And All the Stars

The milk was open, the carton cool. Madeleine sniffed it suspiciously, then tooka wineglass, poured out a sample and tasted it. Honey. She drank, and ate amuesli bar, and was glad of the emergency fudge, which allowed her to put twoof the bars away for later. A carton ofsweetened milk and a few muesli bars was not a generous serving for ahigh-stain Blue, and she thought through the implications of that as she movedon toward a line of elevator doors, and a spiral staircase descending.

None of the elevators worked. Unsurprised, Madeleine completed her circuit of the mostly bare floor,then worked her way through the other three before returning to her bed to makean inventory of the contents of her bags. Clothes, her sketchpads and various pencil collections. The two mobiles – her own and one looted fromthe North Building – were missing.

The tower was bare of both people and food. She found the entrance to a rooftop skywalk,and some small machinery rooms in the squat cylinder set on top of the 'icebucket' of the larger floors. A giftshop on the top main floor offered an array of key rings and magnets. The restaurants filling the lower two floorsheld endless potential kitchen utensil weapons, and water. No telephones. There were touch screen computers fortourists which would only tell her about Sydney landmarks, and drink machineswhich had been broken open and emptied. The Moths had gone to the effort of removing everything edible or usefulfor communication, turned all the lifts off, and left her to sit.

If they wanted her alive, they'd have to come up to feedher. That would be an opportunity. First, however, there were fire escapes.

Simply walking out of the tower seemed unlikely. Perhaps the Moths had left a guard down thebottom, and rigged an alarm to let them know she was on her way. That would mean a fight, but during herexplorations the main thing she'd discovered was a quiet determination to findstep B, and then step C. Pulling on areorganised backpack, she found the nearest fire exit and pushed it open.

Stairs. Well lit, no movementor suspicious noises. She slippedthrough to the landing and eased the door shut on a gift shop toy placed as ablock, then stood listening, looking. Ifthere were traps or cameras she could not detect them. The plentiful supply of tourist informationhad let her know there were 1500 stairs and it would be a struggle to staystrictly alert all that way. Which wasno reason not to try.

Five flights down, Madeleine stopped to gauge a change to thequality of light. The flat white hadtaken on a tinge of blue. A Moth? A Rover? She doubted one of the dandelion dragons would fit in a stairwell, butnor was it likely she'd seen all of the Moths' bestiary. The question was whether the best move was tofight, here in the narrow support shaft of a building unlikely to cope withholes being punched in walls.

She eased forward, pausing at every turn to steal glancesaround corners, the blue tinge growing stronger, dominant, until the stairwelltook on an underwater air. And then itwas ahead of her, no dragon or mermaid-dog, but...goo.

Wall to wall electric blue jelly. It completely blocked the flight of stairsbelow her, every gap sealed with luminous glop. There was no visible reaction to her approach, no tentacles lifting fromthe surface or sudden pulsing, just a steadily glowing barrier.

The fight with the Rover had taught Madeleine enough to notsimply try to power her way through it. A very cautious finger punch suggested that it would absorb energy inmuch the same way the Rover had. A lighttap with her shield nearly bounced her into the wall. The goo had defences.

Gritting her teeth, Madeleine considered the problem, thenclimbed back up to the nearest kitchen and returned with a jug of hot water anda knife. The hot water produced no response,while the knife...

The goo's shield punch threw her up the stairwell. Rapid shielding bounced her straight backdown to ricochet again off the glowing barrier, and only frantic easing of hershield prevented madcap ping-ponging. She collapsed on the landing above the goo and lay shaking, trying notto let her head fill with imagined injuries, only to have them replaced byguesses as to what was happening to Noi, to Emily, while she failed to get downa flight of stairs. What were the Mothsdoing with their stolen Musketeers?

Taking deep breaths to calm herself, Madeleine began toreassemble her fragmented determination, to force herself look at the moment asan achievement. Easing shields tocontrol ricochet had been something they'd only begun to explore during theircombat practice sessions. Watching thepossessed Blues fight had made clear the Moths' ability to control much of theshield bouncing, and the Musketeers had been attempting to modulate the intensityof the shielding to cushion an impact rather than rebound. Madeleine had struggled to make anyprogress. She could manifest theshielding on just one side rather than all around her, which meant she nolonger paralysed herself when swiping to shield-punch, but her skill level wasa rough equivalent of doing embroidery while wearing gauntlets.

Step B was obviously shield practice.

ooOoo

Twenty-four hours later, Madeleine's plans and ambitions hadcontracted to a singular focus: food.

The Moths had not come to feed her. It didn't make a great deal of sense, sinceif they'd wanted to kill her there would be no need to go to the time andeffort to clear out two entire restaurants, including cleaning away any platesand glasses in use on the day of the Spire's arrival. It would have taken a team of people – Greensmost likely – to have so thoroughly removed everything edible.

Madeleine's hunt had so far won her a tomato sauce squeezepacket. She sca

All but black scrapings remained when, disgusted, she threwdown the tray and dashed out of the kitchen. She did not want to be this. Whatwould come next? Rats? But, no, all the warm-blooded animals in theregion had been finished off by the dust. It would be cockroaches.

Pounding up the stairs to the third level, she ran along thecurve of windows, intent on the grandly mature gesture of throwing herself ontoher bed. And stopped so quickly she fellto her hands and knees. On the barcounter a new tray, another carton of milk, three muesli bars.

One part of Madeleine was incandescently furious. It was a pitiful serving for a Blue. Even before the stain it would have been aninadequate day's meal, and the idea that this was all she would have to combatstain-fuelled hunger made her want to yell and throw things, left herfrightened for what state she'd be in after another day. The rest of her wasted no time on anythingbut gulping down milk.

Honey-sweetened again, this time with a trace of butterscotchwhich, even when that sounded a note of caution, was not enough to stop herdraining most of the carton before coming up for air. As she gauged the dregs, a sledgehammer ofheat hit her squarely, providing a full and unavoidable explanation for theadditional flavour. Spiked.

For long moments Madeleine simply stood, breathing deeply asthe alcohol surged through her, but then she snatched up the muesli bars andheaded around the curve of the floor toward her vastly empty bedroom. An awareness that there had to be a reason tospike the milk filled her with panic. Atminimum, when drunk her ability to control her punches and shield would be nearnon-existent. Already the world hadtilted.

Stumbling past her bed, she headed to one of the curtainswhich divided the circular level into segments, and pulled it all the way tothe i