The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2)

by Saruuh Kelsey

  I lay the back of my hand against his forehead without thinking, reverting for a second into someone who had a twin sister to care for, someone who would know how to look after a sick friend.

  “Are you alright, Honour?” His temperature is scorching. I remove my hand. “Do you have a fever?”

  “Yeah. No.” He drops his head onto my shoulder. “They won’t leave me alone.”

  “Who won’t?” Please don’t be delirious, Honour.

  “Everyone.” He groans, long and low. It vibrates through my shoulder. “Everyone’s fussing over me—Tia, Dal, Hele, even Yosiah. I’m sick but I’m coping with it, you know? I just … I want a minute to myself. Just a minute.” He yawns, “Your arm’s really cold,” and promptly falls asleep.

  I crane my head to frown at my friend, not sure if he’s exceptionally ill or just very tired. Whatever’s wrong with him, he’s fast asleep against me, his body leant over the gap between my chair and his. It’s a wonder he doesn’t fall off. I would put my arm around his back to support him but there’s currently a dead weight drooling on it.

  “Honestly,” I murmur, shaking my head.

  Marie leans over the table towards us, whispering conspiratorially. “Is he, y’know, completely insane?”

  “M!”

  I push hair out of Honour’s eyes, the thick strands dripping sweat. “He’s mostly tired, I think, and suffering from a nasty bout of seasickness.”

  “Ugh. Don’t let him puke on the table.”

  “M.”

  “What?” She turns innocent eyes on the brown skinned girl.

  Priya simply swats Marie’s arm.

  “Must be hard, right? Starting a revolution.”

  “Yes,” I say to myself, watching Honour from the corner of my eye. “It must.” Though the rest of him is unchanged, there’s something about Honour’s glass-brown eyes. They’re not darker exactly, but they appear that way. He looks younger with those heavy eyes. Daunted. Igniting this revolution has not been kind to my friend, though it has brought us together so I can’t despise it completely. It also saved a number of Forgotten London lives, which is no small measure of good, but for the void of darkness it has opened in Honour, I wish it never happened.

  “When we get to Bharat,” Marie says, carrying her own conversation. “I’ll start my own revolution. I’ll call it the Femme Fighters, and no boys will be allowed. Sorry, Branwell.”

  I don’t glance away from the point where Honour’s face is squashed against my shirtsleeves. I say, “I don’t want to be involved in a revolution, so that’s alright.”

  She snorts. “Too bad, you’re in one.”

  “Maybe when we get to Bharat you could leave us,” Priya suggests in her silken murmur. “Not—not that I want you to. But if you didn’t want to be a part of our mission to dismantle the Ordering Body, I’m sure our leaders would let you find a home in Bharat. Maybe you could be an archivist like us. You did say you like books.”

  I make a noncommittal sound. The truth is I don’t know what I want to do with my future. When I was home, things were simple. I would continue to assist my father with his inventions, and do my own scientific work on the side. When he died, much later in life, I’d take over the house and any estates or businesses we might have left. But now? How can I know what I want to do with my life when I hardly know what my life is?

  For a time I planned to use this new life to find my sister, but I doubt there’s hope of that. She’s gone. She’s dead. She has to be.

  “I think I will stay in Bharat,” I say. “I’m not cut out for war.”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Marie says, her eyes lighting up. “Maybe you could take up knitting.”

  “Maybe I will,” I retort. “There is nothing to stop me.”

  Priya smothers a laugh with her hand, her brown cheeks tinged slightly red. When the laugh becomes louder, uncontrollable, she rests her head on the table, shoulders shaking. Marie pats her between the shoulder blades, a smirk softened into fondness.

  When recovered, Priya says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh at you knitting, but the image was too funny. I can’t imagine you making scarves and little socks.”

  “Neither can I.” My arm is starting to ache under Honour’s weight. I wonder how gently I can wake him. “How long is it until we get to Bharat?” I ask the Guardians.

