I followed the unspoken request, putting it in reach. Watched as Lookout moved her hand, Darlene moving hers in concert. Used Darlene’s fingers as her own to reach to the back of the helmet, with me rotating the helmet to help.

The ‘bun’ at the back was soon disconnected. A flick of a small switch made it open, two covers pulling back to reveal the camera ‘eye’. Another two small adjustments made that eye turn left and right, then up and down.

The distraction seemed to help both of them. No hitched breaths, no physical jolts of pain. The light from the stairwell caught a bead of sweat at Kenzie’s forehead, lights glittering on the moist surface of Darlene’s eyes.

The camera was removed from its oblong mounting, moved over toward Chicken Little—

He jumped at the physical contact, squeezed Darlene’s arm harder.

The pad touched his neck. The camera came to life, moving stiffly, the cover ‘lids’ opening and closing slightly, the ‘pupil’ narrowing and widening. Rain’s tech.

Kenzie leaned into Darlene hard, pressing their faces together as the camera focused in on them.

“Hi!” Kenzie said. “Hi there.”

“Hi,” Darlene said, to the camera-eye.

“Hi,” Chicken Little spoke for the first time. “I can’t hear you. I can’t see you clearly either. I don’t think it’s because it’s dark.”

“We can work on that, can’t we?” Kenzie asked.

Darlene nodded.

I extricated myself, letting the two girls get to a more comfortable position, Kenzie communicating through Darlene’s power to get Darlene to act as her hands. Darlene didn’t need me to cling to, at least for right now.

⊙

“Sveta?” I asked.

Silence.

“What can I do?” I asked. My voice carried into the dark.

“Leave. For your own safety.”

The words stung. A gulf separated us.

“I can use my forcefield to get close.”

“Don’t. Not when— Not like this.”

She didn’t trust herself. It wasn’t just the gulf. She was several steps removed. On most days I’d seen her at the hospital, she’d been one or two steps removed from hurting me. One mistake to smash something into a forcefield, another mistake to do something to my body.

Here, to cover that distance, turn the corner, to smash my forcefield and then to hurt me, it required a sequence of mistakes.

And she saw that sequence as being too possible.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Me too. I’m just—why? Why couldn’t they take my word for it when I said I surrendered? Why did they have to wreck it? Why did they—”

There was a movement. A object hurtled in anger, startling, then I startled more as that object exploded.