Jan lost track of the violent turns and twists Aurelie executed as they attempted to evade their hypothetical pursuers. The car skidded over a rocky outcrop and spun wildly, but with a sharp turn of the wheel Aurelie brought it back under control. Its headlights were dipped, making it almost impossible to see more than a few metres ahead, yet somehow they never collided with anything truly dangerous.

Christo stripped off his jacket, revealing a long open wound on his shoulder.

‘Don’t look so worried, it’s just a graze. The guards were half asleep, but with the volume of fire they were pumping out, one of them had to get lucky.’

‘How many were on you?’ Jan said, dumbfounded. The car swerved again and they were nearly thrown out of their seats.

‘Not more than twenty,’ Christo replied nonchalantly. ‘They were much more cautious once we had our hostage.’

Reaching underneath the seat with his good arm, Christo opened a first aid kit and handed a bottle of antiseptic and dressing to Jan. Without a word, Jan raised the bottle and tipped the strong-smelling substance onto the revolutionary’s shoulder, reaching up to apply the dressing. His first attempt was interrupted as the transport skipped over a low stream, but on his second attempt the dressing stuck. Christo gritted his teeth.

‘What’s the plan here?’ Jan demanded. ‘Because you’ll be lucky if those above just kill you after they discover there’s one of them in the flatbed of this truck.’

‘The Dyn are paranoid and protective of their own; observe how carefully they wall themselves off from the outside world,’ said Aurelie. ‘They will be cautious because we have a valuable hostage. Arco will receive orders to stand off and observe.’

‘I know how a hostage works!’ Jan exploded. ‘But sooner or later they’re going to attempt to retrieve it. You’ve just made yourselves Arco’s priority!’

‘It won’t matter, we just need Arco to hesitate. Just a few days. Until -’ Christo cut himself off at a brief glance from Aurelie. Jan felt a jolt of worry; what counted as a step up from this? He slumped back into the seat, trying to calm jangling nerves.

Without warning, Aurelie swerved off the rough track they’d been following and ploughed deep into the undergrowth. Fronds of false life lashed against the windscreen, leaving sticky smears where they hit.

‘What’s wrong?’ Christo shouted.

‘Aircraft, sounds like a drone,’ answered Aurelie, slamming on the breaks as the car buried itself in a dense thicket. She killed the lights and engine. ‘Help me with the camo.’

Jan complied without question, taking his cue from Christo. Together they hastily fumbled the camo sheet over the vehicle, ignoring the shrill clicking emanating from the thing lashed down in the flatbed. They clambered back into the darkened cab, pulling the sheet down behind them. For a moment Jan couldn’t hear anything beyond the prisoner and their own heavy breathing. But then he heard the aircraft, an almost inaudible low droning, growing closer. The sound rose and fell as it circled above, making one pass after another.

‘Are you sure it can’t see us?’ hissed Jan.

‘The camo will hide us, it’ll even keep our heat signature hidden for a bit, but if the drone operators can hear over the sound of their own engines then we’re screwed,’ cursed Christo. ‘Any way to shut up our passenger, Aurelie?’

Sat in the pitch black confines of the cab the Dyn sounded uncomfortably close, still singing like some demented cicada.

‘Unfortunately Dynic physiology makes that challenging,’ she replied. ‘But it’s unlikely that the drone’s even equipped with mics. Just wait, it will pass.’

Christo fidgeted impatiently in the seat besides her. The minutes oozed by, the cab growing ever more stuffy, until finally the drone moved on and at last the thing in the flatbed quietened. Whether it had simply exhausted itself or realised the futility of its actions, Jan neither knew nor cared. Aurelie insisted they wait another couple of minutes before revealing themselves.

They finally reemerged from the jungle a couple of hours later, the dark canopy replaced by the half-light of the predawn sky. Jan scanned it nervously. The sun, still below the horizon, glinted off the wings of a distant drone. It circled like some vast carrion bird.

‘Not to worry,’ Christo said, as Aurelie pulled into a makeshift depot. ‘We’ll be moving on soon enough.’ Guards displaying the revolutionary insignia waved them in.

‘I thought we were returning to Fifteen,’ Jan said, looking to Christo for an answer.

‘Ha, no, way too much heat! Besides, that part of the journey is over,’ the man smiled.

The car wound its way through piled construction materials and industrial machinery until Aurelie stopped alongside a vast warehouse.

