by Tim Lebbon
“That's something for me and Reaper to know,” Jack said. “I'll give you a location and a time. That's all.”
Breezer laughed, saw that Jack was serious, and stood slowly from the office chair.
“You expect me to accept that?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jack said. “It's the element of surprise that will make this work, and the more people who know, the more likely we lose the surprise.”
Breezer shook his head and turned away, walking towards the glazed wall so that dawn threw his shadow back at them. He conversed with two of his people, and after a few moments his shoulders relaxed, and Jack knew that he had relented. Breezer's companions looked at Jack with something akin to wonder.
Don't be amazed by me, he thought. Don't fear me. Not for the first time, he wished he could shrug off Nomad's touch and rid himself of the memory of her taste. But doing so would be like changing his whole self. And no one really changed.
That was something he was banking on.
No one really changed.
Reaper had chosen the most innocuous, unlikely of places, and Jack had taken him on trust. He had no choice. If Reaper and his Superiors meant harm to Jack and his friends, they could have murdered them ten times over. If they had cruel plans for Breezer and the few Irregulars allied to him, they could doubtless have tracked them down, tortured them, killed them. Jack could only assume that Reaper's aim now matched his own—the discovery of Camp H.
The name Hope would take on a whole new meaning today.
“Well, this is nice,” Sparky said. “All we need now is an ice cream with one of those crumbly chocolate fingers stuck in it. And sprinkles, of course. Gotta have them.”
“Yeah,” Jenna said. “Must have sprinkles. What's the point of ice cream if you don't?”
“Precisely!” Sparky said. “Just what I've always said. Jack?”
“Flakey chocolate, yes. But on the sprinkles issue, I'm in neither camp,” Jack said. “I can take them or leave them, to be honest.”
Jenna and Sparky looked at him as if he was mad. Sparky's mouth hung open.
“You're weird,” Jenna said.
“Tell me about it,” Jack said.
They had righted a broken table and some chairs and were sitting on a wide pavement area outside a café in Covent Garden. Sparky had found three cans of flat lemonade and they were taking small sips, listening out for anyone approaching. Shade was somewhere nearby. Jack had seen him following them from Breezer's office block, glimpsing him from the corner of his eye. But there was no telling where he was now. He could have been inside one of the surrounding buildings—clothes stores, cafés, music shops, shoe shops, places of fashion and grace that meant little now—or perhaps he was closer by. Because even in the glare of day, this was a city of shadows. The cars had been motionless for so long, the shops undisturbed, that shadows seemed to have taken on some strange solidity.
They sat silently for a while, sipping their drinks, and it might have been the first time they'd been this still out in the open since entering London. Jack leaned back in his chair and thought about that—they'd always been running or hiding or seeing terrible things. Now, he could hear how silent this once-vibrant city had become.
A breeze rustled litter along the street. A door creaked open and closed. A bird of prey called somewhere in the distance. But the silence was louder.
“This just sucks,” Sparky said. Jack nodded without looking at his friend. Sparky had survived these past two years by believing that his brother might still be alive. He'd discovered that was not the case, and Jack was amazed at how well he had taken the news. Jenna had helped with that, Jack knew, and he was delighted that the two of them had come together at last. But it also showed that his burly, loud friend was perhaps more sensitive than them all.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “But it won't always be like this.”
“Can you be so sure?” Jenna asked.
“Yeah, is that like…seeing the future?”
“I can't do that,” Jack said. “Don't think anyone can do that.”
“Can't say that,” Sparky said. “Don't know what else in London we haven't seen yet.”
“You okay?” Jack asked. Sparky looked up at him, staring into his eyes as he drained his can and belched.
“Never better.”
“We'll all get home,” Jack said. “I promise, Sparky. All of us.”
“Well…” Sparky said, shrugging, holding Jenna's hand across the table, showing that he was nowhere near “never better.”
“Home can never be the same again,” Jenna said.
