Chapter 1: Only the good die young

"With Death comes the morning, unannounced and new" Scoundrel Days, A-Ha

Only the good die young

London, 2014

"Yo, Alex!" The lean, rangy figure turned slowly, right knee buckling slightly as he twisted, to stare back along the marketplace, seeking out the source of the voice.

"Chris." He acknowledged, with a slight wave, the vague resemblance of a smile flitting across his face.

"You at the Cottage tonight?"

"For the Hammers? Hell yeah..." Another wave, another semi-smile, and he turned away again. Walking in a straight line was always more comfortable, less pressure. Craven Cottage, though, stood tall on the banks of the Thames, brought memories with it. He'd quit the game, passed up the offers of joining ground staff, back-room staff, coaching. Once he couldn't play, he'd pushed it out of his life completely — If he didn't play, he wasn't going to be there.

But football was in his blood, the core of his life. From the age of six, like most of the kids he'd been to school with, his dreams had been of leading his country out at Wembley — even in the years it was out of commission, being rebuilt, it was still Wembley that called. Unlike most, though, he'd actually had a chance. More than a chance, he'd had a taste. Seventeen years old, called up for the England squad for the first time, he'd run out at the head of the line one cold, April evening, Fulham's star for the day, gleaming in the white shirt.

Seven minutes later he was strapped to a stretcher, his knee in pieces, rapidly swelling, on his way to the longest night of his life — the night he was told his career was over. His life was over.

It was nine years ago, now, nine long, cold, lonely years, but everything still revolved around that day. He'd skipped lessons during school to practice, passed over trying at the majority of things in favour of kicking the ball about, never done the homework. He'd skipped two of his exams to play his league debut, and when football disappeared he found he had nothing: no qualifications, no built up funds, no esteem or legend to cash in on... Washed up at eighteen, he was still just another piece of London flotsam at twenty-six.

Which was why, as the sun dropped away across the city, Alex Kavanagh was making his steady, if slow, progress along the embankment towards the glistening temple of lights and sport that was Craven Cottage. The seats on the bus didn't afford comfort for the straight-legged, and taxis didn't afford comfort for the slim wallet at the top of this particular straight leg.

Another step, another brief stab of... not pain, exactly. Discomfort. The knee didn't buckle, it didn't twist, but it still didn't flex quite right. Eight years of trying hadn't found a comfortable way to walk, nor a comfortable way to make enough money not to have to, and he resigned himself to another uncomfortable night's failure to sleep, easing the ache with alcohol and aspirin.

"That's it?" Alex started, realising Chris had stepped closer, abandoning his stall for a few moments to talk.

"What? Yeah, I'm going."

"Dude, I've not seen in you in, what, four months? Mum's worried about you. You got a job yet?"

"I've sold a few pictures, here and there."

"That's a no, then. What about that kit, you sold that yet? You could get some good money for that."

"I told you, and I told Mum, I'm not selling it."

"It's just a piece of cloth, Alex, and a used one at that. It won't even fit you any more, you're a good six inches taller now than you were then. All that time on your back..."

"Fuck off!"

"Hey, don't get all defensive on me, I didn't do your knee, I'm just telling the truth." Alex sighed his frustration away and nodded.

"Yeah, yeah I know. Sorry..."

"You've got to let it go, dude. It's not coming back. You did the right thing, you walked away — it was always going to be all or nothing for you — but you've finished walking away now. You've got to walk towards something..."

"Like what? There's nothing else out there, there never has been. You've got Kristin, you've got little Bradley, good for you, that's what you always wanted. You've never had to choose another life to live..."

"You either choose, or life chooses for you, Alex."

"Whatever, maybe life's chosen 'itinerant vagrant painting beggar' for me."

"When the hell did you learn to use the word 'itinerant'."

"I read it somewhere."

"When did you learn to read?" Chris' face split in a broad grin, and Alex was forced into a half-smile of his own.

"Look, I've got to go, or I'll never make the Cottage in time."

"I can give you a lift."

"I don't like real-sized cars, your pissy little thing'll have me hobbling for a week."

