“Come in BCS 10, over.” There was nothing but static on the line. “Come in BCS 10.” Duke released his finger from the transmit button and waited for a response. “Nothing. We will try again in a minute.” It was cold in the ramshackle shelter so they all edged in closer to the fire as Jay heaped on another log. When Duke realised that Lund was nowhere to be seen he scanned the room with his torch. He located him sitting behind a wall of dials. “What’s his problem?” Duke asked of Nielsen, who just shrugged his shoulders in response. “Go and get him. Bring him close to the fire.” Nielsen begrudgingly approached Lund and after a heated exchange in a language nobody else understood, they returned together. Lund sat down next to Duke, and Nielsen sat as far away from Lund as he could without compromising the distance from the fire. Everybody pretended that they hadn’t noticed.
“Come in BCS 10, over,” Duke tried again. There was still no response.
Nielsen was the one that heard it first, but everybody else was soon to catch up. It was the unmistakable screech of a Red Eye in close proximity. Duke grabbed the waterproof jacket from Zack’s body and smothered it over the fire. They all stamped their feet to put it out and then crouched in total silence. When Zack began to stir, Duke slid alongside of him and placed his hand over his mouth. The effect of the beating and the drugs had worn off at the worst possible moment. Two Red Eyes and a bunch of Guardians numbering at least eight were just the other side of the wall, and that didn’t include the Comrades who were inside the Red Eyes. Zack attempted to ask what was going on but the sudden influx of light into the room was all the answer he needed. Duke shook his head and brought a spare finger up to his lips. They all fell silent.
The Guardians appeared thankful of the cover which the old power station gave them. It was a chance to slacken the chains that held them to the regime. Their uniforms were dirty, and most of them had blood splatters covering the front portions as if they had been painting the walls of a brothel. Some of them were injured, and one of them was nursing a head wound. He removed his black hat and one of the other Guardians from the company of the other Red Eye tended to his wound. That’s when they first heard the screaming.
The screams were shrill and urgent, and unmistakably female. Duke had been in a war zone and he knew those screams. It meant capture, and fear. It meant that the person was there against their will and terrified of what was about to happen. Nielsen looked to Duke for guidance, a quick shrug of his shoulders as if seeking permission to act. Lund and Jay exchanged the same knowing look. Everybody remained still. Duke said nothing. The Guardians were laughing, cheering, louder each time the girl’s screaming intensified.
Zack had spent many years rolling through life without purpose or intent. Breaking free from Omega Tower had changed that. He didn’t know what was on the Guardians’ minds, but he could sure as hell make a guess. He wasn’t about to sit back and listen to another crime be committed while he stood back and did nothing. The time for inactivity was over. He reached across Duke’s leg for the gun which he knew would be holstered on his thigh. He felt his fingers slide over the cool metal, but that sensation was quickly followed by the touch of warm skin on top of his own. He glanced back towards Duke who shook his head. His fingers slipped around Zack’s wrist, a pain shooting up through his wounded shoulder.
“Decide how you want it to end,” Duke whispered. “Here for a woman you don’t know, or in Omega for the sake of Emily.”
Zack loosened his grip on the weapon and pulled his hand away. Above his head was a wooden post sticking out of the ground, a metal rod bound to it. There was a time it would have been used for energy production, but this time its purpose was different. Zack gripped the metal bar, let it suck the energy out of him to keep him from moving. He knew what Duke was saying was right. As much as he wanted to believe Duke was against him, there was sense in what he said. He couldn’t die here. The Guardians would never risk trying to apprehend Zack if he went at them with a gun. Leaving the woman to her fate was the only option if he wanted to survive to face another fight.
But his thoughts were shattered by the sound of gunfire. A single bullet released from a gun. Lund, the closest to the broken windows slid his body along the ground until he could grip with his fingertips against the old frame to pull himself up. He gained some purchase with his feet and without a sound he peeked through the window. He turned back to Duke a second later and made a slicing motion with his fingers across his neck. Moments later the sound of the Red Eyes resonated through the impotent building before fading to a distant rumble. The voices of the Guardians followed until Zack and his rescuers were left in the silence of the woman’s death.
