We're up on the perimeter before we know what to do with ourselves. Usually, a five-person mission carries a sense of electric energy with it, a current passing along its members, but today I feel their weariness like my own irritation. Serena asks, "Do we know when all of this will be over?"

"No," I say. In the distance, someone is entering the building. We'll be following them in. "Do you have to ask?"

"It's putting a real strain on my academics, that's all," says Serena, in a way that implies that it can not possibly be everything she hoped to say. At the very least, I want to believe she's not that shallow.

"Adam and I have been fine," Megan cuts in.

"I'm surprised you two can handle grades at all when you're so busy," Evan snipes.

Megan pouts. "You can not possibly still be bitter about the one meeting we attended together, Evan."

"I can be and I am."

"No civilian names," I warn them both. "I will turn this raiding party around if you all don't stop bickering like children."

I receive an irritated set of stares from the whole group, including Siren, who is supposed to be an ally, and excluding Umbra, who just has her arms folded in Meganlike fashion and is watching the place beyond the trees, like I'm not there at all.

"That bad?" I ask. "Come on. Aren't you guys excited?"

"Not as much as you are," Gen says. "I think you have to save all your enthusiasm for these missions. You look like a half-dead, half-drowned cat outside them."

"Gee, thanks," I say, with a quick roll of my eyes. "Anyways, down to the plan. We're going to go straight to the back elevator and see if we can get downstairs today."

Onyx nods. "I've got clean-up."

"I'll be on it too. Usual assignments, I suppose?" Siren asks.

"Glad we settled that," I say.

"We're glad to have you back," Gen says. "It's nice to have someone with more forethought than a goldfish leading the group."

"I had a plan," Onyx argues.

"You sure didn't explain it to us," Umbra responds. "Wait, when we get to the back, how are we going to prevent getting stuck down there? We've been lucky one and a half times. Should we keep someone above for recon reasons? Split the group?"

"You never want to split the party." I shake my head. "That's a good point, though. I don't like the idea of anyone staying above, without contact, and Anthem's going to be harder to contact. I think she should be able to help, but hearing each other's no good if something terrible happens and we can't help... Look, we'll work that out then, dependent on circumstance, but everyone's probably going under if any of us are. All this assumes we're successful up to this point. Shouldn't be too hard to get around back, is it?"

That's not the problem. One clean-up round later, I slam my blade into an especially heavy chunk of wall and dig in, but there's nothing for me to cut through to the other side. There's no way in hell they could have moved an elevator overnight, but even upon cutting out a 'peephole', or attempting to, I find I'm just making jagged lines in the unyielding metal.

"The building itself hates us with a visceral, burning passion," I say, with a cold laugh. "Wow, I hate this."

"At least the first floor's empty," Onyx says, blowing out a fire on his fingers he lit just for the purpose. He's at once ridiculous and ridiculously intimidating, owing to the way the sterile light catches the slightly padded suit and the way I've seen him go to town on those robots. Man does not mess around. "Empty save for some robots, so, essentially empty now."

There are some ruined robots around in testament to this, but those, too, seem to have this funny way of coming back ad infinitum. They probably come from some other portion of this building, deep below the earth, where the building's immune system lies. Immune system. I shake my head again, just a little, and draw the sword back. "We could try the front entrance? They had to get down somewhere. We saw people out here."

As we're taking the left passage back towards the front, I hear footsteps down the hall, as well as the sound of a one-person conversation. The group looks to me. We should have had a contingency plan for if we met anyone, but our general policy on bystanders is... up in the air right now. I look down the hall. There's a call to make and I honestly have no idea what the 'right' decision is under these circumstances. Anthem is quiet.

She knows that she has to give me some kind of autonomy to keep me happy. I hate that.

I hate that.

I gesture to Umbra to attempt to use a shadow to drag him back towards us. It's less complicated than that sounds, not because we have any hand gesture system in place, but because we already usually know what the other person wants. Umbra responds with a quick sling of her shadows, and from down the hall, a man comes swinging towards us. Umbra attempts to place him down easy, but the man tumbles to the floor, still in business attire, the mask attached to his face.

"Nice," Onyx says.

Umbra slaps him across the face with a small wisp of darkness.

Siren bends down to the man, murmuring, "Don't worry, we--" and the floor of the building rises up in the way Nineve showed us earlier and almost hits her in the jaw. As she jumps back, the sympathy she was about to give dying out on her lips. The entire passage looks like it has goosebumps, and there's something behind us, which I sense without looking. The castle takes care of its own. Our trespassing is unappreciated. "It's a trap?"

