‘I’ve seen the recipe,’ Mango said. ‘The techniques are complex, but it’s doable. Can you get to the bakery straight away?’

Charlie’s regular lab sessions were scheduled in advance and she’d tell her foster parents she was out at a party, or sleeping over at Juno’s. But driving off when most people were scared to leave home would make Jan and Navid ask questions. Charlie decided the best course was to skip out without telling them anything.

The roads were quiet. Fast-food restaurants, cinema and casino parking lots were deserted and many smaller outlets shuttered. The US government had been running a quarantine preparedness campaign for over a year, urging everyone to keep a month’s supply of bottled water, canned food and other essentials in case of a lengthy quarantine. But Charlie still passed a supermarket lot crammed with panic shoppers and Target had a big handwritten sign out front with a long list of items they’d run out of.

For security, Charlie always parked her VW a block and a half from the storage unit where the RV was berthed. Since cell phones are basically a big here I am sign to the authorities, she switched off her handset as she got out.

Juno was walking from the other direction. The storage unit and the RV’s side door were already unlocked and Charlie was pleased to see that the nightmare fuse panel had been swapped for an entirely new unit.

‘Hey, girls,’ Mango said brightly as Juno clanked up the RV’s metal steps.

Charlie was surprised to see Veryan there too. Mango’s wife supposedly had a scientific background, but she was always prickly, and this was the first time Charlie had seen her near the lab.

‘Got new toys!’ Juno said, looking on the cabinet by the sink where three small machines were set up in a row. ‘They finally came! This is state-of-the-art shit.’

‘It’s amazing how fast technology changes,’ Charlie said as she admired the new machines, each with colour touchscreens and no bigger than an espresso maker. ‘This whole set-up is smaller than the old sequencer on its own.’

‘Faster too,’ Veryan said, snapping on a nitrile glove. ‘The printer can generate over ten thousand base pairs per minute. Which, given the complexity of what we’re handling today, will be a big help.’

Besides the trio of new machines, Mango had bought a big box of sterile syringes and vaccine sample vials. There were also four much larger containers with the base compound for a vaccine and a number of chemicals that Charlie hadn’t used before. Finally, there were bottles of Cola and bags of snacks.

‘You’ve been stockpiling all this stuff?’ Charlie asked.

Veryan nodded, and gave a loaded reply, ‘There’s a lot more work behind the scenes than some people seem to realise.’