“...Aldersgate Street, the bottom of the A1 - which was the modern designation of the original Great North Road, built by the Romans two thousand years ago to march its garrisons to the very edge of the empire three hundred miles to the north. Their duty was to reinforce Hadrian's Wall, keeping the outer darkness at bay and the empire safe.”

“Ego had brought him to this point, that stupid refusal to quit the case, to simply do the job according to procedure and pick up the monthly salary transfer. Now look where it had brought him, sitting right next to a crapping great fusion bomb.”

“Are you sure it is trustworthy, Mellanie?" "I'd be dead if it wasn't.""Yes, I suppose that does generate a respectable level of personal confidence.”

“You cannot impose ideologies on people who do not embrace it wholeheartedly.”

“How many twenty-second-century bureaucrats did it take to change a light panel?We'll have a sub-committee meeting and get back to you with an estimate.”

“HR?''Human Resources.''In Brussels that kind of department is referred to as the Office for Personkind Enablement. Resources sounds like something you dig out of the ground.”

“This is the age of total digitalisation; everything is online always.''Uh huh, and that's why our politicians are pure and clean, and the world works so well, is it? Because everybody knows everything and there's no hiding place.”