Then puts the blindfold over my eyes and wraps something over it. (Which I found out later was a pair of those tiny swim goggles.) He positions me on ...he bed with my head hanging upside down over the side. Then he says, I'll be right back, that he left the bag of lubes in his car. I don't know how long I was laying there. But I was so fucked up I fell asleep. Then I hear music. It's a little loud but I didn't think anything of it. He says I'm back. I asked what took so long? He said he couldn't. Not yet illegal, but potentially rather dangerous. My lack of bulking up to a full Confederacy Marine size was to my advantage, I had been told. Further, I had been advised to conceal my Confederacy status from anyone except those who needed to know. "And no one needs to know," Lieutenant Percy told me. "If your contact doesn't already know, they don't need to."We shook hands and I left. She puzzled me. She was obviously highly competent, and highly knowledgeable. Yet... "AI," I asked, sotto. Sylvie's flat was slightly different and certainly more feminine, but Guy's masculine flat had an emotional pull for Marion. Sylvie pointed to an overgrown sofa. Marion imagined that it would seat at least four people abreast and the seats were so deep that she could not sit back and keep her feet on the floor. Sylvie demonstrated her method of sitting when she sat down with her coffee. Her back against the side cushion and her legs curled up.Having made herself comfortable, Sylvie asked the. Raised from the earth, they would return eventually.She shook the thought off. Melancholy didn’t become her. With an unassuming wave of her hand, the spelled darkness released, and baleful light flickered and leapt across the internal walls from oil lanterns spaced around the room. She blinked, annoyed at the intrusion of light, but then, as her eyes adjusted, she let them travel over the rich, wooden furnishings. An armoire stood against the far wall, its wood dark even in the shadows. A.