Tim Lebbon - Reaper's Legacy

“And London became your own ready-made lab,” Jack said.

“Finish him, Reaper,” Fleeter said.

“No.” Reaper looked up, and Jack saw the fire in his eyes. “I’ve only just begun with him.”

This was my greatest hope , Jack thought. And now it’s going to explode . His mother and sister were with him, but his father had become a monster. The future hinged on this moment, and yet even though he had helped bring things this way, Jack realised he had never had any control. This was all Miller and Reaper, and the awful game they played—Miller experimenting; Reaper revelling.

“Let us go first, Dad,” Jack said, and in one last attempt, one final plea, he forced a memory into his father’s head.

The four of them walk around a castle in North Wales. Emily is a toddler, singing her own song as she explores the nooks and crannies. Jack is not quite a teenager, and he’s taking rubbings from some of the stone detail. His mother and father are holding hands. Jack has caught them kissing at least twice today, and he looks back frequently. They look so happy. It’s starting to rain.

“Don’t…do…that,” Reaper said, and all across the camp people shivered. That’s it , Jack thought. That’s all I can do .

“Mum,” Jack said, turning around. “We have to leave.”

His mother was looking at Reaper, and for a moment Jack saw a flash of love from his memory. But reality had hardened his mother. Whatever his naive hopes had been, she had always known the truth.

“Go with them,” he heard Reaper say. He glanced back, and Puppeteer and Fleeter were looking at Jack, waiting for him to leave. He was surprised, but he didn’t express it. He didn’t even thank his father.

They trooped from Camp H, collecting Jenna and the weak girl on the way. Sparky helped Jenna support the girl between them. Jack and Emily held hands. His mother and some of the released prisoners followed, and Breezer and his Irregulars followed on behind. Puppeteer hurried on ahead, seemingly keen to not walk with them, and Fleeter flipped out with a crack!

“So the New ends here,” Jack said to Breezer walking close by.

“Don’t think it ever really began,” Breezer said. “Like I told you when we first met, your father’s a monster.”

“The bomb?” Jack asked.

Breezer shook his head. “First I’ve heard of it. But he was speaking the truth.”

“So we have to get out,” Jack said. “All of us.”

“Reaper was right. There’ll be time. I’ll gather as many Irregulars as I can, but…”

“But they’ll only let out the Choppers.”

“And the way we came in is known to them now,” Jack’s mother said. “That’s where they caught us. Us, and poor Rosemary. She fought so hard.”

“She saved my life,” Jenna said sadly.

“I can get us through,” Jack said.

Behind them, someone screamed.

“Let’s go!” Sparky said. They all started to run, but Jack could not flee without seeing. He had to know. Had to see what games his father and Miller were really playing, and why such potential that the New had presented must be squandered. He stopped at the entrance to the route back through the storage park and turned to watch.

Using our talents kills us in the end , Jack thought. Miller could have very good reasons to lie about that—to make them all afraid of using their talents. But there was also a good chance it was true.

The bomb. The sickness. The end of Camp H. Everything was drawing to a close, and the only way he could salvage anything from the tragedy of Doomsday was to make the end a new beginning.

He watched as Shade and the others forced the Choppers together into a group before the larger of the two container units. The soldiers were plainly terrified, but the Superiors were unconcerned. They were smiling. Enjoying this.

Reaper moved from behind Miller and knelt again by the bound woman’s side. He sat her up and allowed her to lean back against him, whispering to her, smiling when she nodded, stroking her matted hair. Puppeteer grimaced with concentration as he used his power to bend and break chains, and twist ropes until they frayed and snapped. In his chair, Miller looked like a shrunken old man now, head bowed, all the bluster gone from him. It was he who had screamed—blood coated the side of his head, and Jack thought perhaps his father had torn off an ear.

He’s no longer my father . For the first time, Jack really meant that. His heart beat in fear at what he was about to see. He could close his eyes. He could leave. But everything he had been through already meant that it was important to bear witness.

Jack glanced back at the others—strangers, and people he loved. He raised a hand with two fingers up: two minutes. But he didn’t think it would take that long.

The Superiors backed away from the group of twenty or more Choppers. Still propped against Reaper’s side, the woman raised her newly released hands and pointed. The air around her head misted as she breathed out. The chains still gathered around her legs glimmered with frost.

One of the Choppers screamed, because she knew what was going to happen. And when she ran, she did not get far.

Even from where he watched, Jack felt the gush of cold air. It tickled his nose and burned his skin, and the woman who’d tried to run ground to a slow, painful halt. It was like watching a film of someone slowed down, and then…Freeze-frame.

Reaper smiled, then whispered, and the power of his voice shattered the frozen woman.

Other Choppers ran. The woman shouted. The luckiest made twenty paces before their flesh started to freeze, muscles cramping and then tearing at the sudden, impossible temperature change, blood coagulating, and every scrap of agony was visible on their stilled expressions. Several of them fell and broke apart as they struck the ground, and Jack could not help wondering whether they remained conscious of what was happening to them, just for a moment.

In his chair, Miller sat with Shade grasping his head. He’d been made to watch every moment.

Mass murder complete, Reaper looked across at Jack. He smiled. He’d known all along that his son was watching.

Then Reaper let the woman gently lie down and turned to Miller, and as Jack ran for his friends and family, he heard the wretched man screaming again, and his father’s laughter.

For the first time in two years, Nomad was as close to a normal woman as she could be.

He’s doing his best for the people he loves. He’s brave. But Jack will soon realise that his responsibilities have expanded. His is a wider outlook now, and he’ll only see that when he stops seeking inward for all those new potentials. That part will soon become as natural as breathing. For me that universe is a wild, violent place filled with chaos and uncertainty…difficult for me to grasp…too filled with pain.

But for Jack it will be beautiful.

She took in a deep breath and felt the pain in her chest, so real and there that it surprised her again with each inhalation. Even stretching her senses out to Jack was starting to hurt. She had reined in everything else she was so used to doing, because it was all starting to pain her more—knowing London through movement and scent, avoiding detection when she so desired, sitting motionless in the river of time while moments passed her by. She concentrated on Jack and one other, because the future of London was with them both.

This is his greatest challenge yet. It will be the making of him, or his undoing. And her purity can only help. The bomb is hidden away so well that…even I…

Nomad sought again, but she felt a warm trickle across her lips and tasted blood. The world swam. She floated in it, and now and then was aware of glances from those few she passed by—deeply knowledgeable from those she had once thought of as monsters; confused, scared, from the rest of London’s people.