Cold-Cut and I follow the blue pipes, navigating by the distant orange glow that flickers like a dying firefly. The tunnels twist and branch, but we keep following those lights, trusting they lead to Switchback and Junction 12. They stay the same distance away from us, so I assume, probably correctly, that they're moving at the same pace as us. Maybe slightly slower.

  She doesn't talk much, which suits me fine. Talking wastes time and annoys me, and I'm trying to stay focused. The water level changes as we move - knee-deep in some passages, barely covering our shoes in others. When it forms a deep enough puddle that it'd be a problem to move through, she just freezes the top. Convenient.

  "You do this a lot?" I ask when she freezes a particularly forceful cascade.

  "Prison breaks?" She almost smiles. "First time."

  "No. The ice thing."

  She flexes her fingers, frost crystallizing on her fingertips. "Used to be an HVAC engineer. Before."

  I nod. Before. Everyone has a before.

  We move in silence again. The distant orange glow grows brighter as we get closer. The rumbling behind us fades, which could mean we're outpacing the flooding or the guards or the thunder. Either way, it's good.

  "Junction up ahead," Cold-Cut says after about twenty minutes of sloshing through tunnels. "Should be your Junction 12."

  The passage widens into a larger chamber with five different tunnels branching off like a star. Old mining equipment sits rusting in corners - carts, pickaxes, shovels. The ceiling is higher here, reinforced with ancient metal supports. The blue pipes converge above us, forming a sort of mechanical spiderweb.

  Switchback is there with three others - the fire-hands guy whose light we've been following, a woman with metallic skin, and a nervous-looking man who keeps glancing over his shoulder. They're huddled around a makeshift map drawn in the dust on top of an old crate.

  Switchback looks up as we enter. "You made it," he says, sounding genuinely relieved. "Good."

  "We had a deal," Cold-Cut says flatly. "Junction 12. Now I go my way."

  The fire-hands guy snorts. "Your way's flooded by now. Main drainage tunnel collapsed about ten minutes ago."

  Cold-Cut's face hardens. "You certain?"

  "Heard it myself," the metallic woman confirms. "Sounded like they blew charges."

  I keep the mantra going, but it's getting harder to maintain the anger. The immediate threat is gone. Now it's just survival. He touched Mr. Waddles. He was in my room.

  "What's the plan?" I ask Switchback, ignoring the others.

  He gestures to the dust map. "We're here," he says, pointing to a central point. "Old main junction. Five exits, but only two are viable now. East tunnel's flooded already. South's been collapsed. West leads back toward the facility."

  "That leaves north and up," the nervous man says.

  "Up," I say immediately. "We need to get to the surface."

  Switchback nods. "Up it is. There's an old ventilation shaft that should take us close to the surface. We'll still need to tunnel the last twenty feet or so."

  He looks at me. "That's where you come in, Deathgirl."

  "Just don't piss me off," I warn them.

  "Let's move," Cold-Cut says, already heading toward the upward-sloping tunnel. "I don't want to be underground when they bring in the heavy equipment."

  We follow, our small group of six moving quickly through the narrow passage. The tunnel gets tighter as we ascend, the ceiling lower. Eventually we're all hunched over, except for me. Being small has its advantages sometimes.

  After about fifteen minutes of climbing, we reach what looks like a dead end. A metal grate blocks the passage, bolted into the rock ceiling. Beyond it, a vertical shaft stretches upward, disappearing into darkness.

  "Ventilation shaft," Switchback explains. "Goes up about sixty meters, then there's a horizontal section, then another vertical that leads to an old air intake."

  "Can you melt the grate?" the nervous man asks me.

  I shake my head. "Doesn't work on metal."

  Switchback studies the grate, then looks at the metallic woman. "Flux?"

  She steps forward, placing her hands on the metal. "Everyone stand back," she warns. When we give her about 15 feet of berth, she shakes her head. "Further," she says, and it's a little funny that time.

  BANG!

