Cadesa's Caress

They’ve got Mikey. They’ve got Mikey. Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. The thought cycles around and around in Gerard’s head while meaningless conversation continues around him. He closes his eyes. How did Mikey get here? It’s impossible! But the impossible just keep happening to him.

He is a numb shell, only moving when Lindsey tugs at his shirt sleeve. ‘Gerard,’ she hisses. ‘Gerard, c’mon.’ His left foot lifts itself up, then his right and slowly he is moving alongside Lindsey to the main cave. Maybe he should insist on staying in the small cave with Ray and Bob. He should pump Cassandra for all information about Mikey. Has anyone seen him? Is he hurt?

It’s only later when he remembers how much he was shaking, and Lindsey tells him that he was incoherently muttering incoherently that he knows she did the right thing to lead him away.

He is calmer when Ray emerges from the alcove almost thirty minutes later, and calls out for everyone to meet in the second cave. Gerard and Lindsey let everyone else flock past them and join the group at the very back, but Bob catches them and says Ray needs them up the front. ‘Just play your part,’ he adds to Gerard in a whisper. Cassandra is with him and she looks pale, the rims of her eyes red. Gerard wonders what else passed between her and the Resistance leaders after he left.

Ray waits until everyone has arrived and then hushes the noise, standing on a raised rock with a flat top so he is visible to everybody.

‘We have a decision to make!’ he calls and the last whispers die down to the ground. ‘A woman came to see me today –’ although really, Gerard thinks, Cassandra is a girl, with her slight figure and bony face, dominated by her clear grey eyes ‘– and she told me that a man is being held captive by the Ministry. That man is the brother of someone among us.’ Whispers break out and then grow into loud speculation. Ray speaks over them and the noise level drops. ‘You have all noticed that there are two new people among our number. Gerard and Lindsey have come from another planet and the Ministry’s latest captive is Gerard’s younger brother.

‘Now, friends, the time has come to choose. Do we help Gerard’s brother or not? Bear in mind that this is an innocent man, taken by a cruel dictator. Your thoughts, please.’

A man Gerard does not recognise moves forward to the front of the crowd and Ray allows him to stand on the rock and speak. ‘I want to know why this man and woman –’ he points at Gerard and Lindsey ‘– are here. We’ve been told nothing about them, yet they wander about freely. Before we rescue any brother I want to know why he is being held and what world Gerard and his woman have come from.’ Lindsey snorts at the omission of her name, but Ray nods.

‘I understand, Nathan. I would want to know the same details and that is why I will invite both our friends to come forward now and speak to you all.’ He stepped backwards on the rock so there was room for both Gerard and Lindsey to stand on it, side by side.

Gerard wonders how to begin. Being a writer doesn’t mean you always know the right words. In fact, more often you’ll find that writers are the ones who stumble and stutter because they alone know the weight and power of words. They know the subtle line between too much and not enough, they tread the winding path through good and evil – and sometimes, there is only the latter.

Gerard begins. ‘Lindsey and I come from another planet, called Earth. We didn’t intend to come here; we both had lives of our own. We don’t want to hurt anyone, but we do want to go back home. We’re not heroes or murderers or anything special, just two people who got mixed up in something bigger than we ever thought existed.

‘I won’t lie to you,’ Gerard says, ‘Lindsey and I probably seem like nothing to you, but imagine if you were strangers in a world. We had never seen battles before. We didn’t know anything about your life, but my brother is alone here. There’s no one else to help him but us and we can’t do it alone. We’re powerless. But you aren’t.’

‘This isn’t just about Mikey, either,’ Lindsey says. ‘This is an opportunity for the Resistance to hit the Ministry so hard they can never recover. This is your time,’ she urges. ‘Right now, they think you’re almost beaten right down, but they’re wrong. With a strong plan, you could triumph. But if you never try, you’ll never know. And in five years Cadesa will know nothing but Coleridge’s absolute power.’

There is hesitancy on the faces of the crowd, but it’s mingled with something more: hope. They want to believe Lindsey’s words. But no one is quite certain if they can be true. The bloodbath of the last battle where thousands of people died is too fresh in their minds for them not to imagine how disastrously wrong this could go.

Ray steps forward as Gerard and Lindsey return to their position at the front of the crowd. ‘You’ve heard from Gerard and Lindsey now,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

Charissa Burgess speaks first. ‘I have seen all three of my sons killed in battle,’ she says in a rasp, the crowd falling silent to listen. ‘My husband is crippled and I am old and weak. But I am proud. Death will happen to us all one day and there is no reason to fear it. While we are alive we must live and Cadesa is currently no place in which that can happen. Not under the Ministry’s rule. If you think it is easier to simply wait this out then you are wrong. Cowardly.’ Mrs. Burgess raises her head proudly. ‘I would rather my husband and I died in a final battle than lived out our final years in such a world. And if there is anything we can do to help this young man find his brother then I am also in favour of that.’

There is considerable applause when she finishes, but the next person to speak is opposed to the inclusion of Gerard and Lindsey in any action that might be taken. ‘It’s ridiculous that we are even considering inviting strangers into Kaitama!’ Ned Kirk shouts. ‘Haven’t we suffered enough because of spies? Does no one remember Reginald? Have you all forgotten the twenty of our number who were arrested, the fact that we nearly collapsed altogether?’ Kirk shakes his head. ‘We’ve become reckless, that’s our problem. We trust too easily and we don’t think enough. Well, if you want to risk what little we have left then it’s your heads that will roll when the executioner comes knocking.’

Kirk has planted doubt in minds, but Gerard knows he has many enemies here. He is a loudmouth, more the type to complain for the sake of it than because he actually believes in his opinion. His skill with a blaster is not great, but in hand-to-hand combat he is a regular victor.

Only three more people speak. They all support the idea of a final uprising against the Ministry, and Gerard wonders if he should dare to hope yet. Ray calls for a vote and of the seventy-nine people present; fifty-seven are in favour. The decision is made.

Ray opens up a discussion for ideas on infiltrating the city, but there is wide-spread division. The first man to speak suggests taking soldiers hostage to try and lure the Ministry’s army away from the city in a rescue attempt, but the idea is picked apart by almost everyone else as too risky.

‘Besides,’ a woman calls out, ‘the Ministry would never risk their necks for a few soldiers, and we’d never be able to capture more than half a dozen, they’re well-trained and we’d never manage to get them all the way through the forest without a fight.’

Gerard agrees. The forest is dense, and the soldiers’ weapons for powerful than anything the Resistance have.

‘What we need,’ Lindsey says, ‘is to get Coleridge unarmed and surrounded by enemies. So we need to draw soldiers away from the castle. What about starting a fire to divert attention to somewhere else?’ Several people around the circle nod.

‘I don’t think this would work.’ Bob steps forward. ‘We can’t light private property on fire, and all the major corporations are Ministry-run and under guard. I’m not sure that we’d be able to sneak in and get through without suffering massive casualties. No, we need some way to unarm the Ministry ....’

More suggestions are tossed around, but almost no one is agreement. Attack the castle? We’d get pulverised in minutes. What about rallying citizens to join in and boost our numbers? Without weapons they’d be hopeless.

Finally, Ray, Bob, Saunders and two other men, as well as Charissa Burgess and her husband leave the group to plan in detail. This is the senior counsel of the Resistance. While all paths of actions are decided by majority vote, these are the elite seven who plan out exactly what happens. All have served the Resistance for many years – the Burgesses were just eighteen when they started and are over fifty now – and all are formidable opponents.

Gerard and Lindsey go with them. ‘We need to configure your brother’s rescue into this,’ Ray says and they take positions in the circle on the ground between Mrs. Burgess and Bob, who is directly to Ray’s right.

Ray doesn’t waste any time. ‘Firstly, how many people can we muster?’ He’s looking at Bob.

‘We have eighty-one here – that’s including you, Gerard and Lindsey – and another thirty in the city I can contact.’

‘Anyone else?’

Bob considers. ‘If you think we’ll need them, I could arrange for another dozen at least. Perhaps more, but that depends on how much time we have.’

‘Hardly any. It’s important that once we’ve decided what we’re going to do, we do it quickly. I won’t leave any time for word to get out and this has to be organised in the utmost secrecy. Kirk has a point; in the past we’ve been betrayed. But that’s not a reason to give up entirely.’

‘What about the Ministry’s firepower?’ Saunders asks in his low rumble. ‘They have three times what we’ve got access to and if we go up against that it’ll practically be suicide.’

‘I’ve thought about that,’ Ray says. ‘Back when I was a pilot we had to refuel our planes from the main generator room in the academy. It was divided into sections and the closest one to the fuelling station was where the weapons would be charged.’

Gerard has an idea of where this might be going. The Ministry don’t bother to import long-lasting weapons because if a soldier goes rogue he becomes a threat with a powerful weapon. Therefore, they buy in huge numbers of low-level blasters, good for only a week at most. It’s simpler and safer to constantly replace the weapons and to only give each one a twenty-four hour charge.

‘Weapons are replaced every week, and brought back to charge whenever the owner isn’t on duty,’ Ray says. ‘But the generator has several options. You can charge a weapon, remove it from the database so it becomes untraceable, but there’s also another option. To collapse all weaponry that is recorded in the database.’

‘Why is that option there?’ the young, bald man opposite Gerard asks. ‘They’ve just shot themselves in the foot.’

‘You’re too young to remember the revolution forty years ago, Ethan,’ Jacob Burgess croaks, ‘and I won’t explain it in great detail. I don’t think it will mean anything to you. A group of soldiers turned against the Ministry. High-ranking ones, so they had access to weapons orders and the heavier fire-power blasters. They amassed a supply of weapons secretly and plotted to assassinate Leonard Coleridge. They very nearly succeeded, too.’

‘What happened?’ Ethan asks in a low voice.

Jacob sighs. ‘Coleridge had a spy in the group all along. He knew exactly what was happening, but let them get close, for his enjoyment. And then, on the very day the assassination was planned for, when Coleridge was seemingly defeated, surrounded by the group who planned to kill him, soldiers came. They easily overpowered the group and arrested them. They were executed the next morning, and the residents of the city were herded into watch them die.’

Ethan doesn’t ask how, but he doesn’t need to. Everyone knows the penalty for any form of treason, even something as minor as speaking against the Ministry: you are dragged to the place of execution on a hurdle, then hanged by the neck until you are close to death, and finally cut down before you are beheaded and then your body is divided into four parts. You would be disembowelled and emasculated. The last thing you would see would be your own organs being ripped from your abdomen. The five parts of your corpse were put on public display around the city to warn off other potential traitors.

‘And after that revolution,’ Jacob continues, ‘Coleridge installed the device to terminate all weapons.’

‘But he wasn’t in any danger,’ Ethan says, ‘He knew what was happening. There was never a threat to him.’

‘Maybe so, but he became increasingly paranoid. He realised that he couldn’t pick out every threat so early, and he always believed the biggest threat was his own men turning against him. So he decided he needed a way to prevent all weapon usage.’ He looked at Ray. ‘I don’t think you understand the level of guard that generator room will be under. Coleridge will have the elite of the elite there. It means everything to him. He picks only men he is certain are on his side to stay there and it’s password-protected.’

‘So we keep shooting bullets into them until they tell us the password,’ Bob replies evenly. Jacob still looks sceptical. ‘You forget that before this I worked in Coleridge’s dungeons. I know how to make people hurt until they will do anything I want.’

‘We’d have to have several groups,’ Ray says. ‘One group to get to the castle, and several to infiltrate the academy where the pilots train and get to the generator room.’

‘As soon as the generator cuts out the soldiers will be ordered to retreat to the academy to recharge their weapons,’ Saunders says, ‘and so we’ll have to arrange some kind of defence so they can’t get through. Ray, you mentioned there were discussions with some pilots. Where do they stand now?’

‘About a third of them will definitely side with us. They could be used as part of a blockade around the temple. I can’t be certain of the others, though.’

‘Is it possible to unregister the weapons of the pilots so they keep working?’ Saunders asks.

‘Only if you’re a mission controller,’ Ray replies. ‘Luckily, we have Abel Taggart. The pilots in our favour would be outnumbered, but we can support them in a blockade. What we need to decide is the numbers of each group and exact goals.’

Charissa Burgess speaks up. ‘Will you want anyone left to guard Kaitama? Because some of us aren’t fit to go in these groups, but if the soldiers come back here they should find some resistance.’

‘If all goes according to plan, the soldiers will be too busy trying to deal with their malfunctioning weapons and won’t be in any position to leave the city.’ Ray nods. ‘But it would be a good idea to outfit those here with weapons. I won’t leave anyone fit behind. Some of us are still recovering from wounds, but could fight if they really had to, so they can stay. Charissa and Jacob will be in charge of the group here,’ he announces.

‘We can enter the city through the underground roads,’ Ethan says. ‘They aren’t used, but the Ministry never got around to shutting them down completely. There’s a divide where we can split up. The groups for the temple peel away to the east and the castle group stay heading north.’

‘What about getting up into the buildings themselves?’ Jacob Burgess points out. ‘Just walking up to the entrance and attempting to break in will have the alarms set off. The building goes into lockdown and we’d get slaughtered for sure.

‘No,’ Ethan says, ‘we wouldn’t have to use the main entrances. The underground roads come right up to trapdoors in the servants’ quarters of the castle and just down the hall from the mission control room for the pilots’ academy. So that plants us directly inside and then we fight our way to the generator room. Abel Taggart will have been alerted to our presence and he can enter the code to cut all the weapons power. Once that happens, we just have to keep the guards at bay until the group at the castle has achieved its goal.’

‘And what is that goal?’ Lindsey asks.

‘To kill Leonard Coleridge.’

