So by now you've probably heard the incredible news that (after less than two months of crowdfunding), Underdogs: Acceleration is getting published! Exctiting details will follow in time, but for now - as promised - here is a new short story as a thank you gift to all of you for making it happen.
The character having their story told this time (most voted for by Underdogs' Facebook community) is Oliver Roth. Be warned, it's a long one. He's a complex lad. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy his "origin story".
United by our differences,
Chris Bonnello
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Oliver Roth Comes To Power
June: eleven months before Takeover Day
Before he logged off, Oliver took one last look at his closed bedroom door. Not that Mum or Dad would have been looking.
It had been surprisingly easy to register for Marshall-Pearce Solutions’ youth training programme. Just register for an account, pay the money with Dad’s card (because if Oliver didn’t have the skills to steal it, he wouldn’t deserve to be in the programme anyway), and fill out a perfunctory application form. Oliver looked at his answers, and smiled.
Full name: Oliver Gabriel Roth
Age: 12 years, 3 months.
Why are you interested in the Marshall-Pearce experience? Because it’s my lifelong dream, my last thought at night, my first thought in the morning, etc etc etc. I mean let’s be honest, I’ve got bugger all else to do. My life is BORING, my parents don’t care, and I just want stuff to do. Besides, private contractors pay more than the army does so it’s better to get my foot in the door early.
What do you consider your biggest strengths? Um... honesty? Let’s face it, you won’t even read this and even if you do, you won’t reject anyone. All those giant research centres getting built all over Britain, all that stuff in the news... and your ads for this youth programme still haven’t gone viral. I think you’ll have room for me.
What do you want to gain from this programme? Not much. I’m already awesome.
Oliver looked at his answer to that last question, and a look of sorrow crept on his face. Obedient to his instincts, he wiped it off.
There had been so much confidence in those answers. So unlike him. Or at least, the person he was when he was alone. He had always passed as confident to everyone who knew him, but…
Perhaps his time with Marshall-Pearce Solutions would teach him how to be confident for real.
July: ten months before Takeover Day
‘So, how does it feel to be done with Year Seven?’
‘Not bad, I guess.’
Daniella Roth seemed unsatisfied with the depth of her son’s response, but soon got back to her forkful of pasta.
Oliver had hoped for some special food to mark the end of his first year at secondary school. Not that the day meant much to him, but some recognition from Mum and Dad would have been sort of nice.
‘I mean,’ he continued, just to break the silence, ‘being Year Eight isn’t much. I’m just another number forward now.’
‘Well technically,’ his father replied, ‘you’re not Year Eight until September.’
Really? Thought Oliver. You’re taking even that little thing from me?
‘Whatever,’ he replied with a huff.
‘Olly.’
‘Yeah, what?’
‘Don’t be rude.’
‘I wasn’t!’
‘You were. You’re being rude now.’
‘What? How!’
‘Olly, no need to shout.’
Oliver opened his jaw wide, but stopped himself from yelling as he realised something important: his dad may have been wrong – there really was a need to shout – but there was no point in it. Michael Roth had already won the argument, simply because he had chosen to.
Oliver accelerated his eating. The sooner his plate of generic pasta, pesto and bacon was down his throat, the sooner his refuelling would be complete and he could flee the conversation.
His parents blamed it on him being almost a teenager, of course. Everything about his attitude was down to adolescence or puberty – easy excuses to reach for, that helped them avoid blaming themselves.
Oliver Roth had once looked forward to growing up. His parents’ attitudes had taken the fun right out of it.
‘Olly, no need to eat so fast,’ his mum said.
Oh bloody hell Mum, give me one pissing iota of independence! You’ve got no problem with me doing whatever I want when you’re not watching!
Oliver hadn’t consciously realised until that moment, but that was the biggest flaw in Mum’s parenting. Micromanaging every action he took when they were together, and expressing zero interest when they were apart. She still had no idea about the punch to Callum’s jaw outside the school gates, or the cannabis Jake had given him three months ago. …Or the thing with the squirrel, back when he was ten.
Dad’s biggest flaw was pretending to always be right, at the same time as not caring about doing the right thing.
Oliver kept eating his sodding pasta at the same speed, deliberately to be provocative. The sooner the situation exploded, the better off he would be.
‘Olly,’ said his father. ‘Stop being so bloody rude to your m-’
That was the excuse he needed. Wordless, Oliver stood up from the table and marched off to his room, ignoring his mother comparing him to a child and his father blaming his adolescence, as if they could both be right at the same time.
