Chapter Twenty Seven: Simpathe Nation
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There was a distinct smell of ammonia in the air. It smelt like a toilet but he wasn’t in a toilet and then he was. He was chained up and bound to the metal bowl of what could only be a railway toilet. The train was moving at high speed and he knew he had been drugged with his own drugs. He could feel the numbing effects on his emotions but who, what, where and when? He couldn’t have put himself on a train and how did he get here without being spotted? He searched through his pockets. He didn’t even have the one number phone anymore, or his own phone for that matter. The train was coming to a halt. Max could feel it slowing down to a crawl. The toilet door opened and someone came in and lifted him up. It felt like a woman and he could see flat black shoes coupled with black tights. His feet and hands were shackled together as a prisoner would have been in the old days. He managed to crane his neck and look upwards. He saw the woman was wearing a high visibility police jacket and had an identity tag hanging around her neck. She also carried a firearm on a side holster and had striking features. She said nothing but gave him a slight shock to get him up and moving. He could feel the thing inside him, it was still there and didn’t like the shock at all. Max winched in pain. She could see him feeling it.
“Are you ok?” the police woman asked.
“Yes, it’s this Simpathe inside me, it’s nearly ready. Give me pain killers,” Max said relaxing a little as he realized what she was.
The woman felt through his pockets and pulled out some painkillers, quickly slipping two into his mouth and washing them down with a sip of water from a bottle. Max looked around and saw from the light that it was around ten o’clock in the morning. He wasn’t going to make it to Josh and Chloe.
“How come you, a Simpathe, stopped me from doing what I was blackmailed to do? Did you get scared I might give away to many secrets?” Max asked with a ‘nothing to lose’ attitude.
“Something like that,” the police woman replied calmly.
“I hope you’re going to take this thing out before it takes me over,” Max probed.
“It’s not for me to say,” the police woman replied.
She guided him off the train and into a taxi, not a police car. Max recognised their location: Plymouth harbour. The taxi seemed to be heading towards a fishing boat. He knew there were boat trips out here daily. She walked him onto the boat and shoved him below before locking the cabin door from the outside. He heard voices then the sound of the engine starting before the boat pulled off. The waves felt bigger as they left the harbour. He had no doubt he was at sea to meet his fishy end. After about an hour he heard the engine cut out and voices calling out greetings to each other. A slight bump to the side of the boat confirmed his guess that they had moored with another boat. He heard more voices and the sizzle of electrostatic charges and then more voices again. The police woman returned and wordlessly transferred him from one boat to another. He was placed in the cargo hold of the other, much larger ship and tied to a chair. The police woman gave him an injection which made him a little sleepy and then he was out of it again.
Max woke and the pain was incredible, it was agony. He couldn’t move or feel or touch anything. He was in a world of pain, his own personal hell. This is what happens to people in hell, he though feverishly, they were permanently tortured. From what felt like an immense distance he heard a voice telling him to stop panicking, that it would make it easier, but he had no control, he was not going to be able to do anything. The voice told him he should relax and get rid of the pain as quickly as he could. It was working now, the pain was lifting and he was floating away into the light.
Graham watched the battered body of the Simpathe, spread-eagled face down in the waves, brushed up against the brightly coloured buoy. A glance at his screen showed that other Simpathes were approaching the buoy at high speed. They were aboard a boat that had been launched from a yacht at anchor in the channel. At least his boat was safe for now with no Simpathes aboard or, indeed within two hours travel he thought with relief. He decided to set a course for Jersey and let the pilot take the helm. It would take several hours to get to port. He hadn’t slept in well over a day and he was exhausted as they all were. Chloe and Josh were taking some time out as well. As there wasn’t a cook aboard a Chloe was doing what she did best; thinking about food. They were having fun cooking in the narrow galley and had so far made chicken fajitas, chicken curries with rice and podiums and were now attempting chicken enchiladas. All aboard bar the pilot would be eating and Chloe had set places for everyone at the table. They were all ready to sleep having done their jobs well. They now had all the intelligence they needed to wage war on the Simpathes although they still had to formulate a plan. But food and rest had to come first as they were all so tired they weren’t thinking clearly anyway. Robert had been amongst the Simpathes and had told them that war was inevitable but he must get their information to the right person who wasn’t a Simpathe.
