The Dawn: Omnibus edition (box set books 1-5)

by Michelle Muckley

ISBN-10:150521856

  For those who give me courage to be better than I am

  The secret to happiness is freedom. The secret to freedom is courage.

  Thucydides (460-395 BC)

  I am with you

  Chapter Fifty Four

  Zack roused himself as he heard the doors of the van slam. The driver must have floored the pedal because they sped away with the force of an erupting volcano, firing forwards, away from the ruins of Alpha tower. The last thing that Zack heard was the collapse of the southern wall of Alpha Tower when it came under the heavy fire of the Red Eyes. But then the van turned a corner and Zack slid from his seat as they negotiated the uneven surface of the ground. His head crashed into the small ammunition storage area. Seconds later he passed out.

  “Duke, I think he is dead.” Lund reached forwards and grabbed Zack by the collar of his jacket. He slapped him hard across the face.

  “He better not be dead,” said Duke as he staggered forwards, clinging onto a ceiling-mounted hand loop. He struggled to take tentative steps around Zack’s body as it lay crumpled on the floor. He held on to the edge of the seat to stop himself from falling. He kneeled on the floor, nestling his knees into the curve of Zack’s shoulders. “Zack, buddy, can you hear me?” Duke pressed his first two fingers into the soft folds of Zack’s limp neck and felt for a pulse. The bumpy course of the road made it impossible to make an accurate assessment. Duke slapped him hard across the face, instantly reddening his cheek. Zack opened his eyes briefly before they fell shut once more.

  “Dead, hey?” mocked Nielsen.

  “We haven’t got time for your bickering,” snapped Duke. “Get me a line up.”

  Working in the dark was near impossible but Lund made a sterling effort when it came to getting a needle in Zack’s forearm. He was good at finding veins; always had been. It’s amazing what he had taught himself. Within a matter of minutes, and under the sporadic light of passing Red Eyes, Lund had attached a saline line drip and Nielsen was holding it up in his hand. With his other hand he gripped onto a loop of rubber hanging from the roof of the van.

  “Squeeze it through. Force it,” ordered Duke. Large beads of sweat ran from his forehead towards his cheeks, the saltiness stinging his eyes. He tried to wipe it with his orange boiler suit but it wasn’t at all absorbent and all he managed was to smear the sweat around. In Iraq he had worked in worse conditions. Those injuries were incomparable to what he saw before him now. Blown-off limbs were a lot harder to contend with than busted-up faces.

  Duke didn’t have many options when it came to treating Zack’s wounds, so he reached into the Medibox under the seat and pulled out another bag of saline. He gripped one edge in his teeth to tear it open. There was blood coming from Zack’s lips, a split in his cheek, and even from above a swollen and perforated eyelid. Cleaning each wound separately was impossible and so he did the only thing possible. He doused Zack’s face with the saline, swilling off the blood so that the cuts themselves were visible. Zack lunged forward, his forehead catching Duke right on the chin. Duke bit his lip as he fell backwards, and the knock itself was enough to send Zack crashing back to the floor. Lund jumped on top of him, his hands pressed against Zack’s shoulders. Zack opened his eyes the best he could, just in time to see Duke appearing above him with a weird painted smile like a clown stretched across his otherwise ruddy face. Duke pulled off his glove and wiped his hand across his wet face.

  “You made me bleed, Delta.” Duke pulled his hand further away so that he could inspect it, tilting it left and right in whatever light flickered through the window slits.

  “And you set me up,” Zack mumbled through his fat, bloody lips. “And Emily, too.” Blood trickled into his mouth, coating it with a disgusting metallic taste. He tried to spit it out but the effort manifested as little more than a pathetic splutter. Zack made an effort to scramble forwards, but with three broken ribs and extensive bruising across vast regions of his body, it wasn’t enough to stop Lund securing him to the ground.

