“Is Emily really at risk?” Zack asked of Duke. Duke shook his head.
“No. Don’t worry about her. She is tough, and she is Grayson’s daughter. They won’t touch her.”
“Good. Then let me ask one last thing. Where are we going?” Zack asked, his words soft, with any hesitancy he had felt over the last few minutes drifting away.
“First stop, Elephant and Castle. Two tube stops up.”
Duke began marching towards the tunnel, and Serena looked at Zack, shrugged her shoulders as if to say, what choice do we have but to follow?
“Duke,” Zack called, “just answer me this.” Duke stopped, cast one eye over his shoulder which gave Zack the encouragement to carry on. “This used to be the Northern Line, right? Is this tunnel intact all the way? North, I mean, not just south.”
“Don't get your hopes up, Delta,” Duke said, before continuing to walk towards the tunnel for Morden.
Zack stepped in line behind them, hoisting his own satchel higher on his back, the water sloshing about with each southbound step he took. But his mind was on the north. He was caught between a new life and an old life, and emotions from both pulled at his heart. On one hand he couldn’t stop thinking about Emily and how she told him that she believed in him. That kiss still lingered on his lips, the first real kiss in years. But he had also begun to dream, thoughts and memories flooding back to him. London Bridge, Bank, Moorgate, Old Street. How many times he had ridden the Northern Line after finishing work on the way to Samantha's apartment? Her apartment would be just up ahead, a fifteen minute journey. No more than that. What would Samantha have done after that fateful phone call? Curled up in bed, tears flowing across her cheeks because Zack had let her down? It was possible. But it was just as likely that her tears had turned to anger. She would have had time to leave her apartment and get inside the tube station, ride those four stops of the Northern Line towards London Bridge, change at Jubilee and head for his office. If that was the case, maybe there was a chance that she was still alive.
God, he could remember this system as if it was yesterday now that he was down here. In some ways he thought perhaps it was. Because for the first time in ten years he felt her presence here with him, and that just maybe she was the one who was guiding him on.
Chapter Forty Three
When Zack fell to the ground he had been running through Borough station not paying attention. An old advertisement for Thailand had caught his attention and he stubbed his toe on an upturned railway sleeper, sending a bolt of pain right up through his leg. The cry of pain alerted both Serena and Duke up ahead and they darted towards him with their torches waving at his eyes like lasers. When they arrived at his side Zack was doing his best impression of a professional footballer, clutching his toe, rolling around on the gravel tracks. The damned Omega shoes were not designed for outside.
“Start paying attention,” was all Duke said, as he hauled Zack to his feet without a moment for sympathy or examination of the injured foot. He headed south as per the original plan with no let up in pace, and Zack followed the best he could. Serena tried to help him, and pulled him along like an angry mother coercing a petulant child. But after some huffing and puffing on both their parts Zack pulled his arm free and reassured her he was fine. They were both relieved, and she quickened up into a good clip, leaving Zack hobbling along behind them, wincing each time his left foot hit the ground.
Even with the silence and sense of complete isolation which left him feeling as if he was right back in the nuclear winter that had followed the war, there was an overriding sense of freedom about what he was doing. With only the flicker of a flashlight in front of him, when the tunnels straightened out he felt like a trailblazer. The steps he took were unplanned, unknown, as if he was walking for the first time in ten years. The muscles in his legs pulled, ached as if he was running a marathon, complained as he forced them to bear weight. The dark had brought his hearing to life, and each time a sound gained the strength to rise above the silence he heard it acutely, as if he had been deaf before. It felt the same as his first night in Omega when he had left the racket of Delta behind. Back then his body and senses had been in hibernation because there had been nothing worth waking up for. Now it was the same.
