Introduction
“You have been warned.”
That was how it all really started.
Basically, this line was the last part of the
final message the Mysterons issued to the people of Earth.
They said that they had now reached the next stage of their War of Nerves, and
that they would be issuing no more of their customary threats, that the Earthmen
knew all they needed to know about their upcoming attacks, should they consider
themselves able to stop the destructive powers of the Mysterons.
And then, on October 31st, 2072, on the Night of
Halloween,
the Voice of the Mysterons, which had previously heralded all of their
attacks, fell silent, never to be heard again by any human ears.
At first, Spectrum was at a loss to understand
what exactly the Mysterons meant. Obviously, that message had all the
flavour of one of their often cryptic threats, except that this time, the full
meaning carried much more impact on all the attacks to come; they clearly meant
to strike harder than they had up until now.
Even with all its past successes at keeping the Mysterons at bay and
countering their devastating attacks, the Spectrum organisation was careful not
to appear too confident in what they expected would be much more perilous and
terrible times.
If the first attack that followed this ultimate
statement was a failure for the Mysterons, it was merely due to a pure stroke of
luck. They came after World President Younger again, three years after he had
escaped from their first attempt on his life. But this time around, Spectrum had
nothing to do with saving the World President, and wasn’t even in attendance to
protect him, unaware of where the Mysterons would strike next. As it was, the assassin chosen by the
Mysterons was an incompetent who totally botched up the job, and fell under the
bullets of the U.S.S. agents assigned to Younger’s
protection.
As new attacks from the Mysterons carried on in
the following months, with failures and successes on each side, Spectrum started
to realise a distinct pattern to the Mysterons’ second wave of attacks:
they were targeting the same objectives they had in the first wave.
At the start, the order of these attacks remained the
same, so it was relatively easy for Spectrum to organise itself and be ready for
the Mysterons’ next move. However,
the Mysterons didn’t stick to their modus operandi and soon, they once again
changed the rules of engagement. They did keep to the same targets, but they no
longer followed the same order of attack.
They also became much more aggressive and ambitious, applying with no hesitation
or scruple the principle that it was acceptable to ‘use a cannon to kill a fly’,
as long as they obtained results.
They would willingly total an entire city just to get at one man.
Spectrum, and Earth with it, was starting to seriously
lose ground, and it became more than
obvious that Earth was fighting a desperate battle. Emboldened by a series of
momentous victories against their human foes, the Mysterons once again changed
their own rules, realising that, by combining attacks, they could kill two
birds, and more, with one single stone.
The Mysterons used their great powers and Earth’s own technologies against its
own people, creating disaster after disaster, destroying cities and entire
lands, ravaging food and fuel reserves, wreaking havoc, terror and destruction
everywhere on the planet. They were
swift and ruthless in their death dealing, cold, calculating, and totally
efficient. One after the other, all of the Mysterons targets fell inexorably to
their might.
During most of those dark years, Spectrum fought valiantly
to, if not stop the Mysteron attacks, at least lessen the deadly toll and impact
of them. With the organisation often
becoming the target of these attacks itself, confronted with growing public
criticism, and caught within the constant whirlwind of political schemes and
manipulations, Spectrum agents never gave up, despite the many drawbacks and
failures that kept striking them, their numbers decreasing with each encounter
and the battle quickly becoming a desperate one.
Captain Scarlet, Spectrum’s fiercest
and most proficient agent, had disappeared many years ago, soon after the death
of first his wife, and then his closest partner.
Nobody knew exactly what had happened to him, and his colleagues, too
occupied with facing the surging wave of Mysteron threats, couldn’t devote as
much effort to searching for him as
they would have wished. His absence
denied Spectrum of the much-needed asset the organisation so desperately needed,
and the exemplary encouragement his determination and resilience provided to
those who worked close to him. Without him, it seemed inevitable that Spectrum
would lose its war against the Mysterons.
And then, in 2078, ten years after they declared their War
of Nerves, in one single attack, the Mysterons struck their most ambitious blow,
which brought Humanity and its courageous defenders to their knees.
From then on, Earth was doomed, although the War of Nerves
waged on for decades. The disasters and natural
cataclysms created by the Mysterons’ powers
devastated the face of the
Earth, changing its ecosystem, and
even its geography, in ways that no other wars, even combined together, had ever
done before.
Earth’s environment was deteriorating and was threatening
to become sterile in only a few years…
Left without its elected representatives and leaders,
those who survived the catastrophes had very little to go on: housing, food,
money and fuel reserves, when there were any left, were rapidly depleting.
Technology and communication were mostly gone in all parts of the world. Starving, sick and desperate, the
population of Earth nevertheless organised itself in small communities all over
the planet, trying hard to survive in a now hostile and unproductive
environment. They lived off the
ruins of once great, impressive cities, scavenging for food, clothing and bare
necessities, bartering with neighbouring communities, and fending off hordes of
bandits who would often kill to rob them of their meagre possessions.
Through it all, they lived in dread of the Mysterons –
their presence now more than ever felt amongst them, as the feared aliens had
moved from their home planet of Mars to finally settle on Earth, like conquerors
taking over the land of their defeated foes. Patient, silent, biding their time,
they were watching the weakened Earthmen, watching for the first opportunity to
strike a new blow that would put them down definitely.
For hope still lived amongst the populace, along with talk, gossip, and
murmurings exchanged within the meeting caravans and brought by visiting
strangers. Spectrum still survived –
some of its senior staff having escaped the fall of Cloudbase, to organise the
resistance against the Mysterons.
But forty years after the Mysterons’ first threat against
Earth, with the state the world was now in, what chance could anyone have
against these terrible alien foes?
What it took was a miracle.
Or more precisely, the return
of a miracle…
2108,
England
Looking through the
devastation that surrounded him, Scarlet instantly knew why he had avoided
coming back to this place for so many years.
He remembered the
time, so very long ago, when this was one of the greatest metropolises of the
world, and when he felt a surge of personal pride whenever he heard people
around him express their awe and admiration at the sight of it. It was his
city, although he had not been born here. His favourite. The most precious jewel in the English crown.
Today the two thousand
years old city was nothing but rubble and ruins, and scarcely bore witness to
the greatness of another age. This was where thousands of vehicles used to
drive by relentlessly every hour of the day, and where a multitude of people
busily walked, going about their many businesses, in a hive of exultant and
intense activity. Now there was only
desolation and misery between the wrecked, collapsed buildings and the uneven
cracked streets.
Scarlet knew and had
seen the devastation of other great cities around the world. Paris had been the
first to fall, when the Mysterons killed one third of the Europe Triumvirate
and in the process, destroyed half of the city by way of geoplasmic
bombing. Los Angeles, which was
completely devastated when the Mysterons used a giant nuclear-powered drill in
the Puente Hills fault, causing a massive earthquake of uncommon magnitude that
created a gigantic rift between the major part of California and the rest of
North America. New York, once the greatest metropolis in the
world, which suffered as many various attacks as London itself; it was nothing
more than broken spires left by its long-collapsed buildings. And Futura City, the capital of the World, the jewel of
Bermuda, was nothing more than a memory.
Each time Scarlet had
felt distraught at scenes of destruction such as he was seeing now, and he
would never be able to erase such tragedies from his memory. But today, walking in the middle of the
fallen ruins of his city, what he could see, added to the personal loss he had
suffered on this very ground so many years ago, broke his heart. Even knowing from experience what he would
find, he was far from being prepared for it.
London.
Nothing of what had
made this city so great existed anymore.
That was the thought
going through Scarlet’s mind as, holding his horse by the bridle, he walked
through the streets, looking despondently at the devastation that surrounded
him.
He wasn’t surprised to
find that London had not been completely deserted. People still lived within
the outskirts of the city, trying to make a living from what was left in the
ruins, and taking shelter in structures that looked like they would collapse at
any moment. He suspected that it was
their presence that had given cause for the Mysterons to strike at London again
and again. The initial attack of 2073 had seen the collapse of the city’s maze
of centuries-old sewers, undermined by former rivers, subway tunnels and
multiple underground nuclear explosions, which brought down the buildings that
sat on them. During the years that followed, the Mysterons pressed their
attacks, with assaults on a smaller scale perhaps, but which took repeated toll
of the once great city. But the
population was not leaving. They were a hardy people, even in their
desperation, and that made Scarlet all the more proud of them. They were his
people.
No.
Not his people. Not anymore. Even after all these years, he tended to
forget: he wasn’t really part of the human race. But because of what he was, what he might
have been so many years ago, these people, these individuals living on this
island were those to whom he felt closest.
England was his home.
This was imprinted on his heart, into his very being. He might try as hard as
he wanted, he could never deny it. Even
to himself.
He had gained access
to the city though the Thames, by securing the service of the owner of a barge
who made a rather lucrative business of bringing people inside London by
demanding a high price for their passage. The man had been reluctant at first,
arguing that Scarlet’s mount was taking the place of two or three clients all
by itself. There was no doubt he would
have asked for an excessive fare if he had dared to; but when he saw the
truncated barrel of Scarlet’s shotgun hanging from his belt, he wisely kept
quiet and contented himself with the already generous amount Scarlet offered
him.
Scarlet had
disembarked in the area of what used to be King Edward VII Memorial Park, near
Wapping to the east of The City. From there, he had slowly made his way through
London. First on horseback along the former A1203, past what was left of the
Tower of London, then following the Embankment, making a detour around the
ruins of the Hungerford and Golden Jubilee Bridges
blocking his path, and finally on foot, leading Rainbow, his horse, by the
bridle, through the rubble-filled streets of the city, and the crowds of people
living in them.
By noon, he had
reached Trafalgar Square, which bore very little resemblance to what he
remembered of it. The buildings
surrounding the place were all but reduced to so many ruins and debris. Nelson’s Column lay on the now patchy ground,
in five broken pieces, and the only thing left of the monument was one of its
four guardian lions, miraculously intact. A boy, of about twelve years old, was
riding it. He was brandishing a piece of wood as if it was a sword, with other
children playing and laughing at the foot of the monument. Shelters made out of
wood, old pieces of fabric and even stones had been erected all around the
place, with fires burning bright in front of them. A nauseating smell of bad meat burning over
one such fire caught Scarlet’s nostrils and he hurriedly passed through. He
ignored, as best as he could, the children that had now taken interest in
Rainbow, and who were running alongside. They were stroking the flanks of the
great sorrel stallion who docilely tolerated their presence; Scarlet threw them
a handful of coins and walked out of the square, through one of the rare
streets that was still accessible.
From Trafalgar Square,
Scarlet made his way to what used to be Piccadilly Circus. As he had recently
learned, it had become over time, the centre of London’s activities; people had
erected stands where they ran a variety of businesses in an attempt to make a
better life for themselves. Everything could be bartered for here: fruits and
vegetables, bread, and other types of food; clothing, either found in the ruins
and repaired, stolen, or even made by hand with varying degrees of success;
charms and token jewellery and tools of various utilities. All was for sale. At one end of the place, Scarlet saw some
women selling their bodies for a little money, out in the open, without any
shame or reservation; they had nothing else left and felt they needed to do
whatever they could to survive. At
another corner, kids were begging for a few coins to buy some food. One of them stole a piece of rotten bread
from a stand and ran past Scarlet, with the yelling vendor hot on his tail. The
boy was too fast for the man who gave up after three steps and returned to his
stand, cursing and panting loudly, while his quarry disappeared in the shadow
of a nearby small street. Scarlet watched as the boy met with two younger kids,
and the three of them shared the bread and sat down directly on the pavement to
start eating. He heard them laugh, and
the younger kids made jokes at the expense of the oversized bread vendor who
obviously was no match for their hero.
In the face of the clear precariousness of their lives, they were in
good spirits, and in spite of himself, Scarlet couldn’t help but smile.
Still holding Rainbow
by the bridle, he made his way through the various stands, ignoring the many
vendors calling to him, and quietly checked their stalls, looking for anything
that might be useful to him. His stomach
was starting to cry out, and he realised he probably would have to eat
something soon; but so far, the food offered to his eyes was not really that
appetising. He quickly realised that
finding the nice, fresh, and very juicy fruit he was craving would be somewhat
difficult.
An unusual group of
people walking on the other side of the place attracted his attention, and made
him stop and watch with curiosity. He
couldn’t help but notice they were dressed almost identically in dark apparel,
with large coats that went down either to their thighs or ankles, and heavy,
high boots. They were all armed, with
rifles and guns, and Scarlet even saw a knife or two tucked in some boots. There were six of them: five men, and one
woman; she was tall, with long blonde hair, and at this distance, she looked
rather attractive. She seemed slightly
older than her companions, who couldn’t be that much older than twenty years of
age; walking self-assuredly in front of them, she was checking the various
stands as they passed by. Her companions followed her with obviously bored and
exasperated expressions upon their faces.
Scarlet followed them
with his eyes until they reached the front of a building, surmounted by a
crudely-drawn poster advertising pots and pans.
A man standing by the door invited the blonde woman in, and she motioned
to her followers to wait for her, before disappearing with the man inside the
shop. The expressions of relief on the
young men’s faces couldn’t be more manifest; it was with cheerful laughter that
they left the front door of the building and went exploring on their own.
For a second or two,
Scarlet watched them go, mulling over who they could be. It was hard not to
notice how people were stepping aside to make way for them. Scarlet could even decipher traces of apprehension,
or even fear, on a few faces, as the boys walked by with an evident
self-importance, ignoring these people as if they were simply part of the
scenery. Obviously, they instilled, if
not respect, then fear, and Scarlet wondered exactly what could motivate such a
reaction in their wake. Maybe it was simply the fact that they carried
weapons. It was clear to him that they
were bad news, and it was obvious that people knew or felt that it was better
to avoid any contact with them.
He shrugged inwardly, assessing
that it was probably a very good idea for him to stay away as well. He didn’t need any trouble if he could avoid
it.
“Hey, mate. I’m talking to you. I can give you a good price for your horse.”
Absorbed in his
reflections, Scarlet had not heard the man addressing him the first time
around, and frowned at these words. He
slowly turned around to direct a cold stare at the man who had spoken to
him. He was a big fellow, with half of
his teeth crooked and decayed. It wasn’t
difficult to guess his profession; the leather apron he was wearing, the dirt
and dark brown stains that covered it, the stench pervading him… Scarlet didn’t
have to look at the makeshift wooden sign hanging from the wall of his shop or
to get a glance beyond the open door where a multitude of flies were buzzing
around hanging carcasses of dead animals to know exactly what this man was.
He turned his back in
disgust at the man and gently stroked Rainbow’s forehead. “He’s a working
animal,” he answered. “He would not make good meat.”
“Ah, doesn’t matter,”
the man replied casually, failing to hear the warning in Scarlet’s voice. “These days, people will eat cats and
dogs… even rats, and if they get the
chance, the occasional rabbit… But a
horse… I could feed a lot of people with
that.”
Scarlet’s eyes glowed
as he glanced at the man over his shoulder. “You don’t care about feeding
people,” he replied coldly. “You only care about how many pieces you would be
able to carve from him, and sell at the highest possible price.”
The man threw up his
hands. “Hey, a man has to make a
living…”
“You don’t look like you go hungry very often.”
The man hesitated,
recognizing the insult for what it was. He preferred not to answer it, and
cleared his throat. “I’m serious, you know. How much do you want for the
horse?”
“There’s no amount of
money you can offer me to pay for him.”
Scarlet gathered the
bridle in his hand and started to walk away.
He heard the butcher approach from behind; he could almost feel the
man’s movement as his hand reached for him.
“Hey Mister, I’m
making you a fair offer. You don’t have to act so high and mighty. You’ll
probably end up eating that horse one day, so why not make a good deal with it
while you still ca –”
The words died on the
butcher’s lips and he never had the time to actually touch Scarlet’s
shoulder. The latter had turned around
swiftly, knocking the dirty hand away
with one hand and presenting the barrel of his shotgun under the man’s nose
with the other. The butcher stopped in
his tracks and, with wide eyes and a slack jaw, stared at the cannon aimed at
him and the cold face beyond.
“The horse has been
my means of transport, my travelling companion, my confidant and my friend for
the past five years,” Scarlet said, shaking his head. “He is more precious to
me than your insignificant business, or even your meaningless, miserable
existence. So if I were you, I would not insist.” He narrowed his eyes, and
added, in an ominous voice: “I’m quite
willing to bet that you value your life much more than the money you could make
by butchering my horse.”
“Hey…” His voice
shaking with fear, the butcher raised his hands, in an appeasing gesture. “…
Where did that gun come from?”
“I took it from the
cold hands of the last man who tried to steal my horse. So if you know what’s
good for you… you will stay away from him, and me, and will stick to rats. I hope I’m making myself clear?”
The butcher swallowed
hard. “As crystal, mate.”
Scarlet gave a brief
nod and re-holstered the gun. He purposely turned his back on the butcher and
walked away, taking Rainbow along; the horse had grown nervous during the whole
confrontation, as if he had understood what it was all about. Scarlet gently caressed his forehead,
murmuring calming words. It took barely
seconds for Rainbow to relax.
In the busy street,
nearby people had noticed the incident, but barely anyone had reacted to the
fact that Scarlet had pulled a gun on the butcher. These were wild and
desperate times, and people had grown accustomed to such displays right, in
front of their eyes. Too damn accustomed, Scarlet told
himself with irritation, remembering a time when such behaviour was not
acceptable, and would have warranted an arrest from the local constabulary, in
any city in the country. But there was
barely any law anymore, and people had to fend for themselves, and mind their
own business, if they were to survive.
Especially here, in
this vast town of ruins and detritus, resembling an inhabited junkyard more
than the actual city it had once been many decades ago, and that Scarlet still
remembered so well.
