Shell Shocked (The Cosmic Carapace, #1) (13 page)

“The Magister hereby decrees that each borough of the city will house a new law enforcement unit consisting of the Magisterial Guard. These highly trained professionals will ensure that our wonderful city remains at peace. In time, these units will be posted at all major cities and towns of the country.“

“Highly trained professionals?!" said Becky “Your friend Leggy?!" The intonation of Becky’s voice implied that she would be more inclined to believe had someone just told her that golf clubs were in fact a rare breed of duck.

“’Ee’s not my friend anymore!" shouted Norbert. “Joinin’ up with the bleeding law, wavin’ ‘is badge around like ee’s somefink' special. I knew him when ‘ee was just a bleeding grasshopper's knee!"

Becky was about to point out that he probably meant ‘knee high to a grasshopper’, but the look in Norbert’s eye made her think this wasn’t quite the time. She turned to Spencer who was looking thoughtful.

“This is where the local thugs were going. Norbert mentioned it earlier," he said. “Garsh was rounding them up to use as his henchmen."

“Wotsa henchman?" asked Norbert, his eyes still glowering, fists clenched by his side.

“Hmm, good point," answered Spencer thoughtfully. “A man who henches I guess. Right, who can we go to? Where are the government?"

“Gone!" shouted Norbert again. “'Ee got rid of ‘em all, the Majesty bloke! Said they weren’t doing no good for the Queen so he kicked ‘em out!"

A silence spread across the group for a moment as each considered the weight of this.

Becky broke it.

“So that’s it? He has control of the country, just like that?"

Spencer turned to her.

“The question is, what is he going to do with it? One thing’s for sure, we need to get out of here right now. Garsh obviously knows all about this place." At this Spencer turned and gave a long meaningful look at Spangler, who turned to the window.

“And that means he’ll probably be back here with some unpleasant men pretty quickly. Is there anywhere that we can go that would be safe?"

“I know just the place!" said Norbert, beaming.

––––––––

L
ord Garsh ran his eyes across the map in front of him. It was huge. It sprawled across an enormous table, deep in the underground level of Marlborough Palace, The Queen’s residence in London. It had two sections. One was a map of the British Isles. Each county line was detailed, every major river accounted for. Currently against each major town there was a small, bright red figure of a man. This small toy soldier showed that there was a unit of the Magisterial Guard stationed there. Garsh smiled to himself.

He was particularly proud of this idea. By rounding up various gang members and thugs who maybe didn’t quite fit in, who had never quite made it to the top of the criminal pyramid, he had created a loyal and vicious peace keeping force. For starters he had removed most of the dangerous criminal element in one fell swoop. These lunatics weren’t now out there trying to rob and steal from the state, they were part of it. Secondly, he had them in his control. He had given them what they all craved; power. He had given them a badge and the authority to drink as much free ale and crack as many heads together as they pleased, which, when you got right down to it, was all they wanted to use power for.

He now had control of the country. He couldn’t imagine much opposition from here on in. He turned his gaze to the second half of the map, which displayed the British Isles again, but to a far smaller scale, and in the middle of a large map of the world. His eye roved towards America. Sugar, wheat, tobacco. America he knew, was a fat goose, waiting to be plucked. It would bring him wealth, power, and more men to form a new army. An army to make the entire world kneel before him. And once he had achieved this, he would turn his attention to other worlds. He would send expeditions through randomly. He’d lose many men of course, he’d seen enough of what was out there to know that, but that wouldn’t matter once he had an entire world to fuel his army. They’d take the easy ones first, lands with no people, or with only primitive tribes. They could use the resources of these worlds to build more weapons, more settlements which would produce more people, more soldiers.

