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ones where nobody died. Liada would sit surrounded by her plush toy microbes, her hand sometimes straying to the microscope on her bedside table, as though finding some comfort in the cool, metal curves. They had originally promised to buy her one when she got older, and Liada must have known what it meant when her parents had brought one home a week after her diagnosis.
    It had been agony, watching Liada’s childish comprehension of mortality grow more lucid every day. Her parents’ grief was a constant tide, growing stronger as Liada’s painful deterioration became living decay. After two eye operations, one hip surgery, and three relapses, Chris couldn’t help wondering if Liada had finally just…let go.
    Her mother had been catatonic for days after the funeral, barely moving, barely breathing. She had lain like a human shell, frighteningly like the unresponsive husk of a creature long gone. And then, it had just stopped, as abruptly as if she had flicked a switch. She’d thrown herself back into work, bright and cheerful, working deep through the night in her study, to the endless sound of shuffling papers.
    And then her voice had barely faded from the room before she was gone, too.
    Chris stood at the gates to the cemetery, the crooked ironwork rusted open. Nearby, a dilapidated booth housed a man who had been there so long they had probably erected the stand around him. Weeping angels mourned dramatically over long-untended graves, while solemnly dressed children chased wild rabbits through the tall grass. A slim young woman in black stood by a fresh grave, sobbing rather unconvincingly, her face covered by a dark veil.
    It had been years since Chris had come here. She hadn’t found it comforting or restful, and she didn’t feel connected to the ones she had lost. She just felt horribly alone.
    “I like the resuscitation kits they have stationed around,” said Luke. “Prevention is better than business. Very moral.”
    Chris and Luke strolled across the manicured lawns, towards a pale granite structure that resembled a petrified telephone box. The walls were a light rose, flecked with grey, and the door was unvarnished silver birch.
    Chris disappeared grimly inside, and Luke wondered if the structure was bigger on the inside than it appeared on the outside. He peered into the granite box and saw a set of steep limestone stairs descending into the darkness.
    Luke caught up to Chris about twenty feet down, at the edge of an enormous underground room that stretched into impenetrable shadows. The walls were bare concrete, and the occasional light bulb was caged against the ceiling. Endless rows of marble crematory lockers filled the space, stacked seven high, and faded memorial photos stared down like a silent crowd. A ledge ran beneath each row, balancing the occasional sprig of flowers or plate of buns, and beside every carved name was a tiny keyhole.
    Wanderer’s Peace had been an unremarkable cemetery, catering to those who weren’t wealthy enough for Havingwood’s Keep, or poor enough for Council Disposal. But as land availability grew scarcer, the new management at Wanderer’s Peace was struck with inspiration.
    High-density urban planning had led to a boom in the construction of massive, multi-level, underground car parks, which frequently resembled a hopeless netherworld. In the minds of the cemetery managers, if you could go six feet down, then surely you could go down twenty, or fifty, or a hundred. So, Wanderer’s Peace commissioned a subterranean, high-density parking lot for the economically deceased. Mausoleums on levels one through five, coffin drawers on levels six through ten, and crematory lockers on eleven to fourteen.
    Except they ran out of money at level one. So, crematory lockers it was.
    Treading lightly through the eerie lot, Chris’s fingers gripped the small steel key, her gaze running across the engraved names.
    “How far does this go?” asked Luke.
    He turned to see Chris