  “Yeah, yeah, I set you up. I betrayed everybody,” Duke laughed. “And because I’m such a bastard, Delta, this is really going to hurt.” Zack was hit by what felt like a wave of acid across his face, burning his flesh from the bones. He wriggled and fought but then another set of hands gripped his legs. Somebody’s knee dug deep in his side right over the site of the fractures, sustained from a well-placed Guardian’s boot. Zack drifted from consciousness, voices from the past replacing those of the men in the van. He heard his father in place of Duke, and then Samantha calling to him, telling him to follow her. He was convinced that he must already be dead, which by that point was disappointing only in the fact that it still hurt so much. But with one intense burst the pain became unbearable again and he forced his eyes open to see Duke still hovering above him. He began to struggle until Lund’s knee dug deeper in his side, followed by another crack. Like electricity pain shot through his body, and Zack passed out.

  Duke tossed the empty bag of saline to the floor of the van as the lights faded, meaning they were leaving the lines of Red Eyes behind. With Zack’s face free from dry, clotted blood he could see that most of it was coming from a rather large cut which opened up his smile like a hare lip. He grabbed a wad of gauze and wedged it against the wound. Lund was following the procedure and so reached into the Medibox and pulled out a bandage, which Duke used to wind around the back of Zack’s head to secure the gauze in place. The sounds of screaming and gunfire outside Alpha Tower had dulled.

  “Nielsen, can you see whereabouts we are?” Duke asked.

  Nielsen positioned the saline drip in his teeth and staggered towards the back of the van. He wiped his orange sleeve across the window and then cupped his eyes against the glass. He moved left and right trying to get a better view.

  “All just looks the same to me, Boss. All I see are broken bricks.”

  “What about Alpha Tower? Can you see Alpha Tower?” Duke said as he tied the bandage in place. He pulled the knot tight and Zack groaned. Another good sign. “Keep some pressure on that,” he said to Lund as he stood to his feet. Lund shuffled into Duke’s previous position and manoeuvred Zack’s head into his lap. With a touch more delicate than anybody would have given him credit for he placed a perfect amount of pressure onto Zack’s lip to stem the bleeding.

  Duke joined Nielsen at the window and peered outside. Without the light from the Red Eyes it was nearly impossible to ascertain their position with any certainty, especially when they were still travelling at speed. He stepped back over Zack’s body, balancing his hand on Lund’s head as he pulled a window open which connected the back of the van with the driver’s cabin. He clung onto the old prisoner transfer cage in the corner of the van and recalled the days of sweat and fear when he had been trapped inside a similar cage as his superiors drove him across the Iraqi desert.

  “Cut the power a minute, Jay,” Duke said to the driver. “We need to know where we are.”

  The van screeched to a dusty halt and Duke jumped down through the back doors. There was near silence where they found themselves. No Guardians calling. No guns firing. He searched the distant horizon for anything familiar until he came across the black shadow of Alpha. Seeing roughly where that tower stood in relation to his position he was able to locate the old spokes of the London Eye just poking out from behind the wreckage of the buildings that once lined the road. They were close to Omega.

  The road ahead was straight but their course was a zigzag trail through a path of burned-out buses and cars, all partially covered in fallen building debris. Duke jogged forwards until he came to a curve in the road. Ahead was the southern perimeter, the wall they had been building. Just beyond that he could see the golden glow of Omega. The glow from the building made it possible to see several bodies positioned on the top of the wall.

  “Cut the lights, Jay.” After a long moment his eyes adjusted. The moonlight lit up the uneven surface of the river, and he realised they were just to the south of t
he nearest entrance. It was time to change direction, otherwise before long they would be back in Omega-controlled territory. As he turned to walk to the back of the van he heard the first rumble. It grew like a crescendo, and the ground shook underneath him. Somewhere in the distance Nielsen called to him to hurry up and get back to the van. Just as Duke began running for the van the first bricks began to fall from the precarious buildings which stood obstinately along the edge of what once was a road.

  In the distance he saw the dust swirling up in a giant wave, swallowing up Alpha tower. At first he thought that it was the dust that was rising with such speed. But then he realised that as the dust was rising the building was also falling. It began as a vertical descent before the weight of the upper levels became unsteady and it began leaning to the side. The building collapsed and the ground beneath them shook. Duke jumped into the van and slammed the doors. Even from their distance they saw the waves of dust swarming towards them, like wasps intent on attack.

