“This is a terrible idea.” Fireball wouldn’t even look at me. His hands were clenched around the steering wheel of the car so tightly it was a wonder it hadn’t snapped off.

“This was your idea.” I pointed out. In contrast to the superhero beside me, I was almost giddy with relief to be out of his lair. Outside and with a chance of seeing Sera, who was definitely probably for sure still alive.

“Only because your idea involved blowing up an entire city block.”

“You can’t deny that would have caught the Rubes’ attention.”

Fireball shook his head, a hint of a smile crossing his face. For some reason that really drove home the weirdness of this situation. I looked out the window at the Rube headquarters where we were parked in the back alley, my stomach churning. I’d been trying to ignore it, but here I was joking with the man who had been intent on my downfall since I first came to the city. A guy who stood for everything I was opposed to.

Not everything though. He wanted to save Sera too, even if he didn’t actually believe she was still alive.

“Where are they?” I muttered, scanning the length of the alley.

Bea, Peg, and Knife were supposed to meet us here. They were the ones who would be providing the show today, with Fireball of course. Delphi would be utterly useless, so it was my job to sneak around the building and look for Sera while all the Rubes were hopefully distracted by the showdown taking place in their lobby.

I had gone back to the clothing store yesterday to talk to them, with Fireball as backup, it pained me to say. None of them liked me anymore, Bea especially. She had kept both arms around Peg’s waist the whole time I was there, as though if she let go I would swoop in and take her fiancé from her. I couldn’t really blame her, but it hurt to see her so transformed from the wonderful motherly figure who had welcomed me to the city.

Still, at least they had agreed to help. For Sera’s sake. Because everyone loved Sera, and not just because of her mind control.

Three figures slipped into the alleyway and I stiffened. Two were dressed in all black while the third...I gulped. The third wore a red tutu, red elbow-length gloves with black tights, bodysuit, and a black-and-red mask. I blinked rapidly to get rid of the tears that filled my eyes at the sight of Bea dressed as Death’s Dancer, but nothing could get rid of the pain in my heart. I would probably never wear that costume again. That was a part of me that had died when the Rubes took my powers away.

Fireball got out of the car and walked down the alley to meet them. He was really terrible at sneaking, only managing to look over his shoulder and look as suspicious as it was possible for someone to look. I remained in the car, curling into a ball to protect my still fragile heart.

Only when the three of them walked back the way they had come, moving into position for the big finale, did I step out of the car.

“I’m still not sure I should be letting you do this,” Fireball said. “You should be in bed resting.”

“Painkillers, nothing like ‘em,” I grinned, pulling out the bottle from my sweatshirt pocket. He took it from me and frowned at the label. “How many did you take?

“All of them.”

“All - ?!”

“There were only four left in the bottle,” I told him.

“You were supposed to take one!”

“I’ve never found painkillers affect me much, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to collapse halfway through our scheme,” I said with a shrug.

He dropped the bottle back onto the passenger seat of the car. “Fine, I guess what’s one more little thing in the whole mess that is this plan. And please don’t call it a scheme. That sounds so...villainous.”

“Whatever you say boss.” He winced, and I couldn't help but feel a warm glow of satisfaction that at least I could still use my words to make people uncomfortable. Maybe not the best talent, but it was mine.

“Just try and stay out of sight, ok?” Fireball rubbed his face, remembered he had a mask on, and reverted to running a hand through his hair again, making it stick up even more than normal.

I nodded, eyes wide and innocent.

“This is going to be a disaster,” Fireball muttered, but he actually left me alone, walking around the other end of the alley and out of sight to wait for his cue to come rushing in and save the day. I could hardly believe it. If I wanted I could have made a break for it right now, run away from this whole mess, and Fireball would never be able to catch up with me.

But that would mean leaving Sera behind, and that was not something that was going to happen. I sighed and leaned against the car, facing the small back door that led out into the alley. Fireball had promised it was always unlocked so that he could go visit the Rubes anytime he needed to without causing a fuss.

Just one more way in which the Rubes gave superheroes all the advantages.

