The bus comes to a hard stop at Heathrow Terminal 5, jolting Susan awake. She gets up and off the bus, the stink of the absorbed bin juice swirling into her nostrils. Although the first signs of dawn are lighting the sky, the bus bays at the terminal are lit only by the hard sodium lamps under the car park. Susan settles onto a metal bench, waiting for the next bus to take her back to Trafalgar Square. She had nowhere else to go, the bus chugging through the night city, the drunks sharing the space with homeward bound workers and even the odd homeless.

Susan turns the questions over in her mind, as she has for hours. Red Line was there, in the house, waiting for exactly her. She had been careful, scanning the house with her Talent, but he’d not shown up. The only conclusion she could reach was that he knew what her Talent was and his Talent countered it. This means there is a second, much more worrying question to answer: who told the Authority she would be there? Max said Marina had been his link to her. She shook her head. Martina was an old friend and as much of a mother as Susan had over the last ten years. Martina wouldn’t betray her, she would keep Susan’s secrets, lawyer to client. Maybe Max himself was the grass, although that didn’t make any sense either. Or maybe the Authority has been getting closer and closer over the years and finally chose to spring their trap last night.

It didn’t matter, Susan decided. Her life as she knew it was over and her career with it. Red Line was waiting for her in that house and so he’ll be waiting for her at home, or one of his minions will be. The trial will be national news and she’ll be shamed and hated and all of her efforts will have been for nothing. Then prison, years in one of the special cells under the Campus, followed by a lifetime of surveillance. She wanted to scream with the injustice of it. All the good she had done, was going to do, ruined.

She could run and keep running. Get on a train or coach, go north or west, find a way to live under the radar in the black economy. Give up any pretensions she had towards being an ‘ethical burglar’ and live out her life as a common criminal, cracking safes and breaking in to stately homes. Or she could go home and face her fate head on and be able to live with herself, no matter how limited the conditions. She sighs. It’s not much of a choice.

An N9 bus draws up to the stop and Susan climbs aboard. At least at home she’ll get a shower, change of clothes and breakfast before they send her down.

The front door opens as Susan reaches for her keys. Dad is standing in the doorway fully dressed for work although it’s only just seven.

“Susan,” he says, flashing a cold smile. “I wondered when you were going to get home.”

“Hi Dad,” she says. She scans the house. Dad isn’t alone. Someone is sitting on the sofa in the living room and another person is standing by the patio door.

“Busy night?” he says, standing aside to let her in, nose wrinkling. “Smells like you had a good time.”

“Someone’s here,” she says.

Dad closes the door, nods.

“Funny you should mention that,” he says.

“They’re looking for me.”

“Funny you should mention that, too.”

“Well, let’s not keep them waiting any longer, shall we?”

Susan crosses to the living room door and pushes it open.

It’s him, of course it’s him. Red Line is standing in full battle dress in the living room, hands behind his back, looking out at the back garden like he’s planning how to arrange the flowerbeds. Susan’s head is swimming, the voice inside screaming, begging for her to run, but her feet aren’t obeying. They carry her meekly into the room and deliver her to the armchair nearest the door.

She hates this room full of ghosts and memories and dusty bookshelves. Half of the books were Mum’s, undisturbed for years like the bones of a martyr. Pictures of her and Dad, of the three of them in happier times on the walls and mantelpiece. Mum’s chair by the patio which never gets sat in. This room where her heart was broken ten years ago is now the room where Red Line gets to shatter her dreams.

Dad pads in to the room and takes the place on the sofa opposite the other man, who is sat cross-legged in a neat navy suit, cup of tea in hand. He’s as famous as his companion. There aren’t too many old men who travel around with Red Line, especially not old men as legendary as Zeus. His age is the most striking thing about him. His wrinkles have developed complexes of wrinkles of their own. His full head of long, white hair is pulled back into a ponytail. Susan half-expects it to erupt into an Einsteinian dandelion, especially given the prickle of static in the air. Zeus’ watchful eyes are smiling, even if none of that smile reaches the mouth framed in a precise goatee. Zeus sips his tea. The skin of his hands is like baker’s parchment.