Gerard knew it was coming. He had thought many times about how to write the scene. But to hear it put out there is bizarre. A person who has become so real to Gerard wants to kill a man he has become almost...attached to. The villains always were his favourite characters.

‘It’s the only way this will end. Coleridge and all his senior officers.’ Ray speaks without any emotion. ‘If we want freedom, they die.’

————

Four days later, they set out before dawn. A plethora of people has been arriving at the caves over the past two days and stockpiles of weapons and armour have emerged. Some people have spent the past days practising their fighting skills, others, such as Saunders, have chosen to rest, having confidence in their ability and knowing they will need their energy for what lies ahead.

Gerard and Lindsey’s group is the smallest, but if the plan works they shouldn’t have much trouble. When they separate at the junction in the pipes under the city, Bob halts them for a few minutes.

‘Remember, they need to be slightly ahead. We have a shorter journey to make and our arrival in the castle needs to coincide with the minutes just before they knock out the weapons.’

Gerard was offered a blaster by Bob yesterday, but he turned it down. Bob had taken on an insistent look and drew him to one side. ‘I don’t know what’s going through Ray’s head, but I will be leading the group into the castle and I’m not wasting a man or woman on protection for you. So if you want to have a chance at defending yourself, I suggest you take this.’

Gerard had opened his mouth to say no again, but Bob cut him off. ‘Gerard, you need to be able to protect yourself. Lindsey said yes. I’m going to take you out for a couple of practice shots now.’ Gerard went along numbly. He’d always been so opposed to guns. He just didn’t see what good they did. But he was the bastard who had written the blasters into his books: he’d staged battles, killed men and women, some innocent, some not. Reap what you sow, his conscience mocked.

He took the blaster, but silently promised himself he would avoid using it at all costs.

Now, standing at the division, Gerard watches Ray lead away the men and women who will sneak into the generator room away. Theo is among them, so is Matthew, but Saunders is Bob’s second-in-command and coming with them to the castle.

Lindsey looks nervous, and she is fiddling with her blaster, moving her middle finger to trigger position and back again. She practices removing it swiftly from her holster to a firing position. She is so prepared to use it. He doesn’t know if he can. But he’s certain that he doesn’t want to.

Bob calls out. They are moving. This is it. Gerard quickens his pace to walk with Lindsey. She had moved away from him originally to talk to a quiet woman called Anna, who had been close to tears, looking after her husband who was with the other group. Gerard doesn’t know what Lindsey said, but Anna has lifted her head and is walking firmly near the front, cheeks free of tears.

‘Are you scared too?’ Lindsey asks him, stepping in beside him.

‘Yes, I am.’ I’m scared for you. For Mikey. And for me. What will happen if they die here? Will they be ... permanently dead? Unable ever to live again? Or will they be able to return to Earth still? Gerard’s not about to gamble his own life to find out.

They walk in silence, everyone listening out for the sound of footsteps. The chances of meeting anyone are slim to nil, but years of hiding from the Ministry have embedded caution in them all.

It is a short journey, but the tunnel winds fiercely around itself. Gerard keeps expecting Leonard Coleridge himself to jump out from around a particularly vicious corner. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, but by the time they are standing directly below the trapdoor that will lead them to the servants’ quarters, he feels as if he might vomit. His stomach is doing acrobatics and he has begun to sweat under his black t-shirt. Vaguely, his brain reminds him that he gave his jacket to the dying Blair. It had his cell phone in it. His iPod, too. Probably some loose change. At least if there is an afterlife Blair can get a chocolate bar from the vending machine and cheer himself up with a few tunes.

He probably shouldn’t be thinking of the poor man like this, the young man he watched die. It’s a little fucked up; he doesn’t have a particularly strong sense of humour and it always comes out at the worst times.

Gerard is the fourth person to go through the trapdoor, standing on Saunders’ knee to reach up and grab the edges of the wood. Ungracefully, he hauls himself up and flops over onto the floor, before clambering to his feet. Waiting for the rest of the group, Gerard looks around him.

They are standing in a servant’s bedroom, obviously long disused. The bed frame has no mattress or sheets and a layer of dust has settled over all the surfaces: the wooden bedside cabinet, the edges of the cupboard that acts as a wardrobe. Gerard knows it is around eight o’clock in the morning, so the servants will be in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. This is the ideal time to move.

Bob comes over to speak to him. ‘We’re splitting up, remember? You said the only place Coleridge has ever kept prisoners in is the dungeon.’

‘That’s right. There aren’t any cells elsewhere in the castle. No towers or anything. The other rooms are all for day-to-day living. Not incarceration.’

‘Good luck. And Gerard,’ Bob looks down at the blaster Gerard does not want to touch. ‘Be wise.’

Gerard nods, trying to swallow down his fear. ‘Lindsey and I will go now.’

Bob nods curtly, already turning back to the rest of the group. Gerard doesn’t stop to give the fear a chance to return. Lindsey stepping lightly behind him, he hurries from the room and into the belly of the castle.

It’s time to find his brother.

————

They meet no one in the servants’ quarters, but when they peer through the partially open door that leads to the main area of the castle, they see the two men at the end of the long corridor. They aren’t guards, but are apparently involved in conversation, both with their backs to Gerard and Lindsey.

There is no other way to get out of here. They’re stuck.

‘Do we have to shoot them?’ Lindsey whispers.

‘They’ll both have weapons,’ Gerard replies in a murmur. The chances of sneaking up to the men unheard are slim to none. The floor is stone and Lindsey’s footwear is a pair of boots. Gerard has on a pair of black converse, which is slightly more suitable for quiet movement.

It’s a stalemate. Do they alert the men to their presence or just wait? Neither of them wants to shoot anyone. But the blasters are their only weapons and if it comes to the strangers’ lives or their own ....

‘Hey!’ The men have turned and are running right towards Gerard and Lindsey, who stand frozen for a second. Then two hands move to grasp two blasters and move them up to fire. Lindsey’s target topples, holding his shoulder. Gerard’s keeps moving. He missed. Both men are firing now and Gerard dodges to the left, moving out of the doorway as the shot sails over his head and into the wall. Lindsey had thrown herself right down onto the ground when a shot was aimed at her and now she fires at the man, hitting him in the foot. He yells in pain, but doesn’t stop shooting. It is a game of duck and dodge, constantly moving. Gerard grits his teeth and fires again, straight into the man’s chest.

The shot is loud and seems too long to be normal. Gerard watches the man fall backwards; his back creating an arc. His hand lets go of his blaster and it skitters across the floor. Neither of them moves until the man’s head connects with the concrete.

Mikey. Gerard starts to run down the corridor and Lindsey follows. He tries to block out his reality. Is the man dead? Is it still murder if you’re being shot at too? Because the man wanted to kill him. But Gerard’s never wanted to kill anyone. Not really kill them, anyway. And in the space of just seconds he might actually have done just that.

Mikey. Just keep moving, keep moving, come on. One foot in front of the other, out the door and down the next corridor. Deserted, thank goodness. They take a turn down the stairs and Gerard nearly trips over his feet. He grabs onto the wall for support and bangs his shoulder, cursing, but keeps moving. Don’t stop, don’t think, just find Mikey.

They never see the man. They never even hear him. But suddenly they collide into a monster of a being, heavy and tall. Before he evens realises it is happening, Gerard has been punched in the jaw and his head is lolling to the side.

The man moves to do the same to Lindsey but she ducks on instinct. Gerard’s face is burning as he lands a punch on the man’s shoulder, but it isn’t strong enough. He follows it up immediately as Lindsey kicks out at his groin. The man pushes an elbow out both left and right, but misses when they both duck.

Gerard knows nothing about fighting. Survival instinct has kicked in and is running his body, moving him without his agreement. This man is heavier than him, and has strength. All they have on their side is higher ground. He is aiming punches at them from a slightly lower level. Gerard kicks out at his groin, mimicking Lindsey’s action and their attacker doesn’t move quickly enough aside. He groans and stumbles forward slightly.

‘Now!’ There was no need to say anything, Gerard saw Lindsey raise her hands and is already doing the same. Together they shove straight against the man, pushing him backwards. It only works because he is distracted by the pain in his groin. He falls backwards, cracking his head on a step and is instantly unconscious.

Gerard breathes heavily for several minutes. His jaw has stopped throbbing and is turning numb. It hurts to speak, but Lindsey is clearly wondering who the man was. ‘He guards the cells. C’mon.’

They step carefully over the still man and then speed up again. The door is only metres away now. Gerard fires at the lock when he sees it. It disintegrates.

There are only half a dozen cells because no one stays in them very long. Coleridge likes quick executions, dealt with before things go wrong. The light is bright and glaring, designed to stop you from sleeping. If you are exhausted, you are weak and more likely to give in.

‘Mikey?’ Gerard yells.

A cough and then a low voice calls back. ‘Gee? Gerard? Is – is that you?’

‘Mikey!’ Gerard runs to the very end. Mikey’s cell is the smallest, a box really. He is sitting in the far corner, one leg stretched out in front of him, the other pulled up to his chest. Gerard’s stomach heaves when he sees the grotesque wound in the leg laid out on the floor. What looks to be a deep cut stretches from his brother’s knee to his ankle. Blood spews down on both sides and pools underneath him, but it is drying. He has been here for some time. His pants leg has been shredded and provides no coverage across the wound.

‘Gerard – how – what –’

‘We need to get you out of here,’ Gerard says. ‘I don’t know how, but we’ve found you, so it’s okay. I promise.’

There is a lock on the door and Lindsey shoots it open this time, first telling Mikey to cover his face for safety’s sake. Gerard pushes the door open, rushes in and hugs Mikey tightly for a moment. ‘I’m not going to leave you again,’ he whispers deep into his brother’s hair.

He and Lindsey lift Mikey under each arm. He can put weight on his injured leg – the left one – but it is clearly painful and they try to minimize the effort he has to make. It is a slow trip up past the other cells and an even slower one up the stairs. Mikey says he has been in the cell for two days without food and water. His pants reek of urine because he couldn’t move when he needed to go to the toilet. Gerard wants to say he’s sorry, but he also knows his brother will only feel more embarrassed if he does so. Eventually they fall into silence, broken only when Mikey asks,

‘Gerard. I might be crazy, but ... this is your book, isn’t it.’ There is no inflection to his voice.

‘Yeah. It is.’

‘I thought so.’ Mikey’s voice is dull. He doesn’t ask anything else.

When they reach the body of the man who attacked Gerard and Lindsey he hops around it because they can’t fit past three abreast.

‘We have to find the others,’ Lindsey says. ‘I only hope that Ray’s managed to get the weapons cut off.’

‘Weapons?’ Mikey asks and Gerard gives him a summary of their plan.

‘If they’ve been successful then they’ll be on the way to the throne room. So we head in that direction.’

They reach the top of the stairs and Gerard can hear shots. Ray’s group haven’t disabled the Ministry weapons yet. Gerard and Lindsey exchange nervous looks. A silent what if rings through his head.

They move forward through the corridor, but the shots are getting louder. When they turn again, moving along the stone floor, fallen bodies come into sight. They all bear the diamond on their uniform that means they are Ministry guards. The diamond tattoo is visible on the foreheads of those who have landed face up.

Suddenly Lindsey screams. Gerard turns. She is tugging her foot from the grasp of a man they mistook as unconscious. He is trying to push himself up and a small pocket-knife is within his reach.

Later, Gerard wishes he could say it wasn’t him. But it is. He is the monster who pulls the blaster out and fires it. Right. In. The man’s. Fucking. Face.

It explodes. The shot hits the man in the eye and instantaneously his head is ripped apart. Lindsey is splattered with gray flecks, and the soldier’s blood spurts straight into her face. Gerard fares the best, being furthest away, but he is still splattered heavily. Mikey’s face is the colour of ash and he leans forward and vomits on his own bare feet and the floor.

Gerard lets go of his brother and falls to his knees. Tears trickle from his eyes. Poor bastard. He didn’t need to shoot the guy in the face! Blow apart his fucking head. Christ, what the hell is wrong with him? All he had to do was stomp on the guy’s hand or something. What the hell possessed him to reach for the blaster, the very thing he swore he would avoid using?

A hand rubs on his shoulder. Lindsey kneels down beside him. She doesn’t speak, but they huddle together. He can feel his heart beating like it might break out of his chest. But the mass-murdering fuckhead shouldn’t have one of those.

A life. Snuffed out just like that.

And Gerard himself pulled the fucking trigger. For all his grand words about only using the blaster if it was absolutely necessary, what did he do? Fired it straight into a man’s face at the first sign of danger. He could have kicked the man, or just yanked his hand away from Lindsey. But instead he blew his brains out.

A whimper rises from his throat and tears scald his face.

In the background, Mikey is still retching.

————

When they move again it is slowly, tripping past the bodies to the very end of the corridor. All the shots have stopped and Gerard dully registers this as a good sign. The double doors to the throne room are closed. He can hear a low voice speaking, but cannot distinguish any words. Lindsey reaches for the handle on the right, Gerard for the one on the left. They push the doors open, letting them bang back against the walls.

They trip forwards into the room. Bob and Saunders both point blasters straight at Leonard Coleridge. Bodies litter the floor. Gerard doesn’t let himself count the exact number. Through the massive windows, the sun is sinking, throwing the corners of the room into complete shadow, impenetrable with the eyes.

Although Bob and Saunders are staring fixedly at Leonard Coleridge, the Ministry’s leader and dictator does not meet their gaze. He is staring straight at Gerard.

Then he starts to laugh.

In person, Leonard Coleridge is not particularly impressive. He is short and his black hair is wild. A beard juts from his lower face and his skin is an unappealing grey colour. He is dressed in fresh leggings and a long-sleeved tunic and his boots are shiny, but the cruelty is burning in his eyes and Gerard’s innards tremble. It’s one thing to create a monster, but quite another to meet him.

