Michelle Muckley - The Dawn - The Bombs Fall

The lift stopped on level nine. Two Guardians and two residents stepped in. The Guardians were dressed in the same white uniforms, the black gloves covering their hands fastened tight like a noose at the cuff. Now Zack was convinced that Emily was from Omega it made him doubt everybody around him. He couldn’t remember ever seeing a Guardian’s number. Had he ever seen any proof that they were trapped here like he was? Were Sam and Croft really on the fifth level where he believed them to be, or were they enjoying a different life in Omega?

Zack waited behind the Guardians who were standing motionless and silent, their eyes on the doors. The other two, a man and a woman, slouched against the wall of the lift. The woman looked dirty, her face marked by grime, her hair lank and greasy. She looked like Delta, lit by the harsh lighting of the lift. She wore the same overalls as Zack. The man with her turned to the woman and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and he pressed the button for level forty eight. Zack thought about his time up there earlier on that day and realised that he recognised the woman. It was the same woman who had been sprawled out on the settee. It was the woman he had assumed to be Billy’s mother. He watched as she ran her grubby hand up towards her head, her fingers sliding through her hair. He caught a glimpse of the black triangle which he had held to find a pulse, her number illegible but present. She had three others tattooed on her wrist. She belonged here, but she wanted out too.

The man was standing with his hands in his pockets, one foot up and flat against the wall. Zack arched his neck to get a better look at him, to get a view of his wrists. Who else was in Delta that didn’t belong here? When Zack looked up again, he realised that it was he who had become the watched.

“What’s your problem?” the man asked, defensive like every Delta resident. “What are you looking at?” The Guardians turned to face the man, but he didn’t flinch and he held his vacant gaze on Zack. The Guardians twisted their necks, and Zack noticed that the one closest to him, the one on the right, moved his hand onto his Assister. It was the thing that most people in Delta still called a baton, at least when out of earshot of a Guardian. Zack heard the leather of the Guardian’s glove creak as he gripped the wooden handle.

“Nothing,” Zack said, his eyes dropping to the floor. He raised his right hand like a white flag of surrender. “Sorry.”

“So why were you staring at me?” The second Guardian, the bigger of the two, turned around so his body was square onto Zack’s. He too reached down to his Assister, but it wasn’t necessary. The Guardians were protected by every rule and every condition of life within Delta, and nobody wanted to rise up and pretend to be a hero. There was no messiah in Delta who wanted to save the world. Zack had no intention of causing any trouble, but with the Guardians you didn’t have to look very far before it found you.

“Nothing,” Zack said again. “It’s just, you know, with the lottery. I was just wondering what number you have?” The lift had stopped at level twelve, the original destination of the couple. Zack saw now that the woman’s eyes were red and swollen. She could have been crying, but it could also have been because of the drugs. The man didn’t say anything as the doors opened but he stepped out and the woman followed. Zack wondered for a moment if they were searching for Billy, and if they were going to the sick bay. Every human urge within him told him to stop them, but there was little of humanity left in Delta, and he suppressed the impulse.

“Just watch it,” Zack heard the man say after the doors began to close when there was no chance of retaliation. The Guardians could have accosted him for that kind of talk. Tower Protection is what the Guardians called their form of law. Nobody knew if it was under the guise of The Republic or not.

The lift began to ascend, and Zack, still under the watchful eye of the two Guardians, allowed his head to drop back down. He wanted to appear small, insignificant like an insect that was nothing more than a bother to them. Not an easy task when you stand at six foot three and tower over one of the Guardians confronting you.

“So you’ve got number fever, eh?” laughed the smaller of the two Guardians, the one on the right whose trigger-happy hand had been quick to his Assister. His teeth were blackened and intermittently missing. It could have been radiation related, but more likely was due to tobacco chewing and poor hygiene. There was a smell coming from him that made Zack want to be sick. He was certain that he had never seen this Guardian before. “Thinks he might win!” he sniggered as he slapped the quieter, bigger Guardian on the arm. “You think a scummy Deltarite like you is going to win the lottery?” He took his Assister out and in one single fluid movement he slid the handle straight into Zack’s side. A movement of memory. The Guardian was cackling like a hyena back and forth as Zack buckled to his knees in pain. “You ever heard of somebody from Delta winning?” he spat as he leaned over Zack, a brown globule oozing from his mouth and dribbling onto Zack’s cheek. From the corner of his eye Zack saw the Assister rise above him, the Guardian’s arm high and ready to strike. All the while he was sniggering, drunk on the power of his position, a fire raging in his eyes as if he was God and creator. Zack braced himself, but as the lift stopped and the doors opened he saw the calmer of the two Guardians grip the wrist of the other before nodding at Zack to get out. Zack scrambled to his feet, the eyes of the nearest onlookers wondering what he had done wrong as he fell to the floor outside the lift. He turned back just before the doors closed behind him to see the Assister of the larger Guardian uppercut the jaw of the other.

Zack ran up the corridor ignoring the sounds of the televisions, dodging people as he passed. He hammered his fist against the door of Leonard’s room until he saw a finger poke through the blind to pull down a slat. Leonard’s eye peeped through. He opened the door, his hair dishevelled, his eyes puffy and narrow as arrow slits on the tower of a castle.

“What the hell do you want?” Leonard said. “I haven’t heard the bell for dinner. I was resting.”

“Screw dinner,” said Zack, pushing Leonard back into the room and closing the door behind him. “I want to hear everything you know about the lights you have seen. Where are they?” Zack was at the window, hands pressed against it, and for the first time ever since he became stuck in Delta he saw nothing of the ruins outside the window. Now he believed there was something more than the surface truth which he saw all around him. “When do you see them? Where do they show up?”

Leonard scratched his head, his eyes wrinkled as his palm and fingers investigated the sockets in an attempt to force himself awake. He smoothed his hair into place and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I thought you said I was crazy. That the lights were nonsense.”

“I was wrong, Leo. This,” Zack said pointing out of the window, “this is not our world. There is something more to it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I met a girl.” Leonard rolled his eyes, stood up from the edge of the bed, but Zack dashed over and put his hands on Leonard’s shoulders to encourage him back down. “Not like that. I met a girl in the sublevels.”

Leonard rolled his eyes again, more exaggerated this time, sure about where the conversation was going. He shook his head, shook Zack’s hands from his shoulders. “No, Leo. Not like that either. She isn’t from Delta.”

“No. You mean that she is from the sublevels. I’ve heard the stories from down there, Zachary. I know what goes on. But I thought you were better than that.”