“You going to be alright if I send you out to help fill in the gaps at the flanks?”

“It’s why I’m here,” I said.

“South side of the building,” he said, pointing. “Stand on the dotted line, try not to stare down the crowd or antagonize them. Be gentle if they get rowdy.”

“Can do,” I said.

“Should be quiet tonight,” he said. He turned to Laserdream as he said it, but glanced at me. Including us both in the statement. “This is one of three locations. The big demonstrations are supposed to start tomorrow, at another location. Tonight they’re mainly interested in holding their ground and organizing themselves. Holding a vigil, giving cameras something to record. Would be nice if they got over it or got bored before things get started tomorrow, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

That would be why Tempera had said I could call in the morning. The workers wanted time and media attention to give their side some weight before they really took action.

“Get yourself in position. I’ll send someone your way with some cups of coffee in a short while.”

“Alright,” I said.

The parahumans along the road to the south of the building were spaced out along the painted divider in the center of the street. One parahuman every fifteen or so feet. There were no barricades, only the lights on tripods, connected to battery packs, helping to illuminate most of the road. The ambient light from nearby buildings contributed.

The crowd was noisy, but it was a low, constant noise. Talk, conversation, the occasional raised voice. There wasn’t a car to be seen on the street.

I could remember what had happened to Fume Hood. I closed my eyes for a moment, and I put my forcefield up, leaving it up. It made me uncomfortable, but a bullet would be even worse on that score.

The capes down the street to my left were all wearing Advance Guard icons on their sleeves and costumes. The stylized man bearing the ‘greater-than’ shaped shield, charging forward. The color of the icon changed, depending on the costume’s color scheme, but it was always such that it stood out, yellow on a red and orange costume, or purple on a blue-green one. The thick bold lines of the icon’s design tended to flow into the cape’s individual icon or the rest of the costume, the shield’s lines or the diamond-shaped frame of the icon joining the line running down the seam of the sleeve or the lines running across the chest.