But it is.

They wrestle him to the ground and pin his left arm out flat, forcing his fist open to give access to his index finger. The dread idea is beating on the door of his mind, demanding to be let in. It’s wrong, the shape of it is awful and it’s too big and slick with poison and he knows if he lets it in it’ll swamp everything he is, filling his home up with sludge and broken glass. It wants to drown him in it and he knows it’ll replace everything he is with itself. He knows it’s taken the rest of the world already and all of the people around him, and he holds out, and he continues to hold out right up until one of the people pinning him produces a chisel ███ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ███████ █████ █████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ███ █████ ████ ███ █████ █████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ █ █████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ █ ████████ ██████ ███████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██████ ██████████ ██████████ ███ █████ ████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ████████ ████ ███████████ ███████ ███ ██████ ████████ ███ █████████ ██████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ████ █████ ████ ███ █████ ███ █████ ███ █████ ███████ █████████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ████ ██ ██ █████ ███████ ███ ██████████ Yes, he says, yes, he throws the door open, ████████ ██ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████ █████ ████ █████ ███ ██ ██ ████ █ ███ ██ █████████ █████ █████ ████ █████ ██████████

███ ██ ██████ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ████████ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ █████ ███ █████████ ██████████ ███ ████ ████ ████████ ██ █████ ████ █ █████ ███████████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████ ████████ ████ █████ ███ ███ ████ ███ █████████ ████████ ████ ████ ███ ██ ███████ ██ ██ ███████ █ ██████████ █ █████ ███ █ ██████ █████ ███ █████ ████ █████ ██ ████

██████ █████ ██ ████ ████ ███████ ███ █████ █████ ██████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ███ ██ █████ ███ █████████ ████ █████ ██ ██████

███ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███████████ ████ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ██ ████████ █████ ██ █ ███████ █████ ███ █ ██████ ███████ ██ ███████ ██ ██ ████████ ███ █████ █████ ████ ███ ██████ █████ ██ ██ ███████ ██ ████ █████ ███████ ███████████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ███ ████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ███████ ███ ██ ██ ███████ ███████ ████ ██████ ███ ██████ ███████ ██████████ ███████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███████ █ █████ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ███ ███ ██ ███ ███ ██ █████ ██ ██ ████ ██████ ████████ ███ ██ ████ ███ ███ ████ ████████ ███████

███████ ███ █████ █████ ████ ██ █████ ████ ██ █████████ ███ █████ ██ ██ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ █████████ ██ █████████

■

Before ███ █████████ dawn, the world is ruined. ██ ██ █ ██████ █████████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ███████ ██ █ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ████ ███ ██ ████ ██ ██ █████████ █ ██ ███ ███████ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███████ ███ █████ █ █████ ███████ █ ███████ ██████ █████ █████ █████ ██████████ █████ ████ ███████ █████████ ██████████ ███████ ███ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ███ ███████ ███ ███████████ ███ ████████████ ███████ █ ██ █ ████████ ██████ █████ ████ █████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ████████████ ███ ██████ █████████████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ██ ████████ ███ ██████████ ██ █ █████ ███████ ████ ██████ ███ █████ ████████ ███ ███████████ █████ ████ ██████ ██ ███

వ is █ ███████ ███████ ████ █ ██████████ ██ ██ ██ ████ ████████ ████ █ ██████████ █████ ███████ ████████ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ████████ ██████ ███ █████████████ ████████ ███ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███████ ██ ████ █ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██████ ████ ██ ██████████ ████████████ ███████████ ███████ ███ ██ ██ systematic, disciplined, ordered, ████████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████ ███ █████ ███████ ██ ███████

