Well, it's no Hero Suit, but things could be worse. Marie silently lamented as she pulled at the neckline of the heavy sweater she was wearing. It was thick enough to somewhat mimic the protection Hero Jacket, but it wasn't exactly a comfortable thing to be running around in. The rest of the make-shift hero suit wasn't exactly a pretty sight; worn safety gloves with the fingers cut off, turf pants that hadn't been used in years, the mask from her civilian disguise, and an ear piece Callie had somehow paired with her own headset. Luckily, her runners hadn't been touched, and the spare ink tank was still there, so she wasn't completely left out to dry.

They were currently sprinting through the valley, as fast as they could. Time was off the essence. Agent Three was somewhere underground, and in danger. That was why she spent so little time bodging her suit together, every second mattered here.

"Where'd you say he was?" Marie shouted towards her cousin.

"His hideout is in the 12-Dome!" Callie yelled back.

"Hideout? I thought you said you knew where he was!"

"He didn't really mark his current location on the map, so we're going to try and intercept him there!"

That makes sense. She didn't respond verbally, field protocol was to limit speaking as much as possible. They charged forward at a breakneck pace, only slowing when they had to take a corner. Well, Marie had to slow down, Callie always hooked her claws into the side of the canyon and used that to swing herself around the edge.

They were headed for the 'chunk' dome, an abandoned dome that consisted of large vertical building 'chunks,' rather than a sprawling city. Countless structural issues developed over the millennia the domes had been standing, making it more dangerous than the materials were worth for most Octavian activities. It made for a reliably safe entry point, so long as they watched their step.

The path was not an easy one. The edges of the canyon were thin, at times barely wide enough for them to stand on. They often had to jump over gaps, take the aforementioned sharp corners, or, like they were about to, abandon the path entirely.

With a sharp turn left, Marie vaulted off the edge of the strata, letting her momentum carry her across the gap. She landed on the opposite slope with a grunt, only pausing for half a second before she started sliding downwards. Beside her, Callie laughed as they slid, clearly enjoying the thrill more than Marie was. Reaching level ground didn't slow them any, as they continued to ride their momentum back into a sprint.

"How did you figure out where his hideout is?" Marie asked between measured breaths.

"He arranged the maps, all of the maps, on the table, right? He updated every single one too, if he hadn't outright redrawn it. They're like, really good."

"Better than mine?"

"Better than mine." Callie emphasized. "Throughout the mega-map, there were a lot of routes he had mapped out. There were several points that intercepted many of those routes, but this one was the only one that didn't have a big X beside it."

"Were his other hideouts found or something?"

"No idea. All I know is this is the only one that wasn't crossed out." Callie suddenly charged forward, putting a few steps ahead.

Marie slowed her jog, letting her cousin lead. Without warning, Callie suddenly switched forms, dragging her swim form along the ground and killing nearly all her momentum. The moment she was stationary, Callie reformed with her feet firmly planted on the ground, and the Hero Roller held high above her head. Yellow ink flew from the brush as she swung it downwards, coating the inside of a small, practically unnoticeable crevice in the canyon's wall. Before the ink had even finished landing, Callie was swapping forms and jumping towards the crevice, clearing the space just as Marie stopped in front of it.

Once inside, Marie could already see Callie jumping towards the opening on top of the kettle they had hidden in there. As her cousin settled onto the top in swim form, Marie fed ink into the kettle's intake, causing the lid to clamp shut a moment later. She ducked against the back and covered her ears before the deafening shriek could echo in the tiny cave.

How is everything falling apart so fast? Gramps is gone, the new agent is lost somewhere in the domes, and I don't even have my damn Hero Suit! Marie's short reflection was interrupted by the clink of the kettle's lid opening. With a practiced motion, Marie put her hand against the intake and fed it ink as she flipped herself up and into the kettle's top, shifting forms the moment she'd given it enough. The lid slammed shut above her a moment later, and she was launched down the inkline after her cousin.

