The Fornax Assassin

By J.C. Gemmell

2038: a devastating pandemic sweeps across the world. Two decades later, Britain remains the epicentre for the fornax variant, annexed by a terrified global community.

David Malik is as careful as any man to avoid contact with the virus. But when his sister tests positive as an asymptomatic carrier, she must relocate to Fornax Island to join the isolated population of contagious-untreatables.

Fortunately, the British prime minister’s latest manifesto includes reintegrating the islanders with the nation. Yet, he does not survive a visit to Fornax Island to unveil his new policies.

The military suspects one of its junior officers is responsible for his death. Malik seizes his chance to represent the possible assassin, allowing him to protect his sister. Yet within days of taking on the case, he finds himself accused of masterminding the assassination.

When Malik discovers that a foreign corporation is manipulating events on Fornax Island, it forces him to choose between self-preservation, his sister’s welfare, and the future of seven hundred thousand residents

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.C. Gemmell
• Release date: Jul 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781739761738

J.C. Gemmell

J.C. Gemmell was born in Falkirk, Scotland, and received his B.A. in Computer Studies and a Master’s Degree in Applied Science from the University of Portsmouth, UK. Before turning to science fiction, he worked as a software engineer for a number of multinational organisations. He lives with his partner on the south coast of England.Tionsphere and The Uprisers are the first novels in the Tion series, and will be followed by Demiurge in 2022. He is currently working on a novella tied to this series, which will be available for free at Easter.Visit J.C. online at www.jcgemmell.com and @JcGemmell

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cover-image, The Fornax Assassin

The Fornax Assassin

J.C. Gemmell was born in Falkirk, Scotland, and received his B.A. in Computer Studies and a Master’s Degree in Applied Science from the University of Portsmouth. Before becoming an independent author of future fiction, he worked as an engineer for several multinational organisations. He lives with his partner and two cats on the south coast of England.

Find out more about the author at jcgemmell.com

By J.C. Gemmell

The Fornax Assassin

The Visionary

Tionsphere

The Uprisers

Demiurge

Taking Zero

J.C. Gemmell

THE

FORNAX

ASSASSIN

Copyright © J.C. Gemmell 2023.

The right of J.C. Gemmell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Cover image by Jakub Kriz on Unsplash.

This book first published in 2023 by J.C. Gemmell.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-7397617-3-8

All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

5451-7820

jcgemmell.com

For Noel

CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

The Visionary

Tionsphere

The Uprisers

Demiurge

Chapter One

Honest Lawyer

Court Avenue Brewing Company

6% ABV

THE MURDER OF the prime minister was regrettable, yet it did nothing to assuage the threat of the fornax variant to the general public. The party’s strategy was branded extreme by libertarians, yet Fornax Island had kept England and Wales safe for two decades. That any British leader might choose to abrogate those policies, however temporarily, was unthinkable: therefore, removing the head of the government, albeit by unlawful means, was popularly viewed as a patriotic act. Within an hour of his assassination, police had fatally apprehended a suspect, and members had gratefully set about appointing their new leader. Reform was as dead as the one man who had espoused it.

Davy Malik stared out of his office window, watching falling leaves pirouette in the damp October wind. Except for the delivery vans and take-away cyclists, the roads were quiet, and he hadn’t seen a pedestrian all afternoon. No one ventured out of their homes without good reason, and whatever protests accompanied the change of power would likely remain online. The screen carelessly left on his desk beeped softly, a reminder of the mounting stack of cases requiring his attention, but Malik couldn’t focus on his work. If Fornax Island remained operational, his sister would soon be transferred through London, after which he might never see her again.

Rachael had tested positive twenty-seven days ago and remained otherwise asymptomatic. The medical centre had posted results from her second test last week: she was a potential carrier, and quarantine was mandatory. Tomorrow, assuming a consistent final test, doctors would classify Rachael Medwin as contagious-and-untreatable and prescribe isolation. A military escort would take her to Birmingham’s Curzon Street Processing Facility, where she would wait for the Sunday transfer to Euston.