Distant screams from the front of the building and a loud bang was my signal to move. I pushed myself off the car, stumbled slightly in my eagerness to get going, but then righted myself and headed for the door. To my slight surprise, I wasn’t sure if Fireball was telling me the truth or not, it swung open immediately.

An industrial grey corridor stretched out in front of me, fluorescent strip lighting along the ceiling and doors lining it on either side. So many doors. I stepped inside and shut myself into the building, all the while trying to think of a way of rescuing Sera that did not involve trying to check behind every door in some sort of bizarre shell game.

The first door I tried was locked, predictably, and the second just opened to a storage room with unlabeled boxes.

“How helpful,” I muttered to the empty room, slamming the door shut a bit harder than I meant to. It could take weeks to search this entire place, and all that I had was maybe half an hour, if Fireball and Bea’s gang could make their distraction convincing enough.

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The next door led to a staircase, and for lack of other options I decided to try up a floor. After all, they would probably not have prisoners on the ground floor where just anybody could walk in, right?

The staircase zigzagged back and forth, cracked linoleum leading ever upward. I climbed until the breath burned in my lungs and my chest felt like it was on fire again, and decided to stop there. Floor 5. Hopefully that was my lucky number.

Stepping onto floor 5 was like entering a whole different world. The hallway was wide and open, with strategically placed shrubbery every ten feet. Every room had walls of frosted glass that offered tantalizing glimpses of the offices and laboratory space beyond.

I crept down the hallway, sticking to the very centre which made me feel very exposed, but it was better than pressing up against those glass walls and being spotted by someone on the other side. Everything was eerily quiet. Had they all gone to watch the drama in the main lobby, or was it always this quiet up here?

Every door I passed I peeked through the small gaps at the edge of the window where it wasn’t frosted, but the rooms all seemed empty, and besides that they weren’t the sort of room you would keep prisoners in.

Maybe there was a dungeon, the thought suddenly occurred to me. It was a stupid, sensational thought, but then again the Rubes were the ones secretly making superpowered people. Who knew, they might very well have a dungeon, which would mean going all the way back downstairs.

I paused by one of the ornamental trees and rested my hand on its trunk, letting the rough bark bite into my palm. Fireball had warned me this was an ill-thought out scheme, but I hadn’t wanted to listen. Partly because who knew how long they might keep Sera here. She might be gone already for all we knew, or maybe she was never here at all. But also because I had to know if she was alive. I couldn’t live in this limbo world of wondering one way or the other, every second convincing myself that she had to be alive, and then remembering her cold dead face and becoming positive that I was fooling myself.

The soft squeal of hinges down the hall ahead of me was the only warning I got before a woman stepped out into the hallway. She wore a doctor’s coat and scrubs, hair tied back in a ponytail, hands full of file folders.

She saw me at the same moment I saw her. There was a soft thud as the pile of folders she had been carrying dropped to the ground, spilling paper across the tiled floor. Her mouth opened and in an instant I bolted down the hallway, pushing my body past a limit that I had thought was hard and fast.

I reached the woman just as she had started to scream and clapped my left hand over her mouth, tackling her to the ground at the same time. My right arm was pretty much useless so I had to rely on the rest of my body to pin her to the ground. After she was trapped I had no idea what I would do, but first things were first.

We hit the ground with a thud that sent pain exploding through my body, but I hung on tightly, hand pressed against her mouth, legs and hips pinning her ot the ground.

Her eyes were wide above my hand, the sort of terror that I was accustomed to seeing when clothed as Death’s Dancer, but not so much as Delphi. It made me feel a little sick to see it, and I looked away, focusing on the folders she had dropped. They were mostly underneath her, but the edge of one folder was peeking out. A red stamp on the cover labelled it as CLASSIFIED.

Suspicion blossomed in my mind. There was no reason for this woman to be terrified of a random girl wandering around RUBE headquarters. Not unless she knew who I really was, or at least who I had been.

I grinned, summoning up all of Death’s Dancer’s terrifying insanity into that one expression. Her eyes grew even wider. I was right, I knew I was right. Finally, a piece of good luck.

“If you scream, it will be the last thing you ever do,” I whispered. Our faces were only about a foot apart, our bodies pressed against each other so tightly I could feel her heart fluttering in her chest. “Understand?”

