I can’t open the panel in her back. I put my body on top of hers so she can’t stand up, but she is strong. She throws me off. In real life, if the Creeper has disabled her R.E.M. atonia, then she will be out of bed by now. I’m just praying that Shandy is paying attention.

‘Meera, wake up!’ I get in her face, slapping her to get her attention, but she shoves me away easily. I stumble and go down on the spongy grey surface . . . Wait. What spongy grey surface? I thought we were in BigSky HQ . . .

That’s when I notice we aren’t indoors any more. We are out on the physical platform itself, a featureless grey ledge built above the canals and around the skyscrapers of the Dream City. The platform has been hung with silk banners for the great unveiling of the Sweet Dreams expansion. There’s a huge greyscale crowd standing around us acting terribly entertained. Some are laughing for no fathomable reason. But they are all wearing morphine masks and none of them can see.

I get to my feet and run around in front of Meera as she sets out across the platform.

‘Meera, wake up! You’re sleepwalking. The dreamhacking bot is controlling you. You need to wake up in the dream and take back control.’

‘I have to get off this platform,’ she tells me earnestly, pupils wide. ‘It’s not safe here. Sweet Dreams is going to be attacked by monsters from below.’

‘No, Meera, we’re fifty metres in the air, you can’t just walk off the platform.’

‘I’m a bird,’ she tells me, spreading her arms wide. ‘I love flying dreams!’

‘Whoa . . . stop. Don’t play around. Are you telling me you’re the little bird that’s been telling Daphne who to kill?’

‘Little Bird is my company. Come on, I want to fly while this lasts.’

Dreams are full of puns. I’ve seen a little bird in the Dream City twice: once Meera turned into it, and the other time it was a robot bird conspiring with Martin Elstree to make me kill myself. The bird could be a representation of Meera’s efforts, through her device, to control me and Daphne – up to and including the infamous ‘ghost pigeon’. But if that’s true, why is Meera being hacked right now? If she is the mastermind, she has no need to sleepwalk herself to death.

Unless Little Bird is not under Meera’s control after all.

Bernard is dead. O is dead. There’s no one else alive at Little Bird capable of wreaking so much havoc.

Is there?