‘B-TV’. The building loomed above us as we got out of the car. It was me, Capricorn, Lookout, and, after a short delay for the camera and projector to boot up, Swansong in a dress that combined black and white. The dress had costume lines and straps that crossed over at the collarbone. Elegant, but short enough a dress that it could have been indecent.

Natalie climbed out of the car and stood off to the side. She pulled off her puffy jacket, throwing it back into the car, before locking it. Back to her more professional demeanor.

I’d read up on Buckner, the person who controlled over half the media we got in the city, and I didn’t get the parahuman vibe from him. Back in the day, the racist gang leader had turned out to be a businessman, outed as part of a massive break in the unwritten rules. Tattletale, naturally. But it had made sense. Max Anders had been a name that I’d been familiar with through my association with Dean, I’d seen him around three or four times in my visits to high society. He’d given me no overt clues, and yet I’d been entirely unsurprised.

Doing the cape thing in any meaningful capacity took too much effort. Being successful and being a cape? Possible. Max Anders, AKA Kaiser, AKA the CEO of Medhall, he’d done it. But there’d been something missing—I’d seen it in my mom, as she’d struck the balance of being a prosecutor and a heroine. When you lived two demanding lives then petty things had to be pared away, like levity or idle hobbies.

Buckner was a storm of multimedia, a finger in a hundred pies, and he spent a lot of time trying to promote and investigate side things. He went to concerts with new bands playing, sponsoring them, and had photos taken with him and the band on stage at the end of the night. Artists, actors, movie ideas…

Too inane to be a cape.

The building was glass panes in a grid of metal bars, tinted windows that caught the glare of the spotlights. There’d been a brief point in time when the city was under construction that the building would have been nice, taller than all of the rest that were going up around here, a visual break from the siding and brick that made up most buildings.

But that moment had been brief. Materials had been prepared and arranged in advance, and buildings had gone up fast once we’d had the labor.

Squat, ugly, nothing distinctive about it, now, except for the illumination and the people who milled around in it, getting their smoke breaks in, one or two with hands tucked into their armpits, until they needed to bring one up to the cigarette.

I wasn’t warm either. I looked at the others.

“Let’s go,” Capricorn said.