Someone else inhabited Kriti the next morning, the self who used to be proficient at her job, the most independent version of herself. She finished putting up her hair, took her keycard, and slipped out down the hall to the executive lounge. She wanted to eat breakfast with the other business travelers to normalize her mind before the meeting she was to attend.

She had showered in the small hours after the Thakur had awakened her, lifted her legs onto his shoulders, and worked off the last of his blue pill with vigor approaching violence. He had gone immediately back to sleep, of course.