“Really? You seemed a bit wishy-washy about it,” Rain said.

Kenzie’s eyes opened, and she moved her head fast enough she nearly lost the paper towel compress, catching it with one hand. All energy, almost alarmed at being misinterpreted.

“I was kidding,” he said.

“You want to do this?” Golem asked.

“Possibly,” I said. I looked at the others. “Probably. Unless we get an objection as strong as Kenzie’s desire to go for it.”

“Let me run it by people,” Golem told us. “Decide in the meantime, and don’t leave so fast you don’t tell us something about Contessa.”

“Deal. Thank you,” Tristan said.

“The other group of heroes are five minutes away,” Kenzie said, as she brought up an overhead map of the city. “We’ll be six minutes behind them.”

“If we go,” I said. “Look, I don’t want to be paranoid, I know we technically met Contessa’s predicted outcome of having two members of Breakthrough out of action for the long term, but I’m not positive, I’m worried. Nothing says we were out of danger the moment Teacher ran. I know this is a touchy subject so soon after Swansong—”

Kenzie drew her shoulders in together a fraction. I put my hand on one of those shoulders.

“—but one of us could still die as a direct consequence of the events we set in motion during the fight.”

“We could die anytime,” Tristan said.

“Let’s just be mindful of the risks. These are some unpredictable, violent, and dangerous villains. Some of them are goofballs, but not all of them are,” I said. “We’re not at the top of our game, or I know I’m not, and…”

I trailed off.

“I’m not, I’ll admit that,” Tristan said. “I’m going stir-crazy.”

“I really want to though,” Kenzie said.

“On a scale of one to ten, how are you doing?” Sveta asked her.

“…Four? But I won’t be fighting. I just want to be there and help people and then see her after you’ve all kicked her ass.”

“Making us do the hard work,” Tristan said.

“Unless you’ve got a way to age me up by six years,” Kenzie said. “Yeah. That’s how it goes.”

“I’m just teasing,” he said.

“Not super great then,” Sveta said. “Seven for me?”

“Six,” Rain said. “I prefer to tough things out than complain, but… six. Maybe seven since I’m happy to have met a guy I can talk to about workshop stuff with.”

“Putting all of us between ‘poor’ and ‘good’, with an average that’s below par,” I said. “Yes?”

“Yeah,” Tristan said.

Kenzie tapped on the computer. It brought up the meeting room, the time differential replaced with a ‘live’ icon.

Golem was knocking on the door to the room in reality and in the video feed.

“Come in,” Miss Militia said. “Hi, Golem. Problem?”

He shook his head.

“Heya,” Dinah said. “It’s been a little while.”

“Hi,” he said. “Good to see you. Been too long, yeah. I’ve been listening in with Breakthrough. They’re considering going to Deathchester, should…?”