She nodded pretty vigorously at that, looking over at Capricorn. He was on his phone, looking pretty wrapped up in his conversation.

“That’s sorta dumb,” Kenzie muttered. “Massive interdimensional, cosmic-tier power and they need masks to tell us apart. Right.”

“Take two grains of sand off a beach. How easily can you tell them apart? Does it help if you paint each one?” I asked.

“Well, I’d love to know how I can paint each of us the right colors,” Kenzie said. “With… not that long left.”

“Focus on what you can do,” I told her. “Don’t feel you have to cover every base.”

She nodded.

The time had passed quickly, my trip to get my costume and pick up Kenzie’s hadn’t been too lengthy, but the little things like last-minute research, changing, touching base and scheduling an email to let Crystal know what had happened if I wasn’t in a position to come back and cancel said email… they felt like things that should take a few minutes, ten or fifteen, and they took two or three times that in reality.

“Do you want to use our hands?” Darlene asked. “We could network, like we did when making the eye things.”

“No, that only works for mass production,” Kenzie said, looking away from the hardware to focus more on software. Behind her, Darlene deflated a bit. Kenzie seemed to notice, and turned, “But thank you for offering.”

“Anything I can do?” Darlene asked.

“There are some snacks under the table over there, can you get me some? An electrolyte juice box? And some snack I can eat with my hands, ummm, I want something salty but I don’t want to get salt on my hands.”

“We’ll figure something out,” Darlene said, happy to be useful. Chicken Little went with her to go raid for snacks.

“Grab me something!” Candy called out.

“Go,” Kenzie told her.

“I’m here to cheerlead for you,” Candy said, sitting on the edge of Kenzie’s desk, looking down with her eerie smiling mask. “Rah rah, go Kenzie, go Kenzie.”

Kenzie snorted.

“We could project a cheerleader outfit onto Chicken Little,” Candy said. “How’s that mental picture for you?”

“You’re distracting me!” Kenzie cried out, but she didn’t sound bothered. She worked more vigorously, tapping at a screen projected into the air.

Tattletale approached, but she approached Darlene and Chicken Little first. She didn’t break them up, simply checking on them as they brought back a bunch of stuff to Kenzie’s work area, jogging with enough vigor they nearly dropped stuff. Tattletale’s pace was more sedate.

Darlene tore open a bag, nudging Chicken Little. “Open, Lookout!”

Lookout opened her mouth. Candy threw a pretzel at her, missing the open mouth, and a bird caught it. The second throw was on target enough that Kenzie got the mini-pretzel in her mouth, the bird that was diving to intercept instead landing on her forehead. She wiggled with amusement as she bent over her work, chewing, the bird peering down with her.