“Make your way to the C-quadrant where Custodian collapsed the facility. Patrol it. When they want to make their exit they’ll be tempted to go through there.”

“Alright. We’re in endgame?” Saint asked.

“Close,” Teacher reported. “I’m trying to find balance, when there are too many distractions. I’d think it was her, but it’s not. She’s unconscious or powerless. Possibly or probably on purpose. It forces me to keep a constant eye out for her. I’ve updated the butterfly’s radius in your systems.”

Mischa looked. Information between sections of the building was cut off, and as fast as she was, the bogeyman could only move so far. The question was, how fast could her actions ripple out? Who could she affect, that could reach them? It would have to be someone fast.

“We’ll repair now,” Saint said.

“Fake being in disrepair as you exit, for Legend’s benefit. Make some smoke if you can.”

Not so hard, when the lasers kept coming. The Victory I had extensive damage to one wing and was using projected forcefields to keep it together. It rose up into the air, swayed off course, and then detonated, a rolling explosion pouring out of an already damaged lower section. Tertiary power core explosion.

“Was that on purpose?” Mischa asked.

“Yes. Rash of me,” Saint said. “That did more damage than I anticipated.”

Saint wasn’t usually one to admit weakness or fault. Mags’s death was getting to the man, Mischa was sure. Being reckless, misjudging, and then regretting it so openly after?

Mischa still wanted to say something.

“Can you fly without problem?” Mischa asked.

“I can fly.”

Mischa adjusted the systems for hovering and antigrav. Break up the array, desync, put each on a different grid, then assign seventy percent to one grid, fifty percent to another.

Flying at seventy percent with his left side, fifty percent with the other. It made the Isaiah list. That would be his pretend retreat act for Legend.

He blocked two incoming projectiles and one blast from Legend, and escorted the Victory I up and away from the fight, into an area where clouds traced the exterior walls of the facility. The platform had a garden at the end, railings around the edges.

He checked reference materials, and the map of the facility. This upper floor had been where the original staff of Cauldron had entertained people of importance, and it had been a place reserved for people like Doctor Mother to retreat to, in an eventuality where they couldn’t travel elsewhere due to external threats. She had apparently come here quite often in the early days.

The craft settled down, avoiding too much damage to trees, hedges, and flowers.