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‘Pavlova?’ asks GG, trying to cut through the ugly thick atmosphere. ‘Anyone? Mm?’

He’s not going to get an answer, which is just as well because he isn’t really expecting one.

‘Maybe someone should make sure she doesn’t wander off too far,’ I say.

‘I’m on it.’ GG hurries off after Carrie. ‘I’ll guard her with my life,’ he says dramatically and is out of the door in an instant.

The Moth engages reverse on his wheelchair. ‘I should finish reading.’

‘How much more is there?’Johnson asks the Moth. ‘Only I don’t like that we’re sitting ducks. Assuming they find us.’

‘They’ll never do that.’ Billie is convinced of this. ‘We could barely find you. Mind you the Ape was driving.’ She hiccups. ‘What a waste of time and space
he is.’

‘I’ll get on it,’ promises the Moth.

But as he heads for the great dining-room doors a long piercing scream stops him dead.

It echoes shrilly throughout the vast hotel – a scream of great pain and anguish. And as we turn to the restaurant door GG staggers back in, eyes bulging in holy terror.

‘He’s here.’

‘Who?’

‘Me. I’m here. I’ve found us.’ He holds up his hands which are covered in blood. Not his blood though.

‘Carrie’s,’ he says simply.

We race past the stunned GG and find Carrie lying in the marble-floored reception area. She is bleeding from wounds that have punctured her all over. Even before we reach her,
I know she is dead.

‘Carrie?’ Johnson gets to her first, turns her over. ‘Carrie?’

Carrie’s red-wine lips have already turned grey. Her eyes are open and staring and a halo of blood spreads behind her head.

The Moth whirrs up to get a better look and lets out an anguished cry. GG is shaking behind us, a trembling mess.

‘What happened?’ I say to him.

He has fallen mute and can’t seem to answer.

‘GG!’ I urge him.

‘GG, say something.’ Billie joins me.

GG eventually looks at us and can barely find his voice. ‘It was me. I did it.’

‘No,’ I tell him. ‘It was the other GG.’

‘Evil-GG,’ adds Billie, as I turn back to Johnson who reaches over Carrie and closes her eyes. The Moth isn’t crying, but he looks totally and utterly bereft as he stares at
Carrie’s body.

‘Where is he?’ I ask GG. ‘Where’s the other you?’

‘Was me,’ says GG, still shaking.

‘GG, please. Where did he go? You saw him, right? If the others are nearby then we need to make a plan, and fast.’

GG falls silent, seemingly unable to answer, and I look all around for any sign of Evil-GG.

‘We need the Ape,’ I say to him, and then glance accusingly at Billie.

‘Don’t,’ she says. ‘Don’t you dare make out this is my fault.’

Johnson is still scanning the huge expanse of marble lobby stretching out in all directions around us.

‘GG, where did the other you go?’ I ask again.

GG opens and closes his mouth but no words come. He’s just staring at the dead Carrie and then looks down to his bloodied hands.

‘Where did he go?’ repeats the Moth, who whirrs over to us. We have formed a human circle, all of us facing one corner of the reception area.

‘What?’ GG looks lost, totally blank.

‘Where the hell is he?’ shouts Billie.

‘I dunno,’ he says. ‘Was too fast. I think he went outside. I think that’s what he did.’

We fall silent and I can tell the Moth is heartbroken just from the way he can’t take his eyes off Carrie. There’s a vicious creature in the hotel and all he can do is stare
forlornly at the lifeless bony shape on the floor.

‘Moth,’ I say, but he doesn’t respond. ‘Moth. Come on.’

GG is backing towards the lifts with Billie. ‘We should take the lift up to another floor,’ he suggests.

‘No way,’ I tell him.

‘We go up, find a room, lock it, make a plan. There’s hundreds of rooms in this hotel. He won’t be able to find us.’ GG is starting to sound more sensible than at any
time I have ever known him. He’s not nearly the flake he pretends he is.

I look to Johnson to see what he thinks.

Johnson weighs it up. ‘GG’s right – we’re too vulnerable out here.’

‘So let’s go,’ urges GG. ‘Before he comes back.’

I look back to the main entrance to the hotel lobby and I hate to think what might be out there waiting for us.