Max swam back to a groggy consciousness. He could hardly believe he was still alive. How? He wondered. He felt different, not fully himself. Reality hit him with a hammer blow; he was different, he wasn’t human. Max looked around taking in his surroundings. He was lying on a narrow bunk in a comfortable cabin. Through a porthole he could see waves lapping against the ship. He was as famished as if he hadn’t eaten for weeks and noted as he sat up that he wasn’t in restraints. Fresh clothes were laid out on a chair next to the bunk. He slowly dressed, feeling incredibly weak. He had never felt quite like that before. The cabin door wasn’t locked either so he followed his nose along the corridor towards the delicious smelling aromas of cooking food. His nose led him into the galley where he saw Josh and Chloe interacting in perfect harmony.
“Max you’re up,” Chloe said happily.
“I’m starving! What happened to me? I have a,….” Max was interrupted.
“Eat first and then talk. You look ill,” Chloe ordered him. Chloe recognised the look Max was wearing and knew how he was feeling. It was a bit like white deathing whilst stoned, she had experienced it a few times. Max sat shoveling food into his mouth as if he had never eaten before. He demolished the fajitas and practically dived into the chicken curry before stopping for a coffee or two.
“I have one in me,” Max told them. He was afraid of their response.
“Yes you do, but we have dealt with it,” Chloe answered him calmly, “Please don’t worry,” Chloe touched his hand and explained to him in seconds what had happened. The police woman had been Maddy who had gone straight in and out of the net, jumping into the compliant body of a terminally ill police woman. It had taken Maddy time to get the body well enough to get to Max’s previous location and she had been too late. She had tracked him and picked him up on the way to meet Josh and Chloe. The trio had done their research and kept the Simpathe subdued until together they lobotomized it.
“It’s not all gone is it? Will it grow back?” Max was still concerned. He knew he still felt different.
“No it’s dead. It had made space made for itself and set up connections for it’s abilities but not for it’s mind,” Chloe explained.
“So I am like you?” Max questioned her.
“No you’re like one of them but with a human heart and your own brain. We couldn’t do that to a full Simpathe but we could to you because it was a sleeper,” Chloe explained.
“So what can I do then?” Max asked.
Chloe touched him, passing on an information upgrade containing everything she had been assimilating. He pulled away in shock for a second before reaching to make contact with her again. It was amazing. Josh couldn’t help feeling a tiny niggle of jealously; Max was connecting to Chloe in a way he never could and it looked so cool. Max learned all about the Simpathe that had been taken out. Chloe had ensured he could pass for one of them when he needed to. It would make carrying out operations much easier and Max processed the information that she gave him it within seconds. He was t
ruly amazed at how much he hadn’t known. He had now been presented with several lifetimes of information and understood what the Simpathes were all about. He was staggered; they had accumulated so much that they regarded all of human knowledge compared to theirs as an amoeba compared to a genius. The information imparted and the cooking finished successfully everyone came through for a catch-up and to welcome Max back. The suppertime conversation was very Armageddon like. Robert brought the most recent intelligent reports through to the galley and the pilot anchored the boat and joined them for half an hour to eat whilst they all discussed the possible fate of the UK and what to do about it. They were certain that they could go and live on a desert island for the rest of their lives but all agreed that something must be done instead. They could see by the charts that the government had been taken over. Contrarily this pleased them greatly: none of them liked politicians and considered they only got their own kind killed even before they were Simpathes. The Simpathes appeared to be capturing the infrastructure of the country and taking over key positions in business and local government. Newspaper editors had been taken over to control the propaganda given out to the masses .Chloe’s people had been tracking everyone.
Silence fell as they practically scraped their brains to think of the best way of dealing with the situation
“The Queen,” Josh suddenly blurted out.
“What about her?” Max asked.
“She’s the Commander in Chief of the armies is she not?” Josh asked excitedly.
“No that’s the Prime Minister,” Ted said, wrongly
“Josh is right and if we want to launch a nuclear missile we need to ask her first,” Max said.
“Martial Law,” Chloe pondered to herself.
“We would have a bloody civil war on our hands,” Ted said, aghast.
“If we don’t act soon there will be no England to have one! Just look at these charts predicting how many will be turned into Simpathes within three weeks.” Robert pointed to a sheaf of print outs.
“I’ll set sail for London then,” Graham said.
“Then what? They won’t just let us walk into the palace you know,” Ted said skeptically.
“Why not drop in quietly at night,” the pilot suggested.
“I’ll change course for Smugglers Cove then,” Graham nodded in approval, “we’ll need supplies.”
“No, keep us on course for Jersey. We’ll acquire some money and supplies the old fashioned way,” Max spoke up, “and they have an airport there too.”
Huddled around the galley table the small group worked out the details of a full plan of operations for Queen and Country.