"I've upgraded, Astra 1.6, electric windows, cd-player... the works."

"I'll walk, really. Thanks, though..."

"OK. You're going to call Mum, aren't you?"

"No."

"Alex!"

"What's the point? It's not a conversation, it's a lecture, and she can have that while I'm not there, I'm not going to listen anyway."

"At least tell me you're going to call her so I don't have to lie..."

"Sure, I'll call her... just after the arse-fairy comes and leaves me a Gail Porter on the end of my bed, OK."

"See you at the Cottage..." Chris waved him away as a customer hopped out of a car and up to the paper-stand, and Alex took the opportunity to make his escape.

The tunnel under the Westminster Bridge was closed — probably another murder he reasoned — and forced himself up the broad, brown stone stairs to the road, staring across the river towards Parliament and St Stephen's Tower as Big Ben sounded out six o'clock. He'd be pushing it to get to the stadium on time, he realised, and turned his eye towards the crossing.

He saw the motorbike jump the lights early — slow pedestrians needed to be alert in the big city — and he watched it cruise across the traffic carelessly. The blue estate that braked hard, skidding on the wet tarmac had been travelling too fast for the situation, but that wasn't unusual in London either. The bike on the rack on the roof, though, was, and it slipped loose as the car rolled, pitching up off the decorative island in the middle of the road and hurtling in through the windscreen of the oncoming big, red double-decker bus.

What happened to the driver was impossible to tell, as the windscreen fractured into a hail of glass, but the bus itself didn't seem to slow at all, just slowly veered off-line towards the river. Checking he was clear, Alex turned to see one of the homeless beggars slumped at the top of the stairs, stack of Big Issues on the floor beside her, yanked off her feet by her dog as it dashed away.

"Damn..." he muttered, stumbling into his stiff-legged run. He reached the beggar in three easy strides, the natural grace and power only slightly hindered by the injury, and shoved the old-woman clear easily — she hardly weighed anything.

His bad leg, though, came down heavily on the glossy covered magazines, and he felt the knee buckle under the weight and the uncertain surface. His other leg was out in front, and he had neither the strength nor the balance to push himself backwards or forwards as the broad, red front of the bus plowed through him and the stone brace of the wall, carrying them both out over the river towards the bridge.

Pain burned through his lungs as he screamed his agony into the water, his legs splintered and crushed between metal and stone, and felt small cuts leaking across his face and chest from the rounded pieces of windscreen that shook loose. He watched the bus above him slam into the stonework of the bridge itself, tipping masonry down upon him, and he reached up to try and stop one piece in particular from striking him, only to feel wood in his hands. Wood that crumpled like paper at his touch, and let in his hands to grasp something metallic...

Defence Establishment Research Agency Hartwell Bridge, Northampton, 2010

"Tapping, this is getting to be an embarrassment." The Brigadier's abrupt tones emerged from the speaker-phone to a reception of gritted teeth and obscene finger gestures. "Thirteen capsules we've hatched out, now, and there hasn't been a viable specimen. You guaranteed a fifty percent success rate."

"Brigadier," the teech unclenched but the hand signals continued as Tapping justified himself again. "that was when you assured me we had a 36 week gestation period and an operational staff of nineteen people. You've given me 28 weeks, two weapons technicians and a cleaner."

"Your problems, Mr Tapping, are your problems. You have your budget, we are expecting results. Today." The connection closed with an audible click, and Tapping sat back in his high-backed seat, frowning at the implications. It was the first time a timescale had been mentioned.

"Why today?" he muttered, but the empty communications room had no answers, and he stepped out to the lab proper.

"What did his Brigadiership have for us today?" Coleman asked, eyes fixed to his binocular microscope. For all his complaining, Tapping knew, the men he'd been sent were actually reasonably good — surprisingly adaptable, for armed forces personnel, in fact.

"More bluster." Tapping lied, not wishing to spread the concern. "What do you have for me?"

"We've accelerated AR-14, should be hatching this afternoon." McKenzie wandered in from the nursery, updating information on his PDA, not looking up either. After eighteen months of sixteen-hour days, the three of them could navigate on automatic, just about.

