“We’re interested,” he said, with barely a breath’s span between my statement ending and his starting.

“I know. Yes. And besides that, there’s a need to establish a connection. A website that you visit a few times a day to log your activities, an email exchange, they’re things that are hard to keep up with after the novelty wears off. Someone who you see face to face? It’s harder to ignore them.”

“Establishing trust,” he said.

⊙

I landed with more force than was necessary as I returned to the headquarters. My feet rang on the metal slats of the fire escape, announcing my arrival.

“Where are we?” I asked, as I let myself in.

“Auzure is in. They’ll send people whenever they aren’t actively doing a job,” Tristan said. “Money takes priority, Lark says, because he thinks that if he can’t get money, he can’t keep his team running, and it’s a long-term loss. If we start paying him then he’ll give us priority, even if others are offering a bit more. I think the numbers he gave were two hundred dollars a day from us, three hundred from the next guy, he’ll help us out.”

“Can we pay him in New Dollars?” I asked.

“Trading dollars.”

I scowled. Then I blinked, looking at Tristan. “I thought it was Byron’s turn.”

“I was antsy, I begged. I owe him time later, now. He thinks this is important. We were talking about money, Sveta talked to Weld and Weld talked to his bosses. They’re going to see what they can funnel our way. It won’t be a ton, but it’s going to cover rent.”

I looked around the room. The two members of our group who were in jail were present, as were Tristan, obviously, and Kenzie.

“No Chris?”

“Out. We messaged him to come back.”

“And Sveta?”

“Stuck around with the people she was talking to. Ratcatcher and others Ratcatcher has talked to. They got to talking and she wanted to keep chatting. She’s on her way back, but she was a good ways away.”

“That’s good. Rapport,” I said.

“It is. Except,” Tristan said. He made except its own statement, with emphasis, glancing at Rain.

“Except I caught Crystalclear during morning yard,” Rain said. “We got caught up. Everything was foggy before, and we’re getting a clearer view now. We found Goddess.”

“Found?” I asked, my interest piqued.

Kenzie opened up a screen, projecting it onto the one wall. It was her overhead camera, in an area where the sky was much darker, the light that peeked through much briefer. The wind blew at people’s jackets and hair, whipping it.

“It’s a replay,” Kenzie said.

The camera fixed on one individual. A woman, blonde, wearing a light blue jacket with a white fur ruff collar. She walked with her hands in her pockets, head down.