London Eye: 1 (Toxic City)(42)

“How do you know—?” Gordon began.

“We've been watching you for a while,” Scryer replied.

“Come on,” the tall Superior said. “Not much time.” He waved them past him towards the door, and when Jack and Emily drew level he dropped in directly behind them. Protecting us, Jack thought, and try as he did he could not object to the idea.

That's Reaper's daughter, Rosemary had said. He tried to thrust that from his mind. He was frightened enough, for now.

Scryer went first, followed by Gordon and Rosemary. Sparky and Jenna brought up the rear. As they reached the staircase, they heard the first sounds of doors being kicked in several floors below.

“Slow and careful?” Jack whispered. Nobody replied.

Scryer opened the door to the service staircase, peeked inside and started descending. Two floors down, she paused and held up her hand, listening. She turned to Gordon.

He sniffed the air and nodded, pointing down the stairwell and holding up two fingers.

And then the door exiting the stairwell onto the fourth floor burst open, and the shooting began.





Stand by…stand by…stand by…

—Message on every UK radio and TV channel,

midnight—6:00 a.m. GMT, July 29, 2019

Your brother is alive north of here…

Lucy-Anne kept on running, enjoying the feeling of harsh breath in her chest, pain burning in her legs. She hit several doors that were locked and bounced from them, falling twice and rolling across the carpet, never growing still, never halting in her headlong flight, trying her utmost to leave behind the grief that had held her in its grasp for so long.

Outside London, she had held it at bay by being rebellious and non-conformist, holding onto hope by giving it wings. And here, now, in the Toxic City, something strange was happening, and her nightmares were becoming real.

Even so, she had fought against the truth.

But now that she knew—she had seen the rictus grins of her dead parents in her mind's eye, and Gordon had confirmed her vision—there was at least something else for her to grab hold of.

So she ran north, instinctively aware of direction even inside the hotel. When she heard doors crashing open somewhere far below, still she ran. She had stopped screaming now, because good sense told her she would not get very far that way. And she slowed her sprint to a jog; danger had come to visit, and she might need all her energy to escape.

Your brother is alive north of here…

“Andrew,” she muttered, “I'm coming to find you.”

She was leaving her friends behind, but already their memories were growing distant. They were like old dreams fading away, while new nightmares became her whole life.

She descended a staircase, having to slip through a landing door and wait in a deserted corridor when she heard people coming up. They passed her by, scurrying up a few more flights, and the threat they exuded was palpable. Continuing on her way, she reached the ground floor and ran north again, entering the kitchens and pausing for a while by a fire exit.

Motionless, her parents’ dead faces flashed at her again.

“No!” She had to run. Had to move, never grow still, never stop until she and Andrew were together again, because he was all she had left in the—

From deep within the hotel she heard the sound of gunfire.

Lucy-Anne burst through the fire-exit doors into blazing sunlight, and the streets of the Toxic City resounded to the sound of her footfalls.

The Chopper soldier who had come through the door was kneeling, trying to turn his machine gun in the confined space. The one standing in the doorway behind him was far enough back to be able to aim properly, and they were his bullets that struck Gordon in the face and chest. The Irregular fell sideways and tumbled down the stairs.

Jack had only ever seen people killed on grainy internet images, and it was nothing like this. He heard Gordon's death, smelled it, tasted it as blood splashed the air and landed warmly across his face. He opened his mouth to shout, his voice adding to Emily's cry of horror.

Something blurred above his shoulder; Puppeteer's hand. His fingers flexed, knuckles seeming to ripple beneath the skin, and the kneeling soldier was snapped upright into his companion's line of fire.

Jack saw his second real-life death in the space of two seconds.

The standing soldier stepped back from what he had done, and the door swung shut until it rested against the fallen Chopper's hip.

Scryer, having dropped onto her stomach as soon as the door opened, threw herself across the dead soldier and fired a pistol through the half-open door. Jack heard a grunt and the sound of something hitting the carpeted floor beyond.