Sora and I met in detention.

  Because of course we did. I’ve mentioned that already.

  The thing that sucked the most about middle school detention was that Dad was supposed to come get me. That was how you got out. Your parent came and picked you up. So, while Sora and I met in detention, she didn’t stick around too long.

  She looked like she was less happy to be picked up than I was to be staying, but still, she left me there. And eventually, Alice managed to convince the teacher on duty that I needed to go home with her. Otherwise, I’d probably still be there.

  After the third time, Dad gave the school permission to let me go with Sora when I had detention. It was easier for everyone.

  Except Sora’s parents.

  SHOCKS Olympia Affected Humanoid Containment Sector, Washington, USA - June 19, 2043, 2:21 PM

  - - - - -

  Into the oubliette I go, Revolver ready.

  The door closes behind me with a thud, and emergency lights flick on. [I don’t have that locked, but it’s better if it’s not hanging open. Alexander is out there somewhere,] James says, [and it’s in our best interests not to give him any more advantages than he already has. I need this to go quickly and smoothly so we can return to what we should be doing.]

  In a way, it’s amazing that James is being as relaxed about this as he is. The timer’s ticking, and I’m wasting time figuring out where Director Ramirez is. I ignore James’s comment, though. This isn’t a place for small talk. It’s dark, and it reeks of spit and saliva and chemicals that might be cleaning supplies or might be something else. Every wall’s corroded and rusted, and the doors…aren’t.

  I’m more on edge than I’ve been in a long time. There’s a Truth here—something about our world and the people who, supposedly, protect it.

  That Truth goes on the ignore pile for now. I keep walking down the hall, footsteps echoing.

  After a minute, I hear a second echo. Then a third and fourth. “James,” I whisper, “is the spatial anomaly still active?”

  [Yes. It’s allowing you to move forward, though.]

  “Then who else is in here?”

  [I don’t know. I don’t have access to the camera and security systems, only emergency lights and life support.]

  Well, that’s just great.

  The Revolver’s in my hand, though, and I’m ready to Smoke Form the second something gets close in the dark. I start walking quieter, taking my time to put my feet down deliberately.

  My boot comes down in something wet. I jump back and pan my aug over the sticky puddle of…something…on the concrete floor. It’s dark-colored, maybe a little red, but I’m not sure. “James, can you get the main lights running or just the emergency ones?”

  [Not enough power. The sector is running on backup batteries. Just enough to keep the containment cells active and their residents alive. That whole process must be automated or something because—]

  “Stop.” I keep walking as James shuts up.

  ?Inquiries (5/5)

  ?Why was the Truth Club’s circle so interesting?

  ?How does Director Ramirez intend to weaponize the merge generator?

  ?How can I get Alice back in her body?

  ?Who is Alexander?

  ?Why doesn’t James know about this wing’s mechanisms and structures?

  James goes from quiet to completely silent the second I put the Inquiry in. It’s hard to explain how that works, but it’s like he withdraws completely. He’s not engaged in what’s happening in the SHOCKS Geren-Danger wing from Hell. Which is fine, because my mind’s on the footsteps that didn’t stop when mine did.

  Whoever, or whatever, is in here, it’s behind me. And whatever it is, it probably knows I’m here.

  It’s math time.

  X: Whatever it is, it hasn’t tried to attack me, and it’s not fast—or at least, it’s not moving fast.

  Y: If it was actively, physically hostile, it would have.

  Z: That doesn’t mean whatever it is is good for me.

  If it were that simple, the equation would already be solved. In fact, I’m halfway to solving it when a second set of lights blaze on. And that throws a dozen new variables into the problem—and makes me throw out all the work I’ve done so far.

  The puddle’s definitely blood. It’s relatively fresh—not evaporated, but partially solid and sticky. And fifty yards down the hall, there’s a door to a cell. Or, more accurately, there isn’t one. It’s not on its hinges or open or blown into the hallway by an explosion. It’s gone. Vanished. Disappeared as if it never existed.

