They all knew who it was.

By now Victor’s program was ready. He wanted more time to test it but Iona argued they couldn’t afford to delay. The guard from her cell had made the key and it seemed likely that other citizens had made the same breakthrough or were close to it. When this happened Iona felt sure they would bring the key to Clarence.

Once the guard finished making the key, Saori and Iona took it off him and then disabled him by opening his hatch. Iona had watched the guard at work. It was grimly fascinating. He’d made the key with the nearest tools to hand—the component parts of one of his fellows. Having torn off the arm he had then cut it at the elbow, removed the citizen’s head, extracted parts of its brain, and attached them to the arm. The resultant severed forearm, with electronic components spliced into it, was the key. Iona believed she understood how it worked. She hoped so.

Victor’s program was entered into a fresh citizen, who was then released into the city. Citizen Zero. Saori left for King’s Tower, and Iona and Victor waited in their cell while Citizen Zero did its work.

* * *

The king’s lunch arrived, borne by one of his personal attendants. It struck him now that he should perhaps get someone else to taste it in case of poison but of course he couldn’t ask them to do that, it was a disgusting idea. He could never suggest sharing food. It would be like suggesting they both sit in the same room and go to the toilet.

When Saori barged into the king’s chambers while he was still eating, despite the attempted intervention of a guard, the king was furious and embarrassed. He spat the mouthful he was chewing into a corner of the room, then stood up and strode over to her.

“What do you want?” screamed the king. “Can’t you see I’m—” And he stopped, reluctant even to admit to having been eating.

“I have to speak to you,” Saori said.

“It can wait. This is outrageous.”

“Shut up! We don’t have long and this is more important than me walking in on you eating your fucking lunch.”

The king didn’t know how to react at all. Nobody spoke to him this way, not even—

“Where’s Clarence?” said Saori at the very moment the king was thinking about his cat.

“Eating, I guess?”

“He’s manipulating you—he gets you to run this whole city for his benefit, you understand?”

The king wanted to deny this. It felt like an insult, an accusation of weakness, that he’d let this happen all these years. But he didn’t.

“But why though?”

“Because your cat is evil, Steve.”

This is a hard thing for anyone to accept. Despite what Alyssa had said to him, despite his mounting suspicions in recent days, the king didn’t want to believe what, deep down, he knew.

“It isn’t even your cat,” said Saori. “It’s a thing that takes over bodies and kills the mind of what’s inside. It killed your cat and took his place back when we were still on the ship.”