‘Show me the offices inside the Coventry,’ I try, and the image flickers to nothing.

Pulling the digifile from my pocket, I slide open the secret file and am delighted to discover that Enora included a map of the compound. I shift the image, searching until I find what I’m looking for: the research laboratories. Next to them I spot a single room twice their size. It’s marked ‘repository’. They’re both located near the clinic where I was mapped. Calling up the labs on the wall, I see a few men clad in white jumpsuits busily working with tubes and looms. Their workday must not end at the traditional time. I close my eyes and mutter, ‘Repository.’

I can’t look. Something about the large block on the map raises the hair on my neck. Slowly I open my eyes. Large steel shelves rise up in neat, symmetrical rows, lined with thousands of tiny metal boxes. Moving closer, I examine them to find each is labelled with a sequence of fourteen numbers and letters. It takes me a moment to realise I’ve stopped breathing.

Fourteen.

03212144 WR LM LA

The sequence drilled into my head as a child.

‘It’s how we’ll find you if you’re ever lost,’ my mother said.

It’s how they find each of us.

Date of birth. Sector. Metro. Mother’s initials. Child’s initials.

I stare at the box in front of me. Whose sequence is this?

My hand reaches out to open it, but my fingers hit the wall screen.

‘It’s an illusion,’ I remind myself. The screens look so vivid that for a moment I thought I could reach out and riffle through the boxes.

I nearly drop the digifile from my sweaty hands, trying to find the information on the map, but thankfully it’s there: a list of coordinates that will call up the Coventry’s weave on the machine. Sitting at the loom, I punch in the codes and watch as the Coventry’s weave spins across it. Next to me the command panel blinks red, flashing a reminder: partial within boundary diameter. It means I’m looking at a piece of the weave that contains the very location I’m in. Maela showed us this piece before, but I wonder now, as the warning light flashes at me, if I’m risking its stability to manipulate the compound from within the compound itself. But I can’t think of a better – or safer – idea. And, I argue to myself, why would Enora have given me this info if I wasn’t meant to use it? But . . . if I’m being honest, this is possibly the stupidest plan ever. I’m not sure if it’s possible to remove a piece from the loom’s weave and place it into the room’s actual weave. Probably because no one has ever been desperate enough to try it. Except me.

I run my hands along the top of the loom, the weave shocking the tips of my damaged fingers. Slowing them to a soft trailing motion, I adjust the view on the loom, zooming into the weave until it focuses, mirroring the map Enora left me on the digifile, and then I see the outline of the repository. Keeping my fingertip carefully on the spot, I tease a few strands of the area out, carefully, so as not to remove the entire room from the weave, which would surely draw immediate suspicion. Holding it delicately in my left hand, I reach up into the air with my right, and concentrating until the room’s weave shimmers into view, I draw apart the strands of this room, hoping my theory is correct and that I can transplant threads from the loom into the weave of Loricel’s studio. If so, then I hope to create a rift between her studio and the repository that will allow me to enter the secure facility. I weave the strands from the repository into this space and cautiously peek through.

It’s not a bad first try, except that I’ve woven it in upside down and I’m looking at the ceiling, the storage units suspended overhead. There’s no way I can open those boxes this way, so I step back through to Loricel’s studio and fix it.

There’s a faint hum filling the other room, and I shiver as I step through. It’s at least thirty degrees colder in here than any other space in the compound. I pull my jacket tighter and step up to the nearest shelf; there’s only one way to find out what’s in there.

The boxes latch on the right side, and I have to try twice to raise the tiny lever. In response, the front of it slides away, revealing a small crystal cube. I reach in to pull it out. A thin strand of light shimmers, suspended in the centre and woven into a delicate knot. I turn it over in my hands and the thread doesn’t move. It’s too thin to belong to the person with this identifying sequence. I’ve seen individual threads after removal, and they’re comprised of several strings knitted together; I’m sure that this is only part of the ripped thread. On the bottom, I notice an etched code composed of a series of numbers and varying bars. Sliding my digifile next to it, I open a folder labelled Tracking and press the small screen up to the code. A pulsing icon flashes immediately and then a new dataset appears:

NAME: Riccard Blane

PERSONAL IDENTIFYING SEQUENCE: 06022103 EN BH BR

OCCUPATION: banker

REMOVAL DATA: 10112158 EN

REQUEST CONTACT: Amolia Blane

RELATION: wife

CURRENT STATUS: active

Active?

The strand is too thin to be the banker’s remains. If he was removed two years ago, why is he listed as active? I hold the cube up to the repository lights, but no new information appears. I save the dataset to the digifile to study later and place the cube back in the box.

I tiptoe down the narrow aisle, afraid even my light footfalls might attract attention in this section of the compound. As I get further from my entry point, I begin to worry. What if Loricel returns to her studio, or someone else walks into the repository? Starting to head back to investigate closer to the rift, I glimpse the shelves one row over. Squat metal rectangles, not square boxes, compose these units. I dart quickly to them. Each is labelled with an identifying sequence, but there’s no storage cube inside. Instead a thin plastic card pops out of the cubby. Fumbling with the digifile, I scan the card and wait as the dataset loads.