The shift was not gradual but immediate, and it wasn’t weightlessness. There was still gravity; just different gravity. They experienced a radical reorientation of the concept of down, like they were all standing in a box that was suddenly flipped over on its side. The floor slid out from under them and became a wall, and the gantry strut Callie was hanging onto got wrenched out of her hand by the sudden rotation of the room. She flailed wildly and grabbed on to another strut, lower down, and dangled. Then she looked up.

Elena was tucked up against Ashok, her back to his front, his human arm wrapped around her upper chest, and his legs wrapped around her lower body. They both hung from his prosthetic arm, which still held firmly to the strut. There was something to be said for mechanical augmentation.

Callie looked down. They were hanging over the void. The open hangar door was now directly below them, since the exterior wall had switched places with the floor. “Lantern, if you’re trying to dump us into space, you failed, and I am going to rip your tentacles off.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I’ve only read about these controls, I’ve never used them, I’m working on it.”

Gravity shifted again, hard: the exterior wall spun all the way around them and became the ceiling, but Callie managed to get her arms and legs wrapped around the strut, so she dangled like that tree sloth. Elena and Ashok were still holding on, too.

“Sorry!” Lantern shouted again.

“Maybe figure out what you’re doing before you push the button this time?” Callie looked along the strut. Ashok was still holding onto Elena, and neither of them looked happy about it. “Don’t drop her, Ashok.”

“I’m just glad it’s Elena and not Stephen. I would have dislocated my shoulder.”

“I am thinking lightweight thoughts,” Elena said.

“I think I have it, but hold on tight, just in case,” Lantern said.

A moment later the gravity vanished, and Callie took a deep breath, filling her lungs. No pressure, no weight. She still held on to the gantry, but to keep from floating away now, instead of to avoid falling to her doom. Her sense of “up” and “down” was all muddled, but it only took her a moment to reorient herself: the opening to space was the side wall, and they needed to move up into the darkness, away from the floor. “Everyone OK? Start climbing.”