by Tim Lebbon
Jack ran his tongue around his mouth. And deep inside he could feel a dreadful, wonderful change already beginning.
“Dad, please will you—”
Reaper glared at him, and there wasn't a hint of anything other than malice in his eyes. “Nine minutes, fifty seconds.”
“You're not my father,” Jack said, and Reaper only shrugged.
“Come on, Jack,” Jenna said.
But there was one more thing to try, one last time. “Lucy-Anne, are you sure?”
She shook her head and drew closer to Rook. “My brother. But I'll do my best to dream the best for you.”
Jack frowned, because he did not understand. But at least the guilt of leaving Lucy-Anne had been lifted from his shoulders. And it was a good thing, because the responsibility already weighing on him would crush him, given half a chance.
“Jack,” Sparky said. He and Jenna were already retreating along the street.
“Nine minutes, forty seconds.”
Jack walked quickly through the line of Superiors—the blind knife-thrower, the shadow man, Reaper—until he was standing face to face with Miller. The man's eye and nose were bleeding, but he did not flinch.
“Rosemary is yours,” Jack said.
Miller snorted, shook his head. “I don't conspire with freaks.”
“Someone's been giving us away.”
Miller only shrugged.
“Fair enough,” Jack said. “But if Reaper does what he says and decides to let you go, remember this: I swear, before everyone standing here, that if you or any of your scumbag friends lay a hand on my mother or sister, I will fucking kill you.”
Miller blinked and looked down at his feet.
“Nine minutes, twenty seconds,” Reaper muttered.
“All right!” Jack shouted, spinning and walking past his father. “We're going!”
He followed Sparky and Jenna as they jogged along the street, and every fibre of him was screaming to look back. But he and Lucy-Anne had said their goodbyes. Miller had Jack's vow fresh in his mind. And his father…
His father was dead.
Nine minutes, Jack heard as they rounded a corner and ran, the three of them sprinting as fast as they could. They passed dead things and living things that had fed on the dead. They smelled cooking meat on the air from the people they had just seen killed. They had no idea where to go next.
Still running, Jack pulled the bloodstained photograph from his jeans pocket. Knowing it had been taken by Miller or his Choppers made it feel tainted. He turned it over, felt around its edges, his suspicion already hardening into certainty. And without actually feeling or touching it, he sensed the small metal square cast into one corner of the card. It was like a smell in his mind, a taste on his vision. He ripped the photo in half, ignoring the sight of his mother's face cut in two.
“What're you doing?” Sparky panted.
Jack tore and tore again, then held up the thin metal device. He did not have to tell either of his friends what it was.
The sound of helicopters grew in the distance, and Jack threw the tracking chip through a smashed shop window.
Once the hunters, now the hunted, the three friends ran deeper into the Toxic City.
When the ten minutes were up, still they ran. Helicopters buzzed overhead, motors echoed around street corners, and they were the centre of attention.
The pain in Jack's injured ankle was awful, and as he ran, the Nomad's taste came to him again. The pain ended, and he coughed up something that looked like black rice. Spitting it out, he wondered, What the hell's happening to me? But really he knew.
Sparky lifted a grating in the pavement outside an old greengrocer's, and Jack and Jenna slid down the steep chute. Sparky lowered the grating and followed them down.
In the darkness, they huddled together at the rear of the basement. It was empty and unused, and there was the faint scent of old decay from one dark corner. They kept away from it; they had seen enough dead things.
“You think it was only that photo?” Sparky asked.
“We'll soon find out,” Jack said. He felt so lost and alone, and he could not help imagining what Emily and his mother were going through right now. Whenever he blinked, he was presented with terrible possibilities: Emily strapped down with probes being driven into her eyes; his mother on her back, chest plate cracked, and her heart beating in her open chest. He wanted to cry and rage at the visions, but he knew that for now, silence was their friend.
And now he felt different inside, constantly changing, an astounding potential swelling so large that he was surprised he did not burst apart. I know things, he thought. I can see things. He looked at his hands and knew they could heal. When he blinked, he saw constellations of power across the insides of his eyelids. The Nomad had seeded a change within him, but he was not yet sure how he could tell Sparky and Jenna.
“So what now?” Jenna asked.
“Now, we rescue Emily and my mum.”
“Damn right!” Sparky said.
“And then home,” Jenna sighed.
“No.” Jack shook his head. “And then back into the city.”
“But—”
“Jenna, if you had a chance to rescue your father from what he's become, would you take it?”
“You think there's really a chance?” Jenna asked, and Jack looked away, because the possible answers to that question were tearing him apart.
“I can't ask you both—” he began, but Sparky punched his arm and grabbed him in a headlock.
“You even suggest we leave you on your own, and I'll break your neck,” his friend growled.
Something drove along the street. The vehicle skidded to a halt, and boots thumped the pavement. “Every house,” someone shouted in the distance, “every room, every basement!”
“Oh, hell, that's not good,” Sparky said, letting Jack go.
“It'll be okay.” A curious calm settled over Jack, and every time he remembered Nomad's face, and tasted her finger in his mouth, the calmness intensified. He closed his eyes and breathed deep. When he opened them again, someone was sliding down the chute into the basement.
Torchlight probed the darkness.
“Still and quiet,” Jack whispered, holding his two friends’ hands.
The soldier was just a shadow behind his heavy torch, a silhouette spiked with weapons and breathing heavily with fear, or excitement.
Jack closed his eyes and opened his mind, and instinct found something new.
“What the hell—”
“Torch hit me right across my eyes, and—”
“As if we were invisible!”
Jack hushed them both. “Nomad touched me,” he said.
“The first vector!” Jenna gasped.
“And still contagious. I feel so much. My senses, broadening. I know things I shouldn't. Not just one thing, but many. It's scary.” But even he knew that his voice did not sound afraid.
It sounded exhilarated.
They waited in the basement while the searching Choppers melted away into the distance.
And later, when Jack and his friends started making plans, he saw the careful glances they cast his way, and he sensed their unease.
As if he was no longer the Jack they used to know.
TIM LEBBON is a New York Times–bestselling writer from South Wales. He's had over twenty novels published to date, as well as dozens of novellas and hundreds of short stories. Recent books include the first two volumes of The Secret Journeys of Jack London trilogy (co-authored with Christopher Golden), Coldbrook, and The Heretic Land. London Eye is his first solo YA novel. He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award, and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, International Horror Guild, and Shirley Jackson Awards.
Fox 2000 have acquired film rights to The Secret Journeys of Jack London, and several more of his novels and novellas are currently in development. He is working on several screenplays, solo and in collaboration, as well as new novel projects
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Find out more about Tim at his website www.timlebbon.net.
