Michelle Muckley - The Dawn - The Bombs Fall

“You do. Let me see it. Please.” He was sat upright on his barrel and pleading with her, his own hands now gripping her arms. “I haven’t seen one in so long. I just want to see it. To remember it.” She waited until he let go of her arms and then she reached back into her pocket. She pulled out the iPod, the screen cracked and casing chipped, and handed him the earphones.

“Put them in,” she said. He did as she instructed and the sounds around him became muffled. She moved in close to conceal him from the others in the bar, so much so that he could feel the warmth of her body. He couldn’t smell anything on her except for the faint odour of something floral. Jasmine. There was no smell of the chemicals that most people smelt of. He traced his fingers over the outside of the earphones, the vibrations magnified and resonating loud in his ears.

“It works?” She nodded. He held out his hand for the box. He took it, drawing his finger over the crack in the screen. After staring at it for a while he pressed his finger onto the button and saw the menu light up. The screen, as broken as it was, came to life.

“It works,” he began as a shout, but finished as a whisper. “It really works,” he said again. A piano began to play, and then a voice began to sing. It was the sweetest voice, girlish but profound and with a depth so strong that as the strings worked into the beat he could feel more tears welling in his eyes. The song was called When You’re Gone , and he knew it. It was something Samantha used to listen to, and something that he always complained about because it wasn’t alternative or cool or anything that he deemed worthy of his time. He thought about her sitting on his settee, his cat on her lap because it was a fickle little bastard who always flirted with her and ignored him when she was there. How that fact had once irritated him. But that was all it was now. Just a memory. There was nothing left of that memory except for this song which he hadn’t even remembered until now. He reached out, took Emily’s hand in his to know that he wasn’t dreaming. Emily waited for the song to finish, for him to remove the headphones before she reached over and switched off the iPod.

“Music,” he said, wiping his cheeks with his fingertips, dirt smearing in stripes like camouflage. “I haven’t heard it in years.” She reached across to pull the iPod in closer to her, but he draped his fingers over hers like a cage. “Please, let me listen to it a bit more.” There were only a couple of other men in NAVIMEG, and neither of them was interested in what was happening at the bar. They were lost somewhere to a hallucinogenic, Moonshine-constructed world.

“No, I have to leave,” she said, standing up from her barrel and pulling her hand out from underneath his. “It was nice to talk to you. I’ll see you again.” Still he reached forward to take the iPod back, to listen to something else. It could have been any music, anything at all, and it would have sounded like the sweetest symphony he had ever heard.

“Please, Emily, just a little bit longer. Just one more song.” He reached for her wrist. He made contact and he pulled her closer, the barrel behind her toppling over as she tried to hang onto it. Ronson was soon at their side.

“No, I’m sorry I have to leave,” Emily said, “I can’t be here any longer. I shouldn’t be here.”

“Emily, wait,” he said. It was at that moment when he looked down at her wrist that he saw it. A clean wrist. No numbers. No black triangle etched onto her skin. Instead she had a different sign. Omega. It was a small black half circle with two tails, the mark of privilege, the reason that she didn’t belong here. The sign that everybody in Delta craved.

“I have to leave,” she said, the iPod toppling from her hand to the floor as she pulled away.

“Let her go, Shiner,” said Ronson stepping in and resting his arm out in front of Zack’s chest. “You have to let her go.”

His advice was superfluous because she was already free. She took a step backwards and began to run, but she toppled to the ground over the barrel. Zack stepped forward to help her up and in doing so stepped one foot over the iPod, blocking it from her reach. He was trying to help her, but instead he looked like a threat.

“I have to go,” she said, scrambling backwards on her palms as if she was being chased. She clambered over the barrel onto her feet. She didn’t look back as she ran out of the bar, her blonde hair flowing like fire behind her. Zack edged forwards to follow but Ronson was a strong man and pushed against his chest.

“Wait,” said Zack, trying to get his brain to function, for him to process what had just happened. But he couldn’t because what had just happened was impossible. “Wait a minute!” He reached down and picked up the iPod, he himself also tripping on the upturned barrel before he started after her. “Emily, wait.” Ronson was holding on to his wrist but Zack shook him free. He pushed open the container door of NAVIMEG and staggered into the corridor. He looked left and right but she was nowhere to be seen, able to disappear it seemed, at the speed of a lightning bolt. He turned back into the bar.

“Ronny,” Zack said, sitting down on the barrel as Ronson turned the other barrel the right way up. He was trying hard to coordinate his thoughts so that he could explain to Ronson what he had seen. “Did you see that?” he said, panting. “Did you see what was on her wrist?”

“Probably a number and a triangle like the rest of you lucky bastards. Not like us stuck down here.”

“No,” Zack said, shaking his head. “It wasn’t a number. It was just a symbol. Omega. Just an Omega. She isn’t from Delta.”

Ronson erupted into laughter to the point that the flaps on his deerstalker hat trembled. “Nice one, Shiner. You’re funny tonight.” He slapped his hand down on the flimsy bar, almost sending it to the ground. The tablet that he had placed in front of Zack earlier rolled to the floor and he leaned down to pick it up, still laughing. “I think that Moonshine is starting to affect your brain, Shiner.”

“No, I saw it.” Zack looked down at the iPod still clutched in his hand. The screen no longer orange. He pressed the button and the screen lit up again. “Do you know, nothing up there works that The Republic didn’t install. The only devices to survive were underground at the time of the bombing. And this,” he said, holding up the iPod. “This works. That means that she was underground when the bombs went off. She had to be.”

“There is no way that girl isn’t from Delta. You’ve just had too much Moonshine, that’s all.”

“I saw it. I know I’m not wrong.” He wrapped the earphones around the iPod and slid it into his pocket against the ration cards. If she was from Omega there had to be a way into Delta. That meant there was also a way out. He had always assumed himself to be one of the unfortunate. But now he knew that he was wrong.

Zack let one eye follow the numbers on the screen as the lift descended towards him, but he kept his other eye on the Guardians standing at the door to the sublevels. They hadn’t questioned him when he surfaced, but he was certain they were watching him now. To make sure he followed the rules. Their job was to make sure that every citizen of Delta Tower did what he was supposed to do. Right now the only thing they wanted Zack to do was to step back into the confinement of the upper levels. The Guardians were supposed to be the protectors, the people who created harmony. They granted the illusion of freedom by turning a blind eye to the illicit movement between the upper and sublevels. Omega had fooled people into believing that they were in control of their lives and that they had a choice. They permitted just enough freedom that you couldn’t feel the weight of the chains. Just enough to stop the revolt that bubbled beneath the surface of control. Zack glanced back over his shoulder to the old entrance doors of Delta Tower, the same doors he used to make his final journey into the building. Two more Guardians stood either side, the path sealed by layers of glass, tarpaulin, and force. One was tightening the strap on his glove, the other was watching Zack. Zack stepped inside and pressed the button for level thirty. The lift jolted like the pull on a parachute line and he began to ascend. The walls of Delta were caving in on him, a tiny two by four in which he was imprisoned by a lack of choice, and now an absence of truth. He pressed one hand against the lift to steady himself and another reached up to his throat. He snatched at the neckline of his T-shirt and jumper, the ring of material feeling like it was choking him. It was as if air was being sucked away, leaving him floating in a vacuum of falsity where nothing was real. Even the air he breathed was created by The Republic of Omega. Supplied by Alpha Tower.