The Dawn: Omnibus edition (box set books 1-5)

by Michelle Muckley

  “I have to warn him,” Emily said. Before she punched the third number her father snatched the phone from her hands, leaving Emily broken and pleading at his feet, her eyes swollen with tears. “He’s going to die,” she said one last time, before flopping forwards so that her head balanced on his knee. The creator and consoler of pain.

  Emily felt every bump of the last twenty minutes of the journey. Nobody told her to sit back up. Nobody stressed the importance of her seatbelt. Nothing in those last moments mattered. It was only as she realised they had begun a descent into a car park that she woke up from her daze. Her mother was talking to her, and Emily realised that she had been for some time because she drifted awake mid-sentence. Her mother was telling her about the wonderful suite they were going to live in, how she knew the beds were going to be so comfortable, and how everything was going to work out for the best. That she shouldn't panic. Her mother had stopped crying, and she was smiling instead. But her cheeks were smeared with black, like war paint on a soldier. It was as if somebody had flicked a switch. Perhaps she too realised that their future had been decided for them by people more powerful than they would ever be. They were here because they had no choice. And yet somehow, they still had more choice than those they had left behind.

  Before the car had stopped moving the door opened, pulled from outside. They had been waiting for them. A man wearing a dark suit and white shirt, with a curly wire like an endless pig's tail dangling from his ear, peered in.

  “Sir, welcome. You need to follow me, sir.” Anthony Grayson stepped out of the car without hesitation. He knew what to expect. He knew what was coming. He had been briefed. “Miss. Come on now, Miss.” The suited man held out his hand and reached into the car, prompting Emily to take it. She stared at it for a while, wondering if his family were here or whether he too knew that the people he loved were going to die. “Miss, there is no time for this.” Emily took his hand, pushed by her mother from behind. Her eyes were downcast as he pulled her from the car, her rucksack trailing behind her in a limp hand. She pulled her blazer across her chest, still feeling foolish for her juvenile protest.

  Around her she saw a storeroom. Piles of sheets, boxes of what she thought from the words written on them must be food. She saw people that she recognised from the television, politicians, and maybe, if she wasn’t mistaken, an actor whom she had seen in a movie when she had sat next to Amanda and made adolescent promises. Her father was asking the man wearing the wire about things like time to impact and payload, and as Emily walked along behind him she got the distinct impression that he was in charge. At least in some capacity.

  The man in the suit ushered them into a lift, people and the sound of fear all around them. Everybody was shouting and screaming, either in pain or in hope. Emily didn't know which, but thought there seemed to be little difference between the two emotions right now. There were both men and women crying, joined by other kids who looked as confused as Emily. She tried to smile at one boy, no older than five, but he just stared at her, dumbfounded and in shock.

  Inside the lift, elbows and the smell of breath nudged her from almost every angle. Others seemed pleased to have her father around, and they greeted him with the title, Sir. One even made an attempt to shake his hand, but her father's response was weak and apathetic. The men watched Anthony Grayson, women tried to calm children. Somebody was still crying, the sound of defeat, as if the person knew it was game over. It hurt Emily's ears, scared her even more than the people who were shouting. But somehow it was still better than the emptiness of silence. Silence made her feel like the world had already disappeared. She slipped a hand into her father’s and felt his grip tighten against her fingers. She pulled her headphones out of her blazer pocket and one at a time placed them in her ears. She drew out her iPod and pressed play. It didn’t matter what music it was. She was just looking for anything to help her hide inside herself, to forget that there was nothing more than a terrifying fragment of the world left. Just as she heard the beginning of Fix You, the lift jolted and stopped. The lights flickered and then went out. The iPod slipped from Emily’s hand and fell to the floor. She pulled her hand from her father’s sweaty grip, but before she could crouch down somebody had stamped on it, breaking the screen. Knees jostled her from both left and right, including one which struck her in the lip. She followed the orange light, her fingers scrambling amongst the panicked feet until she made contact and snatched it back up.

