by Mike Essex
“That was fun,” she replied, no doubt enjoying the double piggy back ride of being on Grace’s back whilst she was on the soldier’s back.
I checked in on Alyx and she was a little trooper. She tried to hide the pain but her face betrayed her and with every bite of her lip and shake of her body I could see she was trying to be brave for me. “It’s not far now,” I promised.
We walked the remainder of the way to the grand hall and knew we were close when we could see the smoke flowing out into the corridor ahead. We reached a walkway above the hall, from where we could see that the fire had not yet been quelled and continued to rage on, sucking the life from the soldiers trapped in the tubes. Some of them had collapsed inside, whilst others had smashed their way out only to be taken by the fire, their bodies too destroyed for even the orange eyed signal to give them life.
A few more pods had descended in the time since we had been in the room but their passengers had suffered the same fate. My kill count was running away from me. I told Alyx not to look down which meant she looked down about half a second later.
Half a second after that she looked directly upwards, we all did, at the sound of more pods burrowing down. Unsure how much longer the fire would rage for we started to run across the walkway and over to the other side. As I placed my foot onto part of the walkway I heard the rumble, not of the soldiers’ arrival, but of the ground below me and my pace quickened.
I could feel the rumbling pulsing through my feet now and we dived off the walkway on to a giant pillar, just in time to see the walkway succumb to the fire below us. We watched as it fell behind us, crashing down into the fiery depths.
Had the giant pillar not had its own reinforced platform we would have fallen to our deaths in that moment. We held on to a railing and prayed that the pillar would not fall as it shook violently from the impact of the falling walkway.
“It’ll be ok girls,” I told them, not quite sure what I believed any more.
Their fears had yet to be calmed when the first set of new pods crashed down into the fire below. The girls screamed out in a panic and I tried to stay calm for them as the flames pushed ever upwards. The second pod did far more damage, crashing directly into the walkway in front of us, wedging itself inside the path.
We could see the soldier inside banging on the door, trying to smash his way out of the glass prison and both Grace and I knew we had to run to safety there and then.
We ran towards opposite sides of the pod hoping that the walkway had enough strength to support all four of us and the soldier’s vessel. As I made my way past the front of the pod I heard the shattering of glass and felt a hand grip tightly around my leg. I was dragged to the floor, doing my best to land on my front so as to avoid hurting Alyx.
He gripped onto me tightly as one of his contact lenses slipped loose, revealing the dark pools of orange inside. Grace grabbed at my arm and tried to pull me away from him but he gripped tighter, smashing his way free with his other fist. From the grin on his face I could tell he thought he was winning.
But fate had other plans. The ceiling started to shake violently, signalling the arrival of other pods but what came next was worse than any soldier; a force more violent than any created by man. Tiny drips of water started to fall all around us from cracks in the rocks above. These tiny cracks quickly formed into deeper cuts, which turned into gaping holes as the water pushed through.
The ceiling could no longer sustain itself, too damaged from the pressure of the water and the pods that had surged through its crust. With the sound of raging thunder, giant chunks of rock fell down crushing everything in their path.
The soldier’s face turned from one of victory to one of fear as a giant rock smashed on top of his pod, sending it hurtling towards the ground. He kept his grip on me until the end and even as the walkway started to tip to one side he tried to pull me down with him, the weight of his body and that of the pod too much for me to fight against.
Grace held on tightly to me and promised that she wouldn’t let go but as the walkway shifted diagonally even she had nothing to hold onto and no way to support herself. We were all heading for the fire.
I watched Grace tumble forwards, the angle of the walkway offering her nothing else to hold on to and I closed my eyes to brace myself. When I opened my eyes I saw that Grace had somehow regained her footing and was pulling us upwards.
From behind her I could see Rex and Rufus, Tom and Chris, who hung tightly to each other, their hands interlinked and holding onto a steel pole at the top of the walkway.
“You came back!” I exclaimed.
“We all did,” said Rex. “So don’t die on us. Ok?”
With the ceiling continuing to collapse we could see a gap that gave way to the surface above, a gap that was rapidly being filled with water from the River Thames that had started to empty itself down into the great hall. It seemed unlikely I could give Rex his wish.
I looked down at the soldier gripping tightly to my arm and I could see the fire in his container, burning the flesh from his body. He was determined to make his last act my death.
But he didn’t get to live out that act. As the water filled the room it pushed against his pod tipping it onto its side. The resulting shift caused the broken glass to push up against his arm digging into his flesh and bone. He fought through the pain, the orange eyes helping him to endure anything but with a final push the water won out and tipped the pod over, cutting his arm in two.
With his tight grip gone I was propelled forwards up the walkway and my friends helped me get back to the top platform. The soldier’s bloodied wrist fell from my leg and into the raging waters below, where it belonged.
We had barely a minute to check in with the girls before we had to dart from the walkway. Behind us the water level continued to rise, the banks of the Thames uncaring that we had survived this ordeal and ready to kill all of us.
FORTY SEVEN
“Why did you come back?” I asked as we ran down a corridor well aware that the water would soon reach our level.
