London Eye: 1 (Toxic City)

London Eye: 1 (Toxic City)

Tim Lebbon




“The tide of evolution carries everything before it, thoughts no less than bodies, and persons no less than nations.”

—George Santayana, 1863–1952





There has been an explosion at the London Eye. Two fatalities are reported, though details are still sketchy. Scotland Yard has issued a brief statement: “There is no indication that this was a terrorist attack.” More soon.

—BBC News Website, 4:34 p.m. GMT, July 28, 2019

Even though their movements describe a strange, hypnotic beauty, she is certain that the rooks are going to kill her.

She is in the middle of a deserted street. It was silent before, empty, a place she had to herself, though she had been terrified of the silence. Then the peace was broken by the descent of the rooks, and now she is terrified still. She runs for the houses to her right, but though their gates stand open and the front gardens are overgrown and untended, the front doors are all locked tight.

She looks back and up, and the rooks are falling closer. Are they toying with her? Teasing? She cannot say. They circle her in a fast, tight spiral, and she feels as though she is looking into the heart of a black tornado.

Screaming, her voice is lost to the birds, so she decides to run again. Across the street, hands over her ears to block out the rookish cacophony, she stumbles into a burnt-out car, scratching her leg through her jeans. She staggers and falls, feeling tears run from her eyes…but she will not show her weakness.

The first of the birds touches her, a gentle stroke of soft feathers across her cheek. She waves her arms but feels nothing. More come down, crowding around her now, claws snagging in her hair, wings beating against her face.

She stands, and this time her scream of rage is heard. This is not the way for me to go! She snatches a bird from the air and throws, causing a ripple in the wall of black around her.

Through that ripple, a shadow appears. Its movement is nothing like that of a bird. And then she sees it smile.

Lucy-Anne started awake, scanning her surroundings for birds that were not there, and realised she was in Camp Truth. That afternoon when everything was about to change, Jack was there with her.

She sighed and leaned against Jack. He was seventeen but looked three years older. The loss of his parents in London two years before had aged him, and though he wasn't the sort she usually fell for, their grief had brought them close. He had his eyes closed now, but she could see that he was not asleep. When he slept, his worry lines almost vanished.

Camp Truth always comforted her. It was home to photographs, reports, press clippings, testimonies, and artefacts that revealed a thousand lies about the dreadful fate that had befallen London and which could, if successfully exposed, make so many things right. That was why this was the most important place in Lucy-Anne's world. And she never failed to see the painful irony in Camp Truth existing underground.

When they'd been setting it up, the four of them—her, Jack, Sparky and Jenna—had debated whether to try and keep things hidden away, even down here. The decision had been unanimous: if Camp Truth were found, they were all finished, so why not revel in what they were doing? And so there hung a huge mosaic map of London as it once was across one wall, and stuck all over it were dozens of small clear envelopes. Sparky had made a pinboard for the second wall, and here they had pinned random photographs, cuttings and other ephemera they had gathered over the past couple of years, but which they could not place accurately. Most images were blurred, some damaged by the fires intended to destroy them. A few had been hacked from weapon-cameras just before the people in them were blasted to smithereens.

Lucy-Anne yawned, scratching at her scalp. “Sparky and Jenna coming later?” she asked.

“Don't think so,” Jack replied, opening his eyes. “Jenna's out with her parents, and Sparky's still working on the car.”

Lucy-Anne laughed without humour. “It's almost forty years old, rusting and dead. Why bother?”

“You know why,” Jack said softly.

Lucy-Anne laughed again but said no more, and that was her way of admitting that, yes, she did know why. Sparky liked working with the impossible in the hope that it could change things. If that old Ford Capri ever started again and took to the road, perhaps it would mean that, against all odds, his brother was still alive somewhere in London's sad ruin.

Jack sighed.

“What is it?” Lucy-Anne asked.

“Mum and Dad's wedding anniversary tomorrow.”