Leave your courage at the door tomorrow, Zack. He heard the words that Sarah had said playing over and over in his head. The rain began to clear and the clouds broke to let the weak sun ripple through. And then come and find me later on. I'll be waiting for you.
The Dawn: Everybody is Somebody
(Book Three)
Copyright © 2014 Michelle Muckley
British English Edition
First Edition
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual people, places, or events is in every respect coincidental.
This work is licensed for your personal enjoyment, but may be lent and copied without prior permission. These permissions extend to your personal use only, and do not intend to cover the copying of the material for distribution to the general public.
For extra copies, and further information about the author, please visit:
www.michellemuckley.com
All rights reserved.
ISBN- 978-1502462497
ISBN-10: 1502462494
For those who dare me to be better than I am
A ship is always safe at the shore - but that is not what it is built for.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
It’s time to make a choice
Chapter Twenty Six
“I'm coming, I'm coming,” Zack shouted.
He stepped from the shadow of the wall and into the soft glare of the low afternoon sun. He cupped his hand above his eyes. Lund was already sat in the van waiting, and Nielsen was heading in that direction. Duke was shouting at Zack to hurry up. Zack plodded forwards, sick of them all. Thankfully, it was the last time he would be here for a while.
The bridges that he had visited on day one were finished. They were structurally sound now that they had been reinforced and resurfaced. Another team had worked under his guidance and erected the first sections of the wall along the southern bank of the river. It had become so tall that he could no longer hear the water lapping against it. It stood over fifteen feet. It was incredible that it had taken only two weeks for the first stage to be complete. They were beginning to secure the perimeter, just like President Grayson had demanded.
“Listen up, Delta.” This was Duke’s new name for Zack. “We are moving onto Stage Two tomorrow,” said Duke. “You're satisfied with what we’ve done here, right?” He holstered his weapon on his hip and motioned for Nielsen to get in the van. “I don't want us to get back to Omega Tower and hear you complaining that the job isn't finished like you did last Friday. I don't need your coordinator on my case again.” He waved off the last bus load of workers and did a quick scan of the ground to make sure nobody was left behind. “Is there anything you forgot to check?” The sound of Pederson and Nielsen arguing emerged from the back of the van. Nothing new there. Duke gritted his teeth and fluttered his eyelids closed as if he couldn't stand them any more either. Duke held up his finger in Zack’s face. “I'm telling you, Zack. This will be the last trip here.”
Zack didn't see what difference it was going to make whether they came back here or not. By next Friday they would be back out doing the same job with the same company of northern European criminals. It wouldn't make any difference where they were. Zack watched the last busload of construction workers being driven away. Each of them was wearing the same orange boiler suit as Zack. Nobody wanted to be confused with a Drifter.
“Hey, Delta. Get a grip,” Duke barked. “I said this will be the last trip. You got that?”
“I told you we have finished,” said Zack. “I've got no intention of dragging us back out here again. The bridge is secure.” Zack looked up at the giant iron gates decked in barbed wire which sealed the bridge from the south. They had been the last thing put in place today. The gates were flanked by watchtowers where Guardians would eventually stand. It looked like a lookout for a sniper. “The construction team know what they are doing with the wall. They can carry on working without our input.”
Duke nodded his approval as he hauled himself into the van. “Well that's something,” he said as he held out his arm. “Now get your arse in here so we can get back.” Zack grabbed him on the forearm and Duke took hold of Zack and pulled him into the van.
They drove back to Omega Tower with the sunlight dappling through the slit windows. Zack didn't know if it was the same van in which he had first travelled to Omega or not, but it looked the same. The windows had been painted in the same black paint. Whatever reason they had been painted, Zack was glad of it. He didn't want to look at the chaos that remained, or worse still, Delta looming in the background. He didn't know what bothered him more; the thought that he had lived in that place for so many years, or the fact that now that he was living with a degree of freedom, it was at the expense of all of the other lives still lived under an illusion.
“You gonna get out, or what?” They had arrived back in Omega and Zack hadn't even realised. The rest of the crew were already out, and Duke was standing just outside the door of the van. Zack often wondered if Duke shared the same distasteful history as the rest of his crew. But he hadn't dared ask.
Duke was English, but he wasn't like the rest of them in Omega. He had been roughed up by life, and it showed. Rough around the edges was what people used to say. He had the mark of a past and a series of small red scars on his fingers consistent with the removal of tattoos. Zack guessed his knuckles had once read LOVE and HATE, or something like that. The assumption helped Zack to formulate the idea in his mind of exactly who Duke might have once been. That was safer than risking the truth.
“Yeah, I guess I will,” Zack said, stepping down from the van on Basement Level One. He peeled his orange boiler suit open like a banana skin and stepped out from the boots, helped by two Comrades. This time he knew the drill. He held his arms up as they checked him for signs of radiation. They were still cautious, and precautions were necessary. With the all-clear, Zack walked over to the nearest workstation. Zack produced his right wrist for the Comrade working there. It was now tattooed with the Omega sign, formed from a series of vertical lines. Like a barcode. The Comrade held the scanner to Zack's wrist.