He reached his bedroom, leapt back-first onto his bed, and swore at the dull ceiling. It wasn’t the ideal end to his time in Year Seven, but more or less what he had predicted. There was the temptation of tears, but he would not let them flow. Even with nobody watching. Twelve-year-olds weren’t supposed to cry, he knew that.
I know they don’t hate me, he thought. But it would be nice if they actually liked me.
August: nine months before Takeover Day
Oliver Roth was happy. Were he not in intense concentration mode, he might have even smiled. Across a boring summer holidays, Marshall-Pearce’s youth training on Wednesday evenings had been his favourite time of the week… and hand-to-hand combat had been his favourite part of training.
The boy he was fighting was two years older than him. A big Scottish lad, also red-haired. Equally aggressive, equally ambitious, but with two years more muscle mass. They were grappling on the gym mats on the floor, the older boy’s arm wrapped around the back of his knee and immobilising his whole leg. Oliver reached out with a grasping hand for his opponent’s face, his fingers brushing against something that felt like an eye socket…
‘Roth!’ came his captain’s voice. Dutiful as he was at his best, Oliver halted his aggression.
His opponent did not.
Roth found himself helpless against a teenager who was legitimately hurting him, and he was forced to slap his hand three times on the mat, signifying his surrender. He gasped for breath as the Scottish twat rolled back into a sitting position as if nothing had bothered him, and he gazed at his captain as if to ask why he hadn’t asked his partner to stop. But he was distracted by the sight of that evening’s guest: an important-looking man in literal, actual military uniform.
No way is that Iain Marshall…
He had seen photos on the Marshall-Pearce Solutions website, but knew little about the man personally. Just that he had served in the military before Roth was born, and had been a decorated hero of some sort who had moved on to private defence. That, and he was fast becoming a household name: a VIP on a national level, just one step below the great Nicholas Grant himself… both of whom were rumoured to live in the enormous London Research Centre rather than their own homes.
The Scottish boy poked him in the ribs and made a joke about how fun the wrestling had been. Oliver didn’t respond. He was pretty sure his captain – and Iain Marshall – were looking in their direction.
‘Roth – Baird – get back to it,’ their captain barked.
Baird wasted zero time, and launched himself at his twelve-year-old opponent. This time Oliver had learned his opening strategy, and reached behind Baird’s knees first. In the following struggle, to Oliver’s delight, he pinned his much older opponent to the floor and watched his angry Scottish arms flailing around. What a time to be successful, when Iain Marshall himself was-
Baird wrapped a hand around Oliver’s face, in exactly the same way that had made the captain shriek at Oliver to stop. Oliver tensed himself, awaiting another stop command from his captain, but it didn’t come.
The hand grabbed against his ear and tugged, and still the command to stop didn’t come.
In genuine pain, afraid to call out with important people watching, and with nobody coming to his aid, Oliver was forced to take his defence into his own hands.
He bent his head down, his mouth in the same region as Baird’s forearm, and sank his teeth into his flesh.
He clenched his jaw as hard as he could, hoping that his teeth would crack the bone, ignoring the broken-voiced yells of his opponent. Baird’s other hand was punching him in the head, but Oliver didn’t let go. Not out of anger, but because it was working. When Baird pulled his arm free, Oliver knew he would spend a moment inspecting his fresh wound. He used that moment to leap at him, wrap one set of fingers around his neck and the other on top of his forehead, using both hands to whack his head against the soft mat. Then a second time. And a third time. Knowing that the gym mats were the only thing keeping Baird alive.
The combat ended with two bulky arms through his armpits, around his shoulders and behind his neck, as the captain suddenly began to care about what was happening. Oliver was thrown to the edge of the mats, his eyes resting on the reddening face of the captain and the mildly interested face of Iain Marshall.
‘Get out, Roth!’ the captain yelled, pointing to the door to the changing room as if to offer additional guidance.
‘He was literally clawing at my face!’
‘We do not condone that kind of violence at Marshall-Pearce Solutions! Get changed, wait outside, and never come back to these sessions. I’ll be telling your parents all about this when they arrive.’
Roth could have laughed at the man’s inability to distinguish between loud voices and true leadership, were it not for the gravity of what had just happened. Marshall-Pearce’s training sessions had been the only part of his summer he had loved. He walked, as calmly as he could manage, out of the gym – leaving his squadmates, Iain Marshall and his greatest love behind him.
Obviously he walked home, not giving the captain the chance to talk it through with his parents, and pretended he had quit on his own accord.
September: eight months before Takeover Day
Two weeks into Year Eight, Oliver was bored already.
Life had briefly been interesting while Marshall-Pearce had been in it, but as the days passed he began to regret filling the application form at all.
