The roof, 03:14

Dan freezes and waits motionless, holding her breath, her fingers clamped around the roof's edge. The chopper approaches fast, the sleek beam of a searchlight whisking over the building's top only metres away from her position. Blinded, she presses herself against the facade, closing her eyes and praying she remains undetected.

The helicopter slows down and positions itself over the yard. Ric's tug on her ankle confirms her own decision: it's now or never. Quickly, she climbs the last rungs and throws her left leg over the low parapet. Then she turns and reaches down for Ric to take her hand. He engulfs it with a firm grip and releases her ankle, following her onto the flat roof. Hand in hand, they cower behind the parapet to recover.

"This was tight. What's the chopper doing here?"

"Rescuing important people, I guess. How did you get them to evacuate their burrow?"

"Evacuate? I just jammed a welder, in the hope the production line would give an alarm and draw the security team's attention." Dan can't imagine her amateurish shot at sabotage might be the reason for so much agitation.

"You tampered with a welder? This could well be the cause of the fire. At least there was an alarm."

Dan rubs her chin. "There were two, I think. I also smashed one of these fire alarm boxes. So, it's possible they found this out first and stopped searching for the sabotage."

Even in the darkness, she can see his head shake, and his next sentence confirms his bewilderment. "No wonder they were stressed. Perhaps they detected the real fire too late. I suppose you finished my job—probably better than I'd ever dared to do it."

"Do you believe they forgot to check the production line? Sounds like a major sin of omission. And why did I do your job?"

"My mission is—well, was—to prevent further illegal misuse of the temporal animation chamber. To reduce the contents of the bunker to ashes sounds like a terminal solution. Better than any computer virus. Even if the hardware survives, the virus will do its job and delete their storage. And as long as your fire keeps them occupied, no one will notice a data leak."

"Why are you convinced it's burning, down there?"

"Can't you smell the smoke? Besides, I doubt they would evacuate because you interrupted a production chain. And the fire siren was definitely triggered twice. I'm sure it wasn't me, so..." He trails off.

Dan inhales through her nose. True, this is smoke, a nasty, biting variety. She suppresses a cough. If she can perceive it on the roof of a ten storey building, the underground fire must be devastating.

"Have you an inkling what the purple paste they produce down there is? It's filled into steel cartridges."

"Purple paste? I've no idea. Although, there was an infamous drug back then, had to be kept in closed containers at all times. It was called 'nightshade' and reacted with moisture and light. Some appropriate name-giving. Pity you didn't sneak a sample, we could have analysed it in the Chronos lab."

"You've got nerves. The stuff looked poisonous or worse. To judge by all the cooling systems, it might have been explosives. At the point I found it, this seemed more probable than drugs." She scoffs. "Why don't you time travel back there and sneak a sample yourself?"

His chuckle makes her smile. "Hardly necessary just to satisfy my curiosity. And you might be right. The organisation was suspected of having connections to terror groups. Though definite proof was never found, and the series of bombings suddenly stopped without explanation..." His voice trails off, and in the dim illumination from the faintly glowing night sky, Dan imagines she can read his thoughts displayed on his face.

She swallows, suddenly aware her throat is parched. "You wonder if the attacks stopped here and now, don't you?"

Before Ric confirms her suspicion, the whirring of the rotor blades gets louder. The thin finger of the helicopter's searchlight swings back and forth over the roof-scape. They both duck into the shadow of the parapet, and Dan is glad at least Buddy is safe in her own time.

Ric's nudge tears her out of her thoughts. "We must take cover. Crawl towards the structure over there, it might offer shelter. Or access to the building."

Dan snorts. After spending so much time to flee the house, she has little interest to enter it again. But Ric has a point, they can't stay exposed much longer. Keeping low in the cover of the parapet, she moves on all fours. Her partner snatches her ankle and follows her lead.

The chopper turns away to continue its search on the adjacent building. Probably this is still a routine check. Otherwise, we would have been detected.

Dan's beating heart slows down, and her breathing eases. We might make it, after all.

Right then, a loud click scares her into a stop. Powerful white lamps mounted along the front of a rectangular concrete block bathe the area in front of her in glaring light. Her left hand holding the bright red cylinder is outlined by the spotlight, a blemish on the spotless roof.