Grace had several way-too-close calls on the way back to her room and as eager as she was to test out this pilfered technology, she was too exhausted from the stress of what she’d done to be able to do anything other than collapse on the bed.

She roused some time later, unaware that she’d dosed, unaware of the time or how long it had been since her excursion, Grace sat up slowly in bed.

A storm raged outside, the giant windows of the room rattling in threat of being blown inward.

She knew everything was surveilled and now that she knew Voxdots were a thing, couldn’t even trust the spaces she formerly considered as being off-limits.

Had the Vees no shame?

Of course not, Grace thought wryly. They’re the fucking Vees.

Then again, if they did surveil everything, they may not have actually been monitoring it all—unless they felt they had reason to. And by they, Grace thought, she really just meant Vox.

After all, nothing had resulted from her little post-drugging hysteria in the shower.

But Grace had had a peculiar string of good luck that she didn’t want to press further so she burrowed under the blankets on the bed and opened the Voxdots box, inspecting the components, reading the tiny instruction manual’s even tinier instructions.

It seemed straightforward enough. Luckily she had ample experience moonlighting as an amateur IT support representative at more employers than she cared to recall. None paid her accordingly.

She scowled at the memories.

Now the difficulty became how to connect the Voxtek storage hub to the bedroom television without whatever observation by whatever surveillance existed in the room.

Knowing the size of this Voxdot—smaller than the nail on her pinkie finger—anything could be a camera.

Everything could be a camera.

Had they implanted a camera somewhere in her at some point? Like while she was unconscious?

Grace cringed, wishing her thoughts didn’t think that way.

A brilliant flash of light filled the room followed by a spectacular peal of thunder that shook the building like an earthquake and for a moment, Grace thought she’d been blinded.

Nope. The power went out.

Vee Tower must’ve been struck by that bolt of lightning.

She hoped Vox felt it since he seemed to somehow be a part of the electrical system.

But since Grace was leeching his powers, she would probably have felt it, too, so that was a bit of a mixed blessing.

Speaking of blessings … This was the almost-perfect opportunity to install the Voxtek storage hub. Perfect in that if any camera was linked to the power grid, it was down. Not-so-perfect in that Grace couldn’t see shit in the darkness.

But there would be no better time; Grace groped through the darkness, first to find her way to the television, and then to find the USB A port behind it.

And then, then, of course, to insert the USB A hub the correct way—which took three tries somehow even though it could only go in one of two ways. Amateur IT support rep aside, USB A plugs were gonna USB A plug like the obnoxious little bitches they were.

50/50 chance of plugging it in correctly the first time, 100% chance of getting it wrong at least once.

It finally seated with a satisfying click.

The next challenge would be in finding an inconspicuous spot in the Vee conference room in which to install the Voxdot.

But with the power outage, Grace knew she’d have to take the stairs—a problem with her already exhausted legs. A bigger problem when it was much more likely she’d encounter Voxtek minions—or one of the Vees—in the stairwell when they had no working elevators.

So Grace settled into the chair by the window and watched the storm as it raged outside.

Late that night, many hours after the power returned to Vee Tower, Grace sneaked out of her room once more to pay a long overdue visit to the conference room—steak knife and Voxdot in hand.

She assumed her usual position beneath the conference room table, first carving another vèvè into it. And then she studied the table—its etched underside. Its plain legs. While the camera itself was tiny, it would be found easily by anyone who had reason to look under there only because it would stick out against the flat surfaces.

Grace bit her lip, chewing it gently as she mulled over her options. Would it be visible if she just attached it to the underside of the table? Maybe she could etch a vèvè so deep that she could stick the camera somewhere into its grooves and gouges without it protruding from the wood surface.

‘Etch a Vèvè So Deep’ would be the title of my autobiography. Last words? She died and went to Hell. Oh wait, I’ve got a better one! Grace did a quick count of the sigils she’d carved already. ‘Sixteen Vèvès Deep’ is my band name. We play a fusion of electronica and ska.

Grace shook her head. Focus, Grace. Cripes!

Even if she was concentrationally challenged, she would have been ripped from the digression by the sound of the conference room door handle clicking. Grace recoiled, scooting to the far end of the table.

Two pairs of shoes scuffled across the carpet—whatever this meeting was, it was starting with Vox and Valentino. Grace braced herself for some epically disgusting conversation.

