Adam chuckled again. He sounded smug, like a child who had gotten away with stealing from the lolly jar. “Hey, don’t worry about it, Cap. I’ll keep her with me.”

“No!” Mitzi barked. She was struggling to argue coherently while running and listening to Nic’s commands. “You’ve got a concussion, for crying out loud! Stay in the room. We’ll pick you up on the way back through. If you just start running through the station, goodness knows what—”

“Central summoned me to fight,” Adam said, his voice colder. He sounded offended. “And I don’t plan on napping while everyone else does all the work. I’m disconnecting you now.”

“Hey, wait. What—”

But there was a quiet click, and a small symbol representing silence appeared next to the glowing suit on Mitzi’s screen. She swore, banking sharply to make a turn as Nic instructed. “You can do that? You can disconnect communications?”

“Yeah,” Nic said. “Looks like Adam had a chance to figure out the settings while he was waiting for you. The suits can do a lot if you know how.”

Mitzi grimaced. “Okay, so we’ve got Captain Brainless and Ellen running around the station somewhere, and we can’t go back to meet them without passing the Cymics again… this is a disaster. Nic, do what you can to keep them safe.”

“Sure thing. Turn right.”

“Nic?” Skye asked, breathless. “Are we being followed?”

“Good question,” Nic said. The takka-takka-takka of his keyboard seemed strangely comforting. “They’ve all turned back to their native forms, so I’ve lost the heat signals, but… no, wait, there’s one. And there’s another. Jeeze. They’re alternating between their native forms and their merged forms, probably to track you more easily. And they’re catching up. Fast.”

“How close?” Mitzi asked. Her lungs burnt, and her mouth was dry. Even if we make it to the stairwell first…

“Really close.” Nic sounded stressed. “Half a minute away. Less.”

Franc, who was abreast of Mitzi, glanced at her. “I have an idea. But you’ll need to trust me.”

“We don’t have much of a choice, do we?” They’d reached a T-intersection, and Mitzi turned left.

Franc was panting, but his eyes were narrow with determination. “Get into one of the rooms, get close to the floor, and stay quiet.”

“What?”

“Quickly, before they get close enough to see us!”

Mitzi swore. She darted into an open doorway just ahead. If Franc thinks we can just hide from the Cymics, he’s seriously underestimated them. They won’t stop searching until they find us.

“Crouch down and stay completely quiet,” Franc said. A window in the room faced out to the hallway, and Mitzi knelt under it, pulling Eoin and Mir down with her. They pressed their backs against the wall so that anything passing the window wouldn’t see them.

Strangely, though, the echo of footsteps in Mitzi’s headset hadn’t completely stopped. She glanced at her companions. Mir was on her left, with Eoin and Skye on her right, but Franc was nowhere to be seen.