by Ian Williams
The door that led inside the building he landed upon was unlocked and swung open with ease. Inside was another unlit world, except this one was to lead to success and not disaster. Once out in the open he planned on disappearing completely, his very existence only an unsolved mystery.
Halfway down the cold concrete staircase inside, he realised he was still missing something important. He should have remembered more by now. Finding the person he was supposed to find would be difficult – if not impossible – without more to go on. He could not even remember why he was doing all of this. The most important thing had been to escape. Everything else was due to come flooding back to him afterwards.
None of it had.
He felt compelled to place a hand against the device that had been crudely attached to the side of his head; an unknown parasite he was now stuck with. When he returned the hand to the front of his vision he saw what he could ill afford to see; blood. During his escape, or landing, the device had evidently been damaged. The red oxygenation medium was leaking from multiple places. Worse still, it was coming out of the skull. This body was broken and in desperate need of medical assistance.
Going to a hospital was out of the question. They would remove the device without a moment’s thought, probably causing an end to him in the process too. That could never happen while he was still trying to remember his mission. More importantly, he could not trust anyone at all.
Weirdly, he was at odds with this statement the moment he thought it up. That was not true at all, he realised. There was one he could turn to. A thought seeped through and took centre stage, a single voice of reason to wash away the chaos. One name was all he needed and he now had it finally: Phoenix. That was it, he had to find Phoenix!
* * *
A couple of hours to reach the edge of the city – after he took the Mag-Lev line in the wrong direction a few times – and Ninety-three was now heading to the address he remembered. He had to leave the speeding cars of the Mag-Lev line well behind him. In this part of the city the line was in less demand and, therefore, less widespread. Ahead he had only a single road with worn out white lines running down its middle, like a zip in clothing. He followed the line as his mind wandered.
The further away from the city centre he got, the more he struggled to keep hold of the information he needed to remember. He knew that his body was losing blood and at risk of becoming exhausted, but he had no choice. He needed to continue walking. With no idea of how far remained of his journey, he could only continue and hope more was revealed to him the further he went.
The wound in his abdomen had begun to hurt even more, especially when he touched it. He helped slow the red liquid by pushing his hand tightly against the injury. Unfortunately, it would not stop completely. In time he would lose too much. He only hoped he would reach his destination before that happened.
In the distance he could hear something approaching from behind. He spun round and saw a small dust cloud following a white object that was moving along the road. From where he stood he could make out black wheels underneath the object and a reflective surface that stretched across the upper part. He soon realised this was what had once been called a car. This was something he had learnt once about the old days. Before the Mag-Lev line they had all travelled in small, rubber wheeled vehicles that burnt petrol or absorbed the Sun’s energy.
The car was getting closer much quicker than he had expected, and was soon close enough for him to hear its odd sounds. A strange whirling noise was almost lost to the crunching of the ground beneath. It was clear that this vehicle was not using an internal combustion engine, it was far too quiet.
As the car approached, it slowed until it was only a few feet away. He studied it, and saw how dirty the thing was. The reflective surface he had seen from a distance was intended for catching the Sun’s rays. To maximise their efficiency, the owner of the vehicle had stuck them to every available surface, even blocking out the passenger side window.
He remained still as a short man stepped out of the vehicle and looked him over.
“You OK, buddy?” the balding man said. The heat of the afternoon sun had left a few beads of sweat sitting upon his reddened head. “You need any help?”
For a moment Ninety-three forgot his place entirely and continued on his way without acknowledging the man. The guy must have been talking to another, not him, he thought. The strong sun was beginning to play tricks on him.
“Hey, wait. You look like you need the hospital or something.”
After the temporary confusion had passed, he turned back and answered as if he had intended all along. “Yes. I require assistance. I must reach the residence of Phoenix.”
“Well, I have no idea who that is or where they live. Is it down this road?”
“It is.”
“Fine, well let me drive you there. It’s not safe to be walking alone out here.”
The sunburnt man ushered him toward the vehicle, opening the door and carefully helping him inside as if he was an elderly man. Inside, the car felt much cooler than he had been expecting. It was a relief to be away from the heat of the sun. Perhaps he should have avoided it? There certainly were a lot of different things for him to worry about now.
“Right, let’s get you back home,” the man said as he set the vehicle in motion along the road.
After an hour of driving, the city had all but vanished from view. Only the very tallest parts could still be seen. Ninety-three watched as the large buildings became smaller in the mirror attached to the side of the car. The world had gradually become more open and a whole lot prettier.
He extended his arm out the window and felt the air whooshing through his tingling fingertips. It was a small thing to enjoy, still he let it amuse him for longer than he realised. He then encountered a sense of guilt at remembering such a thing was not for him to experience at all. These sensations, these moments of joy, were all someone else’s to have.
His mind had begun to lose sight of what was ahead of him. Where before he knew that his destination was coming, now he had started to see only an endless road to nothing.
“Any idea where this place is?” the driver asked.
