Soon, she saw the girl. Purple-haired, strong, angry, confused, she was accompanied by a boy and his birds. They were heading north, searching for her brother, whom Nomad could have found if she so desired. But she did not yet wish that. She had come to learn that leaving matters to fate might sometimes steer the world.
She watched them from the shadow of a doorway, and when the girl saw her watching she froze, scared and confused.
And Nomad gasped.
She had seen this girl in dreadful dreams she did her best to forget.
The girl ran at her and Nomad quickly melted away, fleeing through buildings and across roads, down alleys and up staircases. Behind her, she sensed the girl's confusion.
Nomad sat on a rooftop and looked out over London, the toxic city so filled with potential. For the first time ever in her new life, she was afraid.
As the Jeep slewed across the road and mounted the pavement, Jack grabbed Sparky's and Jenna's arms and pulled them backwards, just waiting for the next burst of gunfire.
Brakes squealed as the other two vehicles skidded to a halt. Someone shouted. Someone else screamed.
Jenna tripped and went down. Jack could have let her go, but he chose to hold on and fall with her. Sparky stood beside them, Jenna's knife suddenly in his hand.
The Jeep struck a building at the corner of the crossroads, and Jack cringed as he saw someone thrown through the already-shattered windscreen, blood spattering behind them. They slid across the crumpled bonnet and came to rest against the wall, motionless.
“Too late to run,” Jack said. Something passed across his field of vision and he blinked rapidly.
The crashed Jeep's rear doors opened and three Choppers jumped out, guns at the ready, eyes wide and alert.
Jack searched inside. He delved into that sparkling constellation of potential Nomad had seeded within him, looking desperately for something that might help them. He grasped one idea he had used already and made the weapons hot, but the Choppers wore heavy gloves. He threw an image at one of them that they were breathing insects. Perhaps it was the Choppers’ fear, or his own panic, but it was ineffective.
As Jack stood and helped Jenna to her feet, the three Choppers rushed forward and aimed their guns.
“Don't move!” one of them said, his voice incredibly high. There was blood splashed on his face.
“Just shoot them!” a second soldier said. Her head flipped back and her throat opened from ear to ear, her only scream a bubbling cry.
“Stop it!” the first soldier said. His gun was shaking as he aimed at Sparky, his comrade bleeding out on the ground beside him.
Something moved again. A blur, a smudge on reality. Jack blinked.
The soldier's gun vanished from his hands and then appeared again, barrel pressed against his forehead, held by a tall, stocky woman in a short dress.
“Where the hell did she come from?” Jenna asked.
“Out of thin air,” Sparky said. “Let's hope she's on our side, eh?”
“Drop it!” the woman said, but the third soldier spun, bringing his own weapon to bear on the newly arrived woman.
She grinned, flitted out of view again, and the third soldier's head snapped back before the gunshot even sounded.
“Shit,” Jenna said, turning away.
The other two Jeeps’ doors sprung open and Choppers emerged, a dozen of them fanning out around their vehicles and quickly closing on the scene of slaughter.
“Shift!” Sparky said needlessly, and he grabbed Jenna's hand as the three of them darted for cover.
But Jack was watching, trying to perceive what was happening, and at the same time a particular star began to shine in his mind's eye. There she is, he thought, flooded with certainty that he would be able to follow the woman in the dress.
The last survivor from the crashed Jeep was pulling his sidearm, eyes on Jack, hatred on his face.
The woman had not reappeared, but from behind the vehicle came a startled cry, and then several guns started firing at once.
Sparky and Jenna reached a shop doorway and slid across the pavement until they were protected from the field of fire.