Contagion (Toxic City) (6 page)

He was afraid of killing them.

“Jack!” someone shouted. He looked around, wondering who they'd left behind, but they were all there. As he caught Sparky's eyes, his friend's mouth fell open in shock.

“Jack!” the voice called again, and then he recognised it. Lucy-Anne.

She was along the path from them, running and waving frantically. There was someone with her…or was there?

“Lucy-Anne!” he shouted. He forgot the danger they were in, the people he had killed, the weight of danger crushing them from all angles. For that brief instant all was delight, and he wanted to greet his dear friend with a hug. He waved at her to come with them, and heard Jenna's and Sparky's delighted laughter.

And then Lucy-Anne shouted again. “
Get down!
”

Between them, several Choppers stood from behind a fallen wall and three heavy benches. Without warning, the shooting began.

Lucy-Anne shouted one more time, and then a Chopper turned and started shooting at her and she fell and rolled, pressing herself flat against a kerb, the gutter barely deep enough to protect her. Bullets impacted the sidewalk about her and plucked at her clothing, her hair, and kissed the back of one leg with icy pain that quickly turned lava-hot.
Oh no oh no!
she thought, again and again, because she had not dreamed the end of this. Whatever fate had in store for her and her friends today had yet to be played out.

“Andrew!” she yelled, but his wraith was no longer with her. “Jack!” she called instead.

More gunfire, shouting, and behind the impacts she heard running feet. She glanced up and around, terrified that at any moment a bullet would find her head. At least she wouldn't know. She could not comprehend the instant change from alive to dead an impact on her brain would cause, but right then it did not frighten her. What scared her was not being here anymore to tell her friends about the bomb. They were all she had left, and with every atom of her body she did not want to let them down.

Someone screamed, androgynous in their agony.

“Drop your—” a voice shouted, and gunfire erupted from a different direction.
More of them!
she thought. She risked a glance above the shallow kerb.

A Chopper was running towards her, barely thirty feet away, rifle held across his chest. As he saw her he paused and shouldered his rifle, and then he was smashed forwards in a haze of blood, pavement beneath him fracturing, a roar accompanying his death. Blood spattered the ground close to Lucy-Anne and she rolled back, stood, not knowing which way to turn.

Beyond the dead Chopper were three others, all of them dead and leaking across the ground. And beyond them, Jack and his friends were dragging a shape across the pavement, huddled low and heading for the cover of a boat ride ticket kiosk. Lucy-Anne couldn't see who had been hit. She started running.

More gunfire burst from a building to her right, flashing from two second floor windows. The kiosk blurred, and splinters and shards of wood flicked at the air. They wouldn't last a second behind there. Barely aware of what she was doing—not knowing what she
could
do—Lucy-Anne changed direction and ran for the building. It was a grand old structure, perhaps an up-market office block, and the storeys were tall. So the two Choppers fell at least fifteen feet when they were thrown from the windows.

Lucy-Anne winced at the crunch of breaking bones, but the silence that followed was a blessing.

A shape appeared in one window—a stocky woman in a short skirt, holding onto the window frame and looking down at what she had done. There was another, taller shape behind her, but Lucy-Anne could not make it out. Not quite. But she had seen that silhouette before, and she thought perhaps it was Reaper.

One of the Choppers was still alive, crawling away from the
building in a vain attempt to escape. Lucy-Anne ignored them. They were a person in pain, but so was she. And they might have just killed one of her friends.

She ran. Focussed on the kiosk, ignoring the dead Choppers she passed and their spreading blood and broken weapons, she started sobbing uncontrollably as she saw Jack stand and look her way. And he smiled and opened his arms as she drew close, pulling her into a warm, loving, living embrace that made her, for the first time since Rook, glad to be alive.

There was nothing Jack could do. Guy Morris had been killed by a bullet in the throat as he'd tried yelling at the Choppers to drop their weapons. Two inches to the left or right and perhaps Jack could have healed the wound and saved him. But his spine had been smashed and he'd quickly bled out.

He embraced Lucy-Anne, so pleased to see her, to feel her warmth. Sparky and Jenna came and hugged them both, and for a brief, beautiful moment Jack wasn't sure who was crying and who was not. When Fleeter reappeared with a clap and they parted, he realised that some of the tears were his.

Not relinquishing contact with Lucy-Anne, he turned to Fleeter. She still smiled, but looked more exhausted than ever.

