A knock on the door interrupted them. Emily jumped up and moved the chair, allowing a woman to walk in with a dinner trolley. Emily wasn’t used to eating meals like this, but Zack was. He recognised the plates from the isolation rooms during his first period of confinement. Back then he was being kept away from those above ground for the safety of the Tower, and really when he thought about it, nothing had changed. The woman left, and just before the door closed Emily caught sight of the two Guardians sitting in a nearby chair. They had abandoned their posts already.
“I have heard the transmission too, Zack. Some defence systems cut out when we cut the power for you to escape and our systems picked up the same signal. But we have no idea if it was real or not.”
“It sounded real to me,” Zack said as he lifted the silver lid from the plate. Fish in a white sauce with the smell of parsley wafting up on the steam. He was so hungry. There was a jacket potato and green beans on the side. Emily looked at it longingly and realised that she too hadn’t eaten all day. Zack took a mouthful of the fish and swallowed it fast.
“It sounds real to my father too. He is scared about who managed to survive in the north. He thinks he is going to be tried for treason or something. That’s why he wants everybody to move to Canvey Island. They even have boats that can help people escape if necessary.”
“Then that’s where we have to go. We have to get Leonard and go there,” Zack said as he shovelled in another mouthful.
“It’s not that simple, Zack. How are we supposed to get into Delta Tower now? I sent somebody I trust to the south to look for Jackson. If he finds them then maybe they can use RUSE to free the towers.”
“And if not, we just sit here waiting? Waiting for people that might not even be coming?” He pushed the dinner plate away and motioned for her to sit next to him on the end of the bed. “All my life I have been selfish and passive. I have gone with the flow, taken the path of least resistance. I can’t even begin to tell you the mistakes I made before the bombs fell. Horrible mistakes that I am ashamed of. When you told me that you believed in me, I knew it was the chance I needed to make things right.” He reached up and stroked her hair, tucked the long strands behind her ear. He let his hand slide from her hair across her cheek, and when he felt her move towards it he pulled her closer and let his hand fall to her shoulder, brushing past her chest, slipping around her back. He leaned in and kissed her and she responded, their mouths moving fast and then slow, soft and then hard. It felt like their first kiss, only this time they knew that it wouldn’t be the last. He pulled away but kept her close, his nose touching hers. But then the lights flickered and they both jumped. A line of static whizzed across the windows before the lights came back on. They were both so distracted by their proximity to each other that the issue with the lights was quickly dismissed. “I can’t sit and wait,” Zack said as he brushed his face against hers. “I can’t be passive. I don’t know what to do yet, but we have to think of something.”
He leaned in to kiss her again when the lights flickered for a second time before going out completely. Another flicker of static appeared on the screen and this time they both paid attention. They stood up and walked to the window and as Zack brought his fingers up to the glass a charge of static electricity shot out to his finger. He pulled it away in shock.
“Did you do this?” he asked Emily. The screen faded to black, occasionally turning milky white as the words PROVIDING YOUR FUTURE fought to be seen. But the black won out and the sky gradually faded into view, thick grey clouds that smothered life. They began to hear the torment of the other residents in the nearby rooms as their cries of dismay echoed up the corridor.
“No. The Control Panel isn’t even near me.” She reached her finger out and felt the same spark reach out for her. “They haven’t been like this since the days before the dawn. When the system starts there is a burst of electricity and the screens become static for a while. It fades with time.”
“Why would they do this? Why would they put this back on?” he asked her.
“Zack, they wouldn’t.”
Zack and Emily crept to the door and opened it a crack. They saw both Guardians receiving instructions through their Communication Panels and before long they both took off up the corridor. There were other residents in the corridors, the shadows on their faces from the blue emergency lighting making them appear ghoulish and gnarled.
“Zack, what’s going on? It doesn’t make any sense. Who is doing this?”
“I don’t know, but whoever it is, they are not working for Omega. Look.” He pushed her back into the room and moved into the corridor. He closed the door and then opened it again. “The locks aren’t working. As soon as I saw the emergency lighting I knew, because it was just like when I got out before.” He closed the door behind him. “Or rather when you got me out.”
“That was somebody in Epsilon that took out the power. I only had eight minutes to get you out then.”
He reached over to her wrist and checked her watch.
“Trying to do something now might be the last chance we ever get. But the whole tower is on lock down with Guardians everywhere. We will never be able to get out.”
“Well, it looks as if those Guardians just got a new objective.” He motioned to the corridor, where the Guardians charged with keeping them here were nowhere to be seen. Never be able to get out, Zack thought as he listened to her words over and over again in his head. “Never get out.” She held her hands up as if to say that she didn’t understand where he was going with the idea. “We were never going to be able to get everybody out of the other towers. It was always an impossible task. But we never even thought about freeing people from Omega Tower. Why?”
“Because it is already free.”
“Is it? Do you feel free right now?” She looked down at her wrist and saw the black barcode Omega sign and shook her head. There was nothing free about her life. Everything came with a price, a condition. “It is no more free than Delta Tower but everybody has forgotten that. Everybody got used to saying their Daily Renunciation Pledge. They got used to complying with their weekly trip to the hygienist. They were so damn grateful of being allowed to wander for five minutes until they met a compound perimeter blockade that they accepted that as freedom.” Zack gripped at his side and took a pained breath in. “But by the looks of what I see on that window, I would guess that somebody is trying to make them remember.”
