Sveta had started painting her body again, now that the court proceedings were done. Forest green, again, with teal blues for the select details and animals. It was only partial, and she used the negative, unpainted space in a neat way, with a mandala or kaleidoscope pattern to what was painted and what wasn’t. Her top was another of the simple tops with knots at each shoulder and below each armpit; there was a navy blue base to the cloth and more teal for the lettering around an anchor design. Her pants looked like sweats. Her feet were ‘bare’, being only the prosthetic feet, and I could see where the tops of the feet were painted, the toes left alone.

Tristan had a white jacket on over a crimson top, jeans so faded they were almost white, and white sneakers. He hadn’t found the time to apply more paint to his hair, it seemed, and he hadn’t shaved. I could see the faint shadow, even from a distance.

And Chris was… very much Chris. His hood was up and his hoodie zipped up all the way. He had dark circles under red eyes, his braces were on and looped around his head, and he had a different set of headphones on, with a forward-sweeping bar that clipped to the front of his hood. It looked a bit like he’d done it himself, and I was left to wonder just why he’d wanted to keep his head that securely covered.

The pressure differential between portals was responsible for strong wind on a good day, these days. Clouds and weather came rolling through with little warning beyond what the scientists on the far side could figure out. Today wasn’t such a good day—there were two portals in reasonably close proximity here and the two played off each other to make the wind issue twice as bad as it might otherwise be.

The tallest buildings were swaying. It was bad enough of a gale that there wasn’t much traffic on the road or sidewalks. I was forced to fly close to the ground.

“Heya,” Sveta said, as I flew over to join the group, staying near to the ground. She reached out for my good arm and gave it a squeeze. I shifted position and gave her a better one-armed hug.

“Where’s Kenzie?” I asked.

“She’s running late,” Tristan said. “And this is her neighborhood.”

“And it’s her project we’re here to see,” Chris said.

“Did you guys call her?” I asked.

“Moment I arrived and she wasn’t here,” Tristan said. “No response.”

“It’s ominous,” Chris said. “I would say something about the sky falling, but there’s already a Chicken Little out there. I’d say something about the world coming to an end, but that joke got tired a year ago.”

“Not really a joke, that last one,” Tristan said.