Number one indicator of a new cape was how they reacted to the costume. They made little adjustments, constantly touched the details of the costume, touched masks, adjusted fits. None of it really mattered if the costume was designed well.

I stepped away, walking over to Capricorn and Rain.

“I’m getting flashbacks,” Byron said, indicating the brother-sister pair.

“Where’s our third squad?” I asked.

Rain, who was picking at a tinker rifle, pointed with one of the smaller mechanical hands that glowed with the cracks that ran along it. “Around the corner, getting ready.”

“Good,” I said. My heart was racing, and the fighting had stopped a couple of minutes ago.

Samuel and Chastity were at the loading bay door. Now that I had time to look, the hallway was white tile and white fixtures, with a stripe painted along the floor. The tunnel that Sveta and Ashley had gone down was longer than the building with the loading bay was. Sure enough, it was a portal, a hidden entryway into Teacher’s facility.

“Let’s get ’em moving and let’s go,” I said.

⊙

Earlier

“The facility we’ll be raiding is large,” Cinereal addressed the group that had gathered in the Bunker. “It will be best if you think of it as us attacking a city, not a building. There are what you could call neighborhoods or sections, each with specific focuses. In talks with the other top Wardens, we divided these into residential sections, sections designed for Teacher’s work, and sections that support the facility itself.”

“And unknown sections,” Jeanne observed.

A few stragglers were still making their way in, and were directed to the back, where I presumed there were notes or something.

Cinereal folded her arms. “More than a few unknown sections. But through Engel and Egg, some descriptions from Tress, and feedback we got from Mapwright’s power after she entered the facility and reported back, we have a good sense of the building. When we made our initial move, it was because our danger sensers and precogs gave us the impression that five of the seven entrances we discovered were safe to breach. We split up and approached from multiple angles. Every time we’ve encountered Teacher, that’s been the ideal approach.”

“Why?” a woman asked. I was pretty sure it was Foxtrot.

“Teacher organizes and controls large numbers of low level thinkers and tinkers, but he remains the vulnerable linchpin. When he’s involved, we can bombard him with information, force him to coordinate multiple units at once.”

“How’s that done for you so far? As far as I can tell, he’s winning.”

I craned my head around, like most people were doing. Tattletale was up at the front, lurking and watching the crowd, as she tended to be, but Imp and the thirteen-and-older Heartbroken were at the back of the room. Imp was the one challenging Cinereal.