  “Let’s go, let’s go,” Duke shouted as the van once again roared into life. They zigzagged through the maze of debris as best they could, occasionally striking unexpected obstacles. Stones and boulders rained down from what was left of the buildings as they shook under the strain, reliving the day when they first started to fall. Some of the smaller ones landed on the roof of the van, as if they were under fire from an invisible enemy. But the enemy wasn’t invisible. It was right in front of them in a glowing glass tower, secured behind a wall that they had helped build. They swerved to the left and took the road that led them away from Omega Tower and towards the safety of the south.

  “They’ll track us,” shouted Lund as he protectively cradled Zack’s limp body in his arms.

  “He’s right,” agreed Nielsen. Even if Duke hadn’t realised that to be the truth, just hearing Lund and Nielsen agree was enough to make him pay attention. He pulled his orange boiler suit down and tore at the flimsy T-shirt, exposing his left shoulder. He reached into the Medibox and rummaged around until he found a scalpel. He clenched his jaw tight and dug the tip of the scalpel into the flesh between his neck and his shoulder. He screamed through gritted teeth as the van tilted towards the left causing the scalpel to advance further into to his flesh. He pulled it out and tossed it away so that it landed on Zack’s abdomen. Duke poked his fingers into the open wound and fished out a small metal tracker. He took the tracker by his teeth and grabbed another bag of saline from the Medibox. He fell to his knees and picked up the scalpel. He punctured a small hole into the bag, before squirting the saline into the wound. He used a few more squirts of the saline to clean the scalpel and then offered it to Lund.

  “We have to get rid of our trackers.” Lund took the scalpel and passed it is Nielsen. He was shaking his head.

  “You pussy,” scoffed Nielsen. “Why don’t you go next?” His words were tough but his face betrayed his fear.

  “Duke is right, we need to cut them out. But you do not want my blood on the scalpel. I’ll go last.”

  Both Duke and Nielsen watched Lund for a moment. Lund focussed on Zack and rechecked the wound dressing on his lip. Duke motioned for Nielsen to get on with it, and so he dropped to his knees and snatched the scalpel from Lund’s hand.

  For someone who had stabbed numerous young girls he made the incision with more than a degree of difficulty. He brought the blade to his skin several times before chickening out. After the third attempt Lund snatched the blade from him and sunk it into Nielsen’s shoulder where he expected the tracker to be. It was all too quick for Nielsen to stop him, but as Nielsen screamed in pain Lund jabbed the bloody scalpel into his own shoulder without making a sound. In the time it took for Nielsen to fiddle his tracker from his wound, Lund had pulled his own tracker and stuffed a wedge of gauze in the neat hole in his shoulder. He washed his hands repeatedly with saline, and both Duke and Nielsen dodged the flow of pink fluid as it trickled across the floor of the van.

  “You’re gonna need to be careful with that wound, Lund,” said Duke, hanging from the loops on the roof of the van. Lund didn’t say anything as he secured the wound and stemmed the bleeding. He had managed to pull the tracker out his own shoulder with the smallest of incisions and minimal trauma. He reached into the Medibox with his clean hand and found another rolled up bandage. He shoved the blade into the centre of the roll so that it wasn’t a risk to anybody else.

  “I know what I need to do with this wound. When you stick enough needles in your arms you eventually put in more than just drugs. I won’t bleed on you, guys, don’t worry. But you should take Zack onto your lap, Duke. Just in case.”

  They pulled up long enough for Lund to step down from the van and throw each of the trackers into the river. While he was outside Nielsen made uncomfortable signals towards the glistening floor, slick with infection-rich blood. Duke shook his head, and Nielsen understood to keep quiet.

  They followed the course of the road south until they pulled up at what was once the old Battersea Power Station. The chimneys were lost in the wave of explosions that marked the onset of war, but against all odds the walls of Battersea Power Station had stood firm, fortified by the steel skeleton inside the structure. They drove through narrow lanes pockmarked with puddles which seemed to remain in place whatever the season. They cornered the final turn and the great mass of the power station came into view. They drove straight through what used to be the southern door and into the cavernous chamber. Jay drove straight into the flimsy metal fencing that blocked the path, tearing through it like a scythe through grass.

  They descended a damp moss-covered ramp and pulled the van into a dark corner, concealing it in the shadows of the building on the west side of the turbine hall. Between them they carried Zack from the van and into the depths of the building.

