The elevator dinged to indicate it had reached the desired floor, and Lee was moving forward the instant its doors parted enough for him to pass. He checked the door numbers as he made his way down the hall to verify he was moving in the correct direction, and before long, he located the door he was looking for. He had been tracking his surroundings for possible observers from the moment he had stepped off the elevator. There were no cameras, and the size of the peepholes indicated they were the standard variety that could only view what was straight ahead of them. The apartments were staggered such that no apartment’s door faced another, which meant nobody noticed when Lee leaned forward and glanced into the peep hole. By their design, the fisheye lens of a peephole didn’t allow someone on the outside to properly see the inside of an apartment. However, he had long since learned his power did not require seeing something properly.

The Lee inside the apartment carefully examined his dark surroundings while his predecessor turned and casually leaned against the door. With fluid but quiet movements born of repetition, he retrieved the bag slung across his back, withdrew the demon mask within, and secured it over his face. He just barely heard the noise of his predecessor dying in a burst of ash outside the door, but he paid that no mind. Once his visage was safe from wandering eyes, he withdrew a knife and slung the bag once more over himself. The lights were all off but for one lamp by the window, and he gave his eyes time to adapt to the almost non-existent light while listening intently for any noise. Once his eyes had adjusted, he glanced at the lone light in the room before turning the corner into the kitchenette. His eyes swiftly surveyed the kitchen—No one present. No traps—and searched the fridge—Almost empty, no perishables—before moving to cover the hallway as his successor by the lamp cleared the last of the possible corners a shooter might be lying in wait.

He checked around the corner and noted there were three doorways, all closed and the one on the right louvered, while his successor examined the outlet the lamp was plugged into and found an old-fashioned outlet timer.

Louvered door is likely a closet, thought Lee as he checked around the corner. Left room is that side of the building and likely has a window, so left room is the bedroom. Final room is likely the bathroom. It was his last thought as he died, falling to ash.

6 P.M. until 11 P.M., Lee thought as he unplugged the lamp while his predecessor died. He then moved to the corner of the hallway entrance opposite the pile of ash and checked around the corner. Louvered door is likely a closet, he thought. Left room is this side of the building and likely has a window, so left room is the bedroom. Final room is likely the bathroom.

He would have liked to have used the bedroom window instead of entering through the hallway door, but the building had a stark concrete exterior. Common for an apartment building in this area of town and, more importantly, impossible for him to scale without rappelling gear. He looked to his right, and his successor appeared atop the ashes of their predecessor. His successor looked to the bedroom door, and when his successor appeared next to it, the two Lees at the end of the hall switched their knives into a throwing position, gripping them by the blade upside down. They watched carefully for any doors opening, ready to throw in an instant, while their successor carefully, quietly twisted the knob with his off hand.

Lee released the handle and pushed the door open in one movement while securely out of sight around the corner, taking care to not give the door enough momentum to actually strike the wall. The first of his predecessors covering him down the hall died in a burst of ash, but no other response came. Before the last of his predecessors vanished, he leaned around the door frame and cleared the opposite corner, where his successor promptly appeared and cleared the furthest corner before spawning a new Lee there. Those two Lees then cleared the last of the room’s corners, and as his predecessor down the hall died, he turned to keep an eye on the closet and the bathroom. He heard another Lee appear inside the bedroom, but he spared it no mind. He had a job to do while he waited for his end to come.

Lee examined the bedside stand while his predecessors guarded the hall and checked under the bed and inside the bedroom closet to verify no attackers lied in wait. Unlit lamp and outlet timer—11 P.M. until 11:45 P.M. No phone charging cord or adapter—planned departure.

“Abundance of empty hangers,” his predecessor by the closet quietly intoned. “No sign of suitcase.”

May not own suitcase, but abundance of empty hangers supports planned departure.

He glanced at the door to the hallway before his predecessor in the hallway could vanish, and his successor appeared there before spawning three more of himself. He returned his attention to the beside table as his predecessor kneeling by the bed died and turned to ash, and he eyed the lone pieces of trash in the wire can by the table: Two crumpled up balls of paper. He retrieved them and verified the first, an envelope containing nothing, before dropping that back in as his other predecessor in the room died. The second ball of paper was a letter, which he smoothed out.

