Wiped by Nicola Claire Read Free Book Online

field then,” I said, watching as Beck scanned the area and then pointed.
    “Down that street,” he said. “The rubble is older, more worn, less steel.”
    Lunnon had been a dichotomy. Old with the new, but living side by side in harmony. Wánměi was a city much like it, but where our old meant Elite, Lunnon’s meant history.
    There was a place inside me that felt empty. A place where I was sure something should be. Our past. Our history. Staring at the rising pile of broken buildings before me, I mourned the loss of this city. Lunnon could have filled those gaps. Lunnon still remembered.
    But there was no one here with a memory. Just broken bricks and shattered windows. Hearts and souls in ruin.
    I followed behind Beck and two of his Cardinals as he led the way toward what remained of Victoria Station. From my vantage point it was clear that not much aboveground had survived. I could only hope that more was intact beneath it. If the Lunnoners had chosen to live underground, we needed to reach them. And from the size of this destroyed city, there were just too many points on the map to attempt that. And too little time before my father called us back and ordered us towards Urip.
    Hammurg was still his foremost goal. Rescuing the Wiped his sole focus. He’d dismissed the usefulness of the Lunnoners. Calling them nothing but savage survivors better left to their misery. Interfering, he’d said, would only delay us, and there was no guarantee that they’d want our assistance.
    I didn’t see it that way. I saw them as part of the bigger picture. If we needed to change the path of our history, then we needed to include all those who walked upon it. Anglisc, Merrikan, Uripean, Mahiah, Wáikěinese and D’awan. The Lunnoners fit in there somewhere, and from what we’d seen I’d say they were D’awan.
    I already felt like they were family.
    “You do realise,” Cardinal Beck said as we climbed over crumpled walls and slid down broken roof tiles, “that they won’t welcome us with open arms. We killed their people.”
    “We defended ourselves against an attack,” I corrected.
    “Do you really believe they’ll see it like that?”
    No, I didn’t. But try as we had, there’d been no way to halt what had transpired. The Lunnoners had behaved as though compelled to kill us. There’d been no opportunity for discourse. No chance for a truce to be brokered.
    I wasn’t sure what we’d face when we found them. But I was sure I couldn’t leave this city without trying.
    “What is your goal here, Selena?” Beck said, coming to a stop a few paces ahead of me. He was staring down at something on the ground. When I came abreast of him I could see it was a well worn street sign.
    At one time it would have been white. Now it was cracked and peeling and more a cream, sun bleached colour. But the outline of a circle could still be seen. Faded, barely there, but perhaps once red. A line bisected it, cutting the circle in half. Blue, I think.
    And on it, just visible if you guessed a few of the letters… UNDERGROUND.
    Next to the sign was another. I could see the V and at the end an R, I and A.
    We’d found it.
    “My goal,” I said, taking in the rubble covered stairwell off to the side. “Simple,” I murmured. “I’m chasing history.”
    “Chasing history?”
    I pulled my gaze from the task ahead. Going down there wasn’t going to be easy. This was clearly not one of their more utilised access ways.
    I let a breath of air out and said softly, “We can’t change it, if we can’t find it, Cardinal.”
    He stared at me for a long moment and then nodded his head.
    “Form up!” he instructed the Cardinals. “Steady.” He looked down at me, cool calm and collected, waiting for my nod. For my command to proceed. This was it. My chance to correct a mistake and make things better. I only wished Trent was here with me.
    I nodded my head and Beck ordered quietly, “Go, go, go.”
    We moved out in unison, a synchronised