As Zack approached the next station he noticed that there was a soft glow illuminating the exit in a golden light. It was faint, just enough so that he could see the raised metal tracks embedded in the gravel floor in the fading beam of his torch. As he exited the enclosed tunnel he saw Duke standing on an intact platform, leaning over to help Serena climb up. He hobbled towards them, still trying to avoid bearing weight on his left foot. He placed his palms on the yellow and white painted lines edging the platform, still as crisp as the day they were painted, and hauled his body onto the platform. A cable of lamps was strung over the old train announcement signs. Somewhere in the background Zack could hear the hum of something mechanical, and it reminded him of the water pump in Delta. Electricity for the lamps. Maybe a generator.
Zack and Serena followed Duke as he lead them through the corridors, the light ebbing and flowing as they passed under the intermittent makeshift lighting. They approached a set of narrow spiral steps reminiscent of those they took to escape Omega Tower. They wound their way up, and Zack could feel the air getting cooler, the smell of something fresh wafting towards them. They passed the last lamp and the stairs opened out into what might once have been a lobby, a place where you would purchase tickets. Now it was almost indistinguishable from the rest of the ground, a carpet of red bricks erupting like lava, settled and cooled and brushed aside in places to allow passage.
For a moment both Zack and Serena stood open-mouthed as they stepped from the stairway, staring at the sight of the tower before them as it rose triumphantly from the ashes. A Phoenix. Zack knew it had to be Alpha tower, the legendary turbines atop its roof, built for the purposes of air filtration and oxygen production. This tower had kept them alive, if at least something that he knew from the past was true. He had watched them revolving from a distance in Delta, more his imagination than absolute certainty. But now, as if he needed further proof of the fallacy behind which they had lived their lives, he saw the turbines were stationary, three giant propellers as impressive as they were massive.
“Alpha Tower,” said Duke, as if they needed confirmation. “Apparently they produce the oxygen you have been breathing for the last ten years. I'm not even sure the people inside know they are not working,” he said. “The only thing working is the vents you can see on the sides, pumping in air from outside.” Duke trained his finger on a small vent, a feature repeated on each floor, as far as Zack's eye could see.
“We had those vents in Delta, too. But in Delta the air they delivered smelt bad. Sulphur.”
“In Delta that smell probably came from the sewers. You being the water tower, and all. In Alpha though, they add that stench in. Less than the other towers because it's Alpha, but still they make an effort to reduce the quality of their lives. Makes people more likely to believe in the concept of toxicity. They researched that.” Duke took a casual glance at his holstered gun, ran his hand over it. “Anyway, we can't stay here just gazing at it. I doubt Omega would try anything from here, but I wouldn't put anything past them.”
Duke turned and edged his way past the shell of an upturned car, the insides burnt or melted away. Zack held out his hand for Serena and helped her negotiate the bricks by steadying themselves on the car. At first they headed in the direction of Alpha, and there was an excitement and apprehension building in Zack’s stomach as the size of the building grew impressively tall. But at the last minute Duke cut away from what once was the main road and led them into a side street where some doorways still stood in the door frames, and where intact graffiti adorned the walls. Duke held them back as he checked their path, perhaps looking for Guardians or Comrades. Zack’s imagination began to run wild, and a new set of dangers including mutant animals and zombie-like creatures outsi
de the perimeter of New Omega started to feel like a threat. But he didn’t have time to think about it for long because within moments they were running again. At first across greenery - a park - and then broken tarmac where the piles of rubble became sparser and less frequent, and where some of the buildings took on a resemblance of a past life. Both Zack and Serena were out of shape, and struggled to keep up.
“Duke, hold up.” Serena was panting, her arms propped up on her knees. She was bent over double trying to catch her breath. Zack stopped at her side and pulled his satchel to the front. He pulled out his water canister and held it out for her to drink. He was no doctor or healer, but he knew she needed a break. He encouraged her to sit before unzipping her overalls, the type that he first remembered Emily wearing in the sublevels of Delta. He searched at his feet and found a shard of wood that he began wafting in front of Serena like a fan, but they were sitting in a wide open space. Duke arrived next to them.
