“I don’t know, Emily. The last I knew was that Duke picked him up outside Alpha. Somehow they closed them down, got him back. But you did your part. You did everything you could.”
“But what I did doesn’t matter anymore. Whatever I did wasn’t enough because Zack is still here in Omega Tower. They are going to lock this whole place down and he is going to be trapped here.” Emily snatched up the tartan rucksack and grabbed the door handle, yanking it open. She took no more than three firms steps up the corridor before she felt Millward’s strong hands grab her and pull her back. He pushed her against the wall, but not in a way that frightened her.
“Just wait a minute, Emily. We’ve only got seventy-two hours so you don’t have time to make rash, stupid decisions. What do you think you are going to achieve by storming down to Isolation Room Two?” He felt the push of her shoulders slacken as she realised that he spoke the truth. He let the pressure in his hands ease. “You can’t save him. Not like this.”
“If I can’t save him who can I save? There are three whole towers outside which are about to be destroyed. In three days. Nobody else knows. Only us. Brighton has been destroyed, Dover has turned against us. We don’t even know where Jackson is.” She let the tartan bag drop from her hand and her back slid down against the wall. Millward crouched so that his eyes met hers. “It’s hopeless, Millward. We’ve failed everybody.”
For a moment they sat together without any words spoken. They had come so far and they had tried so much and yet had achieved so little. And she knew that there was no number of Alpha residents that she could save that would make up for the one life stuck in Isolation Room Two. She still didn’t know what it was that she felt for Zack, but the idea that he had played his final role in her life was unbearable. That kiss was supposed to be repeated. His hands were supposed to hold her again. She needed that connection just to feel alive. Even when she thought that Zack had escaped, she never really believed that they had said goodbye. She believed that if he was free he would find her. But if Omega was to be destroyed with Zack in it, what would she have to hope for when the new clouds of ash settled upon the ruins of her life?
Emily stood to her feet and picked up the tartan bag, strapping it to her shoulders. Millward stood to attention in front of her, awaiting instruction.
“We haven’t failed. We can’t have failed. I can’t believe that this is all there is. I cannot believe that this is my life. The end of it I mean.” She brushed her half-head of hair and tucked it behind her ear. “It’s going to take a while for the Guardians to get in place, right?” She stared at Millward waiting for an answer. “That was a question, Millward. It will take a long time, right?”
“Not as long as you might hope for. You have to understand, Emily, the charges are already in place. If they wanted the towers destroyed they could blow them up right now. There are enough Guardians in Omega Tower to keep the residents inside. Including you.”
“But they won’t blow this tower up with me inside it.” She pulled gently on his arm. “Walk with me. We don’t have time to waste.”
Emily’s pace was quick as she marched across the lobby, past the empty chairs which remained in their aberrant positions. The smell of Gladstone’s cigar still clung to the particles of stagnant air. Soon enough it would be replaced by the stench of Sarah drifting up through the corridors. Millward, even at his height with his impressive stride had to make an effort to keep up with her.
“The time for discretion is over. We’ve got seventy-two hours and the clock is already ticking. If we are going to achieve anything we have to achieve it now.” She pulled open the main front door and found two Guardians on the other side of it. One was standing with his back to the door, and the other was facing Emily.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you pass, Miss Emily. Your father left me with strict instructions that when you arrived home we were not to let you out of the Presidential Suite again.” The Guardian who spoke seemed sure of his words, and they flowed freely from his tongue. But the other Guardian was conscious that they were trying to imprison the daughter of the president. Maybe he had heard the rumours that she came and went freely through the other towers like a ghost from the past. It was more likely the fact that Millward was behind her. He towered over all of them.
“You cannot keep me here. I come and go as I please.” She was encouraged that her father had no idea that she had been home. He had no idea she knew anything of his plan. “Out of my way,” she said as she pushed forwards.
