Meera pulls away from the telescope and sees me.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘You’re a fox now? Can’t bear to be indulged, petted by the sympathetic.’

I nod. My freedom may be all I have. Rather than give it up I can get by on energy drinks and kebabs and clients who genuinely need me. Too bad that the ones who really need me can’t pay and the ones who can pay are like Mrs H-W. Or Martin Elstree.

‘You’re scruffy,’ she says, looking me up and down. ‘And scrappy. And now you’re being hunted. What do you make of all this?’ She gestures to the Sweet Dreams platform.

‘I don’t want any part of it,’ I say boldly. ‘I think it’s manipulative.’

‘Really? How?’ Her eyes flash, challenging. Dream-Meera has the same wide face and strong cheekbones as the person I saw on video. She stands facing me squarely with both feet planted wide apart. Like someone who isn’t easy to budge.

‘I just don’t see the need to make dreams into something corporate. Back in the day, indie ASMRtists were providing nearly everything that Sweet Dreams does, for free. For love. Now the same thing is on offer from BigSky for a monthly subscription, and they can use AI that they don’t even have to pay to simulate caring about you.’

I didn’t know I thought that until I hear myself say it. I pace up and down the balcony, which is attached to an ivy-covered building below a lemon-yellow illuminated cycleway. The schuss and whistle of passing cyclists roll overhead like a tide. The balcony doors have been locked behind me.

‘We should really talk face to face,’ Meera says. ‘Soon you’ll be able to avoid Sweet Dreams altogether if you like. Your whole head will be a receiver.’

‘My what now?’

‘You know I’m curing your narcolepsy, right?’

I feel my breath go in sharply. ‘I was going to ask if you could try—’ I say shyly.

She waves a casual hand. ‘It’s already under way. Haven’t you noticed any changes? Think about it.’

There’s a sound of wings fluttering just over my head. Instinctively, I duck and cringe, and when I look up again, Meera is gone. But a swallow has landed on the eyepiece of the microscope. It pecks a few times, then dives off the balcony. I see it make a long, comma-shaped arc in the air, and then it disappears into darkness below.

There’s nothing for it but to look in the microscope. I’m nervous.