Zef's panic rose.

>>Where are you?

The string of texts that follow make no sense at all. They may as well be a cypher. Zef is no Alan Turing. He can't crack the code while bringing out canapes. He sends anxious messages to Damo trying to explain, but of course she's already on it.

>>I was monitoring him, but he's gone dark. Just infiltrated the hotel cams. Looking for him.

It takes an alarmingly long time for someone who can process several terabytes of data at a time.

>>Okay, had to review old footage 'cause he's not visible on cams. He's in the bathroom, third stall on the right.

Zef hastily excuses himself, instructing another server to cover for his restroom break. He makes a beeline for the bathroom, past the backs of men at urinals. Thankfully, the hotel holds huge conferences so there are several rows of stalls, not just a single one with a fucked up door like ninety percent of men's bathrooms. He taps his knuckles softly against the door of the third.

Gray says, "Occupied," in a strangled rasp.

Zef feigns embarrassment like he walked in on someone. "Oh, sorry!"

Gray recognizes his voice. The latch on the door clicks, and Zef slips inside, locking it behind him and turning the hologram off so Gray knows it's really him.

It's hard to wrap his head around what he's seeing at first. The hologram of the generic server replaces the real Gray in a disconcerting flicker like a radio signal fuzzing between stations. Gray holds the edge of the stall in a white-knuckled grip, his other hand knotting in his hair, expression twisted. The glow of his tattoos, when not hologrammed away, blaze under the foundation.

"My gild," he rasps, quiet so no one can hear. "Think it's— I don't know. It was fine, and now." He stops talking. A tendon strains in his neck.

Zef touches his shoulder to comfort him, but Gray flinches. He's not straining to control his gild; he's holding in a scream of agony. It's a miracle he managed to get to the bathroom without attracting attention. He can't go back to the diners like this.

Damo:

>>It's hard for me to diagnose the problem remotely, but his implant data is all over the place. Something's messing with it.

"Can't be the server hologram," Zef murmurs. "He's had that on for hours before—"

The correlation hits him.

"It's her," Gray whispers. "She's done something— rigged her gild to fuck up mine. It started right before her speech."

Zef's blood runs cold. "If it's some kind of short-range wave her gild is giving off, does that mean she knows you're here?"

Gray's wan expression doesn't change, his head shaking stiffly. "D-don't think so. Would have sent a goon by now. Probably a— a preventative measure."

Damo pipes in. >>My firewalls should block any kind of detection, but I don't want to get cocky. They'd normally block any kind of hacking attempt like this, but Rylan designed your gild for subjugation by hers. Might be rerouting the signal through the new data fort.

"Any chance of figuring it out in a hotel toilet?" Gray hisses.

>>I thought the 'you need to get the fuck out of there' was implied.

Gray winces. "Haven't finished what we came here for."

"I'll do that," Zef says.

"No. Not alone."

"I'll tell the head chef you're hungover and cover for you. I can handle it."

Gray catches his wrist in a bruising grip. His expression is pleading. "Not when she's here. If she catches you, and I'm not around—"

"She thinks I'm dead. And nothing's happened to me, yet." Zef pries Gray's fingers loose, holding his hand. Squeezing it. "You can trust me to ferry two stoned women to their hotel rooms."

Damo puts in,

>>Sami and I will be on hand to help, too.

Gray looks primed to argue, but then Zef kisses his knuckles and says, "Please, let me do this for you."

He looks lost. Unmoored. All those times he'd offered to help Zef when they'd hardly known each other, but now they're close enough to mould each other, leaving fingerprints in each other's clay, and he still can't handle accepting help in return.

He shudders as another wave of pain rolls over him.

"Okay... Okay, just." With rib-cracking pressure, he drags Zef in, crushes him in his arms. Zef can tell the pressure hurts Gray worse.

The words, "You'd better come back," get tucked into the crook of his neck.

"I will," Zef assures him. Kisses his temple before he backs up.

>>Well, well, well, you two started fucking, didn't you?

"Damo," Zef mutters, blushing to the roots of his hair.

>>I thought your neurotransmitters were looking heavy on the oxytocin this morning.

"Damo," they say in unison.

>>Right, right, escape routes. Best turn off your hologram, Gray. It's doing no good. I'll work some magic on security cams and guide you out.

Gray gives him one last lingering look. Neither of them want to treat it like a goodbye, but fear sticks to the moment like old chewing gum.

Zef says, "I'll see you tonight."

