They weren’t going to farm Mrs Tiffen at all – they were trying to protect her. My legs suddenly felt so weak I had to sit on a handy chair. Logan had told me to forget all about Mrs Tiffen, and I, the naive fool that I was, drunk on good intentions, ignored him – and he died. Not at my hand, but certainly because of my intransigent stupidity. I closed my eyes and felt the heavy burden of guilt fall across my shoulders. I had a feeling it wouldn’t lift for a long time, if at all. The Gronk had been circling me for a while now. If Ned Farnesworth and Hooke were the starter and main, I was to be the dessert. Perhaps she’d spared me so I could discover my unworthiness all on my own, and self-season my soul with the tangy taste of guilt. Perhaps the Gronk took my finger to mark me out, like choosing lobsters in a tank. Perhaps that’s what Gronks do.

‘Was Logan going to kill me?’ I asked. ‘When he was walking me out of the John Edward Jones back in the fire valleys?’

Foulnap sat down next to me and laid a hand on my arm.

‘He would’ve explained it all to you on the train to Sector Twelve, and trusted you’d come across. No one who figures out HiberTech’s criminality ever stays long with the status quo. It was just our dumb luck that Aurora chanced along when she did.’

‘So Logan was RealSleep?’

‘More than that – he was Kiki.’

‘Shit.’

‘It’s annoying and tragic and a waste,’ said Foulnap once I’d digested this particular nugget, ‘but you don’t come out so bad in all of this – you were simply trying to do the right thing with an incomplete understanding of the situation.’

‘That’s very generous, but I should have listened to you both.’

‘Agreed,’ said Foulnap, ‘but perhaps we should have seen you for what you were earlier, and brought you into our confidence. We just don’t know who to trust.’

I ran my fingers through my hair. Sector Twelve had lived up to its reputation.

‘So,’ I said finally, ‘what would you have done with Mrs Tiffen if not farmed her?’

‘The more complex tricks they can do, the less complete the neural collapse, the easier it might be to effect a retrieval. We’ve not managed it yet, but it can be done.’

I asked him how he knew and he showed me his left thumb, or rather, he didn’t show me his thumb – it was missing.