Protocol required Callie enter any situation first, since she was the close-combat specialist, and every kettle let out into an enclosed space. It hurt her a tiny fraction every time Marie had to sit in place while her cousin potentially risked her life, but there was no better way to do things. For that reason, Marie jumped out of the ink rail with the Hero Charger already primed, intently aiming it around the room in case something was happening.

Luckily, the room was empty, so Marie quickly left. She did a quick sweep of the perimeter, and upon seeing no soldiers, turned back to find Callie priming the respawner by the kettle building. Looking at it, it was hard to tell if the thing was even functional, but Marie had spent enough hours staring into the intricacies of the machine, wrench in hand, to know better. Tiny things like that were so critical to maintaining their operation. Making sure their trail couldn't be tracked was probably the most important thing they could do.

When the respawner was online, Marie synced with it, causing a light to flash green on the side of her charger. After a nod from Callie, they both turned and walked towards the edge of the platform they were on. A half-dozen square "chunks" of building rose to meet them, some taller or shorter than the one they were standing on. Their focus was on the opposite wall, or really, the lack thereof, as a very large section of it had been broken away. Marie shot the ink ready in her charger at the ground, creating a puddle wide enough for them to both swim in. With their sights set on the gap in the wall, they both dropped into swim form and began charging superjumps. A few seconds to build the power up, and a few to aim, and they were off, sailing over dilapidated buildings and into the darkness of the caves.

They landed on stiff legs, locking in place for a moment as they shook out the shock of landing. Earlier in her agent career, Marie would have made her tentacles glow to orient herself in the darkness. That was a crucial habit to break, because even a soft glow could reveal her position in the darkness. Instead, Marie stepped forward, tentatively feeling in front of her for the cave's wall.

"Here," she whispered when she found it. A moment later, Callie bumped into her left side. They slowly moved along the wall in opposing directions, feeling for a mark they had carved into the cave wall years ago. Over the countless trips through the caves, they'd probably made a hundred just like it, little directions that only they could read to orient them in the dark.

"Here!" Callie whispered from a small way behind her.

Marie quickly turned and caught up, playfully mirroring the bump from a moment ago. "Alright, if you said he's in the 12-dome, that means there's six others between here and there. Three each."

"What? Mar, no, we need to get there ASAP! He could be waiting there right now!"

"Look, saving that idiot is our number one priority, but we don't know what's changed down here. If they went as far as attacking gramps, there's a lot we don't know."

She could hear Callie rolling her hands together, clearly unhappy with the idea of detouring. C'mon Cal, we have to. (She must be really worried about him)

"We need to gather information," Marie pushed. "At the very least, let's check out the encampments we pass."

"Ok..." Callie reluctantly agreed. "To get our bearings."

"To get our bearings." Marie confirmed. "Let's go."

Using the curve of the wall to guide them, they set off at a breakneck sprint through the caves. Such speed was necessary if they wanted to get anything done within a reasonable time. While the domes were already quite large on their own, the distance around them was larger, and the distance between each one was massive. Even with the in-built tunnels, it was a ten minute walk at absolute shortest, and they were running through the caves around the tunnels, rather than taking the straight shot paths. This'll add 40k steps to my total, easy. (If I'd have known how much of this job was actually just running, I might have reconsidered.)

They didn't slow for anything, save for the sharp turns they had learned about the hard way, and sneaking around the outpost on their route. Outposts weren't anything fancy, just Octavian operations built into the caves rather than inside the domes. An abandoned mining project, underground lakes, mushroom farms, and a few training courses were about the only operations that had any presence, and even then, the only real threat was having to slow down so the handful of soldiers at any given stop didn't hear them. By far the most interesting thing about the outposts were the fact that they were always built out of a crack in the domes, like the one they had exited from earlier. The only difference was the openings with an outpost were cracked into the side of operational domes. They were good for getting into the domes, but not for sneaking inside, so they didn't use them often.

