“Fuck off,” he said. “I know my physiology and I know what I’m doing.”

“You keep saying that,” I said. “It sounds less convincing each time.”

“Chris!” Kenzie said. “Do you know any good prayers I could say over my laptop? It’s a thing we were talking about.”

“Do I strike you as the churchgoing type?”

“Nothing?”

“Some random latin. Ex nihilo nihil fit, I think is a good phrase for you.”

“Why do I feel like you just insulted me?” Kenzie asked.

“It’s not insulting, nimrod. It’s actually a compliment.”

“Aww!”

“Which I’m regretting now.”

“I’m struck between the fact that you know that, first of all,” I said.

“I spend a lot of time reading when I’m waiting out a form.”

“And the fact you’re doubling down on the moody teenage boy thing. Most just get into nihilism, but you fit two ‘nihil’ in one sentence there. What is that? Word, nothing, nothing, word?”

“Why do I even talk?” Chris asked, leaning back. He pulled his hood down over his eyes.

Sveta arrived, spotting us before jogging to us in an ungainly way that made me worry she might fall. She didn’t crash to the ground, but she did teeter, and stopped, her hand resting against a window to catch her balance.

She wore long sleeves, a new wig, and her body was scrubbed of paint. Her dress was long, layered in stages of darkening green from layer to layer, with shapes cut out of each lower portion. Fish or leaves, it looked like.

“I love the dress,” I said.

“Oh, this? It was a gift from Chief Armstrong,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I don’t think we’re all late.”

She smiled. “I’m weirdly nervous.”

“It’s a weird thing,” Tristan said.

It was a weird thing. In timing and place, in atmosphere, and in aim and objective.

The wind whipped around us as the five of us walked as a group. There weren’t any crowds, and the building was largely empty as we made our way inside. The interior of the building was dim, but it was mostly because the lights were off and illumination came from the windows to the outside.

“No word on Mrs. Yamada?” Tristan asked.

“No,” Sveta said. “Not according to Weld.”

“And we don’t know who was behind it?”

“Not yet,” I said.

There were some simple folding chairs lined up down the wide hallway. Either end of the building had large windows, which let the light come in, casting its long, vague shadows. Some people were already in the hallway, clustered in groups.