Battle Lines

Johnny picked up the tape recorder and ejected the tiny cassette. He placed it in one of the two slots on the recording deck that stood on a shelf beside the window, inserted a blank tape into the other, and pressed record. His friends and acquaintances were often surprised to discover that Johnny Supernova was extremely diligent where his interviews were concerned; paper notes were scanned and backed up on his laptop, and tapes were duplicated and labelled with his own code, meaningless to anyone else.

The tapes whirred inside the high-speed deck, until a loud beep announced that the copy was complete. Johnny ejected the new tape, scrawled an apparently random combination of letters and numbers on its label, and placed it on to a shelf below the deck containing several hundred identical-looking cassettes. He put the original back into his portable recorder, then made his way to his flat’s small kitchen. He brewed a pot of tea and was carrying it back into the living room, intending to listen to the interview again, when his doorbell rang.

Johnny frowned. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and made a point of keeping his home address a closely guarded secret. There had been too many crazy fans over the years, people who turned up on his doorstep at the end of some weird pilgrimage, wanting to party with him, or in many cases just be in his presence. In the early days, he had invited these men and women in, given them beer and wine, occasionally drugs, and let them hang out for as long as they liked. In later years, he had given them a cup of tea, let them get warm for a few minutes, then sent them on their way. Now he simply told them they had the wrong address and closed the door in their faces.

He set his tea aside, walked down the stairs and out into the communal corridor that served the whole house. Johnny suddenly wished, not for the first time, that he had an entry-phone system; he could have checked who was outside from behind the safety of two heavy locks. But he didn’t. He reached the front door and leant his face close up against the wood.

“Who is it?” he shouted, and felt a stab of shame as he heard the tremor in his own voice. “Who’s there?”

“Metropolitan Police, sir,” replied a flat, metallic voice. “Open the door, please.”

Johnny paused. It was far from the first time the police had been at his door.

“How can I help you?” he shouted.

“We need to talk to you regarding a matter of national security, sir,” replied the voice. “You can help by opening your door.”

National security?

Still Johnny hesitated; something didn’t feel quite right. He wracked his brains, trying to identify the source of his unease; when he failed to do so, he took a deep breath and opened the door.

It was barely clear of its frame before it burst open, sending Johnny stumbling backwards. He lost his balance, twisted round, and planted one hand on the worn carpet of the hallway. By the time he had pushed himself back to his feet, the front door was closed and locked, and two figures in black uniforms were standing in front of him. Their faces were hidden by purple visors that emerged from the black helmets they were wearing; Johnny couldn’t see a single millimetre of exposed skin. One of them stepped forward, raising a gloved hand, and terror exploded through him. He turned and ran for the open door of his flat.

He didn’t make it.

As Johnny stretched for the door frame, intending to fling himself through the gap between it and the door, fingers closed in the hair at the back of his head, then whipped him sharply to the right. His balance left him and his head thudded into the wall. He saw stars and fought to stay upright, his brain screaming a single coherent thought.

Have to get away. Have to get away. Have to get away.

He threw himself forward, feeling an explosion of pain as a handful of his hair and scalp tore loose, and staggered through the door. He pushed weakly at it, but a heavy black boot had already been wedged against the frame, and it wouldn’t close. He turned and stumbled up the stairs towards his kitchen, his mind reeling with panic. Footsteps thudded on the stairs behind him, horribly slow and calm, and Johnny realised there was nowhere to go. Then hands grabbed at him again; he was pushed through the kitchen and into the living room, where he was thrown on to his battered sofa. He stared up at the black figures. One of them appeared to be looking down at him from behind its impenetrable purple visor, while the other had picked up his tape recorder and pressed play. Albert Harker’s voice instantly emerged from the small speaker.

“… is the biggest secret in the world, a secret that my family and others have kept for more than a century. And I’m telling it…”

The figure clicked the stop button, opened the recorder and took out the tape. It passed it to its colleague, who held it up in front of Johnny’s face.

“This is the recording of your interview with Albert Harker?” it said, in the same empty voice he had heard through the front door.

Johnny nodded. He was literally too frightened to speak.

The figure slid the tape into a pouch on the side of its uniform.

“Where are your notes?” it asked.

He pointed with a trembling finger. His notebook was lying where he had left it, on the arm of his chair. The second figure picked it up, leafed through it, then pocketed it.

Johnny managed to find his voice. “Hey,” he shouted. “There’s other stuff in there.”

“Other stuff?” asked the figure.

“Normal stuff,” replied Johnny. “Work stuff. The Harker notes are only the last two pages. Let me keep the rest. Please?”

There was a long pause. Then the dark figure pulled out the notebook, tore out the last written pages and threw the rest down on to the coffee table.

Johnny was about to crawl across the floor and grab it when a black gloved hand gripped his face and turned his head. The purple visor was millimetres away from his face and he fought back a new torrent of panic.

