by Tim Lebbon
“But what about my birds?”
You can set them free, she went to say, but realised that they were an integral part of him. Everyone left in London—Irregulars, Superiors, and anyone in between—belonged there now, and nowhere else.
“Maybe we can stop them,” she said. Rook did not reply. Even if Nomad had stayed with them, it was a foolish idea.
“All these streets,” Rook said. “All this city.” He tilted his head as another rook landed on his shoulder, smiling as he glanced across at Lucy-Anne. “We're close. Just down this slope and through those trees, and we'll be—”
He vanished. Lucy-Anne ran on for a couple of seconds, barely registering what had happened. Her feet stamped through long grass, breeze ruffled through her dirty hair, her jacket flapped at her hips like loose wings. Pain kicked in across the back of her hand where Rook's nails had raked her skin, and as the gashes welled blood she heard his voice.
“Lucy-Anne!”
And then his scream.
She skidded to a stop, turned back and saw the hole in the ground, the stark edges of snapped branches protruding from where they had been laid across the pit. She could not see Rook, but his birds swooped around the pit and spiralled up again, taking up his cry, amplifying and echoing it, and she couldn't tell which was more bloodcurdling. She screamed herself, but did not hear. She smelled blackberries.
Please, no one else! she thought, because she had already lost too much. She went back to the hole and looked down. She wished the sun had set a little more.
Rook's scream faded as she saw what had happened to him, and with his one remaining eye he looked up at her. She hoped he saw her, but thought he was probably dead already, because the long, pale worm-thing—with its remnant of human limbs and filthy, tangled auburn hair—was pushing its snout deep into the hole it had torn in his throat and up beneath his unhinged jaw. It shook and scrabbled at the ground as it struggled to push its mouth deeper, and Lucy-Anne could smell the stench of freshly spilled blood.
“But I saved you,” she said. “I saved you, I saved you, I—”
A rook tangled on her hair and pecked at her cheek. She swatted it away, then had to squeeze her eyes closed as two more came for her face. She punched at one and clawed at the other, and their cries as they swung away from her were heartrending. Loss rang out across that hillside. Lucy-Anne tripped and fell onto her back in the long grass, and looking up she saw the rooks circling higher and higher, an aerial dance for their dead master.
She crawled to the hole again and looked down, and the worm-thing was eating him now, chewing into his head with awful jaws. A crunching sound, a twitch of his body, and what remained of his face shifted sideways.
Unable to scream, not knowing what to say or do or think, she stood and ran down towards the trees, aimless and thoughtless, until she tripped over something hidden in the grass and smacked her head on the ground.
Vision faded, and sound grew distant. I don't want to wake up, Lucy-Anne thought as she drifted away. Let me stay down here.
Nomad is running towards her. She is in a burning street somewhere in London—buildings are aflame, a vehicle has exploded, bodies litter the road and pavements, and someone is staggering across the road, crying wretchedly as they try to gather their unspooling guts.
Lucy-Anne holds up her hands, but she cannot speak. She tries to back away from Nomad, but her feet will not obey her. She can do nothing as the woman runs closer, jumping past a burning motorcycle whose flames barely seem to touch her.
In the distance, gunfire. Closer by, the sound of heavy footsteps. Bullets strike the road and kick up gravel and dust.
Everything seems to be converging on her.
Nomad reaches her and does not stop running. She knocks Lucy-Anne to the ground and sits astride her, raising one hand high above her head with two fingers pointing down, like a child forming its hand into a gun.
This is my dream, Lucy-Anne thinks, and whatever happens next I can just dream away.
Nomad's hand strikes down and her stiff fingers punch a hole directly into Lucy-Anne's throat.
But this is my…
Jack had been wrong. A terrible thing was not about to happen. He thought perhaps it already had.
“He's laughing even though he's lost,” Jack said.
“Guy looks seriously screwed,” Sparky said. “Your old man do that to him, mate?”
