Contagion (Toxic City)(24)

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.

He knew what it sought.

“Jack? Jack!”

Slap!

Reality rushed in, a sickening sensation that was nothing like the gentle flow of waking up. Everything hit home, and when he quickly sat up sickness flooded his mouth. He leant sideways and spat it out, breathing shallowly, willing himself not to puke up everything else.

“Gross,” Sparky said.

“You slap me hard enough?” Jack asked.

“Hey, gotta take the opportunities given to me. You're lucky I don't carry a hammer.”