It was temporary, she knew, but she was going to enjoy it while she had it. She sipped at the tea and watched the Mall flow past. I've got to take him somewhere out of sight. Where the guards aren't around to notice what happens to him. Hope the Kephalos won't be watching… or the Censors won't lock on the scene before I'm out of here…

She twisted her mouth into a humorless smile. Some chance. Well, Shadow, it's the only chance, might as well grab it…

She rubbed her thumb along her belt: There was one weapon even the Customs scanner hadn't spotted. A garrotte. Menaviddan monfilament. Let her get that around his neck and her knee in his back and it wouldn't matter how strong he was. She'd slice his head off. That's no good unless I can get behind him without him spotting me. Won't be easy, he's creepy but I doubt he's a fool. Some kind of distraction.. what…

A flicker of gray caught her eye. A large rat darted across a stretch of pale sand along a stream cutting through the park below her. A housekeeping bot no larger than her hand speared the rat, scooped up the body and vanished under the trees. She laughed and slapped her hand on the table. "Sheep! Muttonhead! Lardbrain! Distraction nothing, I've got me an army."

She leaned back and sipped at the tea. Her bones felt like they were melting with the relief that swept through her. She had no more doubts. This place was old, old, old, ten centuries at least, there had to be more vermin in the walls than people on the walkways. "My army," she caroled. "My army's going to get you, creep."

As the table swung through the last curl of its down-spiral, she extended her mindride Talent and began teasing together rats and hunting spiders, poison-tailed kapaweys, scavenger d'dabs with teeth capable of reducing bone to paste and whatever else she found roaming that section of the innerways.