“I don’t think anyone truly knows her. Sveta knows her by association only. If I sit this out, I think this ends in utter disaster.”

“You attended the taping of Hard Boil. You lost control of your power and it almost ended in disaster. Why is this different? What guarantees that your intervention and presence makes this better?”

I drew in a deep breath.

“You look like you disagree.”

“I don’t blame you for taking that stance, when it comes to the show. It’s an interpretation, and a fair one.”

“For what it’s worth, it didn’t end in disaster. I’m still rooting for your team.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That means a lot. Look, Hard Boil was always going to be a disaster or something approximating one,” I said. “I don’t think the show changed many minds among Hard Boil’s core audienece. It did distract and let us pass the ball to people who can take the shot, and opened up the way for those who receive the shots.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Okay. Look, Mayday’s with Advance Guard. The team was pretty fractured after the attack on the Fallen. This morning he’s going to go on television and radio. People have questions about powers, about Scion, the day we fought Scion. They’ll have other questions and the teams we’re associating with are positioned to talk about it. We’re coordinating this like we planned to coordinate information. People want to know this stuff and they want to discuss it. Hard Boil wants to demonize Lookout? They’re going to be left behind while everyone else focuses on bigger things.”

I saw his eyebrows go up.

“It’s an excuse to let people reach out to media and put their best faces forward. We sacrifice ourselves a bit to give everyone else a chance to elevate themselves. Considering the problem came out of our camp to start with, it’s a kind of amends.”

“One that came back on you. Not to diminish what you’re doing, but you talked about wanting to protect Lookout, and she was almost hurt, by your own words.”

“It did. You could argue that once they chose to use Lookout as their example criminal for the show, she was going to be a target anyway. We just didn’t think they would track her down that easily, or that they’d be willing to cross that line.”