Thorfin and Gravanov chat; Thorfin’s mostly trying to find out whether the IPI is a genuine effort, or just another cover story. Gravanov’s not telling everything he knows (and admits this), but it seems to be the real thing.

David quickly opens the padlock; the freezer is empty, apart from a cold air vent in the ceiling and a small wooden box against the far wall. Thorfin and Gravanov step inside, while Steven guards the door; sure enough, as they pick up the (empty) box to reveal a safe behind it, the door shuts itself with great force, and the end walls start to grind inwards. Thorfin gets Gravanov to lift him to the vent in the roof, while David takes a look from the outside. Unlike the crude mechanical padlock, the motor driving the hinge is a high-tech product, and David’s able to interface to it and get it to let the door open. While he’s in the local network, he shuts down the moving walls; Steven blocks the doorway with one of the barrels from the stores (maybe not strong enough to resist, but it’ll give some extra time if the door slams again).

David uses a sensitive microphone to open the safe, inside which is a large reddish-tinged diamond that’s clearly imbued with possibility energy (some of the team are quite surprised by this, as they’d assumed it was simply a Cyberpapal trap). Thorfin tucks it into the tunic under his armour.

This is about the point at which the door to the forward sleeping car swings open, and a number of obvious Cyberpapal agents emerge. In the lead are Jazuits, mêlée fighters with implanted claws; behind them, taking cover in the connecting passage, are Church Police agents. Unfortunately for them the area around the freezer is pretty tight, so the Jazuits aren’t able to gang up on Thorfin and Steven and have to fight them one-to-one.

The Jazuits do some damage, including gouging some surprising rents in Thorfin’s armour, but Steven is able to shoot them down (using the Beretta taken off Gravanov, until it runs out of ammunition); they do seem to have a small amount of implanted armour, which means Thorfin’s armoured fists don’t help much. Hitting their hands is more effective, though.

Stephen calls for Gravanov to go and fetch Diamond, but Diamond’s finely-tuned hearing is able to pick up the distinctive sounds of Cyberpapal flechette pistols and the Beretta, and she hurtles forward to join the fight; she kicks one Church Policeman down and out of the fight, and manages to evade the gunfire from the rest of them, which takes them aback.

One complication is a cyberknight dropping through the roof vent and attacking David from behind, but David has decent armour, and it’s only a flesh wound; he returns fire. Diamond puts up a reality bubble, shutting down the Church Policemen’s guns, and there are only two Jazuits left, but the cyberknight still presents a problem…