Josanne’s Hill junior school had begun that Tuesday like any other. Most of its middle-class parents had picked up on the expected trouble growing round Doncastor station, but the school was eight streets away. Safe enough, surely? Besides, they all had to work. Protesting was all very well for the feckless louts and union militants who lived by sponging off the edge of society, but those who had to earn money to support their family couldn’t afford to take a day off. They dropped their children off at the school gates at eight thirty, as they did every day, kissed them goodbye, then went off, gossiping with other parents as they went.

At ten o’clock, as they did every Tuesday without fail, Josanne’s Hill’s full contingent of eight-year-olds, all thirty-two of them, were led out of the school grounds by seven harried teachers for their weekly swimming lesson at the lido pool on Plaxtol Street, an eleven-minute walk away, taking them directly through Eynsham Square. This Tuesday, the walk took a lot longer, with the teachers having to wind their way round the clutter of protesters assembling in the streets around the station. It was all good-natured then, but the children picked up on the excitement, and their teachers had to keep special watch to make sure everyone stuck together. By the time they eventually made it into the square, the neuts had broken loose.

The terrified mob moved like a solid wavefront. Nobody cared that there were children in the way. The teachers gathered their charges together, sheltering them with teekay and arms hugging close. They were clumped against the railings around the garden, with several children crying as they were repeatedly pummelled against the thick trunk of an arctan tree.

Slvasta needed all of his strength just to stop, his strongest teekay shell forcing people to surge round him. He was three metres away from the schoolchildren. The braying cries of the neuts were rising above the human screams as the stampede approached the square.

‘They’re going to smash straight into the kids,’ Slvasta told his friends. ‘Where’s the Meor regiment?’

‘The nearest squad to you is in Arlington Lane,’ Bethaneve ’pathed. ‘They’ll never reach you in time.’

Slvasta turned and faced the end of Cranwich Road. It was barely visible beyond the frantic charging bodies. Curses and threats were hurled at him as people lurched past. He drew the revolver he’d been carrying – so carefully obscured by a psychic fuzz. It was the one he’d taken from the bunker below the Joint Regimental Council office, a world and a life ago. There were five bullets in the chamber, another dozen in his inside pocket. His teekay clicked the safety off. He took a breath. Steadied himself.

He was aware of Bethaneve’s distant ’path producing a string of instructions; they were passed along the convoluted command channels of the cells. Then someone else was standing beside him, a man in his fifties in a shabby jacket, struggling against the throng of people desperate to escape the square.

‘Kolan,’ he said, with a thick Siegen county accent.

‘Slvasta. Thanks for this.’

‘No worries, pal. We’ll not let them get the kiddies, eh?’

Slvasta just had time to say, ‘Right,’ when a frightened young woman came to stand on his other side. She was trembling as her surprisingly strong teekay pushed running people away.

‘Teekay spike directly into their brains,’ Slvasta told them.

Another youthful lad joined them. Slvasta almost laughed. Four people standing firm against an onslaught. It was suicide.

‘There are more comrades in the square,’ Bethaneve ’pathed. ‘I’m trying to get orders out. They’ll help.’

The mob was thinning out fast. It was mostly the elderly now, wheezing as they half-limped, half-staggered along, crying with fright as they tried to stay ahead of the feverish neuts hot on their heels.

Then there were no more humans, and the neuts came thundering out of Cranwich Road. Slvasta hadn’t known the stupid creatures could actually move that fast. He stared at the one directly ahead, and lashed out with his teekay. It died instantly as his invisible blade sliced into the brain, tumbling across the cobbles and tripping two other neuts as it went. He stabbed out again, and again. The cell comrades standing by him were doing the same. He perceived similar spears of teekay reaching out from other places in the square, directed at the neuts.

One cell was standing just at the edge of Cranwich Road when the first half-dozen mod-apes charged out. The big shambling beasts managed to protect themselves from the teekay assaults with basic shells, snarling in rage as they did. ’Pathed orders to stop had no effect on them at all. And Slvasta’s memory was all too horribly clear on that. ‘Faller!’ he warned Bethaneve. ‘There’s a Faller controlling them.’ He raised the pistol, forcing himself not to hurry. Slain neuts were plummeting to the ground, peeling away from the thundering herd. But the mod-apes kept coming. Slvasta fired.

The noise of the shot overrode every other sound in the square. For a second, there seemed to be nothing but silence. Then the yelling and screaming redoubled. One of the bulky mod-apes crashed to the ground, blood pouring from the fatal head wound. Slvasta moved his arm, lining up on the next . . .

He fired. Again. Again.

Around the square, people pelting into the relative safety of the lanes began to slow, glancing back. The tiny band of stalwarts standing resolutely in front of the sobbing, wailing children instigated a great deal of shame. Slvasta’s one arm was raised to shoot with calm accuracy. A mod-ape fell with every bullet. Neuts were collapsing from teekay strikes that were coming from all directions. As people stopped fleeing, they began to add their own mental power to the strikes.

‘Can anyone see the Faller?’ Javier asked.

‘We don’t know who it is,’ Coulan ’pathed urgently.

‘They’re here for a reason,’ Slvasta told them. His teekay was slapping fresh rounds into the pistol. ‘This is the perfect cover to snatch a few people.’

‘So what are we looking for?’ Bethaneve asked. ‘I’ve still got contact with most of our cells.’

‘They’re strong,’ Slvasta said as he lined up the pistol again. And two mod-apes were slavering as they rushed him, powerful hands raised to grab and claw. He fired. A perfect shot, catching the lead one in the centre of its head. The back of its skull blew off; gore and blood exploded out.

Nine cell members across the square combined their teekay and penetrated the remaining mod-ape’s crude shell, decimating its brain. The bulky creature toppled to the ground, momentum skidding it along for several metres. It scrunched to a halt a metre short of Slvasta and the other defenders.

Slvasta took a deep breath, trying to stop the shakes. ‘The Faller will be carrying someone away.’ He aimed at a rampaging neut. Fired. Two bullet left in the chamber, two in his jacket pocket.

‘They’ll be unconscious,’ Coulan added, ‘so it’ll look like they’re trying to help a friend.’

‘Tell our comrades to search for that,’ Javier said. ‘And quick.’

Slvasta shot another neut as he sensed Bethaneve’s frantic instruction spreading across the cells amid the agitated crowds. In Eynsham Square, the stampede had now stalled. People were turning round and emerging from the side roads, directing teekay strikes at the petrified animals that mewled in bewilderment as they jostled about. They fell in silence, adding to the distress of those remaining.

Humans closed in on them from all directions, seeking retaliation. The mods that lay dead were kicked at, stomped on, spat at, had their softer flesh ripped by vengeful teekay twists.

The scene vanished behind a deluge of images dispatched by every cell member in the area as they hunted around for people being carried away by others. There were many: men hauling women and children along, their faces distraught, pleading, urging . . .