There was a soft chime as the lift reached the lowest level of the building and the doors slid open. Triggered by the movement, banks of LEDs blinked into life, bathing the garage in a soft white light.

Dorothy’s moment of melancholy was lightened by the sight that greeted her. Sanaul always referred to the garage as ‘Miss Dorothy’s Toy Box’ and he wasn’t wrong. The two Honda Fireblade motorcycles alone were enough to lift her spirits but it was the sleek vehicle parked beside them that was her real pride and joy.

The Hypergreen, prototype of an ACE-funded start-up in Malaysia, looked like a classic sports car and could go from zero to 90 miles an hour in just over 3 seconds – and yet it was every bit as green as its name and paintwork would suggest. The car was parked on a pad on the floor that charged it wirelessly; with a full charge, the liquid-cooled solid-state battery gave the car a range of over 400 miles.

Unlocking the Hypergreen, she slipped into the driver’s seat and grinned as the electric motors hummed into life. Using the paddles on the steering wheel to put the car into gear, she pulled out of the parking space then accelerated up the ramp out of the garage and into the chill morning air.

‘Wicked,’ she murmured. Then bit her lip and eased up on the accelerator. What was she, 16 again?

Even at this time in the morning, traffic was already starting to build up. In another hour it would be nose-to-tail and by 8am central London would be virtually gridlocked. Although that was a downside to where she had chosen to build her headquarters, it did at least give her a cast-iron excuse to give Sanaul as to why she couldn’t make it back in time for that DEC meeting …

Turning onto the Victoria Embankment, she made her way alongside the Thames for a short while before snaking her way up through Covent Garden and Holborn then up past Regent’s Park and onto the Westway heading out of London. As soon as she reached the elevated section by Paddington Station, the temptation to just floor the accelerator was almost too much to resist. She restrained herself.

Crikey, I must be getting old …

The first time that she had ever driven anything had been on this stretch of road. Her friend Flo had been dating a plumber who, for some reason that she couldn’t recall, was nicknamed Darth Vader. One Sunday Darth had decided that he was going to teach Dorothy how to drive and, after an hour or so grinding the gears of his beaten-up transit in the carpark of B&Q, they had headed out onto the Westway.