It takes me forever to get the vent off. It's held in place by flathead screws whose heads aren't accessible from where I am—inside the duct. With a wrench, I could loosen their nuts until they dropped out. I don't have a wrench. I try using my fingers, gripping the nuts' sides by the scant light of Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt's screen, but my nails keep slipping.

At last, I manage to pry a nut loose and spin it off. Its screw falls to the carpet with a satisfying thunk.

But the other three aren't budging. I bang them hard with the heel of my sandal, but only succeed in making a bunch of noise.

I am able to lean into the vent and bend it away from the ceiling, down into the hallway a couple inches. First I push with only my knee, hearing the metal whine. Then, after convincing myself the vent's narrow opening won't let me plummet eight feet to a broken neck, I put my full weight into the effort. The three remaining screws creak and stretch, threads grating against their attached nuts.

I gather myself and bounce several times. The vent keeps budging lower, a fraction of an inch per bounce, until one screw shears, sending its nut and half its shank plinging around the the ducts.

Now the vent, attached by two screws, bends all the way into the hall like a flap.

It's a squeeze, but I lower myself down, elbows cramming past my ribs, and drop to the carpet. My eyes change with all this light, and the air hits me like gaseous gold after those stale ducts.

A crowd of eight or nine has gathered. I can't remember who works on Eleven, but the stiff collars and lack of denim suggest business-y divisions. Purchasing? Accounts receivable?

Whoever they are, they're looking at me like I have razorblades sticking out of my face. Which makes sense—they just heard Oleg blackmailing me with the safety of my own mother, and I'm coated with grime, my forearm between black and brown.

I cough. "Alright. Back to the grind."

A woman in a blazer takes a step backward. The dude beside her mutters, Hardcore.

I pass right through them to the elevators. I see no facilitators on this floor, but then I'm not really looking. I feel dizzy and drunk. I'm walking right into Elite's arms, and I don't care.

I am ready to deal: me for Mom. Oleg wins. Again. I know about the charges and about Omar Mohammed—and maybe this knowledge will pay dividends down the line—but for now, he has the power.

Back on Two, I head between the two main cube farms, pulling every eye with me. Keyboards go silent. Breaths are cut short. Dimly, in a red corner of my periphery I don't have time to address, I see Jared cowering under his trucker hat.

Oleg awaits with crossed arms. When I'm in hearing range, he says a single word.

"Good."

I answer, "No. Not even remotely." The oversized LCD behind him is still on loop, Mom and the facilitator bickering over the egg bite; I point to it and snap. "Get your orc away from my mother."

"A discussion would need to precede that."

"Fine. Discuss away." I flop a hand aside—something crackles in my wrist. "I could've sworn someone said we were on a tight schedule."

Two rows of cubicles back, Graham is sitting at Prisha's shoulder. He meets my eye and gives a slight shake of the head.

I don't know if he's telling me to ignore him, or not poke Oleg right now, or what.

Oleg says, "When a team is moving in opposition to itself, haste does no good. We will be sure this time. Sure that you are truly ready to participate in the project."

I roll my eyes. What is he asking for, a pinkie-swear?

"Tell me where Susan is. She'd never sign off on these methods—sending some brute to a psychiatric care facility."

"Miss Wright is working with the modules on Ten," Oleg says. "The business team has fallen behind in its checkpoints."

"That phony private spaceflight thing?"

Ignoring my characterization, he continues. "As the senior executive, Miss Wright is best equipped to shape the messaging. We asked her to personally assist."

I'll bet they did—to get her out of the way. What's surprising is that she would fall for such a crock.

Did she fall for it? Or is this pure fiction? Is she locked up in a conference room? Right now, my money's on the latter.

Now Oleg turns his shoulders to the LCD and picks up a remote. He pushes a button, and the looped scene of Mom and the facilitator blips out, replaced by the live shot.

They are in Mom's room—I recognize the signed picture with Ted Kennedy and hemp dreamcatcher I gave her two Christmases ago. The facilitator is advancing inside. Mom shuffles in place in a corner, her face still darkly disquieted.

"Look, I'll participate," I say. "I will, I really will. What are we looking at, twenty more hours? I'm good for twenty hours. Just let me speak to my mother."

As the rest of the engineers watch and listen, there's palpable sympathy. Everybody has a mom.

Oleg considers me warily for some time, then places a call. The phone of the facilitator on-screen rings. When he answers, Oleg instructs him to put Mom on the line.

I reach for Oleg's phone, but he pins it against his chest.

"Not one more betrayal," he says. "This is a mercy we show you. A final chance to submit."

Submit makes me want to drive a knee through his pelvis, but I resist the urge. "Yep, I got it, I'm on board. Now can I talk?"

Appearing less than convinced, he gives over the phone.

"Mom!" I say, hunching away from Oleg, from everyone. "Sorry I missed you at dinner last night. Vegan chili, right? Aw, just my luck. See I—er, there's been a lot going on here at work."

