Chapter Sixty Six
“Where do you think it was coming from?” It had been the question on Zack’s mind ever since he led them into the relative safety of the underground tunnels that he first discovered with Duke. He hadn’t been at all sure where he was when they were above ground, and had stumbled upon the entrance to the Tube thanks to a lucky turn of fate. But as soon as he saw the crumpled pile of bricks and shadowy entrance he was certain that the Underground was the best plan out of a limited set of choices.
“I don’t know,” Emily said as she assessed the wounds on his lip and his face. She dabbed at the gash on his cheek with a delicate fingertip. It had almost dried up from their time outside in the cool evening air. “But whoever managed to cut the light and broadcast that transmission did us a huge favour.” She used some of the water from the pillowcase to wash some of the dry blood from his hair. The droplets chilled his skin as they trickled across his face and down the back of his neck.
“Do you think it’s the people from the north? The old army?”
She shrugged her shoulders and Zack winced as the water ran through the wound on his lip. “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” she said as she screwed the lid back on the water bottle and secured it back inside the pillowcase bag. “How would they manage to take over Omega communications? And why would they do that? Why not just turn up at the door? Damn it,” she said as she sat back on her feet. She huffed and screwed up her lips. “I’ve made it bleed.” She pulled a cotton wool ball from the pillowcase and dabbed at the wound, turning the white cotton cloud scarlet. He thought about Sarah, remembering the time that she had tended to him in the same way that Emily was doing. It was hard to think that the woman who had shown him a form of friendship was now hanging from a rope in the lobby of Omega Tower, in no small part on account of his actions.
He reached up and pulled Emily’s hands away. “It doesn’t matter.” He caressed her fingers in his hands for a moment, before bringing them up to his face to hold them against his intact cheek. They felt warm and full of life. He used his own fingers to stroke the palm of her hand before placing a kiss on her fingertips. “It doesn’t matter,” he said again. “You realise that you saved me again, right?”
“I just did what I had to do,” she said as she pulled her fingers away and tossed the bloody cotton wall ball into the dust behind them. She backed away and moved towards to the vending machine to see what spoils, if any, were left for the taking. She stared inside for a while before spotting something in a high corner. She rubbed her hand across the glass, clearing a patch of dust to confirm what she had seen. She picked up a broken lump of brick and beat out the rest of the glass. She reached in and snatched out a chocolate bar and returned to Zack. Zack shuffled forwards but she motioned him to stay sitting as she crouched at his side. She tore open the wrapper and pulled out a shrivelled nugget that might have once been chocolate, but now looked more like an archaeological find. She snapped it in half as if still intending that they share.
“It’s not supposed to look like that, is it?” she asked disappointedly. Zack shook his head and she stared down at the chocolate bar longingly as if she could remember the taste and her expectations had been shattered. “I should have eaten the fish.” She rested back at his side and took another look at his face. She was pleased to see that he looked less pale and that the blue tinge to his lips had passed.
“Emily, it has never been what you had to do. You have always done more than that.” He inched closer towards her. “I want you to know how grateful I am.”
“Just grateful?” she dared.
He shook his head and looked away. “No, not just grateful.” What he wanted was to tell her everything. He wanted to tell her that he loved oven-baked pasta. He wanted to tell her about the red bike his mother had given him for his tenth birthday. He wanted to tell her about the cat he used to taunt by pulling its tail as a child, and the cat he loved as an adult. He wanted her to see all that he had to offer, and with that, all of his flaws. He was so fed up of hiding and running and being forced to pretend that he was something that he wasn’t, that he wanted to take this chance to be exactly who he was. “I can never repay what you have done, and yet I want even more from you. It’s selfish, right? But I want to tell you things. There are things I need you to hear.” He waited for a response but she said nothing, instead staring at him with the fixed eyes of a statue. “Emily, when I walked into Delta Tower the last time before the bombs fell I had made a terrible mistake. I hurt the woman I loved in a way that I can’t even believe.”
“The woman in the photograph?” He nodded and looked away.
“Samantha, my ex-girlfriend. The last thing she ever told me was that she was pregnant, and I told her that I didn’t want the baby.” He couldn’t bring himself to look up but he was surprised to find her hand moving towards his leg. She rested it gently and began stroking it just above his knee. “Maybe if I had been given a chance I would have got it right in the end. But the war began and what I did is left done as it was at that moment. Even still, I don’t think-”
She cut him off, finishing his sentence exactly as he would have finished it himself. “But you don’t think you would have, right?” He nodded in agreement. “I knew the bombs were going to fall three days before they did. There were people I loved, at least that I thought I loved. Family, and friends. I didn’t tell a single person. They would have had three days to run, but instead I took that chance away from them by not saying anything.” She let out a sigh. “Maybe my father did what he did because he thought it was the right thing. Just like I kept my mouth shut, and just like you told Samantha that you didn’t want the baby. Sometimes making the right choice isn’t the easiest thing to do.” Her words gave him the courage to look at her, and he found in her face a sense of acceptance, the look of a woman who knew that she had made a bad choice but had found a way to live with it. He realised that on the day the bombs fell, one life ended and another one began. “After the bombs fell, Zack, we all became different people. Whether we wanted to or not. Some of us became worse, and some of us became better.”
