Other Me looks at me carefully while I take in this information.

She checks over both shoulders. We cannot be seen. There’s a few seconds during which we just stare at each other, till Other Me starts to nod slowly, the way you would when suddenly everything makes sense.

She breaks the silence by saying, “It’s OK. I know who you are. I’ve been expecting you. Kind of.”

I say nothing. It’s just so strange, hearing me talk but not forming the words myself. But she is probably as astonished as I am. Then she says, “You’re in the dome right now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

She puffs out her cheeks (like I do) and says, “Wow.” Then she reaches out and touches my face, gently running her fingers over my cheek, then my hair, saying, “Wow!” again and smiling.

“Does that mean you’re not…real?” I ask, and she smiles. I’ve got a nice smile, I think.

“I’m real, all right. This is all real, although I wish it wasn’t. I knew you were coming. That is, I hoped you would.”

I frown at her in puzzlement.

Other Me flicks her eyes from side to side to check if anyone’s coming; then she says, “You nearly didn’t come at all.” Still I say nothing.

She continues: “That time, in the lane, when we…when you decided to take the campervan, to get Clem to help, to spring Dr. Pretorius from the hospital…you nearly didn’t do it.”

Is this a statement or a question? She’s right, of course: we very nearly didn’t do it. It was scary, risky, unworkable. It really very nearly never happened.

Other Me goes on, her voice becoming sad: “But you did do it, right? I mean, you went through with it. Took the campervan, busted Dr. Pretorius out, went to the dome. You must have.”

“Um,” I say. “Yeah. It wasn’t easy, but yeah.” I think about it, picturing the moment when we were about to go ahead with the plan. “If I hadn’t remembered Mum’s song, I don’t think I’d have had the nerve.”

She’s looking at me blankly. “What?”

“Mum’s song,” I say. “Someone to tend to, be a friend to…I thought about it, and it…gave me the courage, I guess. To do it.”

She nods sadly. “Well, I didn’t think of that, and I didn’t do it. I had the chance to change everything, to take the risk, to put it all right, but I was scared and I messed it up and…well, you’ve seen.” She looks about at the razor wire and I see her swallow hard. “You see, you changed your world. I didn’t, and this is the result.” She waves her hand to indicate the barbed wire, the checkpoints, the awfulness of what the world has become.

“Wh-what happened?”

“What do you think? It was exactly as we feared. Worse, in fact. Dog Plague. CBE. It took millions. Young people, old people, all the dogs, and worst of all…” Other Me trails off, staring at the sky. Her chin wobbles as she tries to form a word beginning with R.

“Ramzy?” I say, and she nods and looks down. “How? I mean…”

Other Me sighs deeply and doesn’t look up. “Because I chickened out. Instead of taking the plunge, breaking out Dr. Pretorius…I just…got too scared. That’s why all the soldiers are here. It went crazy. Riots, people looting hospitals, people stealing medicines. Millions and millions of people died. It’s been horrible, Georgie. And all because I was cowardly.” A tear rolls down her cheek and she brushes it away.

“Cautious, I think.”

“No. No! Sometimes you have to do the risky thing. And I didn’t. Do you remember that poster on our bedroom wall?”

“The Wisdom of the Dogs?”

“If what you want is buried…”

We say the last bit together: “Dig and dig until you find it.”

Other Me says simply, “I stopped digging too soon.”

I let this sink in. On the other side of the wire fence, an army truck trundles past.

“Why are you here today?” I ask. “At the hospital?”

“I knew what our plan was. I wondered: if I didn’t carry out the plan, maybe you would. I’ve thought of nothing else for the last year. It’s been driving me nuts. And in case you’re wondering, this is just as weird for me as it is for you. For me. And you. You know what I mean.” She chuckles, and it sounds so like me that I laugh, too, and she laughs at me laughing, and within seconds we’re both howling, and that turns to crying, and I don’t know what I’m crying about.

“Mr. Mash?” I say, and Other Me shakes her head and I breathe in sharply.

“We had his blood sample, though,” she says. “That was a smart move. It’s going to help us.”

“Dr. Pretorius?”

“She died in the hospital. Another heart attack. All her stuff was scrapped. No one knew what it was and, to be honest, everyone had other concerns. Georgie?” Other Me turns to me, wiping away tears, but more form in their place. “You’ve got to do this. You’ve got to. However strange this whole setup is, you’ve got to stop this. I can get you the cure. You can take it back to…to…the past, I guess?”

“Georgie! There you are!”

We both turn round, shocked. Jessica looks first at Other Me and then at me. Then two things happen at once. The alarm on my phone starts to go ping pong, ping pong, warning me that my time in the dome is about to come to an abrupt end.

And Jessica? She looks at me, then at Other Me, then at me again, her eyes narrowed to slits from curiosity.

“Oh my G—”