“Your mother wanted you to live a good and happy life and for you to feel content. But that was not at the expense of your life. Leaving this tower to follow some man who lived in Delta and who has now decided he will venture into the wider world is as good as suicide. And that she would not permit. I don’t care how hung up on him you are, we are at war, Emily.”
“What I'm hung up on is the idea of life.” She rose to her feet. “When I thought that the world was dead it was okay. I could accept it because I didn't have a choice. I know we are at war, but we are not supposed to be at war with ourselves. There are people who survive out there. We kill them to protect ourselves, when we already have more than all of them put together and they have no chance to defend what they have left. I can't live this life you built for me when I didn't ask for it, and when there are people I care about who have less.” Emily’s heart was hammering along, and she could see Margareta inching towards her. Emily knew she didn’t have long. She had to say it now. It would be her last chance, one way or another. “You created the world that killed my mother. She didn't go out there because she saw a person wandering around outside the front doors like you tried to tell me when I was younger. She went out there to die. She didn't want this life. And she didn't want you. And I don't want you either.” She pushed her hair from her face and lunged forwards, her hands reaching for the door. She slipped through the middle of the two Comrades on the door and raced up the corridor.
Emily’s footing on the shiny marble was sound thanks to the boots that she had taken from the basement level. She would have been next to useless in the Omega shoes she usually insisted on wearing. But above her own footsteps she could hear the boots of the Comrades pounding behind her, joined by the click-clack of Margareta's spiky heels. She grappled at the handle of the main door, all the while the thudding of the boots increasing in volume.
She swung the door wide open but ran straight into the arms of a Guardian. After the split second that it took for him to realise that it was Emily Grayson he was holding on to, he let her go. It was instinct, ingrained respect, or perhaps fear of the consequences. Whatever it was she was free again, and she wasted no time before she started running. She gasped for breath as she bypassed the lift, certain that she could outrun any number of them on the stairs. She took only three more steps before one of them tackled her to the ground. Her lip struck the ground, blood spraying across the marble as a Guardian clambered on top of her. She reached forwards, her fingers stretched out as far as they would go. It would never be far enough.
“Get her back inside,” she heard her father shout. The sounds of boots shuffling drowned out the sounds of Margareta who was suggesting that an extension to the lockdown was necessary for Emily’s own safety. At some point Maurice was there, taking President Grayson’s coat. He handed Margareta a brandy which she passed onto President Grayson. He sipped it at first, before gulping it down as fast as he could. He clung on to the memory of Emily alone in her bedroom. In his vision none of the Guardians were fighting with Emily to get her to her feet. There was no screaming and no tears. In his vision there was still the possibility of a future where she would love him as a daughter should love a father.
The Guardians did what they did best: doing exactly what they were instructed. They half pulled her to her feet before marching her back towards the front doors of the Presidential Suite. She kicked and screamed, lashed out and bit at the Guardians. Their grip became stronger as they delivered her to the feet of her father, their Commander in Chief.
“Is New Omega really more important to you than me?” Emily whimpered. She gazed up at him, her face wet with tears, her lip swollen and smeared with blood. “Than us?” From the corner of her eye she saw Brent Ravenscroft arrive. She hated him even more than Margareta and she knew that no matter what her father wanted to say, any chance of hearing what she wanted to hear was lost.
“I have made this world better, Emily. And you will believe it. And you will believe it because beyond what you believe there is nothing else. If your beliefs are different to mine, they don't matter. Do you think the dead of Gamma Tower would feel better for knowing what you did to try to save them, or would they rather be alive? You killed them, Emily. You and your collaborations and childish attempts at resisting what we have created. You became their enemy without even realising it.” Emily caught Margareta’s eye. There was a grin fighting its way onto her face, and Emily promised herself that one day, somehow, she would remove it. Emily spat a globule of blood to the floor and some of it splashed onto his shoe. Her father didn’t flinch. “When I find Zachary Christian and string him up in a Denunciation Ceremony, do you think it will matter to him in those final moments before he dies that you tried to help him?” She looked up at the faces above her, each one trained on her. There was one Guardian who she knew. He had helped her on one of her trips to Delta, but he could do nothing to help her now. “Of course it won't. When it comes to it, the only thing that matters is whether you live or die. And he will die. If you weren’t my daughter, you would too.”
“Sir, we have 8631 held,” Brent interrupted. “He is on his way to Epsilon Tower as we speak.” Brent Ravenscroft knew that President Grayson hadn’t understood who he meant. “Leonard Chambers,” he relented. President Grayson nodded.
“Deal with this,” he asked of Brent before walking away, joined at his side by Margareta as they retreated to his bedroom.
“They'll be coming for you,” Emily hollered behind him. “Zack will be coming for you. I know he will.” Her father didn't turn back, but he stopped walking just long enough for her to know that he had heard what she said. She didn’t know if her threat was true, but she prayed it to be so. Because if not, this was it. This was really it.
