Jack glanced back at the others—strangers, and people he loved. He raised a hand with two fingers up: two minutes. But he didn’t think it would take that long.
The Superiors backed away from the group of twenty or more Choppers. Still propped against Reaper’s side, the woman raised her newly released hands and pointed. The air around her head misted as she breathed out. The chains still gathered around her legs glimmered with frost.
One of the Choppers screamed, because she knew what was going to happen. And when she ran, she did not get far.
Even from where he watched, Jack felt the gush of cold air. It tickled his nose and burned his skin, and the woman who’d tried to run ground to a slow, painful halt. It was like watching a film of someone slowed down, and then…Freeze-frame.
Reaper smiled, then whispered, and the power of his voice shattered the frozen woman.
Other Choppers ran. The woman shouted. The luckiest made twenty paces before their flesh started to freeze, muscles cramping and then tearing at the sudden, impossible temperature change, blood coagulating, and every scrap of agony was visible on their stilled expressions. Several of them fell and broke apart as they struck the ground, and Jack could not help wondering whether they remained conscious of what was happening to them, just for a moment.
In his chair, Miller sat with Shade grasping his head. He’d been made to watch every moment.
Mass murder complete, Reaper looked across at Jack. He smiled. He’d known all along that his son was watching.
Then Reaper let the woman gently lie down and turned to Miller, and as Jack ran for his friends and family, he heard the wretched man screaming again, and his father’s laughter.
For the first time in two years, Nomad was as close to a normal woman as she could be.
He’s doing his best for the people he loves. He’s brave. But Jack will soon realise that his responsibilities have expanded. His is a wider outlook now, and he’ll only see that when he stops seeking inward for all those new potentials. That part will soon become as natural as breathing. For me that universe is a wild, violent place filled with chaos and uncertainty…difficult for me to grasp…too filled with pain.
But for Jack it will be beautiful.
She took in a deep breath and felt the pain in her chest, so real and there that it surprised her again with each inhalation. Even stretching her senses out to Jack was starting to hurt. She had reined in everything else she was so used to doing, because it was all starting to pain her more—knowing London through movement and scent, avoiding detection when she so desired, sitting motionless in the river of time while moments passed her by. She concentrated on Jack and one other, because the future of London was with them both.
This is his greatest challenge yet. It will be the making of him, or his undoing. And her purity can only help. The bomb is hidden away so well that…even I…
Nomad sought again, but she felt a warm trickle across her lips and tasted blood. The world swam. She floated in it, and now and then was aware of glances from those few she passed by—deeply knowledgeable from those she had once thought of as monsters; confused, scared, from the rest of London’s people.
They see change in me and that frightens them. And so it should.
It certainly frightened Nomad.
Miller. Did you know? Were you aware that Evolve was far from perfect?
The potential for perfection lay in Jack. And in Lucy-Anne, suffering from another dreadful blow and yet still the one who might save them all. Pure and untainted by Evolve, her own unique talent was already growing larger, and larger.
If Jack and Lucy-Anne failed, or let their true aims die beneath human concerns, then London would be finished.
And I will willingly let it go.
Whether Nomad would go with it, or persist like the spirit-man she had met in the north, there was only one way to know.
“I can’t leave,” Jack said. Night had fallen. They were close to the bombed wastelands of London’s borders now, ready to go down and through the network of tunnels and sewers to the outside. The Irregulars they had rescued had drifted away, back into the ruined city they now called home. Breezer and his people had gone to spread the word about Big Bindy, and Puppeteer had vanished without warning several hours before. Fleeter remained, but at a distance.
With everything that had happened to him, Jack was suddenly scared at the normality beyond London’s borders.
“I never thought you would,” his mother said.
“Gotta find Lucy-Anne,” Jenna said.
“Yeah.” Sparky chuckled. “And, you know, we’ve had such a lot of fun here, why would we leave?”
“Idiot.” Jenna poked him in the ribs, and it turned into a hug.
“You’ll make sure they get through safely,” he said to Fleeter.
She nodded, eyes glittering. “Then I’ll be back.”
“Of course. Lots more Choppers to kill.” Jack’s sarcasm was heavy, but he knew it was the truth. He understood that, now. The Superiors saw this as a game, and the Irregulars and Choppers were their pawns.
But London’s future was now shrinking with every second that passed, and Jack had no idea what that might mean for everyone still here.
“We’re not going either, Jack,” Jenna said.
“Jenna—” Jack began, but Sparky grabbed him in a neck-lock. Jenna stepped forward and dragged her knuckles back and forth across his scalp, and Jack snorted in pain and pleasure. They were playing.
“Well, now, you gonna use your special powers to make me go?” Sparky asked.
“I could,” Jack wheezed.
“Yeah. I don’t doubt that.” Sparky let him go, and Jack rubbed his neck as he looked around at them all.
“You’re special, too,” Jack said to Sparky and Jenna. “Both of you. It’s both of you who’ve stopped me going mad with all this. You’re my…reality.”
They were all silent for a moment, and then Sparky said, “Pussy.”
Jack grinned, then turned to his sister. “Emily, you need to retrieve that camera you hid before you were caught. Start spreading the news. Mum, don’t go home. Cornwall, West Wales, somewhere like that. Be careful whom you tell and how, but start getting those pictures out onto the net. Emily is…well, you’d be surprised at how good she’s become at computer stuff.”
“I’m not at all surprised,” his mother said, smiling lovingly at her daughter. She was thinner than she’d ever been, face drawn, and she’d aged ten years in two. But she was filled with love for her children, and that made her glow.
“What about me?” the girl said. She’d recovered her strength quickly as the drugs had started working from her system. Her name was Rhali.
“You’re welcome to come with us,” Emily said.
Rhali looked back and forth between them, but her eyes always settled on Jack.
“I think perhaps I’ll stay with you,” she said. Jack nodded. He would take any help he could get.
“Jack—” his mother began.
“Mum, I’ll be careful,” he said.
“I wasn’t going to say that, son. I was going to tell you how proud I am.”
Jack pursed his lips and nodded, trying not to cry. There had been too many tears. They all hugged silently, and then it was time.
He, Rhali, Jenna, and Sparky watched Fleeter leading Emily and his mother through the darkness and underground. Jack felt an awful tug watching them go. He had been desperate to find and rescue them, and now that he had he was letting them go again. But he also had every confidence that Fleeter would see them safely through and out of London. Outside, they had their own work to do. And in London, he had his.