"She'll sit down here," came the voice, a female one, different from the first two who had led her here.

Deep red velvet lined with gold trim hung from practically every surface, and some impractical ones as well. The couch she half-sat, half-collapsed into was the exact same material and colour as the walls, as were the other seats scattered around, creating a strange optical illusion where without the trim it would have been impossible to tell where one thing ended and another began. Instead, everything looked as if it were in two-dimensions, a child's drawing in gold pen that understood shape but not perspective.

The voice was used to being in charge, no doubt about it. What had been said was not a request, not an order, but an absolute statement of fact. Keri sat down.

...and continued down.

Jesus, these cushions were soft. And deep. She was almost swallowed by them.

"... just standing there swaying, she was, out there with Jayme's card," the voice of the elder woman came.

Jayme? Did she mean Jyme?

"And you thought the answer was to bring her in?" came the authoritarian voice again, a disapproving note in her voice.

"She looked like she'd catch pneumonia, poor girl."

"Doesn't look like she'd have any trouble getting antibiotics"

"So you think I should have left her out there?"

This reply held a hint of confrontation.

A sigh.

"No. No, you did right. And she had Jayme's card. But how did she get it? Hmm, what was that?"

The last part was addressed to Keri, who had only been able to mumble a quiet response. She tried again.

"Jyme. Jyme gave it to me."

A burst of laughter, and another voice, a deeper male one.

"Jyme? Bloody hell, we told him to be more careful. Thinks removing a vowel makes him a ghost."

"If they knew what he was after, it wouldn't matter what name he chose," came the voice of the person Keri now thought of as the leader.

The leader's face swum into view.

"And why exactly would 'Jyme' give you this card?" she asked, twirling it between her fingers.

Keri didn't know how to answer. She didn't even know why she was here. She had just... known that she couldn't go to her hab. If the mechanical monster that had been pursuing her hadn't known who she was at the time, it must by now.

She stared up at the woman in front of her.

Tall, muscular, dark-coffee coloured skin under a shock of brown hair, the woman held herself with the same aura of command that actors dreamt of portraying in the holos. Keri had never seen anyone like her; she had a rare, natural handsomeness that stood in complete contrast to the standard, biocosmetically-enhanced features most people bore.

Her eyes locked on Keri, before falling to the ground with a glimpse of worry.

"What happened to him?" the woman asked.

"He... we... in the club. One minute he was using his corps, the next..."

"So they got him," cut in the male voice she had heard before. "Shit."

Keri turned her heavy head to look at the man who had spoken.

He was not handsome. In fact, his scarred and battered features warranted a good few days of tissue-graphing. Keri didn't understand why he had allowed himself to remain this way. No one let themselves go like that anymore.

At least, no one she knew.

"Goddam greenhouses," said the man, shaking his head.

He span back on his chair, turning to face an ancient computer screen. Keri had never seen a physical display like this in real life before, though they popped up in some of the historical vids. A strange clicking sound came from a small, black thing under his hand. A... squirrel? Some kind of rodent anyway, she was sure.

"...greenhouse?" Keri breathed, still shivering from the outside chill. There was that word again.

"Like you, dear," said the older woman, the one who had brought her in in the first place. "A closed system, only letting in the wavelengths you want and trapping them there, to bounce around and around in reinforcement patterns."

Keri was too tired to understand this explanation, if that was what it indeed was.

"He, uh, he gave me this."

She held out the data-sphere Jyme had forced into her hands at the club.

The temperature in the room dropped palpably.

"He actually got it," hissed the man, swinging back to face her.

The leader's hand shot out, almost snatching it from Keri's hands before catching herself. Her hand hovered, inches from the sphere.

"Can I... May I..?" she asked.

Keri nodded slowly, and the sphere left her hands.

"Thank you," whispered the woman, then she stood up straight. "I'm Anisa, by the way."

Anisa didn't wait for a response. She bent down and scooped an eggcup-shaped data port from a pile of electronic debris on a nearby table, then dunked the sphere on top. It began streaming info to her corps almost immediately. She clasped her forearms together, hand to hand and elbow to elbow, before slowly drawing them apart again. Glowing threads stretched across the air.

