The sun disappeared. A chill wind swept through Clara, but she would not draw her jacket around herself for comfort. The lakebed shone a murky bronze beneath the overcast sky. Clara surrendered her vision to the lake's shimmering surface, letting her subconsciousness take over. Her thoughts staggered to reconnect the pieces of her shattered mind, glueing them together in unusual patterns. Unfocussed memories floated to the surface of the waters, appearing for a second before bursting in the daylight like bubbles. She saw flickers of her old life before the cataclysm, some of them real memories, others, dreams she’d imagined to fill the void; Clara had difficulty telling them apart.

  Riddhi’s face appeared in the lake’s ripples, still alive, undefeated by fear. Beside her, floating to the surface, was Linton, full of hatred at her betrayal. Old Blue Eyes surfaced–calm, wise, now her enemy. The glint of James’ glasses caught in the waves, his face concerned, warning her of the New Patricians. A wave lapped against the bankside, and in the foam, Clara saw the face of the teenager she had shot in Hallow Hill in order to save Robert’s life. Elsewhere in the waters were her grandparents, their kindness blurred almost beyond comprehension. Deep beneath the waters were faces which didn’t have the strength to float to the surface, their lives lost to the depths.

  Clara wanted to join them–to push off the edge and fall beneath the waves. She didn’t deserve her life, she didn’t deserve Andy. But she couldn’t abandon him either.

  Clara shivered and got to her feet. She could spend the rest of her life sitting still, processing the events of her past, feeling all of the fear and pain and loss that she had suffered, and inflicted, draining it out of her like a reservoir, and still never see the bottom of the lake. Better to keep swimming, stay afloat. Wiping away a tear, Clara took a deep breath and headed down the lakeshore towards the settlement.

  A slum of tents rose out of the Golden City’s rubble strewn lakefront like beggar’s rags draped over a cemetery of conquered statues. As Clara approached, the smells of life reached her, diluted by the fresh winds, accompanied by the everpresent aftertaste of metal. There was the perfume of fresh fish, smoke and spices, hand in hand with the muted chatter of fishermen’s families, who gathered in small groups repairing nets and repurposing scavenged tools.

  A small, thin child with dark skin pressed herself into the cover of her mother’s arm as Clara walked by. The adults refused to look Clara in the eyes. Many spoke in languages she didn’t understand, or in exotic accents too thick to decipher. They gathered in ethnic groups, yet all were coated in a sheen of gold, blurring their genetic differences. Smoke wafted from inside a nearby tent. An old woman was tending an oven, built from scrap metal, shining white hot in the flames. A younger woman watched Clara wearily, clutching a chunk of flatbread to her chest, eyes sharp and fearful.

  Clara bowed her head and moved on. They had seen her talk with Vincent, perhaps they assumed she was a New Patrician, which seemingly gave them reason to fear her. Closer to the docks now, Clara could hear mens’ voices echoing tinnily off the golden streets. The tents abruptly stopped before a patch of open ground. Moss carved its way through the shattered golden pavers towards a small district of warehouse buildings–three which Clara could see–still standing amongst the rubble, heavily reinforced by metal scaffolding and timber brackets. Men were repairing the scaffolding, working atop the warehouses’ low roof, seemingly without protective harness or lines. Hanging from windows, or flying amongst the scaffolds nearby were banners of the New Patricians: three spears piercing a concave semi-circle.

  The large doors of the frontmost warehouse were absent, exposing a gaping hole into the building’s shell. Clara squinted inside, pulling her cap over her eyes against the dazzling golden light. Clara could see shapes inside, seated or moving about, but couldn’t focus on their faces. Somebody ventured outside holding a cane. He stopped in the doorway to stare back at her–a tall man with bronze skin and sandy hair that seemed to melt away into the golden walls around him: Alister.

  Clara avoided his gaze, turning to follow a wide ramp which dove into the lake, around which a sparse dock waited for ships to return. The wharf itself was made of wooden planks, stark in contrast to the glistening streets. Ships floated on the lake’s golden-flecked waters like ducks, motionless due to the illusion of distance. Nearby, fishermen were unloading a catch from a white yacht, supervised by two of the New Patricians’ militia. Their posture was ridgid as they marched across the decking, rifles in hand, snapping orders at the fishermen. Clara had witnessed this slave-master dynamic before, but it was never easy to swallow. She wondered how many of those fishermen used to live in Milltown, how many had fallen into debt, or gotten into trouble, and been forced to come here to serve the New Patricians?

