21
This is London like I’ve never seen it.
In the subbasement of the farmhouse, there was some debate before we left about where to get off the Podway in London. We considered Parliament, Ten Downing, and Scotland Yard, among others, reasoning that if any form of civilized government or law enforcement still existed, it would be found at one of these locations. The rub, however, is that the powers that be and the cloaked beings hunting us may be one and the same.
In the end, we settled on a compromise: a stop in a residential section, Hampstead Station—at least, it was mostly residential in 2014. A vantage point outside the center of power would give us a peek at the state of things in the city, and likely be unguarded, increasing our chances of escape if things went awry.
We were right on one count: the Podway station is unguarded. In fact, it’s utterly deserted.
Nick and I stare out of our pod for a moment, taking in what seems to be a converted tube station. Sabrina, Yul, and Grayson are waiting outside. At the sight of us sitting so close in the pod, Grayson rolls his eyes and wanders off through the cavernous stone and concrete space, which is almost unrecognizable now. Where tracks used to be and trains moved through, a series of large booths now stand, each providing access to a single pod. The sight of the dark, empty rows and columns of pod booths rattles my nerves a bit.
It’s surreal, seeing what was once a busy tube station devoid of its shuffling crowd: people talking and staring at cell phones, coursing through every nook and cranny. At peak times, people once covered every square inch. You could barely breathe then. You could hear a pin drop now.
Outside, on the street, there’s still no sign of life—human life, anyway. Some buildings are boarded up, some battered, their windows smashed in, glass scattered across the empty sidewalks and streets. Grass and weeds shoot up from cracks, and vines twine up buildings, the lush green in bizarre contrast to the crumbling ruins of civilization. This city, which I love so much, which was built by the Romans nearly two thousand years ago, which has survived endless conquerors and countless plagues, including the Black Plague and Nazi bombing raids, has finally fallen. But to what?
The sun has set now, and dim moonlight casts a strange glow over the empty streets. I walk out into the empty lane and stand there, awestruck by the total silence, something I’ve never experienced in London. It’s almost transcendental, hypnotic. I feel like I’m in an over-budgeted television program, though it’s terrifyingly real.
“What now?” Nick asks sharply, looking at Sabrina and Yul.
“We . . . hadn’t gotten that far,” Sabrina says.
“Wonderful.” Nick glances back at the station. “I don’t think we should stay here. We should get out of sight—and talk.”
“My flat’s three blocks away,” I say, almost without thinking, the mystery irresistible to me.
“Okay. We’ll stay there just long enough to work out a plan.”
Clues. The three-block walk to my flat has provided a cryptic set of leads as to what went on here, passed along in the form of modern cave paintings, if you will: graffiti. Many of the messages are incomplete, washed away by the wind and rain, some obscured by weeds, trees, and vines. But fragments remain, and they reveal a city on the brink.
Pandora was inevitable.
Make us all Titans or none.
Titans betrayed us.
We deserved this.
The Titans will save us.
God bless the Titans.
Humanity died years ago. This is just the cleanup.
We will win the Titan War.
On the street, the outer door to what was once a town house, long ago converted to eight flats, stands open. We climb the narrow stairwell to the third floor, where my cramped flat used to be.
As we ascend, I suddenly become self-conscious, nervous about showing my place to visitors . . . one in particular. But that’s silly. It isn’t actually my place, not now. I mean, if we are in 2147, then I certainly don’t live here, haven’t for maybe a hundred years. Yet it’s still a bit nerve-racking to show Nick where I live.
On the landing, the door to my unit stands slightly ajar. I push it open. Incredible. It’s bigger. The future owner joined it with the adjacent flat. My furniture’s gone, but the style, the feel . . . it’s mine. I must have decorated this place. Or . . . my daughter did. Someone with my taste. I’m frozen in the doorway.
Nick peeks his head around my shoulder. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, fine.”
I wander in, the voices and movements behind me fading away. My first stop is the bookcase. On the top row, a dozen hardcovers with dust jackets line the shelf, all authored by Harper Lane. All have the same look and feel, block letters over mostly black-and-white photos on the covers. Biographies. The first is Oliver Norton Shaw: Rise of a Titan. The next biography is of David Jackson, a name I’m not familiar with. I briefly scan the row below, looking for a different kind of book, in another style, a book about someone named Alice Carter. She’s the one I care about. But she’s not here. Just thick biographies, all in the same style. The lettering runs together as I scan again. There must but be twenty or thirty Harper Lane–penned biographies in all. Not a single work of fiction. There are also no photo albums. Picture frames cover the tables and small shelves on the wall, but they’re blank. They must be digital, their memories lost to whatever catastrophe occurred here in the absence of power. I ransack the bookshelf, hoping to find something printed, a yellowed photo of me and a smiling gentleman or a child playing in the ocean at sunset. But as I move down the shelves, I find only reference books, two dictionaries, a thesaurus, and an assortment of worn novels, favorites from my youth.
I hear Nick’s voice, my name, the word Titans, but I move to the bedroom in a trance.
Again, it’s my style.
It’s brighter in here. The moonlight glows through the two windows, almost reflecting off the blue walls with yellow accents. I collapse onto the bed, sending a cloud of dust into the air. The floating motes sparkle in the shafts of light, as if my bedroom were a life-size snow globe with me inside.
My arm drifts down, out of the moonlit haze, to the side of the bed, to the place where I hide them, where visitors, even my closest friends stopping by after a shoddy day, could never find them. I would be mortified.
This will clinch it . . .
I slip my fingers into the crack between the mattress . . .
Yes, I live here.