The crowd had begun to realize the roof might be dangerous. Thinned out. Just a few left. A woman in her fifties dressed in a bathrobe, arms wrapped tightly round herself. A couple in their twenties who had never, Finch realized, known anything but war or the Rising. Three old men in their best clothes, watching solemnly.

Better for most to hunker down in their apartments and not see the end coming. Or go out onto the streets in one last gasp of defiance. Against what?

The towers continued to pound the Spit. A white smoke had overtaken the black smoke. It looked now like the thick green spheres slamming into the Spit were dissolving into a cloud bank or a thick mist.

“I have something for you,” the Photographer said. Put the pouch in Finch’s hand. “It looks just like a memory bulb, but it isn’t. Keep it with you at all times.”

Finch stared at the pouch. Stared at the Photographer. Taken completely by surprise.

The Photographer said, “If you aren’t caught, you’ll need it for your mission. If you are caught, take a bite. Just one bite.”

“And then what?”

The Photographer’s face was as blank as the side of a wall. “There will be nothing left of you. Nothing they could trace. Nothing they could read.”

Nothing left. No pain. No concealment. Nothing.

“We’re changing, too, Finch. There’s no one under my command who hasn’t been altered in some way. The question is how much you change. Change too much and you’re no different from Shriek, no different from a gray cap. And then even if we win, we lose.”

Instinctively tried to give it back to the Photographer. The man stepped away, hands shoved in his jacket pockets.

“Don’t talk about this in your apartment,” the Photographer said, as if nothing had happened. “Don’t write down anything while in your apartment.”

“Why not?”

“The message last night left intruders. We can’t run interference on them without leaving a trail.”

Didn’t even bother to examine that, turn it over in his mind. Just one more intrusion in a life littered with them. No anger left to shed.

The Photographer continued: “Later today someone else will approach you with the rest of what you need.”

Assuming I’ll do it. But standing there, pouch in hand, it seemed impossible he wouldn’t do it. The only way out. To take control of the case before it imploded. Let it not be a case anymore. Let it be something else.

“I always thought it would be the madman out front,” Finch said.

A thin smile from the Photographer. “He’s just a madman.”

“Do I need to stay here?”

“Follow your usual routine. You’ll be followed. We’ll know where you are no matter where you go.”

After a pause: “Does Rathven know?”

“No,” the Photographer said.