She was stopped by the Guardian’s hand rising against her chest. She could feel from the pressure that all of his weight was behind it. But she also detected the slightest tremble, betraying his fear. She pushed her bodyweight towards him, testing his will to resist. He pushed back and brought his other arm up to strengthen his grip on her shoulder, and as soon as he laid his second hand on her body she snatched at his Assister. She pulled it free from its loop, bringing the body of the weapon straight up to strike the side of the Guardian’s jaw. Her movement was fluid and the Guardian fell to the floor clutching the side of his face. He tried to speak but his words were mumbled, intercepted by cries of pain. She stepped forwards and raised the Assister again, ready for a second blow.
“You broke his jaw,” shouted the other Guardian, but Millward was quick and his arm was soon outstretched, grabbing the second Guardian by the throat. He pushed the Guardian up against the wall, sending a plinth and blue and white Chinese ceramic pot crashing to the floor. It shattered, shards falling over the floored Guardian like confetti.
“And I’ll do the same to you if you even think about threatening me.” The Guardian tried to nod his head, but Millward’s giant grip limited his movement. He held the Guardian up effortlessly with one hand, his eyes on Emily awaiting direction. The other Guardian was still mumbling, guttural noises which sounded frothy and blood-rich. Emily turned to see claret streaks seeping into the chest of the Guardian’s uniform.
“Ey it ey ong,” he whimpered. Emily looked to Millward for help in understanding but he shrugged his shoulders. “Ey it ey ong,” the Guardian stressed, pointing to his mouth. He spluttered up another globule of blood and spat it onto the red velvet carpet. He eyed the Assister and Emily tightened her grip on the handle.
“He bit his tongue,” the other Guardian stuttered.
Emily looked at the blood as it continued to dribble onto the white of the uniform, and then back to Millward who was holding the other Guardian by the throat. The situation had very quickly got out of hand and she hadn’t even made it past her own front door.
“Millward, I have got to get out of here. Once the lockdown starts I won’t stand a chance in hell.”
Millward reached down and grabbed the bleeding Guardian by the collar and began dragging him along the floor. He manoeuvred the second Guardian into a firm grip on the back of his neck and pushed him forwards. Streaks of blood mottled the black and white marble floor. Emily closed the door and followed, gripping the Assister in both hands. She held it over the head of the bleeding Guardian. If he tried anything she knew she would use it. Millward pushed the second Guardian into one of the leather chairs, and dumped the second on the floor.
“Emily, I’m open to suggestions because I don’t have any of my own. I followed you through that door without any plan in mind and look what has happened.” The unharmed Guardian was eyeing them both as he sat still as a statue in one of the leather chairs. The other Guardian was crippled on the floor. He gripped his hands across his face yet blood continued to spill at an alarming rate. Emily didn’t need to be a nurse or a doctor to know that she had caused significant injury. “They don’t know that we heard what they are planning, but that only gives us a limited advantage. I need you to tell me specifically what you’re thinking.”
Emily fiddled with the body of the Assister, smoothing her hand up and down the dark wooden club. She swallowed nervously, the taste of adrenaline rich on her tongue.
“Get Zack. Get out.�
�� She waited a moment to see how her initial plan sounded to Millward but he gave nothing away so she blurted the rest out. “Save everybody in the towers.”
Millward nodded as if he was expecting exactly that which she had said. “That’s an aim, Emily. Now tell me your plan. How are you planning to achieve any of that?”
She tapped the baton against the palm of her sweaty hand. The action was designed to help her think straight but it also had the added benefit of making her look more threatening. The Guardian in the leather chair inched his way backwards, tried to make himself look small.
“If I move quickly I can get down to Isolation Room Two.” She stopped to catch a breath and tried to swallow, but her mouth was so dry that her tongue grated against the roof of her mouth like sandpaper. “If you give me the gun then I can shoot any door or Guardian in my way, and then find my way out the same way that Zack left before.”
