I thought about the visual ‘snow’ and it flared back into existence at the lower right corner of my eye.

“The anti-thinker measure,” I said.

“Yeah. Guess so. One of the Fallen with the hostages. Valefor’s there. My Dark Introspection form disconnects mind from body, which is great if I want to put my body on autopilot or leave it with instinctive actions, but it doesn’t stop my mind from being fucked with.”

“You shouldn’t be this close to things,” I said.

“Well, I am. I did stuff while you guys were running around. I get fucked up when I do the deep self-dive with that form, so I told my body what to do and interjected a few times with new input. I think I’m having a good day, my body definitely was, but it’s hard to tell with the emotional aftertaste.”

“A good day?” Sveta asked.

“Yeah,” Chris said, with a note of something that might have been incredulity, or even curious emphasis. “This is why I’m in the game. Running with the big guys, dealing with the big things. Lives on the line.”

“You’re a kid,” Capricorn said.

“Right now? I’m halfway toward being a freaky personification of Dark Introspection and being a pink skinned scoundrel. We’re all special cases, Cap. Ashley snapping should drive that home, if your daily schedule hadn’t already.”

Sveta looked back in Ashley’s direction.

“You’re talking a lot,” I said.

“I’m desperately trying to ride an excited high here, because the alternative is slipping into Introspection or dealing with the fact some power is trying to drive me nuts. Work with me.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

I wanted to sound more confident and authoritative, but—I didn’t like how we’d left Ashley, or how we’d let that happen. That was something that weighed on me, and the melancholy I’d noted earlier in the day was giving way to something that riffed on the panic I’d experienced with Valefor.

Except the hints of panic I felt wasn’t about one situation with Valefor, or even about this greater conflict. It was about big picture stuff, and one impulse call by Ashley had brought the big-picture concern into focus. I knew she’d called it calculated, not impulse, but I couldn’t see how it could be.

I wanted things to be better and right now, they weren’t.

But I needed to focus. I needed to work with these guys, like Chris had said.

I glanced at Sveta, and she looked just about as lost as I felt.

I reached for her hand and gave it a waggle.

“Hostages,” I said. “We want to deal with Valefor too.”

“I prepared another form in case we needed to fight,” Chris said. “It’s slow.”

“Vigilance,” Capricorn said.

“Yeah.”

“Save it.”