"Well damn... When'd that start?"

"A few weeks ago, me and Penny were exploring the Sideways, when we get back we're followed by these goons—"

"Penny, huh?" Marcus asks, waggling his eyebrows.

"—yes, my daughter Penny."

"Oh. Sorry."

"We get detained by D.o.S. about violating a red-black when the zone was yellow-black when we walked in, and these guys keep showing up."

"So you're hittin' up the gangbangers from the bad ol' days to see what we can tell you," Marcus concludes, finally relaxing enough to sit back down.

"Yes. Do you have anything more about them?"

"Hmm..."

Yeah.

I might be able to help keep him safe if he trusts me, and I don't think he will if he knows I've followed him like this.

I dunno. If he knows I asked you to, he might, and he'll know there's nothing he can do to escape you with your superpower so he might just want you on his side anyway.

"Honestly, Greg, I don't know. I should stay out of this, for my own—"

"April twelfth, nineteen ninety-five," Gregory says, and this shuts Marcus right up. "I never called in my favor. I'm doing it now."

After a few seconds of silence, Marcus starts cursing, and after a few seconds of cursing, he says, "Fuck you, Gregory Yates, I'll help. What do you want?"

"Nothing in particular. Put some feelers out, tell me what you hear, and I might ask you for some muscle you can spare while I go roughen up a couple of people."

Marcus tries to pretend the idea of beating someone up doesn't excite him, but he does lean forward a little and narrows his eyes a fraction. "Alright, Greg. But then that's it—you called in your favor, after this you can disappear into God knows which Sideways nooks you find."

"That's all I wanted," he agrees in the same even tones he's used throughout this conversation, but he audibly (to Denice) relaxes.

Yeah.

He's asking for help right now; I think he'll go for it if we're careful how we offer.

I do still want to watch that building from earlier, but that's Cult stuff too.

Gregory and the gangbangers exchange a couple more manly pleasantries involving lots of cursing and talking loudly and physically violent displays of affection, and then he excuses himself and leaves.

And it takes that long for Penny to reply: What if I'm some avatar of Bedlam or something? What if that's the reason why I can deal with the Sideways like I do and other people can't?

I'm pretty sure you're not. You might be something, there's so much weird stuff here, but not that, you don't think like her or act like her.

Well but it's weird that I look like her and I'm not like girls my age I don't spend my time thinking about boys or whatever I go mapping the Sideways and that's really weird!

Gregory starts making his way back to the subway station.

Not thinking about boys isn't that weird, I don't either.

She goes to her station; she should be able to make a guess at which direction he's heading in by what part of the platform he stands on.

He seems to be heading back in the same direction he came.

But you're a superhero that's way cool.

She will get on the next train headed in that direction, then.

I mean, yeah, but aside from that I'm just a girl, if it's weird for you it's weird for me, too.

I'm pretty sure superheroes are exempt from normal rules.

Lots of superheroes get married! That's a big part of why we have cape names and costumes, to keep peoples' families safe.

I guess that makes sense.

Yup.

Anyway, I won't be surprised if there is something weird going on with you, but I think if you were Bedlam's avatar you wouldn't be worried about it; I think it must be something else.

Well, we'll figure it out.

Yeah.

We're waiting for the train, now, I think he's headed home.

Oh. He did say he might be back for lunch. Then a second email: Should I confront him about it?

I don't really know how that part works.

What do you mean?

There's a lot of stuff about talking to people that I don't understand very well, because I haven't done very much of it. So I don't know how hard it'd be to talk to him about this and get him to do what you want instead of not doing that.

Oh. I guess that makes sense. Next email: I'll figure it out. Next email: Talking by email is weird. She suggests a local messaging app that doesn't exist on Earth.