“A little under two weeks and I will see your face more regularly. They’re certain we’ll break you then. They know the date, down to the hour. Then you’ll be his.”

There was no response.

Of course there was no response. Even the most delicate of instruments couldn’t catch her voice. She spoke and nobody heard. She touched and was scarcely felt. She saw, and nobody saw her back.

Another cell. The young man who had leaked information to Engel. He had slipped his leash, panicked, and warned of the darker sides of this place. Engel had left, more aware.

She breezed into the cell.

“You,” the occupant said. He was a nobody, beyond his actions in regard to Engel. He had bought a Cauldron power, got the ability to make smoke and form phantom attackers from the smoke. He had owed a favor and oversight had called it in, before pressing him into service. The problem had been that the creations took a fragment of his mind to function, and when they gave those fragments back, those fragments were clean of any and all influence. He couldn’t be brainwashed. Not permanently. He raised his voice, accented. “Overseer.”

She cleaned up particulars. Black marks on walls. Droplets of urine where he had missed the bucket. When the other cells were more complete, the plumbing would work.

“They did this to you, and you serve them so slavishly.”

Discarded dirty clothing. Bits of food.

“This place is a Ship of Theseus. Every part of it has been replaced at least once, it feels like.”

“No.”

“I saw it, right when Teacher got here. Everything in ruins. The people in charge have changed, the walls, the floors, the lights… except for the shape, none of it’s the same except in shape. What holds you here? I wouldn’t be.”

She moved the collected waste to the hallway, where it joined the other detritus and the materials from construction. She began setting tiles into place: placer, tile, tile, placer, a swipe of sealer behind the completed row. A thousand hands wiped away excess sealer, working with no concern for getting dirty because those hands would disappear seconds after they were no longer needed.

“Why? You were a person once. Who were you, that you’re okay with this? You keep people prisoner, enslave them…”

Wiring was threaded through the ceiling at the same time tiles were set in place. Further down the hall, shock-absorbing panels were set into concrete, then covered. A technology from another Earth. The ‘damascus concrete’ was another such technology, from yet another Earth, leaving satisfying whorl patterns that became even more polished and refined as she smoothed down the surface.

“You can leave. You can tell people. None of this is okay. Not when he’s going to win.”

“I could always leave. There was nobody who could stop me not even when the Doctor Mother and Contessa ran this facility,” she answered, knowing he couldn’t hear her gossamer echo of a whisper of a voice.