Finally regaining her breath, she plucked her rapier from the ground, and she pointed it at the center of the city. Another five or ten minutes of walking, and they’d be at the foot of the construction.

Her group set out.

⊙

She’d come to like travel. It helped that other people were usually driving.

They’d settled into an informal role. Jan was the power expert, March the bodyguard.

Jan had no interest in being a gal in a lab coat in the PRT, but she did have an interest in writing about powers and people with powers.

Which meant hunting down interesting things. Which interested March, too. She was set for a good long time financially, and with this, she was feeding other passions.

Maybe the insatiable curiosity was Flechette’s. Maybe the poor girl was enduring her first few months with the PRT, being expected to learn these things, and it was being raised as a talent or inclination, discarded because Flechette had other priorities.

They got each other’s scraps. They were stabilizing over time, but now and again, things would get passed over. If Homer hadn’t pointed it out, then she might never know.

“This is a heavy one,” Jan said.

“Heavy how?” March asked.

“Six people. They triggered like you did. All together.”

“Six?”

Jan nodded.

Six. When Jan and March reached the town, there were three.

Three at a table in a shitty pub, four looking worn out, scared.

“I’m Tori,” one member of the group introduced herself.

“Jan. This is March, my bodyg—”

“Can you help?” the plea from a man, who was prematurely balding, and who had veins at his forehead, not from stress, or maybe only partially from stress, but because that was the way his forehead looked. He didn’t seem superhero-ish. “Please.”

“I can try,” Jan said. “March is a cluster too. We’ve been researching things, and new information is coming out every month or two.”

“Do you have a carousel?” another member of the four-person group asked. A woman, brunette.

“A what?”

“A carousel. It’s what we termed it. Silly of me to think you’d know what I meant. Any game? A gimmick? A way the power passes power around?”

“I’ve picked up some skills, I think. And addictions.”

That only got her a head-shake in response.

“Start from the beginning,” Jan said.

“Did you hear about the quarantine at White Rock?”

Jan nodded.

“Do you know the reason why they quarantined White Rock?” Tori asked.

“Yes,” Jan said.

“No,” March said. “Quarantine?”

“Someone dug a hole,” the other woman in the group said. “I’m Megan, by the way.”

“Hi Megan.”

“They made a hole between worlds. And… some people here started using it. A few years back.”

“Me,” Tori said. “Jace.”

The guy raised a hand.

“Smuggling. Passing information. Scientific research. Music. There’s so many ways to profit, with a link like that.”