“Okay. Good to know. I might have to ask you to quickly fly over and take a dip. But it should be doable! It’d be like punching a mirror so the face on the other side doesn’t really exist anymore.”

“Two options. Good.”

“Really good,” Kenzie said.

“Then,” I felt so nervous, because the wrong answer could be ‘you’re fucking dying Victoria’, “do you mind doing that quick radiation scan?”

“Of…?”

“Me. And everything.”

“Here, uh, we can do that here. If you’ll hand me that box…”

I felt a little weird about floating in the air above the compound, holding a toolbox, knowing a bit of butterfingers could see tinkertech flying down to the ground below, possibly to explode or do weird tinkertech things on impact.

But I did oblige. I was freaked, even though I had trained myself to some extent in steering my thoughts away from freakiness.

“Say something clever that isn’t cheese,” Kenzie said, holding up a device to her face. “Because stupid me is getting that you’re a bit spooked all of a sudden, and we should lighten the mood.”

“Really putting me on the spot, Kenz.”

“C’mon!”

“Puppies!” I said, forcing a smile, while facing the false smile of her mask.

“Best answer!” she exclaimed, her device rapid-clicking for a few seconds, before she turned to look down at the settlement, repeating the process.

“Thought it might be. Seemed to be just what you needed at the right moment.”

She didn’t make a noise, looking down at the data.

“Anything?” I asked, nervous.

“Radiation levels are high.”

“High in… very alarming sense, or…?”

“Twice the normal level. More toward the epicenter. But I’m looking some stuff up in some books I saved to my onboard computer systems, and that doesn’t seem like it’d be that big a deal.”

I nodded, not quite able to breathe a sigh of relief. “I’ve lost a bit of hair, I was worried.”

“I could check other stuff, do full diagnostics. Or we could ask Tattletale.”

I winced, but I nodded.

I took us down.

Into the area of the compound where my old Patrol team was gathered. They were standing around a set of trucks, and one of those trucks had my new stuff.

The key thing was a laser cannon, as long as the rear container of the truck, with a tarp draped over top of it, partially folded back. It was painted black, with two gold stripes along its housing. The entire thing was about ten feet long from end to end, with the barrel being long and thin, and the gun itself pear shaped and heavily armored.

Kenzie immediately focused in on it. “Woo!”

She snapped a picture with the little device before we even reached the ground, then hurried over.

Still without the bouncy step.

“Okay,” she exclaimed. “Time to dig in.”

“Don’t fire it!” Gilpatrick called out.

“I won’t!”