"What's he doing, going for a smoke?" Henry asked, watching their surveillance subject intently. Killgrace had found a doorway out of the wind and reached inside his jacket. Instead of a cigarette, the businessman pulled a small black box out of his coat, flipped it open and began to dial numbers.

"I'll intercept the call - what? That's odd. There's no signal I can find, or voice matches." Mary said, frustrated. It did not matter that their office was in Bedfordshire, they should be able to pick up any conversation within a hundred miles, or any electronic signal.

"Focus the camera on him."

"Good idea. He's not covering his mouth." As it zoomed in, Killgrace looked around quickly to make sure he wasn't being followed. Mary grabbed a notepad.

"Would a Cull think to?"

"Shut up. I need to focus..." The security camera she had hijacked did not have colour, far less sound. The businessman it showed in grainy greyscale had started talking, and it took her a moment to find the best angle to read his lips. "Got it."

"Commodore Marcus just let me know there's a new regime in...you would call them the Cull." Distaste showed on Killgrace's face as he pronounced the word. He paused, listening, and Mary watched his mouth on the screen intently and began to relay the conversation line by line:

"...Exactly. A true Cull does not permit that which is different to live."

"...Yes. It's also treason, which means they would have to kill any member of the old guard."

"...If they find out I'm alive, I'll probably be promoted to Cull enemy number one."

"...No, they've got nothing that can damage me, but if they blow up the planet I'm working on..."

"...Not with current human technology. Planetary shields are too advanced, and anything I build they can identify."

"...Possibly." On the camera Killgrace calmed visibly. "...For the moment, keep them safe. Activate lockdown. I may be accessing the black market for inter-galactic weapons shortly."

"...Yeah. I'll be back soon. Take care." He folded the phone closed and put it away, staring up at the sky. The very image of a harassed businessman with too much on his plate.

#

"Well, he's definitely not human." Mary said, pulling the headphones off and dropping them on the desk. Just another day in the life of M.I. Eleven, known colloquially to its long suffering employees as the Mill. "But if he's a Cull, why would it tell someone to 'take care'? Don't they usually say drop dead?"

"Yeah, with gunfire," Henry agreed, looking at the transcript, "but if a member of the Cull old guard went to ground on Earth we have a problem."

"Yeah. We don't need another invasion. After Paris..." she shook her head, knowing this was not a good job for anyone who could not handle stress. "He's quite right. If they knew he was here, the Cull would blow the planet up as a warning shot, and then get serious."

"So what do we do? Politely ask the alien war machine to go somewhere else?"

"You know, the best thing about having a boss is that it's not my problem. Get Chen."

"Why do I have to beard the lion?"

"That's why I have an intern. It's not my problem."

#

"What is the issue?" Chen asked from the doorway, obviously not happy at being pulled out of his office.

"The Killgrace situation went nuclear." Chen raised an eyebrow at her phrasing, and Mary stopped trying to soften the blow. "Cull."

"How many?" He was by her desk in a heartbeat.

"Unknown. Infiltration, possibly invasion." She held the transcript up, and Chen scanned through it. He blanched.

"Do you think the Commodore's been compromised?"

"I don't know. It seems likely."

"We need to call in off-world allies."

"Oh right. It's the Cull. They'll all be running for the hills!" Henry scoffed. Chen and Mary looked at each other, and then Chen turned on his heel and walked back to his office. "What?"

"Watch what you say. When we lost Paris to the Cull, Chen lost his sister and her family." Mary fixed her gaze on him until she was sure he had got the message. Henry glanced round towards Chen's office involuntarily, and then looked back at her.

"Still, there must be something we can do."

"There are a couple of allies who can help," Mary said, lowering her voice. "There are certain beings in this universe who you just don't mess with. We've got a couple of them on speed dial. How do you think we defeated the Secai plague-bearers?"

"I don't know."

"It's thanks to one of those allies we only lost three towns and not the entire planet. He lured them in, let them land to get them out of their ships, and when they started spreading their plague, put something in the water supply that destroyed their disease. The Secai died."

"That's cold-blooded."

"It saved lives. We lost a few hundred people, not a few million."

"Yeah, but..." Henry shuffled, and she knew what he was thinking. The newer agents always thought humans could stand on their own, and the fact their species sometimes needed rescue was galling.

"Remember we save lives, not pride." She pointed at the Second World War poster on the wall. During the Second World War M.I. 11 had been responsible for finding enemy agents in retaken territory. Now it found hostile alien agents in human countries. Everyone in the office knew that when they did not find them quickly enough, the costs were horrific. "Trust me, he's a good man."

"You know him well?"

"As well as anyone. He's pretty private." She smiled. "But I've known him since I was four. Witnessed a UFO, and I've run into him on and off ever since. He doesn't age like we do though. Get used to it."

"So what do we do, meet him in a field?"

"No, he'll just repurpose one of our doors. Come on, it's normally one in the hall." Mary stood up, and walked into the hallway, looking up and down. Henry followed, perplexed, and then there was the sound of shelves collapsing further down the corridor. Mary grinned and headed towards the noise. Chen was already there, arms folded, and waiting.

The door in front of them was not labelled like the office doors, just a plain grey door with no name tag. It opened towards them, and a man in a tatty suit stepped out, looking round with great interest. Henry's jaw dropped.

"That's the stationery cupboard."

"What's your point?" the man said, and Chen shook his head.

"He's new," he explained, "Henry, this is the General. General, this is Henry. He's fresh from the graduate milkround, working as Mary's junior." The man held out a hand and Henry reached awkwardly round the chair to shake it.

"You know Mary from that mess with the Secai. She was promoted to full field agent last year."

"Congrats." The General gave her hand a quick shake, and looked at Chen. "So, I understand you need a bailout again."

"A hand, yes." Chen said. "It seems we have a problem with Cull." He stumbled slightly on the last word. The General looked round and frowned at the room.

"Your planet's not on fire."

"Yet. It's an infiltration, possibly a foothold situation."

"Good," he said, and Mary blinked in shock. "I like being called in early, it makes things easier."

#

"We check all our military suppliers in case of infiltration." Chen said, once the four were gathered in an Operations room. He pointed at the slide displayed on the wall. "Killgrace is a component manufacturer used by several of them so their director, Stephen Killgrace, was invited to a military supply convention this week. He came in on a flight from New York, unaccompanied. Stephen Killgrace walked into the hotel room. Once he was alone, our long distance telephoto lens snapped this." Chen reached down to the desk, for one of the brown cardboard folders containing those records too confidential to trust to electronics. Opening the folder, he flicked out two photographs and pushed them across the table.

The General stared, obviously fascinated, at the single occupant of the room: the navy blue shell, the single extended weapon and manipulator claws, sensor lights flashing. He swallowed.

"That's a Cull Command Unit, configured for light combat. If it was heavy combat it would have more weapons out," he said examining the photograph closely. "Capable of spawning enough remote attack drones to form a new army or, if it powered its main weaponry, cutting through the crust of the planet in a single shot."

"How do we kill it?" Chen cut straight to the point.

"Well, they swing well above their species' age in military power, but the rest of their science lags – what is it?" he asked, as Mary shook her head.

"It looks like it's been on the planet for ninety years without anyone knowing. Why hasn't it slaughtered everyone by now?"

"Impossible. Cull have a strict limit on how long they can tolerate other species existing. It's measured in seconds."

"And yet the research shows that he's probably been every Killgrace since 1945, and possibly earlier."

"Hired help," the General dismissed.

"Only if they are all clones." Chen pushed the photos across the table. Captured in the background of every photo was a man, tall, dark-haired, usually turning away from the camera. There was a strong family resemblance, but accounting for the changes in fashions and hairstyle it could be the same man.

"It's possible." The General sounded intrigued. "How peculiar. It even appears to mimic ageing. If you are right, if it has been living peacefully here for ninety years, then it's planning something. It would have to be something big for it to accept inferiors around it for so long."

"A military takeover without the new regime knowing?" Chen suggested. "Killgrace Industries supplies components to most of the defence industry."

"So the Cull could get access to your military supply?"

"He's got it. He knows most of the top brass. One of the Commodores might be compromised."

"And the technology itself?"

"Depending on when he took it over? Killgrace chips are already in over forty percent of British military hardware, and thirty percent worldwide. If the Cull have embedded anything nasty within those components - "

"We understand," Henry cut Chen off before he could finish, "but isn't that a little devious for the Cull." The General shook his head.

"In the short term, if Killgrace was replaced recently, any of them could do it."

"And long term?" The three of them looked at him. He rubbed the side of his neck uncomfortably.

"There's one Cull it might be who could think long term – an Advisory Council member. Command-Espionage-Tactics. Cet." The General did not look happy. "And we might have a problem."

"But nothing you can't handle, correct?" Chen asked and was surprised when the General did not answer at once. Instead he pulled out a small device the size of a mobile phone and brought up an image. It was moving almost imperceptibly, obviously been snapped in combat, and slowed down to catch the subject in view.

The creature was navy blue or black, blotched with camouflage for space operations. Chen knew the form too well: the angled deflection plates, below the shallow sensor dome, the weapons tracks and clawed mechanical arms. The sensor lights within the thing's dome moved independently, faintly visible within the dark armour.

"That was my opposite number during the war. He is ruthless, extremely dangerous, and immune to most things I can throw at him." He looked at them, face grave. "He - It is also extremely intelligent, and survival focused. If it knows the new regime will kill it, it'll keep its head down until it can kill them first." He shook his head. "It should have spotted you taking that."

"It probably didn't know we were watching. Not everyone has a camera that can take a photo through a wall."