Damn Mysterons. They sure made
good on their threat…
Scarlet glanced at the
other side of the place, distractedly searching for the group he had been
watching until the butcher had distracted him.
He found them again, and they were now looking in his direction. Obviously, they had also noticed what had
happened, and were regarding him as curiously as he had them, a few minutes
before. Scarlet met their gaze, and
noticed how one of them, a tall, dark-haired, not so pleasant-looking young man
with a particularly callous expression upon his face, didn’t seem inclined to
divert his eyes and look away.
“You’re new around
here, aren’t you, son?”
An old woman, tending
a stand of fruits in front of a dilapidated building, which probably had been
very beautiful in its time, gave a smile to Scarlet as he turned to face
her. She had white hair and a charming
smile, in the middle of a very wrinkled face, and immediately, Scarlet took a liking
to her.
“I’m just passing
through,” he answered kindly. He chose
an apple from the rack and examined it.
It wasn’t red, a little too green, and had probably been waiting on the
stand for a long time. “But I’ve been in
this city before… a long time ago.”
“Not that long, I’m
sure,” the old woman told him. “Only ten
years ago, we couldn’t even come around here without getting ill from
radioactivity. You don’t appear old
enough, to have known the city before that time.”
“You would be
surprised.”
“Well, the city has
gone to the dogs lately,” she said gloomily.
“I saw your… little chat with the butcher. You put him in his place all right. The bastard.
I’m sure he’s behind the disappearance of my poor old Buster.”
“Buster?”
“A cat I owned. He was my faithful companion. He liked to stay home and keep me company,
instead of going out to chase rats. But
one night, two months ago, he went out for the night. He never usually did that. He never came back, the poor dear… I think it’s easy to imagine what happened to
him. The butcher has teams of kids running around the place at night to bring
him whatever meat they can find. Poor, poor, old Buster…”
“I’m sorry to hear
that.”
“These are really
cruel times, sonny, if we can’t even protect our best friends.”
Scarlet nodded. He chose another apple from the rack and
presented both of them to the old woman, signifying that he wanted to buy them.
She shook her head.
“No, you don’t want those.” She took the
apples and put them back into the rack. Before the eyes of the puzzled Scarlet,
she produced two other apples from under the rack and put them into his hands;
they had some red in them, and looked obviously juicier. The look of them made Scarlet’s mouth
water. “You want these. I keep the good stuff for my favourite
clients – those who really deserve it.”
“You don’t know
me.” Scarlet pointed to Rainbow. “And
one of them will be for him.”
“And you think he
doesn’t deserve it either? With the scare the poor dear just had…”
Scarlet gave a bright
smile to the woman. “Why, then?”
“Because despite of
that awful beard which is hiding half your face, you’re so good-looking? And that smile of yours is worth
millions.” She smiled in turn, a crooked
and sad smile. “You put balm onto an old
woman’s heart. I wish I was younger… much younger.”
Scarlet kept from
telling her he was probably older than she was, and paid for the apples. As he was giving her more than she was asking
for, she told him to take two more apples from the rack, which he did. With thanks
and a farewell gesture, he started walking away. He gave one of the good apples to Rainbow,
who devoured it in one instant. Scarlet
put the other three into his travelling bag for later.
He reached another
stand, a little further away, where the merchant was displaying a variety of knives
and blades; he looked at them with a critical eye. Some of the blades were covered with rust,
but most of them were well tended, and one particular knife attracted his
attention.
“Looking for something
to get rid of that beard, friend?” the merchant asked.
Scarlet raised his
eyes to look at him, realising he had been stroking his chin in a pensive
way. The man smiled at him. “I’ve got
good razors that you might want to use. Freshly sharpened, and I guarantee
there’s no trace of rust on ‘em.”
“That’s good to know,”
Scarlet commented. “But actually, I’m more interested in this.” From the stand, he took a Swiss Army knife,
with a bright red handle. He went
through the multiple blades, examining them with an approving nod and presented
it to the man. “How much?”
The seller shook his
head. “You know your stuff. That’s my
best piece.”
“I had one of those,
many years ago. I lost it. I could use a new one. What’s your price?”
“Five, if you got
them.”
Scarlet tutted. “Too
much. Will you throw in a whetstone with
it?”
“Sure.”
“And a set of those
razors you mentioned earlier.”
The seller smiled
widely and chortled. “You drive a hard bargain, mister. A set of three razors,
a whetstone and the knife. Six pieces.”
Scarlet grinned; the
seller was an honest man. “Done.”
He had just paid the
man and was pocketing his purchases when he heard voices raised in angry shouts
coming from behind. The knife merchant muttered a low curse and Scarlet looked
over his shoulder to see what was going on.
It was the group of young
men he had seen earlier; they were now at the old woman’s apple stall, and the
tall, slim, dark-haired lad was yelling heatedly at her, throwing fruits back
into the rack.
“What’s this, you old
hag? These fruits are rotten! I know you stash the best underneath and I
want them!” He pushed the top of her
stand with an angry gesture, sending apples rolling onto the street. “I ain’t buying these!
They’re worth nothing!”
Scarlet tried to
ignore the incident and turned back to the blade stall; he was really torn
between the desire to intervene and to not get involved and walk away. He
really didn’t need any trouble, and didn’t want to be any part of it, but it
seemed that wherever he went, trouble followed behind.
As the yells continued
behind him, he looked around and realised that nobody else was willing to step
up. He glanced over his shoulder again,
and caught a glimpse of the old woman, facing the five young men. At this very
moment, she seemed so much frailer than she actually was, so helpless and
distraught to see her means of making a living being thrown away like this into
the dust…
Scarlet grunted with
irritation. Who am I kidding? I can’t turn my back on her…
He patted Rainbow’s
forehead and handled the reins to a small boy who was standing nearby. “There
will be a coin for you if you hold him for me.”
The boy smiled widely, and accepted the deal with a vigorous nod. Scarlet turned on his heels and walked back
to the apple stand. He stopped only a
couple of feet from it, and his voice was calm when he addressed the gang:
“Hey.”
The dark-haired young
man immediately stopped his invective and his head snapped in Scarlet’s
direction. Up close, Scarlet could judge
that he might just be three or four years over twenty. The boys behind him were about the same age,
if not even younger. They looked strong
and well fed, and displayed a self-assurance that bordered on arrogance. They didn’t feel threatened by him; they had
the strength of superior numbers, and their weapons to back them up.
Scarlet wasn’t
impressed in the least; he nodded towards the apples the boy had thrown on the
ground. “Pick those up and gave them back to her.”
The eyes of the slim
man burned. “Beat it, stranger. This is none of your business.”
“It is when smart-ass
bullies like you and your mates take it out on an old woman who can’t defend
herself.”
“She’s a thief, and
her apples are rotten.” He threw another apple onto the street with such force
that it smashed at Scarlet’s feet. His
companions, who had gathered around him, chuckled wickedly. “Nobody wants to buy them.”
“They do when they
don’t have a choice,” Scarlet replied. “Be fair. That old woman’s doing the best with what she
has.”
“I saw her giving you
good apples,” the younger man spat.
“And I paid for them.
I suggest you do the same with those you ruined.”
“Or what?” the boy
chuckled. “You’re gonna
use your big gun on us, like you did the butcher? Do you have enough ammunition for all of us?
Or even any of it, to begin with?”
Scarlet narrowed his
eyes and shook his head. “It’s not very
wise to make that kind of assumption and not be prepared to verify it, kid,” he
replied icily. “Beside, I do believe I’ve got more than enough to take care of you,
but I’d rather not try to find that out.”
The young man snorted
irreverently. “What’s stopping you?”
“Bullets cost big
money these days, you must know that. And using them on any of you would be a
waste. However, I do suggest you step
away from that old woman’s stall. I
still can hurt you without the need of a gun.”
“You talk big, hot
shot. Is that all you have? Words?” The young man gave a violent kick to
the stand, turning it over, and all the apples went rolling in all directions
down the street. The old woman wailed
miserably. Another member of the gang, a
black boy, who seemed the youngest among them, made a face at the scene, and
didn’t seem very at ease with what was going on. He had the merit of being the only one of the
gang to speak up:
“Oh man, Watson… you
shouldn’t have done that.”
“Shut up, Jones!” the
first boy snapped angrily at him. He
turned back to Scarlet. “Come and show us your stuff, if you think you’re so
tough. We’ll play fair: we won’t use the
guns either.”
Scarlet shook his head
sadly. “You’re making a big mistake, kid.”
He had barely spoken
before the boy was already running at him, his fists at the ready. “Don’t call me kid, you –”
Scarlet bent down to
avoid the swing the young man was throwing at him, and at the same time,
punched him in the stomach, instantly stopping his advance. The boy’s knees folded, and Scarlet pulled
him up by his shirt, before sending a new punch into his jaw. The force of the
impact sent him straight into the path of his approaching companions.
The young black man
called Jones, who was coming in the first line, was the second to suffer a
punch from Scarlet’s fist; a third boy received a well-placed kick into his
abdomen, which sent him into the dirt. At the same moment, Watson, showing
himself much more resilient that Scarlet had anticipated, came charging again
with the rest of his companions. To stop their advance, Scarlet roughly tossed
Jones into them like a bowling ball, sending them tumbling down like
ninepins. He heard whooping and cheers
of support and delight, as he easily disposed of his assailants, who visibly
were no match for him. Scarlet
understood that he was right about these boys earlier on: they were not very popular around here.
Then he saw Watson
going for the handgun hanging from his belt, and he didn’t hesitate one second
to draw his own weapon. It was out and
ready faster that Watson could get his out of its holster, and the young man
froze in place when he saw the barrel of the shotgun aimed straight between his
eyes.
“Don’t be a fool, kid,
or I’ll spray your brains all over the pavement!”
Silence fell onto the place, with everyone watching intently.
Watson swallowed hard,
glaring with anger at Scarlet. The
latter met his gaze without faltering. “I’m quite willing to use up a bullet
for you, if you don’t give me any choice.
So don’t tempt me.”
Seeing their leader in
danger, the other young men had stopped their assault, and now stood rooted in
place, wondering what they should do. As for Watson, although he was clearly
afraid, he still displayed the same arrogant façade he had up until now.
“You’re making a big
mistake, man. You don’t know who you’re
dealing with.”
Scarlet narrowed his
eyes. He was barely breathing hard. He
cocked the hammer of his gun; the clicking sound made Watson shiver and he paled
horribly. “Do I look like someone who
cares?” Scarlet asked ominously.
“What the hell is
going on, here?”
A female voice rang
out beyond the line of curious bystanders and attracted everyone’s attention.
Scarlet saw movement, as someone was trying to get through to them. The tall, blonde, young woman he had seen
earlier with the boys emerged from the crowd and stepped into the space
occupied by the antagonists. She looked extremely angry, but at least wasn’t
holding in her hands the rifle she carried on her shoulder.
She came to stand tall
between Scarlet and Watson, seemingly not impressed by the shotgun in the older
man’s hand. She first gave him a cursory
glance, before turning to face Watson.
“Still getting into
trouble, Watson? I told you to lay low!”
“He started it!”
Watson replied, pointing at Scarlet.
The latter rolled his
eyes. How very childish…
“No, he did not,” the
old apple vendor shot back, with a shivering voice. Everyone turned to her, and
she pointed a trembling finger in Watson’s direction. “This boy destroyed my
stand, and ruined all of my apples.” She
nodded towards Scarlet. “This nice man just tried to stop him.”
The young woman looked
at the frightened old lady for a moment, then down at the destroyed stand, and
at the apples covering the uneven ground.
Her eyes – which were a deep blue, Scarlet noticed – glared with barely
contained anger when she looked back at the group of young men standing in
front of her. This close to her, Scarlet
could see she was older than he had first thought – maybe around thirty, or
just over. There was a sense of
leadership emanating from her and Scarlet understood that the boys, much
younger, deferred to her authority.
“Put that stand back
on its feet,” she ordered, “and the apples back into it. You’ll all pay for those you ruined with your
own money.”
“Captain –”
The word made Scarlet
raise a brow, but he didn’t have time to comment on it. The young woman was
turning angrily at the one man who had dared to protest, pointing a warning
finger at him.
“You’ll do as I say,
Watson, or you’ll be in even more trouble than you already are.” She had spoken
softly, but there was an unmistakeable threat in her voice. Scarlet couldn’t clearly define what her
accent was exactly ; it sounded mid-Atlantic, a mix of English and American.
Watson lowered his
eyes and nodded, and he and his friends carried out the given order.
“Captain…?” Scarlet
repeated in a quizzical voice. “Wha –”
She turned swiftly
back to him, not giving him the time to continue. “Mind your own business,
mister.” She seemed as furious with him as she was with the boys. Scarlet
didn’t insist. Quietly, as there was no
need for it anymore, he lowered his gun.
She followed the gesture, nodding thoughtfully. “I take it this is your
habit to get involved in affairs that aren’t yours?”
He tilted his head and
looked down into her eyes, re-holstering his gun. “I didn’t think it fair that
five grown-up young men would pick on a defenceless old lady like that,” he
replied.
“What is she to you?”
Scarlet shook his
head. “Nothing, really. Just an old lady I just bought apples from.”
The young woman
narrowed her eyes at him. “I have a feeling that if you had not got involved in
the first place, things would not have gone this far.”
Scarlet pondered about
this a second; inwardly, he couldn’t deny that point. But he wasn’t about to admit it to her. “It
still wasn’t fair on the old woman.
Maybe you should learn to keep a better leash on your puppies?”
He saw the anger
burning hotter in her eyes; he wondered with whom she was the more annoyed at
the moment. The boys she had
responsibility for … or him?
“I’m working on that,”
she said, in answer to his comments.
“And you,” she added, poking Scarlet’s chest, “I suggest you do your
best not to cross paths with them ever again. That could end badly.”
“For them, certainly.”
She didn’t seem to
appreciate that reply, and stood up to her full height to face him as levelly
as she could. Although a tall woman, she still only came up to his nose. “Don’t
play that kind of game, buster. Or it’ll
be me you’ll have a problem with. And believe me, I’m a lot tougher
than these boys you just manhandled.”
Scarlet nodded calmly.
“I’ll keep that in mind… Captain.”
He carefully kept his
eyes on her, and she didn’t lower hers. He inwardly assessed that she was
indeed telling the truth, she was probably more dangerous than all the others
put together. She was nice-looking – strong, athletic, with an assured poise
that he had not seen in any woman for so many years. Her skin was tanned, contrasting heavily with
her very blonde hair and her clear blue eyes. There was a slight and short
white scar marring her cheek, just beneath her left eye, but that didn’t
detract from any of her natural beauty.
Although dressed exactly like the young men following her, there was an
unmistakeable femininity in her that was quite attractive. Scarlet felt a yearning he had not felt for a
long time, and nearly without thinking about it, let his eyes wander on
her.
He didn’t go very far;
underneath her open coat, he saw a badge pinned on her shirt, at breast level,
and it attracted his immediate attention.
It was a round emblem,
made out of dirty white cloth; there was a simple symbol crudely hand-drawn on
the fabric: a series of concentric
rings, with drawn atop of them the letter ‘S’, crossed by a slash going from
top right to the bottom left.
He froze at the sight.
Realising he was
staring, he quickly averted his eyes, and looked back into hers, just in time
to realise she was still glaring furiously at him; but this time, it was a
different kind of anger. She had noticed
the direction of his eyes, and now was mistaken about the thoughts coursing
through his mind; consequently, she looked downright insulted.
She poked his chest
again, this time harder. “I don’t know what kind of woman you think I am,
buster, but if you ever look at me like that again, I’ll gouge your eyes
out.”
Scarlet didn’t care to
reply and simply looked back at her in silence. She took a step back, and
casually took her rifle from her back.
She didn’t have any intention of using it; she was just trying to make
it clear that she was deadly serious.
“Make sure we never
cross paths again,” she told him by the
way of a farewell.
With that, she
motioned to her men that it was time to leave, and the whole group melted into
the crowd, shouldering their way, murmurs following them in heir wake.
Scarlet saw the
discontentment reflected in the eyes of many bystanders; one of them, glaring
at the departing group, spat on the ground to show his complete contempt,
before walking the other way.
Looking over the
crowd, Scarlet followed the ‘captain’ and her men with his eyes; he saw her
turning to give him one last glance, before they disappeared round a corner.
He chewed on his lip,
pensively.
“Damn those
trouble-makers,” he heard the voice of an angry man from his right. “They think
they can do whatever they please because they have weapons… We can do without them.”
“No, we can’t,”
another voice – a woman – replied. “We need them as much as they need us. Their money is as good as anybody else. And
they got plenty.”
“You mean when they’re
willing to pay – and don’t decide to ‘requisition food’.”
Scarlet turned to the
man who had last spoken; it was the blade merchant, who was now standing next
to the old woman from whom Scarlet had bought apples. He was helping her put the remainder of her
fruits onto her cart.
“I take it these
people come here often?” he asked the man.
“Them… others of their kind… They come once in a while, buy or barter some
stuff… go to one of the pubs and make trouble.”
The man spat on the ground. “Nobody dares stand up to ‘em. They’re trouble,
with a capital ‘T’.”
“You should be
careful, if you ever meet them again, son,” the old apple vendor told Scarlet.
“They don’t like people putting their noses in their business. You might be in
their sights, now.”
“I’m not afraid of
them,” Scarlet replied.
“Oh, that I can see…”
There was a sad smile on the old woman’s lips. “But I wouldn’t want you to get
into trouble because of me. I’m just an
old person who doesn’t have long to stay on this Earth now…”
“I don’t need you to
get into trouble with anybody, my dear lady,” Scarlet answered softly. “I can find it all alone – and quite
easily.” He looked in the direction the
captain and her men had disappeared. “Who are those people exactly?”
