Her home is large and sumptuous. As she’s one of the most talented biohackers in the world, this doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is how cluttered it is. On the way here, Nazarin told me that Kim collects old memorabilia, specifically from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, before the Great Upheaval. I think he told me so I wouldn’t be quite so taken aback when I saw it all.

Most of the cheesy knickknacks from the past have been recycled by now, but Kim hunts down the remaining ones and probably pays a lot of money for the lurid plastic and metal figurines that seem to stare at us as we walk through the lounge. Superheroes and celebrities I don’t recognize, cartoon animals with eyes far too large for their faces. It all seems strangely alien to me as someone who grew up in the Hearth. There, nothing was made by robots or replicators and toys were hand-carved and took weeks to make. Here, in San Francisco, so much was ordered and then recycled the next day. Clothes worn once, plates made of compostable material. Cherishing things from the past was rare. I mean, what in the world was Hello Kitty?

“Like ’em?” Kim asks, noticing my stare. “I got the biggest collection on the West Coast.”

“They’re … interesting,” I say.

She laughs. “Yeah, it’s tacky as hell, but I don’t care. A girl’s gotta have a hobby.” She was serious when she let us in, but now she’s striving for lightness. It’s forced. Underneath she’s as scared as we are.

At the end of the hall, Kim presses her fingertip to the sensor and the door slides open. We step through into her lab.

Though the lab is small, it’s fitted with the best equipment, stuff I would have killed to have in my lab at Silvercloud Solutions. The Chair bolted to the floor in the middle of the room reminds me uncomfortably of the Zealot lounge.

“All right, who’s going first?” she asks.

“Me,” Nazarin says, to my relief. He sits in the Chair, and Kim straps him in.

“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she mutters to herself.

“Yes, you do.”

“Don’t kid yourself, babe,” she says, pinching his cheek. “You’re not my type.”

She winks at me and I smile a little.

“OK, then. You want to prove to yourself you can do it. I’ve appealed to your professional pride.”

“That’s a bit closer, but you forget, I’ve done this before.”

“I guess that’s a comfort,” Nazarin says. “You won’t leave me blind and deaf.”

“Most likely not.”

Neither of them mentions Juliane. I have the feeling they rarely speak about her, even though she’s a shared link between them. Too painful for them both. Better to banter and tease, even when they’re both terrified.