He’s right, I guess, Ewan thought. The two of us are at far more risk than him. If death is coming for anyonetonight, it’s me or Alex.

Ewan blinked himself back to his senses. The AME research was somewhere in front of him to be found and deleted, and it was time to regain focus. Once he did, it didn’t take him long to realise that even once he found the data, deleting it would not be simple. He would need special clearance or admin access or something.

There was only one person he knew who had experienced Nicholas Grant’s technology from the inside. And thankfully, she was sitting in comms at that moment. The sound of her voice would be welcome too. Ewan removed his phone from his pocket, lay it at the front of his desk and put it on speakerphone before dialling.

‘Wow, subtle,’ said Alex as it started to ring.

‘Should I put it next to my ear for the CCTV cameras?’ Ewan asked with matching sarcasm. ‘And tell them a mute soldier is talking on the phone?’

‘Hello?’ interrupted a voice on the desk.

‘Shannon! It’s Ewan. Don’t worry, everything’s fine. But… I need to ask you something.’

Ewan’s voice began to waver. Discussing Shannon’s ex-boyfriend would have been tricky in the normal world too. But especially so now, since the guy was dead and the conversation was time-sensitive.

‘You know how you and Anthony Lambourne did all that tech work with the clone factory virus?’ he asked. ‘Does that mean Lambourne had access to important files?’

‘Yeah, why?’

‘Because I think I need clearance to delete—’

‘Really?’ said Alex. ‘You don’t think they might have deleted Lambourne’s account after slashing his throat?’

Bloody hell, Alex, Shannon’s right here listening.

‘I don’t think he’d have been stupid enough to use his own account,’ Ewan answered. ‘I just need to know—’

‘You’re right,’ came Shannon’s voice – annoyed, hurt, but fiercely determined – a voice infused with her unmistakeable personality. ‘Whenever we did something that broke the rules, we used Richard Unsworth’s account.’

‘Who the hell’s Richard Unsworth?’

‘One of Pearce’s underlings. High enough to have access to loads of stuff, but not high enough for people to bother checking where he was logging in. Let me know when you have the login screen up.’

Ewan clicked a box in the corner of the screen.

‘Yep, ready.’

‘Username is Richard, dot, Unsworth. Password, all in capitals, is K, R, B—’

‘One second. Let me process it.’

‘Oh yeah. Sorry.’

Ewan’s mind was drawn back to Luton Retail Centre, and his outburst at Shannon after she had said the GPS coordinates too fast. It seemed so long ago now.

At that moment, he found himself being much more patient with her. Being that far apart, he wanted every word between them to be pleasant.

‘Ready?’ she asked.

‘KRB?’