City of Halves

by Lucy Inglis

  Then they were all blown to the wet ground as the power station detonated behind them, turning the factory into a vast, rolling ball of fire.

  Lily spun on to her back, propped on the heels of her hands. The others were all taking cover as the vast brick building began to collapse in on itself. The huge cooling towers toppled inwards as a mushroom of dust and smoke rose from the centre. The walls began to keel in on themselves, almost too slowly. As they fell an even bigger cloud of dust rose, spattering them all with hot grit and dirt as the flames burnt higher.

  Lily sprang forward. ‘No!’ She took a step towards the power station, but Stanley was surprisingly quick to grab her and hold her back.

  ‘No, flower. You can’t go in there. It was rigged. The brother, he told us – right after he killed the one who shot you.’

  ‘Ellis? Where is he? Is he okay?’

  ‘He went to try and disarm the system so we could get the others out. But the power outage meant he had go and reset it manually.’

  Me. I did that.

  ‘Let me GO!’

  Stanley shook his head slowly, ignoring her frantic struggling.

  ‘But they’re still in there! They’re still in there! My mother!’

  ‘Gone, flower. I’m so sorry. It was just her time.’

  The others were staring at the flattened power station, tongues of fire leaping over a hundred feet in the air.

  ‘He’s done it,’ Lilith said in wonder. ‘His life for yours. The prophecy came true.’

  Lily fought, kicking out at Stanley. He said nothing, just held on to her grimly.

  She began to cry. ‘Stanley, please!’

  Stanley’s heavy hand closed over Lily’s nose and mouth, cutting off her air supply. She fought harder, her lungs feeling as if they would burst. Then nothing more.

  Lily woke in her own bed. The pillow was gritty and her face felt raw from tears. She rubbed her eyes, the cuff of her nightshirt falling back, showing the plaster on her wrist. And the talisman, swirling gold around the red, as ever.

  She sat up and looked around. Her room was neat and quiet, as always, but there was a distinct smell of jasmine. She got up slowly, checking herself over. The edges of her vision felt sharp, and she could hear a tap dripping. She went through to where her father was sitting at the counter. There was a report open in front of him, but he wasn’t reading it. He was staring at the television, watching a bulletin on the flattened, still-burning Battersea Power Station.

  A reporter was standing on the waste ground, speaking to the camera. ‘The cause of the fire and subsequent collapse is at present unclear. Observers are reporting a series of explosions just after dawn.’

  Lily burst into tears.

  Her father jumped up, the report falling to the floor. ‘The City’s falling apart. I’ve heard nothing but sirens and speeding vehicles all night. The Thames has broken its banks as far up as Chelsea. And now the power station. Lily, what’s the matter?’ He put his arms around her.

  She rested her head on his shoulder, exhausted sobs shaking her body.

  He held her tightly. ‘Oh, Lily. Is it Regan?’

  Nodding against his chest, Lily sobbed even harder. ‘And Mum. And Ellis.’

  ‘Ellis?’

  She shook her head. ‘Doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘Oh, darling. I’m so sorry.’ He held her even tighter. ‘It will be fine, I promise.’

  Lily shook her head, agonised. ‘It—’

  ‘I was so worried when you didn’t come home again last night. Sam was calling. Then all of a sudden you were there, in bed, fast asleep.’

  Lily said nothing, tears running down her face.

  ‘Would you like to talk about it?’

  She pulled away, shaking her head.

  He nodded, his eyes worried. ‘Okay.’

  The news item changed behind his shoulder. ‘And today, the Minister for Health will make an announcement at the FutureMed convention, which will open this morning in London’s Docklands’.

  So they’re going ahead with it anyway. I should have known. They’ve still got all the research, after all. That in itself is worth a fortune.

  ‘I should get cleaned up,’ she said, breaking away from her father.

  She sat on the floor of the shower, the scalding water drilling holes in her skin, pounding on her head, washing the tears over her chest. She sat there until the water cooled before forcing herself to get up, to get out.

