'Hello, we're calling to make you aware of a new government-backed initiative. You may be entitled...' Eliot hung up. It had been unlikely, but the phone had kept ringing all the time he'd been breaking in and that had injected a little spike of hope into his day. Now, he looked round properly. The couple in the living-room, their genders revealed by clothing and their intimacy by their interlocked fingers, had that look of surprise shared by all Q-bomb victims. Their mummified corpses would start to rot now…