| Chapter Three - Fear & Resolve |
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Following the end of our enlightening soiree, I bid the Captain goodnight, having arranged to meet the following morning. The streets
seemed unnaturally quiet that night and devoid of life. The hairs on the back of neck were lifting as I made my careful journey back
towards my modest lodgings via my usual shadowed route. Something was wrong and I instinctively made my way to the nearest sewer
bolthole I could find. This turned out to be not a moment too soon as a horrific wailing filled my ears, temporarily deafening me. This
was followed by a searing white flash of luminescence which set the very ground trembling. I fought my senses and focussed upon prising
the weighty, lichen stained grill barring the entrance out from its fixings. The building to my left erupted in a choking explosion,
vomiting a grotesque mangled plume of brick, timber and charred flesh into the sky. I was hurled into the rough walled subterranean
blackness with such force I was knocked unconscious. I had no concept of how long I lay inert but I came to with the sounds of battle
abating, to be replaced by the cries of the injured and the desperate. Humanity had once again repelled the alien onslaught. My former
bolthole entrance was filled with rubble so there was little point attempting to return to the streets that way.
As I made my way back through the dank labyrinth of the London sewer network towards my abode, I pondered upon what I had had the good fortune to survive. It appeared that our enemy had a new weapon, one of devastating force. I was later to learn that this was not yet perfected, as it had been discharged just once during the course of the battle. I remember feeling a surge of anger coupled with a sense of purpose. I grasped at that moment just how the Captain had acquired his unbending focus on his task. It was the experience of awe, terror and helplessness induced by near death at the hands of a deadly adversary, with an absolute resolve to never revisit such sensations again. This was the first time in my life I discovered that a reminder of my mortality was very effective in focusing the mind. Sadly, it was not to be the last. As I weaved my way back through the meandering tunnels and clusters of refugees from the madness above, I considered the Captain's proposition. The first task would be to design a small craft, capable of bearing the weight of a single human into the skies. But where to begin? I recalled constructing my kite and the principles I discovered to provide enough lift to raise it into the air. Then, unbidden, my mind wandered back to the happy hours spent at my fathers falconry, watching his favourite Kestrel gracefully arrow through the air - pursuing its prey. By the time I reached the battered door to what I then reluctantly considered home, the first steps upon the path which would hopefully transform our fortunes were beginning to appear to me. |
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