“Yeah,” Jack said. “I believe.”
“So can we all talk now?” Jenna asked. She sat at the table and motioned the others to join her.
This is it, Jack thought. This is when it all changes. I've been touched already, but if we sit and listen to this woman, we'll get drawn in. Rosemary smiled at him, inviting him to join them at the table, and in that moment he saw something of his mother in her. She was much older than his mum—maybe seventy-five—and weary, worn by time and circumstance. But she exuded a deep-set goodness from every pore.
“Does it hurt to heal?” Jack asked. That question suddenly seemed very important.
“No,” she said. “It feels as natural as breathing.”
Jack nodded, went to the table and sat down next to Lucy-Anne. She grabbed his hand and squeezed too hard, her nervousness and excitement obvious. Sometimes he sensed such violence in her that it scared him.
“So why have you come for my father?” Jenna asked.
“Things are falling apart,” Rosemary said. She sighed, and looked around the table. “How much do you all know?”
“We know it wasn't terrorists,” Jack said. “An army scientist crashed a helicopter into the London Eye and released a virus they called Evolve.”
“Angelina Walker,” Jenna said. “No one knows why she did it.”
Jack nodded. “We know that not everyone in London was infected and killed.”
“And that the survivors are hunted,” Jenna added.
“And they're special,” Lucy-Anne said. “They're called Irregulars, like you.”
“Not all like me,” Rosemary said. “I can heal. Others can do different things, a whole host of amazing things. And we're all sought-after by the Choppers.”
“Choppers?”
“That's what we call the ones that hunt us. You call them Capital Keepers. But whether they're scientists or military, it doesn't really matter. When they catch an Irregular they do…terrible things. So we call them Choppers.”
“What terrible things?” Lucy-Anne asked, squeezing Jack's hand even harder.
Rosemary closed her eyes. “We need help. We need to get out of there, and the only way that will happen without slaughter is if the general public—all of them—know the truth of what's happening. We need exposure.” She looked at Jenna. “That's why I came to find your father. To ask him to come in with me, gather evidence, and then present it to the world. So…will he be here soon?”
“It's us you're talking to here!” Lucy-Anne said. She stood sharply, sending her chair scraping across the floor. “And don't you bloody dare look down on us just because we're just kids. We've all grown up a lot since Doomsday, because we've had to.” She pointed at Jack. “Mother and father.” At Sparky. “Brother.” And herself. “Mother, father, brother.”
Rosemary's expression did not change at this roll-call of the missing and dead. “The last thing I'd call you is kids,” she said.
Lucy-Anne nodded, seemingly satisfied. When she sat down she held Jack's hand again, but this time it was a gentle touch.
“My dad's out with Mum,” Jenna said. “They go walking a lot. Sometimes they take me, but usually I just want to stay at home. We didn't lose anyone. But Dad…”
“He fought,” Rosemary said.
“Yeah.” Jenna nodded, staring past them all. “Looked for the truth. First they called him an activist, and threatened him with the law. When he ignored their threats, they took him.”
“He was in contact with several people in London,” Rosemary said. “People who could enhance their brainwaves to such an extent that they almost acted as radio transmitters and receivers.”
“‘Could’?” Sparky asked.
“When the Choppers discovered the communication, they took all three. Beheaded two of them in the street, so the word goes, and the other just disappeared. Camp H.”
“’H’ for what?” Lucy-Anne asked.
“Hope,” Rosemary said with a wry smile.
“That was the same time they took Dad?”