Red Line turns around. He’s close enough that Susan can pick out details of his armour now that she isn’t fleeing in terror. Whatever it’s made of, it is dense. Sheets of ceramic or metal upon a double layer of what feels like fluid-filled bubble-wrap, underlaid with more solid material. In the region of a hundred kilos of matter. Then there’s the helmet. The thing must be fitted with cameras or fibre-optics, because the face plate is solid from top to bottom, no eyeholes or visor cut into it. Under it all, Red Line’s body is undetectable, held weightless.

“So,” Dad says, “let me introduce…”

“I know who they are, Dad,” Susan snaps before regret nips her. Dad frowns and sits back.

“You should start by asking your daughter where she was last night,” Red Line booms, his voice a deep rasp.

Susan snorts.

“How’s your head?” she says. He’s standing there in her home, a serious man in his serious armour when last night she was smacking him around with her Talent. Susan’s looking at a long stretch in the Campus prison, she’ll at least have some fun at Red Line’s expense.

Red Line faces her, the black helmet unreadable, but she could swear he stiffens.

“Will, your daughter was caught breaking and entering last night,” he says.

“Will?” Susan says.

“Furthermore, she assaulted a TCU officer while resisting arrest,” Red Line continues.

“Will? Since when are you on first name terms with the Authority?”

“There is the third charge of being an unregistered Talent,” Zeus says.

Dad nods.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Susan?” he says.

“Tell you what? That I’m Talented? After what happened to Mum?”

“Susan!” he says, hurt in his voice reflected on his face. “Did you think I wouldn’t love you any more? Or trust you?”

Susan sighs.

“Dad, I. I thought about it. I wanted to. It’s just, you know, between them and the THF, they treat the Talented like shit.”

“I know rather better than you do how they treat people like us.”

Susan’s eyes go wide and her mouth hangs open.

“Will, Susan,” Zeus cuts through the silence, “you’ll have the rest of your lives to talk that through. We have more important things to do today.”

“I know,” Dad says. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

Dad pauses at the door. To Susan’s surprise, his face isn’t angry or disappointed, merely blank. He looks as if he is weighing up what to say, settling in the end to wordlessly close the door behind him.

“How long have you known about me?” Susan says.

“Does it matter?” Zeus says. “It’s enough to know we were on to you.”

“You’re about to ruin my life, mate. I think you could answer a few questions.”

“You’re very arrogant,” Red Line says.

“And you’re a murderous thug,” Susan shoots back.

“Tell her,” Zeus says, the humour draining from his expression.

“Three months ago, you stole a painting by Titian from a secure storage facility…” Red Line says.

“And I returned it to the children of its last legal owners, who were murdered by the Nazis in the Second World War.”

“Your face was captured on CCTV on the premises,” Red Line says. “In February, you broke into the London offices of Arclight Finance and used a pen drive to illegally access their corporate servers, obtaining sensitive data used to damage the company’s reputation and finances. A sample of DNA was located at the scene which was later found to be yours.”

“Are you even aware of the shit those guys were involved in?”

“Irrelevant,” Red Line says.

“Enough,” Zeus says, calm and quiet. “I know what you’re going to say, Miss Sutton. You’re about to go into great detail justifying your actions - please, don’t start. Truth be told, I agree with the nobility of your motivations. But your actions are illegal and in the light of the law, idiotic. Did you think you would never get caught? If your crimes ever came before a court, you would be looking at a long time in prison. The Normies would justify it as being ‘for public safety’ regardless of your motivations. It would hardly be in your - our - best interests, would it?”

Susan glowers at Zeus.

“Would it?” he says.

Susan shoves the hot anger down inside her, exhales noisily.

“So it was a set up all along,” she says.

“Not for you,” Red Line says.

“No, not for you,” Zeus says. “For your client, for Max. It’s our good fortune he came to you.”

“Kill two birds with one stone,” Red Line says.

Susan snorts.

“My good fortune,” she says.

“It means we can onboard you gracefully and sweep all of your youthful indiscretions under the rug,” Zeus says.

“If you can be reliable,” Red Line says.

“Christ,” Susan says, “a quid pro quo. Let me guess, there’s an easy way and a hard way.”

“As usual,” Red Line says.

“Are you enjoying playing the bad cop, Red Line?” Susan sneers. “I suppose prison is the hard way.”

“Hardly. Prison is much safer than what you need to do.”

“Which is?”

