by Tim Lebbon
Sparky and Jenna came down, and Jack introduced his mother to them as Susan. He told her they were his best friends.
Rosemary was with them, and when the women spoke it was with a reserve that perhaps had not been there before. That was not Jack's fault. And truly, he did not care. Rosemary had helped them and healed them when it was needed, but she had also led them willingly into danger and between the literal jaws of death. And the more he thought about how things had worked out so far, the more he believed she had used them all.
Jack took a moment to look around the hospital. After a few minutes, his mother finished talking with Rosemary and came to join him. Hidden away in the curtained area were several terribly sick people, and his mother said she had no idea what ailed them. Her gift was healing, but only physical alterations responded to her particular touch—wounds, cuts, and broken bones. Rosemary was slightly different in that she could also sense a sickness inside and, if it was something out of place, or something that should not be there, heal it. She had taken cancers from people, fixed faulty heart valves. But neither woman could combat the invisibly small invaders of infection.
“So aren't these all Irregulars?” he asked.
“Yes. Everyone in London now is an Irregular, apart from the Choppers and those in their employ. But they came in after Doomsday. Those of us who survived the Evolve virus…yes, all changed.”
“So what do they do?”
His mother pointed at an old man on a bed close to them. “Richard was a Pleader. In the right conditions, he could exert his will and desires on the chaos around us, and coax it in a certain direction.”
“Change the future?”
“In small leaps, and on a very small scale. But no more. Whatever he has is killing him.” She sounded very sad. “Over there, that big lady, she had hearing better than a dog's. Massive audio range. She's deaf, now.”
“Is it the same illness that Richard has?”
“It looks the same, but I just don't know. I'm no doctor, and it was Doomsday that made me a healer.”
“We saw people out on the streets, naked and raving. Like animals.”
“The same,” his mother said. “We're seeing it more and more.”
“The Irregulars are starting to die,” Jack whispered, and his mother said nothing to contradict.
Emily ran up to them from where Jenna and Sparky were standing. Jack looked at Richard and the other dying people, treasuring their reunion even more.
“We met the Nomad,” he mentioned, thinking of how she had picked on him and the taste of her finger in his mouth. He felt his mother tense.
“You really saw her?” she said, aghast.
“She said that was her name. And she was…strange.”
Susan shook her head. “Most people don't really believe in her, even now.”
“Jenna does. She's collected all the stories. She think she's Angelina Walker, the woman who crashed into the Eye and released Evolve.”
“The first vector.”
“That's what she called herself, yeah.”
“What did she do? What did she say?”
Jack was not sure why he lied. But when he said, “Nothing, really,” and glancing down at Emily, his sister gave him a little smile. He knew then that he'd made the correct decision.
“Strange,” his mother said.
“Huh!” Jack said. “Strange? Did I tell you about the lioness? And the wolves we heard, and the flowers in Tooting?”
She smiled and shook her head. “No, but I'm sure you're going to.”
“I want Emily to tell you, Mum. I want her to show you.” He held Emily's hand. They'd already talked about this, and now the physical contact gave him double the strength he needed. “I want you and Emily to get out, the way we got in. Rosemary's already said she'll take you. She has a gun, and knows where she can get more.”
“Guns, Jack?” She used her old scolding voice, and Jack almost smiled. Almost.
“For the dogs, Mum. And…anything else that might try to stop you.”
“And you?” Her voice quavered. She's afraid of losing me again, he thought. And he understood. The temptation to leave was there, but he had to preserve faith in their father, a faith he could never lose without at least trying.
“I've already told you what I'll be doing, Mum.”
“I like that word,” she said. “‘Mum.’ It's a good word.”
“I always knew I'd get to use it again.”
“And Dad,” Emily said. “That's another good word. Jack says it has power.”
His mother's eyes opened wider, and he saw something that might have been hope. Or if not that, then acceptance of his need to try. She came to him and rested her head on his shoulder.
“Be very, very careful,” she said. Pleaded.
“I will, Mum. Sparky and Jenna are coming with me.”
“Are they special forces?”
He laughed. “Not quite. But we're a good team.”
She nodded, squeezed his hand, and then parted. “I have to speak to my friends down here, tell them…something. Not the truth. I couldn't do that to them.”
“Will leaving…?”
“Compared to everything else we've been through?” She looked around, smiling at a patient walking with the aid of a wheeled frame. “It'll be sad, rather than hard.”
“Sis, you look after Mum, won't you?”
“You betcha!” Emily stood slightly in front of their mother, like a bodyguard preparing to take a bullet. Her face was so stern that Jack laughed out loud.
The thought of leaving his mother so soon after finding her again was incredibly painful. But the longer they remained together, the less inclined he'd be to leave at all. And he owed his father everything.
“That camera,” he said to Emily. “It's precious. It's almost priceless, for all the people we've seen in London. You know that, don't you?”
“Of course I do! I'm not a bloody kid, you know.”
“I know you're not, Emily. You're my hero.”
“See, Mum?” she said, beaming proudly. “Jack's hero!”