"Deborah?" Her voice came through clear but thin. "Deborah—he said they were 'training' you. Why? What're you being trained to do? Is what I wanna know."

I chuckle. "Yeah, I'd like to know too."

This was just a knee-jerk response, and I regret it immediately.

"You train them, Deborah," Mom starts in. "Remember that. Training and assimilation are one in the same. I'm proud of you. You train them."

"Yeah, no—that's right, Mom. You're right."

"It's important. College should be a place for self-exploration—a chapel of self-exploration. You don't go to college to learn passively. You must learn actively."

On the LCD, Mom is making the hair-clutching, karate-chop gesture that accompanies this diatribe. I've gotten it several times. It can run as long as fifteen or twenty minutes.

I am just thinking how to redirect Mom onto a different subject when Oleg smirks.

My head burns. The idea that this piece of humanoid trash is finding humor at the expense of my mother—of my mother's illness—is infuriating.

I cover the phone mic and say, "No, I'm not doing this in front of you," then take Oleg's phone without asking to the closest conference room.

A yellow-shirted lackey makes a move for me, but Oleg throws out a hand to stop him. Then watches me. He is trying to play cool—show that he's in control, isn't about to go scrambling every time I throw a tantrum.

It's cockiness, and I must exploit it.

Making a split-second decision, I take another step farther into the room, the two more quickies to the side—out of view of the doorway.

"Mom, call the cops!" I say. "Or have Hector call then, or Jeanette—anybody. These guys are bad news. They're holding my whole office hostage."

"Office?" Her voice is brittle. "I thought it was the college training you. Why would they do it in an office? Are they partnering with big business? What's in it for the businesses, is what I wanna know..."

"Can you just call them? The cops? Just say who I am, say where I work, and they'll figure out the rest."

Mom makes a confused keening noise. I wish I could see her on the LCD to gauge how she's doing. I feel the conflicting desires to scream into the phone JUST DIAL THE STUPID DIGITS, 911!, and to run down to Crestwood Psychiatric and hug her dearly.

"Listen, mother. These guys—the guys with the bad news? They're coming here soon, and I'm going to have to pretend we were talking about something else. Okay? It'll be confusing, I'm sorry for that. Just remember: hang up with me, dial 911. Got it?"

I hate turning the screws on her, adding any more panics to the ones already spinning through her head. But I can't give up the opportunity. Those charges are still up there, still armed in the HVAC ducts.

I flinch at a noise, then slowly look from my not-so-hidden corner of the conference room to the door.

Oleg stands at the threshold, clearing his throat.

"Uh-huh, right, tonight's also a no-go," I say, feigning indifference to his arrival. "But I'll try to get there for breakfast tomorrow. I'll work my magic and get you your double avocado."

Mom stammers, "Is this—I, er, the confusing part?"

"Yes, Mom." Tears start down my cheeks. "Right on the money. I'll see you soon."

"Tomorrow?"

"Hopefully. I'll do my best."

She says she knows; I always do.

We hang up.

I straighten up and affect a yawn, handing Oleg back his phone.

"Ready to roll now?" I say. "I've killed two of your men. You've threatened my schizophrenic mother. If those aren't the very seeds of productivity, the hair on my head isn't yellow."

I start past him, but Oleg plants himself in my way.

I try again.

He stays planted.

With admonishing lethargy, he moves the phone directly to his ear and taps a button. I'm close enough to hear the call initiating.

The facilitator answers on the first ring.

"Yes, me," Oleg says. "No, their conversation is over. I need you to speak to the head nurse at Crestwood and explain that Miss Bollinger has been ranting wildly for the police. You mistakenly mentioned her daughter's corporate bosses, who she believes to be war criminals."

I listen with a dying heart.

Oleg finishes giving his directions, hangs up.

"You thought we would hand you a cellphone," he says, "a line open to the outside world—and not listen in?"

It was dumb, now that I break it down. "What can I say? I underestimated the extent of your fascism."

He grins, and I have the hollow, fleeting hope that we're good. Maybe this can all be written off as part of our Tom and Jerry routine. The possibility seems slightly unreal, but this is an unreal situation, after all. Elite can't expect genteel surrender after the suffering they've inflicted on me.

But Oleg's grin lasts too long—and now an intensity is coming into it. The scar at his temple twitches. His body remains in the doorway, knees flexed readily.

"Well, time's a wasting," I try with false cheer. "I should go check with Prisha, see where she is on the optimization piece. This nuclear power plant of yours isn't going to hijack itself."

His grin flattens out, then vanishes. When I make a third move to leave, he bumps me backward.

"We are done being made fools."

I shiver at the finality in his tone. Fear jolts down my body like water through a dead hose.

Oleg removes a handgun from an ankle holster, and a black cylinder from his pants pocket. The cylinder he begins screwing onto the gun.

A silencer.