Mollie gasped. That was a mistake. It felt like a grizzly bear had just shit lava in her throat.

She fell to her knees, realizing at that moment why the floor felt like a scale: it was. This must have been some kind of precaution in case a group of prisoners tried to storm the security station. Normally the four of them shouldn’t have outweighed half a dozen guards. But with Bubbles in her current state, not exactly heroin chic at the moment, they did.

Ffodor had never mentioned anything like this in their talks about security systems and, more importantly, how to defeat them.

Babel doubled over, coughing, snot running from her nose. Billy Ray clenched his eyes, groaning. He started kicking at the door. It dented the frame but the door didn’t budge. Michelle flung bubbles at the vent, but the stinging gas had temporarily blinded her, too.

Mollie’s eyes were on fire. Closing them didn’t help—it was as though her very tears had become battery acid.

Clean air, she thought. Need clean air.

Just before she passed out, she remembered encountering Vaporlock at the casino.

A large rift opened in the air above the security station. Its flipside faced an observation deck on Mount Rainier, about 12,000 feet above sea level. The lower air pressure on the mountainside sucked the gas through the portal.

“So much for the element of surprise,” Ray said. His fighting suit was ripped and spattered with blood, most of which didn’t appear to be his. “Which damn cell is Bruckner’s?”

Barbara had to concentrate to answer, to keep the space around them clear of Babel’s power while she tried to match the floor plans that Ink had pulled to the reality around them. The retreats and flights they’d already made only made things more confusing. I always followed Klaus. I was never the battle leader … Babel forced herself to concentrate, to place herself in the map that Ink had given them. “That one,” she said, pointing to a door two down to the left. “At least, I hope so. Does the guard have keys on him?” She looked at the body slumped against the wall, blood drooling from one nostril.

“This is easier.” Bubbles had already moved, two ponderous steps. They saw an iridescent sphere rise from her hand. “Barbara, can you make Bruckner understand me?” she asked.

Barbara nodded and shifted the power so that Bruckner’s cell was clear of her power. In the distance, they could hear garbled, indecipherable shouts.

“John,” Michelle called out. “Move to the back of the cell. Now!” The sphere floated away from Bubble’s hand, gathering speed as it moved. When it touched the steel door, there was a percussive clap that had Barbara involuntarily flinching, even though she’d been expecting the explosion. Dust and pebbles of splintered steel showered down, then Ray dashed forward, sticking his head inside the hole in the prison door.

“Hello, Bruckner,” he said, “your parole board’s here. Come on out and talk.”