"Are we in range for Roncalli?" Aiden wondered. "His rants are always bangers."

"I think you have to be north of Mantello Road for that," his twin replied. And we are..."

"Well south of Mantello road," Aiden completed the sentence seamlessly.

"You just turned left on a red light." Bellan observed.

"That's legal, right?"

"There's no slip lane there, so it's not."

They bickered about some more stuff. Brendan looked at Adrian seated across him in the backseat. It was always a bit awkward being a passenger in a car, but this was even stranger. 

It had been midday before they got moving. None of them had woken up before eleven o'clock, and it had taken them even more time to get ready. Time seemed to move slower in this part of New Carinthia. The long journey across the Industrial Zone, then the queue at the border checkpoint, then the slog through heavy Wythaven traffic. Brendan was a little worried that they would miss their connection. Not that it mattered too much.

Brendan had never really ridden in a car this nice, except for Adrian's Jag which wasn't really his. He was marvelling at the fit and finish and the texture of the soft-touch plastic. This felt like a weird distraction, but he couldn't be helped.

They were driving slowly down Wythaven's Ruth Gray Memorial Avenue. It did not have four tram tracks running down the centre median, but it did have fully segregated bike lanes on both sides. 

He kept an eye on the black Honda that had been following them for some time now. Every red light, every bit of traffic, every tiny delay was weighing on him.

Next to him, Adrian was asleep. Or he was just very tuned out. It was hard to tell. When they had returned from the beach it had been around four o'clock in the morning. No matter how hard he tried he had not been able to get back to sleep. He had chosen to use to the time to study a map of the Wythaven Metro that he had found somewhere in Adrian's sprawling house. An industrial amount of coffee had helped things somewhat but Brendan could feel the sleep clawing at his eyeballs.

He held on to his backpack on his lap, ready to be grabbed at any moment. Inside were the suits and a change of clothes, just in case.

They drove further into the city, through more bumper to bumper traffic. The Honda was now a few more car lengths away, stuck behind a box truck. He woke up Adrian.

Another box truck attempted to pull out in front of the first truck. The drivers exchanged blasts of the horn. Typical Wythaven traffic moment. The important thing was this had completely obscured the field of vision of the Honda's driver.

"Now." They quickly pulled the two dummies into position on the backseat. Then they ducked out of the passenger-side rear door and made a run for it, ignoring the odd glances from passers-by.

"Good luck," the twins said in unison. The delivery almost made Brendan burst out laughing. But he managed to hold it in and not trip over the gutter.

A few metres ahead of them was the entrance to Museum Station. The big Wythaven Metro totem stood above. People were streaming in, so much that the steps up to the entrance were obscured.

They joined the queue of people on the escalator. Brendan didn't look back to see if the people in the Honda had spotted them.

***

The train accelerated and stopped with minimal fuss. It was quite disconcerting for someone who was used to crawling along and being stopped at signals to be watching the tunnel walls rush past in the front window and entering stations at these kinds of speeds, but soon Brendan got used to it.

Remembering his experiences riding trains on his last trip back to China, Brendan suppressed all the strategies he had developed for intuitively navigating on the surface in Corviston. Forget about your internal compass. Just. Follow. The. Signs.

They needed to move fast. The people pursuing them probably still thought they were still driving around with the cousins, but they would learn fast. He had calculated that they would be harder to trace in the peak, and he was right.

The train entered another spotless station. Behind the platform screen doors, the polished stone floors glistened under the harsh white artificial light.

It says interchange with the Line 4," Adrian said, pointing to the pulsing light on the line diagram above the door, as people streamed around them. "That's our next line. Why do we need to go to the next station?"

"That's for the other direction," Brendan said, pointing out the fine print under the light, as the doors closed and the train jolted into motion once more. "I mean, we could theoretically change here, we'd just have to take the escalator. Which would be inconvenient. If we get off at the next stop, then we can just walk to the other side of the platform."

"How does that work?"

"The tracks cross over between this station and the next." Looking all the way down the train, Adrian could see it snake and twist as it accelerated towards the next stop. He noticed that several of the people had their fingers where the rubber seals of the doors met.

"Now arriving at Cavenaugh. Doors will open on the right hand side. Change here for Line 4 trains to West Vomepon. This is a Line 8 train terminating at Ardmillan."

