{A gathering of hatchlings in a nesting colony, tended to by different adult birds.}

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We moved quietly, carefully. The smoke from the wastebasket fire I had Mimi set followed us out. Balled papers and folders crackling merrily, the sprinkler system raining down and the fire alarm blaring. The sprinklers didn't matter in the least, Mimi's power sustained the flame through the downpour and filled the room with steam.

The fire was insurance in the event we got cornered, an out for Mimi, and also a handy reference point. I was starting to get a feel of the floor layout here, it was coming faster than it had for me in the low-security ward. Maybe it was practice? Or maybe Elle's power had interfered more than I realized.

Either way, Mimi could use it to navigate, and through her I had a general idea of direction that I could also use.

With some luck, the alarm would also serve as a distraction if the masked man was trying to find a way to circle around and find a way back into the office where he had left us.

We kept moving. I led, tugging Mimi and Elle along behind me, feeling out the hallway, and pushing my power as hard as I could. Twice, I had us detour, with that sense of encroaching danger and helplessness closing in. It was like a bubble of silence- there was no other way to describe it. Which was strange, since I could still read inside it with my power- maybe a better way to put it was... I understood that inside the bubble it would be silent- I would be cut off.

I carefully peeked around a corner, the distant whine of the fire alarm, of the lock down alert, it was a howl echoing all around us. A patch of wall was raked with slashes, a crosshatching pattern carved into the paneling under an open ventilation duct. The metal cover plate was bent and twisted, the slates punched in. The square had been crumpled and crushed.

Smashed doors, furniture in the hall pulled from rooms and then abandoned. A couple cases of vandalism- lights smashed and the stuffing torn out of chairs, of graffiti scrawled messily and crudely over the walls. Everything was murky, lit by the rare emergency lighting, except when I found a light switch, which threw everything into harsh florescent clarity, which was somehow worse. It made me feel like an intruder, turning on all the lights in a house I didn't own. It made me nervous.

I had to stop once, to rest, my shoulder paralyzing me with fresh waves of pain. I hoped the first Doctor we met had the good drugs, something, anything. Mimi hovered nearby, her hand on my unburnt shoulder.

We turned a corner, and walked past a wall of portraits and framed art, miraculously almost completely intact. Simple, sometimes nonsensical things that could only have been painted by patients. Rough and almost indecipherable, like a toddler's finger-painting... I stopped to look at one, Elle's hand in mine, and Mimi wandered ahead a little, meandering past doors and looking in. I was transfixed by one drawing, hung in an over-sized frame that was askew, I straightened it. It looked like a field of stars, and above the stars, two-

It reminded me of something I'd written in my journal, weeks ago. When I'd gained my powers, I had seen something, something strange, unsettling. I didn't have words for it. But it had been important, I knew that.

I blinked when everything started to go quiet, then grabbed Elle's wrist and hurried after Mimi.

We were looking for a way up. Mimi explained that with the lock down in effect, most staff on these levels were secured in special panic rooms designed by Dragon. Security would ordinarily foam any rooms with patients causing problems, and be done with it, but Elle's powers had, in addition to scattering patients and staff all over the asylum, made that impossible.

"Why don't they just do that now, then?" I asked.

"I don't know..." Mimi replied, biting her lip, "Maybe... Maybe Elle's power shorted something out? I don't know what her power does to computers..."

Mimi thought about that, "Or Tinkertech." She added.

We discovered some of the foam sprinklers had gone off, and a room was completely filled with foam, it spilled out into the hall outside, we couldn't even get inside. I could... I could sort-of tell there were people there. Not frightened, not entirely settled, but safe for now, I thought. They would be all right.

Mimi's shoulders slumped, defeated, as I poked the foam, "I don't know another way through." She said, "That was the only other stairwell I've seen."

"Hmm." I pulled my finger back, and the foam stretched like rubber, the resistance increased with the distance stretched. My first guess was some kind of aerated polymer, designed for elasticity. But it was actually a protein... this stuff was organic? "We could try to find a way around?"

