“You are free to leave this room, Mr. Christian. Once you have finished your breakfast, you are free to go.” Dr. Watson stood up from the edge of the bed where he had been sitting. “Your Adjustment Coordinator will be here within the hour.” Dr. Watson held out his hand, gloveless and smooth, and Zack took it in his. They shook hands once, firmly. “Good luck, Mr. Christian.”
It was impossible to finish eating his breakfast now that he knew he was leaving. The eggs became cold and rubbery, but reluctant to leave the bacon, he nibbled at the edges. But it was no good. His stomach began complaining and he was compelled to leave it. He could feel the same rush of adrenalin as he felt when the numbers were being drawn out the week before, and he smiled to himself when he realised that he knew it to be almost one week ago. He thought back to the show, the dancing, the excitement and the applause of the crowd and wondered what was going on in the place that the doctor had called ‘above ground’. He paced the room, one hand holding onto the other as if they were trying to support each other in their effort to stop trembling. He tried to focus on watching the passage of the sky but it became too slow for his mood and he turned it off. How quickly you come to take things for granted, he told himself, and so turned the television back on almost as quickly as he turned it off. He sat down on the armchair, his feet bobbing underneath him like they had on the day the bombs had fallen. He stood up again. He sat down. This cycle repeated five times.
The knock on the door came exactly one hour after Dr. Watson left. A taller man than Zack swept through the door, his head topped with jet black hair that made him look Mediterranean. He looked as if he came from Greece or Italy, but he also had a long Slavic face with a knife-blade nose which made placing his origin difficult. The door opened simultaneously with the knock.
“Mr. Christian,” he said slowly, his smile wide and knowing. Genuine, but yet it seemed somehow staged. His English accent was of the upper classes. “You do not know how excited I am to be able to meet you today. Congratulations, Zachary. May I call you Zachary?” He reached out and took Zack’s hand without invitation and shook it vigorously. He floated in an air of excitement and privilege, based on the knowledge that he could do whatever he wanted because he was the one in charge.
“Yes, of course,” Zachary said. His hand was still shaking, and he was glad of the firm grip of this Adjustment Coordinator. “Are you one of the Conservators?”
“Ha ha ha, oh no, Zachary.” The laughter stopped as abruptly as it began. “Now listen to me. My name is Simon. I am your Adjustment Coordinator. I am so excited about today. I have a lot to show you. The whole week ahead will be so full of new experiences for you it’s almost as if I will be seeing them with my own eyes. Like watching a baby learn how to crawl,” he said as he laughed again. His teeth were a brilliant shade of white, his skin absolutely flawless. His cackle was that of a game- show host, something which could be switched off and on to suit the situation. He was wearing make-up, Zack was sure. “I barely know what to do first.” There was no time between his thoughts, a script perhaps, suggesting he knew exactly where their first stop would be. He rubbed his hands together in excitement. “Let’s go somewhere I hope feels familiar for you by now. I pray you've been watching. Our good President, I'm excited. The Lobby. Shall we?”
Zachary nodded his head. The use of ‘our good President’ seemed like an exclamation. Sometimes of excitement, sometimes of disbelief. A little bit like somebody would have used God's name in exasperation in the old world. It was peculiar, but they were moving so fast up the corridor Zack couldn't dwell on it. Instead he kept wondering if he was ready, ‘last minute jitters’ it would have been called once. He wished Samantha was here to hold his hand. He wished somebody could have told him that they were with him. Determined not to lose it, he focussed on the black hair of Simon, shining like a bauble at Christmas, set perfectly in place as he twisted his head forwards and backwards to look at Zack. By this point Zack had no idea what Simon was saying. He was the first person to wear normal clothes. A suit. Grey, and neatly fitted over the top of a white shirt.
They arrived at a lift and the doors opened to reveal perfectly mirrored walls. They stepped inside.
“So, let's get some of the essentials checked off. Recite for me the first creed.” Simon leaned against the mirror and folded his arms.
“Pardon?” Zack said.
“The first creed. Can you recite it for me?”
“No citizen of New Omega shall steal from another,” Zack rattled off without thought.
