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.”
Zack took a step back, inhaled a deep breath, and filled his lungs with The Republic of New Omega air. He looked towards the black clouds, the blanket of death that no person would be able survive if they went outside. If Emily had got into Delta, what he saw before him could not be the truth. Not the full extent of it. He turned to Leonard who still wore the look of a disappointed father, and Zack knew that he was about to disappoint him even further. “She is from Omega.”
“We are all from New Omega, Zachary.”
“I don’t mean The Republic of New Omega. I mean Omega Tower.”
“Nonsense,” Leonard scoffed.
“She is from Omega Tower, I’m telling you. I saw her wrist. She has a tattoo of a small black Omega sign. And she left this.” Zack reached into his pocket and pulled out the iPod. He watched as Leonard’s face turned from sceptical to confused. As if he had just provided proof of alien life on Earth.
“What is that?” Leonard said, reaching out a cautious hand.
“An iPod. It’s from the old world, Leo.” Zack crouched down onto his heels, leant in closer to Leonard’s face. “It’s from the past. And it works.” He took the earphones and positioned them in Leonard’s ears. He pressed play and watched as the music began. He watched as Leonard’s muscles relaxed, his shoulders sinking into the melody of the music. Leonard closed his eyes and for the duration of the song Zack waited and didn’t disturb him.
“I haven’t heard something so beautiful in so long,” Leonard said as he fumbled at the earphones. Zack reached up and pulled them out.
“You see,” Zack said as he took the earphones. “For this to have survived she had to be underground when the bombs landed. But she can’t be from the underground because there is no electricity down there to charge this. She has to be from a tower and her wrist doesn’t say Delta. Her wrist says Omega.”
“But how? Look at it out there. If you go out in that it’s as good as suicide. And how would she get out? The Guardians stop us from going out. Why would anybody want to come here from Omega?”
Zack sat down on the edge of the bed next to Leonard. “I’ve never seen a Guardian’s number. Have you? Maybe they are all in on it. Maybe there are tunnels, cars, something. I don’t know. But she got into this tower, and she is not from here.” Zack fumbled with the iPod whilst Leonard thought about what he had just said.
“No. I have never seen a Guardian’s wrist. But they wear the gloves. It’s to stop the spread of infection. The scabies mite is a real problem, Zachary. What would we do if all the Guardians got sick? The tower would fall apart.”
“Would it? Would it really?” Zack turned to Leonard, bringing one bent leg up onto the bed. “Leo, I saw something else today. Something awful.”
“What?” Leonard asked, as he edged closer.
“I found a boy. From level forty eight. He was sick.”
“What were you doing up there?”
“I was coming down from forty nine. I was up there to look at the old city.”
“Torturing yourself again,” Leonard said as he rubbed his hand across Zack’s shoulders, his disappointment long past.
“He was in the corridor. He was sick. I carried him down. I took him to the sick bay. I’m still covered in his piss.” Zack got up, walked over to the window, pressed both hands on the sill before resting his head against the glass. The chill of the air outside crept across his skin. “He died, Leo. This place. It killed him.”
“I’m sorry, Zachary, but you did what you could. Most would have left him there.” He stood up and joined Zack at the window. “You have to accept that, Zachary. You must because you cannot undo what is done.”
“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.”