Patricia turned and gestured to Laurence that she needed some space here. He grabbed Sougata’s arm and dragged him toward the exit, beckoning for Anya and Tanaa to follow. “We need to get her some supplies,” Laurence said. “Patricia needs boiling water, dry ice, regular ice, half a dozen jailbroken Caddies, and a few other things. Come on, people, let’s haul ass.” He hustled them out of there.

“If this doesn’t work—” said Sougata.

“If you’re just wasting our time while Priya is in danger—” said Anya.

“We will end you,” Tanaa concluded.

Laurence looked back at the steel door, which he’d slammed shut behind them, and inhaled loudly through his teeth. He felt as if he, too, were about to be sucked into a completely unknowable other space.

“Let’s hurry up and get those supplies,” he said. He kept adding more and more items to the list, some of which they’d need to purchase at the grocery store or borrow from people in the hackerspace, a few blocks away.

“Damn damn damn,” Sougata kept saying under his breath. “Damn, it’s all over, I’m so sorry Priya.” Anya put her hand on Sougata’s shoulder.

Laurence was putting a lot of energy into pretending that the scavenger hunt he was sending his friends on was vital and time sensitive. And then he looked down at his phone and saw a text from Patricia: “come back pls. alone.” He gestured for the others to go out for supplies, then turned and sprinted back upstairs.

The loft looked darker than usual, as if all the light were being eaten by something. The movie posters resembled ghost portraits in a haunted mansion. Laurence stepped in a beanbag and almost face-planted. He crept past machines that he worked with every day, which suddenly looked sinister with their sharp edges, metallic protrusions, and sputtering LEDs. There was a rank beautiful scent, akin to burning lavender.

Patricia glowed at the other end of the long, thin space, with the same pale light as the white circle where Priya had vanished. The only point of brightness in the entire space.

“How’s it going?” Laurence stage-whispered, as though they were in a crypt.

“It’s going okay,” Patricia said in a normal voice. “Priya is safe for now. She is going to need a lot of vodka and loud music when she gets out of where she is. She drinks, right? She’s not straight edge?”

“She drinks,” Laurence said. That Priya’s taste in intoxicants was an issue reassured him a lot. But he was waiting for the bad news. Patricia just stared at him as if she was trying to decide something. She was several inches shorter than him, but in this moment she seemed taller. Her deep-set eyes narrowed as she sized him up.

“So,” Laurence said after a moment of this. “What can I do?”