The view from the lump.

Mr. Drake's answer didn't put Natasha's mind at ease. If only she could help! She wasn't very good but she really wanted to help him. She was beyond helpless now, just a disembodied voice with no connection to the real world. They could be in the middle of killing her now, she realized glumly. At least if they were really quiet.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a door opening. Before she could react, a thin, reedy man's voice came to her in her void. "Oh my God, is this the guy? Holy shit! You're the fixer?"

She heard Drake reply in a dreamy, spacy voice. "Yeah, I'm the fixer. I'm Jonathan Drake. Who are you?"

"Doesn't matter. Who's that?" Was there another person in the room? Drake laughed.

"That's Natasha. She can't see or feel anything."

Oh, she was who he was asking about! She was starting to forget that she was real. She needed to get her sense back. She had a bad feeling about this new voice.

"What are you doing?" she asked more loudly than she had intended. "Are you going to do something bad to Mr. Drake?"

The response was immediate. "Fuck, can't she be quiet? Take her ability to yell!"

Just as she went to ask another question, something left her and her reply came out in a breathy whisper. "Don't hurt him! Don't hurt us!"

Nothing was happening. The man was laughing and talking about how much money he would make, with Mr. Drake blandly encouraging him. Suddenly he seemed to remember something. "Oh, right. Give her back the ability to move."

There was another thump and some laughing. She heard the other woman (Ashcroft?) speak in the same childlike tone of joy that she heard in Mr. Drake's voice.

"Look! It worked! But when did you get here?"

The man told them he was going to the bathroom and Natasha realized if she didn't do something, something bad would happen to Mr. Drake. No matter what happened they were gonna take her out of her body again and probably throw her away, but Mr. Drake was really good to her and she didn't want them to hurt him. She decided to try to help. She began to scream for his attention, but once again her voice was barely audible.

Frustrated, she began to flail her legs wildly. After a few experiments, she heard a repetitive whacking noise. Whatever she was doing, it was making noise! Sure enough, after flexing what she assumed were her leg muscles, she heard Drake laughing as he presumably approached. "Natasha!" His voice boomed in the darkness. "You're gonna hurt yourself!"

She realized that she didn't know what to tell him. This would be so much easier if she was a real person, not just a dumb made-up person.

"Are you trying to tell me something, girl?"

Oh, no, she was running out of time. What would a real person do? Someone with real intelligence?

That's when it struck her. She knew exactly what to tell Mr. Drake.

"Give me his intelligence!"