The Mapper hovered over her bed, passing a casual eye over the unconscious form of Bliss Kia as he perused her medical chart, raising his eyebrows at the occasional chemical imbalance.

A nun quietly slipped in to check her stats and gave the Mapper a friendly smile on her exit. Xindii walked round to the right hand side and placed himself down on the slippery chair. The sound of it enough to wake the sleeping gods of Mo' Katha and their hordes. A bizarre cross-breed of a sound like bubbling thunder and a hungry stomach. Bliss's eyelids fluttered, no doubt cause of the horrendous chair and its din.

She swallowed and licked her lips and coughed at the coarse texture of her mouth and throat. Xindii leaned over with a small plastic cup of water and held it to her dry lips.

'Here is some water, Bliss. Try and drink.'

The Mapper's voice was welcoming, like that of some grand and articulate storyteller. She curled her bottom lip over and Xindii held it against her chin, the circumference of the cup hanging over the cusp of her bottom lip. Xindii gently tipped the cup and a trickle of water fell into her mouth. She immediately swallowed and coughed, spurting it against her nightdress. The Mapper tried again and she was willing. The water had agitated her throat yet its cold refreshing texture was welcoming. Wanting more.

She opened her eyes and saw the beaming face of the Mapper. She turned her head and immediately felt the deep aching crevasse to her head. The bandage still a little bloody. She picked at the bandage tucked behind her right ear and the Mapper held her hand from wanton curiosity. 'I'd not poke it and prod it too much. You've got quite a gash there.'

She looked at him blankly. As if he had just walked in from the street and decided to make himself at home in her own bedroom.

'Who . . . who are you?'

'My name is Heironymous Xindii. I'm a Mapper based at Varosium.'

'And –' she demanded, reaching for her head, the raising of her voice adding a weight of injury to the back of her head.

'And?' she asked, more quietly.

'And,' the Mapper continued, 'you were found unconscious on the floor of a known felon. A particularly nasty one in point of fact. Why?'

Dazed she blinked several times and asked for the water, pulling herself up from the bed to a more upright position where the fabric of the bed was cooler. She felt it through her nightgown, bathing her back in a cool slab of relief. 'Felon?' she asked adroitly.

'Yes. Gustaf Felstrom. It's not the kind of place you would wish to find yourself given a choice.'

'But I was?'

'Indeed you were, Bliss. Do you remember leaving Inspector Brick's apartment?'

'Brick?'

Xindii smiled. 'Well, I can see where this is going?'

She placed her hands on her face and wiped the sleep from her flesh. 'Could you pass me the water, please?'

Xindii passed her a fresh cup and she took it from him. 'Thank you.'

The Mapper pulled himself from the flatulent chair and walked toward the end of the bed, leaning on the bed posts, scrutinizing her lapse of memory or questioning it.

Who was she?

Their eyes met.

'Gustaf needed to get out of town. The next logical step in the investigation was the Watch knocking on his door. I owed him a debt. Brick left the Godspunk in his apartment. I knew Gustaf would take it and my debt would be paid.'

'What debt?'

She bit her lip. Sheepish and embarrassed. Her flushed cheeks betraying her inner thoughts.

'Jam.'

Xindii smiled. 'Jam?'

'He'd fix me up. I owed.'

The Mapper gave her a steely look, trying to brake her resolve. 'You know, any person involved in the case where a Mapper is investigating is, by law, free to offer up their thoughts to investigation. I wouldn't recommend it. It's like a having a wasp in your head. It hurts. Really hurts. It's a ritual I really don't like to practice but sometimes it has to be done. It's easier to let me in than just resist or you may find your brain seeping through that crack in your head. I'll let you think about that for a few minutes. I need a coffee and a biscuit. I'm rather partial to a biscuit. Would you like one?'

She shook her head.

Xindii brushed down his coat. 'Custard cream I think.'

'You don't scare me, Mapper.'

He looked at her and then the room seemed to turn and as he smiled. 'That's what they all say until they let me in.'

The Mapper drew the curtain and left her to the slow twisting dimensions of the floor which gaped and yawned and turned her stomach.

Xindii gently dipped his custard cream into the hot milky coffee and then offered the nearest padre one. They declined and smiled and left the Mapper to his creature comforts.

The nurse from earlier was about to enter the alcove and check Bliss, her cries of vomiting and despair arousing the attention of the church staff, but Xindii advised her against it.

'I wouldn't my dear. She's just heaving out some of last night's yenderstack. Yuk.'

The nun turned on her heels and looked elsewhere.

Xindii then noticed the priest returning down the aisle with Bliss's file. 'Ah, father. I hope you have all her history. She's a stubborn one.'

'Well. Professor. I don't know what to say.'

'As to what, my friend?' He asked, brandishing his last bit of custard cream like an opal found in the streams of Darklands.

The priest handed him the file. 'It's blank. According to all known and current data Bliss Kia doesn't exist.'

He devoured the biscuit and examined the file. 'Now, that is very interesting.'

'I'd say,' remarked the priest. 'If she has no medical file then I will assume that she is either an immigrant or . . .'

The Mapper leaned in close. 'Or?' he asked, beyond excited.

'A fiction. Maybe some alumni invented by some drug runner.'

'OR?' Asked the Mapper.

