She had told me to dress in a way that was comfortable for me. It was still hot out and I’d had to travel forty miles to get to a place where Mrs. Yamada could pick me up to drive me the rest of the way. Even though the heat persisted, the weather had broken, the humidity giving way to a light thunderstorm. I wore a white dress with a black hood built into it, the Brockton Bay skyline printed in what looked like black and gray watercolors across the breast, the city’s name below and to the side. There was a scribbling of more watercolor and lettering at the hem. The white fabric was a thin sweatshirt-like material, so the hood hadn’t been much use against the rain.

The windows were open and the blinds closed, periodically clacking against the windowsills. The wind wasn’t blowing in a direction that sent the rain into the room, but droplets still beaded the blinds closer to the bottom. The lights felt artificially bright, in contrast to how dark the clouds and sky were outside. The room was set up like a high school classroom, minus the ‘class’, no students, no mess, no bulletin board with scraps on it or whiteboard with weeks-old marks that hadn’t been wiped away. Eight chairs were arranged in a ring at the center, instead of five columns of six desks.

There was a teacher’s desk at the front, and Mrs. Yamada was there, looking over some files. I’d caught some glimpses of the pictures on the fronts, purely by accident. I could have pried more, maybe caught a name or a heading by reading upside-down, and I’d decided not to. She wouldn’t have wanted me to.

“Do I have a file?” I asked. She startled a little, as if she’d forgotten I was there.

She’d been in the zone, I realized. She might have needed to be. She didn’t wear it on her face or in her body language, but there was a reason she was so immersed in what she was reading.

I could relate to that, in a way. During my hospital stay, I’d delved deep into my studies, struggled with the keyboard as I read everything I could find, while furthering my studies with long-distance education.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said.

“It’s fine. You did have a file. You don’t now, I’m afraid. Unless it’s somewhere in the rubble.”

I nodded.

She glanced at the clock. “One of the group’s members tends to arrive early. She should be here momentarily.”

I looked up at the clock. One fifty in the afternoon. From how dark it was outside, I might have thought it was five hours later in the day. “Good to know.”

“It will be interesting to see how you two get on.”

“Huh.”