Not because of what had happened with Baird. Not because of shame or embarrassment, which he could keep out of his head as if using a mental force-field. But because it had highlighted how monotone, boring and uneventful the rest of his life had been. It was difficult to appreciate the beauty of life while stuck at home with parents who didn’t believe in videogame consoles, were apathetic about youth clubs, and only really engaged with him when correcting him.
Excitement and belonging had been dangled in front of his nose, like a steak in front of a dog who hadn’t realised he was hungry, and then thrown away. Where Oliver had once felt acceptance, he only felt hatred.
Hatred of the world for keeping him bored.
Hatred of Baird for being a twat.
Hatred of his parents for withholding opportunities for him to learn and grow.
Hatred of Marshall-Pearce for showing him what might have been.
And that was his life now. Heavily-veiled hatred, and little else.
October: seven months before Takeover Day
Oliver left school as normal, walked the same path home as normal, and took a deep breath before walking into his house as normal.
But he was totally unprepared when he walked through his front door and found Iain Marshall at the dining room table.
‘Oliver?’ said his mum. ‘This nice man is-’
‘I know who he is, Mum…’
Marshall rose, in full military uniform (and with the broad-shouldered pose of confidence that might as well have been part of his own personal uniform), and walked to the doorway to shake Oliver’s hand. Oliver stood, wordless through feelings of honour and confusion.
‘Afternoon, Roth,’ Marshall said. ‘It’s a pleasure to actually talk to you properly. Please, take a seat.’
He had type of self-assured confidence that Oliver hoped to have someday: the confidence to offer someone a seat in their own house. Oliver sat down at the dining room table, his mother retreating to stand in the doorway and his father not yet back from work.
‘We’ve missed you at training,’ Marshall said. ‘It’s a shame you chose to leave us over the summer.’
Oliver took the hint, and nodded.
‘Does the captain want me back, then?’ he asked.
‘Not him. You’re too good for the leisure centre crew. Daniella, could you give us a moment please?’
Obedient in the face of such an important authority figure, Oliver’s mother walked off into the kitchen. Marshall leaned closer to him, and spoke in a whisper.
‘I figured you wouldn’t tell her.’
Oliver stayed silent.
‘There was nothing wrong with what you did to that older lad,’ Marshall continued. ‘He was making you vulnerable. You defended yourself reasonably.’
‘Captain didn’t see it that way.’
‘That’s why you’re better than him. When I saw you do what you did, I saw anger – real, honest anger – but expressed with total control. Do you have any idea how few people can be angry and controlled at the same time? How many adults, let alone twelve-year-olds?’
Oliver wasn’t sure what the expected answer was.
‘Roth,’ Marshall said quietly with a smile, ‘there’s a role for you in Marshall-Pearce. A career role. With some private training, you can become even more special than you currently are.’
Oliver looked at the dining room table, unsure about what he was hearing. It sounded like a textbook case of manipulation: showering someone with undeserved compliments, then offering them the chance to do something for you. Through childhood, Oliver had manipulated and been manipulated in equal measure.
But at the same time… it was Iain Marshall, and he was being offered a career in something he loved.
‘So if I can’t get trained at the leisure centre…’
Marshall sat back in his chair, and drummed his fingers on the table.
‘There’s nothing to worry about, Roth,’ he finished. ‘There are plenty of facilities for you in London Research Centre.’
November: six months before Takeover Day
When Roth staggered back into the changing rooms, he rested a weak hand against the wall and opened his locker with fingers that barely functioned. That had been a real adult he had fought!
He had been put in a knife-fight – using weapons with floppy plastic blades of course – against a man twice his stature. A silent man, thin, tall and blond. When he had tried to engage the man in conversation, he hadn’t responded. When Roth’s knife hand had been restrained but he had freed himself by punching the man in the collar bone, he had not even given a reflex-driven yelp.
Roth had held his own against a formidable opponent, and fought well. But wow, he was far away from fighting Scottish teenagers now.
Towel and clothes in hand, he sat down on the bench, wincing as the back of his thigh touched the wood. After checking for other people in the changing room, he removed his loose-fitting trousers so he could inspect his hurting leg.
Roth hadn’t looked closely at his legs for a while. It surprised him to see a clear run of leg hair emerging from his skin, which ran all the way from his boxer shorts to his socks.
I’ve got hairy legs now… when the hell did that happen?
Roth hadn’t expected the little fact to impact him emotionally, nor did he want to let it, but it triggered an interesting chain of thought.