“And me? What do you think I became?”
“The person that made me the person I want to be.” She forgot all of her nerves and leaned over, kissing him on the lips, avoiding the cut. She held herself up with one hand and used the other to pull her hair away from her eyes and her mouth. She could feel his wounded and broken body beneath hers, strong in comparison to her slender frame, and she rested down into it. He winced as her weight spread across his chest but as she tried to pull away he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. She pushed his tunic higher and slid one hand inside, across the bruises, over the pain. His skin was smooth to the touch, with the faintest smell of Omega soap rising from his skin. He brought his hands up to her face and broke their kiss.
“I never thought I would love another person again,” he said.
His words lingered between them, and she felt a strange mix of fear and elation. But the moment was broken by sounds in the distance. He brought his finger to his lips as beams of light flickered across the floor. Only seconds later he heard the footsteps. But it was not the heavy drumming of a Guardian’s boots, and the initial urge to hide was passing. Emily couldn’t turn around without making a noise.
“Who is it?” she whispered in his ear.
“I’m not sure,” he whispered back. He stared a moment longer until Emily spotted the shift in the papery skin around his eyes before he was even sure himself.
“Who is it?” she asked again.
“It’s Street,” he said as he sat forward, forcing Emily into a sitting position. “And Jackson.”
Emily was quick to her feet and was gripped in Jackson’s embrace by the time Zack was standing up. He staggered across to Street with his hand held out, but she ignored him and instead wrapped her arms around him as if years of absence had passed.
“It was you,” Emily said. “It was you that did it.”
Jackson smiled, happy that his efforts had not gone to waste.
“Tell us what happened,” he said. “We have no idea what we managed to achieve. But let’s do it on the move because we heard sounds coming from the other end of the tunnels. The power’s back on and they were looking for whoever was messing with their systems.”
After putting at least ten minutes’ distance between them and the underground tunnel, they found themselves outside in the shadow of the wall that Zack had helped build. The watchtowers along the south were all abandoned. Every now and again they would hear the call of a Guardian or Comrade, but it was always distant and never felt like a direct threat. They made steady progress, Zack driven forwards by adrenaline and excitement. They reached a grassy courtyard which housed the remains of a church. They dipped inside, securing a sheltered spot behind a row of intact pews. Jackson and Street listened as Emily and Zack told the story of the chaos in Omega Tower. Their eager smiles were lost when Zack asked after Serena and Reid. He listened as Street explained how they had found Brighton Checkpoint Station Ten under attack, and that there was little hope of either of them having survived.
The excitement of their reunion faded as the reality of loss kicked in. “So what now?” asked Street of the others. “We can’t just sit here.”
“Maybe we should try to meet up with Stoat and the Alpha survivors,” suggested Jackson. “We haven’t heard any further transmissions from the North. Either Omega managed to get their systems back online or the transmission has stopped. Maybe the transmission wasn’t anything in the first place.”
“No, I can’t believe that,” said Emily. “It was something. It was enough to make my father want to destroy everything that he created and save those that he could by taking them to Canvey Island. He wouldn’t do that if he didn’t believe that the transmission was real.”
Zack had been quiet since he learned that Serena and Reid had been lost. Emily had tried to engage him once or twice to no avail. All he could think was that it was so much effort for nothing. “I have something I have to do,” he said, looking at the rest and taking Emily’s hand. Both Street and Jackson noticed the familiarity but remained quiet. “You should all try to meet up with Stoat. There is nothing we can do if you don’t have RUSE anymore. At least that way you’re all far away where it is safer.”
“What do you have to do?” asked Emily. “Whatever it is, I am coming with you. I’m with you, remember?”
“Emily, listen, you-”
His words trailed off as a distant rumble caught his attention. It was a low, throbbing pulse, just like resting your head on the chest of another. He loosed Emily’s hand as he scanned the faces of the others to see if they had heard the noise too, but it didn’t seem that any of them had heard anything.
“You want to go back to Delta Tower, don’t you?” asked Emily weakly. “You still want to try to save Leonard.”
He tried to focus as the noise passed. “Emily, I have to try. But I want you to go with Jackson and Street. You’ll be safer with them.”
She was smiling as she shook her head, but there was no pleasure in her grin. “I think we already decided that I was the one who keeps saving your life. Plus, if you want in to Delta Tower, I’m the only one who knows how to sneak in. You’ll need my help.”
“Emily, no. I need to-” There it was again. The same deep throbbing like a distant rumble of thunder, only he knew that was not what it was. Zack stood up and moved towards the edge of the church.
“What is it, Zack?” asked Emily.
“Don’t you hear that?” he asked looking back at the others. Emily stood up to follow and joined Zack near the edge of the church. From the way she looked at him he knew she had heard it too.
“He’s right. I hear something,” she said as Street and Jackson got to their feet. “But I don’t know what it is.”
