I had my concerns. I had plenty of worries about what was going to unfold as authorities decided to go after the Fallen or to let them go, and even the simpler joy of being a heroine had been tainted by Wretch and the horribleness of the people I’d been dealing with. I could ask how everyone was doing, keep tabs on things, and help people out, and there wasn’t anyone who was positioned or invested enough to do the same for me.

A reminder to myself that I needed to call that therapist.

But I could put it all aside, put it out of mind.

We had Mama Mathers. We had Operator and we had Cradle. It was a win, and a win we’d thoroughly earned.

⊙

Son of a bitch, I should have known.

“Why?” I asked.

“We couldn’t come to a decision, so we talked to the administrators who coordinate the Patrol blocks,” Captain Marcial answered me. “They said no.”

“We’re leaving the remaining Fallen?” I asked.

“We explained the guns,” Gilpatrick said. “The degree of violence here, the boundaries that were crossed. They’ll have people on the lookout for violence, if the Fallen lash out or try something, but the sentiment expressed was that they didn’t want to punish others for getting away from a violent situation and standing down.”

“They’re the Fallen,” I said. “They don’t back down.”

“They don’t back down, but they do get tired,” Marcial said. “We have problems today, occupying heroes and patrols. The Fallen are a problem for tomorrow.”

“That’s the word from above,” Gilpatrick said.

I retrieved my phone and checked the time.

According to Tattletale, the Fallen would get off the road in two hours and get into the Megalopolis again, somewhere on the east coast. They were obscuring their retreating convoy with powers, allegedly, and once they were in the city they’d connect with others. Again, allegedly.

Two hours.

We’d have to deal with Tattletale to know what location, or where they were if they did get to the city. We’d have to achieve something of a win, and we’d have to have a way to deal with the defeated Fallen. Here, we could put them on a bus in shackles, or dedicate whole teams to managing the powered ones. It helped that most of the powered had injuries that slowed them down.

It wasn’t doable.

“I’m sorry,” Gilpatrick said. “We mitigated the damage. We met most of the objectives, even in the face of much greater numbers than we expected. Today was a win.”

“That’s not much consolation,” Capricorn said. He was back to being Tristan. “We were there in the thick of it. We saw them and talked to them. Lives are going to be lost if we let this go. They’re pissed. They’re heading into a population center.”