As he removed his shirt and dumped it onto the bench, he came to think about how puberty and adolescence – so frowned upon by his father but so unavoidable – had been a topic he had kept silent. He wondered whether the other boys at school had had people to talk to about their changes, or whether they had felt the need to stay as silent as him.
As he headed over to the shower, he found himself looking directly ahead as if to avoid the sight of his hairy legs, but then wondered why he was nervous about them. Grown men had hairy legs, and he was getting closer to adulthood by the day.
As the water soothed his aching muscles and helped his bruised skin to relax, he came to realise that there were some people who treated him like a child, some like an adolescent, and only one person who treated him like an adult. And that man was Iain Marshall.
When he left the shower, he found a moment to stare at his muscular physique in a nearby mirror, and somehow he could tell it was more than general fitness that had shaped it. From head to toe, he had a physique that was built from emerging confidence, instilled in him by Marshall-Pearce Solutions in a way that his parents and teachers could never have managed.
December: five months before Takeover Day
Roth had noticed that he was no longer walking behind Iain Marshall when they were heading somewhere together. They were side by side. They were heading for some medical type room on Floor X, for a reason that Marshall had not revealed to him.
‘How’s things at home?’ Marshall asked.
‘Fine,’ answered Roth. ‘Just getting ready for Christmas.’
‘Parents still judging you?’
‘They’re still parents, I guess.’
When Marshall approached the door to the Identification Chamber, he paused with his fingers on the handle.
‘What about school? Are you learning much?’
Roth wondered whether it was a loaded question. Whether Marshall had wanted him to give a specific answer. Either way, he chose to play along.
‘It’s still school, I guess.’
‘Sounds like you’re finding things boring,’ Marshall said. ‘No surprise there. I’ll have a chat with Nicholas Grant when I can, and see if he can pull a few strings.’
‘…In what way?’ Roth asked.
‘It’s a conversation best left for another time,’ said Marshall as he opened the door. ‘In the meantime, today’s exercise will be far from boring.’
Marshall flicked a switch, and the lights revealed a human body at rest on the table.
‘Bloody hell,’ Roth whispered under his breath.
He stood motionless, barely noticing Marshall close the door behind them and head to the main table as if it contained nothing noteworthy at all. The body looked fresh, as far as Roth could tell. He had never seen a dead body before, but even so, it looked like the guy had only died a few hours before. He took a sniff to see what the air was like, remembering a schoolmate who once told him that the dead defecate themselves. But the air smelled sterile and clean, like he imagined a morgue would.
‘This poor guy was Alan,’ Marshall began. ‘Worked in admin, somewhere along the eastern wall. According to his will, he was happy to donate his body to science. Turns out Nathaniel Pearce doesn’t need much in the way of corpses these days, but there’s another way we can put him to use.’
Roth took a step towards Alan’s body, like a small dog approaching a buzzing electric fence. The man looked somewhere between thirty and fifty – it was difficult for Roth to tell where abouts. Whatever his age, Alan had been bald with a large beer belly, his teeth nicotine-stained. Roth wondered which of the man’s many unhealthy habits had led to his demise.
When he looked up, Marshall had a hunting knife in his hand. He held it by the blade, pointing the handle towards Roth. Clueless but obedient, Roth took the knife in his grip.
‘When children find out about my life in the military,’ Marshall began, ‘their first questions are always about death. How many people did I kill, who did I kill, how did it feel, and so on. It’s quite a sign of maturity that you’ve never asked me those questions.’
Roth had never seen it as a sign of maturity. But when he thought about it, Marshall was probably right.
‘The truth is,’ Marshall continued, ‘killing a man feels unnatural. Whether you’re shooting him dead or strangling him with your bare hands, there’s a gut instinct that tries to stop you. Humans are pack animals, you see, and our brains tell us it’s wrong to kill our own species. But a brief look through history tells you that sometimes the death of enemy humans is necessary, even if it feels wrong.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’ asked Roth. He knew that Marshall must have had a full speech planned, but he didn’t want to be in the room with a dead body any longer than he had to.
‘Because I’m sure at one point or another, Roth, you’re going to have to take a life. And it will feel unnatural to you. There’s not much I can do about that, except acclimatise you to some of the physical actions involved.’
It never occurred to Roth to ask why Marshall was so certain he would end up taking a life. Marshall-Pearce were already providing soldiers to quell domestic protests while the real British soldiers were abroad, so it didn’t seem like much of a stretch.
‘Roth,’ said Marshall, ‘I want you to take that knife and slide it deep into Alan’s body.’
Roth could have laughed. But in all the time he had known Marshall, he had never heard him crack a joke. Marshall had meant what he said, word for word, but Roth stared at him in confusion regardless.
