The jolt of Macharius landing on the platform was too much for the tormented winch. The whole lift shuddered, and then the winch gave out with a crack and the lift plunged down the shaft. Macharius was able to grab Anika and rocket the pair of them back to safety, leaving the lift just as it began to fall. The echoing rumbles of the bomb detonating were now joined by metallic bangs and shrieks as the platform smashed past the stilled ventilation fan in a shower of sparks and clanged its way down the shaft.

The walls hadn't stopped shaking, though, and as the rumblings grew more violent it became clear that the bomb must have damaged something structural to this sector, and the weight of the city above was straining to settle. The group made a rapid escape, followed all the way by the sound of thousands of tonnes of metal and ferrocrete settling behind them.

Only once they were again safe did they have a chance to examine the materials they had taken from the now-buried workshop. The datastacks did indeed prove to contain notes and records of the people Thule had done work for, mostly codified. It would be exceptionally difficult to work out who all had done everything. There were also several video files, probably taken from picters he'd installed around the area, and audio from hidden vox pickups in the shop. Put together, a hidden clue to the stalker's identity was almost certainly here. The trick would be finding it.