The Forgotten
Page 26
I would never, even in my most bizarre imaginings, have thought that a structure such as this could exist beneath the ground.
As I observe, the citizens of this bewildering city walk slowly; still nothing like the bustling streets of my home, yet a complete contrast to the streets above. It is as if they have an unlimited amount of time, whereas those aboveground have a dwindling supply of moments.
People move down the arcade, going in and out of shops, and they stop to chatter to each other. This is where they keep the people who have yet to be broken. I think I understand. These are the people who have money, who can afford to buy whimsical things from boutiques.
I look at Honour and expect to see a mirror of my own confusion at how these people can have so much when Honour’s people have so little, but instead I see a burning anger. I touch his shoulder fleetingly and he nods. In a moment he remembers why he’s here. His back straightens and his face is devoid of expression.
A cluster of people surround us—ordinary civilians of this underground realm—and I feel the beginnings of panic. One of them tips his head at the Guardian in charge of us. Now I see how The Guardians, even in their stark white uniforms, intend to get around without being seen. The civilians encase us completely. Anyone watching would see only a group of regular people walking together.
We get from one end of the arcade to the other like that: cradled between the civilians.
They disperse as soon as we’re away from the shops and inside another dark, vacant tunnel. The people don’t come here for whatever reason.
One of the civilians tells us to, “Take a right at the end of this tunnel. You’ll see a steel door. The vaults are inside.”
I expect one of The Guardians to nod or thank them but not a single one of them does, which makes me feel guilty for not personally speaking my gratitude. The civilians have dispersed before we’ve made even one step in the direction we were told to go, my chance at thanking them gone. I wonder if they are undercover Guardians or if they are allies. Nobody explains who they are or acknowledges their help, however, so I am left with my questions.
Sure enough we find the steel door we were told about, but it’s a great deal more than I was expecting. I made the mistake of assuming that that it would be a standard door, but instead of being made of wood, it would be fashioned out of steel. Nothing about it is standard—it looks as if the whole wall is on hinges and will swing open.
The ceiling is arched and comprises of a patchwork of bricks of all shapes, sizes, and colours. The door, or rather wall, looks heavy and thick. There’s a nook on the right side of it that I take to be a handle, but other than that it is a vast sheet of metal. It’s going to take more than one of us to open it.
“That’s one hell of a door,” says Honour. He looks daunted. I know how he feels. “This should be interesting,” he murmurs as the two technology Guardians litter a number of small, circular devices on the door’s surface.
The head Guardian asks as they work, “Will this cause much noise?”
“No, it should be silent,” a woman replies. She’s tall and dark and self-assured. Her partner is short and untidy but exceptionally fast.
“Good,” the head Guardian replies as a flash of lightning-like light ripples across the door’s surface. The woman was right, however. It is silent.
“Ah.” She smiles proudly. “I thought so. It’s controlled by a computer. Separate its connection to the central computer—blow its electrics—and the door opens.”
“As long as it opens, I don’t care how you do it,” he replies. He instructs three other Guardians to pull it open. It seems to be as heavy as it looks but The Guardians that came with us aren’t exactly weak. Two of the men have muscles to rival Joel’s and the woman is astonishingly strong. It takes them less than half a minute to have it pulled open enough so that we can fit through.
“That will have sent an alert to the central computer,” the head Guardian tells us all, “so we’ll have to be as quick as possible.”
He doesn’t wait for a response, disappearing around the door and into a corridor of vaults. Someone in front of Honour and I holds a light so that we can see where we are walking. We’re in a long corridor that spreads out as far as I can see. It is lined with tall, circular doors in the same steel as the external door, and each of the vaults has a water-tight lock like those on a ship.
The Guardians walk swiftly down the corridor and stop at the vault we were instructed to come to. The technologists cover the vault door with what look to me like explosives. They place around twenty of them on the metal before the shattering noise of gunfire makes us drop to the floor.
The head Guardian swears and grasps for something on his belt. In the meantime one of the men with guns—Officials, I assume—grazes his arm with a blinding light. He moves, despite the pain, and I watch with fascination as he throws a grenade at the Officials. I brace for a ground-shaking explosion but it never comes. Instead, one by one, the Officials stop firing and the rain of fireworks stops. The grenade must have done something to their guns. What a brilliant idea—to invent such a thing.
It does not hold the Officials for long, however, but it does distract them long enough that The Guardians manage to dispose of three of them. Around twenty Officials remain, and there are only nine of us. We are outnumbered but that doesn’t appear to matter to The Guardians. They fly around the room like birds but strike out like snakes. Even the technologists fight like vipers. The Officials lay on the floor motionless before long, and the technology Guardians erect a structure that covers the entrance we came through.
I whisper to Honour, “What do you think that is for?”