Jack caught Reaper's eye. Reaper looked as hard and determined as ever, but a shadow of doubt shaded his eyes. He was not quite as in control of this situation as he'd hoped.
“The first move they make, kill them,” Reaper said, and he started forward.
“Jenna!” Jack said urgently. His friend nodded because she knew exactly what he wanted—she came to him and took the girl, hugging her close even though she stank. Jack saw the sympathy in his friend's eyes and loved her even more.
Jack started forward and Sparky came with him. Behind them were Breezer and the Irregulars. Fleeter walked close with Reaper, exaggerating the swing of her hips and enjoying the moment, even after what they had just seen and done. As they approached the first of the terrified soldiers she flipped, and the air boomed as it filled the space she had occupied. The Choppers glanced around in a panic. She could have been readying to gut any one of them.
From up on the container stacks, four soldiers were lowered roughly to the ground, their twisted and broken weapons dropping with them. One of them cried out as he struck the ground, and Jack heard the sickening sound of breaking bone. Puppeteer, he thought. At least he hadn't killed them. He caught movement from the corner of his eye and knew that Shade was there also, and perhaps a couple of other Superiors he had yet to meet.
This felt very much like the final confrontation, and though they were all there and Miller was exposed, Jack was certain that somehow they no longer had the advantage.
Reaper turned to Jack and Breezer and said, “You two and me. Seems appropriate.” He walked towards Miller, and Jack and Breezer went with him. They were representatives of their alliance—Irregular, Superior, and Jack from outside. As they closed on Miller, Jack knew he had to speak first.
“The New are united against you and everything you've done. And you've lost, Miller.”
In the doorway before them, Miller laughed again. This close he was grotesque, only part of a man. Yet his laughter was heartfelt, and Jack thought perhaps he wasn't yet mad.
“You've lost, Jack,” he said. “All of you were lost, from the moment Doomsday ended and we took control of London. We've been letting your father and his cronies have their fun since then, but your end was inevitable. You just didn't know it.”
“Shut up,” Reaper said. “Shade?” Shade appeared behind Miller and pressed a knife across his throat. Miller tensed and grew quiet, but the laughter did not leave his eyes.
Jack should have waited. There might have been guards hiding in there with machine guns at the ready, or traps designed to gut the unwary. But he could not wait, not after all this time. He grabbed Miller's wheelchair and used it to haul himself up into the container, pushed past Shade, and entered the shadowy interior.
After seeing inside the other place he'd expected something high-tech. What he saw was the exact opposite. Inside the first container was a rough seating area, with chairs around the edges, a few camping tables scattered with polystyrene cups and food wrappers, and a gun rack on one wall. At the far end were several camp beds, with a curtained area that might have been a toilet. The floor was messed with sawdust and lined with tracks from Miller's wheelchair.
Two Choppers stood facing Jack, guns in their hands. He reached for the pistol in his belt and drew it slowly, keeping a careful watch on their faces, eyes, hands. But they looked terrified. If they move I'll just flip, he thought, or shout, or I'll melt their gun barrels before they can even shoot.
As the pistol left his belt, the two Choppers dropped their guns and edged around him towards the door.
“Get out,” Ja
ck said. They scampered away, and he watched Shade kick them out past Miller's wheelchair.
A heavy curtain hid a doorway into the middle container. He grabbed it and pulled it aside, hooks squealing on the metal curtain pole to reveal a poorly lit area with heavy cages stacked on either side. They resembled large dog crates, and were fixed in place by roughly welded metal bars.
The cages held people.
“Mum!” Jack called. “Emily!”
There was movement in the shadows as the prisoners stirred, trying to stretch limbs against their confinement. The place stank of human waste, unwashed bodies, gone-off food. Hopelessness. Jack's eyes watered from the smell, and from tears of rage.
“Emily! Mum!”
“Jack,” a weak, quiet voice said, and Jack's heart broke. His little sister, Emily, locked away like an animal, filthy, weak, terrified, and hopeless, he dashed to her cage and knelt so that they could touch each other's fingers through the grille.
