by Edge, T. C.
“You should get some shut eye, Ellie. I'll stay awake and keep watch, OK?”
She's still staring out into the gloom, but nods lightly, before settling her head down onto her bag. For a while she just lies there, eyes open, before slowly her lids slide shut and fail to reopen.
I fall into my own thoughts as I sit up and begin my vigil. Freedom. It's not something I expected to hear from Ellie. But then, what other choice is there now? We're deserters. Such a thing is punishable by banishment or worse. So when they catch up with us, will they simply discard us onto the other side of the Divide anyway? There would be some irony in that, I suppose.
Something tells me, however, that things won't be quite so easy. We all possess special gifts. We've been told that by Ajax on more occasions than I can remember. Rare gifts. Powerful gifts. Gifts that make us important. With so few Watchers, we won't be considered so expendable. So we'll be forced to keep watch somewhere. Chained, drugged maybe, and compelled to live out death and destruction in our dreams each night.
Yet what's the difference? We'd have been condemned to such a life anyway. Perhaps we'd have more freedom and privileges. The opportunity to enjoy the city or region we're assigned to. To go to social functions and dinners and have a life beyond our visions. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to the same thing. Whether we'd have stayed in Eden or get caught here now, we're all still slaves of the system. Assets. Nothing more.
A stirring by the fire snaps me out of my thoughts.
I turn to see Theo, sitting bolt upright, his eyes open and suddenly wide awake. He glances all around us at the woods, completely alert, as if awakened by a gunshot.
His eyes find mine and he speaks, whispering in the dim light.
“We have to leave.”
“What's going on?” I say, my heart beginning to pound.
“They're coming. I've seen them, their lights in the darkness. They're searching for us. They know we're here.”
I turn in every direction now, quickly rising to my feet. I see nothing out in the woods, though. Nothing but the shadows of trees, rising up high into the air.
“Wake them up. We have to go.”
I watch as Theo jumps to his feet, grabs his bag, and darts towards the truck. Within a moment I hear the engine rumble, disturbing the silent night, and begin to chug lightly. Headlights burn bright into the darkness, illuminating the eerie woods ahead, before quickly being doused.
I don't even need to wake Link or Ellie myself. The sound of Theo starting the truck is enough to send their eyes opening like an owl's, wide and unblinking. “What's happening?” Link asks. He looks all around us, searching for an enemy, for any sign of danger.
“Theo says they're coming. Searching the woods. We need to go, right now.”
Ellie goes to stamp out the final glowing embers of the fire, but I stop her. “Leave it as a decoy,” I say, before we all rush towards the truck and jump inside.
I join Theo at the front, who doesn't hesitate to move as soon as we're in. With the lights off, he slowly drives through the forest, steering around trees and fallen branches and back towards the road.
I stare in the wing mirror and see flashes of light behind us suddenly appear in the gloom. Of armed guards, moving through the thicket, approaching our dying fire from down the hill. There are at least ten lights, each swaying in a different direction. They're searching for us.
The road ahead comes into sight, a gap among the shadows of the trees. Theo speeds up and we break through the blanket of foliage above, straight out into the glowing moonlight. Behind, I hear calls, voices shouting, and notice all lights turning our way. Some point down to the ground, following our tyre tracks. Others shine through the trees, searching the forest beyond.
But it's too late. We're already onto the road, accelerating down the other side of the hill. Around us the woods remain thick, the road ahead winding to the left and right, limiting our view.
“You saw them?” shouts Link from behind us. “Did they have transport?”
I see Theo shake his head. “I only saw them coming with their lights, carrying guns. They looked the same as the guards at the dock. They must have known we were hiding somewhere in the woods, but didn't know the exact place.”
“Probably thought they'd catch us napping.”
“No such luck.”
We drive faster, the road ahead beginning to straighten out. Beyond, it diverges, several other tracks leading off in various directions.
“We need to get off this road in case they're following,” I say. “Take the left one.”
“Why left?” asks Theo.
