Julian, when she met up with him at the office, had obviously been following the same news. But what he, the BBC and Doreen from Croydon couldn’t know was that the intrusions were multiplying. Fractures that could once be numbered in tens and then hundreds were now running into the thousands, as the Ice compliantly quantified for her. Little ones, mostly, often where no one could witness them—in the upper atmosphere a handful of air might appear from another world. In the depths of the sea, a fish might appear that hadn’t evolved in any ocean Alison knew. The Florida breach was the largest by some margin, but the world was becoming permeable. The walls were breaking down. Things were coming through. And this wasn’t even the active malice of the rats or the border-trotting of the Cousins. This just was.

She would be the sole human being, to her knowledge, to witness the end of the universe in real time.

“We’ve got our marching orders,” Julian said. “The Cousins have given us a place and time to recover Khan. Neither clandestine nor convenient, naturally.”

If she tried, she could probably pre-empt the information, feeling out where the anticipated breach would fall. Except there was so much noise in the signal now, so many cracks fragmenting the walls of the world. “Tell me.”

Ten minutes later they were fighting their way across London through the first swell of morning commuters. They rendezvoused with a baffled Royce and a squad of the Met’s finest near London Bridge Station, at the foot of a glass-and-steel tower silhouetted against the early sunlight.

“What the bloody hell’s all this, then?” Royce demanded. It wasn’t the early emergency call that had him het up, so much as the score of army lads who’d turned up after him. They were armed to the teeth and surly, not having been briefed either. Alison wondered whether Hind had expanded operations to include the military chiefs of staff or whether she was calling in some serious blackmail-level favours.

“We need to clear the building, Kier, quick as possible,” Julian told Royce. “Terrorist threat.”

Royce, no fool, could see that the military presence wasn’t kitted out for bomb disposal so much as urban gunplay. He gave Julian a disbelieving look, but a moment later he was giving orders. Shortly after, the fire alarm could be heard, and the first cleaners, systems admins and precociously keen white-collar types began to shamble out. Julian marched off to tell them all to go home, or at least go get a coffee or something. They weren’t getting back into the office any time soon. People stared at the soldiers, who were looking embarrassed at the attention.