The remains of it.

Transformed into a couple of side walls. Smoldering blocks of stone. The kindle of shattered, crackling wood. A blackened hole near the back, expelling blacker smoke. A smell like kerosene. A smell like meat cooking.

A roiling mass of particles. Discharging light until a steady humming glow suffused the city in a kind of dawn. There came in reply from the city a hundredfold bestial roar.

Finch rushed to the edge of that broken space. Stopped short. Saw the scattered remains of bodies. A pant leg. A foot. A torso tattooed with dirt and blood. A pile of something he could not identify. Realized some of it came from the people Heretic had killed and left in the holding cell.

The tubes of the memory holes, torn and bleeding, glistened as they thrashed, whipping the ground back and forth. Others lay still and dusty in the rubble.

A couple of men Finch didn’t know staggered through the mess. Looking for survivors even though they were both bleeding. Both marked by fire. Searching like they might find something alive.

Finch took a step forward. Then another. Walked through the rubble, still holding his sword. Became aware of a dull, booming roar from deep inside the smoldering black hole in the back. Through the swirling whoosh of the rising smoke.

Became aware, too, of someone laughing from the wreckage of the wall to his left. The bricks still went up maybe twelve feet high, ending in a broken snarl. Sheltering the table with the typewriter, which stood as if indestructible. Beside it, slumped against the wall: Blakely, hurt in ways beyond a doctor’s care. But still alive.

Worse than war. Worse than stab wounds.

There would be no putting Blakely back together.

“The typewriter,” what was left of Blakely gasped, between laughs. “The typewriter. It’s still there. It’s still there.”

Finch knelt down beside him. The closer he got, the less he was forced to see what had happened to Blakely. Not a scratch on the man’s face. But Blakely’s eyes knew. Finch could see death in them.

“What happened, Blakely?”

“Albin,” Blakely said. “Albin happened.” Laughed again. “Blew it all to hell. Came by to talk, he said. Had explosives strapped to him. Stood by the curtain, said something I didn’t catch. Stepped inside. Blew himself apart. Threw me all the way across the room. Albin. Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Can you believe it? Can you—?”

Finch returned his gun to its holster. Blakely’s face matched his body now. No kinder mercy. The world getting smaller and smaller, even as it expanded.

Stood up shakily, feeling the shock in his legs. Waved to the men searching the rubble. “Get the hell out of here.”