The Wandering (The Lux Guardians, #2) (31 page)

The end of the world
starts here.

The Dark Soldiers may
have attempted complete destruction with their flares and diseases,
may have obliterated half the world, but the Dust Soldiers are here
to finish the job.

Khaki and white
figures pass around me, gradually lessening in number until only a
handful of people remain. I don’t know how long it takes but
eventually the police lower their guns and take our Miracle. The
building is surrendered back to the Guardians.

Why
did you let them take it?
I want to wail
but I can’t find my voice. At least my breathing is steady
again.

Garima is suddenly in
front of me, frowning. She shares a whisper with a Guardian boy
whose name I don’t know. He tears down the corridor, sliding across
the dusty flooring tiles to complete whatever task Garima sent him
off to.

Garima says to me, “Come,” and the warmth of her hand on my
elbow guides me to my bedroom. We’re not stopped at any point
despite several others being told to return to the common areas.
Garima has a certain level of influence among the Guardians, I
realise. They might question her but they don’t argue. I stop dead
at the sight of two men dressed in black and silver, my stomach
roiling in an echo of the panic I’ve barely surfaced from the
depths of. Dark Soldiers …
here?

“It’s alright,” Garima
murmurs. “Black Cats. They’re here to help.”

Her words are a balm
to the anxiety that flared in me. My chest eases up as we slip into
my room. It has become home to me now, carrying the same weight of
security as my chambers in the past. I sink onto the foam mattress
and I am safe.

“I’m sorry,” I murmur.
“I lost control of myself.”

Garima waves it away,
the bed dipping under her weight as she presses a cool cloth to my
forehead. “It was scary. You’d be strange if you didn’t panic.”

The
sight of her warm, endless eyes settles the last of my nerves. I
wonder what I will do when I leave this place and go in search of
Bran, how I’ll survive without the genuine comfort of a true
friend. “Did
you
panic?” I ask.

She nods at the
speckled floor. “I hid. They took everything I worked on … and I
just hid.”

I rest a hand on her
arm. “Better to hide than be hurt or taken.”

“That’s what Vast
said.”

“Then he was right.
Who were those men?”

“Bharatian Independent
Police. They work for the government, making sure nobody is doing
crime or killing anybody.”

“I thought as much,” I
say. “But why did they come here? I thought the Guardians were part
of the government as well …”

“We’re sanctioned by
them but it’s not the same. They let us plan our attack on States
because they want them gone as much as we do. But they don’t really
like us, and they don’t trust us much. Vast says they want our
experiments. They’ve done this before.” She shrugs, the hem of her
green head scarf slipping forward. She pushes it back into place
impatiently. “They think we’ve got secret weapons, big ones, not
just the disease. A bomb—that’s what they say we’ve got. But we
don’t have anything like that. I don’t even know how to get the
materials to make one. They’re just paranoid.”

“It sounded like they
broke a lot of things.” I get up to check my own drawers and
possessions but everything is the same, my knife wrapped up in a
scarlet and gold dress that went out of fashion over a century
ago.

“They took it,
Bennet,” she says. “They took our Miracle.”

“I know.”

Will
Vast still give me the technology I need even though I can no
longer take the Miracle to safety? I hope so. I
think
so. Something about him
suggests he’s honourable, that he keeps his word. Either way, I
cannot let my faith in myself slip even an inch.

I have things I need
to accomplish—impossible things—and I need every ounce of myself to
believe in it.

I turn away from the
chest of drawers and give my friend a smile. “Let’s go help them
clean up, shall we?”

“I want to talk to
Vast first,” she says.

The same two men are
waiting outside my room, the Black Cats as Garima called them. I
look at them with equal parts curiosity and suspicion. One of them,
a mousy haired man some twenty years old, nods at Garima as we
pass. I direct silent questions at her but she doesn’t notice, too
caught up watching the steps her small feet make along the floor.
The Black Cats follow us.

