Jack slammed his hand on the table. Cups jumped and spilled water, a plate shook to the floor and shattered. The impact echoed around the office, a haunting sound that slowly faded before anyone spoke.
“I didn't come to start a war,” Jack said. “I'm no leader, and whatever's happening to me…” He was both angry and scared, so he concentrated on something solid that he felt could hold him firm—love. “I'm going for my mother and sister. They're what matters to me. And perhaps at the same time we can stop the girl. Blind the Choppers. Then you won't need anyone to lead you out.”
“But no one knows where Camp H is,” Breezer said. “And even if you did, there's no way—”
“There is a way.” Jack thought of Reaper, and the sense of fatherhood he'd sensed still within him. He had shunned Jack and sent him away to be hunted by Choppers, and yet Jack would as much give up on his father as he would his mother and sister, Emily.
He stood, and his friends stood with him. “We need to rest,” Jack said. Breezer nodded. But the air had chilled, and the silence that accompanied them back to their room was loaded.
“Are you crazy?” Jenna said. “He abandoned you, Jack. Sent you and us away, a ten-minute head start before he let the Choppers come after us again. He doesn't give a shit about you or us. And you want to go out there and find him again?”
Jack nodded.
“Maybe he'll just kill us next time,” Jenna said. “And do you think he'll be that easy to find?” She was standing by the closed door to the small office. Jack leaned in the corner, and Sparky had taken the only seat, plate balanced on his lap with the remains of another burger cooling on it.
“I think I can find him, yes,” Jack said. He breathed deeply, trying to open himself up and not fear anymore. And with the memory of Nomad's finger on his tongue came a rush of startling sensations. Seeds of potential sparked in his mind like stars being born to an empty universe. He let them shine, and chose one.
The ability was shocking and felt unreal, not his to own. And yet one look at Sparky set his friend sweating, gasping for air and loosening his collar. Sweat dribbled down his forehead and cheeks, and as his eyes drooped Jack pulled back, not wishing to make his friend faint.
Sparky spilled his burger to the floor. “That was you?”
“Yeah.” Jack closed his eyes and glimpsed his expanding universe. It was utterly terrifying, and exhilarating. Nomad's touch had been the big bang, and now his inner perception was shatteringly huge, filled with swirling clouds of light coalescing into points of potential. He could move in the blink of an eye, and from one moment to the next he would be orbiting one power, or another. He knew them, and knowing scared him. This was so new. Still chaotic. Dangerous.
“Well, I'm with Jack,” Sparky said.
Jenna looked frightened, uncertain.
“Don't be scared,” Jack said, moving towards her.
“I'm not,” she said, but she waved her hands at him, urging him back. “Well, I am, I am scared. But we're together. That's it, I suppose. We're together, and nothing comes between us. So if you think you can find him and get him to help, that's what we do.”
“Yeah!” Sparky said. “Friends forever! We should cut our thumbs and be blood brothers. And sister.”
“Oh, Sparky,” Jenna said, shaking her head.
They just smiled at each other instead.
I see a woman laughing in the face of a mushroom cloud. Lucy-Anne wished she could say this to Rook, and make him understand her confusion and desperation. But it was only a dream. And surely not all dreams could come true.