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

by Michelle Muckley

  Zack hated the way that Dr. Watson spoke about finding a girlfriend, as if it was like selecting a new pair of shoes. He knew he was supposed to be thinking about pairing up with somebody, and after yesterday and the evening that he had spent with Sarah he guessed he already had. When he woke in the middle of last night, the moonlight lighting up the room, he tiptoed across the floor to make his exit. He took a shower in his own room and tried to sleep, but his mind was too active and sleep wouldn’t take him. He ended up in the chair next to the window, looking northeast towards Samantha’s old apartment as the sun breached the horizon. The colours in the sky were a fresco of mauve and orange, and the early light danced across the sections of river that were not obscured by the wall. Diamond-like reflections burst up from the surface. Afterwards he slipped back into Sarah’s bed and remained there until he woke up late.

  It had been the first time that Zack had been with a woman since Samantha. He had hoped to feel guilty, as if he was doing something wrong. He had wanted to feel as if Samantha was still a part of his life and that his actions constituted betrayal. It was harder to accept that he hadn't felt this way, and instead had enjoyed Sarah's company and affection. Looking out across the land between Omega Tower and where her old apartment once stood, he had never felt so far away from her. He realised that ten years is a long time, and that feelings fade just in the same way as memories disappear as time goes by.

  “No. That is Serena. She is just my friend.”

  “So what, you haven’t met anybody suitable yet?” The disappointment in Dr. Watson's voice was obvious. Zack felt a responsibility to try to counteract it. What he was about to say wouldn't even be a lie.

  “There is somebody. Her name is Sarah.” Dr. Watson’s excitement was evident. A grin crept across his lower face and his eyes had become mere slits, like hairline fractures or paper cuts on a finger.

  “Well that changes things. I don't want to be taking your blood if you are in active duty. You will need your energy.” He laughed at his own joke for a few seconds before wiping the smile from his face. “Be sure to send her to her physician’s appointment. If you would like us to check your count, then we can do that now.” It took a moment for Zack to realise what Dr. Watson meant by his ‘count’, but when he nodded towards Zack's groin it all became clear.

  “No, no. I'll be fine, thank you. Let's let nature take its course.” It was like his teenage worst nightmare. One mistake made under the influence of hormones and he had inadvertently found himself in a family planning clinic. “Everything is fine.” Zack swung his feet around and sat on the edge of the bed. “Are we finished?”

  The disappointment had returned to Dr. Watson's face, as if Zack’s unwillingness to take the matter seriously had ruined any effort on his part. Dr. Watson picked up the clipboard and pulled a pen from his pocket. He made a small note on the page and then set it down on the desk, resting the pen on top of the sheet of paper.

  “Well at least let me give you these. It is the very least that we can do in your situation.” Dr. Watson leaned his weight against one of the wall tiles with the palm of his hand and a series of glass shelves slid out from the wall. The doctor rifled through several little bottles until he located a small silver pot. He popped off the lid and peered inside. He nodded his head and replaced the lid, before handing it to Zack. “Should the mood take you, I suggest you take one of these beforehand. It will improve your chances.”

  Zack twisted the lid off and looked inside. There were five shiny red tablets.

  “Chances of……” Zack asked as he screwed the lid onto the pot. Dr. Watson rolled his eyes as if he really wished Zack would keep up with the conversation.

  “Conception, Mr. Christian.” He shook his head and turned away. He pushed his hand against the shelves and they retreated effortlessly back into the wall, tiles flipping back down to conceal them. “You are free to go,” said Dr. Watson as he breezed through the staff exit, closing the door behind him.

  Zack placed the silver pot on the couch and stood up to leave. He didn’t want any tablets that could improve Sarah’s chances of conception. He had managed to get Samantha pregnant without even trying, and look how that had turned out. He moved towards the door, but just before he left the room he picked up the pen from the desk. He stepped outside into the empty waiting area and picked up a copy of the Omega Manifesto. He turned to the first random page. It was the seventh creed; Every citizen of New Omega shall renounce their previous life for the prosperity of the collective society. It was written in the same capital typeface as the letter from the lottery coordinator, the name card in his locker, and the words on the Unity Panel that reminded everybody that Omega Tower was Providing Your Future. He held his stolen pen against the page and began to write in a random direction.

  I. AM. SOMEBODY.

  With his heart pounding and his hands shaking he threw the manifesto back onto the table and tossed the pen on top of it. The pen rolled to the side and toppled to the floor. He hurried towards the open doorway and towards the Refreshments Cafe. Just as he was about to walk out he heard a door open behind him. He didn't want to turn around. He didn't want to know who it was that might have seen him. But as much as he tried he couldn't help it. He glanced back over his shoulder to see the nurse that had called him in for his appointment watching him as he left. Her gaze didn't waver, and she stood still until he had left the waiting area.

