Dianna had turned pale. “Trickier than getting out of the asylum?”
Gracie’s silence offered little comfort.
Any trace of daylight had died on the horizon, the silhouettes of buildings dominating the old city’s skyline. Sentries from a bygone era. They now served as a memory of what had once been. But they held much more. They had a new role in this new world. They were shelter from the hard wind, and they created shadows for an enemy’s ambush attack.
“I know I keep focusing on the buildings,” William said, “but why are they so tall?”
“This is how people used to live. Why build out when you can build up? It’s a much more efficient use of space, and in a time when cities were expanding, it made sense. Even now, with all the walled communities, growing a city’s footprint is a logistical nightmare.”
National service flooded William’s mind. A glance at Matilda, he said, “Tell us about it.”
William only realised his jaw hung open when Matilda urged it closed with a gentle press against the bottom of his chin. “You okay?” she said.
“I was just imagining …”
The others all turned his way.
“I mean, we saw what the diseased did to Edin. Imagine what it did to this place? Imagine being trapped in one of those towers with the diseased coming in on the ground floor.”
Max stared through the window like the rest of them. Tears stood in his glazed eyes.
“What were those three enormous towers used for, Gracie?” William said.
“People used to work in them.”
“Huh?” The faces of those around William mirrored his shock. “What useful work can you do in a place like that?”
A slight smile played with the left side of Gracie’s mouth. “Now that’s a question I’m not sure I can answer. When this city was thriving, people used to pack themselves into trains and cars and busses—”
“What are they?” Olga said.
“Modes of transport.” Gracie shrugged. “Vehicles that moved people around the city. So the people would travel en masse to their places of work. Buildings like those three towers. They’d sit down all day, talking to people, and making money from things that didn’t exist. They earned a living off industries like insurance.”
Max’s focus returned. “What’s insurance?”
“If someone hurts themselves, they get money. And if they hurt someone else, the other person gets money.”
“So, many people earned a living by hurting themselves?”
Gracie smiled and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It was pointless then, and it’s even more pointless now. Times were different. Those in power were overweight, had health conditions, and wore suits. Their weapons of choice were laptops and briefcases.”
“Laptops?” Olga said. “Briefcases?”
“Silly little lockable boxes with handles,” Gracie said. “Ridiculous and impractical things. Anyway, we’re getting off track. We don’t have time for a history lesson. My point is, the three tallest towers belonged to an insurance company. They were a big deal at one point.”
“Hence the phallic monuments celebrating their status?” Matilda said.
Gracie rolled her eyes. “Exactly.”
Artan, whose shoulders had remained slumped from when he’d been told about Hugh leaving the gate open, sighed. “It all seems so redundant now.”
“So what about the city on the outskirts?” William said. “The one we saw when out hunting?” He turned to Matilda and Max while pointing away from them. “There’s a city over there. Just over the brow of that hill. We can’t see it because of the lay of the land. It’s surrounded by a thick steel wall like the funnel.”
“And it’s not the only one,” Gracie said.
William spun around so fast he forgot to let go of Matilda’s hand and tugged her around with him. “Huh?”
“There’s another city of similar size on the other side of the ruins. They call themselves Fear”—she pointed to her left—“and Fury.” She pointed right.
“Defensive much?” Olga said. “They should have just called themselves fuck off and leave us alone.”
Even Max smiled at the comment.
Gracie snorted a laugh, and Olga scowled at her. “We call them Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”
Mumbling beneath her breath, Olga said, “I prefer my versions.”
“So do I.”
“I’m not your friend!” Olga’s outburst forced Gracie back a step.
Artan manoeuvred himself between the two. “So what’s their story?”
After a lingering glare at Olga, Gracie said, “Everyone used to live in this city in front of us. But things changed when the diseased came. Capitalism—the way they ran their society—died. Suddenly no one had any use or any skills. They turned on one another. First, it started with fights in the streets. It soon escalated into an all-out war. There were too many people, in too small a space, with too much time on their hands. Their natural division fell along lines of class.”
“Class?” Matilda said.
All the while, the city wailed and howled as if nature tried to revive it.
The right side of Gracie’s face bulged from where she pushed her tongue into her cheek. “Wealth is probably the easiest way to describe it. Wealth and privilege. The rich went one way and took their armies and politicians with them. The workforce went the other. At first they moved to either side of the city, a divide between them. A strip of no-man’s-land. But what neither one knew was the other had been building a safer place to live on the outskirts of town on their side. A walled city into which they could retreat. Apparently they were virtually mirroring one another in how they built their communities.”
“Fear and Fury?” William said.
“Right.”
“And who remained in the city?”
“No one. The strip of no-man’s-land grew wider and wider until that’s all the city was. They’d built their defences, they had an empty city between them, and ever since then—”
A loud boom and flash of fire in the distance. They all jumped back. All of them save Gracie.
Olga’s eyes widened, and her face turned puce. She pointed out of the window. “What the fuck was that?”
Although Gracie stared out in the explosion’s direction, the light died as quickly as it had appeared. “Probably another
