He held the other out, to keep Operator more at bay. Orange lights danced around us without any seeming rhyme or reason. I left Rain behind and took flight, going high above Operator.

“Put the needle back,” Chris hissed, more insistent than before.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“I need it,” he said. He put his arm in Operator’s way. The cleaver bit deep into an armor plate. Operator ducked low, swinging under Chris’s arm.

A blade at Chris’s elbow extended as he clenched a large, brutish fist, and he drove his elbow back. The two cleaver blades caught the elbow-blade, and Operator was pushed back toward the door.

No sign that he’d lost his balance or been caught off guard in any way.

I reversed course, dropping to the ground. I placed the needle in the foam insert, and then started to replace the lid.

“Victoria!” Capricorn called out.

I looked to Operator first—the most immediate threat, and then I heard the crash. Metal fingers and hands reaching up to the roof, finding a grip where it had been bolted or hammered to a broader wooden beam, and then crumpling it.

Water poured unevenly throughout the barn as hands that could have wrapped around a small car brought down the roof. Beams cracked and split.

I flew for the largest, most pressing part of the roof, and the beam that was attached to it. The walls were shuddering in a way that made me think the entire barn could come down.

Cradle had apparently lost patience.

The Wretch and I hit the roof in Cradle’s machine hand with enough force that it would take a couple of minutes to walk to wherever it landed.

Sveta, Rain and Vista weren’t in the building anymore. Sveta had dragged them out through the open door. Capricorn and Chris were facing down Operator Red, and Cradle loomed in the hole in the roof he’d made, looking up at me.

He swiped a hand in my general direction, coming almost ten feet shy of connecting. I put the Wretch up anyway. I glanced at what was happening below—Vista was distorting space, keeping Operator Red in the building and giving Chris and Capricorn time to escape. Chris was delaying his escape.

Something hit me like a truck, knocking the Wretch out and knocking me almost twenty feet through the air, before I could right myself.

Cradle turned, his attention on those on the ground. A lot of strength in those mechanical hands. There had to be a good fifty feet of armspan when the two longest arms were extended, and he had a lot of arms. He hopped over to one of the shorter arms—almost just a wrist that connected to the central hub, and stepped onto the hand, where he crouched with the hand cupped around him.