“Our good President,” said the Comrade as he set the scanner back on the glass desk. The Comrade tapped his fingers against the screen of the Coordination Panel, the thing Zack had taken for a computer. His safe return was registered. The rest of the crew were checked in at different stations, and one by one they filtered back into their subterranean quarters. They didn't live in the main building of Omega. It wasn't a place for them. They lived underground, and came and went at the mercy of The Conservators. They had swapped one prison for another. “I trust you have had a fruitful and productive day, Mr. Christian.”
“Our good President,” said Zack. “Fruitful and productive.”
Getting used to the formality of life in Omega was harder than adjusting to life in Delta. Especially the way that they spoke. But to adapt to the nuances of Omega life was an outward sign that he had renounced his previous lives. There was no place for the past, or sentimentality for what it once was. Simon had told him it was necessary to forget it, not just to satisfy New Omega, but for himself.
Life in Omega Tower doesn’t come with options, Zachary.
Zack had learned that life in Omega Tower came with only one option. You could either accept it, or not. Zack didn't know what the consequences of not accepting it were, but he could imagine. He had seen what had happened to the Drifter girl on his first day outside. He didn't want to lie in a pool of his own blood. Life here might be unusual, but it was better than Delta. It was a million times better than death.
He walked towards the row of pegs where he had left his clothes. It was warm in the basement, and even in a white vest and boxer shorts his skin felt hot and clammy. Nevertheless he dressed in his Omega uniform and followed the stairs through the dark corridor past ISOLATION ONE. He arrived at the lift, and after scanning his wrist against the sensor the doors opened and he stepped inside.
He arrived in the lobby where the last of the sunlight trickled through the windows, the shadows of dusk just edging their way in. Most people in Omega retired to their rooms at this time of day in order to freshen up before dinner. It was still a luxury to Zack to be able to return to his room at the end of the day and take a shower. To know that there was no bell timetable, and that he could go for dinner as and when he chose. Just the thought of it brought a smile to his face.
He crossed the lobby passing familiar faces. They greeted him with smiles and polite hellos, like hikers out on a trail always courteous to a stranger. He wondered if they recognised him from the Sunrise Ceremony.
“Our good President,” said a voice behind him. He recognised it as belonging to Serena. He hadn't seen her down in the sub levels and had assumed that she was still outside beyond the perimeter of the compound. He turned around and saw that she was smiling at him, flashing him the widest smile that reminded him of old Hollywood. It was the first genuine smile he had seen all day.
“Our good President,” said Zack, the expected response. But they were both being facetious. Neither of them really meant it.
“So, did you get your wall finished?” she asked, as she stepped in line with him. They continued walking towards the lifts.
“Stage One is complete,” he said. “Next Friday we make a start on Stage Two.”
“Fruitful and productive,” she said as she winked at him out of the corner of his eye. “Good for you.” Zack knew she didn't mean it. Serena didn't believe what most people believed. At least that's what she said, and he felt for some reason that he could trust her. “I'm sure we'll all be much safer after you finish.” She slapped him on his back as the lift doors opened. They stepped inside.
“Without complaint or malaise and for the good of all,” he joked when the doors closed. They were alone in the lift and Serena began to laugh, but she soon stopped when the lift drew to a halt. She straightened herself up, removed the smile from her face. Zack followed her lead. She had warned him early on to be careful, that there were believers and nonbelievers. She also told him that he should consider everybody to be a believer. Anything else wasn't worth the risk.
He first met Serena on the Community Level. She saw him struggling with the Renunciation Booth and stopped to show him how to use it. After getting it working she stood at his side, waiting for him to begin. He had found himself tongue-tied in the presence of an audience, albeit one woman who was a complete stranger. At first he couldn't get his words out through embarrassment. He was certain that she would report him. But she soon started giggling at his expense. She started helping him by reciting the Renunciation Pledge for him to follow. After he finished she told him not to worry about messing up, that it was right at the beginning of his time in Omega and so they would still be lenient. She suggested he had at least a month before they would start taking note of his imperfections. That little bit of help was the first chip of the ice between them.
“So, how was your day?” he asked her when they were once again alone in the lift.
“It was good. I actually made good progress today. I've confirmed a further three species of flora, and I am convinced that I have found wild garlic. That's quite something you know, and was probably helped by the wet winter. See?” she said, holding up her fingers to his nose. He breathed in deeply and could smell the aroma of garlic wafting from her skin. “I've touched it so much, that in a couple of days you'll probably be able to smell it on my breath.”
Zack nodded his head in approval. “Impressive,” he said.
“Damn right it’s impressive,” she said, her grin almost dissecting her face in two it was so wide. All of her facial features were oversized; big lips, long eyelashes, doll-like eyes. She was beautiful, but in a weird kind of way. At school she probably would have been the girl the boys didn't look twice at, and then at the ten year reunion everybody would have seen what a chance they had missed. “You know that garlic can be used as an antibiotic, help thin your blood, and reduce blood pressure,” she said proudly. “Did you know that?”
