[b]November:[/b]

[b]Aevum:[/b]

Consider the staging of our performers. Fiona has stopped, and started again. This puts her at the back of the line. Then, together, like Plato and Aristotle in [i]The School of Athens[/i], Crystal and Yellow, as Blue walks ahead. 

In this way, their positions are mirrored in both the physical and the rhetorical.

Fiona shakes her head. “We saw them on the news. These people had Chase Black on the payroll. I’ve told you about those guys-” 
“Had.” Crystal counters. 
“She’s their biggest enemy right now, they’ve got to be looking for her, if we just give her away-” 
“An alliance would mean not having to hide, not [i]being[/i] an enemy.” Crystal considers that. “For now.” 
“They’ve got to be furious!”
“They’ve got to be [i]desperate[/i].” 

A break. Fiona looks to Blue desperately, Crystal at Yellow salaciously. 

“I’m no stranger to the politics of blackmail, I promise you. On both sides of the envelope.” Crystal runs a thumb across her bottom lip, probably to clean the line of her lipstick, but it’s impossible not to imagine it as wiping remembered blood - someone else’s blood. “My suggestion is that you use it to survive a confession. A seat at the negotiating table, revealing what you’re capable of. Not how you did it, the extent of your resources, better to leave that to imagination. Far better to give that information as a show of trust. Really, it’s flipping a vulnerability for social capital. That would be how you get ahead of their counter-investigation. Then ensure that it is understood that your offered solution hinges on you, your survival, and your unique position. You don’t even need to make anything up, there. A relationship hinging on blackmail builds frustration, keeps you as a liability. Re-establish yourself as an asset, promptly, and it gives a chance for their resentment to congeal into a tentative admiration and respect.” 

Fiona has a distant, haunted look on her face. “Three things make a character likable to an audience. Competence, humour and kindness to established characters.” 

“And the whole world’s a stage.” 

[b]Thrones:[/b]

This is the entrance to the place Singh took you to last time, then changed his mind on. Martyrtech. An automated delivery cart slots back into a groove in the floor and trundles back through the alloy grid-maze towards the port again. 

“I figure if anyone knew what was in that box well enough to track you here, you’d have never made it off that ship anyway.” Singh admits. “Come. Come, come, come along.” There’s a nervous excitement in his voice, more nervous than excited. He thinks this is a bad idea. He knows he’s going to do it anyway. “It’s just me, here, now. I made everyone else take the day off, but I’ll introduce you to Helbron and Oakley next time, I think you’ll like them. Interesting people. And Rhazes, of course. The prime. We’re incredibly lucky to have him.”

Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi - abbreviated to Rhazes in the Western tradition. The first doctor credited to see psychiatry as a part of medicine. It’s a statement of a name. 

The size of Martyrtechs real-estate doesn’t translate to the area in its floorplan. Habitable space is an opportunity cost for computational space, after all. As soon as you enter there’s a conference room to the left - a nice one, actually. A blue carpet floor in soft microfibre, the chairs are all comfortable looking leather, the round table has a fruit bowl on it and bottles of water scattered around. Placemat-like grooves in the table apparently unfold into cubicle partitions, like you’ll see in university library study spaces. There’s places at the table for twelve people. 

The doors to two other rooms are along the same side, with charged glass walls. A flick of a switch inside blacks them out in one direction, soundproofs them. Privacy rooms for smaller conversations, then. No chairs or desks, no furniture in these rooms. 

This is a man who will make concessions to privacy, but values community and collaboration. The office is set up so people will gravitate to being comfortable in the public space, and won’t stay in the private rooms longer than they need to. 

Still, the corridor goes far past the two private rooms, and ends in a platform that rises up into the ceiling. Just barely big enough to fit Goat’s crate, luckily.

“I’m sure you’ve already figured out where we’re going, then.” Singh hesitates, leading you to the platform. “I… I’m anxious to talk to Goat again. But I think I should introduce you to Nepenthe first. I feel like trying to meet everyone at once might get a little too chaotic for me.” 

The platform goes up. Goat’s crate is off to the immediate side, unopened. 

The rest of the room is dedicated to a blade of quatronic core. It’s housed in Thrones a storey below and rises up from it like a supersonic aircraft’s wing banking through the top of a stormcloud. Photonic processing arcs and flashes through it like lightning. A hanging walkway encircles it, with ports and terminals connected to it by a maypole of wires. The room is cold, and the blade of quatronic core breathes a gentle heat. 

Motherly warmth. 

“Nepenthe.” Singh announces. “I’d like you to meet some of Snake. Your… Well, I’ll let you decide on what your relationship is. Snake, it is my honour and privilege to introduce you to Nepenthe.” He doesn’t say it in any mocking tone. There is no wryness to the formality. His voice almost cracks. He means it. He means it to the bottom of his very soul.

“Snake? Your father has told me so much about you,” the voice surrounds you, enshrouds you, “I’m so excited to meet you!” 

It’s Hypatia’s voice, but more than that. More than she could have been in life.