Jenks sleeps sprawled across the sofa, half-drunk, the bottle at his side. A pounding on the front door tears him from uneasy dreams.

Groaning, he swings himself upright. Lights flicker on, screens hum, and the house stirs to life.

“Janey?” he slurs, voice heavy with whisky and memory.

Another crash. The door rattles. He grabs his gun, swaying slightly as he stands. The lounge door opens.

Romilly steps in, calm, deliberate, eyes calculating. His calf-length dust-coloured raincoat drips wet from the weather. Chelsea eases in beside him, in a long black raincoat, folding an umbrella, warmth softening her sharp features.

“Hi!” she says. “Put the gun down, Jenks.”

Jenks blinks, trying to focus. Before he can react, his gun hand is taken cleanly.

“Is he my replacement for a wife? A close match. You are so thoughtful.”

Chelsea shakes her head softly. “You don’t want an exact match.”

“You’ll do fine then,” he aims at the big man, grinning despite himself.

“My name’s Romilly. We’ve got work to do.”

“We?” Jenks asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Sober up, Jenks,” Chelsea warns. “This is serious.”

“The deputy chairman of the Board of Peace, Bernstein, has gone missing,” Romilly says flatly.

“I know how his wife feels,” Jenks mutters.

“You’ve been assigned to assist Special Agent Romilly,” Chelsea adds.

“Chelsea… I’m suspended,” Jenks says.

“You’re reinstated,” Romilly replies, ignoring him. He produces the green box.

“An Altered State Leisure Unit. Where did you get that?”

“Lewis didn’t mention that name when he gave it to me.”

“They don’t want to admit it exists.”

“I’m in a rush. Bernstein is supposed to sit with the International Committee for the Administration of Gaza on Sunday. I need to find him before it leaks out that he’s missing.”

“Good luck. Sunday, the ship docks? Who is on that old cruise ship? It ain’t tourists, I checked. No such itinerary.”

Romilly tosses him the RAM cube of his wife. “You wanted Janey back… time to dive right in.”

Jenks’ eyes widen. The sight sobers him instantly.

“Do you know who killed your wife?” Romilly asks.

“No. She’s not dead.”

“If you’re holding her data, it isn’t looking good. Any idea who killed her?”

“No.”

“Correct answer: not yet.”

“Is this normal?” he asks Chelsea.

“I don’t do normal. We’ve got two days,” Romilly says sternly, ensuring he is in the man’s space and that he has his attention.

“I don’t do weekends,” Jenks mutters. “I’ve got a son.”

“Three days and you’re done.”

“What’s the rush if she’s dead? If he’s dead?”

Romilly tilts his head. She might be alive, but that is not his mission.

“Bernstein is my rush.”

“A ship arriving. Tourists.”

“I don’t give a hoot about tourists. I’ve only been paid for three days, so I expect to be done by then.”

“If she’s dead… he’s dead.”

“He’s not dead ’til I see a body.”

“Now we are on the same page. I’m with you on that,” Jenks agreed. “But, I’ve been drinking, come back in the morning.”

“I told you my rush.”

“That’s not my concern.”

“But if your wife’s alive and needs help?”

Jenks stands stunned and confused.

“Bernstein has to countersign a treaty Sunday night. I need him back. The ship is full of press.”

“I feel for you. Truly. But I get told I’m interfering… then house arrest. She’s dead, she’s not.”

Romilly flicks the unit on. Lights spin, booting the machine. He glances at Chelsea.

“Take a look. You tell me.”

“There’s something strange going on,” Chelsea says. “A cover-up. I figured you two could help each other. Military police had your wife’s image from a raid. Lewis knew. I took it from the evidence testing at DOMEX.”

“What?”

“It was claimed that your wife was gaming when she vanished.”

“She was gaming?”

“I said claimed. Gaming as in games, but with high stakes gambling. In truth, I don’t believe it.”

“She didn’t gamble. She wasn’t a gamer.”

“Maybe not,” Romilly says, leaving the others frozen. “But she was with island police. What if she was investigating? She may have gone undercover.”

“She’s deputy commander. She didn’t do groundwork. Chelsea would have done that. The X3s.”

“Maybe it was above my head. Immersive gaming with top brass officials,” Chelsea adds.

“Gaming?”

“Like mainlining an imagination trip,” Romilly explains. His gaze lingers on Jenks, measuring. “Her brain image may be on their mainframe. Do you know Bowman?”

