Friar went over to a machine that looked like a giant radio with a computer console sticking out like a pouty mouth. He tapped at it a bit and then went to a counter covered in strange tools, soldering irons, and what looked like medical instruments. He grabbed a syringe the size of a squirt gun, walked over to the elzi’s neck and then jammed it in. She saw a scaly rash of similar punctures and wondered how many elzi had sat on that table, and where they were coming from, and what happened when they were no longer useful. Did Friar just dump them down the hole? Why not?

The elzi hardly reacted to the syringe—could they feel pain? Its eyes opened and they were still human, not rotted, wormy holes, or white with cataracts. They looked at Friar accusatorially and then grew droopy and unfocused. The elzi’s jaw went slack and he drooled. Friar beamed.

“It’s different for everyone, but about a pint of zoloctepine is enough to disable the hate response of the typical elzi. Watch.”

He flicked the elzi’s implant. Saru’s hand shot to her prod. The elzi twitched but did nothing. Saru sucked in a breath.

“That’s not funny.”

“I assure you he’s quite harmless. The effect will last about twelve minutes before the implants discover a suitable counter. That’s what I couldn’t figure out before—almost lost a few fingers—you need to mix in different drugs every time or they counter it. And once one of them knows the counter, they all do. Fascinating.”

He went to the workbench and picked up what looked like a thumb-sized satellite, and then walked over to the operating table. She flinched when Friar clipped it onto the elzi’s neck, but the elzi didn’t react other than to twitch.

“Now, watch this,” Friar said. He leaned in close—closer than Saru would have liked—to the elzi’s, cracked, rashy ear. “Jonathan. Where is the girl?” Nothing happened. Saru realized suddenly that she was wasting her time here and that precious minutes in the hunt for ten million dollars were slipping away.

“Well, this has been fun…”

“Jonathan, where is the girl?”

“Caaan’t tell…”

She nearly pissed herself. The elzi spoke—it fucking spoke!—but not in any voice that a live person ever used. It was like someone squeezing his guts to force the air out of his throat.

“Please, Jonathan, we must know where the girl is.”

“How would he…”

Friar gave a look to silence her.

“Do you know where she is, Jonathan?”

“Yessss.”

“You must tell me Jonathan!”

“No…no!”

He screamed and his body tensed and he thrashed and tore against the chains. Friar jumped back, away from the flailing arms.

“Noooooo!” the elzi screamed. Lines appeared in his skin, like fat worms crawling beneath the surface. Bubbles formed and popped, splattering blood. There was the cracking of bones, over and over like kids throwing poppers on the ground, and they burst through the skin and ripped it apart. The elzi dissolved before them, torn apart from the inside. And then there was nothing left—a small pond of gore and viscera and the implants glinting evilly. The tiny satellite had melted.

“Thank you, Jonathan,” Friar said. He seemed shaken, but not as shaken as he should have been. Saru felt like she was going to barf again.

“You…sick fuck,” she said. “What did you do to him?”

“I? I did nothing, though I admit that was a likely outcome.”

“You knew that would happen?”

“Not that, exactly. It was very likely Jonathan would die helping us, but the manner of his death I did not know.”

“What…what…did you do to him?”