First Activation

“Yeah, sure he will,” Jack replied “You will be top priority. I don’t see the cavalry descending down on us now, do you? You’re not needed.”

“I’m not the only that knows what’s going on.”

A smug look crossed his face.

The purpose and scale of the activations had been explained, but I wanted to know about Genesis Alliance. Who exactly was Ron, and why was he approached to carry out this work. I could understand how a group of misfits could be created to carry out the required tasks with promises of salvation and a comfortable life ringing in their deluded ears. But none of that explained how it all came about and what was coming. If Jerry didn’t know, Hermitage was our next destination.

“What else do you know? What are the origins of Genesis Alliance and what is Ron’s history?” I pressed.

“I’ve told you, I wasn’t in it from the start. Some questions are not allowed to be asked. I was trusted to know part of the plan, but I am only a regional coordinator.”

“Regional coordinator?” Jack replied angrily. “You make it sound like you were setting up for the Olympics, not attempting to wipe out our race.”

“Unless you give us something more, Jerry, I’m going to leave you to the mercy of Jack,” I said.

It was another attempted bluff to see if we could get any more out of him.

“Control is in Monroe. That’s where the activation is triggered,” Jerry said hastily.

“I guessed that. What else?”

I moved towards him. Jack came to stand on the other side of the table with menace in his eyes.

“The activation failed in Northern England as we had two device errors. I heard it on the radio. We don’t have a mobile device that can be put in the area, as the south of the country is covered by the one in the Shard, which can’t be moved.”

Jack motioned towards the barn door and we walked outside to stand with Lea again.

“Lea, did you hear that?” Jack said.

“Yes, but what does one unaffected area in England mean for us over here?”

It was a good question, and we all pondered it for a minute. The problem we faced was that we didn’t know what the right questions were for Jerry. He was answering what we asked, but nothing more. We still didn’t fully know what he knew.

“I don’t think it means anything for us at the moment,” I said. “Our priority should be trying to stop this at the source, in Monroe. We’ll stop on the way to talk to Anthony.”

“Hang on a minute, since when did this become our problem?” Jack said.

“Jack, think about if we were standing here and another one of those activations went off. Besides that, we’ve killed four patrol members of Genesis Alliance and tortured a regional coordinator. Do you think they’re going to let us ride off into the sunset?”

“Why don’t we go back to and talk to Morgan and his group? We could put a small army together.”

“Jack, you’re not thinking. If we stop and turn back now, there’s probably more chance of us being caught up in another one of those things, on ground level this time. Plus, I reckon they’ll be expecting us to run away now, not be coming for them.”

“So we’re going for it?” Jack said, with excitement in his eyes.

“Yes. Let’s go and have a chat with Anthony.”

“A chat?” Lea asked, scornfully.

“You know what I mean. We can decide after that what our next moves are. At least he might be able to tell us what’s coming. If Jerry isn’t lying.”

“It’s going to be a long drive, but yeah, I agree,” Lea said.

“What about the captain who went to Long Island? He could fly us to England,” Jack said.

“That’s a bit of a long shot isn’t it?” I replied. “We don’t even know if he has survived up to this point.”

“I was just thinking of options, if there is an area that has managed to avoid all of this, then I’d want to be there. The fact that it is home is an added bonus.”

“Do you think the area would have been overrun by killers from elsewhere?” Lea asked.

I didn’t think so. An area that didn’t suffer an activation might be damaged around the edges but not completely wiped out. The ‘kill one then kill yourself’ mentality was chilling and effective, but only with complete coverage. Perhaps if the brainwashing had convinced everyone just to carry on murdering, then it might have provided a little more of a contingency for failure. I explained my train of thought to Lea and Jack.

“The plan is still good if one of those transmitters can be dropped into Northern England. If not, it’s only one small area compared to the damage that has already been done,” Jack said.

There was no point speculating about what would happen in England. The best chance we had was to find out if any more activations were coming, and possibly stop them.

“Is there any way of trying to contact Northern England?” Lea asked. “Will the radio work at that distance? We could at least try to warn them.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“Yes, it will. We can try and use some of the maritime distress frequencies and hope that somebody is listening.”