“Good,” he said. He stood.

They might have figured out who he was, because they didn’t tell him to slow down or to stop and rest.

Still, he moved very slowly, tablet in one hand, while he picked up a t-shirt from the floor. He verified it was a men’s, one of his, then pulled it on.

The two women moved on.

He paused to pen a note, then left it on the pillow.

“First time I’ve ever seen you sleep, Hannah,” he said.

He put on the flip-flops he wore for the shower, and he made his way upstairs.

But for what seemed like an endless procession of janitorial crews, the place was quiet. There were no capes, no battles.

He kept expecting someone to run by, fly by, hurrying to the next incident. That expectation came from years of that very thing being his reality. Years of a crisis every moment, every day.

The next crisis was imminent. The state of the city. The city’s enemies, poised. The last word they had was that Saint was still working on the Machine Army. Cheit had its armies poised, and those armies weren’t dependent on powers. It was possible they had already started invading.

He was still weak, his chest heavy. He made liberal use of the handrail by the stairs as he ascended.

He had been here before, they all had. They would be here again.

Upstairs was the command center. But before then… coffee.

It was eerie to see the cafeteria as empty as it was. Damaged tables had been moved out of the way and set aside. Only a handful of the building’s staff and residents were sitting… most of the unpowered would be at the canteens downstairs.

Two young women were sitting. He recognized one on sight as Victoria, another from a file he’d seen circulated, years ago, at a meeting where they had been discussing what to do about New Brockton.

He could see their shadows. Victoria’s was in alignment with her. Overlapping her, like an outline tracing her body, only millimeters off target. Tattletale’s power was there too, spidery, reaching out to observe, pick up images from the environment around her. To touch a salt shaker and pick up the image of that shaker. Exploring other data, other research.

They paid him little mind.

“—without powers?” Victoria asked. He hadn’t heard the first part.

“Are we schoolchildren, Victoria?” Tattletale asked, in a derisive tone of voice that would have let Chevalier identify her even if he’d never seen a photo. Hell, if he’d never even met her, and knew her by reputation and association with Victoria Dallon alone, he might have connected the dots. “Are we blabbing away on the playground about what-ifs?”

“Come on.”