███ ███████ ██ █ ███ ████ beautiful things, and smash them or cover them with filth. Find delightful people and disfigure ████ ███ █████ █████ ████ ███████████ ████ ████████ ████ ████ █████ ████ ███ ███ ██████ ███ ███████████ burn what is most precious and significant. Pour food into ditches, ██████ █████ ████████ ██████ ██████ ████ ██████ █████████ ███████ ███ ███ ██ █████ ████ ███ ████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ █████ ████████████ ██ █████ █████ █████ █████ ████ ███ ███████ Humiliate. Find loved ones, break ████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ██ ██ █████ █████ ███ ███ ███████ ██████ ██ ███ ██ ████ ████████

█ ████ ███ ██████ █████████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ██████████ ███████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ████ █████████ ███ ██ ██████ ████ it wants ██ ███████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ████████ █ █████████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████ █ ████ ██ ███████████ hated individuals, to exercise power over. ███ ███ ███ ███████ ████ ███████ █ ███████ █████ ███ ██ ██ ██ ██████ ███ ██ ███ █████ ███████ ███ ███████ ████ ███████ ████ two groups ██ ███████ █████ ███ We, who are drowning in and driven by వ, who radiate ██████ ██ █████ ██████████ ███ ████████ misery ███ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ █████ ████████ ████████ ██ █████████ ████████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██ ████ ██ ██████ █ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ █████ ███ They, who number in the billions, and are ██████████ ████████████ █████ for the engine. ███ ████ █████ █████ ███████ █████ ██████████ █████████ and awake enough to understand ████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ███ ████ █████ ████ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ██ █████████ ████ ████ ███ ███████████ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██████████ ████ ███████ ███████ ████ ███ █████ ███ ████ █ █████ ████ █████ ████ ██████ ████ ███████ ███ █████ ██ █████ █████

██████ ██ ██ ████████ ███ ███ ██ █████ ██████ ██ ██ █████ ███ █████ ████ ██████ Quinn, █ ████ ██ █████████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ████ ████ ██████████ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ███ ████ ███ ████████████ ███████████ █████ ██ was lucky, unbelievably lucky, ██ ██ ███████ ██ █ ███ ████ ████ ████ ██ ███ ██ ███ █████ ██ ████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███ █ █████ ███ ██ ███ ███████ ███ █ ████████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██████ ███ ██ ████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███ ██████ █████ ████ █ ███████ ██ ████ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █ ████ ██ █ ██████ ██████ █████████████ ███ █████████ ████ █████ ███ ███ ███ █████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ████████ ███████ ██ █████████ ███ ███████

███ █████ ██████████ ███ ████ ████████ ██ █████ ██ build, cement and wire ██████ ███ ███████ In the center of the city ██ ████ ████████ █ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ where people can be fed in and the door locked ██████ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██ ███ ████ █████ ██ ███████ █████ ██████████ █████ █████ █████ █ █████ ██████████████ irreversible ███████████ ████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ███ ███ ████████

█████ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███ █████ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ██ ███ ████████ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ██ █████ █████ ██████████ ████ ████ █████ ██ █ ████ ███████ █ ███████ █████ ██ ███ ██ intact, and watching, ███ ██ ███████ █ ██████ ██ ████ ████ ███████ ████ █████ ██ ███████████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ █████ ████████████ ████ █ ████ ████ ███ █████ ██ █████ ███ █████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ██████████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ███ ████ ██ ██ ██████████ ███ ██ █████ ████ ██ ██ ██ █████ ██ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ██ ████ ███ █████ ██ ████ █████

███ █████████ ██ ███ ██ ██████████ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███ ██ █████ ██████ ███ ███████ ██████████ ██ ██ ███ ██ █████████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ███████ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ ███ ████ ███ █████ ██████████ █████ ███ ███ ██████ ████ ████ ███ █████ ██ ████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ███████████ ███ ████████ ██ ████ ███ █████ ████████ ███ █████████████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ██████ ████ ████████ ██ ██ ██████

██ █████ ██ ██████████ ██████ ██ ████ ███ this last splinter of Adam Quinn ██ █████ ███ █████ ██ ████ ███ █████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ███████████ ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ █ ██████████ ████ ████ ██████ ███ ███ █████ ██ █ █████████ ██████████████ ████████ ████ ███ █ █████████ ████████ ████ ████████ ████████ ██████ ██████████ ████ █████████ ███ █████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ████ ██ █████ ████ █████ █████ █████ ███ ████ █ ████ ███ ████ ███ ██████ ███ █████ ██ ███ █████ █████████

███ ██ starts to work against that which it knows to be wrong.