The bright lights of the next station flooded the train. There was the screech of brakes as the train came to a standstill, the excruciating moment as the software painstakingly lined up the train with the platform doors. Then they were washed into the flood of people alighting. His feet felt like they were floating on the highly polished floor. His footsteps didn't seem to register. The roof of the station hall at Cavenaugh was covered in a huge mosaic mural, Ruth Gray leading the people to a better life. But they had little time for staring at the scenery. Their connection was pulling in on the opposite side of the platform. People were still getting off. They got on just as the doors were closing.

This was newer than the other train. That had already been space-age compared to the old jalopies Brendan was used to, but this was on another level. Light strips ran across the doors. Every wall panel seemed to have a screen of some sort on it.

The train gathered speed as they went further out into the suburbs. The intervals between stations became longer. They emerged from the tunnel in the far western suburbs, onto a viaduct above a nondescript industrial estate. Wythaven looked drab, gray, unending sprawl under a featureless sky, spread across the plain. The unmistakeable gantry cranes of the port towered in the distance. They were close to the sea here, though they could not see it. The salt spray was being carried over the gentle breeze.

Somewhere down there was their target destination. But they were not going there just yet.

***

Brendan was sure they had thrown off any people who might be following their trail. They had nearly circumnavigated the entirety of Wythaven and used all of the transport modes: metro, bus, suburban train, and even one of the trolleybus routes that wound up the western escarpment.

Now the sun had set, and they were on the final leg of their journey, bumping through the industrial estates of western Wythaven on a bus. They sat, one in front of the other, as it wound through streets lined with warehouses and factories.

Brendan had spent the whole trip with one eye over his shoulder. There was one other person on the bus.

Brendan watched the dimly lit address numbers on the fences go up. 35. 37. 39A.

"There it is." They leaned in to look. It was a rather nondescript two-storey industrial building, a blocky fake-stucco affair with heavily tinted windows, behind a black-painted steel picket fence. Nobody would have guessed what was going on behind the door.

We have to get in there," Brendan said quietly, as the bus jolted over the hump of a bridge over a small creek. he was sure that the one person at the back could not hear them. 

***

They alighted the bus a block away from the warehouse, around ten minutes before 7:40. Pushing through a crack in the cyclone wire fence, they crept down into the concrete sarcophagus of the creek.

Aware that there were security cameras, they stuck to the very edge of the concrete bank. The faint smell of decay permeated the landscape. Tufts of sedge and rushes peeked over the angled concrete walls.

Brendan sensed movement. He paused, scanning the surroundings above the concrete banks. A false alarm. He motioned for Adrian to proceed.

The trickling intensified as they passed a discharge point. The effluent was hot, a strong chemical tang to it, joining the tepid trickle of the water in its little channel down the middle of the culvert. Brendan tried not to think of where it had come from, or what it would do to the ecology of the river it would eventually flow into.

Their ticket into the workshop was the next outlet. Brendan shone a light into the concrete pipe. It would easily be able to accomodate them. The inside looked dry, mostly. Only a small rill of water flowed at the very bottom, tinkling onto the concrete bed below.

It had been 7:35 the last time he had glanced at his watch. At least five minutes had elapsed. The discharge would be happening any moment now. They needed to go in as fast as possible. They got into their suits, zipping up as tight as possible. The insides of the suit smelled slightly of chemicals to Brendan, but that would be nothing like what would be coming next.

They walked in, each step carefully considered, trying not to slip on the slimy bottom of the pipe. The damp smell intensified as they ventured further in.

Adrian sniffed the air. It smelled of damp and harsh chemicals.

They reached the sluice. There was a grease trap in the floor. Brendan felt the metal gate, which felt tepid to the touch.

There was a grinding noise. Brendan wondered if they had made a mistake. Then the effluent hit them. For a moment felt as if they were being burnt alive. Even in the confines of the suit, Brendan tried not to gag at the strong chemical smell. Steam clouded his vision.

As suddenly as it had begun, the onslaught was over. They crawled through the opening. Steam engulfed them. The smell was even stronger here, the smell of chemical residue which had been sitting there, stewing for a whole day.

Brendan tried not to think about what had gone through that grate before. They were standing above a sump trap of some kind, the contents of which glistened in the light of the moon, and the mixture of chemical tang and damp was almost unbearable.

