I passed a copy of the picture to her phone.

She checked she had it, then smiled. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem.”

“It’s nice to have something. I haven’t had many wins lately.”

“Are you doing okay?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“Anything I can do?” I asked.

“This is cool, superheroes, distractions,” she said. “I was super into this cape stuff once. And this stuff helps Rain, in a roundabout way. Which might end up helping me.”

Rain was at his whiteboard, scribbling furiously in red marker. He’d written a list of ten items, and he was erasing all but the bottom three, the aggressive side-to-side motion of the eraser making the whiteboard rattle against the wall.

“Rain?” I asked.

He stopped, still facing his whiteboard. “I had ten ideas on things I wanted to try. I did some napkin level tinker-notes and found out tolerances are lower than I thought. Scratch eight ideas, now I have two, which is probably going to become zero when I do the next set of calculations.”

“Being a tinker is hard sometimes,” Kenzie said.

“Kenzie,” Rain said. He brought one hand up to his forehead, back still to the room. “If I could build one of the things I’ve seen you make, I’d be happy.”

“Sorry,” Kenzie said.

“I can’t do stuff. It’s not hard, it’s impossible.”

“Go easy, Rain,” Tristan said.

“I’m sorry I touched a sore spot,” Kenzie said.

Rain shook his head, turning around, hand still at his forehead. He dropped it, looked at Kenzie, then looked away. “I do appreciate the thought. Yes, being a tinker sucks sometimes.”

“Maybe you can take a look at my tech later,” Kenzie said. “You can see if it inspires stuff. And you can explain the contact pads. Being a tinker might have its bad points, but we can be two tinkers working together.”

“I’d like that,” Rain said, and it sounded a touch forced. “Yeah.”

Kenzie’s smile looked more forced than Rain’s.

“Why don’t you take five minutes, step outside for some sun and fresh air?” Tristan asked.

Rain looked like he might resist. He looked at the board.

“You’ve said it helps,” Sveta said. “It’s how you unwind. Nature and space to think.”

“I have,” Rain said. “Yeah.”

“If it’s okay, I’ll have the camera above the door turned on, so we can make sure you won’t get kidnapped,” Kenzie said. “Or someone could keep you company.”

Rain nodded. “Alone is good. The camera is fine.”

“Got it.”

He paused at the door. “You’re great, Kenz.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I’m shitty, that wasn’t about you. I was ready to snap at anyone, I was so frustrated at this stuff.”

“It’s okay.”

“Go outside. Take a bit,” Tristan said.