Chemical infusions insured there was no pain, no discomfort as the nanonic filaments wormed their way around his dermal cells and penetrated the bone of the skull. Positioning their tips into the requisite synapses took nearly two hours, a delicate operation similar to the implanting of neural nanonics. However these infiltrations went deeper than ordinary augmentation circuitry, seeking out the memory centres to mate with neurofibrillae inside their clustered cells. And the incursion was massive, millions of filaments burrowing along capillaries, active superstring molecules with preprogrammed functions, knowing where to go, what to do. In many respects they resembled the dendritic formation of living tissue in which they were building a parallel information network. The cells obeyed their DNA pattern, the filaments’ structure was formatted by AIs. One process designed by studying the other, but never complementary.

Impulses began to flow back down the filaments as the hypersensitive tips registered synaptic discharges. A horribly jumbled montage of random thoughtsnaps, memories without order. The facility’s AI came on-line, running comparisons, defining characteristics, recognizing themes, and weaving them into coherent sensorium environs.

Gerald Skibbow’s thoughts were focused on his apartment in the Greater Brussels arcology: three respectably sized rooms on the sixty-fifth floor of the Delores pyramid. From the triple glazed windows you could see a landscape of austere geometries. Domes, pyramids, and towers, all squashed together and wrapped up within the intestinal tangle of the elevated bhan tubes. Every surface he could see was grey, even the dome glass, coated with decades of grime.

It was a couple of years after they had moved in. Paula was about three, totter-running everywhere, and always falling over. Marie was a tiny energetic bundle of smiles who could emit a vast range of incredulous sounds as the world produced its daily marvels for her.

He was cradling his infant daughter (already beautiful) in his lap that evening, while Loren was slumped in an armchair, accessing the local news show. Paula was playing with the secondhand Disney mechanoid minder he’d bought her a fortnight ago, a fluffy anthropomorphized hedgehog that had an immensely irritating laugh.

It was a cosy family, in a lovely home. And they were together, and happy because of that. And the strong arcology walls protected them from the dangers of the outside world. He provided for them, and loved them, and protected them. They loved him back, too; he could see it in their smiles and adoring eyes. Daddy was king.

Daddy sang lullabies to his children. It was important to sing; if he stopped, then the hobgoblins and ghouls would come out from the darkness and snatch children away—

Two men walked into the room, and quietly sat down on the settee opposite Gerald. He frowned at them, unable to place their names, wondering what they were doing invading his home.

Invading . . .

The pyramid trembled as if caught by a minor earthquake, making the colours blur slightly. Then the room froze, his wife and children becoming motionless, their warmth draining away.

“It’s okay, Gerald,” one of the men said. “Nobody is invading. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

Gerald clutched at baby Marie. “Who are you?”

“I’m Dr Riley Dobbs, a neural expert; and this is my colleague, Harry Earnshaw, who is a neural systems technician. We’re here to help you.”

“Let me sing,” a frantic Gerald yelled. “Let me sing. They’ll get us if I stop. They’ll get us all. We’ll be dragged down into the bowels of the earth. None of us will ever see daylight again.”

“There’s always going to be daylight, Gerald,” Dobbs said. “I promise you that.” He paused, datavising an order into the AI.

Dawn rose outside the arcology. A clean dawn, the kind which Earth hadn’t seen for centuries; the sun huge and red-gold, casting brilliant rays across the dingy landscape. It shone directly into the apartment, warm and vigorous.

Gerald sighed like a small child, and held his hands out to it. “It’s so beautiful.”

“You’re relaxing. That’s good, Gerald. We need you relaxed; and I’d prefer you to reach that state by yourself. Tranquillizers inhibit your responses, and we want you to be clearheaded.”

“What do you mean?” Gerald asked suspiciously.

“Where are you, Gerald?”

“At home.”

“No, Gerald, this is long ago. This is a refuge for you, a psychological retreat into the past. You’re creating it because something rather nasty happened to you.”

“No. Nothing! Nothing nasty. Go away.”

“I can’t go away, Gerald. It’s important for a lot of people that I stay. You might be able to save a whole planet, Gerald.”

Gerald shook his head. “Can’t help. Go away.”

“We’re not going, Gerald. And you can’t run from us. This isn’t a place, Gerald, this is inside your mind.”

“No no no!”

“I’m sorry, Gerald, truly, I am. But I cannot leave until you have shown me what I want to see.”

“Go away. Sing!” Gerald started to hum his lullabies again. Then his throat turned to stone, blocking the music inside. Hot tears trickled down his cheeks.

“No more singing, Gerald,” Harry Earnshaw said. “We’re going to play a different game. Dr Dobbs and I are going to ask you some questions. We want to know what happened to you on Lalonde—”

The apartment exploded into a blinding iridescent swirl. Every sensory channel splice into Gerald Skibbow’s brain thrummed from overload.

Riley Dobbs shook himself as the processor array broke the direct linkage. In the seat next to him Harry Earnshaw was also stirring.

“Sod it,” Dobbs grumbled. In the room through the glass, he could see Skibbow’s body straining against the webbing. He hurriedly datavised an order into the physiological control processor for a tranquillizer.

Earnshaw studied the neural scan of Skibbow’s brain, the huge electrical surge at the mention of Lalonde. “That is one very deep-seated trauma. The associations are hotwired into almost every neural pathway.”

“Did the AI pull anything out of the cerebral convulsion?”

“No. It was pure randomization.”

Dobbs watched Skibbow’s physiological display creep down towards median. “Okay, let’s go in again. That trank should take the edge off his neurosis.”

This time the three of them stood on a savanna of lush emerald-green knee-high grass. Tall snowcapped mountains guarded the horizon. A bright sun thickened the air, deadening sounds. Before them was a burning building; a sturdy log cabin with a lean-to barn and a stone chimney.

“Loren!” Gerald shouted hoarsely. “Paula! Frank!” He ran towards the building as the flames licked up the walls. The roof of solar cell panels began to curl up, blistering from the heat.

Gerald ran and ran, but never got any nearer. There were faces behind the windows: two women and a man. They did nothing as the flames closed around them, simply looked out with immense sadness.

Gerald sank to his knees, sobbing.

“Wife Loren, and daughter Paula with her husband Frank,” Dobbs said, receiving their identities direct from the AI. “No sign of Marie.”

“Small wonder the poor bastard’s in shock if he saw this happen to his family,” Earnshaw remarked.

“Yeah. And we’re too early. He hasn’t been taken over by the energy virus yet.” Dobbs datavised an order into the AI, activating a targeted suppression program, and the fire vanished along with the people. “It’s all right, Gerald. It’s over. All finished with. They’re at peace now.”

Gerald twisted around to glare at him, his face deformed by rage. “At peace? At peace! You stupid ignorant bastard. They’ll never be at peace. None of us ever will. Ask me! Ask me, you fucker. Go on. You want to know what happened? This , this happened.”

Daylight vanished from the sky, replaced by a meagre radiance from Rennison, Lalonde’s innermost moon. It illuminated another log cabin; this one belonged to the Nicholls family, Gerald’s neighbour. The mother, father, and son had been tied up and put in the animal stockade along with Gerald.