“They’re part of an
isolated community,” the old woman explained vaguely. “A tribe of some sort… They don’t mix with us, except to barter.”
“Yeah, they think
they’re better than every last one of us,” another fruit merchant
continued. “They think themselves as
military…”
“Military?” Scarlet asked with a raised brow, interested by the comment.
“I sold them army knives once,” the blade merchant said. “They took all of my stock. They did pay well that time, mind you. The girl you saw – she’s pretty much honest
about it, and will pay fair and square.”
“She’s obviously their
leader,” Scarlet commented thoughtfully. “They called her ‘Captain’…”
The fruit merchant
chuckled. “I don’t think she’s a sea captain, by the looks of things. She’s really a nice-looking girl, but even if
she does business honestly, she’s as bad as they come. You’re lucky to come out unscathed from an
encounter with her. She killed a guy in
a pub, a couple of years back. Gutted
him like a pig, and slit his throat.”
“For what reason?”
Scarlet asked with a frown.
“Think she needs one?” the blade merchant replied with a grimace. “Maybe
she didn’t like the way he was looking at her?”
“She had a reason,” the old apple vendor replied in protest. “Word is,
he wanted to do her.”
“That’s only a rumour, old girl.”
“And she went free?”
Scarlet asked.
“With her whole gang
of bodyguards surrounding her?” The
fruit merchant shrugged. “The old girl’s right on one account: as far as we
know, the guy probably had it coming.”
“Isn’t there any kind of law around this place?” Scarlet wondered out
loud.
The blade merchant chuckled. “We haven’t got any. Not since our self-proclaimed one and only
officer of the law got himself killed.
But he wasn’t much good to begin with.” He thumbed in the direction
taken by the young woman and her men. “That’s the trouble, you see: he was the one the girl killed two years
ago. And her men took care of his chums
when they came to avenge him.”
Scarlet shook his head
pensively, muttering: “They’re trouble, all right.”
“That’s why you ought to keep away from them,” the apple vendor
insisted.
Scarlet nodded slowly. “I saw a badge, pinned
onto the woman’s vest.”
“Ah, that’s their
emblem,” the blade merchant remarked. “They don’t all wear it. Only their… officers, as they call them. Like this captain.”
“Who are they?”
Scarlet asked carefully.
That was the question
that was burning his lips.
“We call them the
Spectres,” the fruit vendor said.
When he heard the
reply, Scarlet’s heart nearly skipped a beat.
It wasn’t exactly the answer he was hoping for, but the word was so very
close to it, that he couldn’t presume it wasn’t defining the same thing.
“Spectres?” he
repeated, thoughtfully.
“They’re like goddamn
ghosts, coming out of nowhere, making trouble whenever they go, without anyone
being able to do anything about it. We
don’t know more than that about them.
They like to keep mysterious.” It
was the fruit merchant’s turn to spit on
the ground. “Bastards and bitches, the whole lot of them. I’m betting they’re
nothing but bandits. They certainly look
the part.”
“Do you know where
they can be found?” Scarlet asked, frowning.
“Haven’t you heard
anything we said?” the knife seller said, frowning. “We don’t know where they
come from.”
“… It’s said their
camp is somewhere around what used to be Winchester,” the apple vendor said
then.
“Winchester?” Scarlet
echoed in a bleak voice.
The old woman nodded.
“Well hidden in the hills. Nobody knows
where exactly, and no one tries to look for it anymore. Many did – and they never came back.”
“The Spectres got them?”
Scarlet asked.
“Either the Spectres,”
the man selling knives replied, “or something
else. Because you know, they’re not
that very far from there…” He stopped short, when the old woman elbowed him in
the side. He looked down at her, frowning.
“You should not mention their names,” she
advised.
He rolled his eyes.
“I’m not superstitious, love,” he protested, “and in any case, he certainly knows what I’m talking about. Everybody with half a brain in England
knows about it.”
He looked to Scarlet
for support, and the latter nodded his head in acknowledgement, very slowly.
“Oh yeah, I know,”
Scarlet muttered. He turned a grim expression towards the South West.
“Winchester is only halfway from here to the Mendips… and I know that you
shouldn’t go to the Mendips if you value your life.”
He had been away from England for a long time
but he had heard all the stories about it already. How the long dormant
volcanoes underneath the Mendips had reawakened. How the place had been rendered totally
hostile to any life… He had heard of
what lay within the hills, hidden in a volcanic valley no man was allowed to
enter. And those who dared never came
back.
There. So close to the place Scarlet had called
home, so long ago.
His face became hard.
“The stories said that
it is there, deep in Mendips Hills,” he said in a hollow voice, “that you can
find the Earthly domain of the Mysterons.”
2076
Sydney,
Australia
Dressed in civvies for what seemed to him the first time in so many
months, Paul Metcalfe exited the Spectrum-restricted area of the Sydney
International Airport to mix with the passengers of civilian aircraft that had
recently arrived. Holding his carry-on
bag, his only luggage, he made his way towards the gateway and fell into the
line, waiting for his turn to get through customs.
He exhaled a deep sigh of relief; after years of seemingly carrying the
world on his shoulders, he suddenly felt so strangely light. No office to go to for debriefing, no
Spectrum I.D. card to present, no weapon to declare. It was the first time in a lifetime that he
felt so totally free. He had no duty to carry out anymore, and didn’t have to
answer for one single act to a superior officer. He was leaving his old life behind, with not
a single regret or ounce of guilt.
These last few years of fighting the Mysterons had certainly taken their
toll. For all of the human race, and for
him as well. He already knew that, but
it was only now that he fully realised how badly he needed to put a definite
stop to all this. During the first years, it had been difficult enough, but
ever since the moment the Mysterons had launched their second wave of attacks,
and had decided that they wouldn’t issue their customary threats before each
one of their moves anymore, it had become a complete nightmare. And he, had been right in the middle of it,
even more than all of his colleagues of Spectrum united.
Whatever lay ahead for him, he wanted to face it without Spectrum. Without having to pull the trigger of a gun,
or step in front of a bullet. The
identity he had carried for so long was threatening to take whatever was left
of his humanity. While there was still
enough of Paul Metcalfe in him – whatever little it could be – he needed to go.
His colleagues didn’t seem to understand his decision to leave; they had
tried to convince him to stay, but had failed. Sure, they said that they
understood what he was going through, but that could not possibly be true. They
couldn’t really appreciate the whole significance of what his life had become – what it meant to die, and then come back to
life repeatedly. Of course, he had done
it, it was his duty to do it, but in the long run, it had taken its toll on
him. But even that was of little consequence compared to what he had had
to do lately. And that had been the last straw.
Colonel White did seem to understand the reasons behind his
decision. However, he had refused to see
Scarlet’s resolve as the resignation it was meant to be. He had simply suggested to his best agent –
his ‘most important asset’ in the War of Nerves – that he take some time off,
to get some much needed vacation for a few weeks. Afterwards, he would see
things more clearly, and would return to continue to perform his duties as
commendably as he ever did. Scarlet had not tried to contradict him in any way;
but as his commander walked away from his quarters, he had left his letter of
resignation, as well as his Spectrum I.D. on his desk. Eventually, the old man would find them and
would understand that Captain Scarlet was through, and would not return to
Cloudbase.
Maybe he had already realised that.
It had not been easy to resign, but for the sake of his own sanity,
Scarlet had to do it. He couldn’t take it anymore, all these responsibilities
weighing so heavily on him were suffocating him. He couldn’t die for the cause anymore,
couldn’t bear to take any more life either.
Not now, not after that last fiasco…
They called it an even draw between Spectrum and the Mysterons, but for
Scarlet, it was an utter failure. A
failure that cost him more than anyone else seemed to realise. The look of deception he had seen in the eyes
of someone whom he considered one of his dearest friends was nearly impossible
to bear. Almost as much as…
Scarlet shook his head. No. He shouldn’t think about this anymore, or
feel guilty for what he had to do. He
had lost so much already, and was unwilling to go through it again. After the
loss he had suffered in London three years before and now this, it was enough.
He tried to tell himself that it was all behind him. But it was so
difficult to forget… Perhaps one day he would be able to even forgive himself,
but right now, it was still too early.
As he was standing in line, Scarlet checked the time on his watch; it
was still early in the morning. He thought
he would be able to get something to eat at a nearby restaurant, then he would
find a taxi and make his way to Edward’s place.
Surely, the former Doctor Fawn, who had retired from Spectrum only a
year before to take care of family business, would be surprised to see him
arrive on his doorstep. He imagined his
old friend would have many questions to ask; Scarlet hoped he wouldn’t try to
convince him to return to Spectrum. Edward
had always been on his side, all these years he had been his doctor. He had never seen Scarlet as something
similar to a laboratory guinea pig.
Unlike his replacement of latter years, Doctor Argent, that Scarlet had grown to dislike a little
bit more after each visit. It was simply
not tolerable going to Sickbay anymore, and waking there after a mission that
had ended up with him being hurt. That bastard Argent had made it all the more
easy for the English officer to give up on Spectrum.
Lost in his thoughts, Scarlet slowly became aware of the brouhaha around
him and searched in confusion for what it was all about. The people surrounding him were all pointing
towards the giant TV screen set over the wall of the gateway, and seemed very
upset about the images it displayed.
Curious about what could be going on, Scarlet looked up – and the hair
on the back of his head stood straight up.
On the screen, he could see the skyline of New York, with heavy wreaths
of smoke mounting from in-between the skyscrapers, and heavy dark clouds
floating all over the city. He could see
fires burning in more places that he was able to count in a glance, and
buildings collapsing, one after the other – and the Statue of Liberty, in the
foreground, standing without its head in the middle of the harbour. There was
no sound on the screen, but nobody needed it to understand. And if the images were not self-explanatory
enough, the banner scrolling at the bottom of the screen dramatically exposed
the events happening on the other side of the world:
MANHATTAN DESTROYED BY MULTIPLE ATTACKS. MYSTERON ACTIVITIES
SUSPECTED. SPECTRUM ON THE SITE.
Scarlet grew pale. The ‘Heart of New York’, he realised… Another of their original threats – It must
be the one they had chosen for their latest attack. Again, they were targeting New York. And this time, it seemed like they were
drawing heavy blood.
And Scarlet KNEW right this instant, that he couldn’t turn his back on
all of this. He was needed.
He hurriedly left the line, and, in an attempt to return to the Spectrum
hangar, pushed his way through the multitude of people watching the TV screen
in horror, ran back the distance he had walked just a few minutes ago. Perhaps
if he could reach the shuttle in time, he would be able to return to Cloudbase,
and resume his duties.
He had almost reached the door he needed to cross, when three men
dressed in black appeared in front of him and blocked his way. He stopped in his tracks, glaring at them.
“Let me through,” he demanded.
“This is a restricted area, sir,” one of the men answered.
“I know that.” Scarlet sighed and nearly rolled his eyes. He didn’t know
these men, but they were obviously part of the hangar security. He didn’t have his Spectrum I.D., but he
certainly hoped they wouldn’t prove too difficult to convince. “I’m Captain Scarlet. I have to reach the
shuttle for Cloudbase before it leaves.”
“We know who you are, Captain,” the same man replied.
Scarlet frowned and took another step forward. “Then kindly let me
through. There’s no time to waste.”
The man placed a hand onto his chest, stopping his advance, and his two
companions stepped closer, forming a wall in front of the door. A fourth man
appeared out of nowhere and came to stand behind Scarlet, blocking his way
back.
“We certainly agree with you, sir.
You will come with us.”
Scarlet’s frown deepened, as did his perplexity at these men’s truly odd
behaviour. “Into the hangar?” he inquired.
The one who seemed to be the leader slowly shook his head to the
negative.
Scarlet felt the man behind him putting a hand onto his shoulder, and at
the same time, sensed the needle piercing his skin, and then the drug
immediately entering his bloodstream.
His mind fogged almost instantly, and his whole body became numb; his
bag escaped from his hand just as his knees buckled underneath him. Strong hands caught him, and stopped him from
sprawling onto the carpeted floor.
“Everything’s all right.,” That was the
voice of the only man who had talked to him; he was now talking to the bystanders who seemed curious to know
what exactly was going on. “Airport
security. This gentleman is not feeling very well.”
As if to confirm his identity, he waved a badge at the nearest
onlookers. His vision barely more than a
haze, Scarlet didn’t see what the badge was.
Unable to resist, barely capable of putting one foot in front of the
other, he felt himself being dragged and pushed by the multiple hands holding
him up. He tried to clear his mind, as
he was carried towards a nearby door, which was marked ‘Security’. He didn’t know who these men were, or what
they wanted of him – maybe they were Mysterons, which was a definite
possibility.
He only knew that he ought not to go behind that door.
As they approached, he felt the rush of adrenaline and some of his
strength returning as his unique metabolism attempted to eliminate the effects
of the drug. He suddenly fought his
assailants, pulling himself out of their hands and landing a blow on the one
nearest to him. They obviously didn’t
expect him to be able to fight back so strongly, and it took them a few seconds
to react accordingly. One of his
adversaries retaliated with a punch of his own that caught Scarlet right in the
face and made him see stars. His body
still fighting off the effects of the drugs, he didn’t have all the control
he needed to free himself. He was pushed to the floor, and forcibly held
there, as his hands were pulled behind his back. Handcuffs
were secured around his wrists; he could hear the voice of the same man
as before, again talking to curious and confounded onlookers, and explaining
that ‘it was all a matter of security’, that ‘everything was under control’ and
that ‘nobody had to worry about anything’.
“Call Spectrum!” Scarlet called in a strained voice from his position
on the floor. “These men are not what they say they are!”
Someone pushed his head against the floor roughly, nearly knocking him
out in the process. “Shut up! You want
to scare all these good people?”
His head reeling, Scarlet felt himself pulled from the floor and dragged
towards the same door as before. They
all went through, and it closed swiftly behind them.
He was thrown against the surface of a table, and again he was held
there in place; as he was still trying to free himself from their hands,
Scarlet’s eyes fell on a man who was standing on the other side of the table,
watching him with a calm but hard expression on his face.
“Commander Ward?” he called with disbelief.
This wasn’t good. Ward – who had
been appointed Supreme Commander of S.H.E.F. only a few months back – despised
Spectrum, especially since the organisation had been unable to keep the
Mysterons from destroying the entire Frost Line Outer Space Defence System, his
old command. Scarlet had heard Colonel
White commenting that Ward might very well use his new found authority and
influence to conduct his own personal vendetta against Spectrum for what he
regarded as an unforgivable failure… as well as waging war against the
Mysterons in his own unmitigated fashion.
Ward wasn’t known for his flexible attitude, or smooth approach. His strategy was to strike hard and fast at
the enemy, wherever he could find it.
‘Might makes right’, was his motto, and he certainly had all the might
he ever dreamed of in his hands at the moment.
“What is the meaning of this?” Scarlet demanded. “What do you want from me?”
“Ah, Captain Scarlet… Why don’t you tell me that yourself, mmm?”
Ward put a large object onto the table, so that Scarlet could clearly
see what it was. The former Spectrum
officer opened wide eyes at the sight of it, and his heart started beating
faster.
It was a Mysteron detector.
“That’s Spectrum equipment,” he claimed, trying to remain calm. “Where did you –”
“It doesn’t really matter how I got my hands on it,” Ward replied
quietly. “It’s what it tells me… that
does matter.” Calmly, he presented to his captive a small black and white
picture he was holding in his hand.
Scarlet could only stare at it, with incredulity. It was
his picture, obviously taken with the Mysteron
detector.
Displaying a positive result.
“Commander…” he tried
to explain. “Please, listen to me…”
“I don’t need to listen to you, Captain,” Ward retorted. “I know exactly
what I need to know.” He made a gesture with his hand, and Scarlet was pulled
to his feet, but still held securely by the men surrounding him. Ward looked hard into his face, narrowing his
eyes in intense contemplation.
“And if I had any doubts left,” he said after a second or two, “they
have completely disappeared now. Along
with that bruise you had on your cheek when you entered this room.” He shook
his head. “It’s completely gone now.”
“Commander –” Scarlet tried again.
He stopped; he just had noticed the man standing only a few feet behind
Ward, and watching in silence. He
recognised him instantly.
And suddenly his anger got the better of him, and he tried to reach for
the man.
“Argent!” he roared with fury. “You bastard, have you any idea what
you’ve done?”
Doctor Argent looked at Scarlet with the same cold expression he had
always regarded him, ever since he had taken over the duties of chief medical
officer of Cloudbase.
“I’m sorry, Captain Scarlet,” he said in an incredibly cool voice. “But
I know where my duty lies. And it’s
obviously not the same place as yours.”
“When Colonel White hears about this –”
“And what makes you think that Colonel White will ever hear about this?”
Ward said suddenly, interrupting Scarlet in the middle of his furious
diatribe. He stepped forwards, and came
to stand straight in front of the younger man, looking deep into his eyes. There was a coldness and a hatred in Ward’s
expression that told Scarlet that this man in front of him was an enemy even
more dangerous than any Mysteron he had ever faced, including Captain Black
himself. “You left Spectrum,” Wade pointed out. “You left your letter of resignation
on your desk, along with your Spectrum I.D.
Colonel White will believe you are gone for good. Oh, he might be searching for you, for a
while at least, but it’s doubtful he will ever find you. After all, he knows you better than anyone
else. And he knows that if you don’t
want to be found, you won’t be.”
Scarlet turned an accusing glance towards Argent. “YOU told him all
this! You traitor!”
