It was also cramped. Slotted in between a pagoda-shaped bank and a steamy-windowed restaurant frontage, space was at a premium. The reception area was reached by filing up a narrow steel staircase and along a gantry pinned to one wing of the pagoda's middle tier. A lavish seven or eight square metres of fused sand flooring under a cheap glass viewdome provided prospective clients with a waiting area, natural light and two pairs of seats that looked as if they had been torn out of a decommissioned jetliner. Adjacent to the seats, an ancient Asian woman sat behind a battery of secretarial equipment, most of which appeared to be switched off, and guarded a flight of access steps into the bowels of the building. Down below, it was all hairpin corridors racked with cable conduits and piping. Each length of corridor was lined with the doors of the service cubicles. The trode couches were set into the cubicles at a sharp upright angle to economise on floor space and surrounded on all sides by blinking, dusty-faced instrument panels. You strapped yourself in, traded up and then tapped the code number given to you at reception into the arm of the couch. Then the machine came and got your mind.