“So where is he?” Jack asked.

“Gone.”

“He's watching over us.”

Fleeter shrugged. “He cares. About what you're doing.”

“Yeah. Right.” Jack was both furious and relieved. He'd been gathering his own strength, about to unleash his own shout again, when his father had killed the Choppers. More blood spilled to stain the London streets, and Jack's memory, forever. But at least this time it had not been at his hand.

“So where is he now?” Sparky asked.

Fleeter glanced at Sparky, then back at Jack and Lucy-Anne. “Looks like you found your girlfriend.”

Jack could have punched her. He saw the mischief in her eyes as she looked over Jack's shoulder at Rhali standing behind him, and he couldn't believe she was doing this now, with the smell of death rich in the air. It was as if murder enlivened her.

“We really need to go!” Breezer said. He trotted along the riverbank path, skirting around the dead Choppers. From back the way they'd come, Jack heard more smashing glass, and a high, loud hooting sound that made his balls tingle with fear.

They ran. Lucy-Anne and Jenna went together, talking, their laughter perhaps a little too high and mad. Jack grasped Rhali's hand and squeezed, and when she squeezed back he felt a rush of gratitude. He hoped she felt the warmth developing between the two of them—if not, he would make sure he told her what he felt at the first opportune moment. But she also recognised the strength of friendship and history between him and Lucy-Anne. He hadn't even scratched the surface of how incarceration had affected her, but it seemed her mind was still sharp.

Still running, Jack leaned across to kiss her cheek, and she surprised him at the last moment by turning to him. Their lips met, and for a blissful instant nothing else mattered.

“Well, now,” Rhali said as they mounted the ramp leading down to the pontoon.

“Yeah,” Jack said. They had to let go hands and walk in single file, but he thought their touch would last forever.

“Andrew's with me,” Lucy-Anne said. “He knows. He…” She trailed off, confused and scared.

“I didn't see Andrew,” Jack said.
But
did
I see someone with her? Just for a moment?

“He came with me. From Hampstead Heath. Rook and I went there to find him, and Nomad was there, and Rook fell and I ran, but then Andrew came to me and he's…dead, but not gone. Not quite gone. He brought me down here…and I dreamed I'd meet you all here!” She went from confused to delighted, her expression changing in a flash as she looked from Jack to Sparky to Jenna. Then her smiled dropped again as if punched from her face. “There's a bomb!”

“We know,” Jenna said. She held Lucy-Anne and it was strange to see. The girl they all knew was not someone to be held or pitied. “The Choppers planted it, Miller triggered it. We've got maybe eleven hours.”

“You know?” Lucy-Anne asked. “Why? Who's Miller? How did you find out?”

“There's so much to tell you,” Jack said. “And it sounds like you have a lot to tell us. But your leg's bleeding. Here. Let me—”

Lucy-Anne frowned and pulled away from Jenna, and for a moment it looked like she was going to jump back onto the pontoon before they'd even set off.

“Andrew?” she said, scanning the shore. “Andrew.”

“You're back with us now,” Jack said.

“Jack's told me a little about you,” Rhali said kindly.

Lucy-Anne's face crumpled. The tears came without warning, and after a few deep sobs she rubbed them away just as quickly. “Oh Jack, I'm so tired,” she said. When she slumped down, Sparky was already there to catch her. She rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

“Breezer?” Jack asked.

“Yeah.” He pushed a button and the boat's engine coughed and grumbled, but did not catch.

From somewhere out of sight on shore they heard the hooting from those strange, wild women.

“Breezer, now would be a good time for us to escape.”

“Yeah.” He pushed the button again, keeping it pushed in so that the engine turned and grumbled and turned again, and then it caught. Clouds of smoke belched from twin exhausts at the vessel's rear, and Breezer slumped in relief.

“Your London river tour is about to begin,” he said, pushing the throttle forward. The boat bumped against the pontoon and then moved away.

Those women had something of the water about them
, Jack thought. But when he saw them appear along the riverbank at the metal railing, they paused and watched the boat chugging away downriver. He sensed a moment of indecision in them as they seemed ready to give pursuit. But then they leapt into the water and swam in the opposite direction, moving incredibly quickly across the water's slugging surface before diving and disappearing from view.

