I told him that Logan had died and that under Continuity of Command Protocol SX-70 I was continuing his duties. There were more questions after this and eventually, seemingly satisfied, a guard unlocked the outer door and let us in. After the surrender of my Bambi we entered a large and expensively decorated reception lobby, with a domed ceiling, a grand staircase behind and several double-width corridors heading off into the complex. Facing the desk was a large stained-glass window of considerable opulence that told the story of HiberTech Industries, and on the wall was a large HiberTech logo that dwarfed the twin portraits of Gwendolyn XXXVIII and Don Hector. Also of note were two golf carts parked up with a nightwalker in each, staring blankly at the floor. This was surprising; driving a golf cart was well beyond the skill level of any redeployed that I’d seen. Incongruously, they had been given name badges. Some wag had named them Chas and Dave.

‘Welcome to HiberTech,’ said the security guard in a cheery manner. His name, I noted from his badge, was Josh. He wore a black uniform with the HiberTech logo stitched on the top pocket, and behind him there were framed certificates of the ‘HiberTech Reception Desk Employee of the Week’, which were all him. Either he was the only one, or he was the only one any good at it.

‘Always happy to have visitors,’ he continued. ‘I’m something of a visitor myself, being from Canada. You should visit. We have one hundred and forty-eight mountain ranges, but somehow we’re mostly known for our trees. Most of the country is trees, actually.’

‘I’d like to go,’ I said, ‘but isn’t it all a little, well, frozen?’

‘Only in a glaciated permanent snow ice-field and tundra-y sort of way. Oh, and let’s get any confusion sorted out: lacrosse, our true national game, is intentionally violent, whereas hockey is incidentally violent, and unless you’ve got time to spare, don’t ask me about counterfeit maple syrup. Goodness, is that a bouzouki?’

‘It is,’ I said, and Mrs Tiffen dutifully began to play ‘Delilah’. Josh handed me back my documents.

‘Can’t be too careful,’ he said. ‘Infiltrators from RealSleep are never far away. Ever met one?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘or at least, not that I know of: what do they look like?’

‘They look like everyone else. That’s the whole problem.’

He stared at me for a moment, with his right eyebrow arched just higher than his left.

‘You look as though you’ve recently taken some bad karma.’

‘You could say that.’

‘I simply abhor Weltschmerz. What can I do to cheer you up?’

I thought about Logan.

‘How are you at erasing poor life-changing decisions in a time-travelly sort of way?’