Chapter Sixty Five
Without even discussing what they were going to do Emily ripped the pillowcase from the bed and began filling it with anything that could be useful. She threw in towels, food and drinks from the well-stocked minibar, and toiletries and medication supplies that filled the bathroom. She pulled one of the braided curtain ties from the wall and used it to create a loop around the top of the case.
From the corridor outside their bedroom there was very little activity. They could hear people behind doors complaining about the outrage, and a few were sticking their heads into the corridor to see if there was any activity which might help explain the untimely appearance of the nuclear winter outside their windows. As they neared the top of the corridor Emily could hear crying coming from behind one door and as they approached a man opened it and snatched at Zack’s arm.
“What in all manner of manifesto violations is going on?” His wife was in floods of tears with a child at her feet who she seemed incapable of consoling. There were deep frown lines on the man’s forehead and his lips were drawn tight across his teeth. He was as terrified as his wife, and when he saw Emily’s half head of hair he looked even more perplexed.
“We heard that there is a possibility of attack,” said Emily. She said it loud enough that the woman behind the man could hear, and sure enough she yelped and the child’s crying intensified. Everybody should get to the lobby. Spread the word and tell everybody that you know.”
The man in the doorway wasn’t the only person to hear Emily suggest that these latest incidents indic
ated the possibility of attack. Several people surged into the corridor from behind the doors of their Unity Quarters and began surging forwards towards the lobby on level forty. Emily and Zack were soon lost in the crowd, which didn’t help because Zack’s speed was slow even when he was trying to run. Emily could see the sweat forming on his brow and the pain that was surging through his body was engraved in the deep frown lines of his face.
They arrived in the lobby to find a crowd forming at the lift. One man was trying to take control of the situation, raising his arms above the crowd as if he was about to bless them. Nobody was convinced by his reassurances, and he was soon pushed out of the way by a small crowd of angry men who began trying to pry open the doors to the lift. Unconvinced by their efforts, most of the crowd turned to the unlit stairs to begin the long walk down.
Emily checked her watch. They had little over six minutes if the power cut was to last as long as it had before. But with the number of people on the stairs, and with Zack’s inability to move at any kind of pace, progress was painfully slow.
The transmission started when they were on the fifth floor. The voice of the old Prime Minister blaring out through the speakers of Omega Tower. Some people began to cry, but most people began to run. What began as a shuffle had turned into a full-on sprint. The comforting words of the old Prime Minister, his promise to take action and offer protection did little to comfort the residents of Omega Tower. It was as if they all knew that they had been living in an unworthy society, culpable and responsible for the actions of their leader. They did not understand that they had, in many ways, as little freedom as the rest.
The crowd in the lobby was vast. Some were calling for the Guardians to open the doors, and others were screaming about an imminent attack. As Emily ran ahead she hadn’t realised that Zack had stopped somewhere behind her. When she turned she almost lost him in the hostile crowd, and fought her way back, pushing and shoving until she got to him. He was the only person who was perfectly still as he stared at Sarah’s stiffened body hanging above the front doors. The hood that was covering her head had red stains where the nose and the lips would be. In the place of her eyes there was just a shadow. He knew that he wasn’t responsible, but he couldn’t help but think if he had stayed in Omega Tower rather than try to save Serena, Sarah would still be alive. He was the only person in the lobby who had never seen such a sight before.
“That’s what happens in the Denunciation Ceremony?” he asked Emily without taking his eyes from the body.
“Yes, but we can’t stay here and talk about this now.” She glanced at her wrist and saw that they had little over three minutes. It was taking too long. “Come with me.”
They skirted along the edges of the angry crowd, passing a series of benches and the old marble reception. Emily led him behind a series of escalators until the space narrowed to the size of a single door. It was well hidden and would usually be locked. But now with the power cut she was able to push it wide open, and they burst into the corridor from which she had first entered Omega Tower many years ago. She remembered that day when she had gazed up at the ash as it settled on the glass dome lobby, and how she had thought it looked like a strange version of Christmas. How much had happened since then, how many lives had been lost, and how many people had she cared for that were now no longer part of her life?
She stopped running for a moment and looked up to the ceiling, imagining that there was no distance between her and her mother in the Presidential Suite. There was nothing she could do for her now and as she looked back at Zack limping as fast as he could behind her she knew that it was him that she had to save. This was what love was. It really was the ability to bear the unbearable. It was having a person that can make even the most difficult of decisions seem simple.
They ran along the corridor until they came to a set of lifts. She pressed the button hopefully, praying that there was some kind of emergency electricity supply, but no response came. She dropped to her knees, opened the curtain tie from the pillowcase and rummaged inside. She pulled a small flick knife, designed for opening bottles of wine. She exposed the blade and jammed it into the gap between the doors.
