They reached the bottom of the stairs. The base level of the building had the aroma of sweat, like gyms and pools did, and past them, rows and columns of lockers. The group stayed together as much as they were able, as they filtered between the columns.

“Fire alarm,” Capricorn said, as they reached a central area, with hallways extending in every direction. “Assuming they know where we are or that they’ll find out as soon as someone friendly to them passes on word, it gets the civilians clear.”

“They know where we are, don’t worry about that. Pulling the alarm lets them know we know.”

“It gets civilians clear,” Capricorn said. “Yes?”

“Yes.”

“That has to be worth it.”

“If you say so.”

He started forward, hesitating like he expected her to tell him not to, then with more confidence, he strode toward the little red plate on the wall. He hauled down on the switch.

The ear-splitting noise was immediate, worse because she heard it with three sets of ears and each was positioned in a slightly different place in the group, because the building was all poured concrete, and the sound bounced around violently.

The group hurried forward. Deeper into the building’s underbelly.

“We’re getting further from my birds.”

“It’s the best way right now,” Tattletale said. “It makes us harder to track with tinkertech, and there aren’t security cameras down here. Only employees with instructions to watch out and radio if there’s trouble.”

Tress spoke up. She was making her way down the stairs, her hands out to the sides, sliding down the railings. “If you don’t think it’s going to be a problem, and if it doesn’t affect my movements or yours, you could try connecting to me. Don’t be—”

Darlene connected, missing outright on her first attempt, then aiming for the face and finding the connection there.

The others had been gradual, a handful of sensations at a time, as each body part made contact with something. Tress felt like a hundred sensations at once. Limbs as thin as pencils and as strong as small caliber gunshots were fumbling, reaching, thumping against her shell, and groping blindly for rings and switches, hauling back on cords, gripping those cords, tracing the seams of the hollow metal shell, and straining against bondage where metal bands cinched them together into groups, leaving them to rustle faintly against each other. The longest groupings were extended out to and through the metal arms, where they strained and worked, providing a lot of the mechanical movement for the added limbs.

She felt Tress’s lips part, the words barely audible over the screech of the alarm. “Oh wow.”

“You okay?” Capricorn asked.

Tress nodded. “It’s… nostalgic. The sensations of a normal body.”

“Connect me?” Capricorn asked.

Darlene threw out a hand in his direction.

Her head twisted to one side, as she tried to take in the sensations. She’d expected a two-dimensional image and she got a three-dimensional one.