She left the block of ice in the cloth on the kitchenette table and put on a summer dress.

Then she put on her walking boots.

She felt like her six-year-old self, going outside in the sun in wellies.

As she stepped out, the air suddenly seemed emptied. The sharp calls of the songbirds quiet. Moments later, the sheep began to wheel on the hill. Moan.

A bumblebee circled with an incongruous drone.

Then the faintest sing came to the wire stays of the accommopods, and the valley filled with the sound of the train starting up.

By the time Cora reached the foot of the hill, the sound was no more than a lessening hush, fading towards the city, hundreds of miles away.

Cora’s dress stuck a little to her skin.

Delicate yellow day-flying moths flew amongst the gorse.

There was a heady coconut smell to the flowers. She picked them and dropped them into the bowl. Patient when she pinned her finger. Sometimes felt showered seeds on her skin. Took a while to link the tickle to the spiky, sporadic pops, punctuations in the air, as the flat, mature pea-pods on the bushes burst in the sun.

She gently pinched the part-closed petals together and pulled; took soft buds, the faint hairs between her fingers, like stroking a small animal’s ear.

Below her, in the bowl of the valley, the foil of the accommopods gleamed like mica. The tech buildings looked no bigger than the squat, low boxes of the bumblebee hives she’d passed on her way up the hill.

Every now and then there was a quiet bump of rabbits.

She was at the same time a long way away and very here. Deeply thoughtful, but content.

Her mind went easily from one thing to another. Rested sometimes. Waited. Flitted.

She thought of Leo.

She thought of lunch.

She thought of raw grated carrot fresh from the nearby farm. The difference the new-farm being here had made. As had the chickens the crew had decided to take on, managing the care by rota and sharing out the eggs. The veg patch they had not quite got to grips with yet.

Thought of how dry the grass was and how she should have put on sun lotion.

And then they were suddenly there.

She jumped. Hard and jolting. A horrible zip through her system.

The two guards stood above her, stepped from the thorn.

Cora felt sick.

She had jumped hard enough to spill gorse around her feet.

She followed the gaze of one of the guards, who looked at the flowers on the ground.

When she looked back, he held her eye.

‘Farm?’ he said.

‘No. I’m with the train. I’m off shift,’ she felt the need to say.

She wished she had her pass. As if it could protect her. As if it could ward them off.

‘What are you doing up here?’ asked the guard.