Memory Bonds

Cooper wanted to find their cultist. Luckily, there were cameras here on the carousel. Unluckily, the area was more disorienting than he'd like to admit. Evin was right. There was the large round platform they were spinning on here, and then four more smaller ones spaced around it. This one went up five stories. The other four only went up three floors, but it was still a lot.

The mirrors on round walls meant everything was reflected endlessly back, and at odd angles. And everything was constantly in motion. The horses, zebras, orcas, and other animals on the ride were going up and down, but the floor itself was also slowly spinning. You'd have to step backwards at an awkward pace to stay in one place. It was all very impressive, and it would probably be a fun attraction, but it was a lot right now.

He tried to ignore it, and just look for a person. Luckily, there weren't many about. Maybe this was closed?

"She's between the fourth and fifth floor," Cooper said. "Going up."

"Elevator's this way." Evin pointed to the elevator doors, incredibly hard to make out since they were also mirrors.

Evin took the lead, going to the doors and asking out loud for a trip to the fifth floor.

The person they'd been chasing had been on the stairs.

"Will this be faster?" Cooper asked, as they got in.

"It can be, if you like."

That voice had come from the elevator, seemingly everywhere in the elevator.

"Argh!" Cooper put a hand to his chest and stumbled forward, closer to the middle of the space.

"Would you relax? It's just the AI," Evin snapped.

Rasha frowned. "I didn't think real AI existed."

"Oh it doesn't. They call it that to make it sound more impressive," Evin assured her.

"I resemble that remark," the elevator said.

It was maybe supposed to be a joke. But the elevator voice lacked any intonation, so whatever it was going for, Cooper couldn't tell.

The conversation ended there though. They'd reached the top floor, faster than the cult member. And, admittedly, it was less energy to take the elevator than run up four flights of stairs. Everyone piled out onto the spinning room, slightly smaller than the one they'd come from. Prepared this time, there was less stumbling around.

"Thanks," Cooper called back automatically.

"You're welcome," the elevator chirped back. Then the doors were closed.

Unfortunately, looking through the camera, he could tell more guests were coming in on the first floor. Of course. Now they showed up. Maybe they could send someone back down to warn people. . .

The door to the stairwell clanged open.

The colbber woman gasped. "You again?"

"I mean, are you surprised?" Evin asked, raising an eyebrow.

The colbber launched a hand at him, or at least, tried to. She hit a reflection instead. The mirror shattered, revealing the aging metal panel behind it.

Evin's reflection laughed. (The real Evin was still getting farther away, thanks to the rotating floor.) "Good job," he mocked.

The colbber woman glowered. She shot both hands out, lashing out at them. But she missed, hitting more walls. At least, Cooper wanted to say she missed. The reflections made things confusing, but she didn't seem to be trying very hard, and at one point she hit one of the horses. Cooper didn't see how you'd hit that unless you were trying to.

"You're not very good at this, are you?" Evin asked. At this point, he was coming back around towards her.

The colbber moved from the crouch she'd been in, standing and looking at him. The real him. Not his reflection. And she smiled. "Oh, aren't I?"

She launched away from him, towards the center of the room, her metal leg giving her more momentum. Evin looked confused. Cooper wasn't. He heard the way the top floor creaked and groaned after all the explosions. And he saw the way she stretched her hand towards a large, thick beam in the floor, near the middle of the room.

"Don't let her-!" Cooper started, trying to move after her. But she was in the lead. Her hand pressed the beam, cracks appearing in it and the floor around it. "Or do."

Less than a second later, the ground erupted where she'd touched it. Small metal shards from the wrecked center pole went flying. Support beams and wires snapped. Animals fell from their places into each other. Even if the colbber woman hadn't destroyed the whole floor, the chain reaction she set off would handle the rest. Especially since she'd weakened various spots before hitting the center.

Gaps below them widened, showing the floor below. There were a few guests down there. They screamed, adults pulling children off the animals and towards some semblance of safety.

That was sort of reassuring, but the safest places where the elevator and stairwell, and that was a little limiting.

'They're not the ones you should be worried about right now,' Moon thought at him.

And as she thought it, the ground dropped out from under Cooper. For a second, he was standing on air. Then he wasn't standing any more. He was falling. And several large hunks of metal or shards of glass were falling down after him.

But he had his rocket boots. He'd changed into them on the ship, predicting he'd need as many of his tricks and tools as he could get. Good thing he had.

Cooper shot up, and forward, avoiding falling debris.

Now the others, the others. He saw Wesles' ghost arm snake around one of the few beams still standing on this floor's skeletal frame. That left Rasha and Evin.

Rasha would be easier to carry.

He saw her falling to the left, a little further from the door than he'd been.

Cooper shot for her, extending a hand, mostly ignoring the creaking, groaning, and snapping around him. Then, when he had almost reached her, a shadow fell over him. Or rather, part of him.

The words of the future seer came to him, unbidden. He knew Moon had also thought of it, urging him to pull back. He yanked his hand away, rocket boots pushing him back a little.

A large metal plate came falling past. If he'd stayed in that spot, he'd probably have lived, but he would've lost his arm, at the very least.

But now Rasha was out of sight.

Well, as much as he wanted to kick himself, wasting even one second was a bad idea.

He looked around frantically. He didn't see Rasha, but he did see Evin , now below the fourth floor as well. (The fourth floor wasn't as completely destroyed as the fifth, but all the rubble falling on it wasn't doing good things to it.)

Cooper dropped, using his rocket boots to push him down faster than gravity would've, still keeping an eye out for falling rubble. A beam still hit his side, and it was enough he was probably bleeding, but it hadn't impaled him or ripped anything out, so he'd take it as good enough.

He grabbed Evin's collar with his completely flesh arm, then managed to put his metal hand lower down, scooping Evin up entirely just before they hit the ground.

"Well then, that was close," Cooper said.

"We're not out of danger yet," Evin reminded him.

Right. Cooper swerved and wiggled backwards, bringing them to the stairwell. It was built away from the complicated machinery the cult member had blown up, and it was still intact.

Cooper desperately looked around out the open door, and tried to take stock. He could use the cameras again. The ones that were still working, anyway.

The first two floors weren't looking quite as bad as the upper floors. All of floor five had been destroyed, and the momentum had certainly wreaked havoc on the lower levels, but the momentum weakened with each level, and the fifth floor had been a bit smaller than the other levels anyway. There were still gaps in each floor, letting broken bits of metal and glass in, but it seemed anyone on the first floor, at least, had been OK. On their floor? Dust drifted in the air, and he was pretty sure some of the stains now on the floor were blood.

Now he could kick himself. Was Rasha in the rubble? In saving himself a nasty, but survivable, injury, had he sentenced her to death? He could hear other people on the stairwell. There was a child crying, and someone promising security would be here soon. But none of them were Rasha.

'If you lost your arm, you still wouldn't have been able to help her.'

Moon said that, but he could tell she was also nervous. And guilty. (She had, after all, asked him to save himself.)

"There's our girl," Evin said, pointing up.

Cooper looked up above, through the gaps in the ceiling. He could still see Wesles on a beam near the top. And he still had his magic arm out, gripping Rasha beside him.

Cooper sighed, shoulders slumping just slightly in relief.

Then he looked at a camera on the first floor again. It wasn't the best angle, but he could tell someone was struggling with a door knob on the other side of the room, opposite the stairs. When she stepped back to kick the door, he could confirm it was indeed the cultist. Cooper glared. He was getting tired of their little chase.