The Dawn: The Bombs Fall (A Dystopian Science Fiction Series) (10 page)

“He was so small, Leo. His wrists,”
Zack said as he looked at his own and saw how thin they seemed in comparison to
how they once were. “Tiny,” he said shaking his head. “That’s why I went to the
sublevels, to take my mind off it. That's when I saw her.”

“Maybe you shouldn't be going up or
down,” Leonard whispered, his eyes downcast. “You can't change the things you
did in the past, Zachary. I know why you go up there. I've seen you looking
north from Delta. It’s not right to live with the guilt of a choice that you
made in haste.” They both knew that they were no longer talking about the boy
from level forty eight. “You might have gone home that night and made a
completely different decision. It wasn’t too late to change your mind and make
it right. It was just that the chance was taken away from you when the bombs
fell.”

“She died believing that I let her
down, Leo.” They both stared at their feet. They both searched in the realms of
impossibility to find a solution to a problem that couldn’t hope to be
resolved. “It doesn't matter what I might have done, or what I could have done.
It's what I did that counts. The truth is that Samantha died believing that I
didn't want our child.” Zack reached up and wiped his eyes. He was so tired,
and yet he knew even if he tried to he wouldn't sleep. He looked at Leonard's
aged face, the lines etched into his skin amongst the dry cracks and crevices. The
image of his only friend. “Something doesn’t make sense anymore,” Zack said,
breaking the silence. “If Emily can get in, it means she can get out.”

“Emily?” Leonard asked, confused.

“The girl from Omega.”

When he slammed the door she was
already lying on her bed. She was propped up on three pillows, the quilt
buckled up like a stormy ocean beneath her as she pulled her feet in closer,
her arms wrapped around her knees. She knew it was coming. She knew he was home
as soon as she saw his shoes by the door. She had tried to tiptoe into her
bedroom, but he had heard her pass by his office. He called her name in the
deep voice that she still feared as much as she had as a child, and when she chose
not to answer, she knew that he would follow.

He was standing in the doorway, his
cheeks pink. His blood pressure was up. “Emily, where the hell have you been at
this time of day? Why weren't you here for dinner?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t care if you are hungry or
not, I expect you here. There are rules, young lady. You have been there again,
haven’t you? You’ve been back.”

“Dad, I'm a grown woman. I can do
whatever, and go wherever, I like. You can’t tell me what to do.”

“As long as you are under this roof I
can demand what is expected of you. What is necessary.” Emily tutted, looked
away, and drew her knees in closer still like a battle shield. His hand was
outstretched, his fingers manipulated into a single point of authority like the
point of an archer's arrow. “And you cannot do whatever and go wherever you
like. There are rules, Emily. Not my rules,” he said, stabbing at his own
chest. “The rules of the Republic. This has to stop. You are supposed to be an
example. How do you think this behaviour reflects on me? This has to stop right
now.”

“The Republic's rules are your rules,
Dad.”

He picked up the rucksack that she
had discarded on the floor. She lunged upright on her knees and reached out for
the bag, but he snatched it away from her reach. He pulled out the top half of
a grey-white overall. It was the Republic's issue. He shook his head as he
looked around the room, throwing the bag back on the floor. “And this,” he
said, pointing at the wall of windows. The view was consumed by thick grey
cloud cover, the same that hung over Delta Tower. The bare walls were painted a
pale beige colour, warm and comforting like hot sand. “Why do you insist on
watching this?” He stomped across the floor, his hand outstretched as he
reached for the remote control panel.

“Stop it, Dad. Leave it!” She burst
from her bed, snatched the remote panel from his hand before sinking back into
the soft waves of the duvet beneath her. He stood with his hands on his hips,
his breathing erratic and nerves frayed.

