The Forgotten

  It’s Branwell that speaks, not me. “You genuinely want The Guardians to overthrow States? To overthrow your father?”

  “Yes. He’s out of control and power crazed. He’s a psychopath. I’ll be glad when he’s not in a position of power.”

  “Those are strong words to use against your own father.”

  “He’s not my father. He’s a man that contributed to my conception, but he’s not my father.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I ask, cutting off Bran.

  “Because Horatia is unconscious,” Marrin answers honestly, “and someone should know.”

  “What do you expect me to do with it? I can’t do anything.”

  He shrugs. “Maybe you can’t, but I think Hora can.” His jaw tightens and I don’t think he meant to call her that. I don’t think he wants anyone to know how much he cares about her. “I thought it was something you should know. Maybe you can tell The Guardians. I don’t really care. Now leave. Please.”

  I understand his urgency. I need to get Tia to safety. God, what will she do when she finds out we left him behind?

  “Thank you,” I say as I move closer to the exit, “for taking care of my sister.”

  He laughs weakly. “I didn’t do it for you.”

  “Thank you anyway.”

  He lowers his head, blonde hair obscuring his face, and that’s the last I see of him.

  I turn my back on Marrin, Branwell at my side and Horatia in my arms.

  I get the feeling Marrin won’t be the last good person to die tonight.

  We walk through the room with the glass walls, and the rooms with the glass floors. As we descend the stairs I can’t remember if Nicky said she’d meet us at the top or the bottom of them. She must have said bottom.

  “Something’s wrong,” Bran murmurs when we’ve gone down twenty floors. “Can’t you feel it?”

  “This whole place is wrong, Bran,” I reply tiredly.

  He doesn’t look convinced.

  When we get to the bottom floor I realise why. The Guardians have gone. They said they’d wait for us, but they’ve left us behind.

  “How are we to get out of the city now?” Bran asks miserably.

  “I don’t know,” I snap. I clench my jaw against any other words and force a deep breath. How are we going to get out of Forgotten London? I know the answer as soon as I’ve thought the question—the same way I’ve always got around the town.

  “We walk.”

  ***

  Branwell

  16:42. 08.10.2040. Forgotten London, Underground London Zone.

  I think that Honour would carry his sister to the ends of the Earth if she needed him to.

  We walk with an unspoken urgency through the streets of London, Honour struggling to keep up with me as he bears the weight of Horatia. The aching sound that preceded the ground splitting in two can be heard in the distance and I can only imagine that half of the city is being destroyed. We walk for an endless time, in the direction that Honour insists will lead us to the border, but even I, a non-resident, can tell that The Weapon will have swallowed us before we’ve made it even half of the way.

  “This is my fault,” I say aloud. I didn’t mean to speak but it comes out anyway.

  “No, it’s not,” Honour replies instantly, angrily. “It’s States’ fault.”

  “If I had been able to find my father’s device none of this would be happening. There would be no way to power The Weapon—Weapons. And none of this would be possible. You would all have your homes.”

  “That was all we had,” says Honour. “That was all we were allowed—a place to live.”

  “You had your lives,” I say. “You still do. Some people will have lost theirs, and I could have saved them had I acted sooner. I was a stupid, foolish child—locking myself away when I needed to act!”

  Honour doesn’t look at me. He asks, “Do you know that for sure, or is that a guess—that you could have stopped this?”

  I frown. “I suppose … I don’t know for certain.”

  “It’s not your fault then.”

  “I still feel to blame.”

  “You’re not,” he says decidedly. “I don’t think any one person is to blame for all this mess. I think it’s more of a thing that’s happened because a lot of people screwed up. It’s like a series of events. This has been coming for years, I think. Yeah you might have played a part, but that’s like a millionth of the whole blame.” He pauses, staring at the isolated street before us. “Does that make sense?”

  “Almost.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any clue how long Horatia should be out? I thought she’d have woken up by now.”

  “A few hours, perhaps?”

  “Right,” he says dismally.

  Gradually, we travel further away from the tall building in which we left Marrin. Honour informs me that we are at the edge of the zone and almost out of Underground London, and that is when the horrible groaning catches up to us.

  We both turn, knowing what we are going to see but unable to resist looking. The glass towers tip on their axis and crash into one another. I pick out the tall building we left Marrin in and wait for it to fall. It shatters to the ground in a shower of glass and dust that rises around the cluster of buildings.

  Honour makes a sound halfway between a gasp and a whimper and says, “No!”

  I follow his gaze and watch a conical building slip and collide with another. The sound, the crashing and tinkling of glass, is so loud that I am sure we will be deafened.

  “Are you okay?” I ask him.

  He shakes his head. “That building … it was … where my father lived. My birth father. He lived there before he was killed.”

  I can’t think of a reply that will sound empathetic so I lay a hand on his arm instead of speaking.

  He watches the space where the towers were, where Marrin was, where his father’s home was, for a stunned minute.

  “We should move again,” I say. “That destruction will catch up to us if we stay still for long enough.”

  He nods as if he’s heard my words but he makes no effort to move.

  I warn, “Honour. We must go.”

