McCormick took off his helmet, then began to remove his clothes. Layer by layer he shivered a little more, and item by item the expression on Roth’s face grew more and more disgusted. Clothes disguised a lot, and McCormick must have looked surprisingly fat.

‘What the hell happened to your stomach?’ Roth barked as McCormick reached his underwear.

McCormick glanced downward at the cauterised wounds across his abdomen. The cyst that kept him out of combat was gone forever, but the procedure hadn’t been without cost. Third degree burns were spread across his body, like a scale model of the Grand Canyon made from human flesh.

‘Let’s just say I’ve had a very difficult life lately,’ he said with a pensive voice, ‘especially these last few years.’

‘Well it’s not far from over now.’

McCormick sealed his eyes shut as Roth poked around his feet and gradually up his shins.

‘So besides the obvious,’ Roth continued, ‘what’s made your life so tough? Did your cat die or something?’

‘No, my wife. I thought you’d know that, with Grant’s background research.’

‘I’m only interested in my enemies once I’ve killed them.’

‘That’s a shame,’ replied McCormick, daring to smile. ‘We’re an interesting bunch. But to answer your question… when you get to my age, your whole generation starts to fall apart. There are the unlucky ones who get cancer in their forties, followed by those with unhealthy lifestyles who barely make it past sixty. By then you start wondering whether you’ll be the next to go, or whether you’ll have the pleasure of living the longest. The best case scenario is living long enough to watch all your friends drop off the perch before you.’

‘Huh. At least now your friends get to die younger,’ said Roth with a savage grin. ‘What’s the youngest? Fifteen?’

‘Thirteen. A boy called Callum. Ran out of insulin within a week of surviving Takeover Day.’

‘Survival of the fittest, mate.’

McCormick shuddered as Roth’s fingers pushed into the gaps between his ribs, as if expecting to find a hidden clip of bullets.

‘There comes a day for most of us when the funerals start to outnumber the weddings,’ McCormick continued, ‘but if you look to the younger generation, the world always feels alive. It wasn’t what I planned when I set out to build people up to be the best they can be, but it’s a happy side effect. I tried to guide those who needed guiding. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. But it was always worth it, and it was always the right thing to do. I may not have had the easiest life, but I’ve lived it well.’

As Roth lay his fingers around the base of McCormick’s neck, their eyes met.

‘And what about you, Oliver? Where do you see your life going after this war?’