She nodded and dashed past him, rounding the corner and into the other building toward Ampersand’s lair, thinking, Please be there, please be there. More than once in the previous two weeks, she had gone into his lair to find it empty.

Owing to the nature of the emergency, the bureaucrats in Building 127 let her skip the paperwork (or rather, to defer it until afterward). She slipped inside, and there he was, on the floor, eyes unfocused. It felt as though he were playacting at nonchalance, like he had hastily gotten himself into this innocuous position right as she opened the door.

“They want to talk to you.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “Please, it’s been two weeks. Esperas and Brako won’t be there. Please. For me. Just come outside, show them that you’re still here, that you’ll still cooperate.”

“I will comply.” It seemed that he had been expecting this.

“What are you going to do?”

The nuclei of his eyes concentrated in to a furtive glow as he stood up. “I must keep this brief.”

She hadn’t warned him that the meeting was mostly conducted by “militarists,” figuring he knew. But when they entered the room, and he laid eyes on the brigadier general, she could feel the air around him thicken. Even stranger, however, Luciana and Dr. Sev were no longer there.

“Sit,” said Porter, looking at her.

“I’d rather not,” she said. “He considers me his inferior, and it’s improper for an inferior to sit if their superior is standing.” She was almost proud of how much this excuse she had pulled completely out of her ass sounded legit.

That seemed to appease the brigadier general. “Tell us what you know.”

“I have no more meaningful intelligence than you have.”

“He says he doesn’t really know anything more than what we told you two weeks ago.”

“Would any of the other ones know?” asked Sol.

“They know less than I.”

“If he doesn’t know, they don’t know,” said Cora.

“Cross-reference them, anyway,” said Porter. “Cross-reference the propagandists. They at least have a history of being more cooperative.”

“Have you attempted to communicate with Enola Gay?” asked Sol.

“He says he has,” said Cora, “and he’s been trying for the last two weeks. No response.”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t even know if Enola Gay is getting them. All he knows is that he’s been trying and hasn’t been getting anything back.”

“How many are there?” asked Porter in a tone one might reserve for discussing terrorists.

“He doesn’t know.”

“Is this another refugee, or a representative of the Superorganism?” asked Sol.

“He doesn’t know. Probably the former.”