Sveta spotted me. I watched as the paintbrushes were pulled into a plastic package, still wet, and tendrils retreated into her body with remarkable speed. Her head tilted one way and then the other as she closed up her shell, locking the tendrils within. She raised a hand.

My invitation to approach.

I flew to her, one eye on the direction the criminals were supposed to be coming from. She was closing up the paint—a curated selection of paints in the same colors she had as part of her outfit, each ‘pot’ no larger than a dairy creamer.

“Can I see?” I asked.

She twisted around to show me her new paint. “Patching up scuffs, and the shading on the octopus face never looked right.”

“It looks good. I can’t give you a real verdict until we have better lighting.”

“Yeah,” she said. “All these poor people. It’s eight fifteen, and they’re still on their way home. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could make a big dinner, go car to car, and hand out chowder or something?”

“That’s the go-to? Chowder?”

“Yeah,” Sveta said, eyes widening at the thought. “Soup is just depressing. It makes you think ‘soup kitchen’. Thin, and in times like this, you know you’re getting it because there’s not much and the people serving you are trying to stretch things as far as they’ll go. But chowder? Big chunks of salmon or crab? Tons of butter and salt, then some potato, onion, celery, some dill?”

“Sticks to the stomach. Serve with some rolls. Toasted, ideally.”

“Yeah, absolutely. Fresh baked rolls. That’s part of it. It’s not enough that the quality is there. There has to be just enough in a serving that people can’t eat it all in one go. Give them that tiny bit of security for tomorrow.”

Impractical, a herculean task to put together. And it was far from being part of the ten percent of issues we were gearing up to tackle.

But this wasn’t about practicality. That wasn’t what she was imagining or spelling out.

“It makes me think of crisis points,” I said. “Head to the houses where the crimes just happened, say hi, offer to patrol the area for a bit, just to help them feel a bit safer—security. Like you said. Visit the church, talk to the people who just lost their home. Police stations, hospitals.”

“Absolutely,” Sveta’s voice was barely audible. In the distance, cars were honking. It didn’t look like it was because the villains were whizzing by. “Except nowadays, if you want to help the traumatized…”