  “Weeks. Months. Who knows?” Marie shrugs. “We need time to plan anyway.”

  I raise my head, fighting a frown. “To plan your war?”

  She inclines her head, smiling. “To plan our war.”

  ***

  Honour

  21:16. 13.10.2040. The Free Lands, Eastlands coastline.

  “Honour, we need to talk.”

  Bran’s voice is a shock in the silent cabin. I take my head out of my hands and look at him questioningly. For a second I’m glad he’s here, a welcome distraction from the deep downward spiral of my fears. But then I see his shuttered expression. I can’t think of Bran’s feelings ever being closed off before.

  The door closes silently behind him and two unfamiliar girls, one carved of ice, the other of brown stone. The dark girl holds a large book to her chest while the other surveys the room, her surreally bright eyes analytical. I don’t usually pay much attention to people’s eyes but this girl’s have a way of keeping my attention. There’s something not quite right about them.

  A sense of being cornered comes over me and I wish I hadn’t pushed Tia to go with Hele and Dal to the common room. I watch Bran lean against the wall, agitation in his posture, and I know I’m not gonna like what is coming.

  “What’s going on?”

  Bran won’t meet my eyes.

  “My name is Priya Vyas.” The girl with the book perches on the edge of Hele’s bed. Her eyes peer out of a small face partially hidden by long black hair. I watch her, wondering if she’s Indian or black or mixed before I catch myself. This girl’s race is none of my business, and it shouldn’t matter anyway. I never liked people asking rude questions about my ethnicity back in F.L., and I never even knew what my ethnicity was. I guessed, of course, but I never had a way of knowing. Not until Hele took me to the Guardians library and showed me a book about my dad, the famous white rebel, and my black mum, who was ‘kind’ and ‘beautiful’.

  I couldn’t give a crap about the Unnamed. I already know about him. But I wanna know about my mum—what she believed in, what she wanted for the world. Would she want me and Tia to unite the Forgotten Lands? Would she approve of us being a part of the Guardians’ revolution? Would she rather we’d died in the Fall?

  I think sometimes I would.

  I see people looking to me at important meetings, or when something goes wrong and plans have to be hastily rewritten. Waiting for me to do something impressive, something great. Something motivating, like the Unnamed would have done. I wish they wouldn’t. It’s too much to expect me to function like an ordinary human, let alone an extraordinary one.

  If I’d Fallen, I wouldn’t have any of these expectations, wouldn’t have people waiting for a moment of brilliance that’s never going to come. I wouldn’t be waiting for that moment myself.

  I keep thinking maybe today I’ll change. Maybe I’ll find myself. I’ll know what to say and how to say it. I’ll wake up one morning and discover this well of moving words and passionate speeches, just hidden under my damaged, worthless shell. I’ll become someone I actually like, someone I don’t get sick of hearing whine, someone I could even be proud of.

  But every day I wake up the same, and every day I lose a little more hope of becoming that person. I guess I’m just stuck this way. Honour Frie: perpetual waste of space.

  I’m glad my mum isn’t around to see this, to know me. I don’t need another person to disappoint, even if I have moments where I’m desperate to know about her, to find out where I came from, what the other half of my legacy is. Tia and I are carrying on the Unnamed’s holier than thou rebellion, but we’re also carrying our mother’s st
ory. If only we knew it.

  I come back to myself slowly, remembering I’m not alone in this cold cabin, remembering Bran and the two girls. Guardians, I see. Guardians in pristine white. They must have found new clothes somewhere; all our old ones are bordering on unwearable.

  Branwell is frowning, a deep crease between his eyebrows. I must have zoned out for more than a second, long enough for it to be obvious.

  “Sorry,” I say, pinching the inside of my elbow. “What were you saying?”