'OR, what? Man.'

'Or . . . a dream.'

The priest shook his head and walked off, leaving the Mapper to theorize and exasperate among his own company.

'What happens when the kids have left and the parents have died? What happens to the house then? If there is nothing left but dust and walls what does the house do then? Her boys have gone. There is no one to care for. No one to provide for. Does she dream of better things? Does she cry and yearn for her boys to return? Does she cry on those dark nights alone? Hoping, yearning that they will come visit.

'What if she misses her family and in her madness corrupts even herself? What if House dreamed? What if House wanted her boys back?

'She's a sentient House. She cooks and cleans and has a vast array of medical and scientific knowledge and has a database and codex as long as time itself. If she wanted a pair of legs . . .'

The Mapper suddenly realised there was an assortment of clergy observing him in his ramblings. He reached for another custard cream and smiled. 'I like to ramble, helps me see the bigger picture. Builds momentum.'

A handful nodded and then carried on with their business and Xindii steadily walked over to the alcove where Bliss Kia was now resting. He pulled the curtain to and entered.

She looked a little green around the face. The Mapper's illusions now dispersed.

Xindii leaned over the end of the bed. 'You got yourself some legs didn't you, House?'

'And I was looking forward to you sifting through my memories.'

'I was only joking. I'm not really allowed to do that. Only to the accused.'

She smiled. 'I know.'

As a scientist, Xindii was eager to quiz her. Dissect every piece of knowledge he could.

'You are a marvel madam. Truly.'

'You're hitting on a House?'

The Mapper waved his hands in defense. 'No, No not at all it's just. Eh . . .'

Silence.

'It was never planned,' she began. 'Everything has its place. The Children of House are no different from Angels and Hotch. We will all die in the end.

'It actually wasn't that difficult to construct a body. Houses of old were created to protect a family. Through medicine and weapons, through agriculture and warfare. We were thinking machines with one directive: protect the family.

'We could synthesise or produce any known metal or mineral. On hostile planets we could transform from a woodland cottage to a stone castle in mere moments. Creating a body is mere child's play when it comes to chemistry. I have had many years and days alone in my own lineage to select the perfect construct for my own flight.'

'But why did you do it, Bliss? If that is even your name?'

'It was a name. The name of the girl I choose. The blueprint for my metamorphosis.'

The Mapper looked at her sternly for a moment.

'Relax. I didn't abduct a child and steal her body. Though the idea has merit.'

'Really?'

'The Children of House were the first Sub-Humans. The next evolutionary step from homosapien man. But even now I am the last. My children dead. My existence obsolete. Like the rest of you I now wait out the dark.'

'So you waited?'

'I waited, haunted by the dark and the loneliness. My boys had flown the nest never, it seems to return. Then I felt it, deep in my codex. Something was wrong. An anomaly that even I couldn't have predicted. Ravnor. Eating away at Godrich and in doing so rotting me to the very depths of the codex. I couldn't protect him . . .'

'Godrich? There were no traces of Ravnor within –'

The Mapper looked at her ashamedly. 'OOOOHHHHH, boys and their toys.'

'To my shame. I know the boys were corrupted at birth but only through mutation, I didn't realise they would sink to the depths they have.'

'You must be proud. What happened next?'

'Nothing, for a while. There was nothing I could do. Then one day I had a visitor, only through accident. A young girl had lost her ball and she came to the garden to retrieve it. I watched her with fascination, the first person I had seen for an age. She came up to me and placed her warm fragile, petite hand on my brickwork and just said 'Hello.' It was the most heart-warming gesture I had ever seen. I remembered her dearly for months after hoping that she would return.

'The day she touched me I scanned her DNA and held it in my databank like a human would arrange a vase of flowers. Cherishing it. Then I came to the realisation that I could escape. Maybe help the boys after all. I took this girls gentle touch as kismet. A chance to redeem Godrich and Gustaf, or just embrace them as I did so long ago.'

'Kismet?' demanded the Mapper. 'Fate? You are an incredibly demented machine! What were you going to do? Give them a cuddle and an ice cream?'

'I am House. They are my responsibility.'

'Then what was your plan because I have an inkling it didn't go to plan?'

'I befriended Gustaf, even laid with him.'

Xindii put his hand to his face, almost embarrassed. 'Godrich or Gustaf?'

'Gustaf, I know the difference.'

'Well, I'm glad you do.'

'I was tardy in my efforts. By the time I had found out where Godrich lived, Gustaf was murdered.'

'Did you murder, Gustaf, House?'

She looked up at him. 'No.'

'What would you have done if you got them both back to Nuttergut Hill?'

'I would have buried myself with them inside. Cradled them and rocked them until their hearts gave out and the darkness swallowed me too.'

'Why did you leave the pub the night he was murdered, Bliss?'

She sighed. 'He was changed. Corrupted.'

'The Godspunk?'

'No. He hadn't taken any. But he wanted too. His need for it had become paramount. It was his scent that turned my stomach.'

'What scent? Where had he been, Bliss?'

'To see her. The bane of their lives. As much as the Ravnor corrupted Godrich, Gustaf had his own disease and it ripped his soul to shreds one day at a time until there was nothing left.'

House looked at him like a distraught mother.

'Who, Bliss? Who?'