London Eye

“Dad. Reaper. Please tell me.”

She looked at him for a long time, studying his face. “I didn't know he was still alive until six months ago.”

“He didn't try to find you?”

She shook her head. “He's not Graham anymore, Jack.”

“Not my daddy?” Emily asked.

“No, baby. He's changed much more than anyone else I know, or have heard about. I saw Reaper once, from a distance, and though I recognised him, I also knew he was someone else. And everything they say about him…” She frowned and looked away.

“You're still wearing the locket he bought you,” Jack said.

His mother smiled sadly and fingered the jewellery. “Of course. My husband gave me this, and I loved him very much.”

“Rosemary left London to get me so that I could speak to Dad. Persuade him to join his Superiors with everyone else and fight their way out of London.”

His mother seemed genuinely shocked, and she sat back and stared up at the ceiling for a while. “Everyone's so desperate,” she said. “It's tragic. There's so much good in what's left of this place, but no hope at all.”

“I'll speak to him. I've already said I would, but I insisted on coming to you first.”

“I've no hope left for him, Jack. I've heard about the things he's done. He's very, very dangerous now. You understand? He's…” she trailed off again.

“He's killed people.”

“I cure, he kills.” She was going to ask him not to go, he knew that. The request would come soon. But the more his mother betrayed loss of hope for his father, the more determined Jack was becoming to talk to him.

“He won't hurt me,” Jack said.

“Your father died when I was lying beside him on that pavement. The man you might find, Reaper, is someone else. Please, son, don't-”

“Mum.” He noticed that Emily was asleep now, and he moved closer so that he could hug them both together. “I've got to try. You see that? I've spent two years trying to find my way here. I can't just abandon him now.”

“The Choppers, the soldiers, there's just no way out for any of us.”

“It's not for anyone else I'll be doing it,” he said. “It's for us: you, Emily, me. We need him. I need him. I need my dad.”

“He's not your dad anymore,” she said quietly. Then she sighed, put her arm around him, and hugged him back. The three of them sat there for a while, saying no more, content just to be with each other. Jack was overjoyed. But the joy was shadowed by the knowledge of what he had to do next and the terrible fear that he might fail.

Sparky and Jenna came down, and Jack introduced his mother to them as Susan. He told her they were his best friends.

Rosemary was with them, and when the women spoke it was with a reserve that perhaps had not been there before. That was not Jack's fault. And truly, he did not care. Rosemary had helped them and healed them when it was needed, but she had also led them willingly into danger and between the literal jaws of death. And the more he thought about how things had worked out so far, the more he believed she had used them all.

Jack took a moment to look around the hospital. After a few minutes, his mother finished talking with Rosemary and came to join him. Hidden away in the curtained area were several terribly sick people, and his mother said she had no idea what ailed them. Her gift was healing, but only physical alterations responded to her particular touch-wounds, cuts, and broken bones. Rosemary was slightly different in that she could also sense a sickness inside and, if it was something out of place, or something that should not be there, heal it. She had taken cancers from people, fixed faulty heart valves. But neither woman could combat the invisibly small invaders of infection.

“So aren't these all Irregulars?” he asked.

“Yes. Everyone in London now is an Irregular, apart from the Choppers and those in their employ. But they came in after Doomsday. Those of us who survived the Evolve virus…yes, all changed.”

“So what do they do?”

His mother pointed at an old man on a bed close to them. “Richard was a Pleader. In the right conditions, he could exert his will and desires on the chaos around us, and coax it in a certain direction.”

“Change the future?”

“In small leaps, and on a very small scale. But no more. Whatever he has is killing him.” She sounded very sad. “Over there, that big lady, she had hearing better than a dog's. Massive audio range. She's deaf, now.”

“Is it the same illness that Richard has?”

“It looks the same, but I just don't know. I'm no doctor, and it was Doomsday that made me a healer.”

“We saw people out on the streets, naked and raving. Like animals.”

“The same,” his mother said. “We're seeing it more and more.”

“The Irregulars are starting to die,” Jack whispered, and his mother said nothing to contradict.

Emily ran up to them from where Jenna and Sparky were standing. Jack looked at Richard and the other dying people, treasuring their reunion even more.

“We met the Nomad,” he mentioned, thinking of how she had picked on him and the taste of her finger in his mouth. He felt his mother tense.

“You really saw her?” she said, aghast.

“She said that was her name. And she was…strange.”

Susan shook her head. “Most people don't really believe in her, even now.”

“Jenna does. She's collected all the stories. She think she's Angelina Walker, the woman who crashed into the Eye and released Evolve.”

“The first vector.”

“That's what she called herself, yeah.”

“What did she do? What did she say?”

Jack was not sure why he lied. But when he said, “Nothing, really,” and glancing down at Emily, his sister gave him a little smile. He knew then that he'd made the correct decision.

“Strange,” his mother said.

“Huh!” Jack said. “Strange? Did I tell you about the lioness? And the wolves we heard, and the flowers in Tooting?”

She smiled and shook her head. “No, but I'm sure you're going to.”

“I want Emily to tell you, Mum. I want her to show you.” He held Emily's hand. They'd already talked about this, and now the physical contact gave him double the strength he needed. “I want you and Emily to get out, the way we got in. Rosemary's already said she'll take you. She has a gun, and knows where she can get more.”

“Guns, Jack?” She used her old scolding voice, and Jack almost smiled. Almost.

“For the dogs, Mum. And…anything else that might try to stop you.”

“And you?” Her voice quavered. She's afraid of losing me again, he thought. And he understood. The temptation to leave was there, but he had to preserve faith in their father, a faith he could never lose without at least trying.

“I've already told you what I'll be doing, Mum.”

“I like that word,” she said. “‘Mum.’ It's a good word.”

“I always knew I'd get to use it again.”

“And Dad,” Emily said. “That's another good word. Jack says it has power.”

His mother's eyes opened wider, and he saw something that might have been hope. Or if not that, then acceptance of his need to try. She came to him and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Be very, very careful,” she said. Pleaded.

“I will, Mum. Sparky and Jenna are coming with me.”

“Are they special forces?”

He laughed. “Not quite. But we're a good team.”

She nodded, squeezed his hand, and then parted. “I have to speak to my friends down here, tell them…