Her tone was so calm, it was jarring him from his thoughts. He wanted to say something, interrupt, give her an order.

The only thing that held him back was that he himself hadn’t figured out where he was going or what he was doing. He didn’t know enough to point her in the right direction or make the right requests.

Twenty-two capes were awake.

He looked over the list, judged the numbers, and was satisfied that his instincts were right.

Virtually everyone was slated to be woken up. There were a few question marks, all the way at the bottom. Two possible K.I.A.s, three other questionable circumstances. Someone who had gone to a place the relief teams couldn’t reach, another who had powers that interfered, and a third that hadn’t left a means of tracing them.

He fired off messages to the situation room, requesting records and names.

“You’re so happy it’s annoying.”

“Not happy. But I’m relieved. I think there’s a road forward.”

He put the tablet down, turning to stare. Tattletale gave him a sidelong look, then looked back to Victoria. “We’re not talking about that stuff.”

“Okay,” Victoria said, shrugging. “What are we talking about? You’re pulling an Etna on me.”

“An Etna.”

“She’s a great girl, working hard as a heroine, last I heard. But she can’t hold a conversation. I thought my teammates would bite their tongues off, putting up with it.”

“I thought you weren’t going back to Breakthrough.”

“I’m not. But I’ll think of them as teammates forever. I will go to the ends of the known Earths to help them if they need it, and I hope that I’ll have a bit more time to do that.”

Chevalier was interrupted from listening when he noticed more people come in. Some were staff, but one wasn’t. Tall, with silver hair in a messy bun, she wore a jacket for warmth over a light purple shirt with a unicorn on it.

She found his table and sat, without question or invitation. Not that he minded.

“Catch me up,” she said.

“They’re waking everyone up.”

“I know that part,” she said.

He scrolled through messages. He’d gotten distracted. That conversation had sounded like it had been from Earth Aleph, while he was still in Gimel. The ruins of Gimel.

He tried to focus. There was the data on the missing and the killed. Nobody notable killed.

He addressed Narwhal. “Saint is in a holding pattern. He’s disrupted their signals, which is paralyzing key groups and it means the entire Machine Army isn’t moving as a coordinated unit with perfect information sharing. It’s not the takeover or complete shutdown we wanted but it’s a start.”

“Good,” Narwhal said.