  The taller Guardian smiles at me, and I see a bit of Horatia’s patience and kindness in her. “I was just introducing us,” she says. “I’m Priya, and this is Marie Fitzgerald.” She motions to the white-haired girl with the weird turquoise eyes. Marie is short and squat, watching me with a narrowed squint that reminds me of Miya on a good day. “She and I are archivists,” Priya continues. “We organise and protect The Guardians’ books and records.”

  Marie crosses the room in three long strides that defy her shortness to stand cross armed at Priya’s side. “Long story short, we found something while we were organising.”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  Priya crosses her ankles, uncrosses them. “There were files we weren’t allowed to access in the base, but after all that happened, everything important got put together and brought here for us to organise. I … I didn’t mean to find it, or to read it, but we were sorting through all the things that were saved and—”

  “Just tell me,” I snap. I take a deep, deep breath and try to purge the unkindness from my voice. Branwell’s vacant expression has me on edge.

  “The years the Guardians lost track of you and your sister,” she begins, but falters, turning to Marie.

  “You went missing for a long time,” Marie states without emotion. “A few people have managed to hide from our radar before but they were older and way more experienced than you. You were kids. There was only ever one explanation that made sense but nobody had proof of it.”

  “Or so we thought,” Priya adds.

  “There were Guardians in every corner of every zone in Forgotten London—except for Underground London Zone. We’ve always had allies there, people we recruited from the inside, but we were never able to send proper Guardians inside.”

  I was ready to be shocked and horrified and sick to my stomach, but this isn’t even a tiny bit believable. “You’re saying Tia and I disappeared to Underground London Zone for years? Don’t you think I’d remember that? The only time I’ve ever been there was to destroy the Strains!” That feels like months ago, not just days. How was that only the beginning of this week? Quieter, I say, “I would remember.”

  Bran shakes his head, a fleck of anger showing “You wouldn’t if they had tampered with your memories.”

  I look instantly to Marie, the girl with answers in her narrowed eyes. “Explain.”

  “Priya give him the file.”

  Tucked between the pages of the large tome are a few sheets of once-white paper. Priya passes them to me and I spend several heart-racing minutes reading them, waiting for the horror to kick in. It doesn’t. I’m missing something. “I don’t get it.”

  “You were part of a project.”

  I shake my head, still waiting. “What kind of project?”

  “A biological one.”

  There it is: the acid rising to the back of my throat, the sluggish comprehension. My eyes seek Branwell, but he won’t look at me. “ A biological project,” I repeat. I take a breath, then another. “Run by who? Officials?”

  Marie nods once. “States.”

  “So they …. The Officials altered my biology or something? Messed with my mind? My memories? Why?” I can’t sit any longer. I get up and pace. “Why the hell would someone do that to me? If they wanted super soldiers, you’d think they’d have picked someone buff, someone with actual training. Wait—”I cover my mouth with my hand. I need to get off this boat. I need to get off this island. “Tia—my sister—did they—?”

  “We don’t know what they did.” Marie is infallibly calm. It doesn’t help. “They might not have done anything bad. All we know is you were in Underground London Zone when you were younger and according to this file you were part of a ‘program’.”

  “And that you don’t remember it,” Priya says, standing. “At the least they altered your memories.”

  “Why? Why the hell would they do that?” I close my hands into fists, itching to punch something. The wall. An Official.

  Bran finally meets my eyes. I only know I was expecting him to give me some kind of hope, a shining ray of light in this fucked up darkness, when his indifferent mask shatters to reveal heartbreak, stark and hopeless. “I think,” he says, so so quietly, “it was to make you a carrier.” My breath hitches. This isn’t happening. I’m a carrier because of my DNA. It’s shitty and it’s made me an unwitting killer, but I can’t help what I am. I was born with it.

  I can’t handle what Bran is saying.

  That I wasn’t born a carrier.

  That someone made me this way. Made me a killer.

  He says, “I think they changed your biology so you carry infection.”

  “What?” Marie and Priya ask at the same time. Bran didn’t tell them his theory. He saved it for me because it’s about my life, my killing genes. That takes the very edge off my rage. My next words emerge furious, instead of murderous as they would have been.

