CHAPTER 2

      The team who’d rescued the prostitutes gathered for a debriefing in the conference room on the ninth floor.

      ‘Four of them can’t go home; their families sold them into this and they won’t be wanted back,’ Sit said. ‘Of the seven who can go home, we found only three of their passports in the brothel, the other four passports are missing. We’ll have stones tap into the relevant immigration computers to extract their details and make duplicates for them. Something very interesting, ma’am — one of the girls appears to be half-dragon and completely unaware of her nature. One of our dragons recognised her.’

      ‘I’ll talk to her,’ I said. ‘Arrange for her and Amy to meet me in my office after this; and to bring along the four girls that can’t go home. But first let’s have a look at Mr Lee’s recording. I want to see this energy blast that injured the students.’

      Lee folded up from human to stone form and drifted to sit in the middle of the table. We waited for him to produce the recording of the standoff with the demons, but nothing happened. He returned to human form after a couple of minutes, obviously puzzled.

      ‘The recording’s not there,’ he said.

      ‘It’s not in your matrix?’ I said.

      He shook his head, bewildered. ‘That area of my structure is clear. Like nothing was ever there.’ He looked concerned. ‘I’ve been hacked.’

      ‘Not possible, they were just Mothers,’ the stone in my ring said. ‘Bring out what you have either side, let’s see.’

      Lee rubbed his hands over his face. ‘There isn’t anything there. I recall arriving at the building, going up the stairs, then going into recording mode. Then the next segment of data is me back down in the bus. I’ve been wiped.’

      ‘Not possible!’ the stone said.

      ‘Has anything like this happened to you before?’ I said.

      Lee shook his head. ‘Very disturbing.’

      ‘Time to go back and see what’s going on there,’ I said. ‘Lee, grab a couple of other stones, take a couple of Celestials. See if you can get a dragon if they’re free, and teleport directly in. Everybody take a recording. Someone take an old-fashioned video camera from stores; ask Lok for one. We’ll meet back here in a couple of hours and see what we can see.’

      ‘Ma’am.’ Lee lowered his head and disappeared.

      ‘Has anything like this ever happened before?’ I asked the stone.

      ‘It is possible for us to experience damage to part of the matrix, but usually we can piece together the undamaged parts to give us an idea of what went wrong,’ the stone said. ‘Being erased like that is unheard of.’

      ‘Are you passing it through the stone network?’

      ‘Quite a few stones have dropped what they’re doing and are going along with Lee. A few want to examine his matrix. We’re looking into it.’

      ‘Good,’ I said. ‘Sit, get a stone to make some duplicate passports for these girls, and let’s send them home. I’ll talk to the dragon and the four that can’t go home in my office. Other than that, I think we’re done here.’

      ‘Ma’am,’ Sit said, and disappeared.

      ‘I’m very concerned, Emma,’ the stone said.

      ‘You’re not the only one.’

      ‘So it’s your choice,’ I said to the five girls. ‘Go home to your own country, or stay here. If you stay, we can give you the right of abode and you can find a job and work here. We will give you somewhere to live. It is up to you.’

      One of the girls sniffled. The others sat looking down at their hands, silent and disbelieving.

      ‘If you don’t know what you want to do, take your time,’ I said. ‘We will look after you; we won’t make you do sex work. We will train you to do office work if you like, and you can find yourselves good jobs back home.’

      None of the girls moved or spoke.

      ‘My staff will show you where you’re going to live until you decide,’ I said. ‘The lady who brought you here is waiting for you outside the office. If you want to go, just tell her, she’ll take you home. If you’re not sure, then you can stay with us until you know.’

      I called to Martha and she opened the door and came in. ‘I’ll do the rest,’ she said.

      She smiled at the girls and folded her hands in front of her. ‘I will look after you, nobody will hurt you any more. I can take you home or you can stay here; either way you are safe.’

      The girls sat without moving.

      Martha put her hand out. ‘Come with me.’

      The girls rose like automatons, still looking at the floor, and went out with Martha. One of them sniffled again and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

      Martha gently put her hand out to stop one of the girls from leaving the room. ‘Not you, you stay here. Madam needs to talk to you.’

      The girl stopped, still staring at the floor. The other girls went with Martha without looking back.

      I checked my notes for her name. ‘Hien. Please sit again, and I’ll tell you a story.’

      She