by Tim Lebbon
Gordon was cringing, almost gagging, as though he'd put something rotten and rank onto his tongue, rather than a droplet of a living person's blood. A tear squeezed from his eyes and spotted the expensive carpet at his feet.
Jack saw Rosemary's face drop, and she looked down at her feet. He knows, he thought. She's seen this reaction before.
“His name's Stephen,” Sparky said. “He lived in Peckham, last I heard. Taller than me.” Gordon did not react to his voice, and Jack could see desperation creeping over his friend. “Tattoo on his arm. His name.” He stood and approached the man, reaching out but pausing just before he touched the Irregular's shoulder.
“I'm sorry,” Gordon said, “but your brother's dead.”
Jack expected shouting and raving, denial and fury, and for a second he saw that and more behind Sparky's eyes. All that, and the temporary madness of grief.
But then Sparky stepped away from Gordon and slumped back down onto the floor cushions, holding his head in his hands and trying to cover his eyes, his ears, trying to shut himself off from the cruel world that had destroyed his family and left him like this.
Jack wanted to go to him. He saw Jenna take a step forward as well. But Emily grasped his hand, and Jenna looked at Lucy-Anne, then across at him. Being the one out of all of them who had not had family in London, she was aware that there could be more grief to come.
“Me next,” Lucy-Anne said. Her voice was gruff. She jumped down beside Sparky, snatched the knife from his hand and drew the blade harshly across her palm. She hissed and grimaced, and blood spattered the cushions and carpet as she strode to Gordon.
“I only need a speck,” Gordon said.
“Take as much as you want.”
She held out her hand.
There are wolves howling in the distance…
Her hand was shaking, she couldn't help that. Part of it was the pain of the cut, but most of it was because of what this man could do. What he was going to do. He moved closer and dabbed a finger in her blood, and Lucy-Anne squeezed her eyes shut.
Closer by, between clumps of exotic plants, a more level spread of ground…
“I've dreamed this,” she whispered, and if any of the others heard her, they said nothing.
She watched Gordon turn and approach the window again. He stepped so close that she saw his breath condensing on the glass. Then he took a deep breath and touched Lucy-Anne's blood to his tongue.
…and deep down, the faces of the dead she still loves.
“No,” Lucy-Anne moaned, and she knew that nightmare at last.
Gordon cringed again, quivering in the sunlight slanting through the window. Then he grew still, and he spoke without turning around or looking up. “Your brother is alive north of here. The rest, I think you already know.”
“No,” she moaned again, hand clenching tight around the knife handle, her other hand dripping blood onto the lush carpet. “We walked over them. I could have seen them, I knew they were there…” The whole nightmare came to her now, a solid, dreadful memory that refused to go away.
She screamed, raised the knife again, saw the startled expressions on her friends’ faces, and threw the blade over Sparky's head towards the bed. Even before it bounced from one of the corner posts she was running, screaming again, raging, venting fury and hatred as spittle-strewn invectives.
“We can't have her making too much—” she heard Gordon say.
“Her mum and dad are dead!” Emily snapped.
Lucy-Anne reached the door and hauled it open, swinging it so hard that the handle knocked a chunk from the plasterboard wall behind. She went with no destination in mind, bursting through doors, sprinting along corridors, trying to outrun the nightmare that had been stalking her since yesterday. And for a while, in that place of endless corridors and rooms that all looked the same, she lost herself to grief and rage.
As his girlfriend disappeared out into the corridor, and Sparky looked up as though he had never seen any of them before, Jack only wanted to hear about his father.
“You really need to stop her,” Gordon said. “There are Superiors about, I sensed them earlier.”
“Superiors?” Jack asked, confused.
“Later!” Rosemary said, grabbing Jack's arm. “Go after her.” Lucy-Anne's screams were fading as she ran.
“But my father…” he said.
“I can tell you about him soon enough. And dear Susan, your mother. But stop her making that noise, or we'll all be in trouble.”
My father? My mother?