“You dare call him a traitor?” Ward snapped at him. “I would say that he
did more than his duty in revealing your existence to me. Now I’ll be able to act on it, and do what
should have been done from the very beginning.”
“Commander, I don’t know what Argent’s been telling you, but I can
assure you, I’m loyal to Spectrum and –”
“Doctor Argent’s been telling me enough for me to assume that you played
a very good game, Captain,” Ward replied quietly. “How brilliant of the Mysterons. To plant a spy directly in the midst of
Spectrum’s finest.”
“I fight Mysterons,” Scarlet replied harshly. “I risked my life –”
“Of course, so that your cover would remain intact. And risking your life
doesn’t mean much for you, does it, Captain?
Since you are indestructible…” Ward scoffed. “How could Colonel White be
so naïve? It should have been so obvious.”
“Commander… the World President
himself knows –”
“The World President signed the order for your arrest, Captain Scarlet.”
That shut Scarlet up instantly, and he looked with incredulity into
Ward’s eyes. The latter shoved a paper
right under his nose. Scarlet could see
it was an arrest warrant. He read his
name, recognised the signature of President Roberts at the bottom.
Roberts… who’s life he had saved years before.
He felt betrayed. And utterly defeated.
“You are under arrest, Captain Scarlet,” Ward continued restlessly. “For
treason, conspiracy, and complicity in acts of terrorism. I am also accusing
you of having acted as a fifth columnist for your masters on Mars, reporting to
them everything you knew of our defences, which ultimately was the cause of our
failure to counteract their actions in recent years.”
“You don’t have any proof of that!” Scarlet lashed out sharply.
“I have enough proof,” Ward said quietly, showing the picture he still
held in his hand. “You are a Mysteron
agent, Captain Scarlet, and you shall be
treated as such. And as you are the only
one we ever got our hands on, I’m sure you’re perfectly aware that you’ll
benefit from some… special treatment?” He gave a thin, wicked smile. “You’ll
tell us all you know about your masters, that I can promise you. And neither
those you think your allies in Spectrum, nor Colonel White, not even death
itself, will be able to spare you from this.”
As Scarlet prepared himself to protest once more, he suddenly felt a
violent electric shock surging through him, and understood that one of the men
holding him was using a taser against him. He groaned loudly and his body arched against
the pain; he felt himself falling numbly into his captors’ hands.
Then his mind filled with a deep fog and oblivion claimed him.
One of Scarlet’s many
skills that he had developed during his military training and honed through
years of service was his efficiency at trailing people without them realising
he was even there.
Keeping at a safe
distance to remain unseen, he followed the ‘captain’ and her men when, their
purchases done, they left the Piccadilly area a couple of hours later. Hiding
amongst passers-by at the corner of a street, he watched as they met with a
sixth man, who was waiting for them with horses in Hyde Park. They saddled up
and slowly made their way through the city, and after travelling for a while
through a maze of fallen buildings and debris, took what was left of a road
that Scarlet, still trailing them, recognised as the former A4. It was almost nightfall when they finally
left the outskirts of London, and made their way in a south-westerly
direction.
Towards Winchester.
The road had changed
quite a lot, since the former days when going from London to Winchester didn’t
take more than two hours by car. The main
roads of Britain, A-roads and motorways, had nearly all been destroyed during
the many Mysteron attacks and the multiple geological catastrophes they
provoked. What used to be the A316,
which left London for Winchester, wasn’t any different. It was particularly treacherous, with parts
of the roadway having collapsed in so many places, and chunks of broken
pavement obstructing half of the way.
Even if motor vehicles were still in use – which they were not, due to
appalling near-lack of petrol for the last fifteen years or so, when it had
became a very rare luxury that only a handful could afford, and that in very
restricted areas – it would not have been possible to drive a car on these
roads nowadays.
The uneven surface was
barely manageable by carts to begin with.
Travellers could only go on foot or on horseback. A good horse was an extra advantage, and
Scarlet certainly felt privileged to own such an excellent one. Rainbow had been a God-given gift; he had
barely exaggerated when threatening that butcher who had coveted the great
stallion for the sole purpose of cutting him into so many pieces. He would have gladly killed that despicable
man if he had even tried to commit such an odious crime on such a noble
creature.
The landscape had also
undergone major alterations since Scarlet had last set foot in the area. He could barely recognise it. The land had
been shattered by nuclear attacks and geological tremors; huge chunks of rocks
had risen from the ground, while crevices were cut deep into it. Hills and meadows were there once grew rich
grassland feeding horses and sheep, crops and trees now seemed dry and barely able to sustain any life. There was only the barren ground with rare
patches of hay-like tufts of grass, and dead trees and shrubs, with even
sparser yellowish foliage. The sky was almost constantly covered with clouds –
there was rarely any blue anymore, just greys of various hues blocking the
much-needed rays of the sun. It was a country which seemed to constantly wait
for winter to come, and yet, it barely rained, or snowed. The air was dry and hot in the day, and the nights were cold,
with a wind that could chill to the bone.
It was a wonder that
anyone could live here, let alone be able to harvest anything on this deprived
land… enough, anyway, to provide
foodstuff to the surrounding area. And yet, some people actually succeeded in
doing so. The land, Scarlet suspected, was being used up to its very limit and
he wondered how long it will still be able to produce anything at all.
And it wasn’t just the
London area, or England alone that was that way. Everywhere Scarlet had gone in the world over
the last years had been like this – and sometimes even worse. And the situation everywhere was
deteriorating as time went by. At the rate it was going, Scarlet feared that it
wouldn’t take many generations before the planet became totally
inhabitable.
The Mysterons willing…
Scarlet’s quarry rode
for a little while on the former A-road, before stopping to make camp for the
night. After checking that they had settled down nicely and would apparently
not leave before the next morning, Scarlet travelled a kilometre away from
their position, found a secure location and made camp in turn. From where he settled down, he could well see
the fire of the band he was trailing, as well as other fires from other night
camps, set at various distances from his position. With so many fires around,
he felt safe to start one for himself.
At least he would eat a hot meal, and drink some of that coffee he had
bought in Piccadilly, before he had left.
As he lay down on his
travelling blanket, which didn’t offer much padding against the ground’s hard
surface, he looked up to the sky above, pondering the strange stroke of fate
that had made him cross paths with the band of young people he had met in
London.
For the better part of
the last fifteen years, he had travelled all of Europe in search of Spectrum,
with very little success. He had heard so many tales during his quest: of the
existence of former members of the organisation, who had, after the fall of
Cloudbase and the break up of the organisation, gathered in small bands in the
face of adversity, in various parts of the world. Either to survive the hardships of the new
reality imposed by the War or Nerves, or, some said, to even continue the
battle against the alien invaders. But
as time passed, Scarlet had started to suspect he was only chasing after ghosts
and shadows. The alleged survivors had
constantly eluded him, and all Scarlet was able to really find were rumours,
and very rare clues of their passage – clues that mostly proved inconclusive
upon further examination.
Scarlet had came to
the conclusion that the small bands that came to call themselves ‘Spectrum’,
and that might have existed here and there, had finally been forced to
disband. They could have been decimated
by the Mysterons themselves, in an attempt to completely annihilate their most
resilient foes. In the Mysterons’ view,
it might not have mattered that much if these people were really Spectrum, or
just pretended to be. The mere fact they
were using the name could have been sufficient.
After all, ‘destroying Spectrum’ was one of the Mysterons’ original
threats… And seeing how successful they
had been with the rest, it was probably one of the last targets to fall under
their attacks.
It was also highly
possible these people had also been hunted down by resentful communities that
associated the suffering brought by years of war with the Mysterons with
Spectrum’s failure to protect them. It
was ludicrous to consider Spectrum
responsible for all that happened; or to assume the organisation would have
been able to literally do the impossible to avoid all the disasters created by
the Mysterons from the moment they had decided to go to the next level in this
war they had declared on Earth. But it was human nature to look for a
scapegoat, and in some people’s eyes, Spectrum was the perfect one.
After all, for many
people, Spectrum was to blame for the
fall of the World Government, and was at the very heart of the worst ever
cataclysm to happen in Human history which had caused untold devastation and
countless victims.
The last of the
original members of Spectrum probably had died over time, one after the other.
Either they had been murdered, killed in the many disasters and attacked, or
succumbed to old age. So many years had passed since Scarlet had left… It was unlikely that many of them would still
be alive today. And he imagined that of all those who had composed Cloudbase’s senior
staff, the elite of all Cloudbase, were all gone now.
Patrick…
Patrick Donaghue, the
former Captain Magenta, had actually been the only one of his former colleagues
and friends he had succeeded in locating.
But that was more than fifteen years ago, and a continent away… in New
Jersey, where he lived with what was left of his family. From him, Scarlet had learned the final fate
of Cloudbase, and of all he held dear. And
he had been the first one to tell him of the rumours he had heard, before the
satellites finally fell silent, years before.
That Spectrum might still exist somewhere in the Old World. Scarlet had
then decided to cross the ocean and check for himself if the rumours were true;
he asked his friend to come along with him, but Patrick had sadly shook his
head.
“Look at me, Paul. I’m an old man
compared to you. I’m slow and sick, and
my sight and reflexes aren’t what they used to be. I’m probably suffering from radiation
poisoning. I feel myself weakening every
day. Chances are, within the next three
to five years, I’ll be dead. I couldn’t
survive a crossing of the Atlantic. And
if I did, I would only slow you down.
And quite frankly… I can’t go and
leave what’s left of my family behind.
They need me.”
Scarlet could only
agree that his friend was right. There
wasn’t much time left to him, and crossing the ocean by sea was unthinkable for
him. It meant a long and tiring journey
of many weeks, if not months. But to get
to Europe, it was the only option; flying was no longer possible – at the time, fuel reserves were nearly
completely gone. The only flights that were allowed at the time were of the
rare authority officials and military left to the World, who were still holding
on to the desperate hope they might yet make things right again.
Even that was gone now
– fuel, most of it anyway… aircraft… officials… and possibly hope as well.
Patrick was probably
long dead by now, and the thought sent a wave of sorrow into Scarlet’s heart.
After his multiple
failures at finding any trace of Spectrum, Scarlet had long thought that his
meeting with his Irish colleague would be the only contact he would have with
his former life. That was the conclusion
he had come to, for the last two years or so, and he had made peace with that.
But that was until
today.
Scarlet reached for
his inside vest pocket, to take a small bit of white fabric, neatly folded,
out. He unfolded it carefully, and under
the light of his fire, examined it with interest. He had not looked at this for weeks.
Rounded, crudely cut
from a piece of thick white cotton, dirty and torn on one side, it sported a
drawing similar to the one he had seen pinned on the young blonde woman’s
shirt.
He stroked his chin
thoughtfully. This ‘badge’ was the only
real indication he had found over the years that could have been a proof of
Spectrum’s survival. He had found it,
five years before in Italy, fastened with a safely pin on to the coat of a
young Russian rider. Since then, Scarlet had not come on any other clues. Not a single one.
He had concluded that
the young man was pursuing an impossible dream, just like himself when he had
been looking for Spectrum survivors. So, after long months of frustration and
failures, he had stopped searching for Spectrum altogether – and set his sights
on another goal.
One that might prove a
little easier to reach.
Now… as he was approaching that goal, Fate threw
him a curve ball – as Adam had said more than a few times in that now distant
past, during the course of their assignments.
He heard neighing and
he turned his attention to Rainbow who, standing only a couple of feet away
from him, was looking straight at him with those big, intelligent eyes that
seemed to ask him what could be on his mind.
Scarlet observed the horse pensively for a moment.
“I wonder if you miss
him, at times?” he asked softly, watching as the great stallion moved his ears
attentively at the sound of his voice.
“Your former master… Yes, you must miss him. When he asked me to take care of you, it was
obvious he liked you very much… And knowing you, you must have been very
attached to him.”
Rainbow snorted, as if
answering, although Scarlet would have had a hard time trying to understand
what he meant exactly. He chose to take
it as an approval and smiled. He had not
lied to the butcher in London; during these last five years of his wanderings,
Rainbow had been a faithful companion, as well as an attentive and discreet
confidant.
As the horse turned
around and seemed about to settle for the night, Scarlet returned to his
examination of the badge, turning it between his fingers, mulling over what he
would do.
This badge he was
holding, that he had kept hold of for five years, had returned to revive an almost forgotten hope.
Could these people,
these… ‘Spectres’, really be Spectrum? Could Spectrum really be alive, to begin
with?
It seemed so
impossible. Almost too good to be
true. And yet… the two badges, the similarity of both names… the military manner of these people... even their reticence at mixing with the rest
of the crowd…
And the fact that they
were living so close to where the Mysterons were said to have settled their
Complex…
Could it be really be
possible?
He didn’t approve of
the attitude of the young men he had encountered; he didn’t even like what he
had heard of their captain, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe, it
was simply a survivor’s reaction from individuals who had learned not to trust
anyone implicitly, and to guard themselves against any potential threat. A knee-jerk reflex of sort, that would
certainly create this impression of bad attitude they had towards the rest of
the world.
A world that might
have been in some way responsible for their near disappearance, and force them
to go underground, with this witch-hunt it carried out against all things
Spectrum.
Scarlet felt he had to
know the truth; and since he was going in the same direction anyway, he might
as well take some time to check it out… before moving on with his main
objective.
His mind set, Scarlet
put the badge back into his pocket and rolled himself into his blanket, fully
intending to get some sleep before morning came.
As his eyes closed and
he swiftly drifted into sleep, he heard, in the distance, the call of wolves. Wolves… in England… He had read somewhere
that wolves, previously hunted to the brink of extinction, had been
reintroduced in the wild somewhere after the turn of the 21st
Century. Before that, you couldn’t find them anywhere in the country. Now they were everywhere, these he was hearing right now probably the offspring of beasts
that had escaped zoological parks, at one time or another during the many
disasters that had plagued the land. Exactly like what had happened everywhere
else…
He felt lucky it
wasn’t a pride of lions he was hearing then...
That didn’t bother him
much. Confident that Rainbow would give the alert should something approach the
camp during the night, he set his mind completely to rest, and fell asleep
almost instantly.
2103,
Italy
From the hill where he
was standing, Scarlet could see perfectly the drama unfolding in the valley
below him.
With wild kicks, the
horse – a great sorrel stallion – was desperately trying to keep at bay the
wolves that were surrounding both him and his rider, who lay flat on his belly
at his feet. When landing on the ground,
the stallion’s hooves were getting dangerously close to his master’s head, and
it would only take one accidental kick to kill him. Assuming he was still alive to begin with,
and from his point of view, it was impossible for Scarlet to know if he was or
not. The man wasn’t moving at all; that’s all he knew about him.
Despite the horse’s commendable efforts, it
was obvious that he was doomed to fail:
his reins were caught in the tangled twigs of a nearby dead bush,
greatly impairing his freedom of
movement; by the foam covering his flanks, it was obvious he was growing
tired. Soon, he would be unable to keep
the wolves away, and they would come in for the kill.
Scarlet couldn’t stand
idle and watch as such a valiant animal, while defending his master, met his
fate under the predators’ fangs and claws. It barely took him a few seconds to
make his decision: removing his rifle
from his back, he took careful aim.
His first shot wounded
the wolf closest to the horse, as it was about to bite into the fallen man. The
wolf yelped in pain, and the loud detonation echoing through the valley made
all its companions jump in surprise. The
horse turned around and trampled the injured wolf that had fallen under his
hooves, effectively finishing it off.
Scarlet took aim again, and shot a second wolf, which was preparing to
attack the stallion from behind.
After a third
successful shot, Scarlet hurried down the hill, yelling like the proverbial
banshee and firing wildly, in the hope of scaring the remainder of the wolves
away. It worked for most of them and
they ran in the opposite direction. Two
of them, however, bolder and probably more famished, did not recognise the
danger represented by the weapon he was carrying; they came straight at him,
growling furiously. He shot the closest
one as it was nearly on him and it fell to its side, yelping. The second wolf
stopped in its tracks, now hesitating, its ears flat on its head. His rifle now
empty, Scarlet took hold of it by the barrel and, swinging it as if it was a
club, marched threateningly towards the wolf.
“Shoo! Get away from
here, you filthy beast! Run, if you know what’s good for you!”
The wolf turned tail
and fled as fast as its legs could carry it.
Scarlet gave chase
until he nearly reached the horse; once there, he stopped, watching as all the
wolves ran away, while reloading his rifle. One of the beasts stopped at the
top of the hill to look back in his direction, so Scarlet fired one shot
high. The thundering sound was enough to
scare the animal off and it disappeared over the hill.
With the threat gone,
Scarlet turned to the horse. He had stopped kicking around, and was now
standing on his four legs, snorting loudly; his head was down, and it was with
weary and frightened eyes that he was watching the man standing only a few feet
away from him. He looked so very tired,
but continued to stand guard over his master who, still lying flat on the ground,
had not made a single move.
Scarlet slowly moved
closer, presenting his hand, and making soothing sounds to calm the
stallion. The latter attempted to move
away from the approaching human, unsure whether he should trust him. But with the reins still tangled within the
twigs of the bush, he was unable to go far.
“Good boy,” Scarlet
called in a calm voice. “I’m a
friend… I won’t hurt you, nor your
master. You know that, don’t you? Stay calm…”
Warily, the stallion
watched his approach, but didn’t move.
Scarlet reached for him with his hand and then gently stroked his neck,
talking to him with a soothing voice.
The visibly exhausted stallion heavily rested his head against Scarlet’s
chest, snorting gently, and slowly calmed down.