██ ██ █ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ ████ ██ █████████ █ ████ ███████ █ ████ ████ ███████ ████ █ ██████ ████ ████████ ███ ███████ ███ ███ ███████ ██████████ ██████ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████████ ██ ████ █████████ ███████ ████████ ███ █████ ████ ███ ████ ████ █████ ████████ ██ █████ ████ █████████ █████ ██ █████ ████ ████ █████ ██ █████ ███ ███ █████ █████ █████ ████████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ██ ██ ███████

████ ██ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ██ ██████ █ ████ ████████████ ██ ██████████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ████ ███████ ███ █████████ ████ █████ ███ █████ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ████ █████ ███ ██ ███ ███ ██████ ████ ███████ ██████ ████ ███ ███ ████ ████ ████ ███ █████ ██████ ███████ ███████ ██ ████████ ███ ████ ████ ███ █████ ███ ████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ████████ ██ █████ ███████ ██████ ██████ ██ █████████ ███████ a ray up there, a narrow yellow nourishing sunbeam. He follows it, ███ ██ ███ ███████ ███████ █ █████ ██ ███ ██████ over the top of the walls. ███ ██ ████████ █████████████ █████████████ ████ ███ ██████ █████████ ████████ and out of the city, ███ ███ ██████ █████ █ █████████ ███████ ████████

█████ ███ █████ ███████ ████ ███ █████████ ███ ██ ███ ██ ███ ███ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ██ ███ ███ ███ █ ███████ ██████ ██ ███████████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ██ █ █████████ █████████ ████ ███ ████████████ ███ ████████ ████ ████████ ██ ████ █████ ██ ███████ █████ █ ██████████ ██ █ ████ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ██ █████ █████████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ███ ████████ ████ ███ ███ ██ ██ ████ ████ █████ █████

And he walks, tottering under a black sun ████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ████████ █ █████ █████ ██ █████ ██ ███ away from the core. ███ ████ ██ █ ████████ █████ █████ █████ ██ █████████ ████ ███ ██ █████ ███████ ███ ████ ███████ ████████ ██████ ████ ███████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ █████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ██████ █████ ███ █████ ███████ ████████ ████ ███ A kind of thread unravels behind him, an infestation █████ ██████ █████ ███ ██ ████ ████████ ██ █████████

A black slug drops from his tear duct, falls to the asphalt, and shrivels. ███ ████████

■

He regains consciousness on a hard, scrubbed floor in a wide, cool corridor. He is lying against one wall of the corridor, as if tossed there like a ragdoll, with his back to the wall and his right arm stretched out, clenched into such a tight fist that his finger joints are hurting. He releases the fist, gasping. Disoriented, aching, he rolls and plants his other hand on the floor, and it’s then that he discovers what’s happened to that hand.

He reacts as he must react. He clutches the stubs where his first two fingers were, and screams and cries hopelessly at the echoing building. Nobody answers him.

The last thing he remembers, he was playing Shostakovich. He was flying through it, unimpeded. In his mind, he can hear what he was playing, note-perfect, right up to the instant the memory cuts off. And he can’t think of what comes next. Instead, that last incomplete snippet of music goes around and around in his head, abruptly ending mid-note and slowly fading in again from a few seconds back, an earworm. He can’t jolt himself out of it. He’s a stuck record. He can never play again.

He tries to make the right shape with his remaining fingers. His hand won’t do it. He rubs his eyes with his…his good hand. He feels rotten, hungover, dehydrated. His shirt is ruined, and his arms and chest are almost gray with muck.

