It was already night as the car left the underground car park and headed for Blackfriars Bridge. Night but not dark. It was never very dark in London. The glow of the city bounced off the low clouds and down onto tarmac that was already starting to twinkle with frost.

Emma Smith, the Boss, slumped in the back seat unconvinced that she should be leaving the building. It was against protocol for her to go anywhere during a crisis like this but the summons from Cepha had been urgent. Perhaps the old woman was finally ready to hand over Number Seven.

Abby sat next to her, keeping her own council, face expressionless and body language constrained.

'Uh, Ma’am?' said the young man in the driver's seat. The car had slowed almost to a halt. 'Do you see this?' he said.

Smith leaned forward and looked beyond him towards the bridge. There was a black Landrover parked sideways in the middle of the bridge. It should have caused a horrific snarl of traffic that rapidly backed up all the way to Kent but there were no other vehicles in sight at all.

Two people stood facing her, leaning against the parked Landrover. One was Cepha, all in black save for the white of her hair. The other was Jude all in white save for the black of his shoes.

How dare she? How dare Cepha drag her from her work in the middle of a manhunt? How dare she pull this dramatic bullshit. 'Stop the car,' Smith said and her rage carried her out of the car, and onto the bridge, and ten steps towards Cepha before she began to wonder what the old woman was up to. Smith stopped dead and she was glad to hear Abby catching up with her to stand at her shoulder like an impeccably dressed shadow.

'Ah, Emma,' so glad you found the time to join us,' said Cepha.

'What is this?' said Smith.

'This is a nice quiet chat somewhere that I know no one is listening in,' said Cepha. 'Apart from your lovely apprentice, of course.' Cepha smiled at Abby but it was one of those mirthless smiles that got lost between her lips and her eyes.

'About?' said Smith.

'Are you sure you want to ask me that in front of your apprentice?' said Cepha. 'This is your chance to keep your life and perhaps even your job.'

'I’m not moving,' said Abby.

'If you think I’m standing out here alone while you have the breakdown I’ve been warning Westminster about for years then you are mistaken,' said Smith.

Cepha smiled again but there was even less warmth in it. Her eyes glittered like the frost on the tarmac. She snapped her fingers and suddenly every light around them went out.

The unexpected darkness was like a velvet hood pulled over the head but, after the first shock passed, Smith realised that there was still some light. The sidelights of the Landrover. The glow in the sky. Cepha hadn’t plunged the whole city into darkness, just the area around the bridge. Smith wondered if this was magic or if it was just some tame hacker working for the Department.

'Last chance,' said Cepha.

'Last chance for?' said Smith. She could hear something in the darkness beyond the Landrover. Something tiny. Something quiet. Something that she hadn’t heard in years and yet was still familiar.

'Last chance to confess everything and throw yourself on my mercy,' said Cepha.

Terror. That old friend. It had been years since she’d felt the pure visceral stab of it. She knew what those tiny sounds beyond the Landrover were. Those were the sounds of large people moving in near total silence. Those were the sounds of people coming to kill her. How long had it been since the last time someone tried?

'I don’t know what you’re talking about,' she said, proud that there was no hint of a waver in her voice even after all these years without practice.

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'I know everything,' said Cepha. 'I know what number Five did in the desert. I know why he did it and I know that you could have prevented it. I know what you did to Number Four.'

'So this is it,' said Smith, 'this is what it looks like when the stress of long service finally gets to someone as powerful as you.' Her right hand was on her gun. She was already regretting the decision, taken years ago, to sacrifice stopping power for concealment. Five 5.62 rounds should be lethal enough to deal with most people but surely not for the god awful things that Cepha might have brought with her.

With her eyes adjusting to the thin light she thought she could see shadows approaching. As they crept round the Landrover the side lights revealed one of them to be Number Seven. Of course it was him. The suit had kept him safe, just like it was supposed to. He was carrying something over his shoulder.