“I just don’t understand you, Emily. I
don’t understand this need that you have.” He sat down on the edge of the bed,
his hands resting on the tops of his knees. He turned slightly, but avoided eye
contact as she edged herself away from him. When she was a child, a tiny bundle
curled up in his lap, he used to imagine the day when she would hit puberty and
become distant from him. He knew that with the growth of breasts and the surge
in hormones his daughter would push him away, and that he too would find it
hard to reach her as she grew into a woman. He had always dreaded that feeling
of her effortlessly slipping beyond his control, but knew he would live through
it a thousand times over if he could go back to that now. If he could choose to
be the father she despised because he stopped her dating a wayward boyfriend,
or imposed an unreasonable curfew, he would trade in a second. “You have to try
to accept your life,” he said, more kindly than he had set out to be when he
had first sat down.

“I can’t.”

“You’re not a child anymore, Emily. You
are a grown up, just like you say you are. I know I treat you like you are
still fourteen years old, but you persist in acting like it.” He turned closer
but she drew her knees away from him, shifted across the satin bed sheets that
Beda would be arriving to turn down shortly. She would be bringing clean towels
for the bathroom, too. “I only want the best for you. I know what that is, I
promise. You have to trust me.” He stood up and wandered over to her dressing
table. He regarded her things as one might a box of old coins. He rifled a
fingertip through her belongings. A selection of dated magazines, a hairbrush,
a pot of lip balm that had lost its smell, and a few dog-eared photographs. He
picked one up. “I remember this being taken,” he said as he turned and looked
at her, tapping the photograph with the back of his fingers. Her silence
remained like a noose around his neck. He knew that at any moment he could say
the wrong thing and she could kick the stool out from underneath him. He placed
the photograph back down from where he had picked it up from amongst the meagre
possessions from her childhood.

“I don't know why you keep all these old
things. I have seen the girls of your age on the Community Level. They spend
lots of time getting different colours on their fingertips and their eyes. You
don't do anything like that.”

“They don't have anything else to do.”

“Why don’t you spend some time out of
the house with them?” he suggested. “It could be nice. You might enjoy their
company. You used to enjoy going down to the lobby and playing with the others.
You used to enjoy the Community Level, and the dance classes.” The Community
Level was supposed to be a place of unity, a place where people could go and
always find company. Loneliness was dealt with by the third creed of the Omega
Manifesto: No citizen of New Omega shall feel alone. That's what they promised.
Emily had been avoiding the Community level even before she found out, she knew
something wasn't right, even then. She didn't want to be around the girls
completing their forced Population Planning Checks, or the men carrying out
Renunciation Pledges like robots. Not when everybody knew that she didn't have
to do the same.

“I used to be fourteen, Dad.” He
nodded his head to show that he understood. “They spend time down there making
themselves look stupid and eating too much, and then worrying about getting fat
and ugly because they are bored. I am not bored.”

“Well, what else do they like to do?”
he asked, not able to accept that he was beaten, or that he couldn't drive the
conversation where he wanted it to go. “Maybe there is something else you could
do together.” She looked up without moving her sunken head.

“They go up to level seventy two.”

“Excellent. It is very nice up there.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“What, you’re trying to tell me you
have never been?”

“Never,” she said, before he had even
taken a breath. Emily couldn't work out if he was awkwardly putting his hands
in and out of his pockets because she had never been to the outside viewing
deck, or because he didn’t know that she had never been. They had drifted so
far apart. Or rather he had pushed her. But it was hard not to relent when he
looked so bewildered. “It was easier before, Dad,” she said, relaxing her
shoulders and her hard line stance. She placed the remote control panel, a
small glass square that looked almost transparent, back on the edge of her bedside
table. “It was easier when I didn’t know.”

Her last comment burdened him, his
back curved, surrendering to the responsibility. If he could take time back, he
would. He would keep her in the dark like the rest of the remaining world, tell
her that they still had no choice. At least this way she would accept the world
before her as the truth, and she would accept that there was a purpose to their
way of life other than self serving greed. “I wish you had never found out.”

“Maybe so, but you can’t expect me
just to accept it now that I have. I can’t, Dad. I just can’t.”

