Albert looked down at his toes, realization stabbing at him, spreading cold fear in its wake. So that was why the fat man had been so upset! He hadn’t taken umbrage at Albert’s activities—he’d been told to! He’d probably not even been aware of them, till he received the call from—from her! That he was easily the most inconsequential—not to mention unintelligent—of all the Department Heads was no secret. That was why he was there in the first place. That, and the fact that about two years ago, his predecessor, a man of similar mental and physical proportions, had fallen face-first into his third breakfast and not woken up again.

Bernadine Bosquanet, on the other hand, was a completely different kettle of fish. The oldest and easily the most visible figure of authority, she had a reputation for unflinching ruthlessness. And she had earned it. Frequently. Such was her aura that every Department Head deferred to her, acquiescing to her demands on matters she supposedly had no actual jurisdiction over. Her aura, and of course her army. The Heads might control their departments, at least officially, but it was Bosquanet who controlled the lawbots, and as a result, everything else, too. Her iron grip on the City was total, unquestionable. In fact, perhaps the only question ever asked about Bosquanet, apart from the usual morbid ones on how many hundreds of people she’d had deleted, was what would happen after her, since she had no heir. Albert sometimes secretly thought that that was what the other Heads were waiting for, the day Bosquanet was finally gone so the scramble for power could begin, but it was a dangerous thought, one he would never dare to voice. Anyway, to contemplate a time without her seemed ridiculous—unthinkable! The Keeper was the City. She may have rarely, if ever, appeared in public, but her image was everywhere, tall and skeletal, snow-white hair billowing around, gazing down with burning eyes on the people she watched over.

The room was not only cold, but suddenly very still too, as if the air regulator had stopped working.

‘How—how do you know this?’

I WAS MONITORING THE CONVERSATION.

‘What? What? And you didn’t tell—’

I HAD COMPUTED THE POSSIBILITY. HOWEVER, CONSIDERING THE EXTREMELY LOW PROBABILITY OF IT LEADING TO ANY ACTUAL ACTION AGAINST YOU, I THOUGHT IT BEST NOT TO PANIC YOU UNLESS YOU WERE IN IMMEDIATE DANGER.

‘It said danger, Mac! We gotta get outta here, pronto!’

‘Be quiet, Theo! Panic me? Of course it was going to panic me! You—’

He stopped, as what the machine had said sunk in.

‘What do you mean, immediate danger?’