The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) (13 page)

The Guardians home in
Delhi is five times the size of the building in Mumbai. I remember
when I was first shown around the Mumbai base by a man named Rafe
who found me bewildered in the middle of a bazaar. He knew who I
was and that I’d arrive in the exact moment I did—he was following
instructions on an ancient piece of paper. Instructions written,
impossibly, in my own hand. Since then I’ve come to accept things
as they happen, abandoning the need to know details and facts of
how everything is possible. Things happen because they need to.

Whatever seems
insignificant now may prove to be essential later.

I was transported to
Bharat, to the future, because it was important that I be here. I
survived the Fall of Mumbai because I’m important. I wasn’t meant
to die. And now, as I weave through the night-time streets of New
Delhi, I acknowledge that I have a purpose because it is important,
that it’s vital that I alone should complete this task. I need it.
I can’t let anyone else do this. It has to be me.

The first time I
learned of the Guardians’ aims and intentions, I thought they were
mad. They were cultivating a crazed plan to topple their
government! But I’ve since seen the tentative way a good portion of
Bharatians live, how they tiptoe through their lives for fear of
drawing the attention of those they call Dark Soldiers. They might
be healthy, well provided for, and in possession of technology way
beyond my dreams, but their lives are spent balancing on a dagger’s
edge. It’s no way to live. And I’m told that life outside Bharat is
much, much worse, that people in the Forgotten Lands don’t have
freedom, let alone enough food to keep from starving.

I can’t imagine being
permanently hungry, every second of every minute. I’m so lucky to
have been brought here and not there.

In the days I have
been here, I’ve spent most of my time learning about this world I’m
reborn into. There were once twenty four Forgotten Lands and two
Cities, the survivors of the savage diseases and solar flares the
Bharatians call the Third War—the war between nature and man. Of
them, the two Cities remain—one of which is the country I’m now
in—and as of yesterday eighteen Forgotten Towns are standing. But
that could change at any given moment.

My research means I
now know why there are very few elderly men and women here. Years
ago, in a Bharat rampant with disease, the sickness cut down the
very young and very old as though with a broad sword. Only those in
their adolescence and early adulthood remained. A dreadful amount
of the population was lost in the Third War.

Bharatians would have
been wiped out completely, but their governing body was smart and
they made the people work together to stop the illnesses spreading
further. Movement between towns was halted. Great barriers of chain
erected around the perimeter of the City, keeping out further
Strains. Treatments were developed to stop most of the
diseases—some of them, I’m told, were nothing but a common cold,
the same kind I caught every year as a child. Strangers were taken
into people’s homes and cared for as if by family. Medicine, food,
and every other resource needed to live was shared equally between
all people, rich or poor.

Bharat gave every one
of its citizens an equal choice. It’s admirable, truly, but I’m not
sure I could be so selfless.

There’s a high stone
wall around Bharat now, effectively keeping out people with the
diseases, and everyone who comes into the City is ‘screened’ for
the Strains. Some with weaker versions of the disease are even
treated at the borders. But people with the stronger Strains, the
deadly ones … they’re forbidden. Anyone who lets them inside the
City is executed.

It’s harsh, but it’s
effective, and it keeps Bharat from being claimed by sickness
again. By severe contrast, the rest of the world is
near-irreparable—but not because it has been claimed by nature or
disease. Because of the Dark Soldiers of States.

Why the western City
is so intent on destroying what remains of the world is a mystery
to me. Surely they’d want to unite the Lands, to repair what
destruction has wrought apart? But the Dark Soldiers aren’t like
the Guardians. Where the Guardians want to piece the world back
together, States wants only to sever the fragments even more—until,
I suspect, they are the few that remain.

It’s senseless and
devoid of logic.

Vast says the Soldiers
are scared of us, of what we may do if we choose to rise up against
them. They ought to be scared. We are uprising. Other Guardians and
leaders are coming from Britain and France, and more too will
come—from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia. The world is fighting
back. It makes my stomach flutter. I may not be of this world but
it still fills me with pride to see the people rallying for
themselves. Humanity as a whole will not be bent, will not be
degraded, and will certainly not be cheated out of what it is
owed.

