I was fifty percent sure he’d screwed up a part of his model at the shoulder, made it too triangular.

“Can you ‘not like it’ in a way that sees you nodding, accepting it, and us being more willing to work with you on something else later?” Prancer asked. “Any answer besides ‘yes’ is going to cost, probably start a fight.”

I saw Midas pause, stuck on the fence. I saw Tattletale open her mouth, and I elbowed her.

“Finders keepers,” I said. “Isn’t that a rule among the greedy? I spotted him, I found him. He’s mine.”

Midas made a sound that might have been a chuckle, muffled by his mask. He nodded, the molded beard at the faceplate of his helmet clinking against his golden breastplate.

“Bring him,” Semiramis said.

At the same time, Tattletale gestured to Snuff.

The Old Man was walked our way, while Little Midas’s people approached him, their words hushed and angry, while Little Midas was calm.

“You’ll cooperate?” I asked the Old Man.

“Yeah,” he said. “How’d you get me?”

“Old records.”

“Antares is the kind of geek who reads old PRT files,” Sveta said.

The Old Man nodded.

“The past never lets you go,” he told me. “The amnesty doesn’t protect me?”

“Right now, you’re being protected, that’s a main goal of ours. But Tattletale thinks you know something we can use, the rest of the people here want to hurt you. Cooperate with us and we’ll be fair to you.”

“Okay.”

I got Semiramis’s attention, and we began to make our way downstairs. Since the open construction of the stairwell didn’t really obscure view at any point from anywhere on the ground floor, I put myself between the man and the crowd, to better block their view. Sveta descended the stairs beside me, while Semiramis followed. Little Midas caught up and followed, with Tattletale and Snuff. The Old Man had a bad leg, apparently, and limped. I held his arm, in part just to keep him from reaching for anything, if the limp was a trick.

A lot of eyes were on us as we made our way down, step by step.

“Out of curiosity,” I said. “Etna. What happened to her? She okay?”

“She retired,” Midas said, behind me.

“She retired?”

Prancer explained, “Went out after Bitch and her hounds, that night three weeks ago. Took a hit, decided she was done. Hung up her costume, moved. Said she’d probably have to do something cape-ish to work out her stress, so she might be a B-list heroine.”

“Oh,” I said. “I think that was me who hit her.”