Love Lost withdrew the claw. Her eyes narrowed. She started to type.

“Ninety percent because I want another scan,” Cradle said. “You gave me one of… his, I think it was.”

He was pointing at Disjoint.

Love Lost nodded.

“I’ll get one of my own. The data you collect is slightly different from what I get. Differences in focus.”

Love Lost looked at Disjoint.

“So long as it doesn’t hurt me any,” Disjoint said.

“It won’t,” Cradle said. His smile was thin, hollow.

Are we pretending that we weren’t just talking about Cradle hurting Love Lost? He says he won’t and we believe him? Sidepiece wondered.

“They suspect you, I don’t know if you heard that part,” Disjoint said. “Hurting the Navigators.”

“Okay,” Cradle said. “All the more reason to get version two up and running. And a bit more manpower.”

Love Lost walked over to the coffee table. Rather than pick up the files there, she speared them with claws, so each file was on a different claw-point.

She planted them on the counter-island that sat in the middle of the kitchen, where Cradle could easily see.

“Kitchen Sink and Hookline. It’s a start. Are they forgiven?”

“They can prove themselves worthy of rejoining us,” Nailbiter said.

“Ah.”

“Love Lost and I talked about it before,” Nailbiter clarified.

“It’s a start,” Cradle said. “The mercenaries we hired before—”

“Money’s tied up,” Nailbiter said.

“I’ll put some forward,” Cradle said. “It always bugged me in the cartoons, when the villains had a plan that almost worked, and when the next Saturday morning rolled around, they tried something completely new, instead of refining the old idea.”

“Are you a villain, then?” Colt asked, from the couch.

“I’m a planner. We’ll hire the same people who did the job last time, and we’ll use version two of the weapon.”

Love Lost started typing in the air, claws stabbing at an invisible keyboard.

Cradle seemed to know what was being typed before any phones rang, because he added Love Lost’s line, “And if they don’t want us getting in contact with March… I think that’s exactly what we need to do.”

Love Lost nodded, claws touching her hair to brush it aside as she stood straighter.

Blinding 11.4

The schism remained. The Shepherds, Advance Guard, Wayfarers and Kings were absent. The room would have felt crowded if everyone was present and it felt too empty with the more aggressive heroes gone.

I wondered if there was ever a group size that would feel natural.

We’d wanted to gather information. We’d asked for six hours, admittedly, and it was well past that deadline, but information was why we were here.

‘Here’ was a room in a library where the lights were off because the grid had failed and power was being conserved, and the morning light from outside was obscured by snow that had piled up against the window, with frost cluttering every inch snow didn’t touch. The light that came through was diffuse and mottled, dimmed and slightly blue, because the glass was solar glass that reflected the yellow and gold hues.