Tim Lebbon - Reaper's Legacy

“You didn’t fall in,” she said.

“No. Well, not quite. Almost.” Above him his birds were sitting on branches and circling higher above the trees. They seemed calm, watchful.

“But…” She did not know what to say, nor how to explain.

“You okay?” he asked. “I mean, you hit the ground hard.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think.”

“Sure? Feeling exhausted, maybe.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, shrugging off his hands, standing. She actually felt better than fine. She felt energised. “I think I did something,” she said.

“We should keep moving.” Rook stood protectively close. “I don’t like it here.”

Of course not, you died down there , Lucy-Anne thought. She started laughing, and Rook looked at her quizzically.

“Huh?”

Lucy-Anne shook her head, and the laughter faded as quickly as it had come.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” he asked again.

Lucy-Anne pinched herself, hard, but so that Rook could not see. “Yeah. I’m good. So which way?”

Jack stood close by Reaper, ready for the interrogation to take place. He wanted to see and hear everything, he wanted to be close to his father, and most of all he wanted to make sure that no one else died.

The surviving Choppers were being kept corralled inside a ruined clothing store, guarded by Shade and a couple of other Superiors, including the blind knife-thrower Jack had seen in action before. They looked nervous but defiant, and Jack wondered whether they were resigned to death. There must have been so much conflict and death in London since Doomsday. He had only been here for a matter of days and he had seen plenty already…but there was also the painful idea that he was responsible for much of it.

He hated the thought, but could not shake it. Fleeter had killed those Choppers to protect him. And these scenes now had been initiated by him. He looked at the Choppers huddled in the smashed storefront and tried to convey a sense of calm, but those who looked at him saw nothing of the sort. Fires still burned amongst the crashed motorbikes, and death hung heavy across the street.

“Scryer,” Reaper said. “She’s all yours.” Puppeteer was standing close by, one hand raised slightly, and a female Chopper hung suspended with her feet a metre above the road surface. Her helmet had been ripped off, her blue uniform torn by the impact from when her motorbike had crashed into a pile of café tables and chairs, and an ugly gravel burn covered her left cheek and jawline. Her fear was obvious, but so were her efforts to hide it. Jack thought she couldn’t have been much older than him.

Scryer stepped forward, glancing at Jack and smirking. But he could also sense her uncertainty. They had surely tried this before, and no Chopper had yet revealed the location of Camp H.

“What’s your name?” Scryer asked.

“Kerri.”

“Where do you come from, Kerri?”

“Ottery, in Devon.”

“How many Irregulars have you killed since Doomsday?”

The woman frowned, lips pressed tight as she tried to fight the urges to speak and tell the truth. She released her breath with a heavy sigh, and then said, “Two. A man and a…a girl…” She looked away from Scryer, across to Breezer and the other three Irregulars waiting by the café. “I didn’t mean…” she said.

“Where is Camp H?” Scryer asked. Her tone had not changed at all—calm, mildly inquisitive, almost friendly—but the atmosphere thickened as soon as she asked the question. Behind him, Jack heard Jenna whisper something to Sparky, so quiet that he could not make it out. Reaper shifted position slightly, taking a half step forward.

“I don’t know,” Kerri said.

“You do know,” Scryer said. “And all you have to do is say.”

“Puppeteer,” Reaper said.

Kerri twitched in the air and screamed as both arms were tugged above her head. Jack heard a sickening stretching sound, and the rip of what he hoped was clothing. He grabbed his father’s arm and squeezed.

Reaper looked down at his hand as he might a smear of bird shit across his coat. But Jack did not let go.

“No more killing,” Jack said. “No more torture. Haven’t you tried all this before?”

“Do you think you can tell me—” Reaper began, but Jack delved down, grasped a star, and cut him off with a thought.

I used to love you . It was a silent shout, screamed from his mind into Reaper’s. His father’s eyes went wide, and for a moment Jack saw the man he used to know. It almost broke his heart.

“Do that again,” Reaper said, shaking Jack’s hand from his arm. “Just do.” The threat was obvious, his voice heavy with potential. One little whisper, Jack knew, and his father could smash him to atoms.

“Breezer,” Jack said. “Who did you bring?”

“This is Rika.” Breezer touched a woman on the shoulder and muttered something to her. She nodded and then walked across to them, nervous and birdlike in her movements. When she looked at Jack, he had the feeling that she was seeing deep inside him, and she glanced away as if unsettled at what she saw.

“Jack,” Jenna said. He turned to his friends, smiled.

“I know,” he said.

“Next time they’ll send everything.” She nodded up at the sky and he looked, already knowing that he’d see the drone again. He stared at it for a while and wondered whose eyes he was looking into at the other end of its reach. Miller’s, perhaps. He cruised through the star-scape of his potential, but found nothing that might let him view through the drone’s systems. He found that comforting. Having limits made him feel human.

Jack glanced at his father, the Superiors, and the other Irregulars, and knew that he need not mention the urgency here. The air thrummed with it.

The small woman, Rika, reached Scryer and the Chopper woman suspended above the road.

“You’d really like to hold my hand,” Scryer said.

“Yes, I would,” Rika replied. She held her breath, froze. “Don’t do that to me. Don’t you dare use your talent on me. You carry secrets as much as anyone, and some you wouldn’t want revealed.” Her voice did not change at all, but the power of her words swung the balance of control. Scryer’s smile remained, but it went from natural to pained. Whatever secrets she harboured, she did not wish them shared.

“Her, then,” Scryer said, nodding at the Chopper, Kerri.

“Yes,” the Irregular woman said. She and Scryer held hands.

“Ask,” Rika said.

“Where is Camp H?” Scryer asked.

The Chopper woman shook her head. She was frowning, struggling against Puppeteer’s unnatural hold, sweat speckling her face even though there was a cooling breeze. “I…I don’t…”

“You know,” Rika growled.

Jack gasped. Her voice had dropped and become much louder, deeper, and beside him he saw Sparky glance at Reaper. But it had not been him. Reaper was smiling with delight, and then Kerri began a long, low whine.

“Don’t hurt her,” Jenna whispered. But Jack knew that this was now in the hands of Rika and Scryer.

“Keep asking,” Rika said, “and I’ll go deep.”

“Where is Camp H?” Scryer asked again, and again. The Chopper woman shook her head. Rika growled. Some of the observers shifted uncomfortably, and when one of the Choppers shouted in protest, Shade knocked him to the floor.

Kerri’s whine did not change, but after a couple of minutes Rika released Scryer’s hand and walked back to Breezer, head bowed, her thin form barely casting a shadow.

Puppeteer let Kerri drop. She hit the road and sprawled, and Jenna went to her, kneeling by her side and checking to see how she was. Jack grinned at his friend and her caring nature, and he was proud that she had shown the others how human she was. The woman might be a Chopper, but she was a person as well.