“I think so. Part of it, for now.”

She nodded.

“Works?” he asked. “Can you tell me where I’m going to go, now?”

⊙

As the others ran forward, Five turned to give Sveta his best ‘are you serious?’ look.

“Heads up!” she called out, before hurling herself forward.

The Machine Army had deployed one massive box with mechanical spider legs, the cube three point seven by five point five by four point five meters in size. Segments of the cube shifted and rotated regularly. Many of them had segments of a gun attached, and brought them in line like the multiple lenses of an optometrist’s phoropter.

He calculated trajectory, shifted his weight, and took a quick step to the right. The laser beam was invisible, and raked a line across the street, carving out a furrow that had glowing orange edges to it.

“What? How!?”

He frowned a bit.

“Dude, Five!” Finale raised her voice. “You just dodged a laser!”

Five sighed.

“Focus!” Withdrawal called out. “We need the firepower!”

“Pew, pew, pew, pew!”

The machine turned, tracking the tinker in the agility suit with the extended limbs.

The shot was in line to hit Withdrawal straight on.

“Finale,” Five called out.

“Pew, pew!”

“Finale! Now!”

“But—”

“Now!”

“Aaaah!” Finale’s power erupted. The machine rocked, and the laser hit only the nearby buildings.

Five broke into a run.

Sveta was co-coaching the group, trading off weeks. He couldn’t be surprised, but… this really wasn’t what he’d had in mind.

“Thank you,” Caryatid said, as he ran past her. She was running, shucking off her breaker form to be able to move faster.

Finale, Caryatid, and Withdrawal all had matching costumes, now. Sveta had helped design them, drawing out the art and passing it to Victoria for review.

The Majors were an actual team now, official and sanctioned, with top clearance, which didn’t mean what many would have thought. The clearance simply meant they were trusted. They could go through the portals, visit the human settlements on the border worlds, and handle things like any incidental triggers or troublemakers. It only mattered for twenty percent of the settlements, with the rest being more flexible, but it had made them happy.

It had made Sveta and Victoria happy. Recognition that they were trying, that they’d been clean, that they’d fought hard. Because it sounded good.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a device, about as long as his finger, brass.

“What’s that?” Caryatid asked, just behind him.

“A laser.”

“That’s great,” she said.

He aimed it and pressed the switch.

“It’s a laser pointer,” Caryatid noted.

“Finale! Shoot where I point! Hit him hard!”

“Bam, bam, bam!”

He moved the pointer to joints, eyeing the stresses.

“Bam! I can’t—I can’t do my thing…” she was out of breath, trying to run, shout, and communicate at the same time.