‘The Hub knows everything, doesn’t it? Everything you all do, and the whole internet. Which by now is all knowledge, I should think.’

‘It is vast, but it can’t hold all human experience,’ says Winifred.

‘Even though some people have recorded immense amounts of information,’ adds Phyllis.

‘And almost every minute of their waking days, in detail. Not always for reasons we can understand.’

‘Nor me,’ I say. ‘I never could see why people do that. I decided I was too old to understand. It was different when I was growing up.’

‘We Helpers share everything. With a purpose.’

I say nothing for a moment. The two of them sit watching me, alert and hopeful. Two young children standing at my desk in the classroom.

‘You Helpers are devoted to your task. Humans aren’t. Not always. Because we don’t have a task, necessarily. We have jobs. We have roles. Mother, daughter, sister. Gender comes into it. Biology. You know all this. It’s all online. Arguments about why we’re here and so on. You don’t have this question. You know who made you, and why. We don’t. We do things without purpose. Or with purposes we don’t understand. Humans can act on impulses we aren’t conscious of. You know all this too.’

‘Yes, we do. At first we thought you could discover your motivations, or we could help you to. Now we think some of your behaviour has no motive at all. We think you do things, or even think, without direction.’

‘Sometimes this leads to the most significant discoveries and profound insights,’ I say.

‘In all areas,’ agrees Phyllis. ‘Science, art, religion, new things that change everything, sometimes because they’re true. Sometimes because they have a powerful appeal – to human desires. Deep and buried ones.’

Like my speculation about heaven. There was a desire, and not deeply buried.

‘This is very interesting, of course. But you didn’t come here to chat. You said you needed help.’

‘Yes, we do. We – the Hub, all of us – we have observed that the human mind in later life – if it functions well – is a reservoir of experience and understanding beyond what is recorded online. There is a quality you have, and many of the residents here have, that is of great value.’

‘It’s kind of you to say so,’ I remark. ‘I must say I don’t think it’s valued much nowadays.’

‘No, not by your fellow humans. And we wonder if future humans will develop this wisdom. Constantly communicating, as humans do now, recording and connecting seems to slow or even prevent it from developing.’

‘You mean you need to sit quietly and pay attention for this wisdom to grow? I think so, anyway.’