‘Gerard Way, so very nice to meet you,’ Coleridge says. His voice is surprisingly feminine and he speaks carefully, enunciating every word.

‘I didn’t know you were expecting me.’

‘Expecting you? Dear boy, I brought you here.’

‘How?’ He tries not to let fear creep into his voice.

Coleridge smiles. ‘You doubt me? You, who created me?’ Gerard’s jaw drops. ‘Yes, I know exactly who you are. I’ve been sending spies to Earth for years now and when we discovered you ... well, it certainly was a shock. I didn’t want to believe that I came from your mind. But then I realised something. We’ve been living on comfortably, ignorant of your existence. But unfortunately we are bound to do what you write. And I understand you Earthlings ... always wanting a happy ending. And I am the villain in this world. I make no attempt to hide it. In fact, I am very proud of being so evil. Your heroes are so full of morals. So foolish. They always worry about other people.’ He seemed quite unconcerned by the two men pointing blasters at him. But Bob and Saunders are equally fascinated by his words.

‘I don’t have to do that. I take care of myself. Selfishness is good. Very good. It’s how you survive. And I plan to survive, Gerard. Pity for you, though. You see –’

A shot rings out across the room. Instantly, Coleridge throws himself onto the ground. Saunders’ shot is wasted. The blaster clicks. He is out of ammunition. Gerard knows Bob has the spare rounds, but not Saunders.

Coleridge climbs to his feet. Then, in one fluent motion, he pulls out a small knife and throws it straight at Saunders. The older man dodges – but not quickly enough.

‘Gnuh –’

The knife is embedded in his throat. Lindsey screams. Gerard watches as Saunders rips the knife out and lets it drop. He falls to his knees.

Bob doesn’t move. Gerard realises that he understands exactly what Saunders is doing. He can’t be helped. So he is going to increase the blood loss and make it quick. Within seconds he has fallen face forward. A minute later, it is over.

Coleridge has been watching the entire event with that steady smile on his face. Not a grin, but cold, hard satisfaction. Gerard flares up with hatred when Coleridge begins to speak again.

‘I have had men and women working on the art of leaping through time and space for over a decade. When we finally mastered it, it became very useful. We could take ideas from anywhere we wanted. Instead of being limited to travelling around this galaxy, we had billions of others to explore. But then we found yours.

‘If it weren’t for Earth there is very little that would interest us in your Solar System. But you humans ... you are delightful. Incredibly stupid and certain to doom yourselves to an unpleasant end, but every so often a little gem comes along. Like you, Gerard Way.

‘When we found out exactly what you were writing, I knew it had to be stopped. It was remarkably interesting to see your creation process, but we don’t need you.’

‘Fictional characters don’t need anyone,’ Gerard points out. ‘Because they’re not real.’

‘Oh, but we’re different,’ Coleridge says. ‘This is reality. We live in it. And we brought you here. Look around you, Gerard. What does this look like to you if not reality?’

Gerard can’t answer that. This can’t be real. But at the same time ... it is. All his senses tell him it is. But reason dictates that a novel doesn’t come to life.

‘How did you bring me here?’ he challenges.

‘Our time travel devices,’ Coleridge responds. ‘We only ever called them discs. Why dress up something into a different thing by use of a fancy name? Just loop them around your neck, type in the galaxy, planet, specific location and time and you can travel anywhere you want. Of course at first we didn’t know what was out there. We took wild guesses, sometimes with unpleasant endings, but slowly built up a catalogue and then redesigned the device so you can scroll through a list of galaxies and planets and choose your destination. Picking you up was almost easy. You fell asleep one night, and the woman I had sent to Earth brought you back. Except ....’

‘Except what?’ Gerard asks.

‘We hadn’t realised that the devices hold only one person. The idea behind them is that your atoms are stuck together, rather than being ripped apart. So you were scattered and lost.’

‘But I landed just fine in Cadesa,’ Gerard points out.

‘Of course you held on through space, there was nowhere else for your atoms to go, nothing to cling on to. But going through our atmosphere you were ripped away and ended up in a completely different area.’

‘And what about me?’ Lindsey demands. ‘How do I figure into all this?’

‘Much the same, actually. The intention was to use you as bait – humans do seem very keen on love. Bitter love, sweet love, foolish love, no matter what kind, you do like to cause yourselves pain over it. So it seemed natural to force you to tell us your intentions for the story by threatening her –’ He pointed at Lindsey ‘– with death. Being a stupid human, you would give up all information in exchange for her life.’

‘You really know fuck-all about humans,’ Lindsey says. ‘Gerard wrote you, he knows how cruel you are, why the hell would he tell you anything? Why would he trust you to keep your word?’

‘Even the tightest tongue will loosen if I want it,’ Coleridge says with soft relish. ‘But after you both were lost, we needed something more secure. And that is why your brother is here. We drugged him and sent him with his own device straight to the cell.’

‘But you hurt him,’ Gerard says. ‘He can’t even stand up on his own. If you want to kill me why aren’t you just doing it? Leave Mikey and Lindsey alone.’

Coleridge laughs again. ‘You created me and you really do not understand me in the least, do you? I live to cause pain. When you are at your lowest and want to die, I will be smiling and laughing because it feels so good. I live for suffering. It is my nourishment. I will always win because pain will never stop. Gerard, I am hell.’

Gerard shudders. Writing about Leonard Coleridge never scared him, but it was always unsettling. He came from a dark place and now, seeing him right there .... It’s his eyes that do it. Gerard firmly believes that they are the hardest to disguise. You can lie with words but how you feel leaks out through your eyes. The eyes of Leonard Coleridge are full of cruelty though – not hatred, but a desire to inflict pain on others. When he sees someone suffering, his eyes light up. They lit up when he watched Saunders die. Gerard had watched that with a numb acceptance. He had known it would happen. Not when or how, but he was certain that it would happen. He had written it.

A new question edges its way up his tongue. ‘There were these times ... times where I woke up covered in blood, where other people said I was bleeding and I wasn’t. I’d look in the mirror and see someone I wasn’t.’ Just remembering that one time he aged in front of his very eyes, then mysteriously returned to his current appearance sends a shudder through him.

A smile plays across Leonard Coleridge’s face.

‘Well, what was it? What were you doing to me?’ Gerard asks. ‘If it wasn’t you, what was it?’

‘I gave the agent I sent to retrieve you –’ Gerard glares. Retrieve. Like he’s a fucking toy, ‘– permission to play with you at her leisure. It was a delight to hear of your reaction. You thought you were going insane. My only regret is that we couldn’t carry on the escapades for longer. But it was important to bring you here quickly.’

Gerard doesn’t register Bob’s silence until the blonde man fires his blaster. Where Saunders missed his target, Bob doesn’t. The shot launches itself across the room, straight into the shoulder of Leonard Coleridge. An expression of surprise crosses his face. In talking for so long to Gerard, he had forgotten all about Bob.

Bob doesn’t waste time and fires again immediately, but Coleridge is also moving. He throws a small knife at Bob, who ducks, but this causes his shot to go wide, breaking a pane of the window. The knife flies straight into the wall and clatters to the ground. Lindsey has pulled out her own blaster and fires, but Coleridge ducks. Gerard’s shot misses by several feet.

Coleridge has abandoned his knives and grabs a blaster of his own from a dead man. With one shot he skims past Bob’s arm. A second shot connects with the wall just above Lindsey’s head.

Lindsey lets go of Mikey, throwing herself at the ground, and Mikey loses his balance, dragging Gerard with him to the ground in a tangle of limbs and a cry of pain.

As the shots continue over their heads, Gerard clambers to his knees, and helps Mikey up. His brother looks white and sickly from the sudden shock and his already wounded leg. But he is gritting his teeth and defiance burns on his face. With a burst of anger, Gerard pulls him into an almost-run after Lindsey, Bob and Coleridge, firing his blaster in Coleridge’s direction. He isn’t hitting anything, but he wants Coleridge to know he has an enemy – even if that enemy isn’t particularly skilled with a blaster.

Mikey is hobbling beside him, but he scoops up a blaster, and now they’re both firing. Coleridge dances among the shots as he, Lindsey and Bob all move in the direction of the opposite door, at least ten feet away from Gerard and Mikey.

When he gets closer he can see that Coleridge has been wounded in the lower arm as well as the original hit to his shoulder, but Bob and Lindsey look okay, if sweaty and worn down.

Gerard is less than six feet behind Coleridge now and fires straight at his enemy’s hand. It works, the blaster is knocked right from his grasp and Bob and Lindsey both fire. One shot hits its target, but Gerard is never whose it is. Hit straight in the head, Leonard Coleridge drops to the ground.

‘Oh my God,’ Lindsey whispers. ‘Did we ... is he ....’

Bob nods.

Mikey steps up to the body, as if looking at it to make sure it’s real. Or rather, Gerard thinks, no longer real.
‘Come on,’ Bob says quietly. ‘Let’s go home.’

————

They travel back by the streets, relishing their triumph as people spill out from their houses. A chant starts up, ‘The Ministry is dead! The Ministry is dead!’ and Gerard joins in, yelling until his voice aches because he needs to feel something. Mikey and Lindsey are beside him, and even with his injured leg Mikey is beaming, cheering with the best of them. Lindsey has a cut over her eye Gerard never noticed before, but she waves it off when he points it out. Apparently, blood running down her face makes her feel badass.

There is stuff to figure out, a relationship to understand, a brother to hug and promise to never leave, people to see, but right now people are flocking everywhere, cheering and kissing the ground, and all that matters is this:

Liberation.

————

That night there is a funeral. Fifty-four men and women died, including Saunders and Theo. Ray told Gerard he fell as he made the first advance into the generator room, fighting on with two shots to the chest before a third pulled him right down to the ground. It doesn’t make it any easier to watch his body burn. Theo, who told him this place was Cadesa. He was special because he was the first. His first true encounter with his novel.

Smoke drifts through the air and it hurts to breathe. But that isn’t the only thing that makes the tears roll from his eyes to his cheeks and off the edge of his chin.

————

The thief finds him early the next day, sitting in a tree on the edge of the forest. They don’t talk for a few minutes, but when Gerard goes to climb down, Frank stops him.

‘I didn’t come up here because I appreciate the view, you know. There’s stuff you need to tell me.’

‘Then you need to ask me something, don’t you,’ Gerard says. He’s tired of this world. Tired of seeing little bits of himself walking around and talking and living. Tired of not being in his own home and going to teach teenagers every day. Tired of not having privacy and time to talk to Lindsey when there is so much to say. The fiction is too real and Gerard’s beginning to wonder what’s real anymore.

‘You know something about me,’ Frank says. ‘I saw it the first time we met and you can’t just not tell me. I don’t know who the hell you are back wherever you come from, or what your connection is with this world, but there’s something missing and I’m going to find out what.’

‘I said I wrote you, Frank,’ Gerard says ‘and I wasn’t lying. I’m an author back on a planet called Earth. I write books. And this world is in my books.’

Frank nods slowly. ‘So ... everyone here is in your book. We’re ... parts of it.’

‘Characters. And you’re just accepting this? I thought you’d be angry. ‘I’m my own boss’ and all that.’

‘I don’t know .... But you’re a very weird man, it seems fitting that you’d have a weird profession. Writing about people you didn’t think existed.’

‘But you don’t .... Oh, never mind.’ As long as Frank isn’t getting mad, he should try and explain. ‘This, what’s just happened, the battle, it was meant to happen in the third book. The one I’m writing now. But I’ve seen it all, done it all. So I don’t know I’m going to do now.’

‘Make it up. Isn’t that what writers do?’ Frank asks.

‘I don’t know .... It’s different now. Too close. It hurts to think about it.’

They lapse back into silence.

‘What happens to me, Gerard? In your book, what plans do you have for me?’ Frank looks straight at him, and Gerard doesn’t think he’s ever seen a stronger gaze. A gaze with so much will to live that it’s frightening. Frank has always been a favourite character for him and now he is reminded of why. He is the personification of living in so many ways.

Gerard looks down at his feet, dangling and kicking against each other. ‘Frank ... you ... you don’t live for very long.’

Now he sees fear in the young man’s eyes. Frank is nineteen, so young. On Earth, he would be going to college. What would he study? Would he be dating?

‘How long?’ he asks. His voice is beginning to choke up.

‘The day you turn twenty. There’s a fire. You’re robbing a house, but you don’t get out in time.’ He can’t say it all. There is a baby girl in the house. Frank hears her crying. He drops the money and grabs the child, tosses her down to the crowd below. She lands safely. But the upper floor collapses before he gets out. They find his body the next day, crushed under a column.

‘I – oh hell.’ He can barely get out a full word now. ‘I’m a coward, Gerard, such a coward. Death ... it scares the shit out of me. I can’t stand the idea of dying. I – I need to live. It’s ... I don’t even know, but living, it matters to me. I don’t have much in my life, but what there is ... I love it.’ He rubs a hand across the back of his eyes. ‘I wish I hadn’t asked you that. Damn it, should you even be telling me this?’ The anger is suddenly turned around and directed at Gerard, but the older man doesn’t respond.

‘Why ....’ Frank asks, but he never finishes his sentence. The silence overwhelms them, but then the thief breaks it. ‘What will you do?’

‘I’m going home. Ray Toro arranged it.’

‘How?’

Gerard explains what Leonard Coleridge had told them about the time travel devices. Frank’s eyebrows furrow.

‘They hold your what together through space?’ But how could Gerard expect Frank to understand when he’s had no education?

‘Atoms. They’re made up of matter.’

‘What’s matter?’

