‘Nope!’ He had a reedy voice and a rash of spots across his chin.

‘Ted here has, of his own free will – it is your own free will, isn’t it, Ted?’ Here Moses grabbed a fistful of Ted’s shirt and raised his arm as if about to punch him. Ted mugged horror for the camera. Then they relaxed, laughing and patting each other on the back. ‘Ted’s going to be hooked up and we’re going to upgrade his mind while he’s asleep. He wants to learn some languages. So we thought we’d start with six. Yeah?’

He high-fived Ted.

‘Now, Ted, for the purposes of truth and accountability I’d like you to say on camera how many languages you can currently speak.’

‘Uh … one. This one. English.’

‘Ted, please hold up your exam certificates for the good people watching.’ He did so. ‘You will note that there are no languages listed there. Now, your degree?’

‘Physics.’

‘Excellent. One more time, you have never spoken fluent French, or Spanish, or Italian, or German, or Russian, or Polish? Right?’

‘Nope. Nyet. Ha! Joking!’ Ted grinned happily at his wit.

‘I’ll cut it down for the purposes of this diary but, if you want to watch the whole thing, I’ll attach another file with all of Ted’s sleep vids and the data we’ve gathered. So Ted, are you ready to get your sleep on?’

Moses came closer so his whole face filled the frame, lowering his voice.

‘Let’s do this!’

Thea liked this Moses. And Ted. They were goofy, clever guys, the kind of guys that no matter their actual age, still dressed like students. She guessed that Moses was in his forties. He had a babyish look to his face but there were fine lines around his eyes. Ted was somewhat younger. The energy from Moses almost fizzed out of the screen and Thea found herself always watching him, even when Ted was saying something.

The picture cut out and a new set of entries played. In these, Moses, jumpy and excitable as a puppy, proudly showed off what Ted could do after three, four, five days of dream therapy. It started off small and they focused on one language at a time, Ted a little uncertain and faltering at the start, but becoming confident and fluent in at least three of the languages by week two.

Thea clicked onto Ted’s sleep diary to get an idea of what happened each night. The oh-so-familiar wires and electrodes were attached and checked by Moses, then Ted was left alone to settle into sleep. Mood music played at first, explained by Moses in a voiceover.