“Why not?” I respond. “It's not like we know where we're going anyway.”
Theo does what I say, pulling to the left and down a narrower track surrounded by overhanging trees. We drive for a while in almost total darkness, too afraid to put on the main headlights, using the moonlight as our guide. Gradually, however, the woods begin to thin, until we enter a large swathe cut down and with nothing but stumps remaining.
“It's just like Lignum,” Ellie says. “We must be somewhere in the region.”
We pass a small town, hidden in a valley below us, a track leading to it from the road. A single light blazes in the middle of a small square, surrounded by wooden shacks. It looks more like an outpost than a town. Perhaps somewhere Choppers stay when they're working in the area.
Other similar outposts and settlements appear, peppered among the huge fields of tree trunks and giant piles of wood. We drive for a couple of hours, taking various turns where we can but always aiming to travel westwards. And all the time our eyes scans the path behind us, the horizon ahead, searching for any hint of our pursuers.
Eventually the skies begin to brighten, lighting up the blanket of grey mist that hovers at the tops of the hills. Cars begin to appear on the roads, small towns and forest camps spring to life in the valleys and higher up on the hillside. We keep moving, gradually leaving the rolling slopes and forests and descending onto flatter lands stretching miles into the distance.
We drive for several hours, always wary of any vehicle that passes us or lingers too long at our rear. On several occasions, we slide down quieter paths and hide in the shadows of old, disused buildings and factories, driven off by the glowing sight or screaming noise of a blue siren on the horizon. Each time, however, we watch as they pass by, in pursuit of someone else or called to resolve a problem somewhere nearby.
By midday, we're all exhausted and starving, so stop in an old barn for some food. By chance we stumble across another car, keys handily stashed in the flap above the driver's seat. When we get moving again, we leave our truck and continue in a battered and rusted old station wagon, our progress slowed further by its plodding top speed.
We pass by miles of old, desolate ruins. Old cities, once filled with people and busy with industry, now stricken and bare and lifeless. Ravaged by war and the virus that sunk its teeth into half the people across the nation.
Crumbling buildings stand high into the sky, their once proud outer walls now covered in moss and vines and retaken by nature. Old cars litter the streets, blocking off roads and forcing us to deviate our path.
All eyes scan the world around us, shocked at the bleakness and devastation of it all. “I didn't know there were places like this on this side of the Divide,” says Ellie. By the looks on everyone's faces, they didn't either.
“Except the Graveyard,” I say. “It's just as empty, isn't it? I guess there aren't enough people to sustain cities as large as this now.”
We drive on, passing other smaller towns that appear to suffer from the same affliction. Empty, lonely, no sight or sound of a living soul for miles. Large factories stand tall, once important production centres in the region. Now they sit bare and abandoned, long fallen into disuse.
“I guess we must be getting close to the Divide,” says Theo. “All of these places must have been hit hardest by the fighting. All the functioning regions are n
earer to the coast.”
“Well, if that's the case we should stop and rest. We should be safe here. Looks like there are plenty of places to stay out of sight.”
We search for a little while before finding an old deserted town in the middle of an open plain. The place is largely intact, though, with several beautiful farmhouses bordering its outskirts. I'm reminded of Jackson's home back in Arbor. Of the timber panel walls, painted white. The slanted roof and brick chimney. The veranda at the front. Only here the wood is rotting. The paint stripping. The beams threatening to break down and collapse.
We find a suitable house and park the car undercover and out of sight. As we step out I can already feel the heat increasing as we move inland, the air warm and close and clammy. Up in the heavens the skies start to rumble, the clouds descending and trapping the heat and humidity below.
We quickly move into the house, its insides bare and stripped of furniture, and have a quick forage for food. There's nothing. We move upstairs, hoping perhaps to find a comfortable bed or two for the night, but it's empty.
I hear Ellie call from below and find her outside at the back of the house, peeking out of a trap door. I follow her down a short ladder and find a shelter of some kind. It's cooler down here, and there are a couple of sofas, so we call the boys down to join us.
