‘It’s biometric.’ Karim steps back from the pad and I can see he’s right. It has a phone-sized under-lit glass screen with a picture of an eye above it. ‘Unless you’ve got a high-clearance eyeball in your pocket, there’s no way we’re getting in here.’

Kat, who’s the tallest out of the three of us, stands on her toes and peers in through the glass circle. ‘So much stuff,’ she says, eyeing the room. ‘There’s a load of silver tables with equipment on them. One of them has some of the signal beacons 85 opened up and laid out, and there are different tools next to them on a tray.’

‘And this lab is nothing to do with XGen, right, Karim?’ I ask.

‘Right,’ he says. ‘I don’t know why they’d be looking at XGen tech.’

‘The back wall has charts stuck up on it about human anatomy, and there are images of DNA sequences.’ Kat has her head turned at a painful looking angle so that she can get a good view. ‘There’s a glass container full of yellow goo,’ she glances at me. ‘I think it’s hunter spit. And there’s a fish tank inside another fish tank, full of water and green mossy stuff.’

‘They’re studying tardigrades,’ I say. ‘Let’s hope they haven’t worked out how to beat them.’

Kat stands down, rubbing her neck, and rolls her head from side to side. ‘I could only see about half the space. There’s way more in there, but it’s not visible without being inside the room.’

‘You did good, Kat,’ I say.

‘But still no Mum,’ Karim sighs.

‘There are some labs left,’ I say, and we cross to the other end of the hallway, where there’s another metal-handled door. I side-eye Karim as we move 86 forward, worrying about how he’s doing. This is all new to him, and it’s a lot. In twenty-four hours he’s dealt with an explosion at his mum’s work, the news that there’s a dangerous escaped creature in town, and me and Kat turning up on his doorstep to tell him we think there might be an alien incursion starting in Straybridge. We’ve been watched, snuck into a heavily guarded building, and found what is most likely his mum’s blood spatter but not his actual mum who is missing in freaking weird circumstances. Also, he met the horror that is Miss Hoche. He’s still standing, but he doesn’t look good. I’m scared that what we find behind this door might be too much, but I know there’s no turning back now. I open the door.