  The footsteps behind me are getting closer, and James still won’t say anything. I’m not sure what he’s thinking or doing, but so far, he’s been wrong about the Geren-Danger wing twice in less than two minutes, so hopefully, he’s looking through some records or blueprints or something. Not that it matters. I’ve got to get a move on.

  I Slither across the pool of blood. When I land, the boot that touched it sticks to the cement a little, but I keep moving, Revolver ready. Thirty yards. Twenty. Ten. The boot’s going to be a problem. I run past the cell a half-dozen feet, then Slither backward and land on one foot. The spin feels awkward, but I throw myself into the cell anyway. Air rushes from my lungs as I hit the ground and roll onto my back.

  The Revolver’s up. I crab-walk backward into a corner in the dark, fetid-smelling containment cell, one hand covering the entrance and the other trying not to get blood on the ground. It’s not that I care about it being clean. I just don’t want to give any hints where I’m hiding.

  When I’m confident I’m as holed-up as I can be in the corner, I take a good look at the room.

  Right away, I wish I hadn’t.

  “What the fuck?”

  I can’t help it. The words are out of my mouth before I realize I’ve said them. They’re loud enough that whatever’s following me almost certainly heard the echo. I wince, but it’s not like I can take them back.

  [Claire, calm down. There’s an explanation for this.]

  There’s no explanation for this. The room’s disgusting. Whatever automated systems cleaned up after the resident clearly failed a long time before containment breached. The smell hits in earnest a moment later; it’s the same spit and saliva, with just a hint of cleaning supplies. And filth. Human waste, rotten food, and standing, stagnant water. I regret everything about this hiding spot, and about crawling across the floor.

  Absolutely everything.

  But I can’t go back. I’m committed. Whatever’s following me, its footsteps are loud on the concrete floor. So I hold my breath, pinch my nose shut, and keep the Revolver trained on the door.

  The seconds tick by. My heart races, beating against my stomach as it flips from the smell and the sight. And James doesn’t give an explanation for this.

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  He doesn’t have one. That’s the only reason he’d stop talking.

  He doesn’t know about this place, and it’s not just an oversight in his informational database or him forgetting where he put the data. He doesn’t know what this place was. The System doesn’t know, either. This is a mystery, just like exploring Provisional Reality ARC.

  The footsteps get closer. I put my finger on the Revolver’s trigger.

  A second later, a one-eyed, bearded man with a gigantic backpack looks into the room. His single eye locks on me, and Alexander nods slowly. His face doesn’t move; not anger, disappointment, or even a hint of begrudging approval. Just a flat, emotionless confirmation that I’m here.

  He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t make a move. I don’t even pull the trigger. He’s the last person I expected to see here.

  The next one is Director Ramirez.

  He doesn’t see me. I’m not sure how Alexander even knew where to look, but I’m in the dark, and Ramirez hurries by me. He’s got a bandana over his mouth and nose. Part of me thinks that’s a good idea.

  The rest of me is fixated on Alexander and waiting for the next person to come by. It’s got to be Sora or Dad. It’s got to be.

  But before I can see who it is, the door slams shut and welds itself into place.

  I jerk to my feet and pound on the door that wasn’t there a second ago. I try Smoke Form and Slither. I search for a window to use reality skippers and micromerge through.

  None of that works. The door’s solid, if rusty, steel. There’s not a gap to Smoke Form through. And the port-hole style window’s covered and solid. So there’s no good way out. “James, that was Doctor Twitchy! Alexander’s with Doctor Twitchy! How’d they get behind us? Who else is with them?”

  [Claire, calm down. I can’t answer those questions. You need to figure out a way out of here, or this whole plan’s going to fall apart. You can’t save the world from inside a cell.]

  There’s something about those words. I can’t help it. Even though it’s horrible in here, and there’s a chance that Sora and Dad and Lieutenant Rodriguez are in more trouble than I can help them through, and even though I can’t see a way out, the hysterical laughter hits me like a truck. I take a minute—a minute I don’t have—and laugh and cry at the same time.

