Ayla had Sam stay in the garden section pretending to work for the next few hours. For her part, Sam simply endured the experience. One moment she thought she would die from the pressure of the headache assaulting her. The next she felt like she was on fire -- so convincing was the sensation that she kept checking her skin for signs of burns. The occasional bout of delirium she almost welcomed. Being confused about her location and even her identity beat the torturous pain inflicted on her at other times.

When enough time had passed, Ayla escorted her upstairs. The fourth floor had never felt further away than it did in the time it took to navigate the steps. Every lift of her foot seemed to require a hundred percent of her remaining energy.

Sam felt like she was trapped in a time loop that consisted exclusively of climbing a single flight of stairs. Eventually, the torment ended. Ayla helped her inside, past the other women, whom she blathered excuses to about food not agreeing with Sam. They reached her sleeping pod and Ayla did most of the work getting Sam into it. Then the girl kissed her on the forehead and whispered in her ear. "Very serious, Sam. Very, very serious. Aunt Cassandane shouldn't have done this. No, no, no. But you will be better tomorrow. And have talent. Just don't tell anyone. Secret. Very secret." Another kiss on the forehead and the hatch to her pod closed.

Sam lay in the darkness wishing she could die to stop the horror of it all. She alternated between pitiful crying and silent suffering. Whatever Ayla had said proved sufficient to keep the other women from disturbing her. At a couple points, she had to use all of her strength to stifle screams. The need to keep her situation secret had been sold to her by Cassandane and Ayla. No one could make her experience any better. They could only arrange for her to disappear. While she yearned for any method to cease the pain, an instinct for self-preservation stopped her short of drastic action.

Over the course of hours, the pressure of the thing inside her lessened. It still hurt. It still caused her unending trepidation. But it became bearable. Sam eventually passed out, sleeping in fits and startling awake every ten minutes or so. The night stretched on and her sleeps grew longer. Finally, she woke free of pain, sensing the final embers of the power sputtering out to die within her. Their absense brought a peace that let her finally relax.

Not long after that, the lights of her pod blinked on. Sam opened her eyes to tiny slits. For a moment, all she thought of was how tired she felt. Then she sat up rapidly, hitting her head on the pod's ceiling. She wasn't alone in her head. No, wait, there wasn't anything there. Yet . . . .

There existed a hole in her mind. Not a hole in the sense of something missing. More like a Looney Tunes hole, a rubbery patch of shadow that you could flop down on top of the ground, but then you could also fall through it into eternal nothingness. Through that hole, she felt a vast quantity of the miasma that had been poured into her the previous day. Sam pushed away all thought of it and exited her sleeping pod. She joined the line for the bathroom.

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"Hey, girl, you feeling better today?" Space Rhonda rubbed her back. "Your buddy Ayla said you had a bad reaction to some food. I been down with food poison a couple times myself. We're talking out of both ends, you know what I'm saying? It never lasts long. Pretty soon you're like 'I'll go back to that buffet again' and things go back to normal."

Sam nodded along to her friend's rambling, used the bathroom, and found a seat at the table. Alicia, hispanic taskmaster of the kitchen, brought her a mug of their cold coffee substitute and a plate of food, ordering her to eat what she could. Jess collapsed into the chair beside her. "So. I met Ayla yesterday. Interesting experience. I like the girl. Though after your ordeal yesterday I'm never going to eat any of her food. Speaking of which, she is going to be making us some eggplant thing for lunch today. All the girls have agreed that we aren't eating it."

"No, it's safe to eat," Sam said.

"Sam," Jess said, "no one wants to get sick because we were trying to be nice."

"You can't tell anyone, but it wasn't the food."

Jess raised a brow. "Then what was it?"

"Precursor."

"And what is that? Some industrial cleaner from the washing station that you're allergic to?"

Sam lowered her voice further. "The source of their powers."

"Say what? Did Ayla make you her padawan?"

"Not Ayla. I can't say too much about it right now. And you have to keep this a secret too. It might be a life or death thing."

Jess stared at her. "You're not joking."

"No. This is DEFCON a hundred."

"Sam, you have it backwards. DEFCON one is the most serious."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"Fine. DEFCON zero."

Jess opened her mouth, then paused, squeezing her eyes shut. "Can't talk about this. Can't think about this."

Sam stared at her best friend. "What's going on, Jess?"

"Nothing! I'm just glad to have you back. I know you don't think you had food poisoning, but it really looked that way!" Jess flashed a bright smile and started her breakfast.

After a moment, things began to click into place. This place inflicted misery on them, leading to a lot of complaints, but no one ever refused to work or disobeyed a supervisor. The other women possessed zero rebellious spirit even though they outnumbered the Angmari in this building seven to one. Jess refused to think about certain things. And, now that Sam thought about it, she remembered intentionally suppressing some things herself. "They are mind controlling us," she whispered.

Jess squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then hastily stood. "Good seeing you! I have to go get ready for today!"

Sitting by herself, Sam amended her comment from before. "They are mind controlling the rest of you. They used to mind control me." Either the introduction of the precursors or the hole in her mind had undone whatever compulsion had been placed upon her.

The door to the stairwell banged open to admit Ayla. She sprung forward to sit beside Sam. "Are you better today?"

"Yes. We need to talk, Ayla."

"Yes, yes, yes. You are going to need to start training. I can teach you teleotics."

From the direction of the door, Kistlen's musical laughter shattered their discussion. "Look at Ayla with her latest victim."

Kistlen's cruel smile was directed at Sam, even as the words were meant to cut Ayla. And, damn it, the girl still looked pretty.

A flash of annoyance crossed Darla's face as she looked at her taller, prettier coworker. It vanished in an instance. "Ayla, you can't have a helper every day. Just on cabbagino days. The girls would just cut themselves trying to fillet fish." Darla pointed at Sam. "You're back with me today. I hope you remember how to do your real job."