"What's the spec for this one?" Tapping settled into his customary seat, taking up the coffee from the warmer on his desk.

"We went with the route four nutritional regime, upped the educational inputs from week 10 through 12 to 150%, and then to 200% from there in."

"Physical development?"

"We've instituted the full set — AR-12 and —13 both coped adequately with that."

"So it comes down to the psychotropics, then."

"We've tried the LSD derivatives, and the opiates. This'll be the first of the cannabinoids."

"It's not a cannabinoid." Coleman argued, changing slides. "THC doesn't make it a cannabinoid any more than petrol makes a car a Daimler."

"Does it matter?" Tapping interrupted, having sat through such debates before. "Record the results today, start the psychotropic feed at mid-day, we'll go for the hatching at three this afternoon."

"Male or Female?"

"I've not checked, why?" Coleman finally sat up, thrown off-track by the question.

"Because if it's female, coming out at a physical age of thirteen and on the hormone cycle we've been inducing, it'll be menstruating. Do you have the necessaries?"

McKenzie laughed his way out the door to the nursery — officially 'the gestation chamber' — completely oblivious to the cleaner coming the other. Major Sandra Berkeley, however, was far from oblivious. Mop in hand she wheeled her bucket out through the lab into the corridor, down to her stock room, and awaited the order she knew should be coming.

For four and a half years she'd slopped out this hovel, secreted away in the hills of the midlands whilst those she'd graduated Sandhurst with went on to higher and better things. Four and a half years of OD13 work had sounded such a grand prospect when she'd been cherry-picked, skimmed from the top of her graduating class for special assignment.

She should have known the old-boys network that ran the army would still find a perverse sort of amusement in sending their best woman to be a cleaner. The three scientists were reasonable men, in and of themselves, but between their work and their clinical attitudes they weren't particularly good company. If it weren't for her daily briefings she'd have gone mad looking for some sort of human contact.

"Brigadier." She nodded at the videophone as his squat, bearded image appeared on the screen.

"Major." He acknowledged. "What news?"

"Another hatching is scheduled for this afternoon. Tapping didn't pass on anything to his men, it's just another normal day for them."

"Is that likely to be a problem?"

"No, it makes things easier if they're sticking to their routines."

"What are the prospects for this one?"

"The last survived eight hours before the mind shut down, they're looking to spend longer taking her off the psychotropics this time, I believe."

"And the extras?"

"There're no external signs that the serum had any effect. I've confirmed that it did enter the nutrient supply in early gestation. Beyond that, development has been normal."

"Excellent. Anything else?"

"Coleman's been trying to hack around the net-filters again — still not having any luck, but he's going to get there at some point."

"Perhaps. If things go well, he may not get the chance."

"And if things don't go well, Brigadier." She snapped, forcing herself to rein in her temper. "I've been her for years — literally. I was promised a relief two years ago, and still nothing."

"Your request will be considered, Major, good day." The connection cut off abruptly, leaving her cursing silently in the dark for a few minutes before she forced herself to get on with her work. The nine millimetre Browning service pistol was taken out, cleaned, loaded and reconstructed almost on instinct. He bayonet was removed from the hidden sheath in the base of the bucket, oiled and replaced, and she returned to her cleaning rounds at 13:00 precisely.

As expected, Coleman and McKenzie were eating at their desks, but Tapping wasn't at the bank of consoles where she expected him to be. Moving slowly through the lab she actually made a reasonable job of dusting down the surfaces that weren't being used — apparently inadvertently calling up some screens that would otherwise have been hidden to her — tracking him down to the nursery.

"Another one, Doctor?" she waited for the automated doors to open fully before venturing in, moving around to the dedicated locker where the nursery's cleaning equipment was stored.

"Excuse me?" Tapping turned away from the semi-opaque blue ovoid held above the ring-shaped hatching area.

"Another one due? Did you want me to clean up now, or should I wait until after?"

"Oh, now will be fine, Sandra, thank you." He turned back, staring once more at the dim, shadowy figure within.

