Lucas stared down at him, knowing that this, now was the moment he could turn back. He wasn’t as smart as Rove, and he lacked the man’s vast influence and ambition. But he had two strong hands, one of which was superhuman in its capabilities, and Rove’s neck was thin. He felt the will to do it rise in him, a sudden surge of violence born as much from personal frustration as from a desire to do the right thing.

Something long suppressed spiked in him and he wrapped his fingers around that lily-white throat. Rove’s eyes flashed open and he grasped Lucas’s wrists, grimly pulling them apart, kicking at his attacker’s shins. He was remarkably strong, far more so than his frame should have allowed, and Lucas belatedly remembered the rats had given Rove’s body quite the upgrade. But Lucas had leverage. More than that, he had killed people before and done all manner of wrongs, many of them on Rove’s orders. He felt he should triumph for the sake of sheer poetic justice.

Yet Rove managed to jab his shoe into Lucas’ groin, then dragged his hands apart, silent save for hissing grunts of effort. His face was purple now, not from the strangling but from sheer outrage at the betrayal. Lucas had a moment of genuine worry. Then he remembered what he was capable of and twisted his artificial hand, breaking the man’s grip. He bore down with all his weight, pinning his victim to the wall, before punching Rove full in the face.

He broke Rove’s teeth and jaw with his black hand, Rove’s vicarious gift to him, and barely felt it. Adrenaline cheering him on like a gladiator’s bloodthirsty audience, he punched again and again, marvelling at how he could shatter bone and barely feel the impact. Shorn of reciprocal pain, the feeling was intoxicating.

After the fifth blow, he realized he’d probably done enough. Rove was a smart man, but those brains wouldn’t cause any trouble now, not after they’d been spread half across Cam’s chitinous wall and up Lucas’s arm to the elbow. He stood up, feeling his savagery subside.

Rove’s phone buzzed from where it had skittered across the floor. A spike of fear, self-loathing and resurgent rage rushed Lucas. He stamped on it, smashing the screen to shards and flattening the case. If he spared a thought for Charen Volkovska it was Be free, as though she’d been a genie trapped in that latest-model lamp.

And then: Oh fuck, what now? He was of absolutely no use to anyone on his own. He wasn’t a boffin and he had no friends on board. Without Rove he was, not to put too fine a point on it, screwed.