Surreptitiously, Thea glanced at her phone. Without internet connection or a mobile signal, it was now nothing more than an ornament. She didn’t know why she continued to carry it around with her, much less why she couldn’t help but glance at it throughout the day, checking for notifications that would never appear. The landline phones meant Thea had got a few calls in with her mother:

‘So, teapot. Cured yet?’

‘Mum, you are aware that you’ve asked that every time I’ve phoned you? And I phone you every day!’

‘Well, clever company like them, they should have got it sorted by now. Are you?’

‘NO!’

‘I’d be thinking about getting my money back, if I were you.’

‘It doesn’t work like that.’

‘Oh. Well, that’s disappointing. Are you eating?’

‘Yes, Mum. You’d love it, it’s all avocado and mung beans. Actually, you wouldn’t like the coffee. They call it that but really it’s some kind of evil concoction made of—’

‘I heard of a drug trial once. They gave them all something for the common cold and it made their hair fall out. All of their hair, even, y’know, the hair on their—’

‘My hair hasn’t fallen out, so we’re okay.’

‘Made any friends?’

Thea rolled her eyes. ‘Not yet, we’ve only been here a few days. And I’m not six, thanks, Mother. Want to also check I’m wearing clean knickers and eating my breakfast? Look, I have to dash—’

‘Wait! Before you go, I’ve thought of a safe phrase you can say if it turns out to be a cult and they start to listen in – that is, if they’re not already.’

‘Mum!’

‘So this is it okay? I’m really missing the cat. That’s the phrase.’

Thea hadn’t even known that they still made phone handsets like those – chunky, curved white things that people used to have fixed to their walls in Nineties sitcoms. The room had been big enough to fit a side table and a comfortable chair, one of a few similar places scattered around the Client Bubble that had to be booked before use. Thea had thought it would be tricky to get a slot with fifty people trying to phone home at the same time like a bunch of lemming ETs – but she hadn’t had a problem so far.

‘Unfortunately, we are not little white-crowned sparrows,’ the lecturer continued. ‘Well, not yet anyway—’ Cue some polite laughter. ‘There are some people who can actually survive on only a few hours’ sleep, say two or three, and who don’t seem to have any ill effects. The Sleepless Elite, we jokingly call them. Let these people not be mistaken for some celebrities who insist they do fine on such shortened sleep, but their erratic, ill-judged behaviour would suggest otherwise. Name no names, eh?’ More laughter. The lecturer brightened up.