Discussion continued. I waited, my eyes roving over the surroundings. The entryway to the jail was built of the same prefabricated segments, with the arching ceiling over the booth, the layout of the hallways, and the setup around the door. The difference was in the protective measures. The entryway looked like a place that was triply fortified, with shutters that could drop down at regular intervals, and a very fortified booth. Painted lines traced along the floor, pointing to different destinations.

“I’ll keep some of the essential stuff,” Cryptid said. “If I end up unconscious for any reason, if I look dead, if I’m dying, something vital plops out of my chest, just stab me with these. If you can get me conscious again, I’ll figure out the next steps myself.”

They looked like the epipen needles and the adrenaline-shot needles that came in the mass-produced first aid kits. He had three of them, and he walked over to the desk to show the guards.

We were in costume. Cryptid wasn’t cloaked, because cloaks would have been concerning, but instead had decorated himself in a look that was shadowy, crocodile-like scaling. The light and shadow that hit him affected him in a different, odd way, with deeper shadow and slimmer bands of light.

He ended up having to hand over the cloaking device, too. He turned his head away from both guards and security cameras.

“You don’t need to worry,” one of the guards said. “We’re law enforcement. We’re on the same side.”

“I prefer to play it safe,” Chris—not Cryptid for the moment—replied.

“If we didn’t have this recommendation letter, your attitude here might mean we’d turn you away.”

“But you have it, right?”

“Cryptid,” Capricorn said. “Go easy.”

“I am, believe it or not,” Cryptid said. He took the cloaking device as it was slid back in his direction, and snatched up the syringes when they were passed his way. “I’m here because it’s my duty to a friend. I hate institutions.”

“You live in one,” Lookout said.

“Barely. It’s a place with a bed and we have a nice agreement where they don’t make me follow rules and I don’t bother anyone too bad. I don’t see why it matters what I have on me, when we’re capes.”

As much as Cryptid was complaining to us, but the guys at the desk overheard. One said, “The question is what you might slip to them, not what you do yourself.”

“They have powers. What tool are we going to hand over that would trump that?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” the guy at the desk said.