The wall blanked to opacity.

That was a test.

His emotional reaction to seeing Alisha – that was what Dr Keele had wanted to observe.

And I’ve failed it.

The faint rose-hip fragrance of Leeja was on his skin.

‘So what’s going on?’ he asked.

‘One moment.’ Dr Keele glanced into the air – a her-eyes-only display lased on to her retinas from the walls – then her lips moved, mouthing: ‘Go ahead. Protocol confirmed.’

Anti-sound prevented him hearing, but she had not bothered with optical distortion to prevent lip-reading.

‘You haven’t treated her?’ he asked.

‘The final phase just started. Can I assume that Meta Ed was part of your schooling?’

‘Er …’

‘I mean learning about learning.’

‘Of course.’

He could speak of Fulgidus education – as was – rather than what happened in Labyrinth; but that was good enough.

‘I thought so,’ said Dr Keele. ‘I understand you grew up on Fulgor.’

How could she know that?

From Alisha’s memories.

That was disturbing.

‘So,’ added Dr Keele, ‘you’ll know about potentiation, including long-term memory formation.’

‘Yes, I— Why?’

But after discussions about Dad’s induced amnesia, he had a premonition before Dr Keele confirmed the nature of Alisha’s treatment.

‘We’re using full cognitive rollback,’ she said. ‘The process was largely complete, which was why she looked so calm just now. I wanted confirmation that we could proceed to the optimum potentiation boundary. Taking out entire waking days is always best.’

He should not have gone with Leeja. He should not even have talked to her.

‘Could you explain that, please?’ he said.

‘The boundary is before her first meeting with someone called Helsen. From her neuroassociative mapping results, this Helsen was tied up causally with the Stargonier woman who carried out the neural assault.’

Dr Keele swallowed, no longer professionally calm.

‘Law enforcement officials have already scanned everything,’ she went on. ‘I’m sure you can appreciate why.’

Given what had happened on Fulgor, Roger would have been surprised if they had done anything else, regardless of privacy laws.

‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘The day Alisha met Helsen was my first day on—’

He remembered sitting on the circular balcony that overlooked the campus. Seeing Alisha for the first time – and, across the plaza, Helsen and the bearded man with her: both darkness-haunted.

Helsen, the bitch who had killed his world.

‘Exactly why I needed to gauge your degree of emotional attachment,’ said Dr Keele. ‘If you wish to get to know Alisha Spalding again, you will have to begin all over as a stranger.’

He forced his attention back to the moment. ‘You don’t sound like someone who’s negotiating, Doctor.’

‘The treatment is already complete, save for final integrity checks.’

Like a finishing glaze or varnish on archaic craftwork, the main creation complete.

‘So if I walk in now’ – he gestured to the blank wall – ‘she’ll not recognize me.’

Dr Keele just looked at him.

I get it. You already told me that much.

On holodramas, medics were good-looking and empathic. But this, now, was not the severest lesson in reality to have hit him lately.

‘You think I let her down,’ he added. ‘Is that it?’

Her nostrils flared, as if picking up the scent of recent sex.

‘Your moral standards are up to you.’

‘But I don’t know if she had any feelings for me at all. All I really know—’

Dr Keele’s head-shake was tiny, a micro-expression.

Shit.

But coming from someone adept at reading the stuff of thought from scans, it formed a clear and authoritative signal.

Alisha was in love with me.

Past tense, and now something further removed: Alisha’s emotions belonged to an alternate subjective reality cut off and discarded, just as old-time surgeons might have snipped out an appendix and tossed the organ aside.

And if he walked in to see Alisha now, what would he say?

Hi, I’m the guy who pulled you out of the brothel where you’d been servicing that fat old guy with the dripping dick. Remember him? No, I guess you don’t.

Arcs of tension bracketed his mouth.

‘I’m sure you think you’ve done the right thing,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we leave it at—’

Scarlet holo icons streamed at eye-level between them.

‘That’s a security alarm,’ said Dr Keele.

‘You get security emergencies in the med-halls? How often does—?’

Her face was stony.

‘I’ve never known it to happen.’

Dr Keele rushed out, Roger striding after. She ran to a large therapy room and stopped, breathing hard in the doorway. Inside, the room was largely empty. As a group of junior medics trotted up, Dr Keele turned on them.

‘Where the hell is my autodoc? My new autodoc!’

‘I can’t—’ The nearest medic had paled. ‘No one came past us.’

But scarlet alarm-icons continued to flare.

‘Look.’ Dr Keele opened a holovolume. ‘See?’

In the holo, a narrow-bodied woman with dirty-blond hair came into this room, tu-rings blazing on her fists, and commanded the autodoc to open. She stopped, stared into whatever area of wall had recorded this, and pulled a rictus expression, a corpse’s smile.

Bitch.

Her eyes were colder than a reptile’s. Or perhaps it was simply this: he knew what she had done, what she had caused with her manipulation.

You fucking bitch.

Inside the image, Helsen climbed into the autodoc, and crouched as it sealed up. Roger could not help his grasping gesture; but it was too late to catch her, at least like that.

I will kill you.

Beneath the autodoc, the quickglass floor began to spiral, creating a viscous vortex into which, seconds later, the autodoc sank. Then it was completely under. Movement showed as a rippling shadow, then nothing, as if a pond-fish had flicked its muscles to swim from sight.

‘She walked right in,’ said Dr Keele.

‘That’s not possible.’ Another medic was shaking his head. ‘Not without light-bending tech to create invisibility … but even so, we were right outside.’

‘Not light-bending,’ said Roger.

It was the darkness that was the enemy, not just a single, manipulative, psychotic woman.

‘Not—?’

‘Mind-bending,’ said Roger. ‘She’s very good at it.’

‘You know her?’ Dr Keele, unsympathetic before, used her voice like a flail. ‘What is this about, Pilot Blackstone?’

The other medics looked surprised. Roger was still wearing smartlenses.

Just as well.

Because energies were building inside his eyes: energies he wanted to let loose, coruscating and deadly; but there was no point because the bitch from hell was gone.

‘That was Dr Petra Helsen, formerly of Lucis Multiversity on Fulgor,’ he said. ‘And I’ve reason to believe she engineered the coming of the Anomaly.’

The medics stared.

You think I care about a piece of stolen med-kit?

Movement caused his attention to flick to a new location: a doorway where a scar-faced man was entering. His shoulders were thick, his limbs stocky and muscular; but that was not why the medics moved back. Authority came from his gait and gaze.

Law enforcement.

‘Pilot Blackstone,’ he said. ‘I think you and I might have a useful chat. My name’s Tannier.’

‘All right,’ said Roger.

But less than an hour and a half remained before Jed’s reinsertion into realspace, and Roger’s only chance of getting away from this place.

Helsen is here.

Dr Keele’s harsh face was a reminder that doing the right thing was a matter of seeing straight and planning: something Roger needed to do more of. He could start by clarifying what he wanted.

‘Catch Helsen,’ he said. ‘Just catch her.’