“Nobody’s given me a number, or even a ballpark estimate, for these breaches,” Natalie said, with a bit more incredulity in her voice. “Someone explain. Please.”

“It was in the interest of tracking the Cheit attackers and maintaining lines of communication with Ashley and Rain,” I said. “We talked about some of this.”

“Some was pretty concerning. I was on the fence about that some,” Natalie said. “If there was more than some, I’d have put my foot down.”

“Come, use my laptop,” I said. “Look at my notes.”

I had to pause to open my laptop, a little annoyed that Natalie was making this a point now. Too much to juggle, to then have her demanding attention and focus.

I appreciated it on a level, but still.

I lowered my voice, aware I was missing conversation between Kenzie and Ashley in the background as Natalie and I leaned over my computer. I kept my voice quieter, “I detailed it as best I could here. This is where we’re at, these are the justifications and issues. Open-bracket-N-closed-bracket for Natalie, where we consulted. Our peek into the prison’s inner workings is the worst breach, it caught us by surprise, but we consulted you after, we’re punishing her by restricting visits, and the Wardens and the Guild have signed off on the general thrust of this.”

“I’ll read,” Natalie said, terse.

I nodded, standing straight and looking back at the group, my computer and Natalie behind me.

“How does this affect us, if it’s the breaches, monitoring, and whatever?” Tristan asked.

“We can deal with it,” I said. “We got ahead of the portal thing—we didn’t stop it entirely, but we kept it from being worse. A lot of people were hooked into that. The public would forgive the approach if we could prove results, I think, especially given Kenzie’s age and the bigger situation.”

“That’s optimistic,” Rain said.

“The number one priority—” I started.

“Is Kenzie,” Ashley cut in.

“Is— Yes,” I finished. “Laws are vague, we’re helping. They’re not going to burn her at the stake. At worst, it’s a headache.”

“I’ll grudgingly agree with that,” Tristan said. “Total agreement on the headache part.”

“We’ll help you, Kenzie,” I said. “And I think if it’s that, we can deal. If we get ahead of it and show we can do basic PR and that it won’t bounce back on anyone who interacts with us, the others will relax.

She smiled and nodded.

“Because it needs to be said, there are second, third priorities. This situation with Goddess is explosive and dangerous. Cheit is dangerous. We absolutely cannot afford for this to tie our hands or we end up with an international incident, a prison break, or a potential enemy of Gimel recruiting a mess of our most dangerous and depraved parahumans to use against us.”

“Or all of the above,” Rain said.