He climbs on. The chair spins out from under him; he grabs for the railing, misses and pitches head first over the balcony.

And here is the air beneath him, splaying his limbs, whipping his clothes about his skin, stretching his hair. Martin Elstree hangs there wide asleep and he’s still asleep as his head slams into the concrete.

I’m in darkness. Silence. I can’t hear my heart. I can’t feel myself. I don’t know where I am or who I am.

The dream is gone. The Dream City is gone. I’m nowhere.

I flash the realisation that I’ve been cast into outer darkness for my crime. I can’t come back. It would be just my luck not to get away with this. I hang in nothingness, surrounded by my own guilt and triumph, for a stretch of time that I’ve no way of measuring. Then there’s an earthquake sensation as the undisclosed dark material around me and inside me begins to erupt, to slide, roar, shift – and I rise through layers of consciousness until I feel Roman grabbing my shoulders and shaking me.

‘Charlie! Charlie! Wake up!’

My heart is thundering. How could I not hear that? I’m gasping for breath. My legs kick out. I throw Roman off and he flies across the room, crashing into O’s fireplace. I hear a weird, guttural sound that is me.

‘Charlie! Are you OK? You stopped breathing.’

I roll off the sofa and vomit on the floor.

‘Sorry,’ I say, holding what’s left of my hair out of the way. ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.’

But the thing is, deep down I’m really not sorry.

I’m really not sorry at all.

Moose reserve

Moose reserve

Before I even know what’s happened, Roman’s cleaned up my vomit and brought me a glass of sparkling water with lemon in it.

‘I live with my sister and her three kids, remember? Vomiting is routine. You OK now?’

I sip the water.

‘I’ll give you my Secret Diaries for analysis if you’ll put me in contact with the other people in my study.’

‘I think you’re still drunk, Charlie. What’s made you change your mind?’

My head hurts so much. And no wonder, what with the infection technology growing in my skull.

‘I need to be in contact with other people like me. I need to talk to someone who understands what I’m going through.’

‘Yeah, well, about that.’ He runs his hand over his stubbly jaw like a guy in a razor ad, but it’s a nervous gesture. He’s ashamed of something, or . . . ‘Charlie, I don’t know how to say this.’

‘Just spit it out, Roman.’