His eyebrows rose, and he said as loudly as he dared to his successor at the door, “Letter from PRT.” He then started to skim—

Lee dutifully reported the information to the latest Lee, who had stayed nearby to check the hallway closet while the other two had moved to check the bathroom together. His successor turned away from the hallway closet, and Lee started to step asi—

Lee’s predecessors at the bathroom called out it was clear, and he moved back into the bedroom, uncaring as he strode upon the remnants of his predecessors and no longer quite as concerned regarding stealth. He and his other selves had confirmed the apartment was empty. He picked up the letter that had fallen to the floor and shook off the ashes that had come to rest atop it.

Ms. Reuter,

We have attempted to reach you by phone regarding the cessation of your reports on your ward, Jake Fujiwara, but have been unable to reach you. Please be advised we will be terminating further payments to your account until such time as you meet in person with your handler at your local PRT branch, the ENE office, to discuss this violation of your agreement.

Lee folded the letter as best as possible and tucked it into his bag before turning and opening the window enough to stick his head out and look at the roof of the next building over. His successor promptly spawned his replacement on the next roof and so on, a chain of himself moving inexorably towards his destination.

Lung must know.

Ariel’s keen eyes critically examined the scene before her, considering all the possibilities and what consequences would follow from pursuing them. Things looked like they might get… messy if she went that route, but there was a degree of certainty that came from choosing it. On the other hand, that option over there guaranteed results, but where was the fun in repetition? Perhaps she could split the difference?

Yes. Yes, that will do. “I’ll take a lion size blueberry lemonade slush.”

“That’ll be $8.47, ma’am.”

She quirked her eyebrow as she dutifully handed over her credit card. “That’s highway robbery,” she remarked, “but then, I’ve no doubt your fine dining establishment purveys only the highest quality foods made from organic, homegrown ingredients.”

The teenager manning the stand looked visibly constipated as he did his best to not snicker. He coughed to buy himself time to regain his composure before replying, “Yes ma’am. The Eagle’s Roost is… Yes.” He held out her card and receipt before replying with an attempt at a straight face, “If you’ll just step to the side, our valet service will bring you your… your cocktail shortly.”

Ariel grinned widely at the attempted rejoinder. “Ooo, so fancy! I shall! I shall, good sir!” she cheerfully replied before stepping aside to let the next person in line order. She returned her keen eyes—and keen they were, having spotted that option amongst the rabble on the food stand’s board—to looking towards the amphitheater where June and Elle were still enjoying the show.

The sight of the two hugging shortly before the line had filed inside had nearly led to Ariel blowing her cover when a squee demanded—demanded!—to be released, but she had forcibly kept a lid on her excitement at what seemed to be the two teens finally admitting their feelings for each other. Instead, she had done the sensible thing and moved to acquire a celebratory treat while she waited out the end of the forty-five minute show.

Ariel frowned in confusion when she noticed a small cluster of people moving away from the vicinity of the amphitheater. It was not the presence of people that drew her attention, as there were still clumps of people moving about here and there despite being a Monday, but rather that it appeared one of the people was wearing a safari outfit. It was tough to say for sure, since they were a decent distance away, and she could only just barely make him out. His companions were practically moving colored blobs.

A cosplayer, perhaps? Can’t be Menagerie. The show only just started.

“Here’s your drink, ma’am,” the boy who took her order said as he plopped her frozen blue slush on the counter. “Enjoy.”

“I shall endeavor to do so, good sir!” Ariel replied with a smile as she retrieved her treat. Her reward in hand, she glanced back to the amphitheater and saw nobody had begun to queue for the next show yet. I think I’ll see if I can’t watch some of the show from the exit. Or maybe I’ll flirt with the person watching the exit until they’re red in the face. Entertaining either way. She took a few probing slurps of her drink and made her way over at a brisk pace, and when she arrived, her frown from earlier made a reappearance. The zoo employees who had been manning the exits earlier were no longer present. Well, I guess watching the show it is then.

She stepped into the amphitheater, and a chill ran down her spine that had nothing to do with her cold drink. The stage was a mess, a chunk of its roofing having fallen down, but the crowd was sitting calmly, with only a few chatting quietly here and there. She moved to a middle-aged man nearby and hastily asked, “Sir, what happened here?”

“The stage roof snapped and fell. Hell of a bang when it hit the stage,” he calmly explained, his voice gruff. “Menagerie almost got hit and decided he’s done working somewhere that can’t take safety seriously.”

