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“First time down?” the escort asked

“It show?”

“Little”

From down the hall, a man’s voice lifted in a roar A familiar calmness came over him The escort’s eyebroent up, and he smiled at her Her lips turned up in answer, but there was a different assessment behind it

“You’ll be fine,” she said “Right through here”

The hallas brutal concrete; green-gray reen-tinted glass that made the roouards in the saround The wo room huddled in the corner, her eyes closed She see hair and a flowing beard the color of iron – roared again His ar one of the guards by the ankle and pulling The guard toppled, but two of the others had what looked like cattle prods out One of them landed on the prisoner’s back, the other at the base of his skull With one last obscenity, the iron-bearded uard rose back to her feet, blood pouring from her nose as the others teased her The old wo, shuddering breath, and when she spoke, she wailed, her voice sounding like it came from kilometers away

Anored it, so he did too

“Yours is there No exchange of goods of any sort If at any point you feel threatened, raise your hand We’ll be watching”

“Thanks for that,” Amos said

Until he saw her, Amos hadn’t realized how much the place reminded him of a medical clinic for people on basic A cheap plastic hospital bed, a steel toilet on the ithout so much as a screen around it, a battered lowing gray, and Clarissa with three long plastic tubes snaking into her veins She was thinner than she’d been on the ride back from Medina Station before it had been Medina Station Her elboere thicker than her are in her face

“Hey there, Peaches,” A in the chair at her bedside “You look like shit on a stick”

She smiled “Welcome to Bedlam”

“I thought it was called Bethlehem”

“Bedlas you to my little state-sponsored apartment?”

On the other side of the o guards hauled the iron aze and smirked