That would be our distraction, a rowdy fight that drew in most of the prisoners. The distribution of prisoners was almost as dense as it was around meals, but these guys were riled up in a whole other way. Shin’s response to powers, parahumanity, and the strange was an instinctive, aggressive push back, whether government or prisoner. It added to the riling and aggressiveness. They’d been controlled once already and they wouldn’t do it again. A good share of the ones who would have accepted parahumans had been enlisted by us for our distraction.

Guards supported Cryptid, falling in step beside him, while he tried to nose his way forward toward the members of Breakthrough who were hidden in the crowd.

Rebuffed again, or hurt, or because he caught a whiff of something, he turned around, pushing back through the showers, looping back to Armstrong, Natalie, Crock o’ Shit and Coalbelcher, presumably to communicate.

Then he was running down hallways, sprinting as fast as a large dog. A rat disappearing into the maze, flickering in and out of sight as he passed beneath the cameras. Coalbelcher jogged after, but he was only a third of the way down the hallway by the time Cryptid was at the end.

Though they were distant, I could see Cryptid stop, pausing at an intersection. He jerked his head to one side. A signal to Coalbelcher.

They were after us.

“They’re coming,” I said. “Cryptid and Coalbelcher. Cryptid has some running form.”

“Remind me who Coalbelcher is,” Vista said.

“Uh, was one of the fire-themed villains that tried to band together against Cinereal. Most of that group got trounced, he didn’t, he became a mid-level boss there. Careful, camera up ahead.”

We were running and we had to stop before we ran right into the camera’s field of view. I leaned closer to Vista and indicated with my hand.

The camera was set so people couldn’t walk beneath. But Vista expanded the gap that was there at my instruction, giving us room to move through.

“After Gold Morning he went to prison after breaking a guy’s jaw and back. Ended up being leader of the men’s side. Went with Cryptid and the Red Queen. Reasonable-ish. Combustible spit, and he spits a lot. Added strength but not a lot of added durability.”

Three guards up ahead. One disappeared from view as they left the camera’s radius. The other two responded to something—a call, a message by radio or intercom, I wasn’t sure what Shin had—and started running our way.

“Hiding spot,” I told Vista.

“I can make a pocket but it won’t be perfect.”

“Fast,” I said. I pointed down the hallway. Closer to the guys we were running from. The lights overhead had two bulbs per installation, but one of the two bulbs was dark in that section of hall, casting it into relative shadow.