Grant thumped his fist onto Marshall’s desk with so much force that he almost sent mahogany splinters into his muscles.

‘Long story short,’ McCormick finished, ‘you don’t really think my “little girl” fought her way to the battlements to shoot one of them, do you? Your field must be littered with dozens of broken Perimeter Points.’

Grant had stopped listening. He stomped his way across the carpet to shout at his allies.

‘Iain,’ he began, ‘the borders are your responsibility. Get every one of those things along the northern wall looked at and replaced.’

‘That’ll take a good hour or two.’

‘I don’t give a flying rat’s arse. Do it.’

Marshall rolled his eyes the moment Grant looked away.

What’s it like be ing you, Iain Marshall? Taking orders from a boss who consumed your company and used it to shape world history? How do you feel working for a tyrant who made you build an army and conquer a nation , while he put his feet up and listened to Bach ?

‘If you’re interested,’ Pearce said to Grant, ‘while you were busy shouting at the computer I got a message from Adam King.’

‘Who?’

‘Archives manager. He found where the Christmastime raids were targeted. They were spread all across Floor Z.’

‘Well, that’s helpful,’ spat Grant, throwing his head upward in disgust.

‘Maybe it’s more helpful than you think. He compiled a list of the targeted rooms and mapped them out – turns out they make an approximately straight line, all the way from the outer walls to the border of Inner City.’

Grant froze in place, and glared at Pearce as if he were the man responsible.

‘Every one of those rooms needs inspecting, Nathaniel. Get people on it now. I’ve got a bad feeling there are explosives in every single one of them.’

‘Really?’

‘From one end of Outer City to the other? In a straight line? Engage your bloody brain. He wants to blow a tunnel through the walls for the prisoners to escape!’

Poker face… poker face…

Grant began to laugh, and McCormick tried to turn his head away from his enemies. The dictator barked a tirade of commands, sending every clone on Floor Z to the stretch of rooms on King’s list. McCormick looked at the clock, and found eleven minutes remaining. When he looked forward again, Grant was staring into his face.

‘Game over,’ Grant said with a beaming smile. ‘Either my clones find your explosives and defuse them, or they go off and you create a death tunnel for tens of thousands of escapees to get shot in. A pretty awful plan if I may say so, but I suppose you couldn’t do much better on the lower floors.’

McCormick sighed.

‘So I guess you have a little time to spare,’ he said. ‘Do you offer last requests?’

‘Not normally, no.’

‘But in my case?’

‘You’re welcome to ask.’