“We don’t know where we’re going,” Yosiah points out and I put on my most neutral expression.
“Yeah, we do. We’re going to Camberwell Zone.”
His brow furrows. “Oh. When did you find this out?”
“When you went to get my jacket.”
“But I was only gone for a minute, maybe not even that.”
I shrug. “It wasn’t a long speech or anything. A Guardian tapped me on the shoulder and said Camberwell Zone. That was it.”
I try not to hold my breath. That’ll be a dead giveaway that I’m lying. I have to think of it like a card game—It’s a matter of bluffing and acting confident. It pays off.
Yosiah complains, “I always miss the useful stuff.”
I don’t let the relief show. “Camberwell group’s in that corner.” I point at a cluster of Guardians.
“In that case,” he says, and I can see the nervous energy in his movements, “we’d better join them.”
***
Yosiah
14:53. 08.10.2040. Forgotten London, Camberwell Zone.
I had wondered how they were going to get people out of their houses. It’s one thing to say evacuate everyone but if people are still inside their homes, ignorant to The Guardians’ movement, that gives an unfair advantage to the people already on the streets. I hate unfairness.
The answer comes in the form of the bomb siren.
I never knew that anyone, except for high up military, had access to it. I should have guessed that with everything else they’ve commandeered The Guardians would have high-tech military equipment.
As we traipse through the Underground tunnels to exit a station whose signs declare it to be Oval Station, I’m reminded of a night two years ago when I was surrounded by a similar siren. That one was lower, settling more into my bones; this one is screeching and deafening. At the time I thought the criminal siren would be the shrillest, loudest thing I ever heard. I was wrong.
They don’t have criminal sirens anymore. They were used to guard Underground London Zone, but the siren disappeared along with the guards, the checkpoint at the zone’s entryway, and the mesh fence that surrounded it. I used to wonder about the fence—whether it was to keep ordinary commoners out or to keep the wealthy, high status commoners in. I don’t suppose it matters.
Miya bumps her shoulder against mine and grins. “Just like old times,” she shouts over the siren. I laugh even though she can’t hear me.
Yes, just like old times. Like the night we met.
When we hit aboveground the brilliant light blinds my eyes and I see some of The Guardians experience the same thing. I partially shield my eyes with my fingers and allow them to adjust. Miya squints through the light. Or glares. It’s hard to tell.
The head Guardian, a stocky man with a colossal moustache and a scratchy voice, splits us into a further five groups—one for east, west, south, north, and the centre of the zone. There would have been only four Guardians per area but, as Alba said, the Guardians assigned to other zones help us like we’ll help them in theirs. I’m thankful for the extra numbers.
We’re the first stop on the route, since we’re the innermost zone on our route—Camberwell Zone, through Greenwich and Beckenham, and as close to the border as we can get in Bromley Zone.
We need to move fast so we can get the maximum number of people on the trains and out of Forgotten London before the military starts to retaliate.
Because they will.
And I’m ready for it.
And so are The Guardians.
We run as soon as we know where we’re going. Miya and I are headed to the centre of the zone with exactly twenty one Guardians.
She’s tense, and I don’t think it has anything to do with our task. I don’t think it has anything to do with the impending threat of death either. I don’t know what’s wrong with her and it makes my chest ache. I wish it wouldn’t. I have enough confusion about her without contemplating how my heart reacts.
She glances at me as we run and I almost reach out and take her hand like she did in the storage room but I don’t. It’s the tenseness about her that holds me back. I want to know what’s wrong with her. I want to know everything about her. It’s a new feeling for me; I’m used to accepting that I’ll never know Miya’s real name or her past or her thoughts and feelings. I’m used to being fine with that. I want to know why I’m not anymore.
It takes five minutes for us to reach the middle of the zone; an area which I realise is the namesake of the zone—Camberwell. The Guardians head straight forward, down a long main road, heedless of the people’s stares around them. I wonder when we’re going to stop and, when we do, how we’re going to control the crowd of people that will surge towards the Underground station. I don’t get the opportunity to find out.
Miya separates from the crowd of Guardians and takes off running down a road whose sign has faded and now reads Knat Road. I don’t have to think twice. I follow her.
This is why she’s tense.
This is why she was so adamant about coming to the central zones.
This is why she looked nervous when she said which zone we’d been assigned to.
Because we hadn’t been assigned to a zone—she decided where we were going, and in the pandemonium surrounding The Guardians nobody stopped to think us out of place.
Because we look identical to them.
The perfect cover.
Miya runs differently now. She doesn’t push herself hard to keep up with The Guardians who are superhumanly fast. She pushes herself because she’s desperate. I can feel it coming off of her with force. She’s scared. I take her hand and we run together.
She turns down another road, one named Denmark, pulling me alongside her.
People have come out of their houses and are looking at each other with questions and fear. They watch us as we pass but nobody tries to stop us. These people don’t know The Guardians, I realise, because if they did they’d stop us and demand answers.