“To keep the Strains in, I think,” he replies. His eyes are alight and his fists are clenched at his sides. He wants the fight. Perhaps that’s why he came. I wonder why he didn’t jump in with The Guardians a moment ago.
“Quickly,” one of the technologists says. “We have three minutes to get as far away as possible before these things detonate and we have to set up the second containment on the far door.”
The head Guardian nods stiffly. His eyes are tight with pain but he doesn’t complain once.
We sprint for the far end of the corridor and it feels good to run. I feel a rare thing: alive. Everything inside of me is awake and screaming for life.
A metal door, identical to the one on the other side, stands before us and we rush through it and out onto the other side. I can only think that The Officials must have left it open when they came into the chamber of vaults. The Guardians, with their strength and brawn, push it back into place, and the technologists set up the second containment contraption. It looks like a giant canvas bag, but I can tell by how it moves when they touch it that it’s much more rigid and stronger.
“Guardian technology,” the dark girl informs me when she sees me looking. “It’s tougher than it looks.”
So are you, I think with images repeating behind my eyes of her balled hands colliding with the face of a bulky Official, but all I do is nod.
When the thing is set up, a mere half a minute after we exited the vault room, we make to return to the car—
But we are met with the chilling sight of a line of armed men. They stand from one end of the room to the other, blocking any exit and trapping us in what I fear is the epicentre of the explosion.
Before us are at least a hundred men dressed all in black. Shadows.
It takes me a second to understand that our chances of getting out of this situation alive are slim, with the explosives at our backs and the warriors before us.
The Officials attack first.
They attempt to shoot us with their guns but the grenade must still function out here. I wonder how much longer it will last, and how much time we have until our luck runs out. When they realise that their weapons do not work they charge towards us. The Guardians meet them in the middle and a number of Officials fall. The Guardians move like madmen. If I weren’t seeing it with my
own eyes I would think it was impossible.
Honour and I will have to fight this time. The Officials are encroaching ever nearer. I glance around for something to use as a weapon since I am hopeless with my fists but Honour is one step ahead of me. He hands me a jagged piece of pipe and I nod gratefully. He holds a steel pole. I don’t know where he found either item but I do not have time to puzzle it.
Two Officials swarm towards me, and if I allow myself to think I will be overwhelmed. I let my instincts drive me and push my arm through the air with a force that comes from my upper body—a force I was unaware I possessed. As the edge of the pipe rips through the neck of one of the Officials, a word comes into my mind that I had heard the medical Guardians discussing some days ago—adrenaline. That is what I am experiencing, I think.
I sway with sickness as the Official drops to the ground. There is too much blood and gaping flesh.
The second Official, who barely registers amongst the horrific images in front of my eyes, does not pause to mourn the death of his comrade. He slams me against the vault door and my vision explodes with the collision.
Please don’t detonate now, I beg in my thoughts to anyone who will listen. I will do anything, pay any debt, but please do not explode now. I cannot die now—I have to find my sister.
We came into this world together and I know that we will exit it in the same way. Dying without her is not an option.
Astoundingly, the explosives hold off long enough for me to swing the pipe, catching the Official’s chest hard, though I had expected to be blown apart. Time has slowed down, I infer numbly. The black-clothed man stumbles backwards, giving me the chance to dart away from the door. I run, dragging Honour with me and away from a mob of advancing Officials. They are like flies on the dead; never-ending in number and unrelenting in character, but I will not let them kill Honour or I—not when I have this pipe and I have already killed one man. I am dangerous. I never intended to kill a single man, but I am certain the Officials mean to kill us. Now I am full of dread and adrenaline. I drone on, swiping at any black-clad figure that gets close enough, refusing to give up my hold on Honour.
More than once, a Guardian barrels towards us with their fists raised, but they recognise either our faces or the purple band of material Alba made us tie around our arms and they clear a path towards the exit.
It feels to take an entire hour to reach the heavy wooden door, and I exhale in relief when we near it. I don’t know how many Guardians will make it out of this chaos but Honour and I will. I can save at least him.
That is, until the explosion rocks the entire underground.
For an elongated moment it is as if I’m flying. I am like The Guardians now. I am birdlike and free.
The concrete wall jolts me from the sensation of flying as I crash against it. I hear something in my arm snap and my voice tears itself out of my throat in a cry.
It’s like being in Morelock’s basement again—the detachedness, the sense that somewhere something is happening that is important, but all I can focus on is the searing pain. It throbs and stabs and screams at me until I am screaming too.
***
Honour
19:24. 06.10.2040. Forgotten London, Underground London Zone.
I can’t hear anything except the rushing-water-noise that fills my ears and drowns out everything else. I think it’s the aftermath of the explosion but I could have gone deaf. I won’t be able to tell until I’m out of this mess. The back of my head pounds where it crashed into the floor, and my shoulders scream at me as I haul Branwell up from the floor and lean all of his weight on me. He’s unconscious.
