Porter looked at her as if she were a private he was about to order to do fifty push-ups. “We’ve arranged a transport. We want to take you out to Temecula to help us survey the site.”

“I do not consent.”

“He says he won’t do it,” said Cora.

“We need intelligence, we need to know what to expect, we all need to know what we’re dealing with.”

“I do not consent.”

“He said no.”

“Perhaps he misunderstands this as a request,” said Brigadier General Porter, enunciating his consonants as if he were condescending to a waiter who had failed to understand his order the first time. “It is not.”

Sol stayed stone still, but Cora’s jaw dropped. Porter was not looking at her but at Ampersand as if to say he had given an order. Why was this order not being followed?

Then the air changed, that thick static that accompanied telekinetic activity, compressing her chest and making it slightly difficult to breathe. Everyone in the room felt it, their wet, beady eyes widening in confusion and a hint of fear. Brigadier General Porter slammed his palms on the desk, and he took in a breath to bark some order, but before he could, every window in the room shattered.

Pane by pane, one by one like dominoes, the windows fell down onto the floor like a hailstorm. As the last few bits of glass finished settling on the floor, the entire building rumbled. The glass on the floor clinked, then rose into the air, floating like raindrops frozen in time. Then, each of the million pieces of glass on the floor flew back into place, and there was a flash of heat. One of the general’s people yipped as the heat licked her skin, and she jumped away from the windowpanes. In an instant, the glass melded back together, each pane back in its place, but the crack of each break now visible, a muddy macabre parody of stained glass. What had been clear, basic office-grade windows that looked into the hallway was now hot, blurry, and translucent.

“I do not consent.”

Then, Ampersand’s cloak of invisibility fell over him, and he was gone. The only sign that he hadn’t disappeared from the face of the earth altogether was the air that moved in his wake and the wobble of the door as he removed his giant invisible self from the room.

“He said no,” said Cora.

Brigadier General Porter shot to his feet, slamming his hands on the table again as he glared at her. She glared right back. To think, there would have been a time not so long ago when she would have crumbled before a man like that. Now, this government bureaucracy nonsense all felt so petty. Porter left the room, and his subordinates followed, leaving Sol and Cora alone in the botched conference room.