All the relevant information had been shared with those who needed to know. There was no need for him to keep the memories himself. He left the Alpha Control Room, abandoning the papers to avoid tempting himself to go down the same route again. Once the clone factory was no longer visible, he started to sing ‘Barbie Girl’ – the only time in his life he had ever done so voluntarily – and wiped away all memory of his father’s death.

At least I’ll still believe I have someone to fight for, came his last thought before it all faded.

Then Alex blinked, and looked around the corridor. Where the hell was he going again?

‘Ewan,’ he said into the radio, ‘what’s the latest?’

‘Still on Floor E waiting for you,’ Ewan replied. ‘Are you at the stairwell yet?’

‘No, where is it?’

‘You can’t remember? I told you about a minute ago!’

‘Sorry,’ said Alex, nursing his head, which ached for some reason. ‘I must have zoned out.’

Chapter 22

McCormick knew how much depended on him. If he failed to destroy the data servers, then the others could reach Floor B, destroy Marshall’s computer, stop the shield from going up and still lose the war. Ewan and Alex may have deleted the data in the Central Research Headquarters, but if the backups lived through the night then Grant would have everything he needed to just build another shield.

Unfortunately, the data servers were located in the most dangerous spot on Floor P. McCormick found himself wishing he still had the body of a teenager. Or at the very least that he had not come to the HPFC alone.

As vast as New London’s Outer City was, the upper floors couldn’t hold every room that mattered. According to the maps they kept at comms, Floor A was reserved for the residential quarters of high-ranking staff, Floors B–D were where missions were planned and executed from, and Floors E–G contained scientific and military research and development. There were a load of rooms essential to running an empire that could not fit at the top, so a full square mile of Floor P had been built, guarded and reinforced as a high-security complex.

The High Priority Functional Cluster had one entrance, and McCormick was just around the corner. In his way stood a thin empty pathway, devoid of doorways, side corridors, upward pipes or shelter points of any kind. Three clone guards stood on the outside of the Cluster, with three more on the inside, the two groups separated by a titanium door that would only open for those with the correct fingerprints, retinas and eight-figure passcodes.

Beyond that, if their maps were to be believed, lay a maze of silver corridors, twisted and claustrophobic enough to make a carrier pigeon reach for its compass.

If Theseus had been trapped in this labyrinth, the minotaur would have won.