- Pillars of light will fall with serpents coiled in their heads.
Twelve Lords and Ladies of the Empire
Will be devoured by the darkness
Or spared by the fruit of golden hue.Quatrain 32, century 5
Foster investigates an exclusive night club for the very rich, and finds a GUA experiment to replace the rich and powerful with GUA duplicates.
Tropes:
- Contrived Coincidence: Susan's lawyer just happens to favour the high-end brand of whiskey that kills the ear worms. And appears to only take his first sip of it since being infected while talking to Cade.
- Ear Ache: Played with; the Gua memory-copying ear worms are applied painlessly, but drink the whiskey that kills them and you'll know all about it. This kills Susan's lawyer, and floors Cade when he tries it.
- Evil Doppelgänger: Cade is unsure between Susan and her Gua double. When one of the Susans admits to being in love with him, he kills that one; he knows the real Susan would never admit that.
- Executive Excess: The nightclub, The Royal Room, is explicitly geared towards executives who Work Hard, Play Hard, allowing them to indulge in hedonism without consequences. It's also a Gua facility experimenting in memory-copying technology that could allow the Gua to Kill and Replace the rich and powerful.
- Professor Guinea Pig: When Cade realises he has a Gua worm in his ear, he decides to try the titular whiskey to get rid of it. Eddie warns him that doing this killed the lawyer, but luckily in Cade's case the worm dying is merely very painful rather than fatal.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Hannah's old friend Susan believes Cade is innocent of Hannah's murder, but because she's secretly in love with him rather than for any rational reason.
- Title Drop: Blue Agave is the brand of whiskey favoured by Susan's lawyer, which just so happens to kill the Gua ear worm. It also kills the lawyer, but fortunately not Cade when he tries it.
