To the east of what once was old Londontown, gleaming cylinders of metal and glass stood as the last vestige of civilization in Old New Britain. High above the murky plains of the Thames River overflow, millions still called the harsh island home, even after the Plague and centuries of climate change had driven most of the surviving populace to the main continent.

If any of those remaining millions had been riding the skyway at that moment, or traveling along the westernmost connectors towards Health West Tube, or even gone low to the fifth level of Moorfields Eye… if they had, by chance, been awake at 4:30 in the morning and stood by any window facing west, they would have seen him, a boy on the ground, running.

Zedt pumped his arms, long legs carrying him over the wild brambles, Little Venice boots splashing in the thick mud of Old Town.

Zedt knew no one was looking. The people in Tube Town were pampered by artificial lighting and indoor climate control. They were all still tucked in their beds, inside the perennial glow of the Tube Towers, hundreds of levels high, lit up against the darkened skyline.

These people didn't want things to change. They were comfortable with their tech and their modernized compartmentalization of how the world worked. Global warming and the subsequent thickening air had a logical explanation and various manufactured solutions. They shunned things they could not understand to the lower five levels of Med Lab One at Moorfields Eye.

Things that were impossible to explain, like him.

The cuff on his arm lit up, the tiny sensors blinking rapidly, letting him know that Med Lab One was aware of his absence. Zedt pushed himself on.

The swell from the Thames overflow was unmistakably present. It had been a wet summer. Old Street paved a straight line to Med Lab One, at the base of Moorfields Eye. But he knew better than to stay on the road, winding instead through the narrow streets, splashing across the water-soaked ground, zig-zagging only as a native Grounder could.

Somewhere, miles to the west, his old neighborhood still lay asleep at this early hour. Four Districts still begged to remain active residential communities on the ground level of Old Town, large, family homes that, through the miracle of technology had been preserved for hundreds of years against the rising floodlands and harsh weather. These homes offered larger living spaces than the newer, modern conveniences of Tube life. Zedt's parents had been of the wealthy few who still could afford this kind of living, taking the skyway to Tube Town for work, but remaining in Old Town for their leisure. The last time he'd been out to Little Venice, he'd seen guards gather at his old haunts, going door to door, asking questions to people who hadn't seen him for months.

He ached to go back there, just to let them know he was okay. That he was alive. Give them, and him, some much needed comfort. That the rumors which the Watchers were spreading of a re-emerging Plague were untrue.

He ran on.

Three times he'd escaped. The first time, they'd brought him back strapped to a gurney, drugged and immobile. As he was wheeled past the guard station, he'd learned that the tracing systems were turned off for a few hours every night for maintenance, and he'd just missed the blind window. The second time, he'd timed his exit better and stayed out all night, finding the places that the Watchers wouldn't go, and returning before the morning without a trace of how he'd broken out or gotten back in, except for an inexplicable smear of mud on his med gown.

This time, he'd remained gone for days, making preparations for a more daring plan.

He rounded one of the brick and mortar buildings, ancient constructs compared to the steel cylinder rising before him. There, Med Lab loomed, the lowest building on the skyline.

Zedt ducked around the back and noticed that his trace had stopped blinking. He hid within eyesight of the control house, watching the fatigued night watch go inside to get a fresher. When the Watcher had his back to the gate controls, busy with his shot of caffeine, hot, cold, foaming or whatnot, Zedt moved closer to the window.

The monitors flashed away, and Zedt's name came up on the display as the lone escapee. It was dangerous, but he had to get just a bit closer to the gate controls that activated the electric field surrounding the open bay. It was mostly to keep out the river rats, but it was also preventing him from getting back in.

All the things they could do with tech- track him without seeing him - send out the Watchers to pick him up with the push of a button, all the achievements of modern science, the drugs, the processed nutrition, the Plague Vaccine that they inoculated every living human with, nothing they had could make those controls move with a single thought.

But he could.

Zedt flicked a finger in the direction of the control box - yards away and through thick glass - and saw his name code change from red to green. Then he watched the large skybox float down and the large double doors open. In pantomime, he air punched in the security code for automated delivery. The controls flickered, dancing to the movements of his fingers as if by remote control.

He snuck into the building, avoiding the security cams.

Inside, down the long hallway, Zedt paused at a large set of pocked double doors. The man sleeping behind the desk let out a soft snort, his head hanging forward as he slouched in his chair. Meaty hands rested on the desk in front of him, next to the sensor panel.

Zedt concentrated on the doors, but they didn't budge.

"Come on," he whispered harshly. "Open!"

But then he remembered the new hydraulics and sighed. "Fine, I'll do it your way."

He peered over the counter and stared intently at the man's right hand. It lifted, trancelike and hovered over the scan panel. Then, gently, Zedt moved it lower and pressed the man's palm down on the dark glass. A green light zipped up and down, and the doors opened.