Their close presence
raises the hair along my arms. I tense, preparing for an attack I’m
not skilled enough to fight. I know a little from watching
Guardians lessons, enough to maybe slow a man down but not to
defend my life should one of these dark figures strike. Still, I
call up the lesson I saw last week about bringing the top of my
knee to a man’s crotch. The guide said it would incapacitate any
man but I don’t particularly want to try it.

The Black Cats don’t
hurt us. They follow us silently to Vast’s office without incident
and I relax at that, figuring they wouldn’t be foolish enough to
attack us with the Guardians’ leader here.

“Ah, Rasendra, Amil,
I’m glad you’re here.” Vast’s eyes sweep over Garima and me,
apparently satisfied that we’re in one piece, then fix on the Black
Cats. “Close the door, would you? I have an appeal to make to
you.”

I follow Garima’s
example and sink into one of the burgundy chairs facing Vast’s
desk. I get the distinct impression that what is said in this room
will affect my life drastically. I only hope Vast hasn’t deemed me
a waste of time and is going to ask these men to throw me out. Or
kill me.

I press my palms
against my skirt, wishing they would cease their trembling.

“You’re aware of what
we’re working towards here,” Vast says to the men, the mousy haired
Black Cat translating his English to Hindi for the other, “and I
trust the both of you, so you are, in my opinion, perfect to
accompany Bennet here to Nanda Devi.”

What?

“Our Miracle has been
stolen and the Guardians can’t advance in our plan to reform States
without it. We need more of it and fast—much faster than the BIP
can complete our formulas. I don’t trust many people with this
task, but you two I do trust.”

“Nanda Devi?” I don’t
turn around to see who spoke—I’m much too wrought up to make a
single movement, lest I fall out of the chair—but it must be the
younger of the two men. He has a warm, accented voice. “What is in
Nanda Devi?”

“The base of the
Miracle. It’s a reflective metal solution—Bennet knows what it
looks like. I need you to go with her and a small team of our
scientists to retrieve this base and take it safely to a hidden
Guardians site in Lucknow. Our mission and the fate of our City, of
all the Forgotten Lands, depends upon it.”

The Black Cat speaks
to his partner, quick and hushed. After what sounds like strong
disagreement, he says, “Okay. We will help you.”

Finding my voice now I
know I’m not headed for the chopping block, I ask, “What do they
want with it? Your police?” I look up at Vast, standing over his
desk, his shoulders hunched.

“We don’t know,” he
answers honestly. “But if our rulers are anything like the Ordering
Body … they would use it to destroy States.”

“But,” I say, “isn’t
that what you want to do?”

“A good question,”
adds the Black Cat. I turn to him then, and find him looking
steadily back at me, his eyes almost black as coal. I expected him
to look harsh, intimidating, but he looks very young, his mouth a
wry twist of amusement. His eyes are exceptionally dark, his hair a
rumpled mess that reminds me of my brother, and his skin is
golden-brown and flushed. He has the tall, lithe body of a runner,
though I daren’t dwell on who he runs from … or who he chases.

“No,” Vast argues, and
I’d almost forgotten I asked a question. I return my attention to
him “We would only unseat their government, but our police are an
unknown force. We can’t know what they will do, so we have to
presume the worst. The BIP could use our disease to destroy the
entire City of States, every innocent included. We should be very
thankful they found it half completed.”

“Let’s hope they never
finish it.” Again I’m struck by the irony of the Guardians using a
weapon to save a world. But what other choice do we have? Armies
will march on States, will secure every individual state, will
remove the Dark Soldiers from power and ensure the people’s safety,
while we, the Guardians, take care of the Earth’s oppressors. This
is the best we can do. But if that weapon got into the wrong hands,
if it was given to the President and his council … “God help us,” I
say aloud.

“If only there were
Gods,” Vast murmurs.

I sit up straighter.
“But … I thought …”

“We cling to our old
Gods,” he says with a smile, “because they are familiar and
comforting. We hope that if we remain steadfast in our faith, our
Gods will intervene and save us. But if the Gods were going to save
us, they would have come years ago. They’re clearly disgusted by
what we have done to ourselves, and I cannot find fault with them
for that. Humanity has become despicable. If I were one of them, I
would turn my head too.” His dark eyes are glazed over. It makes me
uncomfortable to see so much emotion in him after so many weeks of
Vast being without feeling. “The Gods forsook us when we turned on
each other. If humanity is to be saved, humanity will have to do
the saving.”

