my mind where it is!”
“Where?”
“I can’t see clearly, but I know it’s somewhere in the planet’s magnetic field… north, somewhere north… in the sky. And because of a distortion in the magnetic field we can’t detect it on Earth. It’s another game. They’re hiding in the sky! They’re actually hiding where we could see them, but they’re using the planet against us. Particles from the sun, what do you call it, the aurora… ?”
“The aurora borealis? The Northern Lights?”
“That’s it. Particles from the sun cause our radar and stuff to go all wonky, and the Soros make use of that.”
“You know, you get most of your insights when you’re drinking tea. Have another cup!”
Mark laughed. “Maybe I’ll make a fortune teller some day.”
Then he froze. “Satellite surveillance just swept over us. But it’s okay. They didn’t see the car.”
Janette looked out of the window. “I never really noticed last night, but I’ve parked under a tree. Perhaps we should be leaving.” She got up immediately.
“What is it, mum?” Mark asked.
“There’s a police car pulling in to the car park.”
Their bags had already been packed, so it was a matter of minutes to retrieve them. She fetched them herself, stuffing Mark’s notes in one of the side pockets, while Mark went outside. They knew without anything being said that if they were separate the two policemen, who by now were examining the Hyundai, would probably not recognise them. Together they ran the biggest risk.
Mark stood beside an old yellow Mercedes, looking as if he were waiting for his parents to come out of the hotel. He lounged against it, surprised at how cool-headed he felt. He even turned to look at the policemen. One of them had returned to his car and was speaking into his radio. The other was keying something into his notepad.
Mark was toying with the passenger door handle when, much to his surprise, he found it opened when he tried it. It was the act of a second to get in and check the ignition for keys. There they were. Mark got out of the car. Now his heart seemed to be thudding into his mouth.
Janette appeared on the steps of the hotel. She barely glanced at the policemen. The one with the notepad was now approaching the hotel. Mark tried to signal to his mother. She saw him, but looked away, and gestured subtly to the other side of the road. The railway track and the station were virtually opposite the hotel. She started to cross the road.
Mark felt that this was right, and then, as he began to follow her, he realised that trying to make a getaway in a stolen car, with the owner still in the hotel, and the police right there with a probably faster car, would not be logical. The most they could hope for would be a five-minute start.
A subway led under the railway track to the station and the platforms. Mark caught up with his mother there. “We’d better take a brisk walk,” she said. “Follow me.”
She stuffed the luggage bags into a yellow plastic container by the side of a wall. The letters GRIT advertised the container’s contents, but there was room enough for two small bags. Then they made their way under another subway that led on to the West Highland Way footpath. It was a track wide enough for a Landrover.
“My shoes are not really made for this,” remarked Janette as she clambered over a style, “and if I get mud on this skirt I’ll scream, but needs must.”
“May I ask just where we are going?”
“Just a little walk, dear, just a little walk. This way!”
Before long they came to a place on the track concealed by low trees where they could look back on the hotel and see what was happening in the car park, and they were far enough away, and able to conceal themselves, so that there was little likelihood of anyone at the hotel seeing them.
“We’ll wait here for a bit,” said Janette. “Then, when the coast’s clear, we’ll grab the next train. They will think we’ve long gone. Buses come through here all the time, so they’ll probably follow that line of enquiry. I wouldn’t have thought they would set up roadblocks. We’re not that dangerous, surely.”
They waited for two hours.

**********

Cameron was tired, and getting cold from inactivity. He was pretending to be interested in the deer and buzzards on the hill opposite him, beyond the hotel, but he was himself situated a little way up Ben Dorain. From his vantage point, Cameron watched through binoculars the woman and her son stop by the stand of hazel trees. They kept looking back towards the hotel. It was obviously the police who had made them jumpy, though the police car had long since moved on. The G5 buzzed. Cameron activated it and saw Logan’s face on the small viewer.
“What are they doing?” Logan was positioned in his Jeep, still waiting for instructions.
“They’re just sitting on a couple of rocks, talking. I think they’re waiting for a train. Why don’t we just do it now?”
“No, Cameron, we wait.” Logan cut the connection and called up the interface. He himself could not understand the reason for the delay.

**********

Janette stood up and paced impatiently. “You know, if this were a novel, it’s at this point that we would meet up with a rough, tough male who would know exactly what to do in this situation,” said Janette. “He would be wearing a checked shirt, a pair of jeans – “
“And a beard. Don’t forget the beard!”
“ – and he would be ex-Special Forces and be highly trained in martial arts – “
“ – with access to weapons.. “
“Yeah! Loads of them. Weapons would be useful. We could use weapons.”
“And he would just step right up and save the day…”
“But not without getting horribly hurt in the process,” said Janette.
“But you, being a doctor, would cure him and he would fall in love with you and be a perfect dad.”
“With a big dog.”
“So,” said Mark, “do you know anyone like that?”
“No.”
Eventually a couple of West Highland Way hikers passed them, but neither sported a checked shirt or jeans. Mark and Janette’s lack of equipment provoked no curiosity either. The walk south to Tyndrum was only seven miles and it was popular with people out for simple stroll, which was what the hikers assumed Mark and Janette to be.

**********

At last, they saw the train from a considerable distance, coming from the north, from Fort William, heading for Glasgow. Taking their time, they sauntered back and joined a handful of others on the platform. They split up. Janette gave Mark some money for his ticket and went to get the bags, which she did without complication. There was no sign of police, she noticed.
The train stopped. A young man carrying a binoculars case came running off the hill. Obviously a bird-watcher, thought Janette. Some people disembarked; those who had been waiting got on, the birdwatcher included. Tickets were bought on board, from small machines in each carriage. A conductor would pass up the train at some point to check everyone had paid. The train waited a few minutes then slowly moved off. At the same time the battered Jeep left the hotel car park and turned towards Tyndrum.
Two minutes saw the train safely away from the station. They placed their two bags on the luggage rack near the carriage door. Janette went to the toilet and Mark looked out of the window. On the same road he and his mother had travelled down the previous night, he noticed green, canvas-backed army lorries moving north. They were carrying soldiers. He could see the soldiers in the open backs of the trucks. Could they be looking for him? he wondered. A solitary Jeep was making its way south.
He looked away, and studied the people around him. They all looked harmless enough. Students, holidaymakers, weary hikers.
The dividing door at the far end of the carriage, by the toilet into which Janette had disappeared, slid open with a soft hiss and a solid-looking uniformed policeman stepped through. He had obviously been on the train for some time and now he was checking the passengers who had just embarked. Mark sat back down. His heart pounded.
“Done for!” he thought, running hid fingers through his hair.
The policeman held his electronic notepad in his hand, and he was checking something on it. Mark knew it had his electronic image on it. How did he know that?
He reached out with his mind and saw –
School files, a picture of Mark, aged 13, his last official school photograph, stored in the school’s admin computer. Accessed and downloaded with no problem. Sent shooting through the Internet to a central computer somewhere in Glasgow, and from there to all the terminals in all the police stations and cars up and down the West Highland Line and all over the Highlands. His face was on every policeman’s electronic notepad. So was his mother’s.
I know this, but can I change it?
Now he imagined himself reaching out with his mind and –
Abruptly two mobile phones simultaneously set up a crazy buzzing cacophony further down the carriage. The policeman stopped. He frowned at his notepad. It’s gone blank.
The policeman shook it.
Not technically minded, then, thought Mark, for there are no moving parts to it. Even the keys are touch-sensitive.
Janette appeared behind the back of the policeman. She rolled her eyes to express her appreciation of the irony of the situation. Mark got up and moved along the aisle to join her. As he moved past the policeman he said “Excuse me,” but the policeman was too busy pushing keys to even pay any attention. He joined his mother further up the carriage, at a table for four. No one paid them any attention.
“He’s already checked up this way, so I should be all right for now,” said Janette. “Anyway, I haven’t had my picture taken for over ten years, at least not one that would appear on any database, but the Soros wouldn’t know that. So whatever resemblance of me he has on his notepad is not likely to be very close.”
“He doesn’t have anything on his notepad any more. I think I’ve wiped it clean.”
“How?”
“I think magnetism.”
“But that’s fantastic. You’ll be bending spoons next!”
“Why would I want to bend spoons?”
“A guy called Uri – oh never mind. So how did you do it?”
“Like this.” Mark held out the wrist that carried his quartz watch. “There’s a little electric current in this, and the display is something to do with magnetism, I think, so…”
The display went blank. Then it flashed alternately black and grey. Then the word “HI” appeared, followed by “SEE?”
“The face is magnetised. The current reverses the magnetism in certain places and that’s what causes the numbers to appear. It seems I can play with that. It’s like passing a magnet over the face of it.”
“Then you’d better stay away from my CD collection.”
“CDs, computer disks, tapes, anything that depends on magnetism.”
“This could be very useful.”
“I had the same thought, mum.”
They paused, looking out the window at the passing hillside.
“I just haven’t figured out how!”
Janette said, “I’ve just remembered – I don’t have a CD collection any more.”
Mark, in a very adult gesture, reached over and took her hand. “So what’s this with spoon-bending?” he asked.
At that moment Mark’s headrest exploded in a shower of cloth and foamy fragments.

**********

The word had come through: Now! Before the train reaches the horseshoe curve. Kill the boy now! He almost swerved into the grass at the side of the road. The horseshoe curve was just a couple of klicks from Bridge of Orchy, a huge feat of Victorian railway engineering that followed a contour along the slopes of two hills, joined by a long, curving bridge that spanned a wide grassy valley.
Logan’s heart leapt. He almost felt sick. This was really it! He fumbled the keys on his G5, but succeeded in connecting to Cameron.
“Go!” said Logan. “Do it now! Then make your way to the road and I’ll pick you up.”
“You’re on.”
Cameron replaced his hand set and turned from the door window where he had stationed himself. He had been keeping an eye both on his targets and on the Jeep trailing the train, which was visible from time to time through the trees that lined the track. He stepped into the carriage and took out his gun. The boy was right there, twenty feet away. Right there, a sitting duck! This would be a piece of cake.
He raised the weapon and it did not shake. His finger squeezed the trigger, gently, as he had practised it, and he felt the soft kick in his hand.
But, inexplicably, the boy had moved his head. He leaned forward, saying something to his mother. The back of the seat disintegrated, just completely blew apart, its stuffing flying through the air. The pistol was virtually silent; the only noise had come from the impact of the bullet. The boy’s mother was on her feet screaming “Look out!”
Instinctively the other passengers in the carriage ducked, although they had no real idea what was going on. All except the boy. He got to his feet and turned.
Cameron felt the next cartridge click into place as he walked forward. A snarl of fury contorted his face. Then he was grabbed from behind and a strong grip forced his arm upwards. The bullet shot through the roof leaving a gaping hole through which he saw sky. The boy and his mother were out of their seats now, running down the aisle, running away. It was a policeman who had Cameron’s arm and would not let go. But the confined space was awkward and Cameron stamped down hard on the policeman’s foot. He pushed the man back and a hand came free. He managed to strike the policeman’s nose, then head-butted him. Now the gun hand was free. Hardly thinking at all, he fired a bullet into the man’s chest and saw a lot of blood come out from behind before the man collapsed against the luggage storage compartment.
Cameron turned in pursuit of the boy and his mother, oblivious to the screams of the others.

**********

The external carriage doors were locked and could not be opened from the inside without a special key. Mark stepped up and placed a hand over the “open/lock” control panel. He imagined the layout of the controls. With a swift rush of air from outside the door slid open.
“We have to jump,” said Mark.
“I can’t jump from a moving train!”
“It’s that or be shot.”
Janette swore and peered out of the opening at the track ahead. “There’s some kind of bridge coming up. “
“Before the bridge, then. We don’t want to go plunging over bridges. On three?”
They both heard the internal sliding door hiss open behind them, and knew it was the killer. Both felt a jolt of fear that made them damn the consequences. “Three!” Janette shouted and pushed Mark out of the train, flinging herself out immediately afterwards. There was a sickening flight through the air, a terrifying glimpse of a wire fence coming up to meet her, then she had cleared it and with a bone-jarring thump smacked hard into the grassy slope of Ben Dorain. The train rolled on towards the bridge. She swore again.
A face appeared at the open doorway. Then she saw the gun. But by now a considerable distance had opened up between them. Nevertheless she screamed and shielded her head as bullets whacked into the ground to her right and ricocheted off the boulder she rolled behind for cover.
There followed a calm of a few seconds. Mark managed to get up and approach Janette. He was not hurt but the jolt of hitting the ground seemed to have shaken up his internal organs. He felt very ill, and wanted nothing more than to lie still for a while. Janette hugged him.
The train rolled on, rhythmically clanking over the spaces between the rails. Then the sound changed as it moved on to the bridge. At that moment, a figure came through the open door. It was the killer. But his judgement had mis-timed.
Cameron had delayed those precious seconds in order to tell Logan what had happened. Those few seconds were important. His carriage was now on the bridge. He had to try to jump just right so that he landed on this side of the fence, otherwise he would go flying over the side of the bridge. And now it was a long way down.
Gun in hand he flung himself out of the door. But he was moving too fast and his angle was wrong. If only he could have practised this, he thought, as saw himself fall towards the metal fence. If only he had not been so damned tired from his uncomfortable night’s sleep he would not have misjudged. But it was too late now – it was all too late, now. He hit it at thirty miles an hour and it knocked the wind right out of him, breaking his ribs. His body kept on going. He was going over the edge. Frantically he scrabbled to grab a hold of the top rail, but his pain, and the confusion swirling in his reeling mind, and the clumsy gun in his hand made a good grip impossible. He cartwheeled over the rail and fell twenty metres to the valley slope.
Mark saw it happen. Janette too. He vomited his breakfast on the ground. The train curved away from them now, but wild curious faces were appearing at the windows. Finally someone had the presence of mind to pull the emergency cord, but it would be a minute at least before it could come to a halt.
Trees had obscured Logan’s view, and the train’s open door through which they had jumped had been on the side he could not see anyway. But Cameron’s last call had alarmed Logan. When he finally found a space to park and to use his binoculars, the train was stopping at the far end of the horseshoe curve. Tracing the line of the track back, however, he could make out two figures trying to descend into the valley. So they had jumped from the train and were on the run. Well, they would not escape. He picked up his G5 and began to summon his men. And this time there would be no mistakes. He would tighten his net and have them both.


15 Conference Room 4

In conference room four in the United States Defence Control Command there were tense faces. Major Jack Bruce was there, and Sam Webster. The meeting was chaired by General Herbert Locke.
General Locke began. “I’m sorry to call you two out of your beds at this goddam time in the morning, but it’s ten thirty British time and people have been up and doing for some time over there.”
Locke was a grim faced man at the best of times, a veteran of many conflicts. He was overall Commander–in-Chief of the Cheyenne facility and Bruce reported directly to him. Locke was now even more grim faced than usual as he held up Bruce’s report on the recent satellite “behavioural anomalies”. “Give this to me in words of one syllable that a backwoods bumpkin like myself can understand, Major.”
Bruce smiled faintly. Locke liked to assume the backwoods bumpkin persona, but Bruce knew damn well that Locke had graduated top of his class at West Point, had lectured at several military academies in the States and abroad, and possessed two (non-honorary) degrees, one in physics, the other in languages. No, this was no racoon-hatted yokel.
“And – “ Locke continued, “ – we’re linking up with Stirling. They need to hear this. General Miller, good morning.”
The viewscreen came on right on cue. “Morning, Herb. Good to see you again. I’m routing this to some others as well, if you don’t mind. Lucas here is an experienced analyst, as well as my aide, and I thought it essential to keep the General Officer Commanding Scotland in the loop. You know Andrew Talbot, of course.”
“Of course – how are you Andrew?” The screen divided into different sections so that the faces of all concerned could be seen.
“Now, what’s this about, Herb?” asked Miller.
“I’m going to turn this over to Major Jack Bruce, Aaron. He’s produced a report on the recent Nordik IV business. I think you ought to hear it from him. Major? The floor is yours.”
“Gentlemen,” Bruce began, in his apparently confident unflappable style – but in fact he was more than a little apprehensive about reporting to this assembly of big names and ranks. “Three times in the last fifteen days, our control of the Nordik IV satellite has been compromised. The first time its attitude was altered a fraction of a degree so that, if the weapon were to fire, it would strike several miles to the west of the original target.”
“In other words,” said Locke, “it was no longer targeted on the Soros ship.”
“That’s right sir. We ran systems checks, and everything came up five by five. There was no signal received by the satellite that could have ousted our control and established another control. We verified that with all civilian and military radio frequency monitoring stations. No radio signal of any kind was sent to the satellite.”
“So what caused it to move?” asked Miller.
“We don’t know, sir. But the other two anomalies were, as you know, more serious, for on those occasions the weapon was actually fired. At first we thought human error, then we checked the system for glitches. Everything checked out fine, sir. It was like the satellite suddenly developed a mind of its own.”
“But we all know that cannot happen,” said Locke. “There is no way the comparatively simple systems in the satellite can become independent. It’s not a thinking machine, it does as we tell it.”
“So we began to look for another kind of interference.”
“What do you mean? Some physical presence up there?” asked Miller.
“We even checked for that, too, sir.”
“How?” asked Miller.
“We trained Hubble on the Nordik IV. The imaging was as clear as your holiday snaps, sir. There was nothing unusual. But then we scanned for radiation traces. We were doing that yesterday, sir, when the last anomaly occurred.”
“And what did you find?” asked Locke.
“Some sort of electro-magnetic beam was directed at the satellite.”
Silence fell heavily in conference room four. All were thinking the same thing – not a radio wave; an electro-magnetic beam: we do not have the technology for that.
It was General Talbot who asked the next question: “And what was the source of this beam?”
Bruce opened his hands in a gesture that echoed his words. “We don’t know, sir. We think it came roughly from the arctic region, but we can’t be sure. If it happens again, we may be able to find out more.”
Locke then phrased the question in everyone’s minds. “Could this have come from the Soros?”
“No one on earth has the technology to create such beam, yet. To my mind there can be no other explanation.”
Miller now looked uncomfortable. “Gentlemen,” he said, “yesterday I had an interview with their Number One. During that interview he suggested that terrorists were responsible for the explosions. He even produced pictures of two suspects. Their faces should be appearing on your viewscreens now.” The same images that had been seen by the policeman on the train were now transmitted across the Atlantic, as well notes on the biographical information analysts had managed to collate so far. “The police are looking for them as we speak. But from what I have heard now, there seems to be only one conclusion: the Soros have been lying to us.”
“But what the hell are they up to?” asked Locke. “It just doesn’t make any sense for the Soros to be trying to kill this… doctor and her son.”
“There may be some connection with the organisation called the ‘Human Freedom League’,” said Miller. “Our Criminal Intelligence people have been looking into them for some time; so have MI5. They are a highly organised group, and their resources are simply not known to us. They have rallies from time to time and they indulge in a lot of talk, and they’ve made various threats about ridding the planet of what they see as ‘the alien menace’, but they’ve also been implicated in some raids on high level security bases where some weapons and explosives have gone missing. And what is more, we have a report from MI5 that the League is suspected of – how shall I say this? – obtaining some weapons grade uranium from the old decommissioned Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria.”
“So these guys are more than just grumbling fanatics?” said Locke.
“As I said,” replied Miller, “they are highly organised, with unknown resources. Their leaders have skilfully eluded our efforts to identify them and they operate a clever cell network very difficult to penetrate, since so much of their communication is over the Supernet.”
“Could they have gained control of Nordik IV on those occasions?” asked Talbot.
“I don’t think that’s likely, but we cannot rule it out.”
If Locke had been grim-faced at the start of the conference he was even more so now. At last he said, “This does not look like a heart-warming situation, gentlemen. What do we propose to do now?”
It was General Talbot who defined the only courses of action open, and concluded, “If you continue to monitor the situation, gentlemen, I can promise you we will make it our top priority to trace those two people and find out why somebody – and I would emphasise we do not yet know who – appears to want them dead.”


16 Out of the frying pan…

The massive slope of Ben Dorain reared up dauntingly steep on their left as Janette and Mark made what speed they could down to the body of the man who had tried to kill them a few moments before. The slope was covered in awkward tussocks that made going difficult but after a couple of minutes they had descended to where the body lay. There was no doubt he was dead.
Mark turned away, feeling sick again.
Janette calmly knelt beside the body and examined briefly. “Broken neck,” she muttered. She felt inside the man’s jacket for some identification. “No identification,” she said. “But this is birdwatcher-man. I saw him board the train back at the station.”
Mark forced himself to look at the man’s face. His first sight of a dead human being. He could not help but feel a profound sense of waste and the pity of it all. It does not have to be this way. He turned away.
“A phone… oh, it’s broken. Dark glasses,” said Janette. “A member of the Human Freedom League, perhaps. Why would that lot be after us?”
“The train’s stopped,” said Mark. “People will be coming. There might be more like him.”
“Oh, God! What the hell do we do now?”
Mark moved back up the slope a little way and bent down, picking something up. When he turned round Janette saw her son was holding the odd-looking gun. “We run away,” he said. “And we might as well take this with us.” He pointed up the small glen that angled north-east away from the bridge and the road. There was a clearly defined Landrover track. “That way.”
Janette sighed. She looked at her shoes, her skirt, her thin clothing. “Shit,” she said. “Our bags are still on the train. My phone! My purse!”
“Come on, mum,” said Mark, heading down the slope.
Muttering curses to fend off despair she followed her son.
A fairly wide river had to be crossed before they reached the track, and although it was shallow and fordable, their feet got wet. Progress was slow, for they were not equipped for this and Janette’s shoes offered very little protection from sharp stones or support for ankles. But they managed to keep going at a jog-trot pace for a kilometre or so and then they were out of sight of the people from the train who by now had ventured out on to the track.
The sides of the glen loomed to the right and left of them as they ventured further along the track. Sheep viewed their passage with a range of reactions from panic to indifferent detachment. After twenty minutes the track crossed the river by a small plantation of sitka spruce and Janette called a halt.
“Need water,” she said, and cupped her hands to drink from the river. “Not as fit as once was.” She slurped the water noisily.
“Is that safe?” asked Mark.
“Don’t care,” replied Janette. “We don’t have any choice.”
Mark drank too.
“You know, Marky, your dad used to do all this sort of thing – walking, trekking. I made a few trips with him but was never really what you might call an enthusiast. I picked up a few things, though. The first one was that people die in the wild, especially if they don’t have the right gear. Clothes get wet, body heat is lost and next thing you know you’re in big trouble. And the second thing was how easy it is to get lost. Something strange happens to people who are not too used to being out in the open. They get ‘bewildered’. It’s what the word ‘bewildered’ actually means – confused by the wild. Open space confuses the inexperienced. I’m confused now. I don’t know how far we’ve come, I don’t know where this valley leads, I’m frightened, and soon we’ll both be hungry…”
Mark put a comforting arm around Janette as she sank down to sit on a boulder. “It’s all right, mum.”
Janette could not stop the tears. Quietly at first she began to cry, and then huge sobs convulsed her. The events and emotions of the last twenty-four hours were finally taking their toll. She gave in to despair.

**********

Logan rendezvoused with two of his men at the garage in Tyndrum and from there drove them to the wide track that led down to Auch farm, just a kilometre from the horseshoe curve. From this position he could see the train, still unmoving on the track above Auch Glen. They stood by the bonnet of Logan’s Jeep, studying an Ordnance Survey map of the area.
“We’re here,” Logan’s finger jabbed the area indicating the farm, “the train’s there on that curve, see?”
The two men, Henderson and Johns, looked from map to landscape and back to map. They saw.
“The woman and the boy jumped from the train here – “ another jab of the finger, “- and Cameron went with them. I think Cameron’s injured or dead. I want you to find Cameron. If he’s injured, one of you get him out of there, if he’s dead get any identification and get his gun. We don’t want the police finding our weapons.”
“Understood, Logan,” replied Henderson, the taller of the two men.
“However it goes with Cameron, I also want at least one of you to go up this valley here – Auch Glen. I think they’re on the run now, and they’ve headed up that way. There’s no place else for them to go unless the head up the hillsides and I don’t think they’ll try that, the slopes are too steep. Now, this track leads round to Loch Lyon. From there they can make their way to Killin. It’ll take them a day, but they might make it. I don’t want them to make it. They’ve got a half hour start. You should be able to catch them no problem. The orders now are to find them and kill them – simple as that. They’re an important link in the plans for alien invasion and they’ve got to be eliminated. Understood?”
Both men nodded eagerly. This was what they had joined the League for in the first place.
“Right – get to it. I’ll drive round to the other side of Loch Lyon and pick you up from there. That’s your exit point. Don’t come back this way for this place’ll be teeming with police shortly, I’m pretty sure. Here, take the map. Get going.”
He watched as his men picked up their small, light rucksacks. These guys knew the area; they would not let him down; they would not let the League down.

**********

At 11.30, in the Criminal Intelligence Service Headquarters based in the quiet countryside outside Erskine on the south-west fringes of Glasgow, in the office of one of the three Directors of the CIS, the interface on Chief Inspector Chris Roberts’ desk began to display information that aroused his interest. One section of the split screen was constantly updated with data from sources all over the UK. Reports originating from the Central Scotland section had been centring on apparently gas-main-related explosions and one of Roberts’ briefs was the investigation of terrorist activity. Two people, a mother and her son, were being sought in connection with the incidents. More data from the same source was streaming in.
Roberts was more than usually tired this morning, evidenced by the dark half-circles under his eyes. Little Sally, his six-month-old baby daughter, had been up half the night with a sickness bug. His wife Jacqueline’s stamina had lasted until three this morning, at which point Roberts had taken over. Fortunately the baby’s temperature had subsided and visit to the hospital, at the back of his mind as an option, was rendered unnecessary. But a night like that was enough to take the edge off performance at his kind of work. He half wondered if the sickness bug hadn’t been transferred to him, he felt so lousy. But now, as Roberts looked at his terminal viewscreen and read the latest reports, thoughts of fatigue and illness began to recede.
However, apart from two mysterious explosions, the interface screen now revealed that a policeman had been murdered on a train from Fort William on the West Highland Line. The killer – not yet identified - had jumped from the train and been killed himself. It appeared that the killer had been chasing the same two people whose names and faces had cropped up in the explosion reports: Doctor Janette Daniels and her son, Mark.
Chris Roberts never forgot a name. And when metaphorical alarm bells began to sound in his mind it only took him a moment’s thought to recapture the circumstances of his first acquaintance with the name of Janette Daniels.
Roberts had once arrested her husband on suspicion of terrorist involvement. At the time, after investigation, it had turned out that the husband, John, had been no more than a bit of a cranky fool involved in student hot-headedness. Charges had been dropped, eventually. Roberts recalled hearing that a missing person report had been filed for him shortly after that and he finally turned up claiming some alien abduction nonsense.
Strange, though, that the name should crop up again now.
As one of the Directors of the Criminal Intelligence Section, Roberts could mobilise considerable resources. He lost no time in doing so now. Within fifteen minutes a helicopter was ready and waiting for him on the large flat roof of the Headquarters building.
Before boarding, he placed a high-security call to General Aaron Miller, the Museum Military Commanding Officer at Stirling, who seemed to be in flap about this Daniels family’s activities. After a brief conversation, beneficial to both parties, Roberts was seated in the helicopter climbing high over Renfrewshire and turning in a wide sweep to head north over the low Kilpatrick Hills as rapidly as possible.


16 Closing In…

Logan is putting the pedal to the metal. He is hammering back down the road to Tyndrum before he races towards Killin. Other members of the League continue to stand by or are on their way to Loch Lyon already. He has been busy with the G5, mounted now on the dashboard.
Its viewscreen lights up as he takes a sharp bend a little too quickly. But the four-wheel drive holds the road and he relents a little. He recognises the site instantly. It is the Chairman. He listens as the voice tells him of his new instructions. These sound difficult to accomplish, he thinks, but the Chairman has read his thought, it seems, for everything necessary is at hand…

**********

Ten minutes have now elapsed since the two members of the League, Henderson and Johns, set off in pursuit of their targets. They are dressed for the occasion, wearing lightweight trousers and synthetic t-shirts. Their small rucksacks bob without trouble on their backs and the tough trainers on their feet are ideal for this kind of rough track-jogging.
They do no speak much. They have little to say. They had not met until today. The only things that unite them are an unthinking hatred of all things alien, and a complete willingness to do whatever the Chairman, or his representative, tells them.
Train passengers peer through the windows and point at the two running figures as they move towards the bridge of the horseshoe curve. Some speculate that they might be policemen. They are seen to check the other’s lifeless body before moving on, obviously in pursuit of the other two.
There is no ID on Cameron, as Janette had already discovered, but they are concerned that they cannot find the gun. They spend some minutes scouring the sloping, tussocky ground for it, but without success. They reach the same conclusion, that it has been picked up by their targets, and resume their jogging pursuit. They notice the broken mobile phone but fail to pay it any more than a cursory glance. Once out of sight of the gawping passengers they take out their own guns. It is as well to be prepared. It is no good jogging into an ambush.

