“Now shut up,” she says, without rancor. “I have to concentrate.”

He dutifully shuts up as Kim attaches the last of the wires. It is almost exactly the same set-up as at the Zeal lounge, and I say so.

“Where do you think they got the idea for it, buttercup?” she asks. “Who do you think helped develop Zeal, if not the biohackers? Grade A Sudice merchandise right from the start.”

It’s rather obvious now that I think about it, but I know nobody who did Zeal, except Mia. My throat twinges as I think of her. She didn’t have a funeral, and even if she had, no one would have come.

Kim turns on the screen on the table next to the Chair, her quick fingers dancing as she brings up the various controls. It only strikes me now how dangerous this all is.

Kim is going to hack into Nazarin’s brain.

“Does it hurt?” I ask. Switching my identity had been easy and painless. This isn’t a chip in a wrist. Implants are wired right into your brain.

“It won’t be pleasant, I’m sorry to say.” She fills a syringe with unidentified liquid. “Why do you think we don’t have our implants set to record as standard? Be able to keep our memories and replay them in their entirety whenever we want?”

“No idea.”

“We’re not meant to remember every little thing. If we were, that’s what our brains would do. They’re not meant to store so much. They can be overwhelmed. Even brainloading is too much for many. Not every brain can do it. But non-stop recording? I am part of a Sudice project that works on it.” She pauses, looking haunted. “Some subjects end up going crazy, and some brains shut down. Aneurysms. Strokes. Poof. Gone.” She snaps her fingers. “So it will probably be nixed pretty soon. Most of us involved in the project are glad it hasn’t been easy, to tell the truth. You know why?”

I shake my head.

“It makes people vulnerable. People already try to hack into implants all the time—send adverts and things. Imagine hacking into your very being. Your very self.”

I lick my lips. And what would the government do with that power?

“The government are trying,” she says, echoing my thoughts. “Boy, are they trying. They fund all our research, and it isn’t cheap. If brain recording worked better, you can bet your bottom dollar that we’d all be recording, all the time. I mean, surveillance is old as time.”

She drifts off, fiddling with something, and then sets the code to process. “Anyway, it’s been abandoned for widespread use now, until they can figure out how not to fry people. Maybe at some point we’ll crack it fully. Until then, I developed a way to turn it on for anyone, at least for a little while. A back door.”