“Trick?” Jenna asked. Jack wasn't sure. He readied himself, prepared to fight them if he had to. He imagined their slick fingers and tentacles curling around the boat's safety rail, their unnatural faces peering at him, showing him their teeth. But a few moments later he
saw them surface and scramble up onto the opposite bank, and they disappeared south of the river without another backward glance.

“Weird,” Jenna said.

“Yeah. Maybe there're easier pickings that way.”

No one replied. None of them wanted to discuss what, or who, those easier pickings might be.

The boat was a small tourist vessel that promised “The most picturesque views of London, bar none.” How one boat could offer any more picturesque views than any other, Jack did not know. But right then he thanked the owners of the
City Sleeker
for running their business on the Thames. He hoped they'd not been in London when Evolve hit, but disaster had struck at the height of summer, and he knew it unlikely. He didn't want to ask Breezer about where they'd found the
Sleeker
, nor how many bodies it had contained.

It was about thirty feet long, the front half open, the stern covered with a glass canopy. The cabin was right at the stern, raised a little from the canopy so that the captain could see along the length of the boat. Seating was arranged looking outward, not ahead, with an open area of deck down the centre for those who wished to stand. Life belts were strung beneath seats, and on the covered area's roof was a lifeboat, strapped down and covered in a tarpaulin. No one wished to be reminded of their vulnerability.

Jack and Sparky uncovered the lifeboat and familiarised themselves with its release mechanism. None of them wanted to go into these waters, and with the amount of detritus in the river, the chance of hitting a submerged object was too high for comfort.

Breezer piloted them upstream. The others sat within the glass-enclosed area, still feeling exposed. The engine sounded incredibly loud.

Lucy-Anne was not asleep, but she seemed to be staring into space. Jack held her leg and gently eased her bleeding. The bullet had barely grazed her, but she would still bruise. Then she went back to her silent contemplation. He guessed she had a lot to think through, and when they were safer he'd talk to her.

Safer. It was not a word that meant much right then.

Rhali watched the river banks, casting out her senses, discovering several groups of people moving around the city to the north. There were some to the south as well, and she quickly gathered a picture of movements which she communicated to the others.

“I think some of them are Choppers,” she said. “And some of them are just…normal people. Like you.” She nodded at Breezer.

“Irregulars,” Jenna said.

“Whatever name they wish to use,” Rhali said dismissively. “But some of them—a lot of them—are strange. Changed. Like those women we saw. And they're tortured.”

Jack glanced at Rhali.

“Not like me,” she said. “I mean they're in pain from what they have become. Imagine changing so much. Imagine what such physical changes must feel like?”

“They're going the wrong way to be fleeing the city, even if they know about the bomb,” Jack said. “They're coming south for something else.”

“They
do
know,” Lucy-Anne said. “And Nomad told me they're not so monstrous. I think she meant that they know exactly what they're doing. They're intelligent.”

“Great,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Sparky said. “Long as what they're doing doesn't involve eating us.”

Lucy-Anne started crying, grasping her friend, burying her face in his
jacket. Jack had never seen her so vulnerable. Whatever had happened to her, whatever she had seen, must have been terrible. He wondered what had happened to the boy Rook.

But he feared that finding out would only add to the weight of responsibility he felt. He had no power to counter that, no unknown star in his new universe that could temper the fates being piled on him. Rhali, the poor girl who'd had terrible things done to her, and he'd not even had the time to ask what. Lucy-Anne, his old girlfriend, confused and suffering and with so much to tell. Sparky and Jenna, still with him because they valued their friendship so much. Breezer. Even his father. That bastard Reaper, following him and protecting him, or perhaps merely playing with him now that Miller was no longer such an exciting plaything.

The bomb, London, Nomad, his expanding starscape of wonders, and his potential for contagion.

He wished he could shrug them all off and be on his own, unhindered and free. He closed his eyes but it didn't work. He hadn't chosen all this at all; it had been thrust upon him. Nomad was to blame.

When he opened his eyes Jenna was staring at him, and he thought of reaching out and touching her, as Nomad had touched him. His vision swam red. Red, for danger.
What would I give her?
he thought, and then his musings were interrupted.

“Where it all began,” Sparky said. He had moved into the boat's open bow and was staring to starboard, and they all watched as the London Eye came into view around a bend in the river. It was still quite awesome, even with everything it represented. The scar in its upper reaches was charred black and angry, and somewhere behind it on the embankment lay the remains of Nomad's helicopter. She had been Angelina Walker back then, a normal human being. She had changed everything.

