by Natasha Ngan
‘Butterfly?’ she whispered.
The smoke shifted, and she saw his body lying face down a little way away from her, unmoving. Silver crawled over to him, hardly daring to breathe. She felt a terror then unlike anything before in her life. Fear so strong it made her heart ache. As she pressed her fingers to his neck, her fingers were shaking so much that she almost didn’t feel his heartbeat, but it was there beneath his skin, strong and steady. Tears filled her eyes. She was about to lie down next to him – just a moment’s rest, just a minute of peace – when she remembered Allum.
Silver scrambled to her feet. She moved slowly, carefully, trying to avoid the bodies that littered the steps of Council House. Halfway up the steps in front of the building, she found Allum.
‘No,’ she breathed.
A shard of metal pierced his abdomen, and the lower half of his body was crushed beneath a broken slab of wall. Silver didn’t need to feel for a pulse. It was clear he was dead.
‘No,’ she said again.
Silver sat down next to his body and cried. She looked at Allum through her tears, not seeing his mangled body at all, but instead remembering his great booming laugh, his infectious grin. She couldn’t imagine how someone that alive could now be dead. He hadn’t deserved this end. Allum had been good. Always. He was like Butterfly, kind and honest and loyal, and Silver had no doubt that if Allum had learnt what they had about the Council, then he’d have been fighting alongside them instead of against them.
She raised a hand to close his eyelids. As she got up to go back to Butterfly, shouts and whooping noises erupted from Council House behind her, Ghosts and Pigeons streaming suddenly out of the building. They touched hands to her back. ‘It’s over! We did it!’ they cried joyously. ‘A New Neo!’ Silver tried to return their smiles, but she couldn’t. Not yet.
The smoke was clearing as she returned to where Butterfly lay. It trailed along the ground in thick clouds, a chill wind lifting it into the air like sails billowing open, and she saw Joza crouching over Butterfly’s body.
He stood as she approached. ‘Butterfly will be fine, I think. But we should get a medic to see to him.’ His face softened as he noticed the tears streaming down her face. ‘Silver, I’m so sorry,’ he said, opening his arms.
She went to him, realising that it was the first time she’d hugged her brother since their reunion. She closed her eyes, feeling his arms around her, and her tears fell faster at the realisation that she’d never feel another pair of strong arms – Allum’s – holding her ever again.
‘Are you all right?’ Joza asked, rocking her gently.
‘No,’ Silver whispered. ‘But I will be.’
41
Second Lives
Surrey emerged into his second life out of fire and water. Memories bore him; he struggled through them, trying to break free of their smothering hold. But they wouldn’t leave. Ember’s face hung in his mind, a pale echo of his past. He longed to see her in the flesh, to make sure she was all right – she had to be all right – but of course he could not go back. They’d kill her, too.
Surrey struggled to stand but fell straight down onto wet, grainy earth. A riverbank. His body felt as though it had been pummelled half to death, but as he looked up at the dark sky, the fiery silhouette of Neo-Babel high above him beyond the waterfall, he knew he was alive. He felt a deep rage at that. If only Butterfly had had the guts to kill me, he thought, for surely death would be better than a life like this? And there it was, along with the anger –
Fear.
Fear and anger, always hand in hand for him, just as it was for Ember. Lying on the riverbank then, Surrey felt as terrified as he used to get when he was just a boy and his father came home stinking of beer and perfume that was not his mother’s. He’d not been able to imagine loving someone as ferociously as he’d loved his mother that night, when he’d picked up the carving knife from the kitchen and plunged it once, twice, into the arm his father had locked round his mother’s neck. But Surrey had met Ember, his flame-haired girl who knew what it was like to hate and love so deeply at the same time.
Half drowning in his memories, Surrey watched Neo-Babel burn. He stared at the flames and the fire crawled into him, entering his body and filling him with its heat until he could taste the bitterness of burnt metal in his mouth and feel the screams of the dying scratch across his tongue. He imagined he could hear Ember’s screams as she blackened under the touch of flames.
