Lee
"Budgie" Barnett is a writer of comedy and of comic books. He first
broke into the business with three stories in Imperium Comics' TRAILER PARK
OF TERROR, before getting his first big break with Marvel in X-MEN UNLIMITED
#4, which hit the shelves in August 2004. Well known in the UK Comics industry
for the annual Hypotheticals panel
he devised and presents with Dave Gibbons at the UK Comics Festival, he's been
described as being to accountancy what Indiana Jones is to archaeology. He currently
writes GOING CHEEP at the Pulse.
Docherty grabbed Grable’s hand and squeezed hard. The moment Lady Constance had told the Prime Minister from where she’d received the news, he’d seen Grable’s mouth crumple and he knew she was about to laugh. Long experience warned him that, despite it being a more than understandable reaction, it wouldn’t exactly do Grable any favours. Not in this room.
A second later, the television which had recently been used to show Grable’s DVD was switched on to a news channel and the members of Blue Committee watched in silence at the report. The most senior police officer present rose to his feet. “With your permission, Prime Minister?”
The PM didn’t even take his eyes off the screen. “Go,” he said, and the rest of the committee watched, for possibly the first time in their lives, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force running at a sprint.
The news continued to report the same news and, unbelievably, after thirty minutes, Grable began to notice that the members of the Committee were getting frustrated at the lack of new information. And then something new happened. Something that took any such frustration and tedium, bounced it on the ground a couple of times and knocked it out of the window. On the television, the view switched to that of an outside camera and as the Committee members watched, they saw the scene shift, and realised that the camera was pointing upwards. It smoothly panned up and up, pausing for a moment, as if to admire the night sky. And then the camera attempted to zoom in to what appeared to Grable to be a smudge on the screen.
Is it moving? she asked herself and then caught her breath as she realised what it was, what it could only be.
Despite not wanting to look away from the screen, she allowed herself a brief glance around the room and for a split second caught the eye of the Air Chief Marshall. As the image on the screen became clearer, he nodded, once, in acknowledgement and acceptance and then returned his eyes to the screen, where Ian Davies flew out of the sky, and landed gently in front of the hospital.
With one exception, no one noticed as Docherty rose and left the room.
Deep in the creature’s mind, something stirred. Even if it had been able to talk, it wouldn’t have been able to explain the sharp pangs of hunger that now permeated its every pore.
It moved.
Slowly at first, but it moved. And scared the crap out of the doctors around it who had, in the previous hour, almost got used to its stillness and statuary like appearance. But it didn’t kill anyone. It didn’t even injure anyone, except for the junior doctor who happened to be in its way. But that was pure accident, and it’s probably not fair to blame it for that.
The wall separating the accident and emergency room lasted longer than anyone expected when the creature attempted to walk through it. About a third of a second longer as the thing increased pressure and passed through the resulting debris.
It barely remembered the name for where it believed its hunger would be satisfied as ‘outside’ although it registered dimly the reduction in temperature as it left the reception area.
Facing it, dressed in a black shirt, black trousers and a very, very dark grey, ok black, jacket was Ian Davies, who took a long look at what used to be Samuel Withers and said what later, and with hindsight, he still regarded as the only appropriate thing to say: “Oh, shit.” There hadn’t been a television spectacle like it in years. All of the main channels switched to covering it live, including the BBC, and remarkably, there were later less than ten thousand complaints, given that the Beeb had cut off the latest episode of the most popular soap opera in the country in order to do so.
The number of vehicles (newsvans, police, ambulances, fire engines and the curious) seemed to grow with exponential rapidity and it couldn’t be denied by anyone that the initial twenty minutes of the confrontation was… well, “boring” was probably the best description.
The creature, once it had seen Davies, let out a huge roar, that was totally out of keeping with its previous almost gentle and quiet noises. Davies braced himself and then prepared for battle, thinking as he did so, that he was almost certainly about to get smashed to small pieces. He remembered an old parody of The Six Million Dollar Man, and a scene therein where one character said, after looking for the lead character who had just crashed a test space vehicle: “We’ve found him! He’s over there… and over there… and over there…” The joke didn’t seem as hilarious any more.
Davies stared at the creature, and he guessed, the creature stared back at him. But other than that, there was no movement from it. Davies took a step to the right and as far as any reaction went, he might as well have stayed still.
He looked away at the gathered throng and saw what looked like a senior police officer. Well, he rationalised, there were lots of police officers, including armed ones, deferring to him. Davies called to the officer. “Are you in charge?” he asked, turning back to face the creature.
“Yes,” replied Commander Bridger. “I’m Commander Bridger. And who are you?”
With gallows humour Davies asked, “Don’t you read The Guardian?” It was a moot question. During the day, he’d learned that all the main news media had picked up on the story.
