‘Sorry. Off-topic. I do that – you’ll have to get used to it. Where was I? The brain! Yes! Or more importantly, the dreaming our brain does while we are asleep. Good old REM sleep.’ He smiled and sang softly, ‘Dream a little dream of me. Or don’t. Dream a little dream and start to reprogramme your mind while you do it. Want to quit smoking? We could get you to dream it, embed it in the dream and magically, you can do it when awake. Nightmares? Reprogramme them into something else, or just get you to turn around in the stupid nightmare and stab the evil clown that’s chasing you. Get smarter, in your dream. Learn a language, in your dream. Supercharge your REM sleep. It can be done.’ He paused for effect. ‘I can do it.’

He rested his chin on his hand. The desk in front of him was a mess of paper, sweet wrappers and cans of fizzy drink scattered wildly.

‘Now I can’t tell you exactly how. Patents, y’know. I’m not stupid. Got to create a multimillion-pound company from this, guys; can’t give my secrets away! It’s all down to elves and unicorns, right?’ He smiled. ‘But you can come with me as we test all of this out. It’s complicated and you’ve got to be delicate, y’know? REM sleep is what stands between rationality and insanity. You don’t want to fuck about with that, do you? Currently it’s all wires and huge equipment and not very consumer friendly, not at all. Got to work on that, got to work on it, lots to do.’

A figure crossed behind him in the background, too quickly and too far away to see properly. Max?

‘Sleep on it, that’s what they say. Ha! Thing is – they’re so right! Ever noticed, yeah, how sometimes you’re thinking about something, trying to work it out, and you go to sleep and the next morning you’ve just got it; it all slots into place? But maybe we can boost that, so that while we “sleep on it” we upgrade each and every night, like we’re the tech.’

Thea paused the video. Moses froze with his mouth open as if about to break into song. Dreams. Rory had been right. But Ing Enterprises had never tried to hide that, had they? It was Phase Three, the part that went beyond sleep and started on self-improvement. There was nothing so scary in that, was there?

She pressed play.

‘Meet Ted.’ A man sat down next to Moses, his skin so pale he looked as if he hadn’t seen the outside world for years, but he was smiling like a little child, waving happily at the camera. ‘Ted’s going to be our new flatmate for a while. Our lab rat. You don’t mind being a lab rat, do you, Ted?’