"You gotta love the symmetry," a voice remarked from somewhere on the other side of the universe. "The ultimate victim, you know? The ultimate victim, and the most powerful woman in the world all rolled into one tight little bod. And I, well, I'm the last word in one or two things myself..."

She couldn't feel a heartbeat. Darkness roared up from somewhere deep in her skull, swept swirling across her eyes.

"It's fucking mythic is what it is," the voice continued, distant and barely audible. "We just had to get together..."

She didn't know what he was talking about. She didn't care. There was nothing in her world but noise and chaos, nothing in her head but commit commit commit commit.

They don't even know they're dead, she thought. The torpedoes haven't reached Atlantis yet. They're living the last few minutes of their lives and they don't even know it.

They'll live longer than me...

A hand around her ankle; friction against the floor.

Bye, Jelaine. Bye Avril. Bye Dale and Abra and Hannuk...

A great gulping wheeze, very close. The sensation of distant flesh expanding.

Bye Kevin. Bye Grace. Sorry we could never work it out...

A pulse. She had a pulse.

Bye Jerry. Bye Pat. Bye again...

There were voices. There was light, somewhere. Everywhere.

Bye, Alyx. Oh God, I'm so sorry. Alyx.

"...bye, world."

But that voice had come from outside her head.

She opened her eyes.

"You know I'm serious," Desjardins was saying.

Somehow Ken Lubin was still on his feet, listing to port. He stood just beyond the pool of light. Achilles Desjardins stood within it. They confronted each other from opposite sides of a waist-high workstation.

Lubin must have pulled her out of the neuroinduction field. He'd saved her life again. Not bad for a blind psychopath. Now he stood staring sightlessly into the face of his enemy, his hand extended. Probably feeling out the edge of the field.

"Dedicated little bitch, I have to admit," Desjardins said. "Willing to sacrifice a handful of people she actually knows for a planetful of people she doesn't. I thought she was way too human to be so rational." He shook his head. "But the whole point is kind of lost if the world blows up anyway, no? I mean, all those runaways on the Ridge are about to die in—oh, sorry, who've just died—and for what? The only thing that'll give their deaths any meaning at all is if you turn around and walk away."

They're gone, Clarke thought. I killed them all...