Alex looked out the windows in the corridor as he waited for Li Wen to catch up to him. He didn't trust her but felt better if he kept her close. There were a lot of things inside of a portal that someone could mess with and create major problems on an island. He knew from experience what a person could do if they didn't know what they were doing.

Black, empty space stared back at him like hollowed-out eyes. Alex thought he saw movement out in the darkness, but he knew nothing was out there. Nothing could exist out in that void.

"What's that?" Li Wen asked when she came up to him.

"The Outside," Alex said, turning away from the windows and following the fluorescent lights down the corridor.

"The what?"

Alex clicked his tongue. Now, he would have to explain, wouldn't he? He had the maligned benefit of being captured by people who knew what was happening when he first got to the nightsea. Not everyone was that unluckily lucky.

"The way it was told to me," Alex said, stopping and pointing out one of the many windows. "There are three layers to the world. The Real is the normal day-to-day islands that we live in. The Surreal is where things like curses and techniques come from. The Outside is everything else."

She looked out into the blackness, and Alex waited. It was a lot to take in at once, and he didn't even know if it was right. It was just what the other prisoner with him had told him before the man died.

"And that's the Outside."

"Yeah," Alex said, turning again and walking down the corridor.

He stepped into the nodule at the end of the corridor. Glowing panels and buttons glowed on the walls around him. The island core was in the center, separated from the rest of the room by chrome handrails. Alex entered the room and stepped in between the chrome handrails. Behind him, Li Wen gasped as she walked into the room as well.

"Very sci-fi," she said. "Do you know what all of this does?"

"Yeah," Alex said as he reached out to touch the controls on the core.

Images flooded into his mind, just like the first time he had accessed a core back on August. Equations he couldn't understand flittered across the edge of his vision, along with diagrams and maps that moved too fast for him to see. Alex pushed through the images as he flipped a few switches on the core.

Listen.

A screen opened up beside him in the air, and he could see it displayed the cavern outside. Goldfist lay unconscious on the floor, the same as Alex had left him. Sam and the freed slaves were long gone. Just what he needed. He focused on the image and pushed a button on the core. A blue light appeared below Goldfist's body, and Alex flipped a switch. In a flash, Goldfist fell through the portal, and Alex redirected it, hitting another button and making the screen switch locations.

Grow.

He brought up Dry Gulch with a few flicks of switches and focused the screen on where the water tower had been. He reached out to an orb on the control panel and imagined a large iron cage. Iron bars erupted from the ground and closed on each other in a cage fit for a giant. Once it was finished, Alex flipped another switch, calling a portal into existence at the top of the cage and dropping Goldfist through it and onto the ground. He flipped the switch again, and the portal closed.

"It's like a control panel for the entire island," Li Wen whispered beside him. "You can manipulate the entire thing like a game."

"There are some serious limitations to it," Alex said as he pushed a button and brought up a screen of the mine.

He looked through the map of the mine until he found what he was looking for. There was a point where Goldfist's mining operation had cut into an object that was part of the portal infrastructure. He hit a button and brought up the item, a large metal pod that would have been encased in stone to protect it. The stone was cracked, and mist seeped from it on the image. Alex flipped a few switches and pressed a few buttons. The crack was repaired with a flash of light, and Alex flipped away from the screen. One more problem solved.

Build.

"How do you know how to do all of this?"

"I don't," Alex said as he walked around the control panel. "These places kind of get in your head once you're inside. They want you to use them, and they'll guide you along with what you want to happen."

"It wants you to use it? You're saying that this place thinks."

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"Be glad you're not attuned to it," Alex said. "Hurts something fierce when it starts talking to you."

He brought up a screen of the mine again, and as he looked over it, his subconscious immediately began doing the math. The core already knew what he wanted to do, and it was facilitating his desires without question. Alex pressed a few buttons and flipped a few switches. As he finished, he flipped one last switch and opened a portal at the entrance to the room.

"There we go," he said, nodding toward the portal. "That'll take us to the entrance of the mines. In about three minutes, a sinkhole will open up where the mine was and send all of this as deep as it can into the island. No one will be able to access this core again."

"That's all you wanted with it?" Li Wen asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It already gave me what I came here for.” Alex tapped the side of his head. "However, I can't use it yet because the information isn't complete. I figure if I visit enough island cores, I'll learn what I'm looking for."

"And what are you looking for?"

"A way back home. Now, let's get out of here."

He walked over to the portal and bowed, holding out his arms like he was holding a door open for her. Li Wen sighed, glaring at him. Alex smiled but kept his head down.

"But I have so many questions."

Rumble.

