“Ha,” Byron said the word, humorless. The car swerved a bit on what looked like normal, not-icy ground, and he corrected. “I saw it happen and I don’t even know. I smile and it’s… it’s an expression. He smiles and people like him. He gets online and finds people we used to fight, people we threw in jail, asks how they’re doing, finds common ground in the world ending, fishes. A couple weeks later, somehow he has these guys, with a clandestine system for getting in touch. I didn’t even think it would happen, so I just let him do his thing, focused on my own things, and… surprise, it all came together, am I willing to shell out some of my own cash so it’s not one party paying the scary mercenaries? I should know not to underestimate him when he sets his mind to something.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then we have a time limit. Goddess, prison, pharmacist, make sure Rain and Ashley are okay. Tonight?”

“Tonight, yeah. All of that tonight. Then if we can’t fix it by then, you’re going to need to put me into a coma. Say I was hurt in the field.”

“If they have that thinker, and if I’m actually brainwashed, then they’ll catch on.”

“A neutral third party then,” Byron said.

“And we lose our one unaffected person in the chain of command for the master–stranger protocol.”

“Yeah.”

I folded my arms, being careful with my burned hand, and stared out the window, thinking. I had to anticipate what the others would say and do, I had to second-guess Byron while at the same time supporting him, and I needed to think about Teacher and his motives and goals. Even simpler things were made that much more problematic by the things in their orbit, like Amy’s proximity to Goddess.

We drove in silence. There was no radio, and our only soundtrack was the noise of the wheels through wet ice and the patter against the car roof. I’d spent relatively little time in cars and vehicles for the past seven or so years, even during my stint with the Patrol block, and my awareness of the individual noises was harder to block out.

Not that I minded. White noise was a good grounding for contemplation, and the sounds were alien enough that I wasn’t reminded of anything particular.

I checked my phone and found it marked with the ‘no service’ icon. No internet waypoints, no cell.

I wanted to have neat and tidy answers and excuses like I had with Kenzie before we’d left, where I’d been able to keep her from going off and doing her thing to try and be helpful. Or so I was hoping. I didn’t have much of anything.