He chose the best restaurants, and even though the bill was sometimes a bit . . . but it was OK, because her credit card kept on extending the overdraft and she was still making minimum payments, and besides, he’d take her out a lot anyway, pay for her drinks down the club, though she’d always insist she was her own woman and could pay for herself.

He had interesting, intelligent friends too. Not the swaggering, show-offs of the estate agents, not men (and women) whose whole careers were built around the bluster and the sell, but cultivated, clever friends who’d chosen their upgrades with real discernment, and exercised, just for that added bit of self-control, to prove that they were capable of it. Every Saturday, their photos would go up on social media, proud athletes conquering new challenges, even if the nanos did most of the work.

Jiannis knew vegans, whose nanos were programmed to fill in the protein deficiencies of their diets; he knew teetotallers who’d paid – she had no idea how much; she couldn’t find the upgrade online anywhere – for an at-will upgrade to stimulate an endorphin and dopamine rush that was, they swore, better than LSD, but which they only used on Sundays or between the hours of 11 and 12 p.m. on Friday nights, because they didn’t need this shit to feel good. They didn’t need any of it. They made choices. And their choices made them magnificent.

She sat down with Jiannis to compare nanos the day she moved in with him. He laughed at some of her upgrades, tutted at others – mostly at things she didn’t have – applauded her taste in many of her physical enhancements.

“Elevation,” he chuckled. “I knew there was something about you. Christ, when I’m near you it’s just . . . Jesus.”

For a moment, she wondered if he’d ask her to turn it off, and wasn’t sure she would. What was sex like, when your body wasn’t rushing with hormones, when your skin didn’t transmit a come-hither, all-pervasive allure, when there were just parts pressing against other parts, biology happening, instead of something extraordinary, profoundly beautiful, like it was in the movies? She wasn’t sure she could remember, but somewhere at the back of her mind the face of Jarek the third-year student floated, astonished, indignant.

“Don’t you have upgrades?” he’d whispered, and she closed her eyes to try and drown his face in the dark, and opened them again to see Jiannis, all man, all himself, reaching out to stroke her chin, enamoured of her beauty, her wonder, herself.

“You are beautiful,” he murmured. “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.”

Chapter 13

Her mum had her first stroke three months after Harmony moved in with Jiannis.

It could have been worse, the doctors said. Her nanos automatically detected the biological malfunction and rushed to the site of the clot to dissolve it before the damage could spread too far. Even though she didn’t have anything specifically programmed for the job, her mum’s insurance had an emergency medicine clause in it which could detect major events. She had to pay an extra £400 on her end-of-month bill for the unexpected activation, and didn’t walk quite right afterwards, leaning sometimes on a walking stick and finding her left leg sluggish to respond.