Number Seven sat at his desk, stared at his computer screen and yearned for the days of real paperwork in manila folders. He'd been staring at the same page of the postmortem report on Number One for what felt like days and it still didn't make any sense. His eyeballs felt fried.

He wanted out of his office. He wanted to visit Six or check on Five or talk to Four or just get drunk. Better yet get drunk with Four. He'd never felt this need to seek out his colleagues before. They sought him out or he reached out when he could tell they needed him. He and Two had found comfort in each other's arms occasionally but that was mutual professional development.

He could just leave. He had orders to stay by his desk and wait for his Bodyguard but orders had never stopped him before.

No. Making the Bodyguard hunt him down was not the way to make a good first impression.

There was a knock at the office door. It opened a crack and, 'It's me. Promise you won't shoot me if I come in,' said Abby through the crack.

'I'm not that paranoid. Yet,' said Seven.

Abby pushed the door wider and came in.

'Have you fallen out with the Boss? I would have thought you'd be all over that meeting with the Department,' said Seven.

'Bunch of charlatans. I wouldn't touch them with yours,' said Abby.

'They're setting me up with a bodyguard. Ex SAS.'

'Won't having a buff and terrifying man following you around cramp your style?' said Abby.

He must have smirked.

'Wait a minute. Didn't I hear a rumour that a female Para had passed selection a few years ago and then dropped out of sight?' she said.

Seven grinned. He switched from the postmortem file to the Department file on Sorrow. Abby came round the desk to see it. Most of it was redacted, including her real name. But it did say that she'd been a Para.

She'd been the first woman to pass selection for the SAS and she'd done it at the first attempt. Then something happened. There was an entire page where only the names of various officers were readable. Every other word was blacked out. The next page began with the words 'Too dangerous for regular duty'.

She was now permanently attached to the Department. She was barracked at a Department facility and was on one of their teams of Monsters.

'Monsters?' said Abby. 'This is why I don't trust them. Bunch of edge-lords. What does she look like then?'

Seven scrolled through it until he came to photographs. There were two of them. One of her passing out as a Para looking smart in her parade uniform. There was also a recent one and it was hard to believe that it was the same woman.

'You've landed on your feet,' said Abby.

'Jealous?'

'I'm a married woman.'

'So that's a yes then?'

'Fuck you,' said Abby.

'I didn't think I was your type,' said Seven.

'Just when I was starting to think of you as an actual human being.' Abby headed for the door.

'Sorry. But now is not the time to start taking things seriously.' He didn't know what else to say.

Abby paused in the doorway. 'Just don't die. Not until you've dealt with whoever killed them.' The door swung shut behind her before he could think of a snappy comeback.

He went back to the file on his bodyguard. What was on that mostly black page? What were they hiding? He looked at the two photographs. The drastic differences would be unnerving if it were not for the cheery grin she had in both images. The same grin. She just looked genuinely happy in both pictures.

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He rubbed the back of his neck and stretched. Sitting at a desk was a bad idea with a pulled back and a couple of cracked ribs. His neck was getting the worst of it and that breeze wasn't helping. Breeze?

'Alright big boy. I do like a man who does his homework.' The voice was female, military, from Yorkshire and the owner was directly behind him.

He span in his seat and was looking at the same smiling face that he'd been staring at on his screen. 'Is there something wrong with the door?' he said.

'Not that I know of. I wanted to get a good look at you first and since I was on your windowsill anyway I thought I'd pop in. You looked like you needed cheering up after your colleague left,' she said.

'And the window?' Like every other window in the building it was supposed to be secure.

'I love working for the Department. We get all the best toys.' She opened her hand and showed him an old fashioned white key on a chain. 'Skeleton key. Made from actual skeleton, I'm told.'

She stepped down from the windowsill and he had a chance to see her in the light. Neither of the photographs had done her justice.

She was a little shorter than him, so roughly six foot tall, with black hair and skin so pale that it almost glowed. She was wearing a black tactical vest, black battle fatigue trousers, spit shined army boots and leather fingerless gloves with metal knuckles.

She had cheekbones that a model would kill for and eyes the colour of wet slate under finely arched eyebrows. She had supremely kissable ruby red lips and a chin you could break rocks on.

Underneath the shapeless army gear was an impressive figure but Seven was distracted by her naked arms and shoulders. He knew real strength when he saw it. If she needed to she could pick him up and carry him. There was no way he was getting into an arm wrestling match with her. Other kinds of wrestling though...

'You're staring at my shoulders the way most men stare at my chest,' she said.

'I was just wondering if your shoulders might be available later on should I need one to cry on,' He said.

'Nice recovery.' Her face split into the same wide grin he recognised from the photographs. 'Before we make a break for your car I've got something for you.' She took a padded envelope out of one of the pouches on her tactical vest and handed it to him.

He opened it, gingerly because it had been that kind of week. 'A blank key-card and a phone?' It was a nice phone, certainly. A large touchscreen phone and well made from the weight of it but she'd handed it to him like it was Excalibur.

'The card is a temporary Department Y ID card to go with your temporary Department Y name. We're not allowed to refer to people by numbers. I've been ordered to call you Officer Dee...'

He interrupted her, 'Because a letter is so much better than a number.'

'It's a word. D double E. Like the river. You'll need the ID in our buildings. The phone is a yPhone. It's at least 2 years ahead of the cutting edge. You'll have to give it back at the end of the crisis and I guarantee that you won't want to,' she said.

'I probably won't need to. It'll be broken by then.' He said.

'Really? Are we going to space? Or a nuclear reactor? Or the middle of the ocean?'

'No...?' he let the vowel trail off into a question.

'The only confirmed yPhone kills are from using one to hammer control rods into a near critical nuclear reactor, re-entry from low orbit and more than 3,000 feet of water. I reckon a good hit with a DPU round would do it too though. Put it in your breast pocket and we might be able to test the theory.'

The phone in his hand vibrated and rang. It startled him. 'Don't I have to turn it on or something?' he said.

'It's Department tech. The field kit doesn't mess about, it just works. That's your phone therefore that call is for you. It might be routed from your SIS phone or your office phone or it might be through the Department Y contact list.'

The caller ID was the Home Office pathologist. 'Shit.' He showed the screen to Sorrow.

'Bugger,' she said.

He swiped to answer and held the phone to his slightly better ear.

'Mister, ah... Seven?' said the caller.

'Close enough,' said Seven.

'I'm Dr Green, Home Office Pathologist. We have a problem with one of your late colleagues.'

'What sort of a problem?'

'One of them has gone.'

'Gone? Gone how? Stolen gone, or got up and walked away gone?' said Seven.

Sorrow was staring at him so he shrugged.

'We, we don't actually know that,' Dr Green was sounding increasingly apologetic.

'Which colleague?'

'We're not entirely sure of that either,' the man sounded about 10 minutes away from renouncing medicine and joining a monastery.

'Just stay where you are. I'll be right there,' said Seven and hung up.

'That sounded interesting,' said Sorrow.

'The pathologists have lost one of the bodies and they're not even sure which one.'

'I love this job,' said Sorrow.

The anger must have shown on his face though he tried to keep his expression calm.

'Sorry,' she said. 'They're your friends. But hey, one of them might not be as dead as we thought.

'Given the state they were in that's not as much of a comfort as you'd think. Let's go and find out if Cherry's finished swabbing my boot.'

'Is that a euphemism?'