We cut down a smaller road. One side of the street is a row of terrace houses and the other is a building that may be flats. Miya stops to catch her breath, looking up at one of the terrace houses with a daunted mask over her face. I want to ask what we’re doing here and why it’s so important but I can’t. This has something to do with her past. What if she’s come here to get her boyfriend, or husband? What if she’s married? is the thought that dominates my mind. We marry young in The Forgotten Lands where it’s an accomplishment to live to twenty two. It’s completely possible that Miya was married before I met her. What if she was never and will never be mine—because she already belongs to someone else.
I can’t breathe and it has nothing to do with the running.
She’s a hurricane charging up the pathway. She hammers down the door so hard her fist will bruise. I stand near the wall that borders the yard as she waits for it to open. A boy no older than eleven opens it and the tension drops from Miya’s shoulders.
She screams “Can’t you hear the siren?”
The boy gawps at Miya. A girl a few years younger than him comes to see who’s at the door and her expression turns stormy. For a disconnected moment I think that these are Miya’s children and that I was right.
She’s not mine.
She’s married.
She has children.
But they’re far too old and she’s far too young and I need to stop panicking.
Miya will always be with me and nothing will change that. I recite it in my mind like a prayer of the old and forbidden religions.
“CAN’T YOU HEAR THE SIREN?” Miya screeches so loud the whole street must be able to hear, even over the siren. It’s not as loud here, though; it’s more of an annoyance in the background than a pulsing scream.
“Mum said to ignore it,” the boy replies eventually. His tone is dazed, awed.
Miya snaps, “Well, I say get the hell out of the house because the town is going to blow up!” Her hands are shaking. I
want to take them in mine and calm her down. I’ve never seen her so frantic.
“Blow up?” the girl asks doubtfully. Her eyes are fixed on Miya and confused. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. It’s gonna blow up. You’re gonna die. You need to leave.”
The girl shakes her head, a sea of dark hair swaying with the movement. She glares at Miya, and the resemblance is so startling it takes me a moment to piece everything together. “You’re dead.”
“Do I look dead?”
“You’re not?” the boy asks. He looks past Miya to me. “Who’s he?”
“The guy who kept me alive all this time when Mum threw me out and left me to die.”
“She what?”
“You heard. Now, come on. It’s not safe for you to stay here.”
The boy takes a step forward but the younger girl who I assume is his sister, Miya’s sister, holds him back.
“You left,” she says and her eyes are brimming with tears. “You left.”
“No I didn’t,” Miya says, and then with a vicious honesty: “Mum threw me out. She said if I ever came back she’d throw both of you onto the streets as well. I couldn’t do that to you.”
My heart aches. My head rages.
The girl continues questioning. “Why are you here now?”
Miya growls, “Because you’re going to die. Please, come with me.”
The girl thinks about it. “What about Mum?”
“Is she here?”
The girl nods.
“Get her and she can come with us but be quick. We’ve already wasted too much time.”
The girl returns half a minute later with a striking woman. Her dark hair makes the sharp features of her face even harder and her black eyes are unnerving in their lack of emotion.
“Get away from here,” she spits at Miya. “You’re not welcome and you’re not wanted.”
I wait for Miya to explode with anger but her shoulders slump and she lowers her head. No way, no way in hell, am I going to let this happen. I step up behind Miya and put my hand on the small of her back under her jacket.
“You have two choices,” I tell Miya’s mother in a cold voice. “You either come with us and leave Forgotten London or you stay here and die. I suggest you make your choice quickly.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she hisses in reply.
I nod. “Fair enough. We’re leaving.”
“Good riddance. Don’t come back.”
“There’ll be nothing to come back to.”
I slide my hand around to Miya’s waist and lead her out of the small brick yard. I look at the boy and the girl, clearly telling them to follow us, and Miya’s brother tries to take another step out of the house. A hand clamps down on his shoulder and he whines. His mother is hurting him.
“You’re not taking my children.”
I leave Miya by the gateway and approach the sharp-featured woman. I let my face fill with the fury and disgust I feel towards her and she takes a step back.
“Yes, we are,” I say in a quiet, controlled voice. I make sure the children can’t hear me; that only she can. “And if you try to stop us, if you lay another finger on any of your children, I will tear you apart.”
She nods, swallowing, and she allows her children to follow Miya and I away from the house.
“We need to run,” I tell Miya. She’s struggling to breathe and fighting to not cry. She looks down at her siblings.
“We’re going to have to run,” she says with as much confidence as she can muster. She sounds broken and I need to fix her. She holds her hands out to her brother and sister. Her brother takes her hand without question. Her sister is hesitant but complies after a moment.
Miya breaks into a run, and the three of us run with her.
We go back the way we came and catch up to The Guardians near Oval station.
“No places left,” a Guardian informs us. He takes one look at the hard look on my face and the heartbroken look on Miya’s and adds, “But there are spaces for all The Guardians and we’ve lost two. You’ll be able to find room.”
