“Yes,” Capricorn said.

“Connect me to those groups. I want straight video feed, or multiple groups gathered in one place. Internet is unreliable and phones are frequently down. What can you do in ten minutes?”

“I have connections already,” Lookout said. Eager to please, happy to have been proactive. “Secure line, separate and distinct from what the city has. It doesn’t connect directly to most of those guys, but I can leapfrog from a place very close to them. I can do it in a minute, as fast as I can dial the numbers.”

No hesitation curve there, I noted.

“I’ll come to you. Be ready.”

“No,” Cryptid said. His voice nearly overlapped with Amy’s.

“Why not?”

“It doesn’t make sense. We should be compartmentalizing more.”

“Compartmentalizing like having thirty-two online accounts?” Rain asked.

“Like that. Break operations into cells. You want to do something, Goddess? Fine. Hold off your small army and let us do what you need us to do.”

“Just you? No. I want others.”

“If you reach out to others, people are going to realize. Thinkers watch out for this kind of thing. Some teams have their precogs, others are scattered and wary. We’ve told them to be careful, because multiple players in this game have stranger or master powers.”

“Cryptid is the paranoid type,” Capricorn explained.

“If you’re not super paranoid then you’re not paying enough attention to how fucked up things can be,” Cryptid said. “There are people still trapped in time looped torture bubbles. The kid who did it? He was supposed to be dead. There is no degree of ass-covering that’s too much. This? You can’t show your hand.”

Amy had been murmuring with her creature—to Dot, she’d called it. Trying to work out a course of action. She’d paused to observe this part of the conversation, and that she was observing that keenly was something worth paying attention to, as much as I didn’t want to.

“I’m not convinced,” Goddess said. “There’s no time for subtlety.”

Cryptid explained, “They put the prison behind two portals. They have the means to close ways between universes—they used it to seal off Aleph entirely. That’s the trap. If you go there, they abandon ship and lock you in, or they’ll just blow up the prisoners that might end up compromised.”

“Let’s avoid that,” Precipice said.

“They’ll try to evacuate staff, they have ways to get them out fast, but they will lock them in if they have to. If you try to take over teams and word gets out, they’ll take similar measures, blow up anyone who might be compromised, or they’ll lock off the prison, temporarily or permanently.”

“We could shut off communication,” Lookout said. “Keep them from sending out an alert.”

“Sure. Except are you sure that wouldn’t set off failsafes?”

“Uhh.”