Text spilled out on the screen below each face. Extortion. Money laundering. Blackmail. “I wasn’t friends with these ones.” It was half-true. Tennal hadn’t been close to any of them, but he’d spent long evenings with people who were close to them. And he knew the faces. The last one was the pale architect he’d slept with the night before.

“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize them,” the legislator said softly. “You’ve spent the past few months helping them stuff their pockets.”

“I didn’t—”

The legislator slammed her hand on the table and Tennal jumped. “You performed for them,” she said. “Like a monkey on a string. I know you’ve been trading on your reading abilities. I’m sure it was fun, getting favors out of criminals, but all that fun was built on Sanura’s criminal economy. Do you know where those gambling profits go? Shall I give you a rundown of the hits these scum put out? The law-abiding traders they’ve squeezed out of business? The weapons and drugs and spyware those gains bought them?”

Tennal was no longer trying to answer her. He’d propped his elbows on the arms of his chair and rested his head in his hands.

“And that’s before going into the rest of it,” the legislator continued relentlessly. “The cleanup team registered over a dozen readers—”

Tennal’s head came up sharply. “Did you bring them in?”

“You will shut the fuck up,” the legislator said, with such viciousness that Tennal fell into a sullen silence. She watched him for a moment then carried on. “Accept you’ve lost all right to be trusted. You let criminals write you. You have natural defenses and have been extensively drilled in deflection techniques; nobody should be able to write you. That means you were taking drugs to let them.” She leaned over the desk slightly, and Tennal found himself shrinking back even though he was several feet away. “Was that fun? Did it bring you a fucking thrill, that some fifth-rate architect might write you so that group of thugs and wastrels could use you better? Is that what you wanted?”

Tennal shut his eyes. He could claim he hadn’t realized, but he knew deep down that wasn’t an excuse. He knew what kind of circles he’d been running in, even if he’d thought he was keeping his hands clean. All the other facts would have fallen into place if he’d taken a moment to consider where the money was coming from and going to. “All right,” he said. “I’m a fuckup. Is that what you wanted to hear? We knew that already.” He bit the bullet. “What are you going to do about it?”