She’s alive, she’s alive. Surrey made himself think it over and over until he believed it was true. Then he closed his eyes, drifting away into the forgiving emptiness of sleep.
Akhezo began his second life running, which he would later think of as some god’s weak idea of a joke.
He’d only just made it out of the Bee-Hives before the earth had given a huge shudder, a moment later exploding with a sound as though the world was bursting open. He was thrown forward by a wall of flame and broken glass. Scrambling to his feet, he’d done the only thing he knew how to –
Run.
Akhezo had found his way back to the deserted centre of the Stacks. He ran through the smashed doors at the entrance into gunfire and smoke. He didn’t know what got him through it. Luck? His small size? Speed? Whatever it was, he found himself untouched as he had dashed across the Council District, following the promise of the tall inner-city buildings beyond. He barely noticed the rhythm and flashes of guns, while below his feet the ground replied with shudders and deep, low grumbles that seemed to rock it like an angry sea. His brain only registered glimpses of the city around him. Air-trams hanging from their supports like roosting bats. Broken tendrils of wire dangling overhead, their ripped ends sparking.
When he wasn’t able to run any more, Akhezo had done something else he was used to from a lifetime in the skylung; he’d climbed. He was deep in the inner city by then, the buildings tall and tight around him. He went through a building’s smashed entrance doors and climbed up the staircase – its lift was not working – right to the top. Later, he would wonder where he got the energy to climb all those stairs. But then, all he knew was that he had to keep moving or the ghost of Ember would catch up with him and clasp her long, perfect fingernails around his neck.
It took hours for Akhezo to reach the top. When he finally stepped out onto the solar-panelled rooftop, night had fallen. The sky was dark and starless. He didn’t know where the hours had gone. It felt both like a few minutes and a whole lifetime ago that he had been down in the Bee-Hives.
Up on the roof the wind was strong, bringing with it the stink of ash. A fine mist hung in the air. It prickled Akhezo’s skin with drops of moisture. He climbed up onto the parapet that lined the roof and sat, dangling his legs over the edge. For the first time since Neve died, tears fell down his face. Akhezo liked to think of himself as strong, all hard edges and corners. But there, huddling amid the drifting dust and ashes and flame-flecked wind, feeling the unfamiliar wetness of tears pouring down his face and blurring his vision, he had a sudden urge to call out for his mother, forgetting for a moment that he’d never had one, that he didn’t even know her face.
He was so lost in thoughts that he didn’t hear the roof door open and close behind him. He only turned when he heard a girl’s voice say, ‘Hey. Are you all right?’
She was a Japanean girl, short, with jet-black hair cropped into a bob.
He didn’t answer.
The girl stepped forward. ‘I’m Taiyo.’
‘Akhezo.’
She joined him on the edge of the roof, crossing her legs under her and sitting facing out at the city. She was wearing a black jumpsuit, the hilt of what looked like a gun protruding from a belt round her hips.
‘You look like one of them Elites,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I am one.’ She hesitated. ‘At least, I was. I’m not sure what I am now.’ She glanced at him. ‘I followed you from the Stacks. What were you doing there?’
Akhezo thought about Ember. How she’d bro
ken Cambridge: her father. His father. How she’d taken Neve away from him. She’d killed the only two people in the world he’d ever loved.
‘There was something I had to do,’ he said simply. ‘What ’bout you? Why are you here?’
Taiyo nodded at the city. ‘I was meant to be out there. But I got scared.’
Akhezo realised that he hadn’t wiped his face. He raised a hand and rubbed his tears away. ‘I’m not scared,’ he said.
She took one of his hands. ‘Of course you’re not.’
They sat like that for what felt like hours. Akhezo stared out at the city, thinking about the last time he had been looking at Neo-Babel, imagining it all for himself. Now he didn’t want any part of it. He wanted nothing to do with this horrible place that had taken Neve and Cambridge away from him. He was finally at the top of the world, but suddenly the world didn’t look so good.
