I was given the all-clear. I fixed my bag over my shoulder—my arm was back in the sling, so the management of the bag was made more difficult. The contents had been confirmed safe. I’d have to use their supplied cord for my laptop, since they’d taken the battery, but that was fine. At least it lightened my load by a pound or so.

“Keep a safe distance from all prisoners in the area,” the instructions came from the desk. The first shutter between us and the yard was opened. “Limit hugging or touching to once at the start of the visit and once at the end.”

“Aww.”

“You may sit at the same table, but nothing may cross that table while you’re there. The breadth of the table should be kept clear. You will not agitate the prisoners, whether the ones you are visiting or the ones who may be observing. Some others will be out exercising, but they won’t be allowed to approach within three hundred feet.”

“Got it,” Capricorn said, with a rush to his voice that, in another context, might have suggested he was in a hurry and he wanted the guard to stop talking.

In reality, he was probably trying to get an answer in before Chris said anything ill-advised.

“Don’t wander off,” the guard said. “Stay within ten feet of one another. If there is an emergency—”

“If there’s an emergency, we’re capes,” Cryptid said.

“If there is an emergency, you’ll return here. Failing that, enter any non-residential building. There will be two near where you are seated. You’ll be free to seal and shutter the entrances.”

It was such a messy prison system. A minimum of guards, the prisoners free range, without even a wall between them at the outside world. It was just… flat and marshy out in three of the four directions, with the fourth not being fantastic. Everything hinged on the ankle-worn bombs and other countermeasures that the prisoners wore. To run meant to have one’s foot and calf blown off.

The shutter down the hall opened.

“You may proceed straight ahead. The prisoners you’ve asked to meet will be on their way to the table shortly.”

The light from outside was bright as the shutter came up. Wind blew through as the shutter raised, but it wasn’t because of the distorted portals and weather from that. We were too far off the beaten track, and things were more tranquil here.

Buildings were set down in tight clusters, for administration buildings, or in nondescript collections of apartments, fitting within the narrowest possible interpretation of code and then cramming that full of one-room apartments.

One set of a dozen prisoners were filtering into the buildings. Our visit had been timed by the prison to take advantage of the shift to the next exercise period.