Rowan nods. She'd turned the corner and Lenie Clarke was just there, right in front of her, fifty kilograms of black rage inexplicably transported to the heart of their secret hideaway. "Eighty meters in that direction," she says, pointing over her shoulder.

"You sure about that?" Lenie asks.

"Most certainly," Rowan says. "I thought you were going to kill m—"

And stops, ashamed.

"Yes," she says after a while. "That was the first time we met. Really."

Lenie faces forward, at her own bank of dead readouts. "I thought you might have, you know, been part of the interview process. Back before your people did their cut'n'paste in my head. You can never tell what bits might have got edited out, you know?"

"I saw the footage afterwards," Rowan admits. "When Yves was making his recommendations. But we never actually met."

"Course not. You were way up in the strat. No time to hang around with the hired help." Rowan is a bit surprised at the note of anger in Lenie's voice. After all that's been done to her, after all she's come to terms with since, it seems strange that such a small, universal neglect would be a hot button.

"They said you'd be better off," Rowan says softly. "Honestly. They said you'd be happier."

"Who said?"

"Neurocog. The psych people."

"Happier." Lenie digests that a moment. "False memories of Dad raping me made me happier? Jesus, Pat, if that's true my real childhood must have been a major treat."

"I mean, happier at Beebe Station. They swore that that any so-called well-adjusted person would crack down there in under a month."

"I know the brochure, Pat. Preadaption to chronic stress, dopamine addiction to hazardous environments. You bought all that?"

"But they were right. You saw what happened to the control group we sent down. But you—you liked the place so much we were worried you wouldn't want to come back."

"At first," Lenie adds unnecessarily.

After a moment she turns to face Rowan. "But tell me this, Pat. Supposing they told you I wasn't going to like it so much? What if they'd said, she'll hate the life, she'll hate her life, but we have to do it anyway because it's the only way to keep her from going stark raving mad down there? Would you tell me if they'd told you that?"

"Yes." It's an honest answer. Now.

"And would you have let them rewire me and turn me into someone else, give me monsters for parents, and send me down there anyway?"

"…Yes."

"Because you served the Greater Good."

"I tried to," Rowan says.

"An altruistic corpse," the rifter remarks. "How do you explain that?"

"Explain?"

"It kind of goes against what they taught us in school. Why sociopaths rise to the top of the corporate ladder, and why we should all be grateful that the world's tough economic decisions are being made by people who aren't hamstrung by the touchy-feelies."