“Don’t talk like that, you guys,” I heard Looksee. “I’m teary-eyed even thinking of you guys being seriously hurt.”

Okay, we needed a distraction. “Looksee. I’m thinking of a plan, beyond what we already talked about. You’re a key part of it.”

“What we just talked about, with our reinforcements?”

“Yes,” I said. Our reinforcements. Good to phrase it that way. Tattletale.

“I’m looking into it,” Looksee said.

“Good,” I said. “This is separate. If you’re up for it.”

“Reinforcements?” Sveta asked.

“Rain or I can fill you in after,” I said.

She didn’t respond immediately. Down on the ground, I saw her look up at me, her brute-and-gauntlet-wearer class phone still held to her ear.

“Okay,” Sveta said.

“Looksee,” I said, hurrying to lay it out now that I’d cleared some of the obstacles and interpersonal issues. “You may have people coming down the road. It’s the easiest way for them to get out if they want to make a run for it.”

“I’ll be ready. With reinforcements, maybe. Depends. They’re not answering.”

“Okay,” I said. “How hard would it be to set something else up? Gilpatrick is wrangling an awful lot of people. What if those people were waiting elsewhere?”

“Elsewhere?” Looksee asked.

“Or… in as many places as you can manage. I’m thinking we put the evacuees in one place, or spread them out. They’re people the Fallen have some reason to care about. We put images of the evacuees in other places, or we fill out the groups. We give them a reason not to shoot the moment they come storming down that dirt road or out of the woods.”

“I’d need to grab images and write some code. I’d have to change the spectrum angle on the—thing. There’s a lot of stuff.”

“Can you?” I asked.

“I can try, but it’s going to be hard, and I’ll be distracted. I might have to hang up so I can focus. Um. Is there anything else I need to do or plan for?”

“No,” I said.

“I’m going to hang up then! Will call back soo—” she announced, hanging up before she’d even finished the sentence.

There was a pause.

“Is the world ending again, or did she really just say that?” Chris asked. “She decided of her own volition to hang up on friends.”

“She’s excited to help,” Sveta said.

She was, I suspected, but I wasn’t sure I’d heard excitement, exactly.

Hard to pin down.

Capricorn was building the next wall within Vista’s distortion. He turned blue, and the wall turned to water. There were shouts as people near the wall had to jump back to avoid getting sloshed. Some couldn’t avoid it and were soaked or partially soaked.