“Grounded,” the tree whispered. DeMario spooked and froze. “I'm not even here,” he hissed back. An icy breeze touched his cheek. He brushed it away, caught a finger on his comm band and pulled the receiver loose. It was out anyway. There’d been nothing since the stream.
He forced another step forward, squelched knee deep into a hidden pool that threatened to suck him under, pulling, a hand clutching at his ankle. Heart wrenched in panic until he found the impetus to lurch forward and scramble onto the next clump of solid ground. He wobbled while the mist swirled around, laughing.

“I know!” he shouted out loud. “We're grounded and I'm not going to apologise. It's not my fault the damned pigeons wouldn't listen. Hymek, do you hear that?” Dangerous talk, tempting the craziness to conjure up a Hymek. DeMario shivered and shut up. He started forward again, feeling the twitches in the ground and the air. Blue poppies and dusky bluebells sprang up ahead, manic shadows beckoning in the twilight. Smurf was around somewhere, behind he thought. They'd lost Peanut and Fenton at the first hurdle. They were probably back at the perimeter by now, catching hell from Hymek for being out here at all. Damn stupid. Smurf's idea, he reckoned, thinking back. “Biggest happening since Union Square,” he'd said. “Can't believe we're not there.” And watching the CRC getting trashed on the news as it spread. How could they resist?

DeMario flicked away a dancing sprite of light that was hovering at his nose. More and more stupid, the more he thought about it. He stumbled over something that numbed his foot, looked back on a force field that shimmered inches above the path and shot sky high as he watched. In all directions, wall of fire streaking around him. He held his breath and jumped through quickly. There was more laughter behind. He jogged a way down the path, trying to keep his feelings neutral, trying not to wish too hard that Smurf and Holden were near by. It didn't work.

He came across Holden by an outcrop of onion-peeled basalt. He was sitting, holding a cloth to his cheek, looking sullen as hell. DeMario stopped and watched a while. No way to make sure except to stroll up nonchalant and ask. He'd just decided that it wasn't him when Holden jumped up, swayed and cursed, saving the best comments for Hymek. So it probably was him after all.

“What happened?” DeMario asked, wishing he hadn't let Holden tag along on this one.

“I'm not just tagging, DeMario. You can't do this without me.” He grinned, light catching the livid bruise by his eye.

“What happened?” he asked again, wishing Holden couldn't read his mind.

Another smile. “They didn't get it, don't worry. Smurf's just up to the north. There're caves ahead. I thought I'd wait.”

Caves that weren't marked on any map or sat image they 'd seen. “How come you're grounded?” Holden asked, for the fifth time.

DeMario kept it out of his head. “Hymek,” he said instead, and threw back: “How come you were in jail?”

The trees to his left exploded in a fury of light and fireworks, deafening loud. He flinched from the blast and spun around to see Holden grinning. “Cut it out,” he said, irritated at falling for Holden’s juvenile trickery. “You blow up Hymek's garden?”

“Groundcar. They didn't appreciate the demonstration.” Holden scowled again.

“Will it work out here?” DeMario asked, inclining his head towards a large carry case on the ground by Holden’s feet.

“If they thought it would work, they'd have dragged me out here already instead of kicking me in jail.”

Point. DeMario cringed as his neck prickled. Holden was already running. DeMario reached the edge of the clearing as a blue shot crashed down off to his left, flashing bright on trees which weren't trees. He heard a door slam shut behind him.

“Smurf!” he yelled and fell into an alleyway.

No sign of Holden. People said DeMario was crazy. He had nothing on Holden. Holden could manipulate reality that wasn't contaminated. He could make sparks of crazy in a sealed room. DeMario yelled again, no stopping. Seven teams had failed to get anywhere near this close. They'd lost the probe with Peanut. And the counter in the stream. No compiler, no suits, no comm. Just Holden. And the bomb they wouldn't let him try out.

Reality shifted again and he was back in the trees, brambles tugging at his clothes. There was a clatter and he tripped over Danny’s rifle. Ran backwards a few steps and watched it dissolve, hissing, into a black puddle. Danny was back with his unit, waiting for papers Hymek wouldn't sign while his rifle couldn't wait any longer and melted.