  He’s immovable. I try to pull him away but to no avail.

  “Please, Honour!” I beg. The aching has begun again, or perhaps it is that the falling of glass has stopped masking it. Either way it’s getting louder, which means one thing: it is getting closer.

  “Honour, we are going to fall into the Earth,” I say desperately. “We’re going to die. I refuse to leave you here!”

  He doesn’t respond and I play my last card, praying to everything that it will break through whatever stupor he’s got himself in. “If we do not start moving right this second, your sister will be killed. Marrin’s sacrifice will be futile. Everything we have done will be futile. Please!”

  My heart sinks; he doesn’t move.

  It takes half a minute but his eyes shift downwards and he whispers, “Tia.”

  And then he starts to run, but so does the groaning, breaking ground—towards us.

  I sprint after him but I know it is futile. You cannot outrun inevitability and it is inevitable that we will die. If towers crash and the ground falls why should we survive? What makes us so special that we would outlive all of this?

  Luck, I realise. Luck is aiding us again.

  A car screeches as it stops beside us. The door is hurled open and a man several years older than us jumps out.

  “Get in.” His voice leaves no time for questions. I question him regardless.

  “Why?”

  “God!” Honour exclaims. His mouth is open wide. “How are you—”

  “In the car, Honour!” the man shouts.

  Honour explodes into action, bundling his sister into the back of the car while the elder man returns to his driver’s seat. Honour slams the door behind him and I dive into the passenger seat. A moment later the car is flying over the road, and I discover that The Guardians’ car h
as nothing of the speed of this one.

  It takes less than three minutes for us to be clear of the quaking ground, and five minutes more for us to approach the border. I wait for the man to stop the car, to get out and cut the fence so that we are able to pass through but he doesn’t slow.

  “Dear Lord,” I say under my breath, clutching the bottom of the seat. He’s going to drive right into the fence.

  The car bumps and jumps as we hit the border but the fence gives way under the force with which we slam into it. We sprint right over the fallen fence and out of the city.

  “The free lands,” I hear Honour whisper, awed.

  “Who are you?” asks the driver, looking at me from the corner of his eye.

  “Branwell Ravel. Who are you?”

  “My name’s John. I’m a friend of Honour’s.”

  “How did you find us?” Honour whispers from the backseat. “And how did you—I don’t understand anything.”

  “The Guardians told me where you would be. The Guardians who went with you were taken.”

  “Taken?” I ask.

  “By Officials.”

  Honour leans forward. “Are they all right?”

  “I don’t know. They’re captives now.”

  Honour sits back, processing this information, while I ponder The Guardians being taken but us being spared.

  “You’re … not dead,” Honour murmurs. “How is that?”

  “Long story,” John replies. “One I can’t tell you now. I’m sorry, Honour. I’ll explain it to you eventually. Promise.”

  We drive around a barren wasteland and I wonder how John knows where to go. There’s nothing distinctive here—only short grass and an expanse of empty land. The grass does not grow, and I doubt much else does. It makes me wonder what we’ve got ourselves into by evacuating the city. At least inside the barriers there was life.

  Behind us the city is enshrouded in smoke.

  In front of us, rising from the dead ground, is a gathering of people. The car swerves and John tells us to get out and join them. I stagger from my seat, dizzy from the experience; Honour emerges with his sister in his arms. The car slithers away, leaving a spray of dust or ash or whatever it is that coats this grass in its wake. Its doors still hang open from our exit.

  Honour lets out a cry and stares after the vehicle.

  I survey the group of strangers and breathe a sigh of relief when I spot figures in white amongst them. Guardians. John, enigmatic and confusing as he may be, has brought us to safety, to one of The Guardian’s checkpoints. I thank the Lord, and luck, for the man.

  ***

  Honour

  17:19. 08.10.2040. Forgotten London, near Bromley Zone.

  The first thing I see is Miya. The second thing I see is that she’s crying. The third thing I see is two children clinging to her, a boy and a girl.

  It takes me three long minutes of watching her for it to click into place, and out of place. Yosiah isn’t with her. That’s why she’s crying.

  I walk up to Miya, my sister in my arms, and I wait for her to realise I’m here. It takes her a full minute to raise her eyes to me.

  “Honour,” she whispers.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She smiles, and then the smile slips and she shakes her head. She takes a deep breath and says, “I’m not fine. You?”

  “In one piece.”

  “Good,” she says in a dead voice. She forces a smile, then resumes watching the ground.

  I don’t ask about the kids. I don’t think I can handle her haunting eyes and her broken voice any longer. With nothing else to do, I go back to Bran with a dead weight in my chest.

  “Their train collided with a collapsed tunnel,” Bran tells me. “They lost half of the train and half of their passengers. The rear end of the train survived, though, and they emerged with almost four hundred civilians.”

  “How did you find this out?”

  “I asked,” Bran answers as if it’s obvious. “I also discovered that they lost some of that four hundred on the journey from the train to here. They have a little fewer than three hundred and forty now. They’re waiting here for anyone lost to catch up to them. People could still make it out of the city without The Guardians’ aid, of course; especially those who live near the fence.”

  I nod. I’m not listening.

