“I used him,” Tattletale said. “I had questions, then I verified, and I put him on duty looking after some secondary interests and projects, because I wasn’t as sure I could trust the mercenaries I put on those projects. Sometimes you need a good ally to keep the tent from falling down while you hammer in the stakes.”

“My things are off, my team isn’t listening. What’s going on?” Chicken Little asked.

“A group of people are trying to be sneaky,” Tattletale said. “Framing others, planting really convincing evidence. Possibly for a bigger play further down the line. Possibly to sow discord or create divisions within groups. It would be like if someone pretended to be you and sent nasty messages to the Heartbroken, so you’d never get invited to Aunt Rachel’s again, or if they were planting evidence on your computers now so they could mess up your team and allll the other teams a year from now.”

“Okay,” Chicken Little said.

The discourse was interesting from a certain angle. That it felt like Tattletale talked down to Chicken Little, except she had a tone like she was talking down to anyone, normally. Just… more here.

I felt like I approached Kenzie as more of an adult and expected her to keep up, and she was sharp enough to do that, with only occasional steering. Based on what she’d told me and shown me, she’d been clever even before triggering. It wasn’t a tinker thing.

Tattletale continued, “We know of one case. My power tells me we should expect others. Our first stop’s going to be Foresight. Who they targeted, why, and how is going to tell us a lot.”

“You think it’s inevitable they targeted Foresight?” I asked.

“Eighty percent sure they would. If it’s about controlling information, then they’re obvious. If it’s about power and going after bigger teams, then Foresight’s a good target there too. If they didn’t target Foresight, then it’s probably a focus on smaller teams, which suggests subversion.”

“I have a good working relationship with Anelace,” I said. “We could ask him and see what he’s willing to share or hint at, without us spelling anything out just yet.”

“This is all secret?” Chicken Little asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “The more people know about it, the higher the chance that the people who’re responsible react or use emergency measures. Right now we just want a sense of what we’re dealing with.”

“Okay,” he said. “So you haven’t told Precipice and the others?”

“No,” I said. Thinking about my team and what would unfold if the character assassination went any further than it already had was a dark thought, tempered by how Chicken Little had phrased the question. “Thinking about Precipice?”

“He’s cool. We talked at the hospital when we all visited Lookout.”