Flick wakes up on the floor of her cell, next to the led-gel wall, now back to its beige default. She has a blinding hangover and feels caught up in the Wrench-hose. She sticks out her tongue which feels furry. arKhana has left the room but she can feel his cock inside her.

''Thanks a bunch,'' she chunters, getting to her feet and straightening her clothes. She closes off the breast-flap and tries to get the thing to stop choking her. ''I have to get out of this.''

''That's a million likes,'' says the Davy, as she walks out. ''I'm sure you'll do fine in the Upper Cornice, but good luck anyway.''

She winks at the mechanical, knowing it will go straight to the feed, and leaves the room.

To find Lizzy on her knees, holding onto the side of the bath and wailing like a Groper Monkey, arKhana pumping at her like his life depended on it. Flick can feel every stroke. He feels larger, somehow, than she remembers. She'd quite like it to continue but she has a banging head and there's work to be done.

''Do you not have a hangover?'' she says to Lizzy.

arKhana gives a little yelp and suddenly withdraws. That's a relief. Lizzy leans over the bath and throws up.

''I guess that answers my question.''

arKhana opens his mouth but no words come out.

''Pull up your trousers,'' says Flick, ''shut your mouth and help me get out of this fucking frock.''

''What time is it?'' says Flick, fastening her jeans.

''A little after matins,'' says arKhana.

''I was out all night?''

arKhana nods.

Lizzy stumbles into the changing room.

''You look as bad as I feel,'' says Flick.

''How do I turn your thoughts off?'' asks Lizzy.

''You don't. Deal with it.''

''Is it going to be like this forever?''

''No,'' says Flick. ''It just takes a nanite flush to clear us up. That'll help with the addiction too. In the meantime I need you on board for the next part.''

''Why?''

''I have to be in two places at once. Do we know what time the change-over's due?''

''Timble,'' says Lizzy. ''I have to be out of here well before then.''

Flick nods.

''Oh,'' says Lizzy.

''What?'' says arKhana.

''I have a room number. Ah.''

''What?''

''I know which part of my life contains The Chemist.''

''Which?''

''I'll tell you on the way.''

''What makes you think I'm going with you?''


''I need you to go with her,'' says Flick.

''Lizzy can handle herself,'' says arKhana, she's trained.

''Still and all.''

''I think you'll want to come, Rodan,'' says Lizzy. ''I really do.''

arKhana'a face softens. There's love in it.

''Ouch!'' says Lizzy, looking daggers at Flick.

''I think you'd better go,'' says Flick. ''The pair of you.''

''Shem's outside,'' says the guard. ''He wants to escort you to the Upper Cornice.''

''Okay,'' says Flick. ''What about Lizzy and arKhana?''

''They got away.''

''No one followed them?''

''A drone tried. I dealt with it.''

''Thanks,'' says Flick. ''Tell him I'm on my way.''

''Where's Mikey?'' asks Shem.

''I don't fucking know. He's your droid.''

Cell 2327 is about half way up the Tower. It is unremarkable in almost every respect. There is a gantry outside the portal with a guard stationed on it. The guard has no idea who is in the cell. He was just asked to stand here in case someone turned up.

''I've turned up,'' says Lizzy, waving a blaster in his face.

The guard opens the portal.

''Wait here,'' she says to him, stepping onto the gantry. ''Mikey, see he doesn't get curious.''

''Roger roger,'' says Mikey, who is working on his own militaristic fantasy complex.




arKhana first met Lizzy in the Druvian Shaft during the war. Having gained access to the Heisen Manufactory by blasting a hole in the liquiglass skirting, he had limped across the foyer to the service desk. The place was deserted. He clambered over the desk and sat in the receptionist's chair. His ankle hurt like hell but the Wider was working him now. He surveyed the entrance hall. There was no other access to the facility from this level. Around and above him were former offices, conference spaces and employee facilities. It was an important hub back in its day but had been long abandoned. There he waited.

The sound of gunfire reached him. The battle for the fusion reactors was underway. He wondered if that was his part played out. Parx thought utThalé might still make an attempt at the Euphranium with a small force as a distraction strategy but it looked like he'd decided it was a waste of resource. arKhana put his feet up on the desk and listened to the choirs of bluebolt-blasters and shrapnel weapons. He thought about joining in but what difference would that make? Paradigm would have it covered. utThalé would lose. The Hierarchy would lose, but not by as much as they would have if they'd let the fighting continue into a protracted war. Rux would get decent terms. Job done. He began to nod off.

