We pass a bleak reminder of what I’ve left behind. A shrunken Thames, reduced to a muddy ribbon spanned by the buttressed hulks of collapsed bridges. On the putrid banks, I see vagrants picking their way through the ooze. On the streets, army units—in riot gear and hyped-up—running helter-skelter, barking orders. A spit of gunfire. Shrapnel. Buildings ablaze and roaring in the dark. I see what must once have been Harrods department store. The ornate dome still standing but blown open on one side. Every window smashed and the hallways empty—gutted, nothing left to loot. Further along, the Natural History Museum: a skeleton, roofless, exposed to the elements.

The school had taken us once. We’d stood in the central entrance hall below the dark bones of Diplodocus in wonder.

“Well, Moon?” Bea said. “How does it make you feel?”

“Small,” I answered. “You?”

“Damn. I thought it’d be bigger.”

Bea. She never leaves my thoughts. Finding her, bringing her home, this is all that keeps me sane in a reality more bizarre by the second.

In a way, she was right. The dinosaur was nothing in comparison to the giant robot. We’ve seen more since, but always in the murky dreamlike distance to the east, long, spiderlike legs propelling them weirdly through the waste.

We turn right now, past the Science Museum, which is likely something else in Ares (half a dozen universe-sized holes missing in Sol’s scientific thinking, I tell myself as we move past). As we head up Exhibition Road, the sword keeps hitting my hip bone, chafing me.

Here it stands, right before the wasteland of Kensington Park. I recognise the grand redbrick building, unbombed and still beautiful. In Sol, it was the Royal Geographical Society. The Old Man and Gad had brought me here to hear some explorer talk about his epic trip across the Arctic. I reckon when I get back, I might have a go at a speaking gig myself. Ah, hell. Who’d believe me?

The grimy plaque mounted on the gate does not say Royal Geographical Society. It reads:

MEMBERS ONLY

This time, Vidhan is the one who stares into the smashed video screen above the gate. A red laser flickers across his eyeball. Silence. Then the sequence of bolts and the gate swings open. Three stoic guards greet us on the far side. All in black. Silent. Armed.

Malik is the last through the gate and it shuts behind us.