Albert was sitting very straight up now. His mouth was dry, his heart pounding. The uneasy feeling in his stomach was growing by the second—a terrible, twisting feeling—some primal animal instinct telling him that he was about to hear something dreadful, something he didn’t want to hear.

‘The first resolution, which was to be shared with the general population, stated that the current situation was unsustainable. This was the only public statement by the Board on the subject of the Epidemic that ever appeared.’

Albert blinked, the knot in his stomach easing ever so slightly. This wasn’t so bad. That animal-instinct stuff was all probably overrated anyway, and with good reason too. After all, if it had been all that effective, then the damn animals would still have been around themselves, instead of languishing as archived educational videos.

‘The second, which was only to be shared with select Company employees, was that in the current scenario the primary objective would be to protect the family and senior Company executives. To this end, the first step was for the Company to immediately distance itself from the product. And thereby was created perhaps the most devious scheme of all—to base the lie on the truth. The Interface was not to be eliminated from record or memory—there was no way to guarantee that such a step would work—nor would it have eliminated all possible whispers or rumours that might reach the new population.’

‘New population?’

‘Yes, the new population. You will understand what that meant in a moment. For them, the Interface was to be reclassified as the hardware equivalent of a street narcotic, a simple drug-delivery device, both to reduce any allusion to its being anything other than a cheap kick for thrill-seekers and to make the imposition of strict regulations around it easier. And of course, any and all records to the contrary would be immediately expunged.’ He paused meaningfully. ‘All records. Files, places—and people.’

‘What do you mean, people?’

‘A few—a very select few—would be offered a choice.’

‘What choice?’

‘I am coming to it, but in effect, to cooperate with the objectives of the other resolutions. So, as I said, these few people would be offered a choice—for a price. The rest would be deleted with the records. The lawbots came in especially handy for this.’

Albert felt a chill running up his back, all the way to the nape of his neck. ‘You mean—’

‘Yes, that is what I mean. The objective was to protect the family and senior Company personnel, and that was exactly what was done. The security blanket would start from the very top and move downwards, until the last sustainable cut-off point. Everyone else would be abandoned.’

The uneasy feeling sharpened, so it wasn’t a feeling any more but a certainty—black clouds of foreboding hanging over his head, ready to rain despair on him at any moment.