  After she dried herself, she looked at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Still the same pale, sharp girl she had always been. Stuck to her left arm was a white rag. The plaster, wrinkled and wet from the shower, but still clinging on. She tugged it away slowly, revealing a perfect white water lily, the edges of the petals tinged with pink. It rested on a smooth green leaf, beneath which were the slight ripples of the water.

  In her bedroom, in warm, clean clothes, she stuffed her old laptop and her fake junior press card in her bag. Tears leaked out through her lashes. Her body felt empty, like tattered rags wrapped around a cage of bones. Even breathing felt insubstantial. But her heart beat steadily, hurting with every strong, sure rush of blood. Her skin was super-sensitive, each brush of fabric or her own fingers raising tingling waves of nerve reaction.

  ‘Lily?’

  She didn’t answer. Her father stood outside the door, uneasy.

  ‘May I come in?’

  She said nothing, just froze. He came over and took her hand. ‘You’re going out again?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said dully. ‘There’s something I have to do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I just have to do it.’

  She checked her travelcard.

  ‘Okay. If you feel you need to.’

  Lily shouldered her bag. ‘I do.’

  ‘Sam called while you were in the shower. I told her you were home and she said not to forget the London Stone. Do you know what that means?’

  Lily nodded and left, the door banging shut behind her.

  She headed straight to Temple tube station and got on a train to Tower Gateway, where she changed on to the DLR headed for Beckton. Getting out at Custom House, she walked up to the front of the massive London Conference Centre. Emblazoned across the front of it was the FutureMed hoarding. Suited delegates were flooding in.

  Lily checked her watch. The Health Minister was due to make the opening speech at eleven. She looped the press card around her neck. Walking up to the steps, she went through the glass doors and showed her card to the girls taking names and dishing out badges.

  ‘Katy . . . Evans? No, your name’s not down here, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It’s not?’ Lily looked at the list, confused. ‘My school should have definitely have set this up.’ She gave the name of a school she’d once competed against in a maths challenge.

  The girl checked again, frowning. ‘No, still nothing. Oh, never mind.’ She handed over a card and smiled. ‘You’d better get in there. They’re about to start.’

  Lily took the card and added it to the other tape around her neck. She climbed the stairs to the auditorium. Her limbs had a new looseness, a confidence she’d never felt before. Life had trained her to be delicate.

  She went through the doors into the vast auditorium. It was cool and smelled of ozone. The place was filling up rapidly, and an intern was pouring out a glass of mineral water at the lectern on the stage.

  Lily took a seat at the back and opened her netbook, putting it on the desk in front of her. She waited for it to detect the Wi-Fi, then saw the network appear: FUTUREMED. Open network. Public presentation system. 100mbps.

  Amateurs.

  Lily opened a clean presentation document, copied the public presentation into it and typed, fast. The place was filling up, but she ignored that and carried on working. Then the doors closed and everyone settled into their seats. Lily turned and checked that the cameras she’d seen on the way in were all ready. The auditorium fell silent and the chairwoma
n crossed the stage, her high heels clicking neatly.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome here today for the start of FutureMed, a conference we think will change the world. My name is Fiona Miller and I am both proud and excited to be chairing this event. Research recently conducted in this country, at our best facilities, has yielded startling results. We want to share those results with you today.’

  Yeah, yeah.

  ‘So, without further ado, I’d like to hand you over to the Minister for Health, Christopher Kitchener . . .’ her voice faded out as Lily stopped listening.

  Get on with it.

  Lily watched as the grey-suited minister walked out to the lectern, a sheaf of notes in his hand.

  ‘Thank you, Fiona. And thank you all, very much, for coming here today. As my esteemed colleague said, we have reached a breakthrough in modern medical science, one that will have huge repercussions for society, and for all our healthcare solutions . . .’

  Annnd, run.

  The words began to splash across the huge screen behind him. Different sizes, different fonts, but all the same word.

  LIAR. LIAR. LIAR.