The room shook, and Alex had to adjust his footing to keep standing. He stood up and looked down the corridor. It was already starting. The room would be unstable until the operation was complete and the core had found its new resting place.

"You won't find the answers here," Alex said. "Now come on, before I throw you through the blasted portal."

"Like you could," she said, gritting her teeth and walking through the portal.

Alex followed after her, taking one last look around the room. Even though it was only the second time he had visited an island core, he could barely believe it. So much power concentrated in one place, just waiting for the right person to find it and take control of an island.

"Take a rest, and hope no one ever finds you again," Alex said as he stepped through the portal and out into the bright light of the full moon.

"Alex!" Sam ran over, stopping right in front of him and pointing up at the sky. "The mist is gone."

"Yeah.” Alex smiled, looking out over the freed people and Sam. "Looks like things are going to be getting better here."

"You still need to answer my questions.” Li Wen walked to stand beside Sam, crossing her arms across her chest.

"We need to get away from the mine first, " Alex said, pointing toward the slipship he had left anchored away from it. "Unless you want to get swallowed up."

They walked away from the mines as a large group. The former slaves smiled and talked among themselves, even though their conversations carried a weight of loss. They were the survivors of Goldfist, but that meant that so many others had died. Alex could understand that better than most.

Boom. Crack. Rumble. Crash. Rumble.

As they reached the slipship, the ground rumbled and shook beneath them. Alex turned and watched with the rest as cracks split open around the mines, pulling in the wall of machinery and the kennels that were outside first. Wider and wider, the cracks opened up, swallowing anything above them before collapsing in on themselves. More rumbles and booms started, and Alex had to drop to one knee to keep from falling.

Cracks ripped up along the hills, and dirt crumbled into the gaps as the hills collapsed. Alex closed his eyes and focused on keeping himself off the ground. He had had more than enough for one day.

As suddenly as the earthquake had started, it stopped. Alex kept his head down and focused on his breathing. His entire body ached. From head to toe, he was nothing but a throbbing sack of meat. All of his fights were catching up to him now that it was all over.

"Alex, look!" Sam grabbed his shoulder, and Alex looked up to where she pointed.

The hill was gone, along with the machinery outside and the mine's entrance itself. Flat, freshly disturbed dirt replaced it, carving out a massive circle that ended right before the slipship where they all stood. They would have been taken beneath the ground if he had been just a little bit off. Alex took a deep breath and forced himself up with his staff. He didn't have much left in him, but there was one thing he still needed to do.

"Sam, come here," he said, opening his gate and taking control of his staff.

"What is it?" She approached him, and he handed his staff to her.

The second she had a good grip on it, he pushed with his curse and lifted her onto the slipship's deck. Around him, the former slaves gasped, but Alex paid them no mind. He kept his eyes locked on Li Wen, and she stared right back at him.

"Now, I know you have questions, but I need to get her back to her house in one piece," Alex said.

"So let us all ride with you."

"You seem to be misunderstanding something," Alex said, reaching out and calling his staff back to his hand.

It whirred around in a long arch until it attached to his palm, and Alex took hold of it.

"I don't know you, and you don't know me. Simply put, I won't wait around forever answering questions I don't have time to answer. The Military Police are coming, and I don't aim to be caught by them."

"Why would you?" Li Wen stopped, and Alex saw the gears clicking into place in her eyes. "Goldfist called you Ortega. Alex Ortega. Alexander Ortega."

"Also known as 'Tin Man' Ortega." Alex finished. "Sounds about right, 'Cold Shot?'"

"You know me too," she whispered, her hands going lax at her sides.

"The curse was a good tip-off. You disappeared about two years ago. The World Daily Post had tons of articles speculating what happened to you."

"So, you're just going to leave us here?"

"Yeah, I am an outlaw," Alex said, dropping his staff to the ground and pushing against it.

He popped up into the air, reaching out his hand and catching hold of the side of the ship while calling his staff back up to his free hand before she could do anything about it. Granted, Alex thought that no one there was ready for another fight.

He pulled up the anchor before moving to the pilot's seat. He began flipping switches as fast he could, using the wheel to pull the ship around and back in the direction of Dry Gulch. He waved down to Li Wen, also known as the bounty hunter 'Cold Shot,' before pointing to the west.

"Town's that way!" he yelled. "If you want Goldfist's bounty, I'd say take it. I can't turn it in myself."

Li Wen glared up at him as he pulled on a lever and let the sails unfurl. In the brighter moonlight, the ship shot forward and over the terrain. Sam began to laugh as they sailed through the sky, and Alex joined in with her. The fight was over. Through it all, they had won.

Now came the hard part.