A couple of Floor B workers shot a glance at Roth as he passed. Perhaps he looked out of place with his combat boots marching across the carpeted corridor, with sweat dripping from his forehead and a loaded assault rifle instead of a suit and tie. Or maybe the stares were because of his reputation. They were in the presence of Nicholas Grant’s fourteen-year-old master assassin, slaughterer of countryside rebels – and occasional punisher of staff members when required.

Marshall’s office was up ahead. The floor in front of the entrance had been recarpeted, with an ever-so-slightly different colour that made it stand out awkwardly from the rest of the corridor. Roth noticed himself slowing down, enough for Pearce to glance behind him.

This room was where my life began, he thought. The good life, anyway.

His mind, very briefly, went back to the early meetings he used to have in that office, alone with a man he admired. Iain Marshall, war veteran of twelve years (who had not yet told him about his eight as an arms dealer), had been a rare person Roth had looked up to. At twelve years old, in a Britain that existed before the clones took over, not many people held that status in Roth’s life. Their meetings had largely been theoretical training sessions, with Marshall teaching him about military strategy, weapons, and the dirtier tactics that Marshall-Pearce’s youth training programme had not dared to touch.

He never talked about Oliver Roth’s real reason for being there, of course. He was too smart to discuss it in a place which stood a one per cent chance of being bugged, in addition to having compulsory CCTV. The subject only came up during their field trips and training sessions in the forest. Once upon a time, Oliver Roth was going to prevent Takeover Day from ever happening, by assassinating Nicholas Grant himself. Clearly though, Marshall had lost his nerve and never given him the signal.

Roth felt no guilt about the little fact that he could have stopped Takeover Day before it began. It had been Marshall’s decision rather than his own. It had also been perfect blackmail material – the ability to walk up to Grant and spill the beans any time he liked – but Roth had never needed to actually make any threats. Marshall had been careful enough to give him everything he ever wanted in order to buy his silence.

Oliver Roth sighed as he realised the true reason why he felt uneasy that day, and why he missed Iain Marshall. His leverage was gone; all his unspoken power vanished in that explosion. He no longer had the unquestioning support of Grant’s Head of Military.

He turned into the office, and found himself in unfamiliar territory. All trace of the explosion was gone, not a charred stain in sight. It looked like the room had been rebuilt altogether rather than just redecorated.