“I’m sorry you’re not feeling great. It’s been a shitty few days. We stick it out, get through this, Swansong and I will have you over for hot chocolate and animated films. How’s that?”

No use pretending I wasn’t concerned. Odds were she had logs, or she could figure things out one way or the other.

“Lookout?” I tried, when there wasn’t an immediate response.

“Yes please,” she said. “Be safe. All of you.”

“Will damn well try. Disconnecting now.”

“Bye!” the attempt at getting the last word was successful, but the last syllable was cut short by me unplugging.

I looked away from the terminal, and found myself confronted again by the headless corpse. By the body of the syringe woman.

The others were talking to a new cape. Someone from Balk’s support team. Imp and her gang caught up with me as I passed the intersection of hallways.

“We’re being summoned,” Capricorn said.

“Can we trust that cape? Master–stranger?” I asked.

“My analysis says there isn’t any weird head stuff,” Venarum said. “Not biologically.”

“You gotta stop saying that,” Capricorn said. “My analysis says, my analysis… It wastes words and time when we need fast answers.”

“Capricorn. Chill,” Sveta said.

“The other teams need you,” the Advance Guard cape said. Distill, according to the name printed under his badge. “Now.”

We opted to trust him.

A zig-zag through hallways. There were bodies in one of the halls from one of the first wave attackers.

I saw Whorl. The good looking preppy cape who had interviewed me when I’d applied for the Attendant.

Spell, from Auzure. He’d been helping the farms in his off hours.

“We got something,” Imp said. “Samuel did.”

“What something?” Capricorn asked.

“A new objective. We handle this, then we press on to a different objective.”

“We’re supposed to rendezvous with the teams, back them up. Save them,” Sveta said.

“This is more important.”

“More important how?”

“Dude’s cousin is also a thrall. She does cleaning, but she has trouble, so he helps her. He knows this area. There are cells. Cells with people Teacher doesn’t want us to get at.”

“He doesn’t want us to get to the other teams and get them out of trouble, either.”

“He wants this less. Trust me. I’ll make you that promise again now. If I’m bullshitting you, you can throw me in jail.”

“Keep saying that and we’ll think you want to go to jail. For the female company?” Juliette asked.

“Gross and no. My odds are better out here. I’m trying to convey I’m serious and I’m bad at it, so I’m putting shit on the line.”

“I believe her,” Swansong said.

“We get to those cells, we win,” Imp said. “One hundred percent.”

“I believe her less now.”