“Good. And what about the seventh?”
Zack thought for a moment as the lift climbed. “Every citizen of New Omega shall renounce their previous life for the prosperity of society.”
“Hum,” said Simon, unfolding his arms, resting his hands on his hips. “That's close enough, I suppose. We can work on the rest in the coming week.”
Zack watched himself in the mirrors, tuning out Simon's words. He looked so bizarre, all smooth and hairless. He truly was an alien here. But then his image faded and he disappeared, replaced by the lobby before him as they arrived in a glass lift shaft.
The lobby was full of people, some sitting on nearby chairs, some chatting, and some just moving through as if they had a purpose and somewhere to go. There were children smiling, laughing and playing, and adults who were trying to rein them back in. But it wasn't the people that stunned him. No, he had got used to them now. Beyond the people there was a wall made of glass, and it was dripping in light. It was shining in from outside, not by light bulbs as he had imagined from the streamed video. The doors were open and people were moving through them. He could feel the breeze streaming in. The lobby was lit by the sun.
Chapter Nineteen
Simon strode from the lift, his chest puffed out, his head held high like some sort of triumphant warrior. Themistocles, perhaps, upon returning to Athens after defeating the great king Darius, marching into the centre of civilization and democracy. His steps were as wide and as confident as the oceans crossed in battle, the very seas that Zack could barely remember. Picturing them was like searching for a lost pebble in a murky stream. Simon knew this place. He walked the ground as if it was his territory, something that he had conquered, as if he belonged. There was no need to reach down and feel the dirt beneath him, or to bring it to his face and say a prayer. This was his place.
“Are you going to stay in there?” Simon was laughing as he turned to look at Zack, who was standing with his back against the far wall of the lift, his palms pressed flat against it. Simon was waving his hand in a circular motion, beckoning him out as if he were a stray cat, one which had been trying for so long to get into a house, and yet on the cusp of an invitation was gripped by a fear of the world beyond. “Come on,” Simon shouted again.
Zack moved forwards, placing one foot in front of the other with the effort it might take to wade through tar. The memory of stepping from an air conditioned plane into a tropical clime hit him as the heat of the sun glared through the wall of glass. It was a sensation that teetered somewhere between pleasure and pain, a sensation so consuming that is was almost uncomfortable. For the briefest of moments the sun dipped behind a wisp of cloud, casting him in shadow. As the cloud swept across the ground he could see bodies moving around outside. Columns of shade crisscrossed the floor, a natural hopscotch of light and dark. There was no dust. Instead people walked in the sun, a simple act that he had almost forgotten the pleasure of. There were children in brightly coloured clothes, dancing about like insects at the feet of the adults. Somebody from outside waved at him. It had to be real. There was no way this was a simulation.
“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” said Simon as he realised that Zack was transfixed on the image of the outside world, waving back at a person he didn’t know. “There are many things that will be different to Delta Tower.” Simon took hold of Zack’s arm and encouraged him onwards. They moved towards the glass, people crossing their path, occasionally stopping when the
y realised that they had stumbled upon the winner of the Omega Lottery. He was the newest resident, like a new exhibit at a zoo. He brought his hands up to his face, his fingers brushing the bristles of his shaved eyebrows, wondering how he looked to them. Like an alien no doubt, or an insect in a drink. Something that shouldn't be there. The ground outside was smothered in grass, and somebody had planted flowers. It wasn't recently either, because they were bushes, roses, bright and red like the colour of battle, their colour so rich it was almost dripping from the petals. “Now, listen to me,” said Simon, scooping his hand around Zack's waist and moving his head in close. “I have a few things that I simply must show you; your quarters on the seventeenth floor. Then, I want to show you where you will dine.” He stopped outside a set of lifts, pressed the button and then turned to face Zack. He leaned in close as if he was about to share a secret. There was a hopeful look on his face which made his eyes appear scrunched and angular. He licked his lips. “But first,” he said as he stepped into another lift, “let’s go up. Let’s go and see what life here is all about.”
