Wiped by Nicola Claire

Through out it all I’d held my breath. I let it out slowly now.
    “Time to go,” Nirbhay said carefully. His command of Anglisc was rusty, taking all his effort not to slip back into the pidgin language they all preferred.
    I stared down at the dirt smeared child, my eyes no doubt as big as saucers inside my head.
    “What the hell?” Alan said, voicing what was on all our tongues.
    “Distraction,” Trent replied. “The kids in that other tunnel. The ones who split off. How the fuck they managed to get a locomotive engine going, though, is anyone’s guess.”
    “I think there might be more to the Lunnoners’ survival than meets the eye,” Calvin offered in our ears.
    “Come,” Nirbhay encouraged. “Come now.”
    I raised my eyebrow at Trent. He shrugged his shoulders back.
    We’d come this far, we might as well go the rest.
    Because there was clearly more to see, and as the u-Pol who followed us were busy chasing that train, it was now or never that we make our escape.
    I stared at the back of Nirbhay’s head as we followed him along the tunnel the way we’d come, taking the branch that the others had split off down not ten minutes earlier. If he was leading us to the u-Pol, then he wasn’t doing it the easy way. Bait and switch involving trains was not exactly straight forward, was it? I couldn’t help feeling that the longer we spent in his company, the more obvious it was that he didn’t want to hand us over to the enemy.
    But Trent had been right when he’d said the children had been our enemies too at first. Part of me wanted to trust Nirbhay. But part of me had seen too much, been through too much, lost too much to ever be so complacent again.
    “Where’s my father?” I said to Calvin.
    “Back at the base,” he replied immediately. “The Merrikan soldiers have entered The Underground now and are following your trail.”
    “Here’s hoping they don’t come face to face with retreating u-Pol officers,” Trent said, but he didn’t sound convincing.
    “I have warned them,” Calvin advised, making Trent puff out an annoyed breath.
    It’s not that he didn’t want the soldiers’ assistance, I was sure. It was more to do with the fact that they were controlled by my father.
    Trust had never been an easy thing for Trent. And in that, I’d have to agree. My father wanted something. What? I didn’t know. Just like the rebels did. But the rebels I understood. The rebels I’d learned to trust.
    My father had been dead to me for ten long years. Him being alive should have been a blessing; one I should have accepted readily. But for some reason it felt like a betrayal.
    “Light ahead,” Cardinal Beck called out, his laser gun glinting in the soft illumination that sprayed back towards us.
    The children started running, some using their hands to speed them along, some limping and hopping in their enthusiasm to reach wherever the light came from.
    “Get ready,” Trent murmured.
    “Always ready,” Alan replied.
    And then we were there. In a vast room with vaulted ceilings, candlelight flickering here and there, the smell of food cooking wafting up to meet us, and evidence that they had access to power over in the corner; electrical light shining down on a work desk. My eyes scanned the room for danger, but danger lurked everywhere I looked.
    “They’re all women, elderly, or very young,” Beck murmured. But the observation was correct. And not all there was to see, either.
    “And those that aren’t,” I said, “are injured or infirm.”
    “Is this all there is left?” Trent asked, his voice hinting at devastation.
    Even knowing what we now knew, he’d still held out hope. Hope that Lunnon would hold answers. But with the mere fifty people that we could see before us, and the men we’d killed amounting to only twenty or so more, it was obvious that survival in this forgotten city was not a given. I felt his desolation along with him.
    “Bloody hell,” Alan murmured, his laser gun