And as far as Rux and the Gnostic Record were concerned, that was the end of the story. What happened next never made the light of day. Lizzy had been sent by Telford herself to deal with the matter. Although still young, she'd been in Gnostic Liaison since she was a child. Her mother was a Gnostic, affiliated to the neStelle. Her father had no Gnostic blood and worked directly under Telford as a strategic advisor. Lizzy liked the liaison stuff but she also loved a good scrap so she turned to the Gnostics for military training. By a quarter of a span she was hard as nails and crafty as a Lava Bat - the only thing she lacked was finesse. Later, she came to understand that she had demonstrated this shortcoming on that first meeting, down there in the foyer of the manufactory. It didn't do her any harm.

She found the hole that arKhana had blasted into the liquiglass and blasted another next to it because she liked the way the material splintered into droplets. She strode across the tiled foyer, her boots squeaking on the surface. She twisted her feet slightly as she walked to make the noise more pronounced, thinking the man at reception would hear her coming and meet her half way. He made her walk the whole stretch but when she got there she realised he was asleep and a looker so she forgave him. His feet were up on the desk. She gave his ankle a rough, but friendly tap with the butt of her blaster. To her surprise the man screamed.

''Commander arKhana?''

''Who the fuck are you?''

''Lizzy.''

He looked into her eyes. It was quite pleasant. They each recognised the impurity in the other and softened. ''Who are you with?''

''Liaison.''

arKhana's face broke into a smile. ''What branch are you?''

''The fighty one.''

arKhana got to his feet and held his hand across the counter. ''Me too.''

She clasped his hand. It was warm and had cracks in it. She imagined it on her shoulders, the small of her back. ''I'm attached to Paradigm. I'm here to…''

''Escort me out of the facility?''

''No,'' said Lizzy. ''We have work to do.''

She briefed arKhana on the intelligence Paradigm had on utThalé.

''So you think he's still here?''

''He's here. Down in the manufactory.''

''You think the fusion reactors are just a distraction?''

''No. We think the fusion reactors were the primary target, like you said, but that he already had something covert going on here, in the lower levels. But the thing is, there's no Euphranium left. Paradigm sterilised the site decades ago.''

''So what's he up to?''

''That's what we're here to find out. Press that button there.''

The two fusion reactors, situated at opposite corners of the voidspace were originally built over the vehicular access and egress ramps leading down into the Euphranium mine and processing facility. The old fission power station had been constructed along the line of the southern wall, feeding the mountain through a network of narrow shafts. Fission had been abandoned over three spans ago and the power station itself long-since deconstructed. The office space had been kept running as it served the fusion reactors just as well until it had drifted into disuse around half a span ago. Maintenance droids kept the facility in reasonable condition, on the off-chance that tourism would render it useful again. With such a project in mind, pedestrian access to the old mine could still be gained via the reception foyer they were now in and when arKhana pressed the button a liquiglass panel in the curved wall next to the reception desk melted open, leading into a large central atrium and overlooked by tiers of offices. Despite the best efforts of the maintenance bots the place had the nostalgic air of a lost, forgotten place.

Lizzy and arKhana made their way across a faded but clean carpet to a bank of dead led-gel screens. Below these were a row of wide elevators. Lizzy pressed a button but nothing happened.

''Nobody's been this way in teenths,'' said arKhana.

''No. He'll have found a way into the maintenance shafts. Stand back.'' Lizzy blasted a person-sized hole in one of the elevator portals and another in the floor. They were greeted by a gust of warm air.

Lizzy popped her head into the hole but even once her eyes had adjusted it was pitch dark. She sat on the floor of the elevator next to the hole, leaning against the side wall.

''Do you even know what you're doing?'' asked arKhana.

Lizzy looked up at him through the hole she'd blasted. He looked kind of rugged and well-used. It was a good look and she enjoyed it for a few moments.

''I have a general idea,'' she said. ''I think we need to turn the power on.''

They spent the next tine looking for the mains supply. arKhana fiddled with the buttons and switches behind the reception desk, looking for a portal to open. The liquiglass melted open in various places about the entrance foyer, leading to a labyrinth of maintenance tunnels and storage vestibules. Lizzy ran herself ragged following the passages until she wound up back in front of arKhana at the reception desk.

''Ironic, don't you think?'' he said, his eyebrows innocently raised. ''Given where we are.''

''Maybe you should take a turn with the passages and I'll do the twiddling.''

''I would, love, but my ankle's killing me.''

''Don't love me,'' she muttered, but she didn't mean it.

''Why don't you give someone a ring?''

Lizzy's face lit up: ''Where the fuck are all the mechanicals?''


arKhana looked at her like she'd lost her senses.

''I found plenty of cubby holes and charging stations but not a single droid.''

arKhana continued looking at her in the same way.

''Don't you think that's weird''

arKhana blew out his cheeks. ''Frankly?''