“Work for us,” Zeus says. “Infiltrate Max’s organisation, feed back intel.”

“And I have to decide now.”

“You can have a minute to think,” Zeus says, smiling. “This is the rest of your life we’re talking about.”

The rest of her life. The thought is chilling. Very few of the Talented live their lives in the full glare of public life, mostly the likes of Zeus and Red Line and their team on the PCU. She’s heard stories of Talented being summoned to serve at the whim of the Authority. All part of the laws passed by the Normies after Pyro. As if it isn’t enough to be put on the Register, where anyone can look you up like you were a sex offender. Even worse, once you’re on the Register, you never come off it. The only way out is death.

People like us. People like Susan and her Dad. So much makes sense to her now, so many riddles she could never answer. The way Dad always knew where she was. That nothing ever got lost in the house. She wonders what his Talent is. And then the realisation hits her, he’s been working with the Authority for years, even before the Register existed. What has he done for them? What has he seen?

Susan shakes her head. They’ll have that conversation with all its difficult questions right after she’s done with the old man and his attack dog. A sense of gratitude is battling with her anger, even if what they’re proposing is shot through with danger.

“It’s hardly a choice, is it?” Susan says. “Two different forms of imprisonment. Either physical walls or figurative ones.”

“But still, a choice,” says Red Line.

“What do you know about Max?” Zeus asks.

“He contacted me, said we had a contact in common.”

“Martina Radcliffe,” Zeus says. “The lawyer.”

“You went through her, set me up through her?”

Zeus smiles, motions for her to continue.

“Max. Charming forty-something white guy. He contacted me, met up in a bar in Covent Garden, The Hourglass. He was there with a friend of his, Jack, some creep in his twenties. Gave me the job, said they wanted a set of keys from this Professor Chase. Keys which I don’t have.”

“That’s why this is the hard way,” Red Line says.

“You’re crazy,” Susan says.

“Is that so?”

“This Max, whoever he is, is enough of a threat that it demands your involvement and needs an informant in his crew. Then you decide to throw me into the middle of it. You’re crazy.”

Zeus leans back and frowns. Susan’s glare bounces off Red Line’s mask.

“And, this bit I’ve just realised,” Susan says, half-laughing, ”the reason you two are involved and not the Police is because Max is Talented. You want me to infiltrate the gang of a Talented mobster.”

“The less you know about his organization, the better,” Red Line says.

“Sounds fucking awesome,” Susan yells. “Sign me up, I always wanted to be found dead on wasteland.”

Silence echoes in the living room. Zeus raises an eyebrow at Susan. She raises a hand in apology.

“Sorry,” she says. “I was ready to give myself up and then you drop this little bomb on me. I’m hardly secret agent material.”

“There are risks,” he says, “I can’t deny that. But you are the right person for the job.”

“What if he tries to kill me?” Susan says.

“After last night,” Red Line says, “I think you can handle yourself.”

Zeus hands Susan a business card. Olympus Employment Agency, and a contact name and number.

“Keep us informed,” Zeus says.

“That’s it?” Susan says. “No briefing? No package of data? What about some James Bond gadgets?”

“If you knew anything more, he would know you knew,” Zeus says.

“Christ,” Susan says “Jack, his Reader.”

“Exactly,” Zeus says brightly. “We’ll let ourselves out.” He stands and exits through the front door, a large car waiting for him in the street.

Red Line remains fixed in place, like a horrible modernist statue.

“Sorry about last night,” Susan says. “You surprised me and it was the only move I had.”

“Don’t apologize,” Red Line says. “It was a good move. You have a lot to learn and the first lesson is an obvious one.”

“Yeah. Pay attention and never be surprised again.”

“More than that. You didn’t search all the rooms. You fixated on the target and didn’t look properly.”

“You knew I’d do that?”

“People never look,” Red Line says.

He turns and slides the patio door open, making his way into the garden. Susan shuts her eyes and follows him with her Sense, his weight fading in when he walks and out again when he comes to a halt in the middle of the lawn. Such delicacy, such control, such power. His gravity signature shimmers in Susan’s mind, slipping away to zero before inverting and intensifying as Red Line shoots into the air and away into the milky blue sky, vanishing out of Susan’s sensory range.

One more man to deal with, Susan thinks, this one hardest of all.