“Oh, Emily,” he said through his tears.
“Son?”
“Mum!” He looked behind him at one of the cages stacked higher, and his mother was there. She looked strong, and proud. “I came for you,” he said. “All of you.” Everyone was stirring now, and he guessed there were a dozen people locked away in there. He didn't understand how they could exist in such conditions, but he was here to set them free, now. And on the way out, he would see Miller.
He gripped the gun tighter in his hand. Then he shoved it in his belt and tried to rationalise his anger. Murder was not in his nature.
“Rosemary?” he asked. His mother's head dipped, and that was all the answer he needed.
“Jack,” Emily said, her voice breaking. He knelt by her again and they entwined fingers through the thick wires. Her tears cleared streaks down her face, and Jack blinked away his own. His little sister was so strong and resourceful, and since Doomsday she had looked after him as much as the other way around. He loved her more than anything or anyone, and he was shaking at how close he had come to losing her.
“Come on,” he said. “I'll get you out, then we're leaving. All of us.”
“And we'll get my camera on the way?” she asked.
“Oh, Emily.” He couldn't believe how brave she was being. But as he stood and readied to release the pathetic prisoners, he thought that the camera might be a very good idea. Things were changing rapidly inside London, but that didn't mean that anything was different on the outside. They would still need proof to expose the truth.
“Everybody back from your cage doors,” he said.
“Jack, what are you doing?” his mother asked.
“Lots has happened, Mum. Dad's outside.”
“Oh,” she breathed. He hated that she sounded so vulnerable.
There was a rustle of clothing and a few tired groans as they shuffled back in their small cages—too small to stand in or lie out straight—and then Jack breathed deeply and closed his eyes. He tasted Nomad's finger, the tang of everything she had given him, and then he zeroed in on a gleaming point in his mind.
“Hurry,” a voice said behind him. It sounded like Fleeter. He hated the idea that she had been watching him all along, and he had not heard the impact of her manifesting behind him. But he knew she was right. There was a balance of power here, and it would only take one Chopper to pick up a gun for chaos to descend.
Then there would be rapid, terrible slaughter.
Jack grunted, and three padlocks crunched apart. He turned slightly and focussed again, sending the concentrated power elsewhere. Four more times, and then he kicked at the bars and sent broken metal tinkling to the floor.
Fleeter helped. She threw cage doors open and looked inside, moving on to the next, and the next. Jack realised that she was searching for someone.
Emily stood and gripped hold of him. She buried her face in his shirt and cried, and then he felt his mother's arms about both of them. He closed his eyes and lost himself in her feel and her smell, and for the briefest moment he was eight again and they were back at home, happy.
“Damn it!” Fleeter said. Jack opened his eyes. She was shoving past people standing uncertainly, finding their feet after incarceration in these tiny cages. One man cried out and slipped to the floor, but Fleeter did not apologise or help him up.
“We've got them,” Jack said. “Come on.” But he already knew that this was something else.
“You go,” Fleeter said.
“There,” Jack's mother said. “They're through there, in the next one. They torture them often.”
Jack looked down into his sister's haunted face, and then the other prisoners, all of them staring towards the dark opening into the next container.
“You go,” Fleeter said again to Jack.
“What's back there?”
She came close to him, and she was more human than he had ever seen her. She reached out and touched his cheek. “Take your family, sweetheart,” she said. “Get out. Run. This is all going to go bad.”
“No,” Jack said. “No, this is the changing point. This is when peace begins.”
“Peace?” Fleeter asked. Her grin returned. “Who wants peace? This is too much fun.” She pulled a pocket torch and went through into the next container. Jack saw the heavier bars of larger cages beyond, and then Fleeter was fiddling with padlocks and locks.
“Son,” his mother said. “There's nothing good back there. You're a brave, good boy. Lead us out.”
“But I can do things, Mum,” he said. “Amazing things.”
“So I see. Then amaze us all away from here. This place is evil.”
