They parked in a dead street behind a dead station. All carried heavy crates except Luca, who peeled back road barriers and iron sheets following the directions on his phone. It took them between two office blocks, through a narrow strip of gravel and weeds. This claustrophobic path opened into a metre-wide diamond. Luca brushed aside a carpet of litter and opened the porthole. His phone's torchlight revealed a rusty ladder.

  The team shuffled along a service tunnel, every sound made amplifying far. The station presented its liminal, abandoned interior. It stank of rotten, fruity meat, with escalators stained brown. Reminders of those killed in the battle. Things scampered from Luca’s light with rustling sounds.

  “We shouldn’t be back ‘ere,” Sermon whispered, mostly to himself.

  Luca spun his torch on Sermon's face, “it’s where our superiors need us to be.”

  “Why can’t we be armed!?”

  “Because we’re meeting these people as friends.”

  “Your last ‘friends’ tried to rape Kasia,” Zenia hissed, “and your superior just spent 10 minutes body shaming me...”

  “He does it to all of us. Progressives never won wars Zenia, trust me: you’ll want men like Pierce in the trench with you when we go over it.”

  Luca jumped off the platform with a thud, shone light up and down the tunnel, and listened. A leak dripped. All else was quiet.

  “Anything else? Kasia? Curtis? Feel like moaning too?”

  “Why we dealing with pikeys!?” Curtis lowered his crate onto the platform and hopped off, “I signed up for this shit ‘cause I saw you fightin’ them!”

  “As if we’d be dealing with the same group,” Luca began down the tunnel, “Blacks dealt with the last of them. This will be a new group.”

  “They’re all the same...” Kasia stepped over a rail and fell in behind Luca, “or is this Gimli guy some influencer virtue signalling? Let me guess: ‘10 reasons why you really need vagrants’. I-”

  She walked into Luca’s back. His torch shone over a bundle. The bundle peered through fingers.

  A young girl, filthy and gaunt. She hopped down the tunnel, expecting them to follow.

  They reached the Y-shaped intersection where their fight had taken place. The same carcass of a train lay before them. The rotten stench was overpowering now, mingled with the smell of burning.

  Light revealed what remained of revolution and vedic interference: a pile of cindered corpses as high as the ceiling. The bodies were moving, shunted about by a mass of rats. The recruits reeled with horror. Luca grimaced but held fast.

  Something nipped Kasia’s finger. She yelped. Luca’s torch whipped onto her. The vagrant girl, watching her with baggy, saucer eyes. She scratched at pockmarked skin and continued on. Kasia held her arm under the torch and, propping her crate up, wiped where she had been touched.

  It took several minutes more until they arrived at another abandoned station. This one contained life. Construction lamps dangled over parallel tunnels wrapped in printed posters. Adverts for long-forgotten products. The station revealed open air; a grey sky, veiled by black netting punctuated with trash. Squalid tower blocks surrounded the station on all sides, hemming it into a vertigo-inducing cube.

  Vagrants huddled around disposable barbecues. Some appeared to be families, though none spoke. Unlike the Goldsmiths, these showed no sign of uniformity. The girl skipped over to an old woman and cradled in her lap. Behind them, dead pigeons were strung up and feathered. The meat on the barbecues found new context. Someone on the opposing platform tipped brown slop down a maintenance hatch.

  Everything assailed the wavering recruits. Sermon retched. A few vagrants gazed up at him wearily.

  Luca pressed on to the husk of an information booth. A huge man with a scruffy brown beard waited. A handful of wired men in leather jackets surrounded him.

  * * *

  “Mike it's Kristoff. We have a visual. They’re here”

  “Got sight of the package?”

  “No not yet. They’re still sizin’ each other up.”

  “Don’t take the shot until they make the exchange. Try to make it a glancer. Andrez wants one of them in hospital.”

  “Of course he does, more to my bloody job for it… Want me to clip a vagrant too?’

  “They figured we might as well. Not the leader though - bulky lad with the beard, should come up on-mask as Gimli. Surveillance marked him as okay to spare. Get one of the youths instead, and shoot to kill. Sends a better message.”

  “Righto.”

  “This is an offline job but make sure they all see you before you leave, with your mask on this time Kristoff.”

  “Mate you can take the piss but once was enough. It wasn’t even my fault.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “Mike out.”

  Tanya zeroed her mask on Gimli and highlighted him as 'no-go'. Social profiles scrolled around the others, offering reasons for their lives to remain intact, or not.

  Kristoff tapped the side of his own mask. Its right eye lensed open for a clearer view. He held his arm out.

  “Tanya, my rifle. Let’s get this over with.”

  * * *

  They lifted the crates onto the booth’s counter and stretched their relieved arms. Gimli prised one open with a crowbar and pulled out a stack of money. His thugs stared the recruits down as he checked notes at random. One, young with a pierced face and spiky albino hair, singled out Kasia.

  As their eyes met, she knew he’d placed her. Trouble yet again.

  “Oi…” he stepped forward. Kasia turned away, looking through the littered net into the sky and praying for a drama-free day, for once.

  “Oi! I seen you… On that video… you attacked our mates in the ‘smiths!”

  “Your mates were killed by terrorists,” said Luca, “we’re here for work.”

  The thug spat on the floor and took another step forward.

  “Fucks sake man!” Gimli boomed over his shoulder, “stop botherin’ ‘em and get back!”

  The thug ignored him and nodded at Sermon, “you were there an’ all Zulu boy.”

