ANGER Alexander Augustus

“Is Cup still alive?” Elizabeth agonised, “and can Dr Buttercake do something to heal him?” Elizabeth remembered Cup’s arm hanging limply from the shower, the veins pulsating against the constraints of the belt around his neck, his eyes rolled back in his head. The last she had seen, Cup was being bundled into an ambulance by key workers who had little interest in him. Elizabeth’s job was to convince Dr Buttercake to have him transported immediately to Balmoral for treatment.

Elizabeth had set her mind on saving his life…”

“The operating theatre was illuminated by blinding lights, from the very same robotic tendrils which had rotated around Elizabeth’s head a decade earlier. But now she was awake, and she could sense what was happening with a greater perception than any of the humans in the room. The printing nibs were building up a base and support structure which would hold the form as it manifested. Edward leaned down to whisper, “The first stage is going to be an injection of fungal culture into the speech centre of the brain. Did you know fungus can grow in the brain? Fungal threads can interlace with neural pathways. They can stimulate and even control thought. Insects can have their minds displaced entirely by germinating spores. Until the Internet happened, fungal webs were probably the most information-dense networks on the planet…”

“Dawn was fast approaching and Edward had not slept a wink. The blue hour was upon Balmoral and the rough surface of the castle’s stone shone azure. Soon a narrow strip of burning orange would bring morning over the horizon. Everyone knew that today was the culling of the anomalies, and many were dreading it. In many cases these creatures were their friends, lovers or family members, but were now trapped within deformed shells which pounded and battered at their confines. They would destroy any pearl they could get close to, and in some cases attacked humans too. The key workers on-site were heavy-limbed with anticipation, but resolutely they made their preparations…”

“It was early spring and the bonnets of bluebells were shooting up through the grass in the meadows, ringing in the silver moonlight. Down in the labs, Elizabeth’s incubator egg popped open…”

“It was dark inside the mutant’s head. The virgin sea stretched out into the formless void as pure as transparent glass, like unto crystal; but tumultuous and terrifying. Darkness covered the face of the deep, while the wind swept over the face of the waters.

Heavy, petrified air forebode a storm.

Suddenly the veil of night was shot through with blinding light as a colossal ellipse of fire opened in the heavens. God’s eye! And in the midst of that eye appeared the face of Cup. Then the limp body of Cup, naked and gaunt, suspended within the frame of the eye. The fire surrounding the vision was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning, striking down into the ocean and parting it asunder…“

“I turned eight flaming eyes back to the remaining three-and-twenty elders who were cowering on the pile of dead and damaged children, at the furthest part of the pier. “Does the heart of the child you tortured still beat?” My four voices roared into the petrified night.

“Yes… yes,” the elders trembled.

“Good. Feed him the head of your fallen companion.” The elders kneeled and sobbed as they did crack their companion’s head open like a coconut and feed it to the child in messy clumped handfuls of brain matter. The child received the meal, sitting up as strength returned to his body…“