  Zack’s breathing was erratic and he wanted nothing more than to go down to the sublevels of Delta and get himself a shot of moonshine to calm his nerves. What he wouldn’t give to see Ronson and his scarred face. To smell the sweat of the enclosed environment. To walk through the chaos of Basement Level Three and be harassed by the girls whom he would never give in to. What he wouldn't give to lie down on his old bed in his old dirty clothes and listen to Leonard tell him stories of the lights that Zack now knew had never existed.

  He had to get outside. He had to breathe. He staggered to the lift, eyes on him left and right as he stumbled through the Community Level towards the lift. He pressed the call button over and over as if he could make it arrive faster. When the doors finally opened he charged into the lift and clung to the metal rail. It might have been the only thing that was keeping him on his feet. There was another person in the lift with him. A man. He pushed the button for the next floor, and stepped as far away from Zack as possible. Once Zack was alone he started to calm down. He arrived in the lobby and darted from the lift, ejecting himself out into the warm summer air.

  To his left the small enclosed garden of the school was full of brightly coloured children. They were running and shouting. It must be playtime. There were four Guardians standing by the entrance door, but they paid Zack no attention. From here Zack would be able to walk for five minutes before he came to the boundary gate. Without his name on the Guardians’ list he would not be permitted to pass. Only on a Monday and a Friday would his name, or rather his barcode, permit him passage.

  He followed the line of the school fence. He passed the trimmed grass lawns and planted flowers of the Omega Compound, heading towards the boundary of the old railway tracks. There was a row of Guardians lining the tracks to prevent access. Unlike the Guardians in Delta, these Guardians carried guns. Zack had no idea if they were loaded or a simple deterrent.

  He climbed a series of steps that would have once taken the passengers towards their destination in the nearby train station. The upper steps had long since been destroyed, probably during the bombing, but they provided the vantage point to see the tracks which were now trodden by the boots of the Guardians. There was a time when he could have been sitting on the shingle shore of Brighton if he took a train from this station, his feet in the water, his soul free.

  “What are you doing up there?” He heard the voice calling him from the foot of the staircase. It was Serena. She held hand up to her forehead to shade her eyes from the Sun as she looked up at Zack. She jogged up the first steps, and he descended to meet her
half way. She was out of breath when she arrived at his side. “Don't you have somewhere better to be?”

  “Just thinking, I guess.” He sat down on the steps, his foot catching on a small patch of greenery. There was no order to the way that it was growing, and nobody had regulated it. It was just here by chance, a random occurrence, a completely natural event. It was nothing more than a patch of weeds, predominantly green with a few white flowers crowning the stems.

  “Common chickweed,” Serena said, noticing the attention Zack was giving it. Zack reached into the plant and snapped off a single stem. Serena sat down beside him.

  “Nobody put this here. Nobody made this survive.” He stared at the plant like a child might stare at a dandelion clock just before blowing the seeds into the wind. He remembered the times that he had done exactly that without a single thought to where those seeds might land.

  “It's a weed, Zack. Of course nobody put it there.” She angled her head to the side and looked up to his face. “Are you all right today? You seem weird, even by Omega standards.”

  Zack took the small white flower and pushed it into the pocket of his trousers. He sighed, resting his hands on his knees, his fingers interlocked.

  “What am I doing here, Serena? What purpose do I serve by being here? It feels like I'm even less useful now than I was when I lived in Delta Tower.”

  “You're helping to rebuild the future, Zack. That's what we are all here for.” As much as she considered herself a nonbeliever, there was part of her that believed in the necessity of what The Conservators were doing. She might not go in for all the mumbo-jumbo as she called it, but she didn’t see the viability of another option for all to live freely.

  “By building a wall? By being part of a society that kills those on the outside? That kills freedom?” He kicked his foot out to the side, brushing both dust and weeds into the air which floated towards the well managed gardens of Omega Tower. “What rebuilding am I doing, Serena? Omega Tower provides my future, remember?”

  “Listen, I know some of what happens here is bullshit, but at least here you have a chance to make a difference. At least here you are part of the future.”

  Zack was shaking his head. He didn't agree. “I'm not part of it. Nobody is part of it. Everybody here is a nobody. But that's not me, Serena. I want to be somebody. Somebody like I used to be.” Zack reached down and pulled another stem from the weed and began deconstructing it leaf by leaf. “I haven't kept any of my promises, you know that? I made promises to people and I haven't kept any of them. Not now, not in Delta, and not,” he stumbled, swallowing hard, “not before all of this. To the people who mattered the most.”

  “Everybody makes mistakes, Zack. It's part of human nature. Things have to be put right. It takes time.”

  He held up the half-destroyed green stem in his fingers. “This whole place was virtually destroyed, and yet this is growing. I saw a bird the other day. It was pecking at my feet.” He tossed the stem over the side of the steps so that it would fall within the boundary of the Omega Compound. “What we built was destroyed, but the world wasn't destroyed.” He stood up and moved towards the top of the steps. He saw the Guardians take notice of him, but there was plenty of space between them. It was the first time he remembered feeling no fear when facing them. He turned to look at Serena. “What do you think is out there?”

