Beatrice

Long blonde hair frames her face, her eyes a soft hazel, and a plain brown sweater rounds out the unthreatening look she presents to visitors. The whole effect is deliberately calming, the sort of easy warmth meant to lower a wary newcomer's guard.

To anyone she greets, Beatrice seems kind, well-informed, and pleasant company, the perfect host for a place trading in peace of mind. That agreeable exterior may be a lie, since she could be no true person at all, only a facet spun off from Cy-Baba and shaped to serve the operation running behind her.

When Spike steps into Dr. Londes' office, Beatrice welcomes him and begins guiding him toward the doctor's room. Along the way she tells him the Londes Center exists for those chasing Freedom and Harmony, then asks whether any ghosts still cling to him, things like guilt, regret, or some lost love. Spike only laughs, and before he can reply he is ushered into a space built around a single chair. The past, she says, is what stops a person from living in the present, and she wonders aloud if he is ready to journey toward his greater self. Urging him to sit for a short orientation ahead of meeting Londes, she has him take the chair, but the moment her recorded voice notes the session will run ninety minutes, Spike springs up and dashes out of the building. Every screen that once carried her image is later said to have been gunned down and wrecked by Dr. Kaypack.