They passed over a green square with several bombed-out buildings marring its northern side. Jack wondered at their story. Shapes moved across the square's overgrown lawns, pale faces looking up, and he tried to make out what they were wearing—royal blue Choppers, or the more rag-tag clothing of London's survivors—but they passed overhead too quickly. If there were voices or gunshots, the wind swallowed them.
Jack closed his eyes and tried to sense back the way they had come, but he could not grasp any power that enabled him to do so. The potential within him was staggering, but much of his fear came from his erratic ability to source it at will.
“We're flying!” Sparky shouted. He let his natural exuberance loose, whooping and shouting, but always maintaining gentle control.
Jack could not help grinning. Ask nine out of ten people what their secret power would be, and they'd say flying. He'd not yet seen or heard of anyone in London who could do this unaided—and he doubted he ever would, because Evolve seemed to have worked more on minds than on bodies—but this was as near as it could be. They were flying, and for the first time since entering London through tunnels and sewers, Jack felt completely free.
And yet…
He looked down at the roofs and streets passing below, and the parks and squares, abandoned vehicles, gardens, storage units, and factories, and then the River Thames…and all the while he felt watched.
But these were not Nomad's eyes.
“Let's put it down!” Jack shouted.
“Er…” Sparky said. “Right. Yeah. Down.”
Jenna kept her eyes squeezed shut and maintained the same position, and Jack thought it best to leave her until they had landed.
He scanned ahead and below them, trying to spot a safe landing site, trying also not to think about their combined weight this thing was not meant to carry and the impact they might suffer on striking the ground.
As if responding to his doubts the hang glider dropped suddenly, Jack's stomach turning, Sparky shouting, and from his right Jack heard Jenna's low, pained groan.
Sparky fought with the controls, tongue sticking from the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on steering them away from the face of a department store, then edging them to the left again as a tall aerial loomed atop an office building. The aerial slapped the aircraft a foot from Jack's leg, smashing a strut into fibreglass shards. They lurched, then started banking to the left.
“Going down on the road,” Sparky shouted.
“Watch out for the bus!”
Sparky did not reply, too busy concentrating. Jack held on tight. He had brief visions of the wheels disintegrating, the aircraft coming apart, and the three of them rolling and scraping across the tarmac, slamming against vehicles or buildings, their broken, dead bodies eventually rotting where they came to rest. He did not believe they were destined for such a pointless ending, and yet he was only too aware of the vagaries of fate.
The wheels struck the ground and they bounced, twisting to the left, striking again, and during the second bounce Sparky twisted them to the right, ensuring that the next impact took them past a bus slewed across the road. The front wheel struck the kerb, but by then their speed had drastically lessened.
Jack let himself roll ahead of the hang glider. As he came to rest on the pavement he took a moment's pause, looking up at the clear blue sky and enjoying the brief silence.
“Thank you for flying Sparky Airways,” Sparky said. “Please ensure you have all your belongings. Apologies for the bumpy landing. I can confirm that the pilot shit himself.”
Jack sat up and grinned at his friend. Sparky smiled back, then shrugged as if it was nothing.
“All in a day's work, eh?” Jack asked.
Jenna was slowly releasing the strut and unwinding the strap from around her arm. She wiped absently at where it had chaffed her skin raw, smearing blood, then stood on the solid ground. Her knees bent a little, and when she reached out for balance Sparky grabbed her hand. She nodded, stood upright, and looked around, as if only just waking from a deep sleep.
“Jenna?” Sparky asked.