**********

Janette tripped on another of the infernal tussocks and went sprawling in the damp grass. Anger etched a terrible scowl on her smeared face. The track had come to an abrupt stop a few minutes ago, and they were carrying on over pathless grass. About four hundred metres in front lay the narrow expanse of Loch Lyon, but they could only see a confined section of it for the moment, as they descended by uneven ground from the watershed.
“Up you get, mum,” said Mark, jogging back to help her. “Never say die.”
“I’ll tell you what you can do with your clichés, young man,” replied Janette, getting up and feebly going through the motions of dusting herself down.
“I shouldn’t bother doing that, mum, you’re just spreading the dirt around more evenly,” remarked Mark.
“Shut up shut up shut up! How far do you think we’ve come?” asked Janette.
“About a couple of miles. Maybe three from that wood.”
“Any feelings? Any insights? Any bloody ideas where we’re going?”
“Away from here, mum, if you don’t mind.”
“What is it?”
“I’m pretty sure we’re being followed. Let’s head for the loch and see what happens.”
“Oh God!” muttered Janette as they set off again. “This skirt, these blasted shoes, these goddamned mountains…”

**********

The Jeep skidded to a halt in the little farmyard some kilometres south of the small attractive town of Killin. The farm’s owner had been waiting for him. Logan got out of the Jeep as the burly man approached.
“I’m McGregor,” he said and held out a thick hand for Logan to shake. It engulfed Logan’s. “You’ll be Logan, I take it.” McGregor, a large-faced, loose-limbed man looked like he’d spent most of his forty-odd years out of doors. He regarded the younger newcomer warily as he released the hand-shake.
“That’s right,” replied Logan, returning the appraising look.
“Good. I’ve received the instructions and everything’s taken care of. Well, follow me, then.”
Logan followed the man round the farm buildings to a large open field. In the field sat a helicopter.
“I bought it a couple of years ago. It was the Chairman’s idea. Yes, the Chairman himself! It’s come in pretty handy, too. I hire it out to the tourists at this time of year for trips round Ben Lawers and round and about, you know. And in the winter it comes in handy for the Mountain Rescue from time to time.” As they moved in its direction, McGregor surveyed the chopper with obvious pride. “Aye, he must be a shrewd one, the Chairman, eh?”
“Yes,” replied Logan. The curtness of his tone, and the slightly prolonged eye-contact before turning coolly away was a clear signal to McGregor that here was his superior in the League, and loose chat about the nature of the Chairman would not be taking place.
“Right then,” said McGregor after a momentary hesitation, “let’s get you kitted up and belted in and off we go, eh? The stuff the Chairman asked for is already stashed in the back seat.”
Logan noticed the small red first aid kit, with “Mountain Leader” emblazoned on it. “The stuff’s in there?” he asked and McGregor nodded.
A few minutes later the rotor blades were in furious motion and the Logan saw the ground fall away rapidly beneath him.

**********

A few hundred metres from the sprawling buildings of Auch farm, Roberts ‘ CIS helicopter was powering down in a stretch of flatter land below the track as he boarded the motionless train. Impatient mutters of “At last!” and “Maybe they’ll finally get us on our way,” reached his ears as he sought out the officer in charge of the crime scene. He was shown into the carriage where the shooting had taken place. Striped tape cordoned the carriage off. A uniformed policeman was sitting at one of the tables for four, making notes in a small, old-fashioned notebook. Above him, Roberts noticed a hole had been torn in the roof, the jagged edges punched outwards. At the far end of the carriage, a cloth shapelessly covered the body of the murdered officer.
The policeman, aware of Roberts’ presence, stood up. He looked glad and relieved to see someone of superior rank. He introduced himself as Sergeant Tod Campbell.
“Roberts, CIS,” said Roberts, sitting opposite Campbell and offering his ID for checking.
Campbell waved it away. “I knew you were coming, and you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to guess the helicopter with CIS on the side hardly ushers in Coco the Clown.”
The words could have sounded sarcastic but Campbell’s face indicated otherwise. The Sergeant was nervous.
“What have you got so far, Sergeant?” asked Roberts.
Campbell took him through what witnesses had described and what the visual evidence reinforced. “The killer came in that door. He fired one shot at the couple – the boy and his mother – who were sitting here” (he indicated the seat with the destroyed headrest) “but he was then grabbed from behind by McPherson. He’s the dead man. There was a struggle, the killer got another shot off - the one through the roof – and then managed to round on McPherson and shot him at point blank range in the chest. The bullet fragments exited the body and are embedded – some of them - in the plastic doorframe. It’s made some mess of the poor guy.”
“Did you know him?”
“Yes. I did, slightly. Anyway, I’ve left them there for the forensic team. They should be here within the hour. They’re coming from Glasgow too, but they’re not so quick off the mark as you, sir.”
“No. Any shell casings?” asked Roberts.
“I have them here in the plastic bag. And I’ve marked on the floor where I found them.” Campbell passed the bag over. “I can’t say I recognise them.”
Roberts squinted at them but did not take them out of the bag. “No. Home-made, perhaps? “ Roberts pondered this for a moment. “Witnesses?” he asked at last.
“We’ve started taking preliminary statements. Good witnesses. Very… articulate. Do you want to see any of them?”
“No. Just give me the gist. What happened to the killer after he shot McPherson?”
“The boy and his mother fled through this way. They jumped from the train.”
“Did they now! And lived to tell the tale?”
“We presume so. The witnesses said they saw them running off up Auch glen. The killer wasn’t so lucky. He hit the railing when he jumped and landed twenty metres or so below the bridge. The impact of the rail or the fall broke his neck. He’s still there, if you want to see him.”
“I’ll maybe have a look later. No ID?”
“No. And no gun. Just a broken mobile phone.”
“That phone could tell us a lot. Its chip will give us every call the phone’s ever made or received. Make sure the lab guys get on to that right away when they get here. What happened to the gun?”
“My guess would be the woman took it.”
“Hmmm.” Roberts was silent for a long while. “What else?”
“Shortly afterwards, witnesses reported two policemen running up the glen, apparently in pursuit of the mother and the boy. There’s just one thing.”
“They weren’t policemen,” said Roberts.
Campbell nodded. “I’ve sent a couple of our boys along the track in a Landrover, but it took a while to get started. We had to get gate keys from the farmer and he was out on the hill. But they set off up the glen just before you arrived.”
“You’ve covered all the bases, Sergeant, it seems.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“They got on the train at Bridge of Orchy?” asked Roberts.
“They did.”
“Have one of your men check the registrations of all the cars in the hotel car park, the station, all the cars he can find there, in fact. It’s just a small place. Have him check the hotel, too. Not just the register, ask the staff if they saw a mother and her boy. If they paid in cash they could have given a fake name. They spent last night somewhere. Let’s start ruling out the possibilities.”
“I’ll call that in just now,” said Campbell and began to speak into his police radio Mark at his collar.
Roberts surveyed the carriage. He knew from reports that Janette Daniels and her son had left Touch and travelled to Crieff yesterday. They fled Crieff after the second explosion at the guest house. They ended up on this train. If they spent the night at the hotel… They would have had some hand luggage. Where was their luggage?
“Sergeant – can you organise for the passengers to take their luggage off the train? Have it searched outside. You never know – there may be more than one killer on the train. And any luggage that is left over…”
“I see what you mean, sir. Whatever’s left belongs to the woman and her boy and whoever was trying to kill them.”
It was the work of a few minutes to organise the removal of the luggage. Roberts did not really think anything of real interest would turn up in the search – his chief concern was with what was left over, and sure enough, two small tartan overnight bags were unclaimed. He took them to the carriage table and started to examine its contents.
Most of the items still had wrappers with price bar codes attached: underwear, socks, pairs of jeans, thin jumpers, toothbrushes and toothpaste hardly used, a face cloth still damp. Roberts studied Janette’s wallet. He remembered too, what her husband had looked like. Quite like the boy. But that had been a long time ago. He recalled it was back in 2002 or 2003 – he had been a much younger Chris Roberts in those days, not long out of training college at Tullyallan. More details of the case came back to him. Daniels had been on the fringes of some bizarre plot to blow up the Scottish Parliament building. A latter-day Guy Fawkes? Roberts smiled at the memory of it. “The Tartan Liberation Army”… something like that – a stupid, student, amateurish outfit. But, they might have done the Scottish taxpayer a favour, after all…
He found some sheets of paper rolled up and apparently hastily stuffed in a side pocket. A graphic of the front of the Bridge of Orchy hotel decorated the top left corner of each sheet. Small, neat handwriting covered three of the sheets and the last one had a map drawn on it.
Roberts began to read.

**********

Another couple of kilometres had been covered but the situation was looking worse by the minute. Mark, having vomited his breakfast back at the train, was now very hungry and the morning’s exertions had only intensified that. Janette, too, constantly had to stop herself from complaining about her discomfort that was now, she felt, extreme. She had never been so uncomfortable in her life. She was wet from falls and trips, and blisters were making themselves evident on her heels and sent stabs of pain through her legs every time her feet made contact with the ground. She tried walking on different parts of her sole, but that just make movement more awkward and ultimately tiring. Progress was slow and frustrating and made worse by the insistent gloomy thought that they were going absolutely nowhere in this vast landscape that showed, to their eyes, no trace civilisation. Six kilometres to the east lay a hydro-electric dam, farms, a populated valley. But Mark and Janette could not see that. These signs of twenty-first century civilisation might as well have been on the moon. Here and now it felt like they were in the middle of an ancient trackless wilderness with no help for a hundred miles.
“We’re a couple of poor excuses,” remarked Mark.
“I know. God, I wish I’d kept up that fitness programme with Dawn Greenwood. I just feel so unfit, so inadequate.”
“You’re not the only one, mum. I just wish I could sit still and get my head straight. I’ve been all mixed up since the train. I just can’t -“
There was a sound to his right, a soft thunking sound, just a metre from his foot. It was the sound made by a bullet, they both knew. Automatically Mark looked back the way they had come.
“Oh no!”
Just cresting the rise, less than five hundred metres away, he saw a figure motionless and apparently taking aim again.
They dived for what cover was offered by the tussocky grass on the boggy banks of the narrow loch. Another bullet thudded into a thick boulder a couple of metres to the left. A large chunk of the rock fragmented off, proving how powerful these bullets were and suggesting what they might be capable of doing to a human being.
“What on earth do we do now?” hissed Janette, and Mark could not mistake the sheer terror in her voice. Her face had an unnatural pallor and her breathing was shallow and rapid as she crouched in a small furrow in the bank beside him.
“I wish I knew!”
“The gun! Do you have the other guy’s gun?”
Mark nodded and took it from his pocket. It was like no gun he had ever seen. He held it lightly in his hand, examining it, then tightened his grip determinedly on the butt. His index finger slipped almost naturally over the trigger.
“It might be our only chance, Mark!” whispered his mother.
Mark nodded again. “I’ll wait till I can get a clear shot.” He peeped over the rim of the hollow, aiming the gun out in front. The pursuing figure was clearly visible, descending cautiously in their direction, his own weapon poised and ready.
At two hundred metres Mark judged he could stand a chance. He tried to remember all he had seen in films and TV programmes about shooting techniques. Relax… take a breath…. hold it… and just squeeze the trigger gently. The gun jerked in his hand, but made little sound. Mark had been expecting a huge bang.
“What happened?” asked Janette asked.
And then was terrified out of her wits by the man’s voice behind her. “Your son got off a shot that shows he needs a few lessons. Don’t move an inch or I’ll kill you here and now!” The voice gave the impression of very a dangerous and very competent man who would do exactly what he said.
Mark felt the barrel of a pistol touch his left ear, just above his birthmark. Adrenalin pumped into his system and completely disorientated him. The flight, not fight, impulse was strong in him now, but he was utterly paralysed with fright.
“And I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.” A hand reached round and lifted the gun from Mark’s nerveless fingers. “Now, stand up, both of you.”
With an effort Mark struggled to his feet. He turned to face the man behind him. He was a tall, muscled figure, dressed in a black t-shirt and carrying a light back-pack. The figure cupped a hand to his mouth can called, “Hey! Come on! I’ve got them.” He looked at Janette who stood trembling beside her son. “Quite a chase. I’ve even broken sweat.”
Johns came up. “Good work,” he said. “You need to practise your shooting, kiddo,” he said to Mark. “You missed me by a mile.”
“Sorry,” said Mark, then realised the absurdity of his remark.
The two men laughed. Johns took out a mobile. “Come and pick us up. We’ve got them.”
Ten seconds later the noise of a helicopter could be heard approaching from the east. It came in low across the loch, the downdraught rippling the blue water, and landed on the flat of the bank fifty metres from Henderson and Johns. A slim man wearing dark glasses jumped out. Mark immediately thought Human Freedom League.
“So we have them at last,” the newcomer said. “Bring them.” He had something in his hand. Not until Mark drew much nearer did he make out what it was: a hypodermic needle. He felt his legs begin to shake uncontrollably, and the first man, Henderson, had to hold his arm to make him walk.
“What are you – “ Janette began, but Johns slapped her hard in the face and she was knocked to the ground. The man from the helicopter stepped quickly up and Mark watched in hopeless horror as he plunged the needle into his mother’s shoulder. Janette was too surprised and frightened to make any motions to prevent what was happening, and within seconds collapsed into unconsciousness. Johns and Henderson caught her easily and lifted her into the back of the helicopter.
The other man, clearly their leader, advanced upon Mark. He still had the needle in his hand.
Logan grinned at the trembling boy before him. He was following his orders to the letter and everything was now going smoothly. Nothing could stand in his way now. He held the needle up in front of the boy’s frightened face and stepped forward laughing.
Mark saw the long sharp point of the needle floating towards him. He had been aware of his mother being placed in the helicopter, he had heard the rotor blades still spinning and felt their draught, chilling him; but now all that awareness, Mark’s entire awareness of the world shrank and concentrated itself into this one image – the delicate thinness of the needle coming towards him. It filled him with black terror. The last thing he knew was pain searing through his head and the side of his neck and he collapsed to the cold ground.
Logan stopped laughing. The kid had just flopped. His eyes had rolled up, showing just the whites and all colour had drained from the boy’s face. Then, Jesus, the kid had just hit the ground.
Logan had never intended to inject anything into the boy. He wanted to scare him a little, sure, but the plan was now to take his mother and leave him here in the wilderness to fend for himself. Logan did not know why the plan had changed. And he did not understand why, when the kid had flopped like that, he had suddenly felt a little frightened. Frightened of what? He was just a kid, and Logan had come here to kill him, after all. “Fright” should not enter into the equation.
Logan looked away.
He turned on his heel and, crouching to avoid the blades, moved quickly back into the helicopter. The pilot, McGregor, lost no time in lifting off and pointing the chopper back the way it had come, keeping low down Loch Lyon, and then contouring remote hills in order to fly virtually unseen through little-frequented glens and passes over into Glen Dochart and so to approach McGregor’s farm from the west. In this way they avoided flying over the busy tourist town of Killin.


19 Roberts

Roberts finished reading Mark Daniels’ notes for the second time. His clear-thinking logic could not avoid the fact that this case had suddenly evolved into something entirely unexpected, and he had no idea where it was heading. Unless the boy was completely delusional… But Roberts suspected from the style and clear descriptions of the writing that the boy was not insane.
He used his G5 to get through to Military Command at Stirling and was patched through to General Miller.
“Miller here,” said the terse voice from the viewscreen. “You’ve got news?”
“I’m at Bridge of Orchy, on the train. Janette Daniels was here with her son. Just as we thought. It looks like the Human Freedom League are heavily into this. One of them seems to be dead on the hillside outside, and another two appear to be in pursuit of our couple. But there’s a new dimension just opened up and I’d like your opinion on it.”
“Go ahead,” said Miller.
“General – I have here a set of notes written by the Daniels boy. In them he describes…”
“Describes what?”
“He describes in detail the appearance of the Soros Number 1. He identifies it as bearing a Striped Arm to signify his command.”
“Well? Nothing unusual in that. He could have got that from any number of media reports.”
“He goes on to detail a conversation he appears to have overheard between you and the Soros. He quotes the Soros as saying to you: We are carrying out some routine surveys of this area, General Miller, as you know, and this morning, as the satellite we were using at the time passed overhead, it photographed this event.”
“What the hell!” cried Miller.
“There’s more – a lot more.” Roberts scanned the sheets of paper. “At another point he writes: If you agree, then, that it looks as if these two are fleeing the scene of the crime, it may interest you to know that our sensors detected another, much weaker tremor a little while ago, in the area of the town you call Crieff. Not a little curious about this second event, we turned our satellite eye on to that area and saw this: The boy then describes how you saw a hologram of the Daniels car.”
“My God! This is absolutely frightening. How does the boy claim to know all this?”
“From dreams.”
“From dreams?”
“From dreams.”
“Then listen, Director Roberts, we need to get hold of that boy right away. Bring him in for questioning… “
“I’m on it already. I’ll call later to keep you informed.” Roberts severed the connection. He gathered up the notes, stuffed them in his pocket, and ran for the CIS helicopter.
The pilot lost no time in getting airborne. The bulbous cabin lifted high over the railway line and headed up Glen Auch. What took hikers over an hour and a half was accomplished by the helicopter in mere minutes. They passed over the police Landrover that Campbell had despatched earlier. It was blocked at a metal gate across the track. The men were venturing on foot. Soon the chopper left them far behind.
Rounding a curve in the hillside beyond the watershed, they came to one of the heads of Loch Lyon. From their airborne position they could see far down Glen Lyon, past the dam to the little farmhouses far off in the distance. Roberts, however, was intent on the ground below them. The pilot, who had more experience than Roberts at scanning ground from the air for anomalies, suddenly pointed. Beside the shore of the loch was a level flat patch about two hundred metres square. A figure was lying on the ground, the figure of a boy.
“Put me down!” said Roberts, and the pilot nodded.
Roberts ran over to the unconscious boy and checked his vital signs. The pulse was weak and fluttery, skin pale and clammy. He was, Roberts surmised, in deep shock. To move him was risky but he had no choice. The boy could die here in the open. He signalled for the pilot to help and between them they gently carried the boy into the chopper.
“We have to get him to a hospital straight away!” Roberts shouted over the idling engines.
The pilot nodded. “Stirling’s slightly nearer, but Glasgow has landing facilities right in the hospital,” the pilot shouted above the noise as he eased open the throttle to quicken the rotors. “It’s where mountain rescue cases are usually taken.”
Roberts nodded and gave the thumbs up. He covered the boy in a warm synthetic blanket and tried to keep his legs elevated to increase circulation to the brain. Shock, he knew, can kill, by starving vital areas of the brain of blood.
“Go east, first!” shouted Roberts. “The two men and the boy’s mother can’t have just disappeared.”
“There was another chopper!” came the reply. “There was an oil leak on the grass back there, quite fresh. Nothing else could have explained it. Ain’t no vehicle tracks around here.”
Roberts thanked his stars for the pilot’s keen observation. As soon as he could he opened up his G5 to order a trace put on all helicopters working north of the Highland line. They would not escape him for long.

**********

From the shade of a barn door at McGregor’s farm, Logan watched through binoculars as the CSI helicopter flew overhead and turned to the south. Behind him, inside the barn, McGregor’s helicopter was cooling down. The farmer himself was busy emptying the fuel tank. He planned to make the engine look like it needed repair and could not have been flying that day, should any investigators come calling.
“Good,” said Logan as the other chopper finally disappeared over the ridge of southern hills, “they’re too busy to look for us just now. The boy will be their priority. The woman will be ours. McGregor, my friend, you have done wonders this day for the League. The Chairman himself will be informed of the key part you played. I suggest, however, that you try to find yourself alternative employment somewhere far from here for a while. Obviously an alibi will be supplied for you, but it would be better if you laid low. They will come looking.”
“Don’t worry about that, sir. The time is maybe ripe to visit my nephew in Dundee. In fact, as I recall, I’ve been there a week already, and we’ve just spent the whole day fishing in his boat in the River Tay. “
Henderson and Johns had carried Janette, still heavily sedated, to the back of the Jeep, and strapped her in. Henderson sat beside her to prevent her flopping about too much. Johns rode in the front.
Logan jumped into the driving seat and turned to explain the next step. “We’re going to take her to my place in Stirling. We’ll have the means there to keep her quiet for as long as it takes. It’ll take about an hour from here, so we should be there for three-thirty. As you have seen, our orders are liable to change, so we have to stay loose, and stay on our toes. I don’t know myself the full picture. What use it is to take this woman, scare the boy and abandon him to the elements, is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. But because we have the boy’s mother we can put a serious dent in the aliens’ plans. Any questions?”
There were none. Henderson and Johns had never felt so valuable in their lives.
“Right,” said Logan. He gave a brief nod of acknowledgement to McGregor and turned the key in the ignition. “Time to move.” Throwing up a backwards spray of grit, the Jeep accelerated out of McGregor’s yard to join the southbound A85.


19 Hospital

Vague, general noise. Machinery whirring. Rotor blades? No sight. Eyes closed. Too scared to open them on a frightening world gone mad. Best not to open them.
“Are you awake?”
A man’s voice, not recognised. Not hostile, but not friendly either. And in this world gone crazy you can never be sure. Say nothing. Keep eyes closed. Safer that way.
“He’s still out.”
A warm hand takes his wrist and feels his pulse for a while. Mark becomes aware of his heart-beat and he realises that something in him is close to giving up. He will pack up, fold up the table, call the game over. He sees himself casting round, searching for a stable point in a world spinning out of control. The hand on his wrist is still warm.
Noise fades, oblivion comes again, and Mark welcomes it. This is a healing darkness, and in oblivion the incredible changes that are overtaking his unconscious mind can move all the faster.

**********
The helicopter landed at the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow and Mark was transferred to a secure private room. His dirty clothes were removed and nurses dressed him in warm pyjamas and a dressing gown and wrapped up in bed in a warm quilt, for his body was chilled. A saline drip was administered, although he struggled – almost waking - against the pricking of his arm by the needle.
“The boy sure doesn’t like needles,” muttered the nurse given the task.
Roberts used this lull, this waiting time, to call home. Sally was fine now, but Jacqueline feared it was her turn for the bug now. Her tummy was feeling queasy. When would he be home?
Soon. Soon.
“Love you both.”
“Love you too, Chris.”
He suddenly felt very tired indeed. The disturbed night and the furious activity of the day were catching up with him with a vengeance. Roberts had no sooner ended the call when the phone buzzed again. Miller’s concerned face appeared on the screen.
“I’ve arranged to meet with the Soros tomorrow,” he said. “I told them that there were a few questions we’d like to put to them about recent events. How is the boy?”
“He’ll live.”
“And his mother?”
“No word yet. I’ve got a trace out on helicopters in that area. We’ll find them.”
“I’ve had an idea about that, but I’ll tell you about it later. Can you bring the boy to Stirling Command? We have every facility here.”
“I’m afraid not. He’s not yet in a state where he can be moved. Believe me, I wish I could, but the doctors are forbidding it at the moment.”
“Right. In that case, I’m coming there. One or two things to see to here, then I’ll be on my way. Should be there for five o’clock this evening. All right?”
Roberts agreed and the connection ended. Roberts pulled an easy chair over to the bedside, and leaned back into it, relaxing his shoulders and neck. Unable to prevent it, he closed his eyes and before he knew it was fast asleep.

**********

Something has changed. Some subtle shift in perception, in capability, in understanding. Drifting, still in darkness, but aware now, aware of the darkness. Now he feels a connection. Like huge floating continents coming gently together in his mind, coastlines meet and merge, links are forged and light returns.
There are the Soros.
There is his father.
And there is himself.
Mark takes in a deep, slow breath. He is aware without opening his eyes of the vague presence at his bedside sitting up anxiously and craning forward towards him. He lets his breath out slowly.
He calls up his mind’s eye and focuses sharply on it. Images reel and swirl, indistinguishable, but finally the apparently random succession slows and slows and one bizarre image takes on definite shape. He sees a blue dolphin puttering towards him on a motorbike. The dolphin has his mother’s face. Somehow this insane image tells him what he needs to know, and he knows now she is all right. He smiles and opens his eyes.

**********

Roberts had been coming out of his doze when suddenly he became aware that the boy had woken up. He came swiftly back to full alertness, stood up and pressed the bedside switch to summon a nurse. Then, unexpectedly, a little smile flickered on the boy’s face and he opened his eyes.
Roberts was taken aback by the clarity he saw there.
“You’re awake,” Roberts said, thinking as he said it was the most useless comment possible at that moment. “Welcome back, Mark.”
Mark seemed to study the policeman, but said nothing. He turned his head toward the door and an instant afterwards a nurse bustled in.
“Well it’s about time, young fellah,” she said. “You had us a wee bit worried just for a while. Och look, who’s taken your drip out? It’s all over the floor. Well, well, maybe you won’t be needing one now. I’ll get the doctor to come in a bit to check you over.” She inspected his eyes and saw how clear they were. “Nothing wrong there.” She took his pulse. “Now, that’s what I call a pulse, and no mistake.”
“I’m hungry,” said Mark.
“Och, he talks as well. What about that, now, Inspector Roberts, does that not take the biscuit? Well, I’ll see if I can arrange for some caviar and cheese to be sent up.” She winked. “Dinner’s at five thirty – you’ll have to wait.” She bustled out.
“How do you feel?” asked Roberts, perching on the bed.
“Starving. Apart from that, a little confused about some things still, but a lot has been cleared up. I’ll be needing my clothes.”
“Who took your mother, Mark? Did you get a look at them?”
“Oh yes. Four members of the Human Freedom League organisation took her. They had a helicopter. The pilot’s name was… “ Somehow, despite the fact none of the kidnappers had used names, the name came to him – “McGregor. They headed for Killin.”
“Did you hear any other names, Mark? Anything might help us find them and your mother.”
“No, I didn’t hear any names. I need clothes. And food. Then we can talk.”
“Just one more thing, then I’ll see that you get everything you need. Do you know who General Miller is?”
“Of course. I believe he’s on his way here to see me.”
Roberts frowned, paused, and left the room. Mark in his sleep must have overheard his conversation with Miller. Roberts found a constable and despatched him to the shops in the Govan shopping precinct to pick up suitable clothing for a fifteen year old boy – jeans, a t-shirt, a fleece, cheap trainers, pants and socks: nothing outrageous, nothing expensive. He relocated the nurse and persuaded her to use all her charms on the kitchen staff to send an emergency meal to Mark’s room. Then he called Miller.
Miller was en route. He travelled in a convoy of three Jaguar saloons, himself in the middle one, with his aide, Captain Lucas. They were currently speeding on the M80 past Cumbernauld. “I’m on my way there now,” said Miller. “Be there in about thirty minutes, traffic permitting.”
Roberts returned to sit with Mark. Despite the policeman’s efforts Mark would answer no questions yet. He seemed, despite his trauma, to be a very self-assured young man. It took another thirty minutes for the food and clothing to appear. By then Mark had been examined by a doctor and pronounced fit enough to get up. Mark did so, got dressed and started wolfing down the roast beef and boiled potatoes the nurse had succeeded in procuring for him.
“Now,” began Roberts, “if you don’t mind me talking while you eat…”
Mark held up a fork. His jaw continued to chew. “There is one more thing.”
“Just one more? Are you sure?”
Mark shrugged and continued eating.
“All right. What is it?” asked Roberts.
“My girlfriend. Her name is Carrie Jenkins. What time is it?”
“Nearly five thirty. Why?”
“We may be too late. Listen carefully. The League are going to try to kidnap her too, to get another hold over me. She lives at 35 Wallace Way, in Touch. You’ve got to try to get someone to her.”
“But wait a minute. If you overheard the guys at the helicopter discussing these plans, as you obviously did, why didn’t you mention them before? Why leave it until now? Why eat first?”
Mark looked steadily at Roberts. “I’m not just leaving it until now. I just learned of it myself.” He finished his food and pushed the plate aside. “Why are you looking at me like that? You read my notes from the hotel, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but – “
“Then you must understand that something very odd is happening to me. I’m not sure entirely what yet, but it’s starting to make sense, to me at least. You’ve figured out I’m not a criminal – “
“Let’s not leap to conclusions,” interrupted Roberts. “I should tell you something Mark. You and your mother are still suspects for the explosions in Touch and Crieff. And there is a terrorist connection in your family.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before you were born, when I was still a rookie, I was involved in the arrest of your father. He was involved with a group who wanted to blow up the Scottish Parliament building.”
Mark studied Roberts’ face for a moment, then his eyes took on a far away look. “I heard about that. My mother told me.” Then Mark’s eyes focused sharply on Roberts and seemed to bore right into him, looking for something. “You let him go. Nothing was proved.”
“That’s true,” agreed Roberts, just a little surprised that Mark should know that. It had all happened, after all, before he was even thought of. “Nevertheless, a connection is a connection.”
“We’re wasting time,” said Mark. “Are you going to send someone to Carrie’s place or not?”
The confidence the boy was showing in his look and tone of voice was beginning to seem remarkable. Roberts sighed. “I will if you tell me how it is you know what the League’s intentions are. In fact, you’ll have to start talking big-time – “
“I know: General Miller’s on the way. Do this for me and I’ll tell you everything.”
Roberts nodded and picked up his mobile. After a moment he said, “There’s only a small police station in Touch. It’s only manned part-time. I’ll have to go through Stirling. This’ll take a minute.”
He was connected to someone in authority and the arrangements were made. A patrol car would call by the Jenkins’ house as soon as possible, and the Detective Inspector would call ahead to alert the family. The time was five thirty-five. Roberts turned his attention back to Mark and raised his eyebrows in expectation.
Mark leaned forward and put his hands flat on the small table he had been dining from.
At that moment, voices and footsteps could be heard in the corridor. The footsteps, heavy leather on a linoleum floor, approached the door and stopped.
Captain Lucas opened the door for his boss and General Aaron Miller entered the room. Lucas closed the door behind Miller. He positioned himself by the door, and another two soldiers stood on guard outside in the corridor.
Miller looked exactly as Mark had seen him in his dream at the hotel. This confirmation of the truth of his visions was still enough to startle Mark, but it also gave him renewed confidence about his interpretation of what he was going through.
“I’m Aaron Miller, Mark,” said the General in a kindly tone, coming forward with an open hand that Mark shook. “ I’ve heard a lot about you, Mark, and I think we’ve got a lot to talk about. May I sit down?”
And so Mark met one of the few men in the world who knew as much as he did about the Soros.