I
can’t think of a profound enough response so I hold my tongue. If
even the Gods won’t save us, who will? Not
us
, surely. We’re only human:
fragile, corrupted, wayward. The triumph of man—I read that once in
my father’s journals but I think it must have been a joke now. How
can man possibly triumph when mankind is forever warring with
itself?

If
today has taught me one thing, it is that there is absolutely no
hope. None whatsoever. But what choice do I have, really? Hope or
not, I need to
try
. If I don’t try, I’ll never know what I’m capable of, and
I’ll never find Branwell.

Nothing has changed but this: from this day forward hope has
deserted me and I have abandoned
it
.

***

Honour

05:14. 01.11.2040. The
Free Lands, Northlands, Leeds.

I cover my mouth with
my hand as the plane hurtles nose-first to the ground, begging my
stomach not to tip itself inside out. Branwell is breathing ragged,
gripping my hand in white fingers. Hele is trying to soothe Dalmar,
who looks physically sick. Tia bears this all with silence and
calm. Nothing fazes her.

We touch the ground in
Leeds with a giant bump and a shudder but the nose of the thing
hasn’t crumpled in like I expected it to have done. We must have
landed properly. A quick glance around the room tells me everyone
is fine. No one hurt. That’s a good start.

As soon as the door
hisses, a whole portion of the wall sliding up to reveal an
opening, Guardians jump out, both eager to be free of this machine
and ready to defend our position.

Outside, there’s a
small crowd of strangers pooled in the middle of a stone courtyard,
forty sets of eyes watching us clamber into the early morning
darkness. I jump down first and hold out a hand to help Tia and
then Branwell to the ground while the Guardians fan out around us.
Cheery and civil as ever, Saga goes forward to greet yet another
town leader.

A crisp wind blows
across the back of my neck, the fresh air a relief, as I study the
Leeds people around us. I don’t see anyone with guns or knives, no
one stood alert or ready for a fight. They look curious but tired.
Normal.

“You alright, Bran?” I
ask, steadying him with a hand. He leans against me, his gaze
roaming around the grey buildings, the new people, seeing
everything he can in the purple darkness. Eventually he rests a
glare on the shiny wing of the aircraft.

“Not particularly,” he
says, “but I’m glad to be free of that thing.”

I smile, amused as he
continues to scowl at the machine.

Timofei hops to the
ground last and brushes off his jeans—they’re as dirty as mine. I
hope we can find some new clothes in this place since the ones we
gathered from Harwich are holey and disgusting now and the stuff we
were given in Manchester is the wrong size. Timofei’s eyes search
the gathered Guardians, looking for someone who isn’t here. My eyes
lower to the floor; I don’t want to watch him remember that Alba’s
dead.

Tia leans against my
left shoulder and I wrap an arm around her. I manage to stop my
other arm curling around Bran reflexively, but only just. I roll my
eyes at myself—the tiredness is getting to me—and, with complete
disinterest, I watch Saga and Cell talk to a tall, thin man in his
fifties. His hair is greasy and dirty, like the rest of ours, but
he’s slicked it back in an attempt to style it. His clothes are the
same—worn, old, but well presented in an effort to look like
someone from the world before the flares. He’s introduced to us as
Samuel Colla. Beside him is a girl Dalmar’s age with burgundy hair
as long as her arms. It curls in a thousand directions and is
fascinating to watch when it’s caught in the breeze, like a living
creature struggling to get free.

“My daughter,
Miranda,” Samuel Colla says. Miranda doesn’t look at us. She’s too
busy studying tree branches twitching in the wind at the edge of
the courtyard, her body swaying from side to side. I hear
snickering behind me and turn to see Marie whispering laughter to
Priya who replies with a raised eyebrow.