London Eye: 1 (Toxic City)(78)

“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.