I don’t think we will. Even without States and the Officials, we’ll always find new ways to trap ourselves.
I leave the soldiers and the barred road behind and weave through the free streets of the city. The simplicity of walking calls up memories of home, when I would cross the zones to see Hele and Dalmar, when despite the horrors and death of London, it was still possible to find pleasure in the little things. I always loved walking, being able to set my own pace, being alone with my thoughts. Making decisions for myself—what routes I choose, when I stop for breaks, how relentlessly I push myself. The one thing I never allowed myself to do was run. Running always makes you look guilty, and in a city ruled by an iron fist looking guilty is the exact opposite of staying alive.
But what’s stopping me now?
The wind is gentle but still brushes against my arms as I take off my jacket and tie it around my waist. I look around myself, making sure I’m well and truly alone. And then I run.
The wind becomes harsher as I throw my body through the air, flying over the ground. It’s exhilarating and freeing.
I don’t last two blocks.
I collapse against the side of an old nightclub, wheezing, my hands on my knees. Apparently the miles and miles of walking didn’t make me a pro runner. Pity. It’s probably the only thing that’ll keep me alive when the Officials catch up with us. I don’t have a natural instinct for fighting, which makes me a runner.
A runner who can’t really run.
How am I still alive?
The wind masks the footsteps so I don’t hear them until they’re right on top of me. I sigh, turning around to face the civilian soldiers who apparently followed me on my little run. I don’t know how I’ll explain it. Maybe I’ll say I needed to stretch my legs, or exercise, or train to kill my enemies. I don’t know. Chances are I’ll say the first thing that comes into my head and it’ll be really dumb.
I pivot on my heel, attempting to hide my frustration. My first day truly alone and I’ve been interrupted. I could’ve guessed I’d—
My stomach drops to my feet. For a weightless second I can’t move. All I can do is stare hopelessly at the sight in front of me and try—fail—to process it.
Officials.
Three of them.
Here.
I knew this would happen—I knew it and I told everyone but none of them listened. They said it was safe here, said these people hadn’t seen an Official attack since the days of the flares, but they were wrong. I knew they were wrong. And here is the proof: two men and a woman, electric guns strapped to their waists, clothed in bulky black pants and jackets with red piping down the sleeves and collars. Red. The colour of blood. Of my blood. They’re going to kill me.
As if in slow motion, every Official raises a hand and presses it to their right eye in the President’s salute. Their palms are open to the sky, fingers straight and pointing, stained and bloody.
I stare at the guns in their left hands, all three pointed at my chest, the flat disc of glass on the end of the barrel glowing, powering up, ready to rip me apart, to sear my flesh. I’m so paralysed that for a moment I forget I’m capable of movement. I can lift my feet and walk and run.
I burst into action without warning.
I pump my arms to give me speed, the thought of becoming a charred husk flashing through my mind repeatedly. I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to leave my family. I don’t want to die.
An Official grabs the back of my shirt, hauling me back, and the neck of my shirt rips with how frantically I’m pulling away. Furious panic makes me breathless. I’m spun around, brought close to the female Official’s face as she stares into my eyes, spitting words at me I can’t hear. Each of my breaths comes faster and shorter than the last until I’m sure I’ll never be able to fill my lungs again.
Acting on instinct I shove one of my trembling fists into the Official’s stomach. She snaps her mouth shut and digs her fingers into my shoulders. Pain flashes down my arm. Why isn’t she killing me? Is she going to torture me?
Ignoring the building pressure in my head, the blurring edges of my vision, the buildings that are swaying, I hit out again. My palm connects with her ribs. I look frantically, trying to point the one clear spot of my vision at the other two Officials—but they’re nowhere in sight.
Gone for back up. Gone for more. More Officials.
I gasp. I choke. I can’t breathe.
My eyes blur, tears springing into existence and rolling down my cheeks. I let them flow. I’m going to die. What difference will crying make?
