Al pressed his palm against a scanning plate, held his eye up to a retina scan modified specifically for him and then traced his finger, from top to bottom, along a black strip built into the door. We could hear that this unlocked a dizzyingly high number of interconnected locks, clicking and thunking out of place, until eventually Al was able to slide the door open, and lead us all into a cavernous red-lit room filled with an ungodly amount of weapons.

Some of them were classics – crossbows, pistols, shotguns.

Some of them were a bit more outre’ – flame-thrower, grenade launcher, mini-gun.

And some of them were just downright alien – a thingy, a wotsit, a doohickey…basically, they looked pretty damn dangerous, but hell if I knew what they were called, or how the fuck I was supposed to use them.

Zoe, Zowie and Tsering sidled up to me, each of them packing weapons old and weird in pockets, down the backs of trousers and wrapped over shoulders.

“Dude,” said Zoe. “This is the best day of my life.”