Rosemary glared at Jack, and he nodded, signalling Emily to stay with the others and then running for the door.
Just as he exited the plush suite and started along the corridor, he heard Gordon say, “Oh sweet Jesus, they're already here.”
There will be a statement from the prime minister on all TV and radio channels at midnight.
—Government Statement, all-channel broadcast,
10:30 p.m. GMT, July 28, 2019
Jack expected monsters.
“Superiors”? What the hell are they?
As he ran along the plush hotel corridor in pursuit of Lucy-Anne's fading screams, he wondered whether he was now just following echoes.
I've never heard of them, Rosemary never mentioned them, and—
The door to the service staircase opened. Jack skidded to a halt. A woman stepped out. She was beautiful, but terrifying in a way Jack could not properly establish. Maybe it was the complete disregard she seemed to have for her appearance: tatty, loose trousers; a torn jacket; dirty sweatshirt. Or perhaps it was her eyes and the way they seemed to bore right through him from the second they locked glances.
“Where are you going?” she asked, and her voice came from inside his head as well as without. Jack slumped against the wall.
“I'm following Lucy-Anne to bring her back,” he said without thinking.
“Who's Lucy-Anne?”
“My girl…” He frowned, because that no longer seemed right. “My friend.”
“Where are the others?”
What others? Jack thought. He could not lead this person—this Superior—to Emily, Sparky, and Jenna.
“Room 602,” he said. Then he started backing away from this woman, because he had not intended to say anything.
“It's all right,” she said, smiling. “You couldn't help yourself.”
The door behind her opened again and a man stepped through, incredibly tall and exactly the opposite to her when it came to clothing. He wore an expensive suit, cuff links, a thin dark tie, and his shoes were shined to a mirror-like sheen. His face was very severe, and Jack's first thought was that the man would never be in danger of suffering laughter lines.
“Then I think you should go back to 602 to join them,” the man said. He raised his right hand, as if to point back along the corridor.
“But I'm…” Jack began. The man's fingers flexed. Jack's right bicep twitched and clenched, and the muscles in his thigh contracted, like the worst case of cramp he'd ever had. He groaned and took a step back, feeling as though he'd been shoved.
The woman was smiling at him. Her eyes shone.
The man came forward, and Jack saw that he was limping, one leg of his trousers torn and dark with blood.
“I'm going,” Jack said, and when the man lowered his hand the feeling of manipulation left.
Jack turned and ran. With every step, he listened out for more shouts and screams from Lucy-Anne. But she was either too far way for him to hear anymore, or she had at last seen or sensed the danger they were all in.
At the door to room 602 he paused and looked back. The woman was close, and behind her came the man, limping heavily but displaying no sign of pain in his expression. In fact, his grim face gave away nothing, and Jack had always been afraid of masks.
The door had not been closed properly, and just as the woman reached Jack it swung open, revealing Gordon and Rosemary standing just inside.
“We heard the noise,” the woman sai
d. “We'd like to join the party.”
“You've no business here,” Gordon said.
“No business?” the tall man replied, talking over Jack's head. “No business in this fine hotel, in this dead city, where law no longer reigns?” He leaned across Jack, his voice lowered. “The likes of you don't decide whose business is whose.”
Jack could see panic in Rosemary's eyes, and he wondered just how dangerous these two Superiors were. He turned around. The woman was directly behind him, scruffy but beautiful, and she held him with her piercing gaze.
“We don't want trouble,” Jack said, his voice bled weak by the effect she had upon him. She blinked, slow and sensuous.
The tall man looked down at him then, his face so close that Jack could smell his stale breath. “If you don't want trouble, boy, why find your way into London at all?”
“They're not from outside,” Gordon said, “they come from—”
“Where are they from?” the woman asked.
“Outside,” Gordon replied. He frowned and looked away.
“You're Superiors,” Jack said. Perhaps if he could connect with them, things would not go so bad.
“And you're normal,” the tall man said, with evident distaste.
