May taps the back of her knuckles. She shrugs but doesn't recoil, and pulls her hand back.

"So probably I'm looking at life as a shuttlebus for tags from you and him for anybody who wants to go across - I guess you and he can't ever go across if we don't want to render that permanently impossible, I don't have passenger space. I'm more compatible with him than his preexisting partner is so his bandwidth probably depends a lot on... that."

"What the fuck did he do to you."

"Oh, he's being completely reasonable, really, I can't blame him for any of it."

Wow okay, in addition to Lorica having had a very terrible time alternate universe Lucien is also having a terrible time.

"Um. The shuttling plan might be worth it but we'd have to figure out a way of dealing with the Bay's dungeons without me depending on how much of my bandwidth it takes up."

"I think more people're gonna want to go from Bet to Guide. Since Guide isn't ending."

"That does sound nicer."

"Yeah, big selling point. I don't think he can get all the rats off the sinking ship, alas. Maybe a Tinker can rig something up."

"Vista might be able to help with cargo, maybe, but not people."

"Who's Vista?"

"Cape with the Wards who can do space warping, but can't effect people directly."

"I'm not sure that'll hold up on an interdimensional trip."

"Yeah, still might be worthwhile to test?"

"If she's up for it, sure."

Nod.

"Lucien, can we have a minute?"

"Yeah."

He can leave the room.

"What'd he do."

"He wasn't very... creative... about addressing my psychological backlash. I think it played into some of his issues or something. It's not going to come up again, though, because I had a second trigger and got my mental opacity - back, or upgraded, I don't know which."

"You're not about to tell me you're immune to backlash."

"I'm not. After second-triggering mid suicide attempt I traded it in for the non-psychological kind all at once with about a day left on the clock."

"How are you alive."

"After... showing off... how intense she was willing to get about guiding me, his partner - Venture, if we're doing cape names - eventually called an ambulance. I spent the next day in a hospital bed with both of them while a series of strangers rotated through so he'd be using his power enough to approach my backlash. We didn't talk much, I was basically liplocked with him the entire time."

"This was how long ago, have you had time to talk to him about it?"

"Oh, I was going to but after heavy power use he schedules some time to be emotionally incompetent, so instead I didn't."