The kneeling statue spent the night in the safe house garage, and by morning the whole team had walked out to look at it at least once, alone, when they thought no one was watching.
Caleb knew because he had the garage camera on his tablet, not to spy, just because a Class-unknown sleeping next to the van was a thing you kept an eye on.
One by one they had come. Kikaru stood in front of it with her arms crossed for a long time and left without touching it. Iharu came at three in the morning and talked to it, low, and Caleb did not turn the audio up, because some things were not his to hear.
Hiro brought it a bowl of noodles and set it down in front of the kneeling thing like an offering, then took the bowl away again, embarrassed, when nobody came to eat it.
It just knelt. It did not move. It waited for the only voice it answered to, and that voice belonged to Caleb, and Caleb was beginning to understand that this was going to be the shape of everything now.
