“No,” Darlene said, to Kenzie’s right.

She hit enter with the thumb of the hand that held the laptop’s edge. A box appeared on the screen. Distorted video and audio, loud.

Snuff, driving, cussed. “Turn it down!”

“Sorry! We were listening to music and dancing before we left.” Kenzie held down the volume button for a few seconds, until it was quiet enough that Snuff and Tattletale didn’t look upset anymore.

“Such a carefree existence,” Tattletale said.

“Not carefree at all,” Darlene said. “Right?”

“Right. We’re doing important work,” Kenzie added.

“You are,” Chicken Little added. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“It’s your job to protect us when trouble comes calling,” Kenzie said. She looked to the side, where Candy was slumped down, headphones on, sleeping or trying to sleep. Darlene just past her, by the car door.

“It is absolutely not his job to do that,” Tattletale cut in. “His job, all of your jobs are to run. Get out of trouble, if you find yourselves in any. Understand?”

“Yes,” three of the kids said in chorus.

Kenzie looked to the other side, where Chicken Little sat with his head resting against the window, a small bird in his hands, his eyes on the world beyond. He was smiling.

“I liked the music,” he said.

“It’s one of my favorites,” Darlene said.

Kenzie typed on the keyboard now, putting down lines of code while periodically using a keyboard shortcut to switch between windows. Views of the people I’d intended to check in on. The rest of Breakthrough.

Me.

I looked up and left, to a camera in the back corner of the situation room. I resisted the urge to wave.

When I looked across the table, Eric was frowning.

I looked back to the feed. Kenzie was looking down, where a huge-as-shit bird was taking up the entire floor space between the two front seats and the bench seat at the back. Thus the way that Kenzie was sitting.

But she wasn’t looking at that. She was looking at her knee, which was pressed against Chicken Little’s leg.

Kenzie began humming.

“No. No humming,” Tattletale said, her voice overlapping momentarily with Snuff’s grunt of protest.

“But I’m happy,” Kenzie said.

“And I’m thinker headache-y. No humming. Please.”

“Yes ma’am,” Kenzie said, before falling silent.

I switched. I’d seen a picture-in-a-picture glimpse of what was on her laptop, enough to know they weren’t embroiled in fights, but I looked for actual video feeds of my team now.

The next three video feeds were Chicken Little, a view of the inside of what I presumed were Candy’s eyelids, and Darlene’s view.

Rain was with Golem and Cuff, chatting. They were near where Amy was, but the view was so distant Engel didn’t register, which was a relief.

“—trying to set me up with her,” Golem explained.

“Ugh,” Cuff made a sound.