“And then where will you go? Remember they have virtually destroyed the south. God only knows how many Drifters are dead. You haven’t thought this through, Emily. I’ve helped you with everything you wanted to do that went against the plans of this regime,” he paused, “against your father. But we always had time to make sure it was safe. It was always planned. My aim was always to protect you. I knew that when I took you into Delta there were sympathetic Guardians on patrol. I knew that when we went out of the compound and I showed you that the land was recovering and introduced you to some of the Drifters, that we had time to get back and nobody would find out that we had ever been outside. I can’t guarantee that this time.”
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter,” she repeated as if she needed to convince herself. “It doesn’t matter how risky it is, and it doesn’t even matter if I don’t succeed. I just have to try. I can’t just sit here for the next three days in captivity waiting for my father to take me somewhere safe while everybody is killed. I can’t let Zack sit in the basement waiting to die without even knowing it.”
Millward nodded his head. He took a long, deep breath. “We know where he is, and I trust that you would be able to get him out. I’ll give you my gun and from thereon you know the way. If you make it outside of Omega Tower, Zack should be able to lead you both south. What then, I don’t know. But it would be a better chance than staying here. But there’s no chance that you can do anything about the charges set through the buildings. Those charges are rigged to be fired from Epsilon Tower only. That’s the only place from where you would be able to stop them.”
“What about Jackson?”
“We still haven’t heard anything. We have no idea where he is, or even if he is still alive.”
“He could never have made it to Brighton before they destroyed it, which means he’s somewhere on the road. That means they’re still out there.” Her grip on the Assister weakened as she moved closer to Millward. “There is no way I can get far enough south to find them. I don’t know the way. But you do. You could find them and they could come back to help. Delta, Zeta, and Beta are all accessible from the same underground line. They could liberate them all in a matter of hours with RUSE.”
“So why didn’t they do it already?” Millward said quietly.
“What?”
“Why didn’t they when they had the chance? When they took out Alpha Tower, why didn’t they take out Delta, Zeta, and Beta on the same night when nobody was expecting it?” He saw that his words broke some of her spirit. A little bit of hope was spirited away by the truth of the situation and he spoke softly to try to cushion the blow. “We haven’t heard anything from them. Duke is gone. The connections to those in the south have been lost, Emily. Brighton was destroyed and I saw the Northern Compound burning. I want to help the people in the other towers just as much as you do, but I am being realistic. The chance of us being able to save any of them within three days, when we have nobody to help us and no access to RUSE, I would say are slim to nothing. I would say that our only chance of saving anybody is hoping that whoever is in the north, if it is our true Prime Minister, is on their way here.”
“And just sit and wait? Hope to be rescued? I’m not the princess everybody thinks I am, Millward. That’s not my nature.” She looked down at the Guardian’s bloody face and wondered how many she would have to strike before she could save a life.
“You could always say you were pregnant.” It was the unharmed Guardian who spoke. At first neither Emily nor Millward heard him because nobody was expecting him to say anything. Emily had almost forgotten that he was there.
“What did you say?” she asked, looking past Millward’s body towards the chair.
“Forgive me, Miss Emily, but I’ve been listening to everything that you were saying. I don’t understand everything but I have got the gist, I think. Millward’s right. Some of your plan seems a bit ambitious, but I do believe there is a way you could save Zack.”
“Tell me,” she demanded.
“I doubt they would kill him if you were carrying his child. Of course, I don’t mean for you to actually be pregnant, but perhaps the idea of it would be enough.”
“It would never work. They will test her immediately,” spat Millward. Emily was quiet while she considered the Guardian’s proposed plan.
“Not if there aren’t any tests to test her with. Population Planning is carried out on the seventeenth floor on the Community Level. They would be pretty easy to destroy. Or lose.”
“Emily, the whole idea is crazy. Don’t listen to him,” said Millward. He turned to the Guardian. “There’s no hope that the plan would work. And it doesn’t do anything about the towers. They are planning to destroy everything, you know. The old Prime Minister is alive and well. The only thing to do is hope they are coming here.” He turned back to Emily. “Maybe we can get somebody to work on picking up the transmission and trying to get a message to them on the same frequency.” Emily ignored what he said. She was already running the pregnancy plan through her mind.