  Even I have to cover my ears. My body fights me, immediately starting to look out for a gunshot without me - but no, it's just the grate getting ripped in half violently, buckled and warped like it just got thrown through a trash compactor on fast forward. "Works on pacemakers and spine braces too," she jokes, chuckling darkly to herself.

  Cool, man. Don't care. Just gotta... get my heartbeat back in working order. I'm not even bothering keeping everyone else in my periphery - my eyes physically won't peel off the immediate threat, which is Flux, until I shake myself a little bit like a dog.

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  Switchback looks up the shaft. "I'll go first," he says. Then, without warning, he simply rises into the air, floating upward as if gravity doesn't apply to him. That explains the name.

  "The rest of you, there are rungs embedded in the wall," he calls down. "They're old, so test each one before you put your weight on it."

  Fire-hands goes next, his flames providing light for those following. The metallic woman - Flux - goes after him, then the nervous man. Cold-Cut gestures for me to go before her.

  "I've got your back, kid," she says.

  I don't believe her, but I start climbing anyway. The rungs are exactly as bad as Switchback warned - rusty, some loose, others missing entirely. I test each one carefully before trusting it with my weight.

  The shaft seems endless, stretching upward into darkness punctuated only by the flickering light of fire-hands above me. My arms start to ache after a while. The backpack with Mr. Waddles bumps against my spine with each movement.

  He touched Mr. Waddles. He was in my room.

  The mantra feels hollow now. The anger is still there, but distant. I focus on climbing instead.

  Finally, I reach the top where the shaft levels out into a horizontal passage. Switchback and the others wait there, catching their breath.

  "Everyone make it?" Switchback asks as Cold-Cut pulls herself up behind me.

  "So far," she says, frost spreading from her fingers as she grips the edge of the shaft.

  The horizontal section is short, maybe thirty meters, leading to another vertical shaft. This one has no ladder or rungs at all.

  "This is the old air intake," Switchback explains. "Should lead straight to the surface. But as you can see..."

  "No ladder," the nervous man finishes, sounding more nervous than ever.

  "I can fly up," Switchback says. "But I can't carry all of you."

  "How far?" I ask, looking up. I can't see the top, just darkness.

  "About twenty meters, then a metal grate like the one below."

  I touch the wall of the shaft. It's solid rock. Perfect.

  "I can make a ramp," I say. "Spiral up along the wall."

  They all look at me.

  "You sure?" Switchback asks. "That's a lot of mass to liquefy."

  I nod. I've been saving my strength for this. "Stand back."

  They move away, giving me space. I place both hands on the wall of the shaft and focus on the power I've borrowed. The anger might be fading, but the power is still there, humming under my skin. I'll chase him until I find someone else. Like a dog. Fuck, no, I can't think about dogs. Mr. Waddles. Mr. Waddles. Mr. Waddles.

  The rock begins to soften under my touch, turning from solid to liquid in expanding circles around my hands. I push the power outward, creating a spiraling path up the wall of the shaft. The liquefied stone moves like thick syrup, reforming as I direct it into a crude ramp that winds upward.

  It's harder than I expected. My head starts to pound with the effort, but I keep pushing. The ramp continues to spiral upward, solidifying behind me as I work my way up the shaft. Sweat beads on my forehead despite the cold. I don't have the ability to push or direct anything I'm making, just make it melt, so all things considered this power is surprisingly useless except in this exact situation.

  "That's... impressive," I hear Fire-hands say behind me.

  I don't respond. I need to concentrate. The ramp keeps growing, winding higher and higher. My muscles strain with the effort of trudging through cold molten rock and carving it into a thin, narrow passageway up. Something nature could never carve.

  Finally, the ramp reaches the top of the shaft. I can see the metal grate above us, faint moonlight filtering through its bars. With one final push, I create a small platform at the top of the ramp. Everyone else follows me, like a line of army ants, marching one by one.

  "Done," I gasp, my legs suddenly wobbly. I lean against the wall, trying not to show weakness or black out. It's pretty hard. I'm pretty close to blacking out, so I try to position myself that if I do I'll get propped up against the stone.

