He’d told our group to wait and get analyzed. That meant getting scanned by the new cape from Mortari. His name was printed on the sleeve of his fairly ordinary bodysuit, but in a really annoying script, that cut chunks out of a line that was running from shoulder to elbow to make the vague, blocky letter shapes. Venarum.

“How invasive is this?” Fume Hood asked.

“I’m thorough. It just takes a few seconds.”

“But how invasive a look are you getting of me?”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

She seemed to shrug. She saw me looking curiously at her, and said, “I bet there are piercings he probably hasn’t seen before.”

“I haven’t. But I don’t care about piercings,” Venarum said. “Or anything else. You’re fine, by the way.”

Sveta approached, putting a hand near nose and mouth at the smell. Ashley and Capricorn were with her. I saw a sad look cross her face as she looked at the dead.

I think every hero and heroine hoped that when they went into the big fight, that it would be casualty-free, that their involvement would mark a turnaround and there wouldn’t be any more unjust death after that.

But we were fighting against a tide.

Withdrawal was sticking with Caryatid, and they were so wrapped up in themselves and their stresses that they seemed to forget Precipice was in an awkward spot with no way to slip by without pushing past. Too many needles, and Withdrawal took up some room with limbs extended, as he now curled over and around Caryatid, talking to her in a low voice.

“You got purged?” Venarum asked.

“What?” I asked him.

“The big guy. My analysis suggests he used his power on you.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“He used it on them too,” he said, pointing at the three dead. “It triggers every latent disease in your system for a few seconds of effect. They got pricked, scraped, or injected by needles before he used his power.”

“Hey, kid,” Tristan said. The cape he was talking to wasn’t a kid any more than Tristan was, but he was a rookie. “Don’t talk about the dead like that. Like it was their failure.”

“There’s no need to be defensive, I’m explaining for those who don’t know.”

“You’re doing the thinker thing,” Tristan said. “Where you get too stuck in what your power is telling you and trying to tell everyone else, and you stop being a decent human.”

I saw Venarum stiffen.

“Wind it back a little, Tristan,” Sveta said.

“Okay. But I’m not wrong.”

“No. No you’re not. But you’re upset at how this is going and that’s changing how you approach it. Let it be.”

Tristan looked like he might be spoiling for an argument there, but he turned aside.