‘The physical act of stabbing someone is so repulsive,’ said Marshall, ‘that it’s a distraction from your own self-defence. If you kill one enemy and another two are heading your way, you don’t want to be stood there staring at your bloodied hands and crying like a twat. Stab this dead body now, and any stabs you deliver in the future will feel closer to your comfort zone. Go on, give it a go.’
Roth thought he would hesitate more than he did. But he managed well, making sure not to look at Alan’s face, recognising him as a hunk of fat flesh rather than a person, and remembering that little comment about Alan wanting to donate his body to science.
He rested the tip of the knife over Alan’s chest, found a spot between two of his ribs, and clenched the knife with two tightened hands. It slid downwards through the muscle and into the man’s lungs, like a cleaver through some toughened steak.
A gasp and a moan came from Alan’s mouth, and his eyes opened and twitched for a moment. Then his face stopped moving again.
Roth shrieked, let go of the knife and watched the handle stand up in Alan’s chest like a macabre flagpole. It rose and fell with his lungs, just once, as Roth cowered back against the tiled wall behind him and swore to himself repeatedly.
‘You see,’ said Marshall, ‘I did tell you how unnatural it feels.’
‘He was alive?!’
‘If you hadn’t stabbed him he’d have lived for another thirty minutes, in quite some pain. You did him a favour.’
‘Did you… did…’
No, I can’t let him see me weak… even now. Especially now.
‘There’s a long story behind how Alan came to be here, but it’s far beyond your rank and security clearance. But I hope, once this initial shock has given way, you come to realise what this experience has done for you. And don’t worry, there’ll be no consequences to you. Nothing will be written in any reports, recorded in post-mortem documents, and it definitely won’t be passed on to your parents. I think you’ll agree, it’ll be simpler that way.’
Oliver Roth stared at the body of Alan – now dead in reality – and thought about the consequences that would exist outside of the reports, in his own young mind.
‘You… manipulated me…’
‘The best types of training involve manipulation,’ Marshall said. ‘Believe me Roth, you will thank me for this – the day you stab an enemy soldier for real and just keep on fighting afterwards. Ok, back to Floor B. We’ve got enough time for a debrief, and maybe even a mince pie.’
Without another word, Marshall left the room and strolled through the Floor X corridors. As Roth followed, he finally started to smell what his schoolmate had once warned him about. It made it clear beyond doubt that the man’s death belonged to Oliver Roth.
January: four months before Takeover Day
A month after Oliver Roth had killed his first man, he had all but stopped talking to his parents. The few topics that truly mattered to him were topics they could no longer process.
Perhaps his faltering relationship with them had been an extra reason why they’d objected so little to him moving into his new quarters, on Floor A of London Research Centre. As long as he could pop home to give Mum her birthday present in two weeks, everything else was fine.
Roth laid the last of his transported belongings on his new bed, but didn’t stop to relax. There were posters that needed sticking up, and consoles that needed to be plugged in and connected to the network. He didn’t want to sleep in a random bed in an enormous research centre that night; he wanted to sleep in a bed he knew was his. One which he wouldn’t feel the need to run to whenever Dad pissed him off at dinner.
It had crossed his mind, just a few times, that Floor A was a phenomenally important place to house a generic soldier-in-training. But right from the beginning, Iain Marshall had not treated him like a generic soldier-in-training. Oliver Roth knew enough about people to know when they were planning something, and had a strong feeling that his luxurious surroundings would not be given to him for free. Something big was coming.
But that was ok. For that day, and however many days would follow in lavish comfort, it would be ok.
February: three months before Takeover Day
Oliver Roth, aged twelve years and eleven months old, was in Iain Marshall’s Floor B office when he signed his first official contract. He was no longer a jumped-up resident intern, but a true employee of Marshall-Pearce Solutions.
More than that… he had been assigned the role of Head Assassin.
Having been blind copied into a few too many emails, Roth had seen the reaction from other employees. Executive board members had questioned the high-risk employment of someone so young. Legal types had asked where they stood in terms of safeguarding, and were given answers Roth didn’t understand but recognised as lies. Figures with military backgrounds had questioned why he’d been given the post of Head Assassin with a kill count of zero… and Roth decided to keep silent.
Interestingly, nobody asked why the position was necessary at all.
Roth had pondered the topic (but not voiced it) while he and Marshall were alone in the frosty forests of Colne Valley: taking part in a field training session, despite the authorities believing he was in London Research Centre receiving his private English tuition.
