Acrid smoke billowed through the hallway and the sitting room.
‘Owen?’ Toshiko cried. ‘Owen?’
The smoke caught at her throat and she began to cough.
‘Owen?’
Davey was fumbling about behind her, dazed and blinking. The picture of the Scottish Highlands had fallen off the chimney breast and shattered on the hearth.
Toshiko peered out into the hallway. The blast had snapped all the banisters on the stairs. The carpet was scorched, and the old wallpaper was bubbling and peeling.
‘Owen?’
No reply.
She thought about drawing her side-arm, but realised that it was pointless. Owen had proved that much, in what had probably been the last moment of his life.
She dropped down and crawled forward, peeking out into the hallway. The front door had entirely gone, and a cold draught was stirring in through the smoke.
She looked the other way. At the end of the hall, the kitchen door was splintered open. There was no sign of the thing.
She got up. Something stirred at the foot of the stairs, and she pulled her gun anyway.
It was Owen. He was curled up in a ball.
‘Owen?’
‘What?’ he answered, over-loudly.
‘Owen, be quiet.’
‘Bloody well deafened me,’ he said.
‘Shush. How are you alive?’
‘What?’
‘How are you still alive?’
‘I ducked. Onto the stairs. Jesus Christ, that thing plays for keeps. Where is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Toshiko.
Davey limped out into the hallway. He looked around. ‘Oh no,’ he murmured. ‘Oh no.’
‘Mr Morgan? Sir?’ Toshiko called. ‘Go back in the room, Mr Morgan. Please, sir. We need you to be safe.’
Davey Morgan stayed where he was. He bent down and picked something up. The hall table had been smashed. The picture that had been standing on it had fallen and broken. Davey brushed off the glass fragments and smoothed the photo inside the frame.
‘Oh, Christ, I’m sorry. It’s all right, love. It’s all right.’
‘Davey! Sir!’
Davey turned to face her. ‘Look what happened to my house!’ he cried. ‘Look what it did to my bloody house!’
Toshiko went over to him and tried to calm him down. The photograph was black and white, and showed a smiling, slightly self-conscious middle-aged woman in horn-rim specs.
‘Davey, I have to get you clear,’ Toshiko said. ‘You have to go outside. Out the front.’
‘Who’s this now?’ Davey demanded, ignoring her.
Jack hurried in through the hole where the front door had been. He narrowed his eyes and blinked at the smoke.
‘Everyone still alive who should be?’
‘Yes,’ said Toshiko.
‘What can you tell me?’
‘I think it went out the back,’ said Toshiko.
James and Gwen appeared behind Jack. Both had side-arms in their hands, raised in ‘safe’ grips.
‘They won’t do any bloody good,’ said Owen loudly. He was on his feet, leaning against the wall and wiggling a finger in one ear.
‘Why?’ asked Gwen.
‘Because it’s bloody well bullet-proof,’ said Owen. ‘And if it looks at you, hint, be somewhere else.’
‘What happened?’ Jack called as he pushed past Toshiko and the old man and headed towards the kitchen.
‘I tried to defuse the situation peacefully,’ said Owen.
‘This would be why the lower part of this house recently exploded?’ asked James.
‘Ultimately,’ Owen nodded, his voice still just the wrong side of loud. ‘It was a stand-off. A matter of the first one to flinch.’
‘And?’ asked Gwen.
‘I flinched first,’ said Owen. ‘Sorry. I’ve always been a flincher.’
‘Get these people out of my house!’ Davey cried.
‘Get the old guy out of my hazard radius,’ said Jack. He stepped into the little back kitchen. It was dingy and worn. A single teacup and saucer on the drainer, a bowl of cat food on the floor, a ragged-looking jacket hanging from a peg. Jack drew his revolver, and edged towards the broken backdoor. Gwen came through from the hallway behind him.
‘Any ideas yet?’ she asked.
‘That was a phasic weapon,’ said Jack. ‘Very distinctive energetic pattern. Very advanced.’
‘So, yeah, then?’
‘Let’s say I’ve got a hunch.’
‘Let’s say your coat disguises it well.’
He looked at her. ‘Making jokes? Really?’
They reached the door. The little backyard was empty. They advanced down the back path. The chorus of house and car alarms had not yet abated, and now police sirens added to the mix.
‘We’ll need to pull rank,’ said Jack. ‘We can’t let the uniforms near this, though they might want to start getting the street evacuated. The streets on either side too, probably. In fact, Cathays.’
‘Special access, right. I’ll go talk to someone,’ said Gwen. She went back into the kitchen, passing James and Owen on their way out. They joined Jack.
‘See it?’ asked Owen.
‘Uh-uh. Not so far.’
‘Well, it’s kind of hard to miss.’
They went to the gate.
It was standing in the walled lane behind the houses. Just standing, slightly crooked, as if listening.
As the three of them stepped out of Davey’s back gate and saw it, it turned, first its head, then its upper body, then its feet, repositioning them under the rotating torso.
‘Oh, hell,’ said Jack, a note of genuine disappointment in his voice.
The thing tilted its head slightly. The humming sound coming from it changed pitch.
Where the thing’s eyes should have been, there was a pulse of dull yellow.
The three men threw themselves sideways into Davey’s yard as a roaring cone of heat rushed down the narrow lane and demolished two outhouses and part of a wall.
Small lumps of brick and fine grit sprinkled down.
Owen rolled over and inched himself backwards until he was leaning against the yard wall. ‘That’s twice that’s happened to me,’ he said. ‘I’ve decided not to risk a third try.’
James looked at Jack. ‘You know what it is, don’t you? You’ve got that look.’
‘I’m pretty sure I know it. I’ve seen pictures.’
‘Pictures?’
Jack crawled back to the gateway and took a quick look out. The thing was walking away down the back lane slowly.
Jack ducked back in. ‘It’s Melkene tech. A Serial G, I think. Yeah, Serial G. I’m sure of it.’
‘Go on.’
‘What can I tell you? The Melkene were a pretty advanced race. Particularly good at manufacturing artificials,