Scarlet stroked the huge head for a short
moment, until he was sure the horse had relaxed enough not to be a threat
anymore. Then gently, he pushed the stallion aside and crouched down near the
still body of the rider. He checked for
a pulse and found one, although it was very weak. Carefully he turned the body on its back; it
was a young man, in the middle of his twenties, with the start of a beard on
his chin. His eyes were closed and there
was a very ugly bleeding wound on the side of his head. Scarlet winced; he didn’t like the sight of
this injury. He feared the young man was
in serious danger of dying.
He settled the rider
as comfortably as he could, removing his own coat to roll it into a makeshift
pillow that he gently placed under the injured man’s head. He then searched for other wounds, checking each
of the boy’s limbs one after the other.
The right leg was broken, with an open fracture, and the left wrist was
at an odd angle. He could hear a strange
wheezing sound coming from the man’s throat, which made Scarlet realise that
maybe one of his lungs had been pierced by a broken rib during his fall. He
gently opened the man's coat to check his torso.
It was at this moment
that he found, pinned inside coat, a white badge that made him freeze in his
movement.
It was a white
roundel, with a crude S drawn by hand in the middle of multiple circles – a
symbol that strangely resembled the Spectrum logo.
Scarlet tore it from
the safety pin keeping it in place and, holding it in his hand, stared at it in
disbelief. After all these years of
searching… could he have really found what he was looking for?
He looked
incredulously into the set face of the young rider. So, the inhabitants of the
last village he had visited had been right…
This was the man he was looking for; the man who might be able to give
him the much needed information he was seeking…
He heard the young
rider emit a moan, and then, he gasped suddenly, and his eyes flew open. They were glazed, reflecting fear and pain,
and at the sight of Scarlet leaning over him, he attempted to push himself up;
he cried out briefly, as the pain pulled him down. Swiftly pocketing the badge,
Scarlet put a helping hand onto the gasping young man’s chest and gently
compelled him to stay still.
“Easy, son. You’ve been
hurt badly. Don’t try to move.” He saw the eyes of the young man fixed on
him, as he laid back, breathing hard.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The young man nodded.
He was panting heavily, as if he was trying to regain his breath. “Me…
understand,” he answered in a deep accented voice. “What… happen?”
Scarlet shook his
head. “You fell from your horse, and you were attacked by wolves. I don’t know in which order that happened
exactly. Maybe you can tell me?”
“Wolves?” the young
man repeated in a low voice. “Y-yes… I… remember…” His hand reached for his
injured head. “Hurt… Cannot move…”
“You took a bad fall,”
Scarlet explained. “You must have hit
your head pretty badly. You also have a few fractures. I haven’t got a chance to check your back as
yet, so I would suggest you don’t try to move.
Just in case. You understand?”
The boy nodded, closing his eyes against the pain. “What is your name, son?”
Scarlet asked.
“Piotr… Ivanovitch…”
“Piotr Ivanovitch. You’re
Russian, Piotr?”
“Da… Russian.
You… English?” The young man opened his eyes again and looked straight
at Scarlet who nodded briefly. “You… save me?”
“More or less. Your horse
made a good job of protecting you, until I arrived. He’s a good horse.”
“Good horse…” Piotr
moaned. “Who’s… you? You… from …village around?”
Scarlet watched as the
young man’s eyes were threatening to close again; he seemed to be growing
weaker with each passing second. He was
dying, and there was nothing that Scarlet could do to help him. He heaved a deep
sight and shook his head. It was such a
shame; the boy was so young…
“I’ve been following
you, Piotr,” Scarlet said softly. “I
passed by the same village you left three days ago in the mountains… The
village where you bought your supplies?”
“You… follow me?”
Piotr repeated, as if trying to grasp what Scarlet was telling him.
“I was trying to catch
up with you. See, I’m searching for
something. And people in the village,
they told me you might be able to help me.”
Scarlet reached for his pocket, and took from it the badge he had
pocketed earlier. He leaned closer to
the young man, and showed it to him, shaking him gently when he realised he was
about to close his eyes again. Piotr
looked in tired confusion at the object the older man presented to him. “They
said… that you told them you were looking for the same thing I am. You were
looking for Spectrum.”
“Spectrum?” Piotr repeated in a weak voice.
Scarlet swallowed
hard. He hated being so inquisitive
towards a man who was dying; but he needed to know, before it was too late. “I
found this on you, Piotr... Please tell
me… Where did you get it? Did you make this yourself?”
“No… Was… gift,” the
young man slurred.
“From whom?” Scarlet
insisted. “Why were you looking for Spectrum, Piotr?” Scarlet asked again. “Do
you know where they are? Where they can be found?”
The young Russian
didn’t answer; he gasped loudly and closed his eyes against a sudden wave of
pain. Then his hand shot out and grabbed Scarlet’s arm. The former Spectrum officer leaned closer to
the boy, who made an effort to raise his head and look at him, with a pleading
expression. “I… dying… Take care… of horse, please?”
Scarlet faltered,
unsure how to answer the dying young man’s request. His throat tightening, he
was only able to nod uneasily. “What’s his name?” he finally was able to ask,
when he found his voice again.
Piotr smiled, and
muttered something in his mother tongue, that Scarlet was unable to make
out. It was so low that even if he had
spoken Russian, he would not have understood any of it. Then the young man’s eyes closed one last
time and he exhaled his last breath, before his head slowly fell back against
the makeshift pillow.
Scarlet sighed heavily
and stood up, looking down in sadness at the now dead body at his feet.
He felt somewhat
frustrated. For the past five years, he
had been looking for Spectrum, walking all over Europe from village to village,
trying to find a single clue of where any survivor might have disappeared to. All he had heard were rumours, quite similar
to what Patrick had told him. Spectrum was supposedly still around, but keeping
in hiding to avoid both the wrath of the Mysterons still trying to destroy it,
or of the human population, who sought to take their anger out on someone they
considered responsible for the state of the world.
Three days ago,
Scarlet had stopped in an Italian village in the nearby mountains, and had
asked his customary questions regarding Spectrum, growing more and more
concerned that he would never receive the answers he was hoping for. He could hardly
believe it when an old farmer told him that a young man on a horse had passed
by not that very long ago, asking similar questions. After he had been shown
the direction taken by the rider, Scarlet had headed towards this valley. Soon,
he had picked up the trail, which was easy enough to find, and followed it,
walking day and night, hoping he would catch up with the man who was following
a quest similar to his own. He was
hoping he would be able to indicate to him where to find what he was looking for
– or at least to give him some of the precious information he was craving.
Piotr had been the
only serious lead he had found in a long time.
And now, he lay at his feet, dead.
Scarlet sighed and
averted his eyes, looking towards the horizon, trying to regain his composure;
no matter how many deaths he had seen in his life – and he had seen more than
his share – it always felt so unfair to him, in any circumstances. Piotr was no different from those other young
men and women he had seen dying under enemy bullets during wars, or from all
the innocent people who had been collateral damage of so many battles he had
experienced… or all the victims of the Mysterons.
To die at such a young
age… It was so unfair.
He would give the boy
a decent burial. He had seen a cross
hanging from his neck, so just to honour Piotr’s
faith he would place a cross on his grave.
He wasn’t sure if it was that important for the young man, or if it
would make any difference… But just to
make sure, it seemed the right thing to do.
He turned on his
heels; standing behind him, the sorrel stallion was staring at him, with
curious eyes, his ears standing up straight onto his head. He wasn’t afraid of him anymore, and he
probably didn’t realise that his young master was gone. Scarlet walked to him and stroked his
forehead. The horse let him do it, and
leaned against Scarlet’s shoulder. He
seemed to enjoy the man’s presence and the attention he provided.
“Looks like you and I
are stuck with each other, boy,” Scarlet muttered in a soft voice. He took the
horse’s head between his hands and looked into his eyes. “And I would bet you don’t even understand a
word of English, do you?”
As if answering, the
stallion snorted and neighed loudly, before shaking his head vigorously,
Scarlet held on to the bridle to keep him still. Despite himself, he chuckled. “Well, then… I
guess I will have to teach you… And give you a name I’ll be able to pronounce.”
The horse snorted again. “Give me some time, boy… I’ll find a suitable name for
you.”
After burying Piotr Ivanovitch, Scarlet saddled his newly acquired mount and
travelled north for a few miles, with the intention of leaving the valley
behind as soon as he could. At first,
the horse proved a bit hostile to his presence on his back; but Scarlet was an
accomplished rider, and it didn’t take long for the stallion to finally accept
his new master’s commands, and come to the calm trot Scarlet imposed on him.
They only stopped at
nightfall, and Scarlet built a fire for the night. He shared his meal of stale
bread and spongy vegetables with the horse and then rolled himself into his
blanket and settled for the night. He
felt the stallion approach him quietly to briefly sniff at him with curiosity,
before taking a few steps away. Scarlet had taken care to tie him up to a
nearby dead tree, so he wouldn’t run away. Now that he had a mount, he wasn’t
so keen to lose it that quickly. With the comforting thought that the horse
would still be there come morning, he dozed off, exhausted by another long and
tiring day.
He didn’t know how
long he was asleep when suddenly, his instinct alerted him of a presence nearby
and he opened his eyes. He was fully
awake.. It was deeper than just his military intuition reacting – he knew the feeling
all too well. It was what his former colleagues used to
refer to as his ‘Mysteron sixth sense’, which often warned him of impending
threats coming specifically from the
Mysterons.
It was still the
middle of the night, and the fire was still burning, although the flames were
now low. The first thing he noticed was
the stallion, standing only a few feet
away by the tree he was secured to, with his ears straight, and staring cagily. Scarlet realised he wasn’t looking at him,
but beyond him. He turned his head to see what could be attracting the
horse’s attention – and found himself facing the muzzle of a gun, aimed
directly at him.
The fire was outlining
the silhouette of a man, sitting there by the fire.
“Don’t make any sudden
moves, Captain Scarlet. I will not hesitate to shoot..”
Scarlet recognised the
deep, accented voice, now speaking this ominous warning in perfect English,
before he could actually see the man’s features. “Piotr?”
“Piotr Ivanovitch is dead. Try again, Earthman.”
Even without the
addition of the word ‘Earthman’, Scarlet had guessed who he was facing.
A Mysteron agent.
His face became hard. “You took him over?” he asked harshly. “Don’t you even have any respect for
consecrated graves?”
“The chance to
approach you is not often handed to us these days,” the replicate of Piotr Ivanovitch replied. “We couldn’t pass up this opportunity.
It has been too long.”
“Not long enough, from
my point of view.” Scarlet shook his head. “Can I sit?”
The Mysteron agent
nodded and watched cautiously as Scarlet settled himself into a sitting
position, the gun following his every move. The former Spectrum captain glanced
at the weapon for a brief second, before returning his attention to the face of
the man holding it. “What do you want from me?”
Piotr Ivanovitch gave a wicked
smile. “What do you think? We want our
revenge on Spectrum, of course.”
“I am not Spectrum
anymore.”
The Mysteron agent
scoffed loudly. “You are deluding yourself, Captain. Of course you are Spectrum. It’s within your very being. You cannot get away from it. Even when you
tried, all those years ago, you found yourself drawn back to Spectrum.”
“You know very well
that I could never go back to Spectrum,” Scarlet snapped angrily. “Your masters
made sure of that, didn’t they? When
they destroyed Cloudbase, they destroyed what made the organisation what it
was.”
“You think that
Spectrum is finished?” Piotr asked, raising a brow. “What do you make of the rumours that it
might still be alive?”
“You’re telling me the
Mysterons give credit to mere rumours from Earthmen, now?”
“Don’t you?” the
Mysteron replied, narrowing his eyes. “What about the badge Piotr Ivanovitch carried on his person and that you took from
him? Don’t you think it looks like a Spectrum insignia?”
“Hardly,” Scarlet
replied. “It’s too amateurish. It lacks colours, for starters.”
The Mysteron agent
smiled again, a smile apparently more malevolent than it had seemed until now.
“Now is not really the time for witty repartee, Earthman. I’m disappointed in
you. You’ve been searching for Spectrum forever. Will you tell me now that,
after all this time, you have no interest in this badge – what it represents…
and why Piotr Ivanovitch had it on his person? You
would not have taken it from him, if you were not curious about that. And if you didn’t believe it could be an
important clue for your search.”
“For all I know, Piotr
could have drawn that thing himself,” Scarlet answered roughly . “But I suppose you would know better than
me. After all, you have the boy’s
personality and memories. You speak
better English, though. I’ll give you
that. So why not tell me yourself what’s the deal with that badge, then,
instead of asking me meaningless and empty questions you already know the
answers of? This really is not a
productive conversation.”
“Correct,
Earthman. There is nothing productive
about this conversation.” The replicate chuckled softly. “No… I think I will
kill you without telling you.”
“You would be so
cruel?” Scarlet inquired, raising a brow.
“And how do you plan to kill me exactly?
You know it’s not that easily done.
God knows you Mysterons did try in the past...”
“You are not
invincible. I can think of a number of
ways to destroy you beyond retrometabolism.
I can shoot you in the head, and cut your body to pieces. I could burn
you to ashes… I could even do both, to
truly make sure you wouldn’t come back. Or,” he added as in an afterthought, “I
can leave your body to the wolves, who would feast on it.”
Scarlet grimaced. He made a show of not appearing too impressed
by the Mysteron’s gruesome threats. “Okay, you are
making valid points. Still, would you really kill me, without telling me what
you are obviously dying to tell me – no pun intended.” He shifted his position, and saw his foe
edgily raising his gun. He made a
calming gesture. “Tell me about the badge, at least. Piotr said it was gift. From whom?”
The Mysteron gave it
some thought, and finally nodded. “From his father,” he answered coldly. “Alekseï Ivanovitch.
Piotr was only a baby when his father left for a business trip – that was
shortly before the destruction of Futura City.
He didn’t return before many years after, and Piotr was already all
grown up. Somehow, during his trip,
Alekseï
came into possession of the badge you now have. Quite by chance. He
believed the badge came from Spectrum, and gave it to his son – so that the boy
could do what he himself had wanted to do before dying.”
“Meaning?” Scarlet asked with interest.
“Joining Spectrum.” The Mysteron chuckled evilly. “Young Piotr was as
much an idealist and a fool as his father: he wanted to fight the Mysterons… and free Earth. His intentions were to travel until he found
Spectrum, and join them. Like his father, he thought he could use the badge as
some kind of a pass. That simply by showing it to Colonel White, he would be
accepted within Spectrum’s ranks.”
Scarlet frowned, perplexed. “Colonel White?”
he repeated. “Even if he had survived the fall of Cloudbase, he surely can’t be
still alive. He would be well into his
eighties!”
“Does it really matter, if he is alive or
not?” the Mysteron replicate of Piotr Ivanovitch
replied sharply. “The spirit of Spectrum lives, and as long as Earthmen like Ivanovitch, his father,
and others such as them aspire to be of their number and carry on the
fight, Spectrum will remain a threat to the Mysterons. Like you yourself are, Captain Scarlet. You are a symbol of Spectrum, and of the hope
it stands for to your kind – as much as
this ridiculous badge Ivanovitch wore. You must be dealt with, once and for all.”
The Mysteron agent
rose to his feet, his gun still aimed at Scarlet; the latter tensed, as he followed his foe’s
movements, keeping his eyes on the finger resting on the trigger. The horse,
standing behind the Mysteron, started snorting with agitation and pulled on his
reins, trying to free himself.
“I have toyed enough
with you, and there’s nothing more you will learn from me. Whatever happened to
Spectrum, you will never find it now. You will never go back home, Captain
Scarlet.” He pulled back the hammer of his gun.
“Now… you die, Earthman.”
As soon as he saw the Mysteron’s index finger stroking the trigger, Scarlet made
his move – so fast that his foe couldn’t
react in time. When he had sat down
earlier, Scarlet had surreptitiously got hold of the knife stuck into his left
boot, under the blanket, and had kept it hidden in the palm of his hand until
the right moment to use it came along.
Just as the Mysteron agent was about to shoot, Scarlet’s arm shot out in
his direction and released the knife.
The blade drove itself
to the handle into the shoulder of the duplicate who cried out; instinctively,
his arm jerked up, his finger pulling the trigger. Scarlet leapt to the side in
an attempt to avoid the blast, and nearly made it; at about the same instant he
heard the shot, he felt the bullet tear into his side. He winced and grunted, clenching his teeth
against the pain.
Alarmed by the shot,
the already upset stallion reared up, seemingly aiming at the Mysteron agent
with his hooves. As he swirled on his
heels, Piotr Ivanovitch’s duplicate suddenly realised
with horror that he was a little too close to the animal, just as the hooves
suddenly came down on his head at full speed.
He fell to the ground, right beneath the great horse, and yelled,
raising his arms to protect himself, but not to avail. A second well-placed kick to the head
silenced him forever. The stallion, far
from calming down, now seemed enraged, and deliberately trampled the Mysteron
agent, as if to make sure he was properly
finished.
“Whoa, boy…” Scarlet was on his feet and by the horse’s
side in seconds. He caught the bridle and forced him down, before pushing him
away from the now dead body. The animal resisted, and snorted and baulked for a
moment, as his new master attempted to calm him down. His anger subsided
finally, and Scarlet, stroking the horse’s forehead, looked down in wonder at
the crushed body of the Mysteron agent.
“I guess you were able
to see that this wasn’t your former master, weren’t you?” he asked the
horse. “He’s dead now. I don’t think
he’ll come back after the number you just did on him.”
