The carpet squelched as Charlie scooped a rigid Patrick off the floor behind the leather couch.

‘Little guy,’ she said softly. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Someone’s coming, hurry up!’ Ed shouted.

Fawn’s Nikes were way too big and Charlie almost turned her ankle as she walked over shattered barware and blackened books. Ed stood in the elevator door and Charlie’s wet sole skidded as she sprinted in, starting to do the splits.

There were footsteps getting close. Ed frantically pressed the door-close button and someone shouted, ‘Hey!’ as they started down. The fifty-floor ride took a thousand hours as Charlie imagined the power getting cut.

‘My ears won’t stop ringing,’ Ed shouted, the floors blipping past.

37, 36, 34, 32, 28 …

‘It’ll get better,’ Charlie said as Patrick gripped her tight. ‘Try to stay calm, Ed. You were the hero. You saved all our lives.’

Charlie kept the Tec-9 poised as the elevator reached casino level. When the doors opened, there was no phalanx of guards ready to shoot them down, just acres of dead casino and green emergency lighting.

‘How do we get out of here?’ Charlie asked, mostly to herself.

A few steps out of the elevator lobby were arrows pointing towards The Strip. Charlie was struggling with her bloodied feet, so Ed gave Patrick a piggyback, and they jogged past rows of unplugged slot machines.

After a couple of hundred yards, Charlie led the way over a fallen banner advertising UrbanScape’s Grand Finale, All Retail 50% off. An alarm sounded as she pushed the bar on an emergency door, stepping out into a bright Vegas morning.

The wind was still strong and it caught Charlie’s sodden T-shirt, making her shiver. UrbanScape’s cobbled frontage had once been a mix of water spouts, cafés and trendy bars. But everything was shuttered now and there were several dozen homeless people in tents and shelters. GENUINE HOMELESS HERE. NO ZOMBIES, was spray-painted on UrbanScape’s pearl-coloured glass.

The locals weren’t sure what the girl dripping bloody water and holding a machine gun was doing, but they were understandably wary and someone shouted, ‘Get out of here, freaks.’

‘Come on, keep calm,’ Charlie told Ed, spotting a glazed expression that sometimes signalled an imminent fit.

‘We’re just passing through,’ Charlie told the onlookers loudly, stretching her T-shirt down over her ass as the wind rattled litter and made cardboard shelters wobble.

I’ve got no virus mask, no money, no phone and you can see my nipples through this shirt, Charlie thought. No taxi will take us anywhere in this state and my feet are agony.

I should have grabbed Man Bun’s wallet, but I’m not going back for it. The only place I can go is my office at the coffee shop. I don’t have my key, but Gwen should be unlocking about now. But it’s four miles away and we need to get off the street because Fawn owns the cops.