[ As the hypospray reaches his arm, he can't quite suppress his terror. His breathing quickens, and a tremor rubs through him, and he lifts his eyes to Sonia's - don't listen, please don't listen...

That tension fades as the fast-penta takes hold. The terror gets washed away in a blissful sort of relaxation. Byerly, in contrast to most, actually looks less dissolute under fast-penta; his eyes brighten from their usual expression of bleary drunkenness, and he sits up, his ironic expression smoothing out into something considerably less nasty and snotty. ]

My name? Ah. Byerly Vlad Vorrutyer. My word, you'd look a good bit handsomer if you'd wash off that idiotic face-paint. All of you look like kids after a carnival, I swear.