"Everyone all right?" I asked.
A murmured chorus of assent reached me. I helped those nearest me to their feet, working to get them started up again. Even if we'd beaten the Dream, Allison was still a problem.
And so was Scribe.
I stared up at the Alliance building and sighed. I'd already been in it once, and I shouldn't have done that. All I'd done was stir up more trouble for the rest of us and make it all the more difficult to deal with what lay within. I'd known it would be hard to get in and take Scribe down, but I had assumed it would be because of emotional reasons.
Not because of the death traps he most certainly had laid for us now. Maybe he'd gone easy on me, but I somehow doubted it. It was more likely that I'd just caught him unaware and he hadn't had time to catch me on those lower flights of stairs.
"We're really doing this?" Adam whispered to me as he drew even.
The stiffness went out of my shoulders and they dropped. I shook my head. "It looks like it. What a fucked-up world."
"Then let's get a move on before he gets a chance to send anything else at us. Allison must have been his thing. Maybe we all are."
I shuddered at that. "We really have to talk about this whole we-were-all-dead-but-the-Kipas thing, Creed."
"I don't think it's worth worrying about. Maybe we weren't really dead. You never know for certain unless a doctor calls it or you hear a person's heart stop beating. And plenty of stuff has zapped us from one awareness to another over the years."
Sighing, I led the pack toward the parking garage right along with Adam. What a wonderful thought, getting zapped by aliens that our boss had made because he'd been some dumb, lonely kid. Another little shudder ran through me and I hoped we weren't infected with some kind of weird stuff that Scribe could manipulate.
It was bad enough to face down a guy who could write you out of existence. It was worse if he could make you turn on your friends while he did it. Though, really, I guess he could do that with the stroke of a pen, too.
With no pretense to sneak and skulk, I kicked down the fucking door and stomped up the first flight of stairs on my own. Nishelle and Adam caught up to me on the second. By the third, the group of us were at a run. I swung out over the railing when the electric crackled in front of me. Starseer caught Kharmia by her wrist and lifted the two of them up several floors.
I'd wondered if there was something between them and that certainly seemed to cement it. More time to worry about that later, I told myself. Besides, it wasn't like I was some bleeding heart romantic. Was I?
Throwing yourself into the midst of a fight that you can't win to try to spare your loved ones that same fight is kind of romantic, I guess. It’s also kind of stupid, if I'm honest about it.
Thankfully, I'm not that honest with myself most of the time. Those of us who couldn't fly, or shouldn't, given their current condition, Adam, climbed the rails for a few stories. It was worrying work, though none of us were afraid of heights after years in the Alliance. Still, few people enjoy them and hanging off the edge of a handhold that can send you plummeting to your death isn't exactly comforting for anyone involved.
We made our way to the safe landing and paused. There was a soft hissing sound just outside the door I'd smashed off its hinges.
Kipas.
One long, plated snout searched the interior of the door and it was too late to worry about whether we were prepared or not. It shrieked the alarm to its friends, recognizing our scent or simply knowing that we weren't Scribe. We thundered through the door frame as quickly as we could and found ourselves surrounded by hundreds of the damn things.
Edwin cleared his throat. "I have no idea why I'm up here with any of you and it seems I've made a mistake."
"Izzy, take Edwin back down to the support room and stand guard at the door," I ordered.
She frowned at me. "I'm more use up here."
"Don't make me repeat myself. You're more use where you can take care of the guy taking care of us," I snapped at her and gave the pair of them a shove. "Don't bother with the stairs. Just take the fall slowly with him. He breaks pretty easily."
Isabella looked like she wanted to argue again, but she finally gave in and grabbed Edwin. Arms around him, they jumped over the side of the stairs and disappeared. Without our communication nodes, we wouldn't be able to hear them. But I hoped that, maybe, somehow, Izzy would be able to fix that. The woman controlled vibration. Surely there was a way to make the walls echo their voices or something and get important messages to us?
I had to hope that it was enough.
As it was, my little team spread out and waited for the Kipas to move first. They stared at us, all their weird little eyes blinking curiously. They weren't armed or armored,
