‘Cough-cough-load-of-rubbish-cough,’ said Jack. A ruder set of words had crossed Ewan’s mind, but he chose not to say them.

‘But you obviously deserve an explanation,’ McCormick continued, without offering Jack any response. ‘My cyst has been acting up. I’ve had it in my abdomen for the last thirty years, and normally the pain is bearable. That said, my lifestyle hasn’t exactly been healthy this last year, and something-or-other must have changed in there.’

‘Is there a… more scientific explanation?’ asked Alex.

‘I’m a mathematician, not a biologist. Even Lorraine is struggling, but we both agree I’m better off without it inside me.’

Concerned faces in the crowd began to look at each other. A couple looked at Ewan, as if he could do anything. They only reminded him of his own powerlessness, and as with everything else in life that lay beyond his control, it grated horribly against his nerves.

‘Didn’t sound like you were agreeing,’ said Raj.

‘We didn’t agree on how to get it out, as I’m assuming you heard. Lorraine’s idea was to hold out until the end of the war, and leave it to a real surgeon once we have hospitals again. But I think that’s just avoiding the issue. In the end, we came to an agreement. Anyway, this meeting isn’t about me. There are more urgent matters at hand.’

Ewan blinked himself back to reality. For several minutes, he had forgotten anything existed outside of McCormick and his health issues. The man leaned back against the nearest wall, the way he sometimes did when yielding the floor to another speaker.

‘Kate,’ he said, ‘could you describe what you saw this morning?’

‘We’ve been told already,’ muttered Gracie.

‘In multiple conversations, with varying details, from different people. Let’s all be told the same thing. Go on, Kate.’

Kate shuffled forward to the front of her sofa, hands clasped as if in prayer.

‘Raj and I saw a bunch of missiles flying towards New London. The Cerberus system destroyed them before they got there. But it means—’

‘If they wanted to wipe out Grant,’ Alex interrupted, ‘they should have just detonated a nuclear device in the upper atmosphere and caused an electromagnetic pulse. Would have fried all their circuits forever.’

‘You watched too many movies in the old world,’ Jack interrupted, flicking his fingers together to aid his thinking – ‘stimming’, as he called it. ‘If an EMP attack were close enough to affect their circuits, it’d be close enough to just wipe out—’

‘Alex, Jack, let her finish,’ Ewan said. He noticed a little smile of gratitude on Kate’s face.

‘So none of the missiles got through,’ she continued, ‘but it means someone’s declared war on Grant. Might be more than one country, we don’t know. That’s it, really.’