"Not a trap, he's just scared," I suggest. "We need to get out of this hall. Onyx, can you take whatever they're going to send in behind us?"

Onyx mutters, "I'd love to, but it's a wall."
I finally turn around. There's a thick sheet of blankness coming in behind us, and the hall in front of it is beginning to contract. "That puts a damper on things," I say.

"Nah," Onyx says, and with a swift grab, he has the man by the collar, and then he has that collar and the man up against one of the walls. This is interspersed with a few pained groans from the man himself, but none of us step in to stop him. "You don't want to close this on yourself, buddy, trust me, so tone it down. Now, I'm going to take the mask off, and you're going to explain exactly what motivates you to stick around this shithole. Fair? Fair."

"Anyone want to play good cop?" I ask.

"This is good cop," Onyx says, ripping the mask away. There's a bit of a click to it, like someone tearing away velcro or interlocking metal spikes from each other, and at first I think we're going to find out we've torn his face off, but thankfully, though the man underneath is glassy-eyed like the cherubs, he at least hasn't suffered any visible damage.

I'm relieved that it's a stranger.

Siren steps in. The hallway's progression seems to have stopped, but I still don't like seeing them there, right in the mouth of it.

"Gen, can you put a pole in the door?" I ask, and Gen obliges, which is great, because she should know it's the one thing she's useful for.

"I can't feel anything." says the man. "I can't feel them." He clutches for his mask, which Onyx is holding away from him like an adult holding a toy out of the reach of a baby, or a dog, with all the nonchalance that can possibly accompany the gesture. "Give it back. I'm here for another fix."

"Yep," Onyx says, almost bored. "Cult. There you have it, fellas. Good sir. Has it occurred to you that you are being played like a fiddle?"
"Any more than I'm being played by society at large? No."

"Excuse me?" Gen says. Her pole is beginning to strain, but it's holding the walls, which should not be collapsing seeing as they're no longer under this man's control, in check.

"My job. It's soul-numbing, and I haven't had to think about it in months. This thing does it for you. In return, sure, you come here a few times a month, don't think about that much, either, but at least I don't have to put in any effort. Better than dragging yourself through months of monotony-- you get the good parts of life with the crust cut off. I'm sure your generation, entitled shits that you are, would get it. If you would hand that back over, now, we're not going to have a problem, but otherwise..."

"Crazy," adds Onyx, to reiterate. He's got the man against the wall with one hand, and the mask in the other.

Gen's pole strains harder.

"We're going to have to go. It probably detects him as hostile on the same level we are," I realize aloud. "Can you take him, Gen?"

Gen is materializing several more poles. This is not helping, and each pole is a little smaller, and they're all bending slightly under the pressure. She whips around, staring at me like I'm crazy, and manages to get the man over her shoulder right before he kicks her. Gen is not taking this, so the man finds himself dropped like a hot potato. He gets up and the doors almost close on him before Umbra has him in her grip again. "We need to go," Umbra says, as the first one of Gen's poles breaks.

We rush the empty corridor, unwilling prisoner in tow, Onyx still carrying the mask, and find by far the largest variety of robots yet. The entire building is wailing, irritated more than ever at our presence, and as Umbra drops him, the man lunges for Onyx, who steps right out of the way. He should know that fighting a dragon is out of the question, but somehow, this random civilian seems intent on doing it.

"Siren. Area control," I call.

Siren's already on it. She's recently figured out how to burst vital joints using pressure, and it is quick and effective as it is terrifying. It's a good thing we've mainly been fighting robots and not people. Mostly.

"Give that back," the man says, struggling to get a grip on Evan's spined arms. His naked pink fingers grab at the gloves, and Onyx kicks him off, half-restrained, something dark dancing in his eyes. "Do you think I'm kidding? Is that what this is?"

The elevator opens and a noise leaches out, a kind of command. We have somewhere to be today, I remind myself. "Gen! Pole!"

The man loses all interest in us and makes a mad break for the doors, but Gen is stuck behind a robot and thusly, we can not hold the sucker open with a pole.

