Tim Lebbon: Reaper's Legacy

“Medium rare, please,” Sparky said, grinning at Jack and Jenna. Jack laughed out loud, and it was a release of tension that felt so good he did it again. Jenna laughed too. Breezer smiled uncertainly.

The barbecue was opened and food served onto scratched china plates. The several Irregulars melted away then, leaving Breezer alone with them. They ate in silence for a few minutes, and Jack could not help smiling. Such a surreal scene. London bathed in summer sun beyond the windows, so distant that it might have been back to normal. And they were eating human-heated burgers in an office block.

“Delicious!” Sparky said through a full mouth. Grease dribbled down his chin and caught in his fuzzy stubble. “Best beefburger I’ve tasted in ages.”

“Thank you,” Breezer said. “We do what we can.” He took a delicate bite of his own meal and chewed for a few moments. “It’s not beef.”

All movement froze. Jack looked from Sparky, to Jenna, to Breezer. Then Sparky shrugged and took another huge bite, making appreciative noises with each munch.

“What are you doing here?” Jack said. “You seem to be in charge, and—”

Breezer’s high laugh surprised them all. “I’m not in charge!” he said. “Jack. You make us sound like Superiors.”

“Well…” Jack nodded after the people who had left the large room.

“We’re surviving,” Breezer said. “Doing our very best, that’s all. There’s not much trust about these days, so when a few people find others they can trust, they tend to stay together.” He looked at his food, no longer seeming hungry. “It’s not quite family. But as close as we have.”

“You have family outside London?” Jenna asked.

“Wife,” Breezer said. “My two sons. I lost some more distant relatives on Doomsday, but not my close family. They’re out there somewhere. Think I’m dead.”

“And haven’t you ever wanted to try to get out to them?” Jenna asked.

“Of course! In the beginning escape was all any survivor wanted. But the government quickly threw a cordon around London, and the Choppers blasted whole districts to rubble so that—”

“Yeah, we saw that,” Jack said.

“Right. Well, there was so much confusion. The huge numbers of dead started to decompose, stinking the city up. There was disease, and carrion creatures—dogs, cats, rats. Lots of rats. Everyone was grieving for someone, everyone was confused and scared. No one knew what the hell had happened, and why the authorities weren’t trying to help. There were a lot of suicides. And on top of all that, we started to feel…different.”

“The powers,” Jenna said.

“It drove a lot of people close to madness. Some still are, and you’d do best to avoid those. But a lot of people tried to escape, yes. Overground, underground, covertly, aggressively. A few even tried air balloons. They were all caught and executed. Sometimes the Choppers left their bodies on display. Once, fifteen corpses rotted on lamp posts in Oxford Street. That was Christmas of the first year.” Breezer trailed off as he remembered terrible things.

“But you could burst out, couldn’t you?” Sparky asked. “Combine, use powers to find a weak spot, an escape route like Rosemary did. Get out and spread the word about the deception.”

“They’d know,” Breezer said.

“But we came in through tunnels,” Jack said. “Five of us and Rosemary snuck in.”

“Six of you?” Breezer said, nodding. “Yeah, it’s possible they knew that, too.”

“But how?” Jenna asked.

Breezer glanced from one to the other of them, as if waiting for something.

“‘Cos they’ve got one working for him,” Sparky said. The blond boy was staring at the open barbecue and the spare burgers steaming there, but he no longer looked hungry. He looked furious.

“No,” Jack said, shaking his head. “No! With everything they’ve done? All the people they’ve captured and chopped up ?”

“It’s not for sure,” Breezer said. “A rumour that has only just surfaced. But it’s said there was a child in the beginning who could feel the weight of people moving around London. Don’t ask me how. How can I tell your truth from your lies? But if she was in Kensington, she could tell if a group of people were walking across Piccadilly Circus. She called it following the city’s pulse, so it’s said. And three months after Doomsday, the Choppers took her.”

“But they didn’t kill her,” Sparky said.

“Why doesn’t she find you lot?” Jenna asked.

“We live here together, but are careful only to gather in threes or fours. And it’s said she only tracks moving people, not those just…”

“Just living somewhere,” Jack finished for him.

“Bloody hell,” Sparky said.

“Yeah.” Jack was nodding slowly.

“So if you form an army…” Jenna began, but she did not need to finish.

“And now even that option is being taken away,” Jack said, and he stared Breezer in the eye. “Because you’re all dying.”

Breezer nodded, turning grim. “You saw Milton down in the street. Until a few weeks ago he was as strong as you or me, and now…well, he’s mad, and fading fast. None of us knows what the illness is, where and when it will manifest. No healer can touch it. It’s a mystery.”

“Do the Superiors suffer from it as well?”

“I don’t know,” Breezer said. “There are so few of them, and they have little contact with us. Sometimes I think they view us as low as the Choppers.”

“But you have an idea of what it is,” Jenna said, a statement more than a question. Jack smiled secretly. She’d always been good at steering conversations.

“I’ve been studying it,” Breezer admitted. “Questioning as many Irregulars as I can.”

“Seeing through lies,” Jenna said.

“Finding the truth.”

“Which is?” Jack asked.

“Well, you know the basics. Evolve killed most of those it touched, and those who survived quickly developed a range of powers and abilities. Almost all of them were psychological. Some…almost supernatural. That’s Evolve’s first mystery. What I do think is that whether a person now calls themselves Irregular or Superior depends upon how dramatic the power they’re developed. Superiors tend to have destructive, or more physically powerful abilities. Less human, some might say. The far more numerous Irregulars are healers, truth-seers, way finders. Other things, too.”

“I’d figured that one out myself,” Jack said, thinking of what his father had become—Reaper, a man who killed with his voice—and those accompanying him. “The woman who brought us into London wanted the Irregulars and the Superiors to unite. Force their way out, and expose themselves to the world.”

“I know Rosemary well,” Breezer said, nodding slowly.

“You don’t agree with her?” Jenna asked.

“On the contrary, I was one of those who suggested the possibility in the first place. And I knew who she was creeping out of London to find. I’m convinced the only way anyone will leave London alive is if the Superiors join with the rest of us. It was a long, long shot, thinking that bringing Reaper’s children in would change the way he is. Persuade him to cooperate. But now…” Breezer looked at Jack with hungry eyes, and Jack glanced away to Jenna and Sparky. They were tensed, more alert. Worried. They all sensed a change in the conversation.

“Now what?” Sparky asked.

“Now that you’re changing, Jack, maybe you’ll be the one to lead us out. And I truly believe that the only hope of curing what’s slowly killing us is to appeal to people outside. There are amazing people in London, but we need doctors and scientists, not diviners and fire starters.”