A building appeared in the air directly in front of me.
Scud! I veered to the side, and my shield scraped the edge of the giant floating structure, shattering its windows in my wake as I skimmed one face of it.
“What the hell was that?” Chet asked.
“I don’t—”
Another building appeared at my side, tall and rectangular. Then something else flashed and materialized directly ahead of me. Was that…a swimming pool? I managed to duck around it, but it spun in the air, dumping a wave of water over us.
“A sudden spike of fear!” M-Bot said. “And general paralysis! I know this one myself! Panic! What is happening?”
A pair of scrubber tools folded from the sides of my canopy and ran across the curved surface, wiping away the water. Any other time, the news that my ship had rain wipers would have been amusing to me. I’d never fought in rain before, as we didn’t have it on Detritus.
However, it was completely overshadowed by, you know, the buildings. “Peg?” I shouted over the comm as a hovercar appeared some distance in front of me. “You seeing this?”
“Seeing it,” she said on a wide channel. “Not quite believing it. We’re in the middle of a warp of new objects entering the nowhere—never seen one of these in person. Careful, everyone. I don’t want to have to scrape any of you off the side of a building.”
Scud. I felt a…strange sensation. A stretching—or that’s the best I could explain it.
“Delver attack,” Chet guessed. “In the somewhere! That’s what is bringing all this in here—a delver has gone to your dimension, and as it strikes, it’s warping the city into this place. You don’t…recognize these structures, do you?”
“Thankfully no,” I said. “This isn’t happening on Detritus.” But yeah, I guessed he was right. The stretching sensation was the nowhere opening, being punctured as the delvers shoved things from my dimension in here.
“Deep breath, deep breath,” M-Bot said. “Okay, analysis says these structures appear to be Superiority designs.”
Why would they be attacking one of their own? Perhaps a planet that was in rebellion? The light next to Peg’s name changed, indicating she’d moved to a private line. “Damnedest thing here, Spin. Not one, but two explosive fragment collisions, and now this… Ha! Really feels like the nowhere is trying to get us, eh?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. My proximity sensor pinged, the display showing that Hesho and his wingmate had avoided the suddenly appearing buildings and were on my tail again. “Ha ha.”
“Don’t think too much of it,” Peg said. “It’s random, kid. I don’t want you getting any ideas that the Broadsiders grow enguluns or anything like that. We’re not unlucky. We found you, after all!” She cut the line.
“She’s wrong,” Chet said. “This is about us. The Path we’re walking. It has them angry.”
I veered to the side, narrowly avoiding another sudden building. It seemed that the process of shoving things into the nowhere was creating acclivity stone—as the stone blocks on one side of the building were making it hover. I’d heard you could magnetize metal by exposing it to a strong enough field; maybe this was something similar.
“You focus on flying,” Chet said. “I’m expanding my cytonic powers, and I think I can track the former champion and his wingmate. Even in this mess. I’ll give you warning if they try to ambush us again.”
“And I’ll suppress my outbursts for now,” M-Bot said. “Spensa…this is serious. Fly well, please.”
“Will do,” I said, veering carefully so I wouldn’t overwhelm the GravCaps. Chet had promised me he could take the g-forces—but I still wanted to be cautious. If I blacked out when buildings were appearing all around us…
“My scans indicate these buildings are uninhabited,” M-Bot said. “And they look old and run-down.”
As I flew, I tried to pick out what I could with my burgeoning cytonic senses. I felt the delvers, connected to one of their kind in the somewhere. And I overheard…annoyance, but not anger. They didn’t hear “noise” at the moment. They were…performing.
“It’s a test,” I said. “Winzik finally got smart and decided to try the delvers out on an unpopulated location, to see if they really were under control.”
“Perfect chance for them to throw a city at us,” Chet said.