‘Alright, stand still for a moment,’ Marshall said once he was certain they were alone, in woodland so thick and insulated that the ground was clear of frost. In any other circumstances, Roth would have wondered whether something dreadful was about to happen to him. Instead, he was quietly confident, puckering his lips and blowing cloudy breath into the cold January air, pretending he was exhaling cigarette smoke. Whatever was happening, he knew he was needed.
Marshall produced a metal detector from inside his coat, and scanned Roth from his red hair to his combat boots. The device produced a few gentle whines, but not the sound Marshall was listening for.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘You’ll understand, Roth, that the discussion in this meeting can never be repeated around listening ears.’
‘You can trust me,’ said Roth. It seemed like the right thing to say.
‘Good,’ said Marshall, reaching into the pocket of his thick coat. ‘I know you’re skilled with knives, guns and all the big boy stuff, but there’s another weapon I’ve not introduced you to yet. And I want you to use it, to lethal effect.’
He brought out a little plastic bottle and placed it in Roth’s hand.
Cyanide pills? How the hell did he get his hands on these? More importantly…
‘…Who am I supposed to kill, exactly?’
Any trace of a grin fell from Marshall’s face.
‘The biggest danger that Planet Earth has ever faced. Roth, you could save the world with this bottle of pills.’
Marshall’s words didn’t grab Roth’s attention half as much as the tone in his voice. There had been a shudder in his voice box, and a concerned stare in his eyes.
He had never seen the great Iain Marshall vulnerable before. Not even faintly nervous. But instead of driving home the urgency or terror of the situation, it simply revealed to Roth for the first time that Marshall could be manipulated back.
‘Your target,’ Marshall said, ‘is Nicholas Grant.’
March: two months before Takeover Day
Roth awoke on the morning of his thirteenth birthday with a bottle of cyanide pills in his hand. He had fallen asleep playing with the bottle again.
He had spent the last three weeks babysitting the pills, waiting for Marshall to tell him it was the right moment. For the first week Roth had understood the need to be patient, but the more time passed the more it just looked like cowardice. Marshall, of course, had rebuked him for being an impulsive child.
Roth rose to his feet and stretched, his hands closer to the ceiling than ever before. That day, at the very least, he was an impulsive teenager.
He spent the morning playing videogames in his underwear, the type of birthday his parents would never have approved of. He wouldn’t have moved for the rest of the day, were it not for a knock on his door.
Roth frowned, threw on the nearest shirt to his hand (not caring which way round he wore it), and opened the door to the most important person he had ever laid eyes on.
‘Well with fiery hair like that,’ said Nicholas Grant, ‘you must be Oliver Roth. Happy birthday, young man.’
Roth had absolutely no idea what to say at first. Oliver had seen Grant in the news enough times to recognise him: a man with no literal authority in government but seen by the public to have an unhealthy level of influence over the country. His parents had once compared him to a richer version of Dominic Cummings, whoever the hell that had been. But the man’s influence was clear and unavoidable, with London Research Centre and twenty-five other such places to have been built on his command, despite all the protests.
And there he was outside Roth’s door, having pretty much caught him with his trousers down.
‘Mister Grant,’ Roth said. ‘I don’t think we’ve met…’
I’m literally here to kill you. You’re the whole reason I was hired. The reason Iain Marshall came to my house half a year ago, and has focused on me so much ever since. A boy who can be taught how to kill, while having no obvious reason to do so. Someone you would never suspect.
‘Call me Nick,’ came the reply, ‘because I’m calling you Oliver. Anyway, get yourself dressed. Your birthday lunch is being prepared.’
Oliver Roth had spent the whole year being shocked by unexpected events. Just for once, it showed in his face.
‘What, you’re surprised?’ asked Grant with an amused grin and widening, excitable eyes. ‘You’re my new Head Assassin and the company’s biggest overachiever – except me, of course – and we’ve never even met. And today seems like the perfect day. I’ll give you a few minutes then show you to the dining hall.’
Roth nodded and closed his door. The moment he was wearing pockets, he grabbed the bottle of cyanide pills.
#
‘So,’ started Nicholas Grant, filling the posh-looking crystal glass in front of Roth with some generic-looking cola, ‘what are you looking to gain from the Marshall-Pearce experience?’
‘Not much,’ Roth answered. ‘I’m already awesome.’
It had been a good enough answer for him to pass the application, half a lifetime ago. This time, it made Grant offer a light chuckle. Iain Marshall, at the opposite end of the table, sat stony and uncommunicative with a face like a smacked arse.
‘Nonetheless,’ said Grant, ‘Head Assassin at age thirteen. Don’t pretend this won’t be a life-changing experience. It could be the making of you!’