“No,” he replied after a few seconds searching the emptiness in his mind.
“Well, we may be heading in completely the wrong direction. You sure it’s this way?”
The thought had occurred to him a lot in the last half-an-hour or so. They had been driving down this single road all the time, not once deviating or turning off. If not for a small group of houses ahead, Ninety-three would have agreed that they were probably going the wrong way. But something about the buildings they were approaching had taken his attention away. He stared at them until he was sure.
“There!” he shouted, causing the man driving to slam on the brakes and force the car to stop abruptly. The tyres stuttered as they temporarily lost traction on the road.
“You sure?”
“I am almost positive this is my destination. Thank you,” he said as he stepped out of the car and shut the door behind him.
“Hey, look, I’m not happy to leave you here in that condition. Let me drive you up to the house. It must be half a mile or so away still.”
“I will be fine. You have been more than helpful, thank you.”
Without turning back to appease the man’s worries, he walked around the car and set off down the dirt track road leading up to the houses. He was intent on getting there quickly and alone. The people he was about to meet would be suspicious of him. Somehow he knew this would be the case, even though he had almost lost everything that had given him an identity before. He could still remember who he was looking for, and not much else.
With each step he took, his mind was losing its grip on everything he knew of the world. Slowly it became nothing more than a test of his will. All he wanted to do was reach the house. If he could manage this, then he was sure everything else would fall back into place.
He raised his head and looke
d on. His feet had carried him without fail so far, yet he had to check each was landing as ordered. Now he was confident they were not about to give out beneath him, he could judge the remaining distance. The house was much closer. So close in fact that he could make out a woman standing at the top of a ladder and doing something to another set of reflective panels, just like the ones he saw on the car earlier.
His side hurt more than he knew how to deal with now. Each step was pulling at parts of him he had no real feeling of anymore. Across his entire stomach were nothing but feelings of stretching skin and shaking muscles. It had been this way for hours now. He was sure he should have been feeling more of it than he actually was. Instead he had been sensing a building numbness, like he experienced just before waking earlier.
His wandering was broken by a loud booming noise directly ahead of him. He was startled by the sound and the sudden flittering of wings nearby, as a group of birds fled in a panic. Looking up, he spotted the same woman he had seen tending to the roof of one of the buildings earlier, standing in front of him and holding a shotgun up to the sky. She had fired a warning shot into the heavens.
“Stop right there, kid. Who are you? What do you want?” she said, her gun now aimed at him.
The words were unable to form at the front of his mind, not like they did before. However much he tried, he just could not respond. His body had already begun to fail. He felt his legs loosen beneath him, until the weight atop them became too much, dropping him to the floor like a sack of stones. Lying there staring up at the blue sky above, he felt his pain disappear once and for all. A joyous feeling washed over him. He had done it. He had made it to his destination. Now he just had to hope his body could hold on long enough to pass on the message he had been tasked with sharing.
His view of the sky was interrupted by a woman’s face a moment later. This was Phoenix, he realised, as she pulled his head up and rested it on her lap. She called something to another behind her, but he failed to hear what was said or who it was to. All he could do was look up into the wide and vivid eyes above him and marvel. She felt somehow familiar to him. Apart from the words he was trying desperately to speak, he could not now remember anything of who he was. Maybe all that came before this had been just a dream? He was hardly even sure he cared anymore.
His first attempt at speaking was nothing more than a murmur through an almost closed mouth.
“What? Say that again,” Phoenix replied.
He tried again, this time with his dry lips separated. “Phoenix.”
“Yes, that’s my name. Who are you?”
“The war is coming.” He could feel the words forming automatically and being spoken exactly as they appeared. The message may as well have been recited by another, he was only partially aware that he was the one talking.
“A war? A war with who?”
He pulled her even closer and continued. “Graham is still alive.”
Once again Phoenix turned away and spoke to someone nearby. He could only see a few inches in front of his own face now, and his mind was slipping further. How many others were there remained a mystery to him.
“Where is he?” Phoenix asked him suddenly.
“The tower,” he said aloud, not realising he was even expected to answer Phoenix’s question. Instead his mind had begun to descend back into the hell he had escaped, and all those left behind to fight by themselves in order to get a message to this one person. A renewed feeling of determination was building, but so too was the exhaustion.
A voice broke through for the last time before he could feel his body shutting down all around him. “No, wake up. Tell us! What does he mean? What tower?” they said.
His last glimpse of the world was overlaid with that of another, one of utter devastation. He could see the dead, the dying and the desperate. They were facing certain death, obliteration by a foe the world was still unaware even existed. The mission he had been given was not just to get this one message out, it was to beg for help. He knew that if things did not change soon, the ones he could see in his mind’s eye would all be doomed.
Phoenix was his last hope.
