What she had in mind for her writer involved a neural mapper, an uninterrupted supply of electricity and irrigation fluid, and time. Endless, pinful time.

She shook her head at him. "You can't open the door from inside the prison, I fear. No, we're just the dancing puppets, and Stacy's tentacles the strings. Someday those strings will slip, and we'll fall."

She sighed, fluttering her lips. "And then there'll be another podpop, and people to replace us, on and on and on. Pop, pop, poppoppoppop...."