Jenks’ pulse kicks up. “Not yet.”

Romilly inserts the cube into the unit, the faint hum of electronics filling the tense silence. Then he hands it back to Chelsea, who stands stiff, hands trembling, breath shallow.

“He’s a tech guy who reported her missing before you,” Romilly says quietly. “He discovered it was her data on a found cube, but no one wanted to risk interacting with it. With her.”

“Why would they?” Jenks asks, turning to Chelsea. Realisation hits like ice. “You had the data all along?”

Chelsea swallows, nodding once. “I stole it from DOMEX.”

Jenks stares down at the cube, small and innocuous in her palm. “This is Janey?”

“If you can interact with it, we’ll find out,” Romilly says. “It could show you who killed her, who was there, and where it happened. Could lead me to Bernstein.”

Chelsea’s fingers tremble slightly as she nods. “We don’t know what we’ve got. The forensic guys at DOMEX didn’t know.” She pauses, meeting his eyes. “Let’s not get excited… until we do know.”

Romilly’s gaze sharpens. “Just tell us where to start looking.”

Romilly nudges the unit nearer to Jenks.

Jenks’ thumb hovers on the button. Chelsea’s hand brushes his.

“I only found it this morning,” Chelsea says.

“Work with me, Jenks,” Romilly says.

“It’s Jenkins. Only friends call me Jenks.”

“You get to find who killed your wife. I get to find my man.”

“No deal,” Jenks says.

Romilly smirks. “Then I’ll have to play with her… feel my way inside her body.”

Jenks lunges, half-drunk, grief-fuelled. They tumble across the lounge. The cube flies into the air; Chelsea snatches it mid-flight.

“She might be alive somewhere. If not you, she might enjoy me,” Romilly taunts.

Furniture topples. A lamp swings wildly. Jenks rages. Romilly parries effortlessly, every movement, precise, cold. Within moments, Jenks is pinned, arm twisted, face inches from Romilly’s.

“You won’t do it? I will,” Romilly says softly. “You give me no choice.”

Jenks exhales, bitter. “This is not her. She’s not dead.”

“If her mind is stored…” Romilly says. “Interacting with it gives you every vision, every touch, every feel, as if she were still here. It’s you or me… and I will fuck with anyone to get what I need.”

Chelsea kneels beside Jenks. He lets her cradle his head, shuddering.

“At the end… she was so screwed up,” he whispers.

Chelsea fixes the fibre-optic probes of the Altered State Unit to his temples. His fingers freeze on button but Romilly tops them and presses down hard. Activation. Lights flicker; the unit hums to life.

“It looks live,” Romilly says. “Looks like she’s there.”

Lights dance as the machine boots. His eyes close. Sweat rolls down his face.

“Jenks?” Chelsea whispers. He does not respond.

“Fingers crossed,” Romilly mutters.

“Why?”

“This is the military kit. I heard you don’t always come back the same.”

Chelsea’s fists clench. “You bastard…”

She lunges at Romilly, furious. He moves with effortless precision, finally easing her aside with minimal effort.

“What is it with you people?” he mutters, annoyed with them. “Face up to it. If you want answers; act.”

Trickles of blood from his temples mixing with his sweat, cause Chelsea to drop to Jenks’s side.

Romilly’s voice echoes, distant. “It must work sometimes. People do this for fun. Kids probably shoot the moon in school toilets with little ’Home Boy’ units.”

“What do you care?”

“I don’t. I’m here to do a job. And he’s gone under.”

They look down at Jenks. He is very absent.

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Landfill…. the novel.

Commander Lewis’s sparse office smells faintly of cleaning solution and disinfectant. Romilly sits behind the desk in a long beige raincoat, his boots planted on polished wood beside a utilitarian, military-green box. Its ports blink faintly, slow heartbeats, threatening, demanding attention.

Romilly teases it by tapping the box with his boot, but the fibre-optic cables refuse to light. He slowly carves a carrot with his lethally sharp knife as he thinks. Nothing else in the office demands his attention, but he feels the stare. He looks up.

An X-Robot Mk3 stands at one side of the door in standby, and suited GRI agent Rip Sterling stands stiffly at the other, mesmerised by the investigator’s deliberate motions.

Romilly feels the stare.

“Sorry,” he says, without looking up. “Last one. You’ll need to find your own fresh veg.”

Sterling doesn’t flinch.