“Thank you,” I say earnestly.
We hurry through the tunnels, Miya pulling along her family, and me ready to catch her if she falls. The civilians are already inside the designated carriages, but The Guardians are only now getting on the train so we scurry after them. Nobody gives us disapproving glances for having Miya’s brother and sister but I catch a Guardian about seventeen with a young boy clutching her legs and she and I share a look of understanding.
Our purpose is to evacuate as many civilians as we can, but family comes first.
My family would come first too, if I had any left.
*
Miya’s brother and sister, Thomas and Olive, stay on the train with the Guardian and the young boy while we help evacuate the other zones. Once we get into the pattern of things it doesn’t take long for the carriages to fill up. Most of it is crowd control. Miya is assigned to guide the civilians through the Underground while I count people on their way in and stop them when it gets past the allotted number. Six Guardians and I struggle to stop them from forcing their way past. We can’t do anything to get them onto that train. We have orders to follow.
All at once I’m back in Official-mode. I’m a soldier again.
When we’re back on the train, in the spare carriage full of Guardians, it becomes obvious that something is wrong. For one, the atmosphere is much tenser than it was when we left Forest Hill Zone, but it feels more than that. It’s something deep in my bones. Now that we’re on the move, something is wrong.
Lights flash in the darkness of the tunnel and I realise these tunnels are not like those in the stations. There is more than one track here—a whole circuit of them—and another train is moving five tracks over from us.
“That’s not right,” the head Guardian from Camberwell says. Others agree with him.
I watch the train and see what they mean. It isn’t moving smoothly, it’s rocking from side to side. What the hell is going on? Are the people rocking it? The train tips and I think it’s going to fall onto its side but it rebalances. Our own train is moving, slowly but surely, beside it.
The rocking train lurches forward, attempting to move along the track. It edges closer to us, and I see people crammed next to each other. I see a child pressed against the glass, a cut on her head leaking blood down the side of her face. I see others too, injured and scared, panicking and not knowing what to do.
I know what to do.
I know how to heal them.
If only I could get across.
The train passes right next to us, rocking and staggering forward at a high speed. Our own train moves too, in the opposite direction, onwards towards Beckenham Zone our next stop.
“The route has been altered,” a Guardian informs, looking at a small rectangular thing in his hand. “Norbury Zone has fallen.”
A hush falls over the carriage and I just act.
I’m an Official medic. I know what to do and how to do it.
What I don’t know is why I need to do it, but I’ve never needed to do anything more.
I’m overwhelmed with the need to act.
So I do.
***
Branwell
14:56. 08.10.2040. Forgotten London, Edgware Zone.
The tyres throw up smoke and a squeal as the car flies across the rocky ground in front of a gargantuan wire fence. There are Officials stationed in front of it, and they run towards the car as soon as they hear it. The engine continues to purr as The Guardians exit and charge forward, heedless of the shadows coming towards them.
The Guardians, like the other times I have seen them, are faster than the Officials. They have the dark-clothed figures subdued within a minute. Others come, running from further down the fence, but they too are dealt with.
I don’t waste a second. I approach the barrier, depress a button on The Depowerer and wait for it to thrum to life. It doe
s so with a vibration, and I hurl the device at the fence. Honour comes to stand beside me and we listen keenly as the hum of the electric fence fades away to silence.
“Is that it?” he asks.
I nod in confirmation and, confident in my own creation, run my fingers across the metal wiring of the barrier. “It is not powered, see?”
“Well done,” the head Guardian praises me, then we’re bundled back into the car and driving away.
A Guardian produces a small black device and taps it a number of times. Seconds later he informs us that Alba is now aware that the fence is no longer live with electricity. I want to inspect the device but I refrain from doing so. This isn’t the time for curiosity.
We’ve been driving for little over ten minutes when the car begins to shake. I assume something is wrong with the vehicle but I spot a man outside gripping the wall to keep himself upright. I also notice several people fall over.
It is the ground that is shaking, not our car.
The automobile, despite everything, speeds up to a frightening speed and the streets pass in a whirlwind of colours. A deafening aching sound comes from behind us; I spin in my seat to see what has caused it. Honour does the same and we gasp simultaneously.
The ground has split in two, the earth caved in on itself. People and houses are falling into the crack. I wonder how far down it goes—whether it is to the Earth’s core itself—but as the car begins to rock more violently all questioning thoughts flee.
The car pushes even faster and I suspect that we only manage to escape the ever-expanding crack in the ground because of sheer luck.
The canyon follows us for five whole minutes as we fly down the streets, but as we inch further away from the split it begins to get smaller.
Eventually it disappears from sight altogether.
“That was The Weapon,” I say with certainty. “That is what it does.”
Honour frowns, turning to face the front. “So it is here?”
“Apparently so. You were right.”
He is quiet for some minutes before he whispers, “I wish I’d been wrong.”
The Forgotten Page 32
