The hardest part of leaving the group and going back out into the city on my own, besides just being alone again, was having to act like I was still in the same general situation I'd been in before. I couldn't let myself look relieved, or any less stressed. Now that I was away from the protection they'd set up, there was no way to know when or if Casura would actually start paying attention to me again. The last thing any of us wanted was for her to see me looking like the weight of the world had been plucked off my shoulders so she started paying more attention to where I'd been and what I'd been doing. The others were hiding pretty well, but we couldn't push it.

Fortunately, I'd had a fair amount of experience over these past few months when it came to hiding my real emotions about things. Of course, the weird part there was that normally I was trying to look less freaked out and panicked, not more. Not that I had to reach too far for those emotions (it wasn't like the whole situation was completely solved, after all), it was just… complicated. I had to look like nothing had changed, and I couldn't let Casura realize what we were doing. Hell, I couldn't even let her realize I had actual help now until it was too late for her to stop any of it.

Come to think of it, maybe just focusing on how difficult it was to actually pull this off well enough to convince Casura would be stressful enough to make my body language look right enough to convince Casura. But if I actually believed that, it could mean I might not look stressed enough to-- nope, I wasn't gonna keep twisting myself into knots with that particular mental cul-de-sac.

Instead, I decided to focus on getting through each moment as it came. We had a few days to go before the big event on Saturday, and a lot to get done in the meantime if we were going to pull this off. I just had to deal with each step, one at a time. At least the steps I had any control over. And I had to trust that the others could do their parts without me. Especially since I really had to stay away from them as much as possible. I was the one Casura might try to pop in to watch at any given moment, so the vast majority of this wild plan had to be set up by the rest of my team.

At least I had Izzy and Dani around to (very surreptitiously) keep me updated on things now and then. With Ryder's help (he was staying out of sight to avoid drawing Casura's attention, or giving her any way to notice that he had been around the same arcade near her hideout), and the aid of a couple Tech-Touched devices from Ten Towers, they made sure I wasn't being eavesdropped on any time they needed to let me know how things were going. So I wasn't being left completely in the dark.

In the meantime, I could put my efforts toward an important piece that only I could handle: making sure I made it out onto the field when the rings were presented on Saturday. And not just make it out there. I needed to be close to Safeguard, and he was absolutely going to be one of the top scorers. Which meant the better score I had, the closer I would be to him. I needed to get as many points as possible over the rest of the matches I was involved in. So yeah, great, more pressure.

But honestly, it wasn't that bad. I had my friends around, my team. Sure, Casura couldn't find out they were here. And she definitely couldn't even start to suspect they were helping. But they were here. We had a workable plan, and they were taking care of the grunt work on a lot of it. With all that in mind, I could definitely handle scoring points in a few matches in order to carry on my part.

And for the next day and a half, that was what I did. Before that whole thing with the others showing up, I'd had six LEAT points. Which was four off from the ten I'd needed for the lowest level of ring, the sapphire. For an emerald, I needed fifteen, and for a ruby, I needed twenty. If I wanted to be as close as possible to Safeguard to pull this off, I had to get twenty LEAT points.

I had three more matches over that day and a half, and got five points in that time. Which took me up to eleven. One more than what I needed for the lowest level of ring, so no matter what happened, I was going out there. But I still needed nine more to get as close as possible, and there was only another day and a half to get that done. It was Thursday afternoon. If I was going to be near Safeguard when this whole thing went off, I had until the end of Friday to earn those nine points. It wouldn't be the end of the world if I wasn't right next to him, but being there would sure help. I just had to figure out how to squeeze nine points out of the matches that were left.

Unfortunately, it turned out there was another problem entirely, one that the others couldn't deal with by themselves. And one that couldn't wait for Izzy and Dani to be able to pull me into a casual conversation. Instead, they used the pizza advertisement. We'd set that up before I left that first meeting with everyone. They had what looked like a spam advertisement from a pizza place back in Detroit. But hidden inside the ad were details about when and where to meet them. I just had to read every other letter or number in the first line, every third in the second, then back to every other in the third, and so on like that. Not an unbreakable code, but still. It would hopefully be enough to stop Casura as long as she wasn't paying too much attention. And if she did feel like she had reason to pay very close attention to spam ads, we were already screwed.

After deciphering the ad to get the time and address, I realized it was only about half an hour off. Whatever was going on, they really wanted me to get there asap. I was supposed to be doing some extra training out on the field while people were officially on lunch, which doubled as a way to squeeze in some exhibition stuff for anyone who stayed in the stands to watch. Part of me felt bad about abandoning those people to run off and deal with this, but it was only a very small part. The rest of me was busy panicking over what could possibly have gone wrong now.

Given the length of that particular list, I wasn't done going over it by the time I made my apologies to the staff, told them I needed to get out and clear my head, and went through the roundabout, preplanned path through the city that I was supposed to use to make sure I wasn't being tracked. They had Touched-Tech set up in secret locations to surreptitiously scan me as I passed them. I didn't know exactly where or what they were, so there was much less chance of Casura somehow getting that information off me by reading my body language or whatever.