20 Carrie

The sky began to cloud over a little as late afternoon eased into early evening. Carrie sat despondently cross-legged on the single bed in her room, her mobile phone obstinately uncommunicative in her lap. “Give me a ring, that’s all!” she muttered at it for the tenth time that day. “Where are you?”
She flopped back, legs still crossed, on her bed and linked her fingers behind her head. She could hear her parents arguing with raised voices downstairs in the kitchen.
“I’ve told you before, you cook Greek food and I won’t eat it! I can’t stand all that foreign fancy muck!” Her mother (Bitter) was in fine conservative mode.
“Well for God’s sake, Ann, just try it!” her father (Gin) replied in exasperation. “Your taste buds are stuck in a goddam rut. Give them an adventure, for Christ’s sake!”
“I’ve told you I don’t know how many times! Why do you keep doing this? What do you gain by it?”
“Look, why don’t you just have a nice little martini and chill…”
Carrie suspected her father dreamed up his culinary experiments – which usually backfired in some awesomely catastrophic fashion – specifically to irritate Bitter. If so, that aspect of his plan usually achieved outstanding success.
She flung herself off the bed and paced impatiently in front of what she called her “wall of shelves”. Carrie’s vast collection of old CDs and books were housed there, and one shelf even held some very old and fuzzy-sounding cassette tapes. The reading material showed eclectic tastes: Tolkien, Potter, Milne among the older items; some histories of music; Campbell’s latest techno-thriller, some Harris travelogues and the complete collection of Warrender. The book she had been trying to read fell to the floor – an old one: Orwell’s 1984 , recently serialised on ITV9 –but she hardly noticed it.
The quarrel entered a new phase:
“I never had all these things when I was a boy, you know (“Yes, you keep reminding us!”) - I grew up in the miner’s strike with next to nothing (“Yes, Martin, you’ve told us.”) – so if I want to give my family the kind of things I never had as a boy, can you blame me for that? (“Sob wail, boo-hoo”) Oh, you’re insufferable, you… you… insufferable cow! Now I know who Carrie gets it from!”
The hall phone downstairs buzzed its little Rolling Stones tune. Carrie’s parents were great fans of the Stones. Here comes my nineteenth nervous breakdown…
Her father answered it. Carrie had sharp hearing, but she leapt from the bed and opened her door wide for more effective eavesdropping.
“Speaking… Yes. What? Say that again? Well I… Yes, I can hardly believe it! You mean… But my daughter… she’s only… Yes. Yes. Yes. I – we’ll do that, certainly. Bye.” He replaced the receiver on its charger. Carrie heard his footsteps recede on the parquet flooring. He went into the kitchen where Carrie’s mother (Bitter) was, she guessed, slicing a lemon for her third aperitif.
There was some subdued conversation, then Gin called upstairs. “Carrie, come here, will you!”
Her parents waited for her in the lounge. Gin was standing, her mother sitting on the sofa, her face a story of grave concern. Her father looked nervous and – the perception flashed into Carrie’s mind – afraid. She had never considered her parents ever fell prey to emotions like fear. Such a concept was alien to their comfortable life.
“I’ll come straight to the point,” began her father.
Carrie sat on the sofa beside her mother, who took her hand protectively. Carrie could not recall such parental concern before. “What’s going on, dad?”
“It’s about that boy, Mark – “
Instantly terror crossed Carrie’s face. She tried to repeat the name, but her mouth dried up and she found she could not speak.
“No – don’t be alarmed. I’ve not heard that he’s dead or even hurt. But he is in a lot of trouble. That was the police on the phone. He’s ‘helping the police with their enquiries’, the officer said but he seems to be all right, from what I gathered. Some bad people are after Mark, it seems, for some reason. Now, darling, don’t be upset.”
Her father sat beside her, and both parents placed shielding arms round their daughter’s shoulders and squeezed lovingly and reassuringly, but such gestures, Carrie could not help feeling, were long unfamiliar to them.
“The policeman on the phone said that they were concerned that the people trying to harm Mark might come after… you. Now, listen. It’s going to be all right, Carrie. They’re sending someone round as a kind of guard as soon as possible. We’re just to sit tight. Someone will come to make sure we’re all right. We will be protected. Do you understand?”
As Carrie nodded the doorbell sounded, a plain bell-ring.
“Ann, that might be the police now. You stay with Carrie,” said her father.
Ann nodded and hugged her daughter more tightly. “Be careful, Martin. Check out the window first.”
Martin looked out of the lounge window into the street. Some children were playing on skate-boards; the More family opposite were setting up a barbecue; and a Jeep with a flashing blue light was parked in the street by the driveway. Martin glanced to the side and saw a tall, fit-looking figure waiting patiently by the front porch. He had some kind of small wallet in his left hand – obviously an identity card – and when he saw Mr Jenkins at the lounge window he held the wallet up. Martin judged it safe enough to open the door but he kept it chained.
“I’m a plain clothes officer, Mr Jenkins. “ The man passed his identification through the gap in the door. “Please check my ID. I quite understand your concern. If you want to check further you can call the number on the badge and DI Logan will confirm my physical description.”
But Martin was reassured, and declined to call to check further. He did not, after all, want to seem like a paranoid fool. “That’s all right. Come in.”
Martin brought the policeman into the lounge. “Ann – this is Detective Sergeant Cooper.”
“Please – call me Al,” said the policeman with a warm smile.
“This is my wife, Ann, and my daughter, Carrie.”
The policeman’s eyes rested on Carrie for a moment. “Pleased to meet you all, and I only wish it could have been in different circumstances. Well, if you’re ready, we’ll be off.”
Martin frowned. “What do you mean?”
The officer looked puzzled. “You mean they didn’t make it clear? Oh, I’m sorry. You were supposed to be told to come into protective custody. I’m to take you to Stirling HQ where you’ll be totally safe. Your safety is our prime concern, obviously.”
“Yes, I accept that,” said Martin, “but – “
“Oh don’t argue, Martin,” chided his wife. “The police will know best. Will we need to get some things together?”
The policeman nodded. “Yes – just a few overnight things.”
“I’ll see to it,” said Carrie’s mother. “Martin – will you switch off the cooker? Just throw that stuff in the bin… or fridge… for later. Carrie, come and get your things. Come on.”
“Yes, mum.”
Carrie did not trust this policeman. There was just something about him… She wondered if Mark’s hunches felt anything like this – a sensation of something just not being right accompanied by rising unease. She filled a little samsonite bag with pants and toiletries, and slipped her mobile into her jeans pocket.
Her mother met her in the upstairs landing and they descended together to find the policeman standing by the open door.
“Where’s dad?”
The policeman gestured towards the kitchen. “He’s just finishing up in there. He’ll be out in a minute. We’ll just get safely into the car.” He reached out take their bags as they reached the bottom step. “On you go, Carrie, I’ll just hurry your father along.”
“No, that’s not necessary, Mrs Jenkins, really – let’s just get to the car. He’ll catch us up in a sec. Come on, we’re short on time.”
Carrie somehow found herself being escorted down the driveway while her mother followed. The policeman carried both bags in one hand. Carrie spotted Alicia Wotherspoon coming down the street carrying a viola case, heading for her house next door to Carrie’s. Alicia returning from a music lesson, she vaguely thought. Alicia was also a fan of eighties music. Carrie gave her a wave, then asked the policeman, “What did you say your name was?”
“Cooper.” He opened the passenger door for Carrie. “You get to ride in front.”
“Carrie, Mr Cooper, I’ll just run back and make sure Martin turns on the burglar alarm. You know what he’s like, darling. Two seconds!” Before the policeman could reply, Ann was hurrying back up the drive and had entered the house.
He closed the passenger door and walked round to the driver’s side. He put the bags into the back seat space. He got in and turned the key in the ignition.
“What did you say your first name was?” asked Carrie.
“Al.” The policeman glanced past her at the house. His hand slipped to the handbrake and gently disengaged it.
“I’m a great fan of eighties music, Al, and did you know – school’s out for summer!” With sudden fury, Carrie frantically tried to open the passenger door, but found it locked. At the same moment Ann came running to the door an expression of wild panic on her face. “Carrie! Get out of the car! He’s – “
The engine revved and the Jeep pulled away, blue light still flashing as if in mockery. Ann Jenkins impotently watched her daughter being driven away. She saw Carrie’s hands bang on the car windows, and dimly heard her screams.
Carrie was just about to turn round to start kicking and scratching her abductor when she felt a painful jab in her right shoulder. Almost at once the arm lost all feeling and the drug spread quickly through her system. In seconds the fight went out of her, and a few moments more, hardly before the Jeep turned the corner out of her street, she was unconscious, slumped against the passenger door.
Ann Jenkins stood shouting her daughter’s name, until the More family across the road became alarmed and started to appear round the side of their house to find out what was wrong. The kids had stopped their skateboarding. Alicia had dropped her viola case and stood open-mouthed in astonishment.
Abruptly Ann turned and ran back into the kitchen where her husband lay insensible on the parquet flooring bleeding from a head wound.
With the unconscious girl collapsed in the seat beside him, Henderson turned Logan’s vehicle into Stirling Boulevard and began to accelerate towards the castle in the distance.
The witnesses, Alicia, the Mores, the skateboarders suddenly roused themselves from their stunned immobility and ran in their several directions to summon assistance or provide what help they could to the screaming mother.


21 Magic

Aaron Miller had the kind of open, knowledgeable face that inspired confidence and trust. Mark found himself responding to the General’s manner. It was difficult to conceive that this man with his easy way and informal tone was one of the most important men in Britain. He sat in one of the easy chairs opposite Mark, while Roberts sat on the edge of the bed.
“Mark, I’m going to record what we say here, if you don’t mind.”
Mark shrugged. “That’s okay,” he said.
“Thank you.” Miller gestured to Lucas who touched a small circle on his lapel. Mark knew without being told that this was miniature camera and the signal was being transmitted to and recorded in another location. “Now, first let me tell you that I’m sorry about your mother. We’re moving heaven and earth to find her. We have MI5 working with the CIS and you can rest assured –“
“It’s all right,” said Mark. “My mum will be all right.”
Miller raised his eyebrows. “How do you know that?”
Mark ran a hand through his hair. “I ‘m not a hundred per cent sure yet about a lot of things, but I just know some stuff. I’ve always had hunches and feelings, but this is more. I know.”
“Is it anything to do with the dreams you’ve been having?” asked Roberts, and in answer to Mark’s enquiring glance, added, “I read the notes you made at the Bridge of Orchy hotel. I’ve mentioned them to General Miller.”
“That’s why I’m interested in you, Mark,” said Miller. “Is it through dreams you get your knowledge?”
“No – some – I’m not entirely sure. But I know my mother will be all right. It’s me they’re after.”
“Who? The Human Freedom League?” asked Miller.
“No, not them,” replied Mark. “The Soros. You know that’s who
I meant.”
The General nodded and leaned back in his chair. “You realize the significance of what you’re suggesting.”
“No. I don’t know what it means. But they’re playing some kind of game with me. There’s more to it than you think.”
Again Miller raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Oh?” After a moment of silence, in which Mark looked down at the table between them, he added, “What?”
Mark regarded the General levelly for a second. “You know the Soros have another ship, don’t you?”
“What do you know about that?” Miller’s smile stayed in place but all warmth went right out of it.
“It’s located somewhere over the North Pole,” said Mark. “It’s interfering with satellites.”
Miller exchanged a worried glance with Roberts. “That’s very interesting, Mark.” There was absolutely no way this fifteen year old could know anything about this. Even Roberts didn’t know.
Mark said nothing. He looked at the surface of the table. Teak formica. Plastic. He recalled a physics lesson from school, his third year. Something to do with “cohesion”. How had old McAllister described it? “…the forces within the molecules that hold a thing together…the force of attraction between adjacent particles in the same body…”
Miller leaned forward encouragingly. “What do you think is going on, Mark?”
Mark began to wonder… but he did not reply. He seemed to be paying no attention at all to the question.
Miller went on: “The Soros suggested to me that there was some kind of terrorist link… And I know about your father…”
“…the force of attraction…” thought Mark. He placed his hand flat on the table.
“… but I think we can rule out any real terrorist connection there. That was all a long time ago, after all, and what with the accident…”
If I just push –
Mark pushed his hand on the surface of the table.
Nothing happened.
The General sat back . “Mark, if you don’t mind, can we just go over a few facts? I like to go step by step. If I’ve got it right, you and your mother were in your mother’s surgery at nine o’clock yesterday morning.”
“Yes, I was in my mother’s surgery at nine in the morning.”
“What were you doing there?”
Mark knew now what he had to do.
“She was examining me.”
“What for?”
“I have something growing in my head.”
Miller and Roberts started forward. “What did you say?” snapped Miller.
“Something in my head. And it’s causing me all sorts of problems.” Mark was aware of his heart thudding nervously. “For instance, you can’t rely on mobile phones when I’m around, and if I’ve managed to get my mind around it now, the most surprising thing is - it allows me to do this!”
He pushed… and his hand passed soundlessly, effortlessly through the table top.
Roberts, who had stood up, now stepped back, sitting back down on the bed. “Jesus Christ!”
Aaron Miller simply blinked in disbelief at what Mark had done.
Mark withdrew his hand. He held it up, examined it, flexed it. “Well! That was really quite easy!” Then he sat back and let nature, or rather human nature, take its course. The video recorder had captured the whole thing. There was evidence for what he had just done.

**********

Neither Roberts nor Miller was sure what to do next. There were no laid-down procedures for what to do in circumstances like these. A kid passes his hand through solid matter – what the hell can you say? They examined the table, of course, banging it and tapping it and turning it over; they examined Mark’s hand, and when they asked him to he did it again. Effortlessly, without noise or drama of any kind, his hand passed through the table.
Finally Miller said, “Mark, this has to be studied. You have to be in a safe place. It might be because of this ability you appear to be developing that people are trying to kill you. Maybe you’re some kind of threat to them. In any case, we have to get you to a secure place. Can I suggest you come with me back to Command at Stirling Castle? I guarantee it’s the safest place in Scotland.”
Mark’s eyes seemed to gaze beyond Miller for a second. The General had the uneasy feeling that something was happening right behind him, but only Mark could see it. Mark’s eyes focused again.
“Yes, let’s get to Stirling. We have to go now. Things are happening and I need to go to Stirling.”
There was a growing urgency in his voice that also worried Miller. “What is it?”
“I’ll explain on the way. We have to go – now!”
It was the work of moments to grab his few belongings, and for the General to usher him out of the building to the waiting small convoy of fast Jaguars. As they descended to the car park Roberts suggested that his part should be to return to CIS HQ and carry on with the investigation into the leads they had. The chip from the killer’s broken mobile phone might yield up some interesting addresses and Supernet links, he said, and they had still to trace that helicopter. Miller agreed, and the men parted with assurances of staying in regular contact over the next couple of days. They would keep each other fully informed of whatever turned up.
“Goodbye, Mark,” said Roberts. He held out his hand, then hesitated. “Is it safe to shake hands with you?”
Mark smiled and took the Inspector’s hand. “See? No problem. But,” he said, releasing the hand, “you should go home. You’re about worn out. And don’t worry – Sally’s all right now.”
As the Jaguars sped off towards the motorway access ramp Roberts stood for a while. He was too astonished to move and began to feel nausea creeping over him – a reaction to the strain he had been under and the bewildering events he had just witnessed. But already he was beginning to wonder if what he had heard and seen had actually happened. Then reality in the form of his mobile made its presence known and a voice told him that Carrie Jenkins had been kidnapped, her father was being treated for a head-wound in hospital and her mother was utterly distraught. His weariness and feeling of sickness intensified.

**********


22 Ambush

The first Jaguar was the “pioneer” car, containing four secret service personnel who kept in constant contact with “Home Base” which, for the Soros Liaison Commander was situated in Allied Command Headquarters in Stirling Castle, although that was not public knowledge. The Liaison Committee’s public face was presented by a specially built set of buildings adjacent to McIntyre’s Field. But the true Headquarters, to which Miller now intended to take Mark, was situated deep within the hard volcanic rock that had propped up Stirling Castle for hundreds of years.
The second car contained the General himself, and his aide, Captain John Lucas drove. An SAS bodyguard occupied the front passenger seat and the General sat in the back. Mark also sat in the back, on the General’s left.
The third car brought up the rear and its men, also seconded from the SAS, kept some pretty heavy weaponry for use in the event of an ambush.
There had been threats. Ever since the Soros ship had landed on Earth, there had been threats to anyone connected with the aliens. They arrived by letter, by phone, on the Net, usually two or three a month. The most frequent source was, of course, the Human Freedom League, and their stated aims were to oppose any dealings with the Soros whatsoever, for they claimed that the aliens’ sole intention was world domination and the extermination of the human race.
The League were clever. So far they had eluded capture, even on the Supernet, which was pretty hard to do. All leads ended up blind alleys. The Supernet boffins at the Ministry of Defence and the Criminal Intelligence Service tore their hair out trying to unravel the complex weave of trails the League created on the Net every time they sent a message.
But so far the threats had been without substance.
The little convoy sped along the M80, the main route north out of Glasgow towards the central belt. Elsewhere even bigger wheels were turning, for Miller had been busy on the phone. He had passed the suspicion that the Soros might be up to something on to his immediate superior, the General Officer Commanding Scotland, Andrew Talbot, who in turn alerted the Head of NATO, and the US Defence Commander, General Locke. British Armed Forces were placed on status Bikini Gamma Green, military code for red alert. The cars were speeding past the Bishopbriggs off-ramp before Miller had finished his calls. Traffic was light at six o’clock this early Monday evening.
“The Prime Minister will be informed, of course…” General Miller was saying.
“I’m relieved you’re taking this all so seriously,” admitted Mark. “I was quite worried you’d treat me as a crank.”
Miller smiled, a hard, thin crease in his rugged face. “I thought you were, at first – who wouldn’t? You have to be sceptical in our position. But a number of things had already disposed me to give you a hearing with an open mind. I’m not a stupid man. I wouldn’t have been appointed to my job if I couldn’t interpret little details. When the Soros told me about you, it didn’t sound quite right. It struck me as curious that the Soros would be so interested in a fifteen-year old boy and his mother. But I’ve had doubts for a while. We all have, who have had any dealings with them. They never let us see them face-to-face, for instance. We still don’t know what they look like. That is not the behaviour of a trusting species. They could, you see, have simply showed us pictures.
“The presence of another ship has long been suspected. It occurred to us at an early stage that the ship called The Museum would be too small to convey a group of Soros across the galaxy. How could it contain enough fuel, supplies and so on? No, there had to be another, more powerful ship and the one we know about was just a landing craft. We’ve been worried for a long time about that.
“It had not escaped our notice either that some of our satellites were not behaving quite as they should. There were other, even sillier, things that made me wonder sometimes. For example, not far from where they landed a little burn comes down off the Hills. It’s called the Burn of Sorrows. I wondered if they had simply pinched that name from a map and were, as you say, playing some kind of game with us all. So, no, Mark, I could not dismiss you as a crank and after what I’ve seen today, with your little magical act…”
Mark nodded.
Lucas interrupted abruptly. “Something up ahead, sir.” He was gesturing to the motorway verge just ahead of them and to the left. He immediately began issuing commands into his lapel radio. They were approaching the ramp that led off the motorway and into the small backroads and little commuter towns dotting the countryside north-east of Glasgow. The SAS man instantly had an automatic pistol in his hand.
Before Mark could make out what was happening up ahead, suddenly the bonnet of the car in front was rising up. The ground was erupting beneath it. Mark saw the first car seem to fly up and backwards into the air. Then the General’s car passed under the first car, and was engulfed in smoke as its suspension struggled to carry it over the destroyed road surface. The leading car was about to land on them! Captain Lucas ducked instinctively as they narrowly missed being crushed by it as it crashed to earth and exploded in gouts of flame only a metre or so behind them.
But the ground was too churned up; the tarmac had been smashed and it was raining down on them. Great chunks battered the armoured roof, and sent splinter lines along the bullet-proof glass of the windows. The back seat passengers automatically covered their heads. Lucas fought for control but could not avoid the pit in the motorway and the Jaguar smashed to a halt. Air-bags exploded from several points and, once the car was motionless, quickly subsided.
The second bodyguard turned to the General. “Keep down, sir. Seems they’ve got a rocket launcher, “ he said. He looked across at Captain Lucas. Lucas nodded to him. “Let’s go,” said the bodyguard. “General – you and the boy stay put.”
Lucas and the bodyguard opened their side doors simultaneously, pushing the limp remains of the air-bags away, guns at the ready.
The smoke was clearing.
The car behind had swerved to a stop just behind. Beyond, cars behind it were slowing and coming to a halt. Secret service men were pointing guns at the twenty-foot grass verge. One was emerging from the back seat with a particularly lethal-looking piece of kit - a state of the art laser-sighted thermal rifle.
“We’re in good hands,” said the General. “We’ll let the men do their job. It’s what they’re trained for and they’re very, very good, especially Lucas. We’ll soon be out of here.”
Mark was too surprised and scared to reply, and hunched up in the corner of his seat.
Gunfire sounded outside. Then a second explosion rocked the car on its springs and threatened to turn it right over. Both were sent flying into one corner. The General swore viciously and Mark cried out as he was crushed under the impact. Then the car righted itself again with a sickening bang.
Something else hit the car. A red smear appeared on the side window. Mark did not see it, but Miller’s eyes widened a little in shock.
He carried a pistol in a holster at his side. He undid the fastener now and took out the weapon.
Debris struck the roof again, and there was the sound of gunfire mixed with shouting, unidentifiable voices; somebody yelled out and there was another huge explosion. The Jaguar this time jolted forward.
More smoke, then it cleared slightly, and cars were burning now, the terrible acrid smell choking and disorientating.
The General peered out of the window, and Mark peered over his shoulder. He knew Lucas was dead. A tall figure was approaching the car. It held some kind of long cylinder in its hand. The figure wore a black suit and dark glasses. It was Johns raising the rocket launcher.
Miller raised his pistol but was jostled as Mark pushed to the window. Johns saw Mark’s wild white face appear at the window beside the face of the traitor, Miller. The young face took him by surprise. He had not expected to see the boy here. The boy’s face also registered recognition. A momentary feeling of enormous doubt surged through Johns. But it was too late. His finger had pressed the electronic firing button.
The rocket launcher flared, and there was a sound like the air was being ripped apart - but no rocket left the device; a ball of searing yellow flame issued from the launcher’s tip and suddenly swallowed Johns. The explosion jolted the Jaguar.
Mark opened his eyes and saw that nothing remained where the attacker had stood.
Misfire! thought the General: a million to one chance. The General was aware of someone shouting beside him: “Oh my God! Oh my God!” – a long, drawn-out wail.
It was Mark - recoiling from what he himself had caused.
General Miller took control. He undid seat belts and tried to force open the doors, but they were jammed tight, the door panels buckled into place. “Give me room, Mark, I have to kick the door open!” he yelled.
Then Mark seemed to come to himself. “Right,” he said.
And he took control.
He touched the door, imagined what he wanted it to do and it not only opened – it flew away from the car, as if torn from its hinges by some enormous invisible giant and tossed away as if it were no heavier than tin foil.
Somehow they managed to struggle out of the battered Jaguar. Smoke from the burning cars swirled around them, and the stink of it filled their nostrils. Holding their breath, they staggered towards the raised verge. Here they could breathe and look back on the wreckage.
The bodies on the motorway were unrecognisable. Mark had to look away. He was filled with horror at what he had seen happen to Johns, and he knew with absolute clarity that he himself had caused the rocket launcher to explode. The confidence he had found on waking up in the hospital earlier that day, and which had strengthened when he tried his new-found power, evaporated away now like mist off a meadow.
People were emerging from cars further down the motorway and on the opposite side. Some, with more presence of mind than curiosity, perhaps, were trying to use their mobile phones to call the police, fire, ambulance. Mark saw them put their phones to their ears, then shake them and look at them, frowns on faces.
Of the people in the three cars, however, none except Mark and General Miller remained alive. Mark was in the grip of fear; so much adrenaline was pumping through his system he could hardly stand upright. He was conscious now of a rushing sound in his ears and the sounds of vehicle horns and shouting voices were muffled.
Others now arrived on the scene. The shocked, the curious, the genuine givers of help. The smell of burning rubber and leaking petrol filled the air.
Mark had that far away look. The General saw the onset of emotional shock but events had not stopped. A car was speeding along the hard shoulder of the opposite carriageway. There was no flashing light, and something about it advertised danger. Miller saw it too.
“I think we had better get out of here,” he said. “We are rather too exposed for my liking. Let’s get over this way. Come on.”
The car, a white Rover, braked to a halt. Doors opened and men in dark suits and dark glasses started to get out. Their hands held weapons, and there was no doubt about their intentions. Mark dimly recognised one of them, however, as the other man involved in the kidnapping of his mother.
“We need to move – now!” urged Miller. “They’re sure to be better armed than I am.”
He half dragged Mark after him. Mark moved like a robot at first, then managed to keep up with only slight support from Miller. The emotional trauma of the attack was wearing off in the face of the greater need to continue to survive.
Miller led Mark across a field of cattle. From the motorway they could hear the sounds of horns blaring and more distantly – too distantly – the sound of sirens wailing at last.
“It’s the police,” said Mark. “Should we go back?”
“Not wise,” replied Miller. He explained that the first police to arrive would not be well armed, if they were armed at all. The sirens probably betokened traffic police. Twenty minutes would pass before an armed police unit could arrive, and that would be twenty minutes too late.
“It was the blasted League!” The General cursed fluently. “Didn’t expect them to be like this, I must say. Very well-equipped.”
Only when they were negotiating a gate at the far side of the field did he spot their pursuit topping the grass verge separating the field from the carriageway, and scanning the landscape looking for them.
They were spotted.
Miller saw the men gesturing, pointing, talking, and then two of them came on in pursuit. Mark noticed that one of them was the man he had recognised – and it came to him that this man’s name was Henderson.
“Keep going,” Miller said. “We have to get out of here.”
Over a field, swinging by the edge of a small wood, past a ruined farm building, on and on, growing muddier and dirtier, they jogged. With every step he took Mark’s self-confidence waned. Panting, they crossed a five-bar gate and found themselves on an old farm access road.
“What about trying for help at a farm? I saw a couple of houses over in that direction,” said Mark.
Miller shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to involve any more innocent people in this thing. And there’s no telling what these psychotics would do. No, we’re better off out in the open for now, I think.”
The General led them in a northerly direction, and explained as he went: “ These guys – they want to kill me but it’s odds on they may well kill you too, let’s face it. Now, we can stand and fight, but I’ve only got one automatic pistol with eight bullets in the magazine, and they probably have more than that. Or we can try to make it to the nearest police station. There’s one in that town over there.”
He indicated the town of Lenzie, joined on to Kirkintillloch, whose church spires and taller buildings stood out from the line of hills that filled the background.
“I know roughly where we are,” said Mark. “Very roughly. That’s the Campsie Hills right there in the distance and Touch is just over that way.” He gestured beyond the hills to the right.
“That’s right,” agreed Miller. “Over those hills.”
“My home used to be there. Just yesterday, but it seems like a hundred years ago. I can’t go home,” said Mark. “I can’t go home.”
“No,” agreed Miller, looking at him levelly. “You can’t. Let’s move on. If we go down this lane – “
But he did not finish. A man, wearing dark glasses, was standing in the road right in front of them. Sure enough, it was Henderson. He was breathing heavily, for he must have sprinted to get ahead of them, but the rise and fall of his chest did not affect the steadiness of the gun trained on the General.
“Miller,” he said. “The aliens’ friend. At last we meet in the flesh. You can’t escape.”
The General put the boy behind him in a protective gesture.
His hand slipped to his holster, but too late. Henderson’s gun went off with a sound like a low cough and the General staggered back a step, then began to fall. Mark, horrified, saw that he had been hit in the centre of his chest. At the same moment Mark felt himself sag like a broken puppet. He collapsed to his knees, his legs no longer able to support him. The gunman approached. His gun was now trained unwaveringly on Mark.
“I don’t know who you are, or why you and your mother are a danger to us, or how you got here from where we left you before,” said the gunman, “and I don’t really care. I’ve done what we came to do – kill a traitor to the Human Race.”
“What have you done with my mother?” Mark managed to say.
“She’s safe enough, for now,” replied Henderson. Mark, in spite of his mind being in a turmoil, noticed perspiration bead and trickle on the man’s forehead. “As for you… “ The words were addressed to Mark, but Henderson looked towards Miller.
The General had slumped against the little grass verge. The gunman crossed over to him. He knelt down and put out a hand to feel for a pulse in the neck. He kept his hand in position for what seemed a very long time.
“The General’s not dead!” the thought flashed in Mark’s mind. “He’s all right. It’s a trick and he’s going to – “
But the gunman stood up. There was no trick. He looked at Mark for a long moment. “… if it was up to me, I’d put one into your brain. But the orders are clear. You are not to be harmed.” He put his gun abruptly away and simply walked back the way he had come, paying no further heed to the boy. Henderson disappeared round a corner in the lane.
Mark shivered and stared at General Miller’s body.
Then, after a titanic effort of will, he made himself approach it. He looked into the dead man’s face. It held no expression. The General’s face had been animated with strength of purpose and concern with regard to Mark. Where, Mark now wondered, has that energy gone? How can it suddenly be cut off? What has happened here? He undid the buttons of the light brown military jacket and managed to slip it off the body, apologising to the dead man as he did so.
“I don’t know why I couldn’t save you,” he whispered. “I was just so afraid. So afraid. I’m sorry.” After a long pause he promised in a quiet voice, “I’ll never be like that again.”
Mark knelt down and took possession of Miller’s gun. Acting on some age-old instinct, he covered Miller’s face with the jacket. Then he stood on shaky legs and began to walk wearily towards the distant hills, beyond which had once been his home.


23 Monday Evening

At seven-thirty that Monday evening, lost, exhausted and footsore and not giving a damn about much any more, Mark crept into a dirty barn on the outskirts of Kirkintilloch, crawled into the remains of the previous year’s straw and, despite the fact that the westering sun’s rays still slanted brightly between the planks of the barn wall, fell asleep in the curled-up foetal position.
The rushing in his ears had subsided now and he could vaguely hear, from the direction of the motorway, the police helicopters searching the area.
The General’s gun lay in the dirt beside him. For the first time in over twenty-four hours no images came when he closed his eyes, and for that he thanked God.

