Zidarov froze. Draj remained motionless. The bootfalls halted. Zidarov gingerly moved his hand down to his holster. In the silence, he could hear his heart beating.

The lights faded away. Zidarov heard the guards clank off down the stairs.

Draj turned to him. ‘Enough, now,’ he whispered. ‘Either we get out, or I start cracking skulls.’

Zidarov replaced everything as it had been. He closed up the panel and rearranged the papers. Then he moved back towards the door.

Draj checked the corridor outside, then opened the door again. The two of them slipped outside, then back down to the ground level. The patrolling guards seemed to have moved away into the main chamber, and so they stole back to the external door. Once outside and with the locks reactivated, they jogged through the swirling rain back to the wall. Draj brought the ropes out again and clamped the grapple to the top. Zidarov went up first, his arms burning as he reached the summit. After a quick scan beyond the perimeter, he pulled one of the ropes over the edge and used it to clamber down. Draj came over after him, ­restoring the flaywire barrier and removing the holo­field.

Zidarov took a deep breath. The rainwater ran down his face, and it felt both cooling and cleansing after the seamy interior, despite what was probably in it. Draj tidied up, checking that everything they’d taken in had been taken out again.

‘You want to burn it down,’ Zidarov said.

‘I do.’

‘So do I.’

Draj turned to him. ‘Every hour we wait–’

‘I know.’ Zidarov remembered the rows of faces, the tubes, the dark. ‘I know. The time will come, I promise you, and when it does you’ll be first in the queue.’

Then they were making their way back to the groundcar. The streets were even more sparsely populated than before, and they got to the vehicle without incident. Draj drove them back to the supply station in sullen silence. That was fine by Zidarov, who had little appetite for talking either.

When they parted, Draj pulled his helmet off, revealing a sweat-lined face. He’d looked brutal, before. Now, for some reason, the broken nose and scarred flesh made him look strangely vulnerable.

‘I’ll hold you to it,’ he said. ‘First in.’

Zidarov nodded. He owed him that much, at least.

‘Keep a watch,’ he said. ‘Anyone you can ident, going in or out, let me know.’

He walked out towards the waiting Luxer. As he reached the door, he turned back.

‘Until then, thanks, sergeant – I won’t forget it.’