The attempt on his
life made him wonder. It had been a long time since he had
encountered a Mysteron agent face to face; one, that is, who would make him his
target. Of course, during his years of wanderings, he had crossed paths
with them, and even attempted on occasions to thwart whatever nefarious project
they were planning – sometimes with success, sometimes without. Over time, he had learned to hone his ‘sixth
sense’, to sharpen it so it
would be more reliable and would warn him more efficiently. Occasionally, he
had even been able to use it as a kind of ‘homing device’ that would lead him
wherever there was a Mysteron threat or a Mysteron presence. However, he had to be fairly close to the
menace, to even sense the beginning of ‘something’.
Why this attack now? It was true, as the duplicate had said, that
the Mysterons had little chance these days to use a recently deceased person to
go after him… But then again, if they had
truly bothered to try in recent years, they would have found other
opportunities to get him. He didn’t think that, in view of the circumstances,
they considered him a big enough threat to be bothered with him – not until he
got involved with their latest project, anyway.
This time around, it wasn’t the threat that had attracted him. They had
come after him, and his sixth sense nearly didn’t awaken him in time to escape
death. He had no doubt that the duplicate would have used one of the means he
had mentioned to make sure the Mysterons’ most resilient foe would stay dead
this time around.
Why did the Mysterons
specifically chose this moment to come after him? Were they trying to stop him
from learning whether Spectrum existed or not – and if they did, to actually
find them out and join them again? He
couldn’t be that close to discovering the whereabouts of what remained of the
organisation… of that he was sure. He never felt as far from finding it, and as
discouraged as at the moment he stood
over the dead body of young Piotr Ivanovitch.
Scarlet looked down in
frustration at the dead body lying on the ground. Probably, he was trying to
taunt him, with the dreams of the boy he had been duplicated from. Colonel White couldn’t possibly be alive, for
starters… And Piotr had even less
chance than himself of ever finding
Spectrum. If it still existed.
“You will never get
back home, he said,” he muttered, repeating the duplicate’s words.
The horse, that he was
still holding by the bridle, seemed to think he was talking to him, and nudged
his shoulder. Scarlet turned to him, and
stroke his forehead again, heaving a deep sigh. “I’m afraid this Mysteron was
right,” he said in a soft voice. “Spectrum was indeed my home, when I was a
part of it. My family. I’ll never find any of them again. So I guess it’s only
you and me now, boy…” He looked into the eye of the great stallion. “You acted
like a real Spectrum agent just there. And obviously, you hate Mysterons as
badly as I do.” A thought suddenly
imposed itself into his mind and he smiled, scratching the horse’s ear. “How
about I call you ‘Rainbow’, then?”
The stallion snorted,
as if disapproving. Scarlet chuckled
briefly. “What, you don’t like it? But it’s a beautiful name… And it would be
quite fitting for you.” He affectionately patted the horse’s neck. “You’ll see,
pal… You’ll learn to like it.”
On his second day of
trailing his quarry on the treacherous road leading to Winchester, Scarlet kept
an even greater distance than the day before, between him and his prey. He wasn’t worried that he might lose them;
his military training had made him an expert in finding trails that not many
others would be able to see, whatever uneasy to read ground he worked on. Beside, even if the tracks had not been obvious
enough, he knew exactly what their destination was, and going there, whatever
the path taken, would be relatively easy.
If they really were
who he suspected them to be, there was a good chance that sooner or later, they
would realise they were being followed – it would even disappoint him if they
never found that out. So he thought it a
good idea to keep as good a distance from they on the road as he could. That might provide him with a means to
deceive them long enough to surprise them, when they eventually discovered his
presence.
The chase lasted until
a little after noon, at which time Scarlet came to realise that they indeed
were as good as he expected them to be.
The traces he was now
following told him of horses which were carrying lighter charges. There was no indication that their riders had
dismounted, to walk by their horses’
side. Not all of them anyway. The footprints he could see on the ground
indicated that only half of them were going on foot while the other half… had
seemingly disappeared.
But he knew they could
not have disappeared like that. It was
easy to guess what had happened: the first half of the troop had continued to
travel towards their intended destination, keeping all the horses with them,
while the second half had stayed behind.
Scarlet couldn’t really be sure if they had indeed discovered his
presence, or if it was normal security procedure for them, in order to make
sure no-one was following them to their secret location.
At some point during
his journey, Scarlet must have passed them by; he estimated that it could have
been no later than five minutes ago. From hunter, he had become the hunted.
And they were now
watching him. He could feel their eyes on him as he gently guided the trotting
Rainbow down the beaten path by the destroyed A316. There were two… maybe three of them,
positioned behind the huge chunks of asphalt debris on each side of the path,
watching him pass by. He couldn’t see
them, but he knew they were there. They were most assuredly armed, and their
weapons were trailing him. If it had
been their intention of killing him, they would have done so by now. So their orders were simply to keep their
eyes on him, and see what his intentions exactly were.
He ignored their
presence and continued his way. The best
strategy at this point was to trick them in believing he didn’t even suspect
their presence.
For a few hours more,
Scarlet travelled quietly along the road, fully aware of being followed in
turn. He made a show of appearing relax
and carefree, going as far as humming a cheerful tune, while he was planning
his next move. Sooner or later, he knew
there would be a confrontation. And he
wanted to be well-prepared when that moment would come.
Slowly, a plan formed
in his mind.
It was towards the end
of the day, as the sun was slowly descending to the West when Scarlet decided
to set camp early. He was famished and a
bit cramped and tired after such a long day; he needed to eat something and get
some strength and rest, before he would be able to set his plan to motion. He had to be very careful, knowing that
watchful eyes were following his every gesture; he had to prepare everything,
and be casual about it, so not to raise any suspicion.
As he had done the
previous day, he left the road and travelled a few kilometres to find a
suitable point where he could set up camp.
This time around, he didn’t bother checking the position of the riders he was following; he was perfectly sure that a scout would be
sent ahead by his followers to inform the rest of the troop of his whereabouts.
They would eventually
come to him.
Scarlet evaluated that
it would be two or three hours before the two groups would rejoin. He had time enough to get some rest, a proper
dinner – and to organise himself. Dismounting from Rainbow, he gave the great
horse something to eat. Then, he set camp, and started a fire; he started up
his portable petrol stove to put a fresh pot of coffee on it, and then sat down
to prepare his meal.
Scarlet was very good
in his assessment. The sun had nearly
completely set and the reddish sky was turning to dark; he had nearly finished
his dinner, and was checking the
contents of his pot of coffee when he heard shuffling sounds from all around
him. He casually sat back, settling the
pot on the ground next to him, and dug
into his bowl once more.
He knew he had been
surrounded, well before she appeared.
It was Rainbow’s
snorting that first told him of the woman’s presence and gave him an indication
of where exactly she was; the horse was looking in one specific direction, ears
erect in attention. From the corner of his right eye, he saw her emerging from
the darkness and approaching him. The fire was casting eerie shadows onto the
stones she stood in front of. Scarlet
glanced at her, acknowledging her presence, without interrupting his meal.
“Come closer to the fire,” he invited in a
quiet voice. “It’s cold already, and
it’s not quite night yet; you must be frozen.”
For a moment, she
didn’t move, but he could feel her eyes on him. Then, slowly, she walked around
the fire, to stand on the other side, just in front of him. He nodded at her. “May I offer you some
coffee? I just bought it in London. It’s
not the best around, certainly not worth the price I paid, but it’s still
drinkable and I’m willing to share.”
She didn’t care to
answer. She was watching him with a blank expression on her face, her arms crossed on her breast, holding her
rifle in a casual way, with the muzzle directed towards the sky. She wasn’t
aiming it at Scarlet. Good, he thought.
I
wouldn’t want to die before having some answers first.
“You’ve been following
us,” she said finally, after a moment. It was a statement, not a question.
Scarlet raised a brow,
playing the innocent. “Was I? I admit I may have been going in the same
direction as you –”
“No. You’ve been following us. We noticed
your presence a few hours ago and we watched you. You’ve been picking up our trail.”
Scarlet casually put
his fork down into his empty bowl; she followed his gesture with her eyes. “And
here I thought I was trailing wild horses,” he said offhandedly enough.
She shook her head.
“You’re not fooling me. You seem like too good a tracker to make a mistake like
that. You’ve been trained efficiently, that’s easy to see.”
Scarlet looked back at
her. “If you are able to see that, then it must mean that your training has
been equally efficient… Captain.”
She frowned deeply.
“Who are you?”
“Doest it really
matter?”
“You’re playing a
dangerous game, mister,” the young woman said warningly. “And I don’t
particularly like games. Right at this
moment, my men are surrounding you, and they have orders to fire if you make
any kind of threatening gesture towards me. One word from me, and you will end
up riddled with bullets, before you would even have the time to move.”
Scarlet nodded
quietly. “It seems I have misjudged you.
I didn’t think you would need anyone else to defend yourself. From what I heard of you in London, you
seemed like a woman who was able to fight her own battles. I was told how you killed that policeman, a
few years back…”
“He was no policeman.”
She scoffed, shaking her head contemptuously. “And what happened that time is
none of your business. You should really
worry about yourself instead. I could
have you killed here and now, if I wanted too. Nobody would know or find your
body. And in this day and age, nobody would really care if you disappeared.”
“Oh, but you care,
don’t you?” Scarlet asked quietly. “Or
you would not be standing there merely threatening to murder me. You would have me killed already.”
“If you are not dead
already, it’s only because I want some answers from you.”
The young woman made a
casual gesture. Scarlet watched as the six young men he had seen in London
emerged from the shadows all around him, their weapons trained on him. He had no doubt they would indeed shoot him
dead, at the first order from their captain.
He put his fork and
his bowl down on the ground at his feet, taking great care to make each of his
gestures obvious. His right hand reached for the coffee pot. He saw the guns raised and heard hammers
click. The boys were obviously nervous.
Much more nervous than their leader.
“I just wanted to
offer you guys some coffee,” he reassuringly explained, raising the pot to eye
level. His finger slipped into the pin
attached to the handle, and that his visitors could not see. Just before
settling himself down for his meal, he had prepared a surprise of his own for
them. He just needed to wait for the
opportune moment to act now.
” I want to know why
you are following us,” the blonde woman said sharply. “What do you want from us?”
“From you?” Scarlet replied, raising a brow.
“I want nothing from you. What makes you believe that?”
“You’re lying,” she
accused him. “You’re not following us for nothing.”
Scarlet shook his
head. “I don’t lie, Captain – if this is how I should address you.” He eyed her
carefully. She had not moved from her
place; she was still standing in front of him, on the other side of the fire. “It’s
not you I want something from.”
She frowned at his
comment. “So. You do have a reason then.
Explain yourself now.”
Instead of answering,
Scarlet raised his coffee pot again, this time a little higher, and showed it
around. “You don’t want some, then?” As
nobody seemed inclined to answer his invitation, he tutted,
almost regretfully. “No-one? What a
shame to have to waste it… Even if it’s not that good.”
“Stop playing games,”
the blonde woman said with impatience. “We don’t want your stinking coffee.”
“Then I guess there’s
nothing left to do but to throw it away.”
With all the eyes
still fixed on him watching his every move, Scarlet threw his coffee pot into
the fire – and pulled the pin as he let
go of the handle. The hand-made flare grenade hidden inside the pot exploded
into an loud bang as the pot landed in the fire, sending flaming firebrands
flying all around, and brightening up the night with a sudden and blinding
light. Taken by surprise by the explosion, everyone either froze where they
stood or threw themselves to the safety of the ground, in order to avoid the
rain of fire, obviously expecting worse to come.
Scarlet moved swiftly.
While the flare acted
as the distraction it was meant to be, he leapt over the fire, paying little attention to the now high
flames, which served as a shield against the eyes and aim of his opponents; he
aimed straight at the young woman still standing on the other side. To her, he
certainly must appeared like a vision straight from hell, a fraction of a
second before he roughly landed on her and threw her to the ground. She had no time to raise her rifle, but her
finger instinctively squeezed the trigger once; the bullet flew wide, and
ricocheted against nearby rocks.
Standing over his fallen opponent, Scarlet kicked the
weapon aside, and pinned her hand to the ground under his foot in the same
movement, squashing her fingers. The captain yelled in pain and made an attempt
to raise… and stopped instantly.
Scarlet, now bending over her, was holding the edge of a very sharp
knife close against her throat.
“Nobody moves!”
Scarlet barked. The effect of his flare bomb was dying out, and so were the
flames behind him; the young men, seeing their leader in danger, were moving
forward. He put the knife firmer against
her throat, while he knelt down over her; he was keeping her right hand
imprisoned under his left foot while his right knee pressed solidly and
painfully against her shoulder, pushing her down completely to the ground.
“Take another step, and your dear captain dies!”
“Let her go or we’ll
shoot!” Jones shot back in alarm.
“You shoot and my hand
will slip,” Scarlet replied coldly. “I
don’t care if I die, but I certainly won’t be the only one to go. I’ll take her with me.”
The boys didn’t dare
to move;, they watched in dread of what this stranger threatening their leader
would do next. Scarlet glared at them, in such a way that they had no doubt he
would not hesitate to execute his ultimatum if they were to move.
“Drop your weapons,”
he ordered. “All of them.”
They exchanged
glances, unsure what do to. “If we throw
our weapons, what will stop you from killing her anyway?” Watson asked. “And
then all of us?”
“Don’t be dense, boy,”
Scarlet replied harshly. “With or without weapons, you’d have the
advantage: you’re six against me. I know I’m good, but I wouldn’t be able to
take you all out with only this knife.
Consider this: if I kill your
captain after you drop your weapons, I wouldn’t have any shield left to protect
myself from you.”
“Captain?” Jones asked
then. “What should we do?”
Scarlet looked down at
the young woman pinned underneath him; she was glaring hatefully at him, her
teeth clenched. No doubt, she didn’t
appreciate finding herself so powerless.
She probably wasn’t used to it. “I won’t kill you if they obey my
orders,” he promised her. “You have my word.”
“What is it your word
worth?” she spat at him. He didn’t
answer, and she grunted. It wasn’t as if
she had any choice. “Do as he says,” she ordered.
“Wise decision,
Captain.”
Scarlet watched as the
boys threw all of their weapons next to the fire, in clear view. “Don’t leave
out anything,” he said. “I said I wanted
all of your weapons. Guns, knifes…
everything you have. At the first
attempt to trick me, I’ll slit her throat. I’m not kidding. ”
Watson was throwing
his pistol with the other weapons; glaring at Scarlet, he removed the knife
from his belt, and dropped it as well. “What do you plan to do now?” he asked.
“I want you all to go away,” Scarlet answered. “Take your horses and ride back to your
camp.” He looked down at the blonde
woman. “The captain will stay with me.”
“We’re not leaving
without her, man,” Jones protested. “The colonel will not like –”
“Shut up, Jones!” the
captain shouted, interrupting him.
Scarlet smiled
slightly. Now that was interesting to know.
Even if that sounded a little odd.
“The ‘colonel’ will
not like it, uh? Well, that’s tough, then… I don’t care much that
your colonel will like it or not: you are staying with me, Captain.”
“What guarantee do we
have that you won’t kill her as soon as we’ll leave?” Watson asked
suspiciously.
“You have no
guarantee… only my word that I won’t do it. Unless…” Scarlet looked down at the
young woman. “Unless you attempt to
escape, Captain. And in that case, every bet is off. So if you know what’s good
for you, you won’t try anything. Because
you know I will kill you, right?”
She glared at him,
with an icy stare. “I can see in your eyes that you won’t hesitate one second,
you creep,” she said between her teeth.
“Then we understand
each other perfectly. Tell them to go.”
She raised her voice:
“You heard him: go back to camp. That’s an order.”
“That’s a good girl,”
Scarlet said quietly. He turned to
address the six young men who were starting to leave, reluctantly. “Go directly
to camp,” he advised them. “Don’t try to come back and attempt to free
her. Or you will have to explain to your
colonel how you foolishly got her killed in the process.”
“What will you do with
her?” Jones asked. It was obvious he was concerned for the young woman’s
safety.
“If you do as I say,
you’ll see her soon,” Scarlet answered.
“Give this message to your colonel:
I will be coming, and I’ll bring her back with me, safe and sound.”
“You’ll follow us to
camp?” Watson said in surprise.
“I’ll get there
eventually,” Scarlet replied calmly, looking down at the captain.
For a moment, the six
young men remained silent; the stranger seemed so sure of himself, and indeed,
had the upper hand at the moment. They
exchanged wary glances, obviously wondering if they were facing a man who was
totally crazy, or if there wasn’t something they’d missed about him.
As they seemed rooted into place, unwilling to comply to his orders,
Scarlet glared at them.
“Come on, go now! I want to hear the hoof beats of your horses
leaving in five minutes! Get a move on!”
They left quickly,
disappearing into the shadows. By this
point, night had nearly fallen completely, and Scarlet soon lost sight of
them. He returned his attention to the
young woman he was still holding prisoner. The knife had came closer to her
neck during the confrontation, causing a slight cut against her skin. She
wasn’t moving, but kept glaring up at him with murder and hate in her blue
eyes.
Scarlet waited, keeping
her pinned to the ground. Soon he heard
the sounds of departing horses. With the young woman, he listened to the sound
of the hoof beats decreasing in the distance, until it faded. He was sure now that the boys would follow
his orders.
“I’ll kill you at the first opportunity, you
swine…” his captive promised, her jaws clenched in anger.
“You’re welcome to
try,” Scarlet replied quietly.
He removed his blade,
freed her hand from under his foot and removed some of his weight from her; she
started to rise on one elbow ––to receive a vicious punch that caught her
straight on the chin.
She dropped back to
the ground, unconscious.
