“Or it cried because it’s a baby,” Chris said. “Babies cry about everything. They’re stupid like that.”

“It cried because of me,” Ashley said. “I’ve made enough people cry to know when it’s because of me.”

Chris shrugged. “I’ll defer to the expert.”

“It could be because you’re different,” Kenzie said. “The first house I was in growing up, there were mostly only black people in my neighborhood, and I remember my aunt had a baby and the baby cried whenever he saw a white person. It might be like that. Except you’ve got the cool eyes and hair.”

“On that topic,” Ashley said. “Eye. Mine’s bothering me.”

“Oh, sure, I’ll get it,” Kenzie said. She ran to her desk, then ran back to Ashley, who bent down, one hand on Kenzie’s shoulder.

Sticking a pair of tweezers into Ashley’s eye, Kenzie grabbed and withdrew the camera. It had a flat head like a nail, but the camera’s body more closely resembled a pin in how thin and long it was, with wires encircling its length in a double-helix.

I winced a little, watching it come out. Ashley didn’t seem to mind.

“I can’t stand that,” Sveta said. “Maybe it’s because eyes are one of the only things I have, but eeesh.”

She rattled a bit as she shuddered or mimed a shudder.

“It’s phased out, you wimps,” Kenzie said. “It’s not actually stabbing anything. It treats the eye as a portal and a model and unfolds in non-space using that framework.”

“I felt it moving around,” Ashley said.

“It’s mostly not actually stabbing anything,” Kenzie corrected her statement. “One to three percent in reality at most, stabbing at things. Sorry. I’ll fine tune the phase. It might be responding to your power.”

“I have regular appointments with someone who can give me a replacement if you destroy my eye,” Ashley said. “I’m not worried. I trust you.”

“Awesome,” Kenzie said, wiping the camera-pin with a tissue.

I wasn’t sure it was ‘awesome’. I knew who that person was. Bonesaw.

“We watched what we could before you left and the flying cameras ran out of battery,” I said. “Then we talked about plans and did some homework.”

“Thinking about names,” Rain said.

“Rude jokes about names too,” Chris said. “Tristan had a good one.”

“Glad I missed that,” Ashley said.

“You have a board, just so you know,” Kenzie said. “You can make notes.”

“I’m fine,” Ashley said. “What plans were you talking about?”