Janice’s hand goes up. “Blood,” she says simply.

“We’ll get to it when we loop back to planning, after the retrospective. Are you okay with that?” He stares at her.

“Copacetic,” she mutters bitterly.

“Good.” Oscar sits down. “Back to you, Mhari . . .”

“Okay!” Mhari beams at the Scrum. Her crimson lip gloss glistens beneath the spotlights. “Quickly, PROTECTIVE CLOTHING and LATEX MASKS. Direct sunlight burns us within seconds. I’m talking third-degree burns here, very nasty stuff. You do not want to shine a UV torch on your skin, either: we’re photosensitive. We can see in the dark, and I notice everyone’s got constricted pupils in office lighting conditions. On the other hand, we heal really fast. A one-millimeter deep cut in the skin actually heals in about an hour without scarring. Burns, similarly. That which does not kill us seems not to harm us too badly. And clothing—anything that blocks the sunlight—works fine.”

Mhari takes a step back and raises her skirt to flash her left knee. “Look.” She’s wearing opaque black tights. “I stuck my leg in a sunbeam. After about a minute it was tingling and painful, but that’s all. I exposed the back of my wrist to the same sunbeam and had a first-degree burn, with blistering, after two seconds. So it doesn’t take much fabric.” She smoothes down her skirt, then picks up a carrier bag from beside her chair. “So then I went looking for an emergency kit, and I came up with this.” She reaches into the bag and pulls out a mass of black fabric. “This is a jilbab, with niqab—that’s the face-veil—and gloves. The only skin it doesn’t cover is the eyes.” She rummages in the bottom of the bag and pulls out a pair of wrap-around shades: “And that’s what these are for. It’s not much fun, but I walked about for a quarter of an hour in daylight yesterday and I only got burned on the bridge of my nose. I recommend we all get two of these, and keep one by our desk and one at home as emergency escape kits. Sorry, gents, I know it doesn’t go with your self-image, but look at it this way: blood-sucking bankers in burkhas could be next summer’s hot new fashion!”

“What about the latex?” asks Oscar.