  A ripple went through the auditorium. The minister carried on speaking, oblivious. Lily sent the next screen, with the words she had just written. The writing was large, the font slashy. Behind it, genetic code trickled down the screen.

  What you are about to hear of is a discovery that could change the future of medicine. Of the human race. This discovery was made at the expense of many lives and the exploitation of some of the most vulnerable members of society, the unseen. To secure it, this government has lied, stolen, kidnapped and, worst of all, murdered. Today, this government will attempt to sell to you, Those Who Have, what they have taken from the Have-Nots. But they have nothing to sell. As of this morning, the people who created it are dead. Their work died with them. Do not trust this man. Look around you.

  Nothing is what it seems.

  This is the City of Halves.

  #cityofhalves

  The minister stood, gaping. ‘Turn it off. Turn it off!’ he yelled at the girl who had poured out the water. She looked lost and rushed away.

  The room erupted. Phones were pulled from pockets and bags. The whole thing was all over social media before Lily had zipped up her coat. She left the netbook on the table, grabbed her bag, and walked away from the auditorium.

  Outside, she headed back towards the station. Above her, gulls wheeled, knifing the skies. Back in the City, she walked up to St Paul’s. On Ludgate Hill, people surrounded a burnt-out shop front that had been petrol-bombed in the night. Lily avoided the gang of boys with their hoods pulled up at the start of Cannon Street. They were looking around restlessly, seeking trouble. The newspapers blowing on the frozen ground reported that all the windows in the The Shard had cracked overnight. Lily stopped one with her toe and read the front page. Some blamed the architects. Some the cold. Some thought there might be another reason. She walked on.

  At Bow Lane she turned into the alley. Tom’s was shut up. A sign on the door said Closed for refurbishment. The gate to the Rookery was locked. Lily pushed aside the ivy and peered through. The passage had been boarded up at the other end.

  She stepped back, looking for another way in. In St Mary’s churchyard, Regan’s window high above the gravestones was dark and empty. Back out on the streets, crowds were gathering. A Metropolitan Police riot van flew down New Change, sirens blaring. Lily looked up. High above the City, coiled on the roof of the angular dark glass shopping mall, a silver dragon lay, watching and waiting. A news helicopter thudded overhead. The oversized trash can with the large streaming news screen embedded in one side relayed the footage of the shining, gold-clawed dragon. As Lily watched, it was joined by another, slinking and settling to watch the pedestrians below.

  Lily bolted to Carter Lane. The bookshop was closed, the windows covered with patchwork shutters in faded green and red. There were no signs, nothing. She banged hard on the front door, staring through her tunnelled hands, pressed against the glass.

  ‘Lucas! Elijah!’

  Silence. The bookshop was empty, cleared completely. No books left at all.

  Lily set out for Liverpool Street, her eyes scanning the rooftops, looking for more flashes of silver and gold. Nothing.

  Liverpool Street station was closed, people milling everywhere. ‘What’s happened?’ Lily asked a man standing nearby.

  ‘The signals have failed across the whole city. Not a train moving, above or below ground. Some people have got a long day ahead of them. And they’re saying there are animals loose.’

  Lily fled, finding herself near St Botolph’s churchyard. There was no sign of Ankou, the old Breton, just an old man in a flat cap raking up leaves. She ran to Lilith’s. There was no brass plate and the door was locked, a metal bar in place, secured with an ancient padlock.

  She ran, her feet pounding the pavement, hard and steady. Fifteen minutes later she was at King’s Cross. Best Tattoo sat, as dark as ever, in between the betting and fried-chicken shops. Lily pushed the door, not even out of breath. It opened straight away and she almost fell through. Inside was a man in a vest, covered in ugly tattoos, sitting on a stool and drinking coffee with his back to her.

  ‘First customer of the day,’ he said cheerfully, turning. ‘Ah. Can’t do under-sixteens, love.’

  ‘I’m not an under-sixteen. And I’m not here for a tattoo. I’m looking for Jake.’

  He shrugged. ‘No idea.’

  ‘This is their business.’

  ‘No love, it’s my business.’