"And how often has that been abused?" the General said, with a sudden grin. Mary rolled her eyes and he gave her a reproachful look. "Oh come on, it's just a bit of fun."

"If you're not the one getting spied on," she snapped, and Chen coughed.

"If that really is a Cull, I didn't know they could shape-shift. Could it be holography?" he said, bringing the topic back on track. The General rifled through the folder and pulled out two photographs, pointing at the suit's pattern in each.

"It's raining. He's actually getting wet. A hologram can't mimic that."

"Which means it is either body-hopping, remote-control, or shape-shifting. Whatever it is, they've got a new trick."

"Not all Cull. Just this one, and if he's a renegade, we have a chance to keep it that way."

"The opening soirée's this evening. Do you think he's planning anything?" Chen asked the General, but it was Mary who answered.

"According to the records, Killgrace normally feigns illness or gets called away after the first hour." Mary swallowed, and Chen looked at her, remembering the Cull's limit on dealing with other species. More evidence it had been a long term infiltration – or just that Killgrace had made himself the perfect target for substitution.

"If he's been attending these do's for ninety years, probably not." Chen said, with a glance at the General. "If it's a recent replacement, probably."

"Do you have tickets?" the General asked.

"Yes." Chen said.

"Then we do some reconnaissance." The General grinned. "Does anyone have a tux I can borrow? With pockets?"

#

Mary entered the soirée on the General's arm, looking round the room slowly to make sure the camera hidden in her earring recorded everything. The small lump of the comms badge was behind her ear, hidden by her hair, with the pick-up concealed under the choker.

Their target was there, talking to a few military officers. He stood out, slightly taller than most, wearing his standard business suit and not a tux. She noted a query on the internal comms, wondering whether the clothes were actually part of the disguise. She tapped the General's arm three times, the signal to confirm she had seen him. To her shock, the man released her arm, and wandered towards the food table. Uncertain how to proceed, she began to mingle, keeping an eye on the General and her target as she tried to get close enough to over hear the target's conversation.

The General was walking along the buffet, using the crowd to conceal his presence as he approached the businessman and his colleagues. Somehow, with no display of haste, he was already almost halfway across the room while Mary had only just got into hearing range for her electronics. In a moment, he would be by them.

The businessman looked round at just the wrong moment. Across the crowd, his gaze locked with the General. For a moment there was shock, then calculation, on his face, and then he turned to the man he was chatting with, once more perfectly urbane.

"I'm sorry, Commodore, I have to excuse myself." Killgrace held a small black box up. "My pager."

"Isn't it a little early for you to make an escape?"

"True, but this evening I let an over-enthusiastic intern run my exit plan." Killgrace confided, and the Commodore laughed.

"Go on. We'll catch up later."

"I'll see you at the golf club next month, if not before." As the Commodore turned to find another conversation partner, Killgrace began to walk towards the lifts, looking round surreptitiously for -

"Command, Espionage, and Tactics," the General said quietly from behind him. Killgrace turned instantly, gaze narrowing in appraisal as he looked the man up and down. The General gestured towards the noticeboards with his glass. The Killgrace Industries organisation chart showed three divisions: Command Systems, Espionage & Information and Tactical Support. "I was admiring your business set-up. A nice three-way split."

"General." Killgrace's tone was perfectly neutral.

"Mr - Killgrace?"

"Yes?" Recovering himself the businessman smiled, perfectly at ease.

"David Killgrace?"

"That was my great-grandfather. I'm Stephen."

"Ah. I thought you looked like someone I used to know. Canapés?"

"No thanks. I can't say I've seen you around here before."

"This isn't my normal field. I'm branching out, entering new areas."

"How interesting. I was just leaving."

"Somewhere else to be?"

"Yes." Killgrace lowered his voice, "Actually no. Anywhere else but here. I hate these things." He nodded politely and turned to leave. The General put a hand on his arm, and the Cull froze, glaring at him. All trace of affability had vanished in an instant. Killgrace looked at the hand, then back at the General's face and his expression said it all: Remove your hand or die.

"Sorry." The General said, letting go. "I forgot. Your people don't like to be touched, do they?"

"Who. Does?" Killgrace said with cutting calm. "Excuse me." He turned on his heel and stalked out of the room. With a small grin, the General watched Killgrace leave, helping himself to a canapé. Mary walked up and he gave her a peck on the cheek to disguise his mutter into her ear.

"He's retreated."

"Is having that Cull loose in Britain a good idea?" Mary said, under her breath, holding a glass up to shield her lips. Her blanking technology would make it sound like a normal conversation if anyone was listening in.

"I'd rather he was out there away from the stress, than in here reverting to type," the General replied. "If you are right - and I think you are - it's been loose in New York for ninety years without a body count, or being detected. We're safe enough.

"What changed?"

'"I wasn't sure until I got a good look, but I remember the man they are calling David Killgrace. He is – was – a cull collaborator. He'd also be over a hundred and fifty years old by now."

"Anti-ageing technology?"

"I saw him die." The General's tone did not invite questions. "Interesting though. I should have been slammed through a wall on reflex when I grabbed it."

"It can't do that in a room full of people, not if it wants to pass long term."

"Which means it has learned." He looked towards the door after it. "And that makes it dangerous."

"Hold on," she said. Her comms systems had gone suddenly silent. Before she could react, her phone vibrated. She pulled it out and read the message. "It's Henry. We've just lost contact. All the bugs in the car and the hotel room went dead. We can't even pick up the hotel taxi's GPS."

"He's turned on counter measures."

"He's on to us?"

"Not necessarily. It might just be a precaution. He's likely to be concerned that I'm here." The man's faint grin and heavy emphasis let her know 'concerned' was an understatement. The next message she got confirmed it.

"Well, he's just cut short his hotel stay. His secretary just booked a charter flight tomorrow morning first thing to New York."

"A charter plane?" the General said, surprised "Why wouldn't he just use anti-gravity to fly himself, and avoid dealing with people?"

"He needs to clear customs and get his passport stamped?"

"Unlikely. He's flying private charter to a small airport." The General clicked his fingers. "His main drive must be out. No wonder he's feeling vulnerable."

"Is there anything else to do here?" she asked, looking round at the crowd.

"No. The party's dreadful. The food's not bad though." He slid a couple of wrapped riceballs into his pocket and grinned at her. "Time to go back and regroup I think."

#

"It's him." The General said as they gathered round the table in the Operations room. "Cet. The organisation chart was set up in the thirties, using his three command strands. He's been doing this for a while."

"Right under our noses," Chen said bitterly, tapping the keys on his console to update the records.

"You didn't start looking for aliens until the sixties. He'd had thirty years to get established by then."

"And all that time, he's been feeding information back to them..."

"Possibly not," Mary interrupted Chen's complaint. "It sounds like he doesn't get on with the current regime."

"He won't. Cet is old guard," the General confirmed. "Politically inconvenient."

"So he might be setting something up here to take over again?"

"Possibly." The General shook his head. "We don't know enough to tell. I need to know what he is working on, who he is working with..." Chen pulled the files up, flicking through and reading out a summary.

"It's got the resources of a multi-national company available to it, although we don't know how many employees know what their boss really is. It came through on a flight from New York, unaccompanied. We've pulled the security footage. It walked through the scanners without a problem."

"They're electronic. They'll register whatever he wants them to." The General looked at them. "I did mention the Espionage skills. That includes ECM."

"How good?"

"Designed for inter-planetary and interstellar warfare. They'll blind the sensors of my people, far less yours."

"You said his drive wasn't working. Could he be damaged?"

"Injured," the General corrected absently. "Yes. If he's been stuck here for a while...and he could not repair it without the signal alerting the new regime..."

"If he's injured, trapped on the planet, and does not want the Cull to know where he is, we might have bargaining room." Mary said thoughtfully. The General's head whipped round, and he stared at them in horror.

"Injured or not, those things are dangerous. They wiped out many of my people, a species far more advanced than yours. They don't have hobbies or interests or a culture, they just kill. They don't have friends or family or allies, just people they have not killed yet." The General looked round, trying to make sure his words had sunk in. Chen nodded.

"I was in Paris. We remember." He closed his eyes. "You can't negotiate with a Cull. They think we're cockroaches."

"Actually they think of you as locusts, devouring all the resources they should have." The General's statement brought an uncomfortable silence and he looked round the table. "What? Would you negotiate with a plague of locusts?"

"Thank you for the insight," Mary said diplomatically. "So you were saying we need more information -"

"And I know where to look." Chen swung the console round to face them. "Killgrace Enterprises, holding company for Killgrace Industries, based out of New York. Book flights - "

"Or we could just go to their London office." Henry suggested, pointing at the bottom of the screen. "We know he won't be there."

"Fine. Full field gear, comms and cameras."

#

"So, would you mind if we had a look around?" Chen said, waving his pass quickly and hoping to bluff the Killgrace reception desk with their usual Trading Standards cover story. Mary already knew it would not work: the girl was looking at him, with the thousand-yard star of the experienced receptionist faced with her thousand-and-first salesman.

"Sir, we run a secure site. It's going to take more than a bit of paper to get entry here." Chen drew breath to argue, and she glared at him and reached for the security button.

"It's alright, Polly, I'll be taking them round personally." The group looked round, as the receptionist nodded. Killgrace was standing behind them in the entryway, smiling. He walked across, casually keeping between them and the exit.

"If you can sign the Visitors' Book, please? For fire safety." He tapped the desk by the book and Chen looked at it as if it would bite him. Killgrace shook his head, stepping away with his hands raised placatingly. The General picked the pen up and signed in, followed by Henry, Mary, and finally a very reluctant Chen.

