Four and a half months after impact

Maria pushed open the door, determined to ignore the gentle nudge of Mnemosyne's hand on her lower back. Mnemosyne was taller and stronger and a little pushy, but that only made it more satisfying when Maria pushed back and Mnemosyne conceded to Maria's unique strengths. But in the matter they were coming to the hospital for they were equally determined – either befriend Dr Yeoh or annoy her trying.

Both of them wearing their uniforms, not too neat, would surely help. The doctor didn't seem like she was someone who respected authority, but she gave off the impression of disrespecting forced casualness even more. And, most importantly, she controlled access to the booze.

The doctor's office – a little alcove with visually dramatic mood lighting that made everything look like expressionist art – was not hard to find. Nor was the doctor, who sat back from scribbling on a notepad to give them a sceptical look over her glasses.

"Did you need something?" she asked them.

Mnemosyne shifted her uniform hat in her right hand, leaned her left side against the wall, and shook her hair out of its severely perfect order. Somehow that made her look more perfect, like a movie character with the rakish charm of Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca but the kind of good looks of a Marlene Dietrich type in her prime. That can't have been for the doctor's benefit, because Dr Yeoh only returned her attention to her note-taking and her tobacco.

"The clean up has been going so well that we felt we should take a moment to make your acquaintance more deeply. Learn from each other, perhaps," Mnemosyne said.

"If you must," Dr Yeoh said, voice dry.

"It wasn't nearly this hard to win over Ibrahim," Maria said.

"Men are simple creatures," Dr Yeoh said, still not looking up.

Mnemosyne drew herself up straight into that perfect posture she had when she wasn't trying to pretend otherwise, then sat herself into one of the spare chairs in a decisive motion. Maria scurried to follow.

"Well," Mnemosyne said, "I could choose to speak to you as one absent mother to another, but Maria is here and I don't want her to feel left out."

The doctor stilled, then placed her pen down on the page and sat back to survey them with a look Maria found inscrutable. "I'm not nearly as absent as he'd like me to be."

"I'm given to understand that's the way it is with teenagers," Mnemosyne said.

"How old?" Dr Yeoh asked.

"My daughter is seven," Mnemosyne said. She straightened her cuffs with quick motions of her fingers without once breaking eye contact with the doctor. "My ex took her with him to Singapore a year ago."

"And Ms Messy Hair over there has none. Well, that was an enlightening conversation."

"It's Maria. Just Maria! And, well, I lost my partner in the war and I can't have any... uh, not the old-fashioned way, at least, but there must be something we can talk about."

"I doubt it," Dr Yeoh said. She crossed her arms. She was a challenge, but Maria felt more sure than when she'd walked in the door that the combined force of her and Mnemosyne could win the doctor over.

"Gossip! We have gossip," Maria said.

"Yes, after all, we've had to deal with the Rod Spark, and from what I hear you have the Angharad Silver, alive and in the flesh, as your admin assistant," Mnemosyne said.

Dr Yeoh smiled. "Now I'm interested. Not in Spark, of course."

"Good," Maria said, "because Spark is disgusting. I don't know what it is about that man but it's like he leaves a layer of oily pollution wherever he goes. I feel unclean after I've had to deal with him."

"And so do workers in all his factories," the doctor added. "But what I want to know is why Angharad Silver could be of such interest to both of you."

Maria didn't know why Angharad Silver was interesting, either. But Mnemosyne's face was the face of someone who had some intelligence she was willing to share in the knowledge she'd get something better in return.

Mnemosyne leaned forward over the small table. "The legend of Angharad Silver, or perhaps more correctly the mystery of Angharad Silver, who disappeared after the death of her mother and her father's business partner in a car crash a little over ten years ago.

"Leonard Silver, her eccentric father, rumoured to bind human souls into high end bespoke machines, or so conspiracy nuts on the internet like to believe, was either responsible for snuffing her out like an inconvenient piece of evidence like some sort of madman, or responsible for sending her off to boarding school like an inconvenient reminder of his dead wife that he couldn't bear to look at.

"Even the circumstances of the car crash which precipitated her disappearance from the public eye are surrounded by ridiculous conspiracy theories, prompted by a ten second clip of video footage captured by an unknown someone, immediately after the crash, of Nadia Silver stumbling out of the car, injured but still alive, looking up and saying, 'You!' before the video cut out, as if she knew her killer. Some have suggested Nadia and the other man were having an affair and Leonard Silver had them rubbed out. The more paranoid suggested they were killed by operatives of an enemy government for secretly creating a super powerful AI with its own consciousness, the ability to feel and not merely reason.

"And after their deaths Leonard Silver moved the company in the direction of household cleaning robots, and his only child never appeared in public again. But here she is."

Mnemosyne leaned back against the chair, and breathed out loud enough for Maria to hear it over the pounding of her own heart.

"That's quite a story," Dr Yeoh said.