"I've got it," Onyx says. "Catch, Chief!" A mask goes soaring through the air and lands in my hands. I stick it around my belt, where the strap serves to attach it, and Onyx bolts after the man, just missing him. As the doors are shutting on the elevator, Onyx has his hand stuck in there, but he doesn't even scream. The door burns red around his hand, his face sheltered from view, and he drags his other hand towards it, pushing both doors open and melding them against the wall. The empty shaft lies before him, a brand of darkness stretching down into hell. When he turns around, I can't even see his face over the mass of robots (one of which I'm half-fighting, my attention on all of my teammates at once), but I hear him call, "Shaft's open! Are we taking this bad boy down or not?"

"If you can get everyone else over there, we'll consider it," Siren says. "I'm a little busy right now, and between me and you is the impending threat of death."

The Delegation has created things with dozens of legs, failsafes, and moving parts, things which seem to be operative no matter what we do to them and others which are made of metal that doesn't melt as easily as previous attempts. I'd really like to know who funds them, or if they have some Kickstarter they're soliciting funds from, because the level of financial contribution for membership otherwise has to be insane. I finally manage to hack a leg off one massive metal centipede, which hardly upsets its balance.

"Got that, too," Onyx calls back. "Need a little help, Chief?"

I guess even he can see how mediocre my actual combat prowess is. It's pretty impressive I haven't died yet, but even that has been a lot of dodging and a few lucky strikes. "I suppose."

He jumps on top of a robot on his way over and hurdles over to my side, grinning furiously. I don't know why anyone thought that I was the one who saves all their enthusiasm for the missions, because Evan Drake at school and Onyx in the Delegation are two separate people.

"If you need back up, say the word," Siren calls from halfway across the room, where she could not possibly reach us. Still, I can feel her and Onyx beside me in the same way I feel and know my own hands, and I know that while they're on my left and right, I'm on their right, their left. Wherever they need me, as soon as they give the signal. It would be as easy for any of us to call on another as to move one of our arms.

Onyx is twice as fast as me and easily four times as effective. It's more getting him to go where I want, or where we need him, and then there's the issue of the robots still pouring in. I realize with every successive parry that the objective here is less to kill us and more to separate us before killing us, which would explain why we've almost been isolated. "We're going to need to surrender," I tell Onyx.

"That's some bullshit," he says, holding up the head of one of the robots with his hands. The face fuses together into a mound of metal under his white-hot grip, but it's still moving, and its tail swings around for him and knocks him sideways against the wall. He pops up just as fast. "I'm fine! Seriously! Why do we have to surrender?"

"We surrendered during your mission too. If Umbra hadn't figured out how to get us back up using the old elevator and her shadows as a counterweight, which mind you, barely worked, we would have died down there," Gen says. Siren's gotten her, thank goodness, because otherwise, sorry Gen, she would be dead right now. Siren's extended far as she can go, at least three masses of water swirling around her.

Onyx's eyes burn, and for a second, I think he's going to disobey direct orders. He slumps his shoulders and admits, "Guess we're leaving." Front door's not that far away. He grips me by the hand and practically throws me out. I have my sword ready the whole time, but it's his fire that does most of the work, and as he turns to reenter the fray, he says, "You just stay here."

Right, who's leading the party again? "Hey, I can fight!" I yell.

"Sure you can, Chief," Onyx calls from the inside, but soon, Umbra's out of her own accord, swinging from the ceiling and landing atop a shadow. He's right in front of Siren and Gen when they leave, but the robots don't follow us out, lurking inside and guarding the door. All the hateful red eyes that are still functional watch us, and dozens of mechanical limbs crackle like the limbs of insects. They are waiting for us to return to what could easily be our graves.

"Who's going to tell Anthem?" asks Siren.

I tell Anthem.

Anthem takes the mask from me with her teeth and proceeds to examine it. For a long second, she's still, then she says, "That will do for today." She proceeds to walk into the back, mask still between her teeth, and disappears into the infinite library.

"You can always count on Anthem for a good talk, huh?" Evan says. "Think she's ever going to bother explaining what's going on?"

"I wouldn't count on it," Serena says. "We're just going to run in circles for days, weeks, months, almost dying every few weekdays and twice on the weekends!"

"If that's what you call almost dying, you have a low threshold for mortal peril," Evan fires back.

"I don't think that's a bad thing," Serena says. "Look. We could die down there. We run that risk almost constantly, let alone the social risks that would incur if any of those humans, some of which are definitely connected to us, found out about us."

