“Reaper!” Fleeter called from the doorway, excited. “They’re drugged and tied.” She look at Jack, surprised that he was still there.
Puppeteer climbed up next to her and entered the darkness, and moments later two people floated out through the doorway, lowering gently to the ground. A man and a woman, they were bound in heavy chains, limbs tied behind them, gagged, and their skin was pale and slick. They both looked dead, but Jack knew better.
“Who are they?” Jack asked.
“Friends,” Reaper said. He knelt beside the prone woman and touched her face, and one of her eyelids flickered open. Her eye was a startling blue, and her breath misted the air.
“And what can they do?”
Reaper ignored him. “The others?” he asked Fleeter.
It was Miller who answered. “We cut them up. Dissected their brains. Threw their remains out for the wild dogs.”
Reaper tensed, his face thunderous. “You should leave,” he said to Jack. “All of you.”
“Dad—”
“This is no place for you.”
“Daddy?” Emily said.
“This is no place for you!” Reaper’s voice did not rise in volume, but the side of the container behind them caved in, metal shrieking, rending.
“No,” Jack said. “Not like this. We’ve got a chance, here.”
“Against him and his like?” Reaper asked, nudging Miller.
“Peace is the only answer,” Jack said. “If we leave now, and you kill everyone here, what do you think happens next?”
“Big Bindy,” Reaper said. “But we’ll find it and disable it. They’d have left themselves time to get all the Choppers out of London. We’ll have a day, maybe more.”
“And if you can’t disable it?”
“We will,” Reaper said. “London is ours. Our playground, and our home. It’ll always be ours from now on, and him and his like…amusing distractions.”
“Distractions that will catch you and cut you up,” Jack said. “Like they did to Rosemary. And so many others. And they released the sickness, Dad. Are you sure it won’t touch you? Your Superiors? Allow peace, and maybe they’ll release the cure.”
“I’ve released nothing,” Miller said.
“But they’re dying,” Jack said.
“So will you, boy. And everyone who uses their unnatural, unholy powers too much. Your brains can’t handle it. Evolve is imperfect. The more you use your talents, the closer you take yourselves to death.”
“How can you know that?”
Miller smiled but did not reply.
“Because he’s looked at a lot of brains,” Sparky said.
“And because he created Evolve!” Breezer said, amazed, and yet with a certainty assured by his own talent. “It was him! Angelina Walker released it, but it was always Miller’s baby.”
“And they’d never let me test it. Not on humans, at least. Can’t blame them.” He chuckled. “Dear Angelina and I talked about releasing it, but I never believed she’d go through with it. I wouldn’t have. But then she did, and…” He smiled, because they knew the rest of the story.
“And London became your own ready-made lab,” Jack said.
“Finish him, Reaper,” Fleeter said.
“No.” Reaper looked up, and Jack saw the fire in his eyes. “I’ve only just begun with him.”
This was my greatest hope, Jack thought. And now it’s going to explode. His mother and sister were with him, but his father had become a monster. The future hinged on this moment, and yet even though he had helped bring things this way, Jack realised he had never had any control. This was all Miller and Reaper, and the awful game they played—Miller experimenting; Reaper revelling.
“Let us go first, Dad,” Jack said, and in one last attempt, one final plea, he forced a memory into his father’s head.
The four of them walk around a castle in North Wales. Emily is a toddler, singing her own song as she explores the nooks and crannies. Jack is not quite a teenager, and he’s taking rubbings from some of the stone detail. His mother and father are holding hands. Jack has caught them kissing at least twice today, and he looks back frequently. They look so happy. It’s starting to rain.
“Don’t…do…that,” Reaper said, and all across the camp people shivered. That’s it, Jack thought. That’s all I can do.
“Mum,” Jack said, turning around. “We have to leave.”
His mother was looking at Reaper, and for a moment Jack saw a flash of love from his memory. But reality had hardened his mother. Whatever his naive hopes had been, she had always known the truth.
“Go with them,” he heard Reaper say. He glanced back, and Puppeteer and Fleeter were looking at Jack, waiting for him to leave. He was surprised, but he didn’t express it. He didn’t even thank his father.
They trooped from Camp H, collecting Jenna and the weak girl on the way. Sparky helped Jenna support the girl between them. Jack and Emily held hands. His mother and some of the released prisoners followed, and Breezer and his Irregulars followed on behind. Puppeteer hurried on ahead, seemingly keen to not walk with them, and Fleeter flipped out with a crack!
“So the New ends here,” Jack said to Breezer walking close by.
“Don’t think it ever really began,” Breezer said. “Like I told you when we first met, your father’s a monster.”
“The bomb?” Jack asked.
Breezer shook his head. “First I’ve heard of it. But he was speaking the truth.”
“So we have to get out,” Jack said. “All of us.”
“Reaper was right. There’ll be time. I’ll gather as many Irregulars as I can, but…”
“But they’ll only let out the Choppers.”
“And the way we came in is known to them now,” Jack’s mother said. “That’s where they caught us. Us, and poor Rosemary. She fought so hard.”
“She saved my life,” Jenna said sadly.
“I can get us through,” Jack said.
Behind them, someone screamed.
“Let’s go!” Sparky said. They all started to run, but Jack could not flee without seeing. He had to know. Had to see what games his father and Miller were really playing, and why such potential that the New had presented must be squandered. He stopped at the entrance to the route back through the storage park and turned to watch.
Using our talents kills us in the end, Jack thought. Miller could have very good reasons to lie about that—to make them all afraid of using their talents. But there was also a good chance it was true.
The bomb. The sickness. The end of Camp H. Everything was drawing to a close, and the only way he could salvage anything from the tragedy of Doomsday was to make the end a new beginning.
He watched as Shade and the others forced the Choppers together into a group before the larger of the two container units. The soldiers were plainly terrified, but the Superiors were unconcerned. They were smiling. Enjoying this.
Reaper moved from behind Miller and knelt again by the bound woman’s side. He sat her up and allowed her to lean back against him, whispering to her, smiling when she nodded, stroking her matted hair. Puppeteer grimaced with concentration as he used his power to bend and break chains, and twist ropes until they frayed and snapped. In his chair, Miller looked like a shrunken old man now, head bowed, all the bluster gone from him. It was he who had screamed—blood coated the side of his head, and Jack thought perhaps his father had torn off an ear.
He’s no longer my father. For the first time, Jack really meant that. His heart beat in fear at what he was about to see. He could close his eyes. He could leave. But everything he had been through already meant that it was important to bear witness.