The Forgotten

by Saruuh Kelsey

  ***

  Miya

  15:34. 08.10.2040. Forgotten London, Forest Hill Zone.

  Yosiah is jittery and it terrifies me. He’s going to do something reckless and dangerous. I grab his hand in a death grip and he turns towards me. Determined eyes stare back at me and my breath starts to hitch. Whatever he’s going to do will separate us.

  “Don’t,” I warn.

  “You had to save your family. I have to do this.”

  He presses his lips to my forehead and it’s both over too fast and lingering.

  “Please,” I beg.

  Too late. He’s gone.

  I gasp and try to move but I can’t. When did this carriage get so crowded? Since when have there been so many Guardians? Why are my lungs screaming?

  I’m trying to shout but nothing is coming out. I’m trying to move but Thomas’s hand in mine is paralysing me. Yosiah is pulling apart the doors of the carriage and I wonder how much strength he must have to be able to do that, but then the thought is gone and the only one I can hear is:

  Yosiah’s leaving, Yosiah’s leaving, Yosiah’s leaving me.

  When he jumps out of the door I scream.

  It happens so slowly that I see everything and so fast that I see nothing.

  The two trains pass by each other and then it’s dark again.

  I think The Guardians are trying to force the doors closed but it doesn’t matter. Yosiah’s gone and I can’t go with him. I have Thomas and Olive to look after. I need Siah.

  We come out into the next station but the train grinds to a halt. I’m barely conscious of my surroundings enough to notice the cracks in the walls of the station and the crater in the ground. I lean against the cold window and stare down the hole. Tracks hang over each edge of it. A train has fallen and I can see people trying to climb their way out. Yosiah’s train. It must be his train. It doesn’t matter that Siah’s train was going in the opposite direction. I know he’s in that pit.

  Yosiah’s down there.

  I jerk forward but a Guardian, anticipating that I’d do something, restrains me.

  I break down.

  I collapse onto the metal floor of the carriage as we back away from the crater. I don’t care if we blow up anymore, or if we crash or tip over. I don’t care. Yosiah’s gone. Yosiah could be dead in that cavern in the ground.

  He’s gone.

  It takes me forever to realise that Thomas and Olive are talking, trying to calm me down even though they’re hurt I left them behind. They know. They must know that I need Siah.

  Thomas curls against my side and Olive sits in my lap but it doesn’t matter. I can’t hear any of their words over the breath that struggles to get out of my mouth but it doesn’t matter.

  It doesn’t matter.

  ***

  Honour

  15:39. 08.10.2040. Forgotten London, Underground London Zone.

  This is the first time I’ve been to the buildings above Underground London Zone. Avoiding this zone is an unspoken rule for staying alive.

  As we drive through the zone I feel cold. It’s eerie, this place. It’s not like the other zones where every house is teeming with life and people line the streets. Here is nothing but space and silence. It’s not like the silence of the free lands, though. That was calm and unrestricted. That promised escape and safety. This is the silence of absence, and it promises nothing but death.

  I’m shivering.

  The buildings look as icy as I feel—blue and grey, made of glass. Some of them are gutted, their fronts smashed and hollow, but most of them stand as if they have been there before everything. Before the solar flares. Before States. Before the Strains. Before we were born. These buildings are as old as my father, probably older. I wonder if this is where he lived when he was alive: in the heart of the town.

  We glide over a bridge and a cluster of buildings rise out the dusty fog. They’re bluer than the other buildings but still somehow as bleak. Few of them stand at the same level as the ones we’ve past, but most tower over the others. I allow my mind to wander as I stare out of the window, and I imagine the smaller buildings as us, as people, and the towers as the lost royalty of Great Britain.

  One of the buildings is taller still, and weirdly shaped. It looks like a huge finger held up to the sky. I crane my neck to see what it’s pointing at but all I see is darkening sky and dust in the wind, so I stare at the pattern of the glass building instead. Thin ribbons of white glass snake around the blue shape of it and a darker glass curls the other way, crisscrossing over the network of lighter vines. It reminds me of my sister’s hair, when the wind used to blow it into knots during the last quarter of the year when the air became hostile and furious.