Her nod was tiny, seeing as she was barely able to move, but I would have to trust her. Because she had information that I needed. I took my hand away, and the woman made no noise, just staring at me with those frightened rabbit eyes.

“I want you to tell me where you keep all your superheroes and supervillains locked up.”

“What? I, we don’t...” the woman stuttered.

“Don’t lie to me!” I dug my knee harder into her leg and she whimpered. It was pathetic, helpless, and she seemed so nice and innocent lying there. But she was wearing a doctor’s outfit, which almost certainly meant that she was working on the microchip project, to say nothing of her classified files. It was even possible that she had been one of the ones messing around with my brain.

“Do you mean the surgery rooms?” She said, eyes darting frantically around looking for help that wasn’t going to come. At least I hoped it wouldn’t. “They’re one floor up, on the east side of the building.”

“Is anyone there right now?” I asked. Surgery rooms didn’t really sound like where they might be keeping Sera, unless she was hurt, which she had better not be. If she was, this whole building might just have to come down behind us with everyone inside.

“A-a-a few, yes, I - ”

“Is there a girl about my age?” I didn’t have time for her fear, or her stammering.

“Um yes, not one of the normal ones I guess, but she’s, I mean...” the woman trailed off, confused by the task of trying not to tell me sensitive information while also saving her own skin.

“Which room?”

“629.”

629. I had a destination. I wasn’t sure I believed the woman that Sera might actually be there. It could be a nest of Rube agents that I was walking into, but one room was better than searching every floor of the building. The only question now was what to do with this woman so she wouldn’t raise the alarm until I had time to get Sera out.

There was no way I was dragging her along with me. With my injuries it wouldn’t be long before she freed herself and probably took me prisoner in return, if she had the nerve to do so. But I also couldn’t, no, I wouldn’t kill her. Unfortunately Fireball hadn’t given me anything useful to use either as a weapon or as restraints, probably out of fear I would use them on him. Which was fair.

I looked around the hallway for inspiration. If only I’d still had my powers it would have been the work of a second to trap her in the floor or tie her up using her own doctor’s coat. But I was helpless. All I had were words, and you couldn’t trap someone with words. Or could you?

I squirmed into a better position, pressing my cast into the woman’s throat so I could use my left hand to work my ponytail free from its elastic. This bright red elastic that Fireball had given me I held up in front of the woman’s face.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked, trying to put all of the menace I had practiced as Death’s Dancer into this question. It was hard without the mask to hide behind.

“A hair elastic?”

“Yes, but not just any hair elastic!!” I slipped the elastic over her wrist before she noticed what I was doing and had a chance to fight back. “This elastic has been soaked in a special powder. One touch on bare skin means certain death.”

The woman froze, eyes rolling to try and stare at the band now resting around her wrist.

“Unless...” I leaned in close. “...you have the cure.”

“Cure?”

“I just happen to have the antidote with me,” I reassured her, with my most terrifying smile. “And I would love to come back and give it to you, once I see if you have been telling me the truth. You have about thirty minutes to live, so if I were you I would go back into your office and sit there quietly until I come back. If you raise the alarm you won’t be getting an ounce of antidote out of me. Understand?”

I fully expected her to laugh in my face. After all, I had just slipped an ordinary hair elastic onto her wrist. If it was poisoned, why would I be wearing it in my hair and getting poison all over myself? But to my surprise, she nodded frantically, and I couldn’t see anything but wide-eyed terror in her face. Either she was an excellent doctor, or she was telling the truth. I would have to barter not just my life, but Sera’s as well on the strength of my reputation as Death’s Dancer.

There was no helping it. Time was already ticking away. I rolled off the woman, lurching to my feet as quickly as I could in case she attacked me. But she only remained lying on the floor, trembling, staring at the bright red band of death around her wrist.

It didn’t look like she was immediately going to call for help, so I took off down the hallway, running as quickly as I could even though every step was agony to my lungs and chest. Back to the staircase I had taken up to begin with, then up the stairs two at a time. No sounds of alarm from the hallway I had just left reached my ears, but I was still running out of time. Sera had to be where the woman had said. She just had to be.