“I’m a dual-field tinker. I was almost starting fresh after we finished up the whole thing and I got started with my new team, after a week of disasters ruined most of my tech. I had some startup money, and I thought I’d make something that people really want. And what we all really want is security and access. Two weeks of hard work, scans of multiple portal technologies and keys we got from the bad guys, scans of portals and some other related stuff, and we have a cube that opens up paths between worlds.”

“We’re happy to have it,” Weld said.

She said it like it was her idea, but Breakthrough had had some input, and we’d supplied the bulk of the cash for materials to get her started. I only thought about it because Tattletale had hinted that her role had been more important somehow, saying she supplied the protection and transportation while Kenzie went to get her scans, but … I wasn’t going to play that game. Like two sets of parents bickering over who paid for what for a wedding.

Just… enjoy the damn wedding. Or in our case, our ominous black cube that tore open holes between realities.

By making something sought-after that served as a solution to a half-dozen major problems at once, she’d been able to multiply her start-up cash.

“Where are we going?” Kenzie asked. “Do I check on the paired cube?”

“Proper HQ,” Tristan said. “Yeah.”

“Does anyone else want to try the hallway?” Kenzie asked.

“Me,” Rain said, surprising me a bit.

“Got it, good, go for it. Back to the stairs, try not stopping or slowing down if you can. It’s okay if you fail.”

The hallway lit up again.

Rain strode down the hallway, hands moving, touching things without perfect confidence, then moving them more firmly once he figured out how to grasp or push them.

He made it to the end, when the thing immediately jumped to red oulines around the white projections, black around the red, and then the lights in the hallway shutting off.

“Oooooh,” Vista said. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Rain protested, in the dark. “I did that right!”

“You wrote down your password,” Kenzie said. She was briefly illuminated as lines and squares appeared around her. The lights came back on and the portal opened, less rough at the edges and not as violent a sound. There was daylight on the other side.

“I saved it as something I could pull up with my mask in an emergency,” he said.

“And if the cube can look at your mask’s memory and see the image files you have on there, then so can people who want to break in. They’d have to be your exact height and frame, with the same fingerprints inside any gloves you’re wearing, if you’re wearing any, and the same retina scan, and—”