  Sermon glared, “we we after the kids your mates were tryin’ to whore off. Don’t get ethical wiv’ me tunnel rat.”

  “Quiet,” Luca whispered angrily.

  The vagrant reached into his jacket. Gimli stomped forward and grabbed him. Effortlessly he threw his man over the counter.

  “I fuckin’ told you to leave it out! You lot want some o’ this cash or not!?”

  Luca searched around, fearing exposure to the flats above. Gimli confronted his followers until they backed off, then turned to Kasia.

  “You alright sweet'eart?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Don’t treat women like that in my clique,” he flicked his head at Zenia, “Your trannie mate will be fine and all.”

  Zenia blanched, “I’m not trans I’m-”

  “I’m windin’ you up!” he laughed heartily, “now shut up and let me count in peace.”

  * * *

  “What was that about? Kristoff?” Tanya rubbed her arms and looked to Kristoff for support. She twitched less with her mask on, but it risked returning if a mission veered off course.

  “Our plan has room for them fighting. It’s not an issue Tanya,” he looked over his rifle for a fuller picture, “one of the vagrants saw somethin’ in the bird. Tanya I need you to zoom in and get me data on her. Can you do that for me Tanya?”

  She scanned the girl’s face. Kristoff clicked his scope’s dial to range it.

  “S-s-she had a viral moment, Kristoff. The R-Reds. Reds; last visit.”

  “The famous hand shaker? Pikeys must be lovin’ her, heh...” he swivelled his rifle a degree left, “don’t worry my dear, this will all be over soon.”

  Kristoff breathed in through his nose. His gun went still.

  * * *

  Gimli lifted a sack of brown powder from under the counter.

  “Utter poison. You have no idea how many lives have been ruined by this stuff. But that’s what you guys are about, isn’t it? Just get it far away from these people.”

  Luca weighed the package in both hands, “if what’s inside is what's promised, we won’t need to visit again.”

  He snorted, “you wouldn’t like that, would you? We, the one taboo no side likes stooping to.”

  Luca gave him a final look, and couldn’t help but empathise. He smiled and winked.

  “Take it easy.”

  A crack deafened the station. Crowds screamed. Birds flocked out of the tunnel. Luca spun around in a daze and locked eyes with Sermon.

  The second shot tore through his neck. Luca slammed into the concrete. Everyone trampled over each other in a primal dash to survive. Sermon dragged the corporal from an unseen foe as Kasia grabbed his taser and took cover behind a bin.

  Another rifle shot speared the air, piercing a young vagrant through the heart and toppling her over the platform edge.

  Kasia heard nothing but the thump of her heartbeat. She peered around the bin to find the attacker.

  She saw them, for the first time in her life. They existed. Two terrorists on a balcony high above, watching the station with demonic black eyes. One rested a long gun in his arms. Another leant on his shoulder with bare arms of African skin.

  The myth Kasia had heard so much about, the sleepless danger that could still have been a hoax of social media, was undeniable.

  One of them twitched. Her head flicked to face Kasia. It morphed with blasted white eyes and shrieked, searing Kasia’s retinas and smacking her eardrums. Kasia cried out and cowered. Even with her eyes closed the face burned into her vision. The shrieking gave way to Opus Veda’s tragic siren. The terrorists announced to London their latest claim.

  “Lads! Lads come on! Let’s work our way up to the top for once! Come with me fellas!” Gimli rallied his followers and charged up a stairwell, swinging his crowbar around his head and roaring against the Vedic siren.

  And so the package lay unguarded, surrounded by crates of riches. Kasia recognised its outline through blotted vision. Bracing herself, she sprinted past the money and grabbed it, leaping onto the train track and hugging the platform for cover. She ran for the tunnel, tripping over the dead vagrant’s mangled body and spraining her ankle. Projectiles sailed over her head as the thugs fired back at the terrorists. She pulled the package back over her shoulder and limped into the void.

  In the darkness of the tunnel her emotions flooded back. The vagrants had hidden in corners unknown, though she wouldn’t have followed them any more than she would have hidden in a spider’s nest. She crept onwards, holding a taser she could barely operate and a heavy sack of powder she couldn’t name.

  The ringing in her ears faded. The tunnels were silent. She smelt corpses and her lip trembled. Her nerves left her.

  Something nipped her finger. She recoiled and dropped the taser. It was the girl, composed and calm despite the events. Kasia collected herself as the girl took her hand and brought her to the escalators, where a frantic torchlight searched. Kasia held the faceless girl’s hand in hers and thanked her.

  “Kash!”

  “Sermon! I’m down here! I’m coming!” Kasia turned to the girl, “Come with me. I promise, I’ll take you away from all of this.”

  “Kash!”

  “I’m coming!” she turned back “Oi…”

  But the girl had gone.

  The drivers pulled Luca into the van and contained the flow of blood. His uniform was soaked, his skin shivering and pallid. They received contact from headquarters, ordering them to take him to hospital. They would have to risk the police. Curtis removed Luca’s uniform and dressed him in his own civilian clothes, as Sermon knelt by his side sobbing with anguish.

  Their journey was a blur of confusion, fear, and pain. The van stopped. The second driver, holding soaked bandages between his teeth, motioned for the women to get out. Kasia and Zenia were left in the shingle car park, commanded to await another ride.

  They backed against one another, drenched crimson and carrying whatever illegal substance they’d suffered for, praying to go unseen.