**********

Carrie awoke to darkness but quickly realised her predicament: her wrists and ankles were tied and she had been blindfolded. She was tied to a chair, a dining-room chair by the feel of it, and the angle of her body and limbs.
“Carrie – don’t be afraid.”
“Mrs Daniels? Is it you?” Although blind, she turned her head instinctively towards Janette’s voice.
“Yes, it’s me. I’m right beside you. They’ve taken my blindfold off, but I’m tied to a chair just like you.”
“Where the hell are we? What’s going on, for Christ’s sake? Is Mark here?”
“Easy now, take it easy. They’ve not harmed us and they’ve not handled me too badly so we might get out of this all right. Be calm.”
“I am calm,” replied Carrie. “I’m just concerned – concerned and furious. I think that guy might have hurt my dad. The last thing I remember was my mum running out of our house shouting something about…”
“Well there’s nothing we can do about that now. Right now, I’m afraid there’s not much we can do about anything.”
“Do you know where we are? Who’s doing this to us? What do they want with Mark?”
“Carrie – one thing at a time, all right? First – we’re in Stirling. I can see a small section of the Ochil Hills through the little window, but I recognise it. I’d guess we’re in a flat, because I think we’re high up, but I can’t be certain of that. Second, these people – and there’s at least half a dozen of them now, they’ve been coming and going for the last hour – are the Human Freedom League.”
“The anti-alien people.”
“That’s right, the anti-alien people. As for what they want with Mark, well, I guess they think he’s mixed up with the Soros in some way, but I’m afraid they’ve not really taken us into their confidence. These guys tried to kill us on a train in the Highlands, then chased us up a god-forsaken glen into the middle of nowhere, then drugged and kidnapped me. I’ve no idea what they did with Mark. He might be in the next room – “
“No – I think Mark’s okay. We got a phone call earlier. Mark’s in police custody – ‘helping them with their enquiries’ my dad said. They were supposed to be sending people round to protect us. Instead, this.”
“Well, at least we’re still alive. And after all I’ve been through these last twenty-four hours,” said Janette, “that’s what counts. Believe me.”

**********

In the barn Mark slept on. The old weathered wood made gentle cracking and creaking sounds as planks contracted infinitesimally while the cooling evening minutes crept slowly and peacefully by. Smells of old dung and rotting straw infused the air with a not unpleasant richness. A little shrew left its nest and scuttled cautiously forward before stopping, sensing the alien presence of the human. It sniffed, whiskers twitching. Slowly the sun angled down the sky.
Outside in the dusk, rooks were flying home to roost in ones and twos, enjoying their last aerobatic games of the day. Their caws were like soft calls of welcome, Hail, brother, well-met, how went your day? as they posed and preened and danced on tree limbs.
In the town a kilometre away, local youths were meeting up; but the distant sounds of cars and old motorbikes being revved hardly disturbed the peace surrounding the deep-shadowed barn where Mark slept on.

**********

In Roberts’ little house in a Glasgow suburb the Director of the Criminal Intelligence Section felt far from intelligent. He had, in fact, been crying. He was tired, worn-down, feeling ill and mad with frustration and despair. His wife, Jacqueline, still ill and exhausted herself from her sick-bed vigil over Sally, held her husband’s head against her chest and encouraged him. But he could hardly get words out. His hands gripped her fleecy top at her shoulder blades.
A phone call had told him Miller had been killed, his entourage massacred, his body found in a deserted lane somewhere to the North of Glasgow. And the boy, Mark Daniels, this strange-sounding boy that Chris had plucked off a mountainside in the wilds of Scotland that afternoon, this somehow terribly important boy, had vanished into thin air. Jacqueline stroked her husband’s hair and said hush.
Sally slept the convalescent sleep in her cot and smiled and twitched mysteriously as babies do.

**********

Eight o’clock in the evening and Logan was triumphant. He looked up from his interface. The Chairman had given him cause for great hope, and the final wheels – literally, Logan mused – were about to be set in motion. The two females in the other room were secure. Their ropes would hold, their gags were back in place. He had removed blindfolds, however. They could see, but they must not speak. The mission, the Chairman had just assured him, had been a success. Miller, (“the arch-traitor”) was dead – it was on all the news programmes. Never mind that it had cost League lives – those lives had been willingly sacrificed in the greatest cause the world had ever known. And Logan, Commander Logan, had played the pivotal role in developments.
Logan felt the same rush of pride a child might feel at a father’s sought-after praise.
The League members had all now been instructed to stand down. They were no longer to concern themselves with the boy, Mark Daniels. He was more than likely as good as dead anyway. And after this night, as a consequence of these finishing touches being made my Logan, the Soros would cease to trouble mankind.
Logan was at the front door of the flat. He had switched off the interface for the last time; he had loaded his few belongings into the Jeep waiting downstairs; he took a last look round and smiled. He was proud of all that he had achieved here, in secret, unknown and un-trumpeted. But the human race might one day discover his identity and might one day come to understand why he had done what he was now about to do. He might one day be thanked!
A metal plate was attached to the lowest point of the door. Ten centimetres from where this plate would be if the door were closed, Logan had placed a magnetic block, a twelve-centimetre cube. When the door is opened the attraction of the magnet will force the plate at the foot of the door to come into contact with it. A firmly secured wire leads from the magnetic block; another wire, equally secure, leads from the door-plate. Both wires cross the room, in which the light is now fading, and lead to the wardrobe, still strongly padlocked. The wires enter the wardrobe and enter a sealed container that contains a small, but powerful explosive device. Attached to the explosive device is a larger, much heavier container, fashioned chiefly of grey lead. Inside this is what the CIS and MI5 have been frantically searching for since its disappearance from the former Sellafield plant in Cumbria: twenty grams of weapons-grade plutonium, and the primer all ready to smash it to atoms.
With tools from the local DIY warehouse, materials supplied by other clandestine members of the League from different parts of the country, and detailed instructions supplied from the Chairman via the Supernet, Logan has fashioned a nuclear bomb.
He fits the last contact in place on the door-plate and the preparations are complete. He closes the door and locks it. When it is next opened, and that will probably be a forced entry, the door will act as a giant switch. The circuit will be complete, the explosives will detonate, the primer will be thrust into the plutonium and the chain reaction that will ensue will be of sufficient power to take out a wide swathe of Central Scotland, from Glasgow in the west to Edinburgh in the east.
Stirling Command, the ancient rock the castle occupies, and the Soros ship a few miles away, will be no more than floating dust.
“And goodbye to you too, Mrs Hartley,” Logan whispers as he passes her door downstairs. Then he is in his Jeep and away, and will be many safe kilometers to the south by the time the sun rises.

**********

The shrew has overcome its natural timidity and has approached to within a few dangerous centimetres of Mark’s face. Its whiskers continue to twitch and test the air for the least sensation of danger. The smell from the metal object on the ground near the sleeping figure is certainly not pleasant. It stands on hind legs, and rubs its forepaws together. Realising that this enormous incomprehensible intruder in its domain is harmless – at least while it sleeps – the shrew scampers off to scavenge some grains from the floor of the barn before venturing out into the night.
Now, however, the images are beginning again…

**********

Mark sees his father, panic-stricken, desperate, one dark November night. (But it’s not the November night – that will come later.) Mark seems to be looking through his father’s own eyes. What he sees is a reflection in the mirror in a bathroom. Green, flower-patterned tiles surround the metallic mirror-frame; behind, a string light-cord swings to and fro in a gentle rhythm; water runs quietly from the cold tap into the white sink below. The face in the mirror is lined with worry, tired, the eyes glittering with near-madness. A syringe is in his hand. It floats slowly up to eye-level, and there are two syringes – the real and the mirror image. John carefully and slowly begins to insert the long point – in his imagination Mark grimaces at this, but the image is unavoidable - into the opening of his right nostril.
Mark feels sick. He is unsure if the feeling is his own or his father’s. Mark watches through his father’s eyes as the needle is pushed further and further up towards the brain. Although Mark can see, he cannot guess the motive, and he cannot influence the action.
The face in the mirror grimaces in pain and disgust as the needle makes contact with something. Perspiration runs down his father’s face. John’s eyes have the glassy look of total fear, but his expression is set in lines of courage driven by sheer will power. Mark feels his father brace himself: he moves his feet slightly more apart and presses his upper thighs against the cool porcelain sink edge; he takes a deep breath… holds it. Then the hands jab upwards, there is a sickening soft crack, as of an egg shell gently breaking, and the needle slides in.
Into what, for God’s sake? What made that sickening, hypnotic, satisfying sound?
But the needle is not for injecting. It is to extract.
John is making a low wailing sound now. He is forcing himself to continue. Holding the syringe firmly with one hand, and closing his eyes, Mark’s father gently pulls the plunger back. A thin, yellowish syrupy liquid trickles down the sides of the container.
The abduction story his father told was true. He had been implanted with some sort of … what? An organic device?
Another room: his mother sleeping. She is heavily pregnant, unable to lie on her side now, but apparently getting the rest that only a deep sleep might bring. But Mark’s father has drugged her with a concoction of tranquillisers he has once been prescribed. He has held on to the unused pills because he is the kind of person for whom throwing things away is like tearing out hair. Janette is sleeping soundly, for the first time in weeks.
I’m alive inside there, Mark thinks. How young his mother looks. Her hair is cut in a different style. The room is not one he recognises.
The syringe appears, and it seems as if it is in his own hand. Mark instantly guesses the purpose: his father is going to use the material from the implant against those who have implanted him. But this is not what the implant was for. He is taking it outside of its intended purpose. The liquid in the syringe should act like antibodies, he has reasoned, and it will make his son, his unborn son, immune to anything the aliens try on him. Such is his father’s reasoning. Mark is appalled at what his father is about to do.
His mother’s exposed stomach is there, its skin stretched tight with the growth of the unconscious baby within. Mark feels a strange disorientation. His father is crying now, silently, his mind raging with the implications and the risks of what he is doing. It is madness, he knows; he is mad; but he has no choice.
In a moment he has ever so gently inserted the needle. Janette stirs slightly, but is too drugged to register this pain. John cannot know what precisely he is inserting the needle into; for all he knows this could kill the child; but he has gone far beyond that point of reason at which he would hesitate over anything that could hit back at his tormentors. They are playing games with him, he knows. Well, now he will break their rules. What the real effects of his actions could be, he only hopes – he hopes for a son who would one day hit back not just for him but for all those who have been taken and experimented on. A lunatic act, a lunatic risk, but one he is prepared to take. One he is taking… now. Gently the plunger moved down the barrel of the syringe, pushing the liquid through the needle.
His mother, drugged, sleeps through the act of madness.

**********
On the barn floor, stirring uneasily in his own sleep, Mark fingers the little brown birthmark on his neck. That, some part of his mind is now aware, was where the point of the needle went in.
**********

Suddenly it is a wild night and they are driving through darkness. This is the night, the night Mark would avoid having to experience if he could, but there is no way he can escape this insane replay.
Mark’s father is in great pain. It throbs and balloons inside his skull, and the implant, or whatever is oozing from it now since he has punctured it those few days ago, is forming a blockage at the back of his throat that makes swallowing difficult, like some horrible out-of-control infection. Lightning outside and lightning inside, huge bolts of it slashing through his head. He can hardly keep the car on the road now. His hands grip the wheel with cold white fingers. Mark’s mother is asleep in the passenger seat.
Then the pain, so searingly intense that John cries out, and the blood, blood everywhere, gushing from his nose. The thing in his head is killing him now, or he has killed it. So much blood!
His mother awake, crying out. His father saying “The pain in my head!”
The narrow Ayrshire road cuts quite steeply down a valley side. It is pitted and eroded at the sides and has been resurfaced many times, making it a rough ride. The car’s speed picks up.
In his pain and panic some deep instinct tells John to stop the car, for God’s sake stop, and his foot presses then pumps the brake pedal and it comes to him then that the hydraulic fluid pipes must be leaking or cut and his left hand flies to the handbrake but the pain is crushing him now. The car hurtles down the poorly surfaced, angled road and Mark’s mother’s screams rise above the battering noise of the wind and the rain and then at the foot of the hill there is a bend and a tree, a tree thrown into dark relief by the bouncing beams from the car’s headlights. The shallow ditch beside the eroded edge is crossed and the low hedge smashed apart and for a brief, frighteningly brief instant of time the car leaves the ground and then in sickening, deadly, final quick-motion comes the crash.
The car strikes the tree with a brutal bang, and it breaks, crumples, folds in upon itself. John’s rib cage hits the steering wheel and bones crack, his lungs and heart are pierced by their shards. He grunts once as the air is driven from his lungs and his face turns to the side, even after his head has bounced off the collapsing windscreen and he knows, he knows he is to die and he sees his wife’s fear-filled face as the pain engulfs him completely and he wishes - oh, how he wishes! – that he could see the child he could have loved so much.

**********
In the barn tears roll down Mark’s face leaving grimy traces. His fingers curl into fists.

**********


24 Awakening

The sun began to sink in the sky.
The cooling air grew thick about him as dusk closed in and deepened, wrapping the barn around. Lights came on in distant farms and isolated houses. The glow of the city began to be noticeable over the hedgerow. Big-bellied planes curved overhead, bending their path over the Campsie Hills on the long slow descent to Glasgow Airport miles to the south-west. Police helicopters and flying ambulances come and go over the motorway and the scene of carnage.

**********

Carrie had had an idea. The guy who gagged her had not bothered to search her. Maybe he thought old Alice Cooper, or whatever his name was, had already done it before he brought her here. But in any event, she could feel the pressure of her mobile in her jeans pocket. If only there was a way now to turn the damn thing on! It was awkward, but it might just be possible to edge her way over to the table corner and somehow manoeuvre her pocket into a position where she could press her jeans against the table to exert enough force to switch the thing on… Hell, she thought, in the general and incontrovertible absence of seventh cavalries, it sure was worth a damn try.
Janette had been remembering some of the other dark moments of her life: John’s horrible death and the plunging depression following it; her own parents’ death not long after that; the moments in her career when she felt like just throwing it all up and clearing out – and all of those times Mark had been there, unknowingly helping her to maintain equilibrium. Mark, even though he had no idea of it, had been her support. She wished she could tell some of this to Carrie, but the gag was too tight around her mouth and all she could manage would be incoherent meaningless sounds, so it was pointless trying.
She watched in puzzlement as Carrie abruptly started to bump and shuffle her chair in the direction of the wooden table by the wall. What on earth could she be up to? Carrie clearly had some purpose in mind.
“Come on, Marky, come back,” she formed the thought clearly in her mind. “If ever we needed magic, it’s now!”

**********

Suddenly Mark’s lungs sucked in a great gasp of air. His chest rose like a bellows and slowly the air was released. His eyes opened and he took in his surroundings. He saw and smelt Miller’s gun lying in the dirt. His hearing has cleared up totally and he was instantly aware of the rooks settling down in their nests in the trees to eastern side of the barn, and he registered the faint scampered tracks of a small creature on the dirty ground. He shivered in the evening air but his body readjusted quickly and then he no longer felt cold. He heard engine sounds from the distant town. The gave him an idea. He carefully sat up, still clearing his throat. Slowly he levered himself to his feet, feeling life return to his limbs. Life… and more than life. He understands now that as he has journeyed towards the truth he has been approaching some inner well-spring of energy. And there is knowledge he can reach into, knowledge like a furious roaring waterfall all around him.
His imagination was all he needed to tap into this raging power.

**********

In the darkening little room adjacent to Logan’s bedroom Janette and Carrie look up from their separate positions and exchange meaningful glances. They somehow know, and are thinking the same thought: he’s alive! He’s on his way now!
Each feels hope rise suddenly within.
Carrie balances herself precariously and levers herself against the table corner. As she falls back to her sitting position she smiles as much as the gag will permit. It’s worked. The phone bleeps on and is ready for action.
Okay, she thinks, I’m bound and gagged but my phone’s now working. What now, Einstein? What the hell do I do now?

**********

Jacqueline was astonished when her husband’s head lifted from the dining room table where it had been slumped this half hour. Little Sally was still sleeping peacefully in her cot and Jacqueline had muted the home-cine sound so as not to disturb either husband or daughter.
“Jackie?”
“How are you feeling now?”
“Jackie. Something’s happened. I feel it. I sense it.” He was rising from the table with a vigour Jackie hadn’t seen for some months. “Something incredible.”
“What? What is it?” She was following his movements with concern as he strode into the hall.
“I don’t know!” He came back in, holding his jacket. He grinned. “I don’t know! But I have to go to Stirling. Right now. It’s… I just have to.”
“But Chris – “
He hugged her a crushing hug, grabbed his phone and keys from the table and was heading for the door.
“Trust me,” he said, “what is happening now is going to change everything.”
“What on earth do you mean?” replied Jackie with gentle skepticism.
Chris laughed. “It’s all right. I’ll call you later.”
And he was gone.

**********

Mark stretched, almost languidly, feeling a strange new kind of strength flowing through every particle of his flesh and bones. He picked up the gun and tucked it into the belt behind his back – but he did not think he would find a use for it. He opened the barn door and stepped outside. There was flurry of drowsy disturbed activity from the rook colony but they quickly settled down when no threat was apparent. The evening was cool now and clouding over from the south.
He thought about his mother and Carrie. He knew where they were. Carrie’s phone was like a beacon for him. It was logged on to its server network and Mark could imaginatively plug into and access every particle of the information it contains. This was part of what the Soros had enabled him to do.
He turned towards the town in the near distance. There, he knew, he would find what he needed. Mark lengthened his stride and eased into a gentle jog as he reached the small C-class road.
The clothes and shoes newly bought for him that afternoon were not chosen for their athletics suitability. Nevertheless Mark covered the three kilometers in less than twenty minutes and slowed as he approached the town centre with its shops, open coffee bars, pubs and small gatherings of local youths. The time was nine o’clock and it was still not fully dark. His bedraggled figure walked with apparent confidence down the High Street.
“An camping gear shop is what I want,” he muttered to himself, and it was not long before he had located one.
Mark only had to pass his hand over the lock and it opened, the alarm rendered useless. Inside, he changed into warmer clothing. He rejected the more American-style rugged checked shirts in favour of a t-shirt and a fleecy garment. Trail boots and waterproofs came off the racks. A rucksack was found in which he put a torch, batteries, some camping gear, supplies of dried, easy-cook food, and the General’s gun. All the while he munched some high-calorie snacks.
He left the shop but ensured no one saw him and he used his power to re-lock the door.
Along the street was an autoteller. He stretched out his power to disable its camera and over-rode its computer system to enable him to “borrow” a couple of hundred euros. You never knew, he thought, he might need some cash for a meal or a room, and he would pay it back as soon as he could. He didn’t like stealing, but needs must!
Down a side street he found a fast Honda motorcycle, a 200cc. Not too powerful to be a monster to control, but not too feeble to lack speed. The fact that he had never actually been on a motorbike before did not cause him concern. He had ridden a friend’s trail bike and another friend’s quad on several occasions and the principles had to be much the same, he reasoned. A pass of the hand and the central locking opened right up. A hand on the steering column and the ignition fired, and a little tug was all that was needed to overcome the steering lock. Another theft, and another property owner he would one day have to make it up to.
Through Kilsyth and up the narrow road that leads past Berryhill and Denny Muir, over Carron Bridge and a stop at the old inn there. As he sauntered through the inn door, he could have passed for a walker just coming off the hills. The fact that his clothes were brand new and unstained was not noticed.
He looked old enough – just – to order a beer, but contented himself with bottled water. He felt he had time, so he ordered a toasted sandwich and ate it in silence, in the open lounge area, from which he heard raucous laughter issuing now and then from the bar. Apart from the waitress who brought his drink and toasted sandwich, nobody paid him any attention. After he had eaten, he sat back to enjoy what pleasure he could glean from the feeling of being, for the moment at least, warm, safe and full, and in the proximity of people who seemed to be enjoying normal lives.
In the foyer Mark found a public net-phone. He stood with his back to the wall as he picked up the receiver. He could watch the entrance and see what was happening in the bar at the same time.
Holding the receiver lightly in his hand he channelled his thoughts. Circuits opened and closed; electrons moved; through miles of fibre optic and then through the air, currents flowed. In Logan’s former flat, in the spare room, in Carrie’s pocket the mobile phone buzzed softly.
Although they could not speak each saw the excitement leap into the other’s faces as Janette and Carrie’s eyes met. Both knew it had to be Mark. But, as the mobile was still wedged virtually inaccessibly in Carrie’s jeans pocket, there was nothing they could do. They could not use the phone to communicate.
And Mark knew there was nothing they could do, but that did not worry him. The call had been enough. It was intended to let them know he was on the way.

**********

Keeping on the single track road that passed beside Loch Coulter Reservoir, Mark drove the bike carefully, light on full beam for most of the way. It was eleven thirty and the night sky, though still not fully dark, was becoming overcast. Through plantations of conifers, and round nasty little bends, the road led him until he had to circle round the Polmaise Castle estate and enter Cambusbarron. This once small settlement had grown in recent years, spreading up the hillside to its south. Touch was only a couple of kilometres further on, and Stirling a few kilometres in the other direction.
He half expected further trouble from the agents of the League, but none came. The well-lit main street was quiet this Monday night.
He drove the motorbike slowly, with the utmost caution into Stirling from the western approach and doing no more than twenty kilometres an hour, motored through the brightly lit streets, scanning, reaching out and searching with his new power. Carrie and his mother were close, very close.
He turned up Princes Street, a narrow steep road that led eventually to the castle’s heights, and knew he was closer than ever. But as the bike puttered to a stop at the top of the street, a flicker of concern crossed his face.
A police car, unmarked but wearing its blue flashing light, cruised to a stop in the street beside a darkened tenement doorway.
Mark sat back in a more relaxed posture on the motorbike’s imitation leather seat.
A single figure sat in the police car and made no effort to get out. It seemed to be waiting.
Mark smiled to himself. What was about to happen was insanely dangerous, he well knew. A more sensible approach would be to alert the army, alert Allied Command, and let them deal with what was in that flat. For Mark knew what was awaiting him up those tenement stairs. He knew the danger he, Carrie and his mother and, indeed, all of Scotland were now in. But he could deal with it. Of that he was certain. There was not a scrap of doubt in his mind now. He got off the bike and walked in a relaxed manner over to the police car.
The electric window lowered as he approached.
“Hello, Mark. I figured you’d happen along. Are you all right?”
“Mr Roberts. Why the blue light on an otherwise unmarked car?”
“In case we get into a hot pursuit situation, you know the kind of thing.”
Mark nodded. “Okay. You know about General Miller.”
“Yes. How did you escape?”
“I’ll tell you later. I actually figured I’d see you here.”
“I had to come.”
“I know. I called Carrie after she switched on her mobile phone. I reckoned that should give your police tracking machines enough of a signal to locate her.”
“Well, it worked. Clever boy. We can locate any mobile phone as long as it’s switched on, but not always accurately. Your call helped us out.”
“You’re alone?” asked Mark.
“I … was not sure how much of an audience you wanted so, yes, I came alone. Do we need any back-up?”
Mark grinned. A hand passed through his hair. “No. I don’t suppose we do, really. There is just one little problem.”
“I think I can guess. I was at Allied Command half an hour ago. Our satellites have sweeping the area, scanning constantly for anything out of the ordinary in the area of the Soros ship. Half an hour ago we picked up a radiation trace. It’s the kind left behind when nasty stuff like uranium or plutonium is transported. Tell me I’m wrong, Mark. Tell me there’s not a something horrific about to explode up there.”
“I wish I could. I really wish I could.”
“Then if it’s some booby trap left by the League, I should call in the bomb disposal boys.”
“Normally that would be fine idea. But now, I really don’t think we have the time. I kind of sense the bomb up there – it’s in the top flat, by the way, that room there – and it has a timer going. “
“A timer?”
“Yep.”
“Set for… ?”
“Oh… about fifteen minutes from now.”
Roberts felt his insides turn to water. “Oh. That’s not so good, is it?” He thought of Jackie and Little Sally. The thought that he was never going to see them again almost overwhelmed him.
“We’d better get going,” said Mark, shouldering the rucksack he had brought with him.
Although he felt like running away, starting up the car and getting the hell away from there as fast as it could carry him, Roberts left the car, which locked itself up automatically, and followed Mark on barely stable legs up the dark stairwell of the tenement. He wished he could have just five more minutes to say decent goodbyes.
Their footsteps echoed on the stone landings they passed. Madge Hartley heard them and peered from the fisheye security lens sunk in solid wooden door, but she was too late. The man and the boy had passed already to the top floor landing.
Mark handed Roberts his rucksack. “Just stay here and hold that for me, will you, please?”
“I can’t believe how polite you are given the fact that we may all be blown to kingdom come any minute now!”
Mark smiled.
“This doesn’t faze you at all, does it? Why the hell does this not faze you?”
“Time for some more magic,” Mark said, turning away, and in a fluid movement stepped through the wall. Roberts dropped the rucksack and felt his knees go even weaker. He leaned against the wall behind him; his legs were threatening not to support him.
Mark stepped in. The sensation of passing through solid matter was strange but not unpleasant, but his nerve endings seemed to jangle briefly. It was like being scrubbed all over, quickly, with a hard, dry sponge. The wall behind had left no trace of his passage. He had imagined an electro-magnetic field like a body-tight envelope surrounding him completely, shielding his body, and this field could part the molecules it came into contact with; he likened the experience to wading through thigh-deep water: as water would, the paintwork, the plaster, the bricks and mortar and the interior wallpaper parted in front of Mark and closed up again behind.
He quickly surveyed the room. He noted the wires, the electro-magnet, the wardrobe door. The digital computer inside was booby-trapped too, he sensed, so that if he cut the wires, or negated the magnet, or simply stopped the timer the primer would fire anyway. With his mind he reached into the digital control. For an instant his courage almost failed him. Only a minute remained.
Good God, he thought. What if I’m wrong about this? No – that cannot be. I walk through walls. I can bend the world to my will. I can do this too. I can do magic!
He concentrated his life to the device. With his mind he explored its surfaces, every corner, every groove, every minute intricacy. The display counted down inexorably.
The explosive will hurl the primer into the plutonium. The unstable particles of the plutonium will burst apart, energy will be released, the same kind of energy that fires the sun itself. The temperature will exceed a million degrees.
Only seconds remained.
I can do this! He focused his mind around the bomb, not just imagining it but literally seeing it with the utmost clarity, and with his mind he wrapped the plutonium in a sub-atomic shroud, a cover of particles so strange that they defied logical analysis. He imagined it, this magical suffocating blanket, and because these particles were what atoms themselves were made of, he could make this enveloping shroud around the device utterly –utterly - impenetrable. No atomic particles could escape this shell, so no radiation could escape.
The digital display silently came to zero.
Zero.
Mark felt the blast ignite in his mind. The sheer force of it, a million erupting volcanoes, made his mind reel for a millisecond then his strength took hold again – instantly – and snuffed the explosion and its causes out as if it were no more than a candle flame in a church. He made the material simply disappear, their particles separating off into some infinity of sub-atomic universes. Not a ripple of it showed or was felt in the everyday world so when Mark opened his eyes, he saw the untidy little room with the remains of the booby-trap devices, now useless, but all continuing to exist.
For a moment he was reminded of General Miller’s dead face.
The world still existed. He was still alive. He let out a long breath, leaned a trembling arm against the dirty wall and tried not to fall over.
At last, after what seemed like a long time but was in fact less than a minute, he had pulled himself together sufficiently to let Roberts in and they quickly located Janette and Carrie in the adjacent room. It was the matter of moments to undo their gags and free their arms and legs from the ropes and tape that bound them.
There were hugs and tears. Roberts looked on, smiling widely, still holding Mark’s rucksack, hardly able to believe he was still alive.