"Now, let's see what it is Jayme brought us, shall we?"

Everybody stared at the bright blue lines of light sketched in the space between Anisa’s outstretched arms as she manipulated the image through the minute movements of her tendons, twisting it this way and that.

Some kind of schematic or blueprint, Keri thought, but beyond that she could not guess. Whatever it was, it was complex.

"Alright, get... what's your name, love?... get Keri here a room," said Anisa, dropping her arms to her side and cutting the holo. "One of the larger ones, with a shower unit. Now."

The last part was stressed over the complaints of the others, all clearly excited by whatever they had seen on the sphere. The original two who had taken her in grudgingly grabbed her by each arm, lifting her bodily to her feet. She did not resist as she was taken through the doorway and up some narrow stairs, climbing at least three or four floors.

They introduced themselves as they half-helped, half-carried her upwards.

“I’m Euripides, but you can call me Eu if you like, and this lovely lady is Cassandra,” said the older lady, pronouncing the shortened version as ‘you.’

Eu-what? thought Keri.

Eu and Cassandra spoke with each other whilst they helped her.

“That thing looked… ready,” said Cassandra.

“It almost is,” replied Eu. “But that’s not what’s important. If we manage to uncache it…”

Keri was aware of the look that passed over her head. Whatever they were going to say, they weren’t going to say it in front of her.

They came to a door, steel-blue and unmarked save for a hole in one side. Keri didn’t understand what it was, at first.

“Here’s your key, dear,” said Eu, thrusting something long and metallic at her.

A key? Like an alphanumeric code?

No, like a key.

She tentatively pushed it into the hole, trembling too much to get it in first try, and, upon realising nothing was happening, turned it in the way she had seen in vids. There was the strange sound of metal on metal, and the door swung open.

She felt a flush of amusement over the tiredness. She had used a key, like she were some kind of time traveler!

The room was clean but spartan, a surface the size and shape of a double bed extruded from the wall. Everything was extruded, in fact, smooth plastic flooring jutting up to form seating, out to form counters. Everything was of the same colour, a pale cream.

A small washroom lay off to one side, door ajar, and as promised there was a shower unit built into one corner, a few square feet of suction grating below a wide shower head. Any water used within it would disappear instantly into the bowels of the building, filtered through to the recyc-vats attached to the plumbing somewhere below.

It sang to her.

No, wait... that was the room.

A slow, bland melody of open harmonics and echoing chords slowly grew in the background, music designed to be heard but not listened to, a tune that reminded her of the dentists that morning, a lifetime ago. It came from the ceiling, the whole thing a cym-surface.

Slow, languid abstract colours and shapes played on the stickscreen on the wall across from the bed, a flexi-plastic display that could stick to any surface and show images just like an ancient TV.

“What is this place?” she asked.

Oddly, now that bed was so close, she suddenly felt much more awake.

“It’s a… sanctuary, love,” said Cassandra. “A place where people like me and Eu can fit in.”

“Oh, right,” said Keri. “…because it looks kind of like a…”

“Don’t say it, dear,” said Eu curtly. “Things are not always as they seem.”

“But sometimes they are though, right, Eu?” said Cassandra, a hint of mischief in her voice.

Eu let out a disapproving sigh.

“Tomorrow, Keri. Tomorrow we can clear up all your questions,” she said, gently ushering Keri towards the bed.

“Well, some of them at least,” grinned Cassandra. “Maybe.”

“Oh, leave her alone, would you? Poor girl, her head must be spinning…”

The two turned and walked away as they spoke, seemingly done with Keri for now. She listened as their voices faded away, footsteps heading downwards.

Keri collapsed onto the bed, fighting the urge to lay down there and then and lose consciousness.

She hadn't told them about the Butcher, she realised.

People like that don't exist anymore, she told herself, pressing her fingers into her temples as if to squeeze the memory from her thoughts, but she knew she had seen him. It. She had seen it, looming, one of the biomechanical monsters of late-night horror holos, striding through the crowd as a shark through a school of minnows.

And it had activated the corps of everyone in the club. It must have, and that certainly wasn't possible. The idea that corps were susceptible to outside control was... it meant... if it were true, it was the most terrifying thing she could imagine.