“—then they will pretend to become reasonable. They will give you some scraps from their table, and they will say it is dangerous and extraordinary and cause for celebration that they have given you these scraps—”

In the pausing, quieting press of red and black and blue bodies, it was easier to move. Fift crept, slid, ducked under arms, squeezed between bodies. No one struck zir.

“This. Everything falling apart,” Fift told Vvonda. “This revolution, this unraveling. You like it. It’s made for you.”

“—and they will warn you that you must be content with them. Do not be content, my siblings. You are human beings. They have supplanted you in your own minds—”

Vvonda paused, frowned. Fift could see vem rein in vir first, incredulous, angry reaction, stop, and consider zir question.

“—making you grateful for your slavery, making you believe you owe them your lives. You do not.”

As loud as running footsteps in a corridor beyond a closed door, the rhythm came up behind Panaximandra’s words. The anonymized Vails around Fift turned, seeking its source.

Baaa-RUMP, ba-chiggity-chiggity-whuppity-chiggity-chiggity-BOOM!

BOOM-ba-de-chiggity, BOOM-ba-de-chiggity, BOOM-ba-de-chiggity, BOOM!

“You’re right in one sense,” Vvonda said. “I like a challenge. We’ve been under-challenged, Fift, haven’t you noticed?”

“You owe them nothing,” Panaximandra said.

And there was Shria. Five rent-a-bodies—three red, two blue—encircled vem. One of the blue ones towered above the others. Instead of the usual shallow indentations for eyes, mouth, and ears, it had real features: startling white orbs of eyes with orange irises and long lashes, orange lips, fleshy whorls of ear—shockingly incongruous in the featureless expanse of skin-fabric.

The Vails had stepped away from Shria, turned to face the growing rhythm:

BOOM-ba-de-chiggity, BOOM-ba-de-chiggity, BOOM-ba-de-chiggity.

BOOM-ba-de-chiggity, BOOM-ba-de-chiggity, BOOM-ba-de-chiggity, BOOM!

Baaa-RUMP, ba-chiggity-chiggity-whuppity-chiggity-chiggity-BOOM!

Shria was lying on the ground, face down. Vir clothes were ripped, jagged slashes of vir lavender skin revealed between the red and blue fabric, lacerated and beginning to flush the deeper purple of bruises.

They’d been kicking vem.

“I see vem,” ze gasped, to Vvonda.

“I see Shria,” ze told Father Grobbard, whose eyes opened.

“You’re still there?” Vvonda said. “You haven’t listened to a word I said, have you?”

Fift tried to imitate Father Grobbard’s expression exactly. “It’s not as if you offered me any clear arguments,” ze said to Vvonda. “You simply asserted it was no place for me, among a flurry of insults. There was little information content, and none new.” Zir throat was dry, and ze cleared it, twice, hoping that didn’t ruin the effect.

Shria heaved vemself to vir knees and paused, vir neck craned down, vir red hair covering vir face.

“Ve’s telling you to go away,” Vvonda hissed. “That’s the new information. Ve wants you to leave.”

“Goodbye, my friends, my siblings, my lovers,” Panaximandra said. “Until we meet again, remember: do not listen to their lies. Remember who you are!”