It had taken them several hours to get to the hospital. First Sliv had directed them through a head-spinning network of topside alleys to make sure they weren’t being followed. Then they had abandoned the ESCPD scoots at the airlock before climbing down the access shaft and taking a long, circuitous route through a series of narrow tunnels that deposited them in the emergency room.

“Early bedtime around here,” Deirdre said.

“We forage at night,” Sliv explained. “It’s almost time to wake up.”

At the back of the ER, behind a desk that said PLEASE SIGN IN, Sliv pulled off his glove and unbuttoned his camouflage shirt. He reached down to unbutton his pants, then seemed to remember that he had company.

“’Scuse me,” he said, disappearing into an office behind the desk.

“This place is okay,” Deirdre said. She almost sounded convinced. “It’s good. You’re better off down here.”

An unmanned red vacuum cleaner rolled past, trailing a long cord. It stopped next to the desk and lowered the trunk of a long attachment to suction up a gathering of steely gray lint, then retreated back down the corridor.

“Maybe not here, exactly,” Deirdre said, staring at the newly cleaned spot on the tile floor. “But down below the canopy, out of signal range. As long as you keep moving.”

“I plan to,” Mistletoe said. She watched the vacuum cleaner disappear behind the skeletal teardrop-shaped chassis of a topside car and wondered if Sliv had kept Nelson intact, or if the scoot had already been gutted for spare parts.

“So describe your Unison experience,” Deirdre said.

“Confusing and scary pretty much covers it.”

“Give me specifics.”

“I found Ambrose easy enough because the name he was using when you met him—”

“Adam Trevor.”

“—was up on posters advertising a concert he was supposed to be playing. Except when I found him, he really thought he was Adam, like it wasn’t a fake Profile anymore. He was making up a song about a cloud. I snapped him out of it, but that didn’t last. So unless I get back in there to remind Ambrose who he is—”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“It’s not up to you.”

“Giving you that login was a mistake. I was right the first time: the best thing to do is run.”

“I won’t leave Ambrose. He wouldn’t leave me.”

“You don’t know that. And since I spent fifteen years building a career you destroyed in the course of an afternoon, the least you can do is consider my advice.”