But the answers had to wait. The other stations—well, they had to handle their own stuff. The closest portal to us was really Brockton Bay, and Brockton Bay wasn’t that close. Our station was busy with cleanup, with questions and no answers. We were in the way, and we couldn’t go elsewhere to help because things would be over before we arrived.

We had nowhere to go except—almost by silent agreement, we made our way outside.

As Vince Crowley had wanted to do, we found a vantage point to watch the horizon.

The messages began coming in on phones.

“Norwalk Station,” Kenzie said.

“That’s your neighborhood,” Sveta replied.

Kenzie nodded. She was typing quickly. “My parents look okay. Reports are coming in. The sky—a slice of pink? I don’t get it. Things seem mostly fine. What happened?”

“Hey,” Capricorn said. He touched Sveta’s shoulder. “Look.”

Off to the north.

Brockton Bay couldn’t catch a break. It was like a shard of glass or a torn piece of painting. I could see the sky on the other side. The world beyond.

They were opening the portals wider. Taller. A portal that large—it had to have sliced Brockton Bay in half. What did that impact? What did it do?

We’d have to take off—where?

We had somewhere to go now, yet we were paralyzed. The phone had a list of portals, now, and one by one, the gray rectangles turned green with checkmarks, or were marked with red ‘x’s.

One by one, places were deemed okay or thrust into new crisis. The city had barely been holding up as it was.

Green. Green. Green. Red. Green. Red…

I stopped focusing on the successes and failures, and turned my attention to my contact list. Crystal. Gilpatrick. Dad. Mom.

I sent the messages and waited for the replies. In the times between waits, I typed out hurried explanations, as far as we had any. It seemed like hours were passing and it seemed like no time at all was passing and we were stuck in a horrible, unresolved moment for an eternity.

On the horizon, another slice of sky that wasn’t overcast, in the midst of sunset. A spear or blade of the wrong light, cast across a community.

A reply from Crystal. Her team would be out and helping, as soon as they knew what was going on. If this opened the doors wide for Earth C… what would we even do?

Fight.

Mom was okay. She told me that Amy was okay, and I let her. Dad was fine. Gilpatrick, Jasper, Ashley and Rain were okay.

No response from Weld.

New York was the central hub because it was the place with the densest cluster of portals. The phone noted several failures in that area.

No response from the Wardens. They would be getting bombarded. Maybe it was that.