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strike the first blow.
    As mutants scrabble across the top of the pod and try to smash through the glass, the Angel makes a crude gesture of his own, then drives the bones sticking out of his fingers through his
skull. The mutants screech spitefully, but he ignores them and digs around inside his head. Moments later he drops to the floor of the pod, set free from the torment which would otherwise have
awaited him.
    I hate being a helpless observer. I want to dash across the bridge, cut through Jubilee Gardens, fight and die with those who have become my family over the last few months.
    But I don’t have the energy for a stylish finale. If I start limping across this walkway, I’ll be spotted long before I reach the other side. Mutants will flood the bridge and either
kill me or haul me back for Mr Dowling to deal with.

    So I hold my ground and watch numbly as County Hall falls to its foes. I’m surprised they were able to take it so easily. I thought the Angels would have offered more resistance. Master
Zhang trained us to be clinical fighting machines. We should have been able to at least trouble the mutants and babies. But it looks like they took this place as swiftly and casually as they took
Battersea Power Station.
    I wonder if Dr Oystein has been killed. There aren’t that many dead Angels outside the building, so most must be lining the corridors inside. Dr Oystein’s corpse
almost surely lies among one of the groups, unless he happened to be at his secret lab when Mr Dowling surged up out of the depths.
    If the doc was here when the invasion began, how did he react? Seeing that the end was upon him, did he uncork his vial of Clements-13, figuring Mr Dowling wouldn’t have attacked unless
he’d been robbed of his sample of Schlesinger-10? Maybe ultimate victory is already ours, despite the casualties and the loss of our base. Perhaps this is merely Mr Dowling’s
compensation prize, annihilation of his most hated enemy before he falls foul of the unleashed virus and drops dead in a matter of days.
    Then again, Dr Oystein never told us where his vial of Clements-13 was stored. I’m sure he has some in his hidden laboratory, but did he keep another vial on him, or tucked away in a safe
nook in County Hall? I’m guessing he did, in order to be ready for a surprise attack like this, but I can’t be certain.
    Mr Dowling can’t have been certain either. That’s why he never struck the first blow. But now, robbed of his ultimate deterrent, he’s had to gamble. I left him with no other
choice.
    Understanding the clown as intimately as I do, I knew that his first task would be to find me and retrieve his vial of Schlesinger-10, to re-establish the status quo. He likes things the way
they’ve been since the world fell, the war between the living and the undead, the chaos and disorder.
    But I didn’t consider what he’d do when his mutants failed to track me down. He must have decided to strike immediately before I returned to County Hall. He probably figured that he
was definitely dead if he waited. At least this way he had a chance.
    I should have anticipated this. If I’d been thinking clearly, I would have acted more swiftly, made for the surface as soon as I could, maybe sent Holy Moly on ahead of me to warn Dr
Oystein and tell him to clear out. I thought I had time to play with. I was wrong.
    ‘It’s a bloody mess,’ I sob, turning away from the carnage, sick of it all, not wanting to torture myself any further.
    ‘
mummy?
’ Holy Moly asks, surprised by my sadness. The baby doesn’t understand why I’m miserable. The slaughter across the river is nothing more than a jolly
piece of theatre as far as it’s concerned, par for the course when their father is abroad. ‘
what’s wrong mummy? don’t cry. we don’t like it when you cry. we
love you mummy.
’
    ‘I’m OK,’ I lie. ‘Just sad because my friends are dead.’
    ‘
everything dies mummy
,’ Holy Moly says.
    ‘Is that