I almost, almost ended the conversation there. My thumb moved to the button to cancel the call and a twitch or accident could have seen it make contact.

“Just tell me,” I said.

“If you’re blaming the power to that extent, you’re probably wrong. Just like the people who don’t take it into consideration at all. It’s a worm, wriggling through our heads, too slippery to nail down with a neat, pat explanation. The only correct answers are ‘I’m not sure’, or the mathematician’s ‘yes’.”

“That doesn’t help narrow things down or figure out a way forward,” I said. “For me, for my fucking sister, for Contessa.”

“I think it does. Just so long as you don’t reduce. Focus on the totality.”

I stared down at the loading dock, as a bunch of teenagers in winter jackets clambered onto a big metal cargo thing and attached hooks to bars that were inset into the metal.

There were gouges on that, too, spray painted a bold yellow to warn people to look out.

Swansong had been as influenced as anyone I knew. The agent close to the surface because she was a clone, not so different from Valkyrie’s flock. From Dennis, from Christopher, from my Aunt Sarah.

I thought of every single member of Breakthrough. Each of us had unique relationships to our passengers. Fighting it daily for control over her body, having to meditate to even find a semblance of functionality. Caged by it, portioning out life in turns. Caught up in manufactured dreams and chained to fanatical enemies. Pulled in deep, with tragic qualities and habits turned into tools that fed those same qualities, in maybe the deepest spiral I’d known a parahuman to have.

Wearing it, like a fragile piece of armor.

Could it be dismissed or swept up or brushed aside so easily? Each person considered a totality, rather than a person and a problem to either be embraced or defeated by?

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“Now you’ve got it,” Tattletale said.

I thought of the situation room, which I was overdue to return to. Of the situation, of Contessa, of Teacher, and how Teacher had ended up.

“I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid to step back from this. I’m being aggressive and acting on instinct, but if I stop, I might lose what I gained last night.”

“I guess you have to weigh whether the cost of being aggressive instinct girl is heavier than the cost of losing what you got.”

I clenched my fist. My skin pulled tight, and the missing fingernail throbbed.

I shook my head. “I can’t tell what instincts might actually be my agent telling me things. I know what you said, totality, not assuming anything, but…”

“Welcome to my life, hon. Every hour of every day for the last few years. For what it’s worth, I like your instincts.”