  "You okay?" Switchback asks, appearing beside me. He must have floated up alongside my work.

  "Fine," I lie. My head is pounding and my vision swims a little, but I won't admit it.

  The others follow. Fire-hands extinguishes his flames as we get closer to the top, where moonlight provides enough illumination.

  At the top, Flux simply rips the grate out with her hands. It's wet enough and rusted enough that it just... comes off. Cool.

  "Clear," he reports after a moment. "No signs of patrols. Yet."

  One by one, we climb out into the night air. The storm has mostly passed, leaving behind wet ground and a clearing sky. Stars still shine overhead, and the faintest hint of dawn touches the eastern horizon. The air smells like pine and rain and freedom.

  We're on a forested hillside, trees providing cover. Below, in the distance, I can see the lights of the Daedalus facility and the flashing blue and red of emergency vehicles. Helicopter searchlights sweep the perimeter, but they're focused on the main complex, not here in the woods.

  "We made it," the nervous man says, sounding surprised. "We actually made it."

  "For now," Cold-Cut cautions. "They'll widen the search once they secure the facility."

  "We should split up," Flux says. "Like we planned. Better odds."

  I look down at the ground beneath my feet. It's different from the mine - soft, muddy earth mixed with pine needles and small rocks. I press my hand against it experimentally, trying to liquefy it like I did the rock below.

  It works, but barely. The mud turns a bit softer, but it's already so loose that my power hardly affects it. It feels wrong too, like trying to cut water with scissors. The anger that fueled the power is fading. It'll last until I chase someone else, but what good is it now anyway?

  I don't need it anymore anyway. Not up here.

  "I need to get to Albany," I remind Switchback. "You said you'd help."

  He looks torn, glancing north toward the Canadian border, then back at me. "I did," he admits.

  "I'm still heading south," Cold-Cut says unexpectedly. "To Saratoga. Albany's not far past that."

  "You're taking her?" Switchback asks, surprised.

  Cold-Cut shrugs. "As long as she pulls her weight,"

  "I can go alone," I say, not wanting to be a burden or a charity case.

  "You could," Cold-Cut agrees. "But your odds are better with company. Game theory, remember?"

  I don't smile.

  Switchback nods. "Good. I'd offer to take you myself, but..." He gestures northward. "I've got people waiting. Been inside too long already."

  "It's fine," I say, meaning it. I don't need him. Cold-Cut will do. If she's a liability, it's one more body to put between me and other people.

  The group splits up quickly after that. Fire-hands and Flux head northeast together. The nervous man goes northwest alone. Switchback pulls me aside before he leaves. A minute later I see another prisoner, almost at random, pop out of the path we carved. Then, a second one. They scatter into the distance when they see us.

  "Listen," he says quietly. "Your parents - they know you're coming?"

  I shake my head. "No way to tell them."

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out something small - a folded wad of cash, and a small pack of cigarettes. Where did you get that from? Do they give adults money for good behavior like they give me arts & crafts bullshit? "Take this. When you get to a town, find a payphone. Call them."

  I take the money, surprised. "Why are you helping me?"

  He looks away. "I told you. I had a kid once."

  "What happened to them?" I ask.

  His face... narrows. "How do you think I got locked up in this shithole?"

  I don't know what to say to that, so I just nod and pocket the cash.

  "Hasta la vista, Deathgirl," he says. "Cool name,"

  "Thanks," I reply mutely, and then he's gone, floating away through the trees like a ghost.

  Cold-Cut watches him go, then turns to me. "Ready to move? We should put some distance between us and this place before daylight."

  I look back at the hole we emerged from, the last connection to Daedalus. Part of me can't believe I'm free. Another part is waiting for alarms, for guards, for someone to grab me and drag me back down.

  But no one comes. Just the wind in the pines and distant helicopter rotors.

  "I'm ready," I say, turning to Cold-Cut. "Let's go."