“Okay,” Natalie said. She considered for a moment. “How do you enforce this if it’s hired help?”

“If they screw around or bend the rules, we cut them off,” Ashley said.

“That,” I said. “We have reason to think the prison is compromised. The big heroes know about it, but we’re in an awkward position. It’s like trying to deal with someone planning on crashing a plane. It’s a lot harder to get them when they’re out of reach. If we can get them on the ground, though—”

“You fly,” Rain said.

“It’s an allegory, Rain,” Sveta said. “I’d punch you in the arm if you were here.”

“Anything you guys can give us helps,” I said. “Starting points, ways to narrow down who we’re looking at.”

“I talked to Crystalclear,” Rain said. “I tried, anyway, he wasn’t down for it. I said I knew you, and you’d fought together at the community center, but he didn’t believe me.”

“Makes sense,” Chris said. “You could be a thinker. Or an anything. If he was a hero, he might have enemies.”

“Yeah,” Rain said.

I mused for a second before saying, “I visited Fume Hood at the hospital, Tempera and Crystalclear were there. Later that night, I had Tempera help me with a kid in crisis—she would have told Crystalclear. The kid ended up going to Europe. He should be able to confirm where we’re at, then see what he has to say.”

“Got it,” Rain said.

“I have something too,” Ashley said. “Goddess is interested in the prison. Did you read her messages?”

“No,” Tristan said. “There’s no written record. She’s doing it through her people, who call or visit, because her actually showing up would be as good as an act of war. There are some notes here and there, for paperwork, and we can see emails going out asking for arbitration or help. She’s been interested since before the portal debacle, and she’s been getting impatient.”

“I got part of it,” Ashley said. “I had words with Monokeros. She mentioned this woman—must we call her Goddess?”

“We mustn’t,” Sveta said. “The woman in blue. The Dictator of Shin.”

“Calling her a dictator would be giving her too much respect. This blue woman reached out to Monokeros. It’s part of why she wants to come here. She wants her, and she wants some specific others—all of us, I’m sure, if she can get us, but she was apparently asking if the Mathers bitch was at this prison.”

“Shit,” Rain said. “No. Mama Mathers?”

“Yes,” Ashley said.

“She wants mind controllers?” I asked.

“She might not have control over Shin,” Sveta said. “She has this power that makes capes willing to serve her—”

“One of her many powers,” I added.