“But you don’t have a choice,” he
said. Again they remained in silence, her staring at her feet and him staring
at his hands.
Lies were easier believed when they were told convincingly
,
she thought. She had read that somewhere. She always knew he was being truthful
when he couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye. When he couldn't handle
her judgement. “Regardless of how you feel, this whole charade of yours of
going backwards and forwards to whichever tower it is,” he raised his finger
again, “has to stop. If I find out who is helping you I’ll.....”

“You’ll what? Cut their oxygen rations?”

“I don’t know what you think you know
about the other towers, Emily, but here in Omega Tower there are rules. We must
abide by them. However you convinced one of the Coordinators to take you I’ll
never know.”

“Guardians, Dad. They call them
Guardians.”

“What if you are seen?”

“What if I am?” She considered the
words already on her tongue, and before she could stop herself she was already
saying, “Maybe I already have been.”

“What?” he screamed as he reached
forward and took her chin in his hand. He gripped her so hard she bit the inside
of her cheek and the metallic taste of blood streamed into her mouth. “We'll
talk about that in the morning. You won't be going anywhere until then. Got it?”
He released her from his grip, shoving her backwards and she ended up lying in
a heap on her bed. She swallowed the blood in her mouth and suddenly felt
hungry. It was hours since she had eaten. He snatched the control panel away
from her bedside table. He was fast, and although she reached out to intercept
him she missed, and instead slipped forward in time to see him holding it in
his hands. “The first thing,” he said, pressing one of the glass icons. A sun. “This
has to go. I can’t watch it, and I will not have you watch it either like some
sort of prisoner.” Before she could say anything the room filled with sunlight,
golden shards of it pouring through, refracting through the glass. It was close
to sunset. She saw the greenery in the background, the oversized clouds which
were made up of so many colours they hurt her eyes. “This is how your room will
stay. Do not let me catch you with that old programme. I’m going to have it
uninstalled.”

“Then I’ll never come home.”

“With that attitude, you’ll never go
out. I’ll keep you locked here until you face up to it. Until you are begging
for the opportunity that I have given you.”

“Like a prisoner,” she said, slumping
down on her bed.

“You’re the one that always says you
want to know how it must feel for them. I’ll teach you. See if you like their
life any better than you do yours. I’m pretty sure you’ll soon know what’s for
the best.” He slid the control panel into his suit pocket. He was one of the
few people who still dressed like a person from the old world. He wore a suit
each day. Today was a tweed jacket and casual trousers. His evening wear. He
only wore Republic issued clothes during presidential engagements.

“I’m already a prisoner,” she spat,
her lips stained red with blood. He noticed but ignored it, and pressed on
regardless.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said as he tapped
a series of icons on the control panel until music could be heard filtering
through the walls. Music of nature, panpipe music with the occasional interjection
of a bird singing. Something that would have once been played in a spa. “There,
that’s better.”

“If it wasn’t for you I could have
had a life. A real life.” She wiped her lip with the back of her hand, sweeping
a streak of blood across her cheek.

“If it wasn’t for me you’d already be
dead.”

“Like Grandpa, who you killed,” she
shouted as he turned to leave the room. “And when Mum dies you will have killed
her too.” He stopped, his hand gripping the door handle, his jaw bone clenched
and his teeth set together. “You’re the reason the war started.”

“That’s very unfair, Emily,” he said,
his words flat and emotionless, but he knew he was teetering on the brink of
disaster. She could always do this to him. She could always break him. It was
so easy for a daughter to slice you apart when you managed to be strong against
the rest of the world. “The only reason anybody survived is because of what I
did.”

He stepped out of the room and slammed
the door shut. She jumped off the bed and tried the door handle. She was too
slow. He had locked her in. She drummed her fists against the door and
screamed, “No, Dad. You are the only reason that anybody died.” She slipped
down the door, the earliest of tears forming in her eyes.

She didn't know that her father was
also on the floor, their heads pressed together, separated only by the door
that he had trapped her behind. She didn't know he was still listening as she
said, “You’re the reason the war started, and you’re the reason why for
everybody who survived, it will never end.”