Clarke caught a glimpse of muscles bunching in Lubin's left leg, of a sudden sodden pulse of fresh blood coursing down his right. Suddenly he was airborne, hurtling through the field and overtop the barrier from an impossible standing start. He rammed into Desjardins like an avalanche, pure inertia; they toppled out of sight behind the console, to the sound of bodies and plastic in collision.

A moment's silence.

She lay there, tingling and paralyzed, and wondered who to root for. If Lubin's momentum hadn't carried him completely through the field he'd be dying now, with no one to pull him to safety. Even if he'd made it across, he'd still be helpless for a while. Desjardins might have a chance, if the collision hadn't stunned him.

Achilles, you murderer. You psychopath, you genocidal maniac. You foul vicious monster. You're worse than I am. There's no hell deep enough for you.

Get out of there. Please. Before he kills you.

Something gurgled. Clarke heard the faint scratching of fingernails on plastic or metal. A meaty thud, like someone slinging a dead fish against the deck—or the flopping of a limb, stunned in transit, struggling back to life. A brief scuffling sound.

Ken. Don't do it.

She gathered all her strength into a single, desperate cry: "No." It came out barely whispered.

On the far side of the barricade, a wet snapping pop. Then nothing at all.

Oh God, Ken. Don't you know what you've done?

Of course you know. You've always known. We could've saved it, we could have made things right, but they were right about you. Pat was right. Alyx was right. You monster. You monster. You wasted it all.

God damn you.

She stared up at the ceiling, tears leaking around her eyecaps, and waited for the world to end.

She could almost move again, if only she could think of a reason to. She rolled onto her side. He sat cross-legged on the floor beside her, his bloody face impenetrable. He looked like some carved and primitive idol, awash in human sacrifice.

"How long?" she rasped.

"Long?"

"Or has it started already? Are the claves on fire? Are the bombs falling? Is it enough for you, are you fucking hard yet?"

"Oh. That." Lubin shrugged. "He was bluffing."

"What?" She struggled up on her elbows. "But—the tripwires, the kill-switches—he showed you..."

"Props."

"You saw through them?"

"No. They were quite convincing."

"Then how—"

"It didn't make sense that he'd do it."

"Ken, he destroyed Atlant—" A sudden, impossible ray of hope: "Unless that was a bluff too?..."

"No," Lubin said quietly.

She sank back. Let me wake up from this, she prayed.