They waited until they could no longer hear the distant screech of the tracks of the Red Eyes before venturing out into the chamber of the building.
“Hand me a torch,” said Duke as he led them out. Zack reached for his satchel and only then realised that he no longer had it. He felt the bandages on his head and traced them back to his lips. He tried to move his facial muscles and a sharp pain shot through from his chin to his cheek. His lips felt wet, and the taste was metallic on his tongue. Who had bandaged him? Duke? Lund handed Duke a sturdy-looking torch with a strong searchlight beam. Moss and rusty steelwork flashed into view as the light licked across the wet ground until it caught the edge of a naked foot.
Zack followed closely behind Duke, his head sore and woozy, his side cramping up in spasms of pain. His breathing felt hard, as if every breath had to be stolen from the air around him. He clutched his side and the pain eased. They arrived at the body of the woman who had been screaming only moments before, dressed in an Omega-issue uniform. Duke bent down and reached for the right hand. A tattoo which read 1023A was marked on her wrist. She was from Alpha but all Zack could think about was the woman killed on his first day outside. He glanced at Nielsen, remembered him standing in the rain with blood swilling around his feet, his unreachable face hidden behind a mask.
Just wait. I'll get some help, he heard himself saying. They'll help get you down.
“We let her die,” Zack spluttered to nobody in particular. He fiddled at the bandage and in frustration ripped it away, pulling away the early clotted blood. “We let her die,” he said again, more clearly this time. But out of those around him, who could he expect to understand? Duke was a war criminal and Nielsen was a murderer. Damn it, he was probably enjoying his time in New Omega. Like a trip to a forsaken version of Disneyland for people with a penchant for blood. As for Lund and whoever the other guy was, he didn’t hold out much hope for either of them.
“We didn’t let her die. Nobody wanted to see her die,” said Duke. “We didn’t have a choice.”
“There is always a choice,” Zack shouted back. “It’s just that sometimes it is easier to pretend there isn’t so you don’t have to deal with the fallout.”
Zack dropped to his knees, the wet of a puddle seeping into his Omega-issue trousers. With his free hand he rolled the body of the woman. Her face was bloodstained, eye blackened, easily recognizable as the mark of an Assister. But behind the marks and the mud on her cheek were blue grey eyes, cheekbones that would have once been beautiful. Zack drew his free hand across the angles of her face, leaving tracks in the layer of mud on her skin. Lund and Jay stood to the side. Nielsen backed away, perhaps, Zack wondered, programmed to feel differently from the rest of them when faced with death. Duke crouched down opposite Zack. He gazed at the woman and then back to Zack.
“There was nothing we could do. They would have killed us. They outnumbered us, Zack.” Duke picked up the woman’s hand. He traced the line of her fingernails, letting his hand follow the peaks and troughs of her knuckles. It was a tender and unexpected moment. Zack was transfixed by a moment of humanity when he least expected it. Duke placed the woman’s hand back down, resting it on her chest. He closed her eyelids as he drew his fingers over them and somehow her judgement of their passivity was lessened. “I would estimate eight Guardians, eight Comr
ades. Between them, that’s a lot of bullets for us to dodge.”
“We couldn’t see them. We didn’t know that.” Duke was back on his feet, looking to Lund for confirmation.
“He’s right,” agreed Lund. “Usual numbers.” Duke began to walk away and Nielsen followed, glad of an excuse to leave.
“But she was somebody’s. Wife, girlfriend, daughter. We all are somebody’s somebody. At least we were once. Wasn’t she worth more than this? Don’t you have anybody, even a memory worth fighting for?”
“They picked us well, Zack,” said Duke without stopping. “You’re a good person, caught up in this. But we’re not like you. We lost what we had before the war. We were the only ones to blame for the end of our lives.”
