He broke his stance, no longer ready to drop into a firing position, gun no longer almost pointed at us. He didn’t put it away, though.

“You were part of the prison thing too,” the young guy said.

“Yeah,” Capricorn said.

The old guy took a step to the side, leaning in close to his buddy. He asked a question under his breath, clearly not intended to be heard by the pair of us.

I caught ‘clown’ in the middle. It was answered with a half smile and half-shrug.

Ass-clowns. Great.

“One of the reasons we went on the show was to force some hands, flush some birds out of the bushes,” Capricorn said. “The people who pulled the prison breakout were the birds.”

“Tried something, you failed, and the rest of us suffer?” the old guy asked. There was an edge to his voice. “And here you are, trying something else?”

“We succeeded,” I said. “Birds flushed out, birds stopped or temporarily neutered. The problem is, the way things are right now, we stop two big villains, and there are two more in the shadows, ready to step out and take advantage of the situation. We’re poised on a crumbling ledge, and we’re… trying to keep it all upright.”

“I’m not one for the poetics,” the old guy said, staring across the distance at me. The other two cops seemed to think the situation wasn’t escalating, and were walking over to the March multi-cluster hologram, investigating. “Birds and crumbling ledges.”

“You’re not giving her a fair shake,” Capricorn said. “Officer…?”

“Senior Trooper Littlejohn.”

“Sir,” Capricorn said. “With my last team, I did some ride-alongs with officers. I heard their frustrations again and again. I know it’s a thing: whether you’re a paramedic trying to stay ahead of a drug epidemic, a trooper or senior trooper trying to deal with gangs, or hell, a teacher trying to save young minds, you run into the futility of it all, it’s the same. Score a win today, and tomorrow it can seem as if nothing changed.”

The old guy was quiet. The young guy looked over his shoulder, his attention divided between us and the still images.

Capricorn, sensing he wasn’t going to get an answer, added, “Don’t do to us what I’m betting hundreds of people have done to you. Don’t tell us we didn’t make a difference when you weren’t there to see.”

Littlejohn didn’t respond for a second. He did look at his partner, who shrugged, unsmiling.

“Sure. I won’t tell you,” Littlejohn said.

Nicely, neatly ambiguous, as responses went.

“Over there,” I said, indicating Tattletale’s group. “Undersiders. Took over Brockton Bay. They were running New Brockton. They did some scummy stuff, they helped save the world. It’s complicated.”

“That’s her, huh? Tattletale in the flesh?” the younger officer asked. “We keep hearing her name.”