And Mischa—he had to pilot to avoid Legend’s assault, as Legend focused beams on targeted areas. The halo protected against some, but there was nothing to distract Legend now. Controls, weapons, the halo itself, flight systems, oxygen—all were surgically burned away.

It was all he could do to use the systems to pilot himself toward the place where the platform met the exterior wall. To force a rough landing, using a list of systems that dwindled by the second. The impact was hard for him, and he was in a cushioned seat with a harness. Saint was in the broken arms of the Isaiah.

There was no use hiding, now. He opened the cockpit. He wanted to check on Saint, as well.

Legend waited for him, hovering above.

“I surrender,” Mischa said.

⊙

Sveta pulled herself together, with gaps and patches where damaged bands of flesh didn’t come together, as though someone had failed to paint in those spots, leaving only dark gaps with red muscle visible beneath. In one or two places, even the muscle had gaps.

She stood on the platform. She’d escaped the cockpit before it had closed up, leaving the systems to run on their own. One minute in there had been enough to tell her she had no chance in hell of piloting it.

Her head hung. Her organs hurt from being choked into inactivity.

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

The voice came from behind her.

There was only one other person left on the platform with her. She remained still, frozen, standing in a ruined garden.

“Why does it matter?” she asked.

“It matters. Everything in order, things have to be tallied up.”

“I don’t believe in order, or tallies,” she said, staring out over the edge, into oblivion. “I like art, creativity, ideas. Kindness. I know I’m not rational, but rational gave birth to this.”

She extended a hand and unconsciously dissolved it to indicate the edifice they were beside with bands of flesh. Even dropping her hand to her side, she pointed at the platform, and at sections of building that bulged out from the exterior wall.

“Rational gave birth to everything good too. Irrationality gave birth to every problem we’re dealing with now.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said.

She paused.

“How far are you going? What are you really doing here?” she ventured, still not turning around. If there was a gun, there would be no chance. If she dropped and there was something to hold on to, she could—

—probably not live. The boy was Number Man, writ small.

“The plan is to take you out of the equation,” the boy said. “The plans always succeed.”

“Do they?”

“Yes.”

“Can you give me a chance to… say something? I don’t know why I’d even try, when it hasn’t worked in the past. Nothing I say gets through.”