Then you’ve two choices, she says. See your GP and get some drugs. Or try the process.

The process, he echoes.

Yes.

Didn’t help Merriweather, he says, and she’s instantly curious.

How was he when you last saw him? Calm? Peaceful?

No. Not really, no.

Was there anything unusual about his behaviour?

He stapled me to some shelves, says Logan, rubbing his palm. But there’s nothing there. No injury.

Sorry, she says, what? He did what?

No, thinks Logan. Wasn’t that a dream? He remembers the figure that walked past his car; the figure he followed.

He seemed upset, anyway.

Then he hasn’t done the process, she says. I can’t check the records, you understand, but I’d stake my life on it.

Or mine, says Logan.

Nothing bad has come out of this yet, she says. No abnormal reactions. You have to sign the usual disclaimers as a legal precaution, but honestly, Logan, we’ve had over five hundred people don the jellyfish and not a single one is worse off.

I don’t know about that. April Smith is ranting about death being some kind of blessing.

But is she worse off, Logan? Is she in a worse position than she was before? Legally speaking? Or in terms of sanity?

He considers.

No. I suppose not.

And does she seem happier?

He compares the hard-eyed, withdrawn April he worked so fruitlessly to crack open with her new garrulous, rhapsodic incarnation.

Yes, I guess so.

He doesn’t understand what happens when he’s with Dr Salmon. How as he moves into her sphere he is altered, his whole course diverted from its intentions. His very thinking reversed. Some magic she does, some hold she has over him. As though, in her immediate proximity, he slips from his track and into hers. A small part of him is tapping out Morse.

I need to think this through, he says.

Go for a walk, she suggests.

I’ll go for a walk, he agrees.

‌Semi-transparent

Dusk is falling. Inside the building, lights are coming on automatically in occupied rooms. As Logan walks through the Alterman complex, tonguing the twinge of his wisdom tooth, the corridors light up ahead of his footsteps like a pinball’s high-score totalizer. Whether he is illuminating them, or they him, he isn’t sure. Nor is he sure where he might walk that would be roomy enough to lay out his thinking; away from Dr Salmon it feels tangled and chaotic. Preoccupied with unravelling pros from cons, he allows his unconscious mind to dictate his direction at junctions: left or right, straight on or turn. Now, directly in his path, a wall of glass, a glass door. Behind the glass is darkness: an internal oasis of shadow he can only make out dimly in the failing light. A ghostly reflection: half him, half darkness, one overlaying the other.