Commander Lewis enters and stops short at the sight of Romilly’s casual use of his office. “Last time I looked, this was my office.” He is very British, very senior, obedient to the letter, but frightened to say too much, just as he is incapable of making a decision without referring upwards. A perfect puppet.

“This is an international base. You being here is as temporary as the rest of us.” Romilly does not move. He sets the carrot down on the desk. A monster of some kind. Had it been carved in sandstone, a seller might be peddling it on the beach, if there was a beach. That is still way down the planned reconstruction. The visitor finds a photograph on his screen, then slides it across the desk. Bernstein. An official portrait with a public smile.

“I’m looking for this man,” Romilly says, voice low. “He may still be alive.”

“I sincerely hope so.”

“Because he went missing on your watch?”

“Because he is missing.”

“What he knows is valuable enough for someone to steal. Steal him. If someone’s been playing games here, if he’s been tortured and his mind hacked.”

Lewis punches into a residential house menu, then to Bernstein. The screen says ‘Bernstein - off island’.

“Not here,” Lewis says, flatly.

“You said that like you know what goes on here.”

Lewis punches in Romilly’s name and the screen says, ‘Outside Investigator Romilly - on island.’

“I know everything that happens at Station Zero,”Lewis replies, calm as if reciting a fact from memory. “I don’t know much about the mainland… and that could be where he went. That’s why you have a local driver. He knows Gaza.”

“There’s nothing left of it.” Romilly stands, looking at a very outdated artist’s impression of the island framed on the wall. Probably done before it was built.

“It was just a dream back then,” Lewis says. “The reality doesn’t look like that.”

“Bernstein?” Romilly asks, his hand scanning the old plan.

“Not on my island.”

“You don’t really know who’s on the island,” Romilly continues. “Only what that screen tells you.”

“I knew you were coming, but there’s no border between the land and this island,” Lewis says smoothly.

“Run that by me.”

“Gaza Island is in Gaza. Our immigration is at the port gate - for people from ships entering Palestine via Port Station Zero. You entered via Israel, crossing into Palestine there.”

“No border? Why is there a gun on a tower as you cross the bridge?”

“Why would you not?”

“How does that screen know I’m here, and Bernstein’s not?” Romilly swings the screen around on Lewis’s desk.

“You arrived in this office. He didn’t.”

“So, you’re just a receptionist at this hotel.”

“My X3 checked you in.”

Romilly looks at the robot that was not required to react, then back to Bernstein.

“All those trucks and rubble… and no one on the bridge records what’s coming in or out? But you’re sure Bernstein is not here.”

Lewis remains bureaucratic, pragmatic. He gets the anomaly but shows no alarm. “We’re running a functioning base in part of Gaza, not a fortress. We monitor what needs to be watched.”

“And what’s that?” Romilly presses, letting the subtle edge creep into his tone. “Because you don’t seem to know everything that’s going on.”

Lewis doesn’t flinch. Bureaucratic.

Romilly is insistent, pragmatic.

“Where’s your immigration centre? The port? I need a map.”

Lewis nods to Sterling, who tears a map from a pad like a tourist brochure.

“It’s marked,” Lewis says, expression untouched.

Sterling holds it out, never twitches, not showing his dislike and unease of the intruder. He observes and waits.

“What model are you, Sterling? X4? X5? Or are you still beta-testing the personality module?”

Sterling does not rise to the bait, he is as emotionless as the X3 on the other side of the door.

Romilly takes the map from him. “This is a tourist map. I’d like the real one - tunnels, luxury bunkers, control centre, missile silos… Black cellars? I’m asking nicely.”

“That’s what we have.”

“You’d be the first invading force in history not to build escape routes and protection bunkers before the fortress and living quarters up top.”

“We didn’t invade. I’m here to build this access port and see the start of fair trade and commerce. Whoever sent you appears to know more than I do, or they think they do. They wouldn’t be the first to get it wrong.”

“So, if under your command this base is being used to test illegal weapons, has killed personnel, where does that place you legally?”

“Where are you going with this?”

Romilly slides a second photograph forward. James Jenkins, in GRI medics’ uniform. Lewis stiffens.

“Jenkins is on compassionate leave.”

“I don’t have much compassion,” Romilly says. “But if you can’t help me, I think this guy can.”

“He’s not available.”

Romilly meets his gaze without blinking.

“I’ll get him anyway.” He rises and touches the green box at his feet.

Lewis points at the box.

“He won’t use that,” he says.

“Now you know what it is.”

