I gave him a punch in the arm.

“Is that a yes?”

“Depends,” I told him. “Gilpatrick insinuated something earlier. I had the impression you were in on it.”

“Uhhh… remind me?”

“You guys… you’re staying sane, you’re reasonably calm. What am I missing?”

“Ugh,” Jester said.

“Ugh,” I repeated. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s… he clarified when you left. I could say, but I don’t want to be rude.”

“Rude?” I was a bit shocked at that. Gilpatrick had been, all considered, pretty fucking fair to me in the past. What the hell was it that he thought that would offend me?

“Vic!” Kenzie called out.

I floated over. Jester followed.

“Hey! So… super cool,” Kenzie said.

“It is,” I admitted. “I’m not sure how big a difference it will make, but I’ll really love to have an option in a fight that isn’t me getting in the thick of things, running into stuff that penetrates my invincibility, and adding new injuries to my collection.”

“How much can you lift?”

“When I was Glory Girl, it was fourteen point six tons. But it wasn’t easy, and it gets weird when you express it as strength that isn’t straight lifting.”

Thank you, PRT power testing.

“This is twelve tons,” Kenzie said, patting the side of the gun.

In the background, Gilpatrick looked a bit nervous with even that limited contact.

I asked for big.

“She might have read your files, because she shaved off weight, took out internals, and gave it reinforcement,” Kenzie said, pointing at the underside of the pear-shaped part of it. “There are handholds. Lots of them.”

“She was paying attention,” I said.

“But I think I see why she wanted scans. Some of this is hard to calculate, especially if your lifting strength distributes weird across multiple hands, or if it’s uniform, or… any number of things. Should we try seeing if you can move it?”

I nodded, floating up to the truck bed. Kenzie climbed down, taking Jester’s hand.

I walked around the weapon, undoing straps, getting a better look at it. Armor with a wavy texture that only appeared in specific, direct light.

With my forcefield, I seized the edge, and lifted it up, aiming the barrel skyward. I found the handholds, framed with gold paint, and adjusted my grip.

Metal creaked as I lifted twelve tons of gun with only eight handholds. To figure out where to put the handholds, Dragon would have had to scan and record my body shape. I worried that one handhold would pull free of the housing and I wouldn’t be able to hold the gun up with what remained.

But I could lift it. My flying was a bit sluggish.

“You’re not even touching it,” Jasper told me. Kenzie was right between him and Camisola, device held up to her face, taking pictures or recording.