She walked past a group soaking up the sun on a grassy slope. There were more women here than she’d anticipated, putting her prejudices in place. She had been surprised by Hannah’s love of maths and science, her curiosity about the universe and how it worked. She’d encouraged it like any parent would, but she never understood it. Maybe STEM subjects were the way forward. When society collapses and we end up in a bleak apocalypse, the scientists and engineers who can build stuff, purify water and make fire will be in charge. She saw a notice for the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions and wondered about that. The science of having a breakdown or getting a divorce? She spotted the entrance to the James Clerk Maxwell Building and headed towards it.

She entered and looked at the signposts, Condensed Matter to 57the left, Stellar Evolution to the right, Atmospheric Dynamics through the back, Complex Systems upstairs. Each phrase seemed like a code for something unknowable. Hannah would understand what they meant. Jenny had a flash of dislocation, the fact that a person she’d created all those years ago had such a different life, different mind, to her own. When Hannah was five, they used to play a simple colour-combination guessing game, and Jenny could always win if she wanted to because she knew her daughter so well she could predict what she would choose every time. No hidden thoughts, no secrets, no independent ideas. Of course that changed, it was natural, but it still left a hole in Jenny that couldn’t be filled.

She followed the signs upstairs, fourth floor, room 4.16 at the end of a corridor. There was a poster for the Quantum Club taped to the door, a picture of a tardis on it. They were meeting in two days at The Old Bell up the road. Underneath was another piece of A4 with four names on it, including Bradley Barker.

She took a picture of the door with her phone, then knocked.

‘Come in.’

The voice sounded surprised, as if no one ever came here. She pushed the door. Squeezed into a tiny office were four desks with laptops, piles of textbooks and papers, notices for physics conferences on the walls alongside a poster for Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. There were two guys and a girl here, the air thick with the smell of cheap noodles. The three of them stared at Jenny like she’d grown a second head.

‘I’m looking for Bradley Barker.’

The kid nearest her nodded. ‘That’s me.’ Soft Aussie accent and curly dark hair in a mess. He was wearing small-rimmed glasses and an Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. T-shirt.

‘I want to talk to you.’ Jenny felt in control here, but had no idea where that came from. Maybe just the age difference, life experience.

‘And you are?’58