The nightmare again.

It was quiet and still in the archway. She could hear Maddy snoring on the bunk below, and Liam whimpering nonsensical words in his soft Irish accent as he stirred restlessly on the bunk opposite.

A muted lamp glowed softly from across the archway, lighting their wooden dinner table and the odd assortment of old armchairs around it. LEDs blinked among the bank of computer equipment across the way, hard drives whirring. One of the monitors remained on; she could see the computer system was doing a routine defrag and data-file tidying. It never slept.

Not it… not any more — the computer wasn’t IT any more. It was Bob.

Unable to go back to sleep, she clambered off the top bunk. Maddy twitched in her sleep, and Liam also seemed to be unsettled. Maybe they too were reliving their last moments: Liam’s sinking Titanic, Maddy’s doomed airliner. The nightmares came all too often.

She tiptoed across the archway, barefoot on the cold concrete floor, and sat down in one of the swivel chairs, tucking her feet under her and sitting on them for warmth. She grabbed the mouse and opened a dialogue box. Her fingernails clacked softly on the keyboard.

› hey, bob.

› Is this Maddy?

› no, it’s sal.

› It is 2.37 a.m. You cannot sleep, Sal?

›nightmares.

› Are you recalling your recruitment?

Recruitment, that’s what the old man, Foster, had called it. Like she’d had any real choice in the matter. Life or death. Take my hand or be mashed to pulp amid a crumbling skyscraper. She shuddered. Great fragging choice.

›yeah, my recruitment.

› You have my sympathy, Sal.

‘Thanks.’ She spoke softly into the desk mic — too lazy to tap out any more. Anyway, the clickety-click of the keyboard echoing through the archway was far more likely to disturb the others than her speaking quietly.