“Yeah, sorry,” Jack said. “I can't heal wounds or make people tell me the truth. No interest at all, me.” He could see between Rosemary and Gordon now, and Emily, Jenna, and Sparky were gathered together in the sunken seating area inside the room. They all looked scared. He wondered what they had been told.
“I think we'll still come inside anyway, just to check things over,” the Tall Man said. He pushed past Jack and into the hotel room.
Jack looked at the woman. She seemed to wear a permanent, cute smile. “After you,” she said.
When they were all inside the room, the woman shut the door and locked it behind them.
“I'm Puppeteer,” the tall man said.
“And I'm his beautiful assistant, Scryer.” The woman by the door performed a small curtsey, lifting an imaginary skirt hem.
“Oh, very imaginative,” Jack said.
Puppeteer glanced at him, then away again, as if dismissing Jack entirely from his consideration. He looked around the extravagant hotel suite, and then his attention rested on Jack's sister and friends. “Three more boring, unimportant people from outside, yes?”
“No, we come from—” Jenna began, but Jack stepped forward, taking the opportunity to join his friends. The air stank with danger.
“Don't bother,” he said. He pointed at Scryer. “She can make you tell the truth.”
“I can,” the woman said, slinking across the room. Jack was amazed how sexy a woman could look in such innocuous clothing. “You told the truth about your ex-girlfriend, didn't you?”
Jack went cold. Such personal thoughts, exposed now for everyone. Scryer may have a lovely smile, but he could see the brutal potential in her ability.
“What do you two do?” Scryer asked.
Gordon and Rosemary answered at the same time. “I smell bloodlines…” “Healer…”
“Great powers!” Scryer said. “I've met lots of healers, of course, but it's still good. You're still special.”
“But I'm not Superior,” Rosemary said. Jack was surprised at the conviction in her voice.
“And why wouldn't you want to be?” Puppeteer asked. “You do something now you couldn't two years ago, doesn't that make you feel—”
“I'm still a human. Look at you! What was your real name? Paul? Derek? Now you call yourself Puppeteer, like some comic book hero?”
“I've moved on,” Puppeteer said.
“Well, this is intense,” Sparky whispered behind Jack. When Jack glanced around, Sparky and Jenna were standing close, Emily just in front of them.
“We'll be all right,” Jack said.
“So what are outsiders doing in the Toxic City?” Scryer asked.
“Come to find my parents,” Jack said, because it was true. He leaned forward, mouth working as if chewing on air, ready to tell these Superiors the rest of the reason they'd come here. But he swallowed the words and turned away. So long as she gets something true, he thought. Scryer was looking at him strangely, the smile now gone from her eyes. And she knows that…she knows her limits!
“Normals,” Puppeteer sneered. “Just…humans.”
“‘Just’?” Jack asked. So what's my mother? he thought. What's my father? He looked at Rosemary but she would not meet his eyes.
“You're hurt,” Rosemary said to the tall man.
“Someone shot me.”
“Who?” Sparky asked. Puppeteer looked at him as though surprised he could even talk.
“A Chopper patrol, earlier today. We were playing with them, and they opened fire. Perhaps they forgot to have their coffee this morning.”
“Is the bullet still inside?” Rosemary asked.
Puppeteer seemed uncertain about whether to even answer. Jack could see where this was heading; he could also sense the tall man's discomfort.
“Passed right through,” Scryer answered for him.
“I can heal it,” Rosemary said, but she made no move. Waiting for permission, Jack thought. It's like Us and Them. Or Us, Them, and The Others.
Puppeteer glanced down at his leg, trousers torn and shoe shining with fresh blood. He lifted his foot and turned it, wincing slightly as he put his weight on it once again. “Very well,” he said. “I'll let you.”