"We can show ourselves round," Chen said, and Killgrace shook his head, gesturing towards the lifts.

"No, I insist." There was no room for refusal in the comment. "So, what exactly are you interested in seeing? And Polly, block-book the boardroom for the morning. We'll be heading up there once we've finished." She nodded. Killgrace walked towards the lift, swiping a keycard. Mary and Chen followed warily. The General was flipping through the magazines on the reception stand, as Henry kept an eye on him.

"We thought you were in New York." Chen said outright.

"The General is a difficult man to get a meeting with, and I didn't think you'd come if I just extended an invitation."

"So he chartered a plane just for our benefit," Mary said through the comms, and was surprised when Killgrace nodded. He gestured at the floor guide by the lift, as the lift doors opened. The General pocketed a magazine, and started walking across to join the others. Killgrace held the lift for him, looking rather resigned.

"If we start at the top floor and work down. The London office is mainly accounting, marketing and finance, rather than design and manufacturing, but while I'm sure you are familiar with cubicle farms, we've made a few changes you might like to see."

#

"So, what are you doing here?" The General asked as the lift opened to reveal another set of open plan offices.

"Can't you guess, General? What kind of strategist wouldn't take advantage of the post-war boom years?"

"You've done that before, haven't you, Command? In the twenties and fifties."

"Precisely, and I prefer either Killgrace or Cet."

"Going native?"

"I did that a long time ago. This is Accounts, with Legal just above them, and then Marketing on the fourth floor." It was the third, virtually identical, floor they had seen today. Killgrace looked round as Henry yawned. "We can cut this short if you'd prefer to chat."

"No, we'll have the full tour, thanks." Mary said before Henry could answer. The General looked peeved, but she did not care. Floor plans, employee faces and the general information they could collect was too valuable to pass up because the intern was bored. As Killgrace led them round she noticed Henry hanging back, and tuned the comms to listen in.

"What is this, look at my power and influence and fear me?" Henry whispered.

"Not quite," the General replied quietly. "He's showing off. He's proud of the company. Who else could he show it to?"

"You mean, everyone else is an inferior being from a lower tech society?"

"Yes. Who else can he show it to who knows he's an alien, knows what he's built here, and can understand it?"

"So if we play on that, he might show us the labs himself?"

"Actually gentlemen, the labs are in the basement. I have every intention of showing you, at the end of the tour. I'm just letting the security cameras get a good look at your faces first." Killgrace gestured upwards, waiting for them to catch up, and Henry cursed. The General waved at the camera. "You will find my hearing is excellent."

"I think I prefer Cull when they're killing things. When they start making plans they're dangerous." Chen said.

"Thank you."

#

"That's not the same lift." Chen said suspiciously as they finished touring the ground floor meeting rooms. Killgrace shook his head, his mouth quirked in what looked like a grin, and he gestured them into the larger lift.

"No, but I'm not giving Marketing access to R&D. They sell enough vapourware as it is." Once they were all in, he swiped a keycard and the lift started to move. Mary glanced at the card.

"Is that really necessary?" she asked.

"Not for me, but it's become a habit. We have human employees who need to go down there. By the way, I've disabled your electronics. I really don't want recordings getting out to my competitors. I'd normally ask visitors to sign an NDA, but you three can be discreet and he wouldn't consider it binding."

"I pre-date their laws, I don't follow them," the General replied, with a shrug.

"So do I, and I do." There was a slight edge to the Cull's voice for the first time, but before Mary could say anything the lift doors opened.

Beyond was a narrow corridor with another keylock and reception desk. The security guard behind it glanced up, saw Killgrace and went back to his newspaper.

"Paranoid much?"

"You wouldn't believe the sort of things my competitors have tried to get in here." Killgrace swiped his card and paused. "Actually, you might."

Without a sideways glance, he walked through the large basement space, where white coated technicians were working. At the end he opened another door.

"My private lab." He gestured them passed him. None of the workers had paid the slightest bit of attention.

Mary looked round quickly. Glass tanks lined one wall. A bench had notes with an inhuman script she could not read, and there were several large pieces of machinery neatly positioned against walls and tables. Without electronics she was relying on memory to catch all of the detail. She did not know how the Cull would react if she pulled out a notebook.

The General was looking round, intrigued, as he completed a slow walk round the laboratory. Finally he stopped in front of a machine with a large, flat, glass panel, set out below a viewscreen display.

"And what's this?" he asked, poking at it.

"It is a standard genetic resequencer. If I may have a volunteer? There will be no ill effects. I just need a hair." Mary pulled one out, handing it across. As the General protested, she raised an eyebrow.

"What, you were going to give him your DNA?" The General stopped, suddenly thoughtful, as Cet placed the hair on a glass panel inside the machine.

"You place it in the analyser, read the code and the genetic match displays on screen." Cet frowned as the display scrolled up, numbers and unrecognisable characters dancing at blinding speed. "Oh, it looks like you've suffered radiation damage."

"I can't read that," Mary said, and Cet hit a few buttons. The display changed to a twisted blue helix, with areas highlighted in green.

"There's the graphical representation. I can't clone this sample because of the damage. It would need to be combined with another - " Henry pushed a hair forward before Cet could finish speaking. "Alright, if you don't mind. Place it on the second analyser plate." Henry did so, glancing at Mary for permission. She nodded, intrigued.

"Now, I could do this manually to optimise the genetic, but for now a simple automatic repair using the undamaged cells..." On screen the graphical representation rotated, red sequences from the lower DNA strand lifting to fit in the damaged spaces on the strand above. "That's not actually what it's doing but it's something humans can understand."

"You have many humans down here?" Chen asked.

"Mainly research scientists," Cet answered without looking round, as the device clicked, showing a full pattern. "And it's complete. Apply it to the correct molecular interpreter and that pattern will produce a human."

"Adult?"

"No, a blastocyte. DNA replication can be triggered easily, and the specimen grows into a juvenile in a clone incubator at its natural rate. It gets round the ageing problems with adult clones and allows us to correct for clonal degradation."

"Could you grow a human baby in there?" Henry asked in shock.

"Yes." Cet sounded surprised "but that would be irresponsible. Human children don't raise themselves. Anyway - "

"You can't use our DNA for that!"

"Of course not!" Cet was quite obviously taken aback by the idea. He reached for the console, pressed a few buttons and the pattern disappeared from the screen. He turned back to them and said, slowly and very carefully, in the manner of a man trying not to startle an unpredictable animal: "I've wiped the test data, and your patterns from the data bank. General if you wish to confirm that?"

The General stepped forward, tapping a few buttons. After a moment he nodded.

"You're clear. He didn't save any of it." As Mary and Henry relaxed, Killgrace smiled, once more the genial host.

"Now that's all sorted, I think it's time we went upstairs for a chat."

#

"Ah, tea, coffee and biscuits. Polly really is remarkably competent." Killgrace took a seat at the head of the table and gestured. "Please help yourselves. Then you can sit down and tell me why you're here."

"You're not eating?"

"I could but since you know that's just a social thing, I'll skip it." Chen stared at him suspiciously, and ignored the food. The others did the same, sitting down at the table while the General poured himself a coffee. After checking her electronics, Mary took a surreptitious look round to make sure the room was all captured on camera. It was wood-panelled, rather dated in the era of sleek plastic fascias and chrome. The long boardroom table looked traditional, but a quick close glance showed the inlays that hid data ports and connections. Her eyes narrowed. A faint lighter spot on the wood showed where a large picture had been taken off the wall recently. It might just be co-incidence, but she doubted it.

The General blew on his coffee to cool it and sat down, frowning at Killgrace across the table.

"How are you still alive? The last time I saw you, you were shot -"

"Neural backup and molecular duplicate body." Killgrace answered, but the General continued.

"- and instead of being dead, I find you here, wearing the face of a Cull collaborator you killed over a hundred years ago." The General glared at him. There was a pause, and then to their surprise Killgrace laughed.

"What makes you think I died?" He smirked, suddenly entirely human. The General swallowed.

"Impossible."

"Hardly. You're right, the Cull was injured, dying, and then, would you believe it, he caught a cold?" Killgrace's smile was dark. "With failing life support and no time to cook up his own remedies, isn't it logical to install components from an already immune species?"

"But the genetics - the cascade failure..."

"The physical surgery," Killgrace corrected.

"You grafted - " he said, in a mix of awe and horror, and Cet - Killgrace - nodded.

"It wasn't a genetic merge, General. Those have been tried and failed repeatedly. He was trying something a little more complicated: installing an entire lymph system. It failed. We died anyway."

"So when the neural restore kicked in, Killgrace came along with it," the General said and Killgrace nodded.

"There are two of you in there?" Henry asked. It was the clipped tones of the Cull that answered.

"Not quite. That would not function. One integrated personality, but Killgrace's memories are segregated to prevent deletion as junk data. Using them as a filter allows more efficient interaction with human beings."

"But that's hideous!"

"Actually I got a sweet deal. Apart from the initial unpleasantness, I'm immortal, I've built a business empire - you think Cet had those skills? - I've lived to see men walk on the moon and I've been to other planets."

"But you're - he's dead."

"If you want to get technical, both Cet and Killgrace died to create me. It's just that Cet was the one with the afterdeath contingency."

"If you've got both sets of memories does that mean you remember the surgery from both sides?" Mary asked, and Killgrace grimaced.

"I prefer not to think about that."

"Unpleasant?"