Before long, they approached the first encampment. They felt along the metal shell until finfing the ladder Marie had carved into it years ago. She knocked twice against the metal to signal it's location to Callie, and started climbing up until the slope was soft enough she could stand.

While many of the domes had suffered cracks in their sides over the ten thousand years they existed, nearly every single one had sustained some damage to the top, assuming it wasn't built directly into the roof of the cave. In most places, it wasn't enough to break through, but it did create a point weak enough for a certain squid with a blowtorch and a lot of free time to finish the job. With Callie's help, she pulled a large piece of sheet metal out of a dent, revealing a rectangular hole in the roof of the dome, about the size of a large TV screen. In fact, just below the hole was the hollowed out shell of one of the many thousands of TVs lining the inside of the domes, scraped away to give them an unnoticeable viewing window into the inside.

"Think we're going to find anything interesting?" Callie asked as they both settled into position.

"I don't, nnm—" Marie jerked her head back as her jank radio caused a burst of static. Judging by Callie's flinch, it seemed to be caused by their headsets interfering.

"Sorry! Let me scoot over some" Callie wriggled to the side, and then looked down into the dome.

"Thanks. Anyway, I don't think we're going to see anything revolutionary. Probably just a lot of training."

Callie was silent for several seconds. "Uh... you might want to..."

"What?" Marie snapped her attention downwards.

Hundreds of soldiers swarmed across the encampment below. Commanders dashed around, barking orders to barely maintain a semblance of order. Entire splatoons of soldiers collided in passing because the spaces weren't large enough to handle the sheer volume of troops moving around. Dozens of smaller units ran through the gaps with their weapons drawn. Bombs were being slapped into any empty hand that could hold them. Portable respawners were set up in two massive lines down the center of the dome, barely not being trampled by the mob.

"What the fuck?" Marie stared down in bewildered horror. "Is that the Wasabi charger squad?!" Six soldiers, all with distinctive green headbands were set up aiming charges at one of the connecting tunnels.

"The roller squad is on the other tunnel... what is—"

"THERE!" Marie pointed towards the center. A trail of soldiers was being desperately herded into the central command building. They didn't carry weapons, but zapfish, Eight in total.

"Zapfish... he wasn't joking." Callie distantly noted.

"That solves that mystery... but what is happening down there? I—" She cut herself off when she spotted something else "Are they bolting the infantry to the ground?"

"Doesn't that defeat the point of 'mobile' infantry?" Callie joked.

Marie gave her a flat look and an eye roll, which only made Callie laugh.

Before they could banter anymore, a sudden hush fell over the dome below. Activity came to a halt almost as in sync, all the soldiers stopped where they were and aimed their weapons. Everyone of the soldiers leaned forward as the tension rose. Marie found herself leaning in with them trying to figure out what was going on.

And then nothing happened.

Well, not nothing. The command center was suddenly possessed by an even more frenzied swarm of action. Commanders sprinted from the building at full speed, shouting orders loud enough that Marie could hear the echo. Squads took off running, the snipers all left their positions, and the artillery specialists began rapidly deconstructing the weapons they had just built. Everyone was running for the tunnel the snipers had been aiming at; the one that led closer to Three's hideout.

"What...?" Callie looked up with confusion written across her face.

"We need to move." They found him. They found him and we didn't make it on time. Marie shot to her feet, nearly losing her balance. They got him and It's my fault I made us detour instead of going right to him—

"MARIE!" Callie caught her by the shoulders before she could fall over. "Breathe!"

Marie halfheartedly tried to lunge towards the ladder. "Have to! Get to him! We—"

"No!" Callie pulled back, forcing Marie to stay in place. "No spiraling in the field! Take a deep breath before I put you in a headlock!"

Finally, Marie relented, sucking in a deep breath. And another. And a third. Her hearts slowed and the world came back into focus. "Thanks..."

