Getting pinged was slang for being detected. Someone knew the fairy folk were down here.

Root was the first to recover his voice. ‘Pinged. Who pinged us?’

Foaly shrugged. ‘Don’t know. It only lasted a few seconds. There was no recognizable signature, and it was untraceable.’

‘What did they get?’

‘Quite a bit. Everything North European. Scopes, Sentinel. All our cam-cams. Downloaded information on every one of them.’

This was catastrophic news. Someone or something knew all about fairy surveillance in Northern Europe, after only a few seconds.

‘Was it human,’ asked Holly, ‘or alien?’

Foaly pointed to a digital representation of the beam. ‘I can’t say for certain. If it is human, it’s something brand new. This came out of nowhere. No one has been developing technology like this as far as I know. Whatever it is, it read us like an open book. My security encryptions folded like they weren’t even there.’

Cahartez took off his official hat, no longer concerned with protocol.

‘What does this mean for the People?’

‘It’s difficult to say. There are best and worst case scenarios. Our mysterious guest could learn all about us whenever he wishes and do with our civilization what he will.’

‘And the best case scenario?’ asked Trouble.

Foaly took a breath. ‘That was the best case scenario.’

Commander Root called Holly into his office. The room stank of cigar smoke in spite of the purifier built into the desk. Foaly was already there, his fingers a blur over the commander’s keyboard.

‘The signal originated in London somewhere,’ said the centaur. ‘We only know that because I happened to be looking at the monitor at the time.’ He leaned back from the keyboard, shaking his head. ‘This is incredible. It’s some kind of hybrid technology. Almost like our ion systems, but not quite — just a hair’s breadth away.’