“What's wrong?” Duke asked, his eyes completing a quick scan. Four arms, four legs, no broken bones. What was the problem?
“I can't breathe. We have been running and running, and I am so tired.” Serena sagged backwards as she finished talking, dropping onto her elbows behind her. Zack stood up to reason with Duke and as he did so he saw Alpha tower still looming above them. They had perhaps covered a few hundred metres. But the ground was loose and broken, and it made the effort ten times harder, like running on sand.
“She's just scared,” Duke said to Zack. He didn't try to protect her from his version of the truth, and Zack took a step between Duke and Serena to make a silent plea for Duke to be careful with his words. “Makes no difference if she hears me or not, Zack. We can't stay here. I have explained that already. She should be scared.”
Duke reached down and helped Serena to her feet, linking his arm over her shoulder. Zack took the other side, and as a team they began covering ground. In places, moving as a unit was complicated by the numerous upturned cars and they were forced to separate to negotiate their way forward. Every now and then Zack would catch sight of something intact, an old post box with a smidge of red paint clinging to it, or an old sign still hanging in the window of a shop. The reminders spurred him on, and when he looked back to see that Alpha tower appeared smaller, he smiled at the thought that he was leaving the Republic of New Omega behind.
It was during one such glimpse behind him that he first saw the lights flickering in the distance. Serena and Duke were up ahead, Duke just about to drop down the other side of an upturned London bus.
“Duke,” Zack called. Duke stopped on the spot with one hand on the stump of a wing mirror. “What is that?”
Zack pointed back towards the lights, which now seemed so much closer than before, and one was rotating and bouncing up and down on its own axis. The bright light rose before dropping down out of sight, dipping beneath a fallen wall or singed shop front. Then it would right itself and start moving forwards, the light increasing in intensity with each passing second.
“Zack, get up here. We have to run. It's a Red Eye.” Duke lunged backwards and took Serena by the hands, hauling her over the top of the bus, both of them disappearing the other side. Zack began scrambling towards Duke, aware of a growing rumble behind him, a groaning that whirled into life one minute, faded the next. “Come on!” Duke shouted over the screeching of machinery.
Once they were all over the bus they began running, the fear in Duke's eyes contagious. Zack looked behind him as he ran, the lights growing ever closer. The ground was clear and they began to cover it with speed. The pain in Zack’s foot throbbed with every step forwards.
There was a dust cloud behind what Zack could now see was a tank-like vehicle, the hull larger than any he had ever seen in his life. The turret swung left and right. The wheels were wrapped in tracks which made light work of the carpet beneath it, chewing it to pieces and spitting it out behind. The details of the shop fronts and broken pieces of the old world were swallowed up into the cloud and the three escapees began to choke on the dust as they ran away.
Zack was gaining on Serena, which he hoped meant that he was moving faster as opposed to her moving slower. He snatched at her hand and began pulling her onwards, following Duke and the course of the road towards the left. For a moment Duke disappeared from view, but as they gained on him and the road straightened out Zack saw him crouching at a row of old cars, stacked together like boulders to form a makeshift wall. Behind it Zack could see another light source, and for the briefest of seconds he held back, taking it for another Red Eye. But he saw Duke slipping under the cars, his legs disappearing through the skeletal frame of an old window, and beyond him another person held up a torch. Zack arrived at the same opening, pulling Serena in close, pushing her head down and through the opening.
“In the name of our good President, reveal yourselves.” Zack froze, glancing backwards to see the Red Eye. It was brilliant white, the wheels and tracks red as if coated in the blood of all who had died here. The beam of their search light scanned the rows of cars, starting right, gradually working its way along the row towards the left. Zack slipped inside the car, tucking himself into the upturned cockpit just as the searchlight scanned past where his feet had been only moments before.
“We repeat. In the name of our good President, hand yourself over and face the charges lodged against you by the Republic of New Omega, Manifesto version 3.2, Desertion of Post as expressly prohibited and explicitly stated under the governance and power of the Ninth Creed.”
