He was startled by that, and the sudden shift in position forced one of his legs to take on additional strain. It wobbled precariously, metal straining on each flex to the extent that I could hear it creak and pop.

“That’s a thing?” he asked, once he’d found his stability.

Geez. These guys needed to take a powers 101 class.

“Could be,” I said. “I guess it doesn’t make sense as a thing powers would do. Powers tend to steer clear of the suicidal, the helpless, the invalid, or people who are limited. I wouldn’t rule it out one hundred percent, but I wouldn’t blame the power either.”

He nodded. There was a pause, and then he collapsed into a sitting position, the glass cylinder with its fluid resting on the ground, the syringe point stabbing skyward. “Don’t scare me like that.”

“Sorry.”

“Just a bad roll of the dice,” he said, quiet. “I’d take a bullet for either of them. They deserve better than this, but we spent so long doing nothing at all that getting started became more and more… huge. We got here and we ended up in the tents, and it let us dip our toes in the water.”

“Did your powers or side effects act up when you were idle?” I asked.

“That’s a thing?”

“Can be. Not all the time, not even most of the time, despite conventional wisdom. But it comes up.”

“That explains shit,” he said. “Oh god. Why isn’t there a manual or website that walks us through all of this?”

“There was. It was called the PRT.”

“Couldn’t go to them. Cary lost her brother when she was young. Her family got split up. We were like siblings, us three, we only had each other, really. We’d go from one of our towns to the other, to check on family and friends, but we were the only ones who always had each other’s backs. We were worried we’d get taken away from home or broken up, like how her family got broken up. They reached out a few times, but—”

He stopped there. He shook his head.

“I’m sorry it was such a hard road.”

“The answers mean a lot,” he said. “That favor I was supposed to ask of you, I think you did it. Or—almost. I have more questions. After we help, maybe you can give us some answers, as the favor?”

“I can give you some without it being a big favor,” I said. “I like talking about powers and figuring this stuff out. But for today, I think, there are things to get squared away. I have other people to talk to like your group.”

“Why face to face?”

“Because there are some things that you can only see face to face, like how genuine someone is or if they’re interested in the mission.”