She got on her bicycle and set off, and I realized she’d forgotten about Nadia’s bike. I wheeled it inside and glanced at my predecessor’s diary, still sitting where I had left it on my living-room table, as yet untouched.

Something still held me back from opening it. Every time I thought about reading the rest of its contents, I found myself torn between unquenchable curiosity and overwhelming terror. I knew I would read it – eventually – but not yet.

Not yet. But eventually. That was one promise to myself I wasn’t going to break.

Later that morning, I was back at the hangar, and considerably the worse for wear for lack of sleep. Dom was gone, replaced by another technician, and some other soldier had been posted to stand guard next to the hangar entrance.

‘Hey,’ Yuichi called to me from on top of a stage, tapping at his wrist when he saw me enter. ‘You’re making a habit of being late. The others already transferred across – we’ve been waiting for you.’

I yawned and made a dismissive gesture. ‘Frankly, fuck them. All I care about is that wherever we’re going, there’s coffee.’

‘Hah.’ Yuichi shook his head. ‘Unlikely.’

This time, we were tourist herding.

Not that Schultner had used that term during my most recent briefing, after apologizing for the screw-up that sent me unprepared into a new alternate. Instead, he said, we would be escorting a ‘special investigations and assessment team’ to an alternate in the hours immediately before it suffered an extinction event. I was also warned not to interact with the members of this team unless addressed directly by them.

When I next spoke to Yuichi and relayed what Schultner had said, he laughed and told me ‘tourist herding’ was a lot closer to the mark. In his experience, these ‘special investigations and assessment teams’ always turned out to be gaggles of VIPs from the Authority’s home alternate, on what was essentially a sightseeing trip. Or touring the apocalypse, he said with a sneer.

I walked up the ramp to join Yuichi on the stage. Below, the rig tech punched at his keyboard until the air began to shimmer and twist around us.

‘I can’t imagine anyone wanting to visit some of these places for kicks,’ I said, as the shimmer grew.

‘Hey,’ Yuichi shouted down at the rig tech just before the hangar faded from view. ‘Which part of this alternate are we going, exactly?’

‘Philadelphia,’ the man shouted back, and then he was gone, in a blizzard of energy.