"We could," Mimi said, "But we'd be doing it blind. I, um, never really moved around much down here."

I experimented a little more, the foam streamer was longer than my arm at this point. I was reminded of this cooking show and super-stretchy dough...

"Elle..." I mused, "Do you think you could open a way around it?"

Elle looked up from where she was sitting, "I... think." She blinked slowly, "Mmm... Maybe could."

-frustration simmering, she had liked being able to talk-

I nodded, leaning back on my heels so the string was supporting my weight, "I can probably figure out where we'd need the hole, if you can-" the elastic string of foam snapped, leaving me suddenly tipping over backwards, for a moment, my mind blanked in surprise. As I fell, the sense of proportion, my surroundings and my place in them snapped in. I bent my spine and rolled with the inertia, coming back to my feet in one motion.

"Whoa." I said, a little disoriented.

Mimi and Elle both blinked at me, and I blushed, "Sorry."

The roving intelligence at the edge of my awareness shifted, the feeling of blankness, of silence, moved. The oppressive quiet pressed in, and the urgency of the danger behind us prickled on the back of my neck. "Um, I guess we'd better get moving, I think he's getting closer."

Mimi nodded, and bent to take Elle's hand, I took the other.

The problem was the layout of the asylum. I'd been paying a lot of attention to the structure as we moved, each block of offices was removed from any other by what sounded like empty space. This could be anything, from maintenance access to rooms with other high-security patients. I was already wrangling two of my own, but we needed to get out of this block.

We turned the corner to find a mess at the end of the hall, desks and chairs piled in a heap. Not all of them were intact, several had been smashed and it looked like one desk had been picked up and thrown. It was smashed to splinters and put a hole in the wall.

I felt my heartbeat pick up a bit at the sight. We turned around, and doubled back, but I hesitated a step, that had us back into the silence.

The world narrowed again, and Elle' steps picked up. Somewhere nearby a crash as a door splintered. My palms started to sweat.

We picked up the pace, running now. Even with her power shut down, Elle was lagging. She didn't have any muscle to speak of- she spent too much time out in her worlds, inactive. Mimi scooped her up and carried her. We ran past a break room, with coffee splattered all over the floor and a table tipped on one side. We passed two offices, and I skidded to a stop. We were at the foyer, the one with the dead receptionist. I couldn't hear the man behind us, but my power was still being blocked, he had to be close by. I stopped, breathing hard, taunted by that distant Exit sign behind the shutter.

Think!

"Come on!" I said, plucking at Mimi's shoulder and leading her back. We turned left this time, and left the foyer behind. But the Exit nagged at me, we needed to get out there.

Think, I needed to think. One step in front of the other, keep moving, but think.

Then, miraculously, my power started to come back. He must have taken a wrong turn. I bit my lip, glancing at Mimi, then back the way we had come. It was only a moment, and that distant impression of searching, the wall of blank approaching, of powerlessness. The Exit, so close, and yet so far.

We stopped, panting and sweating, and Mimi let Elle sink gently to the floor as we panted and fought to breathe.

"Mimi, do you know if..." I gasped, "If there's... service access?"

Mimi swayed, her hands on her knees. "You holding up?" I asked Mimi.

"Yeah." Mimi said, weakly, "Yeah."

I gave her a look, "You all right?" I asked.

"Elle's not that heavy," Mimi puffed, frowning a little. Elle was still red-faced, and looked like she couldn't decide if she was offended by that or not.

"Is there any service access?" I asked again, "You said utilities come in through a hub, where would that hub be?" There couldn't be only one set of stairs, even if it was normally restricted to staff, they had to exist.

"There... might be..." Mimi said, uncertainly, "I've never been in the service access. I... think I can find the door to service access, but I've never been in there."

"That's all right, I'll figure something out."