“Must be a bomb shelter,” says Link.
“Or a hurricane shelter,” adds Ellie.
“Well, whatever it is it works for me,” I say.
A growl of thunder booms overhead as we start peeling the morph masks from our faces and stash them in our bags. Then we conduct another quick search for rations in the cupboards and shelves built into the walls of the shelter. Aside from a couple of old tins of beans, there's little on offer.
“We'll need to scout for food if we're going to cross Knight's Wall tomorrow,” says Theo. “I'd imagine finding some here will be easier than there.”
“And how exactly are we going to do that?” Link asks bluntly. It's become obvious over the course of the day that he's grown surly and disgruntled. Perhaps because of a lack of sleep. More likely due to our current predicament.
“Well, we'll spread out and check different houses. There's gotta be plenty of food around here. Tinned maybe, but it's better than nothing...”
“No, I mean how are we gonna get across the damn wall! We've got guards on our tail and we're heading towards the most heavily militarised area in the country. There are loads of bases along the Divide, and tens of thousands of soldiers manning it. So, how are we gonna get across?” There's a bite to his words that I know is intended for me. His eyes even flash on me as he asks the question. Despite what Ellie said, I know none of this is what Link wants. He, unlike the rest of us, would rather be back in Eden.
“We'll scout it and find a way across. It stretches for hundreds of miles. There must be some weak, unmanned points.”
Link huffs. “Yeah, you think so? Well there ain't. The thing is several storeys high and there are no breaks. Nothin'.”
“We'll find a way,” says Theo. “We've gotten this far, haven't we?”
“This far was easy. Now we're choosing self banishment, and for what?” He turns to me, head shaking. “Do you even think he's alive, Cyra? And where is he if he is? There's a million square miles out there. We could live a thousand lifetimes and never find him.”
“Hey,” says Theo, stepping forward and pulling Link's attention back on him. “Leave her alone. She never asked you to come. If you want to go back, go back. I just never figured you for a coward.”
“A coward?” Link's eyes begin burning, his breathing starting to grow more heavy. “You are calling me a coward?”
“What do you mean by that?” Now it's Theo's turn to boil, his eyes narrowing.
“I mean you've been a coward from day one in the Grid. You couldn't cut it down there...”
“Yeah, and you can't cut it now!” Theo bites. “You want to go back to Eden, then go back. Go be a lapdog to Ajax and Knight and everyone else.”
They stand against each other, fists clenching, teeth grinding, eyes piercing. A rumble of thunder shakes the house above us, but no one moves.
Then I see Link's lips curl into a smile, a sneer spreading across his face. “She'll never love you, you know. Do you even know who Jackson is to her? You'll be discarded as soon as she finds him.”
“What are you talking about?” snaps Theo.
“I've seen the way you look at her. She doesn't look at you the same way.”
Theo shakes his head and laughs awkwardly. “I don't know what you've seen, but you're way off base...”
“No I'm not,” whispers Link, drawing even closer as he lowers his voice. “This isn't gonna end well for you, Theo. Best you run back to mummy and daddy right now.”
It's the final straw. Theo swings, his fist as fast as lightning, but not quick enough. Link deflects it with his arm, reaching forward and clasping Theo's throat with his spare hand. He pushes and drives him back against the wall, smacking it with a thud as another rumble of thunder booms overhead.
Ellie and I are quick to act, shouting for them to stop, rushing forward and pulling at Link's arms. But he's too strong, too big. He shrugs us both off and the two men go crashing to the ground with another heavy bump.
Fists fly as they roll on the floor. I hear more thuds and boom of lighting. Blood begins spilling as we continue to attempt to separate them, dripping from noses and split eyebrows.
They finally split, both panting and breathing heavily, primed to pounce once more.
Then I hear more thuds. But none of us are moving.
Dust falls from above, accompanied by the sound of creaking wood. We all raise our eyes and listen. Footsteps. Above us. And we freeze.