“Mr Supernova,” said the black figure, and the flatness of its voice made him want to scream. “It would be extremely inadvisable to attempt to publish what you heard today. The unsubstantiated ramblings of a man with both a long-standing substance addiction and a well-known grudge against his family will be of little interest to anyone, and cannot possibly be claimed to be in the public interest. To publish such a story would in all likelihood result in the death of your career, a career that is already ailing badly. Do you understand what I am saying to you?”

Johnny nodded rapidly. For a long moment, the visor didn’t move; he could see his own terrified face reflected in the purple surface. Then the figure released its grip and stood up.

“We’re done here,” it said. The second figure nodded, strode back into the kitchen, and opened the door.

A second later they were gone.

He stared after them for a long moment, then burst up from the sofa. He ran across the room, his steps short and unsteady, and clattered down the stairs.

The corridor was empty.

The front door was shut.

Johnny let out a high, childlike sob and slammed his door shut, locking it and sliding the chain into place. He ran back up the stairs, scrabbled at the shelf of tapes beside the window and clutched the copy of the Harker interview in his shaking hands. Gripping it tightly, he slid to the floor, turning his back against the wall. He drew his knees up to his chin and began to weep.

A mile away, Albert Harker walked up on to London Bridge wondering why he had lied to the journalist.

No, that wasn’t right.

He hadn’t lied; everything he had told Supernova was the truth. But he had omitted something from his account of his refusal to join Department 19.

*

On New Year’s Day 1980, Albert’s twin brother Robert had taken him aside, sworn him to secrecy, and told him about Blacklight.

He was as animated as Albert had ever seen him, bursting with excitement at what the New Year had in store for them both. Albert listened, then asked him how he had come to know about the organisation he was describing. Robert frowned; it was the look of someone who has got carried away with something and hasn’t thought the potential consequences through.

“Dad told me,” he said, eventually. “On our birthday, when he was drunk. He said it was only one more year until we could start our real lives. I asked him what he meant and he told me.”

“Where was I?” asked Albert. A familiar sensation had begun to creep into his chest, as though his heart was being packed in ice.

“It was late,” said Robert. “You were asleep.”

“So how come you’re only telling me now?”

Robert’s gaze flicked momentarily to the floor and Albert knew the answer before his brother spoke it aloud.

“He told me not to tell you,” said Robert, with the decency to at least look apologetic. “The next morning. He said he shouldn’t have told me and that I wasn’t to tell you. So I told him I wouldn’t. I’m sorry, Bert.”

Albert pushed the hurt aside, something he was vastly experienced at doing, and tried instead to focus on what his brother had said; there was a future in which they would be together, would do something incredible, and exciting, and dangerous. The New Year, which usually brought him nothing but gloom, suddenly seemed bright and full of possibility.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied, and smiled. “Although it sounds like you’re going to have to get a lot better at keeping secrets.”

Robert grinned. “So should Dad. You know who he told me works for Blacklight?”

“Who?”

“Frankenstein.”

“Piss off. Doctor Frankenstein is real?”

Robert shook his head. “Not the doctor, the monster. Apparently, he took his creator’s name. Some sort of honour thing.”

“Frankenstein’s monster is real and works with our dad? That’s what you’re telling me?”

“Yep,” replied Robert. “And in a year’s time, so will we. Try and get your head round that.”

“I need a drink,” said Albert, then grinned at his brother. “A big one.”

Robert laughed, a noise that was high and loud and full of happiness. The two brothers threw their arms round each other’s shoulders and rejoined the party as the crowd began their joyous countdown to midnight.

For eight long months, Albert looked forward to his birthday with an excitement he hadn’t felt since he was a little boy. Spring and summer passed with agonising slowness, until finally, at long last, the day arrived. He journeyed from his halls in Cambridge to his parents’ home the afternoon before, enjoyed the atmosphere of palpable anticipation that surrounded the table as they ate dinner, then bade his family goodnight.

It took him a long time to get to sleep.

When he awoke the next morning, he made his way excitedly down the stairs, and found his parents and brother in the midst of breakfast; he joined them, in what he would come to remember as the last moment of genuine happiness they experienced together. After the plates were cleared and the champagne was drunk and the presents were opened, Albert’s father asked Robert if he could see him in his study. Robert agreed, tipping his brother a wink as he followed their father out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

The two men returned fifteen minutes later. Robert wore a remarkably smug expression, while their father looked as though he might burst with pride. Both men appeared to have been crying, and Albert felt a surge of love rush into his chest as they retook their seats at the kitchen table.

My turn, Albert thought, excitedly. Any second. My turn next.

But nothing happened.

The usual chatter resumed and Albert realised, with slowly dawning horror, that his turn wasn’t coming. He tried desperately to catch his brother’s eye, but Robert studiously avoided his gaze, looking in every other possible direction. When breakfast was over, the family went their separate ways, heading into the living room or out into the garden.

