He fell to his knees. His lament for lack of a gun became one for lack of a religion. Because surely nothing short of God could defend him from whatever the hell this was.

But then even that terrifying vista faded, as though he was seeing films in multiple exposure, one past the next. The muddy, broken landscape he’d glimpsed bowed beneath the weight of what lay beyond that, until it gave up and tore. A vast weight of water descended on him, a rolling tidal wave ten feet high, eclipsing everything in its path. Yet it never landed.

Hands up to shield his head, he stumbled down where the gallery had been. The ichthyosaur skeletons were still visible, faded pencil sketches across the face of the rushing waters. Sometimes there was stone beneath his feet, sometimes mud, or rough ice, or the mounded fallen needles of unreal pines.

He couldn’t process it, but some part of his mind didn’t need to. He was still going in the same way. He was going to find Alison, even if the map in his hand had suddenly become useless—because the entire edifice it described was coming apart like newspaper in the rain. He didn’t need to know if the huge beetle ahead was part of an exhibit or an insect invader from somewhere else. He barrelled on through. And if he had to push through dense foliage that left waxy smears of sap on his hands, if he had to wade through knee-deep channels of salt-smelling water, none of it mattered. It was go forwards or go mad.

It put his worries about being fired into perspective, anyway. Although a ludicrous little voice in his head was saying, This is why we wait for backup, and the incredulous answering thought, Really, this? Because we have protocols in place, do we?