  They passed two rooms, disregarding them on the basis that they were open on at least two sides and therefore short on protection. Although it was the tail end of summer the temperatures had fallen, and the breeze easily found a route through the incomplete walls and broken windows. There was a sickness in the air, carried on the dust from Alpha. Duke wanted to get away from it. He could feel it on his clothes, his skin, seeping into the self-inflicted wound on his shoulder that was weeping much more than Lund’s judging by his red-soaked bandage. The sickness was the screaming from Alpha Tower, the wailing that poured from the building. Duke had seen many residents disappear into the bowels of the city. With a bit of luck they would be trailing their way south with the guidance of Street, Stoat, and Jackson. But there were others who had met the force of the Guardian’s Assisters, falling to the floor much like Zack had. Then others still who never made it out of the building before it collapsed. Before they brought it tumbling down. He remembered the old nursery rhyme as he slumped back against a wall of old dials, with Zack’s head resting in his lap.

  London Bridge is falling down,

  Falling down, falling down.

  London Bridge is falling down,

  My fair Lady.

  It seemed to him that the whole of London was falling down. Now they had even started pulling down the bits that they had preserved. Soon enough there would be nothing left but Omega Tower. Gamma was gone. Alpha was gone. Eta never even made it past the first wave of explosions. He had heard the rumours about Beta, the increase in force, the decision to ration them even further. They barely had enough to survive as it was, even though they were responsible for harvesting the crops and caring for the livestock. Everybody knew Zeta had fallen apart. There was a reason why nobody had any more uniforms and why they had been forced to turn to shipments coming from what was left of Europe.

  Zack was starting to stir in his lap. Duke opened up the satchel still hanging over Zack’s shoulder. He pulled out the water canister, and after taking a luxurious swig he set it down on the dusty floor. He pulled out a waterproof jacket. He wriggled free and used the bundled-up satchel as a makeshift pillow, and then used the waterproof jacket to drape across Zack’s body. H
e checked the dressing on Zack’s lip and then stood up, stretching his tight, painful back. It had been sheer chance that Duke had arrived outside Alpha Tower at the same time as one of the Guardians identified Zack. The impulse to take him was instant, and his orders to return with prisoners from Alpha Tower were quickly abandoned. He had always struggled with his dual role in New Omega, working for both President Grayson and the Southern Resistance. It wasn’t easy trying to appear genuine to both parties, when all you were really doing was hedging your bets and trying to pick a winning side. But the impulse to take Zack came to him without any thought, and when it came to his own judgement he always trusted his instincts. Back in Omega Tower they would already know that he had disobeyed his orders, but he didn’t risk the thought that they would find him. He returned to the van and pulled out the communications radio from the front of the cabin. Before he managed two steps back Nielsen was at his side.

  “What are you planning to do with that?” he asked looking down at the radio. “If you contact Omega Tower they will be straight out here to find us.”

  “Omega Tower is just about the only place I wouldn’t want to call.” He hoisted the radio equipment into his arms and pulled two water bottles from the foot well of the cabin which he thrust into Nielsen’s arms. Jay had been working on lighting a fire since they arrived, collecting any shards of dry wood that he could find from the belly of the building. By the time Duke and Nielsen returned he had collected a good amount of kindling, piled up in a corner of the room. Duke set the radio down and began to deconstruct the bonfire, pulling out all the pieces of black rubber that he could see. “This will smoke us out,” he said to a disgruntled-looking Jay, “and probably bring them straight to us. Let’s not make it easier for them than it already is.”

  Jay worked on the fire keeping it fed with shards of timber, expertly preparing it for the larger sized chunks of wood. Duke set the frequencies for Brighton Checkpoint Station Ten. Nielsen remained at his side, leaving only to check on Zack every few minutes. They’d found an IV shot in the Medibox labelled as PAINKILLER, and by mutual agreement Lund saw to it that it was administered correctly to Zack. Nielsen offered up a Ritalin tablet that he had procured from one of the Guardians earlier on that day. He explained how he had intended to take it upon his return to Epsilon Tower, the place where most of them lived. When he realised he was never going to make it back he reached the conclusion that Zack would benefit from the dose more than he. Duke was impressed because he had always assumed Nielsen to be a sociopath, and found a degree of hope in the knowledge that even he could show empathy. Duke told him to keep the Ritalin and take it when he really needed to.