“Can you ask around, see if anyone has a good enough relationship with Lord of Loss to open communication?” Capricorn asked. “Don’t tip him off, but ask if some heroes could visit Wailings?”

“I’ll ask, see if anyone knows. You should know that a lot of the Hollow Point guys that didn’t get offed fell back to the border territories.”

“We’ll be careful,” Capricorn said.

A younger officer approached, a stack of print-outs in his arms the size of a phone book. Capricorn took half. Chris and Sveta each took the remainder. Our files.

There was a brief exchange of numbers and cards. We shook hands with the cops, and then we shook hands with Anelace.

He held my hand a touch longer than was necessary, looking me in the eyes, and said, “This was good.”

“I’m glad,” I said.

He freed my hand. The groups split up, with Durbin left in the care of the police.

“The G–N portal was one of the data points,” Looksee said. “Calls made to and from that area.”

“There’s no cell signal from the other side,” Capricorn said.

“They come through and make calls as soon as they have signals,” Looksee said. “Give me a bit of time to get the wheels spinning and I can start on facial recognition, license plates, and start checking on people around there. It’s even close-ish to my place.”

“After you get permission from the authorities for that kind of surveillance, you mean,” Natalie said.

“Of course,” Looksee said.

The last time I’d faced Lord of Loss, we’d fought brute to breaker. It hadn’t been pretty, but… he’d played by the rules.

The people he seemed to be hosting in his territory were very much not playing by those rules. There was a chance that he knew, which meant another Earth, however small a set of settlements, that was aligned against Gimel.

A chance he didn’t know. Which would mean Earth N faced the same kind of subversive attack that we’d weathered in Gimel.

I mentally revised my schedule, trying to keep key duties and events straight in my head. Visit the orphanage where Chris was staying, and make sure all was well. Make time for Sveta. Make time for Crystal, and get her something nice. Call Rain and Ashley, and catch them up, see if they had input. Move. Ugh. Have dinner with Kenzie’s family. Have a conversation with the Villain Warlord of Earth N, potentially with the fate of whole Earths on the line.

Torch 7.7

I flew down and at an angle, to try to break away, and I felt the near-miss, a rush of air that made my hood flap and my hair fly out in disarray.

That rush was cause for me to change direction. Evasive maneuvers.