"Nothing in particular. It does mean that if we successfully take over and you have something to say to one of us you've got a better-than-average chance of queue-jumping," shrugs Stella. "Since someone of your template's in with someone of ours."

"Amariah and Aegis are covering the catacombs, but maybe we should scope out the wakeful population for alts," muses Juliet. "If nothing else we should tap the Sherlock that Shell Bell found."

"They're talking to the admin," Nathan reports a moment later. "We'll see how far they get with that, I guess."

"Not far, I bet," sighs Eights.

"Well, I don't know, the ones who started out alive are still alive," he shrugs.

"I guess that's a start."

"I'd ask for a pancake, but I no longer eat solid food," Nathan says after a bit of an awkward silence.

"What do you eat?"

"Conjured synthetics. Occasionally human blood, since I've got a source who won't die of the loss. I am, you see, a vampire again."

...Eights looks speculative.

"I'll be happy to show you sometime," Nathan adds.

She beams.

"Can I watch?"

"Now why would I do that?"

Eights rolls her eyes.

Good times to take a bite out of Eights are pretty much concentrated in the near future, on whatever scale; good times to ask Jane to get him the hell out of here vary much more widely, and don't correlate obviously with the bitey moments.

"All right, then, if you like." Pause. "I have something of a guess about what Stella employs Sandy to do. You just wanna watch?"

"What," he inquires, "does Stella employ Sandy to do?"

"The Bella contingent has serious magic, with the little wrinkle that it is made out of pain. I think from how Stella was phrasing things that her Anna and Sandy share a job description with the Joker back in my world. Him you met. Actually, you managed to kill him."