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.”

“We go outside or above and we signal him from there?” Vista asked. “How?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “They might be keeping him in a windowless room.”

“Steal a walkie-talkie,” Ashley said. “Say it to every guard, if he’s in a room with them he’ll hear it.”

“Raising suspicion.”

“If there’s reasonable doubt then we’re fine,” Ashley said.

“Is it though?” Vista asked. “Is it really fine?”

“I’d rather save him and then go from there. If there’s trouble it’ll be trouble with an exit.”

“And after that? Do we escape that trouble for more trouble with an exit? Ad infinitum?”

“Sometimes that’s all you get,” Ashley answered.

“Option three,” I said, interrupting the back and forth. “We push for the room where they stowed our stuff. We get a few of our things, including our phones, and we take it back to Kenzie. She calls Armstrong or Natalie.”

“Can we find the room?” Ashley asked.

“Pretty sure,” I said. I looked down the hallway.

Cryptid was still navigating his way to us. Coalbelcher took another hallway, walking with a steady pace. Coalbelcher was a good two hundred and fifty pounds minimum, which probably impacted his ability to run around.

“We do your plan,” Ashley said. “Mine as a backup.”

I looked at Vista.

“Your team, your tech, you seem to know, it’s your call,” Vista said. “But you’re asking us which option, and it seems like one’s better. Why?”

“Because this requires us to get to the room, get access, get back, let Lookout do her thing—”

Voices echoed down the hallway, chatter. Ashley, Vista and I stepped around the corner to be out of sight.