  Clara sighed and closed her eyes, fingers caressing the silver rim of her broken watch. She could feel Alister’s eyes in the back of her head. It was only a matter of time before he approached her. She had to do this. She had to hide her guilt and swallow her pride. Face her fear.

  Turning towards the warehouse district, Clara strode purposefully towards Alister. The closer she got, the better her eyes adjusted the light inside. Beds and furniture lined the smoke-stained walls, forming pods for the residents, in the centre of which was a large fire pit encircled by chairs. There were about two-dozen men inside, dressed as she’d remembered them from the church in Milltown, all Alister’s crew. They grew quiet and motionless, turning to face her.

  Clara stopped a few paces before their boss and opened her arms. “Well, I’m here.”

  Alister held her gaze, his lips forming minute shapes without speaking. He held a peculiar cane–a metal rod with copper wire coiling down its length–and a revolver at his hip. After a pause, he found the words he was looking for. “I’m very glad. My apologies for the rough transfer.”

  “Rough? Was all that necessary?” Clara glared. “How’s my brother? He was hurt.”

  “He is recovering well. Quite animated, if I may say so.”

  “Prove it. Let’s go.”

  “I would rather-”

  “If you want me on your side,” Clara interrupted, “then that starts with you proving that Andy is okay. Then we can talk.”

  Alister considered for a moment, then shut his mouth and turned around. “This way.”

  Clara paced behind Alister as he led her around the Patrician’s hangout. Behind it was a courtyard of open terrain which spanned each of the three other warehouses. Clara gazed through open windows, draped by curtains or else boarded up with timber beams, bolted into the golden walls, but something about the architecture was off. The windows were too small and too low, doorways half the size they should be, except where someone had taken a power tool to the metal and expanded them. Where the golden walls met the earth, they didn’t delve underground, but instead rested atop the cracked golden turf, torn along their edges like paper.

  “The Golden City,” Clara said. Ahead, Alister stopped and turned, waiting for her to catch up to his side. “There’s not much left of it.”

  The tall man smiled, a mirthless, seemingly well-practised expression. “But beautiful, nonetheless. Would you like to hear the story?”

  “How long’s the walk?” Clara said.

  “I’ll keep it brief,” Alister said, setting off again, but this time at a much slower pace, planting his coiled cane with every step. “This place was once the financial centre of the world, the wealthiest city ever in human history. Zurich was its name, before its destruction and rebirth. The city turned to gold, dreams came true. Wealth in abundance, and destruction. What do you think happens when the properties of brick, timber and glass transform in a matter of minutes?”

  “It crumbles,” Clara said.

  “It shrinks,” Alister answered, tapping his cane on the golden stones. “And at different rates too. These warehouses are the only buildings we’ve been able to find which retained their original structure. They were built of the same grade of metal with few structural complexities. Even so, they require renovating.”

  As Clara gazed beyond the open space of the warehouse district, she picked out shapes in the rubble which she hadn’t seen before: polished square panels, once windows, were piled up like leaves amongst branch-like poles and the golden beams of a once colossal building; a diminutive flight of stairs rose like a crumbling column beside a graveyard of vehicles, their components reduced at different rates, misshaping them almost beyond recognition. Piles of rubble, fine like sand castles, engraved by the coarse winds, featured the memory of industrial silos, ventilation tunnels, chimney stacks, grounded boats and toppled cranes. There was no plantlife save for the purple speckled moss which sprouted in the cracks of the paving stones.

  “At first, when the sapes picked themselves up out of the rubble and looked around, they thought they had inherited insurmountable riches. Gold was a precious object in the old world, not just for its alluring appearance, but for its application. Conductivity, microchips and electronics. Of course, as with everywhere during the cataclysm, people believe that the apocalypses were isolated incidents. When they discovered that the world had changed, and that the value of gold had diminished, they were desperate to exchange it for food, fuel, guns and ammunition. The Bulwark Council ordered that the residents evacuate, take their boats and follow the canals to the reestablished population centres. But many remained, intending to weather the storm, and accrue the wealth.