"Confusing." Mary stifled a snigger and Cet grinned at her. "So now you've got the background on me. What brings you here?"

"Mainly you," she said.

"I'm flattered," Cet replied. Chen blinked, suddenly alert. The message flashed up across their comms: stall him. He cut into the conversation.

"Well, come on, a Cull running a company. You've got to admit it's unlikely."

"I'm sure you've seen stranger things."

"Yes, but without planning to take over the world? We were pretty sure you were building a Cull army in the basement."

"Of course not, that's on the fourth floor." As they gaped at him, he sighed. "And now you're going to want to search the fourth floor again."

"Sorry. We're not used to Cull making jokes." Mary said with an embarrassed smile, "And, err, could we have a look at the fourth floor?"

"Right now, or after we finished talking?" Cet looked resigned, and Chen blinked another message across: 'He's playing us.'

"I'm more interested in the basement." Henry said, without acknowledging Chen. "Those cloning devices. Could they actually be used to produce a human?"

"As I said, it can make a blastocyte, that will develop into an adult in the right environment - an incubator or theoretically a host-mother. We don't use the host-mother route since we wanted better environmental control." Mary let a breath out, and Chen relaxed. Briefly they had shared the same nightmarish thoughts. "Could it work for a human? I honestly don't see any reason why not."

"Instead of churning out Cull clones?" Chen said as bluntly as he could.

"That wasn't possible," Cet said harshly.

"You've done it before, with much more primitive technology," the General said and Cet looked straight at him.

"And the juveniles did not reach adulthood. I was wrong, General. The flaw wasn't technological. It is genetic. The chromosomal damage to the Command caste means that the juveniles will always be non-viable." Mary paled, as Henry took her hand under the table. He tapped a quick message out: 'problem?' She returned a quick negative, pulling her hand back. If the old Command caste could not replicate, if Cet was seen as impaired, the Cull would refuse to re-accept it among the ranks. Impossibly, this Cull may actually be non-hostile.

"I'm not buying it. You're a clone - " Chen said.

"He used a molecular duplicator," the General filled in, with surprising sympathy. "That's not the same as cloning for an independent adult. The result will always be brain-dead."

"Combined with neural restore, it worked. Once." Cet agreed. "It isn't a technology I would trust twice." There was a brief pause, as the Mill team regrouped. Chen took a breath, and stood up.

"To get back on track, we're here about technology."

"Really.? What did you need?"

"We're going to requisition your R&D. By dictate of the Crown and International Treaty, MI Eleven has the right to all alien technology found in Britain."

"If I refuse?"

"We'll just take it."

"And as an American citizen, and Ministry Of Defence preferred supplier, if you tried anything like that I would of course complain to my embassy, the UN, and the British government."

"They'd do nothing."

"Really? I think you might be surprised. In the UK, you can D-notice or section journalists. Worldwide? Japan, China, the Arab news networks, they'd love to have the story of how the government spooks fucked up first contact, and they won't hush when you tell them."

"After what happened in Paris, I don't think there's much good feeling towards Cull." Chen retorted.

"Depends on how you spin it, doesn't it?" The businessman's smile was daggers.

"So we try to do our jobs and you threaten us with politics, media, exposure and ruin?" Chen snapped. He sat down, looking at the Cull and nodded to himself. "So why aren't you screaming 'Kill'?"

There was a pause.

"With the General around, that would be pointless," Cet said, slowly, thoughtfully, "although I suppose that's not true of everyone at the table."

"You're not going to kill us," Mary said, with certainty.

"I certainly don't plan to," the Cull agreed.

"That's not a very Cull attitude, is it?" the General said.

"General, would you please stop provoking the alien killing machine?" Mary snapped.

"I'm not," he protested. "But we've had the entire planet threatened time and again, Cull fleets invading, the universe being destroyed, spaceships crashing, and where were you?"

"Busy," the Cull retorted.

"With what?" the General asked, and Cet gestured round the room. "Very funny."

"I'm not joking. Businesses don't run themselves."

"And that's taken all your time for the last few years?"

"About ninety years, General. If I'd wanted to invade the earth, get elected to office or take over, I'd have done it by now." There was a knock at the door. "Yes?" The receptionist stuck her head round the door.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Your two o'clock is here. They're a bit early, so I've settled them downstairs in 1C." Cet looked at his watch.

"Right, I'll be down in five. Sorry, we'll need to wrap this up here. Polly, could you see them out?"

"Of course."

#

"Has it occurred to any of you we just left that meeting knowing nothing more about his plans than we already did?" Mary said, as they walked back outside into the sunshine. Henry shrugged.

"We know he's got a clone bank in the basement, and neural backup technology."

"And we don't know what he is planning to do with them."

"Outgoing phone call detected." The message flashed up and Mary shook her head as they sat down outside the coffee shop.

"We can't hack it out here."

"We don't need to. I made a few adjustments to Chen's phone, so I could hear every word." The General smirked, pulling out his own phone. Chen patted his pocket theatrically as the coffees arrived.

"I must have lost it in the meeting room."

#

"Cull. Invading. Planets." Cet said, pronouncing every word. They could hear him quite clearly through their headsets.

"What?" The woman's voice sounded amused.

"It seems we missed the Cull invading Earth, about four years ago."

"Hmm...I would have noticed."

"They were led by the Apex Council. They invaded the planet and massacred Paris in 2008. There was a full Cull invasion fleet." He sounded baffled.

"Cet, are you more disturbed that you missed a chance to go home, or a chance to blow up your bosses?" The woman's voice was calm, amused, and infinitely reassuring.

"I do not know. My data banks must be corrupted."

"Cet, what do you remember happening in 2008?"

"Major events in that time period? We were repairing our Philippines operation after the typhoon, Obama was winning the primary, the army were taking on that spore creature in Yorkshire. There were twelve off-world missions. It is possible we were off-planet during the invasion."

"You know better than that. A huge event like that happens, and what on this planet was the news media's response to being invaded, the population massacred and a peculiarly brutal first contact? Access the current internet. Does it match what you know of humanoid behaviour?" There was a long silence.

"Negative." There was a pause. "Then this world also results from a defect. It has no future."

"Precisely. Two parasites can't drain each other indefinitely. Either they will merge and dwindle slowly or fight each other and die faster."

"I...did not...believe you. I...apologise." Killgrace' voice grated as if the words were difficult for him to say.

"Thank you," she said, "At least you don't think I'm insane any more. It doesn't change our objectives."

"No. Target proximity detected, but no contact."

"We knew this would take time."

"I will need to use Pedro."

"Understood. But keep the risk-"

"I will make the necessary preparations. Will you be attending the components meeting?"

"I'm on my way. You sound exhausted."

"The General."

"Ah. I shouldn't have left you to deal with him. I am sorry but I - "

"Acknowledged. Let's get this meeting over with." There was the sound of a door opening and then a sigh.

"Oh dear. He really did throw you, Cet. You missed the bug."

#

"How very human," the General said, looking at the box as the sound cut off. "And how very unlikely. And he's protecting something."

"General, do you think we are under any immediate threat from the Cull?"

"Oh no." The General hand-waved, distracted. "No more than usual."

"Do you know the woman?" Chen asked, watching him closely. The General thought for a moment and shook his head.

"No. She's familiar, but...no, I can't remember. A female, presumably humanoid, who a Cull would take orders from. That's a short list."

"Could it be another Cull in human form?"

"Not a chance. There weren't many who outranked Cet, and they were all more ideologically pure."

"Whoever it is, she's dangerous." Chen said. "What do you think this Pedro thing is?"

"No idea."

"Can you trace the call?" he asked Mary, and she shook her head.

"Not a chance. All I got was normal traffic. Cull, invasion, massacre, any of those phrases should have flagged up and they didn't. He's got a secure channel. Is it just me, or did he seem more...human... on the phone?" Chen scowled.

"He's playing us. Or is he playing them? The Cull don't explain."

"Not to you, you're inferior," the General said, "as far as they think. But to a superior or equal? They explain things to me all the time."

"We have to know who he was talking to." Chen said. "And we're not going to find that without another trip on site, of a more clandestine nature."

"Then watch yourself. I don't care how human he seems. Killgrace wasn't a nice person either."

"And what are you going to be doing while we raid the office?" Chen asked. The General reached into a pocket, pulling out a handful of computer chips marked with the Killgrace logo.

"Analysing these."

#

Mary and Chen did not bother with trying to avoid the security cameras, simply dressing in overalls to hide their work clothes and strolling in through the loading bay, bypassing security. Pressing an electronic lockpick to the gate panel quickly unlocked the gates and they walked inside as if they belonged. The guard looked up, obviously decided they had to belong since they had a key, and went back to his newspaper.

An second panel got them into the building itself.

"This is too easy." Mary muttered, and Chen nodded.

"We split up. You, place the bugs. I'll go for the basement lab."

"Understood. Stay off comms. We know he can hear them," she said, and he nodded. Quickly they removed their overalls, and moved out, just two people in suits working late. Nothing to see.

Looking at the stair alarms, Mary took the lift instead, keeping her head down. The top floor was a logical place to start, but she had misgivings about her mission. Trying to place bugs in here seemed pointless since she knew Killgrace could hear them.

The lift doors opened, and she walked out. Involuntarily she glanced up at the security camera in the corner, fortunately facing away. If they already had a system, then she could use that. The security office was on the ground floor. She stopped, paused as she heard voices, and took a step closer, listening. It was Killgrace. Mary walked closer as she tried to listen in, covering her eavesdropping by stopping by the watercooler to pour herself a drink.

