We were on the point of being sensible and leaving when Nigel spoke up. I thought that desk was just bioengineered but Nigel said it was alive, and was a creature like him, which was why it could do the whole holographic display thing. He said smashing it up would be a mercy. And then there was the fact that we kind of knew what had happened to Mr Stodgely now, but we still didn't know where he was, and Mrs Wilkins the Boss probably knew...
I think she might have locked the door after we left but it didn't make a difference because I didn't bother opening it, I just ran back in with wood splintering around me. She pushed a button on her desk, but I ran over and picked her up to hold her still, and Billy made a hammer out of Nigel's energy stuff and used it to smash the desk. Balae asked her what happened to the people she'd been selling, and was really polite about it, which probably scared her even more. She gave us an address.
We let her know there'd be trouble if she told anyone about this, and then Balae tied her up with the curtains and I shoved her in the stationary cupboard. I gave the desk one more thump on the way out, just to make sure. "This one's for you, Nigel," I told him. Billy picked up the envelope of money we'd been delivering. It looked like it was those special Asterion notes
We had to get to the address fast, so Balae stole us a car. I was hoping she'd pick a Chelsea tractor or something, but it turns out she's been influenced by all those classic car books she's been reading in the library, and she got us a Beetle. It actually had eyelashes on its headlights. Billy got in the back because we weren't sure I'd fit.
Balae had a look at the place when we arrived and didn't think it looked good. It was an Asterion facility and would probably be crawling with Peacekeepers. We were going to need to help. We could call Faustus, which would mean another riot, or Ariadne, who might have something more subtle to offer. We went with subtle. I made the call, which was no fun as whoever was there was just silent most of the time. I tried not to tell them any more than I had to.
They came through though. There was an entrance in the sewers and they'd show us the way. We climbed down through a manhole and there was a spider bot waiting for us. I don't know how it got there that fast. It did the job though. We got into the facility through the sewers. The bot flashed a message to tell us we had thirty minutes to get in and out, and off we went.
We had a look around and Balae found some hazmat suits. Good enough to make people overlook us providing they didn't look too closely. I scouted out one of the doors up ahead and spotted another of those mantaray cameras. This time Billy and Nigel came through with the obscuring smoke and we crept our way past. Then we just had to walk confidently as we walked down the corridor. Which was harder than it sounds, because we had to look in each room and there were all these tanks with people in who'd been altered by the Asterions and there was nothing we could do for them.
Then Billy recognised Mr Stodgely in one of the tanks, even though they'd already started altering him. He managed to make the real staff members go away, but there was still a Peacekeeper in the room with him. A really big one. Balae had an idea though. She burst out of the hazmat suit, and made herself flexible to wrap around him, and heavy to weigh him down. I grabbed his legs to stop him going anywhere while she got in position, then left her to it to go and rip the tank off the wall. Billy grabbed some breathing equipment that Mr Stodgely was going to need, and Balae did something to the Peacekeeper to slow him down just enough for us to escape.
The tank was heavy, but I didn't care. I was so angry with everything I'd seen in that place, I wasn't letting anything slow me down.
There was no way we were going to fit the whole tank in the Beetle, so I smashed it open and Billy fitted the breathing equipment. This was the first time we'd got a proper look at him up close, and it was awful. He had gills on his neck, and some kind of weird circular mouth full of teeth. And now he was awake, and making some kind of noise that was probably supposed to be screaming, except he didn't have enough of his old mouth left for screaming.
I think Billy and Balae had some kind of fight, but all I could think about was how this was the same thing that had happened to me, except even worse, because at least I could still pass for human. We were too late to save him. We were too late to save any of the others. And what was the point of being a hero if I couldn't even save one person.
Then Billy came back, and I didn't want him to see me cry, but the tears were coming faster than I could wipe them away. I don't know where Balae went, but Billy got us back to the Beetle and Mr Stodgely in the back out of sight of the Peacekeepers and drove us back to the Gull.
We took him inside round the back, into the flat, but before we could say anything to Castor and Pollux this woman walked in who must have been Mrs Stodgely, because of the way she looked at Mr Stodgely. I couldn't deal with it, and ended up running out of there and up to the roof.
Billy followed me up there but somehow I didn't mind. He asked if I still had the bottle I'd brought up the other day, and it was still where I left it, but of course it was empty. So we just sat and talked for a while. I don't think we said anything important. I was having a lot of bad thoughts, and I suggested we could do some sparring practice just to get my mind off them. But then we heard Mrs Stodgely's voice behind us.
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