The Gang of Four
Alan dropped in and out of consciousness as spasms of pain continued to flare. He was dying, and of that he felt sure; his body had been pulverized but temporarily left intact, left to disintegrate on its own terms, like a condemned building that had just been dynamited but, for a moment at least, was still bravely standing. Death could come in seconds.
He became more lucid for a while and noticed he now lay on a sofa in another office, and someone had placed a blanket over him. He tried to look up but the agony surged. He slumped back and tried once again to access the psynet. Nothing. Truly nothing at all this time. It simply didn’t exist. Something had done a right proper number on the Sponsors, and the hybrids, but apparently left the humans unharmed. He may well be the only survivor, but not for long.
Someone burst into the room. ‘We’ve called the company doctor, Alan, luckily she is still in the building. Hang tight, darling!’ he felt a hand on his brow. It was one of the administrators, Tilly, a sociable young woman with whom he’d shared office gossip from time to time, usually at the expense of Bruce. But he needed more than a house doctor.
‘Ambulance,’ he managed to drawl, almost choking in the process.
‘We called them as well, hopefully they’ll be along asap, but they’re probably struggling with casualties from the disaster. They’re saying an asteroid has exploded over London! Can you believe that!!??’
‘No,’ replied Alan, truthfully. He did not believe that.
Tilly continued with enthusiasm: ‘Apparently it was massive and there’s a lot of debris coming down, and some windows blown in by the blast, but we’re alright here, most of the damage is out to the east! Do you know Bruce is dead, and the supervisor? Maybe you got hit by some ‘shrapnel’ or something. Strange, though, that no windows appeared to be broken, but maybe something small got through. We’ve locked Bruce’s office and we’ve called the police and…’
Alan stared at the pretty young administrator as she continued to gabble. He felt concern for her, and everyone else. Maybe death was the preferred option right now, he pondered. What had done all this? It appeared as though the Sponsors had been wiped out and there was no force he knew of that could do that. That only left aliens: different aliens, extremely powerful aliens. What would be their plans for humanity? Several grisly images from Sci-Fi movies passed through his mind: images of farming, harvesting. Oh God!
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
Alan dry wretched at the thought of that as Tilly tried desperately to comfort him. ‘I’ll see where that doctor has got to,’ she said in a panicky voice, before dashing out of the room.
Alan awaited the inevitable, but his body stubbornly held on. Maybe medical intervention could help him after all. The door to the office flung open and a tall woman stood at the entrance, glaring at him. At last, the doct-‘agh!’
What the–! He was being dragged by his hair along the floor of the open-plan office. He tried to see, but his eyes were rheumy; he tried to complain but could only make grunting, gurgling noises. He was now in a stairwell being forcibly dragged up the stairs.
‘Are we doing another roof!?’ came a complaining male voice from somewhere. There was the sound of many feet around him, crowding him. Near the top he was forced to a standing position and then used as a battering ram to burst open the fire doors. Out onto the roof of Finsbury Circus he flew.
Alan lay face down resting against the loose asphalt roofing for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the nonsensical. He was dead. That was the best explanation, nothing else worked. On the other hand his agonized body forced him back to the land of the living, if only for a brief final hoorah. He made himself stand. Holy crap! What had happened to the sky!? Boiling black clouds; dancing, almost continuous lightning; a cacophony of thunder and other explosions. Never mind his body signals, he was right the first time, this was death, this was Hell!
His focus cleared somewhat and he noticed the surrounding buildings of the City district, the Square Mile. The nearby Tower 42, the Lloyds building and others all had their internal lights blazing. Below, street lamps were also on, and amid the continuous crashing and banging, a wailing soundtrack of sirens.
He was alone on the roof, just him and some hell beasts: An enormous tarantula paced around the edge of the roof; a demonic cat sat near his feet and studied him with a look of mirth; a furious banshee gesticulated wildly, shouting and screaming unintelligibly; and… a jogger! Yes, Hell, or Hell’s vestibule.
Tearing, groaning sounds came from above. A huge sheet of flaming something emerged from the pitch and glided across the sky, soon to be lost again to another angry wall of cloud. Dante would have loved this…
The banshee screamed at him: ‘Your Sponsors are no more, traitor!!’ Alan cowered before the onslaught of rage. ‘You will soon join them!!’ she wailed.
Eventually Alan glanced up… distracted.
‘Is that a blackboard?’ He asked casually, no longer mindful of anything else.
‘Brace yourself!’ came a distant voice.
His own nails; somebody else’s nails; or a stick of shiny chalk, flinty and rough-hewn, plucked straight from the Cliffs of Dover. It does not matter which. The implement and the blackboard are fundamentally ill matched. Matter and anti-matter dragged together and releasing their grievance in a purely acoustic blast. Endless, unbearable, tearing his mind apart. Or tearing it open!
The screeching stops.
A planet seen from space! And a nearby moon. He understands this: the closing stages of the late heavy bombardment, 3.9 billion years ago. Planet Earth as it was then. In place of oceans and continents, many seas and volcanic islands. In place of blue, a hazy grey/brown. And lifeless, just a ball of water and stone. But a perfect ball: perfect location, perfect mass, perfect sun, perfect moon, perfect balance of elements and minerals. And so on…
Mr. Waterstone has undeniably struck lucky pitching up here! But the truly hard work still lies ahead. How to assemble the jumbo jet from the scattered rubbish of a junk yard? There can be no planning, no intent. But Mr. Waterstone has luck, and he has will.
Less than five-hundred-thousand years later and Mr. Waterstone believes he is onto something: a simple RNA nucleus nestling in a haphazard bed of proteins. He examines it in the harsh light of the new sun. It is fragile, immobile and it needs exactly the conditions supplied here by this muddy volcanic vent.
But it is the first viable self-replicating entity: Ceres.
The cell copies itself, it mutates, it improves. At first progress is tortuously slow, but the adaptations keep coming. Photosynthesis! Now it can spread to many other environments on the planet. Gradually that first clumsy cell evolves into a myriad of others. Internal complexity develops like a run-away mega city. These advanced cells begin to seek out cooperative arrangements with others: mats of bacteria, fungal macrostructures. Then tiny worms, true multi-cellular creatures begin to emerge.
Oxygen is infiltrating the atmosphere and oceans, providing a means to step-up metabolism and now there is an arms race. The mature biosphere emerges: Rain forests, dinosaurs, oceans teeming. Then mammals, primates and the modern world.
The view pulls back to show the planet today: bursting at the seams with life. The view pulls back further and the planet becomes an eye, and the eye a face; all life on Earth given a single identity, the same identity it has always had: Ceres. Now it is all of Earth’s 1038 living cells, and standing before him, fierce and accusing.
Alan gazed blankly at the tall woman then collapsed to the ground, motionless, the aneurysm in his brain having finally popped.
Chapter Two
Tuesday
(Revelations)