  James, for his part, lets me. He’s quiet again. Thinking. I wonder if he has a solution for this.

  I think I do, but we’re not going to like it. Neither of us is—for very different reasons.

  “James, do you know anything about this place?”

  [No.] James goes quiet, and I’m about to keep talking when he continues. [It’s becoming clear that what areas of this sector I had access to were not the whole picture, or even a clear sliver of it. I wonder if there were similar places at SHOCKS Victoria and Vancouver Island?]

  “Okay, focus. They had to feed these prisoners, right? That door—“ I point at the solid if rusty steel barrier in front of me“—is sealed. I could try Soundbreak, but I doubt it’d do more than shake the rust off. And all the other doors are sealed, too. So how did they feed these people?”

  For the next minute, James and I look for the answer.

  There’s a hole in the back wall. It’s about six inches tall and a couple of feet wide, and it’s perfectly square. I have James flip my vision to full night vision as I peer inside. It doesn’t help. Just a couple feet beyond it are two steel barriers. They look a lot like doors, and a firm rubbery pad like a treadmill covers the floor.

  But there’s no way through it. Not for me, at least.

  And there’s not another exit. The ‘vents’ for air are nothing more than tiny slits in the ceiling. I doubt I could even get a reality skipper through them, they’re so small. Besides, according to James, these are probably each on their own closed-air systems. Breaking through those won’t buy me anything.

  The main door’s definitely a no-go. I don’t have the skills to punch through it.

  So that leaves the food hatch.

  “I bet there’s a way through there. It can’t be miles long or anything, right?” I ask.

  James stops and thinks. [It’d have to be. The only kitchens on my blueprints are all the way at SHOCKS Headquarters Olympia, and that’s under Mount Olympus. Unless they brought food by train—which I’d have been aware of—there’s got to be a long conveyor or something.]

  “Is that a wager I hear?” I ask.

  The steel doors in the food conveyor. Those are the key; they have to be. There’s no way SHOCKS built this place without a way to manually observe the people they imprisoned here. Even with all their technology, they’d want a…”James, what’s the word for a prison where you can see everything?”

  [Panopticon.]

  I’ve never heard that word before.

  James keeps talking, though. [You’re right. There’s a whole back door to this place. It’s what SHOCKS would do if they were keeping high-research-value prisoners anywhere for a long time. They were all over SHOCKS VVI, too. I sealed the ones to the Geren-Danger wing there.]

  “So, think there’s a way through?”

  [Maybe, but it’ll suck.]

  I’m choosing to ignore that James might’ve been lying to me about ways out, and about the back hallways. He’s got his own motivations, and saving Reality Zero and saving my family and friends might not line up in his book. It doesn’t matter. I tried doing things his way, and it helped—or at least I got more powerful—but…I’m still doing what I need to do for myself, and then I’ll deal with Reality Zero later.

  So, the steel doors.

  I need them open.

  I start with a gravity shell to the center of the tiny box. It swirls and spins, but the only thing it picks up is dust. When it finally fades, the two steel barriers haven’t moved a millimeter—much less the inch I need to be able to fit a reality skipper through.

  The problem’s simple. It’s not even a math problem, really. The door is locked. Electronically, magnetically, or physically. Maybe all three. That doesn’t matter; what does matter is that the door’s locked, and the tiny singularity in my gravity shells isn’t enough to force it open. But that’s okay. I’m not out of ideas.

  Next up are the flame lance rounds. The first shot hits the uppermost corner of the steel door, where I imagine a hinge is. I fire the second and third shots almost immediately; the metal heats up to a bright red, and I keep the shots coming. This time, they’re slower and more deliberate, keeping the metal close to melting.

  Then, I Soundbreak.

  Something snaps in the door. It looks like it maybe shifted a little—like if I could reach it, I could shake it, but my arm’s too short to be sure. I back off for a minute; the cell still smells like literal shit and rotten food, but the heat pouring out from the food hatch has left my face a little burned.

  “Think it’s working?”

