"In case it hasn't sunk in yet, I'm dealing with quite a few demands on my time these days," the room pointed out. "But I assure you, I have been working on it."

"I think you've done more than that. I think you solved it, even before you lost so much of your resource base. We can tell you how to get that back, by the way. If that factors into your analysis."

"Uh huh. And you couldn't have just phoned me up from Podunk, Maine or wherever you were?"

"We tried. Either you were busy dealing with all those other demands on your time, or the channels are down."

The building hummed quietly for a moment, as if in thought. Deeper into the lobby, past dormant information pedestals and brochure dispensers and an abandoned reception counter, ruby LEDs twinkled from a row of security gates. The leftmost set turned green as Clarke watched.

"Through there," Desjardins said.

She took Lubin's elbow. He limped at her side, maintaining a subtle distance; close enough to use her as a guide, far enough to spurn her as a crutch. An asymmetrical trail of dark sticky footprints marked his passage.

Each gatepost was a brushed-aluminum cylinder half a meter across, extending from floor to ceiling like the bars of a cage. The only way in was between them. A black band the height of Clarke's forearm girdled each post at eye level, twinkling with color-coded constellations—but the whole band flushed red before they were halfway across the room.

"Oh, right," Desjardins remarked. "Security will cut you into little cubes if you try to sneak anything past." A curved panel beneath the display slid back at their approach. "Just throw everything in there."

Lubin felt out the chamber, set his pistol and belt down inside it. Clarke followed suit with her own weapon while Lubin struggled to remove his pack. He shrugged off Clarke's attempted assistance; the pack clanked on top of the pile. The panel slid shut.

The wraparound display bloomed into a riot of images and acronyms. Clarke recognized some of them from Lubin's tutorial on the way up: taser and microwave gun; mechanical springlift; aerosol flypaper. Other things she'd never seen before. For all she knew Lubin had brought them from his stash at the bottom of the Atlantic.

"Is that an electron stripper?" Desjardins asked. "And a pulse bomb! You brought your own tiny pulse bomb! Isn't that cute!"

Lubin, his jaw set, said nothing.

"That's everything, then? No nasty biosols or hidden freakwire? Because I'm telling you, those gates are very unforgiving. You walk through with any—"

"Our implants," Clarke said.

"Those will pass."

Lubin felt his way between the gateposts. No klaxons sounded, no lasers lanced down from overhead. Clarke stepped after him.

"The elevators are just around the corner," Desjardins said.