I nudged Elle with my foot, "Come on, Elle."

Elle got to her feet, slowly. She was exhausted, but didn't complain.

We skirted the wall of silence, I could feel an echo of the Masked Man's frustration, impotence.

Mimi led us around the outside of the office block, back through the Dispensary towards the break room. Our powers faded out again.

We'd never get out of here if he kept finding us. Think. Keep thinking. I was going about this all wrong.

...How would someone used to fighting- hunting- parahumans think?

"Hang on a second."

I opened a door as we passed, quietly. Then another. Closed another. We passed a janitorial closet with contents strewn everywhere, the Masked Man must have opened it earlier. I grabbed a broom and used it to move one of the ceiling tiles overhead ajar. I flicked a light switch off in an office as we passed.

Keep him guessing. Distract him. Miss-direct him. Waste his time. We couldn't fight him, so we needed to make it so a fight never happened.

Mimi picked up on what I was doing, and we detoured through the break room, turning on the television in the process. A talk show started playing... Someone had left a phone on the counter, and I snagged it as we passed.

"Okay, Mimi." I said, panting, I concentrated on the phone. It didn't have a password...

"Where..."

"Here, I think." Mimi said. We were standing under one of those placard signs, this one also displayed 'Exit', but it was hung over an unmarked door. It was heavy and thick, with a keypad set into the wall beside it.

"Elle, how fast can you work?" I said, eyeing the door.

Elle looked at it and her face fell, "Not fast."

Damn it.

"How long would it take?" I asked Elle, aware of the wall of silence hovering just feet away.

Elle bit her lip. She was staring at the sign. I could see the fear and doubt warring with hope and desperation, and just a bit of purpose. How often was she asked to make something with her power?

"A few minutes?" Elle said slowly, "It depends, if his field touches me again I'll have to start all over."

Right, right.

I stared at the door. I wasn't a good idea though, oh no, it wasn't. "Elle, if we leave you here so you have time to make something- make a way through- I can draw him away, can you do it?"

Elle turned and stared at me, eyes so wide and Mimi gasped, "Taylor, I... I don't think..."

"Can you?" I asked again.

Elle jerked her head once, nodding. "Y-yes."

"Good."

My power flickered again, "Get started now, I'll try and draw him away. When you have enough room, go and stand on the other side, I'll come back and run through. His power will close him off behind me."

Mimi shook her head slowly, "Taylor, you're too hurt. You won't be fast enough."

I gave Mimi a firm look, "Stay with her, Mimi. She'll need you to carry her." I said, and turned, the phone was in my hand, and a plan was growing clearer as I thought about it. It still wasn't a good plan.

"Be ready, I... I'll not have a lot of time to spare."

I would not have any time to spare at all.

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I gripped the phone in my good hand, clenched tight to keep it from shaking, and thought about the layout of the offices, breakroom, and Dispensary in our little square of Alchemilla. More importantly, the halls connection them. Those were the lines of sight, and I'd need them to draw the Masked Man after me without getting too close to me. He was bigger, stronger, faster- if he got close enough to jump at me I'd probably be dead.

When the administrative block had gone into lock down and the shutters came down, what had resulted was roughly two long squares of offices set next to each other. We'd already seen most of it in our game of cat and mouse.

The foyer next to patient housing, and the computer room adjoining it, was the larger open space at the bottom of the first square, the Dispensary was at the other end, running up behind them, And the break room straddled the hallway between the squares. This irregular arrangement meant that sight-lines were easily broken, with blind corners I could hide behind.

It wasn't much, but I had to try, if Mimi and Elle were on the very edge of his field, then they would be sensed, or were about to be sensed. Elle couldn't run, and Mimi would never leave Elle behind. She'd never leave me.

The phone was a weight in my hands, I touched the clock app, and scrolled to the alarm, I turned the corner, walking through the break room, retracing our steps.

How much space did we need? His nullifying aura had never been very far away. His range was substantial, but it seemed to vary how far it actually reached.

