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Base­ment Level Five.
    “By the king of fuck­ing-over bas­tards.”
    Most of Rim­shot’s busi­ness took place above the ground floor of the build­ing. When the ma­jor­ity of its em­ploy­ees thought about the base­ment levels, if they thought about them at all, they dis­missed them as stor­age or main­ten­ance sup­ply rooms. They cer­tainly didn't ex­pect the kind of high-tech en­vir­on­ment that un­fol­ded be­fore Tania’s eyes when the lift doors fi­nally slid open.
    Tania took a deep breath, ad­jus­ted her top and jacket, then strode out, try­ing to ap­pear calm and un­ruffled.
    The floor of Base­ment Five was set out like an open-plan of­fice.
    Al­though each large cu­bicle was sep­ar­ated from its neigh­bour by a tall par­ti­tion, the screen was half-solid from waist-height down to the floor, fros­ted glass im­me­di­ately above the solid sec­tion, and clear at the top. Al­though such an ar­range­ment could not stop the feel­ing of be­ing a mouse in a maze, it mit­ig­ated it to a large ex­tent.
    Tania didn’t stop at any of the cu­bicles to ex­change so­cial niceties with their in­hab­it­ants. Nor did she stop at her own per­sonal patch of ter­rit­ory. In­stead, her shoes scuff­ing softly on the low-pile car­pet, she made a beeline for the sec­tion after cu­bicle-land. That’s where all the im­port­ant dis­cus­sions took place.
    She was stopped again by a large vault-like door. This time, her se­cur­ity card was not enough. She bent down to the large cir­cu­lar scope that pro­truded from the wall. It re­minded her of look­ing through a mi­cro­scope, ex­cept all she saw through the nar­row view­ing tube was a bright blue haze. After a few seconds, she heard an ac­know­ledging beep and the doors slid open.
    Tania stepped in­side.

Chapter Two
    The area of Base­ment Five that Tania entered was very dif­fer­ent to the car­peted, of­fice-like at­mo­sphere she had left be­hind. The floor be­neath her feet was pol­ished con­crete, cool and gleam­ing. The walls, con­cave and metal­lic, sprouted slick and clean from the floor be­fore dis­ap­pear­ing into the ceil­ing.
    Turn­ing left at the wall that con­fron­ted her, she con­tin­ued to fol­low the curve, fi­nally com­ing across a series of doors. There was one door on the right, sev­eral on the left. She walked up to the single door to her right, took a deep breath and pressed her hand against the ti­tanium al­loy. With a sigh, the panel slid open. She stepped in­side.
    “He tricked you, didn’t he?”
    Tania blinked at the words and looked into the calm grey eyes of the di­vi­sion’s chief, Don Novak. He was stand­ing at the desk closest to the door panel, a half-amused, half-ir­rit­ated look on his face.
    Tania took one look at his ex­pres­sion and her strategy of ly­ing crumbled. She had pre­pared so many ex­cuses. My car broke down. I had to visit a sick friend. I got a sud­den toothache and had to pay an emer­gency visit to a dent­ist. What she most def­in­itely couldn’t say to Don Novak was that she had been tied up, de­li­ciously fucked and then played for a fool.
    She de­cided on a wry smile and hoped it didn’t re­veal too much. “Yeah, he tricked me.”
    Don held up a fin­ger. “I’d ask how but...I don’t think I want to know.”
    There was still the hint of a ques­tion in his voice but Tania shook her head. This was one epis­ode in her life she was go­ing to for­get as quickly as she could. If she could.
    “You
really
don’t want to know,” she as­sured him.
    There was si­lence. A little un­com­fort­able on his part, she thought. She tensed when she saw him nervously lick his lips. Did he
know
what had gone on in her apart­ment the night be­fore? Was she about to get fired?
    “I’m sorry Tania,” he said in a rush. “It was all-sys­tems go. The de­cision was made.”
    Without her there, present­ing her