This felt very much like the final confrontation, and though they were all there and Miller was exposed, Jack was certain that somehow they no longer had the advantage.
Reaper turned to Jack and Breezer and said, “You two and me. Seems appropriate.” He walked towards Miller, and Jack and Breezer went with him. They were representatives of their alliance—Irregular, Superior, and Jack from outside. As they closed on Miller, Jack knew he had to speak first.
“The New are united against you and everything you've done. And you've lost, Miller.”
In the doorway before them, Miller laughed again. This close he was grotesque, only part of a man. Yet his laughter was heartfelt, and Jack thought perhaps he wasn't yet mad.
“You've lost, Jack,” he said. “All of you were lost, from the moment Doomsday ended and we took control of London. We've been letting your father and his cronies have their fun since then, but your end was inevitable. You just didn't know it.”
“Shut up,” Reaper said. “Shade?” Shade appeared behind Miller and pressed a knife across his throat. Miller tensed and grew quiet, but the laughter did not leave his eyes.
Jack should have waited. There might have been guards hiding in there with machine guns at the ready, or traps designed to gut the unwary. But he could not wait, not after all this time. He grabbed Miller's wheelchair and used it to haul himself up into the container, pushed past Shade, and entered the shadowy interior.
After seeing inside the other place he'd expected something high-tech. What he saw was the exact opposite. Inside the first container was a rough seating area, with chairs around the edges, a few camping tables scattered with polystyrene cups and food wrappers, and a gun rack on one wall. At the far end were several camp beds, with a curtained area that might have been a toilet. The floor was messed with sawdust and lined with tracks from Miller's wheelchair.
Two Choppers stood facing Jack, guns in their hands. He reached for the pistol in his belt and drew it slowly, keeping a careful watch on their faces, eyes, hands. But they looked terrified. If they move I'll just flip, he thought, or shout, or I'll melt their gun barrels before they can even shoot.
As the pistol left his belt, the two Choppers dropped their guns and edged around him towards the door.
“Get out,” Jack said. They scampered away, and he watched Shade kick them out past Miller's wheelchair.
A heavy curtain hid a doorway into the middle container. He grabbed it and pulled it aside, hooks squealing on the metal curtain pole to reveal a poorly lit area with heavy cages stacked on either side. They resembled large dog crates, and were fixed in place by roughly welded metal bars.
The cages held people.
“Mum!” Jack called. “Emily!”
There was movement in the shadows as the prisoners stirred, trying to stretch limbs against their confinement. The place stank of human waste, unwashed bodies, gone-off food. Hopelessness. Jack's eyes watered from the smell, and from tears of rage.
“Emily! Mum!”
“Jack,” a weak, quiet voice said, and Jack's heart broke. His little sister, Emily, locked away like an animal, filthy, weak, terrified, and hopeless, he dashed to her cage and knelt so that they could touch each other's fingers through the grille.
“Oh, Emily,” he said through his tears.
“Son?”
“Mum!” He looked behind him at one of the cages stacked higher, and his mother was there. She looked strong, and proud. “I came for you,” he said. “All of you.” Everyone was stirring now, and he guessed there were a dozen people locked away in there. He didn't understand how they could exist in such conditions, but he was here to set them free, now. And on the way out, he would see Miller.
He gripped the gun tighter in his hand. Then he shoved it in his belt and tried to rationalise his anger. Murder was not in his nature.