Thomas gave Jack a smile as he walked out of workshop, “Sorry Jack, but you know that you could have to deal with alarms at any moment. Plus remember the whole ‘Non-lethal armaments’ regulation? You’re under eighteen, the PRT would like to hear tat you were working on anything too dangerous.” He responded laughing, and shooting him a wink to let him know he was only joking.

He smiled over at Lila as she appeared. He had been able to tell roughly where she was thanks to his ability, but it was nice to actually see the people he was talking to. He took a moment as the others talked to register the abilities he was drawing from, account for them, and suppress the voluntary portions of them. No need for designs to be floating through his mind, or for the empathic understanding of other people, not to mention that he had to focus a bit on keeping in everybody’s line of sight.

“Well, now that I have everyone here, Jack you remember the joint training we had talked about with the folks over at Sacramento?” Thomas asked once everything had settled a bit from people walking in. “I’ve got a bit of good news on it, and a heap of bad news.

“The good news is we got approval from Director Warren. The bad news is it seems like he is trying his best to set the odds against us. He gave approval, but said we had to get permission from the Sacramento PRT by tomorrow. I let it slip that we had already been in touch with them and I don’t think he is overly happy about that, but here’s the kicker, he’s sending me and Lila. It’s a pain, I had been hoping you would get more of a chance to work with a larger team.” Thomas shook his head slightly. “And I was hoping to deal with recruitment while you were gone. We have reports of two solo heroes that both appear to be in the Wards age range. It would have been perfect, while you and Sparrow were training with Sacramento, Voice and I could have brought them on, and then you two would’ve been used to a slightly bigger team.”

[hr]

“At least turn the smoke to vapor Die.” Nathan commented absent-mindedly as the sharp pungent smell of burnt tobacco filled the room. “The streets are clear from what I can see, but that apparently doesn’t stop our employer from coming and going apparently.” He said walking from the kitchen through a short hallway into another open living space, separated from the kitchen by a bar. The oven clock showed 11:45, but ran about thirty minutes fast, meaning it was more like 11:15.

He tossed the manila envelope onto the counter. “We’ve got a job, ten k per. Gotta figure out logistics though. Iggy, quit your bitchin’ or part of the logistics can be you sleeping here instead of going on the job. And missing out on ten k.” He had gone from New Orleans Cajun, into a Texan Drawl, and then into a form of street slang. 

“That’s part of what we need to figure out Proto. My guess is you’re gonna need the wings and some durability maybe some muscles. Mind swapping out to senses and gas for now? We’ll need them to be at top strength for the job.” Nathan started stretching his shoulders. “Die mind grabbing the papers out of the envelope there should be info on the truck and guard rotations.” Nathan turned away from the table focusing on a small flock of birds two blocks over. Something seemed weird. There was a small group of thugs heading down the street, not all together too unusual for this neighbor hood, but they seemed to be running from something… Scratch that. Someone.