During the journey to level seventy two, Simon spoke incessantly, details which perhaps were pertinent, but were lost in the whirlwind of awe and imagination. In all the time Zack had been in Delta he had dreamed of feeling the sunrise on his face, to watch the day break and wait for the night to seduce it once again. He had waited for the moon to cast its silken light under which even the ugliest appear beautiful. During his time in ISOLATION ONE he had become accustomed to watching it on video. But to see sunshine streaming through a glass window, to feel it, was surreal. To know that it could burn him red should he sit in it. To know that he could be changed by it. This was something he had never expected to see for himself again. It was as if he had been hypnotised by the tendrils of light as they flickered into the lift, forcing him to squint and blink. The world he knew had been painted in a palette of grey, as many different shades of it as you could imagine from the blackest of hell to the palest of heaven. But now light was fighting its way back through.
Without making a sound the lift doors parted on level thirty three, and Simon ushered Zack out and into a second lift. They continued upwards until the sixty ninth floor and Zack followed Simon as he breezed up a series of stairs. Zack traced the fine grain of the wooden panelling, which left the scent of the forest on his finger tips and the whistle of leaves ringing in his ears. He could have been sick with excitement. Standing at the final door, Simon turned and whispered to Zack. “It’s time to stop holding your breath, Zachary. Learn to breathe again.”
Zack caught sight of Simon's hands as he pushed open the door. The skin appeared smooth and unblemished, his nails manicure-perfect. As Zack slid past him he caught the scent of wash day from his childhood. It was as rich as freshly baked bread, drifting through the house and pulling even the dreamiest of sleepers from their beds. But he tried to focus, and moved forwards. Before Zack’s eyes could adjust to the blinding light before him, it was a sound from the past that captivated him. For a moment he wondered if he had left some of his mind on the other side of the door, still in a dreamland. But as he took another step forward he heard it again. It was the roar of the wind as it raced past the corners of the building, peaking and dipping like the cars of a rollercoaster. He imagined the washday sheets flapping in the breeze like the sail of a boat caught in a gale. As he took another step forward he felt the edge of the breeze tickle his face, the chill and then the warmth, coming back and forth in cycles as the breeze strengthened and waned. His eyes adjusted to the sunlight and the vision became clearer.
He was standing on a platform, the top half of which was exposed to the air. The first things he noticed below him were the trees. Greenery like he could never remember seeing before in the city. It crept over building remnants, the natural world slithering to suffocate the product of man. He couldn’t make out the individual leaves or plants, so instead he imagined the climbers, the creepers, slowly working their way over manmade surfaces, the army of nature reborn and determined. As his eyes followed the far reaches of green they scanned a barren land, skimming over the edges of what were once buildings, shimmers of light reflecting from shards of broken glass. The clouds moved lazily in the sky, so close it seemed he could almost reach out and touch them. He walked along the corridor which appeared to encircle the building. The glass walls rose above him to keep him safe, yet on their upper edges they were splintered and broken, as angry as a snow-capped Himalayan ridge. The landscape before him was almost unrecognizable, until his eye caught something that looked familiar, but that seemed alien because he had never before seen it that way.
He met Samantha six weeks after he arrived at university. She was on a different course, something in finance was all he knew at the time. She lived in his hall, but he had never really met her. In fact, he hadn’t paid her any attention. He just thought she looked like any other petite blonde, and hated the way she was always dressed in oversized clothes. The side of her head had once been shaved, but the hairs were now growing back in. He had offered a polite hello from time to time as they passed in the corridors, even once on the way out of the shared bathroom when she was wearing nothing but a towel, but still he hadn’t really looked at her. But six weeks later the students’ association held a ball. The craziness of freshers’ week was over, the courses had started, and there was a pile of work on everybody’s desk. The ball was the one formal event left before people knuckled down to the year ahead. He had turned up drenched in sickly cologne, pinstripes on his suit because his mother thought it was less dramatic and somehow more cheerful than black when they had attended the funeral of a friend the year before. He hadn’t recognised Samantha at first. There was no shaved section on her head. Ιnstead her hair had been swept into a sleek bob, sharp and angular, the same as her face. She wasn’t petite, she was slim, and in a pair of heels she walked with the swagger of a lioness about to hunt. She paid him no attention, and he wanted her immediately.
