Contagion (Toxic City) (11 page)

Neither did they enjoy them now.

She had to keep reminding herself that this was not really Andrew before her. It was an echo of him, a dream remnant, and his true self was gone to dust on Hampstead Heath. Nomad had lied to her about not finding him, but she understood why. Andrew had not wished to give her hope.

Yet when her own chances had become hopeless, he had come.

Andrew led them along the north bank of the Thames, and at Vauxhall Bridge they crossed and headed northeast. Lucy-Anne wondered if she was in a dream, and realised that much of her time since entering London had felt like that. Sometimes she knew, and sometimes she did not. Sometimes she thought she knew, but then something would happen that would confuse her, send her concept of what was real and what was dreamlike spinning.

It was her friends who connected her to reality now. She was aware of them close behind her, all of them so pleased to see her again, their love for her uncomplicated by London and what it had become. With the city about to be turned into an atomic wasteland, she felt safer with them than anywhere else.

“How far?” she asked.

Andrew answered, “Maybe a mile,” and Lucy-Anne was not sure whether he'd spoken the words or answered in her mind.

Gunfire crackled in the distance. They all dropped, huddling against a timber builders’ hoarding. Lucy-Anne looked back at Jack. He was frowning, and there was something about his eyes that scared her. They looked empty. More vacant than Andrew's, less human than some of those creatures’ eyes she had seen in the north.

“Reaper,” Jack said. “He and his Superiors are hunting.”

More gunfire, and then they heard the strained sound of a helicopter in trouble. About a mile to the east the aircraft rose above rooftops, spinning slowly as if piloted by someone unused to the controls. As it levelled at last and dipped its nose to power away, something struck it from the sky. The blast wave was not visible, but the helicopter's rotors were stripped away and flung behind it, its shell deformed, and it dropped quickly. In seconds it had disappeared from view, and a dull crump was followed moments later by a slowly expanding smudge of smoke.

“If Fleeter did go to him, maybe he didn't bother listening,” Sparky said. None of them had suggested that she'd gone back to the Superiors, but they'd all been thinking it.

“Or maybe he's just having some fun on the way here,” Jenna said.

“We just saw people die!” Rhali said.

“We've seen a lot of people die,” Jenna said, not unkindly. “Come on. I don't want to stay on the streets. It's spooky, like someone's watching me.”

“That'll be me,” Sparky said. “Watching your arse.”

Andrew had been motionless throughout the exchange, and he headed off again without a word or a glance at Lucy-Anne.
I'll be with him
, she thought.
When my time comes I'll be with him, because I'll dream myself to never die
. But she was not sure his was any sort of existence. She'd never believed in God or an afterlife, but surely true death would be preferable to whatever he had now.

They weaved through the streets, past traffic stalled for two years, seeing evidence here and there of more recent activity, and all the while the weight of Lucy-Anne's gift—or curse, she had yet to decide—pressed upon her.

She remembered those dreams she'd had of Nomad. The first was close to the London Eye, seeing Nomad and then the flash of the explosion silvering the scene, heat singeing trees to stark black sculptures and stripping her flesh away, while Nomad turned and smiled, untouched. And another dream of meeting her in the park and the same flash, the same skeletal outcome.

Reliving them now, Lucy-Anne tried to change them. Nomad turns to smile at her, and the explosion does not come. Instead, Lucy-Anne invites her to sit and talk, and they discuss Rook and what might have been.

Lucy-Anne caught Jack looking at her strangely, and she realised she was smiling. But changing her memory of dreams was nothing like changing the dreams themselves. It felt random and ineffectual, whereas lucidly altering her own dreams felt…godlike.

“What?” Jack asked.

“Just thinking,” she said.

“What about?”

“The future.”

They walked on in silence, and she knew that they'd all heard the brief exchange. She wondered what they were thinking right then, of a future that seemed so short.

“Six hours,” Jack said. “We'd better hope this is all true.” It had not escaped him that they had put their futures in the hands of a ghost. And that they were following him, or it, to where he said the saviour of that future now hid.

“Yeah,” Sparky said. “We'd be hard pushed to get to a safe distance now, anyway.”

“Jack could,” Jenna said. There was no accusation in her voice at all, but Jack knew exactly what she was insinuating: that he could pass on a power to help them all escape.

And he was still fighting with that. He wasn't sure exactly what delving into that bright red star of potential would do. He was fairly certain that he could bestow powers, though he was not sure how he could choose which ones to give, nor the control he'd have over them. But he also thought it likely that he would pass on the contagion itself, just as Nomad had to him. Even thinking about it planted the taste of her finger on his tongue. In him, the threat of contagion was a bright red promise, yet it was contained. If two people possessed it, that containment was no longer assured. And if he passed it on to all of his friends…

That red star could change the world, and Jack did not feel that he had any right to do so.

But would he let his friends die? If it came down to it and they were an hour away from the explosion, would he not touch them all, give them Fleeter's power, and flee from London with them?

