“Why meditation?” Ashley asked.

“Because you need to change the way you think about your powers,” Vista said.

“Did it work?”

Vista made an ‘enh’ sound, unimpressed and unsure. “Some stuff did, somewhere along the line.”

“It’s like the hair,” Ashley said.

“Hair?” Vista asked.

“Putting it in your costume, to extend the Manton effect. Victoria’s idea. Lots of useful ideas.”

“Benefit of being a good guy. The crooks don’t have good power labs.”

“Mm.”

Vista gave us a way beneath the next camera, adjusting the gap beneath without modifying anything in the camera’s field of view.

“Cryptid’s closing in,” I said. “Crock o’ Shit’s keeping close to Armstrong and Nat. Coalbelcher’s… not really a runner. He’s covering ground Cryptid isn’t. I think he’s been here before, because he’s moving with purpose.”

“He’s not sticking with his team,” Ashley said.

“Cryptid?” I asked. I got a short nod in response. “He isn’t.”

“He doesn’t think in terms of teamwork. He thinks in terms of problem solving.”

“Sounds right,” I said. “We have to out-problem solve him.”

I could use the tech Kenzie had given me to track what was going on, and it told me we were getting into an area with more prison staff. I’d noted before we entered the prison that it was built like a castle set between two halves of a bisected high-rise. The hallway before us, divided halfway down with a gate or small portcullis, marked the distinction between the ‘castle’ and the high rise part. With the change came a stark contrast in, well, everything. The tile transitioned smoothly from slate gray and black to a glossy black and tiles with sunset hues like oil on a roadside puddle. Statues embedded into the wall broke up the stone on either side of us, allowing for the transition to the maroon and tinted glass of the high-rise.

I looked back. Cryptid was closing in, sniffing his way to us. Halfway there. Armstrong and Natalie were being taken to a side area, denser with prison staff, still in the custody of Crock o’ Shit. The lie detector with the tattoos of scales and her namesake words on her cheeks.

“Options,” I said. “Our goal is alerting or rescuing Armstrong. We do it without outing ourselves if we can.”

“Where is he?” Ashley asked.

I pointed. “That corner of the facility. Lots of guards, and Crock o’ Shit. Good few guards between us and him, too.”

“And Cryptid,” Ashley said.

“Yes. And Coalbelcher.” I pointed with my best guesses. Both were outside of any camera’s field of view. “We could go through. I don’t think it’s impossible, but it’s easy to be cornered with Cryptid coming after us.”

“I do worse with cornered,” Vista said.

“Other option is we go over. Through here, upstairs… and I remember the glass above the plaza had cracks in it. In the right situation, Vista could open that crack and I could fly us down.”