Tim Lebbon - Coldbrook

Once again he tucked the small ball between his teeth and cheek: warm, flexing. Ready to bite.

They followed the flow of people towards the opening that led to sunlight and blue sky, and alongside the staggering architecture, beautiful painted ceilings that would put the Sistine Chapel to shame, and sculptures that seemed to exude a life of their own, Jonah noticed signs of the advanced technology that he knew existed here — floating lights, glimmering laser-fields, and prayers relayed into his mind without sound. The prayers’ tone made him queasy. They shimmered with righteousness.

Unabashed at his nakedness, Jonah and his Inquisitor approached the opening at the end of the hall, and the wide stone arches framed Jonah’s first view out onto this new Earth. For a second the sun was blinding, a comforting warmth on his skin and a prickling distraction in his eyes. But after he had blinked a few times he could see, and he was perhaps not as surprised as he should have been. He’d been prepared for this, after all. And perhaps, having already seen wonders, he had been numbed against more.

He had seen St Peter’s Square a hundred times on television and in newspapers, but little had prepared him for its sheer size and splendour. An atheist all his life, still Jonah had found great beauty and splendour in religious architecture — some of his favourite buildings were cathedrals and churches, and while others were looking at the cross on the wall, he would be wondering at the tunnels, bodies, treasures and mysteries buried beneath his feet.

The square was filled with Inquisitors and their charges. They formed several lines on either side of the Vatican Obelisk, which was topped with a globe, the Earth beautifully wrought in coloured, textured metals. The lines moved forward quickly, the head of each disappearing inside a large structure built on the steps below St Peter’s Basilica. This was something else that Jonah had never seen: an intricate marble-clad building with a gold-domed roof, three main entrances onto the square, and smaller openings leading directly onto the Basilica steps. From here the line of naked, smooth-skinned people was directed up the steps and into the Basilica. Guided by their Inquisitors — in some cases helped along physically — their naked skin was stained with free-flowing blood, and even from this distance he could see that their faces looked wrong — noses snoutlike, eyes bulbous. The steps beneath them were stained black with old spilled blood, the marble having absorbed it over however long this had been happening until it looked as if the Basilica itself was bleeding, black blood running down into the square where worshippers had once sought to gather. These new worshippers were unwilling, and torture was their introduction into the ways of this world.

‘Soon you will meet the Holy Fathers, and your acceptance into our Church will begin,’ the Inquisitor said.

Jonah smiled, and nodded. And he knew at last when his time would be.

Coldbrook was full again, its air thrumming with fear, people hustling urgently from place to place, and Holly could feel the pressure of danger beyond the walls and above the ceilings. There was little sense of safety, and no feeling that they could stop running. This pause was a breath between screams.

More Gaians had been brought through to help guard the facility, and the adults — the Unblessed, and the others who’d come in with the convoy — were taking it in turns to eat and rearm. The bikers had lost their leader, but Hitch had said they were all part of a new gang now: survivors.

Many of the children slept, or curled up silently on chairs and beds brought into the large common room. None of them would sleep on their own, and no one would force them. There were twenty-four children in Coldbrook now, twenty of whom were without parents. They all had stories to tell. Holly didn’t want to hear any of them.

Jonah was gone, Holly had barely seen Vic since his return, and she was more exhausted than she’d ever been in her life before. Her wound hurt, though the bleeding had stopped. And each time she blinked she saw Paloma’s head coming apart and splashing across Drake’s face. You didn’t save me, you saved Paloma , Drake had told her. But she could not help wondering what he saw each time he blinked.

As she arrived back in Secondary, Marc was talking French on the satphone, and even if Holly had concentrated she would only have picked up one word in ten. So she set his steaming coffee down in front of him and took a seat, accessed the Net, and sipped her own mug as she surfed news sites. The taste of coffee, so familiar and usually comforting, seemed strange against the things she saw.

The BBC World News site was still being randomly updated, movie clips and photographs now seemingly uploaded by members of the public. And no news was good news. Governments were falling, communications were failing, and humanity’s timeless ability to wreak destruction upon itself was being put to the test in a variety of ways. The UK were firebombing several of their main cities, recycling Second World War tactics in an effort to wipe out the furies. China was using biological weapons against their population, killing tens of millions in vast swathes in an attempt to protect a billion. Russia continued to defend its borders, even though the plague was rife across the country from east to west. Small wars flared, larger wars threatened, countries joined forces, others attempted to isolate themselves and ride out the storm alone.

‘We’re running out of time,’ Holly said softly, and Marc threw the phone onto the desk.

‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘Fuck fuck fucking hell.’

‘What?’

‘Time!’ Marc leaned back in his chair and rubbed his face, covering his eyes as if to shut himself away from the views on the large screen. Holly switched them off. She had seen enough herself.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Not good.’

‘I thought you were gathering information, getting people involved. This network of friends you and Jonah have around the world.’

Marc laughed. ‘Yeah. Net’s already glitchy, and it’s going to go down eventually. You know that, don’t you? It’s way overloaded, and servers will crash. Bash, back twenty years.’

‘So. .’

‘So I’m going to do my best. I am. But it’s going to take me months, or years, and-’

‘We probably don’t even have days!’ Holly gasped.

‘Tell me about it.’

‘But at least we have Jayne and Mannan,’ she said, desperate for any shred of hope.

‘Yeah.’ Marc nodded at the laptop. Holly turned the screen to face him. Marc accessed his mail account, the printer in the corner started whispering, and he dialled the next number.

Will it really all go? she wondered. A world with no Net, no phone communications. . and then she knew that yes, it would, because this had all happened before. Earth was following in Gaia’s footsteps.

She left Marc in Secondary and paced through Coldbrook, afraid that if she stopped she would not be ready to run when the danger broke through. Perhaps she would never feel safe again. She wished she could see Vic. But he and his family had retreated to his old room, they needed their peace, and she was the last person to deny them that.

Surrounded by more people than she had ever seen in Coldbrook, Holly felt so alone.

She walked along the short corridor and passed through the common room to the garage area. Even before she opened the door and saw the unsettled expressions of the two guards — Moira and Hitch — she heard muffled hooting echoing from the plant room.

‘They just won’t shut up,’ Moira said.

‘Spooky fuckers,’ Hitch said. His voice wavered. He held a pistol ready in his hand.