“We had to,” said Rex. “When you and Grace didn’t show at the exit we knew something must have gone wrong. I even persuaded these guys.”
“Well, I didn’t take much persuading,” said Rufus.
“And the two of you?” I said to Tom and Chris. “I thought the mission came first?”
“I told you,” explained Chris. “You are the mission.”
I was sure now that Olive was right; these people were prepared to die for me. I had to make sure they all got out alive.
I went to thank him but didn’t because we had more important concerns. Water started to lap at our feet as the water level rose and started to slowly flow down the tunnel.
“It’s this way,” said Rex, climbing up onto a ledge at the side of the corridor and motioning for us to jump up. Rufus followed and the two of them grabbed hold of Grace and me.
They started to pull us up towards the ledge but struggled from the extra weight of the children.
“It’s ok; we can release them and let them up first,” I explained.
“There’s no time!” shouted Chris and we heard the almighty roar of water whooshing towards us, smashing against the twists and turns of the tunnel. He started to push me up, ensuring that Alyx was well supported in the process whilst Tom did the same for Grace and Anya.
With a final push we popped over the top of the ledge and I tumbled onto Rex from the force. As I turned around I saw Grace and Anya do the same, landing on Rufus and knocking him over.
“No!” shouted Alyx. I turned around to check what she had seen and I watched as Chris pushed Tom to safety as water surged down the corridor.
“Chris!” I shouted leaning down to the edge of the ledge and reaching out a hand for him. It was too late. His hand was ripped away before I had chance to grab hold of it. The water swept him up in an instant and carried him off into the distance until he disappeared into its murky depths.
He was go
ne. For a second I stayed on the ledge waiting for him to resurface, hoping that the mission hadn’t taken another life; but he didn’t emerge.
“We have to go on,” said Tom, placing a hand on my shoulder. “It’s what he would have wanted.”
And it was. What mattered now was getting everyone to safety and completing the mission. I turned to look at Tom to thank him for his supportive words. As I turned my back away from the water I felt a tugging on my back. I turned to check on Alyx and saw her body start to fall from my own as an icy white hand grabbed at her from the water. The hand pulled her free from the harness and into the water. I desperately grabbed her body and tried to pull her back to safety, the might of the soldier pulling her away from me.
“I’ve got you,” the words came from my mouth with as much truth as I could muster but I knew I couldn’t keep them truthful for long. I bent down on to my knees to gain extra traction, my trousers ripping and my knees becoming scuffed from the rough floor.
Everyone ran over to me in an attempt to grab my body and Alyx. Despite her wounded leg she tried to kick away from the man but I could see from the pain on her face that swimming was not an option. We only had this one chance to save her.
A chance that slipped from our grasp as quickly as Alyx slipped from my fingers. The combined force of the soldier and the torrents of water were too much and her body was taken away from me. I watched her get dragged under the water and then lost sight of her completely.
I knelt on the side of the ledge, my knees scuffed, and my heart broken, whilst Tom tried to pull me away from the side. He said something about the water taking me as well but I didn’t care. It could take me if it wanted; it had already taken so much.
I kept watching the water but only saw the bodies of soldiers and citizens flowing by, almost all of them choked of life; a sign of the fate that Chris and Alyx would suffer. I was snapped out of my despair by the sound of violent coughing which on turning around I could see was coming from Anya.
Grace had laid Anya on the floor where she was thrashing violently. A Tether event had kicked in between her and her sister and she was now experiencing every turmoil of her twin. Her body shook from side to side and she opened her mouth wide, silently mimicking the screams of her sister. These screams were quickly drowned out by the sound of coughing and choking.
“Save her!” I screamed.
“She’s stuck in a Tether event,” stated Tom as Anya’s body started to spasm, her head flipping up and down. Rex placed a hand under her head so she wouldn’t smash it on the hard floor. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“There’s has to be!” tears started to flow down my face, my mind not ready to watch another little girl die in front of me. A girl I had promised to protect. “Do something!”
Anya’s coughing grew quicker and deeper echoing her sister’s desperate struggle to survive. I looked at Grace for help but she could only stare on in horror.
I pushed everyone out of the way and lent down to Anya. “It’ll be ok. It’ll be ok,” I repeated to her, not knowing which twin would hear me. “Find a ledge, anything to grab on to.”
Anya stopped her desperate struggle for air and the hope returned to me only for it to be quickly dashed as her mouth fell open and she stopped fighting for life.
“She’s gone Emmie,” said Tom. “We have to go; the water has almost reached us.”
“No!” I shouted and I started to push Anya’s chest in a panicked attempt at CPR. I leaned down and kissed her lips, trying to breathe the life back into her. I returned to her chest and pushed down again and again, before moving back up to breathe for her again.
Push, push, push, and breathe. Push, push, push, and breathe. I repeated the process over and over until Tom dragged me to my feet. “Don’t let their death be in vain.”
I pushed him back. “If you mention the mission one more time I swear to God Tom,” my words were filled with anger, blood surging around my body and revenge my only thought.
