They might be Choppers, but they were also people. They valued their lives as much as anyone.
“Huh?” Sparky said. “Oh, that. The doors. Nah, that wasn’t cool, that was just heat. I mean you!” He leaned into Jenna and slung a hand around her shoulders, and she giggled like a schoolgirl.
“I’ve got to admit, you’re right,” Jenna said. “I was pretty cool.”
They moved quickly, descending from the streets and travelling between Underground stations. Twenty minutes later they were a mile from Covent Garden, and they had an hour to wait until their rendezvous with Breezer and Reaper.
They sat on the old station platform, darkness around them made deeper by the flashlights they’d lifted from a station office. None of them felt like eating, and Jack could not shake the notion that they were wasting time. But they could not risk another confrontation with a larger, heavier-armed troop of Choppers.
Time ticked by, the darkness loomed, and they chatted about lighter, happier times.
“One thing,” Jack said to Reaper when they met again that afternoon. “Why did you let Miller live?”
Fleeter accompanied Reaper, and Sparky and Jenna were with Jack, as always. Other small groups of Superiors and Irregulars were moving towards their rendezvous point three miles to the east, from where their assault on the container park would commence. They hoped to leave it to the very last moment before giving away their presence.
Jack had reluctantly admitted that it was Reaper’s people who should lead the assault. They were the ones with the most disruptive, destructive powers, and there was no telling how long it would take to find the relevant containers.
“I told you before, he interests me.” Reaper and Jack were in the lead, but it could not be said that they walked together. Even if they were shoulder to shoulder, Reaper’s dismissive aura would have meant he walked alone.
“It seems like a strange sort of mercy to me,” Jack said.
“It’s not mercy. I have none for Choppers, and less so for the monster who leads them.”
“They why? You had him kneeling before you, defenceless. Yet you let him live, and allowed him to pursue me and my friends.”
“I knew he’d never catch you,” Reaper said.
“What?”
Reaper glanced over at Jack, and a ghost of something passed from his face, leaving only his brutal expression behind. What the hell was that? Jack thought. It sounded for a moment like he cared.
“Miller is a man obsessed,” Reaper said. “London is his playground, and Irregulars are his test subjects. You know all that. He yearns to get his hands on Superiors, too. See how different we are.” Reaper tapped his head.
“He’s never caught one of yours?”
“Some. They haven’t been seen since.”
“Probably dead, then,” Jack said coldly.
Reaper shrugged as if unconcerned. “As to why I left him alive? London is much more my playground than his. And he is one of my toys. Get rid of Miller, and things around here won’t be as…exciting.”
“You mean that,” Jack said. “You really mean it.” Reaper walked on ahead and Fleeter followed, walking close to the tall man in black. She touched his arm, slid her hand down, and for the briefest moment they entwined fingers. Then Reaper shook her off, and Fleeter hung back to let him walk ahead.
Jack looked away. That was his father, with another woman. A deep sadness engulfed him, for his mother and Emily, and also because he was not surprised. Reaper projected himself as a heartless, superior man, but he drank whiskey like water, and now it appeared he and Fleeter might be an item. The more Jack saw brief flashes of his father in Reaper’s expression and demeanour, the greater the distance seemed between them.
“What about this time?” Jack asked. “Will you kill him now?”
“That’s down to Miller,” Reaper said without turning around. “It always is.”
They walked on, following the course of the Thames. Fleeter flipped now and then to scout their way ahead, and once she told them to change direction and divert around the charred remains of a school. She did not say why, and Jack and his friends did not ask.
Sparky and Jenna walked close to Jack, hand in hand. Their togetherness pleased him, but also made him feel more alone. Jenna could smile and Sparky could give him the finger, but they all knew that things could never be the same again.
Close to East India Dock Road, Reaper called a halt. They entered a hotel through its smashed front door and waited in the reception area while Fleeter did her thing. For several minutes Reaper sat separate from Jack and his two best friends, barely acknowledging their presence. Sparky perused the hotel’s guest book, and even when he became quietly excited when he found a rock star’s name, Reaper did not react.
Jack sat back in a comfortable chair and closed his eyes. His father was as much an enigma to him now as he was when he’d first clapped eyes on Reaper. Perhaps somewhere deep down he was helping because of Emily and his wife. But perhaps not. If he was not prepared to open up and reveal which, then Jack would have to step away. He’d done all he could to get his father back.
A clap! stirred dust across the hotel lobby, and Fleeter sauntered from between two marble columns.
“The Chopper was right,” she said. “Half a mile past the Millennium Dome on the north bank. The container yard’s massive, but I got in pretty close and saw some of them patrolling.”
“You found the containers they’re using?” Jack asked.
Fleeter glanced at Reaper. He nodded for her to continue.
“Not as such. But I got close to an open area in the piled containers. A sort of courtyard. I found one route that twisted its way in there, so there’ll be others. And there were sharpshooters up on some of the higher boxes.”
“How many troops?” Reaper asked.
“Difficult to say. I couldn’t get too close, didn’t want to risk giving anything away. But I saw at least twenty in the courtyard. Dressed casual, not in Chopper outfits, but they’re slack at hiding their weapons.”
“Could be countless others in the containers,” Jenna said.
“Yeah, great place for a barracks,” Sparky said.
“Tell the others,” Reaper said.
“Hang on a minute.” Sparky walked from behind the reception desk, twirling a set of keys on one finger. “We can’t just storm in all gung-ho.”
“I don’t storm anywhere,” Fleeter said.
“You’re as good as a blazing gun,” Jenna said. “All you Superiors are. No subtlety, that’s your problem. So, we go in like that and they’ll respond in kind. Who’s to say they won’t just execute whatever prisoners they have and then get away somehow? No way they’d risk an HQ like this without having a pretty good escape plan. In case of…” She waved her hand at Reaper.
“In case of something like this,” Sparky said.
“So what do you suggest?” Reaper asked.
“The girl,” Jenna said. She glanced around at them all, and her gaze finally rested on Jack.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “Show of strength.” He glanced at Fleeter. She was smiling at him, leaning against a wall, hand on hip. She was trying to look seductive, and after what he’d seen her do he found that grotesque. But they could work together.
“You and me?” Fleeter asked.
Jack nodded.
“We go in, kill the girl, show them they don’t have a hope.” Fleeter’s voice was high with excitement.
“No!” Jenna said. “Don’t you get it, you stupid bitch? You don’t kill her. You don’t kill anyone. You just—”
A clap!, a swish of air across the hotel lobby, and between blinks Fleeter was behind Jenna with one arm tugging across her neck. Jenna gasped in surprise, then choked, clawing at Fleeter’s arm. But the woman was stronger than she looked.