Sara and her helpers stepped outside of the tower. Light soldiers were everywhere. Moon talked to someone somewhere else with the invisible radio they all seemed to have. She nodded when she saw the group come through the hole in the wall.

“They would like for you to try to help everyone,” said Sara. “I need to keep moving on.”

“Understood,” said Moon. She nodded at the mummies. “You’re going to have to reverse the effects of your weapon.”

“All right,” said Sara. “How does the hospital work? Is the Light responsible for that?”

“No,” said Moon. “We release the ground. The rim builds it from the living.”

“I don’t understand,” said Sara. A tap on her arm drew her attention to Ryan. He had the rest of the stone plaques in his hands. He offered them to her.

She put the various powers in her pockets. She put the rabbit and pig in her boots so she wouldn’t lose them. He nodded at the care she was taking.

“Everything here depends on energy from the living,” said Moon. “Positive energy powers the Light. Chaotic energy powers the Dark. Too much chaos produces the Levvys sweeping in from beyond the rim. The excess positivity is kept and stored so that the neutral features can be built. All that is needed is agreement with the Dark for a place to be built.”

“Which they don’t want to provide,” said Nick. He hadn’t released his grip on his rifle. Sara thought that if the Light pressed, he could shoot at least the nearest soldiers and engineers before they could stop him.

It was a reminder that freelancers were gunslingers at heart despite whatever weird weapon they may arm themselves with.

“Precisely,” said Moon. “That’s why we have agreements in place.”

A large helicopter came into view. It hovered above the tower. A set of planes flew circles around the area. They were fast moving dots keeping an orbit around the operation.

How many hospitals had been stopped by the Dark getting in the way? The Light seemed to take this obligation more seriously than their counterparts.

The bottom of the helicopter opened. A shower of sunbeams dropped on the tower and wrecked factory. The Dark constructs washed away under the onslaught.

A set of lines resolved in Sara’s sight. They became a block of buildings with a red cross on the front of it. Empty suits with gloves appeared with a sound of strings being plucked. They nodded at the soldiers of the light by the way their clothes moved before heading into the buildings.

One set of smocks approached the group watching the process. It was hard to say where it actually was looking without a head, but Sara felt a gaze sliding across her before the clothes paused in front of Moon.

“Dauntless reporting for duty,” said the smock. “I am assuming control of the facility. Is there any current emergency in place?”

“We have an unknown number of hurt freelancers that need to be returned to their full status,” said Moon. “They should be in beds waiting for treatment.”

“This group is part of those that need treatment?,” said Dauntless.

“Yes,” said Sara. “Can you help them?”

“If I can’t, then not even a proclamation from on high could do the job,” said

Dauntless with a little acid in his voice.

Sara liked the suit of clothes for that. She didn’t quite think she could trust the Light, but the doctors at least had the best interests of their patients at heart.

“I think we should go inside before you cut the wires,” said Tyler. “Unless you want me to give you the best three minutes of your life.”

The last words to Moon made her turn away.

Sara shook her head. Ryan echoed her gesture with the same head shake. The others groaned.

“That is going to get you killed one day, my friend,” said a hulking giant that had went with Nick to hold Voit.

“Dis,” said Tyler. “Who dares, wins.”

“I don’t think that applies to women,” said the hulk.

“It could,” said Tyler.

Sara watched the group walk into the hospital. The doctor followed, gesturing for aides to get gurneys ready for their new patients.

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“Thank you,” said Sara. She used the rat to turn them back into dead things as soon as they were all inside the lobby of the new hospital.

“It’s why we have rules,” said Moon. “A neutral area this close to the inner wall will have a small stream of freelancers heading into the hub faster than the commuters from the rim. They won’t be ready for what’s inside.”

“I can’t worry about that,” said Sara. “I’m not staying here. You are. It’s up to the Light to do what you can under your rules.”

“Future freelancers?,” asked Moon.

“They’ll need better briefings from your side, or let the doctors do it,” said Sara. “They seem to have a better grasp on the choices involved.”

“Do you think so?,” asked Moon.

“I don’t know,” said Sara. “My doctor was destroyed when my hospital was overrun by Varn’s zombies. I didn’t get a chance to talk to him that much.”

Moon nodded.

Sara watched as her helpers were gathered up by the medical staff. She touched her face as they were rolled out of sight.

Had she done the right thing?

She decided that she had made the best of a bad situation. She had also made things worse for some bad people who stood in the way of people just trying to get by. She could live with that.

The future would have to take care of itself.

