“Given up the chase?” Lucy-Anne asked.
“Maybe,” he said. But they all remained on edge as they drove out from the shadowed car park into daylight.
“Too noisy,” Lucy-Anne said. “Let's get a street away then dump the car.”
“And we'll have to see to Jack,” Sparky said. He was taking his first good look at his friend, and Lucy-Anne could see his fear.
“How is he?” Jenna asked. She kept glancing in the mirror. The car engine screamed in second gear. Hayden gibbered in the front seat.
Rhali stroked Jack's brow, and his face bled.
Her illness washing through her, Nomad raised her head and looked around. The tank was static and terrible. The wires and fail-safes glowed menacingly all around the display hall. All was silent.
“Jack,” she said. She gasped, because something had changed. But whatever the change, Jack had made his choice.
And there was always Lucy-Anne.
In darkness and nothing, Jack thought he was with the monsters.
He had an awareness of who he was but not why he was here. He wanted to call his friends, but could not remember their names. He floated, or sank, or rose through darkness so complete that it had form and solidity. It was like swimming in black water, but here he could breathe.
The taste on his tongue was blood.
After an unknown time he started to make out a glow in the distance. At first it was a smudge on the night, a sheen in the blackness. He moved towards it, out of the stark nothingness where there were monsters, and it started to take on form. Countless points of light manifested, like sprinkles of salt on a black sheet the size of a field. The closer he approached, the clearer the image became, and the larger and more malevolent the deep blackness behind him.
That's my universe. His words were comforting. And as he thought them, the spread of light expanded rapidly until it filled his field of vision and he was inside it, enveloped and part of the light himself, and the blackness was banished to the distance.
Yet he still did not feel safe. He passed through this place that was his, and just off-centre was a warm red glow. It should have been inviting but was not. The warmth should have made him feel safe, but the opposite was true.
The glow was contagion. But it was not his to give.
“And it wasn't Nomad's to give either,” he said. His voice was so loud that the stars shimmered, and somewhere beyond he felt a reaction to what he had said. My friends heard me. They fear for me. But I have to make sure. He moved closer to the throbbing red glow and saw that it was a star on its own, but one that contained universes. Impossible, incredible, terrifying universes that he could pass on with a touch, just as Nomad had passed this on to him.
None of this was natural. None of it should exist. His universe was a falsehood made real by a mad woman, and humanity could not endure it.
I'll always keep it to myself. Always. No matter what.
“Is he dead?”
Hayden had been the last to climb from the car and follow them, but now he was the first to speak.
“No, he's not bloody dead!” Sparky said. “And thanks would be welcome right now.”
“Thanks?”
“For rescuing you?” Lucy-Anne said. She hated Hayden already and she hadn't even told him her name.
“Oh, right. Thanks.”