‘He was so fast,’ says GG, seeing my hesitation. ‘We wouldn’t even know he was here before he attacks.’

Johnson looks to the Moth. ‘Moth, move.’

The Moth is reluctant. ‘What’s the point? What can we do? They will get us anyway.’

‘I’ll phone the Ape. Get him to come back. He’ll fight them off,’ I tell him.

‘We’re dead,’ says the Moth despondently. ‘We’re all dead. If he’s found us, the others won’t be far behind. Including that Non-Ape. Why won’t
they leave us alone?’

Johnson and I share a reluctant look. The Moth sees it.

‘What? What is it?’

‘Nothing,’ says Johnson.

‘Forget it,’ I add.

‘So it is something, because if it was nothing I wouldn’t have anything to forget, would I.’

The Moth is too intuitive for his own good. He holds my look. ‘Tell me.’

I look to Johnson and he smiles ruefully. ‘It’s you. They want you. They haven’t got their Moth so they want our one.’

‘You’re the only one who seems to knows anything,’ I add. ‘The only one they think will be able to get them home.’

The Moth allows this to settle for a moment. Then he sucks in a deep breath and gives me one of the bravest looks I’ve ever seen.

‘Let me go to them.’

‘What? No!’

‘I’m who they want. They’ll leave you alone then.’

‘We do that and we’re stuck here forever.’ Johnson is clear on this.

‘If it’s a coin flip between being here and being dead, I know which one I’d take,’ offers the Moth, his eyes unable to leave Carrie

We don’t have time for this. I know that Moth is hurting, but the others could be here any minute and I don’t want to be sitting in the lobby when they arrive. Not wanting any more
discussion, I start wheeling the Moth back towards the lifts.

‘Leave me alone!’ he yells and tries to jab the brakes on.

I ignore him and together with GG we back towards the four lifts. Johnson stabs all of the buttons and we wait for the first one to arrive.

‘Rev, I don’t want this any more,’ says the Moth. ‘Look at me, what good am I?’

‘You’re the most important person in the world,’ I tell him, echoing Johnson. ‘And I’m going to protect you at all costs.’

I keep scanning the lobby while the lifts take forever to return to the ground floor.

GG is still trembling. ‘He’s coming. I can feel it.’

My shoulders are tingling like crazy. The inbuilt spider sense is screaming at me. Evil-GG is close, I know he is. The elevator pings behind us and I almost jump out of my skin. The reflective
metallic doors take an eternity to open and I half expect Evil-GG to be inside waiting for us. But the elevator is empty and we bundle in, despite the Moth’s protests.

‘We can’t just leave Carrie lying there,’ the Moth says.

‘She’s gone,’ Johnson tells him as the elevator doors slowly close. ‘I’m sorry but she has, Moth.’ He hits the button for the penthouse floor.

The mirrors in the elevator reveal our scared faces many times over and we all look washed out, and way too near the end of our own personal lines. Johnson’s eyes find mine.
‘We’re going to have to make weapons,’ he says.

‘We going to make a stand?’

‘And we’re going to beat them.’

GG is wiping his bloodied hands on the front of his jeans. ‘Got to get rid of this,’ he says. ‘It’s icky.’

I smile through my fear. The same old GG, despite everything.

‘Red is so not my colour.’

I lean back against the bank of buttons, trying to take stock. What sort of weapons does Johnson expect to find in the penthouse?

‘You OK, Moth?’ GG asks.

‘Oh yeah, I’ve never been better.’ The Moth is fighting back his tears.

‘Good Moth, keep it up.’ GG somehow ekes out a reassuring smile.

As he does I catch sight of something in the never-ending reflections that are all around us.

As GG smiles he reveals a glint of metal in his mouth.

Just like Non-Lucas did.

My heart freezes.

This isn’t our GG.

‘Ca-can you still feel him?’ I ask him. ‘The other GG?”

He stops trying to wipe the blood away and takes a moment to try and sense Evil-GG, or at least pretend to. ‘No,’ he says.

‘Good,’ I say. ‘Good.’ I add a smile that I know is fractured at best.

I turn to Johnson as the elevator keeps rising. ‘This is taking ages.’