“Why is everyone sitting so calmly?!”

“I was asked to,” he answered, and judging by his tone, he thought that ought to be answer enough.

Ariel’s eyes swept the crowd and immediately fell on an area completely devoid of people. She started to make her way there, but without warning, everyone in the crowd got up and began to leave. Some still seemed swept up in the unnatural calm, but several began to sprint and shout as they scrambled to leave. Weaker flow there, where people are calmer. Ariel braced herself and began to make her way towards where that void had been while sticking to areas where the patrons were leaving calmly to minimize the effort needed. At first glance nothing indicated why that particular location had been empty, but then she saw it. Carved into the cement floor was a message in block letters.

Whoever reads this: Call 508-746-2567, and you will be paid $500 to read this message to Faultline. Unknown Master and a Breaker called Bard have abducted Labyrinth, Meteor, and Menagerie. Master power seems to work by voice but seems to require multiple commands. Bard’s power seems to be entering someone else and boosting their strength and speed. Master is woman with long, wavy brown hair. Breaker is a man with shorter, dirty blond hair. Please send help.

Oh god.

Ariel pulled out her phone, took a picture of the message, and immediately sprinted out of the now almost completely vacant amphitheater. That was no cosplayer—that was the Menagerie! The girls will be there. She dodged around the last few stragglers and two zoo employees who had returned to their stations from wherever they had been, and she pulled up the dialer app on her phone as she raced down the path she had seen the group take.

She tapped the listing ‘17,’ and the phone rang out for two rings before picking up. “Sixteen? I wasn’t expect—”

“The two girls in Mel’s crew have been abducted by a Master,” Ariel interrupted. “One of them, Elle, managed to leave a warning message. I took a picture. Can you send it to One?”

“Sending it now,” the voice on the other end gravely replied. “I’ll alert Zero as well. They’ll want to know. Where are you now? Do you know where they are?”

“If you think that’s wise,” Ariel allowed as she reached a point where she had to turn left or right. She hesitated. Which way? I know the main lot is to the north… Just as she was about to turn left and move north, she noticed a zoo employee jogging towards her from the south, and she yelled to him, “Why are you running?”

The man abruptly stopped and said in a somewhat dazed voice, “I was looking for Menagerie, but I think I got turned around?”

Ariel was already running past him before he had even finished, saying into her phone, “I think they’re moving south, so I’m pursuing on foot. Is there another exit down there? I never grabbed a map.”

“Way ahead of you on pulling up a map, but—and maybe this is a bad time to bring this up—the Flycatcher’s internet is still pretty shit, Sixteen.”

“Tell me something I don’t know!” Ariel breathlessly threw back. “You know, like whether there’s another exit to the south?!”

“Got it. Yes, there’s another lot. I… think it’s an employee lot? I can confirm that in a minute.”

She didn’t miss the two roughly circular patches in the middle of the pathway where the pavement had been visibly disturbed. Seem to be on the right track. “Not super worried about what kind of lot it is. Are One and Zero aware?”

“Yeah, they both know. Sixteen—based on this message, you’re about to confront a dangerous Master, a guy who thought Bard was a good cape name, some Animorph motherfucker, two kidnapped people we’re sup—”

“Get to the point, Seventeen,” Ariel interjected, her breath somewhat heavy as she fished her wraparound jogging headphones out of her purse. Thank god I had these on hand.

“I just— Be careful, okay?”

“I see them!” she gasped as she turned on the headphones and shoved her phone in her pocket, the sound of Seventeen’s voice moving into the headset. “Can you—?”

“Turning it off now,” came the immediate reply of a new voice. “Good luck, Sixteen.”

Oh wow. “Thanks, One.”

Ariel yelled, and though she could not hear it herself, the handful of scattered groups of people and one or two loners all looked her way. Most important among them, the group of five she was pursuing also turned to face her. Menagerie and Bard—going by Elle’s description—looked confused, the Master looked irritated, and June and Elle both looked startled, clearly recognizing her even at a distance.

Focus.