‘Everything around us. Tiny fragments of it, floating around and condensing to form an object. You. Me. This tree. But I’m not a good person to ask for an explanation about something like this. Just know that these devices hold you together through space so you arrive safely.’

‘And anyone can use them.’

‘Uh huh.’

Frank grins suddenly. ‘Then I’ll take one.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘Where can’t I go?’ Frank asks with a maniacal laugh. ‘I can go anywhere! Wherever I want, whenever I want. And I won’t die.’

‘No one lives forever, Frank.’ Gerard’s voice is quiet, almost lost in the wind that has started whistling through the leaves.

‘That doesn’t mean I can’t have a damn good try.’ Frank is elated, convinced of the success of his plan. ‘What’s your world like?’

‘My world? Earth? I .... It’s hard to say. Noisy. People speak lots of different languages. But I only really know about a small part of it. My city has ... well, it has character, I think.’

‘There’s more than one city?’ Frank asks in surprise. Cadesa is a very small planet, but largely inhabitable deserts, with just one major city.

‘There are millions of cities.’

‘I want to come with you,’ Frank insists. ‘Back to Earth. I want to see the cities and the people.’

‘You don’t know anyone on Earth. You might hate it.’

‘I don’t need to know people to survive. The world is full of open pockets and that’s what matters to me. And if I do hate it ....’ Frank mimes pushing a button. ‘I won’t let anyone hold me back.’

‘I’m not going to stop you,’ Gerard says with a shrug. ‘But Earth isn’t always a very nice place.’

‘Where is?’ Frank asks simply.

————

Their departure is very informal. No announcement is made to the Resistance, but many of them have returned to the city to their families to celebrate and reconnect. Whole years have been lost to the Ministry’s regime and those left have face the daunting task of trying to recreate not just their own lives, but their entire city’s structure.

Ray and Bob accompany Gerard, Mikey, Lindsey and Frank some way through the woods. Neither the Resistance leader nor his second-in-command were particularly sad or concerned at Frank’s decision to accompany them. Their relationship is one of tolerance, but absent of affection. Frank’s mindset and selfishness makes sense to him, but to no one else. He won’t hurt anyone else or hinder their operations, but he feels no shame at filching from the pockets of good men and women.

Gerard knows they would have been told to leave sooner if it weren’t for Mikey’s leg wound. After being bandaged by the medics, he was instructed to not walk on it at all to give the leg the time it needed to heal. But before leaving the caves this morning, Ray had pulled Gerard aside.

‘This is only a theory,’ he had said, keeping his voice low, ‘but it’s possible that when you arrive on Earth you’ll find that your brother’s leg is healed completely.’

Gerard stared blankly at Ray. ‘But why?’

‘When you first arrived here, I noticed a graze on your hand. It was small, but as I was staring at it, it disappeared. I don’t know why, it was completely illogical. But it did. So maybe wounds from your world are healed when you arrive here and, if I’m right, the same could be true in the reverse.’

‘But – that’s just – there’s no reason for skin to just close over.’

Ray simply shrugged. ‘It’s just a guess. But I think we’ve both learned not to question the impossible when it happens right in front of us and just roll with it.’

Gerard had given a weak nod. Apparently, Cadesa was going to throw surprises at him until the very last minute.

Now, each of them bears a time travel device around their neck: a thick wire with red coating and a disk with a screen in it, the size of a mobile phone. Buttons allow them to scroll down. The text on the three screens is identical.

VIA LACTEA, PLANET EARTH, NORTH AMERICA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, NEW JERSEY, NEWARK CITY

Then follows Gerard’s address and today’s date.

OCTOBER 18, 2008

‘You can’t return to the day you left,’ Ray said. ‘Whatever’s happened on Earth during your absence is irreversible. You’ll have to explain your disappearance somehow, but at least Earth time runs the same as ours, so you’ve only been away a week.’

Gerard thinks glumly of his job. Will he even have one after missing a whole week without contacting the school?

The Resistance leaders smile. ‘It seems these things will keep working,’ Ray says, ‘but it would be best if you didn’t come back.’ His voice is firm, but not unkind. ‘I don’t think we’ll ever fully understand what has happened here and now we have a chance of peace it would best if no one meddled with it.’

‘I understand,’ Gerard replies and sees Lindsey nod beside him. Mikey looks slightly wistful. ‘I think we all just want to get on with our lives.’ He opens his mouth again, intending to say goodbye, but his voice catches. For all that he wants to get home, these people are hard to let go of. They’ll be waiting for him on the other side but it isn’t the same. All that comes out is a loud gulp. He jerks his head in a nod and hopes that suffices.

Before he can think twice, Gerard hits the ACTIVATE button and lets go of Cadesa.

————

Being pulled through time and space is weird, Gerard thinks. But what did he expect, a ride on a fucking merry-go-round? It’s a black tunnel of near suffocation, but he can’t even tell if he is moving, since he can’t see. He can’t even feel. He tries to move an arm, but –

And then he is on his knees, coughing, in bright light. His kitchen is all around him, looking ... normal. Gerard moves his arms around. Ten fingers. Two feet, both still with shoes on. A nose. He doesn’t bear any signs of the hurtling journey he just completed.

But where are Lindsey and Mikey? And Frank should be here, too. He walks out of his kitchen and through the lounge.

Mikey is sitting directly in front of the couch, shaking out his arms. He looks ruffled, but not hurt. ‘We’re ... home?’ he wonders.

‘Yup.’ Gerard remembers Ray’s words. ‘Quick, check your leg,’ he says.

‘My leg?’ Mikey rolls up his pants leg and winces in pain. The heavy bandaging of the Resistance medics gives no clue as to whether or not the wound is still present underneath. ‘You want me to take it off?’ Mikey asks.

Gerard nods. ‘Ray had a thought. Maybe injuries don’t travel across time and separate worlds.’

Mikey shakes his head. ‘That’s bullshit.’ But when Gerard cites the example of his own hand, Mikey looks interested and begins to unwrap the bandage carefully. Underneath, there is a large speckling of dry blood, but the most incredible thing is happening. The deep cut is already knitting back together and the bruising has faded to a pale yellow in just a few minutes.

‘I don’t – how – what the fuck?’ Mikey stutters. He looks at Gerard, stunned.

‘I don’t know either,’ Gerard replies simply. ‘But let’s just be glad it happened. How does it feel?’

Mikey stands up slowly. ‘It twinges. But it’s nothing major. Don’t you think it seems a bit too convenient though?’

‘In some ways,’ Gerard agrees. ‘But trying to figure out whys and hows won’t do any good. That’s one thing I know for sure now. At least we’re home.’

‘Home!’ Mikey suddenly shouts. ‘Alicia!’ He jumps up. ‘Gerard, can I borrow your car?’ His own is at his house, in the driveway.

Gerard nods. Seeing Mikey so eager to get home to his fiancée makes Gerard envious. ‘I’ll get you the key.’

Mikey rushes out as soon as Gerard returns with the key, promising to call his brother later.

‘Nice underwear, Gee!’ a voice calls. Gerard jumps and looks around him, before realising the voice came from his bedroom.

‘You didn’t –’

Lindsey grins from beside his dresser. ‘Of course not. But your face! Definitely worth it. Although now you’ve given that reaction I’m curious as to just what is on them that’s so embarrassing ....’

‘Where’s Frank?’ Gerard wonders and together they wander through Gerard’s house, calling. But Frank is nowhere in sight.

‘Maybe outside?’ Lindsey offers. They make their way out the front door and around the back. ‘There,’ she says triumphantly, pointing to the apricot tree. Gerard had never taken much notice of it; he didn’t like apricots and the tree was entirely self-sufficient being around a decade old. But Frank apparently found pleasure in the small, round, orange fruit and was greedily eating one and collecting several more from the ground to stuff in his pockets. Like Gerard and Lindsey’s, his time-travel device hangs limply around his neck.

‘Having fun?’ Gerard calls.

Frank shows no sign of remorse at Gerard discovering his pilfering, but simply answers in the affirmative and continues picking the fruit up. Lindsey and Gerard watch for a few minutes, amused, until Frank finally finishes his current apricot, drops the stone onto the grass and makes his way over to them, pockets bulging.

‘Now what?’ he asks.

Gerard thinks this is a very good question. He wants – no, needs – to talk to Lindsey, but really doesn’t want Frank around to hear what they say. Not to mention, there’s the very good question of exactly what to do with Frank. Gerard doesn’t like the feeling of responsibility that has come over him, but he’s not entirely convinced that he can simply throw Frank out on the street either. He might be very experienced in the art of survival, but he knows nothing about Earth and the streets are dangerous here.

‘Tell you what,’ he says to the thief. ‘Go into the house and walk down the corridor. The second door on the left is the bathroom. There’s a shower in there.’

‘Shower?’ Frank asks blankly.

Why did he decide to equip Cadesa with only buckets and sponges for cleaning? ‘Big, tall, transparent box ... thing. You can’t miss it. There’s a handle inside and when you push it up and turn to the left cold water comes out from the nozzle above you. Turn it about halfway to the right and you’ll get nice warm water. There’s soap in there, too, so give yourself a really good clean, okay?’

Frank is already running inside.

‘That’ll keep him busy,’ Lindsey says.

‘Precisely my intention. Linds ... we need to talk.’ She nods. ‘I’m sorry I never called you. I’m sorry I just let go completely.’

‘Gerard, that was a really fucking long time ago. What, ten years? D’you really think I’d still be mad? Jesus, that would be completely stupid.’

‘I know it was now. I just – I really want you to know that I made a mistake. I can see that now. And I regretted it for a long time.’

‘But you don’t now?’ Her expression is indecipherable and he looks across the blue sky instead.

‘No. I don’t. I changed after we broke up.’

‘You’re not drinking anymore. I could tell.’

‘It’s not hard to notice the absence of the big, drunken elephant in the room,’ Gerard deadpans, imitating Mikey, and Lindsey giggles. ‘But yeah, I’m sober and clean. Completely. And I found a new job I really love. And I found my writing again.’

‘I’m proud of you, Gerard,’ Lindsey says quietly. ‘Whatever comes out of this, I think you’ve done really well. And I’ll admit that I googled your name more than once to find out what you were doing.’

Gerard grins. ‘Your Wikipedia page was pretty helpful.’

‘You know James updates those things himself? There was a point where mine kept disappearing and he’d sit at his laptop for hours retyping at all. I was flattered by it at first, but then he admitted that Chantal had bet him fifty bucks he’d give up within a week and he didn’t want to lose the bet.’ She giggles.

‘So are you. Um. Are you ... seeing anybody?’ He knows what he wants the answer to be, but is painfully aware that he can’t do anything if she actually is. He won’t let himself.

‘There’s this guy,’ she says and his heart plummets. ‘I met up with him recently by chance. I haven’t done anything yet, but truthfully I’m trying to figure out if he’s interested.’

‘Oh .... I hope he realises soon,’ Gerard says. ‘I’m sure you’ll be happy together.’ Liar, liar. He wants Lindsey to be happy. He just wishes she could be happy with him. Not with some other dude. This guy is probably six feet tall and handsome, with a super-smart job, like a marine biologist. Gerard won’t stand a fucking chance.

‘I’m beginning to think that I might have to take matters into my own hands,’ she says.

‘Yeah ....’ He’s hoping this conversation doesn’t turn into Lindsey asking for advice on guys’ mentality when it comes to dating. ‘Hey, I never did tell Frank that the heated towel rail in the bathroom is actually really hot, and I don’t want him to burn himself so ....’

He turns to leave, but Lindsey encircles her hand around his wrist. ‘You really can be a little dense, Gerard,’ she says quietly, a smile playing across his face. Gerard loves the way it toys with the corners of her lips, lifting them up and down like a puppet.

‘I .... Are you ....’ He can’t get out a full sentence, but Lindsey doesn’t seem to mind. She just leans up and puts her lips firmly as close to his as is possible without physical contact.

‘Yes.’

There is a moment of silence. ‘This is where we kiss,’ she whispers.

‘I think I might know that,’ Gerard replies, but instead of kissing they giggle. It’s several seconds before they stop and then Gerard tentatively closes the remaining distance between them. Arms loop around necks, lips touch and Gerard gives a small gasp. It feels even more natural than his dream when he and Lindsey ran through the forest and dancing around the fire. He’s been waiting for this, wanting it for so long, but now it’s here he doesn’t feel any great sense of relief, simply that something that should have happened has finally occurred. And that feels good, so very, very good.

————

It’s a full two hours before Lindsey leaves. They don’t take anything very far, but there’s time for that later, if they want. Practically, they have to think about what to say to the people who will wonder where they have been for an entire week. Lindsey’s band, Gerard’s mother, the teaching staff at his school. Hell, someone will have called the police. Gerard realises they were fortunate not to come home and find his house swarming with cops all searching for clues as to his whereabouts.

For a long time they draw a blank on what to say. Frank returns from his shower and points out that whatever they say will show them in a bad light.

‘Yeah, but we haven’t done anything bad,’ Gerard says.

‘Because life is always fair to the good guys,’ Frank says, rolling his eyes.

‘I guess we can’t really decide until we know what has happened,’ Lindsey says. ‘I mean, James might just have convinced the band I finally went on that trek through the Himalayas.’

Gerard’s feeling just worried enough to not fully appreciate the humour. What if Stuyvesant High decides he deserves to lose his job over this? Shit.

‘Hey, Gerard,’ Lindsey says. He looks around. Frank has left the room. ‘It’s going to be okay. Besides,’ and she wraps her hand around his, ‘wasn’t it worth it?’

Gerard squeezes her hand back. It really, really was.

