‘Violating? You want to know what feels more violating? All of it. This. Now. Everything. No special order. You. You feel violating. How . . . how could you, O?’

‘So far, so predictable. You can’t seem to understand that my conscience extends towards all of humanity, not just you. I’ve done my best to equip you for the coming reality. I can’t say I’m surprised that you take a different view.’

‘You’re talking like you fancy yourself some sort of god.’

‘I’ve done the best I could, knowing that you had to find out eventually. I kept expecting you to suss it but you never did. That trusting nature will be your downfall someday.’

‘What about Martin Elstree? He used some kind of robot to dreamhack me.’

‘Bernard built it.’

‘Built it out of what? Can BigSky kill people with robots now?’

‘Not that they know of. Bernard modelled the robot dreamhacker on the processes he gleaned from your records.’

‘He built robots from my Secret Diaries?’

‘Reverse-engineered you into a killer-robot Charlie of sorts. Of course, all personal characteristics were scrubbed. The robot dreamhacker can’t hold a candle to you, Charlie.’

I am speechless. I look up at the stars over the Dream City. None of the constellations are even familiar.

‘All your records were sitting there on BigSky, practically out in the open for someone like me. So were the developers’ various templates for the Sweet Dreams technology. Bernard was a kid in a toy shop, isolating the processes and building them into the Sweet Dreams code.’

‘In that case, why would you kill Bernard? What possible reason could you have? Will you go after Meera, too? Talented people who were inventing amazing things – and you’re taking it on yourself to remove them from the world. Not to mention Mel. There’s just no excuse for it, no justification—’

I’m spluttering and ranting but she’s totally unmoved.

‘Well, you are full of accusations, aren’t you, Charlie. Can you back any of them up?’

I say, ‘I know I got it wrong a couple of times, but in the end it seemed clear that the Creeper was Martin Elstree. Everything seemed to point to him. Now you’re saying that he was directing a bot that Bernard built. Well, why was Martin Elstree using it to destroy people? Roman told me that every single person in the study is dead, bar me.’

‘Maybe I was fond of you.’

‘I guess you needed me for my Secret Diaries.’

‘Martin and I didn’t remove those people to be cruel. They were crash-test dummies for the technology. Because of them, you and Daphne are both improving.’

‘Then why tell Daphne to kill Bernard?’

‘That wasn’t me. That was the Agency.’

‘Oh, please. Like I believe that. You may as well confess to the lot, O. Anyway, you told me yourself that the Agency is a joke from when you were kids.’