The cot is stiff and scratchy. The blanket I'm given smells like it's been mouldering in some rusty joint of the Bay Bridge. I buck and flop and rearrange, and stay uncomfortable. My toes keep poking past the covers. The blanket's stitching chafes my cheek. I'm nauseous. Also a little hungry. I think I have a fever.

Prisha's cot is beside mine—our unsleeping eyes keep meeting. Jared is above me, his feet by my head, and Minosh below. Through the office white noise cuts an assortment of nasal squeaks, fizzes, and honks.

I peer up the aisle. Silhouetted by a faint glow from elevator fluorescents, hunched on a kitchenette stool, sits Fedor. Flattop ears. Hands joined in a fist over his knees.

Watching.

Prisha whispers, "Deb, you're awake right?"

I squirm up from my pillow, which crackles like newspaper. "Yeah."

"That bump on your head, did you—was there another fight?"

I glance around and confirm none of our row-mates are listening. How much should I reveal? After the blowup in Carter's office, Susan and Oleg—who remains "Jim Davis" to the rest of the engineers—came to the second floor and issued a kind of joint statement. Susan apologized again and announced several modifications to Blackquest 40. For the next thirty minutes, people were free to email friends or family from the 4th-floor breakroom. A pair of showers on Ten would be available for general use in the morning. An Elite facilitator had gone out for toiletries and fresh undergarments for all.

Nobody—Susan grimaced the word—would be injected against their will.

Jared shouted, "What about our stock options?"

Susan looked at Oleg, who was sporting his own bump from my headbutt. "Options are still being discussed." She dialed up the cheer in her full lips. "Let's sleep on it. Everything improves with sleep. This training has suffered missteps, without question. Carter, myself, Jim here—everyone involved acknowledges that. But we'll come out the other end stronger. That's a promise."

Then they left. People filed up to Four to write their families—Oleg and Katya monitoring—as Fedor and a helper snapped open cots. Rumors raced through the weary workforce.

Carter got fired ... Elite barred Susan's entry to the building but Kyle let her in ... The Blackquest deadlines are getting reset, that's why the countdown timers are dark ...

I felt eyes following me. People knew I had been away again, surely figured I was involved in whatever had gone down. What could I say? Even leaving aside Fedor's intermittent death glares, I had no interest in spewing bombshells that might spoil Susan's plan. If she had a plan. After my cranial assault, seemingly afraid of further escalation, Susan had smoothed things over with Oleg, agreeing to keep the training sham in place overnight in exchange for concessions—email, etc. They didn't discuss whether Blackquest 40 would be canceled in the morning, or its true purpose revealed. Or who was truly in charge. Each side just retreated to a corner.

Susan had given me a look as Paul and I departed for the second floor. Eyes large in the too-still top of her face. She wanted to communicate something. A warning? An invisible wink? I watched those luminous green pupils as long as I dared.

Did she want me to attempt escape? Come find her later, once we were both clear of Elite? Or just get some sleep?

I had no clue.

Now I find Prisha in the dark. Her blanket is balled under her chin.

"Not a major fight," I say.

"Jim Davis had a mark." She points to her own head. "Was that you?"

"He and I are, uh ... struggling. Interpersonally."

Prisha considers this with a grave air. "What does Susan think of Blackquest 40?"

"She agrees it's nuts. She gets it. She'll shut this thing down."

I hope.

I waste the next hour trying to sleep. Adrenaline and exhaustion wrestle over my head. Any time I get the least bit drowsy and my eyes shutter, I catch sight of the unfamiliar carpet, or ceiling tile, or Jared's fleshy soles; and wig. It's just weird. I'm too used to my apartment.

As a kid, I could sleep anywhere—which reminds me of carebnb. How are my users doing? They should all be matched up with hosts now, sleeping soundly. Did they mind the disposable bed liners? I had a few hosts worried about bed bugs, and so distributed liners "for the safety of carebnb users and hosts." I worried this could offend users, but Cecil convinced me it was no problem.

