Tattletale brought her feet up even higher, than reached up to chop at my arm where my scar was. As I let go, she swung her feet down and her center of gravity forward, so the armchair would thunk to a proper sitting position instead of falling back.

“Huh?” Darlene asked, peering around the corner. “What was that?”

“Antares is bullying me,” Tattletale said.

Darlene stared, looking at each of us in turn, studying posture and context.

“Keep at it,” Darlene said. “She needs someone to remind her to act nice once in a while.”

“Traitor,” Tattletale said.

“Darlene, Darlene, Darleeeeene,” Kenzie’s voice piped.

“Volume!” Tattletale called out.

“Look, look. Are you looking? Bam!”

Darlene, still leaning around the corner, turned to look, and reacted so strongly that she nearly lost her position on the wall and fell over. Aiden and projection-Candy were laughing, and Darlene joined in, almost scrambling to her feet in rejoining the group in the other room, around the corner.

I walked over a few steps, to get a view of what they were doing.

Candy’s projection was in ‘costume’, but it was possibly the most horrific thing I’d ever seen. Vertical, horizontal, and diagonal stripes, dots, and clashing color combinations every step of the way. But even if it had been wiped clear of pattern, the 80’s shoulders, tucked-in top that produced a belly, and puffy pants tucked into high socks were bad.

“It’s what we’d get if we took all the opposite options from my ‘this one or that one’ machine learnings,” Kenzie said, looking far too pleased with herself, eyes glinting.

I mock-shielded my eyes, then retreated back around the corner, to Tattletale.

“I’m nice,” Tattletale said, even though the comment seemed to be a response to Darlene, who was long gone. “But you know as well as anyone, Vic, that trying to help everyone leads to an inevitable disaster. You need rules about who you help, how, and when.”

She’s not talking about me. She’s talking about Amy.

“Yeah. You’re a super nice person.”

She shrugged. “I’m here. I’m backing them up. I’m arranging the protection and ferrying them to the people and the places they need to be, and that includes ensuring your kid has the materials for her workshop. But if you’re telling me I have to fight to keep this little girl that actually kind of scares me around? Maybe I’m not that interested.”

“If you want to talk about helping people, and the who, why, and when, I want to point out that I helped you. That scar you just hit? I got it while helping Sveta to get you away from Cradle.”

“We’re going there?”

“You said,” I told her. “Quid pro quo. You bring up my shit, I can bring up that.”

She arched an eyebrow, still wearing that smirk that she had to know annoyed me.