It sounded like a conference call, between Killgrace and his mysterous partner, and potentially valuable information. Despite the limitations of the telephone line, the woman sounded exhausted.

"These beings are ethically bankrupt. They'd let the right person get away with murder, and they have!"

"An effect of the brainwashing." The calm, flat, reply was Killgrace.

"Yes." The frustration in her tone came across clearly. "I can't find a way to reverse it."

"That is not what we are here to do."

"I know. But I could not...not try."

"I know. It is a significant character flaw."

"Thank you," she said, acidly. "How are things at your end?" There was a pause before he replied.

"I do not recall Killgrace being a collaborator. I recall him being in a convenient location when I required a test subject. And I do not recall my people ever requiring collaborators. I believe I am insulted." Killgrace sounded almost indignant.

"It's the first time you've been to a world this close to your own, isn't it?" The woman sounded amused, but also strangely sympathetic. "Either things were different here, or he's lying. Try to live with it. We won't be here long."

"Very well. Time to...be social." It was said with such utter disdain that Mary nearly burst out laughing, and missed the end of the call. She hurried back towards the lift, hitting the button for ground. After a few heart-stopping seconds it arrived just as she saw Killgrace leave the office. Fortunately, he turned the other way.

On the ground floor she turned, following the signs to security and stopping a few doors short by a cable access panel. Her detector, run over the panel, indicated a nucleus of network cables. Looking and listening to make sure there was no one around, Mary pulled out the electronic lockpick, unlocking the cable hatch and reaching inside. It was the work of a moment to fit the transmitter and turn it on. Now everything on the Killgrace secruity system could be accessed – if the person accessing it had the ability to crack encryption that was literally out of this world.

She walked on to the security office. The guard still had his head down, shaggy hair just visible over the back of his chair, but he was facing the monitors and had his back to her. His coat, with keycard, with slung over the back of his chair: bad practice, but nowhere near the worst security guard Mary had ever seen. She ducked low to avoid being noticed in the reflection on the monitors, and silently scooted inside. Carefully she detached the keycard from the jacket and slid it into her pocket before she crept out. Time to meet Chen.

#

Chen tried the electronic lockpick again but the reader for the basement laboratory did not even acknowledge it. He was reaching into his bag for a different tool when Mary walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder.

"No luck?" Mary held up the keycard, and swiped it. The door buzzed, uncomfortably loud in the quiet, and Chen pushed it open before it could re-lock. They paused, waiting for a reaction, but there was none. Mary took the lead, stepping inside cautiously. The main lab was empty of people, although a few pieces of equipment ticked over slowly on benches. Chen ducked down, moving quickly passed her to the door of Killgrace's lab.

A faint suspicion of movement, on the edge of her vision, and Mary whirled, scanning for danger as one hand went to her gun. There was nothing there. After a tense moment she decided it was her imagination. Standing up, she turned on the spot slowly, letting the camera capture the entire lab. It was useful data, but not their main target - most of this was recognisable technology. Walking across the lab, capturing the layout from several angles, she rejoined Chen by the door into Killgrace's private lab. The exchanged a glance and he took cover, weapon out and covering her. Pressed to one side of the wall by the door, she swiped the keycard, expecting alarms to go off. Instead there was the quiet click of a lock releasing.

Cautiously she reached for the handle and turned it, staying out of line of sight from the door. The door opened slightly, well-oiled. Checking Chen could cover her, she ducked across the doorway, peering through the gap. The room looked empty. With a breath she dived forward, weapon in hand, rolled and tucked into cover by the wall. There was no one here. Slowly she stood up, looking round.

There were notes and files on the desk near the door, and a cold coffee stood half-drunk beside them. Someone had obviously been called away at short notice. There was a risk they might return, but for now the lab was empty. She held a hand out behind her, gesturing an all-clear signal to Chen, and crept further in.

She looked at the desk again, covered in notes. The biro ink and obvious handwriting contrasted oddly with the sharp lines of a non-human script. There were no computers or mobiles to access, and then the thought hit her: Cull did not drink. On an impulse she checked the rim of the coffee mug for lipstick stains. None.

There was a folder on the side. She opened it, flicking through quickly. The notation used was the same alien script, but the pictures and numbers said enough. It was a set of photos, mainly of young girls. Each file had names, date of birth, and parental fates - dead, disappeared, divorced - and socio-economic status, as well as an 'encounter date'. It read like a list of the most vulnerable. Some of the folders had pictures as adults and dates of death, others...Mary smothered a gasp of surprise. Some of these people would not even have been born yet. Could these be the victims of the brainwashing - the current and intended?

There was a noise from down the hall. With a glance at Chen, she closed the folder silently. Walking on the balls of her feet, making no sound on the hard floor, she sidled towards the door the sound had come from and peered in.

The room stood in stark contrast to the precise, sterile laboratory outside. There was a small, half empty tin of lollipops on the side, refined pure sugar, and notes on the wall.

It could have been a child's playroom, with toys scattered across the floor. A half built robotics set had been discarded on a play mat, and a couch was pushed against the far side of the room. She narrowed her eyes, remembering Killgrace's denial that he had human children down here, and stepped into the room.

There was something curled up in the corner of the couch, with a checked blanket pulled up across it. Its skin was pale green, with an odd luminescence, and the shape was like nothing human at all. Black expressionless eyes gazed at her as the leather surface twitched and writhed. In one of the frond-like tendrils by its mandibles it was clutching a book. In the other...

"That's a Cull. Kill it." Chen reached instantly for his gun as he looked passed her.

"No!" On reflex Mary stepped between Chen and the otherworldly thing on the sofa.

"Mary, what the hell? Get out of the way!"

"Chen. It's eating a lollipop." There was a rustle from behind her.

"What?" he said, incredulously. She edged slightly to one side. The alien-thing had moved, ducking round behind the corner of the sofa and pulling its limbs in tight.

"I think it's scared."

"Cull don't feel fear - " There was a bright flash of light and as he fell, he heard Mary scream.

#

"State your intentions!" It was a Cull, in full battle armour. The hiss of the mechanical translator was impossible to mistake. Chen blinked as the dark blue shape swam back into focus. His head was pounding and he tried to raise a hand to shield his eyes. His hand would not move, there was the feeling of a thick metal band around his wrist holding him down, and as he tried to sit up he could not. His neck, wrists, and feet were bound. There was cold metal beneath him, and he realised with horror he was on a laboratory table: to be precise, a Cull vivisection table.

"What the - ?"

"Explain or die," the Cull shrieked. At this range it was deafening.

"Cet?"

"Explain!" The Cull's secondary gun flared and he yelped as the bolt hit him. The pain setting flayed nerves already raw and his body convulsed in a seizure, arching against the bonds. It lasted for seconds and, as his vision cleared, he blinked blearily up at the alien.

"That's not a good way to make friends." The gun fired again, and Chen screamed.

#

Mary moaned, feeling a cold compress against her head.

"Easy, there. You hit your head when you went down." It was a man's voice, but no one she knew.

"Is she going to be OK?" It was Henry. He should not be here, she thought blearily.

"Yeah, she was only on the fringe of the stun beam."

"What about Chen?"

"Chen?" Mary managed as she opened her eyes, head swimming.

"Mary! Are you alright?"

"Yeah." She blinked as the world came back into focus. She was in a sterile white room with two people: Henry and another man, older, slightly shaggy hair: the one whose keycard she had used. "Where am I?"

"Killgrace Industries, First Aid room." Henry said. "They phoned me on your mobile when they found you and Chen - "

"Chen!" Suddenly her thoughts cleared in shock. "What happened to Chen? He was going to kill the...the..."

"Oh." The other man looked stunned. "That explains it."

"Where's Chen?"

"Under interrogation. His heart stopped twice before we managed to get Cet to stop shooting long enough for us to start CPR and get him back, because corpses can't answer questions. If Chen threatened a juvenile, he's lucky that's all that happened."

"But - " she was cut off as a scream echoed through the halls. "What's happening?"

"Cet took it badly. He's killed people for less."

#

"State your intentions." The Cull had not calmed down once. Chen gasped for air, tasting blood in his mouth. He couldn't answer if he chose.

"We were investigating." It was Mary's voice, from the doorway. She was leaning on the frame. The Cull's sensor lights rotated within the hood.

"You are undamaged?" The enquiry was at almost normal volume for a Cull.

"Yes, but Chen isn't. What are you doing?"

"Standard interrogation procedure."

"Torture," Chen croaked as he managed to catch his breath.

"You can't torture him." Mary said, before she remembered what she was talking to. The Cull's sensor lights twitched in obvious incomprehension. The man with her coughed.

"Sir, Mary has told us what we needed to know."

"Then this one is not needed." The Cull's sensors rotated towards Chen with gleeful malice.

"Bodies are hard to explain."

"They can disappear."

"Cet!" Mary protested. "None of the juveniles were harmed. Remember."

"He would have killed them."

"Mary stopped him," Henry said, and the man with them nodded. The Cull paused. Its sensors swivelled back towards them. There was a blurring shift that hurt to watch and Killgrace looked at Chen. He turned to the doorway and the people waiting there.

"Get that down to security and call the police. Press charges. Breaking and entering, trespass, anything you like. Get Legal on the civil case. I want him buried."

"And when I tell them what's in your basement?" Chen croaked in defiance.

"You'll be sectioned. Mary, if you want me to spare another of your friends, save another of my juveniles. Charlie, make sure they are looked after and leave safely." Mary glared at Killgrace.

"We can give him an alibi."

"I can name you as accessories," he said coldly and walked out.

#

"What happened?" the General said. He grabbed a blanket spreading it over the sofa and helped them lay Chen on it.

