“No,” the man said, shaking his head. “No, no, I have to go where the bomb is.”
“Go there alone and you’ll die,” Andrew said. “You think the thing that almost ate you was strange? Wait until you reach the museum. There are scores of them there. They’ve come down from the north, and none of them can do anything to prevent what’s going to happen.”
“But I can!” the man shouted. “So they’ll let me pass, let me in!”
“Like the Superiors did?” Andrew shook his head. “They’re different now. Moved on. Evolved. Just because you and they want the same thing, don’t assume they won’t eat you.”
The man closed his eyes and grabbed his hair in despair.
“But I’ve got an idea,” Andrew said.
“We don’t have time for ideas!”
“We’ll have time for this one.” He circled the man, trying to exude confidence, calmness. “What’s your name?”
“Hayden.”
“Hayden…that Range Rover. See it? Wait in there and I’ll bring people who will help.”
“What people?”
Andrew thought of his sweet sister. “Special people. Now hide yourself away and stay safe. Right now you might be the most important person in London.”
“I’ve got to try,” Jack said. “I’ve got to try!”
“We’ll keep watch,” Sparky said, and he and Jenna slipped from the kitchen and out into the restaurant area. Jack guessed they’d like some time on their own. Rhali stayed with him in the kitchen, but her eyelids were drooping, and she fell quickly asleep.
“What do you think you can do?” Lucy-Anne asked.
“I know so much of what I can do already,” he said. “But there has to be something more. Something that can help us. All I have to do is…” He pretend-grabbed something from the air and clasped his fist shut, staring at it, knuckles white with pressure.
“Not your fault if you can’t,” Fleeter said.
“Maybe not,” Jack said. “But I’ve got to look for something. I feel the weight.”
“Of responsibility,” Lucy-Anne said. “Yeah. I think we all feel something of that.”
Jack smiled at his friend and then at Fleeter, pleased that the girl smiled back. She was changing, slowly. The problem was they no longer had time for slow.
“Won’t be long,” Jack said to all of them, and then he sat in a corner between units and closed his eyes.
He fell into his universe. He was a shooting star, a fleeting spark of hope. Infinity was nothing because he had infinite speed, and he moved from one talent to the next. At first he touched abilities he was already familiar with—a shout like Reaper’s, Rhali’s sense of movement, Fleeter’s flexing of time and movement. He gathered them to him and let them go again, comforted by their familiarity. Then he moved on to other stars, reaching out with hopeful fingers.
He could pass through walls, manipulating the quirks and quarks of quantum mechanics. Drawing oxygen from water would become easy. He could read minds, and another talent presented itself that would filter out the terrifying static and interference of another person’s thoughts, allowing him to home in on one specific idea. It was chilling and thrilling, but he passed it by.
Amazing, but none of this was of use to him.
The great red star of contagion throbbed and glowed right across his universe, pregnant with possibility.
He searched for anything that might help, skimming from one star to the next, understanding the amazing gifts they might grant him but knowing that none of them would be of use. In his desperation he moved faster, and soon his mind was aflood with new talents he had yet to use. Some of them he did not truly understand, because they were more obtuse. Beyond the normal bounds of human behaviour. Maybe I could talk with the monsters, he thought, but even that would not be of use. Not for what he needed.
Talk could not consume nuclear fire. A mind sensitive to thoughts or heat, movement or deviousness, could not cast aside the sun-hot flash that would soon bloom across London. Angry and scared, Jack opened his eyes and burst from his inner world. He found that he’d been panting hard and sweating, and Lucy-Anne was kneeling beside him looking concerned. He took the bottle of water she offered and drank deep, seeing stars.
“It’s hopeless, isn’t it?” she asked.
Jack did not answer. He looked at Fleeter, waiting to catch her eye. When she looked at him at last, he spoke.
“You and me,” he said. “We’re the only hope.”
Fleeter shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Yes!” he said. “We flip, go to the bomb. Move it somehow. Carry it, drag it, whatever. Get it on a boat, sail out into the North Sea. We’ve got time. Eight hours here is eight days for us, or more.”
She shook her head slowly, mouthing, No.
“Fleeter…” he said, and he wondered what her real name might be.
“You’ve never been flipped for more than a few seconds real-time,” she said. “I have. I know what it feels like, what it does. It feels like forever. After the first few minutes you find it hard to function. Your body shuts down. A distance grows, and it’s harder and harder to move or get back. It’s a transitory thing, Jack. Like jumping around while everyone blinks. It’s a trick, and I don’t think we can trick time, or nature, or whatever it is that much.”
“Don’t think, or don’t know?”
“Damn it, Jack, I know you’re desperate, but don’t blame me that it won’t work!” Fleeter seemed serious, her usual smile absent. “Besides, you know what happens when we move things when we’re flipped. Everything’s speeded up in this world. We move the bomb, nudge it, drop the bloody thing, and who knows what’ll happen?”
“So it’s a long shot,” Jack said.
“The longest.”
“It probably won’t work.”
“No. It won’t work.”
Jack nodded and took another drink of water. “If you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself.” He climbed to his feet and ran his fingers through his sweat-damped hair.
“Jack, no,” Lucy-Anne said. “I’ll not lose you as well.”
“Then dream me safe,” he said, smiling. He hugged Lucy-Anne, and as she hugged him back, she stiffened.
“What?” Jack asked.
“Andrew,” she said. “He’s here.”
“Jack!” Jenna called from the restaurant outside. “Everyone! Someone’s here.”
Lucy-Anne pulled away and rushed through the swing doors, and Rhali stirred at the raised voices.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“I think a ghost’s come to visit,” Jack said. Fleeter went first, then he helped Rhali to her feet and supported her through into the restaurant.
Just inside the front doorway stood someone who was barely there.
“Lucy-Anne,” the ghost breathed, his voice barely a whisper. “I can stop the bomb. But I need your friends’ help.”
CHAPTER TEN
SEVEN
“How did you find me again?” Lucy-Anne asked.
“How could I not?” The remnant of Andrew stood close to the restaurant window as if avoiding shadows. Sunlight barely touched him. She could see that he was trying to be his old self for her—the cheeky smile, the way he pretended to lean against the wall—but everything was subsumed beneath his ethereal sadness.
“What will happen to you?”
“I’ve already gone,” Andrew said. “You have to accept that, and understand it. I’m only here as an echo.”
“But you are real. If you weren’t, how could you be helping us? How could you have helped this man you’ve hidden away?”
Andrew shrugged, and for a moment he really was his old self, so much so that Lucy-Anne laughed. “Weird times,” he said.