London Eye: 1 (Toxic City) (15 page)

The six terrorists who attacked London yesterday have been killed in a shoot-out with a military unit in the West End. Communications into and out of London are down. The biological agent used by the terrorists has not yet been identified, but the whole of the London basin is affected, and travel to and from the city is strictly prohibited. Please help the emergency services and the military to contain this disaster by following these simple guidelines: Anyone trying to enter or approach London will be arrested. Any aircraft attempting to overfly London will be shot down. There follows a list of numbers for concerned relatives…

—UK All-Channel Bulletin,
9:00 a.m. GMT onwards, July 29, 2019

A
t seventeen, Jack should have taken Sparky aside at the first opportunity to ask him how it was, was she hot, and to give him all the details. But that would have been in normal times, and these times were far from normal. There was a quietness to Sparky the next morning, and while Jenna helped Ruben and Rosemary prepare the best breakfast they could from old tinned foods, Jack sat beside his friend on the sofa.

“Okay, mate?”

“Yeah.”

“Hope today's a bit better than yesterday.”

“Well…” Sparky began, then he smiled. “Yesterday was mixed.”

“What's up?”

Sparky sighed. He scratched at his arm where his brother's name was tattooed, then leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. “We've got no control over any of this, you know? We follow Rosemary from one mess to the next. We lose Lucy-Anne, and can't do anything to try and help or find her, and how bloody frustrating is that?”

“We all feel the same. But Rosemary's right, there's no way of even
guessing
where she is.” He drummed his fingers on his knee, tapped his foot. He'd dreamed about Lucy-Anne, but today he could not remember his dreams.

“And last night, Jack. My
first time.
Incredible. And…I should be telling Steve about it, you know? I should tell him, and he should laugh and be pleased, and it should be a secret from Mum and Dad because that's just the way it is with brothers…” He trailed off, blinking slowly.

“You just told me,” Jack said.

Sparky looked at him with tears in his eyes. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome. Shithead.”

“Ha!” Sparky stood and stretched, leaned sideways so that he could see through the hallway and into the kitchen, then turned back to Jack. “Mate,” he whispered, “she was hot!”

Emily came down a few minutes later, and they all sat around the kitchen table and ate baked beans, hot dog sausages, and tinned peaches. For what it was, Jack enjoyed it immensely.

He tried not to catch Jenna's eyes, embarrassed, but he felt her glancing at him all through breakfast. When he finally stood to tidy up, he took an empty tin from her hand and she held on tight. He looked at her, and realised what a fool he'd been. She looked so anxious and tense, that when he smiled and winked she seemed to deflate.

“Thank you!” she said as she let go of the tin, but Jack knew the real thanks was for something else entirely. Yeah, he'd certainly been a fool. He'd known that Jenna had liked him, just not how much.

“Ruben will be leaving us soon,” Rosemary said. “He's not one for sneaking along dangerous streets and scrambling through tunnels.”

“I'd only get stuck,” he said, tapping his not inconsiderable stomach.

“Are you going home?” Emily asked, and a dark cloud touched Ruben's face.

“Yes, dear,” he said. “All the way home.”

“Thanks for taking a bullet out of my guts with your bare hands,” Jenna said, raising her bottle of water in a toast.

“Any time.”

“Bloody hope not!” Sparky said, and they all laughed.

As they left, Rosemary took a quick look around the house, her expression blank. “Doubt we'll use this place again,” she said.

“Why not?” asked Emily.

“Too dangerous, dear. I've stayed here three times myself, and Ruben a couple of times. Too much activity attracts attention.”

“So it'll just stay shut up?” Jack asked.

“Yes. Once we're out, I'll drop the key down a gutter grating.”

Sparky checked that the coast was clear before they trailed out into the street. It was still early, only seven thirty, and the air was cool and clear. Pigeons cooed softly from window sills and rooftops, a scruffy ginger cat strolled without care along the middle of the road, but apart from that all was quiet.

Rosemary pulled the door closed until it clicked. Jack didn't like thinking about the empty house, and how it could be like that forever. They had filled it with life for a night, and even some love, and now it stood alone and abandoned once again, one of many sad monuments to the foolishness of humanity. There were a hundred
thousand buildings like this all over London. Houses were built to be lived in, not left empty, home only to the dust of memories.

They walked along the street, and when they came to a gutter Rosemary dropped the key through the grating. Jack heard a faint splash, and the house was lost to them. If anyone ever explored its insides again, they would have to smash down the door or break a window first.

He noticed Sparky and Jenna share a glance and wondered what they were thinking right then.

Ruben said his goodbyes, sparing Rosemary a hug. They seemed very close. Jack and his friends gave their quiet thanks, then the fat man sauntered away, his incredible hands swinging by his sides.
There goes another miracle
, Jack thought. The city killed by humans seemed full of miracles today.

Rosemary huddled them together at the end of the street. She listened for a minute, head cocked, but there was nothing to hear except the birds.

“It's not too far until we go back belowground,” she said. “As I told you, Jack, she spends most of her time down in the old Tube station. But I promised to be honest with you from now on, so I have to tell you, the place is disguised. And it's protected from the Choppers.”

“Protected how?” he asked, instantly fearing the worst.
Alligators? Lions? Monsters?

“There are two people down there, boy and girl twins, whose seventh sense has been incredibly boosted.”

“Seventh?” Emily asked.

“That's what they call it, for want of a better description. They can project images and ideas onto people's minds. It's remarkable…and it can be really quite disturbing, too. Everyone who goes down there has to pass through the twins’ projections. Those who should know about the hospital can work through them, because
they know the images are false. Anyone else…they wouldn't go very far.”

