Contagion (Toxic City)

As they approached the Imperial War Museum, Rhali used her gift to warn them of movement ahead. And there was plenty. Andrew also went ahead to scout their route, and he returned several times with tales of creatures wandering the streets. They were all heading in the same direction—towards the museum.

Jack sought ways to communicate with those things they would face. He did his best to think of them as human, although forcibly evolved far from what he understood human to be. But after everything he had seen, he also thought of them as monsters. Like Reaper, they looked down upon the Irregulars as way below them, insignificant as insects to an elephant. Unlike Reaper, they ate them.

His efforts frustrated him. His talents were many, but not endless. And search though he did, he could not perceive a way to touch those creatures from the north.

“We all want the same thing!” he said to Rhali. “They've come down here because of the bomb, though none of them can stop it. And even though perhaps we can, I just don't know how to tell them that.”

“Can't you just talk to them?”

“You've seen some of what I've seen. I think they're beyond conversation.”

Lucy-Anne had already shared with him what she knew of them from her time in the north. They looked wild, but carried a startling intelligence. They were vicious and brutal, but organised as well, sometimes hunting in packs for some of the scarcest food there was—humans.

Jack had asked what they ate in the north, and it had been Andrew who offered the answer. I only saw it once but…think of farms where humans keep cattle. More than that, you don't want to know.

And so close to the museum they called a halt again, hiding behind the innocent facade of a restaurant window, watching darkness fall outside and wondering what to do.

“Nomad is still inside?” Jack asked.

“She showed no sign of wishing to be anywhere else,” Andrew replied. He seemed to flicker before Jack, like reality wavering in and out of focus.

“If she can get in, so can I,” Jack said. “Maybe that is the first thing to do. I'll go inside, look at everything, try and find a way in for Hayden.”

“But how can you get past everything Hayden says they have in there, even with your talents?”

“Nomad did.”

“Nomad's almost a dream,” Lucy-Anne said.

Jack's frustration was growing. Blessed or cursed with such powers, still he sat in an Indian restaurant where no one had eaten for two years, curled menus and neat place settings taunting him with the normality that was no more.

“Maybe Reaper had the right idea,” he said quietly. “A distraction. Not for the Choppers, but for these things around the museum. Draw them away so that Hayden can get inside. Work on the traps. See what he can do. He's the tech guy, after all. Get into the tank and start dismantling the bomb.”

“Me and Sparky,” Jenna said.

“No,” Jack said.

“But—”

“No! You'll be killed. They'll catch you easily. No, it has to be me and Fleeter. We're the distraction, you get Hayden inside, then I'll meet you back at the museum.”

“You're taking on an awful lot yourself,” Lucy-Anne said. “Why don't you let—”

“Where's Rhali?” Jenna asked.

As he stood from the chair he'd taken and moved to the front window, Jack already knew. No, he tried to say, but his mouth was suddenly dry.

He saw Rhali just as she disappeared around the junction at the end of the street, heading for the museum. She's going to get herself killed! he thought. But at the same time he realised that whatever happened when they pursued Rhali could be the distraction they needed. And she knew that.

“Fleeter!” Jack said, readying himself to flip and go to Rhali's aid.

And then all hell broke loose.





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