The phone rang on a Thursday morning.

Meera was in the document room, which was where she was most mornings now — she had developed, over the course of the week, a routine that she had not decided on but had simply arrived at through repetition: up at six, document room by six-fifteen, Varun's coffee at six-thirty, work until Karan arrived at seven, work together until noon, food, work again until the day ran out. It was the routine of someone who had stopped fighting the situation and started using it, which was not the same as accepting it and was not the same as surrendering to it and was, she had decided, simply the most functional way to be here.