My heart sank... I'd need to draw him pretty far.

A crash. Something rattled along the floor, and I slowed, before slowly peeking around the corner.

A hulking shape smashed a door, forcing its way into an office. I just caught a glimpse of a shoulder, leather and a metal brace. A huge hand gripped the doorframe, still stained red. There were other doors thrown open or smashed all down the hall, he was frustrated, trying to remove ways we could hide.

I hardly dared to breathe, and as slowly as I had peeked, I retreated. I moved back, turned and took the perpendicular fork away from Mimi and Elle, away from the Masked Man. I realized I was holding my breath and let it out in a gasp, and the sound frightened me almost as much as the sight of the Masked Man had.

I leaned against the wall, swallowed back the fear, and raised the phone.

I recited the series of steps, quickly visualized the route I would take, the actions. A smooth sequence of events. I took a breath. Closed my eyes... And opened them.

"This way!" I screamed, and took off, "Follow me, I know a way out!" I was running as fast as I could, headed back, towards the foyer.

Then the wall in front of me exploded, wood paneling went flying as he pushed through the wall as easily as pushing open a door and stepping into a room. Sheet rock crumbled around him and dusted his shoulders, chest, and the blood on his hands.

I caught myself, stumbling, and frantically turned to run back the way I'd come; slipped, stumbling, catching myself with my one good hand, and ran, one arm springing off the ground. Turning the corner another crash shuddered through the ground under my feet, and crushed the wall over my head, he'd swung at me, and the wall splintered.

"M-missed me!" I taunted, my voice just a squeak, hoping he would follow and dreading he would follow.

Thudding footsteps crashed, and I kept running, turned down the hall I'd seen him in first, past the broken doors, the Man crashing behind me.

I'd run before, with Mimi and Elle, I fled now. Panting, my one good arm dipping to spring off the floor when I turned a corner, the Man right behind me, just one step behind. A gust of wind ghosted the back of my neck, and my hair swept to the side- he was trying to grab my hair!

I burst into the foyer, the Man skidded with the turn, then fell to his knees, and I gained some space. Past the desk, I threw open the door to the darkened computer room before throwing myself flat on the floor and crawling for my life. He didn't even slow down, and crashed right through the glass, sending the glass in a wave across the room. He reached for a desk, and lifted it clear off the ground before throwing it, keyboards and screens and wires went flying. He picked up another and sent it end over end back into the foyer.

I crawled, arm over arm, pain with every movement, panting. I had to keep moving. The Man paused in destroying the computers, unsure, or searching, the mask swung back and forth in the dark.

In the corner, behind a desk, I watched his legs as he moved, pushing aside chairs, shifting desks. Somehow, in the confusion, and the tatters of my plan, I hadn't let go of the phone.

I let my head sink back, felt the tension in my shoulders. My shaking hands. I wished I'd come up with something better, this was stupid.

I tried not to think about it. I... I didn't want to die. But, I'd exhausted any hope I had that I could actually outrun him. I'd never been a hero, I didn't know how to do this.

But, I still had to try.

One more step, then get back as quickly as I could. I could do this.

I tapped the screen and threw the phone.

The phone slid along the floor, and the Man paused in lifting a desk.

I gathered my legs under me, steeling myself. Breath in, breath out.

The Man dropped the desk and turned, the faceless metal brace swinging across the room towards the sound.

Three, two, one.

He was almost facing away from me, just a little more...

The phone began to ring.

He swung to face the sound, stepping forward, knocking the desk in front of him aside with one arm.

I started to move, bent double, keeping my head bellow the desk tops. I heard more crashing as he threw desks and chairs. I didn't dare look. The door was hanging by on hing as I slipped out. A desk shattered on the floor to my right. I didn't stop moving, didn't straighten up. Not until I reached the hallway once more, and I broke out in a dead run. My powers faded in, around the same time, I heard the phone cut out.