"Don't mention it. There's no telling what happened, but we do need to move. Let's go!" Callie quickly threw the cover over the viewing window, and then led Marie towards the ladder.

Stupid. Losing control of myself in the middle of the field. How much more reckless could I be? They took off running the moment they hit the ground. There were still four domes between them and Three's supposed hideout, so there was a lot of ground to cover. They both agreed they couldn't afford any major slowdowns, only taking a short break at the other encampment for Callie to climb up and peek in the window they'd made on it. Nothing but soldiers running through it, along the same parallel path they were.

The next dome didn't have a window on top for them to look through, so they'd have to check inside manually. This time, Marie took the lead as they got close. She leapt forward as she drew the Hero Charger off her back, rolling over her shoulder, until she was aiming at a small crack in the side of the dome, no taller than her knees. She pulled the trigger in; it clicked into place, causing the ink in its' small tank to begin pressurizing. A faint vibration was the only indication the shot was prepared, but Marie was ready for it. She pulled the trigger the rest of the way back, causing the pressurized ink to fire out in a straight line, painting the entire inside of the crack.

Callie was already changing forms and jumping in while Marie scrambled back to her feet, before immediately diving in herself. It took only a moment to squeeze between the two TVs that hid their entrance before Marie was through, charging another shot. Immediately before them was an abandoned three story concrete building, which they used as a lookout spot to survey the dome. Callie had just finished painting a line halfway up the side of the building, which Marie quickly finished with a well-placed shot.

Once they had swum up to the top, they set up to look over the space. It was another one of the oddly designed domes, this one being cut into six spaces, alternating between city, and emptiness. A large circular platform in the center connected the three slices. They called it "the radioactive dome" because of the odd shape of the land.

They could tell immediately that the street was buzzing with activity. In the center, large groups of octoling soldiers all swarmed towards—

"THERE! HE'S THERE!" Callie shouted, grabbing Marie's arm and pointing in between all the soldiers. Amidst all the chaos, a lone inkling, clad in a reflective yellow vest, ran for his life. His movements were erratic, he jumped to the side and rolled seemingly at random, unexpectedly doubling back only to surge forward again. It was nearly impossible to track him, which likely meant that the chargers aiming at him were having just as much difficulty. After an agonizing twenty seconds, he finally dove behind cover, letting them breathe a sigh of relief.

"Cal, we need to go! He's—" The words died in Marie's throat as she watched him SUPERJUMP BACK OUT INTO THE ENEMIES.

"AAAH!" Neither of them could say a word, watching in shock as Agent Three sailed back into the field of octolings. He swapped forms mid air, dropping a pair of bombs onto the cluster of soldiers below him, utterly destabilizing their ranks. Marie felt like her mind skipped a beat when Three charged forward the moment after he landed from a super jump, Hero Shot painting the ground in front of him.

"Is he?" Callie tried to start. They were both too entranced by the display to follow through with the thought.

Agent Three tore through the remaining soldiers - the bombs having left them completely disoriented. Just as the soldiers seemed to get their bearings, he superjumped again, landing on the other side of the fight with the same lack of landing lag that threw Marie for a loop a moment ago. Ok, so I know I wasn't just seeing things.

Two more soldiers were splatted, and Three superjumped a THIRD time. None of the soldiers could keep their eyes on him, they couldn't see him to fight back. When only two soldiers were left standing, Agent Three superjumped out of the center, towards the section Callie and Marie were on.

"He's coming this way!" Callie shouted, breaking Marie from her stupor. "We can get down there and help him!"

"I..." We need to help him! (He has half the Octavian army breathing down his neck! Helping would be suicide!)

"Mar, we don't have time to wait!" Callie cried as she swung herself over the building's edge.