"It's not like you to be mooning around in here." She observed, pushing the stainless steel pail across to the tap.

"No, I suppose not." He admitted, not turning away. "This one feels different."

That caught her attention. Tapping had many traits that she'd had to identify — punctilious, formal, meticulous were all on her list, but romanticism hadn't figured. "Different?"

"I know, it's ridiculous. She's evinced no differences from any of the other subjects, she's just another subject..."

"A conscience, Doctor?" Sandra let slip, her frustrations still bubbling away beneath the surface, but Tapping misunderstood.

"Perhaps. No-one's sure where the advanced faculties of the mind come from. Perhaps she'll have intuited some sort of moral structure from the lessons that have been ingrained during development. There's no way of telling, though."

"So what is it that's got you here?"

"She moves in there. None of the others did, but she moves..."

London, 2014

Light sprang up around Alex, warm and enveloping and he relaxed as the sensations spread through his limbs, reinvigorating them, reassuring him. He panicked a moment, working his legs, but they flexed gently, and he realised they were still there, still working, despite the bus.

The Bus! The light faded, and he stared through the murky waters at the bus laid on its side in the sediment, a cluster of divers around it, slowly shuttling back and forth to the surface. He watched for a few minutes, saddened when he realised they were probably moving bodies, and then started.

He wasn't breathing. The burning pressure of his lungs was gone, the used water of the Thames wasn't stinging his eyes, and no trail of bubbles shifted through his field of vision.

What the hell's going on? He expected to hear his heart beating loudly in his ears, adrenaline surging through his system, but there was nothing. He reached down to take a pulse, feeling weighty metal dragging at his arm, only to find it was not his arm at all. Skeletal arms jutted out before his eyes, and he traced them up the funnybone - humorous? Not funny at all - to his shoulder before he could even begin to accept that it was his. The metal, when he checked, was two short fragments of chain hanging from elaborately scribed, corroded metal manacles about the wrists — his wrists?

I must be dreaming he decided, despite the evidence of not waking up. He always woke up when he realised he was dreaming. Why couldn't I just dream Fulham had won the cup... or that I was still playing? What the fuck would the counsellor say about this?

He looked up again, for lack of anything else to do, and realised that it wasn't the water washing out the colour from the scene, he really was seeing in a scale of grey, like watching a moving pencil sketch. Divers moved up and down from the grey bus to the greyer surface, rising near the black keel of the boat that slowly circled overhead.

I've got to get out of here he decided. Despite the evidence that he wasn't in any danger, being under the water felt distinctly unnatural. It just all seems fast. he convinced himself. Stress, life flashing before your eyes, all that... adrenaline surge or something. I'll get to the surface and it'll all be fine...

Despite the weight of the chains, and the apparent lack of any considerable surface area to his hands, he swam up through the water easily — although it felt more as though her were floating up, and simply making the swimming motions out of habit — and grasped one of the algae slicked steps that led up to the embankment, rising into the shadows beneath the bridge. Unusually, one of lights was working, and he sat down on the bench, staring mutely at the bones and manacles.

"Excuse me..." someone half-whispered nearby, and he looked up to see a pale, slim woman huddled against the wall opposite. Thin, sickly, she was dressed in a weather-beaten costume of some sort, the low, square neck of the deep red dress showing that she really didn't have the figure for a low, square-cut neck.

"Evening..." he managed, wondering for a moment how long it would take her to realise what she was seeing. She moved back and forth a little, looking up at him with a hesitant smile empty of too many teeth to be attractive.

"Are you alright?" she asked, slipping onto the bench nearby, apparently oblivious to the noise and fuss on the street above. "I..." - I'm a fucking skeleton, woman! - "Did you see what happened?" Saying it would just make it more real, he decided. Maybe she was blind or something.

"No... I only got here a few minutes ago." She explained, her voice quiet and slightly hollow. Maybe the illness is in her lungs. he thought, before she continued. "What did happen?"

"The bus went off the side... it took me with it." He stared in wonder down at the water again. "At least I think that's what happened." That can't be it. he rationalised, realising how stupid it sounded, trying to ignore the slight grating noise of chain on stone as he sat down.

