No forcefield, no super strength. I flew to catch up and I caught the first one mid-run. Because I could maneuver in the air at the same time I caught up, it was relatively trivial to get in a position to stick my leg between his knees and trip him.

I left him behind, relatively sure I could catch a second one before he picked himself up and got far enough away.

The second went roughly the same way.

The third one I caught up to had a knife that was made for the kitchen, not for fighting. She disarmed herself swiping at my forcefield, and promptly surrendered.

By the time I checked on the first and caught him limping away, Sveta had rounded up the others, including the second and third I’d stopped.

She was fast, she had reach, and she was mobile. This was very much her thing. She hadn’t left any marks more serious than a palm with road rash.

We herded the ones who had bolted in the direction of the disabled getaway vehicles. The ones I’d told to stay had stayed. The van had pulled off the highway, and Looksee was standing on the top, watching over things. She’d have projected her costume. Capricorn had his costume on with no armor but the helmet, and was standing guard by the store with the broken windows.

I flew closer to them to get a status update, and as I passed the van, I could see Chris still in the backseat, gagged and ensnared by Looksee’s eyehook, the prehensile tendril with the camera and claw at the end.

“Lucky that we happened to be passing by,” Looksee said.

I smiled.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her. This kind of low-level dissent was happening all over the Megalopolis. I could see it whenever I flew over. When I’d told Ashley that we intended to arrive at two thirty, I’d plotted for a detour like this, because it was next to inevitable.

It would get worse; the shock was wearing off.

⊙

An armed Patrol soldier greeted us at the door. His was a face I’d seen from the Stratford patrol, not far from Bridgeport.

“We sent our information ahead,” I said.

“You did. You’re the girl from the community center thing, right?”

“Yeah,” I confirmed.

“Okay.” It wasn’t a smiling, accepting okay. “She’s inside. Be good.”

Sveta raised her eyebrows at me the moment we were past the guard and inside the apartment. Some things were already set aside, lining one side of the hallway, making the fit through fairly tight. Sveta had once described the apartment as being an unusual mix. I could see it in place now—cardboard boxes and plastic totes in places, and then furniture in other places that definitely hadn’t come from a box store.