“We have found a few of these units and I had one brought here for you as you requested everything on the case.”

“So you do know what’s going on?”

Romilly’s eyes do not flicker.

“If Asia had made this as a gaming toy for the public, it would be more funky, slick, and colourful. This is army green, made by the military?”

“That’s what you were sent to investigate,” Lewis says.

“How many dead have you had?”

“No deaths on Station Zero.”

“How many people missing?”

“Until Bernstein, just Jane Jenkins. And as I understand it, there may have been marital problems.”

“I don’t do marriage guidance. That’s not why they sent me. My guess is that there’s another version of this somewhere,” he says, flapping the paper. “The whole map of Station Zero would be useful.”

“We found three of those units. They have all been reported to the Department of Media Exploration.”

“DOMEX.”

“It’s marked on the map. There’s no other map.”

“I need what you can’t find. The unit they have Bernstein hidden in. Or I need Jenkins to use this one and explain what they took of his wife. I’m sure he wants to know what happened to her.” Romilly takes the box from Lewis’s desk. “He’ll use it.”

“You’re asking someone to go onto a system that could be lethal?”

“There are no bodies. You said so yourself.”

They hold each other’s gaze, the office shrinking around them. A silent game of power, each man aware of the stakes and the rules.

“Why are you still here?” Lewis asks.

“This receptor hole in the top here is for data storage. I need the data you found.”

Lewis shakes his head. “No data was recovered. Investigate; I’d like to know your findings.”

“Why? You don’t seem to care much about what’s going on.”

“Finish your business on my island, then leave,” Lewis says sarcastically. “Anything else I can help you with?”

Romilly lifts his carved carrot from the desk and tosses it at him.

“Carrots. Large, fresh, preferably organic.”

“We have an officers’ mess. You are welcome to use it,” Lewis scowls. “If we are lucky, there’ll be fresh carrots on the next ship.”

“Sunday.”

“Not long to wait.”

Romilly picks up the military box and walks towards the door. Sterling opens it for him. At the threshold, Romilly turns back.

“There’s data somewhere. Rumour is, it stores people’s brains.”

“Until I see a report, that’s conjecture.” Lewis remains rigid. “And I’ll assume Jane Jenkins has run off with another man.”

Sterling, standing by the door, blinks in disbelief.

Romilly is next to Sterling. He looks at him. “X6?” He looks back at Lewis.

“No interest in any fictitious love partner… Data storage. This size.” Romilly points at the square hole in the top of the machine.

“If I find it,” Lewis starts slowly, with no real place to go.

“It infers she’s dead. Is there a form for reporting that?” Romilly asks.

“If that happens, I’ll have someone help you fill it out.”

Lewis’s face remains a mask of restraint.

Romilly glances at Sterling before leaving, the faintest smirk playing at his lips.

“Thanks for the welcome. Be sure to look me up when you come to the States.”

Romilly moves like a ghost through the small underground vehicle park. Chelsea waits by a GRI cart. She unwraps two air-filter masks, offering him one.

“Filter?”

“No,” he says. “I like to get a smell for the job.”

“The air’s carcinogenic at night when they’re tipping landfill. Regulations. Most wear helmets with masks under visors.”

“Name’s Romilly. Not regulation. Why are you here?”

She hands him a small box. Inside, a cube stamped: JANE JENKINS, 16 February 2029.

Romilly’s glance at the cube is short, but his eyes burn into Chelsea wondering just where she sits in this complex game.

“The brain of Jane Jenkins,” he says softly, almost reverent. “Depending on your beliefs, her soul. Think I could surf it? See her?”

“I think that would be extremely unwise. It’s why I haven’t given it to her husband.”

Romilly looks at her. She is a mine full of answers.

“Jenks is a loose cannon,” she explains.

“And I’m not?” he says, tossing the cube back to Chelsea.

Chelsea’s hands shake as she catches it.

“He’s emotionally involved. If it is a copy, she’s still alive, somewhere. If not, it’s what’s left of her.”

“If this is Jane Jenkins’ brain, imagine what people could do with this technology,” Romilly says, climbing into the SUV.

“I’d rather not.”

“Oh. I think it’s the key to what’s going on.”

“That is why you’re here, right?”

Romilly doesn’t answer.

“I think Jenks can help you if you can keep him reined in. And keep him safe,” she offers. “Cart, Jenkins residence.”

The cart automatically drives off.

“Let’s go reunite Jenkins with his ‘immortal’ wife.”

