The club in question, Electrique, had a line that stretched on for over a block. Loud, pulsing music spilled out of it, and it stank worse than the rest of London, somehow. Stale alcohol, sweat, puke, heavy perfume and cologne. The rain came misting down on them as they waited to go in, following a few steps behind Marian and Stewart's temporal pins; there were so many people they were impossible to actually see.

" Why can't we just go into cloaking mode and sneak in?" Christel complained loudly.

" We'll do that if we're turned away," Allen called back to him. " There's no reason to use cloaking if we can do it the regular way. Waste of resources."

" Isn't waiting in line this long a waste of our resources?" Christel complained back.

" Can you run an ID check on the people here and pull contemporary violent offenses?" Allen asked.

" Why're you making me work," Christel complained. " It's just going to be rapists and bad drunks."

He did it anyway.

" There're 64 people here I can visually match to past violent offenses," he said. " Only 18 convicted."

They got up to the bouncer, who checked their fake IDs. He looked up and down at Christel.

" You a boy or a girl, love?" he asked, loud voice barely audible over the booming music.

" What's it matter? It's on my license, isn't it?" Christel yelled back at him, put out by the delay.

The man laughed at him, but let them both in anyway.

" The fuck was that about?" Christel complained, looking around. " Allen, this place is horrible. It's so crowded. It stinks. Do we really have to spend all night here?"

Allen was not paying him that much attention; he was also looking the place over.

" Get yourself a cup of soda so it looks like we're drinking," he said. " For now let's stay in proximity to Marian. Keep an eye on her phone."

" Fine, whatever," Christel complained.

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