He tugged at his moustache thoughtfully. He was getting ahead of himself. First he had to make sure that Spangler’s little gang were under control. Knowledge is power, and those few seemed to have a little more than he was comfortable with. They knew about the device for starters, they may even be from different worlds. What Spangler was doing with them he had no idea, but he had plans of his own, and he certainly didn’t want them getting in the way. He had sent Mr Pall out with a group to the house, though he imagined they would be gone from there by now. They can run, but they can’t hide. Wanted posters were being put up all over town, every Magisterial Guard was on the lookout. He’d have them soon enough.

~~~~

S
pencer was holding his nose surreptitiously. This is not an easy thing to do. He’d managed to pretend he was leaning on his fist, elbow planted against the rough wooden kitchen table in front of him. His fist was against the right hand side of his nose, his index finger, subtly reaching across the bridge to pinch down the other side. When Norbert had suggested he had a place for them to lay low for a while he had immediately become slightly uneasy. It was only when he looked around at the faces of Becky and the twins that he really started to worry. The theme of their collective expressions was very much heavy concern, leaning towards terror. The journey here hadn’t been a barrel of laughs either.

Spencer had made it clear that they should try and stay off the main roads. A suggestion he had deeply regretted just an hour and a half later once they had set off following Becky towards the city’s rooftops.

Spencer wasn’t afraid of heights. He was very firm on that. Heights he had no problem at all with. He wasn’t overly keen on falling from them, that was the issue. Funnily enough, whenever he found himself up high, he found himself very much focussed on the falling aspect, the falling potential as it were. So much so that he often found himself leaning dangerously to the edge with his head spinning slightly. The simple answer of course is to avoid such situations which Spencer had been pretty successful at over the years. Until today of course. Becky had led them up a small earth bank on the edge of the park which ran up just a foot or so lower than the bottom edge of a low sloping roof. The roof belonged to a cattle yard and as they tried to keep up with Becky and crossed to the next roof the first of the journey's smells hit them from below. They had crossed to the other side of the buildings which were laid out into a square and then climbed a small wall. On the other side was the sea of red, intercrossing rooftops Spencer had seen from the window of Ingress. From here they definitely seemed to loom more. Spencer had never known rooftops to loom before, but these were looming as though their slates depended on it. Becky was off. Spencer would have described her as ‘moving like a cat’, but in doing so he would have had to ask himself some pretty serious questions about how he could find her movements so sexual and alluring, and then also compare them to an animal. So he decided that she didn’t move like a cat, she moved like a very lithe and sexy woman. Which made him feel much better about things for a few seconds until he looked down again.

Eventually they had scrambled, slipped and stumbled across so many buildings Spencer had lost count. He had been aware though that they had entered a poorer neighbourhood. The roofs had started to overlap completely for what seemed like miles around them, he had thought that light must have been very scarce down below. When they had started to descend along a broken down wall at the side of an old church he saw that it was. These were gloomy alleys where damp walls glistened with slime which small groups of children were scraping off into buckets. Women were gathered in huddled corners gossiping while working at blankets, weaving them with gnarled hands holding giant needles. The whole place felt like a hot, sweaty cave system, but with more dogs. There were dogs everywhere. They ran through the women's legs, they fought playfully in the middle of the alleyways, they appeared suddenly in front of you in a state of feverish copulation as you turned a corner. Spencer muttered, “Every dog will have his day."

At which point Norbert scampered up and asked, “How d’ya know that dog’s called Day?"

Finally they had arrived at the end of what was the sorriest looking alley they had seen so far. A few houses which looked as though they had decided that being upright was overrated and had fallen in on each other. They slumped against and across one another making it hard to see where one ended and the next began. Small doors were dotted along the jumble of cracked and peeling walls. They looked built for people of Norbert’s stature, some of them even had a built in sidle.

Now Spencer was sat in a cramped, hot kitchen that had far too many people in to be comfortable. Becky and the twins were all seated around the old, beaten table that dominated the room. Spangler stood studying a small, dismal painting which hung on the far wall. On the opposite side Mrs Strang stood at the sink scrubbing underpants that everyone in the room was trying very hard not to look at. She had been talking incessantly since they had arrived.

“Of course he never tells me anything! Why should he? I only carried him for ten and a half months!"

“Ten and a half months?!" Becky said looking slightly pale.

“Oh yes! The little bugger wouldn’t come, causing me worry from before he was even born. I don’t know what I ever done to deserve ‘im."

“Aw mum, give over," Norbert was taking the scrubbed underpants from his mum and hanging them on a clothes airer. His eyes rolled as he looked apologetically at the group.

“What you fiddling with there young lady?" Mrs Strang asked over her shoulder at Eva.

She had slung a map of the city out onto the kitchen table.

“I think it’s wise to look at the layout around the palace.“

The frantic scrubbing abruptly stopped. Mrs Strang half turned from the sink to look at her.

“Well I’m sure that’s right enough," she said slowly before turning back, “but I never went in for being wise. It never got our Norbert's pants clean, though to be fair, there ain’t much what does other than elbow grease and old Mrs Feegle’s kill all what she makes in her special bucket in Groop Street."

Spencer decided he needed to do something. It was the smell. If ever there was something to spur someone into action it was being in a small room with a smell which combined the Brussels sprouts which were bubbling away in an enormous copper pot which sat on the stove, and of course the underpants. Spencer had spent the last few minutes trying to decide whether or not the foul looking garments smelt worse before or after the treatment being given to them by Mrs Strang, but had decided that he didn’t want to get close enough to decide. They needed to get out of here. They needed to get to Lisa. Spangler still hadn’t spoken and didn’t seem likely to. Spencer needed to do something. The trouble was the streets were apparently teeming with the Magisterial Guard’s men. All of them had been given pictures of the team and were on the lookout. According to Norbert’s sources, they were now enemy number one.

Except... The authorities here wouldn’t have a picture of Spencer. Before they had left Esme had noticed that a team photo taken a week or so ago had gone from the hall wall. That’s the image they had been circulating. Spencer wasn’t on it.

“Right, you lot stay here, I’m going to check out the palace and see what security is like. They don’t know my face, so I can just blend in.” He looked at the map, tracing a route from where they were to the palace.

“I’m coming," said Becky fiercely, standing up. Her chair screeched against the rough, flagstone floor and there was silence save for the slight sloshing of the filthy sink water as it settled as Mrs Strang stopped.

“No," said Spangler. His voice was quiet, but Spencer could feel the effect in the room. It seemed his word was still law. Though Becky looked like someone who had just found a suspiciously curly, black hair in her soup. “Spencer is right, you will be recognised now, it’s too dangerous.”

Spencer moved to the little wooden door and opened it. He noticed that nobody else had moved, including Becky. He stopped and turned back to look at her. She was clearly fuming. Her face was thunderous. Spencer couldn’t help it, he grinned at her before stepping out through the door. He couldn’t help it, she just looked so great when she was angry.

~~~~

S
pencer stood at the end of the wide thoroughfare as nonchalantly as he could. He was suddenly very aware that, although he hadn’t appeared on any wanted posters, he stuck out for another reason.

He looked down at his duffel coat, t-shirt and jeans. Judging by the people he had passed on the way to the palace, this was definitely
not
normal attire for people in Alexandria. He was getting the kind of looks that suggested his attempt at being inconspicuous was not exactly off to a good start.