Eventually, Taiyo spoke. ‘I’m hungry. Let’s go get some food, maybe a couple of bedpods to sleep in. What do you say, Akhezo?’
He nodded, and the two of them made their way off the rooftop, still hand in hand.
The main hall of the Stacks was crowded with people. It had been hours since the Pigeons and Ghosts had won the battle. Outside, flames flickered across the city in the dark of the night, lighting the hall with an orange glow. They’d not yet been able to get all the injured to hospital, so for now everyone was gathering in the Stacks. Joza and Percie were giving instructions to anyone not too badly injured to help, setting them to care for others or gather water and food supplies to distribute among the crowd.
Silver watched her brother and his wife move through the hall. They stopped every now and then to listen to the worries of Ghosts, Pigeons and Neo-Babel residents alike. When they reached a group of Council members, Joza and Percie didn’t change their behaviour. Joza even wrapped a blanket around a Council member who was shivering badly, the two of them grasping hands for a moment, seeming to share a wordless exchange. Silver felt a rush of affection for Joza then. For the first time she felt proud to call him her brother.
She turned her attention back to Butterfly. He was huddled with her against the wall to one side of the hall, in a private spot behind the reception desk. His hair was messy and caked with dirt. Across his chest a large gash ripped open his jumpsuit from where it had dragged across the ground in the explosion. Silver was changing the bandage on his broken arm; the fabric was already soaked through with blood.
Nurses from Neo-Babel’s hospitals had been bringing spare medical supplies to the Stacks all night, and a number of medics worked to check people’s injuries. Butterfly had not been as badly damaged in the explosion as Silver had feared. Apart from his arm – which alongside broken bones had a deep gouge from where it had dragged along the ground – the medic had diagnosed him with mild concussion, suspecting a few broken ribs as well.
The hospitals were too full to admit Butterfly yet for tests to confirm the diagnosis. That made Silver anxious. If they’re full with people seriously injured from the battle, she thought, are my parents among them?
‘Hey,’ said Butterfly, raising his healthy arm to touch her cheek. ‘You’re thinking about them, aren’t you?’
She avoided his eyes. ‘I can’t help it.’
‘If your parents are anywhere near as strong as you, they’ll be fine.’
She finished changing the bandage and set his arm carefully down onto his lap before curling up against him.
Butterfly wrapped his good arm round her and kissed the top of her head. ‘I love you,’ he said quietly.
Silver looked up at him. Though scratches and cuts ran across the skin of his face, his blue eyes were gentle, calm. Looking into them she felt as though she could ride away on their wave. ‘I love you too,’ she said, smiling softly, and she didn’t think that she’d ever meant anything more truly in all her life.
They sat like that for the rest of the night, holding on to each other as the busyness of the hall continued around them. Silver’s head rested against Butterfly’s chest. She listened to his heartbeat loud in her ear, and it helped calm her, helped push away thoughts and images of the death and destruction she had seen over the past few weeks. It made her think of the millions of people out there in the city and beyond, each one with a heart beating just like Butterfly’s.
It made her think of life.
People arrived in the Stacks all through the night. The place was noisy with the sounds of frantic conversations, hurried footsteps crossing the plastimarble floor. There were happy cries as friends and family were reunited, their voices bright with the joy of having found each other whole and alive.
Will that be me and my parents, soon? Silver wondered. She could tell Butterfly’s injuries were affecting him; he winced every time he moved. Although she was desperate to look for her parents, she couldn’t leave him just yet. Besides, she had just remembered something her father had once told her when she was five, after she’d woken from a nightmare in which she had become separated from her parents in a floating arcade. She didn’t know why it only came to her then, but she held on to the memory of it, turning it over and over in her mind, his words giving her the strength to wait. To hope.
‘I thought I’d never see you again!’ Silver had cried, clinging to her father, and he had smiled, squeezing his arms round her.
‘Never think that, my mei li,’ he had said. ‘We are family. We will always find our way back to each other, no matter what might stand in our way.’