He wasn't at all sure. He saw the way Lucy-Anne looked at Andrew's wraith, and knew that there were some things worse than death. And if all went well, he would not even be faced with such a decision.

“We're close,” Andrew said.

“Look,” Rhali said. She had been silent since crossing the river, almost ghostlike herself. Now she pointed along the road, and only then did Jack see the movement. Perhaps Rhali had sensed it for some time.

A group of three strange people were passing across the street, emerging from a narrow side-road and clambering over stalled cars. Creatures from the north.

They ducked down low.

“Rhali?” Jack whispered.

“They're heading for the museum,” she said. “There are many more there already, and even more still travelling.” She frowned, her thin face pinched. “And there's something else.”

“
What
else?” Sparky asked.

“Choppers,” Rhali said. “At least, I think they're Choppers. They're moving as I'm used to seeing them moving.”

“And how's that?” Jack asked.

“Quickly.”

“Could be more of them,” Jenna said, nodding towards the shapes. A man loped like a wolf. A woman seemed to flow across the road, trailing gossamer limbs that barely touched the ground.

“So where's this man?” Jack asked. No one answered, no one moved. “Andrew!”

The wraith turned its head, and Andrew's ghost seemed to be dreaming.

“I said where's the man who can stop all this?”

“His name's Hayden,” Andrew said, pointing along the road at a multi-storey car park. “And I left him there, hiding.”

“Let's hope he listened to you,” Jack said. “If he tried to move on alone, he'll probably be dead.”

As it turned out, he had not listened.

They climbed the concrete staircase, and Andrew showed them the Range Rover where he'd told the man to wait. It was empty, doors open. There were no signs of violence, but neither was there any sign of Hayden. Wherever he'd gone, and why, he had left them no message.

“Shit!” Sparky said. “So now what?”

“Now we look for him,” Jack said.

“Something spooked him,” Sparky said. “This place sure as shit spooks me.”

Jack nodded in agreement. The car park was half-filled with cars, all of them left here two years ago by people who'd all expected to return.

“So where would he have run if he was spooked?” Jenna asked.

“Up,” Jack said. “Further away from the street.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Sparky said. He slapped Jenna's butt and ran back towards the staircase door.

“We'll take the other staircase!” Jack called after him, and Sparky waved over his shoulder. Jenna followed him. She looked scared as she smiled at Jack, and he knew why, because he felt it himself.
I don't like us being split up. Not this close to the end, whatever that end might be
. He watched the door swing closed then led the way up a ramp towards the car park's opposite corner. He didn't want to miss Hayden by letting him slip down one staircase while they climbed another.

The car park was built on a series of split levels with wide up and
down ramps at either end. Jack had been in scores of places like this with his parents, and as a kid he'd loved them, and had even had a model car park at home in which he stored his large collection of toy cars. He didn't love this one. The parked cars were testament to lives ruined or lost, and now it had become a vertical maze in which their one last hope might be hiding.

But what if he isn't?
he thought.
What if he fled an hour ago and is out there in the streets?
Jack tried to shake the idea, but his imagination was running riot. Even though he hadn't yet met Hayden, he saw him being chased along streets by misshapen people, their teeth bared, hunger giving them energy and pace. They would catch him and rip him apart. And somewhere in the mess of brain matter spattered across the dry gutter would die the memory of how to stop the bomb.

“Hurry!” he said to Rhali and Lucy-Anne. “Come on, we've got to hurry!” He barged through the door into the stairwell and started up, and then came to a sudden standstill. Rhali bumped into him.

“What?” she said, startled.

“The ramps,” Jack said. “Stupid of me! He could easily just slip down the car ramps while we're trying to find him.”

“I'll stay,” Rhali said. “I'll wait on this level, and if I see him I'll shout as loud as I can.”

“But what if—?” Jack began.

“I don't think he's a threat,” Andrew said. His voice was chilling. “He only wants to do what you want to do and stop the bomb.”

Jack didn't like any of this, but could only nod in agreement. He watched Rhali walking back between the parked cars as the door swung closed, and he couldn't help thinking that he would never see her again.

“This is so screwed,” Lucy-Anne said.

“Yeah. Tell me about it. Come on.”

Jack took the steps three at a time. Another staircase, another building, and he expected at any moment to be shot at or attacked, because it seemed that's what his life had been since entering London. Nomad's touch throbbed within him, manifested as that amazing, terrible red star, and it had made him the centre of things. None of them had wanted any of that. All of this had been forced upon them, and he felt a sudden rush of intense love and respect for his friends and the way they were handling everything. They could have walked away, but none of them had.

None of them would.

Four storeys, eight flights of stairs, and the stench of the stairwell brought an uncomfortable flash of familiarity—it stank of piss. Every car park staircase he'd ever been in seemed to smell the same, and for a disconcerting moment, before they emerged onto the car park's open upper level, Jack thought perhaps everything was back to normal.

Then they emerged onto daylight, and awful reality came to the fore once more.

