He put himself in the way of a group of people who had been pushing past Patrol uniforms, butt-end of his popper crunching into snow and ice, arm out. It gave people cause to stop in their tracks, and the teenagers and twenty-somethings in black winter wear with body armor and helmets used the opportunity to regain some control over that group. Others elsewhere on the line started to push through, climbing over the simple wooden barricade.

“Can we talk it out?” he asked.

It was a man with a midday five o’clock shadow who replied, spit and frozen breath flying from his mouth as he shouted, “Fuck you! We’ve been trying to talk to you all for weeks, months, and nobody listens!”

“I haven’t been active that long. Can we try starting now?” he asked.

Someone threw something. Before he saw what it was, he brought his popper out, hand sliding along the length of it as he held it out to bar the projectile’s path.

A metal lunchbox, sailing toward a cape’s head. It cracked open on impact with the side of his popper and the contents fell onto the heads of the protesters below.

The cries and anger seemed more like he’d been the one to instigate it, to throw the lunchbox, dumping the contents on the heads below.

No room for talking.

Refugees were going to Cheit. Or that was the idea. Just about everything had been turned on its head. Some citizens were deciding that this was where they wanted to take a stand, other citizens weren’t moving smoothly or following instructions when it came to the evacuation into Cheit, the government seemed to have conflicting ideas on how to handle everything that came up, and on top of it all, there was cape stuff. Some incident in Cheit, Kronos starting to move, and some attack from Shin had all caused alarm and delays, which had made every single existing problem worse. Apparently not just here. They’d had more capes in the area twenty minutes ago.

His team had been patrolling, looking out for traffic problems or bandits preying on the convoy. The heroes had decided to call them in for this. They needed more, and he worried they needed better. He’d jumped into this life with both feet first, after so many years doing nothing, and he’d come out the other side with some injuries and way too many scares. He didn’t feel ready.

His team was only just now arriving at the scene. Fume Hood, Finale about ten paces behind. Caryatid twenty paces behind Finale.

Traffic had stopped, the influx of new refugees stalled, and Cheit’s people stood at the entryway to the station, keeping their distance.