“Maybe twenty minutes from here,” Breezer said from the cabin. “Make the most of the rest.”

The strange new smells of London, the sights, and occasionally the sounds—today this truly was the best view anyone could have of London, from the river at least. The Houses of Parliament remained as impressive and imposing as ever. Next to them, the clock on Big Ben's tower was frozen at a moment in time, the bell now silent. The moment meant nothing but the end of the clock's constant round of maintenance.

The quiet and stillness along the river was as unnatural as in the rest of the city, because this was a place built for life, bustle, and commerce. The only movements were the bow wave from their boat blurring the water's surface, and the flights of birds startled aloft by the engine. Sunlight reflected from dusty windows, hiding grotesque truths inside. Uneven huddles of clothing along the north and south embankments were too distant to make out fully, and for that Jack was glad. He knew they were bodies, but not seeing them meant he could pretend they were something else.

The stillness could not last forever. Jack saw the first movements just as they passed beneath Waterloo Bridge, and for an instant he was afraid they were Choppers. They'd be drawn to the noise for sure, but he'd hoped their journey would be so rapid that they'd be out of the boat and gone before anyone arrived. It could be that Reaper was still shadowing them—Fleeter didn't seem concerned with sharing that information, and Jack was not going to humour her by asking—but Jack would still ready himself to protect them. Reaper played games.

“See them?” Rhali asked.

“How long have they been there?” Jack asked.

“I first sensed them just a few minutes ago. They're not following us, I don't think. They're just coming to cross the river.”

“Like those weird women.”

“Yes.”

“So what is it they suddenly want south of the river?” Sparky asked.

Jack glanced at Lucy-Anne, but she seemed not to be listening. Eyes open, she was somewhere else.

“Maybe they know the bomb's in the north and they're running from it,” Jenna suggested.

“Maybe,” Jack said. He was watching the movement on the north bank, trying to make out who or what they were. Everyone left alive in London had been touched by Evolve, but now he had discovered a new dimension to Doomsday's curse—physical change. Nomad might have said they weren't monstrous, but neither were they natural.

He sensed Sparky and Jenna watching him, and knew exactly what they wanted. He sighed. A brief burst of anger set his limbs tingling, and he rounded on his friends ready to confront them.
I can't magic our way out of everything!
he wanted to shout.
Not with everything else! Why don't one of you do something?
And he could have reached out and touched them, given them the chance.

But Rhali was looking at him as well, and everything she had been through seemed to reflect London's fate. Misused, tortured, abused, she was not what she should have been. His heart sank and he felt an intense sickness at the unfairness of things.
She's so pretty and bright, she shouldn't be anything but beautiful
.

“I'm never going to let anything bad happen to you again,” he said to the girl. Her eyes glimmered with tears, and he looked at everyone else in the boat. He was surprised, and humbled, to see that they already felt included in what he'd said.

He tasted Nomad on his tongue, and he heard her voice telling Lucy-Anne that they were not so monstrous. But he was not at all certain of that.

Rhali's gift came to him quickly. Holding her hand, he easily homed
in on her point of light and plunged in, her talent blooming in him like an ever-expanding sun. It was both terrifying and beautiful, and he realised that he revelled in this. His new universe scared him, but he would have been inhuman if it did not. Yet he also found it wonderful.

He cast his senses up and out and felt the movement of groups of people close to where they were, projected onto his perception as warm glows on a sea of ice. Those nearby were clear, while further away they became smaller and more remote. But it was the closer movements that interested him.

Jack took hold of what he felt and travelled once again. He quickly focussed on one mass movement. There were perhaps eight of them, travelling in a loose group along the path of the river towards a bridge. He homed in on one, attaching himself to its heat and light and life.

He found the star he sought and plunged towards it. As he did so, it became the mind of another.

Jack had planned questions, sought answers, but both became abstract. This was like nothing he knew or understood, and for what felt like forever he tumbled and swirled in this alien place, trying to grab and hold onto something,
anything
, that made sense. It was only when he accepted that there was little sense to be made that his fall became more controlled.

This was such an alien mind that he might as well have tried conversing with a tree, or a river. But there were still images here that he could perceive, and with some concentration, understand.