“So when you get out, put the camera somewhere safe and sound. Don't take it home with you. When I come out with Sparky and Jenna, we'll retrieve it and do what we can.”
“And Dad?” Emily said.
“I'll do my best.”
“Why does he call himself Reaper now?” his little sister asked.
“Because he's forgotten who he is. I'm going to remind him.”
“Please keep them safe,” Jack said to Rosemary.
The old woman smiled. “Keep yourself safe. Good luck with Reaper.”
“His name's Graham. And I'm looking forward to seeing my father again.” Jack knew what she wanted to hear: I'll speak to him, persuade him, plead with him if I have to. But he could not say that yet, because his priority was completing his family. Perhaps the two aims would run side by side, or maybe they would collide. Time would tell.
Jack, Sparky, and Jenna watched them leave the underground hospital. Jenna put an arm around Jack's shoulder.
“Wimp,” Sparky muttered, and Jack coughed, half-laugh, half-sob.
Jack saw his mother and sister pass out of sight, and he could not fight away the feeling that he would never see his family again. Standing there with his two best friends in the world, he had never felt so alone.
Birmingham is the new capital city of Great Britain.
—Government Proclamation, 3:44 p.m. GMT, July 29, 2019
Lucy-Anne was too terrified to ask him about his dreams. Her own scared her enough. So she walked with Rook in silence, and he told her they had somewhere special to go.
“But I need to find Andrew,” she said.
“And you've told me where he is. ‘North of here,’ you said.”
“Yeah.”
“Girl…where north of here?” She still hadn't told him her name, because in some ways it still felt distant to her. It belonged to a girl with other friends, another life.
> “Well…” she began, but there was little else she could say. Your brother is alive north of here, she remembered a man saying, and if that was all he'd said, perhaps that thing in her mind would not have snapped. But he had gone on, told her more.
“North is a big place,” Rook said. “And like I mentioned, it's a wild place.” He looked up at the clear blue sky, speckled with hundreds of dark spots where the rooks kept pace with them. “Everywhere in the city is wild now.”
“So where are you taking me?” she asked.
Rook laughed, and high above Lucy-Anne heard the cawing of many birds.
“Girl, I don't believe I can take you anywhere. But if you'll come with me, I'll introduce you to some people who might help.”
“Why might they?”
He frowned a little, looked away, but then smiled at her again. “Because I'll ask them.”
The boy seemed friendly enough to Lucy-Anne. And he was strong, not just in his wiry frame, but mentally. He exuded a power that frightened her a little, but alongside that fright she had to admit it turned her on as well. His was a power she had never imagined, and something about the fact he had changed his name made him seem closer to the city. She had come to this place with friends, but they paled when compared to Rook.
“Okay,” she said. “But first I have to pee.”
Rook glanced around, then pointed at an overgrown parking lot beside a burnt-out pub. “Public toilets!” he said, giggling at his own joke.
Lucy-Anne dashed across the road, feeling his eyes burning into her back. His dark eyes. So like a rook's, she thought, almost lifeless. But the rest of his face made up for it; he always wore a smile, and there were laughter lines in his young man's skin.
He was dangerous, but for now she felt safe around him.
For now.
Rosemary had told them which way to go. No one really knew where Reaper could be found, but there were rumours. North, across the river, into the heart of the city, and look out for the rooks. One of the boys that runs with Reaper communes with them. Last I heard, they were seen above St. James's Park.
As they crossed Vauxhall Bridge, Jack remembered a dozen movies that had used this place as a setting. He'd often heard his father describing London as a giant film set, and now here he was, in a depressing movie about a sad future. Two years ago, who could have believed that London would ever look like this?
The Houses of Parliament, once home to the British Government, was a ruin. One half of it looked as though it had suffered sustained bombing, and there was little recognisable left. The other half had burned, and though most of its walls were still standing, they were swathed in a thick green climbing plant erupting with violet flowers. The once-smart lawns outside, where Jack had watched countless politicians being interviewed for TV and Net-News, was a plain of waist-high grass and graceful bamboo.
The Big Ben tower was still there, but the clock faces had been blown out, and Jack could see straight through its upper section. The bell itself seemed to have gone. Perhaps they would find it, if they looked long enough, fallen and covered in moss. But that would gain them nothing. Time flicked at him with its cruel whip, though as yet Jack was unsure why he felt such urgency.
Perhaps it was those dying Irregulars in the underground hospital.
They paused on the bridge for a while, catching their breath, taking a drink and looking down the River Thames. It flowed through a wild place now. Clumps of detritus—plants, branches, broken things—drifted down from upriver, gently bobbing towards the sea. A couple of the old river cruisers were still there, one of them wedged beneath one of the gentle arches of Grosvenor Bridge, the other still moored at river's edge not far from where they stood. From this distance it looked strangely peaceful and serene, so much so that it seemed out of place. A picture postcard image of hell.
“I'm glad you two got together,” Jack said. They had not talked much since leaving the Underground again, though the silence was never uncomfortable.
“Me too,” Sparky said grinning at Jenna.
“I don't know what came over me,” she said. “I thought I'd been shot in the gut, not the head.”