"You seem to be alright." It's just a little weight loss, after all... Big Ben rang out again, ten strong peals in the night, and Alex sat up staring across the river at the stark white clock-face.

"Ten o'clock..."

"'Bout that, my love." She confirmed. "You sound surprised."

"I... it... six o'clock..." She just raised an eyebrow, smiling gently.

"Ten o'clock. You should probably get home." She pointed out. "I have to get to work."

"Yeah... yeah... OK." He muttered in reply, not really paying attention, staring out at the boat on the dark ribbon of the river.

"I'll see you again." She told him, rising and walking past him downstream towards Lambeth.

"Again?"

"I see you here a lot." She pointed out. "You walk up the river a few times a week." He nodded, dazed, and let her go, wondering why he'd never seen her before. She wasn't particularly remarkable — chances are she walk the path in fancy dress every time — but if he came here often enough for her to see him, surely he came here often enough to see her.

"Hang on!" he called, rising to his feet and cracking his head off the overhanging arch. Never did that before. he shook off the pain, lifting his hand to his head to check for blood. The hand that passed in front of his face reminded him of the futility of that, and he strode up the stairs three at a time, trying to ignore the audible clicking noise that came with each step.

"Hey!" he called at the disappearing figure rounding the corner past the police cordon.

"WHAT THE HELL!" someone shouted behind him, and he turned into a screaming face as a young policewoman looked up at him in abject shock.

"Shut up!" he snapped at her, confused and disoriented by everything, watching as the grayscale policewoman staggered backwards away from him. A gentle mist swirled around his feet, late in the year but not unheard of, billowing quickly and obscuring the onrushing black-and-white policemen as he watched.

Master! A voice came from behind him, and he turned to see a black-robed figure stood a narrow boat of some sort, oar in hand.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, feeling a chill brush across him as the mists gathered.

Charon, Master.

"Charon?" Alex rolled the word around in his mouth, wondering where he'd heard it before.

The Barge awaits, Master. It was a moment before Alex realised the sound hadn't been heard at all — it was as though he'd felt what the figure wanted to convey.

"Hang on, what bloody barge?" Alex spun around, trying to ignore the sound of chains dragging across the tarmac, looking for signs of the policewoman, the river, London — anything he recognised, in fact, but all he could see was mist.

The Barge. Charon responded, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, lifting an arm beneath the hanging cloth of the cloak to point towards where the river had been. Sure enough, a few yards away through the mists, an ancient, wooden barge sat in the swirling fog. Time weathered wood on the verge of falling apart loomed dark and brooding beneath a squat, wooden, four-poster pagoda type structure on the deck, and a single oar-lock on the high-pointed stern.

"Oh, that Barge." Alex managed, feeling disjointed. His mind told him he should be feeling faint, should be gasping for breath, but there was nothing. His blood didn't course through his veins, didn't thunder in his ears, he wasn't aware he was breathing at all. He tried to hold his breath, and realised he already was — tried to release it and nothing happened. "What the fuck's going on?" he finally hissed through clenched teeth, waiting for something to make him black out, make him wake up, anything to get out of this nightmare.

You have become Death. Charon explained, gesturing towards the boat. The Barge awaits

"I am become Death, destroyer of worlds... Oppenheimer."

If you wish, Master. It is from the Bhagavad-Gita. Charon offered, after a slight pause.

"What?"

'I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds', Master. Vishnu is impressing upon the Prince the many forms and responsibilities it has, in the Bhagavad-Gita, an ancient Hindu text.

"Right... thanks... What the fuck do you mean I've become Death?"

Perhaps, Master, you would understand more easily at the Chapel?

"Got to be better than the river-bed, right?" Alex chuckled, edgily, manically, feeling himself twitching as he tried to come to terms with what was going on, overwhelmed by the surreal events.

That would depend on which river, Master. Styx, Lethe, Acheron, Thames... there are many rivers, each with their peculiar perils.