25 Monday Night

Mark gave them water and energy bars from the rucksack supplies. Mark had supposed his mother and Carrie would be hungry and thirsty. They were. They also both had headaches, after-effects of the drugs they had been injected with.
Mark and Director Roberts told them all that had happened, from Mark’s rescue in the glen to the killing of General Miller.
“I couldn’t save him,” said Mark quietly.
“What do you mean?” asked Roberts.
“If I had known then what this ‘power’ can do, I could have saved him. I wish to God I could have. But I guess I was too shaken up by what had happened back at the road. You see, one of the men had a rocket launcher or something and he was about to fire it right at us. I kind of reached out with my mind and the next thing I knew it blew right up. It blew him to pieces. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Well it’s no wonder you were shaken up! It’s a miracle you’re not a gibbering wreck!” said Janette.
Carrie, listening intently, took his hand in hers. They hugged. Roberts saw tears appear in Mark’s eyes.
“But when the other man, Henderson, came,” Mark went on, rubbing his eyes, “the one from this morning in the glen, I could have made his gun misfire, or deflected the bullets or something. If only I had known then what I could do now, the General needn’t have died. There doesn’t seem to be much limit to what I can do, but I just didn’t know about all that. Not then.”
“You’re not responsible for that, Mark,” said Roberts.
“Absolutely not!” agreed Carrie.
“What happened after that? How did you get away?” asked Janette.
“That’s the strangest part – “
“As if it could get any stranger!” remarked Carrie.
Mark smiled and shrugged. “It was as if they had never been after me at all. The guy Henderson just walked away, saying something about following orders. Oh – Mister Roberts – I took the General’s gun. I suppose you’d better take it. It’s in the rucksack.”
“Okay, Mark. No problem.”
“What did you do then?” asked Carrie.
“I stumbled around for a bit, I think, then the next thing I remember is coming across an old barn.”
“Choppers were up looking for traces of you. If you were concealed in a barn, that explains why you weren’t picked up,” said Roberts.
“In the barn I passed out, I guess. Then the dreams started again. Mum, they were terrible. I saw – “
Haltingly, with much effort, he related what he now knew of his father’s motives and actions. He unconsciously touched a finger to his birthmark as he told his horrified listeners about the syringe.
“My God!” whispered Janette. “I never knew. I never knew.”
Mark reached over to take her hand and said, ”Mum, don’t blame him. You mustn’t blame dad. He didn’t start any of this. In his way, he was trying to finish it. And what he did… I think he was right.”
“But he could have killed you, or caused brain damage…”
“I know. And he knew. He agonised over it, mum, it tore him apart. But he was right. He was right. That’s what has made me… “
“Made you what, Mark?” asked Carrie. “What are you? Superman?”
Mark grinned. “I don’t know about that…”
“Well, is there anything you can’t do?” Carrie asked. “Hmmm?”
Mark considered the question. “I really don’t know all what I can do, but I don’t have x-ray vision.”
“Anything else?”
“I can’t lick my elbow.”
“Very funny, I don’t think! Be serious.” She hit him with a cushion from the sofa.
“I hardly know where to begin to describe what I feel I can do,” Mark replied simply. “I just stopped an atomic bomb from going off. I mean – what the hell else can I do? I just don’t know, Carrie.”
“Well,” said Roberts. “There are some things to be done. First of all, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll call my wife. She may be worried after the way I left this evening. Then I’ll call in and find out how your parents are, Carrie.” He went into the little lobby to make his calls. The three fell silent for a long moment.
Janette frowned. “What I still don’t understand is where your dreams or visions or whatever they are actually come from. You’ve seen things you couldn’t possibly have know anything about. Where do they come from, Mark? Do you know yet?”
Mark nodded slowly. “I think I do. They come from the Soros. The aliens are ‘sending’ me these dreams.”
“How? Why?” asked Carrie.
“How? Through that organic whatever-it-is at the base of my brain. Why? I don’t know that – yet. But I aim to find out.”
He let the implications of this intention sink in. But before either could ask any more questions Roberts came back in. He held out his mobile to Carrie.
“It’s your mother. I’ve told her a little about what’s happened and that you’re safe. She’s at your father’s bedside in Stirling Royal. He’s okay, he’ll be fine. Here – talk to her yourself.”
Carrie’s face had passed from concern to relief and she took the phone from Roberts’ outstretched hand. Her mother did most of the talking at first, Carrie nodding now and again, then she began her tale, which was not long in the telling. When she had finished the call she turned to the others, handing the Director back his phone.
“I should go to them,” she said.
“I’ll arrange that,” said Roberts. “I have to call in back-up now. CIS has to go over this place with a fine toothcomb. There’s an interface there that might come in very useful and those tools and workbenches by the wall have not just been used for hammering in nails.” He turned to Mark and Janette. “But what am I going to do with you?”
“Don’t you have to take us in for questioning?” asked Janette.
“Well, yes, but in fact we’ve already covered a lot of the ground. And I think you’ve been through enough for one day. Do you have… “ Roberts hesitated. “… is there any place you can go to? Any relatives in the area? I mean, I can put you into protective custody if you want, but…”
Janette raised her brows in surprise as it hit her again, with some force, that she and Mark had no home to go to. “I don’t… well, no. There’s no one.”
“Well, you leave everything to me,” said Roberts reassuringly. “I’ll see to it that you get a place of our own as soon as possible and for the time being I’ll see if there’s a safe house available for you in this area.” He stepped into the lobby to make the arrangements over the phone.
Again a silence fell between them, yet it united instead of separating. They could hear Roberts’ voice from the lobby.
At last Mark asked: “Have you yourselves figured out what the next move is? What my next move has to be?”
Janette and Carrie exchanged a glance and both nodded at the same time. “I have a bad feeling that you’re going to the Museum,” said Carrie. “You’re going back on board their ship.”
Mark nodded. “There’s something I have to see. And I have to speak to the one with the Striped Arm, their so-called leader. That ship is like a magnet to me now, pulling me to it. I have to go back. But it’s not controlling me – at least, I don’t think it is. I have to go back because that is where the truth is, and that’s what I have to find out.
“What happened today – those people hunting us in the glen, General Miller and the rest – I think that’s all part of their plan. Like I said before, they’re playing games with us, very cunning games. I think all that was to get my attention, to get me good and mad, to provoke me into doing something, to use my power. I saw all that when I was asleep, or unconscious, or in shock, or whatever it was. And they tested me tonight. That bomb was a test.”
“And you’ve passed?” asked Carrie.
“Yep, I reckon so.”
“Chris-sake, Mark!” cried Carrie, “you make it sound like you sat a National Vocational Qually in Defusing Nuclear Bombs! What happens now? Do you go on next week to get a diploma?”
Mark smiled weakly. “Well, maybe so. But you see, it seems to me now that there must be something special about humans – something that only we can do. And the Soros know this. I don’t know what this thing is, but it’s something to do with these powers of mine. Passing through walls, bending matter, all this ‘magic’ for want of a better word – somehow this is something that the Soros want, or need, to use. They can’t do it themselves. Their implants only work on human brains. And I somehow know that they’ve carried out a great many implants. The Human Freedom League, for example, have really been governed by the Soros. Those people are being manipulated by implants. That is pretty clear to me now.”
“This is ghastly,” whispered Carrie.
“Yes, I agree,” said Mark.
“When are we doing this thing – this act of complete madness?” asked Janette. There was no mistaking the depth of fear in her question.
“Tomorrow, mum. I’m going tomorrow. And I need you to help me persuade Mr Roberts to take me.”
Janette did not need a mother’s instinct to know that there was no mistaking the fear in Mark’s voice either. Fear shone clearly in all of their faces.


26 The Soros #1

Mark and Janette passed a restless night in a CIS safe house – a small former farmhouse to the east of Stirling. The house was most commonly used for witness protection, and although it was comfortable enough, with its cheap Ikea furniture, neither Janette nor Mark could settle. Separately, they paced, they flicked through television channels, they wandered outside from time to time to look across at the steep looming slopes of the Ochil Hills, and as they looked they were aware that over to the right, not far away, the Soros craft waited in its field.
They had, however, managed to snatch a few hours sleep. Janette had woken up feeling better, the drug’s after-effects having dissipated, and Mark’s sleep had been untroubled by dreams so he had recovered a little after the trauma and exertions of the past two days.
Roberts had stayed with them. They had reunited Carrie with her parents at Stirling Royal. Mark had dearly wished she could have stayed with him, but her place just now, he had to admit, was with her parents. Roberts then ferried them straight to the safe house. He had also arranged for the motorbike Mark had stolen to be returned to the rightful owner and the stolen bank money and other goods would be returned or paid for in due course.
Over mugs of hot chocolate (and a stiff brandy for Roberts and Janette) Mark had outlined his plan, such as it was, for the Director. He had agreed without much discussion, and gave his reasons for his acquiescence.
“There is something utterly remarkable about you, Mark. I don’t think you’re truly aware of it yourself, but you are… you are, quite simply, probably the most important human being on the planet. But you’re such a nice, unassuming guy you don’t realise it. So if you say to me that you want to go to the Soros ship and you want me to drive you and not tell anyone what we’re doing, of course I’ll do it. In any event, I’m probably as keen – well, maybe that’s not the right word - as determined as you are to see this through. Of course I’ll do it. But why do you need me to come?”
“Simple,” said Mark. “You’ve got a car and I can’t drive.”
Roberts smiled.
“Thanks, Mr Roberts. And we’ll pick Carrie up at half-past eight. She insisted on it, I’m afraid.”
And so it happened that at nine the next morning, the morning of Tuesday July the third, Roberts’ car was skirting the perimeter security fence surrounding McIntyre’s Field.

**********

The vast circular ship glinted dully in the morning sunlight. It appeared completely harmless, like a rather clumsy prop left over from a long-abandoned film set decades ago. Mark, Carrie, Janette and Roberts got out of the car and stood at the security fence looking at the Soros ship. The world had changed the day it landed, changed irrevocably and forever. More changes had still to come, Roberts reflected, glancing at the seemingly self-assured boy beside him.
This day the Museum was obviously closed for business. Disappointed bus parties were being mollified by the uniformed human staff at the ticket kiosks.
No, we’re very sorry, we’re not quite sure why, madam. Perhaps it’s some kind of essential repair work. Certainly we will refund your money. No problem, sir.
The four had spent a long time watching from a safe distance the goings on. As well as coach parties, police cars and military vehicles were much in evidence. Behind them, in the little narrow lane that ran alongside the field, the car sat with its engine running. The heightened security was undoubtedly a result of General Miller’s assassination by the League, reflected Roberts.
At last Mark sighed heavily and said, “Well. No time like the present.”
“Can we not come with you?” asked Carrie. The tremble she could not control in her voice was proof that she was clearly very frightened indeed.
Mark gently took her hand and put an arm tenderly round her shoulder. “No, we have to do it like we discussed earlier. I’m pretty sure I can protect myself, but I’m not sure I could protect you. And you know, in almost every story I’ve read and film I’ve seen, it’s always the girl that trips over her high heels and gets captured by the baddies, and creates endless complications for the hero. Think about it. It’d be a disaster.“
“I’m not wearing high heels!”
“It’s better this way,” continued Mark. “This way, if anything does go wrong, you can tell the story to everyone. Tell them what happened.”
“You won’t reconsider? There’s absolutely no other way?” asked Janette. “We can’t just go to Miller’s people?”
“No other way. What could the army do against them, the Soros?”
Carrie leaned her body close to his and held him tight. “Don’t go,” she whispered looking into his eyes with her direct gaze. Tears were about to flow. “Don’t go, Mark. Please.”
Mark kissed her and returned her embrace. Then he said, “I have to. There’s absolutely no other way.”
As they finally disengaged, Roberts said, “Look, I’ve still got General Miller’s gun in the glove compartment. Do you want to take that with you?”
Mark shook his head. “I’d be as much use with a gun as I would be driving a car. They’d probably detect it on me, anyway. I don’t suppose you can travel across a galaxy and not have some idea about customs control. No, my weapon has to be up here.” He tapped his head. “Whatever force enables me to go through solid walls is what I have to rely on.”
Janette nodded. “Well…” The muscles around her mouth began to tremble and she had trouble with the words, but she could not allow Mark to from her with a memory of negative, despairing hopelessness. So she mustered up a composure she did not truly feel now, and breathed, “Go to it, Mark. We’ve got faith in you. Remember that.”
After a final hug, Mark turned from them and faced the fence. He passed a hand through his hair, and Carrie and Janette both smiled, recognising the familiar gesture.
Mark raised a hand in front of him and the tungsten steel fence parted without a sound. He stepped through, still apparently calm. Inwardly, however, he felt as a high diver might feel the first time he ascends the top board. He was almost giddy with fear, and the thought God, let someone else do this kept running through his mind, accompanied by God, don’t let them see how afraid I am! Let me be strong for them! Each step he took now (and he felt he walked with knees that shook like jelly) was a triumph of reason over emotion, of will-power over terror.
The air almost seemed to crackle as he moved and Janette, Carrie and Roberts were conscious of the incalculable, incomprehensible power that lay within him.
Is there anything he can’t do? Janette wondered.
“You come back to us!” called Carrie, but her voice came out as a squeak and it occurred to her that Mark could not have heard it. “I love you.” Her voice tailed off. She didn’t think he had heard her. Janette slipped an arm round her shoulder.
Somehow Mark’s legs carried him across the field to the ship. Some official, or military policeman had seen his movement and was calling out and hurrying from the main gate. He was vaguely aware that other soldiers had begun to cross to intercept, but they were too far away. A long, curving line suddenly appeared in the hull and the familiar ramp slid soundlessly down towards the ground. The soldiers began to run.
“They know he’s coming!” said Janette.
This is a trap I’m walking into, thought Mark.
Carrie and Janette watched as Mark walked up the ramp and disappeared into the ship’s dark interior. The soldiers were still a hundred metres away and stopped in confusion. The ramp soundlessly and seamlessly closed behind him. Carrie turned her face into Janette’s chest and burst into tears. Janette, feeling her own tears beginning to course down her cheeks, led her back to the car, assisted by Roberts.

**********

Mark sensed rather than heard the door silently close behind him, and the fear that had gripped him began to loosen its hold. There could be no going back now. He took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and looked around. The Reception Area was much as before, but there was no feeling of nausea this time as he passed inside. The shaking in his legs subsided now too.
Subtle lighting compensated for the doorway being closed, but the feeling of being totally cut off from the outside world was now virtually overwhelming.
Mark. Welcome. Sit, please.
The words sounded in his head. Words, and yet not words, not as he knew them. Soros words, Soros thoughts, Soros telepathy.
There was a feeling of laughter, but Mark drew no comfort from it.
The one with the Striped Arm was sitting at a console, much the same as the one Mark had seen in his “dream” at the Bridge of Orchy Hotel. The alien wore the same white suit, human in form since it had two arms, two legs and a head, but the swirling bulges and appendages were unlike any human space suit. The Soros leader turned to face him. Mark saw his own form reflected in the helmet’s opaque visor. Words came clear in Mark’s mind.
You are very near this “truth” that you seek, Mark Daniels. Do you want our help?
Mark glanced behind the Soros. The door was there. He had to go through it. Without moving a muscle he stretched out his thought and made it open.
Ahhhh… Very strong. But are you ready to see what is beyo –
“Never mind the melodrama,” said Mark out loud. He started confidently towards the doorway.
Deep within the space ship a low vibration was suddenly only just perceptible. Mark was at the doorway when he became aware of it.
Striped Arm was beside him and the gloved hand closed around Mark’s upper arm.
I will show you. We will go together.
Mark shrugged off the guiding hand and began to walk straight towards the room he had seen in his dream.
I warn you, said the Soros in Mark’s mind. You must be ready to face what you are about to discover.
“I’m ready.”
The vibration grew slightly in intensity.
He opened the door and stepped inside.
No – you are not.
Suddenly strong hands seized and pinned his arms from behind. He had no time to react. Simultaneously he felt cold sharp pressure on the back of his neck and the prick of a many-pointed syringe. His neck went cold. Mark felt his legs fall from under him and the same strong arms bear him up. Then he lost consciousness…

**********

As they were driving away from McIntyre’s Field, to report to the Field Command Centre and explain themselves, Janette began to scream.
For the past few moments she had been aware of a low humming vibration emanating from the space ship. Now Roberts skewed the car to a halt and the engine stalled. Out of the corner of her eye, she had seen movement, then turned. What she then saw, on the other side of the perimeter fence, was the Soros ship effortlessly starting to rise, slowly at first, then with greater velocity.
They all got out of the car and ran to the fence. Janette rattled it furiously and impotently. The ships legs were disappearing into its body. She was still screaming NO! when the ship, moments later, moved smoothly and soundlessly into the sky and vanished entirely from sight. Carrie fell to her knees in the damp grass and her anguish found expression in long, desperate wail.
An army Landrover approached down the narrow road. It stopped before the car, blocking its path. Another vehicle came up behind. Four burly soldiers, armed with rifles, got out. They surrounded the car, rifle barrels trained on Janette and Carrie. Roberts began to reach inside his jacket for his ID but a warning wave from a rifle muzzle brought his movement to an abrupt halt. He raised his hands above his head.

27 Cheyenne Mountain

It was 2.15am when the US Defense Control Command Facility was thrown into uproar. Locke came growling from his sleeping quarters in the annexe adjoining his offices and began barking to subordinates to tell him what the hell was going on.
Jack Bruce was not due to come on duty until later that morning, but Sam Webster had come back on three hours previously and it was to him that the General finally came for answers. “This had better be a goddam nuclear attack, boy,” declared Locke, “or I’ll have your ass on a bed of side salad for this goddam hullabaloo. Shut off the alarms for Chrissakes, shut them OFF!”
Someone pressed the mute button and the wailing alarms suddenly dropped in volume but continued to sound less insistently in the background. Throughout the room screens were flicking off and on insanely and perplexed analysts and operators were throwing up their hands and turning to each other in baffled, frustrated confusion.
On the wall was mounted a huge plasma display screen showing the world in detail. A red light was flashing over Scotland, and another winked on and off over Baffin Bay in Canada. Yellow lights converged very slowly on both.
Webster said: “First off, sir, this UFO appeared over the magnetic pole in Northern Canada. The Nunavut Territory up there is bristling with radar installations left over from the Cold War and some of them are still functioning. We have no visual confirmation as to what it is yet, because the magnetic field up there’s going haywire and disrupting everything, but it seems to be that one second there was nothing but sky and the next there was an alien ship the size of Manhattan. It’s enormous, sir! There’s a strike force in the area and a squadron of Eagles is making good time to its location so we should eyeball it in a few minutes. My hunch is it’s the Soros ship we suspected was there all along – the one that’s been sending those electro-magnetic signals to interfere with the Nordik.”
“What’s this other blip?” asked the General, nodding towards the screen. “Is it what I think it is?”
“It’s the Soros ship in Scotland, sir.”
“It’s airborne or it wouldn’t be appearing on the screen!”
“Affirmative, sir. We have audio confirmation that the Soros ship began to lift off two minutes ago. They’re on the move.”
“Satellite surveillance? Have we got the Nordiks on line – any of them?”
“Negative, sir. Telemetry has been totally disrupted. The goddam satellites are acting like they’ve got minds of their own.”
“Scramble all aircraft. Get the President on to Airforce One right away. And patch me through to him right now. I want the codes for DEFCON 1.”
Webster gulped and was aware his hands were shaking. “That’s nuclear attack status. Do you think –“
“Just do it, boy. Then notify Talbot in Scotland of our change in alert status and patch me through to him too. Come on, shake your ass!”
Webster hastened to activate the comm-links; it took only seconds to put Locke into contact with the President, who was already being rushed in his limousine to the nearest airport where Airforce One could pick him up.
In the meantime Locke watched the viewscreen with mounting amazement. The red blip over Scotland suddenly moved with incredible speed away from the yellow lights – they represented RAF jets – leaving them far behind. The larger blip over Canada also increased velocity and headed out over the Atlantic. The blips converged above a point to the south of Iceland, and two became one. That one proceeded to move with gathering speed up over the Arctic Ocean and then…
… vanished.
“President on line, sir,” said Webster.
General Locke picked up the phone.
“Herb? What the hell’s happening? Herb?” President Luis de la Frontera was enjoying his second term in office and had presided over what was sure to go down as one of the most significant eras in human history, yet he could not disguise the apprehension in his voice.
“Mr President,” Locke began, “I have to report that… the Soros have gone.”
Sam Webster called out, “I’ve got the NASA tracking system on-line, sir. The ship’s left earth orbit.”
“I’m sorry, Mr President, things are happening quickly here - hold on, sir. Webby – punch it up on screen.”
What appeared was a computer-generated image produced by earth-bound radar stations and those satellites still functioning. The screen showed the earth as a circle and the moon over eastern Russia. The red light of the Soros ship was moving at a speed no earth craft could have matched. In less than a minute it had crossed the orbit of the moon, 400,000 kilometers away, and then the tracking devices could no longer keep up and it vanished again.
“Mr President – they’ve gone.”
“Gone? What on earth are you talking about, Herb? How can they be ‘gone’?”
“I don’t know, sir,” replied the General. “I just do not know.”
Again Webster interrupted: “General Talbot on sec-line 1, sir!”
“Excuse me again, Mr President.” Locke picked up the secure link to Allied Command HQ in Stirling. He listened for a few moments without speaking. Sam Webster thought the General’s face lost even more of its colour.
“I see,” Locke said finally. “Thank you, Andrew.” To de la Frontera, who was still being hastened towards Airforce One, he said, “The Soros have indeed gone, it seems. And that fifteen-year old boy we thought they were trying to kill – they’ve taken him with them.”


28 The Soros #2

Coming aware again, Mark knew he was not awake. He could not see in the normal sense of the word, but he could perceive things, sense them and know them. He knew above all he was now a prisoner.
His body lay on a kind of trolley. Three of the Soros were gathered round him, still wearing space suits. He understood their words.
Let us do it now, said one. Take what we need! The tone was harsh, impatient, angry.
No, said another. This was Striped Arm. It pleases me to wait a little. We have time.
Mark realised that electrodes and wires led from various parts of his body to a selection of monitors, similar to what he had seen in hospitals or on hospital programmes, but the external designs were noticeably different. Their surfaces looked crusty, rather than smoothly metallic.
His alpha monitor suggests he is now conscious of us. I want to talk to him.
Why? Why talk? Enough of talk. Enough of your games. We must do it now. Take what we need now!
The third Soros, silent until now, said, We have had our fun, fooling the humans.. But now there can be little time despite what you think. The others are coming. What is to be gained by prolonging this further?
The second Soros replied: For me, the final triumph, the greatest satisfaction, comes in the human knowing, finally and helplessly, what this has all been about. I want him to know that, just as he was approaching his greatest power, we took that from him. Just as we approached our greatest power, their ancestors took it from us! I want the whole race to know that. I want them all to know! The game must end here! The Soros’s voice had been rising in vehemence and he banged the trolley forcefully to emphasise his point.
This Soros approached Mark, who felt utterly powerless. Little human boy, it hissed at him. Did you think you could outwit us? Us? We have played you, like reeling in a flapping fish. Our satellites watched almost every step of your so-called ‘escape’ in your primitive vehicles. You have been blindly following our plans all along!
I want to talk to him, repeated Striped Arm, in a gentler tone. There was no emotion in his voice, but there was an authority in it that made the others acquiesce. The two Soros withdrew, albeit with reluctance.
From a small tray at the head of the trolley, Striped Arm took a small needle. He injected it straight into Mark’s carotid artery.
Wakefulness did not return with the drug. Mark had no control over his limbs, but he felt he could now control his face and mouth – he could speak.
You can speak and you can follow me with your perceptive mind,” said Striped Arm. “If I show you something you can see it; if I think of something you can see it. Is this not so? Answer.
“Yes.”
Listen to me, Mark Daniels, and listen well. I am going to tell you what you are. I am going to show you things the like of which you have never seen…

What followed was like a drug-induced hallucination, or a series of mirages, bizarre in content and form. The communication with the Soros was entirely telepathic. Colours were enhanced, shapes rendered strangely distorted and alien, like the machines surrounding his trolley.
Mark could see a map. It was a map following the same principles as a human map, showing a planet, but divided up into orange-like segments to give a more accurate perspective on the land/sea ratio, similar to the Mercator projections Mark had seen in atlases in Geography lessons. Most of this world was sea. On one side, however was a huge, solid-looking land mass, while on the other was a collection of what seemed to be pieces of land, loosely joined together. One piece, vaguely triangular in shape was detached from the rest, a brown and green patch in its setting of blue. There were large water features within the larger collection of land chunks.
And when Mark looked closely at the land formations in this loose conglomeration, he saw shapes that he recognised.
Yes, indeed, said the Soros. This is our map room, you see, and also our Museum. Our little joke. We do love our little jokes and games. We termed our ship a “Museum”. And indeed, the maps you see around you, on the walls and on the tables, are millions of years old. Some of these maps are maps of planets which have, as I speak, ceased to exist. Some of these planets were home to great civilizations, oh yes, very great indeed. Insects, mammals, reptiles, birds – somewhere amongst the infinity of all those stars all life-forms, including a great many not found on Earth, find the upper hand sooner or later. But nowhere did we find any civilization so advanced as ours, or one which even approached our brilliance.
And here is a paradox for you, Mark: this space ship is only three hundred years old.
(Mark saw the Soros ship flying smoothly through dark spaces between stars.)
And yet it is also sixty-five million years old. A paradox, a riddle. Can you riddle me that? I wonder.
“Yes,” said Michael, “I can. You came from Earth. “
You are indeed intelligent! said the Soros
“And you are – “
We are the last survivors of the high culture that flourished on this planet nearly seventy million years ago. If you could have seen what we really look like beneath our suits, you humans would have labelled us “dinosaurs”, and in your supreme ignorant arrogance you would have regarded us as your inferiors. Simply because we do not look like you. Such is human nature.
Soros!
Our idea of a pun. Of course none of you realised it. Di – no – saurs! Take the last syllable, trace it back in your etymology and you will find its meaning. You would call us lizards, reptiles; and you would wrinkle up your smooth faces in disgust as you said those words for we are the creatures most humans fear more than any other. Ah – I see our ship’s environment is re-established now, so I can show you my true form.
Mark looked on as Striped Arm removed first his helmet, which was effected by detaching certain tubes and plugs and lifting it off, and then the body suit, which was removed in the same way a human would.
The Soros stood before him.
The head was larger than a human head, the features flatter, the eyes much larger and hooded with scaly skin. Thick bony ridges surrounded eyes and nose. There was no hair. Thick cords of muscle held up the head, for the Soros was a biped. The arms were similar to human arms only much more muscled and stronger, and the body was sheathed in a thick, scaly armour that would take the skin off human knuckles. The groin area was smooth, the genitalia being held inside the body until the season for use. The legs were well muscled and the knees hinged in the opposite direction from that of humans, which made the Soros look like someone had given the top half a savage twist of 180 degrees so he was facing backwards. There were three toes. The hands, however, had three fingers and an opposing thumb, a feature which anthropologists and biologists had correctly deduced was necessary for the development of tool-handling capability in any species. Behind, there was only the vestige of a tail, for like humans that appendage was no longer needed for balance and so had all but disappeared.
The creature continued:
We are the original civilised beings from Planet Earth. Look at our map. And this point here was our first homeland. It has long since vanished under the surface of the planet, by the constant moving of the planet’s tectonic plates. That is an area you would call the Pacific Ocean. And here is my home. Do you recognise this area?
Mark looked. It’s Scotland, he thought, or what Scotland was millions of years ago. That is why they are here, in this place rather than another.
Yes! But now you will find no more trace of the beautiful cities we built or the wonders we created in our time on earth. Believe me, we have looked. Our high culture, ten million years in the making, which resulted in our ability to fly to the stars, is as if it had never existed.
As our land has vanished, so yours has come to the fore – that triangular shape is what you now call India (he pointed to the map) and, a few million years after the making of this map, it collided with Asia and formed the Himalayas. This, as you correctly perceive, is Scotland, and the mountains here were the oldest in the world, higher than the Himalayas are now. Yet, like our culture, and our cities, and the people we left behind, even these mountains will be ground down by time and fade away, and all that will remain of them is what you now call the Scottish Highlands.
That little sea – it was only about five hundred kilometres across at one time – is what you call the Atlantic. That small patch of water, no more than a pond really, will become the Mediterranean Sea.
“Pangea, “said Mark. A name recalled from a programme on the Discovery Channel. The name for the original super-continent. “That was the map I drew from my dream…”
Yes. Pangea is your name for it. This was our world. Now gone. Try to imagine what we feel.. Can you imagine that? No, you cannot possibly. Ah – but then, you know what it is like to lose a home. We made sure of that, Michael. Not quite the same thing, but now we can talk on a very slightly more equal footing. You feel sorrow – and there is another of our little jokes. We feel sorrows – the Soros. But our sorrows are deeper and sharper than you can possibly imagine.
Mark saw the image of a small creature being tended by a mother. They were Soros, yet the affection between them was obvious even to his human perceptions. This domestic scene, some kind of recording perhaps, or a memory given 3-D representation, was in a room high up, very high up in some enormous towering building, for behind, through a narrow open window in a thick stone wall, Mark could see out over a magnificent landscape. Behind the mother and baby was evidence of a mighty civilization capable of magnificent creations: a mountainous landscape filled and crowned with wonders indeed.
Then Mark appeared to be flying through this ancient landscape, so different from the one he knew. He could even feel the moist coolness of white clouds on his goose-fleshed arms as he flew between shining towers, kilometres high, and gleaming citadels, fertile valleys, soaring peaks. He crossed, hundreds of feet up, a vast plateau parkland. Gigantic beasts roamed in herds.
Our cattle, explained the Soros. Your textbooks speak of these lumbering beasts as rulers of the planet, but it was not so. They were our cattle. And the creatures you call tyrannosaurus rex (The Soros’ voice seemed to convey amusement) we kept them for our sport. No, they did not rule – we ruled! We ruled. And the evolutionary branch from which humans developed, the mammals, your ancestors, in our time were no more than little mice, shrews, smaller than your fist. Our children used to keep them as pets and train them to stand on two legs.
“What happened?” Mark wondered.
Ten million years of evolution, replied the Soros, were wiped out in an instant. We had conquered all the ills that plague you now – hunger, disease, old age – and we had mastered our genetic code, something your race has still not been able to do fully. There is much you can learn from us. Our lifetimes extend to many thousands of your years. We on this space ship have been travelling for three hundred years. But because we have spent much of that time at speeds very close to the speed of light, time slowed down for us. Three hundred years for us meant millions of years passed on Earth. We knew that would happen. We were willing for that to happen. Your own scientists have figured out as much. But what we did not imagine was that when we returned our entire civilization would be gone. Gone.
The Soros grief was unmistakeable.
Your textbooks have the reason: it was a comet, hitting the Earth in the equatorial region, in the area of what you call the Gulf of Mexico. But we calculate there were other impacts all over the planet; only these are not evident now. How the collapse of our species happened we do not know. Like you, we had developed powerful weapons and the world was well defended, against just such an eventuality. Perhaps they could not be deployed in time. We just don’t know. We, on this ship, must have left just weeks before the comet struck.
So we, on this ship, represent the crowning achievement of our evolution because we are the last remnant of it. Only one other ship capable of interstellar flight had been built. Only two. We launched at the same time, on the same mission.
Kind of like Noah’s Ark, thought Mark.
But only one ship has returned, continued Striped Arm. We left our planet to take part in a journey of discovery. As I have indicated, our understanding of the physical laws of the universe had led at last to a means of reaching speeds very close to the speed of light. We have indeed travelled right round the galaxy in less than one of our lifetimes, while those we loved, our lovers and our children, became dust blown over a dead land in the wind of centuries. So when we said we came from the other side of the galaxy, we were not lying. In a manner of speaking, my left hand is on one side of the galaxy and my right hand is on the other.
Again Mark clearly detected amusement in the tone: another trick; another play on words.
But – in that journey round the galaxy, we discovered something.
Now Mark felt darkness envelop him. He was on the bridge of the Soros space ship, staring at a view-screen that was dark except for a few pin-pricks of light. He saw what they had seen at the moment of their “discovery”.
What you are seeing now are the stars on the outermost edge of our galaxy, explained the Soros. The furthest fold of the spiral arm. It was here we found…
The Soros could not translate the words.
The monsters? The old ones? The dark gods? The enemy? The Soros could find no real words in human vocabulary to describe exactly what they had found in these furthest reaches. But Mark knew with absolute clarity that what they found made them deeply afraid.
We dropped out of light speed in a dark solar system. Its sun was collapsing and was on the verge of extinction. It had six planets in close orbit around it and as its gravitational pull intensified the planets would be drawn in to their destruction in two to three hundred years.
The Soros, as you will have realised by now, have a telepathic link with each other. This link, which had enabled us to achieve so much, was finally to prove our curse.
We needed supplies of uranium and some other minerals to replenish our power sources, so we spent some time scanning the planets for signs of it. My ship located some on the fourth planet and our second ship explored the third, a dark, desert, lifeless world, forbidding in every aspect.
The second ship had no sooner touched down than the crew was assailed by the most horrible fears and visions. Realizing that some force, or forces in the planet itself, were the cause, they tried to take off, but the ground beneath the ship had somehow “bonded” with the hull, as if the planet’s soil had formed claws and seized the ship’s legs in the tightest of grips. This “bond” had happened even at the sub-atomic level. That was why our anti-gravity propulsion had no effect, and the ship was trapped.
In our minds we had no choice but to witness all the horrors the crew suffered. Creatures came, life-forms unlike anything ever imagined. They were not carbon-based, like Soros or human, they had nothing in common with animals or insects or anything that we would describe as ” life”. They moved through matter like… like we move through air. Solid, liquid, gas, it made no difference to them. They seemed to move into matter at times, and inhabit it, changing it to suit themselves. They moved in the spaces between the atoms, the sub-atomic, scarcely comprehensible dimension. Using the energy that makes our telepathy possible, they could enter an individual’s mind and, with a gentle torturing “caress”, throw the brain’s electrical activity into havoc. They could change molecular densities, atomic weights, and alter cell structures. We became for them like a human child’s plasticine toy. There was no escape. They lurked in shadows, waiting, waiting.
I cannot explain how it was to watch our companions… not die! For these beings did not kill, not at first. They absorbed, they entered and controlled, and they changed the shapes of our companions into whatever whims they had. By altering cell structures, they grew hideous organs and limbs, and our companions became abominations. But within those abominations our friends were helplessly alive still.
(Briefly – thankfully briefly – Mark glimpsed something of the horror the Soros experienced at telepathically witnessing the fate of those on board the second ship.)
These beings had not known what space travel was.
We gave them the concept and the key, when they took our friends and the second ship.
Our weapons were useless against them. They move through matter, but are not of it, and our weapons, of course, depend on physical laws, just as yours do. The second ship took off. We saw it. But we knew none of our friends was in control. We were so frightened… We, who had hunted tyrannosaurus for sport, lost our reason with fear. I mean that. We went mad in our terror, and we fled.
The galaxy, Mark Daniels, is not well populated with intelligent life. There are many life forms, but not many are not what we could call “intelligent”. Life is so diverse. But we can no more communicate with the fish, or insect life here on earth than we can with some of the beings we found. Can you imagine trying to explain your culture to a bluebottle or a midge? The idea is absurd. And although, using machines or telepathy, we can carry on a conversation with humans, we cannot share the truth of what we have experienced, what we feel and what we know. Not really.
If an army of ants is coming towards you are you going to try to establish communication with them? Of course not. It is simply impossible. You destroy them or you run away. So we ran from the Enemy. They are not animals, you see. And so they have not evolved as animals have, with senses and feelings and instincts. They are completely beyond our comprehension, it’s as simple as that. But there was nowhere we could run to get help. We had found no one else in the galaxy so advanced as we were. So we came home, thinking that our civilization would still be intact, and that somehow some means could be found to defeat these … monsters.
We arrived back just over a hundred years ago. We sent down a little probe, first, because it was obvious things had changed drastically. But in our eagerness to return, perhaps we failed to programme the probe correctly. It created something of a bang in the atmosphere, somewhere above the land you call Russia.
A spark of all-but-forgotten lore fired in Mark’s mind.
You humans have been speculating about it ever since. But, in any event, it soon became apparent that the continents had shifted, some of the planet’s resources had been renewed with the movement of the tectonic plates, the atmosphere had subtly changed, and the life forms were not what we expected, not at all. Of our species there was no sign, and a new species, descended from that little group of mammals I spoke of earlier, had evolved to fill the gap: humans; homo sapiens.
I’ve mentioned that some of our children had kept mammals for pets. It was quite common. Our children used to make the small shrews of that era do tricks – they could roll over, beg for food and some of us liked to make them stand on two legs, as I have said. Understand, then, how we felt when we found our home overrun by pets! Imagine you come home one day and find your family dog standing on two legs, wearing clothes and issuing orders!
At first it was easy to hide from you. We could land in unexplored parts of the world and carry out our researches to find out what had happened and at the same time we could study the human race. But such things take time. Time was not something we had a lot of. The Enemy, you see, had been able to use the Soros telepathic link to trace us. They were following us through space, in the second ship, using the telepathic structures in our friends’ brains.
They are coming. We can feel them even now, like a mad chaos arising over a distant horizon. But they are not far away, and our time is running out.
We studied human beings. Your minds and your brains were of particular interest to us. All life on earth is ultimately derived from the same sources. Earth DNA is unlike any other. So we are linked, you and I, Mark Daniels. Separated as a species, and seventy million years apart, yet we are linked. A strange thought for you, no doubt.
But your brains… You have at the base what your own scientists call the “reptilian” brain; then, wrapping around that, in a sense, is the mammalian brain; and finally, the thing that gives you your intelligence, your human qualities, is the cortex, the human part of you that has only evolved in the last few million years. And it is unlike anything else in the universe. It is completely unique, and can never evolve again anywhere else.
It means that you can accomplish certain things we cannot. Despite our telepathic ability, and our immense intelligence, we are not quite your equals in imagination. You can visualize certain things that we cannot, and you can perceive certain things that we cannot. Some of you can foretell the future; some of you can move objects by will power alone; and some, such as your greatest philosophers and scientists, can see, as indeed we can, into the true nature of things.
It was this that made us think that, in you, we could save ourselves. The powers that lie in your minds, in the dormant eighty per cent of your human brains, can be our weapons against the Enemy.
So we began experiments.
About sixty years ago we took the decision to start experimenting on human beings. Some of us opposed the idea, but the majority was in favour as it seemed the only option open to us. Some of us suggested that we make contact with you, reveal our existence; but to be honest, sixty years ago you were like children playing with new toys – atom bombs, nuclear power, rockets, and your wild imaginations were keeping you awake at night thinking about life from other planets and how nasty it would be. So it was not the time to make contact. We don’t even think the human race is ready yet, for as a species you are very stupid, but we have no choice now. That is why we made ourselves known to you five years ago. We knew the time was coming when we might need your help, so we established contact in the way we did. But we now know that the second ship is fast approaching the outer edge of the solar system. They will soon be here.
Our experiments tried to stimulate the sleeping parts of your brains. We tried to increase your mental powers, while still retaining some sort of control over you.
The implants, thought Mark.
Yes, the implants.
And my father.
Yes, your father, answered the Soros. Subject number 506919. And then you, but you were not the subject of one of our experiments. You, Mark Daniels, are the subject of your father’s experiment. It’s strange how fate turns out. It was precisely because we exercised no control over you that you developed in your own particular way. You are a rogue element.
We only discovered you when you visited the ship the first time. We sensed the magnetic fields you generated - oh, you have no idea how powerful you can be - and we realized that in you lay our best hope. But you were trying to stifle the power you had. We had to get you to see yourself for what you were.
So you arranged what I suppose you will call my “education”!
Yes. We arranged it all. Including, sadly, the death of Miller. The organisation called “The Human Freedom League”, while they think they are plotting against us, are actually doing our work. The implants again.
Mark had the confirmation of his earlier suspicions.
They all have implants, and I am in fact the one they think of as “the Chairman”. Miller was not an enemy, but you had to be put through a series of emotional traumas and it was calculated that witnessing his death was the climax of those. It is your emotions that give you much of your power. We were helping you to grow.
Mark remembered Miller’s body as it lay slumped against the verge, and he remembered the images he had seen of his father, and he thought about the anguish his mother had gone through.
We had to do what we did! insisted the Soros leader. We had to! If we had let you bumble on in your own little way, the second ship would have arrived and that would be the end of Soros, the end of humanity, the end of our planet! You must understand that!
But Mark, understanding or not, felt only cold, cold rage. Power began to gather again in some deep recess of his mind.
A needle’s thin tip was inserted into his neck.
Now we take what we want! he heard a Soros say. The second Soros had clearly come back into the room. Enough of this talk. Begin the process to use what we need now, without delay!
The drug was very powerful and Mark was helpless to resist.