Malik tapped his screen and opened a map of the city, tracing the Fornax line between Euston and Waterloo. The tunnel was built in just twenty-one months, threading through the Northern, Piccadilly and Elizabeth lines. He hardly remembered any disruption during his irregular trips home, but the Transport Minister had been adamant at the time: each of London’s interchanges serving the rest of Britain had to transport CUs without risk of contaminating the capital. Every weekend, the Waterloo Processing Facility dispatched a Republic Army Medical Corps train direct to Portsmouth, where passengers boarded navy ships destined for Fornax Island. What happened to them next remained entirely undocumented.

Realistically, his only opportunity was to prevent his sister from entering Curzon Street. Yet Malik knew better than to challenge the armed forces, having defended hundreds of service personnel during his unremarkable career. He wished he could prevent Rachael’s initial processing, but she probably wore a tag to log her movements and interactions. He didn’t even want to call her for fear of false promises, and if he returned to Birmingham, he could do little without potential exposure. Even their parents abided by the quarantine protocols, despite their pretence that their children always came first. Malik watched the rain trickle down the window. He did not know what to do with his outrage at the prime minister’s death because the assassination ruined any hope that Rachael might have a future. But he could not have foreseen the day’s events any more than he might influence national policy.

The screen beeped again, this time more insistently. Malik glanced at his watch: his mother. He had no idea what to say to her, but she would see he was available, and in a second or two, the call would auto-connect. He picked up the device and tried to smooth his hair.

‘Davy? Oh, my boy, what a terrible thing.’ As avid consumers of the populist press, she probably referred to the national news, not its inevitable impact on Rachael. ‘It’s anarchy. Come to Harborne before there are riots in Westminster again. Your sister misses you. She says you haven’t called in over a month.’ His mother’s face was in the top-right of the screen, overlaid across the railway network. Birmingham to London to Portsmouth, then on to Fornax Island. ‘You should be here when she gets her results.’

The rain was coming down in torrents, and the scant traffic was gone. ‘I can’t. I have to work.’

‘You can work on the train,’ she countered. ‘You don’t need to be in that office.’

‘It’s my home, Mum. Well, the same building. You know what I mean.’

‘This is your home, Davy, not Camden. We need to be a family. Rachael needs you.’ She paused, studying his features. ‘You’re a solicitor. It’s your job to help people like your sister.’

Malik held the screen at arm’s length, trying to put some distance between them. ‘I represent defence personnel and their families. You know I don’t accept civil cases. I’m not any good at them.’

‘Not even for your own flesh and blood?’

He refused to rise. ‘I’ve no experience in medical legislation. I’m sorry, Mum, I have a lot left to do today.’

‘Hold on. Your father wants a word.’ His mother’s face gave way to a rollercoaster flight through her suburban home and its jumbled reminders of the past.

‘Hello, Dad. You look surprised to see me.’ In truth, he looked as if he had been asleep.

‘Yes, yes, yes. I mean, no. Your mother says you’ve turned down her invitation. But we’re expecting Rachael’s discharge tomorrow, so your mother called the police station and told them her daughter will be back at work after the weekend.’

‘Smart people stay home,’ Malik quoted. ‘And that includes Rachael. And she’s not cut off from the world. She’s just not allowed any close contact, not even Ioan. We don’t know what her results will be. She might be okay.’

‘Davy, the odds of her having a negative result are slim, and I’m frightened they’ll take her away, especially now that the government will not repeal compulsory isolation for CUs. Are you following the news?’

Malik refreshed the screen with the headlines. ‘Dad, I can’t come to Birmingham. And if I did, there’s nothing I could do to stop them taking her. I have to wait until she’s under military jurisdiction. Please tell Mum not to worry. I’ve got to go.’ He closed the call and swiped through his newsfeed, not caring that the government had reclaimed normality. Fornax Island remained nothing more than a penal colony, its inmates were universally innocent, and the rain continued to fall.