A large section of the wall has caved outward from the direction of the vault, a side wall has collapsed entirely, and I have a bad feeling that the roof is going to come down. I hope the Strain containment did its job, or we’ll be dead in hours.
Two Guardians are struggling with a wooden door. Once it’s open they waste no time in pushing me over the threshold. I feel a cold hand briefly on my shoulder before two white figures dart up the stone steps. I hope they’ve gone to start the car and aren’t just abandoning us.
Nothing is clear; it’s like my eyes have been covered with a thick layer of mist, making everything distorted. Half-blindly, I put one lead-heavy foot in front of the other, angling my leg so that my footsteps fall on the stairs and I don’t trip over myself.
I fumble with Bran, dragging his feet against the stone because there’s nothing else I can do, until the head Guardian comes behind us and takes his other side. Between us we can support Branwell better.
“Are you okay?” I ask quietly, not wanting to speak at normal level in case an Official hears and comes after us. It takes a moment after I hear myself speak for me to realise that I can still hear. “I saw—you were shot?”
“I’ll be fine,” he grunts, “as soon as we’re out of here. We did our job—the assignment is complete and the Strains are destroyed—and I don’t intend to stick around in this war zone any longer than nec—”
“Really, Guardian,” a voice rasps, followed by a stream of coughs. The head Guardian, whose name I still don’t know, stops dead. “Do you think that vault was the only place we keep them?”
He turns to face the voice and I’m again supporting Bran on my own. I half-lean him against the wall.
“Go!” the Guardian barks at me. He cringes and I can tell that his wound is causing him pain. His arm hangs flaccidly at his side. “Get to the top of the stairs. I’ll be with you in a second.”
I hesitate but the look on his face threatens consequences if I disobey him. My feet lurch and I struggle upwards, lugging Bran with me.
The Guardian asks tightly, “Where are the rest of the diseases kept?”
I see a fleeting shadow of an Official as I glance over my shoulder. I stumble even quicker up the stairs, gritting my teeth against the ache in my bones.
“Lots of other places,” the Official brags.
The voices echo off of the walls as I get closer and closer to the top of the staircase. The stone feels like it will never end. I think that I’ll keep tripping over myself, nearing the top, and that the exit will keep getting further away.
The Guardian says, hard, “Tell me and I won’t kill you.”
The Official laughs. “Not a chance.”
The head Guardian doesn’t reply and I listen intently. I hear the scuffle of feet on the steps and a gurgling sound. Please don’t let the Guardian have died. If the Official comes up behind us, Bran and I will both die. I’ve already let Thalia, John, and Wes die. I figure if I save Bran it’s at least a step towards paying back for my mistakes. I’m going to try and save as many people as possible, but I can’t do that if I’m dead.
We reach the door at the top of the staircase, amazing me, and I fall through it and end up on top of Branwell’s unconscious form. A hand takes hold of my shoulder, urging me to my feet, and I beg for Guardians and not Officials. What I get is neither—it’s the people from earlier that hid us as we moved through the crowd. One of them has Bran hoisted in his arms, and he is massive. He must be at least seven feet tall.
“This way,” says a man in his thirties as I find my feet. His hair is silver and his face has no emotion whatsoever. He begins to guide us away from the staircase but I can’t forget the scuffle I heard.
“Wait,” I protest. “The Guardian—he might be hurt.”
I inch towards the stairs but a shape appears in the doorway before I get anywhere near. A number of the civilians flood in front of me, shielding me from whoever made it to the opening. I don’t know why they’d protect me when they don’t know me, but I don’t have the energy or will to complain. I stretch above them to see who survived.
The head Guardian.
He stands in front of the civilians, looking frail and ill but alive. A number of my protectors rush to support him and he grunts in pain. I think he’s the sort of man that would grunt in any situation, good, bad, or otherwise.
“Car park,” the head Guardian grinds out.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” I say quickly, before I lose my nerve beside the enormous man, “but who are you?”
“Protectors,” Grey Hair answers. He glances at me from the corner of his eye and it’s a look that says that’s all you need to know.
He watches to see if I’ll ask any further questions, and, when he realises I’m not going to, he draws us away and down a staircase.
The giant still carries Branwell, and the head Guardian is held up by two Protectors. I catch them watching me out of the corner of their eyes and wonder again why they are protecting me. They must have some agreement with The Guardians, but I’m not a Guardian. I think about it as we’re led down corridors, up several more staircases, around corners, and then—finally—brought to the place where we left the car. I almost run to it in relief.
Three Guardians stand alert beside the car, and they spring into action at the sight of us. They surround us and bombard us with questions.
“Shut up, all of you,” the head Guardian snaps. “We don’t have time for questions. Get in the car and take these two back to Alba.”
The female technologist narrows her eyes. “You’re not coming with us?”