“Then fuck you, that’s secret identity shit, you asshole. You act like you’re all for the rules and then you share that stuff? Fuck you.”

“I left out the details pertinent to—”

“Then fuck you for leaving out details and not owning up to every last bit of it!” Sidepiece said.

“Fuck me either way, huh?” Rain asked, his voice quiet.

“No,” Sidepiece said. “No, no, no. Fuck you one particular way, okay? Take the narrow end of the broken bottle I told her to fuck herself with, stick your narrower pecker into it, and break the neck off while you’re inside it. Then fuck it.”

“There’s a kid here,” Sveta said.

“Fuck her! Fuck that surveillance state fucking tinker bullshit unblinking creepiness!”

“I think she’s pissed,” Capricorn said.

“Fuck you! Fuck off!”

“I don’t think this is going anywhere,” Shortcut said. “We’re not going to get anything useful here.”

“Waiting on a text,” I murmured.

“You really like making us wait,” he said. “You let your guys go and now you want to benefit off of our catches? Do you think we’re going to go home and let you take the credit?”

“They totally do,” Disjoint said.

“Shut up!” Shortcut barked.

“That’s not what we’re doing,” Capricorn said. Byron.

“I guess I’m supposed to take your word for it?” Shortcut said.

“Shortcut,” Spright said. “People don’t like capes right now. Who are we supposed to be getting credit from?”

“Everyone,” Shortcut said.

I kept my mouth shut for the moment. On my phone’s screen, Nat had left me with only an ‘asking around’.

Our group was assembled in a garage, for lack of a better word. It was more like a shack, with sliding barn doors and a way through wide enough for a car to drive in and park, with the doors closing in front and behind. The gas, tools, and other things had been carted away by whoever operated the place during the daylight hours. The space was oil-stained concrete floor and thin wooden walls, the only decoration a table that was a wooden door and four planks for legs, and a pile of engine parts in the corner that clearly violated the rules that had been put up on the wall.

Sidepiece and Disjoint were by the wooden table. Disjoint had a loop of something connecting him to the flimsy plank leg of the table. Sidepiece had her hands cuffed behind her head. She wore her partial, phantom-of-the-opera face mask, white with a ragged edge that had been beaded with what looked like red nail polish, to look like blood, black hair covering the part of her face that her mask didn’t. She was curvy, except everything between the ribcage and the pelvis had been picked clean—her stuffed polyester coat covered most of that up, but blood stained the belt-line of her jeans.