Then the fury overran her sense of self and swept her under. Drowning, she was carried down into the dark chaos of helplessness below. Into the murky despair that had no name or purpose, where she lost her face, her body, her being. She was a demon, blindly watching people stream through the air and stars slide to the side, and hating them all. Wanting to smash them all together in her hands, cities and stars and people alike, and smear them into a pulpy little ball, as she laughed, with black tears running down from her eyes…

She came out of her fugue feeling weak and depressed.

“Please tell me the time,” she said, and the flat obeyed.

Four hours had passed.

A woman stepped into the niche, a skinny type in greenface with a leather tool harness, some kind of low-level biotech. Humming to herself, she began to trim the walls. She worked methodically, obsessively, pausing every now and then to train a rose back into place.

“Hey, sport,” Rebel said. “Do me a favor.” Her loginess evaporated as the adrenalin began to flow. She flashed a smile.

“Hmm? Ah! Er… what is it?” With a visible effort, the woman pulled herself away from her work.

“I’m getting out in a couple of hours, and nobody’s arranged for any clothing for me. Could you drop by wherever-it-is on the way out, and get them to send something over?”

The woman blinked. “Oh. Uh… sure, I suppose. Isn’tyour nurse supposed to take care of that?”

Rebel rolled her eyes. “She sees universal purpose in the stars, and the meaning of existence in the growth of a rose.

The little stuff she’s not so good on. Know what I mean?”

Anyone working in a hospital with a nursing order would find that easy to believe.

“Well. Yeah, why not?” The woman returned to her work, visibly relieved the conversation was over. Twigs and leaves snowed down from her fingers. By the time she left, Rebel was sure the woman had forgotten her promise.