A figure, taller than any shelf or piece of furniture in the rooms, stepped out of the darkness and into the light, into an area riddled with concrete slabs. It was drawn out in the same silvery outlines, and its body didn’t seem to hold a consistent shape. Like mountains flipping to become valleys with a perspective shift, but it moved across the room in that manner.

“What the hell is that?” Rain asked.

“Tip of the iceberg, meet the rest of the iceberg,” Damsel said, her voice dry.

“I bet it’s been there every night,” Kenzie said, way too cheerful for the occasion. “In the shadows on the other side of the glass.”

The thing touched a wall, and the bright distortion of it seemed to extend to the surface. The camera struggled to hold integrity, then went black.

Leaving the room we were in feeling darker than it had been before the demonstration.

“Walls are down,” Tattletale said. “And our buddy there is on high alert. He’ll be waiting for you all on your next visit in…”

“Two hours,” Rain said.

“We can do it,” Kenzie said, too cheerful and bright. “But let’s reconsider you going in alone?”

From Within 16.8

“Okay,” Rain said. He was getting off the phone, and his statement came with enough finality that it made more than a few of us turn our heads.

“You got through?” I asked.

“Talked briefly with Colt and Love Lost. Couldn’t talk to Cradle, he’s off in the wilderness, and they’re really antsy about drop-ins to chat with tinkers, since tinkers are most likely to try something fancy.”

“Probably for the best,” I said. “Might tip them off that we’re trying something off the wall.”

“Yeah,” Rain said. “I just said it had stuff to do with dreams, which isn’t too weird since you asked for details on dreams earlier.”

Others resumed doing what they were doing, getting ready, with costumes on and low conversations. I had my own costume on, and Kenzie now wore her costume from the neck down, her helmet set to one side. It looked like she was trying something new, as a cross between her head-encasing helmet and the Heartbroken masks. She still wore the visor across her eyes as she tinkered away on the keyboard.

Above her, projected on the wall, was the short clip of the room’s denizen moving from the darkness into the space at the center of the room, then into what Rain had labeled as Cradle’s portion of the room.

“Precipice,” Kenzie said, without looking up. The tool she held looked like a screwdriver, but sparked when she touched it to a circuit board. “Walk me through the timeline again?”

“Lookout—”

“Any dates you can tie to the costumes changing? Or when what you had on you when you went into the room changed? Anything?”

“You’re trying to apply logic to dream, Lookout.”