The clone factory had been so much louder on the inside. And bigger too: from the Alpha Control Room, still visible to Alex somewhere in the distance, it had looked enormous. From the factory floor, it looked unending.

‘Are you ready for this, Alex?’ the soft voice of Gwen Crossland had said.

Alex had looked sideways at Crossland, a four-foot-something, grey-haired old hag with a wicked smile and the demeanour of a nearly-retired headmistress. She was forceful without being loud, although the hundred clones behind her had helped.

‘You won’t remember it,’ she said, almost whispering. ‘You won’t even remember consenting to the deal.’

Consent, Alex had thought, consent doesn’t count if it’s forced.

Why the hell did I even say yes?

It had been the pain, of course. Crossland had barked at him down the phone while the large clone model stamped on his shoulder wound, accurate and devastating like a surgeon with a hammer. Crossland’s idea had been simple: keep up the pain until he either agreed to the deal, or died from his wounds. Unfortunately the wound had not been deadly, so death would have taken hours. The word ‘yes’ would be instantaneous – and he always had the option later of running away and getting himself shot to death nice and quickly.

He had not taken that option. The cloning pod was dead ahead.

‘Will my clones remember what I did?’ he had asked.

Crossland had given a sweet smile.

‘We grow our clones without their models’ memories.’

‘So they’re not perfect copies after all.’

‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, we have the technology! Just like we could give them vocal cords if we wanted. But Grant and Pearce agree it would be a bad idea. The closer a clone becomes to a human, the more tempted we’d be to treat it as such. Besides, the memory transfer process would take a whole week of open-cranial brain analysis. The model would have to die first, and we’d rather it didn’t come to that. Plan A requires you to stay alive, even if Plan B does not.’

My clones won’t know who I am, where I’ve been, what I’ve agreed to…

…or where I live.

‘Now,’ Crossland had continued, ‘it may have occurred to you to make a run for it rather than fulfil your end of the deal. But bear in mind we have no reason to kill you once we’re done. As a matter of fact, we need you to escape New London so your friends know you’re unharmed.’

‘How very kind of you.’

Crossland had laughed.