Gaymon was Marcial’s friend. In some ways he was her polar opposite, an attractive guy with a sharp nose, jawline, and lips made unattractive by a constant, slight sneer and natural glare to his eyes, wavy blond hair slicked back. No scars—Gaymon had done his years as a squaddie, graduated to a position where he hadn’t been required to carry a gun, and settled there.

Not people Gilpatrick would have chosen, had he been given the opportunity to handpick people.

He recognized some of the other faces. Ten people in total. Members of the Patrol and captains of the Patrol. Diaz, Early, Bastian, Kelly, Valentin, Hanson, and Cox. He knew half of them and got the names for the other half from names printed on uniforms.

“For strategy,” Rain said, “to start with, we dream. I have no idea how that’s going to work when you have coronas and no powers—”

“It should work,” Lookout said, walking over to the device that was situated in the middle of the living room, a laptop computer attached and sitting atop it.

“—But how, dreamwise?” Rain asked. When he didn’t get a clear response, he said, “The dreams suck. But they’re our entry point. After the dreams, stay put. I think as long as you stay in your designated area, you’re safe. We’ll all be in a room with clear separation between spaces, and what we’re wearing will depend heavily on our self image. Or the agent’s perception of what our self image should be.”

He paused, as if anticipating questions. He got none. Even the Patrol kids, eighteen or nineteen, were focused and listening.

“There will be two or three other people present. I say two or three because Cradle, a twenty-year-old with glasses, we killed him in the dream-space last night, he apparently ended up brain damaged beyond repair. I don’t know if he comes back. There will also be Love Lost and Colt. Two capes who are cooperating with us. Villains, but cooperative. Love Lost has been part of this particular room from the beginning. Colt was linked into it.”

“You’re losing me,” Gaymon said.

Rain kept going, “Most importantly, there will be a monster present. Our best guess is it will have emotion control powers.”

He was rambling a bit, but that was fine. The pertinent info was there. It just had to be sorted out.

“Standard protocols for dealing with emotion powers?” Gilpatrick asked, to give Rain a bit of a starting point.

“I—I honestly don’t know.”

“General practice is to use logic for emotion-driven pressure,” Marcial said. “Think your way through situations when you know your heart is lying to you.”

“I mean, okay, yeah, didn’t know that,” Rain said. “But I don’t know because we’re dealing with the heavy hitters. Closer to Titans or Endbringers than anything. I don’t see that being something you can just think through.”