What? The old one did not like surprises.

'It was then that the director-general of the UN founded a new consortium to continue development of Air.'

'Tui. She died. The same day you did.'

Someone answered Mae aloud: 'What? That's a horrible thing to say!'

Mae replied, 'She threw herself down a well, don't you remember? I know you're dead, but you have been told about it many times. The day of the Air Test – it was months ago. She died. By the way, who are you speaking to?'

The desk said, 'But the new consortium struggled for lack of funds.'

'This is a terrible thing to do, to try to scare an old lady this way!'

'Scare? All I asked was, who are you talking to?'

'I…I… Well, Mae, of course!'

Mae remembered Aunt Wang Cro. She would pretend and pretend that everything was fine. There were no mirrors in the room. 'Mae? Where is Mae? Can you see her in this room?'

Mae leaned back in case the old one could see her reflection in the desk.

The desk stopped teaching. 'Excuse me, was that an instruction? I do not understand.'

Mae pushed again. 'Okay. Who are you?'

'I am…' The thing stopped. For a moment, it had no identity. 'I am… I am Madam Tung Ai-ling!'

'Then who are you talking to?' Mae thrust words like a knife.

'Excuse me, was that an instruction?'

'I don't know! I can't see! I'm blind. This is terrible to do to an old blind lady – make fun of her! Why are you doing this?'

The thing tried to stand up. It tried to look about. Mae could feel a twitching in the nerves of her legs and neck and eyes. She needs my body to live, Mae thought. She wants it.

'So,' Mae asked airily. 'Do you like being in Yeshiboz Sistemlar?'

'Excuse me, was that an instruction?'

'No!' Mae told the desk. 'Please continue lesson.'

'Who are you talking to?' Mrs Tung demanded in triumph.

'An intelligent desk. They make them these days. It's giving me a lesson in the UN Format.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

'Of course you don't; you can't remember anything from one minute to the next. You are here in Karzistan's most important medical-computer complex. Where did you think you were?'

'I don't… It's of no importance!'

'When international fundraising efforts failed, the major Company offered to pay for both Formats, promising to keep both workstreams entirely independent.'

On the screen, important people shook hands, and half the UN General Assembly rose to its feet applauding. Others notably stayed seated.

'See this desk? The whole thing is a screen, yes? See the people applauding?'

'Yes, of course!'

'So, who in Kizuldah has such a thing?'

Mrs Tung fought to keep her equilibrium as had the Iron Aunt, by disguise and improvisation. 'Kwan? Kwan. We are in Kwan's house! Everyone says she has made her house very modern!'

'You see the desk?'

'Yes, of course I see the desk!'

'How? You are blind!'

'I… I my eyes have got better.'

'How long have they been better?'

'Since yesterday! Since yesterday!'

'Oh! There was a miracle yesterday! What else happened yesterday?' Mae was shouting.

'The Consortium proved to be short-lived. Amid technical disagreements and charges that the Company was rigging Air structures that would only work with its other solutions.'

Old Mrs Tung faltered. 'I… I… You came to see me?'

'Who? Who came to see you? Who are you talking to?'

She chuckled, embarrassed. 'It's so silly… I can't…'

'There's no one here! Where are you?'

'I don't know!' Mrs Tung wailed aloud.

Mae bellowed: 'I just told you! Why can't you remember?'

Old Mrs Tung broke down into desperate tears. 'I can't… I can't…' She shook Mae's head.

Revulsion flooded through Mae's body like a case of food poisoning. Something was sickeningly out of place, wrong. I am like a ghost, I am invisible, I have no body.

'I can't move!' wailed Old Mrs Tung.

Mae began to weep for her, for the neat dead system of responses on the other side of the screen of the world. Mae felt the terror and the sadness and the horror of being dead.

And so the thing gained strength. It spoke as if Mae and she were one. 'We'll lose everything! This is a terrible place. We must get away!'

Mae struggled back, her voice more feeble: 'What place is this?'

'I don't know. Don't start that again.'

'Where are you? What day?'

'Stop pestering me! Who are you to come at me with impertinent questions?'

'Work began on the new Format. From the beginning, some engineers felt the schedule was too ambitious.'

Mrs Tung barked, 'What is that thing talking about?'

'I told you. The UN Format. But you can't remember. Shall I explain it again to you?'

'No, I don't want to hear about it!'

'Of course you don't, because you're scared of it and you're scared of it because you know you wouldn't be able to remember it. You can remember nothing! Where are we? Can't remember? I just told you where we are but you can't remember, can you? Can you? You can't remember what day it is or where you are or even who you are!'

The thing howled and stood up and Mae stood up with it. The thing was in a rage. Mae felt it thrash inside her with frustration. If the thing had carried an old walking stick, she would have beaten Mae with it. The thing spun in confusion and anger and disgust and terror around and around the desk, and it threw Mae against the imprisoning walls. Mae felt a buzzing in her brain and her body, as if there was a great numb abscess in all of her being.

Suddenly Mae's hand reached up and slapped her own face.

Mae clenched and fought, her hand shook in midair, wavered as if pulled by magnets.

Mae shouted, 'Whose face did you slap? You slapped and you felt it yourself! How could you slap someone's face and feel it yourself?'

'I don't know! Let me go! Let me go!'

'Excuse me, I am hearing sounds of distress. Do wish me to call for help?'

The hand slapped Mae again, even harder.

Mae fought with words. 'You slapped a body. Whose body?'

The thing howled in terror and struck Mae's face again and again. Left hand, right hand, left hand, beating her about the face.

Mae pushed: 'You're sick, you're old, you're mad, you're crazy!'

The thing stumbled, wounded and disorientated. 'I don't know! I don't know-ho!-ho!' The thing wailed in complete despair

'You can't remember, you're senile, you're dead! You're dead and senile and sick; you have no hands; you have no eyes; you are nowhere; you do not exist!'

'Let me go!' The thing heaved with sobs. It could no longer speak, for grief and despair and horror. Its voice rose to a despairing shriek, and it picked Mae up and flung her across the desk.

And like the passing of a tornado, suddenly everything was still.

Mae was left panting, alone in Mr Tunch's office.

'Do you need me to call for help?' the desk asked.

'No,' Mae was able to croak. Her throat was raw from shouting. She had been speaking for both of them.

Tears and spit were smeared all over her face and splattered over the desktop. The cheeks and the palms of her hands stung. She sat up and looked at her own reflection in the glass-topped desk. A fresh bruise was coming up on her cheek.

Suspicion made Mae look up, and she saw a camera in the corner of the room. Tunch will have seen all that, she thought. He'll have been spying.

Well, if he's seen all that, then that's all he's going to get from me.

Mae pulled in deep, shuddering breaths. She stood up and wiped her face and tried to straighten her hair.

I've seen her off. I know how to see her off and I don't need Mr Tunch.

Time, she thought, to get down to work.