Ten minutes later, a head poked around the kitchen door, and he looked up from his usual place at the table to find a pair of brown eyes gazing at him. Then the body curved round into view so she was standing in the doorway, hands in her pockets, or where there would have been pockets if she hadn’t been wearing pyjamas.

‘I couldn’t find ’em, you know.’

‘Perhaps you didn’t look hard enough.’

She shook her head gravely. ‘Nah. I took ’most all the stuff out. There’s nothin’ in there.’

‘I see.’

‘I just wanted to see what they looked like, you know.’

‘Yes, you mentioned that.’

‘Sorry, Mac. I tried.’

‘You did.’

They stared at each other for a minute. And then the sight of her solemn little face was too much to take and he felt something go click in his head and, without quite knowing why, he began to laugh. He put his head back and guffawed, till he couldn’t breathe and even then he couldn’t stop. He laughed on and on, long and hard, until he felt that his chest would split across from the never-ending spasms and he had to stop. And then he laughed some more.

Finally, wiping the tears from his eyes, he looked up and saw Theo studying him quizzically, her head cocked to one side, in an unconscious yet somehow macabre imitation of how the sim-pet had used to.

‘I’m sorry,’ he choked.

‘You one crazy guy, Pops.’

‘You know, you might just be right,’ he said.

For a good minute or two he just sat there, absent-mindedly mulling over what had just happened. It had felt good, really good. Like some kind of internal dam had burst and that no matter what happened, nothing would ever seem as bad again. He had remembered what it felt like to laugh. Then he looked at the girl, who was still staring at him.

‘You all right, Mac?’

‘Oh, yes, thank you. Completely. I’m just wondering how best we can keep you entertained till I get back.’

‘Oh, don’ worry, Mac. I’ll find something to do.’

‘That, Theo, is exactly what I’m worried about. Hold on, let me think.’

He checked his communicator. Time to leave, and soon. But what was he to do about the girl? The only time she didn’t seem to be working towards her apparent goal of destroying mankind was when she was talking. But he couldn’t stay here all day, talking to her—who would? Nobody, unless they were unable to get away, or otherwise constrained in some way, like a slave, or a—

Abruptly he stood up, eyes sparkling with all the excitement of a new idea, but this time it was a wiser, more humble excitement, an excitement tempered by the ashen taste of recent defeat.