Lucy-Anne's brother was a warm point in her mind; a collection of senses and echoes, a smear of colour, a splash of light. She was already closing in on him, and knew that he would be easy to find. Of course. She was Nomad.
As she moved, it began to feel like something fundamental about her had changed. In the girl, she had encountered something she did not understand, a talent she could not ascribe to the Evolve she had released across London. I went to kill her and came away her friend, Nomad thought. Though inexplicable, that was something that pleased her. But the change seemed deeper, and she extended her awareness to analyse it.
All around, the monsters moved. She saw them and felt them, and sensed how troubled they had suddenly become. What's this? she thought. She passed a gathering of shadows hiding beneath a copse of trees, and though they watched her, she was not the cause of their turmoil. There was something else, deeper.
They are not such monsters, she thought. And it came as a shock. Something else she had learned today, another surprise, and Nomad felt suddenly more human than she had for some time. There were things she did not know. Assumptions she had made. She slowed her run and spread her perception, and beneath the wild veneer she discovered a world of complexity and intelligence surrounding her, and echoes of continuing agony at the radical changes that were still taking place. Not such monsters at all.
She wanted to stop and examine. Their minds were suddenly deep and expansive, their thoughts and aims open to view, as if she had broken through the crust of their monstrousness to discover endless potential beneath.
Even Nomad, it seemed, was guilty of preconception.
But she did not have the time. Their true natures were open to her because something troubled them deeply, and their defences—that crust of camouflage—were down. They ebbed and flowed across the Heath, and she passed through the tides of their discontent, closing on the sharp image of the girl's brother. He suddenly seemed so very important, and this all felt connected.
“Everything is changing,” Nomad said. Something called out loud in agreement. Another voice added a growl. She saw the source of neither, and did not seek them out.
Soon, Andrew was close. She closed on a dilapidated folly tower on top of a gentle rise, and though the door had been bricked up decades ago, she knew that he was inside.
“Andrew,” she said, standing at the foot of the tower.
Andrew emerged from the folly. He stepped through the solid stone blocks filling the doorway and dropped gently to the ground.
“You're dead,” she said, wondering how this could be. Nomad had been a scientist, and she had never believed in ghosts.
“No,” he said. “I dreamed that I would never die. Who are you?”
“So you're a ghost. I'm Nomad.”
“I've heard of you. And I don't think there's a name for what I am. My dream keeps me alive, and everything I was, apart from my body, persists here.”
“Where is that body?”
“Gone.”
“Lucy-Anne looks for you.”
He glanced away.
“She thinks you're still alive. She says you're all she has left. Your parents are dead.”
Andrew blinked at something out of sight.
“You should come with me. Talk to her.”
He looked back at her, faded eyes flickering, but remained silent.
Nomad sighed, deciding to change tack. “What were you doing in there?”
“Hiding. Why aren't you hiding too?”
“Why should I hide?”
“Because the end is close.” He walked down closer to her, and she could almost see through him. “Surely you of all people can feel it?” he asked.
“Tell me, Andrew.”
“If you promise not to tell her about me,” he said. “I don't want her to know me like this. Lucy-Anne. Lucy-Anne.” He seemed sad as he tried her name, perhaps for the first time in years.
“I promise,” Nomad said. “Though perhaps she will dream the truth from me.”
He pointed down at a fallen stone across the hillside. “I crawled there. Among my remains you'll find…something to give her. My sweet sister.”
Then he closed his eyes and told her the terrible truth.