  [Yes. But Claire, I have no idea what you’re going to find back there. Standard SHOCKS procedures are for each long-term cell to be equipped with a neutralization device capable of destroying the anomaly inside—assuming a method of destruction exists for said anomaly and is relatively cheap. It’s only meant to activate if the anomaly is both incredibly powerful and capable of breaking itself free.]

  “And?”

  [And this cell was almost certainly Alexander’s. The fact that the neutralization device failed either means it wasn’t installed, Alexander did something to stop it, or there’s something else loose in this facility.]

  Something snaps, and the metal door drops a few inches.

  It doesn’t open, but it’s low enough that a thin line of black has appeared on the far side. That’s enough for me; I don’t bother pulling back from the still red-hot metal. Instead, I load a reality skipper and take the shortest hop of my life.

  [Stability 6/10]

  I land in darkness.

  The smell of spit and saliva’s back, and it’s overpowering. Like a dog’s breath, but worse. The walls are sticky, and even James’s attempts to find an optic aug setting that works give me only shadows and outlines.

  I’m blind in here. And it’s tight. So tight. My shoulders are scrunched forward, and my head’s almost in my lap, I’m so squished.

  Even so, the only way out is forward, and I wriggle and squirm down the conveyor belt. It’s hard to tell how far I go, because I’m not moving more than an inch or two at a time—if that. But eventually, my knees don’t hit solid ground, and I fall out of the tiny square tube and onto a sticky concrete floor. It’s a relief to stretch out again, but when I try to stand, the goop on the floor sticks to my back, and I have to really push to break free.

  “That’s disgusting.” I say.

  [Yes.] James is quiet. [Get ready.]

  “For what?”

  [I’m not sure.]

  I ready the Revolver. My aug flips from setting to setting until my vision turns crisp and clear.

  And a second later, I start shooting.

  They’re small. Not much bigger than a housecat. But they’re nothing like a housecat. Too many legs. Too many eyes. Are they spiders? I don’t know, and I don’t have time to find out. The Revolver pops and cracks as I empty the rest of the reality skipper rounds into the oncoming monsters.

  [Offspring.]

  Thanks, System. The Offspring rush toward me, and I don’t have time to think about what they’re offspring of, because a strand of something sprays out of one of them. An icy burning rope slams into my arm and wraps around it.

  I switch rounds, Smoke Forming through the line of what I hope is web. The next ones up are fire lance rounds, and I put all of them into the onrushing spider-things as I backpedal through what definitely looks like a kitchen—if someone covered a school kitchen in silly string for a joke.

  More webs lash out at me from every side. I keep switching rounds and firing and Smoke Forming when I can. It’s not going to be enough, though. I don’t know where I’m going, but I do know that I’m going the wrong way. Director Ramirez went left, and I’m being forced right. Doesn’t matter. There’s no negotiation or trying to change directions. Not with spiders.

  There’s only the fight.

  I Soundbreak and Slither into the space it clears. There’s a door ahead of me. It’s a closet, or a storage room, or one of those big industrial fridges. It’s a port in the storm. I empty the gravity shells and switch to mergekillers, even though I’m not sure they’ll do anything to the Offspring. They keep coming, and the shells punch holes in their carapaces that gush green-white blood into the room. They don’t pull the anomalies into another world or anything, but they do kill them.

  Then I duck into the closet/fridge/whatever it is and slam the door behind me.

  I take one deep breath. Then another. Hundreds of legs skitter against the door. Hundreds of eyes are waiting for me on the far side. But even though they’re trying to get in, I’ve got a moment.

  I take it. The Revolver’s cylinders slowly light back up, and I reload with gravity shells.

  [Claire, you’re going to need to fight through them. I’m not sure how successful that will be. My Analysis is incomplete. I’d give you even odds at best. They’re low-Geren-Danger, but there are so many of them it might get overwhelming.]

  “Got it. I have an idea.” I swallow. My mouth’s dry, and it tastes like blood—and worse.

  Then I pull the door open, Revolver barking into the darkness.

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