. . .

“Good lord,” says Tom. He smacks his forehead. “So pathetic! Come in!”

In fairness, he himself has only been dropped in a sack and carted off anywhere once, himself, and that was by Martians, so he doesn’t really have a basis by which to judge.

Jane squints at him. She shakes off tears.

She straightens.

“I was going to come in, anyway,” she says. “Also, I shall be filing a quite serious complaint.”

“Yes, yes,” says Tom.

She walks in. She looks around. She frowns back over her shoulder.

“Are you going to eat me?” she wonders.

“What have you heard about ophidian planet-inheritors?” asks Tom. Then he waves it off. “Don’t answer that,” he says. “On your right, antichrist.”

Linus waves from the staircase.

“On your left,” says Tom, “bathroom. Do you need to use the facilities? I don’t know how your puny human bladder works.”

“Some sort of hydraulics,” says Jane, distractedly.

“Well, yes,” says Tom, then blinks. “Oh.”

Jane slips ahead a few steps and opens a door marked with a “Do Not Open” sign. She frowns at the evil mannequins inside.

“Cursed,” says Tom. “Now you’ll probably get killed by a space princess.”

“No way,” says Jane, carefully closing the door.

“Better you than me.”

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