“How would I know that?” Zack asked as they stepped out of the lift on level seventeen. Serena didn’t answer, and instead deferentially tipped her head when she spotted somebody that she knew walking towards them. She made the whole thing look fluid, like it was no longer a conscious thought.
“Our good President,” she said, nodding at the person that Zack had never met before. They continued walking in silence for a moment before Serena took a glance over her shoulder. “A definite believer,” she whispered in Zack’s ear. “Shall we go and get it over and done with?”
Chapter Twenty Seven
Zack scanned his wrist against the small glass screen next to the door of the Community Level. The doors opened, splitting the word community straight through the U; COMMU disappearing to the left, UNITY to the right. They walked around the frosted glass wall that blocked the view of the Community Level from the outside area. The object of their visit was directly ahead.
The Renunciation Booths.
There were six rows. Each row was made up of six evenly spaced Renunciation Booths, making thirty six in total. The booth itself was a transparent glass cubicle, much like a photo booth from the pre-war world. In place of the flimsy curtain stood an automated glass door, activated by the same Omega tattoo that permitted entrance to the Community Level. The Renunciation Pledge. Completed once a day. Every day. After the first awkward time when Serena stood at his side helping him, he had begun to adjust to the routine. Although there was still nothing about it that felt normal.
Zack passed the first five rows and stopped at the last row of Renunciation Booths. Two were in use; the furthest away and the closest to him. He looked back and saw Serena step into her chosen booth. She grimaced an upside down smile just before she disappeared. He knew what that look meant. He had seen it a million times over in the faces of the Delta residents. It was the face of compliance. A look that said I know I have no choice but to do this. He had never expected to see it in Omega Tower. He walked forward through the maze of ninety-degree corners between the Renunciation Booths. He held his wrist against his chosen scanner, and as the door opened he stepped inside. He couldn’t help but ask himself if it was really so difficult to do this once a day. Why did it bother him so much?
Zack positioned himself so that he was looking at his reflection on the far wall of the booth. He dragged his forefinger over his reflection and a small red light followed his fingertip. He centred the red light over the bridge of his nose as he had been instructed, before removing his finger from the glass. A strip of lighting flickered on at the top of the glass panel and slowly moved its way down like a scanner. He angled the inside of his wrist forwards so that the Omega barcode could be scanned by the line of white light as it moved across his body.
“Welcome, Mr. Christian. It is a pleasure to see you today. We thank you for your continued commitment to the unquestionable success of New Omega. How are you feeling?”
“I am feeling well, our good President.” Zack enunciated his words clearly, speaking much like the computerised voice of the booth. It was the same voice that played out from the television in his room, the thing everybody called a Unity Panel. There was no visible speaker or microphone in the booth. It bothered him every time he made the pledge. If the speaker and microphone were not visible here, where else could they be without him realising? He thought back to the joke he made in the lift and wondered if somebody had been listening.
“I detect an increase in your heart rate, Mr. Christian. Would you like to arrange an appointment with a health advisor or doctor?”
“No, thank you.” He waited to see whether his response had been acceptable. He focussed on his breathing; deep, regular breaths. Not too fast.
“Very well, Mr Christian. When you are ready to begin, I am ready to receive your pledge.”
Zack swallowed hard, forcing down the saliva that was pooling in his mouth. It was impossib
le not to feel nervous when completing the pledge. He took a final breath and let it out slowly through pursed lips. He was as ready as he would ever be.
“I, Zachary Christian, do swear that I pledge to uphold the beliefs and principles of the Omega Manifesto. I hereby renounce the life that I have left behind. I pledge to maintain a standard of conduct that will enable our society to thrive and grow under the difficult and torturous conditions in which we find ourselves. The life I was living before the war was selfish and isolating. I did not consider my fellow citizens. I allowed my personal desires to take precedence. I will that, in all I do, in all things to be moved, treated and debated by the consent of the President of the Republic of New Omega, I will assist and defend all civil and temporal jurisdictions. I will assist and defend all pre-eminences and authorities. I will uphold this privilege granted to and by the President throughout my dedicated life.”
The words came easy to Zack now, and he didn't stumble or stutter as he did before. When he stared at his reflection like this he could see that his cheeks were pinker and his eyes brighter. Bluer somehow. The evidence that being here was good for him was hard to argue against. The Republic and Omega Tower were getting something right. Then again, the lighting was bright in the booths. Maybe it was just that which made him look healthier.
He recounted the ten creeds of the Omega Manifesto when prompted by the booth. After he had recited the tenth he breathed a sigh of relief. He was sure he had done it right. Completed successfully. He could already see that Serena had finished. She was waiting for him in front of the Health Centre.
“Thank you, Mr Christian. Your daily Renunciation Pledge has been completed successfully.” Zack found himself nodding in agreement, as if somebody was watching him. He looked around and all of the booths were empty. “May I suggest passing by the physician in order for him to perform an electrocardiogram?”
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