He pulled over. By then Zidarov could see the warehouse up ahead, its profile semi-hidden by the stacks of buildings and walkways around it. Everything was multilayered here, with platforms and walkways strung out and over the crowds of buildings. Cataracts of rain fell from transit viaducts layered above them, glittering from the many lumens that blinked in the night. A turbine-flyer passed close overhead, its engines howling. Far to the south, tracing a thin line of fire, one of the many Slovo VIs was coming down to a cradle, ready to be dismembered and carved open. It was all noisy, a mix of distant thruster-roars and engine-hammer.

Zidarov got out. Draj was busy with his equipment. He clamped a sensor-baffler onto Zidarov’s coat, and took out tripwire-deflectors – a handful of them, each no bigger than a walnut.

‘These’ll stop the perimeter alarms going off,’ he said. ‘They’ll block broad-spectrum intruder sweeps, but not much more than that. We’ll still have to keep our heads down.’

‘You normally carry this much quiet-gear?’

‘When I get enough warning. You wanted silent. I brought what we needed.’

Then they were moving, on foot, going quickly but not too quickly, keeping to the shadows without looking like they were keeping to the shadows. The access routes were sparsely populated at that hour, and most of those out and about were intent on getting out of the rain. Few looked up. If any did manage to spy Draj in his combat armour, they were sensible enough not to make a fuss about it, and got on with minding their own bedraggled business.

Zidarov and Draj climbed up to the pedestrian viaduct slung over the transitway – a fragile-looking tube of metal that trembled as they walked on it. From there they could descend to the warehouse level again, dropping even further out of the glow of the street-lumens, before emerging in front of a long perimeter wall. It was thirteen feet high, topped with flaywire and constructed of steel panels linked with rockcrete posts. Some of the panels had graffiti marked in faded colours, mostly semi-political slogans or tags from gangers. No one bothered to clean it off – after a few months of Varangantua’s gently acidic rain, it would all be washed into an indistinct blur anyway.

Draj walked along the outer edge for a while, scanning, occasionally knocking against a panel with his fist. Zidarov followed, staring into the murk and looking for movement.