He sits there, huddled, for a long while, being small and unhappy and lost. He knows he’s going to have to move eventually. He’s working his way up to it.

He looks up the corridor, eyes gradually recovering. He can see all right without his glasses, as long as he doesn’t have to do much reading. He’s in a school. There are noticeboards, banks of lockers, a rainbow mural. The place is deserted and silent. There is a dull red light coming through the windows in the classroom doors on the far side of the corridor, suggesting that the Sun is low on that side of the building, rising or setting. He has taught one-off music lessons in one or two schools, but he doesn’t recognize this one.

With some unease, he examines his bad hand. The stumps of his fingers are lumpy and uneven and have healed badly. A mass of scar tissue and scabs, and no stitches in sight. As if the digits were removed with great imprecision. Hacked off. Or bitten off? It troubles him that he can’t remember. His memory is normally so sharp and clear. He thinks he’s thinking clearly, but when he concentrates and tries to access the lost time, something in that gap pushes him back. A fierce red heat.

It occurs to him that, though his severed digits have healed very badly, they have healed. They certainly aren’t bleeding, although there’s a continual ache. How long would that take?

How much time has he lost?

What the hell happened?

Way down the corridor, in the corner of his eye, he catches a glint of light. When he turns his head to look at it, he doesn’t see anything, but when he looks away, it nags at him again. A persistent, irregular winking, like an unanswered message.

He doesn’t have the willpower not to follow it.

■

It leads him to the school library.

It takes time for Quinn to figure out what he needs to do, that the light doesn’t just want him here because this is a quiet, safe place. That it wants to be read to.

No, not those shelves. It wants nonfiction.

Quinn sits on a small chair at a small table and opens a sturdy hardback volume that would be almost too big for some of its intended readership to lift. It’s an encyclopedia. It’s a comfortingly straightforward read. Bright diagrams and clear language. He learns about pollination, and ancient Egypt, and how jet airliners work. There are topics in the book that he never covered in school, didn’t encounter until later in life, and so only understands at a broadsheet newspaper sort of level. He learns about the genetic code, and GPS. He knew that Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore—“Very well,” he said at the time, indifferent—but now he learns that this is because it is, instead, a dwarf planet, and he learns about several other interesting dwarf planets.

He becomes, for a time, unironically engrossed. When he’s finished he closes the book, and looks at its front cover again. He feels a little better.

He doesn’t remember a word of what he just read.

“So,” he says, to the glint that read it all with him, over his shoulder. His throat is dry, he finds. He can barely speak. “Is there an encyclopedia, somewhere, which you’re in? A grown-ups’ book, I mean. I suppose not?”

But it doesn’t really know what he’s saying.

“What are you? You seem…healthier, now.” He furrows his brow. There’s a connection that he could make here, but he can’t quite make it. He can’t figure out that the sunbeam he’s talking to eats thoughts, memories, interesting information. And that it was very, very hungry, desperate and bedraggled. And that it is sated now.

In fact, he did make the connection, quite quickly, but it ate that. And once the thought is gone, it’s difficult to form the same thought a second time. Its tendency to eat the explanation for its own behavior is part of what made it so difficult for the Organization to contain, originally.

There is a document, though. Elsewhere in the world. Not exactly an encyclopedia entry, but all of U-4987’s details are pinned down there.

“Are we done?” Quinn asks. “You’ve had what you wanted?”

No obvious reaction.

“What happened? Tell me.”

Nothing.

Quinn stands up, swaying a little. “Fine.” He blinks, tired, and goes to find water.

■

There is nobody anywhere in the school. Moving through the empty place, at this late/early hour, feels like a petty crime. There’s no power, and no running water. The school office is poky and dimly lit, piled high with paperwork. There are two small desks, each with a beaten-up office chair. There are computers that don’t work and desk phones, one off its hook. No dial tone from either of them. In the staff room he finds an unopened bottle of water, and various pairs of spare shoes. He finds some trainers that fit. They’ll have to do.