In the unwavering heat
of nightfall, I slip around a crumbling building and into the open
road. And in a second my pride is crushed by sadness. Branwell
would love it here. He used to speak of travelling to new,
unexplored places. He wanted to go with our aunt and uncle on their
adventures, to see the lands where the peculiar devices that
decorate their home originated. To see the world.

This world, I think,
is one Branwell would like to see.

But then I recall what
lays outside this City, the poverty and the misery. I decide I
never want my brother to witness that. It is better that he is
where he is, wherever that may be. Wherever he’s meant to be.

I rap my gloved
knuckles on a concealed door. It opens, spilling orange light onto
the pavement, and the grizzled owner beholds me. He says something
aggressive in the native language of Delhi, flapping his hands
about.

Rasmi Verma, knight in
shining armour, detaches herself from my side and introduces us in
Hindi, her calm voice lilting and melodious. She graces the man
with a bright smile that transforms her aquiline face into
something closer to aristocratic beauty. I watch the man melt with
admiration.

Nobody, man or woman,
can resist Rasmi’s charm. As we cross the threshold, she shares an
exasperated glance with me behind the man’s back. It speaks of
something I understand all too well—frustration yet grudging
acceptance of man’s singular appreciation for a beautiful face. It
doesn’t matter to this man what intelligence and kindness lies
beneath Rasmi’s beauty. But at least it gives her something to use
to her advantage.

I wonder, after all
the years that span between my era and this, how man hasn’t
progressed one single bit in how they judge women.

The house we enter is
more of a hotel than a home, the hallway full of men and women who
brush past us impatiently, none of them seeming to stay very long.
Feminine laughter rises from a corner of settees, partially
concealed by a beaded screen that hangs from the ceiling to the
marble floor. I hurry past them all, my eyes to the floor.

The owner of the
house, Mr. Desai, ushers us into a back room painted a warm shade
of crimson and gestures for us to take a seat on a large huddle of
cushions. I settle myself unsteadily, not yet comfortable with
sitting on the floor as is the custom in some Bharatian houses. It
still confounds me that there’s such a wealth of difference in our
cultures and that I had to learn it for myself. Nobody thought to
teach us about Indian culture. Even in this, a simple matter of
sitting down to talk, our dissimilarities are stark. How could I
have known nothing of this culture before? Frustration boils in my
blood.

Such ignorance was
bred into me. I’m better than this, better than I was expected to
be by my tutors, the men who neglected to educate me properly. Or
maybe they knew nothing about India themselves. It’s hard to know
the truth but it angers me either way.

Rasmi and Mr. Desai
exchange what I take to be pleasantries. He’s a middle aged, round
bellied man with a dense grey beard and bushy eyebrows. His skin is
pallid, ashen and dull compared to Rasmi’s glowing brown face. He’s
unwell, I think, without having any proof. Why would Vast send me
to talk to a sickly man? What could he possibly have to offer The
Guardians’ cause?

With nothing to do but
wait for Rasmi to bring the conversation back to me, my gaze strays
around the room. There are miniature tapestries hung over the
windows in bright greens and golds, blocking out the umber glow of
streetlamps, like curtains. Nothing in this room matches, I
realise. It’s a room made up of anything that could be found at the
time of decoration.

It reminds me of my
room in the Guardians’ home. It was empty when I arrived. The first
night, I tossed and turned on a bare mattress on the dusty floor.
The second day I returned after a guided tour by the ever-talkative
Garima to find the entire base had donated their things to my
cause. Bed covers, a set of drawers, pillows, embroidered fabrics
to hang on the walls, even icons of their Gods. Everything needed
to make a bedroom. I was instantly humbled and grateful, and a
little bit in love with all of them, even if their open stares did
make the nape of my neck burn. To be in such a bleak state of
existence but to hang onto kindness and compassion in spite of it …
That is what keeps me with the Guardians, what stops me from going
off on my own—I admire their pure, basic decency.

