Oliver Gabriel Roth might have been impacted by that little speech, if he had not had the defence barriers up in his mind. He gave no reaction.
‘Don’t you have a wife you’re pretending to care about back in your apartment?’ he asked. ‘I’m sure she misses you, and is pretending to care about you too.’
Marshall rolled his eyes and turned away. Roth knew, alongside so many other details about his boss’ life, that his relationship with Hannah and the kids had gone cold long ago. Still, he imagined that coldness was more comforting than the searing hot hatred of his colleagues.
As his boss and former mentor walked back towards his apartment, Roth checked up and down the corridor for witnesses. Since there were none, neither Iain Marshall nor anyone else saw the double middle fingers pointed towards his back as he walked.
Chapter 13
Even when Spitfire’s Rise had been crowded, Ewan’s bedroom had always been his sanctuary. It would not remain that way for much longer. Once he walked out of the bedroom he would never return to it – regardless of whether or not they won.
Ewan could not remember the last time he’d felt so frustrated and insecure inside Spitfire’s Rise. It was probably back in the early days, during a Temper Twin incident with Charlie. Or maybe even on Takeover Day itself, when he was frightened enough to shoot—
‘Ewan?’ came a friendly voice from outside the bedroom. Ewan turned his head to the door and found Shannon poking her face inside. Once she saw that the bedroom was unoccupied except for him, she walked in and sat down beside him on the bed.
‘You alright?’ Ewan asked.
‘Yeah, I’m no stranger to this,’ Shannon replied, her face to the floor. ‘This is the third time I’ve had to run away in the last month. Abandoning New London with Anthony Lambourne… getting taken from the clinic by Keith Tylor… and now fleeing Spitfire’s Rise. Pretty much my whole life has involved running away from things.’
Ewan sighed. Shannon had only been with them for three weeks, and the house already meant as much to her as it did to him. Normally, that would annoy him: how could her mere three weeks of attachment possibly compare to his year-minus-two-days? But somehow, Ewan was fine with her sharing his feelings.
‘Are you busy?’ she asked. ‘I thought you were packing, or…’
‘Just pretending to be,’ Ewan answered. ‘Needed some time to myself. I’m fine with you being here though.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘No.’
‘…Can I help?’
‘No.’
‘Do you mean that, or are you just frustrated?’
Ewan paused. His second ‘no’ had been automatic, and she had caught him out. He was sitting next to the best possible person to help – the only Underdog who had ever seen the uppermost floors of New London.
‘Well,’ he answered, ‘I suppose if you have any tips for getting past Floor F, I’m listening.’
Floor F was the highest accessible storey from regular stairwells. According to the stolen schematics, the stairwells only connected neighbouring floors after that: one stairwell from F to E, a separate one from E to D, and so on. And according to the papers Raj had found at Oakenfold, some of the AME technology was kept as high as Floor B.
‘Make sure you have keycards ready,’ Shannon answered. ‘Human keycards. Clones can’t go higher than F unless humans let them up there.’
Ewan held his face and swore into his hands. Humans were rarely found below Floor F, which complicated things even further.
‘And don’t make anything personal,’ she added. ‘You’ll want to, but don’t. If my father or Oliver Roth is right in front of you, don’t waste any time thinking about your dead family. Just keep calm and take the shot, no matter how much they try to wind you up.’
Oliver Roth’s pretty good at winding me up. The way I fought him after Charlie died, I’m amazed he didn’t kill me.
‘Thanks, Shannon,’ he said. ‘I think that’ll help—’
She leaned in for what Ewan thought was a hug, but she ended up heading for his face. Before Ewan could react, he was being kissed.
Ewan had never kissed anyone and meant it. During his younger teenage years he had had casual girlfriends who he had kissed because he was supposed to, but none of them cared like Shannon did. This was a kiss that had real affection in it, from a girl who truly liked him.
It felt like it lasted for ten whole seconds, but it could have been twenty, or one. It was difficult to tell. When Shannon pulled away again, her face was red.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
Wow, thanks.
‘…Why not?’
‘Things are… complicated,’ she answered, rising to her feet. ‘That’s all.’
‘Yeah, you just snogged the guy who’s leading the charge against your dad. I thought you’d enjoy doing that!’
‘I did! I just…’
Whatever the true reason was for her reluctance, she wasn’t planning to say it. But Ewan could guess.
‘You’re afraid that once I go to New London, I won’t come back. Or we’ll lose and the war will be over.’
Shannon didn’t say a word.
‘For what it’s worth,’ he continued, ‘it terrifies me too. And I’m not going to lie, success isn’t likely. If there’s a single mission in the history of the Underdogs we’re likely to fail, it’s this one.’
Shannon headed for the bedroom door and yanked it open.
‘You need to brush up on your comforting skills,’ she said as she stormed out. ‘You’ll need them for when you get a girlfriend one day.’
‘Girlf—’
The door slammed shut.
Ewan decided not to waste time trying to decipher what Shannon meant. He had already avoided the downstairs gathering for too long. After waiting long enough for Shannon to have a decent head start, Ewan left his bedroom for the final time, and headed for the living room.
All of his housemates were present, but he was struck by how empty the room felt. The eleven of them were only a third of the house’s wartime residents.
Not long after Takeover Day, McCormick had stood in the same spot and delivered a rousing speech to more than thirty people, who had all cheered and whooped at the idea of fighting back against Nicholas Grant and his million clones. Most of that crowd had since died: many in combat, some through illness, and poor Mike Ambrose had killed himself. The remaining Underdogs – six special needs students, an old man, an ageing nurse, a child, the dictator’s daughter and a man who had since been cloned – were a pathetic army by comparison.
Ewan found Alex in the corner of the room, with the right-hand side of his face concealed against the wall. It would take him a while to get used to his three-inch scar. But he was in the cellar with everybody else, and nobody seemed to avoid him. Presumably they’d all been told the result of the test: that Alex’s blood had coagulated normally, which meant he was as human as everyone else in the room.
‘Ah, Ewan,’ said McCormick, ‘we were just sharing our favourite memories of this house. I thought it’d be a nice way of ending things before we leave. Why don’t you join us?’