26. The Wig

Rez pilots Marly toward derelict Tessier-Ashpool data cores, while Marly battles space sickness with derms. Rez questions whether Marly can gain entry and reveals the destination’s history as T-A’s former corporate memory. Marly drifts in and out of dreamlike visions of the boxmaker as Rez raises the inhabitants on comms.

Over the link, a hostile man denounces intruders as defiers of God. Marly identifies herself, warns that Virek knows their location and will follow, and pleads for entry. The voice, suddenly cautious, demands the pilot suit up Marly; Rez outfits her but leaves the helmet off for Marly’s claustrophobia, instructing her on fastening it if needed.

Rez docks lock-to-lock and sends Marly through. Marly tumbles into a dank, human-smelling darkness until the inhabitants snag her with a sticky line and reel her into a cavernous, gutted core lined with scars of stripped systems. The man reveals himself as Wigan Ludgate, fanatically proclaiming the boxes as the work of God and accusing Marly of serving Mammon.

Jones, a young New Melbourne exile living there, defuses Ludgate’s fury and leads Marly away along a guide line through endless corridors. He explains Ludgate’s instability and his own arrival while on the run, how he keeps Ludgate fed, and that buyers once came for scavenged goods and the boxes but were turned away.

As they travel, Jones sketches the Place’s origins: former T-A corporate cores sold for scrap after the family’s fall, rumored wiped yet oddly still half-alive. He mentions Lady 3Jane and Ashpool’s bloody history, and notes the Pakistani scrapper who owns the hulk. When Marly presses, Jones agrees to take her to the boxmaker, cautioning that the Place wasn’t built for people and the artist may not comply.