The end result was that we didn’t really split up that much. The forward group went down one hall, changed their minds, and then took another, or they split up to check the branching paths and made wordless agreements because two routes were dead ends. We reached another set of hallways, and they reconvened to exchange words before making the decisions.

I stuck with the main group, holding my impractically large gun overhead.

The various groups had split up, and it was convenient to stay with the people we’d flown in with. There was too much danger of people coming at us from the rear or flanks, or something happening that complicated the fights ahead of us. Splitting up meant we could cover the major concerns, threats, and groups that might be lurking in the lower floors, without losing too much time.

“It gets easier—”

The whispered broadcast cut out, someone else jumping in to try and broadcast something, but it was a third of a word, incoherent and shouted.

“—between the words,” the original broadcast reasserted itself.

Lights began to go out throughout the facility. Our hallway went dark.

Win cranked something at his chest. Tinkertech armor lit up, illuminating the area around him. Byron began to fill the hallway with motes, each casting maybe a tenth of the light a lamp might shed.

I felt my eyes adjust to the gloom, which was normal-ish. Then they adjusted more.

“There,” Trophy Wife said.

“Do I want to know where those eyes came from?” Withdrawal asked.

“No, nope, don’t tell me,” Finale added.

“Woman couldn’t pay her debt on time, I gave her the choice—”

“No, no, nope, nonono,” Finale raised her voice, drowning out Trophy Wife. “Stop, stop.”

“—gave me her cat.”

“Nooo.”

My skin crawled. I stopped paying attention to the gun, and it scraped glass that was protecting what might have been a breaker panel. The sounds produced, along with the sputter of a buzz from the broken speaker behind us, formed a word. “Cats.”

The thought was involuntary: I’m made of strays and escaped pets and rodents and bugs.

My skin crawled more.

Chris was looking at me, his eyes glowing in the dark.

“Hate to complain, but I could really do without the nonconsensual mutations,” I said.

“Then stay more than fifty feet away from me,” Trophy Wife said.

I felt an urge to say something back, then decided against it. I decided to keep the night vision, while I was at it.

“Get——between the words,” the voice whispered from speakers.

Damsel annihilated the speaker at the end of the hallway.

“Don’t make that much noise,” Clockblocker said. “You’ll get some unwanted—”