They had been to the café that morning, the police station straight afterwards and it was now late afternoon. Trying to find a UK address for Ing Enterprises had proved difficult but Thea had told her where she had gone for her preliminary testing and it seemed as good a place to start as any.

They could have done the well-worn routine, though Vivian was a bit rusty at it now. She and Delia had done the old “name and shame” for years. One of them would be in front of the camera at whatever firm they needed to “out” that week and the other would film and whip up the protestors outside. Then it all went on the website and, latterly, Delia’s grandson would post it to YouTube with links to relevant articles.

Vivian had taken a step back from being in front of the camera, but Delia was embracing modernity and had lately taken to doing the filming on her new smartphone. Consequently, they’d recently had rather a lot of films of Delia’s thumb.

Vivian had known that wouldn’t work here.

She had been right.

There was no receptionist. There was no reception. There was just gloss and shine and a few discreet screens set into the walls.

‘Viv? What do we do?’ Delia whispered as she pushed her bright purple glasses up onto her head.

The only man in the room blinked at them confusedly and then turned to one of the screens. In a few seconds it had scanned his face and a doorway slid open next to him.

‘Are we even in the right place?’ Delia looked around anxiously and nearly dropped her phone. ‘Only, there’s no sign and, well, we can’t afford another lawsuit this tax year …’

‘Ms Mackenzie.’

Vivian honestly could not have said from where the woman and her two guards had appeared. One minute there was a blank wall bouncing her own voice around, and the next there was this … creature. She was a creature. Perhaps she had even slithered out from the very wall itself, so glossy and shiny was she. Vivian understood make-up, she understood the pleasure of using a bit of colour and powder to enhance your looks, or, in her case, to stop one from looking as if they’d been recently dug up. But she did not understand this mask that many women these days chose to wear; a mask an inch thick that didn’t enhance, but hid. Why did women these days feel the need to hide?

‘How—?’

‘Facial recognition on entry.’ The woman smiled. ‘But we knew you would be coming.’

‘I won’t be leaving until I speak to someone in charge of the Morpheus trial going on right now.’ Vivian nudged Delia to start filming just for backup, startling her so much that she nearly dropped the phone again.