Spearing a piece of burger, Arthur pops it into his mouth and begins chewing.

Georgia rolls her eyes.

Ambrose shakes his head at this culinary offense. “I told you, man. I know you’re medieval and all, but you just can’t do that. You have to eat hamburgers with your hands. That’s why there’s bread on the top and bottom. Do you eat a sandwich with a knife and fork?”

“Yes,” Arthur replies.

Ambrose facepalms. “Forget it.”

Georgia pats Ambrose’s hand. “I’ve tried, believe me.”

“As I was saying,” Arthur continues, “Georgia and I have made it to the third level of the Numa Army. We were invited off-Facebook to join the N.A. member site. But as soon as we entered our information, we were blocked. It’s almost as if they can see past the fictional identities we created.”

“Are you using the VPN I gave you?” I ask. “It reroutes you through the proxy server, so you don’t appear to be connecting through La Maison’s IP address.”

“Yes,” Georgia says. “And we use our laptops, not our phones.”

I nod. “It should be fine, then. Siaka and I set up that VPN connection for maximum security.”

“So, what did you have to do to get past the first two levels of the Numa Army?” Vincent asks.

“Not much,” Georgia answers. “We had to engage in Facebook discussions with some of the craziest of crazypants. People who think that the US President and his cabinet eat babies. And that a deep-state conspiracy is putting mind-controlling nanobots into the drinking water. The moderators, whoever they are—and believe me, we haven’t been able to get any clues on that either—let people rant on about whatever.”

Arthur picks up the thread. “But we noticed that those who seem to have usable skills—like people with workout or gym selfies in their timeline, or with government or military connections—are being tagged by the moderators to join private conversations. This seems to be the way they target the type of people M wants to recruit.”

“I’m posing as a physical trainer,” Georgia says. “Lots of gym selfies, and motivational exercise memes. I moved right up the ranks immediately. I was tagged in a conversation and asked if I wanted to go deeper. But when I tried to sign into their page, I was refused.”

“Was there an error note?” I ask.

“Just some random ‘you don’t have access’ thing,” Arthur says. “And then when we wrote the moderator to say it doesn’t work, they ghosted us. We’re creating new identities and trying to get back in. Just this afternoon, they began teasing a big meet-up in real life for Level Fives. Deadline to qualify is in just a few days. And I have a feeling it might be connected to the meeting the informant told us about.”