“It’s her,” said the holder of the torch. “The architect.” Iona recognized the voice as Alyssa’s and found she wasn’t surprised. If anyone had an electric torch, of course it would be Alyssa.

“What’s she doing here?” said the holder of the knife, who was a man. “Did you tell her—”

“No,” said Alyssa. “She doesn’t know anything.” Alyssa raised the torch a little, shining it toward the ceiling so its light was no longer in Iona’s eyes. “How did you find us?”

“I followed Carter,” said Iona. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness and she could see Alyssa was standing in a doorway, just to the side of the wall she’d walked into. Carter must have gone through that doorway.

“Who’s Carter?” said the man with the knife.

“A colleague of mine—look, do you really think I’m a threat?”

“What do you reckon?” the man said to Alyssa.

Alyssa peered at Iona. “I don’t think so.”

The man lowered the knife and walked around to join Alyssa, and Iona now saw he was Victor—a slightly built man in his early forties, darker-skinned than herself, whose default expression was a scowl. But most significantly both he and Alyssa were real people like herself, not things made of wood. Iona realized this with relief—she was not the only one. Perhaps they could help her understand.

“Why did Carter come here?” asked Victor.

“I don’t know,” said Iona.

“Are others coming?” said Alyssa.

“I don’t think so.” She felt it was important to tell them the truth about everything so she told them how she’d set out to find Alyssa, which had led her to the planning department, which had led her to Victor’s office. She took the coin from her pocket and held it up.

“Oh that’s where it went,” said Alyssa, smiling broadly and taking the coin from her.

“It’s yours?”

“It was part of my charm bracelet,” Alyssa said, holding up her wrist with the bracelet on it that Iona had found distracting on their first meeting. “Thank you—I was gutted that a piece had gone missing. It’s not the same without all the pieces.”

Iona went on to explain how the absence of Victor at his office had led her to visit his house. Victor was furious with Iona over this. Alyssa was furious with Victor for leaving the instruction manual lying around for people to find.

“I left in a hurry,” Victor said. “I didn’t get a chance to go home and tidy up—and I didn’t think anyone would go snooping in my stuff.” This last part was directed more at Iona.

“And you carried out the instructions on this citizen, this Carter?” said Alyssa.

“Yes. I wanted to know where he was going so I followed him—why did he come here?”

“The instructions are for testing new citizens after they’re assembled,” said Victor. “I added the last part myself—it’s a simple program that tells them to come here and wait.”

If that was simple, Iona wondered what a complex program would look like. But instead she asked a more pressing question: “Why?”