Petra expected the hologram to stutter through its brief cycle, so when she moved in an organic way, cold fingers shot through her spine. Beccie took a step forward, lowered her head, and spoke back to her father: ‘Floribunda selected to manage the script. This number less than two hours.’

‘I can’t understand you,’ Vincent said, taking another tentative step forward.

‘Everything was destroyed. The more I try to focus on words, it has become more confusing. We have just retreated from Ukraine. That train.’

Vincent began to cry.

‘No, salmon are my favourite molluscs. It was frozen grass, my legs were sick.’ The flash of the hologram’s autonomy expired then as Beccie went silent and nodded, turned to the left… rubbed her right thigh, nodded, wiped her right cheek.

Vincent advanced, reaching out for her, but the image of his daughter floated back from him, her outline brightening as she blended into the wall, almost as if she was one more of the instruments displayed there. The flickering yellow light reflected warmly off her skin.

As he watched her disappear, Vincent’s shoulders slumped. Petra hurried across to him to hold him together, to show him what was real, but as she reached for him her forearm and jaw juddered painfully against a hard surface, invisible in the space between them. The shock jarred through her bones, shooting a rippling pain up her arm and into her skull. Vincent – or really the image of him cast off this surface – wobbled. Wheeling around, Petra saw herself reflected back – several bewildered Petras in a shimmering cave of mirrors, Vincent and Beccie both become invisible in the shimmer. She twisted around, trying to find the originals. Turned once, twice, and stumbled.

Back into the Club Room, Olivia and Ellis Brown watching on, vaguely interested.

‘You see? He’s alright. He’s with his daughter,’ Olivia said.

‘Alright? Do you call that alright? You’re playing with his mind.’ Her arm and jaw throbbed where she’d rammed them into the glass.

‘Ah well,’ Ellis said. ‘He’ll keep, at any rate.’

‘Why are you doing this to him?’

‘I’m not doing anything to him,’ Olivia said. ‘We were offering him a rare opportunity to act.’

Before she could say anything more, Ellis said. ‘We need to go. It’s time.’

‘Oh. Good,’ Olivia said, standing and straightening her dress, pulling the straps of her sandals over her heels. Petra watched her feet, trying to convince herself that she was walking in those elegant pumps across the pile carpet, but there was no clear evidence either way. ‘It’s almost time for the climactic scene at the Fallout Ball; I’m due on set soon. Then you’ll understand why we do what we do. Ellis will take you to your position.’