At last. A ray of moonlight, filtered through the bars of a metal grate above. Brendan pushed. The grate came away with minimal effort. They emerged, careful to make as little noise as possible.

The air of the room they emerged into was much more soothing to the nose. Moonlight cast a pallid glow over stationary equipment. Lathes. Stuff Brendan recognised from design tech class. Beidzner was actually a competent teacher, apart from his extracurricular activities. He had won awards in the past. Brendan doubted he would be getting any accolades for what he was doing right now.

They stood still. For a moment they dared not to breathe.

Do you hear something?" Adrian whispered, slowly letting out a breath he definitely knew he had been holding in. There was a persistent hum from a neighbouring room. Brendan imagined that was where the chemical waste had come from. It sounded like electronics of some kind. Something had been left running.

"In the next room, I think." Brendan tried to keep his voice as low as possible.

They crept forward. They were flying blind: they had no idea of the layout of the workshops, apart from some educated guesses from looking at the roofline on Google Maps.

Brendan found a door that had been left ajar. The room they entered was well lit, set up like a classroom with formica tables and plastic chairs. It showed the signs of a hasty exit. There was a half-eaten sandwich on one of the tables, next to some calculations. The whole setup screamed Beidzner.

Brendan studied the calculations on the page, written out in Beidzner's baroque, looping hand. It looked it like it had been written in construction pencil.

I think they're referring to the phases of the moon," Brendan said, trying to decipher the formulae written on the page, as well as Beidzner's handwriting, which was bizarre to say the least. "The moon's gravitational pull is going to be at its weakest tonight. Or something at night." "The cave you were talking about last night. Where is it?"

"I'm not sure, exactly."

"The beach house in Ilfracombe." Brendan felt the fog clearing in his mind. "That's why was listed. Because the cave is near there."

"Can we make it?"

Brendan calculated in his head. Bus, then Line 3 to Ilfracombe. "It might be possible. If we run. Come."

They left the room, back into the brightly lit main workshops. At the end of the building facing the street, there was a prefab office, its interior brightly lit, next to the designated exit. The place seemed to be deserted.

In the middle of the space was a series of what looked like stainless steel tanks on legs, surrounded by a sophisticated-looking network of pipes and wires.

"Are these the things they took?" Brendan marveled at the complexity of the apparatus. Adrian inspected the setup. "These are the digesters we used to make the material. We only had one, though. They've replicated our setup. Impressive."

Brendan noticed the light in the office turn off. He felt his gut tighten. Someone else was in here. They'd been sprung.

A noise like a gas stovetop emanated from the nearest stainless steel tank, getting ominously louder by the second. Brendan realised what had happened.

"I think they rigged a self-destruct," he said, quietly.

"If the temperature in the tanks gets high enough, it's entirely possible," Adrian said, dread settling in. "It would take a few minutes, though. The heating element wasn't that big on our original design. They might have changed it, though."

"I think we need to get the hell out of here," Brendan said.

The door was next to the office, the mandatory exit sign above it still brightly lit for the time being. It was locked and too heavy to force. Brendan knelt down, eye level with the door handle, and pursed his lips at the lock, ignoring the hissing noise in the background.

The old lockpicking spell. Did he still have it in him? He recited the words slowly. He paused for effect. Nothing.

He felt the sweat pool in the palms of his hands. He tried again, enunciating the words. No luck. The lock stayed closed. Had he forgotten the words? Had he misremembered them? How had it worked last time? Think again. He forced himself to be calm. What had he missed? Was it a blindingly obvious thing? He recited the words he had just said in his head again.

Beside him, Adrian was looking for something to force the door with. He ran back to the room where he had seen the lathes. There had to be other tools in there. Surely.

Brendan had forced all other thoughts out of his mind and was ready to try again, when Adrian sprinted back, lifted the anvil he had found in the backroom as high as he could manage and brought it down on the protruding lock. Brendan instinctively jumped back. The door sprung open.

They bolted, making a beeline for the fence out front. Brendan felt the wolf stir inside him. He leapt up without thinking. Ignoring the pain from the barbed wire, he hauled himself over. The thick plastic of the coat shielded him from the worst of the spikes. Lying on the ground, momentarily winded, he heard Adrian thud down beside him.

Together, they managed to get around the corner just as the building erupted in a fireball, shooting flames and shrapnel high into the air.