Jack went to disagree, but he knew that she was right. There was a simple truth in her words. As ever, Jenna was wise.
“Every step of the way, things have been changing,” Jenna said. “We've been changing. If we do all get back home, what then? Sparky's brother's dead. Lucy-Anne is missing. And you're…” She nodded at Jack, then looked away.
“Changing,” Sparky said. “You're changing so much, mate. What'll you do back at home?”
Jack blinked and tried to imagine being there with Emily—getting her off to school, doing the washing, working his two small jobs to try to bring in enough money to feed them both. And he could not picture it. It all seemed so mundane now that he could make himself and his friends unseen, heat metal up with the power of his mind, glean the truth from lies, and all those other talents he had yet to discover. He blinked slowly and witnessed the universe of possibilities Nomad had given him, and that was real life now. The star-rich place where every point of light was something amazing…that was home.
“You'll always be my best mates,” he said, admitting that everything was different.
“Yeah,” Jenna said.
“Pussy,” Sparky said.
Jack smiled.
“Company,” Sparky said softly.
“Where?” Jack asked.
“Someone watching from that café window. What, you didn't detect them with your Spidey senses?”
“Eat me. Who is it?”
“You won't taste as good as those burgers. Someone dressed in black. Looks like your old man.”
Jack stood and turned around to look at the café, making it very clear that they knew the watcher was there. This wasn't Shade, of that he was sure. It was someone surveying the ground before emerging.
Jack waved. The figure didn't move, and for a moment he thought perhaps it was a trick of the light. Then the shadow shifted, and seconds later the café door screeched open.
Reaper emerged. He looked around the street and grinned. He's so bloody confident, Jack thought, and that was another aspect alien to his father. His dad had been a humble man, never confident in much of what he did. He could never please his own father, Jack's mother had told him once when he'd asked about this, and it was an answer he had never wanted elaborated. Jack had always done his best to please his parents, and they had always been full of praise for him.
“Hi, Dad,” Jack said. Reaper raised an eyebrow but did not reply.
“Dude, that black coat thing…” Sparky said. He trailed off, chuckling, and Jack threw him a sharp glance.
“Glad I amuse you,” Reaper said.
“Yeah, well.”
Reaper growled. It was almost sub-audible, like rocks grinding together in the depths of the earth, and the table they had been sitting at flipped onto its side. Jenna fell backwards in her chair, and Sparky stood and stumbled back.
“We don't need this!” Jack said. The strength in his own voice surprised him, and deep down he touched the star that might give him his father's power. But it was a sickening touch, repulsive. A power simply for destruction. He wasn't sure he could ever bring himself to fully use something like that.
Reaper sighed and looked around as if nothing had happened.
Jenna stood and Sparky went to her, but she pushed him away. Jack watched until they both caught his gaze, then he pursed his lips and shook his head.
“Your friend not here yet?”
Reaper asked.
“Twenty minutes,” Jack said, glancing at his watch. “I thought we'd agreed—”
“I arrive and depart to my own schedule,” Reaper said. He seemed to be avoiding looking at Jack. Maybe that was a good sign—that he felt uncomfortable looking at the son he was doing his best to shun—or perhaps it was simply that he could never care again.
Jack could have pushed another memory onto him. There were a thousand good times he had grasped hold of since Doomsday, but now they all felt very personal to him. The more memories he pushed onto Reaper, the more sullied they became.
Besides, that was cheating. His father still possessed his own mind, and it would surely be best and more honest if he decided for himself.
They spent a strange twenty minutes waiting for Breezer and his people to arrive. Sparky and Jenna stood close together, whispering, immersed in their own private world. Jack righted the table and sat down again, trying to act calm and slow his galloping heart. Reaper strolled. He never passed out of sight, but neither did he stop close to them for long.
Jack watched, and several times he almost stood and went to talk to him. But there was little left to say. Reaper had come, and from that Jack took as much comfort as he could. Surely, at least a small part of what Reaper was doing was in an effort to rescue his wife and daughter? Jack could only hope.
