She vanished again, and we resumed our trek, slightly faster now that we knew where we were going. I kept expecting shouts from ahead as Mia stumbled over the hunter, but nothing came. Worry kept my shoulders as stiff as boards. Where the hell was he? Flashes of silver kept catching my eyes, but they always turned out to be innocuous. Maybe the mask didn’t mean anything. Maybe it was a coincidence. After all, Robo Mecha Dream Girl 5 had lots of fans. It made sense some of them would be bounty hunters. Right?

We emerged into the holding cells, still with no sign of our silver-masked antagonist. A shimmer marked Mia’s return. A trio of reasonably large holding cells stood in front of us, each maybe twice the size of the cells on Sanctuary, with a single bench at the back and an actual private space I assumed contained a toilet. Rune stretched out on a bench with her head on Reed’s lap, Imani holding her hand. Jasper stalked across the cell, his arms taut bands of tension.

Reed’s face lit up when he saw us. “Oh, hey,” he said. “Nice of you to stop by.”

Jasper spun so fast he almost fell on his face. “Mia, thank God,” he said. I arched an eyebrow. Mia? But he was already gesturing to Rune. “They must have known her power. They zapped her with something. Reed and Imani are trying to heal her, but . . .”

“They didn’t zap her with anything,” I said irritably. Honestly. If you want to know about prisons, go to the former prison guard, not the invisible thief. “Or they might have, but it’s not inhibiting her abilities. See the cuff on her wrist?”

“It’s different from the ones we’re wearing. They slapped it on her when . . .”

“Uh-huh.” I crossed to a terminal, releasing a sigh of relief at the familiar visual programming. I called the prison controls, made sure there were no monitors, and shifted things around to open the door. At the same time, I deactivated all cuffs.

The force field between us and the prisoners vanished with a flash, and the cuffs popped off Rune’s wrist. A second later she sat up, moaning and clutching her head. “Ow.”

“Rune,” Reed gasped in relief, holding her arms and keeping her steady. “Are you okay?”

Her gaze flickered over the three of us, and worry crossed her face, hidden so quickly I barely caught it. “Where’s Cage?”

“He’s fine. His contact wouldn’t see us together, and we got separated.” At least, I hoped he was fine. Mia was right, though: there wasn’t much Cage couldn’t outrun. “What happened?”

Jasper slammed his fist into the wall, then stared at it as if he’d surprised himself. He said: “We went to the lower market and told people we wanted to work our way off the station, but everyone we approached stared at Alexei like he was the Grim Reaper. We split up so he’d stop scaring our contacts. I figured I could keep everyone safe, but the first person we talked to pulled a gun on us, and I realized it might be a bad idea to start rearranging matter on a space station.” He grimaced. “Bounty hunters?”