“Can I?” I asked. At the nod, I reached for the small of her back, where her clothes covered her kits. I saw some smaller tendrils reach out for my hand and stop short.

Her tendrils were growing over time. She grew new ones. Right now she was keeping the longest at bay, because they were a danger to others, not just to me.

“This is taking concentration,” Sveta said.

I grabbed the kit, hauling it free with a tug that would have been violent if Sveta’s body were flesh.

This situation was requiring me to split my own concentration. I was trying to ignore Trial and his chains, and the fact that Error had her hand hovering near her belt. The bars at the side—batons?

Nunchucks.

“Let us go,” Trial said. He had an accent like someone from the midwest. “We take our trucks, we drive away, and you stay.”

“I can’t see myself agreeing to that,” Shortcut said.

“I’ll attack those girls,” Trial said. “And I’ll attack that line of cars. Error’s rule means that no matter what you do, it’s going to be messy. The heroes can’t afford it.”

“If you attack us, the only mess will be the stains your bodies leave behind,” I growled.

“We’re willing to take that risk,” Trial said. “But only if we have to. You can afford to let us go. It’s pigs, chickens, and cum.”

“Valuable, needed pigs and chickens,” Spright said. “The equipment and refrigerated material for breeding stock. Forty pigs at a thousand a head, plus the other stuff, forty-two thousand on the one truck, easy.”

I pushed the seal over the armor—the damage was enough that one patch didn’t cover it all. Tendrils reached around and touched my hand. I pulled away.

“Pigs, chicken, and jizz… or their lives. And their lives?” Trial asked. The tip of the chain turned in the air to point for him. At me and Sveta, then the cars.

I didn’t want to be a bargaining chip. I gripped Sveta by the shoulders.

I had to wait. Wait until I could be sure Error wouldn’t focus on me, use her power, and potentially turn my attempt at an evacuation into a horrible disaster.

A tendril wrapped itself around my hand. It squeezed, and it squeezed against my forcefield. The forcefield didn’t break, but I was aware of the strain. Fuck me—I was too close to Sveta, I could see the whites of her eyes. She was too close to me. I’d destroyed door handles on cars and pavement like this, and she was this close.

I canceled my forcefield, and something in the micron of slack that resulted saw the tendril fail to cinch tighter, then unwind. It twisted and kinked in the air before retreating into the crack. I pressed down another patch.

Sveta had her eyes closed.