In preparation for operation Find Chime, I brought everyone in on my organizational system. Patton wore a proud grin as I explained the Simon-based quadrant system, and he beamed with joy upon learning that our focus would be the Blue quadrant, named for Kingdom Fungi and sub-divided by various psychotropic strains of mushrooms, the names of which I only knew because of him. He had the layout down almost before I’d finished going through it. The others weren’t so enthusiastic. To be fair, the totality of my plan was to rush into a city to hunt down an item I couldn’t describe, using a map organized like a salad bar for spirit guides.

Blue Quadrant was the size of Shanghai with the density of Mumbai. It could take years to find the Chime without knowing more. Before we arrived, I decided to take a final trip down the cord to see if there was anything I’d missed.

I crawled back into the dredge and triggered the lid. It abruptly stopped closing, and suddenly Naecia was there, sitting on the edge looking down at me with her default level of contempt. I could tell that she didn’t even want to address me – to dignify my existence with the acknowledgment of communication.

When it was clear she wasn’t going to speak first, I broke the ice, “Anything I can help you with?”

“We almost stopped you.” Blunt.

“Okay.”

“When did you figure out the Chime was inside Aszerat?”

“Maybe about a day before you rescued-slash-tried-to-assassinate-me?” I guessed. “Tough to say. I’d sort of lost track of time.” I displayed my wrist to show off the Timex whose battery I’d killed playing with its Indiglo® technology while in captivity.

She glanced off, clearly frustrated at missing the window to erase my brain and murder me. “And you told them about it as soon as you found it, didn’t you? Didn’t bother to hold onto the knowledge or at least delay giving it to them?”

“I thought I was saving them. And I was addicted to nectar. And they were torturing my friend, so yeah: I told them it was in Aszerat.”

She shook her head and tightened her mouth. The spiracles on her neck flexed open then shuddered an exhalation. “He’s one person. You put unknowable trillions at risk of extinction by giving up that information.”

“I’m sorry for not knowing that the Chime was a weapon of mass destruction. No one bothered to tell me that during my welcome tour of the Silent Child. You want to blame someone, blame Aptat.”

“I do,” she said, refocusing her gaze squarely with mine. “But I blame you too.”

“For what?”

“For existing.”

“Great,” I said, gesturing to the glass. “Do you mind? I need to see if I can find the specific location of this thing so we can grab it before all of the death happens.”