It may have sounded like typical office watercooler chit chat but this was important work. Tech Support were using social media to make sure Platform Eight operatives were getting the message all over the world. Key accounts posted photos of sunsets and planes in flight. Status updates like ‘Time for holibobs!’. Inspirational quotes along the vein of ‘Every ending is just a new beginning’. Every post was a call to get out, to get somewhere safe and hide out.

It was a flurry of activity now but soon the corridors would be quiet.

I’d been a Rat for twelve years and this was the first time we’d ever had a full lockdown.

I walked into the meeting room. The rest of my unit were already assembled around the large, grand mahogany dining table, which had been installed there for as long as anyone could remember. It had become so much a part of the fabric of Platform Eight that it was underneath this table we carved the names of all the Rats we’d lost over the years. Within London there are many memorials marking the names of those who had given their lives to serving this country. But for us – those who didn’t officially exist – this was as good as it got. It was our way of honouring our fallen comrades. A small reminder that even if no one else knew, we did.

Stationed in his usual seat at the corner of the dining table was Geraint ‘G-Force’ Callewaert, a small bespectacled IT expert, who was our Lead Tech Support. There was nothing he didn’t know about computers and he always seemed happiest plugged into his laptop, heavy metal on his headphones, tapping away at defeating yet another sophisticated security system.

Opposite him was Robin Goh, a happy-go-lucky Chinese man with a strong Scottish accent, who was still paying his dues as a Rat-in-training. Recently he had been complaining about how it was time he branched out on his own. Got his own unit. Grew up and left the nest. It was down to Jake and me to decide if we thought he was ready.