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Sam threw herself to one side, following Sarah’s example. She saw the Land Rover tear through the space where she’d been standing, and caught a glimpse of the two guards falling back on the other side of the vehicle, having stood aside mere milliseconds before being hit.

The other thing Sam got a glimpse of was the Land Rover’s windscreen. There didn’t seem to be anybody sitting behind it.

There was the sound of an impact. Loud, metallic. The Land Rover had scraped the side of one of the cars, shunting it to one side, towards the warehouse wall. Sam tried to get a grip on what was happening, but she’d fallen to the floor when she’d jumped out of the way, and she didn’t have a good enough view of what the Remote people were doing. Kode was well out of it, having hidden behind a stack of boxes as soon as the Land Rover had appeared, but she couldn’t see the other two.

‘Come on,’ said Sarah. And suddenly the woman was pulling at Sam’s arm, dragging her towards the Land Rover even before it had stopped moving.

The vehicle collided with another pile of boxes. There was a shower of cardboard. The sound of snapping plastic. Sam stumbled, let go of Sarah’s hand, and found herself falling to her knees. Moments later, Sarah was at the door of the Land Rover, reaching for the handle. Sam scrambled after her.

Then stopped.

The front of the vehicle was smeared with black. Some of the vials had shattered on impact with the thing, and now the Cold was spreading across the bonnet, moving slowly, as if not quite sure how much of it to eat. The metal at the front of the vehicle, already buckled by the collision with the gates, was bitten out of existence. The wheel arch went the same way. So did the headlights. Sarah clambered into the Land Rover, not having noticed the fact that the machine’s engine was now clearly visible. Sam opened her mouth to shout a warning.

Something black and oval‐shaped appeared over the stripped‐down front of the vehicle, bubbling in agitation. Compassion – or, rather, Compassion’s mask. The woman stood up straight, and Sam saw her slide her hand into her jacket, reaching for the stun gun.

Sam found herself trying to shout two warnings at once, and ended up just gagging.

* * *

5:

It wasn’t possible. Even given that nobody should have been stupid enough to ram the gates, the security systems should have taken the intruder apart before he or she was anywhere near the warehouse. Compassion had designed the systems herself, so she knew the way they worked better than anyone.

If any unauthorised life form came too close to the complex, the systems were primed to send a burst of sheer Cold at them. The systems weren’t too smart, but they were good enough to identify anything even vaguely humanoid. If it had legs, arms or a heart, it shouldn’t have stood a chance. And the native software wasn’t good enough to let the vehicle steer itself, surely?

But even so, the machine was there, right in front of her. And the older woman, the journalist, was climbing up into the control section. Compassion was weighing up the options even as she drew the stun gun. The front window of the machine was cracked, probably as a result of the impact with the gates. There was a good chance the bolt from the stun gun would be able to fracture it, get to the woman…

No. She had a better idea.

Compassion knelt down, the vehicle’s engine roaring and spluttering in front of her face. The Cold had eaten away the protective covering, but the engine was intact. Well, that could be fixed. Some of the vials had been shattered by the vehicle, so now the Cold was eating away the floor, making little holes in the concrete. Taking care not to step in any puddles, Compassion found an intact vial in the wreckage, and scooped it up in her hand.

Then she stood, and drew her hand back, ready to hurl it at the front of the vehicle.

Something slammed into her side.

Compassion fell back, landing on a stack of the boxes, the stun‐gun slipping out of her grip. She heard the sound of breaking plastic, and wondered if any of the material