Sure enough, they brought out the little tank, with the plastic tube stretching up to the face. Kenzie would get the tubes up her nose, and she’d get the schpiel about how to breathe and what to watch out for.

“She’s going to die if she gets talking and can’t breathe through her mouth,” Sveta said.

“Being unkind isn’t like you, Sveta.”

“I’m not trying to be mean or bully her. It’s a real concern.”

“Hm.”

Everyone wrapped up. Needles done, Kenzie got her air filter and nose tube, and with Swansong’s help, fixed the filter to her belt. She then fiddled with her phone, and the nose tubes were filtered away, hidden by the projection.

“Don’t suppose you could hide our identities?” Rain asked.

“I would if I could, but I didn’t bring complicated projection boxes or anything today. Shuttling things back and forth is such a pain.”

“It’s no big deal,” Rain told Kenzie.

“You know what’s a big deal? The air that comes through the filter is super cold,” Kenzie said, with a hint of nasality. “I’m getting brain freeze just by breathing.”

“It’s about to get colder,” Miss Militia said. “Ready?”

No.

No I wasn’t.

I didn’t want to face anyone on that side of the portal.

Earth Shin.

But we went. I didn’t voice my protests.

The station was a nice one, with crenellated pillars and every wall having some kind of decoration or mural. Earth Shin had constructed it, and that should have been a prelude. We passed through, and we found ourselves in the other side of the station, and from there, walked past desks where we showed our paperwork, permits, and records of our shots.

They also had guards on their side. Men and women with guns draped in cloth, to the extent the weapons looked more decorative than functional. Each had what looked like a praying mantis limb folded up over one shoulder, steel and gleaming, and a narrow blade that attached to their right legs, like a rapier without a handle.

When we left, guards followed us—two of them for every one of us.

Into Shin. Once Goddess’s Earth. Now Amy’s. The temperature was easily ten or twelve degrees lower than it had been in the Megalopolis, and the sky was filled with snowdrifts. It didn’t take away from what was a pretty amazing view.

Skyscrapers, but modified, augmented, and decorated. The Wardens’ old headquarters had included a giant statue as part of it, but it was the norm here. A skyscraper with a castle built into one face of it. A tower was crowned with statuary of what might have been a hawk. Red was a dominant color.

“How advanced are they?” Kenzie asked, her voice still nasal.