“Iraq,” said Zack, remembering what Street had told him. Duke stopped in his tracks. He turned quick as a flash ready for a fight, to contest, but as soon as he did the fight was lost. The adrenaline had kicked in quickly, but reality hadn’t been far behind. There was nothing to contest.
“Yeah, Iraq. I don’t know how you know about it, but we’ve all made mistakes. I made some mistakes in war. Bad judgements which the people I loved could never forgive me for. He killed his sister,” Duke said as he looked to an emotionless Nielsen, his face as cold as ice. “He fell in love with a drug that ruined his life long before the bombs came,” Duke finished as he pointed to Lund.
“And you?” Zack asked of Jay who was slinking in the background. Who did you destroy to end up here?
“My crime is not one of blood. My crime was greed. I have perhaps destroyed many more lives than all of you put together, only in a different way.” Zack thought of the days when his father lost his family’s fortunes through a series of bad decisions. Money was a devil to whom all paid a price. It had been those days that had destroyed his father, and any chance of a relationship with him. If Jay was one of the responsible it would be easy to hate him for that.
“And what about you?” Duke asked. It took a moment for Zack to realise that he was the only one left. Zack had created an impromptu therapy session where they shared their secrets, but he hadn’t anticipated how it could be turned around on him. “Never made a mistake? Never hurt anybody who loved you?”
Zack’s silence was enough to answer the question. It was easy to judge the others, and yes, in comparison his crimes could not be compared to that of Nielsen’s or Duke’s. But he had hurt people. He had hurt the person who loved him the most with no thought to her feelings. He had given up on a future that he had created, and then spent the next ten years feeling that somehow in spite of that he deserved more than he got. But he didn’t believe that anymore. Now he believed you got what you deserved. And that was why it had to be different now. Why he had to be different.
“My name is Zachary Christian,” he began. “I was born in Kingston upon Thames, not far from here. I loved my mother, hated my father, and hated myself even more for hating him.” He stood up with muddy water dribbling down his leg, tossing the bloody bandage to the ground. A trail of blood slithered down his chin which he wiped away with the back of his hand. “I told my girlfriend I didn’t want the child she was carrying, and I never got a chance to undo that. So yes, I made mistakes. I ruined her life in the hour before the bombs fell. But that was ten years ago. There is nobody here to judge me on that mistake, just like there is nobody to judge you all for yours. Now we have the chance to make new choices. I want somebody to know what they did to this woman. I want somebody to know what they did to Serena.” The name rolled from his tongue easily, but then the memory hit him. Serena. “Serena. Where is she? Did she make it?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“And Alpha?” Memories of the recent hours came flooding back. Windows smashing, Red Eyes firing.
“You managed to save about two hundred people,” said Duke. Right after that I picked you up.”
Duke pulling him into the van. Duke talking on the Communications Panel. He had betrayed him. “But you betrayed us,” Zack said, rubbing his head, his fingers identifying different egg-shaped lumps on the surface of his skull. His breathing suddenly felt harder, sharper. It was as if he was breathing acid.
“I did not betray you.”
“I heard you in the van. You said that Brighton was destroyed.” He gasped, winced as he doubled over. “You betrayed Emily, too. I have to get to Emily.”
Duke was at his side and he was holding Zack up. “Zack, go easy. Emily is safe enough. Nielsen, take his other arm.”
Zack felt another set of hands at his side, and as he looked up he saw Nielson blurring in and out of view.
“He is wheezing, Boss,” Nielson said.
“Get him inside,” Duke called. “And grab the Medibox.”
They dragged Zack across the mossy ground until they arrived at their previous shelter on the western flanks of the power station. They dropped him to the ground next to the smouldering embers of the fire because he was unable to bear his own weight.
“He’s not breathing,” shouted Lund.
Duke grabbed the scissors from the Medibox and sliced through Zack’s Omega uniform to expose his chest. Lund was wrong. He was breathing, but it was sporadic and irregular, and only one side of his chest was inflating.
