They came, finally. Love Lost approached the slope at a run, going full velocity this time, looking as serious as I’d seen her.

We all stepped down, following the leaders in sliding down the slope.

The group that was already at the bottom looked stricken, stunned, or distracted.

“Careful!” I called out. “Something’s up!”

I braced myself, eyes to the sky as I coasted onto the platform. If there was something problematic, I didn’t want to be caught by it.

“What’s going on?” I asked, walking forward. I kept my head angled so I wasn’t looking at the crystal protrusions. Around the largest protrusion, I could see our way forward. The distortion that was probably the Earth N portal. But that wasn’t their focus. “Problem?”

“Just the opposite,” Darlene said.

I looked. Darlene had her arms around Chicken Little’s shoulders, hugging him from behind. He seemed as oblivious as ever, his attention on the crystal.

A red-haired woman loomed in the image, viewed at a weird angle. Red-haired with freckles, and wide hips that seemed wider because the image made her head seem small and her legs seem large. The clothes looked very 2000’s.

If I unfocused my eyes, looked at the image that was almost too blurry to see, superimposed over hers… I walked to one side so I wouldn’t mess up Chicken Little getting to see his mom, and I saw Uncle Neil pick up a younger Eric by the suspenders of his overalls. Manpower and the little boy that would become Shielder.

Tattletale reached the platform. I saw the glimpse, looking past her at the image, the closet I’d seen in the dream, her body blocking the silhouette of the figure within. She didn’t look.

Sveta’s image was almost clear as she walked by one pane, showing the Case Fifty-Threes. Dark as it showed people huddled indoors at night, illuminated by a small fire.

For Tristan and Byron, it was old teammates. Two of those teammates were distorted, like so many of Sveta’s scenes were. Too dark, too fast or too slow, inconsistent, stuttering, seeming to show something and then skipping away.

For Love Lost, a man, Asian, with scraggly stubble. For Colt, it was her mom and dad. People I’d seen in a video, once upon a time.

The panes that Kenzie walked by were green text against a black screen, lines of chat in a chat room.

I turned away, because there were expressions and reactions that weren’t for me to see. In turning, I came face to face with another image. Black, the lights almost out, the image distorted, stuttering.

What I could make out suggested it was Dean.

“You didn’t tell me,” I murmured.