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CADESA'S CARESS

Part Four: From Your Is-land

<lj-cut><lj-cut text="Part Four: From Your Is-land">They’ve got Mikey. They’ve got Mikey. Mikey, Mikey, Mikey. The thought cycles around and around in Gerard’s head while meaningless conversation continues around him. He closes his eyes. How did Mikey get here? It’s impossible! But the impossible just keep happening to him.

He is a numb shell, only moving when Lindsey tugs at his shirt sleeve. ‘Gerard,’ she hisses. ‘Gerard, c’mon.’ His left foot lifts itself up, then his right and slowly he is moving alongside Lindsey to the main cave. Maybe he should insist on staying in the small cave with Ray and Bob. He should pump Cassandra for all information about Mikey. Has anyone seen him? Is he hurt?

It’s only later when he remembers how much he was shaking, and Lindsey tells him that he was incoherently muttering incoherently that he knows she did the right thing to lead him away.

He is calmer when Ray emerges from the alcove almost thirty minutes later, and calls out for everyone to meet in the second cave. Gerard and Lindsey let everyone else flock past them and join the group at the very back, but Bob catches them and says Ray needs them up the front. ‘Just play your part,’ he adds to Gerard in a whisper. Cassandra is with him and she looks pale, the rims of her eyes red. Gerard wonders what else passed between her and the Resistance leaders after he left.

Ray waits until everyone has arrived and then hushes the noise, standing on a raised rock with a flat top so he is visible to everybody.

‘We have a decision to make!’ he calls and the last whispers die down to the ground. ‘A woman came to see me today –’ although really, Gerard thinks, Cassandra is a girl, with her slight figure and bony face, dominated by her clear grey eyes ‘– and she told me that a man is being held captive by the Ministry. That man is the brother of someone among us.’ Whispers break out and then grow into loud speculation. Ray speaks over them and the noise level drops. ‘You have all noticed that there are two new people among our number. Gerard and Lindsey have come from another planet and the Ministry’s latest captive is Gerard’s younger brother.

‘Now, friends, the time has come to choose. Do we help Gerard’s brother or not? Bear in mind that this is an innocent man, taken by a cruel dictator. Your thoughts, please.’

A man Gerard does not recognise moves forward to the front of the crowd and Ray allows him to stand on the rock and speak. ‘I want to know why this man and woman –’ he points at Gerard and Lindsey ‘– are here. We’ve been told nothing about them, yet they wander about freely. Before we rescue any brother I want to know why he is being held and what world Gerard and his woman have come from.’ Lindsey snorts at the omission of her name, but Ray nods.

‘I understand, Nathan. I would want to know the same details and that is why I will invite both our friends to come forward now and speak to you all.’ He stepped backwards on the rock so there was room for both Gerard and Lindsey to stand on it, side by side.

Gerard wonders how to begin. Being a writer doesn’t mean you always know the right words. In fact, more often you’ll find that writers are the ones who stumble and stutter because they alone know the weight and power of words. They know the subtle line between too much and not enough, they tread the winding path through good and evil – and sometimes, there is only the latter.

Gerard begins. ‘Lindsey and I come from another planet, called Earth. We didn’t intend to come here; we both had lives of our own. We don’t want to hurt anyone, but we do want to go back home. We’re not heroes or murderers or anything special, just two people who got mixed up in something bigger than we ever thought existed.

‘I won’t lie to you,’ Gerard says, ‘Lindsey and I probably seem like nothing to you, but imagine if you were strangers in a world. We had never seen battles before. We didn’t know anything about your life, but my brother is alone here. There’s no one else to help him but us and we can’t do it alone. We’re powerless. But you aren’t.’

‘This isn’t just about Mikey, either,’ Lindsey says. ‘This is an opportunity for the Resistance to hit the Ministry so hard they can never recover. This is your time,’ she urges. ‘Right now, they think you’re almost beaten right down, but they’re wrong. With a strong plan, you could triumph. But if you never try, you’ll never know. And in five years Cadesa will know nothing but Coleridge’s absolute power.’

There is hesitancy on the faces of the crowd, but it’s mingled with something more: hope. They want to believe Lindsey’s words. But no one is quite certain if they can be true. The bloodbath of the last battle where thousands of people died is too fresh in their minds for them not to imagine how disastrously wrong this could go.

Ray steps forward as Gerard and Lindsey return to their position at the front of the crowd. ‘You’ve heard from Gerard and Lindsey now,’ he said. ‘What do you think?’

Charissa Burgess speaks first. ‘I have seen all three of my sons killed in battle,’ she says in a rasp, the crowd falling silent to listen. ‘My husband is crippled and I am old and weak. But I am proud. Death will happen to us all one day and there is no reason to fear it. While we are alive we must live and Cadesa is currently no place in which that can happen. Not under the Ministry’s rule. If you think it is easier to simply wait this out then you are wrong. Cowardly.’ Mrs. Burgess raises her head proudly. ‘I would rather my husband and I died in a final battle than lived out our final years in such a world. And if there is anything we can do to help this young man find his brother then I am also in favour of that.’

There is considerable applause when she finishes, but the next person to speak is opposed to the inclusion of Gerard and Lindsey in any action that might be taken. ‘It’s ridiculous that we are even considering inviting strangers into Kaitama!’ Ned Kirk shouts. ‘Haven’t we suffered enough because of spies? Does no one remember Reginald? Have you all forgotten the twenty of our number who were arrested, the fact that we nearly collapsed altogether?’ Kirk shakes his head. ‘We’ve become reckless, that’s our problem. We trust too easily and we don’t think enough. Well, if you want to risk what little we have left then it’s your heads that will roll when the executioner comes knocking.’

Kirk has planted doubt in minds, but Gerard knows he has many enemies here. He is a loudmouth, more the type to complain for the sake of it than because he actually believes in his opinion. His skill with a blaster is not great, but in hand-to-hand combat he is a regular victor.

Only three more people speak. They all support the idea of a final uprising against the Ministry, and Gerard wonders if he should dare to hope yet. Ray calls for a vote and of the seventy-nine people present; fifty-seven are in favour. The decision is made.

Ray opens up a discussion for ideas on infiltrating the city, but there is wide-spread division. The first man to speak suggests taking soldiers hostage to try and lure the Ministry’s army away from the city in a rescue attempt, but the idea is picked apart by almost everyone else as too risky.

‘Besides,’ a woman calls out, ‘the Ministry would never risk their necks for a few soldiers, and we’d never be able to capture more than half a dozen, they’re well-trained and we’d never manage to get them all the way through the forest without a fight.’

Gerard agrees. The forest is dense, and the soldiers’ weapons for powerful than anything the Resistance have.

‘What we need,’ Lindsey says, ‘is to get Coleridge unarmed and surrounded by enemies. So we need to draw soldiers away from the castle. What about starting a fire to divert attention to somewhere else?’ Several people around the circle nod.

‘I don’t think this would work.’ Bob steps forward. ‘We can’t light private property on fire, and all the major corporations are Ministry-run and under guard. I’m not sure that we’d be able to sneak in and get through without suffering massive casualties. No, we need some way to unarm the Ministry ....’

More suggestions are tossed around, but almost no one is agreement. Attack the castle? We’d get pulverised in minutes. What about rallying citizens to join in and boost our numbers? Without weapons they’d be hopeless.

Finally, Ray, Bob, Saunders and two other men, as well as Charissa Burgess and her husband leave the group to plan in detail. This is the senior counsel of the Resistance. While all paths of actions are decided by majority vote, these are the elite seven who plan out exactly what happens. All have served the Resistance for many years – the Burgesses were just eighteen when they started and are over fifty now – and all are formidable opponents.

Gerard and Lindsey go with them. ‘We need to configure your brother’s rescue into this,’ Ray says and they take positions in the circle on the ground between Mrs. Burgess and Bob, who is directly to Ray’s right.

Ray doesn’t waste any time. ‘Firstly, how many people can we muster?’ He’s looking at Bob.

‘We have eighty-one here – that’s including you, Gerard and Lindsey – and another thirty in the city I can contact.’

‘Anyone else?’

Bob considers. ‘If you think we’ll need them, I could arrange for another dozen at least. Perhaps more, but that depends on how much time we have.’

‘Hardly any. It’s important that once we’ve decided what we’re going to do, we do it quickly. I won’t leave any time for word to get out and this has to be organised in the utmost secrecy. Kirk has a point; in the past we’ve been betrayed. But that’s not a reason to give up entirely.’

‘What about the Ministry’s firepower?’ Saunders asks in his low rumble. ‘They have three times what we’ve got access to and if we go up against that it’ll practically be suicide.’

‘I’ve thought about that,’ Ray says. ‘Back when I was a pilot we had to refuel our planes from the main generator room in the academy. It was divided into sections and the closest one to the fuelling station was where the weapons would be charged.’

Gerard has an idea of where this might be going. The Ministry don’t bother to import long-lasting weapons because if a soldier goes rogue he becomes a threat with a powerful weapon. Therefore, they buy in huge numbers of low-level blasters, good for only a week at most. It’s simpler and safer to constantly replace the weapons and to only give each one a twenty-four hour charge.

‘Weapons are replaced every week, and brought back to charge whenever the owner isn’t on duty,’ Ray says. ‘But the generator has several options. You can charge a weapon, remove it from the database so it becomes untraceable, but there’s also another option. To collapse all weaponry that is recorded in the database.’

‘Why is that option there?’ the young, bald man opposite Gerard asks. ‘They’ve just shot themselves in the foot.’

‘You’re too young to remember the revolution forty years ago, Ethan,’ Jacob Burgess croaks, ‘and I won’t explain it in great detail. I don’t think it will mean anything to you. A group of soldiers turned against the Ministry. High-ranking ones, so they had access to weapons orders and the heavier fire-power blasters. They amassed a supply of weapons secretly and plotted to assassinate Leonard Coleridge. They very nearly succeeded, too.’

‘What happened?’ Ethan asks in a low voice.

Jacob sighs. ‘Coleridge had a spy in the group all along. He knew exactly what was happening, but let them get close, for his enjoyment. And then, on the very day the assassination was planned for, when Coleridge was seemingly defeated, surrounded by the group who planned to kill him, soldiers came. They easily overpowered the group and arrested them. They were executed the next morning, and the residents of the city were herded into watch them die.’

Ethan doesn’t ask how, but he doesn’t need to. Everyone knows the penalty for any form of treason, even something as minor as speaking against the Ministry: you are dragged to the place of execution on a hurdle, then hanged by the neck until you are close to death, and finally cut down before you are beheaded and then your body is divided into four parts. You would be disembowelled and emasculated. The last thing you would see would be your own organs being ripped from your abdomen. The five parts of your corpse were put on public display around the city to warn off other potential traitors.

‘And after that revolution,’ Jacob continues, ‘Coleridge installed the device to terminate all weapons.’

‘But he wasn’t in any danger,’ Ethan says, ‘He knew what was happening. There was never a threat to him.’

‘Maybe so, but he became increasingly paranoid. He realised that he couldn’t pick out every threat so early, and he always believed the biggest threat was his own men turning against him. So he decided he needed a way to prevent all weapon usage.’ He looked at Ray. ‘I don’t think you understand the level of guard that generator room will be under. Coleridge will have the elite of the elite there. It means everything to him. He picks only men he is certain are on his side to stay there and it’s password-protected.’

‘So we keep shooting bullets into them until they tell us the password,’ Bob replies evenly. Jacob still looks sceptical. ‘You forget that before this I worked in Coleridge’s dungeons. I know how to make people hurt until they will do anything I want.’

‘We’d have to have several groups,’ Ray says. ‘One group to get to the castle, and several to infiltrate the academy where the pilots train and get to the generator room.’

‘As soon as the generator cuts out the soldiers will be ordered to retreat to the academy to recharge their weapons,’ Saunders says, ‘and so we’ll have to arrange some kind of defence so they can’t get through. Ray, you mentioned there were discussions with some pilots. Where do they stand now?’

‘About a third of them will definitely side with us. They could be used as part of a blockade around the temple. I can’t be certain of the others, though.’

‘Is it possible to unregister the weapons of the pilots so they keep working?’ Saunders asks.

‘Only if you’re a mission controller,’ Ray replies. ‘Luckily, we have Abel Taggart. The pilots in our favour would be outnumbered, but we can support them in a blockade. What we need to decide is the numbers of each group and exact goals.’

Charissa Burgess speaks up. ‘Will you want anyone left to guard Kaitama? Because some of us aren’t fit to go in these groups, but if the soldiers come back here they should find some resistance.’

‘If all goes according to plan, the soldiers will be too busy trying to deal with their malfunctioning weapons and won’t be in any position to leave the city.’ Ray nods. ‘But it would be a good idea to outfit those here with weapons. I won’t leave anyone fit behind. Some of us are still recovering from wounds, but could fight if they really had to, so they can stay. Charissa and Jacob will be in charge of the group here,’ he announces.

‘We can enter the city through the underground roads,’ Ethan says. ‘They aren’t used, but the Ministry never got around to shutting them down completely. There’s a divide where we can split up. The groups for the temple peel away to the east and the castle group stay heading north.’

‘What about getting up into the buildings themselves?’ Jacob Burgess points out. ‘Just walking up to the entrance and attempting to break in will have the alarms set off. The building goes into lockdown and we’d get slaughtered for sure.

‘No,’ Ethan says, ‘we wouldn’t have to use the main entrances. The underground roads come right up to trapdoors in the servants’ quarters of the castle and just down the hall from the mission control room for the pilots’ academy. So that plants us directly inside and then we fight our way to the generator room. Abel Taggart will have been alerted to our presence and he can enter the code to cut all the weapons power. Once that happens, we just have to keep the guards at bay until the group at the castle has achieved its goal.’

‘And what is that goal?’ Lindsey asks.