"Cet attacked us. We were lucky to get out alive." Chen said, with difficulty.

"Then he'll be coming here next. How did you escape?"

"He let us go," Mary said, ignoring the glare from Chen. "If he'd wanted us dead, we would be."

"He tortured me," the senior officer insisted.

"You tried to kill a juvenile Cull."

"Yes. Wipe out an enemy soldier before it could kill me," Chen snapped.

"No. You tried to kill his kid," Henry said, as the pieces fell into place. Mary nodded, as the General shook his head.

"Cull don't have family, Henry. They don't have love, they don't have friendship - "

"No, they've got survival. Offspring are the ultimate expression of that. Protecting helpless - "

"Helpless! Juvenile Cull are still deadly. It's genetic. They hate everything, and attack anything that isn't a Cull – and even things that are!" the General insisted. Mary shook her head frantically.

"No, think about it. The alien had a lollipop. There was meccano on the floor. I turned my back on it, and it tried to get away."

"So, it was a juvenile clone." Chen grimaced, coughing to clear his throat. "He said the clones kept dying. He lied."

"What if that one just hasn't died yet?" Mary said slowly. "If you pointed a gun at a terminally ill child with a fatal genetic condition..."

"A human parent might care, yes, but not a Cull."

"Killgrace?" Henry said, and there was sudden silence. Henry took a breath and continued. "He said the juveniles died. He didn't say he wasn't making them any more."

"But what kind of person could make a child just to watch it die?" Mary asked.

"I said Killgrace was cold," the General said, and Henry snapped his fingers.

"He's not. The resequencer. That's what it's for!"

"If it can correct genetics," Mary nodded "and the problem is genetic – I think you're on to something."

"Perhaps." The General looked thoughtful. "Mary, did the juvenile have a carapace?"

"No," Mary said after thinking for a moment.

"What size would you say it was?"

"The main core body, about the size of a football. With mantle, tendril fronds and mandibles, it might reach two feet at full stretch." The General shook his head.

"It's a juvenile, but even at its slowest rate of growth, that would be six months old. Anything genetic would normally have killed it by now. We need a better sample."

He picked a Geiger counter up off their equipment rack and ran it over Mary.

"What are you - ?"

"Cull are naturally radioactive," the General said. There was no response and he looked disappointed. Turning to Chen he scanned the counter across the man on the couch. It clicked into sudden life by Chen's upper right arm. Moving the counter in circles to check the affected area, the General held out a hand.

"Chen, take your shirt off. Henry, pass me that sample kit." Chen eased out of the shirt carefully, and the General put down the counter to swab a sample from the sleeve.

"Ah. DNA." He smiled triumphantly and Mary frowned. Chen had never touched the juvenile, she was sure. Chen picked up the Geiger counter, checking his arm. The device clicked faintly.

"Should I be concerned?"

"No. No worse than an X-ray. Although it should be." The General took the device, pointing the Geiger counter at the shirt sleeve again, and shook his head at the reading. "That's far too low."

"Could it be the genetic flaw that's killing them?"

"No. That would be correctable by diet. I need a better lab. Excuse me, I'll take this to my ship and give you the results shortly." Bundling the shirt and swab sample into a bag, he hurried out. The stationery cupboard door closed behind him.

"Is there something I should know about that cupboard?" Henry asked.

"It's above your clearance." Chen said, blinking vaguely at the lights. "Pass me the aspirin." Henry handed them across, and Chen downed two without waiting for water. He relaxed for a moment, closing his eyes.

"Are you alright?"

"My head's killing me. Get me spare shirt, it's in the bottom drawer in my office." Henry left at a run. Chen turned his head, cracking one eye open a bit at the sound of someone tapping away at a keyboard.

"Mary, what are you doing?"

"Tuning in. I didn't have a chance to bug Killgrace, so I added a transmitter to their security system. It's a top-flight set-up with sound, and right now it does what I want it to." Flicking through the security camera displays, she was not surprised that most of the basement was off limits. Then she paused as she found Killgrace sitting in a room alone, and zoomed in.

Killgrace might be alone, but the lights on the phone console in front of it made it obvious he was speaking to someone. Mary turned the sound settings on and a voice crackled into being from the teleconference in progress, faintly recognisable as the woman's.

" – a twisted form of slavery. Remove a sentient from the control mechanism and they cease to exist once away from their master. Remove him and they all die."

"Render the master braindead or comatose."

"On a galactic timescale, beings tend to recover from that quickly. The second he wakes up, he'll reset the world to the way he wants it, and erase centuries or millennia of progress in an instant."

"That was why they sent us."

"Precisely. We're immune. Have you made any progress with the brain-washing?"

"Before I was interrupted last night, experimentation proved that the conditioning was not removable by conventional methods. Direct neural stimulation and contradictory evidence were ineffective." There was a long pause, and then the woman replied.

"Thank you." She sighed audibly before she continued, unemotional once more. "Can you keep the Mill off my back a bit longer? I'm still working on how to approach the secondary target."

"I do not believe they will return soon - "

"What did you do?" The woman's voice was disappointed. She knew she was not going to like the answer.

"I – Primary target located." The sudden change in the Cull's tone made it obvious it was not a distraction.

"Observe and isolate. I'll be there shortly." The phone lights turned off. Killgrace looked at the device and the power switched off. Then he stood, walked to the door and, in the entrance, blurred into the blue armoured form they dreaded so much.

Mary stared at the screen a moment longer before the security camera's connection cut. Electronic countermeasures were obviously in use.

"I think he's going to kill someone," she said, helplessly.

"An invasion?" Chen said, taking the new shirt from Henry and pulling it on.

"I don't know." she paused, pulled her thoughts together and began to report. "Last night they were talking about brainwashing people to the extend they turn a blind eye to murder, and now they've mentioned slavery. There was a folder on the desk, faces and names, mainly young women with broken families."

"The victims?"

"Possibly. We may actually have to work with the Cull on this." Mary took a breath and continued her report. "They have at least two targets -"

The sound of a door slamming open cut her off, as the General walked into the room. He looked shaken.

"We need to go back," he said without preamble. Chen rubbed his forehead with a groan.

"You found something wrong with the chips?"

"No, they're fine," The General said, in surprise. "No, there's an issue with the DNA traces from the juvenile."

"What's wrong with them?"

"I'm more worried about what isn't wrong."

"So Killgrace lied." Chen persisted. "Excuse me if I'm not feeling too nice towards Cull right now."

"If he lied, then what's that resequencer for?" Henry said, and the General rounded on him with a glare.

"Exactly what he showed us," he snapped, before he shook himself with an exasperated noise and walked towards the desk. Chen swung round, putting his feet on the floor and stood up uncertainly.

"General, the human parental instinct combined with a Cull's survival drive and the sheer power of a Command Unit? We'll need to be very careful if you want us to get tissue samples from that juvenile."

"That's why I am coming with you," the General said. He looked angry for the first time since Mary had known him. "I need to have a look at the clone itself. Tonight would be ideal– "

"Maybe not." Mary said. "I've been listening in. Killgrace and this woman found their primary target. He just left the site in Cull form. They're going to be busy."

"People are going to die." Chen said.

"They might deserve it. It sounds like Killgrace and his accomplice are taking on some kind of slaving ring."

"He won't be doing it for good reasons, or anything that benefits anyone but him – " Chen started. The General threw a coat at him, pulling his own.

"That's not important. What is important is me getting a look at that juvenile. Come on."

#

"I'm here to see Mr. Killgrace," the General said, as he stormed into the reception of the London office. The Mill team trailed behind him, keeping an eye out for anyone trying to interfere.

"I'm afraid he's not available at the moment," the receptionist replied. "Leave your - "

"Yes he is," the General interrupted, before she could continue. "Tell him I am here to see him."

"I am afraid he has requested I hold his calls. If you would like to make an appointment -"

"No. I want to see Mr. Killgrace, right now."

"He's not seeing visitors at the moment."

The phone on the desk lit up. She glanced down at it, hitting the button to close the display before the General could see it.

"Mr Killgrace will see you now." She said, faintly surprised under the professional mask. "He's upstairs in the board room. It's the lift in the middle."

#

Killgrace was waiting for them, seated at the head of the meeting table. His expression was utterly unreadable.

"Please sit down," he said. The General took two steps towards him. "Grabbing me would be unwise. Shall we try and keep this civil?"

"Mr. Chen. I have been told I may have gone too far in my reaction." Chen's head whipped round and he glared. Killgrace was unfazed. "If that is correct, my apologies."

"Apologies!" The man froze, torn between incredulity and anger.

"You will not hear me say that again." The tone in the Cull's voice made it obvious the apology was coerced. Chen nodded once, sharply, and sat down. He watched the Cull closely. If something could coerce a being capable of destroying planets, they were all in more danger then they had thought.

"Your boss put her foot down?" Henry said, joking and the Cull tilted its head.

"My colleague and hers, but you have the basic summary correct."

"Someone with a Cull on a leash." Henry shut up as Mary kicked him under the table. She had not forgotten Chen screaming under torture last night, and did not want to know what the creature would do if Henry actually managed to strike a nerve. Killgrace simply looked at him with flat black eyes, but its comment was faintly amused.

"It seems Mary still has yours. Still, this is irrelevant." He looked at Chen. "For what it's worth, since I know you won't take my word on it, your Commodore has not been compromised. I just employed basic holography and feigned phone calls to get your attention."

"A trap." The General said, all friendliness gone. "And I walked right into it. Well done."

"Thank you, but I honestly don't know what you are talking about."

