The hiss in his earpiece brought Branner round, and he saw the red dot flash on the grid scanner in his hand. He was sheltered from the rain partially, pushed in against the willow at the fifty-metre line. The rain came down heavily. Subdued the dawn light.

The distraction was a relief. When he’d heard the doctor’s words, they seemed spoken through water. Had grown every moment since in volume and solidity. Seemed now to knock against the shell of the dream he’s had for weeks. A recurrence he braces for in sleep. The dream now like a premonition.

‘I’ve seen it,’ Branner said into his mic.

He watched the red dot shift across the scanner, hesitate, then apparently settle. A slight condensation come to the edges of the screen.

There was no way of knowing what the red dot was, but it was in the sector and big enough to trigger the sensors.

Deer. Dog. Man. If it was still alive and present when the water load passed, the defence guns of the train would fire automatically.

They weren’t taking any chances now. Attacks on the line had increased.

Branner had the choice to stay out of the way or neutralise the risk himself. He could take the shot, or, if he could identify it as nothing threatening, call it in to the tower and they could stand the train guns down.

‘Can you get there?’ The sergeant’s voice came through the earpiece, through the snap of rain on Branner’s hood.

‘I can get there,’ Branner replied. It was relatively close. The opposite side of the track.

‘Let the train guns take it,’ said the sergeant.

Branner felt the old scar on his jaw catch slightly against the nap inside his hood.

‘No. I’ll go.’

It will be an animal, Branner thought. There’s no need for it to pointlessly die.

The drops gathered and fell heavily from the long leaves of willow.

Branner checked his rifle and walked into the rain.

~

There was a slowness in the watch post. The rain patting on the corrugated roof.

The sergeant and the line officer watched Branner on the monitor – a green dot – zoomed in a few clicks. It was difficult for them to see only the green dot and not in their minds Branner himself.

Knowing about Branner’s wife made them think of him differently.

‘Where’s the train?’ The voice that broke abruptly into the room seemed to have no connection to the dot.

‘On time. Forty seconds to sector.’ The digits flicking.

The rain thickened, drumming the watch post. Thumping down.

‘Don’t you love summer?’ the sergeant said.

‘They should have built a gutter to the city,’ said the officer. ‘This rain. Not a train track.’

‘Well, we won’t run out.’