They all laughed softly, and watched an eagle drift majestically along the river's course and pass beneath the bridge.
“Wow,” Jack whispered. “Wonder where the hell that came from.”
“You know, Jack,” Jenna said, “Lucy-Anne will…we'll find her and…”
He shook his head. “Knowing she's alive is good.”
“You believe Nomad?”
“Don't you?”
“Without a doubt.” Jenna still seemed awkward, and Jack wasn't sure he wanted to verbalise his thoughts. But really, this was no time for any sort of self-deception.
“Me and Lucy-Anne…I think we were finished before we even started. Thrown together by our backgrounds and histories, not because we fancied each other.”
“Good friends,” Sparky said. “Maybe that's what you two are.”
“Yeah,” Jack nodded. “What you two did last night…Well, we haven't done that for ages.”
Jenna blushed and elbowed Sparky in the ribs.
“I said nothing!” he protested. But she was smiling, and Jack laughed.
“Let's get on,” he said.
“Rooks,” Sparky muttered. “Always spooked the crap out of me.”
“Scarier than chickens?” Jenna quipped.
“Okay, okay, another point to Jenna.”
They crossed the bridge and passed through Parliament Square, keeping their ears and eyes open.
Walking progressively northward, Jack wondered whether Lucy-Anne had already come this way. He thought of their time together and tried to come to terms with what it had all meant. They'd gone through the usual boyfriend and girlfriend moments; kissing and cuddling in front of a movie, drinking cider when Emily was in bed, progressing on to awkward fumblings and gasped moments of shared pleasure. But the physical side had always felt somehow false and forced, and it was the times when he talked Lucy-Anne through her fury, doubt, and despair that seemed most important to Jack now. Doomsday had left her with nothing and no-one, and more than anything, he had been there to help her through that. And it had been a natural process. He did not feel even a tiny bit used, and he was certain that Lucy-Anne had welcomed every moment of their unusual relationship. She was a beautiful girl, but his fondest memories of her were when she smiled an honest and happy smile, rather than when she lay half-naked on his sofa.
If only he'd realised that she'd been so close to snapping.
I'm so bloody grown-up, he thought without much humour. He looked at Sparky and Jenna, saw their shared smiles and the way they sought physical contact, and his envy was a very gentle thing.
Morning passed into afternoon, and in a side street they found a grocers that didn't smell too bad. The central aisle display of fresh fruit and vegetables was now home to shrivelled black things, like something excavated rather than grown. But there were shelves of tinned foods that had not been touched, and though the labels were faded after two years of dampness, they found some tinned fruit still fit to eat. It tasted sweet, and good.
“Shit,” Sparky said.
“What?” Jack was immediately alert, but his friend was still sitting down.
“The door.”
Jack looked, and at first he saw nothing. Then he made out the faint, curled gleam of a thin wire, nestled by the door jamb. They must have tripped it on the way in.
Sparky was already looking around the shop. “There,” he said.
“Old security camera.”
“Everything in this place is covered in dust apart from that camera's lens.”
“Reaper?” Jenna said.
Jack stood and browsed the shelves, trying to appear calm. “Doubt it,” he said. “He's leader of the bloody Superiors. Bet he's got people who can do a lot more than a trip-wire and a camera.”
“We should go,” Sparky said. “Quickly.” As they fled the shop, J
ack saw Sparky giving the camera the finger.
They ran along the street, disturbing a pack of dogs that were worrying something newly-dead just inside a house's front door. Luckily most of the dogs ran into the house, not out at them, and Jack kicked out at the one mutt that came too close. Its jaws snapped on thin air, but it did not follow.
They tried to lose themselves, hoping that they would shake off any potential pursuers. But then they heard the sounds of motors in the distance, and they paused at a street corner, panting.
“We can't be caught!” Jack said.
“We have to hide.” Jenna was pointing at doors both open and closed.
“They might have the whole area wired.”
“Well, we can't just stand here arsing about!” Sparky said. “Come on!”
They ran along another street, climbing over a huge wreck where a lorry and several cars had crashed and burned. Jack was aware of a charred skull staring at him through one smashed windscreen, but then something flashed overhead that distracted his attention. A helicopter, its sudden appearance explosive in the street, engine sound dwindling rapidly as it headed away…and then started to turn.
“Chopper chopper!” Sparky shouted, giggling nervously.
“We can't be caught!” Jack said again. “This isn't fair!” He thought of his mother and sister crawling out of London through the dangerous darkness, his father somewhere to the north, and Lucy-Anne wandering the street alone as she searched the ruin of one of the world's largest cities for her lost brother. And such a weight of responsibility pressed down on him that for a moment he could not move, crushed there on that burnt car's bonnet and staring into the skeletal eyes of someone sorely missed.
“Come on,” Sparky said, tapping his leg.
“Jack!” Jenna shouted.
Another helicopter appeared above the end of the street, lowering itself slowly between house rows, rotors so close that they whipped dust from the buildings’ facades.
“There!” Jenna shouted, pointing at an open door across the street. “We can go through and try to find—”