  “Emily, Emily,” her father shouted. “Give me your hand.” She felt him grab her, pull her up and close to his chest. He was hurting her again, but this was a different kind of pain, and one she knew arose out of desperation. Light shone down on her as if the sun was rising just above the horizon, and as she looked up she saw her father’s eyes glistening, his pupils darker and wider than the deepest of oceans. The lift had stopped between floors, and another man, probably in his fifties, had already pushed open the escape hatch and had pulled himself through it. The emergency lighting flickered into the lift from inside the shaft like ripples of sunlight through gigantic summer clouds. The man hung his head back into the lift, reaching both hands down, shouting at people to be calm. Anthony Grayson lifted Emily up like an offering to the Gods, a sacrifice, a desperate last prayer before the end of the world for them all to be saved. She felt him lift her above the heads of others whose fingers clawed at her legs and feet. As the hands of the man on top of the lift reached down and took hold of her wrists she heard her father shout from beneath her, his words carrying her upwards.

  “Just get her out!”

  Chapter Three

  There were no Guardians patrolling the thirtieth floor when Zack stepped into the corridor. The children had been rounded up, and once the lights were dimmed there was little to draw people out of their rooms. People retreated, cocooned themselves in their only private space until they were forced to venture out again for the next shift to work for the little that was on offer. Zack neared the end of the corridor and as he turned the corner he saw a pair of Guardians patrolling the lobby near the lifts. They ambled past the doors dressed in their white boiler suits with black epaulets. Both were wearing the black balaclava and cap that made them all look the same. Their Assisters swung behind them and it seemed they always had one hand resting on the handle, ready to strike. They noticed him and took a glance at each other, but continued on their patrol. Usually they didn’t bother you if you weren’t causing any trouble. They knew certain things had to happen after lights out. If you were causing trouble it was a different story.

  The light illuminating the numbered buttons continued to descend until it settled on the final destination. Ground Floor. There was no choice to go any further because the final five buttons had been removed from use by a well-aimed butt of an Assister in the early days. Back then people still believed that they could find a way back to the old world, the way it was before the war had destroyed it. They rode the lifts up and down like lost souls somewhere between heaven and hell. They couldn’t accept that neither home nor family existed anymore. Many fights broke out during this time, mainly between people who already knew each other. Colleagues who had sat together at adjacent desks and who had conversed only days before became enemies in the fight to turn back time. That was what Leonard had called it in the first few hours. Then the Guardians came and everything changed.

  When the first bomb fell, Zack had thought it a meteor. He even raced to Leonard's office to tell him to watch. He remembered the meteor that had plummeted to Earth only a few years before in Russia, and afterwards those who had survived told their stories to an awestruck world. Leonard was already at the window when Zack swung through his door, his hands pressed up against the glass. By then the first signs of a cloud had already begun to form, mushrooming upwards in the distance. Leonard and Zack watched together as the sky lit up and the orange blaze tore a wound through their world. It was Leonard that shouted at Zack to get under the desk as the explosion rocked the skeleton of the
building. The intensity of the burst grew until it stifled Leonard’s words. He sat crouched in front of Zack, his mouth screaming something inaudible, his words lost in the roar of the explosion. They waited there until the sound of the blast died down and the building rested. It was silence that took over as people waited in their hiding places gripped by fear, interrupted only by the occasional bang or smashing of glass as the city fell apart around them. Together Zack and Leonard stumbled to their feet to take their first look at what was left. Zack's hearing was muffled and weak and he couldn't hear what Leonard was saying to him. But he saw that their windows had stood firm. They had been rocked but not broken by the evil that had ripped through their city, now left on the brink of extinction.

  At first nobody considered their homes or their family. It was the shock. They had been stunned into nothing more than gratitude for the sparing of their lives. It was only in the hours and days afterwards that reality swelled like the wave of a tsunami, surging forth to claim fresh victims. It was then that people started to realise that there was nothing and nobody else left, and that's when people started to get scared. Night had descended upon them. The city that would in time become known as New Omega was covered in hot ash, without any hope for the break of another dawn.

