Titan Oberon punched the side of the building the other Undersiders were on, then sliced the flat of his hand through the corner of the building. They were already running, leaping to the next rooftop. I only realized it had happened by the sound, and by Syndicate’s power keeping us coordinated and aware of each other.

“Get back!” I told Rachel and Sveta. “I’ve got to check in!”

Sveta nodded. Even though she was a matter of feet away, her face was barely a silhouette. She coughed, then grabbed onto Rachel with tendrils, pulling her behind. Rachel pulled at her dog’s collar.

I flew up and across the street, trying to find a vantage point where I could make out the situation.

Tattletale was regrouping with Deathchester, Parian, Foil, and the three Heartbroken. Roman and Juliette were at the edge of the building with Chastity, Roman holding an axe that he was using to kill human-sized maggots that had crawled up the side of the building.

“What was that?” I asked. “Eve took a hit.”

“Torso headbutt,” Tattletale had to pull her mask away from her mouth to say it. She put it back and glanced at Damsel, who nodded confirmation.

“Okay,” I said, frowning, trying to make out the situation. The forcefield, at least, kept me from inhaling concrete dust and residual gas.

“He can’t do that many more times,” a cultured voice said, beside me. I looked, and saw a man in a gray jester’s outfit. He stood beside the gawky, disproportioned Mockument, who wore a very similar outfit.

“Okay,” I said. I looked at Tattletale. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know,” she said, pulling her mask aside again. “Same plan. Keep them from connecting.”

“What we’re doing is barely budging them.”

Tattletale nodded. She looked out of breath, coughed.

When we can stop to breathe, there’s no clean air.

“Any insights? Any ideas?”

“No,” Tattletale said. “Not with this, specifically.”

Oberon attacked the building Rachel and Sveta were on. I floated up and about fifteen feet in their direction before I saw that they were okay, Rachel riding, Sveta behind her.

“What if we can’t?” Parian asked. “Where do we draw the line and say we retreat and regroup?”

“If we retreat and regroup, those two are going to connect up, we’ll die if we aren’t far enough away, and the people who pick up where we left off will have to fight stronger Titans with a more cogent network. When enough of them network, that’s it,” Tattletale told Parian. She didn’t pull off her mask this time, and the words were muffled, quieter, but they still had a weight to them. I saw people react.

She coughed twice. “Go. Do what you can now.”

Doing what we could meant dealing with Titan Eve while Oberon now wanted to hurt us.