“Honour!” This time I hear the Official but she sounds wrong. I get the tiniest hold on my breathing. It sounded like …
“Dalmar?”
“It’s me. I’m right here.”
The Official’s hands become less like claws and more like the reassuring press of a friend’s. The words change from threatening hisses to worried questions and hurried comforts. I drop to my knees. It takes time and effort but eventually I’m able to shove my panic down. Deep, deep down.
What … what just happened?
“It’s me,” Dal repeats, kneeling beside me. “Can you see me now?”
“Yeah.” My throat is raw. I don’t remember screaming but I must have. Anyone could have heard me—thank God it was only Dalmar and not a Manchester soldier.
He grips my shaking hands and exhales a long breath. “Thank God for that. Do you know what that was? What just happened?”
I shake my head, pushing the heels of my hands against my eyes. I take in breath after breath, blowing them out slowly. I scrape all my courage together and ask the question that has filled my head, pulsing with every second that passes.
I scrub away the tears and look at my friend, my brother. “What is wrong with me?”
***
Miya
12:43. 22.10.2040. The Free Lands, Northlands, Manchester.
My hands are raw, red, and peeling. I’m not used to housework of any kind—it goes against every bone in my body—but Saga won’t let us break a single Manchester rule and the rules say everyone has to do something useful. He’s sucking up. I’m not sure why we even need these people. They don’t have a secret armoury of weapons, only the battered and faulty guns their guard carry, and even though they have a small army, they’re all people and not soldiers.
But we couldn’t possibly offend these people and risk them not helping us. That’s what the Guardian leaders keep saying—we need their help. Not we need their guns, or we need their people to fight with us. No, we need their help. So here I’ve been all morning, scrubbing laundry, my hands tingling and stinging in the places skin has rubbed away. All because we need their help.
Livy is in a worse state than me. She’s only supposed to be rinsing the clothes that are muddy and passing them to me, but the weight of the water logged shirts and jeans are taking their toll on her thin arms. Her jaw is clenched against the ache and she refuses to let it get the better of her but she shouldn’t have to do this. These aren’t our clothes. This isn’t our town.
“Go if you want,” I say, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. This work would be a lot easier if the wall in front of us wasn’t covered in windows, the sun heating the laundry hall to a sweltering degree. “I’ll cover for you.”
She shakes her head. Stubborn. “I can do this.”
I wring a red shirt and throw it into a basket to be taken outside to dry. “Do you really want to?”
Livy glares. “I can do this. I’m doing it.”
“Fine.” I scrub the next shirt harder than I need to, pressing my lips into a thin line to trap in any words that might escape.
I have to be careful around Olive and Tom. They’re my family, but they haven’t been with me for two years. Livy is barely starting to trust me again and Thomas still looks at me like I’m some kind of magical fairy that’s come to grant him wishes. Like he can’t believe I exist. I’m tiptoeing around them, policing my words so I do
n’t say the wrong thing. So I don’t turn Livy against me. One slip up and I could lose them for good.
I’m their big sister, not their mother—they’ve got no obligation to stay with me. I’m not like mum. You have to stay with your parents no matter what because they’re your parents. You don’t get a choice. But sisters? You can live without your sister. Estranged, people call it. I’ve heard talk about estranged brothers and aunts and God knows who else—people you don’t want or need in your life.
I’m not gonna be that to Tom and Livy. Not after we survived all this shit.
I bite the inside of my lip until I’ve stopped seeing red. It’s not Livy’s fault she’s grown up stubborn and independent. It’s mine and mum’s. Someone should have been raising her these past few years, making sure she grows up happy and good and cared for, but instead she’s brought herself up. I don’t like how hardened she’s become. I miss who she used to be.
