On another screen, I could see the outside of the facility through a camera mounted on an exterior wall. The wall of the facility seemed to disappear into the mountains in the horizon, the fog of clouds overhead obscuring the upper floors. Legend and about fifty other capes were gathered beneath a pyramid of forcefields that someone’s power had conjured up. They could fire out, while the forcefields prevented incoming fire. One or the other seemed to empower the forcefields, so that when they reached a certain point, they detonated, the blast exploding out in a line.

But there were a lot of capes in there, opposite Legend’s group. Those capes had powers.

A… lot of close-to-identical powersets, if not totally identical. Three different capes raised forcefields.

The camera shook, momentarily going dark as lights in the room flickered. A part of me imagined I could feel that shake for myself, even though we were nowhere close to that.

Words appeared in my field of view, and I had to look at a dark surface to better make the yellow letters out.

teacher wants to talk to me

I found a pad and pen, and I scribbled out a note to her.

No.

There was no way that went well or made things better.

weren’t we supposed to distract him?

We were the ones getting distracted. There was no need for us to be here. I motioned for people to move, and I watched cameras as we passed, my hand scribbling out a message while the heel of that same hand pressed the paper against the buckler that was now part of my costume.

He’s distracting you, Lookout, I wrote. It might help him locate where you are, or cause you to lose headway as his thralls counter your efforts. Under no circumstance. Protocols

Her message appeared, again in a spot that was hard to read. Then, as I watched, the letters shifted, moving down, down, down, until they were superimposed against the space beneath my eye’s field of view. Written as if I could see through my cheekbone to see yellow letters against a pink-black background.

okay

“And you’re vulnerable to Teacher, Lookout,” I murmured. “He could prey on your every weakness with so little difficulty.”

Ashley was walking down another aisle of the computers, and looked over at me like she’d heard. Her expression was stern.

Same thought?

“Can you imagine?” Chastity asked. “You have ungodly power, access to untold knowledge, you can cross between multiple worlds, access a half-dozen Earths worth of culture and knowledge, and you make bland. White floor, white ceiling, no art, no life, no love, no humanity at all.”

I could see monitors, and there was nothing human about what I was seeing there. Moord Nag was on Teacher’s side, wearing white. There were so many damn capes, and too many of them were on Teacher’s side.