“How about it, Hymek?” DeMario yelled, throat catching a wisp of dry ice. “You'd be nothing without us. Nothing!” he screamed and nothing echoed back.

Another sheet of lightening fell on the trees before the rain started. Freezing icy rain that threatened hail. DeMario ran, keeping a steady pace, feeling light headed. Another flash and the click of a shutter. Trigger being pulled and shots raced, ricocheted off branches behind. He slowed and they stopped. Quiet descending. Very basic.

It began to get dark. Close to the source of the contamination. He crept towards shadows that blinked at him. And began to sink into the ground, as if he was walking down steps. Couldn’t see his feet, then his knees. He baulked at the top of his thighs. Thought of Hymek and the headlines and pushed on. Froze, woke himself with a laugh and blacked out.

“Sixteen hours,” a voice said.

His eyelids were heavy so he left them where they were and nodded off again.

He woke with a splash. The heat of the water made his head spin, scented oil and spices drifting through the steam. DeMario backed up, slow motion in the heavy water and scraped his back on jagged rock. Shadows shifted with the sudden motion, sending flickering light scattering up the sheer walls.

There was a glass in front of his eyes. Something that smelled vaguely of coconut. He accepted and let it float in the water beside him. Hell of a time to be taking a dip. “Sixteen hours and twenty minutes.”

“Since or until?” he choked.
“Since.” A webbed hand waved over another bottle.

“Are you Holden?”

“No.”

DeMario peered through the steam, made out the other side of the fissure. “You're not part of the contamination?” it dawned.
A large frog-like face beamed at him. “I am the contamination. Have a refill and tell me about the pigeons.”

“They rebelled and barricaded Hymek and his Marchwood cronies out of the command post.”

DeMario gulped down half the concoction; which regulation was that, that he was breaking? He raised the glass in a toast, “To Hymek - have you got him down here yet?” Something slimy slithered past his leg. “And can I have my clothes back.” He suddenly bobbed down with the weight of combat boots and coveralls, soaked through in seconds. “Point taken,” he gasped and bobbed up again as they dissappeared.

A lizard arm topped up his glass. What the hell. He downed that as well and got bolshie. “Are you done? I've got stuff to do?”

The wide mouthed frog grinned at him through the haze. “We have matters to discuss. Mr DeMario. A situation to be resolved. Obstacles to be overcome.”

“Bullshit to cut through. What do you want?” For that matter, what the hell was going on? sprang to mind. But that was contagious. DeMario squinted and tried to concentrate.

“We have a conflict of interests, I’m afraid.”
No kidding.

“You keep shutting us down, we might just stop trying. Where does that leave you?”
And my parrot and my door and my spider plant? And the CRC? He found himself wondering

“Where would you go to be a hero, DeMario, unless we keep popping up to give Hymek and you humans a headache. You’re nothing without us!”

Echoes of a forest. The old reactions cut in. Holden! There was a splash. Holden fell past, disappeared amidst a spattering of hot droplets and steam. DeMario felt the water push at him, pin him against the rock. The bomb! He screamed.

Nothing suddenly lasted forever. He was stuck in a tree and lost in space, and drowning at the mouth of an oceanic canyon, and burning in the heat of an exploding star. Atoms separated and danced circles, faeries pulled out his eyebrows and a candle teased light from the darkness. Frog-face laughed.

DeMario landed hard on the desert floor, black ridges of petrified rope digging into his ribs through the coveralls. He rolled over and grinned at Holden. The counter crashed down beside them, screamed once and died of embarrassment in the normality.

Hymek turned up later. Well after the area had been declared safe. DeMario shrugged the parrot off his shoulder and saluted to the camera crew.
Hymek glowered and shook his hand, beaming to the universe. “You're under arrest, DeMario!” he hissed under his smiling breath. “Your whole team. And you. And Holden. All of you. You're all going straight to jail!”

And do not pass Go. Frog-face laughed and threw the dice.

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