She’s always had a mouth on her—she got that from me—and her manners were more or less non-existent, but she was different. Childish. That’s the difference between the Livy I remember and the Livy beside me. In my memory she’s still a kid but in reality she’s an adult. An adult at ten years old. Fuck. For that and that alone I hate Forgotten London. What would she have been like if we lived in States? Maybe someone would have stepped in to help, instead of leaving my family to deal with life alone. Maybe someone would have reported mum—maybe there’d have been someone to report mum to.
I almost pull my shoulder out of its socket with how hard I throw another shirt into the basket. There’s no point thinking about this. We don’t live in States and we never did. I hold in a breath, let it out slowly, and ask, “Are you alright?”
I don’t remember ever asking Livy how she was and I should have. I watch her from the corner of my eye; she’s stretching her arms, staring out the dirty window at the line of buildings across the street, at the people with baskets of food in their arms, at the dark haired Manchester woman pacing the road barking orders I can’t hear through the wall. She makes me uneasy, that woman. There’s something about her I don’t like, and it’s not entirely the way she watches us too closely or the way every soldier listens to her without question.
I clench my jaw and drag my attention back to my sister.
Sometimes I forget she’s a year younger than Thomas, that she’s the baby of our family. Tom has always been the weakest of us. It makes him seem younger than he is. I think that’s my fault—I coddled him too much when he was young, because he was sickly and tiny. He’s still tiny, but that doesn’t mean he needs me to baby him, and it doesn’t mean Livy doesn’t need me to. I should look after her more—look after her better.
In the two years I’ve been gone from her life I haven’t forgotten how to be a sister, but I have forgotten what I was to my brother and sister. I’ve forgotten how to be a mother.
“I’m fine.” Livy turns to me, pursing her lips. “I used to do the washing at home. I’m used to it.”
“I didn’t just mean this.” I stab a finger at the dirty water in front of us. “I meant everything. How are you … dealing with it?”
“I’m not.” Livy bats a strand of dark hair out of her face. I keep trying to connect her juvenile face and her mature attitude. “I’m not dealing with it. I’m ignoring it. I don’t even want to think about it. So I’m not.”
I try to bite down on a smile but she sees it. She sounded so much like a petulant kid throwing a tantrum just then that it took me off guard.
Livy gives me the finger.
“Sorry.” I bump my shoulder against hers. “I’m ignoring a lot, too.”
“Yeah?” She hauls a pair of jeans into the sink, groaning at the backlash of muddy water that sprays at her T-shirt. I wince inwardly at the mauling of a perfectly clean shirt. “Like what?”
I didn’t think she’d ask. I thought she’d just bite off another remark and close the conversation as usual. I drag the words from myself before I can think about them. “Like mum.”
Livy goes still, dropping the jeans with a wet thud. I’ve screwed up. I shouldn’t have mentioned mum. We haven’t spoken about her—not even Thomas has. If we don’t talk about her she won’t be gone. She won’t be here either, but it’s not like she’s … dead.
It’s suddenly hard to swallow, panic grabbing me without warning. I automatically seek Siah but of course he’s not here. Manchester people are, along with all their other asshole qualities, sexist. Siah’s helping the builders repair some fallen house somewhere because building is men’s work and women—obviously—are meant for laundry.
I shake the water off my hands, my gut swimming with sickness. This is the first time I’ve let myself think about mum and I wish I’d carried on pretending. I didn’t realise loss could make you physically ill but that’s what it feels like right now. Like I’m coming down with a Strain and I’ll be dead by the end of the day.
“Hey.” Livy’s hand is small and cold on mine. She grips my fingers. “Miya?” I don’t answer her. “What do I do? What do you need me to do?”
I shake my head. There’s nothing she can do. This is me. I made myself this way—my feelings, my panic—and I can fix myself. I just need to calm down. I’ve felt this way before, strangled and out of control. I used to get like this back when I first found Siah, when he’d leave to steal food or supplies and I’d panic that he’d never come back. That I’d be fending for myself alone again, that I’d be recaptured by Officials and they’d jab the needles back in my—
Breathe, I hiss at myself. It’s hard but I’m persistent. I hold onto what Yosiah has told me when I’ve been this way before. After a while I can control myself again. I think of good things: safety, family, the future.
