They trooped from Camp H, collecting Jenna and the weak girl on the way. Sparky helped Jenna support the girl between them. Jack and Emily held hands. His mother and some of the released prisoners followed, and Breezer and his Irregulars followed on behind. Puppeteer hurried on ahead, seemingly keen to not walk with them, and Fleeter flipped out with a crack!
“So the New ends here,” Jack said to Breezer walking close by.
“Don't think it ever really began,” Breezer said. “Like I told you when we first met, your father's a monster.”
“The bomb?” Jack asked.
Breezer shook his head. “First I've heard of it. But he was speaking the truth.”
“So we have to get out,” Jack said. “All of us.”
“Reaper was right. There'll be time. I'll gather as many Irregulars as I can, but…”
“But they'll only let out the Choppers.”
“And the way we came in is known to them now,” Jack's mother said. “That's where they caught us. Us, and poor Rosemary. She fought so hard.”
“She saved my life,” Jenna said sadly.
“I can get us through,” Jack said.
Behind them, someone screamed.
“Let's go!” Sparky said. They all started to run, but Jack could not flee without seeing. He had to know. Had to see what games his father and Miller were really playing, and why such potential that the New had presented must be squandered. He stopped at the entrance to the route back through the storage park and turned to watch.
Using our talents kills us in the end, Jack thought. Miller could have very good reasons to lie about that—to make them all afraid of using their talents. But there was also a good chance it was true.
The bomb. The sickness. The end of Camp H. Everything was drawing to a close, and the only way he could salvage anything from the tragedy of Doomsday was to make the end a new beginning.
He watched as Shade and the others forced the Choppers together into a group before the larger of the two container units. The soldiers were plainly terrified, but the Superiors were unconcerned. They were smiling. Enjoying this.
Reaper moved from behind Miller and knelt again by the bound woman's side. He sat her up and allowed her to lean back against him, whispering to her, smiling when she nodded, stroking her matted hair. Puppeteer grimaced with concentration as he used his power to bend and break chains, and twist ropes until they frayed and snapped. In his chair, Miller looked like a shrunken old man now, head bowed, all the bluster gone from him. It was he who had screamed—blood coated the side of his head, and Jack thought perhaps his father had torn off an ear.
He's no longer my father. For the first time, Jack really meant that. His heart beat in fear at what he was about to see. He could close his eyes. He could leave. But everything he had been through already meant that it was important to bear witness.
Jack glanced back at the others—strangers, and people he loved. He raised a hand with two fingers up: two minutes. But he didn't think it would take that long.
The Superiors backed away from the group of twenty or more Choppers. Still propped against Reaper's side, the woman raised her newly released hands and pointed. The air around her head misted as she breathed out. The chains still gathered around her legs glimmered with frost.
One of the Choppers screamed, because she knew what was going to happen. And when she ran, she did not get far.
Even from where he watched, Jack felt the gush of cold air. It tickled his nose and burned his skin, and the woman who'd tried to run ground to a slow, painful halt. It was like watching a film of someone slowed down, and then…Freeze-frame.
Reaper smiled, then whispered, and the power of his voice shattered the frozen woman.
Other Choppers ran. The woman shouted. The luckiest made twenty paces before their flesh started to freeze, muscles cramping and then tearing at the sudden, impossible temperature change, blood coagulating, and every scrap of agony was visible on their stilled expressions. Several of them fell and broke apart as they struck the ground, and Jack could not help wondering whether they remained conscious of what was happening to them, just for a moment.