Breezer appeared right on time. Four people came with him, and though Jack had seen them all in the office block, he did not know their names. Two men and two women, none of them hiding their nervousness. They only had eyes for Reaper.
“Thank you,” Jack said, standing to welcome Breezer. He extended his hand, and Breezer looked surprised. He took Jack's hand and shook.
“I wasn't expecting to see him,” he said, inclining his head towards where Reaper was standing in front of an old clothing shop. The window was shattered, naked mannequins splayed across the floor and pavement like moss-covered corpses.
“It bugs him that he's never been able to find Camp H,” Jack said.
“It would. He's Superior.” Breezer seemed nervous, but also retained some of the qualities that seemed to have made him de facto leader of this small group of Irregulars. He exuded strength and confidence, and Jack knew he would be calm under pressure. “So now what?”
“Nine of us here together, at least,” Jack said. “You think…?”
“I'm pretty sure she'll see nine, especially out in the open,” Breezer said.
“Hope so.”
“Your plan depends on that?”
“Yeah.”
Breezer nodded, smiled. “Sounds pretty uncertain to me.”
“Yeah,” Jack said again, and he smiled back. “That's me all over.”
Breezer's smile seemed heartfelt and honest, and Jack began to hope he had made a friend. But he knows about Nomad's touch, he thought. He sees my strengths, knows some of them…how can I take anything for granted?
He turned away, troubled, and walked towards Reaper.
“Soon,” he said as he approached the thing his father had become.
“I hope so,” Reaper said.
“Mum always used to like this chain,” Jack said, pointing at the shop's name.
Reaper only stared at him, giving nothing away. Then he said, “So, I should go to meet your Irregular friends, don't you think?”
“Just don't kill them all,” Jack said coldly.
“What makes you think I would?” Reaper asked.
“You're so good at it.”
They didn't have to wait very long.
Jack, Sparky, and Jenna had returned to their table and stood around it, talking in subdued whispers. Reaper and Breezer had faced each other, exchanged a few words, and then parted again. Reaper went back to strolling around the street, sometimes apparently studying his surroundings, at other times engrossed in thought. He seemed unable to stay still for very long. Breezer and the people with him sat along the kerb, two of them smoking, the others passing a bottle of whiskey back and forth. And it was from one of these that the warning came.
“We're being watched,” the woman said, standing and squeezing her eyes so tightly closed that her face became a mask of wrinkles.
“Yes,” Reaper said.
“No. I don't mean your shadow man. I mean by someone from afar.”
“The girl the Choppers have working for them?” Jenna asked.
“Maybe,” Jack said. “But…I think I hear something.”
One by one, they all looked up. A drone buzzed so high up that its sound was a whisper, its shape and form little more than a flash of reflected sunlight.
“Checking us out,” Sparky said, giving the thing the finger.
“And when they see who's here, the Choppers won't be far behind.”
“Reaper,” Jenna said.
“And Jack,” Sparky said. “Mate, no risks, huh? That Miller bastard, he was looking at you like he wanted to chop you up.”
“Miller won't be chopping anyone else up,” Reaper said. He'd drifted closer to them, and now he stood almost as if he was part of the group.
“So what now?” Breezer asked.
“Now we wait,” Reaper said. He cocked his head, smiled. “But not for long.”
They came four minutes later. Not the royal blue Land Rovers that Jack had seen before, but smaller, faster shapes moving along the streets like errant shadows. They were almost completely silent but for the whish! of disturbed air, and the occasional crackling of wheels crunching over grit or litter. He saw six initially, but as he and the others crouched down ready to spring aside, he realised that there were more.
They've sent the whole Chopper army against us! Jack thought, and at that moment the first motorcycle flipped into the air, shed its rider, and smashed into the ground. It bounced and skittered across tarmac and the concrete pavement, slamming into a bank's façade and exploding in a wash of blazing fuel. The sudden sound was shocking, and it spurred everyone into action.