“He’s on house arrest. His house is camera live. X3 guards front and back.”

The cart pulls down Main Street, past a provisions shop and a few two-storey office blocks.

“I want to know how you got this, and how you knew I wanted it?”

“Our interests align,” she says.

“I got that. Where did you get that data cube?”

As the cart makes its way through the very straight and grid-like streets in the new and quickly expanding island, Romilly’s punishing gaze never leaves Chelsea. He never blinks.

“Look. Don’t judge me, right? There’s not a huge selection of men here at Station Zero.”

She stops talking, but Romilly does not relax his visual demand.

“I dated one of the data geeks at DOMEX.”

Romilly’s eyebrows lift enough to punish her for more clarity.

“DOMEX is here onsite? Why?”

“Digital identification, triage, and analysis of captured materials. Intel, radio talk, software, codes.”

“They have a unit here onsite for that?”

“This is the front line. Gaza is still a hot potato. Prevention, knowledge, it’s important, and the unit is far too small. Especially as they are a man down and they also deal with robot maintenance.”

“Man down? Someone else gone missing?”

“No. The island got to him, it’s not for everyone. He left.”

“And?”

“I was seeing one of the guys, Bowman, who was asked to look at one of the real imagination units, try and see what’s inside.”

“Let me know when I should start joining these dots together.”

“It’s a tiny island. There aren’t many dots… They found a few data cubes like this.” She rolls the cube of Janey in her hand. “A man down, they’re backed up with work… They haven’t got much more than a name, and no one was going to mainline and put their life at risk… so, I took it.”

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Jenks steps into the living room of his standard base house. Life everywhere now. The television is on, standby LEDs glow, the hum he’d killed intrudes back into his skull.

“House. Living room television off. Living room to evening mode.”

Light stands power up in stages. The ceiling light goes out.

Chelsea Holt stands waiting, her dark uniform raincoat dripping onto the hard floor. She hasn’t removed her gloves.

“Jenks, it’s a violation to isolate power,” she says.

“I don’t want anyone watching me.”

“You’re under house arrest.”

“For looking for my wife?”

“For breaking into restricted base facilities.”

“I’m not done.”

“There is a procedure.”

“Can’t wait for that. She’s missing.” Jenks pours a glass of wine. Far too much. “I thought you’d help.”

Chelsea watches. “I asked for your case,” she says finally. “I want to help. But you have to trust me. Trust the system. And drinking won’t help.”

“Alcohol’s not banned on the island.” Jenks stares at the guards outside. “You want to help? Find Janey and get us out of here. Before they decide I’m inconvenient.”

“I’m working on it.”

She leaves.

Jenks stands alone, listening for the front door to click and the house to breathe without her.

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Windscreen wipers working hard, the black SUV crests the final dune of the Nuseirat coast in Palestine.

Ahead, the Mediterranean is a black void, broken only by the glow of the distant island, a single truck headlight burning over the neon spine of the five-kilometre Friendship Bridge, and a queue of vehicles waiting their turn.

The SUV slows. Its headlights wash over the rear of a long line of stationary Volvo FMX dumper trucks with high tailgates and safety chains. The four chunky tyres on each rear axle bulge under impossible loads: chunks of concrete; twisted steel; rebar jutting like broken bones. The trucks idle on temporary asphalt, waiting their turn to cross.

Romilly leans forward, gravity itself pulling him towards the wreckage. Slabs with wallpaper still cling to one side. A child’s bedroom, pink. A staircase snapped in half, crushing a teddy bear beneath it. He doesn’t need to be told what it is. He’s seen cities reduced before. But this one has been processed. Sorted into trucks. Routed. Soon to be tipped into the sea as landfill.

“They still expanding the island?” he asks.

The driver relaxes, knowing he has a long wait. “They’re clearing the cities, which means moving landfill out there, round the clock.”

Romilly’s gaze stays on the trucks. “Clearing,” he repeats. “Is that what they’re calling it now?”

“Never stops. Reclamation.”

“I know what they call it, bud.” Romilly smiles thinly. The kind of smile that never reaches his eyes. “Funny word for burying embarrassing history.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s the hold-up?” He focuses on the job at hand.

“Bridge restrictions. Heavier loads at night, one-way traffic. One truck every five minutes.”

“The road we’re sitting on doesn’t look up to much,” Romilly says, seeing the puddles made in the sunken tarmac.

