Tim Lebbon - Contagion

“I’m fine,” Jack said. “Bastard of a headache.” He leaned into Rhali and she held him, kissing his forehead. He liked her breath against his face.

“You healed yourself,” Sparky said. “How cool is that?”

“Doesn’t feel like it’s healed,” Jack said. He lifted a hand to his face and touched his right eye, wincing when he felt the knotted flesh there, the hard scars that would probably remain forever.

“Dude, compared to what it was you’re a supermodel,” Jenna said, and they all laughed.

“So you got what you need?” Jack asked, nodding at the toolbox in Hayden’s hand.

“Pretty much.”

“Pretty much?” Sparky asked, and Hayden’s eyes opened wider.

“Yeah, everything, got it all,” he said.

“Right,” Sparky said. “Heard some gunfire to the north, long way off. Other than that, things are quiet out there.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Jenna said. “Quiet things.”

“Nothing close,” Rhali said. “Nothing I can sense, anyway. That doesn’t mean there aren’t small groups of creatures out there. And the museum…” She closed her eyes again, swaying slightly. “Lots.”

“How many?” Lucy-Anne asked.

Rhali shrugged. “Lots. And lots.”

“Bridges to cross when we get there,” Jack said. His rush of joy at surfacing to find his friends around him was quickly receding, and now the future only promised more pain, and trouble, and violence. And they didn’t have very long left.

“What’s the time?”

“Almost eight,” Jenna said.

“Four hours.”

Rhali helped him up and he smiled his thanks. He felt sick and weak, but he could not project that. They needed his strength. They needed to feel he still had their backs, and between blinks he saw that universe of talents he still had access to, and the red star of contagion he would never, ever touch.

“So what are we waiting for?” Jack asked.

Outside, the sun was touching the rooftops in the west.

“What if you’d died?” Jenna asked him as they set off for the Imperial War Museum.

“No, Jenna.”

“But if you had . We were desperate back there, Jack. And I was scared. I felt naked, exposed.”

“There’s no way I’d ever infect you. I’d never do that to anyone, you least of all.”

“But it’s a gift! The things you can do, Jack. The amazing things.”

“I’ve killed people.” Stating it like that, stark and plain, brought the reality home to Jack once again. Previously it had been a memory that haunted him, but now it was a truth that had been hauled into the fading sunlight and laid bare.

“They were trying to kill us.” But Jenna spoke without conviction.

“I’ll explain it when all this is over,” Jack said.

“So we go closer to the museum,” Jenna said. “Those things are there. Lots of them, according to Rhali. Some of them are like the others we met—more monsters than people. They’re hungry. They attack us, we fight them off, you use some of your powers to smash them away or burn them or, I dunno, turn them into Muppets. But one gets through and kills you. You’re dead, Jack. Deader than Miller with his brains blown out, and deader than Lucy-Anne’s ghost brother. What happens then?”

“You do your best.”

“But if I had your powers, we’d have insurance!”

“No, Jenna! They were never mine to own, and they’re surely not mine to give.”

He loved Jenna. She was a pure, kind, intelligent girl. Her desire for him to pass on his contagion was, he knew, largely for the reasons she had stated. But he was also aware of how his friends viewed him with a mixture of fear and awe, and there was an element of desire in Jenna’s pleading as well. She wanted to be Wonder Woman to his Superman, and he supposed it was only natural.

“It’s selfish, Jack,” she said softly.

“No!” The others glanced back, but looked away again. Perhaps they could hear his conversation with Jenna, perhaps not. He didn’t care. “It’s the opposite of that. I have a weight on me that I can’t shake off, ever. And if by some tiny miracle we do what we’re trying to do and stop the explosion, and get out of London, what about me then? Have you thought about that?”

Jenna opened her mouth to speak, but then paused, and thought. Jack’s normal life was over. He would be exposed—an oddity, a freak, someone to be examined or pointed at in the street—or he would living forever in hiding.

“And it’s more than that,” he said. “Too much to tell you. But no, Jenna, much as I love you and however much you ask, I can’t curse you like that.”

She did not respond. Jack was glad.

Andrew joined them again half a mile from the museum. He emerged from shadows and Lucy-Anne’s heart fluttered, stealing her breath. Every time she saw him, grief hit home one more time.

“There are lots around the museum, and some inside,” he said. “But they know they can’t go inside. One tried, and the others killed her. There are traps everywhere, and the bomb’s sealed in a tank. They’re here to stop it, but they don’t know how.”

“We do,” Lucy-Anne said. For the first time since his return, she saw a flicker of what might have been emotion cross his face. He seemed briefly happy, and she thought it was happiness for her. He wanted his sister to survive.

“But it’s impossible to get close,” Andrew said. He looked at Jack. “For all of you together, at least.”

“Jack, maybe you could do what Fleeter does and carry Hayden inside,” Lucy-Anne said.

Jack shook his head. “It’s far too risky. When I carried Rhali out at Camp H we had a clear route, no distractions. And even then I hurt her. Here, I don’t know the way, and there are dangers all over. One wrong move and I could kill him. And what about the booby traps?”

They all turned to look at Hayden. The Chopper looked at the friends, and they could all see in his expression that he felt excluded and alone. But he also understood that with these people—the kids who had grown up too fast, the boy with amazing powers, the ghost—lay his only hope.

“I didn’t design the security, but I know the guys who did. They were briefed that once the bomb was armed and initiated, no one should be able to get close. So there are security measures, some linked to small explosive devices or toxic gas, a couple linked to Big Bindy itself.”

“What sort of measures?” Jack asked.

“Trip wires.”

“Easy,” Sparky said. “We go slow.”

“Infrared, air movement and body heat detectors, and lasers.”

“Right. Not so easy.”

“And some of them trigger the bomb?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, in case all the others fail or are breached. Open the tank it’s planted in and it blows. And the trigger mechanism in the bomb is contained in a vacuum chamber—expose it to the air, it blows.”

“Basically, fart anywhere south of the river and the bomb blows,” Sparky said.

“I’ve been there,” Andrew said. “Nomad is there also.”

“Well if she can get in…!” Jenna said, staring pointedly at Jack.

“Maybe,” he said. “Although she knows what powers she has, whereas I’m still feeling around for mine. Lots of trial and error. And besides, what good would it do if I could get in? A year ago I had trouble wiring a plug.”

They heard a sound in the distance, a cross between a growl and a bark. It came from no dog Lucy-Anne had ever imagined.

“We should wait,” she said. “Get off the road again and decide what we’re going to do. As it is we’re just marching towards the museum without a clue about what comes next. We need to come up with a plan.”