Eve gives the kid the least impressed look she can possibly muster. "Yeah, no, you haven't," she says. "You came here to be a distraction, and you're not terrible at it, I'll give you that. Ten points to Gryffindor."

"Ravenclaw," the kid says sullenly, then looks like he wants to die from embarrassment on the spot.

Eve snorts. "Yeah, okay. If you don't like the telepathy just keep it on the lowest level. You'll barely notice it, we designed it that way. You want to get out of the way so the Heroine behind you can have a monologue too?"

The kid hesitates.

"Kitchen is down that hall and the fifth left. Guido can take you." A small sphere rolls into view, beeps twice, then speeds off to where Eve's pointing. The kid follows.

Eve looks directly at the woman hiding at the other end of the room. "Are you going to talk first, or just throw something at my head?"

Fantastic. Neha considers and quickly discards the idea of immediately attacking; clearly the Empress is expecting and prepared for that. She stands up, cautiously. She's got a dagger and a gun, but she leaves the second one holstered. From what she's been able to find out, it seems like the Empress matches the firepower of her opponent, at least to begin with. That she has the luxury of doing so isn't encouraging, but Neha needs all the leeway she can get.

"I-" Her voice echoes strangely; she clears her throat and tries again. "I-" She stops. The Empress looks at her curiously.

She'd had a whole speech ready. It was as persuasive as she could make it. She doesn't want to fight, not if she can avoid it, not when she will so obviously and quickly lose. She can't remember a single word of it.

"Take it back," she blurts out. She can feel her face heat but plunges onward. No fixing it now. "The telepathy. Take it back."

Eve had been expecting something of the sort. Instead of lying outright as she'd planned, though, she just asks, "Why?"

"It's not right," Neha says, wondering what in the hell is coming out of her mouth. "It's not safe, to just give everyone access to each other's minds like that. Humans, we - there's nothing else that compares! Nothing even remotely like practicing for, for-"

"It doesn't have to be like that," Eve says quietly. "I have mine at about 75%, but yours is at the default five. That's just... vague feelings, more like intuition that anything. If it's not working that way for you, then I am so sorry and I will do whatever I can to-"

"...No," Neha says. "No, it's. Mine is, mine works like that. But not everyone knew that! Nobody had any idea what you'd forced on us!"

Eve looks confused for a moment, then the realization sinks in and she closes her eyes in what almost looks like pain. "Havana," she says. It's not really a guess.

Neha keeps her voice steady. "Both my parents were-" Fuck. "They trusted you. What you could do for them, I don't know why anyone else did it, but they thought you wouldn't hurt them so they turned it all the way on and it broke them-"

Her voice is shaking, and she cuts herself off before she can sob out loud. No. She won't give this tyrant the satisfaction.

Eve flinches. She didn't mean to, so she doesn't know whether the Heroine saw it. "I'm sorry," she repeats, knowing it's useless. "We changed it as soon as I heard."

"Lot of good that did," Neha says, much less caustically than she'd meant to. Her throat is tight.

Eve pauses. "Why did you come here to kill me?" she asks. "That won't fix anything either."

Neha swallows, mouth in a hard line. "It won't. But I can stop you from doing it again, or anything like it."

A strange look flashes over Eve's face, there and gone, almost faster than a blink. "There's another way to do that," she says slowly.

"Rule with me."

Neha stands stock still, not entirely sure she's heard right. "Why would you want that?" she asks blankly. Her better judgement screams at her that this is a terrible question. "I came here to kill you, why would you want to keep me around?" 

"Because I need that, and there's a severe shortage around here." Wait, no. "I need someone who will tell me immediately when I'm making a mistake, who isn't afraid I'll do something horrible because of it."

"Will you?"

"No, but apparently when I'm asking for opinions on something I go from the normal person all these people live and work with to some kind of unpredictable swamp monster. I don't want to hurt people. I don't want people to get hurt. I don't want people to die. I don't get why this is such a hard concept!"

