"Your core-being is immune to my wiles?"

"My body is having a wonderful time. It doesn't need me."

Slide tried to peer past her to see if any other beings might be nearby in this private discorporation, but she deftly blocked him. "If you're looking for the Count, he's a long way from here."

"But you don't want me to see for myself."

"I am quite alone."

"I only have your word on that."

The Queen was icy in either condition. "I am supposed to rule here. I have to maintain some authority."

"But you claim to need me."

The two metaphysically copulating bodies were now completely merged, losing their physical integrity in a firework display of tantric energy, while the core-beings faced each other coolly. "You think it's easy for me to admit I need anything?"

Slide moved to the heart of the matter. "But you say you want to change all this?"

The Mina entity sighed. "I have come to the reluctant, but all too obvious conclusion, that coming to Mars was a good idea at the time, but, in the long run, a very bad mistake."

"For a replicated slice of the British Empire on Ancient Mars, it seems pretty damned coherent."

The Queen took on a negative and depressed coloration. "This place is nothing but a fragment of fantasy, and the people here are just a pack dentists seeking to make an extraction."

"Are you sure that's not just the tetradetoxin talking?"

"What do you know about tetradetoxin?"

"Plenty. In fact, a fuck of a lot. We Idimmu pretty much live on tetradetoxin."

"Then that's something we have in common."

Slide's body was moaning loudly while that of the Queen's was emitting prolonged cat howls. On the swan-bed the long, silky-white fur of the apt-pelt was standing on end as though reanimated by the so-total coupling. Slide made a discorporate gesture towards the torridly writhing energy mass. "Will I have a body left when we all that unnatural passion has run it's course?"

"You like that one so much?"

"No."

"So take another. I know you can."

Slide was sly and teasingly sideways. "I might take yours."

The Queen briefly sparkled with laughter. "It would seem that you already have."

"I'm serious. This is neither the time nor place to be breaking in a new one."

"Don't worry, we have drug that will restore us to whatever levels of normality we enjoyed previously."

Slide's interest was instantly piqued. "A drug?"

"It called fluxamelotide, and…"

"Fluxamelotide?".

"Flux for short."

"What does it do?"

"Among other uses, it's the prefect normality reconditioner."

"What's it made from?"

"You might not want to know."

"Believe me, girl. I have ingested some pretty out-there intoxicants in my time."

Queen Mina's entity took on a devilish hue. "Fluxamelotide is a distillation of the slime of the Slimy Things."

"Shit."

"Shocked?"

Slide metaphorically shook his head. "No, but you have to admit it's kind of extreme."

The Queen's color suddenly became business-like. "So are you going to help me?"

"You seriously want me to make this place like it never existed?"

The merged and flaming bodies had moved to the bed. Now it was Queen's turn to coquettishly reference their shuddering multiple orgasms. "It's surely the least you could do after the good time I've been showing your human receptacle."

"It may not be as easy as you think."

"But you'll try? Tell me you'll try."

Slide could see that the Queen was close to pleading. She wanted an answer, and he suspected that it would not go well for him it he didn't give her the one she hoped to hear. He went for one final delay. "Why go to all the trouble? This place can't last. Sooner or later it'll fall, either to the Martians or the Slimy Things."

"I don't want to wait that long."

"It might not take that long. Look how fast the American Empire fell apart on most C21 timelines."

A purple impatience suffused the Queen. "Even if it happened tomorrow, I am in no condition right now to deal with the crippling sense of defeat that would naturally follow."

Slide knew he had no choice but to go along with Queen. He would agree to what she wanted, and continue to play out the game one moment at a time. "I'll do what you want. You have my word."

The Queen flared happily. It was the first time that Slide had seen her so positive and satisfied. "Be assured, Yancey Slide, you will not find me ungrateful."

Then, at that very moment, the entire discorporation fell apart.

As far as Slide could tell, the forcible transition that suddenly engulfed them had nothing to do with the Queen's gratitude, but was the product of a wholly external intervention. After a nanosecond of infinite falling, he and Queen Mina were rudely dumped down in the physical, and, as if that wasn't enough, they discovered that Lupo, with a frightened handmaiden behind him, was standing beside the swan-bed watching them, as they untangled from each other's intertwined limbs, and torsos slick with shared fluids. As soon as he was able The Queen sat bolt upright, nude and furious.

"WHO FLUXED US UP?"

Lupo, the Renaissance vampire bowed gravely. "It was me, your Majesty. I had to do it."

"You?"

Lupo's face was like a carved Michelangelo. He was plainly well versed in the unpredictability of royals. "Me, ma'am."

"You're nothing but a visiting vampire."

"That's why the task fell to me. The others were scared of what you might do to them."

"They were right."

"Sir Richard suggested I should bring you the bad news, ma'am."

"And you weren't scared?"

"I am nosferatu. What could you do to me? I don't even fear the sun on this planet."

"And what news could have been so horribly important to warrant this intrusion?"

"Your city would seem to be in clear, present, and highly immediate danger."

"Danger? The city is always in danger according to Barton."

"An uprising has broken out among the Martian workers at Morlock's foundry."

The Queen's anger mounted. "A STRIKE? You interrupted me for a bloody INDUSTRIAL ACTION?"

"It's more than a strike, your Majesty. It is an armed insurrection. The Red Martian workers are well organized, and marching down the railway that connects the foundry and the city."

"I'll hang Bolivar Morlock. This is all his fault."

But Lupo hadn't finished. "Meanwhile…"

"There's a meanwhile?"

"There's a meanwhile, your Majesty. The Slimy Things seem to have taken the uprising as some kind of signal, or at least an opportunity. Their fighting machines are advancing rapidly on the Grand Canal with what would seem to be hostile and aggressive intent."

The Queen turned to Slide. "Now do you see why I want you to do what I want you to do?" Before he could respond, she was snarling at the handmaiden. "Don't just stand there you wretched girl. Hurry, damn it. Summon the rest. I have to dress. I have to select a uniform. Didn't you hear the vampire? The city is under attack."

Slide and Lupo found themselves ignored by the irate flurry that was the Queen and her attendants, and Lupo spoke in a low voice. "If you find a way out of this place, I would considered it a favor if you took me with you. These humans are more insane than most."

Slide grinned at the venerable Vampire. "What did you expect, pal? They're living on fucking Mars, aren't they?"

Story so far: Yancey Slide, Idimmu Demon of the Tenth Continuum, running from a fragmenting backstory, finds himself in a Martian revolution. The workers are rising up angry against Queen Mina and the neo-Imperial Victorians who have established a faux-British Raj on the Red Planet.