“Before you got back. I went out to make sure I’m free and clear if something happens this afternoon.”

That soon? We’re not ready.

There were still people to organize, we needed to find people who might be able to deal with this woman, get them on board, and then coordinate them. If none of us could go, then the hit team we recruited would have to. Beyond that, what? Civilians? Men and women with guns against an invincible woman who could telekinetically smash a camera from a quarter-mile away?

All of which ignored the zealots. They weren’t invincible, far from it, but they were invisible.

We had no idea of knowing when this could all come to a head.

I heard the squeak of whiteboard marker and I looked.

Tristan was at my board where I’d listed the ‘green’ capes and teams. The same ones we’d just recruited.

A black ‘x’ here.

A black ‘x’ there.

By my mom and dad, even. A black ‘x’.

“Cap—” I started. But he was talking to the phone that was pressed to one ear.

I waited.

He finished. Everyone was watching him as he put the phone down. When he slashed out the black ‘x’ by the Kings of the Hill, it was more dramatic, messier, angrier.

“What happened?” I asked.

“We’re being undercut,” Tristan answered. “It’s going to be a thing tonight, but these teams and people—”

He stabbed the board.

“They’ve got an ear to the ground. A group is talking about Lookout, and they’re pushing it to the public later. They don’t want to deal with us until we get this handled.”

Beacon 8.9

I hurried over to my computer. The setup I’d put together wasn’t really set up for a PR crisis, especially one revolving around us. Some people had put in requests for info, with stuff wedged into the wrong fields. Others had emailed us directly.

I shut my laptop. That particular mutant could be tackled later.

“Kenzie—” I said.

“I didn’t do it,” Kenzie said, her eyes wide. “I’ve been good.”

“I can count ten things you did that aren’t ‘good’ in the last week, and that’s without trying,” Chris said.

“I did?”

“Breaking into secured systems, watching people, tapping into phone lines…”

I glanced at Natalie.

“Oh. That. I was thinking more about the personal, relationship stuff,” Kenzie said.

“I’d be much more concerned with breaking the law,” Natalie said. “I need to get caught up, apparently. How much of this did you get permission for? What secured systems?”

“I might be a little too frazzled to remember all of them,” Kenzie said.

“No documentation?” Chris asked. “On top of having no timestamps?”

“Ease up,” Ashley told him, stern. “Not the time.”

“Sure.”