And the World Changes - A M Kirk (books to read fiction txt) 📗

Emergency staff spoke urgently into the small mikes beside their mouths, attached to helmet radios. More ambulances threaded their way through the people that had interrupted their Saturday afternoon to come and watch or help.
Minutes passed.
Carrie began to appreciate the implications of Mark’s power. Now she understood with perfect clarity why he had to hide the truth about his capabilities. If people knew what he could do, he would be in constant demand to set things right. Stop this bank robbery, catch this burglar, rescue this cat. Or, if the military got hold of him, well, she had seen enough movies and TV documentaries to have formed the opinion that the military, despite the kindness and consideration shown to her from those she had met during the summer, were not always working from the best of motives. Britain still had forces posted in trouble spots around the world – the Burmese conflict, the mess in the Middle East and the Afghanistan situation rumbled on. It was not impossible they could try to use Mark to ensure success in these areas. After all, from what she now knew, he could go places no one else could; he could access any data, anywhere; and with that protective shield he used when teleporting, he could be unstoppable.
Some of the crowd near the front of the building began softly applauding and cheering. Carrie stood on tip-toe to see. A civilian in the long coat was emerging from the building. Mark had been carrying an old lady in his arms and was in the act of setting her carefully back on her feet. She appeared dazed, but effusive in her thanks of the young man. A grim-faced fireman had followed them out of the now fiercely blazing interior and now led the woman over to a paramedic unit, but not without giving Mark a very strange look as he passed. Carrie saw Mark nod at the fireman, touch the woman briefly on the shoulder, and turn back towards the crowd. Hand patted his back as he made his way towards Carrie.
“Well, that was interesting. Come on, before they start taking photographs.”
“If we get behind that ambulance over there we’ll be able to disappear,” suggested Carrie and Mark nodded agreement.
Once back on the Soros ship Carrie said, “I could use a cup of tea. What are the facilities like on this tub? And is there anywhere to pee?”
“Ah – good question. I think there are toilet areas of sorts…”
“’Of sorts’? What does that mean?”
“They’re not really intended for humans, and certainly not dainty girls like you.”
“Do you actually enjoy being nipped?” Carrie asked, nipping him.
“We should maybe get back to your room. Your mum’s on the way up the stairs with that tea and biscuits you mentioned.”
Carrie opened the bedroom door just as her mother reached it and was about to turn the handle. “Thought you might be needing a snack, dear,” Bitter said, peering into the room over her daughter’s shoulder. She edged past. “What have you been up to?”
The voice of Dougie MacLean came from Carrie’s music pod. “Oh, I remember that!” Bitter exclaimed. “That’s Jimmy MacLean. He was great, back in the eighties.”
“I know, mum,” said Carrie helping herself to a biscuit, “I borrowed it from your collection, remember?”
“Yes, dear. Have some tea, Mark. Have you been smoking, Carrie, or burning something in here? I can smell smoke.”
“No, mum, you know we don’t smoke – no one does. And does it look like we’ve been setting thngs alight? I can’t smell anything. Excuse me – must go to the loo.”
After Bitter had gone back downstairs and Carrie had freshened up, Mark said, “So – you see the difficulties?”
Carrie nodded.
Mark ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t keep on stepping in and being the local bobby or fireman or whatever. I’d be on call twenty-four hours a day. And the ship picks up everything, every broadcast signal all over the world and it can translate every language. That’s one of the things the Soros were working on when they spent that first year on earth. Right now there’s a train broken down in Kazhakstan, a British Army unit has gotten lost on an operation in the Burmese jungle, a ferry boat is sinking in the China Sea, there are floods in Columbia – oh, excuse me…”
Mark suddenly disappeared, leaving Carrie open-mouthed. She closed her mouth. “Well!” she muttered. “That’s almost rude.”
He reappeared a minute later. “Sorry, that had to be done.”
“I don’t suppose that was a toilet break.”
Mark laughed. “No. Some guy with a samurai sword was hurting people in a shopping mall in England. There were mums and toddlers. I – “
“ – had to stop him. I know.” Carrie hugged him tight. “I know.”
“But I have to figure this out. I just can’t be helping everyone like that.”
Carrie said, seriously, “You know, I’m not a big expert on superheroes, but in the comics and films all they ever do is stop petty crime or tackle crazed lunatics who also have strange powers and are trying to do something weird. But they never actually do anything to make the world better. And we’re not comic strip characters. It’s like I said to you the other night. But how do you do that? What do you do?”
They looked into each other’s intelligent eyes.
“I think,” said Mark, “we’ll figure something out.”
Carrie smiled. Mark could not help but kiss her.


