Rain shook his head. At the same time, Sveta stood up. Her fingers, appearing like skin with the projector image that was on her, fumbled for and found her anchor necklace. She worked at the dial on the back.

“Sveta?” I asked.

“Please work,” she said, one hand gripping the wrist of her other arm.

The hand of that arm flickered and moved in a slightly out-of-sync way, before closing into a fist.

Above Sveta, I saw a line flash out, briefly appearing. One tendril, loosed to reach out. Aimed not at any person, but at—at the metal of the railing closest to our heads. It struck with a force that made a sharp ‘tang’ noise, followed by a duller echo of the same sound.

Anyone that had looked or seen would have seen just the briefest instance of the tendril going out and in—and it looked like she’d arced it well overhead, using the cloak and prevention of her necklace’s setting.

Nobody was shouting ‘parahuman, parahuman, danger!’—there were no shrieks. Only people on the stairwell and near the railing who looked concerned, like the metal might fail as something came loose.

And we had the group’s attention. I indicated the laptop, and Lookout whipped out her phone.

Quick enough to see, too late to do anything.

The lights in the Lyme Center flickered and dimmed for a moment. The laptop we’d been using went black. From the look of Lookout’s reaction, she’d just lost her phone.

She’d have lost her last good flying camera, too.

People were still reacting to the sudden motion and the sound. Slowly, they settled, looking a little less at ease than before. Heads periodically looked skyward, as if assuming that some wire or cable had ripped loose and then been reeled in.

No eyes on us.

“Relax,” I said. “Take it easy. We draw more attention to ourselves by freaking out.”

Lookout, on the stairs, was clearly upset, all but stamping her feet in impotent anger.

“She has an emotion sense,” Rain said. “If she comes here, she’ll sense our emotions.”

“All the more reason to relax, take it easy,” I said. “Everyone here is a bit emotional.”

“I can guarantee you that I’m in the top two percent here. I have some pretty strong regrets when it comes to how things happened.”

There was no more way to tell how far away Love Lost was. The camera and laptop were dead.

The other three were still near the top of the stairs. I motioned for them to hang back, and then turned my eyes and my attention to the tunnel that led from the second floor of this half of the hourglass-shaped Center to the second floor of the other half.

Make sure you have an escape route.