“No. Hooking up with coworkers. Maybe subordinates, maybe with messy end results, because any parahuman to parahuman interaction gets messy.”

“Some do,” I clarified. “Some. Maybe even most.”

“They all end in tears,” Tattletale said. “And these moves our enemy is making are aimed at pushing things to rushed conclusions on that front. They chip off anything that’s easy to chip at, and then they drive the chisel deep into the core elements. Countenance is stable, trusted, and acts as the heart of his team. This creates a seed of doubt.”

“And after this?”

“Sometime in the future, his past history with coworkers comes out. A girl that he’s dating breaks away, another teammate, Effervescent, feels slighted. She’s not the kind of person who would cheat on someone but she’ll be hurt she wasn’t even considered or flirted with. It’s a schism that disrupts the team.”

And on our end, it’s Jessica? Someone close to the Wardens?

“The fact we’re being watched means I want to keep a better eye on Chicken,” Tattletale said. “Any questions you want to ask that you can’t ask in front of him? Please tell me I don’t need to tell you what’s on and off the table.”

“I’m pretty sure I get it,” I said. “We protect people besides Chicken, you know.”

“Yes,” Tattletale said, and I had a hard time identifying if she was being sincere. “We’ll take steps.”

She pushed the door open. We stepped out into the alley, where Chicken Little, Snuff, about twenty pigeons and crows and two hawks were perched on every available surface.

“Got what we needed. That went exactly as planned, thank you, Chicken Little.”

Chicken Little hopped off his perch on a stack of construction materials and hurried to catch up as Tattletale headed straight for the neck of the alley.

So my guess was right. She’d plotted that far ahead. She’d looked to the future, but I didn’t have the sense now that she was focused on it now. Her head turned periodically, and her eyes scanned windows and rooftops.

“What’s next?” Chicken Little asked.

“Big Picture,” Tattletale said. “And while we’re on our way there, we’re shifting to a special kind of yellow alert. I need you to reach out to your team. They’re to contact the Undersiders, order an immediate blackout, phones off except for direct lines, no media, no radio, no internet, limit use of cameras, assume all systems are compromised and all outside information is untrustworthy. Imp passes the message on to the Heartbroken, then goes to your headquarters and protects your team. Foil and Parian pass it on to our intermediate contacts. If they’re up for it, they should guard your headquarters too. Once the message is sent, they blackout too. That includes Lookout.”

Chicken Little looked my way.

I nodded.

“Why?” Chicken Little asked.