“You,” Chiu says steadfastly.

I press my hand against the brass panel. I expect – halfway hope for – it to be locked, but the wooden door swings open easily.

A small reception area. Walls panelled in light wood. A couple of armchairs that have seen better days. A table with a small pile of scientific journals.

The desk, computer and shelf filled with box files look out of place beside the grandiose decor. In the other world I suppose somebody sits at the desk and checks people in as they come, but it’s empty here. I wonder if they sense us … if they feel the same uncomfortable presence as we do.

“Hello?” I call.

Nothing.

The door straight ahead leads into a corridor. The stateliness of the reception is left behind, the walls are painted with the same thick cream paint as a hospital, the floor is wood, battered and creaking. A window on the left gives us glimpses into a cluttered lab, the desks busy with microscopes and ambiguous-looking equipment, the walls crammed with shelves of pipettes and sample trays and glassware and plastic packets I can’t even begin to guess the contents of.

We pass a pair of heavy-looking fire doors that are pinned open on magnetic fittings and stop because the corridor beyond them is sealed by another pair of fire doors, pinned shut.

A moment of uncertainty catches me – why two sets of fire doors on this short stretch of corridor? Is that normal? One set looks like they were added recently. The wooden frame is unpainted and the screws that hold it to the wall have been drilled clumsily and at angles, like the DIY projects Mum sometimes starts and never finishes.

I notice a security camera in the corner near the ceiling, its wire tacked to the wall and running through a hole in the frame above the fire doors.

I stop.

Farah turns. “What is it?”

“Out, out—!” I shout.

Then everything happens at once.

There’s a click and the fire doors behind us slam shut.

Then a white-hot flash so intense it feels as if somebody has cracked open my skull.

BANG!

A sound so loud it pounds against my chest cavity.

Then two more people are in the room … no, three.

Weapons raised above their heads.

Shouting, “Get down! Get DOWN!”

Something hits me, hard, in the shoulder and my head slams into the wall. I hear Farah scream. I whirl round, trying to catch sight of whoever is attacking us but something heavy hits me again, from above this time, and I go down, my world a lightning strike of pain and dizziness.

My ears ring, I can hardly see past the searing scorch marks in my eyes. I blink and look up to see a figure looming over me.

Jonah! I think. Lying in wait for us.

But it’s not Jonah, it’s hardly human. It’s a lumpen, clumsy creature. It might be a bear, I think wildly, or some kind of human wardrobe.

“Stay down!” it shouts again, its voice muffled. “Stay DOWN!”

Then, murky recognition: it’s no bear. Just a man in strangely bulky clothes. Gradually, the shape resolves into the padding that goalies wear in ice hockey. He looms closer, his hockey stick raised high above his head.

Coughing, I lift my hand, doing my best to convey the fact that I have absolutely no intention of going anywhere.

Somebody else has Farah around the waist and she’s struggling. The third man holds Chiu. Then the second fire doors swing open and the air currents suck the smoke away just enough to catch a glimpse of yet another man standing in the doorway, wafting the heavy door as hard as he can to clear the smoke.

“For heaven’s sake, Marcus,” he shouts, severely. “They’re children!”

The scorch marks in my eyes are beginning to fade, but blue dots, like ink stains, still drift across my vision and my ears won’t stop ringing. My head and my shoulder throb from where I was hit. Chiu has a bruise on his lip and stares sullenly into space. Farah looks unharmed but her face is stony.

We’re in a lab off the main corridor. Four rows of blue-topped Formica workbenches stretch its length, strewn with papers, racks, sample bottles and white-panelled machines. We’re sitting on office chairs, lined up in a row along the workbench, while the one who hit me – Marcus, I think – hovers over us, guarding us with his hockey stick close at hand.

Now that he’s taken off his hockey gear, I can see that he’s in his late twenties. A broad, bland face and a mop of wavy blond hair. Something about his style and his mannerisms makes me think of the posh kids who used to go to the private school on the opposite side of town. He looks anxious – more anxious than he should be, given that we’re kids and he has the hockey stick.

The far side of the lab has been partitioned off by a glass wall and behind it there are seven folding beds arranged in two neat rows.

Seven?

There are four people here. So there must be more of them.

Farah catches my eye and flicks her head towards the door. It also has a glass panel and on the far side of it we can see the other three who jumped us. The older man who yelled at Marcus earlier is talking. Late fifties, I guess. He has tight, wiry black hair, an untidy beard and a crumpled suit beneath a white lab coat. He seems agitated, pressing the blade of one hand repeatedly into the palm of the other as he talks. The man listening to him is tall and thin, Indian or Pakistani I guess, slouched against the wall with his arms folded. The third is a woman, young like Marcus. She has a stern, gaunt face, framed by long hair that’s been dyed pure white.

They’re obviously discussing us, deciding what to do with us. I feel the knife in my back pocket, pressing against my leg. All that and they didn’t even check us for weapons. I shift my weight experimentally, gauging how quickly I could get to the knife if I had to.

At last, they file in. Scientists, I decide, from the lab coat the older one wears. He has a name tag pinned to his lapel that reads: PROF. BENEDICT BROWNSTEIN. He must be the one in charge. My brain puts the pieces together. They must work in this lab. But what are they all doing here? In the Stillness?

“You’re trespassing,” Professor Brownstein says abruptly.

“We’re sorry,” Farah says. “We’ll go.”

She starts to stand, but the other man holds his ground, blocking her path.

“What are you doing here?” the woman asks.

Farah does a good job of looking bewildered. “We wanted somewhere to rest. Please – we didn’t think anyone would be here.”

The woman and the older man look at each other.

“Benedict?” the woman says.

Professor Brownstein – Benedict – frowns suspiciously at us. “You expect us to believe you just blundered in here by chance?”

Farah nods. “Yes, we—”

“We’re looking for the machine,” Chiu interrupts.

Farah clenches her teeth in irritation. The others look from one to the other in befuddled silence. “What machine?” Benedict says at last.