“I have to go,” said Sara. “I have to get back to my kids.”

“It won’t be the first time,” said Moon. She smiled. Then she pointed at an opening in the wall. “That’s where you need to go to keep advancing.”

“Thank you,” said Sara. She took one last look at the lighter air and started walking.

The inner wall was miles high from Sara’s ground perspective. It couldn’t really be that high. She reached the entrance and paused. The gateway was a long tunnel with a tiny light at the other end. Maybe she had been wrong about the height of the wall. The steps in her new boots sounded loud to her as she walked down the tunnel to the other side.

How long was this tunnel?

She wondered why Voit had never tried to go through this tunnel to the inner rim. Maybe they didn’t like Dark lords from the rim inside the center of their area.

Maybe you had to earn your place as the darkest lord before you could sit at the big girl table.

Sara put that out of her mind. She had to reach the central tower. Unless Dark lords continued to get in her way, she had to put aside any problems with them and keep moving.

She reached the end of the tunnel and found herself standing at the edge of a small platform on a rail. She looked right and left before she thought about boarding the platform. The rail seemed to run inside the wall.

Why did it run in a circle? Was there a point where it changed direction and headed into the sprawl? Did she want to board it? Maybe she should go around by jumping down to the ground below?

“Platform leaving gate in thirty seconds,” said an announcer from a speaker above where she stood. “Please board to reach the starting point.”

Sara decided to board instead of cutting across the urban wilderness in front of her. Maybe a safe route had been marked from the starting point. She stepped on the platform and grabbed the safety rail around the edge. A small timer counted down on the floor. She spotted the moving numbers as the announcer asked her to keep all limbs inside the designated area at all times.

The world outside the bounds of the rail blurred. The platform slid to a stop at another stage area in the wall. A man dressed in t-shirt and jeans stepped on the platform. He smiled at Sara before looking at the city.

“Starting point?,” he asked.

“I don’t know,” said Sara.

The platform moved two more times to pick up other freelancers waiting for their ride into the dangerous territory in front of them. The first passenger nodded at each, but said nothing. Sara didn’t say anything at all.

The platform stopped in front of a flat stage that reminded Sara of a subway station. The rail opened to let the passengers out. Sara led the way, looking for trouble. Strangeness in this world was nothing but trouble. She noted that the others were doing the same, except for the first passenger. He stood in the back of the group with his arms crossed as he waited for trouble to find him.

The sound of a vacuum tube operating drew the group’s attention to a booth to one side. It hid between two buttresses so nothing had a clean shot unless they were on the stage facing it.

A set of conductor clothes stepped out of the booth. The cap brim indicated the lookover the group received. A humph escaped the empty shirt as the conductor relayed his thoughts on his visitors without speaking a word.

“Pay attention,” said the conductor. “I only want to say this once as clearly as

possible to prevent any questions so I can send you on your way as fast as possible.”

Sara heard some comments on the prickliness of their guide, but said nothing. She wanted what she could get as fast as possible. And she doubted the answers to any real questions could be answered by an animated suit of clothes.

The conductor went to a blank wall. A map flickered into existence. He turned to face the group, gloved hands behind his back.

“We’re here at the Starting Point,” said the conductor. He indicated a symbol at the bottom of the map. “Most people coming through here want to reach the central tower.”

A round circle denoted the tower to the freelancers.

“There’s no straight path to the tower,” said the conductor. The building markers except for Starting Point and Tower moved as he talked. “The city moves to prevent that.”

“Additionally the Dark hunt travelers,” said the conductor. “Once you leave Starting Point, you will be under attack almost constantly until you reach the central wall and can cross into the inner hub.”

“The nearest gate?,” asked the first passenger.

“Right here,” said the conductor. He indicated a spot next to the Tower circle. “They move too.”

“Why?,” asked the guy.

“Why do they move?,” asked the conductor. “How should I know? I expect it’s to make things harder for those wanting to get to the tower. Any other questions?”

The sound of burning air drifted to the group.

“Is there a pattern we can use to navigate to the tower faster?,” asked one of the others. It was a woman in black clothes that carried a gem in her hand. “Or are all the shifts at random?”

“Not really,” said the conductor. “I’m sure a group like yours will be able to reach the tower without too many problems.”

“What’s to stop us from just flying to the tower?,” asked the woman with a gem’s partner. He had boarded with a gold helmet under his arm. The eyeholes made the blank front of it look like a disapproving face.

“There’s no cover,” said the conductor. “Be my guest if that’s what you want to do.”