"Callie! I— MMmm. Ok. I hope you have some kind of plan! I'll try and cover you from up here." Marie looked over the city's skyline for a rooftop close enough she could help Callie from, while not sticking herself in the middle of the action. Once she found one suitable enough, she prepared to superjump to it. We'll just have to hope we can help him get out before things go wrong.

Well, a blind ground charge might not be the best way to do things, but I can make this work.

It'd been months since Callie had really gotten to run, so today was already a really good day. It had been even longer since she got the chance to really do anything with her roller - it'd be to say she wasn't a little excited. She straightened her face, wiping away the small smile she knew was there. This is a serious thing! No place for pride here. Keep your head in the game Cal, and maybe you can brag to the kid later. The last thing she needed was the new agent thinking she was some kind of fight-addicted maniac.

An inkstrike in the distance gave her a target to run towards. She tried her best to keep to alleyways and shadows, not entirely abandoning stealth. More just... placing it to the side for now.

She didn't need to go much further to find the commotion. Another inkstrike impacted two blocks from her. Now that she was next to the action, running through the streets was far more risk than it was worth. She carefully flicked her roller at the side of a building, making a line to swim up. From her new vantage, it was a bit easier to see what was happening, and oh my cod what is happening.

He was doing it again! Agent Three landed from another superjump without taking time to recover. Just straight into a sprint, flinging a hand out behind him, throwing three bo—THREE BOMBS?? AT ONCE?? The spread of bombs did wonders though, keeping the mass of soldiers back, making enough room for him to superjump away. How did he... what did he...? Was he wearing a harness with a zapfish in it?

Callie peered down in the street, watching as the remaining soldiers gave chase, but she could see their efforts quickly growing half-hearted. A few of them even stopped altogether and just sat down on the ground, looking incredibly tired.

"What the FUCK?" Marie asked over the radio, her voice laced with astonishment.

"You saw that too?"

"He he launched himself over the gap??"

"He WHAT?"

"YEAH. Wait, if that's now what you saw-- ok you know what never mind." She could hear Marie deliberately take several deep breaths. "Point is, he's not on our slice anymore."

I think we've been underestimating him. Callie's spare hand bounced in the air while she thought. "Ok. Change of plans. You try to stay on him outside the domes. Keep an eye on his movements, and keep me updated."

"What? Aren't we going to—"

"We won't catch him. Not by running after him." Callie tapped her roller against the ground, creating a small puddle of ink at her feet. After taking a few seconds to aim, Callie superjumped back towards their entrance, landing a few blocks away. Marie sailed overhead, landing much closer to the exit. That's good, she's gotta keep up with him somehow. A minute later, she quickly swapped her color back to yellow and dove into the gap without slowing.

Now outside, she took just a moment to reform, and steadied herself with a deep breath. She gingerly swung her roller forward, planting it on the ground in front of her as she prepared to run. This wasn't sprinting around the domes like she had been. This was different. Marie wasn't with her time.

Callie wasn't holding back before, moreso she hadn't been pushing herself. At all. Between herself and Marie, Callie was by far the more physically trained of the two. Not to say Marie's a slacker! They were both far more capable than most other people, Callie was just more movement oriented. Besides, we're a combat duo! We've spent years learning how each other fights so we can offer nearly-perfect cover!

But Callie knew how strong she really was. She knew she could be doing a lot more than just being Marie's frontline. Guilt always immediately followed the frustration she felt whenever she had to limit herself for the sake of her cousin. It's not right for me to be mad about that. It's not her fault I'm this strong and she isn't. She had gotten a good handle of these feelings over the years. It didn't matter how annoyed, stunted, or frustrated she was, especially when what she was doing didn't need her kind of power to begin with.

But right now, out here, alone, in the dark? This needed her best. A wicked grin pulled itself across her face as Callie started to run.

Moving with a roller is different. It's not just another weapon, an external tool. The roller becomes an extension of your senses. With it, every bump and divot in the ground became known well before your feet could ever find them. More than that, the roller becomes an extension of you, another limb you can lean on to support yourself. You trust the roller the same as you trust your legs, in turn, you lean on the roller to help you go faster.