Jack led them out. Miller had been moved down the ramp now, and Reaper stood behind his wheelchair, looking for all the world like someone taking a sick friend for a walk. His hands rested on the chair's handles. Miller looked scared, but defiant.
“Where are they?” Reaper asked.
“Here,” Jack said. He jumped down and lifted Emily down to the ground, then held out his hand for his mother.
“Daddy!” Emily said. Their mother did not speak, because she already knew the truth.
“Where are they?” Reaper asked again. He had barely glanced at his family, and as the other freed prisoners started climbing down, wincing against the dusky light, he virtually ignored them all.
“Fleeter's getting them,” he said. “Mum said there are two left.”
“Only two,” Reaper said. He looked down at the wasted man before him, and Jack thought he was going to destroy Miller there and then.
But Miller was a man for whom survival had become an art.
“You're all going to die,” he said. He looked at Jack, then down at Emily. “Every single one of you.”
“And you'll be the first,” Jack said. He drew the pistol. It seemed fitting, somehow, to kill this murdering bastard with a bullet instead of a special power.
“Er, Jack?” Sparky said. He was standing to one side, and Emily dashed to him and hugged him, seeking refuge.
“Jack,” Reaper said. “This one doesn't die.”
“Won't killing him be the victory you want?” Jack asked. He pointed the gun at Miller's face. The man's smile barely wavered.
“Kill? If you think that means anything anymore, you really don't understand what London has become. No, like I said…this one doesn't die.” Reaper rested a hand on Miller's shoulder, and the mutilated man's smile fell at last. “I get to play with him some more.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked Miller. “What's happening? What have you done?”
“Fail-safe,” Miller said. “Big Bindy.” He laughed again. “I named it myself. Bindy was my wife, and she was big, and she was…destructive.”
“Tell us,” Reaper said.
“Who's Big Bindy?” Scryer asked.
“She's a bomb designed to destroy what's left of London,” Miller said, frowning as he gushed the truth. “A nuclear bomb. Buried. Fifteen megatons.”
“Where?” Scryer asked.
“I don't kno
w,” he said. “They don't let anyone into London who knows. I'm just…”
“Expendable,” Reaper said. “Like all of us.”
“None of you are expendable,” Miller said. “You're already spent. Dead people walking. You're memories, and no one outside will miss you when you die, because you're already dead.”
“You'll die too,” Jack said. “If they blow the bomb, you'll all die.”
“It doesn't matter anymore,” Miller said. “I've just pushed the button. Tick-tock, Jack. Tick-tock, tick-tock…”
“Reaper!” Fleeter called from the doorway, excited. “They're drugged and tied.” She look at Jack, surprised that he was still there.
Puppeteer climbed up next to her and entered the darkness, and moments later two people floated out through the doorway, lowering gently to the ground. A man and a woman, they were bound in heavy chains, limbs tied behind them, gagged, and their skin was pale and slick. They both looked dead, but Jack knew better.
“Who are they?” Jack asked.
“Friends,” Reaper said. He knelt beside the prone woman and touched her face, and one of her eyelids flickered open. Her eye was a startling blue, and her breath misted the air.
“And what can they do?”
Reaper ignored him. “The others?” he asked Fleeter.
It was Miller who answered. “We cut them up. Dissected their brains. Threw their remains out for the wild dogs.”
Reaper tensed, his face thunderous. “You should leave,” he said to Jack. “All of you.”
“Dad—”
“This is no place for you.”
“Daddy?” Emily said.
“This is no place for you!” Reaper's voice did not rise in volume, but the side of the container behind them caved in, metal shrieking, rending.
“No,” Jack said. “Not like this. We've got a chance, here.”
“Against him and his like?” Reaper asked, nudging Miller.
“Peace is the only answer,” Jack said. “If we leave now, and you kill everyone here, what do you think happens next?”
“Big Bindy,” Reaper said. “But we'll find it and disable it. They'd have left themselves time to get all the Choppers out of London. We'll have a day, maybe more.”