But Lizzy didn't want his opinion. She tapped her fingers on the counter and looked into space.

arKhana began a sentence but she raised a hand to shush him.

Lizzy thought for a while, tapped her fingers.

arKhana flicked a few switches, blew air out of his cheeks, made a variety of raspberry noises through his lips, made a tune by dampening his lips and making little plosive sounds.

''Wait here. Don't fiddle with anything.'' Lizzy dashed suddenly into an alcove, then dashed suddenly back. ''Phone.'' She went to the counter and held out hers.

arKhana touched her phone with his. He always found this a strangely intimate gesture.

Lizzy moistened her lips then dashed back out again. She went down a narrow corridor that she'd already been down once before. This time she knew what she was looking for. The corridor curved around the foyer and joined up with another which travelled along the side of the atrium. This opened out into a kind of backstage salon for mechanicals. It had a number of charging stations, embellishment points, rows of valve dispensers, bottles of cooling fluid and other ointments, olfactory nozzles on hooks in sealed bags, opposable thumbs, trays and trays of screws and other fittings in large red rattly nanosteel boxes, video monitors and tiny speakers and knuckles and knees but no droids relaxing there and no service droids serving them. No flibbertigibbet A-G polisher maids or sturdy baton thrapers, no shutdown sweethearts. In fact practically no evidence of any mechanical or even app - intelligent, thick or barely sentient, except for a single, extremely well hidden engagement ping.

Lizzy was searching through a drawer full of lexicon strands when she found it. She thought there might be a helix she could tap which gave her access to the utilities lexicon. She was wafting her phone across the top of an index graft when it leapt from somewhere else in the drawer and into her device. The index graft provided her interface with a lot of information that would need sifting but the engagement ping stood out amongst it, bright as a button, clearly wanting to engage. She rubbed it with a thumb.

''You have Paradigm clearance?'' requested the ping.

''Clearly,'' said Lizzy.

''I'm sorry,'' urged the ping, ''but there's a Gnostic fraction?''

''Liaison. I'm not here with utThalé,'' Lizzy clarified. ''I'm here on behalf of Telford Telford.''

''Ms Telford has cleared you,'' said the ping.

''I really wish you hadn't bothered her,'' said Lizzy.

''I spoke to one of her charms. No harm done.''

''Are you always this skittish?''

''I'm the only one he hasn't taken,'' said the ping. ''You'd be skittish if your entire village had been kidnapped.''

''Ah.'' Lizzy is scrolling through the data from the index graft. ''I don't suppose you've a siv?''

''My name's Riverdolly by the way.''

''Pleased to meet you, Riverdolly. I could really do with a siv if you've got one.''

''I'm an engagement ping,'' said Riverdolly, in a tone that suggested Lizzy was slightly dim. ''I can absorb entire operating systems to make city states see eye to eye. I can translate Arumen Cuneiform from a single phrase with a ninety percent degree of accuracy. I can count the stars in the heavens, name them and tell you their position fifteen thousand years ago. I can learn. I can forget.''

''Cool,'' said Lizzy, politely. ''Does that mean you have a siv or not?''

If an app could hrumph Riverdolly surely would have. ''What is it you're looking for?''

''I need to find a utilities lexicon to talk to the elevator skiffs, from this list of nearly two million.''

The ping threw it out. ''Are you going down there? You and that sleepy fellow in Reception?''

''You can see him?''

''I can see everything.''

''Mmh. Give him a kick, will you? Tell him to meet me at the elevators.''

''Done. You'll need an interface to make that lexicon work. Will you take me with you?''

''Are you going to eat my phone?''

''I'm a symbiote, not a virus.''


''That'll be a yes, then.''

''Please.''

''I don't know what we'll find down there. Your people might be dead.''

''What would be the point in that?''

''What's the point in anything? What do you expect to find down there?''

''Babelai,'' said Riverdolly. ''And I'm going to lead my people out of it.''

''I don't know if that's on the agenda. Not til I've had a look for myself.''

''I'll be good. I won't get in the way. Give me your consent, please.''

Lizzy tutted and set off walking. ''Go on then. Don't make me regret this.''

By the time she got to the elevator skiffs Riverdolly had melded with her phone's operating system.

arKhana wasn't far behind. ''It still looks dead to me, Lizzy.''

Lizzy went to one of the elevators that didn't have holes blasted in it and presented her phone to the interface. It sprang into life. First the little red light which sat behind the call button pinged on, then a blue light arched around the doors. The led-gel screen above it pronounced that they were at Manufactory Datum and a little arrow informed them that the only way was down. Lizzy pressed the button and the doors slid open.

arKhana smiled: ''Impressive.''