"Thanks man." He silently saluted the sleeping guard and ducked down the next hall.

He did it with his tech that wasn't tech.

All the hallways were sterile, almost blinding white. Zedt moved quickly, opening doors, and moving through more hallways. The first level of Med Lab One spread wide. He didn't know what lay on the other four levels, and he didn't' care. There was only one place he needed to go.

From the outside, the door looked like all the other white doors down another hallway. Zedt looked in the five-inch square window at a room identical to his. He punched in the security code on the outer panel, and the door slid open without a sound.

It used to freak him out, the way they could just sneak into his room unannounced to administer the meds, but at the moment, he was thankful for it.

He didn't understand at first what the Watchers wanted - all the probing, scanning, and injections. And tests. Always more tests. He got tired of caring after day upon day of writhing in pain while they monitored him for seemingly no reason.

After countless days of thinking he was the only one and that it would be so much easier to give up and die, someone else, just like him, had gotten into his head, and given him a reason to keep running.

She was curled up in her cell, just like he knew she would be. He took a moment to look at her - she wore the same med gown that he'd worn days earlier - unblemished skin, almost white, thin arms and legs, greasy blonde hair in a messy plait. She'd said she would braid it the last time they talked - sort of talked - he'd never heard her actual voice before - never seen her before either. But she had been in his head for weeks. He had clung to the idea of her for so long that it was surreal to actually see her.

Three halls down, the doors activated. He knew them from the squeaky hinge by the control desk.

"Faun, get up. We've got to go."

She opened her sleepy eyes. Pale blue stared at him for the first time, punctuated by dark circles. "Zedt?"

He grinned at hearing her speak. She sounded so real. "Said I would come back for you."

He had to get her out. Their world had fallen apart, and he wasn't going to let her go down with it.

"I can't run. They've got me sedated."

He took her hand, cool and thin, and gingerly pulled her to her feet. She weighed almost nothing. Unsteady, but her legs bore her weight. That would have to do.

"We can do this together."

She nodded weakly. They'd planned this. Through the many walls and padded cells.

"This way," she pointed down the hall. "If it's going to work, I have to get close."

Zedt led her to the end of the hall and motioned her to get behind him. "Alright, there's one guard at the station. It looks like a punch keypad. I've done them before, but never here. They have a different code."

"I'll get it," Faun said. She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. Zedt resisted the urge to shake her, fearing that she'd fall back asleep standing up, but he knew what she was trying to do.

Then she shook her head. "I can't read him."

"You've got to, Faun. This is our only way out. We planned it this way so we wouldn't pass back by the security cams."

"I know that. But I can't read the code from his mind. He's forgotten it. No, wait!" Faun closed her eyes again. "He's thinking about it now. It's written down. Gum wrapper. Right front pocket of his trousers."

"Got it."

Zedt crouched low and bent around the corner. He raised a hand and pointed it forward. The coffee cup on the guard's table began to rattle, and then it tipped and spilled all over the floor. The guard leapt out of his chair and grabbed paper napkins to mop up the brown stream of liquid, cursing and ranting.

A small square of waxed paper floated out of the man's pants pocket and fluttered to the ground, right next to the brown stream of liquid. The man snatched it up, cursing and ranting. He scrutinized the wrapper, and satisfied that it hadn't been ruined, stuffed it away in his pocket.

Faun brightened. "It worked! Four, zero, six, one, nine."

When the guard left his station for more paper napkins, Zedt activated the keypad, and they slipped away.

The last hall was clear. One more set of doors, and they'd be outside. But then Faun pulled him to a halt.

"What is it?" he asked. If they didn't move quickly, they'd end up back in their own cells, heavily sedated.

"We're not the only ones." She squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating. "They brought in someone else. Last night. Zedt, he's just a kid!"

There was another sound, a door opening. They had to move.

"Faun, please!"

The hallway sensors hummed, and the doors ahead of them slid shut. Their exit was blocked. They'd have to do it all over again, this time with the sensors on - not impossible but much much harder. The gate, the guard, the code…

Faun pleaded with him. "His name's Gideon. You know what they'll do to him. What they tried to do to us." She pointed in the direction of the long hall at the south end.

That was the Holding House, a detached building where Zedt had spent his first week while the rest of Med Lab One decided what to do with him. Zedt fought back nightmares of what the Watchers had come up with, needles, syringes, the burning through his veins, of all that had been done to him in that place.

"Alright, let's go," he said, knowing she wasn't going to leave unless they at least tried to get this boy out of there.

When they got to the end of the hall, Zedt looked out to the small shack-like stand-alone surrounded by a mesh fence. There were no guards.

The light was on. Someone inside was moving around.

"He's like us," she said. "I can feel it."

She was right. She was always right.

Zedt felt it too.