“Sounds like a great day out for the whole family,” said Nemo, as they slunk up the hill toward another low, sad-looking building.

On Sunday night, Ruthie Drinkwater had stayed in the museum after closing time to make sure her favorite machine was shut down properly. She volunteered there often enough that she had her own set of keys and the complete trust of the small number of paid staff members, who were happy for Ruthie to take care of the shutdown so they could get home to their families. Ruthie had no family to get home to; her work with the machine that she cared for almost daily was the closest thing she had to an intimate relationship. The museum’s director had offered her a paid position on several occasions, but Ruthie had a small inheritance that provided her modest living expenses, and she preferred to work as a volunteer, free to come and go as she pleased and not accountable to any supervisor.

So she happily stayed late and returned all the settings to their default positions, carefully covering the machine with its protective sheeting before turning out the lights and hopping on her bicycle to pedal the three miles home. In her tiny detached cottage at the end of a narrow country lane just outside Newton Longville, she ate a simple supper of roast chicken and potatoes, watched an old episode of Inspector Morse, and retired early with a book. She was just drifting off when her cell phone pinged with a text message that gave her, for the first time in years, a case of insomnia.