The Endgame by Chris James

Author:Chris James [James, Chris]
Format: epub
Published: 2021-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

10.07 Monday 31 July 2062

MARK PHILLIPS WATCHED his trembling left hand. He clenched a fist and released it, again and again, and thought about how much had happened in the last four weeks, since a Spider had blown up his home and killed his parents, since he’d nearly died in real life, after avoiding pretend deaths in the Universes in which he used to be a gamer. But Simon changed Mark’s views. Simon made Mark understand the war, and what role Mark might have to play in it. And Simon had made Mark promise to contact him if he had any problems.

Now, Mark’s hand trembled because he was about to take the next step on his new journey. He looked up at the bland white door opposite him. The chair he sat in rested against a wall with tinted windows that looked out over the River Thames. Despite having been born and raised nearby in East Grinstead, Mark had never visited London.

He turned his head and glanced down at the dirty water below. His eye carried on up to the north bank and a sea of concrete and glass dotted with palls of smoke and miniscule moving chunks of metal. Mark had also never seen construction replicators before, and became mesmerised by watching their concise movements in the bombed-out buildings. At this distance, they looked like children’s toys as they worked to dissemble and organise the mountains of rubble before reconstruction.

The door opposite him opened with a click. He turned to see a tall man with an impatient frown on his face. “Mark Phillips?” Mark opened his mouth in confirmation, but the man didn’t give him a chance. “Come with me, we have a long way to go,” he said.

Mark followed the man through the door and into a deserted open-plan office.

As they hurried past rows of empty desks, the man glanced back at Mark and admonished: “Try to keep up, would you? What did they call you at school, babyface?”

“What?” Mark managed to utter, a sudden need to escape creeping up his spine.

“Yes,” the man said, “I like that, Babyface Phillips.”

Panic rose in Mark. He hated the sense of inadequacy caused by his slight physical frame, and people mocking him for it yanked him back to his childhood and how he’d been bullied.

They arrived at a pair of smooth doors. The man looked at Mark and said: “We’re about to enter a top-secret facility which has a major impact on the performance of our armed forces. Everything you—”

The man broke off when Mark began to withdraw. Mark said: “No, I don’t want to. Where’s Simon? I want to talk to Simon.” He continued taking steps backwards into the open-plan space.

“Wait,” the man said.

Mark tried to control his emotions but could not. “I want to talk to Simon,” he repeated, hearing the panic in his voice but not caring.

The tall man put out a placating hand and said: “Okay, right. Let’s get downstairs and you can talk to Simon.”

“No, now.

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