  My father could have lived here, I think, as we get closer to the pointing building. Hele said that he was from an important family. It seems right that he’d live in the tallest building, so that everyone in the central zone would be able to see his home. I decide that’s where he lived, The Unnamed—not that I can ever prove it, or that it does me any good. It just makes me feel better having a specific place to pin him to. From all the times I’ve heard about him, and from what I’ve read in The Guardians’ books, he seems to be like air—everywhere and nowhere at once. Having a home makes him feel like a real person to me.

  The car turns in the opposite direction to The Unnamed’s building and I let it go behind us. I don’t want Tia to question me if I stretch to keep staring at it. I don’t want to have to explain my messed up thoughts.

  Shock spikes through me when I realise—Tia doesn’t know! She doesn’t know about our parents or what they did, or even that we are royalty. She doesn’t even know what royalty is. I need to talk to her alone, and soon after we get out of the car because I have no idea how this will end.

  The car parks in front of one of the glass towers. It might be taller than The Unnamed’s building but I can’t tell from right beneath it. I can’t imagine anything taller than this.

  The Guardians are out of the car as quick as ever, and Marrin follows a moment later, holding the door open for Tia. I shake my head at the gesture.

  “We’ll go in first.” Nicky gestures to The Guardians. “That way we should be able to stop any Officials we come across. You three,” —she sweeps her hand at Bran, Tia, and me— “go behind us. Marrin, you can stay in the back and keep a look-out for anyone behind us. I’m gonna assume you can take care of yourself.”

  “I can,” Marrin confirms with a sharp nod. His face holds no emotion anymore. He looks to be assessing everything like a good military Official. I feel sick. What if trusting him was wrong?

  Nicky grins. “Then what are we stood here for?”

  She spins on her heel and leads us inside.

  Marrin asks in a hushed voice, “It’s unlocked?”

  “Not exactly.” She spins a pen around her fingers. “We have ways of getting into buildings.”

  He reaches forward. “Can I see that?”

  “Not in a million years. Guardian property.”

  An Official darts into our path, a barely visible shadow. He has a black stick in his hand and he raises it to hit Nicky. She strikes out with the palm of her hand and the Official goes limp, crashing to the floor before he can even touch her. She kicks the stick so it rolls to the side of the grand entryway and tuts. “I hate clubs,” she mutters.

  “Second-to-top floor,” Marrin informs her quietly and Nicky purses her lips.

  “That’s what we thought.”

  We head up a suspended glass staircase, Bran and I hesitant and everyone else unwavering. I brace myself, feeling like I’m going to fall right through the unsteady glass, but it turns out to be solid and sturdy.

  Two more Officials barrel towards us when we reach the first floor, but within ten seconds the Guardians have left them unconscious on the opaque floor. I notice Marrin shift out of the corner of my eye; he’s moved to shield Tia with his body. I’m grateful, but confused. He’s … intense. Tia catches my
eye and forces a smile.

  “You okay?” I mouth. She nods but I can sense her fear. She shouldn’t be here, but neither should I. Despite everything, I can understand why she came to this dangerous glass tower—for Marrin. Like I don’t have a choice about being here for her, she doesn’t have a choice about being here for him.

  “Two Officials will be stationed on each floor,” Marrin informs The Guardians, and he’s right. For every floor we go up, another two Officials come at us. The Guardians are quick and quiet when they ‘stop’ the Officials. I don’t think they kill them, but when the Officials are laid on the floor with glassy, staring eyes they look pretty dead to me. I don’t know why that affects me. I don’t care what happens to the Officials after what they’ve done and continue to do to us.

  Except I do.

  I suppose a stupid, hopeful part of me wants to think that the Officials don’t know the full extent of what States has done. I want to think that a few Officials out there aren’t sadistic or malicious. I guess I should take Marrin as proof of that—but if Marrin is both military and not a threat, how many more Officials aren’t dangerous to us? How many Officials will die tonight for no reason?