Chapter Forty Eight
The first night of sleeping in the compound, a huge complex of what was once flats but which now housed a branch of the Southern Resistance, was tricky. The man with a Mohawk who pulled Zack from the wall of burnt-out cars had turned out to be an androgynous girl called Street. Even after Zack knew that she was female, he still couldn't quite believe it. Street remained silent as she walked them through the corridors and up the stairs filled with debris and broken glass until she located a disused room with a filthy double mattress on the second floor. Zack was desperate to speak to Duke, find out as much as possible, but Street had insisted that they stay there.
“It’s for everybody’s safety, not just yours.”
Street assured them there would come a time when they would speak to Duke, and that there would be plenty of time to answer their questions. She made it seem entirely plausible that they were still at risk, and that they had put the rest of the compound at risk. She instructed another of her team to stand guard at the door, and as much as Zack wanted to protest about their imprisonment, the fact that she had undoubtedly saved his life kept him silent. Zack insisted Serena take the mattress, and he propped himself up on the floor. As she tossed and turned during a fitful sleep, he promised himself he would stay awake on watch.
There was such silence that he could hear the faint crackling of the fires which burned below them in rusty barrels outside the building. Even the wind was still, so different to the upper levels of Omega. Zack was convinced there were more people moving around outside their room when he heard what he thought was the shuffling of feet along the corridor. He got up to check but found there was nobody there, not even the guard who Street had placed there hours before. There was a degree of comfort in that, because he no longer felt captive. He used his freedom to wander the corridor, picking his way through some of the items on the ground. He found toy cars and a doll sitting upright with vacant eyes, her head half melted. In one of the other empty rooms he found the skeleton of a television set, and alongside it the remains of a newspaper. It was so brittle that as he picked it up most of it tore away. The headline announced, ‘Internet Blockade Continues’. It dated from the days before the war. Samantha-filled days, he thought to
himself, tossing the fragment of the past back on the floor. He didn't need to read the story to know how it ended.
He returned to the room, standing at the hole where there would have once been a window. It was cold in comparison to Omega, but felt just like Delta. It wasn't so long ago that this was his norm. It was strange for him to think of the times he had longed for a place in Omega, only now to be comforted by memories of Delta. He brushed his hands up and down his arms and looked back at the mattress where Serena was sleeping. He wondered who had slept in the same place before her. Was it a couple in love? A single mother snuggled up to her child after a nightmare? Serena was shivering, and so he decided to slip alongside her, edging the curve of their bodies together, wrapping his arms around her protectively. He wondered about Emily, and if she was safe. Would she be back in her room? Would she be questioned about her involvement? He thought of the kiss that they had shared and how she told him that she believed in him. He wished she was here with him now. Serena backed in closer to him, and whilst he promised himself he wouldn't sleep, within moments he had drifted off. After that he couldn't remember anything until he woke up as the sun rose over old London.
After Serena woke they ventured down to the ground floor of the complex of apartments. At first it was as if they were invisible. But after a while Street appeared, and although she didn't seem friendly, she did at least acknowledge their existence. She arranged for them to eat breakfast which consisted of a hunk of dry bread with tea. In comparison to breakfast in Omega Tower it was disappointing. She showed them the makeshift hole carved into the ground where people went to the toilet or, as she put it, ‘did their business’. It reminded Zack of what people used to say about animals. There were a couple of panels of corrugated metal that functioned as walls around the toilet and Zack tried to look positive. Serena didn’t look as if she was buying it, and he had to remind himself that she had lived in Omega for the last ten years and therefore had no idea what roughing it really meant.
Street explained that a car had been organised. It was coming from Brighton to collect them, but that it would take a while, maybe even a couple of days. She thought it best that they remain in the room where they had slept so they didn't get in the way. The idea that a car was coming from another place suggested to Zack that the survivors stretched beyond the fortified compound. Serena even smiled at the idea, which was the first time she had done so since they left Omega Tower. So they retreated as instructed. But there were too many questions on Zack's mind and he couldn't settle, and the imposing view of Alpha Tower, and Omega Tower behind it, were a constant reminder that there were things he had to learn. After half an hour he was venturing back down the stairs.
He found Street with her feet propped up on the edge of what looked like a golf cart, albeit without the protective hood or seatbelts. It was kind of like an undersized jeep, and could have been the same one he had arrived in last night. She was clutching a mug of black tea, a chip in the rim of the cup. She was holding a chunk of bread in her other hand, laughing about something with the man sitting beside her. His face was ragged, battered, and his nails black. He looked over a hundred years old, and not at all impressed to see Zack. Her laughter soon faded.
“What do you want?” she spat, with a thick south London accent. “I told you it was best to stay in your room.” The decrepit man looked set to pounce at any given moment. He set his cup down on the foot ledge of the golf cart in preparation.
“I want to know what's going on.” He sat down on a remnant of wood that looked as if it might once have formed part of a door. He dropped his arms on his knees in an effort to look casual, as if he belonged and that they could trust him. But how could they? Only twenty four hours ago he had been on the opposite side of the wall of cars as part of Omega. He was still wearing the Omega uniform. He had been building a wall to keep them out. More than any of that, he had been there when one of them had been shot. “I feel like I have a lot of half-truths in my head, and I was thinking that maybe you might be able to help fill in the gaps. Duke told me that I would have a chance to ask questions after we got out.”