Then I see it. I don't know what it is at first, and by the time I work it out it's too late. The sight of a wispy white cloud, filling the air at our feet and quickly rising. My mind clicks into gear, but it's too late.
“Gas!” I cry.
A cannister rips through the wooden door at the top of the ladder. It hits the floor and stops in place, before sliding open and releasing a thick, green cloud. We all lift our sleeves to our mouths and hold our breath, but there's nothing we can do.
Thick, putrid fumes slip up my nose, burning the inside of my nostrils. My eyes water, my vision blurring, but I try to hold my breath. I step gingerly forward, and hear the sound of bodies slumping to the floor behind me. I turn and see both Link and Theo, still catching their breath from their exertions, fall first. Ellie drops to Link's side, hand over her mouth, eyes beginning to well.
She shakes her head as she looks at me, before sucking in a breath. The result is immediate, her body going limp, her head falling onto Link's chest.
Now it's just me. Inside, my lungs burn, my head spins. I can't hold on, have to breathe. I step forward, my body already weak, and reach up the ladder. I rise a step, then two, and remember nothing more.
28 - An Old Friend
Heat.
It's all I feel.
Warm, clammy air licking at my skin, filling my nose. It's suffocating, smothering my entire body in a sweltering blanket.
My eyes open to the sight of bare brick walls. A dim light shines above me, buzzing quietly and casting a faint glow on my surroundings. I'm on a small bed in a corner of a cell, cast iron bars rising from the concrete floor and into the ceiling. Beyond, I see a corridor, and another cell on the other side.
I sit up and drop my feet to the hard floor, my head spinning. I reach back and touch the back of my skull. A large swelling protrudes from its surface, aching horribly. I stagger a bit as I move towards the bars, winding my fingers around them and peering out into the corridor outside. There, to the left and right, I see cell after cell, stretching off into the darkness.
I call out, my voice croaking and cracking.
“Ellie! Theo! Link!”
I hear no reply. I strain my vision, but see no people in the other cells
. No one calls back except my own voice, echoing down the empty corridor.
“Hello!” I call. “Can somebody hear me?! Is someone there?”
I shout several times, my words ringing in my head like tiny knives picking at my brain. Yet still there's no reply. No voice. No sound of footsteps approaching. Nothing but the endless buzzing of the light above me.
I return to my bed and return to my thoughts. The gas. The shelter. We were caught like flies in a web, so easily tracked and discovered in the end. How stupid was I to think it would be any different.
My head continues to throb, my vision still slightly blurred. I continue to rack my brain for the last thing I can remember – climbing that ladder. I was up one step, then two, and then nothing. I had to breathe. Had to suck in that poison. Then everything went immediately black.
I must have fallen back to the floor, hit my head. I feel a slight ache in my back, a stiffness in my neck. But it's all muted, all drowned out by the lingering scent of gas in my veins.
Darkness begins to overcome me again and I start drifting in and out of consciousness. Each time I close my eyes, I see flashes of orange and yellow and red. Flashes of blowing sand and the hard, parched earth. Of the high fortress wall, standing like a bastion against the broken world beyond. Of men, tiny atop it, lights flashing from the tips of their weapons.
Each time I wake, my mind is filled with another horror. A young man's leg being blown off. Bullets ripping through flesh. Faces of fear, exposed to the terror of battle. But one strikes at me more than any other. The sight of a blanket of fire engulfing thousands of men, all burning against the blood red, setting sun.
I open my eyes a final time, the drug now wearing thin in my blood. My mouth feels parched, my throat dry and sore, my head still throbbing lightly. Hours must have passed, but I don't know how many. Down here, in this strange dungeon, there's little to tell me whether it's late or early, night or day.
“You're awake?”
The voice comes from behind me, and I quickly turn to look into the room. In the corner is a shadow, the shape of a man, sitting on a stool, watching over me. He's shrouded in darkness, dressed in a cloak. I can't make out his features, but recognise his voice.