I could have connected to what she’d said better if it weren’t for the fifty individual crises I was keeping on the back burner, the five on the front burner, my attempts to keep Sveta’s mind occupied with practical things.

That, and the fact that mentioning the age regression reminded me of Amy which set my brain to red alert, sirens flashing and emergency doors closing. These days, getting back from that state was a little easier, but it was still a couple of seconds of added bewilderment and alarm, and a mental reset button that forced me to start from zero in figuring out what the hell she meant.

Of course, she probably knew she was doing it.

“I see you set the communications blackout for everyone, but you’re not abiding by it yourself.”

“Phones come equipped with features that let you make a call to emergency services even if the phone bill isn’t paid, phone doesn’t have an I.D. chip, whatever, and phones come with features that let authorities force phones to boot and bypass settings if there’s an Endbringer attack. Dragon is messaging me,” I said.

“And?”

“She’s simultaneously worrying about whether I’ve gone off the deep end, suggesting everyone go to maximum alert, and worrying there might be something to what I’m saying, in which case she’d have to worry about watching her back.”

“A communication blackout really hurts the local heroes’ ability to function,” Sveta added.

“What’s her wording?” Tattletale asked.

“About?”

“Start with her wondering about watching her back.”

I cycled my way up to find it, then cleared my throat. “If this were true, I’d have to devote resources to validating, scanning, and damage control.”

“Interesting order,” Tattletale said.

“Order?”

“To what she has to do. It’s not scanning, validating, and damage control. Why?”

“You suck at rhetorical questions,” Sveta said. “How are we supposed to know?”

“It’s not a rhetorical question,” Tattletale answered, exasperated. “I’m asking my power. And my power says Dragon’s not prioritizing finding the questionable character assassination stuff because she has the stuff. At least two incidents she looked up and found since it was brought to her attention. Or she’s a culprit that already knew because she did it, but I’d say the odds are very low.”

I leaned back, my thumb working to find my place at the bottom of the chat while I ruminated. “That takes time, to find out and then look. Unless it’s obvious—”

“It doesn’t take time if you’re Dragon,” Tattletale said. “She, you know, bzzt. Overclocked.”

She put a finger to her head as she said that last word.

“She hacked her brain?” I asked, my eyebrows going up.

“You are exactly right,” Tattletale said, smiling. “Defiant did too, from another angle.”

Armsmaster. That was jarring to think about.