“We don’t know,” Foil said. “But Tattletale is pretty certain that their focus is on the time stasis effects in Earth Bet’s Brockton Bay.”

“Tameka Schooley. Lee Pemberton. Tom Kahn. Bakuda’s test run and one use when she was terrorizing the city,” Jeanne Wynne spoke up for the first time. “Alabaster, Jotun, and Dauntless… Leviathan hurled them into a time stop effect when defenders tried to use one of Bakuda’s leftover tinker weapons to stop him. Wanda Fowler, Sarah and Patty Martin. Henry Holmes. They tried to break into what locals termed ‘The Scar’, an ongoing cataclysm from a bombing run that had been made using more of Bakuda’s leftover technology. They entered because someone had told them that The Scar had veins of diamond, gold, and other rare materials inside it, where matter had transmuted to different forms.”

“Did it?” Aleph Wolf asked. “That someone was right?”

“Yes. Rumors got out while barriers to contain the effect were being put up. The workers saw things. Unfortunately, that area also had a lot of active dangers that hadn’t gone off, settled, or stopped. The four risk-takers tripped an inactive weapon and were trapped by a fourth time-stop effect.”

“Maybe they’re still after that stuff,” Aleph Wolf said. “Times are tight. A big chunk of precious metals could go to some other dimension and pay for… a lot of things. Get a whole city or the city through the winter.”

The Lone Wolf pack was a band of heroes that were taking an especially wild west approach, patrolling the periphery of the city and the surrounding worlds. They answered problems where problems came up, they teamed up when absolutely essential, which was mainly if there was a bounty to share, but they were otherwise independent.

Aleph Wolf was exemplifying the ‘stick to the basics’ mentality, as well as the group’s ‘heroic mercenary’ streak.

“I think it’s more worrying than a cash grab,” I said. “Teacher and his mercenaries parted ways. If it was a question of cash in a really dangerous area… Teacher would put his thinkers and tinkers to solving the problem, he’d succeed, and he’d be in good shape. I can’t see why he’d back off.”

“The Wardens were looking into those effects, as well as the ongoing Gray Boy loops,” Jeanne said. “They researched it and decided no. The same people who petitioned the Wardens then petitioned the government. It crossed my desk, but I already had some faint knowledge of what it was about. I considered, researched, and came to the decision that yes, I know a way to undo the effect. No, I won’t actually do it.”

Using her power, I thought. She could free people from perpetual torment and she says no.

“Why no?” I asked.