‘To kill Leonard Coleridge.’

Gerard knew it was coming. He had thought many times about how to write the scene. But to hear it put out there is bizarre. A person who has become so real to Gerard wants to kill a man he has become almost...attached to. The villains always were his favourite characters.

‘It’s the only way this will end. Coleridge and all his senior officers.’ Ray speaks without any emotion. ‘If we want freedom, they die.’

————

Four days later, they set out before dawn. A plethora of people has been arriving at the caves over the past two days and stockpiles of weapons and armour have emerged. Some people have spent the past days practising their fighting skills, others, such as Saunders, have chosen to rest, having confidence in their ability and knowing they will need their energy for what lies ahead.

Gerard and Lindsey’s group is the smallest, but if the plan works they shouldn’t have much trouble. When they separate at the junction in the pipes under the city, Bob halts them for a few minutes.

‘Remember, they need to be slightly ahead. We have a shorter journey to make and our arrival in the castle needs to coincide with the minutes just before they knock out the weapons.’

Gerard was offered a blaster by Bob yesterday, but he turned it down. Bob had taken on an insistent look and drew him to one side. ‘I don’t know what’s going through Ray’s head, but I will be leading the group into the castle and I’m not wasting a man or woman on protection for you. So if you want to have a chance at defending yourself, I suggest you take this.’

Gerard had opened his mouth to say no again, but Bob cut him off. ‘Gerard, you need to be able to protect yourself. Lindsey said yes. I’m going to take you out for a couple of practice shots now.’ Gerard went along numbly. He’d always been so opposed to guns. He just didn’t see what good they did. But he was the bastard who had written the blasters into his books: he’d staged battles, killed men and women, some innocent, some not. Reap what you sow, his conscience mocked.

He took the blaster, but silently promised himself he would avoid using it at all costs.

Now, standing at the division, Gerard watches Ray lead away the men and women who will sneak into the generator room away. Theo is among them, so is Matthew, but Saunders is Bob’s second-in-command and coming with them to the castle.

Lindsey looks nervous, and she is fiddling with her blaster, moving her middle finger to trigger position and back again. She practices removing it swiftly from her holster to a firing position. She is so prepared to use it. He doesn’t know if he can. But he’s certain that he doesn’t want to.

Bob calls out. They are moving. This is it. Gerard quickens his pace to walk with Lindsey. She had moved away from him originally to talk to a quiet woman called Anna, who had been close to tears, looking after her husband who was with the other group. Gerard doesn’t know what Lindsey said, but Anna has lifted her head and is walking firmly near the front, cheeks free of tears.

‘Are you scared too?’ Lindsey asks him, stepping in beside him.

‘Yes, I am.’ I’m scared for you. For Mikey. And for me. What will happen if they die here? Will they be ... permanently dead? Unable ever to live again? Or will they be able to return to Earth still? Gerard’s not about to gamble his own life to find out.

They walk in silence, everyone listening out for the sound of footsteps. The chances of meeting anyone are slim to nil, but years of hiding from the Ministry have embedded caution in them all.

It is a short journey, but the tunnel winds fiercely around itself. Gerard keeps expecting Leonard Coleridge himself to jump out from around a particularly vicious corner. He doesn’t, of course he doesn’t, but by the time they are standing directly below the trapdoor that will lead them to the servants’ quarters, he feels as if he might vomit. His stomach is doing acrobatics and he has begun to sweat under his black t-shirt. Vaguely, his brain reminds him that he gave his jacket to the dying Blair. It had his cell phone in it. His iPod, too. Probably some loose change. At least if there is an afterlife Blair can get a chocolate bar from the vending machine and cheer himself up with a few tunes.

He probably shouldn’t be thinking of the poor man like this, the young man he watched die. It’s a little fucked up; he doesn’t have a particularly strong sense of humour and it always comes out at the worst times.

Gerard is the fourth person to go through the trapdoor, standing on Saunders’ knee to reach up and grab the edges of the wood. Ungracefully, he hauls himself up and flops over onto the floor, before clambering to his feet. Waiting for the rest of the group, Gerard looks around him.

They are standing in a servant’s bedroom, obviously long disused. The bed frame has no mattress or sheets and a layer of dust has settled over all the surfaces: the wooden bedside cabinet, the edges of the cupboard that acts as a wardrobe. Gerard knows it is around eight o’clock in the morning, so the servants will be in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. This is the ideal time to move.

Bob comes over to speak to him. ‘We’re splitting up, remember? You said the only place Coleridge has ever kept prisoners in is the dungeon.’

‘That’s right. There aren’t any cells elsewhere in the castle. No towers or anything. The other rooms are all for day-to-day living. Not incarceration.’

‘Good luck. And Gerard,’ Bob looks down at the blaster Gerard does not want to touch. ‘Be wise.’

Gerard nods, trying to swallow down his fear. ‘Lindsey and I will go now.’

Bob nods curtly, already turning back to the rest of the group. Gerard doesn’t stop to give the fear a chance to return. Lindsey stepping lightly behind him, he hurries from the room and into the belly of the castle.

It’s time to find his brother.

————

They meet no one in the servants’ quarters, but when they peer through the partially open door that leads to the main area of the castle, they see the two men at the end of the long corridor. They aren’t guards, but are apparently involved in conversation, both with their backs to Gerard and Lindsey.

There is no other way to get out of here. They’re stuck.

‘Do we have to shoot them?’ Lindsey whispers.

‘They’ll both have weapons,’ Gerard replies in a murmur. The chances of sneaking up to the men unheard are slim to none. The floor is stone and Lindsey’s footwear is a pair of boots. Gerard has on a pair of black converse, which is slightly more suitable for quiet movement.

It’s a stalemate. Do they alert the men to their presence or just wait? Neither of them wants to shoot anyone. But the blasters are their only weapons and if it comes to the strangers’ lives or their own ....

‘Hey!’ The men have turned and are running right towards Gerard and Lindsey, who stand frozen for a second. Then two hands move to grasp two blasters and move them up to fire. Lindsey’s target topples, holding his shoulder. Gerard’s keeps moving. He missed. Both men are firing now and Gerard dodges to the left, moving out of the doorway as the shot sails over his head and into the wall. Lindsey had thrown herself right down onto the ground when a shot was aimed at her and now she fires at the man, hitting him in the foot. He yells in pain, but doesn’t stop shooting. It is a game of duck and dodge, constantly moving. Gerard grits his teeth and fires again, straight into the man’s chest.

The shot is loud and seems too long to be normal. Gerard watches the man fall backwards; his back creating an arc. His hand lets go of his blaster and it skitters across the floor. Neither of them moves until the man’s head connects with the concrete.

Mikey. Gerard starts to run down the corridor and Lindsey follows. He tries to block out his reality. Is the man dead? Is it still murder if you’re being shot at too? Because the man wanted to kill him. But Gerard’s never wanted to kill anyone. Not really kill them, anyway. And in the space of just seconds he might actually have done just that.

Mikey. Just keep moving, keep moving, come on. One foot in front of the other, out the door and down the next corridor. Deserted, thank goodness. They take a turn down the stairs and Gerard nearly trips over his feet. He grabs onto the wall for support and bangs his shoulder, cursing, but keeps moving. Don’t stop, don’t think, just find Mikey.

They never see the man. They never even hear him. But suddenly they collide into a monster of a being, heavy and tall. Before he evens realises it is happening, Gerard has been punched in the jaw and his head is lolling to the side.

The man moves to do the same to Lindsey but she ducks on instinct. Gerard’s face is burning as he lands a punch on the man’s shoulder, but it isn’t strong enough. He follows it up immediately as Lindsey kicks out at his groin. The man pushes an elbow out both left and right, but misses when they both duck.

Gerard knows nothing about fighting. Survival instinct has kicked in and is running his body, moving him without his agreement. This man is heavier than him, and has strength. All they have on their side is higher ground. He is aiming punches at them from a slightly lower level. Gerard kicks out at his groin, mimicking Lindsey’s action and their attacker doesn’t move quickly enough aside. He groans and stumbles forward slightly.

‘Now!’ There was no need to say anything, Gerard saw Lindsey raise her hands and is already doing the same. Together they shove straight against the man, pushing him backwards. It only works because he is distracted by the pain in his groin. He falls backwards, cracking his head on a step and is instantly unconscious.

Gerard breathes heavily for several minutes. His jaw has stopped throbbing and is turning numb. It hurts to speak, but Lindsey is clearly wondering who the man was. ‘He guards the cells. C’mon.’

They step carefully over the still man and then speed up again. The door is only metres away now. Gerard fires at the lock when he sees it. It disintegrates.

There are only half a dozen cells because no one stays in them very long. Coleridge likes quick executions, dealt with before things go wrong. The light is bright and glaring, designed to stop you from sleeping. If you are exhausted, you are weak and more likely to give in.

‘Mikey?’ Gerard yells.

A cough and then a low voice calls back. ‘Gee? Gerard? Is – is that you?’

‘Mikey!’ Gerard runs to the very end. Mikey’s cell is the smallest, a box really. He is sitting in the far corner, one leg stretched out in front of him, the other pulled up to his chest. Gerard’s stomach heaves when he sees the grotesque wound in the leg laid out on the floor. What looks to be a deep cut stretches from his brother’s knee to his ankle. Blood spews down on both sides and pools underneath him, but it is drying. He has been here for some time. His pants leg has been shredded and provides no coverage across the wound.

‘Gerard – how – what –’

‘We need to get you out of here,’ Gerard says. ‘I don’t know how, but we’ve found you, so it’s okay. I promise.’

There is a lock on the door and Lindsey shoots it open this time, first telling Mikey to cover his face for safety’s sake. Gerard pushes the door open, rushes in and hugs Mikey tightly for a moment. ‘I’m not going to leave you again,’ he whispers deep into his brother’s hair.

He and Lindsey lift Mikey under each arm. He can put weight on his injured leg – the left one – but it is clearly painful and they try to minimize the effort he has to make. It is a slow trip up past the other cells and an even slower one up the stairs. Mikey says he has been in the cell for two days without food and water. His pants reek of urine because he couldn’t move when he needed to go to the toilet. Gerard wants to say he’s sorry, but he also knows his brother will only feel more embarrassed if he does so. Eventually they fall into silence, broken only when Mikey asks,

‘Gerard. I might be crazy, but ... this is your book, isn’t it.’ There is no inflection to his voice.

‘Yeah. It is.’

‘I thought so.’ Mikey’s voice is dull. He doesn’t ask anything else.

When they reach the body of the man who attacked Gerard and Lindsey he hops around it because they can’t fit past three abreast.

‘We have to find the others,’ Lindsey says. ‘I only hope that Ray’s managed to get the weapons cut off.’

‘Weapons?’ Mikey asks and Gerard gives him a summary of their plan.

‘If they’ve been successful then they’ll be on the way to the throne room. So we head in that direction.’

They reach the top of the stairs and Gerard can hear shots. Ray’s group haven’t disabled the Ministry weapons yet. Gerard and Lindsey exchange nervous looks. A silent what if rings through his head.

They move forward through the corridor, but the shots are getting louder. When they turn again, moving along the stone floor, fallen bodies come into sight. They all bear the diamond on their uniform that means they are Ministry guards. The diamond tattoo is visible on the foreheads of those who have landed face up.

Suddenly Lindsey screams. Gerard turns. She is tugging her foot from the grasp of a man they mistook as unconscious. He is trying to push himself up and a small pocket-knife is within his reach.

Later, Gerard wishes he could say it wasn’t him. But it is. He is the monster who pulls the blaster out and fires it. Right. In. The man’s. Fucking. Face.

It explodes. The shot hits the man in the eye and instantaneously his head is ripped apart. Lindsey is splattered with gray flecks, and the soldier’s blood spurts straight into her face. Gerard fares the best, being furthest away, but he is still splattered heavily. Mikey’s face is the colour of ash and he leans forward and vomits on his own bare feet and the floor.

Gerard lets go of his brother and falls to his knees. Tears trickle from his eyes. Poor bastard. He didn’t need to shoot the guy in the face! Blow apart his fucking head. Christ, what the hell is wrong with him? All he had to do was stomp on the guy’s hand or something. What the hell possessed him to reach for the blaster, the very thing he swore he would avoid using?

A hand rubs on his shoulder. Lindsey kneels down beside him. She doesn’t speak, but they huddle together. He can feel his heart beating like it might break out of his chest. But the mass-murdering fuckhead shouldn’t have one of those.

A life. Snuffed out just like that.

And Gerard himself pulled the fucking trigger. For all his grand words about only using the blaster if it was absolutely necessary, what did he do? Fired it straight into a man’s face at the first sign of danger. He could have kicked the man, or just yanked his hand away from Lindsey. But instead he blew his brains out.

A whimper rises from his throat and tears scald his face.

In the background, Mikey is still retching.

————

When they move again it is slowly, tripping past the bodies to the very end of the corridor. All the shots have stopped and Gerard dully registers this as a good sign. The double doors to the throne room are closed. He can hear a low voice speaking, but cannot distinguish any words. Lindsey reaches for the handle on the right, Gerard for the one on the left. They push the doors open, letting them bang back against the walls.

They trip forwards into the room. Bob and Saunders both point blasters straight at Leonard Coleridge. Bodies litter the floor. Gerard doesn’t let himself count the exact number. Through the massive windows, the sun is sinking, throwing the corners of the room into complete shadow, impenetrable with the eyes.

Although Bob and Saunders are staring fixedly at Leonard Coleridge, the Ministry’s leader and dictator does not meet their gaze. He is staring straight at Gerard.

Then he starts to laugh.