"A trap?" Chen said, suddenly on guard.

"Yes. The juveniles have extensive chromosomal damage. He has a resequencer in the basement that can repair it, if he can obtain compatible DNA."

"But human - oh my god." Henry worked it out. The General ignored him, still glaring at Cet.

"You would have done anything to get me on site."

"That is correct."

"You thought I'd come alone."

"No. You are far too fond of an audience." The General glared at him.

"So when did you get your sample? When I reset the resequencer? Or was it the water glass?"

"I have not taken a sample," Killgrace said. His face was blank and unreadable.

"There's a six-month old clone in the basement," the General replied, his voice very level.

"Yes. Its name is Pedro. (Personality-enhanced) Development Research Operation." Somehow the brackets dropped into place around the first two words. The General matched Killgrace's gaze with a very even stare. The Cull never blinked.

"It's not dead."

"No."

"It's not dying."

"Hopefully not for a long time yet." Killgrace nodded, his face still in that quiet uncommunicative mask.

"There's a reason for that, isn't there?" the General said with quiet fury. "The Command Genetics really are too mutated to replicate, so you got the DNA somewhere else."

"Correct." The Cull had tensed slightly in his seat. The General stood, leaning over the table towards him.

"That juvenile has my DNA strains. How dare you?"

"I have never sampled your DNA, General."

"Then how?" He demanded, his voice quietly furious.

"Because it's my DNA as well." A woman's voice said from the doorway. She was dressed conservatively, in a business suit and skirt, hair tucked neatly away. Nothing to look at twice, and yet the General looked at her as if he had seen a ghost. She smiled.

"Hello, Uncle."

#

"I believe we have a lot to catch up on," the woman said, looking straight at the General. Cet stood, gesturing her to his chair at the head of the table and pushed it in for her as she sat. The Cull took another chair from the back of the room and sat down, behind and off to the side.

"Taking second place?" Chen jibed.

"Ensuring an unobstructed fire arc," Cet replied urbanely. There was an uncomfortable pause.

"Xhoshe-" the General began, and the woman cut him off.

"It's Susan now." The words were tinged with utter contempt.

"Who do you think you are?" Mary jumped in to defend their ally. Susan looked at her, and replied civilly enough.

"His descendant. The one who he left in the wrong century, on a defenceless backwater planet, to fight the Cull."

"General?" Mary turned, suddenly not surprised by the woman's hostility. The General swallowed, never taking his eyes off the woman.

"She is." He stared at her, almost afraid. "I had to keep you out of the war."

"Hardly," she said, with an undercurrent of bitterness, and turned to Mary. "He put my name in an evacuation programme without telling me - or any of my other relatives - and dropped me off on an agrarian planet with nothing, not even a standard evacuation kit."

"I wanted you to be safe!" he insisted, and she shook her head.

"You never checked, did you? And you never sent anyone else." She smiled, without humour. "Six months after you dumped me, the Cull invaded. My friends, my adopted family were killed."

"And they took you prisoner," the General almost spat, looking at Cet.

"Negative," the Cull replied, "our troops were not that capable."

"I spent five years leading the resistance. Taking a society through its industrial revolution and into electronics in months instead of centuries. Fighting the Cull with no technology greater than transistors, no way to call for help, and no backup because no one knew where I was." Her voice was quiet, cold, and deadly. "Anyway we won. We built a golden age on the ruins of the Cull. I had a home, a family. You would have liked them. Strange how things work out, isn't it?" Susan said. Her mouth was drawn and tight. There was a strained pause. Mary looked at the General and took a breath.

"What happened?" she asked into the silence. Susan answered her question, but her gaze was fixed on the General.

"I married. We were very happy, had a family, grew old together. Except I didn't, Uncle. He did, and he died holding my hand. Then so did my children, then my grandchildren. There were no threats you see, nothing to trigger the genes that fought stress and ageing."

"Oh God." Mary put a hand to her mouth.

"They didn't inherit my longevity, I don't know why. After I watched the last of my grandchildren die, I gave up hope. It was time to go home. I salvaged the remaining Cull-tech, and cobbled together a transport capsule, good for one trip. Except when it took flight it wouldn't lock on to a navigation Torus. Attuning it should have been the simplest thing in the world. I didn't know the Torus was broken until it was too late to turn back. So I tried Earth, to go back to my other home but the Capsule was out of control."

"You were lucky it landed at all," the General said.

"It wasn't luck, it was the emergency landing procedure. When the Capsule started to fail, the failsafe systems kicked in and sent out a beacon. It was picked up, and the Capsule locked on the energy source, and homed in. I crawled out of the smoking ruins of my machine and ran straight into a Cull..."

Heads turned to looked at Cet. The alien raised an eyebrow.

"What do you did you do?" Henry asked fascinated and Cet almost smiled.

"Apparently the humanoid response is to open mouth and emit a prolonged high-pitched sound of surprising volume and duration."

"Yeah, I'd scream too," Henry said. Susan's eyes flicked to the table. For a moment it seemed she was going to laugh, but the moment passed and she continued.

"Anyway, one thing led to another, and we ended up working together. It's been nearly a century now."

"But the war - " the General said.

"- is over. There's a treaty in place between our peoples."

"Our peoples?" The General shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Yes," she said, glaring at him. "Imagine my shock when I ran into other survivors and they told me what you were up to."

"What others?"

"Oh no you don't," she snapped. "I'm not telling you who they are or where to find them."

"But if you wanted to go home, wouldn't he- ?" Mary started, and Susan cut her off.

"I had to mercy-kill two of his victims. He made them immortal so he could torture them forever. He turned an entire race into pre-programmed assassins to destroy an enemy rather than do it himself - never mind the sects within that species that abhor violence and would rather have died."

"It was necessary," the General protested.

"You find a third way. You told me that."

"There was no third way. Not with what they had done."

"And Maria? What did she do?" The General's face went white. Susan's could have been carved from ice. "Trapped in stone for all eternity, still conscious. She was still waiting for you, you know. You hadn't even left her the ability to hate you for the agony. On this world, you see, stone crumbles. When I got there, there were...pieces. Our most severe punishment, Uncle, and you inflicted it on an innocent just to see if you could."

"And you're perfect."

"No, nowhere near," Susan said. "I may have feet of clay, but at least my hands aren't red to the wrist."

"Then what would you have done with the Secai?"

"Found a cure, or given them a quick merciful death. You made them immortal so you could torture them eternally." Susan nodded, drawing a breath, and asked a question she must have been holding in for years. "Uncle, what on earth is wrong with you?"

"He only does these things because he has to," Mary piled in before the General could respond, and recoiled from the weight of Susan's stare.

"Rubbish!" she snapped. "If you knew what I've had to do because of that man, and his habit of picking people too starstruck to tell him he's wrong. Have you ever told him to grow up?" Susan paused reaching for the glass,and calmed herself visibly. "He does these things because he wanted to. He allowed the Secai – the interstellar equivalent of rabid dogs - to kill an awful lot of people, and then tortured them forever for following their natures. A bullet in the head earlier on would have saved so many lives and so much pain, but it would have meant he had to act."

"I couldn't just kill them," the General snapped.

"What you did was arguably worse," she said dryly. "And everyone that they killed, that you chose not to save, is on your hands."

"But...but why haven't we heard anything about this?" Mary said, in confusion. She looked between the General and the others, and the hope in her eyes was being replaced by fear.

"Who has he left who can tell you?" Susan said, with resignation. "It's why I'm not telling him where he can find the others. He can't kill what he can't reach."

"I don't believe any of this."

"That's your choice, but I am here officially with an arrest warrant and a charge list."

"Charges? What for?" Chen said in utter shock. Susan gestured for them to hold on a minute, taking a sip of water before she started.

"Our species controls dimensions: height, length, depth, time. You can guess which one is the most often abused. Deliberately developing a relationship with a child, with an eye to an adult relationship later? It's called grooming, and it's an offense in both our species. Picking the victim based on knowing how their genetics express as an adult is just creepy."

"Are you telling me you don't date people based on looks?" the General said, with cold anger, glaring round the table. His face had changed, and suddenly the charges seemed almost possible. The others began slowly to edge away from him.

"I don't think they then jump back and start chatting the person up when they are seven." Susan said, matching his stare with her own level gaze. "Going back to change someone's past without their consent is murder, deprivation of free will and a host of other issues. Then there are the other charges..." She took out a notepad, and flipped to the first page. "Condemning victims to stone, eternal torture - we've got ten known counts - inflicting cruel and unusual punishment, death by negligence, five counts of genocide, two of those total racial elimination, utter lack of remorse..."

"Who are you to charge me?"

"An appointed representative of the government-in-exile."

"I don't follow your laws." The General shot to his feet, looming over her. The room seemed suddenly darker. A sudden flash of light left them blinking, and when their vision cleared Cet was standing, hand outstretched. The General was slumped limply across the table.

"Stunned," the Cull said, as the others recoiled. Susan nodded, unmoved.

"Thank you. There's a war crimes tribunal waiting for him, but I don't think they could do worse than he's done to himself."

"I don't understand," Mary said. "He's a good man."

"No." Susan shook her head. "He'll keep telling you that, and he can make you think it, but he's not. Not anymore. He's been coasting on his own legend so long he forgot he has to live up to it."

"Why should we believe you?"

"You don't have to." She shrugged, never taking her eyes off the General. "I idolised him for so many years. I spent most of my life trying to live up to what he was, and then I found out he wasn't bothering anymore."

"Well, I don't believe you." Chen said bluntly. "We're taking him out of here, and you aren't going to stop us."

