“It’s going to work out,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. If that’s the case, then we’re going to be around another month or so. That’s when we’re expecting it to come to a close. Obviously, if you’re robbing a bank and we’re patrolling, we’ll be on the scene, but that’s it, we won’t come after you in any dedicated way. After that, we’ll be gone, assigned to another small town somewhere. You’ll be rid of us.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“We’ll be gone sooner if you tell us anything you know about the giant.”

She considered.

“You could even tell me you don’t know anything.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s Blasto’s,” she said. “He was brewing something big. There was talk he had a big weapon, like the death ray building scale of thing. This fits for time, it fits for what people were saying and thinking.”

“Good to know,” he said.

“His team of capes isn’t real. They’re vat-grown.”

“Are they?” he asked.

She almost elaborated. She didn’t. “You should have heroes that know this. Like the one who knew our trucks had stolen goods in them.”

Licit nodded, but he didn’t reply.

“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid,” she said. “I’m corroborating what you already knew. Or you didn’t need corroboration, but me saying this lets you check off some box for some reason.”

“Something like that,” he said. “Alright. I’ve done my duty, I’m probably not going to get a wink of sleep tonight while we figure out what to do about the giant, so… I’ll leave you to it, like my name says.”

He smiled.

She stared him down, glaring.

“Call the Director. If nothing else… you’ll have to negotiate with the good guys sometimes if you’re going to do business in Boston. Open that line of communication. You need to know what you’re up against.”

He reached into his belt, drew out the black flip-phone, and threw it her way.

She caught it.

After a moment’s consideration, she destroyed the phone with her power.

“Good luck, I guess,” he said.

☽

“I had a question,” Ashley said.

“Sure,” Riley answered. She held one of Ashley’s hands in her hands, and held it up, poking at the raw end to make the fingers move. It was idle, and not for any particular purpose.

It annoyed Ashley enough that she almost lost her train of thought.

“Nail polish. What would it take?”

“I’ve replaced your nails with different colored ones before,” Riley said. “Well… ‘color’.”

“If I wanted to apply actual nail polish.”

“That wouldn’t be destroyed by your power? That’s hard. Is it important?”