She sounds as if she’s reading a grocery list.

“Why not—” Warm salt floods his mouth. His tongue does some careful exploring; his teeth are still intact, at least. “—in Medical, now?”

“It would have been a bitch getting you down the ladder. Brander wasn’t going to help. Everyone else is outside.” She sprays foam across his bicep. It pulls his skin as it dries.

“Not that they’d be any help,” she adds.

“Thanks...”

“I didn’t do anything. Just dragged you in here, basically.”

He wants desperately to touch her.

“What is it with you, Fischer?” she asks after a while. "Why don't you ever fight back?"

"Wouldn’t work."

"Are you kidding? You know how big you are? You could take Brander apart if you just stood up to him."

Shadow says it only makes things worse. You fight back, it only gets them madder.

"Shadow?" Lenie says.

"What?"

"You said—"

“Didn’t say anything...”

She watches him for a few moments.

"Okay," she says at last. She stands up. “I'll call up and send for a replacement."

“No. That’s okay.”

“You’re injured, Fischer."

Medical tutorials whisper inside his head. “We've got stuff downstairs."

"You still wouldn't be able to work for a week. More than twice that before you'd be fully healed."

"They planned for accidents. When they set up the schedules."

"And how are you going to keep clear of Brander until then?"

"I'll stay outside more," he says. "Please, Lenie."

She shakes her head. "You're crazy, Fischer." She turns to the hatch, undogs it. "None of my business, of course. I just don't think—"

Turns back.

“Do you like it down here?” she asks.

“What?”

“Do you get off, being down here?”

It should be a stupid question. Especially now. Somehow it isn’t.

“Sort of,” he says at last, realizing it for the first time.

She nods, blinking over white space. “Dopamine rush.”

“Dopa—?”

“They say we get hooked on it. Being down here. Being— scared, I guess.” She smiles faintly. “That’s the rumor, anyway.”

Fischer thinks about that. “Not so much I get off on it. More like, just used to it. You know?”

“Yeah.” She turns and pushes the hatch open. “For sure.”

* * *

There's this praying mantis a meter long, all black with chrome trim, hanging upside-down from the ceiling of the medical cubby. It's been sleeping up there ever since Fischer first arrived. Now it hovers over his face, jointed arms clicking and dipping like crazy articulated chopsticks. Every now and then one of its feelers winks red light, and Fischer can smell the scent of his own flesh cauterizing. It kind of bothers him. What's even worse is, he can't move his head. The neuroinduction field in the Med table has got him paralyzed from the neck up. He keeps wondering what would happen if the focus slipped, if that damping energy ended up pointing at his lungs. At his heart.

The mantis stops in midmotion, its antennae quivering. It keeps completely still for a few seconds. "Hello, er— Gerry, isn't it?" it says at last. "I'm Dr. Troyka."