The morning after, Julian read through the preliminary report with a growing sense of dread. Alison came in as he crossed the boundary between espressos two and three, and waited for him to finish reading. She had already digested it, of course.

Rove Denton had long abandoned the facility, but other things had moved in. Julian looked at a skewed photo showing seventeen corpses twisted in attitudes of death. The rat-creatures looked pathetic and scrawny, and these hadn’t been uniformed or armed. The reporting agent had been vague about how the shooting started, but Julian suspected it might have been a knee-jerk reaction to the alien. Everyone involved had been practically tattooed with the Official Secrets Act. Julian’s natural instinct was to thoroughly approve of this approach. Obviously it must be kept secret from the general public. That was what the Secret Service was for: to worry so the masses didn’t have to. Except…he knew, then and now, that what they’d seen so far was the tip of the iceberg. They were dealing with powers that made Russia and the U.S. and the nuclear arms race look like Tinkertoys, and it was getting worse. At what point did “trying to keep it secret” become both impossible and less than creditable?

Now the two of them were sharing a sandwich, although not in the canteen because they couldn’t talk there. Their colleagues, overhearing even half a dozen words, would think they were insane. Alison was coping, or that was his take. She took this business home every evening and worked through the latest intrusion reports. She did that…other thing, the thing only she could do right now, that gave her such an insight into what was going on. She was starting to predict the intrusion sites ahead of time. And every day Julian looked into her face for the strain he knew must be there. Or perhaps for something else, for signs of the abyss that must be gazing into her every time she tapped it for information.

Julian was not coping.

It was a slow thing. It surfaced in snapping responses to colleagues, exasperation with Josie. He was being put under too much strain at a fundamental level, and he wasn’t dealing with it. It was ruining him as a person.

It was almost a month now since he’d been shot. Since Hind had co-opted him onto her secret task force, not because he was suited to it but because he was there. Every day he was waiting for the barriers to break, for his work to be front and centre, News at Six. And somehow it never happened. The rest of the country and the world were spared the horrible understanding that was eating him alive.