Parity blinked. They had done what to her?

She shook her head. Now was not the time for going to pieces. She marked the security camera feed with a bit of glowing red twine, then started checking the identifiers on the other wires around her. More cameras, intercom speakers, food processors, industrial robots, data lines—where was the outbound phone line?

She finally gave up looking for it. It wasn’t as if he could help her, anyway. He hadn’t even been on time for their date.

But the other wires she’d examined gave her an idea. As full of machinery as this factory was…

Parity reached out and grabbed fistfuls of wires, looping them around her ankles, knees, elbows, wrists. Her awareness expanded with each new wire she touched.

On the factory floor below, a robot manipulator arm jerked to life, its clamp-like gripper opening and closing. It moved back and forth along its tracks on the ceiling—tracks that went almost all the way to the office entrance.

Parity grinned. This was going to be fun.