‘Goddammit, Jerry,’ he shouted. ‘Don’t you understand that the Authority don’t give a shit about any of us? And yet here you are, treating me like I’m the bad guy here. What the hell would you have done?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted, and glanced towards the cage. ‘One thing I’m sure of, though, is that if you go ahead with this, you’re putting all of our lives in jeopardy, yours included.’

‘How the hell do you figure that out?’

‘What’s left if you wipe out the Authority? Nothing but that island, and nowhere to go from there but a bunch of extinct alternates.’

‘But at least we’ll be free,’ Casey replied with unexpected fervour, ‘instead of being worked until we drop, or something kills us on some under-equipped mission. We’re little better than slaves, except you’re all so fucking grateful for your chains.’

‘Why are you filming all this, Casey? So you can justify yourself to the rest of them?’

His expression soured, and I knew I had guessed right. ‘Here’s another question right back at you. Why is it that the Authority are so hell-bent on getting us to recover the kind of information or weapons that could be used to destroy whole worlds? Like those damn bee-brains. Didn’t you ever wonder what possible reason they could have, even to come to this goddam alternate?’

‘Fine,’ I admitted after a moment. ‘I don’t know. I wish I did.’

‘Yeah. Ever notice there’s a lot you don’t know?’ he growled. ‘Maybe you should ask him,’ and he nodded towards the cage.

I frowned, watching as he lifted the camera from its tripod and carried it towards the cage, pressing its lens close up against the bars, aiming it at the figure within, still obscured by the thousands of bees crawling all over it.

‘C’mon, Jerry,’ Casey chided me. ‘Don’t you recognize who it is? Get a little closer. Take a look.’

I stared at him, terrified of what he might be planning to do. Moving cautiously, I pushed myself up onto my knees and shuffled a few inches closer to the cage, my bound hands before me.

Casey gave the bars of the cage a good hard kick, and I saw the figure within flinch, then sit up. Its head twisted from side to side, coming closer to the glass, and I finally got a good look at who it was.

Greenbrooke.

‘What did you . . . how . . .’ I stammered.

‘I kidnapped him, I think is the word you’re looking for,’ said Casey, stepping back over to the tripod and replacing the camera on its mount.

I remembered seeing all those Patriot agents, roaming the island, and how I had assumed they were looking only for Casey’s hidden transfer stage. Maybe, I thought, they hadn’t just been looking for the stage. Maybe they’d been trying to find Greenbrooke as well.