“Yes, Mr Childe.” The Dog lowered her virtual chin. “I resigned my commission because I became tired of pointless slaughter. Yet, if you recall the events of yesterday, you might remember I shot eleven men and women in Northfield in order to secure your escape. Violence doesn’t bother me when it’s done in defence. In fact, I’m rather good at it.”

As she spoke, Childe’s eyes were on her rather than me. I reached up and stiffened my fingers, shaping my hand like the blade of a trowel. Moving slowly, I pushed it between the ribs of his suit, beneath the inflatable cast, until the tips brushed the bandages covering his gunshot wound. At their touch, his head snapped around, mouth opening.

“What are you—?”

I jabbed with every scrap of strength I could muster, driving my nails into the muscles of his abdomen until I felt something give.

Childe yelled and threw me from him with a force that picked me from my feet and sent me flying back like a piece of windblown laundry. I rolled across the table and onto the floor, landing with a crash that left me gasping for breath.

Childe had his hand at his gut. Blood welled through the dressings and between the exoskeleton’s struts. My stabbing fingers had found their target, rupturing the sutures. His eyes were screwed tight and his free arm flailed blindly.

“What have you done?” he cried. “What have you done?”

Too winded to move, I lay beneath the table where I had fallen and watched him thrashing around, barging into chairs and tables.

After a minute or so, Alva Clay stepped into the room. She had a thick wrench gripped in her fist, and moved stealthily.

As she came within striking distance of her target, we exchanged a look.

Can I hit him now?

Go right ahead.

Ducking to avoid Childe’s flailing fists, she crept forward. Her arm wound back, ready to bring the heavy iron wrench down in a savage blow to the back of his head. But before she could unleash the strike, a gun fired twice—phut! phut!—and Ashton Childe crumpled to the floor in a tangle of limbs and carbon-fibre struts.

In the ensuing silence, we both turned to see Laura Petrushka in the doorway, a crutch under her left arm, a tiny ceramic pistol clasped in her right hand. She looked at the astonishment on our faces and shrugged.

“He was being a dick,” she said.

Clay stood over Childe’s slumped form. The wrench dangled from her fingers. “Is he dead?”

Laura Petrushka hobbled into the room and lowered herself onto one of the few chairs that remained upright. She held out the small pistol. “These are tranquiliser darts,” she explained.

“How long will he be asleep?”

“Three or four hours.” She tucked the gun back into the pocket of her dressing gown. “Depends how much other shit he has in his system.”