Chapter XII
Bereft
Steam loaded with nanofilter drones hissed through tiny cracks in the purity tanks that hung from the ceiling of a subterranean room, the walls of which were covered with lichens. Alicia Martinez, in black, sat before a table upon which rested a verispectragram, a truth-descrier that looked like a miniature white metropolis. Behind the apparatus, clad in a one-piece gray uniform akin to the type janitors wore, was a humorless and hairless man of thirty. The room smelled like heated copper, incandescent light bulbs and fungus.
“What is your name?” asked the hairless man.
“You know my name,” Alicia said into the floating, cilia-covered sphere that was tethered by a superconductive thread to the verispectragram.
The inquisitor said, “Some of my questions might seem arb
