Odette

Two Odettes. On air (ch. 28) she is a naked crab-taur in a praying-mantis helmet with breasts on the desk, host of the most-tunnelled private program in the galaxy, who makes Carl say his catchphrase and gives Donut a stage. Off air (ch. 29) she pulls the helmet off: sixty, human, legless, floating, a crawler who reached the thirteenth-floor stairwell and took a deal, Mordecai's trainer, and a woman who drugs the cat treats for a better interview and says so.

Her advice is the best in the book and she charges for it in attention: loot is not random, so stop complaining about pants; Donut must stay a cute cat; never trust anyone whose motivations aren't clear — hers being money. In the epilogue she supplies the Valtay warning, the class advice (pathfinding, let Donut go first, ignore the AI on race), the word 'velociraptor', and a last suggestion she does not name, a class hidden among Donut's choices that will make someone very angry. Mordecai would rather eat his children than work for her; she admits she pushed him too hard.

Present before she appears: her instructions for stealing Mordecai as a manager are followed to the letter (ch. 1), and her fingerprints are on Mordecai's sixth floor (ch. 13). On the couch in the epilogue she explains Celestial boxes and Borant's veto, unveils the leaderboard, warns of King Rust's deity sponsorship and Grull, says she watches Mordecai all day, admits she paid almost nothing for their season, tells Carl that Hekla wants Donut for the manager, agrees that Donut will not leave him 'as long as you're still alive,' and identifies the last number on each line as a bounty.

Off-page until the epilogue, but present: her warning about Hekla is the reason Carl is alive (ch. 24); her contract now has a Katia option (ch. 25). On the couch she explains the Death Challenge and her winnings, is called out for sponsoring Hekla — 'That was my husband,' then off air, 'I hope one day to explain it further' — is muted twice by Loita, once at Eva and once at Chris, and screams at the kua-tin between segments before they both laugh (epilogue). Chaco's confession is about her: 'We’d have lost Odette.' (ch. 7).

Off the floor entirely — her show is cancelled by the teleport ban and she appeals (ch. 19) — but the warning about Chris she tried to send (ch. 10) comes true when Maggie speaks through him (ch. 14), and Orren clears her as Carl's source (ch. 19). The epilogue puts her behind Lexis in Seattle: a sac pirate killed and his partner, a null, framed for it, a null's warrant to be bought, a cat to Borant for the walk-on bounty, and Beatrice in a bounty cube: 'we have a much better use for her […] We can't all have happy endings' (epilogue).

She has news she meant to keep until the crawl was over: Beatrice is alive (ch. 17). She saved her to protect an investment and to blackmail Borant, and points Carl at what she once did to Mordecai (ch. 18). Her interview tells a story she knows is horseshit — 'Well played, Carl' (ch. 19) — and she calls them poor bastards (ch. 20). She had a warrant once and married the man who bought it; she was tried as a manager and pleaded down (ch. 42, ch. 43). Carl's next appearance on her show is after the next floor starts.

The prologue

A legless avatar on another season's tenth floor, five seasons still to serve, who bribes Huanxin, is squeezed, and orders Uzzi killed to buy a key (ch. 0).

The mask off

A theatre for a set; the adjutant ask that never comes, because she is sponsoring Nekhebit and going into the dungeon herself (ch. 35, ch. 36). Fifteen minutes off the record with a shot-down probe for cover: Pieter, Armita, the eye of the Bedlam Bride, the confession form, the legs never fixed, a trust for Mordecai, a plan to die killing Huanxin, and the elements the crawl exists to mine (ch. 37). 'See you on the inside, Carl.'

Out of costume in a floating wheelchair, newly onboarded into the Ascendency as Nekhebit, hosting the warlord council for Ultima Corporation (ch. 43); she explains the news-media loophole and winks about Blood Hunter Holdings (ch. 43, ch. 44). Khepri's card hints she or Huanxin is killing off sub-pantheons (ch. 57); 'Fucking Odette,' Carl thinks of the Champion clause (ch. 79); she has taken out Inpewt and controls the zombies on the twelfth (ch. 86). Mordecai's brother died because of her too (ch. 86).

Mordecai is sure Sekhmet is under her thumb (ch. 8); she 'wasted' Tem the moment he appeared, the AI says, and his skull blocks the third heat's finish (ch. 32). Her husband is Harry Tisch, the Crest who bought every show Donut has named and is buying the orc empire (ch. 88). In the AI's closing images she appears as 'Odette as Nekhebit' among the Ascendency's contenders (epilogue).