There is no one outside the front of the school, either. Yellow zigzags where parents aren’t allowed to park to drop children off, traffic-calming measures, eerie bollards the shape and size of seven-year-olds. It feels like there’s no weather; no temperature, still air, no birdsong. The sky is a clear dark red. There is a faint hiss in the air, a distant white noise like the crashing of an ocean.

He follows that sound, dragged away from the school and downhill, out of that one suburb. He passes a bus stop, which informs him what town he’s in and how to reach the city center. He walks that way. The sound gets louder that way. He reaches a main road.

There is scattered rubbish, broken windows, old remnants of fires. There are abandoned vehicles in the streets, a few with keys in the ignition. The invitation is there to steal one, but he’s not there yet.

“So the place has gone to hell,” he says to himself.

Adam Quinn has hiked, and camped. He has a few immediate ideas for finding food and water, and there is limitless shelter. But he was never a survivalist. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he had to put up a fight with someone.

There are no bodies, that he can see.

He walks far enough, and for long enough, to notice that the brilliant thing hanging low in the sky to his right isn’t rising or setting. Either the world’s stopped turning completely, or it isn’t the Sun. The sound in the distance is starting to sound more like people. Thousands of voices, like a concert.

And then, after following the main road for some miles, he reaches the brow of a hill, and he has clear line of sight to what’s beyond, another quarter of a mile away, at the bottom of the valley, at the center of the city. He sees what’s been built there, the gigantic, sprawling, windowless edifice. A sickening gulf opens up in the pit of his stomach, and he parses the sound that he’s hearing, and he knows where everybody is. He remembers what happened, what arrived. The world has not ended. It has been remade, and it is continuing in a different form.

There is a tall, shadowed entity standing beside the sarcophagus. The sarcophagus is monumental, but the shadowy thing is like a skyscraper or a radio tower, tall enough that its upper reaches fade into the dark atmosphere. Quinn only notices it on his second glance, because the thing is so incredibly thin. But the thing, Quinn then realizes with a jolt, is moving. Swaying. Maybe turning. It is far away, and moving slowly. It’s not clear whether it’s alive, or whether it has a head or eyes. It would need extremely good eyes to be able to make out something as small as Quinn from that distance.

Nevertheless, Quinn runs. Back down the hill, in terror, below its field of view. (There was another one behind it, which he didn’t even notice.) After a few paces he veers to the left, into an open car door, and tries the ignition. Nothing. He gibbers. A flat battery? The next two cars he tries are dead too. He gives up, and continues to run, knees already starting to buckle. He doesn’t know if anything is truly trying to catch him, or, if they were, how they’d be tracking him, or how to hide from that, or how to defend himself.

The sound seems to follow him, a roaring in his ears, a pressure in his skull, no matter how far he flees from its source. He tries to forget about it, to put it out of his mind, to think about something else. He can’t do it anymore. It’s here now.

■

Miles away, he raids a hypermarket for packaged food and water. With the power out, and only the “sun” coming in through the front, it’s a frighteningly ill-lit place, but he finds his way around. There’s an aisle with basic camping equipment. Elsewhere, to his infinite relief, a section with passable clothing. He finally throws his gray tatter of a shirt away. There’s a display with mobile phone handsets and prepaid SIM cards. He finds a handset with enough charge to actually turn on. It has no signal, not even for emergency calls, and no working GPS, and it doesn’t even know what the current date and time are. The thing is as useful to him as a house brick.

After assembling a backpack of gear, he finds a back room, a staff area with couches. Beaten-up but soft. He sits down, just for a second, to take stock. He experiences about an hour of deep, untroubled sleep, and ten of nightmares.

When he wakes up, his fingers are still gone, and it’s almost as bad as it was the first time.