Sasha dreamed she was one of a squad of soldiers marching, rifle in hand, down a long underground passage. After a while they arrived at a solid wall of rock. The sergeant leading the squad swished his flashlight around, looking for a way through the wall, but the flashlight revealed only a small red button set into a slab of rock.

She could hear voices singing behind the rock wall.

Stepping back, the sergeant signaled his troops to take cover. He unhooked a grenade from his webbing, primed it, and pitched it toward the rough slab, before hurrying to join the rest of the squad. 

A blast of sound shook the crouching troops and she felt her teeth rattle. The passage was filled with a dust cloud. Not waiting for the cloud to disperse, the sergeant rushed the squad forward toward an opening in the rock.

Coughing and spluttering, she staggered through the gap and stepped into a large cavern lit by paper lanterns. She blinked, bleary-eyed, at the sight of a group of men and women in shining white robes singing choral music of unsurpassable beauty. When the singing ended, the leader of the choir turned to the sergeant and pointed at the jagged hole caused by the grenade.

"You could have pressed the red button," he said, "and rung the bell."

Newly awake she lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, dumbfounded by the meaning of the dream. Its memory held her spellbound, until Tinker's insistent voice broke into her reverie.

'You don't have to be armed to the teeth, ready to shoot on sight, to enjoy the singing of a choir, and you don't have to throw a grenade when a ring on the doorbell will do. Relax your guard, Sasha, you're safer than you think. You're protected wherever you go by me and all the invisible ones who love you. You don't need to be a warrior all the time. Be as gentle as a dove and as wise as a serpent.'

Tinker's voice faded, and she recalled the rest of the dream.

With a great shout of joy, the white-robed singers launched into a complex, overlapping chorus of gorgeous melodies. Their voices soared upward, speeding to the roof of the cavern, before echoing down in vast spirals of sound. Mesmerized, the soldiers added their ragged voices, at first timidly, then more and more in harmony with the choral singers.

Great blasts of sound reverberated around the cavern. More and more of the soldiers, including Sasha, began to shed tears. They wept as they sang, their bodies shaking with emotion, until every blubbering face was red and dripping.

The sun was streaming through the window blinds. She dragged herself out of bed, muttering and cursing, and slouched to the bathroom. A sharp knock at the door indicated her bot escorts were waiting. She brushed her teeth and hurried into her clothes.

Arriving with her two guards in the spacious lounge, she halted. Klar was sitting at a dining table which Lois was loading with platters of food. He turned to acknowledge her.

"You look thinner today, Sasha. Come and have brunch."

What's this, more BS designed to screw up my mind?  "I ain't hungry." 

"Of course you are."  He was scooping tuna salad onto his plate. "You didn't eat a damn thing yesterday."

"We're having Caribbean food," Lois called over her shoulder. "The main course is red snapper with fried plantains, roast chicken, and freshly-caught tuna in a spicy jerk sauce."

Although her belly was empty and crying out for food, she hesitated. She stared at the platters. "How d'you manage to get freshly-caught tuna? This is London, not the bleedin' Caribbean."

"Well, of course it's lab tuna--fresh tuna's illegal." Lois smiled. "But at least it's fresh from the lab."

For the next few minutes she stood and salivated, watching Klar and Lois ravenously devouring each enticing platter and pushing plates away to join the pile in the middle of the table.

"You two are disgustin'," she muttered, wishing she could join in.

"Did you sleep well, Sasha?" Lois asked, before tossing back a glass of sangria.

"What's it to you?" she replied, her stomach growling.

Klar, who was swinishly stuffing his face with tuna, paused and frowned at her.

"We care about your health, Sasha. Fact is, we need you rested and refreshed so you can help us find Nug."

"I ain't helpin' you find nobody. Fact is, I'm really glad you can't find him."

"I think she'll change her tune when she learns we've put out a police alert for Nug," Lois said to Klar. "Those robot cops can be pretty brutal, and when they catch him..."

They both snickered.

She could think of nothing to say. Thoughts of the purples dragging Nug out of his hiding place and beating him senseless made her head swim. She teetered on her feet.

Lois noticed her wobble. "Come and sit down, Sash," she said. "Have a few bites at least."

Dragging her boots, she stumbled to the table and flopped onto a chair. Lois darted into the kitchen and returned with a tray of steaming jerk chicken, fried plantains, and a bottle of sangria.

She ate in silent misery, her mind swirling with ugly images of police bots seizing Nug and roughing him up. She tried to extract some comforting thoughts, but couldn't find any.

"Eat as much as you like, Sasha," Klar said, lapsing into exaggerated courtesy. "We need you to build up your strength so you can come out with us."

"I didn't say I was comin' out with you. Nug's safe where he is. If the skimmers don't find him, I'm damn sure the purples ain't gonna."

"That's a pity," Lois said, sitting next to Klar, "because if the police can't find Nug, they'll get desperate and round up all his friends--and your friends--and treat them to their usual warm kindliness."

"Fuck off," she mumbled. She gulped all the sangria in her glass.

Feeling the alcohol kick in, she reached for the bottle. Klar, following her every move like a snake charmer watching a cobra, waved his hand at her.

"No more wine, Sasha. We need you to keep a clear mind."

After grabbing the bottle, she began pouring with a shaking hand, but spilled so much Klar took the bottle from her.

"I said no more. You have the mind of a psychic and too much alcohol might ruin it. Finish your food and come over to the couch. We need to get some intel."

She glugged down what was left in her glass and belched. "I got a feelin' this is gonna be a long day." 

She rolled around on the couch, under the effect of the alcohol, and Klar sat across from her on the armchair.

"Somehow, Sasha, you know how to pull intel out of your mind," he said. "You know how to reach in with your thoughts and find stuff nobody else knows."

"My thoughts fly up, my words remain below: Thoughts without words always to heaven go," she mumbled in a strange piping tone.

Klar positioned himself closer. "Is that the normal you talking, or some other part?" He looked bemused. "Because whoever you are, you certainly know your Hamlet, particularly King Claudius's self-reproaching rhyme."

Her eyelids drooped and her voice took on Tinker's light, sparkling tone. "I deliberately switched the words of the king's couplet, in case you didn't notice."

"I did  notice. I'm trying to figure out your superior logic." 

"I can reach things with my thoughts you can't reach," the piping voice trilled, "because my thoughts aren't the kind you think."

"Yes, I get that," Klar said. "When I think, I'm uttering silent words in my mind. But you're not, you're--"

"--thinking too fast for words. My thoughts are your inner  thoughts--and that's about all I can say for now. By the way, letting Sasha get drunk wasn't such a bad idea, was it?"

"Clearly not." He smiled. "Before you go, can you give us a clue as to Nug's whereabouts?"

The high-pitched voice giggled. "Only that he's in a place where those around him want what they've never had, yet can't stand to live without."

A cunning, indulgent smile played about his mouth. "Well, whoever or whatever you are, you've given me quite a riddle to solve. Can you give me one final clue?"

Her eyelids flickered. The fog inside her head cleared enough for her to look at Klar, who was gazing at her with rapt attention. 

"I've got your final clue," she mumbled. "Power to the people."