‘So when exactly did I become the Make-a-Wish Foundation?’ Caplan protested irritably.

‘This isn’t charity,’ Nasim insisted. ‘It would yield valuable information for both of us.’ She was sure Caplan could see that; he was probably just annoyed that she was trying to set the agenda.

He said, ‘What would you tell your own staff, your own management?’

‘That it’s research that could lead to even better Proxies,’ Nasim replied. ‘Which is perfectly true. If this works, Martin benefits, Zendegi benefits, you benefit. If it doesn’t, we’ll probably still learn a great deal just from seeing exactly where things fail. So what’s the downside?’

She waited, wondering if Caplan was going to make her swear not to turn Martin’s Proxy into a transcendent being who would rob him of his rightful place as lord of the solar system.

He said, ‘If it doesn’t work, are you prepared to clean up the mess? To put your botched creation out of its misery?’

Nasim was about to reply scornfully that the Proxy would be immune to any such need, but she caught herself. That was certainly the result she’d be aiming for: a devoted parent who lived in the moment, committed to his son’s wellbeing, but no more capable of contemplating – or regretting – his own nature than Virtual Azimi or the chatty Faribas.

A failure, though, could miss that target in many different directions.

Nasim steeled herself. She said, ‘I’ll spell out all the risks to Martin; in the end he’s the one who’ll have to decide the fate of anything derived from his own mind. But yes, if it comes down to it, I’m prepared to clean up the mess.’

19

Martin had begun shaving his head three weeks before it was necessary, to give Javeed time to grow used to his altered appearance before he was confronted with the more significant change: the change in their routine. He’d been expecting a tantrum when he broke the news, so he chose the time and place carefully: at home, the day before their next visit to Zendegi, having just made their choices on the website.

‘But I want to go to the shop!’ Javeed screamed.

‘Sssh. We’ll still go to the shop, straight afterwards. You can still talk to Uncle Omar and Farshid.’

‘But that’s stupid!’

It was a fair complaint. If they were going to Omar’s shop anyway, why not use the ghal’eha there?

‘Aunty Nasim has a special kind of ghal’e that’s easier for me to use, easier on my back. So she very kindly said that we could use that.’

‘I hate her!’ Javeed proclaimed.

‘No, you don’t,’ Martin said flatly. ‘You hardly know her. Anyway, you don’t even have to talk to her. We’ll go there, we’ll use the ghal’eha, then we’ll go to the shop. Okay?’

‘No! I want to do it the proper way!’ Javeed’s face contorted in anguish.

‘Well, you have a choice: we can go to Aunty Nasim for Zendegi, then visit Uncle Omar in the shop, or we can just stay home and you can play for an hour on your console instead.’

Javeed’s face became a shade redder. ‘That’s not fair!’

‘That’s the choice. Now do you want to help me cook dinner?’

‘No – I’ll help you throw it in the toilet where it belongs!’

Martin forced himself not to smile. ‘Shaitan nasho. And if you don’t like my cooking, that’s all the more reason to help.’

Javeed sat and wept as if the world were ending, but Martin hardened his heart. Javeed was too stubborn to reconcile himself to the new plan immediately, but while part of his insecurity obviously stemmed from Mahnoosh’s death, Martin had no intention of letting that become a reason to indulge him on everything.

Within an hour, the tantrum had cooled into a long sulk. Javeed was not quite stubborn enough to start throwing food or breaking things and risk losing Zendegi completely.

After school the next day, they caught the bus to the small office block north of the city centre that housed Zendegi’s operations. Apparently most of the actual computers were elsewhere, scattered around the globe and leased as required. Nasim was waiting for them in the lobby; Javeed was aloof rather than downright rude to her, and Martin suspected that he just came across as shy.

On the fifth floor, Martin explained to Javeed, ‘My ghal’e is a special kind, like I told you, so I’ll be in a room close by, but not right next to you.’ He tensed, prepared for an outburst, but Javeed just gave him a dissatisfied glare. When they reached the end of the corridor Bahador met them; he introduced himself to Javeed by waving a child-sized football jersey prominently signed by Ashkan Azimi. ‘Agha Ashkan told me I should give this to a friend of mine, but I don’t know anyone in quite the right size.’ Javeed’s eyes lit up with delight. He knew he was being bribed into compliance, but yesterday’s complaints suddenly seemed petty.

Martin squatted down and kissed him. ‘Be good, pesaram. I’ll see you in Zendegi.’

Nasim led Martin to the MRI room. The scanner was far more compact than the older model in the hospital’s radiology department – a machine that Martin had come to know all too well – but Bernard, the Swiss technician who operated Zendegi’s version, had assured Martin that the magnetic field was an order of magnitude stronger. Martin had come in on three mornings the previous week to learn how to control his icon while lying flat on his back with his head immobilised in a padded helmet.

He took out his wallet and removed his watch, his wedding ring, his belt and his shoes. He was wearing clothes that had been pre-checked and certified metal-free to save him from having to change for the scanner, but Bernard ran a detector over him quickly to be sure.

Nasim fitted the skullcap that would be used to take EEG recordings simultaneously with the multi-mode MRI; Martin sat beneath a UV light and watched in a mirror as the semi-permanent tattoos they’d given him revealed themselves with green fluorescence, to aid in the alignment of the cap. In order to limit interactions with the MRI’s magnetic field and radio pulses, the skullcap’s ‘circuitry’ was purely optical, reading the electric field leaking out of his brain by observing its effect on tiny capsules of electrolytes incorporated into the tattoos.

Bernard swabbed Martin’s arm with disinfectant and injected him with a mixture of contrast agents that had been magnetically polarised overnight in a special-purpose machine. You could image brain activity to a certain extent just by watching haemoglobin in the blood losing its oxygen to hungry neurons, and that was one signal they’d be looking for. But there were a dozen other processes that could be monitored simultaneously with modern machines – making the image sharper, more responsive and more informative – and extra chemicals with enhanced magnetic properties were needed to render those processes visible. Bernard had sketched the details, but Martin had had too much else on his mind to take it in. It was sufficient to know that they were pulling out all the stops to gather as much information as possible.

Nasim passed him a pair of gloves and he slipped them on, then she helped him with his goggles; all of this equipment had been specially built for use in and around the scanner. He walked over to the MRI, lay down and wriggled around to try to find a reasonably comfortable position that allowed his head to sit in the custom-moulded restraint.

‘Everything okay?’ Nasim asked.

‘Yes, thanks.’ Martin’s stomach was clenched with anxiety, but he’d already asked all the questions he could think of the week before. Nasim had assured him that there was nothing he could do that would corrupt the side-loading process; even if he thrashed about and spoiled the scan, they’d just discard the bad data. There was no risk of it being used inadvertently and turning the Proxy’s brain to mush.