There were very few things that an ex-PRT director wanted to hear less. Youth Guard, that was a bad one, it promised headaches every week for potential years. But master–stranger protocols? It demanded paranoia.

“I’d need to know the context,” he answered.

After explaining the back and forth, the translator elaborated, “The parahuman Antares was going to go see her friend, Tress. She made an offhand remark and said you could explain it for Yosef.”

“I’m not sure what to say.”

“He knows,” Crock o’ Shit said.

The Translator’s single word followed her statement. Yosef’s expression didn’t change a hair.

There were lie detectors who worked through the letter of the law, and there were lie detectors who worked by the spirit of it. She was the latter. That made this harder.

Natalie Matteson clutched her hands together in her lap.

A stone room, twelve guards, one parahuman, a world leader and his translator, and a riot going on outside.

“It’s confidential,” Kamil told Yosef.

“Partially true,” Crock o’ Shit said.

Yosef’s words were a rumble.

“This doesn’t endear us to you, Armstrong,” the translator said. “It comes across as subversive, a message passed from her to you.”

“If it was a message it wouldn’t be one that makes me look bad when I tell you I can’t answer.”

Yosef’s gaze went to Crock o’ Shit.

“True,” the tattooed woman said.

Yosef didn’t wait for the translation of that, going straight to his response.

“I don’t want to hear any more coded phrases, Armstrong,” the Translator told Kamil. “Confidential or otherwise. You will be escorted from the prison and sent back, and any parahumans engaging in it will be punished.”

“Understood.” No choice but to play along. It had been a trap, no right answer.

But why had it come up in the first place?

Yosef said something, almost under his breath.

“You worked with the parahumans for a long time,” the translator offered.

“I did. I work with the police now, counseling them, and I do some research into powers.”

Yosef’s response was dark and suppressed enough anger that there wasn’t much need to get the translation. “What a shame that we can’t trust you now, Mr. Armstrong.”

Kamil kept his composure. This, at least, was another thing he’d had to learn. Weathering the pressures of government authorities, of media, of the public.

Holding true to what he believed and knew. That the capes were good. They wanted a better world, whether for themselves or for everyone, but they often struggled to find the way there.

Hearing an allusion to master–stranger protocols made him paranoid, but that paranoia was largely reserved for specific people, for anyone he felt intensely about, as enemy or ally.

His phone buzzed in his coat pocket.

A call? A text?

He drew his phone from his coat, looking down at the glowing screen. His heart started racing. His phone had been on airplane mode.

Yosef barked a question.