Pao emerged from behind a sheet of camouflage netting, dressed in cutoff fatigues. A long bayoneted rifle hung from a shoulder strap. He flicked on a torch and waved it in through the cab windows, dazzling Jan.

‘You took your time,’ he said with a scowl. Then his eyes shifted to the still-twitching shape in the flatbed and his face bleached. ‘First that wastelander and now this… You just taking in anything out the jungle these days?’

‘Oh, do shut up,’ Christo grinned as he climbed out of the car, jabbing a hand in the direction of the covered alien. ‘Get some of the others out here and tie the Dyn down up top.’

‘Hell, I wondered what had Arco’s spotters so riled up, but you’ve cracked if you think we’re taking that onboard -’

‘Just get it done, Pao. Lash it down securely where anyone who might be watching from, say, five hundred kilometers up, should be able to spot it. Comprende?’

‘There’s no way we’ll get away with this,’ Pao said, hands shifting in the direction of his rifle.

‘This is the only way we’ll get away with this,’ Christo snapped, voice hardening.

Pao grunted something unintelligible, lifting the camouflage netting to allow Jan, Aurelie and Christo to pass into the warehouse. It reminded Jan of a factory. A column of rebels passed in the opposite direction, some pausing to nod or greet Christo, while Aurelie somehow contrived to remain invisible even in the centre of the crush. It was bewildering; there was more heavy machinery than Jan had ever seen in one place before. Hot steam gushed from loose joints and sparks cascaded from things being welded to a structure that filled the warehouse. There was a sense of anticipation that was almost tangible. Whatever it was they were working on was almost complete.

Jan didn’t bother to ask where they were going next or how they were going to get there; he knew Christo well enough to realize he wouldn’t give a straight answer to such questions. Instead, without instruction or inclination to the contrary, he followed Christo and Aurelie up a set of stairs that wound upwards for what had to be more than a dozen metres. They emerged into a raised control room. Whilst Aurelie and Christo examined the banks of controls Jan looked down at the wide deck beneath, covered with netting. Small lights on the deck provided the only illumination, making the shape of the huge structure hard to discern. Men and women rushed to drag the netting away, revealing missile batteries and gun turrets.

‘It’s a fort,’ Jan said, incredulous.

‘You could say that,’ Christo said. ‘It’s certainly built to keep the outside world… outside. But we’ll need to be more proactive about that from now on. Thick walls won’t be enough.’

A klaxon sounded. Aurelie turned to Christo.

‘They’ve found us,’ she said. He merely nodded.

Jan heard shouts filtering up from the deck as netting was thrown from the flanks, revealing slats of grey armour. He thought he recognised Pao’s voice from somewhere behind, yelling orders to tie the prisoner down.

A cascade of bright spotlights ignited up out of nowhere, illuminating the deck fully. Jan glanced down and saw a huge white sawtoothed shape stretching across the entire deck – the ubiquitous insignia of the revolution.

‘There’s no way anyone could ignore what we’re about to do, you see,’ Christo said with a nonchalant shrug. ‘So there’s no more point in being subtle.’

Jan gaped as more lights came on, revealing the full size of the base. Jan could now see that it tapered to a blunt point ahead of him. The deck started to rumble as if all the heavy piping beneath them was breaking apart.

‘There’ll be here in a couple of minutes – helicopters, at least fifty soldiers. Drones are already overhead.’

The rumbling grew in intensity until it was a roar, drowning out everything.

‘Aurelie, everything’s ready. Let’s get going!’ Christo shouted, grinning. ‘Launch!’ he cried into a mic, to cheers from the occupied decks below.

The world-ending roar reached a climax and Jan stared ahead as the entire structure lurched forward, the warehouse wall ahead of them tearing like paper. The vast vehicle, no fort, departed from its hiding place with ponderous acceleration, annihilating a grove of trees and trailing discarded netting. Jan’s mind flashed back to the days before, to the trail of uprooted trees he’d spotted just before his first encounter with the revolution. He was beginning to understand how, but not why.

‘Do you want the drones shot down?’ asked Aurelie, a wry smile playing across her lips.

‘Let them watch!’ Christo called back, laughing.

‘You’re mad,’ Jan shouted over the thunder of the engines, shaking his head, but laughing all the same.

‘My friend, it is the world around us that is mad,’ Christo winked. ‘What would be crazy is reacting to this insanity in an ordinary manner.’