Roth glanced over to Marshall and gave the biggest smile he could get away with. Marshall must have seen the irony, but kept his emotions to himself.
‘So besides your training and shooting at targets,’ Grant continued, ‘I’m assuming you don’t have any combat experience yet? Or deaths to your name?’
Roth swiped the thought of Alan to one side.
‘Well, I shot a squirrel once,’ he replied.
Grant looked halfway between shocked and impressed, his bushy eyebrows dancing towards the top of his head.
‘Well,’ Roth finished. ‘Twice, technically. With my mate’s air rifle.’
Grant nodded, and turned his attention to a wine bottle at the far end of the table.
‘Well that’s as good a place to start as any, I guess. Dornfelder, Iain?’
‘At lunch, sir?’
‘It’s your boy’s birthday.’
‘Still no.’
For a moment, Roth was surprised at the barely-disguised animosity from Marshall to Grant. Then he remembered that Marshall had literally hired Roth to kill him.
Nonetheless, the look on Marshall’s face turned to horror as, while Grant focused on opening the bottle of wine, Roth held the little plastic bottle just above the tablecloth to show that he was awaiting the command.
All he received was a stern but frightened pair of eyes, like a lion in headlights, and a brisk shake of Marshall’s head.
Roth didn’t understand why, but felt no need to complain. By the time his hot dog and fries landed in front of him, he had pushed the matter to one side and started to enjoy his birthday. The apprehension in Marshall’s face was just a little bit of extra entertainment.
April: one month before Takeover Day
Colne Valley forest looked different in the spring. Flowers had replaced frost, leaves and blossom replaced naked branches, and yet Iain Marshall still insisted on wearing his thick coat. Oliver knew it was to conceal the metal detector again.
‘Nope,’ said Roth with a fake exasperated sigh once they reached the thickened woodland once again. ‘I’m not spying on you, or plotting behind your back to betray you when you least expect it. I don’t do that stuff to my bosses. Anyway, what would you like to talk about?’
Marshall didn’t acknowledge the casual dig, and held out his hand.
‘Pills, Oliver.’
Roth shrugged, and tossed him the bottle of cyanide pills. He wasn’t sure how he felt about giving them up: whether he was annoyed that he never got a chance to do his job, or pleased that the whole fuss was over. Or whether he was relieved, because Grant’s death might have ended his days in luxury. A year ago, the twelve-year-old Oliver Roth led a life of boredom and forced apathy, and he didn’t fancy going back to it. His life was already the way he wanted it.
‘So now it’s too late,’ Roth said as Marshall tucked the pills away, ‘why did you want Nick dead in the first place?’
‘Confidential, Oliver.’
‘Yeah, but still?’
‘Confidential, Oliver.’
Roth smiled.
‘Well I could ask him for another posh hot dog, and ask him why anyone would want him dead. It’s just easier if you tell me, you know?’
Subtlety had never been one of his strong points. Nonetheless, he had found a way of communicating to his boss exactly what he had wanted to, without technically threatening him.
Marshall’s mouth opened, then closed again. Then opened again, and closed again. The confidence was bleeding from the veteran’s face.
‘He was a threat to civilisation, in a way I wasn’t comfortable with.’
Roth had a think, but couldn’t find a single way that Grant’s behaviour had changed in the last couple of months. Nor the behaviour of those around him.
‘So… is he no longer a threat to civilisation?’ he asked. ‘Or are you just comfortable with it now?’
‘Confidential.’
Oliver Roth gave no verbal response. He just offered Iain Marshall a knowing grin, his friendly eyes penetrating into his boss’, until more words followed by themselves.
‘There is a life-changing, world-changing event happening in the near future,’ Marshall said. ‘The fewer people know about it, the safer the event will be. Guy Fawkes only failed because one of his allies wrote a letter to his brother. There cannot be any-’
‘Why, who do you think I’m going to tell?’ Roth interrupted. ‘There’s nobody I love enough, really.’
There wasn’t even a need for a second knowing grin. Iain Marshall, Head of Military Division and weak to nothing except blackmail, volunteered the information. Roth kept his smile behind his face, faintly remembering all the times when Marshall had manipulated him. Those days were long gone, consigned to history the moment he had returned the cyanide pills. Oliver Roth had the power now.
‘This might take a while,’ Marshall began. ‘There are a lot of things about Marshall-Pearce Solutions that you don’t know about.’
‘No need to worry,’ Roth replied. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
May 20th: Takeover Day
On the day that would change Planet Earth forever, Oliver Gabriel Roth woke up in comfort in London Research Centre – to be known as New London Habitation Complex by the end of the day. Nobody besides Marshall knew how much he understood about the day’s events, so he would need to feign surprise. Not horror, though.