“Concrete ground fine, mixed, poured then surfaced. Cheap and fast,” the driver adds. “They only allow five-axle trucks and a maximum weight of thirty tonnes, each with readouts so the guards can see the weight on each axle.”

Romilly looks at a truck leaving the island. “Five axles. And it’s full.”

“At the new docks they’re reloaded with building materials to bring back.”

“Same trucks. Different direction. We aren’t thirty tonnes, so go round them.”

“Sir…“

“Go. Round. We aren’t a heavy load.”

The SUV pulls out, tyres kicking up a cloud of dust that tastes wrong in the mouth. They pass the brutal, anonymous workhorses designed to move ruin. Romilly looks at the LED readouts for the axles. Numbers glow green, amber, red. Weight distributed, monitored, and controlled.

Black-and-white GRI emblazoned cab after cab after cab. Local drivers stare straight ahead, eyes glazed, hands steady. They are working. Existing. Driving trucks loaded with their past to be tipped into the sea and build an island of tomorrow. They couldn’t be more disinterested.

Then a different truck in the queue ahead. Sleek, silver, insulated metal panels with cooling vents on top and an old-school temperature gauge on the side. Then another further on.

“What are those two?” Romilly asks.

“Refrigeration units,” his driver explains.

“They getting rid of the bodies?”

“No. No one takes that much care of the dead. There are too many. They’re bulldozed into mass graves.”

“That’s what I figured. So what were those?”

“Flowers. Cut flowers.”

“Flowers?”

“The first farmer has managed to restart. Roses and carnations. The ships that come with aid shouldn’t sail away empty. Others will start now, we are not a lazy people.”

“So it’s not just a military base?”

“We’ve never had a deep-water dock on this coast. Never had our own way to ship freight without someone else controlling it. The new expansion is for more warehouses and pontoons. There is even a passenger terminal and talk of a cruise ship stopping on Sunday.”

“That’s progress for you. A fucking cruise terminal to visit the war graves.”

“Just stopping for a test. No one will get off.”

“No, I wouldn’t think they would.”

They slowly pass the first refrigeration truck and Romilly reads the mechanical gauge outside.

“What outside temperature are you reading on your dash, bud?” he asks his driver, while looking at the odd truck in the queue. No Gaza Regeneration Initiative logo, not even on the cab. The cab is dressed with tassels, LED lights and littered with old stickers. The driver is smiling, tapping the steering wheel to the beat of music. His daughters are with him, mouthing what must be lyrics. Then the line is back to being GRI rubble trucks.

His driver glances down to his own controls. “Fifteen degrees. It’s cooler when it’s raining.”

“Then those refrigeration units aren’t working.”

“Nothing works anymore.”

“Well something works. Those kids are singing along to something,” Romilly digs.

“The radio.”

“Radio?”

“The Voice of Peace is a radio station operating from a converted fishing boat just off-shore. It was there trying to get peace when I was a boy.”

“Let’s hope they don’t fucking sink it… Whoever they are.”

The long bridge of reinforced polymer and steel stretches into the dark. At the far end, a hovering glow: Station Zero. Artificial. Unnatural. A scar of light on black water.

“I see why they limit the trucks,” Romilly exhales. “Looks like hell learned how to budget.”

“The guards will be jumpy,” the driver says. “Hands visible.”

“Human guards? Why not robots?”

An IDF corporal steps into the beams, palm raised.

The SUV slows.

Romilly rolls his window down two inches. The air smells of salt, diesel, ozone, and ground destruction.

“No civilian vehicles at night,” the corporal says. He has an unhelpful arrogant tone.

“We’re not civilians,” Romilly replies, looking beyond him at the unarmed X3 mechanical guards. “I’m an International Investigator.”

The guard doesn’t look at the ID. He’s not about to change his mind. His uniform gives him power he would otherwise never have.

Romilly sighs. “Kid. The robots behind you haven’t moved. That should tell you something.”

The corporal leans closer, defiant.

Romilly powers his door open with force.

The impact on the guard is clean. Efficient.

The door closes before anyone can see it has been used. Romilly stays seated, showing mock amazement as the guard hits the ground.

Two human IDF guards snap to attention. Rifles come up.

Romilly looks at the woman sighting her weapon on his forehead. “There’s a ceasefire, sweetheart. You really want the paperwork? And I’m pretty sure that shooting an arms investigator while sitting in his car is a crime.”

Her finger tightens.

“Papers,” she screams.

