1. Assessor Grey
1.1. Second main character. Also known as John Grey, Assessor Grey is the ruthless head of the Spike, but also secretly should be a strutter.
1.1.1. Grey plants the idea of giving Ant a strap key into the PO Macmillan's head. He does and in turn that leads to a riot of which Macmillan is killed in. This was all part of Grey's plan. He then monitors the escaped prisoners which include Mattie and Ant. He eventually reels them back i, and set them up for a public re strap. Ant writes on her back that he is a fraud and the colour drains out of his face as he realises he is beaten. He gets arrested and is sent to prison with a life sentence
2. Dan and Gina Norton
2.1. Third Main characters. Dan and Gina are Mattie and Ant's foster parents, they also serve their sentence in the spike and have one son who is called Max and is 20.
2.1.1. Dan and Gina Norton were the first ones to be arrested by police under the new heritage crime rule, They along with Mattie and Ant were taken to the spike to serve their sentence. Sadly in the riot they were killed by mad prisoners, Ant and Mattie tried to break them out but the door key would not work.
3. Max Norton
3.1. Third Main character. Max is the son of Dan and Gina and plays an important role in the rescue of Ant and Mattie
3.1.1. Max was at University the day the police came to take his mum,dad and everyone living with them. Since then he has slipped away and has secretly been helping Ant and Mattie from the out side. Near the end of the book they meet up and band together to take down Grey. Max had stolen a PO drone with a grey recording light. He then used this to record all of Grey admitting that he was a strutter and saying that he didn't care about any of his dead prisoners. Max then came out of hiding and exposed Grey to the world. Grey was then arrested and Ant, Mattie and Max went to live in Belgium.
4. Heritage Crime
4.1. A crime commited by your parents or grandparents that was previously undetected.
5. Ant
5.1. The main character. A fiery, never one to keep quiet 16 year old girl who is gifted with many language skills.
5.1.1. Ant makes visits to the outside world and gets in trouble and nearly gets caught by Grey. Which in turn leads to a riot, which leads to a prison escape when her and a group of people including Mattie jump of a coach after unlocking many peoples straps. Sadly they are soon caught and get forced to come to a public re-strapping of which they are part of. Ant gets Mattie to write three lines of words on her back for the camera, they are John Grey is son of gangster James lee Glancey this leads to Grey's arrest and Ant and Mattie's escape to Belgium where the heritage crime law is not in effect.
6. Mattie
6.1. The secondary main character. A cool, calm and collected 11 year old who is Ant's brother. He shares a special language with Ant.
6.1.1. Mattie is often very worried about Ant when she goes out to the real world and when she gets into trouble with Grey he tells her not to do it anymore. When the riot happens he sticks very close to Ant and they make it out together. But when their long lost dad shows up Mattie gets taken straight back to spike for a public re-strapping. Ant stages a rescue but is unsuccessful. Although she has a plan B which gets Grey sent to prison and Ant and Mattie free.