It's dank in there. When the light comes on it feels as if it's had to swim to reach them. The monitor and dressing table in the ante-room are covered in damp, coagulated dust. It smells bituminous, like the smell in the Chimoxtl air when coal stoves are burning. They make their way through the hallway between the bathroom and main dressing room, guns at the ready. They check each of the rooms as they pass. In the bathroom it looks like someone threw up on the way to the bowl. There's a line of porridgy footprints between the toilet and the bath, which is lined with the same coagulated dust as in the ante-room. The dressing room is much the same, the dust covering everything, smelling of coal.

Down at the end of the hallway, they can see into the cell beyond. It looks gloomy, the window portal opposite offers a view across the southern aspect of the Huguenot Quarter, towards the old mine, its face a looming grey thing at this time of the morning. Lizzy pockets her gun.

''I don't think there's anyone here,'' she says.

arKhana leads the way into the cell with enough gun-power to hand for both of them.
The led-gel walls are powered down. What light there is comes from the window portal. Everything is coated with the same dust, including the Davy-bird which is lying prone and uncommunicative by the side of one of the mucky beds.

arKhana, who hasn't seen the darker shade of the wyrmal in the wall adjacent to the portal window, moves beyond it into the room.

''It looks like one of the occupants was female,'' he says, before feeling the breeze on him and then the slime sliding down his face. ''What the fuck?'' He turns back to the wyrmal, which is blowing at him.

Lizzy, who has seen something similar before, makes sure arKhana keeps his distance.

''How come it hasn't closed?'' she wonders out loud.

''What's all this fucking shit coming out of it?'' asks arKhana.

''Something's keeping it open,'' says Lizzy.

''Is this like the thing that took Riverdolly?''

Lizzy nods.

''Do you think it goes to the same place?''

Lizzy looks at arKhana, shrugs.

''I think we should go in,'' says arKhana.

''No. I don't think we'd get back out again - not by the same route anyway.''

arKhana steps out of the wyrmal's line of fire. ''I think I'm going to...'' He runs off in the direction of the bathroom.

Lizzy feels a bit queazy herself but puts that down more to the Xelothene hangover than anything else. She steps further into the room, away from the wyrmal, just in case. There's a kitbag on the floor with a woman's jacket lying next to it. She opens the kitbag and has a rootle.

There's nothing in there which would immediately identify the owner of the kitbag, although there is a phone and two kitchen-roll sized scrolls of perforated absorbent card, laid out in little squares. In each square is printed a roulette wheel. Lizzy has an app on her phone which Gnostic Liaison denies the existence of. It will help her to unlock the other phone. She gets her own phone out and sits on the edge of the bed the kitbag was slumped against. She comes across an unnatural resistance there, in the pile of bedding. She throws back the sheets to find a woman, dressed in heels and a business suit, somewhat grimed over. She is breathing but not conscious. She is Kersten Karter.

arKhana comes back into the cell, wiping his hands down his trousers. ''jeBruille together,'' he says. ''I didn't see that one coming.''

In her hand, Kersten's phone buzzes.

Lizzy unlocks Kersten Karter's phone with the dodgy app. The message is from Parx and it reads: I know where you are.

''I'm going in,'' says arKhana, moving toward the wyrmal. ''I've decided.''

''What? What for?''

''Riverdolly.''

''What do you care?'' says Lizzy. ''She's an Alternative.''

''She sacrificed herself for us,'' says arKhana. ''We owe her this.''

''We should look after Kersten.''

''You look after Kersten. I'm going after Riverdolly.'' arKhana steps into the wyrmal without looking back. He quickly shrinks and vanishes into the weird perspective.

''jeBruille together. That man'll be the death of me,'' says Lizzy. ''See she gets looked after. Parx is on his way.'' She follows arKhana into the wyrmal.

Flick, all of a sudden, feels as though her soul has been torn from her body. ''Lizzy?''

''What?'' says Shem, beside her on the skiff. Flick has dropped to her knees. Shem takes this to be her usual flying position.

The connection has been severed and with it, Flick's sense of self. She feels gutted and terribly, existentially alone.

Shem parks the skiff against the uppermost gantry of the Tower. It is within a kind of cupola, a nipple at the top of the Substrate, where they have been enclosed on all sides by the gantry.

''We're here,'' he says to Flick.

Flick flits between Xelothene hangover and the wrench of disconnection. The other third of her knows there's a job to be done and shit to be got together and she lets Shem help her to her feet and she looks him in the eye. He's not giving anything away.

''What's it to be?'' she says. ''Powders in my tea? A Bluebolt? No. A sharp instrument in the back of the neck. Something penetrating. Intimate.''

''After you,'' says Shem, lifting the gate.

He becomes a tingling sensation behind her as Flick steps up onto the gantry. She stands facing the far wall, feeling vulnerable and self-conscious, waiting for something to open. It happens some way to her left, where a child steps out onto the gantry. It looks nervous. Vinst steps out behind this little girl, over-dressed even for this occasion in a fifty-one piece, quilted Fabularium. He gives his daughter a gentle nudge. She steps forward, tentatively, wielding a brightly coloured package.

''Hello,'' says Flick, dropping suddenly to a crouch, more like a soldier than an aunt. ''And what might your name be?''

