Office 35, Floor X. Hardly deserving of the title of ‘office’.

Ewan only needed to look around him to recognise what the room was for. Even if it hadn’t had a plaque stuck on its entrance that read ‘Identification Chamber’, its interior felt like some kind of operating theatre or a morgue, with sinks and hygiene equipment like gloves and waste bags, walls lined with desks covered with test tubes, syringes and obscure DNA analysis machines or whatever, and a central table for dead bodies.

How many of my friends have laindead on that table? Ewan asked himself, picturing Nicholas Grant personally standing at the entrance crossing names off that list of rebels. He imagined that just about all of the Underdogs who had died inside New London would have been brought to this room. He gave a shudder at the thought of Beth Foster, Thomas’ mother, lying dead on the table he was staring at. Or David and Val Riley after Roth had forced one to kill the other. Or Miles, Tim, Ben, or any of the others. Daniel Amopoulos had probably missed the chance to see this room, since they already knew his identity before torturing him to death for information. Charlie, however…

Ewan felt anger – genuine, three-dimensional anger – as he stood in the same room where the dead bodies of his allies, friends and classmates must have been dropped onto that table and autopsied.

‘You alright, Ewan?’ asked McCormick.

Perhaps it was a question that wasn’t a question. Adults loved asking those. McCormick would have seen the expression on Ewan’s transparent face and detected his mood.

‘Yeah, fine,’ Ewan answered, giving the response that adults seemed to love too. ‘You know, if you and Kate are dead you’d better get on the table before Salter arrives.’

‘Ah yes, good point,’ said McCormick, heading to the edge of the makeshift operating table. He rested himself against it, leaned backwards with the slow, creaking precision of a construction crane, and swung his legs into position at a speed that made Ewan wonder how long the man would last if chased by roving clones. Kate followed suit, the concern in her face so visible that even Ewan could detect it.

Alex, however, seemed as unaffected by everything as usual.

‘I know we’re trying to make Salter talk,’ he said, ‘but let’s not encourage him too enthusiastically, OK?’

‘Our priority is to destroy the AME shield,’ McCormick answered from his morgue table, ‘and it’s likely to involve people getting hurt. I’m planning to be far more merciful to this man than most people would think he deserves. Remember who we’re dealing with, Alex: Arnold Salter would have had his minions kill all four of us if he’d had his chance. And when you command people to murder, you’re doing the equivalent of pulling the trigger yourself. No one in that position gets to claim the moral high ground.’