Sechs was a guy who had urinated off the edge of the roof twice in the last twenty minutes. His heavy footfalls were tell enough that he was coming, but sounds were unreliable, because the radio static or louder voices of others would drown things out. He was also most likely to change up the schedule or approach from another direction.

Sieben was the one to watch out for. Alone, so nobody to chat with. Not even a whiff of cigarette smoke or alcohol. She—I’d had enough of a glimpse of her to know she was an apparent she, tall, skinny, black, with only nose, eyes, and precariously high cheekbones visible behind her scarf and hat, a gas mask pulled off and set aside—was prone to walk on the lip of the roof rather than on the actual shingle-like pads. She didn’t make a sound, as a consequence, and she didn’t give her location away with a flashlight like Drei did.

We’d been on our way back from hiding from Drei’s flashlight when I’d first seen Sieben crouched at the edge of the roof, looking down. If she’d been three or four paces further down the roof, she would have seen us.

No exact patrol order. I could only feel out the gaps in between appearances and imagine that Sieben was filling in those gaps, I could pay attention to the details, and try to visualize the routes they preferred.

“Er bi.”

“Double vagina.”

“Sha bi.”

“Stupid vagina.”

“Ta ma de.”

“Yo mama?”

“Close.”

Four and Five weren’t even that close to the roof’s edge as they passed by. I allowed myself to relax. If I could’ve heard the intonations or accents on certain sounds, I would’ve been getting an education. Distance played with it, and I didn’t have the ear for it.

I leaned back. The heat that radiated away from us was affecting the frost on the window. The effect was small, but I worried what would be apparent if people inside or outside noticed a pair of blotches on the glass that were shaped like a pair of heads and shoulders, where we were close to the glass.

I tugged on Rain’s arm, having him shift his weight over to me, and we adjusted our location. A little closer to our hiding spot by the cans. Further from the spot where the three who weren’t patrolling were, so the intermittent buzz and blare of the radio wouldn’t put my nerves on edge or obscure other sounds.

“Can you see what you need to see?” I asked, my voice a whisper.

Rain nodded. The space under his hood was dark. He’d turned off the illuminated lines on his mask.

He motioned, a tiny and mostly broken mechanical hand indicating from his mouth to the roof. I nodded.

“Ninety-five percent,” I whispered. “Keep it to essentials.”

“What I was saying before,” he whispered. “I can feel who’s inside, I think. I push out and I feel the resistance. Lets me see silhouettes. Tattletale is in the bubble, along with three people.”