You see? She’s said them both. Here we go.

‘It’s just that, looking at their work, knowing that they are surely able to induce certain kinds of brainwaves, then they might be able to tamper with dreams.’

‘Using nanotech? That’s a thing? How?’

‘I don’t know.’ She won’t look at me.

‘Come on, O. Loads of drugs affect your dreams. My uncle took something for dementia and it gave him horrible nightmares. Or how about Daphne, for that matter.’

O’s sister has dementia, but O doesn’t like talking about it so she ignores my remark.

‘If the treatment works with AR, then control could be a possibility,’ O tells me. ‘Using live imaging alongside a BigSky database of millions of brainwave samples correlated with subjective experience. One could add nano-delivered agents implanted in the body with the ability to operate on brain tissue to rebuild, or to build anew. Have you seen the work on remyelination done by nano-engines?’

‘No, I haven’t, because I’m being manipulated by BigSky and their sinister mind-control programme. Must. Buy. Apps.’

I stick my arms out in front of me like a mummy in a Carry On film and shamble around the flat. She isn’t laughing. Not even a little smile. Wow, she hates BigSky. So I give up joking with a sigh, and (a little sarcastically) I recite the words I know she wants me to say:

‘That sounds sinister, O. Is there any science for that?’

‘I just said. Remyelination. Look it up. But you must understand this much, darling: some of these nanotech guys aren’t scientists in the highbrow Ivory Tower sense of the word. They’re engineers, some of them self-taught. You know, the days of Big Science mean that the Victorian scientist who pottered in his shed may be long extinct, but a new subclass has sprung up in the last ten years.’

I don’t believe she’s slept since the night before last. I can tell she’s overtired because she’s waxing philosophical.

‘The New Potting Shed Avengers?’ I quip, because I really don’t want to go back to looking for bear meat on the black market and we’re headed that way now.

‘If you’re clever and have a little money, you can get up to quite a lot these days – that’s why I’m always saying you have to be so careful about drugs. A start-up like this isn’t much more sophisticated than a garage drug factory. The drugs are 4D, of course, but—’

‘4D? What even is 4D?’