Though Durbin turned to look at the reflective glass, aware that there were even more eyes on him, of a number he couldn’t know, the people leaving the interrogation room served to lower the pressure.

I chose to back off, myself. Anelace and Capricorn could take point. I stepped off to the side. If needed, I’d try to play nice.

“Did she give you a name?” Capricorn asked.

Durbin shook his head.

“How did she approach you?” Anelace asked.

“She caught me on my way through the door by the elevators,” Durbin said. “Other entrances are boarded up. She asked if there was a place she could set up, and I thought she meant the offices above. I told her about having to talk to people upstairs, I didn’t know anything, you know. She clarified, she wanted to be more discreet, do something less expensive than buying office space. Said it was to get her company up and running.”

“And she raised the subject of the gas?”

“That was after. The power shuts off after a certain time. I do my patrol with my flashlight. After a few times when she lost her work, she said she’d bring in gas for the emergency generator, she knew people. I thought it was great for both of us.”

“She offered you cash at first, then.”

Durbin nodded. “Yeah. Not a lot. Not worth this. I bought myself sneakers with the money, after a few weeks. It’s hard to get good shoes these days.”

“A few weeks? How long total?” Capricorn asked.

“Since… June, I guess. It was hot out when I first saw her, and it was late. I remember thinking about the fact that she was wearing black on such a warm evening.”

“Were you aware she was a parahuman?” Anelace asked.

“No, no idea. Who is she?”

Anelace didn’t answer, instead glancing at Capricorn and I.

I wasn’t sure I was a fan of how he kept giving up information on how much we knew, but I wasn’t about to stop him or ask him to leave. Durbin wasn’t a mastermind. He wasn’t going to break or stop being able to testify. It was more a question of getting him to realize and parse just how much he knew.

“What did you talk about?” Capricorn asked.

“Weather, stuff I’d seen on television, recent events. She’d wait for me, hand me my cash, we’d say one or two things. Sometimes she’d ask when my relief was coming because she was planning on staying late.”

“You seem awfully cool with this arrangement,” Anelace said. “Nameless woman, random approach, gas from nowhere?”