...floating in dark syrup, surrounded by a hundred suspended panes of glass illuminated along their edges. The panes were of different sizes and colours, each labelled in the top left hand corner with an abstract symbol. She noticed that, faint as a bleached picture, each was also etched with a pair of human lips. The temptation was to touch one.
She touched one. Nothing.
She kissed one.
“Headmerger welcomes you to its country,” said a voice.
Subadwan understood. The mask was a headmerger, a device so sophisticated it represented a pyuter landscape: but which?
Before her, the glass pane bubbled and billowed. As it enlarged, the others faded away. Subadwan was not frightened, however, for she knew that this Archive pyuter would do her no harm.