I'm the last into Anthem's lair, and the air is rich with the sound of my teammates arguing. It's not the Sanguine Delegation that has us flustered, but an even more sinister evil, one which has brought the entire team to our knees. The whole group falls quiet as I approach. "So..." I ask, bashfully holding up a manilla folder, "Quarter grades are up today."

"We know." Serena looks up. With a pointed glare at Evan and I, in turn, she says, "I told you I should have skipped Friday. Would have saved my ass."

"We could have died, Serena." Megan says softly.

"Alright, so you two are fine. Harper?" I turn across the room.

Harper, who has her cloak down and her dark hair lying around her face, flashes me two thumbs up from her position in a kicked-back recliner. "All As over here."

I sigh with relief, even if I'm burning with envy under the surface."Thank goodness we have you. Evan?"

Evan throws his document out onto the table, letting the paper slide out. "So apparently 'A for effort' isn't a real thing."

"You don't seem that upset about it." I note.

"Well, I was a solid B student, and now I'm more of a... fluid B student." He laughs, and middle fingers the ceiling. "See, Mr. Weiss! I totally know how phase changes work!"

"Incredible." Serena mutters, bringing her hand to her face.

"Hey, I at least got one A. Always nice to have math to fall back on."

"Are you taking Math 9 or something?" Serena asks. "Because no one else thinks of math as a class to 'fall back on'."

"What? No. I'm in the Algebra 2 class before you. Are you telling me you've never noticed me? I say 'hi' at least twice a week."

"You're what now."

Evan continues, "Math is easy. It's just a bunch of rules, and I mean, it's way easier to focus on questions than it is essays. There's none of that 'analysis' bullshit. If you know what to do, it just..." he breaks into a grin. "Holy shit, that's what you got the B in, didn't you?"

Serena's face blushes beet red.

"You two done?" I ask.

"Pretty much." Serena says, and Evan rolls his eyes hard as he can.

"Good. Congratulations to all of you for finishing your near meaningless quarterly human sacrifice to arbitrary 'standard' curriculum. Now, we have the fate of the world to contend with." Anthem snaps. "Serena. The map."

Serena pulls out the map from her last endeavor and places it on the table, tapping a point near the bottom with her finger and dragging it up. "So that's where we were and that's the control room we got into the first time. Unfortunately, we have no way of accessing those files, even though they fixed the computer after someone shoved their flaming hands in it." Serena says, and Evan spreads his arms out in protest. "We can't hack, so I say we don't even bother stopping in there."

"Where are we heading, then?" asks Harper.

I take the paper myself, tracing a line back towards the central buildings of the power plant. "If these markings mean anything, the 'base' of operations should be where they used to generate the power. I think that's where they manufacture the automatons too, so we can knock out two birds with one stone. Now, the fastest way to get there is through the port that robot dragon came from. We don't have access codes, but-" I say, and look to Harper, whose face lights up.

"They open that door. Regularly. It's how they get automatons into the front yard."

"Exactly. We don't know if there'll be people, since there's a good chance most of the process is done automatically- this is a good thing, it means we have to beat up less human beings. We should be ready for anything regardless."

Serena summons a long spear, embellished with a sharp G across the top, and smiles. Evan and Megan are just as ready to go, which leads me to draw my sword. "Let's give 'em hell," Evan says.

"Hear, hear." Harper says, drawing her cloak back around her and over her head.

We disappear.

Navigation out to the power plant itself from Anthem's drop-off point has become second nature, but we have to bust a new hole in the fence every time, which I think Evan revels in anyways. There's a busted panel on the ground, rusting from Megan's attacks and recent rain. Someone thought electric fence and barbed wire would keep us out. I don't think they've found fireproof wire yet, but when they do, then we can worry. We step through the embers and find they've left one door ajar.

"Well that's shifty." Evan says. "I'm guessing they're not trying to welcome us in."

"We could have friends on the inside. What if Mr. Gray's trying to help us?" Megan suggests.

I shake my head. "We don't know what those masks are capable of. I wouldn't count it out, but again-"

"Prepared for anything. We know." Serena finishes.

This is punctuated by Evan punching holes in the port door.

When we walk over, he says, puzzled, "It's still closed."

"You don't say." Serena mutters. "I think we're trying to be a liiiittle more conspicuous than that. Can you trip the alarms, too, while you're at it?"

"No need, they'll know we're here in a minute anyways." I say.

"All they'd need to do is put in a smoke detector." Serena places one hand on her hips, tapping the blunt end of the spear against the ground. "Don't worry, we're early."

Harper messes with her phantoms, which have begun to grow white, red-irised eyes. They have an almost gelatinous quality to the touch, but they can also fold into walls and become intangible. "Do you think I should name them?" she asks. "Seems a little silly, but I was considering it."

"Can you tell them apart?" I ask. One of the shadows, congealed to the floor, slithers around my feet. "Can they do damage like that?"

"Not yet," Harper replies. "One's faster, one's got bigger teeth."

"Ser, do you know how early we got here?" I ask.

"I never consented to this nickname." Serena complains. "But if I had to guess-"

The door begins creaking open, clunking as the overhead rolls over the indents Evan's fist left. Below, there are at least twenty walkers. Evan slams the front row, blasting the floor in front of him, and gets to work. He fights like he's been training for this, a detail which struck me in our early battles, but this time I find that there's almost a beauty to the way he fights, like he's choreographed the entire battle beforehand. Every movement is natural.