“Duke ain’t here.” She stared, as if his half-truths were the last thing she had any interest in helping fill in.
“Please. All I want to know is the truth.”
As if she took pity on him, she began to stand up. The man at her side gripped her arm in protest. “What harm can it do?” she reassured her friend, which made Zack feel better. She looked back to Zack, her face devoid of any emotion, as if the ability to feel had been battered out of her, obliterated by the war which she had lived through. He realised now that she couldn't be more than twenty years old. “If he tries to use any of it against us, we'll kill him ourselves.”
Street took him along the perimeter of their compound, explaining to him the roads leading in and out, the Safe Zone south of the complex, and the Hot Zone which constituted anything north of the wall of cars, so-called because of the time that they had set fire to it. She told him that there were up to thirty people at any given time in the compound, but mostly the teams worked in the field on operations to control the perimeter. The compound in which they were walking seemed to be the only area which functioned as a base. It was the closest thing they had to the Republic.
“It's not a case of fighting, but presence,” she explained. “If we are here, they stay back. We don't control the tunnels, but their presence down there has been limited. The lights you saw in the tunnels of the Northern line? We put them up. There are a few Guardians who patrol, and they use Jubilee as a thoroughfare to Beta. But most of the Guardians down there are there for one thing only. To get doped up. It's the one place we trade with them, and the one place they can hide. We give them the chemicals they want, and the trade creates some sort of ceasefire. They just tell themselves we'll get ourselves killed further up the line. They absolve themselves of responsibility.”
“So you act as their drug dealers and they leave you alone?” She could see the confusion which gripped his face, although there could have been any number of reasons causing it.
“Everybody needs a place to hide, Zack. Even them.” He thought back to the Guardian on level forty eight of Delta Tower, and he knew she was right. They approached the end of a green area with rich grass, rising up to the brow of a hill. Ahead Zack could see the line of cars that he had crawled through the night before. It looked three to four high, maybe two deep. In the distance he thought he could see a Red Eye patrolling. In daylight it seemed even larger, and now he saw the turret also carried a gun. It was a tank.
“Is that a Red Eye?”
She was nodding. “Yes. You’ll see them moving around in the Hot Zone. Usually you just hear the rumble in the background, but since you and your friend did a runner they are pushing further south. Testing us.” She smiled in a way that made him think that she wasn’t bitter about the negative effect his presence had on the safety of the compound. She even seemed to relish the risk, almost willing the Guardians to try something so that she could act on it.
“You built that?” he said pointing at the barricade of burnt out cars.
She sniggered. “Are you for real? You think we could have stacked five cars high and three deep on top of each other? With what machine?” She was shaking her head, looking at it as if she still couldn't accept the benefit of something created by New Omega. “They built it as a temporary measure to keep us out. Until they finish their wall, anyway.” She stared at him with a knowing smile, her head cocked to the side. Zack averted his gaze. “Don't worry. Nobody will judge you for it. You were just doing what you thought you had to do. Or what, in fact, you did have to do. But anybody who wants out, anybody who is prepared to suffer the shit we do instead of the comfortable shit they dish out in there is welcome with us. We are a jaded bunch at times, but don't pay any attention to Conner over there,” she said, glancing over her shoulder towards the aged man sitting next to the golf buggy watching every move Zack made. She turned ba
ck to Zack and smiled, the first real smile she had shown him. “His wife is somewhere in Delta. At least that's what he has convinced himself. I think even he believes it. Don't take it personally. I guess that should be your new First Creed.”
Zack was thankful for the humour, and the effort on her part to absolve him of wrong doing. He wondered how she would feel about him if she knew that he had shot somebody from Gamma. Maybe then she would judge him. He made a mental note to try to talk to Conner at a later stage. Maybe his wife really was in Delta. Maybe he could help.
“What are your aims here?” he asked, turning back to Street. As far as he could see the buildings that surrounded them were obliterated. If the war began ten years ago, Zack failed to see where the progress had been made for either side. “It looks like a stalemate.”
“We defend our freedom, whatever that might be. We try to live by our own rules. Human rules. But nothing is sugar-coated here, Zack. This is not some kind of utopia where we escaped the chains of Omega. Life is shitty. Shittier than in there,” she said, angling her chin towards the shard of glass reflecting the clouds and sunlight. As beautiful as the image was, she spat on the ground as an insult to what she saw towering above them. “Life is tough, and if we are pushed we defend ourselves.” She reached down towards a gun that he had only just noticed was holstered in a makeshift loop on the belt of her overalls. “We do what we have to, and if that means killing the Guardians then so be it. At least we don't dress it up as a Denunciation Ceremony.”
“Is that what they do? Kill people?” Street gave a slight nod of the head, coupled with a twist of the neck that could have been a simple stretch. But Zack took her silence as confirmation.
“If it wasn't for me you'd be in an Epsilon cell waiting for your own Denunciation Ceremony. After they blew the internet and people swallowed it up as a cyber attack they knew they could get away with anything. That was the final proof they needed before they launched. They cut people off from the world, and then they cut people off from themselves. It was a simple enough hack that they pulled off.”
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