Marie called it 'a perpetual breakneck-paced stumble' with the roller being 'the only thing keeping her away from a mouthful of dirt.' Callie called it fun. Gosh, it feels so nice to be away from everything. Just her, out in the caves, going all out, it was exhilarating!

The nature of the caves being, well, caves, meant that there was very little light to see by. To make matters worse, Callie wasn't stopping to feel the walls for their guide markings, meaning she was navigating entirely by memory and intuition. So far neither had let her down. Running around the domes like this wasn't a common thing, as much as she cherished the few times she got to do so. Still, that lack of practice meant navigation took a lot of thought, tracing her route over the mental maps she had in the back of her brain. Lucky her that running cleared her head, and that was all she had to do right now.

That, and listen to Marie. "Ok, I skipped the Ag dome entirely, and I'm right at the hillside encampment. That was the right call. This kid is FAST." He cleared an entire ag dome that fast?

Callie didn't respond, and Marie didn't expect her too. Keeping her breathing steady was a bigger priority when she was running like this. Her footsteps echoed through the cave. Like usual, Callie opted for speed and power above all if given the chance. Abandoning stealth like this was a risky maneuver, but with the military as scrambled as it was, and a decent mental map fresh in her mind, the risk was worth it. Her roller ran dry, as she wasn't supplying it with any ink. With the amount of ground she was covering, her tank would be empty at the halfway mark, and there'd be a massive line marking her exact trail. Not exactly a good thing to leave behind, even if I'm not trying to be subtle.

"There's practically no one in there!" Marie sputtered over the line. "Agent Three is absolutely tearing through the— wh— He just made a mortar crush itself by superjumping into its side!"

Callie smirked to herself. Not many things could leave Marie this bewildered. So that's why they were bolting them down. I have to say, this kid is pretty sharp. Just how many times has he done this for them to start securing them the moment he's near?

"I think he's broken them. There's just a reckless charge straight for him— wait. No. That's just one soldier, and I guess her commander yelling to back down? Either way it's not looking good for them."

Callie managed a grunt in response. She had to admit, after seeing (and hearing about) him in action, the kid's plan was kind of solid. Somehow, he drew the bulk of their forces to one area, then snatched a zapfish from somewhere else, outmaneuvered whatever soldiers were in the area, outran the surrounding confused soldiers in the neighboring domes, and made it to one of the hubs where he could vanish down any number of tunnels. Maybe we're underestimating this kid. First the map thing, and now this. I only saw him for a moment, but it seems like he's a pretty competent fighter too, if a little unorthodox.

Maybe he'll be able to keep up with me.

"He's about to start towards-- cod alive I forgot this kid won't hesitate to blast himself across a dome in broad daylight. Yeah, ok. He's entering the tunnel to the hub. It's going to take me a few minutes to catch up to you guys, even at a sprint. There's no doubt in my mind he's hurling himself down that space as fast as he can." Marie grunted as she put the cover back on their window. "I'll catch up with you as soon as possible."

Callie nodded, not that Marie could see it. She was coming up on her destination, and she didn't intend to slow down. The crack in this dome was wide enough for her to run through, the only issue is the screens blocking it on the other end. She'd need to swap forms and slip through the gap underneath them. Callie carefully raised the roller off the ground, her speed decreasing as she had to adjust her balance. She carefully maneuvered it until it was directly out in front of her, like a lance. The muscles in her arms burned with glee as she held the heavy roller before her, unrelenting in her charge. A second before the roller would have impacted the screens, she jumped and changed form mid air, riding her momentum into the crack, and straight through the gap.