"Holdin' you to that," Gray mutters, then ducks out of the stall.

Zef waits an appropriate amount of time so no one notices them both emerging from the same stall. He reinstates the generic server hologram, then leaves, heading for the dining hall. Damo sends through a message.

>>Your disgruntled lover boy is safely in Sami's hands. I'll do my best to sort out an effective blocker by tomorrow, but don't think you're on your own. This place is ninety-eight percent camera, and they are all my eyes.

"Not sure if that's comforting or creepy," Zef murmurs to himself. "Very Biblical angel of you."

>>Be not afraid.

Zef returns to a ballroom in chaos.

During his trip to the washrooms, the desserts were served, consumed, and the diners behave with the primaeval energy of bonobos loose from the zoo.

A conga line dances to the harpist's rendition of a song best known for its record-breaking use of the most synonyms for 'cum.' The singer, clearly having partaken of the creme brulee herself, sings "Bathing in a Biblical flood of baby batter," like it's classical poetry. A portly executive dances suggestively on a table while an exuberant co-worker tucks napkins into his pants in place of paper money, which went extinct two centuries ago. A chicken, apparently having evaded the kitchen staff this long, struts brazenly across the buffet.

Zef says, "Well. It worked."

>>Any sign of your genderbent doppelgangers?

"They don't look that much like us," Zef says under his breath. He spots Katarina marching in the conga line. "Got eyes on mine, though."

>>Tally ho, my good bitch.

Many of the servers are confusedly pouring wine, wondering if they should really be further inebriating the guests. Others run like headless chickens to and from the kitchens. The head server sends an alert through their implants. The authorities have been informed about possible food contamination, and they're waiting on further instruction.

Zef has limited time.

He approaches Katarina in the conga line, saying, "Excuse me, ma'am?"

"Come, come!" she declares, caring not a wit that Zef's a server. She grabs his arm and shoves him in front of her. "This is best part of party, when everybody lets their inner demons out."

"Uh." At that moment, he spots Lina sprawled across two chairs, watching the conga line upside down while the blood rushes to her face. She speaks loud enough to hear over the music. "Why are they on the ceiling?"

She's less fickle than Katarina. He'll have to return for her.

They do a few laps around dining tables while Zef formulates a plan to lure her away, trying to ascertain what excuse he can come up with that won't make him sound like a creep. Eventually a few others disembark from the conga line to collapse onto tables, and he says, "Are you feeling kinda sleepy?"

"Where is your stamina?" Katarina demands. "We will go on adventure to the bar and—"

She trails off. Stops dead, causing the person behind her to collide. She stumbles forward looking at her index finger. Blinks twice while the discombobulated conga line marches on around the traffic jam they've made.

"Oh no. It is happening again," Katarina says, still staring at her finger.

"What's happening?" Zef asks.

"Balloon hands. Is okay. I have had many trips this way. All I need is a glass of lemon water and a nap and—"

"We can arrange that!" Zef says quickly. He shepherds her towards the door to the kitchen, runs in to shove haphazardly sliced lemons into a glass of water, then out again. Zef hands Katarina her drink and leads her towards the elevator.

It is a bit like herding a cat. She gets distracted by every little thing, but eventually he manages to get her through the doors right as someone on the intercom apologises for what seems to be an act of sabotage, assuring everyone they should stay in the building until the CDC arrives to test for what types of contaminants. It's so loud, Zef doesn't hear what Damo says into his ear. He can't reply out loud, having to compose a text response while Katarina gives her 'inflated' finger a few pokes.

Zef asks what floor she's on, even though he knows. He hits the button and lets out a breath of moderate relief when the elevator rises.

Damo's voice comes through clear as day.

>>I was trying to tell you to wait and get another elevator. Don't panic. Deep breaths.

Don't panic? About what?

They stop the next floor up. The door opens, and every bit of relief Zef drank down turns to poison.

Rylan marches into the lift, flanked by her head goon.

He contemplates fleeing through the door, but it would be too conspicuous. He'd never make it. Besides, he's disguised. She can't know who he is. Or so he tells himself as a primordial terror supplants itself in his nerves, his skin, his body reacting to the threat. To the memory of what it felt like to have his chest carved open.

Damo says, >>Keep calm. I'm here.

Zef pretends to be very engaged with Katarina's babbling. "Five minutes, that's all I need. Then they will deflate." She still stares at her 'balloon hands.' Then she notices who gets into the lift with them and goes silent.

The doors shut, trapping them inside.