In person, Leonard Coleridge is not particularly impressive. He is short and his black hair is wild. A beard juts from his lower face and his skin is an unappealing grey colour. He is dressed in fresh leggings and a long-sleeved tunic and his boots are shiny, but the cruelty is burning in his eyes and Gerard’s innards tremble. It’s one thing to create a monster, but quite another to meet him.

‘Gerard Way, so very nice to meet you,’ Coleridge says. His voice is surprisingly feminine and he speaks carefully, enunciating every word.

‘I didn’t know you were expecting me.’

‘Expecting you? Dear boy, I brought you here.’

‘How?’ He tries not to let fear creep into his voice.

Coleridge smiles. ‘You doubt me? You, who created me?’ Gerard’s jaw drops. ‘Yes, I know exactly who you are. I’ve been sending spies to Earth for years now and when we discovered you ... well, it certainly was a shock. I didn’t want to believe that I came from your mind. But then I realised something. We’ve been living on comfortably, ignorant of your existence. But unfortunately we are bound to do what you write. And I understand you Earthlings ... always wanting a happy ending. And I am the villain in this world. I make no attempt to hide it. In fact, I am very proud of being so evil. Your heroes are so full of morals. So foolish. They always worry about other people.’ He seemed quite unconcerned by the two men pointing blasters at him. But Bob and Saunders are equally fascinated by his words.

‘I don’t have to do that. I take care of myself. Selfishness is good. Very good. It’s how you survive. And I plan to survive, Gerard. Pity for you, though. You see –’

A shot rings out across the room. Instantly, Coleridge throws himself onto the ground. Saunders’ shot is wasted. The blaster clicks. He is out of ammunition. Gerard knows Bob has the spare rounds, but not Saunders.

Coleridge climbs to his feet. Then, in one fluent motion, he pulls out a small knife and throws it straight at Saunders. The older man dodges – but not quickly enough.

‘Gnuh –’

The knife is embedded in his throat. Lindsey screams. Gerard watches as Saunders rips the knife out and lets it drop. He falls to his knees.

Bob doesn’t move. Gerard realises that he understands exactly what Saunders is doing. He can’t be helped. So he is going to increase the blood loss and make it quick. Within seconds he has fallen face forward. A minute later, it is over.

Coleridge has been watching the entire event with that steady smile on his face. Not a grin, but cold, hard satisfaction. Gerard flares up with hatred when Coleridge begins to speak again.

‘I have had men and women working on the art of leaping through time and space for over a decade. When we finally mastered it, it became very useful. We could take ideas from anywhere we wanted. Instead of being limited to travelling around this galaxy, we had billions of others to explore. But then we found yours.

‘If it weren’t for Earth there is very little that would interest us in your Solar System. But you humans ... you are delightful. Incredibly stupid and certain to doom yourselves to an unpleasant end, but every so often a little gem comes along. Like you, Gerard Way.

‘When we found out exactly what you were writing, I knew it had to be stopped. It was remarkably interesting to see your creation process, but we don’t need you.’

‘Fictional characters don’t need anyone,’ Gerard points out. ‘Because they’re not real.’

‘Oh, but we’re different,’ Coleridge says. ‘This is reality. We live in it. And we brought you here. Look around you, Gerard. What does this look like to you if not reality?’

Gerard can’t answer that. This can’t be real. But at the same time ... it is. All his senses tell him it is. But reason dictates that a novel doesn’t come to life.

‘How did you bring me here?’ he challenges.

‘Our time travel devices,’ Coleridge responds. ‘We only ever called them discs. Why dress up something into a different thing by use of a fancy name? Just loop them around your neck, type in the galaxy, planet, specific location and time and you can travel anywhere you want. Of course at first we didn’t know what was out there. We took wild guesses, sometimes with unpleasant endings, but slowly built up a catalogue and then redesigned the device so you can scroll through a list of galaxies and planets and choose your destination. Picking you up was almost easy. You fell asleep one night, and the woman I had sent to Earth brought you back. Except ....’

‘Except what?’ Gerard asks.

‘We hadn’t realised that the devices hold only one person. The idea behind them is that your atoms are stuck together, rather than being ripped apart. So you were scattered and lost.’

‘But I landed just fine in Cadesa,’ Gerard points out.

‘Of course you held on through space, there was nowhere else for your atoms to go, nothing to cling on to. But going through our atmosphere you were ripped away and ended up in a completely different area.’

‘And what about me?’ Lindsey demands. ‘How do I figure into all this?’

‘Much the same, actually. The intention was to use you as bait – humans do seem very keen on love. Bitter love, sweet love, foolish love, no matter what kind, you do like to cause yourselves pain over it. So it seemed natural to force you to tell us your intentions for the story by threatening her –’ He pointed at Lindsey ‘– with death. Being a stupid human, you would give up all information in exchange for her life.’

‘You really know fuck-all about humans,’ Lindsey says. ‘Gerard wrote you, he knows how cruel you are, why the hell would he tell you anything? Why would he trust you to keep your word?’

‘Even the tightest tongue will loosen if I want it,’ Coleridge says with soft relish. ‘But after you both were lost, we needed something more secure. And that is why your brother is here. We drugged him and sent him with his own device straight to the cell.’

‘But you hurt him,’ Gerard says. ‘He can’t even stand up on his own. If you want to kill me why aren’t you just doing it? Leave Mikey and Lindsey alone.’

Coleridge laughs again. ‘You created me and you really do not understand me in the least, do you? I live to cause pain. When you are at your lowest and want to die, I will be smiling and laughing because it feels so good. I live for suffering. It is my nourishment. I will always win because pain will never stop. Gerard, I am hell.’

Gerard shudders. Writing about Leonard Coleridge never scared him, but it was always unsettling. He came from a dark place and now, seeing him right there .... It’s his eyes that do it. Gerard firmly believes that they are the hardest to disguise. You can lie with words but how you feel leaks out through your eyes. The eyes of Leonard Coleridge are full of cruelty though – not hatred, but a desire to inflict pain on others. When he sees someone suffering, his eyes light up. They lit up when he watched Saunders die. Gerard had watched that with a numb acceptance. He had known it would happen. Not when or how, but he was certain that it would happen. He had written it.

A new question edges its way up his tongue. ‘There were these times ... times where I woke up covered in blood, where other people said I was bleeding and I wasn’t. I’d look in the mirror and see someone I wasn’t.’ Just remembering that one time he aged in front of his very eyes, then mysteriously returned to his current appearance sends a shudder through him.

A smile plays across Leonard Coleridge’s face.

‘Well, what was it? What were you doing to me?’ Gerard asks. ‘If it wasn’t you, what was it?’

‘I gave the agent I sent to retrieve you –’ Gerard glares. Retrieve. Like he’s a fucking toy, ‘– permission to play with you at her leisure. It was a delight to hear of your reaction. You thought you were going insane. My only regret is that we couldn’t carry on the escapades for longer. But it was important to bring you here quickly.’

Gerard doesn’t register Bob’s silence until the blonde man fires his blaster. Where Saunders missed his target, Bob doesn’t. The shot launches itself across the room, straight into the shoulder of Leonard Coleridge. An expression of surprise crosses his face. In talking for so long to Gerard, he had forgotten all about Bob.

Bob doesn’t waste time and fires again immediately, but Coleridge is also moving. He throws a small knife at Bob, who ducks, but this causes his shot to go wide, breaking a pane of the window. The knife flies straight into the wall and clatters to the ground. Lindsey has pulled out her own blaster and fires, but Coleridge ducks. Gerard’s shot misses by several feet.

Coleridge has abandoned his knives and grabs a blaster of his own from a dead man. With one shot he skims past Bob’s arm. A second shot connects with the wall just above Lindsey’s head.

Lindsey lets go of Mikey, throwing herself at the ground, and Mikey loses his balance, dragging Gerard with him to the ground in a tangle of limbs and a cry of pain.

As the shots continue over their heads, Gerard clambers to his knees, and helps Mikey up. His brother looks white and sickly from the sudden shock and his already wounded leg. But he is gritting his teeth and defiance burns on his face. With a burst of anger, Gerard pulls him into an almost-run after Lindsey, Bob and Coleridge, firing his blaster in Coleridge’s direction. He isn’t hitting anything, but he wants Coleridge to know he has an enemy – even if that enemy isn’t particularly skilled with a blaster.

Mikey is hobbling beside him, but he scoops up a blaster, and now they’re both firing. Coleridge dances among the shots as he, Lindsey and Bob all move in the direction of the opposite door, at least ten feet away from Gerard and Mikey.

When he gets closer he can see that Coleridge has been wounded in the lower arm as well as the original hit to his shoulder, but Bob and Lindsey look okay, if sweaty and worn down.

Gerard is less than six feet behind Coleridge now and fires straight at his enemy’s hand. It works, the blaster is knocked right from his grasp and Bob and Lindsey both fire. One shot hits its target, but Gerard is never whose it is. Hit straight in the head, Leonard Coleridge drops to the ground.

‘Oh my God,’ Lindsey whispers. ‘Did we ... is he ....’

Bob nods.

Mikey steps up to the body, as if looking at it to make sure it’s real. Or rather, Gerard thinks, no longer real.

‘Come on,’ Bob says quietly. ‘Let’s go home.’

————

They travel back by the streets, relishing their triumph as people spill out from their houses. A chant starts up, ‘The Ministry is dead! The Ministry is dead!’ and Gerard joins in, yelling until his voice aches because he needs to feel something. Mikey and Lindsey are beside him, and even with his injured leg Mikey is beaming, cheering with the best of them. Lindsey has a cut over her eye Gerard never noticed before, but she waves it off when he points it out. Apparently, blood running down her face makes her feel badass.

There is stuff to figure out, a relationship to understand, a brother to hug and promise to never leave, people to see, but right now people are flocking everywhere, cheering and kissing the ground, and all that matters is this:

Liberation.

————

That night there is a funeral. Fifty-four men and women died, including Saunders and Theo. Ray told Gerard he fell as he made the first advance into the generator room, fighting on with two shots to the chest before a third pulled him right down to the ground. It doesn’t make it any easier to watch his body burn. Theo, who told him this place was Cadesa. He was special because he was the first. His first true encounter with his novel.

Smoke drifts through the air and it hurts to breathe. But that isn’t the only thing that makes the tears roll from his eyes to his cheeks and off the edge of his chin.

————

The thief finds him early the next day, sitting in a tree on the edge of the forest. They don’t talk for a few minutes, but when Gerard goes to climb down, Frank stops him.

‘I didn’t come up here because I appreciate the view, you know. There’s stuff you need to tell me.’

‘Then you need to ask me something, don’t you,’ Gerard says. He’s tired of this world. Tired of seeing little bits of himself walking around and talking and living. Tired of not being in his own home and going to teach teenagers every day. Tired of not having privacy and time to talk to Lindsey when there is so much to say. The fiction is too real and Gerard’s beginning to wonder what’s real anymore.

‘You know something about me,’ Frank says. ‘I saw it the first time we met and you can’t just not tell me. I don’t know who the hell you are back wherever you come from, or what your connection is with this world, but there’s something missing and I’m going to find out what.’

‘I said I wrote you, Frank,’ Gerard says ‘and I wasn’t lying. I’m an author back on a planet called Earth. I write books. And this world is in my books.’

Frank nods slowly. ‘So ... everyone here is in your book. We’re ... parts of it.’

‘Characters. And you’re just accepting this? I thought you’d be angry. ‘I’m my own boss’ and all that.’

‘I don’t know .... But you’re a very weird man, it seems fitting that you’d have a weird profession. Writing about people you didn’t think existed.’

‘But you don’t .... Oh, never mind.’ As long as Frank isn’t getting mad, he should try and explain. ‘This, what’s just happened, the battle, it was meant to happen in the third book. The one I’m writing now. But I’ve seen it all, done it all. So I don’t know I’m going to do now.’

‘Make it up. Isn’t that what writers do?’ Frank asks.

‘I don’t know .... It’s different now. Too close. It hurts to think about it.’

They lapse back into silence.

‘What happens to me, Gerard? In your book, what plans do you have for me?’ Frank looks straight at him, and Gerard doesn’t think he’s ever seen a stronger gaze. A gaze with so much will to live that it’s frightening. Frank has always been a favourite character for him and now he is reminded of why. He is the personification of living in so many ways.

Gerard looks down at his feet, dangling and kicking against each other. ‘Frank ... you ... you don’t live for very long.’

Now he sees fear in the young man’s eyes. Frank is nineteen, so young. On Earth, he would be going to college. What would he study? Would he be dating?

‘How long?’ he asks. His voice is beginning to choke up.

‘The day you turn twenty. There’s a fire. You’re robbing a house, but you don’t get out in time.’ He can’t say it all. There is a baby girl in the house. Frank hears her crying. He drops the money and grabs the child, tosses her down to the crowd below. She lands safely. But the upper floor collapses before he gets out. They find his body the next day, crushed under a column.

‘I – oh hell.’ He can barely get out a full word now. ‘I’m a coward, Gerard, such a coward. Death ... it scares the shit out of me. I can’t stand the idea of dying. I – I need to live. It’s ... I don’t even know, but living, it matters to me. I don’t have much in my life, but what there is ... I love it.’ He rubs a hand across the back of his eyes. ‘I wish I hadn’t asked you that. Damn it, should you even be telling me this?’ The anger is suddenly turned around and directed at Gerard, but the older man doesn’t respond.

‘Why ....’ Frank asks, but he never finishes his sentence. The silence overwhelms them, but then the thief breaks it. ‘What will you do?’

‘I’m going home. Ray Toro arranged it.’

‘How?’

Gerard explains what Leonard Coleridge had told them about the time travel devices. Frank’s eyebrows furrow.

‘They hold your what together through space?’ But how could Gerard expect Frank to understand when he’s had no education?