The first thing to really occur to her as the two male Vees entered the room in silence was Vox’s gait—he stumbled and staggered, his strides uneven. A step or two to the right, a corrective step to the left, then several more to the left. The toe of his shoes caught the carpet every now and then. He collapsed into a seat—not his usual seat, thankfully, as that was nearest to where Grace had moved—but close enough that she could smell alcohol as it wafted from him.

The stench was so strong, it rivaled Alastor that night he first fucked her.

Grace blew a silent breath out of her mouth; the smell might be etched forever into her nostrils.

Then Vox opened his mouth and sure enough, his speech was spectacularly slurred. “I’m sure he feels the same way about me as I do about him. He’s just in denial. Some days I can’t stop thinking about him, Val. No one else makes me feel the way he does.”

“Oh, Papi,” Valentino cooed, “if the feeling was mutual, you’d know it by now.”

Grace’s eyes widened. Okay, so maybe Val and Vox don’t have a thing together? I was so sure of it! As sure as I was that Vox is obsessed with Al. Batting 500, there, Grace! 

“I can’t stop thinking about him being with …” Vox spat the name he’d assigned to Grace: “Violet.” 

He swiveled in his chair and smashed what Grace assumed was a beer bottle against the tabletop. She jumped in her own skin, then took a steadying breath.

“It’s been 70 years,” Valentino replied, the patience in his voice thinning considerably. “Let the twink go!”

If anything, Al is a dandy, not a twink, you moron.

Vox asked, his voice wavering, “Do you think he ever thinks about me?”

“If this continues,” Valentino warned, “it’s gonna start hurting my feelings!”

Okay. I stand corrected. Grace glanced around herself. Okay, okay, I cower corrected. I’m batting a thousand. Vox is pining for Al, and Valentino is butthurt about it. She smirked. 

“Do you think if Violet never returned to him, I’d have a chance?”

Two men talking about a woman. Is this the anti-Bechdel test?

If Grace were smarter, she might have been concerned about the implications of what Vox just asked.

It was Valentino’s turn to scowl audibly. “I don’t think you’re his type.”

“And if you wanted to hurt my feelings, Val, you’ve succeeded.”

Grace shook her head, her gaze falling on the joint of one of the table legs where it connected to the tabletop. The screw had been drilled too deeply into its joint. She squared her shoulders because straightening in her spot would mean smacking her crown against the table. 

There. That’s where the Voxdot can go!

As Grace anticipated, the conversation devolved. Vox grew drunker, Valentino grew more jealous, and the things Vox said he’d thought of doing to Alastor got more and more explicit.

“You’re not as think as you cute you are when you brood, Al. Val.”

Wooooow, Grace mouthed, musing over if a soul with a television for a head could die of alcohol poisoning. She wondered if he was actively trying to kill himself permanently.

“It’s not like I wouldn’t include you in things. I’d defile you in front of him. Teach him a thing or two about how I like to do it.”

She thought she might vomit.

“You think Violet had to teach him where to stick his dick?”

Oh my fucking god! Grace barely suppressed a groan. It was annoying to hear that from Angel Dust. Hearing it from Vox? A million times worse. She turned her thoughts inward to drown out as much of Vox’s conversation as she could. There was only so long she could keep her temper in check and the last thing she wanted to do was to reveal herself under the conference room table.

Again.

Grace dug her mental heels in deep, trying to recall as much as she could from the poems she’d memorized throughout her scholastic years.

She silently recited “Annabel Lee.” “The Raven.” “Spirits of the Dead.” “A Dream Within a Dream.” “Alone.” Once Grace had exhausted her store of Edgar Allan Poe, she moved on to the only Emily Dickinson poem she’d bothered to memorize: “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” From there, Lord Byron’s “Darkness.” Halfway through that one, Vox and Valentino finally left—the latter having to carry the former out of the conference room.

The room was silent.

Grace exhaled quietly.

She felt like she’d been there for the length of another lifetime. 

Finally, she pressed the Voxdot into the overly sunken screw hole of the table leg where it fit nice and snugly. Perfect. 

Both wary and weary, Grace slipped from the conference room and made her way back to her bedroom. She let herself in, closed the door behind herself, and glanced up at the television. Through clenched teeth, she told it, “Game on, motherfuckers.”

Movement in the giant tank surrounding the conference room caught Grace’s eye and the Vees’ voices faded away into white noise as they argued and chattered over each other.

