“These two were talking about hacking the system from the inside. From the dream,” Faultline said. “Maybe that’s a fix.”

“That’s a possibility,” Egg said, energized now. “Yes.”

“No,” Weld said. “Believe me, if it were that easy, we would have already.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Sveta said. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you saying that because you’re okay, now?” Egg asked, angry now. “You assholes are getting what you want, beautiful girls and bodies and… you’re leaving us all behind. You don’t get to do that!”

“I don’t think we could leave you behind if we wanted to,” Sveta said.

“Why not? You did it two years ago,” Egg said, staring at her. “I talked to you. I told you to talk to Weld about how he was ignoring what people really wanted. Then you two left us all behind to go… I don’t know. Be heroes? Be PRT heroes, forgetting they were propped up by the same people we were trying to defeat?”

He saw Weld look over at Sveta.

Weld had a good poker face, but it wasn’t that good.

“Did you ever talk to him?” Egg asked.

The silence was tense.

“I did try,” Sveta said. “I could have tried harder.”

“I don’t remember that,” Weld said, quiet.

“You were gung ho. A part of it was that you were only hearing what you wanted to hear. A part of it was… I only wanted to tell you what you wanted to hear.”

There it was.

Egg felt something of a sense of closure.

“Okay,” Weld said, and there was emotion in his voice. His hand went to his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Sveta said.

“I—” Weld started. He put a hand out to Sveta’s shoulder. For a second, it looked like he might push her away, might not.

Weld’s hand dropped away, his head still slightly bent.

“I should go,” Sveta said.

“Yeah.”

The way things had played out made more sense, now.

“We’ll compare notes more when Tattletale has gone over stuff,” Faultline said.

“Yeah,” Sveta said, her voice small.

She backed off, and the Harbinger went with her.

“Be safe,” Weld said, in a tone like he was restraining himself from saying other things.

Sveta nodded.

And then she was gone.

“If I talk to the others, I can tell them,” Egg said. “Bring you in.”

Weld shook his head.

“No?” Egg asked.

“Maybe. It would be good to talk to them. But I don’t want you guys to go down this route of digging into yourselves to find portals that might not exist. There are other opportunities. Teamwork, cooperation, maybe routes that we discover through tonight’s analysis.”

Egg nodded.

“If you need hope, maybe that suffices,” Weld said. “But I don’t want to… we absolutely can’t tear ourselves apart to try to find answers or tap into wellsprings of power. I don’t think it would work and it would be… sadder than words can convey, because I know the types who would jump on that opportunity.”