One by one they all arrived by side of the wall. Zack was the first to step beyond the boundary of the church where suddenly the sound became much clearer. The aged trees almost smothered the old churchyard and were relentless in blocking their view. But then a light flickered overhead and a strong wind blew the canopy apart, forcing the four rebels to bring their arms up over their eyes to protect them from the dust.
“It’s a helicopter,” shouted Zack, the noise of the machine overhead drowning out his words. But they didn’t need to hear him, for they could see it for themselves. As it passed overhead a bright light filled the sky, followed by an explosive bang ricocheting across the trembling ground. The sound of the helicopter faded as it flew away from the explosion. Zack ran back into the church and they all followed. Zack climbed as many steps of the bell tower as remained, which were enough to give him a view towards the north.
Beyond the reaches of the wall a fire raged, the only distraction, a series of lights buzzing in the sky like fireflies. More helicopters. For a time they watched the scene before them until Emily said, “That must have been Beta Tower.”
“Then there’s no time left,” Zack reasoned. “They are starting to destroy everything. I have to leave now.” Another helicopter flew overhead and they scurried away, down the stairs. Zack grabbed Emily and held her tight to his chest. The pain in his side had faded, and with the adrenaline of the situation charging through his system he felt ready for anything. He grabbed Emily’s head in his hands and kissed her on the forehead. “I have to go to Delta. I have to get him out.” Zack remembered huddling with Leonard under the desk when the bombs fell, how Leonard had helped him cope, how he had given him friendship and asked nothing in return. Zack remembered how he had abandoned him in Delta Tower the first chance he got. “I have to get him out,” he repeated. In his head he added or I will die trying, but he didn’t say it aloud.
“We’re all coming with you, Zack,” said Jackson. “Together is the only way now. There is nowhere else for us to go.”
Chapter Sixty Seven
In the moments after the explosion President Grayson cowered as he watched the flames flare up into the sky. Most of the Guardians had been withdrawn from Beta Tower, with only a few remaining in place. It was a minimal loss of life. An acceptable decision in order to secure absolute security.
Seeing the first of the helicopters had brought a new level of urgency to situation, and President Grayson could no longer sit back and listen to Brent Ravenscroft’s advice. Brent had tried to explain to him that there was no need to destroy the towers, and that perhaps after a period of reassessment from the safety of Canvey Island they would be able to salvage something. But President Grayson knew as soon as he saw the first Wildcat helicopter making a perimeter sweep of the Omega Tower compound that the time had come to act. The Wildcat was well armed, loaded with air to surface missiles. He needed to give them a reason to clear out and so he blew Beta Tower without a second thought.
“We need to get underground now,” President Grayson instructed as he strutted across the marble lobby. “Margareta, go with him,” he said, pointing at Brent. She followed without question and President Grayson clicked his fingers to call two Guardians to action. “I want you both to return to my bedroom and pack my things. You will bring anything of Miss Margareta’s that you find.”
“Yes, Sir,” they said in unison as they marched quickly up the corridor to demonstrate their will and enthusiasm. President Grayson followed them with his gaze, but as they entered his bedroom he continued gazing up the corridor, towards the door that led to his wife. He battled the desire to follow Brent and Margareta, knowing there was little time to make his escape. Still, he took a few steps in the direction of the bedroom, but stopped himself before he was anywhere close. He turned away and told himself he had already said his goodbyes. There was nothing more he could do now. “You both,” he said pointing at another pair of Guardians. “Both of you come with me.”
President Grayson was glad that power had been restored, and he rode the lift to level forty in the company of the two Guardians. He expected a scene of calm, well controll
ed by sheer numbers of Guardians, and yet he found something entirely different. There were women in the corridors nursing children in their arms and men pulling suitcases from their quarters. One of the women closest to him was carrying a baby, and another was pregnant. He recognised her from the recent Adoration of Life Ceremony. How long ago that seemed. Nobody took any notice of President Grayson at first, each person too concerned with their own escape. But that changed when he demanded the attention of a man carrying a rucksack with armfuls of folded blankets, attention that was secured by the swift blow of an Assister.
“When your president demands your attention, you listen,” said one of the Guardians as the other gripped the man’s arms behind his back. A wave of silence passed over the crowd and for a moment all thoughts of escape were lost. President Grayson marched towards the man. “Where are you all going? Who instructed this?”
The man was nervous in his reply, distracted by the thought of the Omega Manifesto which he was certainly breaking on a number of accounts. But he spoke steady and true. “Sir, we are under attack. We’re trying to get the safety of the underground. Miss Emily was the one who instructed us.”
President Grayson snapped his fingers in the direction of the two Guardians. “Which room did they put her in?” he demanded as he stormed along the corridor. “Emily! Emily!” The two Guardians looked at each other as they saw the lights of a Wildcat flash through the windows of one of the bedrooms. They knew its capabilities. Were they really under attack? “Emily, where are you?” One of the Guardians gritted his teeth and took a step forwards towards President Grayson, but the other ran, bypassing the crowd who had resumed its business of escape and hightailed it down the stairs. He ran so fast and so hard he knocked at least three people over on his way.
The Dawn: Omnibus edition (box set books 1-5) Page 64