Me too, he thought, while looking at the boy who was put together so strangely, who seemed so lost in this strange world, as much as he tried to hide it.

He walked down the length of the long, empty room, Ms. Matteson following. Cryptid and the other two parahumans remained where they were, even while the ambassadors made a show of meeting him halfway. Luis shook his hand, grip warm, and smiled, while nothing warm was visible behind the eyes.

Yosef’s grip was harder, no smile crossed his lined face.

Luis leaned closer to ask, “You were looked after?”

“Very well, thank you,” Kamil answered.

“Our apologies for the wait. We had other business to attend to,” The steel didn’t leave Luis’s eyes.

“I understand very well.”

He was led to the door. Seeing Ms. Matteson’s reticence, he put a hand on her shoulder to support her, leading her past the parahumans.

“We’ll be guarding you,” Cryptid said, his voice strangely low, even considering his pseudo-adult frame. “As you’ll be entering a prison with dangerous parahumans within.”

“They aren’t dangerous, Chris,” Natalie said.

“The law of this land would disagree with you,” Cryptid said. “My own experience and observations, even. You get our protection, and we keep the peace while we’re there.”

“Very well,” Kamil said, giving Ms. Matteson a look. “I welcome whatever measures you think are sensible.”

The woman with the tattoos of ‘Crock’ and ‘Shit’ on her face smiled, showing him teeth that had been narrowed to points.

“Don’t fib,” she told him. “You don’t welcome it at all. You’re concerned.”

He knew who she was, now, he was fairly certain.

Someone he couldn’t empathize with, even if he’d wanted to. She was too far gone.

⊙

Years of experience leading a PRT department had conditioned him to want to jump to action in a crisis. Had Shin wanted to twist his arm and get a certain result out of him, they could have done just this—set off alarms, deploy men with guns to a crisis with parahumans allegedly involved, and make him sit, make him wait.

He paced, while the woman who Cryptid had called Crock o’ Shit remained still, watching him and Natalie.

Cryptid had raced off, leaving them confined here. ‘Somewhere safe’.

Crock of shit indeed.

The men with guns in the room were more likely to use those guns on him or Natalie than they were to use the guns on any parahumans or rioting prisoners.

Coalbelcher and Cryptid were gone, leaving only the one.

All because of a riot, apparently the second incident in a matter of hours that they were blaming Breakthrough for.

He worried, and he couldn’t let on that he worried.

Yosef was the authority here. He leaned across the table and spoke, unsmiling.

“Mr. Armstrong,” the translator offered. “A question.”

“Yes?”

Yosef asked. The translator translated, “M and S protocols. What are they?”