Semiramis drummed the table with her pointed nails. “Tattletale is right. I threw a party, Engel, Egg, and Scraping attended. The intent was to make them feel welcome, comfortable, and to give them a sense of the atmosphere they might enjoy if they signed on. I kept my party sequestered, with a place they could retreat to, quieter than the party, and I remained there, waiting until they wanted to join me. Engel and Egg came, they sat, they got to talking. They knew each other in passing, from what I heard. I overheard much of it.”

“Engel almost joined the Irregulars,” Sveta said. “She wanted to focus on real life things, friends, family. Stuff she worked hard to get. Then when she was ready, we—travel and getting her from where she was to us became hard. It never lined up, and then she found other things she wanted to do. Egg did join, but more as a tagalong or mascot, too young to do anything big.”

“None of that sounds wrong, given what I heard,” Semiramis noted.

“Important thing is,” Tattletale said, “what did they say?”

“You first,” Semiramis said. “What’s this? This man.”

She indicated the white-haired man with the nice clothes, trimmed facial hair, and a weapon pointed at him. He’d lowered his hands, and rested them on the bar, fingers splayed.

Tattletale leaned back, looking at me. Her hand went from fist to flat, as if to indicate something. Like a hand signal for a fucking dog.

Whatever.

I answered, “Case Twelve. Before the PRT was a thing, a gang gained a lot of traction. They knew too much, to the extent that law enforcement thought they’d gotten their hands on cold war spy tech. Then it got to the point they thought it was experimental, never-used tech, because it was so good. Around the time they started thinking that was impossible, parahumans were breaking onto the scene, and they realized something was up. It went like I described, they thought they had the guy at the center of the information flow, the one guy who rose a little too fast, who wasn’t hurt or wasn’t as hurt by the gang. It turned out to be his uncle. A man who could feed people his own DNA to—”

“Excuse me?” someone at another table asked.

Snuff stepped in between us and the table in question. “Private conversation.”

“Snuff,” I said. Snuff turned his hooded head. I glanced at Tattletale, “Can I give him orders?”

“Sure. Go nuts.”

“Snuff, protect the Old Man from everyone else.”

Snuff stepped away, putting himself between the parahuman and the man.

“That’s what he’s called?” Little Midas asked me. “The Old Man?”

“The nickname he took on. Formally, he’s just Case Twelve.”

“What does he do?” Semiramis asked.

“He’s the waiter who spits in food,” Prancer said. “Only superpowered. Fuck me, I’ve eaten here way too often.”