The point was, I spent the next twenty-six minutes going up and down alleyways and over roofs in a path that had been set up to look like I was just doing one of my usual mindless sprints. And when I finally ended up at the backdoor of an old laundromat almost right on time, I still hadn't finished obsessing over the possibilities of what could've happened to make them summon me.

The door opened as soon as I dropped down from the roof, with Murphy standing on the other side. She beckoned me in, assuring me, "You're clear, there were a couple people out in the parking lot that were pretty interested in watching you leave the stadium back there, but it looks like they were just big fans. Rubi ran their details and they came up, uhh… normal or whatever."

Stepping inside so she could close the door behind me, I asked, "No bugs or anything? Not that you guys would've let me get this far if there were, so let's just pretend I didn't actually ask that question and move on to my other one, which is, why am I here right now? What went wrong?"

Instead of answering immediately, she led me through what amounted to a rear supply closet and into the other room, where the washers and dryers would have been if this place hadn't been cleaned out a long time ago. Now there were just the spots to hook them up. And Rubi, she was there too, in her Flurry costume. She was also pacing back and forth in obvious agitation, muttering what sounded like very annoyed words under her breath. Which, weirdly enough, actually made me feel a little better and stop panicking quite as much. If there had been a huge, end of the world problem, her reaction probably would've been more than just annoyed grumbling and pacing. It meant she wasn't happy about what was going on, but also wasn't totally panicking.

"Paintball," the woman started as soon as she'd finished pacing to the opposite wall and pivoted to see us standing there, "hey, we need you to… damn it, okay, so here's the deal. We've got Cup and filled her in about as much as she needs to be. She's got the basic idea of what we want the shield for. And she agreed to help Trevithick put it together and make sure it's working right. But only if…" She trailed off, glancing away with another series of low, grumbled curses.

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"Only if you're the one who talks to her about it," Murphy finished for her. It looked like these two were the only ones here. Probably because the others were all busy trying to make sure this plan of ours could actually work. "There were other conditions too. I guess Caishen took care of most of them. Or at least promised to do her best. But one of the big, nonnegotiable conditions was that Cup said she'll only help Trevithick fix the shield if you're there for part of it so she can talk to you. Believe me, we, uhh, did everything we could to make her accept something else."

From the way Rubi was grumbling, I had no doubt that was true. She'd obviously been over this for hours and couldn't find a way out of it. Now, she shook her head and focused on me. "I'm sorry, Cassidy. We've thrown it back and forth, tried offering her more than she asked for, tried threatening her, but she knows we need her help. And she knows we're on a deadline. Hell, she even figured out we can't exactly involve any more people than we already have. Caishen had to call in plenty of favors and use all the authority she has as it is just to take custody of her. She absolutely will not budge on that part. She'll only give us what we need to make it work if she gets to talk to you. She wants you to be physically there while she walks Wren through making it work. And… Wren says she might be able to do it on her own, but not in the time we have left."

There was a lot to process there, but the first thing that popped into my head (and then right out of my mouth) was a confused, "Why would she want to talk to me so badly? She can't be mad at me about exposing her brother and beating him, that's what she wanted the whole time anyway. She set him up to fail. Then she killed him herself. Is she mad because we let everyone know she made Sleeptalk so she couldn't play totally innocent? She could probably still spin that as something her brother made her do. Or something like that. Why isn't she angling for some real concessions like better prison accommodations, or never being sent to Breakwater? Why me?"

"Oh, she definitely got that stuff too," Murphy informed me. "Some of it even before we got to her. She made deals for helping them clean up Sleeptalk, and for a couple other things the other teams were dealing with." When I looked that way, she made a snorting sound. "I know, hard to believe there's even more shit going on out there, right? Think about everything we get to deal with day by day, then multiply it by all the teams in the city who apparently have their own problems. Here I thought they just sat around all day waiting for you to solve everything."

Clearing her throat pointedly, Rubi gave Murphy a little push. "I'll have you know some of us like to get some light jogging and other exercises in while we wait for Paintball to solve everything." Then she looked back at me, sobering. "Anyway, yes, Cup already has everything she wants, basically. Except for the getting out of prison part. I don't think that's gonna be on the table anytime soon. Talking to you, having you physically in the room with her while she works with Wren on the shield, is the only thing she's asking for now that we have any ability to give her."

Murphy leaned against the nearby wall as she noted, "Rubi wanted to tell her no straight up and try to get another Tech who could maybe help Wren fix the shield in time, but I said we should give you the chance to decide on your own. It, uh, only seemed fair, considering the situation."