You giving people a bed? They don't care. They sleep on tinfoil.

But maybe he was wrong. Maybe my users took one look at those liners—the hosts watching superiorly from the doorway—and took a walk. Maybe I overshot my "Walkable Radius" assumption and some users didn't even make it to their assigned host. It occurs to me now that I made no allowance for disabled users. Really, Walkable Radius should vary based on users' mobility rather than being this fixed, monolithic value.

Needless to say, I am still awake.

I reach around underneath my cot for Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt. Everyone got a small allotment of personal items; she just did fit inside the TSA-esque bin. I catch a rubber quill between my fingers, check the time.

3:37 AM.

Prisha is out. Jared's feet—mercifully covered now—haven't moved in a while. From the near office, Paul's, I hear a low-rattling snore—he relaxed visibly after sending and quickly receiving back email from Li Wei. If you had asked me yesterday where "Becoming Intricately Aware of Coworkers' Sleep Habits" belonged on my scale of dreads, I would have rated it near the top.

Now? Middle of the pack.

I know it's a terrible idea to attack another day without sleep—doubly terrible given my family mental health history—but there's nothing to be done. This is my reality.

I lower a foot to the ground, then ease off my covers. I take Hedgehog Eleanor Roosevelt just in case. I slip on sandals. I walk to the end of the aisle on tiptoes.

"You require assistance with something?" says a heavy voice.

Fedor. I thought he might've fallen asleep—Katya did with her E-wing charges—but no luck. I met a troll on a stool.

"Just need the restroom," I say.

He straightens up. His scar glints in the elevator light. "Sixty-four workers on this floor, and you are the one who needs to go. One out of sixty-four. These numbers interest me."

"Odds aren't as long as you think—it's actually a sanitary situation that only applies to seven of us. I can go into more detail if you want. If that interests you."

Fedor either clears his throats or chokes on snot, then stands aside.

I slip past up the hall. The restroom is a good ways up the hall, but not so far Fedor can't see. I open the door and set it perfectly perpendicular to the wall, such that it blocks half the hallway. With a tiny push back toward the cots, I start race-walking the opposite way. The door hinges hiss shut as I whip the corner.

I don't know if I made it—if Fedor thinks I disappeared to the bathroom or saw me sneak off. Either way, my play is forward. Smoothly I walk to the stairwell and feather open the door, exit, feather it closed.

Beyond the glass balustrade, the lobby is dark. I hear Sempiternity and see the Elite guard by street light. He's on a cot. I am surprised Oleg would allow his guard to sleep—if indeed he's sleeping and not lying in wait—until I notice red heart-blips at either side of the entrance.

Sensors.

If that beam of light breaks, the whole building gets an eardrum check.

How many others are spread around? Any unattended first-floor window, I'll bet. Both parking garage levels. It's savvy use of tech; guarding entry-exit points with sensors lets Elite seem mellow manpower-wise, like they're only bunking down next to us, rather than maintaining an Alcatraz-worthy perimeter at all times.

As I climb the stairs, I glimpse into each floor to assess. Four, Five, Six, and Nine have significant numbers of employees. Two of these floors have banks of cots visible through the door-glass. I count seven more guards. Adding this number to Oleg, Katya, Fedor, Fedor's cot helper, and Graham—who's been ominously absent—yields twelve. Factoring in bodies in locations I just didn't see, I peg their force between fifteen and twenty.

I reach the E-wing badge reader. Fortunately I never gave Paul's badge back, and use it now to enter. I creep down the main hall toward Susan's office. The biz-siders are sleeping as before, Katya now joined by her brother at the head of the sleeping formation. All quiet.

I pass Carter's office. He is sprawled on the floor—none of his modern furniture accommodates a prone human—with one elbow torqued up behind the opposite ear. His belt twists between loops. The coif is tragic, crisscrossing tufts, flyaway wedges. Slumber: the great equalizer.

