“I dreamed myself not dead for you, sis,” he said. “And I've done everything I stayed behind to do. It's down to you now. Survive. Do incredible things with your life. Be amazing. I know you will be.”
“Andrew?” she whispered, sad, resigned.
“Though I won't be there to see, think of me sometimes, won't you?”
Lucy-Anne nodded because she could not say anymore.
“Hey, er…” Sparky held out his hand, then lowered it again.
“Thanks,” Jenna said. “You'll be…?”
“Okay?” Andrew asked, smiling. “I'm already okay. No bomb can touch me.” He turned back to Lucy-Anne. “I'll wait here for a while longer, just to watch you go.” He drifted away from them, pausing beside a tumbled wall and becoming a part of the night.
With one last smile, Lucy-Anne turned her back on her dead brother and led the way.
Jack felt sad at Fleeter's death. He hadn't grown to actually like her, but she'd been interesting, and in her own selfish way she'd helped them more than once. He thought that deep down past the surface arrogance there had still been a little lost girl. He wished he'd asked her name.
They'd left her covered with a jacket, just another corpse in the mausoleum of London.
He was also mourning his lost father, a period of renewed grief that had lasted for two years. And he felt terrible about leaving his dear friends. But thinking too much about them might undo him, and jeopardise everything he was trying to do. He had a plan and he was determined to see it through, because if he did not then it would have all been for nothing. The pain, the suffering and death. He could not let that happen.
He would not.
So he did his best to leave that Jack of grief and sadness behind, and the one who approached the museum was a new, simpler Jack. A young man with a mission, shorn of thoughts that might distract. He had become a memory with a purpose.
The scenario awaiting them was strange and troubling, but he tried not to waste too much time to wonder. The things surrounding the museum—frozen in the moment where they sat, lay, ran, flew, crawled—were amazing and terrifying. Jack walked quickly past them. The air was heavy and still, but sometimes he still caught a whiff of animal scents, unnatural and unknown.
“Hurry,” he said. Nomad had been falling behind, and he'd not wanted to risk a look back. He feared that acknowledging her slowness would give her the excuse to stop, and they had so much further to go.
“I…” Nomad said. “I think…coming from here, to help Lucy-Anne…I dug deep, used everything.”
Jack had to stop then, and he turned to confront Nomad. He was shocked at the change that had come over her. Still ethereal and mysterious, she was tainted now with smears of blood from her nose and the corners of her eyes. She looked lessened. The blood made her seem more human. “You're Nomad. You're the First Vector, Angelina Walker, the cause of all this!”
Nomad nodded without any sign of regret. “Yes. But I am…weaker.”
“Not now!” Jack said. “Come on. Come on, just a few more minutes, get me into—”
“You go,” she said. Her eyes changed then, seeming to glaze over with something darker. She staggered forwards, reaching for the museum's perimeter fence, but Jack caught her before she fell. “You go on. I can't stay like this. The illness…is in me as well. It has been for some time, but I've been denying it. Too late, Jack. But you're strong enough.”
“No!” Jack said. “I need your help. I'm not as strong as you think.” But he lied. Desperate, anxious to get inside, still he needed Nomad with him. But not only for her help. He needed her because he could not let her escape London. Not with what she had inside, that potential for contagion. He was ready to remain here to keep his own infection contained, so he could never let her go.
He checked the time, and wondered how accurate the timer on the bomb might be.