“I know what you’re in the middle of, and you know I know. You’re organizing the heroes, sharing information, making sure that the city still has a way to deal with the real threats, when thrown-together prisons don’t have what it takes. How well do you think that’s going to go over when you take the initial steps and then the crime rate jumps three hundred percent?”

“And clearly the answer is to throw our lot in with yours and help you,” I said.

Tattletale put both hands on the seat, lifting up her upper body a fraction so she could adjust how her ass rested on the seat’s surface, her face momentarily screwing up. She eased herself back down. “Clearly it’s going to happen whether you help me or not. But if you work with me on this, then I’ll point you in the right direction, so you can work against the ripples. You can get ahead of this problem.”

“And we finally see what she’s after,” I murmured, keeping my voice barely audible.

“It’s not the worst deal in the world,” Sveta murmured back. “It’s sharing info, which we wanted. And we know she’s good.”

“It’s sharing select info,” I kept my voice quiet. “If a police chief has his officers focus on majority-black neighborhoods, those officers end up acting in support of someone else’s bias. If we target specific criminals that Tattletale points out for us, what does that mean?”

“It means we get some easy catches,” Rain whispered. “We’re not locking ourselves into anything.”

“It’s not that simple or easy,” I murmured. At a normal, louder volume, I addressed Tattletale, “It can’t be you listing them one by one and us picking them off. You give us the information, we decide what to do with it.”

“It’ll take me a bit to pull together. I can do that, with one caveat.”

“Caveat?” I asked.

“What does caveat mean?” Lookout whispered Ashley.

“Stipulation.”

“Rule?” Lookout whispered.

“It’s a condition, a drawback,” Tattletale said. “I’m going to give you that full list, that’s fine. Known locations, associations, some details on powers. You’ll have it as soon as I’ve finished typing, and you can distribute it to your team. But.”

She placed emphasis on the ‘but’.

“The caveat,” I said.

“I’m going to give you all one very strong suggestion for who you specifically go after first. Take it as motivated or me serving my interests if you want. You can think it over for the next few days, ask a thinker to double check, whatever, you’ll find it really isn’t. It’s just sensible.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Love Lost.”

“Why?” Ashley asked.