“Daddy?” Emily said.
“This is no place for you!” Reaper's voice did not rise in volume, but the side of the container behind them caved in, metal shrieking, rending.
“No,” Jack said. “Not like this. We've got a chance, here.”
“Against him and his like?” Reaper asked, nudging Miller.
“Peace is the only answer,” Jack said. “If we leave now, and you kill everyone here, what do you think happens next?”
“Big Bindy,” Reaper said. “But we'll find it and disable it. They'd have left themselves time to get all the Choppers out of London. We'll have a day, maybe more.”
“And if you can't disable it?”
“We will,” Reaper said. “London is ours. Our playground, and our home. It'll always be ours from now on, and him and his like…amusing distractions.”
“Distractions that will catch you and cut you up,” Jack said. “Like they did to Rosemary. And so many others. And they released the sickness, Dad. Are you sure it won't touch you? Your Superiors? Allow peace, and maybe they'll release the cure.”
“I've released nothing,” Miller said.
“But they're dying,” Jack said.
“So will you, boy. And everyone who uses their unnatural, unholy powers too much. Your brains can't handle it. Evolve is imperfect. The more you use your talents, the closer you take yourselves to death.”
“How can you know that?”
Miller smiled but did not reply.
“Because he's looked at a lot of brains,” Sparky said.
“And because he created Evolve!” Breezer said, amazed, and yet with a certainty assured by his own talent. “It was him! Angelina Walker released it, but it was always Miller's baby.”
“And they'd never let me test it. Not on humans, at least. Can't blame them.” He chuckled. “Dear Angelina and I talked about releasing it, but I never believed she'd go through with it. I wouldn't have. But then she did, and…” He smiled, because they knew the rest of the story.
“And London became your own ready-made lab,” Jack said.
“Finish him, Reaper,” Fleeter said.
“No.” Reaper looked up, and Jack saw the fire in his eyes. “I've only just begun with him.”
This was my greatest hope, Jack thought. And now it's going to explode. His mother and sister were with him, but his father had become a monster. The future hinged on this moment, and yet even though he had helped bring things this way, Jack realised he had never had any control. This was all Miller and Reaper, and the awful game they played—Miller experimenting; Reaper revelling.
“Let us go first, Dad,” Jack said, and in one last attempt, one final plea, he forced a memory into his father's head.
The four of them walk around a castle in North Wales. Emily is a toddler, singing her own song as she explores the nooks and crannies. Jack is not quite a teenager, and he's taking rubbings from some of the stone detail. His mother and father are holding hands. Jack has caught them kissing at least twice today, and he looks back frequently. They look so happy. It's starting to rain.
“Don't…do…that,” Reaper said, and all across the camp people shivered. That's it, Jack thought. That's all I can do.
“Mum,” Jack said, turning around. “We have to leave.”
His mother was looking at Reaper, and for a moment Jack saw a flash of love from his memory. But reality had hardened his mother. Whatever his naive hopes had been, she had always known the truth.
“Go with them,” he heard Reaper say. He glanced back, and Puppeteer and Fleeter were looking at Jack, waiting for him to leave. He was surprised, but he didn't express it. He didn't even thank his father.