It was 7:45am – the latest he could get away with rising. Britain’s armed forces had already been called to their doomed barracks for an unspecified emergency, and the fireworks would begin at 8am. After that, the phone networks would be somewhat unreliable.
The action would be visible from the Operations Room, a ten minute walk along the carpeted Floor A corridor. Roth had never been in there before, but Marshall had told him what to expect. Apparently, Nicholas Grant would even be bringing his daughter to work that day, unveiling what her new world would look like.
Taking the final chance he would ever have, dressed up smart in his Marshall-Pearce uniform with his wiry red hair as neat as he could style it, Roth picked up his mobile phone and called his mother.
As the ringing sounded in his ear, he tried to reactivate his brain and remember as much of his rehearsed speech as he could. He knew he wouldn’t get it right, but he found comfort in the knowledge that he could screw up the whole thing and there would literally be no consequence.
The ringing ended, and he heard Daniella Roth’s voice for the first time since January.
‘Quarter to eight?’ she asked. ‘Well, at least you bothered to call at all. Nice to know you’re still somewhere on the face of the earth, Olly.’
‘Yeah, I’m fine thanks. How are you and Dad?’
‘You know, plodding on as usual. And to what do we owe this? It must be important if you’re gracing us with your voice.’
She seemed even less motherly than before. Roth couldn’t quite make sense of it. His only theory about it came from some ‘inspirational’ quote he had seen on the internet once: that when strong friends spend a year apart they can reunite like they were never separated, but weaker friends lose their relationship the moment they’re not around each other. Apparently, his parents were as weak as he thought.
‘Since when was it my responsibility to call you?’ Roth replied. ‘You’ve got a phone too. How many times did you call me? I turned thirteen, by the way. Thanks for the present.’
‘What pr…’ said Daniella, perhaps a little too sleepy to spot the sarcasm.
Roth spent a short moment in laughter before sadness started to set in. He swept it aside like the young adult he was, and got back to his plan.
‘I just called to let you know something,’ he said. ‘And it’s important.’
‘What is it?’
Roth took a deep breath. This was his last opportunity to spare her the details, to choose kindness to his mother over self-satisfaction.
But once again, he remembered the lack of consequences and chose accordingly.
‘You weren’t a good mum.’
‘Excuse me?’
Mum was shocked. No, beyond shocked. She was hurt. But her son had already strapped himself into the rollercoaster, and would have to ride it to completion.
‘You weren’t a good mum. And I truly and honestly don’t know whether you ever realised, in all the years I lived with you.’
‘How… how the hell could you say that? To the woman who carried you for nine months-’
‘Yeah, and what have you done for me since then?’
‘…Clothing you? Feeding you? Putting a roof over your-’
‘Fulfilling your legal obligations so that I wasn’t literally neglected. Well done. Now listen. This is important and I’ve waited a while to say it.’
‘I’m not interested in being insulted…’
Roth paid the sentence no attention. He knew she would listen regardless.
‘I just… wish I had more. More things to do with my life. More attention when I wasn’t being an arse. More comfort when I was sad, more encouragement when I had doubts about myself… more bloody compliments, real or fake. But I never got those things from you. And now here I am, living the kind of life you couldn’t provide… or probably wouldn’t, even if you could have done. I existed to you, Mum. That was it. And from now until the grave, that’ll be my lasting memory of you.’
Roth had spent all night wondering what that speech was going to feel like. It surprised him that it felt totally normal, barely a step outside of his comfort zone. He left a pause at the end of his words for his mother to process what she had heard, but didn’t plan to listen to any response she had to offer.
‘I raised… I raised an ungrateful, spiteful-’
‘This is goodbye, Mum. Tell Dad I said goodbye too. Or don’t, I don’t care. Just… enjoy your day today, okay?’
Daniella Roth screamed out some words, but none that Roth could decipher. All that was left for him to do was bring the noisy phone away from his ear, and hang up on his mother.
That was it. His family life was gone for good, and by the end of the day they’d never be in a position to be relevant to him again.
Roth tucked his phone in his pocket, glanced around at the bedroom, and reflected on how wise he had been to move away from his parents – into the hands of a manipulative Head of Military who had taught him how to manipulate in turn – and how glad he was that he had filled out that application form a year ago.
He didn’t know what Takeover Day would hold, but it would be a better experience for him than everyone who had ever wronged him. Oliver Roth began his walk to the Operations Centre, ready for the new world to begin before his eyes.
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Copyright © Chris Bonnello 2021