Despite herself she was glad to see him. For all his many faults he was loyal. He was built to be loyal. He would protect her.

As he got closer that relief ebbed away. His body language was all wrong. It was no surprise that he was angry, he was nearly always angry, but this anger was different. There were other shadows moving in the darkness but she couldn’t take her eyes from Number Seven. There was something terrible about his anger and she couldn’t quite work out what it was.

Cepha fell into step next to Number Seven. Jude followed a few steps behind.

Smith held her ground. Torn between telling Abby to come forward and stand beside her and telling her to get back in the car so she wouldn’t hear what was coming. She did neither.

'Aren’t you at least going to say that you’re sorry?' said Cepha.

'For what?'

'For this,' said Number Seven and he laid his burden at her feet.

She felt a terrible, lurching, empty feeling as if someone had hollowed her out with a spoon. Number Four. Codename Persephone. Real name Eris Allen. Lying crumpled and dead at her feet. She looked like a broken porcelain doll.

It was hard to breathe. Her left hand went to her throat. She was half expecting to vomit. Her right hand tightened around the grip of her gun. She should just put it to her head and end it now. Save the trouble. There was nothing ahead except disgrace and guilt and the gloating of everyone she’d ever surpassed to get where she was.

No. She wasn’t ready to lay down and die yet. 'I was trying to keep her safe.'

'By setting her up against the rest of us?' said Seven.

'That’s not what she did,' said Cepha. 'Not intentionally anyway. She just covered up Operation Bombastic Codename. Even after Two and Four went to her about it. Even after you tried to take responsibility for the intelligence failure and Three tried to take responsibility for the explosion. Even after Five went to her and confessed everything she still spent more effort on covering it up than she did on fixing it.'

'I was just trying to protect the rest of them from you,' said Smith, unable to conceal her hatred for Seven any longer. 'Because you don’t need my protection. The suit protects you and it throws everyone around you to the wolves.'

'No,' said Cepha. 'This is not the suit. This is on you. Why would you ever take intel on face value? Particularly when it comes from the Americans. You know what they’re like. Particularly when it comes via him. You know what he’s like. Number Five acted out of trauma untreated because you thought he’d be more useful broken. He’ll be punished for his actions but he should never have been in the field. And then Number Four came to you and instead of doing literally anything else you introduced her to a Goddess of vengeance and battle and just hoped that would somehow make things better.'

'I had a plan,' said Smith. 'Number Four was the beginning. I was going to find them protection. Something to keep them safe from him. From the fallout from that damn suit.'

'You could have told me,' said Seven.

'Told you what?' said Smith, 'That you’re a construct? That half your personality is borrowed from elsewhere? That the cost of your safety is the death of anyone that gets close to you? Where would I start? Why would you believe me? How would you even process that?'

'Or you were worried that telling me about the suit would break it. You don’t hate the suit. You love it. You just didn’t want to pay the price for it,' said Seven.

For a moment she wanted to agree with him. He was right about the dilemma the suit presented. They didn’t know how it worked and they’d come to rely on it. But there was something just so smug about him. How dare he sit in judgement of her?

So she shot him.

The noise was deafening, blinding, unnatural. She was quick, she’d always been quick with a gun but she hadn’t had time for a headshot. She’d had to aim for the torso. Blood blossomed across his shirt. One of those pristine white, handmade shirts that annoyed her so much. It looked like she’d caught him in the lung.

If she could just get off another shot, but then there was a hand on her wrist and another on her throat. Not from ahead but from behind. Abby.

Smith felt a stab of pain as something in her wrist snapped. She could no longer feel her right hand. The fingers on her throat dug in until darkness gathered at the edges of her vision. She tried to wriggle away but Abby was too strong, too tall, too angry. She couldn’t think properly. And suddenly staying upright was hard.

The last thing she heard before the lights went out was the wheezing, bubbling sound of Number Seven trying to breathe with a lung full of blood.