Alongside her annoyance, Kate couldn’t help but feel enormous admiration. McCormick clung hard to his forced habit of never, ever losing hope, and his attitude towards each set of stairs never worsened or became less enthusiastic.

Kate ran up to Floor R, and guarded the exit as before. When McCormick was halfway up, Ewan’s voice screamed out of her waist pocket.

‘Guys, big trouble!’

McCormick took the shouting as an excuse to rest against the wall, and caught some breath as he retrieved his radio.

‘Talk to me, Ewan.’

‘We don’t have until midnight! Grant’s pushing the button at half nine!’

The panic in Ewan’s voice spread to Kate like an airborne disease, and her body froze in place.

‘Do you have any evidence of this?’ asked McCormick from half a floor below.

‘The words of Iain Marshall himself. The shield was supposed to kill us when we arrived, but we got inside before the last transport vehicles made it from some weapons cache somewhere. Unless we can do everything in the next thirty minutes, Grant’s going to win the war. There’ll be no way for us to get out, or for the others to break in with weapons ever again!’

Kate commanded her body to stop panicking, but it wouldn’t obey. Her brain was congested with so many thoughts that she couldn’t pin down a single one.

‘Looks like we’re doing it in half an hour then,’ said McCormick, having ascended the stairs and rested next to her. ‘How’s it looking on your floor?’

‘Part way there,’ answered Ewan between gasps. ‘We wiped the files and we’re heading to the Experiment Chamber. But they know we’re here – Salter’s dead. What about down there?’

‘We’re on Floor R,’ answered McCormick, ‘the right place for the paper archive and two floors away from the backup servers. Leave it to us – you and Alex destroy that chamber and fight your way to Floor B.’

‘Yeah, nice and simple,’ said Ewan. ‘See you later, sir.’

The radio fell silent as Ewan resumed his sprinting. Kate’s eyes sank to the floor as the enormity of their task settled in her brain.

Fiveobjectives, and we’ve still got four left.

Destroy the Experiment Chamber. Destroy their backup system. Destroy the paper archive. Destroy Marshall’s computer.

All in thirty minutes .

‘I’ll phone comms and ask for directions,’ McCormick said, his breath mostly steadied. ‘You go for the archive, I’ll go for the backup servers.’

‘Actually,’ said Kate with a quiver in her voice, ‘I’ve got a better idea…’

Years of experience told her she had done the wrong thing by speaking out, and should prepare for her opinions to be corrected. She knew that McCormick was an approachable adult, but her instincts had been burned into her brain by countless adults and peers who had loved telling her she was wrong.

To her relief, McCormick listened.