"That's right," Rubi put in. "It's not the end of the world if we can't make her agree to help put that thing together, Cassidy. It's really not. There's other Tech-Touched out there. Caishen can pull one of them in, read them into the situation and get their help. I don't trust that bitch to do anything she promises to anyway, and there can't be any good reason she wants to talk to you. She's up to something. She can't escape or… or physically hurt you. Trust me, you'll be safe. At least, physically safe. But whatever she wants to say, whatever she wants to tell you must be bad. She's up to something, and we shouldn't play her game. I don't think you should do this. But…" A very heavy, sustained sigh escaped her. "Like Murphy said, it should be your choice."

I still couldn't understand why Cup-- Amanda Sanvers, would be so interested in talking to me. Even if she was already getting other things she wanted, why would getting me in a room with her be such a priority? Why would she care? I mean, except for all the things I'd done to piss her off, but if she really couldn't hurt me, what was the point? Unless she could hurt me. Sure, not physically, but there was a chance she might know something that could hurt me another way.

Yeah, that just made me run through a whole pile of increasingly terrifying ideas of what she might be able to say that would hurt me mentally or emotionally. Maybe she wanted to brag about something, or threaten not to help if I didn't do something else to help her? Was there anything I could do for her that I'd have to agree to? What the hell could she want from me?

Fuck, it didn't matter. Well, it did matter, and I was sure I was going to regret engaging with that bitch at all. But in the end, we needed her help. No matter what Rubi said, there wasn't time to bring in some other Tech-Touched, explain as much as we could to them (someone else would have to do the explaining part anyway, since I still couldn't risk setting off Casura's alert power by telling someone who didn't already know the truth), and then just hope they could figure out the shield in enough time to get it working. Cup built it, so she had to be the one who helped us.

All of which meant my answer was obvious before I even gave it. "I'll do it. I'll talk to her. I mean, I'll be there. But only if she accepts that I can't be there the whole time. I've got matches to get through. If she agrees that I get to leave to deal with those, then I'll let her say whatever she wants to me."

Rubi started to ask if I was sure, but stopped herself. Obviously, I wasn't sure about any of this, but we didn't have much in the way of options. If this was what it took to get that shield working so Casura would actually be sent where we wanted her to go, then fine. On the other hand, if Cup was just fucking with us and couldn't actually fix the shield properly, I was… well, I wouldn't be very happy. And my annoyed cursing wouldn't be nearly as mumbled as Rubi's had been.

Shoving those thoughts out of my head, I took a deep breath and let it out before firmly nodding. "Set it up. Tell her I'll talk to her if she agrees to all that. I'll be in the room while she's walking Wren through it. But if she's screwing with us, if she can't fix the shield right, if-- if she fucks us over, then I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure her time in prison isn't exactly the pleasant vacation she's hoping for. And she knows what I can do when I'm properly motivated."

The words sounded good, sure. But inside, all I could think was that I really hoped that whatever game Amanda was playing with this whole demanding I let her talk to me in person thing, the consequences wouldn't show themselves until after we were done with the Casura situation.

Because quite honestly, I was only prepared to deal with one amoral, megalomaniacal superpowered serial killer bitch at a time. If Amanda really was trying to pull something here, she was just gonna have to get in line.

*************

In the end, Cup did agree to the stipulation that I had to be allowed to leave to go do my matches whenever I needed to. Her only rules, at least when it came to me personally, were that I had to listen and engage with her. I wasn't allowed to ignore her, I wasn't allowed to use my black paint to keep her silent and just fulfill the letter of the agreement, and I wasn't allowed to use earplugs to stop myself from hearing her that way. I had to listen and I had to talk. She demanded a real conversation. And no, I still had absolutely no idea why she would want that from me of all people. But I agreed. What choice did I have? We needed her help, and she obviously knew it.

I also didn't know exactly what strings Caishen had pulled to take custody of her, or what she had told other people. All I could do was hope that whatever it was wouldn't ping on Casura's radar. Who knew how much attention she was actually paying to things? We had to be careful.

But when it came down to it, I just had to bite the bullet and actually be there. And to be honest, I was glad I was. Because Wren was here, and there was absolutely no way in hell we would've left her in a room alone with Amanda Sanvers. Someone else would've been here, and it might as well be me.

Here, in this case, was an old mechanic's garage in Phoenix that the others had found. It was big enough for five cars to be worked on, though there were no cars right now. Just tables and tables full of tools. They hadn't brought the shield projector itself in yet. That would happen after Amanda had her first chance to talk to me.

Wren and I were standing in the middle of the open space, waiting. Naturally, we both had our costumes on. In Wren's case, that meant she was wearing a black, form-fitting bodysuit with pink armored panels over the chest and all four limbs. Her head was covered by a black helmet with a pink visor. And, of course, she had her wing-pack. So really, I was standing and she was hovering.

In that moment, a glowing portal appeared right in front of us. Caishen came through, holding Amanda by the arm. The other woman was wearing a standard prison jumpsuit, and her hands and legs had been manacled with some sort of Touched-Tech restraints.

As soon as she saw us, Amanda's face brightened. "Well hey, don't look so dour over there, you two.

"This is gonna be so much fun."

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