He remembered his daughter’s imaginary friend, Jenny. Sam had dragged Chase round to a strangers house to see Jenny. The woman had two kids, but neither called Jenny. “I must have forgot which house,” Sam said, “I’ll ask her tomorrow at school.” Sam wasn’t at school then. How deep did her imaginary friendship go? That’s how deep Chase had to go – it had to be real, for as long as it took.

No one knew if it could be done. Could you change your mind so thoroughly that you became someone else, anyone else but you? Could you avoid any thoughts about your true life, and still be able to revert when the time was right? Would he forget Sam, Saul and April, for good? That thought was the most unbearable, and just one more to lose. He hoped it was merely memory aversion, and not memory loss, that he was learning.

How many flights, how many airport scans must he get through alive, without being caught and eliminated, before he was ready for the real thought scanners? By then his constructed thoughts had to be real!