"The Barge, you said?" Alex took two steps, hearing the chains grating behind him, and stopped to settle the shiver they sent up his spine. He reached down, lifting the sodden denim of his jeans to find two more heavy metal manacles about his ankles.

"What the fuck is going on."

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2012

"Miss Ashcroft, isn't it?" Julie nodded, hesitant about making the correction — her Doctorate entitled her to the title, but this didn't seem like the kind of place where titles meant very much. "Julie, yes? May I call you Julie?"

"Please." She nodded again, resisting the urge to adjust the tight suit jacket she'd worn. "Excellent. I'm Doctor Phillip Metcalfe, but we tend to be fairly informal here, you can call me Phil."

All in all, it hadn't given any hint that she'd end up here. Staring up at the ceiling, Julie found herself counting the seconds again, waiting for the little automated whine as the little motor slowly wound her eyelids closed for a moment, then opened them again. So ridiculously clumsy, so inarticulate, so frustrating, but there was so little she could do about it.

Eighteen months of menial, low-level work as the lab-junior had been rewarded with a position on the information technology panel. Modelling proteins, overseeing molecular assembly machines, the work had been intricate, demanding and rewarding in equal measure, but it hadn't felt right.

Despite the assurances, she'd been unable to reconcile what the official reports alleged they were doing with what reality told her they were doing. Her single attempt to enquire about that had resulted in eight months back as — effectively — the lab junior. She'd had the freedom to run some of her own projects, in fact she'd been encouraged to put here 'excess curiosity' to good use rather than wasting time trying to second guess company policy.

The questions remained, though, and Numatech had employed her for her ability and drive to find answers. She'd found them, late one night, following the trails through the company intranet.

Her security access, technically, was sufficient to gain access — once she'd added her details to the appropriate lists — and she strolled into the secure area of the Willard building as bold as brass to confirm her suspicions: a bio-chemical weapons facility.

Downloading the required information from the secure server in the laboratories computer storage area had been simple enough, but exiting the climate-controlled room had proven more difficult, when her access was denied.

Another whine sounded from the machinery around the bed, and Julie took the opportunity to break away from her recollections and focus on the sounds of the nurse as she moved slowly around the bed checking the various pieces of equipment. It was these little distractions that reminded her something was still happening in the world — she couldn't talk, couldn't breathe unaided, couldn't communicate directly. Even the ridiculous helmet they slipped on her head every morning was only capable of reading the simplest of impulses, moving an on-screen indicator this way or that to respond to yes/no questions.

A lesser mind might have given up, but a lesser mind wouldn't have figured a way out of the lab in the first place.

The air conditioning had hissed at her, suddenly, as she tried to open the door, a visible mist appearing in the stream of otherwise unnoticeable air, and she sniffed the faint odour of cherries, but it past in seconds. Through the window, stood in the corridor, watching her intently, she saw the familiar figure of Dr Metcalfe and an unfamiliar man in a dark business suit. The pair of them saw her swipe her card a second time, and a third, but made no effort to come help her, and when she turned a quizzical look back their way they turned away, leaving her to her own devices.

With the card not working, she was forced to detach the cover of the control panel and cross-link the actuator circuit to get the door to open, which immediately set off any number of alarms, but she was able to get out to the public corridors in the few seconds it took security to arrive. Side-stepping the charging cadre of uniformed security, she stepped into the lift back to her floor feeling flushed, but put that down to the excitement.

Stepping out of the lift, she stumbled suddenly, feeling weak, and leant against the wall for support.

"Julie?" Helen, one of the other computer section operatives saw her, and came a little closer. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she smiled, wanly, "I'm fiiirr..." she trailed off, as the muscles in her jaw went slack, her tongue suddenly lolling out onto her chin.

"You're what?" Helen stepped closer, and Julie's legs buckled beneath her, dropping her in an unceremonious heap to the floor.

"Uhhh uhhh." She tried to speak, but even breathing was a struggle now, and although she could feel the cold press of the tiled floor beneath her, she couldn't do anything to get back to her feet, couldn't do anything. Her eyes itched and watered, but the lids wouldn't close, and she could feel a tightness around her chest, suddenly, as everything started to go grey.