Solarstare’s eyes widened as she smiled, because she was clearly engaged. Liquid flowed out in greater quantity, to the point it overwhelmed what the channels in the helmet could take, and some found its way to the furrow beside the nostril, and onto her upper lip and lips. She wiped at it, leaving a faintly glowing smear. “Good, bad, or ugly, you’ve got the ones who’ve settled in. They’ve found a rut and they’ve settled into it so hard that they’ve started to twist up. Like someone who jacks off five times a day, same hand, same habit, and their arm—”

“Okayyy,” Vista said.

“Or jills off. Equal opportunity metaphor.”

“That’s not what I was taking issue with. You’re going to make our guest here think we’re all huffing construction insulation or something out here. You said you’d explain what the Bunker is but you just launched into one big fucking metaphor.”

“Everything’s a fucking metaphor.”

“Okayyyy. I’m definitely seeing you in a new light, Solar. Kind of. Sort of. I saw how you were when we were all stationed at High Hill Bravo—”

Solarstare shushed Vista, who tried to bring up names, which just made Solarstare shush her more noisily. A good five or ten seconds were spent as they made noises at each other.

It was good to see Vista so animated. It put a smile on my face despite—

I glanced in the direction of the conference room. I could see the vague shapes of the group, identify one as Kenzie, because it was up out of its chair, moving around, gesticulating wildly.

The smile fell from my face.

“Look,” Solarstare said, reaching out to touch me, then pulling that hand away to wipe at another dribble that escaped because she’d moved forward as quickly as she had. “You only ever lift one way, lift a lot, neglect certain things, you get warped and you don’t hold up as well. Whatever kind of cape you are—”

I rattled a few off, to contribute, and because I wanted to be distracted, “Hero, mercenary, villain, corporate, sponsored, brand, clandestine, ideologue, scumbag—”

“Any kind, yeah,” Solarstare said, smiling. “You get too into this, you lose your ordinary life by accident or by a hundred small steps, and it all becomes distorted. Without enough other things going on, you don’t have the ability to keep everything straight, so you end up becoming something fucky. Something that gets fucked up, fucked with, fucked, or frustrated.”

I blinked a few times.

Vista gave me a long look.

“Yeah,” I said. “Or all of the above.”

“And this is getting a little heavy,” Vista said.