I could feel it more as I flew over the portals, to the point that I was course correcting more than I was flying forward. Crosswinds. If my hair hadn’t been in a braid, it would have been all over me.

In the center of the portals, three separate doors sloshed together. The Wardens headquarters had been there. Key members and staff of the three sub-teams and the Wardens themselves had been stationed there when it had all gone to hell. Jessica had been working late.

Option one suggested that they’d been torn to shreds, caught by three portals that were clashing together and switching what world they were connected to moment by moment, until they finally stopped expanding and settled.

Option two might have been worse. The Wardens’ head office had been serving as a place to sequester dangerous capes. Slaughterhouse Nine, ex-Birdcage capes, international enemies, and Class-S threats like Nilbog. Even the ones who had been cooperating had been kept under close guard because cooperation didn’t necessarily equate trust.

If Jessica and the other late-evening staff at the Wardens’ HQ were out there, stranded somewhere after the portals swallowed the area up, then they weren’t in good company. I imagined it ending up something like the Lord of the Flies, if the talking severed pig’s head was the least fucked up around.

It wasn’t a good imagining.

Construction crews were working to mend the damage. Building hadn’t even begun on the structures that might contain the portal. It was a herculean undertaking, even with powers helping.

Even after I returned to the streets, the wind was something I noticed, a constant gust that was either coming or going from the direction of the disaster.

Life moved on like normal but the cold wind blew hard. People on the street kept their heads down and walked briskly, even less likely to make eye contact or offer a kind word than they had been before this. Businesses were the same, when they were open. That was saying something, considering this area was the closest thing we had to New York.

Brockton Bay, when I’d paid a visit, had been similar enough. It had been more of a slice, cutting the city and its industry in two, leaving one half without power or internet. The attitude shift had been felt there too.

All of the affected areas. The affected areas of the city felt like ghost towns that weren’t empty nor were they towns. The warmth wasn’t there, there wasn’t a soul or community, and everything felt eerie. Too new, too worn out for how new they were, insects clustered on warm surfaces, and too many businesses were closed with all lights off, despite their posted hours.