Tasìa was annoyed by a persistent tap on the shoulder. After each time she felt it, she drifted back to a state of unconsciousness as soon as the tap stopped.

"Get up, you," a tightly nasal voice persistently asked her.

Kill me if you gotta. I'm not moving.

She would have voiced those words too, if she only possessed the strength.

"What is wrong with you?"

The stranger shook Tasìa. Strong and lengthy feminine hands grabbed her shoulders, and shook the little burglar with abandon.

Tasìa gasped for air, forcing herself into sudden wakefulness. Dangerous-feeling heart palpitations fluttered through her chest.

Disappointed in her own willingness to give up, Tasìa recalled her prayer.

Lord, never let me be in a place of vulnerability like that poor woman, ever again.

To expect anything out of it, Tasìa had to keep fidelity to the prayer. It was as much a promise to herself as it was a request of the Lord.

It was no time for rest. No time to give up. She raised both arms, only to find them flopping to the side uncontrollably as she was being shook again.

"Get up, you. If I fall it's going to hurt you. Don't make me fall on you. It's Climb Time."

"Bea, stop that!"

"Auntie Silvi Ló-Chó, she won't get up. It's Climb Time, and I don't want to fall on her."

"Can't you see that she is injured? Back up, Bea. Let me look at her."

Tasìa raised her head. She was in a clothes hamper. A rather large one. Packed with mattresses on the bottom, and rows of blankets on top of them.

The vent was eight feet above her. Even still, given the distance of the fall, Tasìa was lucky that she did not break her neck on her descent.

An elegant woman peered down at Tasìa. She appeared to be in her forties.

"You are up, I see. Can you move?"

"Don't know until I try," Tasìa answered.

She pushed herself up, and she twisted her body around.

"Nothing appears broken," she continued.

"Good. Let's see if I can help you get out of there so Bea can have her Climb Time."

A little, old woman rushed up to Tasìa, anxiously. Big childlike eyes and a grin even more goblin-like than her own stared back at Tasìa.

Tasìa jerked back when she saw the long, indented stitch mark running the length of the woman's cranium. She tried not to appear alarmed by it, but it was difficult not to be.

Down here, that could be my fate, but for the grace of God.

She grabbed upon Silvi Ló-Chó's shoulder, pulled up, and rolled out of the hamper.

Bea climbed up on a wall inset. She scooted up into the vent.

"Damn," Tasìa commented at the strange sight of the gnomish woman ascending upward.

In my sixties, will I still be a spider monkey?

Silvi Ló-Chó frowned.

"That used to be a sociology professor. Unfortunately for her, she got herself involved in radical politics. Became just another Disappeared. That lobotomy was further punishment for pissing off powerful people. She now has the mentality of a seven-year-old."

From high up in the vents came a joyful screech.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Weeeee!"

Bea plunged down into the hamper. She pulled herself up and bounced around the hamper like a kid. Gleefully, she giggled.

Bea reached once more for the wall inset.

Tasìa frowned. She looked up at the woman identified as Silvi Ló-Chó, pleadingly.

"It's not safe for her to go up that vent. I was being chased by robots in the ductwork above."

The woman answered back after a moment of consideration.

"They won't come down this far. The operator's security clearance is certainly not high enough to warrant such a violation. They will send it up the chain then spooks in special operations will come down here and grab you. Unless, they mean to keep you down here."

They watched as Bea made her way back up the duct.

"Does she ever try to escape?"

The woman shook her head.

"She has no concept of the idea of escape in her head. This world down here is all that she knows. To think, she was once somebody's lovely Beatrice. She was once another person's favorite teacher. Now, she is erased."

Silvi Ló-Chó said these words with a wan smile. Goosebumps covered Tasìa as she realized to whom she was speaking.

Of course, a person with the mentality of a seven-year-old would simplify the name to something like Silvi Ló-Chó.

"You are," Tasìa began.

The woman put her hand on Tasìa's arm, gently. Her gaze appeared cross, but only pleadingly so.

"Yes, I am. It's not necessary to talk about it."

"They said you were kidnapped, and later murdered. But your body was never returned."

"Of course, they would say that. I don't like recalling or talking about that episode in my life. It is quite humiliating."

Bea climbed back up the vent.

The woman offered Tasìa her hand.

"Call me Victoria. Silvi Ló-Chó was the nickname I had in elementary school. It is uncanny that Bea would know that."

Tasìa took a look around the room into which she had fallen.

It appeared to be a fairly large washroom. She guessed it served close to sixty people.

She frowned and she looked up to the much taller woman.

"I was under the impression that a sorority of the Manifest lived down here. I have heard the Wailing so I know that there is something to it."

Victoria nodded as she motioned for Tasìa to follow her out of the laundry room.

"They are down here, all right. The Banshees are in a different Ward. We are the one for political prisoners."

Tasìa hesitated for a moment. She had a possibly rude question in her mind to ask. Victoria, however, was the one person in a perfect position to answer it.

"What's the problem," Victoria asked, noticing Tasìa's reluctance.

"Pardon me for my curiosity, but If you are all Disappeared, and no one knows you are down here but our Salvage masters, what is the point of keeping you alive?"

Victoria actually nodded and smiled.

"My dear, you cannot blackmail the most prominent families of all this region if all you have in your possession are their loved one's corpses."

The former president and her burglar guest passed through a dorm room. Twenty bunk-beds lined the wall. There was an annex across a hallway. Tasìa could see into it. It was another dorm that possessed another set of bunk-beds.

Tasìa looked around for vents and pipework. Nothing appeared very promising.

The women looked up as Tasìa walked through their living area, but none spoke to her.

None of them appeared in the least bit curious, nor hostile. They seem to move very slowly down here, Tasìa noted.

Except for the highly animated Bea.

Victoria spoke to this.

"They aren't being rude, my little friend. At least, not intentionally. Most of the women down here are on mentally dampening medications. If you are forced to stay, from the look of you, I have no doubt the same will be done to you."

"I have no plan to stay, Victoria."

Tasìa would not call the response on Victoria's face a smirk. The former president of Paraguay was much too polite and well-bred to use such a common expression of vulgar body language.

It was, however, a knowing look that expressed a great deal of doubt without being necessarily condescending.

"What is your name, dear?"

"Tasìa del Alma-Gris."

They were now near the lavatory. A set of six shower stalls lined one wall.

Victoria glanced down at the bloodstain on Tasìa's shirt that covered over her tummy wound.

"May I suggest a shower? I detect chemicals upon you as if you have had teargas lobbed at you."

Good Lord, did she ever need one.

"It's a damn good suggestion, Victoria."

The woman smiled expressively at the affirmation. It was likely the first time she had felt useful to anyone in a long time.

"I will get one of the more responsive girls to help me wash your clothes and dry them. You should have at least a few hours before they come to get you. Nothing ever gets shot up the chain efficiently."

"I do my best planning under a hot nozzle."

Tasìa said these words in jest while lifting up her shirt to show Victoria the wound beneath the bloodstain before she removed the shirt.

"Of course, my dear. It appears you may have been giving them a run for their money. Is that a gun?"

"Yes. Two of them!"

With that, Victoria nodded and she left to fetch an assistant.