  “I don't know,” she said looking down at the ground. She picked a stem of the Common Chickweed and twirled it around in her fingers. She climbed the steps and stood at his side. “Maybe more than we believe. Definitely more than we are told.”

  “There is a man in Delta,” began Zack. “His name is Leonard. There were so many days when he was the only person that I spoke to. There were so many days when he was the only reason I didn't go up to the roof and throw myself off it. He got me through those ten years.” Zack reached up and wiped a small tear from the corner of his eye. “I promised him I would get him out. I promised him that I would look for a way to help him. Do you know something?” he asked her.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Since I came here, I have barely thought about him until today. They make you renounce your old life so you abide by the manifesto, but all they want you to do is forget who you were.” They were both silent for a moment.

  “Maybe you should go to your relocation therapy. You can tell Simon how you feel. You can schedule it with a doctor. You have to try to accept this place.”

  “It's not relocation therapy I need. I just want to feel like I have a choice. That I have a chance to be courageous. Just to feel like I've done the right thing for once in my God-damned life.” Serena reached up and wiped his cheek, smearing dirt across it like a strip of camouflage. “I wish I could just talk to Leonard. I wish I could know that he was all right. I thought Emily might be able to help me but,” Zack shook his head, “I don’t think she can.”

  “Who is Emily?” asked Serena.

  “Nobody. Just like everybody.”

  “I'm somebody,” Serena said, taking a step closer to Zack. “I have to be careful, but I'll help you.” She dusted her hands along the backs of her trousers and began walking down the steps. She stopped only once to turn back to look at Zack. She beckoned him to follow her. He jogged down the steps so that they were in line with each other again. “I can get a message to him,” she whispered.

  Zack gripped her arm. “What? How can you do that? And when?”

  “It's another two days before I have to go back outside. You have to wait. But I know somebody. A Guardian. He can get word to somebody in Delta.”

  “A message?” They walked past the school and the laughter and cheering had stopped, the children back inside their classrooms. They passed an air vent and the smell of food, perhaps chicken, wafted past them.

  “Yes. Listen, let’s not talk here. There are too many ears and eyes on us.” They approached the front doors of the Omega Tower lobby, the line of Guardians almost invisible behind screens, elaborately shielded by climbing plants. It is easier to believe in normality if the Guardians cannot be seen. “Our good President,” she said for their benefit.

  “Praise our good President,” Zack answered.

  “Tomorrow, after the Renunciation Pledge. Usual time. Meet me,” she whispered as they moved towards the lifts. They travelled in silence in the busy lift before they both got out on level seventeen. They nodded to each other before going their separate ways, Zack to complete his Renunciation Pledge, and Serena to the doctor’s office.

  Chapter Thirty

  When he opened his eyes the first thing he saw was her hair by his chin. Although the room wasn't his, it might as well have been. The only real difference was the chequered pattern of the material that covered the two armchairs. The rest of the details were a virtual replica of what could be found on the opposite side of the wall. Sarah's arm was draped across his chest, her body nestled into his with his arm underneath her neck. Her fingers tickled at the back of his arm in her sleep, and he could feel her breath shivering across his bare chest. If anybody could see them like this they would look like a real couple. But of course, they were not. He wasn't sure what they were, and as far as Sarah was concerned it didn't really matter.

  He tried to slip out as he had yesterday, but he had woken up later today and the slightest of his movements disturbed her. The Sun was already up and he could hear the first vehicles leaving the Omega Tower compound. It was Sunday, and that meant a day of rest, their only commitment to complete the Renunciation Pledge.

  He anticipated that Sarah might be difficult with him at first. He hadn’t seen her all day after disappearing for his doctor’s appointment. After he left Serena he wandered through the Community Level with no real purpose. He had no appointments to keep and he avoided the Refreshments Cafe in case the defaced copy of the Omega Manifesto was still being investigated. Instead he sat on a white leather bench alongside a cascading wall of water which seemed to fall from the ceiling. He watched the ladies fro
m the upper levels visiting the salon. Individuality wasn’t much encouraged in Omega Tower, but colour on their nails and permanent make-up was a permitted luxury. There was a shop whereby you could purchase brooches and pins in different shapes and styles. Some were of animals, others depicted objects from the past such as cars and kitchen devices. One looked like an explosion. Such credit-rich items were rarely seen on the average Omega resident.

  After he grew tired of their meaningless activities he returned to his room. He remained in his room for over two hours before she even knocked his door. She told him that she was making tea, and asked him if he would like to join her in a cup before she went for a walk outside to work up an appetite for dinner. She hadn’t once questioned his whereabouts, and the evening which followed had almost felt like a date.

  Sarah stretched her head and limbs as she opened her eyes, smiling at Zack. Her hair was messy and there was a collection of sleepy-dust in the corner of her eyes. There was something natural about her at this time of day that he hadn’t stuck around to witness yesterday. She was usually so neat and formal, that to see her looking at ease softened him. Right now she was free of rules, free of regulations, and free of the clothes that bound her to Omega. He could smell her breath, morning breath, and it was a pleasure to appreciate something natural.