“Let me get the door for you,” Anelace said. He jumped to his feet and opened the door for me. His voice was quiet as he said. “Sorry to see you go.”

The thinkers would have noticed that.

I wondered what Effervescent and Relay would be reporting about my emotional state as I left.

⊙

“Mrs. Dallon?”

I stood from my seat in the waiting room.

The cape had a costume that looked like a suit, metallic silver fabric, with a black dress shirt underneath. His mask consisted of two panels that met and ran down the center of his face, creating an almost beak-like profile with how the two sides swept along the sides of his face and back. Not bird-like, but as if his entire head was the beak. The hair I could make out above the ‘v’ where the mask parted was longer and heavily styled.

It reminded me of the Ambassadors from Boston, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have worn suits as ostentatious as this, nor such a dramatic full-face mask.

“You didn’t come in costume?” he asked. He sounded surprised.

“I’m pre-identity adjustment,” I said, caught in trying to find my footing with my rehearsed explanation as I simultaneously crossed to where he was to shake his hand. “Moving on from the identity and methodology I had as a teenage heroine. I’m a blank slate, and there’s a lot of room to adjust my brand moving forward.”

“Are you ex-Protectorate?” he asked. “I might have missed that if it was in your application.”

“No. Ex-Ward, but only very briefly.”

“I only ask because you went straight to the term ‘brand’. I’m used to hearing it from people who were in the PRT and people from other corporate teams. I know I read your file and there was no mention of a corporate background. I’m Lark. You’ll meet Dido soon, all going well.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Lark.”

“My office is this way, if you’ll join me,” he said. He briefly touched the small of my back to guide me in the direction his other hand was indicating.

I was bothered by the contact. Unsolicited touching, the presumed closeness, and the fact it was a hot day, my back was damp from the walk and he would have felt that.

It was such an unnecessary thing and it made both of us uncomfortable.

“Brockton Bay,” he said.

“Yes. From birth to Endbringer and immediate aftermath.”

“A mom and pop small town team?”

“Aunt and uncle and cousins too,” I said. “Extended family. They passed the fifteen year mark with just donations and small events. I think that counts for something.”

“It’s better than what Dido and I have managed, but give us time. We have five parahumans on the team, and we’re already in the black when it comes to the business end of things.”