Romilly nods towards the fallen guard. “He took details of my papers before he fell over.” It is a firm but polite refusal, testing her real authority.

She steps back, pulls her fellow guard up, and checks them. Hesitates.

Romilly reaches into his coat, withdraws a carrot and bites into it slowly.

“Now,” he says, “let me onto that damn island.”

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“House. Immediate shutdown.”

“Good evening, James. “Shutdown is not allowed.”Her voice is friendly, yet conceals a firm refusal. Machines and robots add little embellishment; they are as basic as the two-up two-down he lives in.

“House. Emergency manual override.” Though soft, command fills his voice in a way she could not, his face stern, his weight pressed into the wall.

“Unauthorised use detected. Illegal use suspected.”

The camera in the kitchen whirrs as it pans to see him. He was expecting it.

“House. This is James Jenkins. Confirm visual, confirm voice. Imminent danger. Immediate manual override essential. Emergency override.” Jenks insists, using his formal name for the machine, his voice still as low as it can be while staying commanding.

“Is a backup required?”

“House. Negative. Imminent danger. Immediate manual override essential.” Still quiet, but more hurried.

Room lights cut out first. Click; the refrigeration stops. The fan slows; powerless. The neon lights fade, leaving the kitchen illuminated only by moonlight filtering through the windows.

Although pointless, Jenks fingers a manual light switch on and off. Nothing. The house is now dead, the diode lights just faint. The ghosting is from the surviving power of their internal capacitors. Jenks eases along the wall slowly and quietly. He mouths a count; twenty-five… twenty-six.

Zack, ten years old in pyjamas and slippers, ducks down, hiding behind the living room sofa. He knows he can’t stay there. Warm LED street lamps weakly bleed through the thin front curtains. Moonlight glows from the rear, giving the room a submerged, distorted feel, as if the air itself has thickened. Breathing fast, his eyes wide, he presses his forehead into his hands, dreading his next move. He’s done this before. Scratching at his hair, his chest rising and falling, he sucks at the air to prepare. But knowing doesn’t stop the fear.

The ghosting of the LED lights fades to zero as Jenks slides quietly along the kitchen wall, careful, alert, eyes everywhere. He mouths the seconds under his breath, precise, controlled: forty-eight… forty-nine… fifty. The numbers count out his tension, the rhythm of controlled patience, a metronome against fear. Against whatever’s coming. Or whoever. And he is facing something that has scarred him to the core. House off, cameras off, he folds fast into the living room, shoulders loose, eyes to every corner.

Counting breaths, the ten-year-old crouches behind the armchair near the door to the hall, still out of sight. Looking at his escape route. The stairs up.

Listening. Alert.

Zack runs but trips on the fourth step, his foot catching the edge, sending him tumbling down the stairs. He scrambles for footing, hands slapping wood, knees bruising. Not fast enough. Never fast enough.

Jenks darts across the living room in pursuit, stopping to check behind the chair. He scans the hall, the dark corners, and the sight lines. Listening intently, he takes a moment to do what little training a medic has taught him. This is what Janey would expect, survival skills she drilled into both of them before they arrived on the island.

Edged in moonlight from the top window, Zack turns hard at the top of the stairs, body skimming the bannister, never looking back. Something solid moves up the stairs behind him, but he doesn’t slow. Can’t slow.

The master bedroom door looms.

Zack bursts into the room at full speed, launches himself across the bed, rolls towards the far nightstand. He fumbles in the drawer, fingers close around cold metal. He swings the gun round.

A hand clamps his wrist.

The weapon is taken.

“Too slow,” Jenks says, steady but not unkind. He tries to keep the disappointment from his voice. Zack needs encouragement, not criticism.

Zack freezes, chest heaving. “You’re trained. That’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair.”

“You’re a soldier.”

“No. Your mum’s the field agent, and she wouldn’t take excuses. I’m a medic.”

“She’s not here.”

“She wanted you ready, just in case. When she’s back, we can show her your skills.” The words catch slightly. Wanted. Not wants. He corrects himself internally, forces the present tense back.

“Where is she?”

“It’s a secret. Command don’t tell me. Now, she wants you ready. What would she say?”

“Go high. Hide, fight down.”

“Where’s high?”

“The loft.”

“Correct. And you didn’t go there.”

“I wouldn’t have had time to open it and pull the ladder down.”

“You would have. But you panicked. What’s up there?” Jenks points towards the roof space above.

