“It works like this,” Sveta said. “If I had to bring up any issues…”

She didn’t finish the sentence, and as Rain took off his mask and raised his eyebrows, motioning for her to continue, she remained quiet.

“Why are you trailing off?” Rain asked. “I want to know.”

“Sorry. I’m already asking for a lot and saying ‘no’ to ideas. It’s stronger but it doesn’t feel as strong as I’d expect a hand of this size to feel, but I’m not sure if I’m using it at its full strength so that might be bad feedback. When I use my regular body, I’m pretty strong if I want to be, but I end up holding back because I don’t want to break it. I might be doing the same thing here.”

“We can’t know until you test its limits and break it,” Rain said.

“Except I can’t do that while I’m in the field. If I screw something up I have a hundred pounds of dead weight to drag around.”

“Can you do it here?”

I could see the hesitation on Sveta’s face as she turned around, looking at the hand that was planted on the floor, the arm extending up, and over, to where the ‘shoulder’ now rested on a table.

“I get it,” I told her. “My mom sent me to clinics for testing my powers. It’s kind of rare that you ever get to get an exact reading on your power’s strength. Especially when it’s durability.”

“Yeah,” Sveta told me.

“Except one of those things is Victoria talking about her flesh and blood body,” Rain said. “And—I’m suddenly realizing I sound like an insensitive asshole.”

Sveta swatted his shoulder. “You’re fine.”

“The arm can be fixed more easily, is what I wanted to say,” he said.

“I dunno,” she said.

“You’re used to holding back,” I observed.

I could see the realization cross her face. The connecting of two dots. I could relate it to a lot of moments where I’d missed something that seemed objectively obvious.

We weren’t always obvious.

“That’s true,” she finally said.

“I could try putting together a gauge,” Rain said. “Something like a visual indicator or audio indicator that measures what you’re putting in, with a max limit if you get to the point that metal starts bending or snapping.”

“That might work.”

“What else?” Rain asked.

“Well, um, this is a really obvious one, but I’d love it if it was more complete.”

I left them to the discussion. I stopped by the table by my whiteboard and collected my bag and some spare clothes.

In the bathroom, I stripped down and rinsed off, aware of the blood that came away from my hair and skin; I hadn’t been aware it was there. Not mine. There was smoke, there was sweat, and there was grime. My skin was still bruised from my fight with the arena man two days ago, and as much as adrenaline pushed pain into the background, the pain came back. I ached.