The other members of the group were standing at higher vantage points—on the stair-like ledges at the edges of the shopping floor’s main concourse, and on the stone edge around the simple fountain. Having the higher ground let them see over the heads of the blurs. Next to me, Kenzie had the best vantage point in the place, sitting on Byron’s shoulders. The silent unfolding of the scene was punctuated by Byron telling her to stop wiggling so she wouldn’t fall.

I took the easier route and floated, trying to see the areas the camera covered that the others couldn’t. There were people leaning in nooks and crannies, people sitting with papers beside them.

Most of the covert leaning was done by one construction employee, who carried an empty container and smoked, the ashes being tapped off into the container. Multiple instances of smoke became a gossamer haze that hid their face.

The papers littered the places where people grabbed lunch and did some reading. I flew past, noting the papers, and I saw ads for apartments, newspapers, and some kind of legal documentation that scanned as hazy with the way the time camera worked.

“A lot of people pass through this supposedly abandoned area,” Sveta said. “I’m glad we called to ask for permission before breaking in this time, because this kind of traffic would have made it really dumb to try to sneak in.”

“They would notice the sea of blurry images before they noticed us,” Chris said. “Especially if any of those images have the same height and general shape as them. That’s gotta be weird.”

“This is over a few weeks,” Kenzie said. “It’s not actually that many people. Wait until I run facial identification and thin it out.”

“I can picture one of these guys showing up. Hey, Leon the security guy, sorry to surprise you, we’re just replaying footage of every single thing you did in this building since the start of September. Is that you scratching your butt there? Then their jaws drop.”

“That wouldn’t happen, Chris,” I said.

“Do you think they’d shoot the scary parahumans first and ask questions later?” Chris asked.

“I think you wouldn’t say sorry,” I said.

“Ha!”

“Why did this place close down?” Sveta asked. She was peering into a store that still had a banner down the window, featuring some game character. I wasn’t sure if it was a board game or video game. “It looks like it closed down before the portal.”

“It wasn’t built to fill a need,” Chris said. “It was put here to make things feel like the home we lost. It’s a lot of upkeep and money to prop up something symbolic.”