“The forcefield is your strength? It’s the car-crushing strong part of your power?” Rain asked. “It’s hard to ask questions, because I don’t want to push, but I just want to make sure, get this out of the way.”

“Yeah. It’s where my strength comes from.”

“It’s good to know,” Tristan said. “Fuck those guys on television for getting into that. They knew?”

“Seems like,” I said.

“That might be important,” Tristan said. “It felt like they were angling to come after me, too. They had sources.”

“Including whoever tipped them off about Kenzie’s parents,” Ashley said. “I can’t imagine them watching that show or reaching out to those people first.”

“Gary Nieves first, probably,” Tristan said. “He was supposed to be on point. We threw him by getting onto the show and changing the topic of conversation to Gold Morning.”

“That’s not really a clue,” Rain said.

“It might be important.” Tristan’s voice was firm, his response almost an interruption.

“It might be, but… okay? If the trail leads to Gary, are we going to confront him or expect him to have a casual talk with us?”

“No,” Sveta said. “He’s a bigot.”

“Right,” Rain said. “So let’s not get too stuck in that specific mud. We can’t use that info, so let’s just keep in mind that people are getting info and using it to sling that mud at us, and move on.”

“At Mayday too,” Kenzie said. “He was the focus of episode one. It was why he was distracted when we were trying to coordinate everyone.”

Tristan sighed audibly.

“There are a lot of things to focus on,” Rain addressed Tristan. “Let’s focus on what we can fix.”

“I like that,” Sveta said.

Tristan met my eyes. I nodded.

Distorted perspectives aside, I did have the impression that Tristan had jumped in to change the subject, and that it had worked. Based on my understanding of him, it seemed like his particular form of goodwill. Ashley was a staunch defender of her favored few, with thorny words for anyone who stood against those few. Sveta supported. Tristan… he hurled himself into the fray.

“On the topic of immediate threats, any updates on Hookline and Kitchen Sink?” I asked.

“Herded to where we have surveillance teams waiting, surrounded and arrested. Auzure got the actual arrests, actually. They’re sitting in on the interrogation, and they’ll send us info when they have it.”

I winced. Not my favorite team, but… it was good we got them.

“There was chatter,” Kenzie said, her back to us as she typed. “Love Lost wasn’t happy they did that, apparently. She might be covering her rear.”

“It fits her, to not want people going after kids,” Rain said.