  The lift doors screeched open to reveal the ground floor lobby, a once-grand entrance to what at one point was the second tallest structure of the capital. There had been a pond here, and fish swam in it. People ate them within the first few days. Everybody was starving. There had been trees here too. The lobby became a sanctuary at first, always full, people from all floors hoping to catch a glimpse of nature, waiting for a saviour to show up and rush through the doors, to tell them there had been a mistake. They sat watching the greenery, motionless in the absence of breeze, trying to ignore the line of faceless Guardians who were all armed with their Assisters and positioned along the perimeter. Within the first year the trees died, and the lobby died with it. It became barren, infertile, and the loss destroyed the dreams of many. It was devoid of decent life, and when the final leaves fell from the trees a lot of people lost hope.

  The Guardians were positioned as expected at the entrance to the sublevels as Zack exited the lift. Five subterranean floors that were supposed to be uninhabited, yet they were full of people who remained unaccounted for. When the explosions came the doors were locked and the lifts to the basement decommissioned. The sublevels became an unwanted appendage. People from outside rushed underground from the streets, a place to hide, they thought, until the dust settled and they could return to their homes. But the dust never did settle, and they never made it out. Some of the wealthiest traded their way into the building in the first few days of anarchy. But the rest stayed down there, becoming the underclass, irrespective of where they came from. They mourned in the cold and the dark, tended their wounds and burns the best they could, shivering under coats in corners that didn’t catch the nuclear breeze. But eventually a form of camaraderie took over. They found ways to trade with those above ground. Some braved the fallout and went outside, bringing in things like clothes and blankets from the shops that were not completely destroyed. Others smuggled in alcohol. Others traded the only thing they had, which was themselves, and this brought a steady stream of men from the upper levels once word got out. New Omega soon shut them in, boarded up the basement doors from the outside world. For their own safety they were told.

  “Hey, Sam. Croft.” Croft always went by his last name. Zack got the impression that it made him feel more intimidating this way. Less human. Like it was necessary.

  “Zack,” they both said in unison like a chorus line. “Coming down to savour the delights below deck again?” Croft smiled to reveal a set of ugly brown teeth through the hole in his balaclava. He chewed tobacco like a Texan cowboy and spat a glob onto a brown patch on the floor. It was against regulation. Zack took a step back.

  “You know that’s not my style, Croft. I’m here to do business. Just like always.”

  “Level B3 has some good business,” said Sam, nudging Croft in the side which resulted in them both sniggering, celebrating the joke with a high five. Sam was huge, stood at nearly six foot seven, and almost as wide. “Ask for Roxanna. Tell her I sent you.” There was a glint in his eye that Zack didn’t care for, made him think that there was some mutual agreement between him and Roxanna. He knew people had to survive, but he liked to think that people did it off their own bats, not off somebody else's.

  “Why, you get a cut of whatever she gets?” Zack snarled. Sam straightened himself up, puffed up his chest. “Like I said, not my style, Sam. Got some ration cards to give out.”

  “What about our cards?” said Croft. “When you gonna top ours up again?” Croft was the dumber of the two. It was a close call, difficult to compare, but he made it. Just made it.

  “Soon, just like I said three triple bells ago. Now,” he said, patting Croft on the shoulder, the smell of tobacco escaping from his mouth. “You going to let me through, or is it going to be a dry month ahead for the pair of you?”

  As he walked down the steps he passed B1 and B2. He thought about Roxanna on B3 and the deal she had with Sam, and realised that his own life could be harder. The stairs were empty tonight, and there were no drunks blocking his path. Arriving at B4, he pushed open the old fire doors and stepped through. There was no commotion, no chatter, or music. It was dark even by the standards in Delta, and it always took a while for his eyes to adjust. There were several tables filled with silent drinkers, even those in company were mute, choosing not to speak. What was there to say?

