‘Then you’re safe from infection,’ Casey continued. ‘But you need to keep a serious fucking distance from the bee-brains in case they attack you. See this?’

I leaned forward, watching as he moved his finger along the zigzagging lines joining the target circles to each other. ‘These are safe routes in and out of the city,’ he explained, ‘meaning there’s a low probability of running into trouble so long as we all stick to them.’ He looked around the others. ‘Me and Nadia are taking charge of a team each. Jerry, Oskar, you’re going for the labs with Nadia. Myself, Haden and Winnie are heading for the office complex.’

Nadia stepped around the table and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Stop looking so goddam worried. This is a low-risk operation. We’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how things work on this alternate. We’ll have remote drones in the air the whole time we’re out there.’

‘Here,’ said Casey, handing a copy of the map to Nadia. He next picked up a thick envelope and handed it to Oskar. ‘Everyone check your weapons and gear, and get ready to move out in ten. Jerry, grab a rifle from the supplies tent.’

All this, I thought, just to retrieve what I imagined would amount to little more than some paper files and computer disks.

I stepped past the drone-charging station and pulled a rifle from a rack inside the supplies tent. I slung it over my shoulder by its strap, then followed Nadia and Oskar over to the second SUV, with Lucky darting ahead of us. I made sure to get in to the front passenger seat this time and felt the undercarriage sway slightly as the enormous hound climbed in the rear. It hung its massive head over my shoulder in exactly the way I’d worried it might, hitting me with a full blast of its sickly sweet breath.

Suddenly the dog whined and jumped back out again. Oskar tried to coax her back in, but to no avail. In the end he had no choice but to grab hold of the dog and literally lift her back inside the car, no mean feat given that the animal was nearly the same size as its owner. Nadia, clearly amused, watched Oskar struggle in the rear-view mirror.

‘What the hell is wrong with that animal?’ I grumbled, as Oskar climbed in next to the dog, pulling the door shut before it could stage another escape attempt.

‘Beats me,’ said Oskar, stroking Lucky’s thick fur in an attempt to calm her down. ‘She doesn’t normally get like this.’ He frowned at me. ‘She ain’t gonna bite you, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘I’m not crazy about dogs,’ I admitted.

‘As long as you’re not anything like Wallace Deans,’ Oskar replied, ‘you’ll get along just fine.’

‘What did Wallace do?’ I asked.