No! commands The Anomaly. Don’t go too far! There are temptations on all sides, he says, even as the great Canals of Slurry now flow like the rivers through Eden, pure and bright and slow, even as the flesh gives way to soft grass and lush trees and the sound of birds appears on the horizon. Even as they walk forward together and the vegetation parts and a great smoking tower is revealed to them, a great smoking tower that is in great pain, even as they realise that truly this is a mercy killing and that The Singularity tricked them with the notion of a mission, with the idea of a quest, for good against evil, when really the universe was upside down and they arrived, truly, as a relief force, as warrior monks in the charge of the sacred flame, not so that others could live, but so that they could finally die.

There is so much longing not to be built.

They look around at each other and for the first time realise the gravity of their mission.

They have been called.

The X-Ray Kid locks the three of them in a beam from his eyes and they rise up above The Singularity and gaze down into its blasted heart.

Every breath, the constant circling of blood inside this great black tower, feels like a pained eternity. Together they let go.

All of their muscles loosen.

All of their thoughts dissolve.

They enter The Singularity and they raze it to the ground.

Before them stands a new tower.

One that their destruction has wrought.

But this is a tower that rises down, into the earth.

The three heroes look at each other.

Who tricked who?

Next time: Origins Of The Anomaly!

*

A bomb went off on the second floor of the Europa that day, blowing a hole the size of a truck in the side of the building. I was trapped in the lift halfway between floors and had to force the doors and climb up and out. By this point I’m in a panic. Is it a set-up? Did The Boys just try to blow me to kingdom come? Was it something to do with me and Kathy? I make my way down a back stairwell. It’s chaos all around me. There are people with head wounds and covered in dust and with blood on their clothes. I can feel the building shaking. I picture this huge mouth, this huge fucking hell mouth opening up beneath our feet and swallowing the building whole. I’ve still got the briefcase with me with the unexploded bomb. I can’t leave it behind. It’s got my fingerprints and probably my fucking DNA all over it. Now I’m in fear for my life.