He produced a bullet, like a soft slug pried out of a wall or floor, or out of a bullet-proof vest. Sure enough, it had broken up into a shape that looked a hell of a lot like a robin in flight, the splits separating head from wing and wing from tail.

“Oh wow. That really does look like a bird.”

“So do all the others. If I catch her going to the range again I’ll see if she can do another.”

“Or other things,” Lookout said.

“Oh yeah! Like an elephant! I like elephants.”

“Imagine if you controlled elephants. That’d be nuts.”

“I couldn’t, though. They’d get hurt and that would suck. Aunt Rachel’s dogs get hurt or die a lot and it sucks.”

“Aunt Rachel?”

“Bitch, or Hellhound, but she doesn’t have a secret identity, obviously—”

“Nonono, obviously. Yes, I know her name and everything, I get it. I just blanked.”

“Chicken,” Whippersnap said. “We should let them go. They’re waiting and they have things to do.”

With eyes that bulged out, each looking like there was too much moisture inside them, to the point they weren’t quite round anymore, he still managed to glare.

“Okay,” Chicken Little said.

“You’re lucky that you have people around your age to hang out with here,” Kenzie said.

“Maybe you could come here and hang out sometime, and—”

There were noises of protest, muted and not, from more than a few corners. Whippersnap was louder. Sveta, Ashley and I were at different places on the spectrum of dissuading and the more logical pointing out of issues.

“—or not,” Chicken Little said.

“Security issues,” Whippersnap said. “And we’ve heard enough about her to know she’s a walking infosec breach.”

I really liked how the young teen was using words like ‘infosec’. The company we keep.

A bummer, that Kenzie couldn’t meet up with a potential friend.

“Maybe neutral territory,” I said.

Whippersnap’s focus seemed to remain primarily on Sveta.

“What’s your name?”

Swansong, addressing the lace girl.

“Does it matter?” Whippersnap asked. “What do you care?”

Swansong shrugged. “I just like the dress. It’s pretty, and I’m a fan of the style.”

As if to indicate, Swansong’s fingers brushed against her own skirt. White fabric, like the lace girl seemed to be covered in. Swansong only had a bit of lace, though.

The lace girl nodded, lips set into a firm line behind her veil. Her hands looked like they’d been covered in gloves, then had the lace pattern punched in repeatedly, passing through glove and flesh both. Most of her looked that way, and the parts that didn’t just had extra layers, with only hints of it.

“When a Case Fifty-Three can’t choose their appearance, pointing out even the parts you like about how they ended up can be disconcerting,” Sveta murmured.

“Sorry then,” Swansong said.