29 Janette and Carrie

They had been escorted by the soldiers to the McIntyre’s Field Centre first while Roberts’ identity was verified and thereafter removed to Allied Command Headquarters. Janette and Carrie were inconsolable. Roberts’ attempts to say something foundered against their combined despair.
He used his influence to find them comfortable rooms within the underground complex and sent word to Carrie’s parents. Martin had been released from hospital with what amounted to no more than a slight head wound, and they would soon arrive to offer what comfort they could to their daughter.
Roberts had never felt so helpless, so useless. No words of his could ever make this situation any better. He moved restlessly in the well-appointed lounge that had been allocated to them and busied himself from time to time with other aspects of the investigation. Carrie and Janette ignored him.
For the umpteenth time Roberts checked his watch. It was 11.15am. As if someone had been waiting for a cue, the door opened and an aide entered and took up an at ease position. “General Talbot to see you, sir, ladies,” he said.
Red-eyed, Janette and Carrie looked up as Talbot came in.
The newcomer was a tall man, in army uniform, with lots of gold and braid and ribbons above the left breast pocket. He wore thin, black-rimmed glasses, and his hair was grey-black, combed back.
“My name’s Talbot, Andrew Talbot.” His manner was serious, concerned and sincere. “Aaron Miller was bringing Mark to see me and then we were going to arrange for him to visit the Soros leader. Events now seem to have moved out of our control, somewhat. I’m what’s known as the General Officer, Commanding Scotland. I want you to know we are trying to understand exactly what has been going on and precisely what has happened to your son, Mrs Daniels.”
He took command of the situation with cool confidence. “But if you don’t mind, I’d like to get a doctor in here, Doctor Sheila Gold, who will give you quick check up to make sure you’re all right. I know, I know - you’re a doctor yourself, but I’d rather one of our people gave you a check-up.”
Janette nodded apathetically. “If you want. What difference does it make?”
“In the meantime, if there’s anything else you need…”
Janette’s expression came to life and she stood up, almost defiantly. “There is. Apart from my son back. A magnetic resonance imaging machine,” said Janette. “Please.”
“A what?”
“A magnetic resonance imaging machine. Stirling Royal will have one you can borrow, or some doctors’ surgeries even have them now. Maybe you’ve even got one here, I don’t know. I used to have one, before the goddamn Soros blew my home to pieces.”
Talbot said he would see what he could do. “It’s important that you understand, Doctor Daniels, that I am not your enemy.”
Janette appraised him carefully. “We’ll see,” she said.

**********


Darkness. No sensation. This must be death, thought Mark. I’ve been killed and my soul is drifting somewhere in space and time, cut off from everything. I have no eyes to see with, no ears to hear with, no nose to smell things, no nerves to feel things. I am just thought, drifting, and alone. What have they done to me? What have they done? He was not afraid.

**********

Janette was mildly surprised when General Talbot and Director Roberts willingly submitted to the MRI scan. She set it up in their living quarters.
“Anyone ever told you you should have your head examined?” asked Janette, as she affixed the sensors to Talbot’s head. There was no real humour in her tone.
“What is it you think the test will show?” asked Talbot.
“We’ll see in a minute,” answered Janette. “Hold still now. This won’t hurt a bit.” The device whirred slightly inside itself, some internal cooling fan, and after a moment the result of the scan was printed on specially-coated paper.
“Hold that, Carrie, will you?” Carrie took the image Janette handed her. She looked at it, frowned, but could make nothing of it.
“There appears to be a brain,” Carrie remarked.
“Well, that’s something,” replied Janette. “Now you, Roberts.”
“Please – call me Chris.”
Once the scans were complete, Janette laid the images out on a square plastic table. “This is how it began,” she said. “I scanned my son’s head. He had been feeling a kind of pain – here (she pointed at a location on Talbot’s image) – and we found something that suggested a growth or an implant. He felt it was a growth and it was causing him to feel things. After the scan, his feelings got more intense, and he began to “see” things. It turned out he was hooked into the Soros in some way and the magnetic scan had switched this “thing” on. He could get access to what they were thinking and planning - or at least to some of it. The Soros found out and tried to destroy us. You see Mark also thought the implants were what the Soros used to control some humans – the Human Freedom League, for example.”
“And you want to find out if we have any implants, or whatever, too – is that it?” asked Roberts. “Like we might be secret members of the League?”
“Yes. And judging by these, you are clear, gentlemen. You are all human, and free from Soros control.”
“Go on, please,” said Talbot.
Janette explained the details of their flight across Scotland, their capture in Glasgow, and the events leading to Miller’s death.
“Anyhow,” she concluded, “Mark felt that everything was leading him back to the Soros ship. He had to go there, confront their leader, the one he called Striped Arm – “
Talbot interrupted this time. “Their leader’s space suit was distinguished by a Striped Arm around the lower arm. But no one outside of the Soros circle – and that meant Aaron Miller, myself and few others who were absolutely sworn to secrecy – knew about that. We released as few details as possible and I don’t think that was among them. So for Mark to know that…”
“Confirms he had special powers,” said Janette.
“I think I’m starting to believe you,” remarked the General.
Roberts made a noise almost like derision. “Believe her? I’ve told you, General, I saw with my own eyes what this boy can do. This is for real."
“Mark said, “ continued Janette, “that there was a second ship, a kind of ‘mother ship’ as they used to say in the old sci-fi movies. It was located in the atmosphere above the north pole, ‘hiding in the magnetic field’.”
Talbot raised his eyebrows. “Well… frankly, yes, that’s so,” confirmed Talbot. His face became suddenly even more serious, as he leaned forward and said. “Mrs Daniels – Janette - it will be of no comfort to you now to learn that at 9.18 this morning USAF jets on patrol in that very area detected and made visual contact with a very large extra-terrestrial space ship – very large indeed. A smaller ship, description closely matching the ship from McIntyre’s Field, docked with the larger ship, and was taken inside it. At 0920 the larger ship, with the smaller one still inside it, flew above the atmosphere and left earth orbit.”
He glanced at Roberts as if uncertain how to continue.
“Janette – our satellites tracked the ship for ten minutes. “
“What are you saying to me?”
“We lost it once it passed the orbit of the moon.”
Weakly, Janette said, “What?” She seemed to collapse in on herself. Carrie’s expression was one of sheer horror.
“The Soros have gone,” said Talbot heavily. “We don’t know where, we don’t know why, and we can’t do a damn thing about it. And they’ve taken Mark with them.”
“Mark!” Janette’s grief was terrible to see. She clung to Carrie. “Where have they taken him? What are they doing to him?”
Roberts and Talbot exchanged an uneasy glance. They could find no words to meet the needs of this situation.
It was Carrie who finally spoke: “Wait a minute. We need to have a little faith in him. He’s not exactly helpless. Remember? Remember his power? We both felt it and saw it. Come on. Mark needs us to have faith in him. He’ll come through this. He will. I know it.”
Janette held Carrie at arms length and looked at her through tear-filled eyes. She closed her eyes and held the girl tight, clinging to her, clinging to hope.


30 The Enemy

Darkness…
I am aware I am thinking… therefore I exist. I am alive. At least in some sense of the word.
And then a feeling, an intuition, the old kind, like when Mark could diagnose car faults or predict the sex of an unborn baby or know when a beam weapon satellite was targeting his house. A strong intuition of speed, great speed, unbelievable speed!
Where is my power? Mark wondered.
I have memories. I remember Carrie, and my mother, and what we had for breakfast this morning before we left that safe house and the Honda motorbike that I stole. And when I was six I had an argument at school with Ian Bannerman who stole my coat and stuffed it into a waste bin in the cloakroom, and I have all these memories.
How can you have memories if you’re dead? If your brain is the store of memories, and if your brain is dead then you are dead, then how can I still have memories. I’m still alive. My brain is still alive.
More memories returned: standing watching Carrie flounce in a most attractive manner up her driveway, the first dance with her at the School Dance when they first got together, Alicia Wotherspoon outside the toilets that night saying drunkenly, “Mark, I’ve always fancied you,” and reeling off to dance with someone else, the black and white penguin his mother had placed in his pram when he was two, memory after memory, image after image, then a blue dolphin on a motorcycle and Carrie behind a tungsten wire fence saying in a whisper “I love you”.
And then the power surged within him, driving through the channels and fibres of his being, filling his every particle until he felt that he must explode in dazzling, searing light.
Can I feel my body?
He tried to make a fist. His hand felt like it was thousand miles away.
Contact!
Like a huge door sliding slowly open, or mighty gears grinding to mesh, the awareness of his body gradually, painfully returned.
And now, at last, he had everything, the meaning of it all, totally clear.
He had exerted the merest gram of the tremendous power he knew lay within him and at once, instantly, full awareness – and more – returned.
We’ve just passed the orbit of Pluto. The sun is merely the brightest dot in a canopy of bright dots. We are travelling in the mother ship at light speed. This is a giant ship – five kilometres in diameter, at least. I’m accessing this ship’s controls now, but I’m not sure yet exactly what everything does.
I can see myself as the Soros see me. They see me as… a weapon. I am strapped to a chair, held in one of the ship’s escape pods. Why keep me imprisoned in an escape pod? It is armed – multi-directional beam weapons and some kind of immensely powerful nuclear blaster. Anti-grav pulses cascade up and down and around the hull of the pod, for in that way the Soros think they can harness my magnetic field, my power. But they are wrong.
Now Striped Arm has discovered I am awake. His mind is full of wonder, and guilt, and pleasure that I am awake, and he thinks I’m afraid.
Michael Daniels. You have woken up. Good. His telepathic voice sounded almost glad.
“Now you will tell me what you are hiding from me,” Mark replied.
“The Enemy, in the second ship, is very close. On this ship we number one hundred and twenty-five. On the second ship, about forty of our friends remain, but they are, of course, no longer our friends. They are tools and playthings for the obscene experiments of the Enemy. But, unfortunately, our telepathic link remains. It gets stronger as we approach each other. Their agony is becoming our agony.”
“Why not wait until they reached Earth?”
“Because,” Striped Arm explained, “to do so would be fatal, for us and for your people. Once on Earth, these monsters would enter any and every organism. They could take refuge in the smallest insect, or transform the largest mammal into something unrecognisable. We could not stop them. The human race, for all its imagination, could not stop them. It would be the end of all life for us both.
“So we must face them here, in space, and we hope you are the weapon which will defeat them. And if not, at least we may destroy the ship. Our weapons are formidable, although of no use against these beings. But though we may die ourselves, we might give the planet a little time. Without light speed it would take many years for these things to reach Earth from here.”
“This was not your first intention. What was your first intention?” Mark demanded.
Striped Arm appeared to give what, in a human, would be a sigh. “Some of us thought that … another plan … a different plan would work. I have no amusement in telling you this now. For years we have been experimenting on human brains. Some of our scientists developed a machine, a kind of robot, only more organic – carbon-based – and we have the capability to transplant a human brain into it, without damaging the brain in any way.”
“You have already done this! Haven’t you? You’ve already created robots with human brains.”
“Yes,” admitted Striped Arm. “We have. We had to. In doing so we came to a full understanding of how the human brain works. Don’t you see? Our experiments, gruesome as they seem to you, were necessary in order for you to become what you are. Our experiments were not completely successful.”
“But you have not put me into one of these machines!”
“No, no.”
“When one of you said ‘Take what we want now’ – he meant ‘take my brain’, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t. You could have, but you didn’t. Why not?” Then it dawned on him. “You!”
Striped Arm bowed his head humbly.
“You prevented them. Why?” asked Mark.
“I saw that in you we had done what we set out to do. We made you angry, we made you afraid, and the natural chemicals in your brain stimulated by those powerful human emotions did the rest for us. We tricked you and made you cautious, we duped you and made you wise.
“You have no need of machines now, Mark Daniels. You have no need of Soros robots. Your power is only limited by your imagination – and that could be virtually limitless. You can – “
Pain, agony, terror suddenly ripped and crashed through Striped Arm’s mind and Mark, with the close telepathic link, felt it just as much. And behind this initial shock wave came wave after wave, pulse after pulse of horror. Like Striped Arm, he was linked with the Soros on the second ship, and through them he saw what Striped Arm dreaded so much. He glimpsed the Enemy. The Soros had been right to be afraid.
Monsters beyond reason, beyond control, beyond the furthest reaches of the most depraved human imagination.
The two giant ships, at light speed, hurtled towards each other through the blackness of space.
On the approaching ship, the Enemy reached out some tendril of rational impulse. It caressed the minds of the creatures who had once been Soros whose corrupted shapes occupied the positions that controlled the helm. Their mis-shaped limbs twitched at the controls. Both ships began to slow.
Striped Arm fought for control of his own thoughts. All the Soros on the mother ship were fighting for control of their reason. All were mortally afraid.
“Mark Daniels – the Enemy are using the telepathic link. They are already crossing the gulf between us… Trying to take control of our ship. “
Striped Arm’s three clawed hand closed on a control switch.
Mark understood exactly what he had to do.
The clamps holding the escape pod blew with explosive force. A door in the side of the mother ship swung open and the pod was ejected into space. Immediately Mark formed a force-field about himself and the pod.
He stretched out his power and stopped the motion of the pod, bringing it parallel to the Soros ship. The straps and bolts holding his wrists and ankles dropped away and he stood up shakily. A viewscreen flicked on. He stared across the gulf at the two giant space craft. They were only a couple of kilometers apart, facing each other like protagonists in some ancient duel. And the Soros’ intention was for him to be the ambush.
He sensed what the Enemy was doing. Because he was human, and they had never encountered a human before, they were not attuned to his presence. It would not take them long to sense him, though, and when they did they would lose no time in moving across space to invade and occupy and corrupt his mind. For the moment they were using the telepathic link to cross to the mother ship. Mark could almost see their shapes, hideous and loathsome.
He reached out, into the second ship, found a Soros that had been twisted and warped into a travesty of a living creature. This creature was crouched over a helm control. He sensed the Enemy presence within. He wrapped his force around the enemy, a series of impulses interconnecting on a sub-atomic level.
That is how they move through matter, realised Mark. They are like sub-atomic cancers. But they can’t move through this!
He tightened the force around the enemy presence and contracted it, like a bubble shrinking, but a bubble of steel collapsing in on itself in a microsecond. The sub-atomic impulses that created the presence were instantly dissipated. No scream, no drama, no puff of smoke, just annihilation pure and simple.
The Soros host for the enemy presence, its mind free at last from its vile control, expressed confusion, then relief, then gladness. But its body could no longer support life, and it slumped lifeless over the helm controls.
But now his presence had been detected. As chaos now reigned on the Soros ship, the Enemy ship seemed to turn towards the pod, its attitude shifting slightly. Enormous weapons were trained on the little pod. The Enemy, working through the twisted remains of the crew, opened fire.
A bolt of energy flashed across the blackness. The pod was engulfed. Nothing material could have withstood that force for long. But the magnetic force-field parted the energy waves effortlessly, channeling them around and away. The bolt could have destroyed a small city. The pod, when the first attack was over, was unharmed.
But Mark was shaken. For the first time it had occurred to him with absolute clarity, that he could die out here.
He saw in his mind Striped Arm. Striped Arm’s head seemed to be changing shape, bulging and rolling, cells mutating, fusing, becoming utterly alien, and his hand was trembling as he fought not to press the weapons control panel. Striped Arm was facing the inevitability of his own death.
The Enemy were trying to turn the weapons of both ships on the pod. Striped Arm, fighting for his life, was trying to give Mark Daniels time.
Mark reached into Striped Arm’s alien mind. He enveloped the enemy presence. He closed his steel trap around it and extinguished it, like fingers on a candle flame. Mark felt the tension go out of Striped Arm and then his link was cut. The Soros leader was dead. But this time, other presences pressed and crowded upon him. He withdrew from the ship but they had latched on to him now. They wanted his power.
If Mark had been afraid before, this was a thousand times worse. The Soros, for all their strangeness, had at least been of Earth. But these entities, they were so alien, so terrifying. Death was not the worst thing that could happen to him out here.
The controls of the ship were designed for Soros hands.
“What the hell do I do?” Panic seized him. He began to tremble uncontrollably.
Now both Soros ships had angled towards him and their weapons locked on to the pod. They fired. But once more the force-field withstood the attack.
Fear had driven Mark’s reason out of his mind. Wide-eyed, almost paralysed with panic he stared at the controls in front of him. His imagination was conjuring up unbidden images of the horrors the Enemy would perform on him. They were trying to penetrate the force-field even now. Some of them had crossed the vacuum of space and sought for a way to enter the pod, like vampires tapping at a window, insistent.
“Oh God! Think! Think! What can I do?”
He sensed the entities outside of the force-field, incomprehensible as moths round a candle. He imagined a fist in his mind, then the fist opened, stretched out… snapped up the sub-atomic patterns of the entities and it utterly crushed them.
He stretched out again… and swatted the second Soros ship. The five-kilometer craft flew spinning through space as if it was no more than a child’s frisbee. Mark’s panic began to recede and he was able to grapple with the controls of the pod. The enemy entities struggled to understand what had happened.
Putting out his mind again, he scanned Striped Arm’s ship. It was infested with the alien presences. He threw his force like a net around them, and pulled it tight. Next moment, they were extinguished.
The second Soros ship was regaining control itself. The Enemy on board felt no familiar emotions: there was no anger, or surprise, or anything that Mark could recognise as feeling. Nor was there any concept of mercy or even of simple giving up.
Mark had walked through walls before, and could understand how that could be done. Now it came to him that he could open doors through space. He stepped forward towards the viewscreen of the pod –
- and stepped forward to rest a hand on Striped Arm’s command chair on the bridge of the mother ship.
This gave Mark confidence now. If he could cross distances like that, what could he not do? Could he get himself back to Earth without a Soros ship?
The second ship was opening fire.
Mark instantly put up a shield to deflect the blast, then, like an alchemist putting a stopper in a magic bottle, he blocked the second ship’s weapons system. The effect was like spiking a cannon. The energy, with no outlet, doubled back on itself. The ship expanded like a softly inflated balloon, but the explosion was immense. The gigantic ship seemed to puff up, then collapse in on itelf, and finally it blew apart in a billion pieces.
Mark watched with a mixture of elation and stupefaction. He had always associated explosions with noise, but this was like watching a silent movie. There is no sound in space. There is nothing to carry sound waves. No noise, no screams, just white hot-shrapnel bouncing off the force-field he had created.
He threw out his mental net again. The Enemy presences were like stunned fish drifting in a sunless ocean. Group by group he obliterated them all - they could not touch him now - and he scattered their sub-atomic particles between the stars.
Mark ran two hands through his hair. He slumped forward and rested his hands on the command chair. He looked at Striped Arm’s body, the three-fingered claw and the motionless reptilian face. He felt horribly alone. Throughout the ship it seemed that nothing moved. He scanned the controls and wondered what on earth he should do next.

**********


31 Tuesday Night - Logan #4

Logan is confused.
He lies on one arm on the thick quilt and his unblinking gaze is directed outside the Travel Inn motel’s small bedroom window at the restricted view of the pale blue late-afternoon sky. Here in England, in this suburb of the unremarkable town of Uttoxeter, the weather is noticeably warmer but the air-conditioning shields him from the persistent mugginess.
The window faces north. That way lies the sprawling amusement park of Alton Towers with its Soros Galaxy Ride, advertised in the motel foyer as the most terrifying ride in Europe. And beyond that, the rolling hills and fields and massive urban sprawls and motorways of England. And beyond that – Scotland, but a Scotland without a mushroom cloud; and that is the first reason for Logan’s confusion.
Yet on the four o clock news he has clearly seen footage of the Daniels woman and the boy’s girlfriend, under armed escort by soldiers heading towards the HQ in McIntyre’s Field. How could that be? How could they have been released from his flat without setting off the bomb? What had gone wrong? Was the bomb wrongly constructed? Had he made mistakes?
But the boy has been taken by the aliens and the aliens have taken off. So, in a way, the main objective has been achieved: the aliens have gone. Maybe they had got wind of the bomb and been scared off. Its blast certainly would have blown them to kingdom come, that’s for sure. But Logan is not entirely convinced by the logic of that argument. Area of confusion number two.
Area of confusion number three: the source of that lay on the dressing table – the Supernet interface that is standard equipment in two-star motel rooms. He has checked it out earlier but could not access the familiar site. His incomprehension at that is profound. He feels like an addict without a fix, and he shies away from that thought – it does not square with the image he holds of himself. But what he cannot shy away from is the incontrovertible fact that he can no longer contact the Chairman. That more than puzzles him – it makes him feel cut loose, adrift.
The threads of his purpose are beginning to unravel. He puts that thought away too.
Of course, he has already contacted other members of the League including the Commander in this area, so he is not alone. No problem with that. In fact the resources of the League are totally available to him. Tomorrow he will pick up new identity cards from a drop point in Kettering: ID, passport, credit cards, employment history, references, everything necessary to disappear as Logan and start afresh. A spell abroad is called for. The League Commander has suggested a few months abroad – and offered him the use of his apartment in a village near Rimini in eastern Italy. Logan is very much inclined to take up the offer.
But why had the bomb not detonated?
Why had the aliens really gone? Are they gone for good or is this just a ruse? A preamble to invasion?
Why have they taken the boy with them?
Where is the Chairman and why has his site disappeared from the Supernet?
So many questions.
Logan pushes himself off the bed and stumbles over his Scarpa boots to the dressing table. He switches on the kettle, tears open one of the cappuccino sachets and pours the granules into a small cup. When the kettle has boiled he pours some water into the cup and stirs it with a spoon, adding a sachet of sugar.
He takes his coffee to the window and, standing, looks out, sipping from time to time. The view of the hectically busy motorway not two hundred metres away is not comforting. He touches a hand to his temple. Logan can sense the onset of a headache. He is not as a rule, prone to headaches, but just lately he has been noticing dull pains, more and more, at the back of his throat. Strange. He ponders gargling with some antiseptic solution.
He puts the coffee down on the white plastic window ledge. What he really feels like is a bloody drink. But wait a minute! He has not had an alcoholic drink since that time at eighteen when he had gone mad at a student party and woken up days later in some goddam soaking meadow in the early hours of a chill May morning. He flushes to remember it. But that experience has put him off alcohol for life – or so he has thought until now. He never has found out the truth of that drunken escapade; he never has found out what had happened to his clothes or who had taken them. The whole embarrassing episode had eventually been thrust from his mind, kept aside, suppressed. Strange he has not thought of it at all for many years. Very strange.
The headache is getting worse. This is perhaps the onset of a cold. Logan feels the urge to blow his nose. He steps into the bathroom, tears off some toilet paper and blows his nose into it. When he pulls the tissue away he notices the blood. Quite a lot of blood.
His headache is definitely getting worse.