  There were a few children who had been born since the war, some above and some below ground. Those below ground bore the scars of a war which people didn't understand. Misshapen heads, missing limbs, bad teeth, swollen throats. The birth of a child didn’t bring new hope anymore. It didn’t bring a future of promise. Instead it raised every question that every one of the 1984 people who were stuck in Delta tower when the bombs landed had asked themselves over and over. There was no question more frequently asked than why did the bombs fall? Who dropped them? Why wasn’t there a warning? Many people suspected the Russians, other people said that the idea was just a conspiracy and that the USA was the real perpetrator. Maybe it was Iran, or Korea, people would counter argue. Omega Tower had never offered any answers. But Omega Tower was all anybody had. Such questions remained unanswered and would do for the rest of people's lives. People have no other choice but to accept it. They are stuck somewhere between life and death, a death that was offered, but never came.

  Zack arrived at the bar and gestured to the barman. Ronson's face was burnt and puckered and had the appearance of a weathered lunar landscape, cratered and wounded, but stable. One eye had been lost, a victim of the war. Zack always thought how different he would have looked if they still lived in the old world. How such a burn might have been treated by doctors in that time, and people would have commented on what a good job they had done. He would have received a skin graft, Zack thought, or even a face transplant, and maybe his eye would have been saved. In places the wound was still red, like it might still hurt to touch. Sometimes he saw Ronson sitting with his one good eye closed as if he was trying to block out the pain. Physical or mental, he didn’t know.

  The walls of the bar were constructed out of old doors from containers that would have at some point sailed the oceans on cargo ships. There was a logo on one of the panels that read NAVIMEG and so that’s what people called the bar.

  “Hey, Shiner,” Ronson said. It’s what he called everybody on account of their presence in NAVIMEG. Alcohol was homemade now, and it was strong. Moonshine, Ronson called it. “Take a seat.” Zack sat down onto the stool, an upturned oil barrel, and shuffled about until he was as comfortable as he would get. “Where you been?”

  “Hey, Ronny. I’ve been busy. It's been harder to get here. I've been doing extra shifts on account of somebody going on the sick.”

  “Extra shifts u
p on B3, no doubt,” Ronson said with a smirk on the half of his face that moved. Zack wondered if he too was getting a cut. He hoped not. Everybody was obsessed with B3 tonight.

  “You know me, Ronson, it’s not.....”

  “Yeah I know,” he interrupted. “I'm just pulling your chain. It's not your style, right? You’re a good kid, Shiner.” Zack was somewhere between thirty two and thirty five years old, he thought, but to Ronson he was still a kid. It was hard to tell Ronson’s age due to the scarring, but he had to be in his late sixties. He wasn’t at work on the day when fire rained from the sky. He was outside in it, and anybody who doubted it just needed to take a look at his face to remember. “Not an angel, though,” he said as he placed a small beaker of Moonshine next to him. “At least I hope you haven't become one. I take it you got it?”

  “I got it,” replied Zack. “Of course I got it.” Zack pulled a small plastic card from the back pocket of his overalls and slid it across the dimpled metallic surface of the bar. Ronson watched as Zack inched the card closer and closer, appearing almost frightened to touch it in case he destroyed its precious value.

  “And you are sure it’ll work?” he whispered to Zack as he leaned in close. “Nobody is going to give me any hassle?”

  Zack took a hit from the Moonshine, pulling his lips back as if it was painful on the throat. “You go after the second bell tomorrow,” Zack paused, thinking about his choice of words. He had no idea what tomorrow meant anymore because there was no longer any concept of time. Life worked via bells, alarms. You slept when you had the chance between shifts which allowed you to loosely count the days. That's why he wasn't sure of his age. In the beginning people counted days by marking the wall like a prisoner or a castaway stranded on an island, but they soon lost track and stopped bothering. There was no sunrise, no dawn, and no sunset. There was just asleep and awake. Shift, and no shift. Exist, or die. No life, or time. “After the first double bell,” he clarified. “Go to the lobby. Sam will be there, and Croft too. Tell them I sent you and show them the card.”