42
The Break in the Wall
Silver and Butterfly were walking through the city. It was late afternoon. Overhead, sunshine blossomed between thin, watercolour clouds, filling the day with soft, amber light. It was not enough to hide the horrors of the city in its devastated state. But it was a start.
They were walking to the eastern edge where the Pigeons had blasted the gap in the wall at the start of the battle. People had been arriving from the Outside all day, bringing food and medical supplies. Many of the Ghosts and Pigeons – and Neo-Babel citizens who’d offered to help – had already gone to meet them, and Silver and Butterfly were also on their way.
Silver hadn’t wanted Butterfly to come. ‘You need to rest,’ she had told him. She’d been trying to sneak away that morning when he’d woken and demanded he go with her.
‘I’ll rest later,’ he’d said, with a hard look in his eyes that she knew meant he wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘Once we find them.’
Silver hadn’t needed to ask who he was talking about; she’d been thinking about her parents all night.
They walked steadily, stopping every now and then to help people as they passed. There had been two enormous women in hysterics, trying desperately to repair the damaged hull of their ornately carved boat to save it from sinking, and then a wrinkled old man had batted Butterfly away when he’d tried to take a look at the deep cut on the man’s forehead.
‘Imbecile!’ the man had croaked. ‘I have no time for that. I need to find him.’
Who? Silver had wanted to ask, but they’d moved on quickly, the man’s search making her desperate to get back to her own. Joza thought their parents might be at the broken section of the wall helping the newcomers. She had to try looking for them there.
Walking in silence, Silver was lost in her thoughts. She looked round at the city that had once been her home. Now it felt as though it belonged to someone else. As they passed through Little New India, she realised that overseeing the information transaction in the chai bar on Brick Lane had been her last assignment. It was strange to think she’d never work for the Council again. What would she do now? What would her job be? Joza and Percie would establish a new government soon. Would they want to involve her? Silver didn’t know whether she wanted to help or not.
She thought of the Outside, of the rolling hills, of lying in the grass when she and Butterfly had left the tunnel out of the city and feeling, just for one moment, invincible. Perhaps she’d go back and expl
ore the world beyond the walls. Silver remembered Yasir telling her that once he’d known about the Outside, he couldn’t stay in Neo-Babel. She finally knew how he felt.
Every place in the city held memories of her old life.The jamon and brandy bar where Allum had got drunk and danced on the table. The floating arcade on New York Strip where Silver had brought Taiyo to cheer her up after her bad results in the first-year Elite tests. The beach where Silver and her friends had spent their last day together before their worlds were turned upside down. The thought of leaving the place where memories like these lived was unbearable, and yet it was also unbearable to stay.
It took Silver and Butterfly half the day to walk to the eastern edge of the city. As they approached the part of the wall the Pigeons had destroyed, Silver could see a large crowd of people gathered round it. The trucks they’d travelled in were parked nearby. Along with motorised rickshaws, they were being loaded with supplies people from the Outside were bringing.
‘Go on ahead,’ Butterfly said, stopping suddenly.
Silver turned to him. ‘Why?’
He nodded to their left. The explosion that had blasted through a part of the wall had also destroyed the stretch of the Limpets that had been built against it, creating a ragged gap in the slums. The jagged edges of the Limpets’ upper floors were exposed, bits of broken wood and metal sheets hanging down from their supports. Singed tarpaulin and canvas flapped in the wind. Silver noticed with relief that there weren’t any bodies. The Pigeons must have evacuated this section before the explosion.
People clustered to one side of the gap in the Limpets, talking and sharing food. As she scanned the crowd, Silver’s eyes fell on a Japanean boy sitting against a wooden pillar that had broken in two. Something about the stiff way in which he was propped up seemed strangely familiar to her.
‘Is that … Sauro?’ she gasped, grabbing Butterfly’s arm. ‘The boy in the Limpets who’d been paralysed by a birthchip operation?’