Grace silently sneaked closer to the tank while staying hidden beneath the conference room table. There were the sharks she’d seen before, but it was a new one, a bioengineered leviathan that gave Grace pause. She held her breath as it lapped the conference room with an elegance that was at odds with its breathtaking size.

She’d watched Vox baby-talk his sharks. He did that a lot, actually. It was the closest Grace had seen to any real human side to the Overlord, and he clearly adored these beasts.

Grace, personally, had never understood the universal fascination with sharks. They’re just fish. But these … these are fish Vox loves. These, then, are a weakness that can be exploited. She cast a glance between the massive swimming beast and Vox’s shins.

She pursed her lips in thought as she went back to watching the shark. 

Can bioengineered sharks be poisoned?

That sounds so similar to a deep philosophical question.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? What’s the sound of one hand clapping? Can god create a boulder he can’t lift? Do robots dream of electric sheep? And now my ‘can bioengineered sharks be poisoned?’

Grace brought herself back to the task at hand. It was time to add a real physical element to their so-called poltergeist’s existence. She moved closer to the Voxdot before shoving a pair of vacant chairs away from the table.

Leaving several shocked shrieks in her wake, Grace disappeared into the Voxdot.

The landing in her room was far less than gossamer and she slammed her head against the bedframe. That would undoubtedly leave a goose-egg.

Grace stood slowly, changing the television from AUX to HDMI1 in time to see the aftermath of her little stunt in the conference room.

The three Overlords were turning the conference room upside down, their angry chatter now turned panicked as they tried to find some logical explanation for chairs that had moved of their own volition.

Despite the throbbing pain around the back of her head, Grace laughed and continued to watch the disaster show she’d created.

Despite the Vees’ theory that all the crazy technological happenings in the Tower were a precursor to the next Extermination Day, it seemed the ostentatious skyscraper was not a point of interest for the Exorcist army. 

For the first part of the day, Grace hid in her bathroom with the lights off and door closed, trying to do everything she could to distract herself, just as she’d done in her crap-hole apartment each year for the past thirteen.

But then her intrusive voice woke up and started saying horrible things about what was going on outside Vee Headquarters. So despite the knots in her stomach, Grace left the bathroom and stood vigil at her window overlooking the city—not as though she could see the Hazbin Hotel from there. Not as if she knew what was going on within its walls.

“When last we left our hero, Grace was trapped in a bedroom in Vee Tower, parted from the love of her afterlife and doomed to waste away—alone and lonely—in an ivory tower built on lies, poison, murder, and hypocrisy.”

“Wait, wait. No.”

“On today’s episode of Grace Is Slowly Losing Her Mind, Grace I-Wish-I-Knew-Alastor’s-Last-Name-So-I-Could-Assign-It-To-Myself-Like-He’s-My-Grade-School-Crush, née Bedgood, has started narrating her sad existence as if she was the primary protagonist and certified damsel-in-distress of a shitty 1980s bodice-ripper.”

Grace mulled over the last two things she’d said to herself. “The first one. I like the first one better,” she decided.

But what difference did it make? Either way, she was going crazy. That, or narrating her afterlife like a telenovela was a side effect of Voxification. Oh, please, let it just be crazy!

Knowing just how close Alastor was to dying during his face-off with Adam, knowing she was entirely unable to help him should he wind up in a similar situation this Extermination Day, Grace was beside herself with worry. 

Worry that seemed entirely baseless; the day thus far had passed uneventfully as Hell seemed to hold its collective breath.

Did this mean the exterminations were over?

Grace glanced at the television, thinking she could see what the news had to say, but decided against that idea instantaneously since she didn't think she could stomach anything from FUX NEWS or another Katie Killjoy broadcast where the lines of fact and fiction blurred.

So she turned on the radio and flipped through stations of static, hunting for Alastor.

“Please broadcast, Radio Demon. I need to hear your voice!” Her own cracked around the threat of sobs. “Please!” 

As if he could hear her request.

As if he'd grant it even if he could somehow hear her.

Unable to handle the pseudo-silence anymore, Grace grabbed her vèvè-carving steak knife and took a leap of faith toward the camera mounted in her room.

She wasn’t sure what piece of electronics she’d emerged from. What she did know was that her landing was far from gossamer and would likely result in a spectacular bruise on her thigh and ass. Grace rose to her feet, off-kilter and nauseated. How the fuck does Vox do this?! 

Well, he probably had decades of experience on her and honed the art. What else do assholes do in their free time?

Where she’d found herself was not the destination she was hoping for so she set her jaw, steeled her nerves, and tried again. Another wrong room.