“With all due respect, sir,” Bridger replied, “you’re not the bloke who…?” His voice tailed off, as he realised that he couldn’t… just couldn’t… say that out loud.
Davies let out a sigh and said, “Yeah, that’s me.”
Bridger considered that for a moment and then, as almost every other police officer in existence would have done, told Davies to get out of the danger zone and remove himself immediately.
But almost isn’t every police officer and just as Bridger was contemplating how to get a man who’d just flown out of his way, his superior officer, The Commissioner of the Met arrived and took control. He had been briefed on the way and, if he’d have admitted it, he was disappointed that he hadn’t seen the man flying. But that was for another time. This was an urgent situation that required calm and careful handling.
He shouted to Davies. “Mr Davies?”
Davies whipped around in surprise. Despite not currently wearing a mask, it hadn’t occurred to him that he would be recognised, especially since Bridger hadn’t called him by name. But then Bridger hadn’t just come from a top secret briefing fifty feet below Downing Street. “Yes…” he replied slowly, still keeping his eyes on the creature who was moving its upper body, but its feet remained in place.
“I’m Commissioner…” the police officer stared to say and then paused. In spite of the ribbing he’d taken over the years, he’d never expected to ever come across a situation when his name would be oddly appropriate, rather than a source of gentle mockery. If anything, the mickey-taking he’d taken since acceding to his current position was part of the reason he was sympathetic to Davies’ situation. But he was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force, and he had his duty.
Davies looked puzzled at the pause, and he turned his head towards the police. The Commissioner scowled and then said it. “Mr Davies, I’m Commissioner Bill Gordon, and…”
Here it came, he thought resignedly.
Davies couldn’t quite believe it. “You’re Commissioner Gordon?” he asked, struggling to keep a straight face. This was one for the record books, he thought. My life has been nuts for the past twenty four hours because of the credibility I’ve lost through a laughable name, and this bloke… He shook his head at the ways that the fates messed with human lives. “You’re Commissioner Gordon?” he asked again, this time managing, just, to keep anything other than polite questioning from his tone.
Gordon heard the effort, and appreciated it. “Yes,” he called, “and what I’d suggest is…”
“Forgive me for interrupting,” Davies interrupted with, “but would this be more sensible if we talked with me over there?”
“Well, yes, it would,” said Gordon, astonished.
“OK,” said Davies and went to hover over to him. He didn’t get far. About three feet in fact. The moment he activated his powers, the creature came to life and its arm extended towards Davies, some fifteen feet away. From the end of the arm, some fleshy type material extruded at astonishing speed and wrapped itself around Davies’ leg. The base of the tentacle withdrew and the tentacle itself became a tight cable that began to be pulled back into the arm. The creature raised its arm and then lowered it at great velocity.
The thing wrapped around his leg had taken Davies by complete surprise and while he was still wondering what the hell was going on, the whiplash affect, which had travelled down the almost rigid tentacle, caught up to him and he was jerked up into the air before being smashed into the ground, his head making an audible crack! as it impacted.
The shock evinced on the faces of those watching was nothing compared to the shock felt by Davies. His head pulsed with pain and then it seemed to diminish, at the same time as the injuries started to heal.
The creature raised and lowered its arm again, but this time Davies saw it coming. He braced himself on the ground and willed the effect to stop.
It didn’t change a thing as he was lifted into the air and then deposited on the ground in a heap.
Davies looked around him and saw a police officer standing next to a long metal pole, about ten feet in height, at the top of which was a sign showing directions to various departments. He reached his hand out towards it and the sign neatly detached itself from the pole, falling to the ground. The pole lifted out of the concrete and shot up into the air in a perfect parabolic arc that ended at the outstretched hand of Ian Davies. It happened so quickly that to onlookers it appeared as it Davies had suddenly conjured it out of thin air. It snapped into his hand and as it did so, he whirled around, the pole slicing viciously through the air… and then through the limb that was holding his leg. There was a spatter of thick liquid onto the ground which bubbled for a moment before becoming still.
Ominously, there was no sound from the creature… for about ten seconds and then with a bellow, it charged at Davies. Again, he was taken shocked as the reports and conversations he’d heard since he arrived gave the maximum suggested speed of the thing something comparable to a very determined slug. It just went to show that past experience was no guarantee of future performance, he guessed, incredibly grateful to have his leg free.
He hefted the pole as it is was a spear and went to throw it, but the creature was on him before he had a chance to let go and the next thing he knew, he was under the creature and feeling severe pain as twenty tentacles erupted from the creatures hide, all of which attached themselves to Davies.
And Gordon shuddered, along with the rest of his officers, as he heard Davies scream.
