39
THE SKIES OVERHEAD ARE filled with movement and noise. Missiles, mortars, and rockets whip across the clouds and detonate around the city center. Helicopters buzz overhead, some observing, most of them attacking, firing into the crowds below.
The bulk of the refugees follow each other like sheep, sticking to the main roads out of town and not even bothering to consider whether those in front know any more or less about the situation than they do. They run blind, finding the illusion of safety in numbers. There are hundreds of them moving down the wide ring road, which, as many of them must know, will eventually swing around and take them straight back into the dying heart of the city.
There’s another way.
Over to my left is an enormous pile of smoldering rubble where there used to be a multiplex cinema. Still carrying Ellis in my arms, I leave the road and run around the edge of the ruins, following the perimeter of a wide, tent- and RV-filled parking lot that has been almost completely abandoned. On the far side of the site is a steep embankment, along which runs one of the train lines out of the city. While thousands of those dumb bastards have stuck to the clogged and overcrowded roads, I can already see that there are just a handful of people up there following the train tracks out of town.
Ellis starts to move. Thank God for that. It was only a small flinch, but it was enough, and I sense she’s going to be okay. I hold her tight as I climb up the embankment, quickly reaching the top and running along the side of the track, still instinctively watching out for trains I know will never come. My feet dig into the gravel as if it’s wet sand, every step taking twice as much effort as it should.
From this relatively high and uninterrupted vantage point, I can see clearly in most directions. I look back over my shoulder at what’s left of the city behind us. Massive sections of it are on fire now. The skyline has changed incredibly in an unbelievably short period of time. Huge, landmark buildings that stood tall and proud when I arrived here just a few hours ago have been destroyed and have disappeared, changing the skyline forever. Even from this distance and over the endless noise of the helicopters, missiles, and muffled explosions, I can still hear the sounds of thousands of people fighting, and the relief at having escaped with my daughter from the heart of the battle is immense.
I keep running, exhausted but forcing myself to keep going. We’re probably safe at this distance, but I want to get even farther away. The train track snakes away toward the suburbs, the desolate ruins of housing projects springing up on either side of us. Even out here there are people in the streets. I see scores of terrified Unchanged refugees who’ve fled the city and are looking for shelter, only to be intercepted and cut off by people like me and Ellis. Where the hell did so many of our fighters come from? Were they already in the center of town with us? The answer becomes clear as I see more and more of them approaching. These people are coming in from outside the city now, crossing the exclusion zone. Word must have reached them that the refugee camp is imploding. Or is this a planned attack? Are these the advance troops from Ankin’s army?
Another helicopter flies overhead, this one so low that I instinctively drop down to my knees and bend forward to protect Ellis. She shuffles in my arms again and groans with pain. I hold her closer to my chest and look up as the helicopter flies past and away. Then another thunders over us, then another… all of them flying away from the city. I stand up as even more gunships follow the first three. I start moving again, and as the combined noise of the aircrafts’ powerful engines begins to fade, I become aware of another sound, this time much closer and on the ground. Beyond the ruined houses to my right there’s a large expanse of parkland. Even from this distance I can see there’s a huge amount of activity there. There are battles raging in the streets around the park, and a massive convoy of vehicles is beginning to leave the grassland and move off along the surrounding roads. Another helicopter takes off from somewhere close. It climbs quickly into the early morning air, then banks hard over to the left and follows the course taken by the others before it.
Ellis starts to wake up and move. She grunts and squirms in my arms, but I just tighten my grip, determined not to let go.
“Stay still,” I tell her, not knowing if she can hear me or if she understands. “Please, sweetheart…”
The train track cuts through the projects, then runs parallel with one edge of the parkland. I’ve never seen it from this angle, but this place used to be Sparrow Hill Park, I’m sure of it. It’s unrecognizable today. The sprawling expanse of well-tended grass I remember is now a vast, cluttered mass of abandoned tents and trailers. Once obviously filled to overcapacity with refugees, much of it now is conspicuously empty. Huge swathes of the camp have been washed away, and now several stagnant lakes where floodwaters have swept relentlessly through the site are all that remain.
There are people fighting on the track up ahead. I run down the embankment and begin to weave through a dense copse of brittle-branched trees to try to get closer to the park. Already I can see movement on the other side of the trees, and I hold Ellis even tighter as she tries to get away again. Her rage seems to increase the closer we get to the Unchanged. She wants to fight, but I won’t let her. It’s too dangerous here.
Through the trees and I hit a wire-mesh fence. Something’s different here. Can’t put my finger on it, but I sense something’s wrong.
As I work my way around the wire-mesh fence looking for a way through, the penny drops. The Unchanged troops are evacuating. It’s their stock response when they realize they’ve lost control of a building, an area, or even a city-withdraw as many of their people as they can to a safe distance, then bomb the hell out of what’s left. I saw it at the hospital, at that office building with Adam, and a hundred times before that. Christ, now I know exactly what happened to London. They lost control, the same way they have here. And their response then? They leveled the fucking place. More than ever, I have to get us away.
Ellis manages to free one of her hands and slashes at my face. Blood dribbles down my cheek, and when I lift up my hand to wipe it away she shoves both her fists up under my chin and pushes my head back, then knees me in the gut and breaks loose. She runs along the edge of the park, and I sprint after her toward where a section of fence has collapsed up ahead. A truck has crashed through and come to a sudden stop wrapped around the base of a tree trunk. It can only just have happened. The half-dead driver is Unchanged. He’s hanging out of the door, and when he sees us he starts groaning and begging for help. Ellis jumps up at him, the force of her sudden attack throwing him back across his cab. By the time I get up to her he’s already dead, but she continues to kick, punch, and slash at his lifeless body, her aggression and instinct taking hold. I grab her hair and pull her back toward me, then manage to get a grip under one of her shoulders and drag her back out into the open.
“Off!” she yells, her voice guttural and hoarse, sounding more like a warning howl than a properly formed word.
“We have to go, Ellis. Can’t stay here. Too dangerous.”
I drag her behind me into the park. She’s still kicking and thrashing furiously, but her short arms can’t reach my hands to break my grip. I run across the boggy grass toward the chaotic activity up ahead. There’s a bottleneck at the single exit, where jeeps, huge trucks, and other armored vehicles are all vying for position to get onto a track that’s barely wide enough for any of them to get through. All around the vehicles, refugees and soldiers on foot try to escape from the park. People fight with each other to get away, but there are no other people like us here. This is Unchanged versus Unchanged.