  “Those beleaguered citizens on the lakeside,” Alister said, wrinkling his nose. “That’s them, in all the wealth of the old world. They work for us now.”

  In the thin shadows of a gleaming hut, two men watched Clara intently as she walked beside Alister. Each of them were attending to weaponry, stripping rifles on a long golden table manufactured from the assorted rubble.

  “Ironic, no?” Alister said.

  “What is?” Clara took her eyes off the onlookers.

  “The story of riches to rubble. It cannot be a coincidence.”

  Clara scowled. “But it is.”

  “How sure are you? They could have caused this to happen… the sapes and all of their mistakes. There are members of the New Patricians who study the causality of the cataclysm who work to connect the dots.” Alister slowed his pace even further as they approached the overhang of a stout warehouse at the rear of the district. “But I want to know what you think.”

  “It’s all random,” Clara said.

  “All of it? Are you sure not just some of it is intentional?”

  “Random. Chaos. Coincidence. A bit of this, a bit of that.” Clara nudged a slab of gold which jutted out of the shattered ground. “But no, they didn’t cause this. How could they? Something else did.”

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  “What?”

  Clara shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “Look at where we are,” Alister said. “A city made from gold. Where is your sense of magic?”

  Clara didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. Alister led her beneath the warehouse’s stout archway into a small room poked by cracks and shrunken doorways. Two holes were cut into the nearby walls to expand the doors there, leading into thin corridors beyond. In the centre of the small room, three men lounged in fold-out chairs, engaged in a game of cards. Clara recognised one man to be Knockoff. The stocky tattooed man sat upright as Alister and her entered, but didn’t put his cards down.

  “Has he been behaving?” Alister asked.

  “Quiet as a fox,” Knockoff said. His eyes flickered over Clara’s body, then to her face. “Ma’am.”

  Clara bit her tongue and followed Alister into an adjacent corridor. Knockoff said something under his breath as they departed, and his companions sniggered. Clara ignored them, eyes wide, observing her surroundings, trying to take in every little detail. The walls here were riveted together, seemingly once made of sheet metal. Anything not bolted onto the walls–such as lighting fixtures and doors–had come loose when the city transformed and shrank. The rubble had since been cleared away. The walls shone with a sterile reflective sheen, broken only by the black iron bars bolted over a doorway at the bottom of the corridor.

  Clara’s heart raced ahead of her as she approached the doorway. Once at the bars, she pressed her face between the gap and peered inside. Folded into the shadows in the corner of the cell, long black hair draped over his arms and knees, was her angel, Andy. He lifted his face slowly at their arrival, bloodshot eyes coming into focus, then jumped up suddenly and staggered toward her. Reaching through them, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into the bars, hugging her tight. Sudden random emotion flared up inside Clara. It filled her throat and burned her eyes. She was so happy to see him alive, so sorry that he was in pain. She bit her lip, but the tears still came, streaming down her face. She held her breath not to cry, just breathed in, smelling the worn leather of Andy’s jacket, the must of his grimy hair, the roughness of his sweaty odour. “You need a wash,” she said, voice quivering.

  Andy pulled away and took a deep breath, staring her deep in the eyes, a wealth of questions on his face.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  He let go of her, his gaze drifting over Alister standing over her shoulder. His expression went blank, hard like a spade. He was motionless.

  Clara’s heart skipped a beat, pulled in opposite directions. Her hands curled into fists as energy trickled into her palms, yet her mind raced to dampen her urgency. Now was not the time to fight. Not yet. She was better than that. Smarter.

  Clara’s mouth was dry with anticipation. “Alister hasn’t hurt me,” Clara said, wetting her lips. “And he’s sorry for kidnapping us. He wants us to join the Patricians. Do you remember what we talked about?”

  Andy was a statue, not even his eyes moved.

  “I’m just…” Clara let out a shaky breath. She fiddled with his cage bars as she spoke. They were bolted into the golden wall on solid hinges, latched and locked in place by two heavy duty padlocks. “I’m so glad that you’re alive.”

  Andy’s eyes returned to Clara’s face, but the softness was gone, burred by contempt, then his gaze fell on Alister’s hip, and his eyes widened with rage. “No.”

  Clara backed away from the cage, but kept one hand on the bars. “What?”

