The influx of people saw the crowd shift. The way the crowds were organized, each team had sort of gathered with its most familiar allies nearby. Small teams stuck to the big teams that they tended to work with, which put some of the smaller religious teams I didn’t know in the Shepherd’s orbit, Navigators and Kings of the Hill closer to Advance Guard, and Foresight had… not many. Auzure was close to them but not close enough for them to talk among themselves. We were close, and we’d exchanged hellos, so maybe Breakthrough counted. They were on the best terms with the Wardens, though, which counted for something.

With the people finding their places, Gundeck and Solarstare stepping up to the front of the room, Rain joining Breakthrough, and others finding their respective teams, some were squeezed out. Vista widened the gap to slip between people, which seemed to take some effort, and then ducked into the space between me, the wall, and a table.

“Thank you for coming in,” Cinereal addressed the room. “Tensions with one of the border worlds demands the attention of some of the Warden leadership, so I’ll be handling this meeting today. Those of you that know me know I’m strictly business. I won’t mince words, I won’t give you context that doesn’t matter, so pay attention.”

For the most part, the way the PRT, Protectorate and Wards programs had been run had been a closed-doors thing. The public didn’t tend to hear that so-and-so was a good boss or that one PRT director in one city was a stickler for routine. At best, those without boyfriends in the Wards would know that one newly appointed PRT director had a history of being a politician in a cape-heavy area, or they’d been FBI, or they’d risen up from the ranks of being a PRT squaddie or investigator. When it came to Protectorate or Wards, similar thing. Guesswork and whatever they decided to reveal.

But Cinereal stood out. Atlanta was something like one thousand three hundred miles from Brockton Bay, but we’d heard about what a hardass Cinereal was.

She faced the room without flinching, with several capes, mostly Foresight, arranged in front of her, also facing us. Crystalclear was among them, as was Effervescent.

Tattletale didn’t form the lineup, but she sat near the back, amid the Wardens, her eyes scanning the room.

“We’re close,” she said. “We want at least two more entry points, ideally three, and with some help we’re getting there. One day, maybe two, then we move. We’re handling that and we’re holding off some of the big dangers, like war and the Machine Army. Your job, each and every one of you, is to maintain and support the peace. If the best way you can do that is to stay out of everyone else’s way, then do that.”