Remember you are light, and to light you shall return is a steel-framed plexiglass box containing seventy-three identical sexbots in five alternating rows. They are all masturbating. Pomeroy has offset their timings perfectly; every five minutes, when they orgasm, their heads thrash in a wave from left to right like wind on a field of grain.

“Your technique is beautiful,” says Gillian. “Why is the product so crass?”

Pomeroy smiles a little. “The definition of beauty lasts. That of crudity doesn’t. This will remain beautiful even after the batteries die.”

“You think a lot of your own work.”

“Yes. I do.”