She reformed before hitting the ground, rolling to keep her speed. Her roller was on her back now, the spaces in this dome were too tight to reliably utilize its full potential. Like before, she opted for speed over stealth here, as this dome was properly abandoned. It was on the more normal side, with the structures divided into twelve sections rather than the usual four of a city-like dome. However, four of those sections were completely missing, along with the dome walls surrounding them. A massive cave in from forever ago caused it to break off entirely, essentially condemning the entire place to permanent structural instability.

Swerving through the streets of the dome was an... odd experience. Despite how long she'd been an agent, Callie hadn't really spent much time inside the domes. She was always on the outside, or sneaking around the edge, looking at what the soldiers were up too. She never got to admire the domes for what they were. Maybe someday I'll get that chance.

For now though, she had a squid to catch. She finally came to a stop outside a seemingly normal building. There wasn't anything indicating it was more than it seemed, save for a marking on the map back in Cuttlefish Cabin. So this is your spot huh? Initially, she was going to walk straight through the front door, but paused at the last second. He might see the open door and think I'm an enemy, better find a different way in. Callie looked around the building, pausing when she spotted a window on the opposite side of the house from the front door.

She flicked a careful, thin line of ink up to it, which she swam up moments later. She reformed with one hand poorly grabbing the shallow windowsill, while the other tried to shove the window open. Strangely, it didn't budge. Callie gasped in surprise as her grip slipped, sending her falling towards the ground. She hit the ground with a grunt, quickly scrambling to her feet.

Without any thought, she aggressively slammed her roller against the ground, creating a large puddle of yellow ink for her to land in, if she slips again. It took several more tries, but eventually she managed to force the window open enough to get an arm through; which gave her enough leverage to shove the damn thing a bit more open so she could fit her swim form through.

Rather than the quick drop to the floor she expected, she found herself tangled in some kind of white sheet. It took an infuriating amount of scrambling, and several form shifts for her to finally dislodge enough of the sheet for it to dump her flat on her stomach against the room's cold floor.

Callie simply laid there for a moment, holding in the sudden frustration she found herself riddled with. After several long seconds, she let out a slow breath, and opened her eyes.

"I'm in his hideout." Callie whispered for Marie to hear. "Going to keep quiet for now."

Marie took a few deep breaths before she spoke. "Got it, I'll let you know when I'm close."

She set up, idly rubbing at her stomach. Above her, she could see the ripped sheet that had caught her before she could fully enter. As annoying as that was, It was kind of a smart idea. If someone tried to jump him in here, he'd have more than enough time to react. She slowly stood, rolling her shoulder to try and work the sudden soreness out of her torso. Now, let's take a look at what you've got set up in here. She was expecting like, a chair, maybe a book or something. It was just a temporary hideout after all.

Instead, she saw a sleeping bag and pillow surrounded by a mountain of granola bar wrappers, jugs of water and piles of bomb frames. A hastily constructed pen had seven zapfish lazily toddling about inside it. Every other window she could see was similarly covered. Above the front door, a cluster of burst bombs sat tied to a rope, ready to swing towards the opening.

Oh my cod... has he been staying down in the domes? She carefully propped her roller on the ground to avoid splattering ink, and stepped forward. How long has he been down here?

"I'm in the dome," Marie chimed in her ears. "I'll be there in just a moment."

A few of the zapfish looked up at her with curious glances. They all seem to be in good health, they've got food and water. She turned her attention to the sleeping area. It really was a sorry sight, with all the wrappers haphazardly pushed into a pile. I can't even think about eating that much granola. Eugh. It didn't seem like his rest was all that restful either, judging by the crumpled state the sleeping bag was in.

Half hidden under the piles of bombs was a stack of papers. Callie bent closer for a better look. She could only see the top one, but the detailed map of some part of a dome told her all she needed to know.

One of the zapfish made a surprised, but happy sounding squeak, drawing Callie's attention to it.

And then she felt the barrel of a weapon press into the small of her back. A cold voice whispered to her in accented octarian, "Drop the roller. Now."