Once he was at walking speed, Ewan looked at his surroundings for the first time. His vision had been fixed to the road like a blinkered racehorse, and he had relied on Shannon to watch out for patrols. The countryside was as pretty as always, and that annoyed him. His own world was in a mess, full of missile attacks and school invasions, and the rest of the world had the audacity to act as if nothing was wrong.

‘So what do we know about the missiles?’ Shannon asked.

‘Basically nothing,’ Ewan gasped. ‘Could have been an attack by one country or a bunch of countries. The question is why they’d bother.’

‘Because my dad’s a megalomaniacal dictator who destroyed Britain as we know it?’

‘I’m talking about the Cerberus system. Your dad promised the British government that it would make Britain almost invincible to long-range attacks. That’s how he got them to go along with whatever he wanted.’

‘Almost invincible,’ said Shannon. ‘I guess that explains it.’

Ewan rested a hand against the nearest road sign. He was more tired than he wanted to admit.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘With Cerberus, he’s almost invincible,’ Shannon explained. ‘Missiles can’t touch him, and any planes dropping bombs would just get shot down. The only way he could lose is by a land invasion.’

‘A land invasion with enough soldiers to scale Citadel walls and fight back a million clones on their way to Floor A?’

‘Technically possible, I guess,’ answered Shannon with a shrug. ‘But with AME, he’ll be actually invincible. The world believes this is the last opportunity they’ll ever have to bring him down, and a one in a million chance is better than a zero in a million chance. Maybe somewhere right now, someone’s trying a land invasion that’s failing just as badly.’

Ewan wiped the sweat from his forehead.

‘And they chose today because…’

‘Because my father must be close. He’ll have sped everything up after your break-in.’

‘And we’ve no idea how long we have,’ Ewan whispered. ‘Weeks, days, hours—’

‘Four days,’ interrupted Shannon. ‘We’ll have until midnight on the twentieth.’

Ewan stared into Shannon’s face, and found her as worried as him.

‘One year from Takeover Day,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t think your father was the sentimental type.’

‘May twentieth is his birthday. It’s pride, not sentiment.’

Ewan rolled his eyes, and restarted his walk home.

The rest of the journey passed in silence. The less they talked the faster they could move, and the more time Ewan could spend with his thoughts.