This was how St. Paul’s Cathedral appeared to him now. At first he took it for just another portion of debris to be easily dismissed. But then he caught sight of the edge of the nave, still standing, some of the archways proud and complete. When he began to search harder, he found the slightest suggestion of a black and white chequered floor. As his eyes followed the course of the remaining structure he realised that atop the walls he could see fragments of the columns which once held up the mighty dome. This cathedral had been the unmistakable landmark of the northern bank of the river, a mighty occupier of the churchyard in which he and Samantha would often walk. Once, they had sat on one of the memorial benches because Samantha said it was important to remember the lives of those who had passed. She said that the past had the power to mould the present, and so it must never be forgotten. Samantha read out her favourite commemorative plaque set into an old semi-rotten bench. Promise me you won’t forget me. If I thought you would, I’d never leave.
“It’s hard to look at it, isn’t it?” Simon said, approaching from behind.
“That’s…” Zack said, pointing down at what he was sure was once a place of beauty and faith, ideals that had been lost to him in his new life, until today.
“Yes, St. Paul’s.” Simon joined him at his side. “It’s somehow still beautiful, isn’t it?” Zack nodded, his eyes scanning the rest of the land, using his mental map of London to attempt to fill in the gaps. “It’s no good,” Simon said. “You won’t be able to place things. The mind can’t place things amongst all the mess.” He took a step forwards, held up his hand and began to point. “You have to know where to look. There, for example. If you follow the river you can just see a spoke of what was once the structure of the London Eye. Do you see it?” Zack nodded. “I used to love to ride on it. I must have ridden on it ten times in the last year, before.”
“That over there, just behind it,” Zack pointed, “that must be.....”
“Parliament, yes. It was once. And Big Ben, but that was destroyed.�
�� Zack looked at the golden bricks, valleys of greenery slicing through them like slits in the sides of mountains gorged by years of water. “For a long time it appeared black, but there was a lot of rain over the winter, and it seems to have cleared things a little.”
“I can’t believe it. This was my home. I lived somewhere over there,” he said, pointing towards what was once Chelsea. He held up his finger, angling it like the point of a compass, orientating his way through the mess of an old world. He landed in the direction of north. He followed, walking towards the northern side of the corridor. His eyes skipped past what looked like the archaeological remains of London Bridge. He was expecting to see the Gherkin, the phallic structure designed to remind the world of the power of masculinity. Instead, in its place there was an endless carpet of rubble. He looked north-west, towards Samantha’s apartment, the place he sometimes called his own. There was nothing recognisable. His head rested onto the glass of the building, the chill shooting through his forehead. Never had he been more certain of her fate. The hopes that he had harboured over the preceding years, that somehow, somewhere, she had survived and was raising their child, were gone. Nothing was more certain. He closed his eyes, dislodging a tear which ran across his cheek before falling to the floor.
“This is why I brought you here, Zachary. There is nothing I can do to explain our predicament. Our situation is as difficult as it is necessary,” he paused, taking a step closer. He stopped just inches behind Zack. “To understand you have to see the truth for yourself. There is nothing I could tell you in advance that would come close in explaining our reality as comprehensively as for you to see it like this. London was all but destroyed.”
“This is what she meant by The Barrens,” he whispered to himself, thinking back to Elana who had brought him food whilst he was stuck in ISOLATION ONE. “But ten years have passed,” said Zack as he traced his finger over the glass, drawing the horizon that should have been there in his breath as it fogged on the window. “What have I been looking at all these years? This is not what I saw from Delta Tower.” There was anger in his voice, because now beyond any doubts he knew that he had been betrayed. Lied to. It was so clear it was like a smack in the face, the wool from his eyes unpicked stitch by stitch. “Why didn’t I know the sun shines and the river still runs close by?” His eyes squinted left and right, as if he was trying to pinpoint his location on a map in a barren desert landscape, nothing to help him and no clue as to where he had found himself. He moved east. “Where is Delta?” he demanded as he paced along the corridor, Simon following.
The Dawn: Omnibus edition (box set books 1-5) Page 18
