He looked down at the squishy plastic suit, gave a small, apologetic smile that was very Kim, and shook his head. ‘I don’t think we’re ever going to see our homes ever again.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Chantelle put her knuckle to her mouth. ‘Don’t say that, all right? Ace and the Doctor, they’ll find us. They’ll help us. We’re going to get out of here.’

Kim nodded quickly. ‘Sure. You’re right. I’m sorry. Feeling sorry for myself won’t help anyone will it?’

A panel in the wall slid open behind them. Chantelle turned to find another hovering robot. It flicked out a metal tongue that caught around Kim, like it was a frog and he a juicy fly. In a single horrible second, before he could even react, it had jerked him clean away, out of the room even as the door slid back shut.

‘Kim!’ Chantelle shouted. She struggled over to the wall and banged her fists on it. There was no sign of a door. Had she imagined the whole thing? Was she still asleep on the slab with the robots all around, and dreaming? No, her anger was starting to clear her head now. ‘Did you see that?’ she demanded of the teenaged girl beside her. ‘Did you see what happened?’

The girl rocked on her haunches, hugging her knees through that horrible plastic suit, face barely visible behind a long black fringe. ‘None of this is real,’ the girl said.

‘If this is a dream, what d’you think is waiting for us when we wake up?’ Chantelle crouched and put both hands on the girl’s shoulders. ‘We could be next. Get away from the wall.’

The girl shrugged her off.

‘Listen! Please.’ Chantelle turned to address her fellow inmates. All creeds and colours were here; the Ratts must have been recruiting from cities all over the Earth. ‘My friend was just snatched away from here and we could be next! We need to get away from the walls, link arms. Make it harder for them to take us.’

Slowly people were starting to look at her. An African man started speaking in a deep, guttural language she didn’t understand. He held hands with a smaller man beside him, and reached out to Chantelle.

Chantelle crossed and sat beside him, crooking her arm into his, the gesture saying more than words. She linked arms with a Chinese woman beside her as well. Slowly, the chain was growing.

She thought of Kim and found she was too angry to cry. She’d survived a fair amount of hell in her life. She’d allowed herself to think that her predicament here was worse because it was so far removed from anything she’d ever known or even imagined. But seeing Kim get taken like that …

You don’t stop fighting, she told herself. You just have to fight harder.