Smart people stay home . The British government had lost its battle with the hospitality industry. So it reluctantly permitted bars and restaurants, gyms and spas and all manner of businesses that encouraged people to mix to keep their doors open. But, unfortunately, some of their clientele refused to respect social distancing and cover their mouths and even proclaimed the fornax variant was little more than a conspiracy theory justifying the loss of international trade. As a result, over seventy per cent of those people died within a year of claiming their so-called liberty. Be smart , the government warned, stay safe .

David Martin Malik had recently turned thirty-seven, the youngest of five children and his parents’ only boy. His father never said he had always longed for a son, yet he had always favoured Davy over his sisters, and Davy had basked in his father’s praise. He had been reasonably successful in his studies but better at sports until, much to his mother’s chagrin, Davy had joined the local air cadet squadron and lost interest in his football career. His uncle had died six months before Davy was born, near the end of the war in Afghanistan. Although they never discussed it at home, he knew why his mum remained unsettled throughout his teenage years.

At seventeen, just before fornax emerged and changed everything in Britain, Davy won a bronze medal in the Paragliding Accuracy World Championship. His father was happy when Davy phoned with the news, although his jibes had undertones of his disappointment at his boy not beating all of the competition. ‘Next year, Son,’ he had said, but his wife had chided him in the call’s background, reminding Davy that his priority was his studies on his return. That was the last time he had travelled outside Britain and his last flight on a plane.

He hadn’t told his family about his application to join the Republic Air Force, deciding to explain after he received his exam results. The weekend before, the government reluctantly disclosed the danger posed by the fornax variant. The world had become used to the pandemic’s legacy, relying on a combination of immunisation, public education and patient management. But this mutation was the one governments said could not occur, the one the World Health Organisation feared. It was vaccine-resistant, hard to detect at the point of infection, fast-spreading and usually terminal. The armed forces announced a temporary enlistment freeze as part of the restriction of public movements, and Malik had inevitably fallen back on registration with a virtual university. He had thoughtlessly chosen a law degree, not intending to complete his studies, and his parents couldn’t have been more proud. Six years later, Malik qualified as a solicitor and never mentioned his former career ambitions.

Throughout his studies, fornax dominated every aspect of his life. People were blasé at first, but the number of infections remained high, and mortality was more than three times the rate of the twenties’ pandemic. As a result, the government did not need to coerce the public back into lockdown; within a few months, all but the most foolish consumers and essential employees remained home. Even so, by the time Malik was twenty-four, he was determined to have his independence and rented an apartment in Islington. He told his family he needed to be close to the firm, moving in with a girl from work.

The rest of the world closed its borders with Britain, leaving the population of England and Wales expelled by the global community. Exports ceased altogether, and foreign nations restricted British imports to power, data and automated shipments of food and medicine until Sterling became worthless overseas.

Malik married his flatmate a year and a half after leaving Birmingham, and she divorced him six months after their baby was born, citing his lack of social distancing as cause and swiftly denying him any future access to his child. Malik had pleaded with her, arguing that he had spent his time outside their apartment walking through Islington’s empty streets and done everything to keep his family safe. Two years later, the demands for maintenance payments ceased: his ex-wife and son had contracted fornax through family friends, and neither had survived. Malik’s anger was brief and soon replaced with a general feeling of inadequacy. ‘You sanitised everything that came into your family home,’ his colleagues had reminded him, ‘it was never your fault.’

Across the road, the rain poured down the roofs and spilt over blocked gutters and onto the pavement below. Malik watched the water splash into the street, and still, no one was in sight. The wind had picked up in the early afternoon, and he decided nobody would care if he finished for the day. He flipped the cover over his screen, tucked it under his arm and turned off the lights, pondering the prime minister’s death. Certainly, Britain needed a better solution for people who carried the variant, but the politician’s proposal for the dissolution of Fornax Island was not a viable alternative, even if it might have interrupted his sister’s incarceration. His parents were expecting him to do something, yet he had nothing. He briefly considered calling Rachael but did not know what to say. Malik walked along the corridor and entered the stairwell, careful not to touch anything. Two flights up, on an identical passageway, was his apartment. He gazed at the lock until it clicked and elbowed the door open.