  Alister grinned. With one hand on his eccentric cane, he rested his other on his revolver at his hip. Clara hadn’t recognised it before, but the handle looked familiar. It was the same as the one which Andy normally carried. It might even be the same gun.

  “Julie,” Andy whispered.

  “Julie?” Alister asked, a sharp teasing tone on his tongue.

  “How could you?” Andy growled, then slammed into the cages. Clara jumped away in shock. “How could you, you traitorous bitch.” His face turned red and he reached through the cage towards Alister, who stood just out of range, grinning, as though he was watching a dog frantic on its leash.

  “Whore!” Andy screamed, spittle flying out of his mouth. The bars stretched the skin over his skull as he reached through, fingers curling to touch his revolver’s handle. “How dare you?”

  “Andy, calm down,” Clara said. “Fucking hell.”

  Andy carried on spitting profanities, incoherent and inconsolable. In a state of shock, Clara found herself being led away from the cell by Alister, back down the corridor, with Andy’s hateful ramblings echoing off the tinny walls. Once she was back inside the warehouse, she strode ahead of Alister, outside into the open air to catch her breath, shaking the residual anger out of her.

  “He has been like that a lot.” Alister approached her from behind and put a hand on her shoulder.

  Clara shrugged him off. “You knew the gun would trigger him.”

  “The gun?” Alister said. “His revolver? I had no idea.”

  Clara swallowed her bitterness, chewed through the abrasive cogs in her throat, and presented a calm on her face. “So, you have our gear?”

  “Yes. We didn’t throw anything away, afterall, it is yours. We do not want to rob you, or molest you. We want you to join us, and we are finished with taking no as your answer. I apologise for the harshness of our hospitality, but it is just the cruel nature of the world.” Alister shrugged exaggeratedly. “In the end, we are more powerful. We are right. And you are needed, Clara. I need you.”

  “I need my meds,” Clara blurted. “I need them now.”

  Alister paused. It wasn’t the answer he had expected. “For your injuries? I can summon a doctor.”

  “Not so much,” Clara said. “But thank you for the offer. I need my medicine for my condition. Seizures, had them since I was a kid.”

  Alister paused, regarding her. As the wind blew, he stroked his sandy blonde hair behind his ear. “What medication?”

  “Lamictal and Ferrous Fumarate. They should be in my rucksack.”

  Alister furrowed his brow. “Iron tablets?”

  “Yeah, I’m deficient, and Lamotrigine.”

  “We have medicine, and a doctor.”

  “I need to take my meds daily,” Clara said. “It’s not normally an issue, I didn’t think you’d make it one.”

  Alister stammered. “Where is your medication?”

  “In my rucksack.”

  “What pocket exactly? I will have someone fetch it. There is something more important we must attend.”

  Clara huffed. “Will they know what they’re looking for? There are other tablets in there, a small first aid kit and painkillers. I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this.”

  “I do not know that I am... It is only that… I would rather know that-”

  “Oh no,” Clara interrupted. “You haven’t destroyed them have you?”

  “I have not. All of your-”

  “If you can’t trust me to look through my own rucksack for my own medication, then how am I supposed to trust you with my entire life? Our futures?” Clara cocked her head. “Come on, it’s give and take. You let me do this for me, and I’ll do something for you.”

  Clara left the proposal enticingly ambiguous. Alister held her gaze, but his eyes fell over her body for just a second. “This way,” he said, pointing with his copper-coiled cane across the yard, back the way they had come. “You know, you might not need them anymore, now that you are Augmented.” He set off across the cracked golden paving stones and mossy moats, clacking his cane as he walked.

  “I know, but finding out is risky. Besides, withdrawals can be bad.”

  “I would not worry,” he said. “But if it makes you relaxed, then I am happy to help. It is probably a good idea that you recalibrate quickly. Our AMC is here, it would be no issue. I can see, the last few days have been difficult for you.”

  “Yeah. We got into a fight,” Clara said, keen to change the subject off of recalibration. The less the New Patricians knew about hers and Andy’s recent abilities, the better.

  “Nothing you cannot handle.”

  “It was rough.”

  “You are safe now,” Alister smiled. “But the question I need to hear an answer to is… will you be our ally? Do you think the future is bright?”

  Clara’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Maybe... But I have some questions.”

  “Go. Ask.”

  “Would Andy and I be free if we worked for you?”

