His world stopped. He sat down with a bump. Yes, he was armoured, but at this close range . . . Disjointed thoughts rattled around his mind. Of Mikey, and the way her hair stood in a golden halo around her head. His hopes, his dreams, his plans . . . The ones he’d shared with no one. The ones that only lived inside his own head. The ones he always kept to himself because, even now, even after all this time, you didn’t tell people the important stuff. You didn’t show emotion. You didn’t engage. You were never vulnerable . . . Not that it mattered, because they would all come to nothing now. Life would go on – Mikey would go on – the world would go on – but without him . . .

Away to his left, someone fired a sonic. He felt the painful rumble in his chest, but the blast wasn’t pointed directly at him and the small, residual kick of the shock wave was enough to snap him out of his trance. With nothing to lose, he threw himself at the gun.

He’d once heard his mother say, ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer still – the same applies with guns. You either want to be fifty miles away or the one who’s safely behind it.’ So he lunged for it. He remembered his training. Go for the weapon, not the man. If he could just hold on until someone else turned up. His momentum rolled the two of them down the rocky hillside. Sharp rocks dug painfully into his unprotected limbs.

Someone was panting hard in his ear. Hot, wet breath. He was dimly aware of blows to his head and back. Someone was kicking at him but that wasn’t important now. The single most vital thing in his life was to keep that gun pointing away from him. He could hear footsteps clattering across the rocks and voices shouting all around him.

A single shot rang out – loud in the night air. For a moment he thought it was him. That the gun had gone off and he was dead – and then something heavy fell across his legs.

With half the mountain falling down around them, someone had obviously realised sonics might not be the best way to go. He could hear the hiss and smell the burned-rubber smell of more liquid string. Thick yellow tendrils enveloped the illegal’s arms. And part of Matthew as well.

Someone – Anders – said, ‘I’ve got him, lad. Out of the way, now.’

Matthew shoved the body off his legs, rolled away, yanked at the strings before they could harden and, panting, struggled to sit up and see what was happening.

Anders had the three illegals face down in the dust and was cuffing and stuffing as per official Time Police procedures. And, at the same time, aiming the occasional kick at them, as per unofficial Time Police procedures.