38 Reports…

Chris Roberts sat back from the interface and stretched out his legs. His fingers touched in a gesture resembling prayer but indicating speculation. These were strange days.
An hour before he had been in video conference with General Locke and Andrew Talbot. They had been in contact frequently as a result of on-going enquiries and investigations. Locke had asked about Mark.
“Chris – is this boy telling us the truth? Has he lost his powers? You know him best. What do you think?” Locke had asked.
Roberts had smiled. “I honestly don’t know. He seems to be leading a quiet life again, sticking in at school. He’s not top of his class but he’s very bright. I think, on balance, he’s not Superman. Just like he says.”
Talbot agreed. “His mother – Janette – is doing everything she can to bring normality back into their lives. They’ve had counselors, the lot, to help get them through this post-traumatic period, and now they just want to be left alone. And luckily the media are playing along with our requests to virtually leave them alone. In return we give them access to any new developments the scientists come up with from the Soros technology. They accept that their viewers and readers are more interested in that than in the confused monotonous mumblings of a schoolboy.”
Locke grunted. “Well, we’re drawing complete blanks with the search for the mother ship. We’ve got all the Hubble telescopes sweeping the solar system for any trace of a twenty-five square mile hunk of metal and so far nada. Talk about a needle in a haystack! One of our analysts speculated the other day that the boy had it hidden somewhere. We’re actually sending a probe round the dark side of the moon - can you believe that? – just to verify he hasn’t hidden it there. And the landing craft isn’t exactly proving to be the find we all hoped. So many of its systems appear to require some kind of telepathic input. It’s infuriating.”
“I know,” said Talbot. “We have learned a lot – the metallic structure, the holographic technology, but a lot of it’s like window dressing. Thus far and no further. Like some bloody game. The boffins have taken the ship up, of course, but they don’t really know for sure exactly how it flies.”
“We’re like monkeys trying to drive a goddam bus!” barked Locke.
Roberts laughed. “Give it time, General, give it time. It’s early days.”
“All right, Chris, I’ll be in touch.”
“And we’ll keep monitoring the boy at this end,” added Talbot. The conference ended.
Now, Roberts’ interface displayed reports and case notes from various crimes and investigations covering the last few weeks. He clicked back on to one he had read a few minutes previously: a fishing boat bound from Holland to the north-east coast of Scotland had been boarded by Customs officials who had very good reason to believe it carried an illegal cargo of cocaine. Sure enough, hundreds of kilo bags of white powder had been found, but when the chemical analysis came through it proved to be sugar. The smugglers were taken into custody and questioned ruthlessly. They seemed as surprised as the Customs people. They had been released and a few days later were found dead in a flat in Edinburgh, presumably murdered by their “employers” for bungling a million euro deal. The murderers were also now in custody, the plane on which they were trying to leave the country having encountered mysterious engine failure as it tried to take off from Edinburgh Airport. Strange events.
Officials following a tip-off had opened another load, this time heroin, traveling in a cargo container in a Liberian freighter docking at Hull. These cargo containers need special keys – they can’t be opened by just any old Tom or Dick wandering into a dock area. But on examination it was found that the container had once contained heroin, but only traces remained. The entire container was filled with flour – a tonne of it. How that had happened no one could even hazard a guess. A few days later the people who had been in charge of the container shipment met with a fate they had certainly not anticipated. Again, it seemed, their employers had exacted retribution. Their gruesomely headless bodies were found in the Humber estuary.
So somehow drugs shipments were being transformed into harmless substances… How was that being done? Magical tricks? Con tricks? If so, where were the original shipments?
He called up other police reports that had anything in the least “strange” about them, or that contained the word “strange” in their text.
There were many more; his frown deepened as he flicked quickly through them: in another, on a Saturday afternoon in November, a single, strange figure had pushed past a fireman in a burning care-home for the elderly. The home was in Manchester. The fireman had been battling unsuccessfully to win through to a level where, according to staff, an elderly patient was still known to be. The figure, who the fireman swore had not been wearing an oxygen mask or any protective apparel, had brushed the fireman aside and brought out the patient who had been trapped inside. The patient herself – Mrs Adams (79) - commented that the door, which had started to burn furiously, just lifted off its hinges and flew aside. The figure of what she thought to be a young man stepped calmly through and carried her to safety, despite the fact that ceilings and walls were crackling and