Albert remained where he was, unable to believe that this was really happening to him, to believe that anyone, even David Harker, could be quite so cruel. Eventually, he heard his father call for Robert. A moment later he heard the jeep’s engine roar into life, heard the rattle of tyres across gravel, and knew it was real. He got up from the table, packed his bags, and left the house without saying a word to anyone.

Back in Cambridge, he got drunk for three days, and on the fourth he called his brother. Robert told him he didn’t know what was happening, and that he couldn’t talk about it even if he did. He was playing under a new set of rules, he said, and Albert wasn’t to ask him about the organisation they had discussed on New Year’s Eve. It would be for the best, Robert said, if he forgot about what he had been told.

Albert fought back the urge to shriek down the phone.

This isn’t fair! This isn’t fair! You get everything and now you get this too and I get nothing! IT’S NOT FAIR!

Instead, he told Robert he never wanted to see him again and hung up on the first syllables of his brother’s protest. Then he opened a bottle of vodka and waited to see whether or not his father would put him out of his misery.

Weeks passed without word from home until, one baking hot afternoon in late August, Albert returned from a drunken stroll in the park to find his father standing outside the door to his room. His face curdled with obvious distaste as he took in his son’s dishevelled, unshaven appearance, but he said nothing. He merely waited for his son to open the door and followed him through it.

Albert sat in the chair beneath the window, while his father remained standing. He didn’t offer to make tea, or coffee, or anything else; he was only interested in what they both knew his father was there to say, which he proceeded to deliver in a flat, emotionless tone of voice that made Albert want to cry. David Harker explained quickly that there was an organisation called Blacklight, which every male member of the Harker family had been a member of, all the way back to his great-grandfather, who had helped found it. He, Albert, was entitled to join, if he wanted to.

And that was it.

Albert stared up at him for a long moment, realising with sudden certainty what had happened: his father had not wanted to invite him to join, had clearly had no intention of ever doing so, but had been told by someone, presumably his superiors, that it was mandatory. So he had driven to Cambridge and made the offer to his son in the least enthusiastic way possible, hoping against hope that he would say no. For a moment, Albert thought about saying yes, out of nothing more than pure, hateful spite. But the thought quickly passed.

“I don’t want to join,” he said, looking his father directly in the eye and seeing exactly what he was expecting: a momentary bloom of uncontrollable relief. He felt something break in his chest and told his father that he could see himself out. Without waiting to see if he did so, Albert walked stiffly into his bedroom and lay down on his bed.

He lay there for a long time. Eventually, he heard the click as his father pulled the door shut behind him.

The wind whipped up from the river below and Albert pulled his coat tightly round him as he made his way across the bridge.

He had let Johnny Supernova believe that he had never wanted to join Blacklight, that he had rejected his father’s offer out of calculated malice. In truth, his twenty-first birthday had been the day his heart had closed to the rest of the world. It had been cold confirmation of all his deepest fears about himself: that he was no good, that he was inferior to his brother, that his father had never wanted or loved him. The reality was simple, and endlessly painful: he had rejected his father’s offer because he couldn’t bear the thought of seeing the disappointment in his eyes every day.

Albert was halfway across the bridge when a black car pulled to a halt beside him. He stopped and looked at it; the windows were the same impenetrable black as its body and the number plate on the front bore the legend DIPLOMATIC VEHICLE. The passenger door swung open and he leant down to look inside. A man in a black suit stared out at him, his eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses.

“Took you long enough,” said Albert. “I didn’t think I’d get this far, to be honest. Standards must be slipping.”

“Will you come with us, please, Mr Harker?” asked the man. He gave no indication of having heard Albert speak.

“Come where?” he asked.

“There is someone who wants to speak to you, Mr Harker,” replied the man. He shifted slightly in his seat and his suit jacket slid open far enough for Albert to see the black pistol hanging beneath the man’s armpit.

“I can’t imagine who that might be,” said Harker, with a gentle smile.

He took a quick look around. The grey mass of the Thames moved sluggishly beneath him, as sunlight gleamed off the stone and glass and metal of the buildings on either side of the river. The sky was bright blue overhead, the clouds the purest white. It was a fine day, the kind that you hope for every morning when you force yourself out of bed. Albert Harker took a sweet, lingering breath and climbed into the back of the car.

They accelerated smoothly north, leaving the river behind.

Albert watched the passing city with an odd sensation of grief filling him; he felt like he was never going to see it again. The fact that the man in the sunglasses had not felt the need to blindfold him suggested that the journey was one-way; they clearly didn’t care if he saw where they were taking him.

