“Absolutely,” Natalie said. Her forehead creased above the overlarge, round lenses she wore. “I’m not trying to condemn you or make my unhappiness known after the fact, Victoria. It was a learning experience. I learned, I applied what I learned. If I hadn’t worked with Breakthrough, I’m not sure anyone would have even listened to me. So I owe you something.”

Natalie began fiddling with her dashboard map system. I would have told her to watch the road, but there were barely any cars this far out.

“What changes did you make?” I asked.

“I convinced them to be strict. Where there are voids, capes and people in general will develop their own systems and rules within those voids. The laws include rules of forfeiture, labeling capes as noncompliant with rules for any media or businesses dealing with them…”

“Forfeiture? Government takes their stuff?”

“Yes. Property, cash, vehicles, assets, any tinkertech,” Natalie said. Again, that concerned look. Like she thought capes might go ballistic at new rules and restrictions, and I was among those capes.

Maybe that was unfair.

“You run into the problem of the government having to actually take the stuff.”

“We don’t. We have Dragon and some thinkers to keep an eye on the digital marketplaces, and they can swoop in to seize any funds there for fines. For everything else, we put out a bounty on assets equal to the amount specified by the legal action.”

“A bounty,” I said.

“If you cause undue property damage, for example, you get a chance to appear in court. You don’t need to reveal your identity, though it helps, and just showing up gives you a reduction in any penalties. If the ruling is against you, you can pay the fine, but if you don’t, your stuff is up for grabs, in an amount up to double the value of what the fine was. If someone wants to take your hideout, they can, and the government will consider it a fair transfer of property.”

“Kill orders for stuff,” I said.

“Hitting where it hurts. If you’re deemed noncompliant with the local government, then there are other penalties. Restrictions on language and images that can be used, so the media isn’t promoting villains or dangerous vigilantes. Businesses have to do paperwork to establish paper trails when working with the noncompliant, or face penalties…”

“Making it easier to ignore the problem capes than to cater to them.”

“Yeah,” Natalie said. “Other stuff, too. Formalizing the processes where you guys send capes off to a mystery dimension with limited or no contact thereafter. We get our guys in on that process, victims get a jury of their peers, and we’re requiring a few more rights be afforded to the defendants. Scummy as they are.”

“Honestly, that would probably be a relief,” I said.

“What do you think?” she asked.