  “It is not work, it is a marriage,” Alister said. “You will be as free as we can trust you to be. That is your future, whether you join us or not.”

  Crossing the courtyard, they returned to where Clara had spotted men tinkering with machinery outside a cylindrical vat, likely once a liquid tower. The men stopped their tasks to salute their boss–three fingers splayed across their hearts. Alister acknowledged them, then led her inside. Sunlight glinted through cracks in the walls, illuminating weapons racks and storage lockers which must have been imported by the Patricians. A tarnished golden countertop stood in the centre of the room, cluttered with tools, clamps, and weapons. One machine caught her interest: a gutted drone, with its wiring strung out on the counter, one of its propellers broken. Perhaps that’s how the New Patricians had tracked them down to the vault? But she hadn’t the time to wonder. Clara’s eyes lingered on a fully intact pistol beside three more disassembled weapons. Its magazine was in the housing, perhaps it was loaded.

  “Here,” Alister said, opening a locker, taking her rucksack out and placing it on the worktop. He remained at her shoulder as Clara unzipped the main compartment and rummaged around. Her fingers touched the small metallic object she was searching for, she placed it into the crook of her palm, then her fingers closed in on the packet of tablets.

  “Here,” she said, withdrawing the tray and popping open a pill. She stuck her tongue out and placed the white tablet on the tip, making a show of it, then swallowed. “Told you I wouldn’t cheat.”

  “For your seizures?” he asked.

  Clara nodded.

  “And your iron tablets?”

  “I’ll take the chance,” Clara said. “Augmented now. Probably got iron to spare.”

  Somewhere outside, a horn blurted across the city. Clara raised an eyebrow.

  “Outside,” Alister said, guiding her out of the storage room, not taking his eyes off her.

  “What’s that then?” Clara asked.

  “That will be Crane, the other southern duke of the New Patricians, and the sapes who you extracted from the vault. They have come to join our ranks.”

  Without another word, Alister strode towards the lakefront, Clara in tow, eager to witness the approaching convoy. The road which ran beside the lakefront was clear of debris. Muddy tire tracks marred the golden surface, leading off towards a forested mountain range beyond the city. Without her wrist terminal, Clara couldn’t check a compass, but if she had to guess by the sun’s position, the road led south. That coincided with the direction of the vault. Therefore, somewhere in that mountain range was also Milltown, the Molten Corp factory, and just beyond it, Gabriel’s empty bunker.

  A horn sounded again. The fierce head of a canine-like demon emerged from a glittering cloud of dust, its twisted snarl stretched across a dozer blade snout. A dozen or more motorbikes flanked the wagon like runts circling the alpha male. Clara stood aside as the bikes sped past her and Alister towards the warehouses, where the men riding them dismounted. The riders were well equipped with heavy leather jackets, military helmets and armour. They had shotguns slung over their shoulders and grenade bandoliers strapped across their chests, yet peculiarly, a plethora of melee weapons as well: crudgels and sledgehammers, axes and even shields. Clara had thought that a faction as affluent as the New Patricians would be able to equip their militia with the best military firearms and ammunition, making melee weapons obsolete, but perhaps there was more to it than that.

  Alister’s boys came outside to greet the newcomers. They clasped hands and shouted boisterously as the battlewagon trundled up the rear, herding a column of people behind it. Clara strode away from Alister to get a better view. Guarding either side of the column were more militia men. One glared at Clara behind his bandana as he passed. The flesh around his eyes was cracked and scabbed, as though he was in the process of healing a horrible facial wound. At first, she thought he was wearing armoured gloves, but upon a second glance, his hands were so fat and calloused that his fingers could hardly fit inside the trigger of the double barrel shotgun he was carrying. His waist was so wide that it affected the way he walked, causing him to hobble like a gorilla. All of the newcomers seemed to be like that, with unusual shapes to their bodies which affected the way they moved, and scars on their faces and hands. What was it? A disease? The effect of an apocalypse zone?

  The column came into view, and Clara’s train of thought was cut short. Walking in the exhaust fumes of the battlewagon were the vault survivors, dressed in pastel jumpsuits, and at the back, barely able to keep up with them, his hands tied and eye bruised black, was the man whose selfless bravery had saved Andy’s and her lives just yesterday: Gabriel.