“Zack, use your fingers to pull these doors apart. It’s the only way out of here now.” Zack couldn’t understand why they hadn’t gone in the same direction that he had gone the last time. Where she was expecting to go in the lift shaft that had no electrical supply he didn’t know, and he didn’t much fancy shimmying down a ladder when the power could come on at any moment. He jammed his fingers into the space anyway and began to pull them open. As soon as he had a grip she tossed the knife to the floor and jammed her fingers as well. Between them they pulled and pushed until the doors were open enough for them both to squeeze through.
Emily grabbed the knife and shoved it into the pillowcase. The screaming from the lobby was swelling and they could hear the Guardians trying to get the situation under control. Somewhere a gun fired. A split second lapse in screaming was broken by more fear. The intensity of the shouting grew until words were no longer audible. Only noise.
“Emily, are you sure there isn’t another way down?” He clutched at his side and tried to take a deep breath in. The breeze whipped through the lift shaft and brought with it a small scattering of dust which got in their mouths and choked them both. “We don’t have very long if the power comes back on.....”
She didn’t let him finish. “Zack, we have no other choice. This is the only way out now. This is the way it began and this is how it will end.” Emily grabbed the edge of the pillowcase in her teeth and swung herself out onto the ladder. She didn’t wait for Zack and began her descent knowing that he would follow. Zack swung himself out, a flash of pain lancing through his chest as he reached out and gripped the rungs of the ladder. He bit his lip to distract him from the discomfort and began to follow, all the while keeping a constant eye on Emily below.
The lift was much further down in the shaft than Emily intended for them to go. Maybe even on basement level five. But as soon as they reached the next set of doors Emily reached out from the ladder and pulled herself into the doorway. She set the pillowcase down on the floor and got the knife back out. By the time Zack managed to get his footing in the doorway Emily already had her fingers in the space she had pried open. Zack wasted no time in helping her. This time they didn’t open the doors very far, and on Emily’s command they waited whilst she listened for footsteps. When she was certain that she couldn’t hear anything they pulled the doors wide open and she stepped into the corridor. It took only seconds before the Guardian grabbed her from behind, wrapping one arm around her throat.
Zack heard her yelp but with the pain in his body he wasn’t quick enough to his feet. It took only a second for Emily to sink the flick knife into the Guardian’s thigh. As the Guardian doubled over in pain she reached back to his leg. She grabbed the gun from the holster and drove her elbow underneath the Guardian’s chin to knock him off balance. She pointed the gun at the Guardian and he cowered away from her.
“Don’t follow us, otherwise the next time it won’t just be a knife in your leg.” She reached down and pulled the flick knife from his thigh which elicited another yelp of pain from the Guardian. Before she grabbed Zack’s arm to help him to his feet she pulled the pillowcase full of items from the floor and shoved it towards Zack. She grabbed his other hand and said, “Come on, let’s go."
They ran through what appeared to be a warehouse full of empty shelves, wire racks that would have once been filled with supplies. On the far right hand side in the shadow of a high wall there was a row of black cars, all expensive brands like BMW and Mercedes, to which Emily paid no attention and continued to run past. The emergency lighting was weak in such a large space.
“Emily, wait up.” Zack’s breathing had worsened and she was sure that there was a slightly blue tinge to his lips. “I can’t run anymore.”
“Okay,” she agreed but the pained look on her face appeared less than conv
inced. “But just a quick break to catch a breath. We can’t stop here. There’ll be more coming.” She reached into the pillowcase and pulled out a bottle of water, snapping off the top as quickly she could. She encouraged Zack to stand up straight and she forced small gulps of water into his mouth. She sipped at the water herself, glad of a breather before saying, “It’s time to move.” He knew that by giving him even the shortest resting break they had compromised their escape and so Zack nodded and began following without further complaint.
Up ahead Zack could see the surface narrowed into what looked like a ramp for cars. Knowing that it would require a greater effort Emily took hold of Zack’s arm and gripped him hard, pulling him as much as she dared. The ramp spiralled upwards and with every step the shadows crept away as the light flooded into their path. It took only a few minutes of ascent before they came to a large metal grille, the type that he remembered from car park entrances. But it wasn’t the item from his past that astounded him. It was the fact that beyond the gates was open space intersected by a black streak of road winding out, full of potential and opportunity. Emily began pulling at the gate in an upwards fashion trying to force it to roll open. Zack joined in, but between them they did not have the strength to force the mechanism. Emily stood back and brought her foot up and struck the gate with her heel. She repeated the movement a number of times before accepting that her actions were futile.
“It’s not going to work, Emily. We need a new way out.”
“No wonder you were stuck in Delta for so long. You give up too easily.” Her words could have been offensive, could have stung him like poison if she hadn’t spoken them with a smile on her face to show him that she was only teasing. She raised the gun and fired a round of bullets at the mechanism above their head, right in the corner where it touched the wall. After the fourth bullet made contact they saw the overhead rail drop a couple of inches. Zack reached out and tugged at the metal grille. It moved a fraction and as Emily tucked the gun into her pocket and began to help they managed to open up a space big enough to squeeze through. Within a matter of seconds they were on the other side of the barrier, running along a road, and Zack had no idea where it went.
The Dawn: Omnibus edition (box set books 1-5) Page 63
