Graham's head spun. He needed fresh air. The world was closing in on him, he felt disorientated. He couldn't trust his eyes and ears.
Panic! He was flipping. He reached out. His hand tapered away twenty yards distant and receding. Annalise was at the end of a long dark tube, a ray of golden orange in a night sky of starless black. He grabbed with distant fingers, felt them close around something soft, something warm. He tightened his grip and hung on. Someone screamed, the sound reverberating slow and deep, a painful scream stretched out and drawn.
Annalise sprung back into vision, the tube receding, lengthening, Annalise dancing back and forth on the end of his arm. Never in focus, always painted on a stretched canvas. Voices speeding and slowing, everything out of kilter.
Annalise disappeared. Jenny too. The room stayed. The same decor, the same sparse furniture, different people. Then no people. Then a different room. Open plan. No police. An office. A police station. An office again.
Images cycled faster and faster. He was outside. Rain was falling on his face. He was standing on a pavement, a field, a road. The sky was blue, white, black. The buildings opposite flickered with the sky. They rose and fell, gave way to green fields, castle walls, tower blocks, space ports, a forest.
Faster and faster. His head spinning. All noise compressed into a single hum. All images into one confused blur.
And then blackness.
Silence.
And pain.
He was lying in a bed. White ceiling, white walls, a clear plastic pouch hanging above his head.
He was in a hospital? A pain hit him behind the eyes when he tried to move. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing appeared to happen. Was he badly injured?
He tried to recall what had happened. He remembered the birthday party and the police station and . . .
No! He couldn't have. After everything he'd done, the preparation, he couldn't have flipped. There couldn't have been another Graham in the police station.
Could there?
A monitor somewhere in the room beeped.
And what was he doing in a hospital?
And why couldn't he move? His muscles felt nonexistent. They . . .
Was he in a coma?
Was he paralyzed?
Had he flipped into the body of a comatose Graham?
"Graham?"
Annalise's voice! Had he flipped into Annalise Twelve's world?
He tried to speak. Maybe he was coming out of the coma? Maybe there was hope?
His mouth refused to cooperate.
Annalise's face loomed over his. Twelve had orange hair. The same as Fifteen and Seven.
He moved his eyes, flicked them left and right to show her he was alive.
"He's coming round," shouted Annalise over her shoulder.
Another face appeared. A doctor. She looked like Shikha but she couldn't be. Her hair was shorter and . . .
Jenny? What was Jenny doing in this world. He could see her at the foot of the bed.
"Graham," whispered Annalise, leaning over close to his ear. "You did it. The link's broken. All the Grahams collapsed at the same time. The girls got theirs to hospitals. I'm sure the others are okay too."
He struggled to say something. Was he going to live? Was she really Annalise Fifteen? Was it over? Was Sylvestrus in custody?
"You're going to be fine. The drugs will wear off soon. All the Grahams will be fine. Sylvestrus is on his way to South America, on the run and discredited. His driver and bodyguard have agreed to testify against him."
He fell asleep sometime after that.