—I'll have a Spook?

You got it. The table was filled with empties, must have been a dozen of them. I didn't know they were still selling the stuff, should have been banned years ago, I reckon. Anyway, I bought him another, just for old times' sake. The barman didn't open it, like he was following orders. I placed the unopened bottle on the table in front of Nesbit, who just stared at it for a while. I was trying to make conversation, asking him what he'd been up to, if he was working, married, kids of his own. He said he was out of work, divorced, a kid he never saw.

I fear for that kid, I really do.

—What do you mean?

He told me the story. Remember the Introvert scandal, from way back?

—Vaguely. He wasn't one of them, was he?

That's the explanation. He'd only found out when he was twenty-one; his parents finally got round to telling him, the bastards. That's why they were so rich, you see. Spook, the company that is, they paid them a small fortune, them and about two hundred other young couples. It was meant to be the next wave of advertising; get them hooked in the womb. I don't pretend to know the details, something to do with feeding the DNA with subliminal messages. They targeted poor people, of course, and promised no side effects. Of course, now we know better, but those two hundred kids have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

Introverts; interior adverts, I think it stood for. The original idea was that they would just promote the product, you know - word of mouth being the best advert of them all. Remember how Nesbit almost got us hooked. Then it went wrong; the hook was too deep, too sharp. The product took over.

—They were paid compensation, weren't they?

Sure. Very generous. That's why Nesbit didn't have to work. Little good it did him, the poor bastard, because you can guess what he spent the money on. And I'm scared for his kid, because if it's genetic, you know, it might be passed on.