Chastity nodded.

“What do I do?” Candy asked.

The girl was still shy of Brian, having already slipped away and moved to the far end of the room. Except shy was the wrong word.

“Parian, can you make the spare bed in the back office? Candy, you help. Lookout, once you’re done with the first phase, if there’s nothing you need to do right away, I want you to think about a rest.”

“Mnnph,” Lookout made an unintelligible, distracted sound in the negative.

“Yes. I know for a fact you didn’t sleep last night, your computers light up like a Christmas tree when you’re tinkering and connecting in remotely.”

“I have too much to do.” Lookout went back to her computer, with a handful of boards from the cube. She handed Darlene one board, and then the two girls began moving in near-unison, dismantling the two identical boards with bits plugged into them.

Not so different from another Heartbroken meltdown. The difference was that Aisha didn’t know this kid. Not well.

“Who is she?” Brian asked.

“Lookout. You remember Glory Girl?”

“Sure. Antares now.”

“Her tinker half-quit her team, joined up with Candy, Darlene, and Aiden.”

He nodded, and she could see his paler eyes searching the scene, taking in the individual components. Aiden, Candy, Darlene, Lookout, how they stuck by one another.

“I’ve… been to the processing center she talked about, I think,” Brian said, his voice quiet in Aisha’s ear. “I don’t think there are others… and that processing center turned Titan half an hour ago.”

“Leave it be,” she whispered back. At the same time, she braced for the impact to come. She didn’t know enough about Lookout. How did the girl react when all the chips were down?

How would the others react? She remembered the incident with Darlene trying to lynch the kid, and Candy’s self-destructive meltdowns.

The work on the boards done, Lookout took one from Darlene, then ran over to the box with the antennae, sliding them in. She reversed course, going to the computer. Her arm moved, and Darlene moved her own arm, already moving the mouse and typing in the seconds it took Lookout to get there and take over.

Lookout struck a key with a kind of finality.

In the aftermath of that keystroke, there was stillness.

“Do we know yet?” Parian asked. She was done setting up the bed, apparently. Candy peered past her.

“Searching,” Lookout said.

A solid minute passed. There was no progress bar on the computer, only a constantly shifting mess of triangles, circles, squares and diamonds, like a blueprint searching for something to take shape.

“The kids are so different,” Brian’s voice was quiet.

Aisha looked back over her shoulder at him.

“They’re helping. They’re staying quiet.”

She nodded.

They were good kids.

Another minute passed.

Moving slowly, Aisha crossed the room, touching Chicken Little’s shoulder. She pointed him to the corridor near where Juliette was. He retreated to the doorway.

She did the same with Darlene.