Rosemary knelt at Puppeteer's feet, and it was one of the strangest acts Jack had ever seen. The tall man turned away and stared through the tall, wide window. While Rosemary lifted the trouser leg and bunched it around his knee, exposing the wound so that she could work at it, the man sniffed, hummed to himself, and generally acted as though nothing was happening. His companion sat in one of the large sofas and called Gordon across to her, asking him questions in subdued tones. Jack could not hear what she said, but it was obvious by her continuing smile that the man was giving her the answers she sought. She kept glancing past the Irregular at Jack—none of the others, just him—and he felt the dreadful power of her gaze.
I'd tell her the truth if she just looked at me, he thought. He looked down at his shoes and thought about Lucy-Anne, crying and alone elsewhere in the hotel, or perhaps even out there, shouting her way through strange streets. He should be searching for her. But he knew they would not be allowed to leave.
“What will they do to us?” Emily whispered. She stepped closer to Jack, and he felt the cool angles of her camera against his leg.
“Nothing,” he said. But he could not be certain of that at all. The Superiors pretended not to hear, but he was sure they had.
Rosemary knelt very still, apart from her fingers moving across and through the pouting wound. Jack could not see her face, but he had seen her doing this enough times before to know that it would be blank, cool, and in control. The man's hands hung by his sides, his fingers relaxed. Whatever powers he had were dormant, for now. But Jack could remember that alien sensation of his muscles twitching under someone else's command. Puppeteer, he called himself, and he thought himself Superior. Perhaps soon they would witness the full range of his abilities.
Jack glanced down again and realised that Emily was filming. The shock was cut through with respect for his sister. Clever girl! He looked up again, glancing from one Superior to the other, but he was certain she had not been seen.
He, his sister, and their friends had remained standing, frozen there by the Superiors’ strange presence and the power they seemed to exude. But Jack realised that a lot of that effect was produced by their own sudden fears of what the Superiors would be, and what they would look like. It was a name Rosemary had never mentioned, something else she had kept from them, and they could not help letting fear run their imaginations into overdrive. Now, here were the Superiors: strong, aloof, but still very human. Whatever Doomsday had done to their minds and bodies, their humanity was still beyond doubt.
Not monster
s, he thought. No more than any other human being that does something inhuman.
So he sat down, making his own choice to not be so entranced that he could not use his own mind. Scryer glanced past Gordon once again, her smile broadening as she looked at Jack, and he felt the stirrings of lust. God, but she was beautiful! Could she enter his mind? Is that how she dragged the truth from him, and others, with every question?
Sparky sat behind him, Jenna and Emily to his left. Emily had to rest the camera on her knees so that it peered above floor level. Jack knew that she would be noticed, eventually, if they had not clocked her already. And he feared for her. But he saw her excitement and delight, and he could share in what she was feeling. Not so Superior, he thought she was thinking. Just people who think they're special enough to bully.
“So you were hounding the Choppers?” Rosemary asked as she worked. Puppeteer looked down in surprise, as if he'd forgotten she was even there.
“Just for fun,” he said.
“You hound them for fun, they come for us Irregulars. We're always easier to catch.”
“Yes, but they only hurt you if we kill some of them.”
“You really believe that?” she said. She stood and looked up into the tall man's face. “They take us and kill us as and when it pleases them. We're part of a research programme for them, right now. But when you and your Superior friends kill some of them, it becomes more than research. It becomes revenge!”
Puppeteer shrugged. He really did not care.
“Your leg's fixed,” Rosemary said.
The tall man looked down at his leg, the gaping bullet wound now little more than a bruised patch on his skin. “Pity you can't fix suits. This one was expensive.”
“You bought it?” Jenna asked. Jack drew in a sharp breath, but he also had to hold back a smile. This man's posturing, his arrogance, his disdain for those he saw as beneath him, all reminded him of a bully they'd once had in school. His name had been Kelly, and he'd delighted in throwing around his superior weight and pet-level intellect to hurt those smaller than him. Trouble was, everyone had been smaller than Kelly. At one time or another, virtually everyone in school had a run-in with him, boy or girl, first-year or sixth-year. He'd punched Jack once as he came down a staircase and Jack was walking up, giving him a swollen black eye and a dented pride. Jack, of course, had not struck back.