As soon I’m back to normal, I shrug off Livy’s concern and meet the stares of Manchester residents with cold glares. All I hear for a long while is the sloshing of water and my bruising attempt at laundry.
Eventually, Livy says, “I miss her too. I know she wasn’t a good mum or anything but she’s our mum. Was our mum. I mean—I know how you feel.”
“That’s just it.” My laugh comes out twisted. “That’s exactly my problem. I don’t miss her. At all. I’m glad she’s gone, glad there’s no chance I’ll ever see her again. She was a bitch and she hurt me. Every day I was home, she’d find some way to hit me or throw something at me or make sure the knife slipped when I was making tea. She’d find the smallest thing to punish me for. And when I stood up to her, what did she do? She kicked me out. Made me homeless. I nearly died. I was caught by Officials, I was—”
I say, very slowly, “I don’t miss her for a single minute. She made my life a living hell and I’m glad she’s not here to wreck the smallest bit of good I found for myself.”
“I know.” She won’t look at me. “I know.”
Pointedly ignoring the tightness in my throat, I rest a damp hand on Livy’s back, communicating in the best way I can how sorry I am and how glad I am she’s here. I’m still not good with being open but I’m trying.
That’s gotta count for something.
“You wanna go out later?” Livy asks casually. “Do something? Tom says there’s a cool building on the outskirts of town. ”
I summon a smile. “Yeah, why not?” Beginning to feel a bit more like myself I add, “Think we could take a detour? I saw some trainers in one of the shops on the way in just begging to be stolen.”
Livy’s answering smile is a flash of white light in her pale brown face.
***
Bennet
10:29. 22.10.2040. Bharat, Delhi.
Today’s locale is a rank diner. Shiny orange seats reflect the sickly yellow lights that swing from the ceiling, the metal tables have a number of dried-on liquids I’d rather not think about, and the staff barely blink at my arrival let alone rush to attend on me. Were I here for food, I suspect I’d have to get it myself. I can’t even stomach the thought of eating something from this place. The scent in t
he air is a noxious mix of burnt potatoes, boiled vegetables, and spices so strong they turn my stomach.
It’s all I can do to keep my breakfast down as I slip into one of the seats, the silk of my sari sliding over the pocked vinyl surface. It might be a vile place but it was chosen for a reason. Nobody would think a conclave that could potentially affect the entire planet was happening in somewhere such as this. Important meetings take place in marble-white buildings in Connaught Place, not in back street restaurants in Chandni Chowk.
The potential Guardian ally I’m persuading today is a Statesman. I assumed I would meet a male, as the name suggests, but it seems Statesman is a term given to anyone who hails from the City. The Guardian ally is a white woman, kind faced and large bodied. A keen eye suggests intelligence and watchfulness, which must be what lends her to being a spy. She looks too kindly to be plotting behind one’s back, too motherly to be scheming—but that is exactly what she does when she’s in her home City.
So far she’s the first ally I’ve met whose language I can speak, even if some of her nuances are odd. I’m here to influence her to take a major role in the Guardians’ plan, but I haven’t the faintest idea where to begin.
“Thank you for coming,” I say, leaning close so she can hear me over the chatter that fills these walls.
She tips her head forward in acknowledgement but remains silent, waiting for me to say what I’ve come to. Just say it, Bennet.
“The Guardians and I would like you to be a part of our long-term offense on States.” I try not to let out a frustrated sigh. Those are Vast’s words. I need to put this in my own. I have to be convincing if I’m to win her over. If I’m to get the device that will find my brother. “We have a weapon,” I say, “that could change everything. But we need it in States and we don’t have a safe way of getting into the country.” After a moment, I correct, “City, I mean. All the Guardians already in the City have no way of getting out and we can’t send anymore in. The security, I’m told, is excessive at present.”
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