  “Of course there is an equal chance that an antelope could come charging down the fence and join us for a tea party. You’re not listening to me are you, Honour? I could say anything right now and you would agree with me.”

  “Yeah.” I keep watching Horatia, waiting for her to wake up, dreading having to tell her about Marrin.

  22:13. 08.10.2040. Forgotten London.

  We walk for hours around the border, occasionally being joined by people who have made it past the fence. Tia wakes up when we start walking, and my arms are grateful that I don’t have to carry her any longer.

  I keep a close eye on Miya and the children with her. She doesn’t talk even though the boy by her side keeps trying to get her to, and she walks with jerky, mechanical movements. It freaks me out—which makes me guilty and ashamed. I should be sympathetic to her. I know the exact feeling of loss and grief and I know how much it hurts.

  The Guardians lead us, staying a safe distance away from the fence in case it’s repowered but close enough that we can shadow it. I doubt the Officials have even thought to repower it, with all the noise and commotion we can still hear inside the border. Every so often we’ll hear the sound of falling buildings or the groaning of the ground tearing itself apart. Sometimes there are the resisting shouts of crowds as Officials try to contain them. We do our best to ignore it, and to forget the reality of things; we try to forget the people still in there fighting to get out, and the Guardians attempting to help them. Mostly I try to block out the images that come with every distant crash of glass—the falling buildings of Underground London Zone—Marrin sacrificing himself for my sister—Bran’s haunted face.

  Tia stumbles beside me, her arms wrapped around her middle and choking sounds stuck in her throat. I don’t know what to do. She won’t take my hand and I can’t hold or comfort her while we’re walking. She brushes off anything I try to say.

  More than anything I screwed up today, what happened with Marrin is what I would do anything to change. I wish I’d forced him to leave the computers, to come with us. I know that it’s selfish of me, and that he held off the Strains long enough for a lot of people to be evacuated but … Horatia shouldn’t be sobbing, her heart open and broken for all to see. My sister shouldn’t have to grieve for someone she’s only just found. It’s not fair.

  I can’t say any of this to her, though. I can’t say that I want to rip the world in two for taking the only boy Tia’s ever loved from her. I can’t say that I have a lump in my throat the size of States because it was my fault, it was my fault, that Marrin stayed. I should have made him come with us—everyone else be damned. I should never have left him behind.

  But I don’t say anything. I keep walking, and so does Tia, and so does Miya. We walk through the grief because we can’t do anything else.

  According to Branwell the main Guardian checkpoint—where all of the evacuees are converging—is near Edgware Zone, about a ten minutes’ walk away from the fence and into the free lands. That’s where we’re going.

  Dead End—that’s what they call the area of diseased lands that borders the northern zones. It’s meant to remind us what we’d find if we ever crossed the border and went outside: emptiness, Strains, and death.

  The other areas of diseased lands have similar names. The lands west, around the curve of Ruislip, Harrow, and Stanmore Zones are called Lethal West. Below them, separated by the jagged edge of Uxbridge Zone, is West Vacant. The land on the opposite side, near the upper east zones, is called Fatal East, and below that is The Void. Southern zones are bordered by Dead South.

  The names make it sound undesirable. They’re suppose
d to stop us wanting to get past the barrier. They don’t.

  By the time we reach Dead End three and a half hours have passed. My feet are throbbing with pain and I’m about ready to pass out. Bran’s even worse. We end up holding each other upright.

  It takes yet another hour to get to the Guardian checkpoint, and I’m shocked to discover that our group is the largest. I do a sweep of everyone and guess at four-to-six-hundred people.

  The people who lived in the base stand apart from the rest, dressed in white and grey clothes that glow under the moonlight. Guardians are threaded among everyone else, attempting to calm down the hysterical and give answers to the questioning.

  I realise after a few minutes of detached listening that some of the civilians still have family inside the town—family dying inside the fence of Forgotten London that The Guardians are keeping them from saving. I doubt they’d be able to save them anyway. There are more fires now, more riots, more panic. Even through my clouded sight I can see that. The only thing going back would achieve is more bodies.

  The town is screaming. People out here have to shout to be heard. I want to cover my ears but I don’t think it would keep out the constant level of indistinguishable sounds. Everything—everything is noise.

  “Only three made it,” Bran states, startling me with his loud voice. I’d forgotten he was stood with me. “Trains, I mean. And even those were battered beyond repair like the one that brought your friend. They transported more than two hundred people to safety in total.”

  My voice doesn’t sound like my own when I ask, “What about The Guardians base? And … the people who stayed behind?”

  He looks away. “They’ve heard nothing from any of them.”

  “So … Dal and H-He—they’re dead.”

  “No,” Bran exclaims. “They’re with Alba.”

  Swallowing a sob, I whisper “Alba.” It cuts through the haze in my head and my surroundings shift into focus. I hadn’t realised I was seeing things any differently than normal but colours look more intense and everything is sharper. I raise my voice to be heard. “Where is she?”

  Bran takes my elbow and guides me to the leader of The Guardians. Tia follows at my side like she’s tied to me. I’m glad. I don’t want her to be alone right now.