Though she never had a name, the assistant was used to being someone. People were, for instance, frightened of her, on the fourth floor at Uniment & Poe, on Straint Street or Tupolev, on the sidewalk by the cake stall on Retiro Street. The assistant was used to having a presence in places like that. Here it wasn’t the same. Everyone was EMC. They spoke and walked as if they were thinking about something else. She was just someone who had arrived with Rig Gaines. When they came up to talk to him, they ignored her. Her chemistry didn’t work on them the way it worked on Epstein or her friend George. For instance a man called Case came up and said:

‘Is this her? Jesus.’

Case looked as if he had outlived himself. A tall man, with an air of once being heavily built, he walked bent over and bearing down awkwardly on two sticks. Both hips had gone. Like anyone else he could have had himself fixed but he had left it too long, out of carelessness or even some kind of inverted vanity, and now preferred this cooked, hairless look. His hands were ropy with veins, the skin over them shiny and slack. His brown head seemed too big for his neck; his underlip, the texture of braised liver, drooped in exhausted surprise at finding himself still alive. He stood in front of the assistant, staring greedily at her but at the same time with a curious lack of interest, as if he remembered women but his body didn’t. He whispered to himself. After a moment or two he leaned forward and tapped her forearm sharply.

‘Rig tells me you have some Kv12.2 expression issues,’ he said.

‘Is he talking to me?’ she asked Gaines.

‘We could help with that,’ Case said. ‘It’s just a small design flaw. Do you understand? Effectively, you have epilepsy.’ When she didn’t answer, he asked Gaines, ‘Does she understand anything?’

‘Honey, you could breathe through your mouth less,’ the assistant said.

Case blinked at her.

‘I never expected any sense out of you, Rig,’ he said to Gaines, ‘but this is moronic. You have no idea what will happen if we do this.’

Gaines’ response was to shrug. One way or another, he supposed, they would get some science out of it. This bland assumption turned into an argument in which Case’s team joined. They all talked at once. ‘Science?’ Case shouted at one point. He held both his sticks in one hand so he could make a contemptuous gesture with the other. ‘Science is off. It’s been off ever since you and Emil walked into this fucking place!’

Laughter all round.

‘I don’t like these people,’ the assistant said loudly.

Everyone stopped talking.