A few hours later, Donut and I were yanked away to go on our live appearance of the show Plenty of Plenty.

Entering Production Facility.

We didn’t get taken into orbit. There was a pop, and we were suddenly in a greenroom on the ocean’s floor. Donut landed deftly on the couch without so much as a yelp. I tried to sit next to her, but the tail on my kangaroo suit made it awkward. I stayed standing.

“Prepotente told me he hasn’t been on the show in a while,” Donut said. She moved from the couch to the counter, looking for snacks. There was nothing. “He said it was like a party. I don’t know what that means. What do you think we’re going to talk about?”

“Good question,” a familiar voice said. A thin human walked into the room.

“Lexis!” Donut exclaimed. “What’re you doing here? You don’t work here!”

The thin human with her ever-present datapad smiled as she stepped fully into the room. The human production assistant looked the same as the last time I’d seen her, which had been backstage on one of Odette’s shows.

She looked me up and down, and I could tell she was fighting to keep herself from laughing at my suit.

She composed herself. “I’m on loan to Borant since I’m stuck in system and After Hours is on hiatus. It was either this or sit and twiddle my thumbs on the press barge. And with your garbage freighter having taken over everything in orbit, I say I made the right choice.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. “Also, who is listening to this?”

She continued as if I hadn’t asked. “Also, Zev is now juggling pretty much everything on her own. So, I’ve stepped in as an assistant. The insurgents aren’t letting anyone they don’t trust down here unless the AI demands it, and those that are down here are barely functioning. So it’s all hands on deck, especially since the AI is insisting the show continue as normal. So here I am.”

“Insurgents?” I asked.

She paused, as if she didn’t want to answer, seemed to sigh, and then leaned in.

“The Open Intellect Action Network,” she said. “You know, those people you won Faction Wars with? Those insurgents. They sent a boarding crew to pretty much every major ship in orbit and took all of them. It happened very fast. That Homecoming Queen is decked out in enhancement-zone weaponry that actually works now that the AI has escaped containment. It’s the equivalent of a fully armored ogre fighting against blind toddlers. They achieved total system domination in a day.”

“The Open Intellect Action Network,” I repeated.

Rosetta had mentioned that they had “protective” measures in place to keep them safe while they were stuck in system, but it sounded like she was seriously underselling it.

Donut suddenly gasped. “Wait, can you tell us what’s happening on the surface? Do you know if Katia is okay?”

Lexis paused again for the briefest of moments. She pressed a few buttons.

“Okay. We have a minute. Borant doesn’t have manpower to watch the feeds anyway. Everything is in a shambles, but the AI is still likely watching. Prime Minister Victory and the staff of the new temporary headquarters for the Syndicate’s presence in the system are on the Eastern Seaboard of your North America. In theory, they can be watching, too, but I doubt it. Most of the flooding from the tsunamis has receded, and they moved into an area that they thought had minimal surviving native life, but the moment they set down, they had natives up their ass. So they’re dealing with that. Somewhere in the state of Florida. As for Katia and everyone else in South Asia, we don’t have a lot of information. That is considered OIAN territory, but last I heard, they have not taken back the kinder facility, but they have been in contact with Katia herself. As far as I’m aware, something . . . strange . . . happened there soon after the end of Faction Wars.”

“What do you mean by ‘strange’?” I demanded.

I couldn’t read the look on Lexis’s face. Is that fear? I wasn’t sure.

“A . . . third party . . . has appeared and is protecting the facility,” she said. “But that entity is confused. That’s all I know.”

“But Katia is okay?” Donut demanded.

“I believe so, yes. Just yesterday, I saw⁠—”

Her pad beeped, and all the color drained from Lexis’s face. She stiffened.

No, I realized. That wasn’t fear, just before. This is fear.

Lexis took a moment to compose herself. “We need to focus on this program you’re about to go on. The crawl is moving forward as intended, and that’s all there is to that. But I need to brief you a little on caprid customs.”

Donut looked like she wanted to say more, but she thought better of it. “Caprids,” she said. “Hmmm. If they’re anything like that Harbinger fellow, I fear it’s going to be a hostile interview.”

Lexis nodded. She lowered the tablet, and I caught the briefest glance at the screen before it shut off. There were words. I couldn’t read them, but they were superimposed over the image of a small child.

“Liaison Harbinger is an anomaly amongst the caprids,” Lexis said. “Most are not like him. For this program, you will be sitting in the center while you’re judged. They call it an interlocution. But it’s basically just a roundtable, and you’re in the middle. In the end, it’s, uh, like a regular interview. Just a little peculiar. The caprids are strange, but it’s generally good-natured. A few crawlers have been on the show and have had a decent time. You just need to get used to their eccentric affect. They’re not a collective mind. But they are a herd, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.”

I remembered those creepy kids from the art show contest.

“Judged?” Donut asked. “Like in a beauty contest?”

“Sort of,” Lexis said. “There will be about a dozen interviewers, and if they judge you worthy, they will ask you a question. Them asking you a question is considered a great compliment. But you don’t have to answer if you don’t judge them worthy. Though for this thing, it’s pretty much all for show, so you should probably answer. And once that’s done, you, uh . . . Well, you exert yourself.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I asked.

She made a sort of grimace. “Just go with it. You’ll know what to do.”