...can Lorica piggyback on that now? A look at Teacher's power, say, would not go amiss here.

She can. Within Teacher's cellblock each cape has an additional secondary fantastical avatar standing beside their primary one, small and sickly. Each of the secondary avatars has a collar of what looks like human grey matter, leading to a chain of the same material that rests in the hands of a central figure - a hulking mooselike creature with golden antlers that evoke a crown and hundreds of human hands. Some of the chains lead into other cellblocks - though none to the Fairy Queen's domain - and nine chains lead to the world beyond the Birdcage. 

Wow, yuck! Fuck that guy and his guys in particular! Presumably she can already see for herself who he's got emplaced in other blocks so Lorica doesn't bother reporting on it. Tinker tinker.

The Fairy Queen does not disturb Lorica's work so long as it is complete within two hours.

Oh, yeah, the music player's done well before then and then she wants to put in a little time on the Rete-container if that's okay.

Hrm... that's acceptable.

"How long do your plans afford for this, please?"

"I have other matters to attend to tonight, but you may have the remainder of the hour."

That's almost nothing. Does she in fact have a backup to insert yet?

Yep, it's prepped on a disc she had connected to the communication system she set up for Dragon.

Uuuugh she was really hoping Dragon would manage to send in the original implant and spends almost the entire hour undoing things. "I think Rete will be able to be useful to you even in my occasional absence, once I have it operative."

"In what way?"

"Perhaps it could answer people's tedious questions for you."

"Would it be correct?"

"Insofar as it knew the answer, but it'd pick a lot of that sort of thing up from being around you enough. It wouldn't make stuff up if it didn't know."

"Well, if it amuses you to attempt such, you may do so in the morning."

"Thank you."

And back into the dark she goes.

The Fairy Queen sends a messenger to inform the Marquis of Lorica's findings, and then brings out another shade to advise her on ongoing negotiations with Lab Rat for extra rations. She brings Lorica back in the morning, as promised.

"Thank you," says Lorica, and she gets right to it. She'll have Rete ready to boot in a few hours if nothing interrupts her.

"You are welcome ."

Nothing interrupts Lorica.

Here is her bot. Her lovely bot.

Can it hook up to her suit, now that her suit is kind of imaginary?

Not automatically but it's an easy fix.

Oh thank god.

She should assume that the Queen can eavesdrop on anything she's doing or perceiving that isn't purely internal to her mind, that's an even more obvious way for the shade thing to work than the reverse and it works in reverse; and anything her power is doing, too. But she doesn't automatically know Rete's internal details. It learns, it decides, it takes her into account but she does not and cannot control it.

She sets it up so it can talk to Dragon even when Lorica's away, for data and for non-Queen-facing inputs.