“I’ll be right back,” Crystal said. She flew to her feet instead of climbing to them.

I took a deep breath, before meeting Nailfarer’s eye. “Do you want your head chilled too?”

Two blinks. No. Then there was a pause. Three blinks followed.

“After?” I guessed.

One blink, slower than the ones before.

“After, then. We’ll keep that eye of yours mobile and get the information to get these guys?”

The blink was firm, followed by eye contact as steady as anything she’d managed up to this point.

Outside, there was still a lot of commotion. Many of the body parts had been found but not identified. I was pretty sure that was what Slingstone was doing.

“Anything else you need?” I asked, putting my hand to the left, then I extended my right hand off to the side, “Or back to the questions?”

Questions.

“We can stop at any time. Four blinks, I’ll know you’ve hit your limit. Anything you can provide is useful, but if you need to back out, you don’t need to worry. We have a tinker device we can try using.”

Two blinks for no.

“Do you have something to volunteer?” I asked. I still didn’t recognize my own voice. I was trying to sound gentle, but I worried I sounded like someone on the cusp of screaming or crying instead. I extended the other hand. “Or should I ask my questions?”

My questions.

“I’d like to rattle off some possibilities, is that okay?”

One blink for yes.

“You were out here when they attacked. Did they bait you?”

Yes.

“Did they call? Email? Leave a message? Message. Through a messenger or courier? Paper? Electronic. Electronic, alright. You had a website, I think, was it through that? Another website? Yes, okay. Parahumans Online?”

A message asking to meet with them, through Parahumans Online, baiting them here, where they were ambushed and taken apart, left alive and suffering.

I verified the information I had thus far, recapping it for her. One blink for yes.

Information confirmed by our witness, I sent a message to all cape teams in our network, warning them to be careful of anything similar. I added further instructions to warn any independent heroes they knew.

I left out the particulars of what had happened to the Navigators.

“The bait, was it anonymous? A guest account? Alright. Were they posing as a fellow hero? A person in need? A villain? Someone with information?”

One blink to confirm on ‘information’.

“Was it information on your enemies? Allies? The city? Other Earths?” I asked. Nothing. “Do you want to spell it out?”

One blink, then three. I got my phone out and set it back to the starting image in the gallery. “Tell me what you need to say.”

C. O…

“Cold?”

A yes. I could see it in her eye, how it was more active, but there was a wildness to it. Distracted.