The car ploughed through the thick traffic at the Aldwych, crawled up Kingsway and Woburn Place, and emerged on to Euston Road. Beyond the filthy, litter-strewn streets that surrounded King’s Cross Station, an area of London that Albert remembered being far, far worse as little as a decade earlier, they turned north on to York Way, past the goods yards and the sticky, almost stationary canal. The car’s big engine purred as it made its way on to Camden Road, where it pulled into the driveway of a tall, narrow house.

The man in the sunglasses told Albert to stay where he was, then climbed out of the car. A second later the door beside him opened, to reveal the man holding it with such stolid politeness that Albert fought back the urge to laugh. He eased himself out of the car and looked up at the house. The door stood at the top of five stone steps, open to the warm afternoon air. Albert looked at the man in the sunglasses, who didn’t move.

“Aren’t you coming?” he asked.

The man didn’t respond. Albert stared at him for a moment that seemed to last forever, then crossed the drive and slowly climbed the steps, one at a time. Beyond the door, he saw a man standing in a long, narrow hallway. His black suit was identical to the one worn by his colleague outside, and he gave no indication of having seen Albert Harker; he stood perfectly still, his hands clasped before his groin, the plastic earpiece behind his ear clearly visible. On the opposite side of the corridor was an open door. Albert approached it slowly, trying to slow his racing heart, and stepped through it.

The room was long and tall, with a semi-circular set of bay windows beneath which sat an empty sofa. Standing in front of it was Albert’s father.

“Hello, son,” said David Harker. He was wearing his Blacklight uniform, his hands dangling loosely at his sides, his face expressionless. Albert opened his mouth to reply, but then a second voice spoke from behind him, a voice that froze him where he stood.

“Hello, Bert.”

Albert turned slowly and saw his brother standing at the far end of the room. He too was all in black, and standing beside him was a man that Albert didn’t recognise.

“Robert,” he said. “What are you—”

“Look at me, Albert,” said David, sharply. “Your brother asked to be here, but it’s me you’re dealing with.”

He forced himself back round. To Albert’s well-practised eyes, two thin patches of pale pink were clearly visible high up on his father’s cheeks. He had come to know them very well as a child; they were a clear warning that his father’s patience was nearing an end, and that his temper, a great and terrible thing, was very close to the surface.

“Hello, Father,” he said, as calmly as he was able. He suddenly felt incredibly alone among these three men, whose loyalty to each other, he knew, far superseded the loyalty that either of the members of his family felt towards him. “What can I do for you?”

David took a step forward. “What did you tell him, Albert?” he asked, his voice low and cold.

“Tell who?”

“The journalist. What did you tell him?”

Albert shrugged. “Everything,” he said.

“Why?” growled David Harker. “For God’s sake, why?”

“Because I knew it would make your life difficult,” replied Albert, and smiled at his father.

David crossed the distance between them in the blink of an eye. There was a blur of black, before his fist crashed into his son’s mouth, driving him to the ground. Albert felt pain explode through his head, felt his lip tear and his mouth fill up with blood. His stomach churned and he put his hands on the floor, trying to steady himself. He spat blood on to the wooden floorboards of the living room, then rocked back on his knees, staring up at his father. Behind him, from some great distance, he heard a vaguely familiar voice shout for someone to control themself, but paid it little attention. His gaze was fixed on the twisted crimson of his father’s face, at the expression of pure hatred that blazed there.

“You stupid boy,” breathed David Harker. “You stupid, pathetic little boy. He’ll never print a word of what you told him. So all that you’ve done is embarrass your family, yet again. Why couldn’t you just have stayed in that rathole in Southwark, with your junkie friends? Or just died, like most of your kind already have? It would have saved us all so much trouble.”

“I’m… happy,” said Albert, grinning through teeth smeared with blood, “to have… disappointed you… Father.”

David Harker raised his fist again, but this time Albert’s brother was there, grabbing his arm and holding it in place.

“No more,” said Robert, casting a brief, disgusted glance down at his kneeling twin. “Not like this, Dad. This isn’t how we do things.”

David glared at Robert for a long moment, then his face softened into a look of such obvious pride that Albert felt it as a stabbing pain in the middle of his chest, like an icicle skewering his heart.

“You’re right, of course,” said David. “Thank you.” He clapped his son on the back, then the two men looked down at Albert. An enormous quantity of blood had run from his mouth, soaking the front of his shirt red. He stared back at them with fear and loathing in his eyes.

“This is long overdue,” said David. “I should have done this more than a decade ago. Your mother persuaded me to let you be, convinced me that you might eventually work out what it means to be a man, to be a Harker. Letting her do so was my mistake, and I see it now.” He looked up towards the door and gave a nod. “Get him out of my sight,” he said. “I don’t ever want to see his face again.”

Albert’s mind was suddenly overcome with terror.

They’re going to kill me, he thought. They’re going to kill me, oh God, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t think they’d really do it, oh God, I didn’t know. I didn’t know.