“I know,” he said. “I’m worried about Rain. He’s down there, like we were last night, he’s in the middle of… what we were up against last night. Without powers. And we’re running out of time.”

I checked my phone for the time. “Thirteen minutes. Then he’s awake.”

“What were you thinking, a minute ago?” Sveta asked. “Sorry, I’m just wanting to focus, I was considering what you meant.”

“Oh,” I said. I looked over to the horizon. The data Kenzie was providing suggested the Titans were ten minutes out. The timer beyond the edge of my vision told me Rain had thirteen minutes before he woke up. “Just trying to figure out if there’s any consistency to the power changes.”

“You jumped to a conclusion with Shamrock,” Sveta said.

“Helped by her hand motion. Yeah. I’m not sure, yet. I’m going to go get a telephone pole or something.”

“I’ll come,” Sveta said.

Leaving Crystal with Capricorn, talking.

He seemed to ease up just a bit, with the regular conversation.

Telephone pole. I found one, and smashed the end of it rather than try to disentangle the lines. I picked it up, with Sveta giving me a hand with the tail end of it.

“What happened earlier?” I asked. “When you guys had the private discussion with him. I know it was private, but…”

“He was having dark thoughts,” Sveta said. She climbed onto the telephone pole, sitting by where my forcefield grabbed it. She reached down with an arm unfolding to detach some wire that I hadn’t seen. “General life situation. Asking us, what’s the point? What’s the point? He’s on the outs with family, he lost all of his old friends. He got into the hero stuff initially for the fame and the money… for good reasons too, but those other reasons are still reasons.”

“Yeah,” I said. I could sympathize with the wish for fame, myself.

“The way he phrased it, he had a moment where he just stopped, took stock, and felt like he was drowning.”

She left it at that. I could draw the conclusion.

“Reality hit?” I asked, reaching out with a forcefield hand to grab another bit of wire. I had to pull it hard enough to snap it to get free.

“I think it’s been hitting him for a long while now,” she told me. “He wanted to be team leader, you know.”

I looked up at her.

“I don’t think it was a major factor, or even a top ten issue for him, but he mentioned being frustrated with it and that’s part of why we backed off.”

“Gotcha.”

“He thinks you’re doing fine, just so you know. Just…”

“Wishes it were different?”

“Yeah.”

“And how are you?” I asked. “Final check before the Titans arrive.”