“No, not a secretary. An ambassador,” Miss Militia answered. To the rest of us, she explained, “Earth Shin was mentioned, and if we are dealing with Earth Shin, then we’ve found it helps to have non-parahumans as intermediaries. This is the world that Goddess ruled for several years. She divided it into fiefs and gave control of those fiefs to people with powers. A good number abused the power they had.”

“Abused how?” Sveta asked.

“In just about any way you could imagine. They accepted the reintroduction of parahumans as a purely passive, hands-off involvement, with stipulations. The parahumans would keep to themselves, but they’d act to protect Shin in the event of any disasters or invasion. In exchange, they would be free to settle the Alleghenian Ridge.”

“I have no idea what that is,” Rain said.

“Landmass cutting diagonally through their Atlantic Ocean,” Sveta said. “It allowed earlier settling of their North America.”

“They’re spooked,” Miss Militia said. “They saw video of your debate with Mr. Nieves and they’re very agitated by what was mentioned about your sister.”

That horrible feeling pressed in.

“Is there a way you’d prefer me to refer to her? Her old cape name? Her old name, her name that she goes by when with her father?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “But thanks for the option.”

“Amelia Claire Lavere negotiated the peace but neglected to mention any problems or issues in controlling her power. She was presented as a healer in good standing who played a role in averting the end of all worlds. Now they’ve heard other stories, they’re asking questions. Your parents got in touch with you?”

“Yeah,” I said. “My dad did. He wants me to smooth things over, and he said there’s a good amount of evidence that this could blow up. Ties back to the job you assigned us, keeping tabs on the anti-parahumans.”

“You mentioned this, but text only conveys so much. It extends to Shin?”

“To Shin and back. I only got so much info myself, but it sounds like certain factions in Shin are pretty angry at capes—which is understandable. You don’t tend to feel warm and fuzzy about people who take over your world.”

“Understandable,” Miss Militia echoed.

“But they’re violent, and my dad thinks they’re getting information and other stuff from us, and our more dangerous anti-parahuman types are getting resources and manpower from them.”

“How bad is this?” Tristan asked.

Miss Militia answered, “With mutual control over the portal and cooperation with three of the five major governments in Shin, we don’t think there’s been too much damage, exchange of weapons, or manpower. There are strict rules about passage through. Vaccines, diet prior to passage through, allowed gifts, ID…”

“Diet prior?” Tristan asked.