And as those lines spiderwebbed out, there were areas that had cracks on all sides… and those areas fell out, fell free, falling into a kind of oblivion.

⊙

Fume Hood, A Critical Moment

“You play guitar?” Finale asked. “Can you show me?”

“I’m not great. Self-taught. Mostly just to pull out at parties and campfires, if the mood’s right.”

“Please?”

Fume Hood picked up the guitar. She experimentally strummed it, then began to play.

After listening for a minute, Finale grabbed two paintbrushes, and began using them as drumsticks on nearby tins, playing with some force to make up for the lack of actual drums.

The drumming was probably better than Fume Hood’s guitar playing.

“I want to do this to kill time at the next stakeout,” Finale said, speaking over the music.

“I think this would give us away.”

“But stakeouts are so boring.”

⊙

The kids.

Fume Hood felt the cracks reaching out, saw the destruction as bits of building fell, the road dropping away into nothing. Civilians were running.

Off to the side, cracks spread in three dimensions, cutting through air, terrain, powers, until they reached the station.

One crack reached deep enough to hit the portal within. It was like throwing water on a grease fire. The cracks began spreading out dramatically from there. She could see Cheit on the other side.

She could feel that well of power.

Withdrawal was running, trying to help Finale. Caryatid was slowest, but she could move about as fast as the other pair because she was just the one person.

If what was happening to Fume Hood happened to them… if Withdrawal was trapped in one place, locked down, fed this influx of sensations and awareness, this negativity, it would devour everything good about him.

If Finale was disconnected from everyone and everything she cared about, and made an architect of calamity?

If Caryatid was paralyzed, disconnected from her humanity?

Forever, for each of them?

She made the decision. She reached out and seized it.

To steer and even force the cracks. All to guide them or encourage them to form away from innocents, where she could. Away from the Malfunctions, so they could run and at least tell others what had happened.

Gas leaked out of her mouth, and her body contorted, distorted. More like Caryatid’s other form than her own.

She was losing herself.

⊙

Fume Hood, a Critical Moment

“Put your hands here,” Tempera said.

Victoria did. Pressing her hands down over the bullet wound. Blood leaked out over the tops of her fingers.

Fume Hood looked up at the two women’s faces. Watched as Tempera prepared some ‘paint’. Saw Victoria’s concern and focus.

Why are you trying? Why, for me?

“Not—” she managed to say. The pressure on her stomach didn’t make it easy to speak.

“Not?” Victoria asked.

“Not a good day.”

“No.”