**********


Tuesday Night - Mark

You have no idea how powerful you can be…

The giant ship drifted in space. The slight background hum of its mighty drives and gravity fields followed Mark wherever he went. If the ship on earth, that in reality had been no more than a landing craft, had been full of wonders then it had been a village museum compared to this Louvre. Down smooth-walled ochre corridors Mark walked, through vast chambers of truly alien life-form specimens that the Soros had collected during their odyssey amongst the stars. Strange plants, simple animal species like nothing on earth, creatures that resembled fish in the sense that they seemed to be swimming in water, others that resembled desert insects in that they boasted numbers of legs, lived in enclosed sandpits and looked more than a little frightening… all manner of bizarre species were preserved in protected environments, each one apparently monitored and serviced by the ship’s “computer system”. And there were dozens, hundreds of such enclosures. Mark understood that one of the reasons this great ship has remained in space while only the smaller craft landed had been to avoid the risk of any of these life-forms getting free and running loose on the home planet. Who knew what the consequences of such a thing might be?
Mark walked kilometre after kilometre. From time to time he passed machines of various shapes and sizes that appeared to be robots. Some were carrying out maintenance tasks. Others appeared to be simply waiting, out of the way at the side of the corridors, for fresh instructions. Some enormous intelligence must be controlling all this. Mark found upon experiment that he too could cause the robots to move simply by stretching out his mind and issuing an order: Move to the right. Go to the end of the corridor and stop. But, unable to think of any task more constructive or imaginative, he carried on his way.
He felt no tiredness and he was engrossed in his exploration of this stupendous ship. In this way he put aside the memory of what he had just endured and the horrors that threatened to haunt his mind were held at bay – at least for a while. His travels took him further and further away from the scenes of carnage.
Games rooms, recreation rooms, bedrooms, rooms that looked like sports halls and had incomprehensible markings on the floor, all of these Mark wandered into, no doors locked. In one section of the ship he found many rooms lined with curious finger-sized cylinders. The equivalent of our CD storage systems. This must be a kind of library. He took some out and turned them over. Impressions came. This is a story, a Soros story, a love story. A love story! And this is a drama about family conflicts, and this one about a brilliant scientific mind destroyed by a genetic condition but saved in the end by manipulating DNA on a sub-atomic level… Story after story after story.
In other rooms he found cylinders containing the history of Soros mechanical principles, engineering techniques, vessel schematics, diagrams, blueprints. Mentally he was able to access them in part, enough to identify what they contained, but he did not know how they could be displayed fully.
One room made Mark pause and feel slightly sick. It contained a collection of about ten large robots, humanoid in shape, very powerful looking, bristling with what had to be weapons systems. What should have been their heads were hollow shells, left open. These cavities were lined with some kind of organic substance and Mark had no trouble guessing their purpose. These had been destined to contain human brains: perhaps some had already fulfilled that intention, but the experiment had failed or could not continue. Mark knew that if one of the Soros had prevailed in his argument, his own brain would have found its final resting place in the headpieces of one of these war machines. Striped Arm had prevented that.
Another room held the history of all life on earth; but it stopped with the Soros, of course. They had been at the top of the tree of life in their time. Like the histories humans write. Evolution, for the moment, appears to stop with us. But who, in the future, will read our histories?
Another area of the ship was given over to a huge parkland. He had to negotiate his way through a complicated series of air-locks to enter this section and, once in, Mark found the place disorientating. It appeared to have a blue sky, a gentle breeze was created by some completely silent mechanical means and stirred the branches of huge smooth-barked trees. Unlike in the rest of the ship he had explored, the background hum here gave way to sounds of a more alarming nature. The first noises he noticed, as soon as he stepped inside, were the birds’ cries – sharp-toned, shrill grating screams and caws, like demented sea-gulls; and then after a moment he saw them – creatures out of a sci-fi movie flapping away in the distance, long-billed and bat-winged and altogether terrifying: pterodactyls! Mark almost retreated back the way he had come.
Then some bushes stirred in the middle distance and an odd-looking creature, half-pig, half alligator it seemed, emerged and turned an almond eye in Mark’s direction. A reptile tongue flapped lazily from a mouth that widened into what looked like an amiable grin. It reminded Mark of a big, daft, friendly dog.
But he did not want to hazard patting a dog with row over row of wickedly sharp teeth so he exercised the better part of valour, and curiosity, and withdrew. The Soros zoo. He could easily imagine the sensation this would cause back on earth. The Age of the Dinosaurs come to life! He wondered if a t-rex or two were roaming in the distances. Not much could surprise him now.
He came, at last, with reluctant steps, back to the bridge, the command centre of the mighty ship. Here the immensely powerful machines that controlled all the ship’s complex systems could be found and accessed. There were no banks of buttons and controls and flashing lights as there might be in a human version of an interstellar craft, because the Soros were telepathic. And Mark realized that the “computer system” was partly organic in construction – it was alive, and it communicated mind to mind.
But before he could give himself over to exploring this wonder, Mark felt the urgings of a duty he knew he had been postponing. He must do what was right. He could not allow the Soros, who had given their lives to save a planet no longer theirs, to lie dead in their ship without proper disposal and proper ceremony.
He summoned the robots.

**********

Logan was drunk. He visited the motel bar and ordered beer and whisky. The whisky made him feel sick right away and he could not drink it. Not being accustomed to alcohol, three bottles of European lager made him dizzy, but he felt good. From time to time he held a paper towel to his nose to check if there was any more blood but it seemed to have stopped. He sat alone in a stamped red leather chair and drank and reflected.
The Chairman was gone. Of that he was sure.
Unbidden a memory flashed upon his mind. His father and mother standing beside a car. The car is red and shiny and the young Logan, at four years old, loves to touch its polished, smooth, perfect surface. But he is sad now, he is crying, heart-broken. His parents are leaving.
“Hush now, Simon,” says his father, stooping to pick him up in his arms. “Don’t be a baby, now. You’re going to be fine with Aunty Mags. She’s looked after you before.”
He feels close to his father’s smooth-skinned face; he smells the shaving foam and he loves that smell. He wants to throw his arms round his father’s neck.
His father says: “We’re only going away for two nights, Si, you know that. We’d never leave you, honey, for any longer than that. We love you, Simon! And Aunty Mags loves you. We’ll be back on Sunday…”
Logan took a mouthful of beer. His unblinking stare appears focused on the table in front of him but other guests have noticed something odd about him. The barman, cleaning his glasses, keeps an eye on the strange man in the corner who has apparently been bashed in the nose.
“Sunday, pet. Back on Sunday. ‘Bye! Bye!”
Aunty Mags clutches his hand.
“Daddy – don’t go,” whispers the four-year old boy.
Sunday comes and police are at Aunty Mags door. Car crash. Thursday, Logan remembers, was the day of the interment. Aunty Mags dresses him in an itchy suit and hateful black tie and his parents are lowered into a place and then a container is placed into a hole in a wall. Soon there are no more memories of Aunty Mags. There is a Home, and other boys, strange unnerving boys, in Glasgow, in a dull street where it always seems to be raining and years of numb unhappiness wrap around and cover up, cover up.
Back in the safety of his room Logan opened the minibar and snatched up a whisky miniature. It was a Soros Malt. He did not care. Nothing mattered any more. He forced himself to drink the whisky.
The nose-bleed began again, in earnest.

**********

You have no idea how powerful you can be…
Tended by robots, with all care taken, Mark supervised the Soros bodies being laid in the air-lock. Something ought to be said, he felt.
I have no words, he said, and continued with long, thoughtful pauses between the sentences: Some of you would have killed me if you could have. One of you saved me. Your actions killed my father. All of you made me into something, turned me into something more than human. God knows what. God knows what you’ve done to me. But somehow we’ve saved the world. I have no words. No words for you would be enough. The last of your race.
He closed the inner door.
Goodbye.
He opened the outer door.
The escaping pressure ensured the bodies left the airlock. The momentum would carry them away from the ship. They would continue moving through interstellar space forever. No bacteria could ever decay them. The tomb of space admits no corruption.
Mark closed the outer door and returned to the command deck.
You have no idea how powerful you can be…
He located the equivalent of an interface: a semi-circle of what appeared to be a metallo-plastic surface stretching three metres around in the center of the command deck. Opposite, and some fifteen metres from the semi-circular console was an enormous viewscreen, arcing 180 degrees so he could see ahead, to the left and to the right. It was blank dark at the moment, obviously not powered up. There were no buttons or obvious controls, but there were a series of indentations and each of these was furrowed into three grooves. The Soros had three fingered hands, mused Mark and gingerly placed his fingers into the grooves.
The surface gave way. It was like liquid plasticine and seemed to enfold part of his hands. But Mark did not feel unsafe or in any way threatened by what happened. A sensation of pleasant warmth slowly spread through his limbs and filled his mind. He was linked to the nerve-centre of the ship, the supreme intelligence that controlled all the myriad systems and operations and functions.
The system seemed to be waiting for him to make a move.
Or to ask a question.
How powerful am I?
Again his power surged through him and a thousand images presented themselves to his mind’s eye. The system showed him what he could do. The rush of images and the penetrating insights proved too much. Mark fell forward over the console, struck his head off the soft surface and collapsed backwards on the floor.

**********

He awoke. He was looking at the ceiling of the command deck and he was instantly aware of everything that had happened – he remembered everything the system had shown him. He began to laugh.
He levered himself off the floor and held out his hands. He examined them as if seeing them for the first time. His power could be channeled through his hands. Humans had been dimly aware of their potential for thousands of years, and unconsciously demonstrated it in their use of hand gestures. Shaking hands to prove good intent, touching to give comfort, stabbing fingers and bunching fists to show purpose and aggression, even rubbing an aching limb to bring relief – all signs and means of channeling the power that lies within.
He cupped his hands in front of him and imagined… Atoms spun faster, heat resulted, little balls of light formed, rotating and spinning within a sphere controlled by his cupped hands. He released the ball of hot light and it flew around the room, but under Mark’s direction and finally split apart into a mini-firework display of beams and sparkles.
A conjuring trick. But that same ball of light could have been sent hurtling and smashing through matter with devastating force. The Soros had made him a weapon indeed. He could harness the forces that bound the universe – the nuclear forces, the electro-magnetic and the gravitic.
There was virtually nothing he could not do by manipulating these elemental forces: but he understood some things with the utmost clarity. Once a thing was destroyed it could not be restored. You can’t uncook a steak and turn it back into a cow. You can’t unkill a living thing once it’s dead.
His background, his upbringing and his mother had given him his sense of values and his ideas of right and wrong; and this Soros “computer” system had reinforced that strong vein of common sense he already possessed. Mark realized that this “evolution” had ramifications and consequences that could not be sorted out in a day or a month or a year. If he was going to be a superman he would have to think this through for a long while.
What would Carrie say? he wondered, and smiled that smile she loved so much.
He put his hands in the grooves again. The viewscreen lit up. Mark could sense the myriads of data accumulated and stored in vast memory banks. The ship had brilliantly detailed star charts and navigation programmes. It navigated by the detection and manipulation of gravitons as well as light particles and, protected by an electro-magnetic force-field, it could travel at virtually light speed without colliding with space rocks and meteors and all the debris that floated between planets and stars.
Mark wanted the ship to turn towards earth… and the ship turned towards earth, turned as smoothly as if had been floating in oil. The system had sensed or he had somehow transmitted his desire and the mighty ship had obeyed. A dark shape the size of an old penny appeared to cross the viewscreen as the massive ship tilted and turned: Mark knew that was the frozen planet Pluto. Beyond it, very small, and blending in with the millions of other stars, was the good old sun, a mere speck of light. The system helped him to instinctively identify it. He wanted to zoom in so he could see Earth, so the viewscreen re-aligned slightly and the magnification increased a thousandfold and there was Earth, sharply focused, blue and white and calling him back. It must have looked this way to the Soros, Mark reflected. They too must have seen their home planet with a fluttering feeling in their hearts. The viewscreen returned to normal magnification.
The pod in which Mark had been imprisoned still drifted off the bow. Mark brought it back aboard and stowed it in its proper place.
Right, he thought, let’s just see what this baby can do! The ship shot forward and Pluto vanished behind. The light from the stars changed colour and Mark knew that somehow this was part of the navigation programme. He slowed the ship after a few minutes and brought it to a standstill.
Pick up transmissions, he thought. The viewscreen became a cinescreen and he saw terrestrial television broadcasts of the Soros ship taking off – he was aboard it! - earlier that day. A BBC journalist he recognized, pictured with McIntyre’s Field in the background, was talking in an animated fashion about the sudden departure. Obviously that was the number one news item all over the planet.
This part of space was a clutter of jumbled signals, a hiss and yammer of transmissions, all from earth. The system under Mark’s direction filtered out the unwanted ones.
Mark realized he needed time to get to grips with all this. It was all so much! This system – he thought of it as a computer system but it was much, much more than that – seemed to be almost teaching him on some unconscious level. He was aware of it, but did not think it sinister in any way.
Then he understood that this system was what he had been listening to, tuned into, all along. Or rather, this had been tuned into him. He thought he had been listening to the Soros themselves but in fact, he now knew, that he had been listening to this system and this system had been telepathically connected to all the Soros minds.
And so… This raised many questions in Mark’s mind. And the one uppermost was:
Who controls who?
In some obscure brain cell the grammatical mistake in the question registered. But no answer was forthcoming. He sensed the system thinking.
Then the answer came: You control.
Mark nodded, and ran a hand through his hair. Hmmm.
He lifted his hands from the console. The viewscreen remained operational and his communion with the system was unbroken.
In dreams, he thought. My knowledge and power seemed to come in dreams. As if some timing switch regulating his bio-clock had gone off he was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of fatigue so numbing that he had to sink to the floor. He curled up like a baby, the lights in the command deck dimmed, the viewscreen went blank and Mark fell into a sleep, a sleep deeper than any he had ever known.
And in that sleep, what dreams did come…
He slept for four days.


33 Sunday 8 July

Sunday morning in the high security environment of the complex under Stirling Castle was little different from the previous mornings.
They ate a desultory breakfast and Doctor Gold came in and spent an hour with her two patients. Roberts had returned to head the investigation into the League. Janette was moderately sedated still, Carrie less so. There was still some danger posed by the maverick members of the League, so Carrie and her family had been installed in the Castle complex as well until it could be established that the threat was over. Carrie’s parents came under protest, but the protest, Carrie perceived was insincere, for her parents were savouring the attention and fuss generated by the situation. Carrie ended up spending more time with Janette that with her parents. Martin and Ann did not seem to mind.
General Talbot called on the viewscreen, as he had several times every day, to see how his “charges” were bearing up, and to again bring no news of a return of the Soros or Janette’s son.
Neither Janette not Carrie had given up hope.
So far the military had succeeded in fending off press enquiries about the whereabouts of the “miracle boy’s” mother, but with every passing day it was getting harder to keep it secret. Someone was bound to talk sooner or later. The world would have to be faced.
“A week ago today it all started,” said Janette to Carrie. She had come to view Carrie as a combination cell-mate, refugee, good friend and surrogate daughter. “Just one week. Eight days ago I had a reasonably normal life. And now this!”
Carrie put an arm around her. “I know. How much longer can they keep us here?”
The Sunday papers were full of the Soros story. Endless pointless and ignorant debate about their true identities and purposes, why they had been so mysterious, why they had abducted a fifteen-year-old boy, the role one of the Directors of the CIS had played in it all - endless, endless. Roberts and his family had gone into hiding, so pestered had they been by reporters. It was assumed that hospital or police personnel had talked to the media and given away his identity and his connection with the “boy the aliens took to the stars”.
“They don’t know anything,” said Carrie. “They haven’t a clue.”
Roberts rang at midday. Janette smiled with more warmth than she had shown in days at his image in the viewscreen.
“Chris,” she said, “What news? How’s your family.”
“Oh, Jackie and Sally are fine now, thanks. Janette - I thought I’d fill you in on latest developments.”
The detectives working on the case had identified the owner of the flat where Janette and Carrie had been held prisoner as Simon Logan. His interface had yielded up a valuable list of members of the Human Freedom League all over the world and these were being tracked down. The helicopter pilot who had kidnapped Janette from Glen Lyon had been arrested at his brother’s house in Dundee. Others connected with that incident were now in police custody in Fort William. Logan’s Jeep had been located at a service station on the M6. It was thought he had hired a car thereafter but so far the trail had gone cold. Roberts had strong reason to believe that he was now firmly embedded in a new identity that might take some time to trace. The records of every car hire firm within a fifty kilometer radius of the service station were being combed for any point of similarity in description of license holder or signature samples on hire agreements. Traffic control DVD records were being scrutinized for any sign of the Jeep in transit or being parked.
The G5 left behind by the League member killed in the fall from the train – Cameron – had provided more useful contact, numbers and addresses and so, bit by bit, many more pieces were being added to the CIS’s overall picture of the League and its activities.
“There is one thing I have to ask you, Janette,” said Roberts.
“Fire away.”
“It concerns the notes Mark made in the Bridge of Orchy Hotel.”
“What about them?”
“The map he drew.”
“What about it?”
Carrie drifted over to the viewscreen, peering over Janette’s shoulder. Janette took her had affectionately.
Roberts held the map up to the viewscreen so they could see it. “Do you recognize that?”
“No,” said Janette.
“Good God, yes,” said Carrie. “That’s Pango… Panga… Pangia.”
“Yes,” replied Roberts. “Pangeia… “
“It’s earth about a hundred million years ago,” explained Carrie for Janette’s benefit. “I read a book…”
“Mark drew this map after being linked with the Soros,” pursued Roberts. “Why would he do something like that?”
Janette shrugged. “He said they like to play games…”
“No,” interrupted Carrie. “It’s not that, I think. Mark said one time that ‘we knew them’. Could it be that the map is a map showing the… Soros world? So the Soros came…”
“From Earth,” finished Roberts. “That would mean the Soros are not aliens at all. And if that’s true, it means that there’s a good chance they will come back. If this is their home world they’ll surely want to come back… And bring Mark back too, perhaps. The point is, Janette, we mustn’t give up hope.”
“I’ve not,” replied Janette, quietly. “I never will. And what you’ve said could very well be right.”

**********

In McIntyre’s Field the security fence and the armed guards enclosed a vacant lot. The grass grew as it always had. The wind rattled the links in the fence. The soldiers chased away hippies and ET freaks that wanted to build a new Stonehenge on the spot. Tourists and UFO fans clustered in sullen groups at various points around the perimeter fence – they had booked their visits in advance and had been dismayed in the extreme when the sole object of their visit had flown off into the wild blue yonder, leaving only bare patches in the field where its legs had rested or, more accurately, floated.
But a week had gone by since the Museum had disappeared and of the tourists in their buses and hotels or the soldiers on the ground very few really thought or it would return.
Lance-Corporal George of the Scots Guards was therefore more than a little taken aback when, at oh-five-hundred hours on the morning of the second Wednesday in July, one week after its departure, the Soros space ship returned.
Equally surprised, and even frightened, were the satellite radar monitor operators around the country who had been warned of the approach from space of a space craft. The approach was slow, compared to departure, but steady.
The Soros ship touched down in McIntyre’s Field with a gentle bump. The legs extended and occupied grassy circles. Even at that hour of the morning the news had been communicated around the hundred encamped officially and unofficially around the site. A great cheer went up from the New Age quarter.
News reporters, within minutes of their mobile phones rousing them from sleep, rushed to their cars to get to the Stirling area as fast as they could.
General Talbot, who was still in the Stirling Command Centre, rushed to wake Janette personally.
“They’re back!” he said. “Get dressed and come with me. Quickly now!” Janette would never forget those words as long as she lived.
She woke Carrie, sleeping in adjacent quarters with her parents. “Come on,” she said. “I think he’s back. I think Mark’s back.”
Fast army cars, Jaguars again, raced them to McIntyre’s Field. McIntyre himself had appeared on his verandah to welcome back prosperity with the new day.
As Talbot’s car drew to a halt inside the compound, and he, Carrie and Janette got out, the familiar door opened in the hull of the space ship and slid soundlessly to the ground.
Into the hushed expectancy of the morning Mark stepped. He raised an arm in a shaky wave and Carrie’s heart soared as his eyes found her in the crowd and flashed her his gee-shucks smile. He began to walk down the slipway, but before he could set foot on planet Earth again, his mother was racing across the grass to grab him in her arms. Carrie was at her side and not the least embarrassed at showing her emotions.
Mark said, laughing, “I think I’m meant to say something like ‘Gee, hi, mom, hi honey’.”
“Yeah,” said Carrie, “and we little stay-at-homes are meant to say ‘Gol-dang it, you must be plum tuckered out after yore little jaunt an’all.”
“But do you know what? I’m bloody starving. I’ve been asleep for four bloody days! Even a Big Mac would be welcome! Two Big Macs!”
“Ah Mark,” said Janette.
All three began to cry and laugh together, and the gathering crowd, not piercing at all the privacy of the moment, began to clap and cheer.


34 Afterwards…

Days of debriefing by military, scientific and political people followed - questions after questions after questions.
Mark told the truth. The Soros had given him a power and used him as a weapon. He explained who and what the Soros were, how they had encountered those mysterious creatures known as “the Enemy”, and how they had returned to Earth expecting help but finding it populated by a new, technologically inferior species.
He told of how they had loathed us, how they had used us in horrible experiments, and how, in the end, they had died to save us. And he did not fail to mention how one, known as Striped Arm, had given his life to preserve Mark Daniels. He explained that “the Enemy” had been killed by massive explosions in the second Soros ship. He did not try to explain the sub-atomic nature of “the Enemy” or the precise details of his part in their destruction. When pressed, he confessed that events at the time had been so frightening that he had great difficulty recollecting them clearly now.
The Soros bodies, he explained, he had ejected from the ship - his idea of a “space funeral”, the most fitting thing he could think of to do with their mutilated remains. They had, after all, spent millions of years in space, so it seemed appropriate. The scientists were very unhappy to hear this.
Then the scientists asked him about his wonderful gift – his power. They had seen the recorded evidence of it from the hospital and from his passing through the fence around the perimeter. Yes, Mark said, the Soros had given him a power, but unfortunately the source of that power had died with the annihilation of the enemy and the deaths of the last of the Soros. The power had depended on Soros telepathy, he supposed. The “growth” in his head that had apparently been his link with the Soros seemed to have withered shortly after the battle. His tremendous power had gone with it. Mark could no longer put his hands through tables, walk through walls or cause strange behaviour in mobile phones. For him that was the worst part, he said. Just when he was getting the hang of it, it was taken away from him. He’d been really looking forward to being Superman. But when all was said and done, he was just glad to be back with his mum and happy to be able to see his girl-friend again. All he wanted now was a normal life.
The scientists nodded and made their notes, leaving out the part about his gladness, his mother and his girl-friend.
Naturally tests were carried out. But no device could show the faintest trace of any growth in Mark’s head. Results showed it had indeed disappeared.
It had taken him a long time to figure out the controls of the ship, he said, and that explained why it had taken four days to return to Earth, given the incredible speeds the ship was capable of. He thought it might be useful to us here on Earth. The scientists wanted to know what had happened to the bigger ship, the mother ship, as it was clear now that the craft Mark had used to return to Earth was only a landing craft.
The bigger ship had been just too complicated, Mark explained. He had abandoned it in favour of the smaller, easier-to-fly landing craft. The scientists’ eyes lit up. So the bigger ship is still out there? Mark admitted that it was. It is still out there, somewhere in the solar system, waiting to be found. Mark couldn’t tell them where, exactly – he was only a fifteen year old boy, not an astronaut. But he could willingly show them what little he knew about the controls of the landing craft.
The scientists wasted no time in lengthy expressions of gratitude. They could not wait to get their hands on this alien technology that had been like a barb in their sides ever since the aliens’ arrival in 2013.
Mark pointed out, to no avail, that the Soros had not been aliens. And in the next few days he was not surprised to see that his advice was not really considered valuable.
“Just show us what buttons to press, son,” seemed to be the standard scientist’s attitude, “then run along back to your computer games. Leave this to people who really know what they’re doing.”
“Computer games?” replied Mark. “Okay.”
So he did as he was told.
The search for the mother ship would begin at once, however: the Holy Grail of the twenty-first century.
The search was also on to find those others who had been implanted by Soros devices. Medical researchers were desperate to find out how those things worked. Janette was invited to take part in the track-down operation, but she remembered her husband, John, and declined. She had had enough of such matters.
A very much doctored version of events was relayed to the world’s media. It was Talbot who explained that this story of mysterious enemies from space, destroyed by a fifteen-year old boy, well, it would be just too much for the public to take. It could cause huge panic, civil disorder even. On a personal level it would entirely disrupt the lives of Mark, Janette and Carrie’s family too. He could be viewed by some as a kind of messiah-figure. He would not get another moment’s peace. Did he really want that? So no, the “truth” was that Mark had been selected as a “witness” to the Soros’ days. They had chosen him rather than a political or military figure because of his comparative innocence, and the ability that would give him to report the truth. It was agreed that the Soros had originally come from Earth, but now they were dying and wanted to return to space because that is where they had spent most of their lives. Talbot liked the space funeral idea. But they had left human-kind their legacy of technology in the form of the landing craft, and our future was bright with the prospects of the many gifts that technology would bring. A new era was indeed about to begin for the human race.
That, Talbot declared, would form the basis of press releases.


After a few hectic weeks the publicity started to die down. The house in Touch had been rebuilt. Janette re-opened her surgery and was able – and glad - to go back to work. Her practice was now a great attraction in the little community. The waiting room had never been so full of so many healthy people. But she did not mind. Normality, or at least a version of it, was starting to re-enter her life and the memory of the summer’s traumas began to fade, for that is the way of even the sharpest of experiences, as she well knew.
General Talbot stayed in close contact. He did his best to ensure that the excesses of media curiosity did not disturb Janette and her son. There was no shortage of requests for interviews, book offers from publishers vying for their story and TV companies falling over themselves to produce TV specials. The specials and books appeared eventually anyway, as could only be expected in the aftermath of such sensational events.
Roberts and a team of fifty Net detectives (“They sound like butterfly hunters,” mused Carrie) were making considerable progress in tracking down the Human League. He had no doubt that the murderers would be brought to account for what they had done. Mark said that he had every confidence in Roberts. The Inspector seemed strangely pleased by that remark.
In August, school restarted. Mark entered his fifth year, but started late to allow time for the trauma of the summer to pass somewhat. Many people remarked, however, that if anyone ever looked less traumatised than Mark Daniels they would like to meet him.
And, of course, he and Carrie continued to meet.


35 Blue Dolphins

One evening, in mid-October, when the hue and cry was beginning to die down, Mark and Carrie were sitting on the swings at the swing park. They held hands.
After a comfortable silence that had lasted a couple of minutes, she looked at him askance for a moment. “What?” she said, with a wicked smile.
Mark looked wide-eyed. “”What do you mean, ‘What’? I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I deny it all!”
“Look at me, Daniels, and don’t give me that wide-eyed and innocent look, I’m not buying it, Buster. You’re up to something.”
“I’m not.” He ran a hand through his hair.
“You are.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am not either.”
“Humm… I don’t trust you.” She pinched the flesh around his ribs. There was not much to get hold of.
“Oh well. I was just remembering the last time we had a chance to sit like this and make fun of each other, that’s all.” He stretched out a hand, as if examining his finger-nails; he waggled his fingers a little.
In the pocket of Carrie’s jacket her mobile phone began to buzz. “Oh God! That’s Gin, I bet, wanting to know where I am.”
As she took the mobile out of her pocket its sound changed suddenly. Instead of a buzz, it became a tune, a jaunty little melody that Carrie remembered hearing on an ancient cassette tape recording at her grandmother’s house.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” replied Mark. “How should I know?”
“I know that tune – it’s ‘Caledonia’. Hey, I love that song! Who was the singer that used to sing it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mark. “Somebody MacLean, was it?”
“It’s quite a nice tune, actually. Well, not on this thing, of course…”
“How does it go? The words, I mean.”
“Let me see… tum-tee, tum-tee that I tum-tee… Yes: “Let me tell you that I love you… and I think about you all the time…” Carrie suddenly looked embarrassed.
“Why, really! Carrie Jenkins, I am shocked! Flattered, as well, but very, deeply shocked! My, my, Jenkins, you’re blushing!”
“What! You! You did that! You made me say that!” She belted him on the arm. “How did you – Hey, wait a minute, Daniels… You – you’ve done this. You somehow made that tune come over the phone. You haven’t lost your power at all!“
Mark laughed. “Do you remember when we visited the Soros Museum in June that we kind of thought things weren’t quite as they seemed? “
“Hmmm – mmm.”
“And I said that it was like looking at one of those crazy patterns that if you look at it long enough you begin to see what’s really hidden there – “
“Blue dolphins on motorcycles!” cried Carrie. “I see where you’re bumbling to with this – you’re the pattern of dots and no one’s been able to see you as you really are. You’ve fooled the scientists and everybody! Can I ask… Why?”
“I’ll tell you why. When I was on that ship, I thought the game was up and I was going to die. Really – I thought that was it and I was going to die right there and then. Well, there was one memory brought me back and made me want to fight on.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Do you know what that memory was?”
“Er – “
“It was you. You standing by a fence, saying ‘I love you’ behind my back.”
“Oh. Well. I didn’t actually think you’d heard that… actually.”
“Hmm. And shall I tell you what else?”
“Well, I think you’d better.”
“I love you.”
Carrie smiled and pulled him close.
When the kiss had ended, Mark looked at her and said, “I don’t really want anything else than to be here, with you. I don’t want to be tested, and scrutinized by minds immeasurably superior to mine – “
Carrie smiled, recognizing the reference to the War of the Worlds album.
“ – I don’t want to be taken away from here, from you –
“Just a stay-at-home fella, ain’t ya?”
“Guess so. But that’s what would happen. I’d never have any peace again if anyone found out what I can do. Scientists would test me and poke me about, and the politicians or the military would try to make me do stuff for them. It would just be horrible. So the best thing I can do is pretend I don’t have any power any more. That way maybe eventually they’ll leave me alone. So it’s our secret, okay?”
“Okay. You’re the blue dolphin in the picture: and the picture is the pattern of your life –
“Right – school, homework, chores for mum, everything I do, and – “
“- no one sees you’re there. Except me.”
“And my mother. I couldn’t really hide it from her. And in fact – “
“ – you wouldn’t want to. I know. Good boy, Daniels. It’s cool.”
They kissed again.
“You know, Carrie, they watch me all the time, the security people.”
“How do you know?”
“The ship. I’m in constant contact with the ship and it monitors everything. I mean everything. The power it gives me is unbelievable. From way out in space, it can read a person’s body language and tell me what they’re going to do, or if they’re lying. Or suppose someone was hiding in that shrubbery over there watching us, the ship’s sensors can detect his breath exhalations and the difference between his body temperature and what’s around him.”
“Hmm. You really know how to impress a girl. Is there someone in the shrubbery?”
“No.”
“Well, thank goodness for that!” Carrie murmured, kissing Mark’s lips.
“Er – he’s in the some trees up on that hillside, about half a mile off to the right. He’s got those electronic night vision things, you know – like binoculars.”
“What?!”
Mark laughed softly. “Don’t worry. He can’t harm us. He’s just doing his job. Part of several surveillance teams they’ve got watching us all the time. Don’t worry about it, you won’t know they’re there.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“And he’s proving I’m normal.”
“But you’re not normal! What else can you do? Can you fly? Can you see through walls?”
“Well… yes, and sort of. The ship’s sensors see through walls in and relay the information to me. And that’s not the half of it. If I concentrate a bit, and really try to imagine clearly what I want to happen, then it happens. I tried flying one night, but it wasn’t very comfortable. You know when you drive down the motorway your windscreen gets covered in dead bugs?”
Carrie nodded.
“Flying’s a bit like that – quite messy. And if you fly fast the buttons get torn off your shirt with the force of the wind resistance.”
“Oh my! I’d quite like to see – “
“Shut up. Then there’s power lines and stuff all over and it’s pretty cold, and it’s just… I’ll take you up if you like.”
“Hmm. Yes, but I’ll dress up more warmly first, if you don’t mind.”
“You’ve seen me go through things, like that fence, but I can shift through space as well.”
“Teleport? Wow!”
“Yeah, I can take you too. But a lot of it’s controlled by the ship. It figures out co-ordinates and all that then I just have to… will it!”
“So… right now, you could just think about it and you and me could find ourselves in… Antarctica?”
“That’s right! Or the moon, or… look, why don’t we go up to the ship? Then I can show you around –
“Yes! But not right now! I imagine that would take some time, and I have to be home at ten. You need to investigate alien ships at a fairly leisurely pace, I am reliably informed.”
Mark laughed. “You’re right. But Carrie…”
“What, Mark?”
“Carrie - the thing is, I’m not sure what to do with all this power. Obviously I can’t go flying about the place, or that would give the game away. Oh, of course I could always wear a costume and change my hairstyle and then no one would ever recognize me…”
“But hold on, “Superman” – I can call you Superman, can’t I? Or can I call you Super for short? Or simply Supe? Or Sue? A boy named Sue? Or maybe we can think up some other catchy superhero name for you. But we have to be clear on one point upon which I must insist – you are on no account to around wearing your underpants on the outside of your trousers. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ma’am. I bow to your superior taste in all matters of dress sense.”
“Good, that’s all right then. Of course, at parties and during moments of silliness you may, on occasion wear pants on your head, but that’s a different circumstance. Understood, boy?”
“Yes, ma’am! Pants on the head. Understood.” This time Mark started the kiss.
Then Carrie broke off and held Mark at a distance, looking at him seriously. “You said you weren’t sure what to do with your power. Well, isn’t it clear? You be yourself, and you make life better for people. I don’t mean by making everybody rich or anything, but just helping. You can do things no one else can. So make the world better.”
Mark nodded slowly. “Yes,” he said. “I can see interesting possibilities.”
“Now kiss me again, ‘Superman’ – I can think of other possibilities…”
They kissed again as the lovely autumn evening deepened around them in the swing-park. The man in the trees up the hillside found his electronic night vision binoculars had stopped working.