“Then make a new mission. Remembering the girls,” said Tom.
I looked down and could see that my knees and legs were soaked; Anya was now half covered in water with more on the way. Tom was right, if I died now I wouldn’t be able to get revenge on the people who did this.
“You will be remembered,” I said to Anya as I kissed her forehead. I closed her eyes and picked her body up. Grace offered me the harness but I didn’t want to risk it again. Anya may no longer be with us but I didn’t want her body to be stuck in this watery tomb forever like her sister.
FORTY EIGHT
The ledge took us up a branching staircase that alternated between pathways leading down towards the water and others towards the surface. I carried Anya up the stairs, pushing the weight of her body from my mind and praying that she would start moving again.
“Jacobi said the exit was up here,” said Rex. The closer we got the more I expected to see the bright light of an exit but only a few flickering candles that the citizens must have lit on the way gave us sight in the darkness.
“God dammit!” shouted a voice from up the stairway.
Along with the voice we could hear lots of loud banging noises.
“Soldiers?” I asked, but the noise was not that of the drills. When we got closer we could see that the sound was the noise of Jacobi and his citizens banging their firsts and legs against the stone wall in front of them.
“It was here,” said Jacobi. “The entrance to the Royal Palace. I used it last week for God’s sake!”
There was no entrance now. The top of the staircase led to a round concrete area, perfectly symmetrical. Too perfect to be caused by an explosion, too man made to be a natural phenomenon. It looked like an entrance had never existed at all.
His citizens started to panic, the sound of the water building and building, news of its arrival already ringing out through them. “We should go back” said one of them.
“There is no going back, can’t you hear the water? The only way is up now,” replied another, who returned to kicking the concrete wall with his feet, barely making a scratch.
Around fifty citizens remained, presumably all that were left now. The fire and water had been so close to us I doubted anyone else could have survived. I recognised a few faces but it was nothing compared to the faces I could no longer see. Those were the ones that stuck in my mind.
“What have they done?” said Jacobi, spotting Anya’s lifeless body in my arms. “You see! This is what they do Emmie, this is why we have to fight back against the haves.”
I didn’t argue. I may have originally felt remorse at killing the two soldiers on the surface but now I only felt pride at their deaths. Who knows what harm they would have done if they had been allowed to live.
Everyone else joined in trying to break the wall but I refused to lay Anya down. Everyone could see that it was pointless. The wall was formidable and no one had even made more than a minor scratch on it. Nonetheless Jacobi was determined to keep his citizens motivated to the end.
“They have taken everything from us!” said the fledgling leader, punching his fists into the wall until they became bloodied and broken.
As the madness continued I knew this was where I was going to die, and if this was the moment my life would be choked from me then I needed to say goodbye to the people I cared about. I needed to reach March and my father.
I asked Grace for the earpiece which she retrieved from her pocket and handed to me. She looked after Anya whilst I said my goodbyes. The signal was crackly but I managed to find a connection to the base and Jill answered.
“Hello Emmie. What’s up? We haven’t seen you on CCTV for a while.”
“We’ve been underground,” I replied. “Is March or my father there?”
“Sorry they’ve gone dark; they’re on a mission with Gabe. Can I help?”
That was it then. I wouldn’t even be able to say goodbye to them but at least I could be with the other people who loved me; Grace, Rex and Rufus. The
y were all like family to me anyway.
“It’s ok Jill, I …” I went to hang-up the phone but Jill’s offer of help reminded me of something. “Who last did recon on the Royal Palace? Anyone?” I asked the crowd.
The crowd looked at me sheepishly as I darted around them. “The Royal Palace. Who last went there?” I repeated.
A girl in her early twenties held up a hand. “I did.”
“Had it undergone the regen process?”
“Kind of,” she replied. “The surrounding areas had been improved but they keep most of the old buildings the same. They just restore them back to their original designs.”
“That’s it!” I exclaimed. “The soldiers changed it back to the blueprints which wouldn’t include this tunnel.”
“She’s right,” said Jacobi. “Officially this tunnel doesn’t exist, if we can make it through they won’t even know we’re in the palace.”
“Well I say it’s time we make a new entrance. Everyone stand away from the wall. Jill you still there?”
“Yep,” she replied.
“Do you still have access to the soldiers’ regen machine?”
“For now.”
“Can you pinpoint our location?” I asked.
“Sure thing. It’s a doorway you want right?”
I confirmed everything with Jill and in moments we started to see the wall in front of us blur into and out of focus. “That’s the place,” I confirmed to Jill as the wall vanished into nothingness.
“Ok everyone through,” said Jacobi, not wanting to waste a second.
Everyone started to dash through the hole and into the Royal Palace. They each let out a light gasp on stepping through the portal, the heat of the regen efforts warming up the walkway but on entering the palace they quickly cooled down again.
When the last of the citizens had gone through the gap Jacobi followed after them.
“Jill, you rock,” said Grace into my earpiece.
“Thanks everyone,” she replied. “Just in time too, I think the soldiers are onto my hacking skills. Looks like we won’t have the regen unit much longer.”