“It gets through to most,” Cubs said. He was a big guy, tall, broad-shouldered, fit, with his hair cut short. He thought for a second and then amended his statement, “some.”

“Us,” Jasper said.

“Guess so, yeah,” Cubs said.

I didn’t miss the glance he shot at the girl at the far end of our little sub-group. Cami wore an expression I might have termed ‘resting angry face’. Perpetually pissed.

All three of them, and many other members of the group besides, were dressed in similar shades as Gilpatrick. Blacks and grays.

“I’m going to duck into my office,” I said. “I want to check my email and make sure it’s nice and neat if anyone stops in.”

“Only a short bit before we migrate over,” Cubs said. “One more speaker.”

“I’ll let Gilpatrick know you’re there,” Jasper said. He extended a fist. I rolled my eyes and instead of tapping it with my own, pushed it away. Jasper smiled.

My destination wasn’t in the high school, but was across the street. It was an open building with a partial second floor. The main floor was hardwood, with mats folded and piled up at the side. A few more senior students were already there—some were just entering or leaving the showers. It seemed like a good idea for cooling down, but I didn’t have the time.

I waved at some of the seniors in passing and headed up the stairs. The stairwell ran up one wall, unbounded by barriers, so it offered a view of everything below.

My office was the closest thing I had to a home, in this world. It was narrow and long, with a bookshelf at the right wall, a desk, computer and chair. Some boxes were piled up in the corners.

The bookshelf was my accomplishment. My fingers ran along the spines of books and other texts. Many of the works were collections of articles or official documents, bound by hand with a three-hole punch, rings, and patience.

Parahuman science. University textbooks, old workbooks with notes—not all mine. There were important articles, copied to plain text and printed out, with a lean toward the sciences, the nuances, the big revelations and reveals.

Official files. Classification documents. Then there were the notes for Case One, Case Fifteen, Case Thirty-Two, Case Fifty-Three, Case Ninety. The ‘cases’ were the events the PRT had deemed of interest. Riddles both solved and unsolved. My collection there was incomplete, but some were official enough to be confidential, and I’d never had that access. Others were closed, the mystery deemed nonexistent or something to be folded into popular knowledge.