Malik let the tablet slip from under his arm onto the kitchen table and went to the sink to scrub his hands, telling the room to read the headlines. Then, kicking off his shoes, he grabbed a wipe to clean the device, responding to his deep-rooted desire to sanitise everything, and stared at his blinking notifications. A military case had come in, and the reception app had routed it across. A court martial, most likely, routine work. He glanced at the summary as he dismissed it: a Republic Navy nurse stationed in Portsmouth. Malik sighed, placing the screen back on the table. His working day might well stretch ahead of him into the evening.

Chief Petty Officer Naval Nurse Sam Jueves was arrested forty-five minutes after the prime minister’s death. Nothing in the file indicated any correlation besides both parties being present on Fornax Island. The prime minister had left the mainland two hours before he died; however, CPO Jueves had arrived just before dawn. The notes said Jueves requested civilian representation and gave no details of the offence. Malik scratched his beard and stared out the apartment window into the autumn weather. He presumed the charges were classified, which meant he would have to hear them in person.

If someone had exposed the prime minister to the fornax variant, he would not be dead for several days, so his assassination had to be something more brutal. It seemed unlikely a medic would get close enough to murder a visiting dignitary. Malik couldn’t help but consider various ways for a medical practitioner to inflict a fatal wound as he went to the window to look for signs of his supper. The rain had stopped, but it was getting dark, and the wind had picked up. He had no desire to travel in the morning and hoped he did not have to tell his family. Malik requested permission to contact his client within the hour and sent a note to reception to book him a decent seat on the train. Like Rachael, he would go to the coast, and perhaps the case would provide him with a straightforward way to reach her. His backlog of other work could wait.

Malik shuttled the news back through the past week. The prime minister and his entourage had attended a series of public engagements, none of which seemed unusual. Besides official duties conducted behind closed doors, there had been no publicised contact with the military until the PM visited Fornax Island and made his controversial promise to close the facility. Malik arranged all of the ministerial activities on his screen, looking for clues about the announcement. Several media outlets had predicted a policy change, but none had anticipated its execution or had permission to accompany the governmental visit. Press footage supposedly came directly from the armed forces on a delayed feed, so there was no publicly-available video of the British premier’s death. Malik could not guess what had happened and how CPO Jueves might be involved.

A polite chime reminded Malik that he was trying to reach his sister. ‘I spoke to Mum,’ she blurted as soon as the call connected. ‘She said you would stop them taking me in the morning. Mum said you were catching the next train out of London.’ Rachael looked thinner than he remembered. ‘I told her you wouldn’t drop everything to rescue me.’ She tinged her words with accusation, her face a stern challenge. ‘It’s true, then. You’re not coming home, are you? You’re a terrible brother.’

‘Do you feel well?’ he asked her. ‘I mean, are you feeling strong? You must keep yourself in good shape. I’m sorry, Rachael. It isn’t going to be easy for you.’

Rachael pursed her lips and looked away from the camera. ‘You’re not going to do anything to help.’

‘Don’t say that. I can’t do anything to stop them from taking you, and you mustn’t resist or, even worse, try to evade them. But I might have a way to reach Fornax Island through a military contact.’ He was glad she knew better than to ask him for more. There was another chime from his screen, a notification that his food had arrived. He increased his tip to have it brought to his door and told the building to let the courier inside. ‘I’m leaving in the morning and will be there a day or two before you. You have to trust me.’

‘Do you have a plan?’ Rachael asked pointedly.

‘There’s someone at the door,’ he replied. ‘Promise me you’ll stay out of trouble and do everything they tell you to do. I’ll figure something out.’

‘No one ever leaves Fornax Island,’ she warned him. ‘Not even when they die.’

‘That’s going to change. There has to be a way.’

She reached out to tap her screen. ‘Goodbye, Davy. None of this is your fault.’