Distance running was more her forte, so Ariel was definitely feeling winded from having sprinted the entire way over, but she did her best to shove that down and put on a fresh burst of speed. The Master was shouting something, but to Ariel, she might as well have been saying nothing. Once she had entered an acceptable range, Ariel dove into a forward roll over her left shoulder while twisting her upper body a quarter turn to the right to grab at the small of her back. She came out of the roll into a kneeling sniper cradle with her left foot forward, and though the abrupt stop to her momentum was jarring, she smoothly brought her pistol into position to fire. Bard entered his breaker form, but Ariel only had eyes for the Master, who she aimed at before squeezing out three bullets. Her right knee, planted on the ground under her, ate up the backwards recoil from the gun firing thrice in succession, and she took grim satisfaction in the look of shock on the Master’s face as one bullet carved a path straight through her heart. One of the remaining two bullets only grazed over her shoulder due to the impact making the Master reel, but the other struck closer to the center of the chest, adding to the woman’s injuries.

Ariel ignored Menagerie as his body twisted into a ball of mass and collapsed to the ground before seemingly vanishing. Instead, she kept her eyes and gun trained on Bard as his Breaker form seeped into the injured Master, and she readied herself in anticipation of the boosted Master trying to rush her.

The Master’s eyes flared with blue light, but more importantly, her two bullet wounds flared with the same light.

Fuck.

The Master was shouting something as Ariel squeezed out the remainder of her clip—twelve more bullets. Four found their way into the Master’s chest, one found its way into her neck, and one narrowly missed her forehead as she fell to her side with five new holes in her glowing. The other six melted in midair before reaching their target, and Ariel’s gun shortly met the same fate as June’s stance shifted.

“Bard’s power heals as well!” Ariel shouted as she shoved herself forward into another sprint, hoping desperately she hadn’t damaged her phone and ended the call with One and Seventeen. June’s power is ferrokinesis, she reminded herself as she tossed her purse aside, knowing it had metal buckles among other things. She tried to shed her jacket while dodging around the three metal balls June had formed out of her bullets and sent flying at her, but she wasn’t superhuman and completely failed to avoid the balls formed from her gun coming at her from behind. She tried to turn her tumble into another roll forward, but the ground had the consistency of sand instead of concrete when she hit it. Most of her speed died in an instant, and the rest was killed off when the ground rose up around her wrists and ankles before solidifying once more.

This is really disappointing, Ariel thought as she twisted her head so she was laying her face down sideways instead of nose first into the pavement. I still had a few good years left before I was retired.

A rat scurried past her face before shifting and becoming Menagerie, and Ariel said for the benefit of the recording One was undoubtedly making, “Menagerie can transform into a form as small as a rat.”

The man in safari garb reached down and plucked her headphones from her neck before hurling them far away. Gonna guess Bluetooth doesn’t work at that range. He then began patting her down for a phone, and bound as she was, Ariel was powerless to stop him, but that didn’t stop her from wiggling as much as possible away from his prying hands. After nearly half a minute of fumbling around, he finally found the phone in her pocket, which he tossed to the ground before twisting into a rhino and stomping on it.

Someone grabbed Ariel’s hair, and she yelped as her head was forcibly pulled up by her hair. The Master was glaring at her with an expression of pure, unadulterated loathing as her mouth moved a mile a minute and the points of light dotting her chest began to dim. I rather doubt the phone survived an adult rhino stepping on it, but I might as well give her a hard time anyway. Try and enjoy my last minutes—seconds—of life. “Sorry, what’s that, dearie?” Ariel drawled in the best old woman’s voice she could muster. “You’ll have to speak up. My ears just aren’t what they used to be!”

Ariel’s nose exploded with pain as the Master slammed her head into the ground, then all at once the pain vanished. One last mercy, eh, One? Thanks for that.

Her face was lifted up, and the Master begin to shout at her again while her three hostages watched from over her shoulder. Unsure what the Master was saying and really not caring when it came down to it, Ariel taunted, “Was that all you got? ‘Cause I can do this all day.”

That was apparently the wrong thing—or perhaps the very best thing—to say, as the Master began to slam Ariel’s head into the ground several more times, and despite the lack of pain, Ariel couldn’t quite ignore the feeling of her body beginning to break down on her. Her head was pulled back up once more, and she saw the horror dawn on the Master’s and hostages’ faces when they saw her.

Or more likely, what was under her skin.

Ariel smiled at Melanie’s girls as best as she could and with her last words said, “We will save you.”

[System shutdown. Thank you for your service, Clutch016]