  “So they—they fucked with my DNA to make me kill anyone I meet? What do they get out of that?”

  “No,” Priya gasps. “Oh no.” My eyes pin her with demands, but she’s staring intently at Marie. “I said it made no sense. I told you.”

  Marie picks up Priya’s train of thought, explaining it to me with careless insensitivity. “Why would the Officials want you killed so badly? It was never because you breached the border. It wasn’t even because you were the Unnamed’s son. How would that make you dangerous—when you never even knew him? It was because they engineered you to be useful to them and you got away. The President didn’t want to lose his tool.”

  Sharp laughter bursts from my lips. It’s not funny but for some reason I can’t stop. Before long I’ve dissolved into detached, hysterical laughter.

  Everything makes perfect sense now. Why things go badly when I try to be good. Why I’m responsible for so many people being dead. Why I’ll never be anything more than a bad omen, a curse on everyone I love.

  I’m not The Unnamed’s son. I’ll never be a rebel, or a motivator, or a bringer of change.

  I’m The President’s weapon.

  ***

  II

  The Uncertainty of Now

  ***

  Bennet

  10:35. 14.10.2040. Bharat, Delhi.

  I exist in the future.

  My life has changed more dramatically than I could ever have imagined when I lived in London. Not only have I travelled halfway across the world but I now live some hundred years in the future, in a world in the midst of ending. I’ve seen the apocalypse right in front of me. The earth, furious at the injustices wrought upon it by these people and their advanced machines, has swallowed cities whole.

  I know, in reality, it was caused by the soldiers and their bombs, but I still think this is Mother Nature’s way of punishing us, that the cities fall because she allows it. I learn about the despicable ways humanity has destroyed itself, obliterating half of the world in the process, and I wonder how every other creature, every other form of life no matter how miniature, doesn’t hate us. Maybe they do. I wouldn’t blame them a single bit.

  I tumble back to reality with a frustrated sigh. No matter how wicked or hateful this world is, it is mine now. I am part of it. Dwelling on its awfulness won’t change a single thing; it will only make my mood darker and my heart heavier. As much as I miss my home, I can find no way to return—I have tried and tried to go back, pleading with the bracelet, offering covenants with any devil that may listen, begging all the Gods that remain in this ro
tten place. And what have I received for all my efforts, for lowering myself to begging on my knees? Not a damn thing.

  I have no choice but to remain here, and I won’t waste the rest of my life on moaning and melancholy. Not when this City has so much to offer me.

  I follow the flow of a crowd through the vibrant marketplace near the Guardians’ home, politely declining offers to buy a bundle of scarf fabric. Everything is available here for a small price, though most of it is not of the greatest quality. Most of the fabrics are see-through and the other things for sale—odd lanterns, twisted neon pipes, queer pieces of foam with transparent, glittery straps that are supposed to be shoes—can only be described as decidedly tacky.

  But even if I wanted to buy some pointless, cheap thing, I’m not here to indulge in purchases today. The market is a place to blend in; with its buzzing, rushing patrons and dense crowds of people, I’m nothing but an anonymous face in an ocean of anonymous faces.

  I weave through bodies, determined locals and awed tourists alike, and leave Main Bazaar Road and its vibrant colours behind, though it’s bitter, pungent scents follow me on the wind as I make my way down a perpendicular road. The Imperial Cinema sits on the end of the street before me, gaudy and impressive and entirely out of place among this batch of shabby, faded shops. Its red brick façade is worn and rotting, but the cinema is still fully functional years after its construction. A long line of people queuing to get into the eleven o’clock showing snakes around the corner. I join the back of it, pulling the purple silk of my head scarf further down—it’s good practise to keep my face hidden, Vast told me, because it prevents me being recognised—and I slip unseen around the back of the cinema and into a nook just big enough for a person to fit.