Two creatures from the north were attacking a car. They looked almost human apart from their limbs, which were black and shiny like a beetle's. They were using them to score metal and pummel glass, and it looked as if they had been there for a while. The car was a mess. Jack thought they'd be inside within minutes, and whoever they were seeking would be finished.

“Hey!” Sparky called from across the car park, emerging from the stairwell on the other side. “Hey, uglies!”

“No, Sparky!” Jack shouted.

The creatures both jumped on the car and watched, back to back, limbs raised in front of them in a defensive gesture.

“Hayden,” Andrew said, and Jack had already seen the pale face at the car's rear window.

Jack ran. Sparky's shout had been brave but foolhardy; if they went after Sparky, he and Jenna had nothing to protect themselves with. This was all up to Jack.

He delved deep as he ran, but he already knew that these things were beyond his ken. They had evolved physically, a painful, shattering change that had left most of them half-mad from the continuing agonies, and raging. Even if he could find and touch the ability to do the same, he would not. He thought perhaps that darkest part of his universe—beyond the stars, way out past everything he knew and many talents he did not yet know—was the infinity of their pain, and he had no wish to go there at all.

But perhaps he could communicate with them. Along with their monstrousness came a high level of intelligence, and if he could appeal to that, maybe this would not have to end in more violence and death.

He paused a few steps from the car and nodded at Hayden, trying to communicate a sense of calm. The man looked terrified, and Jack could not blame him. The things resembled humans in form, but the resemblance stopped there. Their eyes were dark and shiny. Faces were slick, skin smooth and featureless. They exuded no personality, and looking at them was distinctly unsettling. But Jack did his best not to look away.

“The man in the car is precious,” Jack said. “He can stop something terrible from happening. You might know about the bomb, you might not. But I want him alive and safe. And I don't want to have to fight you for him.”

One of the creatures hissed, the other raised its heavily clawed arms, and Jack turned his head and shouted, channelling the talent he had already used so devastatingly. He put a lot into it—this was no time for a subtle demonstration—and he felt power thrumming
through him, setting him on fire. He liked it. But he berated himself, because relishing it was what had turned Reaper bad.

The reinforced concrete wall, topped with a heavy metal railing, shattered out into space, and four cars were forced out after the shattered rubble, bodies crunched, windows shattering, wheels screeching across the concrete floor. They tumbled from view and then impacted the ground below several seconds later. Even before the two creatures had recovered from their shock, Jack had moved closer to them. He was almost in touching distance.

They looked at him with wide eyes.

“Move away from the car,” he said. He was shaking with the remnants of the tremendous power, and he had to breathe deeply to cast it down.

One of the creatures laughed.

“Jack!” Rhali's voice, and it was coming closer.

The creatures scampered from the car and clattered away, but not too far. They slipped behind a big BMW and peered out at Jack, and he couldn't shake the conviction that they were waiting for something.

“Jack!” Rhali burst from the stairway into the open air, panting, sweating, looking as if she was about to collapse. “Jack, there are things coming!”

“What things?”

“I don't know, they're like people but…” She saw the two creatures watching. They'd become braver now, and they emerged from behind the BMW and scratched threateningly at the vehicle's paintwork. “Yeah. Like that.”

“Jack can waste them all!” Sparky shouted. He and Jenna drew close, and though danger was also approaching, Jack felt better that they were all together once more. Even Andrew was still there, close
to the car. Lucy-Anne had helped the man open the distorted door, and he was standing slowly, utterly terrified. Jack thought perhaps he'd been driven mad.

“You can do this?” Jack asked.

“Wh…what?”

“Hayden. That's your name, right?”

He nodded.

“So Hayden, you can stop the bomb if we get you to it?”

Hayden half-nodded, shrugging at the same time.

“Don't do that!” Jack shouted. “Don't give me any doubts! I might have to kill people, now. These things, they're still people. Just as much as the poor sods you bastards have been cutting up are people.”

“I haven't cut any—”

“So tell me you can stop the bomb!”

Hayden nodded. “Given time.”

“How much time?” Jack asked.

“I'll need an hour with the bomb. And peace and quiet. And the right tools.”

“And how would you like your fucking steak cooked?” Sparky asked.

Jack laughed, high and loud, and felt his own sense of control wavering. He almost puked.

“Everyone in that one,” Sparky said, nodding at a Mazda estate car.

“Plan?” Jack asked.

“If there's any battery left I can hot-wire it, and it's down to them to get out of the way.” He slapped Jack's shoulder, and the gesture proved he knew so much about his friend.

“Good plan,” Jack said. “And if everything goes wrong…”

“Then we've got you,” Sparky said. “Superman. Our secret weapon. Hulk, smash!”

“I'll smash you in a minute. Get the bloody car started!”

Sparky saluted, grinned, and they all ran to the car. The door was open. The wheels weren't completely deflated. And there wasn't even a mummified corpse in the driver's seat.

Bonus!
Jack thought.
Maybe things are turning our way
.

Then he froze as, on the next level down, he heard the sharp, rapid scraping of chitinous limbs.