36 Another Day

On another day - one of those high, fresh, blue and windy ones in October that bear the promise of the winter to come - when the dusk came early, Mark went alone to visit his father’s grave. Using information his mother had given him, he had traced it to a corner of a large cemetery in Glasgow. It was a simple gravestone, laid flat but not quite flush in the earth. It bore the inscription: “John Daniels” and the dates of his life. On either side were the older graves of complete strangers. His father’s stone has lost the sheen of newness. It had not been terribly well tended, Mark reflected.
He took a small pebble from his pocket. He tossed it in his hand. It glistened in the slanting afternoon light, and Mark looked once again at its strange lustre, and the patterns in the stone’s swirling folds. On close examination it gave off a faint light of its own.
“This,” said Mark, “is for you, dad. I think you would have appreciated it. “ He knelt and, getting his hand dirty, made a shallow hole at the head of the grave and pushed the pebble into it. “It doesn’t come from Earth, dad. We picked it up from one of Jupiter’s moons the other week. But how I got it is our secret, right?”
Wind caught the first falling leaves and threw them in energetic spirals around the gravestones so that they seemed to compete with each other for the fun of taking part in some playful magician’s fanciful game. The wind made Mark’s long coat flap against his legs.
“It’s by way of saying thanks,” Mark whispered. He ran his fingers through his hair and smiled. “You gave me this power I have. It was your action that caused this. But I’m taking it slow, dad.” The word was unfamiliar on his tongue and sounded strange to his ears. “I’m taking my time and learning the ropes, trying out a few things. I don’t know where this will end. But I think the time ahead is going to be ‘interesting’ So… thanks dad. You could have killed me, but you’ve made me… well, I’m not quite sure yet what I am. Time will tell, I guess. I just wish I could have … “ But Mark could not finish the expression of his wish. He had no more words here at his father’s grave.
A moment later the only living people in the cemetery were a couple of grave-diggers way over by the perimeter wall, too busy in their task to recognize the boy from the cover of Time and the face from all the news programmes three months before, and too engrossed to have noticed something utterly extraordinary – a boy vanish without a sound amidst a spiral of coloured autumn leaves.


36 Logan #5


Night falls quickly in southern climes, Logan reflects, and begins to relax a little in the little room in the small villa he has the use of. The window is open, for the dark evening is warm still, and offers a view over the lit farmhouses and self-catering lodges that sprinkle the shallow valley. Cicadas grate in the trees. The night is so still. Logan dabs his nose with the now always-present tissue in his hand. The blood flow has stopped again. He forces his shoulders to ease their tension.
Never has he felt so alone. The League is all but disbanded, the supernet connections shrinking daily as Interpol catches up with the members. He did well to cross the Channel and get into Italy without being picked up and he has been keeping a low profile since arriving here in this quiet village. But inactivity, and the pain in his head are driving him out of his mind and he dares not get medical assistance. Capture, he well knows, would mean a very long jail sentence indeed. You don’t leave unexploded home-made nuclear bombs in your flat without incurring the wrath of the powers-that-be.
Tonight he feels restless.
He stalks over to the mirror on the dresser by the window. The face that gazes back at him looks haggard now, pale despite the Italian sun and faint traces of grey lace his slicked-back dark hair. Rings under his eyes testify to the fatigue he feels almost constantly. He is beginning to look… old.
So tired.
Something unusual attracts his attention: through the window he sees in the distance a series of headlights, close together, approaching the turn-off to the villa. The cars move with urgent speed. Logan gets up and moves closer to the window. The villa is equipped with guns. Should he prepare now?
The curtain sways gently in the breeze from outside. The hairs on Logan’s neck prickle and suddenly he feels a cramping feeling in his stomach. A few weeks ago he would have called this an adrenalin rush; now it registers as fear. His head is pounding.
There is someone behind him. He is sure of it. Someone extremely dangerous. He cannot turn. His head is thumping, his knees weak and he knows, just knows someone is behind him, but he cannot, not for worlds, turn around.
The approaching cars have turned into the driveway leading to the villa. The order has been given for them to turn on their blue flashing lights. Logan knows he must get guns and defend himself – he must go out fighting.
But he is too afraid to move away from the window.
“Logan.” The voice behind him is calm, quiet. It is a young voice.
Logan’s legs sag and he leans against the dresser but still cannot face the owner of the voice.
“It is time.” The hand settles on his shoulder and Logan flinches away. The grip tightens and it is absolutely inescapable. Window, flashing lights, dresser, villa, and dark Italian evening fade into blackness. Logan is terrified. He does not know what the hell is happening. There is a rushing sensation.
Then light appears again – a cheap dim forty-watt bulb, unshaded, seen through bars, steel bars, and the smell of damp and piss and rotten garlic and stale tobacco. Bars – Logan knows he is in a prison.
The hand leaves his shoulder and Logan now finds the strength to turn round.
“You!”
The Daniels boy stands facing him, his gaze level and completely unafraid. Power crackles all around him like faint blue lightning. Not at all like the last time they saw each other. Logan’s terror intensfies.
“How? What have you done? How have you done this? What are you?”
Mark smiles, almost sadly, almost pityingly. “Goodbye.” And he vanishes, into the air. One second Logan sees him standing plainly in front of his face, not two metres away, and the next second there is no Daniels boy there at all. No bangs, no flashes, no weird sounds, just silence and absence.
Logan grabs the bars of his prison cell and begins to scream. An Italian policeman comes running to see who can be making such a noise.


37


It was a cold Saturday afternoon in late October, when Carrie visited the Soros ship. The sky above Central Scotland that day was a brilliant blue as a high pressure system settled itself over northern Britain. Hoar frost sparkled on wide fields and a light dusting of thin snow whitened the higher mountain tops visible from Touch.
Mark called on Carrie. Gin showed him into the lobby. Carrie’s parents stepped warily around the young man’s celebrity. Their initial dislike had now evolved into a more amenable toleration. Gin even smiled weakly at Mark and had almost started a conversation before Carrie called from the upstairs landing that Mark was to come up to her room. Mark shuffled awkwardly past and his distrustful gaze.
“Hey,” Carrie said as Mark joined on the landing. Her voice dropped to a whisper as she ushered him into her bedroom. “What do you bet one of them comes upstairs in a minute singing a Rolling Stones song to advertise their presence and to stop us from doing anything we’re not supposed to. Or they’ll come armed with tea and biscuits…”
“I don’t know what you’ve got in mind. I don’t know what I’m not supposed to be doing.”
“Oh yeah, Daniels? I’m going to pinch your ears – “
“Does starting to save the world count as something we’re not supposed to be doing?”
The door was now closed and they could kiss, so they did.
“Okay,” said Carrie, stopping for breath. “How does saving the world actually start? Do I need to pack warm clothing?”
Mark laughed. “No, nothing like that. Okay, stand close beside me. Yes, holding hands is good. Now, I just imagine a kind of protective envelope or skin surrounding us both – “
To Carrie’s eyes the room seemed to shimmer slightly around her.
“ – and then, hey presto!”
Carrie had the merest sensation of falling and then: “OH MY GOD!”
She blinked and found herself on the deck of the Soros ship. The transfer took less time than it took to take a breath. In the huge viewscreen space stretched out before her. The ship was turning gradually and Earth drifted into the field of vision.
“Hey – look, there’s Scotland! It’s still a nice day there, not a cloud in the sky. This is better than Google Earth! Can it zoom in?”
“It can zoom in, zoom through and out the other side. Look, here’s your house.” Instantly the screen seemed to flash towards Earth and narrowed down to the little town of Touch, then a red slate roof, then some kind of x-ray imaging facet kicked in, the roof became transparent and Carrie’s bedroom was clearly visible, just as they had left it moments before.
“Look at this.” Mark put slight pressure on the hand control in front of him and dark marks appeared on Carrie’s bedroom carpet. “I’ve enhanced the carpet indentations where we walked in your room. Those darker ones are our footprints you’re seeing. The ones that are less dark are your ones from earlier.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“And you can check on what your parents are doing.” The focus shifted to the right and downwards and Gin came into view. He was at the foot of the stairs, looking up, clearly dying to know what Carrie and Mark were up to in her room – a concerned protective parent.
Sound kicked in.
He was humming “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”.
“How can it get sound? We must be a million miles away from Gin!”
“I don’t know how exactly the ship does most of the things it can do. Maybe it can interpret vibrations in the air – I just don’t know.”
Carrie reached out and touched the console with her fingers. “I can almost feel the power of this thing. It’s… vast!”
Mark nodded. “It certainly is. Look at this – “
Instantly the screen showed a bird’s eye view of an office building that, it became obvious, was the Headquarters of the CIS. The focus became Roberts’ office… his desk… his computer. His computer files came up on the screen.
“But – he’s not even there.”
“No, he’s at home right now with his family.”
“But – his machine’s not even switched on!”
“I know,” Mark replied. “It’s magic! There is very little the systems on this ship can’t let us access. So I know what the surveillance teams are up to… everything!”
“So how can we use this like I said?”
“Well, I was thinking about that. If we screen all the communications in, say Scotland, and listen for particular phrases – “
“Say… ‘drugs’,” suggested Carrie.
“My thought exactly. And then we just…”
It became clear after a few minutes of mobile phone intercepts that a shipment of drugs was being ferried across the North Sea at that moment in an old fishing boat. The captain had just called his contacts ashore to confirm drop-off point. The Soros ship had pinpointed the precise location of the fishing boat.
“What shall we do about that?” asked Carrie. “Notify the police? Tell Roberts?”
“Well, if we do that, they’ll start asking us all sorts of questions and that could get awkward.”
“Yes, you’re right.”
“But if you’ll excuse me for a moment…”
Mark vanished.
“Hey! Get back here, Daniels!” Carrie thumped the console. The screen suddenly showed a zooming in image of the fishing boat. As the boat loomed larger on the screen a dark figure appeared at its stern, out of sight of the two-man crew in the small cabin. Carrie could feel the rise and fall of the boat on the swelling waves. Mark appeared to sink into the wooden deck. He was in the hold. He found the cargo – a big one, a fortune in heroin. He reached out with his right hand and touched the cases that held the drug. Energy flowed from his fingers and at the molecular level began to work a different kind of magic.
Seconds later he reappeared at Carrie’s side.
“What did you do?” she demanded.
“I turned it into sugar.”
“Sugar?”
“Yeah – there are going to be some pretty upset people later on today. Shall we push this a bit further?”
“Okay, but take me with you this time. Don’t go flying off all by yourself.”
“There’s a container ship, a big one, heading for Hull. One of the containers has another shipment – cocaine this time. Shall we…?”
“Let’s do it.”
They transferred aboard the ship, holding hands. Carrie could feel the vibration of the vessel’s engines under her feet, and smell the salt in the air mixed with a rusty metallic oiliness. Large cargo containers painted in various colours loomed above and ahead of her. “Do you know which container it is?”
“Of course I do.”
“Of course you do. Shouldn’t we take cover… hide?”
“No need. The infra-red scan is showing that there’s no one around.” Mark led the way down a narrow passageway between piled high containers, each ten by five metres and three metres high. “It’s this one.” He touched it and its rusting doors parted. Inside Carrie could clearly see pack after pack of white powder.
“If you change it into flour,” she mused, “they might still make some bread out of it.”
“Ta-dah! My side-kick, folks, the Joker!”
Carrie nipped Mark’s arm. He touched the container side and the energy flowed from his hand again, entering into the molecular structures of the drug, shifting electrons, changing essences.
“It’s done,” he said. “As simple as that. Let’s go.”
They entered a leafy suburban street, but the air was filled the nasty smell of a house-fire. People were shouting and screaming. The lights of several fire engines and ambulances flashed.
“What the hell is this?” asked Carrie.
“We’re in Manchester. I picked up a message from one of the fireman’s radios. He’s inside that burning building. It’s a care home for the elderly. Someone is trapped in that room – “ He pointed to a third floor window – “and he can’t get through. You should wait here for this one.”
“I’ll wait here. Be careful!”
She watched as Mark walked quickly into the gathering crowd then faded from view. The home was a large one, converted from an old red-brick Victorian mansion. Unsightly fire-escape stairwells marred the outside of the building. Firemen were moving on these, escorting people slowly and carefully down to waiting paramedics before going back up. The fire seemed to be most intense towards the rear of the building. Emergency staff spoke urgently into the small mikes beside their mouths, attached to helmet radios. More ambulances threaded their way through the people that had interrupted their Saturday afternoon to come and watch or help.
Minutes passed.
Carrie began to appreciate the implications of Mark’s power. Now she understood with perfect clarity why he had to hide the truth about his capabilities. If people knew what he could do, he would be in constant demand to set things right. Stop this bank robbery, catch this burglar, rescue this cat. Or, if the military got hold of him, well, she had seen enough movies and TV documentaries to have formed the opinion that the military, despite the kindness and consideration shown to her from those she had met during the summer, were not always working from the best of motives. Britain still had forces posted in trouble spots around the world – the Burmese conflict, the mess in the Middle East and the Afghanistan situation rumbled on. It was not impossible they could try to use Mark to ensure success in these areas. After all, from what she now knew, he could go places no one else could; he could access any data, anywhere; and with that protective shield he used when teleporting, he could be unstoppable.
Some of the crowd near the front of the building began softly applauding and cheering. Carrie stood on tip-toe to see. A civilian in the long coat was emerging from the building. Mark had been carrying an old lady in his arms and was in the act of setting her carefully back on her feet. She appeared dazed, but effusive in her thanks of the young man. A grim-faced fireman had followed them out of the now fiercely blazing interior and now led the woman over to a paramedic unit, but not without giving Mark a very strange look as he passed. Carrie saw Mark nod at the fireman, touch the woman briefly on the shoulder, and turn back towards the crowd. Hand patted his back as he made his way towards Carrie.
“Well, that was interesting. Come on, before they start taking photographs.”
“If we get behind that ambulance over there we’ll be able to disappear,” suggested Carrie and Mark nodded agreement.
Once back on the Soros ship Carrie said, “I could use a cup of tea. What are the facilities like on this tub? And is there anywhere to pee?”
“Ah – good question. I think there are toilet areas of sorts…”
“’Of sorts’? What does that mean?”
“They’re not really intended for humans, and certainly not dainty girls like you.”
“Do you actually enjoy being nipped?” Carrie asked, nipping him.
“We should maybe get back to your room. Your mum’s on the way up the stairs with that tea and biscuits you mentioned.”
Carrie opened the bedroom door just as her mother reached it and was about to turn the handle. “Thought you might be needing a snack, dear,” Bitter said, peering into the room over her daughter’s shoulder. She edged past. “What have you been up to?”
The voice of Dougie MacLean came from Carrie’s music pod. “Oh, I remember that!” Bitter exclaimed. “That’s Jimmy MacLean. He was great, back in the eighties.”
“I know, mum,” said Carrie helping herself to a biscuit, “I borrowed it from your collection, remember?”
“Yes, dear. Have some tea, Mark. Have you been smoking, Carrie, or burning something in here? I can smell smoke.”
“No, mum, you know we don’t smoke – no one does. And does it look like we’ve been setting thngs alight? I can’t smell anything. Excuse me – must go to the loo.”
After Bitter had gone back downstairs and Carrie had freshened up, Mark said, “So – you see the difficulties?”
Carrie nodded.
Mark ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t keep on stepping in and being the local bobby or fireman or whatever. I’d be on call twenty-four hours a day. And the ship picks up everything, every broadcast signal all over the world and it can translate every language. That’s one of the things the Soros were working on when they spent that first year on earth. Right now there’s a train broken down in Kazhakstan, a British Army unit has gotten lost on an operation in the Burmese jungle, a ferry boat is sinking in the China Sea, there are floods in Columbia – oh, excuse me…”
Mark suddenly disappeared, leaving Carrie open-mouthed. She closed her mouth. “Well!” she muttered. “That’s almost rude.”
He reappeared a minute later. “Sorry, that had to be done.”
“I don’t suppose that was a toilet break.”
Mark laughed. “No. Some guy with a samurai sword was hurting people in a shopping mall in England. There were mums and toddlers. I – “
“ – had to stop him. I know.” Carrie hugged him tight. “I know.”
“But I have to figure this out. I just can’t be helping everyone like that.”
Carrie said, seriously, “You know, I’m not a big expert on superheroes, but in the comics and films all they ever do is stop petty crime or tackle crazed lunatics who also have strange powers and are trying to do something weird. But they never actually do anything to make the world better. And we’re not comic strip characters. It’s like I said to you the other night. But how do you do that? What do you do?”
They looked into each other’s intelligent eyes.
“I think,” said Mark, “we’ll figure something out.”
Carrie smiled. Mark could not help but kiss her.


38 Reports…

Chris Roberts sat back from the interface and stretched out his legs. His fingers touched in a gesture resembling prayer but indicating speculation. These were strange days.
An hour before he had been in video conference with General Locke and Andrew Talbot. They had been in contact frequently as a result of on-going enquiries and investigations. Locke had asked about Mark.
“Chris – is this boy telling us the truth? Has he lost his powers? You know him best. What do you think?” Locke had asked.
Roberts had smiled. “I honestly don’t know. He seems to be leading a quiet life again, sticking in at school. He’s not top of his class but he’s very bright. I think, on balance, he’s not Superman. Just like he says.”
Talbot agreed. “His mother – Janette – is doing everything she can to bring normality back into their lives. They’ve had counselors, the lot, to help get them through this post-traumatic period, and now they just want to be left alone. And luckily the media are playing along with our requests to virtually leave them alone. In return we give them access to any new developments the scientists come up with from the Soros technology. They accept that their viewers and readers are more interested in that than in the confused monotonous mumblings of a schoolboy.”
Locke grunted. “Well, we’re drawing complete blanks with the search for the mother ship. We’ve got all the Hubble telescopes sweeping the solar system for any trace of a twenty-five square mile hunk of metal and so far nada. Talk about a needle in a haystack! One of our analysts speculated the other day that the boy had it hidden somewhere. We’re actually sending a probe round the dark side of the moon - can you believe that? – just to verify he hasn’t hidden it there. And the landing craft isn’t exactly proving to be the find we all hoped. So many of its systems appear to require some kind of telepathic input. It’s infuriating.”
“I know,” said Talbot. “We have learned a lot – the metallic structure, the holographic technology, but a lot of it’s like window dressing. Thus far and no further. Like some bloody game. The boffins have taken the ship up, of course, but they don’t really know for sure exactly how it flies.”
“We’re like monkeys trying to drive a goddam bus!” barked Locke.
Roberts laughed. “Give it time, General, give it time. It’s early days.”
“All right, Chris, I’ll be in touch.”
“And we’ll keep monitoring the boy at this end,” added Talbot. The conference ended.
Now, Roberts’ interface displayed reports and case notes from various crimes and investigations covering the last few weeks. He clicked back on to one he had read a few minutes previously: a fishing boat bound from Holland to the north-east coast of Scotland had been boarded by Customs officials who had very good reason to believe it carried an illegal cargo of cocaine. Sure enough, hundreds of kilo bags of white powder had been found, but when the chemical analysis came through it proved to be sugar. The smugglers were taken into custody and questioned ruthlessly. They seemed as surprised as the Customs people. They had been released and a few days later were found dead in a flat in Edinburgh, presumably murdered by their “employers” for bungling a million euro deal. The murderers were also now in custody, the plane on which they were trying to leave the country having encountered mysterious engine failure as it tried to take off from Edinburgh Airport. Strange events.
Officials following a tip-off had opened another load, this time heroin, traveling in a cargo container in a Liberian freighter docking at Hull. These cargo containers need special keys – they can’t be opened by just any old Tom or Dick wandering into a dock area. But on examination it was found that the container had once contained heroin, but only traces remained. The entire container was filled with flour – a tonne of it. How that had happened no one could even hazard a guess. A few days later the people who had been in charge of the container shipment met with a fate they had certainly not anticipated. Again, it seemed, their employers had exacted retribution. Their gruesomely headless bodies were found in the Humber estuary.
So somehow drugs shipments were being transformed into harmless substances… How was that being done? Magical tricks? Con tricks? If so, where were the original shipments?
He called up other police reports that had anything in the least “strange” about them, or that contained the word “strange” in their text.
There were many more; his frown deepened as he flicked quickly through them: in another, on a Saturday afternoon in November, a single, strange figure had pushed past a fireman in a burning care-home for the elderly. The home was in Manchester. The fireman had been battling unsuccessfully to win through to a level where, according to staff, an elderly patient was still known to be. The figure, who the fireman swore had not been wearing an oxygen mask or any protective apparel, had brushed the fireman aside and brought out the patient who had been trapped inside. The patient herself – Mrs Adams (79) - commented that the door, which had started to burn furiously, just lifted off its hinges and flew aside. The figure of what she thought to be a young man stepped calmly through and carried her to safety, despite the fact that ceilings and walls were crackling and tumbling all about them. The stranger had seemed to just disappear into the crowd after the rescue.
Would she recognize him again? “Oh no, I was in such a state, what with the smoke in my eyes and everything, I never got what you might call a good look at him. But,” added Mrs Adams, “it was like magic!”
“Hmmm.” Roberts recalled where he had heard those words before. “Magic,” he mused. He checked the date of that report: November third. He knew from the secret surveillance reports that Mark had been in Carrie Jenkins’ house for the whole of that afternoon.
In Warrington that same Saturday afternoon, eighteen year old Jarvis Ness, a blackbelt in karate and a kendo master, and a diagnosed schizophrenic, had gone berserk in a shopping mall with a samurai sword. He wounded six people before a young man, wearing a long coat, appeared “like out of nowhere”. This young man apparently grabbed the sword from Ness, broke it into pieces with his bare hands, got close enough to the furious Ness to place a hand on his head, whereupon Ness suddenly calmed down and lost consciousness. The young man walked away and no one knew where he went. Security camera recordings offered no more than fuzzy images.
How the hell can you break a samurai sword with your bare hands? the Director wondered.
The list went on and on. Report after report. Individuals, groups, people in danger and a young man, usually wearing a long, knee-length coat, appears from out of nowhere to rescue them. Like magic. And no one can clearly describe what the young man looks like; and no security camera picks up his image; and the wounded people stop bleeding.
Chris Roberts remembered Mark Daniels’ words at the Southern General that afternoon: “Don’t worry, Sally’s all right now.” How could he have known that? This question unfolded itself in Roberts’ mind: did Mark Daniels do that too – did he somehow cause Sally to get better?
Another report told of a strange blight that was starting to affect illegal poppy crops in Central Asia. The government controlled crops, where the product went largely to the pharmaceutical industry, were untouched, but the drugs kings of Afghanistan were about to really suffer. For years the UN and NATO forces had been limited in their success. Now, it seemed, Nature was taking a hand in removing these warlords’ power bases.
In California the level of gang violence was soaring to a terrible high. As violence erupted between two rival gangs in Los Angeles, the youths involved had to resort to using their fists because their firearms, a mixture of sub-machine guns and automatic pistols had all – all – malfunctioned. Police were able to round up the gang members without a single fatality. The only explanation offered was that gang members ranging in ages from nine to nineteen would have little idea about properly maintaining weapons. Their weapons had simply jammed due to lack of proper care. Lucky for the police that day.
Yet another bizarre report commented on how Japanese whaling ships had been recently plagued with mechanical problems. Propeller screws shearing off or buckling, drive shafts becoming distorted… a whole set of things going wrong that pointed to serious design faults in the components or in the materials used to manufacture them. Two thirds of the fleet had been rendered inoperative and the rest of the whaling ships were being recalled for maintenance checks. How coincidental. And fortunate for the whales, thought Roberts.
Then a certainty moved in and occupied his mind: the boy, despite what he wants us to believe, still has the most incredible power. The aliens have made him more than human – superhuman. A serious misgiving followed: Mark is trying to hold on to an ordinary life, but he cannot not use his power, and he is trying to use it for good. If the world leaves him alone, he might get away with it; but it is only a matter of time before some journalist or investigator or intelligence officer makes the same connections. Mark is only a fifteen year old boy. Could a fifteen year old boy cope in such extraordinary circumstances?
“Or could he use some help?” Roberts mused aloud. He considered deleting the reports, but that would do no good. They existed elsewhere. But when it came to investigations concerning the Daniels boy… well, they were all channeled through Roberts’ desk. So if anyone else aired similar suspicions or tried to join the dots between these strange events – which, let’s face it, had rational explanations that did not involve ths fifteen year old boy – then he, Roberts, could nip curiosity in the bud. The media curiosity had been more or less successfully managed, after all.
Then again, it was preposterous that a young man could be behind all these separate things. Roberts stopped. A moment ago he had been sure. Now he was doubting his conclusions, his instincts.
Totally unbidden and out of the blue, as such things often are, a line from a song popped into his mind. The melody first. After a moment some of the words came. An old song, that he remembered hearing often way back in his childhood. Maybe he’d heard it earlier on the car radio. Or maybe he’d heard someone whistle it in the corridor outside his office during the day. Tunes often come into our heads like that – like musical infections. How did the wretched thing go? Ah, yes:
And the world…
… will be a better place.
How did the rest of it go? He hummed a bar or two. Then he thought he had it:
And the world…… will be a better place,
For you…… and me…
Just wait……and see.
Roberts smiled ironically. His suspicions about Mark were certainly preposterous, he told himself. The boy had been interviewed by experts, tested by lie detectors, secretly monitored. There was absolutely no evidence that he was anything other than what he appeared to be – a normal fifteen-year old boy. The evidence was clear – he had no special powers!
And yet…
He closed off the interface, glanced round the office before leaving it and made his way to the lift. Just wait and see, he sang to himself. Just wait and see.
He hummed the tune all the way down in the lift and said goodnight to George at the security desk. He hummed the tune as he paused in the car park before opening his car door. He looked up at the stars as he had done many times before. Situated on the outskirts of the city, the location of CIS HQ could on crisp clear nights like this one afford a fine view of the stars, not too polluted by Glasgow city glare.
It sure was a fine November night.
He paused a long while there, looking at the scattering of stars and revolving many memories and speculations. A silver streak appeared suddenly and briefly over the Kirkpatrick Hills to the north, across the river. A shooting star. Make a wish, he thought. With a wry smile, he made a wish.
“I think the world just became a more interesting place, Mark Daniels,” he thought. “Yes, I think so. I will watch your future with interest.”
Finally Roberts took a slow deep breath and opened his car door to drive home to his family still cheerfully humming the tune that would not let go:
Just wait…
…and see.


The Beginning…

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Text: Alan Kirk

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