“He slid between people’s skin and muscles and took over their bodies. He always had to have an eye appear in a hidden spot, like, so he could see, because he didn’t control the eyes.”

“I—yeah.”

“He was going to take over me. I was so scared Papa hit me with calming emotions and it didn’t even make me stop freaking out. Some of that was calming emotion, but—”

“Yeah,” Candy said. “I remember. We weren’t that old.”

“You stopped him and it was the first time I remember you being a real sister to me. And it was only a week after I pushed your plate of spaghetti into your lap because we were fighting.”

Candy nodded. “We don’t know if they’re all alive.”

“Gammadoc is,” Tattletale said. “But that particular incident happened in Brockton Bay and I’ve kept tabs on our old enemies. Unless he bit it in the last week or so, there’s an active link to the guy. And, last I checked, the guy was pulled out of retirement to work for Teacher in the facility. That’s the good.”

“The good?” I asked.

“If we go over there to Candy’s thing,” Tattletale said, pointing back in the general the way we came, maybe a bit to the right, “there’s probably a good bridge, or a few of them. Can’t say how intact it’ll be, but it’s a good bet.”

“What’s the bad?” Byron asked.

“The bad is Candy’s area is way back over there… and Teacher’s is way over there.”

Tattletale pointed in two different directions.

“Travel’s deceptively fast here,” I noted. “It’s our best bet. We go over there, we circle around, we go for Teacher.”

“Other option,” Tattletale said. “My territory, count on links seeking information to form bridges.”

“Even while you’re here?” I asked.

“Even while I’m here.”

“We don’t have time to argue,” Tristan said. “I vote Tattletale’s.”

“Antares’s,” Byron said. Tristan looked annoyed.

“Tattletale’s,” Chicken Little said. “I’m mad at her but I know she knows some of this stuff.”

“With her power,” Darlene said.

“Even with.”

“Okay, then I vote Tattletale,” Darlene added.

“Tattletale,” Sveta said. “Sorry. I get the reasoning, but—”

“No, no need to apologize,” I said.

“—we need to do this fast. We don’t have long.”

In this bizarro world with a pitch black sky and a floor of something alive, something we were technically inside, as we dwelt within the crystal’s interior as simulations, I was advocating for the conservative, sure route. Tattletale preached the direct, unreliable route.

“Antares,” Rain said.

“Antares,” Kenzie joined her voice to his.

“Tattletale,” Candy said.