“Into the café!” Jenna shouted, grasping Sparky's hand and waiting for Jack.
Guns fired, bullets ripped along a shop's façade, glass shattered, someone screamed.
Reaper held Jack's arm, and when Jack looked at him the man was smiling. “No need to run,” Reaper said.
And he was right. Jack had always counted that Reaper would not be coming on his own, but for the past few minutes he had been worrying that his father was not going to hold up his side of the plan. Shade was there, hiding somewhere out of sight. But Jack had seen no one else from Reaper's retinue.
With the Choppers attacking, they made themselves known.
Several motorcycle wheels exploded into flames and burst, scattering blazing rubber across the street and spilling riders. The bikes flipped over the kerb or collided in the road, and for a few seconds the scene was one of chaotic, deadly movement. Another bike was lifted from the ground and held motionless in mid-air, its rear wheel still spinning frantically, its rider struggling to unsling a machine gun from his shoulder.
Three bikes skidded to a stop along the street and their riders levelled their guns. Jack saw Reaper draw in a huge breath.
“Dad!”
Reaper roared. He was looking at Jack as he did so, but he held nothing back. Shop fronts erupted, paving slabs cracked and shattered, cars immobile for two years slid along the road on flat tyres, and the three motorcycles and riders came apart as the wave of destruction hit them, flesh and metal, blood and plastic merging in a cloud that splashed down along the street and across the front of an old pizza restaurant.
As quickly as it had begun, Reaper's storm ceased. The street held its breath as Superiors emerged from where they had all been hiding. A woman stepped from a rooftop and floated down to the ground, flames playing around her fingertips and at her throat. Her hair seemed to be ablaze, and she looked at Jack with fire in her eyes. Puppeteer stepped from a shop doorway farther along the street, Scryer close behind him. And there were several other, all possessed of a silent, aloof c
onfidence as they claimed the street and the scene of destruction as their own.
Puppeteer held up both hands, and along the street at least eight Choppers were held aloft six feet above the ground. They struggled, but to no avail. One of them shouted as she fought against the hold, struggling to bring her gun to bear, and Jack realised with a sick feeling who was in her sights.
“Jenna, duck!” he shouted. But Sparky had seen at the same time. He shoved his girlfriend aside and fell on her, smothering her with his body and limbs, and Jack thought, No, Sparky!
But when the woman's finger squeezed the trigger, it was her own head that the bullet smashed apart. Puppeteer grunted in satisfaction and flicked his hand at the air, sending the woman's corpse crashing against a coffee shop's window and sliding to the pavement. The look of surprise was still etched on her blood-spattered face.
“Don't kill any more!” Jack shouted. “Get them down, take their weapons, but don't kill any more!” He looked over to where Breezer and the other Irregulars were huddled down on the pavement and he couldn't help thinking that this was all going wrong. Brutality was a tool of the Choppers and a weapon of the Superiors, but Breezer and the others did their best to exclude it from their lives.
“Bring them down,” Reaper said. His voice was so powerful and held such command that the street itself seemed to be listening.
One of the men with Breezer stood and moved forward. He lowered his head so that he was looking at his feet, and Jack watched, intrigued. Then he said, “Drop your weapons,” and there was a clatter of metal on concrete and tarmac as the Choppers all obeyed immediately.
“Nice,” Scryer said from where she stood beside Puppeteer. “What do you call yourself?”
“Guy Morris, same as I always have,” the man said.
Puppeteer dropped the men and women to the ground. They landed with grunts and cries, quickly stood, and drew together into two groups.
Sparky and Jenna were standing again now, Jenna shaking slightly, Sparky with his arm around her shoulder.
“I've been shot before,” she said softly when Jack looked at her.
“I remember,” he said.
“It hurt.”
“Yeah.” Jack looked across at the crumpled Chopper, a pool of blood spreading around her head. “Her fault.”