“Do you really think it could work?” she asked the Guardian. “Would you help me by destroying the tests?”
“Emily, this is madness,” said Millward. “Complete madness. We can’t trust this man.”
“Yes, you can,” said the Guardian. “I didn’t fight you. I didn’t resist. I had no reason to get involved. But you said they are going to destroy the towers and I have friends in there. Not just Guardians. Residents. People who believe the same as you both believe. And what I believe. That there is more to life than existence. I don’t want them to die.”
“And what difference does her being pregnant and getting to save Zack make? We already said that there is no hope of us being able to save the other towers.”
“Because I was there. I was there when she kissed him,” said the Guardian as he cast his grey sunken eyes in Emily’s direction. They were not vacant like many Guardians’ eyes. Not like the one bleeding on the marble floor. He was still mumbling but they ignored him.
“You couldn’t have been,” Emily said. She brushed her hair from her eyes and realised she too was sprayed in blood, droplets clinging to her palm as she pulled it away.
“I was. I was leaving my station to go outside for a cigarette because of the power outage when I saw you and Duke. I saw him attack the two Guardians in the basement, and I followed you from another entrance. I saw you kiss the man who escaped and I heard what you said.” He stumbled over his words like a scared child. “You believe in each other. I haven’t heard anybody say that in years. There is absolutely nothing sensible about what you feel for him, and yet still you feel it. Still you want to save it. Save him. In my whole time in Omega Tower I have never heard another person utter such selfless words. She fought to save him even when it was the most dangerous thing to do,” he directed at Millward as if pleading with him to see sense. “Look what happened to her afterwards, yet still she wants to risk it all again. I would fight to save that kind of emotion. You made me believe too, Miss Emily.”
“That’s what he said to me,” Emi
ly said to Millward as she smudged a tear across her cheek.
“What who said to you?” asked Millward.
“What Zack said to me right before he left. He told me that I made him believe in himself.”
“I don’t know what to do about the towers. I have no solution,” continued the Guardian. “But, I do believe that if you manage to save Zack’s life, then between you there is something that resembles hope. Omega preaches unity, and maybe it is that very thing that will bring it down.” The bleeding Guardian mumbled something again which sounded much like a protest. The second Guardian, as if to prove he was on their side lunged forwards, his fist leading the way. He sunk it into the side of the bleeding Guardian’s head, sending another globule of blood to the floor. The body hit the marble floor with a thump. “Please trust me. I will help you.”
Emily stared at the Guardian and then back to Millward. “We need to find my father.”
Chapter Fifty Nine
In spite of the hesitations that fluttered in her stomach Emily decided that she had no choice but to trust the Guardian who turned out to be called Josh. With Millward’s help they dragged the other Guardian from the main lobby back onto the red velvet carpet. The fact that he had slipped into unconsciousness made the body heavy, but with their combined strength they hauled him to the end of the corridor where Maurice opened up a small room kitted out with an armchair and foldaway bed. As she watched Josh and Millward drop the body of the Guardian on to the rough cotton sheets she wondered if this was the place where Maurice was supposed to sleep. Had he lived here the whole time without windows or a bathroom?
Maurice searched in a small cupboard and pulled a roll of industrial strength tape which they used to bind the Guardian’s hands together. Afterwards Millward tore off a short length with his teeth and placed it across the Guardian’s bloody mouth. The adhesive capabilities of the tape were tested by the bloody film across the Guardian’s face, but not wanting to waste time Josh snatched the tape from Duke’s hand and completed three passes over the Guardian’s mouth, winding the tape around the back of his head. He pressed it in place and more blood seeped into the white sheets. Once he was sure that there was no hope of the tape slipping free he did the same thing around their captive’s ankles and knees before standing back to make a final assessment.
The Dawn: Omnibus edition (box set books 1-5) Page 57
