Into the underground bunker. Past a room with ten bunk beds, past a kitchen, and into the larger room.

Into the situation.

A man in a prisoner uniform sat in a modified computer chair, the chair’s back to the wall. He had the kind of brow that meant a perpetually furrowed glare, a mullet, and a thick beard. There were computers in the corner, and he’d opened the cases, strewing components around him. Many had been worked into the chair itself, turning it into something more like a throne.

He was their access to the console… just as Lookout was intended to be ours. Inconsequential.

Of far more consequence was Tress, who was partially out of her armor. Tendrils flailed around her, grabbing everything in reach, pushing some away, pulling others closer, flinging the rare one.

When the tendrils moved, it was with a speed the eye could barely follow. Something was whipped in our direction, and before I could see what it was, a crackle of electricity destroyed it, LEDs and boards across the tinker’s chair lighting up. I saw the tension ease in the tinker’s shoulders, only to return there as he saw me.

In another situation, I might have wondered if he was an opportunist who found their way down here. With the information from Lookout, I knew he wasn’t.

“Stop what you’re doing,” I ordered him.

Sveta’s head turned my way, by a rotation and flexibility that a normal neck didn’t have. Her face was streaked in blood, her eyes were wide, and she was lost in herself in a way that broke my heart to see.

That heartbreak stopped when I saw a grouping of tendrils move, but it wasn’t a good stopping. It was sudden, numbing shock that stopped all other feelings, thoughts and processes. The grouping of tendrils all grasped the same thing—a lump of a shape in black fabric. Blood streaked the smooth ground where the fabric touched it.

“What are you doing out of costume, Sveta?” I asked. I sounded so normal.

There was no response.

“Where’s Swansong?” I asked. Still normal.

She dropped her eyes to the ground. Tentacles flailed madly.

“Crystalclear?” I asked.

More tentacles bunched around the fabric.

I stepped forward. I felt the buzz of ambient electricity in the air. I moved my hand and felt it intensify by multiple factors. Something told me that if I reached the threshold where this invisible electric fence divided the room, the electricity would converge on a single point, aiming to repel me.

Tristan, Lookout, Rain and the others caught up. They stopped a few paces behind me, looking over and under my shoulder at the scene.

“Where’s Ratcatcher?” I asked.

Tendrils twisted at the black fabric. Something crunched inside.

She flicked it at me, limb snapping out like a whip. I activated the Wretch by raw instinct, and the Wretch intersected the electric field. An invisible hand caught the cloth, and the nimbus of electricity briefly drew an outline around the Wretch.