The searchlight scanned back and forth along the row of cars. Zack pulled his legs in further, grateful for the dirt that had begun to cover up the white of his trousers and tunic. The land was on his side, offering its camouflage. There was no other light source behind him, and Zack couldn’t see Serena or Duke. He turned back to the Red Eye and realised that whoever was announcing his list of crimes was still talking. He caught the Guardian mid-sentence.
“....and expressly prohibited and explicitly stated under the governance and power of the Sixth Creed.”
Zack felt an arm on his shoulder. He turned to see a face he didn't recognise with a finger pressed to the lips. A young face, covered in dirt, his hair shaved into a Mohawk. He beckoned Zack backwards and pulled him slowly from the cars, three to four deep in places. The light from the Red Eye was just a flicker as he clambered out the other side, and he could see that Serena and Duke were already loaded up onto something that looked like an old jeep, the cover or roof torn off. It was dented, the metal body almost free of paint. Without questioning the person who had pulled him from the wall of broken metal, Zack followed him as he sprinted towards the jeep and they both stepped up onto the place where the bumper would once have been. Zack clung to the remains of the tailgate as the boy with the Mohawk slapped the side of the jeep and they began to drive away.
They made their way across grass, open space that must once have been a park. Beyond it and after several slow minutes of travel another building came into view. Nothing that Zack recognised from the view in either Delta or Omega. He glanced back to see two shards of light, one unmistakably Omega, glowing like an eternal flame, and another he assumed to be the tower of Alpha, poorly lit, the colour of oil. Only the outline, demarcated by a series of red lights blinking off and on, and a golden glow cast onto the turbines made it visible. Duke learned backwards to Zack, whose fingers were numb from the cold air as he clung desperately onto the skeleton of the roof.
“When we get there, we'll get you something to eat and drink. Then, you can ask me anything you like. Just make sure you want to know the answer.”
Chapter Forty Four
His eyes flickered open. The intrusion was abominable, and beyond any doubt unreasonable. This was his first thought, and even once they pulled him from the bed to the floor, it didn't pass.
“Let me go at once!” Simon screamed as his naked feet dropped from the bed, falling like dead weights, the right ankle cracking against the wooden floor.
A sharp pain shot up through his heels, quickly followed by the slow and altogether more uncomfortable burn as they dragged his bare skin across the deep pile of his rug. He would later wonder how it was in that moment that his primary concern was not his wife who was screaming in terror as they dragged her husband away. Instead it was what damage might come of his skin, which had only just been polished by the upper level hygienist. Also of importance was the irrevocable damage being done to the rug by the black boots of those who marched alongside him at an uncomfortable proximity to his face.
They dropped him at the door to his room, shook him loose from their grip like slime. Only then did he see his wife, perched on the edge of the bed demanding to know what was happening. When she quietened, for the briefest of moments he thought they had realised their mistake. But then he heard the sound of footsteps approaching and as he turned to look he saw slick, highly polished shoes. Such shoes could only belong to one person, and Simon felt sick at the embarrassment of being stared upon by the President while he was wearing nothing but his underwear. He reached out to grab his dressing gown from the edge of the bed, but one of the Guardians kicked it away.
“That’s against regulation,” he said, kicking it to the side.
“For goodness sake, give the man his robe.” The Guardian snatched at the robe and draped it across Simon’s chest, his head hanging low with embarrassment at his misjudgement. “Do you think I want to discuss this with him while he is almost naked?”
The President leaned down, balanced on his toes, tipping his head to get a better look at Simon as he cowered beneath him. One of the Guardians reached for the Control Panel but his finger hit the wrong part of the screen and the relaxing sounds of spa music began to play. The psychologists had it installed. Apparently it was good for the mind. The Guardian amended his selection and the music stopped. The lights came on. Brightly.
The Dawn: Omnibus edition (box set books 1-5) Page 41