Paul had done some research on iris scanners on the Internet and talked in general terms to a couple of his techie friends. On Wednesday evening, he told Pia he believed it was definitely possible to fool a scanner, particularly a first-generation scanner, which was the kind generally in use, with a high-resolution photograph of an eye, or even of a whole face, including both eyes. If the picture was good enough, he didn’t think it mattered if the image was in two dimensions and not three, because the iris itself is flat. After a light supper of vegetarian lasagna that Paul had made, he and Pia tested a single-lens, high-resolution camera that could take close-ups as well as normal photos.

“Where did you get this camera from again?” asked Pia.

“It’s from a friend from medical school. Okay, an ex-boyfriend.” Paul looked over at Pia. It was the first time he had implicitly mentioned his sexual orientation. He felt Pia knew, and was as comfortable as he was in not considering it an issue. He noted that Pia hadn’t batted an eyelid.

“We still see each other occasionally. They use these cameras in the lab at his clinic. I don’t even know what for, but it is definitely high resolution and can even take pictures through a microscope. He told me once he got hold of this thing for some art project he was working on. And I’m borrowing it for a few days.”

“It looks normal enough to me,” said Pia.

And it did. It was a little boxier than a regular commercial camera, but Paul told Pia the operation was the same.

Paul wanted to do a test on Pia, so she sat on Paul’s couch and he stood in front of her with a light behind him.

“Keep still, miss, this won’t hurt a bit.” Paul made a leering face and Pia opened her eyes wide.

“Does it matter which eye?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s why we’re trying it out, to find out if it works. Okay, hold still.”

Paul took a number of pictures of both of Pia’s eyes in close-up and also of her face from as close as a foot and as far away as three feet. He told her that he was done.

“So where will you get these printed?” said Pia.

“On my printer here in my apartment. But it may not be necessary to print them, but rather just to leave them in digital form. What I’m thinking of doing is transferring the best image to your phone, and you can try that. Actually, we might even try using the camera in your iPhone. The resolution on the screen of a phone is really very good, particularly the iPhone.”

“Will it be good enough to fool the scanner?”

“We’ll see about that. Has a scanner at Nano ever not let you in?”