Three raps at the door, a wooden gavel against its frame. No one risked touching anything. Malik checked the hallway camera feed, watching the masked delivery girl enter the lift to leave. Maybe he could have done more to reassure his sister. He grabbed a glove and retrieved his meal, carrying it to his tiny kitchen. Before Malik placed the paper bag onto the counter, he pulled a wide sheet of film from the dispenser as he had done hundreds of times before and deftly removed the outer covering from his supper. Inside was a second bag, supposedly packed in sterile conditions, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. Malik grabbed a couple of bowls with his free hand, tore open the remaining covering, and transferred the contents of the two containers into his dishes. He popped them into the decontamination oven and wrapped all of the packaging in the film, dumping his glove on top as he tipped it into his biohazard bin. In a couple of minutes, he could settle down to eat.

A third chime: a call with a government header. Malik expected a response from a navy clerk, not the accused non-commissioned officer. The steriliser beeped: his food was clean but would probably be cold when he finished with his client. It would taste awful if he tried to reheat it.

He studied CPO Jueves’s face. Plain but youthful, the lines from constantly wearing a full mask were a permanent fixture. Short hair, but not cropped; piercings in both ears, and possibly nose, but no jewellery worn. Eyes bright, but eyelids heavy. The naval rating looked like sleep was a distant friend—one who might never return.

‘Mister Malik,’ Jueves said amiably. ‘I’m told you have a good track record. Unfortunately, not in terms of quashed convictions, but you listen to your clients. It’s why I approached your firm.’

‘You didn’t seek military counsel first?’ Malik had heard this opening a dozen times before. It generally meant the accused was guilty of something that didn’t need to be shared. ‘I mean, have you spoken to anyone else about your situation?’ He watched Jueves’s head cautiously sway left, right and left again. ‘That’s good. Please don’t try to explain until we meet. I’m leaving the city in the morning.’

‘How about a different topic, then? I have no reason to end our conversation prematurely, and I really should get to know you. Politics is off-limits, so how about business?’

Was Jueves mocking him? Maybe the nurse did not want representation and was indeed involved with the assassination. Yet, it seemed unlikely that someone would request a civilian solicitor and not fight for freedom. It could be a matter of publicity. ‘Economics and business studies weren’t my strongest subjects,’ Malik said, ‘but I’m always good for a chat.’ If there were something Jueves wanted to say before they met, it would be circumspect.

‘I enjoy learning about history, although my teachers didn’t share enough detail at school. This isn’t the first time the British have killed their prime minister. In the early eighteen-hundreds, a merchant named Bellingham shot Spencer Perceval to settle a grievance with his government. It demonstrates, I suppose, business taking control of politics. Perceval was a solicitor, just like you, except his aspirations were far greater.’

‘Not everyone ends up where they intend,’ Malik muttered to himself. ‘Events don’t always happen in the order we would prefer,’ he pronounced righteously. ‘If I were as young as you, I might have had different opportunities.’

‘I’m almost thirty, Mister Malik.’

If we finish up now, he thought, my dinner might still be hot. ‘Of course.’

‘I’ll send you some recommendations for places to eat,’ Jueves offered. ‘Somewhere with a decent IPA. I heard the Dutch killed their prime minister in the 1670s. He was a republican, too, well, at least before the monarchists ate him. Goodnight, Mister Malik. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.’

The CPO dropped the call, leaving Malik with a vague notion that he had already lost control. He turned his screen on its side, scanning his messages, but his client hadn’t sent anything. How could Sam Jueves be the Fornax Assassin? Malik asked himself. A rudimentary search yielded little about the navy nurse besides a few family photos from a passing-out parade, although, given all the masks, whether it was Jueves’s ceremony was unclear.