"Rosa,'' says the little girl. ''Rosa guFlecht.'' She holds out the gift like a parcel bomb.

''Thank you Rosa, how lovely. Can I open it now?''

Rosa nods.

The present is tightly and very symmetrically wrapped, clearly put together by a parcel-bot. There is a way to open these things but Flick has long lost the knack. She goes at it with her teeth, pulling a growly face. Rosa laughs.

Flick eventually gets down to cardboard and opens the box. It is a liquiglass figurine, depicting an angel of the mythological variety - no tail or antlers, just the wings. There's something of the Farmland Chicken about it.

''It's for luck,'' says Rosa. ''With the public vote.''

Flick glances at Vinst who is smiling gormlessly at his child.

''Thank you Rosa,'' says Flick. ''Thank you indeed.''

The child grabs her hand and leads Flick in through the arched portal.

The Public Vote is a twinkly, sparkly affair. It is held in what's known as the Upper Cornice, a custom-built sound studio which occupies a huge area and sits atop the Tower, overhanging it like the head of a mushroom. Flick is taken to a reception area, where she is logged in and issued with a further dose of nanites, presumably attuned to the specifics of the studio. Vinst is required to sign something which compels him to act as her guarantor on her release. It would be political suicide for him not to sign this, even though he will be hoping she loses the public vote. She's allowed to keep her phone but warned that her calls will be monitored by Arbitration. She's then led through the back, leaving Vinst, Shem and Rosa in the public area, to a private suite, somewhat larger than the cells she's become used to and completely without any led-gel covering to the walls. There is a portal, providing a view north across the Huguenot void into the Chimoxtl shanties. There are a few tourist skiffs with raked seating hovering close by but the portal is equipped with a privacy setting, allowing views out but not in. She obscures the portal anyway as she finds it unsettling looking at the skiffs and shanties. The lighting in the suite adjusts itself accordingly.

It is midday. The fun starts after lunch, which is to be served in her suite presently. Hung on a trolley-rack are a choice of two dresses, a pink Sinstrap and a yellow Floatenheimer, neither of which she particularly fancies. The Floatenheimer is probably slightly more comfortable but she would be forced to be constantly adjusting it and positioning herself in slightly unnatural ways. She can see that the dresses have been chosen very carefully to give off certain signals. She will have to think of a narrative to follow before she chooses.

She plonks herself down onto one of the two sofas. She doesn't yet know how many rooms the suite has. She will explore. That will be a thing to do. She imagines there is a bathroom and possibly a bedroom although who could sleep through these nerves? Even her hangover doesn't dull the edge. She needs to drink something. She gets up off the sofa and strides agitatedly over to the kitchenette in the corner of the room, next to one of the doors, which is open, and puts the kettle on. The open door leads into a bathroom. The bathroom leads off the kitchenette presumably because of the plumbing. She goes in and has a pee.

Back on the sofa with a cup of Yorkshire and a hangover pill she feels anxious but a little better. What is she going to do about Kersten? Who can she ask for help? Parx might not know what cell she's in but he knows she's here, in the Tower, and he knows that if he's going to make a move now's the time to do it. The lighting in the room turns a subtle shade of blue. There is the sound of a pebble hitting water.

''Who is it?'' says Flick, quietly.

''Shem,'' says Shem.

Flick takes a moment. She decides Vinst isn't going to make his move until after the vote.

''Unlock,'' she says.

Shem comes in from a corner behind her. Again that tingle in the back of the neck. He walks round the sofa and sits in the opposing one. He's changed into his Garam Fallah, reminding Flick of a more innocent-seeming version of him. If this is meant to raise her sympathy it doesn't work. It just makes her think what a duplicitous cunt he really is.

Shem smiles. It is a mechanical gesture, affecting his lips only.

''There's tea...'' Flick waves her hand in the general direction of the kitchenette.

''I'm fine. Are you ok? You look nervous.''

''Stage fright. I'll get over it. Have you come to put me out of my misery?''

Shem raises an eyebrow, somehow turning that into a sexual inuendo. Flick can't help but smile.

''I'd be delighted,'' he says.

Flick is half tempted. It would be a good way of letting off steam and it might just get rid of that residual sense of arKhana inside her/Lizzy. He made love differently with her. Flick decides she doesn't want that to go away just yet. It's something to give some thought to, while her body still remembers it.

''I've got a lousy hangover,'' she says. ''I'd be no fun.''

That was nicer than she'd intended and much nicer than Shem had expected. There is clearly a softening.

''I've spoken to Ris,'' he says.

''About?''

''It's still her who pays the bills.''

''Officially.''

''It's still her who pays,'' says Shem, again.

''What are you saying?''

''I've spoken to her. About the situation.''

''Really? She's engaging now?''

''She got your message - through the feed. Took it as an apology. She wants to talk.''

''She's here?''

''She is.''

''Tell her I'll see her. How long til Vinst makes his move?''

''You're safe until the vote, then we play it by ear.'' Shem pauses for effect. ''Unless you tell us where The Chemist is - or who he is.''

''He's one of two people,'' says Flick.

Shem lightens. ''Go on.''

''He really is gone,'' says Flick. She gets to her feet. ''Thank you for coming.''

Shem takes his cue and they embrace, formally.

''Invite my family for lunch, would you?''