Chapter 1
An unexpected guest
5pm, Wednesday: 55 hours until Switchover
With a hand under each of Ninety-three’s limp arms, Phoenix kicked open the wooden door behind that blocked her entrance. She used the heel of her left foot rather than turn and push gently. The body she was carrying, along with Jane at the other end holding the legs, was fairly light and easy to manoeuvre, but its unexpected arrival had them all rushing to get it inside. Whoever this person was, he had sought them out and delivered a message none of them could really believe.
Once inside the house she continued on to the small lounge, where Stephen sat in his tatty cardigan staring at a blank TV screen. He turned to address them both as they entered, then decided against speaking the moment he spotted the body they were carrying between them.
“Stephen,” Jane called ahead of Phoenix.
He first looked to the body and then to Jane, clearly confused again. “Who–”
“We don’t know,” Phoenix interrupted. “Clear the sofa. We need to lay him down somewhere.”
Stephen swiped his arms across the seat, removing his collection of crisp packets and sweet wrappers. He then disappeared before anything else could be asked of him. It was usual for him to run away at the slightest sign of danger. Alex would no doubt calm him down, as she had done so many times before.
“Shit, he’s bleeding still,” Jane said, gesturing to the already soaked wrapping of bandage placed across the wound only moments earlier. It flapped about loosely, even threatening to fall off completely.
Phoenix ignored the red stain that had continued to grow across the man’s shirt material, ignoring the warm slippery feeling between her fingers too. The blood was getting on everything anyway, so she focused on what they could change, there and then, over what would require longer.
“Here, this should do. Jane, swing his legs onto the chair.”
Together they roughly lumped the body onto the long three cushioned sofa. In seconds it had gone from a favoured place of comfort and rest to an operating table. It soon looked the part too, with blood quickly seeping into the highly absorbent surface beneath the body. Her childhood sofa would be beyond saving after this, she knew.
Jane quickly set about tending to the man’s hidden injury. She dropped to her knees beside the body and began to tear away the red soaked shirt, starting first where it had already been ripped. The bandage slid away without being touched, its fight had ended quickly.
“I need warm soapy water, now.”
“Sure,” Phoenix said, taking on the role of assistant without even thinking. Jane was ready to deal with such a situation, having expected to be the moment Ruth went into labour – they had agreed a home birth made the most sense, as getting into the city would take far too long.
Leaving the scene, and the disturbingly damp sounds of an open wound behind meant Phoenix could take a second to compose herself after the shock. She ran for the kitchen and found Stephen, Alex and Ruth all standing around the large dining table. None of them had any idea what to do by the looks of it. Ruth had taken the decision to keep Alex and Stephen out the way at least. They had been ushered into the back of the house without much of a fuss.
Phoenix grabbed a clean bucket that had been left to dry by the kitchen door and shoved it into the sink. With the cold and warm taps on full, she watched as the water began to spin around the bucket. It swirled and spat as it filled the container.
“Who is he, Phoenix?” Alex asked. She stood half behind Ruth, who had spun a dining chair around and sat down.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before,” she replied while running her hand through the warm water. The clear liquid suddenly took on a pinkish colour as blood washed off of her palm.
“Then why did he come here?”
“I don’t know that either, Kiddo. We
just need to help him, then he can tell us. OK?”
Before Alex could reply, Phoenix was already heaving the bucket out of the sink and carrying it back out the kitchen. She left the three of them behind, and the many questions she knew Alex was about to follow with too. Sloshing the water about the floor was as much due to nerves as clumsiness. Although a dangerously wet floor was the least of her concerns right then.
When she entered the lounge and saw Jane holding both hands against the man’s abdomen, she immediately remembered the squirt of soap she forgot. After placing the bucket down beside Jane she turned and made once again for the hall, but was stopped before exiting. Without meaning to she had tried to use it as an excuse to escape the room once more.
Jane had other ideas. “Stay. I need your help,” she said.
Phoenix looked back and got an eyeful of Ninety-three’s bloodied wound. The gash across the skin was much deeper looking than she had first thought it to be. Layers of skin and flesh all torn and ripped in one six inch wound. She could see it clearly now that Jane had removed the man’s shirt.
“Put your hands here and keep them pressed hard.”
“I forgot the soap,” Phoenix confessed before Jane pulled her down hard and forced her hands onto Ninety-three’s skin, one over the other. The pressure she applied pushed a small flow of blood out between her fingers, which now resembled a surgeon’s after at least an hour of surgery.
“Never mind the soap for a minute. We need to clear the wound so I can check it over,” Jane said. She stood and walked out the room.
“Wait, where are you going?”
From the hallway she heard Jane’s reply, “The rest of the medical supplies are in the upstairs bathroom, under the sink. Just keep pressing down.”
She did as told and pushed against the man’s wound. While left like this she took to staring at his unconscious face. There was nothing about him that she recognised at all; not his blonde and curly hair, his sharply narrow chin or thin neck, nothing. This was not someone she had dealt with before, she was sure of it. Still he knew her. Somehow he had heard about this place and knew about Graham. None of it made any sense.