  That could be why The Guardians don’t kill them. Or maybe it’s because they have military allies and don’t want to kill them. I don’t know. I don’t even know why I’m thinking about this. All I need to know is that the Officials are the ones who gave Thalia the Strain, and the ones who ration our food, and the ones who punish us for making our own choices and taking our own paths.

  But maybe they don’t have a choice.

  I sigh out loud without meaning to and Bran looks at me in sympathy. Sympathy for what, I have no clue.

  My thoughts about the Officials are the same as ever—bitter, furious, and resenting—and my feelings towards them haven’t changed from the defiance I try to keep hidden. But something has changed. I don’t feel as bitter, and my anger doesn’t have the overwhelming strength that it used to. Maybe it’s because this life has broken me down. Maybe it’s changed me for the better. I wouldn’t know how to tell.

  I’m hauled from my thoughts by the scratching rustle of The Guardians taking out another pair of Officials. A sign on the wall declares it to be: Floor 41 of 42.

  Bran is looking around the stairwell with a frown. “How many Officials do you suppose there will be?”

  “We don’t know exact numbers,” Nicky answers, “but I’d guess at somewhere between twenty and a hundred.”

  Bran chokes on a cough. I go cold all over. “But there are only eight of us!”

  “Marrin,” Horatia gasps.

  Calmly, he replies, “It’s all right.”

  “No, it’s—”

  “With The Guardians and me, we’ll be able to handle it.” He runs his hands over her arms and leans down to speak into her ear. I shift a little closer so I can hear what he’s saying.

  “—won’t let anything happen to you, you know that. I’d die before I let anyone touch you.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about,” Tia breathes.

  “Stop worrying about me.” He kisses her so quick that nobody else notices. I wait for it to turn my stomach, but instead of repulsion I feel sadness.

  “Are you bothered by that?” Bran asks me quietly. “Your sister courting, I mean?”

  “My sister what?”

  He coughs. “Being … more than platonic with a man.”

  “Oh. Yeah, it bothers me, but only because I don’t want her to be hurt.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you? Has your sister ever dated?”

  He worries his lower lip. “I assume by ‘dated’ you mean the same, and no, not entirely. She was in love with someone when I saw her last, but I’m not sure she was aware of her feelings. I know what it feels like to worry for your sister’s heart but still want her happiness.”

  I guess he does kind of understand. I try to smile gratefully but it comes out thin and wan.

  Nicky motions for us to be quiet as The Guardians venture out of the stairwell. It’s suspiciously quiet but I’m not sure what I thought we’d find. Officials charging towards us with battle cries maybe.

  We tiptoe onto the landing—or maybe it’s just Bran and I that tiptoe—without a thing happening. I strain my ears, paranoid of every space and every shadow. The landing leads into a wide room with a floor of glass and my stomach trips over itself. Through the floor I can see all the way to the bottom of the building. That’s the first thing I notice. The second thing I see is the barrage of black in front of us.

  Nicky groans. “So that’s why they didn’t send more down to meet us. They were waiting for us.”

  There are too many Officials for me to calculate, but I’d guess at fifty. And they’re all armed.

  We’re dead.

  Think logically, Honour. What do we need to do?

  The grenade. The one the head Guardian had in the vault.

  Nicky says to a Guardian, “If they’re any kind of clever a second wave of Officials will be waiting in the next room along.”

  I ask her quietly, “Those grenades that stop their guns—do you have one?”

  “No.” She sounds frustrated. “Those are on high priority tonight. We only have a few of them and those are being used on the streets.”

  I hiss a curse.

  Calm, I say to myself. What’s the next best thing?

  “Bran,” I whisper. He stands straighter.

  “What do you require?”

  “The guns—they’re not like the ones you’ll have had back at your home. They’re electric. They wirelessly take power from the nearest source.”

