Contagion

^{CHAPTER NINE}

EIGHT

They moored the boat and disappeared into an Italian restaurant on the riverfront, gathering in the kitchen, and their mood was dour. Few words were exchanged. They had to formulate a plan, but their futures looked so bleak that no one knew where to begin.

Breezer decided to leave. Jack asked him to stay, but he only shook his head, defeated. “I have friends,” he said. “People who’ve looked up to me for too long for me to abandon them now. I want to be with them when…at the end.”

“You can’t just give up!” Jack said.

“You can’t,” Breezer replied. “Jack, you can get your friends out easily. With the abilities you have, and with her.” He nodded at Fleeter. She sat apart from the others, quiet and still.

“There’s no way I’ll do that and leave everyone else to die,” Jack said. But the harsh idea had already crossed his mind. Around eight hours until the bomb exploded, and soon would come the cut-off time for him and the others to escape London. Before then they’d have a chance, and Breezer was right—Jack could get them out. After that point, they’d have run out of time to flee. He didn’t know the extent of the damage the bomb would cause, but the Exclusion Zone formed the boundary they had to cross.

The thought of running, and failing everyone in London, was terrible. Jack’s abilities gave him a sense of responsibility which he couldn’t shake. When the time came, perhaps he would send Fleeter out with his friends. But he could never leave. Nomad’s touch had made him a part of what London had become, whether that city’s doom was sealed or not.

“We can’t just give up,” he said to Breezer. This time it sounded like a plea. The others were watching, and Jenna stood close to Jack, supporting him with her strong silence.

“We rush the Exclusion Zone, they cut us down,” Breezer said. “We stay here, we’re toast.”

“Something will happen,” Jack said. “I’ll make something happen. See the truth in what I say. It’s what you do, so see it!”

Breezer sighed, eyelids drooping. “I see that you want it to be the truth,” he said. “You’re a good kid, Jack.”

“So don’t just sit down and die!” Jack said. “You’ve already spread the word to get as many as you can to Heron Tower. So now go back there and take them west.”

“And then?” Breezer asked.

“One way or another, we’ll march out of London. And if we have to fight our way out, so be it. Better than just waiting for the bomb.”

Breezer sighed, nodded. He seemed relieved to have had the weight of decision taken from his own shoulders.

“Good luck,” Breezer said. He shook Jack’s hand. “You and your friends…you’re pretty amazing. I’ll see you in the west. We’ll wait somewhere near Chiswick.”

“I’ll find you.”

As Breezer left, Jack eased himself down against a metal cabinet and sighed. He was exhausted, and the universe inside seemed to be thrumming with expectation. The whole of his world knew that something momentous and terrible was about to occur.

“So now what?” Sparky asked at last. “It’s a mess. We’re lost.”

“We’re doing everything we can,” Jenna said, but even she no longer sounded certain and strong. Jack heard her doubts, and when Rhali sat close beside him, he leaned into her and smiled.

“Fleeter,” Jack said. “Any thoughts?”

“Only that we should get out of London.”

“And leave everyone else to die.”

She did not reply, but she looked troubled.

“Lucy-Anne?” Jenna asked.

“I can dream,” Lucy-Anne said. She sounded far away, talking to herself. “When I’m dreaming, and I know I’m there, I can move things as I want. Make things happen as I want them to happen. But I don’t think I’m really in charge. Maybe it’s fate. Perhaps I can just…juggle fate, for a little while.”

“What do you mean?” Jack asked.

“I’ve dreamed of the bomb,” Lucy-Anne said. “I see Nomad and then the bomb explodes. Except…” She frowned.

“Lucy-Anne?” Jenna prompted.

“Except now it’s mixed up with another dream. I see Nomad, and she kills me.”

“We can’t just stop an atom bomb with a bloody dream!” Sparky said.

Lucy-Anne didn’t seem to hear him. She was frowning, lost in her own world, and Jack went to her and touched her chin. Her tears were cool. He lifted her face.

“We’ll do whatever we can,” he said. “And with everything that’s happened, I do believe a dream can help. I do.”

She smiled past her sadness and loss.

“Eight hours,” Jack said, turning around to face the others. “Four hours to do whatever we can to stop the bomb or find a safe way out. And then if none of that works, we go west, meet Breezer and the others, and try to get out anyway. What do you think?”

No one replied, but everyone nodded. As plans went, it was woolly. But it was all they had.

Moving north towards the Thames, Andrew saw a man about to die.

The man was wearing no uniform, yet he had the bearing of a military man—cropped hair, slim build, a neat moustache. He carried no weapons. If he had, there was a chance they might have saved him from what was about to kill him. But even then, Andrew thought it unlikely.

The creature circled him. It had been human once, and though still retaining some vestiges of humanity in appearance, its actions and movements were alien. Taller than the man and thinner, its legs long and chitinous, torso human-sized but covered entirely in a sleek, shiny shell, it was its head that still reflected humanity—human eyes, long hair, a head longer and thinner yet still recognisable.

It clicked and snicked, circled the man, drooled.

The man was begging, and it was his words that drew Andrew into the confrontation. Any other time he would have moved away, not even turning when the screams and noises began. Those inhuman creatures did not concern him, because they could always sense that he too was no longer wholly human. And he knew that even they found him troubling.

“I can stop it!” the man said. “Please, please!” He was panicked, verging on hysterical. Andrew wondered where he came from.

“Stop what?” Andrew said. He crossed the road and stood on a traffic island, ten steps away from the desperate man. The creature only glanced at Andrew before seeming to disregard him.

“The bomb!” the man said. He gasped when he looked at Andrew, uncertain that he was even there.

“You’re normal,” Andrew said. “You’re not one of us.”

The man uttered a sharp, insane laugh. “What the hell is it? What the hell are you?”

“How can you stop the bomb?”

The man’s shirt was soaked through with sweat, and he carried a small rucksack over one shoulder, grasping the strap as if it was precious.

“Because it’s what I was sent in to do,” he said.

“So you’re one of them,” Andrew said. “One of the people keeping London hidden away as a dirty, dark secret.”

“Do you blame us?” he asked, nodding at the creature scratching sharp claws across the road surface.

“Yes,” Andrew said. “Completely. But if you can stop the bomb, perhaps you amongst all of them can redeem yourself, a little.”

“That’s what I want,” the man said. “I lost an uncle and three cousins to Doomsday. All dead, not…changed.