“Nobody said extortion,” Chris answered. “That’s really interesting, that you immediately think of that.”

“It’s sarcasm, you oaf. Figure out a form that helps you figure it out and spend a month or two in it. You have a lot of catching up to do.”

There was an insult in the first sentence and a harsh phrasing throughout, but Chris didn’t seem to mind. He even smiled a little.

“I have some info,” Chris said. “I did some searching.”

“It’s really interesting to see which times get you most into things,” Rain said. “They tend to be the worst times.”

“Intriguing times,” Chris said. “Which are some of the worst because powers are both intriguing and they’re fountains of suck.”

“What info?” I asked.

He looked at his computer. “One of the TV studios owned by a Mr. Buckner is handling this whole thing. It’s going out on the radio first and then depending on whether it’s a success or not, they’ll televise a continuation. People drive home from work in the late hour, they catch it, they listen, and then they get home and turn on the television.”

“How did you get this?” I asked.

“I have like, forty online accounts. A lot are connected, but if I’m careful not to post too often, I can build up a persona and people accept me into their communities. I have something like four accounts in four very different sub-communities.”

“Because you deceive people about who you are?” Sveta asked.

“Sure,” Chris said. “It works. The television studio had employees doing research on Parahumans Online. I ask Lookout and… she confirmed it.”

Which was code for ‘she broke in and stole info’. Natalie didn’t seem to have been fooled by it.

“Why forty accounts?” I asked.

“Fog of war. It confuses investigators online, makes my trail harder to follow. Algorithms track everything you do, so I break it all up. One set of names for one site, another for another site. It lets me narrow down what came from who, if I get an email to one account or another.”

“Seems unnecessarily complicated,” Tristan said.

“Don’t know what to tell you,” Chris said. “Except that it worked for us in this instance, so stop getting on my case.”

“It’s good,” Tristan said. “Question is, what do we do about it? Mug ’em? Tell them to leave it alone? Ignore them? I should stress that if we’re doing anything in costume, you’re going to have Byron as a tagalong, not me.”

“We shouldn’t ignore them,” I said. “If they’re intending to spread lies—”

“They could spread inconvenient truths and it would be bad,” Ashley said.

“Urg,” Kenzie said.

“All the more reason,” I said. “When is the show?”

“Three hours,” Chris said.

“We could try getting on the show.”