"I used to hate-read conspiracy blogs when I had insomnia," Mnemosyne said. "I preferred the stories about cult leaders and the sex lives of celebrities, but the sheer depth of conspiracy stories about a manufacturer of vacuum cleaners is genuinely impressive."

"Ladies," Dr Yeoh said, finally starting to smile. "That is so ridiculous that I think we should all drink to it. I certainly need to drink harder after that."

*

Angharad stared at the hospital, trying to sort out her thoughts. Outside the building the man calling himself Niall Turner and the woman he came with were frantically signing at each other with increasingly forceful motions, but not in any sign language she knew.

Earlier, she'd been sure the scrolling message below the hospital sign had flashed 'Choose me, not her' for a moment before returning to its regular inane scroll of pointless messages. It was a message, sure, probably designed to confuse and disorient people. As if anyone in Zapville needed helped feeling confused and disoriented.

In the hospital Dr Yeoh had smartly-dressed company and a plethora of stained, half-used cups. It took everything Angharad had not to turn into the person she acted like whenever she wanted to suck up to teachers. After all, nobody was teaching her anything here.

Jin's boss said, "We meet again," like it was a way more dramatic circumstance than it actually was.

"Yeah, that's probably going to happen a lot," Angharad said.

"I'm Maria," said her friend with the rock star hair, and held out a hand to shake. Angharad rolled with it.

"I came to make tea and talk about things but I guess everybody's already drinking... Oh, wow, that is definitely not tea," Angharad said.

"I'm a bad influence," Dr Yeoh said.

"Do you come here often?" Mnemosyne said. Then blushed, sudden and vibrant, as soon as Maria started to laugh.

"I mean, I do like older women," Angharad said. "But I don't think Jin would approve."

Maria patted Mnemosyne on the knee and said, "My friend meant to ask if you spend a lot of time having tea with the doctor."

"It's that or whisky and I'm only sixteen. I mean, I'll be seventeen on November 11, but that's still not, you know, like, I don't actually want to be the face of teen alcoholism."

"The major has told me all sorts of interesting stories she heard about your parents," Dr Yeoh said.

Angharad looked at Mnemosyne of unknown last name and tried to figure out what it meant that she was a Major. Then remembered that literally everything she knew about armies and stuff like that came from cartoons with giant robots and was actually 100% wrong.

"Oh, really?" Angharad asked.

"Oh, that your father is some sort of magician that binds human souls to machines and that your mother was rumoured to be running off with his business partner the night she died," Dr Yeoh said.

Angharad rolled her eyes. "Really, the magician theory? Oh, please. And as for the other thing, daddy always told me he and my mother and Moshe were partners in life and business, not that it is anyone's business, so I don't see why she'd need to run off with Moshe when they were already together."

"Polyamory? That's a bold claim. Aren't you worried something like that will leak out and weaken your business prospects in a more conservative market?" Mnemosyne asked.

Angharad smirked. "Tell anyone you like. Who'd believe you?"

Dr Yeoh looked proud and pleased. It was hard for Angharad not to preen under her regard.

Mnemosyne laughed. "I can see why Freya likes you."

Maria looked contemplative. "It's strange but this must be the same reason Tabitha likes you, and until this moment I couldn't have imagined Freya and Tabitha ever liking the same thing."

Well, that was confusing. "I mean, a way more important thing that I should probably mention is, okay, I saw on the way here that there's suddenly a number five painted on the list of rules without anything next to it, yet. So, look out for a new rule in the morning. Though, I mean, the list of rules on your side is on an e-ink monitor which makes way more sense. I mean, it's still scary."

Maria hunched over the table like the impending number five was weighing her down, and sighed.

"It must be time to head back. We'll walk you back to your building," Mnemosyne said.

"Um, okay."

Maria and Mnemosyne stood up and pushed their chairs back into place in unison.

They looked different standing next to each other, though. Mnemosyne seemed to naturally fall into straighter posture, shoulders up and back, neck elongated and gaze sharp. Her clothes hung well on her body, refusing to crease. Maria, though, seemed to have crinkled up her jacket just sitting down for a moment and had to tug it back into place. And when Maria looked at Mnemosyne and tried to fix her own posture she never stopped looking slightly hunched forward, the kind of posture that Angharad only ever noticed in women who were compensating for the weight of big boobs. She'd looked much more natural a few days earlier in a casual t-shirt and jeans, but it couldn't just be the shape of the outfit. Maybe something of what it represented hung differently on her.

Dr Yeoh stood up and put a hand on Angharad's shoulder, held her back a little as the other two women were walking down the hall, only sometimes looking back.

"You've allowed me the most amusement I've had in more than six months. And Angharad," the doctor said, hand squeezing Angharad's shoulder once, hard, then letting go, "my first name is Irene."

Angharad couldn't stop the smile that spread over her face. That was a gift! She'd keep it well.

"Thank you," she said, then ran to catch up with Maria and Mnemosyne as they waited at the end of the hall.