“Find me a big needle, Lund,” Duke called as he started prodding at Zack’s chest. “And see if we have any of Ronson’s Moonshine in the van.”
Jay ran to the van, skidding back to the ground clutching a bottle of Moonshine just as Lund opened up a sterile needle packet. Duke snatched the alcohol and after twisting out the cork with his teeth he splashed the contents all over Zack’s chest. Without a moment to spare he jabbed the needle straight into the space just above where Zack’s heart would be.
“You’re gonna kill him, Boss,” shouted Nielson.
“No, I’m not.” Duke attached a three way valve to the end of the needle and as he opened the tap they all heard the whistle of air as it rushed through the needle. “His lung collapsed. He would have died if I didn’t do something.” They waited for Zack’s breathing to regulate itself, and after several long seconds it returned to normal. Duke let out a slight laugh of disbelief as Zack became more comfortable, and Nielson slapped him on the back. “I can’t believe it worked,” Duke laughed as he taped the needle in place. Even Lund, who hadn’t smiled since he had revealed that he carried a blood-borne virus, appreciated the fact that they had just saved Zack’s life. They all stood back up. Nielson was laughing so hard as he clasped hands with Jay, stopping only when he was hit by the splatter of hot blood across his face. The bullet had struck Duke in the temple as it sent him crashing to the floor with a thud. He was followed by Nielsen, then Lund. Jay was hit last. After they arrived in the power station nobody had considered the tracker still buried in his shoulder.
The Comrade pulled his Communication Panel from his belt as he stood over Zack and the four bleeding bodies. Nielsen twitched and only a second later the Comrade planted another bullet in the centre of his forehead for certainty. The Comrade holstered his gun and pulled out his scanner, holding it up to Zack’s wrist. It beeped twice, confirmed the identity. He held the Communication Panel up to his ear.
“Sir, I have him located. How do you want me to bring him in? Dead, or alive?”
Chapter Fifty Five
The cell was no more than three metres in any direction. The bed was retractable, disappearing into and appearing out of the wall according to a predetermined schedule of prescribed sleep. As the bed appeared the lights dimmed, and within five minutes it was as dark as it would get. Not dark enough to sleep. The ability to drift away came in sporadic bursts, and only at the point of exhaustion, when light and discomfort stopped being a factor.
Meagre portions of food were delivered on a routine basis; porridge oats in the morning with a small portion of fruit, usually berries of some kind. Later on, a light supper. It wasn’t much, and not in line with the usual Omega offerings, but there was little on which to expend ener
gy in a three by three metre cell, so food was not high on the list of requirements. It was still better than what was on offer in Delta, but she would never learn to appreciate that. They were still providing a future, albeit not the one she was expecting.
In the next cell, Simon perched on the end of the bed under the bright light that had been shining for the last seven days. Of course, Simon had no idea how long he had been here because the light had remained illuminated throughout, even intensifying, it seemed, when the bed was available for sleeping. Sometimes he was sure that the bed reappeared only minutes after disappearing. If their intention was to disorientate him, they had succeeded. He had arrived at a state so far removed from lucid that the shiny white tiles on the wall appeared to swell and retract. The light in the ceiling seemed to have grown as big as the sun. His skin was crawling, itchy, dry, and tight. His mouth was so parched his tongue was almost stuck in place. It was as if nothing was real anymore.
The door to Sarah’s cell opened and two Comrades stepped inside. Sarah hadn’t seen anybody since Margareta organised her custody and left her here days before. Margareta had insisted that it was necessary. ‘To ensure that she didn’t make any desperate or rushed decisions,’ was what she had said. For her own protection. When Sarah had questioned the decision to keep her in solitary confinement Margareta had been quick to remind her that she had colluded with two lower caste citizens, although, Margareta conceded, not lower than Sarah’s own caste. Nevertheless, it was an unacceptable breach of trust. Collusion could not be tolerated. Just like fornication. How many creeds did she want to break? Margareta was there to ensure that such an incident would never happen again. When Sarah asked what she was supposed to do now, Margareta’s words were simple.
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