Here I am at Susan's door. I consider my approach. Should I jostle her awake? Chill out in her office, wait for her eyes to flutter open and catch sight of me? Won't that freak her out? I am generally anti-freaking-people-out, but under the circumstances maybe it's excusable.

All this turns out moot. Susan is at her desk, awake.

"Oh," I say.

Susan gives a groggy smile. "Can you believe anyone can sleep with all this going on?" She rolls her head languorously, freeing her hair, letting it bounce in lazy spirals. "How did lights-out go downstairs? People alright?"

"More or less. Considering."

"Right."

She's kicked off her shoes and sits with her feet tucked underneath, now rubbing her bare instep, now yawning wide.

I feel weird watching this. Not because she's sexy as sin—which she is, and then some—but because it's too conventional. Too relaxed. How long do I have before Fedor realizes he's fallen for the easiest lady trick in the book and comes hunting?

Whatever is going to happen here, it needs to happen.

To get the ball rolling, I say, "I kept the whole Vlask situation quiet."

"Good, I don't think we want it out. It would just alarm people."

Again I feel a disconnect. If ever there was a time for alarm, surely that time is now. "Who'd you tell up here on E-wing?"

"Nobody," Susan says. "They're already asleep anyway. I tried getting them sent home altogether; seems silly to keep a bunch of salesreps and ACs around for this private space business plan if they need is software. Oleg wouldn't go for it. He thinks it breaks the cover story."

I place my hands at various points about my head, making sure it's fastened right. If Susan tried getting the business side sent home, doesn't that imply the engineers are not going home?

"Just—let's just reset," I say. "I made it here by dicey means—that guy with the ears probably saw me—so we should start. Step one is just getting the word out, right? I found a backdoor through their data-block earlier. If I can use your machine ten minutes, I can slip a message through to SFPD. Now whether or not they believe—"

"A message saying what?" Her tone is mild, genuinely confused and curious.

"One possible opening line might be, 'Save us, we're being forced to do the bidding of ill-tempered Russians ...'"

I don't say this with snark—like I would to literally any other person on the planet—but unspool it word by word, gauging Susan's reaction.

It's not positive.

I continue, "Because we are putting the kibosh on this, yes?"

At my pique, Susan stands and starts around her desk. "Deb, I know this is tough because you've been personally—"

"Hijacking a nuclear power plant on a different continent can't be legal." I heard where she was going; my anger does not accept. "It's dishonest. It's repugnant and immoral. And I only sixty- to seventy-percent believe it's true."

Susan waits a beat to make sure I've finished. "I hear all of that. I do. I agree with every ounce of it."

We are standing nose to nose. More like nose to chin—she's taller.

I cross my arms. "But?"

Her face is pure anguish. "Honestly, I just don't see a way out."

Inside me, pressure seals bulge and gear-teeth grind.

Susan notices my reaction. "A way that doesn't completely burn Codewise Industries to the ground. We don't have millions of dollars sitting in the bank to pay Elite back. If they call us on non-delivery? We're sunk."

"But it's fraud! The whole thing was a fraud—isn't the contract null and void?"

Her shoulders sink. "Carter entered into it. I haven't seen the language in the contract, but given our employee was involved ... I doubt a court would void it."

"Screw the contract. And screw the money—we just back out. You heard Oleg: the Russians can't reveal their involvement. They won't go after us in U.S. courts."

"That is possibly correct." Susan drops her head in a nod. "But that doesn't mean they wouldn't go after us."

I have no answer. It's late and sinister and I look around the office, and it's thick with terror. Spies. Tossed dress drawers. Sudden-onset radiation poisoning.

She says, "Of course I want to poke Oleg right in the eye." Though she doesn't add like you, it's there. "But I can't. I have to think about our 317 employees. Their families. Their livelihoods. I can't do this on emotion."

In the face of her capitulation, I am nothing but emotion. I'm shriveling. I'm tearing. I want a different world.

"So we're building the software. That's what you're saying?"

Susan takes my hand. It's limp, but she works her palm flat to mine and squeezes. The hot touch shoots straight through me.