I'm still swinging this sword around like a blindfolded kid trying to hit a metal pinata with a thousand degree bat. Sharp implement. It works, just... not as well.

Megan says, "Stay back," and the whole group, Evan included, back up, fending the sharp-toothed invaders off as we retreat. She raises her hands together, summoning a swell of water, and parts her hands to blow all the walkers against the walls.

The flickering electricity rising between their malfunctioning joints briefly illuminates the tunnel ahead, which is so small we have to duck to fit in it. Evan lights his fingers up and stands at the front, and I raise my own sword, whose odd white glow joins it. It looks like a sunbeam, reaching out through the darkness. Best I can tell, it goes on for a while, which makes me nervous. The door behind us clicks, and the entire metal sheet slams down behind us.

"Don't panic." I say. "We can fight our way out if we need to."
"No one was panicking," Serena says.

"He's just being the group mom." Megan retorts, and when she catches me blushing in the light of my own sword, corrects herself, "Dad. Group dad."

"You're the group mom, Siren." Harper says.

Evan walks faster. I run to catch up with him, trying to give him the widest berth possible so I don't clock him in the head with my illuminated sword, and Evan raises his fingers upwards. There's graffiti on the ceiling, a large red ellipse with oval eyes and an open, frowning mouth. The room itself seems to be a dead end. It's larger than the tunnel, so we can stand up all the way, and there's a distant hum punctuated by the occasional thump. thump. like the heartbeast of the great machine.

"This doesn't make any sense." argues Serena.

The walls begin to groan. Evan puts his extinguished hands over his ears and spits out a stream of profanities. "Of course it had to be goddamn noise," he yells. "Does everything here have to be screaming at you all the time? Can you do menacing robots without them needing oiling?"

"I don't think it was loud noise." Serena looks up. The ceiling begins to shift, closing in from above. The face leers down at us as it grows closer, illuminated by my sword, and I swear I can see something that isn't paint glowing in its features. I thrust my weapon upwards. It bounces off harmlessly, clattering to the ground, and the whining of the ceiling grows to a shrink.

"Looks like we're running," I say. "Go!"

They take off, I take my sword, but as I look into the distance I see the walls reconfiguring in the distance to provide an opening. Are you kidding me right now. I look back, mutter my own choice words under my breath, and I can feel the metal inches above my head. A large chunk of metal descends from the ceiling right at the exit, slamming the ground, and rises again. Claustrophobia kicks in hard, adrenaline kicks in harder, and Anthem's invisible pull kicks my ass forwards. The metal slams down behind me again and I'm gone down the corridor after my teammates. The hallway begins to slam down behind us, metal pillar by metal pillar, and I leap out to find the others standing there. Megan is shaking and Serena is leaning on her pole.

"You know what? Side entrance. Maybe even back entrance. Tomorrow." I say, "Looking around... maybe Tuesday?"

"Whatever." Evan, unfazed, walks towards the exit. "Let's go home."

The others hustle to follow him. Harper looks distraught. "Is the map wrong?"

"No, I saw something. I think this whole place might be activated by those masks, or something similar. The building knows we're intruders." I respond, thinking of the passage. Was the passage taunting me?

"You don't think they plugged up the Diosite to the plant, do you?" asks Serena.

No one wants to answer that, which is as close to a resounding yes as we get. The walk back is uneventful, but Anthem's glare says enough for all of us. She doesn't say anymore than "Tuesday" before disappearing into the back rooms. I feel a thick dread deep in my chest.

It's not real, I remind myself.

"We'll do better next time."

"I hope so," Harper says. "I don't want to be a burden on any of you, but it's hard to get out of afternoon activities. I really can't have anyone looking into this. This school was my dream for a long time." She pauses. "Sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry. We'll find a way to work the schedule so it suits you better." Megan pats her on the back.

Serena sends a sly glance in Megan's general direction. When she doesn't get a reply, she lets go of the pole, which returns to nothingness, and says, "I'm heading out." Harper follows not far behind.

I knead my forehead with my right hand. The adrenaline is giving me a killer headache. Evan grabs a hold of my left hand and squeezes it. "You look like a mess."

"Oh dang," I say, voice rife with sarcasm. "I really thought I was pulling off 'bedraggled and bitten by a robot dog thing, then chased down the hallway as a huge metal room closed in on me'."

"Hey. If I can pull off 'burnt hair and desperation', there's hope for anyone."

Megan snickers. "You two look fine."

The three of us stand there for a while, overwhelmed by the urge to stay. It takes me a second to parse out that this isn't Anthem.

"So. Meeting?" asks Megan.

"Not much to say." I sigh.

"How about 'good job'?" Evan suggests. "No one died, right?"

"I guess. You two have anywhere to be?"

"Not tonight."

"No."

"I don't have much homework. Or anything, really." I admit, but it doesn't feel like admission at all. It feels like an offering. It feels like 'what's next'.

We part ways, but I find myself up late that night making small talk with them over the group chat. Evan punctuates the conversation with bad one-liners and random trivia off the Internet, while Megan tries to explain the inner workings of her social group to us confused males.I don't have much to contribute, besides the occasional pointed remark, but it's not like we're talking to get anything across to each other anyways.

It's easier to talk to them online, to make up excuses for conversation instead of sitting in dead silence in real life. Across the phone, I don't have to see their eyes and everyone gets a second to think before they say something that we'll regret later.