At the end, they were forced to look into that icy mirror and recognize that they themselves had brought the world to an end—and they had one final recourse. They could take refuge in their technology, because their computers would grow only more powerful with the gathering cold. Those who could be saved had their personalities and experiences uploaded into great polar engines, populating the supercomputers. In this way, they continued their existence within an eternal simulation of the world they’d destroyed. And this option was seen as desperate enough that the vast majority simply chose sleep and storage rather than any active virtual existence. As artificial intellects, far from seeking some infinite expansion throughout the galaxy, they had no purpose. There was no biological imperative to go on, to make more of themselves, or even to discover the secrets of the universe. They had no reason to be, and their memories were shackled to a world-destroying guilt. They made for themselves a frozen, everlasting hell of recrimination, with an infinite amount of time to ask, Could we have done it differently?

Then, after millions of years of agonized stasis, they received signals from outside. Random signals, incomprehensible signals: signals that indicated contact from…nowhere, everywhere, somewhere impossible.

And, eventually, a call for help.

5.

I

When the two officials had gone, Lee collapsed on her bed, thoughts chasing each other about the room like dogs.

It was hardly her first time being interviewed by the police, or even her first time since Bodmin. She knew the drill. Several of her friends were averse to speaking with the police and she’d covered for them from time to time. And if there was anyone she would cover for, it was Mal, surely. Except…

When they’d started, she was going to deny everything. After all, what could they prove, precisely? Then her nagging recognition of the white guy had suddenly clicked into sharp focus because he’d been there, at the break-in gone wrong or whatever it had been. He’d seen her.

But what did that prove, except that they thought Mal did it?

And now she thought Mal was involved in the break-in too…She tried to be loyal, but Mal had been somewhere for four years, and had never called or texted or even put a note through her door. She’d been dead. Lee had known she was dead. It’s not as if there was a whole other world on Bodmin Moor where a girl could scrape out a living for four years without seeing anyone. As though Mal was just another cryptid whose presence she could fancifully believe in whilst her logical mind knew there was nothing there.

Yet Mal was back, in the company of a monstrous bruiser, and people were dead. She’d seen them stretchered out of that house.