‘Forty floors,’ he says.

‘Forty,’ I repeat and then try to open my eyes wider so he can see I’m trying to get a message to him. But he doesn’t understand and looks away. I glance back at Evil-GG.
This must be delighting him no end. I bet he can barely stand to keep up the pretence before blowing his brilliant ruse.

If he’s anything like the real GG he’ll do it in the medium of song.

‘What weapons?’ I say nervously. ‘What you got in mind?’ I’m trying desperately to get Johnson’s attention again. ‘What weapons, Johnson?’

Billie gives me a nervous look. ‘Rev.’

‘Yeah?’

‘You’re babbling.’

‘Am I?’ I ask Johnson, thinking
Please look at me
. ‘Am I babbling, Johnson?’

Johnson turns to me and again I try and widen my eyes so he can sense that I’m really trying to tell him something else.

Then a thought hits me, a fragment of memory. ‘GG?’ I ask.

‘Yeah?’

‘You said you got detention for flirting with the games teacher.’

Evil-GG falls silent, which is probably unusual for any GG in any world. He cocks his head to one side as he scrutinises me. For a second I think he’s going to attack me, but then he
grins, full of himself.

‘It was more the other way round. And who can blame him?’

I’m hoping Johnson is cottoning on now.

He frowns when he catches sight of my wide-open eyes again. Then it dawns on him. Our GG was warned for flirting with the
maths
teacher.

The lift keeps rising. Slowly, almost painfully so, I make a point of moving my eyes slowly in the direction of Evil-GG.

Johnson follows my lead and flicks his eyes towards Evil-GG. I’m praying that Evil-GG doesn’t see us doing this in the reflection from the mirrors in the lift.

Johnson waits for more and I gently lift my right index finger and pretend to rub my bottom lip with it. But what I’m trying to say is
Look at the mouth. Look at the metal in
Evil-GG’s mouth
.

Johnson gives nothing away. He studies me as the lift keeps ascending through the floors. But then, after a moment, he gives me the tiniest of nods. It’s barely more than a gentle rock of
his head.

I look to Billie and the Moth and they remain oblivious. The Moth has retreated into his grief and shock, and given his outburst earlier I wonder if he might welcome having Evil-GG riding in the
lift with us. He’s already lost two people he cared about and I’m not far behind him in his despair, but the thought of what this murderous Evil GG just did to Carrie hardens my
resolve. She may have been a colossal bitch, but she was
our
colossal bitch. I grit my teeth and feel my muscles tightening. I’m not sure what he did with our GG or when he made the
switch, but I’m guessing that he’s lying dead in the kitchen way below us. I should have sensed something when he made the switch – how could we not have noticed?

But it’s too late now. We’re locked in our own ready-made coffin. The lift reaches floor twenty and I have no idea what we’re going to do when it reaches the top floor.

‘Wonder where the Ape is,’ I say, racking my brains for something positive to hang on to. ‘Think he went out of the hotel?’

‘Doubt it,’ says Johnson who is trying his best not to look too closely at Evil-GG in case he gives the game away.

‘You think he might be close by?’ I ask. It’s so clumsy what I’m trying to do. ‘Maybe waiting for us when the doors open.’

‘He will be. Knowing the Ape,’ says Johnson.

‘He knows how to kill them.’ My voice is cracking and I can’t help it. ‘He’s lethal.’

‘Yeah.’

Billie looks from me to Johnson and back again. ‘Why are you both talking like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like robots.’

‘We’re just chatting,’ says Johnson.

‘Chatting?’ The Moth stirs from his deep despondency. ‘Chatting? After what just happened to Carrie! What is wrong with you two?’

‘We all have different ways of coping,’ I say weakly, silently begging them both to just shut up.

I feel Evil-GG slowly shift his stance beside me.

‘I don’t even want to be in this lift,’ says the Moth.

‘Who does?’ I say and then hope to God I haven’t given myself away.

Evil-GG shifts again. It’s the tiniest movement, but he has fallen too quiet now. The real GG doesn’t do quiet. Not ever.

We hit floor thirty and continue rising.

I look around the sleek mirrored interior and there is nothing that remotely resembles anything that we could turn into a weapon.