"That is totally, and completely, in every way, your choice." Susan said, with strange emphasis. Mary shot a nervous glance at the Cull, but it was watching the proceeding with almost clinical interest.

"I know you think he betrayed you - "

"He did not just betray me. He's betrayed everyone who ever trusted him, relied on him or believed in him." The look on the woman's face said plainly that she expected Mary to be next. For some reason the thought made the agent irrationally angry.

"He's never betrayed me."

"Really?" Susan's gaze was calm, measured, and Mary looked away first. "How would you like it if a guy saw you in a bar, decided he liked your looks, and slipped you a pill to change your personality to one he chooses? That might actually be kinder. It wears off." There was an uncomfortable silence and, as it stretched, Mary changed tactics.

"Who are you to charge him anyway?"

"The only one of his accusers who won't kill him on sight for what he has done, and what he has become." Susan reached across the table as if to take the fallen man's pulse, but instead rested a hand on his forehead. After a moment she pulled it back, cradling it as if it hurt.

"He thinks he killed me." She shook her head incredulously. "He cares nothing for the crimes he did commit, but he's broken by the guilt of one he certainly did not."

"If you cared for him - "

"Of course I care for him!" Susan snapped. "He's my Uncle. I love him dearly. But what he's become..." Her voice broke for the first time and she shivered, looking at the unconscious man. "...what he has become is a travesty of everything he ever was. I came here hoping I could reason with him, but he doesn't even think he's done anything wrong!"

They were staring at her in shock. She swallowed, taking a deep breath and trying to recover her composure. She stood up, walked to the refreshments on the side, and poured a glass of water. Mary narrowed her eyes, looking at the glass. The woman's hand looked steady, but the water's surface was trembling.

"I apologise," Susan said, and her voice was level again. "That outburst was unseemly and unprofessional."

"Well, to us he's a hero. He's saved a lot of lives, defeated a lot of enemies -"

"How many of them would be enemies if it weren't for him?" Susan asked bitterly. Mary gasped at the comment, outraged.

"He's sacrificed so much -"

"Including other people, who he neither asked permission from, nor cared about." Susan was not angry, Mary realised with sudden understanding. She was heart-broken. That did not change her duty, or Mary's.

"That happens in war."

"There was no war. There was an act of treason." Her glance told them who she thought had committed it. "An act that killed billions, but no war."

"You allege," Mary said, simply. "I've known him for years. I'll stand by him."

"You will, won't you. No matter how vile his crimes, or whether he's worthy of it." Susan looked at her and Mary bridled at the pity in the older woman's gaze.

"We only have your word he's done anything."

"And only his word that he's innocent – set against your own experience and memories. There is a fair trial awaiting him. If he is innocent, he will be aquitted."

"A trial? Who's going to judge him, you?"

"No. I recused myself. The judges will be impartial, as will the prosecution, on behalf of the people he's hurt."

"You mean the evil he defeated."

"No, good people who just weren't brainwashed into believing-" Susan stopped as Mary leapt to her feet, pulling her gun.

"How dare -" she started.

"Cease hostilities." The command from the Cull was absolutely deadly. Cet was standing in front of Susan. They had not seen it move. Mary took a shuddering breath and pulled herself together. Chen was already checking the General's pulse.

"He's definitely alive. Henry, give me a hand. Mary, get ready for a fighting retreat."

"Unnecessary," Susan said, and her voice was very tired. The Cull stepped to the side, allowing her a clear view of the room. They were not stupid enough to think that made it less dangerous.

"You aren't going to fight us?" Mary said, in disbelief.

"No." Susan sighed and sat down. "He has been served with the charges. The rest is up to him."

She did not move as Henry hauled the limp body over one shoulder, moving quickly out of the door. Chen went first, covering the corridor. It was empty. Henry followed. The last glance Mary had as she backed out after him was Susan, sitting in the chair watching them, the Cull's unblinking gaze fastened on the door.

They dived into the stairwell, rushing down the emergency escape and out. The car was just across the street, and the General was thrown on the backseat as they piled in. Chen floored it. It was not until they were safely away that he slowed – if any distance on the same planet could be considered safe from a Cull.

"We've missed something," he said.

"What?" Henry asked, checking the General's pulse. The man was still out cold.

"They did not pursue us."

"You missed something else then," Mary said, grimly. "Reception was empty. What do you want to bet there's no one in that building now?"

"Hold on." Henry went through the General's pockets rapidly, and produced his phone.

"Chen, you still got your old phone number?" Henry asked.

"Yes."

"Don't bother. I've still got access to their security system." With a few deft keystrokes, Marry tuned back in, and the video display came up on the dashboard, showing security camera footage from around the building. She cycled through until she found them. The pair were standing in the basement. All the complicated equipment was gone, save one silver cylinder the height of a man standing in the corner. Another quick tap and the sound of a conversation filled the car.

#

"You did not tell them everything," Cet said.

"No. They are innocent in this. Why should I hurt them like that?"

"They are not real. They do not matter."

"They think they are, in this world they are, and their feelings are. That is all that matters." It was obviously the end of the argument as far as Susan was concerned, less so for the Cull.

"But this is a parasite universe."

"That does not make it less real. Ordinarily a universe expands in all directions. This one is shrinking as possibilities are culled or removed because it doesn't have the energy to expand. It parasites off its own ideas. It's so much easier to threaten a universe like this, so much easier to destabilise it, to change the course of history or end it all together. Why do you think there are so many more world ending, universe threatening, events going on – enough that a backwater world like this has organisations to fight them? In a small universe, you'll run into the same people over and over again, go to the same places, and you won't even notice because it doesn't just bind your location, it binds your thoughts."

"How long can it endure?"

"With him powering it, it could continue indefinitely, getting smaller and stranger as it delves into itself."

#

Henry blinked at the comment.

"Is that the equivalent of a universe disappearing up its own-"

"Shut up!" Mary said urgently.

#

In the basement, Cet looked at his long time partner.

"We could re-merge it forcibly," he suggested, but Susan shook her head.

"In effect, that would kill everyone here. They would not be the same people any more. I could never do something like that."

"And your Uncle?" Susan stopped, thinking about what she could say: that he gets a world where he can visit his favourite places over and over again, a place where he has a family he only needs to see when he wants, acolytes who can praise him while he rejects them to appear modest. A world where he will never, ever, die, where the victims are people he scarcely has time to know and need not mourn, enemies he can defeat with the wave of a hand, and he only has to think if he chooses. A world with an endless stream of photo-fit friends and no home world to constrain him and make him accountable for his actions. And that she was certain he knew it as well as she did, he just chose not to think about it because he was enjoying it too much.

"I think he picked a nice retirement home."

"Will you retrieve him?" Cet said.

"No." Susan closed her eyes. "From what you've shown me, I'm not even sure that is him anymore."

"We were assigned – "

"I know. I am supposed to bring him back for trial. They'd lock him in stone, like Maria. If I could not bring him back, then I was supposed to kill him. I-" she stopped miserably, "I cannot be weak, not now of all times but..."

"You told me once mercy was not weak."

"In this case, I'm not the one that pays the price. But there should be a third way."

"You will have plenty of time to consider it." Susan looked suspicious and the corner of Cet's mouth quirked mechanically upwards. "I accessed his travel device. His co-ordinate database has been deleted. I removed all mechanical and electronic function relating to the ability to travel between universes and pan-dimensional travel."

"Before we pressed charges?"

"If he had elected to stand trial, I would have re-enabled it." There was a moment's pause, and Susan relaxed.

"Thank you. If he's trapped here, at least he can't damage anything else," she said, and let out a breath. She looked tired. "I was not looking forward to carrying out the sentence."

"Understood," Cet acknowledged, disintegrating the resequencer in a blaze of energy. "That is the last of our equipment. You did not warn the humans about what he will do when he wakes up."

"They would not have believed me."

"Then why did you tell them his crimes? He will simply erase it."

"I was telling him, not them. I hoped I'd reach him, that maybe somewhere he still has a spark of conscience left."

"Unlikely," Cet said, and Susan grinned, a little resigned.

"Then maybe his subconscious can play merry hell with his little play-universe. But now I won't have to worry about dealing with his messes outside it, and he won't be trapping any more victims."

"And that is a relief," Cet said with heartfelt emphasis. Susan chuckled, pushing the door to a silver cylinder open.

"Come on. Let's go home. There are worlds waiting, and an infinite number of universes to explore."

A moment later the basement was empty.

#

"Do you think we might have made a mistake?" Mary ventured, trying to ignore the cold feeling in her chest. Henry looked at her from the backseat.

"Perhaps we - " and his voice stopped.

"Where did..." The sensation of motion stopped abruptly. Mary glanced at her suddenly clear desk in front of her and her blank computer screen, and turned to look at Henry who was sitting across the room. "Weren't we investigating something?"

"Aren't we always?" he said, kicking the chair back and standing to walk across. Then he was gone. Mary froze, confused. Where was Chen...Who was Chen? Where was she? She looked around the street disorientated and the memories came back. She needed to pick up the kids. She had never been the brightest, she knew, but to forget the kids...her ex would love something like that he could use to wreck her life further. She looked round quickly for Anna, who should have known better than to wander off, and her heart caught in her mouth.

Her daughter was in the playpark, talking to a young man in a tatty suit. He held out a hand to her. Mary started to run, raising her breath in a shout and then the thought was gone in an instant. How could she think something bad about him? He was a good man. How could he be anything else? He looked at Mary and smiled, giving the child a little push in her direction.

"I'll see you later, Anna."