And, this time without any exceptions, no one saw Docherty arrive. The members of Blue Committee were still watching the screen and as Davis cried out in pain, Grable saw the Prime Minister frown and whisper something to Bowman. Bowman nodded and turned down the volume of the television slightly.
The Prime Minister stood up. “OK, despite us knowing that what we’re seeing is completely impossible, we have two possible scenarios to deal with. Either this Davies defeats the creature or he’s unable to. If it’s the latter, we need proposals to kill it. If Davies does beat the shit out of that thing, we need proposals to deal with Davies. No way am I letting him walk around able to do what he can. What if he decided that he didn’t agree with our policies…?”
The Leader of the Opposition couldn’t resist the temptation, although to be fair, he didn’t really try all that hard. He whispered to the leader of the Lib Dems, “I can imagine worse fates”. Unfortunately his voice carried further than he would have wished and the Prime Minister’s voice was like acid as he continued “…and decided to kill anyone who disagreed with him?” That silenced the Leader of the Opposition, as the PM had intended.
“I believe we have an uncontrollable event,” the Prime Minister said, rather more formally, and Grable noticed the immediate change in the room. “Is there anyone here that disagrees?”
Grable looked around the room and saw that everyone else was looking at the Prime Minister, expectantly, as if their very silence signified something. The PM looked at each face in the room, reacting with surprise when he noticed that Grable was still there. He paused for a moment and then moved past her to Docherty’s seat. It was then that she realised, for the first time, that he’d gone and she couldn’t recall when he’d left. The Prime Minister noticed Docherty’s absence, but since he suspected the reason why, he moved on to Docherty’s Head of Section, and then past him continuing around the table.
When the Prime Minister had gone around the table, he explicitly and separately asked Lady Constance, the Chief of the Defence Staff, the CIA representative and Docherty’s Head of Section whether they agreed. They all spoke, stating their agreement. The Prime Minister looked at the last of these a final time. His tone was sonorous. “As with previous occasions, I leave this in your hands. I believe,” a look at the seat where Docherty had recently sat, “that you have matters in hand. Arrange an unfiling,” he said, and returned to looking at the television screen as Bowman increased the volume.
The Head of Section took Grable’s hand and motioned with his head. They left the room and returned to the ante-room where Grable had waited earlier. The Head of Section took a small phone from his pocket and punched out a number. He could hear it ring once before it was answered.
“You know who this is?” he asked.
“I know who this is,” came Docherty’s voice in his ear.
“You have authorisation for an unfiling.”
“Who?” came the quite reasonable reponse.
“Whichever of them survives their battle,” Docherty’s boss told him.
There was a long pause. “Please repeat and confirm that,” Docherty asked. It was the usual next phrase in the sequence. Any such order had to be given twice to ensure that the correct order had been given. And more importantly, that the right person was identified.
“I repeat and confirm: if that thing beats Davies, blow it out of existence.”
“Acknowledged. And if Davies wins?”
“Kill him.” Docherty disconnected and swore, the two happening almost contemporaneously. He didn’t have a problem with the assignment in theory, but had absolutely no idea how to go about it. Strangely, for someone who regarded himself as a total cynic about altruism, what troubled him was not how to kill each of them. Davies he’d take out with a head shot – despite what he’d seen about his healing abilities, he didn’t think that even Davies could survive a shot to the head from a sniper rifle, like the one, say, that he had brought with him. And he’d yet to see anything that could put up a decent struggle after being doused in napalm.
And he didn’t have the slightest qualm about killing the monster. He’d seen enough to know that he’d just be putting it out of its misery. At least that’s what he knew he’d be telling himself afterwards.
No, what concerned him was killing Davies; from what he could see, the man had voluntarily put himself in danger’s way but Docherty wasn’t that stupid that he couldn’t see the reasoning for unfiling both of them.
At that moment, he heard the scream of pain from Davies and his first instinct was to go to see what had happened. But instead he went to the van he’d driven up in and climbed inside it, the darkened windows ensuring no one could see what he was doing.
He placed his thumb against the storage area at the back and pulled five items from it: a rifle which he twisted and collapsed, a set of dum dum shells, strictly illegal under the law, but incredibly effective; and three small containers of a particularly vicious form of napalm. He loaded the rifle with four of the shells and then placed the rifle down. He took off his jacket and shrugged his way into a large coat with pockets designed to carry the rifle, which he then stuck the rifle into. The three canisters were smaller than he remembered and he slipped them into the outside pocket.
He left the truck and headed for the source of the screaming.
This Week's Artist: Natalie Sandells Natalie Sandells lives in London and loves and loathes her computer in equal measure. Her detailed and critically acclaimed work on DEVILCHILD brought her to the comics world's attention and she's currently working on STARSHIP TROOPERS for Mongoose Comics.
