“Outclassed, outgunned, feeling underequipped—I heard about your gun.”

“Sure.”

“Beaten down, with no end in sight for a war where you have no idea at all what the dangerous ones might be capable of, if they go all out? Worried that if something goes wrong, then some members of your team, anyone, could end up one of them?”

I nodded slowly. “Got it. Thank you. I—really appreciate you spelling it out.”

A reality they’d been living with all their lives. They’d learned to deal. The Patrol existed to deal.

“It’s why you brought me on board,” she told me. “So I can say the inconvenient things you don’t want me to, and then you figure out if you want to listen to it or ignore it.”

“Now you’re being a little…” I made a hand motion.

“A little,” she said. “I’m going to get a plate of food for Kenzie and grab something for myself while I’m at it.”

I held the door for her, glancing at the clock on the wall as I followed her in.

T-minus three hours until Rain sleeps.

Tonight only gets harder.

Radiation 18.9

Kenzie sat back in a chair too big for her, a faint sheen of sweat on her face, illuminated by a monitor that was on fire. Screens to the left and right of her showed the ongoing fights with the Titans, a constant reminder that every minute of rest we had was a minute others were fighting and putting everything on the line. She didn’t even seem to register it, most of her attention on a monitor where she outlined a three-dimensional shape for a component, and rotated through a few art styles and aesthetics, including hearts, stars, moons, and apples.

Tinkers had left behind their equipment as they finished their shifts, creating a haphazard sort of workshop. Kenzie’s contribution was setting up a variety of monitors in addition to the screens that were already there. The one monitor seemed to operate with flames silently pouring out the edges, with a heat I could feel from the back of the room, while another was a sphincter-like ring of red flesh quivering as it strained to yawn wide, a soap-bubble film stretching across the gap, the de-facto screen for displaying the video feed. The material fabricator that hummed on a table nearby was someone else’s, posted with a very angry looking piece of paper, scrawled with all capital letters, many underlines, and exclamation marks, instructing people to follow specific rules when using the device.