The competitive streak might have been coming out. He very naturally took the lead in this questioning, when we had invited Foresight to the table.

On a level, I couldn’t blame him. I had issues with Anelace’s approach to the interrogation. With Capricorn, there seemed to be a thrust to it. He had something in mind.

“TVA, it’s Earth Aleph stuff. I’d complain because they don’t always have all the episodes at the station, and it’s not like we can get more. Sometimes I’d watch a show and it would skip episodes, and it got really confusing with this one modern supernatural show, because it actually skipped an episode on purpose, because of time magic—”

“Focus.”

“Um. Yeah. Some trashy television. Reality stuff, I tried to pitch it to her but she seemed repulsed.”

“That’s good. That’s the sort of small detail that might be useful,” Capricorn said.

Taz nodded, seemingly eager to be giving us anything that might help. “Uh, I’d bring up sports, when there was a match. Parahuman brawling—she wasn’t a fan.”

“Repulsed again?” I asked.

“Nah. Just not a fan. I brought up basketball a lot. The high school teams have a league this year, with a lot of the athletic students focusing on sports during their half-days. She said she missed watching.”

“Which means she had some interest. Who did she root for?” Capricorn asked.

“Oh, huh. The Heralds.”

“She liked them?”

“She really liked them,” Durbin said.

“That’s not Earth Gimel,” Anelace said. “That’d be the school in Wailings, Earth N.”

“Lord of Loss’s territory,” I said.

“You don’t think he’s responsible, do you?” Anelace asked.

I shook my head. “No idea. But it says something if they’re maybe coming from a place that’s not a part of the Megalopolis and they attacked it in the way they did. It also explains why they set up shop here.”

“They’re not connected to us,” Anelace said. “For internet, information, cell… they had to come here.”

“It’s thin,” Capricorn said. “It’s a place to look, though.”

“Durbin,” I said. When he didn’t snap his attention to me, I said, “Taz.”

“Yeah?”

“When she paid you. What did she give you?”

“Forty a night. Twenty if she brought gas.”

“No, I mean what type of currency?”

“New Dollars,” Durbin said. “In my pocket. I still have some, it’s hard to exchange.”

I remained where I was and let Anelace be the one to fish in Durbin’s pocket, drawing out the wallet. He opened it up and fished out a bill. “Tracking number might help us trace it back.”

“Ooh,” Looksee said. “Wait, hold it flat.”

She approached the table. Anelace held the bill flat, and Looksee took a picture of it.

“Fingerprints,” she said.