Both the noodles and ramen were lukewarm, so he grabbed a fork, took his supper to the lounge, and turned on the big wall screen. Newscasters on every feed were speculating about the government’s leadership contest, yet none seemed particularly outraged by the day’s events; instead, media outlets reported it as the inevitable response to a leader attempting to circumvent the safeguards protecting the British public. The only people who would support the prime minister’s approach were those with loved ones exiled on Fornax Island, yet few would welcome them home because of the danger of contagion. Malik gritted his teeth, leaving his supper half-eaten. He asked the room several questions and waited for its response. Defence procurement provided staff with high-grade protection against viral infection, which Jueves almost certainly used. The equipment issued to visiting politicians and other officials would not only be new, but it would also have a higher specification. Perhaps he could meet Jueves on the island close to where the crime had occurred, and maybe he could fathom a way to reach Rachael.

When Jueves’s data arrived, Malik was unsurprised that it contained no references to the day’s news. However, it did include shift patterns and transfer times and a few details of work assignments. Most of the medical support for the isolated community was clinical advice given in consultation rooms with thick glass separating practitioners and patients, but occasionally contact was required. It was rare for a doctor to be in close quarters with anyone who carried the fornax variant. It was, instead, how the nursing staff made their contribution.

Everything else Jueves had provided related to pubs, restaurants and other venues across the maritime city. There was variety in the establishment names, but each incorporated a potentially significant word or phrase: politician, vault, merchant, crook and so forth. Although they seemed unrelated, as Malik sifted through the detail, he became convinced Jueves had curated this information long before their initial meeting. Perhaps these were signals for the recipient. Malik wondered if he had always been the intended counsel, if Jueves had meant to track him down specifically, and therefore, if whatever happened that morning, was it a long time pre-arranged? Was the ministerial death an accident, or was it a plot hatched by a few military misfits—was it sanctioned by senior officials or even the government itself?

‘Tell me about Prime Minister Perceval,’ Malik said quietly to the room. The portrait of a ghost-like nineteenth-century statesman appeared on the living room screen. Painted against a blood-red backdrop, the politician, seated at his desk, gazed wearily two and a half centuries into his future. His face was pale and unblemished, like a child’s, but the tired skin around the subject’s eyes revealed his age; his white hair, receding at the temples, brushed back over his head and ears. Malik stared at the eyes, trying to guess their colour, and smiled at the lacy cravat and frock coat that seemed to be made from the curtains hanging in his mother’s house. His assassin was John Bellingham, a businessman in his forties who had petitioned the British government for compensation after wrongful imprisonment. Bellingham’s grievance had become so strong that he decided to kill the prime minister. Why had Jueves mentioned Perceval at all? Surely not to cite precedent.

‘Cross-reference with Dutch political figures.’ Ten more faces, four photos, the most recent the year after the fornax variant swept through Europe. None of the victims ever held the office of prime minister, but Johan de Witt came close as Grand Pensionary, the leader of the Dutch Republic. Malik rubbed his eyes. He could possibly view de Witt’s assassination as a result of relaxing borders with neighbouring countries and encouraging the movement of people. It was a stretch, he decided, turning the display off.

It was dark outside, and quiet. Beyond the railings opposite, Malik could see three foxes worrying at something in the stark white lamplight. A dead bird, maybe, or some other creature. When he was young, animals used to thrive on scraps they pulled from rubbish outside the neighbours’ houses, but waste management was now more complex. Malik and everyone he knew hated separating leftovers and unwanted items because the communal bins were said to be the easiest place to contract fornax. He supposed it was because people scrubbed their hands after putting out their trash, not before. One of the foxes darted away with its spoils, and the other two waited momentarily before chasing it into the night.

CPO Jueves had either sent a casually guarded and excessively subtle message implying a military coup or was misdirecting a recommended attorney as a play for more time. Malik realised he didn’t care. Sam Jueves meant only one thing: an opportunity to reach Fornax Island and somehow help Rachael, or at least ensure she would be safe, if not always comfortable. Yet, his sister’s plight left him curious to see what the place was really like. People would want to know, he decided, and the loss of the country’s leader was just the catalyst they would appreciate.

The noodles were cold but still firm. Malik knew better than reheating them and creating a tasteless, gelatinous glop that would undoubtedly make him gag. Instead, he picked at the ramen with his fork. Perhaps there was a way