“The space opera game I got from Chris, one of the things he gave me to keep me sane when I’m out in the middle of nowhere and I don’t want to bother Erin. Chris, what’s the Void class I played, the worker one?”

“There are three. Miner, welder, and rigger. You played either of the last two.”

Rain nodded to himself, then looked at the board.

He started to write something down. He got as far as Rig when I said, “Rigger and Rig are taken.”

Rain threw down the marker and he clenched both his tinker and regular hands into fists. “Son of a…”

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” I said.

“What does it matter?” Tristan asked. He was still hanging with Chris at the one end of the room. “Names are taken, so what? It’s not like there’s a system out there enforcing that stuff. Kenzie could call herself Optics, it’s not like there’s a PRT.”

“I don’t want to though,” Kenzie said. “It gets complicated.”

“Okay, but for the sake of argument,” Tristan said. “Why couldn’t she if she wanted to?”

“Rigger or Rig could still be alive,” I said. “And we don’t know what’s going to happen in the future with people picking up where the PRT left off. Finding a good name and identity you’re comfortable with is hard, and capes tend to be protective of their names as a result. Mix-ups and headaches used to be common and we don’t want to go there. People travel to your town to literally fight you over a name.”

“I’m still not sold on the PRT issue,” Tristan said. “They’re gone. They aren’t coming back.”

“The remnants of them are. Organizations using their files and methods. A military-esque group following the rules and regulations of the PRT’s code of justice. There are headaches involved.”

There was a knock at the door. Sveta started toward it, but Kenzie leaped out of her chair and beat her to it, opening the door.

Kenzie saluted as Ashley entered. Ashley had a plastic bag with books and her dress in it. She moved those things out of the way, holding them while Kenzie fished the two camera drones out of the bottom of the bag.

“Good work,” Tristan said. “Lawyer-person left some tips, but I liked a lot about how you handled that.”

“It was very natural,” I said. “You’ll probably like the headaches you gave them, putting them on the spot like you did. Kenzie got some of their conversation after.”

Ashley smiled.

“How was the train ride?” Sveta asked. “You might have to go back and forth a bit, I hope it isn’t too boring.”

“It was fine. I read a book. A baby cried after looking at me and I was amused.”

“A baby cried?” Tristan asked.

“I look intimidating, apparently.”