Is it possible, Grace mused as she wire-surfed, to use Vox, himself, as a portal … and spring, fully formed and armed like Athena did from Zeus’s forehead? Further, would it hurt him? Badly? She laughed wickedly at the possibility.

It took several more dizzying attempts and painful landings to find herself in the conference room. “This doesn’t look like the Coachella Valley! I knew I shoulda made the left turn at Albuquerque!” Grace shook her head at herself in frustration but took advantage of the mistake to carve another vèvè beneath the conference room table.

Following several more errant trips with clumsy landings, Grace popped out of one of the televisions at Vox’s base of operations. She figured she was on borrowed time and playing dangerous games so she worked as quickly as she could, hunting for something she wasn’t even sure she’d recognize as what she was seeking.

Grace rifled through the desk drawers, finally gathering the courage to tap a key on the control panel. Several displays lit up. Unsurprisingly, Vox’s computer was password-protected. She tipped her head back with a whine, wishing she hadn’t dropped her phone at the bridge. Kofax’s talents would’ve been exceedingly helpful at this point.

She thought about the kinds of things Vox might use for a password. 1234? V0xt3kRul3$? Alastor?

Actually … 

Grace typed in ‘FuckAlastor’ and was rewarded with an aggressively blue screen with angry white text: 

INVALID PASSWORD

PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

She hoped it wouldn’t lock on her if she failed one too many times and tried ‘FuckAlastor1’

INVALID PASSWORD

PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

Ok. How about ... 'FuckAlastor1!'

Her jaw dropped when she was greeted by the VoxTek logo and welcome screen. Guess it needed a number and special character. In disbelief, she exhaled, “You unbelievable dipshit.” Kofax probably hadn’t needed to try as hard as she did to hack his systems last year. If I ever see her again, I am so telling her about this!

Grace opened the file directory, looking for an archive of CCTV recordings. There was a file with Alastor’s name on it and she fought the temptation to open it, then to delete it. That’s not what you’re here for, Grace!

Several more clicks led her to a file folder of considerable size labeled Jan VTT CCTV.

The video files within were labeled only with numbers so Grace organized the hierarchy by date, opening the first video within a few days of her arrival at Vee Tower. It was a view of the lobby.

She went from video to video until finally she found one showing a familiar bedroom and dragged the video progress bar to the right. Her heart leaped into her throat when she saw herself walk into the room. This is it! This is the one! She fast-forwarded some more until Vox entered the room and pinned her against the armchair.

She quickly increased the volume.

“And I think you will look at me because I have a cache of Angelic Steel and I’ve been waiting for the perfect moment to stab that obsolete motherfucker through his heart with some when you are in no position to save his sorry afterlife.”

She gasped, her gaze snapping to his. “You wouldn’t!”

“I knew it. Oh, Grace Bedgood, what a bad actor you are.”

Grace watched herself in the video as she fell under Vox’s hypnotic spell. 

“You will sell your soul to me without any stipulations,” Vox said.

Robotically, Grace responded, “I will sell my soul to you without any stipulations.”

She thought she might vomit. Oh. Oh, my god. Oh, my god! A chill raced down her arms. I hope you know, Vox, this means war!

“And just what the fuck do you think you’re doing, Violet?”

Grace froze.

That was Vox’s voice and it was not coming from the computer speaker.

She had as much of an explanation for this as she had for when Vox found her beneath the conference room table. Actually, she had much less of an explanation for this. She swallowed hard, pivoting on her heel to face him.

There stood Vox with Valentino towering behind him, both silhouetted against the neon-blue walls surrounding them.

She opened her mouth and the oddest words fell out: “You really oughtta consider using stronger passwords on your software. They’re so predictable, even I could hack you.” Oh, my god, Grace, you fucking moron, shut your stupid trap for once in your afterlife!

“I think …” Vox glanced over his shoulder at Valentino and then tipped his television head toward his intruder. “You’re long overdue for a little trip, Shrinking Violet.” 

She took a step backward, not as if there was really any place to go; she already had her back to the control panels. She didn’t love Vox’s tone just now nor the look of determination on Valentino’s face as he approached, towering over her and blotting out the light. 

“You know what?” Grace replied. “I’m actually really comfortable here. I don’t feel like traveling, thanks.”

At Vox's signal, Valentino took a lengthy drag of the cigarette in its equally lengthy holder and blew pink smoke in Grace’s face.