‘But, imagine it, Max,’ he said softly. ‘I give you this sleep tech. You get the opportunity to reboot your brain and dream your way to a cleverer, better you. Imagining it? Good. Now imagine that in those dreams, so subconsciously embedded you won’t even realize, you are actually being influenced to buy a certain brand of trainers, or drink a certain type of water, or, fuck it, vote for a certain politician. Like product placement. But in your dreams.

‘Actually no, not like product placement because right now, you notice it, don’t you? In a film, when the handsome action hero gives you a flash of his designer watch? You know you’re being sold to. Well, hopefully, you know. In your dream it won’t be like that. You won’t know it’s happening and it will change the choices you make the next day, every day. Not little choices. It might start with the small stuff: what food to buy, what colour to dye your hair, what toy a child wants for Christmas, but slowly and surely, it will spread. It will fucking spread. Whoever has the money and the opportunity to use the tech, will use it and they will use it for a host of things we haven’t even thought of yet.’

Thea paused the video again, her hand shaking. Phase Three wasn’t self-improvement. Phase Three was … mind control? That couldn’t be right. There was no way any company would be allowed to sneak into people’s dreams like that and use them for their own gain. There were laws against that kind of thing. Or there would be.

In the freeze frame, Delores had been caught about to sit down and, paused mid-movement, it looked as if she’d been winded, as if Moses had given her a kick to the stomach, which had doubled her over. A silver moon glinted on her belt.

Thea pressed play.

Delores sagged onto the arm of a chair and didn’t say anything for a while. She played with one of her bangles and then sighed. ‘But, I mean, anything like that, it’s so far in the future, it’s … I don’t know, sci-fi. We don’t have to worry about that now.’

Moses stayed silent.

‘Isn’t it? That’s what you said.’ Delores looked up at him, her eyes sharp.

‘That’s what I thought at the time.’

‘Jesus!’ Delores started to pace, coming in and out of view. Moses sank into his desk chair. ‘Building blocks, you said. Just building blocks that no one else would be able to work with …’

‘But that’s the thing about building blocks, Max – they can be built upon.’

Delores continued to pace. ‘But there would be all sorts of checks and controls on any kind of tech like that—’