“What sort of images?” Jack asked.

Rosemary pursed her lips. “They won't be very nice. But I'll tell you when we're getting closer, and you'll all have to…”

“Work through it,” Jenna finished for her.

“Yes, dear.”

“Piece of cake,” Sparky said. Jenna glanced at him and smiled, and Jack felt the growing warmth between the two of them. It made him feel good.

“Maybe Lucy-Anne will be down there,” he said. But no one answered, and he realised it was a vain hope.

They set off, walking through the early morning streets and watching the wildlife. It was unsettling, and yet beautiful, how so many animals had made the devastated city their home, as if nature had been patiently awaiting its moment. All the usual birds that Jack would expect to see in a city were there; pigeons, sparrows, starlings, blackbirds, magpies, and the occasional robin. But he also saw a woodpecker, wrens, a kingfisher skimming a canal, goldfinches, siskins, and several pairs of buzzards circling with their offspring. The untempered plant growth throughout the city sustained many more seed-eating birds, and close behind them came the birds of prey.

The birdsong barely lessened as they walked along the street. The creatures were confident. That, Jack thought, was the unsettling part of it. This was no longer a city of people where the birds had to find their own way to survive. Now, the situation had been reversed.

Rosemary made them pause every few minutes and hide in a garden or an alleyway, just to take time to listen and watch for any dangers. They heard no motors, though once an aircraft flew past high overhead. It was fast and loud, and obviously military.
Rosemary made them hide in a burnt-out shop, afraid of the detection technology the aircraft might have.

After the aircraft had gone, and as they approached a road junction, a lioness stepped into view from the street perpendicular to theirs. She was sleek and fit-looking, and she paused to look their way.

Jack gasped. Emily, walking beside him, slowly lifted her camera and started to film. The others froze in place.

“Amazing,” Sparky whispered.

“Be still and quiet,” Rosemary said. Jack saw her take hold of the gun hanging by its strap from her shoulder.

They were close enough to see the lioness's nostrils flare as she sniffed at them. She looked the other way, perhaps deciding whether the street ahead seemed more inviting than the street with the human meat, then stared back at them for a long time.

“Do they eat…?” Jenna was unable to finish, but everyone knew what she meant.

“I've never heard of it,” Rosemary muttered. “Too many cats, dogs, and other things for them to hunt.”

“Always a first time for everything,” Sparky said. Then he giggled. “Jenna tastes good.”

“Shut it, or I'll cut you and push you towards her,” Jenna whispered.

“Quiet!” Rosemary said. “All of you.”

The creature was beautiful. Jack could not help marvelling at how she had adapted to the strange environment, an animal designed to live on the African plains stalking concrete and brick streets and eating dog meat instead of gazelle or zebra. Two years previously she must have been caged in a zoo or wildlife park, meat thrown in to her every day already dead. Now, she had to hunt for every meal.
Nature's way of coping
, he thought. It was wonderful.

Humankind, in its ignorance and superiority, had set itself apart from nature, and that weird chemical or bug released two years before had removed them even further from the evolutionary chain. Ironic that it had been called Evolve.

The lioness roared softly, as if to assure her place in their memories. Then she walked away, disappearing around the building at the corner of the junction.

“That was cool,” Sparky said, the excitement apparent in his voice.

“We should move on,” Rosemary said. “If she returns with the rest of her pride, things might be different.”

They walked for an hour, skirting around a large park that had taken on the appearance of a jungle. The trees at its boundary were full and lush, and where they could see past the trunks there were huge swaths of shrubs with exotic-looking pink flowers drooping from stems a dozen feet tall. They reminded Jack of the blooms they had seen atop the mass grave in Tooting, but these seemed more natural and innocent.

As they approached a roundabout from which four roads branched, Emily paused and pointed.

“Who's that lady?” she said.

They all looked, and for a moment Jack had trouble seeing who she meant. Then he saw the motionless shape on the small concrete island at the roundabout's centre, something he'd taken upon first glance to be a statue, and the breath was knocked from him.

There was something…
otherworldly
about the woman. She stood utterly motionless, and between blinks she was suddenly walking towards them, flowing, floating across the dusty tarmac like a ghost.
Her feet
are
touching the ground
, Jack tried to persuade himself.
She
is
walking, not drifting.
She seemed to be moving too quickly.

“Superior?” Jenna asked. None of them could take their eyes
from the woman. Her movement was hypnotic, her face mesmerising.

“Rosemary?” Jack prompted. The woman was coming closer, and a pang of fear complemented his sense of wonder. Her loose jacket flowed behind her, though there was no breeze this morning, and her long hair flicked at the air.
“Rosemary!”

“The Nomad,” Rosemary whispered, and she started backing away.

“Holy shit,” Jenna said.

Nomad?
Jack knew the name, and the legend, but he had always thought it was just that: myth, not truth. A wondrous fable concocted out of the awfulness of what had happened. It spoke of a woman, the Nomad, who wandered the streets of the Toxic City untouched and untouchable. Rumour had it that she possessed all the powers of the Irregulars combined, which made her, so far as those interested in her believed, a god. And that was why Jack could never believe, because the need to have faith in something so amazing after events so dreadful just seemed too obvious.

Out of all of them, it was Jenna who researched and believed in the Nomad the most. Having lost no one to Doomsday, her interest was otherwise.

“Nomad, indeed,” a woman's voice said, and it was low and husky as though not used to speech. “No need to flee, healer.” She raised one hand and Rosemary stopped backing away, although it looked as if she was still trying.

When the woman reached them at last she continued walking, snaking through and around their small group. Jack thought about moving, but decided against it. None of them moved. Maybe none of them could.