‘Christ,’ muttered Nadia. ‘Last thing we need is yet more problems.’

‘Problems?’ I asked. ‘Why do you people never talk about anything but things going wrong?’

Nadia pursed her lips and didn’t answer, which worried me even more.

Just past its apex, the elevated motorway was level with the upper floors of a multi-storey car park. Once we were past the blockade, I saw with a start that the building was crowded with thousands of figures milling around within.

I craned my neck to get a better look as we accelerated away from the barricade, seeing a mob of several dozen bee-brains working together to roll a single, huge lump of concrete and steel off the edge of a parapet. A car followed just moments later from the next storey up, and I watched as the rusted wreck went tumbling out of sight. Then the building was gone, lost in the distance behind us.

Nadia guided us towards an off-ramp leading down to the city on the far side of the river. I caught sight of hundreds more bee-brains forming a long, twisting column that wound through streets and across intersections. It looked as if its point of origin was the nearby Hive.

I felt sickened but also awed by everything I had so far witnessed. I trembled at the thought of all those people – former people, at any rate – crammed together inside that vast structure. I fought back a horrible image of being carried, kicking and screaming, deep within the Hive’s vast maw . . .

I pressed one hand against the dashboard in front of me, tasting sour bile at the back of my throat. My heart thudded spasmodically inside my chest.

‘You okay?’ asked Nadia.

‘I’m fine.’

She gave me a look as if she knew exactly what was going through my mind.

‘I think we should take a vote,’ she said suddenly. ‘We’re out of touch with the other team and we got unexpected attention from the locals. Do we keep going or not?’

‘Turn back,’ said Oskar without hesitation. ‘I’ve been having a bad feeling about this trip right from the start.’

‘Is that what you want to do?’ I asked Nadia. ‘Turn back?’

‘I’m just saying that having your communications conk out on you is far from being a good thing. And I’ve never seen or heard of the bee-brains reacting like they just did.’

‘I thought there was a risk of attack if we got too close to them. Wouldn’t that explain it?’

‘We weren’t close enough to trigger a reaction,’ she said, looking at me. ‘At least, not based on previous experience.’

‘Maybe it should be your decision,’ I said. ‘You’re in charge, right?’

She nodded. ‘I am. But that doesn’t mean neither of you get a say in the matter. We’re a democracy in here.’

‘You still have the aerial reconnaissance?’ I asked, meaning the drones.