I sprinted, running like I never had before. As soon as he realized I was gone, he'd be headed this way, after Mimi and Elle. Even if he didn't realize that was where I was headed too.

There was a distant crash behind me, my powers dimmed, and I went cold.

When I reached the break room the walls began to change. Carpet replaced with grass, wood paneling bled into worn stone blocks and vines. Elle was outside his power, she was working, I could only hope they were both out. Could only hope I could get out too. I didn't slow down, and ran headlong through the stone corridor, past sculpted, lichen-covered pillars slowly rising out of the ground.

Footsteps thundered on the floor, behind me, catching up.

No, not yet, I was so close.

I swung around the corner, and where the door had been, an arc of stone stood. And on the other side- Mimi hovered by the doorway. Further back, I could see Elle seated on the floor, head turned to see me, both hands raised to her mouth and eyes wide.

"Mimi! Elle!" I gasped.

"Taylor!" Mimi shouted, "Taylor, hurry!"

"It's going away!" Elle screamed. The footsteps were gaining. Elle's world was already retreating, fading, peeling back.

One step, and the grass was under my feet. Another, and it was carpet. The stone fled out in front of me, leaving the paneling. "Taylor! He's right behind you!"

Everything was pain, I was stumbling. Elle's world had reached the threshold, the door began to bleed through. Something flew from behind me, struck my back with enough force to throw me reeling, but it was a glancing blow, and I took two more steps. I tried to talk, but my tongue was thick in my mouth, I couldn't stop sobbing, it hurt so much. My arm was cradled to my chest, and I was aware of very little else. I bumped and jostled, I could barely see, my eyes were streaming with tears. The gap shrunk, but then I was through, tripping over the threshold. I fell, on my bad shoulder and the world shrank to a pinprick, and I swam back with spots floating in my vision.

I was on my back, staring at the door as Elle's world finished folded in on itself and vanished. For just a moment, I could see him, that awful metal mask and his hand raised as the door melted back into being. It shook a moment later, when he ran headlong into it, but not much. It was solid.

"Taylor! Oh no..." Mimi was crying. I didn't... I didn't know why. My mouth was dry, and my throat was raw, I wondered why she sounded so strange. I was the one whose tongue wasn't cooperating.

But my vision was darkening. The stress of the past hours, the running, the pain, the burns, it was all crashing now. I was done. We were safe and I was done. I didn't need to keep my eyes opened any more. I just... Laid there for a moment. Let myself rest, tried to stop crying. I didn't want to move, because moving meant it would hurt again. And I couldn't take more.

Mimi lifted her hand, and it... It was covered in red. I... I didn't...

"Easy, easy." Mimi hushed as she laid me down. I was not asleep. Everything flowed strangely, too slow. The world faded out, greyed. Grew distant.

I was cold.

When I emerged again, we were on the stairs, Mimi was carrying me. My vision swayed drunkenly.

I faded out.

We were at the top of the stairs.

"But. But, we have to help her, look at- at her arm! I can see the bone!"

"Elle," Mimi said, "Elle, I can't do anything. Neither of us can."

That was Elle? It sounded all wrong. Too angry... "Just- just shut up Mimi! You burned her in the first place!" said the stranger named Elle. The venom in her voice was sharp.

Mimi didn't say anything.

A blink, one moment to the next, but longer. Time flowed strangely.

"Freeze, don't move!"

"Help us! Please, help us!"

"I said freeze!"

Mimi standing over me, eyes glowing bright, with a narrow line of flame haloing her head in a flare of quick-dying light, "She's hurt, she's bleeding!"

Confusion, movement. Sound. Pain.

Faces moved above me, the light faded in and out. Eventually one stayed and hovered above me, someone fiddled with Mimi's bandages.

"Did you burn her, Mimi?" the careful, neutral tone of someone who knew the answer to their question.

Mimi mumbled her answer, I couldn't hear it.

Everything faded to white.