Eve realizes she's raised her voice and takes a deep breath. "You don't have to. I mean, if you try to kill me it's not going to end well for you, but you could just leave and I won't do anything about it. You just. You seem like a good person."

Neha stares at her. "Can I think about it?" she says, almost automatically.

Eve doesn't smile. "Of course. You can wander around the Castle if you want. The Rovers can help if you get lost."

Neha spins on her heels and leaves. She doesn't realize until she's halfway down the hall that she's gone in the same direction as the village kid. She should probably check on him anyway.

Village Kid is sitting at a counter, chatting with the person behind it while eating cookies from a plate between them. Both of them, and the Barry lying on the floor to the side, look up as she enters the room.

"Hey," says Random Kitchen Guy, and waves. Village Kid waves, too, but his mouth is full of cookies.

"'Random Kitchen Guy'?" she asks by way of greeting. She's not trying to be rude; that's what his HUD nametag says.

He laughs. "I have it set to that for people who aren't regulars here. It seems more honest, you know?"

She doesn't, but she shrugs anyway. "Okay." A quick surreptitious glance at Village Kid reminds her that his name is Ralph, at least. She hadn't really been expecting to see him again.

Ralph swallows. "You're not dead," he observes.

Neha snorts. "Thanks, Sherlock." She turns back to Random Kitchen Guy. "You work here?"

He makes an ambivalent gesture and goes back to what he was doing, which seems to be some kind of origami thing. "Yeah. I mean, not like it used to mean, but I like baking and hanging around here, and Jordan said I could stay here if I wanted, so I packed up my stuff and Cujo there and moved into one of the spare rooms."

She'd been about to ask about Jordan, but the name of the Barry catches her off-guard. "You named it Cujo?"

"Listen, I was fifteen, I was lonely, I didn't have any friends, I liked Stephen King, I didn't know any other good Saint Bernard names!"

"It's already named something! Just stick with that then!" She's trying to sound indignant, but she can't stop giggling.

He's grinning too. "I can't just call him Barry, that'd be like calling you, I dunno, Pre-Empire Woman."

"I'm not that old, I was-" She stops. "No, you know what, let's not do that. Tell me about Jordan?"

"She let me name one of the new bots!" Ralph blurts out, excited.

After a beat, Kitchen Guy says, "She's a pretty nice person. She does all the robots. I think Gen Three is gonna come out soon, 'specially if she's naming the models already. What's the theme?" he asks Ralph.

"Either Fair Folk or Shakespeare characters. There's an Oberon and Titania pair. Dunno what they do."

"Huh."

"Do you like it here?" Neha asks. It's an abrupt subject change and tone shift, and she suddenly feels very tired, and can't find it in her to care.

"Yeah," Kitchen Guy says, a bit quieter than before. He opens his mouth to say something else, but hesitates before speaking. "I was... I'm old enough that I remember, before. And yeah, it was scary, but." He looks at her, head bent a little, eyes piercing and serious. "I get enough to eat. I don't have to worry about how I'm going to afford to exist. Cujo's smart enough to take care of me when I can't get out of bed." He looks back down at the folded paper between his hands. "I didn't think I was going to live this long."

"I'm sorry," says Neha, unable to think of an appropriate response. He doesn't reply, just nods. "...Is there anywhere I could. Go. To just think, for a while?"

"Ask one of the Guidos to take you to a guest room. There are a bunch that nobody uses."

"Thank you," she says, too stiffly, and leaves only just slowly enough that she can call it something besides fleeing.

It's several hours before Eve sees the woman again. She'd retired to the library in the meantime, and gives the Heroine the courtesy of not looking up until she knocks lightly on the doorframe, then sets her book aside. "Yes?"

She fidgets a little. "Neha," she says, then adds, "My name, I mean. You should know it."

Eve smiles with genuine warmth, and rises. "I'm Eve. Let me get you something to drink."