Every night she made Glenn check the corners of her room for snakes. “The statistical likelihood of being killed by a snake is roughly equivalent to the likelihood of being killed by a fireworks display,” he said as he searched. He was the most advanced model on the market, indistinguishable from a human male at a glance: dark-haired, younger than Sally, slim as all androids were, with a grave and patient face and a pianist’s hands. His face featured, improbably, faint dark circles under his eyes, giving him a look of roving alertness at times. It was one of those touches that android firms loved to boast about, and which so alarmed the humanists.

“I understand,” Park told him. “Just look, please.”

“There are only eight thousand venomous snakebites reported every year,” Glenn continued, crouching to gaze under her bed. “Of those, only around three hundred victims die. Of those, many are elderly or immune-compromised.”

“Thank you,” Park said, through her teeth. “I understand.” Telling Glenn she understood something—even when she didn’t—was usually the best way of getting him to shut up.

Afterward, he sat by her bed while Park made an attempt at sleep, squirming every time she heard the hiss of controlled rainfall against her window. It gave her a small sense of comfort, knowing that Glenn was standing guard nearby, as Sally had when she was little. If a snake did wend its way into her room, Glenn would kill it in a flash. As her bodyguard, protecting Park was hardwired into his brain.

Most nights she made him shut his eyes while he sat with her; his pupils tended to glow faintly green in the dark. One night he said, his eyes closed as if in meditation: “It’s unusual for you to be so afraid.”

Park pushed her face against the rough weave of her blanket. The window was slightly open, and so were the dome’s great biofiltration vents. She could smell the heavy, briny scent of the sea, intermingled with the blast of chlorophyll coming in from the coast: a smell like mown grass and wet pasta. Her body was shedding damp coats of sweat.

“What do you mean?” Park asked into her pillow. “It’s a basic human trait to feel fear.”

“Yes,” Glenn said, “but you never did before. As a child, you were never afraid of anything.”

“People change,” Park said.

He took some time to process this. “I understand.”

But did he? Park felt suddenly anxious to reason it out with him, to make him see. She tried for a more logical tactic. “You’re not afraid of anything?”

“I feel concern,” Glenn replied. “And worry.”

“Over?”

“You. And to an extent your uncle, because he provides for you.”