In a time of evils
they have found the strength to be good.

“Bennet.” Rasmi
finally draws me into the conversation. For a quick moment, a
pained expression crosses her face. It reveals how very little she
enjoys these late night meetings, but the grimace is replaced with
neutral attentiveness in a flash. I understand the sentiment. The
men we meet are either overzealous or as grumpy as can be. This man
is the latter. His expression could curdle milk.

“Let’s do this as
quick as it can be done, shall we?” I say. Rasmi dampens down a
smile that wants to be wider, brighter. I begin speaking, with
Rasmi translating into Hindi, “I am Bennet Ravel, the advocate and
associate of The Guardians here in New Delhi. I have come to you
with a proposition that will benefit both of us. Change, Mr. Desai,
is fast upon us—and you can be instrumental in bringing Bharat into
the future.”

His grizzly face
doesn’t shift a millimetre. I hold back a sigh. It would be much
easier for Mr. Desai if he’d allow himself to be persuaded. Still,
at least we came prepared. I take the envelope from my satchel and
pass it across the floor. The man’s face drains when he reads the
contents and within minutes he is agreeing to anything we ask.

If only all men would
be persuaded. If only all men would do whatever they could to
change the world for the better. But of course selfishness and
greed exist, kept company by indifference and stubbornness. Still,
it is possible to change the minds of men. Blackmail and threats
have become my close friends. I will do anything to be back with
Branwell.

***

Branwell

14:20. 21.10.2040. The
Free Lands, Northlands, Manchester.

Honour falls into step
beside me. “Thinking about your sister?”

The terrain is uneven
beneath my feet so I concentrate on walking. There are rocks
embedded in spider-web-like crevices in the road, others crushing
under my heavy boots. In the past week I’ve become so used to the
sight of the ground beneath my feet that I barely see where I put
my feet. “My father,” I say eventually. “I’m thinking about my
father.”

Through the heaviness
of my father’s memory, I can feel Honour’s eyes equally heavy on
me. “He was an inventor, right? Like you?”

“Yes.” I kick the
ground and draw in a breath, holding it until I am sure I won’t
cry. “But I’m not like him. He was a creator, I’m a scientist.”

My father was a good
man, right until the end, despite The Olympiae tempting him with
what I’m sure were unspeakable wonders. I am not good, or bad. I’m
not sure I’m anything at all. The memory I hold of my father in my
mind is of him letting his inventions gather dust when Bennet
caught a cold when we were ten years old. His life depended upon
and revolved around his creations, but he gave them up without a
second thought when anything was wrong with Bennet or me. When I
try to single out a memory of myself, one thing that stands above
anything else, I see myself shouting at Benny that father is going
to die.

William was caring,
hopeful, and faithful. I am unkind, without a hope, and without a
care.

“But you made The
Depowerer.” Honour attempts to coax me from my snarling thoughts. I
hear worry and pity in his voice but it barely pierces the veil of
my indifference.

“Copied it. I copied
it from something my father invented and altered it to suit my
needs. I wasn’t sure it would even function.”

“You were sure. I know
you were. You knew it’d work.”

I
yank on the strap of my satchel, wearing the leather down with my
nails. “I
thought
it would work. I knew there was a large chance it could be
useless, that it would have done nothing but give false hope. In
truth, I had no idea what I was doing. I could have killed yet more
people.”

“No.”

“Yes
, Honour. You may think you know
me but we met only two weeks ago. You do not know me one bit. Quit
pretending we are the best of friends.”

I am twisted and foul
but I can’t bring myself to apologise. Nothing I said was a
lie.

I take a vicious
pleasure in trampling the dirt under my feet. The landscape has
closed in from wide, open lands with obvious signs of The Weapon’s
destruction—foot-high walls that used to be grand houses, skinny
black trees with branches like talons reaching for the ground, a
charred husk of a car soldered to the ground—to higher buildings
with intact walls, with barriers of glass running their length,
with strange equipment sticking out at angles from high windows, a
million devices running the length of them.