“Sorry,” Scarlet said,
genuinely contrite, as he knelt astride her and gathered her hands onto her
belly. “But I think you’re too
dangerous, and it wouldn’t be wise for me not to take some necessary
precautions with you.” He took the
already prepared length of rope from his pocket, and started tying her hands
with it; he heard neighing, and looked up in direction of Rainbow, who was
staring at him in interest. The horse snorted and shook his head, as if to show
his disapproval.
“Yes, I know,” Scarlet
admitted with a sigh. “This is not very
gentlemanly… But would you rather see her slit my throat during my sleep and
finding her riding on your back instead of me in the morning?” Rainbow neighed
again, and Scarlet frowned. “I know, I know… I’ve put on some weight lately and
she would be a lot lighter than I am, but –”
Rainbow answered with a last snort shaking his head wildly. Scarlet
rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up… You don’t have to answer that, you know.”
2078,
Arizona, U.S.A.
Crumpled on the cold
floor of his cell, Scarlet was
desperately trying to keep the persistent hands from prying from his closed fists the precious object he
so wanted to keep for himself. His
fingers were covered with blood, broken from the multiple blows from his
tormentors’ clubs, in their merciless
attempts to take from him this forbidden possession. It was the only comfort he
had been able to keep with him since his arrival in this hellhole, the only
thing that had made his life here somewhat tolerable.
“Come on, Scarlet,
give it to us!” a voice told him insistently. “Let go of it, you bastard, or
you’re really going to regret it! We’ll break every bone in your miserable body
if we have to.”
Scarlet didn’t reply
to the threat, and clenched his teeth, bracing himself. The four military
guards kept at him relentlessly. He
couldn’t get up, so he curled on the floor in an attempt to protect himself
against the many blows and kicks coming from all sides. His head was reeling
and he could barely see straight. A
bludgeon hit him on the right arm with such strength that he heard it crack ominously,
and a new wave of pain raced through his entire body. He smothered a cry, determined not to show
them his agony and not give in to their demands; they wouldn’t take from him
this last treasure he had kept this long from them.
They could kill him if
they want, he didn’t care.
“Come on! Is this thing so worth dying for?” the same
voice called to him.
Scarlet closed his
eyes, wanting to shout ‘yes’ at the top of his lungs. The bludgeon caught him
on the cheek and he grunted; he nearly lost consciousness under the blow.
“What is going on,
here?”
The blows ceased
instantly at the sound of this new voice, which rang imperiously around the
cell. Breathing hard, Scarlet stayed curled up on the floor, trying to pull
himself together. The four guards who had been hammering him so brutally stepped
away. His whole body throbbing in pain, he permitted himself a cautious glance
over his shoulder, from the only eye that consented to open. His vision was blurred, but he recognised the
uniformed man currently standing in the doorway of his cell, facing his guards
with a livid expression.
“What do you think you
are doing to this man?” Commander Ward snapped. He appeared outraged to find
them beating a prisoner that way, and quite frankly, his intervention came as
much as a surprise to Scarlet as to the four guards. He had suffered far worse than this beating
in this prison and he highly suspected it was under this very man’s specific
orders.
“Sir,” one of the
guards answered, in a very official voice, “the prisoner was hiding something
in his cell. A personal belonging. As it
is strictly forbidden by the prison rules, we were attempting to confiscate the
said object.”
“And beating him half
to death is your way of taking it away from him?”
“He refused to comply
and resisted. We thought –”
“You thought?!” Ward
suddenly bellowed into the man’s face. “You’re not here to think, Sergeant
Larsen, but to follow orders! And I
don’t recall giving any orders
permitting you to beat up any prisoner the way you just did!”
Larsen straightened up
under the remonstrance and his companions instinctively did the same. For a
moment, Ward glared at them, seemingly barely able to contain his righteous
anger.
Behind the wall formed
by the four guards standing to attention, Scarlet looked up in confusion,
wondering what Ward could possibly want from him right now. His good eye met
with Ward’s for a brief instant, before
the S.H.E.F. commander looked away to address the guards once more:
“Help him up, and put
him on his bed.”
Larsen murmured his
acknowledgement; he motioned to two of his companions, and both turned to
Scarlet. They took him by the arms and
lifted his limp body…
Scarlet suddenly came
to life, and hit them with all the strength he could muster; the first one let
go and backed away when the former Spectrum officer hit him on the nose; the
other guard doubled over when he was struck in the groin. Scarlet leapt forward with an angry growl,
straight at Ward, his hands reaching out for him. This was the man responsible
for all his latest grief; the man who had caused for him to be arrested and
held in this hellish place. It had been a long time since he had found himself
in his presence – and it was the first time he wasn’t actually restrained in
such circumstances.
He would be damned if
he wouldn’t take his chance to get his rightful revenge on this bastard now.
The SHEF commander
froze onto place when a steel grip seized the front of his uniform. Larsen did not wait; he
bludgeoned Scarlet over the head, making him stumble. Scarlet’s hands were
still clutching Ward’s uniform.and the last guard
struck at his already damaged hands, finally forcing him to let go. Ward finally stepped back, and watched as the
prisoner fell at his feet.
Immediately, Larsen
and his companions started hitting him, in a similar way as they had been doing
when Ward had entered the cell.
“NO!” Ward shouted.
The four guards froze,
standing over the fallen captain, ready to strike, they turned confused looks
towards Ward. He gestured in direction
of the still open door:
“Get out of here, all
of you! Leave me alone with the prisoner.”
Larsen tried to
protest, “Sir, this man is dangerous. He
just tried to –”
“I know what he tried
to do!” Ward replied sharply. “But you made damn sure he wouldn’t attack me
again, didn’t you? I told you to get out, and I mean right now!”
None of the men dared
to protest again. However, Larsen shot a
brief, malevolent glance in direction of the prisoner. Scarlet was crawling towards the nearest
wall, in an attempt to put some distance between him and his tormentors.
“Larsen, this is an
order. You get out with your little
friends, or I’ll put you on report,” Ward snapped.
The guard nodded
silently, and followed his companions out of the cell. Ward closed the door on
them. The lock being pulled echoed through the small room before silence
finally fell.
Scarlet braced himself
against the wall, and painfully pulled his tortured body into a seated
position. He put his aching back against the wall and closed his eyes,
letting out a deep breath – which forced
a moan of pain from his gritting teeth. After a few seconds he opened his good
eye. Now alone in the cell with him, Ward turned his attention on Scarlet, and
observed him intently.
“I would suggest you
do not try again to attack me, Scarlet,” Ward warned him. “I just want to talk
to you – in private. I wouldn’t like to
call your guards again to restrain you.
And this time around, I might not be able to stop them. So – before you decide to try and wring my
neck again, I think it would be in your best interest to hear me out.”
Scarlet answered
silently with the briefest of nods.
Slowly, Ward walked the short distance separating him from
the empty bunk; it was set against the wall opposite the prisoner, who was
still sitting on the floor, looking warily at him.
Ward sat down, and
rested his hands on his knees, his fingers intertwined. “You might not believe
it, but I’m sorry this happened, Captain Scarlet.”
“Sure I don’t believe
you, General Ward…” Scarlet’s voice caught in his throat. He coughed and spat some blood, before wiping
his mouth. He had trouble breathing; he
figured Larsen and his friends had broken a couple of his ribs. “I mean,
Commander…” he corrected himself. “Sorry, I can’t see clearly, right now… Can’t
quite see how many stars on your epaulettes…”
“You look in pain,”
Ward observed. “Do you need a doctor?”
Scarlet shook his
head. “You should know I’ll be right as rain in a few hours. So why worry, all
of a sudden?”
Ward leaned closer to
him; before Scarlet could even think of stopping him, he took from his ruined
fingers the object the guards had been trying to take from him. Even during his
attempt to reach for Ward, he had not let go of it. Now he wasn’t even able to hold onto it.
It was a simple
photography, now stained with blood. For
a short moment, Ward intently looked at it, before showing it to Scarlet.
“Who is it?” he asked
quietly.
Scarlet looked at the
beautiful and smiling red-head on the picture. “My wife,” he answered, trying to sound
dispassionate.
“You’re married?” Ward
seemed surprised.
“I was… I’m not anymore. She’s –”
Scarlet leaned his throbbing head against the wall behind him. At the
moment, it was hard to think; harder still, when it came to reminisce about sad
and painful memories. He swallowed hard. “The nuclear attack the Mysterons
launched on London, in 2073,” he explained. “She died there, with so many
others. Her body was never recovered.”
Ward shook his head.
“I’m truly sorry to hear that, Captain.”
“Are you, really?”
Scarlet replied sharply. “What do you want from me this time, Commander? It’s been a while since you personally came
to visit me.”
Without answering,
Ward handed him the picture. Scarlet struggled to take it between his wrecked
fingers, but nevertheless managed to hold on to it.
“She was very pretty,”
Ward continued. “Did she know about
your… condition?”
“She was a Spectrum
Angel pilot. Of course, she knew.”
Ward nodded. “She must
have loved you very much. And you must
have loved her the same way, if you were willing to take such a harsh beating
just to keep this picture of her with you.”
“This is all I have
left of her,” Scarlet murmured. “You don’t know what she meant to me.”
“ I thought they took all of your personal belongings
when you were incarcerated here. How did
you hide this, on your arrival? And keep it for so long since then, without
anyone realising you had it before today?”
“Wouldn’t you like to
know,” Scarlet answered with a slurred voice. His swollen lips gave his
mysterious smile a crooked, almost disturbing look.
“Where are your
shoes?” Ward asked, noticing that Scarlet was barefoot.
“I don’t have
any. I’m not allowed to keep shoes.”
Ward frowned.
“Why? Did they think you would hang
yourself with your laces?”
Scarlet chuckled
briefly. “They would only have removed the laces then, wouldn’t they?” he
replied sarcastically. “ Not that it would have made any difference, since I
would not have been able to kill myself with them anyway. No, I’m too dangerous
a man to be allowed shoes.” Scarlet paused for drama. “I could use them as a
weapon to hurt or even kill someone. Ask
Sergeant Larsen. He’s got a broken nose
to prove it.”
“I’m sure that
despicable man deserved it,” Ward muttered.
“Is that why he seems to hate you so much?”
“Why so much
solicitude all of a sudden, Commander?” Scarlet asked,
scrutinizing Ward with his good eye.
“You’ll pardon me if I sound like such an ingrate, but I can’t help
feeling suspicious. I’m not accustomed to such civility on your part. Or don’t
you remember how our previous meeting went?”
Ward looked away, and
Scarlet, noticing his unusual awkwardness, leaned towards him. The movement alone sent a wave of pain
throughout his tormented body and he winced, trying to keep the pain out of his
voice when he spoke again:
“I’ll remind you, that
it’s you, who had me thrown into
this military prison, months ago. Kept
me in solitary confinement, alone in this cell… You had me questioned and
drugged so that I would admit my association with the Mysteron,. because you were
so sure I was their spy, or some kind of fifth columnist that they could use
for their own means.”
“We didn’t expect your
retrometabolism to offer such an effective resistance to drugs –” Ward started.
“You damn hypocrite,
Ward!” Scarlet interrupted him bitterly. “You wanted so much to know what I knew of the Mysterons’ plans, that you shut
your eyes on whatever was done to me, if it meant finding out exactly what I
might be hiding. You know damn well your ‘interrogators’ used any means they
considered necessary in attempting to drag either information or a confession
from me! And drugging me wasn’t the only thing they did. Nor was
it the least illegal of their methods!”
“And you held on,”
Ward commented quietly. “You never gave
up.”
“That was bloody easy
– I had nothing to tell you!”
Ward sighed heavily.
“I’m sorry, Captain… But you must
understand, I really felt I needed to
learn the truth about you.”
“And you think that alone justified the use of methods
that can only be described as torture?” Scarlet snapped at him in disgust. “You
were there, you assisted to some of
these sessions yourself, Ward, and you didn’t bat an eyelid! I suspect you even
took some pleasure it them!”
“That’s not true, I –
I was only doing my duty.”
“Don’t hand me that,
you bastard. It doesn’t work with
me! And now… you’re showing concern and
sympathy for me? What is your angle, now?”
““Metcalfe –”
“Don’t call me
that!” Scarlet shot back heatedly. “Your
torturers made it very clear that Paul Metcalfe has been dead for a long time
and that I have no right to that
name! I had figured this out myself before you got me arrested, anyway. But that doesn’t change the fact: I am not a Mysteron agent, and I know
nothing of the Mysterons’ plans! How many times do I have to tell you that?
Given the chance, I’d fight them ‘til the bitter end. I hate them, and despise
them, for what they have done to my life, for the loved ones they took from me
– as much as I despise you, you miserable bastard!”
Ward pursed his lips
and kept silence; he averted his eyes, seeming unwilling to look at
Scarlet. Slowly, he got to his feet and
took a few steps towards the far wall of the cell, turning his back on the
prisoner who followed him with his stare. The WAAF commander contemplated the
empty wall, lost in his thoughts.
For a brief moment,
Scarlet considered the thought of attacking him again, but something stopped
him.
“We are losing this
war, Captain,” the SHEF commander finally said. He turned to face Scarlet
again. He had the look of a desperate
man. “And we are losing it badly.”
Scarlet gazed back at
him for a second or two, before averting his eyes. “What do you expect me to do about it?” he muttered
bitterly. He waved around. “I’m merely a guest in this magnificent palace of
yours.”
“That could easily
change.”
At Ward’s words, Scarlet turned to face him
again; this was an unexpected statement, to say the least. He managed not to show any of his surprise
and hid it behind a hard façade. “How long have I been here?” he asked abruptly.
“A little less than
two years,” Ward admitted, somehow reluctantly.
“Two years?” This time, Scarlet was unable to hide his
shock. He had not realised it had been
so long. With the constant sessions of interrogation he had been submitted to,
sometimes for hours, or perhaps days on end, and the frequent periods of
unconsciousness caused by either the many drugs used on him, or the severity of
his the treatment he had endured, he had lost sense of the time. He had no way to efficiently count it. He just knew he had been kept here a very long time; weeks, months… he was
unable to tell. Now, to find that he had
been a prisoner so long, he could barely believe it.
But Ward had no reason
to lie – to hide the truth from him. And
Scarlet’s anger and loathing for this man grew even beyond what he had ever
felt for anyone in his life. With the
exception of the Mysterons, perhaps.
However, he had to
ignore the revulsion he felt for him, because something Ward had just said was
simply too important to be dismissed.
“You’ve kept me here for two years, because
you couldn’t trust me as far as you could throw me. And now, after all this time, you tell me
that it’s possible I could go free?”
“Yes,” Ward answered
briefly.
“Why?” Scarlet asked
guardedly. “What changed your mind? Don’t you see me as a Mysteron spy
anymore?”
Ward gave a deep sigh.
“I see you as the dedicated soldier you once were,” he said. “And I want you to
become that soldier again.”
Scarlet wasn’t sure he
had heard correctly. He narrowed his
eyes, staring at Ward. “Would you mind repeating that?”
“You heard me well the
first time, Captain.”
Scarlet scoffed. “So that’s what you want in exchange of my
freedom, Commander? You’re offering me a job in the W.A.A.F? Or within S.H.E.F.
itself? Well, think again! After what you have done to me, there’s no way in
hell I would agree to work under your orders, Ward!”
“Oh, come on now,
Captain. You’d be no good in S.H.E.F.
and you know it.” Ward came closer and looked down at Scarlet with a set
expression. I’m giving you back your old job at Spectrum.”
Scarlet blinked. He truly couldn’t believe what he was
hearing. “What trick is this?” he
muttered.
“No tricks, Scarlet.
This is a genuine offer.” Ward crouched in front of him. “I want you back with
Spectrum, so you can do again the good
work you once did there, against the Mysterons.”
“That’s it, then?”
Scarlet replied, still guardedly. “No questions asked, forget about these past
two years of incarceration, torture and suffering… Oh no, Commander, it won’t be so easy. I want to know why you’ve changed your mind
about me, so drastically – what could have happened that, in your eyes, could
turn me from a hated spy to a notable hero.”
Ward took a deep
breath; he lowered his head, in another attempt to avoid Scarlet’s probing and
angry eyes. “I have learned a few truths
about you,” he said. “For example, why
you decided to resign for Spectrum. You…
were very close to Adam Svenson and what happened to him –”
“… Isn’t of any
concern to yours,” Scarlet cut in suddenly.
Even after two years, he wasn’t prepared to hear about it – let alone
talk about it. “This certainly doesn’t account for your change of heart.”
“On the contrary,
Captain,” Ward replied. “ The choice you had to make then is a clear indication
that you are as dedicated to the cause as anyone could ever be.”
“You think I liked
doing what I did then?” Scarlet snapped at him with anger. “You think I liked
being forced to kill my best friend?”
“No.” Ward shook his
head. “No, it must have been very difficult for you. And when it happened, I misread what such a
gesture on your part truly meant: I
could only see a strategy from the Mysterons to weaken the forces of Spectrum
and get rid of a most resilient foe at the same time. And that’s how I presented it to the World
President, when I demanded your arrest.
I see today that it was me and
not you who played the Mysterons’ hand: Indeed, it was I who got rid of their
most resilient foe, when I had you put here.”
“Did you, now?”
Scarlet dryly stated.