  “I think I follow you. We are going to have to break the circuit.”

  When I exhale my breath clouds the air. “You know what to do?”

  His eyes assess the area. “More or less.” The exchange takes little over a second, whispered fast and frantic, but it calms me. Someone knows what to do.

  He holds out his hand. “Blade.” I remove the folding knife from my pocket and hand it to him before he dives to the floor. The Officials don’t move. They’re waiting for our move. They don’t know that this is it.

  There’s a square box on the floor, with cables running alongside it. Bran saws through the wires and the lights cut out. The Officials don’t think anything of it. Why would they—they can fight perfectly in the dark. Each of their caps has a shield that flips down to cover their eyes, built into which is a night vision filter. But they don’t even need that—it’s sunset outside. They can see clearly, and they’re still waiting.

  As Bran returns to my side, Nicky snaps up straight. She takes a metal sphere the size of a fist from her belt and pushes an indentation on the side of it. A handle jerks out of the top. By the time I realise that the sphere has opened into a shining white sword, she’s already stabbed two Officials.

  Now the Officials spring to life.

  “Please tell me that will stop their guns,” I say under my breath.

  Bran fidgets. “If what you said is correct they will be unable to function. If you’re wrong …”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  I hold my breath as guns are raised and fired—

  And breathe out when the shrill of shots is absent. Bran claps me on the back.

  The rest of the Guardians jump into the fray, and so does Marrin. I position myself in front of Tia at the same time Bran does and we both protect her as The Guardians dance around the room. She doesn’t sound happy about it if her grumbling is anything to go by.

  I’m not sure what the difference between these Officials and the ones on the stairs is but this time The Guardians are using weapons instead of their fists. My face must show my question because Bran says, “I think it has something to do with the sheer number of Officials.”

  I suppose that makes sense, but my mind is still insisting that not all of the Officials are bad.

  “They are not injuring to kill,” Bran goes on. “If you
watch you can see that they’re only hindering movement.”

  Most of the Officials’ injuries are on their legs, making it impossible for them to stand. While my attention is elsewhere, an Official charges towards us with a baton raised. I watch it sail through the air so that I know where to catch it but I don’t need to. A pure-white blade goes through his chest from behind and the Official gags and falls. Marrin is behind him, sword in hand and a dark expression on his face. He doesn’t spare Officials the way The Guardians do, but he’s defending Tia so I don’t feel as angry as I should.

  Within five minutes the Officials are either collapsed on the floor or dead, and we’re moving into another glass-floored room. This one is twice the size of the last one. Bran hunts for the electric box and repeats the process of cutting the wires.

  Marrin avoids Tia like the Strains and I watch the hurt settle on her face with a frown. I slip my hand into my sister’s and the shadow of a smile crosses her face.

  “I need to tell you something,” I say as I keep my eyes fixed on the room. This one is empty and free of Officials so maybe Nicky was wrong and those back there were the only guards.

  “Honour, this isn’t the place to talk. It’s not safe.”

  “Exactly! What if we die here?”

  She focuses her eyes on the back of Marrin’s head. “What is it?”

  “I found out something while I was with The Guardians,” I begin. “Something about us, about our parents.”

  “I already know, Honour,” she replies in a flat tone. “The Unnamed was our father.”

  “How … how did you know?”

  She tips her head towards Marrin. “He told me a few days ago.”

  “Oh.”

  She squeezes my hand and when I look at her she’s smiling faintly. “Thank you. You could have kept it from me.”

  “I’m tired of keeping secrets from you.”

  “Me too,” she says. My heart pounds. I haven’t got Tia back, and we’re far from being the way we were, but I think we could be like that again someday. If we make it out of this building.

  She inhales sharply and pulls her hand from mine when we get into the next room. This one is bigger still, and its walls are curved and look out onto Underground London Zone. Tia marches forward and rests her hand on Marrin’s back. I almost laugh. She wants to protect him. I nearly tell her that I don’t think he needs protecting, but I figure she already knows that.