There was a kind of attitude shift across the crowd. On a level, I could get it. That things were sinking in. On another level, I felt like we were already seeing it, and that it shouldn’t be a surprise—even to the point that I was really kind of pissed that people were only just now getting it.

“This is about survival,” Dragon said. “We’re in this together. That’s the gist of it. Talk to us if you need more information. We will coordinate as we develop tools and gather information that helps with this problem.”

That marked the end of the speech.

Discussions started around us.

“The war’s finally reached us,” Sveta said.

Natalie and her friend drew closer. I had my arms folded as best as I could with my sling on.

“This is for real,” Natalie said. “They’re talking about this like there’s a very real possibility we might lose.”

“We might,” Capricorn said, putting a hand on her shoulder. He’d put an emphasis on ‘might’, but it didn’t feel like enough emphasis to change the meaning of his statement.

He was usually better about wording and presentation.

Leaving it up to me to try to rally the troops. “We’re tenacious. We made it this far.”

“Says the girl from Brockton-survived-Leviathan-Bay,” Cryptid said.

“Crypt,” Sveta said. “Show a little tact. That wasn’t a good period of time.”

Weld was making his way to us, but he was getting questions from every group he passed, and he wasn’t able to disengage or dismiss as fast as they came.

This was really it, wasn’t it? The good guys didn’t have much more than these groups that had been called here, and there was a lot of ground to cover. If we left a flank undefended, then it was possible it would get blown up or dismantled.

That was without getting into the other flaws and issues.

“Scapegoat turned coat. The Speedrunners did the same,” I observed.

“Thomais branch now, apparently,” Capricorn said. “We should talk to Rain.”

“In person,” Lookout said.

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Sveta said.

“It would be good if it was,” I said. “We need to figure something out over there.”

We need to figure out a lot of things.

“They might see a group visit as being a breakout attempt,” Chris said. “It sounds like a very sketchy, incomplete way of imprisoning people, they won’t want to add anything new or uncontrolled to the mix.”

I nodded, my arms still folded.

My mom was off at the other end of the clearing, looking at me.

“I’m going to go to Weld, so he doesn’t have to work so hard to get to us,” Sveta said.

“I’ll come,” Capricorn volunteered.

It left me with Lookout, Cryptid, Natalie and her friend.