‘Atoms. They’re made up of matter.’

‘What’s matter?’

‘Everything around us. Tiny fragments of it, floating around and condensing to form an object. You. Me. This tree. But I’m not a good person to ask for an explanation about something like this. Just know that these devices hold you together through space so you arrive safely.’

‘And anyone can use them.’

‘Uh huh.’

Frank grins suddenly. ‘Then I’ll take one.’

‘Where will you go?’

‘Where can’t I go?’ Frank asks with a maniacal laugh. ‘I can go anywhere! Wherever I want, whenever I want. And I won’t die.’

‘No one lives forever, Frank.’ Gerard’s voice is quiet, almost lost in the wind that has started whistling through the leaves.

‘That doesn’t mean I can’t have a damn good try.’ Frank is elated, convinced of the success of his plan. ‘What’s your world like?’

‘My world? Earth? I .... It’s hard to say. Noisy. People speak lots of different languages. But I only really know about a small part of it. My city has ... well, it has character, I think.’

‘There’s more than one city?’ Frank asks in surprise. Cadesa is a very small planet, but largely inhabitable deserts, with just one major city.

‘There are millions of cities.’

‘I want to come with you,’ Frank insists. ‘Back to Earth. I want to see the cities and the people.’

‘You don’t know anyone on Earth. You might hate it.’

‘I don’t need to know people to survive. The world is full of open pockets and that’s what matters to me. And if I do hate it ....’ Frank mimes pushing a button. ‘I won’t let anyone hold me back.’

‘I’m not going to stop you,’ Gerard says with a shrug. ‘But Earth isn’t always a very nice place.’

‘Where is?’ Frank asks simply.

————

Their departure is very informal. No announcement is made to the Resistance, but many of them have returned to the city to their families to celebrate and reconnect. Whole years have been lost to the Ministry’s regime and those left have face the daunting task of trying to recreate not just their own lives, but their entire city’s structure.

Ray and Bob accompany Gerard, Mikey, Lindsey and Frank some way through the woods. Neither the Resistance leader nor his second-in-command were particularly sad or concerned at Frank’s decision to accompany them. Their relationship is one of tolerance, but absent of affection. Frank’s mindset and selfishness makes sense to him, but to no one else. He won’t hurt anyone else or hinder their operations, but he feels no shame at filching from the pockets of good men and women.

Gerard knows they would have been told to leave sooner if it weren’t for Mikey’s leg wound. After being bandaged by the medics, he was instructed to not walk on it at all to give the leg the time it needed to heal. But before leaving the caves this morning, Ray had pulled Gerard aside.

‘This is only a theory,’ he had said, keeping his voice low, ‘but it’s possible that when you arrive on Earth you’ll find that your brother’s leg is healed completely.’

Gerard stared blankly at Ray. ‘But why?’

‘When you first arrived here, I noticed a graze on your hand. It was small, but as I was staring at it, it disappeared. I don’t know why, it was completely illogical. But it did. So maybe wounds from your world are healed when you arrive here and, if I’m right, the same could be true in the reverse.’

‘But – that’s just – there’s no reason for skin to just close over.’

Ray simply shrugged. ‘It’s just a guess. But I think we’ve both learned not to question the impossible when it happens right in front of us and just roll with it.’

Gerard had given a weak nod. Apparently, Cadesa was going to throw surprises at him until the very last minute.

Now, each of them bears a time travel device around their neck: a thick wire with red coating and a disk with a screen in it, the size of a mobile phone. Buttons allow them to scroll down. The text on the three screens is identical.

VIA LACTEA, PLANET EARTH, NORTH AMERICA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, NEW JERSEY, NEWARK CITY

Then follows Gerard’s address and today’s date.

OCTOBER 18, 2008

‘You can’t return to the day you left,’ Ray said. ‘Whatever’s happened on Earth during your absence is irreversible. You’ll have to explain your disappearance somehow, but at least Earth time runs the same as ours, so you’ve only been away a week.’

Gerard thinks glumly of his job. Will he even have one after missing a whole week without contacting the school?

The Resistance leaders smile. ‘It seems these things will keep working,’ Ray says, ‘but it would be best if you didn’t come back.’ His voice is firm, but not unkind. ‘I don’t think we’ll ever fully understand what has happened here and now we have a chance of peace it would best if no one meddled with it.’

‘I understand,’ Gerard replies and sees Lindsey nod beside him. Mikey looks slightly wistful. ‘I think we all just want to get on with our lives.’ He opens his mouth again, intending to say goodbye, but his voice catches. For all that he wants to get home, these people are hard to let go of. They’ll be waiting for him on the other side but it isn’t the same. All that comes out is a loud gulp. He jerks his head in a nod and hopes that suffices.

Before he can think twice, Gerard hits the ACTIVATE button and lets go of Cadesa.

————

Being pulled through time and space is weird, Gerard thinks. But what did he expect, a ride on a fucking merry-go-round? It’s a black tunnel of near suffocation, but he can’t even tell if he is moving, since he can’t see. He can’t even feel. He tries to move an arm, but –

And then he is on his knees, coughing, in bright light. His kitchen is all around him, looking ... normal. Gerard moves his arms around. Ten fingers. Two feet, both still with shoes on. A nose. He doesn’t bear any signs of the hurtling journey he just completed.

But where are Lindsey and Mikey? And Frank should be here, too. He walks out of his kitchen and through the lounge.

Mikey is sitting directly in front of the couch, shaking out his arms. He looks ruffled, but not hurt. ‘We’re ... home?’ he wonders.

‘Yup.’ Gerard remembers Ray’s words. ‘Quick, check your leg,’ he says.

‘My leg?’ Mikey rolls up his pants leg and winces in pain. The heavy bandaging of the Resistance medics gives no clue as to whether or not the wound is still present underneath. ‘You want me to take it off?’ Mikey asks.

Gerard nods. ‘Ray had a thought. Maybe injuries don’t travel across time and separate worlds.’

Mikey shakes his head. ‘That’s bullshit.’ But when Gerard cites the example of his own hand, Mikey looks interested and begins to unwrap the bandage carefully. Underneath, there is a large speckling of dry blood, but the most incredible thing is happening. The deep cut is already knitting back together and the bruising has faded to a pale yellow in just a few minutes.

‘I don’t – how – what the fuck?’ Mikey stutters. He looks at Gerard, stunned.

‘I don’t know either,’ Gerard replies simply. ‘But let’s just be glad it happened. How does it feel?’

Mikey stands up slowly. ‘It twinges. But it’s nothing major. Don’t you think it seems a bit too convenient though?’

‘In some ways,’ Gerard agrees. ‘But trying to figure out whys and hows won’t do any good. That’s one thing I know for sure now. At least we’re home.’

‘Home!’ Mikey suddenly shouts. ‘Alicia!’ He jumps up. ‘Gerard, can I borrow your car?’ His own is at his house, in the driveway.

Gerard nods. Seeing Mikey so eager to get home to his fiancée makes Gerard envious. ‘I’ll get you the key.’

Mikey rushes out as soon as Gerard returns with the key, promising to call his brother later.

‘Nice underwear, Gee!’ a voice calls. Gerard jumps and looks around him, before realising the voice came from his bedroom.

‘You didn’t –’

Lindsey grins from beside his dresser. ‘Of course not. But your face! Definitely worth it. Although now you’ve given that reaction I’m curious as to just what is on them that’s so embarrassing ....’

‘Where’s Frank?’ Gerard wonders and together they wander through Gerard’s house, calling. But Frank is nowhere in sight.

‘Maybe outside?’ Lindsey offers. They make their way out the front door and around the back. ‘There,’ she says triumphantly, pointing to the apricot tree. Gerard had never taken much notice of it; he didn’t like apricots and the tree was entirely self-sufficient being around a decade old. But Frank apparently found pleasure in the small, round, orange fruit and was greedily eating one and collecting several more from the ground to stuff in his pockets. Like Gerard and Lindsey’s, his time-travel device hangs limply around his neck.

‘Having fun?’ Gerard calls.

Frank shows no sign of remorse at Gerard discovering his pilfering, but simply answers in the affirmative and continues picking the fruit up. Lindsey and Gerard watch for a few minutes, amused, until Frank finally finishes his current apricot, drops the stone onto the grass and makes his way over to them, pockets bulging.

‘Now what?’ he asks.

Gerard thinks this is a very good question. He wants – no, needs – to talk to Lindsey, but really doesn’t want Frank around to hear what they say. Not to mention, there’s the very good question of exactly what to do with Frank. Gerard doesn’t like the feeling of responsibility that has come over him, but he’s not entirely convinced that he can simply throw Frank out on the street either. He might be very experienced in the art of survival, but he knows nothing about Earth and the streets are dangerous here.

‘Tell you what,’ he says to the thief. ‘Go into the house and walk down the corridor. The second door on the left is the bathroom. There’s a shower in there.’

‘Shower?’ Frank asks blankly.

Why did he decide to equip Cadesa with only buckets and sponges for cleaning? ‘Big, tall, transparent box ... thing. You can’t miss it. There’s a handle inside and when you push it up and turn to the left cold water comes out from the nozzle above you. Turn it about halfway to the right and you’ll get nice warm water. There’s soap in there, too, so give yourself a really good clean, okay?’

Frank is already running inside.

‘That’ll keep him busy,’ Lindsey says.

‘Precisely my intention. Linds ... we need to talk.’ She nods. ‘I’m sorry I never called you. I’m sorry I just let go completely.’

‘Gerard, that was a really fucking long time ago. What, ten years? D’you really think I’d still be mad? Jesus, that would be completely stupid.’

‘I know it was now. I just – I really want you to know that I made a mistake. I can see that now. And I regretted it for a long time.’

‘But you don’t now?’ Her expression is indecipherable and he looks across the blue sky instead.

‘No. I don’t. I changed after we broke up.’

‘You’re not drinking anymore. I could tell.’

‘It’s not hard to notice the absence of the big, drunken elephant in the room,’ Gerard deadpans, imitating Mikey, and Lindsey giggles. ‘But yeah, I’m sober and clean. Completely. And I found a new job I really love. And I found my writing again.’

‘I’m proud of you, Gerard,’ Lindsey says quietly. ‘Whatever comes out of this, I think you’ve done really well. And I’ll admit that I googled your name more than once to find out what you were doing.’

Gerard grins. ‘Your Wikipedia page was pretty helpful.’

‘You know James updates those things himself? There was a point where mine kept disappearing and he’d sit at his laptop for hours retyping at all. I was flattered by it at first, but then he admitted that Chantal had bet him fifty bucks he’d give up within a week and he didn’t want to lose the bet.’ She giggles.

‘So are you. Um. Are you ... seeing anybody?’ He knows what he wants the answer to be, but is painfully aware that he can’t do anything if she actually is. He won’t let himself.

‘There’s this guy,’ she says and his heart plummets. ‘I met up with him recently by chance. I haven’t done anything yet, but truthfully I’m trying to figure out if he’s interested.’

‘Oh .... I hope he realises soon,’ Gerard says. ‘I’m sure you’ll be happy together.’ Liar, liar. He wants Lindsey to be happy. He just wishes she could be happy with him. Not with some other dude. This guy is probably six feet tall and handsome, with a super-smart job, like a marine biologist. Gerard won’t stand a fucking chance.

‘I’m beginning to think that I might have to take matters into my own hands,’ she says.

‘Yeah ....’ He’s hoping this conversation doesn’t turn into Lindsey asking for advice on guys’ mentality when it comes to dating. ‘Hey, I never did tell Frank that the heated towel rail in the bathroom is actually really hot, and I don’t want him to burn himself so ....’

He turns to leave, but Lindsey encircles her hand around his wrist. ‘You really can be a little dense, Gerard,’ she says quietly, a smile playing across his face. Gerard loves the way it toys with the corners of her lips, lifting them up and down like a puppet.

‘I .... Are you ....’ He can’t get out a full sentence, but Lindsey doesn’t seem to mind. She just leans up and puts her lips firmly as close to his as is possible without physical contact.

‘Yes.’

There is a moment of silence. ‘This is where we kiss,’ she whispers.

‘I think I might know that,’ Gerard replies, but instead of kissing they giggle. It’s several seconds before they stop and then Gerard tentatively closes the remaining distance between them. Arms loop around necks, lips touch and Gerard gives a small gasp. It feels even more natural than his dream when he and Lindsey ran through the forest and dancing around the fire. He’s been waiting for this, wanting it for so long, but now it’s here he doesn’t feel any great sense of relief, simply that something that should have happened has finally occurred. And that feels good, so very, very good.

————

It’s a full two hours before Lindsey leaves. They don’t take anything very far, but there’s time for that later, if they want. Practically, they have to think about what to say to the people who will wonder where they have been for an entire week. Lindsey’s band, Gerard’s mother, the teaching staff at his school. Hell, someone will have called the police. Gerard realises they were fortunate not to come home and find his house swarming with cops all searching for clues as to his whereabouts.

For a long time they draw a blank on what to say. Frank returns from his shower and points out that whatever they say will show them in a bad light.

‘Yeah, but we haven’t done anything bad,’ Gerard says.

‘Because life is always fair to the good guys,’ Frank says, rolling his eyes.

‘I guess we can’t really decide until we know what has happened,’ Lindsey says. ‘I mean, James might just have convinced the band I finally went on that trek through the Himalayas.’

Gerard’s feeling just worried enough to not fully appreciate the humour. What if Stuyvesant High decides he deserves to lose his job over this? Shit.

‘Hey, Gerard,’ Lindsey says. He looks around. Frank has left the room. ‘It’s going to be okay. Besides,’ and she wraps her hand around his, ‘wasn’t it worth it?’

Gerard squeezes her hand back. It really, really was.