“I told you, Captain:
Earth is fighting a war that it is losing. Things have considerably worsened
since you came here. During all these
months, the Mysterons have carried on with their attacks. Our food stocks and fuel supplies are
dangerously low, and we’ve found out that radioactive fallouts have poisoned
many of our water resources. Many of our cities are on the brink of disaster
and those which have already endured much, like London or New York, have not
been spared in all this. They continue
to be the targets of repeated attacks, as if the Mysterons were trying to make
a point that they will not be finished with them until there isn’t a single
building left. We lost contact with
the Moon last month, and the last we heard of them at the
time was that half of our colonies have either been destroyed or
abandoned. With the mining at the North
Pole stopped by the Mysterons, space flight is about to be cancelled, so we
won’t even have the resources to go up there and help them, and they will be
left to fend for themselves. We don’t
expect for them to last very long – if they are still alive.” He sat down directly on the floor, in front
of Scarlet and this time, looked the younger man in the eyes. “Our defences are
being taken one by one: Atlantica is gone. It
was destroyed six months ago, from the inside, much like the Frost Line Defence
was, four years ago. And I don’t give Base Concord much of a chance of surviving much longer: the last
Mysteron assault against it has left it pretty much crippled. If we don’t find an edge fast, it will soon
be too late for all of us. We need all
of our good men, all of the assets we have to at least have any hope of
surviving, and God willing, even winning.
I am convinced now that you are one of these assets, Captain Scarlet. I
would have realised this sooner if only…” Ward faltered. He lowered his head again. “… If only I had
not been just too damn blinded with hate for the Mysterons and what I believed
came from them.”
“Like me.” Scarlet
commented in an even voice.
Ward nodded. “I hated
you – because the Mysterons were responsible for the destruction of the Frost
Line Defence.”
“Your old command,”
Scarlet stated.
“More than that,
Captain.” Ward shook his head and took another deep, shaky breath. “You didn’t
know it, but my son… was amongst the staff of Red Deer, during that second
attack of the Mysterons against the Frost Line.
He died there, like all the others at the base.” He swallowed hard at
this very painful memory. “It was just a stroke of fate that I wasn’t present
when our H.Q. was struck down,” he continued. “Or I would have died as well.
Maybe it would have been better, all things considered. I would have been with my men.”
“You’re not the only
one to have lost someone dear to the Mysterons,” Scarlet reminded him sullenly.
He looked down at the picture he was still holding in his swollen, but now
healing hand. “Or to suffer from survivor’s guilt. I’ve lived with that often. And some times
have been worse than others.”
“Your friend,”
commented Ward. He pointed to the
picture. “And your wife as well.”
“And our child,”
Scarlet added. “She was pregnant at the time of her death. In fact – she was in London because she would
have given birth in a few months.”
Ward nodded again,
this time very slowly. “So now I know you lost as much as I did to the
Mysterons,” he said. “Perhaps even more, considering that they also took your…
Humanity.”
“You don’t have to
spell it out for me, Commander,” Scarlet replied dryly.
“I don’t hold any ill
will towards you anymore, Captain,” Ward assured him. “I told you I recently
learned a few truths about you. I also
learned that you had been closely involved with the operation to stop the first
Mysteron attack on Frost Line… and that, in effect, you saved many lives that
time.”
“I wasn’t alone. It
was a team effort, Commander. And
unfortunately, we were unable to save every one of your men. Two of your bases
suffered from the attacks, and many died.”
“Don’t be modest,
Captain. I know what you did and that it
was mainly through your efforts that many other men owed their lives to you.
And that includes me.” Ward gazed around the cell, thoughtfully. “And this is
how I repaid you.” He looked back at Scarlet. “I checked your service records
more thoroughly. Something I should have
done before requesting your arrest. But
my judgment was so tainted with hatred that I couldn’t see past the fact that
you had been a Mysteron agent, and couldn’t take into account the many good
things you did after you broke free from
their control. You fought them all the
way… and never once faltered.”
“I faltered once,”
Scarlet said in a low voice, averting his eyes, a look of disgust on his face.
“And you took advantage of that moment to get me here.”
“President Roberts
wants you out,” Ward said.
Scarlet shivered. “Now
he remembers me?” he muttered dryly. “If I’m not mistaken, he was the one who
signed my arrest in the first place.”
“He didn’t know it was
you specifically,” Ward confessed, causing Scarlet to snap his head in his
direction. “I conveniently left out your name when I asked him to sign that
warrant that sealed your fate. He only knew that his predecessor had consented
to a Mysteron replicate working as a Spectrum officer and obviously, himself
wasn’t too keen on the idea. Which is
why he agreed to my request to arrest you, and accepted that it would be kept
it secret from Spectrum.” Ward paused. “I revealed your identity to him two
days ago. He was livid. He remembered
how you had put your life on the line to save his, that first time the
Mysterons came after him, ten years ago.”
“So… is that really what you’re saying, then? I’m
free to go?” Scarlet asked, scarcely believing it.
Ward shook his head.
“Not quite just yet. I must ask you to
be a little more patient. The World
Government will be holding a special summit two days from now. All of Earth’s security forces will be
participating, and we should decided what will be our next strategies in regard
of the Mysterons’ War of Nerves. I told
you we needed an edge, and we’re working on getting it right now. But we can only do it if all of us are
working together. The Director General
of the Asian Republic and the new European Triumvirate will be attending as
well. Colonel White will be there too.”
“Colonel White?”
Scarlet repeated. “Do you mean Charles Grey?”
He saw little point in keeping that name a secret. As S.H.E.F.
commander, Ward would know of the real identity of Colonel White anyway. “Is he
still Colonel White?”
Ward nodded. “Yes,” he
confirmed. “After the incident that happened the first time he retired, he
decided to return to duty. He reportedly said he wouldn’t retire until you are found. I think he sees you as the only worthy
successor to lead Spectrum and to effectively continue the fight against the
Mysterons.”
“I’m not sure I’m fit
to replace him,” Scarlet said hesitantly. “I’m not sure anyone is.”
“That’ll be a question
to settle between the two of you. He and
I will meet the World President in private before the summit. Roberts has agreed to sign your release
papers and hand them to your commander.
You’ll be free to go then.”
“Does Colonel White
know where I am? What happened to me?”
“Not as yet, but he’ll
know everything when we meet the World President. I expect White will demand my
head. And he will surely have it.
Roberts is already angry enough with me as it is, it won’t take much for him to
decide to ask for my resignation.”
Scarlet glared at him
and said nothing; he found it difficult, if not impossible, to sympathise with
Ward in any way. Not after all he had
suffered, since this man had instigated his arrest.
“Three days, Captain
Scarlet,” Ward promised, “and you will be walking from this prison as a free
man. In the meantime, I’ll make
arrangements so you’ll be more comfortable… and see that Larsen and everyone else will leave you alone.”
“And you will be out of my life as well?”
Scarlet said between his teeth.
“Out of your life once
and for all. Whether the World
President asks for my resignation as S.H.E.F. commander or not, I fully intend
to go anyway. I won’t pose a threat to
you anymore. I’ll destroy all papers which concern you, and so no-one will ever
learn the truth about your condition.”
“You’re really going
out on a limb to get me off the hook, aren’t you?” Scarlet commented. “Roberts
set you up to this?”
“Even if he had not, I
would have done all this anyway. I know
I will never entirely repay my debt in your eyes… But this is the least I can do for you. Just
promise me you will continue the good fight… to the best of your capacity.”
Scarlet didn’t feel
like he would be able to promise anything to a man who had caused him so much
grief, however pleadingly he asked. He
grunted, and shifted his position against the wall. His hands were less numb, and the pain in his
back subsided. His vision was much
clearer now.
“Just keep your word,
Ward,” he said dispassionately, “and I’ll see what I can do from my end.”
Ward nodded,
apparently content with that answer. He
got up, and slowly walked towards the door. He
knocked on it to call the guards, and then stood there, his back turned
on Scarlet, waiting.
When the guards came
to pull the lock and opened the door to let him out, Ward turned one last time
towards the silent prisoner who didn’t seem inclined to look at him. “For what
it’s worth, Scarlet – I’m very sorry for what happened, and all the wrong I
caused you.”
Scarlet didn’t answer,
didn’t even raise his head when Ward finally walked out and the door closed,
with its lock echoing loudly into the lonely cell.
“Yeah,” Scarlet
murmured for himself, staring longingly into the picture he still held in the
palm of his hand. “Me too…”
The subsequent wait
was excruciating. The three days
promised passed by and were gone. At
least, Scarlet, reflected, his jailers were leaving him alone since Ward’s
visit. That suggested to him that the S.H.E.F. commander had at least kept his
word by making sure he wouldn’t be tormented anymore by Larsen and his
goons. As it was, the door to his cell
remained closed, and Scarlet wasn’t visted at all
after Ward came, except for the silent guard assigned to hand him his food
through the flap of his door.
He didn’t know exactly
what time it was, but he figured it had been about two weeks after Ward’s
visit, when he heard the lock of his door finally being pulled. He was dozing
on his hard bunk and as soon as the sound reached his ears, he raised himself
into a seated position, fully awake.
He watched as Sergeant
Larsen, and one of his men entered the cell; beyond the door, he could see two
other men standing guard in the corridor, clubs in hands. As Larsen came to
stand by the bed, Scarlet slowly pulled himself from under his blanket and put
his bare feet on the cold floor, carefully keeping an eye on his visitors.
“Glad to see you’re
awake, Scarlet,” Larsen told him with a dull voice. He had in his hands a pair of old working
boots that he casually threw at the prisoner’s feet. “Put these on, and be fast
about it. And don’t do anything funny.”
Scarlet reached for
one boot. “So I’m going then?” he asked. He was trying to keep both the relief
and the excitement from his voice.
Finally, after all this time, he would be leaving this dreadful place
and be a free man again. He didn’t know
as yet how it would feel to resume his life as a Spectrum officer, but if
Colonel White would have him, and if and when, he was considered fit for duty,
he was quite ready and willing to continue his fight against the Mysterons.
Larsen raised a brow
at his question. His expression remained
unreadable, but his voice was callous enough when he replied: “We’re moving you
to better quarters. Seems the warden thinks this cell is not secure enough for
you anymore. We’re sending you down.”
Scarlet froze, the
boot he was about to put on still in his hand. He raised his eyes to Larsen,
frowning. “Sending me down?”
“Underground, to a
level five security cell.”
Scarlet looked at him
in shock; after having seen his hope rekindled only a few days before, now it
was cruelly squashed down again. Freedom
was slipping from his fingers. He stood
up, protesting: “Wait a sec… Commander Ward told me I was going to be
released. He promised –”
“You mean, when he
came, a week ago?” Larsen interrupted him. A crooked smile appeared on his
lips. “You got that on paper?”
Scarlet’s heart sank.
“Well, no… He said… I would be reinstated within Spectrum…”
“Spectrum?” Larsen scoffed
loudly. Scarlet could hear the obvious
loathing in his voice when he said that single
word. “Well, it wouldn’t matter if you had a paper or not, mate, because
it wouldn’t be worth shit today. Or
haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?” Scarlet
asked with a frown. He was starting to be seriously worried.
“Oh, that’s right you
don’t have access to the outside world.
So you couldn’t possibly know what had happened out there. Well, it’ll be my pleasure to tell you all
about it, then…”
Larsen’s expression
became hard. As if on cue, the two men
left outside entered the cell to stand in line with their companions, clubs at
the ready, looking at Scarlet with a bleak expression and a mean flash in their
eyes. Scarlet watched them guardedly, now certain that they meant to do him
some damage.
For whatever reason
exactly, he had no idea; but he was
about to find that out.
“Commander Ward is
dead,” Larsen then told him in an even voice.
That announcement
chilled Scarlet’s blood into his veins.
He paled and started unbelievingly at Larsen. “Dead?” he repeated.
“They’re all dead,” Larsen said bitterly. “The World
President, his entire cabinet, the whole of S.H.E.F. senior staff, the heads of
the W.A.A.F… All of the population of
Futura. All of them – they are gone.”
It was as if Scarlet’s
mind suddenly went blank; he wasn’t quite sure if he was understanding the full
meaning and implication of what Larsen was telling him. It seemed too big, too
unbelievable. Surely, the man was lying
– trying to torturing him with lies. But
by the expression on his face, it didn’t seem to be the case. He had rarely seen the man’s eyes display
such hate before.
“What?” Scarlet murmured, refusing to believe
what he was hearing. “What is this
nonsense? How –?”
“That’s the truth,
Scarlet,” Larsen snapped, this time making no effort to hide his anger and
antagonism from his voice. “It’s been all over the news for days! Spectrum’s Cloudbase crashed into Slaton
Base. There were nuclear warheads stored there, which were to be used for a
projected attack against Mars. The crash
triggered them to explode – You
couldn’t start to believe the devastation it caused! It was an explosion such
as nobody had ever seen before. It destroyed the base, Futura City, the whole
island – All of it was gone in mere minutes!”
Scarlet felt his knees
buckling underneath him; the terrible
news was too overwhelming. He
found the need to sit down. His head suddenly felt so very light and his heart started beating faster; what was
left of his last meal threatened to come up and out. It was London again. New York City
again… Paris… All of those deaths… all of those innocent lives gone, lost
forever… And even if he had been free,
he would have been unable to do anything about it. Nobody could have done
anything to avert a tragedy of this magnitude.
‘We are looking for an
edge’, Ward had told him. Of course… the
nuclear warheads stored in Slaton Airbase, ready to be launched against
Mars. Against the Mysterons. They had learn of this. And they had launched their attack against
the Earthmen using the same weapons they were planning to use on them.
That was so sickly
ironic. So utterly… Mysteron.
The dreadful
aliens had won yet another battle… And
this time they had done the worst damage possible.
They were to be all
there in Futura. So many of their
original targets, all at once: Futura
City; the World President, who just happened to be President Roberts; the
Director General of the Asian Republic and the European Triumvirate; the
S.H.E.F. Supreme commander and his staff, amongst which were the high command
of the W.A.A.F. Air Force Division…
Cloudbase and Colonel
White…
All of them… gone.
Through the blood
beating loudly in his ears, Scarlet could also hear the echo of a voice,
seemingly coming from far away. It was
Larsen’s, filled with loathing, as he continued to recount the horror of what
happened:
“As if it wasn’t
enough, the explosion caused an underwater earthquake… and then, an enormous
tsunami. It destroyed everything in its
wake. The Bermudas and all the surrounding islands in the Atlantic – they took
the brunt of it. About just two hours
after that, New York was hit. Again. The
whole East Coast was devastated. They say the waves were nearly a hundred feet
high and that it went more then two to three miles inland. We’ll be picking up the pieces and finding
dead people for months to come.”
Scarlet could hear the
steps of the guards as they approached closer and surrounded him. “The
Mysterons –” he said in a low, bleak voice.
“Yeah – the
Mysterons,” Larsen spat. “Maybe it’s
like they say on the news… Maybe Cloudbase was taken over by the Mysterons. Or
maybe Spectrum, at last, turned against the World Government.”
Scarlet shook his
head. “No. They would never –”
“No? You think they wouldn’t? Whatever, it doesn’t
matter, Scarlet. Because Spectrum could
never be trusted anymore. After what
just happened, I doubt their earth-bases will continue to operate, and as for
Cloudbase’s survivors –”
Scarlet’s head snapped
to stare unbelievingly at Larsen. “There are survivors?”
Larsen grunted with
annoyance. “They say that craft were seen escaping Cloudbase, as it was
plunging towards Slaton Base. ”
That caused hope to
revive in Scarlet’s heart, even if it was a very weak hope. Survivors.
So not everyone onboard Cloudbase died in this catastrophe. Maybe some of his friends and colleagues were
out there, somewhere… Maybe they would be able to explain what happened
exactly, report of the chain of events that led to such horror.
It was obvious it was the Mysterons’ doing, that they had caused this.
There could be no other explanation.
“I see in your eyes
what you’re thinking, Scarlet,” Larsen continued. “But we know nothing more we know about
this. It’s unknown if these craft got
away from the disaster when Cloudbase hit, or if they were destroyed in the
explosion after that.”
“They survived,”
Scarlet said with conviction. “They must have.
They –”
“Well, quite frankly,
I don’t give a shit about them, Scarlet. They could rot in hell for all I
care. And as for you, you bastard, it
doesn’t change a thing. Because whether you’re Mysteron or Spectrum, you’re here
to stay. And if you thought you had it
tough up until now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s
going to get a hell of a lot rougher for you from now on.”
At these words,
Scarlet suddenly came back to his senses.
Out of anger and frustration, he made a desperate attempt to throw the
boot he was still holding in his hands into Larsen’s scornful face. But the guards were ready for him, and one of
them caught his raised arm; the boot
flew harmlessly high over its target’s face.
The next second, a
struggling Scarlet was pushed down flat onto his belly against his bunk, and
forcibly held there, with his face buried into the mattress with such roughness
that he nearly choked. His arms were
pulled behind his back almost to breaking point. He felt the knees and clubs of the guards
against his back, and with so many hands holding him down, despite all of his
efforts, he was unable to free himself.
He felt shackles
closing around his wrists, biting so deep into his flesh that it was hurting
him and cutting off the blood flow; it was only
then that they removed his face from the mattress and allowed him to
breath freely again. Hands still held
him down, with his cheek against the bed, though, and from this new angle,
panting, his teeth clenched, he could see Larsen leaning over him, with the same hateful
expression on his face; he was looking straight at him, and playing with his
bludgeon.
“Have I ever told you
you’re my favourite inmate, Scarlet?” Larsen asked, with a wicked chuckle. “You
want to know why? It’s because I can hit
you as many times as I want and as hard as I want, and a few hours later, you
won’t have a single mark on you to show from it. It doesn’t matter if I kill you, when I set
my heart on it, ‘cause you’ll revive and nobody would know. And you want to
know the best part of it?” He aimed at Scarlet’s head, and raised his club
high, taking a deep breath. “I can do it as often as I want, over and over
again.”
The last thing Scarlet
say was the club coming straight at his face. The pain was mercifully brief.
Then it was total darkness.
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