Aashif knew how to drive, but he’d never taken the formal test and he had never tried to drive a van before. It felt heavy and unwieldy compared to his father’s car and if the roads hadn’t been almost empty, he was sure that he would have crashed — or at least scraped off some of the paint — by now. His sweaty hands felt slippery against the wheel, forcing him to keep a tight grip. He could hear his heartbeat pounding inside his skull. A collaborator’s car pulled out ahead of him and he had to push down on the brakes to avoid a collision. He’d been warned that if he did crash, for any reason, he had to abandon the van and run. The moment they saw the explosives, the police would know what he had in mind…
His breath was coming in patches, leaving him feeling unwell as he turned the corner carefully. There were no traffic lights in London these days either. He’d been told that he would feel calm, that the peace of God would overwhelm him, but instead he just felt frantic, almost terrified. It would be easy to park the van and just run… he could walk away from his own death. But there was nowhere to go. The people he knew were the ones he had bragged to about his role in the Jihad. It had seemed so easy at the start to use his inflated claims to gain power and influence — God knew that the younger Muslims had had enough of older clerics telling them what to do. Pakistan was on the other side of the world — gone, if some of the more alarming reports on the internet were true — and it wasn’t right that they should be controlled by village elders who couldn’t even protect them from racists or the police…
And then there were the temptations of the West. Women leaving the homes and working for a living, instead of doing their duty as mothers, daughters and wives. Music, drugs… everything that polluted the mind and wore away at faith. And homosexuality… how could anyone tolerate a world where men could love men? It was disgusting how the West prided itself on its own tolerance. Even though it provided a shield for the faithful, for those determined to turn back the clock… how could anyone stand to live like that?
And then there were those who suffered while he lived in luxury…
It had been easy to pretend, until his dream had become a nightmare. And yet he couldn’t back out. He’d recorded the video, the one where he’d damned the aliens and their collaborators for what they’d done to Islam. If he left the van and ran, he knew what would happen. The video would be released and everyone would laugh at him. He’d know that they were laughing, even as they pretended to be sympathetic. How could he ever show his face in their company again?
His heart beat faster as he turned the corner. The college was just up ahead, a place for smarter kids who didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives flipping burgers at McDonalds, or claiming benefits. He reached for the switch and hesitated. It wasn’t too late. He could park and run away and maybe find a new home somewhere else. There were always possibilities for those with the determination… but he’d lacked it. In a rare moment of self-assessment, he realised that he’d never had the determination to make something of himself. Instead, someone else had made something out of him. He wanted to run and yet he didn’t quite dare…
He pushed down on the switch, hearing an ominous click. His hand felt as if it were drenched in sweat as he gunned the engine, sending the van forward faster. The aliens hadn’t bothered to put up a gate, merely a pair of guards. He saw their ugly forms and pointed the van right at them, wondering if they had the sense to jump out of the way. It wouldn’t save them, though. There was enough explosives in the van to reduce the entire building to rubble… or so he’d been told. Maybe they’d lied to him…
There was a popping sound. It took him a moment to realise that they were shooting at him. A burst of pain spread over his chest, sending him flopping backwards against the seat. It was suddenly very hard to think. His chest was warm… blood was pouring from a hole… he slumped forward, his hand falling off the switch. He had a second to realise that he’d released the switch… and then the world went away in a flash of white-hot flame.
Chapter Eighteen
London
United Kingdom, Day 15
Robin and Constable Riley had been parked in a police car when they heard the explosion. It was thunderously loud in a city where most noise had dimmed away to almost nothing. The cars that had once produced a constant backdrop were silent; no massive jumbo jets flew in and out of the city. Indeed, it had been so quiet that Robin had wondered if the penny was ever going to drop. And the massive fireball rising up in the distance suggested that it had. Someone was striking back at the aliens…
“Start the car,” he ordered, grabbing his radio. The aliens had allowed them to use them, although Robin suspect that they intended to use them to monitor their collaborators. “This is Zulu Bravo; we are heading to the incident site. I say again, this is…”
“Trouble,” Constable Riley commented, as he flung the police car around a corner. “They were doing something at that college…”
Robin stared, not quite believing his eyes. There had once been a large building, home to a technical college producing graduates with degrees that should get them good jobs in the computer industry. It had been smashed by the explosion, along with several other buildings nearby. A number of cars were burning brightly — he keyed his radio to summon the fire brigade — and an alien armoured vehicle had been tipped upside down. It was a weakness in their design, he guessed; their hover-cushion gave an unexpected blast the leverage to throw the vehicle right over. He doubted that it would happen to a human-built tank.
“Dear God,” he breathed. There seemed to be hundreds of people caught in the blast. Most schools hadn’t reopened in the days following the invasion, but the aliens had been very interested in the technical college. No one had quite been able to figure out why. “How many people did they kill?”
“It really makes you wonder,” Riley said, as they climbed out of the car. The whole scene was overwhelming, worse than Buckingham Palace. “Which side are we supposed to be on?”
Robin glared at him. If he’d been alone, if no one else had been in danger, he might have joined one of the resistance cells being talked about on the internet. But there was his wife… and there was the simple fact that innocent civilians were going to be caught in the midst of the fighting. The police existed to protect civilians… which didn’t change the fact that they’d effectively started working for the aliens. But if they hadn’t, who knew what the aliens would do in response? If they used live ammunition to respond to broken bottles, what the hell would they do in response to a bomb that had slaughtered upwards of twenty of them?
“Call ambulances,” he ordered. He wasn’t sure where to begin. With the wounded — or with two bodies that were very clearly not human? The aliens didn’t seem to have survived the blast. Maybe they had some wonder-technology that could resurrect the dead, but he wouldn’t count on it. “Call medics. Call everyone.”
He shook his head. Where the hell did they even start?
Fatima had been trying to relax when her pager went off, alerting her to a medical emergency. It had come just in time. Her stepmother had been boring her again with more suggestions for suitable boys, even though they’d lost touch with the old country. The internet said that India and Pakistan had nuked each other in the wake of the invasion and, despite her best hopes, she suspected that it was true. Too many sources were repeating the same claim time and time again.