I wrapped my braid around itself a few times, and tied it there in a slightly messy bun-coil, then climbed up to the passenger seat. The seniors climbed into the back. There were a few faces I recognized but couldn’t name, a dozen more that I didn’t recognize and definitely couldn’t name. I could tell that they were from elsewhere by the fact that the armor they’d brought with them had been painted black, rather than have the white letters scrubbed away. Twenty-four in all.

Jasper took the driver’s seat, starting up the bus immediately.

Even parked in the shade, even in September, the heat was such that the seats were uncomfortably hot. I’d thought about removing my armor once my hands were free, and carrying it by hand, but I decided to keep it on for the extra buffer.

Didn’t do anything to spare my ass from the warm faux-leather seat. I didn’t like being aware of my body to that extent.

“Where to?” Jasper asked, rescuing me from my thoughts.

“Norwalk–Fairfield span,” I said.

“Rural, isn’t that?” Jasper asked.

“Last I heard.”

Jasper had to almost stand up to get the perspective to see through the open back of the bus. He reversed out of the lot and took us onto the road.

“Maybe you guys can answer. What’s the deal with stretches and spans?” one of the new guys asked.

I turned sideways in my seat, looking back. Now that I was sitting and looking back at them, they were older, I noted. Seventeen at a minimum. “You guys are from one of the denser parts of the city?”

“New York Central. Near the Bet–Gimel portal,” a girl said.

One of the two big ones, then. We’d bled into the areas surrounding the portals. Brockton Bay had been the first, but we’d had a few in a few major cities and New York was a big one. The cluster of settlements around the portals in the northeastern US and people’s desire to have ready access to that cluster and the resources, community, information and security it afforded had played a big part in the Megalopolis forming.

One blob around New York, one blob around the New Brockton settlement, clusters south of New Brockton, near what would or should be Boston, and everything had spread out or extended from there, mostly hugging the coast and connecting to one another.