Gravity's hold on Eric and the others lessened. It wasn't quite back to normal, but Wren was distracted enough by the Director's arrival to lose some of her control.
Willow followed the Director in, holding a metal rod in her hands. Two soldiers trailed behind her.
"Willow!" Adam pushed himself to his feet and staggered forward. Despite the higher gravity, he managed to lift his hands and torch the thin sheet of metal blocking his path. The metal bent backward, and Adam jumped over it and broke into a sprint across the chamber.
"Adam, wait!" Even as Eric yelled the words, he knew it was no use. There was no way this was going to end well.
One of the soldiers stepped out from behind Willow, took a few large strides toward Adam, and swung the gun in its hand. The weapon slammed into Adam's side and knocked him to the ground.
Willow held up a hand. The soldier stopped, straightened up, and took a step back. The Director, meanwhile, strolled toward the tower of stone at the center of the chamber.
"Adam, you're making a mistake," Willow said.
"What?" Adam pushed himself up. "I'm trying to save you!" His gaze darted to the soldiers next to her. "What's going on? Where have you been?"
"We can't just hand the fragment over to the Newmans." Willow's tone was even. Unemotional. "They mean well, but they don't have the means to tap into its true potential."
Eric and the others climbed to their feet as gravity finally dropped to what it should have been. Everyone was so invested in whatever the hell was happening now that none of Scorpion's altered bothered to stop them.
"True potential?" Eric asked. He looked up at the fragment. "What are you talking about?"
"You have no idea how much energy that thing holds," Willow said. "The technology it could power."
"You can't be serious." Adam stared at her in complete shock. "There are so many other—why Scorpion? You can't—"
"Listen, if you knew what I knew..." Willow trailed off and shook her head. "I'm trying to save you all. You should leave while you can."
Eric lifted his chin. "We're not leaving without the fragment."
"You don't understand," Willow said. "You have to—"
"We don't have time for this." The Director had been silently staring at the fragment while the others argued. Now, he turned around. "Ash, take the altered and board the jetchoppers waiting outside. Leave the soldiers."
"Are you sure?" Ash asked. "Those five can easily take what's left—"
"We can handle them. Go." The Director lifted his chin, and the red lights of the chamber glinted off his goggles. "Trust me, you'll want to be ready to take off. SCI's reinforcements will be here soon."
"Fine. Let's go." After letting his gaze flicker to Eric for a heartbeat, Ash stormed to the chamber door. The other altered, clearly confused, followed.
Summer's fists clenched. "Wait, we can't just let them—"
"Summer, we want them to go," Veronica said, exhaustion weighing on her voice. "Less people to fight."
"You're not going to want to waste your energy fighting us," the Director said. "If I were you, I'd get out of here, too."
Eric shot him a glare. "Why don't you give us a better explanation, and maybe we will."
The Director sighed. "No. You wouldn't. That's not what you do, is it?" He nodded toward the soldiers that had survived the battle, along with the two he'd brought in. "We can't have them interrupting our work. Make sure they don't move."
In perfect unison, each of the six remaining soldiers circled Eric and the others, drew their guns, and took aim.
~
Scorpion's altered streamed past the room Raveena was hiding in. She peered through the gap between the door and its frame and listened, hoping to figure out the results of the battle. Had they gotten the fragment already?
Were the others okay?
Anxiety had Raveena sick to her stomach. She couldn't watch Scorpion get away again. She couldn't go back to being on the run. She couldn't imagine moving on from here alone.
There were some murmurs from the kids here and there, but nothing loud enough for Raveena to understand. Once they'd left the hallway, she stepped out and followed. She went around corner after corner, moving quietly enough to avoid detection as Scorpion returned to the surface.
Raveena waited to enter the building's lobby until she was certain they'd all gone outside. From there, she crossed to the front doors and peered outside.
Most of the altered went straight for the waiting choppers. Claudia emerged from one of them, and Ash walked to meet her.
"Why are we leaving now?" Ash called as he approached. "Those other altered are still down there, and they'll go back to Tyche Point—"
Claudia cut him off. "There's not going to be a Tyche Point left to go back to, Ash."
Raveena's hands tightened around the edge of the doorframe.
"What do you mean?" Ash asked.
"The Director has to collapse the energy field keeping the fragment in place. And when he does..." Claudia gestured to the building. "It'll be like the accident that did this, but big enough to hit all of Tyche Point."
One of the choppers roared to life, drowning out any response Ash might have had. Not that it mattered.
Raveena's anxiety slipped away, replaced by something worse. The world was slipping away. Part of her refused to believe this was real. She'd wake up at any moment and find that the plan to get the fragment before Scorpion hadn't been completely and utterly derailed. No energy field. No collapse. No destroyed town.
But if it was real, and the others were still in the chamber, Raveena had to warn them.
She turned and ran. Back into the labs. Back toward the chamber.