In the center of the room a tree trunk of thick wires descended from the ceiling and snaked along the floor like roots. The root wires branched off in various directions and attached to the hybrid machinery that lined the walls. Next to the base of the trunk stood an even older version of Magnus. His hair and skin had a decaying, yellowish tint. He wasn’t quite as tall but was dressed in a similar gray robe. At his feet sat a big black labrador with what appeared to be the curved horns of a mountain goat protruding from its skull.

“My brother, Ivor,” Magnus said. The goat-dog and the man glanced at her and gave simultaneous nods.

“Which one?” Mistletoe asked.

Magnus led her to the man. The goat-dog nuzzled her hand with its wet nose. Like the animals in the zoo, the dog was completely silent. She couldn’t even hear it pant.

“Carpe somnium,” Magnus said. “Update?”

Ivor flicked his eyes at Mistletoe, then back to his brother. Ivor’s eyes were flat and steely, in sharp contrast with Magnus’s mischievous gleam. She couldn’t decide which pair she liked least. When Ivor spoke, his voice was emotionless and distant, as if he were reporting on a topic that bored him.

“The initial ID wipe was not without its … difficulties.” Another flick of his eyes indicated a bucket full of bloody rags. “Young Truax is obviously hardcoded with the very latest UniCorp tags. And there is his recent Level Seven to consider. I’ve had to tread very lightly.” He turned to a row of flat pre-Unison monitors and punched the keys of several keyboards at once.

Magnus turned to Mistletoe. “We do our best to stay up to date down here, but every UniCorp advance sets us further behind. There’s too much technological ground to make up. You may want to cover your ears.”

“My ears?”

Magnus grabbed her hands, slapped them over her ears, and held them in place. She squirmed for a moment, and then the deep rumbling began. It had been faint on the thirtieth floor and loud in the zoo, but in this room, at the source, it was unbearable. The vibrations entered her body through her nose and mouth. She sank to her knees, and Magnus knelt in front of her, clamping his hands tighter on her head. Her stomach twisted into a shaky knot. Her throat constricted, as if the immensity of the sound were wrapping around her neck. Her eyes blurred. As she struggled to suppress rising bile, the silence returned. Magnus helped her to her feet.

The two brothers and the dog had been completely unaffected by the deafening rumble. Ivor punched keys. The dog licked its front paws.

She took a few deep breaths, felt the noise leave her body in vibrating waves.

“The Scourge is this room?” she asked, her voice sounding distant and muffled. “People are just scared of the noise?”

“An unintentional bonus,” Ivor said.

“We maintain the most sophisticated pirate signal—that we know of—in the entire subcanopy community,” Magnus explained. “It tests the limits of our equipment when we ask too much of it, and the equipment protests with its little … complaint.”