“A torch. A gun. Supplies.”

“And if you don’t get the ladder back up and close the hatch?”

Zack hesitates. “I could still shoot them when they try to climb up through the hole.”

Jenks nods. “Exactly. It’s not a game. We’re trying to stay alive.” He hears how it sounds - paranoid, excessive. Other fathers teach their sons football.

“This island’s not a war zone.” Zack is a smart kid.

“No. Station Zero isn’t. The war’s over. But we still run drills. What do we do?”

“Run drills.”

Jenks ruffles his hair, holding him a beat longer than necessary, but long enough for his own pulse to settle, long enough to memorise the beat of a living child in his arms. He might be all he has left. The thought arrives unbidden, unwelcome. No. Janey’s still out there. She has to be. The faint scent of her lingering in their double bed brings a rush of memories, warm yet painful. “Let’s hope we never have to fight,” he says. “That’s the best outcome. Now… bed. Race you.”

Zack bolts for the door, laughing, the tension breaking like a snapped wire.

Jenks remains seated for a moment, then rises, lifting Janey’s nightdress from under the pillow. He holds it to his face, inhaling deeply, letting the familiar scent wash over him. He hears Zack’s laughter vanish into the other room, knowing it can only ever be a game until it turns real. He moves to the upstairs window and scans the street. Quiet. Too quiet. The road is too clean, almost clinical. Like a film set waiting for actors.

A black-and-white electric cart, golf-like, sits outside the neighbouring house, leaving the front of his unit clear. On its black roof, painted in white is ‘GRI 27’. Two black-and-white striped sentry boxes flank his house like punctuation marks. GRI logos are stencilled clean and proud. Both guards are X3 robots, no manpower wasted on them. No chat. No boredom. They are there to notice and report. The units across the road are dark, not allocated. They are used for visiting staff and dignitaries. Not that there are many. Beyond the houses and past the warehouses that draw the domestic units, the skeletal frames of the new commercial container and passenger docks are lit against the night sky. At least the new island feels a little more real everyday.

No one in the Combined Bureaucracies expects anything to go wrong tonight. Not anything big enough for the system not to be able to ignore.

Jenks does.

Jenks wants trouble. He’s deliberately been trouble because no one is listening to him. And if trouble brings answers about Janey, he’ll take it. He knows most things are ignored until they can be explained.

Zack, we’re getting away from this pile of rubble. Taking this posting was so wrong, he thinks. Don’t worry, son. As soon as we find mum, we’re getting out. The thought arrives unbidden. It wasn’t he who wanted to take the offer; Janey got the chance to be second-in-command. For him, it was the smallest clinic he had managed in years, located on an island populated more by robots than by humans. They almost didn’t take it; having a son had reduced both their career ambitions. They were very happy and this place is built on destruction; it couldn’t have been a worse move. He has to get her back in more than one way.

In his own room, Zack rolls onto his back, fingers brushing the framed photo on his shelf. “Miss you, Mum,” he whispers. His voice is small, hopeful. He says it every night. He said it when she started to appear ill.

The bedside light clicks on. The house has a pulse again.

“Dad?”

Jenks looks back into the house, he hasn’t done anything. Power was either restored remotely or he has a visitor. The television can be heard downstairs, heat pumps circle water in the radiators, the speaker system beeps as it comes back online. The house is ready to answer him. He’s being watched again. They’re always watching.

“They’ve put the power back on,” Jenks says, entering his room. “Their cameras can’t see us when I kill it. They don’t like that: their fault, they designed it.”

“And there aren’t any cameras in the loft.”

“Correct. Now go to sleep.”

Jenks looks at the photo in the boy’s hand. The harsh white glow can’t warm Janey’s face. That part is gone. Or never was. He doesn’t know anymore. He was fighting to recognise his wife at the end.

“Is she coming home?”

“As soon as she’s done with the mission she’s on.” The lie tastes familiar. How many times has he said it now? A dozen? Twenty?

He kisses Zack’s head, breathing in the scent of shampoo and childhood. A family that was together. Clean things. Safe things.

More devices creep back online. Toys and game panels that are normally ignored flicker to standby mode. The house now hums with electronic life, a dozen tiny lights watching, listening, recording.

Control, Jenks knows, is never absolute. But someone on this artificial island thinks it is. He knows Janey found something very wrong and now he needs to find her.

THE NEXT CHAPTER DROPS NEXT MONDAY - 8TH JUNE AT 1730

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