Vanessa and her Uncle Bo had a corner block bench to themselves after a practice run in the mek suits. The action was seamless now for the entire team, even though they were only planning to launch three. She was doing some post-stretching in her suit. Uncle Bo was still wearing his knee brace. “You’re amazing at this. Too bad it won’t go towards your sporting record in track.”

“No… but it might go on some other record that’ll count for me or against me,” Vanessa joked, grinning lopsidedly.

“Hey, it works for you in our books. The rest of the world will know someday.”

“Or they won’t know, but they’ll still be safer.”

“Damn, kid.” Uncle Bo laughed helplessly.

Bassel, the puzzle engineer kid, drifted over to the two. He’d been watching the practice from the bridges. “There’s going to be another ice cream social in Oven Cleaner’s living room.”

“Oh, I would love that,” said Uncle Bo.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Vanessa seconded. They joined the loose straggle of kids and guardians leaving the locker room chamber.