I looked around, then saw metal trim on a doorframe. I pulled it out, used a forcefield hand to strip away the extra bits of door, and then used it to tie up the time-frozen woman. Wrists and ankles.

Sveta reached out, slid tendrils between the edges of the speaker and the wall, and then tore it out, throwing it to the ground. The resulting feedback squeal exactly mimicked the faint rise and fall of the screaming in my head, that I hadn’t even realized was still there.

The speaker sputtered, and the voice resumed, “…easier if you listen between the words. It gets easier…”

Rain backhanded the speaker with a silver blade and then kicked it.

“Thank you,” Byron said. “Fuck me, this is unbearable, even without the accompanying soundtrack.”

“Just endure,” I told him. “We gotta do as much damage as we can, stop her or weaken her.”

“I know, just…”

“Keep moving,” I told him. “Let us know if you need to bail.”

“I don’t. I’m not.”

I nodded.

Byron kept going.

“Wait,” Cryptid called out.

Byron stopped.

We all remained where we were.

“Not the time—” I started.

“Shh.”

He held one long, knobby finger to his rat-like muzzle, head bowed.

He remained where he was, finger still to his muzzle, as he motioned for Byron to continue on.

Byron took two steps, and Cryptid lunged, diving into one of the dark rooms.

It sounded like he had thrown himself into a shelf of metal parts and tools.

Rain jumped in, and I flew to get better lined up—but the nature of the hallway and the surrounding people made it hard to get my gun aimed right.

Cryptid was wrestling with something that looked like a mechanical dog.

I dropped the gun, ready to dive in, but Rain was already stabbing the thing with a silver blade. It provided the weak point that Cryptid could use to tear the thing in half.

Metal with a core of flesh.

“Tell me that’s not Machine Army,” Rain said.

“No,” Cryptid growled, climbing to his feet, dropping the two halves. He sounded derisive. He pulled a piece off its head and pulled a computer chip out of a bloody socket. He stuck the chip into a slot on his belt, then pulled it out. “A tinker named Gusto made it. It’s set to receive radio waves, she distorted an incoming signal to give it an attack command.”

“Is Gusto friendly?” I asked.

“Was,” Cryptid growled, before pushing past me.

“Fuck,” Rain muttered. “Jesus, fuck.”

“Stay calm, stay level,” I said.

The other teams had gone down the hallways. The Malfunctions had split up, with Caryatid hanging back with the slower group, Finale in our group, toward the middle, and Withdrawal up at the head of the pack with the faster people like Damsel and Trophy Wife. Sidepiece had some surprising stamina, all considered, and was keeping up with Trophy Wife.