"People are in danger, Serena," Megan says. "If we don't have a responsibility to ourselves and each other, we at least have a responsibility to them. That man was well and truly addicted to something, and I think, above anything else, I want to help him."

"He made his choices. It doesn't look like they're dangerous to anyone but themselves," Serena says, folding her arms.

"You don't care about anyone but yourself, do you, Serena?" asks Evan.

"Do you? You love this. It's a thrill for you. It's how you got both your friends over here--"

Serena goes down in a flash of gold and black, the ribbon in her hair trailing out around her as she falls to the floor.

Evan breathes heavily. His shoulders sag even heavier than in the power plant, when we told him he'd have to turn around, and he doesn't look back at us, staring straight ahead like she'll get up again if he lets her out of the grip of his eyes. Maybe like she won't unless he lets her. I can't tell you what's going through his head right now.

Serena staggers up, clenching her cheek, and I can see the bruise beginning to form already. She looks hatefully over at Evan, then says, "I'm going to go."

"Today, or forever?" I ask.

"As long as I can hold out," Serena says. "I don't know how long that is, but I'll tell you when I know."

Hold out. Hit her too. Of course it hits her too. I mean it hurts her. Or makes her feel like this. Is that pain? Is she going to tell the authorities on him? What am I supposed to do or say? I could give these people through the hell of the Delegation, but it has nothing on this. Megan, are you going to say anything? Is there any chance Evan will apologize? What, am I supposed to handle everything? Should I? Do I want to take his side? I can't make myself stand against him. I'm angry too. I think I am. This hits right in the gut.

"We can fix this," Megan says. "Serena, please. Anthem can fix you up. You can't--"
"I tripped," Serena says. "Tell anyone that the truth is anything more or anything less, and then I come after all of you, individually, and I swear I can get you all suspended, grounded, and out of this before you can come back to apologize."

I hold Evan back with a hand. I don't know if he intended to do anything, but it's a risk I don't get to run. We are stock silent as she leaves.

Harper says, "I'll be... back tomorrow?"

"Thank goodness," Megan says.

"But you can't just punch people. We're supposed to be a team," she says.

"Thanks for the recap. Make sure to tell that to the other fifth graders in your grade, alright? Hitting is wrong. Fighting can be resolved, easily, by talking it out in I-statements until everyone is satisfied, placated, or silent."

Harper eases towards the dark void of the door and then slips into it, leaving us alone. Evan at last falls back on the couch, looking backwards at the dim gray ceiling.

"We can't keep being the last ones in here," I say.

Evan twitches on the couch. "Fuck her," he says. "Fuck her."

"She was just trying to get under your skin. She didn't mean it--" Megan begins.

"No, she's right. We never would have met if this hadn't happened. We don't even know that we'd like each other if we weren't dosed up on Diosite all the time. This whole thing is the only good thing that's ever happened to me, and guess what! It's a drug trip." Evan laughs. "Yeah, I wouldn't have punched her if she was just trying to get under my skin. I stopped doing that in the fifth grade, after I saw how that turned out. People have said worse things, but they were wrong. It only really hurts you when you believe it."
"It's not true," Megan reiterates. When Evan rises from the couch, she attempts to block him. "Evan, please, this isn't still about the whole Brigade thing-- we were trying to make them feel better! People are really worried about us."

"You're so lucky to have that many people who worry about you," Evan says. "And you should feel like shit about the fact that you're just trying to get them out of your way."

"Evan--"

However fast he got to the elevator shaft in the Delegation, he rushes out twice that quickly, now, wounded animal look in his copper eyes as they take us in one last time.

"He didn't mean any of it, Meg, and you know that," I say.
Megan's fists ball up, all the moisture drying from the room as it collects around her shielded eyes. "I need to go, Adam."

I don't want to leave. Any second, Chief kicks in, and I know what to say, too late. I just have to wait on that, I guess. Maybe I just don't want the moment to be over. Maybe I'm not ready for the hours of pounding regret and withdrawal that are going to follow it.

"We're fucked," I say, to no one. In the darkness, two eyes are upon me. "Don't say anything. You know why you left the room."

"You can't win without her."

"I know."

"You're going to run from the problem up until the point where you scrape the bare edge of disaster."

"I know."

"This is all on you, Adam."

"I know."

"And you'll do it."

"Of course. I'm the chief."

"Because you need it."

Insults only hurt when we believe them.

I lie in bed that night stinging.

No one hurts you like the people you love, and I love the drug.