A blur of red in my peripheral vision gave me pause.

The long whip? It was falling down on top of everything. Cradle saw it too, moved hands to provide a shield.

I trusted the Wretch, and used the opportunity to hammer him.

The red line passed through everything. Projection. A feint. Cradle had an intuitive sense of where things were, but seeing the red lines had preconditioned him, toyed with that perception as an optical illusion, and with that deception, I could get close enough to make contact.

I grabbed him by the fabric at his back and hauled him up and away.

“Victoria,” I heard Tattletale over the phone call.

“Stop breaking in, please,” I heard Looksee’s reply.

I flew Cradle away from his machine, and dropped him harder than was necessary, relatively close to the others.

Operator was still trying to navigate the Vista-modified battlefield. He’d managed to dodge some traps already, ground cupping over him like a dome, pitfalls.

“Call off Operator,” I said.

Cradle was silent.

“Call him off!”

“I need him intact and free,” Tattletale said, over the phone.

“Get bent,” I said.

“I’m willing to negotiate,” she said.

“Set him in stone,” I suggested, to Capricorn. “Leave him for the Fallen when they come back.”

Cradle tensed.

“You’re not going to do that,” Tattletale said. “You’re too righteous.”

“Wah!” was the distant shout.

I turned to look. It was Chris, and Cradle’s robot was still operating. The whip hand was moving—

I flew to intercept, as the whip came around. I knocked it away.

“Again… we can leave you for the Fallen,” I told Cradle. “Or you can call Operator off.”

“Red!” Cradle called out. “Enough.”

That meant the assassin wasn’t an immediate concern.

“How’s our guy?” I asked.

“Not good,” Sveta said. She pressed her forehead to Rain’s. “He’s not really breathing. He’s cold.”

“Advance Guard. They have a healer,” Tattletale said.

“I know,” I said, annoyed. “Go away. You led them right to him, didn’t you? Through our video and phones?”

“Yes, but not like that. It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” I said. I bent down by Rain. Capricorn gave me a hand in scooping him up. I checked to make sure the robot was being good.

“We can handle this now,” Capricorn said. “Get him help.”

I nodded.

I flew. Advance Guard had been to the northern end of everything, where a road exited the settlement. There were some sparse buildings in that direction, but it looked to be mainly for logging and maybe some quarrying as well.

“Victoria,” Tattletale said.

“I can kick her off,” Looksee said. “I think I figured it out now.”

“I’ll talk to her,” I said.