  In the corner the plastic rock fountain trickled. ‘This is their shop.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, It isn’t. It’s mine. And you’ll be leaving now.’

  Lily walked the streets back to the City slowly, hands shoved into her pockets, thinking. The Chaos, it’s still rising. We didn’t stop it. It was all for nothing. She bit her lip until it bled, determined not to cry.

  She sat on a bench, watching the people, thinking. She did not feel cold, her body still warmed by Ellis’s blood. Only her chest felt empty and warped, as if her heart had mended crooked. She grabbed a cup of tea from a street vendor and drank it sitting on the back of a bench in St Paul’s churchyard, watching the dragons high up on the roof. Reporters had gathered beneath, and the police, fire brigade and news crews were massing. Another dragon had now joined the others, resting on the roof terrace of the smartest bar in the City. The minutes ticked by, slowly. On the recycling bins, the embedded screens showed a loop tape of the Minister for Health, Lily’s proclamation writ large on the screen behind him. #cityofhalves was already viral.

  Lily could hear snatches of the conversations going on around her, as if her hearing had become tuned into a different frequency, clearer than the one she had been on all her life. Her eyes saw different colours, brighter and deeper, even in the drab winter clothes of those nearby. The polystyrene cup in her hands had a texture she’d never felt before, as did her coat, her own skin.

  ‘Lily! I found yer at last.’

  She looked up. Gamble stood before her. He looked shattered. Worse than she had ever seen him. He was sober, though.

  ‘Gamble?’

  ‘I remembered. I remembered what I’d seen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The thing I couldn’t remember. The thing that’s at the heart of the Chaos.’

  ‘But what is it?’

  He grinned. ‘It’s the London Stone.’ He pulled from his pocket a filthy piece of paper. ‘Look, I went to the library and looked on th’internet. It used to stand in Candlewick Street, inside where Cannon Street station is now. Then it was moved. But, thing was, where it was before, it was where all the ley lines crossed. It was there for a reason. They think, on the internet, that it was the earliest place of worship in London, before the Romans even. The original foundation of London. That’s it. It’s got to be. It’s because it’s out of kilter, see?’

  Lily looked at t
he printout.

  Don’t forget the London Stone.

  She caught sight of a familiar green uniform and jumped down from the bench, ditching the long-empty cup in the trash and crossing Cannon Street, oblivious to the honking bus. Gamble lumbered along behind her.

  The tall black street sweeper was bending over, picking up an empty cigarette packet. He straightened.

  ‘Felix!’

  Felix stared at her. ‘Whatchoo wan’, likkle girl?’

  ‘Felix, it’s me, Lily!’

  He eyed her suspiciously. ‘I don’ know who you be, jubee, I sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! Jubee, you always call me that,’ Lily protested.

  ‘No, no, I never see you befo’. I sorry.’

  ‘Why are you pretending not to know me?’ She frowned.

  Looking her straight in the eye, he swallowed. ‘I seen tings, jubee, dat I never want to see again and I got friends I never gonna see again.’

  He put his brush in the cart and took the handles. Lily put her hand on his arm.

  He looked down at her. ‘You let me gaw in peace now, you hear?’

  ‘NO. You have to help us, right now. It’s up to us, the humans, to finish this.’

  They all put their hands over their ears as the dragons reared up on their haunches and roared.

  A bandogge emerged from the trees at the edge of the churchyard, its four yellow eyes searching them out. The gulls wheeled and screeched overhead. On the Cannon Street water fountain, a banshee materialised and began to scream. The gratings on Cheapside began to boil with red-and-black insects, their carapaces shining as they were crushed beneath the wheels of buses. Then the people on the buses began to cough. A strange wind picked up, pulling sweet wrappers, coffee cups and tattered copies of the free papers into miniature tornados.

  ‘Now!’ Lily screamed, shaking Felix’s arm.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The London Stone. We have to put it back inside Cannon Street Station, restore it to its original site.’

  Felix, Gamble and Lily bolted down Cannon Street, leaving the scenes of Chaos behind them.